Fighting is my Forte! (A Megaman Battle Network AU Quest)

[KuletXCore]

[X] Go for that capsule!

EDIT: This quest is based on MegaMan Battle Network, right?
Maybe some of the Digimon-based Navis have operators or something. I mean, Zoey (and by extension, everyone from Frontier) is already SynchroChip compatible with her Navis.

Just thinking about stuff.
Also, Inserting First Tally...!

Adhoc vote count started by Kkutlord on Aug 18, 2019 at 7:02 PM, finished with 7 posts and 4 votes.

• ---

  3 people have voted

  [X] Go for that capsule!

  • PyrrosWarrior
  • ShadowAngelBeta
  • Eisenstein80060

  1 people have voted

  [X] Try to regain control!

  • Kkutlord

 

[Kkutlord]

@Astaroh-M: So does SciLab just see "GameNavis" as doing a job, or was that just how The Public sees them? Because I'm really unsure how SciLab is treating them, which is kind of important. Still, I can work with this.

----

The Demon Queen of Alsgard
​

On a beautiful sunny day like this, with birds chirping in the background and children laughing in the distance... What better time than to burn it all down!?

The cheer and excitement dying as dark clouds roll in, an army of darkness appears before the town. Leading from the front is a strange girl, smiling wildly before shouting into her megaphone.

"How rude of you all, not greeting your goddess!!" Watching the generic trash scramble in fear and panic, she chuckles darkly to herself. Holding up a hand to still her faceless horde, she isn't done tormenting the trash.

"Not surprising, seeing as you all worship three overgrown birds!! Perhaps I'm simply too perfect, that pathetic garbage like you can't see it? Nah, ya'll just stupid!!"

Turning to her army, the self-claimed goddess points... well vaguely in their general direction, not like she cares about distinguishing between her peons.

"Alright you worthless peons, go have fun!!" Watching as her army charges forth into town, she can't help cackling wildly as her minions terrify the meaningless citizens.

"Oh, Demon Queen, are these your best minions?" Confused by the interruption, she refocuses on where her soldiers should of been- only to find a young man in white standing among their decaying bodies.

"W-what!? Argh, stupid worthless peons, getting wasted by living trash!!" Wait... looking between the smiling young man and the citizens, he clearly seems different, like...

"Oh ho ho, I see how it is!! You're some 'big strong knight' fighting for the Church!? Ha, how hilarious!!" Lightning crackling through the air and thunder booming, the young woman smiles wildly.

"I'm Kurome, the one and only True Goddess!! Even my voice alone could end you!!" With that, Kurome yells into her megaphone, the raw power traveling through the air-

Yet as an explosion rings out from the impact, Kurome is taken aback by how the holy knight moved out of the way. "Fascinating, so this is a 'True' Goddess' power? Then I much prefer the 'fakes' then."

Curling her fingers in anger, Kurome points accusingly at him. "Oh please, like some pretty boy understands power!! I just didn't want to waste my effort on you!!"

Seeing that insufferably 'polite' gentleman expression of his just makes her angrier, yet he actually makes a show of 'thinking' before gesturing to Kurome.

"Truly a waste of potential, using all that power for evil. With how busy the Three Goddesses are, you could actually go around culling monster populations. So why torment helpless citizens instead? Honestly can't be that fun, is it?"

Kurome pointing angrily at him, she readies herself to shout out her reasons... only to stop herself. "Monsters are mindless beasts, but... citizens are basically just, dumber weaker monsters, so..."

Eyeing the holy knight suspiciously, he... actually seems intrigued. Glancing around and finding no surprise attackers, Kurome... is just confused about what is happening.

"Huh, why aren't the Goddesses here yet? I've loudly announced myself and attacked one of their precious towns! Isn't this evil enough for them? ... Wait, why do I even care? I, but they, no him..."

Grasping her head as it began hurting just to think, the holy knight calls out "That easily defeated Kurome? Clearly no Godd-" His voice suddenly cutting off, Kurome looks over to him...

Yet to her surprise, the entire world changed without her notice. No, no that isn't right... the world didn't change, everything just looks different, the... Collapsing to her knees as she screams in pain, strange noises start screeching all around her.

