She's warm and wrapped up in something, but her face is uncovered and kinda cold, which is weird because she usually sleeps with her head under the covers, even when it's hot. Kinda makes a weird dissonance - or whatever the word is - in her body, and once she's aware of it, she slowly becomes aware of other stuff, too.
Her first instinct, as has become the norm for her now, is to reach out mentally and feel for the space her twin brother occupies in her mind. She expects him to reach back, because they usually wake up around about the same time if not at the exact same time.
So she's understandably alarmed when that doesn't happen.
Chaud!? Mimic cries, snapping her eyes open.
Light floods in and nearly blinds her, and she hisses, squeezing her eyes shut again. Slowly, more cautiously this time, she opens her eyes once more, and gradually lets the world in.
She sees a desert wasteland stretching far beyond the horizon, dotted with canyons and fissures and dead valleys. The sky is bright blue and there are odd pale lines running across it like wires, and it kinda reminds her of the cyberworld.
Realisation hits her, and she's suddenly cold all over despite the warmth of whatever the fuck she's wrapped up in.
This is Beyondard.
And this feeling is kinda familiar, if she's being honest. It's not her first time waking up in a different reality, after all. The only difference is that she doesn't appear to have accidentally stolen anyone's body to be able to exist in this reality, and she actually remembers how she got here, too.
"Finally awake, are you?"
Mimic jolts, flinching.
Zoano DarkMan is holding her in his cloak, which explains why her body feels warm but her face is cold. They're high up in the air, so high that Mimic almost feels dizzy looking down at the ground, though she's fairly certain she's been up this high before - but in those cases, she wasn't being held by a Zoanoroid, and she actually had something to hang onto. And she also wasn't in Beyondard.
"You humans are shockingly fragile," Zoano DarkMan says. "I was not impressed at all, considering how much of a fight you put up in Beyondard. The transition between realities knocked you out."
And apparently it shocked her out of Cross Fusion, too. She's definitely fully human - or as human as she usually is, anyway - because she can't feel ProtoMan's mind anymore, and she can feel her own clothes on her skin rather than the bodysuit and armour of her secondary NetNavi.
Then ProtoMan himself confirms it, his Navi-hologram flickering into sight and standing on thin air. She's relieved to see him, even if this means they were both captured, because she's guiltily happy that she's not alone.
He's wearing his helmet, so she can't see his eyes, but she's got more than a year's worth of experience figuring out his expressions even with his helmet on, so she can tell he's scared.
"You okay?" ProtoMan asks.
Mimic nods, even though she doesn't feel entirely okay, but it seems to help ProtoMan a little bit. At least there's that.
"She won't be for long," Zoano DarkMan speaks up, and ProtoMan snaps his head up and bares his teeth at the Zoanoroid. "I'm not stupid, demon. I'm fully aware that you won't work with us willingly. But if your human operator were to be threatened . . ."
"Don't touch her!" ProtoMan snarls.
"I won't," Zoano DarkMan replies. "If you obey. Do as you're told, work under the command of Lord Gregar, allow us to study your demonic power, and your operator will come to no harm. We'll even feed her, if you ask nicely. Or perhaps if you beg."
ProtoMan lets out a low growl, and his hologram starts flickering, shadows sparking and unstable around him.
"I wouldn't do that if I were you," Zoano DarkMan warns him, tightening his grip on Mimic. It's not enough to be painful, but the pressure is more than enough to understand the threat even without the accompanying words.
ProtoMan falls silent, but he's still baring his teeth. His hologram's flickering so bad that it nearly hurts to look at it.
"I suppose we can work on that," Zoano DarkMan says. "A true shame that I could not take MegaMan as well, but Lord Gregar did instruct me to prioritise you. Your demonic abilities are something we have not seen before-"
Mimic senses it, suddenly. An odd kind of feeling, almost like unexplained anxiety, and she knows all about anxiety, but this is a different kind of anxiety. A sense of 'look out' kinda like Spider-Man's spidey senses, but she doesn't have enough context to tell whether it's similar enough to call it that.
ProtoMan senses it, too. His head snaps around, hologram abruptly stabilising out of shock, but his hair's bristling and his shadows sharpen into points.
"What are you-" Zoano DarkMan begins.
A dull screech sounds from behind them, and Zoano DarkMan twists around. He has no actual face to make an expression, but his eyes flash with obvious alarm when he sees the dark cloud forming up, and then they flash again upon seeing the shape it takes.
The metallic red body of Cybeast Falzar is visible through the cloud mere moments later, and then its wings blast it apart and send shock waves through the air, rocking Zoano DarkMan and making Mimic cry out. ProtoMan's Navi-hologram can't hold up under that kind of pressure and he vanishes with a half-glitched yelp.
"Falzar!" Zoano DarkMan gasps, stating the obvious of course.
Falzar raises its head, blank eyes fixed on Zoano DarkMan, and opens its beak and lets out the loudest screech Mimic has ever heard. It's hell on her hearing and she wishes she could get her arms free to cover her ears, but even if she could, it wouldn't do anything.
"How did you find me?" Zoano DarkMan demands, covering Mimic with his cloak. The grip would almost feel protective if she didn't already know the Zoanoroid's plans for her and ProtoMan.
There's a feeling of odd pressure from the opposite direction now, and Zoano DarkMan twists around again. A second dark cloud is forming, this time into the obvious shape of a quadrupedal creature, and then fades away to reveal Cybeast Gregar - Mimic had no idea how it was floating in the anime, and she doesn't know how it's doing it now. But she can't really find the room in her mind to note how absurd this is.
It's easy to feel brave when you've got a demonic shadow, superstrength, and a collection of the craziest and most powerful allies at your side. When you're human - or mostly human - and very squishy, it's not so easy.
The two Cybeasts unleash powerful cries - a screech for Falzar, a howl for Gregar - that send physical shock waves clashing against each other. Unfortunately, Mimic and Zoano DarkMan are right in the middle of those shock waves, and the pressure and the noise are very nearly overwhelming.
Mimic remembers this happening in the anime, too. Except it had been Iris in Zoano DarkMan's clutches, and she'd taken out her PET and sent Trill off somewhere in the touch-pen to keep him safe.
The thought of doing the exact same thing to get ProtoMan away from the Cybeasts briefly crosses Mimic's mind. But she can't guarantee that ProtoMan would end up in the same place Trill did, and he'd never forgive her if she did that. His primary function is literally to protect his operator, and right now, that's her.
"Lord Gregar-" Zoano DarkMan chokes out, and then apparently the pressure becomes too much for him to withstand.
His cloak covers Mimic's vision so she doesn't see exactly what happens, but all she knows is that suddenly they're falling, the sounds of the Cybeasts fading above them, and she's suddenly glad she can't see anything because she can feel them spinning and just feeling it is enough to make her sick. If she was actually seeing the world spinning around them, she'd definitely throw up.
Zoano DarkMan hits the ground hard, and Mimic feels her bones shuddering in her body. It knocks the wind out of her, and suddenly she's loose because Zoano DarkMan is stunned by the impact. She gasps in a shock of air and comes back to her senses quickly.
Mimic's first instinct is to run, so that's exactly what she does.
She scrambles out of Zoano DarkMan's grip, nearly tripping over his cloak, and the second her feet are on solid ground, she's off. There's a ridge just up ahead and she makes straight for it, thinking maybe if she can get over the ridge she can escape, even though the logical part of her fucked up mind tells her that it won't make much of a difference.
Zoano DarkMan's stunned state doesn't last long and she hears him grunting as he gets up, and then suddenly one of his portals rips open in front of her.
Mimic skids, falling onto her ass, and ends up scrambling on the ground for a moment before she tries to turn back around, only to remember that Zoano DarkMan is behind her and she'd just be running straight back to him if she tries to avoid his portal.
"Mimic!" ProtoMan screams, and something flickers above her, and then suddenly he's crouching over her and he lets out a wild screech at Zoano DarkMan.
The Zoanoroid stops, uttering a frustrated grunt that also sounds a little bit startled, and he actually takes a step back. Mimic's not even gonna bother questioning how the hell ProtoMan materialised himself without her making it happen - it's ProtoMan, that's all the explanation she needs, really - so she stays on the ground and lets him protect her.
A growl's rumbling from his throat now, tendrils of shadows coiling around him, some of them trailing across Mimic's back and making her shiver. She'd rather feel the cold of ProtoMan's shadows than the chilly breeze from less than a minute ago when she was in the fucking air.
"Be civil about this, demon," Zoano DarkMan calls. He takes a step forward and ProtoMan's growl rises in volume, and he stops. "If you continue to resist, you'll only bring more pain to your operator later!"
ProtoMan's shadows sharpen and point directly at Zoano DarkMan. ProtoMan himself crouches lower, pressing Mimic into the ground, and his growl intensifies even more.
And then a white hand smashes through Zoano DarkMan's chest, clutching a pale grey core, and data blood leaks out from the wound.
Mimic jolts, and ProtoMan actually stops growling out of sheer surprise. Zoano DarkMan lets out a choked noise of confusion, slowly looking down at the core - his own core, Mimic realises, because it pulses when his eyes flash, in perfect unison.
"Oh," Zoano DarkMan says, and then the white hand crushes the core and his body breaks up into data, the pixels disintegrating within moments.
Standing behind him, arm still held out and hand still clutching the broken shards of Zoano DarkMan's core, is Bass. His upper lip is curled, showing his teeth, and he looks absolutely pissed.
"I think the fuck not," he snorts, opening his hand to let the shards of the core fall out. They disintegrate before they even hit the ground.
Bass watches that for a moment, and then he blinks and looks up, at Mimic and ProtoMan.
"You guys alright?" he asks.
Mimic opens her mouth to answer, but then a blast of wind nearly flattens her and ProtoMan and threatens to knock Bass off his feet. They brace themselves for the duration, which isn't long, and then a high-pitched screech reminds them that Zoano DarkMan wasn't the only threat nearby.
"Crap," ProtoMan hisses, looking up at the approaching figure of Falzar swooping down toward them.
The ground shakes with heavy footsteps, and a mechanical howl is the only warning they have before Gregar slams into Falzar and brings the Cybeast bird crashing to the ground somewhere nearby. Mimic's a little bit worried that the two of them fighting will rip open another Fossa Ambience, but considering they're fighting over ProtoMan - or she assumes, anyway - she doesn't really have the luxury of waiting around to find out.
ProtoMan slides off and crouches beside her, and his shadows tug on Mimic's clothes urgently.
"Get on, now," he tells her. "We need to get outta here!"
Yep, Mimic agrees hastily, letting his shadows help her get onto his back. It's surprisingly easy to cling on, even when he gets to his feet - though he's staying on all fours, so maybe that's got something to do with it.
"Bass, c'mon!" ProtoMan exclaims, sending his shadows over to grab the independent Navi.
"Wait a fucking second-" Bass yelps.
ProtoMan takes off like a bullet, and Mimic buries her face in his hair, squeezing her eyes shut. She's faster than most humans and can parkour her way across DenTech City without touching the ground even once, but ProtoMan is the fastest NetNavi in the entire cyberworld and absolutely nothing can compare to that speed. She can hear Bass letting out an impressive string of expletives as he's dragged along for the ride.
There's odd moments of weightlessness when ProtoMan jumps - they're moving so quick that the duration of said jumps are way longer than normal - but he lands very smoothly, never pausing even for a second. No telling which way they're going, but as long as it's in the opposite direction of the Cybeasts, it really doesn't matter.
Mimic isn't keeping track of time, too busy keeping her arms and legs wrapped around her secondary Navi's body, but it doesn't seem like much time has passed when ProtoMan begins to slow down. Normally he'd probably dig his claws in and skid to a halt, but maybe he doesn't want to risk hurting her if he does that, so he's just shedding speed.
And then he finally trots to a stop, and Mimic feels rock pressing against her back.
