Chapter III – Team Protoman's Death
"Invisible, IN!" yelled Chaud, and Protoman disappeared. As the force under his sword disappeared, Bass jumped back cautiously and prepared for Protoman's next attack. Somewhere behind him, NTT continued to flow back inside from the real world.
"I'm getting tired of that chip…" he said.
Protoman reappeared in front of him. "HeroSword!" shouted Chaud. The red Navi's right arm vanished in a spectacle of blue-green light and reappeared a foot or so longer and sharper. Protoman swung and so did Bass, caused their swords to clash and deadlock once again. As soon as the sparks from their impact disappeared, Protoman let go of the deadlock and spear-kicked Bass in the stomach, sending him rolling a number of feet away. As Bass rolled, Protoman ran after him and jumped into the air.
Bass stabbed his sword into the floor to stop the rolling, and as he looked back to where Protoman just was he suddenly felt his face get kicked into the floor. Protoman had already descended upon him.
"I've got you, dark Navi," declared Protoman, keeping his foot atop Bass's head.
"Finish him Protoman!" Chaud threw in a few Atk+10 chips as well as an Atk+30 and Protoman felt his sword vibrate with new energy.
"This is your end," said Protoman, and he lunged his HeroSword into the back of Bass's neck, beheading him once and for all.
The dark Navi's head rolled away for a few second before finally exploding into scattering dark red data. His body exploded soon after.
Protoman was still standing there with his sword stabbed into the floor where Bass's neck had just been. Some of Bass's data – his life-blood – still dripped down off of it. "It's over."
As if in an act of vengeance, NTT exploded out of the floor from behind Protoman, then from in front of him, then from his side. Multiple pillars of NTT quickly surrounded Protoman like fingers digging out of the ground.
"A trap?"
"Just get out of there!" shouted Chaud, he had another chip ready for download. "Invis–"
"Don't! I can get out of this without the chip," said Protoman, he lunged forward and sliced a hole through one of the pillars of blob. Before he could jump through however, the top and bottom pieces of the blob clamped down on his exit like a guillotine and inched closer to him. Protoman jumped back in surprise and yelled "DeltaRay!" In a split second he was outside of NTT's prison, and the pillar of blob from before, the one now behind him, exploded like a firecracker.
"Behind you." Surprised, Protoman only managed to turn his head around before Bass could stab his sword into his back. He grunted in pain, and Bass lifted him into the air above him. Before Chaud could activate another Invisible battle chip, Bass kicked Protoman off of his sword, up into the air, and whirlwind-kicked him back into the ground.
"He tricked us…" said Chaud, gritting his teeth together. The pillars of blob returned into the ground, but not without leaving something behind. In the air stood four spheres of NTT, their webbings of red veins still appearing and disappearing, pumping. The spheres began shifting, and in a few seconds they all had taken the form and color of a copied version of Bass.
The real Bass walked up to Protoman's motionless body and picked him up. As soon as the two were face to face, Protoman swung his mighty sword at him, who just blocked it with his own and threw Protoman into the ground under the copied Basses, the same place Protoman had just faced the pillars of blob.
The Basses plunged downwards like hawks, and Protoman quickly got to his feet.
-Undernet Area (Tempo's Prison – Online)-
"…Protoman? Ah!" Roll tripped on another digital tree's root and stumbled to the floor on one knee. She angrily pushed against the floor and shouted, "Protoman! Is that you?" But no one answered. She looked up at the trees in the hopes that maybe he was hanging on one of their branches. No one.
She heard him just a second ago, first in a calm but sad voice and then she heard him say a word she couldn't understand. Was it a word? She hoped so. She didn't like the tone of that word. She walked forward, through the crowded digital jungle towards where the word came from.
(Are you still here?)
Surprised, Roll gasped. "You! Kidnapper!" she suddenly yelled. She had no idea what she was saying until it was out.
(…?)
"Get me out of here!" A tree vine randomly dropped in front of her and she angrily brushed it away.
(…Okay, I will.)
"…W-what?"
(I'll get you out, just don't move.)
"You will…?" She couldn't believe it, so she thought up a reason why he would suddenly be so comprehensive and came up with this: "You're going to kill me! No, get away!"
