Popping out of Aoi's duel disk were three colours, blue, red and black. The three colours fired out in an energy beam before taking solid form.

"How…. how did you…..?" stuttered a shocked Aoi who was still on the phone to Emma who had told her they knew where Akira was.

"What is it Aoi?" Emma asked.

"I… Emma… you know?"

"Come meet me up at Stardust Road, I have the others here as well."

"I… okay fine… I hope you're right about this." Aoi replied as she shut off her phone. Her attention now had to switch from one big piece of news to another. There standing in front of her after all these weeks were Aqua along with Flame and Ai. They had been waiting for the phone call to finish.

"Long time no see, Aoi." Aqua said cheerfully.

"Aqua… I…. Flame… Ai… I… don't know what to say…."

"Words would help!" Ai joked.

Aqua floated up in front of Aoi and the human and Ignis felt exactly the same thing.

"I missed you." both said at the same time as Aqua floated onto Aoi's shoulder.

"But… why are you guys here? You went with Lightning to your new world?" Aoi asked.

"Lightning went too crazy with protection…" Flame said with his arms crossed.

"We had to escape via any means… and after we did, SOL tracked us down via their network tunnels." Ai continued.

"Lightning was very over protective before but… it seems like he's gone mad." Aqua explained.

"Jin will need to hear about this then…." Aoi put her hand to her mouth to think.

"So how have the others been?" Ai said.

"I… erm…."

"You've not seen them, have you?" Aqua bluntly said.

"I can't try and lie with you, can I, Aqua?" Aoi replied. "After defeating the Knights of Hanoi… I've been trying to dig into information about SOL Tech and what they did to my brother but… everything has turned up useless."

"Until now! The exact time we arrived, you got a call from Emma… we really do bring good luck!" Ai replied.

"Where is this Stardust Road?"

"It's just outside of Den City but why would Emma ask to meet me there?"

"If they gained such vital information… SOL might have been able to track them so they've had to move." Aqua explained.

"Indeed… wait…. you guys escaped from SOL as well… will they track you here?!" Aoi panicked.

"Aqua got us out of there at such a high speed, there's no way they had time to follow our path." Flame said.

"That's great. Right, you guys go back into the duel disk, I'll make my way to Emma."

Emma

On Stardust Road, Emma, Yusaku, Jin and Kusanagi were in there van which had to be moved due to SOL tracking their location after they had hacked their way into the SOL database.

"We should be safe here." Kusanagi said.

"Unless they did track us…." Takeru muttered.

"No, we made sure of it." Jin replied. "They'll only be able to track our original position. Plus they would never expect it to have come from here so CCTV-wise, we're fine."

A knock was heard at the door of the van as Yusaku opened it up. It was Aoi who had come via the bus.

"You took your time…" mocked Emma.

"We don't all have motorcycles."

"Aoi! How have you been?" Jin asked.

"I'm good… and I'm glad to see you guys all doing well." Aoi looked at the others in the van.

Yusaku noticed a shine come from Aoi's blue duel disk.

"Oh yeah… I have a guests…." Aoi said as black and red energy beams shot out and into Takeru and Yuskau's duel disks.

"What?" Yusaku said as Ai appeared.

"Long time no see, Playmaker!"

"Ai… how… why are you here?"

"That means…?" Takeru saw Flame appear.

"Takeru, I hope you've been taking care of yourself." Flame said.

"Flame!" Aqua popped out of Aoi's duel disk as well which surprised Emma.

Jin looked at his duel disk and didn't sense the same feeling Takeru and Yusaku had felt.

"Where's… Lightning?"

"Um…." Aqua looked at Jin. "I will try to explain."

….

"I… are you sure Lighting isn't being misunderstood?" Jin asked.

"I wish it was true but no… he did want us trapped." Aqua replied.

"I… I only knew Lightning for a shorter period than the rest of you but I didn't think he would turn out this way…"

"I don't know what to think either." Aqua stated.

"Let's put that issue aside for now… Aoi, we know where Akira is being treated."

"Is it… bad news?"

"No, Akira is alive but… SOL is holding him out of the city." Emma replied.

"Where exactly?"

"He's still in a coma but right now he's being treated at a SOL base outside of Den City. About two hours away."

"Why… why would they hide this information? Why isn't Den City good enough?" Aoi questioned.

"What matters is we know the location. We gained this information from hacking SOL."

"But they knew they were hacked so they might move him." Jin added.

"Which is why we should go there before they do anything else." Kusanagi said.

"But if whatever happened to Akira left him needing treatment… even if we could get to him… the only way would be is to leave him with SOL?" Aqua said.

