Now it begins, now it starts

"Titania and Oberon are rather unusual," said Rachel, "And they had a lot of combat experience before I acquired them. Simply, it'll take some time before I can fully appreciate their abilities and how best to use them. That's why I said I have to be worthy, and as for the idea that I'm 'supposed to' know their full abilities by now, well..."

Guy looked over as his sister started one of her speeches, and he grimaced, because, in a way, he understood what was being said better than Rachel could. After all, Rachel was analyzing Titania and Oberon's movements in that they were different from a NormalNavi. For Guy, however, observing Titania and Oberon's flashy fighting style was like watching some exotic beast. Rachel saw how Titania and Oberon bent chips to their fighting style rather than letting their Operator's chip choice govern their actions; Guy, who had never known a Navi who would simply use a chip as it was, could only be mesmerized by the way the Navi took Rachel's input and used such limited resources to become a fighting machine, flowing from form to form and destroying enemies with as much style as precision.

"... I'm a good learner. Give me a little while and I'm sure even this advanced piece of work will be totally familiar to me," finished Rachel with a confident sort of flair to her voice. Guy's face showed no signs of his growing distaste for her methods...

"Say Chrono, can you jack me into the network so I meet Soundman and Titania?" Flernia asked.

"Hmm. I guess we could jack in. But we need to get in to start some virus busting. You can say hello to them, but the money comes first. I would like to avoid walking back to ACDC town if I can." Chrono muttered as he decided to hook Flernia to the net and made some final preparation before he jacked her in.

"Ah, it's started. Rachel, try sending those two something to help them kill the Skeeters; Soundman and I will take out those overgrown candles." Trenn held up a hand to the left of the PET, prompting a small, holographic list of chips to display. He flicked his finger down across the list, causing it to spin, and then tapped three icons as they passed by. "Those okay with you, Soundman?"

"Yeah, those should work!" The reply fluttered clearly through the speakers on Trenn's PET, free of the slight tinniness that plagued some models.

"You've probably noticed it by now, the clear speakers my PET's got." Trenn smiled, glancing toward Guy. "At least, I'd hope so with the way you were staring at my pet earlier, ha ha." He laughed, trying to break the tension that seemed to have formed in the inexperienced operator sitting across from him. "But there's a reason for that. A method to the madness, if you will- and you should hear it just... about... now."

Trenn flicked the volume down just a tiny notch, anticipating what was to come, and a loud FWOOSH exploded from the PET's speakers realistically, causing several patrons of the net cafe to look in Trenn's direction with wide eyes. He grinned as the roar of the fire gave way to a slight sizzling, which gave way to the rocking tones of Soundman's Restez signature-- it sure sounded like it was going well.

"That, my friend," the experienced operator chuckled, " is why I have such good speakers on my PET. I don't want to miss a thing."

"Hmm. I'll send Flernia in after your battle so your navis can meet mine and nice speakers Trenn." Chrono muttered as he finished preparing Flerina for her Jack in while sparing a look at Trenn's PET.

"Ok Chrono. Just don't go crazy in battle." Flerina said jokingly as she smiled a little bit.

Chrono only blushed slightly as he double checked his chip folder. The blush only served to get a playful laugh out of Flerina as Chrono tried to hide it, with no success. He also checked on Flerina's customizations and current battle chips and made sure everything was there. Everything was in order as Chrono smiled.

"Everything's a go Flerina. Prepare to Jack in. I'll send you to the net plaza ok?" Chrono muttered.

Flerina nodded.

((Hey there. I don't mean to be rude, but you're... level 0 at the moment... and we're uh- going for a 20-battle stretch, here. Also, while I'm willing to let you be in our Real World thread without asking, you never asked if you could join us on the network, and my answer for THAT is no.

In the future, please ask before you join other people's threads. It's considered inpolite to do so without asking. ^^))

((Ok. Sorry about that. I was planning on sending Flerina to the Beach street net plaza.))

((Ah, okay, that'll work since Kazu and I are busting in Netfrica at the moment. ^^))

Rachel clicked a small switch on her headset, re-activating her voicelink, as she heard Titania and Oberon arguing over which chips they wanted. A quick glance at the battlefield later, Rachel looked just the very slightest bit peeved that she'd been assigned the easy job, such that the slight narrowing of her eyes was thoroughly obscured by her glasses. Still, what was the point of proving herself at something that anyone could do? Still, Titania had taken the smaller viruses as her mark even before Trenn had given any such instructions.

Rachel quickly reached for her chips, then her fingers paused for a moment as she considered her options. She was operating a double Navi, with two personalities asking for two different chips. Oh, but this would be a pain, if not for the fact that her team role seemed to be that of cleaning up the trash enemies.

"All right, here," she muttered, snatching two chips and clicking the first into the oversized PET. And that was when she saw Melody, the unit with the lowest HP on the battlefield, drift cheerfully over to Titania and Oberon's side of things.

"Cover that support program," she ordered, snapping the second chip into her PET.

