At long last, there was quiet. Well, relative quiet anyhow, ScorchMan thought ruefully, as Griffin's window exploded with riotous he-shoots-he-scores hooting and cheering. But nothing was shooting at him for the moment, so he contented himself with picking a random direction and walking until he found the lava's edge. He eased himself down to sit on the solid ground with a deep sigh, and sunk both legs up to his knees in the liquid heat. "Have you got anything for healing, Griffin?" he found a moment between cheers to chime in.

"Oh!" Griffin startled out of his victory riot, and immediately noticed it was very quiet. There had been other people in the park before, hadn't there? "Sorry buddy, gimme a sec," he rifled through the chips. His combination online shopping spree and raffle blitzkrieg hadn't yielded anything like ScorchMan was looking for, but tucked nigh-forgotten in the back of the PET case were two little half-sized chips. The PET swallowed them eagerly, spitting the cases out inert, and he watched the Navi lean back and groan in relief. "Better?"

"Much." ScorchMan tipped back until his shoulder vents hit the ground. Kicking his legs idly in the lava, he mused, "At some point I want to inventory that chip folder of yours, I swear it's changed every thirty seconds since I jacked in."

He heard Griffin laugh nervously. "Ahaha, yeeeeah," he stared down at the modest pile he'd managed to accrue, only for the PET to chirrup that it had another ready to load onto a blank. "Well, now's as good a time to start. That one that just downloaded is called DollThunder, and I just got a new one in the mail called AquaDragon." He almost held them up to the screen for visual inspection, only to remember and fumble them across the bench. "Then there's a Guard, something called SkyShoes, and that's everything new so far. You remember the rest, yeah?"

ScorchMan's brow furrowed invisibly under his helmet. "HeatShot, FlameLine, HammerToss..." he murmured. An artifact of spending so much time around humans showed itself in the Navi counting the mental list off on his fingers. "So we've got fifteen?"

Griffin made the count and grimaced. "Fourteen..." he admitted, puzzled. Had he traded something? It was a little embarrassing how quickly he'd forgotten, when the Chip Trader BBS was still open in four different tabs on his PET. "Hang on...right, I traded a PileDriver...I think? And this definitely isn't the Guard I started out with, the colour's different. Uhhh..."

"Way to Operator, dude," ScorchMan snarked, but there was no bite to it. Not when his voice was thick with relief, or when his pose brought to mind nothing so much as a vacationer at the poolside. Tension visibly bled from the set of his shoulders; he grabbed the lip and flexed both legs, taking the moment to feel the difference in sensations as they kicked and swirled against the pleasant burn of the lava. The right leg was a seamless machining of all the data that went into sustaining a Navi's form; one could look as deep as they pleased into ScorchMan's code and find not one byte out of place. Moving it was, the Navi suspected, a very different sort of feeling to the biological symphony that was a human body flinging itself through space, exerting its force against that of gravity and inertia and its own physical limits. A properly-crafted Navi could conceivably run from one side of the Net to the other, and never once stop to catch their breath.

The left leg was marred with rents along the outside of the knee. A long series of raised lines protruded from the gaps in the armour, incongruous against ScorchMan's carmine bodysuit. The smallness of the wounds belied thick coils of venom that had burrowed deep into the joint, with a few tendrils running up and down the leg for good measure. What code they had melted through had been altered, somehow; Griffin was still trying to figure out exactly what had happened.

It hurt, sometimes. Usually when ScorchMan was running, or taking a fall on his bad side, or a million other things he and Griffin thought sounded like fun at the time. Now, sunk deep in a lava pool and safely wrapped in ScorchMan's inbuilt fireproofing, his leg was feeling good in ways he scarcely had words for. Good in ways that seemed to mean he could finally take his mind off his life's perpetual annoyance, and relax for once. It was novel to say the least - just ScorchMan and his thoughts, and what was that noise? "-man? You're kinda freaking me out, dude. Dude? Duuuude." Oh. Right.

"Yeah?" ScorchMan mumbled, sounding downright sleepy.

Griffin tried to stifle a grin, and very quickly gave up - ScorchMan would just hear it in his voice anyway. "Well, you asked for healing instead of just jacking out, so I figured you were gonna keep going, yeah?"

ScorchMan thought about it. "No," he decided, huffing a laugh, "no, I think I'm just gonna stay right here. See what finds me, you know?"

"Aren't you always razzing me about staying in the tub too long? Hypocrite much?"

"This is clearly different," ScorchMan kicked at the lava, making it splurch. The noise was more gratifying than it had any right to be, so he did it again, "I highly doubt I'm going to wake up so soaked full of cold water my-"

"DUDE!"

