<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><rss xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" xmlns:content="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/content/" xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom" version="2.0"><channel><title><![CDATA[Drabbles]]></title><description><![CDATA[Post toys-related fics here!]]></description><link>https://bnrpbbs.lonk-sailfin.ts.net/category/5</link><generator>RSS for Node</generator><lastBuildDate>Tue, 20 Oct 2026 05:29:31 GMT</lastBuildDate><atom:link href="https://bnrpbbs.lonk-sailfin.ts.net/category/5.rss" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml"/><pubDate>Mon, 05 Oct 2026 03:31:05 GMT</pubDate><ttl>60</ttl><item><title><![CDATA[Expose the Esoteric!]]></title><description><![CDATA["Let the very first meeting of the Secret NetBattle Club... come to order!!"

Another week had passed, and Triese was doing her absolute best to keep herself together. It was hard to keep herself focused on school with the specter of the FM-ian incident hovering over her shoulders at all times. She'd decided not to tell Lan about it, since she'd seemed stressed enough already, and she was doing a pretty good job of handling her emotions on her own... probably.
(Well, it didn't make her feel much better when a few days later, she realized she'd played the part of a monster-of-the-week rather than the heroine she really, really wanted to be... but that was besides the point.)
Both of them desperately needed a distraction. Triese liked to poke Lan at times like this, to see if she'd scurried off and gone on some random misadventures without telling her, but... it wasn't really working. The most she could get out of her was her fretting over the weird Evil Chips in her pack, and whatever "Netto-san" was "working on". Triese had no idea what that meant.
It was shortly after the dismissal bell one Tuesday, however, that a blessing from the heavens was suddenly dropped into Triese's lap. Lan was stuck on cleaning duty, so Triese was loitering around the halls while she waited for her to finish up... and there it was! Plastered on a public corkboard around the corner was a poster advertising... of all things...
-NETBATTLE CLUB...?!- (unofficial!) (NOT sanctioned by faculty!)
Calling all students brave enough to explore the Internet graveyard... Meet behind the school after the bell rings TOMORROW for an ultra-secret meeting of the minds!
There wasn't any sign of who actually wrote this, which made it all the more enticing. The second Lan was free, Triese immediately dragged her out to show it to her. "Okay, so... we gotta check what this is all about, right?" she proposed. "Who the heck would advertise something like this around here...?"
Lan was not nearly as enthusiastic as Triese was, as usual. "...I bet it's a trap," she instantly concluded.
Triese pouted, indignantly crossing her arms at Lan's response. "It's a poster in our school," she pointed out. "It's not like this is an offer from the chatroom or something. So, we've basically dealt with worse already, right?! C'mon, you at least have to be a little curious..."
As much as she loathed to admit it, Lan was, in fact, ever so slightly interested. It had been a while since she had bothered to check any of the public boards in ACDC; she'd been shutting herself in and only really interacting with the chatroom ever since they got back from Netopia. But if she really wanted to commit to this vigilante thing... then she had to care at least a little, right...?
"'Internet graveyard'...?" Rock couldn't help but wonder out loud. "They talkin' about a specific place, or calling the entire Net a graveyard? It's weird either way, but..." She glanced at her operator from her PET screen, having drawn similar conclusions to her. "I think we should check it out, kid. Nothing's stoppin' you from hitting the bricks if it sucks."
Lan really wanted to dig her feet in and act a bit more stubborn about such a bizarre request, but she couldn't muster up the energy. Instead, she let out a long sigh and dropped her free arm to her side. "...Fine," she relented. "Just for... a little bit..."

The next day, Lan and Triese snuck around the school once the bell rang, just as the poster had told them to. It didn't take long for Lan's expectations to be thrown out the window - a particularly out-of-place picnic table, one that had clearly been dragged across the grass to better hide it amongst the trees, awaited them once they rounded the corner. Lan hesitated for a moment... until a girl she hadn't seen before scurried over to the table with a slightly overstuffed backpack in hand.
