With the fighting over, Meiru and Laika both removed their armor programs. Punk quickly snatched them up as Black teasingly explained, "Now, I can't have you carrying those off to who knows how many people! Those are classified."

"But we know they exist," argued Meiru as Punk plugged out. "How can they be classified when someone could figure out how to replicate them?"

"They'd have to figure it out first," Black pointed out. "And all I can say is good luck with that!" He turned to something else on his screen. Abruptly, Roll and Searchman vanished. "I've returned your Navis to Meiru-chan's PET - I don't want too many things bouncing around in here while I work," he explained. "I'm not doing anything bad, Blues, you can go too! You and Enzan should find the storage room, so Meiru-chan isn't totally lost!" As Blues plugged out, Black added, "Laika, you might want to consider getting yourself a new PET, that old one's a little funny... Is that position comfortable, or do you want to sit?"

"This is fine," he said.

"Good, because you need to stay that way for a while. I need to reset your program to the way it was when you first went through that PTS test. I'm kind of sealing things off - Laika Lifeline needs to go, whatever other odds and ends Sigma shoved in or took out of there... Otherwise, you'll be just as stuck to the PTS as him." His attention shifted to the other side of his screen. Almost absentmindedly, he asked, "So, what are your plans with your new life? Gonna find a bunch of people to boss around?"

"I don't plan on staying Chief of Sharo's Net Savior force," Laika said. "I don't want to have the position because Sigma did - I'd rather earn it for myself."

"Really? I'd have to wonder how happy you'd be with new management." Black's light tone gave way for a moment. "Sorry about the Chief." Laika looked up at the hacker's window, surprised. "It said you were related in the reports." Black ran a hand through his hair. "I should've told Punk to stun the Irregulars or something instead, even if the chances seemed slim."

"I would've done the same thing," Laika said. "You couldn't have known what they were." Even if Black had known, Laika had to wonder if the orders he'd been given had room for that amount of mercy. Considering how much time it had taken to spare so many people, someone else given the mission to 'kill Laika and destroy his base' might not have bothered.

Back to his usual tone, Black decided, "Anyway, that's enough of that! So, what are you going to do with yourself?"

"I'll just be a normal Net Savior. That's always kept me busy, and I'm sure that won't stop now."

"Well, you should come to Japan sometime. I'm sure it'll get crazy enough that you could persuade Chief Whoever to send you over to help for a few weeks. I want to bug you some more..." He grinned into the window as he finished, "Doublemint!"

Laika's eyes narrowed in confusion. "Doublemint?"

Dryly, Meiru said, "He does that a lot."

"We have a very close relationship, as you can tell." Next, Black told Meiru, "Well, this is gonna take a while, so why don't you keep him company?" In an aside to Laika, he added, "If she gets to be too screechy and annoying for you, just tell me so I can get rid of her." Meiru just sighed as Black's window winked out.

"He's really a decent person to know in a pinch. I just don't understand why he feels the need to constantly remind us how bad he is..."

Laika could feel the changes Black was making to his program; it felt like his insides were shifting around. Not painful, but uncomfortable. "You said he was a criminal?"

"It's hard to believe when he's always helping out, right? Don't worry, I don't think he's going to double-cross you. He's got no reason to, as far as I can tell." Meiru explained, "He's part of Nova. It's a syndicate that mostly works in Japan, but I guess they do other stuff as well." She shrugged. "It's funny; they never struck me as being well-equipped enough to furnish something like this. I guess they've been holding out on us. When I think about it, they do seem to come up with new members awfully fast."

Laika felt a particularly nasty jolt as something dropped away. Meiru looked at him with concern. "I'm fine," he reassured her. It was true; now that the initial shock had worn off, he was feeling better than before. "They must have a pretty large base."

"We think it's in one of the more rundown parts of Densan," she said. "But what with everything that's been happening lately, we haven't managed to find it." Laika looked down at the room down below. Sigma's throne room; he remembered seeing it for a moment just before he'd been forced offline. That was probably the eeriest thing of all; it felt like it had only been a few hours ago that he'd been sitting in the PTS chair for the first time. "You look a lot more like yourself when you're sleeping," Meiru noted. "It's a little less strange to imagine you in his - that body."

