Big Super Important Note! I do not expect the posts to be anywhere near this big on average! Its just, until I start the RP, once my character is done I tend to start typing up the intro post while I wait...and this one got really big...not my biggest though, but dont worry people. I wont expect this level from everyone.

Oh, and people can still join even though we started. Its just, I didn't want this intro post to get any bigger! So don't be scared by it! It is not expected to be the average! You will be fine!

Runo City. One of the most technologically developed cities to date, you can find all sorts of fun, helpful, informative, or just interesting technology around. Even with its heavy technological advancement, the city itself was still built with all sorts of architecture and beauty in mind that accompany the technology one can see in every day life. Smartboards that can help give you directions or information on the area, self driving vehicles, and even robotic cleaners.

Of course, due to risks and potential problematic outcomes, machines have not taken over the jobs of all people. After all, such things as hackers and viruses exist so if all aspects of a certain industry were run by machines and AI, it would put everyone at extremely high risk. Especially since, with the evolution of technology, came the evolution of the internet, the Digital World, and viruses. It has evolved so much that Viruses present a great risk to the world, and are even able to materialize in the real world. Due to the growing threat, a new occupation emerged...Datadivers.

To clarify, Datadivers refer to anyone who Datadives into the internet, the Digital World. What that means is that either just mentally by hooking themselves up to an inferface, or those with the rare ability to handle entering the Digital World physically, go into the internet to fight them. Of course, as technology advanced there are perfectly normal people who would also be called Datadivers but enter the internet casually, either to meet up with friends far away but in person, or perhaps because they are bound to a hospital bed, or just because they want to. Technically, all these people whether combatants or not are Datadivers.

But, when one thinks of a Datadiver, they would think of those people who go and enter the internet to challange Viruses, or fight the Viruses that materialize into our world. They are all celebrated, although the ones who can enter the internet physically tend to be idolized the most...even if the risk to them is higher if one thinks about it. After all, their physical bodies will be receiving any damage they take.

And as for one of those Datadivers...

"Yuyan! Yuyan wake up!"

"Five more minutes, gramps".

"Yuyan! Come on!"

He was currently sleeping in. His clothes haphazardly thrown around the room, he was sleeping with a single cover on. After all, it had been a hot day yesterday, a hot night, and the morning was...better. His head was resting on one pillow as his body had just as haphazardly rummaged around the bed.

"Yuyan! Its already 9AM! Wake up or...or...I will take super embarrassing pictures of you right now and post them on the internet!"

However, Yuyan still seemed to be peacefully sleeping.

"...he never sleeps in this late before. I wonder if he is sick..."

Despite appearances, Yuyan actually did not usually sleep this much. Well, he did have a habit of taking mid-day naps sometime when it was convienent, but overnight he usually worked on coding and such, and his body seemed to operate just fine...or maybe a bit too fine...on just four hours of sleep.

No, if Ace thought about it, Yuyan really didn't conform to any set schedule or sleep time. That was just the average...usually. He was a very whimful child.

And then, what had to be the loudest yawn a human could produce resonated throughout the room as Yuyan finally sat up, stretching out his arms. His bed was actually a bunk bed, and he took the top, the bottom where he usually flung his clothes on before crawling into bed.

Yuyan looked at the sun, and a mischevous and playful smile formed on his face. He jumped down from bed, and immediately began pulling on some clothes to wear. He also grabbed his signature goggles.

"Finally, you are awake. Come on, wasn't today supposed to be the day you actually show up to school?"

"Why? Its not like I actually need to go, you know? I already passed all the tests. I am only enrolled as a formality".

"What about your friends?"

"It will be fine right? I could meet them after school...besides, I think there is some sort of boring assembly today".

"So what then, just going to go explore the city?"

"Why not...maybe I will find something fun".

"Oh dear..."

Yuyan finished getting dressed, and picked up Ace as well, attaching his Databand to his arm. He then ran out the door, running through the halls of an empty house. Of course, that would be expected since he lives alone. Well, with Ace technically, and sometimes his grandpa visits.

"I materialized myself early and made breakfast, but I had to reheat it just now since you took your sweet time to wake up. Check the Microwave".

Yuyan ran right into the kitchen and opened up the microwave, taking a plate of eggs, bacon, and toast out. He then began to devour it all while he stood right there, consuming food at a rate that one might think defied human capabilities.

And once he was done, he immediately bolted for the door with a certain energy in his step. He certainly was not a tame one, that was for sure.

And once he got his shoes, he immediately materialized some rollerskates from digital data. The skates were an extremely low data usage program, while still providing advantages and speed. And once he had them on, he left his house and hit the streets. It was a two story house, but Yuyan alone had a way of making it feel fully lived in and used.

"So how is the Virus situation going today?"

"No major events so far, other Datadivers have taken care of them with ease. It looks like it might be a peaceful day".

"Haaaa....thats boring".

"Yuyan...are you wishing for some ultra destructive virus to appear?"

At that question, Yuyan looked away a bit with embarrassment.

"...no".

With all that said and done, he began to skate throughout the city. Given there was apparently low virus activity today, he considered just hitting up the arcade. He could always go to school, but he found it boring and would often sleep in class. Not to mention that as a Datadiver, he had special exceptions and then there were other factors.

Though to most people, he looked sort of like one of those kids who slacked off and did not take school seriously and probably was not too smart.

However, while he was out exploring he spotted those who looked even worse then him. Three older kids, probably high school age, the delinquent type that tended to bully the weak. He saw they had surrounded a younger kid, wearing some blue cargo pants, a red T shirt, and...

"Wait, isn't that Jeremy?"

"Indeed. Unlike you, he actually goes to school...it looks like he got obstructed, but didn't school start an hour ago?"

"...yeah. Well, cant leave him hanging".

"...you say that, but I know what you really want to do".

Yuyan went and turned into the alley where he saw Jeremy and the three delinquents who were harassing him. He got there just in time to see one of them punch Jeremy in the stomach.

"Stop holding out now! Tell us what you know!"

"Hey, what the hell is going on here?!"

Shouting that, Yuyan dematerialized his skates and landed with his shoes on the ground. The three delinquents turned to see Yuyan, and they growled.

"Yuyan?!"

"You three! What the hell do you think you are doing?!"

In what had to be the most provocative voice he could make with his voice, Yuyan shouted at the three of them.

"Oh, so you are Yuyan huh? Word has it, you are quite rich. You know, maybe instead of hoarding you should share some of that wealth".

Yuyan only replied to them with a mischevous and energetic smile as he spoke to Jeremy.

"So these guys were asking about me huh? Given what I saw, looks like you did not crack. Good for you. These guys are just pathetic punks, you shouldn't let them boss you around".

"What the hell did you just say you brat?! Now you will get it!"

One of them threw a punch right at Yuyan, but Yuyan sidestepped it, grabbed the arm, and then tossed the bully over his shoulder. The second bully tried to kick him right in the gut, but Yuyan ducked under that and punched the guy right behind him in the stomach before swerving around to behind him and kicked the back of his shin with a high amount of force to send him to his knees while Yuyan took some distance and assessed how much damage he did to them.

The three seemed to have been hurt, but all three managed to stand up again to fight more.

"Huh, stubborn. Usually bullies run away when they face someone stronger then them...are they relying on numbers?"

"It is possible. They don't seem too bright, and I am detecting residual energy from Learning Enhancers..."

The three of them glared at Yuyan with rage and hatred, but no fear. It appeared they had some sort of strange confidence. They all charged at Yuyan once more, but Yuyan responded by jumping up and landing foot first into the first bully's face, then bringing it around into a kick with his other foot and scoring another hit to the head. After that, Yuyan glared at the final conscious bully and rolled his hand into a fist that then impacted his face, taking him out too.

"Alright Jeremy, you should probably get to school now".

"Uh...right...wait, are you not coming?"

"No way, they have that boring assembly today. Besides, its not like I need to, and there is a lot of work to be done".

"As a Datadiver, or as the Vice President of Izuyin Industries?"

"Both. I actually need to go pick up something for the office nearby. Hey, that new Solar Empires game comes out this weekend right? We recently got a good amount of shares in a game company, and I was able to get early store access for me and you guys, so we can beat the lines and get it. Ah, we cant get it for free though, but since we got early store access I figured that was fine right?"

"Sweet! Yeah, thats great! I will let everyone know! See you then, Yuyan!"

"If not sooner, Jeremy!"

Separating on that good note, Yuyan decided to leave the bullies as is for now and go towards the destination he had in mind.

"...when did you schedule this? I don't have it in my logs".

"Ah, to be honest I forgot about it till right now. Come on, lets hurry!"

Yuyan headed out of the alley and hit the streets again, materializing his roller skates once more to get some extra speed. Unfortunately, he had to do something he disliked when he reached the crosswalk and saw it was red and cars were passing in front of him. He had to wait.

"Hey, Yuyan, check it out".

While waiting, it seemed Ace noticed something. Yuyan turned around, and saw a family getting into a Taxicab. The mother opened the door, and a young boy of around seven excitedly went and jumped in first. The Taxi itself though had no driver...but that was not what caught their eye. Yuyan pulled down his goggles, and activated the scanner software as he rushed over there...but it was too late.

All of a sudden, a virus with the appearance of a demon or demonic figure, with horns, pointed tail, claws and such appeared on top of the Taxicab. Before either of the parents could get in, the Taxicab went haywire and closed its doors as it rushed off.

"Don't worry! Datadiver coming through! Ace, grappling hook!"

"Right!"

Yuyan quickly announced himself as he passed the now panicking parents. After all, he didn't really have time to comfort them. Ace meanwhile materialized as a sort of metal, robotic bird that appeared over Yuyan and launched a sort of magnetic disk with a cable attached. It latched onto the back of the Taxi, and Ace gave the cable to Yuyan to hold. Skates were not powerful enough on their own to keep up with a taxi, but they had wheels and so Yuyan could use them plus this cable to not lose any distance.

"Running Boost.exe!"

Yuyan enhanced his physical abilities using his Boost program so he could hold the cable in one hand while he used his free one to pull up a holographic keyboard and begin accessing his programs and hacking in. The virus was still on top of the taxi, and after noticing Yuyan, he launched an attack only for Ace to block it with a high powered defense firewall.

"Damnit! This thing has turned off the cabs connection to the net! We cant access it!"

"And we cannot launch attacks at the virus here because it risks harming the boy, who is in the cab. But if we do nothing, his attacks might damage nearby people. If we disengage, he wont have a priority target and might just attack at random".

The cab suddenly made a sharp turn, and appeared to have the intention of using inertia to throw Yuyan off and into heavy traffic. However, Yuyan was able to adjust the direction of the wheels in his skates to just the right angle to follow him perfectly without that happening.

"...how old was that boy again?"

"I believe he was...seven. Wait, do you plan to..."

"Even if he is not compatible, due to the fact they are still growing and adapting, it is easier for a child's brain to cope..."

"True, but...this is risky".

"If we dont do it, everyone around us will be at risk! Do it!"

"Understood!"

Yuyan took out some sort of card, that actually held large amounts of data on it, and inserted it with his usual energy and force into the slot on the Databand.

"Alright! Access Point: Digital Gate!"

