The Call of "The World"
by rkOujirou
Author's note: This is an alternate universe Ranma ½ story that takes place in The World R:2 sometime after the events of .Hack//Roots, the .Hack//G.U. Games, and the Returners anime episode.
Disclaimer: Ranma ½ is not my idea, nor is .Hack//G.U. The only characters I'll claim are any OC's I may add into this story. Just so you know.
Chapter 2
"Repth!"
His HP now replenished by Gaspard's healing spell, Ranma wasted no time speeding toward a red, lion-like creature that was busy charging a magic spell.
"No you don't!" he shouted.
The white-clothed Grappler managed to unload a three-punch combo on the monster before it could cast its spell, sending it reeling into a nearby rock ledge. With its HP gone, the creature fell to the ground and disintegrated, leaving Ranma the victor of another battle.
"Way to go, Ranma!" Gaspard cheered him on.
"You really seem to be getting the hang of things," Silabus complimented him.
"Yeah, I'm startin' to get used to it," Ranma said, spinning his arms around a few times to further get a feel for his character. "You guys can help out too, y'know. Ain't it boring just watchin' me fight?"
Silabus and Gaspard shared a knowing glance for a moment before Ranma's real-life friend responded to the inquiry.
"We're...at quite a higher level than you right now since we've been playing longer. Us hitting monsters like these even once would probably kill them," Silabus laughed. "Besides, helping beginners is what our guild is all about. Once you get the hang of the controls and raise your level a bit, then we'll go somewhere with stronger monsters where we can all get involved."
Ranma simply shrugged his shoulders and reluctantly accepted Silabus' answer. "I guess it's fine if you guys don't mind. Speakin' of your guild though, I've been meanin' to ask you somethin'."
"About Canard?" Gaspard asked, raising an eyebrow. "What is it?"
"Well, I looked around the BBS a little while I was waitin' for you guys," Ranma said. "You said the leader of Canard was some guy named Haseo, right?"
"That's right," Silabus replied, wondering where his friend was going with this.
"He's a pretty popular guy, ain't he?" Ranma asked them.
Gaspard got a good chuckle out of the assessment of their guild leader. "Yup, he sure was! He made a name for himself by doing lots of different things."
"Okay then," Ranma said, scratching his head as he looked over at them. "So, why is it that you two are the only members of a guild with such a popular guy as its leader? As much respect as the guy gets on the BBS, I'd think he'd have tons of people wantin' to join his guild."
The novice Grappler's words hit Silabus and Gaspard hard. It was something they tried to avoid bringing up because of the sheer embarrassment it caused them.
"That's...well..." Gaspard paled.
"Haseo...he never actually got around to recruiting people into the guild," Silabus explained. "By the time things calmed down in The World after an incident we had, everything that happened had drained he and Atoli to the point that they just needed a break. We're always open to inviting new members, of course, but...well, we don't have anywhere near the charisma that Haseo had, so it's sort of tough for us to get people to join."
"So...you're boring?" Ranma asked.
Silabus and Gaspard slumped over further at the straightforward assessment.
"Basically," the small beast character replied, looking depressed.
"H-hey, I ain't complainin'! I just wondered is all," Ranma quickly said, trying to keep their spirits from sinking any lower.
Their conversation came to sudden standstill, however, as Ranma heard an indescribably odd noise coming from behind him. "What the heck...?"
When Ranma turned around, he spotted a small, horse-like creature strutting around a short distance away.
"What's that thing supposed to be?" he asked.
"Oh, that's a Lucky Animal. A Sleipnir, to be exact," Silabus pointed out. "Every map has a Lucky Animal, and there's different types of them that each do different things. Some give you experience points, money, or items, and others will help you out in battle. But to get them to use their abilities, you have to kick them first."
Ranma promptly turned his attention back to the creature. "Okay, so all I gotta do is kick this thing?"
"Exactly!" Gaspard said.
