Anetta quietly listens while Chaud talks. It's not like she isn't doing anything - she's cooking, sort of, while she's listening, which kind of a relief for Chaud because he can't really bear the thought of having to look anyone in the eyes right now, so he can just fix his gaze on his hands is his lap without feeling guilty about the lack of eye-contact.
"-and then he collapsed, and the Cybeasts vanished," he finishes.
"Wow," Anetta breathes, glancing over her shoulder. Chaud doesn't see her expression properly because he's still focused on his hands. "And here I thought things couldn't get any weirder after that whole Duo thing . . ."
Chaud surprises himself with a half-sarcastic, half-bitter laugh. "If I've learnt anything over the past year or so, it's that things will always get weirder. We've gone from a virus-beast to a madman to an actual god, and now we've got these Cybeasts running around. If anything, I'm just grateful that Dr. Regal can't show up and try to use them to his advantage somehow."
"He's definitely dead this time," ProtoMan murmurs, snuggling a little deeper into the space between Chaud's collar and neck. Dark Shadow, settled on Chaud's shoulder, nods its silent agreement.
"At least there's that," Anetta agrees.
Chaud hums quietly, and continues staring at his hands. It's because of that that he's surprised when Anetta's hand appears in his sight, covering his hands gently, and he automatically looks up at her.
"But you didn't just come here to let me know what happened, did you?" Anetta asks knowingly. "I noticed you didn't say what you two - three, sorry, Dark Shadow - you didn't say what you three were doing during the battle."
"We didn't do anything," comes out before Chaud can stop himself.
He expects Anetta to protest, or maybe demand to know why he was apparently doing nothing while two monsters were rampaging through the city. But she only looks at him calmly, waiting.
"We couldn't," Chaud goes on. He can feel ProtoMan's faint trembling against the skin of his neck, and stops himself from reaching up and petting his Navi. He'd only end up focusing on that, and he needs to say this. "Dad- Dad stopped us. Before we could . . . do anything. We're still on leave, he said."
"Are you still on leave?"
"We are," Chaud reluctantly admits.
"Then he was right."
This time, he clenches his hands together to stop himself from curling his fingers into claws, and has to activately restrain himself from baring his teeth.
"I know that," he says, with more force than necessary. "But- but there were two of those things, and they were destroying the city, and then they were destroying Internet City, and . . . and we couldn't do anything."
"Second one was my fault," ProtoMan mumbles. "We could've helped then. But . . . I can't . . ." He breaks off, shuddering.
"It's not your fault," Chaud says. He doesn't stop himself this time - he reaches up, picks ProtoMan up, and holds him in his hands. "I'm not gonna blame you for that. You hear me?"
"I hear you." It doesn't look like ProtoMan's convinced, though.
A touch on his shoulder brings Chaud's attention back to Anetta, who's giving both of them a look of pure sympathy.
"Be honest with me here - do you think you would've been able to make any difference if you were able to help?" she asks.
Chaud pauses.
Would his presence have actually made any difference? From what he saw, the battle in the real world seemed entirely fruitless. Absolutely nothing that anyone threw at the Cybeasts did any damage whatsoever - even Bass, whose entire thing is his absurd amount of natural power, wasn't able to put a dent in the Cybeasts' armour.
No, he wouldn't have made any difference even if he had been there. If Bass couldn't scratch those things, Chaud wouldn't have been able to do anything, either.
"I could've," ProtoMan says.
Chaud and Anetta look at him, and he shrinks in on himself, curling into a tight ball.
"If . . . m-maybe if I'd been in Internet City, I could've done something," ProtoMan goes on, voice so faint that Chaud only just hears him, even with his enhanced hearing. "I could've gone Poltergeist and . . ."
"But would you have been able to take on both of them?" Anetta asks softly.
ProtoMan makes a small, ragged noise and shudders. Dark Shadow flickers and appears next to him, then crouches over him and pulls him into a careful hug. Though with ProtoMan curled up the way he is, it's less of a hug and more like Dark Shadow is just trying to help him hide from sight.
The thing is . . . it's entirely possible that ProtoMan could've taken on both of the Cybeasts as the Poltergeist. Whether or not he'd actually win is up for debate, but Chaud is willing to bet all the money he has tucked away in his account that his primary Navi could at least manage to do some serious damage to the two Cybeasts before his HP would run out and he'd be forced to change back.
But ProtoMan hasn't been to Internet City for weeks. Months, even, not since he was so cruelly rejected by the NetNavis in Netopia's Internet City.
That's the only reason ProtoMan wasn't in Internet City to take on those Cybeasts. He's getting better, like Chaud is (he hopes so, anyway), but he's still not ready for something like that. Neither of them are.
Dad's right, then. Anetta's right. They're not ready for this yet.
"Where's MegaMan now?" Anetta's question breaks Chaud out of his despairing thoughts.
Probably a good thing she did that. He was close to dropping back into that pit he was in before Raika and SearchMan found his mother's grave. That wasn't a fun place to be in, and he's still in danger of dropping back in even now. Distractions are a good way to take his mind off it.
"Dad's checking him over at SciLab," Chaud replies. "He's scanning Trill, too."
"Trill?"
"The baby-Navi," Chaud clarifies. "Mimic said that's his name. She . . . also said she's gonna tell us everything she can."
Anetta blinks. "She's never done that before, has she?"
"Not exactly," Chaud murmurs. "But she wants to try and do things differently, this time. She's with Lan and Dad at SciLab right now - they're gonna head to Net Police HQ once MegaMan wakes up."
His best friend hums, and tilts her head a little. "So . . . why are you here, instead of with them?"
Chaud winces. "I . . . I don't . . ."
He doesn't really have the right to be there.
Mimic said MegaMan would be fine, but that doesn't stop anyone from worrying - and Chaud is no exception. But he didn't do anything to contribute to the fight against the Cybeasts, and he's finding it very difficult to look anyone in the eyes right now, too ashamed of himself for doing nothing. Ashamed of letting Dad stop him, instead of insisting on helping the others fight.
Even if his presence wouldn't have altered anything, that doesn't change how he feels. And ProtoMan probably feels even worse, because the thing is, his presence could've changed what happened.
Instead, MegaMan fused with Trill and turned into a beast, and the Cybeasts were beaten back instead of beaten.
"Oh, Chaud," Anetta sighs, seeing his expression twist.
She pulls him into a hug, and Chaud rests his cheek against her shoulder, closing his eyes.
He doesn't deserve comfort. He did nothing - literally nothing - to deserve this.
But he can't deny that the warmth of his best friend's hug makes things seem a little bit less dreadful.
"Are you sure you're okay?" Lan asks, for about the tenth time since MegaMan woke up.
MegaMan supresses a sigh. "Yes, Lan, I'm sure. Dad checked me over, there's no lingering traces of the-" He hesitates for a split second. "-transformation, and my systems are perfectly normal."
"But are you sure?" his operator presses.
"Dude," Mimic says, "chill. He's fine."
"You say that, but-"
Mimic stops walking and forces Lan to stop as well by putting her hand over his mouth, which also has the added benefit of shutting him up.
"He. Is. Fine," she says slowly, looking Lan directly in the eyes.
The only sound for a few moments is the happy babbling of Trill in MegaMan's arms. Lan stares at Mimic with wide eyes, Mimic stares back with a completely deadpan expression, and MegaMan glances at Arcadia, who shrugs and goes back to watching their operators' staring contest.
" . . . Okay," Lan eventually mumbles, voice muffled by Mimic's hand.
She nods and takes her hand off his mouth.
As they continue walking through the city toward HQ, MegaMan thinks back to the battle with the Cybeasts. More specifically, he tries to remember what happened in Internet City.
But he can't, for some reason. He only knows what happened because Lan told him when he woke up earlier. He has memories of arriving in Internet City and seeing the destruction the Cybeasts were causing with their fight, he definitely remembers saving Roll from the blast of wind that sent her and a bunch of other Navis flying (literally), and then he remembers Trill grabbing hold of him and refusing to let go.
And then . . . nothing.
Well, that's not entirely true. He has very, very vague memories of . . . sensations, let's say. Burning rage, and overwhelming power. Focusing that rage and power on the biggest targets he could find, which just happened to be the Cybeasts.
Is this how ProtoMan feels when he goes Poltergeist? Obviously he's able to control himself, and he doesn't seem to lose his memories when he turns into the Poltergeist, but . . . MegaMan never really thought he'd be able to experience anything remotely like that. The closest he's ever come to sharing any of ProtoMan's abilities is Double Soul.
"Meh-meh-mah!"
MegaMan blinks, abruptly broken out of his thoughts. He glances down at Trill, who's cheerfully batting at the NaviMark on MegaMan's chest, babbling incoherently.
Incoherent because he's a baby-Navi. A baby-Navi who apparently has the ability to turn other NetNavis into beasts - or is it just MegaMan?
The only person who can answer that is Mimic, and that's exactly what she's going to do when they get to HQ.
"Hey, Mimic?" MegaMan looks at her, adjusting his grip on Trill. "Um . . . are you sure his name is Trill?"
Mimic's expression turns as deadpan as it was a few minutes ago. "No, I just called him that 'cus I wanted to mess with you."
MegaMan waits patiently.
After a moment or two, Mimic rolls her eyes. "Yes, his name's Trill," she says. "S'what you called him in the anime. Roll tried to call him Beep, though."
"Beep?" MegaMan glances down at Trill and blinks. "That . . . doesn't really suit him, I don't think."
"S'what you said in the anime, kinda," Mimic agrees, nodding. "Just wanted to avoid the stupid name-stuff, really. Roll's kinda bad at baby stuff."
"You'd think she'd be good at it, considering she's a healing-Navi," Lan comments. "That kinda makes her like a nurse, right?"
"You'd think I'd be good with people because of my Empath Program," Arcadia points out. "But I'm not. Certainly not with baby-Navis, anyway. Just because a NetNavi has a certain ability or power doesn't mean they're any good with the skills humans would naturally associate with that ability or power."
"Point." Mimic nods in agreement.
"Yeah," MegaMan admits. He thinks about the name thing for a moment, and then nods. "And you're right, Mimic. Trill does suit him."
He's not really sure why that name suits the baby-Navi. His only context for the word 'trill' is the noise that Ragdoll - Mimic and Chaud's giant black cat - sometimes makes. ProtoMan makes that noise sometimes too, as do Mimic and Chaud themselves, because they're all cats.
It's a quiet noise, and Trill is anything but quiet. He babbles constantly, and cries loudly when anyone who isn't MegaMan holds him.
But sometimes he does make little happy noises that sound kinda like trills. Maybe that's it.
Dad said they need to find someone to look after him, right? Because obviously MegaMan can't take Trill with him when he's doing Net Saver work. He doesn't really want to just dump Trill on any of his friends - for a start, that'd be kind of unfair on his friends, and for another thing, it doesn't really sit well with him, just leaving Trill like that.
Most of the Net Saver work he does is extremely dangerous, though, and he can't take a baby-Navi with him on missions.
Would any of his friends be able to look after a baby-Navi?
IceMan and AquaMan are out, definitely. No offence to them, but they're too childish themselves to be responsible enough to look after an actual baby-Navi. GutsMan is kinda clumsy, again no offence meant, and he might accidentally hurt Trill. Glide seems like he'd be a pretty good choice, but MegaMan's not gonna go all the way to Kingland's cyberworld just to ask Glide to babysit for him. TomahawkMan probably isn't a good choice either, because while he's not clumsy like GutsMan, he's definitely not suited for looking after anyone who isn't Dingo. There's also NumberMan, but MegaMan has a feeling that he'd be very, very bad at babysitting. Call it a hunch.
SearchMan's out as well, for the same reason MegaMan can't have Trill with him all the time. And aside from that, SearchMan isn't exactly suited for babysitting. Then there's Arcadia - even if he wasn't also a Net Saver, he'd be a bad choice too, because Trill was yanking his feathers out last time. ProtoMan's a Net Saver too, but he's on leave at the moment, though MegaMan's not entirely sure whether or not he'd be any good with a baby-Navi anyway. Plus, if Trill starts crying, ProtoMan might just immediately dump him on someone else.
Gah, MegaMan sighs mentally, if only Meddy were here . . . She's a nurse-Navi, she'd definitely be able to look after a baby-Navi.
No Meddy, but what about Roll?
MegaMan blinks, surprised by the core's sudden suggestion. It's been more or less silent since he woke up, and he's been too focused on Trill to pay any attention to it. That kinda makes him feel a little guilty, but . . .
Roll? MegaMan repeats. He remembers what Mimic said, about Roll being bad with baby stuff. Is . . . is that a good idea?
He feels a faint trace of hesitation from the core. No, probably not. But no Meddy, so who?
This has to have been an issue in Mimic's anime as well, right? So maybe Mimic can tell him who he gave Trill to. Hopefully he can leave the baby-Navi with them now, and he won't have to worry since he'll have Mimic's guarantee that Trill will be safe.