The girl didn't exactly fit the image of the kind of person that would put up a poster for an unsanctioned club. She was quite well-dressed, with a green-and-white long-sleeved top and a poofy black skirt that far outdid Triese's dress choices in volume. She had straight black hair, green leggings, and black shoes, all of which were working to give her the appearance of someone who would be running for student council president more than anything.
Lan backed off so that she wouldn't be spotted, but her efforts were for naught when the girl noticed Triese and immediately perked up. She gestured the two of them over, looking a bit nervous. "Um! Right, so, you're here for the club, aren't you?" she asked, clasping her hands together.
"Sure are! Ummm..." Triese confirmed, before pausing to look around. "I guess we're the first ones here! We're really meeting out here...?"
The girl shrugged. "Well, I said it'd be unsanctioned... Not that it was going to get sanctioned, but," she explained, before calmly seating herself. "I'll wait to see if others show up, and then we can start! So just be patient for a minute, alright?"
In the end, only two other boys showed up, who looked even more confused and apprehensive than Lan did. Rock, meanwhile, kept an eye on the mystery girl the whole time, and noticed her expression slowly getting more anxious as time passed. Everyone sat in silence for fifteen awkward minutes, before the girl finally stood up from her seat and took a deep breath.
"Let's get started, then! First of all, thank you, everyone, for coming today!" the girl began, bowing for everyone. "Before we go any further, I should introduce myself. My name is Kokoro Sanhashi, and I will be your self-appointed club president for the evening! With that being said... let the very first meeting..."
...
Much to Lan's horror, Kokoro began the meeting with a round of icebreakers. She insisted that everyone else go first; Triese was the only one who actually said anything meaningful about herself, confidently declaring herself to be a network enthusiast and voicing her undying love for Battle Chips. The other strangers were less likely to give up information on themselves, instead making vague statements about how they were 'just curious' about what the club was about... and Lan refused to provide anything more than a curt "I'm Lan".
Once the conversation had made its way around the table, Kokoro folded her hands and sat up straight. "Right! With that being said, thank you all so much for coming!" she declared sweetly. "I really wanted to gauge interest in a network-adjacent club at the school to potentially propose it to the faculty, so here we are! But, of course." She stopped to smile to herself. "The other reason why I wanted to be so secretive... is that the power of the Internet isn't to be trifled with!"
It was one of the boys who questioned Kokoro first. "The... power? Whaddya mean?" he said. "I guess online graphing calculators do make me feel like a hacker."
"Not exactly! I'm talking about how the Net itself... is alive," Kokoro insisted. "It's sort of like the feeling you get when you walk into a room, and there isn't anyone else there, but it feels like there's someone there anyways..."
"Like there's a ghost in the room...?" the other boy said, stifling a laugh. "That's stupid. Do you really think there's ghosts running around you that often?"
For a moment, Kokoro looked like she'd been hit with a flyswatter. She quickly composed herself, however, and retook control of the conversation. "It's not as outlandish as it sounds. There really are ghosts on the Internet," she proudly proclaimed. "You'll hear all these stories about abandoned shopping malls and houses at the edge of town... but really, it's the entire digital world under our noses that's the most haunted place out there...!"
For once, Triese was actually a little confused, which shocked Lan deeply. "Ghosts on the Net...?" she said, putting a hand to her chin. "I think I've heard of something like that... Is that what you meant by the whole, um... 'graveyard' thing?"
"Essentially, yes," Kokoro confirmed. "The whole dimension is full of leftover data. I was going to ask if any of you had experience, but... it doesn't sound like it?" She frowned and folded her hands before her smile returned. "Okay, then! Let's backtrack a little bit! How many of us here have NetNavis?"
Triese still wanted to keep Lurerre a secret, even if it was becoming more and more known as time went by, so she immediately volunteered Lan by leaning over her shoulder. Rock wasn't a secret, after all. "Lan does! And she's super cool!" she boasted. "Not to brag or anything, but-"
"Triese," Lan interrupted, stopping her before she could blab about Luminous Revival to a total stranger. "I-it's... it's nothing. She's my friend, and, uh..."
Rock then appeared as a hologram on the picnic table, exposing Lan even further. Kokoro's mouth popped open, while the boys looked on with skepticism. "Yo," Rock said, surveying the reactions of the club. "Uh, we got this fancy tech from a friend. Don't worry about it."
