ACDC Park

Jared walked through the park at a leisurely pace, looking for a bench to lounge on... It was a sunny day, perhaps 76 degrees outside, and with a pleasantly cool wind blowing. The kind of day J.T. planned to enjoy... doing absolutely nothing. He came to a T-intersection in the path next to a grove of trees. Looking fown the short path, he saw a circle of park benches around a fountain, all within the shade of the grove.

Now this looks peaceful... I'll check it out.... This thought carried him to the back of the circle, where he sat down on one of the benches, stretched, and let out a sigh... He then took a good long look at the place he was now parked in, and smiled admiringly: Now this is a nice place to relax... The fountain's a nice touch too. I'll have to keep this place in mind... for a variety of reasons. His smile became a grin as he remembered the nurse from yesterday... Oh yes. I will certainly remember this spot....

Jared's thoughts trailed off as he sat in the shade, relaxing and enjoying simply sitting quietly without the problems or hassles of work disturbing him... After a little time had passed, he decided his Navi might want to get out of the PET for a bit, and detatched said PET from his belt to look at the screen... but, Broadside wasn't visible.

JT figured Broadside would appear when his Navi heard what he had in mind... "Hey, Broadside. Wanna get out of the PET for some virus busting?"

And, as predicted, Broadside appeared instantly, in his White Guard form, and responded to the offer with "Affirmative. A chance to improve my combat capabilities is always welcome."

"Well then... lets get to it, eh?"

((Jack-in: NetSquare))
((Jack-out from Net-Square. Seraphim.EXE, in-tow))

The moment Seraphim's unconscious form appeared in the PET, Jared placed the Navi's data in stasis, and executed the code editor program. As Broadside appeared in the PET, Seraphim's code was loaded into a thick stack of code modules, filled with thousands of lines of code each.

And, as Jared quickly discovered, thousands of unnecessary lines of code... "Good lord, what a mess. Everything past the 12th module looks like fragments of video game code. Who in their right mind would want to do that?" He revised his original opinion, twice, as he discovered sub procedure calls linked to the Navi's personality, and an entirely different set linked to his battle routines. His opinion of the mystery programmer dropped accordingly....

"You know? This is probably the reason he was acting strangely. But, for this to even look the way it does, he'd already have to be like this when Erin got him. I can't imagine her editing his code like this." he said to no-one in particular...

A few minutes later, Jared located and corrected the damaged code strings, then recompiled Seraphim's data, and closed the editor. "Alright, Broadside... I'm going to take the him out of stasis now. Monitor him while I make my way to the Navi Shop. Alright?"

Broadside, in his White Guard form, nodded back: "Acknowledged."

"Good. Tell me if anything goes wrong." Jared deactivated the stasis lock on Seraphim's data, stored the PET, and walked towards the exit of the park...

((To the Navi Shop))
((From Jared's hotel room in Electopia))

Jared entered the park, glad to be done with his work for the rest of his stay in Electopia. While he did have his PET with him, he had no plans to start virus busting at the moment. Instead, he decided to just walk around lazily, and enjoy being outdoors for a change. It still remains to be seen if that Na'im fellow will show up here, too. he thought to himself as he roamed about.

It was always good to take a day off every once in a while.
"Do you even remember what he looks like?" Djinni asked her Operator, floating just above his shoulder. Both were looking around to look for JT who they had met before at the chip store.

"Of course I do..." Na'im said quietly and stuck his tongue out slightly as the cogs of his mind started to turn. But after a few seconds, he sighed and let his upper body hang forwards after taking his tongue back in. "I hoped so too..." he muttered quietly and stood straight up again, "I just have to remember him. Was it light or dim? Rainy or sunny? Dull or funny?"

"Ah!" Djinni exclaimed as she punched her right hand into her left hand and floated in front of Na'im's face, "He's got red hair!"

Na'im raised an eyebrow at this outburst and asked her, "Why are you so sure?"

His Navi then pointed out at a man enjoying the weather and spoke. "Because that's him," Djinni said, glaring at Na'im from the corners of her eyes, "It helps to have a database for memory."

"Show off," Na'im mumbled and walked over to the person they identified as JT. "Excuse me, but are you JT of the forums?" he asked as he gently tapped the person's shoulder.
"Hmm?" Jared hummed as he turned around to face whoever had just tapped him on the shoulder. "Oh, hey there Mr. Shaitan. We were never properly introduced last time so..." He extended his hand, offering a handshake as he continued "I'm Jared Farnam. Everybody calls me J.T., though." Jared paused, turning his head to look at the projection of the Navi on Na'im's shoulder "And you must be Djinni. You certainly appear to live up to the name."
Shaking JT's hand, Na'im nodded and spoke to him. "Nice to meet you, Jared. Just call me Na'im, please... Mister is such a hassle."

