Hack/Sign: Legend of the Dark Hacker

Chapter three: Ezra's alliance

Sun set over the city of Gaesoki as a young brunnet entered her house and logged on to her computer, then entered the main page of THE WORLD and read her mail, she currently had two messages, one from Takum and the other from a mysterious messenger. She opened Takum's first and read:

"Ginger I don't know what to do I'm in serious trouble with CCcorp. first they want to arrest me for associating with hackers, then they try deleting me because I defended myself with the data drain, and now all the members of the Cobalt Knight Brigade are in comas. CCcorp. is looking for me and I think they'll delete me if found, maybe sometime in the future I'll be able to play along side you, goodbye."

She replied a message, "No Takum, they deserved to be in comas for what they did in THE WORLD, deleting harmless NPC's, we have to save your brother remember and I'm not gonna let you quit on him like that, got it!"

She sent the message and waited for a reply for several minutes then a message came, she read:

"Okay Ginger let's go to that place you were telling me about, delta Hidden Putrid Twin Hills, see you in a couple minutes."

She then opened the other message and found no picture to it, she read:

"Hi the names Ezra, I got some information on your friends lost brother. I know Aura already explained most of it to you but I can give you his location. Come to delta Hidden Putrid Twin Hills, I already knew you were comming here so I picked it just to make it easier on you, see you then."

She thought if she should tell Takum now or just wait till she met up with him, she decided to wait then entered THE WORLD, when she was in she looked everywhere for him with no such luck, she called for him all over. Then she thought that he might have already gone to the area, she went to the chaos gate and entered Hidden Putrid Twin Hills and when she arrived there she saw Takum, or what seemed to be him, back facing her. She called his name and he turned to her, a frown on his face, then slowly a smile, "GINGER!" He ran to her and gave her a hug.

"Okay I didn't know you would be this happy to see me," she embrassed his hug and blushed after awhile.

He let go and said, "I invited a new member to are team."

"Oh a new member, what's his name?"
"Her name is Nanni, she won this cool class costume in this THE WORLD side game, the class is weretiger, I know it sounds weird but it is really cool," he said as she appeared behind Ginger.

Ginger felt a little glum when she heard it was a girl. Nanni walked up behind Ginger stealth like to scare her.

"BOO!"

"Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, Takum protect me," she screamed as the cat-like girl popped up from behind, "Oh why I oaughta kill you", she thrusted her sword forward, almost hitting Nanni.

"Hey watch it you freak, you could have chopped my face off!"

"Err, you're lucky I didn't cut you in half!"

"Hey enough! Calm down it was only a joke Ginger," Takum laughed,"You might as well get use to her, she's the new team member, Ginger."

"Okay, the reason I picked this place is because some guy named Ezra invited me here, said he had news of your brother Takuna,"she explained to him.

"Ezra! Did you say Ezra?"
"Yeah, why?"

"He left me in the Beta server for those Cobalt Knights to attack me, when I see him I swear I'm gonna..." he was interupted.

"Do what Takum," Ezra's voice sounded behind him.

Ginger was shocked to find that it was the brute from Mac Anu. Nanni was completely confused, and Takum clutched his fist as tight as he could. He then attacked Ezra with his right fist, Ezra caught it then threw him to the ground. Takum quickly got up and kicked with his right leg at Ezra's head, he blocked, grabbed Takum by the angle and slung him to the ground.

"I'll kill you!"

"If you kill me, how do you expect to find Takuna huh?"
Takum growled furiously at him, then got up and apologized to him. Ginger walked over to Takum's side and put her hand on his shoulder, Nanni felt left out so she walked over to them.

"Okay what do you know about Takuna huh, no lieing either," Ginger pointed her blade at his face.

"Ha, now hold up, I said I'd give you answers, but I want to see how well you work as a team. I'll give you a few monsters to fight and if you can win then I'll tell you everything I know."

They accepted the terms and Ezra made a chaos gate appear, it activated and out of it came a huge mantis, and three goblins in war armor with clubs. They charged, Takum attacked with his blades, Ginger with her broad sword, and Nanni with her Tiger claws. Within seconds they took out the Goblins, Takum leveled up twice, now Lv 7, Nanni leveled up to Lv 6, and Ginger to Lv 8.