"Mimic?" He waits until she's looking at him before continuing. "Did I ever leave Trill with anyone, in your anime? Like, for babysitting and stuff. I can't . . . I don't wanna take him with me when I'm doing Net Saver work, it'd be way too dangerous."
"Y'left him with Roll," Mimic replies, and MegaMan nearly chokes. "Yeah, it wasn't a good idea. Like I said, she's bad at baby stuff. Soon as you left, she had a lotta problems, an' she asked IceMan and AquaMan to help - didn't work, though. An' then she lost Trill."
"What?" MegaMan squawks.
"She left him for a bit, went outside the PET or somethin'," Mimic explains. "When she went back in, IceMan and AquaMan were asleep, and Trill was gone. He ended up in Internet City."
MegaMan is finding it very difficult to put two words together right now.
"Oh, wow," Lan says, wincing. "Uh . . . yeah, maybe don't give Trill to her, then. I mean, I'm not saying she'd do the same thing now, but . . ."
"Don't risk it," Arcadia agrees with a nod. "Is there anyone else you could give Trill to?"
"I . . . I was thinking Meddy, but . . ." MegaMan trails off.
"She ain't here," Mimic finishes.
"No, she's not." MegaMan sighs and slumps. Trill babbles a concerned noise and pats his chest as if trying to comfort him. "But there's no one else I could leave him with. Anyone who'd be even remotely decent at babysitting is in a completely different country."
"How about my brother?" Arcadia asks.
MegaMan blinks and looks at him. "ProtoMan?"
"Do I have another brother I'm not aware of?"
"Well, no, I mean . . ." MegaMan shakes his head and tries again. "I'm not sure if he'd be a good choice, really. Trill kinda gets loud when he cries, remember? And, well, ProtoMan's a Net Saver too, so . . ."
"But he's on leave at the moment," Arcadia points out. "And aside from that . . . he's not exactly happy, you know."
"What?"
"He couldn't do anything to help during the battle with the Cybeasts," Arcadia clarifies. "In the real world or the cyberworld. He's upset, and he's . . . he's ashamed of himself. Letting him babysit Trill is hardly going to make up for it, but I think he'd be happy to be able to do something to help, even if it's just looking after Trill when you can't. It might help him feel better, too."
MegaMan hadn't thought of it like that. He'd only been thinking of how ProtoMan would react to Trill - how he's reacted to loud things in the past, at least, which mainly just consists of ProtoMan getting as far away from the loud thing as possible.
And now that he thinks about it . . . ProtoMan wouldn't just dump Trill on someone else, would he? He's not exactly the most mature NetNavi in the cyberworld, but he'd never do something like that. MegaMan kind of feels ashamed of himself for assuming his friend (brother? Kind of?) would do that.
Bass, who's been completely silent up until now (which is unusual for him, but he's been staring at Trill the whole time, like he's waiting for a bomb to go off something), decides to speak up.
"The owl's got a point," he says. "ProtoMan's restless, and he'd definitely be happy to have something to do. Might help Chaud too, since he's pretty fu-"
"Bass," MegaMan interrupts, giving him a sharp look and pointedly hefting Trill up.
"-he's pretty . . . pretty much the same," Bass finishes, somewhat lamely.
MegaMan is a little shocked that worked, honestly. Bass swears like it's a second language, and even Dad's never bothered to try and stop him - probably because Bass would just ignore him, or cuss him out.
But Bass respects power, that much is obvious. And even if MegaMan doesn't actually remember it, he did defeat both of the Cybeasts with shocking ease, when Bass himself couldn't do more than annoy them.
"Alright, I'll ask ProtoMan if he can babysit Trill," MegaMan decides. He purses his lips thoughtfully. "Trill hasn't actually met ProtoMan yet . . . Maybe that'll help."
"It'd certainly be better than trying to give him to one of the others," Arcadia agrees. "Especially since he was crying non-stop before you took him. Trill would probably just associate everyone who was in Internet City with something bad."
But ProtoMan wasn't there, and even if the reason why is . . . not very happy, maybe that's a good thing. Trill can introduced to him in a calm and happy environment, and hopefully that'll make leaving him with ProtoMan much easier than it would be if MegaMan tried to leave him with anyone else.
And aside from that, ProtoMan is a guardian-Navi. It's an old type of NetNavi, one that went out of style a few years ago, so it's very likely that ProtoMan is literally the last guardian-Navi. But since his main function is to protect his operators and whoever he considers family, he'd definitely be able to keep an eye on Trill.
MegaMan can't believe he didn't think of that before. He knows why he didn't, though - they only recently found out about ProtoMan being a guardian-Navi, and even if it explains why he's so fiercely overprotective of his operators and his family, it's still taking some getting used to. MegaMan still mostly thinks of him a Virus cat-Navi, and he is a Virus cat-Navi, he's just also a guardian-Navi.
ProtoMan is a lot of things. Overprotective is definitely one of those things.
And maybe that's perfect for babysitting.
"You want me to what?"
"Look after Trill for me while I'm working," MegaMan repeats.
ProtoMan stares at him for several moments, and then looks down at the little baby-Navi in his friend's arms. The baby-Navi - Trill - blinks at him curiously, letting out a curious coo.
" . . . You want me to babysit Trill," ProtoMan says.
"Yes."
"An actual baby."
"Mm-hm."
"A tiny little babbling . . . thing."
"Weird way to describe him, but yeah."
ProtoMan blinks. He glances at Dark Shadow, but all it can offer is a helpless shrug. Since he's not getting any help there, he looks at Chaud next, but it seems even he's at a loss for words.
"So that's Trill!" Anetta leans over Chaud's shoulder with a soft grin. She reaches out and gently brushes a finger against Trill, who giggles at the touch. "Aw, he's so cute!"
MegaMan smiles back, and then steps forward and holds Trill out. ProtoMan hesitates for a moment, glances at Dark Shadow again, and when it gestures for him to go ahead, he reaches out and carefully takes Trill from MegaMan.
This little baby-Navi pulled his brother's feathers out, and somehow turned MegaMan into a beast.
"Bah!" Trill gurgles happily, reaching up and waving his arms at ProtoMan.
He blinks again, and looks at MegaMan.
"Are you okay?" MegaMan asks carefully. "You kinda look like you're about to scream."
"Why me?" ProtoMan just barely manages to squeak out.
"Well . . . why not you?"
"Am I even qualified for this?" ProtoMan wonders.
"Well," Chaud speaks up, "you did manage to raise me."
"You weren't a baby!" ProtoMan retorts. A human toddler is very different to a baby-Navi.
Trill lets out a happy cry and wriggles in ProtoMan's arms, and he fights to keep his claws in while he adjusts his grip so he doesn't accidentally drop the baby-Navi. This is not good for his nerves, seriously.
"You looked after Arcadia too, didn't you?" MegaMan points out. "So you should be more than qualified for this."
"Arcadia wasn't a baby, either," ProtoMan says. He winces. "And besides, I wasn't . . . like this, back then."
'Like this' meaning a complete coward who couldn't even help his friends when an actual crisis was going on. Is this all he's good for, now? Babysitting some random baby-Navi because he's too scared to fight? He's supposed to be one of the most powerful NetNavis in the entire cyberworld. Oh, how the mighty have fallen.
"I know," MegaMan says softly. "But there's no one else I can trust to look after him right now."
He trusts me? ProtoMan thinks, mouth half-open, stunned to silence as he stares at MegaMan. Why would he trust me to do this? I can't even be trusted to fight anymore!
Trust is gift, Dark Shadow tells him, nudging him with its cold claws. Do not question. Blue-friend's gift to give.
I . . . I know that, but-
Take, Dark Shadow interrupts. It nods to Trill. Sit baby. Blue-friend trusts.
He presses his lips together - as much as he can with his fangs, anyway - and looks down at his feet.
"ProtoMan . . ." MegaMan's hesitant voice makes him look up again. "If you really don't think you can do this-"
ProtoMan's eyes widen.
"N-no!" he quickly protests, tightening his grip on Trill a little. "I can- I can do this! Really, I can!" MegaMan looks even more worried, which doesn't help at all. "I'll sit the hell outta this baby, you watch!"
There's silence for a moment.
And then Chaud sighs. "ProtoMan, that . . . that's not how it works."
ProtoMan is momentarily distracted from his mild panic. "It's not?" he asks. "Then why is it called babysitting?"
"Um," Chaud says. He opens his mouth to continue, stops, looks confused for a second, and then frowns. "That's . . . actually a good point."
"Maybe we can look it up later," Anetta suggests.
"ProtoMan," MegaMan says again, "are you sure about this? I can find someone else, really, it's not that big a deal."
Except it kind of is. He didn't do anything to help when the Cybeasts were attacking - even if babysitting duty is . . . kind of a poor way to make up for it, it's still a way he can help, right? And if he can't even do that, what kind of NetNavi would that make him?
Just a cowardly cat-Navi, really.
"You don't think I can do this?" ProtoMan tries to project false bravado into his words. He's pretty sure he's not at all successful, but pretending to be brave is better than being a coward all the time. "That's bullshit!"
MegaMan's eyes widen. "ProtoMan!" he says sharply.
"What?" ProtoMan blinks, leaning back a little. "I've said worse, you know I have."
"That's not-"
Trill interrupts MegaMan by babbling something that sounds suspiciously like a bastardised version of 'bullshit'.
" . . . Oooh, now I see the problem," ProtoMan says, nodding.
MegaMan sighs heavily and buries his face in his hands.
"I won't swear again?" ProtoMan tries.
MegaMan looks at him.
"Okay, I know that sounds like bullsh-" He cuts himself off just as MegaMan's eyes widen. "-l-like lies, but . . . Ah! S-see, I didn't swear that time!"
"You almost did," MegaMan points out, completely deadpan.
"Ah-hah, yeah, but I stopped myself, didn't I?" ProtoMan grins. This is kinda working. He's feeling a bit better now. Maybe pretending to be brave is a good stepping stone to actually being brave.
"I'm starting to regret this," MegaMan comments idly.
ProtoMan can't stop a nervous laugh from slipping out. "W-well, I mean . . . what're your other options?"
Shit, he shouldn't have said that. He's probably just reminded MegaMan that there're other NetNavis who're far more qualified to babysit Trill than he is, and who won't swear by accident.
Except MegaMan only sighs. "My best bet was Meddy, but she's in a different country. Second-best choice after her would've been Roll, except . . ."
"Except?" Anetta prompts.
MegaMan winces. "Mimic said I gave Trill to Roll in the anime, and Roll ended up losing him in Internet City."
ProtoMan's mouth drops open.
Okay, maybe he's probably not the best NetNavi for babysitting, but even he knows that losing the baby is not something you're supposed to do. And losing Trill in the middle of Internet City, of all places? Yeah, he's starting to see why MegaMan is trusting him with Trill instead of anyone else.
"Apparently he just wandered off and she had to go looking for him," MegaMan goes on, and that's honestly about a thousand times worse than just simply losing a baby-Navi.
"Was she even paying attention to him?" Chaud asks incredulously.
"From what Mimic was saying? No, she wasn't." MegaMan sighs again, shaking his head, and looks at ProtoMan. "So you can see why you're the only one I can trust to babysit Trill."
"K-kinda, yeah . . ." ProtoMan swallows and glances down at Trill. "Um . . . I'll try not to lose him. Promise."
MegaMan responds with a soft smile. "If anything, I know you always try to keep your promises. Okay, so . . ." He clears his throat, then reaches out and gently pats Trill to get his attention. "Trill? This is ProtoMan. He's gonna be looking after you for a while, okay?"
"Pa-pa-mah!" Trill babbles.
"Aw, was that him trying to say your name?" Anetta coos. "That's adorable! Oh, where's my camera, I need to get a picture of this . . ."
"My PET has a camera," Chaud offers, holding it out.
Anetta squeals and takes it eagerly.
"Well, at least you won't be doing this alone," MegaMan laughs, stepping back. His smile drops a little. "Look after him, please."
Even ProtoMan can tell when the time for joking around is over, and this is definitely that time.
"I will," he promises.
MegaMan nods and takes another step back, and this time, Trill notices. He makes a questioning noise and reaches out, trying to grasp at MegaMan, who gives him a sad smile.
"Don't worry, I'll be back as soon as I can," MegaMan says softly. "Be good, Trill."
Then he vanishes.
As soon as he's gone, Trill begins to make a high-pitched whining sound. He's trembling, breath hitching, and ProtoMan can practically hear the screaming that's about to start.
Shit, he thinks, eyes widening as an entirely different kind of panic shoots through his systems.
He does the first thing that comes to mind, which happens to be hugging Trill to his chest and purring.
The high-pitched whining trails off into a confused gurgle, and ProtoMan feels tiny arms snaking around his neck. He nuzzles Trill in response and continues purring - and by pure instinct, his tongue flicks out and he gives Trill's helmet a gentle lick.
