Chapter I - A Tragic Incident - Scott, Levra

[1/31/2016 5:16:39 PM | Edited 5:17:29 PM] After Valhallen had disappeared and Airra came to fix her computer things seemingly turned back to the usual monotone normal. Scott ended up not replying to the emails if both girls ended up sending one, and nothing out of the ordinary was going on with her computer anymore, giving no signals of residual damage or unknown data.

The following day she was to go to school as usual, the ambience being a tiny bit more depressing than ever, but if she ignored the crowds of zombies walking by she'd end up sitting in her classroom as was the routine, where nothing seemed too out of the ordinary either. She had a couple of minutes before the bell rang to do anything else, however, and since PETs are allowed in school talking to Fircian was a viable option amongst them.

[1/31/2016 5:50:33 PM] "You should put more care into mathematics," Fircian stated as Levra stared disappointedly at the D grade of Friday's test.

She half-slammed her for head onto the desk, feeling dejected. "But's so booooooring!"

"Mathematics are vital to societal function," Fircian continued speaking through the PET, "It will be very important later in life."

Levra crossed her arms on the desk, resting her head on them as though they were a pillow. She looked over to the device as she replied, "Why can't I worry about it then and not now?"

"You know procrastination leads to no progress. Waiting will not make it any easier."

Annoyed, Levra forcefully tapped her index finger into the device's screen. "You know, you could do a much better job of cheering me up."

Her Navi continued in its usual monotone, "I am trying to encourage you to do better. I would recommend more studying between video game sessions."

Levra groaned as she looked away from the device to stare at the classroom clock, attempting to make herself believe she can make time move faster by sheer force of will.

[1/31/2016 5:54:58 PM | Edited 5:56:23 PM] After an usual introductory lesson right before the math class started, something out of the ordinary kicked life into the day. Her teacher came in and started talking about a series of unfortunate events that were just now going on in the news. It seemed as if an unknown organization was infecting people's computers with viruses, and the damage was yet unclear. It almost seemed a scene out of a movie that Levra just so happened to be one of the less affected students in the classroom despite her close encounter.

When asked, the students were one by one describing how their computers at home stopped working, or how their pets got deleted and they couldn't fix a thing, eventually giving turn to Levra to speak. At the very least it seemed as if math class had been cancelled if that was reason enough to cheer her up.

[1/31/2016 6:13:44 PM | Edited 6:21:15 PM] Listening to each story, Levra realized just how lucky she and her Navi were. It was far more widespread than she first assumed and everyone else didn't seem particularly fortunate in the events that occurred the night before.

She took a moment before she spoke when it was her turn to speak, "I..." She was somewhat hesitant to continue talking, worried slightly how she would be viewed if everyone one else knew how easily she got off the hook in comparison, "I had got that strange email as well. I sent my Navi to sort it out and just barely managed to get my computer back up and running."

"There were two other Navies that he stumbled across," she continued briefly before pausing, glancing around the attentive class room. "I don't think I'd still have Fircian if that other Navi didn't save him."

[1/31/2016 6:24:02 PM | Edited 6:24:35 PM] The teacher quickly interrupted the session on a high note, likely sending any of the subtle jealousy from the girl that just spoke into icy daggers flying towards the woman at the other end of the classroom as she'd left about 5 people with still stories to tell. "I'm glad to hear, Ms. Hartly. This kind of thing is precisely why the school has decided to put us all on a temporary extracurricular lesson over our math class. It had never happened before, but now we can't be too careful."

Before the other students were able to celebrate the event, she continued, "Each of our classes will undergo a special training at our computer science lab to try and avoid another unfortunate accident like this. You'll form pairs with the students from our other class and we'll guide you there through a special simulation."

A few of the students would have much prefered to stay with their heads down their desks, so the feelings about the sudden trip were mixed amongst Levra's classmates. She gave no opportunity to ask many questions before forcing her students to walk across the school grounds for the special lesson, eventually arriving at a fancy room full of desks and computers, each oddly prepared with two seats despite having only one terminal.

