"Shell! Shell!" Amber heard her son shouting and immediately went upstairs. Concern crossing her features as she headed up the stairs and pushed her son's door open.

"Allen?" The boy in question looked frantic as he messed with his computer. He looked ready to tear the thing apart in order to figure out what was going on with it. "Honey what's wrong?"

"I don't know!" Allen didn't mean to shout, they both knew that. "I don't know, but Shell's in the Network and I can't reach him!"

"Is it a connection error?" Amber muttered rolling up her sleeves, and started coming over to the computer.

"No I- think someone cut it." Allen muttered as he managed to get his screen working again but found it was showing nothing but fizz. "Ugh~ come on, come on…" Amber just stared at the screen for a moment before leaving the room and hurried to her own. There she grabbed her old laptop, something she had plastered with old stickers and returned to her son's room to find that he had the same idea as her. He'd grabbed his own laptop, hooked it up to his computer and started typing away at it. She did the same, taking a seat next to her son as she went to work.

On her laptop screens of data flashed in and out of existence as she looked them over. "Something's going on." She muttered, reading countless lines of code. "It's not just your computer, it looks like something going on all across the Network.

"A Crash?"

"No, it's not a Network Crash." She muttered as she continued typing away. "It's something else…." The woman muttered as something appeared dead center in her laptop.

01010111 01101000 01100101 01101110 00100000 01101111 01101110 01100101 00100000 01101001 01110011 00100000 01100111 01101111 01101110 01100101 00100000 01101111 01101110 01100101 00100000 01100011 01100001 01101110 00100000 01110111 01100001 01101100 01101011


"Ow~" Shell wasn't too sure how long he'd been out.

Could have been a few seconds, could have been a few minutes, could have been hours for all he knew. All Shell knew was, the moment he came back to - with his software resetting and everything - was that he felt like he had the worst headache throughout the history of headaches. Which honestly wasn't saying much considering he'd never had a headache in his short time alive, less he counted the time his head split open a few days ago.

"Somehow this feels worse then when that happened." Shell muttered as he opened his eyes and took a minute to stare at the street as he sat up and rubbed the bridge of his nose. Stopping after a moment he took the time to stare at his hand before sitting up flexing his fingers. "No more glitching." Hr muttered, sighing in relief. "Hopefully Glyde's doing better too - oh shit Glyde!" Shell looked around as he tried finding the older NetNavi, who was still sprawled out on the streets and seemingly unconscious. Without much prompt Shell got to his feet and ran over to the unconscious Navi. Only to trip over his feet and face plant against the ground. He ignored the brief pain he was hit with as he got back to his feet and stumbled towards Glyde and turned him over. Glyde was stable, his framework wasn't glitching out anymore. Good. "Glyde… Glyde~" Shell muttered as he shook the NetNavi, slapped him and went back to shaking him. "Come on, wake up." Shell muttered as he tried opening a line to Allen. "Allen, Allen can you hear me."

Still nothing.

"I can't get through… to… him." Shell trailed off as he started to look around, actually take in his surroundings as he realized he was NOT in the same place he was before he lost consciousness.

Or maybe it was, he was having some trouble seeing the resemblance.

The server was… bugged, damaged and showing off its code. Some of the structures were losing their symmetry and others looked like they were falling apart. He could see lines of fragged code fluttering down from the sky which had gone from the dark brought by the Nets Night cycle to a deep glowing red.

"Uh oh…" Shell muttered as he looked around. "This… this looks bad." He muttered as he got back to his feet. "Like really bad." Shell muttered as he looked at Glyde. "What do I do?" Glyde didn't respond as Shell just continued to look at him for a moment before making a face and smacked his cheeks a few times. "Ok Shell, head in the game." He muttered as he kept his hands on his face. "Think, what do we do? We can't contact Allen, Glyde's unconscious and the net is a mess." Shell muttered. "What can we do?" He muttered as he looked around and made a face. "I gotta try reestablishing a connection with Allen, but how? Did the connection drop in the first place?" He asked. "Is the wifi out? If so, how do I fix a wi-fi connection? He asked. "Maybe I'm just too far away from the Router or something? If I do that, then I just have to get closer to Allen's Server right?" Shell stopped and seemed to think. "The Server." He repeated. "Everything runs on the Network, so Allen's Server should still be up. "If I go to the Server then I should be able to contact Allen. I mean he was right in front of his computer so…" He muttered before looking down the path that he and Glyde had come down. Without another word he turned back to the taller netnavi and hoisted onto his back as he started walking down the street. "I hope this works."


Nero just continued to look around from the now 'decaying' building he was on. The screaming had died down some time ago, but whatever 'this' was simply took its place. "Seriously, what the hell?" He muttered as he touched the railing only to withdraw his hand as it crumbled away into data.

"Careful where you touch."

Zeal muttered over their link.

"Whole place looks like it's ready to fall apart."

"Yeah." Nero grumbled as he stared at his surroundings a bit longer before narrowing his eyes. "Whole server looks fragged." He grumbled. "Can you get in touch with Nana and the others?"

