Mission: Search and Rescue

A blank hyperlink briefly turned blue as it was activated, and a humming noise started up. "Oh, dude, they're here? Fiiiinally." Hearing the noise, a figure perked up quickly from the area and walked towards the link. The Navi adjusted his shades as he waited for the two that accepted his Operator's call.

The Navi looked like a slightly odd-looking red-and-black NormalNavi. The usually helmeted part was replaced by a human head with some slicked black hair, shades, and a confident grin that pretty much said "Yeah, I'm a big deal." Tacked onto the Navi's back was a dark red pack of some sort, with a tube connected to a funnel out of it that he was holding.

Behind the Navi, an traditional Electopian-style house was erected, looking very much like it should belong in Yoka than Electown. The lighting around it was dim, and all entrances had wooden boards with floating notices around them saying "KEEP OUT" in gaudy yellow lettering. All, that is, except for one; the front entrance appeared to have been blasted in with a TankCannon or something similar.
A flash of light signaled the first arrival, as what appeared to be some sort of menacing looking gas cloud floated from the link. Its glowing eyes surveyed the area, eventually focusing on the Navi after a good look at the house behind him. "...Wow, what happened here? It looks like that house got blasted with a giant cannon or something!" Amazingly, appearances aside, the voice was not the slightest bit impaired, or even particularly threatening. Just a regular male voice.

SmogMan thought about going to investigate, but, well, his partner hadn't arrived yet. And when that partner was the Navi of a woman that held the livelihoods of his operators in her hands, he really shouldn't be rude. Though, based off what he could make of the conversation they were having, Rhonda at least had a fallback career option...
Phero arrived in Electown Net, adorned in her usual silver, metallic skirt, and stretched her arms above her head. She let out a quiet, subdued yawn, mufffled politely by one palm. Between her visit to the Yoka bath-house with Cheshire and her wait while Dharma held her party, it felt like she was just coming back from vacation.

She saw a lot of smog and heard somebody speaking, but saw no navi to attribute it to... unless it was the guy with the Phillip-like hair (she noted that he also had shades, like Cheshire had,even though they weren't at the beach) making it. If that were the case, it was possible her employer hadn't even arrived yet.

The pink-haired navi approached the man quickly. "Greetings. Are you SmogMan or my employer?" she inquired, assuming he must be one or the other. As a side note, she realized that the area behind the man looked a little like Cheshire's bath-house itself. Maybe she was going to get to take another dip?
"Dude, dude, totally wasn't my fault, okay, bro?" said the Navi, waving his hand about idly before stopping to stare at the cloud. "Duuuude, are you like, totally this cloud-thing? Pretty sure I've never seen something like this before, dude. You gotta be like, nasty invulnerable or something," he commented.

Before he could say anything further, however, Phero appeared, and the Navi immediately let out an unabashed whistle. "Lady decided to join iiiin! Nah, man, I'm your bro, not your employer. GhostBro, to be precise. That pile of smoke over there is probably that SmogMan you're talking about," he said, gesturing towards the menacing cloud with the spooky eyes.

"Anyway! Pretty sure you guys're both down with what's going down, so I'm just gonna let the op handle the fancy stuff before we jump in, all right, dudes?" said GhostBro, snapping his fingers, and letting a floating window take his place.

A disheveled-looking young boy with short, scruffy brown hair was depicted through the window, who raised his hand in greeting. "Heya, I'll just take you guys a minute or two. Basically, we got the link to this place from some request board, and we got around looking for something the requester wanted us to get. The inside doesn't look like a house at all, it's more like a stupid nightmare zone or someth-- Okay, I can't really explain it, just let my Navi tell you more about where we last went inside," said the boy, closing out the window.

"Man, he always wusses out like that. Anyway, just throw out whatever questions ya got, and we'll roll after, all right?"
"Well..." Before SmogMan could properly respond, Phero arrived, causing the other two Navis to turn and look at her. And, well...she certainly looked like more of a finished product than he ever did. Still, he was a little disappointed that she didn't make the connection between the name SmogMan and a smog cloud. "Yeah, I'm SmogMan, over here! Nice to finally meet you, Phero!"