"Let go," ProtoMan tells her, so she does. "You can open your eyes, Mimic, it's okay."
She does that too, and discovers that they're under a rocky overhang. It's almost like a little cave of sorts, but they've got a clear view of the valley - if it can even be called that, since they're still in the wasteland - around them, so nothing should be able to sneak up on them. Certainly the Cybeasts shouldn't be able to; those things are so big and heavy that sneaking isn't even an option for them.
ProtoMan's shadows carefully deposit a wide-eyed and pale-faced Bass onto the ground nearby, and he nearly collapses before they grab his arms and help steady him. He staggers over like his legs are made of jelly and flops down beside Mimic, breathing hard.
"Fucking hell," Bass gasps out. "I've never gone so fast in my entire damn life . . ."
"You're welcome," ProtoMan tells him, and Bass shoots him a scowl.
"Fucking warn me next time you're gonna do that, cat!" he snaps.
"I did," ProtoMan points out, puzzled. "I said 'Bass, c'mon' and then my shadows picked you up."
"That's not a makerdamn warning, you-"
"Shh," ProtoMan suddenly hisses, crouching and unsheathing his claws. Bass falls silent, tensing up, and Mimic presses herself into the rock wall and quietens her breathing.
She hears it immediately. A faint, rhythmic beating in the distance. She recognises that as the wingbeats of Falzar mostly because there's nothing else she can think of that makes that kinda noise.
The wingbeats gradually grow louder, and then all of sudden a blast of wind comes down into the valley. Mimic, ProtoMan, and Bass are mostly shielded by the rocky overhang, but they still feel the intense wind and have to brace themselves against it once again. A roar almost like a jetplane accompanies the wind as Falzar blasts overhead, so fast that it's here one second and then gone the next.
Even so, the three of them stay silent, waiting tensely. Mimic's heart is nearly in her throat, and she's terrified that Falzar will hear it beating and come back, no matter how absurd that would be. She's even more terrified that Gregar will be right behind the other Cybeast, thundering along the ground. Being discovered by either of them would be a disaster.
She has no idea how long they stay there, waiting and waiting and waiting some more, even when Falzar's wingbeats have long faded into the distance and out of even Mimic and ProtoMan's hearing. No thundering footsteps or mechanical howling heralds the arrival of Gregar, and gradually, they begin to relax.
Mimic lets out the breath she was holding and slumps against the rock wall. Fucking christ, that was too much. But at least they don't need to worry about Zoano DarkMan anymore.
ProtoMan sits up from his crouch, still on high-alert, but less tense than before. He doesn't take his helmet off at all, though - maybe he's scared that something'll come and attack them, like Mimic kinda still is. Bass, on the other hand, only relaxes enough to lower his hands and stop gritting his teeth.
"Fucking Cybeasts," he mutters. "Those bastards are way too OP."
"Says the most powerful NetNavi in the entire cyberworld," ProtoMan retorts, flashing him a slightly nervous grin.
Bass snorts. "I'm one of the most powerful NetNavis in the entire cyberworld, not the most powerful. That's you, cat."
ProtoMan stares at him, mouth hanging open. He's probably blinking under his visor.
"What?" Bass snaps.
"I . . . I just . . . you . . . you really think that?" ProtoMan manages to ask.
"'Course I fucking think that, I wouldn't say it if it wasn't true," Bass shoots back. ProtoMan just continues staring at him.
"Do I need t'give you guys some time alone?" Mimic speaks up, raising an eyebrow at them.
"No, what the fuck," ProtoMan immediately yelps, jerking back and giving her a look like she's just suggested dipping his entire head in water.
"Yeah, he's got a thing for that Crescendo Navi, not me," Bass says.
"I do not." ProtoMan glares at him.
Bass rolls his eyes and pushes himself up into a proper sitting position. "Yeah, sure, keep denying it, doesn't make it any less true." He continues before ProtoMan can protest again. "Moving on from that, I got a question for you, Mimic."
"Yeah?" She blinks at him.
"This is Beyondard, right?" Bass gestures up to the rocky overhang above them, presumably meaning the sky. "That's why me and the cat can materialise?"
"Yeah," Mimic confirms, nodding.
"And you said before that NetNavis can only materialise for ten minutes in this reality, right?"
Mimic nods again, not entirely sure where he's going with this.
"Alright." Bass frowns and glances at ProtoMan. "I'm not connected to a PET or anything and I hope to the fucking maker that I never will be, but my internal clock works just fine. It's been way more than ten minutes since you materialised yourself, cat. How the fuck're you still out here?"
ProtoMan opens his mouth, pauses, and then his shoulders slump in shock. Mimic sits up, eyes widening, suddenly realising that Bass is right - ten minutes isn't that long, and even if she's got no idea how long it's been since ProtoMan materialised himself, it's definitely been far too long for him to stay out like this.
"I . . ." ProtoMan glances at Dark Shadow as it forms itself, but it doesn't seem to have any answers, either. He looks back at Bass. "Well, I mean, you're still out here, too . . ."
"I'm an independent Navi," Bass retorts. "What the hell's your excuse?"
"Um . . ."
Mimic's wondering that too. It doesn't make sense - ProtoMan is a NetNavi, a personal NetNavi, which means he shouldn't be able to stay out for more than ten minutes, because being materialised in Beyondard drains a NetNavi's HP. A quick look at her PET tells her that ProtoMan's HP isn't going down at all.
She knows Trill was able to stay out for far longer than other NetNavis could. But they've already established that Trill is technically an independent NetNavi, and that's most likely why Bass is able to stay out, too. Plus he's Bass, so . . . yeah.
Then she remembers that ProtoMan is a Virus Navi, not a regular NetNavi, and then she remembers the Virus Battle tournament, and the Battle Card capturing ProtoMan and the other Virus Navis who wanted to try it out.
"Maybe it's cus you're a Virus Navi," she says, making ProtoMan, Dark Shadow, and Bass glance at her. "Maybe . . . maybe you've got enough virus data in you to stay out like this. 'Cus I know viruses can stay materialised in this reality, even without the Beast Factor."
" . . . Huh," ProtoMan says, sitting back on his haunches. "I . . . didn't think of that."
"Neither did I," Bass admits, frowning. "Guess it's the best explanation we've got, at least. Unless it's the Poltergeist Program?"
Dark Shadow shakes its head and raises its hands. [we stay because us stay] it signs. [only where us is]
"It comes with me when I'm in that CopyBot," ProtoMan says, nodding. "So I guess it really is 'cus of my virus data . . ." He suddenly grins and reaches out, pulling Mimic into a happy embrace, and he rests his chin on top of her head and purrs. "That just means I don't need to go back in! I can stay out with you for as long as I wanna!"
Mimic certainly has no objections to that. She brings her arms up and wraps them around ProtoMan in return, snuggling happily into his chest.
There's someone calling his name. No, two someones - he can hear two distinct voices, one higher-pitched than the other. But both sound a little muffled, like he's hearing them through cotton or from a distance, and his head feels kinda muffled, too.
Awareness slowly comes back to him. It doesn't take long, or maybe it does, but eventually, he's able to open his eyes a crack, and although the light is nearly blinding, he manages to adjust pretty quick and slowly opens his eyes properly.
"-an!" one of the voices shouts, no longer muffled because he's finally awake. "Lan! Can you hear us?"
"Wake up, Lan!" the second voice cries. "Please!"
"M'up," Lan groans, blinking as he sits up slowly. "I'm . . . I'm up . . ."
He puts a hand to his head, wincing, but he doesn't feel any pain - just an odd kind of dull throbbing all across his body. That seems to fade pretty quick after he's woken up, though, so he shakes his head, trying to get rid of the last dregs of sleep, and looks around.
He's in a wasteland of some sort. The sky is bright blue and that's definitely weird because wasn't it night-time, last he checked? But even weirder than the blue sky is the fact that there're weird-looking pale lines criss-crossing it, and they kinda remind him of the cyberworld for some reason.
"Lan!"
Lan jolts and turns his attention to the ground, looking for the source of the voice. He finds it a moment later - his PET is on the ground nearby, and standing on top of it are the holograms of MegaMan and Trill. They both look relieved to see him sitting up.
"Good morning?" Lan tries, reaching out to pick his PET up.
MegaMan winces. "Uh, Lan . . . do you know where we are right now?"
" . . . Netopia," Lan guesses, after a short pause. He blinks, and then frowns. "Wait, how did I get to Netopia? Weren't we at SciLab?"
And then his mind catches up with his body, and he scrambles to his feet with a shocked cry.
The memories flash through his mind like random images playing on a videotape. The chaotic mess of a battle in SciLab's network, the Gregar army launching an attack on the city, the Falzar army attacking SciLab's network again, Zoano DarkMan and Zoano GutsMan attacking SciLab in the real world and the ensuing battle from that, and then Zoano DarkMan grabbing Mimic and opening up a Fossa Ambience to escape.
"Mimic!" Lan gasps, looking around wildly. He nearly stumbles when he whirls around, but he's too frantic to care. "Zoano DarkMan took her! Where did- oh no-"
"Lan, Lan!" MegaMan has to shout at him to get his attention. "Calm down, it's okay."
"Okay!?" Lan gapes at him, not sure if he's shocked or angry. "We're in Beyondard, I have no idea where the others are, and Mimic has been kidnapped! Again! How is that okay!?"
MegaMan winces, hands tightening on Trill's shoulders. "Maybe that wasn't the best way to phrase it . . . but, listen, freaking out isn't gonna help anyone, least of all Mimic. You need to stay calm and think this through properly, Lan. You can't afford to lose your head and make rash decisions."
"But . . ." Lan stares at him desperately.
"We need to find the others," MegaMan tells him. "I've been trying to make contact, but there aren't any networks to connect to, and this entire reality is like a dead zone. The others must all be out of range."
Lan makes a troubled noise and stares down at the ground. "I don't even know where to start looking . . ."
"I wish I could help," Trill mumbles, pressing his cheek against MegaMan's leg. "I'm from here, so . . . so I should know this place, but . . . I don't . . ."
"It's alright, Trill," MegaMan softly tells him, drawing him a little closer. "I'm just glad you're still with us." Trill makes a quiet noise and hugs MegaMan's leg.
Seeing them like this somehow manages to temper the panic in Lan, and he takes in a deep breath, then lets it out slowly. He's still worried for Mimic, and for the others, who could be quite literally anywhere in this reality right now, but he feels a little bit calmer now.
"I guess I should just pick a direction and walk?" he guesses, looking around.
"One direction is as good as another," MegaMan agrees, glancing up from Trill. "I'll let you know if I get any contact from the others."
Lan nods, sets his jaw, and starts walking.
He literally has no idea where he is - 'in Beyondard' would be the obvious answer to that, but where in Beyondard is the question. At the very least, he's not alone, and he's glad that he's still got MegaMan and Trill with him. He hopes the others have their Navis with them, too, and maybe each other.
And he hopes that Mimic is okay, even though she's probably still with Zoano DarkMan. He took her because she just happened to be Cross Fused with ProtoMan - if Chaud had been Cross Fused with him, it would've been him, instead. Lan's not sure how to feel about that, knowing that either of his siblings could've been targeted, and that it was only pure chance that it was Mimic.
It could've easily been him, too. The Zoanoroids are after MegaMan as well as ProtoMan. So it could've been Lan who got kidnapped, instead of Mimic or Chaud. And now that they're in Beyondard, there's an even higher risk of that happening, isn't there?
"Gah!" Lan exclaims, squeezing his eyes shut and gripping his hair. "We're so screwed!"
"Lan, I see someone over there!" MegaMan suddenly tells him.
Lan blinks open his eyes and lowers his hands, then follows MegaMan's pointing finger. He has to squint a little bit to see, but there's an odd-looking lump in the distance, and it takes him a moment to recognise that shape as humanoid. Whoever it is, they must've collapsed.
