"Hey..." Emu begins, cautiously. "Can we go pick up some things from my apartment? It's going to get really boring at night with nothing to do around here." He clasps his hands in front of his face. "Also, I only brought two changes of clothes, because I didn't expect that I was going to be here long-term."

Chuckling, Kiriya looks aside at him. "Note how you bring up clothing second."

"So Parad got the 'constantly needing to be busy' from you, after all." Kuroto chimes in. "I was fairly sure that was the case, but it is nice to have confirmation. After all, approximately seventy percent of the assorted entertainment paraphernalia that was confiscated from my domain was his. Another twenty was work related."

Emu glances toward the cabinet. "That only adds up to ninety percent."

"Did I stutter?"

"Also, 'domain'?"

"Did. I. Stutter?"

"Must have come with that god complex," mutters Parad, turning the page of a magazine. "He used to call that sub-office his lair."

"That was your idea!"

"It was two years in, and I was being sarcastic. You kept it up for at least the next three."

Rolling his eyes at the exchange, Kiriya huffs. "Figures. Hey, where have these magazines even been coming from, anyway? I know I've brought some in, but not all of them."

Emu raises his hand. "That'd be me, then. I haven't exactly had much to do on this end, lately." He laughs nervously. "Most cases have been going to Taiga's clinic, so when I'm working here it's been really quiet.

"But getting back to the original topic… Trip to my place, yes or no? Please say yes. I'm pretty sure I'm going to be climbing the walls soon. Willing to bet Parad'd beat me to it, though."

"Eh, I think we can get away with that." Kiriya turns to Parad. "You coming with?"

Tensing up, Parad looks away. "Emu's… not wrong about the 'going stir crazy' thing. But I'm supposed to stay here. I don't want to push my luck."

"Yeah, but you're allowed out with two people. One, two." Kiriya points at Emu and himself in turn. "It's fine."

"So, seeing how I'm 'grounded' for the next few weeks..." Emu begins, slowly, as he, Parad, and Kiriya walk to his apartment. "If you want, you can stay at my place for the time being."

Kiriya startles. "Eh? Wait, but they haven't even started getting-"

"No, not the one we're all going to be in, I mean my current one, where we're headed now. I mean, Poppy's already bunking with Nico, and you've apparently been stuck at CR for ages, so I figured you'd want to get out of there." He shrugs. "Besides, it's going to be crowded enough in there as is, with us being there pretty much 24/7."

"Guys, wouldn't that leave just you dealing with 'God' like. All day? Every day? On your own half of the time?"

Parad gives him a blank look. "That's not exactly new for me."

"Besides, he's… mostly harmless. For now. And as long as we can make sure he stays in the console." Emu purses his lips in consideration. "Though, if we have to stay down there for too long we might want to consider asking if he can be moved, at least temporarily."

At that, Kiriya lets out a cackle. "I can not blame you for that."

The three of them stop in front of an apartment building. "Alright, this is the place. Come on, I'm on the third floor."

"You kept all of these?" Parad doesn't look at Emu as he trails a hand along a shelf of older consoles. "I would have thought you'd get rid of them after you retired, what with the whole becoming a doctor thing, or that you'd at least have packed them up."

"I thought about it, yeah. A bunch of times, when everything in my life was piling up. Couldn't quite bring myself to, though." Emu looks over his shoulder, away from sorting through his dresser. "I haven't been buying the newer consoles straight away, though. When I do get new games now, I'm buying them used more often than not. I have been keeping my accounts up to date. I'm not making any public profiles, but it's enough to keep anyone from jacking my old-" he pauses. "Our old handle."

"It's bizarre hearing you do the thing with plurals..." Parad murmurs, before smirking. "I see that none of the trophies are out, though."

"Ha!" Emu laughs, carrying a pile of shirts to his bed and packing them into a duffle bag. "Keeping those out would have killed any momentum I'd built up for sure. I have some of the older systems hooked up so I can have something to play to destress after rough periods at work."

"Yeeeaaah, that surprises exactly nobody." Kiriya drawls from the main room. "I've got a question, though. What's with this giant gap over here?"