While entering, the students were each given a piece of paper with a number that matched one of the computers, having them sit alone for a couple until the students from the other class arrived, more than likely taking their time as they were in history class with a teacher they'd know to speak way too much.

[1/31/2016 6:35:01 PM] Levra looked around the room a moment and quickly went to the terminal that matched her number. "I guess luck is the theme of the week," she spoke into her PET as she sat down at Terminal 7.

"Probability plays an role in many events," Fircian responded as she adjusted her seat.

"True, but it is annoying," Levra half-whispered in an annoyed tone as she finally got comfortable. "Aunt Cheryl is still recovering from her gambling debts."
[1/31/2016 6:42:50 PM] The students currently sitting at one side of the desk didn't have to wait long, soon guests they didn't see as often entering the classroom and taking seats besides them in the rather small desks.

As they didn't spend much time together thanks to the way their school worked and how quickly this particular student was in leaving school every day or secluding himself to a computer, Levra wouldn't have recalled much from the one who sat besides her, offering her a calm smile and sitting quietly next to her, leaving his own pet on the table with the screen turned off.

He didn't seem much of a conversationalist, but as soon as they were all together they'd be interrupted by Megumi, their fat, loud history teacher Martin and one of the assistants from the computer science lab. They were told to connect their PETs to the computers and to borrow some educational ones for the students that didn't have one available with them, soon a simulation automatically starting up on the screen of what seemed like dead desktop computers, showing up a screen with two dots symbolizing the PET ports in Levra's side of the desk, somewhere along the sides of the computer.

The moment of silence gave them a good opportunity to put on some conversation, but the blonde boy simply put on a pair of glasses and proceeded to extend the cord of his PET to connect it if Levra had no objections.

[1/31/2016 6:54:54 PM] "So, uh, how's the weather?" Levra made a poor attempt at striking up a conversation with her assigned partner as she extended the PET cable and placed it into the port. She wasn't particularly fond of awkward silences and figured she'd at least make an attempt to break the quiet.

[1/31/2016 7:02:09 PM] He stared at her silently with a sarcastic smile, letting out a chuckle a moment later, managing to connect his PET after her. "You couldn't come up with something better, huh? Sorry, I think I'm still a bit dizzy from Martin's speech." he joked on a whispered tone, occasionally glancing back at the computer screen. "At least you had math cancelled."

The voice would come off as vaguely familiar.

[1/31/2016 7:08:26 PM] Returning with a light chuckle of her own, Levra replied, "No, not really. It was just too quiet "

She glanced at the monitor a moment as she thought ahead. That next moment, Levra suddenly recalled something vague and looked over to the guy sitting next to her.

"Wait, have we met?"

[1/31/2016 7:16:39 PM] Scott returned a confused look, blinking blankly at the sudden question. "I don't think so... Why?"

Suddenly interrupted before they could add anything else, both navis, Fircian and Valhallen had appeared on screen, the camera following from an above angle, turning on Scott's PET. Both navis were standing on a platform hovering in the air over a very usual blue background with data strings all over, a school statue in the middle of the platform between the two of them and a single wide corridor that lead to what seemed like a portal door on top of another platform.

"This place looks fun!" commented Val after taking a quick look around, his voice coming from the other PET terminal loud enough for Levra to hear as he spoke.

[1/31/2016 7:24:18 PM] "You just seem somehow familiar, sorry." She looked back to the screen as she looked towards the scene that suddenly came to life.

She felt like she recognized the overhead shape of the Navi on the opposite side of Fircian, and the sudden sound chiming through on the other person's PET cemented the thought.

"Wait, I definitely know that Navi!" She exclaimed. Suddenly aware of her noisy nature, she leaned down to be less visibly obvious and looked over to her terminal partner. "Is that Val? You're the ones who help me last night, aren't you?"
[1/31/2016 7:29:59 PM] "R- really?" he asked with a nervous smile, bringing his hands up as if to instinctively avoid an impending slap, "Sorry, Val told me, but I... kinda forgot to check my email last night." He seemed a bit dumbfounded at first about the coincidence, but later his expression turned apologetic as he knew he dismissed the email he'd received with the excuse he'd check it today after school.

