"This desert has to end at some point, right?" Chaud asks. "There's no such thing as a desert that never ends . . ."

"This is Beyondard," Arcadia points out. "The terrain and geography is completely different to our own reality, remember. For all we know, this desert could be the most common type of terrain there is. And don't forget there's also the Great Change - it could have drastically changed everything to the point where the geography literally makes no sense anymore. There might be a snowy tundra right next to this desert or something."

"Sounds like the biomes in Minecraft," Chaud mutters.

"So you were paying attention when Mimic was playing, after all." Arcadia gives him an amused look.

Chaud puffs his cheeks out, though he can't stop the little smile from spreading on his face. Honestly, it's a little difficult to not pay attention when Mimic's playing her video games - especially back when they were in the same body, and he couldn't do anything else.

"Yeah, yeah, I picked up a thing or two," Chaud sighs as if he's annoyed, even though he's not. Arcadia can obviously tell that, because his smile just gets wider.

"Hey, you two!" Maylu calls from up ahead, getting their attention. "I found train tracks!"

"Train tracks?" Chaud speeds up until he's half-jogging, Arcadia beside him, and then he trots to a stop next to Maylu and looks down.

She's right. They're somewhat buried by sand, but there are definitely train tracks here. And from the looks of it, they're being used regularly - there's no rust, and while they're not shiny, the only dirt on them is the kind you'd expect to see on tracks that are used frequently, along with the sand itself. There's no telling which direction the trains that use these tracks go in, but the fact that they're being used at all means there has to be people in either direction, right?

And people means information. Information might mean clues as to the whereabouts of the others. They still haven't had any contact from anyone else, and even if Arcadia was able to force a sight-share with Mimic, they can't use that to actually locate her.

Chaud, Arcadia, and Maylu start walking alongside the train tracks. They'll be able to hear a train long before they see it, but even so, it's a good idea to exercise caution. Chaud doesn't have much experience with train tracks, but it's common sense not to walk on them.

It's a good hour or two before they find anything along the tracks. What looks like an old, run-down train station looms up ahead of them - Chaud sees it clearly, as does Arcadia, but Maylu squints and says she sees nothing but distant sand.

The perks of being superhuman, Chaud supposes.

He and Arcadia assure Maylu that the run-down train station really is there, and they continue heading toward it. Eventually, they get close enough for even Maylu to see it, and she's so obviously relieved that Chaud can't help but feel a little bit of pity for her.

The downside of not being superhuman is . . . well, not being superhuman. Chaud is perfectly fine and is barely even bothered by this trek, and Arcadia is a NetNavi and thus hardly affected by it either, but Maylu is fully human, and sometimes it's very easy for Chaud to forget that normal humans aren't able to handle the kind of things he's able to handle. Especially when those closest to him can handle the exact same things he can and more.

"I'll see if I can clear a space for you to sit down," Arcadia offers to Maylu.

"I'd take the sand at this point," she sighs, almost stumbling along beside them. "Chaud, how the heck are you totally okay?"

"I'm a cat," Chaud reminds her, and she lets out a long groan.

They get close enough to the run-down station that Maylu's pace starts to pick up a little bit out of pure eagerness, and then Chaud hears something in the distance. A kind of metallic, rhythmic noise, and he has so little experience with trains that it takes him a couple of seconds to realise what it is, even though he's literally standing right next to train tracks.

"I hear a train!" he exclaims, turning in the direction it's coming from. Sounds like directly behind them - so they know which way the trains go, at least.

"I can't hear anything," Maylu says, frowning.

Once again, the perks of being superhuman. Chaud sometimes wonders if his friends think he's insane when he says he hears things they can't.

"Give it a minute," he says, pausing.

Maylu half-stumbles to a stop beside him, and lets out a tired sigh. Chaud sees Arcadia giving her a concerned look out of the corner of his eyes, but he's too intent on listening out for the incoming train to really notice.

"Maybe if we can get the train to stop and pick us up," he begins, "you can have a rest until we get wherever it's going."

Maylu perks up a little bit. "Oh!" she exclaims. "I didn't think of that . . . There really is a train, then?"

"I can hear it now," Arcadia speaks up, peering in the direction Chaud's looking.

It seems that confirmation is all Maylu needs, and she claps her hands together happily.

A few moments pass, and eventually there's the distant sound of what seems to be a very deep bell of some sort. Arcadia says it's the sound of a train whistle blowing - which is something Chaud's never heard before, to be honest. It sounds extremely loud, even from this distance.

"I hear it too!" Maylu seems to have forgotten how tired she is now, because she's pretty excited. "Oh, sweet, merciful rest . . ." Or not.

Chaud has to admit he's a little bit embarrassed that he didn't notice just how much in need of a rest Maylu really is. Like he said, sometimes it's easy for him to forget that not everyone can handle the things he can.

The train eventually comes into sight for all three of them, steadily chugging along the tracks. Chaud wonders if whoever's driving the train can see them yet - if they're lucky, maybe the driver will stop and let them on, like he said. If not, they could always try sneaking onboard - Arcadia can easily carry both of them, and Chaud's pretty sure he should be able to outspeed a train, so they'd be able to fly onto the roof of one of the carriages and rest. If the driver doesn't notice them stowing away, that is.

Then a sudden crash from behind them makes Chaud jump almost ten feet into the air, and they whirl around.

There are Beast viruses wrecking the run-down station. It was already in bad shape, but the Beast viruses are making it even worse, and a skeletal metal tower topples over as they watch.

"Where the hell did those come from!?" Chaud blurts out.

"I'm guessing they just materialised, otherwise we would've heard them coming," Arcadia replies. He crouches into a battle-ready stance, Holy Fire sparking along his arms. "We'd better delete them, before that train gets here!"

"Ah, that's right!" Maylu scrambles to take out her PET. "If that train comes here while those viruses are attacking the station . . . Roll, jack in!"

Arcadia shoots off even before Roll has materialised, and she runs to catch up with him. She's not as good with fighting in the real world as Arcadia is - her only experience with it is Cross Fusion, as far as Chaud's aware, and that only lets Maylu fight instead of Roll, even if they have a shared mind.

But she seems to adjust pretty quickly. Arcadia said he tried scanning this reality and the results constantly flipped between the real world and the cyberworld, like it couldn't decide what it was. Maybe that has something to do with it - maybe this reality is enough like the cyberworld, even if it's still technically the real world, that NetNavis and other beings of data can adjust to it easily.

"Avoid destructive attacks!" Chaud calls to them. "Don't damage the station!"

"Tell that to the viruses!" Arcadia shouts back, and he hurls a stream of Flashfire into the biggest group of Beast viruses.

A good number of them are deleted, but the rest manage to scatter with only mild burns, and Roll starts picking them off with her Roll Arrows. Arcadia goes after the ones taking down the second metal tower and starts slashing them apart with Holy Fire-encased claws and talons, though a few of them drop off when they see him coming. Roll goes after those, too, never pausing even for a moment.

It's easy to forget that Roll is almost on the same level of skill as Arcadia and ProtoMan and the others, mainly because Chaud doesn't really see her battling that often. She may not be as powerful as the Navis Chaud is used to, but you don't always need raw strength or power to match up to someone. Sometimes you just need your wits, or your speed, or some damn good tactics.

Between the two of them, Arcadia and Roll manage to delete all of the Beast viruses. The last one has just been struck down by one of Roll's Arrows when the train arrives, gradually slowing to a stop with a faint screech of metal that makes Chaud wish he still had his noise-cancelling earmuffs. But those are back in his reality, so he has to make do with clamping his hands over his ears, which . . . predictably does absolutely nothing to help.

An old man leans out of the side of the train. He's wearing some kind of blue uniform - Chaud doesn't know enough about trains to know whether that's the uniform you're supposed to wear if you're a conductor or a driver or whatever the word is, but this old man certainly looks like someone who drives trains. Mostly due to the fact that he actually is driving a train.

"Who are you two . . . ?" the old man asks, frowning at them.


Arcadia leans against the wall of the train driver's compartment and watches the old human who was nice enough to let them ride with him.