Guy smiled like a little kid at Trenn's powerful speakers. "Oh, I get it!" He said, nodding enthusastically. "You have a musical Navi... of course you'd want to hear it nicely. Say, what kind of chip was that big explosion?"

Guy's facial expression slowly changed as he leaned back in his seat to see the battle on the PET screen...

"Immune to fire damage, huh. That's a new one." Trenn scratched his chin as he perused the rest of his folder, wondering what chips he should put in this round. "The thing with virus busting is you're never done learning. New virus types pop up all the time, and we still haven't found all the ones that currently exist, so it's a constant back-and-forth between us knowing about most of the types and new ones popping up to baffle us."

Trenn tapped another few icons, then spoke again. "The key is making sure that you do learn from it, rather than repeating the same mistakes. That's the best thing to keep in mind."

"Hmm. So true. There's always something new to learn in virus busting. Either ways, how about I meet Soundman, Titania, and Oberon at the net plaza." Flerina said as she gave Chrono a nod.

Chrono smiled as he gave Flerina a nod of confirmaiton.

"Ok. Jacking you into the net." Chrono muttered.

((Flerina.EXE Jack in))

"If Fire viruses are common around here, point them out and I'll use my Aqua chips on them," said Rachel, flipping through her PET's status menus seemingly out of idle habit.

Guy was a little slow to talk as he mumbled out a response to Chrono's invitation. "I don't think we're... um, I mean, we can't be going to the Net Plaza... well, not anytime soon, but maybe eventually...?" He then made an indignant kind of sound as Rachel swatted one of her brother's hands away and made a grab for more BattleChips.

"Closing to melee. Don't throw any more Blast attacks."

You're not closing to melee. We are.

Rachel's speech bowled straight through Oberon's back-talk, talking tactics with the urgency of someone who "knew" that nobody would do anything about the situation if she didn't. "That explosion made Glass. You should let Titania-"

I know about GlassPanels. ElecSword. Sword.

Rachel swore softly and clicked two hastily snatched chips into the PET.

Trenn let a small smile flicker over his features as the running total on his account ticked up a few hundred zenny, then pursed his lips a bit when it stopped. "And that's that." He said, leaning back in the chair. "I'll have to keep an eye out for those immunities in the future..." Trenn scratched his chin, then looked across the table. "I don't usually bust in Netfrica-- not my kind of network, I guess, so I'm not too familiar with the viruses here."

Trenn let out a light laugh, then tapped a few more buttons on the PET. "Say.. speaking of oddities, would you like to see an odd character I've had hanging around in my PET for quite some time?"

"Odd character? Besides your Navi? What do you mean?"

Guy looked genuinely interested, if a little confused, whereas his sister Rachel, who had already busied herself re-organizing her BattleChips, looked genuinely annoyed, if a little interested.

"Yeah, I'd like to see," said Guy, leaning over to look into Trenn's PET as before.

A grin drove itself into Trenn's features, and he tapped a few keys. A small, holographic button popped up just in front of Guy, flickering ever-so-slightly; it wasn't quite at the PET's max projection range, but it was close enough to not be absolutely perfect...

"Well, you do the honors, then." Trenn chuckled, setting the PET on the table.

"The honors?" Said Guy, frozen with his hand an inch from Trenn's PET. "You want me to push this button or something?" His finger hovered over the largest button on the PET. "I've never used any PET except Aunty Jean's..."

Even Rachel looked up from the battle, seemingly convinced that the action didn't require her total attention. "He means the hologram right in front of you," she said, irritated at her brother's oblivious nature.

Guy blushed slightly as he stuck his finger awkwardly through the holographic button.

There was a loud beep as Guy attempted to stick his hand through the hologram, instead meeting-- resistance? The button almost seemed solid to the touch, and depressed when Guy applied pressure, then disappeared entirely.

Unseen from the angle it sat at, the PET cued up a status bar that quickly filled, loading... something. The PET beeped again as it finished, And this time a different hologram popped up near Guy and Rachel-- a navi.

Draped in a long cloak, with brown, messy hair and a boyish face, he hovered silently in the air between Trenn and the pair, his eyes closed. The navi seemed almost serene like this, his feet hanging idly out the bottom of the hoodless cloak.

"Guy, Rachel-- I'd like you to meet Wiz." Trenn said, hiding the grin on his face with a hand.

As if on cue, Wiz's eyes shot open, revealing a set of green peepers that immediately latched their gaze onto Guy- then Rachel- then in pretty much every direction as the navi spun in midair; whether for the fun of it or to get his bearings, it was hard to tell.

A broad, innocent grin plastered itself onto Wiz's face, and the navi shot off like a bullet, flying all around the Netcafe, laughing his head off with a childlike glee. Under tables, over the heads of patrons, through counters he flew, winking out of existence whenever he got too far from the PET, like a ghost, only to pop back up again somewhere else.

Wiz made a couple of passes around Guy and Rachel as well, twirling around their heads faster than the eye could track, and then disappeared.

There was a quiet moment, a lull where there was no sound in the netcafe-- and no Wiz.

