Disclaimer: I don't own the rights on .Hack in any way, so don't sue me for using their characters. This is the last time I actually put this, and from now on I'l just say refer to this chapter.
A/N: After having writer's block, I came up wih three different ways I could have gone after chapter 13. I went with this because it's the happy-go-lucky-everyone-wins-way, but I do have two more ways I could have gone.
1: Jon's friends talk to each other and feel that he is no longer the person they once knew and because of that decide to kill him and go after Skieth in vengence. Later they all succomb to Skieth's data drain and become victims themselves (End of story).
2: Jasmine, David, Lan, and Kelly meet with Jon only for him to tell them that they should forget him, and he becomes a rogue player, who eventually dies at the hands of Skieth (can become new story, Ghost of Friends Forgotten).
3: What I actually posted here.
Leave a review saying what you like cause I have written chapters to each path I thought of. I might new sub-stories for the most popular ones. Enjoy what I have here. What seem like page breaks are change in POV FYI.
Chapter 14: Destroy the Virus
As he waited in the blizzard he now called home, Jon ran through his mind what he should say to the friends he blew off just the day before. He felt horrible for doing that to them, but felt better as he thought Helba must have felt after he got the best of her. He sat there for about another three hours before Kelly showed up alone.
"The others must be pretty pissed off," Jon said scratching his shoulder.
"DarkAngel said she would have beat the crap out of you if you hadn't taken off yesterday," she sounded a little angry herself and he couldn't reall blame her, "As for Lina and ChaosB1ade, she's busy with her boyfriend, and him with work."
"So you're the only one with nothing to do so you came to see me. Let me just start by..," he was cut off.
"Let me start by start by telling you that we came here yesterday to see that you were okay and you acted like we didn't exist to you!!"
"About that I...,"
"And then you take off without even a simple good-bye or a reason why you left!! You aren't even the same person we knew from...," she stopped as he embraced her.
He whispered softly in her ear, "It's fine Kelly, I know who you are and I'm really sorry about yesterday."
Her eyes grew wide at what he said, "Jon," she said confused and scared at the same time.
He nodded as a screen came up in front of her showing the video that Helba had sent him, "That was the reason I took off yesterday. Helba wrote me and gave me that video and when I saw it, for some reason it all came back."
"Wait a minute, Helba gave you that, why would she do that for no reason?"
"Oh there was a reason, she wouldn't give me the video at first but I 'convinced' her to give it to me," he chuckled as he tapped his sword, "Well now she wants me to do a little job for her, but I don't know what it is yet."
"Are you going to do it? You know she would turn on you in a second."
"I guess, after she gave me that video, it's the least I could do. Besides, if she tries anything funny I could do a little more convincing," he laughed.
"Now that's the Jon I remember, by the way, what happened to you after Skieth drained you and you were teleported away from the battle?"
"Now that's the strangest part cause I woke up in a forest. The first thing that caught me was that I felt every little thing that happened to me, even bug flying on me. I meet up with some players and they were the ones who told me my sword was in Dun Loireag."
"How did they know you though," she saw her display come up and display Jon's name and HP count as she slapped her head. The HP count was wierd like when she saw Skieth's display, "Hey have been in any battles since you woke up?"
"Now that you mention it, the only battle I was in was the one with Helba last night, why do you ask?"
"Your HP looks like Skieth's."
"I guess I'll have to guess when I think I'm going to die, and now that I think about it, my back still hurts from being thrown into those shops," a mail chime went off and both checked their mail to see Jon had a new message from Helba and Kelly from Jasmine. She said that she would on-line shortly and that they should both beat some sense into Jon.
"Maybe I better send the flash mail then, I bet she'll get a kick out of it, that or use her nut-cracker technique on me," he feared the thought of that as he sent the flash mail. He got back a reply that was less than enthusiasic:
"Enigma or Jon, whatever the hell you call yourself now, if you hadn't said that Sakura was there I would have ignored this, be right there, and be ready for an ass-beating."
"You better stall her while I explain," he warned Kelly.
As Jasmine entered the field, fire seemed to be her eyes as she started walking straight towards Jon, but Kelly started holding her back telling her to wait and listen to what he had to say. She pushed Kelly away and went into a mad dash for the heavy blade with balled up fists. When she got to him she pulled her foot back and feined a kick to Jon's groin and stopped at that. He, in a reflex, turned to the side and tried to avoid a straight on kick, and she laughed as she saw that.
"I really have taught you a reflex to my technique haven't I," she fell back into the snow laughing. "Wait, wait, let me try one more thing," still laughed histarically, "Yaoi."
Jon instantly fell to the ground as if his knees gave out on him and neck pulled him down. Kelly couldn't help but laugh at that, being that Jon had a huge dislike towards all things yaoi.
"You know that was evil," as he struggled to his feet, "I know you two are the ones who programmed that into my character one day I asked if Kelly could help me find something on my comp," he went up to Jasmine and picked her up and set her back on her feet, "Now if you're done, taking advantage of what you've done to me, I wanted to tell you something. That mail I just got," he nodded to Kelly, "was from Helba and it's about her little job she wants me to do."
"Eh," Jasmine asked being completely clueless. Kelly forwarded her the tape and told her everything that Jon had told her, "Okay so what's the job?"
"She wants me to investigate an area with the help 'the angels', which I suppose she means Balmung, but who else I wonder. I mean Balmung is the only one that kind of character model so how could there be another angel-looking character out there."