"Already tried, lines are dead."

Zeal grumbled.

"That's not all though, I took a peek around my crib and outside the window, looks like everything's down."

"Everything?"

"Cars, street lights, the tv it's all down… everything except my computer…"

"How's that work?" Nero grumbled as he looked at a screen that showed his operator's face.

"I have no idea."

Zeal muttered as he seemed to cross his arms.

"Last I checked, there's nothing special about this old dog, sure it's a fighter - served us pretty well over the years, but to survive… 'this'… Yeah I don't think it should be able to keep fighting when the net looks like… this."

"Fair…" Nero grumbled as he glanced at the streets beneath him. "So how are we still connected? Better question: how am I conscious?" He muttered.

"Nero?"

"When that sound went off and the screaming started I wasn't joining in or anything. I didn't even bug out like the guys down there. So what's going on?"

"I don't know."

Zael admitted.

"But… I'm willing to bet zenny we'll find out if we go down there."

"That's a suckers bet and you know it." Nero stated before getting to his feet and stepped forward to start falling off the side of the building. He slammed a foot into the side of it as he continued to descend, sliding it down the side of the building. He didn't exactly slow down but that wasn't the intention anyway.

Jumping off the wall he landed, broke into a roll and got back to his feet as he looked around.

"Which way you want to go?"

"How about we ask him?" Nero asked his attention, turning to see a virus walking into the street. "Hello~" He waved playfully at the virus, a Spikey and started to approach. "You don't mind if I ask you something do you?" The virus, for obvious reasons, didn't respond, just seeming to look around before finally starting to notice him.

It looked… it looked like it was in a daze of sorts.

Nero couldn't remember the last time he saw a virus in a daze.

"Hey are you?" Side note, Nero couldn't speak of 'Virus', but that's besides the point as he saw something about this virus in particular. "Hey uh… you're kinda…"

Leaking The virus was leaking ; 1's and 0's, its 'guts' were falling out of its stomach like sand spilling out of someone's hand.

And the spiky didn't even seem to notice, just opting to stare at him with that dazed expression it had on its face.

"Dude you are ok?" Nero actually sounded concerned as he gestured to the virus's belly. Without a word it turned its attention towards its body and seemed to finally notice its guts were spilling onto the street. It made an… expression of sorts, kind of like a dazed 'oh that's a thing now' as a heavy 'thump' echoed throughout the street as its Core finally fell to the floor just sitting on a bunch of 1's and 0's.

It just stared at it, they both did as the core started to crumble away and the Spikey looked right back at him as it too started to disappear, crumbling like a sandcastle.

When it disappeared Nero didn't say a word for a while as he tried to process what he just saw. "What… the fuck just happened?" He asked. "You saw that right?"

"Yes, yes I did."

"That was not supposed to happen." Nero stated. "Viruses don't die like that. I've seen and killed viruses before, I know they don't die like that." Nero stated as he walked towards the fading remains of the Virus. "What the hell did this?"

[ ]

"That noise again…" Nero looked to the left, then the right and behind him before turning his gaze towards the sky. "Something's here." He muttered as he stared up at the bleeding sky. "I don't know what it is, but it shouldn't be here."


[ ]

He wanted to ignore it, but he couldn't. Moment he heard that sound Shell winched, dropped Glyde and pressed his hands against his head as he closed his eyes. His data was glitching again, his rendering growing faulty as he bugged out as 1's and 0's spilled out of him. Pulling his hands off his head he gasped in pain as he watched his hands slowly stabilize as the aura of code disappeared.

"What's going on?" He muttered, staring at his hands. "What is this?"

His hands were shaking. And he felt… bad, he felt… scared? Was this what it meant to be 'scared'? He didn't like it. He didn't like this feeling one damn bit. He grabbed one of his hands and tried to get it to stop shaking as he took a few breaths and started counting. Not sure why, but it felt like the right thing to do at a time like this.

Not sure why but it made him feel better.

When he felt 'good enough' he picked Glyde back up and started carrying him off again. "Sorry for dropping you." He muttered "Please don't be mad when you wake up." He muttered, never noticing the black spots flickering into existence behind him.


Amber just stared at the binary written on her screen, she barely heard her son translate the binary into english, and even if she hadn't she knew what was in front of her. 'What is this, code for something?' She fell silent as she tapped a finger in thought. 'What could this…' She paused. "Oh no…" Despite only being a few steps away from her son, Allen didn't hear her. 'Don't tell me… don't tell me… did they?' Her fingers blurred across her keyboard, fingers tapping keys so fast that it was amazing that the old piece of tech was able to keep up with her commands.

"Mom?" Allen whispered as his mom ignored him. Preferring to focus on what was on her screen. "What is it?"

"That's not it…" His mother muttered as she stopped working and seemed to relax. "Good… that's good." She stated. "But if it's not that then…. what is this?" She muttered as she stared at the screen a bit longer and stared at the binary.