A swan across a lake

Scuttling back and forth as the navi spoke her piece, watching the glass panels starting to slowly move outwards, spreading through the cracks and the holes between her Holy panels, but immediately, the glitch began to fight back, lapping at the glass panels and...melting them. Slowly trying to fight back against the navi's insolence as she tried to cover it up. With a bright, blinding flash from her Holy panels, the glass began to shrink, filling in the holes between both islands of the Holy panels. These, however, had no glow to them, they had the -shape- of Holy panels, but...they seemed to not have the damage halving effect hers did, which began to dim. But, regardless, now she had an island of Holy panels in equal part to the Glitches surrounding her (50% Holy/Defunct Holy, 50% Glitch).

01000101 01001110 01001111 01010101 01000111 01001000 00100000 01001111 01000110 00100000 01011001 01001111 01010101 01010010 00100000 01001001 01001110 01010011 01001111 01001100 01000101 01001110 01000011 01000101 00100000 01011001 01001111 01010101 00100000 01010111 01010010 01000101 01010100 01000011 01001000 00100001 (ENOUGH OF YOUR INSOLENCE YOU WRETCH!) The creature roared out, spitting out more glitches at her, globs landing on the holy and defunct holy as two globs hit Pirouette square against her body, her body shivering and shaking out as she could feel them hit her, her body getting rid of one bad effect...but her other...her entire body turning blue, cold to the touch and her legs starting to slide about as she moved. Icicles starting to form on the tips of her fingers, shaking uncontrollably from being so frostbitten.

The viral anomaly almost...laughing at her newfound plight. It would begin to "swim" forward as it would hear her challenge in the normal tongue, glaring at her challenge, seemingly oblivious to the Dynamite she laid down. It would circle about the area, the bug's six legs starting to climb up onto the panels that had been created, steam and smoke wafting up from it's legs as it occupied a 2 by 2 area of panels, two on Holy, two on defunct (-5 HP per action on Holy per panel), moving forward, roaring at her as she stood to the east of it. 01000011 01101100 01100101 01100001 01101110 00100000 01101101 01100101 00100000 01110101 01110000 00111111 00100000 01001110 01101111 01101110 01110011 01100101 01101110 01110011 01100101 00101110 00100000 01001001 00100111 01101101 00100000 01101111 01101110 01101100 01111001 00100000 01100100 01101111 01101001 01101110 01100111 00100000 01101101 01111001 00100000 01100100 01110101 01110100 01111001 00101110 00100000 01010100 01101111 00100000 01100011 01100001 01110101 01110011 01100101 00100000 01100011 01101000 01100001 01101111 01110011 00101110 00100000 01001100 01100101 01110011 01110011 00100000 01110011 01101111 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100001 01101110 00100000 01111001 01101111 01110101 00100000 01101110 01100001 01110110 01101001 01110011 00100000 01100101 01110110 01100101 01110010 00100000 01100011 01101111 01110101 01101100 01100100 00101110 (Clean me up? Nonsense. I'm only doing my duty. To cause chaos. Less so than you navis ever could.) It began, it's data being attacked by the Holy panels as it opened it's toothy maw widely, a beam of energy collecting in the middle, before shooting out a beam of glitched energy at the navi, who managed to dodge away from the attack, but her slickened feet causing her to slip even further than she had anticipated, slipping into the sea of Glitches. The panels immediately eating at her data as she couldn't escape fast enough, her body trying it's best to adapt to the glitches. Unfortunately for her, this time she wasn't nearly as lucky, a burning sensation spreading through her body as she could feel her data begin to deteriorate from the embedded glitch, every moment a painful reminder of her fight to stop the fight.

