Search and Rescue

[Saber]

Katana sighed when Amaterau started complaining about not being able to keep her safe, shaking her head "Gimme a break mom...I know you want to make sure we stay safe, but we're law enforcers. We have to be in harms way whenever there's a threat, you can't keep us safe all of the time." She smiled and walked up to Amaterasu, giving her a soft hug "You just have to try and trust us, alright? We'll be fine on our own, and you can always join us when you are ready for combat...Just don't get too worked up if we get injured, please?"

Bit pushed her glasses up when Mani4c thanked her for helping same him "Well, as aggravating as you can be, I won't just watch a hero die...Reckless or not." Baretta took her leave of the TARDIS, returning to the server to do follow up status on the file transfers for Mirror's and Domain's data.

Saber nodded when Mirror said she still wasn't whole, and was still missing something in her code to make her complete, and chuckled when Mani4c was apparently the one who understood what it was "He's a smart one, when he isn't being a knucklehead." He then blushed more when Mirror started complimenting him on being a good person, and how he saved her twice already "I've already lost one friend in my life because of the megacorporations doing whatever they want, I wasn't going to let them take any more of them away from me...Call it selfish, I don't care, I refuse to let them have their way anymore."

He got up and walked over to Mirror, placing a hand on her head "Regardless of if you're still missing something or not, you're far more different from the avatar I first met. And I have to say, it's a definite improvement." While Mirror and Saber were talking, a pair of spider like creatures lowered themselves near where the two avatars were, looking at them after getting their attention, before casually crawling back up the binary web they were crawling on. "Looks like David's security system recognized the security key we gave you, that's good, they won't be a bother or anything while you have it." Saber smiled kindly at Mirror, his newfound humanity making his expressions more serene than they were when Mirror had first met him "If you ever want to talk about anything, or if you need to get away from the NPD server for a while, you'll always be welcome here. Just give us a heads up when you come over, deal?"

[Mani4c]

Mani4c smiled and began to hobble out of the repair lab, when he reached the passenger area, he threw out his arms and announced his presence in a boisterous tone. "I'm back bitches! Miss me?" Noxus just chuckled and walked up to Mani4c, his expression turning serious when he got near. He spoke in a hushed tone, not wanting to alert anyone. "You, Baretta and I need to have a...private, conversation." Mani4c nodded, "Alright, I'll let her know and go somewhere private." Noxus turned to Justicar and Amp, "Justicar, I believe that it would be best to have our friend Masamune look over Amp don't you? Once that's done and I've attended to my business, we can ask him about just who he is." Justicar's expression became irritated for a minute, but it quickly passed. "Alright, Amp, Masamune is a friend of mine who's an expert at working on and maintaining code. Would you mind having him give you the once over?"

Amaterasu nodded when Katana told her that she couldn't keep them safe, she knew that Katana was right, but the idea of her children being hurt broke her heart. "I know...and I'll try." She looked at Katana and hugged her tighter. "You and your brothers make me so proud, never forget that."

[Prythian]

Amplify reluctantly removed her foot from the weapon, letting it vanish as her two hands raised back up, all six floating around her. "I guess we should do that." Her face looked somewhat annoyed. "I was looking forward to try out that function. I guess I can afterwards. I've got a need..." She grinned impishly at Justicar. "...for some speed!"

Mirror glanced at the spiders, only halfway paying attention to Saber. "Yeah. Deal." She said finally, still looking. "But... what ARE those? They don't look like normal security programs..."

[Saber]

Katana smiled when Amaterasu hugged her tighter, letting her doting 'mother' be clingy for now. "I won't. Now can we go home and rest now? I'm a little tired from running and fighting." Bit walked past the two hugging avatars calmly, returning to her research station "Agreed, I think we've all earned a long rest."

Baretta got the message from Mani4c about Noxus wanting to speak in private, and sent one back <I'm doing some follow up to check the status of the file transfer, bring Noxus to my office, and wait for me there.>

Saber noticed how Mirror was interested in the spiders more than what he had to say and laughed softly "And for good reason. Sprites are very rare to see in public, and even the ones in public are hard to distinguish between avatars sometimes...Mostly because they don't want to be publicly known." Saber looked up at the spiders as they crawled away from the room, leaving out of the main entrance to the rest of the terminal "Sprites...Some of them are kind of like us...But at the same time, they're completely different. And their rarity makes them a mystery to many who do not fully understand their existence...Hell, even I have trouble understanding it, and I've actually met one in person!"

