Arc I: Black Shadow Virus
Chapter II: Change.bat, the Style Change Program
September 2nd, 200X
Central Town, Saiba City, Japan
Jake's House
BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!
"Jake, time to wake up!"
"Ugh…"
Jake sat up in his bed, still tired. He rubbed his eyes and looked over to his desk at his PET.
"School starts today…" he said wearily.
"Yep," Maelstrom said. "And the early bird gets the worm. C'mon, get up!"
"The late bird would like sleep with a side of 'don't wake me up until noon,'" Jake said, lying back down on his bed.
"Jake, wake up!" Maelstrom said, activating the PET alarm again.
BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!
Annoyed, Jake put his pillow on top of his head, trying to block out the noise. The last place he wanted to go was school, especially after sleeping in all summer long. Finally, the noise got to him. He sat up, put his feet into his slippers, and got out of bed. Maelstrom stopped the alarm.
"About time," Maelstrom said. "School starts at eight o'clock, so we've got an hour to get ready."
"Barely make it out of Akihara yesterday and now we have to go to school," Jake mumbled to himself so that Maelstrom wouldn't hear. "My life sucks."
He got dressed, grabbed his PET, and walked downstairs, still not quite awake.
"Morning, Mom," Jake said groggily, sitting at the table. He noticed two plates, complete with silverware, on the table. Next to his plate, there was a glass of milk.
"Good morning!" Mom said in a singsong voice. Jake groaned. Mom had been looking forward to today because, as she put it, "You need a good education so you can grow up to be successful." But Jake thought the real reason was so she would have peace and quiet all day.
The smell of eggs and pancakes that Mom was cooking reached Jake's nose. It woke him up a little more. It smelt delicious.
Mom came out of the kitchen holding a bowl of scrambled eggs and a plate with a tall stack of pancakes. She set them on the table and sat down.
"I thought we'd have a little feast to start off the first day of school," she told him. "Well, dig in!"
After saying grace, Jake grabbed a large scoop of eggs and three pancakes, and began to eat, trying to keep his mind off of school.
"Mm," Jake said through some eggs. He swallowed them. "Good food, Mom."
"Thanks," she said, eating some pancakes.
After breakfast, Jake stood up and went upstairs to wash up. He brushed his teeth and washed his face, and then went back downstairs and into the living room. He checked his watch; it was 7:45.
School's only about three minutes away, he thought to himself. I have some time to rest. He laid his head back on the couch and closed his eyes.
"Jake, what are you doing?" Maelstrom asked. "School, remember?"
"Oh, c'mon," Jake said. "School's not that far. Just let me rest for a few minutes."
"Alright," Maelstrom said. Jake was surprised that Maelstrom agreed so fast, but didn't worry about it.
He lay there for a while, thinking about things that would keep his mind away from school. Hanging out with Jessica, going on the net, netbattling, that sort of thing. A giant green dragon appeared in his head, opening its jaws wide…
"Wha-!" Jake suddenly sat up, shaking his head quickly.
"Jake, you okay?" Maelstrom asked.
"Yeah, I'm fine," he said, trying not to think about the dragon. He checked his watch. It was now 7:53. "I guess we'd better go," he said sadly. He grabbed his PET, stood up, and walked towards the door.
"I'm heading out!" Jake called to Mom. "Later!"
"Bye, honey!" Jake heard Mom say. Jake put on his shoes, grabbed his skateboard, and skated to school.
"Well, good to meet all of you today!" the 8th grade teacher, Mr. Terrinigan, said. "I certainly hope you're all ready to learn new things this year."
Jake was sitting at his desk, listening to, but not really caring about what Mr. Terrinigan had to say. He wanted to be at home, asleep.
"Well, as a special treat due to it being the first day of school," Mr. Terrinigan said, "I've planned a field trip to Endo City for all of us."
Jake suddenly paid more attention to Terrinigan. A field trip? He thought to himself. Good, something to do other than sit here all day.
"We'll be going at ten o'clock, so for now we'll start today's lesson.
"This year in Netbattling class," Terrinigan began, "We'll be learning more about the various ways navis can be upgraded. Undoubtedly you've all learned about Style Changes and Soul Unison in written lessons, correct?"
The class said nodded and mumbled an affirmative.
