---

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."

It was hard for Lan to keep herself straight, which made her all the more susceptible to Desertman's trap. "Wh-what the hell is..." was all she could blurt out, before her feet began to sink into the ground. It was a really weird feeling, more than enough to distract her from the horror of whatever a Mirage Space was. She knew it was useless to beg... so she yanked her foot upward instead, kicking away the sand before it could completely subsume her.

Rock continued her chase through the sandstorm, which seemed to only intensify as Desertman's growls rippled through the PET speakers. Lan's adrenaline and fear coursed through her, somehow even more intensely than it had back in the Liminal Space, and it instantly brought back her feeling of helplessness. "K-kid! Don't do anything stupid! Just- just book it!" she yelled, as a gust of sand slammed into her and knocked her back. The PET wasn't detecting any more jack-in points around them... so Rock felt even more lost in the storm than she already was.

(...If there was a Navi running around in the real world, then was the operator running around in the cyberworld...? No, that's stupid... That was an excuse, since she was being so useless... She knew she should jack out, but that Navi clearly had something to hide, and... and...)

Lan stepped back, dizzily taking in her surroundings as Desertman loomed over her. All that this 'Mirage Space' was showing to her was some kind of twisted wasteland... with the life ripped out of it. She... she couldn't die here, could she?! No! Never! Sh-she couldn't let any of this happen...!

Impulsively, she swerved her arm around to reach inside of her bag, cradling her free hand around her chest defensively. Her eyes shimmered with fear and rage as her hand shakily wrapped around the hilt of the knife she'd been keeping in her bag. A little shadow flickered over her face as she whipped the knife in front of her, breaking into a charge. "N-not... happening!!"

... To her credit, she was faster than Desertman could have expected. Maybe a little too fast. But she thrust the blade into Desertman's side with as much force as she could muster... and realized she was stabbing sand. With a knife.

She paused for a second, unsure of what she even expected.

"Gwa-ha-ha... How funny," Desertman slowly laughed, tickled by this feeble human's terrible attempt at murder. Sand quickly coalesced around Lan - who had to keep herself from stumbling over when she pulled the knife out - and formed into beastly constructs, trapping her on all sides. "You will be remembered amongst the dead for your insolence... but was it worth it, in the end?! Lion Head!"

It took a while for Meiru's plea to bring anything of note. The sand that had overtaken the skyscraper had begun to creep on its surroundings, carried around by an unnatural wind rippling through the equally unnatural not-Dimensional Area. But if Meiru's eyes followed the wind, then perhaps out of the corner of her eye, she would spot one person hiding behind a nearby brick building, who immediately ducked out of the way from the threat of being spotted.

---

Despite her fixation on getting to the center of this mess, it was hard for Lan not to notice her Navi yelling and giving chase. "Rock?! What's going on?!" she yelled, picking up the pace and turning one last corner to get a clear view at the supremely messed-up skyscraper.

Rock had lost track of the silhouette, but continued darting through the sandstorm nonetheless - even if she got ambushed, that'd still be bringing the Navi to her, right? "If that Navi ain't the culprit... I dunno who is!" she shouted back. "Kid, pass me a Fire chip! I can use it as a light, or somethin' like that!"

Lan was a little too preoccupied to appreciate Rock's ingenuity, but she absentmindedly reached for her bag, anyways. "Battle Chip, Element Flare...!" she shouted, though her voice trailed off as she stared up at the skyscraper. No one was around, having fled both the sight of the disaster and the increasingly heavy air around it. At least it made Lan less embarrassed about standing around and trying to act like she could do something about it.

...What happened to the people inside the building? What happened to the people that were in the parts of the building that didn't exist anymore...?

A cold feeling ran up her body. That realization had made this scenario feel even more nightmarish than it already was. Maybe she... should get out of here. Before more people came... and paid attention... to something as horrible and ridiculous as...

...Then, Lan felt a presence behind her, and without even thinking, she whirled her foot around to slam it into whatever had crept up on her. What a weirdly Rock thing to do, she thought, just before her eyes caught up. She nearly lost her balance when her foot whacked into... more sand? It looked like a hand... Hadn't she seen that before-

She yelped as the hand clamped down on her foot, and she managed to yank it away in time before she could lose her shoe. "Groooaaaaah," came a groan from beneath the street. Lan backed away as she nervously glanced down at her PET, where Rock was trying and failing to use the Element Flare like it was a carry-around torch.