"Come on guy's let's finish this quick, everyone use your skills,"Rue Kruz!"

"Vak Kruz strike," Gingers blade lit on fir and she striked it many times.

Nanni ran foward slashed it many times then jumped over the mantis and yelled," Rue Rage", her claws became ice and she striked straight down through the mantis, its two parts fell over and dissappeared.

"Done!" The team boasted proudly.

He smirked then made another chaos gate," Let's see how you fare against a Data Bug!" Out of the chaos gate came a huge crab like data bug, covered in green data.

Takum was now worried, he did not want to use Data Drain for he now feared that it would go out of control again. However, he would need to use it to take out a data bug.

"Attack!" They ran forward and striked furiously but nothing happened, the data bug roared and smacked Ginger a yard back to the ground. Nanni tried using a skill but was thrown into a rock. Now Takum stood alone against it, he then crazily attacked it,"Staccato, Rue Kruz, Vak Kruz!"

The data bug now had a Project break, this was it, he pulled back his arm as the bracelet glowed, and before he could launch the attack, the data bug was deleted. Now standing there where the data bug once was, was no other than the dark hacker.

"Hello, I hope I wasn't introuding. I can't let you go and die from a mere data bug, not if I want that bracelet."

"Never! I'd never give you this bracelet."

"Oh then I'll take it by force, ha,"the dark hacker charged at him with the data blade.

Ezra jumped in front of Takum and blasted a dark ball at the attacker. The dark hacker was thrown to the ground but quickly jumped up.

"Ezra you've gotten in my way for the last time, die," he raced at him full speed ready to slice right through him.

He smiled then charged the dark hacker with his staff at the side, ready to swing at any second. They neared each other with every second then he swung his staff forward and blasted several dark balls at him, he dodged all of them and stabbed his blade foward almost hitting Ezra. Then the dark balls made a sharp turn back towards the dark hacker, Ezra bolted backwards as the dark balls hit the hacker. At the end of the assault, the dark hacker exploded sending him back a few yaards and knocking him unconcious.

"Now to finish the job," another dark ball formed, Ezra took a batting stance and prepared to swing as hard as he could.

"HEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEEHEHHEEHEHEH, NOT SO FAST!" A strange voice omniously spoke from an unknown area.

Ezra looked around everywhere then turned back to the dark hacker,"It's over," he swung the staff and bam it went zooming towards the dark hacker who started to awake. Suddenly a huge mirror appeared in front of him and reflected the attack back at Ezra at an unavoidable speed and bam he was thrown to the ground but flipped back up to his feet.

"I SAID NOT SO FAST, YOU EZRA ARE ABOUT TO SUFFER MY RATH. HOW DARE YOU HURT THE DARK HACKER I SHOULD DELETE YOU RIGHT NOW, BUT I'LL LET YOU OFF WITH A WARNING," the ominpresent voice returned.

"Who are you?"

"ME WHY I AM HIS PROTECTOR, HE KEEPS THE CCCORP. GOONS OFF MY BACK IN RETURN FOR MY PROTECTING HIM."

"Show yourself you coward," Ezra yelled to the sky.

"OKAY! READY YOURSELF FOR ULTIMATE DESTRUCTION," the voice yelled then a dark portal started to open, black lightning showered out of the portal as it got bigger and bigger.

Ezra stepped away from the portal a couple feet, Takum had gotten with Nanni and Ginger as the fight went on, and now they stared at the portal. Soon it was larger than a full grown body, and now a black form stepped out of the portal. When it was fully out the portal evaporated, he was a tall man with a jester outfit on and one of those three prong hat's.

"HELLO EZRA, TAKUM AND YOUR FRIENDS, I'VE HEARD ALOT ABOUT YOU AND YOUR DATA DRAIN FROM MY FRIEND THE DARK HACKER. NOW EZRA I'M GOING TO DEAL WITH YOU," the jester like man said to them.

"Okay let's go!" He rushed at the jester and shot hundreds of those dark balls at him.

The jester laughed and pulled his arm up and faced his hand at the dark balls as they came closer. When they reached his hand they cancelled out.

"HEHEHEEHEHEHEHE, DID YOU REALLY THINK THAT COULD HURT ME. I AM CALLED THE PROTECTOR FOR THE VERY REASON THAT I CAN'T BE HURT BY ANY ATTACKS."

