Violence of the Star-Force (Megaman Starforce)

[Virgo with Cheer]

So. Here I am again finally getting around to posting a story I'm currently running on Akun. I really should be more proactive about doing that in general, but I tend to forget about it until I don't. This one's a little different though, what with how Starforce as a series has always held a special place close to my heart, and, frankly, I want to feed my fandom that's been desperately malnourished. Hope ya all enjoy, and, if ya ever want to see my doing stuff like this in live time, I'm pretty damn active over on fiction live. Cheers.

The year was 22XX.

Mankind, through trial and tribulation, has moved onto the next technological era, brought about through the harnessing of EM Waves and the creation of the Brotherband- a miraculous connection system that allows devices to produce and maintain computing power and utilities far beyond what they would normally allow.

With bonds between nations at an all time high, connected by the orbital satalitte Dragon, Leo, and Pegasus, mankind turns to the stars above with hand outstretched for whoever yearns to grasp it.

It is this dream, that creates a tragedy, for ones Geo and Hope Stelar, alongside numerous other families of those who were involved in the launch of the space station, Peace.​

'The stars never changed, for they had already exploded long ago, and the world below hadn't realized it yet.'

A heavy thought for a 10 year to have, but such were the demands when you were on a hilltop staring upward at the sky while a bit of poetry homework assigned by his Teacherman Navi was left open on his Transfer.

"I miss you Dad." Geo sighed as he repeated another familiar, heavy thought into the cooling night air as his gaze continued to drift between constellations that had practically been engraved into his memory.

They never changed.

Just the people who went up to see what was between them.

Finishing his work didn't take long after the cold of the night started to get a little too much to ignore, and then it was time to head home.

The familiar surburbia of Echo Ridge blurred past him as he walked the familiar route back to his home.

"Ah, Geo, there you are! We have a guest!" The sound of his Mom greeted Geo as he stopped in the doorway to take off his shoes.

Looking over at him, Geo's first thought was 'fat'.

The second was 'hat', and the third was 'Mr.Boreal."

The previous two things were equally as accurate as the third.

"Mr.Boreal." Geo murmered with a small tilt of his head, remembering the man who had worked with his father in mixed emotions. Every so often since the… incident, he would come around to check and see how they were doing, but this was the latest he had ever come over before.

"Hey! Listen, I don't want to put either of you out, but I was going through some of my things when I was setting up my new office, and, well. I thought you should have it." Mr.Boreal started off with his usual confidence before it smoothed off into something softer as he reached into his flack jacket and took out a pair of-

-gold and green sunglasses?

"It's a Visualizer. Your dad used them back in the day to track wave emissions on his early models of brotherband interfaces. When I saw them, I thought you would like them. To get a chance to see through your dad's eyes, just a little." Mr.Boreal trailed off a little awkwardly at the end as he coughed into his hand while setting the glasses on the coffee table beside him.

…Geo felt his eyes grow a little misty, but didn't allow anything to fall. Not anymore.

"Thank you Aaron." His mother however had no such concern wiping away a stray tear.

"It's the least I could have done Hope. I'm only sorry there isn't anything more I can do." He shook his head a little.

Life with the Visualizer was…remarkably the same as they were before that point, if way trippier.

Looking at the world and its ebbs and flows of colors gave Geo no small amount of headaches the first few times he put on the gold-braided eyeband, but after a short while, Geo started to notice patterns in them.

That Transfers radiated consistent waves of their chosen satallites colors, short range transmitions floated like lazy, square butterflies against the dyed orange skies, and messages darted almost faster than the eyes could track in swift beams, there one moment and gone the next.

It was chaos, utterly berift of a grander meaning that Geo could discern, and that arguably what made it worth trying to make it make sense.

Maybe that was why Dad felt so strongly about the brotherband system. Not for its utility, but to follow that trail to the very end, just to see what it would look like.

…to the very end… the end. The End.

Geo shook his head to knock himself out of that depressive spiral. Not right now.

That was what the dark quiet of the night while he was laying in bed was for.

No, right now Geo was too busy charting the sea of purple, green, and orange that made up the nightsky view of Vista Point, trying (and mostly failing) to make patterns of what he was seeing.

If nothing else, the wave patterns looked nice in the notebook he was jotting his findings in.

"…Hey, hang on." Geo frowned as he squinted his eyes to try and get a better look at an oddity.

A spikey blue…something, was being bombarded with a series of white streams? What?

"Is that a weather satallite getting data or something?" Geo murmered as he hurried through his notes to see if there was anything he had seen before similar to whatever he was witnessing.

Taking his gaze off the spiked mass turned out to be a blessing however, as the second he did there was a faint flash that probably would have blinded Geo if he was looking directly at it.

Rearing back up to try and see what the hell had just happened, Geo saw the light-

"-COMING RIGHT FOR ME!?!" Geo vocalized just before it made impact.

Once more, there was light, then an odd sense of weightlessness.

"-Oi! Oiiii! Kid! Open your damn eyes, kid!" A rough voice growled in Geo's ear, making him groan and work through the wierd floaty feeling that had knocked him out of his standing position.

"I'm up, I'm up. I'm. uhhh." Geo groaned before opening his eyes, and then quickly blinking them a few times again.

Nope. Still the same thing standing (FLOATING!?!) in front of him.

"Thanks for breaking my fall." The energy…wolf? Man? Being, nodded with his arms crossed.

"Oh. I've gone crazy." Geo said.

"Hey, if you're crazy, at least be the useful kind cause we gotta move. I was under attack, and that pecker up there isn't going to let go just when he finally gets through my guard." The alien (ALIENS ARE REEEEAL!?!) growled in the back of his throat as he looked upward.

Unconciously, Geo looked back up as well, before freezing again.

Before, what was previously a chaotic series of waves and pulses that required careful study and artistic liberties to map were stark and clear roads, layered on top of one another and disappearing in every possible direction, each a distinct shade with the hustle and bustle of numerous small blobs, trucks, and several other things Geo couldn't make out against the darkness.

But none of that matters, compared to what was on the 'edge', watching them.

Hardhats with comically large pickaxes held at their side and beady eyes peering out by the barest of edges.

Mettena.

Viruses.

"Hmm. So you can see em, ey? That makes things easier. Must be those fancy glasses of yours, cause humans can't usually see Wave entities." The green being mused aloud, before shaking his head and bringing his hand forward to try and grab Geo's wrist.

Both of them flinched at the contact however, as the beings hand went straight through where he was trying to grab, leaving phantom tingles through Geo's fingertips like he had run them over a plugged wire.

"Ah, damn it, forgot about that." The being…admonished itself?

This whole experience was weird, too weird!

"But I can work with this. Oi. Kid. What's yer name?" The almost certainly an alien asked him.

It was too weird, and it completely short circuited every single impulse warning Geo had in his head.

"Geo Stelar." He answered.

There was a glint of…something, in the alien's eyes for a second before it was gone, making Geo wonder if he had just imagined it.

"My name is Warrock. I'm a friend of your father, and if you want to know more, you need to listen to me and do exactly as I say.

…Dad, what the actual fuck were you doing up in space!?!

This was rapidly turning into the surrealist day of his entire life- it really wasn't that high a bar to clear before all this, to be fair, but something told me that the chances of something beating this moment were going to be far and few between.

"When I tried to grab you, I got a sample of your wavelength and found its similar to mine. Which means we can do more than run." Warrock's voice was like thunder on the horizon, charged with something waiting to be unleashed.

"If you're suggestion that I fight those viruses, then you're as crazy as I still think I might be." Geo sassed the alien before he could stop himself.

"Heh. So you got some spine in there after all. Good. But don't worry, just leave it to me." Warrock smirked, his fanged muzzle sharp as any beartrap.

"Okay, because for a second there I was-"

"I just need your body." Warrock casually interrupted him.

"-VERY RIGHTLY WORRIED!" Geo instantly changed his tune.

"Oh grow up, I don't mean it like that. Listen, I'm a dempa-being, made of EM Waves, and in an enviroment like this with conflicting signals, I need a focus to really do anything with some oomph to it. So I'm going to harmonize our Wavelengths cause they already have a similar base, and then I can take care of those viruses lickity-split. Ya got it?" Warrock explained after a moment of rolling his eyes.

It sounded like nonsense to Geo, but, then, this was also an alien. They did weird and nonsensical stuff all the time. Like crop circles.

And, apparently, transformation sequences.

Still, the reminder of the Viruses stopped him from disagreeing flat out, because, well, even if he escaped here, that didn't suddenly stop them from being a threat to everything else around them. The homes. The train station. The people in both those things.

So he couldn't just leave them, not when he wouldn't even be able to warn people about a virus swarm without seeming like a kid crying wolf.

So Geo did something else arguably stupider than giving his name to an alien.

"…Okay, let's do whatever we have to."

He agreed.

"I need you to focus, quiet out all other distractions. Say the words 'Dempa-Henkan' followed by your name!" Warrock ordered as he maneuvered over behind Geo.

"That mean anything?" Geo asked as he tried not to squirm too much.

"Probably. Your dad was pretty insistant on it, but it seemed to work so here we go." Warrock shrugged, or at least sounded like it (an odd buzzing sound that ossolated in pitch before returning to its persistant hum).

…That both made Geo feel a bit better about all this, and also a little embarassed, because it brought right back into the fray just how his dad was…well.

This hand of mine is burning red, yearning with a hope for the future and guiding me towards where I'm needed most! And right now, it's leading me towards your Mom's sandwiches! Last one there has to eat the egg salad!

Extra.

"You can't tell anyone I'm about to do this." Geo tried to swear the alien to secrecy.

"…Kid. I think I have bigger issues than one Earthling's feelings, but alright. If that's what it takes." Warrock agreed for the sake of getting along with things.

"Okay." Geo took a deep breath, and then let it out.

…Nope, didn't help his nerves at all. Gotta treat it like a band-aid and rip it off then!

"Denpa Henkan! Geo Stelar! ON! AIR!"

Wait, shit, he didn't need to add that last past stupidNERVES-!

The world was awash in light, and once more the air was robbed from his lungs.

But in, like, a good way.

The world was fire. Fire that cleansed the body, freed the spirit, enlightened the mind.

Geo's soul sang as it felt like he took a breath for the first time and opening his eyes to see-

""What the?"" Geo and his hand both murmered in confusion, followed by a short silence.

Then both of them started screaming.

"WHY ARE YOU MY ARM!?!/WHY AM I YOUR ARM!?!" Was the echoed scream from both halves of the party.

"No, seriously, why are you my arm! And WHAT, AM I WEARING!" Geo rightfully freaked out.

"You're wearing ME! But why am I the arm! I'm supposed to be in charge of the fusion, how the hell did you overpower me!?!" Warrock yowled in panic.

"I understand those words, and have none of the context! I'm just as lost as you are!" Geo shot back.

"You-! Haaah. Whatever. Fine. Fine! I can work with this. Alright kid, things just got complicated, but it doesn't change the problem at hand." Warrock was about to snap before he visibly pulled himself back with a deep breath that somehow calmed Geo down a little too.

…Oh god, were they sharing lungs right now? Did they even have lungs at the moment?

"AM I FLYING RIGHT NOW!?!" Geo screamed again as he looked down and realized he was standing on one of the uncountable orange roads he had previously been looking up at.

"No, you're on a wave road after I pulsed us in, now get your head in the game. Do what needs to be done now, and then have your freakout later." Warrock gruffed out before abruptly nudging himself forward, tugging Geo away from the ledge he had been fretting over.

"We aren't ignoring this!" Geo insisted.

"Yes! I! AM!" Warrock roared as he pulled him forward.

Denpa Henkan Control Results> 90, 80, 17
​

"Stop that!" Geo hissed as he planted his feet on whatever the wave road was made of, presumably waves, and hoisted Warrock's head back like he was pulling the reins on a wild horse.

It certainly felt like he had just as much force going through him.

"HNNNngg! Okay, seriously, how are you doing that!" Warrock demanded as he made a growl not unlike the revving of a engine.

"I don't know, but frankly I need to know a little bit more than 'go this way' now that we're apparently one and the same!" Geo bit back with just as much force, a fact that surprised himself a little, but helped illustrate just how far from his usual norms he was at the moment.

"What's there to know? We go in there, go buck wild on em, and then its dealt with!" Warrock scoffed, and Geo felt an eyebrow twitch.

"That was your plan?" Geo asked incredulously.

"It hasn't failed me yet!" Warrock proudly raised his snout to the air, like a dog presenting the juiciest of bones.

"…That's stupid." Geo bluntly said.

"Well I could have showed you how good a plan it was if I was in control right now! But, fine, what's your grand idea oh wise guy?" Warrock asked as he rolled his eyes again.

"Something better than run up and hit them. I mean, they're viruses, so you use-" Geo stopped himself as a thought occured to him.

"-You use battle cards." Geo softly spoke the last few words.

"Hey hey hey, you were holding out on me kid! You got some weapons on you?" Warrock gleefully cackled before beginning to nose around Geo's body.

What he was trying to find, the boy wasn't exactly sure, given that he was wearing a skintight-

"Found em!" Warrock cheered as he returned into Geo's view with a small box in his jaws.

"How!?!"

"They converted real nicely into waveform, now open er up and lemme see what we're workin with! I'd do it myself, but, well. My tongue ain't that dexterous." Warrock said far to casually.

"I'm opening it, I'm opening it!" Geo fumbled for a moment in his hurry, but none the less found the latch to reveal the few battlecards he carried with him for general safety.

And, while not one of those people who spent any and every cent on the latest releases and limited series units that existed, he liked to think he had a bit wider of a selection than most people generally bothered with due to the sheer amount of electronics he tinkered with and grew up around.

Swords, Gatling, Cannons, HeatBall, and a Recover 10 were the majority reserved for general nuisances in his daily life, and if that wasn't enough, there was his panic button-

Moai Fall 1.

A simple, somewhat underwhelming name for a card that solved quite a number of problems in his life before, and what was this if not another problem?

"Oh yeah, these will do nicely." Warrock practically purred, before he lashed out and shoved the hand Geo was previously holding his battle cards in into his mouth.

There was silence for a moment, before Warrock swallowed.

"What even the actual fuck?" Geo deadpanned.

"Heh-urp. It's my specialty, Predation. Usually I can rip off and incorporate bits and bobs from enemies I'm fighting to get an edge on em, but those battle cards are chock full of new and exciting ways to tear up whoevers stupid enough to get in our way! Tasty too." Warrock explained with a hearty chuckle and licking of his chops.

"That's disturbing, on so many levels." Geo deadpanned.

"But damned effective. Just think about some of those battlecards you had, and they should come right back up. Though, uh, might want to hurry a bit on some of em. They only stick around in my stomach for so long." Warrock coughed a little nervously.

…Did that mean that they were in HIS stomach too right now? No, wait, questions that Geo might not want to know the answer to later, right now he was trying to make some semblance of sense to all this.

"What, I just say 'Sword'-!" Geo was interrupted as Warrocks head was awash in a similar splash of fire as when he first transformed to be replaced by a bright green beam sword.

"Yes." Warrock's voice dryly said from nowhere, before returning back to his previous standard.

"Oh." Geo blinked.

"Yeah. Oh. NOW LET'S MAKE EM REGRET EVER TRYING TO TOUCH DOWN ON THIS DIRTBALL!" Warrock abruptly screeched as he pulled Geo forward.

He was not able to stop him this time.

Viruses had been a bane of human society for centuries, coming about from obsolete or junk data congregating together within defunct and failing technologies that then spread over the widely flowing EM wave networks to occasionally affect people directly. Countless studies had been conducted over the years to catalogue each and every one of the malignant creatures, but the practice was likened to trying to count how many stars there were in the sky for a reason, as numerous species came into being only to disappear just as quickly as the source of wherever they came from was fixed.

Of all of them however, the Mettena had well and truly shown themselves to be of a hardier stock, having been one of the first ever identified from the Internet era that still survived to the present day.

Originally created from attempts at data mining and phishing schemes, the miners had evolved into a creature all their own, obsessed with breaking into communication networks and glutting themselves on data streams before replicating and continuing the cycle anew.

Up close, they would almost be kind of cute, so long as you ignored the razorsharp picks held in their nonexistant hands.

Geo did not, could not ignore them.

It was so strange. His feet felt floaty, his heart was in his throat, and his hands felt clammy even through he was fairly sure he couldn't actually sweat at the moment.

"Sword!"

But regardless of all that, he still threw himself forward, Warrock once again flashing into a sword that found its edge deftly flicking upward under the yellow hardhat before seperating it from the round black body of the rest of the virus with the same ease as shucking an oyster.

Ba-bump.

"Gatling! Cannon!"

The sword exchanged for a multibarrel gun already whirling to life as Geo cast his arm wide, stunning the few who were about to rear backward to knock him down at his knees, followed by a piercing shot that rendered them to data bits.

Ba-bump.

"Wide Sword!"

A flat blade blocked the surprise attack that tried to strike at his back as he swept in a tight circle, deleting those who tried to come from below him.

Ba-bump.

"Moai Fall 1!"

Rocks fell.

Everything died.

Ba-bump.

His heart rate never picked up throughout the entire encounter as Geo realized he was now alone on the waveroad.

"Heh. Here I was worrying, and then you pull out this kind of thing? You got some fangs yerself there kid." Warrock throatily chuckled, shocking Geo out of the stupor he had found himself in.

"Why did I know how to do that?" Geo demanded at his hand.

"You're probably getting some of my instincts bleeding through. You knew what those cards did in your head, and I helped your body move where and how it needed to. Surprisingly effective." Warrock chuckled again, before lashing out to the right at one of the larger chunks of virus debris still floating around.

"What're you doing now?" Geo blankly asked, feeling incredibly disconnected at the moment as he struggled to really registered what he had just done.

