Maylu? Where am I…?

Chapter II – NTT

"Almost done." A firecracker of clicks exploded from under Lan's fingers as they banged away at his keyboard. Megaman's head-to-toe image started blinking on his computer screen, and with every blink another digital chunk of his missing body reappeared into place.

X "Take your time, I don't want my legs and shoulders mixed up again," said Megaman. From the sound of his voice, Lan could tell he had his eyes closed and enjoying the sensation of restoration. Suddenly, now that he thought of it, Lan could really use a massage right about now…

"Any calls from Maylu, Megaman?" asked Lan.

"No, and she wouldn't give you a massage even if you asked."

"What're you talking about…?"

"I know what you're thinking…"

"I swear, Megaman… You can have such a dirty mind."

They fell silent, Lan continued typing and Megaman continued relaxing… or he tried to. He couldn't stop thinking of what just happened. I lost, he thought, and to him; of all Navis, I had to lose to him… There was no self loathing in his thoughts, just some uncertain guilt because he failed to beat Bass and keep him from doing… whatever he's going to do. Megaman could've stopped it. But I didn't, thought Megaman. And he kept me alive just so I'd know it. Asshole… As Megaman's head continued to ache with tension, he felt the pain in his gut dissolve away in a cool – and at the same time warm – sensation.

Lan also thought about the fight. He remembered how Bass stabbed his odd new hybrid sword into Megaman, and how he, Lan, shut down right in the middle of it, something he's never done before, not even during his first days with Megaman: not ever. The hated how things had suddenly changed between the two, nothing serious, they were still Navi and Op, everything was just… uncertain. And what was the moment that made everything so obvious? What was the moment that made us know that everything from here on would change forever? Why ask questions when you already know the answers? Megaman was on the floor and Bass was logging out… The images reappeared into his mind, and he suddenly remembered a few words he said right after that… moment…

An idea immediately took hold of him. Something amazing has been summoned up in Lan; something inspiring, something beautiful, and – most of all – something cheesy.

He asked: "Megaman?"

"Lan."

"What do you think we fight for?"

A pause.

"What we fight for…? We fight for what's right!" declared Megaman. Now, the cheese begins to rot. (Don't worry, it won't take long.)

"We fight for what we believe in," concurred Lan.

"We fight against what's wrong!"

"And those that don't believe us."

"And most of all… we fight… for the internet!"

"In all it's digital glory." This last statement Lan picked up from a movie.

"That's right," claimed Megaman, letting the final comment resonate for awhile. Silence ensued. Cheese melted.

After another moment, Lan remembered what was the point he was trying to make. "Remember what I said after Bass logged out?" Megaman winced at Bass's mention yet also managed to smile.

"You mean your excuse for when you froze on me or…"

"After that!"

"You said, 'Megaman, we'll get him next time!' "

"Right!"

"Yeah, I remember..."

"Right, and we will, Megaman! And this time we'll find a way to make sure he can't come back; no BugFrags, no Copy forms, and no cheap Ghost forms!" Lan promised.

"But how? I've already lost count of how many times we've deleted him…"

"I don't know, but we'll find a way. No matter what, agreed?"

"Agreed. No matter what!"

(Repairs complete.)

-Dencity Area (Online)-

"Miss Yai, I'm afraid she is not here either." A digital train made a pointless circle around Glide's building floor. He was searching for Roll in the Summer Clothes Department of Dencity's third skyscraper mall, "Opinhiem." As of ten minutes ago, his search has led him to the 32nd floor of Opinhiem's 'Blue Velvet Weekly Sale.'

"You're not searching hard enough, Glide! Check the Winter Department," commanded Yai. She was sitting at a table in the real-world Opinhiem's food court, sitting right across from the elevator, and one floor above the Winter Department.

"Yai…" Maylu was sitting there 'searching' with her. "I really, really… really don't think Roll is anywhere here," she said for the fifth or sixth time, trying her best to keep control of her sharpening emotions. To her, every second away from Roll was another second away from peace of mind, and she was really starting to question whether Yai was helping her or not.

"And why's that?" asked Yai with a little 'Humph.'

"Yai, I'm grateful for your help… really… but why would Roll go to the most expensive mall in Dencity in a fit of anger…?"

"Ahah! I knew you'd see it that way. You suspect I'm using Roll's search as an excuse to get you to go shopping with me, don't you?"