Suddenly, a gate that looked somewhat pixalated opened up in front of the Taxi and Yuyan, and they both ended up speeding right into it. After they entered the internet, the region they appeared in was not a city street but actually a more mountainous area near the volcano, with some forests around.

The taxi seemed to rev up even more though, and several firewalls deployed around it.

"Did that Virus just deploy firewalls?"

"I think it might be sentient. The firewalls also seem to have no way through...except...it looks like there is a backdoor, but...if this is right we have to challange it to a race".

"What? Let me see!"

While still holding on with one hand to prevent the Taxi and the boy, who appeared to be handling entering the internet physically okay, from getting away, he used his free hand to access the logs. Indeed, the firewalls now seemed to be impressive but...based on the code, the backdoor was put in place long before the firewalls...and by someone different. The coding on the door, while solid, was a bit sloppy. The firewalls had enhanced it actually, but because of the way it was coded the backdoor could not be sealed totally so quickly.

"So if we beat it in a race, we gain core access and can defeat it? I know some people do this stuff, but what a rather odd backdoor..."

"Either way, if we do this we can rescue the boy without attacking the taxi or the virus".

"Alright, lets do this!"

Yuyan accessed the backdoor and challenged this virus to a race, while he dematerialized the rollerskates and switched over to a highly advanced two wheeled cycle. It was not really a motorcycle though, which is why Yuyan named it an Accelcycle.

"Challange Accepted! Clear all the gates and beat me to win the race!"

Suddenly, the virus used data to modify the normal taxi into having its own power for a racecar, while Yuyan prepared his own tricks. Even if it was a race, Yuyan expected the virus to try and take him out using attacks, so he deployed several Combat Cubes beforehand and put extra power into his firewalls. The two vehicles lined up on a holographically projected starting line and began to rev up.

"Ready! Set! Go!"

And once the automated announcer voice said go, the race was on. The race was immediately neck and neck with them matching each other's speed, but the Demon appeared on top of hte Taxi and launched an attack right at Yuyan and Ace who was covering him.

Yuyan dodged alright, but only by a margin as he had to keep on the path. In front of them was the first of many rings, or gates, that had been generated, and they all had to be cleared.

But the moment the two approached, the gate began to close. Yuyan however, only smiled more as adrenaline and excitement pumped into his body. That was just the kind of boy he was, he loved this sort of excitement and intensity.

"Run, Boost.exe on the Cycle!"

He ran another Boost program, but this time it was on the cycle and not himself. This boosted hte cycles stats, and let him clear the gate after the virus did but before it closed.

"Gate Cleared!"

Next thing that came up though was a tight corner, which forced them to make an equally tight turn. The virus had a bit of trouble on this one, but Yuyan who had experience, including from just a few minutes ago on his rollerskates, was able to adapt and close some distance.

But to try and get that distance back, it launched two energy balls at them this time. However, Yuyan dodged both of them and accelerated even more.

"Damnit! I hate this! I want to attack back! I want to punch him a whole ton!"

"You say that, but aren't you loving this?"

"Yeah, but I still wanna do it!"

Even though the race was thrilling and exciting, Yuyan was irritated that he had to defend only and couldn't launch an attack of his own. It was not really his style to just endure hits from others. If anything, he liked to be the guy who attacked first.

They turned another corner, and then cleared another gate. Yuyan was managing to close the distance further, evading, dodging, or intercepting the attacks it made. Of course, it only made him more and more irritated as well, but he was still enjoying the race.

And then, they hit a path that was filled with large jagged rocks scattered everywhere, terrible conditions for a vehicle to drive on. And yet, the next gate was on the other side. If one made a detour but the other didn't, and managed to get across without major hinderance, it would be a serious loss of distance.

So both vehicles rushed right in. Of course, the Demon was unaffected by this part, but both Yuyan and the boy suffered from an extremely bumpy ride. And of course, the Taxi was increasing its lead since its driver did not suffer from this, if you could even call that supped up thing a Taxi anymore.

Both vehicles however still had to swerve around the various large rocks that dotted the terrain, knowing that if they crashed into one they would lose a bunch of speed and possibly lose the race. That said, while Yuyan was catching up sometimes, it was not enough for his taste.

However, Yuyan was not going to let this pass so easily, and gave our a shout of spirit.

"Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhrg!"

While shouting with spirit, Yuyan decided to change it up and drove directly into a somewhat tilted jagged rock. At the last second though, he raised the front wheel of his Accelcycle and used Accelboost to get a burst of speed, causing the jagged rock to become his ramp and fly over the rocky terrain. Shooting right over all the obstacles, he managed to get a bit ahead of the Demon even and passed through the gate first.

"Gate Cleared!"

"You damn brat! I wont let you win that easily!"

"It spoke!"

"So it is sentient...Yuyan, if we got it to this state his attacks will come in greater strength now".

"Looks like they already are! Incoming!"

Yuyan dodged as several bolts of lightning came down from the sky to try and strike him, forcing him to evade instead of going in a straight path towards the next gate.

They could also hear the sounds of heavy acceleration behind them, indicating he had made it through the gate also and was now going full acceleration. In truth, a straight path like this played to his advantages over Yuyan, as his vehicle was better for raw speed. And as for the Demon...he was now standing on top of the Taxi wielding a giant sword, and closing the distance.

"Uhh, Ace! More firewalls and shields, now!"

"Understood! Should we maybe..."

"Only as a last resort. It is too risky".

The fact that Yuyan, who usually did not feel threatened at all by risks said that, indicated some serious caution he had. Given how he normally acted, most thought he was a reckless idiot.

But a reckless idiot would not have an IQ of 171, already have several degrees in programming, computers, and engineering, and become a Datadiver at just eleven years old. Although he didn't act like it, Yuyan was actually gifted with intelligence and genius. It was just that he was so energetic and lively all the time, people tended to miss those traits about him.

Its the actual reason he often sleeps in class. He already knows everything they are teaching. Its also why he doesn't actually need to show up for class.

"Gate Cleared!"

[Insert Battle Music Here]

And with that, they turned again and entered a more forested section as they raced towards the final gate. The demon began to slash at Yuyan with that giant sword, trying to cut him and his cycle in half. It launched more slashes then Ace should be able to deal with, and took Yuyan out of the race.

At least, that was what would have happened if a Combat Cube had not appeared and raised its own shield to block the attack. The Cubes, which had done nothing since spawned at the start of the race, appeared from the forest to defend Yuyan. That sword was probably one of the Demon Virus' trump cards, that he kept in reserve for the end. Yuyan had done the same with the cubes.

And then, the virus brought forth another ball of energy...and threw it into the ground. Almost immediately after, a massive earthquake errupted from under them, and along with it the volcano. Lava and rocks exploded from it and began to rain down all over the landscape, including the path in front of them.

It also swung its sword at Yuyan again, but Yuyan deflected it with a sword he summoned from his Armory.exe.

The ground however ended up collapsing right under Yuyan and began to fall into a cavern below. Even Accelboost would not be able to save them, he was going to lose the race and who knew what would happen then.

He didnt actually read would would happen if he lost, only if he won. But of course, that was because he had determined it would be impossible for him to lose.

And it was.

"Alright! No choice, lets do it! Ace, execute Fusion Program!"

And as the Accelcycle fell, Ace flew right down with them as they both began to glow a bright light. Then, it seemed like Ace actually flew into them, and that suddenly they occupied the same space at the same time, before the form morphed into something different as Ace's wings appeared on the cycle, as well as other parts of him, making it even more Aerodynamic then it already was and giving it the ability to fly.

With that, Yuyan and Ace shot right out of the pit and launched themselves back to being neck and neck with the virus. The virus launched another fireball while also swinging its sword, but with the increased speed also came increased mobility. Yuyan dodged all the attacks as he kicked up the cycle into the air, doing a mid air sideways flip as he went over the Demon's head and landed on the other side of the vehicle.

"Accelboost!"

And then he used another Accelboost, and went even faster. The Demon also kicked up his speed, pushing himself and the vehicle to the max. And yet, Yuyan acceled even more. Each one pushing themselves to and past their limits...and they crossed the gate.

"Gate Cleared! Yuyan Izuyin has won!"

"Ace! Now, the backdoor! Before he can do anything!"

Yuyan immediately put the brakes on and came to a half as he deployed his holographic keyboard and began to use the backdoor they just won access to, gaining control of the Virus almost immediately and forcing it to let go control of the Taxi. Ace meanwhile seperated from him and went over to the vehicle, remotely opening the Taxi door. The boy jumped out immediately, and Ace picked him up and flew him back behind Yuyan.

Yuyan meanwhile faced the virus that stared at them. The virus, who gave Yuyan a sharp glare, laughed all of a sudden.

"Ah, that was a good race! You have good spirit kid! I would love to race you again! Now die!"

"Wait wait, check yourself Speed Demon! Isn't your tones and actions contradicting themselves, in fact the words themselves contradicting themselves?"

"Eh...wait...why would...I want to kill someone who gave me so much fun?"

"Please run a debug and Anti-Virus software on yourself, Speed Demon".

As Yuyan had suspected, he felt the difference in codes was strange. And then there was the race. Although the new coding had made him more serious, the more intense the race got the more excited he got. He acted professional and the opposite of Yuyan, but Yuyan could see this guy's personality was clearly like his own.

Yuyan had heard that some bikers had somehow studied and used their collective learnings to create a somewhat crudely written AI for their races, but it went missing. Yuyan tended to pay attention to any news involving Artificial Intelligences, and when he started to suspect it was sentient he came up with the theory that this was the missing AI. Its appearance was a Demon, and given its love for speed since the challenge was a race, it seemed like it would make sense that it was Speed Demon.

In other words, this guy got infected by some Virus and began causing trouble against his will.

"And as for that race...once you recover and are back to full strength, yeah I would love to! Make sure you update your firewalls though! And this time, we do it for fun, not life or death!"

"Does not life or death mean no attacking at all?"

"What? Hell no! Its way more fun if we battle while we race! Just no killing each other off!"

"Ha! I am good with that, I dont like killing anyways! Otherwise, how can you get any fun rivals? Its counter productive!"

"Good...hmmm".

Yuyan for a moment thought that he felt they were being watched, but wasnt sure so he just shrugged it off. Instead, he went over and picked up the boy and gave him a piggy back ride.

"Come on, we better go take you back to your parents".

"Now that I think about it, shouldn't the both of you be in school?"

"Ace, dont bring up negative things like that right after we get over this whole crisis".

"You are right, I should stop expecting you to go to school. Do you even know where it is?"

"Well, yeah..."

"...you dont. Of course you don't. Well, whatever".

And so, Yuyan opened up another Digital Gate and returned them to the real world. And to think, this was just their morning...who knew what else they would encounter today.

Quiet today, Lilith could vaguely hear birds chirping outside, the sun illuminating her room through the white curtain. It was 7am, she always woke up at 7am on weekdays, like clockwork, she didnt even need an alarm. She stretched and yawned quietly, with a hand over her mouth. Her Personal Assistant reminded her, quite unnecessarily, that she had a board meeting today. How could she forget that she had a board meeting, Omnitech Industrials was practically her life. She kicked her feet off the giant four poster bed, and moved the canopy aside. Stifling another small yawn, she made her way over to the closet and rifled through it, grabbing a change of clothes and making her way to the shower.

