Seaside Relaxation

Stepping onto the beach, Harke Ezarith inhaled deeply, savoring the salty air the winds brought to his face. Ahh, the beach! Sunny skies, white sand, laughter abound, everything was happy today. Harke was clad in simple dark blue swim trunks, and a loose, airy light blue T-shirt. His bag was slung over his shoulder, containing the provisions of the day, along with some other things. Stretching his limbs and cracking a few joints, he stepped off the pavement where he had stood onto the beach itself.

His flip-flops dug into the sand as he walked, and he felt the gritty sand particles wedge in between his toes. The one thing he didn't like about the beach. Lifting his right foot off the ground, he inspected the slipper and his foot.

Urgh, sand in my feet...

Removing the flip-flops, he opted instead to walk barefoot on the sand. Happy with the results, he chose a spot not too crowded with people, but not too secluded either. Rummaging in his overstuffed bag, he found a nice mat to spread out, and sunscreen to use. Feeling around some more, he found a visor and his PET, where Eternalis was waiting, agitated. He put on the visor and flipped on the PET's projection setting. Shortly after, Eternalis appeared, in his human-form Implicity graphical override. The Navi started off by launching a tirade of rage.

"Harke, where's this place you-" he began, before being interrupted by his operator.

"Beach."

"....What? The beach?"

Eternalis looked around, and raised an eyebrow at his surroundings. A whistle escaped his lips. "Nice place." The Navi surveyed his surroundings with a small smile. "Well, I'd like to stay around, Harke, really, but I don't quite like crowds like this. How about somewhere nice and peaceful, that'd be nice."

Harke deliberated on the request, before suggesting, "You haven't been to Yoka Net yet, how's that? Aqua-aligned area, nice hot springs, too. Might get to soak in one."

Eternalis looked elated. "Hey, now doesn't that sound perfect. Count me in."

Harke rolled over to the PET and scooped it up, pressing a few buttons on it. A beep ensued before a holographic screen appeared above it, the words 'Connection Finder' floating below the screen. A scan around revealed the closest point, prompting the operator to point the PET at it, and mutter the usual words.

"Jack In, Eternalis.EXE, Transmission..."

After the action, he slumped back onto his mat and relaxed, a smile on his face. Pulling down the visor down to cover his eyes, he let the sounds of the beach flow into his head.

[To Yoka Net!]

Stepping onto the beach, Na'im inhaled deeply, savoring the salty air the winds brought to his face quickly followed by what seemed like a sandstorm conjured by a group of busy playing children. Coughing loud, Na'im waved his arms to wave the wind away and looked around the beach. He managed to borrow a pair of red-colored swimming trunks, with a pink heart printed on the backside, and a white tanktop from one of his friends, as he lacked any other clothes of his own. Strapped to his back was his musical PET and held a long fishing pole which was rested against his right shoulder. Raising his left hand above his eyes against the sun even though he was wearing sunglasses, he scoured the beach quickly to check if there was any sign of security and then made a dash towards the water side.

Climbing over his left shoulder came Djinni's holographic image which had emerged from the PET. "Are you really going to-" she started, but her sentence was stopped as she managed to trip over her own legs. Falling butt first on Na'im's shoulder, she whined quietly at the pain and then stood up again. "Really going to fish here?" she continued after getting a steady stance.

"Of course," Na'im exclaimed as he dodged a pair of children, then stopped and looked around again, "I really wouldn't like to starve this night. These fish exists for me to survive, ri-Erk, security in my sight!" Seeing the lifeguard stare at him with a confused look, Na'im took a turn and headed for a less occupied area of the beach.

"That's not the point!" Djinni shouted as she looked back at the safeguard who shook his head before returning to his duty. She then looked back at the side of her Operator's face and sighed. "Fishing at the beach is fishing for trouble. Even I can understand that."

Once again Na'im came to a halt and raised his eyebrows. "Water equals to fish. Fish equals to yummy dish," he said, then turned his eyes to the sea, "I suppose we'll go elsewhere to scavenge some food. I'm hungry, but don't want to be seen as rude." With these words, he turned away from the sea to head back with a sigh.

"Okay. Battlechips loaded, get to work."

"Na'im!" Djinni exclaimed as she attempted to pull his ear without any success due to her holographic nature, "Someone's fighting here!"