"What? Emu and Parad step out of the bedroom. Kiriya is looking at one of the racks, with a sizable blank space that clearly used to be occupied. "Oh, heh. That's where my GenmCorp collection used to be. After finding out where the game disease came from, I kinda packed them all away. I still have them, in another case of 'couldn't bring myself to get rid of them,' but they're in a box. That's inside a storage tub. That I buried under a bunch of old blankets in the back of my closet. The only one I've kept out is Mighty… Action… X… ohhhh, man-"

After freezing for a moment, Emu shoves his bag into Parad's arms. "Hold this, would you? There's something-" He heads to a different shelf, filled with cd cases. "I put it in the demo rack, because it was a demo, so I didn't pack it with the rest of the Genm products, and I should have brought this in, after I found out what it really was, but there was a lot going on, and I barely even remembered I still had it in the first place." Glancing at Parad, he grins sheepishly, before returning his attention to the shelf. "You being in here jogged my memory, so…"

Pulling something out, he turns to face Kiriya and Parad, biting his lip nervously. "We should probably get this checked out."

Emu holds up a re-writable CD in a clear jewel case.

On a small sticker is a title.

"Mighty Action C."

Parad rears back. "Emu, what the actual hell." The bag full of clothes is tossed unceremoniously onto a worn-out couch, as he takes a few long strides to Emu, sticking his hand out. "Give that here. There is, like, zero way that it's safe for you to touch that."

Rolling his eyes, Emu passes the disc over. "It's not like I can get any more infected. I mean, you're right here."

"Still a better idea for neither of you two to handle it." Parad shivers as he takes the case. "I know we held on to it for sentimental reasons before, but the fact you still have this after finding out what Kuroto used it for-"

Kiriya waves, to get their attention. "Hi, got any explanations for the guy who missed a few months?"

"I believe you were trying to get samples of the Bugster virus back when the two of you met?" Parad waits for Kiriya to nod in confirmation. "Yeah, well, this thing? It's got the oldest version on it that you're gonna find, unless the computer Kuroto used to burn it turns up."

"So that's the one he used to infect you, Ace?" Emu nods. Kiriya's eyes widen as he pulls out his phone. "Hang on just a minute. Gotta get a connection open." After making a few quick selections, he sets it down on the table. "Keep the area clear; my landings are still terrible. I'll be right back." He glares at them. "Stay. Both of you." Still giving Emu a stern look, he dissolves, shifting into the screen.

Emu chuckles nervously. "Ohhh, I'm in trouble."

"No, you think?"

"Hey, it's probably a good thing I still had it, though. This might help speed up the research into the… well, the vaccines." He doesn't meet Parad's eyes.

"I know."

"Parad, I promise, no matter what happens, I'm not going to let anyone take you away, or hurt you, I swear-"

"I know. I believe you." Parad's grip tightens on the CD case in his hand. Quietly, he adds "I'm gonna do the same for you."

Orange and yellow-flecked lights come out of the phone, coalescing into a stumbling Kiriya, who holds up a small black case, similar to the ones used to transport gashats. "Okay, put that in here. Nobody is touching it again until we know it's safe, kids that came from it, included."

Parad nods, slipping the disc into a slot in the packaging. "Fair enough." He heaves a sigh of relief as Kiriya closes the box. "Man, it's weird seeing that thing."

"I'm gonna go drop this off real quick, to get it the hell out of here. You two-" Kiriya points at the duo "-need to figure out what you're bringing back to CR. See ya in a few."

"Right, right." Emu waves as Kiriya teleports out again. "So," he turns to Parad. "Are there any games in particular you had your eye on back there, or no?"

Running his hand through his hair, Parad snorts. "Right now? I'm willing to go for pretty much anything. Haven't gotten to play anything from publishers outside of GenmCorp for seven years. I need a change."

Parad digs through his curls, staring at the stack of paper on the table. "Are we sure this is okay? And necessary? I mean, I thought half of the whole 'not locking me up' deal was to get me on the 'straight and narrow', but a whole lot of these forms are gonna have to be made up…"

"Well, we kind of have to, in order for you to legally work here, you have to legally exist…" Emu grumbles, tapping a pen on its end. "And here I said I wanted to at least be allowed to still do paperwork."

Parad murmurs his agreement, nodding. "That you did. And it would be nice to have a legal name. I could have, like, a bank account and stuff." He notices Emu's raised eyebrow. "What?! I'm poorly socialized with a busted moral compass, I'm not completely oblivious. I know how… okay, I know a lot of this stuff in theory, and drawing off your experiences. So it's not like any of this legal form filling stuff is something I've done myself, but I know the basics."

Kiriya reaches across the table to grab one of the forms. "The real question of the day is 'why is there an established set of forms for this'? It's, what is this… 'for the purposes of establishing a certified identity for previously non-existent beings.' Says there's a separate one for 'time and/or dimensionally displaced persons', too."

Emu gives him an odd look. "What are you even doing here?"

"Nerd-sitting."

