Inside the shop

(Did I just get modded? Meh. I'll act as such.)

Shigeru grabbed the upgrade, and headed out of the store. The zenny counter on his PET went down a small sum, but only a third of what he had spent at the chip shop. A bargain.

Bo picked up the packages, and began to walk backwards to the door. He then shook his hair out of his eyes. And began to speak to the shopkeep. "You'll see me around here. I'm trying to become the best." Bo then put his foot on the door to open it, and he walked out.

((BUMP!))

Suitachi sat typing at his desk for a while after, suddenly turning as if he was just now acknowledging Zeo's presence. "Umm... he said without turning, but rising from his seat. "A number of weeks? Months? Certainly not a year yet... if you mean here in this shop, that is. Can it be a year yet...?" Suitachi shrugged, drawing out the necessary programs. "Well, sorry I can't answer your question," he sighed, "but here are your programs all the same. Go ask that Soryu fellow instead, I guess," he said, handing Zeo the plastic-encased packages and sinking back into his seat.

"Oh," he added, "I guess you've heard how they're standardizing process upgrades now, eh? They call it some kind of 'compilation' system..." Suitachi continued to talk as he typed, not bothering to turn around.

Soryu? Who's Soryu? Ah well. thought Zeo. Taking out a credit card, he swiped it, thanked Suitachi and carefully transported the goods to a nearby bench, where he spent a while installing them, and then programming the Process Upgrade. When he was finshed, he got up, discarded the boxes, and turned on the PET. As he stepped on the Metroline, Tornado awoke and performed a fake yawn. Flexing his arms, he said, "I feel better. Did you do anything?" Zeo grinned. "Yup. Bought some upgrades," he said happily.

The door suddenly closed, but was not following up any sound of an opening door nor footsteps. Before the hallway stood a tall man with dark brown hair and cold blue eyes. His clothes was mostly in dark colors, but nothing you could pick out of a crowd, yet he wore them with pride. He took his time staring at everybody in the room one by one, as if carefully weighting and measuring them on a scale. After an moment of awkward silence the man grinned, showing way too much teeth for your average grin.

Talking a few calm steps over to the counter, the man stared at the shopkeeper. He was still wearing his grin, but it never touched his eyes.

"An fine day, today."

Waiting way too short for the possibility of an answer, the man continued.

"I am called Drakim. Nice to meet you."

Every part of his body seemed tense, yet his face held an calm that would make anybody think twice. His blue eyes still stared ahead at the shopkeeper, with ... something ... could it be contempt? If so, Drakim showed it in no other way.

Suddenly his hand sweeped over the desk as he put down a voucher of some kind.

"I have come to exchange what is mine."

It was a simple statement, but it carried a lot of weight.

K walked into the shop, catching his breath. "...I told you to take the metro!!", "Bah!! If I did, we have to waste moneys and we can't buy upgrades for you!!", "The metro is free!!", "...Oh...THEN WHY DIDN'T YOU TELL ME SO!!", "MASTER ALPHONSE WAS TELLING YOU OVER AND OVER AGAIN!!", "Piero's right you know", "Gahh!! Don't gang up on me!!!!"

... ... ...

The conflict between Alphonse, K, and Piero (The maintence Mr.PROG) was over with everyone exhausted from the argument...literally exhausted. K finally walked over to Suitachi and handed down 5,000 Zennys. "*Huff huff* One...One speed upgrade please..."

Rayth entered the store with a bemused expression on his face. He had two thousand, six hundred zenny. By his estimation he had just enough for the purchases that he was about to make. He strolled over to the counter, pulling out his debit card and placing it in front of him.

"Two HP Memories please. That's 2,500, right?"

Suitachi heard the clamor of the people and gathered up the various good, bringing then over to and putting them into the cash register, walking to the back of the store and picking up some stuff fro the back. As he came back to the front counter, he handed out the various goods to the customers, some more...grudgingly than others.

"Here you are, thanks for all the buisiness! Come again soon"

Sieg walks back in from his netbattling, Gungnir now being restored, and raises one of his hands in a half salute, moving it forwards,

"Yo gramps, whats up?" as he walks up and places about 1500z on the counter, counting out the last bit and then pulling a voucher from his pocket,

"Lemme get another HP memory and use this for the lvl2 processupgrade" as he slapped it down on the table.