Quickly stealing the spotlight, Djinni attempted to push away Na'im's head only to give up and get closer to JT instead. "Of, course I am Djinni!" she exclaimed in a joyful manner, "The marvelous singer of the internet! The sweet creme on your coffee!" One brag followed another brag, each following less trustworthy, as her figurative nose continued to grow.

Eventually she was stopped as Marid, the left flame for JT's point of view, started to talk to JT, "We're the so-called reasons of the whole 'Cerberus' thing. I'm Marid and the other is Ghoul. I hope for you she remains this quiet."

"Yeah..." Na'im started and scratched his forehead, "I'm still not sure what created them. I have yet to examine it thoroughly." He then slid his PET off of his back and into his two hands and continued to talk, "But I really need to get some tips on fighting viruses. Got any ideas on how to achieve this?"
"I see..." Jared said staring at the flame that had identified itself as 'Marid' while scratching his chin absently. He then looked back at Djinni and continued speaking. "I already have a few guesses as to what the thing you're calling 'Cerberus' really is." Looking back at Na'im... "Unfortunately, until I can check for myself, all they are is guesses. But, Luckily, I can help you with netbattling and identify what's really going on at the same time. Hold on, just a sec..."

Jared shrugged off his backpack, set it on the ground, and knelt down to open it. He then reached inside, and drew out his PET, what looked like a laptop, and a strange headset. He flipped the power switch on on the device that looked like a laptop, and put it back in the backpack without opening it. He plugged a thin cable from the headset into it and put the headset on. He then zipped the pack closed, and shrugged it back on again before standing up.

"Alright, time to wake my partner up." he said as he powered on the PET. He held it before himself, but didn't bother looking at it. "Come on out an introduce yourself."

As Jared finished speaking, the image of a Navi in white colored guard armor with his black colored left arm resting in a cloth sling appeared standing upon the PET. "I am Broadside.EXE. Greetings."

"Alright, to answer your question, the best way to accomplish both tasks is to simply go onto the net to practice netbattling and virus busting. I will monitor your Navi during this time and identify what's really going on. If I am successful, I'll let you know what steps need to be taken to deal with the issue. In the meantime, you'll both learn a bit more about navigating the network safely, and my Navi will get some exercise." He tapped a few keys on the side of the PET as he spoke. "I think we aught to try taking on a community service job from the mission BBS. My partner has been asking me for a new GMO recently, so it'd work out for both of us."

Broadside's image nodded. "If this is acceptable, I will make the necessary arrangements with the local officials for both parties."
Just looking at what JT was doing, Na'im remained silent and listen to him. Somewhat in trance by the aura of knowledge coming from JT, he nodded a few times as if he understood what he was talking about. Eventually the Navi of JT had appeared and Djinni took action.

"Hi, I'm Djinni!" she said after she had floated over towards his side, trying to work against the area limits of her holographic projection. Djinni just waved at him, knowing she couldn't touch him as hologram, and looked down at his arm. "Did you get into a fight recently? Was it over a woman? It was over a woman, right! That's so romantic! I wish someone would fight for me! Will you fight for me? That'd be so-" She continued like this for a bit longer, not loud enough to overshadow JT's voice as he continued to talk to Na'im.

"A GMO, I've recently tried using one of those," Na'im said and tapped a few buttons to get its design on the screen, "It isn't much of a change... But it's something." He then looked down at Broadside who was still assaulted by Djinni's voice, but seemed to ignore her for the biggest part, and nodded towards him. "This is acceptable, yes," Na'im said, feeling of awkward to say this to someone else's Navi.
Broadside just stared at the other Navi. He, quite frankly, didn't even begin to know how to respond to the inane babble about fighting over a female Navi and how romantic it would be. That an errant thread of thought in the back of his mind was greatly amused by Broadside's situation wasn't helping one bit. Further, that same thread made it clear that it thought Djinni was 'adorable', and it was doing so in roughly the same way... by babbling inanely. Broadside found this to be more than a little disturbing....

Thankfully, Broadside was saved by Na'im's agreeing to volunteer for a mission. He spoke up suddenly in response, "Acknowledged. One moment please." then used 'making arrangements' as an unspoken excuse to vanish into the net, thus removing himself from Djinni's presence for the moment. To be fair, he admitted to himself that she was tolerable under normal circumstances. It was the other one, the one radiating insufferable amusement in the back of his mind, that he was having trouble dealing with.

He was able to shunt that all aside for the moment as he went ahead and made the agreed upon arrangements with the net officials. He got a reply fairly quickly, and returned with the information.

He appeared once again, standing where he had been a few moments before, and relayed the details. "We've been given a mission to track down a net arsonist in Yumland. The details are being transmitted to your PET. I will head to the designated area first."

And with that, Broadside patched into the device in JT's backpack, and uploaded himself to YumNet.

((Jack-in: YumNet, via portable net server.))
"Ah, wait for me!" Djinni shouted after Broadside had disappeared and turned to Na'im, "What are you waiting for!?"