"[ERROR, PROTO-NAVI UNDERGOING SELF-DELETION. CAUSE OF ERROR: ADAPTIVE PROGRAMMING CODE 'Kurome the Demon Queen' ATTEMPTING COMPLETE REWRITE.]"

Struggling to stand up, Kurome pants heavily as she looks around. "W-who... said that? C-code, r-rewrite? I-I'm Kurome, I'm... already p-perfect." Yet, as she tries to pull up her megaphone-

Some strange statue thing appeared before her. "[INITIATING REMOVAL OF ERROR.]" Weakly snarling, Kurome barely gets out "Don't even-" before the statue thing thrusts an arm straight through her body.

Screaming in unbelievable pain as she feels herself being torn in two, the moment the statue thing withdraws his arm... Kurome drops to the ground, body unmoving.

Yet, as he examines the growing code in his hand, a new voice calls out. ~"Ryushin, is Kurome still intact? Didn't you use the Recovery Chips on her?"~ Letting the code hang in the air besides him, the robotic Navi replies.

"[Affirmative, Proto-Navi 'Kurome' has been spared from Deletion. Orders for handling the shell and the Adaptive Programming?]" Hearing what he recognizes as his Operators typing away, Ryushin studies the growing code.

Watching as it shifts somewhat wildly, Ryushin finally gets a response from a different voice. ~"Incredible, the Adaptive Programming is trying to create a new shell for itself... Make sure it doesn't reconnect to Kurome, we don't know what'll happen."~

Giving a simple "[Affirmative]", Ryushin silently watches the Adaptive Programming... and behind him, Kurome's fingers twitch slightly, her now dull empty eyes slowly focusing on the Programming.

The growing code shifting hyper-actively before assuming an increasingly more coherent form, another voice from beyond calls out. ~"There, aided and stabilized its attempt to craft a new shell. Be ready Ryushin."~

Finally, as the code assumed a glowing silhouette, it finalized- and floating unconsciously is a familiar form. ~"Unbelievable, it achieved an almost perfect replica of Kurome's shell..."~

Yet, as the scientists began discussing the implications and Ryushin steadfastly watched the "[New Proto-Navi Registered: 'Uzume']"... Kurome's eyes didn't move away from her doppelganger.

"Is... that... me...? Then, who am... I?" Barely able to think or move, Kurome... didn't know how to feel. It was like, something definitive was missing, telling her who she is...

~"Right, what should we do about Kurome? We're putting her in an MMO, so if this happened publicly... it'll ruin the opportunity GameNavis present us."~ "Oppor... tunity?"

~"We'll just have to modify the personality parameters of the backup. Creating a 'pure evil' Navi is awkward, but we don't need her to be morally deep anyways."~ "W... what?"

~"Shouldn't we get rid of every positive trait then? Shame, having her being a funny boasting type was cool... Oh well, we can just make a new Navi for that personality type."~ "N-no... p-please..."

~"Ryushin, transport Kurome's shell to her storage room, we need to set up a new simulation for Sherman."~ The robotic Navi giving another simple "[Affirmative]", Kurome tries struggling to move her unresponsive body.

But... it refuses, her fear nowhere near strong enough to move her body. Thus, as she was helplessly dragged away, Kurome glanced over to her... other, the 'Uzume', just peacefully sleeping.

Looking at that oblivious, happy face... Kurome could feel something now, weak yet herself nonetheless... Hate. Nothing makes sense, but Kurome could still tell she was the reason why.

"I... am... Kurome. Goddess, Demon... I am nobody's toy..." For the slightest of moments, Ryushin detected power weakly trying to flare from Kurome, before logging the data for the scientists.

----
​

So some context, the idea is that they were testing two "GameNavis" against each other (Kurome and Sherman), having already had the two adjust to their assigned roles: Demon Queen for Kurome, and "Holy Knight" for Sherman.

They lacked a bit of developer's foresight regarding their interaction, though to be fair they were specifically testing how adaptive the Adaptive Programming is. Regarding everything about Uzume... honestly, not even the weirdest thing to happen in Battle Network.

I specifically used Sherman and Ryushin because, hey, they're also Compile Heart characters like the Neptunia cast. Ryushin because he works as an assistant NetNavi, and Sherman because... interesting reasons, if Astaroh is so inclined.

