Sorry its been a while! But here I am again! Writers block sucks though... :(
Big thanks go to Sundown17 for submitting Dusken, an OC of his!
Disclaimers for SAO, SWTOR, Mataras, Wyvern Inferno and Dusken go to their respective owners!
Chapter 25: The Star Forge
Sarah took over as Emma's caretaker while Michael was in hospital. She glanced up at the clock, they had agreed they would dive at 7pm, in ten minutes they would begin the real reason for diving into Old Republic Online.
To save Rika, Sayuri, Asuna and Marcus.
Sarah faltered when she thought of the Arctic Swordsman. Although she would never admit it to anyone, she needed his friendly smile, his carefree attitude and his warm heart.
She turned her attention to Emma, who was walking- with a few stumbles- without crutches, sitting down on her bed, she smiled at Sarah, "Good job kid, you did it, goodbye wheelchair, goodbye crutches?" She asked.
"I'll keep one crutch around just in case, but yeah, now it's just about speeding up," Emma said.
"Yeah, but I know you can do it," Sarah smirked, ruffling the younger girl's hair, who squirmed at the action with a giggle.
"Five minutes, time to dive, I think," Emma said, glancing at the clock.
"Where is Keiko?" Sarah asked.
A knock at the door answered that question, when the taller blonde opened it to see the youngest black cat.
"I'm sorry I'm late! My main route had a road closed due to ice present," She panted.
"It's fine, we were about to dive in without you though," Emma smiled.
Keiko quickly set up her Nervegear, and the three girls took their places.
"Let's finish this," Sarah smirked.
"Link START!"
Angel blinked as when she heard a large number of shouting going on outside Melody's ship.
Coming down the ramp, she was shocked to see Mataras, Sinon, Kirito and Leafa blocking the way.
"What's going on?" Silica asked, confused.
"Well… lots of players want to take part in the Star Forge quest, and this happened," Sinon muttered.
Mataras sighed. He then turned to Angel, "Mind shutting them up?" He asked.
"With pleasure," The bounty hunter set her gauntlets to flamethrowers, then let off a blast of fire to the sky.
"Everyone! Quiet!" Mataras boomed. Everyone shut up. "Thank you! Now, we will accept only a few of you, then, the rest of you will be insignificant."
"You better not be calling us insignificant," A familiar voice remarked, and two figures pushed through the crowds.
"Ren, Helios, glad to see you made it," Kirito said.
"Indeed, Sinon, sign them up," Mataras nodded.
As the two Wyvern Inferno members went up the ramp, Angel turned back to the crowds, "Anyone else?" She asked.
"Well, there's me," Kilran's voice called from the crowd, followed by a younger boy. "I brought my brother, Recon, he's good in a fight, so don't count him out," He said. Kilran was dressed in a brown long coat, two blasters strapped to his hips, under the coat seemed to be a grimy breastplate, black pants and boots. To top it off, he had a very large, but awesome looking hat on.
Recon was in the black and red armour of an Imperial Trooper, a blaster rifle cast casually on his right shoulder. A jetpack was strapped to his back, and he had a wide array of bombs on his belt. His avatar seemed to be a Chiss, distinguished by their blue skin and red eyes, and he had black hair.
"Who else?" Asked Leafa, who eagerly hugged her boyfriend.
A million voices all yelled out as the words left her mouth, "I wish to come," A voice called, several pairs of eyes glanced to the source, a Republic Soldier emerged from the crowd.
He was wearing white armour with red shoulder pads, a black bandolier slung around him, and a helmet with several optical enhancements on it. Slung over his shoulder was a very thin sniper rifle, but the difference between this one and Sinon's was that it seemed to look more like an old flintlock musket than a blaster, a blade was strapped to the muzzle as well, like a bayonet.
A heavy looking pistol was resting on his left hip, and a pair of knives were strapped to his armour, one on his bandolier, the other on his right hip.
"I don't recognise you from the tournament. Who are you?" Melody asked, in response, the trooper removed his helmet, shocking the girl. He had strawberry blonde hair, and green eyes that seemed familiar to her.