"Hey, waste not want not. Predation usually works its way through me pretty quickly, but these battle cards of yers give me an idea I want to try. If I take a bit to chew, maybe I can…" Warrock trailed off as he worked his jaws around like he was chewing a wad of gum before spitting out…a battle card?

Ground Wave 1, it read, bearing a depiction of a Mettena midswing.

"Whatta ya know. It worked." Warrock smirked.

"…You just made a battle card." Geo said, somewhat stunned.

Battle cards were supposed to be raw combat data condensed into a ready form to be released from a Transfer in a burst to deal with viruses, and anything beyond the standard ones that came with said Transfers were incredibly costly affairs to obtain, both due to their relative nicheness, but also manufacturing limitations.

And here was was just spat up like a hairball.

"We, just made a battle card. Now enough gawkin Kid, more are coming on our six!" Warrock swapped focus as his pupils dilated.

"Why do you even know that expression!?!"

"I spent a lot of time with your dad watching the media they brought with them up to my planet, now move your ass!"

Battle Effectiveness Results> 113, 96, 71
​

Once more, things began to blur for Geo, but in a different way then before.

The previous time it had felt like his body moved before his mind could properly understand what he was doing.

Now, it felt like he was beginning to understand why he was moving in certain ways.

Stepping into and under the guards of Mettenas to get rid of the leverage their swings provided them to strike at the tender underbellies. Strafing the Cannon Base and returning fire down their barrels to lead to full collapses. Allowing the Crowcar to simply impale themselves on his blade with their own wild charges becoming their undoing.

Geo took note of all of these things as his body never truly settled in one position in the face of the ever diminishing horde.

Under the light of the moon, Geo stood within a field of fading data and scattering Viruses.

"Huh." Geo huffed as he looked down at his own hands, marveling at how oddly natural that had felt.

And also midly boggling at the sheer number of viruses that apparently existed in his small town. Emphasis on the -ed.

Gained- Ground Wave 1, Guard 1, Power Bomb 1, Jet Attack 1, Radar Missile 1
​

"Hey. How come there's so much stuff just, floating around?" Geo asked as he waited for the adrenaline to go back down, before realizing that he didn't actually feel that wired at all.

"It's the data they weren't able to incorporate into themselves yet. Viruses build themselves up until they either refine themselves into more effective forms or bud off, but it all just gathers up in em in the meanwhile. Some people use em for trade." Warrock gruffed up between periods of gorging himself, sampling and then spitting out battle cards like a seasoned wine connoisseur

Curious, Geo reached his actual hand out to run over the smaller bits, and was then startled as his Transfer chimed. Partly because said Transfer didn't even actually exist at the moment.

"Hmm? You just took that in." Warrock noted, swallowing the chunk he was eating and flashing in fire again to reveal Geo's usual cool blue Transfer that seemed to blend in with the rest of the suit he'd found himself in.

Checking it, Geo saw that he'd…somehow gained Zenny?

"What?" Geo asked himself, running his free hand through another clump like he was gathering a snowball, and once again his Transfer chimed.

"It's…Zenny?" Geo boggled, looking over the cleared field with new eyes.

Sure, each one wasn't a lot, maybe something like 100 or 500 a pop, but given how many he could see all over even just right now?

That was easily at least 6000. At a minimum.

Almost double his monthly allowance.

Geo dryly gulped, and wondered for a moment why this was hitting him harder than figuring out the best way to bifurcate a bird brought about from flight pathing errors.

It was probably an odd sight they made, wandering around in the sky, slowly but surely clearing away the field of debris left behind in the wake of their enslaught, but in the end Geo had almost three times as many battle cards as he started the day with, and 11,000 more Zenny. It wouldn't break the bank by any means, but money was money.

"I could get a new telescope with this." Geo mused to himself, sitting down on the edge of the wave road and simply taking in the city he lived in from above.

It was a strange experience, given how much time he generally spent looking up from said place, even earlier today.

"Good for you. I think its time we pulse out now though." Warrock nudged him from the side, his muzzle cool and oddly metallic in spite of the ring of burning energy behind his head.

"Wha-Right! Yes. That…sounds good." Geo somewhat blithely nodded.

"Just think about yourself as you normally are, and I'll do the rest." Warrock lowly rumbled.

"Okay." Geo closed his eyes and breathed out, imagining his shoes, the shorts, his red shirt.

His dads necklace.

He breathed out, and breathed in the cold night air.

"There we go." Warrock's voice said from beside his head.

He was once more, Geo Stelar.

"Oh, that was weird." Geo shivered, goosebumps rising from his shoulders and arms as he hurriedly rubbed them to get the warmth back into them, before he felt a sinking sensation in his stomach and quickly checked his Transfer.

He was so busy looting cleaning up the mess he left on the wave road that he completely forgot about the time! He was supposed to be home hours ago!

His mom was going to kill him!

"Oi! Get back here kid!" Warrock barked at him as Geo showed the alien what it was like to be the one having someone run full force away from him.

"I can't, she's going to kill me if I'm late!" Geo hysterically shouted back.

"WHO!?! DO WE NEED TO DENPA HENKAN AGAIN!?!" Warrock incredulously roared, racing after the boy.

Of course, Mom didn't kill him. She did something much worse.

"Oh good, you're safe! I was so worried when you didn't come home! I didn't want to call you in case you had found yourself talking to someone, but, but, I'm so glad you're okay!" Mom mildly wailed as she crushed Geo into a hug the second he stepped through the door, swinging him around like a teddybear fresh from the fair.

She worried. And that was almost more painful that if she scolded him.

"…Sorry Mom. I'm okay." Geo murmered as he returned the embrace as much as he could, feeling a set of eyes watching him flatly from behind.

"I'm glad. I made us some macaroni and spinich puffs." Mom sniffled a little with a smile.

Suddenly, a vast majority of the guilt Geo was feeling disappeared as he realized the worried embrace was in fact a trap to make sure he would not escape.

"Ah." Geo gasped.

"Ah." Mom smirked, picking him up like luggage and carting him over to the table.

At least they had his favorite blackberry ice cream for dessert.

About an hour later after helping with the dishes and brushing his teeth, Geo found himself laying in bed, staring at the universe pattern on his roof, and finally ready to address the elephant in the room.

Or rather, the alien.

"So. Did that actually happen, or am I really crazy now?" Geo asked the open air, his eyes firmly upward.

"As real as the air you breath and the rends my claws leave behind." A familiar voice gruffed as an invisible weight settled beside him on the bed.

A tuck downward of the Visualizer revealed Warrock, sprawled out beside him and supporting his head with one hand lazily.

"Yo." He waved.

Geo didn't bother to greet him back, mind racing over everything that had happened, and coming back to the same thing.

"What happened to my dad." It wasn't a question.

"I can't tell you." And Warrock didn't give an answer.

"Of course you can't." Geo grit his teeth, hands balling up his cover under the blankets and only barely stopping himself from lashing out at the wave being on the understanding that it would just go through him anyway if he did take a swing.

"Look. I said can't. Not won't. There are some things I need to clean up before I can really tell you certain stuff, for your safety, and mine." Warrock gruffed out, posture still lazy but eyes intense.

"…That's easy for you to say." Geo spat back.

"It isn't, but it needs to be said anyway. You've just taken a lot out of your body though, and I know you humans need stupid amounts of rest. Get some sleep, and I can explain to you what I can tomorrow." Warrock said as he turned away from Geo, disappearing through a wall.

Geo wanted to rage at that, chase after the EM being and demand answers and damn the consequences, but his arms and legs were feeling like lead at the moment.

His dreams that night were full of indistinct light and dancing shadows of the stars above.

The next morning, Geo awoke to the familiar blarings of his alarm, leading him to hurriedly smash it off, shuffle out of his comfy bed to begin his morning routine, and then head to the kitchen for some breakfast, where he found a note taped to the fridge waiting for him.

"'Gone to the market, be back in a little while. Love you, Mom.'" Geo read aloud as he poured himself a bowl of cereal and peeled a banana before breaking it apart with his hands and adding in the pieces as he couldn't be bothered to go grab a knife to cut it, settling down at the table with a spoon shoved in his mouth and opening his Transer to check his days assignments and messages.

Only to just barely avoid choking on his mouthful of cereal as he found a certain alien sprawled across his homepage like it was a guest couch.

"Wha- Warrock!" Geo hurriedly coughed to clear his windpipe.

"-hrk? Oh. Hey, kid." Warrock rolled over and stretched himself, jaw opening wide as he gave a nonchalant wave.

"Why're you in my Transer!?!" Geo rightfully panicked.

"Eh, I got bored looking around your place last night, then I remembered you humans had personal computers you used to entertain yourself. I settled in at some point to watch some of your Earth programming, then must have gotten comfy and nodded off. So, what's the plans for today?" Warrock explained far too casually.

"Don't just gloss over that!" Geo insisted, before he got a knock on the door.

"What now?" Geo groaned to himself.

All he wanted was a nice, simple morning. Was that too much to ask?

​

 

[Virgo with Cheer]

"Geo Stelar?" An unfamiliar voice asked from behind his front door.

"…Yes?" Geo hesitantly answered, because the voice didn't sound that old.

It was apparently the wrong answer to give, as his front door was then kicked in, leaving him barely any time to get out of the way as it impacted the side of the foyer with a loud crash.

"YOUR TIME HAS COME GEO STELAR!"

'Loud', was the first thought that went through his mind. 'Drills', was the second.

'What the actual fuck was happening anymore' was his third.

"COME HELL OR HIGH WATER, I WILL GET YOU TO COME TO CLASS!" The stranger who had just kicked in his door ordered him as she marched through the doorway to jab him in the chest.

Luna Shirogane was upon him. Woe be to anyone who dared get in her way.

There were a lot of things that Geo wanted to say at that exact moment, but was able to say none of them as two more people made themselves comfortable in his house.

"-She did it! She actually did it! I was simply positing it as a possible point of action, but she wasn't supposed to actually DO IT!" The small one in the trenchcoat wailed.

"Haha, that's our Prez for ya! She doesn't let things like doors, walls, or even social decency stop her from doing what needs to be done!" The fat one laughed jollily.

"None of those are good things to cheer for!" The smaller one reprimanded his friend with a quick slap to his thigh, about as high as he could reach.

"WHO ARE YOU PEOPLE!?!" Geo finally found the nerve to yell, making the girl poking him flinch back half a step before she reaffirmed herself, chest puffing up and nose pointing firmly to the sky.

"Huhuu, who are we you ask? Well, LEMME TELL YA! BOYS!" The drill-haired girl declared with a snap of her fingers as the smaller boy hefted up his Transer, which was the same shade of green as his trenchcoat, and began to play…music?

Oh.

Oh no.

"YOU STAND BEFORE ECHO RIDGE ELEMENTARIES STUDENT COUNCIL PRESIDENT- LUNA SHIROGANE!" The blonde declared as she struck a pose with her legs firmly planted and a hand back as if to comb her hair into position.

"COMING UP FROM THE REAR, THE TREASURER WORTH TREASURING, I! AM ZACK TEMPLE!" The short one preened as he scrunched forward to give himself an almost gremlin-like gleam from his glasses.

"THE STRONG ARM OF THE LAW, RULE ENFORCER BUD BISON!" And overshadowing both of them was big and burly himself, arms up wide in a double salute to show off those arms that were nearly a third as thick as Geo's entire torso.

"And we're here- to get you to school!" Luna bombastically declared, once more thrusting her finger forward in Geo's general direction.

"…No. Get out of my house." Geo said with the enthusiasm of a freshly splashed cat.

"Wha-no? What do you mean, 'no'!?!" Luna asked incredulously, flinching back like she was slapped.

"N-O, no. Negatory. Niet. I can continue this if you need it in any other language, but the meanings still the same. I'm not going to school." Geo's tone grew colder with each denial, until his face was a carefully schooled scowl.

"And why not? What's so important that you couldn't show up for the first year and a half, huh? Your chair in class was literally a school myth until Mr.Shepar told us you were an actual person!" Luna doubled back around, leaning forward with teeth grit in determination.

"That's none of your business." Geo brusquely retorted.

"Cross referencing with past events that occured around the timeframe that began the period of absense with the last name 'Stelar', I believe it has to do with the loss of contact with the space station 'Peace', that one Kelvin Stelar was in charge of." Zack read off from his Transer, drawing a singular sharp twitch from Geo's face before he drew himself back under control.

"Shut up." Geo lowly said.

"It has been a long time. Surely, the period of mourning has passed and you are only doing yourself a disservice removing yourself from-" Whatever nonsense Zack was spewing was cut off as Geo lunged forward, hands reaching out and grabbing the little bastard by his shoulders.

"I'm not in mourning, because he ISN'T DEAD! MY DAD IS OUT THERE, AND I KNOW IT!" Geo screamed in his face, red in the face and heart thumping harder than anything the decimation he had unleashed last night had produced in him.

"Hey, I get that you're feeling a lot of things, but hands off the moneyman." Bud gruffed as he picked Geo up by his scruff to pull him away from Zack.

Geo's arm moved before he understood what was happened.

"heh."

Then he realized that it wasn't because of his latent instincts that he had just lashed out with a picture perfect uppercut. It was Warrock, in his Transer and deciding that he wanted a shot of his own while the getting was good.

Bud hit the floor like a sack of bricks, and left just as loud a thud as he fell backward.

All present stared at the end result, with Geo's hand still raised in the air as if ready to recieve a champion belt.

"…I'm not going to school." It was a lame thing to repeat, but it felt like the fire that burned so fiercely in him a moment ago had been doused with glacier waters as he ran past the stunned duo as they knelt beside their fallen friend.

Geo didn't care that they had invaded his house first.

Geo had to get out of there.

So he did.

Geo ran, with no real destination in his mind beyond simply going as far from his home as he could manage.

It was stupid, and completely unneccesary, and it wasn't until his lungs were burning a few blocks away that he even realized the he had run out in only his house slippers, not even real shoes.

"Why did I do that? Why did YOU, do that?" Geo admonished himself, and then his Transer as he collapsed on a park bench.

"Whatta ya want me to say kid? You flare up that kind of heavy wavelength at me, of course I'm gonna react! Though, heh, I really lettem have it, didn't I?" Warrock preened a little from the transer screen, utterly unrepentant.

"That's not the point! Don't suddenly hit people!" -that I also wanted to hit first, Geo carefully swallowed back before it could undercut his point.

"Bah, your worrying over nothing. Hey, what do you humans do for fun besides watch others of your kind get into zany and improbably predicaments?" Warrock abruptly changed topics.

"What? I don't know, read? Exercise?…Shop?" Geo hesitently listed off, trying to think of what people did in a general sense and finding himself kind of floundering on how to explain it to an alien.

"Weird. Well hey, if you want to escape for a while anyway, be productive and show me around the place. Denpa Henkan again." Warrock ordered.

…A part of Geo wanted to disagree just to be petty, but he also didn't want to go back home just yet just in case they were still there, and he also didn't want to just wander around in his slippers and get them ruined.

"Okay, I guess." He ended up grousing in agreement.

It was still better than being forced to go to school, if only by a small amount.

A quick trip into an alleyway out of sight followed by a flash of greenish light, and once more two become one.

…One and a half.

"This will never not be weird." Geo groaned as he looked down at Warrock's head where his left hand had been.

"Eh, don't say that just yet. You humans are a weirdly adaptable sort, and FM-ians aren't slouches ourselves. Still, its weird that this arrangement wasn't just a one-time thing. At first I thought it was just you running high frequency or something, but for the same ratio to be established…" Warrock began to say before trailing off into murmers under his breath about concepts Geo had only ever heard in different contexts.

So, understandably, he wanted answers.

"You keep mentioning things like wavelengths and frequencies, and obviously they mean something to you, but not to me. Explain." Geo demanded of the being who was currently his hand, snapping him out of his thoughts with a click of his jaws.

"Hmm? Oh, yeah, sure. EM-beings are held together by wavelengths and emotions. The more both of those things align, the stronger we become. When its strong enough, we can even merge like this to become more than the sum of our parts, or at least more efficient than just doing it ourselves. By that same standard though, if you start feeling things strongly enough, we can influence each other." Warrock explained, before something darker entered his gaze for a moment.

"Fm-ians are good at that."

Then, as quickly as it appeared, it was gone.

"Anyway, yeah, you were feeling fighty, so of course I was going to take a swing. But that's enough yappin, I'm seeing way too many interesting things to just stand here all day, let's move move-MOVE!" Warrock cackled before urging himself forward, throwing Geo off the wave road they had been standing on completely.

"Wah-! Warrock, stop, we're heading straight for-"

Option Chosen> Side Quest
​

"-that guy!" Geo panicked as he tried to flap his right arm to try and change his course from where he was going to crash- right atop the focused man talking to someone on his Transer who for some reason wasn't reacting to the sight of a kid in power armor falling from the sky.

"You're thinking like a fleshie still. Remember, right now, we're a wave being. Think about connections, and instead of the ground…" Warrock rolled his eyes as he quieted down and focused, a small rainbow corona of static enveloping the outline of Geo's body for a moment before, instead of hitting the concrete-

"Oof!" "See? What'd I tell ya. Worrying over nothing."

-he collided with an oddly white floor with walls decorated with various templates for battle cards, with the actual picture windows where the information would be displayed replaced with different screen tabs.

"What?" Geo asked, crouching down to get himself back to his feet from the sprawled position he had found himself in.

"Welcome to this guys transer. I wanted to see if we could go in, and we did! Good thing too. There woulda been egg on my face if I was wrong." Warrock throatily chuckled.

"Don't throw me off places if you aren't sure you could do something or not! In fact, don't throw me off from anywhere! I shouldn't even be in here, this is someone's private information!" Geo lambasted his hand, who had the gall to simply roll his eyes at him.

"Oh please, you humans practically blast everything else about yourselves to whoever will listen anyway, is it really so bad to get the water from the horses mouth, or whoever that saying of yours goes?" Warrock chided the boy, already bored of the conversation and nosing around against the wall for anything more 'interesting'.

