.Hack//Heist
A .Hack fanfiction by Renfro Calhoun
Disclaimer: Project .Hack and related creations != mine. Story = mine.
Notes: Takes place shortly after Mutation begins - very shortly. Parentheses indicate thoughts. It's time for some kung-fu fighting. Everybody's all fast as lightning. In fact, it's gonna be a little bit frightening.
Chapter XVIII - Q&A WTF
------------
"So then what happened?"
The Wave Master was typical in appearance; slight of figure and dressed in blue robes, blonde hair mashed down by a brown leather cap, gold facial tattoos framing solid green eyes, wide with worry and animate to say the least. She noticed him constantly glancing left and right, trusting only his eyes to detect the enemy.
"Well," he said, "by the time I caught up with them it was basically over. Got there just in time to see Wallyk's body disappear." He shuddered. "He'd been cut in half."
BlackRose cringed. "Cut in half? What did you do?"
"I tried throwing a spell at him, but he was too quick. A couple seconds and he was practically on top of me." With a frustrated grunt, he added, "Damn tough, too... resistances jacked through the roof. Had to have been, like, level 60 or something. Barely got out alive myself."
She nodded. "Well, he fits the description, but I don't understand why he'd try to PK someone. Did he say anything?"
"No, that's the weird thing. He didn't ask us for anything, just launched into attacking." He paused. "Who is this guy, anyway?"
The Heavy Blade shook her head, tossing a few strands of pink hair about. "I don't know exactly. He said he was investigating all the weird things that have been happening, but..."
He frowned. "Well, I don't know about that... but we sure have never seen him before. I mean, he was at least as powerful as Orca or Balmung... you'd think somebody would know about a PKer that high level running around. Like, uh, what's-his-name... Sora, that's it."
BlackRose closed her eyes, letting out a loud, heavy sigh. "Neither has anybody else I've talked to. It's like he just sprung up out of nowhere." (This doesn't make any sense at all. If he was just a player-killer, then why lead us on like that?)
His eyes twitched. "I better get going. Listen, take my advice: if you see this guy, make a run for it."
The Wave Master vanished in a flash of sliding gold rings, leaving BlackRose alone in the middle of the vast, earthen field, surrounded only by periodic rock formations and the occasional root vegetable, each and every portal since opened by the Heavy Blade to ensure no interruptions.
(If only it were that easy,) she thought, slowly walking up to the nearest boulder and sitting down, leaning back against it. Blade lying on the dirt next to her, she allowed her eyes to drift upward, staring into the murky storm clouds, churning as if trapped in a collosal blender set to liquify. (Kite better hurry up and get here. I'm not waiting all day for him.)
(Of course,) she continued, (it's not like I have a choice...) She sighed, her purple-red eyes gazing out at the World around her. (Not like any of this is by choice.)
Her thoughts again drifted to her absent compatriot. (At least he knows what I'm going through. I thought I was going crazy at first... a game doing that to Kazu...) She shook her head. (So much is happening, and I don't know what to make of any of it.)
Try as she did, she couldn't deny that what little she had learned, she owed to Kite. The whole of the mystery seemed to center on the bracelet he bore, or at least a large part of it, and somehow she sensed that it, which bore the same power that had harmed her brother, held the key to his recovery.
She remembered feeling a sense of relief when she discovered Kite's motivation for playing. With no one to believe her in reality, it was comforting to know someone in The World did.
A single footstep from beyond the boulder jarred her thoughts. (Finally!) she thought as she retrieved her sword, moving back to her feet. "What took you so long??" she called, circling around to face the new arrival.
She was instantly taken aback as she came face-to-face with Tamon. "Ahh?!" she cried, leaping back into a defensive posture.
The Long Arm paid her no attention, a strangely distant look to his eye. His body made no movements common to players of The World - no breathing, no breathing or change in stance, no evidence at all that the avatar was controlled by a human being. His spear hung loosely from his right hand, threatening to drop at any moment. A gust of wind passed without interruption around his body, his long blonde hair and loose, blue outfit not in the least bit disturbed by its passing.
She blinked. "Tamon? What's going on?"