[Mani4c]

Mani4c got Baretta's message and nodded. "Baretta's going to have us wait in her office, follow me." Mani4c began to lead Noxus from the TARDIS, but before he left. he turned to the remaining avatars and smirked. "Well guys, I'm glad that you're all okay. Once your all rested up, I'm going to be throwing a party to celebrate the rescue of our friends. I'll all email you the date, and...oh yeah BYOB, Later!" Mani4c took a bow and left the TARDIS, taking Noxus to Baretta's office to wait for her. "She should be here in a bit. So let's just cool our jets." Noxus nodded and deactivated his armor before sitting down.

Amaterasu nodded and stood up, Claymore and Chakram also began to depart. Suddenly a purple flash appeared next to Onimaru, once the flash vanished, it revealed the same purple dragon like avatar that had saved him in Cyber Tokyo. "Okāsan!" (Translation: Mother." The Purple avatar ran at Amaterasu and hugged her, laughing childishly. "We beat them good Okāsan! You should have seen Katana-Nēchan, she was amazing!" Amaterasu laughed and returned the hug. "I'm sure she was Ryu, she's Saber's sister after all." Onimaru sighed in annoyance. "Eh, Ryutaros! You're smothering her, give her some space will ya?"  Amaterasu just smiled. "Thank you Onimaru, but I don't mind, he's such a cute little thing." Amaterasu gave Ryutaros a pat on the head. "I'm going to go with my other children to relax a bit, do you want to come? I bought some new art supplies so you can draw." Ryutaros nodded. "Alright, let's go children!" Claymore offered his hand to Katana so she could climb up to his shoulder. "Shall we dear sister?"

Justicar led Amp to the NPD's R&D department, where Byte, Bit and Masamune were. "Masamune, Amp needs to be looked over." Masamune looked at Amp's new appearance, as well as that of Frozen Torrent, and almost immediately figured out what had happened to her. "Alright, Amp if you could take a seat here, we'll begin with just a small physical examination. If you'd prefer Bit to do this I understand, I don't want you to be uncomfortable." Masamune was careful with how he spoke, he wasn't sure about this new Amp's mental state yet.

[Prythian]

Amp shrugged and sat down, one pair of hands going behind her head as she leaned on them. "I just want to get this over with so I can go see things, so whatever is fastest." One of the floating hands leaned Shattered Skies against a nearby wall, while another pointed at it. "Be careful with Shattered Skies, alright? I don't want to risk someone putting it back together wrong." Of course, this sentence, with Masamune knowing nothing of what changes had happened to the weapon, would probably be a bit confusing.

Mirror pressed her lips together. "...I've never heard of sprites before. If some of them are hard to distinguish against avatars..." A thought occurred to her. "Would I be able to copy them?" She gave a brief shudder at the concept of there being something aside from viruses that she couldn't copy... and even avatars infected with viral code were valid targets for her powers.

[Saber]

Katana leapt up on Claymore's shoulder, sitting up there wan ducking below the doorway when Claymore exited the TARDIS "That was fun!"

Baretta had just sent Saber a message when she got the confirmation from Kate, letting him know that he and Mirror could report back to the precinct when able. With that finished, she made her way into her office, where Mani4c and Noxus were waiting for her "Sorry about that, I had to check on the status of the file transfer. Everything's been secured in the terminals, and they're in the process of migrating the data over so they can wipe it clean. All that's needed now is a background test of the code, to make sure there's no errors if either Mirror or Domain get deleted." She walked over to her chair at the desk and sat down, folding her hands together and looking at Noxus "So, what is this all about, Noxus?"

Saber shrugged his shoulders when Mirror asked if she would be able to copy a sprite, not quite sure himself "It's hard to say. A lot of sprites are only able to use programs made for avatars if given to them for use, but they can't save the program to their code. Since sprites aren't compatible with avatar code save for surface use f our programs, I would assume possibly not." Saber's arm had a blinking white light flashing on it, and he lifted it up to see Baretta's status update "...Well, it's official, you've been backed back up to the NPD server, they just need to do compatibility tests to make sure you'l boot back up during a deletion. We can head back whenever you want, unless you'd rather ask me more questions or talk while we have free time."

