As unnerving as the reverberations of the reunion wereon the outskirts of the base, they were faint murmurs compared to what was happening in the old development grounds in the center of the base. This large room rumbled with a deafening roar and every platform shook violently as the cyberspace in the area was being painfully re-arranged. The death throes of the system that Giant.exe destroyed were similar in their chaos, but while that district in Den City got darker and colder as the ultimate crash approached, there was something else being born in the wake of catastrophe that only made things brighter and hotter.

At the highest point in the area was a lone platform to which all the control panels for the area's old SciLab experiments were affixed. The remnants of a bridge that linked the platform to the lower levels was shattered and still smoking. From the other side of the wrecked bridge, three battered Sharoan soldiers (among the unconscious bodies of several of their comrades) shot their rifles towards the sole inhabitor of the platform in a valiant effort to defend the heart of the base and stop the impending disaster. Most of the bullets missed due to the distance of the platform and the unstable quality of the air that the shots had to travel through. The bullets that were accurate enough were stopped by a large spherical liquid barrier that encapsulated the surface of the platform, its equipment, and the navi operating it. When the large BubbleWrap occasionally failed, Bubbleman was forced to abandon what he was doing and fire his Aqua Shots for cover fire while the barrier regenerated itself.

"BLUB! No one said it was going to be this insane here blub! Leave me the blub alone!" Bubbleman screamed in frustration over the noise of the growing beast beneath him. He unleashed a spray of harpoons at the soldiers firing at him. Most were as inaccurate as his opponents', but he managed to hit home with one shot, which drove right through a soldier's chest, resulting in his deletion. The two remaining guards took no heed to their fallen comrade and continued to fire back at Bubble. A loud beeping coming from one of the consoles diverted Bubs' attention back to it, even with the BubbleWrapstill down and the bullets whizzing by his head. "Another layer of security failsafes kicking in!? Blub those blubbers really don't want this blub to be combined!"

As Bubbleman worked furiously at the system's interface to keep the reunion going as smoothly as it has been, a purple wisp formed behind him and solidified into Mistman. "Need any help?"

Bubbleman yelped and spun around. "BLAH!! Don't sneak up on me like that!" His demeanor then quickly returned to its regular sour indignance. "Just go to that console over there and keep resuming the upload whenever the system tries to abort. It's been doing that a lot."

Mistman quickly floated to the console Bubble specified and examined the monitor. "Hmm, it says one piece is already uploaded. It's currently decoding the second one. Where are the vessels of the pieces, by the way?"

"You didn't see them when you came in? Blub, guess there's too much flashing, smoke and other chaos going on to see much of anything. Just look down, see of you can spot 'em."

Mist leaned over the side of the platform and looked down into the abyss below. Most of the platforms and walkways of the room were around the edges, with a large pit in the center from which a deep red glow emanated from the bottom. The glow grew brighter by the second and was apparently the center of Gamma's rebirth. Just along the edge of the pit, on five small platforms arranged in a circle around the glow, were what was left of the nameless navis that held the Gamma pieces. They were each locked into a pedestal by an electric barrier of some kind. A stream of red and blue energy poured out of one Normal Navi into the immense red light below, while small pixels sprinkled out of three others, including an hysterical Dust Man. On the fifth pedestal, there was only a pile of dust and some ugly burn marks where the first nameless navi once was.

"Hmm, I thought after all of your complaining, you would have made sure the customized navi would be destroyed first." Mistman remarked over Dust Man's current survival.

"Yeah, well I would if I could, but it looks like 'Gamma' is starting with whatever piece it feels like. I don't really care any more though since I can't hear him all the way up here and there's plenty of new annoying noises to take his place blub."

"Indeed. Say, would you mind using one of your bubbles to carry my lamp up here? You don't have to worry about the Sharoans any more, my clones took care of them."

"Ah, I noticed I was getting shot at a little less all of a sudden blub. Fine, just make sure you watch these panels." Bubble looked over the edge and quickly spotted Mist's lamp hopping up and down trying to grab his attention. While he was sending some Bubble Lead to grab it, he noticed Punk roll in from the south entrance. "What the blub is he doing here?"

