"In a flash of silver light!"

"Well, one thing's for sure..." Hal decided, placing a hand pensively along his chin and lower lip. "These guys are at least as good as we are. They're holding their own with pretty remarkable efficiency, wouldn't you say, Teeth?"

"Truly, there exists never a poor pugilist between them. Off-handed..." he said, taking another glance around the misfit troupe they had formed, "... they resemble the greatest bland ensemble including members I possess actually toiled alongside. Neither including them possess voiced a syllable," he whined.

"Well... eh, begger's can't be choosers. I guess that since we left the merry world of Netbattling, it sank into darkness or something cliche'd like that," Hal commented with a smirk. "Well, I've got something fun coming your way, anyhow. Two chips coming at you: go ahead and take care of those Mets, I guess."

"Previously onto it," Teethman responded, taking fast action as he held his arms forward. They had already spun to shake off the blow of the wings' collision: now, they began to shift once again, this time again pushing one block back on each arm to make room for the extension of a nozzle from the end. Teethman set his gaze on his targets, not expecting much from the less-than-formidable foes. As he attempted to level the shot with them, however, he became aware that a tube was attached to his right arm's weapon. It ran behind him and connected in a socket that had appeared on his jetpack. The heatshot, it appeared, would actually be siphoning 'fuel' from his rocket backpack that Hal had extraneously added on the redesign. That didn't matter now, of course: he brought the weapon to sight with the first enemy Metool he laid eyes on. With heat building up in the arm, steam billowing from the corners of his mouth and the small crevices between the closed-together sections of his flashing abdomen, he released a flaming shot with a powerful expulsion of steam. The blanket of flames rushed forward to crash over a virus. Without hesitation, however, the Navi leveled his regular Cannon-left arm to face another enemy and released the explosive shot, the top black clicking and locking back as the shell was discharged.

Having finished this, the Navi set his sights back on the enemy Cannondumbs. They may not be much, but if he remained a sitting duck they'd no doubt jump at the opportunity to nail him with a cannon of their own. He bent his knees in preparation to dodge roll if need be.

Boost Heatshot to MetoolC [40+50splash]
Cannon to MetoolA [40]
Dodge

[Yes, Lag Wall ends at the conclusion of our collective turn. Its effects wear off right after the next moderation.]

"Complaining," Raiden noted, doing just a little bit of eavesdropping on the conversation between Teethman and his Operator. Attacks exploded up all around him, coming from the female bowmaster, the shadowy bladedancer, and even the dentist's assistant in turn. Soon Raiden was the only one of the group that remained who hadn't yet launched his own salvo of attacks. He took a second to survey the battlefield, watching as each of the viruses exploded into storms of corrupted data in turn, filtering away into the digital ether. The three Navis seemed to know exactly what they were doing. Perhaps his previous theory regarding his ability to take down the lady and the dental hardware needed some revision.

He caught up with himself, and refused to let himself continue down that path of thought. Now was the time for confidence--to finish strong, and make sure that the others knew that he was something to fear. The already classic ACDC-themed grin crept across his face.

"Raiden, you're going into position. Ready up."

"I'll get ready when I'm ready to get--"

Anti, however, had no inclination to wait for Raiden to prepare him for the next round of attacks. Others were waiting on them, and the last impression that she wanted to make was one of laziness and weakness. Before Raiden could even finish his comeback, he exploded apart and pulled back together in a bolt of lightning that arced like purple-white doom over the heads of the remaining Canodumbs. As the bolt touched the panels behind the viruses, he re-materialized, looking quite surprised at his sudden re-emergence in a totally different place.

