Hello everyone! Kitty Matrix with Chapter Two of The Renegade Maiden. I didn't get many reviews for the last chapter but I hope I get more for this one.
This chapter goes a little bit more in depth into character and plot development. I would also suggest you read Too Little Too Late (the one part prequel to this fanfic) that goes again into character development. But it isn't necessary.
The time system in this story goes the way I think it does. Please do not e-mail me saying you believe it is this way because I don't think its ever really explained in ReBoot the series.
Nanosecond – Second
Nano – Minute
Millisecond – Hour
Second – Day
Minute – Week
Cycle – Month
Hour – Year
Okay now that I have that over and done with I have one last comment. This story is rated between PG-13 and R depending on how graphic I go into details later. This story shall not become a hentai (NC17), I do not write hentai stories so please do not request them.
The Renegade Maiden
Chapter Two – "I Feel Empty", Sora's Viral Upgrades
By Kitty Matrix
"Let me go!"
"Come on girl, can't you handle this? I thought you were a renegade. Stupid little guardian!"
Grunting with pain, Sora collapsed to the ground as five nails dug viciously into the back of her neck. Looking around her one more time, she surrendered to the unconscious spell, which threatened to control her every movement.
The next thing Sora knew she was lying on a cold and hard medical table. Everything around her was tinted with crimson. Her eyes ached with a burning pain and her stomach and womb ached. Numbers displayed themselves in a vivid yellow in the lower corners of her vision, forever changing as she moved her body. She raised her hands to rub her eyes but realized they couldn't touch her. She quickly felt around her eyes and realized that somehow there was a barrier of some sort, a visor, placed in the way. She slowly gripped the sides and tried to pull it off, to no prevail. Following the contours of the visor around the side of her head, she realized that somehow it was attached to the sides of her head, causing excruciating pain. She searched the ending until she felt something beneath her fingers, a button of some sort. Pressing the button on the right side of the visor, the visor shrunk into a small black square beneath the button on the right side of her head. Before she knew anything, she was thrown back as it seemed an explosion happened from her eyes. Two dangerous red lasers shot out from her eyes, the crimson colour disappearing and being taken over with a hot red, burning colour.
Quickly she reached for the button again on the right side of her head. Pressing it quickly the visor covered her eyes again.
"What in the name of the User?" she cursed as she sat up, rubbing her head, her eyes closed tightly. Then opening them again she surveyed the damage she had caused, her hand still nursing her aching head.
All the equipment inside of the room had been destroyed, as well as the wall that had been behind the equipment. Her eyes wide in surprise, she forgot the pain in her head as she stalked towards the damage.
The 16-hour-old sprite didn't know what to make of the damage. It was as if the wall had been melted.
"I see you have seen one of your upgrades, Miss Matrix." Someone growled from behind her. Turning she lay eyes upon the virus that had attacked her earlier.
"What have you done to me?" she demanded.
The virus merely smiled.
"You have been what do you sprites call the procedure? Ah yes, you have been an experiment specimen in a few viral experiments."
Sora's eyes burst wide in surprise. She had heard of viral experiments. They were when the new viral council of four decided to try and combine a sprite's code with that of a certain virus or many viruses making them somewhat of a viral sprite. Then they would usually infect the sprite, making them their slave. Sora found it hard to believe that she, a renegade, a guardian, had fallen victim to such a monstrosity.
"If you still do not believe me look at your icon."
Sora's eyes wondered down her new outfit, a black, thick-strapped tank top and tight black shorts. Finally her eyes lay on her icon at the center of a thick black belt. It was the same as always, with the yellow triangle, but instead of yellow framing the black triangle it was green.
Green was the colour of virus victims.
"But why?"
"We need a pawn, someone who the people trust. You shall be that pawn."
"Pawn? How?"
"We weren't expecting you awake so soon, but no matter. We have yet to infect you. When you are infected you shall do our bidding, whether you want to or not."