Both Val and Fircian would be listening in through the PET microphones, and he quickly commented, following the same train of thought since he couldn't see the expression on her face. "I told you never to leave a girl waiting, you should have listened to me."

[1/31/2016 7:51:07 PM | Edited 7:51:33 PM] The speaker on Levra's PET began vibrating, "I can assure you, my user is no stranger to procrastination."

Quickly sliding over to be face-to-face with the device, Levra whispered in a clearly irritated tone, "Why don't you ever try to make me feel better?"

Fircian made no response, instead looking over in the direction of Valhallen. "Greetings."

Levra sat up and leaned back in her seat, exhaling sharply as she calmed herself down. Fircian's personality quirks were annoying at times, but the at least there was evidence that he no longer had the oddly blank behavior from when she first got her PET.

"Nah, don't worry about it," she waved her hand in the air to dismiss the apologetic tone. "All it really means is I can be more personal about it." She looked over to the other person and smiled. "Thanks for the help, both of you."

[1/31/2016 7:58:08 PM] Scott couldn't hide a laugh at her reaction, a bit relieved to know that she didn't mind herself. "It's alright. I'm glad we could help." he replied a bit sheepishly, just giving them a brief moment to shrug it down before the simulation had some instructions on screen and a time limit that they had been ignoring for a few seconds.

Proceed to the nearest portal to begin with the first lesson. You'll be rewarded points depending on how many objectives you can meet within the time limit of 30 minutes. was the message flashing on a corner of the screen, invisible to the navi's standing by.

Levra broke eye contact and glanced back at the terminal, now noticing the on-screen instructions. "Oh, we have something to do now," she stated in a low-surprise tone.

"Hey, Firci," she picked her PET up from the desk and spoke directly into it, "it looks like we have a time trial. You need to go to the portal. There is also something about objectives and a time limit, but it isn't saying what you need to do."

"Affirmative. I will reach the destination shortly," her Navi responded as it broke into a dash towards the next platform.

Scott turned back to an expression of bemusement as she turned, nodding and taking that same game face into the mission a moment afterwards. On the inside he was somewhat disappointed that she stopped conversing so soon, but there was no way he'd bring himself to say that, although also relieved she seemed to be taking the mission seriously.

"You heard her, Val. Go into the portal with Fircian and cover his back." Scott said simply, to which the navi followed without hesitation on his orders, trying to keep up with Fircian from behind.

------

As they both made it inside the portal, they spawned inside yet another room with a single corridor, although this time it was surrounded by walls, pretty much a cube covering around them, not giving the navis or the users enough visibility as the camera from the computer screen seemed located in one of the corners above them.

Shortly after they both spawned, new instructions popped up on the screen, a single line underneath that read in a red color.

Mission #1
-Find an exit and escape from the maze.

Levra stared at the screen in uncertainty before reading out the mission to Fircian, "Mission number one: Find an exit and escape from the maze."

Nodding to confirm the objective was understood, her Navi started for the door without paying any mind to Valhallen next to him.

"I guess we can leave this part to them, huh?" Levra tilted her head towards her terminal partner as she talked. As her view landed on his glasses, something had occurred to her.

"Come to think of it, I don't think I ever got your name," Levra stated to him as she overlooked the events of the last day. She could have sworn Valhallen may have mentioned it, but she didn't exactly commit it to memory on top of the previous night's stress.

"I'm Levra," she introduced herself, somewhat hesitant on the memory that she may have mentioned her name the night before. "You?"

Scott seemed a bit too interested in the mission now that they had started with it, attending to his PET even after Levra turned to talk to him. Even though he told Valhallen to cover his partner's back, he added using the speaker function so Fircian would listen, "Val, don't let your guard down, there might be some traps hidden in the maze." It never hurts to on the safe side, but it would almost seem as if he ignored the girl halfway through her speech bubble.