"There are so many things wrong about what you just said!" Geo insisted.

"Wrong, right, who cares? I just hit paydirt!" Warrock proudly crowed as he grabbed at something that wasn't physically there before tearing it out in his jaws.

"What the-" Geo had just enough time to say before the packet of whatever it was Warrock had just torn out smacked him in the face, breaking apart and suddenly filling him with awareness.

Name: Juan Mocard

Handle: JuanBonDonJohn

Secret: I once cheated on my entrance exams.

"I want, NEED, to have a Fire Ring 1 card. I MUST be the first to complete the 100 Rings Challenge to go with the other 99 in my collection."

…Did, did he just download his personal data?

"What?" Geo repeated.

"So he's some kind of weapons dealer…" Warrock mused.

That absolutely wasn't what he was, but clearing up that misconception wasn't exactly his biggest problem at the moment either.

"…Hey, Warrock. How would you make a Fire Ring card?" Geo asked his hand.

"Considering I just got to this planet and learned what battle cards were yesterday? I don't fuckin know." Warrock bluntly answered, making Geo twitch at the crassness, but, well.

Fair enough.

"Okay, but if I fought the right virus, theoretically, you could make a Fire Ring 1, right?" Geo rephrased his question.

"Sure, probably. Why, you thinking of undercutting this guys market?" Warrock asked, slightly curious at this change of pace.

"No, I just, uh. Wanted to know." Geo somewhat badly lied.

"…Hmph. Well, whatever your reasons, I'm not gonna say no to a good excuse to go wild on some viruses and really see what we can do. From the name it'd probably be made from a virus that's Fire aligned, so just start shooting things with flames and it'll probably work out." If Warrock could shrug at the moment, he would have.

"Right, yeah, that makes sense. Hey, is there, uh, anyway to mark this guy, theoretically, if I maybe had to find him again later, for an unspecified reason?" Geo kind of blurted along.

"…Sure kid." Warrock sighed, wondering why he had to be so compatible with such a weirdo.

…Then again, maybe it was just an Earthling thing, given what Kelvin was like.

Finding Hot Roader Viruses> 54, 29, 13
​

Finding and hunting down a specific virus for the hope that they would forge a specific battle card turned out to be surprisingly difficult. Or maybe exactly as hard as it sounded, because Geo was tearing through practically everything he laid eyes on, and not a single one of them dropped a Heat Ring 1.

It required numerous repetitions of each virus just to make sure that they weren't screwing the odds, but no such luck.

Geo did get a nice influx of extra Power Bombs, Heat Balls, a Tail Burner 1, something called a 'Power Song' that Geo had never heard of before, and even a Recover 30, but no such luck on Fire Ring 1's.

At least until he ventured further from the inner city towards the highway, and found himself finally finding his quarry.

Which also led Geo to his next problem- catching the damn things.

"Why! Won't! You! Stay! Still!" Geo roared with uncharacteristic anger bleeding through his tone as he continued to try and shoot the flaming tires out from under the Hot Roaders as they blazed past him.

"It's infuriating when they don't stand still and accept death, yeah." Warrrock agreed as he growled almost louder than the rattle of the minigun head he was currently configured in.

Another piece of advice from his dad floated to the surface of Geo's mind.

"Geo, if you ever have a small annoyance flitting around you, bombard the living hell out of them. And also don't tell your mom I used this kind of language around you, she'll kick my butt."

Now, granted, the advice was about mosquitos in the height of summer, but the underlying message carried through.

Geo felt the weight of some of the many Power Bombs he had accrued over the course of the day settle in his hands before they were sent flying.

The Hot Roaders were not fast enough to escape.

Fire Ring 1's had been aquired.

Now came the other awkward thing.

Delivering the damn card.

Because he absolutely couldn't just wander up to a guy he had no reason to know and give him a battle card, because that was just. Weird. So weird.

"So I can just like, materialize the card?" Geo asked Warrock, who nodded in affirmation.

"Yeah, super easily. Changing frequencies between physical and wave is literal childsplay, and you focusing on something small would probably be good for you as a starting point. The sooner you get a hang of that, the sooner you'll realize how little things like walls really do to impede us." Warrock chuckled.

"You have a knack for stating really scary things, you know?" Geo deadpanned.

"Heh. You don't need to compliment me." Warrock smirked as they darted back to Juan's location where the man was even now trying to convince someone on the other side of his transer to give him the card he was looking for.

"It definitely wasn't a compliment, but okay…" Geo murmered as he focused hard on the card in his hand.

Focus. Focuuuuuus. Fooooocuuuuuus-

"-It's not just going to fall from the sky! I need it!"

-Doink-

"What the?" Juan blinked in confusion as he reached up to check what had just collided with his head, expecting to find some kind of stray treenut or something, only to freeze as his fingers brushed something oddly rectangular.

"…No way." Juan breathed out in desperate awe, bringing down his find to his eyes.

It was, in fact, a Fire Ring 1.

"…THANK YOU, GOD!" Juan cried to the heavens, leaping from his seat in sheer joy while whoever he was talking to demanded to know what the hell just happened.

"Heh. Here that? Yer 'God'. That's a high compliment for you humans, isn't it?" Warrock jeered the boy.

"Shut up Warrock." Geo blushed, or at least as well as he currently was able to in his current form as he felt a small bit of warmth settle in his stomach as he witnessed a grown ass man dance like an idiot without a care because of one little card.

It felt kind of…good.

"THERE YOU ARE."

Before that tingling feeling even had a full moment to settle however, it was replaced by a sharp, stabbing sensation that stole Geo's breathe away.

Looking down, Geo saw the point of something white and cyan poking through his back and out the front of him.

"Found yoooooou." Crooned the swan from where it was poking its head through him.

"Whaaaa-" Geo croaked out, trying to finish the word but unable to draw his breath enough to enunciate the last syllable, wondering what had just happened.

"CYGNUS!" Warrock roared in pure rage, giving a name to whatever had just skewered Geo like a fish in a stream as he lashed forward, jaws wide to crush the energy swans neck.

"Warrock. Still borrish as ever I see." The swan scoffed as he divested himself from Geo's guy out the same way he came in, leaving a fucking hole through him HE WAS NOT SUPPOSED TO BE ABLE TO SEE THROUGH HIMSELF-

"Cut the bullshit Cygnus, that's Taurus's specialty. You really think you can do anything right now while I'm waved in and you're loosy goosey?" Warrock growled like a feral animals barely contained.

"I! AM NOT! A GOOSE YOU- no. No, I will not allow you to get to me like that. Not after you so graciously let me have a taste of how truly WEAK you are at the moment." Cygnus chuckled like he told the funniest joke in the world.

"That's a lot of hot air your flapping without much to show for it, but what else is new?" Warrock mocked the swan who raised a wing in a shrug, highlighting three particularly sharp feathers of white metal amongst the blue of his body.

"Bark bark little hound, but I know my beaks edge and the grace of your armor. I do not know why you have become so very frail in whatever failure of a fusion you are currently in, but I am not one to question fortune working in my favor. I merely take ruthless advantage of it." Cygnus chuffed.

"…Why." Geo found the mind to say as his hand strayed close to the hole through him, not quite willing to touch it and confirm it as real.

"Oh? OH! Oh Warrock, here I thought you couldn't sink to any further depths, but really? You form a fusion with a little Earthling, and he's STILL IN CONTROL? I'd laugh, if it wasn't so sad." Cygnus shook his head as if witnessing a great shame.

"The longer you spend yapping the more I wish I'd wrung your scrawny neck back in the upper stratosphere." Warrock growled.

"And I wish you would quietly lay down and die instead of continuing this charade of rebellion. It seems we're both doomed to be disappointed."

"Why." Geo repeated, head swimming and what used to be his guy sunk firmly into his shoes.

"Silly little Earthling. You were just in the way." Cygnus deigned to address Geo directly for the first time.

It was the wrong answer.

Retribution Strike> 79, 70, 47
​

It would be incorrect to say that something within Geo snapped in that moment, because that would insinuate that he was giving into some kind of instinct.

He didn't. Geo was completely aware of everything he was doing at the moment, several of the Recover 30's he had picked up earlier that day appearing in a flash of thought in his hand before being unceremoniously shoved downward to stabalize his form as the patch data worked its magic, before Warrock was raised forward, firing several shots in a burst shot formation that had entered no small amount of Metenna's into dust and zenny upon being on the recieving end.

Cygnus however, proved himself to be a heartier and faster stock as he dodged with an outraged squawk.

"You little rapscallion! I was gloating over a fallen foe!" Cygnus screeched in outrage, voice tinged with a heavy static usually reserved for badly tuned amps.

"Sword." Was Geo's only response as his quick escape from his bombardment had put him well within reach.

Then it was his turn to do the stabbing, as green met cyan and clipped a wing in such a way that a massive chunk of energy was seared clean off.

"You! You DARE strike at me, you upjumped ape!?!" Pure fury colored Cygnuses tone as a streak of red cut across his body, swelling in time with the quiver of pair underlacing all of it.

"Wide Sword."

Cygnus, at that point, realized that he was still within range, and was now much less confident at thrusting his neck to test his beaks edge against a wide cutting surface.

"…This is not over." Cygnus hissed one final time before he was enveloped in a tight corona of energy and streaked away until he was but a thin beam on the horizon.

Geo stood there for a moment, Wide Sword still ready in case this too was another fakeout, before finally allowing himself to relax, or at least as much as he could given what had just occured over the last however many minutes it had been.

"Shit kid. That shouldn't have happened." Were Warrock's first words, and it took Geo a moment to realize the tension he was feeling wasn't just his own.

"What, exactly, just happened." Geo listlessly asked the alien currently serving as his hand as he tried to work out just where his own emotions started and Warrocks began.

"The problems I was trying to deal with before I could tell you about your dad just happened. I didn't exactly come to this planet on vacation, and neither did anyone else from my planet." Warrock sighed.

"That doesn't explain why I just got stabbed." Geo narrowed his eyes.

"It kind of does, but you're not gonna like the answer. Your dad made contact with Planet FM, and they decided that Earth would make a great target. Obviously, there were some disagreements on the matter, and. Well. Here we are. Cygnus was here to take a pound of flesh or the best substitute he could find, and you deciding to get a wing instead of a leg." Warrock chuffed out a quick laugh that died almost as quickly as the Hot Roaders after Geo found out that they weren't immune to any kind of flame but their own.

"So, what, an alien invasion is imminent?" Geo asked incredulously.

"Not quite the way I'd put it, but not inaccurate. FM has no shortage of fine warriors under the banner of its King, but each and every one of em has their own ideas about how campaigns like this should be run. Cygnus is of the opinion that any and every threat he's aware of should be removed from the board before he makes any major moves, but he's just one among many. Him going after us before even finding a host though? Well, even I can be surprised sometimes." Warrock explained with a huff through his nose.

…There was a lot to unpack from that.

Too much.

"I want to go home now." Geo quietly decided.

"Okay. So let's go home." Warrock nodded.

Said return home was thankfully uneventful, spanning almost seconds as an unnamed instinct Geo couldn't quite place guided him back to the familiar space of his bedroom without once opening a door or window, where upon he collapsed onto his bed in spite of the fact that it was still early into the afternoon.

Something about being a normal kid again kind of made the whole experience hit a little different. Maybe because there wasn't another mind to steady himself against, or maybe because there weren't any easy solutions to injury like when he was a Wave being if something happened.

Unconciously, Geo trailed the section of his stomach that had previously been rendered into particles on the breeze.

It was firm and present. Not even tender.

"This is so fucked up." Geo lowly groaned as he rolled over to bury his face in his pillow.

He wasn't even tired, but right how he didn't want to look at anything, least of all Warrock.

"Geo! I'm home~! Are you busy? I could use some extra hands putting things away!" And of course mom just got home.

…Still, a distraction would maybe do him some good.

"Coming Mom!" Geo called back as he worked himself to his feet and straightened out his clothing where it had ruffling from his squirming.

A new problem had presented itself. Luckily, this one was a different kind of painful than a sudden swan-based stabbing.

"Mom." Geo deadpanned as he hefted up the third nonstick pan he had pulled out in a row from the boxes unloaded from the car.

"They were on sale!" Mom defended herself as she hid the other two she was duel wielding behind her back, but failed to fully block them from view.

"We already have, like, four!" Geo insisted.

"Those are woks! And these are sauce pans! Think of how nice our sauces will look in them!" Mom insisted.

"The sauce is fine in whatever we made them in before!" Geo refused to give an inch.

Geo knew that if he didn't stand his ground now, his Mom would be up to her eyes in cooking equipment of every shape and size, and he didn't want to live in that.

"If I find any more in the car, they're going straight back." Geo put his foot down.

"Nooooooo~! I was going to use those in a stream!"

"Your viewers are there for you, not your equipment!"

"That's sweet of you to say, but not the point little man!"

It continued on like that for some time, and in the end, Geo had to return 2 juicers, 4 kinds of peelers, and something that had to do with zester with a name Geo couldn't pronounce.

That night, Mom used precisely none of the new kitchen equipment she had bought to make some grilled fish over rice with some pickled veggies she had also gotten on sale earlier in the day.

Dinner was mostly a quiet affair for Geo as he listened to his mom's trip to the market and the things she debated buying as well as the next few things she had set up.

Geo…tried. Engaging about what he got up to at a given time was always a somewhat hard task for him, partly because he hated to think about how his usual day reduced to a sentence or two. But today…

He didn't want to tell his mom what happened today. Not just because it would worry her. But because saying it felt like stringing her along with the same kind of half-hope that even now Geo felt, to hear about what dad was doing out in space before even he had all the answers felt…wrong.

No. Until he knew more of what was really happening, he would keep this whole thing with the Fmians a secret. That wouldn't be that hard, right?

"I helped a guy find a battle card today." Geo answered nomcomittally before taking a large bite of his fish to fill his mouth so as to not let anything else slip.

"Oh that's great sweetie! I'm proud of you." Mom beamed at him.

…Hopefully it wouldn't take that long, for him to get the truth.

"What did Cygnus mean about you being fragile earlier?" Geo asked into his transer once he was sure his mom was away from his room after turning off the lights.

"Outside of him being an asshole? Wave changing as a rule of thumb enhances whoever holds dominion over it, and that for some reason in this case is you. So we're working off your consistitution instead of mine by and large, hence the thinner armor." Warrock explained with a shrug.

"So what, I need to start working out before the Earth gets invaded?" Geo asked sarcastically.

"Nah, that's just your physical body. You'd get a little bigger maybe, but that's about it. If we want to get some extra oomph, we need to power up this thing." Warrock leaned forward and tapped the screen of Geo's transer, the glass rippling as his claw poked out its surface with the motion.

"My transer?" Geo said incredulously.

"Your internal memory. Right now, I'm shaking this thing to the limit of the hardware, but I know I could do things way smoother with some more wiggleroom in this thing from some experiments I did with your dad." Warrock corrected him.

That got Geo looking at his transer consideringly. Frankly, he didn't actually buy much into the whole mentality of getting the best and newest product the second it came out, but with the influx of zenny coming his way from virus deletion, maybe it was time to change that.

For his own health.

 

[Virgo with Cheer]

Also, apologies if anything feels disjointed or a little odd transition-wise between sentences, this whole thing is a quest-based story being combined into proper chappy formats for the sake of sharing with you guys.

 

[Virgo with Cheer]

The next morning, Geo got up with his alarm with fire in his heart and determination in his step as he went off to look up the average price of ram on the internet.

"OH GEEZ!" Geo yelped as he witnessed pages upon pages of zeroes assault his vision for various different parts and transers that each promised to offer distinct services and specials totally different from any other on the market.

"Why is it like this!?!" Geo asked himself in disbelief as he settled back into the chair in front of his computer.

Even if he scoured every single virus within sight he could find, every single day for a week, Geo would only be able to afford maybe one or two of the things he was looking at, and he didn't want to end up being the weirdo who wandered around with an entire arm of transers he didn't even use even if it meant he could take a hit or two more in the wave world.

The literal and emotional costs were both too high.

"There's got to be a middle ground." Geo murmered despondantly.

"You're overcomplicating things kid. Just find where they're made, make a trip, and then bing bang boom we're in business." Warrock casually suggested grand larceny with the same ease one usually used for going to the market.

"-Wha!? We aren't stealing Warrock!" Geo insisted.

"Why not? We need it more than they do, what's the hassle? It's not like they could even stop us?" Warrock complained.

"Difficulty isn't the issue here! Stealing is wrong!" Geo doubled down.

"Yeesh your picky. Alright wiseguy, what's your grand idea then?" Warrock crossing his arms with a huff.

"We can. Uhh. Umm." Geo stalled out as he tried to think of what to say.

The doorbell rang.

Never before had Geo been more grateful to have a distraction.

"I'll get it mom!" Geo quickly yelled as he jumped to his feet.

Oh, how quickly hope turned into regret.

"So! We meet again." Luna leered at him.

"I live here." Geo reminded the girl.

"Which is also why I didn't say that it was a coincidence. That was quite the rude thing you did yesterday." Luna continued on as if everything was hunky dory.

"You kicked in my door." Geo bluntly reminded, scowl growing deeper on his face.

"Ah, touche. Which means we're even! So, lets put it all behind us and start off on the right foot. I'm Luna, and we can talk about our wants and goals for the future while we walk to school." She offered with a sweet smile, hand outstretched.

"You can't possibly think that would actually work, do you?" Geo drawled as he shot a dubious look at the drill haired blonde, who shrugged at him a she retracted her hand.

"Hey, can't blame a girl for trying." She lightly laughed.

"Geo, whose at the door?" Mom called out from down the hallway.

In that instant, Geo's heart sunk as Luna's smile grew three sizes.

'You wouldn't.' He mouthed at Luna.

'Yes I would.' She mouthed back before sidelining Geo to push past him.