With that, he sat back, so to speak, and listened to the explanation...or lack thereof. If it wasn't more of a pain than it was worth, he would've had a gaseous question mark come out of his head. "So, er...nightmare zone? What happened in there? It just looks like a run down old house to me..."
Phero thought to herself that her new "bro" and his operator seemed pretty laid back about everything, which was certainly alright with her. Any deviation from Dharma's company was always welcome. Knowing little about nightmares and almost nothing about ghosts, however, she couldn't catch the significance of a guy named GhostBro showing off a big, spooky house that his operator claimed was "a nightmare zone." "Is there a very powerful enemy inside?" she wondered aloud.

Finally, she realized what what she thought was a giant smog cloud produced by some other navi was actually a giant smog cloud that WAS a navi (or otherwise had someone inside of it). "Oh, it's good to meet you. I look forward to working with you," she greeted him with a smile. "I've never met a navi with a form like this... A friend of mine showed me a good way to greet a new friend, but I'm not sure how to...?" she murmured, unsure of how to shake SmogMan's hand, let alone hug him. "Pardon me, but I'm just going to... step in here..." she murmured, materializing her gas-masking visor over her face from her hairband. She walked cautiously into the cloud, blindly groping for some physical form to become hug-buddies with.
"Yeah, you don't see too many Navis like me around...huh? Er, hold it a sec...!" Wait, was she moving in? Yeah, she was...and headed right for his core. Above all else, he couldn't let anyone know there was actually something inside the giant cloud he appeared as...so, as Phero drew near, he let himself float above her, while keeping the gas at the same level. To anyone but himself, it wouldn't look like anything was going on, and he'd seem completely incorporeal. Win-win.

"...Yeah, sorry about that. But as you noticed, I'm gas, and that's about it. Makes it hard to really touch me or anything." SmogMan scratched his head, not quite sure how to handle a cute girl being inside of him. This never happened before.
[+1 FXP]

"Woah, woah, we're not all hugs now, are we?" said GhostBro, laughing as he watched the silly scene of Phero trying to grasp SmogMan. "Well, dude, the requester dude told us that they got some totally crazy ritual or something in there that went totally screwed, and now it's all messed up. We found some weird viruses, but it doesn't look too scary in there, but who knows, we might find some super-powered ones. Trippy as hell, dude, just get in with me and you'll see," he continued, jogging into the blasted-open entrance.

Upon entering, Phero and SmogMan would find themselves losing their footing shortly after a small platform ended; the insides of the "house" appeared to be a vast realm of empty space, with a background of a melting pot of colors, mostly purple and green and black. Strangely enough, even though they weren't standing on anything, it didn't appear to affect any of them in any sense, and GhostBro was simply drifting about through the empty space. As it appeared, they could float through the space without any program's assistance.

Scattered throughout the space, they could spot several chunks of CyberPanels isolated within the area, floating all on their lonesome. Each chunk was decorated differently, but every one of them had a similar point; a gateway of some sort leading elsewhere would be at the very center of the chunk in various forms.

One had some sand and water on it, with the water swishing along the sand like a beach, and a rotten wooden door was open in the middle, opening a portal to a dark room, offering no previews as to what was inside.

Another had a dull grey asphalt road, with appropriate sidewalk and drain to accompany it. In its middle, a brick wall had a glass-panel display window with a huge hole smashed into it, with some books scattered about the window. The hole opened to a decently lit room, with some shadows appearing to move from inside.

Yet another was a chunk of a wonderful-looking mowed lawn, and a magnificent archway one would expect from a high-class garden of some sort stood in the middle. The archway had a neat stone path leading towards it, and was flanked by some trimmed hedges. The archway led to an even prettier-looking garden beyond.

Among the stranger ones they saw was an unassuming chunk of normal CyberPanels, with an activated portal on it, waiting for someone to use it, looking very odd in the middle of all the furnished chunks.