He gasps and pushes himself forward, darting over to the person. As he gets closer, the shape becomes more distinct and he's able to make out more detail.
"Are you okay!?" Lan calls as soon as he's close enough. He stumbles to a halt and reaches out. "Hey-"
And then abruptly he realises that while this person is humanoid, they're definitely not human. He jerks back with a yelp, staring at the odd robotic form.
There's a hole in its head, sparking wires exposed to the elements. Data isn't bleeding out of it, so it's not a NetNavi or a being of data, but it still obviously has digital origins. Bruises and rust cover its entire body to the point where it's difficult to distinguish the original colour of the robot, but on its forehead, clear as day, is the yellow star-shape of Gregar.
"What the heck . . . ?" Lan gapes at the robot.
"A forgotten soldier, maybe?" MegaMan suggests, frowning at it.
"Hey, MegaMan?" Trill tugs on him. "Can I have a look at it? Please?"
"Alright, just be careful," MegaMan agrees.
Lan nearly jumps ten feet into the air when Trill vanishes from MegaMan's side, only to appear next to him instead. As in, he's in the real world.
Right, Lan remembers, this is Beyondard.
NetNavis and beings of data are able to materialise in this reality, he remembers Mimic telling them that. What else did she say? There's a time limit for NetNavi materialisation - ten minutes or something, right? - and a pretty big cooldown period afterwards. He can't remember how long that cooldown period is, but the 'ten minutes in the real world' thing is something he definitely remembers.
He watches Trill tentatively reach out, and very, very gently poke the sparking wires in the robot's head. The sparks jump out and shock Trill a little, and he yelps and flinches back. Lan puts a hand out in front of him, ready to get Trill away in case the robot does something - attack them, maybe, or just blow up seems more likely - but thankfully it stays where it lies.
The only thing that does happen is the robot's eyes start flashing with an odd kind of dullness, and it speaks in a croaking, weak voice.
"The . . . s-stampede . . . is coming . . ." it chokes out.
"Stampede?" Lan repeats, frowning. "What stampede?"
That's all they get from the robot, though. It's eyes give off one last dull flash, and then go dead. Clearly it only had enough power left in it to say that one thing.
"Stampede . . ." MegaMan murmurs. He looks worried. "I'm not sure what that means, but . . . it doesn't sound too good. We should move from here."
"Right," Lan agrees. He reaches out to Trill. "C'mon, Trill, let's go."
Trill nods and takes his hand, and they head away from the robot. Lan kinda hopes it really is dead, otherwise they just left someone to slowly rot in this wasteland - and even if that someone is a soldier of the Gregar army, he'd still feel guilty if he knew he could've done something to help but didn't. Some people'd probably call that a hero complex, but he just calls it being a decent person.
They haven't been walking for very long when Trill suddenly stops, and Lan jerks to a halt because he hadn't been expecting it and Trill, while a child-Navi, is still a NetNavi and therefore has a much stronger grip than he does.
"Ow . . ." Lan grunts, teasing his hand out of Trill's and working his fingers open and closed.
"Sorry," Trill tells him, but he sounds absent-minded, like he's focused on something else. "Um, hey, MegaMan?"
"What is it?"
"I think I can detect viruses," Trill says. "A lot of 'em."
Lan freezes, and then exchanges a wide-eyed glance with MegaMan. No need for words - they both realise it at the exact same time.
This must be what that robot meant by 'stampede'.
"Run!" MegaMan yelps, and Lan jumps into action.
He grabs Trill, silently apologising when the child-Navi squeaks in surprise, and takes off running. He can't hear anything yet, but if Trill can detect viruses, they're somewhere around here. And 'stampede' means they're gonna get trampled if they stick around for too long.
He makes it over a ridge - more like a hill, really - and stops for a moment to get his breath back. Then he promptly loses whatever breath he got into his lungs when he sees dust clouds in the distance.
"Crap," Lan mutters, turning around, but there are dust clouds coming from behind, too, and when he checks, he's dismayed to find them in all directions.
"Over there!" MegaMan points in the direction they were walking, and Lan sees a kind of plateau nearby. "Get to higher ground, you might be able to avoid the worst of it!"
Lan sees no issues with that plan - mostly because he doesn't have a plan of his own - so he gets Trill onto his back and takes off running again. By the time he reaches the plateau and starts climbing up it, the clouds of dust have gotten bigger, and he can hear the stomping of thousands of feet and the beating of thousands of wings.
Stampede is right, holy crap. That is an absurd amount of viruses.
He clears the edge of the plateau and hauls himself over the side. Trill rolls off his back and then carefully helps him up, and Lan sits there, panting.
Barely a few moments pass by before the noise of the stampede gets even louder, and Lan finally sees the viruses. There's so many that he can't even begin to count them, and such a variety that he's only able to pick out a few species before the shifting mass confuses him too much and he has to stop trying.
The viruses flow around the plateau and swarm over the hill he was on less than a minute ago, and Lan has never been more grateful for his NetNavi's quick thinking than he is right now.
"If any of them get up here, we can fight 'em off," Lan says, watching the stampede of viruses meet and start to clash. Ground-based viruses against flying viruses - and all of them are Beast viruses, so it's easy to tell this is a Gregar versus Falzar battle. Or Gregar viruses versus Falzar viruses, at least.
"I could collect them!" Trill offers, holding up his hands with a bright grin. "Then if we need 'em at any point, I could let them go, and they'd attack whatever I throw them at, right?"
"Or they might just run away," Lan reminds him, and Trill deflates a little bit, so he kinda panics and adds, "But that'd still be a good distraction! You could let 'em go and then we could attack while the enemy is surprised or something!"
Trill looks a little happier at that.
They watch the viruses battling for a while. Maybe just a few minutes pass, or maybe just a few seconds - Lan's not entirely sure, if he's honest. He doesn't have a good sense of time when things get chaotic, not unless he's in Cross Fusion or just intensely focused or something.
"Man, these things aren't giving up, are they?" Lan sighs, when the battle doesn't slow down in the slightest. "How many of them are there?"
"At a guess?" MegaMan shrugs. "A lot."
Lan gives him a flat look.
"You didn't ask for specifics," MegaMan points out. Trill giggles, and Lan groans.
"You guys are just as bad as Mimic and Chaud," he complains, flopping down. Then he frowns, and lets out another sigh at the reminder of his siblings. "I wonder if they're okay? And everyone else, too . . ."
"We'll find them," MegaMan says softly. His voice is just barely audible over the noise of the virus battle. "We just have to be patient."
"Right," Lan murmurs, sitting back up. "Patient."
He hears a sharp crack and looks up, only to yelp and scramble to his feet when he sees a virus clawing its way over the edge of the plateau. Trill's hands start glowing and before Lan can stop him, he runs over to the virus and touches it.
The virus is immediately turned into a little cube version of itself, and Trill pockets it, turning to Lan with a grin.
"It's okay, I collected it!" he says brightly.
"Oh-dear-god-don't-do-that," Lan gasps out in a single breath.
"Trill, please be more careful," MegaMan sighs, though he looks relieved that his little brother hasn't been hurt.
Trill giggles and trots happily back over to Lan, but then two more viruses claw their way over the edge, and he jumps and whirls back around, hands glowing again. Lan grabs him and yanks the child-Navi behind himself before he can do anything, though.
"Nope, you're not gonna do that every single time!" Lan exclaims. He takes out his PET, kinda flounders for a moment because he has no idea how to do this, and then just decides to pretend he's jacking into something like normal. "MegaMan, jack i-"
"Colonel, transmission!"
Lan nearly drops his PET and then nearly loses his head when a green burst of energy blasts past him and cuts the viruses in half.
A hand clamps down on Lan's shoulder and he yelps, whirling around and pulling Trill with him. He freezes upon seeing the person who 'rescued' him.
Baryl - and it actually is Baryl, the younger version that they got to know instead of the old man who died in the present - looks down at him, eyebrow raised. Colonel stands next to him, actually stands next to him in the real world, and even if he already knows this is Beyondard and even if Trill is currently walking around in the real world too, Lan still gapes at that.
"It's not safe here," Baryl tells him. "Come with us, we can get you out of here."
"R-right . . ." Lan says faintly, still half-stunned.
He puts his PET away - no sense in risking losing MegaMan if Baryl's willing to help out - and crouches to let Trill onto his back again. As soon as he's straightened up, he nods to Baryl, who looks a little puzzled upon seeing Trill but doesn't comment beyond raising his other eyebrow.
"Clear us a path!" Baryl orders, turning to Colonel.
"Understood," Colonel replies, and he raises his Sword. "Screen Divide!"
That attack feels a lot more powerful than it should be. Maybe it's because Lan's human rather than a Cross Fusion NetNavi, or maybe it's just because they're in the real world or maybe that's just a thing with Beyondard. He has no idea and honestly he's not gonna question it.
Colonel's Screen Divide carves a great scar through the stampede, giving them a clear path off the plateau. Lan doesn't have his rollerblades, and he's nowhere near as fast as Mimic and Chaud can be, but he's quick enough to follow Baryl and Colonel through the empty space and out of the chaotic mess of a battle.
They dodge around a few stragglers who seem to be too focused on joining the battle to notice the humans and Navis running away from it, and Colonel covers their backs as they run. Lan just keeps his eyes on Baryl's back and doesn't slow down even when his lungs start burning.
Baryl leads them over a rise and they skid down until they reach the bottom. Colonel stays at the top, Sword up and ready, but it doesn't sound like any of the Beast viruses decided to try and follow them.
"Good work, Colonel," Baryl calls, raising an odd-looking PET. It doesn't have a screen and it looks kinda clunky, but it has Colonel's NaviMark on it, just like Lan's PET has MegaMan's. "Return!"
Colonel gives him a sharp nod and his body kinda fizzles like TV static, and then he vanishes. Lan's kinda interested in that - he remembers Baryl saying 'transmission' and wonders if that's this reality's version of jacking in. If it is, that's kinda cool.
"Are you alright?" Baryl asks, turning to Lan. "Not hurt or anything?"
"No, we're fine," Lan says gratefully, letting Trill slide down off his back. "Thanks, Baryl."
Then he winces and curses himself. This Baryl is Beyondard Baryl, not the one he knows - but the name just slipped out. It shouldn't matter too much, because judging by what Mimic said, this Baryl is a good guy just like their Baryl was, and Iris is also Colonel's younger sister, and even if she kept trying to take Trill away she's definitely a good guy, so obviously that means this Baryl and Colonel are okay.
That doesn't mean he can just blurt out Baryl's name, though.
Baryl looks understandably confused. "How do you know my name?"
"Um . . ." Lan puffs his cheeks out awkwardly. "That's . . . kind of a long story."
Arcadia's only experience with real world canyons are the ones in the Netopian desert, but those are practically Quaker holes compared to the one they're trapped in right now. There's even a shallow river running near the far wall, though 'running' is a generous term since it's barely even moving. Only a faint breeze blows, and it's cold, a fact that's not at all helped by the shadows.
The only sign of the world is the crack all the way up the top of the canyon, showing a fleeting glimpse of the odd digital sky. Arcadia finds it difficult to determine whether this is the real world or the cyberworld - he knows what Mimic said, about the real world and cyberworld mixing together, but somehow he just didn't think it would be like this. One moment his scanners report this as the real world, and then two seconds later he scans again and gets 'cyberworld' instead. It's like this reality can't decide what it is and keeps switching between them.
And that's far from his only worry. Not even his biggest worry, actually.
First and foremost in his mind is his worry for his big brother and primary operator, who, as far as he knows, are currently in the clutches of the Gregar army. Next is his worry for the rest of their missing friends, because there aren't any networks he can connect to and this entire reality is like one big dead zone. And then he's worried about Maylu, who's still unconscious from the transition between realities - he's not sure if humans can't handle the transition, or if the artificial Fossa Ambience that brought them all here is what caused this.
