Siren giggled deep and melodically, "Perhaps there is something we can do..." "It's not gonna be that big of a problem, Geo," Omega-Xis grumbled over Geo's shoulder. "Well, I know, but," Geo sighed, arms full of fresh snacks from the local konbini, "It's gonna be awkward if I hand her a tuna fish sandwich and she doesn't eat fish and gets sad about it cause she likes fish that are alive, you know?" "Things eat tuna! Ocean things! Probably some big thing like a shark!" Omega-Xis countered. "No Triese likes fish and probably small and cute fish, right?" he wondered, trying to recall all the chatroom messages he had back read, "Girls like small and cute things, right?" "Girls like many things, Geo," Omega-Xis warned with a far off stare. Geo wasn't sure what his partner was thinking about in particular, but he nodded to himself in agreement. Girls did like many things. They passed by the park outside Big Wave, but slowed down as they noticed Mr. Suther looking rather worried about something. Before even asking what was wrong, Omega-Xis held a claw up in front of Geo, stopping him. "Geo, something's up," his partner cautioned, "I'm sensing... an FM-ian. Intentionally obscured trail. Whoever was here is trying their best not to be found." "You're kidding," Geo worried, heart rate quickening, "We need to check on Triese!" He ran as fast as he could to the top of Vista Point, huffing and puffing, nearly collapsing as he dropped all the snacks he was carrying once the truth was revealed to him. Triese was gone. And a new FM-ian was threatening the peace. He didn't like how that sounded. "Mega-" "It's Wave Changing time! Get to it Geo!" Omega-Xis barked. "Right," he nodded, holding his Hunter-VG out and then up, "Transcode! Mega Man!" and in a beam like flash disappeared and jumped onto the Wave Road up above. Up on the Wave Road Omega-Xis materialized next to the Wave Changed Geo to assist in looking around for anything Triese shaped. Luckily for them, it wasn't hard to spot the suspiciously blue thing in the distance and he dashed over to investigate. "No doubt..." Omega-Xis muttered, "That hair and that water theme..." "Triese!" Geo called out, "Are you okay!?" coming to a stop some distance away, just in case things were not okay. And in his experience... things probably weren't okay, but he had to hope.

