Coffee Shop Banter

[Awwwww, she's so cute too!] Mira responded immidiately with a grin, as raki introduced riki to her. The girl was extactic to have so many feline styled navis in sight. Her love of the animal had her in such a good mood that had she actually understood what markus had said earlier, she probably would have just shrugged it off. One thing was definitely for sure though. Mira wanted Nyan and the twins to get along well. She couldn't see why they wouldn't, being the same species and all. Her logic was always simplistic like that. It didn't occur to her that there were personalities to keep in mind, regarding these things.

Nyan of course had a vague idea of what Mira had in mind. She had gotten used to the young girls train of thought, and she knew an impending proposition between Mira and markus was on its way. Nyan didn't have anything against the two navi's, persay. She was just uneasy in general about working or dealing with people she wasn't close with. People she didn't trust yet. It was a deep rooted feeling coming from the incident when she came to be in Mira's posession. That day still antagonized the poor navi.

Nyan tried to shake off the negative thoughts, returning her attention to the matter at hand. Mira, you're about to suggest something, aren't you... Nyan questioned nervously.

Mira just giggled to herself. [Hmmm? You know me so well, heehee. Just try to be polite, kay?] Her cheerful reply caused nyan to sigh slightly, but she nodded in acceptance, as Mira turned her attention to Markus once more.

[Well mister Markus, you should put down the homework and do something fun instead! Homework is such a waste of time~] Mira smiled as she moved closer to her new friend. [I mean, I've never done it, and I've made it through my classes just fine~ You're still young! You need to enjoy your self! I know the perfect thing, too! heehee] Mira tried to persuade him to forget about the boring assignments and school work, leaning closer to Markus while still keeping a friendly expression.

[Let's go virus hunting!]

Riki's attention perked up as Mira also commented on her fine appearance. "A-Ah, t-thank you," she replied, looking up for a bit, then turning back to her maintenance to hide her embarrassment. Raki chuckled heartily at her sister's performance, projecting one of her battleaxes for her to prop herself up while she stood, resting her arms and head on its handle.

Leaning towards Markus, she whispered some encouragement, if it could be called that. "I think you might actually stand a tiny shred of a chance, Scott. Look how blunt this girl is," she whispered, smirking in amusement as she imagined her operator fumbling his way around an actual female. "Shut up, Raki," replied Markus, who was trying his best to maintain his composure.

Meanwhile, Riki was furiously deconstructing and reassembling her gun. While her hands worked, she wondered what was under all that thick military gear, comparing it to the sisters' own rather light equipment. Riki also wondered what kind of person Nyan was. Was she the same as her boisterous tomboy of an armsmaster? Then, she shook her head quickly, berating herself for thinking about it that hard.

After all, she'd find out soon. All she had to do was go with the flow of things, like she always did.

Markus' brow furrowed slightly at the mention of casting off homework. Must be a freshman or something, he deduced. Sure, he'd also like to disregard homework and mess around on the internet all day, but his meager grades just wouldn't let him do that sort of thing. But, oh, whatever, he was finished with the day's work anyway. Let's see what she's going to suggest... thought Markus.

"Let's go virus hunting!"

Immediately, both Raki and Riki's eyes gleamed at the mention of "virus". Markus was about to get a word in, when Raki screamed to interrupt, "Yeah, let's do that! You love virus hunting, right, Scott?!" The operator grinned slightly, his upper lip twitching. He wanted to refuse. He should be refusing. It was his duty to refuse.

"Raki--" he started, starting to feel a little hesitant. "Pleeeeeeeease, Scott? I won't bother you for the entire day. Pleeeeeeease?" pleaded Raki, making a begging pose and putting on her best pitiful expression. Markus was at a loss, turning to Riki. Unfortunately, the other sister Navi looked even more pleading, with shining glassy eyes and forlorn smile.

"Aaaah, fine, fine," said Markus, sighing heavily. Digging through his pockets, he found some loose chips he was keeping for some reason, and laid them out on the table. "I just have three battlechips, though--" The twin Navigators interrupted him by shrieking in joy, jumping around each other madly. Raki looked just the type, though Riki looked ridiculously out of place. "Yaaaaaay~!" "Yaaaaaay~!" "We're going busting!" "We're going busting!"

A half-hearted grin took over Markus' face at that point, turning to Mira. "Haaaa... Well, any network you've got in mind, then, Mira?" he inquired tiredly.