With a devious smile crossing his face, Ranma stormed over to the Lucky Animal with every intention of booting it into oblivion. "I can do that!"
Unfortunately, the creature had raised its head and seen the white-clothed Grappler coming toward it, and it had the presence of mind to move just before Ranma's foot made contact with it.
"What?!" Ranma exclaimed. After missing his target, he promptly lost his balance and fell to the ground on his back.
"Oii, he missed it," Gaspard cringed, placing his palm over his face.
Thoroughly humiliated, Ranma sat up and slammed his fists against the ground. "What the heck was that?!"
"I forgot to mention it, but they will try to run away if you come after them," Silabus explained while trying extremely hard to keep from laughing. "Why don't you go after it? It should help you get the hang of the controls a bit more."
"Oh, I plan to!" Ranma snarled as he got to his feet. "Come here, you little runt!"
The newest member of the Canard guild took off after the speedy Sleipnir, leaving Silabus and Gaspard with an opportunity to sit down and take a quick break from helping him train. Silabus knew about Ranma's martial arts background and the type of stamina he possessed in real life, but even in-game he seemed to have an endless amount of energy and desire to raise his character's level.
Although they had a feeling that Ranma might wear them out at times, Silabus and Gaspard were both still of the opinion that having him as their new guildmate was going to make things a little more fun from now on. It was just the excitement they needed in the absence of their highly regarded guild leader.
The town of Lumina Cloth, with its darkened sky and well-lit architecture, always had an energetic atmosphere surrounding it. It was home to the Arena, where players came to challenge other players in combat, and at the edge of the town stood the home for the guild known as Icolo, whose members were solely made up of the Arena's Emperors. Apart from a room reserved for the guild's leader, the Icolo home was merely one circular room lined with red carpet and banners, with steps leading downward to a flat area in the middle.
In the center of that area stood the current Emperor of the Arena's Demon Palace, Tatewaki Kuno. His eyes were closed as he rested both hands on the hilt of his drawn katana. The incident with the object of his affections, Alkaid, and the pigtailed character named Ranma had left him in need of some mental relaxation. Try as he might to meditate, though, he simply couldn't overcome the anger he felt.
His concentration again broken, the pompous Kuno opened his eyes and began slashing his sword through the air in frustration.
"Curse that man!" he shouted furiously. "I cannot forgive him for what he has taken from me! I...I must find out more about this Ranma!"
"Hello--!" a female voice cooed.
Aggravated by the interruption, Kuno spun around and pointed his katana toward the entrance to the guild home. "Who goes there?!"
With an amused giggle, a woman with pink hair running down to the base of her ear lobes strutted toward the Arena Emperor. She was dressed entirely in emerald green and had most of her upper torso exposed, with only one thick cloth tied behind her neck that ran down her chest on both sides to cover her breasts. From the waist down, she was adorned in a large skirt that split in two places on the front to expose the bottom of her legs.
"Why, it's only moi," she smiled.
"Nabiki," Kuno groaned, letting his sword fall to his side. "That Kestrel stench of yours defiles the sanctity of this room."
"Says the man who gave me my guest key to this place," Nabiki retorted, placing her hands on her hips.
The Blade Brandier shrugged in response as he reluctantly put his sword away. "What have you come here for?"
"Business, what else?" the pink-haired girl answered. "You see, I heard...that you were a bit embarrassed not too long ago."
A scowl crossed the face of Tatewaki Kuno as Nabiki walked up behind him and began talking into his ear.
"Your precious Alkaid, being held by another man in front of all those players," she whispered. "And all the while telling you to get lost. For a man like you with so much pride, I can't imagine how humiliating that must have been."
Nabiki made it a point to paint an excessively negative picture for the Arena Emperor, and she'd succeeded brilliantly in doing so.
Shaking with anger, Kuno spun around and glared into the eyes of the woman in green. "You! How do you know about that?!"
