Woot! Another weird POV! Go fanfics!
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Mega fainted.
He fell onto the ground, his eyes closing slowly as his thin, suddenly frail-seeming form was knocked out in slow motion. I unconsciously leaned forward from my comfy perch atop the slide, but I reined myself just in time. Must -- not -- try -- to -- screw -- things -- up -- before -- it's -- time, I thought rapidly as I wildly tried to stop myself from doing anything. I clamped my mandibles together and swivelled myself downward -- past the fallen humanized Navi, past the shocked good guys, past the jubilant bad guys -- to witness a figure coming from the shadows. He had a tall, cutting figure; when he glided out from under the slide, I had to bit my lips down hard to stop myself from saying anything.
Ace Lightstreak.
Of course, Fanficcer -- being who it was -- had told me this would happen, but still... A deep, hidden conscience, buried under thoughts and memories, was screaming in anguish. Save them! I gotta save them! I, now desperate, tried to squash down my instincts as I watched Lightstreak emerge from the shadows.
The pink squirrel slide casting his thin, pale face deeply in shadow, Ace Lightstreak came forth from the gloom. He had an evil smirk on his lips as he toyed with his smooth, spiky, pale yellow hair. "Why, hello, all."
Something had clicked in Lan's brain. I watched the confused expression make its appearance on his face, though this was soon followed by the dawning of recognition and comprehension. Having figured it out, his fists balled slowly, a frown appearing on his brow, as -- last but not least -- his spiky head tipped downward, ever so slowly, ever so dangerously -- not in cool mode this time, but the kind of thing that just told you good was always going to win, was always going to triumph against bad. Lan's hand clenched around his PET; his head went back up ever so slowly, ever so dangerously -- still bathed in shadow -- as he stared down the enemy.
"Lightstreak." His voice shaking slightly, Lan glared the aforementioned bad guy in the eye. "Lightstreak. What have you done?"
Lightstreak was evilly pleasant -- as always. Man, it's so annoying. (rolls eyes) "What do you think I've done?" he replied, once more running his hand through his mass of moon-coloured hair. "I screwed up the Internet forever by bringing Mega Man into the Real World -- all by aid of this." He snapped his fingers. "Proto Man, could you please give me the Interworld Connector?"
I saw shock register on everyone's faces as a familiar -- yet not so familiar -- red-clad figure stealthily crept up behind Lightstreak, a glistening machine shaped like a thick bluish bracelet in his hand. I also saw Lan and Mega's dad, Yuuichiro, lurch forward angrily. His fists were balled, his glasses were askew, his hair was dishevelled -- in short, he looked kind of like his son standing before him, in front of Lightstreak. "Cyril Jackson." Yuuichiro's voice was low yet lethal. "Ace Lightstreak. Yeah, right. Cyril Jackson is more like it. You are so going to pay for this."
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I was surprised. Suffice to say, the man who had created Navis himself was out of character. At least the little ignoring-Lan scheme way back when had been a mildly intelligent thing to do, but this was downright idiotic. Rash. Reckless. Lannish or Lloyd-esque, in other words. So, I rolled my eyes -- and not as much to my surprise this time, Fanficcer appeared right across from me. It was, in essence, a shaded humanoid figure with luminous green eyes -- and don't forget the figure perched on its shoulder. You know who: Pikasqueaks. Still, I was grinning as I turned away from the war scene.
"You know, the readers might not know who Lloyd is," Fanficcer confided in me, crossing its legs and patting Pikasqueaks on the nose, the muse just having jumped from its shoulder.
"Mm..." I took a wild stab at craziness -- even though I'm a master of that sort of thing myself, everyone has to just stab randomly sometimes. "Let me guess. Now we're just going to stare expectantly at the betas?"
TCF, the Dark Rush, and Pikasqueaks stare expectantly at Jhvh, Commander, Rose, Akumu, and Terratasha.
At this point, Fanficcer stroked its chin thoughtfully, considering its options. "Well, the readers might know," it finally told me with the faint inklings of a grin metamorphosing its shaded features into something that was both demented and insane.
"And if not, we can always tell 'em," Pikasqueaks tossed in with an indifferent shrug. He then got his own small yellow self to reminiscing, his eyes flazed over with memories. "You know, in this fic there was this part where I was originally supposed to be chased from Andross."
"From Star Fox." It wasn't a question; I was rolling my eyes as I turned back to Fanficcer. "You know, buddy -- you're crazy."
My answer came in shrug form. "Meh -- it doesn't matter. Back to the fanfic."
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"Proto Man!" Lan's voice was strained as he tried to restrain himself from lunging -- which, I want to tell you, he really, really, really wanted to do. "How come Proto's working for you now?"
"You didn't figure it out, Hikari?" Lightstreak asked, genially surprised as he scratched one side of his spike-hairedd head. "Funny -- I thought it was obvious."
He pondered for a moment before answering, thin fingers rubbing his chin stubble. "Well, see I had an accomplice." The last word -- was pronounced sneeringly by AL himself -- was accompanied by something. Something very nasty indeed.
None other than Albert W. Wily popping up behind Lightstreak.
