ProtoMan looks out across the gently flowing river, at the bobbing stick that's acting as the float, and says, "I'm bored."

"Mm," his current companion replies.

"I'm really bored."

"Uh-huh."

"Super-bored."

"Mm-hm."

"Dingo . . ."

"Yeah?"

"I'm bored."

TomahawkMan appears on Dingo's shoulder, frowning. "You've been saying that for the past forty minutes," he says to ProtoMan.

"Yeah, 'cus I'm bored," ProtoMan replies. "You guys made it sound like fishing would be fun! Fish everywhere, ready to eat, not a single moment goes by in which that line does not get a nibble, and the fish practically jump outta the river and into whatever passes for my belly!"

"You said that," Dingo reminds him, "not us."

ProtoMan lets out a faint whine that's bordering on a wail and flops down. "Fishing is boring!"

Dingo takes his eyes off the stick-float and frowns down at him. "I heard from Lan that you raised Chaud. Right?"

"Yeah?" ProtoMan blinks up at him questioningly, wondering what the hell that has to do with how fucking boring fishing is turning out to be.

"So how the heck did you manage to raise a human kid when you're this impatient?" Dingo asks incredulously.

"I was a different NetNavi back then," ProtoMan replies, glancing at his shadows. They're just drifting calmly across the grassy bank nearby, an eldritch mass of slowly-twisting darkness waiting for the chance to spear any fish that Dingo manages to yank up.

" . . . Fair enough," Dingo says, shrugging, and he goes back to fishing. Or not-fishing, because he still hasn't caught a damn thing.

Aside from that one tiny little fish he pulled up an hour ago. It was smaller than ProtoMan's palm, not including his fingers. He still ate it, of course, because the entire point of this boring fishing thing is so he can eat fish. It tasted like disappointment and sadness, but it was still a fish.

Half a minute passes by, and ProtoMan shifts, tucking his limbs under his body so he's in a more comfortable position. Mimic calls this 'loafing', doesn't she? Kinda makes sense when Ragdoll does it, because he looks like a very poofy loaf of black bread, though ProtoMan's not sure if he looks like a loaf of bread when he's 'loafing'.

"How do you do that?" TomahawkMan asks, and ProtoMan looks up.

" . . . Do what?" he asks, after a moment.

"That, with your arms and legs," TomahawkMan says, gesturing to ProtoMan's body. "Like, you've just . . . what, you just pull 'em under your body or something? Your arms and legs, that is."

"Oh, you mean the loafing?"

"Loafing?" Dingo glances up from the stick-float to give ProtoMan a bewildered look.

"That's what Mimic calls it."

"Never mind what Mimic calls it," TomahawkMan interjects. "How the heck do you do it?"

" . . . I tuck my limbs under my body," ProtoMan says slowly.

"Yeah, I know that," TomahawkMan replies, somewhat impatiently. Hypocrite. "I meant more like . . . physically, how do you do it? I know you're a cat-Navi, but you're a humanoid cat-Navi." He makes a wild gesture at ProtoMan's legs. "Your legs aren't even digitigrade! How the heck do you do that? I tried it once, and I couldn't make my legs bend that way. It hurt."

"Digitigrade . . . ?" ProtoMan repeats slowly, now thoroughly confused.

"Like a quadruped's back legs."

"Quadruped?"

"Four-legged animal."

"Oh. Right."

Dingo looks even more bewildered. "Dude, you're a NetNavi," he says. "How can you not know what those words mean?"

ProtoMan shifts a little more, tucking his limbs tighter under his body. "You know how me, Mimic, and Bass kept getting lost?"

"Yeah, Mimic said none of you guys knew which way north was," Dingo says, nodding. "What about it?"

"You know why we didn't know which way north was?"

"Bass doesn't have a compass program, Mimic couldn't remember which way north was, and your compass program doesn't work because of your glitches," TomahawkMan recites.

"Yeah, that's it." ProtoMan nods. "My dictionary program also doesn't work, for the same reason. So if I need the definition of a word, I gotta go on the internet to look it up. But there's no internet here."

" . . . Oh," Dingo says, blinking.

"Don't look at me like that," ProtoMan says, feeling a faint flash of irritation. A few of his shadows in the drifting mass nearby jerk in response to his irritation, but they don't do any more than that.

"Like what?"

"Like you're pitying me," ProtoMan clarifies. They can't see it under his visor, but he gives Dingo and TomahawkMan a glare anyway. "Sympathy is fine, but pity is just . . . it's offensive, is what it is, and I don't like it."

"Sympathy and pity are the same thing, though," Dingo points out, looking puzzled.

"They're similar, but they're not the same," TomahawkMan tells his operator. "Sympathy is having compassion for someone's pain or distress, while pity is having sympathy or sorrow for someone's suffering. He's not suffering, so he doesn't need to be pitied."

"But he's not in pain or distress, either."

"Sympathy can also mean understanding someone else's situation," TomahawkMan explains. "He's not looking for pity because he can't use the dictionary program, he just wants you to understand."

"Yeah," ProtoMan agrees, nodding. Not exactly the words he'd use, but whatever, as long as Dingo gets it.

"Oh, okay then," Dingo says, with another blink. He looks up at the sky for a moment, chewing his lip thoughtfully, and then glances down at ProtoMan with a smile. "Then I understand why you can't use the dictionary program, and I sympathise with you for it."

" . . . Weird way to say it, but I'll take it," ProtoMan decides.

Dingo practically beams.

Then the thin string that's making up the fishing line is pulled taut suddenly, distracting the three of them. ProtoMan perks up and looks out at the stick-float, and is excited to see it bobbing under the water.

"Yes!" Dingo cheers, quickly getting to his feet and adjusting his grip on the fishing rod - or stick, whatever. Sticks and string, that's all he used.

