Disclaimer: I do not own any of The World Ends With You characters or its original plot line. I give credit to their respective owners.
A/N: So, like, apparently I have indescribable levels of procrastination in my body.
Day 3 (Part 2): Take the Stage
NEKU
I watched my reflection in the window, the condensation fogged up the glass as the rain outside continued to fall. I turned my back towards it and leaned on it as I sighed heavily. There were only two other customers apart from myself in this store, but by the looks of things they were only here to avoid the rainfall as well. I took off my cap and scratched the back of my head as I thought about how to go about finishing the mission. I fished out my phone from my pocket as I stared at the screen:
"Light up the stage,
Take the spotlight.
Silence the noise.
240 minutes, fail and face erasure.
-The Reapers"
My head ached as I thought about the consequences of if I would fail. Sudden erasure doesn't seem like the best plan here. Not to mention Princess K is still staring at me.
"Sorry, I'm not gonna browse around, I'm just here to wait out the rain." I said loudly, enough for the clerk to hear. She then sighed as she left to go to the back room. I paced back and forth while the rain outside began to lighten.
Now was probably the best time to make a break for it. I prepared myself as I opened the door; I counted down in my head from 3 and steadied my breath. In retrospect, the distance across the street wasn't that big, but for some reason, the other side of the street seemed further. I took a step out and as soon as I felt the first droplet of water on the top of my hat I broke into a sprint. With every drop of water that hit me, I felt that I was getting weaker and weaker. This wasn't normal, I know that much, the rain really does have something to do with my status then. I finally reached the other side as I shook the water off my body.
–
SHO
–
I felt my eyelids getting heavier, I had to stay awake. As soon as the rain let up, I was getting out of here. The brother sister love over here was starting to irritate me. These Radians should probably be getting out of here too. I don't want to look at the timer; it'd just mock me, telling me to haul it. I probably wouldn't make it though; no player would be dumb enough to try to run through this rain... And that's when The Proxy came running in. Alright, I'll accept being wrong this time around. "I see you noticed that rain's no-no for us players." I smirked as he snarled at me, shaking the water off his body; he obviously hadn't noticed the Skull Siblings dozing away behind him.
"A little warning would have been nice Pi-Face." He growled, his eyes were piercing, keeping them focused on me. "This timer isn't gonna wait for us, we gotta haul it, now." The Proxy was getting impatient, already turning away. I suppose he would have noticed the Skull Siblings by now, though I don't think he actually realizes who they are. The lights here had already dimmed a bit, and his sight has probably been messed with by the rain.
"Well then, let's get the factor out of here." I pushed myself up, and walked towards him, "Looks like the rain has let up too. That's good for us." I could tell that he wasn't feeling too good. Just to way he held himself up was somewhat limp. Of course, I wanted to see how far he could go despite his condition.
We stepped out into the street; the rain had cleared, though the wind was still somewhat strong. "We still need to find that noise." The Proxy sighed, as he probably started thinking about how to drive it into the building. Then of course, I had a plan already formulating in my genius mind.
NEKU
Heaper shot me a look, I could tell right away that it was a bad sign, of course I needed to trust him if I wanted to get through this week. The only thing we had left to do was find a way to attract the noise; however, I doubt that it'll be that easy considering the fact that I couldn't find anything while I was scanning a while ago.
..But we never tried scanning where there were large amounts of people… Hell, Dogenzaka didn't have that many people on it when I scanned there either! At this point I could feel myself going into a sprint, leaving the Heaper calling out for me to 'wait up'.
I found myself panting as I reached The Scramble Crossing, it seems that there was a huge crowd here; I walked around them, trying to estimate at least how many of them were here, just crowding around… a performer, apparently. I had only just noticed that the one man was in the centre of their horseshoe of an audience area, he didn't look familiar whatsoever, and it seems that he was singing his own songs; I've never heard this music before. After evaluating the area enough, I pulled out my player pin, and sure enough, the noise was there. "I see you found it." I turned to face the Heaper as he finally caught up with me. "Let's clear this up fast." He smirked as he prepared to go into battle, I stopped him before he could though, something wasn't right.
"Hold on there, Pi-Face, remember what the mission mail said? Light up the stage, and take the spotlight. There's got to be more to it than to fight them here." I assumed that the battle had to take place at A-East. Otherwise it wouldn't have made sense; the mission is definitely linked to that place.