But the biggest thing he's worried about right now is his secondary operator. Chaud hasn't said a word since he woke up - several minutes ago, now, by Arcadia's internal clock - and all he's done is just sit there, gripping his hair to the point where Arcadia can sense brief sparks of pain from him, and he just stares at the ground.
Arcadia senses his anger, his fear, and his worry. He understands those emotions - Chaud lost his twin sister, and Arcadia lost his big brother. But Chaud is too focused on his own emotions to care about anything else right now, so Arcadia worries for him as well as everything else.
Maylu's mind gradually comes out of the dull sense of unconsciousness, and Arcadia glances over at her as she groans and sits up slowly. She's disoriented and confused, something he can sympathise with, but she's not hurt - he can't sense any pain from her, at least.
He suspects the only reason Chaud woke up before Maylu is because he was in Cross Fusion when they went into the Fossa Ambience. The transition between realities knocked Chaud out of Cross Fusion and forced him into unconsciousness as well, but it was still enough to help him withstand the harsh transition between realities, at least.
"Oww . . ." Maylu says softly, putting a hand to her head. She looks around, blinking in the shadows, and spots Chaud. "Ah- Ch-Chaud, are you okay?"
"He's not hurt," Arcadia responds, because Chaud doesn't even twitch. There's no spark of acknowledgement, either - Chaud is completely ignoring everything else, too lost in his mind to care right now. "But . . ."
He senses Maylu's memories falling back into place, and she winces. "Right . . . Mimic was . . ."
That gets Chaud's attention. Something like desperate anger flashes in his mind as he snaps his head up, staring directly at Maylu, and Arcadia doesn't blame her for flinching because Chaud's eyes flash in the shadows and that kind of makes him look half-deranged.
"Chaud," Arcadia says firmly. "Look at me."
Chaud's eyes flick to him, and it's only because Arcadia's used to this kind of stuff that he isn't unnerved by it like Maylu is.
"It'll be okay," Arcadia goes on, softening his tone a little bit now that he has his operator's attention.
It takes quite a bit of effort, and Arcadia senses how much, but Chaud eventually responds.
How do you know that? he asks. The sound of his mental voice nearly makes Arcadia wince - flat, ragged, devoid of emotion like he's feeling too much to express anything.
"I don't," Arcadia is forced to admit. "But this is Mimic we're talking about. She might have escaped already."
You don't know that.
"No," Arcadia agrees reluctantly, "I don't."
The mess of emotions in Chaud's mind is suddenly overshadowed by rage, and his eyes narrow into gleaming slits, teeth bared. Then why the fuck are you saying all that? he demands. She was taken from me! Again! I lost my sister, and you're saying it'll be okay!? What the hell-
"And I lost my brother," Arcadia says loudly, and Chaud stops. "You lost your sister, I lost my brother. We both lost our siblings, Chaud. But getting angry and snapping at everything and everyone around you won't help either of them, will it?"
Chaud lowers his head, scowling at the ground, but Arcadia can sense shame underneath his rage.
"Will it?" he presses, determined to make his operator see sense.
The shame cuts through the anger, and Chaud slumps like a puppet program with its strings cut. Now he's just upset instead of upset and angry, and Arcadia feels a little bit guilty about that, but he'd rather Chaud be upset than angry. If he's just upset, there's no risk of him snapping and attacking Maylu.
"I just want her back," Chaud croaks out loud, curling up into a miserable ball.
"Chaud . . ." Arcadia murmurs. He senses sad pity from Maylu and hears her shifting, but he holds out his hand and gestures for her to stop. "Don't, Maylu. I've got this."
He steps forward on thin air, keeping his eyes fixed on Chaud.
"Chaud," he says softly. He repeats himself when his operator doesn't react, and then again, until Chaud finally looks up at him. "Take out your PET and materialise me. I have an idea, but I need to be touching you to make it work."
Chaud's too miserable and too upset to be confused, so he does as Arcadia tells him. A good thing, too, because Arcadia's not entirely sure what he could have done if Chaud had refused to do this.
Arcadia has had more experience in the real world than most NetNavis, even those who can perform Cross Fusion with their operators. He used to be an independent NetNavi like Bass, and that meant he was able to materialise himself in dimensional areas.
So while he senses Maylu's shock upon seeing him materialising in the real world, Arcadia himself doesn't bother to waste any time marvelling at it. He immediately sits down next to Chaud, who watches him with that miserable expression, and reaches out.
"If this hurts or feels weird," Arcadia says, "let me know, and I'll stop." Never mind the fact that he'd be able to sense whether his idea is hurting Chaud or anything - he just wanted to encourage his operator to speak, hoping that maybe that will help him even if this doesn't work.
Chaud gives him a tiny nod, and Arcadia puts his hands on either side of Chaud's head. The emotions he sensed from Chaud are immediately amplified, and he sees the memory of Mimic reaching out over and over again, and has to force himself out of the loop. But it's a good reminder of why he's doing this, even if it's unnecessary.
"Focus on your connection with Mimic," Arcadia murmurs, closing his eyes. "Give it all your attention. Forget everything else for the moment - just focus on Mimic, and that connection between your souls."
He senses Chaud doing it. It seems to be a little difficult, given how Chaud's feeling at the moment, but after a few moments, he eventually manages it - and Arcadia helps him along a little bit, too.
It's easy to dive deep into Chaud's mind, past all the memories and thoughts and feelings, because he's done this before and he knows what to do now. Both of his operators' minds are as familiar to him as his own, same with ProtoMan's, thanks in no small part to Cross Fusion and just the fact that the four of them are that close.
Last time Arcadia did something like this, he was confirming whether or not Mimic and Chaud were actually two people in the same body. Their body had two souls at that point - Chaud's was weak and spluttering, almost dying in a way, and Mimic's was going strong but had a dead core for some reason. There was a connection, a literal connection, between those two souls.
That connection is still there and still functions just as it did when they were in the same body, despite them being in their own separate bodies now. The main difference is Chaud's soul, though - it was weak and dying in their shared body because he wasn't in control and was little more than a ghost, but he has his own body now, and his soul has gotten stronger, if a little damaged from his experiences. Mimic's soul hasn't changed at all - it's still the same, still with that dead core that Arcadia can't explain.
But that's not what he's doing right now. He's not trying to check on Chaud's soul - his goal here is their connection.
It's like a thread. Or maybe a rubber band would be a more accurate description. When they're right next to each other, it's strong and solid. It gradually gets weaker and more strained the further apart they are, though Cross Fusing with Arcadia has strengthened their connection to the point where it probably won't break or snap no matter how far apart they are, or where they happen to be. Mimic went all the way to the past at one point, and their connection managed to survive that, after all.
The point is, this connection is his goal. He's extremely careful when he reaches out and takes a hold of it with his Empath Program. Even if it can survive them being in completely different time periods, he's not sure if messing with it too much will cause it to break, and no one wants to find out what'll happen if their connection breaks, least of all him.
He senses a flash of shock and something like fear from Chaud, and sends back as much reassurance as he can manage. It seems to help, but now he can sense confusion and hears a question - 'what are you doing?' - burning in Chaud's mind.
Arcadia doesn't answer that. He has to focus on this.
He can almost imagine himself running his hand along the thread of Chaud and Mimic's connection. If he keeps up with that mental image, he can imagine himself following it - not toward Chaud's soul, but outwards, following the thin thread right down to the other end.
It takes a long time. He's not keeping track of time, he literally can't, but if he were, he would've noticed that more than ten minutes have passed by. But since he's too focused on following Chaud and Mimic's connection down to Mimic's end of it, he doesn't notice, and since he's entirely focused and inside of Chaud's mind, he doesn't notice Roll and Maylu's shock upon realising that it's been more than ten minutes.
Arcadia finally finds Mimic's end of the connection, and light floods into their vision.
He and Chaud are suddenly looking through Mimic's eyes. They're feeling what she's feeling, doing what she's doing, and right now, that's walking. There's no clue as to where she is or where she's going, but she's walking, and she wouldn't be doing that if she were still held captive by the Zoanoroids.
Arcadia senses two others with her - and he can't help but feel a flood of relief when he realises that one of them is ProtoMan. The other is Bass, so at least they know where he ended up, too.
Mimic suddenly stops, and the world goes dark for a moment as she blinks.
Chaud? she calls.
Mimic! Chaud cries, almost light-headed with relief.
Apparently that's too much for Arcadia's Empath Program to handle, and they both snap back into their own bodies abruptly.
He jerks away from Chaud with a gasp, mind and body exhausted as if he's been fighting for days on end, and Chaud is trembling and disoriented but his relief is still there, and Arcadia feels the same relief even if he's exhausted beyond words.
"They're okay!" Chaud exclaims, so excited that he's blurting the words out almost too fast to be understood. "They're- they're safe, they're- th-they're-"
"Calm down," Arcadia manages to wheeze out, though he's smiling. "Don't get . . . too excited. You might . . . pass . . . out . . ."
His exhausted Empath Program just barely picks up Chaud's sudden worry.
"Are you okay?" Chaud asks, scrambling onto his knees and reaching out.
"Don't!" Arcadia yelps, and Chaud jerks back like he's been burnt. "S-sorry . . . I didn't mean . . . Y-you know physical contact makes it stronger, and I . . ." He slumps and presses his forehead into the ground, drawing in a ragged breath. "I'm exhausted. Just . . . just give me a . . . hahh . . ."
Chaud sits back, but his worry is still there, however faint it feels at the moment. There's another person's worry, too - two persons, actually, and Arcadia just barely has enough energy left to recognise them as Roll and Maylu.
"Are you guys okay?" Maylu asks. "What . . . what just happened?"
"Arcadia forced us into Mimic's body for a second," Chaud explains. That's not exactly what Arcadia did, but . . . oh, forget it, that's exactly what he did. "She's okay! She got away from Zoano DarkMan, and ProtoMan's okay too, and I think Bass is with them."
"That's great!" Maylu exclaims, and her worry has turned into happiness now. And then it dulls down to confusion. "But, uh . . ."
"What?" Arcadia huffs out.
"Well . . . this is Beyondard, right? 'Cus Arcadia is materialised and there's no dimensional area . . ."
"Yeah," Chaud agrees. There's confusion from him, too, but it's a little different to Maylu's because they're confused for different reasons. "Why?"
"Well, uh . . . didn't Mimic say that NetNavis can only materialise for ten minutes, tops?"
Arcadia pushes himself into a sitting position. "She did," he confirms.
"Chaud made you materialise thirteen minutes and twenty-eight seconds ago," Roll speaks up. "I've been keeping track."
Arcadia stares at her. Chaud stares at her. After several moments of silence, they turn to stare at each other.
" . . . What the hell?" Chaud eventually breaks the silence.
"Check my HP," Arcadia tells him. "Mimic said a NetNavi's HP drops when they're materialised - that's why it only lasts ten minutes."
Chaud fumbles for a moment, actually forgetting where he put his PET - it's not like he was paying attention to where he put it down after he materialised Arcadia, so that's not really his fault. He finds it next to his leg and checks it, and Arcadia senses his shock flashing from him like a burst of lightning.
"It's not gone down," Chaud says, looking up to stare at Arcadia again. "It's still the exact same as it was before."
"That's . . . definitely odd," Arcadia admits, frowning. He turns to Maylu. "Hey, could you make Roll materialise? Just to see if her HP drops."
Maylu nods and holds up her PET. There's a faint sense of nerves from her, along with anticipation, and Arcadia can tell why - the only experience Maylu has with materialising Roll in the real world is via Cross Fusion.
"Roll, jack in!" Maylu says, and the red jack-in beam flashes out and then appears to hit nothing.
It solidifies into Roll, who stumbles a little, and her shock pulses through Arcadia's Empath Program. He doesn't feel as exhausted anymore, so he can sense things easier now, but he doesn't need to sense Roll's emotions anyway because her shock is plain to see on her expression.
