.Hack//Heist
A .Hack fanfiction by Renfro Calhoun
Disclaimer: Project .Hack and attached characters and concepts do not belong to me.
Notes: Takes place in that fuzzy grey area of time between Infection and Mutation, and just a little past the start of the latter. Parentheses indicate thoughts. More two-sided goodness here; my apologies for the slightly out-of-character 'patent pending' joke towards the end there, but I'm pretty sure there's one or two guys out there who know what I mean :)
And on an unrelated note, "Aliens" is the best sequel ever. Yes, even better than "Breakin' II".
Chapter XX - Intermezzo Two
------------
"Jesus, lady! What's the matter with you?!"
No sooner had the gray-clad, silver-haired Wave Master stepped into range of BlackRose's massive weapon than he found himself face to face with the pointy end of it. Her expression was stern and suspicious, her eyes narrowed and brow furrowed.
While possessed with no particular hatred for Stolls, Kite found himself in a similarly less than amiable mood, reflected in the uncharacteristic coldness behind his eyes. Something very wrong was going on, and he made a silent vow to himself that he'd get to the bottom of it.
"Why'd your friend come after us?" challenged BlackRose, grazing the Wave Master's jaw with the tip of her blade.
Stolls blinked, clearly puzzled by the question. "What? Wait... what are you talking about?"
The Heavy Blade's questioning stare grew hostile. "Don't play dumb!" she shouted. "Your friend attacked me earlier tonight, the Long Arm."
His light green eyes widened as glanced back and forth between Kite and BlackRose. "Tamon?" he asked, a subtle disbelief in his tone. "He... attacked you?"
Kite nodded. "I found out about it before you e-mailed me," answered the Twin Blade. "Why did he attack her?"
"Look, man," said Stolls, visibly disturbed or frustrated, Kite couldn't tell which. "I don't know who or what you two saw, but Max... Tamon's player, he's in the hospital right now, comatose."
(What?!)
Kite instantly glanced over at BlackRose; her harsh glare had vanished into a bemusedly blank expression, and she gave a slight shake of her head, her blade lowering. "But... I saw him... he attacked me." She turned back to Stolls. "It was him, I recognized him!"
To her surprise, Stolls glared back; his character's youthful eyes grew aged and steely in an instant, his voice conveying a strict no-nonsense attitude. "Hey, I just got back from the hospital an hour ago," he said, "he's been a goddamn vegetable since that thing got to him."
(That thing... Delphi? It got to him, and... oh no, maybe it was...) Kite's half-thoughts spurred him to speak one of them. "Was he... data drained?" he asked, taking a step forward as BlackRose fell silent, eyes averted.
Stolls wrinkled his eyebrows, peering quizzically at Kite. "Data drained? Well..." he trailed off for a moment, rubbing his chin with his free hand. "Before I got disconnected, the... it did something to him. I wasn't sure what..."
Kite nodded. (Him, too...) "My friend... Yasuhiko, the same thing happened to him. Skeith data drained him." His throat clenched for a moment as he gestured east, pointing to the stairs leading into the dungeon. "Right down there. And the next day, I found out... he'd been put in a coma."
He only half-heard Stolls' reply, his eyes still staring at the passage, into the inky blackness beyond the archway. "Yeah. Yeah, that's... that's what happened. He went into a coma right after that Delphi thing attacked him."
Kite's head drooped slightly, recalling the incident which had occurred beneath his very feet; the shocked expression on Orca's face as he uselessly struck at the monster, his terrified scream as the skeletal 'phase' literally rewrote the code which formed him, to the extent that the player himself was somehow struck down.
"But I know it was him," said BlackRose. "More than that, he recognized me."
The Twin Blade snapped back to attention at BlackRose's voice, facing the other two. "There was another player," said Stolls slowly, again rubbing his chin thoughtfully. "Supposedly he couldn't log out, and played outside the boundaries of System Administration. At the same time he was in The World, his player was in a coma."
"I remember hearing something about that," said BlackRose. "The character was alive in The World, independent of the player. I think his name was... Tsu... Tsukasa, maybe?"
(A player trapped in The World... how could that be? How could any of this be possible??)
"Right," said Stolls. "That might be the case here... but the question is, why hasn't he contacted us? And for that matter, why'd he attack you?"
Something clicked in Kite's mind; recalling BlackRose's earlier queries, he tilted his head to the Wave Master. "Stolls," he said, scratching the back of his neck, "who are you guys?"
