Chapter 3: Raid
09:40 AM (Japan Time) Sunday January the 18th…
"… De masu! Heh, heh, heh!"
"Yamitarou…"
Higure Yamitarou grinned in a malicious manner as he polished his Battle Chip stock: he looked in very high spirits today.
"Remember that Mariko – sensei's younger sister forbade you from bothering her." Number Man pointed out.
"Oh! Number Man! You're outdated! De masu!" Higure laughed.
"Huh? I'm outdated?"
"Where do you think I went yesterday afternoon while I left you and Shuuko – chan in charge of the store? De masu?" Higure grinned.
"Hmmm… You're not telling me you're trying to engage Saloma – san, right?" Number Man questioned.
"Nope!"
"I doubt Miyuki – san being your type… She creeps the guts outta anyone."
"That's obvious! De masu!"
"Hmmm… Then… You must mean that new fortune-reading lady from King Land… Ms. Glassy." Number Man guessed.
"That's right! De masu! She told me she has seen a bright future ahead of us! De masu!"
"Maybe you have seen a grim future instead and you have turned it upside down." Number Man sarcastically replied.
Higure then spotted a figure walking towards the door, so he adjusted his glasses and closed his eyes while he practiced his best smile.
"Good morning, de masu! Welcome to Higureya, de masu!"
"Uo~h!" A hollow shriek replied.
Higure opened his eyes and his jaw hit the floor.
The Grim Reaper was in front of him.
It wore the traditional brown cloak with hood.
Two white eyes shone on the hidden face and seemed to hover above the ground.
They had a rope around its neck from which several miniature skulls floated.
It also carried the scythe.
"YEA~RGH! DE MASU~! THE GRIM REAPER, DE MASU~! MS. GLASSY~!"
Higure fainted from the sight and collapsed behind the counter, his left leg sticking out: the "Grim Reaper" vanished into thin air the entrance bell rang when someone stepped in.
"Huh… Am I dead? De masu?"
"Hullo."
Higure managed stand up by leaning one arm in the counter and looking up: he spotted Charles and Martin looking down on him (literally).
"Huh… Senator Morgangantz? De masu? Blackdesu – san?" Higure slowly asked.
"Did our buddy drop by already? He sure can be fast." Charles grinned.
"He takes after my surname, you know." Martin added.
"De masu…? A hologram… You scared me, gentlemen…! De masu!"
"This looks like it's about to explode, Charles." Davis warned with a smirk.
"We should scram before the mine collapses on top of us."
"OUT! GET OUT! DE MASU! I CALL THE SHOTS! DE MASU! THIS IS MY STORE! DE MASU~!"
10:24 AM (Japan Time)…
"… Man! I feel tired… I got stuck thirty minutes in a horrible bottleneck caused by that broken down traffic light…"
Hinoken came back from delivering a takeaway curry and sat on one bench, tired.
"You had misfortune, then." Iroaya Madoi commented.
"Have some water, by George! The last thing we need is someone dehydrating in here…" Count Elec told him as handed him a jar of water and a glass.
"Take it easy, comrades." Maha Jarama smiled as he popped out from inside the kitchen.
"I hope I'm not going to be told pointless jokes again this time around…"
"Huh? When was the last time?" Colored Man asked.
"That Shadow Man person came in and told me we could get rabbits for free by taking off my hat…" Magic Man sighed again.
"What a lame joke…" Elec Man commented, unimpressed.
"At least Hinoken – sama is no longer obsessed over beating up Freeze Man."
"I'm going to run some errands at Internet City… See you later, guys."
"Beware of Freeze Man's 3D specter."
"Man! If Hinoken gets a hold of it then there'll be no stoppin' him!"
"Blurt and blurt!" Dr. Wily made up a pun.
"Dr. Wily – sama! Grant me permission to BLOW UP that ASSHOLE!"
"How can you blow up a 3D image, Hinoken?" Wily grumbled.
"Huh! I forgot… Damned asshole!" Hinoken gasped and hissed.
"Hinoken – sama… I saw it coming 5 miles away, really."