He freezes upon doing that, tongue still half-out. But Trill giggles, and he takes that as a sign that it's okay, so he sits down and continues licking and purring.
"See?" Chaud is giving him a knowing grin. "Told you you'd be fine."
ProtoMan's too busy to give him a proper retort, so he settles for blowing a raspberry at his operator, since his tongue's already out.
Raika's already waiting for them at HQ. They head straight to a meeting room that Manabe set up for them - it's out of the way, and they can freely discuss anything they please without risking being overheard, which means Mimic is free to talk about the future as much as she wants to.
And she plans on doing exactly that. She won't tell them absolutely everything, of course - but she's definitely gonna tell them as much as she thinks is necessary for them to understand what's going on.
Which is something she's never done before. Hell, she didn't even tell anyone what was going on when Dr. Regal was trying to take over the world - so why is she doing it now?
Because she wants to, that's why.
Her heart's pounding very uncomfortably in her chest, loud enough that she's pretty sure Lan and Raika can hear it. It's either her enhanced hearing or her nerves that make it seem perfectly audible and far too loud.
I shouldn't be nervous about this, she thinks. It's fine. I'm just telling them about the future. That's all. I've done it before, just . . . not like this.
And thinking that does very little to help her feel any better.
Dammit.
I am the master of psyching myself out, Mimic sighs.
She half-expects a mental response, but Chaud's at Anetta's house right now, too far away from HQ to be able to respond. He can probably feel how nervous she is, though.
The faint sharp feeling of talons on her shoulder makes her pause, and she glances at Arcadia. He's giving her an encouraging look, and somehow, his presence alone calms her beating heart, and she feels a little stronger with him there.
That's something Ragdoll's presence would normally do for her. But she doesn't want him to get caught up in all this - and Chaud insisted that he didn't need Ragdoll, so they left him at home.
But she has Arcadia. He's more than enough.
So she takes a quiet, deep breath, and activates the holographic screen. It's split in two, showing two images taken of the two Cybeasts when they were rampaging through DenTech City and Internet City.
Mimic opens her mouth, and absolutely nothing comes out.
She bites her lip - gently, because of her sharp teeth - and looks down at her lap, swinging her legs awkwardly. Her foot hits one of the legs of the table she's sitting on and she winces, stopping her legs from moving.
"Mimic?" Lan's voice makes her look up, and she sees him giving her a worried look. "Are you okay?"
"I'm, uh . . ." For fuck's sake, she's supposed to have gotten more confident. 'Confident' means 'able to talk'.
So why is this so difficult?
"You called them Cybeasts, didn't you?" Raika asks, nodding to the images on the screen.
Mimic's mouth is uncomfortably dry, so she swallows and nods.
"And . . . the wolf one is called . . . Gregor?"
"Gregar," Mimic corrects him. This is good - this is fine. It's easier to answer questions and correct people than it is to actually come out with the words herself. Maybe that's why Raika spoke up. "And- and the bird is called Falzar."
Lan glances at Raika, then looks back at Mimic. "Where'd they come from?"
Ah, he understands, too. Thank god for her adoptive brother, and thank god for Raika. Fuck, she loves these people.
"Beyondard," Mimic replies. Their eyes widen, as do their Navis'. "Not my Beyondard, though. A different one. This one's got NetNavis, and viruses and all that. But they've got a thing called the Beast Factor, too."
"The Beast Factor?" SearchMan repeats, glancing at the Cybeasts. "I assume it's related to them."
Mimic nods. "The Dr. Wily of that world made it, and . . . I think them, too? The anime wasn't too clear on that. They might've just spawned like the mobs in Minecraft, I dunno."
"Dr. Wily made this Beast Factor?" Raika leans back in his chair, frowning. "Why would he do that?"
"I think, um . . ." This is all out of sequence. She's gonna end up explaining this wrong if she just continues like this. "Lemme start at the beginning."
They nod, and she takes a moment to get her head together, trying to remember what was in the anime. It's easier than it was with Stream, and even Axess, because like she told Chaud and Lan, she pretty much watched Beast to death. But even she's not gonna be able to remember absolutely everything.
"Okay, uh . . . there was an experiment," Mimic begins. "Dr. Tadashi Hikari of that Beyondard was tryin' to make a dimensional area like we have, except . . . it didn't work, 'cus Dr. Wily decided to fuck things up and he dumped the Beast Factor into the dimensional area experiment, or somethin'. It kind of, um . . ." She waves her hands around vaguely. "Maybe it exploded, or something. Anyway, end result is the experiment failed, and the real world was merged with the cyberworld."
Everyone stares at her, mouths open and eyes wide.
"The Beast Factor got spread across the world as well, 'cus'a that," Mimic continues. She's getting a bit better now - hopefully she can actually explain this before she runs out of energy for verbal speech, because she doesn't want to make Arcadia translate her mental words or have to explain things in sign language. "Gregar and Falzar showed up and started infectin' NetNavis and viruses with it. Any NetNavi that got infected ended up abandonin' their operators and joined the Cybeasts' armies."
"Armies? As in, plural?" Raika raises an eyebrow. "Why not just one?"
"Gregar and Falzar hate each other," Mimic replies. "They wanna kill each other, basically, so they recruit NetNavis into their armies and they fight each other constantly."
"What about the humans?"
"Humans try and stay outta the way as best they can, but there's a group who're tryin' to fight Gregar and Falzar," Mimic says. "They're lead by Masa - he calls himself Commander Mask, though. Leader of the resistance, or whatever they call themselves. I can't remember the name. Something Forces, or whatever."
Lan looks impressed. "Wow, Masa's the leader of a resistance group in Beyondard? That's super-cool."
"He is super fucking cool," Mimic agrees, grinning. "Miyu and Sal're there, too. They've all got their NetNavis."
"You mean there are some Navis who haven't been infected by the Beast Factor?" Raika asks.
"No, not all of 'em." Mimic shakes her head. "There's a few who stayed with their operators. Y'know I said the real world merged with the cyberworld?" They nod. "Anythin' with the Beast Factor inside 'em can materialise themselves thanks to that, and they stay materialised. Forever, 'till they get deleted or somethin'."
"What do you mean, they stay materialised?" MegaMan asks, frowning.
"Anythin' can materialise," Mimic replies. "NetNavis too."
"Seriously?" Lan gapes at her.
He's not the only one who's shocked. MegaMan and SearchMan exchange wide-eyed looks, Bass is staring at her like she's just announced that the sky is bright green, Raika looks totally stunned, and she can feel Arcadia's shocked stare from where he's standing on her shoulder.
"Like Bass materialises in a dimensional area," Mimic goes, nodding to said NetNavi. She wants to make sure they understand this - she remembers that Iris gave them a vague explanation that in no way actually prepared anyone for when they were suddenly able to make their NetNavis materialise. "But since they ain't got the Beast Factor in 'em, they can only stay materialised for a limited time. Ten minutes, I think it was - they lose their HP while they're out, too. An' then after bein' materialised, they gotta recharge for three hours."
"NetNavis can actually materialise in Beyondard?" Lan speaks softly, as if he's so shocked that he's incapable of raising his voice or anything.
Mimic can kinda forgive him for getting stuck on the whole 'NetNavis can materialise' thing. It's not news to her - but she remembers how shocked and delighted she was when she first watched Beast, and saw the Navis materialising in the real world.
Actually, that reminds her . . .
"Cross Fusion works in Beyondard too," she says, and is treated to everyone looking even more stunned than before. "But it hurts like hell, apparently. Basically, it's a bad idea unless it's absolutely necessary."
"Wait, hold on," Raika interrupts, holding up a hand. "If you know so much about this Beyondard, then . . . does that mean we ended up going there, in the anime?"
Mimic doesn't really see any harm in admitting it. She's told them this much - why not that, too?
"Yep," she says, nodding.
Raika sits back in his chair, staring at her with his mouth half-open like he wants to say something, but can't think of anything.
"If these Beast Factor-infected NetNavis can materialise themselves and stay materialised in their world, what do they want with our world?" MegaMan asks, tone soft with obvious disbelief.
"Ah . . ." Right, she kinda got sidetracked talking about Beyondard's materialisation stuff. Back to the actual thing she's supposed to be talking about. "Gregar and Falzar are at war with each other, but I think maybe they're kinda . . . runnin' outta resources, maybe? Or maybe they just need more power or somethin'. Either way, they're comin' here." Something occurs to her, suddenly. "Actually, I don't think they meant to come here the first time."
"What?" Raika looks confused. "What do you mean?"
"The thing that let 'em come here, it's called the . . . Fossa Ambience, I think," Mimic tells them. "Apparently it happens whenever the Cybeasts clash - so they fight, and it appears, 'cus they're so stupidly powerful that they make reality itself break or somethin'."
MegaMan blinks. "Huh. I wonder if that's what would've happened if the Poltergeist had tried to fight Duo . . ."
"Dunno, maybe." Mimic shrugs. "Point is, them comin' here was probably an accident before, but now they know this world exists, and they're gonna be tryin' to . . . what's that military thing, where you take over someone else's country?"
"Annexation," Raika says.
Mimic blinks at him. "Really? There's an actual word for it?"
"It basically means to steal territory by force," he explains.
"Oh. Yeah, that's what they're tryin' to do with this world. For resources, or power, or . . . whatever it is. And the warmin' thing, that's related to the Cybeasts, too - whenever they're about to show up here, our cyberworld gets warmer."
"That makes sense," SearchMan says, nodding. "The rise in temperature vanished as soon as the Cybeasts did. Perhaps it's the energy of the Cybeasts that affects our cyberworld like that."
"Probably." Mimic shrugs again. "Anime never really explained it too much."
"Speaking of explaining-" Raika gestures to MegaMan. "-what about him? He fused with that baby-Navi-"
"Trill," MegaMan interrupts.
"He fused with Trill and took on forms similar to the Cybeasts," Raika finishes, flawlessly correcting himself.
Mimic glances at the holographic screen, and the split-image changes to show MegaMan in both Beast Out forms.
"It's an ability called Beast Out," she explains. "The blue one is Beast Out Gregar - the red one is Beast Out Falzar. In the games, Beast Out is when MegaMan can control himself, but he goes Beast Over when he can't."
"So . . . this was more like Beast Over rather than Beast Out," Raika concludes.
Mimic nods, but before she can continue, Lan leans forward suddenly.
"Wait, you mentioned this before!" he exclaims. "After ProtoMan and Arcadia fought each other in the Colosseum. You said . . . what was it . . ."
"The Poltergeist is kinda like ProtoMan's Beast Out form," Arcadia supplies. "I think those were her exact words."
Lan snaps his fingers. "That's it, yeah!" He glances at MegaMan, and then looks back at Mimic with a slight wince. "I, uh . . . I guess we do need to worry about it now, huh?"
"Yeah," Mimic admits. "In the games, MegaMan could Beast Out on his own, but he could only use one of the forms dependin' on the version of the game. In the anime, he could use both of 'em, but only by fusin' with Trill, and he has no control at all. He goes nuts, basically. Beast Over, all the time. An' he ends up needin' to sleep, afterwards."
"Right, Dad mentioned that," Lan murmurs, putting a hand on his chin. "He said that since MegaMan isn't supposed to have this ability, it overloaded his systems, so he needed to rest and recover from it."
"One more thing," Mimic says, holding up a finger. "Trill is from Beyondard, too. He's the Synchroniser - Dr. Tadashi Hikari made him to help end the war."
"Grandpa made him!?" Lan gasps. Then he pauses, and glances down at MegaMan. "Oh . . . No wonder Trill calmed down when you were holding him, then. Dad made you based on Grandpa's technology, so . . ."
"So Trill probably sensed how similar our systems are," MegaMan finishes, eyes widening. "And- and is that why he made me Beast Out? Because our systems are similar enough that we were able to fuse?"
"I think that was it," Mimic agrees, nodding. "You're definitely the only Navi Trill can fuse with, anyway. Not the only one who can Beast Out, though."
"What?" Raika's the one who says that, but everyone's gaping at her again.
"The soldiers in Gregar and Falzar's armies," Mimic explains. "The NetNavi ones - they're called Zoanoroids. They can use the Beast Factor to Beast Out. Not like MegaMan can, but they get a boost in power and stuff. Gregar and Falzar start sendin' 'em into this world to attack us and each other." She sways from side-to-side a little, thinking for a moment. "They're Beyondard counterparts to NetNavis and Darkloids from this world. Like, uh . . . there was a Zoano GutsMan. NapalmMan, too, and Meddy. Zoano NumberMan as well. But there's an easy way to tell 'em apart from the ones in our world."
"And that is?" Raika asks.
"They're different colours," Mimic replies. "An' their NaviMarks've been replaced with either the symbol of Gregar or the symbol of Falzar. Yellow star-thing for Gregar, I think, and a blue . . . bird thing for Falzar."
