Tory could only stare at Mr. Cuello for a few seconds, befuddled.
"A net navi?" he finally repeated. Tory could imagine Iceman also being quite confused, scratching his head with one hand.
The worker nodded, still smiling. "I am really not sure how, but somehow, someone uploaded a navi into that assistant chip of yours," he said.
He then turned to the screen. Tory saw that the . . . navi? . . . was looking less downcast, but was now also seemed a bit anxious again.
Mr. Cuello chuckled. "And now, I think that it would be time to see what the navi actually looks like- assuming it was not created to look like the assistant," he said. "That is, if it is all right with you?" he added, turning to the navi.
Tory still could not believe that the figure inside of the rings, prostrate besides his head and face that now held a somewhat wary expression, was actually a navi. But if the worker, who seemed to know what they were doing, was sure . . .
"Er, that's fine," the navi agreed hesitantly. Tory recognized the same voice of the "virus" from his computer earlier.
Mr. Cuello nodded. He then keyed a few commands. After about a minute, the navi closed its eyes before it became so pixelated that Tory was not sure if the navi was actually being deleted- but when it stopped, in the mock assistant's place was a figure in dark blue armor and an ebony helmet. In the center of its chest was an emblem that seemed to be a combination of lightning and wind, spiraled together in more blue-toned hues.
The navi opened its eyes, and Tory saw the same dark blue gaze he had seen before. He then saw another window pop up beside the one with the navi, which held a close-eyed figure in more holding rings that looked the same as what the navi had, except it was completely still.
"The actual assistant," Mr. Cuello explained unnecessarily. "Separating them was actually quite an easy task, which I'm glad for. I didn't want any more trouble for the navi." He shook his head disapprovingly. "Actually shoving a navi into a chip like that. Can't be much fun, I would think. But, I also can't say I know the reason, either, but I certainly hope that it would not be just for someone's sheer amusement."
He then closed the window with the assistant. Tory saw that the navi's eyes were closed again, with a nervous calm on its face. Maybe it would be from someone that was an extremely mean operator, and was quite adept at computer programming, including shoving poor navis into chips, electronics; after destroying the portal inside, so that there would be no escape; and even trapping them inside some sort of custom PET where it would do all sorts of automatic programming so that the navi would be levelled up, but in exchange, it would only obey orders.
. . . Then again, maybe the blue navi had even agreed to being inside the chip, and had forgotten about somehow?
Tory inwardly sighed. Certainly, this sort of thing had not occurred back in his old, small town that he had lived in before.
(That was aside from the strange old building that he and his deaf cousin had explored often, with odd, seemingly irrational- at times- of ghosts, and other phenomenons. But that was there, and not here . . . right? )
The navi still kept its eyes closed, almost as if it really just did not want to look at something other than what it was used to. Tory was quite glad, in a way. Perhaps Iceman would be glad to meet the navi- if it turned out to be friendly- but he was not quite sure.
The blue figure then opened its eyes again. Tory could not tell if it was frowning slightly due to being among strangers still, or if it wanted to scream in frustration due to being trapped. He hoped that it was the former.
Mr. Cuello spoke again to the navi. "Are you all right?" he asked. "The computer scans came out fine, but there could even be possibly something that was missed."
Tory noticed that the tone was calm. He was glad for that, as he had heard several other navi healers before being rather rude to their navi patients, to say the least. Tory remembered with a cringe that once one particularly angry one had called Iceman "thing", before actually storming away at the notification of another injured navi.
Apparently the current employee not only liked to treat navis civilly, but even thought that they might not make up conditions if asked if they were all right. Tory had heard just two weeks from overhearing a conversation at his school from students about two navis that had complained of various ailments as a distraction before other navis and their net ops had attempted to steal some higher powered chips sold there.
The navi sighed some, his face seeming a bit less nervous- or more decisive?- than earlier. "No, I am fine, and I appreciate your concern," he replied evenly. "However, there is something that I must attend to."
"Can I help with this?" Mr. Cuello asked, his brow creasing slightly in worry. "Or your net op, if you have any?"
Tory noticed that the navi winced as the he shook his head. "No, it's something that-"
He broke off, suddenly looking wary. The navi closed his eyes, and then a few seconds later, the holding rings around him simultaneously stopped, turned orange- and then shattered.