True Chaos
SaintNaviBug V0.5: 230 HP (East of Pirouette) (Holyx2/Defunct Holyx2)

Chaos Repellant
Pirouette.exe: 100 HP (Glitch) (Measured Peace: 12 HP regen per action, for 7 actions (3/7)) (Advanced Hypothermia) (Burning Sensation)

Terrain
50% Glitch (All around the Holy/Defunct Holy Island) (Can be submerged into) (Ending turn on top of Glitch gives one Glitch, Ending submerged gives three)
34% Holy (Two Islands in the middle of the Glitch panels, 25% and 9%, Pirouette is on top of the 25% island)
16% Defunct Holy (Around Holy panels, does not halve damage)

Objects
GMD: 10 HP (Presumably Untrapped) (Unaffected by Glitch Terrain) (Glitch)
Dynamite1: 100 HP (Holy, beam pointed towards the other end of the island of Holy/Defunct Holy panels)

Pirouette couldn't hold in a small sound of irritation as she quickly pulled herself back out of the glitch fluid and purged the offending glitch from her systems as she shook herself off and ruffled her wings, then moved with a deliberately casual grace back towards the centre of the larger holy section and rolled her shoulders. Her body quickly warmed up again, and while the burning her her chest was an annoyance, the ballerina had spent many years training her composure and elocution, as well as regulating her breathing rhythms; for her, it wasn't anything that she gave any visible signs of suffering from. Instead, she looked towards the glitch monster at the far end of the platform, eyes flicking down to where its steps smoked on the brighter panels, then back up to what could only arguably be called its face. She sniffed and turned her face aside.

"You cannot be much of a superior creature if you cannot retain your composure in the face of a little bit of defiance, no? Show some poise and have some pride, you know? You will be destroyed shortly, unless you can show me that there is a person worth sparing in there, and not a mindless beast that destroys all it touches."

As before, the undertone of her words being played out in the same binary transmission echoed beneath her words, while Mikhail continued to send the translation; it seemed as though the navi-bug creature could understand her words directly just fine, but there was still a proper way of doing these things, which Pirouette intended to observe with due decorum.

With that, she turned her back on the creature, and sat down, crossing her legs neatly and folding her arms. Her breathing was long and slow, carefully measured while she dealt with the extra degree of discomfort in her chest, but as much as she feigned unconcern, Pirouette kept her other senses on alert, listening carefully to the movements of the creature behind her. If it actually wanted to approach her directly, it would almost certainly have to cross the nigh invisible trip line, but she listened carefully for any sign of anything else unexpected.

"I am waiting." She put a sharpness into her tone here, speaking loudly enough that she didn't have to turn her head around towards it, and continued to look the other way. As far as she was concerned, she had given the creature its chance by now, and if it approached her with hostile intentions still, it would get what it deserved... and then she'd have to worry about cleaning up the mess it had made before she could finally go home. It had turned into a much longer night out than the ballerina had intended, and it almost made her sigh.

She quite desperately wanted to shake out her wings again, and her leotard was completely soaked as well; it was dangerously thin to begin with and wile it was wet from the glitch fluid, it was more or less transparent; as much as she wasn't normally aware of such things, the brief dunking had drawn her attention to it, and it was more of an effort to maintain her poise in light of these developments, than it was the large, destructive creature nearby. Regardless, Pirouette remained still, deliberately showing no signs of her discomfort; responding with due grace was important.

While she paused, Pirouette was aware that Mikhail had prepared another chip for her to use, in case it was needed and she was ready to activate it, but she held off doing so overtly, for now. If the creature came close enough to strike her physically, the feather-edged shield would spring up into form at her back, in a small burst of light and white swan feathers, but she didn't quite want to tip her hand with that unless she needed to.

Summary

P*) Panacea: removing Hypothermia
P1) Feint: Out of the glitch, and to the centre of the larger holy section.
P2) Deep Breath (20 Strengthen)
P3) Chat to/Taunt NaviBug about its inferiority in the social graces and its lack of decorum.
P4) (Conditional: If NaviBug closes to melee) 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 ((1 Hit Shield) + (Reflect(up to 60 + Piercing + Line Attack): On Hit) (Acc: S)), positioned at her back, towards NaviBug.