"Never,"
"Oh but you shall. Your new viral powers and attributes, as well as viral encoding shall make you our pawn. Believe me or not, Miss Matrix (or should I say Renegade Maiden?) you shall be our pawn."
"Never!" Sora shot out towards her, poisonous nails extended. The virus countered quickly, hitting her towards the ground. Sora's legs ached as they banged into something attached to either leg. The numbers at the bottom of her visor began to go off again and some sort of scanner process began. She saw the numbers scan than stop at a simple number 564. Beside the number was written the word "virus class five super virus". Immediately a targeting system appeared before her vision and the words "guns targeting" appeared below it. But the image before her had changed; it was as if she were looking at the floor. Then she realized she was looking through something's targeting system and they were pointed at the ground. Reaching down she felt the two objects on her legs, two guns. She pulled them out and pointed them towards the virus and as she raised them she looked dead on at the virus. The targeting locked into place. Quickly she pulled the triggers on the guns, immediately throwing the virus across the room.
Sora put the guns away at her sides and the targeting symbols disappeared and once again she was looking through her visor. Quickly Sora dashed towards the hole in the wall formed by her eyes. But before she reached there someone grasped a hold of her wrist. Sora screamed loudly as another hand placed itself onto her head, hitting the button and disabling her visor.
Sora shot awake, breathing heavily with sweat dripping down her forehead. Quickly she reached up, checking her visor to see if it was still in place. When she was confident it was okay she ran her hand down her cool sweating face, she rubbed her forehead with her palm.
It was only a dream. For a nanosecond she had thought it was real and that she was still a 1-6 datasprite guardian who had first undergone the procedures.
Those days still seemed so fresh in her mind although she new they were four hours ago.
Relaxing, she lay her head back down on the pillows. She closed her eyes, and covered her face with her hands as a silent tear formed in her eye and was immediately evaporated by the energy beams forever coursing beneath her visor.
Bob was brought viciously back to reality from his dream after hearing a scream. He immediately shot out of bed, dashing towards the spare bedroom of his apartment. Troy was coming up the hallway next to Bob, the two nearly colliding into each other in the darkness. After exchanging a nervous look Bob pushed open the door to see Sora lying there in the spare bedroom, sweat pooling down her forehead. Her head was in her hands as she lay there amongst the pillows that had been tossed about the bed and the ruffled sheets. Bob reached over hitting on the light.
Both Bob and Troy stumbled into the room, Troy pushing forwards and took a seat next to Sora on the bed.
After a few moments of silence, Troy looked at Sora who seemed oblivious to Bob and Troy's presence or at least she showed no sign of acknowledgment. Finally he spoke. "It was that dream again, wasn't it?"
Finally Sora acknowledged the sprites. She propped herself up on her pillows. Looking deeply into Troy's eyes she relaxed and fell back into the pillows again.
"Sor I swear you haven't slept a whole night since that second. Please Sor, you need some help."
"Give me a break Troy, you know how many times I've tried to get help. What happened has happened and somehow I can't get over it. Somehow I think that's what they planned."
Bob quizzically looked at his future niece.
"Who planned what? What dream?"
Troy turned to look at Bob and Sora did as well. They then exchanged a glance and Sora shook her head at Troy. Troy looked on sympathetically at his friend than turned back to Bob.
"Bob she can't tell you."
"Why not? I want to know why I was awoken by her screaming."
"It's just a nightmare, mate, nothing to worry about."
"Like hell it is. Listen Sora if your worried I'm going to tell Matrix or something don't be. I wont tell him." Bob pleaded.
Finally Sora sighed and beckoned Bob over to the bed. He took a seat next to Troy and looked to Sora who was now sitting up.
"It's a long story, I hope you don't mind missing a few milliseconds of sleep." She commented as she began her tale.
Bob lay awake later as the morning desktop slowly rose. He seemed oblivious to the time; all that he seemed to know at that moment was Sora's story. He could make out every detail of the scene, every detail on the viruses face, every emotion, every movement.