[Mani4c]

Noxus cleared his throat. "I...wish to turn myself in." Mani4c looked at Noxus with a surprised expression. "What!?" Noxus nodded, "I have no home to return to, no allies beyond the one's that share my current predicament. To continue this pointless bickering would be beyond foolish." Noxus  leaned forward and tented his fingers. "So, I have a proposition for you. I will willingly give myself up for detainment, I will plead guilty to all charges levied against me and I will surrender all of the data that I had stored in my base. Including several thousand Terabytes of program schematics that I stole from PariahTech during my original escape, as well as my research on avatar evolution and other projects."

Noxus' expression became serious. "In exchange, I want all charges leveled at my colleagues, including Justicar and Amplify, dropped. I was the captain of this particular ship, and I will go down with it, they should not be punished for believing in my foolish rhetoric. I also have a...personal request." Noxus looked at Mani4c, "I have several friends, people who believed in me, trapped in stasis due to viral contamination overwhelming their bodies. I have the original portions of their framework on hand, and they can be re-attached at any time. I would ask you to cure them, to drain them of their viral infection and replace the empty portion of their code. I was unable to do so without damaging or outright deleting them, but Mani4c, you might be able to save them. Please, don't let them suffer because of my idiocy, they've already paid the price for it."

Masamune took Shattered skies and ran a code scanner over it, noticing the changes that the weapon had gone through due to the reformatting. "Hmm, a combination weapon made up of three parts, as well as a thruster for transportation, interesting..." Masamune set the weapon down carefully and walked over to Amp, he used his scanner over every inch of Amp's body, taking note of the various alterations and looking for bugs or glitches. "Huh, well, the good news is that your code is well established and no bugs seem to be present. You have a clean bill of health Amplify, you may go." Justicar nodded, "Thank you Masamune." Masamune just shrugged, "No problem, just be careful out there." Justicar took out his broken sword and tossed it into a corner, not seeming to care about it. Masamune looked at Justicar, he was never so careless with his weapon, broken or not. 'What happened in that server?' 

Justicar noticed Masamune's gaze and shot a cold glare at the older swordsman, one that was clearly telling Masamune to drop the subject. Justicar activated Lupo's soul, taking the shape of the lupine avatar. He looked at Amp with a friendly expression. "Let's go Amp." Justicar quickly walked out of the Lab, not bothering to bid Masamune farewell.

[Prythian]

Amp nodded, one hand snagging her weapon and then dissolving it into energy, safely stowing the program away. "Thanks, doc." She said cheerfully. "I'll be seeing you around maybe? Depends on what happens." Two of her hands made a shrugging notion, palms in the air. And with that, she turned around and walked out, following Justicar.

Mirror thought about it for a moment, and shook her head. "Nah. As much as I wanna ask more about these sprites, I think getting my code fixed is probably a higher priority at the moment." She finally stood up, brushing herself off as if she'd been covered in dirt. "Besides... I'd like to feel a friendly reformatter. I don't know if it was my imagination, but theirs seemed... cold." She shuddered. "Shall we go?"

[Saber]

Baretta closed her eyes and thought about Noxus' offer, and the bargain he wanted to strike with her. While the information from Pariahtech may have been a godsend, she couldn't just allow avatars that have committed crimes to just walk away unpunished. "...I think I can understand where you're coming from, Noxus. As a leader, you wish to look out for your subordinates, something I can relate to. However, whether they were your orders or not, Justicar followed them, and that is something I can't simply overlook." She knew Noxus was going to say something in response, so she let him finish "As an officer of the law, I cannot overlook his transgressions, following orders or not. But I can try and work something out where he can have a reduced sentence, as long as I have a viable 3rd party who can vouch for Justicar, and watch over him after he is released...Given Amplify is a new person, and from what I have seen, has no recollection of her past life, I will drop the charges on her, as her reformatting has changed her situation."

She leaned forward and looked Noxus in the eyes, a calm, but reassuring glint in hers "As for your request for the avatars who have been put in stasis, we will be more than willing to fix them however we can. All you need to do is give us a recorded statement, admitting to your crimes, and we'll take all things into consideration. I'll even talk the urge into letting you give a final statement if you wished, in case you wanted to try and make some alternative form of punishment for your crimes." She gave Noxus a sly wink, almost as if trying to hint to something that she wasn't going to immediately tell him "After all, we can't very well condemn someone who helped save two of the NPD's safeguarded citizens to a life of isolation, not entirely at least."

