It was supposed to be a fairly quiet summer. Well, except for the looks Chaud got on his face shortly after he realized that Ether's friend was one of his more intelligent fan girls.
To Ether's surprise and somewhat disappointment, Chaud asked Hermione out for a light date...the two just clicked.
Though it was what they clicked over that irritated him and amused Lan. They clicked over Ether's many mishaps.
Of course that wasn't the biggest excitement of the summer. Though Ether still had yet to figure out if what happened was a blessing or a curse.
He got a 'girlfriend', though there was some debate between Ether and his parents as to whether the hacker who had attached herself to him after she broke through his rather extensive firewalls on his work was actually his girlfriend.
Two weeks into Ether's summer vacation, in a remote undisclosed location...
A determined mouth chewed through the pocky in short fashion, devouring one box after another as fingers flew on the keyboard. Reaching and failing to find a fresh box, a hand snapped their two fingers together and a new treat was summoned with an impressive display of wandless magic. This time it was a bag of cheesy chips.
Eyes, unused to sunlight were glued to multiple LCD screens that cycled through information too fast for normal eyes to comprehend, though this pair was well trained.
Firewalls were examined, broken and left in tatters to this determined hacker. What use was their Net Navi when they could do it with pure skill alone?
"Renkin-sama, you promised you would go to sleep when it turned two thirty. Well it's two forty-five and you're still up," complained her Navi Hikari.
"Five more minutes Hikari. Almost done with this server... I don't get paid unless I hack them," said Renkin, who had almost forgotten what her real name was.
"Renkin-hime, why did you agree to take on this case? I've heard rumors about this Fukurou and I don't want to have to fight him off while you delete your trail," whined Hikari.
Hikari became rather grumpy when she hadn't had any sleep. It was something she had picked up from her partner. Renkin had a unique skill that made her very desirable for criminals...she could merge directly with Hikari to break into secure servers and leave the police baffled. Even the great Protoman couldn't find her when she did that, because her digital signature changed too much.
"Finally!"
"Will you go to sleep now?"
"Have to leave a back door for later, then sleep. Ready Hikari?"
"*sigh* Do I have a choice?"
Renkin placed her hand on the screen and Hikari enlarged hers to fit her partner.
Bio-Merge. Synchro start... Drive initiated...
Hikari and Renkin merged into one unit. She was an even mixture of the two partners. Hikari contributed the armor, weapons, and the foxy features. Renkin shared her body (except for the bust, which was the combined sizes of her and Hikari) and the eyes. Around their neck was the source of their unison. No one suspected the odd red gem around their neck was the key focus of their power. If it was destroyed or removed Hikari and Renkin would separate instantly and be forced back to where they started.
It was a little safety feature Renkin had added in the event they got stuck in a place that would be too dangerous for them.
And to add to the confusion, their hair turned a bright sunny blond and their face was obscured by a cheerful fox mask. It was another safety precaution.
Certain Navis could be tracked by their appearance alone, and she refused to be caught that way. Hence why their appearance changed so drastically.
Sakura, for that was the name she chose for this form, grinned as she cracked her knuckles.
"Time to go to work."
Sakura wove her magic, leaving a small hole that wouldn't be noticed until she slammed into it later and shattered the wall.
After spending seven long hours staring at each piece of code, she was able to reconstruct it perfectly except for five key points which, if one looked at it from a distance, looked exactly like a five-pointed star. Her little quirk and calling card.
She sensed someone approach, and the special Navi-human disappeared by removing the necklace.
Fukurou came to investigate the break-in alone, mostly since it was so late that Ether would be sound asleep and found everything was normal. He inspected the wall, and aside from a few holes that he left a makeshift patch job on so Ether could fix them properly later, there was nothing wrong.
He left, unaware that Sakura's special virus was destroying his patches without leaving a trace.
It took a ninja Navi to hide from a ninja Navi after all.
Ether was in his lab, hiding from Chaud and Hermione who were on the warpath after he had pranked them when they had returned from another date when he realized something was off about his firewall.