"N-no! I was just… You see…"

"Tsk-tsk, Maylu! You're not thinking hard enough. You have to see it my way, which is, as you know, the best way to see it." Yai cleared her throat and continued. "Your Navi, Roll, understands that in your state of sorrow-lapsed loneliness, you would be forced to construct a searching party in the attempt to redeem her as your faithful-" She suddenly coughed 'Ex-faithful!' and cleared her throat again. "Oh, I'm sorry. Where was I…?"

"…You were saying-"

"Right! I was saying that Roll knew you would try searching for her… and then… oh, whatever! Basically, Roll looked for the place she knew you would be least likely to search, and whalla! that place is here!" She made a hand gesture to her PET and Opinhiem.

"Oh… okay," said Maylu, her opinion and suspicions unchanged.

Yai suddenly gasped a minute later. "Are those the new Genesis Sky loafers?" she moaned.

"They're not on sale, Miss Yai," responded Glide.

"Oh who cares if they're on sale or not!"

"Yai! I knew it!" shouted Maylu.

"Oh, I'm… I'm just saying…!" said a shocked Yai.

"Forget it, I'm going to Lan's house!" She quickly got up from her seat.

"Okay, okay! Glide, jack out. I'm sorry, Maylu! Where should we look then?" She actually sounded sincere.

Maylu slumped back down, laid her arms on the table, and put her head in her arms. "Oh,I don't know!" she cried. Yai placed a hand on her back.

In a place far, far away from Dencity, in a dimension forbidden and forgotten: Maylu…?

(Don't worry, you'll be returned to her soon.)

You! Why are you doing this to me?

(What? What did I do?)

What did you do? You kidnapped me!

(What…? Is it bad?)

Of course it's bad! Kidnapping is bad!

(I don't think it's bad… I thought it was kinda fun.)

You're a kid, you don't know what to think!

(I'm not a kid! I'm –)

Kidnapping's not fun!

(I'm not a kid!)

Kidnapping's not nice

(Ooh… Never mind…!)

-Yumland Area (Online)-

"Gutsman! Progress report!"

"Still no Roll…"

Dex was staring into his PET as if it held him by the neck. "You still can't see her?"

Gutsman stood a few feet away from the entrance to the Undernet, making sure not to get too close in case something grabbed him and dragged him into it. He looked into the area again. "No, no Roll. Not in Undernet, maybe?"

Dex pulled his head away from his PET and breathed a sigh of relief. "Yeah, maybe she isn't."

"Then where's Roll?" asked Gutsman with an expression a toddler might have. Or a retard.

"I don't know, Gutsman. If she isn't in the Undernet maybe she's still in the normal world." An idea suddenly struck him. "Oh, no crap! I get it! Roll's right in front of us!"

Gutsman jumped. "What?"

Dex wasn't paying attention. "This explains why we haven't seen here even though we looked in every area of the internet!"

"Where's Roll?"

"To the next area, Gutsman! To Netopia before she moves on to Dencity!" Gutsman stomped away from the Undernet entrance towards a corner of Yumland Area. "We've been running after her in circles! Of course! I'm a genius!"

"Dex is a big, tough genius!" managed to say Gutsman as he stomped on ahead.

"Hurry up before she gets to Dencity and we lose her again. No, that's great, she can enter Dencity to… I dunno… to go shopping! And we'll catch her when she goes into the mall! Genius!"

"Genius!" The Navi team ran forth.

"Idiots!" exclaimed the dark Navi after Gutsman disappeared from Yumland. He stepped out of the Undernet's entrance and looked at Yumland's corner, where Gutsman disappeared and various other Navis were absently strolling by. "This is the outcome of Navi-kind's slavery by the human race! Idiots!" The dark Navi actually sounded pretty fucking furious.

(Stop yelling at me!)

"?" Bass looked back into the Undernet's entrance. "What did you say?"

(Not to you- Just be quiet)

"…"

(Sorry… But, if you hate them so much, why didn't you delete him?)

"We still need the Navi. We can use the hume as well."

(For what? What's a 'hume?')

"Human…"

(Oh. For what is the Navi?)

"…"

(You don't know?)

"They're almost here. Get ready, I'm coming back." Stepping into the Undernet, he turning around to look through Yumland's entrance one last time. Bass logged out.

-Official HQ (The Basement)-

The bell went ding and the elevator doors slowly slid open. Chaud stepped out and took a breath of stale air before reaching into his pocket and taking out his PET.

