MMBN RP - if you're in outer space, don't feel out of place!

Netto was punching back against the creature wearing his father’s face the only way that had ever worked: by watching and adapting, waiting for his moment to strike. For the umbrella user’s computer (another version of his father?) to have exploded upon reception of the Αlpha Bug, the battery must have been made to overheat. So Netto was putting together a custom rig, with the battery in its own separate enclosure and wires running from it to the rest of the computer. It had a backup source of power, too, so that Netto wouldn’t lose a step while neutralizing anything sent his way. (Rush wasn’t back yet. But Rush disappeared on Meiru all the time. Netto was assuming the worst again.) That wasn’t what he’d been spending the night preparing for, anyway. Meiru had answered another call, and Netto would be damned if he let her down this time. This was one of those future worlds that presumably ran on the technology Five had been researching, the ancient method of using radio waves. (It galled him to know that Five was right about anything. Rejecting whatever Five said about Mu or wave substantiation had denied him power in Netto’s mind, when he’d had too much physical power from the annual sessions of taking chunks of Netto away to study.) So he had scraped together what little he still remembered or had on hand from back there, ready to hand off to Roll and her superior senses.

3:55 PM

“You’ve done everything you can, Netto-kun,” Rockman told him, gently but firmly. “You should take a nap before Meiru-chan gets here.” “Might be a little late on that one,” Punk pointed out. “Red’ll be callin’ us over any time.” Hopefully there were still goofy cafes in the future. Some kind of overly sugary tea with popping bubbles sounded great to Netto right about now. “Looks like it—there’s the call,” Rockman reported, blessedly setting the PET to vibrate instead of ring and saving Netto’s ears from being blasted. He shouldered his backpack and headed downstairs, reassured Mama that he’d be home in time for dinner and he’d text if that wasn’t the case, and arrived at Meiru’s house. “I’m ready this time,” Meiru said, face set. Netto noticed that she’d been preparing, too, the messenger bag she used for school stuff slung over her shoulder. “We’re just waiting on Ellen-san, and then… we’ll go help Reg-san.”

Ellen spun in her chair idly. Was this a dumb idea? Music note was one of the rescuers, and by process of elimination, she was probably the pink one that fought Pat and Rey and not the guy that got stabbed. They could probably be trusted, if she remembered correctly from scrolling through the chat logs to try to catch up on things. It was a lot and she only got the gist of it all. She was gonna have to put up pictures and red string everywhere if she wanted to keep track of all these interactions. She groaned. She could've just waited. Reg did say that he was being wary and may contact her in the future but, she had a feeling that the dingus was trying to shoulder stuff by himself. Oh how she wanted to see the look on his face when she bursts into his room unannounced... Hopefully this wasn't gonna ruin their friendship. Heck if she was lucky she'd end up with a new friend as well! She spun once more, then hopped up, stretched and sighed. No going back. She was gonna drag her friend back kicking and screaming. She opened a portal to music note's world and poked her head in. "Hello~o? Anyone home?" She called out.

The Fossa Tracker in Meiru’s living room lit up. “Here she comes,” she murmured, carefully eyeing the empty space in front of her as the portal coalesced… Only for a girl’s head to pop out of the portal, as if it was just an ordinary doorway. Netto seemed rather disconcerted at how casually she was treating this whole thing, so Meiru greeted back, “Hello!” Since they hadn’t met in person before, she explained, “We’re your helpers for today! I’m Meiru, and this is Netto.” Netto visibly recomposed himself, then politely inclined his head as a greeting. “Your friend is Reg-san, the one from the rescue, right?” He’d certainly seemed mature enough to be a ‘-san’ at the time, but Ellen seemed to be a more normal sort of girl. Meiru opened up the user list, scrolling through to find his name.

Ellen blinked owlishly. "You're a Lan Hikari?" She pointed at Meiru's companion next to her, only her head and arm sticking through the portal. This may have been her first experience meeting a Lan, but. What had happened to this one? She didn't know who Mayl was, but given the context, she seemed important. Jackpot. If anyone could get her friend out of a funk it'd be these two. And her of course. She grinned and stepped through the portal fully. The lanky girl entered the room, her clothes seemed pretty normal for someone from the future. "Hi! I'm Ellen! Nice to meet y'all!" She chirped, waving once, "Yep! I'm Reg's friend! That nerd's shut me out, trying to shelter me from something and I'm not gonna stand for it! So~o we're gonna visit a little unannounced and shake him a bit, sound good?" She smiled and gave a big thumbs up like this wasn't a little unhinged.

“You… know me?!” Netto was a bit surprised to hear it. “You’ve met that Netto from the rescue mission,” Meiru pointed out. “She probably knows you from hearing about that.” “So her first impression of me was…” Netto wasn’t like that other Netto at all; at least, not at first glance. He squeezed his eyes shut. “I’m, uh. Not that kind of Netto.” A bit more of the drifting-through-life kind of Netto, in his own estimation. Upon receiving Ellen’s explanation of it all, Netto and Meiru exchanged glances. Perhaps they’d been a bit too prepared. “Sounds great!” Meiru said cheerfully, giving a thumbs up back. “Sometimes, you just have to ask your friends to quit keeping secrets and open up, y’know?” Netto glanced away, slightly embarrassed by the knowledge that Meiru was almost certainly talking about him. (Though maybe she was talking about Enzan.)

"Well..." Ellen pointed a finger to her chin thoughtfully, "My first impression of you is one from the history books." She froze, smile stuck on her face, then with a burst of movement, gesticulated as she explained, "Wait you guys do know I'm from the future yeah?? Like uh-!" She gathered herself, standing straight and speaking cautiously, "...Four hundred years in the future...?" Her smile showed cracks of a grimace slipping through.

Meiru had known about all those people from future worlds before, but she’d never considered that being a problem. “They’re all different worlds, remember?” Meiru reminded Netto. “That doesn’t mean—“ “Yeah, I know,” Netto said. For a moment, he looked so, so tired. “Well, your future isn’t my future. This world won’t make it four hundred years, Ellen-san. Not with what’s been done to it." “That’s not your fault. I'll say it 'till I'm blue in the face,” Meiru told him adamantly. “And you don’t know that, Netto-kun,” Rockman added. This felt like it was a subject they’d discussed a lot over the past few months; or, at least, a lot more than anyone in the room was comfortable with. “There’s always hope.” “Well, this isn’t about me to begin with. I apologize—“ It was only then that Netto realized how silly it probably looked for him to be using this more formal tone around somebody like Ellen. “I—I mean, I’m sorry. We need to go find Reg-san.” “Right! I know how to do a return trip, but this is my first time going to someone...” And with that, Meiru was back to fiddling with the chatroom app, though she was stealing glances at the other humans in the room just to make sure they were okay.

"Won't make it?" Ellen eyed him curiously. If she remembered her history correctly, the reason the future was as friendly as it was, was because of Brother Band. And its eventual inventor was standing right in front of her. "Hmm, you know you can always. I don't know. Do something about that? Make a brighter future?" As she continued to talk, her voice got faster, quieter, and higher pitched, "I dunno, build a cool machine that allows people to connect across the world forging bonds of friendship that improve society as a whole over the hundreds of years of operation...?" "But that's not why I'm here," She laughed, resuming her normal tone, "We got a nerd to shake." She watched as the other girl looked through her old fashion mobile. That other voice must've been a Navi, and if that was Lan's... She better be on her best behavior in front of the big hero.

Netto’s smile was sad as he listened to Ellen’s ramble. He wished it were so simple. Even his Papa couldn’t get away with waving a machine and rendering an entire swath of businesses moot, and his Papa was capable of damn near anything inside his lab. “So if that were t’actually happen, that mean the ol’ Queen Bee doesn’t exist?” Punk wondered sotto voce, voicing the question that had floated to the top of Netto’s brain. “Or maybe y’axe her.” “Now, now. Threatening public officials is a felony,” Netto reminded Punk softly. The idea of all of history hinging on one patronizing woman’s untimely demise had returned some mirth to his eyes, though. “There we go!” In the meantime, Meiru had finally figured out how to open the portal into Reg’s room. “I swear, every time I do this it’s in a new place…” The portal crackled to life in front of them, flickering greens and blues spreading into a circular opening.

Ellen had no idea what anyone was talking about, but that wasn't new. She turned her attention to the portal, trying to peer through it and see what was beyond its constantly warping texture. She huffed and put her hands on her hips. "Well, no point in dawdling!" She shrugged, then in a burst of speed, rushed forward and jumped headlong through the portal.

Judging from the angle she’d entered the portal at and how they were supposedly going to find a normal bedroom behind it, Netto was fairly certain Ellen was going to land on her face. Maybe she’d skid along on her front, if she was lucky. “It’s okay to be a little excited about traveling through an interdimensional portal, y’know,” Meiru pointed out. “Even if you’ve already done it before and all. These ones have smoother travel.” Netto regarded it a little warily, even so. It was less for the sensation of it, and more for knowing what had come after. All that radiation for Five to measure and title the ‘Beyondard particle’. Traveling through this portal would undoubtedly change his body yet again… …but, well, Darkland had no Citadel to measure the new Beyondard particles in anymore. Five was probably buried underneath the rubble. And nowhere else was so desperate that they needed to get so esoteric. “It’s not that deep. Hurry up,” Meiru said. (He assumed she didn’t know.) (Of course she’d read through enough of the leaked documents to put it together.) He took a breath of normal-world air and stepped through into the alternate future. (edited)

The scene before Mayl and Lan was one of childish chaos. Ellen pointing at a stunned boy in blue and green, high up in a loft bed, brandishing a pillow over his head ready to launch it on his intruders. "You've just been in bed?!" Ellen laughed incredulously. "Yes I've been in bed!" The person they could assume to be Reg hissed back, "I'll repeat myself. What are you doing here?" "Checking on ya," She grinned back. "Well, I'm fine, thanks for worrying, now go back home!" He sighed, lowering his pillow. "Not until you explain why you haven't responded to any of my messages," "It's... complicated, but the gist is that you shouldn't be here. Like, my room is safe but, ugh, just go hom-" He stopped, finally noticing the two other people in his room. He froze like a deer in headlights, mumbling out of the corner of his mouth, "Ellen, why did you bring more people?" Ellen gave a cat like grin, but figured the guests could introduce themselves.

“Er… she was really worried about you,” Meiru replied. “She didn’t know where you were, or what you were up to, or anything. So…” She looked around at the perfectly normal and recognizable bedroom. “…she asked for help?” It really had been a far smoother trip than passing through the long Fossa Ambience tunnels, and Netto hadn’t actually been expecting to find a bedroom at the end of it. He inched a bit closer to Meiru, unnerved. “I’m Meiru, and this is Netto,” Meiru introduced them for the second time that day. “We’re Net Saviors—uh, official helpers from the past.” After another moment, she remembered to add, “And he’s not that Netto, we’re from a different past than yours.” “I’m a security expert,” Netto added, as if that would perfectly explain why he couldn’t brother a band.

Reg dropped his pillow. "Ellen you brought a Lan Hikari to the future??" He hissed loudly at her. "It'll be fine," She waved dismissively, "They just gotta not go digging anywhere! Oh right uh." She turned to the official past helpers, "You probably shouldn't try connecting to this world's net. You probably can't to begin with, but still." Reg facepalmed, "You didn't explain any of this before to them?" Ellen shrugged, Reg sighed and climbed down the ladder. He gave a tense smile, waved shortly at them, and introduced himself, "Hi Mayl, Lan, I'm Reg. Nice to meet you. Wish this was a better time." "So buddy," Ellen slid over to her friend, "What's up. What's going on." She prodded him. Reg glared at her, but deflated quickly, "I do appreciate you guys coming here, but this isn't really something a bunch of friends can fix. It'd be better if you guys went back home and I just... Didn't interact with anyone from the chatroom again." He scratched the back of his neck and avoided eye contact. Ellen leaned back and folded her arms to her chest. Reg's room seemed pretty normal, overall. Mostly a blue color scheme with slimmer, architecturally interesting furniture. Some whale and fish themed decorations were displayed around the room, but one notable thing would likely catch the visitor's eyes. Something vaguely rectangular and handheld sized, covered in tin foil, laying on a desk by itself.

“Nice to meet you, too!” returned Meiru. “Seriously, though, don’t worry about it! Unless you guys have heard of stuff like Dimensional Areas, I really doubt your past and our present are the same.” Goodness knew she’d spent a lot of time wondering about the future, after all she’d learned about the present; but at least she could spread a little happiness around her city and those close to her, and on most days that was enough. And, now, around the chatroom. “This isn’t about the rescue, is it?” she wondered aloud. “I felt really bad about it, too, but we’ve all decided nobody was really to blame.” Netto, on the other hand, was looking at the shielded PET-like device pensively. “Good instinct, Meiru, Ellen-san.” Meiru turned, surprised. “Huh?” Netto smiled at Reg. There was something a little dangerous about it; that would tell anyone that Netto was not about to be swayed by any protests Reg made. “We’ll be staying right here, thanks. I’m a big fan of preventing these things before they happen, and isolating yourself is just asking for the worst. Don't ask me how I know that.” And then Meiru noticed the tinfoil-wrapped device, too. “What is…?” “He’s blocking communications, presumably including the chatroom. Someone’s threatened him, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s the same someone you guys went after last time.” Looking around, Netto added, “Not to mention that it isn’t working, since we were still able to portal over.” (edited)

Reg stared at the Lan in front of him, concerned and not as surprised as Lan probably expected. The scars around Lan's left eye caught Reg's attention for a bit, until Ellen sidled over and prodded him again. "Silver's right," She whispered out the side of her mouth. Reg startled, then screwed his face up for a moment before releasing a huge sigh. In lieu of an accommodating number of chairs in his room, he leaned back onto his loft ladder, offering his desk chair for anyone to sit instead. "It's not that," He scratched the back of his head, "It's... complicated. It does sort of involve what happened at the rescue, yeah, but, it's just that I didn't realize the consequences to it would have been so much." Ellen gratefully took the chair and plopped down on it with the back facing the group, legs straddled either side and her arms resting on the back. "The short of it is..." Reg explained, his voice distant as he did, "I'm being monitored by the Netopian government." Ellen's eyes got big and her mouth hung to the side of her face. She glanced between Reg and the other two. "I should explain," He sighed, tilting his head to the side before righting and continued, "The injury I got at the rescue was serious, something I couldn't just hide. I had to go to our hospitals for it to be treated without invasive surgery. Because of that, my mom found out. And when it came to explaining to her why I was injured... I couldn't lie to her. I had to tell her everything." "You don't mean..." Ellen mumbled, "Everything everything...?" Reg nodded, "My mom wanted to keep it secret, but, officials at NAXA caught wind of my injury and wanted to know more too and-" He crossed his arms across his chest and clenched his fists, "I couldn't lie to them either. When it came down to it I just couldn't lie. So now they know, and they're monitoring me and my mobile communications. Not too closely, but close enough that I think I should just avoid the chatroom all together. Them learning about me was enough, if they caught wind of an interdimensional chatroom I don't know what they'd do..." He shook a little at the end of his explanation, while Ellen continued to stare dumbfounded at all of this.

Netto was rather surprised, considering the mess starting to accumulate in the corner of his bedroom, to learn that his deduction was wrong. He tilted his head to one side as Reg explained his inability to lie, then the other. He winked his brown eye shut, and the shadow at Reg’s side remained; then his blue eye, and the shadow vanished. …Well, if Reg couldn’t keep a secret, that probably meant that Reg didn’t know he had a shadow. Better not to mention it. “…Ah,” Meiru managed. It felt a bit haunted in this room, but she had no way to see what Netto could, and easily dismissed it as imagining things. Netto was also behind her, the only reason why she didn’t tell him to knock it off. “I guess then the question is, would you like to return to the chatroom? I can think of ways around it, but we’ve learned some more about it since you’ve been there, and it’s kind of…” She shrugged. “It might be that we just need to pass you a burner PET, and it’ll find you again. It’s sort of got a mind of its own.”

"A burner?" Reg hummed, considering, "Possibly... Wait the chatroom? It's got a mind of its own? I always figured it was odd how it could connect wildly different worlds and times, but, it has sentience? If that's the case then I definitely need a burner. We cannot let researchers of this time take a look at that. They'd rip it apart just for a chance to understand it." Reg sighed, "Sorry for bothering you guys with all this. I can't exactly get another mobile, they're keeping track of my transactions." "If you just need any 'ol burner, I could get you one?" Ellen proposed. "That might work, but they're also keeping track of who enters and exits my apartment," Ellen screwed up her face in thought, then popped up, pointing excitedly, "I got a dumb idea! What if we pulled this portal trick again? I go to Mayl's world, then back to mine, take a bus to the mall, then you guys pop back home, then open a portal to me but this time it'll be opened at the mall, and we could all go shopping!" "Ellen that can't work. It's too convoluted," Reg countered firmly, "Plus I don't think it's that great of an idea to give past people that much access to future tech." "Ugh, I meant more like crepes or whatever, not time breaking super computers," Ellen grumbled, then turned her attention to Mayl, "What about you two, sound like an idea worth trying?"

“Aw, but it sounds like fun!” giggled Meiru. “First off, we’re a past and not your past. Secondly, I already know this world operates on EM technology, from the chatroom and, uh, other places,” Netto explained. That fucking shadow was still hanging out by Reg’s shoulder. It definitely reminded him of that blue thing in Five's lab. Unnerving. “I guess you could shop in Densan City and change out the insides later, if you’re that concerned. The chatroom isn’t connected to the Internet here, so it probably doesn’t matter if it won’t connect to your network…” theorized Meiru. “That’d be like shopping at one of those Tokugawa reenactment towns,” Netto pointed out, skeptical. “They can’t really be that into ancient history, can they?”

"Huh, yeah," Reg contemplated quietly, "Something that can't connect to this world's net would-" "Wait a minute!!" Ellen exclaimed, "That's right! I could just buy old chips and stuff from the past!! All that stuff is so rare now and defunct! Oh my god I could even buy an old style Navi!!" "But you wouldn't right?" An electronic voice chastised from Ellen's wrist, "Cause it'd be cruel right?" Ellen pulled up her sleeve and flipped up a device on her arm, responding in a dejected sing song tone, "No~o of course not. It was just a possibility. And I could never replace you." Whoever was in the device huffed. "It's actually not a bad idea," Reg continued, unbothered, "An unassuming piece of old tech, still able to connect to the chatroom because of a mysterious reason. Though, uh, how would I be able to pay you for it?"

“I thought we couldn’t connect outright to EM networks,” Rockman wondered to himself upon hearing the voice from Ellen’s device. “Is that a Wizard, then…?” Upon hearing Reg’s question, Meiru immediately and cheerfully said, “He’s made of money.” “I’m made of money,” Netto agreed with a straight face. He still had all that zenny he’d made over his time in Nova stored in his PET. Even though his parents knew about the chatroom and would’ve undoubtedly bought Reg the PET and Ellen the Battle Chips themselves, he didn’t even have to ask. “Besides, these reenactments always have souvenirs in the gift shop, I think. It’s your one reward for having to walk the entire tour for your fall field trip.” (Plus, if they left the saturation-style EM network in favor of the more traditional Internet of his own time, it would be interesting to see how the shadow adapted. If the shadow had to adapt.) “I am sure they’ll have a perfectly nice time. Look how excited they are,” Meiru retorted. “Do we have to demonstrate cooking and sewing, too?" Netto continued on. "'Welcome to Ye Olde Densan City—'" Meiru rolled her eyes. "Let's just go."