A cold shower in the morning, short but invigorating, there was no other way to start the day as far as Lilith was concerned. In no time at all, she was dressed and ready to start the day. Her driver would be arriving soon, and she hated to make him wait. Boots stomped noisily through the house, echoing off into the vast expanse that was her estate. She undid all the locks on her front door, sure auto-doors were a thing with advanced bio-metric scanners and whatnot, but as a Datadiver that seemed like tempting fate. Stepping out, and re-locking the door she waved to her driver who quickly opened the car's back door for her.

"I picked you up something to eat," he informed her. They did this tango every weekday, but the driver still said it in a matter of fact manner every day, like perhaps Lilith had forgotten. She ducked into the car, taking her seat and buckling in. Indeed there was a bowl of yogurt, some granola, strawberries and a thermos of tea waiting for her on the small table in the car. She mixed the granola into the yogurt and enjoyed her breakfast. Not long after finishing, they arrived at Omnitech Industrials

---

The board meeting dragged on, as board meetings tended to do. There was nothing important to discuss, it was just an update on how things were going. Financial reports, updates on company projects, stockholder concerns, everything that kept their business lucrative and developing some of the best Apps in the world. Lilith listened to it all attentively, quietly making notes on her Personal Assistant. She didn't say much, there was no need, everything was going well and each individual division had a grasp on their work.

The board filed out of the office, Lilith left last, and headed to her private office near the top of the building. Her schedule was clear for the most part, but it seemed like so was the city. No notices of virus attacks that hadn't already been handled. She contemplated going for a swim, or perhaps simply Datadiving and going for a walk. On quiet days like this, she never knew quite what to do with herself.

It was almost noon, perhaps she'd figure something out after lunch. Getting ready to head out for lunch, Lilith's ears suddenly began ringing with alarms.

The PA system roared to life announcing: Omnitech Industrials is under attack by cyber-terrorists, a lot of something has attempted to breach server one's defenses. Correction, have successfully made their way past the first few set of defenses. Please save and secure important documents in the event of server collapse.

Waiting for George wouldn't help, no doubt he was on the way to his interface already. "Right," Lilith grinned, ran to her terminal, and hopped into the large cushioned bed there. She grabbed a black wire from the terminal, reclined her chair, and plugged it into the base of her neck. Her body went limp as the Datadive began.

She materialized in the same private server as she always did, luckily it also connected directly to Omnitech Industrials servers and she could be on the case sooner rather than later. "Initializing, Technocratic_Angel.exe" Blue shimmering wings of data sprouted from her back, and she flew to face the viruses attacking her livelihood.

The PA had called this a Cyber-terrorist attack, and right they were. The viruses were all humanoid, moving like an army unit. Are they Datadivers? Why would Datadivers be attacking us? "Run Scan.exe" A blue circle appeared around her left eye, quickly analyzing the scenario. They were an A.I. that had distributed its intelligence to make tiny soldiers that were now acting as mal-ware and tearing their way into HER servers.

Omnitech Industrial servers were beautiful, looking like a large futuristic sprawling castle, complete with shining metal ramparts and a large flowing moat that was fed by a waterfall and emptied into a lazily winding river. It was always twilight here, the light cascading beautifully off the walls and water. Lilith found it so tranquil normally, but not today. Today? It was chaos, defensive programs were firing at the invaders, but whoever they were they had came prepared and were quickly tearing through the defenses. It didn't look like any of the Datadivers they had hired as security were still here.

"Hey, jerk-off, kindly bugger off and stay out of my Company's servers!" Her wings folded and she dove into a squad of four of them, spinning in a corkscrew motion. They opened fire, but the bullets clanged uselessly off the feathery data packets she shielded herself with. The soldiers cried out in agony as the wings tore through them, deleting them from existence, as Lilith ascended back off the ground to address the A.I.

"I have NO qualms about deleting a rogue A.I. with a falsified electronic signature!" That seemed to get more of their attention, and they all simultaneously turned on her. "Oh, Shi-" She closed her wings around herself just in time to get blasted with what looked like several Rocket Propelled Grenades. The explosions destroyed a majority of the wing's Feathers, and the program crashed, sending her to the ground.

George's voice crackled into life, "They're converging on you. Are you going to need help? Should I put out a call for more Datadivers?" Lilith rolled off her back and onto her feet.

"While normally, I'd loathe to ask anyone else for help during a Dive, I'd rather not lose my livelihood. Send it out..." Another squad of soldiers rounded a corner and took aim at her. "Re-write.exe!" The floor in front of her suddenly curved upwards, forming an impromptu wall between her and her assailants. "Fun, fun... Re-open Technocratic_Angel.exe, and run Repair.exe" The wings once more sprouted from her back, in their glittery blue splendor. Repair was working, the damage she'd taken in her fall was restoring itself, and her firewalls were back at maximum capacity.

---

An alert went out, to all known Datadivers, asking for help defending Omnitech Industrial's first Server.

While Dolce, who had opted to be a woman today, didn't exactly have the message send to her directly, it was soon echoed to her by Iris, who had in turn been informed by one of the Organization AIs in charge of communications.

"Must have been that stream from earlier"

She had seen the data stream being send out, but it had been too far away to read clearly, and despite the strange nature of the message being send to seemingly random points in the virtual world, she hadn't been curious enough to dive into a deeper virtual layer just to chase it.

Nor had she had the time to be honest. She wasn't exactly free at the moment, trying to narrow down the source of some Ransomware she had encountered earlier. In the end though, while somewhat regretful she couldn't finish chasing the trail, Dolce did activate Keypoint.exe to warp to a landmark near the server in question.

A few minutes later Dolce activated one of the last remaining entrance scanners. Granted, she could probably have entered directly, either by using Ghost.exe or simply through going through the enormous tears in security the attack had left, but she figured she'd rather have Omnitech Industrial aware of her presence on the battlefield.

She didn't even have to wait a minute, before receiving a communications request from Omnitech Industrial. She listened to as they summed up the status of the battle.

"Right", she decided, the line of communication still open. "This sounds like a Deep Dive might be neccessarily. Do I have permission?"

---

Organization Codex
Deep Diving: A more archaic form of Datadiving. The Diver dives beyond the virtual realm that has been crafted for ease of access, and enters the Coding directly. Very few Divers are actually capable of this without going insane. Because it's not just the environment that is reduced to coding. In this state you are nothing more than a program yourself.

Ignoring the obvious drawbacks to most users, this method is very hard to defend against. For a Deep Dive you need both a license, as well as permission from either the people that own the server or the state.

---

Some noise could be heard on the other side of the line.

In the end, a sheepish voice sounded, "None of the people available right now have the authority to agree to that. We could try to patch you through to the CEO, but this might take time."

"Eh. Forget it then. I'm not going to bother someone currently in pitched combat about it. The standard way it is. Fair warning: I'll go seemingly of the grid now."

With that she activated Ghost.exe, and made her way to the current battlezone. Running Scan.exe, a file popped up on the invader's strengths and weaknesses. She realized this might call for AbsoluteBarrier.exe, but decided to try and run Barrier.exe first.

She touched down on the ground on all fours, and with her hands as the epicenter, a barrier began to surge across the floor towards where several soldiers were attacking a wall that had been thrown up with the use of a program. She didn't know if anyone was still hiding behind it, it seemingly having been thrown up a while back already, but decided to better be safe than sorry.

The corners of the barrier surged up, reminiscent of a net. Ofcourse there were no gaps in the barrier though. And soon she had a few of the foot soldiers trapped in a spherical barrier.

"Dodge", Iris shouted.

She went further down the ground, and rolled over, narrowly avoiding a rocket blast from another group of foot soldiers, that had now fixated on her, after she initiated her attack. Using the momentum of the roll to rise on her knee, she held out her right hand to form another barrier to stop further progress on the second group's part, before closing her left hand into a fist, crushing the soldiers she had captured earlier.

The second barrier too, surged forward, and while she did capture a few more soldiers this time, a number of others had evaded. She didn't waste anytime shrinking this barrier down too. With more soldiers converging on her position though, she activated the other features of Ghost.exe. She flew up unhindered, having turned intangible. Setting down on top of one of the walls, and turning of the intangibility option, she instead opened Arsenal.exe and, deciding to take potshots from high up, chose a Sniper Rifle from her armory.

At a run-down apartment, the cybernetic John Doe, D10, leapt into the window and began to pace the floor. The baseboards creak with every step he makes. It was far from ideal in living standards, but it was off the grid, preventing unwanted attention. From his left arm, he began to tug at something, throwing it onto the floor. What they were, was tubes from an IV drip, he had been administered again to the hospital after collapsing rather unceremoniously after his last endeavor.

There was a soft cry from a dark corner of the room beside a scratched up couch, catching D10's immediate attention. As green eyes glimmer in the shadows, a figure darted over to the tubes. The figure, a black and white cat D10 had taken in as a kitten, began to swat at the tube, like it were a toy. Affectionately, D10 had named her Monkey, because... because... it seemed appropriate. D10 paused and squatted down and reached over with his large hand, scratching the feline's head, who chirruped, rolled onto her back, and began to swat at his fingers, causing the tall cyborg to chuckle, a rarity in his life.

He reached over beside the couch and picked up a can of catfood, causing the cat to flip back onto her feet and cry out, and, with his metal nails, cut the top open and presented the food to his feline companion who began to lick at the gravy inside. Always the gravy first, he noted, the chunks of meat after. Cats were funny and picky animals.

This peaceful solace would not last long, however, as a loud ringing enters his skull, causing him to grip his head and groan. The HUD within his helmet lights up, alerting him to some kind of wide scale broadcast. An emergency? Omnitech Industrial was under some kind of attack. Automatically his augmented body traces back the signal, creating a conduit through the datastream, whether he wanted it to or not. The cat hisses and flees back to her corner as the floor behind D10 digitizes and a green gate opens up behind him. He stands up, sighing.

"Fade," he utters, before letting himself fall backwards into the internet stream, where he freefalls inwards deeper and deeper. Using the broadcast as a backdoor, he manages to link into the system, or rather, his body does, and with some resistance from the surge of data, plunges himself through into the server, slamming knee and hand onto the pristine floor of the Omnitech Industrial first server's datascape.

"Detect," he mutters, his voice having some digital reverb. A ping, like green ripples emit out from his body as he slowly stands up. Several figures become highlighted to his HUD, even through the walls. The ones that appear like soldiers soon get red marks on them, identifying them as non-human malicious code. His feet sparking with energy, he dashes off towards the targets. "Purge," he says, reaching to his side, and materializing his datastruct sword. Before the first few could react to his sudden invasion, the sword cleaves through a couple of them with one horizontal swing. Their forms vaporize into pixels, as their code dissolves into nothingness. The others, turn to fire upon him, grazing his armored frame, but find him holding his large sword in front like a shield, dissolving even the shots as they strike against it.

"Hold!" he yells, stomping a foot as a fissure shoots through the floor, chains shooting out from the ground and entangling a few of the soldiers, forcing them violently onto their knees. With no tinge of mercy, D10 swings his sword diagonally, sending out a wave that cuts through their bodies, their forms violently severed and they too fade into nothingness. The brute force nature of his attacks are doing some moderate damage to the server itself, to him, preserving the overall integrity of the system was higher priority than the cosmetic sanctity of the datascape. Of course, it may lead to the defensive code to react negatively to him, but that wasn't exactly something he considered.