"My name is Dusken, you are Melody, correct?" He asked, looking at the younger trooper.
Before she could answer, Kirito, Mataras and Angel each stepped between the two, a protective aura hung from all three.
"What's up Mel?" Asked Angel.
"I remember you… you were one of my suitors, weren't you?" She asked.
Dusken's eyes lit up, "So you do remember…" He muttered softly.
"Explain how you know this boy Melody," Mataras asked.
"It's ok, you can join our quest," Melody said to the red swordsman, before turning to Dusken.
Mataras moved aside, "Be quick, and keep your distance from Melody until I have heard her explanation," He ordered him.
Not wanting to anger the Red Swordsman, Dusken did so, stepping up the ramp after glancing at Melody.
"Litrosh, do you know anything about what's going to happen on this quest?" Mataras asked his Varactyl partner.
"No, I'll need to be on the Star Forge before I can get any data from it," The former dragon replied.
"Alright then, Melody, Sinon," Mataras turned to the two. They looked at him when he spoke, "Go warm up the engines, we're lifting off. And ask Helios to come back down."
The girls nodded, running up the ramp, Helios emerged a minute later, "You call?" He asked.
"Make them go now," Mataras said, nodding to the crowd.
"Gladly," The trooper laughed, manifesting his assault cannon. "Alright cupcakes, you heard the man, time to go!" He called, the weapon now pointed at the crowd.
"But we wanna go! You can't possibly think you'll make it with just a handful of you! Let us throu-" A loud thud echoed through the hangar as the large trooper smashed the barrel of his weapon into the player's chin.
"Any more objections?" He asked. No one replied, instead choosing to leave quickly.
"Thank you," Mataras grinned.
Everyone climbed aboard as the ramp started to rise, and the ship jetted out into the void of space.
Melody asked Sinon to enter the coordinates for Lehon, home of the Star Forge, as she did, a notice came up.
'Your ship is outfitted with the necessary item to carry out the quest "The Star Forge", do you accept this quest?' Both players, who were the two party leaders, accepted the notice.
At that, the stars began to blur as the ship shot into Hyperspace.
At that moment, Mataras entered the cockpit, pretty much dragging Dusken. Kirito and Angel walked in behind them.
"Sinon, would you mind?" Mataras asked. The blue haired girl nodded, and headed down to join the others.
"Right then, spill everything," Kirito told Dusken.
The boy nodded, glancing at Melody, "As Melody said, I am one of her former suitors. So she may give you confirmation of who I am, I shall give my name, it is Kyrian Miles, I am sixteen years old," He said.
"I definitely remember you, you were one of the kinder suitors that my sorry excuse for a father set up. I'm sorry I declined you back then, I was still young, and had no interest in marriage, at this moment, my opinion stays the same," Melody nodded.
"So then, Dusken, how did you come to be here today? Melody's brother told us that they lived in the USA," Kirito asked.
"Good question Master Jedi. But it is a story for another day," Dusken said, flinching. He looked at Melody, "Where is your brother now? I feel like I owe him an apology, I feel like I owe you one too," he said. Then, he dropped to a kneeling position, head held low, "Emma, I apologise for everything that has happened to you, from when we met onwards, I heard that you had an assassination attempt halted by your brother," He said.
Melody looked flustered at the boy's actions, "It's ok, you don't need to apologise," She said. "As for my brother…" She glanced at the others, who nodded. "He's the reason I'm here today."
And the four took it in turns to explain to Dusken that several of their friends, Marcus included, were trapped in the Star Forge.
"Then my rifle is yours, where you go, I will too," Dusken said, placing a hand on his heart.
The five then went down into the hold, where everyone else was.
"Alright, gather around everyone," Kirito called.
Everyone looked up at him, and stood to stand around the holotable in the middle of the room.
"Melody, bring up any files on the Star Forge," Angel said.
The young rifleman nodded, pushing a few controls on the panel in front of her.
"The Star Forge is known hostile space, it is controlled by the Sith Empire, under the personal command of the Dark Lord Revan, his Sith ally Malak, and several other threats." She said.
"What was the story last year?" Ren asked.