"How many?" he asked.

"Either one dozen or two dozen, depending on the second," responded Protoman.

"What do you mean?" He consciously took another deep breath of air, tasting its staleness in his mouth.

"At one second they have 24, at the other they have 12. Then the next they have 24 again."

There was a pause. Chaud was thinking. "So only 12 viruses get drawn into the system at a time… If we time this right, we can delete the first 12 before the new 12 get spawn, and then you can just slice down the new viruses as they appear while I begin the System Shutdown Phase."

"And Deletion Phase."

"Right. And the Deletion Phase."

"Okay, I'm ready."

"Okay…" Chaud continued to look at his PET for another few seconds, readying himself to make the jump. But before that, he took another breath of air. I have to tell him soon… he thought, and wondered how long he'd actually wait before he tells him: will he wait until the last minute? or until after it's all over? He didn't know, just that it won't be anytime soon for sure.

Finally, he pulled his eyes away from the PET and looked at what lay in front of him. To his luck, there was a window there, making the sight ahead of it look more like something on a television. He only looked through it for another second before stepping around it to face this phenomenon head-on.

"That's... impossible!" yelled Protoman, as he saw what Chaud was now staring at.

Panic immediately struck Chaud in the chest. Shit! Did he already figure it out? He looked back at his PET, both thankful for a chance to look away from this disaster and frightened by what might he might notice going through Protoman's head.

"How can this be happening from just 12 or 24 viruses?" the Navi yelled.

Chaud was momentarily relieved. Protoman still knew nothing. "They're 12 or 24 viruses force-downloaded every second. And special viruses; no, bugs. AlphaBugs."

"AlphaBugs?" Protoman took a closer look at the internet version of HQ's Basement Area. What he at first thought were Scuttler viruses were actually what Chaud had said: AlphaBugs, remnants of Alpha, the renegade God of the internet. Except they looked a bit different… spikier… "We have to start! We have to begin the Phases right now!"

The next few words choked in Chaud's throat; they were Protoman's death sentence: "Okay, jack in."

The abomination in front of Chaud suddenly sprang up into the air. The first thing Chaud noticed was the strands of data (The same strands that surround Protoman's arm whenever he downloads a chip… but in the real world! he thought. It's impossible but it's true… The internet is dripping into the real world!) circling it like halos, then he'd notice what it was. Most of it was nothing but fleshy goo, like meat being both melted and hardened at the same time, but under the goo Chaud could see the dozens of blood-red streaks of color flashing around its body like veins. Random jolts of data popped out of it like pimples and chunks of metal stuck out of the blob here and there like food hanging out of its mouth, if it even had one. The entity slammed into the roof, splashing whatever it was made up of all over the roof and walls. And through them.

The flesh and bones of previous Officials – tragically dead after facing this thing – flew out of it as it colored the basement's walls. Dry paint peeled off of them at the thing's touch and fluttered across the room like a combination of snow and feathers.

A skull landed on the ground and cracked apart in front of Chaud, forcing him to bite back a scream.

"CHAUD!" Navis, dead but not deleted, sprang out of the melted, molten muck like mutated flowers, their arms and legs half ripped-off and still bleeding data. They hung high up in the air, attached by a long thick hose that connected from the top of their heads and back into the abomination.

To Chaud they looked like bait at the end of a fishing pole. One dove down at him.

"GET AWAY FROM IT!" yelled Protoman, and Chaud did, ducking behind the randomly placed window from before. The dead Navi (Bait, Fisher, Food, Corpse, Hook, Trap, Invite, Entity, NTT… Protoman was trying to think of a name) splashed onto the floor, bursting the Navi's 'skin' (frame) like soggy paper, and relieving its data (It's like blood, thought Chaud. It's just like coagulating blood.) all over the floor in front of him. The hose pulled itself back into the abomination, dripping data as it went.

"This is insane!" Chaud said aloud, possibly to Protoman, possibly to himself. "How can this thing even exist?"

Protoman had no time to answer. Bass had just made his move.

"D-Damn it all," said Prtoman tiredly.

"Almost had you." Bass held his weapon right next to Protoman's neck. The only thing keeping it from making contact was the blunt side of Protoman's sword, which just barely made it in between the two.

"Bass!" exclaimed Chaud.

"Damn it," said Protoman.

The abomination's flow reversed, and it began pouring back into the digital world.