Stolls was apparently thrown off by the question, replying with a confused "Huh?"
BlackRose leveled her gaze at Stolls, her eyes again held traces of suspicion. "I did some asking around. Nobody I've spoken to has seen you around more than a week ago, and you told Kite you know about Skeith and the Data Bugs." She paused for emphasis, then added, "Why did you want Kite to help stop that creature? And why are you interested in these things?"
Stolls waited for a few seconds before replying, an obvious hesitation to his words. "Well, I said I'd tell you everything, and I will." He inhaled long and slow, and exhaled likewise. "Tamon, Deisart and I were hired by a rival company to hack into CC Corporation's mainframe and steal data."
Kite blinked. "You guys are hackers?"
He nodded, and idly toed the ground with his shoe. "Sort of. My name's Dean... I'm a private investigator. Deisart is Shinji, he used to work for Cyber Connect. And Max, or Tamon as you know him, he works with the company that hired us. The deal is we get the data for them, and they pay us $50,000 each."
Somewhere between curious and nervous, Kite spoke again. "What kind of data is it?"
"I don't know for sure," admitted Stolls with a shake of his head. "They said it's accounting data, but just tonight CC sent some guys after us. Turns out, they were following us, and sent Delphi in to attack us in The World."
BlackRose's jaw dropped, her eyes widening in an incredulous stare. "They SENT that thing?!"
Stolls nodded. "Yeah. They're trying real hard to protect the data, whatever it is... that's why I don't think it's accounting data at all."
(So that's it,) thought Kite. (But what does that have to do with me?) He voiced the thought, silently pondering whether he wanted to hear the answer.
"Do either of you know about the test version of The World? The one that came out before the retail version?" A nod from both Kite and BlackRose prompted Stolls to continue. "Well, they kept a backdoor directly through their mainframe onto what would become the Delta server, y'know for maintenance access and stuff. When they updated everything for retail, they never removed the backdoor. So, we need a hacker to break through the firewall around it; of course, this is accessible only through The World, so twiddling bits wouldn't cut it."
Hiroshi felt Stolls' eyes on him, through his avatar. "That's why we needed you, Kite. We needed your help to hack through the firewall so we could access their mainframe. That's it."
A breeze stole through the air, rustling the grass; Kite began to speak but said nothing, struck speechless. (They wanted me to help them steal,) he thought. (To use my gate hacking ability to... they were going to use me.) He glanced up at BlackRose, who merely gazed back, a sorrowful yet unfamiliar look in her eye. She fidgeted, but said nothing.
"I'm sorry," said Stolls, his voice quiet and subdued. "I didn't want to drag you guys into this. We didn't have any choice, though... we need to get the data by Sunday." A hint of exasperation poured into his speech, raising the pitch somewhat. "Max is in the hospital, big guys with guns are after Shinji and me..."
He stopped on a dime, turning away and staring at nothing. "What was that?" he asked.
"What is it?" asked BlackRose, one eyebrow crooked.
Stolls blinked, then breathed a sigh of relief. "It's Shinji," he said. "Shin, in here!" Ten seconds later, he broke into a grin and said, to empty air, "My thoughts exactly. You all right?"
Realizing the Wave Master was conversing with someone out of The World, Kite turned to BlackRose. "Well, what do we do?" he asked.
Her eyes twitched, frustration briefly visible in the wine-colored orbs. "You're asking me? I don't know! These guys are thieves and they tried to use us, but..."
"...they're still in the same situation that we are, now," Kite finished for her. "And with that thing around, well..."
She sighed. "I guess we don't have much choice. If that thing found me here, it'll eventually track us down again."
"You're right." Kite glanced at Stolls, still chatting with an invisible person, before turning back to the Heavy Blade. "At least we'll do better against it together. And maybe we'll find out more about what's going on if we help them."
"I'm still not sure, though," said BlackRose. "I mean, they are thieves after all... but I guess Cyber Connect isn't so innocent either, huh?"
Kite nodded. "That's what I think, too."
"Hang on, I'll log out. Get in here and tell them all you know about it, maybe..."
"We'll do it."
Stolls jumped, surprised, and faced the two Blades. "Uh... what?" he asked.
Kite cocked his head at BlackRose briefly, and smiled as he saw her head bob up and down in an affirmative nod, pinkish-white locks swaying slightly over her eyes. "We'll help."