"Gramps, huh?" Despite the potshot, Suitachi gathered up the Zenny, and quickly produced the upgrades that had been requested. "Oh well, can't turn down a customer with perfectly good money. Here you go. Best of luck."

"Thanks old man!" Sieg says loudly over the other customers as though to declare his existance. He picks up the add-ons and runs from the store, going back outside to code and plug into the net again.

Rania ran past the swarms of customers leaving the shop with clutching her zenny tightly in her gloved fist; the coins were bundled in two thin sheets of paper, vouchers she recieved from her friends. "Excuse me, can I have three... um... HP memories," she asked, scanning quickly over the stock with her fierce eyes, "and a 1.0 Process Upgrade? Additionally," she paused, unfolding the small vouchers, "I've got these. They should get me another 1.0 and a 2.0, right?" she asked, keeping her eyes locked constantly with the shopkeeper. "I think it comes out to 7500 zenny. If I'm mistaken, please tell me."

With that, she dropped the collective pile of currency and voucher slips on the desk and waited for the man's reply.

Rayth nodded to the shopkeep, turning to leave as a rather rambunctious young girl barreled past him to pelt the shopkeep with a barrage of requests and questions. She was young and quite forward, but there was something intriguing about her. Perhaps she just reminded him of his youth. Rayth pocketed the chips, gave a slight shrug and wandered out of the store.

"You know," He said to Chaos as he wandered toward is car. "She kind of reminded me of that MeleeMan character."

"Bah, that fool? I doubt an idiot such as him even has a competent Operator."

"Oh?"

"Yes, I bet his Op is an invalid in some mental hospital somewhere. What a muscle-bound oaf. But enough of his nonsense, the Net Police have replied to our request."

"Yeah? They bought it, eh? What's the request?"

"We need to enter SciLab Net and track down a possibly dangerous criminal."

"Sheesh, I hope it isn't anyone we know."

The room had become more crowded that Drakim felt was necessary, but, this was a public place. Nothing he could change.

Scanning the room with all the new people, Drakim still held his grin. A few steps and a door later, and he was gone.

"Let's see..." Suitachi checked Rania's data quick, "I'm sorry, but your navi doesn't seem to be at the correct level for a Process Upgrade 2. Sorry. I'll take the other one, though." He took one of the vouchers, wrote Void on it, and stuck it in his drawer before haning over the Upgrade, "And three HP memories. Here you go." He took the zenny and handed over the data. Then, as he looked at her's navi's stats again, he laughed, "Oh, so you're at the right level with these new upgrades, huh? All right, then I can let you redeem the other voucher as well." Following the same procedure as with the other slip of paper, he handed over the last upgrade, "Thanks for the business."

Marlowe walked in heavily, with the kind of intentions that could be smelled from across a room. With little patience for niceties, he asserted himself at the counter and made his demands like an irritated automatic.

"Two HP memories... that should be 2500z, boy." He paused for a moment to put his right hand into his overcoat pocket. "And I'll take a level 1 and 2 process upgrades with these." He slid across the counter two vouchers, and waited in a room-thickening presence.

((The two HP mems will make me level 5, and thus the necessary level)

"Er... by shop regulations, I think I'm actually supposed to wait until you install those HP memories before I give you the Upgrade... you can install that when you want," Suitachi confirmed, straightening his glasses. He handed the customer he'd missed two HPMemories, waited for him to install them, then handed him the Upgrade. "Good luck with that," he added, sitting down and returning to his work.

"Thank you Mr. Suitachi," she responded, putting one fist on her palm and bowing almost like a monk. After accepting her PET, she then turned away from the other customers, running out for the metroline. "It looks like MeleeMan's in a battle now... I have to hurry!" she said quietly as she ran.

((Sorry to double post! XD))

Rania suddenly ran back in with an irritated look on her face. "I'm sorry, my order must have gotten confused. I'm still missing one process upgrad level 1. You see, I recieved two with my vouchers," she counted off, "those were free. I then payed 4500 for HP memories. With 3000 more, I wished to purchase a third process upgrade. Could you please give my third level 1 process upgrade, sir?" she asked, trying not to look impatient.