"What!" Ezra stared wide eyed at the jester who nodded his head.

"Oh yeah," Takum yelled as he pulled out his blades and attacked,"Staccato," each slash did nothing to the jester.

The jester's white painted face held no expression as Takum continued to attack and did no damage. He was finally tired so he stopped and panted heavily. The jester picked Takum up with some sort of telakenesis and held his hand in front of Takums chest. Around his wrist appeared what to be an exact replica of the bracelet.

"YOU SEE TAKUM I CAN COPY AND USE ANY SKILL I SEE AND WELL I KNOW ALL ABOUT THE DATA DRAIN HA, HA, HA, HA, HA, HA!" The move Takum had used to do the dirty business back in Dun Loireag to the Cobalt Knight Brigade was now about to put him in a coma, he started to loose conciousness as the bright light from the bracelet blinded him.

"ALL I REMEMBER AFTER THAT WAS WAKING UP IN MY BEDROOM, WHAT HAPPENED AND WHY I'M NOT IN A COMA IS STILL A MYSTERY TO ME."

Three days later Takum found several pieces of mail for him, two from Ginger, one from Balmung, one from Nanni, and one from Ezra.He opened Ginger's first it read:

"Takum! Takum are you alright, what happened back there I thought you were a goner but somehow I know you survived, contact me as soon as possible." The second message read:

"Still no word from you Takum, I want to know if you are okay? Please contact me just so I know you are alright."

He sent a quick reply, "I'm perfectly fine Ginger, I don't know how but I am, hope to see you soon."

He opened the next message from Balmung and read:

"Takum! When I get a hold of you... you are in big trouble with CCcorp. first association with hackers then puttin several people into comas. I thought you were going to stay out of THE WORLD! When ever you come back I want you to go directly to beta Bursting Orange Sorrow and meet me okay!" He closed the mail and glumly opened Ezra's:

"I hope your okay Takum, your brother can be found at Beta Closed Forgotten Fort Walls. Also it is a Lv40 area so your going to want to bring your entire team and heres my member adress so you can contact me when you are going there. I have the necessary virus cores for you to gate hack there, see you then." Takum cheered up now and entered the game. He decided to meet Balmung first since his messange sounded so urgent. He entered the beta server then entered in Bursting Orange Sorrow, when he arrived their he saw no one around. He took a step forward and a giant steel cage fell around him.

"Hey what the hell's going on?"

"Calm down Takum we are going to need you to be still when we delete your character," Balmun said from behind him.

"What delete me, why?"

"Because of what you've done to the Cobalt Knight Brigade," he stepped in front of Takum's cage.

"Please Balmung I beg of you, I am so close to finding my brother I just need a few more days. Then you can delete my character but..." Balming interupted.

"It isn't my choice it is CCcorp's decision, I'm sorry for everything that's happened and that is about to happen to you, goodbye forever," he turned away from him as two CCcorp. administraders appeared beside the two sides of the cage and pointed their arms at him holding their hand up just like the jester.

"No please don't let them do this Balmung!"

Then a static field surrounded Takum and that's when the pain started.

"AHHHHHHHH, Balmung! Help me please... ahhhhh," he screamed in pain as the field covered him.

It now felt as if his skin was veing peeled off, layer by layer as he was deleted. Then his body in the game started to dissolve slowly in an even more painful process. As his waist dissolved he squeezed his eyes as tight as possible and gritted his teeth together to overcome the pain then he grew angry at the administrators and thought, "No, I am not going to lose my brother when I'm this close to saving him," then he yelled, "ENOUGH!" A huge energy serged through his remaining body, reconfiguring his body togehter. Then he let all his power go,"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH," the field around him was now pushed away by a stronger field, then completely overcome and pushed into the walls of the cage. After a while the walls started to tremble.

"Sir Balmung we can't hold it," they told him as the bars started to crack.

Balmung turned and stared in awe at Takum's power, then quickly unsheathed his blade and prepared to strike but was too late for the bars were anihilated and the field blew them all away. Takum then put his hand in the air, the bracelet glowed, and a portal opened up. He squatted down as far as he could then leaped up into the portal and was gone. Balmung and the other administraders were all laying on the ground heavily wounded.

"Takum what have you done?" Balmung then fell unconcious.