A Meeting of Allies

Camillia's eyes absently rolled over to her box of chips, realizing that there was one chip that looked out of place for Rhea. Picking it from the box, she gently slid it across to where Tsujsa was located. "Here Tsujsa, have this... Rhea didn't entirely like this chip-- I think Validus will like it more," she said helpfully, the chip revealing itself to be a Markcannon1.

She leaned back in her seat, seemingly almost tired or fatigued from the stress. It wasn't everyday that she encountered a big mob like this, and wasn't sure if Rhea could really handle it. The redhead took up a handkerchief, wiping at her forehead and was reaching for her ready bottle of water for some brief refreshments.

Well, at least that was an advantage of a wheelchair-- having ample storage space on the go.

After slotting in the Airshot, he put the spent chip back on the table, intending it to be returned to its giver. Harke looked around at the group, silently contemplating for a bit on what to do. For now, all he could do was to monitor the situation and hand in chips to Eternalis, but as he watched, he found the aquatic warrior to be quite adaptive, and not all that needing of his help. He did raise an eyebrow, however, when Aurora was sent back to the PET. Was she already damaged to the point of emergency jack out? A quick check on the status screen of the PET said otherwise, she was simply forcefully ejected... by Eternalis. That's unexpected. Did they have a fight or something? he thought.

He glanced at the small screen of the PET, and thought it rather small for a task of the magnitude of taking down an army. Reaching for his laptop on the coffee table, Harke put it out of standby, and plugged in the PET into the laptop. Starting up a comprehensive battle analysis program, Harke smirked as he put up Eternalis' status on the screen alongside the visuals of the fight. He glanced at Camillia to his side, and shifted the laptop slightly so that if she stole a look at him, she would be able to see what he was doing.

Harke noticed that Camillia took out a bottle of water, reminding him that he hadn't had anything to drink. Putting the laptop aside for a bit, a search in the sling pack yielded a strange plastic bottle, with some strange pink liquid inside. He sniffed it for a bit, then deemed it safe to drink and chugged a few gulps. It was a bit sweet, but also a little hint of tangy and some kind of stickiness that he couldn't place. He gurgled some of it in his mouth unconsciously for a bit, then immediately stopped when he realized what he was doing.

Bah, everyone's so quiet. And I can't think of anything to break the silence at all...

Tsujsa stared baffled at how Validus had utilized his shield. He had expected a more practical approach, but.. not to this method. Either way, it seemed to be working so at least his navi was earning some style points. Then he noticed a chip that Camillia had slid across to him.

"Here Tsujsa, have this... Rhea didn't entirely like this chip-- I think Validus will like it more,"

Tsujsa picked up the chip and looked at the image printed on it. It looked like another cannon... except it had something like a target sight in front of the cannon. He slotted the chip into the PET to analyze it. What came back was something that Validus really would like.

The Markcannon was similar to the cannon chip in all respects, save for the scope mounted on it for added accuracy. Tsujsa gave a chuckle, before turning to face his cousin.

"Thanks, Cuz. Here, I think you'll like this too." Tsujsa said as he pulled out a blue-ish coloured chip with the image of a sword on it. "It's a great chip, but it's just not Validus's style." He added as he threw the chip towards Camillia.

"Eh? Ah," Camillia stuttered, catching the chip after finishing her drink. The chip was all-too-familiar for her; it was Rhea's signature boomstick, after all. She nodded a thanks to her cousin, before her eyes glued to the laptop that Harke was brandishing. Then she turned her eyes to the odd-colored liquid he was drinking, before turning back to the laptop screen. "Amazing... graphics you have there," she said, about to start a conversation. Her eyes moved back to PET time and again, but as like the others, did not feel useful when Rhea was doing the bulk of the work. "So is this some sort of a new program?" she inquired dumbly, being not skilled at the subject.

After all, she still wasn't entirely familiar with the workings of her PET yet. Most were taught to her by Rhea herself, which was actually odd.

Success!

Ecstatic at the unexpected response from the wheelchair-bound girl, Harke attempted to make the best of the situation, turning to the girl as he started to speak. "Er, it's not exactly a new program, though it's not publicly released. It's actually a research program I got from my father."

A small message on the screen redirected his attention for a moment, and he continued, "He works at SciLab as a researcher there, and I'm learning from him. I actually don't know half the stuff that's on this screen yet," Harke explained, grinning sheepishly and scratching his head with one hand out of habit.