"Are you sure?" asked Stolls. "Once you're in this..."
"We're already in this," BlackRose interrupted. "If Kite's in," she said, stealing a glance at the Twin Blade, "I'm in."
Kite swore he saw a suspicious glint in the Heavy Blade's eye before she turned her head away; regardless, he smiled again, silently appreciative of her help.
"All right," said Stolls. He glanced over his shoulder, addressing his unseen companion. "Shin... it's on."
-
"I'm going to save," said BlackRose from the top of the stairs. "I'll be right back!"
Stolls nodded to the Heavy Blade as she hastily departed, leaving Kite with the Wave Master as they descended the stairs towards the item shop. "Good thinking," he said. "Kite, let's save, too, after we pick up some items."
Kite stepped up to the shop counter and hailed the salesman, an NPC bearing remarkable resemblance to the others on Delta server. "Do you really think this is going to be dangerous?" he asked, picking out as many healing and recovery potions as he could carry. (Somehow, I don't think this is the kind of stuff that will help against him... but I guess it's better than nothing.)
"I honestly don't know. Better to be on the safe side, just in case." Kite could hear the doubt in his voice, but guessed that the Wave Master/thief's thoughts fell along the same lines as his.
"Mmm." He purchased a few more of the obligatories - sprite ocarinas, fairy orbs, and fortune wires - before he turned back to his new companion.
"Interesting," said Stolls, his eyes loosely casing the main canal, a small smile on his lips.
"What is it?" asked Kite, stepping away from the counter and rejoining Stolls.
"Hmm?" The gray-robed Wave Master glanced at Kite. "Oh, sorry... just admiring the view," he said, still smiling. "You got everything?"
"I think so." Kite found himself smiling, remembering his own first impressions of The World, however short-lived they were. "I know how you feel, I was a little overwhelmed myself when I started playing."
A gentle laugh escaped Stolls as he stood up, away from the wall on which he was leaning. "My first online RPG. Was always more a shooter fan, myself."
The blue-haired Twin Blade fell into step beside Stolls as they headed for the stairs, offering a nod as they walked.
For Kite's part, the din of the aqua capital wasn't enough to break the feeling of isolation; keeping pace alongside the Wave Master, he spoke up. "So," he started, quickly scrambling for a question. "Why can't you guys go to the police? I mean, if these guys are after you..."
Stolls sighed. "That's... kind of a long story," he said, head tilting downard as he climbed the stairs; Kite noticed his steps were more laborious than before, slowed by an unseen weight which Kite suspected had something to do with the current subject. "But in a nutshell, each of us has priors... that's kind of why they hired us," Stolls continued.
"What do you mean?" He peered curiously at Stolls, trying to make eye contact; he followed close behind as the older man reached the top of the stairs and headed for the bridge, where he leaned against the railing, peering out over the canal once again.
"Max... the guy you know as Tamon, he brokered the deal between us and the company because each of us had been convicted of something. In my case..." his voice grew weak, and he paused to steady himself, swallowing loud enough for Kite to hear. "I was a cop. They hired me for security... and I got put away for taking bribes."
(He took bribes?) thought Kite. (That means...)
"That's the whole point though," said Stolls. "This job isn't exactly on the up-and-up, y'know? Company policy can't officially sponsor one of their business agents hiring people to steal from another company." He shook his head, giving stray locks of silver hair a light jostling. "Hence... we have no credibility. Going to the cops would make all our lives worse in the long run."
(So... that's what this is all about. These guys really are criminals.) Kite fidgeted, his voice paralyzed with the realization that neither Stolls nor his companions were on the right side of the law.
"I don't blame 'em, though," Stolls continued, seemingly speaking into air now, almost oblivious to the Twin Blade's presence. "It's what they had to do, I would've done the same." His tone grew rueful, bitter. "It's business, it's politics; that's all." He chuckled, this one dry and a little forced. "Y'know, heh... Max found me in an LA Times want ad. I never met either of those two before coming to Japan."
His head angled up into the sky, a distant look in his eyes. "It was all so simple."
The silence returned, throwing Kite headfirst into his clashing thoughts. (I knew they were thieves, but this... what does this mean?)
Kite sighed; he instantly recalled every moment of his past that had even remotely tested his resolve to be the good little boy his parents wanted, all standing in sharp contrast to every action he'd taken since first logging on to The World.