Despite this being the third Lan Reg had met, this one was radically different from the one mentioned in historical archives as well. It's like the only thing they all had in common was hair color. In particular, this one was especially- "Wow, you're a sassy one ain't ya?" Ellen snarked, snorting a little. Yes, that. But he wasn't going to say it aloud. "Believe it or not," Reg said loudly, to drown out any sass backs, "It's not actually either of our first time to the past. Er, a past. Me and my friend Eni had to go there to rescue Ellen here after she got trapped there." Ellen waved when her name was mentioned, "Yeah I met Mel then! You know, uh, cigarette girl." "Oh! Before we go," He sprang up from his loft ladder and dug through a drawer of clothes, "Lemme put on something more time appropriate." He pulled out a cyan and blue hoodie, with small rainbow circles on the hood. "You still have that?" Ellen asked, pointing at it. "Yes?!" Reg replied, flabbergasted, then mumbled as he slipped it on over his head, "Of course I do, you guys wouldn't let me throw it away!" "Gonna keep it for Halloween?" She grinned. "No," He barked back, straightening the hoodie out, "There, that outa do. Now hopefully no one will question my clothes, my eye, or anything else about me." "Kinda doubt it but," Ellen got up from her seat, "I'm ready to go whenever you guys are!"

“See? They’re even more prepared than they have to be,” Meiru pointed out. “I didn’t know you knew Mel that well! I… kinda wish I did.” It sounded like Mel had felt the same way Meiru had immediately after the rescue. Only Meiru had been reassured that it was not all on her, and Mel had never been convinced otherwise. The camaraderie between the rescue team members seemed to be starting to fall apart, as of late… “Nobody ever asks me about my eye, and my face’s way more messed up than yours,” Netto pointed out flatly. “You’ll look weirder with the hood pulled up at the end of summer.” “Your face isn’t that messed up,” Meiru told him. From how gently she said it, it was probably obvious that this was a well-known sore spot. “People just find those prosthetic lenses unnerving, and that’s probably why they were acting funny.” “How come you never did?” wondered Netto. “Because it’s rude, even if you were being a jerk,” Meiru answered immediately. “Anyway, let’s get this show on the road.” While Meiru was pulling up the return portal to her living room in Densan City, 20XX, Netto said to Reg, “If it’s too warm, you can always say you went to the air and space museum, and that’s why you’re wearing that.”

"Summer..." Reg wondered ominously. "That's the hot one buddy," Ellen whispered not to quietly. "I know that!" Reg balked, taking off the hoodie he just put on. Within the fluff of the hoodie Reg reflected on what this Lan said. So that eye was prosthetic. And on the left side. And blue. They had that peculiar thing in common. He tossed the clothing aside, figuring Lan had a good idea, though he would rather not be noticed to begin with. "So you were part of the rescue team!" Ellen commented, "Sorry it turned out sour, but from what it sounded like, you kicked butt!" She stepped through first, with Reg taking a deep breath and following behind her, unable to stop a quick glance at Lan's blue eye as he passed.

Reg sounded like he was as unfamiliar with the seasons as… well, as Netto had been after three years underground. And he had a shadow. Though maybe he was about to not have a shadow, since Meiru had managed to navigate through enough menus to produce a portal. (It was definitely never in the exact same place twice. Maybe that was a side effect of the UI being made of goo.) “All right, let’s go!” Meiru said brightly. Through the portal was an exceptionally tidy living room. It seemed like an exhibit in a reenactment house, a bit too sterile for someone to be regularly using it—save for the sofa, which had been conquered by various pillows and stuffed animals.

Reg looked around the living room, and for a brief moment, the shadow that Lan has been seeing circles around Reg, with his eyes definitely following it as it passed by him. If Lan concentrated, he could hear a sound come from it as well, almost like speech, but hard to make out. "If you're loaded..." Ellen steepled her fingers, raising a brow at Lan, "Then perhaps... We should also enjoy some snacks?" Reg sighed quietly, "Only if it doesn't take too long. I'd be worried if my mom checked on me and I wasn't there." "Mayl?" Ellen ignored him, turning to the other girl, tapping her steepled fingers together rhythmically, "Snacks? Yes?" Reg's grumpy expression softened as he reconsidered, "Actually, sweet crepes have always been something I've wanted to try..." Ellen giggled devilishly.

“Snacks, yes!” Meiru happily agreed. “Netto can definitely afford those, too!” “This sounds familiar, somehow,” sighed Netto. “Though, honestly, I did set myself up for it.” “I love sweet crepes,” Meiru told Reg. “You’ve never tried them before?” …The shadow was still there. And Reg knew it was there. But he couldn’t lie about the chatroom? “Selectively capable, I see,” Netto murmured to himself. “I did foot the bill for the sleepover snacks, y’know,” Meiru pointed out. She was already leading the way out the door; nothing of interest here, as far as she was concerned. “True,” sighed Netto. “Are we snacking first or buying your brand-new ancient hardware first?”

"Not really," Reg shrugged, following Mayl out the door, "I've had savory crepes. Ones stuffed with cheese and mushrooms. It was pretty good!" "And," He turned to Lan, "It'd be a good idea to get the... mobile-" "PET," Ellen corrected. "Right," He nodded, "That. Before snacks. And then I can figure it out, see if I can get onto the chatroom while we're all snacking." Ellen nodded approvingly, then held up a finger, "Oh wait, I gotta question. Does every PET need a Navi? Or can he make do without one? Figured they are only used for getting on the net, so no right?" Reg grimaced at the idea of having a Navi. It'd. Complicate things.

“Oh, if you’re used to using system commands you don’t really need to have a Navi,” Netto casually dismissed. “I didn’t want another Navi, until I met Punk.” “You didn’t?” wondered Rockman, awestruck. “Of course not.” Smiling at his first Navi, Netto explained, “You left some big shoes to fill.” “Most people find it really difficult to find their way around a PET without even a default Navi,” Meiru clarified. “It’s really meant for us Navis to do, instead of the Operator, since the PET has so many functions,” Roll chimed in. "It'd get unwieldy to use menus, and there are too many commands for most humans to remember, so that's why we're here!" Meiru tilted her head to the side. “Though since you don’t seem to have a Navi anyway, maybe you’ll be fine…” It was a typical late-summer day—definitely too warm for a hoodie, but overcast. Netto seemed completely unfazed by wearing his own hoodie in the middle of it all, while Meiru tied her jacket around her waist. They were heading in the direction of the neighborhood chip shop—Higureya.

"I'm sure I could figure it out?" Reg wondered, "All we need it for is to access the chatroom. Can't be that hard?" As he heard the voices come through Lan's PET, Reg remembered his history finally. While he hadn't had heard of Punk, he certainly knew of Lan's other Navi. He gulped. Ellen caught sight of advertisements outside of Higsby's and slowed significantly. She didn't need them, she had no use for them, there would be nothing to use it on as well, but... The little shadow buzzed near her and she sprang back to attention, running back to the group. "Yeah, a lot of people of our time don't have Navis or Wizards," Reg chatted, "So bringing back one from th- a past would cause issues."

“Ah! So your Navi must be, like, a super-rarity,” Meiru said. "It'd be a little lonely, wouldn't it," Roll mused, more to herself. “Well, if all you’re doing is using the chatroom, it shouldn’t be too hard to remember. You might even be able to just leave it logged in.” Admittedly, Netto relaxed a lot more once they were past Higureya and to the subway station. It was fairly ordinary, save for the lantern sculpture and memorial mounted to the wall near the entrance. He somehow doubted they'd gotten his name taken off it yet. While they waited for the train, Netto contemplated the thing that had been following them the entire way. Obviously, leaving its home network had done nothing to stop the shadow; equally obviously, Ellen also knew it was tailing her. A mascot-type shadow, then, sort of like Rush. Still weird as hell that it could float around like that when Navis and PETs were such a novelty, not to mention probably only questionably legal. He was the only one who could see it, so it probably didn’t matter… (edited)

"One of a kind!" Ellen chuckled, "Take a look!" She rolled up her sleeve and flipped her Game-Xross open, presenting the Navi within to Mayl, "This is my favorite little friend, Cometman!" The Navi faltered. It looked like he was ready to pleasantly greet Mayl, but upon hearing Ellen's introduction, everything fell apart. "Ellen could you please introduce me normally?" Cometman grumbled. "I don't get to at all back home..." Ellen pleaded. Reg chuckled and looked over at Lan, "And I don't have a Navi, or a Wizard. In case you were wondering."

“Streamlined for speed, but still with a decent amount of defensiveness,” mused Meiru upon seeing Cometman’s frame for herself. “Nice to meet you, Cometman! You look like a fierce fighter!” she said next, all smiles. “And this is my cute little pal, Roll!” Roll, naturally, was totally unembarrassed to be introduced this way, appearing on Meiru’s shoulder with a smile and a wave. “Hello, Ellen-san, Cometman!” Netto looked directly at the blob over Reg’s shoulder as he said, “What about a secret third option?”

"Yeah!! You got a good eye Mayl!" Ellen beamed, "The trick with him is I use his mass itself as a weapon, dashing him right at enemies! His defense is a great offense!" "It's nice to meet you Roll," Cometman squeaked out, doing his best to be presentable despite his embarrassment, "You look capable yourself as well." "Secret third option," Reg repeated hollowly. He looked like he had just seen and heard a ghost. "Do you happen t-" He started, and then the shadow zoomed up to Lan's face, buzzing something that at this close of range could probably be parsed as a questioning greeting.

Roll, who to most onlookers only had the natural capability of ‘looking cute,’ blushed and giggled, “Wow, thank you! You sure are sweet!” And then Netto stumbled exaggeratedly backward from an invisible force, as if Reg had just applied some Netto-repelling spray. Exasperated, Meiru said to Ellen and Cometman, “You know, I’m glad he’s feeling better enough for gags like this, but we’ve only just met.” Taking the social situation firmly back under rein, she marched over. “Geez! Knock it off!” Netto, incapable of defending himself (But, but, their shadow just buzzed at me!) but equally unwilling to admit wrongdoing, opted to stare up at her in silence. “And don’t give me those googly eyes, either!”

Reg and Ellen stared at Lan's reaction, then at each other. "Should you...?" Ellen asked cautiously. "Yeah, might as well tell him," Reg sighed. "Neato," Ellen replied, taking off the visualizer on her head and handing it to Mayl, "Put these on, trust me." Reg faced Lan and straightened out, "Yeah there is a 'secret third option' and that's Silver." He pointed to what Lan saw as a shadow, "We think they're a Wizard, but maybe just 'sentient program' is the best descriptor for them. They're a friend." Silver zoomed up to Lan and circled around him, Hello!! You should respond with something or else I'm just going to keep saying hello to you! "Can you hear them?" Reg asked him.

Meiru flipped the glasses up and down a few times. Little fairy, empty air. Little fairy, empty air. Her expression was unreadable. “That’s so…” Netto was relieved both that he was not imagining things and that Meiru was no longer the only person out of the loop. “It’s an EM—“ “…incredibly cute!” Meiru cheered, over the moon. “It’s just like out of Pretty Force!” “All I see is a cloudy shadow,” Netto pointed out flatly. “It’s not a frequency we use very often anymore, so I can’t perceive it that well. I can hear a sort of buzzing, from my hearing implants, but that’s about it.” “Aw, you can’t see them?” Meiru asked Netto, disappointed. “Well, they’re like a Pretty Force fairy. They’re the size of a stuffed animal, silver and white, and they’ve got these little horns, like a crescent shape.” Netto seemed to visibly sag. “You’ve gotta be one of those Berserker guys," he said to Silver's indistinct blob. “Berserker?” Meiru asked. “It’s something Five was studying. An ancient warrior caste, who used EM waves. And, uh, lots of silver and horns.” Sullenly, Netto turned back to Silver. “You are so, so lucky he's dead.” “Hmm…” Meiru decided, “I think they’re too cute to be a Berserker.”

Ellen burst out laughing, quickly stiffling herself as some of the public turned their attention towards her. "I guess that makes you a genuine magical girl, Reg!" She managed to squeak out. "It's not magic, it's science!" Silver squeaked back, "Although I don't really know how the science works so don't ask me." "Wait, Berserker?" Reg stepped forward, lightly batting at Silver to move over, which they did, slowly, "Like as in Zerker? The ancient peoples? I thought the archeology on all that EM and Mu stuff only got researched, well, centuries from now for you guys? And we're lucky 'he's dead'? What happened to you Lan?" Reg balked at his own question, fumbling in place, "Sorry! I think that's a loaded question, I realize! You dont... have to answer that!"

Netto and Meiru exchanged glances. Neither of them was sure how much of it Reg needed to know, or even ought to know. When Netto had been about as old as Reg seemed to be, he’d been dismantling other countries’ and businesses' entire networks; when Meiru had been that age, she and Enzan had already taken down the High Rollers’ Club and had begun to investigate the series of disappearances that had started Sigma’s conversion spree. “Greed,” Netto said after a moment. “Greed happened.” “I think he means you should explain who Five was,” Rockman clarified rather than get into the long uphill discussion of ’don’t let pessimism win’. “…Ah. Well. Five was a quack,” Netto dismissed. “He was obsessed with myths and shit. Particularly ancient civilizations with networks like ours. Atlanpia, Mu, Norway…” “But he turned out to be right,” Meiru realized. “Yeah,” Netto said, sullen. “About what he took from me, too, I bet.” In a moment, he’d regained his composure. “But R-Roll and R-Blues dropped a castle on him, and he died, and probably all that stuff got destroyed, so it’s fine.”

"...You dropped a castle on him...?" Reg repeated. Ellen and Reg exchanged glances. It was becoming apparent that pretty much everyone in the chatroom had something going on. Even the most outwardly facing normal people had a history of untold horrors and trials they had been through. And while Reg wasn't unfamiliar with horrors, it was clear to him that he was leagues behind the average chatroom member. "That's..." He paused, looking at Lan, concerned, "You've had to deal with a lot, haven't you?" "Sheesh, it's like this chatroom is like some sort of meeting place of significant people," Ellen commented, crossing her arms, "That's probably why it's up to it's neck in Lan Hikaris and Chaud Ijuuins" "And the fact that this chatroom is sentient. Somehow choosing people from across time and space that have made an impact," Reg wondered aloud. "That means you too Reg!" Silver zoomed up to him, causing him to jump and throw up his arms a little in a guard. His right cheeked blushed, "M-Maybe! But we haven't really done anything yet to warrant being recruited by some interdimensional super group?!" "...Really?" Ellen griped plainly. Reg glared at her, daring her to continue. "How much longer till this train gets here?" She turned to ask Mayl, "Gotta know how long we've got before it arrives so I know if I should tell the long or short version." Reg sighed, mumbling mostly to himself, "This was gonna come up eventually..."

A visible gloom fell over Ellen and Reg’s hosts when Reg asked his question. Immediately, Netto began trying to back out of it. “I guess, but I don’t think… I mean…” “Netto-kun tries to make it difficult to worry over him. But, yes, he’s been away from home for a very long time,” Rockman explained. He sounded not just sad, but regretful. “It’s not your fault. Stop that,” Netto chided Rockman. “Then if I can’t say I should’ve done something better, you can’t, either,” Rockman immediately shot back. “We’ve been a little too candid, haven’t we,” sighed Meiru. “I’m sorry. We were just supposed to be finding you that PET, but it feels like it’s gotten a bit more… revealing, I guess.” “You can say that again,” Netto muttered. “But, Netto-kun, they don’t have any impression of you as a kid to measure against. That’s what you’re always afraid of, isn’t it?” Rockman pointed out. “Maybe it won’t be so bad.” Netto glanced away, not knowing where—or not able—to start. When Ellen offered more information, Roll reported in, “There’s one train scheduled to arrive momentarily and one five minutes from now. It’s really up to you!” “We can both explain whatever’s comfortable, and whatever we’re curious about,” Meiru decided. “Like, where did you get Silver-chan?”

The grim mood Lan exuded brought a hushed tone over the group. "You don't have to explain anything," Reg brought up gently, "It was more of a rhetorical statement, really..." Even if they personally didn't know Lan as a child, they had history to look back on. The legendary pair of heros, Lan Hikari and Megaman, savior of humanity several times over, and inventor of the world changing Brother Band. This Lan wasn't that. Maybe not yet. The train arrived right on schedule. The two teens shuffled inside and found a place far enough from the rest of the occupants. "Actually yeah," Ellen wondered, "I don't know where you got Silver either?" "I uh," Reg faltered and avoided eye contact, "The moon. Got them there." "Yeah but how?" She pressed. Reg fumbled about, fiddling with the velcro on his arm wraps, "Look... I uh-" "His dad gave me to him!" Silver interjected. "Y-Yeah! That!" Reg pointed to Silver. "Can you repeat that?" Ellen narrowed her gaze. "My dad gave me Silver," Reg said plainly, maintaining a practiced straight face.

“Aw, really?” sighed Meiru. “You mean it wasn’t a magical moon guardian who entrusted you with their power? Darn…” She could tell it was a lie, but considering how he’d let Netto off the hook, it was only fair to return the favor. “Uh-huh,” Netto managed next to her. It never stopped feeling crazy seeing what passed for a poker face in the outside world; goodness knew he had never managed to get away with something that obvious. It was almost as bad as watching Kaita try to make something up. “…What were you doing on the moon to begin with?”

"Magical moon guardian...?" Reg looked like he had just witnessed a super murder. "Yeah, your dad!" Silver dashed to cover Reg's mouth, just in case he felt like letting something slip. Ellen looked Lan in the eyes, tired, annoyed, and then shrugged. Reg pushed Silver away gently, which they obliged. "I was born and raised on the moon," He explained flatly, like he was telling someone his birthdate or horoscope, "I only got to Earth about two weeks ago. It's a whole thing." He glanced at Mayl and Lan, half smiling, "You guys aren't the only ones with a wild history."

“Wow…” Meiru was quite impressed at Reg having been raised on the moon. Netto returned Ellen’s look, unfazed, then thoughtfully turned back to Reg. “It sounds…” A moon base. Cold, isolated, distant. “…lonely.” “Aw, you don’t know that,” Meiru chided. “Reg-san must’ve had moon friends.”

"It was... lonely," Reg retreated into himself. He forced a smile, "It's surprising how many people there are on Earth! It's kinda overwhelming." Ellen placed a hand gently on Reg shoulder, he smiled back at her. "It's rough, but things are better now!" He brightened. "And I know everyone's curious about me, but I'm normal," Ellen giggled, "But yeah! Looks like everyone's got something going on. What is up with the chatroom choosin people like this? Don't they know we're busy?"

“It really is, isn’t it?” Netto said after Reg’s observation. “A lot to take in, I mean.” “Netto’s been very lonely, too,” Meiru explained. “But Enzan, his Navis, and I are helping him now, just like Ellen-san’s helping you. So I have to think things’ll get better!” “It’s strange because of that, and also…” Netto thought back to the state of his bedroom, all the preparations he’d had to make so far. (So far.) “There are some genuinely dangerous people in the chatroom. It feels like we’re forming into two sides of…” He looked at Reg, who seemed to have the maturity to handle ’some kind of battle’; and Ellen, who… didn’t, necessarily. Or, at least, probably wouldn’t appreciate the idea. “…a disagreement.” “Well, I sure don’t like it,” Meiru sighed. “You’ve been so tense.” “And you haven’t been?” Netto pointed out. “Well, yeah, but you just got home!” Meiru protested. “You should be doing fun stuff again, not just more of what you were doing before.” “Then what have you been doing?” “I’m helping people! I like to help people, and it’s my job!” Meiru protested, flustered. She already knew how this was going to end. “So you’re just doing more of what you were doing before…” Netto nodded to himself.