Cooldowns

Deep Breath: 1TCD
Measured Pace: Cooling

The viral anomaly would scurry about as it did everything in it's power to evade touching the panels below it, it had a bad feeling of what was happening, finding a small amount of unpowered holy panels to stand on, only...as it did, the invisible line would trip under one of the navibug's eight legs, a loud, "click" interrupting Pirouette's speech. 01000011 01101100 01101001 01100011 01101011 00111111 (Click?) It asked it's self, before a rocketing explosion set off, the navibug barely caught in it as four of it's legs had immediately been blown to hell off and back again on the right side, a roar of absolute agony being heard as it wobbled on the other four, trying to keep it's balance before falling over to the right, barely sliding it's way onto a small patch of the Holy panels that made up the island, a smaller, pathetic roar of pain as it felt the searing pain bite into it's body, fragmenting as it began to fade away. Sending one last message to Pirouette as it's body fragmented and self deleted as the seconds went by. 01010100 01101000 01101001 01110011 00101110 00100000 01001001 01110011 00100000 01101110 01101111 01110100 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01101100 01100001 01110011 01110100 00101110 00101110 00101110 01101111 01100110 00100000 01101101 01100101 00101110 00101110 00101110 01010111 01000101 00100000 01000001 01010010 01000101 00100000 01001101 01000001 01001110 01011001 00101110 00101110 00101110 01010111 01000101 00101110 00101110 00101110 01000001 01010010 01000101 00101110 00101110 00101110 01001100 01000101 01000111 01001001 01001111 01001110 00101110 00101110 00101110 (This. Is not the last...of me...WE ARE MANY...WE...ARE...LEGION...) It roared out, it's body dissipating entirely into junk data, a loud "thunk" heard as what could only be described as a broken, glitched, navi core dropped onto the field, from the junked data of the navibug.

As soon as it's deletion followed, with but a single core leftover from the navibug, the Holy panels would begin to emit an even more powerful light, blinding Pirouette temporarily as, if she squinted just enough, the glitches would begin to be absorbed by the holy panels. Seconds passed as glitch after glitch began to be absorbed into the panels, gradually, the light would recede, before fading entirely. The panels a crusty grey color and, very much turned to stone, having used the last of their power to purge the glitches from the network. In the distance, a navi could be seen flying towards the scene of the battle. Dressed in what looked to be a black suit and tophat, the navi at high altitude and any decerning features could not be seen, except with a cane at the side of him, gripped tightly in their hand. The GMD that Demonica had dropped stopping it's spinning, and opening up to a cashe of zenny. Scattered about the scene of battle, data was all about, some zenny...and...SaintZero's corpse...but from what Pirouette could gleem, there was -just- enough data to gleam chip data from both battles, despite the decrepit state it was in. And ironically, a chip to fix bugs.

True Chaos
SaintNaviBug V0.5: DELETED

Chaos Repellant
Pirouette.exe: 100 HP (Normal) (Strengthen20)

Terrain
100% Normal

Rewards: 800z, GutPunchDamage: 70 + Impact + Knockback
Accuracy: A
Description: Creates a large fist for the user to punch with. Anything it hits is knocked back a sizable distance, even objects.
Duration: Until Overridden/Broken. Breaks automatically after 6 swings.
Element: Null
Trader Rank: D, BugFixEffect: Bug Fix
Accuracy: S
Description: Removes all glitches from self.
Duration: Once
Element: Null
Trader Rank: C
GMD: 2000z

Seated patiently as she was, Pirouette suppressed a small flinch as she heard the explosive trigger behind her and braced herself subtly against the fall off from the blast wave. When it quieted, the ballerina drew a long breath and let it out again with a sigh. Such was the fate of beasts. She shook her head and stood gracefully, unfolding from her cross-legged position and back to the first commencement pose, before relaxing and brushing off her clothing. Everything was still soaking wet and getting a little uncomfortable, but she would be home soon now. there was a moment when the terrain began to reconcile itself and clean up the remaining glitched space, and she closed her eyes to let the brightness pass before beginning to collect what remained and carefully scoued away the remains of the broken being; there didn't seem to be anything that could be saved, so better to let it pass away without lingering. The core, however, she picked up and examined briefly for a moment.

"That was well handled, little one. I am glad you are well. What have you found there?" Mikhail sounded much relieved, as though he had been more worried than her about the strange encounter. she turned the dull core over in her hands.

"I think it is the core piece, of the creature, you know? But I am not sure whether it is more the original navi, or the beast that came from it. I cannot tell. I will... Ah, wait, Mikhail, someone is approaching." Her eyes had glanced up towards the figure that seemed to be coming towards where the battle had played out. "If it someone who has come to inspect, I will be able to tell them what happened here, and perhaps I will leave this core with them as well. Then I will be able to return home, yes?" Still holding the core, she turned to face where the other navi approached from, waiting for him to arrive properly. She heard Mikhail sip his coffee.