"It's still going to be strange," he said truthfully. "How much taller am I?" He'd only seen Sigma-as-himself sitting. He certainly looked like he'd grown, but how much was difficult to say from this angle.

"You're really tall," Meiru said. "Way taller than me or Enzan. And not too bad-looking, either! Except for that hair..." She grinned. "Don't look so serious. You'll do fine!"

"I'll have to," Laika said. "It's sink or swim."

"That's life, Doublemint," Black cut in, appearing above the two Net Saviors. "I'm done with you. Your exit's through that white portal thing over there. Get out of here if you want to miss the explosions." His window disappeared again.

"I guess that's it, then. See you on the other side," Meiru said. Her body morphed into the words 'LOG OUT' and vanished. Laika was alone in the throne room network. He looked around at it one last time, thinking. It would take a lot of time to right everything Sigma had made wrong, from removing the ports on his head to figuring out what would happen with the position he currently held. And he was sure those missing years would make for a strange period of adjustment. But it was better than standing still in here. He took a breath and stepped through the portal.

0110100101100100011001010110111001110100011010010111010001111001

"Enzan-san!" Cossack was beaming as the Net Savior stepped out of the truck. On the opposite side, Meiru hopped out. "And it's good to see you safe as well, Meiru-san. Everyone's getting warmed up inside, save you two. Care to join them?"

"In a moment," Enzan said. He got the backseat door while Meiru walked around to join him.

"That's right!" Cossack ran to stand behind the two Net Saviors. "Laika, is that you? How are you doing?"

"Your PTS works perfectly, Doktor Cossack," he reported. The sound of his own voice seemed to surprise him a little.

"Enzan told me so in his e-mail," Cossack said. He didn't seem to care about that as much as he did about the person in front of him. "Are you all right?" he asked, noticing how careful Laika was being while getting out of the car.

"I'll be fine," Laika said, thrusting a hand out for support that Enzan had to duck. He found the door frame a second later, using it to keep himself steady as he got to the ground. "I'm much taller than I was before, so at present I'm a little -"

"Clumsy. Yes. That makes sense." Relieved, the scientist said, "Well, there's someone inside who's looking forward to seeing you." With a grin, he added, "I'm afraid I've been told to inform you that you won't be keeping your position."

"What do you mean?" Laika asked. "I didn't see Chief Malenkov in the Irregular base."

"He said he got into a pretty serious fight with your doppelganger before he was transformed. And since the PTS does a facial scan to use as the Navi face, that's what it copied."

"The one with the bruised face - I remember that one!" gasped Meiru, her face lighting up. "That's amazing, Laika!"

"It is a relief," Laika admitted. "I wasn't looking forward to coming to terms with that."

"Especially not on top of everything else." Meiru turned to Cossack next. "He does look okay now, though, right? I don't think even Laika would've recognized him, he was so beaten up."

"And here I was thinking how much easier it'll be for Laika since Malenkov's still alive," Enzan said.

"That doesn't mean his face wouldn't be a shock!" Meiru pointed out.

Cossack chuckled, "Well, I didn't notice anything major. Maybe a scar or two."

"Oh, good!" Meiru turned back to Laika. "Anyway, we should go in and see everyone!"

"After all, we've got a lot of catching up to do," Enzan added. It was a relatively long way from the car to the exit, and the two Net Saviors stayed close to Laika at first. But as they went on, his strides became more confident, and they reached the door at full speed.

A/N: Here we are at the end of another fic! Hope you've been enjoying these shorter fics while they lasted, because the next one's got over 30 chapters. :P Thanks to MI3 and Toffee Fox, along with all the other readers!

In pertinent news, a decent group of fansubbers is progressing through Stream at a nice clip. (After years of waiting on WPP, it's almost mind-boggling!) While I was writing this fic series and Falling Stars in particular, I tended to work around the lack of subtitles by either extrapolating from what little we thought we knew a few years ago or pretending Stream didn't exist. (The cameos there would've been in Grand Championship had there been subtitles! The proper Synchro Chip for Meiru that I felt I couldn't give her, due to people's wrong assumptions!) I feel like since I'm already putting in the time to write a better resolution to the series, there's no excuse for me not to bring Falling Stars up to date.

This means there will be (once again...) a pause between this part and Falling Stars. After that, depending on how fast I am writing the coda and other bits and pieces, there shouldn't be any more long waits! See you then!