Reviewer replies!
Star Holder Commander: Yeah, like it's gonna be done posting any time soon. (smirks) Thanks for telling me that Chapter 12 is a duplicate; I changed it now.
Jhvh777: Yes... Will the BattleChips work, or will they not? Anyway... Lan, pissed off? Lan can get pissed off? Oh, yeah. Um... Well, whatever. Thanks for reviewing yet again!
Rose Kitsune.EXE: Yes... How did you know Chaud and Proto would piledrive Lan and Mega later? Coincidentally, he does appear a few times...
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Lan's POV
I grinned guiltily before fishing around in the back pocket of my black shorts, where I kept my spare store of BattleChips. I shouldn't have done this, letting Mega Man go back into the Cyberworld. Oh, sure, he had woken up yesterday to find himself in the Real World, but now I'd messed it up and he may not even be NetNavi anymore. One thing was for sure, though - as soon as Arnie left, I had to go see Dad again.
That thought in mind, I pushed the chip down the slot on the side of my PET. "CyberSword, BattleChip in!"
In the Cyberworld, Mega Man waved his arm, waiting for the sword to appear, then turned back to me. "Nothing doing."
"Hm..." I thought about it for a moment, spiky hair shadowing my eyes, hand on my mouth, and, thinking back on it now, I think I must have bore an odd resemblance to Plato turned private eye. Yeah, I know. I'm insane.
By the time I turned back to the computer screen, Mega had somehow single-handed and chiplessly managed to use his Buster and artful moves to corner Guts Man and Morgan so that they were both cowering-well, almost cowering-against the wall. Morgan was shielding Guts' bulk with hands outstretched - poor Guts Man. He could defend himself but was to scared to awaken the wrath of my (former) Navi.
"Huh?"
Mega grinned and waved at me, then proceeded to do the other two in, then let them off: a glairng Guts Man and a grinning Morgan.
"You know, that was a pretty good joke," the plant Navi said, a little nervously.
Meanwhile, back in the Real World, Dex and Arnie looked at me curiously.
I blushed. "Um ... yeah ... well, you know, just battle or something, guys. I, um, have to go somewhere." With that, I yanked the PET cord out of the jack-in slot at the side of the screen and rolled away from them as fast as I could, into the hallway.
Mega Man was in the Real World again, glaring down at me. Go figure.
"Lan, what did you do!"
"Relax," I told him, holding my hands up to calm him down (Nice try, Hikari. I have got to quit trying to stop him. When my Navi wants to talk, my Navi wants to talk). Mega Man's the taller of us two, so he towered over me; I shielded my head with my hands, desperately craning my neck upward so that the rest of my body was basked in shadows. "You're all right now, aren't you?"
"Yes," he agreed, the glare in his green eyes, reflected from his cotanct lenses, eyes disappearing - to reppear a second later. "I'm warning you, Lan. You'd better listen to me," he warned, poking a finger into my chest.
I pushed his wrist from my chest before thrusting my hand forward. "Deal."
And so ends this scene, human and humanized Navi shaking hands, one glaring, the other terrified by his own Navi.
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"See ya, Arnie!"
Mega and I were waving to Arnie, who waved back before ascending into the sleek silver taxi. His curly-headed face appeared in the window and we stood waving for a few minutes until the driver revved the engines and proceeded to ready the plane. The massive behemoth of an automobile rolled smoothly along its gold-hudcapped wheels, then took off through the strwwteays of DenTech City, the tip of its chrome-plated bumper sending sand skittering in our direction. Arnie and his mom were back on their way to Netopia.
Arnie turned around in his window seat so that we could see him better; we waved until at last the mammoth silver taxi disappeared into the powder-blue horizon.
When the car's large figure had disappeared from sight, I turned to Mega Man. "We have to go to Dad's now," I announced, just as his hand dropped down; my cousin Arnie was visible no longer.
"All right," he agreed, turning to me. I couldn't but notice that his sky-blue contact lenses were popping off and I motioned to him to push 'em back in.
"What? Oh. These things," Mega Man said with a grin as he pushed them back in ever so slightly. You had to admit, he was in a much better mood than his previous one of yesterday afternoon. "What day is it today?"
"Sunday," I answered, nonchalantly glancing out toward the long, winding street that Arnie had taken away from the bustling metropolis of DenTech.
Mega Man seemed surprised.
"How can it be Sunday?" he quested to know. "I mean, two days ago, when I ... Well, you know, it was morning but you weren't getting ready for school."
"Oh, that," I began nervously, and I could just feel the sweat beading up from inside my blue cloth headband. "I was faking sick because I noticed the PET was missing. I had this weird impression that something had happened to you. I figured, for some insane reason or other, you were in the fields behind our house." I patted the pocket where my terminal was safely stored when I finished speaking.
Mega Man rolled his eyes sarcastically. "You know, Lan," he said, "As ingenious as that is"-hint, hint-"you still shouldn't have done it."
"I know, I know," I agreed, nodding rapidly; at the same time, I was gnashing my molars together. "I won't do it again."
As we made our way out of the airport I attempted to flag down a car to DenTech, but Mega grabbed my hand and pushed it down, hard. I winced from the sudden sharp, stabbing pain and sent a glare in his direction
"Don't." Mega Man restrained me, flecks of worry streaking his blue-reflected-green eyes. "Remember what happened last time?"
"Oh, yeah," I said sheepishly, remembering. The last time I'd hitchhiked in someone else's car, my BattleChips had been stolen and Mega and I had ended up not talking to each other for a while. (But everything had turned out all right, or else this fanfic might not even be here, you know? Um... so that's it, but I still sweatdrop at the thought.)
So I shrugged and led Mega Man away from the sidewalk and into the subway station. I made my way over to one of the men at the ticket booths. I was nervous, but tried to reassure myself: just two friends, right? Jack and Lan, black-haired and brown-haired, blue-eyed and green-eyed.
As I handed the black-haired man from the station my purple ticket, he suddenly exclaimed, "Hey! You were on the news a few days ago!"
"I ... Yeah, I was, and maybe I can get to Netopia free?" I stuttered before going into my cool guy mode. You know - hair flopped down easily over face in case of crazed fangirls, sneaky expression in eyes, one hand on PET - the works.
The man smirked as he handed me some change. "Sorry, but not even people on the news get get free subway rides."
I thanked him and we boarded into the subway, wondering why in the world I had been on the news a few days ago. "Mega-er, Jack," I asked suddenly, twisting around in my seat to face him, "Did you hear what that guy said?"
Mega paused. "Well, the last time we fought bad guys was on Wednesday, and today's Sunday," he figured, "so it's possible we were on the news. I mean, we were at the TV station, you know? So they probably got everything on tape. Your PET has a feature for the three o'clock news. We could watch it on that."
I pulled the PET out of my pocket and pressed down the news feature button. I skated easily through the days' scheduling until I came to Wednesday's date, where I pressed the play button.
"This afternoon, a notorious man under the name of Ace Lightstreak and his fearsome Navi Comet Man were spotted and brought down today at the DTV broadcasting headquarters - not by official NetBattlers, but by five children entering their teens," the blond reporter onscreen said, her blue eyes flickering open and shut as she gave the newscast. "The five have been fighting criminal Navis and their Operators for over a year now, helping ward the evils of DenTech away from the city." The report went on to describe a little each of us and which Navis we'd been fighting, etc. When it was over, I looked up at Mega Man with wide eyes.