Ultimately, everything about what happens from here is left up to Astaroh to decide. Personally I like the idea of Kurome pretending to be oblivious, while secretly plotting her revenge.

Of course, connecting her to Dark Chips somehow would reflect Negative Energy nicely. Huh, have Dark Chips already been considered regarding their place in this setting?

 

[Enmascarado]

@Astaroh-M: So does SciLab just see "GameNavis" as doing a job, or was that just how The Public sees them? Because I'm really unsure how SciLab is treating them, which is kind of important. Still, I can work with this.

Click to shrink...

Spoiler

The branch that's doing the simulations sees them as guinea pigs and little else, just data that they want to collect, truly disposable.

By the way, each branch is independent of the others and know little of their works, so Cossack's branch (Lan's father works there too) doesn't know about the simulations.

I specifically used Sherman and Ryushin because, hey, they're also Compile Heart characters like the Neptunia cast. Ryushin because he works as an assistant NetNavi, and Sherman because... interesting reasons, if Astaroh is so inclined.

Click to shrink...

Awesome job! And doesn't look like anything contradicts what I have planned so, canon it is!

Fair warning though, I haven't played Fairy Fencer F so I know little of their characters. >_<

 

[Kkutlord]

Spoiler

The branch that's doing the simulations sees them as guinea pigs and little else, just data that they want to collect, truly disposable.

By the way, each branch is independent of the others and know little of their works, so Cossack's branch (Lan's father works there too) doesn't know about the simulations.

Awesome job! And doesn't look like anything contradicts what I have planned so, canon it is!

Fair warning though, I haven't played Fairy Fencer F so I know little of their characters. >_<

Click to shrink...

Oh it'll be fine, I figured Sherman and Ryushin would be the only Fairy Fencer F elements involved. Though having the 3 Goddesses Online / Alsgard MMO include more Fairy Fencer elements would be cool...

I actually considered having Fang (the primary protagonist) instead of Sherman, but decided Sherman works better for... Future plot reasons. Really, Fairy Fencer F is a great game, you can get the Updated Re-release on the PS4 and PSN even.

Ryushin is pretty straightforward as a character, very serious and loyal. Bit of an oversimplification, but there aren't many people for him to warm up to. Hmm... I could see him taking Umio's place, being Uzume's main partner/friend/helper.

Honestly, given how weird Uzume is and how important she is to the Game(?) Division's research, makes sense they'd have her constantly protected. Wonder how she'll achieve Orange Heart mode...

Oh, actually... is HDD well-known amongst SciLabs' various groups? Figured the group working on 3 Goddesses Online would directly model the, well, 3 Goddesses off of Noire/Blanc/Vert.

Besides that, I am curious what'll happen on this front. I'm curious what'll ultimately happen to the Alsgard characters, especially all the ways thing could go for Kurome. I do like the idea her hatred literally gives her power...

Hmm, honestly, Alsgard has potential to be a whole arc like Cybeast is... Would it fit in with the Digi-Pods arc we could of started with? The whole (official) point of GameNavis is so players/audiences have an immersive experience.

 

[Enmascarado]

Oh, actually... is HDD well-known amongst SciLabs' various groups? Figured the group working on 3 Goddesses Online would directly model the, well, 3 Goddesses off of Noire/Blanc/Vert.

Click to shrink...

They know about it, but only the branch that created the goddesses knows exactly how it works, that doesn't mean that they can try to create their own version of course.

Which branch created them?

That's a spoiler.

Hmm, honestly, Alsgard has potential to be a whole arc like Cybeast is... Would it fit in with the Digi-Pods arc we could of started with? The whole (official) point of GameNavis is so players/audiences have an immersive experience.

Click to shrink...

Something similar, though the villain was going to be someone else.

 

[Kkutlord]

@Astaroh-M: Hmm... have you already planned things out for Dr. Regal and Dark Chips? I actually asked earlier about Dark Chips, but that was in the "after" segment of the omake so...

Oh, now that I think about it, once the Cybeast Arc ends... will you have us vote again for the next focus arc, or have you already structured the general order of Story Arcs from here on?