ProtoMan gets up to all fours eagerly, watching the stick-float. The last fish was a tiny, disappointing one, but any fish is good enough, especially after an hour of waiting. Give him fish, dammit!

"Pull, Dingo!" TomahawkMan encourages his operator.

"Yah!" Dingo does as his Navi says - it's rare when he actually listens to TomahawkMan - and yanks on the stick-rod.

He's struggling to pull up the fish. That means the fish he's got caught on the line has to be big, right? With that tiny fish, he just needed to tug, and out it came. He just gave the stick-rod a huge yank and the fish that's currently on the line - or whatever the term is - still isn't coming up.

The water around the stick-float practically erupts, and ProtoMan sees the flopping tail of what definitely looks like a huge fish. His excitement reaches its peak and the only thing stopping him from snatching up the fish himself is the fact that it's in the middle of the water.

His shadows have no such problems, however. A couple of tendrils sharpen and then stab out, spearing into the fish, and its struggles cease immediately. The sharpened tendrils of shadows pull the dead fish out, revealing it to be very big indeed, and a third tendril snakes out to tug the line from the fish's mouth.

The third tendril attaches another bit of bait onto the end of the line and deposits it back into the water, while the other two sharpened tendrils toss the dead fish over to ProtoMan. He jumps up with an excited screech and grabs it in his claws, then slaps it down onto the ground, crouches over it, and starts eating.

"And you said fishing was boring," Dingo laughs, settling back down.

"Still is," ProtoMan says through a mouthful of fish. Delightful, wonderful, not-disappointing fish. "I love eating fish, not catching fish."

"Suit yourself."

ProtoMan purrs and continues eating his fish.


Walking looked a lot more interesting in the anime. Walking looked a lot more interesting in any anime, actually, not just the EXE one - hell, it even looked interesting in all those movies where the protagonist and/or the main group go on a great big adventure to find something or do something.

As it turns out, walking is boring as hell, and the only thing that breaks that boredom are the occasional Beast viruses that pop up every so often. But those attacks are beaten back almost immediately thanks to the combined efforts of Arcadia, ProtoMan, and Bass - and occasionally one or two of the other Navis, when their HP isn't too low - so this walking thing? Is still boring.

"Let's play I Spy," Mimic says.

"No," about half the group, including a few of the Navis, chorus.

"Aw, c'mon, it'll be fun, trust me." She looks around their surroundings quickly and spots something. "Alright, I spy with my little eye-"

"A rock," Chaud says, without even looking.

"Lucky guess. Let's try again! I spy-"

"A rock."

Mimic laughs. "You're good at this!"

"I can read your mind."

"You fuckin' cheat!"

"Don't swear, Mimic," MegaMan speaks up. "I'd also like to point out that our surroundings are currently nothing but rock, so even if Chaud couldn't read your mind, he'd still get the answer right anyway."

"That's not true," Mimic says, frowning. "It's not just rock. There's some moss over there, see?"

"A change of scenery is nice every now and then," Raika remarks.

Mimic looks at him. "You're bein' sarcastic, ain't you?"

"I'm being completely serious," he replies, with a straight face.

"You're an a-" Mimic begins, but MegaMan looks at her. " . . . A prick. A very mean prick."

Raika sighs and doesn't bother responding.

The group continues walking through the rocky valley, silence settling upon them once again. It's still boring as hell, so Mimic tries to entertain herself by keeping up a running commentary of the scenery - or lack of - in her head, much to the amusement of Chaud and Arcadia. ProtoMan'd probably be howling with laughter, but he's fucked off to find some animal to kill since they're running low on fresh meat.

They were in a forest this morning. Yesterday, they were in another rocky valley. Before that, they were making their way through the snowy mountain. Beyondard's biomes are fucked up, even more so than Minecraft's.

. . . It's still boring, though.

"Can we stop?" Maylu speaks up, making everyone pause and glance back at her. She's plodding behind them, as exhausted as she was in the memories Chaud showed Mimic.

"My feet hurt a lot," Dingo complains. He's walking alongside Maylu, and Mimic had thought that he was just making sure she didn't fall over or something, but maybe he was actually lagging behind just like she was.

" . . . I kinda wanna rest too, actually," Lan admits, with a faint sigh. He glances at Iris, who, as per her role as the official navigator, is leading from the front. "We'll still make good time if we stop now, right?"

"We . . . should, yes," Iris replies, after a brief hesitation.

"It's getting late anyway, so we would have had to make camp at some point," Raika adds in his own opinion. He glances at Baryl and Pat. "What do you guys think?"

"I'll scout ahead and make sure there aren't any viruses or Zoanoroids waiting for us," Baryl decides, instead of actually replying. He heads off in the direction they were walking.

"I'm all for making camp, but if you guys want food, you're gonna have to wait 'till ProtoMan gets back," Pat tells them.

"Ah, shit, yeah, the cat's got all the supplies . . ." Bass mutters. He glances at Chaud. "Hey, is he close enough for you to contact him?"

Chaud frowns and takes out his PET. " . . . No, he's too far away. But he should be back soon anyway, you know how fast he is - and he left an hour ago, so if he hasn't found something by now, I'd be shocked."

"Hunting is a lot faster than fishing," Arcadia agrees, with a wise nod.

Dingo shoots him a half-hearted glare as he flops down on his backside. "Look, I tried, okay? It's not my fault the rivers in this reality are terrible for fishing."

"The ocean is much better," Pat says, settling down as well. "Even near the shore, you can almost always find enough fish to eat off for a day or two. But since our journey is taking us away from the ocean . . ."

"There's fish in rivers, too." Mimic plops down on a patch of moss, unwilling to sit on the hard rocky ground. "I know there is. I played Animal Crossin', an' there was always fish in the rivers."