He introduces himself as Al Ferry - Arcadia would think that's an odd name for a human, but one of his operators is called Mimic, so he really can't talk - and he seems nice enough, if a little bit reserved. There's faint traces of mild curiosity in Ferry's mind whenever he glances at Arcadia, but he doesn't ask the obvious question even though Arcadia half-expects him to, and is instead apparently leaving it up to Chaud and Maylu to decide whether or not they want to explain why Arcadia's still in the real world despite being a NetNavi.

Which is . . . admirable, honestly. Most humans would probably ask why Arcadia hasn't gone back into his operator's PET yet, but this Ferry human isn't pushing for answers.

"So your names are Chaud and Maylu," Ferry muses. He offers them a faint smile over his shoulder. "Thank you for deleting those viruses earlier."

"Our Navis did all the work," Maylu tells him, grinning back. "You should be thanking them!"

"Ah, my apologies." Ferry laughs a little. He turns his faint smile to Arcadia now, and Roll, who's standing on Maylu's shoulder and unwilling to miss anything that happens even if she can't be in the real world properly like Arcadia can. "Thank you . . . Arcadia and Roll, was it?"

"That's right," Arcadia agrees, nodding.

"And it was our pleasure!" Roll adds brightly. "We couldn't let those viruses attack this train, after all."

Ferry nods to them and looks back out of the front window, then glances down at something in his free hand. "We'll arrive in twenty minutes, but . . . we're seven minutes late . . . hm . . ."

Arcadia realises the thing in his hand must be a clock of some sort. A pocket watch, maybe. He almost wonders why Ferry isn't using his PET, but maybe humans in this reality don't have PETs anymore - after all, Mimic said that most NetNavis are now Zoanoroids, and they abandoned their operators after becoming infected with the Beast Factor. There wouldn't be any need for PETs without NetNavis in them, or maybe those PETs got damaged or destroyed when the Navis became Zoanoroids.

And then he realises something else. He can sense multiple minds in this train - three of them belong to Chaud, Maylu, and Roll, obviously. Another belongs to Ferry. He hadn't sensed any other humans nearby - in the train or otherwise - and assumed they were the only ones around, but now that he's actually thinking about it, he can detect another mind, too.

It takes him a moment to pinpoint its location, and when he realises where it is, he goes a bit limp with shock.

"Um . . . Mr. Ferry?" Arcadia speaks up. He waits until the old human glances at him. "I don't mean to alarm you, but . . . I think your train is alive."

"Wait, what?" Chaud gives him a look like he's just suggested eating corrupted data. "You mean, alive as in . . . ?"

"Alive as in this thing literally has a mind of its own," Arcadia clarifies. "I can sense it."

He can also now sense Ferry's surprise, but it's directed toward Arcadia rather than the train, which is . . . puzzling, to say the least. Why is this human not worried about the fact that his train is apparently alive?

"You can sense something like that?" Ferry asks. "How?"

"Sorry, can we leave that for later and focus on the fact that your train is alive?" Maylu demands, somewhat desperately.

Ferry blinks, and then chuckles a little. "Ah . . . yes, sorry about that. There is a reasonable explanation, actually. ChargeMan!"

Arcadia blinks, and then his core nearly has a meltdown when he looks up and sees a huge, mechanical face in the window. Chaud goes completely still, though his mind is very active with shock and various colourful expletives, and Maylu utters a quiet shriek and jerks back so sharply that Aracdia senses a spark of pain from her when she collides with the wall. Roll is just too stunned to react to her operator's pain.

"Sorry 'bout that!" the face says cheerfully, and Arcadia realises that it looks like a train. It . . . literally is a train.

And then it takes him an embarrassingly-long moment to realise that he's looking at a NetNavi, not a living train, and he buries his face in his hands and thanks the maker that his skin is dark enough that no one should notice his burning cheeks.

"I'm Al's NetNavi, ChargeMan," the train-Navi introduces himself in that same cheerful tone. "I help him to carry people and cargo across these tracks!"

"The trains I drive have a special function built into them that allows ChargeMan's time in the real world to be extended for the duration of our journeys," Ferry explains.

"Sometimes I am the train," ChargeMan adds, with a jolly chuckle.

"These trains have a special function?" Chaud asks, suddenly distracted.

Arcadia glances up, and presses his lips together to hide a smile. Chaud's shock is now entirely replaced by the curiosity that's characteristic of cats at the mere mention of a 'special function', even if he knows nothing about trains to begin with.

"I built it myself, to allow ChargeMan to better assist with journeys," Ferry tells Chaud. He turns to his Navi. "Speaking of, ChargeMan, you'd better focus on the tracks."

"I gotcha!" ChargeMan's face moves away from the window and his body appears to phase right back into the train Ferry is driving.

"Do you mind if I have a look at this function?" Chaud asks, stepping closer to the front and looking at all the different buttons and switches on the control panel. "I mean, when it's not in use, that is."

"Chaud, c'mon, he has to drive a train, don't distract him," Arcadia sighs, reaching out. He snags a claw into the back of Chaud's vest and drags him away gently, unable to hide another smile when his operator protests.

Ferry has a slightly bemused smile on his face as he watches this, and he glances at Maylu. "Your little brother is quite the inquisitive one, isn't he?"

"My little what-now?" Maylu blinks at him.

Chaud stops trying to unsnag Arcadia's claw from his vest and twists around to stare at Ferry. Arcadia has to stare, as well. He's not even sure if he heard that right - but a quick check of his memory data tells him that, yes, Ferry did just refer to Chaud as Maylu's little brother.

"Your little brother," Ferry repeats, nodding to Chaud. "Well, I assume he's your little brother. You look to be about . . . twelve or thirteen, I'd say, and he looks around about ten or eleven."

There's an extremely long, awkward pause.

" . . . Al, I think ya got that wrong," comes ChargeMan's voice from the train all around them.

"I did?"

"He's not my brother," Maylu says.

"He's not?"

"We're not related at all," Chaud adds.

"You aren't?"

"Maylu is a few months older, as far as I know," Arcadia speaks up, "but they're both more or less the same age."

"They are?"

"Yep," Roll agrees, nodding.

Ferry goes blank-faced for a moment. All Arcadia can sense from him is surprise, and then he senses a kind of awkward, sheepish, apologetic feeling.

"Ah," Ferry eventually says. "I . . . apologise for assuming. Most of the people who ride these trains tend to travel with their family, so . . ."

"Why'd you think I was her younger brother?" Chaud asks, frowning. Arcadia senses a bit of confusion mixed with mild offence from him, and has to bite his lips to stop himself from laughing.

"You're . . . very small for your age," Ferry admits, and Arcadia senses more of that awkward, sheepish, apologetic feeling.

"Oh," Chaud says. His face falls into an impressively-deadpan expression. "Thanks."

Arcadia lets slip a quiet giggle, and then wheezes out a half-desperate squeak of laughter when Chaud turns to glare at him. Maylu and Roll have a better time of suppressing their own giggles, but Chaud can hear it anyway, and he turns his glare on them, next. Predictably, all that does is make it harder for all three of them to hold in their laughter, and Chaud grumbles to himself as he turns away.

Maybe the reason why Chaud is small for his age isn't something to laugh about, but his reaction - sulking, and actually pouting - certainly is.

"Can we just get wherever we're going, already?" Chaud sighs. He pauses, and looks at Ferry. "Where are we going, anyway?"

"Shirokuni Town," Ferry replies, relieved to have something else to talk about that isn't his hilarious blunder. "It's also known as the Railroad Town, because we specialise in transport - trains especially. We should be arriving in . . ." He takes out his pocket watch - though 'pocket' is too small a term for it, the thing is bigger than his palm - and frowns at it for a moment. "Sixteen minutes, forty-seven seconds."

Arcadia's still desperately trying to hold back his laughter, but he has to admit he's impressed at how oddly precise Ferry is - or how oddly precise that not-a-pocket watch is, at least. Ferry said twenty minutes earlier, and since he's definitely right about the 'sixteen minutes, forty-seven seconds' count, Arcadia fully believes that he was right about the 'twenty minutes' count, too.

A very precise human, then. That's sort of cool.