At moments he could swear his eyes were going crimson. At times he could swear he could feel the intense burning her eyes provide. At times he could swear he was sitting in that room, the viruses looking over, the infected binomes probing. It all seemed so heartless and cruel; it all seemed so livid with anger and fear. Life seemed to pool apart in a million different directions.
How could the User let this happen? How could anything, no matter how evil or sinister, do that to an innocent sprite?
Bob didn't know. All that he knew was that his future niece had gone through things he couldn't speak of outside of those walls or outside of the circle of three. He had sworn on the code although his senses begged him to reveal her secrets.
They would remain boiled inside.
Seven Cycles Later
AndrAIa waved another binome past who carried another china pattern or dress design tucked in between their hands. AndrAIa swore that if she had to look upon another china pattern, dress design, meal menu, or cake design she would scream.
Quickly pushing herself out of the way of a group of incoming binomes, she walked towards the door of the wedding planner's store and exited out onto Baudway.
She couldn't take this anymore!
Sora exited the wedding planner's shortly after AndrAIa, carrying a few random things the wedding planner had thrown at her before she had left. Sora quickly walked over the closest garbage can and threw all the things in.
"I'm still sticking with the whole you guys should elope thing," she stated simply taking out her zip board.
AndrAIa did the same and the two women headed off towards Dot's Diner. "I'm beginning to think that would be a good idea but you know after the whole Mouse and Ray eloping thing I think Dot would shoot me."
Sora raised an eyebrow.
"Huh, I thought Matrix and I were the ones who did the shooting."
"Let's just say guns run in the family." AndrAIa stated remembering the gun Dot had brought out when they were battling the web creatures that had entered Mainframe.
Sora merely shrugged as they reached the city limits of Hard Drive, which, thanks to Dot, Welman, and Phong with a little help from some old backup files that Phong had managed to find in the principle office databanks had recently be arisen.
Quickly passing through the portal that connected the two cities, the two sprites remained in silence, not quite knowing what to say. AndrAIa had never had this problem with Matrix, and even though Sora and Matrix were so much alike, she knew that there were issues she couldn't touch with Sora. Sora was the type AndrAIa wasn't afraid to talk to but the type AndrAIa knew she couldn't always talk to. Sora's past had clouded her opinion on many things, including her opinions on AndrAIa herself and she knew that Sora would take offence to many things or wouldn't talk about things.
Sora hopped off her zip board and walked past the two Friskets, lying facing each other at the door of the Diner. Sora patted their heads, awakening them quickly and then continued into the diner. AndrAIa patted their heads as well and continued behind her future daughter.
Cecil immediately perked up as the renegade and her past mother entered into the diner.
"How did zee planning go, Miss. AndrAIa?" Cecil questioned as he distastefully watched Sora slump into one of the booths, brushing against him and sending him rocking back and forth.
"Fine Cecil." She concluded entering the booth across from Sora.
Sora rolled her eyes beneath her visor and sighed distastefully.
"What?" AndrAIa asked looking towards Sora, her eyebrow raised.
"This is stupid you know. You should just bring a few people to the principle office and have Phong marry you and Matrix now. I mean come on, all these frilly little details, china patterns, tablecloths; I mean give me a break! They had you picking out the rest room colours for the building facilities that were being created for the wedding!"
AndrAIa laughed lightly.
"Well actually I think they're going this so that they have an excuse to build a new celebration hall. Mainframe hasn't had one for hours and I have a feeling Dot wants one. Somewhere where she can hold functions and stuff."
Sora sighed heavily.
"That's exactly what she's doing. You should've seen the look on her face when the infected guardians and troops first entered Mainframe before we put the firewall up. They arrived right above it and bam! They landed right on the roof and let's just say boom."
"Poor Dot," AndrAIa said fighting the laughter that threatened to spill from within her. Although she knew it wasn't funny and that it was a serious matter she couldn't help but laugh as she pictured the expression on Dot's face as her perfectly designed celebration hall was smashed into rubble by falling guardians.