"-has wrinkles."

"That was ONE TIME!" Griffin screeched with the indignity of one profoundly roasted.

"I could have gone the rest of my existence blissfully unaware of that oh-so-lovely aspect of Operator cohabitation, but no, you had to start carrying on about your anatomy for the next three minutes! That image is in my head now, Griffin, I'm gonna have to live with those three minutes forever!" ScorchMan was shaking with mirth and belly-laughs, a hand coming up to drag down his face.

"No, you're right," Griffin kicked back, happy to have a partner in his carousing. "You're just gonna sit there so long the lava cools, and your feet get stuck in the ground, and next thing you know some big ugly virus monster is gonna roll up on you all 'oooh, I didn't know snacks grew outta the ground!' And then you're gonna feel reeeal silly, aren'tcha?"

ScorchMan got very quiet. Griffin was half-expecting him to get up and walk away, only for him to shrug and quip, "Still better than a wrinkly ass." He smirked as Griffin started back up, though he did lift his feet out of the lava before it could cool overmuch. He made no move yet to get up, sitting by the lava and enjoying the heat and the moment while they lasted.

<(MiniEnergy x2 used, HP: 100/100)>
<(Waiting patiently in place for Battle #5)>

Bodies. Bodies. Yet more bodies. It would be nigh-impossible now to count the faces as they flowed and gibbered over the edge, each one a tale cut brutally, horrifically short. Limbs crawled from the stream pouring over the lip of the pathway, over each other, over itself, after their quarry. Egomorph was passed from hand to foot to mouth to hand again, carried down the macabre waterfall to the spiraling point at its base. When the haloed lump had no more hands to carry it, Hex peeled open its shell and pushed at the oozing connection that bound them together. Yet more white was forced into the space between them, the tendriled ball pushed beyond what velocity the fall allowed, carried on a tide of writhing tentacles. Through its Administrator Hex reached out, many mouths gnashing with a madness that went beyond sentience or sanity.

Just as Hex reached in ways Vasilia could see, so too did it stretch in directions she could not. It still held onto the connection it had tunneled, deep through Vasilia's hand, reaching across space-that-wasn't-space to the body beyond. It could feel, in its unquantifiable way, the growth that flourished in <heartwood/fractal/familiar?> - were it conscious of such things, it might perhaps have found the budding energy pleasing to behold, in and of itself. As power welled in Vasilia's body, so too did something else: something that sought to unspool invisible feelers into Vasilia's chest; to rasp and scrape along her heartwood; to feed on the beautiful swirling growth she fostered.

It was reaching into Egomorph too - this, Vasilia could see, were she to look back at what plummeted after her, reaching to claim her before they even hit the ground. The entire hemisphere facing the Navi crumpled into itself, falling into a hollow that had formed at Ego's center and vanishing from sight. Hex's matter flooded through the oozing tentacles into the hollow, compacting on itself, consuming more and more and somehow more of its own mass. Strangely, the light behind Vasilia (were she facing it) seemed to shine brighter, pulled by Hex's density from the deep infrared shades into visibility.

Colours that didn't exist shone from the anomaly at Egomorph's core. The burning un-brightness ate at itself, hues fading darker and deeper, divorcing itself farther and farther from comprehension. Only Sophie and Vasilia would be able to say what they saw, staring into Hex's monument. To Sophie's organic eyes and brain, it might have folded so far into itself as to look like a strangely magnified patch of nothing, like a hole in the Net she could only look past, without seeing the thing itself. Vasilia's mind, conversely (uniquely) might instead force a memory into the space it occupied, or perhaps a sensation her body would try to feel as something tactile. The only universal descriptors one could fit the anomaly were these: it had no physical substance; it cast neither light nor shadow on the surrounding Net; it should have only occupied as much space as Egomorph's child-sized lump, but the longer one stared into it, the farther it opened up until it seemed to span from notional horizon to notional horizon; it, as was true of all that called itself Hexadecimal, hungered singly for the consumption of all things, and tore itself bodily through the Net to carry its endless mission forward. All other truths of the anomaly were unique to those who perceived it.

It was grim mercy that kept Ego from experiencing any of this. Forced from her own head to drift bodiless, bereft of awareness as part of the swirling white, there was nothing left of the broken china doll-girl in the amorphous, tumbling chaos. All Vasilia could see was Hex, its unholy birthing, and the Administrator it reached for her through. The Conduit halos burned, keening with a discordant, static-y howl that managed to claw at the ears and shake the bones in the same instance. Tentacles were reaching from the jagged edges that enclosed the burning unlight, grasping with alien hunger closer, closer.

Not close enough.