When Punk un-balled, Bubble could see he was in sudden awe of the chaotic spectacle taking place all around him. His humbled admiration was quickly cut off by a Saint Light blast hitting from behind as Serenade glided in after him. No sooner was Serenade inside than he began to look around the room in awe as well, leaving him open to a revenge tackle from Punk. Bubble groaned in exasperation upon seeing this, which was doubled upon spotting Darkman, Metalman, and Bowlman enter from the west, followed by Beastman, Flashman, and Plantman. Then from the east came Drillman, Kingman, and Yamatoman. Finally, a gradual spreading of sand along the eastern walkways signalled Desertman's arrival.

"Great, looks like the gang's all here blub. Just when I thought things were gonna get easier..."

Metalman's initial reaction to the spectical was shared by many of the other navis in the vicinity. Pure awe, plain and simple. He opening a voice link to his PET and contacted his operator. "John... are you and the others seeing this?"

"Yeah," the brown haired boy replied. "How much of Gamma have they released already?"

"I can't tell exactly, but... wait, Dust Man is down there! And he's breaking up!"

"'Breaking up?'"

"As in, he's slowly being deleted!" Metalman thought only for a moment before he dashed off toward the center of the chaos. His progress was quickly stopped, however, by a horde of Mistman clones.

"How foolish of you," gloated Mistman. "You really think I will let you run down there and save your friend? He... belongs to us now."

"I don't have time for this!" The twin blades on his shoulders glowed brightly as he grabbed and flung them into the mess of clones. Many of them quickly dispearsed, only to turn into the familiar purple smoke that pervented proper sight. Metalman grunted at his predicament and attempted to backtrack to his companions, only to be blocked by more Mistman clones.

He was completely surrounded.

"Holy crap, what's going on in there?" Moe asked, trying to make sense of the staticy and disorienting images on his PET. The other NG operators gathered in the central control room were bewildered as well, though their confusion was nothing compared to what their navis were experiencing inside the network. All around them, Sharoan Scilab engineers were tending to the control consoles around the room, attempting to reinforce the internal security and stop the reunion process, but the AH virus combined with the growing instability of the system was making the owners of the base even more impotent than their guest defenders.

Cyros was the first to offer some helpful insight while dealing with a tough situation with his own navi. "We've got a new problem. Metal found Dust, but it looks like they're using him as part of their experiment."

"What!?" Cossack shouted, dashing from a nearby flickering monitor to Cyros' side, looking over his shoulder. "Sudba, you sadistic madman! Why would you do this to my own navi?"

Kalinka, who had been working on another computer trying to stabilize a signal was now presed over Cyros' other shoulder, just as concerned as her father. "I don't believe it! They're using him as a vessel for one of the Gamma pieces!"

A crowded-feeling Cyros struggled to keep Metalman fighting while getting some breathing room. "That's bad, I'm assuming."

"When the upload is complete, every bit of his data will have been absorbed and re-written as Gamma's base code. He'll be deleted, and there'll be no bringing him back..." as Kalinka explained, her voice began to break up and tears formed in her eyes. "Please, ignore the Acid Hackers for now. Whatever you do, get Dust off of that pedestal!" she pleaded.

Cyros hated seeing Kalinka like this, and pledged himself to rescue Dust no matter what. "Metal, you heard her. Punch through those purple jerks with everything you got. Dust takes top priority."

"Grrrr.....What's going on here? I dont think I can fight that much longer." Beastman went on all fours, panting.

"Hey, Majestic leader-o. How long more?" Jake inquired the Jeremy who was more concentrated on the battlefield than anything.

Jeremy punch his hand. This was one of the longest, most drawn out battles he ever had. How long was the damn Gamma going to form fully? "Just stall them out. I don't care how!" The thought of Davids words still hung in the back of his head, but he shook them off as Punk was hit with one of Serenade's shocker lights.

Beastman shadow dashed to the nearest navi Yamatoman, and striked down with his claws, but Yamato skillfully parried the shot. "Shouldn't you worry more about the guy who's now plowing through to the pedestal?"

"I should. But I don't! Rawwwr!" Beastman jumped back and prepared for his next attack.

Metal Man was just at Arm's reach when suddenly his Arms failed on him

"What the?" Metal Man yelled.

The Net Guardian turned his back and saw Flash Man used a Zap ring on him.

"Super Armor does have disadvantages does it?" Flash Man said, mockingly, I.E unable to detect a silenced zap ring."

"Grr..."

Plant Man came in.

"Third Navi's down." Plant Man said. "Only two left."

"Hold on Dust Man!"

"Not this time." Matt said, entering something in his PET.