 

[Enmascarado]

@Astaroh-M: Hmm... have you already planned things out for Dr. Regal and Dark Chips? I actually asked earlier about Dark Chips, but that was in the "after" segment of the omake so...

Click to shrink...

Hmmm, I have some ideas.

Spoiler

Have I mentioned how well these worlds work together? Because they do, they really do. o_o

Oh, now that I think about it, once the Cybeast Arc ends... will you have us vote again for the next focus arc, or have you already structured the general order of Story Arcs from here on?

Click to shrink...

Will probably let you guys vote again.

 

[Kkutlord]

@Astaroh-M: Wait, does that mean Share Energy is actually a variant of Full Synchro, using sheer quantity of connections instead of quality? Like... some supercharged but shallow "Literal Friendship Power" ability.

Huh, I'm guessing Forte unlocking HDD would be way down the S.Link Ranks? Because sounds like Ebony(?) Heart Forte would be a gateway to multiple variant Super Modes, in that case.

Course, "The Great Demon: Ebony Wolf Forte" alone sounds very concerning... Huh, will we get a chance to experiment with Beast Out and Concerto soon? I am curious what your plans for Forte's Cross Beast mode is.

 

[Enmascarado]

@Astaroh-M: Wait, does that mean Share Energy is actually a variant of Full Synchro, using sheer quantity of connections instead of quality? Like... some supercharged but shallow "Literal Friendship Power" ability.

Click to shrink...

Have I mentioned how well these worlds work together? Because they do, they really do. o_o

Click to shrink...

They really work so well together.

Course, "The Great Demon: Ebony Wolf Forte" alone sounds very concerning... Huh, will we get a chance to experiment with Beast Out and Concerto soon? I am curious what your plans for Forte's Cross Beast mode is.

Click to shrink...

Soon TM

 

[Kkutlord]

@Astaroh-M: Huh, I'm legitimately impressed you've actually thought all this stuff through, especially given how long it'll take to showcase some of this stuff in-story. Though, you clearly do have a priority system, at least for more complex / story-changing elements.

Oh, thinking about it, Beck's "Power Copying" is far more direct / self-centered than MegaMan and Forte. Still, given his close bonds (on a rather fundamental level even) with the other Mighty Numbers, he could probably still get Super(er) Modes that way.

Honestly, I think it'll be pretty interesting showcasing the ways Forte/Beck/MegaMan are actually different ability-wise despite all being Power Copiers. Man, it'll be weird when all three are in a room, huh?

Anyways, guess I'll just wait for the next update from here. "Demon Queen of Alsgard" was the only omake I had in me for the time being, and I'm kind of curious what others think first before trying more anyways.

 

[Enmascarado]

Still with a throbbing pain in his head, Forte opens his eyes -he doesn't remember when did he close them- and glares at the glowing capsule.

Vines and fireballs keep flying through the field. Both the plant digital being -for it's obvious at this point that it isn't a Navi- and the fire Navi trying their best to delete each other, without anyone getting the upper hand yet.

Forte shakes his head and then starts moving towards the capsule once again.

At first, is a slow walk but slowly he starts to increase his speed while dodging the attacks of the other two fighters, something easy to do considering that he isn't the target of such attacks, Blossomon and Torchman are too busy trying to destroy one another to notice Forte.

That is until Forte finally reaches the capsule, just as his hand raises to touch it, one vine suddenly bites into one of his legs and pulls him away. Forte, too distracted by the glow of the capsule, is caught by surprise and can't do much as he's sent flying back a few meters, then a fireball hits him in mid-air and sends him crashing into the ground.

"That's mine!" Blossomon yells, many vines move around her wildly, their mouths constantly snapping, ready to bite anything that gets closer.

"That's propriety of Lord Willy!" Torchman yells at the same time, the flames on his head raising up with his anger.

Without giving Forte any time to recover both of them attacked him once again, Blossomon once again with her vines and Torchman simply using his arms as flamethrowers this time instead of another fireball.
Unfortunately for them, Forte's new form is quite resilient, and so he doesn't have any problems in getting up quickly enough to see the attacks coming. Had Forte been in a more stable mindstate, he would have considered dodging both attacks, but alas, that isn't the case.