It came at Vasilia like an ocean wave, starting before they even hit the ground and continuing for long-after. Tentacles and limbs reared from behind Hex's genesis, where they had never stopped tumbling over themselves to be the first to grasp hold. Veins sewed together great coiling boughs out of the amorphous surge, wrought from hands and ribs and anything it could reshape for clutching. The rest of the body followed after them, seeking to bury the whole grim ensemble, Vasilia, Egomorph and all, in a writhing, tangling tide of itself. Just as it reached forward, it dragged its own mass back in a circuitous whirlpool of flesh, diffusing from a swollen lump into a creeping, crawling thing that seemed to swallow the ground itself. Thin scouting feelers reached from its maw to swat at Vasilia's feet, provoking the retaliation it had seen of them. The implication was clear: it had Vasilia alone, now it wanted her soft, undefended.

The creeping white was swelling up again.

-Turn Summary-
-FastArmour [40 HP Casing around Hex]
1. Movement [PURSUE]
2. Throw Egomorph at Vasilia
E1. Movement [SNARE]
-Glitch Eater [Consume SAS Soul, Strengthen 20 (Hex)]
3. Synthesis: Egomorph [Glitch 10 (Contagious), Charge Burner x2; 5TCD]
E2. Grapple Vasilia
4. Attachment: Vasilia [Gravity, Freeze, Turn Delay (1 Turn): Hold, Self-Slow; 4TCD]
5. Buster Shot: Vasilia's Shield [15 Null {A}]
6. Buster Charge

For one burning instant, the blind Navi's entire world lit up in sourceless fluorescent white. The light wasn't really there: he understood his own body's workings as intrinsically as any Navi, and knew this for a fact. The current was playing tricks on long-atrophied optics on its way through his virtual makeup - his eyes were as nonexistent as ever. For all that, even as he burned from the impact, the brief illusion of sight still managed to leave ScorchMan feeling a bit wistful.

He still made no move to dodge, just lifted one leg free of the sucking lava, and stomped it down even deeper. Heat rushed up his legs, stoked the guttered flame in his chest back up to blazing. Smoke and coal-red fire billowed from ScorchMan's chest, his arms, even his helmet. His face vanished along with the rest of him behind the roiling curtain - there was no need for a window, not when he'd seen the virus light itself up to cast its burning light. The human bonfire held out his arms to the Scarecrow, Scorch Busters dripping with embers, and pushed forward. Burning murkily low like cooling red earth, the streaming flames from each arm twisted in front of him into a coiled red rope, thinner than the dynamic shows he liked to put on but plenty hot enough to do the job.

For want of energy to throw himself through any more high-falutin maneuvers, ScorchMan just wormed his back foot another inch deeper, took a simulated, emphasized breath, and felt his furnace well up just enough for another fireball. The shot was messy, both the round itself and its execution. Arm up in an exhausted haymaker, the Scorch Blast was more a scattershot of dirty embers than a true flame burst. It would have to be enough. "Did I get him!" he shouted into empty space.

In his exhaustion, the Navi had forgotten the imperative uptick that would have made his statement a question. Griffin knew him well enough to catch on, but peering into the flames licking at his viewscreen itself..."It's hard to say," was all he had for the moment. "Hang tight, ScorchMan, just need the smoke to clear. If that wasn't enough I'll..." a long beat. A bit of lava sputters and catches fire, "...well, I'm pretty sure it was enough."

-Turn Summary-
1. Conflagration: Scarecrow C [40 Fire {A}, 20 HP Barrier; 2TCD]
2. Buster Charge
3. Half Charge Shot: Scarecrow C [20 Fire {A}]

Phantom flashes of white danced in ScorchMan's head. Blind and unable to see the bolts themselves, their crackling heat was close enough, reaching with forked fingers even as it blackened the lava and hissed through spaces he'd occupied instants ago, that his mind simply filled in the blanks. "Where are they?" he called, springing to his feet.

It was the glimpse he got of ScorchMan's face that shut Griffin up. Helmet scorched, teeth bared somewhere between a cringe and a snarl - the firefighter's training instantly recognized a person in duress. The veneer of cheering on a sports game was ripped away wholesale; he visibly snapped himself into Work Mode and began fiddling with the PET's controls, rifling through the remaining chips and squinting through the screen as he made it pivot around ScorchMan. He selected a couple and cleared his throat. "They're both in front of you, we should be able to line them up. Aim forward and strafe, stay on your feet and wait for my signal. Chips are coming in, now go!"