When Ferry said this place was also known as the Railroad Town, he wasn't kidding. As far as Chaud can tell, the majority of the town is dominated by train tracks - some high up on metal supports, criss-crossing above the buildings, and others far down on the street below, a tangled maze of tracks and trains and what look like trams running through the streets, too.

He's too fascinated by the tangled mess to be bothered by the noise just yet, but that might have something to do with the fact that he's been putting up with the noise of the train he's currently riding for a while already. At the very least, he might have built up a slight immunity, though how long that immunity lasts will probably depend on how long he spends in this loud town of railroads and trains and . . . whatever else there is.

They pull up into a huge train station, in much better condition than the one the viruses were attempting to destroy, but something about it still gives off an odd kind of feel, like it was patched together with random materials and things just got added on as time went by. It's highly likely, given what he saw from overhead - it looks like this entire town is a patchwork of metal and random structures.

Chaud hops off before Ferry even says to, far too eager to explore and find out everything he can about this patchwork town, and he hears Arcadia chuckling to himself as he helps Maylu down from the train. Chaud ignores that - he's too busy wondering if the townspeople would be terrified of some random kid hopping across their rooftops.

"I'm fairly certain they would," Arcadia says, before Chaud can even voice the idea.

"Boo." Chaud blows a raspberry. He's fully aware that he's acting like a child - which is, incidentally, what he is - but he doesn't give a damn. He wants to explore, goddammit!

"Mr. Ferry, sir!"

The rapid footsteps are barely audible over the noise, which leaves Chaud . . . a little uncomfortable, suddenly. He knows this is how normal humans hear things - usually not until they're right in front of them or something - and it's a sign of how used to his enhanced hearing he's gotten that he's thrown off-balance when it's not much use to him. Hearing almost everything makes it difficult to hear anything when there's this much noise.

He's not sure if anyone aside from maybe Arcadia can hear this much, or if anyone else is even aware of the sheer amount of noise.

The man who comes running up to them is wearing a similar uniform - if not the exact same uniform - to Ferry. He's younger, though, and he's got a worried look on his face.

"Mr. Ferry," the younger train driver pants, "are you okay? You're seven minutes late . . . that's . . . that's really unusual . . ."

"Indeed," Ferry agrees, nodding gravely. "We had to stop along the way to do a safety check. Viruses appeared on the tracks."

"Viruses!?" the younger train driver exclaims. "Oh- oh no, I didn't think they'd come this far . . ."

"Calm down, Miyata," Ferry tells him, putting a reassuring hand on his shoulder. "The viruses are gone for now. But we must be alert - warn every driver and worker about the possibility of further attacks."

"Got it," the younger train driver - Miyata, apparently - agrees, nodding. Then he notices Chaud, Arcadia, and Maylu, and he looks astonished. "Uh . . . Mr. Ferry, sir, who're these kids? And . . . and is that a NetNavi?"

"These children deleted the viruses that were attacking the tracks," Ferry explains, with a little smile. "It's thanks to them that ChargeMan and I were able to continue our journey safely." He turns to his train. "Speaking of . . . ChargeMan, return."

The train-Navi lets out a boisterous laugh as he phases out of the train. "I was wondering if ya'd forgotten me, Al!"

It had been weird enough to know that they've been riding inside a NetNavi the entire time, and Chaud is still a little disconcerted when ChargeMan just pops up like that. He has nothing against the Navi, of course not - that'd be absurd, not to mention rude. But he doesn't like surprises that much, because surprises usually aren't good in his experience.

"So these kids deleted the viruses," Miyata muses, peering at Chaud, Arcadia, and Maylu curiously as Ferry returns ChargeMan. "Wow! I can't believe it, you kids actually saved Mr. Ferry!"

"All we did was delete a bunch of viruses that might have become a problem," Arcadia says, waving a hand dismissively.

Miyata's eyes follow his sharp claws almost nervously, and Arcadia frowns a little and tucks his hands behind his back.

"So, uh . . . what's up with the NetNavi?" Miyata asks, eyeing Arcadia warily.

"He's my NetNavi," Chaud speaks up, giving Miyata a hard stare.

"Uh . . . okay . . ." But Miyata still looks unsettled. He glances down at Arcadia's chest, and his eyes widen when he sees the blue-bird NaviMark.

Chaud abruptly remembers that Arcadia's NaviMark has a very passing resemblance to Falzar's symbol, and it doesn't help that they're both blue, even if Falzar's symbol is a different shade of blue.

"He's a NetNavi," Chaud insists, narrowing his eyes and subtly stepping in front of Arcadia. Of course he knows that Arcadia can protect himself, but there's no telling what these humans might do to him if they think he's a Zoanoroid.

"He is indeed," Ferry agrees, making everyone glance at him. "And a very strong one, at that. It is quite odd that he's able to stay materialised, but that's not our business to pry into." He takes out his huge pocket watch and peers at it for a moment, then looks at Miyata. "In any case, we still have our jobs to do. Connect train thirty-two to line twenty-seven."

Miyata looks a little startled at the abrupt change in subject. "Er . . . should I begin at the scheduled time, sir?"

"Of course," Ferry replies.

That seems to shock Miyata out of his uneasiness, and he nods. "Right away, sir!" And he speeds off eagerly.

Ferry turns to Chaud, Arcadia, and Maylu. "I have some duties to attend to, but they shouldn't take long. Once I'm done, I'd like to treat you kids to dinner as thanks for helping out with those viruses."

"R-really!?" Maylu eagerly asks.

Ferry nods, and gestures over to a large building nearby. "The restaurant there caters to the people who work here. It's run by the Madam. You can't miss her - she has a certain presence about her that makes her very easy to spot. Just tell her that I sent you, and she'll set you up with a table."

Chaud can almost feel his stomach grumbling at the mention of food. They haven't been using much of the canned food they scavenged from that ruined city - they're still not entirely sure how to cook any of it (Arcadia never found a cookbook, for all that he practically turned the store upside-down), and the most they can do with the stuff they found is make a half-decent fire from the matches.

They did think of using Arcadia's Holy Fire, but that's attacking-fire, not cooking-fire. Holy Fire would be far too powerful to use, and they'd just end up with burnt food - and maybe melted cans - in a matter of seconds.

Anyway, the point is, they haven't been eating much, and what little they have been eating, they were only able to make it somewhat fit for human consumption. Chaud had an easier time of it than Maylu - apparently being part cat lets him consume foods that're still somewhat raw, though he has his limits - but they're both feeling the effects of not eating much.

And for Chaud, that's a familiar feeling he'd hoped he would never have to go through again, willingly or otherwise. They don't have much choice, though.

But it looks like they might actually get some decent food for the first time since they landed in this reality. Two days - two entire days they've spent trying to work out how to cook, when the only experience Chaud has is helping Anetta almost burn down her kitchen every so often, and the only experience Maylu has is watching her father cook but not really paying much attention since she didn't think she'd need the skill so soon.

They head into the cafe, and immediately discover that Ferry was right about the Madam having a certain presence. It really is easy to spot her - she's the only woman in the whole building it looks like, and has a cheerful, booming voice that can be heard easily over the noise even by normal human ears. And aside from that, she has quite a physical presence too; she's a large woman, with grassy-green hair, and she bustles from table to table like she'll spontaneously combust if she stays still for too long.

"Oh, wow . . ." Maylu says softly, taking in the cafe as a whole with wide eyes.

"There are so many minds in here," Arcadia mutters, just barely loud enough for Chaud to hear him.

You alright? Chaud asks, glancing at him.

"I'll be fine," Arcadia replies, carefully massaging his temples. "I've dealt with bigger crowds, after all. If I can deal with an entire city full of NetNavis, I can deal with an entire room full of humans."

Except Chaud's got far too much experience with a NetNavi who insists he's fine and can handle things even when he very clearly can't, so he reaches out and tugs on Arcadia's hand until he can slip his fingers through Arcadia's and give his hand a light squeeze.

Just focus on me if you want to, Chaud tells him. If it'll help.

Arcadia gives him a weak but grateful smile, and then they're interrupted by the loud voice of the Madam, who seems to have noticed the trio standing in the doorway.