He fidgeted slightly for something else to say, when he remembered something Camillia had said earlier. "...I do remember you saying that you had just started into technical things?" he inquired politely, trying as hard as he could not to make his tone sound intrusive. He turned away slightly, his face showing just the slightest hint of red. "If you want, I could teach you a few skills. With all the technology around us, it would be difficult to live without it."

He dearly hoped he hadn't messed up.

Seeing the enthusiasm of the respondent, Camillia smiled a little. Well, at least he didn't pick at my disability nor my lack of computer skills, she notioned mentally to herself, nodding as she listened to Harke's explanation on the case. "The program indeed looks as if it requires high technical skills to even operate it efficiently," she noted, trying to decipher some part of it herself.

She failed badly.

Hiding her self-made failure, she raised her head from the monitor screen as the black-haired teen addressed her, offering her tutorials on such aspects. "Oh? You will? I would not mind," Camillia replied happily, but caught the way the other turned his head away from their conversation. "Well, such skills are not a necessity... Not for me in the past," she noted, lowering her head slightly as if reminiscing. "Or, at least, I refused to pick up such skills in the past. I much preferred to go outdoors," she continued, before stopping the train of thought and raising her head again. "Well, never too late to learn it now, am I?" she quipped.

Jared looked up at Na'im from his PET screen. "Yeah, go ahead. The more damage you guys do to them, the better. Which reminds me..." The Netopian set the PET on the table, and opened the main compartment of his backpack. From within, he withdrew a black box about the size of a closed laptop, but twice as thick... "I think we should have a recording of this unprecedented fiasco."

Jared scooted his chair over to the next table and set the box down on it. He then took out an actual laptop, sat it on the black box, and turned the laptop on. He reached down and flipped a switch on the box, causing a couple of lights to blink on in a row across the front. Once they were both powered up, Jared then plugged a very short cable into the side of the laptop, and ran it into the back of the black box. As a final step, he plugged the PET to the laptop's USB port and the chip case he wore on his belt into the flash card port on the other side of the laptop.

"And we're up and running...." Jared said as he began launching all sorts of monitoring programs in multiple tiny windows. He stopped typing, reached into his pack, and brought out his monitor goggles. He plugged them in, put the headset on, and proceeded to basically ignore the laptop by staring out the window.

Na'im took the FireBomb chip and Poltergeist chip from Jared and inserted them in his own pack of chips. He then started to fantasize how Djinni would use the Poltergeist chip, rubbing his chin thoughtfully and nodded his head slowly. His hands swung over the keyboard and he played a few notes to check its quality while the PET was handling the immense amount of Navis. But each note had a two second delay between each of them. "Nrrrgh!" Na'im exclaimed in an annoyed grunt, then pointed at Harke, "Hey Harke! Don't you have some good music in that laptop of yours? Music always grants a good bonus to Djinni's force!" Still annoyed at the condition of his PET, he then noticed an employee of the Yoka Inn walking by and raised his hand at Harke. "No, wait, never mind. I have an idea of some kind," and with these words he put his keyboard PET onto the table and stood up. Dodging the others, he took a short sprint to the employee and eventually made the employee lead him somewhere.

A few seconds later he returned with an acoustic guitar, slowly plucking the strings to check its quality and nodded. He walked back to his seat doing this, then sat down while keeping the PET on the table and played a few short melodies, each in a calming and slow tune. "You guys fine if I play some music for the war?" he asked, a playful grin stretched over his face.

At the mention of Camillia's affirmative reply, Harke returned her smile, rather hesitantly. He felt the smile went on for too long, that maybe it was turning predatory, that her cousin was watching him intently... Even as he smiled, his mind went into overdrive considering all the possibilities. The basic line of thought that was coursing through his mind? This is going too well... what if this happened... what if I mess up... whatifIohwaitno-

He nearly broke down, but kept his composure and answered Camillia's question, rather stutteringly. "O-of course! Never too late to learn, I always say!" Harke exclaimed, with a nervous laugh. Screw it, I'm a nervous wreck at this... not after Sabrina, he found himself thinking. His eyes started to linger around the area, and he half-noted Jared's little set-up, and began to wonder what kind of guy brings around a heavy-duty storage device to an inn.

No, no! Stay focused!

Masking his earlier distracted state, he pretended to fiddle around with the PET slightly, murmuring, "Okay, where to start..." Opening up a few windows on the laptop's screen, he muddled around with it for a little while. Suddenly, he was brought to a halt when Na'im exclaimed his irritation at the lack of music. His face contorted for a bit before replying half-heartedly, "Uh, sure, I-" and being interrupted yet again, this time with a lifted hand. He felt mildly annoyed at the impulsiveness of the bald-headed man, but Harke reminded himself of his own prejudice, and he calmed down.