(What? How…?)
Towards the Protoman's voice she ran, hoping that she was getting away from her kidnapper.
(Don't move!)
Several vines shot out of the trees and tripped Roll as she ran, making her fall face first into the digital dirt of Tempo's Prison. Tempo summoned more vines out of the trees to pick her up, but she had already gotten up and had started running again, careful to dodge the pursuing vines behind her that had already tripped her before.
"Get away from me!"
(Stop yelling, you'll make it spread faster.)
"You can't trick me!"
(I'm serious! You can already see it in your left arm! If you keep yelling you'll make it even worse.)
Although she still didn't believe him, Roll found herself glancing at her arm, and just managed to find it under her shoulder-blade: a dark black stain with little purple specks inside of it. She stopped running and the vines came to a halt right behind her. "W-what is it?"
(The Dark Virus.)
Roll poked it and shuddered.
(The angrier you are, the more it likes to appear. The easier it is to see, the better it is at controlling you.)
"Oh…" Roll's voice was unusually plain and thoughtful. She felt dizzy.
(Don't worry about it.)
One of the vines gently strung around Roll's slim belly and two other held her up by the arms. Roll stiffened, and they gently lifted her into the air.
( I'm getting you out of here, okay? Just relax.)
The sudden sincerity in his voice made Roll's heart melt, and she suddenly forgot all about what had happened between them. She relaxed, feeling her body go warm and numb at the same time. She wondered what the voice's owner looked like. His voice was pleasant, so maybe he was young? He only talked to her firmly when he wanted to help her, to sooth her, so maybe he was caring? She took a slow deep breath of the digital jungle's fresh air and realized: she really, really wanted to get out of here.
The mark on her shoulder gave an ominously venomous purple-pink glow, but she didn't notice, her eyes were closed and relaxed. Two other vines crawled up her legs and firmly took hold of her thighs.
(Hang on.)
The vines pulled her away from Protoman's voice, taking her somewhere more to the right. Still in her bout of mesmerized glee, Roll opened her eyes again and watched as the hundreds of digital trees passed her by and as the branches and vines ahead of her split out of the way like a curtain.
"Why are you doing this for me?" Roll had the urge to hear the voice of her kidnapper again.
(Doing what?)
"Helping me escape."
(Oh. Well…)
A pause.
(I…)
Another pause. Roll was all ears.
Tempo sighed.
(My father needs you to return to your friends.)
"?"
(He's almost ready to explode the Official's Headquarters–)
"He's…?"
(–but he needs one of your friends out of there before it happens.)
"You can't be…!" Roll immediately began struggling against the hold of the vines. "You've got to be kidding!"
(No, I'm not.)
"No, this isn't right…! First kidnapping, then infection, and now…! I won't let it happen, I'll tell everybody about you two!"
(You would let your friends die along with Protoman and his operator?)
"Protoman? And Chaud too? What are you going to do to them?" Roll's mark began glowing again, and this time she managed to notice.
(It doesn't matter, and you can't tell your friends. You'll lose all memory of this place the moment you're out of it.)
Random articles of expensive clothing began appearing atop the tree branches around Roll. Ahead of her, a bright yellow light could be distantly seen shining from right inside of a stone grey tree. It was a door.
"Where are you taking me?" Roll yelled.
(This is where our paths fork… Goodbye, Roll.)
The vines binding Roll turned to ash and Roll was sent flying into the door of light.
Roll emerged on the other side feeling like she had awoken from the darkest of dreams, but nothing more.
-Dencity Area (Opinhiem)-
"ROLL!" Glide immediately took Roll upon his arms. "Oh, you're here! You're really here!" He shook her around like a girl just finding her long lost favorite teddy bear.
"Gli–?" Roll, trying to keep her eyes open, was interrupted by a familiar and loving voice.
"Roll!" It was Maylu's turn. She snatched Yai's PET right out of her hands and looked into it as if it was her long lost favorite video game, which it technically was.
"Maylu…?" Roll felt moody, and wanted to (sleep and never awake) go back to sleep… She felt something tugging at her head, trying to reminder her of something important, but she couldn't remember what…
"Oh, Roll– I'm so sorry! I won't yell at you about pretzels again, I'm sorry!" pleaded Maylu.