[Yaaaaaaaaaaaay~] Mira chimed in, celebrating with the Navi's that they were all going to enjoy themselves for a bit. [We're all in agreement then! hehehe.] Of course when markus asked her where abouts she wanted to go, Mira drew a blank. The idea had just sort of come to her, so it wasn't as though she had a plan or anything. [Hmmm...] She pondered, looking around the room a bit, aimlessly before her navi decided to speak up.

Mira, Dentech should have a network we can explore. Wouldn't that be the most logical choice, seeing as we are already here? Getting right to the point, Nyan didn't want to sit arund while Mira weighed her options and ended up going no where any time soon. She tried not to show it, but she was actually a little excited herself at the idea of busting. Her tail on the otherhand was trecherous as usual, and began swaying in accordance with Nyans true feelings.

[Good idea nyan! Let's just jack in here. We can get started immidiately!] She chirped happily, looking around for a port of some kind to conenct her PET to. The young girl caught a glimpse of Nyan's body language, giggling as she did. [See? i knew you'd enjoy the idea, hehehe~]

Nyan was puzzled at first, but slowly turned her head to see the betrayer behind her. Blushing slightly as she grabbed hold of her own tail she stuttered a bit as she tried to save face. S-shut up! It's not like that. You dont know what your talking about... hmph. Nyan turned her back to the monitor, only to have Mira giggle once more.

[Whatever you say. So everyone, shall we?] Mira grinned, hooking her PET into the finally discovered port, and taking a seat at a nearby table.

[Let's go! Hehehe~]

"Sounds all right, I guess," said Markus, putting up his PET to scan the immediate area for a jack-in port. He quickly found it, and set his terminal to the mode he thought he'd never have to use. "Mode change, transmission..." he mumbled, pressing his temples as he slowly made his way through the setup process. Ah, whatever, he'd get through it. With all the recent things happening, the twins' potential was sure to have deteriorated. "Navigator transfer... set, normal. Jack in, Raki.EXE, Riki.EXE, Transmission 2," he said, trailing his voice at the last word.

"Time to go!" "Yaaaay!" the two Navis exclaimed as their holographic forms were encased in a wireframe and slowly disappeared into the network.

[Network Location: Dentech Net]

Mira leaned back in her chair as she watched the last battle come to a close. She placed the chips back into her pocket as she stood up, looking around. She had an issue with sitting still, Mira was just always so full of energy. She was also a little parched and being in a shop it was the perfect place to get a drink and a snack. It was at the moment the PET vibrated, signaling her that her navi was trying to converse. Unfortunately Mira was feeling much to impatient and with the battle over she figured she would let her navi rest a bit.

[Oh, hey Nyan. Sorry, can't talk. I'm gonna get a drink and talk to Markus a bit, heehee~ You just relax and have fun, ok? ] She cheerful retorted before closing the window and putting the PET into her hoodie. She was sure Nyan would be fine for a bit on her own, and she knew Nyan needed to learn how to deal with people more than herself.

Mira briskly walked over to the counter with a bounce in her step. She certainly didn't want a coffee even though she was in a coffee shop of all things, but the thought of tea or something similar made her smile. Thankfully they did have alternatives, so ordering a large tea double double wasn't out of the question. She was a little sad they were lacking a green variety, but she was still happy she got some form of tea at all. She took a brief sip from the beverage, pulling away slightly as she realized it was still a tad too hot for her tongue. She giggled to herself, palming the cup in both her hands, before making her way towards her new friend.

[Markus~ So tell me about yourself, hehehe. What do you like to do hmm? and how'd you get the cute little kitties?] Mira's curiosity was in full bloom as she questioned him.

Watching the screen with a disdainful groan, Markus grasped his hair and pulled at it lightly, trying to keep himself awake. He could already feel the caffeine's life-extending properties slowly draining from his mind, pulling him ever closer towards the dreamworld. Can't go to sleep now, gotta hand this in to class later... he thought, increasing the force of pulling on his hair.

A small voice to his side reminded him that there was someone beside him, on a virus busting run with his Navis. Well, not his Navis per se, but he was stuck with them indefinitely, so it was a moot point. Because of his desperate focus on fixing his wreck of a paper, he could not, at the moment, remember the girl's name for the life of him.

