After a spirited one-sided discussion about wave battle strategies from a very eager Claud, Geo was feeling a bit spent. It was quite a lot to process. He was just going over there to trade away his extra cards, how'd he get roped up in talking about bubbling techniques anyways?

"I didn't think you could use Whistle like that..." Omega-Xis muttered over his shoulder, projected from his Hunter-VG, "Hey Geo, think there'd be someone in that chatroom thing that'd know of more things to use Whistle on?"

"To be honest Mega..." Geo responded a bit distantly, "I don't know if we should poke into the chatroom too much. I get the feeling like if we draw its attention, something bad may happen."

"Eh," Omega-Xis tossed a claw about, "Anything that comes our way, we'll handle it."

"I suppose so..." he mumbled, exiting Big Wave, "I'm just worried about provoking something."

"You provoking something?" Omega-Xis guffawed, and continued talking as Geo's attention was drawn elsewhere.

His eyes had landed on someone wandering the park that looked... distressed. How odd, she didn't seem from around here.

"Hey Geo," Omega-Xis leaned in close to whisper in his ear, "I'm sensing a huge amount of Noise from that device of her's, you wanna go see what's up?"

Before he had finished asking, Geo was already heading over. Sure enough, the thing in her hands sounded rough and had that distinct red on the screen. Already Geo was feeling that scratching feeling in the back of his throat that he'd come to associate with Crimson.

"Excuse me, um," he pushed past the feeling and gave her a small smile, "Do you need some help with the Noise coming from your device?"

The moment Cometman entered Rockman's cyberspace, he scanned the room and then did a visible double take as his eyes landed on Rockman who was a head shorter than he expected. He knew these Megaman types were a bit on the shorter side but he remembered him seeming taller for some reason.

He chuckled good-naturedly at Rockman's apology.

"It's good to see you again, glad you're doing ok," he gave the blue guy a smirk and a flippant hand wave, "Eh, it wasn't that bad. We all made it out alive, didn't we?"

He caught himself. He needed to be more gentle, more!

"I'm really glad that we had friends that were able to help get us out of all that," his expression softened, "I was able to reach Ellen just in time and that's what's important."

He nodded to himself, then felt as though he'd been too vulnerable.

"But yeah! It all worked out in the end!" he gave his best, cheesiest grin, "We beat a baddy, learned a couple of things, and we got a rare chip out of it! Not bad, I'd say."

He ended with a satisfied smirk. He was getting better at this whole conversation thing. Usually he'd rely on Ellen to carry the momentum, but as this was his first time talking to a Navi by himself, well, at least he thought he was doing alright, all things considered.

What a presumptuous prick!!

Cometman clenched his fist and swiped out a message with a swift fury.

"Things getting heated in friendship land?" Ellen asked, peering over at Cometman's disgruntled face.

He paused, gathered himself, then growled out his frustrations and threw his hands down, then folded them across his torso, "I don't get this guy. He's all over the place! Sometimes he's nice, other times he's standoffish, and other times he's just straight up mean?? Makes me wanna fight the guy, maybe I'd finally get a straight answer out of him then... I won't, but," he huffed.

"I mean we already fought the guy, beat him too," she mentioned, leaning back and reminiscing.

He fell slightly onto the window behind him, then let his head fall backwards, looking up at the ceiling of Ellen's desktop, "...How can we even help him?"

"I was really hoping you're strategy'd work cause I have no idea," she chirped.

He stared up at the simulated ceiling that was roughly converted data to a visual format. It was extended pixels from the background extrapolated and constantly shifting with colors. It existed because it had to exist, because he was there looking at it, because he could see these things, these things had to be seen. It was freaky and weird as heck and he just wanted answers all over again.

"I wanna grab that guy by the shoulders and scream at him," he grumbled, squeezing his arms.

"Is that really what you want to do?" Ellen pressed cautiously.

He growled, "No. What I really want to do is get to know him better and be his friend, but maybe the direct approach isn't best here and I gotta be more... Gentle." he sneered as it felt like a betrayal of some sort.

He leaned forward off the window, righting himself and caught Ellen looking at him with a soft smile, to which he mumbled, "What's that look for?"