A fifth one had a blasted-in door that, once they looked at it twice, looked exactly like the entrance of the house they had just come into, with the road leading up to it as well.

Countless others lay beyond their sight, though the ones they could see far into the distance either tightly locked, barricaded, or simply blown to smithereens. Some others had large glowing red beacons on them, with GhostBro's face grinning back at them on each. "Oh, yeah, those ones that I put my face on we got through already for the last few trips. The blocked ones are useless. I'm not feeling too great on going too far to search, either, I only got around with my lil' bro we're searching for up to those beacons, and after that are all those blocked ones," he explained.

[Terrain is mostly blank, with auto-Omnishoes on everyone unless specifically deactivated by user on floating terrain chunks.]
"...Sure!" SmogMan promptly floated over to GhostBro, not wanting to think about the weird things that could potentially result from a girl literally being inside of him. "Let's go, Phero!" He started to motion to her to follow, but stopped when he realized that she, really, should be the boss. "Uh, er, if you're ready, of course. We'll follow him when you're all set!"

And eventually, the gas cloud found himself in...somewhere. Unlike the other two, he didn't usually touch the ground anyway, so floating around was a complete non-issue for him. He looked at all the panels, finding the whole to be...trippy, to say the least. "What a weird place..." Luckily, some of Alda's past experiments made him partially resistant to worrying about details such as 'which way was up', or 'where the exit was', or even 'what kind of Net dimension did they stumble across'. "I dunno what to check out first...I'll leave it up to you, Phero!" One good thing about working with your boss was that you didn't have to worry a lot about decision making, unless you were suddenly put on the spot. It really gave some peace of mind on that front.
"No hugs? But I've found that hugs are a good opening to an intimate relationship..." Phero murmured. Although he may be smog, she had sort of dreamed that maybe there was some kind of huggable, pillowy cloud there to hold on to. Either he was just bashful or that was not the case... or both. Whatever the case, Ghostbro was ready to move along, so there was no opportunity to see if he wanted one.

Phero had once asked about the nature of the sea, thinking one could simply float around in it however one pleased. As it turned out, this environment was much better suited to that purpose. While the others focused on the oddness of the scattered window-like fragments, she drifted around wistfully, then tried flapping her arms to move faster, but found it didn't make a difference. Unpreturbed, she clutched her hands around her body and spun in place, flipping and rotating. "This is fun," she giggled. It wad pretty easy for anyone who wanted to see the shiny pink leotard beneath her skirt to do so while she was thus occupied.

The disparity between boss and boss's navi was becoming too much for the president, who cleared her throat for attention. "Please, respect the client and focus on the mission," Dharma requested,although much harsher commands and reprimands were on the tip of her tongue.

"Right, I'm sorry," she gasped, flailing her arms as she struggled to come to a stop. Finally,she managed, then floated over to the collection of net fragments. "How about the beach? It was very pleasant when last I visited," she suggested, fearlessly (cluelessly) wedging both arms through the crack between the wooden door shutters. She looked like she was going to try to wiggle through instead of actually opening it... She flipped back off her visor, as if that would help, when really her metal skirt and protruding bustline were going to be harder to get through.

"Excuse me, Dharma here," Phero's operator interrupted, bringing up a window so she could speak with their client. "If you've marked many of these gateways already and explored them, could you perhaps give us further clarity on what is likely beyond this door, based on the visual hints?" Dharma requested. The window showed off her questionable and scant sling bikini, which made Phero look pretty modest.
The client Navi tried his hardest to not look obvious as Phero's unintended fanservice showed, with her wandering up to the sandy chunk of land first off. As Dharma opened a window to talk with GhostBro, the Navi was taken a little aback by the stark openness of the operator's attire, catching his own breath and coughing in a sudden fit. "Uh, well, uh, yeah, I saw some pretty nasty ghosts in there, like, floating viruses and stuff. Y'know, stuff you'd find in a normal haunted house, no big deal. I managed to teach 'em a thing or two," grinned GhostBro, flexing his arms as he did so (to not much effect, thanks to his NormalNavi body.)