Super. Girl walks up to me and five minutes later I can't remember her name, thought Markus to himself. At that moment, Riki popped up on his screen, informing him of a break in their plan. Markus whisked her away with a wave of his hand and a click of the mouse. That was one distraction down, and he had gotten about 20% of the paper proofread. Good headway!

Unfortunately, he estimated his caffeine burst to last for a few more minutes, based on prior experience of the coffee shop's quality. Meanwhile, the girl which he had just forgotten the name of sauntered up to him, and asked him a few things. By this time, however, his focus was getting a little fuzzy, and all he got were a few disjointed phrases. It didn't help that she asked these questions rapidly, making it hard for his slowed cognitive functions to process the input.

"Hold on, hold on, hold on," muttered Markus, holding up a hand to stop the girl's chatter. Putting a hand into his pocket, he pulled out a small wad of money, and picked out one that looked large enough of a denomination. "I'll talk, I'll talk. Just... get me something to keep me awake. Point the guy over there at me, and tell him I need the works. Please," he said, holding out the note towards the girl.

Mira looked puzzled for a moment, still not familiar with the idea of lacking energy. Nor had she ever had coffee, but that was mostly due to the recommendation of frightened acquaintances. The thought of Mira mixed with the potency of caffeine was enough to make even the manliest folk tremble in fear. Still, even though she didn't get it that didn't mean she wouldn't help out her new friend.[No worries, I got it covered. Heehee~] She cheerfully responded, refusing to take his money and pulling out some of her own. She put her delicious tea down for the moment onto the table, and quickly scampered over to the counter once more.

[He needs a... works? The works? Something to keep him awake anyways.] Her order only barely understood by the minimum wage employee behind the counter, who gave her a wierd look as he prepared the drink and took her payment. A faint mumbling about not getting paid enough, and dealing with the crazies could be heard under his breath as he handed her the drink, but Mira remained oblivious to the remark. With beverage in hand the energetic girl wasted little time in returning to Markus, almost spilling the drink in the process as she danced around a customer she hadn't realized was getting out of his seat. A slur about ignorant youth once again ignored by Mira.

[Here you go! This should be good right? right?] Extending the cup with a cheerful smile as she stared in anticipation of any sort of reaction to show Markus was still alive. Placing it before him, she swiftly took her own drink once more within her grasp, sipping happily from it as she continued to gaze at Markus.

[So come on, tell me about you and the kitties, heehee~]

Markus's hand flopped about as Mira went to gather him some starters for his eyes. He groaned as he threw his head down onto the desk, and wished his paper was done for him. A short while later, his tall order arrived at his hand, and he grasped it with fervor. After finding that touching the cup almost froze his fingers off, he smirked, and pulled off the cover.

Some bizarre green liquid bubbled about inside, releasing a cold cloud of freezing mist. He gulped down some saliva, and brought the cup to his lips. In a flash, he downed a third of the contents before putting it on the table. He exhaled repeatedly, causing his frosty breath to show. "That's the works all right. Thanks a bunch, Mira," said Markus, wiping off his mouth roughly with his arm. He was now wide awake.

... For a few hours, that is; "The Works" only lasted one for about four hours of non-stop hyperactivity, after which a twenty-hour crash was needed. He'd have to make use of that time efficiently. Typing frantically on the keyboard in front of him, he racked his brain into double time, checking the paper in front of him as well as recalling his memory about his two Navigators.

"Well, leeet's see now. Markus Scott, as you already knew. Nineteen, only son of late crackpot Navigator researcher Orin Kammen and extremely cat-attached secretary Maya Kammen, formerly known as Maya Scott. I like to read up on stuff online about things like computers and cartoons and cooking and video games and home improvement and what have you. Also not actually doing anything with my reading," he started, running off a slew of history on himself.

He had no idea how he was pulling out everything about himself without a second thought, but he was simply too busy rewriting his paper. "Raki and Riki were part of my dad's crazy project to forget about an old Navi he had that had left him before either me or my mother were around. He called his project some fancy name I didn't really care for when I was five years old, but he kept mentioning forges and fires or something to that effect, so I guess that has something to do with it."

"Ran off when I was six, what a... shame-- left his old PET in the attic, where mom found it like twelve years later after. Shoves it off to me, saying I should take care of it and find my dad or something," he said, adding a note of bitterness to the last part of his sentence. His fingers were still rapidly going across the keyboard, now at one and a half rewritten pages of his paper.