"A massive force of Republic and Empire stormed the place, there are apparently three main bosses, but they were not revealed to the rest of us, well… they were, but they are changed every time the quest happens." Sinon spoke up.
"Who were the bosses last year?" Asked Dusken.
"The first was identified as The Exile, this is actually the main character of the KOTOR II game, so her abilities were unknown," Leafa said.
"The second was Shae Vizla, a Mandalorian woman who was in charge of the House Vizla at this time," Sinon said.
"The third was never revealed, as the party was wiped out by an ambush on the way to it," Melody finished.
"So we must be prepared for anything," Mataras summed up. Melody nodded. "Perfect."
"The terrain we're going to be facing are long narrow hallways, not ideal for snipers," Kilran pointed out, glancing at Sinon and Dusken.
"I'll be fine, I've trained in close quarters sniping," The latter smirked.
"Me too," Sinon nodded.
Melody thought of something, then went to her storage vault, and put something in her inventory, her rifle vanished into blue, and a large gun big enough to put Helios' to shame took its place. She seemed to grunt at the added weight, but it didn't bother her more than that.
"Bringing out the big guns eh?" Sinon asked.
"Yeah, I must do this, because of my brother's first character a long time ago, in the old version of this game," Melody nodded.
The weapon looked like a flak cannon had been shrunk down to a carry-able size, two barrels backed into the main weapon, a large energy pack was on the top.
Helios glanced at his weapon, then at hers, "trade?" He asked with a puppy face.
"No, this is my baby," Melody smirked at him.
An alert came from the cockpit, Melody glanced up, put her weapon on the ground before running up. Everyone else followed her up, each wanting to see their destination.
As the stars blurred back to normal, everyone bore witness to the huge super structure before them. Mataras remembered the photo Andrew had shown them, thinking it wasn't that big, no. it was bigger.
The whole thing was bristled with weaponry, turbolasers, laser cannons and ion cannons were only the beginning, Mataras definitely saw some missile batteries that were currently silent.
"Ok, Sinon, enable the EM shield," Melody ordered. Sinon nodded, making some commands in her console, everyone heard a whirring sound come to life.
"Shield active," Sinon nodded.
"Alright then, I see where we need to go," Melody said, she glanced back at the passengers. "Might want to hold on to something!"
At those words, she jerked the controls forward, pushing her ship to the limit of its speed. "Close S-foils, we're running right past these guns," She ordered.
Sinon nodded again, and carried out her task without a word.
Mataras gripped Melody's seat tightly, as the ship screamed towards the station.
"Well. They haven't started firing yet," Kirito breathed.
Everyone looked at him, except Melody.
"Why would you say that!?" they all asked. As they finished, the entire station lit up as weapons fire burst out to meet the small ship.
"Jesus, looks like fireworks on New Year's Day," Mataras muttered.
"Kirito, I'm going to kill you when we get out of this!" Melody growled.
Sinon's console lit up, "missile lock, we have inbound missiles!" She called.
"How many?" Asked Dusken.
"I'm not even going to check," Sinon nervously laughed.
"Fair enough," Replied the republic sniper.
"Might I suggest evasive manoeuvres?" Mataras asked.
"Excellent suggestion!" Melody shot back, yanking her controls to the right.
Anyone not sat down felt the ship flipping as the young pilot began to weave her way past missiles and lasers.
"Your shields are holding for now, but one more hit to the engines and we could be in trouble," Leafa said from a different console.
"Chaff depleted, any missiles are up to you now," Kilran reported.
"Right, Sinon, power up the cannons, hit any gun emplacements between us and that hangar," Melody snapped.
Sinon grinned, carrying out her task with the eye of a sniper. Gun after gun stopped as her lasers streaked across the surface.
Mataras watched her work, this wasn't anything like the sweet innocent girl he had taken care of for two months, she was just like the rest of them, a hardcore gamer at heart.
"Sinon, hold fire, I want all power converted to forward shields and engines," Melody ordered.
"But at that speed… will you be able to stop in time?!" Kilran asked from his station.
"Won't be any harder than the Kessel Run," Melody grinned.