"Lady, it would be great if you let me know what we're doing before you send me off somewhere--"

"Turn around!" she snarled back, roughly slotting in her trump chip. Raiden spun about and realized that the enemy was now behind him instead of in front. The three Canodumbs sat there, just screaming to be annihilated. At the first twitch of his fingers, the red of the network was pulled from its usual blending and was forcefully re-formed into three circles of crimson that lurked in the panels just beneath the three Canodumbs. He checked to make sure that the other three were watching, raised one hand above his head with a showman's flourish, and snapped his fingers. Flames roared viciously upward from underneath the viruses, turning the air itself into a seething cauldron of smoke and intense heat.

"Here's our newest chip. I don't really like its accuracy rating, but give it a try and make sure that you got all of them."

Raiden shrugged, did a quick analyzation of the data that appeared on deck, and quickly plotted out the best method of usage for it. He dropped smoothly to one knee and put his hands flat on the panels underfoot. As the chip activated, he raised his hand into the air. Stuck to his fingers was a large bubble made of pure programming. Carefully, so as not to let it slip, he straightened up and raised the bubble to form an obstruction between himself and the Canodumbs. He turned it around in the air like a basketball, so that his right hand was glued to one side of the sphere, while his other hand came up and grabbed hold of the left side. Like magician's rings, he pulled the bubble apart, and it split into three that were meshed together by their very programming. With a movement that was much more gentle than his current personality he tossed the connected bubbles toward the Canodumbs. As they detached from his fingers, they split apart to form three separate spheres, floating slowly but ominously toward the viruses.

[1. Areagrab (getting behind CanodumbA, CanodumbB, CanodumbC. Setting up for next attack)
2. Flameline 1 on CanodumbA, CanodumbB, CanodumbC (70 damage each)
3. BubbleStar1 on CanodumbA, CanodumbB, CanodumbC (20 damage each, traps in bubble)]

(Bump)

((I don't think Vulcan damage can be split, Kazu.))
The spookies are caught off guard by Titania's needles raining from above and one is slew while another gets hit by one. Another is taken down by the Vulcan. Pianoman then begins tearing through the bats with his sword, taking one brief moment to shot at a shrubby, though it hits a canodumb which is was hiding behind instead. Teethman then blasts two Mets with his supped up Heatshot before turning to the final met and nailing it with his cannon. Raiden then disappears, only to wapr beside the canodumbs and bathe them in flames. The Shrubby is also killed. SO yeah, one left...

MetoolA DELETED!
MetoolB DELETED!
MetoolC DELETED!
CannondumbA DELETED!
CannondumbB DELETED!
CannondumbC DELETED!
ShrubbyA DELETED!
ShrubbyB DELETED!
ShrubbyC DELETED!
BunnyA DELETED!
BunnyB DELETED!
BunnyC DELETED!
SeedbatA DELETED!
SeedbatB DELETED!
SeedbatC DELETED!
SpookyA DELETED!
SpookyB DELETED!
SpookyC 30HP
SpikeyA DELETED!
SpikeyB DELETED!
SpikeyC DELETED!

Teethman 100HP
Titania 150HP
Pianissimo 80HP
Raiden 100HP

Teethman surveyed the battlefield to see if the enemies had been completely whiped out: unfortunately, the sporadic blipping noise of a vanishing and reappearing Spooky informed him that a lone virus had survived the crusade. He grinned: with his sights set on it, he would be the one to take out the final virus. "Hal, present me a sniper snack," Teethman requested. "I'd enjoy toward snag this single outward and cement which a fine aim I am."

"Well, if you want to," Hal responded with a shrug. "I'll give you this new Vulcan I got from a trade. If I'm not mistaken, it was from a man known as Silas... supposedly, he was Eric's grandfather. But I'll fill you in on the details later. Keep your shots concentrated: blast as soon as you see the blue light that shows his position and you'll hit him with the most shots. These guys like to attack from the front, so maybe we'll even get lucky and hit him as he attacks."