"We can worry about that at that time… at least with Queen in charge I could talk to her… I don't know what SOL can do with this Kitamura in charge." Emma responded.

"He's just a puppet in charge… whoever… whatever wants Akira is above him… they removed Queen so I doubt she had any input." Yusaku said.

"Right… Emma, you can take me to Akira, right?"

"I presume you mean all of us?" Takeru added.

"No. Just me."

"So you're keeping to that line then…." Emma sighed.

"Wait… why just you?" Aqua asked.

"It's no one else's job to get Akira… we did our job to beat the Knights of Hanoi but this is my own personal job and duty."

"That's wrong." Flame replied.

"You want to protect us but your business is also our business." Takeru said.

"SOL created LINK VRAINS by using our data material… they chased us just hours ago!" Ai hit back.

"SOL might be doing to Akira, it might tie into you Aoi and if ties into you… it ties into all of us." Yusaku added.

"We know you mean well by not letting anyone else getting involved but that's not your decision to take." Jin said.

"But…"

"We're going to help get Akira, Aoi… we could really use your help but we're going regardless." Emma said.

"Aoi, you know it's the right thing to do." Aqua said.

"There's nothing to gain by going it alone." Jin replied. "You have friends who wish to help you."

"So… none of you mind… even if you do end up getting into trouble?" Aoi asked.

"I will always fight alongside you." Aqua said.

"Of course!" Jin replied. "What gave you the idea that we wouldn't?"

"I guess… after the sufferings before I took on the Knights of Hanoi… I had none of this… I guess I didn't want to put it at risk by doing dangerous tasks..."

"Well it's not all on you, Aoi." Yusaku said which took Aoi by surprise as Yusaku spoke up.

"Yeah, we will get your brother back and stop SOL once and for all!" Ai yelled.

"We need to work out what SOL Is planning first." Yusaku replied.

"Oh yeah… but we can still save Akira!"

"Thank you guys… all of you…. right, we need a plan if we are to get Akira back." Aoi said.

"And us Ignis will be there along with you this time." Aqua said.

SOL Tech

Inside his office, Kitamura was once again coming face to face with the chess piece, King.

"I told you last time not to allow them to find out anything which is stored on our server… and yet that's what they did."

"I…. I can explain….!" Kitamura rubbed his hands with nerves.

"There's nothing to explain." King yelled with a booming voice. "The Ignis also got away while back inside our own network."

"But that Water Ignis… it's more powerful!"

"We're aware of that after the Knights of Hanoi and so were you. Queen was removed because of her failure and you have equalled if not surpassed that level. LINK VRAINS also still remains with data material."

"I need one more chance!"

"You had your chance, Kitamura. You are relived on your duties. You are to leave SOL Tech with immediate effect."

Coming into his office security guards grabbed Kitamura.

"You can't touch me!"

"Your security passes will be removed and access codes reset. Goodbye Kitamura."

As Kitamura was dragged out the office became a light blue room in which several other chess pieces, the SOL board, all appeared.

"Another one now removed…." Bishop said.

"This is getting embarrassing." Rook added.

"We shall have to activate the final protocol." King said.

"Is he ready?"

"As ready as anyone can be." King and the other chess pieces all faded.

Aoi

"Entering the SOL facility will require the help of the Ignis." Kusanagi said as he had printed off a picture of the complex. It was advertised as a SOL Testing facility which didn't help Aoi's nerves.

The base was surrounded by AI drones and fencing plus whatever else was lurking within the building.

"We can easily take this stuff down!" Ai bravely said.

"SOL want to capture us remember… this could all be a trap." Flame replied.

"We're going to do this." Aqua said. "But… even though you hid your identities when hacking into their servers… if you act on the information stolen, they'll know it was you who hacked them."

"Yes and if we use you guys… they'll also know that we're Blue Girl, Playmaker and Soulburner…." Aoi replied.

"It doesn't matter." Yusaku said. "We have to save Akira Zaizen. The Knights of Hanoi were the ones we had to hide our identities from."

"Speak for yourself!" Takeru panicked. "SOL is the world's biggest tech company! Won't they be able to do legal stuff to us? We are breaking the law!"

"Yes… the Knights of Hanoi would've been able to do who knows what if they found out who we truly were but SOL… they could have the police around our houses within minutes." Jin added.

"This is why I suggested I do it alone." Aoi said.

"And you would've stood no chance." Emma replied. "If SOL is doing what we think they are doing, they won't want to raise this to the police. Last thing they'll need is someone investigating them with more resources."

"We know what's on the line…. let's get started." Yusaku remarked.