"Animal crossing? What are the animals crossing?"

"It's a video game," Maylu explains. "You play as this human character who lives in a village or a town populated by a bunch of animals, and you can do all kinds of stuff, like bug-catching, fishing, shell-collecting, whatever. And you have a house that you can upgrade and decorate and stuff."

"I had a basement and I made it into a dungeon," Mimic adds, nodding.

"That does not surprise me at all," Raika mutters.

"I don't remember you ever playing Animal Crossing," Lan says, blinking at Mimic. "When you did you buy that game?"

"I didn't," she replies. "Not in our reality, anyway. Back in my old one, I bought New Horizons when it came out. I played it for a few weeks, then got bored an' abandoned it."

"But you can't just abandon your village!" Maylu looks shocked. "What about all your villagers? Your house? The village itself? The entire island has probably been overgrown with weeds by now!"

"You realise I can't do anythin' about that specific village even if I did have the game, right?" Mimic raises an eyebrow at her. "Besides, I need constant distraction. New shit. Days were just gettin' borin' in New Horizons. Every day, I woke up, collected some shells, shook the trees, got attacked by bees-"

"What?" Pat's eyes widen.

"-checked the shops, an' that's about it," Mimic finishes, ignoring her. "Borin' as hell."

"And the games you normally play are any different how?" Maylu challenges.

"Skyrim's big enough that there's still quests even I ain't come across yet," Mimic promptly replies. "Breath of the Wild is the kinda game that can be played over an' over an' I'll never get tired'a the story, plus the map's big enough that I ain't even fully explored it. Pokken Tournament lets me beat shit up, which never gets borin'. Unravel Two I can play with anyone an' it's never the same experience twice 'cus'a that, even if the levels are the same. Minecraft doesn't even need explainin'. I could go on."

" . . . Alright, fair enough," Maylu sighs. Then she gives Mimic a hard look. "But when we get back home, you're getting New Horizons, and I'm helping you with your village. Okay? There's more to New Horizons than tedious daily tasks, Mimic!"

Mimic raises an eyebrow. "At the risk of soundin' sarcastic, I look forward to it."

ProtoMan doesn't have all of the supplies - that would be extremely impractical, no matter how useful his shadows' infinite storage capacity is - so Pat is able to get a fire going with the matches she has on her person, and they're not totally freezing when the sky finally starts to darken. The days are hot, but the absolute second the sun starts to set, the temperature begins to drop rapidly, and Mimic doesn't know if that happens in their own reality as well or if it's just a Beyondard thing, but she doesn't like it.

She loves night-time. She just doesn't love it when it's freezing-fucking-cold.

Baryl shows up a few minutes after Pat gets the fire going, with ProtoMan happily bouncing along beside him. Mimic's enhanced hearing lets her pick up snatches of their conversation well before either of them are anywhere near the camp, and she perks up when she learns that ProtoMan's hunting trip has been very successful.

"I come bearing dead thingies!" ProtoMan happily announces, throwing his arms out wide. His shadows oblige the gesture and deposit no less than five dead animals - two of which look vaguely like large foxes, but are too different to actually be foxes - onto the ground in front of everyone.

Warrior Cats calls this stuff fresh-kill, Mimic comments, as Bass immediately gets to skinning the carcasses.

ProtoMan, who was just about to curl around her and Chaud like he usually does when they make camp, pauses. "Warrior cats?"

It's a book series, she explains. About these four - well, five - groups of cats who live in Clans. They have their own culture and stuff. Cats in the Clans are trained as apprentices and then become warriors when they're finished with their training, hence the name. They hunt stuff like you do, and they call it fresh-kill.

Sounds like an interesting series, Chaud muses. I wonder if it exists in our reality . . .

How'd you know I was talking about a thing from my old reality? Mimic asks, surprised.

He gives her an amused smile, which corresponds with the warm feeling she gets from him. Because you've never mentioned it before, and you definitely haven't found this Warrior Cats thing in our reality, or I would have known about it.

. . . Good point.

"I hunt things," ProtoMan says. "Does that make me a warrior cat, then?"

I guess so? Mimic looks him up and down thoughtfully, then nods. Yeah, you'd be a warrior cat. They fight to protect the cats in their Clan and to defend or expand their territory, and they also hunt to keep their Clan fed. You do the same stuff for us. Kinda.

ProtoMan purrs happily and curls around Mimic and Chaud. "I'm a warrior cat."

"When we get back home," Arcadia speaks up from nearby, "I'll look into this Warrior Cats thing. See if I can find . . . you said it was a book series, right? So I'll see if I can find the books."

Fuck yeah! Mimic grins. I missed reading the Warrior Cats, it'll be awesome if the series exists in our reality as well.


It takes the group a few days to finally make their way out of the rocky valley, but they emerge into yet another desert wasteland, and Lan can't hold back a groan.

He is thoroughly sick of deserts at this point. He's sick of wastelands, too, but he's mostly sick of deserts because they're almost nothing but sand and the occasional rock or dead bit of shrubbery.

At least Mimic seems to have gotten over her boredom from a few days ago. She's not demanding to play terrible road trip games anymore - instead, she's animatedly telling Chaud, ProtoMan, and Arcadia about some book series that's about magical cats or something, and from the few snippets that Lan has heard, it sounds like an extremely complex series. Prophecies and superpowers and ghosts and some cats have more than one life, and even more complicated stuff that he'd need a notebook to keep track of.

Talking about that seems to have had an influence on ProtoMan, too. He's now insisting on calling the dead animals he brings back 'fresh-kill' for some reason, and Lan heard him asking Mimic if the Poltergeist Program would be something from the Dark Forest, whatever the heck that is.