"Gwahhh!! How dare... a human... trespass on this fertile ground?!" the voice continued shouting, as a pitfall began to form a few feet in front of Lan. "You are irrelevant! You are insignificant! You are hardly worthy... of being replaced!!"

Lan blinked heavily; she finally realized where she knew that voice from as soon as a familiar form rose out of the sand - but this time, right in front of her. Not behind a screen. Very much a few feet in front of her, which made the scale of what she was up against abundantly clear. "D-Desertman...?" she mumbled, reeling back in terror. "Rock! Rock! Um! Rock! This is bad!"

...As if solely to make things worse, Rock had finally caught sight of the Navi once more as soon as a stabbing pain went through her chest. "H-hey- stop-" she yelled as she turned her attention back to her operator. "What? Desert... who??"

"I-I... but I already..." Lan continued blubbering, before recalling that Rock wasn't even here for her battling that Navi. She couldn't even remember the last time she'd thought about Desertman, or Sunayama, for that matter. (...If Desertman was here, then where was Sunayama...?)

She stood her ground, clenching her fists and glaring back at Desertman as if she could possibly threaten this thing twice her size. "Wh-what's going on...?! I want an explanation! Now!" she shouted, her voice trembling a little.

---

The moment Rock materialized, she was forced to brace herself, lest she get blown away like a twig by the sandstorm that had overtaken the Net. She stood her ground, activating her visor so the sand wasn't smacking her in the face. Grumbling, she took a few steps forward; she quickly realized she wasn't sure if she had ever dealt with wind before. "The... fuck...?! What is this...?!"

The sandstorm was thick enough that it completely covered her surroundings. All she could really make sense of was the floor beneath her, which... even that didn't seem right, did it? It looked like multiple textures were overlapping and clipping into each other... Was the main harbor net just like this, or...?

Lan, meanwhile, kept pushing onward through the distorted scenery. The air around her was getting... heavier. She didn't want to have it slow her down, but her shoulders lowered nonetheless; something felt wrong about being here, in a way that the substantiation she'd seen previously didn't. It felt wrong, it looked wrong... It was like her surroundings had been cut up and shuffled around like some kind of art project. And it was here. It was real. She definitely, absolutely, with certainty, was not asleep right now. Or hallucinating. (She hoped.)

...Absentmindedly, she looked behind her, and stopped dead when she realized her surroundings were blurry. More specifically, the view out into the harbor in the distance had been completely subsumed by indistinct blobs. She was pretty sure she didn't need glasses, because she could see the quality drop after a certain point. It was like a weird funhouse mirror, or something, stopping her from seeing past the horizon...

"Rock... I hate this," she mumbled sadly as she shuffled forward. She was starting to regret her decision, but it couldn't be long before she reached wherever the news was showcasing. "I-I... I know it's not a nightmare. It's real, but... shouldn't it be a nightmare?!"

Rock hadn't made much progress, in the meantime. It was hard to tell where the paths were even going; the rare sign or streetlamp implement was not even remotely helpful besides providing silhouettes amongst the sand. "Kid... just say calm, and watch your back," she advised. "There's gotta be some explanation for all of this, but I don't want to see you get yourself hurt tryin' to..."

Her voice trailed off as she spotted an odd figure standing on a ledge in the distance. It took a moment for her to realize what she was looking at... but as the figure shifted and hoisted something over their shoulders, Rock put together that it was some kind of floating, humanoid figure lugging around... a coffin? Were those... chains? There were other metal implements, too, but...

"Hey!" Rock shouted in the sandstorm, as soon as the figure flinched and began to move. "Someone alive out there?! You got an explanation for this?!"

The figure didn't respond, instead leaning over and disappearing into the sand... which, as far as Rock was concerned, was pretty damn incriminating. "Get back here!" she shouted, drawing her blades and pushing against the wind. "Is this your doing?! Hey!"

---

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.

"Haha, a pair, I get it, it's like cards," Rock joked, almost reflexively. She blanched, like she didn't fully understand why she said it. Cough. "A-ny-ways..."

Lan only blushed harder once Kaita came out from the bathroom, especially since Triese lit up so brightly upon realizing the same thing that Mary and Ring did. "I-I... once we're there, it'll be fine," she protested, crossing her arms. "There's nothing wrong with it... I just can't remember the last time I had to dress up for anything..."