A fault appeared in the floor and began forming a circle around Metal Man, Flash Man and Plant Man. Then the trio of navis plummeted to the couple of miles below the surface of the Cyberworld.

"Is this plan dumber than your last one?" Cyros asked. "...Because Metal Man can get out of it."

Metal Man then activated his Jet Pack and went back up but...

"Plant Man!" Stuart yelled

"On it!"

"At that moment Plant Man tossed a couple of seeds. They started to make a web of vines, making it difficult for Metal Man to get back up."

"SH*T!" He yelled as a couple of vines got into his Jet Pack.

The flight apparatus failed and Metal felled back down.

Cyros was taking a step ahead as he prepared a Gold Fist chip and slotted it in.

Back on the control platform, Bubbleman's patience and control of the situation finally met its end as a yellow beam of electricity pierced the protective BubbleWrap around the equipment, completely deleting the otherwise automatically regenerating defense. He could barely suppress his panic as he saw both Serenade and Darklady gliding upwards to the platform with furious expressions on their faces. A quick glance to the lower area and he could see Punk clashing with Yamatoman, King and Drill against Flame and Desert, and Bowl versus Beast. There was no sign of Metal, Flash, or Plant. It also seemed the multi-tasking Mistman was now focusing on the interface modules Bubble had abandoned. Bubble turned to his ally to direct his boiling rage while the flying NetGuardians were still en route.

"HEY BLUB! I could use some back up! If the do-gooders get here they could wreck everything easily blub!"

"I will have you know my concentration has its limits! I would prefer to be down there fighting, but I am having enough trouble keeping up with the demands of this absurdly unstable procedure!"

"Can't you at least conjure up a couple clones to act as meat shields-erblub...mist shields? The girly boy and boyly girl are coming fast blub!"

Mistman just ignored Bubbleman and made another clone to monitor another station. His lamp hopped around the middle of the platform frantically, showing its owner's inner distress. Another voice answered Bubbleman in Mist's place.

"You can both take care of the Net Guardians. You don't have to worry about the codes any more, I can handle it on my own."

"Listen blub, you dunno what a stress-factory you're taking over..." Bubbleman then turned to meet the unexpected backup. "Blub?...Who...wait, you're not...are you?....what the blubbing blub? When you said you were going to meet up with us later, this is NOT what I was expecting blub."

"Indeed." The grungy, trenchcoated old man replied. "Explanations can come later. If you'll excuse me, I have very important work to get to." The digital incarnation of Fate grinned as he eagerly thrust his hands at the keyboard behind Bubbleman. After a few seconds of lightning fast typing he moved over to the console Mist was working at and shoved him aside to work at that one. An amazed Mistman gaped at his benefactor, appearing before him in the flesh, or what passed for it anyway.

"This...this is madness..." was all the purple navi could say.

Fate did not turn his attention from the monitors as he rasped at the dumbfounded gawkers. "Will you two idiots stop staring at me and hold off the interlopers!? They're here already!"

Mist and Bubble finally spun around to meet Serenade and Dark, who were just as surprised to see a human in the middle of this chatastrophic environment as they were. "I can't believe what I'm seeing. That's our hobo isn't it? Or it looks like it anway..." Darklady said, clenching her axe.

"Cossack wasn't kidding. That guy's nuts, coming in here just to witness his own creation's birth..." Serenade murmured his assessment of what they were seeing. The other navis were still holding off on initiating an attack and were readying for the inevitable charge.

"But that's not really Sudba, right? It can't be, it doesn't make sense. It's gotta be a navi designed to look like him for some reason." Darklady whispered back.

"Well...I remember my creator Professor Ura mentioned a machine that could download a human mind into the cyberworld like this, but...that was decades ago, I don't think that machine actually existed. I dunno, maybe your explanation makes more sense."

"Wait, I think Drill mentioned something like that too. I think he said the WWW used some machines like that at the end of the Alpha Rebellion..."

"Oh great, maybe it's not that crazy." Serenade said with intensified worry. It seemed whether this old man was the real Fate or not, he certainly knew what he was doing, and it seemed the regeneraton of Gamma below was speeding up more and more as he worked, heedless of the impending batte hovering over his head. "Forget it, we'll sort it out later. We came this far, we gotta stop this reunion!"

The NG navis swopped down with a battle cry, brandishing their most powerful swords. Mistman and Bubbleman met them head-on.

This time David relayed the startling news to the other operators in the real world. "You guys aren't going to believe this, but it looks like Mister Sudba showed up in the system."