"Well what do you think then?" The Heaper glared, probably disappointed that he wasn't able to get to any action yet. "You want to substitute this guy into your A-East equation?" I ignored the math lingo for a bit as I stared down the street performer. Low hat, shades, polo, don't recognize him whatsoever. "Maybe you can imprint him." The Heaper suddenly suggested, though the thought of it had come up, I wasn't sure if it would be enough to get him to move. I guess it was worth a shot.
SHO
There we go, the Proxy listened to me, and maybe if I can keep this up I can get him to start doing my laundry. Though that fantasy would have to wait; I took out my own phone and read over the mission mail again. 'Take the spotlight' doesn't have to necessarily mean a performer; does it? I bet I could very well get the Proxy to get up on that stage if I had the means.
I looked up from my phone to see that the street performer had stopped and began to make his way towards A-East, his rather large fanbase left behind wondering what he was doing. The performer didn't say anything; rather it was like he accepted the imprint immediately without question. This was rather interesting.
After a while, the crowd dispersed, people walking by and through us, most following the performer, the others continued on their way as if he hadn't been there to begin with. I started after the large crowd, the proxy in tow.
NEKU
Well he's moving to say the least.
We finally reached the stage as we passed through the crowd towards the front of the stage. There he was, that performer was up on stage, though I'm not too sure how he managed to hook up the microphone on his own. Whatever the case it didn't concern us as long as he attracted a crowd. Lo and behold the crowd started filling up as we waited for a few minutes. We still couldn't be seen, so we decided to wait up on the rafters so that we could get a better view of the area. I pulled my headphones back up over my ears as I prepared my player pin. Flipping it into the air I caught it, letting my mind hone in on the crowd.
Just as I expected, the noise was everywhere.
SHO
He's impatient, of course I can understand why. Timer is counting down and we've only got one chance at this. I stared at the player pin as he flicked it upwards, catching it in the palm of his hand. I adjusted my hat as I prepared mine as well. "Well, let's get started" I said casually, picking out a Noise Sigil to activate. "Let's see how many we can chain in one go." The second the sigil activated, I watched as the Proxy disappeared into the air. I stayed on the rafters as I would assume he would go down onto the stage for his fight. I cracked my knuckles as I watched a swarm of bat noise appear in front of me, sighing heavily I kept one hand holding the rim of my hat, while with my other I aimed at some stray wires. "Bring it."
NEKU
I scratched the back of my head as I appeared on stage, no one could see the noise, nor could they see me. Though they're still watching that performer on stage right in front of me; I suppose they won't mind if I deal with this over here.
My eyes strayed from the audience towards some bat noise, tapping the Force Round pin on my hat I launched a few shots towards the swarm, making them disperse, I dashed forwards with as much force as I could, taking down the closest noise to me, ending it with a slash of my Mus Rattus pin. I jumped back as the swarm joined again and charged at the spot where I just was. Using this chance I used a Grave Marker pin and warped myself above the group, bringing my arm down into the middle of the group, though I managed to erase the middle of the group, I span around in a circle and swiped the rest of them back. I'm staggering, I don't know why, but I'm staggering. The rain must have affected me a little more than I thought it would. "Damn it." I cursed out loud, trying to hold my ground in the middle of a circle of bats, I can only hope that Sho is doing better than I am.
SHO
I brought my fingers across the group as if slashing at them with a claw, the stray wires following the flow of my hand whipped in suit. I figured it wasn't enough as I discarded the wires, taking my hand of my hat momentarily, placing it back on the rim as I aimed my other hand at a discarded speaker, I pulled my hand towards me as the speaker hovered over to my location, I thrusted my hand out at the noise, spreading my fingers as the speaker emitted a low booming sound, being bats, the noise couldn't handle the sound and began to go into a frenzy, attacking each other and becoming stunned. "There's got to be more than just you." I said to them, the fight was too easy, simple bat noise couldn't possibly require a 240 minute time limit, there had to be some sort of extra boss battle or something following afterwards. I switched my weapon again as I went back to the wires, "Where's your damn significant figure!" I shouted as a slashed the wires across them.