With no hesitation, he rushed on, only interested in purging the rest, blade at his side.

(Ah...I got excited again. xD)

"Oh thank you! Thank you thank you thank you!"

This was just one of many more thank yous Yuyan had recieved after returning the boy to his parents. Needless to say, he was probably going to get a huge reward for this. A nice side benefit, getting paid to fight.

"Alright, your welcome. Now, have a good trip!"

Apparently, the father of this family was undergoing some special surgery at a private facility far away, so the whole family decided to go on vacation to be with him. Hence why the kid was not in school today.

"Well, Yuyan. Congrats, you were a super hero yet again".

"Oh Ace, really? A superhero?"

"You litterally just saved a small child, before lunch, by fighting against a super villain, even if he was manipulated into being one. If we dont call that being a super hero, then no one would be one".

"Well...maybe the people who save the world?"

"Give it a week. Wouldn't surprise me if you got involved with that, if only to fight some super tough enemies".

"Ace, you make me sound like a battle maniac".

"You ARE a battle mania...hold it...we just recieved a wideband alert from...Omnitech? Asking Datadivers for help? Their server is under attack by a massive force?!"

"Oh...oh...this sounds like fun" Yuyan said as an energetic and michevous smile appeared on his face. "Lets do this, Ace".

"Hold on, shouldn't you recover more? You used Boost and Fusion already today!"

"I am fine, I have been training. But this is totally a chance for an epic battle and to do some snooping!"

"You know, people might misunderstand your snooping for fun and not business".

"Ehhhh....but shouldn't it be expected I would snoop around such interesting and beautiful servers?"

"There is no way I can talk you out of this can I?"

Ace had already pretty much resigned himself, as Yuyan's smile deepened even further.

"Not a chance! Open the gate!"

==================================================================================================================

As all of this began to occur, it appeared that the AI had more then just foot soldiers now, as a few tanks rolled in with gunships appearing in the air. This one big one arrived especially, and began to open fire on the Datadivers that just arrived by launching an extremely ridiculous amount of missiles that one could only assume was a data attack intended to take them all out, permanently. They were even programmed to evade enemy attacks, track their targets, and if they tried to dodge the missiles, if the missiles detected they were close enough they would detonate if they were even just in the proximity.

As expected of an AI that was attacking Omnitech servers, it was not something to just be underestimated and not have consequences. The gunship began to load up for a second ambush...

"Incoming!"

...when the voice of a certain young boy suddenly came out of nowhere, as if his voice was being broadcasted through the Omnitech PA system. Well, no, that just might be the actual answer.

And then, like a falling meteor, Yuyan with his spear already out pierced right through the large gunship with his speed, and then used that impact to flip himself around and land on his two feet. Normally, such a large and rough collision of data would cause him damage, but it appeared he had used a special program beforehand to absorb the impact.

In other words, he just wanted to make a big over the top entrance. But when he saw the battlefield before him, his mischievous and possibly insane smile appeared.

"Oh Ace, first this morning and now this. Is it my birthday?"

"Yuyan, I have to remind you, neither your body nor your data stores have fully recovered since before. Please do not take any dangerous risks".

Any Datadiver nearby that knew of Yuyan would probably be looking at Ace with sympathetic eyes, knowing that there was no chance it would at least seem like he wasn't taking risks if not actually just taking risks, or towards Yuyan with disbelief, not beign able to picture Yuyan playing it safe, at least safe in the standards of normal people.

However, there was something else that made him a bit upset.

"Hey, I finally get invited to Omnitech's servers, and yet you guys seem to be mucking up what should be a great a beautiful server...such destruction is...unforgivable!"

With those words, Yuyan charged right into the frey...still smiling, despite upset, because that was just who he was, and it fit his nicknames perfectly. Yuyan had two nicknames in the Datadiver world, though no one told them to his face. The first was Yokai Yuyan, Yokai meaning ghosts or spirits or monsters or such, in other words calling him a monster. And the other was Yakuza Yuyan, because of his brutality in combat.

Yuyan ran right up to one of the lower forms, and then kicked him right into one of the stronger ones that was taking aim at D10. At this point, he released the Combat Cubes which then spread out and began giving covering fire to Yuyan and the others. Ace also materialized at this time to help provide air support. Technically, the CCubes did that also, but not as well as Ace.

Yuyan then switched out his spear for a pair of swords, and swung them around in a hurrican like fashion as he charged right into the main force of the enemy. Countless people would see it as reckless, idiotic, and foolish. Yuyan called it Tuesday.

In truth, he was not just making reckless, idiotic movements. He currently was running Boost on himself, and was running the support program called Kaleidoscope, which viewed, monitored, tracked, and reported all sorts of data to him. It was like have multiple eyes see things from multiple angles. Could he technically see everything? No. But it gave him better perspective in a heated battle.

Three more soldiers came up and attacked him as a unit. Yuyan used his first sword to block one, and then his second sword to parry the other in the right angle to block the third attack, before turning around to block the attack from the first attacker who had moved behind him. Yuyan kicked off the ground and jumped over him while he turned mid air and cut through the head, taking him out, before kicking again with high force to launch himself into the other two and cut them in half before they can respond.

"Lily! This is fun! Does this happen a lot? if you threw parties this whole time and never invited me once, I will be upset even though I am going to get more enemies then you once again".

Throwing some banter into his question which had a 50% chance to be a joke, 50% chance to be serious, Yuyan moved around like a bullet, going all over to fight. That said...something was starting to concern him, starting to when the fifth group he attacked somehow were adapting to his tactics.

"Hey, what the hell? Are these things some sort of Hivemind? The ones I never fought before seem to be learning from the ones I defeat".

"Indeed, all of these attackers appear to be created by a single AI, and they are likely sharing intelligence".

At those words, Yuyan got a mischievous idea once more. As he fought, a holographic keyboard appeared in front of him as he dismissed one of the swords, and he began hacking one handed at an alarming speed.

"Yuyan...what are you doing?"

"Oh, well normally hacking into a Hivemind is pointless, since they would realize the change in data and negate it, and then adapt. But, I am curious what would happen if false data about our combat styles were leaked through these same channels...and, done".

"You know if they were watching, they might have anticipated this".

Indeed, nothing seemed to change about them, and five even came after Yuyan, antagonized by the attempted hack. However, Yuyan charged into them and then cut all five down at once.

"Also, what the hell! Didn't I repeatedly tell you to take it easy?! If you keep moving around like this using Boost, its going to hurt, you know that right?!"

"Relax, it will be fine! And this is fun!"

"I swear one day you are going to kill yourself".

Yuyan and Ace chatted like this as Yuyan jumped into another fold of enemies near Dolce, his CCubes covering the ones that tried to attack in his blind spots while Yuyan attacked the main group.

He really does love to fight, which should become even more apparent as he destroyed the last one with a headbutt. And then...

"Hey, so...what are these guys after anyways Lily?"

More than foot-soldiers were starting to roll in, the heavy artillery was beginning to show up, determined to get something off this server. "What do you think it's after?" George queried after informing Lilith about the newly arrived hostiles.

"Don't know, don't care." Lily soared through the air, high above the enemy, dropping Feathers the entire time she did until finally her wings couldn't support her and she started to fall towards the ground. Falling with closed eyes, enjoying that weightless sensation and the way the air seemed to cradle her as she did.. Calmly she exhaled, the ground rapidly approaching as she counted down from five. Then she opened her eyes, just in time to see thousands of data packets returning to her and tearing apart anyone in their way.

Now that her wings had the Feathers required to generate lift, she billowed them out and rode the sudden gust of wind they caught back into the sky. George's voice updated her again, "Nice! You terminated eight of the soldiers, two tanks, and heavily damaged a third. The A.I. was entirely surprised, it didn't even THINK to dodge it. Oh! It looks like help has arrived. Two unidentified signatures, they don't seem related to the hostiles."

Lilith clicked her tongue, "Unfortunately A.I. tend to learn, I doubt I can use that strategy again. Inform the new arrivals what we're fighting and the legal repercussions of digging too deep into our servers." George must have said something that indicated he would, but Lily was suddenly preoccupied by a fusillade of missiles from a few different Gunships. Her wings folded in, dropping her down a bit and the missiles re-directed course to chase her down. "Ah, I see. Running Scan.exe." A blue ring around her eye quickly read through the missile data. "Opening Re-write.exe, let's change these bad boy's target."

The missile shot past Lily, ignoring her entirely, a few even dodging around her to avoid pre-mature detonation. Several tanks on the ground were blown out of existence, "You know, for an artificial intelligence, you're not very intelligent."

"Lily, Yuyan's here." As if she needed to be informed, his voice echoed throughout the server and he collided with one of the Gunships that had targeted her. She made a sour face, there was no need for him to access their PA systems. Nevertheless, she was happy to have him here, whatever the AI was after, it couldn't have been good. "Lily, one of the two unidentified arrivals is causing heavy collateral damage!" Lilith made an exasperated face, "Then tell him to stop!"

"I cant reach him, he's refusing to open a line of communication." Lilith's exasperation turned to annoyance, looking about for the source. She was about to open a program to find him, but it became quickly evident. Next to Yuyan was a sword-wielding diver she'd never seen before, and his wild cuts were tearing through valuable company infrastructure. "George, I found him. Take a log of him, we'll deal with it later. Bigger fish to fry."

Like always, Yuyan seemed to be enjoying himself far too much, calling this PR disaster a party. Though, I suppose its not HIS company under attack by cyber-terrorists... With that thought she grit her teeth and resolved herself to try harder. She sent a signal to the only free server in Omnitech Industrials, and it began to fervently bombard a nearby gunship with pings, random data, requests to access it, and the like. The DDoS started to slow the gunship down until it was barely moving, apparently being a distributed entity made this method particularly effective.

She dashed through the sky, landing on the gunship and folding her wings defensively about her like extra firewalls. "Opening Scan.exe, and Attempting Hijack.exe." Things were easier to take control of if you knew what to look for. Typically you'd start from the pilot seat, but these appeared to be some sort of drone and she had to start from the center of it.

"Hey, so... what are these guys after anyways Lily?"

The cockpit of the gunship turned blue, now fully under her control. "Yunyan, If I had ANY clue, we wouldn't even be here right now. We'd have extracted the data, and crashed the server ourselves. Hell, for all we know it's just here to bait us into crashing the server..." The LAST thing she needed were rogue Datadiver running around the chaotic battlefield, potentially stealing sensitive company data.

On her orders, the hijacked gunship started lighting up the ground soldiers and tanks. The airships were up to her. "Shut down Technocratic_Angel.exe, Run Technocratic_Demon.exe." Horns like a bull grew from her head, along with a maw of razorsharp fangs, and wicked curving claws. She seemed to get slightly bigger too, her clothes straining against an increased musculature. Then Lily leaped, crashing into a nearby gunship and tearing into it while growling with blind rage. It began to crash, its flight systems compromised, and she leaped again. Repeating the process over and over until the program's failsafe would turned it off.