"Yeah, Val told me yesterday. Nice to finally meet you, Levra. I never thought we'd meet here from all places." He then replied to her with warm smile, meeting her gaze curiously with his light brown eyes. "I'm Scott." He added after, offering her a cordial handshake of sorts.

As both students acknowledged the competency of their navis, these would find a set of 3 branches growing down the path, and they could only assume it to be the first of many. Even though the camera itself didn't provide of any clues as to where they had to go, a map was getting drawn on screen in real time as Fircian led the way, which would leave marked which of the branches he took; with the help of the students, they could easily trace their steps back without getting lost, shall it come to it.

"Your navi is actually pretty cool. How did you end up with him?" Said Scott trying to put on some conversation again, more than likely failing to acknowledge the new function on screen, as if leaving everything else to their navis during their conversation.

"Well, I..." Levra paused as a distant memory came to her. She turned her view back towards the device, looking at the various angles and curves that made up the object's shape. "This PET used to belong to my brother," she spoke in a low tone as she forced a smile.

"It was passed on to me a year or so ago," she continued, "maybe almost two years. Firci came with it. He mostly helps me with homework."

When she finished speaking, Levra noticed that the PET was showing her Navi had slowed its pace nearly to a halt as she spoke. Realizing he may have overheard her conversation, Levra glanced at the terminal screen as she picked up the device, taking note of the map that was appearing. "It looks like we are getting a map of everywhere you've been. Let me know if you need to know how to get back."

Fircian began picking up his pace again as he headed for the center corridor, "Understood."

Scott listened intently with eyes wide open in surprise, pondering in his head why she didn't seem particularly excited about the subject. "I see." he managed to mutter before she moved back to speak to Fircian.

Scott seemed about to ask something else, but something ended up interrupting him for once since he doesn't get that often, an alarm on their PETs pointing out the nearby presence of viruses. Soon, Fircian and Valhallen would reach a dead end in the maze. "Looks like we got more trouble coming up. Val, be careful." He'd instead mutter over his PET, producing a couple of chips from one of his pockets.

Levra had finally snapped into the task at hand, pulling her battle chips from her jacket pocket. "Get ready, Firci."

Fircian extended his right arm outward and materialized a javelin in his open hand, "I am."

Levra looked back to the terminal map, thinking that it just might display where whatever hostile things they may encounter. "I hope it isn't anything as bad as those viruses from last night," she be can speaking to Scott, "the punches from those viruses looked painful."

"Yeah, we can't let our guard down just yet." Scott sighed, telling Valhallen to lead the way back carefully.

Shortly after they set themselves to move back, the flat colored walls suddenly opened up with a myriad of turrets forming a line behind the navis' line of sight, taking aim at them quickly. The amount of these was overwhelming, but thankfully they weren't too quick to aim.

"Val, Fircian, you're surrounded, run!" he exclaimed after seeing the event unfold on the monitor camera, to which his navi dashed foward with no hesitation, even when he didn't directly see the threat.

"Listen to Scott," Levra stated, knowing full well that Fircian had already broken into a full sprint at his warning, "there are turrets everywhere!"

Unpleased with having no other options she had beyond using up one of her two chips, she glanced around at the other terminals, curious on whether or not anyone else had already run into trouble. Her fingers were drumming the desk in front of her with impatience before looking back at the screen, then turning over to Scott.

"Is Val fast enough for these?" Levra thought about Fircian's above-average speed as she asked, looking back towards the display, "Firci got hit by one last night. It looked awful."

The whole classroom seemed dead silent around Levra. She wouldn't be able to tell if it was some kind of psychological effect, a coincidence or if everybody else was too engrossed on their own terminals, but she wouldn't hear a thing besides Scott and her own pair of navis.

"Yeah, he'll be fine." Scott nodded calmly and explained, "These kind of viruses are usually pretty slow to aim. You have to always try to take into account the weaknesses and strengths of the different types."