With this new change, Melody shot the ship to its limit.
"Approaching hangar. Melody…" Sinon said.
Melody didn't stop.
"Melody? You can slow down now."
The girl kept going.
"Melody!" Leafa shrieked as the ship rocketed to the hangar.
At the last possible second, Melody pulled back on the throttle, the ship crawling into the hangar and down onto the deck.
Everyone collapsed as the ship powered down.
"I told you we'd make it, no problem," Melody laughed.
Mataras just groaned as did everyone else.
Once they had recovered, everyone grabbed their weapons and exit the ship, anyone with a blaster all dived for cover as the doors opened to reveal a welcoming force of droids.
"Fire!" Melody called, her weapon roaring to life, as did the others.
The combined firepower of the players each shredded the droids to pieces, depleting their health completely.
At that moment, Kirito, Yui, Ren, Mataras and Leafa rushed down the ramp, lightsabers active and humming. Litrosh bounded aside them, claws ready to tear.
The result of the assault team's charge was that they practically steamrolled through the droid forces, cutting them down without hesitation.
This fight lasted a mere five minutes, due to the size of the defending force. Mataras grunted as he sliced the last droid in two. "That was a nice warm up, what next?" He asked.
Yui, Litrosh and Pina were each taking in as much data as they could, "We've just gathered everything we can, and know the set route through this questline," Yui said.
"Then lead the way you three," Kirito told them.
Yui nodded, and sprinted through the door opened by the droids, Kirito, Mataras and Ren were right on her heels, the rest of the crew keeping up in a scattered formation through the halls.
They turned the corner, and lightsabers burst into action as three automated turrets roared to life, lasers screaming from their muzzles.
"Sinon, Dusken, we need to shut them up, but we can't lighten our reflexes or you'll get hit," Ren said.
Both snipers nodded, dropping to a knee, they both took careful aim at two of the turrets, a high pitched squeal sounded from Sinon's, while the sound of a gunshot came from Dusken's rifle. A red laser slammed into the support of the turret on the left, while a physical projectile jammed into the barrel of the one on the right. When the laser made to fire, it backfired, and destroyed the weapon.
At the same time, Melody's weapon heated up heavily, and a form of shock blast spat from the muzzle. "It's a stun blast, hit it while you can!" She explained.
Mataras nodded, rushing by the turret and destroying it with a single swing.
The room past the turrets opened up to be rather large, with containers stacked up to the roof, and a strange walker was deactivated in the corner. A Walkway was on the right side of the room, with stairs to get up there.
"I don't like this…" Kirito muttered.
"Agreed, be on guard," Ren nodded.
The door at the far end opened, causing every weapon to be pointed at it.
"Greeting: Welcome meatbags," a robotic male voice said.
"We're dead…" Melody whimpered, as a single droid walked in.
"What? It's just one droid?" Helios scoffed.
"Offended Statement: I will have you know I am not 'Just one droid'," The droid droned.
"Oh wait… now I think I know," Ren paled.
"He gets it," Sinon nodded.
"Introduction: I am HK-47, my primary functions are Manslaughter, Assassination, Interrogation."
"He's the personal assassin droid of Revan himself, back in the old game, he was such a nightmare because he had an ability that could one-shot you!" Melody explained with fear.
"Regretful Comment: I regret to inform you that my master would like you dead," HK-47 said, pulling out a rifle. "I must comply."
"Here we go guys! Boss number one!" Kirito called.
"Beginning termination procedures," and two health bars appeared, and the name HK-47 appeared above his head.
The droid promptly vanished into thin air, "Here we go, watch your backs, use any stealth detection," Melody called.
Dusken's helmet started glowing, "I got something, Mataras! On your six!" Mataras whirled around, saber howling at the motion, to land a hit on the droid, making his cloak drop.
"Unexpected," He said, before opening fire at Dusken, then spun around, throwing a pair of knives at Kilran, Dusken ducked under his, but a knife wedged itself into Kilran's shoulder.
The force wielders quickly rushed HK, dealing as much damage as they could. The droid then let out a shockwave, which pushed them all away. He then vanished into thin air again.