"Hello Mrs.Stelar!" Luna bolsterously shouted down the hall.

Why. Why couldn't that space swan have successfully killed him yesterday. It would have been kinder than whatever was about to happen.

"Hello! I'm Luna Shirogane, a friend of your son!" Luna introduced herself with a bold-faced lie.

"Impossible, my son doesn't have friends." A lie that Mom instantly saw through and shot down without hesitation.

Geo had now suffered the second worst gut wound of his short life, because really Mom? Didn't even let it hang for a second?

"Ah…" Luna didn't quite seem to know what to make of that response either, wondering if perhaps this was where the surly child she had come to shepard back into proper socialization had gotten his blunt attitude from.

"But I'm also always happy to see my son expand his social circle! You're welcome here whenever you like!" Hope beamed at the drill haired girl who perked right back up.

"I'll be happy to take you up on that offer!" Luna cheered as she took one of the older womans hands to vigerously shake.

This couldn't be happening. It definitely wasn't. This was all a fever dream concocted by his still sleeping mind.

"Boy would you look at the time, I need to be somewhere not here!" Geo loudly interrupted the two as he looked at his wrist that didn't have his transer on it before once more racing out the door, though this time he remembered to grab his outdoor shoes as he went.

He really, REALLY hoped that this wasn't going to become a regular thing.

"Why do you keep running from her? If that girl keeps invading your territory, just pop her one like that big guy from yesterday!" Warrock insisted from Geo's transer.

"First off, you did that, not me. Secondly, that's different! She's a girl!" Geo hissed into his personal data device.

"You humans get hung up about the weirdest things." Warrock huffed in annoyance.

"It's called having decency." Geo sighed as he slumped against a wall to finish lacing up his shoes.

He didn't even get a chance to grab breakfast before having to make his hasty retreat…

"Look, we've already got enough problems without you making more for yourself. C'mon, lets go into town. Maybe we can figure out something there to get us into fit-fighting shape." Warrock offered.

"That…actually sounds like a good idea." Geo admitted after a moment of turning the idea over his head and finding nothing disagreeable with it.

Plus, he could probably swing by somewhere and pick up a wrap or something, he definitely had the money for it at this point.

After aquiring a quick but filling snack and smoothie from the convinence store, Geo set off down town in the search for answers and, hopefully, some reasonably prices electronics.

The place was a maze of ever shifting humanity each going their own way in an ever shifting frenzy, and adding in the wave world into the view practically quadrupled the chaos into a dizzying display of visuals.

"So how in the world am I having so much trouble with this!?!" Geo growled as he beheld the whole of the place from on high, just about at his wits end over trying to find someone or somewhere he could buy upgrades that wouldn't gouge him for all he was worth, or turn him instantly away upon seeing his age.

"I keep telling you, the solution is obvious." Warrock reminded the boy he was currently attached to as he licked his muzzle clean to try and find any spare grace of cheese or bean that may have still been clinging to him.

"We're not going to rob people!" Geo repeated himself.

"Picky picky picky, that's what you are." Warrock sassed him.

"It's not picky to not want to commit a crime!" Geo bit back.

Before this could really pick up into a familiar routine, Geo and Warrock snapped towards where a series of explosions and screams were coming from.

"What's happening!?!" Geo screamed, jumping to his feet and heckles instantly raised.

"Hmm? I don't smell anything familiar, so its probably not anything from an FMian. My guess is virsues running amok. Hey, we should strike while the fires hot, no one would notice if a few things went missing during the chaos." Warrock indifferently sniffed the air before offering up what he felt was a perfectly fine compromise.

"I can't just leave people in danger like that!" Geo bit out.

"Why not?" Warrock bluntly asked.

"Because-" Geo began to hotly retort before quickly biting down.

Why did he want to help? Just because he could? That felt so shallow.

Because its what his dad would have done?

…No. His dad was a lot of things, but he was also more than aware of his limits, and leaving some things to professionals.

Geo wanted to help, because he didn't want any one to lose something, some ONE, like he did.

Not if he could help it.

Geo said none of this, to instead focus further on pushing his wave form forward faster.

Warrock noticed that his suggestion had been ignored, but also noticed the look in Geo's eyes, and stayed silent.

He would need that kind of will if they were going to do what needed to be done in the future.

'Well, today was been a bust.' Luna thought with a small huff as she settled down onto her seat on the metro tram towards her family estate for lunch.

Bud was out for the day dealing with his newly gained chipped tooth, Zack was at his mathletes meet, and once more Geo Stelar had slipped through her grasp before she could drag him off to school, possibly literally.

'At least his mother was kind.' Luna reminisced with a small smile as she remembered the ponytailed woman who was far bubblier than her son, before the smile died as she remembered her response to trying to convince her to get her son coming back to Echo Ridge Elementary.

'My son will go when he's ready to go. Simple as that.'

Not exactly ideal for her purposes.

"Still, a little setback won't stop me! Once I set my mind to something, I won't rest until I succeed!" Luna declared to herself with a clenched fist.

Of course, this was about when the train started exploding, and suddenly Luna had bigger concerns than another boys tardiness.

Arriving on the scene, Geo was greeted to a sight of panic and chaos as the Echo Ridge metro was ground to a halt upon the catenary line as a good portion of hung disconnected from the track above.

Numerous people scrambled below to try and get out of the way or help their loved ones still stuck on the vehicle as emergency services swarmed the area to try and solve things as quickly and painlessly as possible.

And there, above it all, were the cause of all this destruction. Viruses. Mettenna tearing into the railings and guidance system with reckless swings of their pickaxes, Hot Roaders racing along the sky and spreading their flames in trails, while Wibbledoos gleefully jumped up and down on precariously swinging portions of the train to send the whole thing tumbling down faster.

Geo grit his teeth at the sight, a rage filling him at the sheer indifference to the suffering he was witnessing being wrought.

"Warrock. We're stopping this." Geo declared.

"Aight." He agreed, not personally invested but more than willing to fight anyway if it was on the table.

Virus Decimation> 120, 100, 82
​

Geo was a streak of electromagnetic murder as he raced into and then through the swarm, Sword lashing out to swipe through a Hot Roader and seperating head from wheel as they failed to stop themselves from ruining themselves upon his edge.

"Buster!" Geo called out as Warrock returned into his original configuration to unleash several dozen shots upon the Mettena before they could even turn in his direction.

They were just now beginning to notice Geo amidst them.

That was when the several dozen Heatballs came out.

There were no survivors.

The fire cleansed the rail line of a vast swath of viruses, but Geo hadn't considered the effect it would have on the already precarious tram sections down below.

"No!" He cried out as a section of cabling broke, sending the section falling to the ground as those below scattered to try and get away from the crash zone.

Without a single moment of hesitation, Geo threw himself downward, darting to ground and bracing himself under the section of train.

It was stupid, and undeniably dangerous, but he didn't get here just to fail at the last second!

"Don't! You! DARE!" Geo roared as he reached up and caught the train car.

From his feet came an invisible wave of light as force was converted into dempa.

"I got it." Geo grit out as his arms strained.

"HYU GOT ET!?!" Warrock roared incredulously with his jaws firmly clamped into the metal and small tears darted in the corner of his eyes.

"Right, sorry, sorry." Geo winced as he shifted himself forward to settle the train down onto the ground on its side.

The relief from not carrying the massive segment was an instant relief, before Geo went to make sure the passengers were okay and that he didn't give anyone whiplash or something.

"Hey, is everyone okay-!" Geo's call was cut off as someone instantly collided with his form, bawling their eyes out and shaking.

A certain someone who had very familiar drill-styled hair.

Oh.

Well.

"WAAAAAHHHH! I, I THOUGHT I WAS GOING TO DIIIIEEEE!" Luna wailed into his chest.

This was officially the most awkward moment of Geo's entire life.

What exactly did he do in this situation? He couldn't push her away, because she had obviously just gone through something traumatic and he didn't want to make that worse, but MAN was he starting to realize just how many people were around right now taking pictures of him with their transers.

"Uhh, you can let go now. Please?" There, that should work, right?

"-I mean I was just minding my own business, and then it fell, and-uuh?" Luna's frantic babbling began to die down as she opened her eyes to see that she hadn't, in fact, been confessing her recent brush with death with an oddly small paramedic, but instead had her arms firmly around a boy who looked straight out of a manga panel.

"Oh." Luna hiccuped as her face reddened.

'OH NO, HE'S HOOOOT!'

The blush enveloped her face and was busy working its way down to her ears and neck.

"That's…not letting me go." Geo awkwardly pointed out, eyeing the satella police racing towards his location out of the corner of his eye.

"Eep!" Luna squeaked as she shot back a step as if burned, and looked it as well.

"Sorry, I just thought you were, I was, that is, uh-" She stalled out as it felt like she might faint if any portion of her brain shifted focus away from branding her saviors visiage into her mind towards communication skills.

"OI! STAY WHERE YOU ARE, WHOEVER YOU ARE!" An officer yelled as they tried to break through the crowd.

Luna's mind latched onto the yell instantly.

"Yes! You! Who are you!?!" Luna demanded hotly.

"Wha- who? Me! Right, me, I'm uhhh… Uhh…" Then it was Geo's turn to stall out as he realized he couldn't give his real name for SO MANY reasons at the moment, looking down at Warrock in panic, who just rolled his eyes.

"Rockem." Warrock murmered, suggesting that he just start blasting his way out of this situation before things got more awkward than they already were.

"Rockman! Sure!" Geo nodded, before wincing as the sirens got a little too close, making him turn around and skedaddle as quickly as he could.

Which, given that his max speed was somewhere just shy of the speed of light so long as it was a straight line, was pretty damn fast.

"-Wait!" Luna called out a touch too late, just as the police arrived and tried to surround the place Geo had just been standing.

"…Rockman." Luna murmered breathlessly to herself.

"Stupid stupid stupid! Why did I do that!?!" Geo lambasted himself after touching back down into the same alleyway he had started the days adventures in, all but banging his head against the wall.

"Yeesh kid, save something for the enemy to aim at." Warrock rolled his eyes from the transer screen.

"Don't you get it!?! I just ran away from the police! I caught a train! I set fire to the sky for a solid 5 seconds! People don't just do that!" Geo rambled.

"You just did." Warrock dryly pointed out, still not seeing the issue.

"NORMAL people don't do that!" Geo emphasized.

"Kid. Nothing about either of us is normal, and that's for the best. Normal is a sitting target for what's to come, and while I'm still a little upset you didn't try to get yourself a little something something while shit was going down, you still did a lot of good. Which is apparently important to you." Warrock gruffed with a small smirk.

"That's…" Geo started to say something before trailing off, thinking about what would have happened if he hadn't been in the downtown area that particular day with an alien living on his wrist.

"…hmm."

"Yeah. Now c'mon, its getting late, and your ma should be home soon. You don't want to worry her, do you?" Warrock questioned.

It was a dirty trick, but an effective one to get Geo moving again.

That night, instead of retreating to his room after dinner to work on any last minute homework he had left behind or trawl around with his telescope, Geo instead stayed in the living room to watch the news with his mom.

"I heard some weird stuff today and wanted to see if it gets talked about or not." Geo explained in as few details as possible as he settled into the couch while under his moms questioning gaze.

"Well, alright, but I reserve the right to send you out the room if anything too extreme comes on." She warned him before flipping on the recorded program that had aired while they were eating.

The second the headline story came up, Geo felt his heart hammer straight up into his throat.

Deadly Train Accident Avoided: A Mega Man Appears?

"Hello everyone. I'm Weather Ornot, and what you see playing before you was footage captured earlier today of the 12:45 Echo Ridge metroline suffering a catastrophic system failure generated by what officials are reporting as one of the largest virus attacks on public transport within the last decade. What would have been a tragedy however, was averted by what witnesses are identifying as an unnamed figure in blue moving with unprecidented speed and strength that we have tentatively named 'Mega Man'. Satella police have issued both their thanks to the unknown figure, and also a general request to Mega Man or those who may know this figure to report to the Satella police as soon as able." The broadcaster in the closed captioning window explained as numerous shaky reels of viewer submission videos played across their TV, showcasing different angles of Geo appearing out of nowhere to catch and then set down the train as the whole of his body sparked with an oddly indistinct static, as if he was a moving smudge refusing to be focused upon.

"Huh. Weird." Mom mused as she kicked her feet up onto the coffee table and took a sip of her tea.

"Yeah. Weird." Geo croaked, feeling like he was half an inch away from slipping off the couch entirely with how stiff his body was tensed.

POV ???

Within the darkened streets of a city that had been created as a step towards the future before being swiftly abandoned with the changing of the times, a phone discarded amongst its brethren flickered with life, showcasing the broadcast of the evening news.

"Hmm. So someone fancies themselves a hero, do they? How stupid." A scratchy voice jeered like sandpaper run rough over metal.

"Stupid, but it also works in our favor. I prefer an enemy that makes itself known instead of one we need to hunt for." A second smoother, almost flowing voice urged the first.

"Bah, like it would even be called a hunt. That little runt has always been about hit and rush tactics, if we focus him down he'll be dust by morning!" Snorted another.

"Bold words. Why not put them to action then, while we wait for our remaining scouts to return. Go provide the little 'hero' some fireworks to chase after." The first voice jeered, earning another snort.

"You at least got one thing right. Fire works."
End POV​

Geo's sleep that night was fitful at first, but after a point exhaustion won the day, and he did in fact slumber well.

"Man, you were out of it. You didn't even react when I slapped ya a little." Warrock complained the next morning.

"Warrock, I can't feel literally anything you do to me. Also, don't slap me." Geo deadpanned.

"I promise nothing." Warrock bluntly said.

…That was probably the best he was going to get out of him.

"We gotta be more careful." Geo decided to change the subject.

"Preaching to the choir kid. Whatever a choir is." Warrock chuffed.

"I'm serious Warrock. Yesterday was good that we were there, but if it happens again, then it establishes a pattern." Geo said with due seriousness, face set into a stern frown.

"The pattern is already there kid, you're just the new variable. Where there's intelligent life, there are viruses. You just got a better way to deal with em. And with FMians coming around this place, well. A whole bunch of things are getting stirred up." Warrock shot back.

"That doesn't make me feel better." Geo deadpanned.

"It wasn't supposed to." Warrock bluntly retorted.

And that, at least, was true if nothing else.

"Still, we gotta be more careful." Geo reiterated.

"Careful is for explosives and breakins, not what we're gonna be needing to do. Just keep that in mind." Warrock cautioned the boy before zipping off into Geo's transer, considering the conversation done.

Geo looked down at it for a moment, before breathing out sharply through his nose and continuing on himself.

Thinky Thinky> 97, 88, 64
​

If there was at least one silver lining to be found, it was that Geo wasn't accosted by anyone that morning. That solace passed pretty quickly though, especially as Geo remembered that he still hadn't actually solved the original reason he went out yesterday.

Namely, getting his hands on some kind of upgrade or another for his transer.

"Man, why are things never easy?" Geo tiredly sighed as he walked the familiar path towards Vista Point. It was as good a place as any to relax and think with nothing else really pressing going on.

Plus, with his Visualizer, the place gave him a great view of the cities Wave Roads, letting him see the pathways stretching for miles in every-

"My Visualizer! Mr.Boreal!" Geo interrupted himself as an epiphany hit him like a fastball straight to the frontal cortex.

"Who?" Warrock bluntly asked with a raised brow, or at least as close as his body came to the motion.

"Mr.Boreal! He worked with my dad, and he just got a job at AMAKEN! He works with all kinds of technology, he could probably help us!" Geo brightly enthused as he unzipped his jacket to hurriedly search his pockets for the business card he had with the places address on it.

"Hmm, Kelvin's friend eh? That means he's either really good at his job, or really weird." Warrock mused with a small laugh.

"He's…only a little weird." Geo admitted after a moment, remembering the holiday dinners where the man would bring prototype rocket engines to flashfry potatoes.

Still, this could work! AMAKEN dealt with tons of cutting edge stuff, so they were bound to have something he could use!

"To the bus!" Geo uncharacteristically cheered.

"What, you don't want to just Denpa Henkan and run there?" Warrock questioned.

"Do you know where AMAKEN is?" Geo asked.

"Nope. You?" Warrock gruffed back.

"Also nope. So, again, TO THE BUS!" Geo repeated.

The dramatics of the situation were then promptly killed, as the next bus that went close to the research institution was about an hour and a half away from when Geo actually got to the stop.

At least he discovered that he could amuse himself by poking Warrock with his cursor and making him chase after the little arrow.

The ride to AMAKEN was actually shorter than the wait itself, owing to the express nature of the hoverbus and its lack of need to stop for anything besides pull requests.

Thus, Geo arrived at the Aerospace and Modern Astronomy Knowledge Expansion Nexusm, or AMAKEN for short.

"Huh. It's actually really cool." Geo noted as he looked upward at the numerous signal towers and satillite radars outlining the perimeter. He didn't really feel self concious about doing it either because he wasn't the only one craning his head around to take in the sights. Evidently, there was some kind of tour going through the place at the moment as well.

"Yeesh. This place is crawling with waves from every direction. Surprised this place isn't swarming with viruses." Warrock winced from Geo's transer, snout twitching madly as if bombarded by different scents.

"People take security around these kind of places incredibly seriously. No one wants a virus to get into something untested or volitile if they can help it." Geo explained quietly into his wrist as he walked further into the grounds, past the walking group and a section of workers restocking a trio of vending machines.

"I guess everywhere has its points of failures, but still. We haven't even stepped into this place proper and I'm already getting a headache. I'm taking a nap. Good luck kid." Warrock growled before Geo's transer abruptly shut itself off.

"-Don't just! Uggh. Warrock." Geo groaned before throwing his hands up in exasperation and moving forward. Turning it back on just yet wouldn't really get him anywhere anyway.

So.