The turrets started firing away and blasting at the floor following the navis, but their aim was slow enough for these to outrun them with relative ease, just like Scott had predicted. Eventually the turrets stopped spawning from within the walls and they were back at the branch from earlier, ready to try a different path.

"Phew... Looks like that one wasn't our lucky number. This time I'm going opposite to whatever Fircian chooses." Valhallen joked over the PET, holding his knees in an overly dramatic manner (not that he needed to).

"Then you will be returning to the entrance," Fircian stated in response to Val, having both exited from the center corridor. He moved towards the path on the left side. "We move this way."

"Ah, thanks for the advice," Levra welcomed Scott's information, feeling relieved that the corridor of turrets wasn't as bad as she expected, "I don't usually have to deal with viruses. Dad takes care of them most of the time with his Navi, and the Antivirus program is usually good about blocking connections that have them..."
She took a pause to think about the subject as she looked back on the random bits of computer knowledge she picked up over the last couple of years. "It is kind'a strange to think how viruses were able to be handled automatically before PETs were a thing," she mentioned a peculiar fun fact as an attempt to start up a conversation, "wouldn't you agree?"

Valhallen followed the other navi quickly with an audible sigh, quite joking of course.

Scott turned back to Levra and nodded with a smile, "Yeah, you're right. Before the navis were invented, it was possible to scan, detect and erase viruses from the computer itself. After that, viruses also evolved and erasing them manually usually means formatting one sector of a hard drive once they're operational. Navis just have it so much easier because able to shut them down; either that, or programmers are getting really lazy with their anti-virus programs." He joked again, "That's probably why modern antivirus programs involve a squad of regular navis with customized code."

Both navis would soon reach a massive, cubical room with another 3 branches of corridors at each side, this time each showing a warning sign above the entrance to the corridors with the picture of a virus and a number of stars which, judging by the increasingly dangerous look of the viruses, denoted how dangerous the path was. The corridor in the middle had one star, the one on the left had two, and the one on the right had three stars and the picture of what seemed to be like a bucket head carved like a pumpkin for a virus.

At the very least it was almost safe to assume they were doing some progress from the new puzzle.

Levra leaned onto her left arm, propping her chin up with the back of her hand. "The new anti-viruses could really do with being more efficient," she mumbled semi-coherently as she looked at what was happening on the terminal display.

"Looks like they found another fork in the path," she stated, seeing the map path break off just barely ahead of the Navies. She looked at her PET to see it better from her Navi's perspective. "And I think they're supposed to fight viruses," she an observance based on the stars and accompanying virus images.

Scott kept staring at her for a moment with analyst eyes, slowly turning back to the screen to acknowledge the situation their navis had come across this time. "Assuming there's only one way out of here, I think it would be safe to start from the most difficult one. The rest would be trivial if we can beat the hardest challenge, right?" he asked, to which Val agreed with a reflexive nod staring himself at the 3 stars corridor as his user added again, "If it's in our test we should be able to deal with it."

Levra thought about it a moment. "Yeah, it's not like they are going to fake us out with tricks," she stated before continuing the comment, "and if it isn't there, then we've already finished the hard part."

"That Jack-o'-Lantern face is kind'a weird, though," she remarked as she leaned closer to her PET. "Firci, follow Val. Don't skip ahead."

"Affirmative," Fircian confirmed the command and turned towards Val. "My user has designated you as leader. Lead the way."

"So, this time I get to be the meat shield, huh?" Valhallen joked at his partner, taking the lead and going in at a slow pace.

"We need a backup plan, just in case. If it's too much for them let's save two of our chips as a last resort. Yesterday I saw you use some kind of cobweb grenade, Val has a hammer. If we can't avoid the confrontation we could trap whatever it is and throw our attacks together." Scott suggested, turning to Levra with a raised brow, "If that's okay with you."

"Oh, I didn't realize you were still there," Levra spoke in a tone of moderate surprise, "By the sounds of things, it seemed like you had left."