Suddenly, a crashing sound interrupted his little show, as the Navi's attention was directed towards Phero, where the sound came from. The door had been broken in, thanks to a certain scent-themed Navi's curiosity. Phero fell into the doorway, and immediately afterwards, a myriad of chains appeared around a huge padlock, blocking the door entirely. Adding to that, the space around the blocked wooden door went hazy for a moment, before several viruses appeared about the door, consisting of three Dynamites and three blue Puffy viruses.

SmogMan, however, noticed one extra member just out of the corner of his eye before it disappeared; a tiny little Metool, smaller than a normal one, caught his eye before hiding on the other side of the door. Another odd detail was that Dharma's operator window remained open; Phero was still connected nearby somehow.

Dynamite A: 100 HP
Dynamite B: 100 HP
Dynamite C: 100 HP
Puffy-A A: 100 HP
Puffy-A B: 100 HP
Puffy-A C: 100 HP
Metool?: 40 HP

Terrain: 80% Blank, 20% Sand [Omnishoes To-All unless specified]

SmogMan.EXE: 150 HP
GhostBro.EXE: 200 HP

---

Meanwhile, Phero was having troubles of a different kind; the area she had accidentally stumbled into was nearly pitch black, save for a single source of light. A faint, flickering blue light illuminated parts of a small rocky tunnel with a sandy bottom, and from what she could see, the light's source was moving. Hearing a few footsteps further into the tunnel, where the source appeared to be, Phero also realized that she was firmly on the ground once more; the floating effect from before had worn off.
"Oh, hang on, Miss Phero! I should go first, since my gaseous body can just slip on through!" Well, there was his core, but it was flexible enough that he could probably slide on through a crack with no one the wiser. SmogMan made his way over, entirely oblivious to his superior's...positioning, and Dharma's outfit din't so much as faze him, thanks to his previous exposure to it. "This really quite a distance...wha?!"

The gaseous Navi came to a halt, as Phero somehow got through the door, which was then locked. Then, the viruses. So many viruses. "...I guess these are some of those floating viruses, huh?" He looked over the foes, and noticing the tiny Mettaur. ...He did just see a tiny Mettaur other there, didn't he? But anyway, he had absolutely no idea what to do here. This was kinda his first non-controlled battle...what a way to start. "Alda, Rhonda, either of you there?"

"I'm here, SmogMan!" Luckily for the elder twin, she had brought her PET poolside. "What's up...er, never mind, I can see it..." ...Hmm. Pretty tough viruses for their first real battle. At least he wasn't alone...though not in the way she expected. "What happened to Phero?! And who's that guy over by you?"

"Uh, see that door behind the viruses? She kinda...fell through it, somehow. Then it locked itself and summoned these viruses! And this guy's called GhostBro, but don't worry, he's on our side!"

"What in the name of benzene have you gotten yourself into...well, we can't really take out a lot of those viruses on our own, so we'll weaken them up for...GhostBro, you said?" Who named their Navi that, anyway? "I don't think we have to worry too much about Phero, since I can still see Miss Heart-Payne's connection window. That means she didn't warp to a completely different place, or anything."

Somehow, the revelation that the door didn't lead to a weird, parallel dimension was a little disappointing to SmogMan. But, at least the fact that Phero was (probably) safe softened that particular blow. "Right! ...So, uh, exactly what should I do right now?"

"Um, first...we should boost your defenses! We can't just leave you unprotected, after all!"

"Right! ...Wait, since when could we boost my defenses?"

"Ever since I found out that chip trading can get you some neat stuff!" Neat stuff like what she was gently, yet firmly, jamming into her PET. "BattleChip, Shadow! Slot in!"

The glowing red orbs that made up the Navi's eyes vanished, and his normal purple color shifted to a dark, nearly black-like gray. "Well, that's new...welcome, but new!"

"Wha...? Can you see, SmogMan?"

"Uh, yeah. Just fine. Why?"

"Never mind...let's do some offense, now that you should be fine defensively!" Offense like...this. "BattleChip, Shake! Slot in!"