"Oh, you're young Geo? I've been expecting you for ages now! Here, take this pass, and then head up the elevator, top floor. Mr.Boreal will be right at the end of the hall. And feel free to help yourself to something from the breakroom on your way if you'd like!" The man at the front desk, Greg Hellock, happily shoved a lifetime lanyard fresh from the printer behind him into the boys hands.

Apparently, Mr.Boreal's 'new job' at AMAKEN was him buying out the place, and he had given a standing order to all serving staff that Geo, at some point, would come around for a visit.

They had a file photo of him ready.

"Mr.Boreal, what the actual fuck." Geo harshly whispered to himself as the elevator continued straight to the fifth floor of the labspace wing overlooking the aerospace museum portion of the building.

HE THOUGHT HE WOULD JUST HAVE, LIKE, A CUBICLE OR SOMETHING. WHY HAD THIS ESCALATED SO FAR, SO QUICKLY!?!

"Geo! Hey, its great to see you! You could have messaged me, I would have gotten things a bit more cleaned up!" The man of the hour greeted Geo with a laugh and a wave as he pulled himself out of the second stage afterburner he was previously chest deep in at the sound of his doors buzzer going off.

"You didn't tell me that you owned the place." Geo said somewhat numbly as he was embraced in a quick hug before being ushered over to a less grungy side of the lab where a quartet of desks rested, each with its own bank of monitors and blueprints.

"Ehhh, owned is a strong word. I just…well, I suppose lease it would be as good a term as anything. See, after NAXA dissolved I was able to get a bunch of their equipment for relatively cheap, and then I had it set up over here. It does bring in a lot of revenue for the place though, which allowed for a bunch of renovations and hirings, so everyone kinda puts me on a pedastal I guess." Mr.Boreal sheepishly chuckled as he wiped away a spot of grease from his hands.

Geo carefully looked out the window, where numerous hundreds of millions of Zenny worth of space equipment at a minimum were installed.

"Uh-huh." Geo dubiously agreed.

"But enough about me, what about you! What finally got you coming over to my neck of the woods? Was it the space sim? Because we nearly have it up and running for the summer tours, but I could definitely slip you in if you want." Mr.Boreal slyly winked at him.

"…The what? No, wait, don't distract me, I did actually come here for something." Geo started to lean forward in interest before slapping his face twice to refocus himself.

"No, see. I, uh, need an upgrade for my transer." Geo somewhat awkwardly stated.

"Sure, what do you need?" Mr.Boreal casually asked, viewing the task with the same ease most reserved for asking for a spare cup of sugar or motor oil.

Hmm. Well. A new problem had just reared its head.

Geo had spent so long trying to prepare and plead his case, that an instant acceptance left him completely unprepared for what he actually needed in particular.

Mostly because he didn't actually -know- what any such upgrade to his transer would actually do for him when he was combined with an alien from another planet. There wasn't exactly an exact point by point breakdown he could compare and contrast them with outside of trial and experimentation after all.

"Uhhh." Geo stalled for time.

"Heh. I know that look. C'mere, I can walk you through some options I've got kicking around." Mr.Boreal continued to be a figure worth going to as he beckoned Geo towards the largest of the workdesks around him, evidently his own given the various doodles and what was undoubtedly a much earlier model of a Visualizer taking up a corner of the area beside an absolute monster of a PC tower.

"So, the first thing you need to know is how a transer actually functions at its base. You've got HP, Hub Protection which is the ability to deal with or prevent outright virus attacks on your data going in and out, and is the specialty of the Leo Carrier models. Then you've got Processing, the ability of a transer to up or download data into understandable or implimentable programs, of which Dragon Carriers excel at. And lastly, is Coverage, the ability to actually recieve or send info. Pegasus rounds out the trio by having the capability to get or send out message practically anywhere you could care to claim. Now, technically, the coverages each of the satillites offer is supposed to be limited when in the hands of civilian sector purchases, but, well, no one really checks if one kid in particular happens to have his a little souped up, if they don't have a reason to." Mr.Boreal winked again at the end, navigating his PC to bring up numerous spec for different transers with notes and specifications Geo could barely make heads or tails of.

"Wow." Geo gulped.

"Take your time while you think about it. I'm gonna go clean up a bit and grab a Big Bang Blackberry Tea." Mr.Boreal assured him before getting up, cracking his back, and heading out to the breakroom Geo had passed on his way to his lab.

Install> Leo​

Each of them were appealing in their own right, and would no doubt help him immensily in ways Geo couldn't even fully think of at the moment, but at the end of the day-

"THERE YOU ARE."

Pain.

-Geo had started this whole search to get more armor, and he wasn't about to let the opportunity pass him by.

"I'll get the Leo upgrade." He nodded to himself, visibly affirming his decision.

"Aaron, I'm back! And I have great news! I-oh. O-oh. You, aren't A-Aaron." Someone who wasn't Mr.Boreal began to say as he barged into the lab before abruptly stopping as he realized the person he was intending to talk too wasn't actually there and freezing.

"He'll uh, be back after getting a snack, I think." Geo offered up, instantly less comfortable than he was a few seconds ago.

"Good! Good. Thank you…unknown child." And the other man was equally uncomfortable as he took a seat at his own desk and haunched over it as if to defend the workspace from view with his lanky body.

"I'm back! Any- oh, hey, Tom! Welcome back! Geo, come over here and meet Tom!" Mr.Boreal cheered as he entered with a bottle of tea in one hand and his other arm laden with snack cakes and chips.

Somehow, Geo had the feeling that he was about to be introduced whether he wanted to be or not.

"Geo, I want you to meet Tom Dubius, one of the brightest minds I've ever known. Tom, this is Geo Stelar, the son of one of my former colleagues and oldest friends. He came in today to visit! Isn't that fun?" Mr.Boreal boisterously laughed as he dropped his small mountain of junk food across his desk to pull Geo forward in a headlock.

"Ack!" Geo winced.

"Y-yes. Exciting." Tom said with minimal enthusiasm and a plastered on smile that wouldn't fool a grade schooler with how plastic it was.

Still, it was enough for Mr.Boreal as he released Geo from the hold to settle back onto his own feet.

"Great! Here, you guys help yourselves to these snacks while I work on that little project Geo needed some assistance with. Shouldn't take me long, but I know you'll both hit it off if you give it a chance!" Then, with a thumbs up in one hand and Geo's transer in the other, he was off to his workplace.

"…Wait, when did he take that?" Geo blinked incredulously as his gaze shot down to his now bare wrist. He hadn't even noticed Mr.Boreal taking it off him!

"He's surprisingly sneaky for being such a large man." Tom somewhat wryly smirked for a moment before seeming to realize what he was doing and schooling his features back into a much more stilted smile.

There was no amount of Zero G cola and Shooting Star Cakes (That were just chocolate cakes with 'Starburst Frosting Fillings!') that could have saved how awkward it was between Geo and Tom at that exact moment, both of them about as introverted as a person could really be with nothing to really motivate them towards conversation.

Still, for Mr.Boreals sake if nothing else, Geo had to try.

"Soooo. Do you like…science?" Geo hesitently asked.

He didn't say it would be a GOOD try.

"Yes. I do." Tom murmered from behind a bottle of juice, practically hiding the majority of his face from view with it and a small moonpie.

"Any uh, in particular?" Geo questioned further, feeling a small portion of himself die with each word.

"…Aeronautics. I've always loved the sky, and researching ways to make travel more available for people." Remarkably however, it seemed to work, as Tom minutely relaxed and actually gave an answer, a smaller, more genuine smile starting to grow on his face.

"That explains why you're here. Mr.Boreal loves space stuff." Geo smiled himself a little at the thought, and even drew a small chuckle from the Dubius man.

"Heh. Aaron is always reaching for the stars, but I like to keep my gaze a little closer to the ground. Space is fun, but too much without something familiar in sight gets…scary." Tom finished somewhat lamely, possibly because he remembered he was talking to a child clearly enamored with the subject and didn't want to go down a different direction.

"I guess it is. But I think that's part of what makes it so important to strive for." Geo said with a small nod, thinking back to his Dad, and the aliens that he had apparently made contact with that were now trying to return the greetings with far more violent thoughts in mind.

One could argue that he had led them to Earth's existance in the first place, but on the other hand, what would have happened if he never made contact, and they just so happened to find out about them anyway?

Geo said none of this aloud, simply letting the silence settle back over the two, broken only by the occasional crinkling of wrappers and swishes of beverages leaving containers.

"I'm done!" Mr.Boreal shouted as he stepped back over to the two, mouth covered with a stray dusting of cinnamon sugar and chocolate from the donuts he had been noshing on while working.

Geo didn't thank a higher power out loud, but boy howdy did he leap from that seat to whirl towards the man holding his transer that now seemed just a touch bulkier than it had been earlier that morning.

"Thanks Mr.Boreal, I really appreciate it." And Geo made sure to give credit where it was due as he took it back.

"No problem at all Geo, its always a hard place to really know where to begin when it comes to proper modifications to transers because the technology is still practically bleeding edge. Don't get taken in by people promising the moon for the price of a rocket and all that." Mr.Boreal waved off the matter with a laugh.

"Oh, you were interested in transer upgrading?" Tom leaned forward in interest.

"…Yeah." Geo somewhat awkwardly agreed with a cough.

"Do you know what makes the transer so special?" Tom asked, another sincere smile settling on his face.

"Uhh." Geo uncertainly looked over to Mr.Boreal, who just flashed his own megawatt grin at him.

"Friendship?" Geo guessed, getting a dry chuckle from Tom.

"Close. It's the Magna Metal used for its components. It's what facilitates the Brotherband program and the benefits it provides, syncing itself into larger clusters to achieve incredible results." A light was burning behind Tom's eyes, bright and excited as he talked.

"Huh. That's…interesting." Geo said after a moment, not quite sure what to say to that.

"Indeed! Magna Metal's resonance effect has been revolutionary to establish the society we live in, and if my research is correct, I believe I can-!" Tom abruptly stopped himself, almost physically slamming his jaw shut and bugging his eyes out of his sockets with how frantic the motion was.

"Uhh?" Geo reared back in surprise, wondering if the guy had choked or something.

"Sorry, Tom gets like that sometimes. He gets super into what he's working on, but isn't always the best at talking about things until he's 100 percent satisfied with them." Mr.Boreal nodded with his arms crossed, evidently more familiar with this particular series of events.

"Oh. Okay. Well, uh, it was nice to meet you Mr.Dubius? And, thanks again Mr.Boreal!" Geo broke away from the two, feeling like he had perhaps overstayed his welcome if he was making people this nervous.

"Make sure to swing by the museum again soon, I'm almost finished with some real humdingers of exhibits soon! And say hi to Hope for me!" Mr.Boreal shouted out after him.

"Oh that was weird." Geo sighed out as he left the elevator to settle on a bench, social batteries thouroughly drained in the aftermath of meeting a new person who seemed to be exactly as unused to people as he was.

Then he turned on his newly improved transer, where the familiar bootup screen was interrupted by a claw tore its way from his screen.

"WHY DIDN'T YOU WAKE ME UP!?!" Warrock roared as he tore himself free from the transer.

"I didn't think he would just take it, and it would have been weird to ask for it back!" Geo defended himself, carefully leaving out that he had legitimately forgotten the alien was napping in said transer at the time.

"That's no damn excuse kid. I feel like I got put through a spin cycle!" Warrock growled as he stretched himself out, body much more tightly compressed than the usual compared to the usual wild trailoffs emenating from his back.

"At least its done." Geo huffed.

"That's the only reason I'm not any angrier than I already am." Warrock chuffed before settling back into a floating position beside Geo.

"So. You wanna try out the new fixings?" Warrock slyly jeered, thumbing a claw towards a shadowed area between an area breakdown map of the AMAKEN grounds.

"…You are so damn lucky that no one can see how sketchy you look and sound." Geo sighed again, but still made his way over in the given direction anyway.

Virus Clearing> 99, 51, 49
​

AMAKEN, for all its advanced security precautions and backups, was not perfect, for nothing truly was.

And in those imperfections, viruses made themselves apparent, serving as a more than acceptable target for Geo to work out exactly what changes had occured with his 'Rockman' form.

Cosmetically, Geo mostly noted an increase in thickness to the chest and elbow armor on his body, and also the grooves on his boots increasing a bit in depth and width. They didn't feel any different, but something about the change seemed to allow him to go even faster than previously without turning into a pure waveform like he had been required to before.

More importantly however, was his new bracing that appeared whenever he used certain battlecards.

Sword cards now extended slightly further down his arm with ridges to allow him to grip and apply extra force, Gatling gave his boots a spiked support to let him lock into place, and Warrock seemed to be able to flare his mane out into a kind of shield configuration, if only for short moments at a time.

"It's like holding my breath. I can technically do it for a while, but it gets real uncomfortable real fast." Warrock explained as he bit down on the former remains of a Wibbledoo, the watery virus popping satisfyingly between his jaws.

"Still, that'll be a real help." Geo nodded as he collected the Wide Wave generated, adding it to the pile of other such battle cards.

Most of it was Thunderball 1's and Paralyze Plus, generated from odd yellow pronged viruses known as Zap Aces generated from the excess electrical consumption generated from the campus utilities, some Jet Attack 1's from the now familiar Crowars, a smattering of Ghost Pulse 1's from Peekaboos, some kind of signal jamming virus, and a singular Sync Hook 1 that had dropped after accidentally shooting a Bell Gong who had been intently watching Geo's fights before it had found itself in the line of fire.

All in all? Not to bad at all for a testrun, to say nothing of the Zenny also generated between those.

With his ready deck of battle cards now freshly loaded with the fruits of his labors and officially as rich as a particularly productive part-timer who had just recieved his two-week paycheque, Geo was feeling pretty satisfied with how the day had gone.

So much so that he had even decided to try skipping the busline entirely to try and ride the wave road back.

"You gotta get a sense for where the wave road is going. Feel the waves under you and track their direction. Don't rely on the visual. That's how you end up in wave holes." Warrock explained as he kept himself facing forward, ready to pull Geo forward dead ahead if need by while Geo got a crash course on non-physical travel.

"Wave hole?" Geo asked with his face scrunched up in of concentration.

"Subspaces formed from especially heavy waves coalescing. They happen a lot in cities and around people where the sheer amount of energy and emotion starts to bleed through. Some also form naturally, but most are the work of viruses, like hives for a bug." Warrock continued as he shot off a few warning shots at some mets he saw hanging near the corner of his eye, making them skedaddle back into the woods Geo was racing over.

"That's…huh. Emotions have that much effect on the wave world?" Geo mused as he changed his question midway, barely avoiding sidestepping into a spiraling path that led into a signal tower disguised as an old tree.

"Course they do. Think of what a single person can do when they feel strongly enough bout something, and how passionately people can feel about completely ordinary objects in their lives. All of that acts like ripples in a pond, and if enough people throw rocks, well then of course somethings gonna get displaced." Warrock chuckled as one of his shots finally nailed a met between the eyes, rendering it to dust as they zoomed past.

…What a weirdly practical and yet also spiritual explaination. More importantly though-

"And this helps me get home faster?" Geo questioned, stopping to look over his surroundings and still finding them to be absolutely nothing familiar.

"It doesn't, but even I get bored." Warrock said as Geo could feel him shrug.

Geo never did end up finding the right waveroad that led back to Echo Ridge, and had to end up backtracking his way to AMAKEN to catch a later bus.

"You tell no one of this." Geo hissed at his transer as he slumped in the backseat of the hoverbus.

"Who exactly would I tell?" Warrock reminded the boy, but the smirk on his muzzle continued to tell Geo that the alien knew exactly how much the matter bugged the boy.

Geo said nothing beyond narrowing his eyes and jabbing the alien in the stomach with his stylus, before dragging him over to the word app.

"Get caught between semi-colons." Geo victoriously murmered to himself.

"-Jokes on you Geo! I can eat these words!" Was the message that chimed itself in from his chat app.

Welp.

Geo could now honestly say that his homework had been eaten by aliens. He couldn't actually tell anyone and have them believe it, but he could say it, and know it to be true.

"Warrock you bastard." Geo sighed as he remade his paper on Netrifan weather systems that, thankfully, wasn't due for a few days still, but it was an annoying setback to smash out in the evening he had previously slotted out for existential dread and playing a baseball game on his computer he had been wanting to try.

"Technically, by your standards. FMians don't really breed binarily the same way you humans do, so we don't really have those attachments to 'parents'." Warrock explained as he lounged around through the air, tail flickering lazily behind him as he moved forward at a slow but steady circle around Geo.

"You are just all about random information drops today." Geo noted as he wrote a paragraph about the importance of lion symbols as roadmarkers.

"I gotta do something to entertain myself while you do whatever and your mom boggarts the TV. Still, I feel like I'll go crazy if I have to keep watching you. I'm going for a drive." Warrock grunted before zipping away.

"Okay, have fun- Wait. What do you mean 'go for a drive'?" Geo started to say before the words actually fully registered to him.

The sound of the lawnmover revving up outside his window was the only answer Geo recieved.

"Oh no." He whispered in horror, before hurriedly saving his work to a seperate file just so he wouldn't have to do this particular assignment a third time.

"Warrock! WARROCK, COME BACK HERE YOU STUPID-!" Geo whisper-shouted into the night as loudly as he could without actually just talking at a regular tone as he ventured out to find their joyridden lawnmower after telling Mom he had heard something weird from the garage.

He also didn't want to get anyone else's attention by yelling about the problem, because then someone else might get involved, and that would be worse for just so many reasons.

Which left Geo following the trail of battered and slightly cut up remains from where Warrocks reckless driving had smashed into or over things under the streetlights and moon up above.

"Damn it, this is so stupid…" Geo groaned as he thought about Warrock, the situation itself, and even a little bit himself for chasing after the misbegotten alien.

"RRRR-VRRRRR!"

Geo froze as he the sound echoed out from an alleyway beside him, mind racing and wondering if he would have to start running away from a stray dog.