"Oh, wow . . ." Maylu says softly, gaping at her Navi.
"M-Maylu . . ." Roll whispers.
"Check her HP," Chaud reminds Maylu.
She jolts and looks down at her PET, blinking, and then she frowns. "It's going down," she reports, looking back up at them. "I mean, not very quick, but . . . it's still going down."
"That confirms what Mimic told us, at least," Chaud murmurs. He glances at Arcadia. "But . . . why isn't your HP dropping?"
"I have no idea," Arcadia replies, shrugging helplessly. "Believe me, if I knew, I'd tell you."
Chaud hums quietly. Arcadia can sense his mind working, senses him going through theories and possibilities, but there's no concrete answer and there's no real reason for why Arcadia's HP isn't dropping even though Roll's clearly is.
Does this mean he'll be able to stay out indefinitely, rather than being limited to just ten minutes? It'd certainly make protecting Chaud - and Maylu - much easier, at least. Chaud won't need to waste time materialising him every time they have to fight, and they won't need to worry about the cooldown period, either.
"We should see if we can get out of here," Chaud says, raising his head to look up at the crack way above them, showing the blue digital sky. "There might be a path or something that we can use."
"Or I could fly you both up," Arcadia offers, and Chaud blinks.
"Oh . . . that does make more sense, actually," he says, with a sheepish grin. Arcadia chuckles a little bit.
"Wait, hold on, you're not gonna try and figure out why Arcadia can stay materialised?" Maylu asks, looking between them. "But . . ."
"We don't have any answers for it right now, and I highly doubt sitting here wondering about it will help us at all," Chaud tells her, getting to his feet. Arcadia does the same. "Besides, we still need to find everyone else. We have no idea where they are, and we can't guarantee that they'll find us if we stay here. But before we do anything else, we have to get out of this canyon."
Maylu sighs and pushes herself to her feet. She holds out her PET and presses the jack-in button, and Roll's body fizzles like TV static before she vanishes back into the PET.
"Alright, alright, you win," Maylu says. She glances at Arcadia and swallows. "Just, um . . . don't drop me, please?"
"I've never dropped anyone unless it was on purpose, don't worry," Arcadia reassures her.
Raika's first experience of Beyondard is waking up with SearchMan's Navi-hologram in his face, hand raised as if he's about to slap him.
"What are you doing," Raika flatly asks.
"Nothing," SearchMan replies, hastily lowering his hand. He steps back as Raika sits up, watching him. " . . . How do you feel?"
"I feel like I just got pulled through a crack between realities and spat out into some random location."
"That . . . is essentially what happened," his Navi admits.
Raika grunts and gets to his feet, then immediately regrets it when his vision swims and he almost falls over. He manages to catch his hand on a nearby rock and simply staggers instead, eyes squeezed shut.
"Raika!" SearchMan exclaims. "Are you alright?"
"Give me a minute," Raika mutters, pressing the heel of his hand onto his forehead. He doesn't feel like he has a headache, but it seems to help a little, so he keeps doing it.
" . . . I don't know whether you hit your head when we landed," SearchMan says. "I was offline until recently. You were just lying there."
"And you were attempting to slap me awake, were you?" Raika opens his eyes cautiously, finds that his vision is no longer swimming, and lowers his hand, relieved. "At least there's that . . . Alright. Do you have any intel?"
"We're in Beyondard," SearchMan replies, as Raika pushes off the rock and carefully steps forward. "Where in Beyondard is something I can't answer. Whatever data ProtoMan got from Zoano NumberMan didn't include a map. And while I couldn't contact most of the others, I did manage to get a ping from Dingo's PET, so he must be somewhere nearby."
"In which direction?"
SearchMan points, and Raika starts heading in that direction. The terrain is uneven, but he's used to uneven terrain, and even if he weren't, he wouldn't complain - he needs to find Dingo and make sure he's okay, because Raika may have been in Cross Fusion when they got pulled into the Fossa Ambience, but Dingo wasn't. The transition between realities might have hit the humans harder than it did the Cross Fusion Navis.
After half a minute of climbing over the uneven terrain, Raika comes up to a small canyon over a sharp ridge. SearchMan tells him this is where Dingo's PET is located, so Raika hunkers down and peers into the canyon.
There! he thinks, spotting Dingo lying at the bottom.
He's still unconscious, which might prove Raika's theory. If that is indeed the case, he hopes the other humans - well, the only other human at the time was Maylu - have someone near them who was in Cross Fusion. If the human members of their group have been hurt more by the transition between realities, they're definitely going to need assistance.
Raika makes to climb down into the canyon, intending to check Dingo over for injuries, but he stops when he hears voices coming from the other end of the canyon. His first instinct is to duck down out of sight because this is unknown territory and there could be hostiles anywhere and everywhere.
"I can detect four life signs," SearchMan whispers, and Raika blinks.
Life signs? NetNavis and beings of data don't give off signs of life. Their equivalent is data signatures - so that means whoever's coming from the other end of the canyon must be human.
The voices become clearer as the humans get closer, and finally, Raika sees them. Four, just as SearchMan said - they wear odd cloaks and scarves wrapped around their heads, and carry what appear to be weapons of some kind, but not the type that Raika is familiar with. He supposes it makes sense, weapons that aren't familiar to him, because this is an entirely different reality, after all.
Unfortunately, those weapons do nothing to ease Raika's, well, uneasiness. These humans could be anyone - perhaps bandits or marauders seeking plunder from the war, or suspicious natives of Beyondard who prefer to shoot first and ask questions later. Raika is nothing if not practical, and he isn't about to risk his life or Dingo's on the off-chance that these people aren't trigger-happy.
"-somewhere around here," the one in the lead says, gesturing for the other three to follow him.
For a moment, Raika almost wonders how he can understand them, given that this is an entirely different reality and the language barrier should definitely be a problem. Then he remembers the data package MegaMan gave SearchMan to download, and the PET's automatic translation feature makes it so he's able to understand natives of Beyondard as long as he has his PET on his person. The wonders of modern technology.
"You're sure about this?" one of the others asks.
"I saw it," the leading human insists. "A bright light in the sky, just a few minutes ago - we have to investigate!"
"He's right," another one speaks up. "It could be the precursor to a Zoanoroid attack. The camp is still getting ready to leave - we'd have a difficult time defending ourselves if we weren't prepared."
"Good point," the second human admits.
"I see something!" the fourth one exclaims, pointing ahead - directly at Dingo.
The four humans rush forward, and they crowd around Dingo. Upon discovering that he's human, they express their surprise. That makes Raika wonder if meeting other humans is a rare occurrence in this reality - he wouldn't be surprised if that were the case, actually. Judging by what Mimic told them, the Zoanoroid war has torn this reality apart, and the humans seem to have more or less been massacred. Aside from a select few groups and refugees, obviously.
One of the humans kneels down next to Dingo and checks his pulse. "The kid's still alive," he says, sounding relieved.
"Was this where that light came from?" one of the others asks the leading human.
"Around about this area." The human frowns up at the sky. "I could have sworn I saw two lights, though . . ."
"And you only mention this now?" The second human shakes his head, exasperated. "Whatever. Let's get this kid back to camp - we'll have the doctor check him out, and when he wakes up, maybe he can tell us what happened here."
They're having a doctor check Dingo out. That means they're going to help him - so these people, whoever they are, definitely aren't bad guys.
Raika exchanges a glance with SearchMan, who nods a little. Then he carefully gets to his feet, raising his hands above his head - you can't be too careful, after all, because these people still have weapons - and calls out.
"Don't shoot!"
The four humans jump and whirl around, looking up at him. One has Dingo slung across his shoulder, and he shuffles to the back of the group, while the other three move to cover him. More proof that these people are good guys - they wouldn't protect some random unconscious kid they've never met if they were bad guys.
But they're also pointing their odd weapons directly at Raika now, which is . . . not ideal, to say the least.
"Who are you?" the one in the lead demands.
"My name is Raika," Raika replies. He makes sure to keep his hands up - and he can see SearchMan doing the same, too, even though it doesn't make much of difference. But NetNavis can materialise in this reality, so . . . perhaps it does. "And this is SearchMan. That boy down there is called Dingo. He's our friend."
"Is he?" The human who's holding Dingo narrows his eyes. "Forgive us for not immediately believing you. We have no reason to trust what you say."
Raika presses his lips together. They're right, of course - and they have good reason to be suspicious of him. He could be literally anyone, perhaps even a human agent of Gregar or Falzar, though he's not sure what human would willingly work for creatures like that. There are all types in the world, though - even this one - so he can't account for the mindset of every single human being.
But luckily for him, TomahawkMan chooses that exact moment to appear, looking half-groggy and squinting in the light. "What the heck . . . ?" he murmurs. "Where am I?"
"This kid's got a NetNavi?" one of the humans gasps, momentarily forgetting Raika in favour of gaping at TomahawkMan.
TomahawkMan blinks at him, and then abruptly realises that his operator is in a stranger's hands. "Hey! Let go of my operator, whoever you are! There'll be painful consequences if you don't!"
"TomahawkMan," SearchMan calls, and TomahawkMan jerks his head up to look at him. "It's alright, they're taking Dingo to their doctor. We were just trying to convince them that we're not hostile, actually."
"If anything, I'm more suspicious of these guys," TomahawkMan snorts, giving the four humans a narrow-eyed look. "You sure they're safe? 'Cus if they try and hurt Dingo . . ."
Raika can't help but smile at that, a little bit. TomahawkMan's protectiveness of his operator almost rivals ProtoMan's overprotectiveness of his own operators and brother.
"Yes, they're fine," Raika says. "You can relax, they just want to help."
TomahawkMan still looks fairly suspicious, but he lowers his axe and relaxes his stance. "Fine." Then he brings up his axe again and points it at Raika and SearchMan. "But if this goes wrong, it's on your heads!"
"I'll take my chances," SearchMan mutters.
The four humans have been watching this exchange the whole time, and by the time Raika and SearchMan convince TomahawkMan to calm down, they've also relaxed. It's a good thing TomahawkMan showed up, then - he inadvertently helped Raika and SearchMan convince the humans that they're safe.
"Come on, then," the human carrying Dingo calls up to him. "Follow us, we'll take you to our camp."
"Can you get down from there?" one of the others asks.
"I'm fine," Raika replies, and he lowers himself down until he can slide over the edge and drops down to the bottom of the small canyon. It barely takes any effort on his part - while he's nowhere near as agile as Mimic and Chaud, he's capable enough to get the job done, at least.
The human who led the others here gives him an approving nod, and they set off. Raika trots to catch up with them, then follows alongside.
This is far more preferable than the alternative. If he hadn't been able to understand their language, he would have assumed these humans were kidnapping Dingo - and he would've had to follow them to their camp and then sneak in to try and rescue his friend, which most likely would not have ended well.
"Lan! Lan, can you hear me? Mimic! Chaud! Please! Anyone! Answer me! Raika? Maylu, Dingo! Answer me!"
Yuichiro takes his finger off the transmitter and waits, but the only response he gets is static. Heart thudding almost painfully in his chest, he presses the transmitter again.
"Kids!" he calls desperately. "Please, answer me! Anyone, please! Just let me know this is getting through! Lan, Mimic, Chaud! Please!"
"They cannot respond, Dr. Hikari."
He jolts, startled for a moment, and then a flash of anger overshadows his surprise and he glares at the holographic screen that just appeared beside him. Serenade - one of the Village Navis, if not the leader of the Village Navis, who helped them in yesterday's battle and even managed to delete the Falzar Zoanoroid who was leading the attack - stares back at him, infuriatingly calm.
"How dare you-" Yuichiro begins to snap.
Serenade talks over him, for all that their voice remains neutral and calm. "Your device does not have the power to transmit to Beyondard. Repeated attempts and desperate hope will not make that any less true."