"Sounds like everyone needs a break," Ellen huffed, jabbing Reg lightly. He sighed, "Yeah really. From what the tall older Lan told me, this Dr. Regal is interested in immortality. Seems to be like the kind of person to do anything to achieve that." "Honestly wouldn't be against doing some training," Ellen held her chin, smugly saying, "Could even stage a tournament to get people excited. If we can figure out how to get Cometman compatible with past tech." She chuckled to herself. "You say this like it'd be easy, Ellen," Cometman scoffed, "Organizing an entire tournament and avoiding the attention of team Regal sounds like a bad idea, quite frankly." Ellen pouted and crossed her arms. "It would be good to prepare but," Reg hummed, "They're just three people? Although, it would be good to get on top of these kidnappings..." He grumbled and scratched his ne- back of his head, his usual spot was still... sore.

“I mean, the Regal in my world just had one person he trusted, and it still took everything we had to defeat him,” Netto pointed out. “It’d be bad enough if we were facing a Regal like him with—” It wasn’t the dark duplicate of the girl who worried him (though knowing the rules were different between worlds was both a warning he was glad to have and something he could turn to his advantage); it was that warped version of Hikari Yuuichirou. “—more backup, but this one seems even more capable, somehow.” “We could always use DMs,” Rockman suggested to encourage Ellen. “We just probably can’t use the chatroom to talk about it.” That terrible, diminished version of his Papa seemed to enjoy backreading. “…Yeah, I guess so,” Netto sighed. “Something like Cometman, though… it’s a little outside of what I can do. It’d be like reverse engineering a whole language, not even getting started on how complex Navis are. But I bet my Papa would be able to. He could probably get Silver to display in our PETs right, too, and then you can have your glasses back.” Meiru still needed the Visualizer to see Silver, and Netto had to lean slightly sideways to pick up its speakers in order to hear what they were saying. (His aural implants were just not that sophisticated.) “Netto needed resources from the Ministry of Science to build those Fossa Trackers,” Meiru explained, “so Hikari-hakase and Hikari-san pieced it together a while ago.” “Papa can be a bit silly sometimes, but he's incredibly kind,” Rockman said, the wrong one in the chatroom still fresh in his thoughts. “You’ll be in safe hands in our world, with him.”

"Eesh it's not like I'm gonna need Cometman to be able to connect to this net that fast," Ellen dismissed with a hand wave. "Wait you could get me to connect to the net?!" Silver dashed up to Lan. "Plus I'm not lending my visualizer to you for that long, I need them to hear the little guy here!" She continued, waving her hand in a general air space where Silver had just left. Reg chuffed, "We don't need to make this trip longer than it needs to be. Just a trip to buy a PET-" "And snacks," She added. "And snacks. And that's it. I really don't want my mom to pop into my room to check on me and find me not there at all," He gave a tense smile. "Now, I'm against breaking space time to give the past super future tech," Ellen mused, "But I like your style Mr. Lan Hikari! We could probably get you some cool technology from our time. Anything that could get us an edge over that wily bastard Dr. Regal. How 'bout it?"

“Sounds like a deal,” Netto agreed. “Every surprise we can get on Regal and his group is one I’m happy to have.” After all, hacking was all about surprises—exploiting things the target had not thought possible to. Against opponents as powerful as theirs seemed to be, those surprises were going to be few and far between. To Silver, he said, “Yeah, I’d think so. You seem to be a little like a Support Program, and their special powers seem kind of…” Realizing what the conclusion to that was, he looked down to Rockman, who was in turn looking up at Netto. “…Communicable…” finished Rockman. He put his thumb and forefinger to his mouth and whistled loudly. Moments later, a spherical, birdlike program with a helmet that resembled Rockman’s own appeared in the PET next to him. “Hi, Beat!” “Pipipi!” Beat greeted his master. “Papa made Tango and his abilities on his own, but Beat’s ability to substantiate was passed to him by contact with Rush,” Netto explained. “It might be that you two can work out some kind of knowledge share yourselves.”

Ellen chuckled evilly, "Yes... Now to think of future tech to give to the past..." "You mean you don't even have any in mind?" Reg quipped. "What if we sent him the entire plans for Brother Band?" She tried to hold back a powerful smile. Reg stared at her for a good long while, letting the disapproval on his face sink in, "No." "Oh! Can I just interact with your bird Navi guy like this?" Silver hovered around Lan's PET, then batted at it with their little arm madly. The PET's speaker made a buzzing sound every time the little guy's arm made contact. "It's probably not gonna be that simple, buddy," Reg soothed, as he watched Silver give up in frustration, pouting. He chuckled, turning his attention back to Lan, "I appreciate the offer, but I think Silver's programming is a little too weird and different."

Netto looked around—as usual, the rest of the train car was studiously minding their own business—before smiling in amusement himself. "I was thinking a little more like this." He held his PET arm close to the ground, so as not to attract any more attention than necessary, then said, "Beat, come on out." It was a little like watching a cartoon. Beat shoved half of his body through the PET screen, but it was obviously too small for his claws to fit through—he was exaggeratedly pinched by it, like he was made of blue slime. He wiggled around, seemingly stuck in place, muttering his nasally little "pi" sound under his breath. Then, with a pop like a sealed opening coming loose, Beat burst loose, rolling along the floor before he came to a stop, running into Reg's shins with the exact force and feeling of a soccer ball. He laid there, seemingly dazed, but then wiggled himself back onto his feet. "Pi pi," he told Reg, sounding mildly inconvenienced by the ordeal. Netto, of course, wasn't surprised by any of this little show at all. As he'd hoped, Beat hopped over to Silver's indistinct shadow, claws clicking on the floor, and extended a wing. "Pipi~!" (The screen was just a display, not a little portal into the cyberworld. Computers—and PETs—did not work the way Beat had just treated them. But Beat's substantiation was not particularly bound by the laws of reality.)

Silver eyed the wing, tilting their head back and forth inspecting the thing. They reached out and grabbed on, shaking the wing up and down. Reg startled, amazed, "Wha- Silver can actually grab that?" "Oh my god Silver! They just appeared out of the air?!" Ellen gasped. The two teens paused, stared at each other, then warily looked at the other passengers on the train. No one paid them any mind, save for some passing glances. "I can't believe that worked!" Ellen knelt down, poking Silver's body, her finger passing through, "Well, mostly." "Hi Ellen!" Silver chirped, zooming around to her and then Lan, "Thanks Mr. Lan! Oh and Beat!" "Are you gonna be able to hide yourself in public, bud?" Reg worried. Silver shrugged. "We can just hide them the ol fashion way," Ellen suggested, unzipping her jacket and flaring it out wide. "You're gonna have to keep in mind that you're visible now, and hearable. You might have to keep your snarky commentary to yourself now," Reg advised with a chuckle. Silver booed this, crossing their tiny arms and pouting.

“Pi pipi,” smiled Beat as he returned Silver’s handshake. He occupied himself hopping about on the ground to roughly follow Silver’s zoomies. “Oh!” yelped Roll at Meiru’s wrist before appearing in hologram form. “Meiru-chan, is this the Pretty Force fairy?” Meiru flipped the glasses up. Still Silver. “All right!” Now that she could see the moon fairy all the time, she readily surrendered the Visualizer back to Ellen. “You could always pretend to be a stuffed animal!” Roll suggested, smiling. “It tends to work with things that look as cute as you do.” “If you’re still not solid, I bet you just learned the right frequency to appear to us now,” Netto theorized, “which means you can always go back to your future frequency if you’re tired of being audible.” “You’re trying to assign sense to Beat,” Rockman pointed out. “It might be something completely unknowable.” “Pi pi,” Beat agreed sagely. Rockman’s eyes narrowed slightly. “…So you don’t know what you did, either…” With impeccable timing, the train came to a halt—they were in Downtown Densan, the shopping district and cultural center.

Ellen happily took back her visualizer, propping it up on her head. Silver giggled, "I am cute! Praise me more!" Which got a chuckle out of Reg. "Hmm, I don't know if I know how to adjust my frequency," They hummed at Lan's suggestion. "Well you're definitely not on your usual one," Ellen pointed to her visualizer, "These aren't picking you up anymore." "Is that so? Huh, I wonder if I do this..." Silver blipped out of sight, to Ellen's surprise, and then back, "Oh! I think I figured it out! Neato!" The three exited the train to the shopping district, with Silver pretending to be an inanimate plush on Reg's head, an act that was well practiced for the little guy. Ellen immediately began racing towards the shops, gravitating to the closest tech and eyeing it up and down, "Everything's so bulky!" Reg caught up to her, huffing, "Probably sturdy too. I'd imagine that much plastic would be hard to crack."

Roll was happy to oblige Silver. “You really do look like Reg-san and Ellen-san’s little mascot!” As they left the train, Beat hopped into Netto’s hood and wriggled into position so his goggles were free to people-watch. Like this, he also looked like some kind of stuffed animal. “You think so…?” wondered Netto when Ellen and Reg noticed what was modern for the era. “It feels like things out here are so much thinner than what you’d find in other parts of the world.” “But even the Mode PETs are super durable, and they aren’t even marketed toward Netbattlers,” Meiru pointed out, indicating the square watch-like device on her wrist. She mused, “Enzan was obsessed with quality control while he was at IPC, and I got the impression his father was the same way… I wonder if it’s still around, if everything’s gotten that much thinner?” “I wonder if we should set Reg up with a Mode PET or a Link PET?” Netto thought aloud. “The Link’s older, but it’s easier to use the manual controls on it…”

"There's a lot of stuff in the future, man," Ellen tilted her head back and forth, "Some of it is slim and some of it is bulky. Most of it is trying to look smooth and fit the most in the least space. "Oh a~and IPC is still around! In fa~act there's someone in the chatroom who's part of the future IPC, maybe you've met him already?" She wore a cheshire grin while Reg shot weak daggers at her. "That's for him to bring up," He warned. She sheepishly stuck out her tongue and backed off. "As for a PET model," Reg pivoted, "I'd much rather have something easier to work with. Plus something that goes on the wrist doesn't really work for me." He brought his arm up, showing his arm wrap fit firmly around the area a watch would be. "Man why do you even have those anyways?" Ellen asked, tracing her finger in the air around them. "I've always had them? I'd feel weird without them," He withdrew his arms, fiddling with the velcro of his wraps.

“Link it is, then!” Meiru cheerfully set off toward the largest store. “They still make faceplates for it and everything, so that’ll be fun!” “It’s got a touch pen in it that you’ll be using for most of the navigation,” Netto explained, having relatively little personal experience in the realm of cosmetic customization. Even the Mode PET peeking out from under his sleeve was gray with a black wristband, as plain as they came. “That’s… kinda amazing that IPC’s still around that far in the future, though,” Meiru said, though she seemed neutral about the prospect. “I bet Enzan’s father lives forever, then…” “Can’t have IPC without the titular Ijuuin,” Netto agreed. “But, hey, at least that means the quality’s still nice!” “Blech,” said Meiru, ending the conversation. There were walls upon walls of accessories toward the front of the store she’d chosen—both the cloth wristbands for the Mode PET and the faceplates for the Link PET, in an overwhelming amount of colors and patterns. The PETs themselves were at the back of the store, past all the other electronics. They came in several colors, as well.

Reg immediately gravitated towards the blue Link PET faceplates. His eyes wondered around until they landed on one with a two toned blue sawtooth pattern. He picked it out and went to the back, asking the shopkeeper for a Link PET and to purchase the faceplate he had chosen. He nervously declined a transferring service for Navis. The cashier rung him up and Reg glanced to Lan sheepishly. Ellen was enthralled by the Mode PETs featured, fascinated by the alternative past's different technology. She poked around the display model and greeted the shopkeeper Navi inside. She was unimpressed by the device's specs, but nodded along politely to the Navi's spiel anyways. "Wow 32 Gigs of Ram, wow," She repeated, much more interested in being friendly than downgrading her set up.

Netto didn’t even hesitate before paying. He’d make this much back in half a week, with his salary. “Welp, we’d better go find a table and get this thing going,” he said. “And… snacks, I guess?” Meanwhile, Meiru was watching Ellen with amusement. “Oh, that’s the base model,” Meiru giggled. “A Custom Navi would really tax that, especially one more optimized for Netbattling, so someone like you or me would end up paying the extra for 64.” “It’s more comfy for us, too!” Roll added. “But a more basic Navi doesn’t use so many resources at once, so I guess it’s fine for most people…” She seemed a bit concerned for those basic Navis in their average PETs. “We’re done,” Netto called flatly. “Okay, okay. Don’t rush us!” Meiru called back. “It’s not like you were gonna buy anything,” Netto pointed out. “‘My setup right now is better than anything at this store.’ That’s what you’re thinking, isn’t it.” Meiru took a moment to give Netto a thoroughly unimpressed look. “I’m glad you’re having this much fun showing Reg-san around,” she said after a moment.

"Wo~ow," Ellen smirked, "The genius can read minds too! Impressive." Reg gave her a deadpanned glare. She snorted, then adopted a faux posh accent, "Yes the past is so quant with their primitive processing speeds and conductors that aren't super." "And NetNavis everywhere," Reg teased, "Something you're jealous of, no?" She glared at him, definitely caught in a bullseye. "So about those snacks," Ellen pivoted, "Really I'm down for anything. Your choice since you're paying." Reg smirked, "I know I mentioned crepes but if that's too much of a hassle, anything else is fine. And thank you for the PET again, Lan, I really appreciate the help."

Netto had to raise an eyebrow himself. Anything much faster than this was overkill for the typical user. How badly optimized were future systems? He understood the concept of losing institutional knowledge with time, but the implications here were wild… But the pivot came right before Netto could hit back, and he let Meiru take the lead once again. She was right, anyway; he’d spent so long razzing kids for Nova that he’d partly settled into that comfortably familiar persona without realizing it, and had probably been having a bit too much fun needling both Meiru and their visitors. And Meiru, for her part, was formulating a plan. “Crepes are still totally convenient! But they have some other stuff on the menu, too…” Set a bit on the back foot by the burst of enthusiasm, Netto couldn’t help but ask, “…Where are we going?” "It's a limited-time place! It’s right on this corner.” They were approaching a storefront done up to look like a cozy old townhouse. The sign out front said Cat Collective—Collab Cafe!

"A cat food place? That serves crepes?" Ellen asked, tilting her head to the side, "Wait, like one of those places that has animals roaming around the store while people eat!?" "I've never heard of anything like that," Reg wondered. "Not surprising," Ellen shrugged curtly, "They're uncommon to begin with in Spacity." "All the more reason to try it," Reg replied with a grin. They entered the cafe and were immediately met with and inundation of cuteness. Cats in every corner lazing about, stretching, and idly playing with the customers. Ellen gravitated to a particularly fluffy cat, taking a nap, just out of arms reach. "Ugh I just was to smother my face in your fur, please come closer!" She grumbled. "Looks like that one just wants to be left alone," Reg noted to her. She glowered at him, "Hey if anyone here should be curious about how cats feel, it's you, so you can't blame me too much." Reg straightened in surprise, then let his eyes wonder to the immense ball of fluff in front of the two, a rising desire to experience the symphony of softness for himself. "Can I take a look? You're getting me curious as well," Cometman asked, and Ellen immediately obliged, opening up her Game-Xross for him to see, "Oh wow what even is that. It's like a tiger but small." A snort came out of Ellen. The only experience with animals Cometman had in his brief week of existence had been a zoo. Cats were exotic to him.

“They’re doing an event with a mobile game right now, so they’ve got different decor and a limited-time crepe! And keychains and stuff for sale, too!” Roll explained before zipping off in tiny hologram form to play with the cats. Just as Roll had said, there were oversized statues of various round cartoon cats throughout the cafe. Some were more down-to-earth than others. “You and Roll were playing this game even when I was… younger,” Netto realized, running a finger along the brim of Mr. Yeehaw’s stetson. A real cat was napping on top of the fiberglass one, the divot in the top of the hat perfectly shaped to hold small creatures. “Yeah!” Meiru cheered, happy he’d been able to remember. She looked around for herself, then gasped, “Ohh, they’ve got Frosty the Snowcat! She’s even cuter with all these real cats…!” “You have a plushie of that one,” Netto noticed. “Yeah, she’s my favorite!” Meiru explained. Then, a cat began to circle around her, sniffling about curiously. “Hello!” She extended a hand, letting the cat rub its face on it before she scritched its head. Rockman tugged himself and Punk out into the world. “Punk’s never played with cats before, either!” Rockman explained to Cometman cheerfully. “So we need to say hello to as many as possible!” “I know what a cat is,” Punk pointed out, trying to stop this from becoming A Thing. “Not like I was born yesterday.”

Oh no. There he was. The Lan he could think of as a totally different person than the one he was familiar with, different in size and eye color so of course he could think of him as just a guy named Lan. This Megaman, however... "Wow he looks like he jumped straight out of a history book," Ellen commented plainly. Reg gulped nervously. He couldn't abstract this away easily. That was the hero Megaman, a little young, but probably the savior of this world several times over by now. With a name he- He wasn't going to think about that right now. Cats. It's cat time. "Wait who is that?" Cometman inquired, "Look, I too wasn't born yesterday, but close enough, is that someone I should know about?" Ellen balked, "That's Megaman! You know, the guy?! Surely I've brought him up at some point??" She hissed as quietly as she could, no way was she disrupting the lovely cat café. "No kidding?" Cometman chuffed, taking a look at the two historic Navis when Ellen rotated her device over for him to see them, "So like..." He paused, holding a hand to his mouth contemplatively. Ellen sharply looked at Reg. Reg glared wide eyed at her. "So these cats!" Reg interjected through a barred teeth grin, "Real cute! Some of them are wearing hats! Isn't that something!" Silver couldn't hold back a snicker from atop Reg's head. (edited)

The memory of Rockman in the public eye had… faded, mostly. There was that model kit Rockman had won the contest for, of course, which Netto had already decided to never let him live down. But otherwise Blues was far more recent in memory as a ‘heroic’ figure who appeared in plenty of commercials and Roll also had won model kit immortality in that contest, on top of being far more prolific in her appearances on posters around town (or at least at Higureya). So Netto was a bit surprised that Rockman was ‘the guy’ to Ellen. Beat, being an unnatural bird who had no sense of danger from his natural predators, emerged from Netto’s hoodie; in a cafe filled with cute things, few people were paying enough attention to notice. Indeed, as more cats noticed him, he looked more like a sophisticated toy for them, rolling about as little paws batted at him. “Pipi pi!” he beckoned Silver, before one cat pounced on him and started trying to kick at him with its back legs. “Do they have Cat Collective in the future…?” Meiru wondered idly, continuing to scritch the very happy cat under her hand. Its eyes were closed in kitty bliss. “You seemed familiar with Pretty Force…” “The ancient texts of Japan: cats and magical girls,” Netto agreed mock-seriously.

"Can I play with the funny bird?" Silver questioned. It was mostly to themself, as if they were wondering about capabilities instead of permission. "It doesn't look like anyone is paying attention, go for it," Reg answered anyway. Silver hopped off and began chasing Beat, jumping on top of him then falling over as the spherical bird rotated forward. The cats eyed the play fighting curiously, following the movements with their head, but mostly staying out of the action. "I have no idea what Cat Collective is," Ellen shrugged, "Is it like. A game where you collect cats? I dunno, there's probably something like that. Feel like there's a game for everything if you look hard enough. And I got no clue what Pretty Force is, but based on my extensive knowledge of cartoon tropes, I figured it was some sort of magical girl show." She posed dramatically, much like what one would expect from an anime. Reg chuckled, "The more I learn about the past, the more I realize that things haven't changed all that much since then. People have always been people and will probably continue to be like that." "Yeah and you know what people will also always be? Hungry," Ellen gently hit Reg with the back of her hand, "Let's find a place to sit, yeah?"

“Pretty Force ends?” wondered Meiru, awestruck. “Next you’ll tell me Insect Rider does, too...” A world without the cultural touchstone of Super Hero Time seemed wild and crazy to Meiru, who had spent her entire life in a world with it. “It’s a magical girl show, yeah,” Netto explained. He’d spent enough time out of the country to be less surprised at the erosion of Super Hero Time, since watching it was such a distant memory for him. “Kind of the magical girl show, most years.” “You're right. Let’s sit!” Since Meiru was squarely in command, they wound up sitting next to the statue of Frosty the Snowcat. After a moment, the cat she had been petting followed them.