She laughed and threw up her hands, "Nothing! Nothing, I'm just, glad, that's all!" she smiled, "Why don't you go visit him?"

"I think I'll do just that," he smirked, quickly swiping away his unfinished message and writing a new one.

[MSG ]: Alright, make way then, I'm heading over.

"If he gives you any grief, you can suplex him again," she chuckled, giving him a thumbs up.

He opened a portal to Rockman's Net, giving her a thumbs up in return as he stepped through.

Cometman seriously doubted this guy was fine.

[MSG ]: I want to chat about Navis and what we are, because you seem knowledgeable about that. And to be quite frank, I want to help you. You're a nice guy and I want to be your friend, that's the long and the short of it.

He sent the message and leaned back on a window Ellen had opened up for him. She had that look on like she was trying to solve a hard puzzle, and she wasn’t known to really like solving puzzles.

"What’s on your mind, Ellen?" he asked, peering up at her.

"It's just...!" she growled, clutching her arms in close, "I'm thinking about that fight we had with that Rockman and how weird it was."

"I mean, the whole colosseum was weird but, what are you talking about in particular?"

"Man, it was like," she flipped her hand about, "Okay so there was this one time when Netken had a huge update that brought a bunch of old players back into the game and they all had this way of fighting where they clearly knew what they were doing but they weren't familiar with the new meta and also they just hadn't fought in a while. That's what Rockman's fighting reminds me of! Kinda rusty, and experienced all wrapped up. And what was going on with his Operator the whole fight? Like, I know he's a different Netto and mind controlled and all that, but he really did a complete one eighty after breaking out of Serpentine's control. I don't know what I'm trying to get at, it's just... There's something else going on between those two, you know?"

He was inclined to agree, especially being told by ghostly Rockman to not tell his Netto about all this.

"He seems awfully lonely," Cometman noted, "Poor guy."

[MSG ]: By the way, have you had the chance to talk to your Operator or anyone else about what you went through? We haven't spoken to Netto about it, but I still think that this is something you should talk to someone about. If you want, you could even talk to me about it, considering I know something about what happened and went through something similar.

There was something in that memory of that ethereal glow from that unarmored Rockman that kept haunting Cometman's processes. What even was that?? Nothing in whatever database he had could point him to any sort of logical conclusion.

Sure there was a lot going on with Serpentine and that whole Colossus Colosseum, but it was that ghost that kept coming to mind. And it wasn't curiosity, or a need for an answer, it was something else, but what it was evaded him. It spoke to something about Rockman himself, like there was just... A lot going on with him. Was it weird that all he thought was that he wanted to help him?

If he traced out a similar logic path, it was the same route he'd take when he saw Ellen look sullen for some inexplicable reason. And there was only one thing to do in that situation, face it all head on and stuff, such was his nature.

"Hey Ellen," he called out, determined, "I'm gonna contact Rockman, the older looking one, got some things to ask him."

Ellen peered over at him chilling on her desktop with a brow raised, "Yeah? You don't gotta ask me for permission, what's up?"

"Well, I want to talk to him one on one," he hummed, "So I'd be going over to his world by myself."

"Oh!" she chirped, taking a moment to consider the fact that she'd be letting him go out there all on his own, "Yeah, uh, cause that guy's got secrets and stuff."

"More like, he seems like the kind of guy who likes to keep some things private. Like he wants to stay quiet about some things," he clarified, holding his chin in his hand.

"Well! When you come back, tell me all about the stuff you're allowed to tell me about!" she grinned, giving a thumbs up, "It's still unbelievable that we've got like, direct access to legendary heroes across time!"

"Different pasts, different futures, different people, Ellen," he grumbled.

"Yeah, I know," she waved a hand about, "It's the same guy, but different! I'm just! Worried about him too, so make sure to tell me all about how he's doing!"

Cometman paused, blinked, then gave her a soft smile, "Of course."

[MSG ]: Hey, this is Cometman. I wanted to check up on you after all that stuff happened at the Colossus Colosseum. Let me know if you're available to meet up somewhere and chat.

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