(It means there's something bigger going on here, and both of you know it.)
All thrown away since the loss of his best friend. None of it mattered now; he was Kite, the outlaw player with the bizarre bracelet that broke all the rules, and now he was about to break a few in the world he'd come from.
(But can I really trust him?) Hiroshi wanted to know.
"Can I ask you a question?"
"Shoot."
Kite hesitated. He steeled his nerves and balled his fists. Set his eyes in the most neutral expression he could manage, eyes curious but not accusative, jaw set but not clenched. "Did you really do it?"
A long, deep sigh, head lowered, eyes closed, shoulders sagged. He then stood up straight, turned and faced Kite, a look in his eyes that instantly shattered Kite's stoic resolve, a trace of old ghosts that had yet to release their hold on him.
"Yes."
One word, and it was enough; Stolls turned away, back to the canal, to the railing. His hands gripped it tightly, his eyes no longer visible. The look remained with Kite, however, and it shook him for a moment before he realized what it meant.
(He trusts you.)
It was enough. Kite slowly stepped up to Stolls, fright and neutrality now alien to his face, nothing left except for what he hoped was understanding, compassion, sympathy for this man who had done the crime, done the time, and, in many ways, had yet to leave his cell.
"Dean," said Hiroshi, addressing the player.
The word instantly got the Wave Master's attention; he turned to Kite once again, subtle surprise on his face as he noticed Kite's expression. Understanding creeped across his features, and his eyes lightened, just a little. He smiled.
"Let's go," he said with a nod.
Together, they turned towards the broadway once more, and headed for the Save Point, where BlackRose stood, apparently trading with another adventurer.
Stolls eyed the Heavy Blade curiously. "So, what's her story?"
"BlackRose?" Kite cocked his lips in a puzzled smirk. "To be honest, I'm not so sure. She said she was new to The World, too, when I came in, but... she got mad when we encountered a Data Bug." He furrowed his brow as his mind called up their first trip to the bizarre cathedral at Hidden Forbidden Holy Ground; at any other time, he would've chuckled at the dichotomy of her reaction to the first monster they encountered, and the Data Bug itself. "Said something like, "It's you, I'll kill you!" and started attacking."
The Twin Blade scratched the top of his head through his cap, the avatar copying the action of Hiroshi as his fingers clawed at persistant itch. "She helped me a lot when I was trying to find out about Aura and Skeith... she even came with me to stop him."
"Sounds like a good friend if I ever heard one."
Hiroshi couldn't stop himself from smiling. (I guess she has done an awful lot for me... I really should try to be nicer to her. I wouldn't have made it this far without her help, either. Yeah, she can be kind of annoying sometimes, but still...)
"Yeah," he said quietly, his tone more than a little wistful, his eyes trained on the shapely, animate Heavy Blade. "She is."
"You like her?"
The second he heard the question, he knew he should've seen it coming; the subtle emphasis on 'like' caught his ear exactly as it was intended, and he found his face turning a lighter shade of red as he turned away, both players now stopped just off the bridge. "Well..." he mumbled, trailing the L for a second, idly wringing his hands as he leaned back, assuming a cautious, vaguely shy posture.
He heard the grin in Stolls' voice, and he wasn't sure whether it was Stolls himself, or the man controlling him. "You should ask her out sometime, man."
"Uh??" His eyes went wide, staring at the ground; he fidgeted and stammered back, "I-I don't know, what if..." he began, his mind already at work generating the Grand List of Pointless Excuses to Never, Ever Approach a Girl, Especially You-Know-Who (patent pending).
He saw the shadow of Stolls shake his head, silencing him. When he spoke, his voice was neither playful nor serious, merely kind and soft. "She likes you, Kite, I can tell. She'd have to to stick by you through all this, if even half of what you told me is true."
Kite slowly lifted his head, glancing up at Stolls. For all his inconsistent behavior - from haunted ex-cop to Wave Master-cum-matchmaker - Kite couldn't deny any of the detective's statements, nor could he fault his perception. Still, he could say nothing.
His face fell into a friendly smile. "Sometimes, you just have to forget about the 'what ifs'. Let's leave it at that. C'mon."
With that, the two made their way up the broadway towards the chaos gate, where a haughty-looking BlackRose stood, impatiently tapping her foot.
Kite smiled once more. (Why not?)