"Hey, you kids!" she booms, striding over with a speed that's a little impressive given her size. There's a huge smile on her face, but even so, Chaud still feels automatically wary - after all, Ferry said this place caters to the people who work in this train station, and he and Maylu definitely don't work here.

"Um-" Maylu looks startled as the Madam stops in front of them. "H-hi! Uh . . . M-Mr. Ferry said to come here? For . . . food?" She winces as she speaks, and Chaud sympathises.

This woman seems friendly enough, but who knows what her reaction could be to being told that she's supposed to give two completely random kids - plus a NetNavi, maybe - free food. Chaud's not sure if this place runs on money, and if it does, he has serious doubts that zenny will be of any use here. It's an entirely different reality, after all.

"Oh, Al picked up a couple of strays, did he?" The Madam laughs, and the sound is almost as deafening as the noise of the train they arrived in. Then the Madam notices Arcadia and corrects herself. "Three strays, sorry about that, kiddo, I almost didn't- wait, are you a NetNavi?"

" . . . Yes," Arcadia replies warily.

"You don't see many NetNavis around here," the Madam says, or what passing for 'says' in her volume. Or maybe that's just Chaud being overly-sensitive to the level of noise in here and around the town in general. "Just Al's, honestly. I like ChargeMan well enough, but we could do with some variety, you know? Welcome, then! I'll get you kids set up with a table, and then you can pick out whatever you want from the menu!"

"Ah- th-thank you," Maylu says faintly, managing a smile.

The Madam shows them to an empty table and drags over some seats. They look more like odd stools, since they have backs that look like curved sticks, but Chaud's not going to judge - again, this is a different reality, so of course things are going to be different.

He kind of dreads to think what might have happened if Mimic hadn't gotten them the language of Beyondard in advance. The kind of struggle they'd have to go through in order to make themselves understood, and the even greater struggle of trying to understand the natives of this reality . . . it's almost unthinkable.

They're given menus - all three of them, and for a moment Chaud wonders if Arcadia is even able to consume human food - and, predictably, can't read a damn word of it. Luckily for them, the language that ProtoMan stole from Zoano NumberMan wasn't just verbal, so Arcadia and Roll are able to translate the menus for them.

The Madam gives Chaud and Maylu an odd look when their Navis translate the menus, but doesn't offer any comments. Maybe she thinks they're both illiterate or something. Whatever, as long as she doesn't ask any awkward questions - Chaud's not entirely sure how these people will react to being told that there's more than one reality out there. It's probably weird enough that one of their Navis is still materialised even well over the ten-minute time limit.

Once they've selected what they want, the Madam heads off to fulfill their orders. Maybe Arcadia really is able to consume human food, because he orders too, and the Madam doesn't even blink.

"I don't even know what half of this stuff is," Maylu admits, looking at the menu. Some of the foods on the menu have pictures next to them, which is of no help whatsoever in figuring out what the foods actually are.

"Same," Chaud mutters, giving his own menu a narrow-eyed look. He tosses it onto the table with a faint sigh and sits back in his stool-chair thing, then regrets it when the curved stick digs into his back. "Ow."

"Don't sit back," Arcadia tells him absently, reading through his menu. "I wonder if any of this is the same kind of food we can find in our own reality, just with different names?"

"Some of these look nothing like the food we have back home," Maylu says, turning around her menu to point out a couple of the foreign dishes.

Arcadia lets out a sigh of his own and places his menu on top of Chaud's. "Maybe it's a good thing I didn't find a cookbook, after all."

"Yeah, we probably wouldn't have understood half of the instructions anyway," Roll agrees.

The restaurant is isolated and has thick walls, and aside from the sharp clinks of cutlery and plates and food being eaten, it's mostly quiet. So Chaud is able to hear when someone else comes in through the doorway - there's a sudden rise in the noise from outside, and then it becomes muffled again when the doors close, and he hears footsteps heading in their direction.

He looks up as Ferry arrives, and the man looks briefly startled, but recovers fast and takes out a stool-chair thing from another table. Chaud's lucky that Ferry decides to pick it up instead of dragging it over, otherwise it probably would've made an ungodly amount of noise.

"I assume the Madam has already seen to you kids?" Ferry asks, settling down at their table.

"Yeah, she's just making us some food," Maylu replies brightly.

Ferry nods with a slight smile. "That's good, then. She's a good woman, the Madam is. Very hardworking, and always ready for the workers when they come off their shifts. We wouldn't get nearly half as much work done as we do now if we didn't have her to look after us."

"That's just like you, Al!" the Madam laughs, coming up just in time to hear that. "You seem to forget that the majority of the work is done by you yourself!"

"Madam . . ." Ferry seems slightly embarrassed.

The Madam chuckles and sets down a plate of whatever-the-hell-it-is in front of Maylu. "I'm almost done with yours," the woman says, glancing at Chaud and Arcadia. Then she looks at Ferry. "And the usual for you, I assume?"

"Of course, thank you."

"What did she mean by that?" Maylu asks curiously, as the Madam bustles off back to the kitchen. "About you doing the majority of the work?"

"Ah," Ferry says. He clears his throat, obviously still a little embarrassed. "I happen to be one of the founders of this town, actually. I helped to build the railways and set up the tracks."

"'Helped to'?" comes ChargeMan's incredulous voice. "C'mon, Al, don't be so modest! You practically designed and built most of this town yourself!"

"That's pretty impressive," Chaud comments, smiling. "I wouldn't even know where to begin with stuff like this."

"It's really quite simple when you get down to it," Ferry replies. "You could think of it as a sort of puzzle, if you like. The puzzle of creating an entire town. How to keep things running as smoothly as possible, where to lay new tracks if necessary, whether those new tracks will need to cross with pre-existing ones and if they'll affect train schedules in the future . . ."

"That sounds like a lot of responsibility," Arcadia speaks up. "Even if you do think of it as a puzzle."

"Well, I suppose so ," Ferry muses. He chuckles a little and sits back in his chair. "What about you kids, then? What brought you so far out here? If you don't mind my asking, that is."

"Um, actually . . ."

They give him a watered-down version of what happened. It's an amazing thing, being vague - all they have to do is tell the truth, but tell it in such a way that things are left to the interpretation of the listener without actually letting said listener realise they're actually not telling the full truth.

'We were attacked by Zoanoroids and got separated from our friends' is a wonderfully-easy thing to explain. Not so easy to explain are the details, hence the vagueness.

The Madam comes back with food for Chaud, Arcadia, and Ferry himself halfway through the vague explanation, and she stays to listen, frowning along with Ferry. Those are frowns of concern, Chaud can tell that easily, but he can't help but look at those frowns and almost automatically think 'they're angry because they know we're technically-sort-of lying to them about something'.

"Missing friends, hm?" Ferry murmurs, ignoring his food for the moment to focus on the pictures Chaud is showing him on his PET.

"Oh!" the Madam exclaims, suddenly leaning forward. "One of them looks just like you, Chaud!"

"Ah-" Chaud blinks and turns his PET around. Then he sort of slumps, because the picture on the screen of his PET is showing Mimic. " . . . Oh."

He knows she's safe, or as safe as she can be in Beyondard, but he still worries. It's been two days and the only communication they've had with each other is when Arcadia forced that sight-share, and even that was brief.

Chaud misses her. He misses ProtoMan. He misses Lan and MegaMan and Trill, not to mention Bass, as well. And he misses Raika and SearchMan, too, and even Dingo and TomahawkMan.

"She's my twin sister," Chaud murmurs.

He looks up from the screen of his PET just in time to catch the sympathetic looks that Ferry and the Madam are giving him.

"I imagine you want to get back to her most of all, then," Ferry says gently.

" . . . Yeah," Chaud admits. "And everyone else, too, but . . . h-her most of all . . ."

Arcadia reaches out and places a clawed hand on his shoulder, and Chaud manages to draw a bit of strength and comfort from that warm touch.

"Do you know anything about them?" Maylu asks Ferry and the Madam, considerably more solemn now than before. "We're really worried about them, 'cus we haven't heard from any of them since we were separated . . ."