Turning his head swiftly, the sun reflecting on his sunglasses creating a cinematic flash, he turned his eyes towards the position the two had heard the voice from. Nonchalantly Na'im walked over to the kid in his eyesight and squated down close to him. "Whazzap," he said as he looked down at the kid and raised his hand, "You a NetBattler?" Not waiting for an answer, he looked around again before turning back to the kid. "Hey, where are you getting a connection from?" he asked before curiously staring at the PET.

Harke let a slow chuckle escape his mouth. Within a few moments of jacking in, Eternalis had already encountered opposition. No one needed to tell him that it was viruses when he slotted in those four chips, and he pulled up his visor from his face to spectate the battle. Four Swordy, his Navi was surrounded at every cardinal direction. Aqua-aligned, obvious from their blue armor. He watched the fight unfold, confident in his Navi's battle prowess combined with the relative power of the battlechips.

The Connection Finder app was still opened up, its grid-screen humming away and scanning the perimeter for possible jack-in points. He fiddled around with it, opening up the battle Eternalis was fighting in another visual to his right. A bit of a side project he was working on, he gathered up the coding of the application from his father's books, along with some help from the man himself. He hadn't really found much of a use for it until then, having known common jack-in points from a simple thing called experience.

"Na'im!"

The sound didn't register much in his ears, mixed up with all the other sounds of the beach, but it did make him flit his eyes in the general direction for a moment, and that was all that was needed for the tanned man beside him to suddenly crouch down, overbearing.

"Whazzap. You a NetBattler?"

Harke was taken a bit aback. A tall man, bald, a strapped keyboard to his back. A projection on his left shoulder, he recognized to be a Navi. Very curvaceous, too, he noted. Immediately, his face turned red slightly at the thought.

"Hey, where are you getting a connection from?" the man asked.

Composing himself, he tried not to look surprised or anything of the sort, and replied calmly to the question.

"Err, yeah, I'm a NetBattler. As for the connection, I don't really know myself. I'm using this connection finder app I made myself. Scans the surroundings for jack-in points. After I find the nearest one, I just point my PET's wireless connection at it."

Observing the tan fellow for a moment, he commented, "If I'm not mistaken, that looks like a Navi projection on your shoulder. Are you a NetBattler, too, mister...." lingering at the last part, to inquire of the new fellow's name.

Na'im looked at the PET's screen as the mention of a 'connection finder' had fallen and then nodded after he was asked if he was a NetBattler. "Well, yeah," he said and raised his hand with his thumb pointing at Djinni on his shoulder, "This here is Djinni. We've had some rough times behind ourselves, but we're looking into finding some more battles again."

Djinni waved at the kid happily, then pointed at Na'im. "And this here is Na'im, my Operator," she said and sat down on her Operator's shoulder. "I see your Navi is already busy in a battle," she continued to talk, "Maybe we should try some battles together. I always enjoy meeting new friends." She smiled gently behind her veil after she stopped talking.

Na'im also sat down on the sand and pointed at Harke's PET. "That program you mentioned," he started, then reached towards his back and pulled an extendable cord from the PET, "Any chance of you copying it to me?" Na'im smiled a bit, bearing his teeth somewhat, and held the cord out towards Harke. "Maybe we can learn something from each other," he said afterwards, then awaited Harke's reply.

At first, Harke thought that this man was a nuisance, coming in suddenly like this. After some consideration, though, Harke tried not to think too negatively on the sudden intrusion. Hey, he had once met everyone else he knew by practically the same way, so why deny this guy the very opportunity? Friends can come from any place and appear at any time, he thought. Introductions went by rather quickly, and now he had both their names. Before, he hadn't really taken the time to inspect their features, so he did. His sight involuntarily (or so he wanted to think) lingered again on Djinni's rather appealing design.

"Good to meet you, mister Na'im, Djinni. Name's Harke. I'd have my Navi out, but yes, he's in a battle," he replied. Glancing at the cord offered by his strange new companion, he raised an eyebrow, rather surprised that the man's PET was the keyboard strapped to his back. It didn't take too long for him to shake off the intrigue, taking the cable and connecting it to his PET. "Sure, why not. Lemme work some stuff out. Don't blame me if the program blows up in your face, though. Some custom PETs scream foul at the sight of any new program suddenly coming in." Pressing a few buttons, he closed up the application. New words appeared in a message box on the projection screen.

"Transfer [ConnectFind.APP] to Na'im-PETBoard?" the device inquired. Confirmation provided, the PET proceeded to do its thing, and in a matter of seconds, the cable was disconnected, and the program was finished. Afterwards, he glanced at the battle viewscreen, finding that Eternalis had finished his current battle, and was looking for another one.