10:35 AM (Japan Time)…
"… Say, Roll – chan…"
"What's up, Felicia – chan?"
Felicia and Roll were walking down an Internet City avenue and talking amongst themselves.
"It's never struck you as odd?" Felicia suddenly asked her.
"What has?" Roll frowned.
"Sigma – san and Blood – kun… They have the tendency to disappear from the map at some point in weekends… They are out of range of any call and so is Isaac – kun." Felicia commented.
"Now that you mention it… I had noticed this tendency over the years… I've only know Isaac – kun ever since September, but he seems to have joined that tendency… Maybe they go to some underground place where there isn't much signal." Roll commented, frowning.
"You've never though they're into some kind of complot?"
"Please… They're Net Saviors, as you know very well. It could simply be that they're in Net Savior missions." Roll shrugged.
"Of! I hadn't thought of that!"
An explosion rang out close by: everyone looked at the skies to see a vast number of those mysterious unidentified fighting craft shooting lasers and concussion missiles around.
"Ah! Run for it!" Roll gasped.
"You needn't tell me twice!"
Both of them ran away into a side alley and bumped into someone: Colored Man.
"Colored Man! Do you have any idea of what's going on around here?"
"Dunno! Madoi~! Get me outta 'ere~!"
10:38 AM (Japan Time)…
"… OK! The cavalry came!"
"Someone called the Sheriff?"
"Hmpf. These things…"
"They match the description."
"So these are the TIE imitations."
"As expected of Twilight…"
"Mwah, hah, hah… Raith Seinar's evil stepbrother did them!"
"Shut up, Sigma."
Davis, Martin, Shadow Man, Blues, Search Man, Blood Shadow, Sigma and Isaac entered Internet City to find that the majority of the craft had vanished and only about two or three of them were left.
"They must be pulling out… It looks like it's a hit-and-run raid. Let's try to secure one of them for analysis." Search Man suggested.
"Roger!"
All of them split and climbed up the intact buildings to secure a view and try to jump on top of the craft: more crafts suddenly appeared out of nowhere and began to bombard the Net Saviors with laser and missiles: they gasped and began to dodge.
"Counterattack!" Search Man instructed.
"Explosion!"
"Sonic Boom!"
"Charged shotgun shot!"
"Sigma Sword!"
"Justice Cannon!"
"Bullet Maze!"
"Scope Gun!"
"Radius Explosion!"
The majority of attack failed to meet their targets because the craft maneuvered at the last second and performed a barrel loop to dodge before continuing their bombardment of the Net Saviors: the attacks that did connect did little to the thick armor of the crafts.
"Shit! We'll need something else!" Sigma cursed.
"Search Man! Boss wants to deploy an experimental weapon. If anyone asks please say it's a new JSDF weapon!" Blood Shadow told Search Man.
"Go ahead!" Search Man authorized.
Purple streaks of lighting began to fall from equally purple clouds: the crafts began to move eerily and seemed to be lacking concise maneuvering.
"Now! Pick them off!"
Before they could jump off the spot they were at, the crafts suddenly self-deleted, leaving no data behind: the purple clouds dissipated and no other craft could be seen in the area.
"By the Motherland! I'd stake anything that those things were the ones which hit the Choina base yesterday."
"Did you see how they dodged our moves? It's almost as if they knew what kind of moves we possessed…"
"That's it! That's what the FOD had to do! They had to collect our combat data to make it available to these things so they could give us one hell of a time!" Blood Shadow realized.
"It makes sense. The main problem will be finding out the instigators."
"By Texas! I'm so gonna throw 'em up into the brig!" Lander grumbled.
"I'd rather send 'em to Bert Saxby's overcrowded abode."
"Jeez. That joke's outdated, Sigma."
"Hmpf. If those bastards won't come out then we shall force them to come out." Shadow Man commented.
"I think that Kanero knew something about the instigators so that's why one of the FOD silenced him." Miyabi commented.
"Problem is: are they really southern Sharo radical activists or were the transmissions directed there to make us think that? And at what extent is Twilight involved?" Enzan wondered aloud.