- End of Chapter XX
A .Hack fanfiction by Renfro Calhoun
Disclaimer: Project .Hack and attached characters and concepts do not belong to me.
Notes: Takes place in that fuzzy grey area of time between Infection and Mutation, and just a little past the start of the latter. Parentheses indicate thoughts. More two-sided goodness here; my apologies for the slightly out-of-character 'patent pending' joke towards the end there, but I'm pretty sure there's one or two guys out there who know what I mean :)
And on an unrelated note, "Aliens" is the best sequel ever. Yes, even better than "Breakin' II".
Chapter XX - Intermezzo Two
------------
"Jesus, lady! What's the matter with you?!"
No sooner had the gray-clad, silver-haired Wave Master stepped into range of BlackRose's massive weapon than he found himself face to face with the pointy end of it. Her expression was stern and suspicious, her eyes narrowed and brow furrowed.
While possessed with no particular hatred for Stolls, Kite found himself in a similarly less than amiable mood, reflected in the uncharacteristic coldness behind his eyes. Something very wrong was going on, and he made a silent vow to himself that he'd get to the bottom of it.
"Why'd your friend come after us?" challenged BlackRose, grazing the Wave Master's jaw with the tip of her blade.
Stolls blinked, clearly puzzled by the question. "What? Wait... what are you talking about?"
The Heavy Blade's questioning stare grew hostile. "Don't play dumb!" she shouted. "Your friend attacked me earlier tonight, the Long Arm."
His light green eyes widened as glanced back and forth between Kite and BlackRose. "Tamon?" he asked, a subtle disbelief in his tone. "He... attacked you?"
Kite nodded. "I found out about it before you e-mailed me," answered the Twin Blade. "Why did he attack her?"
"Look, man," said Stolls, visibly disturbed or frustrated, Kite couldn't tell which. "I don't know who or what you two saw, but Max... Tamon's player, he's in the hospital right now, comatose."
(What?!)
Kite instantly glanced over at BlackRose; her harsh glare had vanished into a bemusedly blank expression, and she gave a slight shake of her head, her blade lowering. "But... I saw him... he attacked me." She turned back to Stolls. "It was him, I recognized him!"
To her surprise, Stolls glared back; his character's youthful eyes grew aged and steely in an instant, his voice conveying a strict no-nonsense attitude. "Hey, I just got back from the hospital an hour ago," he said, "he's been a goddamn vegetable since that thing got to him."
(That thing... Delphi? It got to him, and... oh no, maybe it was...) Kite's half-thoughts spurred him to speak one of them. "Was he... data drained?" he asked, taking a step forward as BlackRose fell silent, eyes averted.
Stolls wrinkled his eyebrows, peering quizzically at Kite. "Data drained? Well..." he trailed off for a moment, rubbing his chin with his free hand. "Before I got disconnected, the... it did something to him. I wasn't sure what..."
Kite nodded. (Him, too...) "My friend... Yasuhiko, the same thing happened to him. Skeith data drained him." His throat clenched for a moment as he gestured east, pointing to the stairs leading into the dungeon. "Right down there. And the next day, I found out... he'd been put in a coma."
He only half-heard Stolls' reply, his eyes still staring at the passage, into the inky blackness beyond the archway. "Yeah. Yeah, that's... that's what happened. He went into a coma right after that Delphi thing attacked him."
Kite's head drooped slightly, recalling the incident which had occurred beneath his very feet; the shocked expression on Orca's face as he uselessly struck at the monster, his terrified scream as the skeletal 'phase' literally rewrote the code which formed him, to the extent that the player himself was somehow struck down.
"But I know it was him," said BlackRose. "More than that, he recognized me."
The Twin Blade snapped back to attention at BlackRose's voice, facing the other two. "There was another player," said Stolls slowly, again rubbing his chin thoughtfully. "Supposedly he couldn't log out, and played outside the boundaries of System Administration. At the same time he was in The World, his player was in a coma."
"I remember hearing something about that," said BlackRose. "The character was alive in The World, independent of the player. I think his name was... Tsu... Tsukasa, maybe?"
(A player trapped in The World... how could that be? How could any of this be possible??)
"Right," said Stolls. "That might be the case here... but the question is, why hasn't he contacted us? And for that matter, why'd he attack you?"
Something clicked in Kite's mind; recalling BlackRose's earlier queries, he tilted his head to the Wave Master. "Stolls," he said, scratching the back of his neck, "who are you guys?"