Then, slowly, the navi rose out of the center of the table, beaming at the two operators. "Hello!" He answered with a youthful voice. "My name's Wiz! Nice to meet you!" The navi waved at Guy and Rachel in turn, a broad, sweeping gesture, like he was trying his hardest to make sure they saw-- and then sped off again, through the air.

Rachel lowered her glasses to peer intently at Wiz. She leaned forward across the table, trying to glean some kind of information from the featureless Navi. "Wiz, eh? You have a standby Navi?"

That was what Rachel wanted to say. She got through the word you before the floating Navi interrupted her. She made a noise of surprise that turned into a frustrated snarl as she cringed in her seat, as if Wiz was an insect that she couldn't pin down, or something magnetic that she couldn't let near her chips.

"What in the...?" Rachel's head literally spun as she whirled in her seat, trying to get a better look at what was going on.

Guy, on the other hand, was dumbfounded from start to finish, first at the idea that a second Navi could exist within a PET, then at the ensuing airshow. He, like his sister, glanced around when Wiz took his aerial laps, but with less fervor.

"What just happened?" He stuttered.

Trenn let off a little chuckle as he watched Wiz fly around the shop aimlessly, making little noises of glee as he went.

"Wiz." Trenn nodded with a smile. "I've got enough memory in my PET that I can have the both of them, Soundman and Wiz, in there at once-- but it doesn't have nearly the processing capacity for them to both be jacked in, and Wiz's battle routines are being reworked at the moment anyway." The operator shrugged, but didn't let the grin drop from his face. "He's actually the third navi I made... and, if you'll believe it, Soundman helped."

Wiz chose that moment to return from bugging the rest of the patrons, and plopped down on Trenn's shoulder, almost like some kind of parrot. Seemed he was done flying around for now...

"What's it like, creating a Navi?" asked Guy, staring in wonder at Wiz. "You write all that code, just words on a screen, and then suddenly... it turns into something alive." He folded his hands on the table, looking from Wiz to Trenn as he spoke. "And I wonder how Navis feel about how they were created."

In the midst of the sounds of Battle, Guy found himself transfixed by Wiz' manifestation. It was clear that he hadn't often seen holographic representations of Navis in the real world, and the sight was a special kind of food for thought.

"It's a mystical, indescribable experience. It is as if you take a piece of your soul and-" Trenn started chuckling a bit. "No, I'm kidding." There was a slight pause as Trenn stopped his snickering, then continued. "Writing a navi is a different experience depending on who does it and why, I think. I get all kinds of freelance work..."

"There's been a couple of times corporations want a basic framework, for instance. Sorta bland, subservient personality, something they can mass-produce and hand over to all their employees. So I code up an appearance, some basic abilities, and a boring personality that doesn't grow too much, but is very dependable." Trenn scratched his chin, looking over at Wiz.

The small navi had one of his ear-covers lifted up and a finger stuck inside, and seemed to be digging around for earwax in his ear. He looked down at Trenn, who was eyeing him with a curious look, and awkwardly dropped his hands to his sides. Trenn turned his head back towards Guy.

"Then you get the more custom, personalized jobs," Trenn continued, "real expensive deals, especially if I throw in a program that allows them to pretty easily make their own appearance for the navi. For these I do them one of two ways, depending on what the customer wants."

"The first way I do things is to give them a basic personality along the lines of what the customer wants, but I also include routines that will let the navi's personality grow just as much as a human's would, if not more because of their increased cognitive capacity. Trenn explained. "The second way is a bit more time-consuming and expensive; I work closely with the customer to make the navi to their exact specifications personality-wise, giving them the option of whether or not they want the navi to really grow personality-wise. There will always be some measure of growth, sure, but you can make it so they stay relatively the same."

Trenn paused, as if considering, then continued. "Humans are inherently afraid of change, you see. In a world where things are otherwise chaotic, changing from day to day, we seek a 'rock', so to speak, or things that will stay the same for as long as we desire them to. This is the main reason I offer the option for the navi to stay similar at all. Sometimes people will hang onto navis that do not change longer than they would ones that grow in complexity by the day. It's like building a powerful PC for someone who mainly wants it for word processors. There's no point."

"But somehow, I get the feeling you weren't asking about my work, Guy." Trenn chortled, nodding towards Wiz. "When I created Soundman, I had no 'pre-set' personality, no real goals for who or what he could or would be. So what I did is I looked inside."

"I looked inside myself and asked that empty space in my head... 'Who are you?', 'What drives you?', 'What are you like?', and other questions like that. I looked inside myself, gazing down on these lines of code just sitting there, lifeless and unfinished, and asked myself who it was I was creating." Trenn paused for a long moment, smiling. "Soundman answered back."

"With Wiz-" Trenn looked up toward his shoulder; the little navi was gone, instead kicked back and relaxing on one of the lower-hanging light fixtures in the cafe, "-Soundman asked himself those very same questions. Who was this he was making? What life was it that he would breathe into what were otherwise words on a page?"

"I'm not sure what answer exactly he got, but whatever it was... Wiz was the result." Trenn reached behind him and scratched an itch on the small of his back, then leaned back in his chair again.