"No silly old-school bunch of dissatisfied scientists and military men would be able to build such things. They must be worth a whole year's budget for the Army." Laika exposed.
"I doubt it being the work of those Burma military dudes." Netto ventured.
"We investigated them a little way ago: they have their own internal struggles, but, aside from that, they don't seem to be capable of producing such weapons." Charles replied.
"This could - mind you, could - be the work of one Gulf state..." Martin suggested.
"It's a possibility. We'll discuss it over in the next Justice Council meeting."
"Let's scram." Laika suggested.
"Scram & cram."
They spotted Zoan Gate Man standing atop a building along with 18 Mettools numbered from number 32 to 50: he sounded amused and cocky as the same time.
"Look who showed up." Saito muttered.
"Mwah, hah, hah! Hah, hah, hah! Soon all of you lowlifes will be turned into memories to be implanted into lesser humans… Such is the will of the Life-shaper and the Council! Let the Composer be engaged!" Twilight's voice boomed out.
"The guy's spoiling us, as usual… Let's forget them and get outta here already."
09:51 AM (Mongolia Time)…
"… Our Bifrosts have done a very good job."
"It went over our initial expectations, even."
Half a dozen persons were sitting next to a round wooden table and watching the footage being displayed by a large LCD screen inside of an unlit room: a man and a woman had spoken insofar.
"I told you guys people that it was necessary to add the self-deletion program to them. It's a small price to pay taking into account that we can easily mass-produce more of them." A second man's voice reminded the group.
"What did you think of it, Bella?" A third man's voice asked
"Beautiful." A second woman's voice, apparently belonging to the person named Bella, replied.
"However… We didn't see THE Rock Man in there." A fourth man's voice commented.
"It matters not. We are aware that his capacities of evolving and gaining new abilities are what have allowed him to survive, but he doesn't necessarily have to show up always. He'll do appear when the time is right. Mr. Twilight told us they're no opponent to be looked down upon and I'm sure he wasn't kidding." Bella sounded like she was shrugging.
"Scorpion: have you made any progress recovering anything from Atomic Network's mainframe?" One of the men asked.
"No, Meta. It's a total wreck. The only things I have managed to compose together are some random initials… "K. O.", "D. P.", "H. N"', "H. S.", "V.", "S. S.", "A. M.", "I. M."… I have run a detailed analysis. Mind you, Meta: most of those initials have too much common appliances to find out their identity… And I do think Mr. Twilight knows what they mean but he's making us sweat to figure it out." Scorpion reported.
"What were you expecting? It was totally fried by that brutal concentration of EMPs. And also… No pain, no gain."
"I'm not saying I didn't know it, Viper. Take "S. S.", for example… "Sailing Ship", "South Sudan"… And let's not talk about "K. O."… "Knock Out" is the only result I can find." Scorpion sounded resigned.
"Viper: don't try to turn Scorpion into a scapegoat just because you want to." Meta complained.
"Scorpion – sama does not deserve this after the hard work he has been done." One of the men complained.
"Come on, Cobra! I'm sure that Meta – dono is not aiming to crackpot on him." Bella told them.
"Hmpf. As long as I'm called Vulture… I shall follow Meta – sama's orders no matter what." Another man's voice scoffed.
"In any case! The products of our contract are proving to be good enough. Let us continue with it." Meta tried to impose order.
"OK, bad boy." Viper teased.
"Save your teasing for someone else." Meta fumed.
"My input in the FOD project was magnificent… I'm wondering if those two bad boys had nightmares after that… Seeing a full-rate dungeon is enough to set the fear in anyone, be it man or woman…"
"Jeez. You're creepy." Scorpion grumbled.
"Totally. Bella. Can't you do anything else?" Cobra complained.
"Hmpf. Whatever. They're useful when the usual "debriefing" strategy fail: 1 hour there and they spit everything out." Vulture shrugged.
"Speaking of which, I got told we've got a customer… Let's go show them around how foolish it is to try to play tax evasion, Bella."
"Roger, Viper – sama. Good luck, bad boys."
She and Viper giggled as they walked out of the room while the other four seemed to be fed up with her jokes.