Luckily, it wasn't a dog.

"RRRRRRRRR!"

It was just Warrock, gunning the engine of the lawnmower far beyond what it was supposed to run by.

"MMMRRRRRR!"

…That, however, was not the lawnmower.

"What the-" Geo had just enough time to say before realizing he needed to move as a gout of flame erupted out from the same alley.

It sounded obvious when said aloud, but fire was hot.

Few ever truly understood what kind of hot it felt like however, to have a wave of fire lash out in a general direction you were previously standing in. It wasn't just hot. It was heat and sparks that dehydrated the night air with its passing and chafed the throat even without direct contact being made.

Stray debris in the alley were rendered into blacked slag of unknown origin as paper fed into nothing and garbage cans became solid masses that belched putrid smoke.

All of this were the things Geo's mind hyperfocused in on as he pounded his feet against the pavement as quickly as he could to avoid being trapped by splashing flames.

"WHAT THE ACTUAL HELL!" Geo rightfully screamed in fright.

"MRRRRRUHUHUUU! Yes! Scream! Run! Cower before my might!" Uproarously chuckled a figure in the flames that took Geo a moment to realize seemed to also be made of flames, or at least looked close enough that it was hard to spot a difference.

Another FMian had appeared.

"WARROCK! If you truly still view yourself as a warrior, show yourself and perish under my flames with dignity! It's the least you can do after making us chase you down to this dirtball on the edge of this piddly sun!" The bull-themed FMian angrily called out into the night as it pointed upward at the…moon?

What?

"Taurus. Seeing you makes me miss the vacuum of space, because your voice is as irritating as ever." Warrock growled as he abandoned the lawnmower as it gave out a tired wheeze while its wheels melted into the pavement.

"There you are! I told the others that all this subterfuge and reconnisance was wasted on a speck like you! We'll burn this place down anyway, so why not just sift through the ashes when we're done? You've done an excellent job saving me time!" Taurus boisterously laughed as if he had already won.

"And you gave me the perfect opening by monologuing at me instead of blowing more of that hot air you're so fond of! Beast Slap!" Warrock roared as he darted forward and scored his claws against the front of the identified threat, making the alien quickly raise up his crossed arms into a defensive shielding of his face sans the horns.

"Mrrrr! Yes! This is how it should be! Face to face until one of us is extinguished! I had felt such shame when I heard you run from your fate, but still does a warrior's spirit burn within you!"

"Warrior this, warrior that, you sound like a broken record! I am what I am, and that's sick of you!" Was Warrocks rebuttal as he continued to do his best to rip and tear into Taurus's form. And, for a moment, it looked to be effective, as large chunks were torn free from the red FMians body with each brutal swipe of Warrock's claws, but as an outside observer, Geo saw something Warrock didn't.

Namely, that even through all the damage being dealt, Taurus didn't once flinch or show any sign of discomfort the same way Cygnus had, even in the face of comparatively more severe wounds.

"Then allow me to show you why fire is the cure to any problem! TAURUS FLAME!" Taurus snorted before seemingly sucking back a majority of the flames around them, his frame filling back the missing chunks as if being painted back between the lines, before another wicked gout of flames lit up the night, forcing Warrock to disengage with a hiss.

The situation did not get better from there, and there was no denying that this was a situation now either.

The smoke was rising into the night sky to blot out the moon, and already Geo could see the flashing lights of emergency vehicles in the distance. Every minute longer Taurus continued to lash out against Warrock, more fire threatened to spill out and over into the offices around them.

Everything was escalating too quickly, and it was throwing Geo for a complete loop as his instincts to get the hell away from the scene of burning danger warred with wanting to make sure that the only link he knew for sure existed to his Dad was kept safe.

'There's got be something I can do! Think, think, think!…I can't! Damn it, these flames are too hot! I can't focus with-' Geo choked as he ran before abruptly straightening out and furiously fishing into his pockets as an idea struck him.

"-These! Wide Wave! Wide Wave! WIDE WAVE!" Geo triumphantly repeated with each slash of the battle card into his transer.

While normally they would be useless against a regular fire, nothing about this was ordinary. Each and every spark was generated by an EM being, so maybe fighting EM with EM was the way to go.

And, after a moment, it seemed to work, as the flames previously encroaching on Geo were met with smothering blue energy and dispersed.

"MRRR!?! WHO DARES EXTINGUISH MY FLAMES!"

"Ah shit." Geo twitched as the FMian shifted focus onto him.

Staring into a burning fire already had a kind of hypnotizing effect, but having the fire stare back with rage and malice was an entirely different explaination for why Geo felt locked in place as Taurus turned towards him.

"Mrrrooo? A little earthling dares interrupt my long awaited battle! Away with you! Wait your turn until you get added to my pyre!" Taurus snorted before unleashing another wave of fire, completely dismissing Geo from consideration.

It was only the fact that he had far more Wide Waves on him than God ever intended a single child to have that kept him from being burnt to a crisp.

"Oh, that was too close." Geo whispered to himself as he bent low to the ground to let as much of the flames unleashed shoot over his head where the rapid firing of Wide Waves did its best to dampen and deal with what would have hit him head on.

Warrock, seeing his opponent present his back to him, wasted no time going for a kill shot as his claws pierces through Taurus's centermass before pulling apart, seperating stem from stern in a display that would put butchers to shame if any blood at all was involved in the process.

Unfortunately, once again Taurus refused to get the memo as he simply filled in his blanks, with his torn away sections adding to the spreading fires still blazing around them.

"That won't work Warrock! Break yourself upon my body and know the futility of standing against your planet!" Taurus arrogantly snorted.

"Like I would believe you! If my claws can rip and tear, then it can die!" Warrock roared, but in spite of his words still disengaged before a repeat of the last encounter could occur again.

This was the worst kind of stalemate- where everyone except the two who started the damn thing suffered.

"That's enough​." Geo faintly heard someone finally say the words he had been quietly repeating in his head.

Then he realized they had come from him.

Welp.

"That's enough." Geo repeated himself, much firmer the second time.

A line had been crossed long ago, and as scared as he felt in that moment, it was nothing compared to the sheer outrage that was welling up in him from somewhere deep within.

Outrage at Taurus. At this situation. At the risks to his life that had been thrown at him twice over in the last 24 hours, all coming to a head.

Geo had had enough.

"And who, mrrrrooo, are you to try and order me?" Taurus asked as a wick of flame raised above his head like an eyebrow.

"No one important, and that's exactly the point. You're threatening people who have nothing to do with any of this for nothing. Stop it." Geo harshly glared at the bull-based FMian.

Taurus was quiet for a moment, before chortling. At first quietly, and then increasingly louder, as if the statement became funnier and funnier each time he thought about it.

"HOO! Ha, you honestly believe that! Hilarious, that some little meatling thinks that it can make decrees about anything! You should have simply burned in my first wave. It would have been a kinder fate than what I shall do to you now." Taurus darkly promised.

"Warrock. Denpa Henkan." Geo declared as he threw his transer bearing arm outward towards the blue-green alien.

"Heh." Warrock smirked at Taurus before zipping over to Geo and awashing them both in his electromagnetic wavelength.

Whatever Taurus had been expecting, it wasn't this.

Bucking The Bull> 88, 72, 58
The Bull, Bucking> 73​

Geo- no. Rockman burst out as a streak of light against the smoke and dark of the night.

"Wide Wave." A familiar declaration at this point, but with an entirely different result, as Warrock's head was replaced with some kind of flat launcher before it released a densely packed wave of crystal blue energy as opposed to the wild omnidirectional bursts it had been with his transer alone.

"Gah!" And Taurus was front and center to the attack as it collided with not just his main body, but also the stray energy that tried to escape upon impact, washing it all back into a single painful package.

"You're not as solid as you look; so I just need to hit everywhere at the same time." Rockman coldly spoke as he splayed out another five Wide Wave cards in his off hand, ready and waiting to feed them into Warrock at a moments notice.

"-hack! A cheap shot and even cheaper trick! You fused with another human!?! No, even more than that, you found one with a similar wavelength that quickly!?! You disgrace of a warrior, naught but a freely spreading parasite!" Taurus roared in pain and outrage, the fires within him flickering fiercely as his rage stoked the flames around them.

"Wide Wave times two."

A splish. A splash. Taurus was slashed with energy in an x-formation, and for the first time that night, actually bothered to dodge a hit instead of simply tanking it.

"You will rue this day! I shall return, and burn down all that you hold dear!"

"Times three."

Taurus, understandably, broke into a beam of red light and retreated into the night sky as a deluge of energy flooded the area, extinguishing the last of the fires and leaving only blackened concrete and resisidual gouts of smoke to rise out.

"Next time, we start with that." Warrock grinned toothily.

"…I want to go to bed, Warrock." Geo tiredly murmered, looking over at the absolutely ruined area around him, and then to the flashing lights and sirens that were almost upon them.

Then he, too, turned into but a streak in the night.

Geo didn't remember where or quite when he had detransformed, but he did know that he was back to his normal self when he got back home.

"Geo! Are you okay? You smell like smoke, what happened?" And his mom was instantly by his side, pulling him into another embrace and looking him over with a probing eye.

"Our lawnmower is a write-off." Geo murmered into his moms shoulders before he closed his eyes and allowed the absense of adrenaline to bring him into the embrace of sleep.

When Geo woke up, he was in his own bed without his jacket or shoes, so mom must have tucked him in at some point, but he knew none of it.

"…Hey." Geo greeted as he entered the kitchen.

"Good morning." His mom greeted him, sipping at a cup of coffee while she prepared a plate of toast with various toppings to the sides.

It wasn't the most awkward breakfast he had ever experienced, but it was definitely up there.

"So. Why exactly did you think it was a good idea to run out in the middle of the night before coming back smelling like burning rubber?" Mom waited to ask just as Geo took his first bite of toast, nearly making him inhale the whole thing and send crumbs down his windpipe.

"Hack! Cough!" He hurriedly tried to clear his throat while using the time to try and think of something less insane than the truth that an alien had taken their mower for a ride only to be ambushed by a second alien who viewed collateral damage as a plus instead of a demerit.

"The viruses in the lawnmower kind of made it, sort of…explode." Geo rasped out as he drank a quick swig of water, hiding his nervousness at telling a lie with the fact that he hadn't quite succeeded at dislodging every stray crumb.

"Hmmm." Mom hummed as she stared Geo down without blinking, making him fidget in his seat.

"…I don't like it, but I guess there was no way you could have known that would happen. Still, if something like this does come up again, please don't take a risk like that again, please. We have insurance for a reason Geo, and you're worth far more to me than some stupid mower." Mom reminded him as she settled her hand on his and gave it a light squeeze.

Geo choked up a little for a different reason, but pretended that it was still the toast crumbs.

"Okay." Geo gave a small nod.

"Good. Now eat up, and then go get washed. Smoke isn't a good smell for anything but a barbeque, and I don't want it getting into the furniture." Mom ordered.

"Kay." Geo nodded again, before returning to his toast.

It tasted a bit better.

The shower came and went as his previous days outfit finally made its way into the wash. Luckily, Geo had several of his favorite jackets to spare after finding that first one he really liked, so all he really had to change was his undershirt.

That was the extent of his good news, as he went out to greet the day only to find an increasingly familiar trio awaiting him.

"I knew you would be here." Luna smirked.

"Yes. This is my house." Geo deadpanned.

"Both statements are equally correct." Zack corroborated from below with a nod.

Bud said nothing, merely continuing to glower straight forward with his arms crossed and looking like he would rather be anywhere else at the moment.

"Welp. Goodbye." Geo said as he tried to sidle past them.

"Nope!" Luna cheerfully denied him as she grabbed a hold of his arm.

…She was SO lucky that Warrock wasn't in his transer right now.

"Please let me go." Geo said stiffly.

"In due time. First, we're gonna have a little chat." Luna smiled, before snapping her fingers with her free hand.

"On it." Bud gruffed as he stepped up to hoist Geo up by his other shoulder.

"-Wah! Mom, help, I'm getting kidnapped!" Geo shouted down the hall for help.

"No you're not Geo, I can see everything from here! Have fun with the people trying to be your friends!" Mom called back.

This was treachery of the highest order! A betrayal!

"You won't get away with this!" Geo screamed.

(They did, in fact, get away with this.)

Geo was finally deposited after several minutes of carrying at the base of Vista Point's park entrance.

"You have remarkable upperbody strength for someone your size." Geo groused as he rubbed his shoulder where Bud had gripped him a tad tighter than was probably stricly neccesary.

"Thank you, I work hard on that. Now, with that said- I don't like you and you don't like me." Luna nodded to herself as she set herself on a bench, crossing her legs and taking an imperially prim pose as her fellows flanked her.

"Oh, so you noticed." Geo sourly noted.

"Of course. But, I'm nothing if not a flexible person. I want you to go to school. What do I need to give you to get you coming with me?" Luna straight up offered to bribe him.

Geo wasn't the only shocked on the matter, given the doubletakes Zack and Bud shot their leader.

"Wha-! Prez! That's so unethical!" Zack harshly whispered.

"Ethics shmethics, I want results." Luna waved off.

"Spoken like a true politician." Geo deadpanned.

"Oi, show some grace! She wouldn't have to go out on a limb like this for you if you weren't such a stubborn-!" Bud began to rear up before Luna raised her hand forward to settle on the larger boys shoulder.

"Bud. Enough." It was said simply, but still had Bud settle back with a much deeper frown.

"Now, seriously. What will it take." Luna asked him again.

'His dad coming back' was the first thing that sprung to Geo's mind.

"Nothing you have to offer." Was what passed from Geo's lips.

Luna did not seem pleased with that answer, but shrugged none the less.

"I see. Well, then I have to resort to the stick, if the carrot won't work." Luna simply stated.

"I like the sound of this!" Bud fiercely grinned as he pounded a fist into his hand.

"So what, you're going to beat me up if I don't comply with this stupid obsession you have?" Geo bit out with narrowed eyes and legs tensed to bolt at the earliest opportunity that presented itself.

"Of course not! We're not barbarians. We're simply going to stick to you like glue until we break your spirit and the only option you have left is to comply!" Luna grandly proclaimed, pointing a finger square at Geo's face so there was no ambiguity.

"…Huh?" Geo blanked.

"Really? With this cheapshotting weeny?" Bud incredulously asked.

"There's no need for insults Bud. I want you all to get along." Luna serenely corrected her largest supporter.

"…No."

The denial, surprisingly, didn't come from Geo.

It came from Bud.

"Excuse me, what was that?" Luna's smile turned slightly forced as she turned in Bud's direction.

"I said no Prez. This guy ain't worth it, and I don't want to waste my time pushing around some horse that doesn't even want to eat." Bud absolutely butchered a metaphor while standing his grounds on the matter with his arms crossed.

"…I see." Luna nodded once, before flicking open her transer.

"What're you doing Prez?" Bud tensed as Luna continued to type.

"Nothing important." Luna nodded again as she finished writing her message before daintily clicking closed her transer.

Then Bud's own bulky transer made a small, low chime like a bell had been rung, visibly making him flinch back before hurriedly ripping it open to check and see what it was.

"…You. Cut our brotherband?" He whispered in horror.

"Yes. If your time is that precious, then you can now spend it however you wish." Luna smiled again, but this time there was not a speck of warmth to be found.

Geo said nothing, but Zack barely looked a second away from exploding, gaze rapidly alternating between Luna and Bud, before he visibly swallowed his words and shrunk down to try and appear even smaller than he usually was for the moment.

This. This is why Geo didn't want to go to school.

Because everyone just wanted their own little boxes checked and didn't care about who was hurt along the way.

"Truly, I'm witnessing a master at work." Geo cooly said as he made to wander off.

It was the wrong thing to say, as his words reminded Bud that he was still there.

"-You!" Bud grunted, tears in the corners of his eyes and face rapidly reddening from an ugly combination of emotions running through him, reared up to throttle the boy who had just cost him one of the closest bonds he had in his young life.

He failed to grab a hold this time, because now Geo had space to move, and a clear view of where he was coming from.

There was no parting quip as he once more ran as fast as he could, leaving behind a former trio, now duo.

POV ZACK​

The walk to school was a quiet affair.

"Did you really need to go that far?" Zack quietly questioned the girl walking beside him.

"Sometimes you have to present a harsh front Zackery. If someone thinks there are no consequences, then they won't listen to you when the chips are down." Luna explained, doing nothing to clarify for the smaller boy if she was talking about Geo, or Bud.

"But still. You cut his Brotherband?" Zack had to ask, not willing to let this matter drop while showcasing who he was truly worried about.

"It's not like its for forever. I'll give him a day to think about what he's done, and then bring him back into the fold. Give us all some space to think." Luna waved off the matter as an open and shut case as she stepped past the school gates.

Zack said nothing as he watched the president elect walk, wondering if things were truly going to be that simple and cut dry.

…Somehow, he didn't think so.

END POV

POV BUD​

Getting to school on time was the least of Bud's concerns at the moment as his heart pounded in his ears and feet lumbered against the ground to put as much distance between himself and his (former) Brother as possible.

He didn't want to go home because his Mom would still be there before she had to go to work, and he didn't want to make her use one of her few sick days for something stupid like this.

Like him.

"Stupid. Stupid! Stupid!" Bud reprimanded himself a little louder with each repetition, feeling the harsh truth ring right through his empty head.

Why'd he say no to the Prez like that? He never did that! It was just, looking at that ungrateful little twig reject each and every attempt to reach out over and over again was driving him nuts! Why keep bothering when the answer was obviously going to be no!

It was all just such a waste of time.

"Like…me." Bud hiccuped as he finally came to an end, throwing himself the railing of one of Vista Points viewing area. The metal was cool to the touch, but did absolutely nothing to calm the shame and loathing burning him up inside at the moment.

"Mrrr." His stomach growled in discomfort at being jostled around in such a matter before breakfast had even had time to truly settle.