Yuichiro clenches his fists, gritting his teeth, but all of a sudden it's like the fight just drains right out of him. He slumps over the table, staring bleakly at the transmitter, and just barely notices that his hands are trembling - his entire body is trembling so much he can hardly tell the difference.
"I apologise," Serenade says softly. "I mean no offence, nor do I seek to cause you harm. But your repeated actions would have led to nothing but despair."
"I know," Yuichiro chokes out, lowering his head until his forehead hits the surface of the table with a quiet thunk. He fists his hands in his hair and squeezes his eyes shut. "But . . . those are my children . . . my children . . ."
"I know," the independent Navi murmurs. "I feel your pain. Though they are not related to me in any way, the loss of ProtoMan and Arcadia hurts me also."
Yuichiro manages to raise his head, and he sees the pain in Serenade's expression. Of course - Serenade considers them both to be honourary residents of the Secret Village, and would therefore consider them to be under their protection. They must feel like they failed to protect them.
The same way Yuichiro feels like he's failed his kids by letting this happen.
He gets no further with that revelation, because at that moment, he hears footsteps coming through the ragged hole that used to doors. The only damage to the main room was the doors and the main screen on the back wall - other than that, the room still functions as normal.
"You're still here?" Famous steps over a bit of debris, heading straight over to Yuichiro.
"Of course." A few moments ago, Yuichiro would have snapped that out - because where else would he be, when all three of his kids plus some of their friends are now trapped in Beyondard? But Serenade has managed to talk that anger out of him, and now he's just left feeling drained and defeated.
"This isn't healthy," Famous tells him. "You haven't slept since this whole operation began. I know we sometimes go days without sleeping because we're caught up in research or experiments, but . . . this is too much, Dr. Hikari. You're way too stressed right now."
Yuichiro gives him a hard look. "All three of my kids were just pulled into an alternate reality. One of them was kidnapped. Not to mention some of their friends got pulled in, as well. And I couldn't do anything to stop it. You expect me to turn around and smile?"
"No," Famous says, "I don't. I expect you to know your limits and not kill yourself trying to contact them. How do you think they'd feel if they came back here, only to discover that their dad is dead?"
" . . . They'd be heartbroken," Yuichiro murmurs.
"Your wife would be, too," Famous adds, and Yuichiro flinches. "Does she know what happened?"
"I . . . I told her that we were putting together an operation to protect the kids, but . . ."
"Then you need to go home and tell her," Famous says. "She needs to know, Dr. Hikari. And . . . you need to rest." He holds up a finger as Yuichiro makes to protest. "Ah-ah! I won't hear of it! You're no good to anyone sleep-deprived and stressed. Go home, get some rest, and eat something. I could hear your stomach rumbling from the other side of the building."
"I'm your boss," Yuichiro protests weakly.
"You're not my boss."
Yuichiro looks over at the ragged hole of a doorway at the sound of a new voice, only to be surprised when it turns out to be Makoto Aoki, the woman who invented CopyBots along with the Hyper-Magnetrons that were instrumental in putting down the Zoanoroid attack in the city.
"He's right, you know," Makoto goes on, giving Yuichiro a piercing stare. "You need to go home and tell your wife what happened to your kids. And you need to rest and eat. So do it."
"But . . ."
Famous shoves him hard enough to make him stumble. "Just go, already! Makoto and I can keep trying to contact the kids while you're resting."
Makoto holds up an odd spherical device - Yuichiro recognises it as the device that caused the artificial Fossa Ambience, the thing that pulled his kids and their friends into Beyondard.
"If we take this thing apart, we may be able to use it in some way," Makoto says. "It was able to create a Fossa Ambience to Beyondard, so it could be used to send a message, too."
"If you do not mind," Serenade speaks up, making them all glance at the holographic screen, "may I offer the assistance of myself and Echo? We are both skilled in technology and are more than willing to do anything we can to see the safe return of those we hold dear."
"Who's that guy?" Makoto murmurs to Famous.
"Their name is Serenade," Famous murmurs back.
Makoto blinks. "Their?"
"Any help would be welcome," Famous says, looking back at Serenade. "Thank you, Serenade."
Serenade inclines their head, and the holographic screen vanishes. Presumably they've gone off to find Echo - the rest of the Village Navis have either gone back home or have stuck around the network to help with the clean-up. As far as Yuichiro knows, Echo is one of the Village Navis who stayed here.
"Now it's time for you to go home," Famous says, turning back to Yuichiro.
"I was hoping you'd forgotten about that," Yuichiro admits, wincing.
Famous puts a hand on his shoulder. "Absolutely not," he replies, smiling. "Now get going. Or I'll drag you back to your wife personally. I actually do have the authority to do that, being the head of the Net Savers and all . . ."
Yuichiro relents, mainly because he has no desire to be dragged back home by Famous. This man is probably the best friend he has, but there are limits to what he'll put up with, and that happens to be one of them.
But no matter how much Famous and Makoto insist on him going home, he still dreads it. He dreads walking in through the front door, and he dreads having to tell Haruka that he failed to protect their kids. And he's afraid that whatever's been holding him together for the last several hours will unravel like a ball of yarn the absolute second he gets home.
It's almost torture, walking up to the front steps. It takes him an age to work up the courage to lift his hand and open the front door, and he steps inside and closes it quietly, but it still sounds far too loud in his ears.
"Yuichiro?" Haruka's voice calls from the living room. "Kids?"
Yuichiro very nearly loses his nerves then and there. He's almost tempted to turn around and head straight back to SciLab - at least there, he can pretend he's fine, even if it's a thin disguise and everyone can see through it far too easily. But here, at home, he has to confront this, and he has to deal with it.
He doesn't want to deal with it. He doesn't want to deal with the reality that his children are gone and his wife doesn't know yet.
But Haruka doesn't give him the option of leaving. The door to the living room opens and she steps out with a happy if puzzled smile - and that only makes Yuichiro feel even more guilty, because he told her that they'd be staying at SciLab for the next several days, and yet here he is, not even two days in, and he's alone.
"Yuichiro?" Haruka's expression drops into concern when she looks at him. He doesn't know what expression he has on his face right now, but it can't be good if Haruka is looking at him like that. "Are you alright? What happened?"
She comes forward and reaches out to him, cupping his cheek with her palm, and he almost breaks down. By some miracle he stays standing and doesn't immediately turn into a blubbering mess.
"Yuichiro . . . ?" Haruka looks him over, and then her brows furrow, and she steps back.
Here comes the inevitable moment that he's been dreading.
"Where are the kids?" Haruka asks.
Yuichiro opens his mouth, but nothing comes out. In that moment, he suddenly understands why Mimic sometimes doesn't talk - he's feeling far too much to get the words out, and if he tries to speak, he's just going to end up having a breakdown in the middle of the hallway.
Then he sees a black mass of fur trotting into the hallway from the living room. Seeing Ragdoll only makes it worse - and it only makes reality hit that much harder.
Ragdoll twists around Yuichiro's legs, greeting him with his customary loud purr, and then stops and looks around. He takes a few steps in one direction, stops to look around, then takes a few steps in another direction and does the same thing. He repeats this several times, and Yuichiro is no expert in cats despite living with at least four of them (even if only one of them is an actual cat), but he recognises growing desperation when he sees it.
Ragdoll eventually stops looking around and turns to look up at Yuichiro, letting out a quiet trill. It sounds almost like a question.
Yuichiro can't bear to look at him anymore, so he turns away.
But Ragdoll is still in his line of sight even if he isn't looking directly at him anymore, so he sees when Ragdoll sits down and tilts his head back, and then he winces when the poor cat lets out the saddest, most mournful wail he's ever heard a living creature make in his entire life.
Haruka's eyes widen in horrified realisation, and she looks at Yuichiro desperately, like she doesn't want it to be true and she's hoping he's just playing some sick prank on her. God, he only wishes this were a prank.
"I'm sorry," Yuichiro whispers.
Haruka slumps like a puppet with its strings cut, and Yuichiro pulls her into a hug. She sobs into his chest and he rests his chin on top her head, letting his own tears fall.
It's getting dark and it's getting colder, which doesn't seem fair because it was hot enough for Mimic to take off her hoodie and wrap it around her waist earlier, and now it suddenly isn't. You'd think living in a desert wasteland for three months would prepare her more for the stupidity of desert temperatures, but apparently not.
Even putting her hoodie back on does fuck all to make her warm, and she ends up shivering anyway. ProtoMan's no better, for all that he's got his long and messy hair, and they huddle together for some kinda warmth but it doesn't do much for either of them even if it makes them feel better to have each other to cling to.
Dark Shadow is made of ProtoMan's shadows and therefore made of cold, which is why it's not huddled up next to them. Instead, it's crouching a few feet away, looking out into the gathering darkness since it doesn't have actual eyes that can be affected by said darkness. Plus it doesn't need to sleep even when ProtoMan's in sleep mode, so it's also the perfect guard . . . cat. Thing.
Bass, in contrast, isn't bothered by the cold at all. Of course he wouldn't be - he's a NetNavi, and NetNavis can feel temperature changes, but they aren't affected by them. The only exceptions that Mimic is aware of are ProtoMan, whose cat virus data makes him feel temperature change and be affected by it, and Mythic, whose Frostbite virus data makes the cold deadly to her.
"How the fuck do you make fire with these stupid things?" Bass mutters to himself, attempting to strike some stones together to make a spark. He has a lot of attacks, but none of them are fire-based as far as anyone knows - and even if he did have any fire attacks, they'd be far too powerful to make a simple fire with. "Damn fucking rocks . . . damn fucking sticks, too, what the fuck . . ."
ProtoMan wraps himself around Mimic a little tighter, being careful with his grip since he could easily crush her bones by accident, and while she's grateful for the effort, it doesn't do much to fend off the cold.
Bass looks up at them, scowl briefly falling into a look of pure concern, and then he sets his expression and gets to his feet.
"Fuck this," he declares, making all of them - Mimic, ProtoMan, and Dark Shadow - glance up at him.
"What-" ProtoMan begins.
Bass pulls his own cloak off - which is an absolute shock because Mimic's never seen him do that willingly, and the only time she's ever seen him without his cloak is during that thing with the island and Dr. Regal trying to . . . break time, or whatever the hell it was he was trying to do.
"Here," Bass says, stepping forward and leaning down to wrap the cloak around Mimic and ProtoMan. It's almost big enough to cover both of them, and it's kinda thin, but it's better than nothing. "Is that any better?"
" . . . Little bit," Mimic mumbles, huddling closer to ProtoMan.
Bass makes a half-frustrated noise and taps his foot for a moment, and then he stops, blinking. "Wait!" he exclaims, snapping his fingers as a grin suddenly spreads on his face. "Hey, cat, do you still have that cloak I gave you? The thick one with the fur on the bottom?"
ProtoMan perks up. "Y-yeah!" he agrees, starting to grin as well. "I nearly forgot about that, actually . . ."
"The fuck?" Bass frowns as ProtoMan reaches out and brings up a holographic screen. "I told you to use it, dammit."
"I haven't needed to use it, I sleep with Mimic and Chaud and Arcadia, and we're usually under the covers and it gets pretty warm," ProtoMan says.
Bass opens his mouth, apparently thinks better of it, and then shrugs. "Fair enough."
ProtoMan eventually finds the screen he wants and selects the cloak Bass gave him, and then the thing itself just kind of . . . spawns. If it didn't show up in a swirl of pixels, Mimic would almost compare it to spawning random items in Skyrim via console commands. Actually, since ProtoMan summoned the fur-lined cloak with the PET screen, it kinda is like using Skyrim's console commands . . .
Mimic expects Bass to take his cloak back when ProtoMan spawns the fur-lined cloak, but he doesn't. Instead, he simply picks up the fur-lined cloak and drapes it over them, on top of his own cloak, and then steps away and sits back down at the little pile of sticks he's trying to turn into a fire. He picks up his stones and gets back to trying to make a spark.