"…Ask a stupid question…" Emu sighs, before flipping through to another page. "In any case, there's a lot of sections on here that I don't know what we can put." Emu grumbles, tapping a pen on its end. "We have to fill out a pseudo birth certificate. Which, okay, yes, any legal forms after this one will require references, but," he gestures at the paper. "Parad, how old are you, anyway? What should we say your birthday is?"

"I don't knoooow! If we want to get all technical about it, going by when I got my own body, I'm seven." Parad whines. "Or seventeen, if we count from when you were first infected. Or twenty-five, same as you are, since I kinda started as you? Ugggghhhh…" Parad lets his head drop to the table. "Not gonna lie, I kinda want to go with that, but I don't think this one really should be my call."

"Hmm." Emu mutters. "Well, I always thought of the Mighty Brothers in the game as twins, so we could just go that route. Give us the same birthday and everything. We did agree we wanted to be brothers, so why not go all the way with it?"

"Hold up for a minute, there." Kiriya interrupts. "Don't get me wrong, you probably don't have much choice but to make this up, since I don't think anyone's gonna believe that Mister Six-Foot-One here is seven years old, but if the two of you legally become brothers, wouldn't your folks have something to say to that? I mean, it'll be kinda awkward to tell 'em that suddenly they've got two sons. To say nothing of suddenly their one kid is now two."

Emu scoffs. "Yeah, no, don't worry about that. We'll be fine."

Kiriya blinks, taken aback by Emu's suddenly flippant tone. "Emu?"

"My mother… isn't here anymore." Emu's gaze turns stony as he directs it back to the papers. "And I haven't spoken to my father in years."

"If you did, we could surprise him with the news." Parad's smile is cold. "It'd serve him right."

"You know~" a voice drawls from behind them. "If you don't want to go that route~…"

""Oh no.""

"Seeing as how I am the father of all Bugsters…"

Parad glares at Kuroto, his shoulders tensing. "There's not a chance in hell I'm listing you as my father."

"Mm, I suppose it would put a kink in your plan of being brothers, wouldn't it?" Kuroto smiles, smugly. "After all, that would make Emu your mo-"

"NOPE!" Shoving his chair back, Emu stands, slamming one hand down on the table and pointing the other furiously at Kuroto. "Do NOT finish that sentence! I don't want to- NO!"

"Emu… Emu, I think I'm gonna have to go back on that 'no killing' promise. He's still got two lives left, yeah?"

"Parad, no, and watch your language." Emu puts a hand on his shoulder to hold him back. "Kuroto, also no."

Kiriya raises a hand. "If Parad doesn't get to do the thing for that comment, can I?"

"Kiriya, no."

"Hey, I don't want to consider that alleged idea either! Bad enough he got me into the bugster situation in the first place, I ain't callin' him dad." He freezes, his eyes wide. "…wait. Oh. Oh hell no." Turning to the others, he whispers. "Wouldn't that make him his own father, too?"

Parad frowns. "Er. If we're going to get in-depth with this. Technically the reason any of the Bugsters can hold a physical form is because of the code from me, so…"

Emu slams his hands over his ears. "GUYS! CUT IT OUT! We are NOT having this conversation!" He lifts one of them off to point at Parad. "Are we doing the twins thing, yes or no?"

Grinning, Parad nods. "Yeah. Let's do it." He looks back down at the stack of forms in front of them, his face dropping somewhat. "Still…"

"Right, that's one set of things decided." Emu grabs a stapled set of papers. "Okay… um. This is asking for your species. That's. A thing the government has on a form now, apparently."

Parad scoots over to look. "That's… a really long list, too. What even are these?" He tilts his head as he reads. "Like, what the hell's a Roidmude?"

Everyone else just shrugs.

"Oh, hey!" Kiriya waves the sheet he'd picked up earlier. "They've got a way to document a change in species? What the he- I coulda used that months ago!"

Emu winces. "I'd just like to apologize once again for including you on the list in the speech… I didn't really have much choice in the matter, since you are one of the victims in all of this."

"Yeah, I know, I'm messing with you. Mostly." Spinning his office chair around, he rolls over to grab his laptop. "Gonna see if I can get that online…" His voice drops to a mutter. "Turn-about's fair play, anyways. I kinda came out ahead… bein' called 'missing and presumed on a game cartridge' is loads easier to work around then having your death faked..."

The room goes silent as all eyes turn to him. "…What? Something I said?"

"Kiriya…" Emu's voice goes low and cold, his eyes narrowing. "What did you do?"

"Oh, shit, did I say that last part out loud?"