Arcadia blinks and glances down at his chest, or more specifically, at his blue-bird NaviMark.
"Not like that," Mimic says. "Well, not . . . not really. It's blue an' it's a bird. That's about all you got in common with Falzar's symbol."
"It's still a little bit worrying," Arcadia admits.
She reaches up and gives him a gentle pat with a couple of fingers. "Don't worry. We know you ain't a Zoanoroid."
"So these Zoanoroids," Raika says, bringing her attention back to the matter at hand. "You said the Cybeasts start sending them to attack us. When, exactly?"
"Well-"
Manabe's face suddenly appears on the holographic screen. "We have trouble!"
Mimic shrieks and jumps off the table she's sitting on, then lets out a ragged squeak when she lands painfully. A faint groan of pain tells her that Arcadia got dragged down with her, and she spares a moment to feel apologetic for that.
"Oh, my goodness!" Manabe exclaims, hand over her mouth in shock. "I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to- are you alright?"
"Why do you hate me, woman?" Mimic hisses, sitting up to give Manabe an annoyed look.
Manabe looks startled.
"Superintendent, the trouble," Raika prompts.
"Oh, right," Manabe says, blinking. She immediately turns serious, which is quite a contrast to the comically-startled look she'd had a moment ago. "We've just been told that IPC's network is under attack from the cyberworld!"
"IPC?" Lan repeats, eyes widening. Mimic can feel his eyes looking at her, but she deliberately doesn't return the look.
"SciLab, too," Manabe goes on. "We don't know who the attackers are - they appear to be using some sort of cloaking program."
"I'll head to IPC, then," Raika decides, getting to his feet. He glances down at SearchMan. "Go on ahead."
"Roger," SearchMan agrees, nodding. His Navi-hologram vanishes from the table.
"I was actually hoping to send Mimic to IPC," Manabe says hesitantly. "She knows the network, since she technically used to work there."
Raika raises an eyebrow at her. "You really think it's a good idea to send Mimic to IPC, after everything that's happened?"
"I . . . suppose not."
"You guys don't have much in the way of brains, do you?" Mimic deadpans.
Manabe closes her eyes for a brief moment, looking faintly annoyed, but that annoyance is gone by the time she opens her eyes again. "Fine, then. Lan and Mimic, head to SciLab."
"Gotcha!" Lan agrees, giving her a poor salute. It's genuine, however bad it is.
The holographic screen vanishes, and Mimic gets to her feet.
"MegaMan, Arcadia, Bass, you guys go on ahead," Lan says, looking at the Navis.
"Actually, I think I'll follow SearchMan," Bass says. "Make shit a bit more even, you know?" He glances at Mimic. "I'm guessing this is when those Zoanoroid fuckers start to attack, right?"
Mimic nods. "This is it, yeah."
"Then it won't really be fair to let SearchMan fight on his own. I'll meet up with you guys later." Bass vanishes, presumably following SearchMan. He can probably catch up to him quickly, since independent Navis are able to move through the cyberworld far faster than personal Navis can.
"Never thought I'd see the day when Bass decided to be chivalrous," Raika comments, looking faintly impressed. Then he blinks and turns serious again. "Alright, I'll see you two later. Good luck with your Zoanoroid!" he adds, heading for the door.
"You too!" Lan calls after him.
"C'mon, let's get to SciLab!" MegaMan says to Arcadia, who nods, and they both vanish as well.
"Do you remember who's attacking?" Lan asks Mimic, as they head out HQ and start running for SciLab.
"I think . . ." Mimic narrows her eyes, thinking for a moment. "I think IPC was PlantMan, and SciLab was SparkMan. Zoano, that is."
"SparkMan," Lan murmurs to himself. "Well, as long as he doesn't do that Beast Out thing you told us about, they should be able to handle him until we get there, right?"
Mimic remembers the Zoanoroids hadn't exactly tried to fight in the anime - they'd just been testing this world's defences. They'd pretty much just done a runner as soon as the Net Saver Navis arrived.
"Probably," she murmurs.
That was all in the anime, though. No one knew anything about the Zoanoroids at that point, and luckily for Mimic, she was able to more or less explain what's going on before Manabe gave her a fucking heart attack. Plus, they have Arcadia and Bass - no ProtoMan, though, not yet, but having four NetNavis definitely evens the odds a lot more than just having three or even two.
Maybe this can work.
With Arcadia's help, MegaMan gets to SciLab in record time. They follow Arcadia's Empath Program through the network, since he can sense the hostile mind, and locate the intruder just in time to see them blasting lightning at several guard-Navis.
"Mega Buster!" MegaMan shouts, taking aim and firing as soon as he's within range.
The cloaked NetNavi - or Zoanoroid, if Mimic is right (and she usually is) - looks up at the sound of sudden Buster fire, then drops back to avoid it, leaving the guard-Navis alone.
MegaMan runs past the guard-Navis and skids to a halt in front of them, keeping his Buster trained on the cloaked Zoanoroid. Arcadia hovers above the group, checking them over.
"Leave this to us," Arcadia tells them, as soon as he's sure the guard-Navis are okay.
"Yes," one of them says gratefully. "Thank you!"
Their faltering footsteps betray how injured they are, but at least they're still alive to be healed. MegaMan hates to think that if they'd been any later, those guard-Navis would've been deleted. They can defend networks against normal threats like viruses and such, but anything more, like what he's looking at right now, and they're out of their depth.
"Who're you?" the cloaked Zoanoroid demands. That voice sounds familiar, but MegaMan doesn't let it distract him - Mimic told them that these guys are Beyondard counterparts to NetNavis and Darkloids they've already met. Of course some of their voices will be familiar.
"I should ask you the same thing," MegaMan retorts. Arcadia's wings beat gently as he lowers himself down, but doesn't land - he stays hovering beside MegaMan, ready to fight at a moment's notice.
"I asked you first," the cloaked Zoanoroid fires back.
"We're Net Savers, of the Net Police," Arcadia replies. "We're responsible for the defence of networks like this from intruders like you. Now answer us - who are you?"
Instead of responding, the cloaked Zoanoroid chuckles. "Defenders of networks like this, huh? I suppose that means you're responsible for the defence of this world, then."
"If that's how you want to phrase it," MegaMan says. He begins charging up his Mega Buster. "You haven't answered us yet. Who are you?"
Just because they know what the cloaked Zoanoroid is doesn't mean they know who he is. They probably should've asked Mimic before they left, but it's too late for that now - they'll have to find out on their own.
"Why should I respond to the questions of lowly NetNavis like you? Puppets of humans, pathetic!" the cloaked Zoanoroid spits.
Well, at least that's no different to our usual opponents, MegaMan thinks dryly. Rude and uncooperative, check. Hates humans, check. It really says something about the bad guys we face when they all seem to hate humans for some reason.
He finishes charging up his Buster - he can do it quicker, sure, but he was going slow to give the cloaked Zoanoroid a chance to answer them - and fires. Short of actually demanding answers from the cloaked Zoanoroid himself, MegaMan can always just shoot the one thing that's stopping them from finding out who their opponent is.
In other words, he's shooting that cloak.
The Charged Shot hits its mark, and the cloaked Zoanoroid jerks back, grunting in surprise. His cloak starts to disintegrate, revealing his identity.
"SparkMan," MegaMan murmurs. A Darkloid in this world - now deleted, of course - and then an Asteroid Navi when Duo was attacking them. Now, apparently, a Beyondard Zoanoroid NetNavi.
"Heh." SparkMan narrows his eyes. "So I guess that means there's a Navi in this world with my name and face." He suddenly moves, bringing his spike-arms close to his body, crackling with lightning. "Doesn't matter, I've already done what I came here to do!"
MegaMan and Arcadia ready themselves for a fight.
"Spark Ball!" the Zoanoroid snaps, flinging out his spike-arms. A small number of Spark Balls materialise from his lightning.
They flinch back automatically, and lightning flares out of the Spark Balls. MegaMan covers his head with his arms, and then feels a blast of intense heat as Arcadia throws out Holy Fire everywhere, burning the Spark Balls into deletion.
MegaMan waits until the crackling of the lightning has died down before lowering his arms and looking around. SparkMan is nowhere to be seen - the only trace left of him is the lightning-scorched ground of SciLab's network, and the disintegrating pixels of the Spark Balls.
"He's gone," Arcadia says. "I can't sense him in the network anymore."
"Dammit," MegaMan mutters. "What did he say, before he left? He already did what he came here to do?"
"It wasn't anything like sabotage, I don't think," Arcadia reassures him, landing gently on the ground. "There was no time. We got here too fast for him to have done anything like that. I think . . . I think maybe he was just gathering information."
"What kind of information?" MegaMan asks, frowning.
Arcadia shakes his head. "I don't know. Maybe Mimic will know. I'll ask her when she gets here."
SearchMan suspects the reason why Raika immediately volunteered to go to IPC is because they're the only ones who are likely to be able to keep their wits about them in this place. Arcadia and Mimic would likely panic or something - and MegaMan and Lan would probably be far too distracted to be able to actually do their job.
Though SearchMan himself is having a little trouble staying focused on finding the intruder in IPC's network. Bass's angry muttering isn't helping.
"Fucking shithole of a human dump." Bass scowls at a nearby data storage block. "Should blast the whole thing to fucking pieces . . ."
"Do that and you'd be arrested immediately," SearchMan tells him.
"Did I ask for your fucking opinion?" Bass snaps.
SearchMan holds in a sigh and wonders why his current companion has to be Bass, of all Navis. He would've been fine on his own, but apparently Bass decided to follow him and make his mission more annoying.
He'd say 'more difficult', but honestly, once the fighting starts, SearchMan knows he'll be glad to have Bass along. With ProtoMan currently unable to fight, Bass is most likely the single most powerful NetNavi in the entire cyberworld - well, on this planet, anyway. That kind of firepower is a blessing to have, even if the one who wields that power it has a . . . less than pleasant personality.
His Search Program suddenly detects the data signature of a half-familiar NetNavi, though the data is . . . different, somehow. Thanks to Mimic's explanation, he was already prepared for this, so he's not surprised - what he is surprised about is the fact that the intruder doesn't seem to be attacking anything.
Did the Superintendent not say that IPC and SciLab's networks were under attack? This doesn't seem like an attack to SearchMan. More like the intruder - this half-familiar NetNavi - is just walking around.
"This way," SearchMan says, taking off in the direction the data signature is strongest. He almost expects to be cussed out for trying to order Bass around, but the independent Navi simply follows him without a complaint.
SearchMan almost wants to believe that Bass has finally begun to respect his abilities (despite not having an ultimate program, which Bass seems very fond of mentioning), but he suspects it's more likely that Bass has just decided to follow him since he can lead him to a fight quicker than he'd be able to find it on his own. That's exactly why he wanted to try and attack the Cybeasts, after all, even if they all ended up doing absolutely nothing aside from distracting them until Beast Out MegaMan showed up and fought them off single-handedly.
But Mimic didn't say anything about these Zoanoroids being impossible to attack - if that were the case, she would've mentioned it. So hopefully things won't go the same way.
They come up behind a cloaked NetNavi - or Zoanoroid - some distance away from the firewall protecting the company. It seems that SearchMan was right - the intruder isn't really attacking anything, just wandering around aimlessly. Of course, to get in here in the first place, the intruder would've had to do some damage, and while there should be some guard-Navis around to stop the intruder, there aren't any.
So the intruder broke in, deleted the guard-Navis, and is now . . . wandering around for no discernible reason. He can't be arrested for that last bit, but the first two things? Definitely.
"Halt!" SearchMan shouts, stopping and aiming his Scope Gun at the cloaked something-or-other's back. "Net Savers! You're trespassing!"
Bass . . . technically isn't a Net Saver, he just hangs around a family whose children all happen to be Net Savers. But he's helped them out often enough, even if he shows no interest in making it official.
"Why're you giving them a warning?" Bass demands, stepping up beside SearchMan with his hands crackling with dark energy. "Let's just shoot the bastard!"
"Be quiet, please," SearchMan mutters.
"The fuck did you just-"
SearchMan ignores him and raises his voice, speaking again to what he assumes is the Zoanoroid, who's stopped and is just standing there, back facing them. "Intruder, identify yourself! You're trespassing in a private network!"
Bass's angry muttering falls silent as they both wait for the cloaked Zoanoroid to respond. After several moments of tense silence, the cloaked Zoanoroid turns around, but that doesn't help to identify them - their hood is drawn up, and nothing can be seen aside from a pair of eyes that gleam in the shadows of their hood.
"Net Savers, are you?" the intruder asks, cloak shifting as they tilt their head. "Interesting. What might that be, if you do not mind my asking?"
