Blaire was in her element, elbow propped on the bar while she kept up a conversation with the bartender she was clearly familiar with. Once her drink was in hand, she turned, to see that strangely clad fellow from earlier. What was up with that anyways? One of those regency romance fantasy balls that were popular about now? Renaissance faire perhaps? She did recall there being one held this weekend. Maybe he came straight from the venue. Regardless of whatever his deal was, he was clearly looking uncomfortable while doing his best to appear otherwise. It wouldn’t hurt to try and help him break the ice. Though, her idea of being helpful kind of just, spilled out and came off more pointed than anything. “You just come from the renn faire?” +++ At least she didn’t make them wait. The timing was almost perfect, actually. Aon scowled at the swish of her tail paired with her smirk. Again they found themselves nearly reeling at the dark aura just diffusing off of her. They were really regretting their choice of atmosphere now. The corner of their lip curled slightly. Of course they knew what this was about, but the confirmation of it being about that stupid vault was bait they couldn’t refuse. “Haha oh I see. That coward couldn’t reach out to me again himself? That’s cute.” Pushing themselves off of the wall they stood at a cocky little slant, one hand on hip. “Well, I’ll tell you just as I’ve told him. I don’t have it anymore. You’re wasting everyone’s time.”

Lan always felt awkward around Triese's dad, if only because he was just so straightforwardly helpful that it felt weird. Why wasn't he asking questions about all this crap they were doing...? Why wasn't he trying to poke and prod for secret information she didn't want to share?! Maybe it was because Triese told him everything already... She found the exterior of the casino pretty intimidating, if only because they had to have some ridiculous level of confidence to plaster that many gaudy neon lights with outlines of overjoyed humans on a building in the middle of a city. It was like it was screaming to her, "Come here! We do stuff that shouldn't be legal, but it somehow is!" "Now, I have no intention of spending any money... You don't want to be put on these peoples' lists," Shen began to lecture as he parked the car. There was thankfully a secluded enough parking spot for Lan and Kaita to not have to waltz right in. Instead, the plan would be to wait for others to enter, and follow in after them to blend in with the crowd. "But these kinds of places will be on the lookout for loiterers. The faster you get into the network, the better." Lan pouted as she climbed out of the car, still fretting over the dress and the bag that Mary had lent her. She could only fit so many chips in there... "Can't we just get Flammole to do, um, the thing he does?" she mumbled, not quite remembering the details since it had been so long. "To find wherever the vault is..." "I'd certainly like to, but let me put it this way," Shen began. "I can easily explain away two children if they get caught in the network. If I get caught in the network, it won't be quite as simple." Lan immediately pouted. "I'd love not to foist it on you, Lan, but it sounds as if your friend has some experience, anyhow." "You're a weirdo," Rock chimed in. "Can't believe you'd just trust the Net Savior thing right out of the gate. I think the kid's mom would kill her." Much to both Lan and Rock's surprise, Shen was a bit flummoxed by the comment. "...How unflattering," he muttered under his breath, looking past the two kids into the distance. "Shall we get going, then? I can have my Navi pass along some signature masks, while we wait."

Meiru looked around the alleyway she’d run down, even toward the rooftops, in an attempt to find the person she thought she’d run after. “Where are you?” she called. “Please come out! It’s not safe here!” R-Blues pushed his way through the office space to the window below. He saw Desertman, the Lion Heads, and the tiny mop of hair in front of the mountainous Navi that the Lion Heads were aimed for; and leapt straight down, landing hard in front of Lan. “Dream Aura!” He’d barely made it in time; sand went flying both inside and out of the Dream Aura as the Lion Heads, too close to completely block, were torn apart instead. R-Blues moved to block as much of it as he could from the human he’d rescued. “We need to get you out of here,” R-Blues said, his eyes fixed on Desertman. It was only then that he turned around and, while reaching a hand out to pick her up, realized, “Netto-chan?!” …Was that a knife in her hand? If she seriously thought she was going to be backing him up with that, she had another think coming…