Cossack knew right away what that meant, but didn't want to believe it. "No, he wouldn't...that would be too reckless. Bah! Haven't they fixed the direct communication to the system yet? It's impossible to see anything through a PET!"

One of the Sharoan scientists shouted an affirmative response, drawing both Cossack and his daughter to the monitor where a signal was clearing up. Cyros was somewhat disappointed to not have Kalinka pressed up against him looking over his shoulder any more. This one monitor in the room began to clear of static, showing an overhead view of the control platform. Bubbleman, Darklady, Mistman, and Serenade were seen clashing in the air above while Fate continued his work unheeded.

"Sudba! Is that you? Don't tell me you used the Pulse Transmission System for something like this!" Cossack shouted through a microphone, broadcasting into the system.

Fate, fond of multi-tasking, conversed with his old colleague while continuing to work the interface consoles. "But of course Cossack. I had to experience my creation's full glory first-hand! I fully intend to become a part of this grand experiment. I invite all of humanity to join me once this cyberworld finally becomes red..."

"Will you listen to yourself? This is nothing more than suicide!"

"You don't know how wrong you are...yet at the same time how very right you are!"

Adrienne rolled her eyes. "Geez, even I thought that was loony. Can we just delete the mad scientist freak already?"

"No!" Cossack shouted in protest. "I know his intentions are maniacal at best, but he's still a human being. The way he sent his mind into the cyberworld is a tremendous risk to himself. Any damage his avatar here takes will be echoed on his real body. Believe me, I know the pain firsthand..."

"Well, maybe we can just slap him around a little, at least get him away from those controls!" David suggested.

Cossack shook his head. "He may look like a navi in there, but a PTS avatar is extremely fragile. Think about the weakest, uncustomized, unarmed Normal Navi you have ever seen, with one hundredth of the HP, that is what humans in the Cyberworld are like. You could probably kill him by touching him. A light breeze could put him in a coma."

"Oookaayy...violence is out then..." Adrienne concluded, forelorn.

Fate, overhearing all of this, chuckled menacingly. "Yes, by all means pussyfoot around me. It will make concentrating on Gamma's resurrection that much easier. Although it may interest you to know there is no danger of harming my physical body any more."

"What...what do you mean by that?" Cossack asked, tenuously.

"It is already a charred, rotting corpse buried under several tons of rubble. It would take years to unearth it, and that is if someone knew where to look." Fate laughed in spite of his former life.

Cossack grew pale stared wide-eyed at the monitor. "That's...impossible. How in the world..."

"The PTS I used was not configured to factory specifications, of course. I had many years to pick up where Scilab finished off and take the technology to where they did not have the nerve to go. I am never going back, I have seen to that. Piotr Sudba no longer exists. I am Fate, and I am eternal." He accented this with a moment of boisterous villainous laughter, while everyone else stared at him like he was completely insane, which he was. When Fate quieted down he sneered one last provocative question to Cossack. "Do you still think me a human being now?"

"This guy is dead no matter what, doc." Moe reasoned grimly. "We may have to attack him if it means saving the net from Gamma."

Cossack gave a heavy sigh, and after a long hesitation, solemnly nodded. "Do whatever you have to do in order to stop this process..." He then turned once more to the monitor. "You brought this on yourself...Fate..."

Still grinning confidently, Fate ignored the threat and continued with his work.

The other Net Guardians besides Metal had managed to push their fights closer to the top of the area. The AH members were partially allowing the lapse in blockade as they heard the news from their operators about Fate's appearance and kind of wanted to see it for themselves. Soon, the eight battle-weary navis all met at the broken bridge, backed off from fighting to receive Recov chips from their operators, and split by team on either side of the walkway. Everyone knew they were running out of chips and the fighting was getting them nowhere. The Acid Hackers considered this their advantage, they knew there wasn't anything the NG could do to stop them now, no matter how close they were to the control platform. They had won a battle of attrition.

"This has gone on far enough!" Kingman shouted towards the Acid Hackers. "Surely you can tell this Gamma will destroy us all! Just look around at the chaos its creation is causing!"

"Aww. Are the scary lights and noises too much for you, big baby? Haah hah hah!" Flameman mocked King's attempt at reason. "You should be scared. All this chaos-causing power is ours. In a few minutes, it's all over for you guys. Right boss?"