"Alright, Pirouette. I would say not to let yourself get caught up in any red tape that comes from this, but, I'm afraid it seems important. It is late, but we will do what we must for the sake of the public safety first." Unfortunately, Mikhail had mostly been observing vitals and statistics when he looked at the PET and hadn't seemed to have noticed the state that Pirouette's leotard was in, to refresh it, so it would still be dripping wet from the purple glitch fluid and dangerously transparent in its thinness when the other navi arrived, but Pirouette herself was tacitly ignoring this fact rather than making an issue of it, in the hopes of wrapping up quickly and getting home.

As the flying navi continued to come up on the battlefield, he would soon touch down in front of Pirouette. Dressed in a black business suit, a Top-Hat and a cane as he held the diamond headed item in both hands, one white gloved hand over the other, standing at around six feet tall. Wearing a pair of what could be considered "Business Casual" pair of army boots that were colored a florescent white color, a tail slowly snaking out behind him with a spaded tip and a bright red coloring. The face was, unlike Demonica's, clearly visible. A charcoal black skin tone with a pointed witch's nose, two bright yellow eyes and a red lipped mouth with a simple curled mustache right under his long and pointed nose, various odds and ends on the navi's suit, be it a golden chain hanging out of his left pocket, a cloth-like tissue in his front pocket, or white foreign markings adoring his suit from head to toe.

That damnedable demonica... he growled under his breath, looking to and fro across the battlefield, traces of the glitches out on the outer edges could potentially be seen if Pirouette had looked closely enough, but thankfully, the network's own self-repair systems were quarantining it across the area and safely repairing the damage done to it. He then fixed his eyes down on Pirouette as he could see the core in her hand, a simple spark arching from the dull orb as it tried to do something, anything, to the dancer's data. I...am sorry for my compatriot's actions. He started, closing his eyes with a loud sigh, voice on a low baritone with every word he uttered. This should have never happened. Seems Demonica, desperate for results, took our prototype out for a little "spin" and all that is left of him now, besides our combat data on him, is that core in your hand. I can not begin to apologize for her actions. I am Luce.exe, head of the navibug research department of our leader, who we call Little Miss. This is what happens when you gain too many upgrades, too quickly. Your mind is unable to handle the power coming from them and quickly your mind deteriorates to...little more than an uppity, obsessed bitch...and even worse if what I have been hearing in the Undernet is true...

When she picked up the core itself, Pirouette hesitated at the sense that it wasn't quite dead yet, and, to be safe, wrapped the hand holding it in a layer of purgative energy to prevent any final glitchy deviations from transferring to her. A surprise as the newcomer introduced himself set Pirouette temporarily on guard, and she remained cautious as the one calling himself Luce explained himself, at least part way. She gave him a glance up and down while he explained, pursing her lips as a few choice thoughts chased through her mind. At last she settled on speaking in a calm tone, if a little on the obviously too 'proper' end of the spectrum; there would be no missing that she was annoyed by the situation as a whole.

"Your... colleague, if she is so, displayed all the social graces of a child, and the self-control of an infant. As far as first impressions go, it was not a good one, you know? The mess has been dealt with, but before I return this to you, perhaps you will answer in a civil tone where she would not, yes? Setting her infantile behaviour aside, there is much that she said that I would consider worthy of report to higher authorities." Pirouette rolled her shoulders and ruffled her wings, resettling them; the light breeze was actually making the dampness of her leotard all the more notable against her skin, but she maintained her poise all the same.

"She led me to believe that the data your group are using is extracted from navis, often by force, often without consent, and sometimes even to the destruction of the navi in question. You do this, it appears, to create monsters — beings who wish nothing more than to seed chaos and destroy other navigators wherever they can. Beings who seem to exist as... postoyalets... aie... the word... ah, as a parasite, you know, an unwanted guest, yes? On what seems to be an independent navigator with an independent self. That woman's behaviour becomes secondary and largely irrelevant, if the evidence of all this is true, no? What have you to say for this?"