"Word gets around, Kuno baby," she replied calmly. "Speaking of which, that character that was with Alkaid in the dome...Ranma, right? I just so happen to know a little bit about him."
The attentive look on the Brandier's face told Nabiki that she'd caught his attention.
"In fact," she continued, a wicked smile coming over her, "I happen to know what map he's on at this very moment."
"What?!" Kuno shouted. A golden opportunity for revenge had appeared before him, he quickly realized. "Tell me this instant!"
Nabiki defiantly raised her hand into the air and began waving her finger back and forth. "You know how it is. Information...comes at a price."
The pink-haired member of the Kestrel guild didn't even need to hear Tatewaki Kuno's answer to know she'd made a sale. He was a man whose emotions were simple to read, and that made him the ideal client.
"How much?!"
Once her business deal was complete, Nabiki left the Icolo guild home and ran her hand through her hair as she casually walked along the illuminated road in Lumina Cloth toward the Chaos Gate in the middle of town.
"That was easier than I thought it would be," she laughed.
"Nabiki! There you are!"
Glancing to her left, Nabiki noticed a familiar turquoise-haired Harvest Cleric heading in her direction.
"Well hi there, Akane. What's up?"
"I've been looking all over for you!" Akane complained. "Where have you been?"
"Just conducting a little business," Nabiki grinned. "You need something, Sis?"
"Well...not really, I was just kind of bored. I thought maybe we could go party somewhere," the Cleric replied with hopeful eyes.
"Again? Why don't you ever find other people to party with?" Nabiki asked her.
Akane narrowed her eyes as she leered over at her older sister. "You know why I don't like doing that..."
"Oh, right. The boys," the girl in green replied with a sigh. "Well, I have some free time, so why not? Before that though, I need to go take care of something really quick."
"What do you need to do?" Akane asked curiously.
"Just give a little report to the old troll," Nabiki shrugged. "It shouldn't take too long. Just wait here for me."
After walking up to the Chaos Gate, Nabiki turned and glanced over at her younger sister once more. "Oh, Akane, did you meet a Tribal Grappler with a pigtail not too long ago?"
Confused for a moment, Akane placed a finger on her chin and tried to think of who she meant. "A Grappler with a pigtail....oh, you mean that newbie? Hey, wait! How do you know about that?!"
"Lucky guess," Nabiki joked. "A little sisterly advice, Akane. Stay away from that player. Otherwise, you're going to get caught up in something messy."
Before Akane could question her, Nabiki warped out of the town of Lumina Cloth to complete her errand.
"Get caught up in something messy?" Akane wondered. "What's that supposed to mean?"
Things were quiet inside the guild home of Raven, where Yata had his arms folded across his chest as he carefully eyed three enlarged screens he'd brought up at the Serpent of Lore. The guild, which consisted of himself, Pi, and a steamgunner by the name of Kuhn, had little of interest to look into since the destruction of Cubia. Until recently, that is.
The new player named Ranma was the third one known to have what looked like altered data in his character. Yata had diligently monitored the characters in the first two cases when they were brought to his attention, but he never saw anything out of the ordinary from either of them. Still, the emergence of Ranma as yet another case had piqued his interest enough to go ahead and monitor he and the others again for at least a short while.
"Master Yata..." Pi said as she walked up to him. "You're watching over all of them?"
"The chances of anything unusual happening are low, but the fact that a third case came up bothers me," Yata explained. "All three are online, but the only one active at the moment is Ranma."
The woman with pink pigtails focused her attention on the rightmost screen for a moment, only to see Ranma lose his balance and fall down after failing to kick the horse-like creature he was after.
"Do players normally have that much trouble with Lucky Animals?" Pi wondered aloud.
"Nothing is easy when you're doing it for the first time," the bald-headed man chuckled. "Did you find out anything new?"
Pi had to force herself to turn away from the almost comedic showing that Ranma was putting on. "Y-yes, actually. With regards to Ranma...he was apparently seen with Ovan in Mac Anu recently."
