Going to school without Lan was really fucking weird, so Mimic's pretty happy that he's with them again. Felt like a little piece of herself was missing when he wasn't there - she's gotten way too used to him being around most, if not all, of the time.
She's pretty sure Mizuki called that separation anxiety. Maybe she's gotten way too dependent on Lan or something. She's definitely dependent on Chaud, though with their connection, that's . . . kind of a given. But that doesn't matter, because Lan's with them now, and she doesn't need to worry about the separation anxiety thing.
What she does need to worry about is ProtoMan and Trill's relationship. Arcadia told her and Chaud that Trill apologised for collecting ProtoMan while they were getting their new bed, and she's kinda surprised that Arcadia and Bass actually let Trill anywhere near ProtoMan in the first place, but at least that's kinda sorted.
They're still not totally okay, though. ProtoMan flinches whenever Trill moves too quick, and his eyes stray to Trill's hands every so often, like he's making sure they're nowhere near him. Which is understandable. Given how Arcadia described the flashes of memory he got from ProtoMan, being collected by Trill is . . . basically akin to literal torture for the one being collected. No wonder those viruses were terrified of Trill.
But . . . she is surprised by how Trill is handling this. She wasn't lying when she was telling the others about Trill's anime-personality - he was a selfish, kinda spoiled brat who threw a temper tantrum whenever he didn't get his way, though he did start getting better near the end, and he already had the makings of a good person because he was willing to run straight into danger to save others, most often MegaMan. He was still selfish and spoiled for most of the Beast series, though.
It seems like that's different now. Mimic has no idea how Trill's anime-self would've handled any of this, but the Trill she knows here and now is being surprisingly gentle with ProtoMan. He apologises whenever he accidentally scares ProtoMan, he keeps his hands out of sight as much as possible, and he gives ProtoMan the space he needs.
Mimic has to admit she's pretty damn impressed. She has no idea exactly what happened or who said what, but Trill's being far more thoughtful than she'd expected, and he hasn't thrown a single tantrum. He clearly wants to be friends with ProtoMan, but instead of chasing after ProtoMan and trying to force him to be his friend, he's being patient and allowing ProtoMan to set the pace.
She doesn't know why, but she gets the feeling MegaMan is responsible for this. Call it a gut feeling.
So while she is worried about ProtoMan and Trill's relationship, she knows that the Navis have it handled. Doesn't stop her from worrying, but she's okay to let them sort it out between themselves. And if things go wrong, she can count on Arcadia and Bass to keep ProtoMan safe, and count on MegaMan to deal with Trill.
"-and now you see that the value of X has changed."
Mimic blinks, suddenly jolting back into reality, and realises she was so caught up in her thoughts that she's missed basically everything Ms. Mari has said. She gets a faint sense of exasperation from Chaud, and then he shows her a quick flash of memories of the last several minutes.
It's awesome to have a twin who can do this. Means she can space out whenever she wants and she doesn't need to worry about missing anything.
She feels the exasperation from Chaud again, along with amusement this time. You know we're not allowed to do this during tests or anything, right? he asks. So if you space out during a test and forget what you're supposed to be doing, I won't be able to help you.
Yeah, but you can help me now, can't you? Mimic twists around in her seat to flash a grin at him.
He raises an eyebrow at her. Who says I want to?
The memories you just info-dumped on me.
Chaud rolls his eyes. Fine, whatever. Just pay attention, okay? I know you're worried about our Navis - I am too. But they've got it handled. And you need to pay attention in class.
Funny, I was just thinking the same thing, Mimic muses, turning back around. She peers at the whiteboard - she's not sure why that name still applies even though it's a digital one - and almost feels her soul ejecting from her body when she sees the absolute mess of numbers and letters written there. Oh my fucking god, fuck these numbers!
Her twin brother chokes out a laugh before he can stop himself, and at the front of the classroom, Ms. Mari goes quiet and looks at him. She frowns for a moment, then glances at Mimic, sitting there with a perfectly innocent expression.
"Is there something you two would like to share with the class?" Ms. Mari asks, raising an eyebrow.
"Why do numbers exist?" Mimic asks.
Ms. Mari blinks. "Well-"
"One day, for whatever reason, someone decided they wanted to count things and it has been a major inconvenience for everybody ever since," Chaud says.
This time it's Mimic who laughs, along with a few of their other classmates. Lan sits with his lips pursed, and she can hear little snickers as he tries to suppress his own laughter.
Ms. Mari's completely deadpan expression only makes Mimic laugh harder. "Are you kids finished?"
"Almost," Chaud replies brightly, and Mimic fucking wheezes.
Their teacher sighs and pinches the bridge of her nose, but Mimic can see a faint smile tugging at the corners of her lips. Seems she's not as annoyed by this as she's making herself out to be.
"Huh," Roll says, tilting her head. "Chaud has a sense of humour. Never would've imagined it."
"What're you on about?" ProtoMan wonders, giving her a puzzled frown. "'Course he's got a sense of humour. He hangs out with me all the time, and I'm fu-"
"ProtoMan," MegaMan says.
"-I'm absolutely hilarious," ProtoMan finishes, correcting himself flawlessly.
"Your sense of humour is limited to stupid puns and deletion humour," Bass says from where he's lying on his back on top of a short datablock, limbs and head dangling over the sides.
"To be fair," Arcadia speaks up, "our entire family has a weird sense of humour. I'm pretty sure Mimic's is all over the place, but it largely consists of memes."
"And what about you?" Bass rolls his head and looks at Arcadia through half-lidded eyes. "What's your sense of humour like?"
"I don't have a sense of humour," Arcadia deadpans.
ProtoMan snorts, then bites his lip to stop himself from laughing.
"Oh, right, the sarcasm thing," Bass remembers. "Awesome."
"What's sarcasm?" Trill asks.
ProtoMan twitches at the abrupt reminder of the gremlin's- of Trill's existence, but he manages to not launch himself up Bass's datablock. For one thing, Bass wouldn't appreciate being clawed, and for another, well, he's trying not to run away whenever Trill reminds him of his existence.
"It's, um . . ." MegaMan purses his lips as he thinks. "It's when you say something ironically. Like what Arcadia just did - he said he doesn't have a sense of humour, but he was saying it ironically, because he does have a sense of humour, it's just a kind of sarcastic one."
"Oh, okay." Trill blinks. " . . . What's ironically?"
ProtoMan leaves MegaMan trying his best to explain the concept of irony with the others watching in varying degrees of amusement. He can only stand being near Trill for a short amount of time - and he's grateful that no one's gonna force him to stick around, so he can wander off whenever he wants or needs to.
In this case, he wanders off in search of another member of their group, GutsMan. He normally hangs out with them while their operators are doing class stuff, but he's not here right now. Well, he's not with them right now, but he's still in the classroom's network with all the other NetNavis.
He gets a few stares from the other students' Navis as he searches for GutsMan. He should be used to being stared at by now, but all it does is make him uncomfortable, even with Dark Shadow prowling beside him as silent moral support. Of course he knows why the other Navis are staring - it's pretty much the only reason anyone ever stares at him, at least in Japan, that is.
He's famous. So is Arcadia. And MegaMan. Bass . . . is kind of an iffy case, but some Navis have heard of him, even if they don't actually recognise him.
At least no one's telling him to get out because he's a Virus Navi or something. And even though the whole class knows by now that ProtoMan is responsible for the screen and electronics sometimes going on the fritz, no one seems to mind. Or they haven't complained yet, anyway.
Finally, ProtoMan finds GutsMan in the class data files - two rows of data stored inside digital 'lockers', one for every student, along with a few for the teacher's notes and lesson plans and stuff. NetNavis of students can only access the data files of their own operator, while Ms. Mari's NetNavi has the authority to access all of them.
But Ms. Mari's Navi isn't here right now - ProtoMan saw him with a few of the other students' Navis, and heard him trying to explain some complicated virus-busting techniques. GutsMan is here, though, but he's not accessing Dex's data files.
"Cinnamon and cumin, two grams each," GutsMan is muttering. "Uhh . . . hot chili powder, need a small bottle of that . . . guts, guts . . . but wait, how much is a small bottle? Doesn't say on the list or anything . . ."
"Do you mean the price or the weight?" ProtoMan asks, making GutsMan shriek and drop the data file in his hands.
Dark Shadow reaches out and its arm shifts into a few tendrils of shadows, then they snake out and pick up the data file. They offer it to GutsMan, who's pressed up against the wall of data file 'lockers', big hand clutching his chest and gasping for breath.
"D-don't do that, guts!" GutsMan exclaims. "So scary . . ."
ProtoMan blinks, then smiles sheepishly. "Sorry," he says. "Sometimes I forget not everyone's used to the whole . . . silent thing . . ." Which is a terrible way to describe his stealth abilities and he only realises that as he's speaking. Fuck, he's bad at this.
"I-it's okay," GutsMan says, taking in a deep breath and letting it out slowly. That seems to calm him down, and he pushes off the wall to stand properly, which for him is just standing hunched over because he's a top-heavy kind of NetNavi, unlike most human-Navis.
Dark Shadow offers the data file up to him again, and GutsMan holds out his hand and lets it drop the file onto his palm.
"Thanks, guts." GutsMan reaches out and tries to pet Dark Shadow, then blinks when his hand goes straight through it. "Uh . . ."
"You can't touch it," ProtoMan reminds him. For the . . . seventh time, he thinks this is? But he doesn't mind having to remind GutsMan about this every so often - MegaMan said that there's something wrong with GutsMan's memory, and he knows a lot about having something wrong with you, so he can sympathise.
"Oh, right." GutsMan blinks, then his eyes narrow in what's clearly a frown, and he holds out his hand above Dark Shadow's head. It leans up and gently butts its forehead into GutsMan's palm, making the big Navi's eyes light up. "I remember it can touch me though, guts!"
ProtoMan claps his hands together, delighted that his friend managed to remember that on his own. "That's right!"
GutsMan goes quiet for a second, eyes narrowing in thought this time, and then he speaks. "What was that you said, before? Something about . . . price or weight, was it, guts?"
"Oh, right." ProtoMan glances at the data file in GutsMan's other hand. "Is that a shopping list?"
"Yeah," GutsMan replies, nodding. He holds it up for ProtoMan to see. "Dex said the shop needs all this stuff, so I'm gonna go to Internet City after school. But I'm kinda confused about the hot chili powder bottle thing, guts . . ."
"Um . . ." ProtoMan looks through the list until he finds the hot chili powder. Next to it is a note saying 'get a small bottle', which . . . yeah, GutsMan's right, that is a bit confusing. Not too descriptive, honestly. But he's spent enough time food-shopping with Mimic or Mom to know a little bit about this kinda stuff - Mimic likes to cook noodles sometimes, mostly the spicy kind, and Mom loves cooking in general. "I'd guess it means the weight, or maybe the size of the bottle itself. Where do you normally go for this stuff?"
"There's a spice seller that Master Yahoot buys from a lot, guts," GutsMan tells him.
"You ever bought hot chili powder from that spice seller?"
GutsMan frowns for a moment, then his eyes light up. "Yeah! I remember I bought a bunch of bottles from her once, 'cus the chili curry was super-popular at one point."
