~Chapter 5~

After floating for about half an hour, Lei finally reached a big hill which ended in a bright hole in the oddly-colored sky, above her.

The light was so strong and so different from what she had been seeing for the past few hours, that she had to narrow her eyes to figure out the familiar square arch through it.

Happy that she was finally recognizing where she was, Lei flew up the rest of the hill with high speed, until she was out of the UnderNet completely, reunited again with the familiar colors she had nearly forgotten existed.

She stopped where she was for a second and looked back at where she came from.

Even though she was literally just there a second ago, and all she had to do in order to return was to fly a few feet back and enter the portal, somehow, the strong contrast made it seem like It was incredibly far. Like a different dimension even.

She brushed the odd feeling off and turned her head back in the direction of the big city in the distance.

"Home, sweet home." she said to herself as she smiled and started flying towards it, while picking the same, small device from earlier out of its pocket, calling Dean.

"Hi!" She smiled as he picked up her call, "I'm just outside the city, where are you right now?" She asked.

"I'm at our usual place outside the office, just finished my delivery for today." He answered her, looking pleased with himself.

"Got it, I'll be there in probably 10 minutes." She confirmed.

"Uh Lei, By the way, just an advice.." His voice suddenly hesitated, "You might wanna avoid the main streets for a while.." He said and chuckled nervously.

Her expression turned confused at his words.

"Huh? What do you mean?" She asked.

Dean sighed.

"Nothing serious, it's just that- HEY! ARE YOU TALKING TO LEI?" He was suddenly violently interrupted by a loud, familiar female voice, as his face was quickly shoved aside by the one which followed it.

Lei was amused at what was happening before her.

"Hi Mea." She smiled at her female co-worker.

The loud Navi's mouth broke into a huge grin.

"Lei! That's my girl! I knew you could do it." She said proudly and loudly.

"Do what?" Lei looked at her with large, confused eyes.

The loud Navi's eyes widened.

"Are you kidding? Only what nearly everyone's talking about!" Her voice reached new heights as she started laughing hysterically. "-Alright that's enough, Mea.." Dean's voice was suddenly heard from somewhere behind her, he then took the device out of the loud Navi's hands and his face re-appeared on the screen again.

Lei only giggled, but she was still a bit confused at what was going on.

"So, what's the big deal?" She asked him.

But before he could answer her, her attention shifted to someone calling out her name from below her.

It was an old customer of the company who she knew for a long time, waving to her from the ground.

She lowered herself down to his level, while turning her gaze back to the screen.

"Dean, I'll be there as soon as I can, alright? Gotta go for now." And she closed the conversation before he managed to say anything.

"Oh Lei! Thank god you're safe, dear!" The old Navi said, sounding incredibly relieved by her sight.

Lei only smiled at him.

"Of course I am, sir, why wouldn't I be?" She asked him, her voice calm.

"Because, dear! I heard you've completed a very dangerous delivery! And to the 'Black Shadow', No less!" He explained with even more worry in his eyes.

Lei didn't need any more clues to understand that somehow, the rumor of her successful delivery was spread.

"Oh, really, that was nothing at all!" Lei tried her best to sound reassuring, and smiled.

But her smile quickly faded as she suddenly noticed a large crowd of people coming down her way.

"It's Lei!", "LEI!", "She's alive?!", "I heard she fought against Bass and killed him!"

"Uh-oh." Lei said as her eyes widened with shock.

"You better run, dear, unless you want to start giving autographs until your hand dissolves!" The old man suggested, winking at her.

Lei didn't need him to tell her that twice.

She thanked him, floated up into the air and passed the crowd from above.

"Thank you everyone for worrying about me, but I really am fine! See you guys later!" She yelled at them from afar as she continued flying, the crowd could only watch her quickly disappear into the distance.

'Thank god we're able to fly!' She thought to herself, letting out a relieved sigh.

Luckily for her, the ability to float/fly was extremely rare among NetNavis, mostly due to its huge advantage.

The only ones who were lucky enough to enjoy it were messenger Navis (for the purpose of easier and quicker deliveries) and Navis who were especially programmed with that rare ability.

"How on earth did things end up this way?" She asked herself as she floated far above the city, her brow furrowing, "It was just a delivery! Why am I being idolized for simply doing my job?" She held her palm to her forehead as she let out another sigh.

She was so confused.

"She's late." A nervous voice said, and then sighed.

"Wow Dean, when it comes to her you really are a worryrat." another voice said, then started to laugh hysterically.

"Oh shut up, Mea." he scoffed, "I'm just worried she'll get run over by the crazy fans or something, she's a pretty small Navi after all." His brown eyes were fixed on the road which leads to the park next to the messenger service office, where both Navis sat, waiting.

"Yeah, and she's pretty cute, too – you might have some serious competition now that she's famous and all that." The female Navi said teasingly, then quickly broke into a mad giggle.

Dean didn't answer for a few moments, he just let out another loud sigh and tapped his finger nervously on the table.

"I know." he finally said.

Lei was flying for a good while until she could finally recognize the company's building.

She lowered herself down to the ground, carefully watching every direction as if her life were in danger, but luckily for her, no NetNavi was in sight.

'This is kinda exciting.' she thought as she giggled to herself, 'I'm like a criminal on a run!' She then found the road that would lead her to the park, and followed it.

The petite Navi floated down until she saw both Navis, sitting on a bench.

"Hey guys!" She called out, surprising them.

"Lei!" They both flew to her.