Curious, Kokoro swiped her hand through Rock's hologram. "Huh. Well, that's not really what I meant by ghosts..." she muttered. "But that's still pretty cool! I've seen a couple Navis sort-of like her, I think...?"
"I-I don't have a Navi, they always die," one of the boys admitted nervously. "I didn't know that they left behind ghosts. That's... even worse..."
Kokoro stood her ground, interrupting the conversation to correct the squicked-out boys. "Ah! Well! It isn't a literal ghost! It's sort of, like..." she began, pausing to come up with a better explanation. "When you're using a fancy pen, and it bleeds through the paper, it leaves a mark on the page underneath it, right...?"
"You're talking about cache data... right?" Triese wondered aloud, to which Kokoro perked right up. "I don't know a lot about it, but I've heard my dad talk about it before... the way data can leave shadows like that..."
Kokoro clasped her hands together enthusastically. "Mhm, that sounds right! And seeing those shadows... is exactly what the CyberSutra is for!" she said, before pulling her PET out of her bag. Her PET had a sparkling purple case, looking a lot more business-casual than Triese's custom case. Displayed on its pristine screen was an ancient-looking scroll, of all things. "The power of the Sutra helps make ghosts visible! That's how I met my Navi, in fact..."
"...You made a ghost a Navi?" the other boy said, looking awfully skeptical. "Isn't that, like, graverobbing or something?"
Kokoro narrowed her eyes. "What? No! It's different!" she balked, trying to keep herself composed. "It's exactly like talking to spirits in the real world! You haven't known someone that's done that before?"
One of the boys leaned over to his compatriot. "What the hell is she talking about...?" he whispered. "Is she crazy or something...?"
It wasn't hard for everyone else at the table to overhear the conversation, causing Triese to wince a little. She mock-cleared her throat, trying to redirect the conversation back to Kokoro. "Hey, but what's your Navi like? I want to see them," she requested. "You don't see Navis every day, so I think it's neat that you have one to begin with...!"
"Ah! Right! My Navi's pretty interesting," Kokoro boasted, thankful for the distraction. "It's too bad I don't have that hologram tech like you guys do, but!" She clapped her hands together, then swapped screens on her PET to reveal a humanoid, masked Navi standing around with arms crossed, clearly uninterested in being showcased. "This is my Navi, Petalite!"
The Navi had no visible face, instead being covered by what looked to be a gas mask. Her armor was jagged, with sharp shapes jutting from her shoulders and her high heels, while both of her arms were covered by oversized 'sleeves' covered in an inky pattern. "I met her through the CyberSutra! With a little bit of luck, you can find anything lingering around in the spirit realm!"
"Wait, so," Rock couldn't help but chime in, putting her hands to her hips. "Your Navi... is a ghost? How does that work?"
"Well, she's from a long while back... uh, it's a long story," Kokoro responded, before giving her PET screen a pouty glare. "You can say something, you know..."
"I really don't care," Petalite responded, turning away from the screen. Her voice sounded older, and strangely raspy.
Kokoro grumbled, pulling her PET closer as she tried her best to smile for the group. "Aha... Well, it's a fickle field, after all," she nervously explained. (What did that even mean?)
Lan had remained silent for most of the explanation, but hearing the Navi shut down her operator struck a nerve. She jostled uncomfortably in her seat, eyeing Kokoro with confusion and sympathy. Rock was quick to notice her operator's concern, and walked over to be at her side. Really, both of them thought that they should maybe say something... but Kokoro began to double down before they could get the chance.
"So! Uh, enough about me. It doesn't need to be about me," she kept yapping. "Have you guys found any neat things on the Net? Have you, uh... searched around at all? There've been these Navis that have been cleaning the local area lately, so...."
"What is there to search for on the Net?" one of the boys interrupted. "Besides corpses, I guess."
"This is way too weird," the other boy said. "I thought this was going to be, like, normal shady, like cyber-drugs or money or something. This is just gross."