Upon hearing his name, he blinked, seeming to come back to The World in that instant. His eyes shifted to hers, lifeless, emotionless.
BlackRose narrowed her eyes, pointing a finger at Tamon in accusation. "People have been saying that you're killing players. Is this true?!" she half-shouted. "And what happened with that thing earlier?"
He flinched briefly, almost imperceptively; he gazed up and down her body, memorizing every detail. He blinked again, his eyes suddenly alight in recognition.
"Tagged entity One identified," he said. In a more objective moment, BlackRose might have noticed that the voice he spoke with was not his own. As it were, her eyes zeroed in on the spear in his hand, which he had since tightened his grip on and raised to strike. "String definition: BlackRose," he added, a slight twist to his lips that could have been a smirk or a frown, she wasn't sure which.
"Proceeding with intrusion countermeasures." At this, battle was joined; he lunged at BlackRose, spear at the ready.
The Heavy Blade's reaction was instinctual; she brought her own massive weapon up and clashed blades with the Long Arm, catching the tip of the spear in a firm parry. The harsh grinding of steel against steel filled her ears, and she grunted loudly as she pushed into the block, trying to force Tamon off his balance.
The Long Arm suddenly twisted away to the left, breaking the parry and spinning in a full circle, spear trailing behind him in a wide arc. BlackRose ducked back to avoid the attack, the tip narrowly missing the spiked tip of her arm guard. Spotting an opening, she instantly rushed back in close, bringing her blade high over her head and chopping down hard at Tamon with a mighty growl.
The blonde spearman mimed her evasion, stepping back and avoiding being struck as the blade sailed within inches of his skull. His eyes dropped to the ground, where he drew his spear in a wide sweeping motion, deliberately drawing the weapon down past BlackRose's attempted block and striking at her legs.
The spear connected along the shaft, the blunt edge slamming into the back of her knee and forcing her to buckle but doing far less damage than the attached blade would have. Startled, she leaned back and flailed with her free hand, madly struggling to maintain her balanaced, giving Tamon the time he needed to reinforce his swing and follow through, sweeping the Heavy Blade's legs out from under her.
BlackRose fell onto her back with an unceremonious thud, coughing loudly from the sudden impact she couldn't feel, her forced exhalation largely psychological. Her gaze, now facing the murky gray above, was interrupted by a flash of steel as Tamon hefted the spear and brought it down towards her head.
"Damn!" she cried, rolling to her right to escape the attack. She quickly scurried back to her feet, adopting a guarded posture, panting heavily. From the corner of her eye, she noticed a large gash in the ground where her head used to be.
Her illusions collapsed like a house of cards on a waterbed. For her, this battle was all too real.
The glint of steel again caught her eye, but this time she was quicker; with an almost painful "Kiai!" she swung her blade out and connected with the spear, hooking her blade in the junction between the spear tip and the shaft. Using her temporary advantage in leverage, she forced the weapon to the ground, burying the saw-like spearhead into the dirt.
Changing her grip, she prepared to slide the blade free and up the shaft, into a fluid upward slash across his chest. The plan went awry almost immediately, however, when a powerful right hook connected with her jaw, knocking her backwards. Stunned by the blow, she barely saw Tamon follow up with a haymaker, a rock-solid punch that carried through perfectly, throwing her head to the side and with it her body; she spun like a top and coiled away from their entangled weapons, dropping harshly to the ground.
She heard steel slide against steel as her weapon, now separated from her possession, fell away. Her eyes blurred with tears of pain, drowning out the heads-up display, further stripping her of The World as only a virtual reality. Pain turned to anger when she heard footsteps approaching, the shadowy figure of Tamon entering her field of view. She struggled to stand, and watched the Long Arm effortlessly twirl the spear in his hand before raising the weapon to deliver the killing blow.
Instinct taking over, she dove away at an angle, rolling forward and to the left side of Tamon; she heard the whoosh of air as the spear sailed past her head, almost swearing that the razor-sharp edge had taken a lock of hair with it. The blade glanced off her upper arm, breaking skin but deflecting instead of cleaving through, doing damage that could be measured in double digits.