"I'm sorry to say I don't know anything about them, nor have I heard anything," Ferry says regretfully. "But I can ask around, if you'd like. I may not have heard anything, but perhaps one of the other workers has."

"I can do that!" the Madam offers cheerfully, clapping him on the shoulder. "You focus on your work, Al!" She turns to Chaud, Arcadia, and Maylu with a grin. "This man is a shining example to everyone in Shirokuni Town, especially the drivers. He's never late, and he never takes a day off!" She leans back, proudly puffing out her chest. "He leads by example and nothing more, nothing less! A true inspiration!"

"Oh, wow!" Maylu gasps, delighted. "That's so cool!"

"It's not that special, Madam," Ferry says modestly. "I just simply do my job."

"Pfft!" the Madam says. "Listen to him, it's like trying to give a compliment to a brick wall." She lets out a booming laugh.

"If you're never late and you never take a day off, what do you do when you get sick?" Chaud wonders curiously.

Arcadia gives him a look through half-lidded eyes. "I seem to recall someone else who was never late and never took a day off, even when it almost killed him."

Chaud frowns back at him. "Hey, I only have one job now. And it's not even that demanding."

Arcadia gives him a pointed look and spreads his hands out as if to gesture to the restaurant as a whole, or perhaps this entire reality as a whole.

" . . . Shut up," Chaud grumbles, looking away so he doesn't have to deal with Arcadia's smug little smirk. Dammit, Arcadia's an owl, not a snake.

Ferry raises an eyebrow at the exchange but doesn't comment on it. "Would you kids like a tour of the station while you're waiting for word on your friends? I can imagine you're quite anxious to hear if any of the other workers know anything about them, but in my experience, keeping busy always makes the time pass by that much faster."

"Ooh, can we?" Maylu eagerly bounces in her seat. "I've never gotten to look around a train station like this before!"

"Um, actually, I'd like to explore the town, if that's okay?" Chaud asks, raising a hand. "It's not that I'm not interested, I just . . . i-it's . . ." He winces and realises there's no other way he can put this. "It's just really loud in this station."

"I noticed you didn't seem to enjoy the train ride much, either," Ferry observes sympathetically. "Sensitive hearing?"

Chaud nervously tugs some hair over one of his pointed ears, though by now Ferry and the Madam have probably already noticed them. "Something like that," he mutters.

"You can use the streetcars to get around town, if you'd like," Ferry tells him. "It's free, so you can ride them as much as you please. It shouldn't be as loud in the town as it is here."

Chaud doubts that, but maybe exploring the town from the inside of a tram - or streetcar, whatever they're called - is better than trying to deal with it on his own. And if he takes a streetcar, he won't accidentally scare anyone by parkouring across their rooftops or something.


Ferry was right about the streetcars. They really are free to use - though the driver of the one Chaud and Arcadia climb into gives Arcadia an odd look when they ask for a ride through the town. Chaud wonders how many more humans are going to give Arcadia that same look before they finally find the others and hopefully figure out some way to get back home.

"This place seems relatively well-hidden from the war," Arcadia comments, as they watch the town go by through the windows. "Clearly they're still affected by it - I can sense a lot of lingering pain and fear from the townspeople, so maybe some them are refugees. But . . . for the most part, it's untouched."

"Don't jinx it," Chaud warns him, though secretly he agrees. He'd almost expected Beyondard to be completely war-torn - the way Mimic was describing it, it certainly sounded that way.

What was it she said? 'Humans try and stay outta the way as best they can'. That gave Chaud the image of humans huddling in corners or caves or other hide-aways, terrified and constantly on the run. But it's the opposite - while they're still afraid, they've actually set down roots, and have built new towns even while their old cities lie in ruins.

Is this what his reality would've become if Dad's dimensional area experiment had failed? Then again, the only reason the dimensional area experiment failed in this reality is because Beyondard Dr. Wily unleashed the Beast Factor into it. That's probably what caused it to fail in the first place.

So they're lucky their reality's Dr. Wily had already been defeated at that point, or was at least no longer interested in world domination or whatever he was after. It was never really too clear. He just caused chaos for apparently no reason.

"That Navi's name was ChargeMan," Arcadia suddenly says, breaking Chaud out of his thoughts.

He blinks at his Navi for a moment. " . . . What?"

"The train-Navi," Arcadia clarifies, glancing at him. "His name's ChargeMan."

"Yeah," Chaud says slowly. "What about it?"

He gets the feeling that Arcadia is raising an eyebrow under his feathered hood. "ChargeMan was one of the Navis on the Cross System list."

For a few moments, Chaud genuinely has no idea what Arcadia's talking about, and all he can do is stare blankly. Then it comes back to him in a flash, and his eyes widen.

"Ah!" Chaud exclaims. "Th-that's right, he was! He is, I mean."

"Mimic did say that most of the Navis on that list were from Beyondard," Arcadia muses.

"Yeah, but . . . I mean, Lan's not here, so he can't get Charge Cross, can he?"

Arcadia frowns for a moment, and then blinks and looks at Chaud. "Actually . . . I don't think that matters."

Chaud has to stare at him again.

"No, listen," Arcadia says. "Lan's not here to get the data needed for Charge Cross, but we are. And since MegaMan already has my Cross, I know what data is needed to make a new one, so I should be able to copy it from ChargeMan and store it in your PET."

"And then we can give it to Lan when we find him!" Chaud realises, grinning. "That's a great idea. I'll ask Mr. Ferry if we can borrow his PET when we get back-"

Something explodes with a thunderous boom, and the streetcar jerks to a stop, nearly sending Chaud onto his ass. The only reason he doesn't fall over is because he's holding onto the handgrip above his head, though he's small enough that he actually gets lifted off his feet for a split second. Arcadia wasn't holding onto a handgrip at all, but all he does is stumble a little bit before he sets his feet and regains his balance.

"What the hell was-" Chaud begins, startled, and then he hears sharp metallic clanging from outside the streetcar.

"Viruses! I can detect viruses nearby!" Arcadia exclaims, darting to the door and yanking it open - with enough force to accidentally tear it off the hinges. "Um . . . oops." He awkwardly sets the door to one side and glances over his shoulder at Chaud. "Come on!"

"I hope we don't have to pay for that," Chaud comments as he hops down from the streetcar after his Navi.

"Worry about it later," Arcadia advises him, hands lighting up with Holy Fire. "Now where-"

Chaud spots the viruses as soon as Arcadia does, and he steps back to avoid the intense heat as Arcadia unleashes twin streams of Flashfire on them. A huge crowd of Beast viruses, a lot of them digging-types like Mettaurs or those mole-looking ones that Chaud can never remember the names of, and they seem to be attempting to eat the town.

Literally. They're tearing into the metal, ripping it off the buildings and digging up the tracks all over the place, and then either consuming it or carrying it off somewhere else.

"I can sense a Zoanoroid somewhere nearby!" Arcadia warns him. "That must be where those viruses are going!"

"Delete these ones, then go for the Zoanoroid," Chaud orders. "If we take the Zoanoroid down, these viruses should stop or at least get confused enough to make deleting them easier!"

"Already on it!"

Chaud steps back a little more to give Arcadia as much room as possible. He could get into the air, but there are train tracks everywhere, even in the sky on those raised supports, and one false move could easily lead to him slamming straight into one or accidentally hitting something he shouldn't with his Holy Fire. Maybe it's not the best attack to use when they're in a town that's made of nothing but metal, but Chaud can't operate him at the moment - he's got something else to do.

He takes out his PET and calls Maylu, hoping that they're still close enough for the transmission to go through. One or two kilometres is the limit when they're in a dead zone, and Beyondard is quite possibly the biggest dead zone that Chaud has ever been in.

But he's lucky; it seems he's still close enough for his PET to connect to Maylu's. The call goes through and she picks up almost immediately.

"Hi, Chaud!" she says cheerfully, and then she catches sight of his expression and her cheer dies quickly. "What happened?"

"There are Beast viruses attacking the town," Chaud tells her. "Arcadia says there's a Zoanoroid here, too. We're gonna try and take it down, but the townspeople need to get to safety!"