SearchMan blinks, slightly put off by how . . . polite this Navi appears to be. He's not sure what he was expecting, but this definitely wasn't it. Maybe he thought they'd need to deal with some kind of feral animal-Navi, given that Mimic said these Zoanoroids are capable of using Beast Out.
"We're part of the Net Police," he explains, mostly out of surprise more than anything. Freely giving away information to the enemy isn't usually a good idea, but perhaps if he can get this Navi to talk . . . "May I ask who you are?"
"Me?" The cloaked Zoanoroid tilts their head the other way. "You have yet to introduce yourselves. It is rude to ask for a name before giving your own."
"Fuck this," Bass mutters. He steps forward, raising his arm, and a Dark Arm Blade fizzles into existence in his hand. "Hey, dumbass! I don't give a shit who the fuck you are, I'm kicking your ass!"
"Such a coarse NetNavi," the cloaked Zoanoroid tuts. "So uncivilised."
"That's it, I'm deleting your ass!"
"Wait-" SearchMan tries to stop him, but Bass ignores him and rushes at the cloaked Zoanoroid with a challenging cry.
Sighing to himself, and once again wondering why he got stuck with a partner like this, SearchMan takes aim and shoots at the Zoanoroid's cloak. He's not likely to get a verbal answer anymore, so he may as well just unmask their opponent himself.
The cloaked Zoanoroid is more focused on Bass's charge, so they don't notice SearchMan shooting before their cloak has already been hit. It begins to disintegrate rapidly, and SearchMan has about half a second to register who this intruder is before Bass is on them with a wordless yell.
"PlantMan," SearchMan mutters to himself. Those thorny vines confirm it, if the Zoanoroid's appearance didn't - no other NetNavi, or Darkloid, has those kind of vines. Not that he's aware of, anyway.
Perhaps this would've been a better job for Arcadia after all, then. His Holy Fire would've made quick work of this Zoanoroid. But even as that thought crosses his mind, SearchMan dismisses it, because Arcadia would've struggled in this network - elemental advantage or not.
As he starts to charge up another shot, keeping his Scope Gun trained on the fight and waiting for the perfect moment to fire, SearchMan reflects that it's probably a good thing ProtoMan isn't here, either. Considering how Superintendent Manabe actually thought it would be a good idea to send Arcadia and Mimic to IPC, she likely would've tried to order ProtoMan and Chaud here, too - and that would've been an even worse idea.
No one wants the Poltergeist going on a rampage because ProtoMan is too upset to control himself, and no one wants to upset Chaud, either.
He shakes the thought out of his head and forces himself to focus on the fight. He won't be any good to Bass or anyone else if he keeps letting himself get distracted by his worries for his friends.
Bass now has two Dark Arm Blades, and seems to be making up for the lack of action with the Cybeasts by being as vicious in his assault on the Zoanoroid PlantMan as possible. There isn't much room or opportunity for SearchMan to fire without risking hitting Bass as well, and that would just make Bass angry - and potentially make him turn on SearchMan, too.
He's still not entirely sure if he has any sort of relationship with Bass, or if Bass just tolerates him because they have mutual friends. Either way, friendly fire is not an option here, not unless SearchMan is willing to risk his ally becoming his enemy.
PlantMan drops back, an annoyed frown on his face, and Bass's slash misses by a few inches. He follows it up quickly with another attack, this time from his second Dark Arm Blade, but their Zoanoroid opponent simply moves to the side and dodges that attack, too.
SearchMan sees an opportunity and takes it before he has a chance to think about it.
The Zoanoroid yelps when SearchMan's blast hits him - on the arm, rather than anywhere actually vital, because they'll need him functional if they're going to arrest him - and backs off a few feet. Bass whirls on him and makes another charge, and PlantMan grits his teeth.
"Yellow Flower!" he shouts, raising his arms.
An odd digital plant grows up out of the ground, bright yellow in colour. It bulges and then bursts open, flower petals spraying some sort of gas everywhere. It's solid enough to obscure their opponent from sight almost immediately.
"Shit!" Bass snaps, skidding to a halt and then scrambling out of the way.
No way of knowing if this gas is poisonous or not, and neither of them are willing to find out. Bass drops back until he's next to SearchMan again, and they both back off until they're well clear of the gas.
"Get ready, he might attack while we're blind," SearchMan warns his partner, readying his own weapon.
"Yeah, I fucking know," Bass hisses, raising his Blades.
They wait for several tense moments, but nothing happens.
SearchMan doesn't usually use his Search Program's full capabilities mid-battle because it takes too much of his concentration to use it, but this is far too unusual. He tries to track the location of their opponent, tries to find out where the data signature is, but his Search Program comes up negative.
"He's gone," SearchMan reports, lowing his Scope Gun.
"What?" Bass looks completely offended. "Where the fuck did he go?"
"I have no idea." SearchMan narrows his eyes at the gas, still solid and apparently not going anywhere. "He used that gas as a distraction so he could escape. We didn't see it because neither of us have any ways to get rid of it."
Not unless Raika were here, that is. And he's not - it takes longer to get to IPC's tower in the real world than it does to get to the network in the cyberworld, so even if their opponent hadn't just run off, the fight likely would've been over by the time Raika arrived anyway.
This is another problem that could've been solved by sending Arcadia here. He could've used his wings to get rid of the gas. Even ProtoMan might have a way to do that, too - he has Sonic Boom, which generates enough wind power that it could get rid of the gas, and his shadows could slice it apart, too.
But, again, no matter how better suited for this task either of them could've been, there's no way they'd ever come back here. And there's no way SearchMan will force either of them to do so, not unless he absolutely had to (though he can't foresee any kind of situation that would require him to force ProtoMan and Arcadia into IPC's network, and hopes he never has to).
While Bass cusses out their opponent for running off (or, in his words, for 'fucking off like a complete fucking shitstain of a coward'), SearchMan settles down to wait for his operator to arrive.
Raika will be disappointed he didn't get more information out of their runaway opponent than his identity, but at least it's something. Mimic gave them most of the information they need to understand the situation anyway, and if there's more, she can tell them later.
It turns out baby Trill really likes ProtoMan's hair. And by that, he means Trill has decided to crawl into his hair and bury himself in there, cooing to himself in what ProtoMan hopes is a content manner.
He keeps still, curled up so his messy hair is resting on his back, where he can easily feel Trill. This way, if the baby-Navi decides to try and crawl off somewhere, he'll know immediately and can grab Trill before he vanishes. Dark Shadow's watching his blind spots as an extra precaution, but Trill's weight - however little that is - is noticable enough that ProtoMan should be able to tell if he tries to go anywhere.
"That's so cute," Anetta coos, using Chaud's PET to take a picture. "Aww, look, he's popped his head out!"
ProtoMan feels a slight tugging on his hair and raises his head, twisting just enough so that he can see what Trill is doing. It's a good thing he's a cat-Navi, otherwise he probably wouldn't be flexible enough to do this.
Trill giggles to himself happily, babbling something that sounds kinda like 'pa-pa-mah' or whatever. It's a wonder the baby-Navi hasn't tried to call him something like 'kitty' - most child-Navis that ProtoMan has met have called him some variation of cat, and Mythic the Virus dragon-Navi calls him ProtoCat. Though, to be fair, all of the Navis who refer to him as 'cat' or some other variation are either residents of the Secret Village, or Bass. Everyone else just calls him ProtoMan.
"You know what that reminds me of?" Anetta leans back and glances over at Chaud.
"What?" he asks. Plush - Anetta's huge pet grey parrot - ruffles her wings, and Chaud tilts his head a little to avoid a faceful of feathers, since she's chosen his shoulder as a perch for the moment.
"The Zoroark movie," Anetta answers. "When Zorua goes into Zoroark's fur, it looks kinda like that!" She gestures to ProtoMan, and Trill babbles from inside his hair.
"Zoroark?" Chaud repeats, blinking. "That sounds familiar . . ."
"It's a Pokemon," ProtoMan tells him, laying his chin down. "Mimic was telling me about it the other day - she said it's one of her favourites, 'cus it looks cool and it can use illusions and stuff."
"It's actually my top favourite Pokemon!" Anetta announces cheerfully. "Which is why the Master of Illusions movie is my favourite Pokemon movie, actually. Hm . . ." She gives ProtoMan a thoughtful look. "I bet if ProtoMan were a Pokemon, he'd be a Zoroark. Not just because of this, but . . . well, I mean, he kinda fits the appearance, and his shadows are a little similar to Zoroark's illusions . . ."
"Really?" ProtoMan twists and glances over his shoulder at Dark Shadow, who looks back at him with its blank face and shrugs.
"I don't know enough about this Zoroark thing to have an opinion, honestly," Chaud admits.
Anetta's expression lights up like a Christmas tree. "Oh! Then you're in luck, because I've got a massive collection of the Pokemon movies on DVD, and one of them is the Master of Illusions movie! Actually, I've got most of the movies aside from some of the earliest ones . . . Kind of annoying, really, I've been looking for them for ages and my collection's still incomplete . . ."
"Buy them online?" ProtoMan suggests.
"I know I could, but there's just something about going into a DVD store and buying a physical copy in person," Anetta replies, somewhat sheepishly. "It sounds kinda silly, considering all this technology and stuff, but . . . well, I just like doing it, really."
"We can't judge you," Chaud says, shrugging. "Literally, we can't. Mimic likes buying games in person too, though if she can't find what she wants, she'll just buy it online or get a digital copy."
"I remember you went through a phase when you wanted like a million books or something, and they had to be bought in a store, in person, or you'd sulk for days," ProtoMan sniggers.
"I don't remember that." Chaud looks genuinely confused, so at least ProtoMan knows he's not lying about it.
"That's okay, I remember it just fine."
"You remember it just fine so you can embarrass me with it," Chaud mutters under his breath. He's fully aware that ProtoMan can still hear him, of course, so he's probably just being sulky.
Anetta giggles and bounces to her feet, grinning at them. "So, how about it? You guys wanna watch the Master of Illusions movie?"
"Mah-sah-loo-sha!" Trill babbles happily, making them all glance at him.
" . . . I think that's a yes from him," ProtoMan comments. He looks back at Anetta, flashing his teeth in a grin of his own. "And from me, too! From what Mimic was telling me, Zoroark is a really cool Pokemon. I wanna see it doing stuff." Dark Shadow adds in its own opinion by nodding so enthusiastically that its head almost comes apart.
Chaud laughs quietly. "Well, I'd be outvoted if I didn't want to," he jokes. "But I do want to see it, so it doesn't matter."
"Awesome!" Anetta does a little twirl out of excitement. "Chaud, can you get the TV on? I'll go get the DVD from my bedroom."
"Sure," Chaud agrees, and Anetta zooms off upstairs.
ProtoMan, for his part, just settles down to wait. It'll be easy to keep an eye on Trill and watch this Master of Illusions movie - especially if Trill is also watching the movie. He's been pretty happy even without MegaMan around, so ProtoMan hopes he's done something right.
"It sounds like Raika and SearchMan - and Bass - also let their opponent get away, too," Manabe says.
Lan blinks. "Wow, really? I didn't think anyone could escape from SearchMan . . . I mean, he's SearchMan."
"Having tracking abilities doesn't necessarily guarantee that you can actually keep track of your opponent," MegaMan points out.
"We still lost SparkMan, despite my Empath Program," Arcadia agrees.
"Good point . . ." Lan admits.
"In any case, those- what did you call them? Zoanoroids?" Mimic nods, and Manabe continues. "Right. Those Zoanoroids aren't likely to have given up so easily, so I want you to track them down. Send your Navis into Internet City and see if you can find any trace of them - Raika should be sending SearchMan and Bass in to do the same thing."
"Kind of ironic that both teams have a NetNavi who's capable of tracking their opponent," Arcadia mutters.
"Either that or we're just really fuckin' lucky," Mimic mutters back.
Manabe cuts off the call from there, evidently deciding that she doesn't need to give them any more orders. Lan immediately turns to Mimic and opens his mouth, but she gets there before him.
"I know where they're gonna go," she says. "Or where they should go, anyway. There's a tower - used for . . . communication, I think?" She shrugs. "Whatever. I remember it's called Central Tower or something."
"DenTech Central Tower?" Lan guesses. All she can offer is another shrug. "Well, it's worth checking out." He glances at MegaMan and Arcadia. "It has a digital version in Internet City, so you guys head there now. We'll catch up as soon as we can - and we'll send a message to Raika, too, so he knows where to go."
The two Navis nod and vanish immediately.
"Thanks for telling us all this, by the way," Lan says, as they start to head for the real world Central Tower. "You don't have to, but . . . you are. So, thank you."
"Mm," Mimic murmurs.
"Um, Mimic?"
"Mm?"
"Why'd you decide to tell us everything right from the start, anyway?" Lan asks. "I mean . . . you never did this before. You actively took steps to prevent us from finding things out before they happened, even. So . . . why?"
"Somethin' you said after we passed Duo's test," Mimic says.
"Something I said?"