Punk wasn't laughing derisively at the Net Guardians like he normally would in this situation, although a familiar scowl on his face showed he was at least in his standard pissed-off murderous mode. He was still concerned over Serenade suggesting the same thing as Kingman just did earlier. "See you losers later, I'd like to do some talking." As usual, Punk was balled up and rolling off much faster than anyone could respond to. He drove himself at top speed off the broken bridge leading upwards and ramped off it to the control platform.

"Wait...HE of all navis wants to TALK!?" Beastman exclaimed in shock. Something's seriously wrong here."

"Maybe he's just waking up to smell the coffee, like you ought to." Bowlman suggested.

"Znnn. Zeegrah hacsha zoo zah zerrahach!" Desertman responded calmly.

"Yeah, what he said!" Flameman concurred. "We've come way too far to have doubts now. You guys just hafta admit you lost already!"

"We can't waste any more time. I'm heading over there." Drillman declared, covnerting to flight mode.

"Do you think you can carry me?" Kingman asked. "You can distract Punk while I access the interface and free Dust before it's too late."

"We can give it a try, but I've never given anyone a ride before, I usually just wormhole someone over to where they need to go. Well, grab on when you're ready."

As Drill flew over Kingman's head, King grabbed his torso and clung with all his might. Drill strained due to the weight hanging off him and his altitude dropped considerably. "Ugh. Can't you reduce your personal gravity or something?"

King attempted to lighten himself a bit without screwing up Drill's flight path worse. Flameman spit fireballs at them when he noticed they were making a break for it, but Bowlman managed to intercept with Pin Cannon cover fire. The ground-ridden navis on the walkway quickly leapt into battle once more.

Punk's ball landed with a loud thud on the platform a couple panels behind Fate and unraveled. Fate completely ignored his arrival. The spikey red navi stared silently at the man that gave his team everything. He loved the thought of being the winner in the ongoing battle, humiliating his hapless opponents at every turn with their grand scheme. He hated the thought that he could be the sap, an unwitting tool to a sleazy third a party. He didn't want to believe the latter, but he had to know the truth. He slowly approached the dark, ragged figure.

"What do you want, Punk? Don't you have rivals to fight right now?" Fate asked without turning around or breaking pace with his work.

"Only a couple minutes left. right? And as soon as Gamma appears, I get the first crack at it. So tell me where I gotta go and what I gotta do to take contol of it."

"Feh. Don't be stupid. No one controls Gamma but me."

In an instant, a thick metallic cable wrapped around Fate's neck. A suddenly angry Punk held the human in a light stranglehold with his chain arm. "Now DON'T you feed me THAT bullshit! We had a deal! This doomsday weapon ain't bein' made unless I'm drivin' it!"

Perfectly calm, if not slightly annoyed, Fate continued to deny him. "You wanted to bring chaos and destruction to the net, and your actions will have done that. Consider your contract fulfilled."

Punk tightened his grip on the man's brittle old neck as his rage boiled. "So that's it, huh? You're playin' the ol' last minute double-cross? I don't know what pisses me off more, the fact you're tryin' to stiff me or the fact Serenade was right about you."

"How agonizing this must be for you." Fate sarcastically taunted the navi holding him in a deathgrip. "Now would you kindly let go of me? I still have work to finish."

Punk tightened his grip again to make his intentions clear. "Get this straight fleshbag, if I don't get to control Gamma, no one does. I'm very petty and I'd really love to delete you right now, or kill you, or whatever it is popping your head off will accomplish."

"Punk! Stop!" Kingman hollered, dropping onto the platform behind him. Drillman reformed and landed a moment later. Punk glanced behind him and noticed Serenade, Darklady, Mistman, and Bubbleman had stopped their fighting for a moment and were hovering tensely in the air watching with shock and anticipation as the crimson Acid Hacker threatened his own boss. Bubble and Mist weren't sure which leader they were supposed to back up and felt it best to wait and see what happened. The Net Guardians were greatly concerned over the imminent loss of human life, but knew Gamma's creation had to be stopped at any cost and Punk's reckless crime of passion could end up being their blessing in disguise.

Nonetheless, Kingman and the other NG knew they couldn't stand by and let Punk do as he pleased, especially if his threats ended up working and it just put him at Gamma's helm. Kingman made a "calm down" gesture with his hands as he attempted to talk some sense into Punk. "You know this is not the way to get what you wanted. Do not do something you will regret!"

Serenade hovered down lower to talk to Punk as well. "Come on, this has gone too far already. You know the truth now, so do the right thing. Stop this madness and hand fate over to us."