Reading the mission they had been given, Na'im stopped for a bit to glance sideways at his Navi. "Reading what we're supposed to do. You ought to do so too," he said.

"I've got Broadside with me," she said as she waved her hand dismissively at Na'im, "I don't need to read it. Just send me there."

Na'im sighed and nodded as he initiated the process to send her into the Net. "I apologize if she creates problems during the mission..." Na'im muttered while he closed his eyes.
"Mask~! Mask~! Mask~!" Djinni chanted after logging out from the internet. She held the evidence of having fought next to Broadside in her hands as she laughed while floating around in circles.

"Well, that wasn't so hard," Na'im said as he looked at the chip he had won from the previous battle, "Djinni's not even scarred. If everything's this easy, we're in for a smooth ride." He yawned and walked over to a bench in the park. "Those guys were totally fried," he said with a joking tone in his voice before sitting down with the Keyboard PET on his lap. Tapping a few buttons he brought up his bank account and nodded, "I even got me some more cash. But why stop here, let's go for a dash!"

"Mask~! Mask~! "Mash~! Dash~! Dash~!" Djinni went on, not realizing she had changed the word she was chanting until she had said it a few times. "Wait what?" she started and looked up at Na'im, "You dashing? You running?" She stared at his face, as if she was admiring it, but this was only an illusion created by her expression as she burst out in laughing a few seconds afterwards. "You're not athletic at all!" she cried through the laughter while rolling over the PET's surface in her holographic form.

"It's a matter of speech," Na'im replied with closed eyes, even though they usually seemed to be closed already, "Like a goal to reach. Nonetheless..." He then turned to JT and held his arms to the sides slightly with opened hands. "Another one of those missions would be fine," he said and at that point a very short high-pitched sound came from the PET. Dropping his arms, he looked down at the screen and noticed it was a pop-up with advertisement in it. Reading it through, he mumbled quietly to himself, "Supporting... Program... Net Police..." After tapping a red X in the upper right corner to make the window disappear, he looked up at JT and started to speak to him again. "Do you know anything about these Support Programs? Or are they just low scams. I'm kind of interested in achieving one. Do you know where to go to get this done?" he questioned his friend.
"Yes, that did go rather well. It was almost too easy...." Jared replied almost absently while examining the data he'd collected on the Oni Eater. The data showed it had been tough enough to withstand everything the two Navis, Broadside and Djinni, has thrown at it. That meant they'd not been the only attackers. They'd had help. Timmir perhaps. That would explain why that monster went down so quickly.

Jared didn't share that information with Na'im. Instead, he brought his attention back to the here and now. "Another mission? Alright. I'll have Broadside arrange it."

As if on cue, Broadside appeared standing on the PET, and spoke immediately "I have already made the necessary arrangements. We only need await their reply, now."

------

A short time later, a small beeping sound issues from Jared's PET. This prompts Broadside to suddenly announce: "We've been given our mission. They've asked us to contact them before we arrive so they can make proper arrangements. I will now do so." He vanished for a moment.

J.T. suppressed a chuckle at his Navi's adherence to non-existent protocol. "He needs to learn to lighten up some." he said to no-one in particular. He then looked over at Djinni and voiced his next thought "I think the two of you could learn quite a bit from each other."

Broadside reappeared a moment later. "I have contacted their representative. We're scheduled to arrive in Sci-Labs in one hour."

Jared raised an eyebrow. "That's a decent wait. What for?"

"They requested time to prepare before we arrive."

"Humm...." Jared Looked over at Na'im. "Well, since we have time, why don't we make the most of it and do a little preparation ourselves? Maybe head over to Sci-Labs and get a few upgrades and such before we jump into this one? We may need it."
"I refuse to work with amateurs!" Djinni shouted as reaction to Jared's comment of learning from each other. She then pointed at Broadside, after he returned as hologram again and after he had spoken to his Operator, as he was the cause of this comment and shouted at him, "Grow some emotions, man!"

"I'm fine with the wait," Na'im said to reply to Jared, "As long as we don't get there late. As for the upgrades, I already have a lot. Although we got them from someone in a shot. I guess having more is always better. The higher in the ranks it'll get her." He turned to Djinni after saying this, but she had gone into the PET again after disabling the holographic image. He stood up and put the PET on his back with the strap diagonally around his chest to ensure its position. "Shall we go then?" he said and made a gesture indicating they ought to move on towards Jared.
"Good, then it's settled." Jared said as he began walking towards the park exit. "We'll take the metro rail to Sci-Labs, and get some upgrades from Suitachi."

And that's exactly what he did.

((To Sci-Labs))
"Wait for me!" Na'im shouted as he noticed Jared walking way ahead of him already, "I'm not that fast!" Quickly he attempted to run after Jared so he could take advantage of his new friend's travelling money.