Stolls was apparently thrown off by the question, replying with a confused "Huh?"
BlackRose leveled her gaze at Stolls, her eyes again held traces of suspicion. "I did some asking around. Nobody I've spoken to has seen you around more than a week ago, and you told Kite you know about Skeith and the Data Bugs." She paused for emphasis, then added, "Why did you want Kite to help stop that creature? And why are you interested in these things?"
Stolls waited for a few seconds before replying, an obvious hesitation to his words. "Well, I said I'd tell you everything, and I will." He inhaled long and slow, and exhaled likewise. "Tamon, Deisart and I were hired by a rival company to hack into CC Corporation's mainframe and steal data."
Kite blinked. "You guys are hackers?"
He nodded, and idly toed the ground with his shoe. "Sort of. My name's Dean... I'm a private investigator. Deisart is Shinji, he used to work for Cyber Connect. And Max, or Tamon as you know him, he works with the company that hired us. The deal is we get the data for them, and they pay us $50,000 each."
Somewhere between curious and nervous, Kite spoke again. "What kind of data is it?"
"I don't know for sure," admitted Stolls with a shake of his head. "They said it's accounting data, but just tonight CC sent some guys after us. Turns out, they were following us, and sent Delphi in to attack us in The World."
BlackRose's jaw dropped, her eyes widening in an incredulous stare. "They SENT that thing?!"
Stolls nodded. "Yeah. They're trying real hard to protect the data, whatever it is... that's why I don't think it's accounting data at all."
(So that's it,) thought Kite. (But what does that have to do with me?) He voiced the thought, silently pondering whether he wanted to hear the answer.
"Do either of you know about the test version of The World? The one that came out before the retail version?" A nod from both Kite and BlackRose prompted Stolls to continue. "Well, they kept a backdoor directly through their mainframe onto what would become the Delta server, y'know for maintenance access and stuff. When they updated everything for retail, they never removed the backdoor. So, we need a hacker to break through the firewall around it; of course, this is accessible only through The World, so twiddling bits wouldn't cut it."
Hiroshi felt Stolls' eyes on him, through his avatar. "That's why we needed you, Kite. We needed your help to hack through the firewall so we could access their mainframe. That's it."
A breeze stole through the air, rustling the grass; Kite began to speak but said nothing, struck speechless. (They wanted me to help them steal,) he thought. (To use my gate hacking ability to... they were going to use me.) He glanced up at BlackRose, who merely gazed back, a sorrowful yet unfamiliar look in her eye. She fidgeted, but said nothing.
"I'm sorry," said Stolls, his voice quiet and subdued. "I didn't want to drag you guys into this. We didn't have any choice, though... we need to get the data by Sunday." A hint of exasperation poured into his speech, raising the pitch somewhat. "Max is in the hospital, big guys with guns are after Shinji and me..."
He stopped on a dime, turning away and staring at nothing. "What was that?" he asked.
"What is it?" asked BlackRose, one eyebrow crooked.
Stolls blinked, then breathed a sigh of relief. "It's Shinji," he said. "Shin, in here!" Ten seconds later, he broke into a grin and said, to empty air, "My thoughts exactly. You all right?"
Realizing the Wave Master was conversing with someone out of The World, Kite turned to BlackRose. "Well, what do we do?" he asked.
Her eyes twitched, frustration briefly visible in the wine-colored orbs. "You're asking me? I don't know! These guys are thieves and they tried to use us, but..."
"...they're still in the same situation that we are, now," Kite finished for her. "And with that thing around, well..."
She sighed. "I guess we don't have much choice. If that thing found me here, it'll eventually track us down again."
"You're right." Kite glanced at Stolls, still chatting with an invisible person, before turning back to the Heavy Blade. "At least we'll do better against it together. And maybe we'll find out more about what's going on if we help them."
"I'm still not sure, though," said BlackRose. "I mean, they are thieves after all... but I guess Cyber Connect isn't so innocent either, huh?"
Kite nodded. "That's what I think, too."
"Hang on, I'll log out. Get in here and tell them all you know about it, maybe..."
"We'll do it."
Stolls jumped, surprised, and faced the two Blades. "Uh... what?" he asked.
Kite cocked his head at BlackRose briefly, and smiled as he saw her head bob up and down in an affirmative nod, pinkish-white locks swaying slightly over her eyes. "We'll help."