"Aaaaand here I am, a year after all of this tragic novel-worthy history, finishing off a paper someone else passed off to me because he was too lazy to do it himself. And... well, I guess they're cute-- no, scratch that, Raki's hell to deal with. Riki's what you'd call cute, heh," he ended, chuckling to himself.

Just then, he thought of something that could well increase his chances of getting actual work done: distraction tactics. "I'm sure that was pretty boring to listen to. How about you tell me something about yourself?" he asked, quite sure that the energetic Mira could and would run on and on about things. Filtering out things that weren't useful to him and only taking the important bits, he could contain some imitation of a conversation.

[Awwwww, that sounds so sad!]

Mira frowned as Markus told her his life story, or so it seemed anyways. It was a bit much to swallow, but Mira was barely phased dispite her comment. She was the type to just shrug off negative emotion like it had never been there, as if she was surrounded by some sort of hyper armor of happiness and energy.

[You don't sound very depressed about it though.]

The young girl added bluntly, not really understanding why he seemed to impartial to the comments he himself had made. Was it his sickly condition? Or perhaps there was something he hadn't mentioned. Mira was getting completely ready to pry on the subject, but thankfully she got distracted by his next topic.

[Haha, I'm sure its not that bad! Nothing that cute can be that bad!] Reacting to the remark about the twins as swiftly as ever. Mira's talent to change subjects with the flow was about as unnatural as her constant supply of energy, and it was a miracle there were any people in her life who could deal with her hectic performances. [Nyan has her moments, but she's totally cute and fun too! When she stops being so stuffy, heehee~]

She paused for a moment as Markus put his secret plan into action, turning to topic into one on Mira and hoping she'd talk about herself for the rest of the conversation. Unfortunately, things regarding Mira are never so easy.

[Mmmmm... Not much to say really! I'm just you're typical run of the mill girl! Who just happens to like cats! ]

Mira found the topic of herself boring, and rarely would speak at length in regards to it. After all, she knew everything about herself already so why bother going on and on about it. Not only that, but taking into account her very out going style of speech and attitude, there wasn't much you couldn't find out about her on your own. Mira just figured there was no point in spoiling it for others by listing it all, since it took all the fun out of it.

[Oh, speaking of, we should see how the kitties are all doing! I'm sure they're getting along great, don't you think so?] She chirped as she fumbled around with her PET, trying to turn the connection to Nyan back on and get a visual.

Markus was rather disappointed that his tactic didn't quite work out, and he clicked his tongue. His paper was now done, thanks to the miracles of modern-day... substances. Whatever was in that cup, he didn't know, and he didn't want to know. Picking it up again, the sweetness of the cup's contents doubled his concentration, and he managed to catch several errors he didn't see earlier through his paper. They weren't kidding about this stuff, he thought, glancing at the green-stained cup.

"I'm sure cats get along pretty easily," said Markus, as he typed down the last paragraphs of his paper at lightning speed, the ideas from his head rushing forth from the spring that was his enhanced concentration into a cascading waterfall that was his fingers, dancing across his keyboard. Soon after, just as he typed the last letter of his paper, his PET beeped annoyingly with a blaring alarm tone.

"Oh crap," he said, barely stopping himself from more colorful words.

He had just a few minutes to pack up, run to the Philosophy faculty building, and pray to the heavens that Professor Blanchard was goofing off with his PET in his room for just a few more minutes. A burning resolve from within his very core drove him onwards to victory. The passion of education. ... Or that could just be the green stuff rotting his insides. For all Markus cared, he could drop on the pavement, but he wasn't not going to fail this class if he could help it.

He had no choice but to disconnect his PET from the network for the moment, and reconnect afterwards. It was messy, but he had no time to get the approval of his cats for a jack out, which would take forever. Forced jackouts were a no-no, too; he had been on the receiving end of a wired Raki to know not to do that. Thus, hastily typing out a notice to both of the cats, knowing that they weren't going to be in any battle routine for a while, he made his plan. "I'mreallysorryMirabutIhaveaclassrightnowandIhavetohurry, thankyouforpayingandyourcompanyI'moff!" he blurted out with a frantic bow. Markus slammed the laptop cover shut, stuffed the PET, cables and all, into his jacket pocket, and gulped down the last of the green stuff. Not three seconds later, he was already out the door.