Chili curry? Sounds like something Mimic would enjoy. He knows her favourite spice flavour is paprika, but her second-favourite is definitely chili. She almost made Chaud cry one time when she added an absolutely absurd amount of chili powder to some noodles she was cooking - she might be able to handle spicy stuff, but poor Chaud can't. ProtoMan was practically laughing himself sick while his primary operator was nearly in tears.
"Okay, so . . ." ProtoMan tilts his head. "Do you remember if she had different sizes of bottles?"
GutsMan hums thoughtfully. Several moments pass by, and ProtoMan waits patiently for GutsMan to remember. Sometimes helping him remember things is a little bit like dealing with Mimic's kinda-shitty memory and Chaud's own kinda-recent-ish long-term memory loss.
Eventually, GutsMan jolts, eyes widening excitedly. "She does! She's got . . . I think it's three different sizes, guts? I know you can buy spices from her in grams or bottles - grams is good for . . . for topping up the stocks, but bottles are better for when you're really running low or just need to store some away for later!"
"So the small bottle would be the smallest size?" ProtoMan guesses.
GutsMan nods. "That's it, guts!" He puts his hand on ProtoMan's head and strokes down his back, and ProtoMan closes his eyes, purrs, and leans into the petting. "Thanks, ProtoMan. I, uh . . . I kinda feel bad, asking for help with this, so . . ."
"It's fine," ProtoMan murmurs, somehow getting the words out even though he's busy purring and GutsMan is still petting him and by the maker it feels great. "No one minds helping, y'know."
"I-I know, I just . . . I still feel bad, guts," GutsMan admits.
ProtoMan would be a hypocrite if he said he doesn't understand that. But he doesn't really have the words to reassure GutsMan - so instead, he tugs on GutsMan's hand until the big Navi picks him up, and then lays across his arm and continues purring as GutsMan goes back to petting him.
Cat therapy. It worked with MegaMan that one time, it works with Chaud and Mimic, so why shouldn't it work for GutsMan, too?
"Kitty-cat," GutsMan coos, and that's how ProtoMan knows it's working. Cat therapy is awesome for distracting people or making them feel better. "Pretty kitty-cat . . . Pretty kitty ProtoMan, guts . . ."
'Pretty kitty' is something Mimic said once when she was baby-talking Ragdoll and being silly for no reason in particular. Apparently it's something a lot of humans call cats, because ProtoMan's seen more than one video of some human baby-talking either their own pet cat or some random cat they meet on the street or something, and they've almost all used that phrase.
It seems GutsMan basically defaults to baby-talk whenever he's petting ProtoMan. That's fine - ProtoMan doesn't mind at all. He's not sure if the 'pretty' thing actually applies to him, but he definitely doesn't mind being called 'kitty'.
The Navis usually go into the real world while their operators are eating lunch, but not always, like today for example. A few of the others do, but most stay inside the network - including MegaMan and his friends. He is a little bit surprised that ProtoMan, Arcadia, and Bass decide to stick around with them instead of going to their operators (or as Bass calls them, his humans), because they always go out, no matter what any of the other Navis do. Maybe they just wanted to hang around here for a change. He's not gonna complain.
"Hey, MegaMan?" Trill is tugging on his arm, so MegaMan glances down at him. "Can I go out there? I wanna see what Lan's eating."
MegaMan smiles at that. He's pretty sure that, before, Trill would have just said he was gonna go out and see what Lan was eating, rather than asking for permission. Even if that whole collecting incident was terrible (and still is), it seems to have taught Trill something important. Whether that's patience, politeness, or just the ability to ask to do something instead of just doing it. Maybe all three of them, given how he's been with ProtoMan today.
"Sure, go ahead," MegaMan tells him, and Trill's expression lights up. "But stick with Lan, okay? Don't run off anywhere." Even if Trill is asking instead of demanding, he's still a child-Navi, and he's still Trill - his endless curiosity could get him into trouble if he goes off on his own.
"Okay!" Trill agrees, nodding enthusiastically. Hopefully his interest in whatever Lan's eating will keep him in one place. "Bye-bye!"
MegaMan gives him a quick wave before he vanishes, and he hears Lan greeting Trill - so at least he knows Trill is where he said he was gonna be. If he runs off anywhere (and he probably won't, but still, it doesn't hurt to be cautious), Lan should be able to alert MegaMan immediately.
"You guys aren't gonna go out to your operators?" MegaMan asks, turning back to his friends and giving ProtoMan and Arcadia a questioning look.
"I think I'm gonna stay here," ProtoMan replies in an oddly airy tone, "where it's nice, and safe, and there isn't a gremlin trying to turn me into a fucking Minecraft cube!" he suddenly snaps.
MegaMan jerks back, blinking a few times. That was . . . unexpected. Especially given how calm ProtoMan's been the last few hours. Either he was just pretending to be calm this entire time, or that was just a totally random outburst of emotion.
A quick glance at Arcadia's surprised expression tells MegaMan it's probably the latter.
"Sorry," ProtoMan mutters, suddenly slumping with obvious shame. "I just . . . I don't have anything against him, but . . ." He winces.
At least he waited until Trill was gone before saying that. Trill probably wouldn't even know what a gremlin is - MegaMan's not sure what that is himself, and he gets the feeling ProtoMan probably doesn't either, he was likely just repeating something he read on the internet - but the tone of those words certainly didn't leave much to the imagination.
"It's alright," MegaMan says, raising a placating hand. "Just, uh . . ." He gives ProtoMan a half-amused smile. "Did you have to call him a gremlin? I'm pretty sure you don't even know what that is."
ProtoMan evidently sees the offered 'olive branch', as it were, and takes it gratefully. "Do you?" he retorts.
"Well . . . no," MegaMan admits.
"Then shush," ProtoMan tells him, sticking his tongue out.
The banter makes the slight tension in the air evaporate. Everyone seems glad to have something to laugh about - except Bass, who just raises an eyebrow and only quirks the corner of his mouth to one side, always pretending he's not as amused as he actually is.
"I, um . . ." ProtoMan's smile drops and he looks at MegaMan with a truly apologetic expression. "I really am sorry about that, though. I-I didn't really mean to . . . I'm not sure why I said that, I was . . . I was fine . . ."
Keyword there being 'was', MegaMan supposes. Maybe ProtoMan only thought he was fine, and then as soon as Trill left, he suddenly discovered he actually wasn't fine, and the first thing he said reflected that.
Either way, it's no more ProtoMan's fault than it is Trill's. MegaMan doesn't want to blame one or the other - they're both trying, in their own ways, Trill being surprisingly patient and ProtoMan trying to get comfortable around him again. MegaMan is perfectly willing to play the mediator between the two of them if it means they'll eventually be comfortable around each other like they were when Trill was a baby-Navi.
Not a baby-Navi anymore.
MegaMan blinks at that, almost surprised before he remembers - the core of Dark MegaMan, tucked away inside the heart container, stored safely in Lan's PET. He doesn't need to be holding it to hear the core's mental voice, though if he's in a network that Lan's PET isn't connected to, evidently he'll be unable to hear it unless he's carrying it with him.
He leaves Arcadia to reassure ProtoMan that it's not his fault - it isn't, and MegaMan would do it himself, but he's suddenly getting an odd feeling from the core and he thinks that requires his attention more at the moment. Besides, he knows Arcadia is more impartial than he is in this, and is far better at calming ProtoMan down anyway.
Are you okay? MegaMan asks the core. I haven't heard you talking for a while . . .
Finally remembered I exist? There's something oddly bitter and resentful in the core's tone as it speaks. Thought you were too busy with Trill to care anymore.
MegaMan's first instinct is to get defensive and demand to know why the core is being so unfair - of course he's been busy with Trill, he has to be. That doesn't mean he doesn't care about Dark MegaMan's core anymore, he just . . . kinda needs to prioritise Trill right now.
Except personal experience has taught him to think before he acts, especially with things like this, so instead of acting on his instinctive response, MegaMan frowns and tries to dig a little deeper into the bitter resentment he's getting from the core.
It doesn't take much digging for him to get past it. Under the surface of bitter resentment is a lonely feeling - one that MegaMan recognises with a jolt of sudden realisation, and sadness.
It's the same kind of loneliness that the core felt when it was still walking around in its own body, when MegaMan figured out how to use his connection with his dark counterpart to track him down and try to stop him from using Duo's power. The core's feeling that same loneliness now, because MegaMan's been too busy trying to look after Trill to pay attention to it like he used to.
I'm sorry, MegaMan says softly, calling the heart container from Lan's PET and catching it as it materialises in his arms. I didn't realise . . .
Obviously, the core retorts. But MegaMan doesn't take offence despite the tone, because the core isn't bothering to hide its loneliness anymore. The core stays silent for a moment or two, and when it next speaks, it doesn't sound so petulant. Can you . . . go back to carrying me around, like you used to?
Of course, MegaMan immediately agrees. I'm sorry I didn't . . . I'm sorry.
It's okay, the core says, even though it clearly isn't. Just . . . don't forget about me. Please.
I won't, MegaMan tells it. Actually . . . I don't think I've told Trill about you yet. Do you want me to introduce the two of you? Properly, that is.
He feels almost guilty for not thinking of this before. Maybe he had an excuse when Trill was a baby-Navi - he required a lot of attention at that point - but when Trill grew up (even if they still don't know how he grew up in the first place) and started being a little bit more independent, MegaMan should've . . . well, he should've remembered the core. No getting around the fact that he basically forgot about it.
I'd like to meet him properly, the core says softly, and MegaMan senses that it's trying to distract him from his guilt.
He smiles. Alright. I'll introduce the two of you as soon as I can.
The core's loneliness fades a little, and MegaMan gets a warm feeling from it. It's not quite happiness - because he can sense a little bit of hurt from the core still, hurt from being almost forgotten about - but it's something. A warm feeling is a nice feeling.
"Hello, old friends!"
MegaMan jumps, tightening his grip on the heart container out of pure reflex. He looks up, trying to locate the speaker, and then stops and stares.
Glide chuckles at their startled looks. "Well, if I had known you were all so easy to surprise, I would have done this quite a while ago."
"Who the fuck are you?" Bass demands incredulously, and that's what snaps everyone out of their shock.
"Glide!" MegaMan exclaims, stepping forward and grinning. "I'm so happy to see you, how're you doing?"
"Very well, thank you," Glide replies, with a smile of his own, as he bows.
"What're you even doing here?" Roll asks, though she seems too delighted at suddenly seeing Glide to be confused. "The last time we saw you was at the fireworks show, and then you went back to Kingland with Yai."
"Yes, indeed," Glide agrees, inclining his head toward her in acknowledgement. "But now we have returned, for good this time! I suspect Miss Yai should be making her own entrance soon. I ask that you all stay here until she does, so you do not accidentally ruin the surprise."
"I'm pretty sure Mimic already knows," Arcadia comments, glancing up at the screen showing them the classroom in the real world.
MegaMan glances up at it too. The humans - their own operators included - seem confused about their lunches, and no wonder, because he's pretty sure the menu today did not include a strawberry parfait. The only one who isn't confused is Mimic; instead, she's staring at her own parfait with a look of intense pain.