It was nearly time for lunch, and he wasn't expecting anything to happen when he poked at it.
Suddenly the internal alarms for Sci-Lab went off like crazy, and the place went into lock down mode as something responded to his actions.
He was completely locked out from the outside, and because of his prank he had disabled the locks beforehand.
It would take hours before anyone could reroute the codes to unlock his door, and Ether was very, very glad that he kept a fully stocked mini-fridge hidden under his desk.
He was fairly sure Lan knew about it, since he occasionally found things missing, but most people left it alone.
There was a girlish giggle from his private server which was cut off from the Sci-Lab main one for security reasons.
He looked at the screen...and was shocked to find a very busty blond female ninja wearing a fox mask and with the features of a kitsune staring back at him.
"Uh-uh, you're not getting out that easily Mr. Scientist!"she giggled, fox tail waving behind her.
"Who are you? How did you break into my server?" he asked.
The kunoichi giggled again.
"Wouldn't you like to know. I'll give you this much, I've never had to spend so much time sifting through firewall code just to get in before!"
Ether decided observation was a better idea. The girl wore purple clothing that had faint fuchsia-colored Sakura flowers and a traditional kunoichi's outfit. She had arm guards and a ninjato at her waist. Her mask was white, except for the red highlights the emphasized the fact that this was a fox.
All in all, she fit the description of only one Navi capable of hacking into his server.
"You're the Ephemeral Fox, aren't you?" he asked.
Ephemeral Fox, or just The Fox for short, was a notorious hacker who's calling card looked like a star shaped hole in firewalls. If she successfully got the data she was sent after, the pattern shifted into a Sakura flower.
No one had been able to track her, as every time someone came close to doing so she simply vanished until her next assignment. And her digital signature never appeared anywhere else except for the areas she hacked.
Even Protoman had trouble even catching her, and he had confronted her thirteen times already!
Ether had heard a rumor that the Fox was a very special, unique Navi that had a magical signature, which was why it was impossible to find her. Others said that the Fox was really a team of three... a spy Navi, a human and the Fox herself.
Either way, he couldn't let her leave with any of his data.
"You do realize I'll have to stop you, right?"
"You can try. Protoman's never been able to catch me!" she said with a laugh, before she vanished.
Ether cursed in Mandarin, before he grabbed his special PeT.
"We're going in," said Ether.
"Ether, that mode has never been tested. You do remember what happened last time we tried this right?"
"We don't have a choice. You know that our firewall is for only the most dangerous of the stuff we work on. If any of it gets out..."
Fukurou sighed.
"I am not taking the blame for this. Let it be known I was the voice of reason!" said Fukurou.
Ether and Fukurou had, once or twice, tried to merge together. It was possible for Navi's created using a special method to merge with their users.
Navis like Fukurou and Megaman.
Ether tried the merge, and while he had done it successfully he found separating almost impossible. It had taken him two weeks of being stuck online and one long month of no computers before he was even allowed to be in Scilab after that mistake.
Because he was a total sci-fi nerd, Ether immediately struck a pose as he 'merged' with Fukurou.
Inside digital space, black wings sprang from his back. His green eyes became amethyst colored and his hair became a deep violet. He never could figure out why his black and red hair always turned a deep purple color when they merged. He wore an outfit similar to a ninja, only it was skin tight and sleeveless. He had Fukurou's mask and his visor kept his eyes free of any obstruction. It was clear, so it was often hard to tell that he was wearing one.
His shoes, which were a pair of loose sneakers, became running shoes built for parkour. All in all he looked like a very speed-oriented ninja with wings to keep his balance.
"I still say this feels weird,"said Dark.
He went by the Dark Owl when he was stuck like this for two weeks. It was the best he could come up with because he had been eight at the time.
He found it odd that no one had recognized him when he was Dark. Still, he wasn't complaining about that, since he tried to avoid merging with Fukurou to avoid a repeat of the not-so-fun grounding he had gotten.
Fox was playfully running around looking for something, her tail swishing this way and that as she examined the codes.
"Not here either..."