She held her ground while talking, keeping the core to her side in one hand while she fixed her gaze on Luce, though she was vaguely aware of Mikhail taking brief notes on the situation, in case they did end up forwarding a report of some kind to the police later.

Luce could only sigh as he closed his eyes. The Navibug was originally a prototype netnavi, one that was supposed to help counteract any glitches on the net ever since the "Glitch" Sub-Type was discovered. Those glitches when used against Viruses and Navi alike do indeed cause damage to the networks. It's not normally visible, but it does happen, little by little. The normal networks are generally the least affected due to being the newest and most maintained of the networks. But as you get deeper towards the "Rogue" and "Chaos" networks, networks that are generally paved over by the "Normal" networks, the damage can become far more substantial. Luce began to explain, shaking his head as he began to think.

That was, until the development budgets fell through due to a lack of any determinable progress on actively "fixing" the networks. Enter our "Little Miss" as she likes to be called. Her father saved the development entirely and found investors to help keep the project afloat, but the project immediately changed from looking to fix the networks, to trying to make a navi that can be a great threat. All development was moved to the Undernet and Demonica was moved up in a hurry to be a navi that can control the now aptly named monsters. Much like SaintZero was. He continued, his hands shaking in visible anger of what the project had become, his face stone cold as he explained. I was on the project before it became...whatever it has become. Little Miss is a brat. Spoiled rotten to the core, and more than ever, her navi is even worse. A navi is not meant to handle such power in such a short span of time, as Little Miss and her father want nothing to do with any sort of "Morality", all they wish is for the project to succeed, so that their investors can make use of the navis we can produce, and unfortunately, it seems the "test run" has been a success. But from what Demonica had to do... He trailed off, looking at the glitch covered pile of Saint's remains, noticing the two holes in the navi's corpse. Though she seems to have put down the navi it's self. I would know those two holes anywhere...so many navis Demonica has made into bullet riddled corpses...I'm just glad you didn't have to fight her yourself. You could have very well wound up like him yourself, if not worse.

He would inhale, his body shuddering at the thoughts that ran through his head. And...yes...the data is indeed extracted from other navis. SaintZero's data was extracted after a battle with one of Little Miss' modified victims. A simple normal navi he was, before hand. And she somehow got the principal of ACDC Intermediary school into her pocket, passing off the navi who thought he was getting a simple upgrade. But turned into...a Frankenstein's Monster of sorts. She is quite gifted in her modifications of navis. Even in her teens, she can rival some of the most talented programers. But...that's neither here nor there. She installed a program into this navi during his modifications, one that records battles with custom navis, and then sends that battle data to our database, where the data is then reconstructed into a "cloned" navi. Sometimes the navi made is better than the original, sometimes not as much...it seemed the beta version of this navi was about on par with the original.

Fortunately for everyone involved, Luce was far more willing to engage in calm discussion than the previous woman had been and Pirouette listened with an unamused and largely flat expression as the story unfolded. unconsciously, she caught herself tapping one toe impatiently when he got to lamenting how she might have ended up destroyed herself, but she consciously stopped the behaviour after a moment; unless the woman had had an illegal jack-out barrier in her pocket, then there had been nothing lasting she could have done, and if she had possessed something like that, it would have been very counter-intuitive to what her apparent goals and tests were...

As Luce wound up explaining himself Pirouette folded her arms, still holding the core a little out from herself and keeping the hand holding it wrapped in her personal glitch-purging energy.

"It sounds as though the original project you describe, that it was not saved at all. You describe two things that are in no way alike, you know? That the one carries nothing at all of the other. So, why then do you continue with this, as it harms other navis and seeks to do worse. What do you do to stop such activity? It is clearly not legal; do you not report these crimes? If I return this core to you now, what will you do with it? I have had a longer and more tiresome evening that I wished to, master Luce, and I wish to be done with this so that I may return home and discuss the seminar from this evening with my operator. You make it sound as though the matter is not as well in hand as it should be, yes? What happens from here?"

She tilted her head slightly as she looked at him, then closed her eyes and drew a long breath, letting it out slowly and resettling her pose into something less formal. It was still more structured than most people's relaxed poses might be, but it was a sign of along night for the ballerina.

