Need a Hand?

With a burst of energy Veda beamed down into the network and started to look around. While she might've looked like a combat Navi to others, Veda was actually completely new to battles. But she had experience with rowdy students and considered viruses to not be much different. At least she could punch these in the face.

"Would've been too easy to find him here, huh?" Regina commented, looking at the screen of her laptop while keeping the flip phone PET close to her.

Veda nodded and reached for her paintbrush with her left hand. With black paint she painted a V on the floor after kneeling down. "And now we'll know he is not here when we trace back!" Veda exclaimed as she stood back up again. Turning around to look for her next path, she noticed a path leading into a different area and decided to go there. She let her paintbrush go and proceeded on her path.

"Be careful, OK?" Regina said, "I'll be here if you need help." Veda simply nodded and kept a stern look on her face while she looked around.

((Ready for battle))
Teacher and assistant working together, they started through the Electown network to search through the area for the runaway VenusMan. Starting off her trail with her paintbrush, Veda went on her way to a side road, which continued into a rather empty-looking crossway junction. It looked like some battle had taken place shortly before Veda had arrived, as some cracks dotted the roadways in places, along with some rubble. Some of the rubble looked particularly shiny, but Veda wouldn't have much time to examine it, as three hard-hatted viruses showed up from each path of the junction. All three cried out as they saw Veda's approach, and began to swing their pickaxes threateningly!

// Enemies
Metool A: 40 HP (Solar, left road)
Metool B: 40 HP (Solar, middle road)
Metool C: 40 HP (Solar, right road)

// Objects
Rubble Pile A: 30 HP (Metal, left road)
Rubble Pile B: 30 HP (Metal, center road)
Rubble Pile C: 30 HP (Metal, right road)
Green Mystery Data: 15 HP (Metal, right road)

// Not Actually A Book
Veda.EXE: 100 HP (Solar)

// Terrain
40% Solar (Three roads branching out + Road Veda is standing on, each 10%)
60% Metal (Flanking both sides of all roads)

// Battle 1, Ready? Start!!
"So we're supposed to fight these, right?" Regina asked as she examined the Metools ahead of Veda. They didn't look dangerous at all or if they would cause any harm to anything, except the ground. On the other hand, a pickaxe would probably hurt to get attacked with. "Do you even know how to fight, Veda? I didn't program you with anything like that..." she commented on the situation, "And mister Na'im didn't do anything with your programming."

"That's the thing with Navis, Regina!" Veda shouted as she raised her hands into the air before taking a readied pose of a martial art that would fight mainly with the palms, "We can just download the techniques!" Her eyes were already fired up and envisioning her targets as prey. But even she knew that just her hands would not be enough to beat these enemies with ease, no matter the amount of hands. "Reggy, send me a chip!" Veda shouted, maintaining her combat pose.

"But I don't know any of these..." Regina whispered to herself while browsing through the chips. However, a few of them had a similar pattern in their art. From those she picked the BusterBomb chip and put it into her PET. "See if this helps," the Operator replied to her Navi.

A shimmer of light came from Veda's topknot as the chip loaded into her system. "Oh yes..." she whispered to the data and glanced at the hands on her shoulders and hips. "I can use this!" Veda exclaimed and launched a set of 4 hands into the air, 2 from her shoulders and 2 from her hips. All floating hands formed a fist and awaited to get launched like bombs at any target. She raised her own hands, allowing a hand to hover in each while the other two remained near her shoulders. Without hesitation swept her hand back and launched the first fist bomb at the Metool on the left, before launching another one at the Metool on the road ahead of her. And within a split second the next fist was already hovering over her emptied left hand, immediately flung once Veda's sight had changed to that of the Metool on the right. The final hand floated down to her other emptied hand, but Veda decided to await the results of her attacks before attacking again. Raising her left hand in front of her, holding the right hand with the floating fist bomb slightly behind her, she awaited any incoming attacks or the sound of victory.