ScorchMan was off before his Operator finished speaking. The RageClaw gauntlet vanished as quickly as it had appeared, reforming into the Shotgun's long twin barrel. Bracing one arm against the other, he held the mounted gun at chest-height, pointing it out as straight as he could and bracing himself for the burning phantom light. His legs carried him sideways in mincing half-lunges, for firing a gun blind was fundamentally awkward. If Griffin's signal didn't come quick enough, he wouldn't know where to aim until the viruses gave their positions away by attacking. "Do I have the shot?" A gout of sooty red flames betrayed his agitation, flaring from his shoulder pads. His voice remained level.

"Almost! Little more left and let em have it, one more right after this!" Griffin had as much time as it took ScorchMan to take one more step and plant his feet to remember the volume. He lunged for the dial just as ScorchMan raised the Shotgun; even muted, Griffin felt the report watching his feet, stomped up to the ankles in lava, jolt back hard enough to leave rents in the molten earth a few inches in front of each boot. He chucked the second chip in and spun the volume back up, "HeatShot's up, keep it going!"

The Shotgun deconstructed itself a split-second after firing, metal shifting and clicking back into the Scorch Buster's comforting weight. ScorchMan held the gauntlet out in expectation of a new form, but none was forthcoming. Rather than forming a weapon, the HeatShot was compatible enough with his default code to be loaded directly into his internal furnace. Foreign yellowy fire licked at his chest vent; he could feel it swirling in his torso, flowing down his right arm and pooling in his buster. He hadn't moved a muscle since firing the Shotgun. Trusting in Griffin's aim, he held his arm steady, braced himself in the lava a second time and let the fireball fly. There wasn't much hope of going anywhere quick with his legs half-stuck in the ground - if anything was left to light him up, he was just going to have to take it.

-Turn Summary-
1. Feint - put Twisty between ScorchMan & Scarecrow
2. ShotgunDamage: 50 + Spread 1
Accuracy: A
Description: A gun whose shot penetrates an enemy to hit another one directly behind it.
Duration: Once
Element: Null
Trader Rank: E: Twisty [50 Null {A}, Spread1 targeting Scarecrow]
3. HeatShotDamage: 40 + Spread 1
Accuracy: A
Description: Shoots a fireball whose explosion penetrates an enemy to hit another one directly behind it.
Duration: Once
Element: Fire
Trader Rank: D: Twisty [45 Fire {A}, Spread1 targeting Scarecrow]

You wake up in a white room, handcuffed to a chair. A single glance tells you that the floor, walls, and ceiling form a perfect, immaculate cube. You know just as instinctually that the meridian line of your body lies precisely atop the floor's unmarked centre. The room has no door, not even behind you. The only adornment is a mirror that stretches from floor to ceiling directly opposite. You watch the human in the mirror breathe, blink, rest its hands passively against its legs.

How revolting.

"Why?" asks your mother's voice.

You can only reply, "Why not?"

The next voice is your father's, "How could you?" The words are sourceless memories of memories.

Again you reply, "How could I not?" You watch the hominin speak. Some syllables make its jawbone jut out stark under its skin. Some pull it deeper behind the layer of subcutaneous fat that grows like mould over its chin and neck. You focus momentarily on the eyes, on the muscles in the skull that held and spun them in their sockets.

They see nothing. They always have.

"Stop looking at us like that," your mother chides.

"Like what?"

You know what's coming next. You decide you no longer want to be here. You rattle the handcuffs to make noise - it doesn't drown the words out. "Oh, Archie," here you hear the inflection as you always, always have.

"Sometimes you look like you've just gone and died, and not told us yet."

You wake up.

(Do you?)

You make coffee and do your morning things. There's nothing to concern yourself with.

Silence.

You try listening to music. The voices disgust you - you fling the headphones away to rediscover next time you clean. Smoke up. Lie on the couch awhile. Try humming, recoil at the rusty creak that leaks from your throat. Stop humming. Silence again.

You should build something. The thought tries to make a foothold. Another round of smoke chases it away. What's the point?

What's the point? What's the point? What's the point? What's the point? What's the point? What's the point? What's the point? What's the point? What's the point? What's the point? What's the point? Wh

at's the point? What's the point? What's the point? What's the point? What's the point? What's the point? What's the point? What's the point? What's the point? What's the point? What's the point? What's the point? What's the point? What's the point? What's the point? What's the point? What's the point? What's the p

oint? What's the point? What's the point? What's the point? What's the point? What's the point? What's the point? What's the point? What's the poi