MothMan was fully prepared to report there wasn't anything of note inside the comp, even before Sophia asked the question. As the Jack-In sequence completed, MothMan materialised inside the comp and laid his eyes upon... an utterly perfunctory and indistinct cyberspace, sure enough. "Nah. It's flat, square and there's not even any stray mystery data floating about. Just a couple of progs here." MothMan relayed. One the two Mr. Progs in question was at the furthest end of the comp space and could be heard muttering the same phrases on repeat; MothMan presumed that one was controlling the LCD, and the one in the comp's centre was responsible for the rest of the machine's functions. Both were conveniently facing away from the point of entry, totally oblivious to the intruder or the fact he was eyeing them up and down. "Of course it'd be just as boring as the 'games' here." Sophia sneered. "Think you can talk the Prog into giving us free crud?" MothMan flashed a small, but wry grin. "With the old repairman scheme? Don't even need to ask me twice!" he confidently responded. Being far from the first time the two had done a hack like this, the Navi and NetOp didn't even need to discuss a plan; they were already mutually picturing the exact same steps: MothMan disguises himself as a NormalNavi, claiming to the main Prog he's a repairman doing routine maintenance. Get the machine into maintenance mode, and then poke around to see how the printed receipts format their barcodes. With that figured out, make the machine print out an ultra-high value receipt, with zero tells it wasn't legitimately earned. Have Sophia swoop around the corner and grab the print-out off the floor, acting as if she was just searching for something she dropped earlier. PROFIT!!! The two gave each other an affirmative nod, followed by MothMan quickly curling into a cocoon and just as quickly bursting out looking far less moth-like. As he approached the central Prog, Sophia herself got closer to the wall and perched her backside on the hand railing. The main congregation further up seemed to be slowly trickling down, and she was fully anticipating some dumbass overexcited kid to run straight into her at breakneck speed if she didn't get out the way. There also appeared to be a small crowd forming nearby; a handy masking noise, provided it didn't get too lively for Sophia's low tolerance of loud sheeple. But what self-respecting plan survives contact with the enemy? Just as Sophia got herself on standby to look up any technical information MothMan needed, she was taken aback by the familiar sound of a Navi jacking back into her PET. What? MothMan sure as heck wouldn't bail out that quickly, and he hadn't left the PET's view of the comp at all, being well into his repairman routine with the Mr. Prog. Her heart rate rising, Sophia mashed her way through the PET menus to pop up the homepage, coming face-to-face with... nothing? Huh? She then anxiously flicked through her files for any tampering, but everything seemed accounted for and none of the Last Read/Modified dates had jumped to the current date and time. Sophia's anxiety was now replaced by pure confusion. What just happened? Was one of her hardware mods acting weird? Did the Jack-In port pick up a false positive from some kind of IR light in the arcade? Did a virus try to sneak in her PET, but got deleted by the automatic antivirus program? She closed her wide eyes and shook her head. She needed lock in and be MothMan's second pair of eyes instead of falling for another badly-timed distraction, darn it! Composure regained, Sophia hurriedly closed all the menus and returned to the view of the comp... perhaps in too much of a hurry, as she failed to notice the lingering glitter particles that weren't on the homepage pop up earlier. The storm of confusion was too brief to break MothMan's attention from the Mr. Prog, whom he had just convinced to put the machine in maintenance mode. "ONE MOMENT GOOD SIR..." The green program spun around and yelled to his fellow Prog: "HEY, WE'RE GOING INTO MAINTENANCE!" The other Mr. Prog yelped and jumped, before beginning to quietly mutter "*** SERVICE MODE ***" ad nauseam. That's as much as Sophia got to see before a third distraction made itself unwelcome: A small tap on her shoulder. "Ugh. Has one member of the Bugby Extended Universe crawled their way here to force family time down my throat?" Sophia thought to herself. Expecting to see someone from main party, she apathetically raised her gaze, asking: "What do you wan-" Sophia did a massive double-take as her eyes laid upon the DDR girl?! And if her close-up, rosy-cheeked smile didn't throw Sophia off already, calling her by the chatroom username certainly did!! Leaping off the railing, Sophia could only muster a few variations on "Wha- Whu-" while eyeing up this "Bambi" and trying to get her thoughts in a row. Wasn't this the person who was acting all cutesy and wanting friendship, and then said she would have doxxed you if you ignored her?! Was she trying to get specifically my attention earlier?! Sophia stood still and took a sharp breath, staring Bambi down. "Have you been following me?" she growled, trying to act cold but failing to hide her incredulity to the situation.

HeatMan resisted the urge to burst into laughter at Rei’s expectation that he would do anything shady. Luckily, his resting smile did a great job at masking it. Really, it wasn’t that funny. Despite the familiarity that had been thrust upon him, Rei didn’t actually know anything about HeatMan. There was no way to intuit that he was specially-programmed to guide his operators out of dodgy situations — it wasn’t like his name was MoralMan or something. On that note, this wasn’t the first time his operator has sent him into a suspicious situation. That came with the territory. It was, however, the first time someone had operated him with the intention of doing the wrong thing. That was the funny part. Which brought HeatMan to an interesting dilemma. Would it be wrong to guide someone’s behavior in the right direction without their consent? It was underhanded, for sure, but wrong? That depended on which moral code he was following in the first place. Sure, he could state his intentions up front — if he wanted to get laughed out of the PET. Who would this kid trust more, some random navi placed there to lecture him, or whatever friends he had in the Undernet? It wouldn’t work. At the same time, HeatMan didn’t feel right committing crimes in his stead with no effort put into directing him elsewhere. As much as he disliked being underhanded, it seemed like the way to go in this situation. If not the most moral, then the wisest. Coming to a decision, he placed his hands behind his head in a relaxed gesture. “Alright, let’s do this. I’m sure I could find my way through. Plug away, kid!” +++ Energized by his navi’s approval, Lan wasted no time jacking into the nearest device — a desk fan inexplicably connected to the internet. He took a seat on the bed as he operated, leg anxious bouncing up and down. Celestra landed in a small homepage, devoid of customization. Whether that was due to privacy or neglect was unclear. All that sat in this comp space was a warp pad, presumably to the greater net. …Except, when she would eventually leave, she would not find herself aligned with the various streetlights and lamps that lined the outside road. Strangely, this computer didn’t sit relative to its position in the real world, like most devices. Instead, it brought her to the network of a neighboring town, a far cry from where they were intending to investigate. Lan didn’t comment on this. It was normal to him. They were hiding from the outside world, and didn’t want their internet history revealing where they lived. Directing it elsewhere was inconvenient, but it was safe. Of course, Lan’s navi would also be used to this by now.