V = Veda.EXE [Null/Guts] [AirShoes/FloatShoes] [3 Actions]

V1. BusterBomb [+30 DMG; +Blast 1; C Accuracy; Buster Augment; 4 Uses]
V2. Buster Bomb [15+30 DMG; Blast1] @ MetoolA
V3. Buster Bomb [15+30 DMG; Blast1] @ MetoolB
VGuts. Buster Bomb [15+30 DMG; Blast1] @ MetoolC
A crash course intro for fighting downloaded into her systems, Veda transformed her many fists into highly volatile explosives, and let loose a barrage of punches towards the hard-hatted viruses! Unfortunately, due to her relative inexperience with battling, she only managed to land one of them on the viruses, while the others retaliated by crashing their pickaxes towards the ground, sending painful shockwaves towards her! (-20) It seemed like throwing bombs was harder than just downloading techniques.

// Enemies
Metool A: 40 HP (Solar, left road)
Metool B: 40 HP (Solar, middle road)
Metool C: DELETED

// Objects
Rubble Pile A: DESTROYED
Rubble Pile B: DESTROYED
Rubble Pile C: 30 HP (Metal, right road)
Green Mystery Data: 15 HP (Metal, right road)

// Not Actually A Book
Veda.EXE: 80 HP (Solar) (BusterBomb: 3/4)

// Terrain
40% Solar (Three roads branching out + Road Veda is standing on, each 10%)
60% Metal (Flanking both sides of all roads)
While Veda had expected a satisfying defeat of the viruses in the resulting explosions, all she got was attacks aimed directly at her. Seeing the rubble destroyed in front of her, she turned to dodge the attacks but it was too late already as a sharp pain shot into her legs. It only lasted a short moment as both attacks passed her body and faded away, but the pain was still there. "You..." Veda grunted as she levitated her remaining weapon in the air while reaching for her legs with her two hands. Not because they hurt, that had already dwindled into her body. But they were shaking. "Hahaha," she laughed to herself. The first genuine fight she got into and she already got a taste of the pain. "Good, good," she told herself before chest upwards with fists at her side. "Good!" she yelled at the enemies, "Great!" She repositioned her body to a martial arts stance and gestured the enemies to come at her. "Let me taste more of your attacks!" she continued to yell before pulling her fist bomb back to her, "If you can get me!" With a great sweep she tossed the final bomb at one of the Metools and quickly reached for another one, only to find out she had run out of the attacks.

"Hey Veda," Regina said after her Navi had performed the attack, "I've got some more chips that look like that last one." In her open hand were 3 other chips, each picturing a green-and-red-clad Navi wielding different weapons. Without her knowledge of specific chips, she had no option but to make guesses and hope for the best. But there was one of them that featured a giant fist and figured it'd help her many-handed Navi. And therefore she slotted in the BusterPunch battlechip. "Fist coming in, Veda," she told her Navi.

A weak light shone from within her topknot as she loaded the data before her hands started to pulse. Veda slammed her opened hands together before they grew 5 times in size. After opening her hands and moving around her fingers curiously she looked down at her enlarged weapons and nodded approvingly. "I'll teach you little ones some discipline!" she bellowed before jumping at the one Metool she had launched a bomb at before, hands opened and palms directed at her opponent. With a quick thrust, Veda launched the palm of her right hand at the Metool's direction. Reaching her hand back to her side she twisted her body to face the other Metool and jumped at it while reaching back with her left hand. "I will break that helmet of yours!" Veda as she thrusted her enlarged left hand with a palm strike at the Metool below her. The unfortunate case, however, is that while she saw the Metool before her attack... Her hand was now too big to find out if her strike even hit. She just saw a large opened hand in front of her.

V = Veda.EXE [Null/Guts] [AirShoes/FloatShoes] [3 Actions]

V1. Buster Bomb [15+30 DMG; Blast1] @ MetoolA
V2. BusterPunchEffect: Adds +30 Null, Impacting, and Knockback to your Buster Shot Attack.
Accuracy: Buster Accuracy = B
Description: Your Custom Weapon vanishes, and is replaced with a Buster Punch. Your buster returns to normal when the chip effect ends.
Duration: Number of Uses equal to double your Rapid stat. Cannot be Broken.
Element: Null
Special: Overrides Buster. Disables Charged Shot.
Trader Rank: D

V3. Buster Punch [15+30 DMG; Impact; Knockback] @ MetoolA
VGuts. Buster Punch [15+30 DMG; Impact; Knockback] @ MetoolB
Undeterred by the Metools' attacks, Veda instead taunted them to let them attack more, while also letting loose with another bomb, which hit its mark rather easily. Her operator then sent her the BusterPunch chip, transforming the fists into huge versions of themselves. The enlarged dukes made quick work of the remaining one before it could retaliate with anything, clearing the area easily, and leaving the shimmering green mystery data up for grabs.