"Cloak?" Mimic asks him, even as she snuggles up to ProtoMan and enjoys the new warmth of the fur-lined cloak.
"Keep it for now," Bass tells her, without looking up from his task. "You need it more than I do."
Mimic blinks and glances at ProtoMan, and although he's still wearing his helmet, she's pretty sure he's blinking right back at her.
" . . . Thanks," Mimic murmurs, looking back at Bass and giving him a small smile.
It's dark and Mimic's night vision makes things look grey and black, but she can still see the faint colouring on Bass's cheeks - and it's not those purple marks, either.
"Whatever," he mutters.
He strikes the stones together a little harder than before, like he's trying to alleviate some of his embarrassment, and much to everyone's shock, he gets a spark and a little fire starts to burn the pile of sticks. He looks up, stunned, and meets Mimic and ProtoMan's wide-eyed looks.
"Fucking fire," Bass says, starting to grin again.
"Fuckin' fire," Mimic agrees.
Lan has never started a fire in his entire life and has no idea how to even begin with that, but Baryl makes it look ridiculously easy. Mostly due to the fact that he has a box of matches in his pocket, which he uses to light the sticks he gathered into a pile. There's more in a second pile next to him, ready to be thrown onto the fire to keep it going long enough to last the whole night.
"Here," Baryl says, throwing Lan a round canteen. "You must be thirsty."
"Thanks!" Lan says gratefully, immediately taking a long drink. It's awesomely refreshing after spending an entire day trekking through a desert wasteland.
"Can I try some?" Trill tugs on his sleeve, and Lan blinks down at him.
"Uhh . . ."
"As long as NetNavis are in the real world, they're able to consume human food and drink," Baryl tells him, and now Lan blinks at him. "You didn't know that? Even though you have two NetNavis?"
"Well . . ." Lan coughs awkwardly and hands the canteen over to Trill, who lets out a happy noise and copies him in taking a long drink. "I mean, where I'm from, NetNavis can't really . . . materialise . . . like this . . ."
Baryl frowns. "No, you're going to have to explain that."
Lan winces. "Um . . . have you ever heard of Beyondard?"
"Beyondard?" Baryl sits back thoughtfully. "I've heard a theory about it. A parallel world - or reality - in which things are similar to this one, but different." He blinks, and his eyes widen in realisation. "Are you saying you're from Beyondard?"
"Yeah," Lan replies, nodding. Trill nudges him with the canteen and he takes it back, then ends up fiddling with the catch because he feels too awkward to do anything else.
"Hm . . ." Baryl is frowning again. "Do you mind if I ask how you got here, then?"
"That's kind of a long story," Lan admits.
"We have all night."
So they do. Lan sighs, and settles down more comfortably - he's gonna be here a while, and even if he's sitting on rocks, he may as well try and make himself comfortable.
And he tells Baryl everything he can. Everything he thinks is safe to tell Baryl, at least. It's standard practice to keep Mimic's knowledge of the future out of the conversation, and almost astonishingly easy to do it - it's not exactly a secret in his own reality, but they've already agreed that if either of the Zoanoroid armies find out about Mimic's knowledge, they'd start coming after her like Dr. Regal did.
Even if Mimic's currently in the clutches of the Zoanoroids anyway, Lan would rather avoid giving them more incentive to keep her captive.
" . . . I see," Baryl murmurs, after Lan is finished explaining. "So that's how you knew my name. Because there was another version of me in your reality . . ."
He frowns at the fire for a few moments, and Lan keeps quiet, letting him think.
Baryl eventually looks up. "And you're looking for your missing friends, too? The ones who were pulled into Beyondard with you?"
"That's right." Lan nods. "I . . . I have pictures of them, if you wanna see? I mean, just in case . . ."
"I suspect we'll be parting ways after this, so it may be best to know what your friends look like," Baryl agrees. "Just in case I see them along the road. Go on."
Lan nods and takes out his PET. He activates the holographic screen and flips it around so Baryl can see it properly, and MegaMan brings up some of the pictures Lan has stored in his PET.
The first one is of Raika in his casual clothes, sitting on a makeshift sofa-bed. That one's from when he was staying at Lan's house after the Duo thing - he's giving the camera an annoyed look, and Lan remembers taking that picture just because Raika told him not to and he thought it'd be funny. He kinda regretted it immediately when Raika put him into a headlock, though.
"This guy's called Raika," Lan says. "He's got a NetNavi called SearchMan."
Baryl nods, and MegaMan switches to the next picture.
This one's Maylu, playing her piano. Roll is dancing on the keys she isn't pressing, making a game out of dodging Maylu's fingers. Apparently they do that so Maylu can get better at remembering which keys to press, but Lan knows next to nothing about playing a piano, so he was just impressed that she was able to play at all with Roll dancing around like that.
"The girl is Maylu," Lan says. "Her NetNavi is Roll."
The next picture is Dingo in his Number One Curry getup, giving the camera a wild grin. For the life of him, Lan can't remember the context for this picture, but Yahoot is in the background and looking over with a frown, so maybe Dingo was slacking off and Lan was unintentionally making it worse.
"His name's Dingo, and his Navi is TomahawkMan," Lan tells Baryl, and gets another nod in return.
The last picture is the one that makes Lan pause, and MegaMan hesitates as well. Trill blinks up at the holographic screen and then huddles into Lan's side sadly, and Lan wraps an arm around him.
It's Mimic and Chaud. This picture's the most recent out of all of them - it's from when they got that CopyBot. ProtoMan's using it in the picture, arms wrapped around his operators, without his helmet but sporting the biggest sharp-toothed grin ever, and Mimic and Chaud are smiling just as much. There's also the Navi-holograms of Arcadia and Bass standing on Mimic and Chaud's shoulders respectively, Arcadia's face frozen in a bright laugh and Bass's with his habitual scowl made a little softer by the slight smile on his face. Dark Shadow's also there too, in the real world the same as ProtoMan (it doesn't seem to need a CopyBot to materialise itself, it just goes wherever ProtoMan goes, cyberworld or real world), and it's the only one actually looking at the camera, with a split-mouthed grin that would be unsettling if Lan wasn't used to it.
"What's wrong?" Baryl asks, jolting Lan back into reality.
"Ah- I'm . . ." Lan swallows and looks down, trying to get the picture of his siblings out of his mind if not his sight. "S-sorry. It's just . . ."
"The two humans in this picture are called Mimic and Chaud," MegaMan says softly. "They're his younger siblings."
" . . . Oh," Baryl says, in a suddenly gentle tone.
"I dunno where Chaud is," Lan manages to croak out, "a-and Mimic was . . . she was taken by the Zoanoroids."
"I'm sorry," Baryl murmurs.
Lan stares at the ground silently while MegaMan somehow manages to gather the courage to speak again.
"The red Navi is called ProtoMan," he says. "The white one is Arcadia. The black one is Bass."
"And . . . that shadow thing?" Baryl asks.
"It's called Dark Shadow," MegaMan replies. "It's . . . kinda like ProtoMan's support program."
"Support program?" Baryl sounds a little puzzled, and when Lan glances up, he sees the man's expression twisted in obvious confusion.
"It's a little difficult to explain," MegaMan says hesitantly. "It . . . supports him. In and out of battle. Sometimes it's Dark Shadow, sometimes it's just shadows, sometimes it's a shadow-tail . . ."
Baryl looks even more bewildered at that.
"Like I said, it's difficult to explain," MegaMan says, wincing.
Baryl hums quietly. He blinks and looks at Lan, and Lan can only hold his gaze for a moment or two before he has to look down again.
" . . . Which army was Mimic taken by?" Baryl asks.
It takes Lan a moment to remember which ZoanoMark Zoano DarkMan had. "The Gregar army."
Baryl nods. "I'm heading for their camp soon," he tells Lan. "After I meet up with the resistance group for supplies. I'll look for your sister when I get to Gregar's camp, and I'll get her out."
Lan blinks at him. "R . . . really? You'd do that? Even though . . ."
"Even though we just met?" Baryl suggests, smiling.
"No," Lan says, shaking his head. "Even though it might put you in even more danger."
"I'm a soldier," Baryl says. "Even before the Great Change, putting my life on the line for innocent people was my job. Even if I hadn't been a soldier, I'd still be doing all this, I think. I refuse to let humans go extinct - in this world or yours - and I refuse to allow the Zoanoroids to kidnap and torment children."
All Lan can do is stare at him, completely dumbfounded.
It looks like Beyondard Baryl is the same kind of person that the Baryl he knew back in his own world was. The same passionate, driven man who'd do whatever it took to keep the world safe - it doesn't matter that this is a parallel world, Baryl is apparently Baryl no matter what.
Lan finds himself smiling, all of a sudden.
"Thank you," he says, so soft he's not even sure that Baryl hears him, but the man - the soldier - smiles back at him. "I want- is it okay if-"
"You can't come with me," Baryl tells him, and Lan deflates. "No, listen to me. I know you're worried for your sister, but you still have your other friends to find. Not to mention your other sister."
" . . . My other sister?" Lan frowns.
Baryl nods to the picture that's still up on the holographic screen. "You said her name's Chaud, right? I think she'll need her big brother to look after her until her sister is rescued."
MegaMan is pursing his lips like he's trying to stop himself from laughing, and Trill isn't even bothering to do that much. He just rolls over onto his side, laughing so hard he's almost completely silent aside from the occasional squeak and wheeze.
"What?" Baryl frowns.
"Chaud is a boy," Lan informs him, and Baryl goes completely still.
There's an extremely awkward silence for several moments.
" . . Ah," Baryl eventually says. "Hm. That's . . . something you don't see every day. I know twins can be opposite genders, sometimes, but identical twins being opposite genders is . . ."
"Their situation is a little complicated," MegaMan says in a very strained tone.
"Right." Baryl coughs into his fist to hide his obvious awkwardness. "I . . . apologise for that. But the point still stands - he'll need his big brother to look after him until his sister is rescued."
"Right," Lan murmurs. "Then . . . then I'll leave Mimic to you. Please, just . . ."
"I'll save her," Baryl says. "I promise."
Lan nods. He feels Trill pressing up against him and wraps his arm around the child-Navi again, and that kinda brings him a bit of comfort.
All this talk about siblings reminds Lan of what Mimic said about Iris - about her being Colonel's younger sister. And that reminds him of Colonel himself, who helped to save him earlier.
For a moment, Lan wonders if he should tell Baryl and Colonel about Iris. But then he decides against it - he doesn't want to risk distracting either of them when they're apparently heading for the Gregar army's camp, wherever the heck that is. They're gonna need all their wits about them if they're gonna rescue Mimic and take on Cybeast Gregar itself.
"Get some sleep," Baryl tells him, breaking him out of his thoughts. "I'll keep watch, don't worry. I'll wake you as soon as the sun rises, and then I'll point you in the direction of the nearest town."
"The nearest town?" Lan repeats, blinking.
Baryl nods. "The people there might have heard something about odd travellers suddenly appearing out of nowhere, especially travellers with NetNavis. Very few people have them these days - most NetNavis abandoned their operators and joined either Gregar or Falzar, some of them willingly, others . . . not so willingly. So actual NetNavis are few and far between, and humans who have them are likely to stay in people's memory for a while."
"Right," Lan says, with a nod. That kinda makes sense, though he's a little saddened to hear that NetNavis are so rare in Beyondard - and that some of the Zoanoroids didn't join the Cybeasts' armies willingly.
But there's nothing he can do about it right now, so he settles down with Trill and goes to sleep with Baryl watching over them.
They discover a ruined city on the other side of the canyon. The buildings are odd - more circular than square, which is . . . definitely not something they're used to. There aren't many tall buildings - maybe just one or two - and the majority seem to be flat and single-floored rather than tall and multi-storied. But all of these buildings are crumbled and broken, some with entire walls missing, rubble strewn across the ground outside or piled up inside like whatever caused this was blasting walls inside and out.