"One of the only funny memories I have of the stupid viruses," Sora said, her face still remaining grave although she seemed to lighten up for a moment. AndrAIa smiled. It was a look she had become familiar with. Matrix had always used it when they were game hopping and when they first got back to Mainframe. It had taken her hours to get him to smile again but sometimes the expression would resurface when Matrix was thinking about something humorous that had happened in the games.
This time it was Sora's turn to look quizzical. "What?" she asked in puzzlement.
AndrAIa continued to chuckle and shook her head slightly.
"You are just like your father,"
Sora raised and eyebrow and shook her head. "I'm not sure if I should be happy or insulted by that."
"Insulted by what?" Matrix asked as he entered the Diner taking his seat next to AndrAIa and placing his arm around her waste.
"I was just saying that Sora is a lot like you and she replied that she wasn't sure if she should be happy or insulted by that." AndrAIa's smile brightened as Matrix glared at his future daughter who shrugged.
"It was an honest comment," Sora said matter-of-factly.
"Watch it kid," Matrix declared, "you don't what to suddenly find yourself with one limb shot off."
"Only one? Boy what a threat." Sora rolled her eyes. "I've had worse threats from a baby web rider."
"Who says it's a threat?" Matrix asked smugly.
Sora glared at him and held out her hand across the table, removing one of her black gloves that covered up to her fingers that she occasionally wore.
"Do you know why I'm not afraid of you?" she asked smugly.
"Why?"
"Do you see the faint rectangle on my hand?" she asked motioning towards her right hand extended across the table.
"Ya," Matrix stated after searching very hard for it. It had been concealed so well it looked like a simple scar that she'd had since childhood.
Sora pushed upon it lightly, wiggling it slightly in rhythm until it seemed to open like a hatch door. It popped up on what seemed like a tiny hinge. On the inside tiny networks of wires extended and all that could be seen were wires and electronic programming.
"Its an artificial hand," Sora stated shutting the piece of her hand. "I lost my hand in a fight against the viruses' forces when I was 1-5."
"Nice," Matrix stated enthusiastically, interested by the hand. He acknowledged it not as mechanical masterpiece like AndrAIa did, but as an interesting war wound that should be recognized.
"Magnificent, well not that you lost it, but the engineering is incredible. How in the name of the User did anyone ever manage to reach this point in modern day medicine? Its incredible."
Sora rolled her eyes at AndrAIa and pulled her hand away, shutting the small piece of her hand again.
"Ya well its not so nice when a wire comes lose in the middle of a battle."
"Ya but mate it hasn't happened in what, two hours now?" Troy stated laughing as he entered into the conversation when he entered the diner.
"One hour and it can still happen." Sora glared at him.
"Oh well Sor, you've been through worse."
"That I have," she agreed. Sora closed her eyes and leaned back against the back of the booth for a moment before getting up and heading towards the exit of the diner.
"I'm going to go shoot some targets." She said simply before walking away, rubbing her robotic hand lightly.
Sora rubbed her hand across her visor, whipping it clean of the sweat that pooled down her forehead. Sweat…often the only sign that she was tired. She often lost feeling in her body; pushing herself so hard that the viruses' secret upgrade into her system took control. They made it so often she would push herself so hard that she wouldn't feel. When someone touched her, she often didn't know. When she grew tired, often she wouldn't know until she passed out. It was a terrible feeling, a terrible yet great feeling. The power that was needed to harness such abilities were amazing, even though in truth it could end her life. Often she prayed it would, especially at that moment as she took a small calendar out of her pocket. Glancing down at it, she had the date circled on it. Exactly twenty-eight days since the last time she had circled a date. Rubbing her womb softly, her eyes stung as salty tears evaporated again.
She had watched and listened as AndrAIa and Mouse planned for the births of their children. Sora was thankful at those moments that they couldn't see her eyes.