Tory watched, horrified, as the navi suddenly faded from view, while remaining data bits from the rings bounced on the floor of the screen window before vanishing.
Mr. Cuello blinked once at the screen, looking quite surprised. "Well, then," he stated, sounding regretful, "that has certainly never happened to a navi that I had healed before." Tory wondered how the man did not sound more baffled, but supposed that it could be that he was trained to be calm. Being an employee in a chip shop could make it so that he and others had witnessed some odd happenings before.
"He just left?" Iceman spoke up.
The employee shrugged slightly, his face somewhat baffled, but probably more calm than Iceman sounded. "I suppose," he stated. "That looked like some sort of teleport ability."
Tory, though, remembered the navi's wary look. The navi had seemed to suddenly notice something- something that they had not . . .
Mr. Cuello then pulled up another screen, which to Tory looked like a messaging service. The employee typed in a short note about the navi. He then faced Tory again.
"Well, I'm sorry that your friend there disappeared on us," he stated. "I was hoping that he would not be intimidated by the experience of the whole chip thing and seeing an unfamiliar face, but . . . well, I suppose that he did not like something about it."
There was a knock on the door to the right of them. Tory watched as Mr. Cuello went and opened the door, and explained more about the disappearing net navi more employees, and the manager. Tory chose to stay in the small waiting area for a while instead of coming back the next day. A while later, Mr. Cuello handed him back his assistant chip, which the employee assured him was not only free of viruses, but through several quick test runs, worked as it should.
The navi that had been inside the chip, though . . .
"I wonder where he could have gone," Tory said nervously, as he walked back to his house in the semi-darkness.
He did not even know the navi's name. The navi could have known about something that could infect computers that they did not, similar to an ability that a navi named Searchman had- or he was running from something. He did not know how long the navi had been inside the chip, though. Tory had certainly not used it the first day he had received it from his father.
"Maybe he went to Net City?" Iceman suggested, trying to be helpful.
Tory perked up slightly. "It does have a lot of portal to other places, including the net servers for other towns," he admitted. "But you do have to be registered from outside to be allowed there in the first place."
"He could have smacked through them," Iceman said.
Tory sighed. "I hope that he did not set off a lot of alarms." He did want to find the navi, but without accidentally being accused as some sort of criminal. His father certainly would not approve of that.
For some reason- perhaps even since Mr. Cuello had been so nice to the navi- Tory did not want the mysterious navi getting into trouble. Perhaps there had been some sort of misunderstanding. Maybe his net op was really some bad person that would want to look for his navi that had gone missing after they had somehow lost the assistant chip. Maybe he could even help the navi somehow, if Iceman found him wandering around in Net City, looking for whatever it was that he wanted to find . . .
The sky had darkened a bit more, and Tory was glad to be back inside his house again. He assured his mother that the chip was fine- though neglected to mention anything about the missing navi- and dejectedly sat on his bed.
Tory frowned. First, he had lost his place in the net battling tournament, discovering his unfavorable chip was acting odd in the process, and now the navi . . .
Tory wondered what else might go wrong that day. He glanced at his computer, though hesitated about checking it yet. The screen had long gone into power saving mode and so was dark. Perhaps at least his father would not have to worry about any viruses in the house's security system, though, if the chip employee had been correct about nothing being actually wrong with the chip itself.
He then wondered about the actual assistant inside the chip. They had been separated from the blue navi, after all, and even was a plain green color, different than the blue navi with the almost Jedi-like armor with a belt at their waist.
He put a hand on his chin, thinking. Did assistant navis ever resent their menial, robot-like positions, or were they really like what most people seemed to think- a mere program that did what it was programmed to once the chip was used in a battle, with no feelings at all whatsoever?
Tory briefly imagined Iceman in such a position for the former, and winced. Hopefully he would never see that happen with his own navi- and any other navi again, actually.
"You could see if the computer's fine," Iceman said suddenly, breaking him from his dismal thoughts.
Tory frowned some. "Er, I don't know, Iceman," he said. "I really just want my dad to look at it. That way I can't be blamed for something else going wrong."
"But the navi disappearing wasn't your fault," Iceman argued. "He just left since he wanted to."
He sighed, giving in slightly. "I guess I could at least see if a message is on the computer screen," he said.