"Now we both got to dress up! It's like an equilibrium or something," Triese cheekily pointed out. "Anyways, you're just trying to act like you belong there, so it's not like you gotta waltz up to some ritzy adult and do a curtsy."

"...Yeah, I know," Lan admitted shyly, before eyeing the bathroom. "I guess... I should change, too..."

Lan didn't spend long changing, and she came out looking totally incongruous from her personality. As she walked out tentatively and Triese helped her straighten the dress, she held her bandana in her hands. "...This doesn't go with the dress at all. Ugh," she muttered to herself. Her hair was even more of a floofy mess without the bandana holding some of it in place. After stuffing it back in the bag, she said, "I'll have to carry around my bag, too... since it, uh, doesn't match the dress, either..."

"I'm sure it'll be fine. It's all about avoiding eyes," Rock pointed out.

Triese nodded fervently. "Yup! My dad can get you guys in, and then you can snoop around all you want!"

"...Your dad?" Lan repeated, before remembering that he totally had found about the chatroom. Because of her and Ellen taking it too far, no less. "Oh... I didn't think of that. I guess that makes it kinda simple, huh..."

"What did you think you were going to do...? There's no way you're gonna take the metro wearing that dress," Triese pointed out. "My dad'll drive you there. I wish we could come, but...! Our car's not big enough..."

"...You should really stay," Lan insisted. "The more people that come, the more likely we'll get caught."

"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 !!

---

It was a damn good thing that the trains never stopped running no matter what. What if someone needed to get to work!, was the logic Lan had to assume they were working off of. But it worked in her favor, since she could still quickly make her way to Marine Harbor in an inconspicuous manner.

The few people on the train seemed awfully nervous, though. Lan wasn’t listening, but she unwillingly caught a whisper from an older man. “… something like Copybots,” was all she heard, which was enough to alarm her by itself.

“Trying to read the news,” Rock covertly reported as the train closed in on its destination. “Can’t find anything that isn’t live coverage. It’s… is this really two different buildings? But that can’t… it isn’t…”

Lan had to resist not to bolt off the train as soon as it arrived so as to not attract suspicion, but even if she had broken out into a sprint, a certain impossible-to-miss aight would have stopped her dead a moment later anyways. What looked to be a tear had opened in the sky, tinting the clouds around them red, like a storm from Hell had rolled in. A bizarre hexagon-like pattern briefly flashed through the air in the distance, as well.

“What… the hell…?” Lan muttered to herself. To anyone else, it probably would have looked like the world was ending. “Hey, Rock, this isn’t…”

She shook her head, then broke out into a sprint. “Hey! Kid, what are you talking about?!” she barked. “Don’t just go running in…! We don’t know what could be up ahead-“

“Do you remember the haunted house? When it all started melting together and mirroring itself, and we could see each other on the floor and the ceiling?” Lan rambled as she stopped to put her skates on. “I-I thought… somehow, there was a Liminal Space, or something, but it doesn’t look like it, and… and, it shouldn’t be possible…”

As soon as she noticed that she was the only one going toward the red sky and not getting the hell away from it, she ducked closer to the pier so she wouldn’t have to skate by people who might yell at her and try to stop her. She’d navigated Marine Harbor in a panic before, anyways, so she was sure it wouldn’t be long before she’d find wherever the hell that-

…She turned a corner, and she realized she was not where she was supposed to be. Why was there a cafe to her side? There wasn’t a cafe there. That was just part of a building. Where did the building go?

A harsh noise hummed in the air as hexagons flickered in front of her face. Lan blinked, then swatted at them like they were bugs. The air felt… heavy.

Rock could sense her operator’s fear, and began to panic in turn. “H-hey, kid, do you have a plan at all…?!” she barked, as Lan continued to skate along and take note of the completely incorrect layout of the district. It didn’t take long for Rock to also notice some of the buildings were in a completely different style than the others, looking much cleaner and sleeker than… anything local. “We should… we should really figure out what the fuck’s going on instead of running toward it, ‘cuz, god damn, feels like we’re coming up on the apocalypse-“

“We can’t wait!” Lan hissed back. “If this has something to do… with the chatroom, or Alpha, then we have to do something, right?!”