"What did you do? Explain. Now."

Parad edges slightly away, while Kuroto actively backs away from the bars in his cell.

"Uh…" Kiriya begins to sweat. "Er, well, mistakes-were-made-I-have-to-go-see-an-office-about-some-papers-okay-BYE!" He teleports away before Emu has a chance to grab him.

(Later in the week, at the Hanaya Clinic)

"How long do you think this will take?" Parad looks around nervously, legs swinging back and forth over the side of the exam table.

Although he's facing his desk, Taiga instinctively raises an eyebrow. "Having second thoughts? We can still ask Emu to come down here if you're worried."

Parad shakes his head in response. "Nah."

"Well, it's true that we need to have at least some sort of medical record for you, in order to help finalize your 'existence' properly. But I have to say, I didn't expect you would want me to be the person to do your pseudo-physical, or for it to be done at my clinic."

"It would have been weird. If Emu were here, I mean. It's getting kinda awkward, too, being in CR. It doesn't feel like I belong there, so I… really needed to get out, even just for an hour or two." Parad shrinks into his coat. "And, there's some stuff I wanted to ask you about anyway, and I'd probably lose my nerve if anyone else were around."

"Hmph." Taiga turns. "Emu's starting to get a bit overprotective, isn't he?" Parad's eyes widen as he nods. "He's been doing that a lot lately. Don't tell him I said this, but ever since you and Poppy died, he's started to take her place as the 'mom friend.'" Taiga smirks as Parad tries in vain to turn a laugh into a cough. "No, really. So far, we're all just waiting to see when he notices, so either join in the betting pool when you can, or don't spoil this for us."

"He doesn't know?!"

"Not as far as anyone's been able to tell." Taiga taps his pen against his clipboard, before setting them both aside. "Look, you said you had questions, so do you want to start there? It'll be harder to do anything if you're this wired, anyway."

"…That first night that I was back, Lazer-" Parad pauses. "I should at least use 'Kujo', shouldn't I? I'm going to be living with the guy soon…"

"Well, he's not here right now, so you may as well stick with Lazer for the time being."

"Right. He said that the rest of you had vouched for me, before you could even tell when, or if I was coming back. What did." he swallows. "What did you say?"

"That you were coerced into your role by Genm as much as any of us." Taiga crosses one leg over the other, giving Parad a serious look. "Moreso, actually, since he was the only human you were around for, what, six years?"

There's a brief hesitation before Parad nods. "There were a few scientist, or researchers, or… well, they were something along those lines, anyway, around for the first few months. I dunno where they went, or, more likely, what happened to them after he infected his mother."

"Which means that any of them would have been well out of the picture by the time I first became Snipe." Taiga frowns. "He never has liked to leave any 'loose ends' lying around, has he?"

"Mm-hm."

"Wonderful. That ties to the other reason I vouched for you, actually. I can… well, not completely, mind you, since the situations were different. But I can very much relate to having been used as a 'test run' for his 'grand designs,' in a similar way to how Emu and yourself were. Again, differently, and the two of you were screwed over far worse, but still."

"You know…" Parad begins, idly wrapping one of the cords on his jacket around his finger, "I didn't get it, before – why you went to the lengths you did back then, as Proto-Snipe. Even as you were realizing that it was probably killing you. I still don't get how you were able to keep going, really. But now? Having seen you dealing with everyone, with having actually met you?" He smirks, meeting Taiga's gaze. "You aren't nearly as much of an asshole as you make yourself out to be, are you?"

"…!" Taiga turns back to the desk, hastily grabbing his clipboard. "Are you ready to start that exam now?"

"Think so, yeah." Unclasping his jacket collar, Parad bites at his lip. "Just, uh, fair warning, though. This thing and my shirt are gonna fade out of wherever I put them, and back onto me after about twenty to thirty minutes. Poppy's teaching me the whole 'costume change' stuff, so I'll be able to get around that eventually, but, well, it's slow going."

"That's fair enough. I'm assuming that's why you asked how long this takes, then?"

"Yeah."

"Well, it's hard to say. Let me know when that starts happening, and we can pause and wait. I do have a related question for you, actually."

Parad tilts his head, his eyes narrowing slightly. "Go ahead."

"Why is your coat like that? With the buckles and short sleeves, it makes absolutely no sense at all."

The stare Taiga receives is unimpressed. "Okay, you don't get to ask that. Not with those combat boots you're always wearing, when you're tall enough as is. Or should I tell Nico about your footwear choices back in 2011?"

"You wouldn't dare."