"Are you sure?" asked Stolls. "Once you're in this..."
"We're already in this," BlackRose interrupted. "If Kite's in," she said, stealing a glance at the Twin Blade, "I'm in."
Kite swore he saw a suspicious glint in the Heavy Blade's eye before she turned her head away; regardless, he smiled again, silently appreciative of her help.
"All right," said Stolls. He glanced over his shoulder, addressing his unseen companion. "Shin... it's on."
-
"I'm going to save," said BlackRose from the top of the stairs. "I'll be right back!"
Stolls nodded to the Heavy Blade as she hastily departed, leaving Kite with the Wave Master as they descended the stairs towards the item shop. "Good thinking," he said. "Kite, let's save, too, after we pick up some items."
Kite stepped up to the shop counter and hailed the salesman, an NPC bearing remarkable resemblance to the others on Delta server. "Do you really think this is going to be dangerous?" he asked, picking out as many healing and recovery potions as he could carry. (Somehow, I don't think this is the kind of stuff that will help against him... but I guess it's better than nothing.)
"I honestly don't know. Better to be on the safe side, just in case." Kite could hear the doubt in his voice, but guessed that the Wave Master/thief's thoughts fell along the same lines as his.
"Mmm." He purchased a few more of the obligatories - sprite ocarinas, fairy orbs, and fortune wires - before he turned back to his new companion.
"Interesting," said Stolls, his eyes loosely casing the main canal, a small smile on his lips.
"What is it?" asked Kite, stepping away from the counter and rejoining Stolls.
"Hmm?" The gray-robed Wave Master glanced at Kite. "Oh, sorry... just admiring the view," he said, still smiling. "You got everything?"
"I think so." Kite found himself smiling, remembering his own first impressions of The World, however short-lived they were. "I know how you feel, I was a little overwhelmed myself when I started playing."
A gentle laugh escaped Stolls as he stood up, away from the wall on which he was leaning. "My first online RPG. Was always more a shooter fan, myself."
The blue-haired Twin Blade fell into step beside Stolls as they headed for the stairs, offering a nod as they walked.
For Kite's part, the din of the aqua capital wasn't enough to break the feeling of isolation; keeping pace alongside the Wave Master, he spoke up. "So," he started, quickly scrambling for a question. "Why can't you guys go to the police? I mean, if these guys are after you..."
Stolls sighed. "That's... kind of a long story," he said, head tilting downard as he climbed the stairs; Kite noticed his steps were more laborious than before, slowed by an unseen weight which Kite suspected had something to do with the current subject. "But in a nutshell, each of us has priors... that's kind of why they hired us," Stolls continued.
"What do you mean?" He peered curiously at Stolls, trying to make eye contact; he followed close behind as the older man reached the top of the stairs and headed for the bridge, where he leaned against the railing, peering out over the canal once again.
"Max... the guy you know as Tamon, he brokered the deal between us and the company because each of us had been convicted of something. In my case..." his voice grew weak, and he paused to steady himself, swallowing loud enough for Kite to hear. "I was a cop. They hired me for security... and I got put away for taking bribes."
(He took bribes?) thought Kite. (That means...)
"That's the whole point though," said Stolls. "This job isn't exactly on the up-and-up, y'know? Company policy can't officially sponsor one of their business agents hiring people to steal from another company." He shook his head, giving stray locks of silver hair a light jostling. "Hence... we have no credibility. Going to the cops would make all our lives worse in the long run."
(So... that's what this is all about. These guys really are criminals.) Kite fidgeted, his voice paralyzed with the realization that neither Stolls nor his companions were on the right side of the law.
"I don't blame 'em, though," Stolls continued, seemingly speaking into air now, almost oblivious to the Twin Blade's presence. "It's what they had to do, I would've done the same." His tone grew rueful, bitter. "It's business, it's politics; that's all." He chuckled, this one dry and a little forced. "Y'know, heh... Max found me in an LA Times want ad. I never met either of those two before coming to Japan."
His head angled up into the sky, a distant look in his eyes. "It was all so simple."
The silence returned, throwing Kite headfirst into his clashing thoughts. (I knew they were thieves, but this... what does this mean?)
Kite sighed; he instantly recalled every moment of his past that had even remotely tested his resolve to be the good little boy his parents wanted, all standing in sharp contrast to every action he'd taken since first logging on to The World.