"How would she- ah, yes, her . . . knowledge," Glide realises, glancing around at the other Navis still in the classroom's network. None of them have the sensitive hearing of ProtoMan or Arcadia, and none of them are close enough to overhear the conversation, but there's no harm in being cautious.
Mimic looks like she's about to scream, the core comments.
Considering her experience with Yai, I'm not sure I blame her, MegaMan admits. He sees Chaud's puzzled expression turn to one of mild horror before he drops his head onto his desk and grips his hair in his fingers. Ah. I guess she just told Chaud what's about to happen.
"I'm not complaining, but . . ." Lan pokes at the ice cream - or parfait, as Maylu called it - cautiously with his spoon. "Why? I'm pretty sure ice cream wasn't supposed to be on the menu today . . ."
"Right?" Maylu is frowning at her own parfait, even though she's already eaten almost half of it. "I wonder if it's some kind of memorial thing."
"I fuckin' wish it was," Mimic mutters from her own seat.
Behind her, Chaud has, for some reason, dropped his head onto his desk and seems to be trying to rip his own hair out. In fact, neither of the twins seem particularly pleased with the random parfait - Lan knows that Mimic doesn't care much for the taste of strawberries, but that doesn't exactly warrant the look of intense pain on her face, nor does it explain Chaud's reaction.
"What's going on?" Lan lowers his voice to ask that question, suddenly worried that something bad's about to happen, even though it's literally just ice cream.
"You'll find out in a minute," Mimic mutters.
"Hey, Lan?" Trill's voice distracts him from the twins' reactions. "What's a parfait?"
"Huh?" Lan blinks at him, then frowns and tries to remember. He's not good with this dessert stuff - his food thing is curry, and that's a main course meal. "It's a type of . . . ice cream dessert thing. I dunno if there's different flavours of it, but the only one I know is the strawberry one."
"Only because it's right in front of you," Maylu says flatly, gesturing to his uneaten parfait.
Lan smiles sheepishly. "Yeah."
"Oh, wow!" Trill seems pretty excited about the ice cream thing. "Hey, hey, Lan, do you think I could-"
A sudden intense glow of light from the front of the classroom cuts off Trill's words and makes just about every single student in the class - and Trill - cry out. Lan winces and shades his eyes with his arm, glancing over at the twins, and sees them covering their eyes with their hands to avoid the glaring light. Whoever decided to let off this light is a complete moron, seriously, Mimic and Chaud could get blinded by something like this.
Luckily, the light only lasts a moment or two before it mercifully begins to die down to a more reasonable level. Lan lowers his arm, blinking away the bright spots of light still lingering in his vision, and squints at the front of the classroom.
There's a video playing on the whiteboard, and for some reason he gets the feeling that this is familiar, somehow. Like he's been through something like this before, and he enjoyed it just about as much as he is right now. Which is not at all, and with increasing levels of incredulity.
"Hi, everyone!" a voice that Lan definitely recognises exclaims, and suddenly he realises why this feels familiar.
Yai spins into view on the video screen, giving them a smile that she probably thinks is radiant but seems more patronisingly arrogant after almost being blinded like that. Pretty petals flutter down around her, and gentle music that's the exact opposite of Yai's entire personality plays softly in the background.
Mimic is looking at the screen with an expression of pained resignation. Chaud just looks like he's about to cry.
"I was away from you all for quite some time, wasn't I?" the Yai in the video giggles. She probably thinks it's endearing. It isn't. "But worry not, friends! For I have finished elementary school in Kingland with the highest marks, and from today onwards, I shall be your classmate once again!"
Oh. Suddenly Mimic and Chaud's reactions to the parfait make perfect sense.
The video is apparently over now - which is odd, because the introductory video Yai made them watch last time was literally six hours long, so . . . it's kinda weird that this one only lasted less than a minute. The whiteboard goes blank once again, and they're not even given a moment to process what they all just saw before the front door of the classroom opens.
In walks the real Yai, with as much pomp and swagger as Lan remembers from way back when she first joined their class. She flounces up to the front of the classroom and spins around cheerfully, flashing a bright grin at all of them, though the flash from her forehead is even brighter.
"Nice to see you all again!" Yai practically sings.
Mimic makes a quiet, pained noise and buries her face in her hands.
"Was that really necessary?" MegaMan wonders. "She could've just walked in and it probably would've had the exact same effect."
"Yes, but you all know Miss Yai," Glide sighs in fond exasperation. "If she sees an opportunity, she will take it with both hands."
"She nearly blinded our operators." ProtoMan frowns at him. "Nearly blinded me, too, and I wasn't even in the fucking classroom."
Glide blinks at him, as if noticing him for the first time. "Er . . . might I ask who you are?"
"That's ProtoMan, Glide," MegaMan says, before ProtoMan can get over his shock and demand to know why Glide doesn't recognise him.
"Really?" Glide peers closer at ProtoMan, making him shift uncomfortably, and then Glide's eyes widen and he leans back, apparently surprised. "Oh, so it is! My apologies, I did not recognise you."
"No shit," ProtoMan mutters under his breath. The only one who hears is Arcadia, who gives him a look that's half-amused and half-pitying.
"I was unaware that you were able to remove your helmet," Glide goes on. "You look so different without it! I was also unaware that NetNavis could have heterochromia, actually . . ."
"Hetero-what-now?" ProtoMan repeats, blinking.
"Odd-coloured eyes," Glide explains.
"Why not just say that instead of using fancy-ass words, then?"
"I'm pretty sure you used to use 'fancy-ass' words, too," Arcadia says.
"Why the hell would I do that?" ProtoMan wonders.
"To annoy Mimic," his brother replies.
ProtoMan blinks. "Oh. Yeah, that sounds about right."
Bass snorts quietly, though he hasn't once taken his eyes off Glide. ProtoMan doesn't think he's ever actually met Glide before - the only reason Bass knows the others is because they're friends of ProtoMan, Arcadia, and MegaMan, and that's probably the only reason he tolerates them. Having someone new randomly pop up isn't gonna do much good for what few social skills Bass has, though admittedly he basically doesn't care about that kinda stuff anyway.
They're all distracted when IceMan suddenly streams into the classroom's network. He looks around for a moment, spots Glide, grins, and comes running over excitedly.
"Hi, Glide!" IceMan exclaims. "MegaMan just sent me a message saying you were here, I had to come and say hi!"
"Goodness, I had almost forgotten you and your operator are in a different class to ours." Glide laughs good-naturedly. "The two of you are around us that often! How are you, old friend?"
"I'm great!"
"I thought you were IceMan," ProtoMan says, before he can stop himself.
At least that gets a few laughs out of his friends. Even Bass seems amused, though his amusement is limited to rolling his eyes.
"See, what'd I say?" Bass gestures to ProtoMan. "His sense of humour is just stupid puns and deletion humour."
"I can tell there have been quite a few changes since I was last part of this group," Glide observes, giving Bass a polite nod. "Might I ask who you are?"
"No, you may fucking not," Bass retorts.
"His name's Bass," Arcadia says immediately after, and ignores the flat glare Bass throws at him. "Don't mind his personality, he's just an asshole."
"Piss off, owl!"
"And, er . . ." Glide seems to be a little thrown off by Bass's personality, regardless of what Arcadia said. "Who is your operator?"
"No one," Bass snaps, before Arcadia can answer for him. "I'm independent, always have been and always will be. I just hang around these idiots because I've got nothing better to do."
"He calls Chaud and Mimic his humans," ProtoMan speaks up, and grins when Bass glares at him, this time. "Also, he lives with us."
"Shut the fuck up, cat!"
"He loves us, really," ProtoMan cheerfully goes on.
"I said shut up!"
"He's just really shy about-"
Bass's hand clamps over his mouth. "Shut. Up."
Glide seems pretty bemused by the whole scene. "He is . . . quite an interesting character."
"That's one way of putting it," MegaMan says dryly. The core in the heart container pulses, making him huff out a quick laugh, and ProtoMan wonders what the core said but he's too busy trying to pry Bass's hand off his mouth to ask.
Trill and Yai are staring at each other. Or Trill is staring at Yai's forehead, completely captivated by its shininess, and Yai is staring at Trill with a thoughtful look on her face.
Lan, for one, is just a little bit uncomfortable at being almost in the middle of this weird staring contest. It doesn't help that Yai is literally leaning on his desk about as far forward as she physically can, face far too close for comfort, since Trill is standing on Lan's shoulder and that's apparently the only way Yai can get a good look at him.
Eventually, Yai leans back, much to his intense relief. It doesn't seem to make Mimic and Chaud feel any better, though, because they both still look like they've been forced to swallow something extremely bitter. Which is saying something for Chaud, because he practically used to live off coffee.
"So," Yai says slowly, "this is the little child-Navi Trill, huh?"
Lan blinks. "Wait, do you know him?"
That sounds absurd even as the words leave his mouth. The only one who actually knows anything about Trill is Mimic, and she's already told them what she knows anyway - and besides, she'd definitely know if Yai knew anything about Trill. So Yai doesn't know Trill at all, and he has no idea why he asked that.
Yai unknowingly confirms his thoughts. "Nope!" she replies brightly. "But never underestimate the power of the Ayanokoji spy network!"
She has a spy network? Seriously?
"Didn't tell you about us, did it?" Mimic speaks up in a tone that's drier than the desert Lan and Maylu got lost in once. She gestures to herself and Chaud as she speaks.
"Well, no, but my spy network is still the best in the entire world!" Yai proudly declares.
"I have doubts," Chaud says.
"Allow me to put those doubts to rest, then!" Yai says. Lan thinks she's trying way too hard to impress Chaud - and maybe Mimic too, no one's really sure whether or not Yai's crush is on both of them or just one of them and Yai isn't exactly doing anything to clear it up. "You see, I have connections all over the planet, and-"
"Don't care," the twins chorus, completely deadpan.
Maybe a little harsh, but Lan can't really blame them. Yai's about as subtle as a brick to the face, and neither Mimic nor Chaud are at all interested in romance stuff for themselves. Everyone knows that.
Everyone but Yai, apparently.
"Hey, hey!" Trill speaks up, thankfully just in time to distract everyone from the mildly awkward tension. "Um, Miss Shiny-Forehead, you're the one who gave Lan and everyone else these parfait things, right?"
"That's Miss Yai, thank you, and yes, I am," Yai replies smugly.
Trill is almost bouncing with excitement. "Can you give me one, too? I wanna try a parfait!"
"She can't, Trill," Lan tells him, before Yai can speak. No doubt she'd probably say yes and then do something absurd to make it happen. She has a habit of doing that.
"What?" Trill looks dismayed, now. "Why not?"
"Because you're a NetNavi," Lan explains.
That doesn't seem to help.
"But it's not fair!" Trill cries, clenching his fists and stomping his foot. "I want one too, why can't I have one just 'cus I'm a NetNavi and not a human?"
"Uh-" Lan's mind is blank. He can't think of anything to say that would get Trill to calm down. "Hey, MegaMan, can you help me out here, please?"
His Navi appears beside Trill a moment later. "What's going on?"
"I want a parfait but Lan says Miss Shiny-Forehead can't gimme one just 'cus I'm a NetNavi!" Trill complains. Yai looks a little disconcerted at the use of Miss Shiny-Forehead instead of her actual name.
MegaMan blinks, and then sighs. "Trill . . ."