"You wouldn't live it down. Socks and sandals? Really?"

"I made mistakes. That was one of them. Shut up."

Parad grins as he sets his jacket aside, and starts pulling off his pink fingerless gloves.

"Wait, those are gloves?"

Parad nods as he folds them, putting them on top of his jacket. "Yeah. Why, what'd you think I was wearing?"

Taiga shrugs. "Honestly, I'd just assumed they were part of your shirt, but. Whatever."

"Heh." Chuckling, Parad's voice is muffled as he pulls off his t-shirt. "I mean, my look technically comes from Emu's imagination. Small eight-year-olds have zero restraint when it comes to designing characters."

"Well, you're not wrong…" Taiga trails off. "When you and Poppy do the whole outfit change, does that change anything about your body? Because that'd be good to know…"

"No, we stay the same. Poppy's hair is just a cosmetic thing." Tilting his head, Parad squints. "Why?"

"It's… well, firstly, that's a good thing to know for how bugsters work in general. Secondly, one of the things I'm supposed to do is take note of 'identifying marks.' You, uh, you've got a birthmark that's a mirror of Emu's surgical scar."

Parad looks down at his torso. "No, it's the same, isn't it?" He shrugs. "But Emu'd probably know better than me, anyway. I don't think I'm technically supposed to have this, in the first place. The car happened after he thought up Mighty Brothers, after all."

"You said it yourself – he was eight. Probably saw it mostly in the mirror, and since the whole…" Taiga makes a vague gesture, not wanting to quite say it. "'Incident' shook the both of you up, it must have carried over subconsciously."

Kiriya watches Emu pace across the office. "Okay, is something up?"

"It's nothing."

Scoffing, Kiriya points the pen he'd been spinning at Emu. "Yeah, right. You ever hear the saying 'you can't con a con man'? What's eating you?"

"I said it's nothing, really."

"Worried? Parad's gonna be just fine, you know that. Both him and Taiga agreed to do his physical there. Hell, the kid's the one who suggested it."

Groaning, Emu shakes his head. "No, it's not that. …Okay, it's partly that, but it's not just that I'm worried about him. I'm just… Ugh." He sits heavily on a chair. "Let's just say Parad's not the only one who's a little anxious about being cooped up in here."

Kiriya simply raises an eyebrow, inviting Emu to continue.

"I… really don't like being on this end of the job, is all. Don't get me wrong, I understand the reasoning, I really do, and I agree that I definitely should be under observation right now, just in case, but it's…" he sighs, setting his head on the table. "The whole thing with having to stay here full time is starting to bring back bad memories."

Kiriya's response is quiet. "From when you were a kid?"

Slowly, Emu nods. "After… well, I was pretty messed up, so I was in the hospital for a long time. There was a lot of rehab after the accident, but my father wasn't exactly… around enough… to ferry me back and forth. And since I was so young, it wasn't a good idea for me to be alone at home the way I was a lot of the time. So… because of all that, the doctors involved determined that it would be a better idea, and easier for everyone involved, especially myself, if I remained as an inpatient for a while."

"…Ace?"

"I mean, it's different when it's just for work. Long shifts in pediatrics and CR have never bothered me, outside of being exhausting. But being a patient again? That's a little less than ideal." He laughs dryly. "I'm staying the full time that Parad has to, though. Figure I'll come back down for the night after my shifts upstairs."

"Huh. You sure about that? Kinda think he's the one who'd understand perfectly why you'd want out of here as soon as possible." Kiriya looks over to where Emu's set a low cot up next to Parad's hammock. "He won't blame you."

"Yeah, well. That's exactly why I'm not leaving." Emu smirks. "Because he was there, too. With all of the years I wasn't able to help him, sticking this out is the least that I can do."

Partway through the exam, the front buzzer rings, drawing their attention.

"Go." Parad nods toward the door. "That's your real job, after all."

"Are you alright with just waiting here?" Taiga comments as he heads out to meet his patient. "I know that both of you want to get back in the field, so to speak."

Shaking his head, Parad reaches for his shirt. "I've only got the one gashat I can use on my own, and it's still under lock and key at CR. I can't do a thing in combat without it."

As Parad is pulling his jacket back on, tell-tale waves of pixels sweep the walls, indicating that Snipe is about to make an appearance.

"Huh. Guess that they were close by, if he didn't have to go find them." He pouts at the cords adorning his coat. They'd gotten tangled at some point. While he straightens them out, the walls of the clinic disappear, giving way to a forest. "…Huh."