// Enemies
Metool A: DELETED
Metool B: DELETED
Metool C: DELETED

// Objects
Rubble Pile A: DESTROYED
Rubble Pile B: DESTROYED
Rubble Pile C: 30 HP (Metal, right road)
Green Mystery Data: 15 HP (Metal, right road)

// Not Actually A Book
Veda.EXE: 80 HP (Solar) (BusterPunch: 2/4)

// Terrain
40% Solar (Three roads branching out + Road Veda is standing on, each 10%)
60% Metal (Flanking both sides of all roads)

// Battle 1, Victory!!
Rewards: 300z, Guard1Effect: (1 Hit Shield) + (Reflect(up to 60 + Piercing + Line Attack): On Hit)
Accuracy: S
Description: Generates a 1-Hit Shield upon activation. When this shield blocks one hit from a non-Break attack, it responds with a hyper-fast damage ray.
Duration: Until broken or overridden.
Element: Null
Special: Negated by Break. Ignores Impact.
Special: Reflect: Damage returned is equal to the damage of the attack blocked or the damage cap listed, whichever comes first. Reflect is not subject to negation by Impact.
Special: Status Guard: This chip blocks debuffs.
Trader Rank: E
Battlechip. Open GMD? [Y/N]
Veda brushed off her giant hands and turned to look at the final moving piece on the battlefield. Amongst the ruined piles of rubble was still a chunk of glittering Mystery Data and it had Veda's name written all over it. She approached it, making her hands shrink to normal size as the BusterPunch data became unnecessary, and reached out towards it. After placing her hand onto its surface, Veda just nodded approvingly at the object.

((Opening GMD))
The mystery data decrypted as Veda touched its surface, revealing its contents of... a spherical satellite-like object!

[GMD: Satellite1Damage: 60 + Impact + Object Orbit
Accuracy: B
Description: Summons a Sparky virus and sends it across the field on a hard-to-avoid zig-zagging path. If it hits an enemy, it explodes into a ball of plasma. If it hits an object, it begins circling around the object and can damage near by enemies repeatedly.
Duration: Once, or up to 2 turns, if orbiting.
Element: Elec
Special: Object Orbit: The Satellite will orbit any object it comes into contact with. This chip cannot damage Objects, including Casings.
Trader Rank: D
]
Veda retrieved the data from the object and pushed it into her top knot. "But in the end he wasn't here," the Navi said as she looked at the remaining rubble and the rest of the environment. She grabbed her paintbrush, kneeled down and drew a black X on the location where the Mystery Data was hovering. "I should continue!" she told herself when she stood back up and started to walk towards one of the three paths.

"Hold on one moment, Veda," Regina said as she looked at the battlechips and Veda's statistics. But one thing in particular caught Regina's eye. "Where are your hands?" she asked.

The Navi looked at her shoulders first, followed by the turning her eyes down her body. Four of her Matrika hands were missing, vanished in the explosions of the attacks. Having never dealt with combat before, this was the first time for Veda to actually lose some of her hands. "Destroyed. In combat," she replied, also looking at the 4 hands she had still left at her waist. But no matter where she searched in her system, she did not find any solution on restoring the hands.

Not even Regina could find a solution. "We never really assumed this would be the case..." she said, "Or that they'd be used as weapons... We'll need to create an add-on for this." She pulled the editing software in front of her on her laptop. "But you can't be in there if I want to install it," Regina continued as she started to type, eventually also pulling up some tutorials on mass creation for NetNavis.

"Will do!" Veda replied to Regina. She looked around for a short moment, checking for a green and red Navi before nodding and initiating the process of leaving the network. "Veda, jacking out!" she exclaimed and disappeared with a burst of pale blue light.

((Leaving))