"I want a parfait!" Trill cries, stomping his foot again.
"Trill, please, you need to stop," MegaMan tells him, in a soft but firm tone.
Somehow, miraculously, that works. Trill freezes, and then his eyes flick over to Mimic and Chaud for a brief moment.
" . . . Is this that bullying thing again?" Trill asks, suddenly far more subdued than he was a moment ago.
"Well, no," MegaMan admits. "But you're refusing to listen to other people when they try to explain why you can't have a parfait, and that's very selfish of you. Understand?"
"O-oh," Trill says, blinking. He fiddles with the hem of his . . . shirt? Whatever it is. "Sorry . . . Um . . . So, why can't Miss Shiny-Forehead gimme a parfait?"
"My name is Yai," Yai bites out.
"Because humans can't turn real world food into cyberworld food," MegaMan explains, ignoring Yai. "So when Lan says she can't give you a parfait, he means she literally can't give you one."
"Aw . . ." Trill pouts sadly. But he's not throwing a tantrum, and he's not trying to demand a parfait even though he can't have one. That's pretty impressive.
MegaMan smiles and gives him a gentle pat on the head. "Tell you what, Trill. You may have been acting selfish, but you stopped and apologised when you realised what you were doing. So how about this? After school, we can go to Internet City, and we'll see if we can find a cybercafe or something that sells ice cream. As a treat, for being a good boy."
Trill's expression lights up like a Christmas tree. "You mean it?"
"Mm-hm." MegaMan nods.
Trill lets out a happy squeal and latches onto MegaMan's leg, bouncing up and down with all the excitement of an overexcited puppy. "Thank you thank you thank you thank you!"
"MegaMan's gotten pretty good at the whole 'big brother' thing," Maylu observes, as MegaMan laughs and tries to stop Trill from shaking his leg off.
"Definitely bein' more straight with him than he was in the anime," Mimic says. "Trill didn't listen at all then."
"That sounds . . . ouch." Lan winces.
"Yeah, exactly."
"U-um."
The sudden interruption is too quiet for them to be startled by it, too nervous for anyone to do more than blink and look at the person it came from. And when they see who it is, they're all actually surprised this time - because it's ProtoMan, standing near the edge of Lan's desk, at a safe-ish distance from Trill but looking up at him and MegaMan with a expression of intense nerves that would look almost funny on anyone else.
"If . . . if you wanna give him ice cream, then . . ." ProtoMan's almost wilting under all of their stares, but it's a testament to whatever confidence he's managed to regain that he doesn't just immediately go back into the cyberworld. "Uh, there's this . . . there's a cybercafe, in Internet City. I-it's a nice place, and I think the menu had ice cream on it? I . . . was kinda focused on the fish, to be honest, so I'm . . . not really sure. I could . . . I could show you where it is, after school?"
"Really!?" Trill yelps excitedly, clasping his hands together.
That sudden movement of Trill's hands makes ProtoMan flinch back and almost fall off Lan's desk, but luckily Mimic reaches out, quick as a flash, and nudges him back onto the desk.
"Sorry," Trill quickly says, instantly hiding his hands behind his back. "Um, thank you, ProtoMan. I wanna see if this cybercafe place has ice cream, please!"
"O-okay," ProtoMan squeaks. "Um. Bye." And he promptly flickers out of sight, presumably back to the cyberworld where Arcadia will probably drag him off somewhere to calm down.
"See?" MegaMan nudges Trill encouragingly. "I told you apologising was a good thing."
"Yeah, but . . ." Trill looks kinda worried. "He's still really scared, isn't he?"
"Fear doesn't go away instantly," MegaMan says wisely. "Life isn't a movie or a TV show or anything like that. You can't fix something like this with just a few words. It'll take time and patience - but the fact that ProtoMan reached out just now and offered to show us to that cybercafe? That's progress. Baby steps and all that."
Trill looks puzzled. "Baby steps? What's that?"
"It's, um . . ." MegaMan frowns. "Like . . . little steps, I think? You take little steps toward an ultimate goal, or something. I'm . . . not really sure, honestly, it's a human saying."
"If they're little steps, why not call them little steps instead of baby steps?" Trill asks.
MegaMan opens his mouth, blinks, then closes his mouth and looks puzzled. "I . . . um . . ." He glances at Lan helplessly.
But all Lan can offer is a shrug. He knows what 'baby steps' means, of course, but it's one of those phrases that's used in such broad contexts that the actual definition isn't really there - you just kinda understand what it is without the words to describe it.
"You guys seem to be making all kinds of plans for after school," Yai observes.
Lan is immediately distracted from the 'baby steps' thing and is also suspicious. He recognises that look on Yai's face - that's the look she usually gets when she's about to 'suggest' something, meaning no one has a choice and has to go along with the 'suggestion' because it's Yai. Even worse, she glances at Mimic and Chaud as well, which practically screams that whatever she's about to 'suggest' is gonna be another attempt to win over . . . whoever it is she's trying to win over.
"But how about this?" Yai goes on, confirming Lan's suspicions. "Before you all go off to do you own thing, I wanna invite you guys somewhere special! As a 'welcome back' gift."
"But, Yai . . ." Maylu looks confused. "Usually the 'welcome back' gift is given to the person who came back, not to the people welcoming them back."
Yai shrugs. "Yeah, but I like doing things differently, don't I? You guys can come with me to my company after school, and I'll show everyone something super-cool!"
"Oh, here we go," Mimic mutters.
"Do we have a choice?" Chaud asks, though his tone suggests he already knows the answer.
"My limo should have more than enough room for all of us," Yai muses, looking at them and very pointedly not answering Chaud's question - which is an answer in and of itself. "Obviously we'll collect Tory from next door, too, and . . . Dex, is your little brother still in the country?"
"Yeah, he lives with me and Dad, now," Dex replies.
"Great! He's invited, too," Yai tells him.
Lan sees the twins exchanging a glance, and judging by the shift in their expressions, he wonders if they're talking to each other through their connection. He's pretty sure they are, because Chaud tilts his head back and lets out a faint sigh that's a mixture of tired and annoyed, and Mimic has a very impressive deadpan expression.
This brings back memories, Chaud mutters.
Not very nice ones, Mimic replies.
No denying that. Chaud concedes the point with a shrug and shuffles a little closer to his twin sister, trying to get as far away from Yai as possible. It's not that he hates her or anything, but she's really pushy, and she keeps trying to drop not-so-subtle hints of flirtation or attempts to impress either him or his twin or both of them. Not even Arcadia's sure about that.
The limo is obnoxiously pink, so brightly-coloured that it nearly hurt his and Mimic's eyes to look at it. ProtoMan didn't even bother trying - he just went straight back into Chaud's PET along with Arcadia and Bass, with the request of 'lemme know when we're there so I don't have to look at that pink abomination again'.
"Wow, I haven't been in a limo like this for a while . . ." Lan murmurs from opposite them. "I'd almost forgotten what it's like."
"Better get used to it again," Yai sing-songs, overhearing him. "'Cus now that I'm back, it's gonna be high-living for all of us once again!"
Been there, done that, didn't really work out for me, Chaud mutters.
Or me, Mimic adds.
"I bet it's nostalgic for you guys," Yai continues, grinning at them obliviously. "I mean, Mimic obviously didn't spend that much time in high society, but you, Chaud, you were born into it, so-"
Chaud spits out a hiss that's loud enough to startle even himself.
The sudden silence in the limo is almost deafening. It helps that he's pressed up against Mimic, so all he has to do is stare at the floor and pretend he doesn't exist while Mimic puts a protective arm around him and gives Yai a flat glare over his head.
"Nostalgic ain't the word I'd use to describe it," Mimic says, with just the faintest hint of a growl in her tone. "Even if your spy network didn't tell you shit, it was all over the damn news, so you can't've missed it. Watch your fuckin' mouth."
As if to add to Mimic's thinly-veiled threat, a low growl sounds from Chaud's PET. ProtoMan doesn't even need to speak to threaten someone. And to add even more to that, Ragdoll lifts his head from where he's curled up on Mimic's lap and fixes Yai with an unnerving blue-eyed stare.
"I-I . . ." Yai's mouth opens and closes like a gormless goldfish.
"Um, Yai," Lan begins delicately, with a quick, worried glance at Chaud and Mimic, "that's a . . . it's a pretty touchy subject, okay? Please don't bring it up. They're trying to . . . they're trying to leave all that behind."
"Right," Yai agrees faintly. "Sure. Okay."
That's not gonna be enough to make her stop trying to harass them because of her ridiculous crush, but if it's enough to make her never mention 'high society' ever again - especially in that context - then Chaud'll take it. He's not looking forward to having to spend the rest of his school days trying to dodge Yai's insanity, though. Neither is Mimic, for all that they still don't know which of them Yai is after.
By the time they arrive at Yai's company - Gabcom, which . . . isn't actually her company, it's her father's, but apparently she considers everything her 'daddy' owns to be hers by default - the tension has somewhat died down. The awkwardness hasn't, though, because there's really no way anyone can just dissipate awkwardness from something like that.
But the excitement at finding out whatever Yai's 'super-cool' thing is starts to overtake that awkwardness, and the last of the tension melts away when they all head into the building. Everyone's too excited to feel awkward anymore - everyone except Chaud, who can't really muster the energy to get excited right now, and Mimic, who's torn between annoyance and resignation of whatever's going to happen. Though Lan does occasionally glance back at them like he's checking they're okay, so it hasn't been totally forgotten.
Yai leads the group straight over to the front desk, where a couple of receptionists are sitting. They kinda remind Chaud of some of the receptionists that used to work - or still do work, he's not entirely sure - for IPC, and the similarity is far too uncomfortable. The fact that this is a company building, even if the company isn't IPC, doesn't help at all.
The only thing that's stopping him from turning around and walking back out the door is Mimic gripping his hand, Ragdoll pressing against his legs between them, ProtoMan and Dark Shadow sitting on one of his shoulders, Bass standing on the other, and Arcadia sitting cross-legged on his head. The silent moral support helps to ground him.
"Hello, Miss Yai," one of the receptionists greets the little girl politely. "What can we do for you today?"
"I want to show my friends the Radical Projector," Yai declares proudly, like she's showing off a new thing she just bought. "The development room isn't in use at the moment, right?"
"No, but . . ." The second receptionist looks apologetic. "I'm very sorry, Miss Yai, but the person in charge of that room is out right now, so . . ."
"That's fine," Yai replies, waving her hand dismissively. "I don't mind if they're out, we'll just head in there anyway."
"B-but, Miss Yai!" the first receptionist protests.
Yai completely ignores her and wanders past the front desk. The others follow her like sheep, too excited at the thought of getting to see whatever it is Yai wants them to see to realise the massive problem with everything in that exchange.
Chaud sighs and looks at the two receptionists sympathetically. "If it makes you feel any better, we'll try and stop her from going overboard."
The second receptionist stares at him. The first one looks puzzled for a moment, before she glances down at what's presumably a hidden computer screen, and her eyes widen.
"Wait, aren't you Chaud Blaze?" the first reception asks, looking up to gape at him. "That news report . . ."
Chaud feels the almost overwhelming urge to hiss again, but just barely manages to suppress it. "Chaud Hikari," he grits out.