Well, whatever. As long as they're happy. And not bored. Mimic has a bad habit of doing very stupid things when she gets bored, and Chaud and their Navis have a bad habit of just letting her do what she wants or helping her out, depending on how bored they happen to be as well.

The group's been walking on the roads as much as possible, since that offers an easier route to get to the Wily Research Facility. It'd be faster to walk straight there, but they could also very easily get lost, even with Iris navigating for them. The roads are actually shown on the map Iris has, so by following them, they're able to keep track of where they are a lot easier.

Like right now, for instance. If it weren't for Iris's map or the fact that they're following the roads, the group would have no idea that they're about a day or two away from the nearest town.

Not that they're going to said town. They have no need to re-supply yet, and they had a talk about it, and decided to avoid as much contact with civilians as they can - because, of course, they don't want to risk accidentally leading the Zoanoroids to any towns. MegaMan and ProtoMan are still targets, and even though no Zoanoroid generals have attacked them yet, they keep tripping over Beast viruses that attack them immediately, and even came across a few squads of Zoanoroid soldiers a few times.

Of course, the fact that ProtoMan sometimes runs off on his own to hunt would be an issue, since he is, obviously, on his own. But it's not an issue, because ProtoMan is more than fast enough to escape if he gets attacked while out hunting, and his shadows have very explicit instructions to get him back to the group should he come across any actual enemies. They don't need to worry about any of this with MegaMan, since he can't stay materialised like ProtoMan, and Trill knows to stay close to Lan and stay out of the way if they get attacked.

"I can detect Beast viruses," SearchMan suddenly warns them, just as they come up to a fork in the road.

"Where?" Raika demands, as the group immediately goes on alert.

SearchMan takes a moment to answer, quickly scanning their surroundings. "There!"

Everyone looks in the direction he's pointing, and Lan's probably not the only one who gets confused. All he can see are a few green shrubs up ahead. Well, 'shrubs' is a generous term - these things look like someone tried to rake together a few piles of leaves and got as far as making them into vaguely ball-shaped messes before getting bored and wandering off.

" . . . Those aren't-" Lan begins.

The shrubs come to life suddenly, with a roar that sounds like a thousand rustling leaves, and they merge together into the form of the biggest Beast Shrubby virus that any of them has ever seen.

" . . . Oh," Lan says, in a very small voice.

There's a faint rumbling sound, and then thorny, brown vines erupt out of the ground. They all seem to originate from the giant Beast Shrubby, and lash out wildly as the giant virus lets out another leaf-rustle of a roar.

"I've seen enough hentai to know where this is goin'," Mimic comments.

Bass, whose palms are bright with Shooting Star energy, pauses and glances at her. "What the fuck is hentai?"

ProtoMan's face turns as red as his armour and he shoves Bass forward. "Nope, we're not doing this!" he snaps, following. "Delete that damn virus and never mention that again."

"Is hentai related to the numbers thing?" SearchMan wonders, as Raika takes out his PET. "Thirty-four and sixty-nine, I believe it was."

Raika nearly drops his PET, but Mimic looks absolutely delighted.

"Can we not?" ProtoMan demands in a very high-pitched tone. "Please? Let's just get rid of this virus, okay? Forget the- the stuff!"

"Hentai," Mimic calls gleefully, with a shark's grin.

ProtoMan lets out an anguished cry.

"Mimic, please stop distracting everyone," Arcadia sighs, arms crackling with Holy Fire. He unleashes a blast of Flashfire almost lazily, and the giant Shrubby cringes away, leaves singed and smoking.

"But it's fun," Mimic protests.

Chaud grabs her and clamps his hand over her mouth, ignoring her indignant struggles. "I've got her, delete that virus," he says.

Raika eventually materialises SearchMan, and although Lan feels the ever-present urge to materialise MegaMan and fight the giant Beast virus as well, he refrains from doing so. For one thing, they'd decided not to materialise every single NetNavi at once unless there's an emergency or something, like a massive Zoanoroid attack. And for another, even if this thing is huge, it's still just a single Beast virus, and it feels like overkill to have more than four NetNavis attacking it.

Sure enough, ProtoMan, Arcadia, Bass, and SearchMan delete the Shrubby virus quickly. Mimic, at one point, manages to get out of Chaud's grip and starts gleefully calling out various suggestions that has poor ProtoMan turning bright red (especially since more than a few of said 'suggestions' involve Crescendo), and Lan has to cover Trill's audio receptors just to make sure he doesn't hear anything too . . . well, bad, for lack of better terms. Luckily, Chaud gets Mimic under control, and then it's over.

The group gets moving again, and no doubt Mimic is keeping up a horrifying running commentary in her head, based on the expressions that Chaud, ProtoMan, and Arcadia are making. Chaud looks faintly annoyed, ProtoMan looks like he's about to melt out of sheer embarrassment, and Arcadia just looks tired.

Yeah, Lan sometimes wishes he could hear the twins' thoughts like they can hear each others', but sometimes he's actually grateful that he can't. Like right now, for instance. Mimic is terrible. He loves her, but she's terrible.

They all settle into a comfortable silence - aside from whatever mental commentary Mimic is babbling up - for the next few minutes.

"Uh, hey, guys?" Dingo suddenly speaks up, breaking the comfortable silence.

The group doesn't pause, but they do all glance at him. Lan's used to Mimic and Chaud not being entirely comfortable when there's so much attention on them, so he's impressed that Dingo doesn't immediately start squirming, only to remember that Mimic and Chaud's reactions to things like this aren't normal for most people.

"I think I can see buildings over that ridge," Dingo goes on, pointing.

Lan - and everyone else - follows his finger as they finally stop walking. To their left, a considerable distance away, is a jagged ridge that disturbs the otherwise-flat terrain, and just over the top of that ridge, there are indeed what look like buildings. Lan's only experience with buildings in this reality has been the fishing village Pat comes from, and the dimensional area research facility, so he's honestly a little surprised at how . . . normal those buildings look. From what little he can see of them, at least.