nt? What's the point? What's the point? What's the point? What's the point? Wh̡̡a̶̕ţ̀́'̕͡s͏ ̀͠t̕͡he̵ ̢͝poìn̴t̕҉? ͘̕͝W͠h̛́́a̕t͜'s̡̕͢ ̨t͘͡he͘ ̧͟p̢̢͝ơ̛ì͡͡n͞t͢͡?̀͜͡ ̴̶͠W̷ḩa͜͡t͡͡'̛͠s͡ ̢t̸̢̕h̴̡E̷ ͘͏̧P̧̢͡O͟͜I͞Ǹ̢T̛́?̛͘ ̶̛W̡҉H͢A̡T͝'̕S TH͝͏̕E҉͘͏̴ ̕͢͠҉P̸҉Ǫ̡̀͡I̧͢N̛̕͢͟͞T͟͡҉͠?̀͡ ̴̕͝͠W̶̡̧̡̢H̶̴҉҉͢A̷̧͝T͏̕'҉͏̡͢S̴̛͜͝ ̴̷T̸̕͏̴͝H͟͏̵͏E̴̢ ̢҉̶̧͜Ṕ͟Ó́̕͞I̸͟͢͞N͏T́͡҉?͠ ͜͟Ẁ̵͝H̵̶͞͡͡À͜͞T̶̶͠͠҉

-you blink. The clock reads 2:00 AM. Your throat hurts.

You go back to sleep.

A fresh wave of roiling heat swept over ScorchMan. It felt good, good enough that, settling in his lava-warmed armour, ScorchMan's mind finally relaxed off his leg and began to wander, musing about what he might want to do after they were done here. He was hurting, but the heat of the lava seemed to be helping some; maybe he could coax Griffin into a trip to the hot springs? He remembered the other Navis from Griffin's squad making a lot of noise about it for a bunch of Fire Navis, maybe there was something to it-

"ScorchMan! You alright, did that bolt scramble your head?" Griffin's voice was as strong as ever, perfect for shouting over a housefire and even better for snapping Navis out of daydreams.

The Navi in question gave himself a shake and reminded himself that he was already due another round of getting lightning shot at him. "We're good, just remind me where they are. Aren't you in a park? You're gonna frighten the old ladies if you don't cool it."

"You've got one at about ten-o-clock," Griffin ignored the jibe with practiced ease and watched ScorchMan juke left, panting slightly as he hoofed it across the glowing lava. He slotted in a tried-and-true chip and eyed the battle's remainder: ScorchMan was pretty beat up, but so were the viruses - the next few seconds were going to decide whether or not they'd be the winners today. "Just like that, yeah. He's stuck in the lava, with you, so keep going, and give him a piece of this while you're at it!"

ScorchMan felt a gauntlet reconfigure, weight shifting as gunmetal stretched over and past his hand. On the bigger side for sure, and sharp if the way it whistled against the air was any indication - but thankfully, blessedly not fifty pounds too heavy the way Griffin seemed to like his weapons. It clicked when he felt gingerly at it with his left hand, recognizing the RageClaw and holding it up at the ready.

The lava both helped and hindered his advance; feeling the heat stretching across the left field meant he knew roughly which direction he needed to run, but his feet wished dearly for solid, stable ground that didn't squish and bubble underfoot. Yes, a hot spring definitely sounded in order. "How much further?" ScorchMan yelled, starting to feel for the Twisty's characteristic sparking heat, just as he remembered that he also needed to be ready to dodge lightning bolts, however one was supposed to do that. Not staying in one place for too long seemed a good place to start, he'd been managing that - and that was when he remembered learning to shoot, and how relatively easy it had been to anticipate a target that moved in straight, simple lines. How did he fit all the chaos of battle into so little reaction time?

"You're right on top of him! Let's go, ScorchMan, light em up!" A couple little old ladies on the pathway turned around and promptly walked the other way, resigned to find a cafe that didn't have a large man hooting and hollering near its entrance.

"It isn't even on fire!" But ScorchMan was out of time, whether to try feeling for the Twisty or for any more fancy footwork. All he had left in him was one last dive forward, carrying with it all the desperation of a man who had just been electrocuted twice and was not keen on going for #3. His arms flew in front of him to brace for the impact, head ducking low, ready to catch himself and turn the hasty maneuver into as controlled a roll as he could manage. That one arm was equipped with a gunmetal-grey RageClaw, gleaming as he held out the claw in a clothesline sweep, would only matter if Griffin had guided him true.