Enzan winces. The tug he feels towards the glass is violent. "I had enough," Enzan mutters. He's pulled back to looking at the wheel. Up and down, mesmerizing wheel and enticing drink. He can remember the feeling this darkness, overtaking his vision and all his feelings. It number the pain, that was for sure. The ball spun around the outer ring, teasing its slow down. Enzan had put his money on a long-shot, not the smart bet. The ball rolled over the first green slot, and rambled on. Enzan couldn't bring himself to care. What was money, compared to what she held? "It's none of your business," Enzan reminded himself, more than her.

"Oh! Well, how kind of you," Haruka responded in turn, though she still looked a little confused. She eyed the source of the voice reminding Kaita of his manners, apparently surprised that another Navi was present. "Lan shuts herself in a lot, so I'm glad she has friends that will check on her. Come to think of it, you haven't told me much of anything about your friends as of late." "Th-there isn't anything... to say," Lan answered awkwardly. She wriggled around a little bit, attempting to slip into her poker face as Kaita walked up to her. It was hard to really him away when he was looking at her like that... but her mom was right there, so it wasn't like could say everything. Haruka walked back into the kitchen, but continued to engage with the so-called conversation from across the house. "The trip over... Hmmm, you must have met over the Internet, then?" she wondered out loud. "Where are you from, if it's not Den City?" "...Yeah, it's another city," Lan immediately interrupted, before Kaita could say anything would get her in even bigger trouble. Leaning closer to Kaita, she lowered her voice. "W-well, you did it. I mean, there isn't anything that would've broken it, or whatever, but..." Rock's hologram appeared on her operator's shoulder, interrupting her train of thought. "You guys should sit on the couch or somethin'," she suggested, perhaps as part of a ploy to give them a little privacy. She figured that Kaita couldn't lie even if he tried... but she still needed to keep Lan calm, lest she blow up over recent events yet again. "Can't tell you how glad I am that it was you at the door. The kid's been having a hard time lately." "Rock!" Lan hissed, and her eyes wandered just in time to notice an eyebrow raise from her mother. Lan didn't want to say anything! She had the right to remain silent!!

Biggs Calderhead. Leading tennis hustler, Eastern seaboard. Once won $12,000 playing with one foot tied to a concrete block. Started tennis at age three. Plays tennis like Spassky plays chess. Says: "A smart tennis player can beat a strong tennis player five games out of seven." This game shows what he means. https://youtu.be/xb-XHAQovUE

“That’s an excellent way of putting it, yes.” Aon nodded along, eager to keep this conversation back on the rails. “I think I’m in very capable hands then.” They clasped their hands together and leaned back a bit in their chair. If there was one thing they were good at, it was laying it on thick. And they had kept them on the line so far despite the outbursts. Their fingers pressed tighter together at the notion of having their concerns heard, as if theirs weren’t drowned out from the start in their mind. They kept that to themselves. “I…think I see where you’re going.” Of course it was something a police mascot could do. They just had to try a little harder at the kindness part. This would all come a bit easier once they were able to get their current state of being under control. “I’ll take anything you can give me, if we’ve got the time.”

hey only im allowed to test

“I stated what I wanted to see from the start! Why are you surprised?! Is it because I’m not coddling you like everyone else?! Letting you think it’s all fine?!” Aon struggled to keep their hold while they argued, bracing their arm with their other hand attempting to pump more of their vaccine toward Rock. “You’re arguing what I’m doing isn’t fair? After using illegal chips on me, and now this?” They knew they were going to be dealing with whatever this Shadow Trance was, and in all truth they hadn’t made any kind of plan for it, not even this. But now here they were, unable to take it back. They could only attempt to excuse their way out of it. “What’s with the double standard? First it’s ‘no one told me so it’s fine’ but it’s not fine when it’s used against you. Is it? I haven’t said one thing I didn’t mean!” Their gaze meandered to the screen to glare at Lan, taking note of her reactions. It left them off guard for the sudden transformation and the swiftness of Rock breaking free, appearing directly in front of them and the shadow from behind, They struggled briefly, slacking when it became evident they were far outmatched. They could barely keep up with these two as it was, this new form was as Ellen put it ‘Frightening’ but not fun by any means. They couldn’t do anything about this, no matter how badly they wanted to. “I’ll take the hate. I’ll take it all! If you brats would. Just. Get it!!” They hissed through their teeth, tilting their head up and to the right against the blade to shoot a direct glare at Rock with their good eye from under their visor.