The moment Kokoro stammered in response was the moment Lan finally decided to step in. "Shut up," she barked, lowering her head such that it looked like a shadow was casting over her eyes. "Let her talk. Don't act like you know everything."
The two boys flinched, their gazes shifting between Lan and Kokoro. Lan recognized that kind of look - the look of judgement cast when you didn't quite understand what was in front of you. Lan didn't have enough context to know what to think, but she was never going to get it if this girl kept being interrupted.
"Man, calm down. It's just, like, the Internet," one of the boys responded. Lan had to resist the urge not to bite down on that bait.
A single sweat drop went down Kokoro's head. Again, she clapped her hands together, then proudly looked forward. "Right! Um! As club president, I'll pose a discussion question!" she declared. "If all of us are at least a little interested in the cyberworld, then... we've all got to appreciate something about its history, right? Isn't there something that we can...?"
It was at that point that one of the boys sighed and began to stand up, grabbing his bag. "Like there's anything to talk about," he muttered. "Whatever... this is stupid..."
Embarrassed, the boy ducked away before Kokoro could protest. The other boy followed in short order, scooching backward like they were scared of the club president. "S-sorry, um, I gotta go," he admitted sheepishly, before scampering away. "Sorry!"
...
Kokoro stared into the distance for a few silent seconds, before slumping back into her seat and sighing. She laid her PET back on the wooden table, giving Lan and Triese a clear view of the unsatisfied Petalite. After another sigh, she lamented, "Why did I even..."
"Don't listen to them," Lan barked before Kokoro could criticize herself further. "They're jerks. They're not worth thinking about."
Triese nodded along, feeling more empowered now that the people that weren't exactly on board were gone. "Yeah! I wanted to hear what you were talking about! They were being stupidly rude!" she added. "If they were just gonna interrupt you over and over, why'd they even come?!"
Kokoro paused for a moment, giving Lan and Triese a tense look before she finally let her guard down. "I... uh," was all she mumbled, before she started twiddling her fingers together. "Right. Um, thank you... very much. I should've known better not to... get..."
"Nah, they were bein' jerks. You didn't even get a chance to make your point," Rock agreed, giving her operator a satisfied smile. "Good work standin' up for someone, kid."
Lan blushed. "Wh- well- I was just, uh," she said, puffing her cheeks. "They were wrong, okay? It's... it's whatever."
"Hey, your name was Kokoro, right?" Triese recalled, standing up from her seat and doing a little spin as she extended her hand to her. "Screw those guys! Now that they're gone, I can be super-duper real with you!" She took a deep breath. "I thought what you were talking about was super-cool, because it sort of sounds like you're looking into cache data, right?! I've never looked into it, 'cuz of how fragile it is, and I don't really want to be going around damaging history or whatever, but the fact that you could find a Navi in all of that cache data is crazy! How'd that even happen?! What even is a Cyber-Sutra...?!"
Kokoro's eyes widened, feeling a little overwhelmed by how bouncy Triese had become. "U-uh... Sorry, uh, geez," she blubbered, waving her hands. "I expected everyone to be... quieter... so, um... right, it is a long story, isn't it?"
"I like long stories!" Triese beamed. "Actually, we're basically made of long stories, me and Lan! You know the other girl standing right here is the champion of an overseas NetBattling tournament, right?!"
Lan groaned, raising her shoulders. "Triese, that's..." she begun protesting, before she relented. "...I guess... it's okay. Yeah, that, um... that did happen..."
Kokoro blinked a few times. "Tournament...? I don't remember anything about a..." she mumbled, before a lightbulb went off in her head. "Oh! Wait! I did see something! There was some Netopian tournament, right? I remember I saw a few posts about it, since they don't exactly do tournaments anymore..." Another blink. "Wait, she won it?"
Triese lit up, swirling around to stretch her arms behind Lan. "Yup! She's basically the best, y'know? She and her Navi are so! Freaking! Cool!"
Lan wordlessly twiddled her thumbs as Rock pretended to brush her hair. "Yeah, we're basically the coolest ever," the latter boasted jokingly. "Though she wouldn't really admit it, heh."