Saber grinned when Mirror made her comment about the Pariahtech reformatter being cold, understanding her request to have her code fixed and walking over to her "Sounds good to me, and my offer stands whenever you want to get away and talk. I won't even mind if you just wanted to hang out for no reason, you deserve it after what you went through." He started escorting her towards the gateway to the network, when he thought of something interesting "So, how would you like to return to the server? Travel by road, through the bustling streets of cyber city?" He had Jake activate CAS sky strike and stretched his wings for a bit "Or would you prefer a casual fight over the rooftops? You kind of missed the first trip when I brought you here."

[Mani4c]

Mani4c immediately caught on to what Baretta was saying and smiled, 'Clever girl...' Noxus nodded, "Of course, I understand your position, and I humbly accept your terms. I only hope that Justicar will understand, with everything that's happened, I fear for his mental state. There was...something in his eyes, it was a strange look that I've seen all too often in the Underground, it was the look of someone with little left to lose."  Mani4c put his hand on Noxus' shoulder, "Hey, if he's got half the brains that you do, he'll see that it's for the best. You and him have a chance for a fresh start, and I'll have your back every step of the way."

Noxus smiled, "Thank you brother, and you as well Baretta. You show me far more compassion than a fool like me deserves."

Mani4c looked at Baretta, his face had a forlorn expression. "Baretta, I need to show Kate something, actually...I think everyone in our little "Club" needs to see this." the emphasis Mani4c put on the word "Club" made it clear as to who he was referring. "It's important."

Justicar walked through the streets of Cyber City with Amp, he was visibly unsettled. His gaze was sharp and irritable, and his gait was aggressive and threatening. But, he was somehow giving off a pained feeling, like an animal that was injured and acting threatening to ward of any aggressors. Justicar himself couldn't understand what was going on with him, he felt so...confused, he failed Amp, but now there was a new Amp in her place, and he didn't know how to feel. He was grateful at first, he could have avenged his failure, but now...He felt like dirt, he had failed a friend and now he was using this new version to appease his own guilt. He felt like he was being selfish, and he didn't know what to do. The pain of Amp's loss, combined with this sense of confusion and self hatred was driving him mad, and he was scared for Amp's safety. 'If I tell her what's going on she could hate me, but if I don't she could get hurt...argh, damn it all! What should I do?"

[Prythian]

Mirror smiled, turning into Saber and then into Skystrike, her color scheme blue, gold, and some red, as opposed to the black-white-yellow scheme that Saber's own Skystrike had. "Seems simple enough to me. I never did get a chance to try this out after you showed it to me so I could know it for later." She stretched her new wings. "Let's fly!"

Elsewhere, flying was crossing someone else's mind. Amplify glanced at Justicar. He seemed... out of it. Very much so. Rescuer or not, he seemed ready to rip someone's head off. She wasn't sure if there was a good way to calm him down, but... she had something she wanted to do, very much. Maybe she could take him with her? She stopped abruptly. "Hey, Justicar." She said to get his attention, Shattered Skies appearing in her hands... and then she lowered it to the ground, one pair of hands gripping the front tip, another hold it just in front of the start of the blade, now pointed behind her. She stepped on, holding herself up by pulling hard with the other pairs of hands, and held out one to Justicar. "I've been itching to do this since I realized I had a program for it. Come on, get on! You can hold onto my waist." He would certainly need to hold on; her feet stuck to it when she wanted, but no one else's would.

[Saber]

"...He's suffered a great loss, but something tells me it goes deeper than that." Baretta raised an eyebrow when Mani4c suggested that everyone in their 'club' needed to see something that he had to show. Crossing her arms, she kept staring at Mani4c quizzically "...Saber and Mirror are on their way back, and I have no idea where Domain is since he just walked off...Captain Bale and Jake are supervising the wiping of the remnant shadow data from the blank terminals, as is your partner, and I'm not sure where Mary or Erika are given they aren't technically NYPD or NPD. How important is this?"