"Mrrrrr!" It echoed again, louder.

"I can't eat right now. Not like this." He sniffled.

"MMRRRROOOOOO!"

That…wasn't his stomach.

Bud whirled around, and came face to face with an unforgettable figure.

"AH! THE GHOST OF LAST NIGHTS PORKCHOPS! I'M SORRY I WENT BACK FOR SECONDS, BUT YOU WERE JUST TOO DELICIOUS FOR ME TO RESIST!" Bud cried for forgiveness from the remnants of last nights dinner who had come to kick him while he was down.

There was silence on the viewing deck.

"I am no pork, nor chopped! I am a mighty bull, virile and burning with the fury of a thousand suns!" Taurus corrected the scared boy with a sharp snort that raised the general temperture by several degrees.

"…I'M SORRY MR.STEAKS, YOU WERE TOO DELICIOUS, I HAD TO GO BACK FOR SECONDS!" Bud amended his desperate apology, bowing low.

Once again, silence.

"Your heart is heavy. Your mind is clouded. The world around you is crashing down." Taurus chanted.

"…My world…" Bud murmered to himself, swaying side to side.

"Your heart is heavy. The fire in you will not be extinguished. It must burn bright."

"Burn…" Bud murmered, gaze drifting away into the distance.

"Your heart is heavy. Make them pay. Feed those who harmed you into the fire."

"Let me in. Let me lighten your heart."

"Let…you in…"

There was a flash of red light.

END POV
​

"Yo. What'd I miss?" Warrock asked as he zipped back into Geo's transer after finishing up whatever he was up to that morning.

"Nothing much." Geo somewhat listlessly responded as he walked down the sidewalk, thinking of what he had just witnessed and thinking that validation shouldn't be as bitter as it was.

"Hmm. Well, whatever the case, what're we doing now? If its just head back to your home, I'm leaving again." Warrock bluntly asked made his feelings of being a homebody known.

"…I think I want to explore more of the wave world. I have some stress to work off, and I'd like to be productive about it." Geo admitted after a moment of thought.

"Now we're talkin." Warrock smirked.

Wave Road Exploring> 115, 107, 78​

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wt4UpLez4Fc

The Wave Roads were remarkably clear during the mid day for once. There were no major virus clusters that Geo could see, people were content to go about their own days with minimal fuss, and the weather was free and clear.

It was practically the best conditions possible that Geo could have asked for to practice moving distances and frequencies in the Wave World.

Which made it all the more improbable that he managed to crash into someone.

Somehow.

"Ow! What did I-!" Geo's words caught in his throat as he resolidified into a figure at the same time as whatever he hit.

"Eh, another virus? Well c'mon, if you're taking a cheap shot, then let's-!" The figure started to say before freezing.

""…WHO'RE YOU!?!"" Each side panickedly declared as they pointed shaking fingers at one another.

"Lyra." Warrock darkly growled.

"Warrock~" Crooned the guitar.

 

[anirocks]

A megaman starforce fic in this economy. Nice

 

[DuckQuixote]

I can already tell this is gonna be peak.

 

[Virgo with Cheer]

The world had taken an abrupt shift for the strange and worrying, for just so many reasons.

The first, was that Warrock apparently had a girlfriend? Maybe? It technically shouldn't shouldn't have been that weird, given that he was presumably a grown man who lived his own life before coming to Earth, but having the fact shoved up in his face felt like a hella sharp juxtaposition thrown Geo's way.

The second, was the girl.

Oh boy, the girl.

Not just in terms of looks, but her actual presence there- standing in front of him and in precisely the same boat he was.

Another Denpa-Henkaned Human.

The ramifications of that were…

A lot.

"I…should probably say something, shouldn't I?" Geo said aloud after realizing he had fallen into a spiral of his own thoughts.

"I think that's gonna be a good idea. I've already learned what I think are three new swears listening to your…hand?" The pink-clad girl nodded in agreement with Geo, shooting a look at Warrock's head.

"4, but one of them kind of blends together." Her guitar, 'Lyra', corrected her holder without skipping a beat even as Warrock continued to try and shoot forward to physically bite the bridge where strings would typically rest.

It took a fair amount of doing, and a brief moment of nearly losing a finger, but Warrock was finally pulled back into a less agressive position than he had previously been in.

The keyword there was 'less', because even without his maw open to take a chomp out the FMian before them, there was still a telltale glow of power characteristic of a Megashot brewing in the back of his throat/Geo's wrist ready to be unleashed at a moments notice.

It was about as good as he was going to get without some kind of narcotic or relaxant, Geo figured as he set about to try his best at diplomancy.

"…Hi." Geo somewhat awkwardly waved with his regular hand.

His best, was not that great.

"Hey there." At least she seemed to be in same boat, as a wave was passed back his way before the girl started using her hand to toy with her hair, twirling blonde strands between her finger and seemingly not knowing what to say.

"Oh for goodness sake, you're both being ridiculous about this. Introduce yourselves!" Lyra the guitar hummed in aggrivation as the heartshaped base of the instrument swung itself up and around, pushing her wielder forward to only barely catch herself like she was being pushed forward.

"Lyra! Don't do that! You can't just make me be social!​"

"I can and I will!​"

Oh.

Oh god. It was like looking in an inverted mirror.

"Take the shot. TAKE! THE SHOT!" Warrock harshly whisper-shouted at him through clenched jaws.

A name was a simple thing absolutely loaded with consequences when you were a human fused with an alien lifeform. It was something Geo had already been considering the other day when he was on the news, but it especially kind of hit home now that he was faced with another person in the same situation.

Geo almost answered with his actual name. Wanted to, even, because it was how he had been raised to do so for years.

But nothing about this was normal. Would probably never be normal.

And, frankly, Geo couldn't take the chance that something from this world would somehow follow him back if he got too comfortable blurting out the truth.

So he didn't.

"I'm Rockman." It felt weird to say aloud, but something was better than nothing.

"Oh! We're doing weird names. Okay. Um. I'm…Lyra…Noooo-Harp? Harp Note? Sure, that works, yeah! Harp Note!" The girl said as she grew progressively more confident with each word.

"Nice to meet you." Geo said.

"Awww, like two rabbits huddling up." Lyra cooed.

"I can get her right between the eyes if you lift me three degrees up." Warrock hissed.

Somehow, that did a decent job breaking the tension as the two of them unanimously decided that it might be better off ignoring their partners than listening to them.

"So. How long have you been doing…this?" The question was a little awkward, but the hand Geo waved in both their directions left it clear what he meant.

"It's been…God, I think a month now? It's kind of a blur thinking back on it." Harp Note reminisced as she steepled her skirt to sit down on the edge of the Wave Road beside him.

"Holy. This is day…3? Ish?" Geo shot a look over at Warrock for confirmation, but that was a dead well for a lot of reasons at the moment.

Also, more importantly-

"Wait, hang on, a month?" Geo asked incredulously.

"We knew Warrock would head to Earth, we just had no idea when or where he would arrive." Lyra explained everything and nothing at the same time.

"And you just waited around for him?" Geo had to be clear about this.

"She found me. And set me free." Harp Note softly said.

…LOT to unpack from that. Also a lot that Geo did NOT feel like he was properly equipped to address.

So he, uh. Didn't.

"And you've just been kinda…going around then?" Geo asked with a scratch of his head.

"Pretty much. I spent a while in Alohaha cause the beaches there are just, perfect. But I haven't really found anywhere I couldn't go yet, so why not, yaknow?" Harp Note shrugged, a bright smile settling on her face.

"Wow. I know we could go far, but that seems kind of…" Geo trailed off, because he wasn't really sure what word to use.

Scary? Tiring?

…Lonely?

Luckily, Harp Note filled the silence before it could settle.

"The lifestyle definitely isn't for everyone, and it does kind of get to me every now and again. That, and, well. It's easier to get food and soap than hunt down my own without feeling gross, so I come back to to society every now and again to…people." Harp Note somewhat lamely finished.

"Huh. That's kinda cool." Geo smiled at the thought.

"And then we fell right into you! Such a small world, isn't it Warrock?" Lyra cooed at them.

"Don't test me woman, you're still in blastin range." Warrock growled.

"Like that's ever scared me before. Why would it now~?" She crooned.

"I'm also really not liking the tension right now." Harp Note grimaced.

"It's definitely pretty charged. Also, hang on." Geo grimaced before abruptly swinging Warrock around and releasing his jaw, discharging a massive blob of plasma into the horizon, erasing everything that was stupid or slow enough to not get out of the way of the assault shot.

"Sorry, that was starting to itch." Geo apologized.

"No, no, I get it. Lyra's been trying to paralyze you guys for a while. I think the the cats are starting to notice that the birds below us can't get up." Harp Note admitted, drawing both their gazes downward where a pile of pigeons laid in a twitching pile, slowing attracting a small legion of stray cats eager to enjoy the bounty blessed upon them.

The mutual violence being directed at one another got another small round of laughter from both of them.

"Listen. I was only planning to stay around for a little while, but if you have some freetime later, would you…like to, maybe…bust some viruses together? If you're not doing anything else, I mean." Harp Note hurriedly along as she shifted in place.

"Oh! Uhhh, sure, I guess. I don't really have anything major to do, I don't think." Geo hummed and hawed for a bit as he tried, and failed, to think of anything truly pressing to deal with.

"It's a trap! How do you not get that this is a trap!?!" Warrock incredulously roared.

"Yeeees, take them to a secondary location! Oh, I'm so proud of you!" Lyra squealed in joy.

"Stop that." Harp Note puffed a pout at her partner as she lightly bobbed the guitars base against the wave road beneath them.

"So…meet back here later then?" Geo asked, looking around for familiar landmarks, and drawing a quick shake of the head from Harp Note.

"No, I still need to get some things. How about over near the old train museum, over by Vista Point over there?" Harp Note offered as she pointed a finger into the distance.

"Sure, I guess that works." Geo nodded much more confidently now that he knew he wouldn't be expected to meet somewhere halfway across the planet.

"Fantastic! You'd better show up, or I'll actually follow through on some of the things Lyra's been whispering at me to do!" With that…threat(?) chirped, Harp Note beamed off in a streak of pinkish light.

"Yer killin me kid." Warrock groaned.

"…That actually just happened, right?" Geo asked his partner.

"Unfortunately."

Geo, still in wave form, meandered around for a little after that, still dazed at the revelation that there was another FMian with a human partner, and also that they didn't want to kill him.

It was kind of a heelturn compared to the last two he had met/tried to greviously injure, but it also made him feel like maybe the future wasn't as bad as he had thought it would be.

"Oi. Don't go loopy on me kid, this is what Lyra does to people. She gets in your head and makes you feel things so you don't notice what she's doing in the background. If she's actually managed to find a partner whose not just a puppet for her, then that's just another layer of uncertainty to keep in mind." Warrock growled, snapping Geo back to the present as they careened down the Wave Road.

"That feels really pessemistic." Geo pointed out.

"It's called experience kid. Out of every FMian there is, Lyra is a master of her craft. She's not the strongest or deadliest, but her long cons are legendary. Insideous. Detrimental." Warrock reminisced.

"…Sound a little fond there, Warrock." Geo said as he shot a sidelook at the beast he bore.

"For a while there we were a decent team. She would slip in while I came in fast and hard at whatever we were directed at. The problems came when familiarity bred contempt, and she sold me out when I tried to get off Planet FM. If not for Lyra, Planet FM wouldn't have had any idea how to get to Earth." Warrock explained.

"Ah." Geo clicked his jaw.

"Yeah. 'Ah'. So forgive me for not being excited bout yer little playdate later." Warrock gruffed.

>Then Rockman caught caught in a Wave Hole​

Distracted driving resulted in accidents more often than not, and those same lessons applied doubly so to traveling along the Wave Roads, because unlike the regular road, the 'road' dipped, curved, and then sometimes ceased to exist.

In this particular case, the road that Geo was following that was straight just the other day, now took a sharp swerve to the right and downward, drawing in the blueclad hero like water down a drain practically before he even realized what was happening.

Then he was…somewhere.

"What the…" Geo trailed off uneasily as he looked around at the green…space, he had found himself in while above him, a field of purple crackled and flowed like a stream of angry grape soda.

"Damn it, we fell in a Wave Comp." Warrock huffed.

"We can actually go into those?" Geo asked incredulously.

"Oh sure. Not usually a lot of point though unless your trying to get at some particularly juicy Virus or want to save some time combing around for junk data. These things are where the Waves dip down and get stuck, alongside all the other things that get carried with em." Warrock reiterated a bit on a matter he had touched on before.

"Hullo! I've been here for centuries! Or 4 days. One of those two." The odd duck-billed…thing, over in the corner of the Wave Hole comp waved.

"Sup shopkeep." Warrock casually greeted.

"You know this guy Warrock?" Geo asked.

"Not this one in particular, but I know his kind. They're bottomfeeders who collect junk data and wave configurations to mash em together into new forms in exchange for money or goods to help themselves with." Warrock chuffed, nosing himself forward through the odd space at a far slower speed than usual.

If the purple merchant took any offense to being called a bottom feeder, it didn't show behind his swirly glassed eyes, nor with a twitch of his grinning face.

"So. What can I getcha?" He asked, leaning forward and opening Geo originally assumed was a coat to show they were in fact small folded wings small item capsules where feathers would have been.

>Then Rockman learned how Wave Shops worked​

It felt weird, handing over the Zenny he had gotten from destroying viruses to some random being in the ass end of nowhere, but the things he was offering were genuinely interesting, and not neccesarily things Geo could just find on the street, for a number of reasons.

So he bought the small capsule marked with the plus sign and something called an 'Ability Program'.

Now, Geo knew what those words meant individually, but something told him the little shimmering packet of energy wasn't made to run on his computer.

"Hmm. Nice. Programs are less a shield and more a streamlining of a process adapted for a general, well. Ability. Most likely this got distilled from those Wibbledoos we've been popping, and would give the attacks from em a bit more oomph cause I would have less to convert myself to get em working." Warrock explained.

"That…seems incredibly useful." Geo admitted, thinking about a certain flaming cow who had tried to render him into a crispy toasty crispy toast a short time ago.

"They are. You also can't run too many of em at a time though without fuckin up something internally though, so don't go thinking that you can just shove any ol thing into us without a care." Warrock cautioned.

"Right, yeah, that makes sense." Geo nodded after a moment to confirm he understood the danger.

"…So. Uh. Do I eat this, or like, rub it in somewhere…?" Geo trailed off uneasily as he stared at the small glowing orb he had recieved from the merchant.

"Oi." Warrock sighed.

Leaving the Wave Comp turned out to be as simple as pointing upward at the rolling purple ceiling and jumping upward to let gravity invert, which sounded exactly as weird as it felt, and putting the Ability into use was apparently as easy as feeding it into the fires around Warrocks head to incorporate it into their body.

"I can always hork it up later if we need it back." Warrock casually said.

"Don't be gross Warrock." Geo grimaced.

"It ain't gross, its useful. Some EM beings have it way harder. Why, this one time I had to use my claws to-"

"Please. Stop." Geo pleaded before the story could get going.

"Fine fine. I'll just write it out and stick it in a random folder for you to find later." Warrock decided.

…Great. Now he had that to look forward to.

"Oh God, oh fuck, THIS IS THE BEST AND WORST DAY OF MY LIIIIIIIIIFE!" And then, suddenly, another concern reared its head, as a very familiar looking face suddenly popped in front of, and then almost threw him as it zoomed past a startled Geo who was only barely able to get out of the way.

Of course, he didn't really need to get out of the way, given he was still in wave form, but the instincts to dodge were still there.

And, really, how in the world was he supposed to react when Tom Dubius flew past him!?!

"Wait. WaitwaitwaitI'mrunningoutofPOWEEEEEER!"

…Was, flying. Now he was falling past him.

"…We gotta help him!" Geo startled forward in a panic as he realized exactly what he was looking at.

"What? We do?" Warrock groused with a raised brow.

"Yes!" Geo insisted.

"Alright, alright, yeesh. I think I see his trail still. Maybe he'll have something on em worth our time too." He murmered to himself.

"Don't preplan your looting!"

"Well then when am I supposed to kid! Huh? Answer me that!"

"You don't do it at all!"

"Now yer just bein unreasonable here."

Touching down at where Mr.Dubius had crashed, it occured to Geo that it would probably be even weirder if a kid just suddenly appeared from thin air besides an impact crater, and a concussion wasn't something Geo wanted to count on at the moment.

So he carefully flashed over to the treeline before returning back to the physical world and coming forward to help.

"Are you okay!?!" Geo screamed as he ran to the man who was still facedown in the grass, bar the occasional twitch.

"No. But that doesn't really matter, compared to keeping this safe." Tom groaned pitifully into the dirt before bracing himself upward into a slouch to keep the thing he was careening around on protected more than, say, his ribs.

"I really think you should care a bit more about yourself than…whatever that is." Geo insisted.

"No. No, these will live on well past me. That's the goal of any inventor." Tom coughed.

"I thought that was money." Geo pointed out.

"Its the goal of many inventors." Tom corrected himself before blinking and realizing he was talking to someone actually there.

Evidently, there was in fact some unseen damage that came from taking a fall on the level he had.

"Ah. Hello…you." Tom said stiltedly, and having either forgotten Geo's name, or found that particular knowledge misplaced in the aftermath of his horrific tumble.

Geo couldn't bring himself to mind it either, as he frantically tried to recall what to do in the aftermath of a crash beyond 'ask if they're okay'. Make sure there were no punctured ribs or something maybe? That seemed important.

"Can you breathe already? Take off your jacket, I need to see if anything got dislocated!" Geo babbled as he approached as carefully as he could, ready to help support the larger man on his shoudler if need be.

"NO!" Tom screamed bloody murder as Geo got closer, hugging his contraption close to his body and scampering back until his back hit a tree.

Geo stopped flat, as the older man shivered and shook, looking like he instantly regretted his sharp movements, but was willing to do it again as every part of his body jittered with nervous energy.

