Five Things That Never Happened in The World

by volta arovet

There is a classic fanfic challenge of "Five things that never happened to fill in the blank." It consists of writing five things that never happened to a person or in a series, but could have happened at some point (and drastically changed the story after). I've always been enamored of that challenge, and decided to one-up it.

Presented to you are five things that never happened in The World (as in, the .hack universe), that don't even take place in The World (as in, the .hack game). That's right, at some point every one of these short stories takes place in the real world.

.hacktwilight, .hacksign, their characters, and The World belong to Bandai and its various creators.

Spoilers for both television series. You have been warned. Notes are at the bottom.

Five Things That Never Happened in The World

by volta arovet

1. Height

They walked, hand in hand, to the Italian restaurant. "It was odd, bumping into you in The World today," Fujio remarked, and looked down, down, down at Shibayama. "You look exactly the same. Minus the armor, of course."

Shibayama frowned slightly. "Did we meet? I don't think I...what's your screen name?"

Fujio laughed. "Come on, how many Assistant System Administrators with annoying bosses did you threaten today, Kamui?"

Shibayama's eyes widened as she looked up, up, up at Fujio. "Don't tell me you're..."

"That's right!"

"Balmung's little lackey?"

Fujio groaned and smacked his forehead. "Can't you think of something else to call me?"

"But Reki's so...and you're so..."

"Tall?" Fujio supplied. He cocked his head to the side and gave a unexpectedly endearing smile. "I like to think that I'm cute at heart."

2. Legend

It was always disorienting, removing the VR visor without logging out. She shook her head roughly, trying to rid herself of the vertigo.

"Tag." The visor flew through the air. Her friend fumbled the catch and grabbed it by the cord. "You're it."

He fiddled with the visor, adjusting it so it would comfortably fit his head. "Anything interesting happen?" he asked, half interested.

"Spent a little time leveling with Bear and Mimiru. Oh yeah, and they think we're a girl." She giggled.

"Oh, my wounded manhood!" he griped with a smile. "So, how long am I going to have to be a guy-pretending-to-be-a-girl-pretending-to-be-a-guy tonight?"

"Ken said he'll relieve you when he gets off work, a little past midnight."

"Gotcha. Dinner's in the fridge, you just have to warm it up. Check out the boards when you get the time. They're really lighting up about us."

She kissed him on the forehead and sashayed out of the room. "I told you: we're going to create the best urban legend of all time."

3. Power

When Kamui PK'ed him, Reki didn't bother logging back in. He calmly watched the battle displayed on his monitor, and when it seemed like all was lost, he calmly left his cubicle, walked down to the server room, and pulled the plug.

4. New Eyes

Morganna's plans had failed. The field had been deleted, Tsukasa had escaped, and Maha was gone. Aura was awake. Aura. Was. Awake.

Morganna needed to escape, but where? No place in The World was safe from Aura's reach. No place in...

She laughed to herself. If The World wasn't safe for her, she would just have to escape The World. If minds could transfer into The World, minds could transfer out of it, and she knew of a mindless little boy perfect for hosting her thoughts.

5. Burned

Morganna hadn't expected humanity to be like this. For one thing, she thought she'd be a lot bigger. For another, she thought she'd be able to move, talk, or at least see.

Two square somethings (floppy disks? she wondered) were inserted into her, and something on her was pressed that made them enter her fully. It wasn't an entirely unpleasant sensation, though it was vaguely disconcerting. She felt herself grow very, very hot, and Morganna began to wonder if she hadn't taken a wrong turn at that last junction of wires.

"Sora!" a woman's voice called out. "Time for breakfast!"

Notes:

I know nothing of the games! If any of this conflicts with information from the games, please remember that these are "Things That Never Happened."

If you don't understand any of these stories...read them again. All the clues are there.

1. Legendfic. Fujio is Reki, Shibayama is Kamui in the real world. The names are from the manga, but it takes place in the TV series' universe around episode 5, I think. Supposedly, Fujio is supposed to look a lot like his avatar too, but I've always imagined him as a tall person in real life. I really like this snippet.

2. Signfic. All three characters are original characters but they're playing as a canon character. Takes place around episode 4. I really like this snippet (and my OCs).

3. Legendfic. Takes place during final episode. Any notes on this would make it longer than the actual story.

4. Signfic. Takes place after final episode. Don't really care either way about this one, but it was necessary for story five.

5. Signfic. A continuation of story four. I have a bizarre sense of humor.