To put it bluntly, it's destruction, plain and simple. Chaud's seen some destruction - even caused some of it himself, by accident of course - but this is just . . .
It's like an apocalypse, is what it is. The only thing that makes it slightly more bearable is Arcadia's quiet and steady presence at his side, and along with Maylu and Roll's determined optimism.
It's well past dark, now. Arcadia said it was near midnight, and upon hearing that, Maylu promptly went to sleep - it was honestly impressive, the way she just put her head down on one of the ratty sofas they found and immediately went to sleep. Chaud only wishes he could do that, but half-nocturnal means half-nocturnal, so he stays up.
He's going through the food they found in a wrecked . . . convenience store, he supposes it would be called. He'd call it a grocery shop, but it wasn't just food in there, because Maylu found some sort of cream that you're supposed to put on your hands and face after being in a dry desert for a long time. He supposes that makes sense, but the idea of putting anything like that on his hands or face almost makes his skin crawl.
"The dates and months are completely different to what we're used to," Arcadia is murmuring, quietly enough that only Chaud can hear him, because they don't want to wake Maylu up. They don't know if she's the type to get cranky when she's tired. "The only thing they have in common is the numbers, but other than that . . . this stuff could be up next week or next month or even next year for all I know."
Or it could've gone off already, Chaud points out, and Arcadia nods.
"There's that, too," he admits, frowning. He places the can he was holding on the table between the two ratty sofas and picks up another one, shaking it a little. "Mm . . . I have no idea what's in this one. It's meat, I can tell that much, but . . ."
Chaud tugs on Arcadia's wrist until he brings the can down enough for him to see the label.
. . . I've never heard of that animal before, Chaud is forced admit, also frowning.
"At least we found matches," Arcadia says, gesturing to the five or six tiny boxes piled next to the assortment of canned foods. "So starting a fire to cook this stuff won't be very difficult."
Except I don't know how to cook, Chaud reminds him. I'm fairly certain Maylu doesn't, either.
"That . . . is a slight problem," Arcadia admits, tapping his taloned foot on the floor with faint clicking sounds. "Maybe I can try looking through that store again, see if there's a cookbook somewhere . . . or we could search the city."
Chaud winces, and so does Arcadia.
Not a good idea, Chaud says what they're both thinking. We can't afford to hang around here too long, and there might be dangers we couldn't see before. And . . . we need to find everyone else, too.
Arcadia nods. "Then I'll just check the store. If I don't find anything . . . well, we can always just heat the stuff up and hope for the best."
Story of my life, Chaud mutters to himself as Arcadia gets to his feet.
" . . . It'll be okay, Chaud," Arcadia suddenly says. Chaud glances up at him and blinks. "It will. Mimic and ProtoMan are safe, and we know that Bass is with them. The others have likely been scattered around Beyondard as well. We'll find them eventually."
Chaud blinks again, and then after a brief pause, he nods.
Arcadia nods back, and he heads off outside to the ruined convenience store across the street.
Dingo wakes up soon after they arrive in the camp, and once Raika manages to talk him down from flinging his tomahawk at the people who brought them here, they meet with the leader.
It turns out they got extremely lucky. Mimic mentioned a resistance group working against both of the Zoanoroid armies - the 'something Forces', she said it was. And Raika and Dingo were stupidly lucky enough to be found by those exact people.
They're called the CM Forces. CM for their leader, Commander Mask, who Mimic says is a man called Masa, though Raika has never personally met anyone called that. The reason why the man is called Commander Mask becomes very obvious very quickly - he wears a scarf around his head like most of the members of this group, along with a dark visor covering his eyes. He isn't the only one who wears that type of getup, but he's the only one who maintains it even when in camp.
Raika has no complaints with what other people choose to wear. Especially if those people are kind enough to help two complete strangers, even giving them food and shelter for the night, and even listening to their admittedly insane story of alternate realities and being pulled into an artificial crack between said realities.
"I see," Commander Mask murmurs, frowning. "I confess I'm greatly troubled by this . . . The fact that the Zoanoroids have taken their war to an entirely different reality and are attempting a hostile takeover there as well . . ."
"We think perhaps they're aiming to bolster their ranks with NetNavis from our own reality," Raika says, remembering Lan telling him about a case involving missing NetBowl players and apparently Zoano PharaohMan, though his existence was quickly overshadowed by the appearance of Zoano ProtoMan, who . . . well, absolutely no one knows where he is right now, but they know he's not with the Falzars, at least.
"Kuh," Dingo snorts, taking a huge bite out of his bread. "Jerks."
Raika nods. "And they took one of our friends, too."
Commander Mask straightens up, expression sharp. "Your missing friends? One of them was taken by the Zoanoroids?"
"Her name is Mimic," Raika tells him. "She was taken because she's the operator of one of the Zoanoroids' targets - ProtoMan."
Too late does he remember that the ProtoMan of this reality is a well-known and obviously feared Zoanoroid, and he winces when Commander Mask's sharp expression becomes almost angry.
"ProtoMan," Commander Mask murmurs. "The Sunset Warrior. He's one of the most feared generals in the Falzar army."
"Yes," Raika manages to say. "We've . . . met him."
"And you're still alive?" One of the people who works directly under Commander Mask - Raika remembers her introducing herself as Sal - comes over just in time to hear that. "That's quite impressive, especially against a Zoanoroid like that."
"And you say Beyondard ProtoMan is actually your ally?" Commander Mask asks. "Is that why the Zoanoroid armies were after him?"
"Well, no," Raika admits, with a quick glance at Dingo. "Our ProtoMan has the ability to transform into a demon at will - and the Zoanoroids found out about that ability, so they wanted to capture him for it."
"A demon," Commander Mask repeats thoughtfully. "Hm . . . and his operator was taken along with him . . . Which army took them?"
"The Gregar army," Raika replies. "Zoano . . . DarkMan, I believe his name was."
"Zoano DarkMan is one of the most powerful generals in the Gregar army," Sal murmurs.
"One of our agents will be rendezvousing with us in a few days," Commander Mask tells them. "We're sending him to infiltrate the Gregar camp with a new weapon we've developed. I can give him orders to find and rescue your friends, if you want."
"Really?" Dingo grins, bouncing in his seat. "That's awesome, thanks, mister!"
"Yes, thank you," Raika adds gratefully. "We still need to find all of our other missing friends, so . . . knowing that someone will be rescuing Mimic and ProtoMan is a load off our minds."
Commander Mask nods to them with a kind smile. "We're the CM Forces - helping humanity win or outlast this war is the entire reason we exist. If that means simply rescuing kidnapped children and demonic NetNavis from the clutches of those Cybeasts, then we'll do whatever we can."
"Thank you," Raika says again.
Commander Mask nods again. "I'll set the two of you up with some supplies, and a map of the region. It's not completely accurate, but it should be enough to get you to a populated town where you might be able to trade for a more updated map. I'm afraid we can't give you any money, though."
Dingo frowns. "How come?"
"They need it for the soldiers," Raika tells him. "To buy food, weapons, clothing, all sorts of supplies. You can't run an army on nothing, after all."
"That's right," Commander Mask agrees, looking surprised that Raika understands. "I would give you some if we could spare it, but we need every mark we have."
"It's alright, we understand," Raika tells him, and then gives Dingo a pointed nudge with his elbow.
"Ah- y-yeah, we understand," Dingo sighs.
"I wish the two of you luck in finding the rest of your missing friends, though," Commander Mask tells them.
"So do we all," Sal adds, with a friendly nod. "We have to help each other as much as we can in times like these."
"Thank you," Raika says once again, and Dingo echoes him more willingly this time.
The first thing that Iris does upon re-entering her home reality is cross-reference her internal map to find out where she is. Once she's established that, she uses her internal map to find the location of the dimensional area research lab.
It's a simple matter of using her empty PET to turn herself into data and stream across the distance between her location and that of the lab. What would have taken perhaps weeks of walking on foot takes her mere hours with this method, and she arrives and takes physical form once again.
The state of the lab gives her pause for a moment.
Last time she was here, this place was empty of life signs and completely abandoned, but it was nowhere near as broken as this. The roof is just barely held up, and several parts of the walls have crumbled, leaving gaping holes in their place. The interior is even worse, if that's at all possible - a complete mess, old machines broken and scattered everywhere, debris littering most of the hallways, entire rooms or sections of the lab physically blocked off because the entrances to those locations are covered with rubble or just simply don't exist anymore.
Iris is, to put it plainly, very concerned. What happened while she was in Beyondard?
The main room is only in slightly better condition than the rest of the lab, on account of the fact that it also happens to be the most well-defended room in the entire facility. The monitor at the back of the room hangs crooked but Iris can detect electricity waves from it and knows it still works, and upon realising that, she also realises that the entire lab still has electricity, despite the state it's in.
The dimensional area research lab is in ruins, but it still functions. Barely.
"Ah, you've returned!"
To the casual observer, it would seem as though the lights come on by themselves. To Iris, though, she senses the lab's systems booting up, waking from the sleep mode it evidently put itself into.
A hologram of her creator appears in the middle of the room, greeting her with a warm and eager smile. "Welcome home, Iris."
"Dr. Hikari," Iris says softly, "what happened here?"
Her creator's old, lined face turns grim. "The Zoanoroids happened. It appears the Cybeasts sensed the power of the Synchroniser and decided to take it for themselves - lucky for us that it wasn't here when they attacked."
Iris clenches her hands together in front of her chest. "Yes . . ."
"Were you successful in finding the Synchroniser?" her creator asks. "Where is it?"
"His name is Trill," Iris tells him.
Her creator blinks. "You named it?"
Iris hesitates, and then shakes her head. "No, I didn't. He was found by a group of NetNavis and humans from Beyondard. They took him in and gave him a name. When I found him, he had matured from his infant form."
"The Synchroniser's power grew on its own?" Her creator frowns. "Hm . . . that is something I didn't foresee happening. But perhaps it's for the best - with more power, the Synchroniser should be able to end the war far more easily than it could have in its infant form."
"Except . . . those people from Beyondard . . ." Iris lowers her hands and looks up at her creator. "They refused to allow me to take Trill back here. They said I wasn't listening to what Trill wanted, and that . . . that he didn't like this place."
Her creator looks troubled. "The power of the Synchroniser was too much to place into a fully-grown NetNavi, so it had to be placed into an infant, instead. I knew there were risks, but . . ." He lets out a sigh. "In any case, that shouldn't matter anymore. Once the Synchroniser has put an end to this war, it should be free to do as it pleases, so if it chooses, it can go back to Beyondard with this group if it wants to."
Iris finds herself smiling a little at that. "Really?"
"Yes," her creator agrees, nodding. "Do you know where the Synchroniser is at the moment?"
"He's back in this reality," Iris replies. "Some of the group who took him in are here, as well. Trill should be with the human Lan Hikari and the NetNavi MegaMan, but I'm uncertain as to where any of them are. We were all pulled into an artificial Fossa Ambience by force, and I believe the group was scattered across the region."
Her creator hums thoughtfully. "Then I will give you a new mission, Iris. Find the Synchroniser again, and these people from Beyondard. Then lead them here. I want to speak to them."
"Yes, Dr. Hikari," Iris says, inclining her head.
The lab's systems begin shutting down, and the hologram of her creator vanishes. Iris waits until the entire facility has shut down before heading outside, and then she takes out her empty PET and uses it to activate the tracking beacon that allows her to find Trill.
Trill is not a location, so Iris can't stream directly to him. By the time she reaches his last known location, he could have moved on, and she would need to repeat the process all over again. She'll have to physically walk all the way to him, but as long as she keeps the tracking beacon active, she should at least be able to meet him halfway - and hopefully he's still with Lan Hikari and MegaMan.
Iris looks up at the dark sky for a moment, then she sets her expression and starts walking.