Rock’s eye twitched. “Just… just jack me in, please!” she shouted. “There’s got to be some explanation we can find… right?!”

Lan skidded to a halt, raising her shoulders nervously as she scanned the area for any nearby electronic devices. “I… I guess… yeah, um, sorry,” she mumbled, before shooting straight into her practiced pose. “Cut the light, Rock! Execute!”

---

Triese got the sense that she probably didn't want to run over Mary conversation-wise, so she patiently waited for her co-conspirator to give her opinion. "It's nice to meet you, too!! I haven't really met a lot of the friends Lan's made, so!" she cheerfully responded. "Um, not that I'm saying that's a bad thing, Lan! It's just something I noticed, and... uh..."

"J-just get on with it," Lan stammered, completely embarrassed. "I didn't do it on purpose. It's just, you were at the beach when I was doing something else, and..." She shook her head, realizing she was the one who decided not to go to the beach to begin with, then raised an eyebrow at Mary. "Last time...?"

Triese spun around and ducked into her closet to search for clothes. The first thing she pulled out, a combo piece of a collared white shirt with a black skirt, was met with immediate disdain from Lan. Next, a sleeveless blouse to go with a nice pair of dress pants... which Lan was similarly resistant to. "You gotta pick something, you know," Triese couldn't help but point out. "I know you just like wearing jackets, and I wish I had a fancy jacket or something like that to give you, but that probably won't cut it, you know...?"

"Wh-whatever! If I have to wear fancy... then... just give me whatever's the fanciest thing. I'll deal with it," Lan blubbered, crossing her arms. "I-I don't really care... it's... it's just clothes..."

Triese couldn't help but lower her eyelids and smirk. "Oh?" she muttered, before ducking back into the closet and pulling out a purple-and-white dress with multiple attached bows and too many frills for Lan's character. "I bet you'd be cute in this, you know..." she taunted, having way too much fun.

"Sh-- shut--...!" Lan barked back, growling before she bit her lip. "F-fine... fine... I'll do it..."

Rock raised an eyebrow. "You... don't have to, kid, you know that?" she chimed in with... but her operator's silence told her that she had somehow made this a matter of pride. She was going to wear the dress, because she wasn't a coward!... Or something. It was easy to imagine her saying that...

---

Ever since the incident at the casino, Lan had felt increasingly more and more anxious any time that her mother was home early from work. It wasn't like it ever made a difference to her in the past, but with her web of things she really didn't want to tell people about thickening once more, she wanted to avoid any possible confrontation. She was lucky enough to begin with that Kaita was the one who visited and not literally anyone else. Let alone the fact that she now had Kokoro pestering her, too...

So, every time Lan snuck downstairs to retrieve water or laundry or something like that, she treated it like a stealth mission. Rock thought it was a pretty funny habit, and lightly jabbed her about it as she began the process once more. "You know, it's not like things have changed that much," she joked. "You don't gotta act like you've got a big scar to hide, kid."

"...Don't want to," Lan grumbled, not even bothering to finish her sentence as she scurried down the stairs and hugged up against the wall. Right! Now to scout out the kitchen and plan a path to avoid any human contact. The TV was on, so maybe that was a good sign? Maybe that would be a free pass to get to the fridge without being noticed, so she slowly scooched against the wall, spotting the TV out of the corner of her eye...

"...finding it difficult to work with the authorities in this unprecedented situation," a newscaster was saying. Her mom was, in fact, watching the TV with great concern. "As of now, there are no concrete reports on if there are any casualties. Few seem willing to approach the area..."

Lan's mission came to a screeching hault as she got a better view of what was actually on the TV screen. A feed from a helicopter was displaying what looked like two buildings attached to each other in what looked to be Marine Harbor. One part of a skyscraper was glued to the side of another, impossibly floating in the air, while sand poured from the other skyscraper's windows and onto the streets below. The streets looked distorted, like they were being displayed under a filter, except the footage surrounding it was completely normal. Lines looked like they were duplicating themselves, and the elevation jutted up at random points.

"...Is this a movie?" Rock mumbled, trying not to blow Lan's cover but knowing she shouldn't not voice her concern. "No, this is..."

Lan choked a little as she pinned herself back to the wall, staring at the footage playing out. Why was sand there? Why did the sky look like it was tinted ever-so-slightly red? Why did it look so unnatural? There wasn't... any way that... this could be...?