"Hey, Et. We got company. Get out here and introduce yourself."

Shortly after the request was made, a projection appeared above the PET, showing the armored liquid form of Eternalis. He seemed rather disturbed that someone would interrupt his busting session. "You called?" he simply stated flatly, his arms crossed. He hadn't exactly a proper face to show his discontent in this form, and he didn't feel like changing into Implicity at a whim like that.

Harke ignored the Navi's tone of voice. He propped himself up from his lying position to sit up, as Na'im had done. His hand went towards the pair in a gesture. "Eternalis, this is Na'im, and the lady on his shoulder is Djinni, his Navi."

The Navi quickly realized Harke's intent, and his disapproval deepened. Another tandem bust... What an annoyance. Just for once I'd like to be alo- Whoa! he mused, interrupted as his eyes crossed Djinni's form. His yellow eyes flushed red for an instant, before returning to their normal color. Relaxing from his earlier stance and changing his tone into a friendlier one, he said, "Ahh, more busting partners. Refreshing. Hello, Na'im, Djinni. I would like to do some battling with you, but I'm in the middle of something. Perhaps a minute or two would suff- Erk!"

Suddenly, the projection faltered for a bit and phased out. Harke recognized the source as a battle routine, and informed the man beside him. "Sorry for that interruption. Found another battle." Not wanting to be awkward, he tried to make some small talk.

"I see your Navi is quite well-designed. Did you make her yourself?"

"Yeah," Na'im started with after finishing the upload of the program Harke had made. He took the PET from behind his back and retracted the cord back into the PET. Laying it down across his lap, smiled a bit at Djinni and then looked back at Harke. "My forte lies with the creation of Navis. But my skill in actual programs is down in the debris," He said and then tapped a few buttons to execute the program, hoping it would work and glanced at Djinni's holographic image. "Djinni here is the result of a new experiment I did. But doing it again is something I forbid. I noticed your Navi seems to be of the water element. I had multiple plans for Djinni but I liked fire the most in the end." The program started to make the PET whir softly and eventually booted up succesfully.

"Finished," Djinni said, holding her hands in each other behind her back and leaning over slightly to look at the PET in Na'im's lap, "Shall I head out?"

"Our friend Harke and his companion are currently still busy," Na'im told Djinni, "Let's enter the internet by ourselves and make some enemies dizzy. The program has pinpointed a suitable point for logging in. All we need to do now is to shoot stuff and win."

Starting with an elegant dive, her hands held out towards her front above her head, Djinni fell towards the PET and halfway vanished. "Transmitting now," ranged her voice before she disappeared into the network.

"Good good..." Na'im muttered and took the pack of chips into his hand. A soft growling sound came from his stomach as Na'im immediately coughed in hopes of hiding the sound. "Any chance of you sharing some food?" he continued muttering, a bit embarrassed of requesting this to someone else.

Harke listened to Na'im talking intently, as he detected some sort of shift in the bald man's speech. Something about it bothered him, nagged him at the back of his mind, but he just couldn't place it for some reason. It made him a bit uncomfortable, but it wasn't anything more than something, like, a bug buzzing in his ear. He could ignore it.

As Na'im hesitantly requested a share of food, his own stomach growled at him as well, reminding him of his own hunger. He looked at the PET's time display, and saw that it was nearing lunchtime. He shrugged, and replied, "Sure."

Looking over at the bag situated just near him, he grabbed it by the handle and threw it onto his lap. Rummaging around for the food, he found a stack of sandwiches, except instead of the customary peanut butter-and-jelly combination he was used to, his father seemed to have the urge to experiment this morning. Instead, the sandwich bread slices were laced with something that looked slightly red. Opening it up, he raised his eyebrow when he found that the contents were none other than- "...Sardines."

Blotched with tomato sauce, smelling like the worst thing in the world, mashed into undesirable-looking pulp... Ambrosia. His mouth watered. He searched further into the container, and found yet more consumables of the same kind. He handed his companion the container before chomping down on his own sandwich.

"Hope you like fish."

"I like everything I can eat!" Na'im said greedily as he took one of the sandwiches and chomped down happily on it. Taking a large bite directly into his mouth and after swallowing, he coughed loud as he almost choked in the chunk. "Ah, this sure is a treat!" He took two chips into his hand for Djinni, but before slotting them in he knocked his hand onto his chest a few times. Sliding the chips into the PET later on, he turned to Harke and smiled. "Thanks for sharing the food. You're a pretty swell dude," he said with an amused tone in his voice.