"Never heard of Insect Rider either," Ellen sighed, "But I'm not an expert on anime history so maybe through the many renames and remakes that have happened, maybe Insect Rider is still going on just wildly changed over time." They all sat down and peered at the menu. Simple café fare of little sandwiches, fun drinks, and of course, crepes. They made their orders as Silver continued to roll around, attempting to balance atop Beat. Ellen took off her Game-Xross and propped up Cometman to join in at the table. The cats begged for pets from Mayl and Reg took his chance and knelt down to pet it. He was instantly surprised by the soft texture and how his fingers disappeared into the fur. "That's unlike anything I've ever felt," Reg noted quietly. "What, petting a-" Ellen started, remembering who she was talking to, "Right yeah makes sense." "What's it like?" Cometman asked. "It's like... You know pillows?" Reg explained. "No," Reg groaned and pulled his face. "It'd be easier if we could just beam this information straight into your computer brain, Cometman," Ellen grumbled, then turned her attention to Lan, "Hey smarty, I'm sure you've got some ideas about that. How bout it? Can Navis and humans connect brains like that?"

“…No space cat, huh…?” asked Meiru solemnly. “Or space rabbits. That really is lonely…” A smoky-gray cat approached Netto’s chair. Hesitantly, he stretched his hand out and let the cat sniff his hand before it mushed its head in, clearly directing Netto as to where to pet it. Its fur was a whole lot softer than one of Densan City’s alley cats’. That was probably the benefits of being a pampered indoor cat at work. “Well… yeah,” Meiru explained hesitantly when Ellen asked and Netto didn't answer. “It’s called Cross Fusion. When I Cross Fuse with Roll, it feels like… a hug. Like I’m with a friend. But also like we're the same person, but still two different people? It's hard to explain, but we do kind of share understandings of things, sometimes...” “I just remember feeling… strong,” Netto said, a little sadly. “Like I could do anything.” (edited)

Ellen gasped, "You guys have Cross Fusion! I'd heard about this from Mel! Combining a human with a Navi to fight viruses and crime! That's so cool!! I'd love to do that!" "I don't think it's enviable," Reg grumbled, then remembered what he was here for and grabbed his new PET. "It sounds too dangerous, Ellen," Cometman advised. "You guys have no whimsy. Come on, lemme dream a little!" She huffed. "I will admit, it does sound interesting," Cometman pondered, "I don't think it'd ever be possible with our tech differences, but if the chance arose somehow... I don't think I'd mind trying it. Somewhere safe and away from combat! But the way you two are describing it... It might be fun." "You mean it?!" She chirped, leaning down to his level with big, sparkling eyes. "Y-Yeah?" He replied, cheeks turning red. Silver had managed to balance Beat onto their crescent, with Beat flapping madly to stay in place. One cat bapped Beat off of Silver's head and then the other cats chasing after him. "Cross fusion does seem interesting," Reg wondered as he tested menus in the PET, successfully opening up the calculator somehow, "It's like Wave Changing but two hundred years early. I'd imagine it would require a compatible Navi. You guys close to yours?" Well, obviously Lan was, he had to be, he was a Lan. But he bet Mayl would have a similar answer too. Reg smiled to himself (while frustratingly trying to close the calculator); Ellen would probably really enjoy this conversation. (edited)

Netto and Meiru listened in reflective silence to their guests’ conversation, each of them thinking something along similar lines. If they’d been visiting the Densan City of Meiru’s tween years, with the damage visible on every major street, would Ellen really be saying the same thing? Were the things substantiation made possible, the cities wiped off the map in Affriku and the servicemen deformed into insanity, worth fun? But the question Reg asked was harmlessly fun enough. “Yeah!” Meiru answered immediately. As she explained, her gaze traveled to find Roll, a tiny pink hologram pretending to ride one of the cats. “Roll’s kinda like a sister to me, we’ve been together since I was eight! And a Netbattler’s connection to her Navi is super important to Synchro Rate. It’s not the only thing, but it’s a pretty big one.” “I… don’t know if I’d call it ‘closeness’, but Punk is an excellent Netbattling partner,” Netto explained. “And Rockman just reunited with me, but before we were…” He seemed rather shy about putting these sorts of emotions out into the air. A little ways away, Rockman and Punk were sitting on a ledge next to a few cats, Rockman clearly quite relaxed in Punk’s company. He waved to Roll’s hologram, who waved back.

Ellen cooed, resting her head on her hands, "Synchro rate~ I just learned about those in the chatroom! It sounds so interesting! I wanna try getting high sync ratings!!" She wistfully sighed and kicked her feet below the table, her face slowly screwing into a devilish grin. Cometman deflated, side eyeing his operator, "You'll have to forgive her short sightedness. She's only had me for about a week and it hasn't settled in for her how dangerous some of this is." Ellen was distracted in her fantasies, Reg however, had caught Lan's words. "Just reunited?" He looked up from his fiddling, glancing at Lan pensively. Throughout this entire visit, this Lan had implied a lot of concerning things. From his appearance, to the fact that he knew of a greedy person he was glad to be dead, this Lan had gone through a lot, maybe too much. "I'm glad you're out of whatever situation you were in. Whatever it was, it doesn't sound good... And I know this isn't our past but," Reg consoled, rubbing the side of his new PET to ease his anxiety, "I bet your guys' future will be bright too!" He offered a small smile.

“Yeah, we’re glad he’s home, too,” Meiru said, with a sad smile. “Some people are real jerks.” Netto could not quite manage, even knowing the man was dead and buried, thinking of the General as merely a ‘jerk’. Or the guards, or the other Silvers, or… “Thank you, but… If I can just keep the people around me safe, I’ll be satisfied. I’m just one person, so that’s all I can really hope to do,” Netto said, far too serious for being surrounded by so many small and fluffy creatures. “No, that’s our line,” Meiru countered. Her tone was light, but Netto knew she could be very serious about it if need be. …She just didn’t need to be, because they were in a cat cafe. "Anything else is really too... systemic, to be in our control." Netto managed to not sigh too melancholily and looked down at the menu, which was a bit easier than looking into the young and hopeful faces of a pair of heroes who were nonetheless both older than he’d been when his own optimism toward such large-scale problems had been snuffed out. He silently decided to order a ham and cheese crepe, since goodness knew there would be plenty of more ridiculous crepes to steal bites from.

"I think just focusing on helping something small is fine," Reg smiled. The two made their orders, a strawberries and cream for Reg, and a banana peanut butter for Ellen. "A Lan Hikari only doing something small?" Ellen scoffed, "I bet this guy does a lot, it's written all over his face. Speaking of faces..." She ominously leaned forward and Reg glared warily at her. "I bet there's a story to that eye of your, Lan," She grinned mischievously, "If it's anything like this guy's eye here." She jabbed a thumb at Reg. "I didn't want to ask about it," Reg shot daggers at her, "because if it is anything like mine, then I doubt he'd wanna talk about it." "Fine," Ellen shrugged cheerily, "Just thought it'd be something you two could bond over. Serendipities of the universe with their parallels or something." "Not really something to talk about in a place where there's cats grooming themselves every five feet," Reg pursed his lips, surveying all the lounging fluffballs around them. He then looked over at Lan completely drained of all the sass he had previously. Was it a front? This quieter version almost seemed more genuine, but definitely not a pleasant one. He looked in need of cheering up. Reg took a deep breath, prepared himself, and adopted the sassiest expression he could muster and quipped, "Call me psychic, but I'd imagine the story is something like, bad thing happened! It's not like anyone loses an eye for fun right?" He winked with his good eye, trying a half smile while swallowing his rising anxiety over this potentially tense situation. Ellen glanced over at Mayl, judging her reaction as she became suddenly aware that the topic she brought up might have been a social faux pas.

Meiru ordered both mango crepes and what the cafe passed off as a crepe Suzette, no tableside flame involved but plenty of orange and sugar. That had nearly gotten a bit too serious, but with the ordering to interrupt, there was a chance they could steer the conversation back onto Reg’s PET. Before Meiru had an opportunity to do so, Ellen sent the conversation straight into places that cat cafes were far too cozy and fluffy for. Netto’s face seemed to slacken, and his eyes seemed to close off from the world. (What was he doing in a place like this, anyway? He didn’t belong here. They’d all been trying to pretend he was a normal person, who did things like visit cat cafes and talk to people he barely knew so casually, so abrasively, for months now. But he knew the truth, even if everyone had been fooling him into not thinking about it. He did, in fact, do ‘a lot’', and very little of it had been good.) Meiru saw Netto retreat from the world, but there was little she could do to whisk him out of this situation; the orders were in, there were guests right in front of them, the Navis and support programs were elsewhere enjoying the cafe. She felt a flash of fury she hadn’t felt quite this intensely since… the girls who’d bullied her in middle school with vapid smiles on their faces, calling her an ogress who ran too fast and grew too tall, a loser who still Netbattled, a freak in love with a corpse for visiting Netto’s grave. But before she could hit back, they all heard, “He took my eye because I—“ Netto still seemed closed-off from them all, struggling to speak. “I couldn’t figure out when to shut up.” It took every bit of strength Meiru had to keep herself from completely losing it in front of the whole damn cafe. She took his hands; anything more would just make it worse, because he wasn’t fully aware and so much of the abuse had been physical. “Netto, look at me,” she said levelly. “It’s okay. You don’t have to say anything else.”

This wasn't how they wanted things to go. Ellen was devastated, looking between Mayl and Lan like she had accidentally stabbed them. She sat there agape, a toxic pain wrapping around her heart. She looked to Cometman for any assistance, only to find him glaring at her with disappointment, and then genuine concern. "I-I'm sorry," She croaked, "I shouldn't have said anything." She made a small sound, then bit her tongue, shutting her mouth like a steel trap. It fell on Reg to do something. All that put on bravado crashed instantly as Lan recoiled before him. Sincerity might work, but that would mean he would have to... "I know how it feels," He hesitated, even though it wasn't a lie. He had that same reaction at some point in his life as well. That haunting, cold and distant look was an expression he knew well. The only thing separating the two of them was time. In the present, Lan was in desperate need of rescue from his thoughts. Reg set aside his PET, held his own fist, and pushed past the swirling pit of anxiety in his stomach. "I still have nightmares of what happened to me," He explained carefully, "But every time I do, I also remind myself about all the people who helped me afterwards. I'm still here and alive because of them. Now every time I look in the mirror, I see something people have cared a lot for." It was a bit of a lie. Meeting himself in the eye with no fear was something he still struggled with. But in this moment he wanted more than anything to give a bit of hope to Lan. He unconsciously reached for his eye, then gripped his hand once more, trying to avoid bringing attention to it, then continued, "We don't get to choose when or if bad things happen to us. All that we can control is what we choose to do after it happens. And to me at least, it looks like you've got a lot of people who have chosen to care about you." He glanced at Mayl with a shaky smile, "It's ok to lean on them a little. And yeah, you don't have to say anything more... We uh... We don't need to know what happened to you to know that we should care about you." He was being a hypocrite and he knew it. He just hoped his words could reach Lan; he could practice what he preached later.

It always took a moment to come back down from such a stark reminder that he didn’t belong here. And when Netto did, the horror on Ellen’s face that he had put there wasn’t much better. But Reg was right. There were so many people who cared. He didn’t have to run. He didn’t even have to shut himself away. At the same time, it felt embarrassing. He’d needed to be reminded of that by Reg, who looked much younger. All that we can control is what we choose to do after it happens, when he couldn’t even control his reaction in the middle of a public space like this. Somehow, he felt, he’d fallen behind, and the gap between where he was and where he ought to have been seemed insurmountable. “You don’t have to say anything, but you don’t have to stay quiet, either. You can still talk to us. It’s okay,” Meiru reassured him. He shook his head. He’d fucked up more than enough today by thoughtlessly opening his mouth (as ever, said the gravelly voice from beyond the grave). Why should they care about him? “They’re teenagers,” Meiru said half-jokingly. “They can handle a little sass. You’re doing fine.” She turned to Reg. “It was really brave of you to put that out there for him,” she smiled. “Thank you.” And as for Ellen… well, she was genuinely sorry, which was new to Meiru; most people she had met asking such personal questions so lightly were seeking to hurt, but Ellen seemed shocked instead. So, Meiru set aside her own feelings (in a place like this!) and tilted her head forward in a polite bow. “Apology accepted, Ellen-san,” she said, then smiled a bit ruefully. "I guess I'm not used to those sorts of questions being honest ones!"

"I came off as a bit too rude there, didn't I?" Ellen chuckled hesitantly, "I got too casual and wasn't thinking. Sometimes I just don't know when to shut up!" "Like now?" Cometman jeered. Ellen glared and he laughed it off. "Thanks," Reg smiled back, right cheek turning pink, "It's uh, something my dad told me. Back when I was recovering from this." He pointed at the left side of his face, "It really stuck with me." "You've been through a lot, haven't you bud?" Ellen mumbled out the corner of her mouth. Reg faltered, then quickly regained composure, and sighed, "Yeah I have." "Choo Choo!" Silver chirped, waggling their legs as they slowly arrived alongside the table, everyone's Navis' holograms seated on their back, "Now arriving at table station! Hi everyone! I'm a train! Behold the power of public transit!"

Netto’s head shot up in surprise at Ellen’s admission. Meiru beamed. “See, it’s normal!” Netto gave her a skeptical look. With Reg’s explanation, though, Meiru got a little quieter herself. “You and Netto have a bit in common, I think,” she mused aloud. “You both were cut off from the world…” She was a little concerned now, since Netto’s eye had been hacked away as a punishment in a place too remote for decency to apply. How had Reg lost his? But Netto was still silent next to her, waving at the Silver Line as it pulled in, so she refrained from asking. A question for another time and place, she decided. “Roll, you’re back!” she cheered instead. “I had so much fun, Meiru-chan!” Roll happily explained, “All the cats here are so friendly! And I got a look at the gifts—they’ve got keychains and stationery, but they’ve also got this ultra-cute teacup!” Rockman scanned the crowd for Beat, then spotted him blithely being bapped about nearby. “All these cats are so friendly.” “They’d kinda have t’be,” Punk pointed out. “D’ya really think they’d just let any ol’ cat work here?” “It sure is an easy job, if they really do think of this as ‘work’…”

"So~o what were you guys up to?" Silver sang, floating right up to Reg. He and Ellen gave each other strained looks, silently agreeing to gloss over the more heated topics they had brought up. And as much as they wanted to learn more about their hosts here, the atmosphere was better suited for something light. "Did you figure out the chatroom thing?" Silver asked, not waiting for a reply and hovered around Reg's new PET. He jumped and scrambled around the device, suddenly remembering his task. He poked through buttons and menus again, getting himself oriented. "I uh," He blanked, somehow he had found the settings menu and had turned the text color green, "I can see why Net Navis are usually put in charge of managing these devices. The UI is built to look nice for the user, but you have to use few buttons to navigate about this small screen if you want to do anything more complex." Silver hummed for a moment, "I know! What if one of my new Navi friends popped in there to fix things up!" "Cometman would if he could," Ellen grinned, with the said Navi responding by raising a brow and then nodding in agreement. She then quietly chuckled ominously, "And then it'd be one step closer to Cross Fusion..." Cometman rolled his eyes.

“Not much!” Meiru told Silver, the picture of cheer. “Oh, I can take care of it!” volunteered Rockman when Silver asked for a Navi volunteer. “Though, Silver-chan, you can’t interact with it?” “It’d be just like when the Pretty Force fairies go into their phones! But that’d be a little too on-the-nose, wouldn’t it,” Meiru said. Netto was surprised that this was the limit of Meiru’s suspension of disbelief. “I dunno what the fuck that is,” Punk muttered emphatically but quietly, causing Netto to reflexively hold a hand to his face as he grinned widely. (edited)

"No~ope," Silver pouted, waving their hand through the PET, "It's weird! I gotta be gentle, but I gotta also know how to use it! I'm in the same boat as this guy here." "So sad," Ellen sighed, "It's like you're not even a Navi or a Wizard." "Yeah I don't think they're either as well," Reg shrugged, giving Silver a poke that went straight through them, "They're just Silver." The little creature eyed the PET, tilting their head back and forth. "I mean," They pawed at it, "I guess I could poke my head in there and start biting just to see what happens?" "Do not do this," Reg advised, slowly scooting the PET away from them. "Oh you know what Silver might be?" Ellen mumbled, tapping her chin as Reg looked back at her, "A munchkin cat! I wonder if they've got one here to compare the two." "I think they're just Silver, Ellen," Cometman huffed. Reg wasn't sure what a munchkin cat was, but as he looked at all the cats in the cafe, he did notice some similarities in shapes. He shrugged and his eyes wandered back to the hologram of Megaman. The blue hero Megaman. The first- He needed to hold back the rising tide of anxiety welling up; this wasn't his past, but he couldn't help dreading the expectations placed on him if word ever got out that they shared a title. "I uh," Reg started to speak, hoping to distract himself, "Yeah! You can hop into my PET, that'd be helpful, thanks." (edited)

“I guess we were assuming you were some kind of support program,” Meiru explained. “But it’s true… Support programs don’t really talk, do they.” “Pi, pi—!” chimed in Beat, sailing across the room while being pursued by cats. Netto absently nodded in agreement with Ellen. Silver really did seem very catlike, with stubby little limbs. “Are you okay, Reg-san?” Rockman wondered, before turning around. “Netto-kun, why are you so—“ Of course, that was the moment the food chose to arrive. “Oh wow, that looks amazing,” Meiru said upon receiving her two plates of crepes. “Thank you!” Netto bowed his head politely, a ‘thank you’ if ever there was one, then wasted no time biting into his crepe. His eyes fell closed as he savored the taste. “Er, I’ll just set everything up in here,” Rockman decided, upon seeing the food arrive to occupy the humans. “If you want, I can explain what I’m doing while I go, but since I’m going to be putting everything you need into easier menus, I’m not sure if I really need to tell you everything…”

"That's fine Megaman!" Reg squeeked out. Saying that name out loud felt awkward and strained. Ellen raised a brow and stared at Reg knowingly. She wasn't going to say anything, but she made sure Reg knew she could just by looking at him. He glared sharply back. Thank goodness the food was here or else he might have to explain himself. Reg marveled at the crepe in front of him. The lovely strawberries poked through the sides of it, along with a zig zag of red syrup on top, giving the caramel colored dish a bright smattering of red. The cream lightly oozed out of the sides, and a sprinkle of powdered sugar on top almost made Reg cry it all looked so sweet. He took a bite and it tasted heavenly. He was stunned into silence as he completely forgot where he was for the moment. "This is great!" Ellen cheered, "They're like flat pancakes! I didn't think they could get this flat, I was expecting something more... I dunno! Fluffy? This is awesome!" "Food is weird," Cometman noted, then looked over at Roll brightly, "Hey! Is it weird? Or is it just me? I wanna know a fellow Navi's perspective on these things, not like I get the chance that often." "Or at all really," Ellen shrugged, then took another bite, squealing silently.

“Are you sure?” wondered Rockman. “You seem so nervous, all of a sudden.” He reassured Reg, “I’m not going to make the menu too crazy. I figured you need to get to the chatroom fast, and you probably want the terminal right up top next to that. Netto-kun’s PET is set up so he can get to the terminal right away.” Meiru ate a slice of the mango crepe, then a sticky bite of orangey crepe. “Hmm, they’re way different,” she thought aloud. “I should eat the mango one and then the crepe Suzette.” Then, remembering herself, she asked, “Want to trade bits, so you can try everything?” Netto, who was having a very different crepe from everyone else, merely continued to slowly chew through it. “Humans need to eat food to gain nutrients to repair and maintain their bodies,” Roll explained. “It’s like when we go into sleep mode to recover! And it comes in lots of interesting colors and forms! As a matter of fact, we have food now, in some places!” “It’s weird, all right,” Punk cut in. “That food doesn’t actually do shit for ya. Y’just mimic what th’ humans’re doin’, ‘cause it looks ‘cute’ or somethin’. Probably doesn’t even have flavor.” “Well, I think it has a taste, and it’s fun to eat,” Roll defended. “Or maybe I’m just using a feeling I got from Meiru-chan…?”