He picks his way through the trees, making his way towards the sounds of battle. When he makes his way to a clearing, he's just in time to see Aranbura's Bugster Union collapse to the ground. There's no patient in sight, which is strange, because the Unions always held their host inside. To say nothing of how there shouldn't be a Union in the first place, because none of them had used that tactic for months before he started Chronicle up. Even stranger still is that when it dissolves, there's no sign of Aranbura himself – just of the Virus footsoldiers he always brought with him. And a lot of them, at that. "What the hell is going on?"

Speaking was apparently a mistake, because some of the viruses that don't immediately go after Snipe go after him instead. "Ah. Drat."

"Parad! What are you doing here?!" Gunfire punctuates Snipe's shout.

"Not really sure, myself!" Kicking a robed grunt away, Parad curses under his breath. "I think I got caught in the zone generation. Also, I'm really not going to be much help." Dodging a blow from a staff, his responding punch only serves to knock his opponent back a small distance. "I've got shielding abilities, and teleportation, but exactly zero ways to do damage without transforming!"

Snipe growls. "That does explain why you didn't come after us sooner, at any rate." He shoots down three more viruses in quick succession. "Get over here, then!"

"What?!"

"Just do it! If I give you the Gashacon Magnum, and then I go into Simulations, then we'll get this done that much faster!"

Parad stares. "But-"

"Oh, for crying out loud. You want to prove to yourself that we're not making a mistake by trusting you, right?!"

Startled, Parad stares at Snipe, even as he absently knocks a pair of viruses into each other.

"Well, this is your chance! Get over here!"

It takes a moment, but soon, Parad's expression hardens. "Got it."

"Here, put this on your eye. I'll call up the others." Taiga grunts in pain as he sets up his game scope for a video call.

"Sorry that I couldn't stop them from getting that hit in on you." Flinching briefly away from the chill of the icepack, Parad takes a moment to settle it in place before continuing. "So, that guy was infected with Aranbura's strain, but I didn't see him anywhere. Is that the new normal?"

"So far, yes." Taiga nods absently. "We haven't seen any of the other 'real' Bugsters since Chronicle ended; just their troops."

It takes a moment before Parad can bring himself to respond. "Is it wrong that I'm grateful for that? And not because it probably means that your patients are safer, but because it means I won't have to fight the others?"

"…I don't think it's necessarily wrong, no. Your goal for how many years was meeting them? Of course you wouldn't want to have to turn on your friends." He looks up as the call goes through.

Emu appears on the projected display. "Taiga? Are you guys done alrea- What happened?!"

Both Taiga and Parad draw back slightly. "Listen…" Taiga starts. "I had a patient, the fight got a little rough, and-"

"I'm coming down there." With Emu glaring directly at Taiga, the call cuts off.

The two both stare at the space where he had just been. "So." Taiga hesitates. "Which of us do you think is going to be in more trouble?"

"Good question."

"Hey," Emu walks in. "I'm here, what's the damage?"

Taiga grumbles, sitting rigidly in his chair. "A bunch of Aranbura's minions. No sign of him though, once again. It is strange that we haven't seen any of the, er, 'lead' Bugsters since Chronicle. But they got a few lucky hits in. I haven't actually taken a look how bad it is yet; I had to make sure my patient didn't see that anything happened, after all." He starts to pull off his shirt, freezing halfway as he hisses in pain.

"Want me to help out with that?"

"Please do."

"Oh, wow." Emu winces in sympathy as he helps Taiga. "That's already bruising. What happened? You fight at a distance."

"Yeah, so, apparently the minions can use energy items now. One of them got a hold of an invisibility token, and-" he flinches. "What the hell, your hands are freezing!"

"Sorry. Keep going? This sounds important."

"Right-" Taiga hisses again. "One of them got an invisibility token, and five more disappeared with it. They wound up getting me with those stupid staves."

"Huh…" Parad drums his fingers on the table. "I got pulled into the fight, so I was trying to block the worst hits, but… before they vanished, I'm pretty sure that they were all the same design."

Emu looks up. "What're you thinking?"

"That it might be some sort of identifier glitch, or an oversight." Parad toys with one of his cables, half distracted in thought. "The powerups are exclusively a game function – that's how Cronus could pull them out of play, and how I could use Perfect Puzzle to reveal them in the first place.

"They weren't intended to apply to the grunts; they barely work for Bugsters at all, and even at that it's mostly only when a rider hits us with them. I can only use them properly because I'm using a gashat to transform. If it weren't for that, I'd be out of luck.