"Oi, oi, oi"

Dolce sweatdropped while looking at the battlefield from her location above. The AI didn't seem to have detected her again, as she had still been setting up her rifle, after releasing her intangibility. Ghost.exe was still running though, which made it harder to find her either way.

Back to the matter at hand though. She was about to give up on her sniper rifle, deciding to use barrier.exe to lessen the damage the armoured Datadiver was doing---

(She remembered reading about him once in the Organization's Files, but couldn't remember his name for the life of her)

---When Miss Rhorer decided to switch programs.

Dolce found it an ill thought out move of her. Especially since she was only taking out flight control, leaving the bulk of the programming intact. She wasn't even running software to interrupt the enemy programs on her attacks.

The result was a large number of ships about to crash into the serverscape. Likely to do a lot of damage.

Dolce had only been notified of this happening by the first one crashing into the floor, and was too late to stop the second one's descent. Starting from the third one though, she enveloped using Barrier.exe, and crushed it with no time to waste.

Still, she almost didn't catch the fourth ship due to rate Rhorer was going through them. She pinged Iris, and told the AI to ready the connection to her personal AB server.

10 seconds later the connection went through, which was just in time too, for it allowed her to use AbsoluteBarrier.exe to catch the next ships simultaneously. She left the last ship attacked to Rhorer, who seemed to be coming out of her program-induced battle high at this point, a minute having passed.

This decision was further cemented by the fact that her actions had drawn the attention of the AI in charge of the army, several dozens of missiles coming her way. Luckily, she still had AbsoluteBarrier.exe running. There's no evading an attack at the speed the barrier was enveloping them completely after all, which was significantly faster than the normal Barrier.exe.

Then came the seeming next stage of the virus' attack. Several humongous data chains burst out from the ground, where some of the shots of the tanks had landed, and started attacking the buildings.

Dolce just stared for a short moment.

"Oh, HELL NO", escaped her mouth. She had enough presence of mind not to vocalize the string of curses going through her mind while Yuyan was within hearing range. Advanced though the boy might be, he was still an eleven year old. She was aware age was just a number in some cases, Yuyan's probably included, but Dolce's aunt, may her soul burn in hell forever, had hammered manners around kids into her thick skull, and it was one of the few things Dolce could agree with her with.

But still...

Why did it have to be tentacles?

Well, she had been about to teasingly call Yuyan a Scaredy Cat, and was planning to ask if he minded playing messenger to Rhorer for a bit, to ask if a Deep Dive would be possible...

Yeah...

Seemingly...

This was karma wasn't it?

Either way, aside from her freezing up at a second at the sight of the tentacles, she didn't allow it to stop her for long. She was still Quality after all. Besides she'd been through worse. Far worse.

That was what she was trying to convince herself of at least. It was true she didn't completely freeze up, but her attacks had clearly dulled since the tentacles appeared.

Reacting passively to the other divers that arrived, he kept focused on the malware that remained. Their presence at least meant he didn't have to rely on that program. His blade surged as he spotted a tank-like construct, realizing that a blast from it, even for him would really make for a bad time. Turning quickly, feet sparking, he rushed towards the tank keeping his head down to make himself harder to lock onto. As the construct tried to orient itself, firing off a few shots, each missing as D10 strafes the blasts, until a loud shriek is heard as his blade meets the side of the vehicle, sparks flying as the blade sears through its hull, leaving a fine dissolving gash in it. With back turned to the vehicle, the vehicle explodes behind D10, causing his silvery hair to flail. He then proceeded to attack more of them, cutting down several more soldiers that remained that unfortunately got in the way.

Despite the escalation, the virus didn't seem to be getting that much stronger. This was taking a while, was the malware numbers over efficiency? Delaying for something? A decoy? Was there even a core process somewhere, or just a series of small payload clusters? Considering this was a military themed infection, there is the possibility of a ranking officer.

"Detect, depth scan, seek core resonance..." he began, sending out another ping, but he was cut off by fire from above, a blast from a missile grazing him and sending him skidding to the side. He immediately jerks around to look upwards at a gunship, around he could see that some of the others were exploding from the admin datadiver. The gunship fires, and he attempts to dodge to the side, but in proximity the missile explodes, sending him skidding to the side again, his armor dented now. He swings a ranged slash at the gunship but it dodged, doing a barrel roll as if to mock him. Slightly agitated the swordsman gives out an audible "hmph!" No matter what, the rockets will explode, and his ranged attacks were too slow. But maybe... despite having no flight process, he did have one thing in his arsenal: reckless ingenuity.

He stops, loosens his body, exhales softly, and takes a series of shallow breaths, almost meditative in his stillness. The gunship locks onto him and fires again a volley of missiles at him. This time he does not dodge, with a sharp exhale, time slows to the swordsman, his visor lighting up. As the first missile nears reaching him, he jumps towards it, and one foot after another, he starts to hop from one missile to the other, each one exploding seconds behind him, the blast launching him to the next, until he reaches the gunship, caught off guard by this crazed yet graceful charge, and with a slash, he cuts through the aircraft, latching onto it until jumping off before it explodes, positioning himself so the shock sends him hurdling to the next one.

"Detect, broadcast results to server administrator."

"Hmmm....so what your saying is, if we find out what they are after, we can figure out who sent them a lot easier so we can go there and punch their servers!"

The wording was definently weird, but at hte core Yuyan was completely right. Furthermore, he already seemed to be up to something. In fact, Ace came and began to analyze the trajectory of all routes taken by the AI in order to determine a specific region they might be headed in. That would at least narrow down the possibilities of what they were after.

And then, in reaction to what Yuyan had Ace do, several gunships fired missiles, or at least programs that looked like missiles, right at him with the intention of fragging his data across the entire net. Yuyan raised his Shield, and dodged as many as he can as a precaution. That said, he ended up using some of the missiles as footholds while dodging, using his shield to prevent activation.

"Yuyan...do I have to remind you..."

"Relax, relax. It will be fine right?"

"Alert! Alert! Lily! You've been wormed! It looks like some of the shots that missed all of us at the beginning contained worm programs, so when they were shot into your server, the worms began digging while everyone was distracted!"

Yuyan, hearing this, almost looked back, but then he sensed an attack incoming and dodged right as some commando looking like person with a rapier drawn came out to attack Yuyan, and then tried to stab through him right when he dodged. Yuyan adjusted his body to dodge, but instead of his usual counter attack he hopped a few steps back.

"This guy...is strong!"

A smile appeared on his face at those words. He already knew this attacker was different from the others, far more advanced. He wondered if it was the leader, or maybe they had several elites scattered within the normal programs. Make everyone thing they are all normal and the same, so they get surprised and taken out by the elites.

Whoever the opponent was, they did not seem like the ordinary, typical type. No, whoever made this enemy had creativity and ingenuity, Yuyan was sure of it.

Well, they did break into an Omnitech server after all, so perhaps that should have been clear from the start.

The enemy came after Yuyan, using a Rapier in one hand and a sword in the other. He shot at Yuyan while charging, forcing him to dodge and use shield as he closed in...no, as he had already closed in and then attacked with a Rapier. However, during one of Yuyan's dodges, a CCube appeared and blasted it, but he was able to use his Rapier to absorb some of the attack. Yuyan took out a broadsword and swung it downwards, but he was able to manipulate his Rapier and deflect the blow.

But Yuyan used that to move under him, and with the full power of Boost, headbutt him right into a jaw which acted as an uppercut of sorts. He then used his feet to kick into his chest, while also using that momentum to propel himself away as more CCubes appeared and began attacking at all sides.

But he cut through all the attacks and tried to stab right through Yuyan before he landed...but Yuyan had already taken a throwing knife out using Arsenal.exe and threw it into his core.

"Whew! Are there any more like that?"

"Please remember Yuyan that you, like all Datadivers, have a limit on how much data manipulation you can perform. GIven the sheer number of enemies, not just you but several others at least should start to be feeling the affects of large data usage over a short period of time".

"Relax relax, you worry too much".

"You worry too little!"

And then, Yuyan looked over to where the Worms had inserted themselves.

"So, Lily, Ace, you sure you don't have any ideas of what they are after yet? What are the results of the scan?"

Red, it was all red. Hatred of her parents, annoyance at being attacked, the rage of being targeted by a some kind of scummy hacker. Lilith's id was a scary place and once unleashed upon the gunships it proved quite destructive. Sending them plummeting into the server without care for where or how they landed. It was only thanks to one of the assembled Datadivers that she didnt cause more damage than she'd prevented.

She snapped out of it, her program having run its course, to survey the damage that had been dealt. Her senses were regained just in time to receive a report of something large at the edge of the server by another foreign element. Perhaps the core of the A.I. that was attacking the server? "Running Technocratic_Angel.exe," her wings snapped open, and she took further into the sky as the gunship she stood on crashed into the ground. A humanoid robot lumbered in the distance, about fifteen feet in height, with a laser cannon in one hand a shield in the other. It looked like a popular anime Lilith used to watch as a child. She readied herself to fly at it when something stole her attention away.

"Alert! Alert! Lily! You've been wormed! It looks like some of the shots that missed all of us at the beginning contained worm programs, so when they were shot into your server, the worms began digging while everyone was distracted!"

"Tch, if it isn't one thing, it's the next. Open ten instances of Search.exe, we're searching for malicious worms, they should be quite obvious. Run Find.exe, searching for foreign elements that don't match what we've encountered so far." Eyebots scoured outward in different directions, hastily rooting through the server for their prey.

George's voice chimed in, "Three eyebots went down, there are elites among the enemy, hidden in plain sight. It appears that the er... the mech in the distance is the core of the virus. Several worms have been detected further in, they're reach uh... sensitive data." Lilith launched into action, she knew what George was implying about the worms. Sensitive data was liable to have them in a court case if it came to light. "Lock-on.exe running, route through the eyebots, and.... Firing." Packets of data flew from her wings, unerringly seeking out their targets with fervor.

"George, alert the assembled Datadivers to the Mech at the edge of the server. It is top priority, and will end a majority of the assault if fell, but warn them about it's... strength" Lilith was growing tired, the AI was smart, using numbers to exhaust them before actually moving forward. However she also couldn't afford to surrender here, and as such she pushed herself to her limits. "Copy.exe opening." A second Lilith appeared next to her, complete with Technocratic_Angel.exe running.

Lilith gasped in breath, fighting to stay conscious, "You take worms 1-5, I'll get worms 6-10." The copy of Lilith nodded and shot off into action, while the first mustered the last reserves of energy she had and followed suit.

While all this was going on, Dolce was freaking out, badly. Because! Tentacles! On one hand, a small part of her mind whispered, it would be all to easy for her to take care of them with an attack, but on the other... trauma is usually not sensible. In the end, she just hightailed out of the area affected, leaving the virtual appendages to the other datadivers.

Perhaps it was cowardly, but she figured she might as well be able to do some good in other parts of the server, than stay in that particular area and remain useless.

At that point, Iris notified her that someone from Omnitech Industrials was trying to get through to her. Apparently the construct holding the core of the virus was discovered. She strained her eyes and could just about make out a giant robot, as they had said.

"Oi, what's this? Are we in a cartoon or something?"

As she vocalized this, she felt shudders run down her spine. It was as if millions of fanatics suddenly roared in outrage, but then became eerily silent, plotting for her demise.