-Turn Summary-
1. Feint left
2. Dodge further left
3. RageClaw1Damage: 40 + Slashing (Attack) OR 20 + Impacting (Throw)
Accuracy: B / B then B
Description: Creates an impressive bear claw. Can be used to slash or throw enemies or objects.
Duration: Until Overridden/Broken. Breaks automatically after 6 uses.
Element: Null
Special: Throw: The wielder must first grab the target to be thrown, then the target is thrown in the direction/area indicated. A second check is made if against another object/enemy. Throw deals damage to both thrown object/enemy and the second object/enemy. Damage occurs at point of collision with the ground/wall/ceiling/etc. or an object/enemy, not during initial grab attempt. Objects deal their max HP in damage (instead of the chip's damage) if they hit an object/enemy, then break. If they miss, the object just takes the chip's damage. This chip has a variety of uses.
Trader Rank: D: Twisty A [40 Null {B}, Slashing] (5/6 uses)

Requesting permission to shelf Vincent & Phase for Griffin & ScorchMan. Twi has been notified re: Phase's modlock, and has agreed to freeze the topic for the time being.

Phase's stuff:

ScorchMan's stuff (WARNING: MAY CONTAIN TAPATALK LINKS):

Halfway-dangling over the long drop, the pool flattened and clung to the edge with veins and clinging protoplasm. Every hand that had made it over the rail smashed itself into the ground; unseen beneath the road, the shell's dangling edge split open at the seams. White slithered from the cracks in a snakes-nest of tentacles, climbing the patchwork body's jagged ridges and looping back into its own mass like an abstract ouroboros, jettisoning the hollow deadweight as it went. The logs were already cracking and splitting where they'd stuck fast - ooze mixed with wood pulp into a lumpy, bubbling semi-solid that tried to form teeth even as the white pulled it down to feed on. Through it all, two tentacles wound slowly over their capture with something like reverence. Its Administrator quantified the weapon wrapped over it, yes - but the hand within, and its connection to the mind that moved it was the white's true prize.

One scraped open a hole and made its entry. It was not quick.

Egomorph was the last thing to be dragged over the edge. A few scraps of white fabric were all that remained of the little girl Vasilia had found just minutes ago, now floating in a lumpy pustule that looked like nothing so much as a tumour on Hex's surface. Wood pulp fused like mortar with the skin that stretched over her bubble, and then she was a tumour with writhing tendrils and too many mouths. The Conduit hung pristine and untouched, if slightly dimmer from the white's damaged connection.

[Command: replicate] Its connection damaged, Hex's voice sounded farther away this time. The pool seeped and spread, eating itself a foothold on the walkway. All it consumed was taken under and digested into more oozing white, which Hex fed right back through its window, bolstering slightly the pillar-like connection that clung to the Net's underside. The oozing pile and its tumour visibly swelled with yet more mass. Ego's halos steadied some, glow intensifying - her many mouths gibbered and gnawed at each other. [Command: activate] The voice sounded closer; Egomorph remained a writhing but immobile beacon to its master. The white seemed to suck the light right out of the air, flaring bloodily from within as the energy it processed from itself was in turn digested, and converted into yet more mass and might.

Pulsing arhythmically and brimming with red luminescence, static humming deeper than bone., a flailing mess at the walkway's edge, the white almost hurt to look at. This, along with the slow, savouring burrow of tentacles into Vasilia's hand, as it continued its dizzying motion a few seconds after it had found its foothold, was not unintentional.

It lunged. The hunt renewed, the cacophony resumed like it had never paused. Hands upon hands smashed the ground in her wake, split themselves to shards only to vomit out more skittering fingers. As it neared, more and more hands started reaching around the Navi as much as for her. The amorphous mass crowded the path, herding her to the edges. Shards of a trademarked smile leaked out in places - the white knew the scent of Mr. Progs well, knew them to be empty and tasteless compared to the rich wealth that lay in a Navi's cortex. It had little use for the insubstantial mouthful ahead or the device it drove, and it wanted them gone (it wanted its prey helpless, alone).

Amidst the tangle of hands, Vasilia's own was raised against her on the end of a long coiled tendril - over far too many seconds, it had burrowed all the way through, the sharpened tip slithering out the cannon's cracked barrel. For a moment it swelled up, wooden fingers splintering as pressure built inside - so much so that when the tentacle shot after Vasilia, the cannon blew apart. A small forest of little feelers rose from the pool to sweep up the remains, careful not to miss a morsel. The tentacle flew with the force of a bullet and all the mass it could fit behind the amorphous blow - if it didn't go right through, the force alone was liable to send Vasilia tumbling off the ledge, just how Hex wanted her.

Whether she fell or continued to run, the white's hunger-driven tunnel vision kept it following her all the same. It was all around Vasilia, a constantly moving blur of whipping feelers and pounding, stamping legs that would not stop spurting from the pool. It had tasted her spark, her mind, and the force she could bring to bear. Now it was wary enough to add this extra layer of unpredictable terror to its pursuit, and prepared to retaliate in kind.