Her gambit paid off; too close to use the spear, too awkward to risk hand-to-hand, Tamon could only turn and face BlackRose as she landed, tucking and rolling away towards her discarded Heavy Blade.
Heart beating frantically, she nonetheless managed a confident smirk as she retrieved her weapon and brought it up to face Tamon. "Is that the best you can do?!" she hollered, bolstering her temporarily weakened morale.
Genuine confidence gave way to obvious facade as the Long Arm charged, moving with almost inhuman speed; the spear swung again and again, wood and steel clashing against the massive length of BlackRose's weapon, barely keeping up with the Tamon's attacks. Finally, his superior speed prevailed, snaking a blow past the Heavy Blade's guard and scoring a hit to her side, a long jagged slash that carried enough force to knock her back several paces.
"Ow!" she cried, stumbling backwards, blade raised warily to parry the next attack. For some reason, the wound was far more debilitating than any other she could recall; she found herself hunched slightly to her left, favoring her injured flank. "Damn it all..." she muttered, warily watching her opponent, who steadily advanced upon her, spear again held high, poised like a cobra ready to sink its fangs into anything that got even close.
A faint whistling suddenly tore through the air, and Tamon lurched violently to his right, doubling over from the force of an unseen blow. As he recovered, BlackRose got a better look; a short sword had embedded itself in the side of his chest, buried almost to the hilt. Tracing from its point of entry, BlackRose followed it back to its owner: a confused, angered, and very familiar-looking Twin Blade, both hands holding his remaining weapon menacingly.
"BlackRose!" shouted Kite; with his remaining blade, he gestured to her, directing an impeccably-timed Ol Repth her way.
The wounds disappeared, and with them their burden; making a mental note to thank Kite later, she immediately returned to her combative instincts and renewed her assault on the stalled Long Arm. An almost animalistic cry shot forth from her lungs as she drew her blade across in a powerful horizontal chop; Tamon attempted a block, but was easily bested as the blade knocked the spear aside, cleaving a huge gash across his abdomen.
Stricken, Tamon reeled backwards; before either player could advance, a set of golden rings appeared from the air and spilled over his body, causing him to vanish from sight. The imbedded short sword, now free from its fleshy roots, clattered to the ground with a dull thump.
Gasping for breath, exhausted and spent, she flipped her blade over and buried the tip in the ground, giving it a proper base to stand as she leaned heavily against it. A deep sigh escaped her lips, followed with a hacking cough as her pulse slowly relaxed.
She had almost forgotten about the Twin Blade when he spoke again, now quite near her. "BlackRose, are you all right? What happened?"
She wanted to say 'Yeah, I'm okay. Thanks.' She would've settled for, 'I'm fine.' What actually came out surprised her more than him. "What does it look like?! That guy Tamon tried to kill me!" (Oh, crap!) she thought as soon as the words left her mouth. (I didn't mean to come off like that...)
Before she could properly express herself, Kite had spoken again. "I'm sorry I took so long. Are you okay?" he asked again, now visibly concerned.
Thanking the nearest god for a second chance, she nodded, straightening up and pulling her blade loose from the ground. "I'm fine... he got a few lucky hits, but it's not too bad." Again, there was more she wanted to say, but a trace of her character's trademark pride got the best of her.
He smiled. "Well, I'm glad you're okay." The smile instantly vanished when he remembered why he had come in the first place. "So, what happened? And what did you find out?"
BlackRose closed her eyes, drawing a long breath of air through her nose. She held it for a moment, and then released it, finally feeling her heartbeat drop to some semblance of normality. "Maybe we should take this conversation somewhere safer." Her eyes opened again. "I'll open up a chatroom. Look for my name; I'll put yours as the password."
Kite nodded. He sheathed his blades and offered a quick, "See you there," before logging off, the red-clad Twin Blade vanishing in the traditional fashion.
Left by herself once more, she threw a glance at the spot where she and Tamon had dueled; her eyes fell to the gash in the dirt where Tamon's spear had nearly killed her. Another sigh, this one shaky and strained; she turned away and issued the command to log off.
"Thanks, Kite," she whispered as The World vanished from her eyes.