"Ah . . ." The first receptionist blinks. "R-right, of course, sir, my apologies."
"Don't call me sir," Chaud mutters.
Mimic gives him a quick nudge and nods in the direction the others went in. There's a lift nearby, and everyone's already inside. Lan's keeping the doors open for them, and although he probably couldn't hear any of that, he still seems worried. Maybe he's guessed that Chaud isn't exactly enjoying being here.
This was . . . probably a mistake, agreeing to come and see whatever it is Yai wanted them to see. But everyone else had already agreed, and Mimic said there was something they need to do here, so he had to come.
Chaud lets out a sigh that's only loud enough to be heard by his twin sister and their Navis, and heads over to the lift.
Mimic isn't enjoying this any more than Chaud is, but she has a plan to limit the amount of time they have to spend in Gabcom's building. And that plan is directly linked to whether or not she'll be able to manipulate Yai into not being an idiot.
Which is . . . admittedly not the best plan she's ever come up with. Yai is notorious for doing what she wants when she wants purely because she's rich and thinks she can get away with anything, and while Mimic has manipulated plenty of stupid people, Yai's kind of stupidity is pretty special - it's born out of sheer arrogance and the distinctively puffed-up view the girl has of herself. That kind of stupid is difficult to manipulate.
But she did manage to shut Yai up earlier, at least for the limo ride here. If manipulation won't work, maybe intimidation will.
She remembers Anetta telling her and Chaud that Yai developed a crush on them - or one of them, no one's really sure, honestly - because she literally thought Mimic (when she was pretending to be Chaud) was 'timid and submissive' or something. Doing the exact opposite of that seems to startle Yai into shutting up and being meek for . . . not very long, but definitely long enough to get shit done.
So she follows the others into the antechamber outside the development room, thinking about how she can intimidate Yai into not breaking everything like she did in the anime, while holding Chaud's hand to try and help ground him. It helps to keep her grounded, too, so win-win.
The antechamber is a completely bare room, with double-doors on the opposite side. A sign is hung on the handles, and the big black letters spelling KEEP OUT are visible even to those who don't have enhanced vision.
"Um, are we actually allowed in here?" Tory, ever the voice of reason that absolutely no one listens to, asks. "I feel like we're gonna get in trouble for this . . ."
"It's fine, my daddy owns this company and therefore this building," Yai dismisses.
"This place looks like a secret lab or something," Chisao comments.
"That's almost true!" Yai cheerfully replies, striding over to the double-doors. She pulls off the KEEP OUT sign and turns to them with a grin. "The room beyond here is a strictly confidential development room for new, experimental projects like the one I'm about to show you!"
Was I ever like this in the anime? Chaud asks, as everyone laughs nervously at Yai's blatant disregard for basic common sense.
Not that I remember, Mimic replies. You were basically just a normal kid who happened to be absurdly rich.
Well, it's nice to know I wasn't a complete moron . . .
He didn't act like Yai at all, anyway. Whenever his wealth was brought up, it was always just a 'normal thing' with him, instead of the 'stereotypically insanely-rich kid' that Yai was, and is. Like she said, a normal kid who just happened to be absurdly rich. The anime focused more on his actual personality and relationships with the main cast - of which he was a part of - rather than his money.
Unlike Yai, whose entire personality was and is based around the fact that she has a shitton of money. There was even an entire episode of Yai suddenly having to deal with being 'poor' (meaning she had just about as much money as literally anyone else in their class). That was the one with Higsby suddenly becoming stupidly rich, right? Mimic remembers she tried to skip ahead with that one and Lan had to come and save her dumb ass.
No need to skip this one, though. She doesn't even need to wait for anything to happen - she's just gonna stop it before anything can happen. Or she hopes she can, anyway.
She and Chaud follow the others into the development room, and Mimic stops in her tracks.
Of course she knew what this all was before Yai even showed them, but the Radical Projector is a lot bigger in real life than it looked in the anime. It seems just a little bit more impressive, too, especially given what she knows it can do. Shame it's about to be used by a rich child who doesn't like being told 'no'.
"This is the Radical Projector!" Yai announces, throwing her arms out to present the huge machine with her typical dramatic fashion. "It's the newest type of display that my company has been working on."
Not your company, Mimic thinks in a sarcastic sing-song tone.
Chaud's mouth quirks up on one side, almost amused, but still too uncomfortable to express himself properly at the moment.
"A display?" Lan repeats, frowning up at the Radical Projector. "You mean like a TV or something?"
"We've got a TV at home!" Chisao offers brightly.
"Well, keep watching it," Yai retorts, smirking. She heads over to the console against the wall - there's a whole bunch of thick cables attached to it, going into the Radical Projector, and more besides going into the walls and various other machines in the room. "Trust me, once you see the Radical Projector in action, you're never gonna wanna watch TV ever again!"
She turns on the console and starts typing away at the keyboard. After a moment, Yai glances over her shoulder at them - presumably to check they're watching - and then grabs a lever and pushes it all the way up.
The Radical Projector's display lights up, and a holographic image appears in the middle of it. A huge, four-legged animal with an extremely long neck and short horns, and once again Mimic is shocked despite having already known this was gonna happen, because absolutely nothing could've prepared her for how fucking big this goddamn thing really is.
"Hey, MegaMan, what's that?" Trill asks, appearing on Lan's shoulder with MegaMan and pointing at the holographic animal.
"It's called a giraffe," MegaMan replies. "It's the tallest land-animal that currently lives."
"Oh, wow!" Trill gasps.
None of the others are as impressed as Trill, though.
"So . . . it's a hologram," Lan says slowly, frowning. "What's the big deal? It's not like holograms are some new invention or anything." The most obvious proof of that being the two NetNavis standing on his shoulder, and the assorted collection of Navis currently using Chaud as a pack mule.
Yai gives him an annoyed look. "Don't confuse this with normal holograms!"
And here comes the moment Mimic was kinda looking forward to, even if she didn't really want to be here in the first place.
The giraffe hologram lowers its head as gracefully as a long-necked animal can manage (which is surprisingly a lot, actually), and when it's close enough, it nudges Maylu with its . . . muzzle? Snout? Mimic doesn't know shit about the anatomy of a giraffe beyond 'it has a long neck and it's super-fucking-tall'.
"That tickles!" Maylu giggles, and then she freezes and her eyes widen. "It tickles!?"
"Wait, we can touch it!?" Lan exclaims, mouth gaping in shock.
"Seriously?"
"Oh, wow!"
"I wanna try!"
Everyone crowds around the holographic giraffe. Mimic glances at Chaud questioningly, but he shakes his head - he's kind of interested in this, she can feel it, and any other time he'd be asking a million and one questions about how this was made and all that technological crap that Mimic doesn't understand, but right now, he's not entirely okay enough to want to.
Ragdoll is, though. He trots forward, pauses just before his lead goes taut, and glances back at Mimic with his head tilted.
"He wants to greet the . . . 'not-animal'," Arcadia supplies, paraphrasing from Ragdoll's thoughts.
"No objections here," Mimic says, shrugging. She lets go of Ragdoll's lead and watches him squeeze through the sea of legs until he's right under the holographic giraffe's head.
It probably would've been a better idea to unclip his lead entirely, but she wants to be able to grab his lead and drag him away in case things go badly. Even if she wants to try and stop that from happening, she's not gonna take any chances. She'd rather risk Ragdoll getting his lead caught on one of the thick cables than have him running around in the middle of that mess she saw in the anime without any way for her to keep him the fuck outta the way.
Ragdoll sits and then stretches up, front paws brushing the holographic giraffe's chin, and it lowers its head a little more to peer at him curiously. It's kind of absurd - Ragdoll is an absolutely massive cat, and yet he looks tiny in comparison to a giraffe, even if it's a fake one.
"Can I touch it too?" Trill asks, tugging on MegaMan's hand.
"Er . . ." MegaMan looks kind of uncertain. "I don't . . . think you can, actually. NetNavi holograms can interact with some things in the real world, but if there's too much force applied to our holograms, they vanish. And . . . I think that's a totally different kind of hologram to ours, anyway."
"Let him try," Yai invites, now with her smirk back in place.
MegaMan gives her a puzzled look, but Trill needs no further encouragement. He vanishes from MegaMan's side immediately and reappears on top of the giraffe's head, giggling and patting it.
"I can touch it!" he exclaims happily, much to everyone's shock - except Mimic, though it's still something to see.
"Wow . . ." MegaMan breathes. "I didn't know NetNavis could touch it, too . . ."
"I think I read an article online that said Gabcom was starting to put a lot of effort into hardware development," Tory speaks up. "But I never expected anything like this . . ."
"Yep!" Yai agrees proudly. "Gabcom's been developing the Radical Projector to put it into zoos. We've made it so that anyone can enjoy it - humans, NetNavis, even . . ." She glances at Ragdoll somewhat uncertainly. "Uh, even cats. I guess."
"It's still kinda transparent, though," Lan comments, tilting his head to frown at the holographic giraffe's body. "And you can really tell it's a hologram, not an actual animal. The holograms at Dinosaur Land are way better quality than this."
"But you can't touch those holograms!" Yai protests, immediately getting offended.
"Yeah, but at least they look real," Dex says. "What's the point in having a hologram you can touch if you know it's a hologram? It'd be way more fun if it looked like a real giraffe instead of a hologram one."
What are they doing, Chaud flatly asks.
What they usually do, Mimic sighs in response.
Yai whirls around to face them fully, cheeks reddening with offended anger. "Don't you dare disgrace our newest technology! This is the new big thing, we just need to work out a few details is all!"
"C'mon, Yai," Lan laughs. "You used such a big machine, I was kinda expecting a bigger image, you know?"
Now, Yai's entire face is red with anger and indignation. "This was just the first thing I showed you! You'll be really surprised after this!"
And that's my cue, Mimic thinks. She lets go of Chaud's hand and starts making her way over to the console Yai's at.
Said rich girl spins around and starts mashing buttons in a seemingly-random pattern. If there is an actual pattern to it, Mimic doesn't see it, but apparently knowing how to operate a machine like the Radical Projector doesn't require common sense. Which is fortunate for Yai, because she has approximately zero common sense whatsoever.
"Miss Yai, please!" Glide appears on his operator's shoulder to beg. "You must stop, the Radical Projector uses up an enormous amount of power and you will exceed the company's supply if you continue!"
"So?" Yai is entirely unmoved by her Navi's begging. "I don't care!"
She grabs the lever and makes to push it up once again.
Mimic slams her hand down on the lever before she can, effectively cutting Yai off, and Arcadia - who followed her over - jumps into the console's screen to shut it down from the inside.
"Wha-" Yai looks completely shocked. She steps back, gaping up at Mimic as the console goes dead and the Radical Projector shuts down. "Why did you-"
"As a Net Saver, I have the authority to arrest Net criminals," Mimic interrupts, giving Yai the coldest look she can manage at the moment. It's easy - all she has to do is think of Yai upsetting her twin brother in that damn limo, and the cold, protective anger flares up again.
"I know that, why're you bringing it up-"
Mimic interrupts again. "Which means if you keep doing what you're doing right now, I will happily arrest your dumb ass." Ignoring the fact that Yai's probably too young to get arrested, and how old is this girl again, anyway? She literally cannot remember for the life of her, but she knows it's not double-digits yet.
