"There we go, Mr. Graves. All stitched up," the nurse smiled as she cut the rest of the thread off the now finished stitches.

"Appreciated, miss . . .?"

"Satoshi," she smiled. "Most of the kids here just call me Nurse Mina, though."

Hadrian checked out his face in the mirror, feeling a weight in his stomach at the sight of the stitches. Putting a bandage on it as Mina started to clean up her medical supplies, he threw a glance at his PeT. "Find any work around here, Hardman?"

"Nothing on the official channels. I even meandered on down to the Net Police servers. Not much there either."

"Anything on the usual back channels?" Hadrian asked, carefully wording his question.

"Not much there, either."

The nurse spoke up. "What kind of work are you looking for?"

"Data protection," Hadrian said unthinkingly. "We're bodyguards for hire."

Mina chuckled. "Well, you're in the wrong town, sir. Nothing much ever happens here, for good or for evil. The only person I can think of that might need your services is Dr. Hikari, Netto's father, and he's already got the Official Net Battlers to back him up."

Hadrian sighed, then thought of something. "Wait, that kid is the son of THE Dr. Hikari? I thought that guy lived in Netopia?"

"No, but he does travel a lot . . ."

"Here's something," Hardman interjected.

"What do you have, Hardy?"

"Something from a Mr. Albert Wily. Says he needs some time sensitive material held onto for a week or so."

"Pay good?"

"About ten thousand, give or take. Depends on damages and a business venture."

"A gamble job? I hate those. But . . . if there isn't much else . . ." Hadrian sighed.

"Says to apply in person at 5:00 by the storage facility at the base of Mt. Jinoamoa." Hardman read off.

"That's only a 2 hour hike to the north of the school," Mina told them.

"No buses or anything?"

"Pfft, no roads. That place's been abandoned for a few years now."

Hadrian sighed again and put his hate back on. "I hate jobs like this. Oh well. Thanks again, Ms. Satoshi."

"No problem, Mr. Graves. Don't be a stranger, okay?"

He tipped his hat as he walked out of the first aid room. "Cheers."

As Hadrian made his way out of the school with his PeT, Hardman felt the need to speak up. "That was needlessly polite of you."

"Eh, I'm just trying to stave off the homicidal rage of a nicotine fit. I would KILL for a cigarette right now."

"You'll have plenty of time to have one on the way to the job. We'll have to get started if we want to be early. It's 2:30 right now."

Hadrian smiled a mirthless smile. "Actually, I meant that I'm out of cigarettes. Maybe this Wily guy will have one I can bum off him or something."

Act 1: Scene 1: World 3

"I absolutely detest you. Do you know that?"

"I told you that it didn't LOOK like poison ivy. Is it my fault if I can't make sense out of your world from a perpendicular perspective?"

"I swear to god, if I'm allergic to that stuff we found . . ."

"The mushrooms? There were an awful lot of those, weren't there?"

". . . I will personally wire you back to front and upside down." Hadrian growled.

"Ah. You must be Mr. Graves."

Hadrian focused his attention on the man before him. He had expected a lot from a man with a name like Mr. Wily. Somehow, the picture of a disheveled Einstein with a maniac grin and some sort of skull motif cane had popped into his head. It just seemed . . . right.

THIS, however, was radically different. It was not one person, but three people. One of them was a tall, read haired man with a goatee and perpetually angry expression. Another was female, presumable, taking into account the colorful clothing and wild twin pony-tailed pink hair. The third could have been a man or an exhibit in a museum as the very picture of primitive witch doctor. It was this last one who spoke to him.

"Mr. Wily apologizes that he was unable to open his schedule for this meeting, and instead sent us."

Hadrian shrugged. This sort of thing was common in a criminal venture. It was the kind of job he'd gotten all too familiar with as a 'for hire' Dataguard. Being a Dataguard with morals just meant you went hungry.

"So you three are his major lackeys?"

"Not the word I would use for myself," the witch doctor said in a low, droll tone, "but somewhat appropriate. I am Marharjarma."

"Hinoken," the red head said in a short, gruff tone.

"And I'm Maddy Malone!" the now definite female smiled proudly.

"Good. Intros are out of the way. Can I get on with my job now?" Hadrian asked.

"Patience is a virtue, Mr. Graves, as is the ability to perform the tasks we require of you."

"Meaning a test, huh?"

"We gotta be sure you can do what you say you can," Hinoken put in.

"So what's my test? Fighting one of you three, I imagine?"

"Perceptive," Maraharjarma smiled.

"All my systems are ready to go," Hardman chimed in. "Let's get this over with, spend our week bumming around and get paid."

"We have a net battle machine all set up inside, fuzzy," Maddy grinned.

As the three led the way into the storage building, Hadrian looked at his PeT. "Fuzzy?"

"Yeah, man, do you need a shave. On the one side of your face, at least. Not so much the side with the stitches. Mina took care of that."

Hadrian rolled his eyes as he followed the three criminals inside.

Moments late, Hardman touched down inside the blank, bleak area of the net battle machine's network. Deep blue in color and cylindrical in nature, Hardman's body floated off of the ground, with two yellow eyes looking out from between the body and a round disc of armor on top. His hands, which were almost half as big as his body, floated roughly arms length from his body. Taking a moment to stretch, his voice resounded through the empty system. "Let's rumble."

Opposite him, another blue Navi beamed into existence. Magicman stood at his full height and took in his opponent. "Your challenge is to survive in battle against me for 5 minutes, or to delete me. I will warn you now that accomplishing the latter will be much more difficult than the former."

Hardman's head disc shifted from one side to the other, like a boxer cracking his neck before a fight. "Yeah, yeah. Bring it on, Voodooman."

"That's Magicman," the blue Navi snapped, raising his arms and drawing mystic sigils in the air. The symbols hung there for a moment before Dash viruses rocketed out of them.

"Summoner type," Hardman grunted, one of his hands spreading out into an open palm. The hand glowed for a moment and increased in size to become a thick shield which the darker blue Navi used to block the incoming viruses. "Try a breaker! HARD KNUCKLE!"

Hardman's other hand, closed in a fist, flew through the air at the other Navi with a speed that slightly surpassed the viruses he'd summoned. Not bothering to move, Magicman summoned another virus which simply took the fist full on. The virus exploded as the fist returned to Hardman.

"So you can attack as well as defend," Magicman stated. "But can you improvise?"

Beneath Hardman, a magic circle seemed to draw itself, and began to glow.

"About to find out, aren't we?" Hardman said in a grinning tone.