NEKU
Before long, the bat noise were gone. Thankfully I could still stand up straight, though I was almost knocked down by a loud screech aimed directly towards me. Their leader had arrived. "About time you showed yourself." I shouted back, "I was starting to get bored" I bluffed, trying not to show fatigue as I reached for a Stellar Fury pin.
Come on me, don't lose out now. I thought to myself, preparing to move at a moment's notice. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a hint of red, at the same time a gust of wind pummeled at me from that same direction, I covered my arms over my face to shield myself from the strong winds. Before long I found myself face to face with a huge bat noise, staring me down with its crimson eyes. "What's wrong? Feel bad I hurt your kids?" I taunted. Not the smartest thing I've ever done. I stumbled back as I tried to dodge a swipe from the bat noise, narrowly missing it by only a bit. I rolled backwards and back onto my feet. I fired Force Rounds at it, knowing that going in for close range tactics would most likely get me killed, and seeing as I'm not exactly in the best of health at the moment. I managed to injure it, but only a little, its wings managed to block the rest of my shots from hitting anything vital. I repeated this process, hoping to do a little more, but its wings are too much for my Force Rounds to punch through. Somehow, I needed to distract it. I looked up catching a glimpse of one of the working spotlights out of the corner of my eye.
SHO
Tch, too zetta easy. I completely finished off the rest of the noise without a problem, though I couldn't see anything else. I leaned over the railing to try to catch a view of where some other noise could be coming from. I saw an oversized lurching figure flashing in and out of existence. Definitely intriguing. I watched this figure for a moment, it looked like a large bat, but the figure kept appearing and disappearing, like a glitch in reality. It moved around in darkness so I assume that's where it's at its strongest.
Monster in a dark place and right next to me is a spot light. It ain't too tough to put two and two together, especially if you're an accomplished math genius like me. "Time for your time in the limelight." I whispered to it as I aimed the spotlight at it, illuminating the golden creature, it started to go into a frenzy; like its smaller counterparts, but it seemed like it was taking damage from something. I can only assume that this is the same creature that The Proxy is fighting right now. I concentrated the light on it, remembering what the mission had said about 'taking the spotlight'. I smirked as I knew that it had to come down to something like this somehow.
NEKU
"HA!" I yelled as I finished it off with my Stellar Fury pin, completely knocking the noise into the ground after a final punch. I panted heavily, trying to catch my breath, by a complete stroke of luck The Heaper must have figured out what to do and helped me out.
I guess he can be pretty helpful sometimes. I sighed as I watched the Noise fade into nothingness. Sho reappeared next to me, a smug smile on his face. "I see you figured it out." He laughed, "Aren't you lucky you've got a genius like me helping ya? You would've been trashed by that thing if I didn't notice its weakness to light."
"..Wait, weakness to light? I thought the light was just blinding it." I scratched the back of my head, I didn't like feeling ignorant, but I wasn't in the right state to argue. "This is what it meant by spotlight isn't it?" I finally realized after a while. I looked over at Sho who simply nodded at me.
"Alrighty, so, mission complete, eh?" Sho smiled, shoving his hands in his pockets, "plenty of time to spare too." Sho said, glancing at his now-stopped timer. "Wonder why they gave us so much time. Not like we needed all of it." I sat at the edge of the stage, letting my legs dangle over the side as the performer packed up. The crowd in front of us had already started to leave, leaving only that performer, Sho and myself. After packing away his guitar, he stood. Facing us. "…Can he see us?" Sho suddenly asked, I wondered the same thing as it seemed like he was looking right at us.
"Congrats." He said, "You've completed your mission." I quickly got up from my sitting spot and stood facing him, Sho crossed his arms as he glared at him. "Don't worry, I'm not here to hurt you." He laughed as he lifted his hat. The man looked considerably young, no older than Sho maybe. "Neku Sakuraba." He said as his eyes pointed at me, "And… Sho Minamimoto" he continued as his eyes drifted over to him, Sho merely glared back, not saying anything. "It's quite an honour, meeting a third time player. And a Former-GM." I tensed up at this, he knew of the game, and what's more, he knew who we were.
"…Who are you?" I finally asked, hovering my right hand over my Grave Marker pin. "And how do you know who we are?"
"Hah, of course, my apologies." The man laughed, lowering his hat again, that smirk of his still visible. "I'm the new GM."