From...somewhere within the cloud, the gaseous Navi expelled a small black orb, which traveled towards the trio of leaf piles, only to drift wide...or did it? As it seemed like it would go sailing past the Dynamites, the sphere glowed, and in a puff of smoke, morphed into a Heavy. With no regard for its own safety (as though it was capable of being harmed), the dumbbell slammed forward, trying to smack as many of the camouflaged viruses as possible. It then stopped and hovered, as it prepared for a second strike, should it be needed..."Hooray, I attacked! Anything else we can do, Alda?"

"Um...yes there is! We can soften up a couple of those other viruses for your friend quite a bit, actually. Use this! BattleChip, SideBamboo! Slot in!"

A Kilby materialized next to the Puffy, who immediately peeked out from the bamboo grove that it existed in. With little delay, it grabbed a sharpened bamboo lance from its depths, and stabbed forward, to try and skewer a pair of the fish viruses. With a snicker, the green ally vanished, having fulfilled its single duty of piercing. "Huh. That was...quick."

"Yeah...though, it got me in the mood for sashimi for some reason..."

[Order of Turn:
1-Shadow1 chip on SmogMan (S, Shadow, 1 turn)
2-Shake1 chip attack on DynamiteA, DynamiteB, and DynamiteC (90, C, Break, Wide Attack, attacks next turn at half accuracy)
3-SideBamboo chip attack on Puffy-AA and Puffy-AB (80, Wood, B, Long Attack)]
Dharma wasn't sure what had caused Phero to stumble carelessly through the door frame after opening it, but she figured clumsiness was just as likely a cause as any and facepalmed accordingly. "SmogMan, please fight cautiously while I work on determining how to retrieve my navi," Dharma requested, just for the sake of offsetting her feelings of resentment and agitation over her navi's actions with token politeness and false empathy.

Meanwhile, Phero realized three disappointing new discoveries simultaneously. The first was that she had entered a very dark, lonely place instead of the beach. The second was that she was indeed alone. The third was that she couldn't float or spin any more. "Aw," she pouted quietly. However, as she got her wits about her, she realized she wasn't alone at all. Something was creating blue light, which reflected off of her armor such that the whole ensemble looked pale blue... but more importantly, she heard footsteps.

Her naivity naturally counteracted any thoughts of caution or a preemptive strike,so instead she ran after the entity, keeping her arms close in towards her chest so that she wouldn't scrape her skin against the rock walls. "Wait! Do you know where I am?" the pink-haired navi called out; she was beginning to feel a little claustrophobic.

As all of this went down, Dharma played around with her PET, trying to figure out how to get back in touch with her navi. The last thing she needed was experimental Heart Payne technology running around, releasing itself upon the net's denizens without guidance.

SmogMan first bolstered his defenses with a Shadow1 chip from his operator, making him more difficult to hit. Some of the Dynamite started spitting out some bombs, but as they were sitting near a vast void, one of them simply disappeared into the ether, while two managed to land on the sand and let out a couple of laser tripwires. The Navi then proceeded to weaken some of the viruses, landing a few of his attacks successfully within the viral ranks.

GhostBro was watching for a bit, before adjusting his shades and grinning. "Narley moves, spooky dude, let's kick it up a notch!" he said, before pointing his funnel in front of him. The funnel spat out three differently-colored glowing balls, which the Navi went to roundhouse towards the Puffy and Dynamite viruses, deleting two of them successfully. However, he wasn't done yet. Twirling once again after his third kick, the funnel was then pointed at one of the laser-emitting bombs, and he fired a short burst of energy at it.

The shot took the bomb for a spin, and it neatly landed its laser on one of the Puffy, which caused it to deal quite a bit of damage. GhostBro jumped a little when the explosion rang out; it didn't look like he was actually aiming at the bomb. Some luck. "Hahahaha! Dude, did you see that shot? Did you--" he exclaimed, before noticing something.

"Dude, where'd your eyes go?"