It all fell on deaf ears, Punk's rage only grew as the Net Guardians drew closer. Fate snickered as the grip around his neck tightened again. "If you want to kill me, you might as well do it. Gamma is hard coded to respond to me and me alone. There never was and never will be a chance for you to control it. Not now, not in a couple of minutes, and not all those months ago when I fed you those transparent lies that made you think you would!"

Punk's eyes shot back to Fate with a murderous glare. "Die then." and he sharply tightened the chain's loop.

"Punk! Cyberized humans are very fragile! If you choke him too hard he'll be deleted permanently!" Serenade shouted in horror.

One of Punk's spikey eyebrows raised high while the other squinted doubtfully. "...'Zat so? Then how come nothin's happenin' even though I'm squeezin' as hard as I can?"

Fate chuckled fiendishly as he put one hand on the cable wrapped around his neck. He turned his head slightly toward the group, giving them a glimpse of a faint purple glow emanating from his eyes. "Because you idiots can't seem to take a hint too well." He then squeezed his hand, digging his boney fingers into the cable, denting and deforming it with a surprisingly powerful grip. Punk roared in pain as Fate swiftly ripped the chain arm not only off of his neck, but off the horrified red navi's torso. The old man casually tossed the torn appendage over the side of the platform into the abyss below and immediately got back to work at the console while the other navis stood frozen in shock. "Severing my link to my original body was not the only enhancement I made to the Pulse Transmission System. A digitized human is still a digital entity. With the right patch codes and enough time and practice, I've made myself as powerful as any ordinary navi in this world."

The members of both teams realized how strong their opponent actually was and felt a chilling sense of forboding. The operators and the Cossacks heard all this from the outside and wondered how he could become something like this. Back on the platform Serenade came to his senses and began charging up a Holy Shocker attack, prepared to destroy all the operating programs before it was too late. The other Net Gaurdians noticed this and followed suit.

"So you're going to stop pulling your punches now?" the demonic Fate asked, suddenly stopping his work at the console and turning to face them. "Well go ahead. It's only a matter of time now." He then began glowing with a purple aura and floated into the air. "While I'm waiting, I would love to see just how well my new body fares against the natives of this realm. So go ahead. Hit me with everything you have."

Fate lifted his palm upwards and an immense purple orb of energy formed above it.

Metalman was doing something he rarely did, he was hiding. One of the piles of rubble scattered around the lower level of the area allowed him some respite from the team attacks of Plantman and Flashman. His energy was running low, and he had never felt weaker than at that moment. He knew he needed to get some Recov chips from Cyros if he was going to take care of his tormentors and get back up to the real action.

"Metal, I've sent you all the recovery we have." Cyros informed with a worried tone.

"What? That can't be right, I still feel like I'm about to collapse." Metal responded wearily. "I...I can't think too clearly either, I think I'm malfunctioning a bit."

"You're not the only one. Take a peek at the Acid Hackers." Cyros suggested.

Metal ventured a look out from his hiding spot to check his enemies. It took his eyes a moment to focus, but he could see both were hunched over and looking as tapped out as he was. It was then he noticed how sticky the floor was. "Oh...crap....This means what I think it does?"

"Metal, you gotta get out of there." Cyros warned.

"I'm not jacking out yet...I just gotta get up higher." Knowing his opponents were in no condition to worry about him any more, Metal started running with the remainder of his strength to the walkways leading upwards.

Meanwhile, the navis up above were experiencing the frightening power of the new Fate. Serenade threw the first attack in the form of a Holy Shocker that completely shattered the control platform. Punk, Drill, and King barely had time to get out of the way of the desperation attack. Punk, forced to ignore the pain of his missing arm, balled up and burned over the edge, landing on one of the lower walkways. Drill converted back to flight mode and took to the air and King made a timely jump which landed him a little farther down than Punk. As for Fate, he stood his ground, or rather hovered his air. He held the large orb of energy in front of him as a shield, letting it absorbi all the damage from Serenade's attack and showing no concern for the destruction of the ever-so important command consoles. It seemed he truly had no need for them any more and the finalized activation of Gamma was assured.

It seemed the destruction of the platform accomplished something useful though. Kalinka noticed right away from the monitors in the real world. The locking programs keeping Dust secured in place had dissipated. Unfortunately for him, he was the last Gamma Piece and already lost too much of his code to be able to move on his own.