Saber laughed when Mirror changed into himself, albeit a different color scheme, and activated skystrike, walking over to the entrance and unlocking the terminal "Well, I was offering to carry you there, but this works too. Let's take it slow until you get the hang of it though, this mode is designed for its speed, and inexperience flying at those speeds can cost you if your reaction time isn't as fast." Saber flapped his wings to get airborne and waited for Mirror to follow, before making a beeline for the skies, decelerating when he was above the rooftops and waiting to see how long Mirror would take to reach him. He decided to use his wings for flight, and casually coasted in the air until Mirror was ready to try going faster.

[Mani4c]

Mani4c's expression darkened, "In a nutshell, it's what made me go apeshit back in the server. They need to see it, considering what it concerns." Noxus hadn't seen the video that Mani4c was referring to, but he could tell from Mani4c's tone alone that whatever it was, it was bad. "Do I dare ask what you're referring to?" Mani4c shook his head, "You don't wanna know, trust me."

Justicar stopped when Amp spoke to him, his response to seeing Amp Balancing on Shattered Skies was to snicker, not at her, but at how unusual the sight was. When she held out her hand, he hesitated, he wasn't sure if she should trust him at the moment. 'To hell with it, if I fall off it'd be a blessing.' Justicar took Amp's hand and clambered up onto shattered skies, putting his hands around her waist and managed to get into a comfortably stable position, he was also mindful of where he put his hands. "Alright, let's go, I know a rooftop where we can watch the sun go down."

[Prythian]

Mirror boosted herself up into the air, moving only slightly slower than Saber. "You do realize that I'm copying your data, right? I may not be as experienced... but I can still use it fairly well, since some of your experience bleeds through with it." She said, grinning. "I do get some knowledge of what I copy, remember?"

Amplify smiled to herself. I think I have a few things to work out with him first... And with that, she took off, the thruster kicking on and shooting her forward. She steered it, not by leaning one way or another, but by using the hands that were gripping the shaft. The front pair was the primary steering, but using the back pair with it allows for extremely tight and fast turns. For now, though, she was steering it carefully and slowly, going up into the air... except past the rooftops, up to a fair height indeed, where she began slowing herself down by 'pulling' backwards with her hands to move at a slow pace. "I think first I want to work something out with you, while I've got you where you can't get away." She remarked. "What's wrong? You seem very angry or upset."

[Saber]

Baretta's eyes narrowed when Mani4c said whatever it was he needed to show them was what caused him to go berserk in the first place, wondering just exactly what it was "...Fine, I'll send the word out, but don't expect immediate results. In the meantime, please escort your brother to an isolation cell until we have the time to record a proper testimony, and I can work out a deal for his sentence."

Saber grinned when Mirror started boasting about how she could copy some of his knowledge and experience through her copying "Alright then, show me what you got, race you to the server!" Saber started using his thrusters, keeping his wings flat and using them for keeping airborne only while he started gaining speed at a rapid rate.

[Mani4c]

Mani4c nodded, "Right, let's go Noxus, I'll keep you away from general population, those assholes would drive you nuts." Noxus nodded and stood from his chair, giving a short wave to Baretta before leaving. "This way." Mani4c led Noxus through the precinct, several officers glared at Noxus as he and Mani4c passed by, Mani4c was aware of the dirty looks and came to a sudden stop. "Brother?" Mani4c activated his armor and turned around, he activated his arm blade and carved a line in front of his feet. when he was done he simply stared at the officers in front of him. "Alright assholes, listen up! Noxus is a guest of the NPD, and I don't like the way you're glaring at him, so here's what I'm gonna do..."

Mani4c pointed at the line he had carved into the floor. "See this line? If you wanna take a shot at Noxus, cross it. But, if you do, I will personally gut you like a trout and leave you hear as a warning to any other knuckleheads who wanna take a shot at him!" Mani4c gestured to the line again. "So, come on...let's mambo assholes!" The officers looked at one another, they obviously weren't expecting Mani4c to stand up for Noxus, let alone attack anyone on his behalf. Eventually, all of the officer's backed away slightly. "No takers? Alright then, if you're not going to fight me, then GET BACK TO WORK!" Mani4c flared his viral code and the officer's all went back to their duties. Mani4c deactivated his armor and tapped Noxus on the shoulder. "Let's go."