"Women…" The other four sighed.
11:05 AM (Japan Time)…
"… Well. Home, sweet home."
"And sweetie home-made chocolate."
"Hah, hah, hah. How original, Isaac."
"Wasn't it?"
Nelaus walked towards his home and began to unlock the front entrance: he heard footsteps walking towards him from behind.
"Rainon – ku~n!" A familiar voice called out.
Nelaus slowly turned around, being totally unimpressed, to meet with Tamashita; he was used to her sudden appearances even if they'd only known each other for around a month.
"Oh. Good morning, Tamashita – san."
"Say! Can we talk 'bout a little thing?" She asked.
"Sure. Come in."
Tamashita walked into the house and sat on one of the living room's sofas while Nelaus fetched some tea and prepared it: he deposited the platter on the table and served both cups.
"Say, Rainon – kun… You do know what happened a while ago in Internet City, right?" Tamashita went straight to the point.
"Yeah. Some remote-controlled unmanned craft went around in a "hit-and-run" raid. When we faced them, they dodged us. We had to resort a tactical EMP pulse but they suddenly self-deleted and left not even one scarce piece behind. We're clueless as to where they came out from to begin with." Nelaus admitted as he drank his tea.
"Say… What happened yesterday? The Hikari twins came to visit you and you quickly left in a car that had come to pick you up… So I guess that it indeed was Net Savior stuff?"
Crap. I better improve something. Didn't expect her to be there.
"Oh. Yeah. We had to deal with a cache of illegal weapons. All controls had been sabotaged via the Cyber World so it involved us. By using a "Dimensional Area" and our "Cross Fusion" tech… We quickly rounded the guys up." Nelaus calmly replied.
"Did they look like Yakuza people?" Felicia asked Isaac.
"No. They looked like they were from Thailand to me." Isaac shrugged and didn't seem to care about it.
"I've heard a rumor, though… Some say something happened at the Gobi desert…" Tamashita brought up next.
"Bah. It's a rumor! You don't have to believe them unless the source of it is reliable."
"By the way… Do you know who was behind this "hit-and-run" raid?"
"Nope. We have several suspects… To build up such stuff takes a lot of money. It has to be a whole state financing the stuff. We have a lot of candidates."
"Say… Are you a box of secrets?"
"Huh? Everyone is. Isn't it the case?" Nelaus quickly replied as if trying to shift the conversation.
"If you don't want to talk about something bad, then it's okay. I just feel like there's a lot of tension in the air."
"Don't you feel the same thing, Isaac – kun?"
"No. It was far more tension-filled three months ago when Atomic Network was around."
"That's how it is, then?" Felicia smiled.
"Sorry?" Isaac didn't seem to have caught on.
"Oh… It's nothing! Forget it."
"Say… If we don't have much stuff to do next week, we could go the theater… They're airing a nice film with a lot of good reviews."
"Sure." Nelaus immediately replied.
"… Are you plotting something, perhaps?" Tamashita suddenly asked.
"What would I gain from it? I'm a Net Savior, remember? I'm supposed to bring out complots to the surface and break them."
"Sorry! It was a silly thing to say… As always, thanks for the tea! See you around!"
"Bye - bye!"
Tamashita came out of Nelaus' house and walked away while singing a tune; Nelaus picked the teapot, cups and platter and brought them into the kitchen to clean them.
"… Is it me or are they stalking us?" Isaac asked him.
"Somehow, that wouldn't surprise me."
"If you say so…" Isaac still seemed to have your doubts.
"Think as you want, Isaac. We're buddies, after all. We share each other's problems." Nelaus replied.
"Thanks for the reassurance. I'll go check the inbox. I'll be back in a min."
"Go ahead: maybe Sigma came up with a new joke of his."
"As long as it's not incredibly stupid…"
"We can bear with it…"
"Mwah, hah, hah. Did ya call for trouble and scale~?"
"Sigma. You were listening in?" Isaac complained.
"Nah! I set a warning whenever my name was brought up, see~!" Sigma laughed next.
"Huff. Go pound some junk."