With a growl, Forte raises his left arm and lets the vines bite into it, then quickly enough he raises his cloak with his right one and blocks the fire. This is just the first part of his plan though, Forte twist his left arm around the vines still biting it and gets a hold them, then Forte himself starts to spin, dragging the vines along.

"He-hey! What are you doing!" Blossomon exclaims in surprise when she starts to feel her vines being pull. She tries to resist, slamming many vines into the ground to get some more traction, but is useless.

Forte continues to spin, dragging more and more of the vine with him. All while Torchman continues his attack, setting ablaze to those vines in the process. Soon enough his constant twisting even manages to unroot Blossomon, the monstrous plant now is flying around Forte alongside the rest of her vines, while on fire.

"Ha ha ha ha, this is perfect! Now I can burn both of you!" Torchman celebrates as he increases the size of his flames.

"Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!" Blossomon yells in pain, here's nothing she can do while being dragged by Forte.

Then suddenly, Forte moves his now incredibly hot cloak and slashes through the vines that bite him at the first place just at the right moment, causing Blossomon to end flying right at Torchman's direction.

"Wha-what!?" Torchman has barely any time to react to this turn of events as a giant monster flower on fire crashes into him.

Forte doesn't bother in looking at his work though, he only has eyes for the capsule… that has started to crack.

The glow from the capsule becomes blinding and even Forte must look away.

And then, just as suddenly as it began, the glow fades.

Forte opens his eyes and looks at the capsule direction, but here's not a capsule anymore, in its place there's a small bird, the size of a small child, it has red like armor that looks similar to feathers, two shard claws, and two metallic wings, just as shard.

Forte keeps looking at it and some part of him yells to destroy it, but before he can do anything, the bird starts singing.

Forte immediately falls to his knees in pain, the song is quite sweet and energetic, like a child's giggling, but to Forte is only pain and agony. He holds into his head but the song keeps echoing inside becoming lauder and lauder, small parts of his armor start to turn into data once again leaving behind his original form.

The process continues for a while until Forte ends on the ground without any traces of Gregar's power.

"Ugh…" Forte groans, his whole body pulsing in pain, fortunately, like with his other transformation he has managed to keep the memory of what happened until now, so he at least he knows why he's on the ground in pain this time.

"Fascinating, it seems like the young bird is capable of damaging the data of Gregar," a smooth calm voice says.

Forte forces himself to rise to one knee to the owner of the new voice.

It's a robotic looking Navi, he seems to have some marks on his forehead and the only clothing he has are some baggy yellow pants, and curiously a few golden spheres seem to be floating calmly around his head.

Spoiler

The robotic Navi is petting the bird that came out of the capsule without a care in the world.

"Who… who are you?" Forte asks with what little strength he has left while managing to get enough balance to stand up.

"Ah, you're awake, excellent," the Navi responds to Forte while ignoring his question, "I'm sorry for what I'm about to do next, but it's necessary, I hope someday you can forgive me and break those chains that hold you down," the Navi cryptically says in a solemn tone.

"What… are you… talking about?" Forte questions in between groans of pain.

"May you find true harmony," The Navi says, suddenly in front of Forte, having moved in just the blink of an eye.

And then punches Forte in the chest one time, 2 times, 4 times, 8 times, 16 times, 32 times.

Through all this, Forte doesn't feel pain, just a pressure that seems to get bigger and bigger inside him until the last strike, then he feels like something dark, primal and wild comes out front his back.

[Alert! Corrupted Program Uninstalled]

With barely any strength left now, Forte falls to the ground.

"Forte! Fooooorte!"

Skullman's voice can be heard from far away, but Forte can only see as the robotic Navi takes the bird in his arms and then leaves the site.

"Forte! Are you alright!? I really thought everything was over when you managed to take down those two," Skullman reaches his side and starts to help him to stand up while pointing at the direction where Blossomon is still on top of Torchman -and still on fire- both of them unconscious.

"But I couldn't have never imagined a robot monk appearing out of nowhere! Talk about a twist! And neither I could have guessed that you could make some wolf beast come out of you, what you didn't tell me you could do that?" The skeleton continues.

"Wolf… beast?" Forte asks in confusion, still out of breath.

"Huh? Yeah! That one!" Skullman says while pointing at something.

