A new day...a new nightmare

It had been a little bit since the fight with the Cybeast, the recording having been saved on Stephine's PET since then. But...Jazz has been comatose since then. His form having reverted to his normal self shortly after being retrieved by it's processors. His body occasionally convulsing, but otherwise stable and sound...You stupid fucking rabbit...I can't believe you actually managed this...and managed to get yourself into trouble on top of that...how do you manage to have this kind of luck?! Stephine mumbled under her breath as she tapped away at the PET screen and her keyboard, continuing to bring Jazz's consciousness back.

While she was doing that, the hare's eyes twitched, as if he was dreaming. No, things were happening behind those lids, his mind keeping whole...but not without difficulty. A second mind had installed itself inside Jazz's between the fight with the Cybeast and his transformation into the beast's Thrall. A much smaller simulacrum of the beast he had fought, Riccio, had managed to latch onto him, wondering about the blank inner canvass that was Jazz's psyche...his heart, nothing as far as the eye could see...except a singular, miniature, Riccio simulacrum, roughly the size of Jazz, if not some bit smaller. It was scratching at the ground of the hare's psyche, no pain, but annoying all the same.

Jazz tried to speak, but all that escaped was static, causing him to grab at his throat and swallow hard as the creature soon stared at him, black and metallic looking eyes into the hare's own. Home...empty...no core? Impossible. a gutteral voice rang out, all around him, deep and strained as it communicated all as the creature scratched more, slowly, digging it's claws into the ground, leaving bigger and bigger gashes. Hare...victorious...but...what cost? Power corrupt. But power...all there is? No. Not all. It continued on, deeper and deeper gashes as it continued to dig, scratch after scratch, it put more and more weight into it's digging. Empty heart...dark depths...evil hare...but not...consience? Maybe. Repent sins...long time...before We born. it continued and again, more claw marks dug deeper, dirt and wires uncovered...the simulacrum stared as it began to settle into a small hole it had dug, laying within it, claws front and back tucked neatly underneath it as it wriggled back and forth, getting comfortable within it's new den, but before Jazz could speak, or try to, his surroundings began to fade, the beast's words beginning to fade to static as he was torn away. Struggle...fight...cry...more human than humans...special? Maybe. Old navi...but still to date? curious. Maybe...'fun'...to watch struggle. Specially...with Willpower...

Sturring awake suddenly, he would find himself within Stephine's computer, the hare laid upon a bed, wires connected to his naked body. Scars, burns, bites...all across his body as he slowly began to rise, his vision slightly blurred, but could see more than a little time had passed...Stephine was in bed fast asleep in her dingy, trash littered single room apartment, minus the bathroom of course. He scanned the area slowly, silently, but would find himself at an empasse as he couldn't see much, even if the monitor was lightly illuminating the area. How...how long...was I out? He spoke to himself as a chill came over him, shivering as he would slowly bring himself up, plucking the wires from his skin carefully. Seemed he was under close observation despite everything that happened...it looked like it hadn't been -that- long since he took the beast's power for himself, a day or two at most...and it was the dead of night, no less. Charts and data scattered about the computer, before and after charts...no real difference besides the cybeast's data...at least that's all it seemed to be. Multiple warnings were about the screen about "hidden" or otherwise obsucre traces they couldn't identify.

He shook his head, the hare continued to look over the data, findings, theories...there were a lot there, of the third, many documents even going back to...Him...the entire thing in Cyber City fourty-some years prior, the original Cybeast incident, the reasoning for the originals...their existence...and...data...conducted by Hikari about the beasts years and years after their originators happened to show up in that city...and the reasons why Cyber City...hell, the entire area even _around_ that place, and why it was a ghost town now...at least there wasn't any recorded _persons_ living there, let alone netnavis, as far as anyone knew those networks have been offline for years and years, well before Stephine was born. Maybe connections existed to them, it was hard to say, the netscape was remodelled time and again, that's why the Rogue and Chaos nets even existed, much less the Undernet...so many hypothesis and ideas on what even existed in that abandoned hellscape...and gods only knew what the viruses have been doing since, a place Jazz wouldn't exist for long in at least.

He poured through data and more data, reading through it as fast as he could, but then a niggling idea in the back of his head came forward...no...there couldn't have been any physical changes...right? I mean, he was stark naked on a bed, wires attached to him all over...they would have found _SOMETHING_...right? He would soon turn away from the data he had been pouring over...and soon, return to his "room" on stephine's homepage moments later, reaching into a dresser and pulling out a mirror he had compressed into there. It wasn't full body, more about...half body? If that? The mirror came to his midsection, with a pair of supporting mirrors on either side, at an angle to let him see to either side or even behind him. He began to look around his body slowly, centimeter over centimeter...flash after flash of memories as he looked over every scar, every wound...some more fresh than others, some just years before he managed to luck into Stephine...and his brief "stint" as a NetPolice officer, story after story, memory after memory...most bad...but there was a jewel in there here and there. At the very least _those_ were still in their place...as well as his rear and tail, his legs the same as usual. Hefting the mirror up and setting it on the table, just under head height, he checked his chest arms and midsection...all of those...every single scar...every burn...every wound...all still there as he spun about with the mirror reflecting every bad and good decision back upon him. And finally, the hare would dip down and begin to examine his head and face...and then, in a sudden bit of shock, smash the middle mirror with his bare fist. No...no no no nononono...there's...there's no fucking way...come on...come on this has to be a joke... He quietly told himself. His fist having cracked the mirror's middle and crackling outwards like a spider's web...even through the blood he had smeared onto the mirror, he could see it...magnified back to him ten-fold...in the spidery glass...a single, metal black eye with a white iris staring back at him.
Staring back at the reflection in the mirror even as he bled, the hare couldn't believe what had happened after his victory over Riccio, it was unheard of. Hell, beating a beast was pretty unheard of in the first place. Navis were torn to shreds by them time and time again, the only one who had even been known to beat a beast was...well...Him. And even then, the reports from his operator years after the fact were not promising. The beast took control time and again, but...tech had progressed quite heavily in fourty years, maybe...maybe this was different for every navi? There was no reports that could be corroborated about a beast falling...and Jazz...Jazz may as well be a ghost, he had no core, but was somehow tangible...alive...what could it all mean?