Sophia couldn't return Bambi's big smile. Not just because the aching or her embarrassment hadn't worn off, but because it felt so artificially saccharine. Feel-good stickers were something you gave to children. (Wasn't there also a game in this arcade where you got chased by a killer smiley face upon taking too long? For some reason that seemed to stick out in Sophia's mind) Of course Bambi would raise a stink about the bottle. As if the kids here weren't knocking about trash or ticket clippings everywhere. "Fine, you can have it back." Sophia was clearly feeling better, as her response dripped with sardonicism while she dropped the stickers right above the exact same spot she dropped the bottle. Nothing to smile about in my life, she jeered to herself. While Bambi was preoccupied with bin duty, Sophia kept moving and took her place at one of the netbattle machines. Oddly, she seemed to be the only person stationed at the netbattle machines; the rest remained in a fruitless attract mode, despite being set to free play. Not that Sophia thought much of said observation as she jacked MothMan into the machine. If Bambi was expecting any kind of fancy jack-in catch-phrase or pose, Sophia's mundane point 'n' press was sure to disappoint. After the jack-in process completed, MothMan found himself in what appeared to be a spectator's area: a large, rectangular border overlooking and surrounding the actual netbattling arena. Judging by the sets of benches outlining the edge of the platform and the skybox of stick-figure audience members, the comp seemed to be a very abstract and downscaled representation of a stadium. MothMan didn't spend much time taking in his surroundings, and instead flew towards the conspicuous control panel straight ahead. Even with Bambi cleaning up after Sophia, he was expecting Pointe to catch up with him quickly (and almost certainly in a surprise burst of confetti); he didn't want to waste any time he had to configure the match settings in his favour before Pointe showed up, just in case they raised an objection while he was going through the options. (Perhaps MothMan was trying to be a bit too fast though, as he had to dig in his heels while landing to narrowly avoid smacking his whole body into the panel.) First order of business: picking an arena well-suited to his abilities. MothMan hastily flicked his finger across the row of stage thumbnails in search anything ideal for hi- aha! MothMan stopped scrolling with a decisive finger press. As the thumbnail lit up, each individual tile making up the arena began to flip over one-by-one, clicking back into place with different tiles on the underside and gradually revealing MothMan's choice of stage: A large square of grass with a thick border of regular panels, with rocks laid out in a 5-point dice shape. Perfect for both his abilities and getting a good HeatCross shot in! The sound of another Navi jacking in filled the air just as MothMan gave the arena a satisfied look.

Rei tilted his head at Heatmans response. There was that lack of curiosity again. He seemed painfully content with acceptings things as they were, or perhaps Navis never concerned themselves with things like desires at all. "So we have fundamentally different approaches to such matters", he sighed, "I find it quite foolish to believe your current strength will always be enough. That isn't how you get around in this world, you know" He raised his hand to rest his head against it. He wasn't very interested in teaming up with this one for any longer than necessary, Heatmans theory starting to feel more and more plausible just by how disagreeable he was. But who knows when this mess would be corrected... he still had to get to the root of this somehow. So far, his best guess was that it'd be related to that Chatroom somehow. "Oh, worry not, it's just zennies you're after today", Rei explained. His eyes widened with a sudden realization - this would be an excellent chance to test if Heatman knew of the chatroom well. "I have no access to Dark Chips from around here regardless. Only my provider from another instance can aquire them for me - that's what makes them worth working for" +++ "My operators target is my target", Celestra agreed. She kept waiting for further instructions. When nothing happened, and instead Lan told her to keep at it, she was glad to oblige. She fought better alone anyways, now too confident the fight would be easier like this. In the confusion of the moment, she had lost her focus, and Larkmans attack was noticed at the last second. With a jump back, she managed to avoid most of the attack, but not without some damage. Celestra quickly realized those wings would be an issue. Larkman was fast, and he had more range. Him being airborne ruled out most of her strategies, unless she got him down somehow... so she opted for the meteor attack. Summoned by her howl, the ceiling opened to rain meteors upon her foe. Would Larkman just dodge that as well?