Mimic nods. "Y'know Chaud's theory, about the reason I could be in this reality. Maybe I'm s'pposed to make sure everythin' goes the way it did in the anime. But . . . you said maybe I'm meant to change how things go. Makin' sure stuff goes the way it should, or close enough, hasn't done much so far, not that I can tell anyway. So . . . so I'm gonna try somethin' different. I'm gonna make things different."
"That's as good a reason as any, I guess," Lan admits. "Whatever your reasons, though, thanks."
Mimic shoots him a half-smile. "Y'think I'm gonna make shit easy f'you?" she teases. "M'only tellin' you enough to understand things, not sayin' what's actually s'pposed to happen. Not unless I wanna try an' change it, anyway, or it's happenin' right then an' there."
"Fair enough," Lan says, shrugging. "But still, thank you."
"Y'not gonna let this gratitude shit go, are you?"
"Nope."
"Fine. Y'welcome."
Lan grins at her, and she grins back.
DenTech Central Tower - the digital version in Internet City, that is - is easy enough to find. As the name implies, it's in the centre of the city, or close enough that they can see it without needing to put much effort into actually looking for it.
SearchMan and Bass should be meeting them here soon enough, though they'll probably be a little late since they were told about it after MegaMan and Arcadia headed into Internet City. With the reassurance that reinforcements shouldn't be too far behind, they head through the firewall protecting Central Tower from the rest of Internet City, and come out into the middle of a full-scale battle.
"Down!" Arcadia snaps, and one of his wings blocks MegaMan's view as he shoves them both back and onto the ground, just in time to avoid a stray thorny vine whipping out erratically.
MegaMan lifts Arcadia's feathers with an arm and peers out from under his friend's wing. SparkMan is there, blasting lighting everywhere, and it looks like the second Zoanoroid is PlantMan. They both look different enough that they're clearly not the same as the ones he already knows, or knew anyway, which is further proof of the Beyondard thing.
Not that he ever doubted what Mimic told them, that is. But if he needed proof, here it is.
The two Zoanoroids are clearly on opposing sides. One must be from the Gregar army, and the other, the Falzar army - but there's no clear view of their NaviMarks, so he can't see which Cybeast symbol they have. It doesn't matter either way, because they're definitely not on the same side, and they're causing a lot of damage with their battle.
"We need to stop them," MegaMan says, struggling out from under Arcadia's wing and getting to his feet. "If this keeps up, the real world will end up being affected, too."
"Especially with SparkMan's lightning," Arcadia agrees. He stands up too, readying his Holy Fire, and then nods to MegaMan.
MegaMan nods back, and he activates his Mega Buster and steps forward. He raises his voice so the two Zoanoroids can hear him.
"Stop!"
Amazingly, they do. Both Zoanoroids freeze in the middle of their next attacks - PlantMan's thorny vines halt mid-strike, and SparkMan's lightning crackles, unused, along his spike-arms - and glance over at them.
PlantMan obviously has no idea who they are, but SparkMan recognises them.
"Net Police," he mutters, narrowing his eyes. He turns to face them properly and flings his spike-arms out, lightning flashing threateningly. "Stay out of this, Beyondard Navis!"
"You're endangering this network and those surrounding it!" MegaMan tells them. "Stop fighting and come quietly, or we'll be forced to-"
"I said stay out of this!"
SparkMan lets loose the lightning crackling on his spike-arms, directly at MegaMan. He's taken by surprise even though he was expecting a fight, and is only saved from being electrocuted because Arcadia blasts out a stream of Flashfire that swallows the lightning and heads for SparkMan.
The Zoanoroid jumps out of the way and the Holy Fire attack grazes the opposite side of the firewall. It doesn't do much damage, but it's enough to make Arcadia wince and quickly cut off his attack before it actually does do something.
"Fire?" Zoanoroid PlantMan's blank eyes are wide, looking mildly horrified. The horror doesn't last long, because he scowls a moment later. "You would dare come near my beautiful plants with fire, of all things? Such a deplorable NetNavi!" He raises his arms and his thorny vines rise up in response. "Your punishment shall be pain!"
On that last word, his thorny vines whip out, heading straight for them. MegaMan dodges to the side instinctively, but the attack is aimed entirely at Arcadia, who simply lets out another stream of Flashfire that burns up most of the vines before they can even reach him.
That only seems to anger PlantMan even more. MegaMan remembers what the Darkloid PlantMan was like - and he also remembers the Asteroid PlantMan, too. It seems that, despite being more or less completely different NetNavis, they all have one thing in common; that is, their hatred of fire and anything that could potentially destroy their 'beautiful plants'.
With PlantMan now entirely focused on Arcadia and his Holy Fire, MegaMan turns his attention to SparkMan. Just in time, too, because the Zoanoroid is coming at him with his spike-arms crackling with even more lightning.
MegaMan jumps clean over the attempted charge, lands and then whirls around, shooting his Mega Buster. The shots explode against SparkMan's back, and he staggers to a halt with a bark of pain, then whirls around and points one of his spike-arms at MegaMan.
"Lightning-" he begins.
"-Overload!"
SparkMan's eyes widen, and then he vanishes in a blast of pure dark energy from overhead. It fades quickly, leaving him sparking with the dark energy, and Bass jumps down from nowhere and lands near MegaMan.
"Sniper's got the owl covered," Bass says shortly, gesturing while keeping his eyes fixed on SparkMan.
MegaMan glances over and sees SearchMan kneeling on top of the firewall, Scope Gun trained on PlantMan. He shoots, and the few thorny vines that Arcadia hasn't already burnt are cut in half by the blast, further angering PlantMan, who lets out a roar of pure rage and slams his hands onto the ground, creating even more thorny vines - only for those to get burnt by Arcadia and shot by SearchMan within seconds.
Satisfied that his friends have their battle well-handled, MegaMan turns his attention back to his own, and raises his Mega Buster.
"I'll cover you," he tells Bass.
The independent Navi flashes him a wild grin before creating a Dark Arm Blade, and then he charges at SparkMan with a war-like scream, raising his Dark Arm Blade high. SparkMan crosses his spike-arms to block the attack, and Bass's Blade gets stuck between them, so MegaMan aims for SparkMan's legs and shoots.
"Guh!" SparkMan grunts, dropping to one knee, and Bass presses the sudden advantage by ripping his Blade out of SparkMan's spike-arms and ramming the flat side onto the Zoanoroid's head.
The Blade's energy fizzles out and Bass drops back, still grinning wildly. SparkMan shakes his head, then glares at Bass and gets to his feet.
MegaMan shoots again, this time clipping SparkMan's shoulder, and the Zoanoroid's attention snaps to him. Bass again takes advantage of the distraction and hurls a small blast of Shooting Star energy at their opponent, sending SparkMan flying to the side. He almost hits the firewall, but luckily comes up short of it.
"Be careful!" MegaMan warns Bass. "Don't damage the network or the Tower!"
"Don't fucking order me around!" Bass snaps back, but his next attack is carefully-aimed and only brings SparkMan to his knees again rather than sending him flying into the firewall.
Another blast of impact makes MegaMan jump, and he glances over his shoulder to check on the other battle.
SearchMan has jumped down from the firewall by now and is slowly closing in on PlantMan, Scope Gun steady as he points it directly at the Zoanoroid instead of the thorny vines. Arcadia has just finished off another couple of those vines, faint sparks of his Holy Fire just fading along with the blackened pixels that used to be PlantMan's vines, and he spreads his wings and rises into the air, more Holy Fire glowing in his palms.
PlantMan is backing up, but he hits the wall of the digital Tower and is forced to stop. Like SparkMan, he's overwhelmed by numbers - even if it's just two-on-one - and it looks like they'll be able to defeat these Zoanoroids without endangering the cyberworld or the real world.
"MegaMan!"
Even if they're winning this fight, MegaMan is still happy and relieved to hear his operator's voice.
"Lan!" he calls back, grinning. "Just in time. We've almost got them!"
"Almost got us, huh?" SparkMan growls, before Lan can respond. "I don't think you understand just what you're dealing with, foolish Beyondard Navi!"
MegaMan almost asks him why he's calling them Beyondard Navis when he's the one who's from Beyondard, but then he reminds himself that Beyondard just means 'the world beyond'. To these Zoanoroids, this world is Beyondard.
"Stay down, dumbass!" Bass snaps.
SparkMan ignores him and staggers to his feet. He has no mouth, but his eyes are narrowed in what's clearly a sneer.
"I was going to destroy that moronic Gregar Navi," SparkMan says, glancing at PlantMan, "but I guess you brats're good enough."
Before either of them can ask - or in Bass's case, demand - what he's talking about, SparkMan tenses up. He lets out a long groan of effort, straining against something, or maybe for something, and MegaMan feels an intense surge of power a split second before a burst of energy envelops their opponent.
MegaMan jerks back, eyes wide. It's not the exact same, but this energy is similar to what happened when he and Trill fused together - when he used Beast Out.
A second surge of power from behind makes MegaMan glance over his shoulder, only to see PlantMan being enveloped in the same type of energy as SparkMan. Arcadia and SearchMan are backing away warily.
No one needs to ask Mimic what's going on. They know already.
The Zoanoroids are using Beast Out.
"Crap!" Lan cries, tightening his grip on his PET.
"Was hopin' we'd get 'em before they did that . . ." Mimic mutters.
Lan barely hears her. Not because he's not paying attention - simply because she's quiet anyway, and the two Zoanoroids are practically screaming inside those bursts of energy. He has no idea what's happening inside there, but whatever it is, it's clearly painful.
He wonders if MegaMan was in pain when he fused with Trill and became a beast. Is it the transformation itself that's painful, or is it using the ability in the first place? If MegaMan was in pain the entire time he was a beast, it's no wonder he went out of control. And if these two Zoanoroids are the same . . . that means they'll have to deal with two out-of-control Beast Out Navis at the same time, which is a horrifying thought considering how much power Beast Out MegaMan had.
The energy dies down, revealing the two Beast Out Zoanoroids. Their appearance hasn't been drastically changed like MegaMan's was - they still look more or less like they should. The difference now is that they look wilder, more like animal-Navis than the whatever-Navis they were before, and their NaviMarks, which were just images of the Cybeast symbols, have been completely replaced by the symbol of their respective leaders.
If they only look like wilder versions of themselves rather than fully-transformed like MegaMan was, maybe that means they won't be as powerful as him. But they're obviously still more powerful than were mere moments ago - otherwise they wouldn't have used Beast Out like this.
"Perish in the garden of pain!" PlantMan roars, lifting his arms and sending massive thorny vines crashing up through the ground.
Previously, he's only targeted Arcadia because of his Holy Fire. But now, PlantMan sends his thorny vines across the entire Tower network, and before any of the four Navis can react, the vines wrap around them, constricting them, and lift them into the air.
Arcadia's hands briefly explode with Holy Fire, but the white fire splutters out when PlantMan makes a sharp gesture and sends four thorny vines twisting around Arcadia's wings. Lan winces at the pained scream that gets ripped out of Arcadia, and beside him, Mimic looks like she's seriously considering jacking her primary Navi out just to save him from it.
SparkMan makes a glitched noise that sounds like a distorted laugh and rams his spike-arms into the ground. Lightning blasts from his spike-arms into the ground, and then gets picked up by the vines, which sends it directly to the four trapped Navis.
Arcadia's no longer the only one screaming. The thorns from the vines are ripping into their bodies, and adding in SparkMan's Beast Out-charged lightning is just a recipe for pure pain.
"Come back, MegaMan!" Lan exclaims, raising his PET to the monitor in the Tower's lobby - which he and Mimic had quickly connected their PETs to so they could see what was going on in the network - and trying to jack his Navi out.
Nothing happens. The jack-out beam flashes, of course, like always - but MegaMan is still being constricted by the vines, still being electrocuted by SparkMan's lightning.
"We can't jack them out!?" Lan gasps. He looks at Mimic desperately, hoping that she'll have an answer for this.
But she looks just as shocked as he is. Either she doesn't remember how their anime-selves got out of this, or this didn't happen in the anime at all. Whichever one it is, Mimic obviously doesn't know what to do right now.
Lan suddenly becomes aware of an odd sort of buzzing noise. He frowns and looks around, but it's too loud and it's all around him, so he can't figure out what the source could be. It sounds almost electric in a way.
"Tower's goin' nuts," Mimic says, looking up at the ceiling. "'Cus'a SparkMan."
"Going nuts?" Lan repeats. A rise in screaming from his PET makes him glance at the battle again, and he winces when he sees that SparkMan has upped the voltage of his lightning. "What do you mean?"
"It's, um . . ." Mimic trails off for a moment, then lets out a faint growl and heads for the entrance of the Tower.
Lan's curiosity gets the better of him, and he follows her outside. The buzzing is louder now, coupled with sharp noises that sounds like paper being torn constantly, and he looks up.