"P… pretzels?" Pretzels? she thought. Is that what I couldn't remember? She didn't think so; the tugging feeling still hadn't left.
"See, what did I tell you! I knew she would be here!" claimed Yai. She had a smug look about her. "Now, just give me my PET back so I can call Lan and Dex and get out of here!" When she made a gesture for Maylu to give back her PET, Maylu absently withdrew away from her. "Okay… At least let me borrow yours. It's weird being the only people in the entire food court!" It wasn't entirely true, there were a few people here and there still shopping. It seemed like no one took these 'drills' seriously. Maylu absently handed over her PET and continued talking to the half-asleep Roll as Glide continued shaking her around.
-Dencity Area (Digital Streets – Online)-
Gutsman suddenly felt his head ring. "Dex! It's a call from Yai!" informed the Navi. "Receive?"
"Yeah! You think they found–?"
"Dex! We've already found Roll at Opinhiem, head over to the bus station. I'll call Lan and we'll all meet you there," commanded Yai.
"What! We're not going to still do the evacuation drill, right?" But she already hung up. "Damn! They found Roll at the mall, we were so close!"
"The mall?" Gutsman thought for a sec. "Dex, why do girls go to the mall? Can't they just wear the same clothes everyday like Dex?"
"…I don't know, Gutsman. I don't know." Dex shook his head lightly. "Let's go."
-Official HQ (Basement – Online)-
"AAAAaaughh!"
"PROTOMAN!"
The image in front of Bass reminded him of something the humans held particularly close to their hearts. It's something they make for themselves, to help those around them remember them better, so even when they were dead they might hopefully stay in the minds of the living. The image reminded him of a post-war statue, commemorating the take over of the Balblands, a series of islands just offshore of Netopia. The statue was molded to look like a single man, a General something-or-other, who was stabbing his sword into the heart of another soldier as he shotgun a second soldier to his side with just one hand. Pretty outstanding, except that on his back and out of his chest were three other swords held by three other soldiers. Pretty gruesome for a commemorative statue. But it was that statue in particular that Bass remembered as the deathblow that would damn Protoman into a world of darkness.
One of the Bass clones hung above Protoman, dead, and melting onto Protoman's helmet and turning his visor from black to purple. The other four clones had stabbed into him from four different directions, pinning him to the floor like clothespins.
Chaud immediately used his last Invisible. No longer feeling the blades digging into his frame, Protoman flopped onto the floor like a rag doll. The dead clone fell to his side and splashed onto the floor like a rotten watermelon. "Jack out!"
"No."
"What!!"
The red Navi slowly lifted himself to his knees and looked at one of the clones standing above him. In one weak swing he cut of its head, and just like the other, it burst apart in the ground like a rotten watermelon. "If we leave now all of Dencity will be destroyed… It's either I kill him or he takes all of Dencity in one explosion…"
"Protoman, there's no one in the city! They've all left for a flood drill!" explained Chaud.
"Oh. Really?" Protoman got up on his feet, the data in his body still pouring out from the wounds the clones left him. His invisibility ran out and in one quick swing he beheaded the three remaining clones who, for whatever reason, made no effort to even move after he first disappeared. "What about Lan and the others? They're still in Dencity looking for Roll."
"Forget them! They should've left Dencity and looked for Roll from somewhere else!"
"Even so…"
(They've left.)
"Good," said Bass. "It's time."
"What?" asked Protoman.
"It's time."
"For what?" asked Chaud. "You aren't already…?"
"What do you think?"
"I'll finish him now!" said Protoman. He lunged towards Bass with his sword in front of him but before he could stab it into Bass, NTT exploded out of the ground in between them, forming a wall. Protoman ran into NTT and got stuck to it like a fly to a spider's web.
"Chaud, I need another Invisible!" requested Protoman.
"There's no more! I used the last one!" responded Chaud. "Just get out of there!"
"I can't! Not until Bass falls under my blade!"
"Protoman." Bass jumped over to Protoman's side of the wall and looked into his black visor, which was still partially covered by the clone's purple blood data. "I believe it's time you joined us."