Past Mistakes

With the dome clear, Amy’s attention turned to the remaining object, the floating crystal.

It looked like a simple enough climb, albeit a little difficult with having to worry about the extra package on her back falling off. Amy was less concerned about Little Miss falling off than she was about HERSELF falling off and using the girl as a makeshift cushion in the process. Amy sighed as she clasped at the two hands under her dress. ”Look, this will be a lot easier if I do it solo, okay?” she advised as she tried to undo their grip.

It took some convincing and a struggle or two, but eventually Amy was able to separate the two as she placed the girl back on the ground. The sour face that stared back at Amy was confirmation this wasn’t okay, but Amy wasn’t taking any risks.

That instinct was correct; it took three attempts to scale the glass tower, not just irritating the blue lass but also embarrassing her in the process. She was normally more nimble than this; it hadn’t looked hard to scale from outside the bowl, but climbing it was a completely different matter.

”Okay, you’d better be worth it,” she grumbled as she heaved her upper body onto the glass platform. With a second push the majority of her weight was on the platform, allowing her to tap the top of the crystal three times.

[Open GMD]
After a certain amount of awkward clambering that Amy's dress was not really ideal for, the navi eventually managed to find her way to the platform that housed the crystal, with her rescued ward watching up from below. As she accessed the data crystal, it unpacked itself, folding facets away in fractal segments, to reveal... a smaller green crystal that looked almost identical. This one, however, proved to be the compact from of a condensed zenny cache; safe, secure and easy to process once she had it in hand.

GMD Opened: 3000z
Amy took a moment to regain her composure (and dignity) whilst picking up the sizeable amount of money now laid before her. Money was always useful.

As Amy observed her surroundings from the elevated platform, she noticed that there was a small item of interest that remained in the bowl below, continually pulsing light. The colours were changing from red to blue, and then blue to red, over and over again. Taking a deep breath, she launched herself from the platform and, gripping her garment, used the lower fabric to form a miniature parachute as she fell. It wasn't enough to prevent a forceful landing (and one might question if such a maneouvre was really lady-like at all, like her clothing would imply) but it did prevent any serious injury from the fall.

It continued to pulse as she removed the item from the ground and held it in her hand. Yep, more battlechip data. "Eric, you ready for another chip?" she enquired.

"Uh, yes, just a second," he replied as he took another blank chip out of his pack and placed it into the reader. "Ready."

The data disseminated from her hand and through to the PET, ejecting another new chip that Eric didn't recognise. This time, however, he had a resource he could turn to. As he flipped through the pages of the NetPendium, the Battlechips section was broken down further into multiple sections. The index list indicated that he would find the chip called 'DBLBeam1' under 'Virus Chips'.

"Are you looking it up in that new book?" Amy asked while walking back towards Little Miss.

"Yeah," Eric confirmed. As his finger slid down the list, he came across the desired result. "Here it is. 'DBLBeam1. Summons a DoubleCube that fires either a Red Beam or a Blue Beam, then vanishes.' ...so can we choose which beam it fires...?" he wondered out loud as he continued reading.

"What do the beams-" Amy began to question, but stopped mid-sentence. "Never mind; Eric, if it's like the real thing, the blue beams heal and the red beams hurt."

"You're right, but it doesn't say how to choose which one it fires."

"Maybe you can't," Amy suggested. "After all, the DoubleCube here didn't look like it had control of which mode it was in. Why would it be healing when there's nobody to heal?"

Amy did have a point, Eric concluded as he closed the book. By that time, Amy had returned to Little Miss, who was already preparing to re-enter passenger mode.

"Eric? Can I come back?"

"Is something wrong? You're not hurt, are you?"

"I'm fine, but..." Amy's gaze turned to Little Miss, whose head was the only thing now visible from outside Amy's dress. "I wanted to explore and get some training, but it's probably not smart to do it with Little Miss behind me, is it?" Amy's head dropped a little in disappointment... or maybe shame...? She'd allowed excitement to get in the way of responsibility. Again.

No, not again; she was beginning to learn from her past mistakes.

Eric didn't argue. The thought had already crossed his mind back in the first battle when Amy had been impacted by the slide flung by one of the bears. She'd been cool about it, so Eric figured it was part of a calculated decision on her part. "If you're happy to come back, I'm broadcast your logout signal."

Amy held onto her passenger by reaching behind her back with both hands and embracing the child’s weight. "Yep, ready."

----------

Battle #2 Complete!

Rewards:
Zenny: +1200 (820 >>> 2020)
Battlechip: DBLBeam1
Battlechips: 13 >>> 14

GMD opened successfully!
Zenny: +3000 (2020 >>> 5020)

{>>> To Science Labs: Small Steps >>>}