- End of Chapter XVIII
A .Hack fanfiction by Renfro Calhoun
Disclaimer: Project .Hack and related creations != mine. Story = mine.
Notes: Takes place shortly after Mutation begins - very shortly. Parentheses indicate thoughts. It's time for some kung-fu fighting. Everybody's all fast as lightning. In fact, it's gonna be a little bit frightening.
Chapter XVIII - Q&A WTF
------------
"So then what happened?"
The Wave Master was typical in appearance; slight of figure and dressed in blue robes, blonde hair mashed down by a brown leather cap, gold facial tattoos framing solid green eyes, wide with worry and animate to say the least. She noticed him constantly glancing left and right, trusting only his eyes to detect the enemy.
"Well," he said, "by the time I caught up with them it was basically over. Got there just in time to see Wallyk's body disappear." He shuddered. "He'd been cut in half."
BlackRose cringed. "Cut in half? What did you do?"
"I tried throwing a spell at him, but he was too quick. A couple seconds and he was practically on top of me." With a frustrated grunt, he added, "Damn tough, too... resistances jacked through the roof. Had to have been, like, level 60 or something. Barely got out alive myself."
She nodded. "Well, he fits the description, but I don't understand why he'd try to PK someone. Did he say anything?"
"No, that's the weird thing. He didn't ask us for anything, just launched into attacking." He paused. "Who is this guy, anyway?"
The Heavy Blade shook her head, tossing a few strands of pink hair about. "I don't know exactly. He said he was investigating all the weird things that have been happening, but..."
He frowned. "Well, I don't know about that... but we sure have never seen him before. I mean, he was at least as powerful as Orca or Balmung... you'd think somebody would know about a PKer that high level running around. Like, uh, what's-his-name... Sora, that's it."
BlackRose closed her eyes, letting out a loud, heavy sigh. "Neither has anybody else I've talked to. It's like he just sprung up out of nowhere." (This doesn't make any sense at all. If he was just a player-killer, then why lead us on like that?)
His eyes twitched. "I better get going. Listen, take my advice: if you see this guy, make a run for it."
The Wave Master vanished in a flash of sliding gold rings, leaving BlackRose alone in the middle of the vast, earthen field, surrounded only by periodic rock formations and the occasional root vegetable, each and every portal since opened by the Heavy Blade to ensure no interruptions.
(If only it were that easy,) she thought, slowly walking up to the nearest boulder and sitting down, leaning back against it. Blade lying on the dirt next to her, she allowed her eyes to drift upward, staring into the murky storm clouds, churning as if trapped in a collosal blender set to liquify. (Kite better hurry up and get here. I'm not waiting all day for him.)
(Of course,) she continued, (it's not like I have a choice...) She sighed, her purple-red eyes gazing out at the World around her. (Not like any of this is by choice.)
Her thoughts again drifted to her absent compatriot. (At least he knows what I'm going through. I thought I was going crazy at first... a game doing that to Kazu...) She shook her head. (So much is happening, and I don't know what to make of any of it.)
Try as she did, she couldn't deny that what little she had learned, she owed to Kite. The whole of the mystery seemed to center on the bracelet he bore, or at least a large part of it, and somehow she sensed that it, which bore the same power that had harmed her brother, held the key to his recovery.
She remembered feeling a sense of relief when she discovered Kite's motivation for playing. With no one to believe her in reality, it was comforting to know someone in The World did.
A single footstep from beyond the boulder jarred her thoughts. (Finally!) she thought as she retrieved her sword, moving back to her feet. "What took you so long??" she called, circling around to face the new arrival.
She was instantly taken aback as she came face-to-face with Tamon. "Ahh?!" she cried, leaping back into a defensive posture.
The Long Arm paid her no attention, a strangely distant look to his eye. His body made no movements common to players of The World - no breathing, no breathing or change in stance, no evidence at all that the avatar was controlled by a human being. His spear hung loosely from his right hand, threatening to drop at any moment. A gust of wind passed without interruption around his body, his long blonde hair and loose, blue outfit not in the least bit disturbed by its passing.
She blinked. "Tamon? What's going on?"