She swallowed and ran back upstairs, giving up her position to her mother, who was watching in silence. "Honey? What are you doing?" Ms. Hikari asked, watching her daughter scurrying up the stairs and come back with her bag not a moment later. "Wh-where are you going?"

"Friend's house! I'm late!" Lan effortlessly lied, grabbing her rollerskates and barreling out the door. It couldn't be. It didn't look like it, and it wasn't possible. But she couldn't risk letting this by, especially if... this might be her fault. She had to check.

---

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.

Exactly once a day, a beaten-up train made a round-trip through the network of a dying industrial town to a Hell that had endured several apocalypses in spite of how much it deserved to die. To the few who cared about these distinctions, the Undernet was more of a purgatory; it was infinitely large, with too many layers and sectors to ever be documented. Some were bustling against all odds, others had melted away from meddling of outside forces. The final layer, perhaps, was the Eternal Net, an prison with no inmates.

But then there was the 'Hell', which may as well have been a wholly separate existence. The knowledge of why the Scrapyard existed had long since lost been time. The inhospitable landscape of garbage data and endlessly ferocious viruses were all that remained, and for many years, such an environment made it the perfect dumping grounds for disposing of Navis that were no longer of use to anyone. Disobedients, unfixables, vanity projects that went nowhere...

The daily train was the only escape for any Navi to escape and carve out their own life, if they still had their sentience to make it to the boarding platform. It was only step one, though - security waited for them on the other side of the trip. Security was one of the only technological sectors that seemed to keep itself up to date, just so that undesirables could be disposed of the most efficiently.

Today, on the train ride back from the Scrapyard, a small handful of HeelNavis awaited their chance at escape. The main Net wouldn't suffice, but even the worst corners of the Undernet were better than surviving a relentless assault of chimera viruses. Silently, each of them twiddled their thumbs, planning out how they would make a break for it. And then, beep beep beep beep

Part of the train abruptly lurched into the air as the sound of an explosion rippled through the train. It slammed back onto the tracks, with some of its cars disconnecting and grinding to a halt. The passengers stood up in a panic, the train having been stranded in the middle of the network. It was then that a distorted voice echoed through the orphaned cars, like the bomb had somehow come with a pre-recorded message.

"Go! This is your chance at freedom! Run while you still can!" the voice of a young girl shouted. "Don't allow your future to be stolen away! Everyone can help make a better world!" The passengers began clambering out of the train, paying little attention to the entirely too enthusiastic voice. "In the darkness, I steal away the roots of injustice! Signing off, Phantom Thief Kirin!"

...In the skybox of the Cyberworld, an array of red hexagons flared for a brief moment, like a higher power was observing the desperate plea toward fate.

---

I don't think it needs to be this way! We'll solve the mysteries of this world together, alright?!
Maybe when we're done... the world will basically look like a whole different place...!

---

THE LOOPING MYSTERY YET TO BE UNDERSTOOD
ALL THE TRUTHS MELT TOGETHER INTO ONE!
OVERRIDE YOUR DESIRE WITH A MIRROR!
ONE CATASTROPHE REPLACED WITH ANOTHER!

**=== Rockman.EXE Mirage ===**
       💔⚙️💧🎣🌺🔦🎃
       🌟⭐🎵❣️♠️🔧🧭
**===========================**

---

With how suddenly the plan had been expanded, Triese looked like she had just ate her entire candy stash in a single bite. She was practically bouncing off the walls getting to meet new people - Lan had briefly mentioned Kaita and Mary before, and she'd probably seen the former in the chatroom once or twice, but now she had a chance to actually speak with them!! Wow!!

"Oh my gosh!! Your Navis are so cool and I can't believe you guys have to do this, like, okay, you're basically dealing with kind of an expert here because I just did the same thing in Reg's world and it totally worked and I got away with it, so!" Triese blabbered in a single breath. "It's so nice to meet you!! You're from the same place that the Netto Lan's super friendly with is from, right?! I guess this is the first time I've got to talk to you guys, so-"

"Hey, uh, we might be on a time crunch here," Rock interjected, taking the wind out of Triese's sails. "Who knows how much longer we've got until that vault starts causing major problems? I know you're excited and all, but..."