Yai continues gaping at her for several moments, and then comes the inevitable rich-person arrogance (or is it just exclusive to spoiled brats like Yai?) when she switches to an overconfident smirk. "Oh, really?" she challenges. "And what're you gonna arrest me for?"
"Wilful endangerment of the lives of the people in this building," Mimic replies, and Yai's smirk drops.
"Uh-"
"No?" Mimic raises an eyebrow. "How about the lives of every single person who lives in this damn city?"
Yai's smirk is nowhere to be seen, now. She looks almost horrified, frantic, clearly trying to work out what Mimic's talking about, which is absolutely ridiculous. If she knows anything at all about this Radical Projector, she should be aware of the dangers it could present - she shouldn't need Mimic to spell it out for her.
"Me and brothers are supposed to protect this city," Mimic says, pointing over at Chaud and Lan. "We stop it from gettin' destroyed every other week. Wanna know what we do with the people who try to destroy it? Digital threats we delete." She leans in close, narrowing her eyes at Yai, who looks suitably unnerved. "Human threats we throw in jail. That's the law."
"I-" Yai blinks, apparently too stunned to come up with a response, and then she puffs out her cheeks. "W-well, I'm rich, so the law doesn't apply to me!"
"I have an idea," Mimic hisses, baring her sharp teeth. "Let's push you off a fuckin' cliff and see if the laws of physics apply to you."
That shuts Yai up entirely.
It's harsh, Mimic knows that. Probably she's being a little bit unfair. After all, it's not entirely Yai's fault that she's like this - her dad spoiled her too much and evidently never tried to tell her 'no'. That's almost as destructive as actual abuse, except instead of resulting in a traumatised pre-teen, it's resulted in a bratty rich kid who thinks she can get away with literally anything because she has money.
But even if this isn't entirely Yai's fault, she's not innocent. Far from it. She's ignorant and selfish, and Mimic really doesn't want to deal with this bullshit. Best to put an end to it as quickly as possible before Yai gets it into her head that she can do whatever she wants.
"Wow," Lan says, as Mimic steps away from Yai and starts making her way back over to Chaud. "Uh . . . that was . . . kinda . . . harsh."
Mimic fixes him with a flat glare. "And you weren't helpin' either, antagonisin' her like that. You know what she's like. Don't encourage her." She turns her flat glare to Dex now, who jumps and tries to hide behind Lan, but given that he's twice Lan's size, it doesn't work at all and just looks ridiculous. "You too. Stop bein' dumbasses."
She gets back over to Chaud, who's pretty much the only person - well, the only human - in the room who doesn't look scared or even the least bit unnerved by Mimic's display. He actually looks a little bit impressed, as do ProtoMan and Bass.
"So . . ." Chaud lets the word hang in there for a moment, making sure everyone's paying attention. "Out of curiosity, what would've happened if Yai had continued like that?"
Lan's eyes widen in realisation. Maylu's do too, and she glances at the Radical Projector over her shoulder, clearly wondering the same thing. The others all look vaguely puzzled until they remember where Mimic is actually from, and now they look kind of worried.
"Projector would've gone outta control," Mimic says. "Glide was right - that thing uses way too much power. Would've drained the entire city and caused a total blackout to keep itself runnin'. Apparently it had enough power to rip open a Fossa Ambience."
"What!?" Lan gasps. "S-seriously?"
"What's a Fossa Ambience?" Maylu asks.
"Oh, I forgot . . . you guys . . . don't actually know," Lan says awkwardly. "Uh . . . it's basically a break in reality, or something. Mimic said it looked like a glowing white crack. It leads to the Beyondard that's attacking us."
That gets a few shocked gasps, even from Yai. Good, that means she's actually thinking about the damage she could've caused.
"The holograms would've gone nuts, too," Mimic continues, nodding to the Radical Projector. "Started shiftin' into random oversized animals and attacked everythin', and it would've made stuff like . . . weird combos or some shit, of the animals. Like monsters. Basically . . . it was bad, and it was stupid-" She glares at Yai, who actually takes a step back. "-and totally avoidable."
Yai swallows.
There's silence for several moments, leaving Mimic's words ringing throughout the room. Not literally - she didn't say it loud enough for that to actually happen - but she can tell everyone's a little bit too scared to actually speak up and break the silence she made.
Until Lan finally plucks up the courage to do exactly that, anyway.
"S-so, uh . . ." He sounds just as awkward as he looks. "Maybe we . . . should we all just head home, then? I-I mean, Yai, you've shown us the Radical Projector, and Mimic . . . stopped it from going crazy, so . . ."
"Uh-huh," Yai agrees faintly, nodding like she's in a trance or something. "I'll call my limo back and- and drop you all off at home."
"Not us," Mimic says, and Yai jolts like she's been shocked. "Me an' Chaud're walkin'."
"We'd rather not be in that . . . thing any longer than we absolutely have to," Chaud explains, though he kinda doesn't need to. Or he shouldn't need to.
"Okay," Yai squeaks, with another nod, this one more of a quick jerk than an actual nod, though. "Alright. That's fine. Yeah."
Mimic tilts her head ever-so-slightly, and Yai falls silent with a noise that reminds her of Mouse.
After a moment or two of letting that particular silence stretch out, Mimic clicks her tongue. Ragdoll trots around the group near the Radical Projector, lead trailing behind him, and Mimic crouches down to pick it up and wrap it around her wrist as soon as he's close enough.
"See you at home, Lan," Chaud says, waving, as Mimic straightens up.
"Alright," Lan replies, raising his own hand in a faintly-bemused wave of his own.
MegaMan doesn't forget ProtoMan's offer, even after what happened in Gabcom's building. Or what didn't happen, given what Mimic was saying. He's honestly glad she stopped all that from happening - he doesn't want to imagine the trouble they would've had to go through in order to shut the Radical Projector down while it was out of control.
As soon as Lan gets dropped off at home via Yai's limo, MegaMan leaves him to figure out today's homework - which is pretty simple, in his opinion, so MegaMan shouldn't need to help his operator today - and takes Trill to find ProtoMan.
He's downstairs, it turns out. Lying next to Chaud on one of the sofas, almost unnoticeable because the Navi-holograms aren't really big enough to be noticed from a distance. Chaud himself is lying curled up on the sofa with his head on Mom's lap, and at a first glance, it looks like he's asleep - but he opens his eyes when MegaMan and Trill appear.
ProtoMan raises his head and blinks at MegaMan and Trill. Normally being this close to Trill would definitely make him nervous, but it looks like he's too occupied with worrying about his operator to feel nervous around Trill at the moment.
That . . . kinda makes MegaMan hesitate. It was obvious how uncomfortable Chaud was in the limo ride to Gabcom's building, even more so after Yai made that oblivious comment, and he didn't really say much when they were inside the building itself, either. Not to anyone aside from Mimic, at least.
Speaking of Mimic, she doesn't seem entirely good either. She's not curled up on Mom's lap like Chaud is, she's just sitting on the other sofa with her legs tucked under her, playing a game on her Switch, and Ragdoll's lying next to her with his paws tucked under his chest. Arcadia and Bass are nowhere to be seen, so presumably they're inside Mimic's Switch, playing whatever game she's playing. There's a kind of flat blank look on her face, the kind she only gets when she's too tired to feel emotions or anything.
So both of the twins weren't happy with going to Gabcom. That'd make MegaMan question why either of them agreed to go in the first place, but considering what happened - what Mimic averted - it's kinda obvious.
"Hey, ProtoMan?" MegaMan begins hesitantly. "Uh . . ."
"The cybercafe, right?" ProtoMan guesses, and MegaMan nods. "Nearly forgot about that, actually . . . Um." He glances at Chaud.
"You can stay here if you want to," MegaMan quickly says. "Just tell us where the cybercafe is, we won't mind finding it on our own."
"Mm-hm," Trill agrees, nodding. He looks a little bit worried - his newfound thoughtfulness is allowing him to be a little more observant, and he can tell something's bothering his friends, even if he doesn't understand what that something is.
"You can go if you want to, ProtoMan," Chaud murmurs, eyes sliding shut. He snuggles a little deeper into Mom's lap, and although she doesn't say anything, it's clear that her presence is enough for him. Probably helps that she's also threading her fingers through Chaud's hair gently, like a massage or something.
"You sure?" ProtoMan asks, glancing at him. "I don't . . . I mean, I don't mind if . . ."
"You want to go." Chaud doesn't open his eyes, apparently content with Mom petting his hair, but he reaches out and brushes a gentle finger against ProtoMan's back. "I don't mind, ProtoMan, you don't need to look after me all hours of the day."
"But-"
Chaud opens his eyes to give his Navi an amused look. "Just go, ProtoMan. I'll be fine."
ProtoMan doesn't look entirely happy, but he nods anyway. "Alright . . . but if you need me at all-"
"I'll call you back," Chaud interrupts, closing his eyes again. Mom chuckles at the exchange. "Now go, okay? Show them where that cybercafe place is."
" . . . Okay," ProtoMan sighs, getting to his feet. Dark Shadow gets up as well, revealing itself to have been curled up in the crook of Chaud's elbow.
With that all sorted, MegaMan heads to Internet City with Trill and ProtoMan. Once they're away from Chaud, it seems ProtoMan's nervousness around Trill comes back, and he edges away from the child-Navi. Not enough that he might try and run off or something, but enough that there's some distance between them.
Trill notices, of course he does. He holds MegaMan's hand as they walk, makes sure to keep his other hand out of ProtoMan's sight, and keeps MegaMan between them as a barrier of sorts. If MegaMan didn't already want to try and find him some ice cream as a treat for earlier, he'd definitely try and find some for Trill now. He's getting a lot better with this kinda stuff, and he deserves something as a treat to acknowledge that.
It doesn't take long for them to find the cybercafe ProtoMan was telling them about. He says he marked down its location on the map so he can find it again - apparently the shop-Navi who works there is really nice and even gave him a free fish or something, as an apology for scaring him with the anti-virus system, which is . . . yeah, MegaMan can understand why ProtoMan likes the place so much.
It's a little place, not really conspicuous or anything. There's a bench outside, which ProtoMan says he, Arcadia, and Bass sat on for a while - and that's what prompted the shop-Navi to invite them in, apparently. It seems like a nice place, and kinda reminds MegaMan of one of those small cafes in the real world, the ones that look like they could be a human's little home instead of a shop or something. Small, cosy, and very inviting.
ProtoMan seems to get a bit more of a spring in his step as soon as the cybercafe comes into view. Even his discomfort around Trill isn't enough to quell his excitement at coming back to this place, and MegaMan doesn't blame him. If ProtoMan's acting like this, the cybercafe has to be a good place.
They reach the cybercafe, and ProtoMan pretty much bounces through the door. There's an odd noise, kind of like a bell ringing, for a brief moment - and ProtoMan pauses, looking up with a puzzled expression.
"Hey, you came back after all!" The shop-Navi slides out from behind the counter with a grin. "I wasn't sure you would, you, uh . . . you seem like the type to avoid things that scare you."
"I . . . normally would, yeah," ProtoMan laughs, somewhat nervously. "Um . . . what was that sound, just now?"