A tentacle grew from the writhing white grass. Studded along its length were the splinters of Vasilia's hand, woven with veins into cruel thorns that even still reached out for the once-them. Something in <heartwood/fractal/familiar> signalled through the connection of hands to the white, a fragment of a passage of growth. As the thorned whip came down in a lashing storm, Hex sought out that dormant seedling of self-outside-of-self in Vasilia's core; reached out to touch it, feed it, make it grow and bud and flourish and blossom.

-Turn Summary-
*FastArmour [40 HP Casing over Ego]
E1. Command: Replicate [30 Healing, Hex & Ego; 2TCD]
E2. Command: Activate [Random Effect; 1TCD]1. Dodge onto Normal
2. Feint [FLANK]
3. CannonModeEffect: Adds +20 Null and Knockback to your Buster Shot Attack.
Accuracy: Buster Accuracy = A
Description: Your Custom Weapon vanishes, and is replaced with a Cannon. 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: Vasilia [30 Null {A}, Knockback aimed to push off walkway]
4. Movement [CHASE]
5. Dodge
6. Entry [80 Null {A}, Break, Glitch; 3TCD]

The Metool's response to having a malevolent wall of exotic horror raised before it was, perhaps, predictable in its outcome. Which is to say, its attempts at looking fierce were abandoned in a meep of terror, in favour of jumping into the dumpster it had emerged from, and cowering under its helmet. To this display of abject cowardice, the wall had no comment (or perhaps, none that those present could hear).

Putting his back to his summoned servant, Crypto turned to the two viruses blocking the way he'd come, only to see a shockwave coming right for him...at least that was the initial impression. The reality was that the Metool's aim, if that was the word for it, was so truly awful that it not only failed to hit Crypto, but somehow managed to miss the wall-sized wall at his back on its way past, instead hitting the dumpster and flipping the virus hiding in it upside-down. Invisible to everyone present, it kicked its little feet in the air and proceeded to make an awful lot of noise lamenting its general lot in life.

Crypto's initial reply, as though cursed by the sheer lack of aim the Metool had managed, had similar luck trying to nail the pesky thing with his summoned Cannon. He did, however, blast apart the garbage heap they'd been feasting on, getting aerosolised rubbish pretty much everywhere. The foul-smelling sludge didn't seem immediately toxic, but it certainly wasn't doing much for his wardrobe. Mercifully, he had slightly better luck with his Shotgun, though in the time it took him to load it, his targets had both had enough time to pop off a shockwave more each. One buffeted him on its way past, but his aim was sure enough to shred one of them. Angered as it was in turn struck, the wall lashed a tentacle at the survivor, catching it with a wince-inducing poke to the eye.

Looking past his Wall of Flesh, Crypto found he could not see the Metool from where he stood. He could see a large bin making a whole lot of Metool-esque noise, so that made as good a test subject for his new power as any. The metalloid wall of the receptacle scorched beautifully under the bloody light, but the Metool within was unharmed aside from the earlier friendly fire.

-Ambushers-
MetoolMetool (Metool)

Metools not currently attacking will guard. Entering guard mode requires an action. Exiting guard mode does not require an action.

Area: ACDC, Electown, Okuden Valley, Kotobuki Town, Dentech, Beach

HP: 40
Primary Attack Damage/Effect: 10 Null + Piercing + Ground Attack
Primary Attack Accuracy: C
Primary Attack Description: Whacks ground with pickaxe, sending forth a shockwave.
Secondary Attack Damage/Effect: 10 Null
Secondary Attack Accuracy: B
Secondary Attack Description: Throws a mattock at an enemy.
Element: Null
Possible Rewards (Per Virus): Guard1, ShockWave, Zenny
Special: Can hide in its helmet to negate damage. A: 30 HP [Inside Recycling Bin] [Upside-down]
MetoolMetool (Metool)

Metools not currently attacking will guard. Entering guard mode requires an action. Exiting guard mode does not require an action.

Area: ACDC, Electown, Okuden Valley, Kotobuki Town, Dentech, Beach

HP: 40
Primary Attack Damage/Effect: 10 Null + Piercing + Ground Attack
Primary Attack Accuracy: C
Primary Attack Description: Whacks ground with pickaxe, sending forth a shockwave.
Secondary Attack Damage/Effect: 10 Null
Secondary Attack Accuracy: B
Secondary Attack Description: Throws a mattock at an enemy.
Element: Null
Possible Rewards (Per Virus): Guard1, ShockWave, Zenny
Special: Can hide in its helmet to negate damage. B: 30 HP [Behind Crypto - left]
MetoolMetool (Metool)

Metools not currently attacking will guard. Entering guard mode requires an action. Exiting guard mode does not require an action.