"They look almost like skyscrapers," Raika says thoughtfully. "Do you think it's a city?"

"If it is," Baryl begins, "it's abandoned. Humans don't live in cities anymore - it's too dangerous. That many humans clustered together is practically a glowing target for the Zoanoroids."

"There shouldn't be a city near here, abandoned or otherwise," Iris speaks up, frowning. "The map I have is as up-to-date as possible, so it includes both new settlements and old ones, even from before the Great Change. And there are no cities here."

"Maybe it's like . . . an illusion or something," Lan says. "Y'know, with the heat and all."

"A mirage?" Maylu suggests.

"Yeah, that's it! One of those!"

"The heat's nowhere near bad enough for a mirage," Baryl tells him, and Lan deflates a little bit.

"We are in a desert," Pat points out. "Maybe the heat doesn't need to be too bad for a mirage." SlashMan, who's standing on her shoulder, looks in the direction of the ridge thoughtfully, but doesn't offer his own opinion.

Lan sees ProtoMan exchanging a glance with Arcadia, and he wonders what that's about - then he doesn't have to wonder anymore, because they both step forward and explain anyway.

"Me and Arcadia can go and check it out," ProtoMan offers. "You guys can keep going - we'll be able to find our way back to you easily."

"Splitting up isn't a good idea," Baryl warns them.

"I go off to hunt all the time!" ProtoMan protests. "C'mon, it's not like there'll be anything there we can't handle anyway!"

"If there really is trouble, we're both fast enough to get away if we can't fight," Arcadia adds. ProtoMan looks faintly disgruntled at the idea of running away, but he reluctantly nods his agreement.

"I'd kind of be interested in finding out what's up with that city," Chaud speaks up, raising a hand. "I say we let them go. They're right anyway - they are fast enough to get out if they need to."

"Mirage city, mirage city, mirage city," Mimic eagerly chants, bouncing on the balls of her feet.

"Don't start this again . . ." Baryl groans. Pat covers her mouth with her hand, but her smile is easy to see anyway.

"It would be a good idea to figure out the terrain," Raika muses. "Plus, if there's something hostile in that city - regardless of whether it's real or not - we need to know about it. It could try and attack us if our path takes us too close."

"Do you think maybe there's ghosts in that city?" Trill asks, just as eager as Mimic.

MegaMan shudders. "I hope not . . ."

"If there are," ProtoMan says, grinning at Trill, "we'll take some pictures and show 'em to you, okay?"

Trill lets out a happy cheer.

The only person who has any real objections is Baryl, but Lan thinks the main reason he's objecting is because he thinks this whole thing is a waste of time. Lan, personally, doesn't see the problem - he knows that ProtoMan and Arcadia are just as keen to explore stuff as their operators are, so he's happy to let them do what they like.

Besides, how many opportunities are they gonna get to explore a real world city like this? Sure, there's the CopyBot back home, but only one NetNavi can use it at a time, and the only abandoned city they've ever come across back in their reality were those ruins they found during the Duo incident. Those are pretty cool, yeah, but they're also ancient, and the city they might've come across now seems way more modern.

So Lan's kinda interested to see what a modern abandoned city will look like. If the city is even abandoned in the first place, and if it's not a mirage. He hopes ProtoMan and Arcadia take more than just pictures of ghosts.


ProtoMan dashes across the flat desert sand on all fours, and Arcadia streaks across the sky above him. They're not moving at their top speeds, but even so, the ridge gets bigger and bigger as they approach, and within less than a couple of minutes, ProtoMan is darting up the ridge.

He pauses at the very top, and his shadows bunch up behind him, curious and eager to explore. Arcadia lands with barely a stirring of wind beside him, looking out across the city.

And, yeah, it really is a city. A city in ruins, but it's still a city - and ProtoMan's never seen a city in this reality, just towns or villages (that he, Mimic, and Bass would promptly scam, but whatever, details). He knows Arcadia's come across one, and from what he knows of the description he was given, it seemed to be pretty similar to this one.

The buildings are crumbled. Some of the taller ones have fallen over completely, crushing smaller buildings underneath them or blocking off entire streets. The roads are cracked and in some parts there are deep, jagged holes, some so deep that the bottoms aren't even visible. A lot of the smaller buildings seem to have caved in, leaving rubble strewn out across the roads, and ProtoMan doesn't have Arcadia's eyesight but he can tell that this city is on the verge of collapse.

Maybe the only reason it hasn't is because the ridge surrounds it, encasing it in a natural barrier of sorts, protecting it from the elements. On this side, it's not that big - but it rises further on, until the opposite side is tall enough to loom over the entire city and cast a deep, unsettling shadow on the ruins. And ProtoMan's used to shadows, so that's definitely saying something.

" . . . I can't detect any life signs," Arcadia says quietly, after a few moments of awed silence.

"No humans, then," ProtoMan remarks, tilting his head.

"That doesn't mean there aren't any digital beings down there," his little brother warns him. "If we come across a virus or a Zoanoroid-"

"I'll eat it."

"No, ProtoMan." Arcadia gives him a stern look. "We don't fight, okay? And you're not allowed to eat anything. If we come across anything that might be trouble, we run. Got it?"

ProtoMan puffs out his cheeks. One of his shadows drifts close to him, and he feels its coldness against his skin.

"ProtoMan," Arcadia says.

After a moment or two, ProtoMan lets out a noisy sigh, and the shadow drifts away to join the gently-writhing mass behind him. "Fine, fine. We run."

