Tech Support

After arriving at the impressive-looking facility, Sofia managed to find herself at the reception counter of the main building. "Welcome to SciLab, how can I help you, young miss?" the man at the counter greeted. Sofia presented her PET to the man. "Can I know where do I take this to get it fixed? She sounded like she was in a lot of trouble..." she said, hope still lighting up her eyes.

"She?" the receptionist said, taking the PET and examining it. He connected a cable from under his desk, and pressed a few buttons. He smiled. "Ah, there doesn't appear to be anything wrong with your Navi. It's just in error diagnostics and repair."

"Error... what?" repeated Sofia, crossing her arms in confusion.

"Diagnostics. Figuring out what's wrong and fixing it. Automatically! Your Navi's going to be back up and running in about an hour, according to this. Look up!" he said, showing the screen to the girl. A pixel figure of Scourge's head sleeping was shown on the screen, along with a running countdown with the words "Restarting! Please wait."

Sofia's face instantly lit up in rapture at the little screen, and she grabbed the man's hand, shaking it fervently. "Thank you thank you thank you thank you!" she repeated. The receptionist smiled, and handed the PET back to her. "You're welcome. Would you like to visit the Navi Shop while you wait for the restart? It has a lot of upgrades you can use to make sure your Navi busts viruses like a champ."

"Like a champ... That sounds awesome! Where is it?" said Sofia, almost jumping with excitement. A shop! With things to buy!

"Just through the corner over there," the man leaned over the counter, and pointed towards a pair of sliding doors. "Ooooh. Okay, thanks, mister!" said Sofia, dashing off before the man could even nod.

[Area Transfer: Navi Shop]
"Huh, this isn't so hard! Technology's super great," said Sofia, as she installed the last of the upgrades. Contrary to what she was expecting, owning a Navi wasn't some super difficult ordeal after all. She had had the upgrades she just bought half an hour ago fully installed into her PET, and didn't even need to return to the receptionist person from earlier. As a bonus, the "diamostic program", as she had called it, was almost about to finish its run, judging from the progress bar that was on her PET's screen. "Restarting NetNavigator... Done."

Sitting down on one of the benches in the SciLab public park area, Sofia stared at the screen as it belted out line after line of technological jargon, before going black. Sofia shook the PET about. "Scourge, Scourge! Are you okay? Say something!"

"Initializing RePs v0.9.3b. Compatibility confirmed... Contracting user."

"Huh? Wha--" blurted out Sofia, before a blank expression overtook her face. The screen began to flash repeatedly with a myriad of images about the good part of a minute, until it ended with the line, ""Initialization complete. You may now exit the Velvet Room," before returning to the regular Navi screen. Scourge's image materialized on it, just as dazed as Sofia looked. Both of them stared past each other into blank space before realizing the other's presence. Sofia was the first to snap out of it.

"Oh, Scourge! Are you okay? I was so worried!"
"Sofia? What happened? I had this huge headache after that battle, and then... I don't know, I think I got restarted," said Scourge, rubbing the side of her head groggily.
"Your guess is as good as mine, but... you're alright, right?"
"I... think so? I feel like I just woke up, is all."

"Thank goodness!" exclaimed Sofia. Her relief was punctuated by a rumbling sound above her, prompting her to look up at the cloudy sky. "Oh no, it's gonna rain! Let's go home, Scourge, it's getting late and I've got school tomorrow."

Then, in the blink of an eye, the girl disappeared from the bench, dashing towards the railway as the pitter-patter of rain started.