Mani4c led Noxus to a solitary holding cell that was off of the main cell block. Noxus walked in and sat on the cot that was set up against the left wall. Mani4c pulled out an old data file. "Here's some reading for you, it's this month's issue of the Programmer's Codex, I figured that you'd like it." Mani4c tossed the file to Noxus, who deftly caught it. "Thank you brother." Mani4c just waved his hand dismissively. "It's nothing, just looking out for my bro." Mani4c locked the cell and input a private password, he sent Baretta and Rotor the password as well, in case either of them wanted to speak to Noxus.

Justicar paled when Amp brought up that he was upset, he was honestly hoping that she wouldn't notice. "I...I feel like garbage." Justicar's voice became shaky, he was letting out his emotions for the first time since he met the new Amp. "There was more to your birth than you know, and the details behind that are why I'm so...out of sorts." Justicar sucked in a breath before continuing. "I don't want to burden you with this knowledge, but keeping it hidden is eating away at me...I don't know what to do, and I feel like scum for lying to you...please, forgive me Amp..." Justicar's grip on Amp's waist tightened somewhat, and he felt tears falling down his face. His apology wasn't just directed at the Amp he was currently clinging to.

[Prythian]

Mirror immediately took off, watching how he laid his wings and doing the same thing as she pushed the thrusters to the limit. "Now this isn't very fair!" She yelled to Saber, grinning. "We've got the exact same speed, but you took off first! How is that a race?"

One of Amp's hands floated back and landed on his shoulder, squeezing it reassuringly. "Alright, so you haven't told me everything, and you feel like that's lying. Being fair, we haven't had much time since I was born..." She mused out loud. "...and this subject seems like a private chat matter, when this is the first chance we've gotten for it. In other words, you did nothing wrong about that. But I warn you now!" While she tried to keep her voice lighthearted, there was a sense of dread in her heart. "I'm not bringing us back down until you tell me what you've left out, and we're far too high up for you to jump. Not that I'd let you." She added as an afterthought.

[Saber]

Saber looked back and grinned at Mirror as she called him out for boosting before she could react, not really forcing his thrusters to reach top speed until Mirror was closer to him "Well, I did warn you about quick reaction times! Kick into high gear and you can catch up, I'm not at top speed yet!"

[Mani4c]

Mani4c returned to Baretta's office and sat down, closing his eyes and rubbing his temples in irritation, once this business was over, that party was going to be a requirement if he wanted his sanity to remain intact. "God...thank the maker for that party..." Mani4c didn't really care if Baretta wasn't informed about his unauthorized festivity plans at this point, he just wanted to show Kate and the others that video file and get rid of the goddamn thing, just holding it made him feel dirty. "We got a role call on the Justice Friends yet? Or am I gonna have to shoot up a flare?"

Justicar sucked in a breath and nodded. "Alright, it all started months ago..." Justicar went on to tell Amplify about her previous life, her personality, and their adventures, though he didn't divulge the details of what Amp did to him during the Soul Hunt, she had redeemed herself for that in his eyes. He spared as few details as possible, giving Amp the straight truth, including her previous faults. When the time came to tell Amp about how her previous version sacrificed herself to save him, and in doing so being reformatted into her new form, Justicar's voice became choked with emotion. "When I found her, I was out of control, and I would have deleted her...we became trapped in a reformatter."

Justicar felt the tears come again, but he pushed on, he had to come to terms with this. "I was falling apart, my body couldn't handle the strain of the wolf soul...and that's when Amp saved me, she forced the energy that she collected through her own body, harming herself to help me." Justicar swallowed. "She kissed me, transferred the energy into me, she saved my life. I used this new strength to try and force the barriers that had trapped us open...but Amp...she..." Justicar paused again, getting his bearings before continuing. "She shoved me out of the reformatter, and trapped herself inside...she died, to save me, and in her final moments...she said that she loved me." Justicar lost it and began to sob, he managed to continue speaking however, determined to tell Amp the most important thing in his tale. "She told me to protect you, to care for you like I did her. In her final moments, despite all that she had done...She had become whole, she had found piece and atoned for what she had done." Justicar's sobs became more intense. "S-so, please Amp...d-d-don't, don't let your past define you, live your life the way you wish to live it. And please...don't blame yourself...it's not your fault." Justicar pulled her tighter, less holding on and more pulling Amp into a hug at this point.