Reg crashed back to Earth, "Uh, yeah! I'm fine! That's fine! It'll just be used for chatroom things so I uh. You're doing great! Thanks!" Ellen stared right at Reg again, wide, smarmy grin plastered across her face. "...Shut up," He hissed at her below his breath. She lifted a hand slowly, "I'm not! This is just really funny, I hope you know that." "What?" Silver asked, looking between Reg and Megaman, "Oh, is it because Reg-" Silver suddenly held their tongue, making a devastated face, despite not dropping the bombshell. Reg let go of a held breath, and stuffed his face with more crepe to bury his anxiety. Cometman rolled his eyes then met Ellen's snarky gaze, both of them nodding, then saying about at the same time, "This guy's the future's Megaman." and "He's the Megaman in 400 years." Reg coughed and crepe came out of his nose, painting his face like a clown's. He grabbed a napkin and covered his mouth, shooting poison tipped daggers at Ellen. "You were not gonna ever tell them, were you?" She shrugged his venomous gaze off of her. He rubbed his face, removing the crepe and revealing a bright pink cheek and a sullen expression. She was right though, it would probably have been a secret forever if it was up to him.

Netto and Meiru stared at Reg, then at each other. “‘The’ Rockman…?” wondered Rockman, completely distracted from what he’d been doing. Netto felt a bit disturbed that this had become some kind of hereditary-sounding thing. Rockman wasn’t named that as a title, he was just… Rockman. The world had moved on, so why…? “Different future, remember?” Meiru reminded them both. “I wonder if that’s what happens if you never leave. It all just keeps going, just like it did when we were kids, and Rockman never becomes Hikari-hakase’s aide.” She took another look at Reg, then at his thoroughly used napkin, and held her own out. “Here ya go, take mine.” “In the other world, you’re some kind of… legendary hero?” wondered Roll to Rockman. Looking to Reg, she asked, “And you’re… his heir?” Netto sighed, looking down at his crepe but no longer taking bites of it. He and Rockman were so important to this other world, but here he was burned out and more certain of what was impossible than possible. Could one person really doom an entire future to not happen…? "Netto?" asked Meiru. "What's wrong?" Netto opened his mouth, found the familiar tightness in his throat preventing him from speaking, closed his mouth, and shook his head with a hopefully-reassuring smile instead. "I don't think it's all your fault, Netto," Meiru reassured him softly. "I think there're a whole lot of things that didn't quite go right for us."

Reg took Mayl's napkin gratefully and wiped the rest of his face. He grimaced at Roll's question, "Don't call me an heir... It sounds so formal and... fated. I honestly think that no one in the future has any way to call someone blue that shoots something other than 'Megaman'." "I offered to help brainstorm better names bud!" Ellen chided, "Now the public has decided what to call you!" Silver floated over to Lan, looking up at him, concerned. "Are you ok?" They asked gently, "Is all this future talk getting to you? I'm sorry." Reg sat upright, "Is it? I'm so sorry, we can stop! It's a lot isn't it?" He lowered his napkin and stared at his half eaten crepe, now a mess of red and white, not nearly as pretty as it once was.

Netto was mildly surprised at Silver's interest. "Mm," he hummed out as an ambiguous answer, waving his hand from side to side to indicate 'sort of'. “I guess it’s just hard to see how I could be ‘legendary’, after everything,” Rockman modestly said. “I was only seriously fighting for maybe two years. Roll and Blues are the ones who’ve been fighting the really big viruses for longer…” Meiru did not want these guests of theirs feeling bad for too long! Especially after that near-miss before the food came! “I mean, it can’t be all bad,” she said with put-upon confidence. “If our divergent point is where I’m thinking, it oughta mean Roll’s the legendary hero!” Still, it was a little strange to think about a version of things where she’d never changed, where she’d never needed to grow to her full potential. Where she and Roll had just trailed after Netto and Rockman forever. “Wow!” giggled Roll. Then, she tilted her head to the side. “Not Blues? But he’s been famous for the longest of all of us…” “He’s got a lot of ground to make up,” Meiru said matter-of-factly. “He had that brand ambassador contract keeping him from properly getting himself out there, remember?” “I don’t know if he’d even want merch, Meiru-chan…” sighed Roll.

Silver looked up at Lan with big, huge, sad eyes, and gave him a pat on his hand, even if he wouldn't feel it. Reg put on a smile, "Hey, different worlds, different futures, right?" "Yeah!" Ellen cheered, "Maybe in four hundred years you guy's time, you'll have a super hero who appears all in pink and beats up viruses and calls himself Roll! Oh! And they could be a girl!!" Reg laughed, "That sounds great! Man, our worlds really are different! It's almost freeing, kinda? Like, all the bad stuff that has happened, won't happen here or something." "Well, also all the good things," Ellen mused, "That we know of! Cause, you know, different world entirely." "I can see that," Cometman said, "No set future means you're free to choose what you want, right?" "Yeah!" Ellen chirped back.

Netto smiled back at Silver, and used his other hand to ‘pet’ them like he would any of the holograms in his world. Perhaps nature could stand having bits of itself twisted and polluted and vanished and so on for longer than he thought. Maybe there could be a Roll in four hundred years, or a Blues, or even a Rockman. There was nothing saying his Papa couldn’t gain a new burst of inspiration now that everyone was together again. “Exactly!” cheered Meiru. “Everyone just wants you to do stuff at your own pace, Netto. Leave the rest to me and Enzan!” “Yep!” Rockman agreed. “And that goes for right now, too. Just relax, and eventually the words’ll just fall out naturally again.” After a moment’s consideration, he turned back to Reg. “Don’t you go feeling all weird about me, either! I’ve spent most of my life being Papa’s aide, and now I’m Netto-kun’s companion. So I’m not anybody intimidating, or anything.” “It’s true, he’s not intimidating at all. He’s afraid of ghosts, and he’s bad at swimming,” Roll agreed, smiling. “Roll-chan?!” spluttered Rockman, blushing furiously. “But that’s cute, isn’t it? Rockman is just Rockman. And Reg-san’s version of Rockman is Reg-san, through and through!” She beamed at them both.

"I-I'm not intimidated!" Reg faltered, cheek flushing pink. Silver leaned towards Lan like they were about to divulge top secret information, "He admires Megaman." They sighed dramatically and shook their head like Reg was a hopeless cause. Reg whined and partially deflated, thoroughly beat by this critical strike to the heart. Ellen nudged him and chuckled, "With how many Megamans there are in the chatroom, I think this is just a thing you're gonna need to get used to." Reg faltered, sighed, and nodded. The chatroom was full of important people from across multiple different worlds, each doing their best (mostly). It would be weird to single one person out as being particularly admirable. As he thought about it, he realized that most of the people in the chat had something impressive to offer. They all, at least the 'good ones', were heroes in their own way. Ellen finished off her crepe with a satisfied smile, then whipped her finger around Mayl, "Hey! From what it sounds like, you've done lots of fighting. Do you have any fun, cool stories about busting viruses or something?" Ellen hoped she could hook a big one with that question. She was eager to hear some great stories about this cool girl, beating viruses and saving the world or something. She swore, if it turned out all her fights were horrifying and the conversation soured again because of her, she was going to dissolve on the spot, never to be seen again.

Meiru thought for a moment. Too weird, too much context needed… She finally hit on one. “Yeah!” For everyone’s benefit, she explained, “So, a while back we had this electric scooter rental service come to town. It seemed normal enough, but Takaragawa was managing our branch of it, so I knew something had to be weird…” “Er, Miss Takaragawa’s a… rival, of ours?” Roll seemed unsure of how to explain. To be fair, Takaragawa herself was hard to explain. “I don’t think she necessarily has any ill will of her own, she’s just a little too, er, idealistic.” “She seems to involve herself with a lot of weird startups and societies, but they never turn out to be above board,” Rockman added. “So, I guess there was an update to the scooters one night, because we all woke up the next day and they’d taken over the streets,” Meiru explained. “They were driving themselves into all the cars parked on the road, and forcing people to pay to ride on them if anyone needed to get somewhere.” “If they were encroaching on the sidewalk, they probably deserved it,” Netto shrugged, then blinked at his own interjection. Meiru beamed at him, unable to even sound upset as she pointed out, “This was happening in every major city that had ‘em, y’know. And if someone had an emergency, it would’ve been really bad.”

Reg lightened up as Mayl told her story, the premise seemed absolutely goofy and yet, still plausible. "You guys have to deal with an evil tech startup?" Ellen snickered, "That's so silly! What next, another self driving flying car taxi service? We have busses!" "You know, I think the only reason we have a lot of that tech; flying cars, hardlight, teleporters, is because we don't have virus attacks in our time," Reg speculated, "Well. For the most part. You know what I mean." "Yeah, I guess," Ellen shrugged, "But even with no viruses, stuff still breaks down, viruses just kinda accelerate it or whatever. Still, I could live without flying cars!" She turned her attention back to Mayl, "So what did you guys do? I can't imagine all the scooters combined together into one big scooter mech and you had to go all super hero and beat it up in Cross Fusion, yeah?" Despite saying she that she can't imagine it, her sparkling eyes and eager smile sure made it seem like she was.

“It feels like most tech startups are evil…” sighed Meiru. “There are also incompetent tech startups, which can be arguably worse,” Netto sagely pointed out. “I swear, until Nova showed up we weren’t even dealing with Net mafias or dark syndicates any longer! It was mostly just startups.” “I know where Miss Takaragawa’s coming from, though,” Roll sighed. “I miss being able to get excited about every new craze that comes through…” “Anyway! This was after the Dimensional Area ban, so it was more like a racing game, sorry!” Meiru said. “Roll went around and blocked them into a single path while I lured them to the harbor. It was me in front of the pier, with most of the scooters in the city coming toward me… but then I just managed to jump out of the way! They all wound up driving themselves into the sea, in this huge wave like a school of fish! It was kinda surreal.” “Miss Takaragawa noticed when she lost track of so many scooters at once,” Roll said. “So we had to fight Starman, too, when she came to investigate…” “Starman can be a little tricky, but he’s nothing Roll and I can’t handle,” Meiru explained confidently.

Ellen cackled, then covered her mouth with a snort. "Attack of the killer scooters," She droned dramatically, "Defeated by their one weakness, something that's not road!" She got herself going with that one and her stifled laughter made it look like she was fighting ghosts internally. "A Starman?" Reg wondered, "I wonder if they're anything like Cometman? Both space themed." "I could beat them up," Ellen boasted. "You mean I would beat them up, right?" Cometman chided, "Not you, me. Right?" "Yeah," She smiled, distant, dreamlike expression on. Cometman sighed. Silver looked back at Lan, a gentle smile on their face, then floated back to Reg, plopping right onto his head. Reg finished up his crepe, sighing as he got his fill, "It's really impressive that you were able to deal with all that, I don't know if I could." He thought back to the one time he tried to tackle a virus by himself, and ended up getting tackled. Regardless of how strong he was or could be, just having someone by his side made a lot of difference. For Roll it sounded like this Blues Navi was that, but even then, to take an opponent down by herself was cool to Reg.

Meiru was super happy to see that her story had landed! (And perhaps if Ellen was so enamored with the idea of Cross Fusion, it really was worth stopping by the Ministry, even if just to get Cometman working with a PET. If only they still had the ability to test synchro…) But both she and Netto needed to get a move on with their crepes; they’d spent more time talking and moping, respectively, than eating. Netto waved to Silver as they departed. “I don’t know, I guess I always just kind of… felt like somebody needed to do something and did it, somehow. So of course you can do it, too.” “You’re also a natural when it comes to Netbattling,” Meiru pointed out with a half-smile. “I just practiced a lot.” “Nah, I think you and Roll were always a pretty good team,” Netto said. “You just hadn’t quite put it all together yet way back then. Maybe you always would’ve become a Net Savior one day, whether I was there or not.” “Wouldn’t there be more of me, if that were the case?” Meiru said with a self-effacing smile. “Look at all the yous there are.” “There’s other people there are only one of in there, y’know! I don’t think you need to have four of you running around to be someone special.” “Okay, less talkin’, more eatin’,” Punk cut in with his usual bluntness. “You’re holdin’ the whole table up.”

"I can't imagine how another me would be," Reg commented, "If they had both of their eyes, I don't even know if that still would be me." "I could beat up another me," Ellen nodded. "Why," Cometman groaned. She hummed for a second, "Funny." "I could get along with an evil me," Silver pondered, "Or maybe, I'm the evil Silver." Reg and Ellen said at the same time, "Doubt it." One of the cats stretched near Reg and gently pawed his leg to get his attention. He startled, reaching out, uncertain of proper cat etiquette, and went to scratch their... head? The cat moved around, and it got harder and harder to reach the top of their head. Ellen leaned over and whispered to him, "Try the chin, bud." He flipped his hand around and the cat immediately leaned into the scratches, making a loud purr that made Reg's heart melt instantly. "Do you think there's a cat cafe on the internet...?" Cometman asked quietly, turning his face to the side, obscuring his soft expression. "So that you can visit?" Ellen caught on quickly, grinning wide. "I can't help it! I'm jealous!" He whined from his tiny device.

“Hmm…” Rockman glanced back to Netto and Meiru steadily catching up in their crepe-eating, then turned back to Reg and Ellen. “I don’t think a single incident really changes who you are fundamentally, though. All the Nettos in the chatroom feel like Netto-kun, even though they’re all very different.” “Maybe, if Ellen-san and her counterpart were to fight, it’d be a draw. Or they’d keep trading victories…” Roll mused in seeming agreement. The Navis watched with warm, fuzzy feelings as Reg learned the ability of cat-scritching. Then, Cometman’s question made Roll realize, “We could hop into my world in Cat Collective! I wonder if I can send you an invite…” She spread her antennae, concentrating. If anyone there could sense the Game-Xross, it was probably Roll. “If you friend someone from another time in Cat Collective, would the chatroom have some way to make it still work…?” wondered Rockman aloud.

"I don't know if it'll work," Cometman wondered back, "Mel had spent a long time trying to figure out how to get my software to run code from the past, and I was only able to get a browser running. So if you are able to connect-" A blip of a popup sounded. "Huh, says I've got an invite," He hummed, then a light error sound beeped, "Yeah, I figured. Incompatible. Says its an unreadable data type." "This is the worst thing to have happened to anyone here," Ellen joked, "I swear the moment we figure this incompatibility stuff out, I'm netbattling everybody." "It would be fun," He mused, "But I do think you'll be immediately struck with how hard it all is! I bet some of these chatroom people have been netbattling for longer than you've been alive." "I know..." She pouted sourly. "Didn't you borrow Dragonman that one time? Couldn't you do that again?" Reg proposed. "Bu~ut, Cometman..." She whined, picking her Game-Xross up to Reg's face so he was forced to look her Navi in the eyes. He made an exasperated but complacent face. Reg chuckled. "Yeah! Your partnership is great!" Silver cheered, "It's wild that you've only known each other for what, a week?" "Yes that is true," Ellen beamed with almost theatrical pride, "I and Cometman have impeccable coordination!" "I just listen to her..." Cometman mumbled, "I don't see what the big deal is..." "What?!" She gasped, then looked at the little Navi holograms on the table, with big expectant eyes, "It is a big deal, right?"

“Aw, man…” sighed Roll. But then, inspiration struck. “…Wait a second! I wonder if I can just…” She hopped back into her PET. While she was gone, Rockman explained, “Coordination is really important for mastering Program Advances, and other big combination attacks!” “Anyone can make a decent team with enough practice,” Punk shrugged. “But if the Navi and Operator both have skills, th’ team can be dangerous. An’ that’s what it’d take to challenge me.” “I know you said you didn’t want to stop by the Ministry earlier, but I think we really should!” Rockman said. “Papa could definitely get Cometman compatible with our Internet, and maybe the Game-Xross, too!” “It’d be a driver problem, wouldn’t it?” Netto wondered, still with several bites to go of crepe. “But we don’t have a Game-Xross driver here to install into it, or make a virtual machine with, or anything. If anyone could figure it out, it’d be Papa…” “Yeah!” To Ellen, Reg, and Cometman, Rockman explained, “Papa’s a wizard with computers. He can do anything!” Meanwhile, Roll reappeared with a cartoonishly round cat in her arms. “Aha! I just can’t drop them while I’m projecting myself.” She walked over to Cometman’s screen and presented the unresisting cat program for him to see. “This is Snowball!” Snowball was much less animated than a real cat, simply blinking cutely at Cometman.

"I guess coordination is really important for Program Advances," Ellen shrugged, unsure, "All I do is press a couple of buttons and it loads it up, then I activate it?" "We don't have a lot of first hand experience fighting viruses with Program Advances though," Cometman reminded, "We've only fought the one? And all I really did was aim." "This Program Advance stuff is easy! Or maybe I'm just a battle genius," She bragged, "Can't wait for there to be something that actually challenges me." "Yeah, and something tells me it isn't that easy," Reg refuted, rolling his eyes, "Not that you're bad! It's just, I'm worried you're gonna let that confidence build up in your head so much that it's gonna crash to Earth one day." She puffed out her cheeks with a pout. Reg considered Megaman's proposal for some time, "I guess we could take some time to do that... Alright! Let's go then." "Yes!!" Ellen nearly jumped out of her seat with a cheer, "Did you hear that Cometman?! We're going to the science place to meet a computer wizard!" Cometman was busy being absolutely enraptured by the creature before him, eyes wide and hands touching the screen, uttering a single word, "Snowball..." "He's gone, we've lost him," Silver lamented, "Taken by cats." "No~o," Ellen joined in the shared misery, then brightened with a thought, "Oh! At this science place, can I learn about Cross Fusion there? Or is it too... dangerous?" She looked at Mayl with huge, hopeful eyes. (edited)

“It sounds like Program Advances are really different for you,” Meiru said, surprised. Netto knew better than to comment on how she had had two crepes, had paused in eating them to tell a long story, but had already cleaned both plates save for a bite of mango crepe that was probably for him. He simply took another bite of his own crepe in narrow-eyed silence. “Yeah,” Roll agreed, easily able to hold a conversation with the inert weight of Snowball in her arms. “We have to practice the timing of each individual chip, so we can do it really quickly. A lot of Netbattlers never even master it…” “Never used a one ’til I met Netto,” Punk agreed. “Anyway, the Ministry doesn’t have a place to test Synchro Rate anymore,” Meiru explained. “All that stuff got sent off to Ameroupe when the substantiation ban came into effect.” “It’s really dangerous, for sure,” Roll said, a bit concerned over how excited Ellen was over the idea. “Navi attacks are way more powerful than normal weapons, so taking a hit can be really serious for both of us…” “But there are some cases where you’ve gotta,” Meiru finished. “For someone’s sake… or in their stead.” She peered at Netto, who was finally, finally, on his last bite of crepe. “We can come back here,” she pointed out as she tapped her PET to the table, bringing up a holoscreen to pay the tab. “If you don’t hurry up, I’ll eat your mango crepe bite.” Sullenly, Netto finished chewing, then popped the mango crepe bite into his mouth for the road. (It was very good.)