Arcadia nods, satisfied. ProtoMan's still kinda annoyed - dammit, he wants to fight things, maybe eat something while he's at it (Dingo's fishing was nice and all, but they didn't catch much in the end), not run away at the first hint of trouble.

It occurs to him that this is basically the exact opposite to how he was thinking - and feeling - just a few short weeks ago, but whatever. He's not here to marvel at that, he's here to explore a ruined city with his little brother.

This is gonna be awesome.

Arcadia takes the lead, digging his talons into the ground to stop himself from sliding too much on the steep ridge as they head down. ProtoMan follows, keeping low on all fours, as alert as he can manage, and his shadows drift after them and spread out, multi-tasking by exploring and helping to keep an eye out at the same time.

They reach the bottom of the ridge, take one more step into the city proper, and it's like- it's like . . .

The human phrase is 'it's like someone just walked over my grave' or something like that. There's no cyberworld equivalent for it, because NetNavis and beings of data don't have graves. But that's the only way ProtoMan can describe what he's feeling, and he knows Arcadia feels it, too, because he pauses for a moment and a visible shudder ripples through his body and ruffles his feathers.

"You felt that, too?" Arcadia glances at him, unsettled.

ProtoMan nods, not trusting his voice to work. His shadows have come back now, coiling around him and Arcadia protectively, and he feels their coldness as they latch onto him and then slip off, too uneasy to stay still. Not that they ever stay still anyway.

Arcadia purses his lips and raises his hand, trying to contact Mimic. ProtoMan watches him, and so he sees the moment when Arcadia's expression turns troubled.

"We're in a dead zone," Arcadia says quietly, lowering his hand. "A true dead zone. We're cut off from everyone else, now."

ProtoMan glances over his shoulder, back up the ridge. "I bet they're worried."

Arcadia hums in agreement.

" . . . Should we go back?" ProtoMan asks, glancing back at him. "I know I wanted to explore - so did you - but . . . if we can't contact Chaud or Mimic . . ."

His brother is quiet, thinking it over. ProtoMan keeps quiet too, letting him think, and waits.

His patience is eventually rewarded.

"We can keep going, I guess," Arcadia says, looking at him. "We only agreed to go back if we ran into trouble - and being in a dead zone isn't technically trouble, it's just . . . unexpected."

"I do kinda wanna keep going," ProtoMan admits.

Arcadia nods. "Right, then. We keep going - but if we do run into any trouble, and I mean any trouble, we head straight back."

"Gotcha." ProtoMan nods back, willingly this time. He's not stupid, whatever anyone else might think. He knows when he's gotta put aside his curiosity for common sense.

They continue onwards, heading deeper into the ruined dead zone of a city. There's nothing to suggest any possible explanation for the dead zone, but ProtoMan knows a bit about a thing called 'natural dead zones', back in their own reality.

Mimic once brought up something called the Bermuda Triangle from her old reality. Apparently planes and ships and stuff go missing inside that Triangle a lot, something to do with natural interference that makes electronics go crazy or stop working or whatever. In their reality, those are referred to as 'natural dead zones', specific locations that - for no apparent reason - cause electronic devices to stop working properly.

Maybe Beyondard has the same kinda thing. Maybe this ruined city was built on a natural dead zone. That'd certainly explain why ProtoMan and Arcadia got cut off from Chaud and Mimic.

I hope they're not too worried about us, ProtoMan thinks. At the very least, their operators should know that neither of them have been deleted - regardless of whether they're able to contact their operators' PETs or not, said PETs will always react if the NetNavi connected to it has been deleted.

Could think we are hurt, Dark Shadow points out, forming itself out of ProtoMan's shadows to slink along beside him.

True, ProtoMan muses. Do you think they'll come here and try to find us?

Dark Shadow considers that for a moment. Maybe, it eventually says. Host-family worries a lot. Host makes them worry. Host is reckless and dumb.

Hey! ProtoMan protests, but he's laughing.

Arcadia glances back at him, an amused smile on his lips. "Is Dark Shadow insulting you again?"

"What, are you ganging up on me now?" ProtoMan pouts. "You guys are mean."

Arcadia laughs, Dark Shadow ripples happily, and ProtoMan continues pouting for a moment before pulling his lips back into a grin.

And then Arcadia's laugh abruptly dies and he stops, so ProtoMan and Dark Shadow stop as well, instantly on full-alert. Arcadia's eyes are narrow, and he's scanning the area with those eyes, and the feathers on the back of his head are twitching faintly - the only visible sign that he's also using his Empath Program to scan the area.

ProtoMan crouches low to the ground, keeping one eye on Arcadia, listening carefully to the sounds in the ruined city. The only thing he hears is the wind faintly howling above the buildings, and the even-fainter sounds of half-broken buildings creaking and crumbling. Other than that, the ruined city is dead, and still, almost unnaturally so.

But Arcadia's Empath Program doesn't lie, and if he thinks there's someone or something here with them, he's usually right. At least, ProtoMan's never known him to be wrong.

Arcadia gestures, pointing in a specific direction, and he heads off that way on silent feet that not even ProtoMan's sensitive hearing can pick up. ProtoMan and Dark Shadow follow him, stalking just as silently, moving over rubble and debris and cracked concrete as smoothly as real world snakes. They're cats, but still.

They come out into a huge square in the dead-centre of the ruined city. The square is littered with rubble and cracked concrete, and there are more jagged holes here than there are in any of the streets they've been through so far. The ground is so uneven that if ProtoMan weren't on all fours, he might actually have trouble moving - Arcadia doesn't because he's an owl-Navi, and Dark Shadow doesn't because it's a shadow.

And in the centre of the square, floating a few feet off the broken ground, is the curled figure of an off-colour NetNavi.