Dynamite A: DELETED
Dynamite B: 10 HP
Dynamite C: 100 HP
Puffy-A A: 20 HP
Puffy-A B: DELETED
Puffy-A C: 50 HP
Metool?: 40 HP

Laser Trip Bomb: 30 HP (Sand)

Terrain: 80% Blank, 20% Sand [Omnishoes To-All unless specified]

SmogMan.EXE: 150 HP (Shadow1)
GhostBro.EXE: 200 HP

---

Meanwhile, Phero attempted to communicate with what she saw was someone else in the tunnel, completely disregarding any suspicions. A little yelp came out after hearing Phero, and the footsteps started running as well. She didn't have to chase it for long, though, as she heard the footsteps stop with a trip and another yelp. As that happened, the light also went dim abruptly.

Nevertheless, she wasn't too far away from it, and reached the source of the light. There, Phero saw a little knight in full medieval armor, about the size of a child. The light was coming from the knight's helmet eye slot, which was so bright that it might as well have been a floodlight.

The knight program had tripped into the sand, and just picked himself up. Turning around at Phero, it squeaked out fearfully. "Don't hurt me!" he said, covering his helmet with stubby arms.
"My eyes? What are you talking..." ...Come to think of it, didn't Alda say something about him not being able to see? "Hey, Alda! What happened?"

"Well, when I put in the Shadow chip, your tangibility decreased even further, but manifested itself as-"

"English, please!"

"You look like a shadow of yourself, literally! So, your glowing eyes and other regular features aren't showing. But don't worry, they're still all there. They'll go away once the effect wears off!"

"Well, if you say so." SmogMan appeared to be taking it all in stride...but since he looked like a completely formless blob due to the shadow effect, who could really tell? "Okay, you work on that leaf pile virus I wasn't able to hit earlier, GhostBro! I'll see if I can get the others!" With that, he performed what appeared to be a deep breath...if he was even capable of breathing. He could certainly exhale, though, and began to spew a toxic green gas from where his mouth would be if it was actually visible at the moment. It wafted over in the direction of the weakened Dynamite, to give it a less than flashy death. Though, it would probably be better to fall to the initial cloud, and not the subsequent poisoning...

"You know, I don't think it does, but I hope the Net doesn't have any laws on using poison in battles. Because we're in deep trouble if it actually does...but, too late now. Let's keep up the attack!" Though, if the attack lasted much longer, they were going to be completely out of options. If only she ever had leftover money to get extra stuff for him..."BattleChip, Shotgun! Slot in!"

Oddly, there were no outwardly signs that the amorphous Navi had received any sort of chip data. Instead, he carefully floated over toward one of the Puffy, though he seemed more interested in lining it up with its twin, and trying to avoid trip lasers and bubbles, rather than just covering distance between them. Once it seemed he had himself and them all in a straight line...he let out a burst from his mouth, which, if done correctly, would pierce the first pufferfish, and the resulting explosion would continue on and do the same to the other.

"...You know, I don't really get how Shotgun works. I'm a chemistry major, but that doesn't even seem possible to replicate in the real world...I guess the Net plays it fast and loose with its physics, huh?"

"Yep!" As neither operator nor Navi had especially noticed, however, SmogMan was once again more inclined to the laws of physics himself, as his shadowy cloak was gone, and returned to his usual, gaseous state...

[Order of Turn:
1-Poison Gas sig attack on DynamiteB (10, Poison(10) for target's next 5 actions)
2-Feint to line up remaining Puffy-A
3-Shotgun chip attack on Puffy-AC (50, A, Spread 1) (Spread Target: Puffy-AA)]
Phero managed to catch up with the light source, but he seemed to be pretty on edge. She raised her hands to show non-violence (a trick Dharma had taught her might come in handy if anyone ever tried to hold her liable for the outcomes of her experiments) and approached slowly. The knight was short, but she wasn't so tall herself, so there was no need for either of them to bend. "You must be mistaken, I don't want to hurt you... I think. Are you a ghost or a virus?" she asked, realizing she wasn't overly aware of what a ghost normally looked like. "I'm just looking for ghosts to ask them to leave the area. My name's Phero. I'm a navi, not a ghost... you can touch me if you need to confirm." She gently lowered her arms, hoping the knight had decided against suing Heart-Payne Pharmaceuticals. "Are you headed out of here? I don't know which way the exit is, but I'm assuming it's in this direction."