"Well, this year will be even better," Terrinigan said. "We'll actually be using Styles this year."
Jake finally perked up. He had never actually used a Style Change before. It was supposed to be something only the people of Ajinna had access to.
"Using Styles?" Maelstrom said. "Hey Jake, looks like this year won't be as bad as you thought."
"Guess not," Jake said.
"Normally, we only use sample Styles in our classes so the students get the gist of using Styles," Terrinigan explained. "But, due to the recent incidents involving Dr. Wily and Dr. Regal, the Government of Ajinna has allowed us access to the Change.bat program, enabling us to use real Style Changes. This is a great thing, because you will all learn much more and get much more out of this class.
"Today we'll be installing this program into your navis. If you would all plug into your desks, please."
The class pulled out their various Link PETs and plugged into their desks. The blackboard lit up, and a screen appeared, showing the navis in a CyberWorld version of Class 2-A. The teacher's navi, a generic navi that looked like an official navi, spoke up.
"Attention, please!" he said, getting the attention of the navis in front of him. He gestured towards a large something next to him. It looked sort of like a purple spinning top with a dark yellow rim around it. Two bright purple data streams surrounded it. "This is the Change.bat program. By installing this into yourself, you will be able to gain the power of the Style Change. Style Changes are powerful abilities that adapt to your fighting style. If you use a lot of battlechips in a fight, your Style will be adapted to battlechips. If you use your buster attacks a lot, you'll gain a Style that powers your buster up. See what I mean?
"Now, who's going to be first? Any volunteers?"
Several navis raised their hands. Terrinigan's navi looked through them for a moment before pointing to one.
"You, the green navi," he said. "Come here."
He had pointed to Maelstrom. Excited, Maelstrom walked up to the front of the class.
"What's your name?" Terrinigan's navi asked.
"Maelstrom."
"Maelstrom. Right then, Maelstrom. Face the Change.bat and walk up to it."
Maelstrom turned to the large program and walked to it until he was a foot away from it. Terrinigan's navi walked next to him and put his hand on the program.
"Now put your hand on the program," he said. Maelstrom did as told.
"Begin installation of Change.bat into Maelstrom.EXE," Terrinigan's navi said. "I warn you, this will hurt somewhat."
The program began to flash brightly. Bright purple data streams came out of it and went into Maelstrom. He felt an unpleasant tingling sensation, followed by stinging, where the streams were touching.
"Ow," he said. "Owowow. Ouch."
"You okay, Maelstrom?" Jake asked him, causing a few of the students' heads to turn to look at him.
Maelstrom didn't answer. The data streams ended abruptly, and Maelstrom stood there for a moment.
"Installation successful," Terrinigan's navi said with satisfaction in his voice.
"Maelstrom?" Jake asked, concerned.
"I'm fine…" Maelstrom said in a somewhat strained voice. "But, I don't feel any different."
"The Style Change's activation takes time," Terrinigan's navi explained. "It'll happen after you have enough battle experience. Fighting viruses will help it along. The program needs time to examine your fighting style."
"Oh, I get it now!" Maelstrom said. "Alright, thanks!"
"You're welcome. So, who's next?"
One by one, the navis walked up to the program. It seemed to have endless amounts of data in it, successfully installing into each and every one of the navis. Several of them winced in pain except for the "macho" navis who supposedly didn't feel pain.
"Installation successful," the navi said one last time, finishing installing into a navi named GrenadeMan. "Well, that went very well. Congratulations on being the first class to have the real Change.bat installed!"
The class, as well as their navis, cheered happily.
Terrinigan looked at the clock over the door.
"Well, we don't have time today to learn about Styles," he said, "But we will begin to study them in depth tomorrow, and hopefully use them later on this year.
"Well, it's almost ten o'clock. Everyone line up in a single file line in front of the door and follow me.
Excited, Jake stood up and got into line.
-----------------
Author's Note: Well, that's another new chapter. This is something I hadn't planned at all originally. It was something that sort of came to mind as I wrote the chapter. But, it'll help me out. I'm glad I wrote this chapter like this. Any feedback, advice, compliments, or animal sacrifices are welcome. Any way I can improve my writing? Please tell me anything you can think of, as I want to improve as much as possible. But flames will be fed to my dog.