Forte follows his finger and indeed, there's a purple looking wolf beast.

Spoiler

…

…

"So… it's not yours?"

…

…

"Can I keep it?"

[] Try to talk with the wolf
[] Just ignore it, for now, you need to focus on regaining your strength.
[] Attack it!

**************************

I like the idea of Monk Navis just being these overpowered monsters that don't like to fight, blame Serenade for that!

Maybe the true pet was the friendship that was inside us all along?

Click to shrink...

You thought I was kidding didn't you?

 

[PyrrosWarrior]

[X] Just ignore it, for now, you need to focus on regaining your strength.

Maybe some of the Digimon-based Navis have operators or something. I mean, Zoey (and by extension, everyone from Frontier) is already SynchroChip compatible with her Navis.

Click to shrink...

Ooh, I really hope the Frontier crew shows up. 2nd best Digimon series right there, despite its (many) faults!

 

[Kkutlord]

[X] Try to talk with the wolf

@Astaroh-M: Oh, you're sneaky, very very sneaky... So, did Falzar & Zenyatta purify/reconfigure Gregar into Treble, or what? Cause I'm getting the impression Beast Out will either be Concerto echoing Gregar's power, or Forte & Treble doing a fusion dance.

 

[veekie]

[X] Try to talk with the wolf

 

[Enmascarado]

@Astaroh-M: Oh, you're sneaky, very very sneaky... So, did Falzar & Zenyatta purify/reconfigure Gregar into Treble, or what? Cause I'm getting the impression Beast Out will either be Concerto echoing Gregar's power, or Forte & Treble doing a fusion dance.

Click to shrink...

Got it in one. n_n

 

[Kkutlord]

Ooh, I really hope the Frontier crew shows up. 2nd best Digimon series right there, despite its (many) faults!

Click to shrink...

@Astaroh-M: So have you toyed with how the Digimon Frontier characters would fit in? Some heavy retooling given the setting, but they're also perfect for some Full-Synchro Navi/Operator pairs.

Then again, if you stick to having the Spirit Digimon as... well Digimon... Oh! The Human Forms could be attempts to shackle them, since Digimon/Cybeasts are basically the same thing.

So... The Beast Forms would be them in berserk mode / partially freed, with Fusion Form being the next step and Unified Form actually being Fusion Form + Full-Synchro with their Operator.

 

[PyrrosWarrior]

Fun fact: I know very little about Battle Network. It and Legends are the blindspots in the Megaman series I've played, with only having played one game in it and seen a few episodes of the anime.

I have, however, played OG, X, Zero, ZX, and Starforce.

 

[Enmascarado]

@Astaroh-M: So have you toyed with how the Digimon Frontier characters would fit in? Some heavy retooling given the setting, but they're also perfect for some Full-Synchro Navi/Operator pairs.

Then again, if you stick to having the Spirit Digimon as... well Digimon... Oh! The Human Forms could be attempts to shackle them, since Digimon/Cybeasts are basically the same thing.

So... The Beast Forms would be them in berserk mode / partially freed, with Fusion Form being the next step and Unified Form actually being Fusion Form + Full-Synchro with their Operator.

Click to shrink...

I'm still thinking about it honestly, in one hand, more characters! o_o

But on the other, yeah, humans interecting with digimons following the rules of battle network would be very interesting.

Fun fact: I know very little about Battle Network. It and Legends are the blindspots in the Megaman series I've played, with only having played one game in it and seen a few episodes of the anime.

I have, however, played OG, X, Zero, ZX, and Starforce.

Click to shrink...

Well, I hope you can enjoy this quest even if you don't know the main source material. n_n

 

[Ryet]

[X] Try to talk with the wolf

 

[Plausbius]

[X] Just ignore it, for now, you need to focus on regaining your strength.

Talking is for chumps.

 

[Hazardine]

[X] Try to talk with the wolf

 

[Enmascarado]

Ok! Votes closed and first page update! (I decided to keep the characters page for bonds only now, to avoid clustering it too much).

The winner is:

[8] Try to talk with the wolf

Using our words!

 

[Enmascarado]

Forte ignores Skullman and focuses on the digital wolf that literally came out of himself.