Meanwhile, Dharma plucked away at her PET, trying to reopen communications between her navi and her allies. "These PETs are all that science has devoted itself to for generations now... you would think they would hold a connection," she sighed, sounding just plain irritable rather that good or evil.
It didn't take much from SmogMan to delete the weakest Dynamite virus; indeed, it was little more than literally a warm breath that took it down for the count. GhostBro was still scratching his head a little, but backed away as soon as his partner started to attack again. "All right, you go do your... shadow... stuff, or something, spookybro, and I'll do my half," said GhostBro, taking up his funnel-buster thing in his hands.

A huge crosshair appeared on the strongest Dynamite, and GhostBro grinned, letting loose his MarkCannon on the poor virus, deleting it instantly. Meanwhile, the remaining Puffy released some little bubbles his way, one of which exploded in his face before he could react. (10) In return, the rotund viruses got a taste of energy-flavored deletion, thanks to them getting caught in his Shotgun's line of fire.

The tiny little Metool from earlier floated discreetly off into the ether, just out of GhostBro's line of sight, but right in SmogMan's peripheral vision. So uh... battle was over?

Dynamite A: DELETED
Dynamite B: DELETED
Dynamite C: DELETED
Puffy-A A: DELETED
Puffy-A B: DELETED
Puffy-A C: DELETED
Metool?: FLED?

Terrain: 80% Blank, 20% Sand [Omnishoes To-All unless specified]

SmogMan.EXE: 140 HP
GhostBro.EXE: 200 HP

Battle Over!
Reward: 320z + [Spreader1] + GhostBro FXP(1)

---

Meanwhile, the little knight Phero found visibly relaxed when she stated that she wasn't a hostile, along with her gesture. "Eh? A... ghost? No, I'm not a--" the little voice started, when their environment started to warp and phase about... and then, Phero realized that she wasn't talking to a little knight anymore. In fact, she was... back where she started?

Oh, she was just behind the door she just accidentally stumbled into, which was now properly closed. She felt the weightlessness of the purplish voidzone again, and Dharma's operator window snapped to her side.
Though he certainly didn't look stressed throughout the experience, SmogMan let out an enormous sigh of relief as the enemies were no more. That Mettaur wasn't anywhere to be seen, though...wait, there it was. And, there it wasn't...

"Woohoo! We won our first ever real battle!...SmogMan?"

"Huh? Oh, Alda!"

"You looked like you were spacing out just then..."

"Oh, it's nothing. Nothing at all." With that, a gaseous hand enveloped his part of the rewards, allowing him to transfer it easily. Or handily, if one enjoyed puns. "You can sort that stuff out yourself, right Alda? Right now I need to figure out where...Miss...Phero went..." Naturally, the less than solid Navi picked that moment to notice that his fellow Fire-weak friend had somehow gotten out. That was a load off his mind. "Hi, Miss Phero! Glad to see you're okay! Say, what was in that door, anyway? Out here, GhostBro and I had to fend off some viruses after you got trapped in there! You don't look like you had to do any fighting, though, so maybe it was safer on the other side, after all..."
Phero was sent back before she managed to receive any answers, which was discouraging, but she was glad to see that everything was about how she'd left it. "I need to go back in... I met another navi there, but we got separated when the door released me," she addressed her allies. Dharma let out a sigh of relief as her navi reappeared; the outfit or lack thereof made the movement of her chest attention-grabbing. "Were you worried about me, Madam President?" she asked, not terribly hopeful.

"Of course," Dharma answered; while her compassionate tone was faked, she wasn't actually being dishonest. A new thought occured to her: while Phero was disposable, it was dangerous to let Phero out of her sight. Phero wasn't especially vital to her research but the navi knew all sorts of secrets about Heart-Payne pharmaceuticals and also carried several experimental chemicals in her body at any given time, kinds that people could sue over or, more importantly, steal her patent for. "What sort of navi did you meet? Someone associated with this ghost business?"