"Wow. That's... pretty wild. I'm... I'm no good at NetBattling," Kokoro admitted shyly. "Even though I guess I have a battle Navi in my PET..."
Rock squinted her eyes at Petalite. "Yeah? Maybe she's only interested in battling you, instead of anything else," she blabbed sarcastically. "Nice job defending your kid when those kids were belittling her. You know that we gotta stick up for the people we're friends with, you-"
"Sanhashi is not my 'kid'," Petalite hissed. "I would rather do anything else than be shown off like a supermodel. I've been humiliated enough."
Rock choked with surprise, and Kokoro nervously intervened before she could bite back. "Uh... yeah, like I said, I found her ghost data with the CyberSutra..." she explained. "It was really complete. Usually ghosts aren't that... um, coherent. Apparently, before the Sutra revived her, she was quite important..."
"So Kokoro revived you? And you still remember what happened before?" Rock continued, glaring at Petalite. "I'm not gonna pretend like I totally understand how that works, but you should still show her a little more respect if she did that, right?"
"My respect is accepting her sanctuary," Petalite retorted. "I don't know why she decided to host this 'ghost' club to begin with. I have nothing to offer."
Lan was similarly annoyed by this Navi, and her familiar type of personality, so she turned back to Kokoro to pull the conversation away from her. "Not to sound like I'm agreeing with her, but why did you put up that poster?"
It took Kokoro a few seconds to respond. "I... well... really, I just... wanted to see what would happen?" she admitted tersely. "I wasn't really going to get anywhere with the faculty, and I missed the student council elections, so..."
"Good on you, then," Rock said. "Sometimes you just gotta go out on a limb. Nice to meet'cha, since you went through all the trouble, y'know?"
Kokoro didn't seem to know how to react, and after a second of thinking, she reached for Rock's hologram, trying to act out a handshake despite the scale difference. "Uh! Yes! It's nice to meet you, too," she said. "And your operator! Lan, right?"
"...Yeah," Lan sheepishly confirmed. Did this girl even recognize her... if she knew anything about the Net...?
"Hold on, now," Petalite interjected, much to everyone's surprise. "Your friend said that you two won a tournament? That would make you a battle Navi, as well. Yet you look the part of a companion Navi." Without a visible face, Rock couldn't read her expressions at all, but the Navi tilted her head quizzically regardless. "How is that possible?"
Rock scoffed, before flashing Petalite a smirk. "Wanna find out?"
"Rock! Don't start fights with random people!" Lan protested, dragging her foot on the ground. It would be nice to get this Navi to shut up, though...
"Ah, no, no, I'm interested in your challenge," Petalite insisted, much to Lan's chagrin. "They can't have been making particularly strong Navis since everything went to shit. I want to see... how someone like you can hold up against the SciLab Elite Corps."
Lan's eyes widened, her fist clenching reflexively. "Th-the what?"
"Hey, sounds good to me. Make something interesting out of this club meeting instead of letting people beat the shit out of your operator, you know?" Rock commented snidely. For once, it was her starting the fights... was Lan starting to rub off on her? "Kokoro, you alright with this?"
Kokoro put her hand to her chin. "I can't lie to you... I'm, uh, a little curious."
"Then let's show this elite corpse or whatever what we can do, huh?" Rock bragged heartily. "Kid! You know the drill!"
Lan took a deep breath, before resigning herself to the battle. Maybe this Navi had it coming, anyways. "Alright," she said, before standing back and posing.
"Blade routine! Tear them apart!"
"Shadows, ghosts, it's all the same!"
    !! WARNING !! WARNING !!
   !! INCOMING HOSTILE WILL !!

    Spectre Jealous of Bonds
        = PETALITE.EXE =

    !! WARNING !! WARNING !!

]]></description><link>https://bnrpbbs.lonk-sailfin.ts.net/topic/28/expose-the-esoteric</link><guid isPermaLink="true">https://bnrpbbs.lonk-sailfin.ts.net/topic/28/expose-the-esoteric</guid><dc:creator><![CDATA[snoruntpyro]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 05 Oct 2026 03:31:05 GMT</pubDate></item></channel></rss>