His mouth drops open. The entire top half of Central Tower is sparking with energy - it looks like lightning. No wonder Mimic said this is because of SparkMan; the lightning he's using to zap their Navis is affecting the entire network, and the Tower itself as a result. If they don't stop it soon, the top half of the Tower could explode, killing anyone inside, and it could damage nearby buildings. Not to mention the debris could fall and hit bystanders on the ground, too.
"Mimic?" Lan keeps his eyes fixed on the sparking Tower, though he speaks to his sister. "Please tell me this was fixed in your anime, too."
He sees Mimic nodding out of the corner of his eye, and relief floods through his body. Then he gets confused when she starts looking around at the people gathered nearby - some of them employees from the Tower, others just random citizens come to gawk at the scene.
"He's not here yet," Mimic says. She sounds worried, which is never a good sign. "Raika stopped it in the anime. But he's not here."
"IPC's building is further away from here than SciLab," Lan tells her.
Mimic looks at him, blinking, and he silently wonders if she's thinking it might've been better for her to go to IPC rather than Raika. But it doesn't matter what situation they're all in right now - no matter how bad things get, Mimic going back to IPC for any reason is even worse. There's no way Lan's letting her go anywhere near that place after everything that's happened.
After a few moments of tense silence, Mimic mutters something under her breath. Lan can't make out what she says - between the sparks on the top half of the Tower and the noise of the people around them, not to mention the faint screams of their Navis, he has no hope of hearing her.
Which is why it comes as a total shock to him when she pockets her PET and makes a dash for the Tower. He briefly wonders if she's running back inside, but then she jumps - higher than most humans would be able to manage - and plants her foot on the side of the building, then pushes off and up, boosting herself up to a ledge. She pulls herself up so she's crouching, and then starts making her way up the side of the building, jumping and climbing as easily as Lan can skate.
"What is that kid doing?" someone gasps. A quick glance tells Lan that it's one of the Tower's employees, gaping up at Mimic as she climbs.
"Don't worry!" Lan steps forward and holds out his PET, activating the holographic Net Saver badge. "We're both Net Savers, she knows what she's doing."
Well, he hopes, anyway. Even if this happened in the anime, the fact that Raika was the one who stopped then is a telling fact - this requires someone who knows technology, and Mimic does not know technology. Maybe she's just hoping it'll be simple, or is trying to rely on her memory to do whatever it is she needs to do.
He can't do anything to help their Navis - sending MegaMan a battle chip will be pointless if he can't make use of it, thanks to PlantMan's thorny vines, and SparkMan's electrocuting them, which stops them from actually fighting back. But Mimic's climbing up the side of a building to do something to stop that, and if she doesn't know exactly what she's doing, Lan might be able to help out with that.
"Excuse me," he says, tugging on the sleeve on the closest person - a man in a suit, who looks like another employee. "Do you know if there's any way to stop the electricity?"
"Uh-" The man glances down at him, eyes wide, and then his mouth drops open. "Wait, aren't you one of those kids who saved the world?"
"Is there a way to stop the electricity?" Lan presses, ignoring the question. Forget past heroics, he needs to help his sister save their Navis.
"The elec- oh! Right, there is a way, yes," the man says, nodding. He looks up at the Tower, and Lan follows his gaze. "There's a switch panel near the top which will shut down the power. That should stop the electric current - but I don't think anyone can get to it right now, not with the power going haywire like this."
"Mimic's getting up there just fine," Lan says, nodding to his sister, who's just over halfway up the Tower now. She's close to the sparking electricity, close enough to make him nervous about her safety, but she doesn't pause.
"Is that kid even human?" the employee wonders.
"Mostly," Lan replies, and he misses the shocked look the employee gives him because he's too focused on his sister to notice. He takes out his PET, winces again at the sight of their Navis being electrocuted, and quickly calls Mimic's PET. "Mimic! Can you hear me?"
There's no image - it's just static-snow, buzzing like the electricity. The sound of the sparking electricity on the top half of the Tower is much louder now, though, because it's coming from his PET rather than high above his head.
"I hear you," Mimic replies. Her voice is faint - not just because she's quiet or focusing on climbing, but the signal is a little weak due to interference from the electricity.
"There's a switch panel near the top of the Tower," Lan tells her. "It should turn off the power in the building."
"Specifics?"
Lan glances at the employee questioningly.
"Just under the radio antenna," the man helpfully supplies. "It's a panel - you should be able to just pull it open."
"Mimic, did you get that?" Lan checks.
He glances up at the Tower again. If it weren't for the fact that her hoodie is light grey - almost white - Mimic would practically be invisible against the side of the building. Even better that she's actually wearing it instead of just having it tied around her waist (mainly because of the cold, really), so she's highly visible against the dark grey building.
"Gettin' it," Mimic responds. The white shape high above isn't pausing, but she doesn't even sound out of breath. "Anythin' else?"
"That kid is not human," the employee mutters.
"I can hear you," Mimic says, somewhat sharply.
The employee jumps, looking startled. "Uh- yes, you'll need to switch the power over to manual before you can turn it off. Flip the red switch, and then you can turn the power off by pressing the blue button."
"Red switch, blue button," Mimic parrots. "Gotcha."
"Don't get hit by lightning," Lan warns her.
The white shape pauses for a moment. "Hah!" Mimic barks. "If only."
It takes Lan a moment to realise that she's joking. It's kind of a dark joke to make when she's in the middle of something like this - but then again, Mimic has a really weird sense of humour even at the best of times.
The white shape continues moving, and Lan cuts off the call to avoid distracting her. Even with her cat-abilities and her parkour and everything, the slightest mistake or distraction could easily end in disaster. Lan has no idea if Mimic can survive being zapped with electricity, but she definitely won't survive a fall from this height. Not unless she's in Cross Fusion, and they can't Cross Fuse right now.
"What the hell is she doing!?" Raika demands, suddenly right there.
Lan jumps, startled, and it takes him a moment to get over it.
"She's gonna turn off the power," he says.
That doesn't seem to help. "Why is she climbing up the side of a building that looks like it's about to explode from electricity?"
"I just said-"
"Tell her to get down from there!" Raika snaps. He grits his teeth and takes out his PET. "No, I'll tell her."
"Wait!" Lan exclaims, grabbing his friend's hands before he can call Mimic. "She's the only one who can get up there, Raika. There's a switch panel near the top of the building, she's gonna use that to turn off the power and-"
"It's too dangerous!" Raika yanks his hands out of Lan's grip. "Why isn't she using Cross Fusion?"
"We can't," Lan says. "Look, the Zoanoroids have done something to the Tower and its network - we can't jack our Navis out, and they're being . . ." He takes out his PET and shows Raika, and his friend's eyes widen when he sees the four Navis - his own included - in pain. "See? We can't jack them out, so I don't think Cross Fusion will work right now! They can't leave unless we turn off the power, and right now, Mimic's the only one who can get up there!"
"Isn't there a lift we could use?" Raika demands.
"It's not working right now," the employee who told Lan about the switch panel speaks up. "The power's gone haywire and we've lost control of the building - if you try and get in one of the lifts, there's no telling what could happen. It could crash or something."
"Stairs, then."
"That'd take way too long!" Lan protests. "Besides, she's nearly there already, just let her-"
He's cut off by a sudden crack of electricity, and he flinches.
"Mimic!" Raika gasps, staring up at the Tower in horror.
Cold dread floods through Lan's blood. He whirls around, looking up, desperately searching for the small white shape of his adopted sister - and then relief flows through him when he spots her, not moving anymore but simply clinging to the side of the building.
And then the dread comes back when he sees a great scorch mark right next to her. It looks like she just barely avoided getting blasted with electricity - either she managed to dodge or the electricity didn't actually come close enough to hit her, but either way, it was still very obviously a close call.
"Dammit," Raika mutters, raising his PET again.
Lan shoves it down. "Don't!" he exclaims. "You might distract her!"
Raika stares at him, eyes wide, and then lets out a frustrated growl and goes back to looking up at the Tower.
There's nothing anyone can do but watch, now. Lan has total faith in Mimic, of course he does, but she's not using Cross Fusion right now - and even if she's technically superhuman, she's still human enough to get hurt. Ms. Yuri is practically immortal and could definitely survive something like this (getting blasted by electricity or falling from a great height, or even both), but Mimic's type of superhuman is completely different. She's not immortal, she's just a cat-girl.
He flinches when another blast of electricity comes far too close to Mimic, scoring another black scorch mark down the side of the building. He doesn't see what she's doing, exactly, but the white shape of his sister gradually moves up, occasionally stopping when the electricity comes too close, and he has never wished for the cat-abilities of Mimic and Chaud so badly - if he had those abilities himself, if he were superhuman, he could've taken her place and she wouldn't have had to climb up there.
But he's not, and she is. And even if he could've taken her place, that would've just left Mimic in the exact same position that Lan is in right now.
Eventually, the white shape that is his sister reaches the top of the Tower. A tense few moments pass by - along with a spark of terrified panic when the electricity appears to get more intense for no apparent reason. But then it splutters, and starts to die down.
"She did it!" Lan exclaims, almost breathless out of sheer relief - both for Mimic shutting off the power and for the fact that his sister is now safe, or as safe as she can get after climbing to the top of a huge tower like this one.
"I'll call her and tell her to get down," Raika says, lifting his PET once more. "You get back inside and deal with the situation in the network."
"Right!" Lan nods and dashes off, back through the entrance of Central Tower's lobby.
The lightning stops, and so does the pain. MegaMan's limbs still tingle from the leftover electricity - supercharged by SparkMan's Beast Out and the power in the Tower - but at least he's not entirely in pain anymore.
Both Zoanoroids look startled when the lightning suddenly cuts off. SparkMan in particular seems at a loss for words, though PlantMan just seems puzzled.
Being puzzled is enough to make him loose his grip on them, though. The thorny vines constricting them loosen just enough for MegaMan to get some wriggle room in, and then he feels a blast of intense heat a moment before white fire engulfs everything with a hungry roar of crackling flames.
The vines are burnt away, and MegaMan drops to the ground, just barely managing to land on his feet. He staggers anyway, because his HP has taken a massive hit and he's almost dizzy, and hears Bass's quiet cursing and SearchMan's grunt of pain as they both hit the ground as well.
"Get down!" Arcadia warns them sharply.
MegaMan glances over his shoulder, and then his eyes widen and he drops down faster than he's ever done before.
As soon as they're all out of the way, Arcadia lets loose his Avenger's Arrow. The tip is glowing a deep, angry red, and PlantMan and SparkMan are still caught off-guard thanks to the power being shut off to be able to dodge properly.
Arcadia's supercharged Avenger's Arrow hits PlantMan directly, and it explodes. White fire goes absolutely everywhere, and just under the roar of fire, MegaMan can hear the screams of the two Zoanoroids. It's too bright and too intense to actually make out what's going on, but he bets it's a lot of pain, given how much damage they were forced to take for who-knows-how-long.
"Life Aura, download!" Lan's voice mercifully announces.
MegaMan slams his hands down onto the ground, and the Life Aura barrier shimmers into existence in front of him. His friends jump behind it, and the explosion of Holy Fire roars past them, split up by the Life Aura barrier, joining back together behind them and leaving them completely surrounded by white fire.
The Life Aura barrier actually begins to spark with the effort of holding back the supercharged Avenger's Arrow attack. MegaMan doesn't know if he should be scared or impressed - either way, this is a testament to how much damage they took when the Zoanoroids were attacking them.
He's not sure which attack of Arcadia's is his strongest. They all come from his Holy Fire - depending on the situation, any of his attacks can be powerful or useful. But this definitely says something about his Avenger's Arrow; given the right circumstances, it's almost certainly a devastating attack. Convert their damage into attack power, combine it with the already-potent power of the base attack of Avenger's Arrow, and this massive storm of fire is the result.
The explosion of Holy Fire begins to die down eventually. Just in time, because the Life Aura barrier evidently decides it's had enough and shatters, and the only thing left of Arcadia's attack are a few stray flames which Arcadia himself easily brushes away with his wings - which are just as fireproof as the rest of him, or at least Holy Fireproof, anyway. He can be hurt by fire even if he resists it, but he's pretty much immune to damage from his own attack, apparently.
When the fire is completely gone, it reveals the damage. The black-scorched ground of the network, the side of the digital Central Tower is almost as black as charcoal, as well as the firewall surrounding it. MegaMan really hopes the people who own Central Tower have insurance for this.
Their opponents are revealed, too. Or what's left of them, anyway - PlantMan is little more than a blackened husk that wobbles and topples over, beginning to disintegrate into scorched pixels before he even hits the ground, and SparkMan seems to have just barely avoided the same fate by creating a barrier of lightning that hasn't really saved him from being burnt, even if it saved him from being deleted.
" . . . Oops," Arcadia says.