Upon hearing his name, he blinked, seeming to come back to The World in that instant. His eyes shifted to hers, lifeless, emotionless.
BlackRose narrowed her eyes, pointing a finger at Tamon in accusation. "People have been saying that you're killing players. Is this true?!" she half-shouted. "And what happened with that thing earlier?"
He flinched briefly, almost imperceptively; he gazed up and down her body, memorizing every detail. He blinked again, his eyes suddenly alight in recognition.
"Tagged entity One identified," he said. In a more objective moment, BlackRose might have noticed that the voice he spoke with was not his own. As it were, her eyes zeroed in on the spear in his hand, which he had since tightened his grip on and raised to strike. "String definition: BlackRose," he added, a slight twist to his lips that could have been a smirk or a frown, she wasn't sure which.
"Proceeding with intrusion countermeasures." At this, battle was joined; he lunged at BlackRose, spear at the ready.
The Heavy Blade's reaction was instinctual; she brought her own massive weapon up and clashed blades with the Long Arm, catching the tip of the spear in a firm parry. The harsh grinding of steel against steel filled her ears, and she grunted loudly as she pushed into the block, trying to force Tamon off his balance.
The Long Arm suddenly twisted away to the left, breaking the parry and spinning in a full circle, spear trailing behind him in a wide arc. BlackRose ducked back to avoid the attack, the tip narrowly missing the spiked tip of her arm guard. Spotting an opening, she instantly rushed back in close, bringing her blade high over her head and chopping down hard at Tamon with a mighty growl.
The blonde spearman mimed her evasion, stepping back and avoiding being struck as the blade sailed within inches of his skull. His eyes dropped to the ground, where he drew his spear in a wide sweeping motion, deliberately drawing the weapon down past BlackRose's attempted block and striking at her legs.
The spear connected along the shaft, the blunt edge slamming into the back of her knee and forcing her to buckle but doing far less damage than the attached blade would have. Startled, she leaned back and flailed with her free hand, madly struggling to maintain her balanaced, giving Tamon the time he needed to reinforce his swing and follow through, sweeping the Heavy Blade's legs out from under her.
BlackRose fell onto her back with an unceremonious thud, coughing loudly from the sudden impact she couldn't feel, her forced exhalation largely psychological. Her gaze, now facing the murky gray above, was interrupted by a flash of steel as Tamon hefted the spear and brought it down towards her head.
"Damn!" she cried, rolling to her right to escape the attack. She quickly scurried back to her feet, adopting a guarded posture, panting heavily. From the corner of her eye, she noticed a large gash in the ground where her head used to be.
Her illusions collapsed like a house of cards on a waterbed. For her, this battle was all too real.
The glint of steel again caught her eye, but this time she was quicker; with an almost painful "Kiai!" she swung her blade out and connected with the spear, hooking her blade in the junction between the spear tip and the shaft. Using her temporary advantage in leverage, she forced the weapon to the ground, burying the saw-like spearhead into the dirt.
Changing her grip, she prepared to slide the blade free and up the shaft, into a fluid upward slash across his chest. The plan went awry almost immediately, however, when a powerful right hook connected with her jaw, knocking her backwards. Stunned by the blow, she barely saw Tamon follow up with a haymaker, a rock-solid punch that carried through perfectly, throwing her head to the side and with it her body; she spun like a top and coiled away from their entangled weapons, dropping harshly to the ground.
She heard steel slide against steel as her weapon, now separated from her possession, fell away. Her eyes blurred with tears of pain, drowning out the heads-up display, further stripping her of The World as only a virtual reality. Pain turned to anger when she heard footsteps approaching, the shadowy figure of Tamon entering her field of view. She struggled to stand, and watched the Long Arm effortlessly twirl the spear in his hand before raising the weapon to deliver the killing blow.
Instinct taking over, she dove away at an angle, rolling forward and to the left side of Tamon; she heard the whoosh of air as the spear sailed past her head, almost swearing that the razor-sharp edge had taken a lock of hair with it. The blade glanced off her upper arm, breaking skin but deflecting instead of cleaving through, doing damage that could be measured in double digits.