Dusken's visor lit up again, and he rolled right as a knife suddenly stabbed out at him, the sniper then pulled out his pistol, firing powerful lasers at the droid.
Helios and Melody then opened fire, pouring bolts on HK-47, who made a robotic whine at the number of lasers hitting him.
"Assistance required, enemy proving a challenge," He said. Kirito's ears picked up the sound of whirring, and turned to see a squad of probe droids hovering towards them, sparking erratically.
"We got adds! Silica, Angel, Kilran, Recon, Helios and Melody, focus on them, everyone else handle the boss!" Ren called.
The six called names nodded, turning their weapons on the droids, Melody gunned one down, then heaved her cannon around, smashing it into another, as she turned back, she saw one slip in to her weak spot. It sparked once, before exploding, sending the young trooper flying.
"Melody!" Called Dusken, the girl landed in a heap on the other side of the room. The sniper heard a whirring and whipped around to quickly fire at one probe aiming at him.
HK turned to finish Melody with a big barrage of lasers, when Helios stood in the way, a light shield appearing around them both, "You alright half-pint? Don't expect me to be there for you all the time," He asked her.
Melody looked up to see the giant trooper standing there, "Thanks Helios," She grinned, clambering to her feet. Her weapon had disappeared when she was launched, so the girl pulled her pistol from her belt.
"Here, I want it back once we're done here," Helios grabbed his own sidearm and handed it to her. She took it, nodded to him, and they both re-joined the fight.
Mataras and Ren were currently rushing the boss, swatting aside any laser bolts and cutting through his knives.
"Just fall apart already!" Mataras roared, leaping at the droid, blade ready.
As he did, HK vanished again, "Damn it!" He grunted. As he scanned his immediate surroundings, he felt something sharp stab into his back.
"Mataras!" Kirito yelled. The red Jedi's health had dropped into dangerous red levels.
"Don't concern yourself with me, finish this rusty pile of bolts!" Mataras told him.
Kirito was about to attack, but HK suddenly had a blade sticking out of his own chest. Behind him, Silica stood, a long black dagger was currently in her hands, "Let us through!" She cried, before removing the blade and sticking something to HK-47's back.
Silica back flipped twice, then drew her pistol and fired. The bolts connected with the item, and detonated, dismantling the droid into several pieces.
Melody caught the head, and gazed into the eyes, "Not so tough now, are you?" She said, and threw it away.
Kirito pulled Mataras to his feet, "Here," He handed a kolto pack to his red counterpart, who administered it instantly.
"Right, once everyone is back to top condition, we move on," He called out to the group.
After more charging through the station, cutting down mobs with little difficulty, the assault team arrived in an opening, standing on a bridge in the center of the room was a man, a single red lightsaber was in his hands.
As the team examined him, they noticed something, "Darth Malgus," He said, identifying himself, through a mask coving the lower half of his face. His yellow eyes scanned his opponents.
"Isn't this the guy on the box art?" Helios asked.
"Uh huh, and I remember my brother having an easier time against this guy than HK," Melody nodded.
"My master Lord Revan, will not be stopped, accept your fate, you will die here," Malgus said.
Kirito, Mataras, Leafa and Ren stepped up, "We'll handle this guy, you guys watch for any adds," Ren said.
"A lightsaber is the best way to fight this guy, so I won't argue," Sinon nodded. "But be careful, we cannot afford to lose you guys."
"Glad to know you care about us," Mataras chuckled, his lightsaber activating.
"I will destroy you all!" Malgus said, before charging at them. Two health gauges appeared next to his name.
"Ren, Yui, hang back and observe his patterns, ready guys?" Kirito asked.
"Yeah!" Lightsabers were activated, and battle was joined.
Ion: Won't be long now!
Mataras: This is proving to be interesting!
Melody: Did you really need to make me sound so violent in the ship?
Asuna: I think it made you look really independent.
Sachi: She's right, you sounded so... determined.
Kirito: It's the Gamer's Determination, understandable that she has it considering who her brother is.
All: Next time: Light and Darkness!