Triese curled her lip and recomposed herself. "Right! Okay... yeah, that makes sense," she muttered, though she sounded a little disappointed. Turning to Mary, she continued. "So, I-I mean, you wouldn't want to stand out, necessarily, so probably nothing too flashy, but..."

"...I don't want to 'dress up'," Lan grumbled. "I don't even know if there's a party, so... whatever lets us blend in with, um, the least amount of effort..."

"I mean, dress shirts should be fine, right? What do people who go to casinos dress up like...?" Triese suggested, hovering around Lan and Mary as she rambled. "I have a couple shirts that should fit you. Basically, you'd wanna look like with your rich parents or something, right? So, I guess... think like you're going to a wedding. Nice shoes... and, uh..." She paused. "Um, I've never been to a wedding."

Roll had spent the better part of a week trying to talk Ms. Sakurai out of following up on completely unverified reports. It was hard not to worry about her well-being when she was utterly swamped with both the Luminous Revival fallout and applying for colleges while trying to juggle her last school semester and what-ever was going on with the interdimensional application. Ms. Sakurai insisted that it was alright, that she'd handled worse time and time again, but when a completely unrelated, comically suspicious posting showed up on the local BBS.

What was a 'DRN DATA MEETUP'...? The date listed on the post didn't even make any sense. It was, admittedly, suspicious - but there were no details besides that. There were certainly warehouses in the area, but whatever they would be used for was beyond Roll. It only took a few hours for her to lose the verbal battle, however - her operator was too restless to talk down. "If there's a problem, I'd rather deal with it before it spawns eight other problems," she insisted.

An hour prior to the meeting time, Mayl took a train downtown to scope out the industrial sector, having narrowed down the potential meeting locations to two or three candidates. It certainly felt illegal to be snooping past barbed-wire gates and through mazes of dusty-looking buildings, but the Net Sheriff badge would give her a free pass to do a little scouting, certainly.

...As she approached one of the warehouses, however, she blinked heavily - and when she opened her eyes, a pattern of hexagons flashed in her peripheral vision, like she'd just been punched in the face. "Wh-what the hell...?" she muttered to herself, putting a hand to her head. She felt a little dizzy... but the feeling cleared a second later. It didn't seem familiar, which was good, because any explanation she could reasonably think of for that strange feeling would be, quote unquote, quite bad.

In her frustration, she approached the warehouse and carefully opened the door. Was this even a place where illegal goods would be reasonably stored? It certainly seemed abandoned, so she might as well start checking - and it was still well before the posted time, so there wasn't a huge concern of being caught.

Once she had slipped into the warehouse, she began using her PET screen as a light, which allowed Roll to scope the area as well. Something about the interior seemed... odd, however. "This ceiling is too low," she muttered to herself, her eyelids lowering. "This doesn't make sense."

"...The interior of the building does not match the outside?" Roll repeated blankly. "I will not doubt you, but... are you sure you did not miss something, Ms. Sakurai?"

Lan grumbled uncomfortably as Kaita took charge of the situation. Giving the vault to the Ministry over Wily definitely sounded a little more appealing, at least. "It's... it doesn't have anything to do with the arcana-whatevers," she sheepishly clarified. "So... it's fine..."

"We've beaten a couple of 'em before. As long as we can get in the network, it won't be anything we can't handle, right?" Rock insisted, trying to look as chipper as possible for her operator. "But... there's no way that that badge is gonna work, and..."

Both Lan and Rock went completely silent for a moment as Kaita cooked up a plan that neither of them would have even remotely thought of. "D-dress... up...?" Lan repeated in utter bafflement, her expression looking like she'd just been told to drink mud. "I've... I've never done that in my life... What...?"

"Maybe you would've if you bothered to participate in Halloween, kid!" Rock added, sounding strangely petulant about it, as if her tone was pining for the spooky season. Of course, such a jab earned her a glare from Lan. "Ah-haaahh... Well, it's still a good idea, ain't it? Isn't that the whole idea in movies, stacking on top of each other in a trenchcoat and pretending you're..."

"I am not carrying someone on my shoulders," Lan interrupted. "That's not going to work. At all."

Rock averted her eyes. "Well, okay, fine. But if you dress fancy, it'll seem like you're supposed to be there, right? Like some rich jerk brought their kids along," she continued, giving Kaita a thoughtful glance. "As for here...? Hmm..."