Tory still hesitated, then scowled slightly, almost not caring if Iceman would see of not. His own navi was not that afraid of the chip. True, Tory had been the one that had checked it out by himself on his own computer after the tournament instead of waiting for someone else. He could at least tell his father about the chip, and the runaway navi, and maybe even that he wanted to find the navi. Surely, surely, there was no harm in that. The navi could be anyone, anyway. Surely the navi was not any navi that was important, like some security navi (though the navi looked way too personified for that, not counting the non-generic emblem on his chest), nor could the navi be someone from the military or some other important organization like that (even though he had single handedly broken out if a minor holding place in a chip store).
His could tell his father, and then his father might tell his mother later. She might or might not be interested, unlike she was with his music. Tory did not care about her being interested about that, though, since he quite liked music and violins and orchestra as well.
Just as he had worked up an apex of courage that he hoped to keep, though, his mother suddenly knocked on the door. Tory knew that it was his mother, since he had not heard his father come back from work yet.
Sighing, Tory went to the door. His mother cheerfully told him that she would be going to visit their neighbor who was having trouble with her outside hose for a while.
"I shouldn't be gone too long," she assured him.
Tory forced himself to smile. "I'll be fine," he said, hoping that like his father about the chip, she believed him.
His mother closed the door, and he heard her leave the house. Tory sagged a bit, then.
"What's wrong, Tory?" Iceman asked.
Tory almost started, then inwardly sighed. "It's nothing," he stated, feeling the courage that he had managed to muster wilt, like it had so often before. He was not quite sure why this time, but it did not matter.
So he was scared of the chip, and telling about it, and getting the whole thing so wrong . . . Maybe Iceman could tell his parents about the chip, or even Mr. Cuello later if he called. Or, maybe, his father would never need to know about the navi. (If only his father would not later see him and Iceman lose a net battle . . . again.)
Tory then went to his computer and jiggled the mouse to return the computer to regular mode. He then smiled some in relief, seeing only the usual home screen and the program shortcuts. So there was nothing wrong with at least the computer, after all.
He was about to leave the computer to read another book he had recently gotten from the library, when something- a blue something- faded into view on the screen.
Tory gasped. The missing navi, strange blue cape and all, was looking right at him, his face rather solemn.
". . . How? . . ." he managed to get out.
The nightmare of his mistakes came rushing back at him again. Was it possible that he would mess up further? Had the navi even known that his mother was out of the house, that his father had not come back yet? Did the navi know that he was not someone that was strong at all?
. . . But why come to his house at all, though? There certainly were no battle competitors there. His thoughts were interrupted by his navi's voice.
"Were you deleting a lot of invisible viruses?" Iceman spoke up cheerfully.
Tory then winced, since he had been so sure that the navi looking at him was a virus earlier. He also hoped that whatever the blue navi had sensed earlier had not followed him into the network in Tory's house. Surely that could not be the reason the strange, mysterious navi was there.
The navi smiled a tiny bit at Iceman's statement, though he still was heavily frowning. "I did not want to come back here," he started, "but I now know of a good reason to."
Tory could literally hold himself back, but blurted out his suspicions anyway. "What did you saw at the chip store?" he blurted out. He then almost winced; did the navi even know where he had been before escaping? He was sure that Mr. Cuello never did say exactly where they were. "Did it come here, or attack something, or . . ."
Tory trailed off, imagining the thing- beast, who knew- multiplying again and again, like the strange ghosts in the abandoned building that he and his cousin liked to go to, crazy or not. Others might have called them quite nuts, but the queer puzzles that popped up- on floors, or wherever else- that even helped the ghosts a bit were interesting, at least. His cousin had told him that he had been having a bit of trouble lately, and Tory just wanted to go back to his old town sometimes, and not just that he could not seem to do as well here in Dentech City . . .
The blue navi shook his head. "No, I got it," he stated, still not smiling at all. "That was quite perceptive of you, though." He then sighed. "Look, I know it seems quite strange for me to be here, and in the first place in that chip. I'll just say for now" – Tory wondered why he had chosen that phrase- "that I did not want to be in that chip myself. I also did not know what type of chip it was. Believe me, I was probably just as surprised as you when I found myself in that assistant programming, in what looked like to a net battle arena."
Tory suddenly questioned himself about the possibility of the net op being quite horrible to his navi again, but kept quiet as he listened to the navi keep talking.