Jasmine rubbed her back where her wings would sprout from and thought that Helba ment her, "Maybe she meant Lan. You know how she has those little tiny wings on her back, nothing the size of Balmung's but they are wings."
"I better write her back and ask what she what she means by that and tell her I'm ready to go at any time."
Jasmine got mail and gave a signal to Kelly that it was Lios and that they needed to talk alone. They told Jon that they had things to do and that they would be back later. As they gated out of the field, he thought about the message again, but sort of didn't want to take the job. He thought about Balmung and worried that he wouln't be able to work together with such a hot-head but then again he did work with Jasmine and she was a female version of him in his mind.
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Jasmine and Kelly arrived in Mac Anu and Jasmine instantly turned to Kelly, "Lios wants me to go on a mission with Balmung. The mission, however is to kill a certain anomaly character, which he called a vagrant AI."
"You don't think that the mission is to kill Jon do you," Kelly was in shock as she thought it.
"I have to confirm it with Lios but I hate to think if that's the case."
"Well, you do that while I go and tell Lan and David about Jon and send them the video," she gated out as she disappeared behind gold rings.
Jasmine sent a message back to Lios asking about the specifics of the job like when it would be and what that vagrant AI looked like. As she sent the message away she got another from Balmung asking if she got the message about their mission. After reading over the message, she went to the bridge and looked at her reflection and thought about what would happen if found herself in that worst case position. Would she be able to bring herself to point her weapons at her friend or if it came to it, the man she loved. If she went through with the mission, then she would kill Jon and completely destroy her friendship with her other friends. On the other hand, if she didn't, then she would betray her love and lose the ahpiness that Balmung brought her. She stood thinking about what she could do when mail came to her and she saw that it was from Lan asking about where Jon was because he was missing from the field he said he would be at. After reading that, Jasmine instantly checked the first message from Lios to see that the area was Theta Sacred Ominous Hypha. She immediately warped there to be sure that Jon and Balmung weren't fighting and to be sure that they were both okay. She reached the field and saw that no one was around and worried that she was either too late or that they were already in the dungeon. She gated out and checked if any flash mail had been sent to her and she found none, but sent some to Jon asking where he was. He was currently in Dun Loireag around the grunty pen, waiting for further word on Helba's job. She ran to him and was out of breath when see saw that he was fine and looked like nothing had happened.
"Hey Jas, what's wrong with you," he saw she was exhausted and wondered what she could have been doing, "Still no word from Helba about my job. What was your mail all about?"
"Jon get out of here and don't take Helba's job, I think she's plotted with the administrators to have you killed," she said with horror in her eyes.
"Wait, calm down," he grabbed her shoulders, "Now why would the administrators want me dead, and how do you know this?"
She explained to him about Lios and she was given her task to kill a vagrant AI along with Balmung and that her task came right around the same time Jon got his message from Helba, "It may not be that but still, you shouldn't do what she asks."
"If administration wants me gone then they could come at me anytime they feel like it, so why not take on their attack dogs head on?"
"I see your point, well I'll be seeing you around," she walked towards the elf's haven to get some epuipment she would need for this mission. Her weapon from Balmung was the only one she had so all she got was some healing potions, healing drinks, Forest Gloves to go along with her Thunder Gloves, and Ranger Boots. She went to the recorder, saved and waited for Balmung to come to her.
As Jasmine left him, Jon turned back to the now mid-sized grunty and said he had to go,but would be back for him. He went to the item shop and stocked up on healing drinks, then went to the elf's haven and went through what he had. He saw he had some Fishskin twin blades that he thought he would give to Jasmine and a Water Beast armor he got in a dungeon he got once but never tried it out. He grabbed the armor and a back up sword, a Ghostdancer. After re-equiping himself he noticed that he was heavy resistance on water attacks with Aqua Guard, Hands of Water, his new Aqua Beast, and Ice Hunter Cap, and laughed at himself for doing that without noticing. Afterward he just walked around the town until Helba sent him another message saying to meet Balmung by the chaos gate and he would have the specifics of what they would be doing. He stood a few feet from the gate and lied down to wait.
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"Balmung, you know what you have to do, don't you," a gruff voice asked the armor-clad blademaster.
"Yes, I am to take DarkAngel and the AI to the middle of the dungeon in Theta Sacred Ominous Hypha and then eliminate the AI by any means necesary," he began thinking about his mission, "Lios, why does this one AI have you troubled? Why don't you just delete it like the others?"
"That is none of your concern. Remember that this AI is your partner's friend so there may be some trouble in getting her to cooperate. Plus we don't know how powerful this AI has become so be careful of what he can do."
"You haven't answered my question, and why would you be concerned with him now?"
"All you need to know is that he is part of the virus that corrupts this world, and you are to destroy that virus," Lios becoming infuriated at Balmung.
"I sense Helba's influence in this, if she any part in this, then you better hope I don't come back. I'll do the job just because he is part of the virus," Balmung logged out and went to Dun Loireag to meet with Enigma and DarkAngel.
Chapter 14 End
A/N: Hey, after all the happy-go-lucky crap I had to throw in some twist that would bring back the action. I plan to have a showdown between Enigma and Balmung with a sort of unexpected end to the battle. I'm going off the game, so Balmung is NOT the all invincible player he is on the shows and manga. The whole thing about DarkAngel torturing Enigma by saying 'yaoi' is an inside joke with my friends and me. Review with your take on my three ways I could have done this (see top A/N). LATES people.