The navi was visibly flustered at the questions, but he was resigned to tell her everything he could. I was there from the beginning. I wished to see the project through, at least to it's version 1.0 and then be there to help them if they needed it...but if I left I would be deleted. No doubt about it, and I am without a netop myself, so I can not simply be given an "Emergency Jack-out" like you and the majority of navis that roam around the networks can enjoy. Let alone a Backup at worse. He began with a loud baritone sigh. It is far too dangerous for the police, bar none. The majority can barely protect the networks as is. They are far from equipped to deal with such things, are spread far too thin, and I have reason to believe that some of the stronger higher ups of the police are being bribed to ignore any situations that might pop up such as these. He continued, gesturing to the area around them, the holy panels cracked and having little power left in them if at all.

The core would go back to the tank to be tinkered with, a new shell would be formed around it, and then "filled" with the Navibug code. At current, as much as I wish I would want it, I don't doubt you would delete it without a second thought if I did that anyways. Luce would comment, sending a small beam of energy at the corrupted core from the side, a tiny hole opening on both sides before the core would fade into junk data, a wind blowing away what little of the core was left. The attack seemingly happened instantaneously, or perhaps Luce was waiting to strike it down before it could make it back to the tanks. As it stands, I will tell them the core was deleted by the navi Demonica sicced Saint upon. He commented nonchalantly with looked to be a happy expression across his face. For now, return to your netop and get some rest. And if you are interested in talking more about the navibugs... Luce would begin, an e-mail address would flash upon Mikhail's screen, one that could not be as easily traced as one would like to think with @Undernet as it's sending address. Then please, contact me. As it stands, Demonica will be furious that the core was deleted. But even with it's destruction it likely will set the project back a few weeks...a month at most. Hopefully, maybe we can work together to help stop this project. But...I'm not sure it will be that simple, with the navi that "Little Miss" modified, there's the potential of more Navibugs to be released onto the net...and the potential he himself is a navibug is not out of the realm of plausibility.

She hadn't been expecting Luce's sudden action as he talked on about the situation; the quick shot that pierced the core from her made made the ballerina snap her hand back and away while the artefact disintegrated and shoot him a disapproving look. She smoothed it over a few moments later and resettled herself, however: the core, really, wasn't anything she was liable to do anything with, and as things stood she saw no obvious reason not to believe this far more polite individual.

"I cannot agree with your refusal to take this to the proper authorities, master Luce, but it is also a matter I do not wish to involve myself in any further, you know? If you are truly without the protection of any kind of external terminal, then I would caution you, too, against involving yourself any further with groups of such foul intention. There are... aie... ubezhishche, you know, asylum... no that is not the word... ah, Sanctuaries, yes?" she tried a small smile as she struggled to find the right word, then ruffled her wings and moved on with a more thorough description, just in case. "There are places that dedicate themselves to helping and protecting navigators who have no operators or terminals, you know? Some of them, so I read, are very well equipped to hide and shelter navis who may be fleeing from things and people who wish to destroy them."

She accepted the recommendation all the same and Mikhail checked the address as thoroughly as he was able to before recording it, but in the end Pirouette nodded her head.

"As I said, I do not truly with to involve myself in this any further, but we will keep your contact. If you do wish for help in putting a stop to this organisation, and you will not go to the police, there are many navigators much stronger than I who will take up charitable causes. I do not usually engage in combat, you know? It is not my strength. I am a dancer, and an instructor, little more, yes? If this creature was the best they could put forward for now, then it would appear you have time before they become truly dangerous. I would advise you to seek others with more strength than I, but..." She sighed and shook her head. "Da, yes, I will keep your contact details. If only that I may continue to encourage you to take the matter to a better authority, no? Best of luck, master Luce."

She extended her right hand towards him, offering a brief handshake, before stepping back with a brief nod. A moment later Mikhail engaged the jack-out and a small ball of light expanded from the ballerina's chest to envelope her in what turned briefly into a rushing flutter of white fragments, before bursting outwards in a flurry of white swan feathers, with drifted to the ground and left nothing behind.

----
((Pirouette Jacked out, Returning to -> Mikhail's Home))