"Eh, we may view," the Navi said, recieving the chip data. Quickly, his links that had formed the cannon dispatched and began swirling around his other, eventually joining another sliding link on the arm to form a five-barreled gun in the place of the flamethrower. The tube converted to a clip containing an appropriate amount of bullets for the weapon. Leveling it with the goofy looking ghost, his first impulse was to fire immediately: realizing this would be a rash decision, however, he waited until it had blipped out once and frantically searched the area for the reappearance of its blue outline. Settling on the first thing that was even a ghost of the ghost, he began to rain fire from it as the barrel spinned and sent steam whirling from the hole that remained in the arm.

As soon all the shots were discharged, Teethman once again allowed his arms to seperate, an enormous amount of shifting occuring as was necessary to prepare his shield from the obscure shape of the vulcan's components. Once it was formed and protecting him, he took shelter. He prepared to dodge in case of the worst, though: he didn't want to be made to look like a fool in front of his allies.

Vulcan2 (Untapped Power) to SpookyC [1x20,4x10]
Shield
Dodge

Teeth tears through the last one.

MetoolA DELETED!
MetoolB DELETED!
MetoolC DELETED!
CannondumbA DELETED!
CannondumbB DELETED!
CannondumbC DELETED!
ShrubbyA DELETED!
ShrubbyB DELETED!
ShrubbyC DELETED!
BunnyA DELETED!
BunnyB DELETED!
BunnyC DELETED!
SeedbatA DELETED!
SeedbatB DELETED!
SeedbatC DELETED!
SpookyA DELETED!
SpookyB DELETED!
SpookyC DELETED!
SpikeyA DELETED!
SpikeyB DELETED!
SpikeyC DELETED!

Teethman 100HP
Titania 150HP
Pianissimo 80HP
Raiden 100HP

Rewards: 300z each, Heatshot to Pianoman, extra 150z to Raiden, Zapring to Teethman, Ringlog1 to Titania

Titania's bow vanished as soon as it was clear to her that their enemies had been vanqished. For a moment she was silent, observing her allies in a manner similar to that in which she had surveyed her enemies. Worthy warriors, all of them. Kazuhiro had chosen well when he had planned this excursion.

After taking a moment to scoop up her share of the spoils, Titania rejoined the group, but isntead of engaging them immediately, chose to wait and observe.

Raiden seemed only mildly annoyed as Teethman went ahead and and wiped out the last of the viruses, without waiting for any of the other Navis--namely, himself. He folded his arms, shrugged, and smiled thinly.

"So you guys think you're pretty strong, huh."

He looked off toward the horizon, as if trying to make himself look vaguely cool and mysterious. Anti had a sudden desire for the two of them to exist on the same plane, so that she could have thrown something at him.

"Well, you taught that gang a lesson, so I figure that you're all good enough to stick around with." He nodded, as if deciding on something, while he mentally checked how much money he had scraped together from the remains of the deleted viruses. Maybe sticking with these folks would result in more of a gain than he might be able to come up with on his own. He had better benefit from this; personally, he would have rather been off by himself to bust, but it was impossible to resist just a little bit of jabbing at other Navis for a change, rather than just his Operator.

Pianissimo looked at the result of the battle, then walked over and picked up some of the remains, making sure he grabbed the fallen Heatshot. There, now I have a fire chip. he thought, recalling how he wished he had one earlier. Walking back toward the others, he glanced at Raiden as he remarked that the others "thought they were pretty strong."

Rather than take offense at what most others would see as a smartass comment, Pianissimo put in his own jab. "I'll tell you what I think. I think you talk too much. We may have finished these viruses easily, but that doesn't make anyone 'pretty strong.' There are stronger viruses, as well as navis, that could potentially make as short of work of us as we did of these guys. Especially of people like you who take so much time to make verbal jabs at their operator."

Pianissimo caught himself, remembering that he was trying to avoid alienating his current allies. "I'm not attacking you're attitude," he added, "so much as warning you that it could get you in trouble in the future."