"I hope you were safe from all the vicious fans." Mea asked her, while peeking to Dean from the corner of her eye, who only narrowed his eyes back at her.

"I'm sorry I didn't tell you, but it wasn't this serious when I called you.. I guess someone heard our conversation you and the rumor just traveled fast from there." Dean apologized while rubbing the back of his neck.

Lei smiled.

"It's fine!, we can fly after all, so I was totally safe" She said, reassuring him, "Lets sit! I have so much to tell you guys!" Her blue eyes were filled with excitement.

Lei started telling them all about her delivery experience - the odd looking sky, beautiful scenery, and meeting the graceful, banana-looking Serenade; the ruler of the UnderNet, yet as soon as she got to the part about her helping a Navi in danger, she was immediately interrupted;

"Hold on, You jumped to defend a Navi you don't even know from being attacked by Bass?!" Both Dean and Mea asked her all at once with stunned expressions.

Lei was startled by their sudden outburst, surprised that they found that more worth talking about than her meeting with Serenade.

"He was in no shape to fight, I couldn't just let him get hit." she tried explaining her motive.

They both just stared at her speechless for a few moments.

Then Mea started laughing.

"Damn, Bass was probably so surprised, he had no idea what to do!" She barely managed to speak through her laughter.

Dean just shook his head in disbelief.

"Holy crap, It's a miracle he didn't just blast his attack at you." He said, "Not to mention, that Navi who you saved was probably a member of one of the many criminal organizations that try to take Bass down on like a daily basis over there, you shouldn't have bothered." He explained.

Lei decided it was probably for the best to also leave out the fact that Bass' attack actually did nearly hit her.

"I know it wasn't my business." she muttered, "But all of that didn't even cross my mind at that moment, I just wanted to help." She crossed her arms at him.

Dean sighed for the millionth time.

He knew how reckless Lei could be sometimes, but he most certainly didn't expect something like this.

"Soo.. what was it like meeting with UnderNet's most fearsome NetNavi?" Mea asked her, her green eyes filled with interest.

"Oh," The petite Navi perked up, "Well, people were right about him being really strong, but he wasn't at all scary like what they also made him out to be, and he's not nearly as big as the some of the stories say – they depict him as some giant but he's like maybe half-a-head taller than me? A little shorter than Dean, I suppose, and Dean is like average-tall." She lifted her hand to hold her chin as she stared at her male co-worker, which made him blush slightly.

"Hey, I'm considered tall!" Dean said and crossed his arms at her.

"Shh, she's right, average-tall is pretty much accurate in your case, if anyone's considered an actual giant here, it's me." Mea said as she laughed and smacked him on the shoulder. "And? did he give you a hard time?" She asked as she shifted her gaze back to Lei.

Lei blinked as she recalled their encounter.

"At the beginning, He actually thought that I was sent as some kind of a trap and that the letter contained a virus, could you believe it?" She said, crossing her arms.

Mea just started laughing hysterically while Dean had a sheer look of disgust on his face.

"Lei working as a distraction while giving away deadly letters to her enemies-" Mea said while laughing, "Too much, too much." and her laugh got even louder.

Dean sighed for the xx time.

"What an idiot, is he for real? Does he not know what the messenger uniform looks like?" He said, facepalming.

"Well, actually, he didn't know anything about our company." Lei explained, "I think this was the first message he had ever received in his whole life, he literally didn't even know how to respond to it - I had to teach him." she said as she giggled at the memory of a clueless Bass trying to figure out what button to press in order to start recording.

Mea suddenly recovered from her laughing fit, startling Dean a bit by her sharp movement.

"You taught Bass, the 'Black Shadow' of the UnderNet, how to respond to a message? Oh my god, call for help, I don't think I'm going to survive-" And with that she was gone into a hysterical laughter fit, once again.

"How lame." Dean just rolled his eyes.

"That was pretty amusing," Lei smiled, "But he actually learned way faster than most Navis I had to teach, which kinda surprised me." She admitted.

Dean's eyes suddenly filled with interest.

"Wait, so did you manage to hear MegaMan's message to him?" He asked.

Lei thought for a few moments before she answered.

"Yeah, But it was nothing special, just an invitation to a rematch between them or something." She felt like it was wrong of her to share the fact that MegaMan and Bass seem to be somewhat of friends.

Bass' expression suddenly shot through her mind, once again.

Lei's brow furrowed.

She was confused as to why that expression of his keeps popping up in her mind.

"Well, good thing it's all over now," Dean suddenly said, grabbing her attention, "I'm guessing the fuss will die down eventually, but until then, you'll probably have to lay low." He looked at her and smiled honestly.

Lei remembered this was far from being over, due to the fact that she had decided she was going to ask her boss to continue with the delivery while keeping it a secret from Dean.

She felt the prick of guilt again for a second, but she decided to ignore it.

And she said nothing.

It was then when the three of them noticed it was already dark, and that they had been talking for about two and a half hours.

They decided to call it a day, and each of them flew their separate ways to their homes.

As Lei floated above the city, her eyes shot up to the same familiar dark-blue night sky she had always knew.

"I guess tomorrow I'll go talk to the boss." She said to herself.

For some reason, it suddenly made her feel strangely excited, and she picked up her pace and started flying faster towards the direction of her house, smiling.

A/N: Gossip, gossip.

I like adding my personal headcanons into this, like why is it that only some specific Navis can fly while most others cant.

Makes you wonder if Bass was programmed with his ability to float or did he have to steal that too along the way, since he was shown to walk like everybody else at the part about his past in the manga.

Next chapter we meet the hero!