Lan exhaled, closing her eyes. "Triese might know.... I guess," she reluctantly admitted. "I don't want to get anyone else involved... but she knows, like... business stuff..."

Rock immediately narrowed her eyes. "Sorry to burst your... uh, I guess it wouldn't really be your bubble, in this case, but there's no way in hell that a kid's gonna be allowed in a casino on a legal level," she explained. "I think what the old man means is that it'll be pretty easy for people to turn a blind eye to any chicanery. That, uh, nothin's actually gonna happen to us."

Lan, meanwhile, retreated as soon as Kaita checked in on her. "It's- it's nothing. It's nothing," she blubbered, her face turning red. "I don't like him, and I don't like casinos, either. It's just stupid... it's all... stupid." Her voice trailed off as Kaita's big wet eyes burned holes into her soul. Eventually, she stomped her foot on the ground. "Kaiiittaaaa, this suuuucks! I mean, we can't just do nothing, right?!"

With Lan failing to provide an adequate explanation, Rock turned to Turboman. "Some bad shit happened at a casino we were in a couple months back. Uh, not here. Somewhere else," she said. "Nothin' to worry about, now. It was another world. But... still. The hell are we supposed to do about this?"

"I don't want to go downtown! I don't like going downtown," Lan grumbled. "I guess I kind of, sort of know the train routes... a little... Ugh." She curled her lip at Kaita, then averted her eyes. "Sorry. I-I'm just being weird. If it's a mission, then we should do it, right...?"

Unfortunately for her, Kaita agreed to the mission before Lan could voice her severe disdain for the idea of getting anywhere within a ten-mile radius of a casino ever again. "Wh-whatever... It better be quick," she sheepishly mumbled as Wily nodded with satisfaction. It couldn't be as bad as Via Iracunda... right?

"Very well, then. The good news is that I'm sure you'll find a way to get into the network somehow, even if you aren't of age," Dr. Wily continued to explain. "The bad news is that I would expect their network to be rather up-to-date, given the money at stake. At the very least, scoping it out would be useful." He tapped his fingers on his chair. "I'll send the address to Rock, and then you can be on your way."

"Sure," Rock groused, begrudgingly accepting the incoming mail. The second she checked if the address was legit or not, she side-eyed the video screen. "'K, we're done now, right? We're done? Then, bye."

Rock didn't even wait for Wily to respond for her to forcibly hang the call up. It was a gesture that Lan certainly appreciated, given the pained groan she let out a few seconds later. "Whyyy," she grumbled to herself. "I guess... it's just something we dealt with before. It's fine. But why..."

"To be honest, I kinda forgot about the vault stuff," Rock admitted, crossing her arms. "But if they've been runnin' around like rats while we've been overseas... then that's gotta be bad news, right?"

Triese was bewildered at Geo's complete willingness to give up the existence of the chatroom to anyone who didn't already have access. "U-um...! Isn't it... supposed to be...?" she mumbled under her breath, totally drowned out by Omega-Xis. She didn't even want to tell her dad about it - he only found out because Ellen... um, stayed too long. "Well... um... I guess you guys are keeping a bunch of secrets already, so I guess it's not a big deal..."

As soon as Dr. Goodall gave the okay, she jacked Lurerre out of the main computer and immediately began to scroll through her PET to assess the damages. Nothing seemed out of place... no files lost or settings changed... Well, there obviously weren't any more bugs on her home page, but that was to be expected. Anyone other than her would think to get rid of them...

(...All of this, and she hadn't made a lick of progress. Now that she was exposed, she had half a mind to ask the scientists from the future for help on her problems... but she'd caused them enough trouble. And, she was really, really tired. She couldn't help but admonish herself anyways, though. It was because of her failure that she ended up here... and got caught up in something totally unrelated.)

Before Lurerre could say anything, Triese stood up straight and bowed for Dr. Goodall and Mr. Boreal. "Um! Thank you, so much, for helping! I really appreciate it!!" she pleaded, trying her best to sound endlessly polite and professional. Slowly, she turned to Geo, managing a slightly weak but still bright smile. "And... thank you for hosting me, too... Even if things were, um, messy."

"It's all in the past, Lady Triese," Lurerre couldn't help but insist. "If anything, we should value that we've made yet another connection... and are more prepared for potential, erm, nonsense, in the future."