Random battle sounds were emitted from the PET as Djinni had gotten herself into a battle, while her voice was sometimes heard very softly but hardly understandable to others. Na'im just continued slotting in chips, until the sounds vanished.

Slowly Na'im turned to look at Harke after having focused on the PET's screen. "Hey. Are you maybe interested in helping my Navi?" Na'im said with a smirk on his face, "My Navi has had trouble with missions, you see. She could use an extra hand or two. When it comes to strategy she has no clue." He scratched the back of his head before he continued talking, "I've already put the post up on the board. Join up with her if you're bored."

"Whoa, mister, slow down," Harke said, with a hint of humor in his voice. "Eat a bit more slowly! You'll choke on that if you don't." As he said so, he felt like the quirk in the man's speech was becoming more and more clear to him, it was just at the tip of his tongue. He looked a bit at the keyboard Na'im possessed, watching him slot chips into it. A glance told him they were pretty powerful MachineGun chips, two in number. Not one to be underestimated, this guy. He's a bit of an interesting personality, too, Harke thought.

Then, the matter of a mission came up. It was only but yesterday he took one (or, rather, Eternalis did) but he felt not that burdened, and a little skirmish here and there would definitely get boring for Eternalis sooner or later. Still, the thought of the golden gentleman would rouse him into a bit of a stir, but Harke knew that Eternalis had enjoyed that bit of bashing. "Sure, why not. I'm sure Eternalis wouldn't mind," said Harke, as he opened up the BBS window on the PET. His eyebrow raised at a familiar name, and he chuckled. Typing in his bit of a message with the PET holo-key input, he finished within a minute, being adept with the holo-keys.

Pulling up his visor a mite higher, he looked at Na'im. "Hey, mister Na'im. Where do you come from? I don't recall there being dark-skinned people coming from any part of Electopia, if you'll excuse the notion," he inquired, trying to continue some small talk. His sandwich was half-gone, and his mouth was filled with munching and gulping sounds as he talked.

Disconnecting the PET link, Harke straightened up and stretched his limbs a bit. Turning to his companion, he said, "Erm, sorry, mister Na'im, I've got some stuff to do, could you hang tight for a bit?" And then, not waiting for a response, he sped off in the direction of the road, leaving the sandwich container ripe for the picking.

---

After a while, Harke re-appeared, and plopped back down on his mat. He saw that Na'im was still there, and gave him a wave of his hand as a small re-greeting. Then, slinging the bag over his shoulder, Harke called to the man who had been accompanying him for the time, "Hey, Na'im. I've posted on the BBS on that mission. I'll get started on getting to Yoka. Come along if you want." His voice was a bit muffled, as the half-eaten sandwich was firmly lodged between his jaws. And with that, he strolled off the beach, heading for the changing room before getting to the Metroline.

[To Yoka!]

Remaining in his own world together with Djinni, Na'im could hear Harke but didn't really exactly listen. His world now had food in it, which was what mattered. But as he finished one of the sandwiches and tried to get another one, he realized the balance within his world had been disturbed. The food was gone. Quickly he looked up to see the back of Harke who was leaving the beach with all other things he had brought along. "This can't be good. He took along all the food," Na'im said, a slight pinch of panic in his voice.

"Well, that's not weird," Djinni said as she appeared as hologram on Na'im's shoulder, "It was his after all..." She casually slid a finger over the right receiver as if scratching her non-existant ear, but was suddenly thrown off balance as Na'im abruptly stood up. "What's the deal with you!?" Djinni exclaimed.

"There is still time," Na'im whispered as he slid his sunglasses upwards and looked around curiously, his left hand free and the fishing pole he had foolishly taken along in his right hand. "A target in its prime..." He continued as he fixed his eyes on a young woman and held his fishing pole backwards, also putting his other hand on its grip.

"Wait," Djinni started, noticing the movement and the direction, "You're not going to... You know... Right?" She looked at the woman, then at Na'im and then back at the woman. Her face quickly went from curious to annoying, her gaze turning back to Na'im. "Am I not good enough anymore?" she whined.

With a great swing Na'im send the wire of the fishing pole to the woman, the hook quickly and safely getting stuck in the bikini top. Returning it with a strong pull, he had caught the bikini top and took his rewards in his eyes before an angry man started to walk towards him. "Time for us to scram," he said with a smirk, turned around and ran away. After a few seconds of running, he vanished from the beach and headed elsewhere in the world with only the bikini top remaining at the position he once was.

((+6FXP for operator/Navi interaction.))