She shrugged it off in the end, deciding to prioritize staying alive now over any possibly made-up signs of more distant imminent attempts on her life.

She ghosted her way over there, ignoring the grunts trying to shoot her down, her intangibility making it a futile effort.

Wolfensohn Residence

“I’m home mother!” The young voice of Catarina rang through the house as she returned home after a rather long college orientation. It was a bit boring but it was also pretty infomative. And she had time to buy some food on the way back. “Ah! Welcome back my sweet girl. Finally came back from that orientation? You took quite a bit...Don’t tell me you stopped by at one of those fast food joints young lady. That stuff will make you as big as a whale.” Her mother called out from the living room as she slipped out of her shoes.

”Mother! Of course not, the orientation took longer than expected with the amount of people there. I ate at a restraint because I got hungry after a few hours...” She says as she stuffs a bag inside her jacket. “I’m kidding dear, it’s good that your eating. You always forget to eat dear, if you keep forgetting to eat your going to be as skinny as a stick. Always working on that computer of yours.” Her mother laughed as Catarina laughed in response.

”I am eating well mother, no need to worry. I always remember to eat while working, I can’t work well on an empty stomach anyways! Is dad at work? I thought he was going to take it easy?” She asked as she began to walk through the hallways of her home heading for her room at the back of their home. “You know your old man, stubborn as a mule. He says ‘if he ain’t feeling sick he can work’ and refuses to be reasonable sometimes...But that’s why I love him. Because he works hard.”

”Calm down mom...I’m not interested in love yet. And all your romance makes me want to hurl rainbows.” She joked a bit as her mother laughed. “One day dear, I will be laughing!”

Eventually, Catarina entered her room and closed her door. Locking it behind her as she got to her desk and plopped down at her computer. She opened up her jacket and pulled out a package and opened it up bringing out a can of soda along with a burger and fries. Fast food...Delishish and quick food.

She opened up her can of soda with a satisfying hiss as she booted up her desktop computer, burger set to the side and already munching on some fries waiting for the computer to boot up. Once don, her room was encased by the virtual light as she leaned back in her chair and opened up her browser ready to enjoy her favorite pastime. Web surfing.

Searching up random videos, looking through marketplaces, she was busy chomping and drinking away when she noticed an alert pop up on the corner of her screen. ‘Requesting Datadivers To assist in emergency situation’ in nice bold letters. Of course, she was one. Getting rid of viruses helped protect the things she loved. However she had to do one thing first.

She chewed down on her burger like a proffesional speed eater and quickly stuffed her face with fries before washing it all down with soda and got rid of the evidence inside the trash bag under her bed. Once she was done she stretched her hands out. “Right...Guess it’s time to do this again...” She sighed as she stared at her screen and like that her body went still as her consciousness faded into the virtual world.

Virtual World

She was Datadiving to where the emergency was taking place. Omnitech Industry’s first server...Just have to register as a friendly entity and...She was there, a distance away from the ongoing conflict but good enough for her. ”Program Execute...Battlemode.Exe...Mission start!” She activated a program as her body was wrapped in particles to hide her transformation and more importantly her real life identity.

Her hair grew longer, her sweater was gone in exchange for a black jacket and far less covered clothes. Her face had a more serious tone to it, and held two swords in both her hands. ”Let’s go...” She pumped herself up as she rushed forward appearing on scanners no doubt traveling at high speeds. Find the virus, and eliminate with caution. Like a soldier! Only she was a virtual warrior.

She leapt into the air and appeared in the sky as she noticed other datadivers already fighting. Of course...Who else went the request to destroy said viruses?...With that captain obvious moment out of the way she raised both her swords and did a quick observation. Gunships?...Tanks!? Soldiers!? This was like being in a dang war movie. Never mind that...She targeted the first thing that was close to her, one of the gunships in the air.

She spun around with her her blades in hand and cut one gunship into three pieces before ultimately landing near one of the tanks and slashed the barrel as she made her fiery entrance.

D10 stopped for a moment, the dissolving forms of the datastruct soldiers and vehicles that he had taken out around him. His armor was dented, cracked slightly, and it was clear that even he was feeling the wear from the ongoing fight. If it were just himself, he'd have activated... it and taken the pain alone. But he didn't honestly know what'd happen with others around. He looked back to the other datadivers, gauging their condition.

Then he noted a new arrival that just logged in. There was a familiarity to it, at least in some regards. Long silvery hair, datastruct blade, another melee type. Then he noted her attire, and quickly looked away. I can't believe this. Seeking a distraction, he saw the one who went into some kind of berserk rage earlier splitting off a copy to battle the worms. Readying his blade to assist, he was cut short when a direct line of communication went to him.

"The core of the infection appears to be the mech in the distance, but it is-,"

"Understood, thank you for the target confirmation," D10 says, cutting off George, before taking off after it in a mad dash, blade held to his side with both hands.

The mech naturally reacted to his approach, drawing out a massive cannon and begins firing upon him, big bursts of energy flying out and striking the ground around him. He barely dodges each shot, with great effort to keep from getting mangled by its powerful shots. There was no way he'd keep this up. He then swung his sword, sending out a cutting wave through the next shot, the beam split into two directions as the shot hits to each side of him, and the wave continued, until it lodged itself into the barrel. The mech took a moment to look at what had happened to its gun, trying to remove the obstruction only to sear its fingers. Narrowing its glass eyes, it set aside its cannon and instead held out its hand manifesting a massive datastruct blade of its own, and grabs its hilt, reading to use it on the cybernetic swordsman.

D10 looks up as the mecha overshadows him, taken aback by the sheer size of both it and its blade, and reacted quickly before the strike could hit, raising his blade in a defensive position in front of his body, causing the two blades to connect with a loud resounding crash. Mass wins in this duel of blades, as green and purple sparks fly in all directions sending the swordsman skidding backwards, his feet themselves sending up sparks as he tries to stay on his feet and regain composure. In the end he buckles over, grabbing the floor with his free hand to stop himself, and with a deep breath, he takes off again at the mech, which only draws to swing again. Another loud strike, and D10 is sent skidding again, and a pained feeling in the entirety of his body made it clear that he couldn't keep doing this.

Use it.

D10's ears began to ring as his helmet's visor flickered, along with his blade. He fell to one knee, holding his head, his breathing labored. Bits of light began to leak from the cracks in his armor, as something was prepared to happen with his body. Defiantly, however, he punches the ground with his free hand. No. Pushing himself back to his feet he dissipates the effect, and then charges at the mech once again, gripping the hilt of his sword with only one hand this time.

With another swing, there was yet another clash, but this time, something was... different. D10 instead held the blunt side of his blade itself with his free arm, bracing himself against the swing, his armor cracking more severely against the strain, and the sword itself buckled, obviously on its last legs as well. With a sudden twist of his blade and a nudge, he pushed the mech's arm aside with a rough parry, the mech's glassy eyes widening. D10's sword dissipates into particles, no longer able to to maintain itself after all the beating it and its owner had taken.

"Hold!" he yelled out, as datastruct chains shot up from the ground, wrapping around the mech's arm and pulling it to the ground. The mech nearly fell as it was pulled onto a knee, clearly unprepared for a desperate maneuver. He knew it wouldn't last forever, but he felt it would last long enough for the others. The mech looks at its arm, and tries to pull free, then, narrowing its eyes, it glared directly at the swordsman and, with its free hand, swung a massive fist at him, striking him and knocking him onto the ground, and skidding some before coming to a stop, and there he stayed, laying on the ground.

The moment Yuyan saw that beauty, he could not help but grin eagerly.

After all, it was a giant mecha. Every boy's dream and desire was to fight inside a mecha against another mecha. It was like a dream come true.

"Ace, deploy Gigas Machina!"

"Unfortunately, we do not have enough data remaining for that to be possible".

"Ehhhhhhhh?!"

"You will have to fight him without the Gigas Machina".

"Damnit! Why, why does it have to be when I am so low!"

"I would recommend you pull back instead, and let your data levels recharge..."

"No way! If I cant use Gigas Machina, then I will just have to do this another way! Run Arsenal.exe, and load in Combat Boots 4!"

"Wait...four?! Are you serious?! But the risks involved with that are..."

"Do it and warn everyone then! I am going in!"

Suddenly, Yuyan's normal combat boots seemed to glow and changed into what appeared to be more stylish, more advanced, and clearly special combat boots. As he began to run forward, it seemed like every step of his had more force in it. Not just the boost, but it seemed like there was an extra kick to it. The mecha, as if sensing something wrong, tried to mobilize but was still being held down by D10.

Meanwhile, Ace contacted Lilith in a panic.

"Lilith! Yuyan is doing it again! He is ignoring logic and reason and doing things his own way, again! We had an intense fight earlier today though, so this time he is low on data! Unlike the rest of you, who only just started this fight and have data to spare, his levels are lower then all of you! Please talk some sense into him!"

Unfortunately, it was a bit late for that. Thankfully, D10 had it locked down so...

"Creeeeeeeeeeeek.....clackshhhhh!"

Or, he did have it locked down anyways, but realizing its limited mobility was a hinderance, it seemed to break off its own arm in protest of D10's move! No, it was not just that, the arm that had been chained still seemed to be active, and used thrusters built into it to launch itself right at D10 as it deployed a laser blaster on that arm to shoot at him at the same time!

It appeared that D10's hold had been so successful, the robot had decided sacrificing its own arm was better then taking the time to free itself. And perhaps he also just really hated D10 for some reason.

But now free, it moved and attacked Yuyan with all the weapons it had available to it, including two gattling laser cannons, four rocket launchers, a speargun, and the arm it was currently regenerating from spare data it had available. The regeneration was almost instant.

But Yuyan just utilized Double Boost along with his new boots, evading the attacks...though, the people behind him such as Catarina, and even Dolce on some angles, might not be so lucky. D10 was certainly in an even more and more precarious situation with each step Yuyan took closer to both him and the mecha as he excitedly ran towards the mecha to fight.

And then, Ace finally got around to warning the other Datadivers as Yuyan leapt into the air.

"Everyone, stay clear of the mech! Yuyan is about to use a databurst attack on the mech! Please, do not get caught within a blast radius. To quote an old game from the end of the twentieth century, 'Nuclear Launch Detected'!!"

And then, Yuyan dropkicked the mech at the fastest speed he could move...and when the boot made contact with the mech, it was like a massive explosion went off at the impact site on the mech.

Clearly, QUITE CLEARLY, Yuyan has gotten far too excited now to be pulling off dangerous and risky stunts like that. He was almost blown away himself, but then...he programmed a foothold to generate behind him mid fall, and used that to bounce right back at the mech to deliver the attack again...even though he himself had to be taking some damage each time he used this attack, considering he also had to be at point blank range to do it.

Of course, Yuyan was a pure genius for being both able to program a foothold mid battle, and for designing such a powerful weapon, but it made you wonder...how could such a genius also be such a fighting lover? It truly was an odd sight.

But anyways, he unleashed another powerful attack. The mecha stood strong against it still though, but due to the two databurst attacks that happened at point blank range...the mecha ended up having its armor take critical damage.

...but someone should probably stop Yuyan before he seriously injures himself or runs out of data...