(It means there's something bigger going on here, and both of you know it.)
All thrown away since the loss of his best friend. None of it mattered now; he was Kite, the outlaw player with the bizarre bracelet that broke all the rules, and now he was about to break a few in the world he'd come from.
(But can I really trust him?) Hiroshi wanted to know.
"Can I ask you a question?"
"Shoot."
Kite hesitated. He steeled his nerves and balled his fists. Set his eyes in the most neutral expression he could manage, eyes curious but not accusative, jaw set but not clenched. "Did you really do it?"
A long, deep sigh, head lowered, eyes closed, shoulders sagged. He then stood up straight, turned and faced Kite, a look in his eyes that instantly shattered Kite's stoic resolve, a trace of old ghosts that had yet to release their hold on him.
"Yes."
One word, and it was enough; Stolls turned away, back to the canal, to the railing. His hands gripped it tightly, his eyes no longer visible. The look remained with Kite, however, and it shook him for a moment before he realized what it meant.
(He trusts you.)
It was enough. Kite slowly stepped up to Stolls, fright and neutrality now alien to his face, nothing left except for what he hoped was understanding, compassion, sympathy for this man who had done the crime, done the time, and, in many ways, had yet to leave his cell.
"Dean," said Hiroshi, addressing the player.
The word instantly got the Wave Master's attention; he turned to Kite once again, subtle surprise on his face as he noticed Kite's expression. Understanding creeped across his features, and his eyes lightened, just a little. He smiled.
"Let's go," he said with a nod.
Together, they turned towards the broadway once more, and headed for the Save Point, where BlackRose stood, apparently trading with another adventurer.
Stolls eyed the Heavy Blade curiously. "So, what's her story?"
"BlackRose?" Kite cocked his lips in a puzzled smirk. "To be honest, I'm not so sure. She said she was new to The World, too, when I came in, but... she got mad when we encountered a Data Bug." He furrowed his brow as his mind called up their first trip to the bizarre cathedral at Hidden Forbidden Holy Ground; at any other time, he would've chuckled at the dichotomy of her reaction to the first monster they encountered, and the Data Bug itself. "Said something like, "It's you, I'll kill you!" and started attacking."
The Twin Blade scratched the top of his head through his cap, the avatar copying the action of Hiroshi as his fingers clawed at persistant itch. "She helped me a lot when I was trying to find out about Aura and Skeith... she even came with me to stop him."
"Sounds like a good friend if I ever heard one."
Hiroshi couldn't stop himself from smiling. (I guess she has done an awful lot for me... I really should try to be nicer to her. I wouldn't have made it this far without her help, either. Yeah, she can be kind of annoying sometimes, but still...)
"Yeah," he said quietly, his tone more than a little wistful, his eyes trained on the shapely, animate Heavy Blade. "She is."
"You like her?"
The second he heard the question, he knew he should've seen it coming; the subtle emphasis on 'like' caught his ear exactly as it was intended, and he found his face turning a lighter shade of red as he turned away, both players now stopped just off the bridge. "Well..." he mumbled, trailing the L for a second, idly wringing his hands as he leaned back, assuming a cautious, vaguely shy posture.
He heard the grin in Stolls' voice, and he wasn't sure whether it was Stolls himself, or the man controlling him. "You should ask her out sometime, man."
"Uh??" His eyes went wide, staring at the ground; he fidgeted and stammered back, "I-I don't know, what if..." he began, his mind already at work generating the Grand List of Pointless Excuses to Never, Ever Approach a Girl, Especially You-Know-Who (patent pending).
He saw the shadow of Stolls shake his head, silencing him. When he spoke, his voice was neither playful nor serious, merely kind and soft. "She likes you, Kite, I can tell. She'd have to to stick by you through all this, if even half of what you told me is true."
Kite slowly lifted his head, glancing up at Stolls. For all his inconsistent behavior - from haunted ex-cop to Wave Master-cum-matchmaker - Kite couldn't deny any of the detective's statements, nor could he fault his perception. Still, he could say nothing.
His face fell into a friendly smile. "Sometimes, you just have to forget about the 'what ifs'. Let's leave it at that. C'mon."
With that, the two made their way up the broadway towards the chaos gate, where a haughty-looking BlackRose stood, impatiently tapping her foot.
Kite smiled once more. (Why not?)
- End of Chapter XX