The train station seems to be the central hub for activity in Shirokuni Town, so he's hoping that Ferry will know what to do about this. Chaud doesn't know much about evacuation - his main focus in an emergency like this has always been taking down whatever happens to be threatening people, not evacuating said people.

"Met!"

He looks up from his PET and almost gets his foot crushed by a Beast Mettaur's pickaxe.

Chaud spits out a curse and jerks back, ending the call and quickly putting his PET away - he doesn't want to accidentally drop it, not in the middle of a battle like this.

"Met-o," the Beast Mettaur growls, lifting its pickaxe again.

A fiery Bound Sword pierces through the Beast Mettaur's helmet and burns it to deletion, and then Arcadia lands in the fading flames. He takes a step forward and grabs Chaud without so much as a word, then spreads his wings and takes to the air.

Chaud lets his Navi carry him out of the way. Virus battles aren't usually dangerous for humans in their own reality, but in Beyondard, it's a completely different story. Even the normal ones would probably be deadly to a human - especially if they don't have a NetNavi to back them up.

Arcadia seems to be heading straight for where the noise of the viruses is the loudest. Just over the noise of those viruses is a half-familiar voice shouting orders and cackling insults, and then Arcadia sets Chaud down on a walkway above a street that seems to be a major road for the railway and they get their first look at the Zoanoroid attacking the town.

"JunkMan?" Arcadia stares in disbelief. "What? How did they even find him? I'm pretty sure the one in our reality was in space . . ."

"That's our JunkMan," Chaud reminds him. "For all we know, this reality's JunkMan could've had an actual operator, and then he got infected with the Beast Factor. Or maybe he was always on the planet right from the start. Either way, he's a Zoanoroid, so we have to stop him!"

Arcadia nods. "Right."

He spreads his wings and takes to the air, hovering for a moment, and then drops down to the ground. His landing is noisier than it normally would be, and it does the job of getting the attention of Zoano JunkMan and his small army of Beast viruses.

"Stop destroying this town," Arcadia calls to the Zoanoroid.

Zoano JunkMan's eyes narrow mockingly. "Or what, NetNavi?"

Arcadia raises an arm and Holy Fire flares into life on his palm. "Or I'll make you stop."

Zoano JunkMan stares at him for a moment, and then throws his head back and laughs. Chaud tightens his mouth at the sound - the JunkMan he knows is a little bit like ProtoMan in a way, kind of nervous but friendly, always eager to help if he can. This Zoanoroid seems to be the exact opposite, and it's not nice seeing such a cruel version of a kind NetNavi.

Which . . . is also a lot like ProtoMan and Zoano ProtoMan, actually. And given how that turned out . . .

Take him down as quick as you can, Chaud tells Arcadia, taking out his PET. Now that he doesn't need to warn Maylu about the viruses or the Zoanoroid, he can focus on operating his Navi. We can't risk him destroying this town, whatever his reasons are.

Arcadia jerks his head in a nod and gets ready to battle. Zoano JunkMan stops laughing eventually and looks at him, still with his eyes narrowed mockingly, and doesn't seem at all impressed.

"What hope can some NetNavi have against me?" Zoano JunkMan taunts. "I am Zoano JunkMan! I've conquered so many human towns that I've lost count! I take their metal, consume it for power, and I've eaten more than my fill today! You don't stand a chance!"

"Gajeel eats metal too," Arcadia retorts. "And Natsu still kicked his ass!"

Chaud has no idea who Gajeel and Natsu are, and neither does Zoano Junkman.

"What?" the Zoanoroid asks, tilting his head. "Who-"

Arcadia lets loose a Firebomb that explodes in Zoano JunkMan's face, and he's sent rolling back on the tracks. Chaud realises the Zoanoroid is sitting on some sort of makeshift cart - maybe he's really slow and can't move properly on his own? His legs appear to be far too short to do anything other than crawl around like a fat spider.

Chaud's eyes narrow. Well, that's Zoano JunkMan's problem. And their advantage.

Break the tracks! he tells Arcadia, taking out a battle chip and downloading it. Wave Arm!

If Arcadia is at all surprised that Chaud is telling him to break things, he doesn't show it. He throws out the Wave Arm immediately, and it shatters the tracks up to Zoano JunkMan, passes under him, and proceeds to shatter several metres of tracks behind him, too. Some of the viruses that were in the way are deleted by the attack, but there are still more besides them.

"Flashfire!" Arcadia shouts, flinging a stream of Holy Fire into the closest group of Beast viruses. They're burnt up in a matter of seconds, and Arcadia cuts off the stream and holds his hand out.

Mini Bomb! Chaud downloads it quickly, knowing what his Navi wants even without the need for words.

Maybe a more powerful Bomb would end the battle faster, but even if this specific street is wide, it's still too closed-in for them to use anything more powerful than a Mini Bomb. The explosion from their own attack could do more damage than Zoano JunkMan is trying to do, but they still need something.

Arcadia lobs the Mini Bomb into another crowd of viruses, and the miniature explosion manages to catch the majority of them. Only a few remain, which Arcadia quickly picks off with a few well-placed shots with his Avenger's Arrows, and now it's just Zoano JunkMan.

Who isn't happy at the loss of his Beast viruses.

"Damn you," the Zoanoroid snarls. He raises an arm. "Junk Cube!"

Step Sword, go! Chaud exclaims, downloading it.

The Sword materialises on Arcadia's arm and he brings it up, then vanishes from sight. The Junk Cube crashes down where he was a moment ago, completely harmless, and Zoano JunkMan utters a frustrated growl and tries to back up, only to abruptly remember that his makeshift cart is now useless since there's no tracks underneath him anymore.

Arcadia reappears above him, wings spread wide, the Step Sword now encased in rippling Holy Fire. He slashes down before Zoano JunkMan can even react, carving a hot scar through the Zoanoroid's face. The scar is sparking with data-blood, and one of his eyes has gone black and dead, but the other shines with rage as Arcadia drops back and banishes the flaming Step Sword.

"Bolt Missile!" Zoano JunkMan snaps, bringing up an arm-cannon and firing.

Arcadia beats his wings and dodges to the side, easily avoiding the attack, and Chaud winces when it bounces off a nearby building and makes a chunk of it fall to the ground.

Destroy the attacks if you can, he tells Arcadia.

His Navi responds with a tense nod, and then Zoano JunkMan blasts out another Bolt Missile.

Reflector wouldn't work in mid-air, would it? It makes a giant Mettaur helmet materialise around the NetNavi, and Arcadia might get dragged down by the sudden weight above him. That would just be a hindrance rather than a help.

Air Shot! Chaud exclaims. Shoot the Missile!

Arcadia aims and fires at almost the exact same time, and manages to blast the Bolt Missile right back at Zoano JunkMan, who looks startled for all of a split second before he gets a faceful of his own attack plus the blast of concentrated air from Air Shot.

Zoano JunkMan is knocked straight off his makeshift cart and lands on his side heavily. Arcadia darts down and grabs the cart as the Zoanoroid starts trying to struggle up, and then slams it into his face and knocks him back down.

Ouch, Chaud says, wincing at the metallic crash.

Arcadia throws away the dented cart - it's almost bent in two - and gathers Holy Fire into his hands. Zoano JunkMan manages to push himself up just enough to get his face out of the dirt, and his one remaining eye gleams as he glares at Arcadia.

"Go . . . to hell . . ." Zoano JunkMan grits out.

"You first," Arcadia retorts, raising his hands.

Zoano JunkMan's eye snaps open wide, and he flings out an arm. Arcadia jerks back, Holy Fire vanishing as he brings his arms up to protect himself from whatever attack the Zoanoroid is attempting, but nothing happens and he stops, puzzled.

And then some sort of . . . object materialises above them. It's big, almost as big as Arcadia, and round like a sphere except for the odd bolts attached to it, and there's a face like a clock on one side.

It falls down to the ground between Arcadia and Zoano JunkMan with a dull clang, and one of the fractions on the clock-like face lights up.

"Bomb!" Chaud yelps, automatically stumbling back. "That- that's a bomb! Why is that a bomb!?"

Zoano JunkMan coughs out a dark laugh. "If I can't conquer this town . . . I'll just blow it up! For the glory of Lord Gregar!"