Kalinka immediately relayed this revelation to Sam, who ordered Kingman to forget about rejoining the battle with Fate and to hop over to Dust's pedestal for a last mintue rescue. The King wasted no time changing his course and practically flew towards the other end of the area.

Unfortunately, it turned out Fate's uncanny awareness of his surroundings had an extensive range, and as soon as Serenade's essentially wasted Holy Shocker was finished, he launched the giant energy orb down towards King. The purple sphere wasn't aimed too accurately, but this proved to be irrelevant as its flight path curved in order to intercept Kingman perfectly. King never saw it coming and was hit dead on by the ball which exploded on contact.

Not to let Fate get away with dominating the battle, Darklady got behind him while he was focused on Kingman and drove her axe into his back. Although he apparently felt it, he was still looking as spry as ever and spun around to knock the surprised demoness away with his fist. The other Net Guardians would not let up though and Serenade and Drill hit him from the right and left with a LifeSword and a DrillArm3. Again unprepared, Fate winced in pain as the deadly sharp weapons dug into his cybernetic body. Although not ready for those specific attacks, he did spend enough years training in PTS and intentionally subjecting himself to the pain of battle chip attacks to stand strong against the onslaught.

Fate quickly regained his focus and a short burst of purple energy from his body knocked the Net Guardians away. Then, before anyone else could sneak up on him, he charged up another attack of his own. Sticking with the orbs of purple energy theme, he began to release a swarm of smaller ones from his hands. Like the larger one he used to knock Kingman for a loop, each of these countless violet balls of light locked onto one of the other navis in the area. Even Mistman and Bubbleman, who had been staying out of the fight for their own reasons found themselves targeted by the homing energy bullets. Everyone started flying away from the portion of the specks hunting them down, desperately trying to think of a way to counter such a ridiculously large-scale attack. Remembering how the larger one intercepted Serenade's Holy Shocker, Bubble wondered if the orbs were anything like his bubbles and took to flying backwards and shooting volleys of his Aqua Shots at the purple blizzard. Luckily for him, his theory was confirmed and the small orbs "popped" for every harpoon that met them.

Drillman noticed his prodigal brother had discovered the weakness of Fate's weapon and turned around to dive head first through the swarm chasing him. While most of the bullets were successfully destroyed as they hit the drill protecting his head, the small explosions they caused still made it a bumpy flight and he decided to head for solid ground so he could attack from afar with Drill Missiles.

Dark, Mist, and S tried to apply Bubble's strategy too, but were unnerved that their attacks were having the opposite effect. Serenade's Saint Light, Darklady's Yellow Lightning, and Mistman's Mist Clones all somehoiw made the orbs gorw larger and fly faster. Without the energy to defend herself any more, Dark ended up taking the amplified assault head on and crashed down into the lower levels. Mistman's clones were all disintegrated, and since his lamp was knocked far to the lower levels back when Serenade destroyed the control platform, he was not rejoining the fight any time soon. Serenade was the only one able to defend himself after all that thanks to his reflective spin technique, but runing low on energy as he was, it didn't do him too much good. And once the purple swarm attack was finally finished with, the one who made it was already charging up another mysterious attack in his hands, laughing maniacally all the while.

By now none of the members of the two teams were fighting each other. They didn't consider themselves working together by any means, they were only ignoring their ordinary enemies for a moment while dealing with a new one. Desert, Flame, and Beast hadn't been targeted by Fate's treacherous attacks, but could see from Punk's, Mist's, and Bubble's experience that he was definitely not on their side any more. Flame started spitting fireballs at Fate from afar while Beast and Desert started heading down to see about getting Dust Man off the pedestal. Bowl and Yamato were doing the same, heading down a different way.

Fate nimbly dodged the combined attacks being shot his way and continued to toss homing energy orbs of various sizes at the scattered warriors. By now they realized while solid attacks could intercept and destroy Fate's projectiles, other energy attacks were simply swallowed up, making the purple orbs stronger. Since Serenade didn't have anything non-energy based left in his arsenal. He realized he would have to go for Dust in order to make a difference. Punk too had decided to grab the last Gamma piece in order to enact his vengeance on Fate. The Acid Hackers still felt annoyed for having to put a stop to what they worked so hard to accomplish, but knew there was no point in finishing their work if they wouldn't get to enjoy the end result.