The mention of Ovan's name was enough to get Yata to turn away from the screens and glance back at his assistant. "Ovan? Have you confirmed this?"
"Not with complete certainty, but they were definitely both in Mac Anu at the same time," Pi replied, adjusting her glasses.
"I see," Yata said, turning his attention back to the three screens in front of him. "Pi, I want you to prioritize this data altering incident above everything else."
"Master Yata...?"
"Ovan would not involve himself unless this were something of an immense magnitude," the man in the maroon robe told her. "What I want to know is whether he's just curious...or if he knows something that we don't."
"I gotcha!"
As the chase continued on the low-level field, Ranma readied his right leg and took a mighty swing at the Sleipnir, but the tiny creature swerved to its right to avoid the kick and kept on running.
Ranma hadn't spent a ridiculous amount of time chasing the Lucky Animal without improving a bit though. After planting his foot back down on the ground, he swiftly pivoted to his right and took off after his target again.
"I'm gettin' better at this!" he grinned.
After its long run, the Sleipnir came to a halt and turned around to see how far back Ranma was, but what it found instead was a boot heading straight for its face. Barely managing to move out of the way in time, it frantically began running away again. Ranma closed in quickly, however, and forced it to make another erratic move to avoid a kick.
"Just...give...it...up!" Ranma shouted, swinging his foot at the creature several more times without any success.
After dodging the last kick, the Sleipnir suddenly ran out of room and slammed into the edge of the map. It quickly turned around to look for another direction to run, but instead found itself staring up at its almost demonic looking aggressor.
"Heh," the Grappler mouthed with a satisfied smirk. "I might not be perfect with these controls yet, but that don't mean I ain't good enough to corner ya. The jig's up, horsie."
Behind him, Ranma could hear the sound of footsteps, but he kept his eyes locked on the creature at his feet. "Hey, sorry guys. It took me a while. Finally got this thing trapped though..."
"I believe you are mistaken, Ranma."
Ranma recognized the voice, but it didn't belong to either Silabus or Gaspard, he realized. He curiously raised his head and looked back, only to find himself being stared down by a vengeful man wearing a blue and white coat and wielding a katana in one hand.
"As you should know, I am no friend of yours," the Arena's Demon Palace Emperor, Tatewaki Kuno, told him. "You were fortunate that we first met in town, where player killing is not possible. Otherwise I would have put you to shame right there in front of my love."
"Uh...oh, I remember now! You're that...no, wait..." Ranma said, fumbling over his words as he tried to remember the man in front of him.
"Yes...?" Kuno asked. After several seconds, he was already losing patience with the pigtailed boy not being able to remember him.
Ranma placed his hand over his forehead as he struggled to recall what the swordsman's name was. "Umm..."
"Tatewaki Kuno! I am Tatewaki Kuno, you twit!" the enraged Blade Brandier growled. "Not only do you steal the affections of my lovely Alkaid, but now you insult me like this?! I shall have none of it! The time has come to restore my honor, Ranma!"
"Whoa, whoa! Hold on a sec!" Ranma pleaded, holding his palm up in front of him. "Just let me take care of this horse thing first. Then I'll deal with you, alright?"
The white-clothed Grappler spun around to deliver his long awaited kick to the Sleipnir, but, much to his dismay, it had seemingly vanished.
"Wha-?! No! Where'd it go?!" he yelled, looking around in every direction in an attempt to catch sight of the Lucky Animal. It was nowhere to be found, though. The creature had taken advantage of Kuno's distraction to escape the dangerous scene.
With rage building up inside of him, Ranma turned and shot the Arena Emperor an icy glare. "You got any idea how long I'd been chasin' that thing?"
"I would not be concerned about such things if I were you!" Kuno snapped back at him. "Duel me this instant, Ranma!"