She then began to reply to the strategy, "Firci would be better a bit farther away from the enemy. He doesn't do so well close up," she began gesturing with her free hand as she spoke, "He is really brittle compared to most Navies, but he makes it up in speed and reaction." She made weaving wavy motions with her fingers as an on attempt to put the point forward.
"Luckily, the few things, aside from last night, that my computer got a hold of were on the slow side," she continued on with trying to put Fircian's strengths across in a disorganized manner. "He can avoid things just fine, but can't take a hit."

Levra lowered her head with a somewhat gloomy way as she remembered how she could nearly have lost Fircian the night before, feeling almost dumb for forgetting that she could have disconnected him at any time. Snapping out of it, she realized she should offer some advice. "Oh, let Val know not to get caught in it. Firci may over recognize Val's competence and believe he can just flex his way out of the webs," she ended with a cheap joke, forcing a slight laugh along with it in the case that Scott may not quite get it.

"Yeah." he replied after the first sentence, slightly overwhelmed by her taking control of the conversation so suddenly, taking his attention away ot her eyes as their navis walked down the corridor. "I think that's a big advantage from Fircian if you ask me. It doesn't matter how strong an attack is when it won't hit."

As both Fircian and Valhallen walked by, they'd notice the corridor had a hole by the end with an arrow pointing down there in the distance. Before they made it that far, however, a portion of the wall suddenly grew and covered the bottom half of the corridor, having a couple of buttons on both ends. They could easily jump past it and ignore it, however. Or so it seemed.

"Huh, that's weird..." Levra commented on what had just appeared on her PET's display. A wall taking up half of the corridor with an open space above it. There was certainly enough space for the Navies to clear it, but the buttons drew her attention. She played enough games to know buttons weren't just randomly set about for no reason, and the corridors that the Navies were navigating were clearly made by human minds.

She activated the speaker on her PET and held it close as she began to speak, intending for Scott and both Navies to hear what she had to say, "I think we should stop here; those buttons look too important."

Fircian slowed his movement to a halt as Levra's voice carried into the device, "As you wish."

Val stopped shortly after in front of the wall. "It could also be a trap. It doesn't look like we have to press it to continue." suggested Scott, while staring through the computer screen, to which Val took a bit of distance using the commonly overrated common sense. "What do we do, then?" he'd ask through the pet speakers.

The empty space above the easily passable wall bothered Levra. "Maybe the buttons are a trap, but..." Her voice trailed off as she thought about it. Did the maze's designer set it up to appear as an obvious trap? Would the buttons make thing more difficult?
But, what if passing the wall itself triggered the trap?

"I really don't like the look of that empty space," Levra finally said aloud. "I think I'm going to have Firci throw a spear through it just to be sure, if it's okay with you. It just looks like a setup for some weird video game trap, and maybe our Navies have to both press a button."

"That's a good idea. Val, do that for us if you don't mind." Scott replied, to which, Val quickly jumped over and shot a blast from the guitar he usually had strapped on his back, traveling most of the way harmlessly until it faded in mid air. After noting this, he took the liberties of jumping the wall to keep walking. "Worst case scenario we'll figure out the trap when it triggers if that happens." said the navi now taking the lead.

"I guess it's safe enough, then," Levra stated as she started to speak directly into the PET, "Go ahead and follow Val, Firci."

"Affirmative," the Navi proceeded to follow the guitar-weilding Viking over the wall, still wary of his user's concerns over the strange buttons as he passed them.

Levra couldn't help but feel nervous about the coming scenario as she watched the Navies move on. As such, she decided it'd be a good time to take a moment for deep breathes to calm herself.

"Don't worry, I'm sure Fircian can handle himself. I'm pretty sure our school wouldn't put our navis in risk of getting deleted." replied Scott casually waiting for them to clear the distance, the corridor soon ending up with a dead end with an arrow pointing downwards to a hole underneath covered in white mist.

"I think we got a problem here." suddenly stated Val through the speaker of his pet, again making sure Levra could hear him.