"Oh, that?" The shop-Navi points to a strip of light above the door. "That's the anti-virus system. When a virus - or whatever you are - that it recognises comes in, it makes that bell noise instead of the alarm sound. Sounds much nicer, doesn't it?"
"Kinda makes me wanna chase something," ProtoMan comments, tilting his head.
The shop-Navi laughs. "You cat-Navis and your bells . . ." He spots MegaMan and Trill slipping into the cybercafe behind ProtoMan. "Oh, hey, you brought some new friends. Where's those two brothers of yours?"
ProtoMan blinks, looking confused for a moment, and then his expression clears. "Oh, no, only Arcadia's my brother. Bass . . . he just, uh-" He makes a vague gesture. "-he just lives with us, really." Now he gestures to MegaMan and Trill. "We all live together, actually. Th-this is MegaMan."
"Hello," MegaMan says, giving the shop-Navi a friendly nod, which the shop-Navi returns.
"And that's his little brother, Trill."
"Hi!" Trill chirps.
"Aw, he's adorable!" The shop-Navi crouches and grins at Trill. "I like your jester-helmet, Trill."
"Jester-helmet?" Trill repeats, blinking.
MegaMan's a little confused, too. But he glances down at Trill - or more specifically, at his helmet - and he sees what the shop-Navi means. Those white floppy 'ears' on the sides of Trill's helmet, with the little balls on the ends. Huh. He never thought of that before.
"What's a jester, MegaMan?" Trill asks, tugging on his hand.
"It's a professional joker, also known as a 'fool'," MegaMan explains. He gestures to the floppy ears on Trill's helmet. "They usually wear a cap with floppy ears like that."
Trill lets go of MegaMan's hand to grasp both ears in his hands and pull them down so he can peer at them.
"And there're usually bells at the ends of the ears," MegaMan adds.
"Bells?" Trill blinks, glances at the little balls on the ends of his own floppy ears, then looks up at the strip of light above the door. "You mean like that noise we heard just now?"
"Like that, yeah."
Trill lets go of his floppy ears and frowns for a moment. There's a look of concentration on his face now, which is a little puzzling.
"Uh, Trill?" MegaMan reaches out to him. "Are you-"
Trill shakes his head hard enough to make the ears on his helmet flop around. MegaMan's a little more than surprised when he hears jingling bells accompanying the movement - similar to the bell sound from the anti-virus system, but more rapid, and there's two distinct bell sounds jingling at the same time rather than just a single one.
MegaMan can only stare. After a moment or two, Trill stops shaking his head, and looks up at him with a bright smile.
"I can do that too!" Trill says cheerfully.
" . . . Yes," MegaMan says faintly. "Yes, you can."
And then he's surprised again when ProtoMan suddenly appears, far closer to Trill than he's been ever since the collecting incident. He's crouching, apparently completely fascinated with Trill's floppy ears - and the little balls on the ends of them - and the pupils in his mismatched eyes are normally slits or oval-shaped, but now they're round circles.
"Um," Trill says, blinking at ProtoMan's sudden closeness.
Before anyone can react, ProtoMan reaches out and bats the end of one of Trill's floppy ears. The little ball on the end makes a faint jingling sound in response, and ProtoMan lets out an excited squeak and practically vibrates on the spot.
"Bell-bell-bell-bell-bell!" he chants rapidly.
Trill stares at him for a moment, wide-eyed, and then glances at MegaMan without turning his head.
"He is a cat," MegaMan reminds him, trying to suppress his laughter by pressing the back of his hand to his mouth. It doesn't work very well.
The shop-Navi looks totally bewildered by this turn of events. He gets to his feet, watching them for a moment, and then he shakes his head with a bemused smile.
"So, uh . . . what can I do for you guys today?" the shop-Navi asks MegaMan, since ProtoMan is . . . otherwise occupied.
MegaMan blinks, and then abruptly remembers why they're even here in the first place. "Oh- my little brother wanted some ice cream, and ProtoMan said you might sell it?"
"We do, in fact!" the shop-Navi replies brightly, heading back around the counter. He takes out a menu file and hands it over to MegaMan as he approaches the counter. "Usually you'd have to buy a main meal and get the ice cream as a dessert, but . . ." The shop-Navi glances at ProtoMan, who's now happily batting away at Trill's jester-ears, and Trill has gotten over his surprise and is giggling. "Well, I guess I don't mind making an exception for you guys. I mean, if you're gonna make coming here a regular thing, I don't see why not."
Wow. No wonder ProtoMan likes this place. Free fish as an apology for the anti-virus system scaring him, and now they get to buy a dessert item when normally they'd have to buy a main meal to get it in the first place? Oh, boy, now MegaMan wants to come back here. Maybe they could make this a regular outing or something.
"Trill!" MegaMan calls, glancing over his shoulder. "Do you know what flavour ice cream you want?"
Trill looks up from ProtoMan. "Do they have strawberry? I wanna see what that parfait would've tasted like!"
MegaMan glances at the shop-Navi questioningly, and is pretty happy when the shop-Navi nods.
"ProtoMan, do you want some too?" MegaMan asks, looking back again.
"What?" ProtoMan blinks, going still suddenly. He seems to abruptly realise where he is, but rather than immediately getting away from Trill, he just turns as red as his armour. "Ah. Um. S-sorry, Trill . . ."
"It's okay, it was kinda fun!" Trill brightly tells him.
"ProtoMan," MegaMan prompts, getting their attention again. "Ice cream?"
"N-no, thanks," ProtoMan replies, somewhat awkwardly. He gets to his feet and shuffles away from Trill - not trying to get away from him, just putting a bit of distance between them out of sheer embarrassment. "It's, uh . . . I think ice cream's way too cold for me."
"You can have the fish again, if you want," the shop-Navi offers.
ProtoMan's at the counter in the blink of an eye. "Fish! Fish!"
Trill giggles at his ridiculousness, and MegaMan doesn't bother trying to suppress his laughter this time.
Back at home, MegaMan recounts what happened to the others, much to ProtoMan's intense embarrassment, and Trill happily demonstrates his new ability to make the balls on the end of his floppy ears jingle. Well, they're probably bells now, actually, given that he can make them do that.
That demonstration also has the added effect of successfully distracting ProtoMan from his embarrassment in favour of batting at Trill's bells again. MegaMan might be laughing at that with everyone else, but he's also feeling pretty warm at the sight - it seems like the last of ProtoMan's nervousness around Trill has melted away now. It's great seeing his whole family get along again.
It looks like the twins are feeling better, too. Chaud seems more relaxed than he was when they left, though he's still lying on Mom's lap, and Mimic has a more content expression now. Lan's finished with his homework, so he's downstairs as well, letting Mimic lean against him and watching her play her game.
After he finishes embarrassing ProtoMan, MegaMan gets the heart container from Lan's PET and introduces Trill to the core. Trill seems pretty fascinated by how it pulses when it speaks, and he's apparently very impressed that only MegaMan can hear its voice. The core itself is happy to allow Trill to handle the heart container - as long as he's careful, and Trill has definitely learnt the value of being careful by now, so he's extremely gentle with the heart container.
MegaMan still kinda feels a little bit guilty for basically forgetting about the core, but this appears to be making up for it. And since Trill seems to like the core, he doesn't need to worry about any . . . sibling rivalry, he supposes it'd be called.
Dad comes home not too long after MegaMan, Trill, and ProtoMan get back. He ambles into the living room, stretching his arms above his head, and when he sees his wife and kids - and the assortment of NetNavis - all hanging around on the sofas or the table, he smiles.
"Hey, everybody," Dad greets them.
They return that with various greetings of their own. 'Hi Dad' or 'hey' or 'hi, Yuichiro', that last one from Mom of course. Ragdoll adds in his own greeting in the form of raising his head, blinking at Dad, and then curling back up without a care in the world.
Dad chuckles at the relaxed atmosphere. He takes off his lab coat - quickly checking the pockets, because he has a habit of accidentally leaving stuff in there - and places it near the kitchen sink for Mom to wash at some point.
"Lan, MegaMan?" Dad calls, turning around. "Do you mind if I ask you something?"
"Sure, Dad, what's up?" Lan asks, looking up from Mimic's Switch.
"Well . . ." Dad comes over, dragging out a cushioned stool from under the table to sit down on. "Famous and I have noticed something about your recent battles. The ones after all this mess with the Zoanoroids and the Cybeasts and . . ." He glances at Trill. "And the Beast Out stuff."
Lan looks worried, suddenly. MegaMan's kinda worried, too - is this something bad? Has there been a drop in their performance or something, because of the Beast Out thing? Mimic would've mentioned it if it had happened in the anime, but maybe she didn't understand what was going on.
"It's nothing bad, don't worry," Dad quickly says, seeing their expressions. "It's just . . . well, you haven't been using Double Soul at all recently, even when it could've helped you win a battle. Why is that?"
MegaMan blinks. He . . . kinda hadn't noticed that Lan hasn't been using any of the Soul chips lately, actually. He's been too focused on looking after Trill and keeping him safe.
"Um . . ." Lan winces. "Well . . . I just . . . I don't really know if it's safe to use Double Soul anymore."
"Wait, what?" MegaMan turns to look at him, puzzled. "Why wouldn't it be safe?"
"I mean . . . 'cus of the Beast Out thing," Lan explains, with a quick glance at Trill, who looks up from the heart container and blinks curiously. "It overloaded you so much that you had to sleep for a really long time to recover, so . . . I was kinda worried that making you transform using Double Soul would do the same thing, after the Beast Out thing."
"The only reason MegaMan got overloaded when he and Trill fused together was because that ability isn't natural for him," Dad reminds him. "Double Soul, on the other hand, is MegaMan's ultimate program ability - therefore, it is natural for him. So it should still be safe to use it."
Lan takes his PET out of its holder on his arm and frowns at it. After a moment, he glances at MegaMan questioningly.
"Do you . . . wanna see if it'll work?" Lan asks hesitantly.
"Of course," MegaMan instantly agrees. But just to help reassure his operator, he glances at ProtoMan, Arcadia, and Bass. "Would you guys mind keeping an eye on me, just in case?"
"If you got nuts, we'll beat you up until you stop fighting," Bass says, nodding.
"No, we'll restrain him, preferably without knocking him completely unconscious," Arcadia sighs.
"Fine, whatever," Bass mutters.
"I'm . . . I'm not sure how much help I'll be, but I'll try," ProtoMan adds.
MegaMan nods to them, then turns back to Lan. "Alright, let's see if Double Soul will work."
Lan nods back in return. He still looks kinda nervous, and MegaMan wishes there was something he could say to reassure him further, but the only way to do that properly is to test this out.
His operator takes out one of the Soul chips. It seems that, even if he's too worried to use them anymore, he still carries them around with him. Lan takes in a deep breath, holds up the Soul chip in his hand - it's the Proto Soul one, MegaMan sees the black-and-white NaviMark on it for a brief moment - and then downloads it.
Nothing happens.
MegaMan frowns, glancing down at himself. Nope, he's still blue.
"That's . . . odd," Dad says, also frowning. "Try it again, see if it was a glitch or something."
Lan swallows and nods. He takes out the Proto Soul chip and tries to download it once more, but again, absolutely nothing happens.