"I'll say this now, though . . . That chip is not quite ordinary . . . And the reason why I'm here . . . is that I'm not quite ordinary either."
"You can find invisible stuff," Iceman piped up. (Tory was once again reminded of Searchman, a navi of one of Lan's friends who happened to be from another country altogether.) "That's cool. Maybe you could help Tory and I with viruses that hide when we try to find them in the house's network. They are crazy, sometimes, and really tricky."
Tory made a face, but was silently relieved at Iceman's optimistic chatter. Somehow, though, he doubted that helping with stubborn viruses was what the navi had in mind, or that he wanted to stay in the first place.
The navi finally did not quite look so sullen at Iceman's words, but he quickly frowned again. "I'll say this. The . . . power- yes, that sounds weird, but it's true- that is in the chip . . . Well, some of it leaked out when you were scanning it earlier. I had sensed it just before I found myself in this home screen area. I assume it's your home computer, right?"
"The thing you saw?" Tory's eyes widened, wondering if he and Iceman now had some random new enemies to fight.
The navi shook his head. "No, not that. That . . . well, it was looking for me, and I defeated it." Perhaps he also saw concern on Tory's face, for he added, "It's gone now, and so you don't have to worry about it."
"Will there be others?" Tory asked.
The navi frowned. "Maybe. Who knows. But right now, what you need to know is that the power that came out of the chip leaked into you, of all places. I don't know how. But I can sense that it did."
Tory did not really want to understand, so he asked something else. How could data leak outside of a computer, anyway? He did not even know if the navi was sane, really . . .
"What about Iceman? My navi?"
Again, he had no way of knowing if the navi was telling the truth, but he might as well listen. He had had his PET with him after all when the screen had lit up, and the strange coding had come on the screen . . .
He had no idea if he really wanted to tell Lan or anyone else about it. (Megaman, Lan's calm, friendly navi- so opposite of his net op- came to mind for a few seconds). Lan's father chanced to be a top scientist- and another secret that he had been let on was that Dr. Hikari and his only son were with the net savers, an organization for fighting net crime.
Tory quickly opened up his PET and held it up so that the blue navi could see the small hooded figure of his own navi there. He then hid a sigh of relief when the navi shook his head again.
"No, there is nothing there in him from the chip," he stated in his solemn tone.
"What about you?" Tory asked, putting his PET back into his holder. "Were you using some of the . . . power in the chip when you used that barrier earlier?"
Surprisingly, the navi laughed a bit. "Not really," he said. "Once again, you're proving yourself perceptive. I was somewhat using it, as a power source. However, that was only to enhance what I could usually do by myself since I was weaker then."
"What about your net op?" Iceman asked. "Are they worried about you, and is the assistant chip actually theirs?"
The navi's grin instantly faded. "No, it never belonged to my net op that I know of," he replied. "You don't have to worry about me being some lone navi that was born to think like a virus, or me being put in there by some person that wanted to harm navis, either. I really do- or at least did, anyway, have a net op, and I know them to be a very nice one, at that."
Tory wondered how the navi knew that he had been worried about the navi being mistreated earlier. Perhaps he was only stating it due to what Mr. Cuello had said earlier, though.
. . . But how could navis use any sort of power from chips that were not in their PET, though? He suddenly remembered that the "power", or whatever it was, was apparently in himself. Tory suddenly pictured himself in his school Orchestra having broken half of the instruments in the first violin section due to accidentally having accidentally summoned an aqua sword, like he had seen Lan do within cross fusion before, a rare technique that allowed net op and net navi pairs to actually fuse with each other. Undoubtedly the Orchestra instructor would be quite angered at it, and Tory would be banished from one of his favorite classes . . .
"Where is he?" Tory asked quietly.
The navi's gaze saddened slightly. ". . . For now, I just know that he's missing, and I hoped to begin to find him, but I had to come here first, though."
"What about the power in Tory, though?" Iceman "Will it hurt him? I don't want him getting hurt."
Tory winced as he had not thought it hurting- if it was actually real in the first place- and hoped that it could not spread to the PET in his holder.
The strange navi nodded. "Right, that . . . I really had hoped that I would not have to be here again, but that power . . . is going to be uncontrollable it something is not done about it. Really, though, it's simple in context. Nothing will hurt though just due to it being inside your net op, though. It actually is not very much, and so can't do much on its own."