Technically speaking, he wasn't exactly behind him. He was a little ways off, near the slide -- as a matter of fact, from where I was, I could see the top of his mangy, spiky gray mane of hair. "My accomplice, Dr. Wily, would have aided me in stealing the Connector" -- here Lightstreak waved Yuuichiro's technology in the air, like the big shot he was -- "but I stopped him. Instead, I commanded him to help me in breaking into SciLabs."
A sharp intake of breath cut through the onlookers in reply to this statement. "You -- wouldn't -- dare." Yuuichiro's fellow scientist, Piero Corradi, gritted his teeth, looking savage. "This is Dr. Hikari's technology. It's the link between two worlds -- you try to mess it up and the fate of Navis and humans, instead of being interlocked, will be messed up. Forever."
Lightstreak -- having heard the scientist -- gave a malicious wink. "That's what we want, no?" he retorted innocently. "Anyway, we opened up the CPU of this thing, copied down the data signature, and then went back to our headquarters, where Dr. Wily here" -- an unnecessary gesture to the evil one -- "successfully rewrote the tech onto a blank disk." He paused thoughtfully, considering. "And then, of course, we used it on Mega Man." Another unnecessary gesture. "Ain't that right, Jack Miller?"
Mega's fists clenched involuntarily, but he said nothing in spite of the fact that his eyes were glowing like radioactive coals. Taking that as a clue, Lightstreak cleared his throat noisily and went on, "As for Proto Man here" -- man, did the guy ever use that word a lot! He also tended to do unncessary gestures, such as patting Proto Man's red chestplate armour, like now -- "Well, he and Chaud are imposters. The --"
Here Wily spoke up for the first time. Actually, he didn't speak up right away; he took some time in conking Lightstreak with one large, blue-veined fist. "LIGHTSTREAK!" Wily barked, rapping the aforementioned one's shoulder. "Don't--"
Lightstreak swatted the old geezer's hand away, miffed with the senior bad guy. "As I was saying," he continued, raising his voice over the neverending din of Wily's thrashing fist, "When the dynamic duo tried to delete Mega Man, it was because they were imposters." He shrugged. "It was simple enough; the real ones are hiding in a cellar under Wily's headquarters near the western outskirts of DenTech."
It took a few seconds for all this to sink in Lan's brain; when it had, I glimpsed another flash of recognition dart across his face. "D---it!" he yelled finally, lunging in Lightstreak's direction. "You -- you crack addict! I mean, how dare you!" And with that, he was speeding past the bad guys as fast as his cracked orange roller skates would let him -- which was FAST, to say the least.
I almost let my eyes snap shut as Lan skated past the bad guys, an orange, brown, and white streak that cometed past the terrible twosome. I reeled back, thinking that the crazed crimefighter was going to attack them, but the next thing I knew – duh duh duh duh -- (Beethoven music playing) – he was gone, a blotch of colour on the horizon.
Once the all-too familiar young NetBattler had disappeared into the distance, I glimpsed Wily shaking his head and rolling his eyes at his "accomplice." (His master, more like.) Lightstreak, however, just shook his head and mocked his "supposed" partner by patting him babyishly on the shoulder. "That's enough, dear Wily."
"I--"
Wily's reply was cut off before having fully emerged from his throat – all because of the arrival of the crazy one. Grinning evilly and doing the peace sign, Lan appeared, cutting a swath in front of everyone – good guys and bad guys alike. He came among us all, dragging something in his wake; looking closer, I saw that it was not a thing but two people: Chaud Blaze and his Net Navigator, Proto Man.EXE. I blinked; that'd been fast, even for Lan.
"I'm ready." Lan dropped the pain-inducing burden of his worst-enemy-who's-a-good-guy and his Navi before rounding on the bad guys. Something chocolate-brown in the depths of his eyes hardened; now Lan Hikari, crimefighter and stupid guy extraordinaire, had a relatively tough expression on his face. Yeah, you read right. Relatively.
Wily took one look at the kid and laughed out loud. Not in an evil, MUAHAHA-sort of way, but in the kind of way that just told you he doubted Lan, Mega, and everyone else assembled behind them. He didn't think they would win – which I knew was technically wrong. First of all, because TCF is who it is and would never let the bad guys win unless it wanted some sort of one-shot that would land it with lots of reviews. (rolls eyes again) "You?" OK, now Wily was laughing evilly. "Why you couldn't even beat –"
"An old geezer like you?"
Within seconds, Wily had been knocked down by Lan the crazed NetBattler, terror on his face and in his eyes as he threw his arms up in a kind of shield for his old geezer body. Lan stared down the evil one, his face cast in shadow and making him look more dangerous and less insane than he ever had. I saw another spasm of terror flick through Wily's pupils, but – he was who he was; in no time, the mad scientist with the glass eye was back on his feet and ready for anything.
At this point, Lightstreak cleared his throat loudly – which caused everyone to look away from Wily and Lan and toward the other evil one instead. "Thank you." Lightstreak tossed his head jauntily so that he looked demented in an animeish kind of way rather than sinister. "Now, I can go on without any interruptions." He paused, leering at us all, a sneer on his lips. "You see, the thing is" – and here a pause for a deep intake of breath – "There are Navis in the Real World. THERE ARE NETNAVIS IN THE REAL WORLD. And they're both good and bad. We also have the Net Ops here." When everyone looked at him blankly, he groaned, pained and smacking his forehead in exasperation. "OK. Look at it this way. There's good – and then there's bad. In other words – this means war."