"You're seriously willing to sacrifice your own life for a monster!?" Arcadia cries.

"I'll gladly give my life for Lord Gregar!"

Chaud hears rapid footsteps coming up to him from the mouth of the tunnel on one side of the walkway he's on, and then Maylu darts out of it and skids to a halt beside him. She's holding one of those odd-looking PETs - it takes Chaud a moment to realise it's Ferry's PET, because he can see the train-track NaviMark of ChargeMan on it.

"What's going on!?" Maylu demands. "I heard you say there's a bomb!"

Chaud wordlessly gestures to the bomb down below, which has now ticked to two of its fractions lit up. Maylu goes so still that he almost thinks she's been frozen, until she utters a quiet, panicked noise and takes a terrified step back.

"Let me materialise!" ChargeMan urges her. "I can carry the bomb away from the town!"

"No way!" Maylu yelps, clutching Ferry's odd PET to her chest. "You'll be deleted if that thing blows while you're carrying it!"

"So what!?" ChargeMan's Navi-hologram appears on top of the PET. He looks desperate, but determined. "It's what Al would do! It's what I want to do! If I can protect this town, that's all I care about!"

"There's no need for that!" Arcadia calls up, turning to face them. "Chaud, give me ProtoMan's special move!"

"ProtoMan's special-" It takes Chaud a moment to work it out. Dammit, he didn't think his bad memory would affect his knowledge of NetBattling. Maybe he's just panicking because there's a goddamn bomb less than twenty feet away from him.

He mutters a curse and digs through his folder for a second or two. He finds what he's looking for, and he sees Maylu giving him a confused look as she sees the battle chip in his hand.

Chaud's not even going to question why Arcadia wants this one. There's a fucking bomb on the street below, and if Arcadia thinks this is going to help somehow, then fine - just as long as Arcadia doesn't try and pull what ChargeMan was trying to pull a second ago.

"Delta Ray Edge!" Chaud exclaims, slotting it into his PET.

"Delta Ray-" Maylu gapes at him, and then at Arcadia, who brings up his arm as ProtoMan's red Sword materialises on it.

Arcadia leans forward and vanishes instantly, reappearing behind Zoano JunkMan. Before the Zoanoroid can even register the sudden movement, Arcadia slashes him, taking off the red cables that make up his hair along with a small chunk of his back, then vanishes again and reappears at his feet.

Another slash takes off Zoano JunkMan's lower half, making the Zoanoroid cry out, and Arcadia vanishes and reappears next to his head this time.

"N-no-" Zoano JunkMan chokes, looking up at Arcadia with his one remaining eye wide.

"What happened to gladly giving your life for Gregar?" Arcadia narrows his eyes and takes Zoano JunkMan's head off in one clean slash.

That's too much even for a Zoanoroid, and his body twists into data and then shatters entirely. The bits of data left over disintegrate quickly, but the bomb is still there, ticking down to its own demise - and that of the entire town.

" . . . Okay . . ." Arcadia seems a little lost, now. He frowns as he banishes ProtoMan's Sword from his arm. "I thought deleting him would get rid of the bomb . . ."

"Arcadia!" Chaud shouts, jerking forward. "Get away from it!"

Arcadia glances up at him, eyes wide, and then looks back at the bomb. He takes a step toward it.

"No," Chaud says. "Don't you dare, Arcadia, don't-"

Arcadia spreads his wings and gets into the air, then reaches out to grip a couple of the bolts attached to the bomb.

"Let go of it!" Chaud snaps desperately, as Arcadia strains to lift the bomb. "Let go of that bomb right now! Let go or-" He hesitates for a split second. "-o-or I'll return you to the PET!"

"No you won't," Arcadia says, just loud enough for Chaud to hear him.

He hefts the bomb into the air, wings beating to lift both himself and it, and rises slowly.

"This thing's heavier than I thought it'd be," Arcadia grunts, gritting his teeth.

"Arcadia!" Chaud screams, taking another step forward. He's right on the edge of the walkway now, and it's only his own sense of self-preservation that stops him from going any further, but he's entirely focused on his Navi.

Arcadia is ignoring him, though. Beside him, Maylu has her hand on her mouth, Roll is looking terrified on her shoulder, and ChargeMan is watching Arcadia with wide eyes. But even though Arcadia can definitely sense what they're all feeling, he's still rising into the air, and the bomb is still ticking away to its final fractions.

Chaud's hands are trembling. He's gripping his PET tight enough that if he were any stronger, he'd probably crack the screen or the casing. He wants to force Arcadia to return, but he knows if he does that now, the bomb will drop and probably explode prematurely - so all he can do is watch, completely useless and growing more and more desperate and scared by the second, as his secondary Navi takes the bomb higher.

Arcadia's found his rhythm now. He's beating his wings harder, faster, rising into the air quicker as time begins to run out. Soon, he's well above the city, and it's only Chaud's enhanced eyesight that lets him see Arcadia and the bomb.

And it's only that same enhanced eyesight that lets him see Arcadia twisting in the air, and he's amazed to see the dark shape of the bomb being hurled higher.

"Chaud!" Arcadia's voice comes out of his PET. "Give me a bomb!"

Chaud loosens his grip on his PET and whips out a Mini Bomb. Maylu starts to ask what he's doing, but he doesn't let himself get distracted, and he downloads it.

He sees Arcadia hurl the tiny shape of the Mini Bomb at Zoano JunkMan's bomb, and then it explodes.

The noise hits them first, nearly deafening everyone, not just Chaud. Then the intense wind pressure, a shock wave of force that forces them to their hands and knees. The only thing that doesn't reach them is the black cloud of the explosion, which spreads out high above the town, and little bits of debris burn out before they even reach the ground.

And then something does hit the ground, hard enough to make it shake and it's enough of an impact to affect Chaud and Maylu up on the walkway, too.

Chaud can't hear a damn thing through the ringing in his ears, but his eyes work just fine. Once the dust clears up, he sees the crater in the middle of the street, and he sees Arcadia in the centre of it, barely moving but still there, still alive.

He gets to his feet and nearly falls over. He's not hurt, but the lack of hearing has unbalanced him. He ignores it and forces himself to stumble over to the edge of the walkway, ignoring Maylu's hand trying to snatch at his pant leg. It's simple to hop down onto a low roof just under the walkway, though he lands kind of awkwardly since he can't hear the impact, only feel it, and he realises he probably should've waited until the ringing in his ears has cleared up and his hearing has returned before doing this, but he can't just leave Arcadia lying there in the middle of the street.

Chaud slips down, again almost stumbling on the landing, and makes his way over to the edge of the crater. Then he slides down, having to rely more on his eyes than his ears, which doesn't do much to help him, and he gets down to Arcadia and kneels beside him.

Arcadia blinks slowly and looks up at him, then offers him a weak smile. Chaud lets out a laugh he can't hear and slumps down, pressing his forehead into Arcadia's chest, and then raises a hand and traces his fingers across Arcadia's offered palm.

[idiot] Chaud signs.

Arcadia's chest shakes with a laugh, and he closes his fingers around Chaud's hand and squeezes gently.


It takes a while for Arcadia to recover. Ferry somehow manages to dig up some Recovery chips from somewhere - Chaud didn't have any in his folder when they got pulled into Beyondard, and even though Roll has healing abilities, she needs to stay materialised for more than ten minutes in order to fully heal Arcadia, so the Recovery chips that Ferry gives them do most of the work.

Chaud is the only one who's still somewhat deaf from the explosion, but his hearing is returning slowly, thank god. Enough for him to hear muffled noises, and he's glad that it's coming back slowly instead of all at once, because even this muffled noise is a lot. Especially after the ringing silence.

It takes until Arcadia is fully recovered for Chaud's hearing to also recover, though he still feels like some things are kinda muffled. He wonders if Mimic was affected by that, too, and hopes - as he always does whenever something like this happens - that she wasn't doing anything important. Going deaf in the middle of a battle for no apparent reason is even worse than going deaf in the middle of a battle for an actual reason.