"What are you looking for?"
"The location of Nevermore. Huh?!" said Fox, turning around once she realized he was in there with her.
Her eyes doubled in shock.
"NO WAY! You're like me?!"
Dark blinked.
"Like... You're magical too?!" said Dark in shock.
Suddenly a lot of things made sense. Certain people had an affinity towards technomancy...and they could merge without a special Navi.
Fox looked closely at Dark, before she realized something.
"I take that back. You must be an idiot to do a biomerge without a safety switch to insure you can separate later!" she said.
Dark felt like hitting himself. He didn't know that he could add a safety switch!
"Just stay out of my way rookie. I'll find this Nevermore place and then we'll see who's too muggle for their precious school!" said Fox irritably.
Dark pinched the bridge of his nose. Suddenly a lot of things made sense.
Fox was a girl who had been snubbed or kicked out of Hogwarts because she was more of a technomancer than a traditional witch, and before he came along there wasn't even a dial-up connection. Clearly she had heard about the upgrade and felt a little payback was in order.
And he would bet credits to galleons that Snape had been the one to see if she was worthy of coming to the school.
"How old are you anyway?"
"Thirteen, not that it's any of your business. A true gentleman never asks a lady her age," she said primly.
"Then are you aware that Nevermore is a closed-circuit server?" said Dark dryly.
Ether was no fool. It was irritating getting viruses on his Scilab server...he wasn't dealing with a mutating algorithm while he was busy trying to bring these people into the current century.
He had closed the server from the inside, and only he could open it up. The students had to go to specially designed modems which went into the wireless routers just to get any internet.
Once they were more like America, who at least kept up with the current trends without any prompting, Ether would let them have their servers.
The teachers were just glad he had an automatic lock out and made a list of any offenders who tried to hack into the outside servers.
Well, almost all the offenders.
If they were good enough to erase their tracks, then Ether tended to recruit them once summer hit. He wasn't going to rat out a fellow hacker. Especially if they were good enough to cover up their tracks that well.
Fox looked everywhere and found nothing...except the location of the Gringotts Server. She clapped her hands in delight.
Crashing Hogwarts was her original goal (one she had tricked a half-blood into paying for her to do) but robbing Gringotts from afar was just as well.
Suddenly she ducked. Dark had just shot at her!
"You're not leaving here with that information," he said.
Fox smirked.
"So that's the game you want to play? Fine," she replied, drawing her sword. Dark grabbed his sword.
"Let's dance," he said with a rather cheerful smirk.
Chaud was pissed. The break in had originate from Ether's private lab and he knew the boy wasn't behind it because he wasn't answering. Finally Hermione had enough, and she drew her wand. Fortunately Chaud was the only one there and the cameras to the room were disabled in the lock down.
"Oh move over! Alohamora!" said Hermione with as much bossy force as she could put into the spell.
The door groaned in protest, but it wasn't any match for magic.
Ether had made sure that in the event someone had locked him in, the door wouldn't stand up to magic. A safety measure.
Chaud and Hermione went into the room and found...
"Oh for the love of Magic. Was he in here playing video games with his Navi the entire time?!" she said face palming.
"Not video games. That's the Ephemeral Fox, one of the most notorious hackers and thief on the Net. I should have known she was behind this when we found out the source of the break in... But right now I'm more worried about Ether and Fukurou. Last time he looked like that, it took him two weeks to separate."
"That's Ether?!"
"That's the Dark Owl, Codename Dark for short. People who specialize in technomancy, or magic that works with technology, can merge with their Navis. However only people with Specials can fully merge and use this power to it's full potential."
"Specials?"
"Navis like Megaman and Fukurou."
Hermione looked at the screen, and scowled at the big-chested Navi fighting the rather roguish Dark.
He was having way, way too much fun fighting that girl.
"ETHER! GET OFF YOUR ARSE AND FINISH HER ALREADY!"
Dark flinched, before Fox took that chance to jump back. She winked at him flirtatiously before she did something unexpected.
She yanked off her necklace.
The Ephemeral Fox had escaped.