ProtoMan slows to a stop, claws not making a sound against the concrete, and Arcadia sucks in a quiet, shocked breath. Dark Shadow is the only one who doesn't stop moving, if only because the shadows it's made up of are in constant, rippling motion, though it does stop walking.

The off-colour NetNavi doesn't react to them. ProtoMan's not even sure if the NetNavi has noticed them at all - their approach had been silent, after all. But he'd still expect a NetNavi like this to notice them coming, regardless.

The silence stretches on for what feels like an eternity. ProtoMan doesn't want to break it - he's too afraid, too stunned, to break the silence. But Arcadia has no such problems.

"Hello?" he calls softly.

The off-colour NetNavi twitches, and something flickers into sight behind them. Two dull-coloured raiments, just as off-colour as the rest of the NetNavi, torn and shredded to the point where they're little more than just rags barely held together with some unseen power.

A few moments pass, and the off-colour NetNavi slowly uncurls, like every movement is stiff and agony for them. Their feet don't touch the ground, they just continue floating, but now they're looking at ProtoMan, Arcadia, and Dark Shadow with eyes that seem to stare straight through them rather than actually at them.

" . . . Who are you," Serenade says in a dull, flat tone.

ProtoMan nearly flinches. Hearing that tone from Serenade, of all Navis, just sounds . . . wrong. On a level he can't describe.

"W-we're . . ." Arcadia falters.

"You are not Zoanoroids," Serenade - Beyondard Serenade, because the colours are off and as far as ProtoMan knows, their Serenade can't travel between realities - says.

ProtoMan somehow manages to find his voice. "H-how did you know?"

Beyondard Serenade's dull eyes slide to him, and it takes almost every bit of self-control he possesses - which isn't much, to be honest - to keep himself from actually flinching this time.

"Zoanoroids destroy everything they touch," Beyondard Serenade says in that dull, flat tone that sounds so wrong coming from them. "It is their nature. When they come, they come loudly, announcing their presence with violence and destruction and deletion. You, though . . . you came quietly. You are NetNavis. Like me."

"Yeah," Arcadia nearly whispers.

Beyondard Serenade stares at them until it becomes extremely uncomfortable, but ProtoMan's too unsettled to break the silence.

Eventually, Beyondard Serenade does it themself.

"You are residents," they say.

ProtoMan exchanges a mildly-confused glance with Arcadia.

"You . . . have lived in Mirage City," Beyondard Serenade goes on. "Or you visit regularly enough that it's presence has . . . affected you. You." They look at ProtoMan. "You are a Virus Navi. And you." Now they look at Arcadia. "You are . . . not. But I sense a connection between you."

"We're brothers," ProtoMan manages to say.

"That is the connection," Beyondard Serenade murmurs. Their expressionless face changes a little as they frown, just slightly. "You are residents, and yet . . . I do not know you. I recognise you, Virus Navi - you bear a very . . . striking resemblance to the one known as the Sunset Warrior."

ProtoMan tenses up, as do Arcadia and Dark Shadow, expecting Beyondard Serenade to turn hostile or something. But Beyondard Serenade's only movement is the faint rippling of their ragged raiments in a non-existent wind, and their slight frown fades, face becoming expressionless once again.

"But you are not him," Beyondard Serenade says, almost to themself. "If you were, you would not be here to talk." Their dull eyes look around slowly, taking in the destruction of the ruined city. "You would be here to finish the job you started."

NetNavis don't have lungs - they don't need to have lungs, they're made of data. But even so, they still need to breathe, and ProtoMan feels whatever air is in his systems leave his body upon hearing that.

Arcadia has gone completely still, eyes wide. Dark Shadow's body is flickering so much that it almost looks like it's gone just as still.

" . . . What happened here?" Arcadia finally asks, though from his tone, it's easy to tell that he already knows the answer.

"Zoanoroids," is the dull answer. "Zoanoroids, and the Cybeast. Falzar. They came, seeking the independent residents of Mirage City. We are many." Beyondard Serenade pauses. "Were many. The Cybeast Falzar sought to use our numbers - it attempted to infect us with its Beast Factor, to make us . . . Zoanoroids."

They fall silent. Neither ProtoMan nor Arcadia have the will to break the silence, so they keep quiet, allowing Beyondard Serenade to gather themself.

"It did not work," they eventually say. "The residents of Mirage City are - were - under my protection. They could not be infected with the Beast Factor. I, myself, could not be infected with the Beast Factor. This angered the Cybeast, and so it set its army on us. It set the Sunset Warrior on us."

Beyondard Serenade goes silent once again, but the silence only lasts for the beat of a human heart.

"They deleted everyone," Beyondard Serenade whispers. "I thought . . . I hoped that my illusions would be enough. Hoped that I could keep us hidden from the eyes of the Cybeasts. From all who would wish harm upon Mirage City. It . . ." They curl up a little, wrapping their arms around themself. "It was not enough. They came anyway. And now everyone is gone, and I . . . I am alone . . . in this ruin of a city . . ."

ProtoMan takes a step forward before he even thinks about it, but he freezes, aborting the movement. It was instinctive, to try and go forward, to try and comfort Serenade - even if this isn't the Serenade he knows - but he doesn't know if this Serenade would appreciate comfort from a complete stranger, even if they recognise him as a 'resident'.

Besides, he also doesn't know whether or not Beyondard Serenade will freak out if he goes anywhere near them. Yeah, they know he's not Zoano ProtoMan, but he's exploited his resemblance to his Zoanoroid counterpart often enough to know that any hint of Zoano ProtoMan's presence sends basically everyone in this reality into a panic. He's not willing to get blasted by Beyondard Serenade's killing light - or whatever this one's ability is - no matter how much he wants to comfort them.