The worms ended up being less of an issue than Lilith would've thought, and a god-send in disguise. The eye-bots found them almost immediately, and she rewrote two of them to infect the mecha. With the worms handled, more pressing matters needed to be attended to. Her copy went to clean up the tentacles, a job Lilith was VERY glad she didn't have to do herself. Keeping track of a copy of herself was VERY disorienting, so she shut it down as soon as it had finished.

That's when a half-naked datadiver appeared on her server, less than a few meters away from Lilith, tearing into a tank with her datastruct blades. "Oh come ON! Have some class, children come here!" Why did people always feel the need to dress skimpily on the internet? Lilith would never understand the appeal.

With a snort of contempt, she launched herself into the air, soaring over to her commandeered gunship. The mecha was advancing, before long it'd be destroying her beautiful castle. One of the unregistered Datadivers was "SWORDFIGHTING IT!? Why are all of you so reckless!" Speaking of reckless Yuya-

Ace interrupted her thoughts, "Lilith! Yuyan is doing it again." "Typical..." With a sigh, she watched him recklessly charge the mecha and use one of his stronger programs, one that damaged him as well. She pointed the gunship at the Mecha, giving it orders to attack from a safe distance.

Her wings folded and she dive-bombed to D10, "Opening Re-write.exe, we're going to need cover." The floor peeled upwards, creating a wall between them and the explosions Yuyan was causing. The mecha's detached arm slammed into the wall, but the wall held. "I swear, if one more Datadiver dies on my server we're going to have a publicity nightmare. I'm running a repair program on you, sit tight for a moment." Her hand glowed with an emerald light, and she placed it on D10, restoring his armor to its original condition.

She turned back to the half-naked newcomer, eyeing her blades carefully. "Copy.exe" She handed the newly constructed datastruct blade to D10. "Here, this will have to do for now. Help me take this mech down before Yuyan kills himself."

Lilith's body ached, she was exhausted and rapidly running through data, but she couldnt stop yet. Not when their was still a hostile entity in her home away from home. Mustering up the last vestiges of her strength, she flew to Yuyan, snatching him out of the sky. "I dont want to have to explain to your gramps how you killed yourself on my behalf. Im transferring the last of my data to you." She opened up the repair software, sending all the data she could spare to Yuyan, keeping only enough to allow her to remain airborne.

Worms burst from the ground, digging into the Mech through the chinks in its armor, and the mech suddenly became a lot less capable. Lilith threw Yuyan at the Mech and landed, firing off the last of her free data into the Mech as Feathers. Her wings flickered and dissipated, the data required to keep them intact no longer there.

Dolce, in comparison to the other data divers, was still running on a rather full tank, so to speak. Around 70%? The standard Barrier.exe cost barely anything, and while AbsoluteBarrier.exe cost a lot more, most of that was offloaded on the server dedicated to the program. Ghost.exe actually lessened the amount of data manipulation, since one didn't have to worry about having to interact with the programs that made up the cyberscape, and Arsenal.exe took equally little, even less due to the fact she didn't get to fire a shot before having to resort to using her barrier to catch the airships.

This was still discounting that Dolce was more of a virtual being than a human at this point, in part due to the experiments performed on her, and having been in cyberspace for decades, she learned all the tricks to lessen it even more.

That's not to say it didn't have it's drawbacks. While her overall data usage limit was high, she was only able to use programs that required very little at a time. At least without outside aid, like the setup she had for AbsoluteBarrier.exe.

Where other people were metaphorically able to fight a fire with a firehose, she was a sprinkler. A damn good one, but still.

But we're digressing.

When the new Datadiver appeared, Dolce originally thought little of it, at least until she got a good look at her. Dolce recognized her from some earlier battles, and, even in a female mindset, was as appreciative of the eye candy as ever. That's not to say that was all the Datadiver in question was good for, but it definitely stood out.

Dolce reinforced the wall Rhorer had put up with a triple Barrier.exe, and reran it when it's attack broke through the first two layers.

When Rhorer was done transferring her remaining data Dolce took her turn. She decided to give around 20% of her remaining data to the impatient Yuyan, which would equal a roughly 60% filled tank for the common datadiver. Then Rhorer threw the boy at the Mech.

Dolce backed away further to give Yuyan space for his attacks, the currently vulnerable Rhorer likely following.

In case the girl did, Dolce would offer to transfer 10% of her data to Rhorer, likely bringing her back up to a third of her data limit. She'd also try to get to D10, hoping to give him another 5%, the amount being less due to the fact he was having less trouble with his reserves.

In the end, if this chain of event finished as she had hoped, she would have around 35% date usage left.

She decided to use Ghost.exe again as a precaution, as she approached the place Yuyan and the Mech where fighting. The stray thought of 'Pretty sure this must be one Yuyan's wet dreams come true', went through her mind for a bit, but she didn't pay it much attention, aside from a small amount of amusement.

If Yuyan would need someone to bail him out, she was on standby. Ghost.exe was definitely useful here, even if using it on another person would likely strain Dolce's Limited Data Flow.

After cutting the barrel of the tank in half making sure it could no longer fire its deadly main cannon, Catarina quickly spun around keeping a tight grip of her swords and finished off the armored vehicle by cutting in half vertically in three different pieces. Of course her appearance gathered attention by fellow Datadivers and the hostile viruses masquerading as an armed force.

The one who seemed to really take her in was a woman who was quite vocal. Especially about her appearance. Class? A black jacket, well designed shorts, long silver hair...She had the cool class certainly. Besides, kids do not pay attention to women at all. Put a giant Mech in front of them and they would ignore everything to go after it. Sure...She was wearing far less than everyone herebut was that really a problem?...Probaly...Maybe...

Getting back to work as the others seemed to go after the Mech, she decided to remain behind. With them being ignored they would simply do what they came her to do. Mess up the server horribly. As a few virus soldiers turned their attention on her she quickly darted around the wrecked tank and along with other wrecks she used cover to quickly close the distance against the soldiers, easily dicing them and their weapon into digital pieces.

Of course her ears picked up a voice, unknown to her it was from Ace giving them a warning to remain clear from the Mech. She was of course remaining clear of it while everyone focused on it and not the smaller more numerious foes still rampaging around. And soon enough one soldier possibly better coded and programmed suddenly decided to combat her in close range. Holding an officers sword she immediantly recognized it as one of the elites. Stronger enemies that for certain, but they were simply a cut above the cannon fodder.

The soldier’s blade clashed her her blades as she was in a duel. Made more dangerious by the occasional grunt taking a few shots in her direction eliminating an chance for a counter attack and forcing her to ignore her main target in return for cutting down the nuisances.

”I have no time to waste! Program set! Conjure.Exe! Engage!” She called out as ten blades materialized behind her. She rushed forward putting her weight behind her swing forcing the soldier elite to block. Just as he did the blade behind her circled around and she willed them to impale the fighter from behind with five blades, the remaining five flew around her to take out five more grunts. She was nearly done with the many soldiers, only a few more to wrap up.

This was definitely a team effort, let the others deal with the biggest threat while one of them quickly wipe out the rest of the virus’s before they cause more damage than the main enemy. She may lack some class, but at least she had some valid tactics. Games really did help...Who said games never helped no one?

Feeling strength returning to him almost immediately, his visor's HUD, blurry at first before focusing looking at his right hand at first. Seeing his sword in front of him, pretty certain of the fact it was fizzled out earlier. Grabbing it, he used it to help prop himself back onto his legs. Looking over his armor, he noticed no cosmetic damage remained, and then glanced over at the wall Lily erected. He then shifted a side glance at Lily, quick to recognize that she was the source of his restoration.

"...appreciated, Lilith Rhorer," he says briefly, before the crackling of the damaged mecha took his attention. It was still functioning, but practically all its protective covering has been compromised. He looked over at the broken off arm as something formulated in his head. "Do you require its data intact?"

With that cryptic question presented, D10 rushed towards the mecha and it swings at him with its remaining arm, aiming to bat him away with its shield. D10 kicks out his leg and gets down, sliding under the attack. The mecha was far more sluggish thanks to the worms. Up to his target, he began to rapidly jab around its exposed chest in a circular pattern. This was phase one, phase two in play, he reached out, the remaining chains on the broken off arm glowing again with life, reaching out to its master, dragging the arm along towards him, gaining momentum. When it got in close enough, D10 jammed his free arm into it. It was imperfect, but the cybernetics of his body began to interface with the arm, streams of glowing green runing through the circuitry. With a final act, he strains, as he lugs the massive arm and, slams it into the mecha's chest and turns on the arm's thrusters.

With this brutal act set in motion, D10 presses his foot against the mecha arm and dislodges himself, kicking himself back and away from it.

"Hey, I was not anywhere near in that bad a state!" Yuyan protested. "After all, I have trained myself to withstand at least ten consecutive Burst Kicks!"

Burst Kick was not the name of a file or program, but the name he gave that move. The program just caused a databurst whenever the weapon it was loaded on made contact, called Pointburst. He could put it on ranged weapons too, but Yuyan liked to fight closer when he could. However, there was a brilliant tactical advantage. Yuyan did not have to use data on momentum, aiming, or such. And no one would really expect a databurst at close range like that.

However, Lily and Ace were also right about the data issue. After all, data was not only used for attacks and such. It was also used to reinforce and regenerate the data form Datadivers had when they dived. Whenever they took damage, it would reduce the amount of data they had before they could be defeated normally, unless there was some special exception. Therefore, each attack would reduce defense capability, and each defense would reduce attack capability. ANd of course, taking a hit without firewalls up would cause major damage and dataloss.

Although on that note...Lily might have noticed that although Ace was communicating with them all, his Avatar was not with Yuyan.

"Besides, I have a really epic plan! Now!"

At the same time, a spike of energy and data usage could be detected from further away. Gathered there were the objects that had seemingly phased out of the spotlight and people had stopped keeping track of, the CCubes Yuyan made before. Only now, they seemed to be combined with Ace forming a center cannon with all of them.

"Your plan had you near the blast zone, so it was too dangerous!" Ace replied, as he waited for D10 to finish his attacks before he kicked himself away. "And you damn well know it!"

Suddenly, the giant cannon that Ace and the CCubes formed fired and hit the mecha at point center. Whatever armor remaining was blown away, and Yuyan then released what appeared to be a Soccerball from his interface as he adjusted his body to the right angle while mid air after being thrown by Lily.

"Yuyan Grav Kick!"

And right as he kicked, he activated Boost.exe three times on that one point for the second it impacted, a feat that only some sort of trained genius might be capable of as he sent the soccer ball like object right into the mech. Almost instantly, there was an implosion inside the mech, followed by an explosion, another implosion, before finally sending it straight up into the air. But right when one might think that was it, it went and smashed itself back into the ground...and then exploded again.

"Okay Lily, if that thing is not destroyed from all of our attacks now, I would be very shocked...a bit excited, but mostly shocked.
Oh, and before I forget, thanks for the boost Dolce and the support Lily and...Wolfy guy? I dont think I have met him yet..."

"...at least he remembered to thank you all. Glad he isn't too much of an idiotic genius to forget manners".

"You know that is a contradiction right? And also kinda mean Ace".

"Lily, you hear anything incorrect in what I said?"