Pianissimo leaned against a nearby pillar and continued, addressing something he knew had probably been causing some sort of uneasiness in his allies. "You may wonder why I use a technique to eliminate all sound. It's quite simple, actually, and it ties in with what I just told Raiden. I don't know about all of you, but the sounds of battle, including but not limited to pointless talking, are a distraction to me more than anything. Such a distraction in battle creates weakness. So I developed a technique to eliminate this distraction, if only for a short period."

"But enough of that," he finished, "If you would like, I will continue battling with you."

Talking, a pointless distraction...? Hal thought to himself, biting his lip. So now there are more important reasons to be on the Net than the sights, the sounds, the accompaniment of a friend? More and more, I'm becoming suspicious of these guys... it could be possible they're actually some sort of radical terrorist group against Net peace. If I reveal my position as a Net preservationist, I might be in trouble, especially in my prominent position... I'd better just play it cool for now-

"Indeed," Teethman called out to the slight comment that Raiden had made, completeley ignoring Pianissimo's reminder of their inferiority in the grand scheme of the Net, "Hal also I are the toughest Webfighters circumventing! There's never a greater battling pair onto the whole Web: why, my guide, Hal Belfast, is the first Webfighting extraordinaire concerning his youthful era! Continuing," the Navi ranted on, to the horror of his operator, "He's acquired various personal-protection instructions currently. He's located left outer the KISS snack store, whether either including you desire toward quiz his skill!"

Hal slapped his forehead, running his hand down his face. If the others didn't know where he was, the surely would now, and nobody would mistake him on the streets: who knew what kind of danger he was in now. Sweat began forming on the back of his neck as he struggled for a solution... letting out a sigh, he decided that if he was doomed, he was doomed. The best thing to do now would be to take the allies at face value.

Hal's face blipped on a screen next to his Navi, as he addressed the two Navis that had been discussing. "True, the possibility does exist of being defeated by a stronger opponent; if you're following my view of life, though, you'll realize that life is for the moment: there's no point in worrying about undetermined events like that when they aren't even looming in the immediate future. For now, we're an unstoppable team, and I'd venture to say we could take anything within an area-wide basis here," he finished, putting a hand to his chin and shutting his eyes. He finished his point with a confident grin.

Teethman scratched the back of his neck sheepishly... he'd just have to assume that Hal had made a good point, because he hadn't caught a word of it. He had a feeling it wouldn't be likely to sway the hardened allies, though. "Eherm," the Navi coughed, "Anyway, whatever voice you each we locate various greater bugs?"

Raiden raised one eyebrow as far as it would go as he listened to Teethman's declaration.

"Anti, you have any idea what he just said?"

"No. Be quiet for a minute. I'm trying to figure out who his Operator is. I know I've seen him before somewhere..."

Raiden shrugged, then turned his sarcastic grin back on Teethman. "I have two good words for you, big guy. Speech therapy."

"Raiden, stop being a jerk. It's getting on my nerves."

"Oh, as if you aren't one on a regular basis?"

"Shut up." Anti rifled through one of her more ancient folders, back from when she had been learning to program under her father's instruction, and pulled out the vidscreen component. A window to the Real World appeared next to Raiden, mimicking Hal's. What did it matter if they knew what she looked like? If someone took to stalking her, then she was positive that she could fend them off. She scowled around at the others from a Navi's perspective.

"Sorry about Raiden. He seems to like being a douche when he runs around on this network. Raiden, are we continuing or what?"

He nodded firmly. "I don't see why not. I'll keep with you guys as long as I can bear."

Titania finally decided to interrupt, after a thorough analysis of what she had seen. Anti and Raiden were bickering. Pianissimo just wanted to prove himself, a harmless trait with a warrior who knew better than to let it jeapordize the situation. Teethman was probably an import with a poorly programmed translator. Hal was quite nervous, and maybe a little suspicious of them, though Titania couldn't imagine why. Anti and Raiden were bickering. Raiden seemed to like feeling superior. This gave Titania-- actually, Oberon-- an idea.