"The Cybeasts and their Zoanoroids have taken everything from this world," Beyondard Serenade murmurs. "The Mirage Navis. Countless human lives. NetNavis brainwashed and force-fed the Beast Factor. Cities, and towns, and villages - all of it. Nowhere is safe." They shudder. "Nowhere . . ."

"We can change that," Arcadia says.

Beyondard Serenade snaps their head up to look at him, and ProtoMan is deeply impressed that Arcadia doesn't flinch. He doesn't quite manage it, himself.

"We're not from this reality," Arcadia explains, gesturing to himself and ProtoMan. "We're from- have you heard of Beyondard?"

"The world beyond," Beyondard Serenade says dully. "Yes, I have heard of it. I did not know if it truly existed, but . . ." They glance at ProtoMan briefly. "Your presence suggests that it does. What of it?"

"The Cybeasts are trying to take over our reality as well as this one," Arcadia tells them. "We - myself, my brother, and our friends - we were dragged into this war. And . . . well, we also got dragged into this reality, as well. But we met a man called Dr. Tadashi Hikari."

"I know of him," Beyondard Serenade says, uncurling a little.

Arcadia nods. "He created a means to end this war. If all goes to plan . . . the Cybeasts won't be a problem anymore. This reality can be at peace."

"Peace," Beyondard Serenade echoes faintly, like it's a word they've never heard before.

"You could help us, if you want," ProtoMan offers boldly. "We're gonna need all the help we can get if we want to end this."

Beyondard Serenade shudders again, even though they fully uncurl. "I . . . I do not fight. I cannot fight. My power lies in illusions, and protection. Nothing more. If . . . if you had come here before the Cybeast, before the Sunset Warrior, then . . . the Mirage Navis would have gladly lent you their strength. Many of us were strong, and powerful." Their expression darkens. "Not powerful enough."

"That's okay," Arcadia says gently, and it feels weird to be gentle with Serenade, of all Navis, but this Serenade is broken and scared and so, so lonely. "Even if you can't help us like that, it's okay. We just wanted to offer. You don't have to do anything you don't want to."

" . . . You will defeat the Cybeasts?"

ProtoMan blinks under his visor, exchanges a quick glance with his brother, then turns back to Beyondard Serenade.

"You will destroy them?" they press. "Avenge the horror they have inflicted upon this world, and your own? Make them suffer, as we have suffered?"

"Yes," ProtoMan says, without thinking.

Beyondard Serenade uncurls properly, and for the first time, floats down until their feet touch the ground. There's no sound of impact - not even a faint tap that ProtoMan's sensitive hearing could pick up - and somehow, Beyondard Serenade seems . . . different, now that they're standing on their own. Almost like ProtoMan's response has resurrected something within them.

"Then I will entrust the future of our realities to you, and your friends," Beyondard Serenade says. "Make the Cybeasts pay. Destroy them. End this War of Beasts. Go with my blessing, however much it means to you."

"It means a lot," Arcadia says softly. "More than you could know, Serenade."

Beyondard Serenade looks at him, but if they find it odd that he knows their name even though they never introduced themself, they say nothing.


They say their goodbyes to Beyondard Serenade, and Arcadia grips ProtoMan's arms in his talons and takes them out of Mirage City via the air this time. Dark Shadow doesn't need to be carried - it simply bursts into tendrils of shadows and whips after them, though Arcadia sees one or two of those tendrils snaking out to coil around Beyondard Serenade for a brief moment before re-joining the rest.

It doesn't take long for them to find the group again. It seems that, as soon as they lost contact with Arcadia and ProtoMan, Mimic and Chaud panicked and immediately started heading straight for the City. The others were forced to follow them, though 'forced' probably isn't the right word to use, since Arcadia can sense their own worry almost as strongly as he can sense his operators' worry.

"ProtoMan!" Chaud shouts, when the twins spot them. "Arcadia!"

Mimic doesn't shout, but she does raise her arms and wave to them. The twins' shared worry is like a lightning storm, frantic and bright, and Arcadia decides he doesn't want to make them worry anymore.

He lowers himself and ProtoMan down, letting his brother drop as soon as they're close enough to the ground for it to not hurt (though ProtoMan's shadows would catch him before he could actually get hurt, so it wouldn't matter anyway). Arcadia lands just a beat after ProtoMan and tucks his wings against his back.

ProtoMan immediately launches himself at Mimic and Chaud and pulls them into a hug, his purr faltering a little bit. He's still shook up after meeting Beyondard Serenade, and hugging their operators is helping.

Arcadia's the same, so he he joins the hug as well, wrapping both his arms and wings around his operators and his brother. ProtoMan's shadows coil around them, the same way two of them were coiling around Beyondard Serenade before.

"What happened?" Lan is the first of the group to reach them, and his worry sparks through Arcadia's Empath Program, not as tangible as Mimic and Chaud's but definitely strong. "Mimic and Chaud just suddenly lost contact with you guys, and . . ."

"It was a natural dead zone," Arcadia explains. This probably isn't a good conversation to have while in the middle of a four-way hug with his operators and brother, but ProtoMan's too unsettled to let go of the twins, and Arcadia doesn't want to let go, either. "Nothing to worry about. We didn't come across anything hostile, either."

"But you did come across something," Raika says, shrewdly.

Arcadia only hesitates for a brief moment. "We'll . . . explain that later. Right now, we just . . ."

He glances at Mimic and Chaud, and at ProtoMan, who's now giving Chaud's hair a gentle lick even as he rests his cheek on top of Mimic's head.

Raika understands immediately, and he nods. "Alright then. Later."

Arcadia nods back, and then re-joins the hug properly. He feels ProtoMan's tongue running across his feathered hood, feels Mimic and Chaud taking his hands in theirs, and closes his eyes, content in the embrace of his family.

We'll avenge Mirage City, he vows silently, to the lonely NetNavi they left behind. I promise.