All fell silent once more. The gesturing of shadows, the whispers, not even they wanted to accompany Reg. He was all alone. No one was here. No one was ever here. The moon was not a place for community; it was a rock floating in the void of space, revolving around the Earth but never coming close enough. So too were its inhabitants doomed to spectate — naught could survive here but isolation. Despite the lack of life, something moved. Nothing alive — it was the ground itself. Particles of dust crawled up Reg’s body, slowly at first, growing bolder as they went. They threatened to consume him in an everlasting embrace, to pull him downward. There he would become one with the moon, in its beauty and its solitude.

Lan could only blubber in response to Aon's questioning. Well, seeing her beaten and defeated, obviously. Rendering her unable to do anything anymore. That's what all these adults wanted, and they were stupid for not being self-aware enough to realize that- ...Well, Aon had disappeared before she could vocalize any of those thoughts. Maybe it was for the better. Rock sighed and shrugged, logging herself out before Lan could. As she appeared back on her operator's homescreen, the latter slumped up against the edge of the building they were hiding behind. "I don't get it either, kid," she admitted solemnly. "Like it or not, I think we're just gonna have to keep putting up with 'em." It took a while for Lan to respond, her expression sinking into misery. "...I don't want to do that," she eventually mumbled sadly. "Why do we have to pair up with these people... for the Alpha stuff...? Why not Rockman-san, or..." "Think of it this way, kid," Rock quickly interrupted. "It's probably part of Alpha's plan to make this so scuffed, right? So... we can't let it win." That seemed to immediately calm Lan down, though Rock immediately felt bad about the excuse; she didn't feel good about making it sound like they were throwing Ellen and Meiru under the bus. "A-and... it's probably better for us if we learn to work with anyone, right? Helps, uh, prepare us for the future." The attempt to save face didn't sit all that well with Lan, but she accepted it nonetheless. "I... guess," she mumbled, rolling across the wall of the building in frustration. "But it's... stupid. I just want to..." She went silent again, unsure of what she wanted to say. What did she want? She wanted to be strong, but people kept rejecting her just for that. She didn't want to isolate everyone... she didn't want to be alone again. If she kept trying to be stronger, would her friends leave her, too...? She didn't... she didn't want that, but she needed to be strong, she needed to be with Rock, she needed to do better so she could... ...She laid up against the brick wall, curling herself up as she gave her PET a tender glance. A little tear rolled down her face.

It wasn’t something they would normally go for, but it wasn’t nearly as gaudy as the other drink Roll had, so it would certainly suffice. As soon as it was in their hands they immediately went about pushing the straw around to sate their fidgeting. Aon couldn’t even pretend to know the kind of feelings that came with such a reunion personally, though it was easy enough to feign; at least they thought. “Despite whatever there may have been prior– that is a good memory overall, is it not?” When the conversation came back around to their memory though, it hung them up– though of course, they should have been prepared for that. They couldn’t help but let their thoughts escape them for a moment, furrowing their brows under the visor. How Serpentine could have picked anything as mundane as their boss being overbearing with them, over emphasizing how new they were. That was the point of them after all wasn’t it?…The control (specimen?). “What it means to me? Well…It’s more what it means to Ms. Blaire, but I suppose it’s why I’ve stuck around in the chatroom as long as I have.” It came out on the fly. It was true but bullshit at the same time, a convenient answer to take away from that crippling reminder of their lack of significant experiences CometMan was so quick to clock. “I’m sure it’s obvious, you and Ellen being familiar with her. Access to the chatroom falling into my lap made things a lot easier. It was only a matter of time before my suspicions were proven correct.”