As Ace asked that, Yuyan gave a sort of pout face.

"Anyways, I would say everyone should take a good rest after that fight...that did finish it right? Yuyan, do you see anythin....oh damnit...Yuyan! Lily! He did it again!"

And near all this madness was Yuyan, sleeping soundly...again. Ace quickly flew over with the CCubes, and all of them began what appeared to be their sorry, though slowly successful, attempt to pick up Yuyan.

Whenever Yuyan used a lot of energy and finished a big fight, he seemed to have this habit of falling asleep. Certainly, sleep did cause his data to regenerate faster when he did it in the Digital World, but...well, he was right on the main pathway in and out of the server.

"When you finish investigating who they were, could you let us know? Somehow, I doubt that this will be the end to things...Yuyan, wake up damnit!"

Yuyan probably looked the most peaceful in his current state, at least. How long before he woke up again was anyones guess though. Could be minutes, could be hours, but knowing Yuyan, he would be energetic again when he did wake up. He seemed like a morning, mid day, night, midnight, and any other time kind of person.

One of the unidentified Datadivers appeared near Lilith, one that she'd seen a few times before, but had always chalked it up to some kind of corrupted data. Perhaps an AI that had lost its purpose and was doomed to wander the net for eternity. Whatever the thing was, it was on their side, reinforcing the wall Lilith had put up.

"Do you require its data intact?"

Before she could answer, the Diver was back in action. She screamed after him, "Yes! We need to find out where it came from!"

After throwing Yuyan, the ghost script appeared again, offering up part of its data. "Yes, please. Returning to the Physical World when so low on data is very taxing on my body. I have a feeling im already going to have one hell of a headache." She felt a little better after receiving the transfusion from Dolce.

The skimpily clad Datadiver went through the smaller bits of the virus, until they were practically non-existent. The few that lived would collapse as their core processes were destroyed.

Yuyan seemed upset that they were offering aid, but Lilith couldn't be bothered to care. Whatever got this thing off her server fastest. She put some distance between herself and the mech. A large cannon in the distance blasted the mech, and Yuyan followed it up with a devastating kick.

For a moment, the Mech still stood, hatred in its glassy eyes and malice in its stance. Then it began to de-construct, the data holding it together rapidly failing. "Oh thank the Gods." Ace and Yuyan did their typical exchange, and Ace asked for Lilith's input. She stalled, knowing Yuyan would be unconscious soon. "Well... uhh... you see... When it comes..... to... And he's asleep. Yeah, he can be a little idiotic when he gets excited."

George's voice sounded across the server. "Attention Datadivers, Omnitech staff, and our honored guests, the threat has been dispersed. Datadivers, please send your account and routing number to our pay-roll department so that we may transfer you funds as compensation for your time."

Then Lilith opened four private channels, addressing the assembled Datadivers. "Greetings and Bienvenue Datadivers, I would like to thank you all personally for your help defending our server. Feel free to stay here and rest if need be, explore the guest attractions, or simply collect your payment and head home. If you wish to speak with me further, you can meet me on this Server tomorrow. I need to... rest."

Lilith ran a hand through her hair, "Open Recall.exe." With that, she warped out, then disconnected from the net and returned to the real world. She put a hand to her ear, activating her bluetooth headset. Her entire body hurt, and she had a pounding headache. Her stomach growled. "Someone bring me a meal please."

Dolce felt somewhat awkward, what with Yuyan asleep and Rhorer gone within minutes of the end of the battle.

Iris was already taking care of the data needed for the money transfer. Not that her AI companion had to do much. Dolce had, after all, properly registered upon entry. This meant that most of the information needed was already in the hands of Omnitech Industrials.

In the end, she decided to help Ace first. Advising the AI to form its blocks into some kind of stretcher, she helped get Yuyan up on the blocks. Her size and .exe build meant that Dolce didn't have all that much strength, but Yuyan wasn't that much larger than her, so it was still doable.

She decided to ignore D10 and Eyecandy (name pending) for now, unless one of them called out to her, since they didn't seem to be people of many words either.

In the end, having little else to do, she decided to contact the team again. The same male voice as earlier could be heard, and she explained her idea of helping with the repairs. they seemed to want to protest, but Dolce quickly added,

"It's fine to not let me near anywhere near the data. I wouldn't expect you to.", after which she pointedly looked at the giant hole in the server protections, knowing the team could see her on their feed.

"I could put up some temporary fire walls around the parts of the barrier most affected, that way you can focus on actually repairing the thing, instead of spreading your data capacity thin. Just have someone keep an eye on me, or keep the funds I earned so far as collateral for my continued help, or something. The period of my help lasting either until you're done, or my data runs too low."

As the last of the virus’s collapsed after their core was destroyed. With their work complete and the server now safe, the Grey haired woman gave a small sigh as she stabbed her sword into the ground and leaned her back against the handle to relax. After a well faught battle it was good to have a small rest before heading back home.

Of course hearing about a little compissation for their work perked her interest. Well that was good! A little extra to her books. That was always good. With a bit of work she transferred over her account details...Not under her real account of course. A secondary account to keep secrecy and simply nodded.

With not much to add to bolster the defense of the server, she decided after her rest to disconnect from the web and returned her consciousness back to the real world with a jolt. Well, now that that mess was over with...She resumed back to what she loved to do. Surf the web.

With everything now finished and... relatively peaceful, D10 sheathed the sword, which de-materialized and relaxed his posture some. Looking up, he heard George's voice and, looking down at his wrist, he sees numbers being processed, indicating a delivery of funds. Tilting his head slightly, he was a bit confused on the matter. He never asked for compensation, but he wasn't going to say no, either.

"Appreciated," he said, casting a glance upwards. He then reaches out with his right arm, a glow emitting from it, generating a bit of code. "Lady Lilith confirmed that she desired an intact sample of the infection... will this suffice? This disassembly has been rendered inert, so it is no longer a risk."

With that, the code is effectively archived and emailed to Omnitech for analysis. He then courteously nods to the other datadivers gathered. "You too are appreciated, if I am required again, I'm sure you now have my signature," he says, trying to be polite to them as well. He then opens a digital digital gate back to the world and into his run-down apartment, and seats himself onto the couch and began to quickly nod off, not even bothering to remove his helmet. His HUD going through a power down sequence and going blank as well.

"Is it not everything and more?"

D10's visor blinks back on all on it's own, the floor below him partially deconstructing and reconstructing, alerting him that this is some kind of simulation. A kind of... dream? Lazily he looks up and around.

"Who's to say what can't be real anymore? To deconstruct and encode matter... and the same can be done in reverse. Can life made of code become life in flesh?"

He shifts around, trying to locate the origin of the voice. He can feel it, but can't track it, but something has jacked into his own server... his brain, to be more precise. Nothing alerted him to it, he had all the protective measures in place. Was he compromised in the last battle? Or the one in the reactor's control system? He readied his blade, but before he could draw it, two black hands grab his arms from behind and hold them in place, purple electronic streams running through his body, paralyzing him.

"Tsk, you could open up and be a bit more friendly, you know? Well, anyways, back to sleep for you, my white knight, and when you wake, play your part as usual."

With that, the hands push him over, sending him falling over, the ground opening before him into an expansive chasm with nothing but blackness below.

"Remember~! We both want the same thing. That's why I liberated you."

As he reaches the bottom, everything goes... black, set into a deep sleep.

As Ace handled the communications and payment, and carried Yuyan off, little did anyone know, far off in the distance, figures were watching with interest and mysteriousness. The two figures were cloaked in dark robes, which actually prevented detection and things like that. They appeared to be a pair of man and woman.

"Was that one of yours, Machina?"

"Maybe, maybe not...though I may have had a small hand at the very least. A few...more secret...functions. You know me, I do my best at not being detected. Code within code within code, round and round".

"Oh Machina, must you always speak like this? Anyways, there were quite a few divers there, weakened. We could have struck right then and there".

"Ha. They were all together, and outnumbered us. It would be better to hunt them while they are alone, perhaps even in their personal lives? I trust you have the probes in place?"

"They are monitoring all the connections near this server to the real world. We have already identified several due to their more public profiles, such as Yuyan Izuyin, and that Omnitech Girl named Lily. So...you wish to hunt them outside the net as well? You believe they will be more vulnerable there?"

"I do. ANd investigate the others to a higher extent. For now, let us test their abilities before we use anything useful and flashy to take them out. Standard Virus Spawn should do. Especially prioritize that wolf, D10, Yuyan, and Lilith. They looked to be the most active in combat, and may represent the biggest threat. But do not overlook the others".

And so, the two seemed to just disappear as they went to enact their plans.

MEANWHILE...

Yuyan woke up yawning as he stretched out, finding himself waking up in an isolated area of a park back in the real world. Apparently some time had passed, because it was now closer to midday.

"Mmmhhhmmm....that was a good sleep!"

And then, as if someone set him to turbo, he jumped to his feet as he became filled with energy.

"Yuyan, you shouldn't fall asleep in the middle of other people's servers".

"I couldn't help it, I really had to give it my all. That said, it is a really nice day today...and I feel completely rested!"

"Great...maybe next time make it so I dont have to carry you off? Jeesh".

Yuyan stood up as he started to walk around, under a lit up streetlight.

"Looks like someone needs to fix these. Its mid day, no reason for the lights to be on".

Yuyan could not help but comment that as he headed towards the street, deciding to resume his trip to the arcade. Parks were nice and all, but he prefered to have friends to hang out with...

...actually, friends were about the only reason he was enrolled in school. He didn't want to become one of those prodigies with no friends. He could just have himself re-graduated any time he so pleased. And of course, awesome yearbook pictures.

But the moment he tried to cross the street...

"What the?!"

He had to hop backwards as he barely dodged an AI controlled car that sped by and almost hit him, continueing onward as if nothing happened.

"Stupid AI car...someone needs to work the bugs out of those things".

"...I thought they did..."

"Whatever, lets just go to the arcade".

The acting server admin, no longer Lilith due to he preoccupation, graciously accepted Dolce's help. They also took note of the data D10 had sent them, ensuring it made its way to Lilith's hands when she was free. Re-building would take time, but Omnitech Industrials had more than enough employees to get it accomplished. Server One was built with aesthetic in mind, and a popular destination for enjoying oneself.

---

An intern brought a few sushi rolls up to Lilith, ones she gladly devoured. An alert on her PDA alerted her to the fact that D10 had indeed managed to salvage part of the virus. Whether it was enough to trace the digital signature of the virus or not, was left to be found out. She exported the virus to a thumbdrive, intent on analyzing it.

Lilith retired early for the day, returning home to rest, recuperate, and further look at the virus. She sat on her porch, with a cup of tea and her laptop. She put on a headset to look at the data in three dimensions, moving it this way and that. "Hmm... It appears to be human-made in origin... Can't track it though... Ugh..."

She kicked up her feet, sipping on her tea while watching the sunset. Something was happening, and she refused to be left in the blue about it. "Ugghh! Today was awful." Deciding to call it a night, she headed up to her bedroom, changing into her pajamas and going about her nightly routine.

Her bed was a welcome respite from the day, a fluffy elysian paradise she was eager to leap into. Tomorrow, she'd return to Server One and see if any of the Datadivers were trying to get in contact with her.