Fate took notice of the four separate groups of navis converging on the nearly erased Gamma piece vessel and cursed under his breath. He suddenly ignored the other navis attacking and did a strikingly fast nose dive towards Dust Man. Punk, who was closest, saw what was coming and quickly unballed to send a HyperRat on ahead. His original intention was to temporarily displace Dust so he might get a chance to finish the Gamma revival laterwhen he could somehow ensure his control over it, but was willing to destroy the last piece if that meant Fate couldn't have it.

Fate directed a charged attack at the Advanced Ratton to intercept it, but was somewhat surprised to see the sliding bomb was still in tact after one hit and had to quickly charge up another one. Before he coulkd finish though, he was pounced by Beastman and driven into the ground where Desertman's sand swallowed tried to hold him down. Punk's HyperRat nearly hit the helpless Dust, but a Rook sprung out of nowhere to intercept it instead. A recovered Kingman was more interested in saving Dust than stopping Gamma.

Amidst the confusion, Yamatoman made it to the pedestal first and picked Dust Man up. The poor navi was weakened severely and no longer had the strength to make a sound, but Yamato could tell from his expression he would be screaming in pain if it were possible. The vaccuum cleaner-shaped navi was down to a head and half a torso and was semi-transparent due to the data being rapidly sucked out of his frame. "Don't worry, friend. You are safe now. Carlos, jack me out along with Dust."

But then Dust unexpectedly dropped out of Yamato's hands. Yamato tried to pick him up again but found he was now mostly intangible and his hands went right through him. Dust Man gave one last desperate look before he completely faded from sight and the data stream heading into the pit ceased.

For a moment, there was silence. Everyone, even Fate was frozen in place.

Then, a deafening explosion and a blinding red pillar of light shone forth from the pit. The sound of the explosion was soon replaced by an animalistic growl. At the lowest reaches of the area, Metalman, Flashman and Plantman were climbing their way up to the top and could see the ground turn to glowing red slime and quickly swell upwards. In the center, through the blinding red light, the awestruck navis could make out two giant spikes rising from the bubble of ooze. As the expanding mass swallowed up the ramp below them, they could see the walkways quickly break up and melt into the goo. Flash and Plant had no choice but to jack out before the liquid reached them. On the other side of the area Metal tried to fire up his jets one more time but couldn't summon the energy. When the slime touched his foot he felt more pain than he had ever experienced as his steel armor was eaten through in less than a second. He jacked out immediately while he still could.

At the higher levels, most of the navis struggled to keep their footing as the quaking of the system crumbled the ground beneath them. Fate, free from the sand trap, hovered above this and laughed extatically. By the time the mass of red ooze reached them it had formed a sphere that floated through the center of the pillar of light. Within the sphere a blurry shape could be seen. As the sphere began to contract the shape became clearer.

The two spikes sticking out the top converged on a relatively small black dome with a single shining red light in the center. Thicker spikes began to protrude through the bottom and sides of the sphere as it continued to shrink. Eventually the entire red mass was absorbed into the giant form's lower section. The red light permeating the area was suddenly focused into a nucleus that was visible in the monster's midsection for a moment before rising into the heavily armored box-like upper half.

Although barely reminiscent of a humanoid shape, one could make out parts of the creature apparently analogous to a head, a chest, shoulders, and hands. Everything else was dfficult to describe. A rectangular metallic plate covered the chest, with a golden upper-case letter gamma spread across it. Thick blue drum-shaped shoulders with conical protrusions stuck out the side of the chest. The overall prominence of the chest and shoulders made the bizarre form appear strangely buff. The head was apparently the black dome sticking out the top, with the light being its eye and the spikes a set of bull horns. Beneath the chest hung a bulbous mass of the red slime it drew into itself. Two broad metallic rings surrounded the ooze, with three tetrahedron-shaped spike pointing down extending from the lower ring. Each arm floated freely separate from the main body. The hands themselves had the same shape and size as the main body's lower half, with the three spikes forming claws. A portion of the red slime ran through the arms as well, ending at a spiked elbow opposite the rings forming the hands.

Fate floated towards the giant creature. Its size filled the entire area, making it almost seem more like a strangely shaped building than a living thing. Fate set his feet down on the top edge of the chest plate, gazing up lovingly at his creation's towering beacon of an eye. He then turned to the horrified navis still gathered below him. He held his arms out with pride, and grinned evilly at his enemies.

"Behold, Gamma! The new age for the Cyberworld begins today!!"

To Be Continued...

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