Time passed, pulses in the back of his head, around his new eye...could this be the beast trying to take over? No...he remembered that...thing...in his empty heart...could that mean it was watching through this eye? Thought after thought flooded his mind as he tried something, ANYTHING, that he could make use of, a single tangible thought that he could cling to and work off of...

It hit him. The beasts had existed far, far before now. Prose was willing to tell him that, they were something...far different...far...alien than what anyone had thought. Perhaps this wasn't something that had happened, specially since navis...well...hadn't seen much of them, at least, he's the only one who's seen them beyond the outer shell...the "evils" that they have been dubbed as. Either way, his hastiness and hubris have manifested as a permeant scar on his body, this eye didn't seem to impart anything, besides being different than the hue of his red eyes...it was still unsettling...and the thought of Prose seeing him comatose...it hurt his heart to be frank.

Slowly moving his fist from the mirror with a long, deep sigh, shards of glass big and small embedded in his flesh, blood oozing slowly from the cuts even as they dripped down his arm and off his elbow with a splatter on the ground, this pain was still less than what he could figure. Whatever come, whatever may happen, he had to carry this new burden...and if he could...show people that the beasts aren't as bad as they could potentially be construed as. Its...supposed to be hard. He breathed, slowly but surely, he was regaining composure, even as the shards of glass cut into him, even as pain flooded his mind, he closed his eyes. If it wasn't...everyone could do it...and the hard is what makes it great. Making mistakes...proves you challenged...it proves...you're alive... he continued, opening his eyes slowly as a surge of electricity surged over his arm, over the blood and fur. Glass shards slowly being dispersed, falling out of the cuts and into the small pool of blood on the floor, a cacophony of metallic shards clinging on the floor of his home, wounds being stitched together by the electrical pulses darting along his fist. Hope you're ready Riccio. We have a long, long partnership ahead of us...and I...have things I wanna do before I die. he spoke to himself. Clenching his fist again and again, feeling electricity climb and fall across his body, there was no pain, even despite the differences in the two's elements, it...was warm...comforting...but it was such a small amount of voltage, so anything higher would likely be dangerous. Something to consider in the future at least. Well...lets get dressed at least...if nothing else...probably a good time to pick out some new clothes too...
took him some time before he could remotely think of a new outfit, but sometimes, it wasn't necessary to change too much, but he couldn't just wear his old body suit...he needed something to reflect himself for good and ill. After a long, long shower, Jazz would soon find himself dressed, making sure he was properly covered up, his body suit needed some time on the hanger...and he felt the need to...express himself a bit more, more than just "a hare".

A pair of bulky looking black gloves would adorn his hands, covering up his palms and knuckles, but leaving at least his first knuckle of the fingers uncovered for the time being. A trio of retractable metal prongs on his middle, pointer and ring fingers' knuckles on the back of his hands, with a way to shoot them on the side of either glove. While he has chosen to still remain barefooted mostly, he's gone and slapped something on the bottoms of his feet, an opaque rubber membrane that moves along with his feet and it's contours, soaking up excess electrical charges from the hare and being able to use the absorbed electricity as he sees fit, connected to him with a few loops to fit between his toes and over his foot. The hare's lower body was adorned by a tan colored pair of jeans just a size too big for him, almost military in it's design as pocket after pocket would adorn both sides with straps firmly fitting them against his legs and knee pads sown into the lining.

A bright cherry red jacket clashing with the more muted and darker colors of the outfit and a light-Grey, almost white, shirt adorning his chest, thin enough to show his emblem (just barely) beneath and...the many, many scars under, highlighted by the grassy green fur the hare had. Pants had clasps around the waistband, held in place to the shirt that went down to his waist, hidden by a belt of munitions, knives and other things to keep those pants from sagging, this wasn't the mid-late 20th century anymore and he didn't need to give everyone a look at his plumber's crack in general. [bbcode=1]unless they asked.[/size] The jacket itself, of course, had many pockets inside and outside of it, more and more items stashed away to fight with, being prepared for just about situation. Guns, knives, bombs, if you could think of it's common name, you could probably find it on the hare's person.

With a long sigh, the hare would then don a black eye patch across his left eye, while he couldn't keep the deep gold circuitry from running along it and out from the sides, let alone the very dim glow it gave, it would be enough to ignore in normal conversation with others. As a headband in the same color of his fur was applied across the front of his head, held tight to hide his third eye for now, not that he felt anything from his old self up here in the normal nets...he would have to dive into the undernet one day, that was non-negotiable. As it was, Stephine was still asleep...she must have been plenty tired after everything much like him...and...he needed a chance to stretch...and see if this new power was worked as well as advertised.