"And the smaller grunts… they. Hm." He frowns. "They aren't really aware. They're the second most basic form of the virus, outside of the viral infection itself. They barely touch the 'game' aspect of the 'game disease,' really, they pick up just enough of it to give them their individual outfits.

"If somehow… well, after Chronicle, none of the others have shown up, right? So, if somehow their identities within the gashats, and all of the other game functions, managed to transfer to the minions…"

"Like an underflow or a buffer of some sort, right?" Emu catches onto the train of thought. "The regular Bugsters can be effected by the items, but they aren't the ones to activate them – that's always us. But since the powerups are a game construct, if they can't find the intended target that they're coded for, probably the program skips to the next legible line, does what it thinks it's supposed to do, and continues on its merry way. If it applied to a group of them, then the code might be reading from one location in the database, and multiple instances of one type are treated as all being the same individual instance."

"Hold on." Taiga tries to interrupt. "First, that part about bugsters not being able to use the energy items without a gashat can't be true. Emu, you've said yourself that Poppy used that weird Christmas item, remember?"

"Hm, yeah, she did, but…" Emu pauses. "Looking back, it could have been a similar situation. Hiiro was using Doremifa Beat, and the two tokens she used went to the two of them just about simultaneously."

"Alright, that would match with what you were saying, then. So, second, how do you two know any of that programming stuff?"

"I looked that type of thing up sometimes when I finished tests and such early back in high school. Here, hold this for a second." Emu passes a roll of bandage tape to Taiga, who obliges him. "I couldn't exactly practice while I was in class, so that was the next best thing."

"I've got the memories of us doing that, and then later on, I took a more 'personal' interest in how 'regular games' work." Parad shrugs. "A lot of the so-called glitches in older video games were actually the programming attempting to follow its instructions, but having even just a fragment of data somewhere unexpected can throw everything out of order. That can come from the player interfering somehow, or from actions the developer didn't take into account. But a lot of the time, the game was just carrying out the instructions it had, and simply refusing to crash."

He's been thinking about it for a while, but it's not until the end of his initial week under 'office arrest' that Emu finally asks something that has been bothering him.

"Do you think there's a way to tell how much of me is human, and how much is bugster?"

The office – which had been quietly humming with conversations and the sounds of electronic devices – goes quiet.

"Emu…" Hiiro speaks up slowly, setting his knife down before he had a chance to cut into his cake. "I think I can speak for all of us when I ask what on Earth are you talking about?"

"Well, it's just that… I mean, I know Nico was joking, that first night, but it's not like she was wrong, about me not being baseline human." Crossing his arms over the table, Emu leans forward, resting his chin on them. "I've done a lot of things that I should not be able to do. That nobody should be able to do. To start with, the whole 'forming gashats out of blanks' thing."

Poppy purses her lips. "But Kuroto made all the other ones, so that's not too unusual, is it?"

From his cell, Kuroto coughs. "I need to use equipment to do that, actually. Equipment of my own design, yes, but what he did to make those knock-offs was something entirely different. Frankly, it was both impressive and somewhat terrifying. That first one would have killed me, and I was already dead at the time."

Emu slowly turns to glare at Parad.

"I was going to step in if it went too wrong!" Parad pouts. "Besides, I knew you could make it work."

"Uh-huh. I believe I also recall you giving me the 'change my fate' line when you handed that to me?" Parad doesn't respond to Emu's comment, so he continues on. "Okay, so that aside, the whole Reprogramming thing shouldn't work, either. On a fundamental level, it's weird. Kiriya, you said it would only work for me, right?"

"In theory, yeah. I mean, the research I'd been able to do before, y'know, all that went down indicated it, anyway. Since a lot of the base of the game disease as it existed at the time came from Parad – not that I knew about him precisely – and he got a lot of his base from you, it makes sense that you'd be the only guy to be able to re-write bugster code on the fly. Also, for the record? That attack?" Kiriya turns to level a stare at Emu. "THAT THING HURTS."

"That's true."

"I mean, I was goading you into using it on me, so I have zero right to complain, but…"

"Sorry, Emu, but, well…" Poppy smiles apologetically.

"Hnnnn…" Emu drops his head to the table, covering it with his arms. "I'm really sorry, guys… Well, Kiriya and Poppy, anyway. Parad and Kuroto, you two had it coming."

"Like I said, I was kinda daring you to hit me with it, so."

"Pfeh."

"Anyway. There's also… well, there's also the final battle against Cronus." He pauses, hesitating. "Just the act of reinfecting myself with Parad might have been enough to let me transform, but I really doubt it. Not from just the one fragment of data. And…" Picking himself up off the table, Emu doesn't meet anyone's eye as he grips one forearm. "I was able to move during that last time he used Pause."