The wolf looks back at him with attention and suspicious but no hostility. Its eyes seem to recognize Forte and yet, there's some hesitation in them.

Forte let go of Skullman and slowly starts walking towards the wolf. The wolf takes a step back and starts growling at Forte, but the cloaked Navi simply raises both of his hands, showing that he's not a threat and keeps walking until he's in front of the wolf.

Forte lowers to one knee and watches the wolf right at its eyes. The wolf stops growling and stares back.

It's faint but Forte can feel something coming out of the wolf, something similar to what happens when he transforms, some echo of its emotions and so, he knows what to say.

"You will not be alone," Forte says straight to the digital animal, no hesitation, no doubt. And he tries to ignore the fact that the main fear of a being that came out of him is to be alone.

The wolf hesitates for a moment, before quickly moving forward and liking Forte's face, causing the Navi to sputter and reel back.

"D'awww, I think he loves you!" Skullman says from the back, with a silly grin of his face.

Forte ignores him again while cleaning his face with his cloak, glaring at the wolf who's now sitting on his back legs, a content look on its face.

"Cheeky mutt," Forte grumbles while trying to hide his smirk.

"Soooo, can I name him? Because I have the best name for him!" Skullman says as he moves to Forte's side, "Skulldog!"

"No," Forte says immediately at the same time that the wolf whines.

"Skullwolf?"

Another whine.

"Enough, his name is… Gospel," Forte decides after thinking for a moment.

The newly named wolf seems to like the name by the looks of his wagging tail.

"Fine," Skullman concedes with a sigh, "what now though?"

Before Forte can answer a huge explosion send them all flying.

Forte opens his eyes, feeling Gospel slowly pushing him up, when he raises he sees that the origin of the explosion was where Torchman and Blossomon bodies were, now the place is empty.

Forte looks around, it seems like in some point during the fight all the others Navis and viruses left too, now only he, Skullman and Gospel are the only around.

"We're leaving," Forte decides, looking at Skullman direction.

The skeleton Navi has his head buried inside some rubble but manages to give a thumbs up followed by a muffled, "Ok!"

"Are you coming with me?" Forte asks Gospel with some doubts in his voice, though he feels he knows what will be the answer.

Gospel barks once before turning himself in a cloud of data that flies towards Forte's shadows and enters it like it were a portal. Forte is surprised by this, but not alarmed, he can feel Gospel presence in his shadow, he can come out whatever he wants.

"Convenient, at least I will not have to explain from where you come from," Forte says before starting to walk out of the site.

-----------------------------

After that Skullman delivered his information to his bosses in SciLabs, they simply thanked him for the data and told him that he shouldn't worry about the events that he witnessed, everything is under control, after that, they also told him that his new operator will contact him soon enough.

Forte meanwhile has spent a few more days trying to recover from the fight, sure he ended victoriously but that wild transformation had really drained him. And he may or may not spent of that time playing with Gospel too, he will never tell.

Now that a few more days had passed by, what's the more important event that's happening in the world?

[] World Three have declared their presence and aim to control both the digital and real world.
[] A new technology that promises to change the way humans interact with the digital world forever has appeared, the "Digi-Pods".
[] A digital organization led by a Navi called Emperor is taking over many sites of the Net and no one has managed to stop them.

*************************

Doggo, acquired!

Yes the first option will place you chronologically at the time of Megaman Battle Network 1, but I will warn you, the world is different enough that Willy's plan will change accordingly.

 

[Kkutlord]

[X] A new technology that promises to change the way humans interact with the digital world forever has appeared, the "Digi-Pods".

Partially because I'm interested in seeing some GameNavis, and partially because "Digi-Pods" being a thing encourages the development of a reverse technology (Copy Robots) so Navis can interact with the Physical World.

 

[Punchweasel]

[X] A new technology that promises to change the way humans interact with the digital world forever has appeared, the "Digi-Pods".

Partially because I'm interested in seeing some GameNavis, and partially because "Digi-Pods" being a thing encourages the development of a reverse technology (Copy Robots) so Navis can interact with the Physical World.

Click to shrink...

Considering I know a heck of a lot more about the X timeline compared to the Network timeline: Oh, I can definitely support that! Sounds like fun!