"It takes timing...?" Ellen mumbled. The whole conversation disheartened her, that hopeful spark fizzled out of existence. "Yeah, sometimes you do gotta do something dangerous," Reg repeated quietly, "For other's sake..." Silver looked up at Reg, smiling. Cometman came out of his trance to notice Ellen's sudden withdrawal, "So what if they don't have a Synchro Rate tester or whatever, we don't really need one, right?" Ellen crawled out of whatever funk she fell into, and considered what he said, "Huh, yeah, I guess? What would it even tell us, that we're a good team? We already know that." "Exactly," He smirked back. "Next up is 'Scilabs', right? I guess that means no more cats for now," Reg said sadly.

Meiru made a swift detour to the back of the cafe and made a purchase. She came back in less than a minute bearing Cat Collective keychains—one of Snowball, one of Frosty, one of a black cat, and one of a silvery-gray cat wearing a space helmet—in one hand and Beat under the other arm like a beach ball. “Not unless we get lucky,” sighed Meiru, having returned just in time to hear Reg’s lament. She turned when they were at the door to wave, “Bye, kitties…” Finally swallowing his last crepe bite, Netto added, “There’re cats who just live out here, so we might run into one of them. Well, not out here, usually, it feels like.” “I think around here they attach themselves to someone, and get taken home,” Meiru giggled. “More like in the parts that never got rebuilt. It feels like they each have their own turf…” Contemplating the mysteries of Densan’s feral cat society, Netto unconsciously led the way in the direction of the subway station that would take them right next to the Ministry of Science. “I think you're right, though. Being a good team’s the most important part,” Meiru said, smiling at Ellen. “I still think Roll and I failed that first time because we hadn’t truly resolved to fight yet…” “I just… we both saw the states Netto and Rockman would come back in, y’know? I didn’t want to see you get hurt like that,” Roll admitted. “At least it didn’t explode like Dekao-kun’s try,” Meiru sighed, managing to keep something resembling a light smile on her face to defuse what they were talking about. Not that it mattered, either way; there were exactly two Synchro Chips in Densan City right now, and neither of them were hers. Or even supposed to be there. “Though, maybe that was you, too…?” “Maybe it was… Cross Fusion sure seems mysterious, even now,” mused Roll.

Reg eyed the cat keychain with a space helmet, raising a brow a little smugly, "Did you get all those keychains for yourself?" "Hey, maybe she did!" Ellen chuckled, "Maybe she'll attach 'em all to her PET, make a big cat flail!" When the topic rolled back around to Cross Fusion, Ellen got silent. "Maybe it is too dangerous," She mumbled, "Fighting viruses like that..." She looked over at Reg, a quiet, distant expression on. He took a moment to figure out what she was thinking, eyes falling onto the subway floor. "It's what has to be done," He replied, hoping he was on the same page. "Yeah I know but-!" She huffed, making frustrated sounds as she gathered her words, "You shouldn't have to do it all yourself. I wanna become stronger, so I can help out better! Right now... I don't know how much I'm actually helping." "What's with all this doubt all of a sudden?" Cometman asked. She whined quietly, "I dunno. I'm just me. All I can do is tell you where to punch and send chips. I wanna do more, you know?" "Sounds like enough to me," Cometman huffed. "Ugh, Mayl, you get what I mean, right?" She looked at her with a determined expression.

“Yeah, I think I do,” Meiru said. “It’s really hard to watch a friend go off to fight, and not be able to follow them. I cheered for Netto with everything I had, but it was more like a ‘something’s better than nothing’ kind of feeling…” She tilted her head. “But, if Cometman can help Reg-san already, then you’re already watching both their backs anyway, aren’t you?” Smiling and giving Ellen a thumbs-up, she finished, “That’s what your job is as an Operator, to provide strategy and another set of eyes.” “It’s definitely not nothing,” Roll added. “I wouldn’t be nearly as strong without Meiru-chan there!” With that reassurance delivered, Meiru brandished the keychains at both Reg and Ellen. “Anyway, I’m not gonna make a cat flail. Pick one.”

Ellen appreciated Mayl's words, but it couldn't quench her burning desire to be better, to be stronger. She needed a challenge, something to force her to grow, she could feel herself plateauing and hated it. "Ellen if you're not gonna pick one I will," Cometman called out, snapping her back to the conversation. She opened up her Game-Xross and turned it so he could see all the keychains. "Oh," He responded, "I guess I'm choosing anyways." He took a quick glance at the four, a quiet, soft expression on, then faltered into a tough look, averting his eyes and pointing to the white cat. Reg chuckled lightly, then pointed to the black one, "I was wondering if you had chosen the space one for me, but honestly the black one suits me better." "What?!" Silver balked, pointing directly at the silvery space cat, "This one was practically made for me!" "I know," Reg shrugged, "But I was also thinking they should keep it, to remember us by." He looked at Mayl and Lan, "How's that sound? Or uh, is that weird? Y-You can have the black one if you had your eye in it! Sorry, guess I should've asked that first." He sheepishly scratched the back of his head.

“Oh, no, it’s not weird!” Though Reg did have her dead to rights; she’d picked up Meowly Ride because she was the space one, and Frosty the Snowcat had been for herself. “This one’s Ash,” she explained, handing the black cat over to Reg. “Take good care of him!” she said, as if he was a real cat. “And this is Snowball, like Roll said earlier,” Meiru introduced to Ellen and Cometman. Handing the Snowball keychain over to Ellen, Meiru noticed her withdrawn demeanor. “Oh…?” It seemed she’d missed the mark a bit. “So? Why else do you want to fight?” she asked. “Like, for me…” Looking off into the middle distance as they walked, she tried to put that feeling into words. “I wanted to help, but I also didn’t wanna get left behind. I could feel Netto and I growing apart, when we were kids, and I was really afraid of being left there alone. And along the way, I realized that even if it was scary, I really wanted to be there in the world, next to everyone. I knew Roll and I couldn’t be the best ever, but I needed to keep up. So I aimed to be the best I could be.” Even a few steps ahead as he was, Netto could hear the reflective shift in Meiru’s tone, and closed the gap enough to eavesdrop. Roll’s own initial reasons were something she was a bit embarrassed about, in hindsight; she was much more confident in the strength of her and Rockman's bond now, so other girl Navis didn't bother her. She'd come clean to Medi years ago, and now they were on friendly terms. So she merely said, “Even I didn’t understand Meiru-chan’s feelings, at first. I was more concerned about her safety than getting 'left behind', or anything. But now, I get it! I’m so happy that we’re strong enough to protect Rockman, and everyone in Densan City.” Meiru peered over at Ellen. “Maybe it’s a little weird. But! Those are our feelings!” She beamed, waiting for Ellen to explain in turn.

Reg gingerly held up Ash, smiling contently, then noticed Ellen withdrawing. She noticed everyone centering their attention on her, bit her lip, picked up Snowball and withdrew again. "I wanna get stronger and get better because..." She became distant, trying to find and articulate a proper answer deep within, "It's what I do. It's what I have to do. I have to push past my limits and go beyond. If I don't grow... I'm not me." Then she sighed and shrugged, "I guess? It's stupid to say out loud." "I don't think it's stupid?" Reg remarked, though he didn't understand where this lack of confidence was coming from; Ellen always seemed competent. "Ok then," Cometman chimed in, "Lan and Mayl what would you suggest for a training routine? How do netbattlers here get the timings right with their partners?" "But our chips are-" Ellen started. "The chips and the operating may be different, but I can't imagine it's all that different," He scoffed with a dismissive hand wave, "Speaking of training, I want training too. Just because I'm data doesn't mean I can't get stronger too, right? I bet I could under the right coaching." "What? Am I not doing a good job or something?" Ellen pouted. "No I meant Mayl," He pointed at said girl, "It doesn't have to be now or anything, but I bet if you guided us, taught us what you know, challenged us, our skills would skyrocket. How about it?" Ellen stood upright in shock, "What?! Get trained by Mayl?!" It was preposterous! Wasn't it? She'd probably say no, too busy saving cities from rouge scooters or something, but, maybe? Ellen slowly warmed to the idea, and gave the older girl a long, quiet, and hopeful look.

Meiru was a bit surprised; Ellen’s reasoning was so different from hers! It sounded so cool, like something the hero of a shonen anime would say. Then Cometman made his request, and Meiru became even more surprised. He wanted her to teach them? It seemed like something Enzan should do, since he and Blues made the strongest Netbattling team Meiru knew. “Cometman didn’t ask Enzan,” Netto cut in slyly before she could say anything. “He asked you.” “Who said you could read my mind?!” Meiru indignantly asked. Smirking, Netto added, “You’d probably be the best teacher of any of us. Enzan would be too mean about it, and I’d go too fast.” With that more serious assessment in mind, Meiru reconsidered. What could Ellen learn from her? Cometman, with his frame made for charging in, didn’t fight like Roll… but then, Roll didn’t fight like Blues. Maybe, even if they were different, Meiru and Roll still had something they could show Ellen and Cometman. “I’ll give it my best shot!” she decided. “I can tell it’s going to be fun getting to work with you, Ellen-san!”

"R-Really?!" Ellen shot up and bounced in place, "Awesome! I'm gonna get trained by a legendary warrior of the past... Learn the ancient techniques and defeat all my enemies!" She posed dramatically. "I figured this would be a good idea," Cometman continued unimpeded by Ellen, "considering we're dealing with dimension hopping bad guys. We can't afford to be the least experienced here." "Ugh, we can't be the least experienced? Are we?" She turned to Reg. "I think we are," He murmured, looking up at Silver. "I got two weeks of experience, should be plenty, right?" Silver mused playfully. "All the more reason to visit SciLabs and get Cometman compatible with this era's net, right?" Reg reasoned. "Oh man, that's gonna be the Dr. Hikari right?" Ellen gulped, "Like, father of all Net Navis Dr. Hikari? Oof, yeah if anyone can do it it'd be him, but, I gotta behave huh?" "You should always behave," Cometman chided, "Why would you not behave?!" Ellen made a fist and held it close to her heart, closing her eyes and said solemnly, "Freedom." Cometman rolled his eyes.

Meiru blinked in surprise, blushing. “I—I’m a legendary warrior…?” “Yeah!” Netto said, grinning. “You are a legendary warrior!” “Wow…” Meiru held her hands in front of her, rotating them in place, seeing if this new status had changed her somehow. “I’ve just felt like me the whole time… but maybe I am a little different?” “Nah, you’re a legendary warrior just by being you,” Netto said. There was a more playful note to his voice now, like he was the youngest there instead of the oldest; this sort of conversation with Meiru-chan felt timelessly familiar. “Being me…? But I’m not really cool, or anything…” “You are cool, just in your own way!” Netto declared. “I don’t think Ellen-san and Cometman would want to be trained by someone who didn’t break the mold somehow, anyway. They just seem like that kind of team, like you and Roll are.” Meiru seemed to relax at that, glowing from the idea. “Thanks, guys,” she said sincerely. They tromped down the stairs to the subway station, and Meiru recomposed herself enough to remember to answer Ellen’s question. “Hikari-hakase is… uh… patient!” Meiru managed to supply. “Papa is weird,” Netto said flatly. “I think you’ll get along with him just fine,” Meiru reassured. “He's friendly with nearly everyone!”

"Yeah! We're shooting stars who break the mold!" Ellen cheered, leaning into Mayl, big grin plastered across her face. "Well, Ellen is friendly with everyone so hopefully this goes well," Cometman grumbled. They entered into the subway, ready to take them to the land of science and discovery. Ellen and Reg plopped down in seats and awaited the subway to take them to their destination. "I keep thinking about how Program Advances here require timing, that's so wild," Ellen commented. "Well, it's just like any other video game I suppose, right?" Reg replied, "You gotta align stuff and hit them at the right time with canons?" Ellen scoffed, "Canons are too slow. But yeah? No, wait maybe it's cause the Navis here can think? Like, imagine it's like, you're just fighting a virus with your bare hands and then one of them turns into a sword randomly." "That would be weird," Reg said. "That is what it feels like, a bit," Cometman remarked, "I've just been going along with it cause I thought it was normal? Is it?"

Meiru beamed back at Ellen, returning the friendly lean-hug. After they’d gotten settled, Netto, Meiru, and the Navis were quite surprised by how Ellen and Cometman described Netbattling. “It would be really startling, yeah,” Roll answered. “Communication with our Navis is super important for everything, since they're the ones pulling the moves off!” Meiru added. “Even people who do it wordlessly usually use the command buttons on the PET to let their Navi know what's up.” “There are some chips I can trigger when I need them, like Area Steal or Kawarimi, and some chips that can be used autonomously by the Operator, like Mega Cannon,” Roll explained. “But weapons do just appear, so it’s nice to know what’s coming so I can adjust. That way, I can spring into action right away!” The train began moving without delay. Science and discovery were growing closer by the second! “With the Program Advance, especially, missing the timing can cause it to be weaker, or to not form at all.” Meiru grinned. “Though, once you’ve got the hang of it, you can perform one really quickly, or even while you’re dodging incoming attacks.” (edited)

"Oh! Is that what the 'Battle Routine Set Execute' phrase is for? To tell the Navi that a fight's about to occur? Get 'em ready?" Ellen chirped. "But that should be obvious," Cometman grumbled. "I guess I should start shouting out chip names to let you know what I'm about to send," She mused. "That would help..." He grumbled some more. "Sounds like there is a lot to practice," Reg said. "Yeah..." Ellen hummed quietly, then piped up, "Oh! I could practice right now! Do you wanna show off some combos in offline training mode, Cometman?" The Navi smirked, "Sure. And coach Mayl here can give us some pointers?" Ellen grinned a massive, toothy smile at her new mentor, then loaded up Netken's training mode and went to work. She input commands for grappling and juggling combos that sent the training dummy around the screen with flashy bursts. Mayl would notice the stark difference in this version of netbattling from the one she would be used to. Chips were quick selected from an ahead of time prepared folder, with trigger buttons pulling up chips available at the moment, while simultaneously controlling the Navi at the same time. The fighting game style gameplay really shined through with its focus on combos, making it abundantly clear how much had changed in the public's perception of what netbattling was, especially with the loss of autonomous AI.

“You guys have a phrase?” wondered Netto. “I guess it’s sort of like a match in a more formalized setting, like the Net Colosseum or an exhibition match,” mused Meiru. “The computer usually, er, ‘says’ it, in those cases.” Meiru honestly wasn’t sure what to make of the Netken style of Netbattling. The ‘folder’ was easy enough to understand, but the input style was honestly a bit… baffling. Almost unnerving. While she was trying to think of something polite to say that would gently break it to Ellen, Netto cut in, “No wonder he’s so grumbly. He’s just a puppet—” “I think that sort of quick, strategic thinking's really easy to apply to Netbattling, though,” Meiru cut in to soften the blow. “You’ve definitely got a knack for it, Ellen-san! But, Cometman… how much of that was you, and how much was Ellen-san?” “Meiru-chan inputs the Battle Chips according to strategies we’ve worked on, but then executing on them is up to me,” Roll added. “But on the flip side, if I need to react to something that happens in between, I have the freedom to do that.”

"How much was...?" Cometman wondered, looking up bit in the middle of the training. Ellen input more commands, and there was a particular lean she had, where she pressed her buttons with more force and multiple times. Once it seemed Cometman was focused back into the fight, she relaxed. With a final flourish, she finished a hefty combo and sat back up, exiting the training stage. Cometman looked up from the character select screen with a more worried look than normal. "What do you mean?" He immediately asked, "This is just how Navis are...?" "Yeah," Ellen murmured, "I send the chips, I activate the chips, I move him around and have him attack..." She trailed off. "Things are different now, have you not thought about it...?" Reg asked cautiously. "I... Haven't," She said distantly.

“The way you’re describing it sounds so different to how it feels to me,” Meiru said uncertainly. “I send the chips, but Roll activates the chips and moves herself around. I may select the attacks, but Roll’s the one who’s attacking…” “…Is Cometman a Navi?” wondered Netto. “I mean, as we’d understand it. He seems like a video game character.” “He can talk back, but he can’t fight back,” he heard Punk mutter. “When he was talking to Ellen-san, he was moving on his own,” Roll protested. “I think he’s a real Navi. Maybe he just… doesn’t know how to Navi yet? Since he’s young, and everything…” “Maybe he doesn’t!” Meiru agreed, optimism restored. “Cometman, can you try moving around in there without Ellen doing anything?” Netto frowned. If Cometman couldn’t, if he wasn’t a proper Navi and they made him one, would they be breaking something that tied Cometman to his video game?

Cometman's cheeks burned red. "Ellen!" He barked, "Load up the training stage again! And don't touch the controls!" She blinked, then did so. Cometman immediately began walking around on his own. He turned towards the screen with a huff, crossing his arms in a grumpy scowl. "See? I can Navi just fine. The only reason I haven't moved from Ellen's Game-Xross is because I can't in this world. Incompatible nets and all that. But I can do this!" He explained, slashing at the air and pulling up a web browser window, "I can navigate the web just fine!" "Cometman," Ellen broached cautiously, "Can you attack on your own?" He blinked back, closed the browser window and walked over to the training dummy, wound up, and threw a punch at it. The amount of damage that it took was minimal. Ellen gulped. "Did... Did you fight Titan like this?" She worried, "If I didn't come when I did then..." He turned away, saying nothing. "But that didn't happen!" Silver reassured, "You were there to help! And Cometman is Navi enough!" "Yeah," Reg agreed, "Cometman's a Navi, just a bit different from Navis of this time, I think. But I bet Dr. Hikari would be able to tell us more about him!"

“My, you certainly are an oddity!” Hikari-hakase said, blithely puzzled. Upon the group’s arrival to the Ministry of Science, Hikari-hakase had wasted no time in opening up the Game-Xross to make a copy of its environment, using the virtual machine he made from the results to locate Cometman when he transferred himself over, and getting a proper look at Cometman via an inert copy of the raw text of his code. "An oddity?" wondered Meiru. “Well, what I'm seeing here should give him similar functionality to a Navi in theory. But a computer on our Internet couldn’t read Cometman. His files are organized a bit differently, and none of these function calls are in a format our computers would recognize.” “So he’s not a Navi,” Netto concluded. “He’s one of those AI programs that can’t interact with the Internet.” “He isn’t until we find out he is,” Hikari-hakase said sagely. “He is until we can prove he isn’t.” Since that was characteristically vague and Cometman’s most credible stamp of approval came from a tiny creature who had been alive for two weeks, Netto remained skeptical. “But! What we can do is make a wrapper that translates Cometman’s functionality into something our networks can recognize,” Hikari-hakase continued. “It’s going to take some time, but since we have an expert on Cometman’s particular code right here,” he said, gesturing to Cometman himself, “it’s not quite like we’re building it without a map.” (edited)

"An expert? Me?" Cometman pointed to himself, "That's like saying you're an expert on humans cause you are one. I have no idea what's going on with me. I can just do things. I just... Can't do those things here for whatever reason." "Yeah, he's able to go wherever he wants back home," Ellen mentioned, "It's just that here, I don't think there's anything than can run him? I dunno anything about computers. Mel was able to do something to his program so he can at least access the net but. I guess it'd be like trying to shove a CD in a USB port." Reg took a look at Dr. Hikari again; he really was friendly. And looked just like the pictures from his history books. It was extremely uncanny and he forced himself to focus on the right now to avoid thinking about it too much. "I wonder if the computer wizard could look at my program," Silver mused. "I don't think that's such a good idea, bud," Reg advised, "We don't even know where yours is stored." That was a lie, he knew were it was, but he absolutely was not going to freak people out with that. "Maybe the best way to think of Cometman would be..." Reg hummed, "That he's like if Navis experienced genetic drift? Still a Navi but incompatible in certain ways?" "Look, I don't get why we're so bogged down on definitions," Ellen huffed, "He uses chips, fights, and accesses the internet. Sounds like a Navi to me. What I want to know is, how soon can we get him onto this era's net so I can netbattle everyone?"