"If you really want to see how strong we are, why don't we take the entourage somewhere more worthy of our skills?" Her voice fluttered and changed just the smallest amount as she spoke, and although she was sure no one would see it, she felt a tiny light showing from where a sapphire pendant might be on her chest. "Running around picking on small fry--" (and here she paused just for a split-second) "-- might be an easy way to train with minimal risk, but I think that our equipment is more than sufficient to deal with the viruses of, say, our Operators' home network of Sharo."

She approached them, then stopped at arm's length, and bowed. "My name is Titania," she said, a softer tone entering her voice. "Later, I think we may meet my counterpart, Oberon."

Pianissimo noticed the subtle waverings in Titania's voice and was about to ask about when he remembered that her "counterpart" was actually sharing a "body" with her.

"Sharo, you say?" remarked Pianissimo, remembering how he had come out of his last sojourn there without too much injury. "My own operator lives there as well, though other than the occasional visit he hasn't been there in a long time. I have no problem with going there...unless there are any objections?"

"'Peach Heresy?'" Teethman responded, taken aback at the comment as though he hadn't understood it. The implications didn't seem to have hit home.

"Raiden's operator... Anti, did he say? She's... direct, isn't she?" Hal said, his face frozen into its charming grin with a half-hearted twitching edge as he muttered under his breath. Nonetheless, Hal was content to sit back and let his allies do the talking for now. Eventually the subject arose of tougher training... but in Sharo? Hal realized his face was still on the monitor, so he tried to hide his shock. Fortunately, his TV-appearance trademarked face had adapted itself to putting on masks now, so he stood with a perfectly confident smile as the group mentioned venturing to an area he had never seen even when he was back in his fighting prime. Raising a hand to his chin again and adopting his most suave smile, Hal interjected. "Ah, while Sharo sounds interesting, I-"

"Concerning route we take!" Teethman affirmed once again before his operator could stop him. "Hal and I shall be glad to step upward toward harder trials, left Hal?"

Hal kept a whimper from crawling into his face, remembering that he had to act his age. "O-of course! Teethman would be happy to accompany you to Sharo!" Nonetheless, Hal was glad that advances in technology meant that he could transmit Teethman from a Netportal to the new Net: he hadn't come dressed for a winter expedition, and the thought had already begun to make his nose run.

"Sharo, huh." Anti glanced down at her chip case; it was a pretty hefty proposition that these other Navis were making, but she was sure that the group of them would be able to handle the challenges of Sharo without much distress.

"Sharo. I like the sound of that." Raiden looked off to one side, toward one of the side paths that he unconsciously knew led to the Netsquare, and therefore, the portal to the frozen wastes in question. "Love to see you guys choke there. Now, let's go!"

Turning on his heel with no regard for anyone else, he headed off toward the Sharo portal.

Anti looked skyward, as if praying for divine reinforcements, and sighed heavily.

"Everyone seems to be in favor, then." said Titania flatly, shooting a glance at Raiden's retreating back. "Raiden seems to know the way. Move out and regroup at the NetSquare." The tone of her voice said: Move it or lose it. We'll haev time for chit chat once we're there.

Choke? In Sharo? I doubt it. sighed Pianissimo, making his way toward the netsquare portal. Privately, he wondered why he had chosen these guys as teammates. Titania he only trusted because they had teamed up before. No problems there. Yet her commanding nature was sure to get on anyone's nerves. Teethman...Pianissimo didn't know what to say about him, other than how incredibly flawed his speech program was. Raiden...was being a jerk.

I suppose everyone has their quirks said Pianissimo to himself. They probably have similar misgivings about teaming up with me.

"Well, let's head on then," Hal said with a nod to his Navi before turning off his screen. He did have a strange feeling he could trust these other Navis, despite his initial opinions. For now, he'd see where the journey took them.

"Wilco!" the Navi responded, turning and following the icy troupe through the Net to the supposed portal that could take them to the icy lands of Sharo.