Triese curled her lip. "Yeah... yeah. Keeping my guard up," she mumbled to herself sadly, before shaking her head and refocusing herself. "Um, but, yeah! I should get home, before my dad starts worrying. Since I haven't had my PET and all..." She clapped, facing Omega-Xis with enthusiasm. "But, yeah, I bet we could totally hang out again! And I could bring friends, just to make sure something like this doesn't happen again."

...She wasn't sure if any of her friends would get along with Geo, actually, because Geo reminded her of Reg and Lan didn't really like Reg... but that was a problem for another day. Geo was still really cool...! She was no good at baseball, but... oh, maybe Ellen would get along with him... Ellen would play baseball, right... that was probably a plan, right... right...

No, she was way too tired to think about this right now. "I can, uh, leave with you whenever, Geo," Triese sheepishly suggested. "You're a really nice person... I think. Um! That's not weird to say, is it...?"

(It didn't really matter. She could already imagine Lurerre's reassurance... and she had to be endlessly thankful for the fact that nothing bad had happened to her.

It was her fault. Would she have been able to forgive herself if she'd done something terrible to her Navi...? All for the sake of figuring out what these stupid bugs did...? Why did that sound familiar...?

Should she stop...? She wouldn't forgive herself, if something like that happened. It couldn't be worth hurting Navis, or whatever she'd done when the FM-ian was in her head, just for some kind of weird amateur science. But what was she going to do to help Lan, then...?

...She swallowed to herself quietly. She really had no idea what the future could look like... and that was a little scary.)

Triese blinked heavily when Dr. Goodall called her out; she was so startled and exhausted that she was completely unable to hold her poker face. "U-uh- um- uh- that's- that's not..." she stammered, looking like a deer in headlights despite Dr. Goodall's good nature. Of course her PET would've given it away! It's not like going through a portal updated the time on it, or anything like that!! How did she not realize the obvious flaw in her plan sooner, after all she'd done to evade detection?!

She clasped her hands together, her eyes immediately shining with desperation. "I-I didn't do it on purpose! It was an accident! P-please don't report me to the time police!!" she begged, before fully processing what Geo said and spinning on her heel to face him. "Huh? Wait, what?"

"...Lady Triese," Lurerre began, after a long sigh. "I believe the existence of 'time police' has been more than disproven by now..."

Triese curled her lip, then shook her head. Don't know if you know of them, huh. There was no way Geo had met the Lan she knew... otherwise, she would've said something. "W-well, better safe than sorry! But! Also!" she responded, turning to Mr. Boreal and folding her hands politely. "Um, I don't think my future has anything to do with this? So it should be fine, I think! It's, um, a long story, so just, uh, trust me on this one!"

"...Stranger things have happened, indeed," Lurerre mumbled to herself, as Triese spun around and waited for the final scans. Finally, the tension was leaving the room. There were some haunted bags under Triese's eyes... but she was doing her best to get things back to normal. Lurerre lowered her head softly, relieved that Triese was still able to handle these stressful situations so well.

Triese took Omega-Xis' response so sincerely, it was almost painful. In fact, it was so blunt that it made her giggle a little - she could totally imagine Lan getting super mad at the insinuation that she was pitying herself. Just thinking about her friends... brought her a little closer to reality. Away from the nightmare she'd drowsily stumbled through. "R-really...?" she mumbled. "That's... that's kinda scary, but if you say so, then... yeah!"

Despite being given a vote of confidence, Lurerre was a bit skeptical of the idea that being controlled by some sort of evil Wizard was a normal occurrence. She didn't have of an opportunity to ask, though, as her operator's bubbliness finally began to return. If Triese was happy, then she had nothing to be frustrated about... probably.

"Um! Well! Okay! I think I'm okay now!" Triese decreed, bouncing a little in place before wiping her face off. "I still feel a little weird... and a little scared... but I'm gonna be brave, okay?! Especially 'cuz I trust you when you say I wasn't any trouble...!"

She gave her PET a bright smile. "Um! If my PET is fixed, though, then I should probably be heading home soon, right?" she began, her eyes darting back and forth shiftily. The longer she stayed here, the more the guilt would creep up her back... especially because she still couldn't really remember how she returned here in the first place. Nervously, she put one arm to her shoulder. "I-I don't want to stay in a place like this for much longer if, um... you know..."