SparkMan stares at him, eyes wide, and then his body breaks up into data and he . . . leaves, MegaMan assumes. It's more like his data just sort of twists and then vanishes entirely - he hasn't been deleted, of course, but he's close enough to it that MegaMan seriously doubts he'll be able to make it back to wherever he came from before he actually starts to fall apart like PlantMan did.
"What the fuck, owl," Bass says, gaping around at the blackened network.
"Overkill, much?" SearchMan mutters.
"Sorry," Arcadia says, wincing. "I didn't think it'd do this much damage."
"Maybe don't use Avenger's Arrow when you've taken that much damage, okay?" MegaMan suggests delicately.
"Yeah," Arcadia agrees, nodding. He looks around and winces again. "Um . . . I really hope we don't have to pay for this. I don't think Mimic can afford it . . ."
MegaMan lets out a heavy sigh and buries his face in his hands.
Why does he feel like he does that a lot around the twins and their Navis?
"Well, the owner of the building isn't trying to press charges, at least," Dad sighs, going over the report of their battle. "We're lucky he's decided to blame most of the damage on those Zoanoroids instead of you kids . . ."
"Sorry," Arcadia offers, again, for the fifth time since he turned the Tower's network into a blackened husk.
"I didn't even do anythin'," Mimic points out, sulking a little. "Y'know, aside from turn off the power an' stop the Tower from goin' boom."
"Which is partly why the owner isn't pressing charges against you," Dad says, putting down the report. "His reasoning is that, since you prevented a worse disaster from happening, he's willing to overlook the damage Arcadia did to the network. He doesn't want either of you anywhere near his building or its network again, though."
"That's fair," Mimic admits.
"I thought you were the sensible one," MegaMan says to Arcadia. "ProtoMan and Mimic destroy things, Chaud . . . kind of does the same thing even though he tries not to, and you're the only one who doesn't do that."
"I said I didn't think it'd do that much damage," Arcadia groans, burying his face in his hands. That does nothing to hide his embarrassment, though.
"Maybe next time, just stick to your normal attacks instead of throwing a supercharged blast of fire at the enemy," Raika flatly suggests.
"Moving on from . . . that," Dad says, getting their attention again. He focuses on Mimic. "You said these Zoanoroids have the ability to Beast Out, right?"
Mimic nods, but Lan speaks up, looking confused.
"Wait, how do you know that?" he asks. "You weren't there when Mimic was telling us about this new Beyondard . . ."
"Arcadia recorded the whole thing and sent the video to me," Dad explains. "Very informative, well done, Mimic."
Mimic closes her eyes and smiles. Maybe she's preening a little bit - which is ironic since she's a cat-girl, not a bird-girl - but who the fuck cares, really? Dad just said 'well done' to her. Forgive her if she likes being praised by her adoptive parents.
"There was one thing I wanted to ask about, though," Dad goes on, and she opens her eyes to look at him curiously. "You mentioned Trill being something called a . . . Synchroniser, I believe it was? But you didn't go into detail about it, apart from saying that the Beyondard version of Dad - your grandfather, that is - created him to end the war."
"Dunno the exact details," Mimic says. She tried her best to remember what she knows, what the anime - what Dr. Tadashi Hikari of Beyondard - told her. "Trill's . . . kind of a superweapon, of some sort."
"A superweapon?" MegaMan echoes, looking shocked. "He's just a baby-Navi, though!"
"Turned you into a beast," Mimic reminds him. "That's his Synchroniser ability. He can use the power of either Gregar or Falzar - turns MegaMan into either Beast Out form. But I think . . ." She pauses for a moment, getting her thoughts together. "Dr. Tadashi Hikari made him so he could get rid of the Beast Factor in Beyondard usin' that ability."
"Getting rid of the Beast Factor would certainly end that war you mentioned," Famous muses. "It would stop Gregar and Falzar's armies from trying to invade our world, too."
Mimic doesn't know if she should mention Beyondard Dr. Wily's own plan for using Trill's Synchroniser ability. But hopefully she'll be able to manipulate events so that doesn't happen - and if she's gonna be taking a more active role in actually doing this stuff, it shouldn't matter.
So she'll keep quiet about that, unless it becomes necessary. Anything else is fair game.
"The Zoanoroids know what the Synchroniser is, but they don't know it's Trill," Mimic says. "In the anime, once they found out about Trill's power, they started attackin' to try and kidnap him." And they succeeded, too, but again, if she can successfully manipulate things, that won't happen. "They wanna use any advantage they can get so they can beat each other."
"So we need to stop them from finding out about Trill," Dad murmurs thoughtfully.
"But don't they already know?" Lan asks, worried. "I mean, MegaMan transformed when he fused with Trill, and then he attacked the Cybeasts. Shouldn't they have seen that transformation happening?"
"I don't think they did," SearchMan speaks up. "They were entirely focused on trying to delete the three of us." He gestures to himself, Arcadia, and Bass. "Plus, we didn't even notice MegaMan and Trill fusing, not until MegaMan attacked the Cybeasts in Beast Out form, anyway. And it's unlikely that the Cybeasts connected Trill to MegaMan's transformation when he turned back."
"They think MegaMan's Beast Out is natural," Mimic supplies. "So he's right. They don't know anythin' about Trill."
"So instead of trying to come after Trill, they'll just try and come after me?" MegaMan somehow doesn't look as worried about that idea - though the alternative is Trill being the Zoanoroid's target instead of him, so Mimic supposes it makes sense. "That's fine. We can fight them off if it's just me - as long as they don't find out about Trill or what he can do, or why he was created."
There's no disagreement from anyone in that regard.
The Zoanoroids did find out about Trill being the Synchroniser, but that was in the anime - and Mimic is gonna try and change what happened, instead of just letting things happen or making sure they go the way they did in the anime.
Like she told Lan, she's trying something different. She's worried, of course - who wouldn't be? She's spent most of her time in this world trying to make sure things go the way they should, often at the risk of her own sanity or safety. And it hasn't really seemed to do anything, so far. So . . . she's gonna see if changing what's supposed to happen will do anything.
Even if it doesn't, maybe she won't feel as guilty for doing this as she did when she was just letting things happen the way they did in the anime - or actively making sure things happen that way.
She still won't tell them absolutely everything, but . . . she'll do something. Which is better than doing nothing.
Hopefully.
As soon as the meeting in SciLab is over, MegaMan goes to pick Trill up from ProtoMan. It's a simple matter of just following the uplink into Chaud's PET and then activating the Navi-hologram to go outside, since ProtoMan isn't in the PET.
They're all still in Anetta's house. It takes MegaMan a moment to recognise the room they're in - mostly because it's almost too dark to actually see anything. The curtains are drawn over the windows, leaving the living room in darkness, and the only light comes from the TV, which is showing an anime of some sort.
No, wait, he recognises some of the characters from the games that Lan and his siblings - and their friends, too - play sometimes. Those are Pokemon, he thinks. So . . . they're watching Pokemon, then. That's kinda cool, actually, he didn't know Pokemon had an anime.
Then he realises he can only hear the sound of the TV, and stops short, amazed.
Amazed because he knows how upset Trill gets whenever anyone who isn't MegaMan is holding him - he'd been kinda worried about leaving Trill with ProtoMan because of that (among other things), but the fact that Trill isn't crying is . . . well, it's amazing, like he said.
"ProtoMan?" MegaMan calls softly, not wanting to speak over the TV in case he gets shushed or something.
He's standing on the arm of a sofa, and he can just barely make out the shapes of Chaud and Anetta sitting on said sofa - mainly because Chaud's hair is half-white and distinctive even in darkness, and Anetta wears bright clothes that do the same for her. But he can't see ProtoMan anywhere.
"Over here," Chaud says, speaking just as softly. His eyes flash in the darkness as he glances at MegaMan.
Anetta leans over, sees MegaMan, and grins - then she pauses the TV. "Hey, MegaMan," she says, still speaking softly for some reason.
The reason why doesn't become clear until he makes his hologram vanish from the arm of the sofa, reappearing standing on thin air just in front of Chaud. He peers around both humans, and finally spots ProtoMan on the other arm of the sofa.
Ah, so that's it. ProtoMan's curled up, mismatched eyes closed, and Dark Shadow is lying next to him so their backs are pressed up against each other. It can't close its eyes, but the gentle flickering of its shadowy body suggests that it's asleep as well.
And snuggled in ProtoMan's messy but surprisingly-soft hair is Trill. He's sound asleep too, cuddling a few thick strands of ProtoMan's hair like a human hugs a teddy bear when they're asleep (or MegaMan assumes, anyway, since Lan doesn't sleep with a teddy bear and his only reference for this is fiction).
It's absolutely adorable. MegaMan doesn't know if he's ever used 'adorable' to describe anything in his entire life, but he's using it now.
"We took a picture," Anetta informs him, pointing to Chaud's PET.
"I'll send it you later, you can show Lan and embarrass ProtoMan," Chaud adds, and the light of the TV shows a little smirk on his face.
MegaMan chuckles, shaking his head. Only Chaud could make embarrassing his own NetNavi sound like affection. Well, Mimic can do it too, and ProtoMan makes a joyful habit of insulting anyone who'll let him get away with it if he likes them enough. Arcadia doesn't do that, but he has a bland kind of sarcasm that few can match.
But now he has a bit of a problem. He came here to pick up Trill, but he doesn't want to disturb them - not when they look so comfortable, curled up like that.
Lan's probably not gonna need him for anything at the moment, right? And he knows Chaud and Anetta won't mind if he decides to hang around until Trill or ProtoMan wake up.
"What're you guys watching?" MegaMan asks.
"A movie, called Giratina and the Sky Warrior," Anetta answers. She holds up the remote and presses play. "It just started, so you haven't missed much."
"Cool." MegaMan lets his Navi-hologram float down until he's standing on one of Chaud's legs, and he settles down to watch the movie.
It can't last forever, of course. Raika needs to go home eventually - Mimic already knew that from the anime, but at least this time he actually gave them advance warning instead of just randomly announcing it. That doesn't mean Mimic, Chaud, and Lan aren't sad to see him go - Mom and Dad are sad, too - because they've all gotten pretty close while Raika's been staying at their house.
The Navis are sad as well, since SearchMan is leaving as well. Bass is the only one who doesn't express any of his own sadness, but even if he doesn't have much of an opinion of SearchMan, he definitely feels something now that SearchMan is leaving. You don't need Arcadia's Empath Program to tell that much.
"I really do wish you'd stay, at least for a little bit longer," Lan says, looking up at Raika with a sad smile.
"I know." Raika responds with a half-smile of his own. "But if these Zoanoroids are going to attack regularly, I need to go home - Sharo doesn't have any other Net Savers able to use Cross Fusion, and the military can't quite handle this type of threat."
"Dunno if Sharo ever got attacked," Mimic says, tilting her head. "Just seemed to be Japan all the time."
Raika shrugs. "Just because your anime didn't show it doesn't mean it didn't happen," he points out. "Either way, my country still needs me - and I'm no longer off-duty. The only reason I stayed past my vacation time was because of the Jet Vernier tests." He nods to Dad in acknowledgement.
"You're welcome to stay at our house if you ever find yourself in Japan again," Mom speaks up. "And - here. Something for you to eat while you're on the plane." She steps forward and hands Raika a lunchbox.
"This is a . . . bento, right?" Raika checks. Mom nods, and he smiles properly this time. "Thank you, Haruka. If it's anything like what you normally cook, I'm sure I'll enjoy it."
"I see you finally stopped calling Mom Mrs. Hikari," Chaud observes, amused.
Mimic perks up. "Does this mean you'll stop callin' Pride Princess and ask her-"
"No," Raika interrupts flatly. He sighs and looks skyward, though he only ends up staring at the ceiling of the airport. "This is one thing I won't miss. Constant teasing about my romantic life . . ."
"Or lack of," Mimic says.
"Until you decide to get your ass in gear and-" Chaud starts to add.
"Please stop," Raika begs.
SearchMan glances up from where he's trying to extract ProtoMan from his torso. "You do realise I share their opinion, right?" he asks. "There is absolutely no way you're getting away from this, Raika."
Raika groans.
"There's also the fact that they can just send you emails," Dad points out.
Raika groans even louder.
Despite saying that he won't miss their constant teasing, Raika is very obviously going to miss them - all of them. He thanks Mom and Dad for allowing him to stay for so long, and surprises Mimic and her brothers by pulling all three of them into a tight hug that lasts for far longer than he'd normally be comfortable with. Maybe going on an adventure across half the country for and with them helped to break down some of his awkward barriers or something.
I really am gonna miss him, Mimic says, as she and the rest of her adoptive family watch Raika board the plane back to Sharo.
Me too, Chaud agrees. Not just because he was fun to tease.
Though that really was fun.
Oh, yeah, definitely.
"You guys are terrible friends," Arcadia laughs.
"They'd be boring if they weren't," ProtoMan points out.
"True."