Ranma clenched his fists and began gritting his teeth together as he stared over at the determined Tatewaki Kuno. "Fine! You want a fight?! Bring it on, buddy!"
A look of ecstasy came over Kuno, who readied himself without hesitation and held his sword out to one side.
"Sword Flash!"
The Blade Brandier suddenly lunged forward with lightning quick speed, much faster than Ranma had been expecting.
"He's fast!" Ranma thought.
The inexperienced Grappler raised his fists and managed to get a punch in on the face of the agile Kuno, but a simultaneous strike to Ranma's abdomen from the Emperor's katana left him stunned and his HP empty. Downed after only a single blow, the colors on Ranma's character body turned to shades of gray as he slumped motionless to the ground.
With the one-sided battle already over, Tatewaki Kuno stood tall and proud while looking down at his fallen opponent. After putting away his sword, he then began cackling arrogantly at Ranma's body.
"The vengeance of Heaven has been carried out," he smirked.
"I...I lost...?" Ranma said in disbelief.
"Let that be a lesson to you, fiend! You are not worthy of Alkaid's love!" Kuno boasted as he turned and began walking away. "Never show your face before her again!"
Once the victor had taken his leave, Ranma was left to ponder the reality of what had just happened. He wasn't used to losing, especially to people like Kuno. In the real world, he would have won for sure, he thought. But this wasn't the real world. It was a virtual world. "The World." In here, both character level and mastery of the game's mechanics were vastly in Kuno's favor, and it showed.
It almost certainly wasn't a fight he could have won at this point, but being defeated like this still left Ranma feeling ashamed of himself.
"How?!" he fumed angrily. "How...could I lose to someone like that?!"
The Kestrel guild, known by many as the guild full of player killers, had a sense of freedom instilled in them like no other group in "The World." Their guild home, loaned out to them by CC Corp. because of their large number of members, was a map that looked like it was engraved into a canyon. Stone walls and broken pillars adorned the area, and at the entrance to the inner part of the guild home sat a throne carved out of rock.
The longtime leader of the Kestrel guild was known as Gabi, a beast race character with the face of a lion that towered over his subordinates with an intimidating presence and demanded loyalty. Not long ago, however, Gabi mysteriously vanished, leaving another to take control of the guild while he was away.
Sitting in his throne, the current Kestrel leader looked over the map as his subordinates interacted with one another. He was short and imp-like in his appearance with his pale green skin and horns that jutted out from a small patch of white hair on his head.
His name...was Happosai.
"I'm back, Boss..."
An anxious expression came over the Kestrel leader when he noticed the woman clad in emerald clothing walking over to him.
"Nabiki!" Happosai exclaimed. "How was it?! Did he do it?!"
"He took off for the map as soon as I told him," Nabiki smiled.
Happosai jumped up excitedly at the news. "Good! He must've PK'ed that Ranma for sure!"
"Probably," Nabiki said in agreement before clearing her throat. "You know, wouldn't it have been easier to just send one of the generals after him?"
"And give the system admins even more reason to watch over us?! Forget it!" the old man told her. "Now that he's been PK'ed, maybe he'll think twice about playing this game. Good work, Nabiki. I knew I could count on you!"
"Mmhmm. If that's all then, I'll be going," Nabiki replied as she began heading back toward the Chaos Gate. "I guess I'll never understand, though...why the leader of a powerful guild like Kestrel is up in arms about some newbie Tribal Grappler."
Once Nabiki was gone, Happosai sat back down and settled into his throne feeling much more relaxed than before.
"That newbie Tribal Grappler is more trouble than she realizes," he grumbled, holding his head in his hands. "I still don't understand why they all started showing up here. Everything should have gone perfectly. But when they did...I knew that darn Ranma would show up eventually!"
With memories of the past flooding back into his mind, Happosai slammed his fist down onto the armrest of his throne in frustration.
"I won't let you ruin my plans again, Ranma! Not this time!"
End of Chapter 2