"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 !!

Mayl couldn't help but jump when that distorted voice screamed through the warehouse. Neither she nor Roll fully caught what the Navi was saying, but it certainly seemed as if their cover had unintentionally been blown. (Did that voice sound familiar...? No, it was too hoarse.) The person who jumped around the corner didn't look the part of someone who would be snooping around a warehouse, but Mayl supposed that she didn't, either. She quickly composed herself and pointed her PET toward the stranger, her accusatory body language far more composed than her opponent's. "I could ask the same thing to you," she began, narrowing her eyes. "A 'Dark Chip meetup'? What a strange thing to bring up." ...Whatever a 'Dark Chip' was. It sounded familiar, and similar to some things she was aware of, but something with that suspicious of a name couldn't slip under her radar. Meanwhile, Roll, from the skewed view she had, noticed the odd symbol on the stranger's jacket. Why did that, of all things, register as familiar in a situation like this? She must be losing her mind. "Regardless, I have plenty of reason to be here. I want an explanation for why you were hiding here before I even arrived," Mayl continued, staring daggers into the stranger's soul.

Meiru blinked down at all the photographs in amazement. Another life sat there in front of her. “She went into academia? Wow,” she said, genuinely awed. In a world where Netto had never gone anywhere, where she had nothing to prove and nothing to give others as a Netbattler, she was capable of something like this? “That’s such a competitive field—she must be really talented.” Thinking of Mayl’s long hours spent mastering all aspects of her work on her own, her own time training to be able to take Netto’s place protecting Densan City alongside Enzan, Meiru could easily imagine that in a world where she dedicated that time to music theory and technique instead, she would find the potential to go far. It was just so strange to think about, even as Netto asked for more information about the Meiru in front of him. Sad, even, this feeling of looking through a door that had closed. But she had closed it with a purpose, and for a reason. “I guess we used to be called Officials, in the olden days? But I’m a Net Savior,” she explained to Netto. “I always followed you around on your missions, whether I should’ve or not. So when you disappeared, I guess it felt the most natural to me to keep going. Otherwise… I would’ve always wondered if I was doing all I could, y’know?” She smiled. “To be honest, you remind me a lot of the Netto who lives in my world, too, when he was younger.” Thinking about it, she couldn’t help but fondly giggle, “Even now, sometimes. You always sound so happy when you're talking about your friends.”

"Triese, my dear, it was wonderful to meet you!" Dr. Goodall cheered brightly, "You take care of yourself and your Navi, okay? And if you run into any more trouble with Noise feel free to drop by any time and we'll take a look." "There's a maintenance room off to the side here that you can use to. Time travel," Aaron suggested with a notable pause. "I think that'll work!" Geo chirped, nodding and smiling to Triese, "Let's get you home!" They shuffled off into a room to the side, spacious enough for at least the two of them along with the bundles of wires and racks of equipment that lined the walls. Aaron lingered at the entrance, peering in warily. "Curious about their time travel, Aaron?" Dr. Goodall teased good-naturedly. He jumped and scrambled away, apologizing shortly afterwards. Geo chuckled, turned back to Triese, and had her show him how to open a portal through his chatroom app. Shortly after, a portal opened with an obscuring swirl of light preventing anyone from seeing the other side. He emphasized that Triese should message him when she got home safely, just in case something went wrong. Everyone said their final goodbyes and Triese stepped through the portal. It closed behind her, disappearing in an instant and leaving nothing left. For a quiet couple of seconds they all waited for something to break, but it soon became apparent that things actually turned out alright. The whole room let out a collective sigh of relief once the anxiety passed. "Good morning everyone," a slow, drowsy voice came from one of Aaron's pockets, "What did I miss?" Aaron groaned in resignation, "A lot, Ursa. You missed a lot." That got a chuckle out of everyone, then Omega-Xis leaned down to ask, "Well? Do you still want to stay out of chatroom shenanigans, Geo?" Geo pondered this, then met his partner's gaze and concluded, "I think there's a lot we're going to have to learn if we want to help anyone in there, but I think it'd be good to do so. To help the past and our future too." "Now we're talking!!" Omega-Xis roared and pulled Geo into a side hug, "The interdimensional time fugitives are on the case!!" Geo immediately protested, claiming loudly that they were not in fact 'fugitives' by any sense of the word while the rest of WAZA listened curiously to the pair of heroes making a ruckus. One thing was clear from all of this -- that this was just the beginning of many strange things to come.