Her gambit paid off; too close to use the spear, too awkward to risk hand-to-hand, Tamon could only turn and face BlackRose as she landed, tucking and rolling away towards her discarded Heavy Blade.
Heart beating frantically, she nonetheless managed a confident smirk as she retrieved her weapon and brought it up to face Tamon. "Is that the best you can do?!" she hollered, bolstering her temporarily weakened morale.
Genuine confidence gave way to obvious facade as the Long Arm charged, moving with almost inhuman speed; the spear swung again and again, wood and steel clashing against the massive length of BlackRose's weapon, barely keeping up with the Tamon's attacks. Finally, his superior speed prevailed, snaking a blow past the Heavy Blade's guard and scoring a hit to her side, a long jagged slash that carried enough force to knock her back several paces.
"Ow!" she cried, stumbling backwards, blade raised warily to parry the next attack. For some reason, the wound was far more debilitating than any other she could recall; she found herself hunched slightly to her left, favoring her injured flank. "Damn it all..." she muttered, warily watching her opponent, who steadily advanced upon her, spear again held high, poised like a cobra ready to sink its fangs into anything that got even close.
A faint whistling suddenly tore through the air, and Tamon lurched violently to his right, doubling over from the force of an unseen blow. As he recovered, BlackRose got a better look; a short sword had embedded itself in the side of his chest, buried almost to the hilt. Tracing from its point of entry, BlackRose followed it back to its owner: a confused, angered, and very familiar-looking Twin Blade, both hands holding his remaining weapon menacingly.
"BlackRose!" shouted Kite; with his remaining blade, he gestured to her, directing an impeccably-timed Ol Repth her way.
The wounds disappeared, and with them their burden; making a mental note to thank Kite later, she immediately returned to her combative instincts and renewed her assault on the stalled Long Arm. An almost animalistic cry shot forth from her lungs as she drew her blade across in a powerful horizontal chop; Tamon attempted a block, but was easily bested as the blade knocked the spear aside, cleaving a huge gash across his abdomen.
Stricken, Tamon reeled backwards; before either player could advance, a set of golden rings appeared from the air and spilled over his body, causing him to vanish from sight. The imbedded short sword, now free from its fleshy roots, clattered to the ground with a dull thump.
Gasping for breath, exhausted and spent, she flipped her blade over and buried the tip in the ground, giving it a proper base to stand as she leaned heavily against it. A deep sigh escaped her lips, followed with a hacking cough as her pulse slowly relaxed.
She had almost forgotten about the Twin Blade when he spoke again, now quite near her. "BlackRose, are you all right? What happened?"
She wanted to say 'Yeah, I'm okay. Thanks.' She would've settled for, 'I'm fine.' What actually came out surprised her more than him. "What does it look like?! That guy Tamon tried to kill me!" (Oh, crap!) she thought as soon as the words left her mouth. (I didn't mean to come off like that...)
Before she could properly express herself, Kite had spoken again. "I'm sorry I took so long. Are you okay?" he asked again, now visibly concerned.
Thanking the nearest god for a second chance, she nodded, straightening up and pulling her blade loose from the ground. "I'm fine... he got a few lucky hits, but it's not too bad." Again, there was more she wanted to say, but a trace of her character's trademark pride got the best of her.
He smiled. "Well, I'm glad you're okay." The smile instantly vanished when he remembered why he had come in the first place. "So, what happened? And what did you find out?"
BlackRose closed her eyes, drawing a long breath of air through her nose. She held it for a moment, and then released it, finally feeling her heartbeat drop to some semblance of normality. "Maybe we should take this conversation somewhere safer." Her eyes opened again. "I'll open up a chatroom. Look for my name; I'll put yours as the password."
Kite nodded. He sheathed his blades and offered a quick, "See you there," before logging off, the red-clad Twin Blade vanishing in the traditional fashion.
Left by herself once more, she threw a glance at the spot where she and Tamon had dueled; her eyes fell to the gash in the dirt where Tamon's spear had nearly killed her. Another sigh, this one shaky and strained; she turned away and issued the command to log off.
"Thanks, Kite," she whispered as The World vanished from her eyes.
- End of Chapter XVIII