"I feel empty." She stated solemnly. "Why did this happen to me? I wish I knew. I don't know if I can handle it anymore." Turning over onto her side, Sora lay there in the green grass of one of Mainframe's parks.
The evening desktop began to overpower as the afternoon desktop set in the distance, releasing a beautiful pink and red scene overhead on the horizon as the black darkness of the night time desktop pushed the second away. It felt to final to Sora, as though the second were dying twixt the milliseconds gone by. Wrapping her arms around herself, she shut her eyes calmly, allowing the rare feeling of exhaustion to sweep over her.
She hadn't slept lately. The dreams seemed more and more frequent as the second went by. She knew that she was running out of time before the Viral Council of Four would first show their faces.
Was that what the dreams were signifying? The coming of the Council?
Sora didn't know. All that she knew was that she needed sleep.
…Sora put the guns away at her sides and the targeting symbols disappeared and once again she was looking through her visor. Quickly Sora dashed towards the hole in the wall formed by her eyes. But before she reached there someone grasped a hold of her wrist. Sora screamed loudly as another hand placed itself onto her head, hitting the button and disabling her visor.
Then all went dark. The world around her seemed to shatter. She wasn't the little 1-6 hour old sprite that she had been just a moment before in the dream. She had just been in the scene again, back when she first discovered her upgrades.
But it was different. Nothing was there. Her visor was still there but the colours were gone. The crimson light was gone. All that she saw was black, white a grey. The occasional flash of lightening across her vision glowed with a bright white and grey. Everything around her was black.
It seemed like an eternity before anything else happened. A figure in the darkness seemed to appear. A silhouette of a woman, with short hair seemed to stand before her. Ashe reached out a hand for Sora.
She could hear a soft familiar voice around her. "Sora…help me…I need you. Help me…"
Sora could feel the presence of the person reaching for her and Sora couldn't help but reach back.
"Help me…"
Reaching…
"Help me…"
Reaching…
"Help me…"
Reaching…
Help me!"
Almost there…
"HELP ME!"
But as Sora seemed to reach the figure's hand it happened. Four hands, each different, seemed to grab a hold of the figure and pulled at her. Sora's eyes grew wide as she continued to reach. Finally the figure, screaming in agony, was released and tumbled to the ground. Sora wanted to run to her but something inside her told her to stop. Sora could feel the temperature drop and she shivered. She could see her breath against the dark background of the abyss before her.
She could now hear a silent cry. The figure was crying. Still Sora wish to reach for her, but when she finally gathered the courage to go to her the crying stopped. She could sense the anger from her, as though the figure hated Sora.
The figure rose to her feet, floating into the air. Sora could feel a strong wind coming from her direction and Sora's braided hair flew backwards behind her. She could feel the wind push her backwards yet Sora pushed on, reaching towards the figure, trying to get to her.
"You…you did this to me. You monster." The figure rasped, her anger rising. "You destroyed everything I was."
Sora couldn't say a word. All that she knew was the figure seemed to form a ball of energy in her fist and shoot it towards Sora.
"DIE!"
That was the last thing Sora was conscious of.
Sora shot awake. Her eyes darted around her, looking desperately to see if she was still caught in the nightmare. The darkness of the night around her was somehow welcoming. It was a friendly darkness, a darkness that showed small pixels in the sky and a large pixel mound in the centre of the sky, that the binomes called their moon. A night time desktop had never seemed so comforting to Sora before.
What was that dream about? Sora didn't know. All that she knew was that at that moment, the green of her icon was glowing.
End of Chapter Two
Please review! I want to know what you think so far! I really do. I want to know if you like the way the story is going. But believe me, there are most twists ahead.
Now we know what the viruses did to Sora, or do we? The wedding is approaching. But amongst the planning for the beautiful wedding, an evil threat lurks and planning has begun to deal with it. But will it truly be enough to stop the evil viruses or will Sora let her emotions get the better of her? Chapter three holds many answers.