Great. It was weird. Well, he already knew this and it wasn't comforting to hear it coming from the mouth of an expert. But now he at least had confirmation. But his creation... Flashes of moments from a past he was not there for peppered his vision. Hardly any detail, barely perceptible, data broken and frayed at the edges. Perceived with the little data wrapped up in them instead of actually seen with his eyes. It was something he'd gotten used to. It wasn't obtrusive now and at this point had given up on trying to understand it. And in any case, it made him feel closer to Ellen, bizarrely enough. Cometman's face journeyed through furrowed then pensive then distant looks, landing right back onto his usual nonplussed expression. "Nope, like I said, memories just start at one point," he shrugged, "Figures that would be another thing that's weird about me. You know..." he trailed off, remembering his first encounter with Dragonman, "Do all Navis just have a lot of this knowledge built in?? Like, I tried playing chess, right? Apparently other Navis just have the rules baked into them fresh out of the box, but I sure didn't! I had to look that up! I don't know why I'm complaining about this right now, it's just," he smirked, "life's crazy isn't it?" He resigned himself to that conclusion. No one would have these answers for him. He was weird and that was just how things were he supposed.

Netto immediately took the affection; unlike Rockman, or Enzan, or Laika, he had not yet learned to be afraid of a kind hand. He wanted to make excuses for Cain. Cain was never openly cruel to him- maybe once, in a flash of anger, but not much more than that. Cain was dry, and Netto was always trying to get him to laugh at a joke or even just smile. Cain had some shitty past, and Netto felt empathetic to that. It was world shattering, to think he'd made the wrong call. "Dr. Cain - he's not like-" Netto winced, sitting up out of Pen's hold to voice an apology to Rockman. But Rockman cut him off, and spoke instead. "Cain is nothing like Regal. He's just a- worm." Netto sniffed, falling back into Pen's arms. "I think Dad mentioned something like, he's probably gonna get his license stripped too. It's bad enough...to him." Netto had voiced how much he thought this was overkill. He'd even said those words no one wanted to admit- why is Cain getting worse treatment than Regal? Sure, he'd had all his licensure stripped years ago- but they just shipped him off to a country that didn't care about his crimes. Cain was going to get punished in the only way that mattered to him; his work. But Yuuichiro had just given him a withered look, and he knew that they all wished more had been done about Regal. And more should have been done. More could have been done, if the Officials cared about this kind of crime. All they wanted to do was cover up their mistake, that leaving Regal to work in Scilabs was just a ticking time bomb, that all of their pain had been avoidable if they had just-- Netto sucked in a breath, realizing for a brief second he'd stopped breathing at all. He released his closed fists. A realization dawned on him and he stuttered out, "O-Oh. I- I can't go back to work. L-Like, ever."

Enzan remembers those cold lips. Death lips. They'd been blue, contrasted with the harsh red burns across his lover's face. He finds his fingers drifting over his lips, and struggling to recall when the exact moment his desire had begun. Was it when he was a child, and he'd seen into the power infecting his navi? Was it when he'd held Laika's body, knowing it was the divine material keeping him in this world? "Put me down on red," Enzan says, as he pushes his bet towards her. "What do you really want to know?" He asked. Maybe if he told her— Maybe something different would happen this time. Maybe his luck would improve.

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

hey only im allowed to test

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