The Hollow Warden

*She walks and looks around, widening her eyes in surprise. She then notices Alto and blushes somewhat, smiling awkwardly.*

Kelphy: <H-Hello.>

=====

*Someone knocks on Edge's door.*

"Hey," he waves, "lets go inside." James is already at the door holding it open for Alto and Kelphy.

Alto smiles, "Ladies first right?"

*Edge sets his popcorn on a table nearby and goes to answer the door.*

Edge: <(Wonder who this is...)>

*Edge opens the door.*

Kelphy: <Thank you.>

*She steps into the house.*

=====

*It's a bulky dude dressed in black.*

???: <The Mayor wishes to speak with you. Come with me.>

Edge: <Yeah? You look suspicious. I don't trust you.>

Spider: <Finally, something intelligent coming out of your mouth.>

Edge: <...But I might come with you if I got something for it on the side.>

Spider: <Idiot.>

The house is as grand as mentioned previously with may maids and butlers roaming about doing house duties. "You have the laptop right? Oh and your cake... uh... what kind do you like?"

Kelphy: <Oh, any kind is fine, thank you. I-I have the laptop here, where should I put it?>

=====

???: <I have a taser.>

"My room" Alto points to the second room on the right (its to the left of the staircase from the room). I'll go get you a slice of cake."

*Edge blanks out in thought for a moment before returning to his senses.*

Edge: <Of... of course you do! How silly of me, ha ha! I'll just be coming right along now....>

*Edge sighs and follows the man.*

Kelphy: <Thank you.>

*Kelphy nods with a smile and heads into Alto's room, blushing more by the minute.*

=====

*The guy takes him around to the back of the Town Hall and walks him in and up to the elevator.*

???: <I'm sure you know the way to the Mayor's office. Go ahead.>

Alto returns with a chocolate cake. "Here you go" Alto hands the cake to Kelphy and reaches under his desk of many computers to pull out an external jack. "Plug this into the laptop."

Edge: <(Pain in the ass, this guy is. Whatever this mayor guy has to say had better damn be important.)>

*Edge gets in the elevator and waits for it to go to the floor that the mayor's on.*

Spider: <I really don't think this is a good idea.>

Edge: <Yeah, yeah, whatever. We've basically been forced at this point.>

Kelphy: <Thank you again..>

*She opens the laptop and inserts a password. She then proceeds to plug in the cable.*

Kelphy: <Wha-What are you doing?>

=====

*The familiar wooden door with a metal lock to the Mayor's office is right down the hall.*

"Restoring the data that was destroyed when that navi attacked" Alto says. "Even if you delete files from a computer they aren't necessarily gone. Most people lack the hardware to do a complete restoration of the files that are lost. I'm not like most people. I doubt it'll be a 100% restoration but the important bits should be there" Alto gets to work.

*Edge walks up to the door and knocks on it.*

*Zeno tries to budge his way through.*

Zeno: <Um... journalism student. I'm a journalism student.>

Kelphy: <I see... Hum... I wanted to thank you for letting me stay here, even after I was so rude to you all earlier...>

*He finds a shitload of encripted files.*

=====

*Because the door is unlocked, he pushes it opened when knocking. It's the same office they had all been jacked in fighting the knight at the day before, except the sexy lady with the long brown ponytail, sunglasses and black trenchcoat is sitting behind the desk instead of Kelphy's dad. The phone on the table rings and she picks up.*

???: <What is it? ... Oh. What does he look like? ... I see. Let him in.>

=====

*They look at him suspiciously.*

Guard1: <Wait a minute.>

*He clicks a button on his headset and waits for a few seconds.*

Guard1: <Ms.Espada, there's some kid asking us to enter. He says he's a journalism student. ...Well, he has short brown hair, yellowish eyes and he's wearing blue. ...Yes ma'am.>

*He presses the button again and nods to the kid, pressing a button on the control panel behind him to open the sliding glass doors.*

*Zeno walks in with a grin on his face. As soon as they're out of earshot, Protoman speaks.*

Protoman: <Nice job.>

"Ewww encrypted files are so last century" Alto catsmiles as he launches one of the programs on his comp to crack the files wide open.

<"Never say something so uncool again">

"Hush Axl. Its fine Kelphy. I know what its like to be under constant media scrutiny. You've probably heard of PhD. Isabella Harmonia. She was the leading authority on AI programming for Net Navis as well as developing several breakthroughs in new system securities in addition to a bunch of other small environmental projects. She was also my mother. They say she died in a car accident but I know better. That was no accident. Someone wanted to get their hands on her other project. The one that wasn't public knowledge. She was developing a new kind of net navi from the ground up. Axl here is the product of that project, or at least, a part of it. Mom left me all her research notes and data but its written in some kind of crazy code I haven't been able to crack. Axl's a prototype, one I intend on finishing" Alto seems to have gone off on a tangent for a moment but snaps back, "So don't worry about it we have plenty of rooms here. By the way do you like the cake?"

It should be mentioned that Alto's room is painted a medium dark shade of blue and is lit by mood lighting and the glow of several computer monitors. It has sparse furniture outside of a bed, his computer terminal/deskspace, another desk, and a single book shelf. There's a closest somewhere in the darkness of the room but its in a corner of the large room where the light doesn't quite reach.

*Edge walks in and is immediately shocked.*

Edge: <Hey... you! You bitch!>

Spider: <I must admit, I'm quite shocked at this myself.>

*Edge starts to make a dash towards her.*

*She widens her eyes and looks down at the cake in her hands, which she had completely forgotten about. She takes a bite out of it and smiles.*

Kelphy: <It's delicious, thank you.>

*Most of the files are research notes they don't really get. Before they have time to look at anything, a wave of purple lightning covers the screen they're currently looking at and it just kind of explodes.*

=====

???: <You've got to be fucking kidding me.>

*She jumps over the desk and slaps at his forehead before drawing a taser, pushing it against his belly, and activating it.*

=====

*After the lobby he finds the elevator. The only other available floor is the second one, that leads to the office he was in the day before.*

*Zeno enters the elevator and hits the button for the second floor.*

Protoman: <So...>

Zeno: <Yeah... Nothing interesting is going on. I've got that feeling.>

Edge: <FFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUU->

*Edge's scream can be heard down the hall. Yeah. It's that loud.*

Spider: <You've gotta be fucking kidding me! Do you have 1 fucking brain cell in that head of yours at ALL?>

"Tch. That knight left some kind of program behind" Alto sighs with displeasure. "When I find the fucking net op of that knight I'm shoving my foot so far up their ass they'll be tasting my steel toes for weeks. Count on it."

*She stops staring at the destroyed screen in shock to stare at Alto instead.*

Kelphy: <...What are we going to do now?>

=====

???: <What do you think you're doing?>

=====

*Once the elevator doors open, he sees the sexy woman that screwed them all over the day before and Edge inside the office down the hall, since the door is opened. Edge is screaming like a little girl and convulsing like his balls are being tickled by spiders.*