"Hm," Dad muses. "Give me your PET, I'll see if there's anything wrong with the chip-download function."
Lan hands it over. MegaMan watches Dad check it over, now extremely worried - is there something wrong with his Double Soul ability? Were Lan's fears right after all, and fusing with Trill to use Beast Out has messed it up somehow?
That . . . that's not really a comforting thought. The Souls he and Lan collected were all gained from connecting with the Navis who gave them - and some of them are his strongest weapons, such as Proto Soul and Arcadia Soul. To lose them all so suddenly would be a complete disaster, because not only does it invalidate the connections he's made with all those NetNavis, it also takes away a huge chunk of his power.
"Is . . . is this my fault?" Trill asks, worried. He's hugging the heart container like a teddy bear, and in any other circumstances, that would look pretty cute - except right now it's just sad. "'Cus of Beast Out?"
"No, of course not," MegaMan reassures him. "There's just something wrong with the chip-download function, that's all. Dad can fix it." He hopes Dad can fix it, anyway.
Tell him it's not his fault even if Beast Out is the cause, the core says, pulsing rapidly.
"Hey, Trill," MegaMan says, sitting down and reaching out to pat his little brother on the head. "Dark MegaMan just said it's not your fault even if Beast Out is the cause. And he's right, you know. Doesn't matter what made this happen, even if it's just a temporary glitch, it's not your fault. Okay?"
"Okay," Trill mumbles.
They wait tensely for Dad to finish checking Lan's PET. It doesn't take long, but even so, it feels like it's been hours rather than a few minutes.
The confused look on Dad's face as he looks up certainly does nothing to soothe the tension.
"This is . . . very strange," Dad says. "It . . . it looks like MegaMan's Double Soul ability has vanished entirely."
"What!?" about half the room exclaims.
"How?" Lan demands, now too shocked to be worried. "Is- is it 'cus of Beast Out, or . . . ?"
"It seems so." Dad purses his lips thoughtfully and looks back down at Lan's PET. "Hm . . ."
"Oh, no . . ." Trill looks even more upset at that news. "So this really is my fault . . ."
"I told you, it's not," MegaMan says gently, pulling Trill into a one-armed hug. "Dark MegaMan's right - it doesn't matter if Beast Out caused this, it's still not your fault."
"B-but . . ."
"There's something else, though," Dad speaks up, surprising them. "Double Soul has vanished, yes, but . . . it's also been replaced by a completely new ability. I'm . . . not sure what it is, actually, but it seems to be somewhat similar to Double Soul."
"The Cross System," Mimic says.
That makes everyone stare at her.
"It was in the games," she continues. "And . . . the anime, too, kinda. Didn't get featured much, but it was there. I know about it mostly 'cus'a the games, really. Or game. It was only in the last one."
"What's the Cross System?" Dad asks, prompting her back on track.
"In the games . . ." Mimic frowns for a moment. "It was . . . kinda like Double Soul. You could Cross with another Navi and use their powers an' stuff. Except you didn't need to sacrifice a specific type of battle chip to use it, you could just go into a screen on the battle menu . . . thingy . . . and then select the Cross you wanted to use."
Dad blinks. "Hm . . . and what was it like in the anime?"
"Didn't get featured much." Mimic shrugs. "From what I remember, though . . . Lan discovered it by accident. Think . . . Shuko asked him to check out some data on her PET, so he took it from hers and put it in his own, and then Aqua Cross happened. Aqua Beast Cross, actually, I think the anime only used it for, um, for Beast Crosses. But the games let you use it without Beast Out or with it if you wanted to."
"Aqua Cross . . ." Lan murmurs. "And . . . Aqua Beast Cross . . ."
"That's probably what it is," Mimic says, nodding to Lan's PET. "I dunno if it'll work like it does in the games, 'cus the anime only had it show up after the Beyondard stuff was over."
Dad puts a hand on his chin, thinking for a moment. Evidently he comes to a decision, and he hands Lan's PET back to him.
"See if you can use it," Dad tells him. He glances at Mimic. "Do you know if there were any specific details for activating the Cross System?"
"Uh . . ." Mimic looks at Lan's PET. "The touch-pen was used, I know that. Didn't see what actually happened - probably wouldn't understand it anyway - but what he did was touch the pen to the screen of another person's PET, take somethin' outta that PET, then put it into his own PET. Like . . ."
She takes out her own PET and demonstrates with her finger. She taps the screen of Lan's PET, then brings the imaginary 'data' to her own PET and taps that screen.
"Like that," Mimic finishes. "But with the touch-pen."
"It sounds like a manual version of how MegaMan usually gains Double Souls," Dad muses. "If that's the case, the data to create a new Cross could very well be the same data used to create a new Soul."
"You can try it with mine, if you want," Chaud offers, sitting up and taking out his PET. He sets it down on the table.
Lan shoots him a grateful glance and takes out his touch-pen. He copies what Mimic did - touching the tip of the touch-pen to Chaud's PET's screen - and takes out some data from it. MegaMan doesn't see exactly kind of data is taken out, but the tip of the touch-pen trails a faint blue glow as Lan brings it back to his own PET, and then he presses it onto the screen.
A surge of energy suddenly jolts through MegaMan. He doesn't know if this is the same feeling he got when he gained a new Double Soul - of course, he was almost always in the middle of some crisis or other whenever that happened, so he wouldn't have noticed anyway.
He expects the energy to die down, but it doesn't. Instead, it makes him almost vibrate on the spot, and he has the almost overwhelming urge to run.
He almost does. He springs to his feet, almost tripping over, and stomps his feet for a moment in an attempt to try and get rid of the energy. It does absolutely nothing.
"Whoa . . ." Lan gasps softly, gaping at MegaMan. "That . . . I-I wasn't expecting that . . ."
"What?" MegaMan demands. "What's wrong? Did something get fucked up or-"
"MegaMan!" Dad cries sharply, and then pauses. "Wait . . . I've never had to tell you off for swearing before."
"Forgot to mention," Mimic speaks up, "in the anime, he also got the personalities of the Navis he Crossed with."
"That would explain what just happened," Dad mutters.
"What do you mean?" MegaMan demands again. "What's going on? I have- there's so much fucking energy in me - s-sorry - I need to- I need to run or something!"
"Hold on, you've gotta see this for yourself, first," Lan tells him.
He brings up a mirror program on his PET and lowers it so MegaMan can see himself.
Even with the energy still surging through him, MegaMan goes still upon seeing his reflection.
He . . . he looks a lot like ProtoMan, to put it plainly. It's similar to Proto Soul, in a way, but there are some differences. He no longer has the shields on his arms, for one thing - they're more like ProtoMan's gloves now. The white spikes on his helmet look more like cat ears than actual spikes, and his bodysuit is completely black, as is his visor, though it's still transparent. And he also has-
"A tail!?" ProtoMan exclaims, gaping at him. "Wha- that's not fair!"
"Um-" MegaMan says.
"I'm a cat too, and he's getting that from me, so how come he gets a tail and I don't?" ProtoMan complains.
"That's . . . actually a pretty good question," Chaud says, frowning.
"Hey, I don't choose how these things look," MegaMan tells ProtoMan, huffing and crossing his arms. "Quit being such a baby about it."
ProtoMan spits out a hiss at him, and MegaMan hisses right back. He can feel the black fur - it's definitely fur, no doubt about it - on his tail bristling, along with his hair. It's not as long as ProtoMan's, it's still about the same length as it was with Proto Soul.
"Um, guys, please don't start fighting," Lan quickly says, looking almost terrified at the thought. "I really don't wanna find out what a cat-Navi fight is like first-hand."
MegaMan immediately stops, subsiding. "Sorry!" he exclaims, giving Lan an apologetic look. "I didn't mean to . . ."
Wait, is this his own worry for his operator or did ProtoMan's guardian-Navi function get transferred into the Cross, too? Shit, this so confusing.
. . . The swearing is definitely from ProtoMan, though.
Speaking of ProtoMan, his shadows are now drifting around him in an oddly-organised fashion. Normally they're just drifting around aimlessly unless they're actually doing something - which they are, though MegaMan has no idea what the hell they're doing.
Then he finds out what they're doing a moment later, because now they're forming up - but not into Dark Shadow. They attach themselves to ProtoMan, or more specifically his lower back, and coil together until they're imitating MegaMan's tail, except it's thicker, more bushy, and longer because there's a lot of shadows to make it.
" . . . I have no objections now," ProtoMan announces, waving his new shadow-tail happily.
MegaMan grins and crouches on all fours, lifting his tail into the air. ProtoMan copies him, sticking his tongue out, and they start waving their tails at each other.
"It really says something about our lives when this isn't even the weirdest thing I've seen," Lan comments. That makes Mom giggle a little.
"There might be a way I can store that data in your PET so you can use this Cross whenever you want," Dad says thoughtfully, watching MegaMan and ProtoMan. "Instead of having to wait until Chaud - or Mimic - are there to give you ProtoMan's data, that is."
"Really!?" Lan's eyes are practically sparkling at the thought, and MegaMan feels a warm kind of contentness upon seeing that his operator is so happy.
Is this how ProtoMan feels, whenever he's worried about his operators? This kinda happiness he's feeling right now, does it come from the relief of knowing that his operator is okay? He knows he'd be happy either way, but still, it feels like it's . . . kinda amplified, because of the Cross. Because of Proto Cross, he supposes he should say.
Holy shit, this is awesome.
You normally don't swear, the core observes, pulsing in a puzzled manner.
Nope, but normally I'm not a cat, either! MegaMan cheerfully replies.
All he gets in response to that is a faint feeling of puzzled exasperation. Is that how Dark Shadow feels, when ProtoMan's being weird like this?
Wait. Wait, is this why he's got so much energy, suddenly? Because he's an actual cat-Navi like ProtoMan, now? ProtoMan's usually pretty energetic and often wildly overenthusiastic. Maybe that's because he's got a shitton of energy. Oh, wow, that'd make a lot of sense.
He's got about a million thoughts in his head right now. Is that normal for ProtoMan, too? He kinda has a short attention span, is that because of the cat-Navi thing as well? MegaMan's gonna have to ask so many questions about this. What should he ask first, though? So many questions, so much energy, too few words to speak with. What question should he-
"Do you wanna play?" MegaMan blurts out.
ProtoMan bounces excitedly. "Hell yeah!"
"Great, there's two cats now," Bass sighs. "He can turn back, right? I'm used to him being the voice of reason."
"It should wear off eventually," Dad replies. "If it really is anything like Double Soul, at least. Mimic?"
Mimic nods to confirm Dad's words. "Always wears off. Even Beast Out ain't permanent. Just gotta deal with crazy-cat-MegaMan 'till it does, I guess."
"Arcadia!" MegaMan cries, bouncing to his feet. "Where's that fish thing? The fish- the rod- whatever the fu- whatever it is!" He just barely manages to stop himself from swearing. He's already given the others shit- told the others off for doing exactly that in front of Trill.
"Guys?" Lan looks at Mimic and Chaud pleadingly. "Do you have any advice for looking after a cat-Navi?"
Mimic and Chaud exchange an amused glance, and then, probably out of sheer pity, they start helping Lan out.
MegaMan ignores that. He's more interested in the silver fish Arcadia's just pulled out. Hell yeah, fish!