The navi's demeanor then became much sterner, and Tory forced himself not to cringe at the almost angry gaze. The navi's face then saddened a bit again.
"I need to you both to promise something," he said quietly. "This must seem quite crazy, but I need both of you to not tell anyone about me other than that you know that I went missing from that place where I was separated from the assistant navi."
"It was a chip store," Iceman helpfully put in, but Tory was hardly listening to his navi, wondering at the sudden request.
"Why?" he burst out, almost suddenly angry.
He did not know why he was suddenly that way, but he definitely wanted to know the reason, though.
The navi sighed. "I really do not want to put this stress on either of you . . . but really, it is definitely necessary. Due to that chip, and the power being inside you- well, I really could do without being looked over by a net op and a net navi, but I had to come here. And since I had to come here, I need to still be what I needed to be ever since I was out of the chip- unknown about as I could be. Some . . . bad people were after my net op, and so therefore, they were after me, too. Telling anyone about me would only lead to others getting hurt, including anyone that you know about."
Tory frowned at the seemingly obvious statement that could very easily come from a criminal. He had seen Lan and some other net savers from nearby cities defeat some before, and a few of them had utterly insisted that they were right in what they were doing.
However . . .
The navi's scared look when he saw Tory the first time when coming into his computer . . .
The way that he did not like being looked at by a simple chip shop employee . . .
That the navi had a net op that could be in trouble somewhere . . .
And most of all . . .
Who would stick a helpless navi into something horrendous as an assistant chip in the first place? The chip was something that was horrible on its own, but for a navi to be reduced to such a limited state . . .
It was almost like Iceman would have bars around him, taking away not only his ice power- that was him, in way- but his utter freedom from anything ever again. How could he wish something on someone else? Plus, if he did not take on the net navi (he still hoped it-he- was actually still a navi in the first place, and not some odd advanced virus)- where would the navi go? He definitely did not want him to be inside the prison that was the assistant chip again.
"I'll do it," he vowed, hoping he sounded firm.
The navi nodded, smiling a bit in what looked like relief. "Thanks. Your navi is Tory, right? And your navi is Iceman?"
Tory nodded, knowing that the navi probably heard Iceman talking to him at some point, and vice versa. "What's your name?" he asked, slightly frightened that the supposed net op was some crazy head that had a lot of navis which were only named numbers and thought of only being data.
The navi's dark blue eyes twinkled a bit- friendlily, it seemed to Tory. "Kyosuke," he replied.
"Your net op is from Electopia?" Tory asked, remembering slightly of his tournament opponent earlier in the day.
Kyosuke shook his head. "Partly," he said. "He's half-Electopian by birth."
"So he was born in Netopia, then," Tory surmised.
The blue navi smiled some. "You got that correct."
He did not say anymore of his net op, though, even when Tory asked his name, saying that it was not necessary at that time. Tory frowned, knowing that Iceman was also slightly disgruntled. Of course, him not being a net saver, he did not have access to the net op and net navi database in the first place besides minimal information of those in the area.
He then thought of something else, chiding himself a bit for not thinking of it earlier. "Do you need any healing?" he asked hesitantly, wondering how the navi would respond the question. "There's a recovery program on the computer."
Surprisingly, Kyosuke shook his head. "No, even just resting would be enough," he stated. "Even so, it would be best if I were in your PET sometimes, so I could be near you."
Tory looked to Iceman, who shrugged. He then looked back to the mysterious new navi.
"I guess," he said, faltering a bit.
It was one thing to have the new navi that he was not supposed to say anything about in his home computer. It would be quite another to have him all the time, and therefore he was much more likely to act suspicious to others, including to his classmates at school- not to mention, his father . . .
He then wondered if the only reason that he had agreed with the navi in the first place was that he was attempting to show competence in something for once. He was terrible at net battling, so obviously shown by the quick defeat in the tournament earlier, and he did not make friends as easily as Megaman or Lan, or even Chaud, who had seemed to be rather distant at first.
"It will be fine," Kyosuke responded firmly. "I'm not going to mess with your PET's programs or Iceman."
Tory saw the resoluteness in the navi's gaze, and wondered how he was so sure. He nodded again, hoping that it would actually be all right, and that he would not be carrying around a criminal.