They do manage to get ChargeMan's data, though. Apparently saving the entire town is enough to give them the benefit of the doubt, and Ferry doesn't even question Chaud asking for his PET - though he does correct him and say it's called a Gate, not a PET, so at least that explains why it doesn't look like any kind of PET that Chaud's ever seen before.

With ChargeMan's data and the whole of Shirokuni Town . . . more or less unscathed (except for the damage that the Beast viruses, Zoano JunkMan, and Arcadia already did), there's not really anything else here for them, so they decide to move on and try and find some hint to their friends' whereabouts in the next town, wherever that might be.

"ChargeMan, transmission!" Ferry points his PET - no, it's a Gate, he said it's a Gate - at what looks to be an actual steam locomotive, something Chaud has only seen pictures of in history lessons.

ChargeMan's body phases into the steam locomotive - it's the same colour as he is, which sort of makes Chaud wonder if Ferry designed this specific locomotive himself in the image of his NetNavi, or if it was just re-painted in ChargeMan's colours. It's a nice touch, he thinks. And hopefully a steam locomotive won't be as loud as the last train they rode on.

"Hold on! Wait!"

Rapid footsteps herald the arrival of the Madam, who runs surprisingly fast for a woman of her size. She's clutching a basket under one arm, and it looks a little bit like the basket Anetta brought with her that one time, which makes Chaud immediately think of food.

"Whew," the Madam huffs out, stumbling to a halt in front of them. "I'm glad I caught you . . . Here!" She presents the basket to them, handing it to a bemused Maylu. "These are the best lunches in the restaurant, and I heard you kids talking about cooking earlier, so I included a cookbook in there too."

"Really!?" Maylu's eyes sparkle with eagerness as she open the lid of the basket, and Chaud leans over her shoulder to look into it. There's a thin book on top of the lunches, with a picture of Beyondard food on the front. "Oh, wow, thank you!"

"Hopefully there's some stuff in there on how to cook food we don't know," Arcadia mutters, only loud enough for Chaud to hear.

There's an odd jingling of some sort from behind them, and Chaud turns around to see Ferry coming over from the locomotive. He's holding a patchwork pouch in his hand, which is the source of the odd jingling, and for a moment Chaud can't place what the noise is until some vague memory of watching Mimic summon an ungodly amount of coins in Skyrim makes him realise it's probably money.

"And this is merely a token of our appreciation," Ferry says, holding out the money pouch to Chaud. "Shirokuni doesn't have much, but as thanks for saving our town single-handedly, please, accept this."

Chaud hesitates to take it, shuffling uneasily under the hooded cloak that the townspeople have given him. Maylu has one too - another 'token of appreciation' for saving the town, which is a very functional gift since they're going to be travelling across the desert wasteland, and the cloaks will provide shade from the sun along with warmth at night.

The cloaks and the food were enough, but money, too?

"We can't accept that," Chaud mumbles, wincing. "It's too much . . ."

"Come on, now," Ferry insists, "it's not a problem. We can't thank you enough for saving our town, this is the least we can do."

"He's not going to accept 'no' for an answer," Arcadia murmurs in Chaud's ear.

He sighs and reaches out to take the pouch, and gives Ferry a small, albeit embarrassed, smile. "Thank you."

Ferry grips the cap of his hat between his fingers and pulls it over his eyes, returning Chaud's embarrassed smile with one of his own. It appears he's not one to express himself much - which Chaud can kind of understand, so his smile gets a bit wider at that.

"Good luck finding your missing friends," the Madam says, as Ferry climbs into the cabin of the locomotive.

"Thank you," Maylu replies, bowing politely. Chaud and Arcadia do the same, and when the three of them straighten up, they see the Madam's puzzled look.

Hm. Maybe the people of Beyondard don't do bowing as a form of politeness or respect? He knows Mimic's Beyondard doesn't do it, from what little she's told him about the place, though she adjusted to it relatively quickly. Maybe there's some kind of gesture that translates to being polite in this Beyondard, too.

This time, when they board the train that Ferry is driving, they settle themselves into an empty carriage. It's much more comfortable than standing up in the front with Ferry, and after the day they've had, it's not just Maylu who's glad for the chance to sit down properly.

Arcadia settles himself on the back of the seat next to Chaud, being careful not to pierce the material with his talons. Chaud would wonder if that's at all comfortable, because it doesn't look like it to him, but Arcadia chose to sit like that and he's not complaining, so . . . hm. Maybe it's like Mimic's thing with sitting on tables - there's no actual reason, they just do it because they like it.

They watch the town pass by as the train sets off, and within minutes, they're cruising through the desert wasteland. The view is essentially the same as it's been for the last couple of days - well, three days, because the sun's setting and their third day in Beyondard is almost over already. But there's something different about watching the wasteland go by from the inside of a train carriage, something much better than trekking through it on foot.

"It's a shame none of the workers knew anything about the others," Chaud murmurs. He cradles one of the lunch boxes the Madam gave them on his lap, but he's not hungry at the moment, so he's not eating yet. "It would've been nice to know if we were on the right track . . ."

"We'll find something eventually," Maylu says brightly. "At least we can get to the next town a lot faster like this! Maybe we'll find something there?"

Chaud can't help but smile a little at her optimism. "Maybe."

Maylu takes a bite out of her lunch, and she pauses, then smiles. "Oh, this one tastes just like curry!"

"Really?" Chaud blinks and looks down at the box in his lap. "I wonder if this one tastes like curry, too . . ."

"Kinda reminds me of Lan," Maylu giggles. "He'd go nuts if he were here."

"More than likely he'd try to beg for your 'curry flavour' lunch," Arcadia jokes.

"If he actually was here, I'd give it to him as a gift," Maylu admits, with a slightly wistful smile. "I just wish he was here, and everyone else, too . . ."

Chaud hums quietly and glances out the window again, but the view is still the same as it was a minute or two ago. Distant sand and wasteland, with the odd railroad criss-crossing in the distance. This is still a lot faster than walking across the wasteland, so he has no complaints.

"Speaking of gifts," Arcadia suddenly says, getting their attention. He gives Chaud a small, sad smile. "Happy birthday, Chaud."

That takes a second to register, it's so unexpected. When it finally does register, the first thing Chaud feels is mild confusion, because he genuinely can't remember what the date is, and then he sort of panics for a moment, trying to remember.

"Oh!" Luckily, Maylu does it for him. "That's right, it's Christmas day back home, isn't it? And that means it's yours and Mimic's birthday . . ."

Chaud blinks at her, and then his shoulders slump. "This would've been the first one I'd spend with my whole family . . ."

Maylu reaches over and pats his knee sympathetically. "There's always next year, right? And you don't need to be with your family to enjoy your birthday, y'know. They're still with you, even they're not actually here."

"She's right," Arcadia agrees softly, putting a clawed hand on Chaud's head and ruffling his hair as gently as possible. "We can always celebrate Christmas and your birthday when we get back home, anyway. Maybe on New Years?"

"What if we don't get back home in time for New Years, either?" Chaud wonders.

That makes both of them pause. Arcadia bites his lip and Maylu winces, staring down at her curry-flavoured food.

" . . . Sorry," Chaud sighs, lowering his head.

"It's a valid point," Arcadia admits quietly. "But . . . either way, we will get back home. Doesn't matter when or how. We'll find the others, and we'll get back home. No ifs about it, right?"

"That's right!" Roll appears on Maylu's shoulder with her hands on her hips, nodding firmly. "So quit being so down, you two! We're not gonna get anything done if you mope around like this!"

Chaud has to laugh at that. Maylu even manages a slightly startled giggle.

"I guess you're right," she agrees, now a little more cheerful than a moment ago.

"Here's to finding our friends and getting back home," Chaud adds, opening the lid on his box and digging in.

His mouth burns almost immediately, and he nearly spits it back out before he realises what this flavour is.

Paprika. That's Mimic's favourite spice flavour.

Chaud's not really into spicy stuff like his siblings are, but he can't help but smile. He tucks in eagerly, aware of Arcadia giving him a knowing smile, and resolves to do absolutely everything he can to reunite with Mimic, Lan, and everyone else. Arcadia and Roll are right - they won't get anything done moping around, and they will find the others and they will get back home.

It's just going to take a bit of effort, is all.