Area: ACDC, Electown, Okuden Valley, Kotobuki Town, Dentech, Beach

HP: 40
Primary Attack Damage/Effect: 10 Null + Piercing + Ground Attack
Primary Attack Accuracy: C
Primary Attack Description: Whacks ground with pickaxe, sending forth a shockwave.
Secondary Attack Damage/Effect: 10 Null
Secondary Attack Accuracy: B
Secondary Attack Description: Throws a mattock at an enemy.
Element: Null
Possible Rewards (Per Virus): Guard1, ShockWave, Zenny
Special: Can hide in its helmet to negate damage. C: DELETED

-Ambushee-
Crypto.EXE: 140 HP [Middle of alley] [Covered in garbage]

-Terrain-
100% Garbage

-Objects-
Recycling Bin: 50 HP [Next to where Metool A formerly stood]
Garbage Heap: EXPLODED
Wall of Flesh: 10 HP [Counter Expended]

Special: Garbage
You smell disgusting. Everything smells disgusting. No further effects.

Crypto, he of dark robes and darker learnings made his entrance onto a dusty byway, and immediately set off. It seemed the beginning of this particular journey was to be a quiet, discreet one. ACDC Net's idyllic vistas sprawled out farther and farther with every year, leaving scores of old abandoned neighbourhoods such as these in the wake of years. Ripe for the plundering by Navi and virus alike, Crypto needed not walk very far at all before his first interruption found him.

A twist in the pathway found the cloaked Navi in a narrow alley between two buildings. A Metool stepped out from behind a recycling bin, twirling its pickaxe, dark promise in its overlarge eyes. A noise behind Crypto alerted him to two more behind him, emerging from a massive pile of refuse they looked to have been feasting on. They didn't look too keen on having their meal interrupted...though, from the matching glints in their googly-eyed glares, the ambush in the making would surely brighten up their day.

-Ambushers-
MetoolMetool (Metool)

Metools not currently attacking will guard. Entering guard mode requires an action. Exiting guard mode does not require an action.

Area: ACDC, Electown, Okuden Valley, Kotobuki Town, Dentech, Beach

HP: 40
Primary Attack Damage/Effect: 10 Null + Piercing + Ground Attack
Primary Attack Accuracy: C
Primary Attack Description: Whacks ground with pickaxe, sending forth a shockwave.
Secondary Attack Damage/Effect: 10 Null
Secondary Attack Accuracy: B
Secondary Attack Description: Throws a mattock at an enemy.
Element: Null
Possible Rewards (Per Virus): Guard1, ShockWave, Zenny
Special: Can hide in its helmet to negate damage. A: 40 HP [In front of Crypto]
MetoolMetool (Metool)

Metools not currently attacking will guard. Entering guard mode requires an action. Exiting guard mode does not require an action.

Area: ACDC, Electown, Okuden Valley, Kotobuki Town, Dentech, Beach

HP: 40
Primary Attack Damage/Effect: 10 Null + Piercing + Ground Attack
Primary Attack Accuracy: C
Primary Attack Description: Whacks ground with pickaxe, sending forth a shockwave.
Secondary Attack Damage/Effect: 10 Null
Secondary Attack Accuracy: B
Secondary Attack Description: Throws a mattock at an enemy.
Element: Null
Possible Rewards (Per Virus): Guard1, ShockWave, Zenny
Special: Can hide in its helmet to negate damage. B: 40 HP [Behind Crypto - left]
MetoolMetool (Metool)

Metools not currently attacking will guard. Entering guard mode requires an action. Exiting guard mode does not require an action.

Area: ACDC, Electown, Okuden Valley, Kotobuki Town, Dentech, Beach

HP: 40
Primary Attack Damage/Effect: 10 Null + Piercing + Ground Attack
Primary Attack Accuracy: C
Primary Attack Description: Whacks ground with pickaxe, sending forth a shockwave.
Secondary Attack Damage/Effect: 10 Null
Secondary Attack Accuracy: B
Secondary Attack Description: Throws a mattock at an enemy.
Element: Null
Possible Rewards (Per Virus): Guard1, ShockWave, Zenny
Special: Can hide in its helmet to negate damage. C: 40 HP [Behind Crypto - right]

-Ambushee-
Crypto.EXE: 150 HP [Middle of alley]

-Terrain-
100% Normal

• No effects.

-Objects-
Recycling Bin: 100 HP [Next to Metool A]
Garbage Heap: 40 HP [Between Crypto and Mets B/C]

EXTERMINATION - DESTROY THE VIRUSES!
Battle #1: START!!