Everyone in the room looks at him. "Emu…" Hiiro begins, quietly. "What did happen there, anyway? Nobody else saw."

"It… was weird. It wasn't like using Hyper Muteki at all, it was… I could hear him, he was taunting us, because normally we wouldn't hear him, and… he was coming to kill me." He swallows before continuing. "He was going on about how individual lives don't mean anything, and I could hear him, but I couldn't react, until… until I could. So, I punched him. I froze back up, immediately after, but I could still see and hear what happened." He shivers. "I punched him so hard he flew backward – he crashed into that clock he always had with him, and that's when the pause ended, but… guys, a human fist should not be able to break a Bugvisor, and that's what I did."

The room is silent for a moment, before Kuroto speaks up. "What the hell. That's what happened to that?! Do you have any idea how well I designed all of the equipment?! If that Bugvisor could stand up to you pummeling it with Hyper Muteki, there is literally no way you should have been able to disable it with your bare hands!" Jumping upright, he slams his hands on his table. "There's NO WAY that is what happened!"

"Why would I lie about this?" Emu rolls his eyes. "I am literally trying to find out what's going on with me, why on Earth would I make things up?"

"Boys, simmer down."

""Yes, Poppy.""

"But, seriously, is there a way to, y'know, test my DNA or something, and find out how messed up it probably is?" Shrugging, Emu lets out a small laugh. "I mean, duh, DNA tests are a thing, we work at a hospital, but a way that won't get us looked at like we're nuts?"

Hiiro taps on the table, to draw attention. "There were the tests that those of us who went through the 'normal channels' to receive our drivers undertook. If I recall correctly, one of those involved a genetic examination of some sort. It would make sense if that could be… re-purposed for this."

"Not sure I like that tone you're using, Ace. But I've still got my notes on ya, too." Kirirya waves. "And hey, comparing what I've got on you from before you probably retooled yourself while making those gashats to now could be neat."

"Come onnnn-" (snap) "Work, damn it…" (snap) "For the love of-" (snap)

Emu looks around the corner. "Hey, is there something you need help with, or what?"

"No, not with this, you can't… Rargh!" Parad growls, clicking his fingers yet again. each time he does, a flurry of red and blue pixels dance around him, but nothing else happens. "Ugh!"

"Okay, what are you trying to do?"

"I figured I'd try to get changed NOW" (snap) "As opposed to later" (snap) "So I can get it over with." (snap) "OH FOR THE LOVE OF-"

Wild cackling can be heard from behind digital bars.

"Oh, yeah? You think that this is funny?" Parad glares at Kuroto. "Have you ever tried this?"

The laughter cuts off.

"Yeah. Didn't think so."

"Wonder if we can convince the ministry to keep him somewhere else for the rest of the month. Just until you're out of here." Emu mumbles. "One of these days, someone's going to snap…"

"Personally? I'm surprised Lazer didn't. I had a LONG time to get used to Genm's assorted variants of assholery. you guys haven't."

"If you want to get TECHNICAL about it, BOTH you and Kujo already have-"

"Stuff it. I mean, that IS how you wound up in there in the first place, and you had it coming, but stuff it."

"I mean, it's not like Hiiro and Taiga are exactly baseline, either, right?" Emu stares at the ceiling.

"Ugghhh…" Parad groans, rolling over to face the wall. "Do we have to have this conversation now?"

"Well, am I wrong? because until literally anyone tells me what the compatibility surgery actually does, I'm left to draw my own conclusions!" Emu huffs, crossing his arms, setting the borrowed hammock swinging slightly. "I mean, it can't exactly leave people completely normal, or certain features of being a Kamen Rider just wouldn't work."

Parad sighs. "Guess we're having this conversation now. Which 'features'?"

"Bakusou Bike. The ability to withstand hits that nobody should be able to. I mean, have you seen the jumps we're able to do while suited up? It might be normal for you and Poppy, yeah, but the rest of us? Nah. We're not, biologically speaking, supposed to be able to do that."

"Emu." Parad's voice turns cold. "I am trying to sleep. It's been a while for me. On top of that, you and I had to deal with a very large fight earlier, so I'd like to sleep that off. And if you don't shut up, I am going to take my hammock back. Then, you don't get the hammock, which I know full well you've been looking forward to getting to use. So. Shut. Up."

"…Yeah. Sorry. I got a little carried away there, I guess."

"No kidding. G'night, Emu."

"Night, Parad."