Aki swung her head to catch a glimpse of the new opponent threatening their new clan of stranded outsiders.

[color=00FFFF]Some kind of virus-themed navi..?[/color] Ciel mumbled in an unusual hushed tone before returning to barking orders at the teen. [color=00FFFF]Aki, listen to me [i]carefully.[/i][/color]

The girl shook her head intently.

[color=00FFFF]I'm going to need your help to get through this thing, and my buster's not going to cut it. Open your pack and read me the chips we have.[/color]

Aki fumbled open her chip pack and unceremoniously poured the waterfall of plain, not-quite-SD cards into her palm.

[color=FF7276]Um— there's Holy Panel, Spreader, Gun Del S, Tornado, and Air Hockey.[/color]

Aki neglected to mention her bootleg purple chip that somehow traveled dimensions with her—she wasn't sure what would happen if she did, but something fake like that wouldn't be very useful to Ciel. It might distract her, or worse, end up being dangerous somehow.

Ciel nodded her head thoughtfully.

[color=00FFFF]That can work. Listen, when I call out the name of a battlechip, I need you to load it into that slot immediately. When you hear me, tell me that my data is coming and I'll be ready to use it. We need to work as a team, and as the operator, you're going to have to [i]operate![/i][/color]

Ciel didn't wait for Aki's answer, and instead leapt into action alongside the other digital beasts. She unleashed a burst of short blasts from her modified arm—the device she had called a buster—but to no avail, the shots clinking against the sturdy helmet of the creature. Unperturbed by the nullified strikes, the navi leveraged the commotion to shuffle herself within a few arm's lengths of the virus. Aki thought she was too close—one quick, unanticipated swipe and Ciel would be nothing more than a digital bloodstain on the infinite emerald plain.

[color=00FFFF]Send me Tornado![/color]

Aki snapped out of her trance and rifled through her chips as the navi had instructed. Now all she had to do was respond to Ciel and load the data, and everything would be okay. At least she had hoped. Aki thumbed the target battlechip into her grip and aimed it toward the slot around her device.

[color=FF7276]Okay, it's—[/color] Aki thought better of it. She knew the right words. [color=FF7276]Tornado, battlechip in, download![/color]

Without pomp or circumstance, the buster on Ciel's arm restructured itself, shifting digital metal on digital metal, and rebuilt its own structure from the wrist up. The band that made up her wrist slid open, exploding into a wide circle that jutted itself outward, the skeletal form filled out with a rosy cybernetic steel. Within the circle now sat three razor-edged blades that stung to look at. With little warning or wind up, the blades now formed a spinning wheel of certain death. But strange to Aki, Ciel wasn't using the blades to cut the creature—she was using them to... cut the air? Lacerations appeared on the body of the creature as a caustic vortex of wind briefly surrounded its form and dug into its would-be flesh.