Netto raised an eyebrow at Ellen’s assertion; as Cometman had inadvertently demonstrated on the train ride, he didn’t fight, he couldn’t attack on his own. His Battle Chips, rather than weapons sent by one partner to be used by the other, were simplified almost beyond recognition. It was all Ellen. But he’d been told to keep his head down and shut up in the face of several intentionally cruel schemes for manipulating Navis and similar intelligences over the years. (He wasn't even sure if this was hurting Cometman! It was just unnerving.) Since it was clear Reg and Silver were going to stick up for their friend, Netto said nothing rather than force the issue. Meiru, too, was careful but friendly when she chose to say, “I bet you’d be a menace out there! I’m not sure if Netbattlers from our time would be prepared for you.” Most Netbattling teams didn’t communicate perfectly, or had one side that was more adept than the other, while Ellen could make decisions unilaterally. On the flip side, Meiru could think of several ways to fool a single set of eyes looking down on the battlefield, and she was fairly sure any of the other Net Saviors could, too. “You said it yourself!” Hikari-hakase told Cometman. Was it just Meiru and Netto, or was he having a little too much fun with this assignment? “You know how to ‘do things’.” With a bit of file manipulation on his end, what looked like an upside-down colander materialized in the VM Cometman was occupying. “This is your end of a debug console I've got open over here,” he explained. “If I can see what’s trying to execute when you’re attempting to do certain actions, I can tell the wrapper to translate what you're doing into something our Internet can understand. To borrow your metaphor, Ellen-chan, it’s like we’ll put that CD into a disk drive that can be plugged into a USB port.” (edited)

Ellen giggled, delighted at Mayl's compliment, "We would have the best strategies and plans. We would wreck shop!" "Would it even be fair?" Cometman worried genuinely, "From what it sounds like, we would just be firing off Program Advances left and right while everyone else is still trying to get their chips in order." "Ugh, why does everyone want to ruin my fun. Fine, we'll do like a challenge run, no chips!" She grumbled. "Don't be so hasty," Reg chuckled, "We haven't even gotten him working on the net yet." Cometman glanced at the odd object Dr. Hikari had spawned in, picking it up and turning it over and around. "What, you want me to wear this and make me look like a dork?" He huffed. "Yes," Ellen snickered. He pouted, placing the thing on his head, and standing back, crossing his arms.

Netto and Meiru’s eyes met. Somehow, they weren’t surprised to find the same thought clear in each other’s eyes: that wasn’t ‘we’, that was you. Netto did not envy Meiru the task of figuring out how to ‘teach’ Ellen any technique that could translate into her style of Netbattling. She was probably the only one of the five Net Savior Operators with the patience and social skills to pull it off, though; maybe Mary could’ve as well, but Ring would probably take too much offense to keep her mouth shut. (She was a bit too much of a character to enjoy the thought of being controlled the way Cometman was.) Meiru looked back to the scene playing out on the monitor with a sigh. Netto was totally thinking about Kaita or Ring spilling the beans. Everywhere. Into places they would never be able to retrieve them all from, rendering this otherwise rather fun new friendship unsalvageable… At least Cometman seemed a little more self-aware than Ellen did. And there were chip combos that would translate perfectly well to what Ellen did, provided that the Game-Xross had a good enough simulation of them. “We’ll start off with something simple,” Hikari-hakase decided. “Cometman, I’m sending you a link. Try accessing the lab’s system like you would an address at home.” The window out appeared in front of Cometman, while Hikari-hakase's fingers ghosted over the keys in anticipation of the information that would appear in the debug console's history.

Cometman glanced between all the people surrounding the computer. There was something they weren't telling him. About him. He glared at Dr. Hikari with no malice to it. "Normally I'd just go there. With my feet. Somehow," He picked up the window like it was a flyer for some odd advertisement, looking it up and down suspiciously. He physically pressed it, reading the data off of it. An error message popped up and instead of him disappearing as he expected, a second window opened up, showing plain white boxes slowly loading in a directory of the lab system's root folders. He couldn't help but feel like he had done something wrong here. Surely those Navis were watching this all go on, seeing him physically access windows and folders like some sort of alien. They probably were able to surf and email just by blinking. He looked back up, crossing his arms once more, and awaited the Doctor's reaction with a critical gaze. Any flinch or narrowing of eyes would tell Cometman what he feared.

Indeed, there was one Navi who felt like he’d been watching this charade go on for far too long. Next to him, Rockman muted the PET so the outside world apart from Netto’s implants couldn’t hear them, and waited. “‘Somehow’,” Punk mocked sourly. Rockman crossed his arms and waited further. “I ain’t lettin’ that so-called Operator keep that attitude’a hers,” Punk said coldly. “Th’ minute Pops’s wrapper’s done, we’re challengin’ her. I’m gonna smash her docile little puppet into bits.” Rockman sighed, trying to think over how to defuse this one. Punk had a right to be angry seeing such a controlling Operator, after everything he’d been through. “They’re from the future, remember?” he said gently. “A future without Navis. She doesn’t know what she’s doing is wrong to us, and Cometman can’t fight any other way. We just have to be nice about it while she’s here.” “Naw, Netto an’ Red’ve been ‘nice about it’ since it came up,” Punk immediately retorted. “Never mind what th’ puppet thinks. D’you like hearin’ her treat ‘im like he’s her best buddy one moment and her tool th’ next, an’ not even realize she’s doin’ it?” “Of course I don’t,” Rockman sighed. “My memories of mastering the Program Advance with Netto-kun are precious to me. It feels kinda… insulting, hearing them treated like just some ‘combo’. But that’s not Ellen-san’s fault. And it’s not Reg-san or Silver-chan’s fault for defending their friend, either.” A message appeared between them; Rockman looked up to see Netto surreptitiously typing to respond. I’ll be right there with you if you need to prove your point. “Thanks,” Punk said, his eyes softening in what Rockman knew to be a genuine smile. But this is going to take a while. For all we know, Papa’ll run out of time, and he’ll wind up unable to interact with objects at all.

3:58 AM

Sure enough, Hikari-hakase was not giving up, but his reaction was probably not as immediate as Cometman was hoping. He was stepping through the way Cometman had interacted with the window in the debug console, taking quick notes off to the side as he paged through it all.

This was all testing Cometman's patience. All this waiting was making him want to punch something. He retreated into himself, fidgeting his fingers idly. "Are you ok?" Ellen asked, peering over at the Navi. He startled, regained his composure, and glanced away, "I'm fine, just bored." "Ok~" She sang sarcastically, then grinned, "If it gets painful or whatever, I'll be sure to beat up this Doctor till he makes it stop!" Cometman balked and scolded loudly, "Ellen! Don't joke about that! I can take off this scanner whenever I want! I want to know about myself too!" "Ah- Sorry," She backed off sheepishly. Reg gave her a withered look, then sighed, "I also wanna know more about Cometman. He just appeared during that fight." "It's so weird," Silver mumbled. "If I had answers, I'd give them," Cometman grumbled back. Ellen watched him recoil into himself again. It tugged at her heart. This thing that was nothing more than just a means to an end of boredom not even two weeks ago was now moving around, saying things, making decisions. Feeling agitated and alone. Maybe the miracle that brought him to life was a cruel mistake. She couldn't voice this, it's not like these people would understand. It wasn't even something she knew how to ask about. All she wanted to do was reach into that monitor and pat his shoulder, to let him know she was there for him. She could only stand there and play with the hem of her jacket.

Looking at the nervousness and worry on Ellen’s face reminded Meiru of standing under that great monitor herself when she was younger. Ellen was proud, she had accomplished quite a bit within her fighting game sandbox, but she was also so new to the real thing. She needed empathy, not… whatever was going on inside Netto’s PET. (She could tell from how he was glancing down at it that it was muted to everyone but him at the moment.) Gently, she placed a hand on Ellen’s shoulder. “Ellen-san. You really do love Cometman, don’t you? Your heart’s in the right place.” She reassured her student, “What Hikari-hakase’s stepping through in the debug console is an inert copy of the code, not Cometman himself. And wrappers go over programs and Navis, not into them. Even if it doesn’t quite work right the first time, it won’t hurt him at all.” Roll’s hologram flew next to Cometman’s image on the screen, a little companion for him as well. “That’s why we’re here, isn’t it? So we can find some answers! Or at least the sorts of questions we ought to be asking to set us on the right track.” “We certainly do seem to be finding both of those, so far,” Hikari-hakase said cheerfully. “But we’re about to be able to test a whole lot more.” The wrapper appeared in front of Cometman as a shimmering, translucent cloak. (It was still missing any functionalities other than passing through links into the Internet, so it was pretty thin.) "Try again wearing this, Cometman." (edited)

"Love?!" Ellen flushed red. Mayl obviously meant not romantically, but it was still a shock to hear. It had only been a short time, but had she already started to care that much? She watched Cometman on the monitor with Roll nearby. She did want answers, but did she need them? In the end she didn't really care what he was, just that he was here. The shimmering cloak was extremely alien to Cometman. It wrinkled into angular shapes and shifted under his touch. He tried it on like a poncho, tossing the thing over himself with his head in the center. It wrapped around and mostly became transparent, except on some bends where it caught a reflection of light just right. "This thing feels delicate," He noted, flexing his hand, "I don't think it'll hold up in a battle. Or if I move fast at all." "Moving fast is sort of our whole thing," Ellen mentioned, scratching her face apprehensively. "Does this mean he can interact with the past's net?" Reg asked.

“We’ll find out!” said Yuuichirou, though he sounded fairly confident. “This should let Cometman properly step through a link just like if he was at home. We can add on the rest of the functionalities once we’ve gotten this much sorted out, since we’ll know we’re on the right track.” “It’s only a quick prototype, so of course it’s delicate,” Meiru pointed out wisely. “When it’s all finished, it’ll be more durable. Patience, grasshopper.” She looked back up toward Cometman on the screen, remembering what she’d wanted to say when Ellen had reacted. “When you’re a good team with your Navi, you listen to each other, and you care about each other. They can become like… a best friend, or a close partner, or a sister or brother. So, yeah! I think it’s a sort of love!” “Give it a try, Cometman!” Roll cheered, since he hadn’t moved toward the link out.

"Yes sensei!" Ellen gave a thumbs up back (even though the true meaning of her words would be lost in translation(sensei=sensei)). "Yeah I figured you meant that kind of love," She scratched her face a bit, "It's just wild that's all! I only just met him." She looked back at Cometman who seemed to be hesitating; fidgeting about the cloak instead of the link in front of him. "You nervous bud?" She prompted. "N-No!" He barked back, "I'm just worried that I'll be shred to bits! Somehow." "You can trust the father of all Net Navis, yeah?" She jabbed her thumb in Dr. Hikari's direction. Cometman grumbled and pouted, "Y-Yeah..." He shook his head and wore a determined expression, touching the link and disappearing in a flash, with the wrapper program glowing a burning white. The space he previously occupied faded away and was replaced chunk by chunk with a new space, different colors and a lot more lively. Cometman stood, eyes half closed, frozen and expecting something terrible to happen. When nothing occurred, he relaxed. His body motions were noticeably slowed, like he was moving through water, and the wrapper program stretched behind his movements and shimmered a lot in this space. "I'm fine?" He asked, surprised, staring at and flexing his hands. His voice had a warble and compression to it, like he was speaking through a metal tube, but somehow it worked! "No way I can't believe it!" Ellen gasped, truly in awe. "Incredible," Reg whispered breathlessly. "He looks like he's wearing a trash bag," Silver snarked. Reg gave them a disappointed glare. "He makes it work! It's a handsome bag." They pouted back.

“It’s working!” cheered Roll. “Congratulations, Cometman!” added Rockman, having reappeared next to her. Whatever was going on in Netto’s PET had obviously concluded. “That’s step one!” announced Hikari-hakase. “We’ll smooth this out some now that we know we’re on the right track, and then we’ve just got everything else to add in!” He turned to the two hologram Navis watching on. “Rockman, would you mind lending me a hand again?” “Not at all, Papa!” Rockman smiled. “Meiru-chan, I wanna help out too!” Roll said. “We can test how Cometman interacts with objects.” She disappeared into her PET, undoubtedly pulling out all sorts of fun objects for Cometman to play with; Meiru heard her saying to herself, “This one, and this one…” “This’ll probably take a while,” Meiru pointed out. “Wanna get off our feet in that break room right outside? While we’re waiting, you can tell me all about how you and Cometman met!” Meiru smiled, before quickly shooting a look at Netto to warn him to listen along.

Cometman kept looking at his hands, moving them and noting how the wrapper program shifted alongside his movements. It was harder for him to tell since he was looking through two layers of the stuff, but it was holding up surprisingly well. "Huh? Oh sure," Ellen replied distantly. She watched Cometman carefully, noting that she hadn't ever been separated from him since... It'd be fine though. Dr. Hikari was a trustworthy person. She and Reg followed Mayl over to the break room, and she contemplated the one sided history she had with Cometman. "Well, before he was a Navi," She explained, "He was just a custom video game character in this game called Netken. I had built him and changed him over the years to adapted to the game's meta. That's actually why my username is 'firebolt' in the chatroom. It's based on the fact that Cometman's elemental types switched from Fire to Elec for type coverage. I eventually settled on no element later on since the meta shifted to not using any elements as well." She paused for a second, thinking about all the small influences Cometman had on her life long before he was 'real'. If she counted all that, then they actually met about seven years ago when she first picked up the game.

Netto plugged Rockman in to assist. He watched as Meiru sent Roll in with her handful of toys (plus one Cat Collective cat) in tow, then obliged her in her unspoken demand for him to listen to what Ellen had to say for herself. …Cometman really was a video game character. Or, at least, that was still what Ellen was thinking of him as whether she knew it or not. But they also had a history. She really did care. “You’ve had Cometman for a long time, then,” Meiru pieced together next to him. “It was just that for most of that time, he was your character, instead of your Navi.” “Guess we’ve gotta talk through this one,” whispered Netto to Punk hiding inside the PET, then stepped in closer as he heard an annoyed huff in reply. “I guess we’re not quite so organized as to have a meta,” Meiru mused. “Everyone just kind of uses whatever speaks to them as people, I guess. Like, people who like plants use Wood-element Navis, and people like Hinoken and Atsuki use Fire because they just look like they would…” “Ellen-san. What is it that you want Meiru to teach you, specifically?” Netto asked, expression and tone neutral. “Netto?” Meiru asked, obviously seeing that he was cutting through the small talk and understandably worried. “Y’all might be fine talkin’ past it, but if we’re sayin’ Cometman’s as much a Navi as the rest of us, we oughta treat him that way,” Punk added adamantly, finally too impassioned to stay out of sight. Netto studied Ellen’s expression as he asked, “Do you just want to learn more combos to use with your character? Because you’re obviously a skilled player. Other than chip combos, there’s not much Meiru can teach you. You’d probably beat her handily at Alley Brawler II or whatever.” “I might have gotten better at fighting games! You don’t know that!” protested Meiru, inadvertently telling on herself. “Or,” Netto continued, do you want to learn how to unlock Cometman’s real potential as a Navi? As his Operator?”

Cometman was enthralled by the digital cat, picking it up and bringing it in close for inspection. The other objects interested him too and he had a fun time seeing how the wrapper made interacting with them both possible and a little off. The funest part of it all for him was seeing the other Navis in person. They were so small!! It was hard to believe they were the Navis that saved the world several times over. He looked over the SciLab cyberspace. It's colors and movement spoke to so much life integrated into every part of its design. It felt like home though he had never been here. Ellen sat in the break room, with Reg taking the seat next to her, "Yeah I got Netken when I was seven. I wasn't all that great at first, but now I'd say I'm not all that bad. Good even!" She looked right at Lan as he asked his questions. She hesitated, as if her answer was obvious at first, but as he finished, she physically paused, staring ahead, and biting her lip. "I thought maybe chip combos..." She responded. Of course she wanted to fight as well, any new opponent had the potential to teach her something new, but Lan's suggestion caused her to reconsider everything. "What does an operator even do?" She asked with hardly and force behind it, "What do I gotta do?"

An ambivalent answer. Punk’s eyes narrowed. Netto knew he could stand there and lay out what Ellen was doing that set them all so on edge, but he doubted she’d understand why it was so important… “That’s right! You haven’t actually seen the way we work with our Navis, have you?” Meiru realized. “And Punk needs to let off some steam, anyway.” She sprang back to her feet. “Let’s go fire up the practice holo!” With the other Navis occupied, Netto had been volunteered. But he didn’t mind. He could communicate it better this way, and Meiru could explain more clearly with an example in front of her. “I ain’t gonna show ya twice, so you’d better pay attention,” Punk declared next to him. “Indeed,” agreed Netto with a rakish smile, game face slipping over him with ease. Now there was a spark in his eyes that hadn't been there before. “We’ll show you the way a team Netbattles.” xoxoxo Rockman couldn’t help beaming as Cometman inspected the objects. He was a really large Navi, but he was as curious as one of the tiniest! Roll giggled over how cute it was next to Cometman, pointing out features whenever it would be the most fun and watching his reactions. Below them, Hikari-hakase was typing. Rockman had a text window open as well, able to add his own comments or changes as his Papa’s Navi aide in order to speed along the work of fitting the second iteration of the wrapper to Cometman’s instinctual use of his internal functions. It was a comfortable, familiar task for him.

"No, I haven't seen either of you fight! I wanna see that!" Ellen bounced in her seat, then sprang forward to get a better look at the projection. Reg sat back and enjoyed the excitement. He wasn't all that interested in netbattling or fighting, despite him never seeing a real netbattle his entire life. He instead pulled out his new PET and tested out the chatroom, quickly realizing he hadn't asked Mayl how she was doing after the rescue. Was it rude not to ask? Or to ask? He held his tongue, it was a little too late to bring that whole thing up. Ellen bounced on her heels, excited to see the fight, "So if you don't do any controlling, what happens if your Navi gets attacked from behind? How do you get around your opponent knowing what chips you're about to send if you yell it out loud? Oh, wait! What happens if your Navi doesn't do what you were thinking?! This sounds more complicated..." "I'd imagine practice helps," Reg smirked. "Shh! I'm asking the experts!" She barked back. --------------- "It's really cool," Cometman awed, turning around a cube in his hand, "There's this entire world that you guys have. It's big and colorful, there's things to do," He tossed the cube up and caught it, "I dunno, I like it!" He rolled a sphere about on the ground, hoping to catch the attention of the digital cat. He lightly chuckled, "I can't see where my hands are at, why'd Ellen have to design me with such a large chest piece."

“It’s not as straightforward as you’re thinking!” Meiru laughed as they made their way to the Ministry’s training room. “There’s more than one way for a Navi to use a Battle Chip, y’know. Roll and I base a lot of our strategies around those kinds of Chips, so that we can adapt to what’s going on around us before our enemy can—or turn the whole field against them.” “Punk has more base power than Roll, though,” Netto said. “I just need to provide an element of surprise. Or support.” “And either way, we’re a second pair of eyes,” Meiru finished. “If something goes wrong, we’re the ones who can turn it around.” The training room was ringed with seats and outfitted with multiple simulation stations, even though it rarely had more than two or three people in it at a time. It had clearly been changed a bit to suit the new Net Savior team’s purposes—a bookshelf, a tumbling mat, and a punching dummy took the place of one of the superfluous practice holos Netto remembered. He wasted no time stepping up to the practice holo nearest the benches on the wall, bringing up its settings. “Let’s see…” Netto glanced to Punk. “As high as it goes?” “Sounds right t’ me,” Punk confirmed, obviously itching to get moving. Netto raised his arm, and Punk disappeared off his shoulder. “Plug in, Punk! Transmission!” The simulated ‘Navi’ enemies were already in place when Punk touched down, on him with startling speed; he expertly darted through the fray, blocking attacks with his shoulderplates and occasionally slicing out with the spikes on them. Netto waited for Punk to reach the edge of the field, knowing he’d send out his Double-Go-Round to score the first few deletions, before he sent in, “Battle Chip: Yo-yo!”