"Mr.Dubius?" Geo asked.

"I'm fine! Completely fine! So just go away! Please! Please just. Go away." The pleadings bled raw and sharp before losing steam with each word as adrenaline drained away.

…It felt wrong, to see someone be injured and then be told they didn't want any help, but Geo knew the look in the older man's eyes at the moment, and realized that any pain or discomfort he was feeling was completely seperate from whatever concern was really plaguing the thin man.

Geo didn't like it, but what he liked didn't really matter at the moment.

"…I'm still calling someone." Geo said, eyes narrowed carefully to their surroundings as his wrist flicked out to open his Transer and send out a HELP signal.

"…Okay." Tom said after a quiet moment of trying to get himself into a better position without robbing him of any of the few shallow, quick breaths he was taking.

Geo made no move to leave after turning on the HELP signal- mostly because it turned out that Tom's transer had taken its own fair chunk of damage from his rapid descent, but also because Geo refused to let this moment pass.

This wasn't like an argument to go to school.

This was important.

So Geo firmly planted himself in a sitting position, and waited while Tom alternated between checking himself and his things over, and darting frantic glances over at where Geo was as if afraid he would move the second his eyes were off him.

It didn't exactly paint a pretty picture, but then Geo probably didn't either, and definitely didn't have any stones to throw in that regard either.

He wasn't exactly racing to have to explain why he was in the middle of the park during a school day after all.

Those little details meant nothing to Warrock however, as he nosed himself against the screen of Geo's transer, poking outward to get a better sense of whatever had captured his attention.

"Hey. Hey, Geo. Whatever's he got smells delicious." Warrock drooled.

"What? You can taste?" Geo asked incredulously.

"Of course I can taste! And those wings-things are giving off some scrum-diddily-umpcious waves." Warrock licked his lips.

"Don't eat something a man is willing to die for!" Geo hissed at his wrist.

"But that's part of what makes it gooood." Warrock whined.

"I can hear you, you know." Tom wheezed.

Geo froze shock still for a moment.

"Call his bluff so I can eat his stuff!" Warrock doubled down.

"I can hear you trying to work out what I have in my hands. Pry out my secrets with your beady little eyes. Steal them for yourself before they ever see the light of day." Tom droned.

"…Mr.Dubius, please just wait a bit longer. Someone will be by soon to help you." Geo pleaded as he absolutely confirmed that the man was concussed, and now spiraling down a terrible thought path at very little prompting.

"You're just like all the rest, swooping down in my moment of weakness like a vulture. You won't take it. The Flap Pack is mine. My creation. You can't have it." Tom continued to talk, eyes far away and clutching his 'Flap Pack' like it was his only lifeline.

It also gave Geo a clear view of the intense purple and yellow bruisings on his wrist where his transer previously was when his sleeve bunched up.

Nothing about this situation was good, for so many reasons.

Rolls to Convince the Concussed Genius: 104, 77, 52​

This…would take some doing.

"Mr.Dubius. I'm 10." Geo gently reminded the man.

"So was I once. It didn't stop people from copying off my tests. Didn't stop people from accusing me of being the one creeping and peeping because I was the tall kid who didn't get enough sleep because he was studying day and night. Children are the worst." Tom narrated.

"…I'm not going to steal anything from you. I just want to help you." Geo kept his words soft and low- the exact way he usually hated when older people tried to talk to him.

The irony of the situation wasn't lost on him.

"That's what they all say." Tom croaked.

"And I actually mean it. You're in a lot of pain, and not in your right mind. If I really wanted to take something from you, this would be the prime time for me to do it. But I'm not. And I won't." Geo's voice took on a slight rougher heat to it, the force hopefully enough to cut through whatever meandering memories were running at the forefront of Tom's mind.

That, weirdly enough, worked, as Tom really took in the state he was in, and more so the fact that Geo had kept his distance away from the invention he was guarding with his life.

"Right. You're…right. I'm sorry. It's just." Tom seemed to struggle for the words, for many reasons.

"I get it." Geo stopped him before a different spiral could start.

And that, weirdly enough, was the truth too.

It was lucky that the paramedics arrived when they did, because man was it a harrowing line that Geo had to walk to keep Tom from freaking out more and injuring himself further.

"Good work kid. If not for you bracing him against that tree, he might have punctured something with those cracked ribs." One of the older men clapped Geo on the shoulder proudly, making him wince.

Both from the praise, and also because the guy looked like he had more muscles in his one arm than Geo had in the entirety of his upper body.

"He kind of did that more himself…" Geo murmered, ducking his head down and to the side to try and hide the blush growing on his face.

"But you kept him there. You'd be surprised by how often people make internal injuries worse by trying to move or touch the affected areas by instinct or because they see it happen in the movies. Whatever you distracted him with, it worked. He'll be okay in no time." The driver assured him once more before moving to check with his colleagues that they had secured Mr.Dubius properly before starting the hover-ambulance back up.

Watching it crest over the treeline, Geo thought about how sudden it all took to watch a man spiral downward both literally and metaphorically.

"I don't get you humans sometimes. You met that guy all of once, why did you even care if not to get his stuff?" Warrock chimed in.

"Because he's important to Mr.Boreal. If anything happened to Mr.Dubius…he'd be sad." It sounded childish when he said it aloud.

"Hm. This must be that whole 'emphathy' thing Kelvin always went on about. Not to my taste. Now, 'revenge', that I like." Warrock chuckled.

"Why do you always bring up weird things…" Geo tiredly sighed.

Making his way back home for a late lunch, Geo saw that his Mom was still out, and made himself a plate of butter noodles, with some leftovers going into the fridge for when she came back home.

Then he almost choked on said noodles, as he got a message on his transer.

From ???: Heeeeeyy, It's Harp Note!

While Lyra was trying to paralyze you from the waist down, I used the frequency to get your handle! Sorry not sorry, but just realized I totally spaced on -when- we were gonna be waiting after talking about where. Hope you weren't waiting long, lol. I'll be there in a minute after I put some stuff away.

Cheers!

- Harp Note. Wait, no, stupid I already said who I was in the top part, lyra don't send that bitISAIDDONTSENDTHAT

It laid there upon his screen for several minutes as Geo forced his food back into the correct pipe.

"Damn it, I knew I should have started premptively eating your messages." Warrock cursed himself for letting it get seen.

"Please. Don't do that." Geo coughed.

Hurryingly finishing off his plate and splashing his face clean with water was about as much as he had time to do before once more entering the Wave World, much to the continued greviances of Warrock.

"I keep tellin you kid, this is only going to end in tragedy. Maybe even for us." Warrock warned him. Again.

"I can't ignore this Warrock. If it means even one other person is helping with the FMians, its worth it." Geo…lied. Kind of. A little.

Yes, that specific point he raised was important, but there was also a large part of him moving forward because, well.

She was like him.

And for a kid who had been thrown ass-and-fist first into a danger that threatened to engulf the entire world and everyone he loved, that was.

A lot. And he wouldn't let this opportunity pass.

He refused.

POV Shift- HARP NOTE​

"I'm not doing it Lyra." Misora 'Sonia Strumm' Hibiki repeated for what felt like the umpteenth time in the past ten minutes as she idled along on the grassy hill in her combined waveform.

(Frankly, it almost felt stranger to be a normal girl at this point.)

"Pretty please? It'd be ever so easy you know. A few minutes, tops. I'd even let the boy go after." Lyra tried, and failed, to convince her host to change her mind.

"No…Not yet." Misora wavered a little at the end before visably affirming herself.

"Why the sudden change of heart? You were with me when I talked about stringing up that fuddy-duddy Warrock before." Lyra pouted, voice dropping an octave.

Because she was under the impression that Warrock would be joyriding around in some random human without any control. It was supposed to be mercy to the person, and retribution for a traitor.

"We'll cross that bridge if we come to it." She said instead, knuckles tightening on Lyra's bridge.

"Hmmm~Okay~! But don't wait too loooong~" Lyra sing-songed after a moment of thought before lightly laughing.

"You know I don't." Misora said, ignoring that she had already been waiting on the same hill for almost twenty minutes before remembering that she hadn't specified a time to be met at earlier.

END POV
​

Coming up to the meeting spot, Geo spotted Harp Note pretty quickly as the sharp shock of pink and gold stood against the earthen tones of the park and supply buildings around the corner.

Now all that was left was making himself known.

…How did you greet people again?

Just walking up felt too normal, but at the same time weird because he was, well. Blue and in what amounted to an armored bodysuit. Geo had known this fact, but never really thought about it like this until this exact moment.

And he couldn't just beam downward, because that was way too agressive, and the last thing he wanted was to throw away this opportunity by being over exuberant.

"I can still shoot her." Warrock offered his patented trick.

"Thanks for showing me there's always a worse option." Geo sighed, forcing his body to untense.

"I wasn't kidding." Warrock deadpanned.

"Yeah. I know you aren't. I'm overthinking this." He forced himself to breath out, because doing nothing wasn't an option at all.

Geo went down. At his own pace, and no one else's.

"Hey." Geo said, this time without the wave.

Mostly because he legitimately couldn't think of what else to say at the moment.

"Hey you made it! I wasn't sure if you would see me or not." Luckily, Harp Note had no problem filling the silence before it could settle, visibly perking up at the sight of Geo.

(It had been…a while, since someone not related to him or his parent had shown genuine joy at Geo's presence. It felt weird. But a good weird.)

"I definitely couldn't miss you." Geo nodded firmly.

"Heh, I do kind of make myself known, don't I?" Harp Note chuckled a little sheepishly as she tugged on the corner of her dress.

"Ah, I mean-" Geo started to panic that his words had been taken the wrong way before he saw Harp Note sticking her tongue out and winking at him.

"…You were playing me." Geo narrowed his eyes.

"A little. You seem way too tense. Save that for when you're fightin! Until then, its just tension, and that's the real killer." She winked at him, before pointing up into the sky.

"Now c'mon! I had to buy a bunch of stuff earlier, and mama needs to refill her pocketbook! Whoever busts the most viruses in the next hour has to buy the loser lunch!" With the 'bet' made, Harp Note burst upward with a massive leap as if she was lighter than air.

"Wah- what kind of bet is that!?!" Geo exclaimed as he followed after.

"The kind where I still win no matter what!" She laughed.

Rockman Results> 79
Harp Note Results> 169
HARP NOTE WON​

Geo tried his best, kind of.

It sounded like a strange thing, but even as he ripped and tore into the unsuspecting population of Mettena, Cannon Bases, and odd little bushheaded things known as Private Mops, Geo found himself distracted.

"SHOCK NOTE!"

Namely, by Harp Note in gamer vernacular- 'shmoovin' at the moment.

"Hyah!"

For every virus Geo rendered into data chunks, Harp Note deleted three, and the majority of it came down to their means of attacks.

Where Geo manifested battle cards to strike down his foes, Harp Note seemed to use them to influence what she could do with her guitar.

Sword cards added an edge to turn the musical instrument into an axe of a different sort. Gatlings let loose strings that carried shockwaves hard enough to explode whatever they made contact with.

And nothing was ever a single strike, because she also seemed to be able to manifest speakers wherever she pleased that echoed whatever attack she used.

It was a lot. It was overwhelming.

"It's so pretty." Geo murmered to himself.

Because…it was. It all felt like one grand performance, perfectly choreographed for maximum carnage.

"Hmph. Of course Lyra found a way to mix her area of effect into things." Warrock groused…jealously?

"We're still doing pretty good." Geo had to point out.

"Of course we are! We're a quality over quantity kind of guy! It's just dealing with swaths of fodder like this is literally her bread and butter. And she's rubbin it in my face." Warrock growled.

…Geo wasn't sure if this was a competition thing, or an FMian flirting kind of thing, and desperately didn't want to look further into the matter than he had to.

In the end, Geo had a wallet refilled with Zenny, but still lost as Harp Note lapped him at 180-90 for deletions.

"Yay! I won! Chivalry is dead!" Harp Note cheered as she swung around a comically large sack with a classic Zenny symbol on it.

"Why do you even have that?" Geo asked incredulously.

"Because its funny, comfortable, and takes Lyra a while to process everything, so might as well get the first two things as a side benefit." Harp Note explained.

"…Okay. HOW, do you have that." Geo rephrased his question.

"Oh, you'd be surprised at what you can get with enough zenny and freetime on your hands." Harp Note shrugged, explaining nothing at all.

Geo had further questions, but feared the rabbit hole that he would fall down if he kept asking things. That, and tempting Warrock by staying within possible biting range.

"Still. I lost." The words weren't exactly bitter, but they definitely weren't happy either.

"Yeppers! I do admit, I kinda fleeced you a bit, but its okay. Now you get a free meal outta the deal." Harp Note admitted with a sheepish scratch of her head before perking right back up.

"Oh. Yeah…Wait, can we eat like this?" Geo suddenly thought about the logistics of what that actually involved.

"Kinda! It goes…somewhere. Not the stomach, cause I know I pigged out in wave form a while in the beginning there and then got a terrible case of the growlies when I finally changed back, but the flavor is still there so it's cool every once and a while. Like dieting without the body shaming and terrible suppliments!" Harp Note cheered.

"Huh. Neat." Geo said, looking consideringly at Warrock and debating where exactly he ended and Geo began at the current moment, or if it was one of those ink in the water situations where they were just both at the same time.

Still, he stowed the heavy thoughts for later.

Right now, they were off to get some burgers.

Aquiring food was as simple as messaging ahead with their order and then swapping frequencies to grab the bag before jetting deeper into the city before ending up on a highrise that normally would have had security swarming them in an instant for lounging around on.

Being able to survive the drop with the same ease usually reserved for stepping off the edge of a bed kind of killed the fear that usually came from hanging around the highwind zone.

"Oh that's weird." Geo murmered around his double decker with extra pickle and onion, swallowing the mass and feeling it go…somewhere, after going past his throat.

"Right? Drinks kinda make your fingers tingly too. I kinda want to know why, but I feel like finding out the specifics'll kill the magic. Or make me never want to eat like this again." Harp Note shared as she took a sip of her milkshake while holding up a second, smaller soda for Lyra to sip from.

"You meatlings cook up pretty good." Warrock admitted as he slurped along his jaws for any residual sauce.

"Please don't make a new slur for humans." Geo twitched.

"Heh. It ain't new." Warrock chuckled.

"Today was nothing at all like I expected it to be."

Surprisingly, it wasn't Geo who said it, given his mouth was currently full of fries.

It was Harp Note, staring out at the city as the sun illuminated the horizon in an orange glow.

"I usually try to avoid cities as much as I can help it. Crowds and I…I have a history with em. Easier to just avoid em completely when I can." Harp Note hurriedly tried to clarify herself.

"I get that." And he really, really did.

"…Usually when people say that, they're just sayin it, but given what we're both involved in now, maybe you really do." Harp Note smiled a little before it took on a tinge that seemed…sad?

"I'm sorry you went through whatever it was that made you compatible with Warrock."

…Oh.

"I. Don't know how to respond to that." Geo gulped, throat suddenly feeling far too dry.

"You don't have to. Just saying aloud what I hoped someone would say to me when I got thrown into all this." Harp Note got to her feet, and took a second to lean over and put a hand on Geo's shoulder.

"Things can only get better from here. I can say that as someone who came from rock bottom too. See ya later, 'Rockman'." Harp Note said before she vanished off into the horizon she was looking at, another streak of light against the setting sun.

Geo watched her go, feeling quite a few things at the moment, the edges of his form blurring slightly.

"There's the emotional fuckery I was expecting." Warrock piped in.

"…Shut up Warrock." Geo scowled.

"Hey, don't shoot the messenger."

"..."

By the time Geo got home, the wavering of his form had settled back down, but the internal turmoil he was dealing with were still well and strong, and plagued him throughout dinner.

Which left him blankly staring at his math homework, stretched back in his chair and gaze a thousand miles away.

"Kid." Warrock announced himself, knocking Geo's Visualizer down to show himself hovering there with his arms crossed.

"I thought you were watching the news with mom." He listlessly said.

"There was nothing good on, and I have some time before she starts watching 'Love and Battle Island', so I think we should have a talk." Warrock said.

"There's nothing to talk about." Geo shook his head, eyes still dilligently avoiding direct contact with Warrock.

"I'm sorry."

Geo stopped short.

"I know I'm throwing you into the mother of all bad situations, and I get that you're just a kid. If there was literally any other option available, I would have gone for it, but I can't. I won't. We all gotta deal with the cards we're dealt, and like it or not, we're in the same hand." Warrock bit out.

"That's a terrible apology." Geo said with a small smile twitching its way onto his face.

"It's the only one I'm gonna be giving, so enjoy it. Shitty things have happened to both of us, but we gotta focus on the future, to make sure even worse things don't happen. For us. Or anyone else." Warrock finished gravely.

"…Yeah. I know." Geo solemnly nodded.

He knew his dad was still out there.

Geo just had to make sure there was still a world for him to come back to.

 

[DuckQuixote]

The interactions between Warrock and Lyra were hilarious

 

[manuelhwang99]

For his own health.

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Are the IRS gonna show up? lmao

Also, apologies if anything feels disjointed or a little odd transition-wise between sentences, this whole thing is a quest-based story being combined into proper chappy formats for the sake of sharing with you guys.

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I was wondering if this was a quest lmao

"Impossible, my son doesn't have friends." A lie that Mom instantly saw through and shot down without hesitation.

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LMAO

…Somehow, he didn't think so.

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Damn, you somehow made bitch orez just as bad as spoiled(?) brat (emohasis on the parenthesis)

"Eh, another virus? Well c'mon, if you're taking a cheap shot, then let's-!" The figure started to say before freezing.

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SONIAAAAAAAAAAA

- Harp Note. Wait, no, stupid I already said who I was in the top part, lyra don't send that bitISAIDDONTSENDTHAT

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xD