Shortly after, he raised an eyebrow at the stringed instrument Na'im had procured by some unknown means. "Well, if you can play, by all means, do so. We seem to be lacking in spirit," he jested. And I need all the spirit I can get for this, said Harke to himself. He then thought of something, then turned to Camillia again.

"... I think I'll start on how to find jack-in points, without visual aid, as sometimes jack-in points are very well hidden. Er, do you mind if I transfer a program to your PET for this?"

Camillia watched in brief amazement at how quickly or complicated the tools and gadgets Jared set up, something about recording the battle. Was it really necessary...? Rhea was hardly even worth the notice, compared to the rest of the Navis assembled there-- oh yeah, perhaps he was just going to record all the good parts of it. Turning back to Harke's stuttering comment, she blinked innocently a few times, as if trying to comprehend the reasoning behind the nervousness.

She turned to Na'im, wondering about the man's taste. ... But she decided not to comment on that. "I would not mind, Mr. Na'im," she said politely, giving her go-ahead. Well, if the skills are good, then everyone will get to enjoy the music anyway.

Turning back to Harke, she nodded and allowed open connection for her PET. "Yeah, er, I opened the connection link or something already," she replied, toying with the PET (but careful not to interrupt the link with Rhea).

Looking at Camillia, Harke noticed her blink plainly several times with an innocence that couldn't be misplaced. She looks like her Navi for some reason, with that look on her face. I wonder if she knows that, Harke thought for a bit, his mind wandering. Then, he blinked hard, and went back to his PET. Opening up a separate program slot for the transfer, he tapped a few keys on the laptop as well, before a small message appeared on the Personal Terminal.

"Transfer [ConnectFind.APP] to Camillia-LinkPET?"[b][/b] the message inquired.

Giving it the affirmative, he waited until the progress bar had had its fill. Harke then lifted up the PET for Camillia to see, slowly explaining, trying as hard as he could not to sound patronizing, "All right, so there should be a new program on the menu called Connection Finder. Open it, then select the Scan button."

Doing the same himself, he swept the PET in a small arc, the cable attaching it to the laptop still connected. The terminal emitted a low beep as the scanning signal was transmitted around the room, then back again. A screen of green grids appeared shortly after the scan was done. "There should be a few white bars on the screen, and a circle with 'PET' in the middle of it. That's you, and the bars indicate the places that have jack-in signals. How many bars there are, for instance, five, show how strong the signal is."

Camillia followed the instructions like an obeying student, taking in every detail with enthusiasm and looking genuinely interested in learning. "Very useful tool," she murmured in light surprise, watching the tiny icons appearing on her PET with interest. "I will make use of this program, Harke. I thank you very much," she said, bowing her head slightly at the black haired teen. "I really appreciate this."

"Don't mention it," Harke replied happily, a wide smile crossing his face. He lifted his hand briefly and gave his newfound companion a thumbs-up. It took him a while, though, to realize that Camillia was bowing her head ever so slightly along with her comment of gratitude. "H-hey, no need for bowing or stuff like that! Next I know you'll be using honorifics on me!" he laughed, attempting to bring up the mood of the conversation. He didn't want Camillia to treat him like this, and he much preferred equal terms.

Then, just as he was about to continue further, he found himself stopped by none other than his growling stomach. Damn, his fast metabolism just won't let up. Putting aside the laptop for a bit, he stuck his free hand not holding the PET into the sling bag once more, trying to scrounge up more provisions. As it so happened, his hand found upon another one of the food containers his father had painstakingly packed for him, knowing his voracious appetite. Opening it with dexterous movements, he found the contents to be yellow-encased nutrition consumables in the form of easily-digested plant matter.

Also known as bananas.

Harke grinned at his father's helpful knowledge of his tastes, and plucked the container, now open, from the bag. He examined the six bananas, looking pretty fresh and unbruised. Good thing he didn't take too long in opening it. However, he didn't pick one at once, hesitating slightly. Instead, he offered the container to Camillia.

"Want any?" said Harke.

"Oh... Sorry, just my habit," Camillia apologized of her behaviour, not knowing what to offer her companion other than formalities-- and quickly moved a hand to stifle an upcoming laughter in response to Harke's growling stomach. Seeing the way the other deftly unpacked his meal on-the-go, she figured that he must have a big appetite.