“He says, ‘any time’, and he doesn’t want anything!” Roll brightly reported. “So, now!” “N-now?!” wondered Meiru, looking back at Roll with a deer-in-headlights expression. Next to Roll, Rockman raised a hand to his chin. “Guess I should go back home, then…” “No, it’s okay! I bet we’ll be fine hanging out in the PET. We’ll just mute it, so we don’t bother Meiru-chan and Netto-san.” With that squared away, Roll turned to Meiru. “When you finish your tea, you can always just set the mug down in your room. It’s pretty easy for me to open these portals at this point, y’know?” (Fiddling with the app to create an arm-sized portal was a fun mental image to Roll, anyway.) “It’s really been that long, hasn’t it?” marveled Meiru. “It feels like it wasn’t long ago we were finding the portal feature for the first time!” “Now, enough beating around the bush,” Roll said, dashing off a quick [MSG: ] Here we come! to Netto before urging Meiru, “Get up! Let’s go!” As Meiru got to her feet, Roll opened up the portal, the Navis returning to Meiru’s wrist before she stepped through. Meiru was entirely unprepared for the chaos on the other side, that made it seem like Netto hadn’t been expecting to invite her over at all; but it was probably just as obvious that she’d been caught off-guard by the invitation, with her sock feet and tea mug clutched in her hands. Perhaps this was just as spur-of-the-moment for him as it was for her? “Um… hi!”

Well... Rockman didn't exactly know what Cometman was talking about, and to be fair, he really didn't know either. How in the world could he possibly describe the feeling of being in his world's net and the net of the past? Where every movement brought errors and warnings that were honestly just annoyances and nothing else. But it all made him feel like an awkward puzzle piece. There was that one thing that brought this all up to begin with... "Ah, okay, so. Do you remember back at the Colosseum when you said I wasn't really a Navi? That you really didn't even know what I was?" Cometman hummed, retreating into his collar, "What did you mean by that...?" He was thinking about that. He was thinking about the time Mel looked into his code. He was thinking about the time Dr. Hikari looked into his code too. He was thinking about the fact that no other Navis could exist at his time. So what was it? What made him... like this? It wasn't just curiosity that drove him to ask these things... There was this fear that, since he was so different, and if something were to go wrong with him, what could he even do to fix himself...? Just thinking about it was making him suddenly and constantly imagine the horrible possibilities. And all of this was plain to see on his worried face.

testing again to see if it picks up replies

Hi folks! Most of you will know this information already, but I'd like to keep up posting here for archival and visibility purposes. If you haven't heard yet, we have a wiki! This is where our character & instance info will live, alongside archives of our threads! Much like the forum, this will be publicly available through the Tailscale links. I am personally hosting the wiki through Docker (for the technically curious, it's through docker-compose). The wiki is backed up to my NAS, and then also to remote storage. This is currently Google Drive, but it's encrypted as it goes, so Google isn't scraping the data I back up. The wiki and forum continue to be on an approval basis; Anna and I approve all members, and we aren't currently looking for new ones. (Though, if you think someone is a good fit for the group, please don't hesitate to reach out!) @snoruntpyro is also a moderator of the wiki. This doesn't change the current moderation structure (Anna and I are still moderators of this space, just like we are on Discord), but Pyro has quite a bit of wiki experience and is able to lend a hand when I'm not able to. So if you have wiki questions, myself or Pyro are a great place to start! If you're worrying right now about learning how to use MediaWiki, fret not! It's an extremely well documented piece of software (because it's the same software Wikipedia runs on), and I am happy to lend a hand to anyone who needs help setting up pages. There are already plenty of templates, and a lot of good information in the Style Guide. As of writing this, we already have 50 articles- character sheets, threads, and instance pages included! I'm really proud of the work we've all put in to making a little corner of the internet really ours. So, thank you for coming on this little journey with me!

testing again

Raahhhhhhhhhhhhh

Precure 🥺

[image: 1771798423145-pezneck.png] You have been cursed. You'll never play BN1 - 3 again without seeing Pez Neck Megaman.