"I'm not sure... he seemed to be lost himself, or at least jumpy. He was a knight with a glowing face inside his helmet. We were trapped in some sort of narrow tunnel... It was very dark."

"... Glowing face? You mean eyes?"

"Perhaps. I didn't get a good look inside his helmet, so I can't tell. I will ask him if I meet him again."Without waiting for a response, she pushed off from nothing and free-floated towards the next nearest door. According to what SmogMan had said, viruses had attacked them while she was on her adventure. "I'm glad you're safe, SmogMan! Don't worry, I'm sure viruses won't attack again in the small period of time while I'm searching the inside of the door. The net isn't full of viruses waiting in organized groups to ambush strangers after one short period of catching one's breath between each battle, after all," she reassured him.

While Dharma pondered over the fact that her navi's statements seemed precisely wrong, Phero jumped into the next unlocked door. It would be pretty embarrassing if it was actually locked from the inside and she bounced off of it, though.
"Solid work, spooky dude," commended GhostBro towards SmogMan, as their first battle was finished. "I wonder where the chick went, though." Of course, his words were spoken too soon, as Phero simply emerged from whatever she was in.

As soon as the team was reunited, GhostBro went to greet Phero with a solid grin, not bothering to consider what she possibly went through. However, he was stopped by her description of the one she met inside the door. "That doesn't sound like the lil' dude... But nobody else should be here," he muttered, mostly to himself, but loud enough that both of his companions could hear it.

Of course, Phero's next action would be to jump headlong towards another platform, despite having been locked in last time. "Yo, wait--" started GhostBro, reaching out to her, but she was already through the broken window from the sidewalk-like platform. However, this time, the platform didn't lock her out, but she did stumble onto the floor, having the gravity cancellation effect denied to her. Faceplanting into what felt like paper, she would look up to find herself in a large abandoned bookstore setting, with her invasion placed at the checkout area, looking very silly with her face in a musty book on the floor.

The wooden flooring around her looked terribly unstable, with some cracks here and there. Further in were vast bookshelves creeping into dark territory.

"Help me!"

A familiar yelp was heard; Phero recognized it as the voice of the little knight in armor she saw just a few moments ago. Near what she assumed to be the checkout counter, the knight faced off against a trio of Handy viruses closing in on it, along with a Kettle behind them. Of course, they noticed Phero's unwelcome intrusion, and turned towards her.

... In the middle of all this, out of the corner of her eye, she would also spot a tiny Metool, the same size as the one SmogMan spotted earlier, run into the dark shelves at the back.

-- Inside --
Handy A: 80 HP
Handy B: 80 HP
Handy C: 80 HP
Kettle: 0 / 100°C
Metool?: 40 HP [Hidden further inside]

Little Knight: ??? HP

Phero.EXE: 100 HP

Terrain: 75% Normal, 20% Cracked (Scattered), 5% Broken (Behind Little Knight)



"Man, she's just all full-speed, yo," groaned GhostBro, as a few viruses materialized around the broken window, appearing to have been triggered by her entrance. Floating about the place were a trio of modified red Fishy viruses, the Blazers, and a double tag-team of UFOs being ridden by shaded BigHats.

"Better rev up those chips again, spooky dude," SmogMan's companion said, as he readied himself for battle.

-- Outside --
Blazer A: 80 HP [above window]
Blazer B: 80 HP [above window]
Blazer C: 80 HP [above window]
RedUFO A: 80 HP [left of window]
RedUFO B: 80 HP [right of window]
BigHat A: 100 HP [Riding RedUFO A]
BigHat B: 100 HP [Riding RedUFO B]

SmogMan.EXE: 140 HP
GhostBro.EXE: 200 HP

Terrain: 80% Blank, 20% Sidewalk (Normal)

[Inside and outside are not separate, and can be traversed in between by the broken window Phero floated through.]