The box was huge enough to fit six bananas in it. Perhaps his appetite was bigger than she expected. "Um, no thanks," Camillia started politely, trying to find a way to word it properly. "It's alright. You can have..." ... them all, since you look like you can finish it all in one go "... them, since I took a bite before coming over," she managed, silently breathing a sigh of relief at her attempt. Well, basically, she just gave Harke the go-ahead to eating them.

Of course, the part of 'eating before arriving' was totally a lie. Camillia hid the fact well enough.

Harke simply shrugged at the wheelchair-bound girl's refusal. It only meant that he could have the lion's share of the available food. He plucked a couple of bananas from the container and consumed them within seconds of unwrapping the squishy-smooth covering. Placing them on the table in front of him, Harke noted his reason for doing so as, "if anyone else wants them."

A little gas went up his chest, but he suppressed the burp, trying not to disgust anyone. Harke shifted his seat on the chair slightly, and rubbed his aching neck. His father was always getting on his case about the importance of good posture, now he could see- or more appropriately, feel- why. Snapping his neck a bit and turning it around a bit, he began to dawdle and daydream for a bit about miscellaneous things.

Mostly about what's for dinner.

Holding the guitar in his hands, about to play and no hands at his chips, he knew Djinni had attacked again with her own moves. But he soon heard nothing anymore and a grim silence emanated from the PET. Na'im sighed and glanced at the screen, noticing the screen saying 'Eject Module Activated' and realized Djinni had gotten herself slain. Resting the guitar over his left shoulder, he slid his right hand over the PET and pressed some buttons until Fhyre's image appeared as he apparently hadn't gotten deleted but merely followed Djinni's lead.

One of Fhyre's hands slid out of the PET's screen and started to write in the air for Na'im to see. 'SORRY' was visible and after it was read and removed again by Fhyre. The hand vanished from the holographic area around the PET and then Fhyre's image also disappeared from the screen.

With a rather defeated look on his face Na'im stood up, took the two chips he had borrowed from J.T. and slid them over the table towards him. "I will not apologize on Djinni's behalf as she probably doesn't want me to," Na'im said as he straightened his back and looked at the four he had teamed up with, "But... I think she was happy she could at least protect her friend." Na'im took a quick glance at J.T. as he said this, then returning his sight back to the others. "I will take my leave now. I have no reason to be here," he continued and grasped into a pocket within his jacket. He took three chips in view and slid one to Camillia, Tsusja and Harke. On each chip was the e-mail written of Na'im and Djinni. "Good luck to you all," Na'im said, following it up with a grin and walked towards the direction of the door. But he then suddenly stopped and looked around as if searching for something.

Harke looked at the laptop in front of him with a visible grimace on his face. Broadside had just unleashed orbital massacre, and most of the soldiers had been obliterated. But still did the generals stand, he thought. Then, he saw Djinni dive at Yasu... and receive the consequences for doing so. He grasped his own chest for a bit, trying to imagine what kind of hurt that would result in.

Harke looked up from the screen when he heard Na'im get up. He was about to say something, but when he looked at the defeated look on the bald man's face, he hesitated for a moment, and thought otherwise. It's obvious the man needs some time alone, leave him, he thought to himself. Reaching out, he grabbed the chip and typed down the address. He also tapped some keys on his laptop, transferring his e-mail address to Na'im's keyboard PET as well.

"Have a good day, mister Na'im," he said with as best a smile as he could manage, along with a wave of his hand.

Jared took off the monitor headset, and washed his hands over his face for a moment. He was supposed to be slotting in new chips at the moment, but his head was beginning to hurt and his eyes needed a rest. This battle is unbelievable. It's like a D.O.S.A., but using Navigators instead of Viruses. I've never seen anything like it. It was true, Jared hadn't ever seen anything like this. Even the few aftermath datalogs of the NetWar that he'd seen as part of his former job with Sci-Labs Division 5 hadn't displayed anything approaching this scale. He was frankly surprised and perplexed at the fact that Broadside's PET was tracking and processing the data signatures of every single program, script, and file within Broadside's sensory range individually. Worse, it was trying to present this data to Jared in the same manner... Trying, as Jared was merely mortal, and wholly unable to deal with the total sensory overload this situation was producing. Too, the means available to the PET for attempting to display this information, namely a tiny LCD screen and an inactive micro holographic projector, were woefully inadequate.