"Junk Man will complain!"
"Who's Junk Man?"
"He Who Lives In Thee Mind."
Shadow Man showed up next and Isaac slapped his forehead out of pure exasperation.
"Not you too." He grumbled.
"Did we tell you the "Talon" was a human?" Shadow Man asked.
"What? And here I thought they were a program."
"It'd seem Twilight was intending to confuse us by using an exact copy in the Cyber World." Shadow Man let out.
"Where'd he dig that freak from?"
"Dunno. Maybe from Byss?"
"Byss? Where's that at?" Nelaus wondered.
"… Huff. It's a planet: the fortress world in Galactic Deep Core which Palpatine used as HQ after the Battle of Endor."
"Mwah, hah, hah… Maybe he's former Red Guard!"
"Sure, sure." Isaac felt skeptical.
"Metto! Tto~!"
"Oh crap."
They whipped around to see 4 Mettols with their numbers ranging from "5" to "9" standing there: they quickly scrambled into a Remote Gate which vanished.
"Heck. Ex-senpai's turning into an eavesdropper." Nelaus cursed.
"Huff! It ain't easy to search Melbourne either: we're doing all we can to narrow down on them!" Sigma complained next.
"Hmpf… Stray mice… Let them wander in confusion and blindness…"
"Twilight! We'll find out to what end you're involved into this murky tale: that I promise you! Show your ugly hide around!" Isaac hissed.
12:23 PM (Melbourne Time)…
"… Master? I'm back."
"Ah! Philip. Good, good."
"I'm sorry for my failure."
"Bah! Even I could've fallen for that. Don't think about it, Darth Bapgei."
"Roger."
A young man stepped into the foyer of a house somewhere in Melbourne and took off his white sneakers to head further in.
He could be about a meter and sixty tall or maybe a bit taller.
His hair was jet black and he had green emerald irises.
He simply wore a sleeveless black t-shirt, brown shorts and slippers.
"I'm in the living room."
"Are there any news?"
"Well. "They" tested the Bifrosts in Japan Internet City… They worked splendidly: guess Raith Sienar tuned them well."
"But I thought that…"
"I know. It's a joke. Raith Sienar is the TIE designer."
Philip stepped into the living room which had a sofa facing north towards two windows looking out at the street from ground level and which had the curtains over them plus a table: an open laptop was set atop it and the man looked up from working with it.
A man was sitting on the sofa.
He could be about a meter and eighty tall or a bit taller.
He had a black suit over a white shirt, a black tie and pants along with shoes.
His hair was blonde and his eyes' irises were green emerald too.
"I'll go gear myself."
"Good. Today I'll risk 20 minutes at the table."
"Hmmm… The table…" He seemed eager.
"Heh. Eager to test it out? Good, good. That's my proud apprentice speaking, Darth Bapgei."
"Thank you very much, Master Twilight."
"Go, Philip…"
Philip left the living room while Twilight hummed a tune as he worked with the PC: Zoan Gate Man showed up there.
"They still think the "Talon" is some freak you dug out of some cult or sect somewhere." He reported.
"Good. That's the impression I wanted to leave."
"By the way… Why aren't we telling those guys what the initials in Atomic Network's mainframe mean?" He asked.
"Hah! No pain no gain. You gotta sweat to achieve what you want."
"Guess that. Should we edit something in Deadly Pandora's servers?"
"Change Nelaus' back-story for something else and write off Rock Man's true colors. Say that he and Hikari Saito are two separate persons and that Rock Man tried to look up to him hence why he resembles him. They don't deserve to know… They shouldn't get their hands on this info which is the reason I exist today…" Twilight ordered with a sneer.
"Huh? Well… I really don't know what it means but it's not my place to question things. I'll deal with that ASAP before they think of trying to check that place… I'll place some bottomless pits ripped out Mario Bros. DX and Koppa to keep them busy. Later."
"Heh, heh, heh… Zoan Gate Man has practical ideas."
"I never said he didn't, Freeze Man. Those fools will be beating around the bush and the deal will elude them… Heh… Heh, heh… Hah, hah, hah!"