10:17 PM

Punk hooked into the ceiling and used the Yo-yo to reel himself away from the incoming attacks, landing on the far side and catching his shoulderplates. “AkaTsunami! Fumikomi Cross!” The enemies scalded by the AkaTsunami were quickly wiped out by Punk’s relentlessly timed appearance right after it. Now, neither he nor Netto were concerned about impressing their guest; this had turned into having fun. xoxo Snowball was not quite as intelligent as Cometman was probably hoping; the ball seemed to jump to the side a bit as it was transported into her ‘play’ animation. “People have programmed so much stuff into it since I was first online!” Roll giggled. “It’s so exciting to see what everyone comes up with!” From the debug window, Rockman mused, “It’s not an unheard-of body type, so there’s got to be a way to compensate for it. Maybe it’s just practice?” “Didn’t you have some Soul Unisons with larger chest pieces like that?” wondered Roll. “But I had that Navi’s Soul Data there with me, so I just knew…” explained Rockman.

Ellen followed along gleefully. The training room itself was quite the sight and she imagined that the people who did Cross Fusion did their physical training here. They probably kicked and punched and did all sorts of superhero things. She knew she probably had the wrong impression of their 'heroing' but she wouldn't let herself imagine a harsher reality. Reg caught up in short bursts in between chatting in the chatroom, with Silver having to guide him along the way. Ellen cheered whenever Punk landed a hit, thoroughly enthused. She was particularly enthralled by Punk's attacks, comparing them to Cometman's and complementing his cool tactics. Meanwhile she agreed whole heartedly at Lan's choice of chips, with an emphasized fondness for Yo-Yo chips. "So, you send chips at the right time?" She asked, though it sounded like she left out the word 'just' in there, "And how much of that was you and how much of that was Punk?" She smirked, though her tone was genuine. ------------ Cometman was a little disheartened over the fact that Snowball didn't react exactly like a real cat. He quickly recovered when he saw the playing animation. It warmed him to his core and he wanted to capture this moment somehow, like with a camera and take a pictu- A sudden small error, a fuzzy image. He shook his head briefly, he was used to weird stuff like that by now. "What's Soul Unison?" He asked, trying to refocus his attention back to the conversation.

“Seventy-five—twenty-five,” guesstimated Netto. “Just like it should be; a Navi’s a partner, not a toy.” “Like I’d let some human micromanage me,” scoffed Punk, before popping into his Mad Roller. “There are chips the Operator can choose to direct themselves, like Mega Cannon or Ratton,” explained Meiru. Netto continued to supply supporting chips like Kawarimi or powerful attacks like Senshahou, and Punk continued to execute the strategies Netto was setting up expertly. “But that’s not really Punk and Netto’s style! They like chips that let Punk do the fighting and Netto do the strategizing.” After a moment, she added, “When Hikari-hakase’s done in there, I’d really like to see Cometman get more practice using his attacks and Chips on his own! He might decide it’d be more comfortable for him. Or he might not, for all we know. But I do think it’s important to try it just to see how it goes. Find the balance both of you like the most, even if you’re used to using this one. Does that make sense?” xoxo Hikari-hakase noticed the error in the debug console, as did Rockman following along. “Cometman, what were you thinking of doing there?” he asked, calling up the history and stepping backwards to reach the string of code that had executed at that moment. Roll explained, “Soul Unison was this special power Rockman’s Ultimate Program had, that let him use the powers of his friends.” “Er, I haven’t used it in years, though,” Rockman explained sheepishly. “We lost the Soul Chips in an accident—“ He paused. Even now that they knew it was no coincidence, it still felt easier to call it an accident. “And I don’t really get into situations that’d make it trigger again…” “That’s true, Rockman usually has to be in a big pinch to get it to happen,” Roll added.

"Not even fifty-fifty..." Ellen mumbled to herself as she listened. Hearing that and seeing actual netbattling in action... It settled in how much different her version of netbattling was. Her coach had said something, something about Cometman using chips on his own. "Yeah, that's fine. We- I guess he- needs the practice," She responded, half here half not. Wouldn't it make more sense to work on strengthening what they were good at and their bond? Wouldn't he just be weaker with her sitting back, doing nothing? What if he gets hurt by something avoidable, and she just has to sit back and watch it all happen?! She boiled in sudden worry. Reg picked up on the haunted expression Ellen uncharacteristically had and placed a hand on her shoulder, reassuring her, "Hey, I think it'll be a good idea to try new things. Let's trust the experts here." She balked back to reality -- of course she trusted Mayl! Did her face really give it all away?! "Sorry!" She apologized, though she really didn't know for what, "This is all new! This style of fighting... It just isn't what I'm used to!" Her cheeks flushed, and she stewed in anger and embarrassment for getting caught worrying. -------------- "Oh, you saw that," Cometman grumbled quietly while the other two Navis explained Soul Unison. He felt that all eyes were on him and he turned away sheepishly, "It's just a small error. Just something that happens to me. Sometimes there's a process that brings up data irrelevant to whatever I'm currently trying to compute. It hasn't been a problem, so I didn't think I'd mention it." It was the mystery within the mystery that was him. He'd much rather have Dr. Hikari focus on getting him battle ready than something impractical like memory management. Plus he was much more curious about this Soul Unison thing, but he wasn't going to be rude and redirect the conversation. He crossed his arms, making the wrapper program fold and curl oddly as it pressed against his torso, and explained, "All I did was think about wanting to take a picture of Snowball-" Error. A twitch of realization. A diverted gaze. "It's not that big of a deal," He insisted.

After the final wave of enemies was taken care of, Netto told his Navi, “I think you’ve made your point, Punk.” He allowed the simulation to end naturally; Punk pounced on the stragglers with vicious strength, then returned to Netto’s shoulder. “It’s all right. I could tell you needed to see what we were talking about for yourself,” Meiru explained gently. “Otherwise, Punk would just be stewing away over there and you’d have no idea why.” “You’ve gotta let Cometman do his own thing out there,” Netto added. “That’s just being a good partner.” Punk simply stared into Ellen’s eyes for a moment. “You have to explain it, y’know,” Meiru said after noticing the dour look on the Navi’s face. “She’s new to this, remember?” “Controllin’ Operators are a dime a dozen, even ‘round this time,” Punk sighed after a moment, resentful. “Operators who don’t listen; Operators who force orders on their Navis. If your average joe could rope a Navi to a game controller an’ make it work half as good as that thing a’yours, he’d do it in a second.” Now, that anger had run its course; he just seemed sad. “Didn’t seem right t’ say Cometman was a Navi an’ not let ‘im learn the ropes for himself.” “I don’t think you meant it to be mean, though,” Meiru added. “You’re just worried about Cometman, aren’t you? He’s new to everything, and this way, you can sort of protect him with your skills.” xoxo “You wanted to take a picture,” Hikari-hakase thought aloud. “But more to the point, you wanted to save a memory.” “A memory…” Rockman realized, “You were created pretty unusually, right? Like, you weren’t there and then suddenly you were.” “Like how your memory data was mixed around by the accident, Rockman,” Hikari-hakase mused. “You were suddenly forced to process something your programming wasn’t made to…” He decided, "Let's see where that memory of Snowball is going to."

"W-Wait, do you think I'm holding Cometman back?!" Ellen startled, cheeks burning red at this point, "I thought I just needed to get better at fighting! You're telling me he's got to figure out fighting by himself?! I don't even know if he knows how to begin with!" Reg squeezed her shoulder, attempting to ground her, "Hey, Cometman's pretty smart! He can figure it out." "I guess..." She sheepishly pressed her pointer fingers together, "It just feels weird! Like what, am I just supposed to sit back and watch?! And send like, one chip every now and then?" Her tone wasn't combative, instead she seemed confused, arms folded in close to her chest and head retreated into her hood. Netbattling was not what she expected. -------------- "You had to deal with something similar?" Cometman asked Megaman, his eyes wide and shoulders slowly relaxed. If that was the case, then Dr. Hikari really might be able to help him. And may be one of the few who ever could. "Okay, I'm going to try reactivating the error," He declared, resolve burning in him. He closed his eyes and recalled the recent memory of Snowball, playing cutely with its ball, no error there. The memory played back well, it seemed like some sort of internal recording program had saved a snippet of video for him. He felt relived for a moment. He recalled further back, to when the error occurred and sat in that uncomfortable feeling, only seeing and hearing static of vague shapes and colors, some trying to form something more, while others shattered into pixels. His brow twinged as he did his best to endure the sensory noise. When no headway was made on his end, he untensed and opened his eyes once more, looking back at the doctor. "Did that do anything?" He asked.

“Well… yeah, Cometman’s got to figure it out!” Meiru said. “That’s how Netbattling with a Custom Navi is!” She explained, “I send more Chips to Roll than Netto does to Punk, or Enzan does to Blues. It’s just differences in style. Cometman might be the type to do his damage with his default weapons, or he might prefer lots of varied attacks. You and he need to work that out as you get used to being a team!” “In most situations outside of a friendly match, you might be too busy to constantly ‘sit back and watch’ over the PET,” Netto pointed out. “Network attacks affect things that happen around you in the real world, you know.” “I don’t think you’re holding Cometman back,” Meiru reassured her student. “This is just a whole new situation for you both, that’s all.” xoxo “Yeah,” Rockman explained. “In that same accident where we lost the Soul Chips, my PET was really badly damaged.” “It was so scary to see,” Roll added; this was clearly a sad memory for her. “When I woke up, I couldn’t remember how to do nearly anything. And my memories were completely out of order. I had to piece it all back together on my own…” He added, “That’s why this debug console got developed, so that Papa could get a better idea of how to help me.” “You seem to be piecing things together, too, Cometman,” Hikari-hakase said. “You were able to pull out the new memory without a problem—in fact, you saved a video file of it, almost like you were thinking.” “We usually save memories in a sort of code that makes sense just to us,” Rockman explained. “But what you were trying to access before is much older than the event that brought you to life,” Hikari-hakase added.

8:14 PM

“That sudden event,” Rockman finished. “Everything before it is confused, and everything after is as it should be. Just like me with… that accident.” There were other memories he had that fit Cometman’s situation more precisely, ones older than his activation day on Netto’s bedroom desk, but he couldn’t mention them around Papa. He’d worry too much about them, when they weren’t causing Rockman any pain or harm. (edited)

Ellen imagined a world in which Cometman found his own way of fighting, without all her input. Independent, making his own decisions... It was scary. When she got right down to it, they both barely knew each other, how could she trust him to make the correct decisions in a fight? But she had seen with her own eyes what this freedom looked like; Punk was still powerful, quick, and adaptable. Here was the mountain she was searching to conquer next. To take the next steps in her netbattling journey, she was going to have to step back. The real challenge in all of this was going to be teaching Cometman to fight from scratch. She was going to have to talk, communicate, and listen, things she could never have imagined being part of netbattling this much if not for what she saw today. "I think I get it," Ellen mumbled, "I gotta let Cometman do his own thing. And I'll be there to support him..." This was a conversation that she wished she had heard from her moth- She bit the inside of her cheek to get herself to not think about that. Anything but that right now. "I think you'll do great!" Reg cheered, "You guys are already a great team, imagine how good you guys will be after training!" "Yeah," She replied quietly, blushing slightly. She startled and flustered to try to hide her embarrassment, "Um! What are some good exercises to start out with for team bonding?!" ------------- "Those were..." Cometman narrowed his gaze, "Memories from before I was made? That can't be right. How is that possible?" It wasn't like he didn't know this could happen, one of his first actual memories was of Reg finding a pretty old picture in his memory, but it was still preposterous. Though, if he thought about it, this was his chance to ask some burning questions to the apparent 'Father of all Navis'. "Dr. Hikari, how are Navis made?" He asked, "Is it weird that we have the ability to talk and think right at the moment of activation? How does... this all work?" He flustered a bit as he realized this was like asking God why free will is a thing, or something, but he had to ask. When would anyone get the chance to do this? "When a Navi is activated... What happens when they're given data from before they were activated...?" His voice was small, dwarfed by his size. He mulled over the staticy data in his system, still unsure what to make of it.

Meiru smiled at Netto. All they’d needed to do was figure out how to say it the right way, and everything had worked out. “I guess it depends on the team, doesn’t it?” she mused upon hearing Ellen’s question. “Netto and Rockman used to do all sorts of crazy things, Enzan and Blues just train, and Roll and I do a mix of things! We plan out strategies, we go to the arcade to play the tag-team games together when we feel like it, we practice…” xoxo “Well, a Navi is a lot of different running programs, encapsulated in a frame. Among them are language and movement programs, so functionalities like that are built right in.” “It’s kind of like how baby animals are born with certain types of knowledge already there, isn’t it?” wondered Roll. “More or less!” agreed Hikari-hakase cheerfully. “All these programs communicate to a intelligence core, which in itself is a cluster of different programs that communicate to one another. Broad strokes of a personality and imperatives to follow can be implemented at boot by tweaking this core. But the finer details come from the core learning from the outer programs, building new things into itself from what it experiences. A Navi is aware from initial boot, but a full personality tends to develop over weeks or months.” “I don’t remember ever going through a period like that,” Rockman said. “That’s because you were created with your Ultimate Program—everything was fully formed and in place,” Hikari-hakase explained. “This is how it is for most Navis.” “It’s really difficult to insert memories, isn’t it?” wondered Roll. "They're really fragile, and the Navi's programming writes them itself, so they're hard for humans to read..." “Well, so long as the programmer does it toward the very beginning or end of the logs, it won’t interfere with what’s already there. And it’s possible for the Navi to read it. It’s just a matter of the Navi learning how to understand something that it didn’t write.”

Ellen snorted, "Training at the arcade? Now we're talking! I'd love to do that someday! Probably not today, right?" Reg nodded sheepishly, "I gotta be getting home soon." She nodded back, "Yeah. It'd be fun to do that with Cometman." She paused briefly, "I wonder how he's doing... Maybe Dr. Hikari's found something? I kinda wanna go check." ------------ Dr. Hikari's explanation went over Cometman's head. He caught the timing for personality development though. He was almost two weeks old at this point, what did that mean for him? Would he change that much? He liked who he was, even if it was difficult to put to words. But what he did know, is he didn't want to be anyone other than himself. "So these memories," He wondered, "I just have to sort through them?" He turned to Megaman, "You said there was an accident that messed with your memory system, how'd you fix that?" He had a feeling he knew the answer, time. Slowly going through them and parsing what he could. He had to hope Megaman had some hints though.

This finally, finally, got Netto and Punk to look at the time. “It’s so late!” Meiru realized, checking for herself. “We really do have to get you home!” “If we can get Cometman out of Papa’s clutches,” Netto pointed out. “I doubt they’ve done much more than get the wrapper working. They still have to finalize it so it can stand up to Netbattling.” “They’ve got to be close, at least,” Meiru said, starting the group on its way toward the door. “I’m sure they haven’t just been talking the whole time, have they…?” xoxo “I didn’t consciously do a whole lot,” Rockman explained. “I just… healed, over the years. And Roll-chan and Blues were able to help out, too, because we could do things together that reminded me of what had happened before, or they could tell me what they’d been there for so I could figure out how things were supposed to fit.” With a wave at the debug console, he added, “Papa helped as much as he could, but memory data’s really personal, to us Navis. Both in the way our programs write it and in what it contains. So… it’s really hard to do very much from the outside.” On the far end of the room, the Operators reappeared. “Oh, Meiru-chan, Netto!” greeted Hikari-hakase. “They’ve totally been talkin’ th’ whole time,” Punk said in an undertone to the group. “It’s almost time for the Ministry to close,” Meiru told the group in front of and inside the lab computer. "Oh, dear...!" Yuuichirou turned from the console. "Er, it shouldn't be more than an hour that we have left..."

"I figured," Cometman huffed softly. It was just something he was gonna have to talk about with Ellen someday. "Cometma~an!" Ellen cried out, trotting over to the console with a big smile on, arms outstretched. "You guys are back," He noted pleasantly. "Did you have fun? Is the wrapper working well enough that you can netbattle?" She asked, bouncing in front of the monitor. "Not quite," He shook his head, "But I did have fun, look! Snowball is real." Ellen booed, then scrambled in place, "I meant boo that we can't netbattle yet! Not the cat thing! Snowball is very cute!" "I knew what you meant," He smirked. She paused, great big smile on and sparkling eyes. "Well I don't think that's gonna be a problem fixed anytime soon, right, Dr Hikari?" Reg brought up, "I think it's about time we start heading back home. Any longer and my mom's gonna get worried." "Right! Your mom!" Ellen jumped, "Cometman, jump back to the Game-Xross uh, somehow!" Cometman looked to Dr. Hikari to confirm that there was nothing else needed from him, and then flashed away, appearing in Ellen's Game-Xross. "Sorry we took so long, Reg!" She apologized, folding up her device and placing it on her arm, "When are we ever gonna get a chance like this?" "In the future, probably," Reg smirked. Ellen laughed, "Yeah! And that's where we gotta go back to!" "Back to the future!!" Silver cheered. She whipped around and thanked Dr. Hikari profusely, "You really helped us out! Now Cometman's at least able to hang out with other Navis, this is great! Thank you so much!" And then turned to the others, "And you guys too! Thank you!"

While it probably wouldn’t be obvious at first to any non-Rockman observers, Papa seemed saddened at how the wrapper wasn’t fully finished; he certainly was tenacious, when it came to these unusual problems. “You’re gonna have to come back one day soon,” Rockman said. “Papa never likes to leave things half-baked.” He watched with a giggle as Papa seemed to sag. “…He’s right,” he finally admitted. “But this is probably way more than Cometman was ever expecting,” Meiru pointed out, and was swiftly backed up by Ellen’s torrent of thanks. “Thank you for coming to me!” Papa said in return. “And I hope I get the chance to finish that wrapper eventually!” “But right now, we’ve gotta get them home,” Rockman said, easily settling back into his role of making sure Papa’s conversations stayed on focus. “You say that like they can’t just open something up right here,” Netto pointed out. “The Fossa Ambiences from the first Beyondard incident worked similarly,” Papa pointed out. “The ending points and the beginning points were unconnected to one another.” “So they can just leave from here,” Rockman realized. “That seems so sudden…” “But it’s convenient, if they need to be back right away,” Meiru remarked. She turned to the assembled time travelers. “Well, it looks like we’ve gotten your chatroom problem sorted out and then some! I’m glad we could help!” Netto bowed his head as a sort of farewell, while Punk gave them a wave and Rockman cheered, “And, seriously, you’ve got to get back here soon!” “Bye, Cometman!” Roll called from the monitor.

"Of course we gotta come back! I gotta get all studious with Mayl here someday soon!" Ellen hooked the older girl in with a side hug and a big grin, "It'll be fun! I can't wait!" Cometman's voice came out from her arm, "I gotta admit, I'm excited too." "Oh yeah! Cometman! We got homework!" She brought up. "You sound happy. What's up with this 'homework'?" "I'm gonna teach you how to fight on your own!" She cheered. "...What?" He worried. "It'll help you fight better," Reg reassured. "I... Alright," Cometman mumbled, hesitant. They said their final goodbyes, picking up the Fossa Trackers from Lan. Reg thanked them again for the new PET and opened a portal back home with it, giving them a thumbs up. Ellen opened her own portal back, not going the same way Reg was going. The future kids waved goodbye, with Ellen in particular enthusiastically promising to see them again before hopping through. Reg looked back at Lan, briefly. The serendipity of their shared tragedy and meeting not lost on him. He gave the odd-eyed teen a soft smile, a single wave, and a "See ya!", before stepping forward, returning to his own time and place.