The monitor headset that Jared had been wearing, on the other hand, while up to the task, was presenting its own set of problems. The battlefield display and the status screens monitoring the team's own Navis and SPs was somewhere buried under an avalanche of thousands of enemy Navi status windows. It had eventually gotten so bad that he wasn't able to see through the hundreds of layers of semitransparent virtual displays to see the people seated around the able with him, or even the table itself for that matter. I don't even know how Broadside's PET is able to process all this, but it's a wonder the thing hasn't caught fire. Jared thought as he looked over at the really old looking red and gray PET.

Jared shook his head, and turned his attention to his laptop. He quickly began typing in a series of commands to override and shut down the various protocols that displayed combat data for him to look at. He really didn't have the time to finesse a good solution, and wound up just shutting them all off for the moment. It's better just to be able to see what's going on at all. I'll just have to go with my gut on everything else. I wish I'd known something like this was even possible.

With that thought, Jared put the headset back on, and discovered he wasn't entirely prepared for what he saw. It was hell in there. The landscape had somehow been transformed into molten lava, and a barrage of energy beams rained from the sky. Everything that wasn't blasted into oblivion by the barrage was on fire, or, in the curiously specific case of the enemy, being struck by lightning. What the f- Jared's thought ended abruptly as he saw the other Navis of the team fighting a quartet of new enemies; custom Navis that hadn't been there last time he'd seen the field. These new Navis seemed to be a real threat, as they were pressing the attack even as the grater part of their massive army fell victim to whatever it was the allies seemed to have launched against them.

Jared began counting team members, and discovered he was coming up short. He didn't see Aurora, Fhyre, or Djinni anywh-- The screen's focus shifted and zoomed suddenly in on a pair of figures that rose suddenly from among the throng of Neo-Shogunate spearmen. One of the figures disappeared into an EJO beam, leaving the other to stand the victor below. The victor of the fight wasn't someone Jared recognized, and with every other Navi accounted for... That means we just lost Djinni. The second EJO beam that followed less than a second later only reinforced the theory.

Jared, still wearing his headset, turned to look in Na'im's direction, and found the Whazzapian was already standing up to leave. That sucks. And there is nothing I can say. As Na'im looked his way, Jared nodded silently. He still couldn't think of a thing to say, but Harke jumped in and spared him from the need to try. As the Whazzapian turned to leave the semi-transparent visual feed from Jared's visor went through a change... It locked the Navi that had defeated Djinni in a targeting box, and displayed [DELETE][b][/b] as the targeting bracket changed to a cross-hair. Now there's a death sentence if ever I saw it.

After a moment, the meaning of what Jared was seeing dawned on him. Broadside's very angry. Well, well... The friendship really is mutual. Jared smirked. "Hey, Na'im. If you and Djinni ever need help, or just wanna hang out, be sure and drop us a line. I think her friend would really like that, too. Alright?"

Camillia immediately snapped up to attention from her wheelchair, as if wanting to speak words of comfort or some sort before Na'im cut her off. "... I'm sorry," she just murmured without helping much, gingerly taking up the chip sliding at her direction. "Um... Talk to you another time, Mr. Na'im," she added, unsure of what else to say before watching him turn and walked off. Lowering her head, she dearly hoped that Rhea did not come into harm that badly.

... Okay, crap, this still looked bad, and Rhea didn't look like she was up for another array of attacks potentially flying at her next. She sort of panicked... Then was unsure of what to do next as she turned back to Na'im leaving once more, then turning to Harke and Jared, watching their expressions half-heartedly-- and found that Camillia herself wasn't entirely up to this huge task. Perhaps it really was a bit too much for her.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry," she just muttered softly, using a sleeve to wipe at threatening tears. She didn't like feeling as if she was useless; she hated it.


And it was obvious that she was blaming herself for the chaos, though it most probably did not make any logical sense.

"Don't worry," Na'im said, his back still turned towards the others and glanced over his shoulder at them, "This is only a minor setback. The data is still intact and we can continue as we were again. Defeat is only a step to growing further and realizing your weaknesses." He then pondered for a bit how to continue, his facial expression showing he was thinking. Without a word he nodded to himself and then looked around before looking over his shoulder at the others again. "When we meet each other again," he started with, throwing a glance and a nod at J.T. in response to his invitation, "Let's improve ourselves even more." With those final words he took a dash for the door and ran away, although one element of this could've been seen as weird. Through the window he could still be seen running, his PET strapped to his back and in one of his hands the guitar he had 'borrowed' from the inn. Behind him were a pair of employees running and shouting, but this died away quickly.