Disclaimer: See chapter 14

A/N: With school back in session, my time for writing has been severely cut. That and Star Ocean will be out tmr so that cut my writing time to just about nothing. I guess that's okay being that I don't get any reviews for this fic anymore. I know my chapter are long and I really do plan to end this fic soon. Until then enjoy what I have here. If you read this fic, review it, or may your soul be absorbed by data drain after reading this.

Chapter 18: Despair

The first thing that Jon noticed about Morganna is that she resembled a player he had read about on the boards. She looked like the leader of the Crimson Knights, Lady Subaru, who was to be feared if ever a player were to break any kind of rules. The only thing that was missing was Subaru's loyal guardian, Silver Knight. Before Jon could ask any more questions, Morganna was in front of him with ax back, ready to swing. He tried to parry the attack was completely overpowered and thrown across the endless white room. She ran to him with lightning fast speed and was on top of him ready to deal a quick deathblow. Jon held his sword in front of him as a shield and the blow pressed his sword to his face and heard a faint cracking noise. He pushed her away, but she spun her body and attempted a strike against his face. He managed to bat away her ax which lodged itself into the ground. He took this chance to get to his feet and noticed that his sword had started to crack where the ax had hit it. He knew that if his Tidal Sword was destroyed, he would stand no chance against Morganna, and decided to end this one-sided battle quickly. He charged at her, hoping she wasn't to free her ax in time, but luck was not with him. She pulled out he ax and slammed the back end into his side. He was instanly paralyzed by the pain and felt a sudden shock to his back as Morganna flipped the ax around and slammed the blunt end into his back. She continued her onslaught and stopped after every combination to allow Jon to heal himself. She loved watching him attempt to fight back with little success. Half an hour of punishment later, Morganna had suffered little scratches while Jon had been given injuries that would kill him in real life and had run out of options to heal himself with. He had used his sword to stand upright again and knew that if he had any chance of escape he would either have to use data drain , or immobilize her by freezing freeze her. They charged at each other with weapons glowing.

RAI TORNADO RUE SMASH

Both weapons collided and it became a deadlock, of which one person's strength would give out. Out of desperation, Jon slightly began to push Morganna back, and the power of his attack froze her right arm. He was about to overpower her when he fell forward after hearing a loud cracking sound. As he got back to his feet, he noticed his weapon had gotton a lot lighter and saw, that it had broken in half. From where Morganna had made the original crack, the blade had snapped in two, now leaving Jon completely defenseless against anymore attacks. He was too shocked to move and accepted defeat as he dropped the other half on the ground and bowed his head.

Morganna cackled, "It's over. I shall now end your suffering," she held out her ax and pointed it straight at the demoralized heavy blade. A bracelet appeared at the end of the ax, and prepared to fire off a data drain. Jon made no movement to avoid the attack, he just stood motionless and awaited his fate. That bracelet fired data and as it began to get closer, Jon left wrist sprung forward on it's own accord and the bracelet on his wrist sprang to life. It absorbed the data drain attack and died away into his wrist. Morganna surprised by this development, "It seems you either aren't supposed to die here, or you're already dead, but you haven't accepted it yet. I'll leave you to your suffering," the blinding light that brought Jon there came back but this time had put him right back where he had been the first time it came. He was standing in front of Skieth who seemed mezmerized himself, with Kite and Blackrose behind him. He collapsed on the floor, he muscles were gone and couldn't move one bit. Kite had seen the data drains had canceled out and fired his own at Skieth causing the once supreme monster to become a peice of rock. Kite and Blackrose quickly destroyed the rock that was once Skieth and watched it crumble away. They healed Jon enough to where he could stand. He grabbed the peices of his sword that had somehow been there and stashed them away. As they were leaving, the peices or rock melted away and became a dark pool. They all got into a battle position thinking that Skieth wasn't truely defeated. The pool started to bubble and out the remains of Skieth came a more horrific sight. A creature larger than Skieth began to rise from out of the pool and roared as its body became fully visable. Its eyes flashed and all three of them were sent flying and were knocked out as they crashed into the floor. Each of their protection broke leaving them open if this new beast had data drain. Before the new monster could attack them, they were teleported away to Dun Loireag. Jon was the first of them to regain consciousness and checked to make sure Kite and Blackrose were fine, once he knew they would live, he went back to his home field and decided to recover there.

(0)

"Hey Lan, you ready for summer to start soon," David ran up behind her.

"Yeah, I just want school to end so I can relax. Hey was going to the hospital today to check on how Jon's doing, want to come along," she seemed so calm saying that knowing her friend was in a coma.

"Sure, why not. It'd be nice to see the real Jon and not Enigma for a change, even if he is sleeping."

They went to the hospital where Jon's body has been sleeping for what had now been a month and worried if they would ever be able to save him. The receptionist noticed them and let them pass and as they got to Jon's room they heard a someone crying. They ran in thinking they worst, only to see Jon's mother crying on his chest.

"What's going on," Lan walked up and tapped Jon's mother's shoulder, "Something wrong with him today?"

"No, and that's the problem," her eyes still full of tears, "The doctors are losing hope that he will ever come out of it. The only reason they've let him be on life support for this long is because they say his brain patterns have been eratic, like he's not asleep. Plus, my insurance called saying that they're going to stop paying for his medical bills soon and I don't have the kind of money to keep him here."

"Isn't there some kind of law that's keeps the doctors from doing that kind of thing," David said calmly.

"Not as long as the doctors think he won't come out of it."

After another ten minutes they left the hospital still shocked at what they had been told. According to his mother, Jon had another two weeks before the doctors would take him off life support. Lan ran through her head on how to tell Jon this and how he would react to such news. She logged on and decided to visit her friend and be the bearer of bad news.

(0)

As he felt the cold air hit him, Jon felt slightly better after being completely overwhelmed twice in one day. He went to his camp, to find the fire had be put out, and everyone had gone. After his encounter with Morganna, fighting Balmung would have relieved some of his anger. He made a new fire and reflected back to the battle with Morganna. She had more power in her ax than he had in his entire body, which he attributed to using Lady Subaru's character. He pulled out the remains of his sword and saw there was no way he could repair it on his own. His sword that was said to be the best sword made for heavy blades, but was destroyed by someone calling themself "the mother of the world." His train of thought was inturrupted by a sudden pain in his chest. He grasped it for dear life as he felt something being torn out of it. The pain lasted for one minute but for him seemed to last for an hour and then it faded just as fast as it had come. He sat motionless wondering what that could have been, it felt similar to pain of data drain.

"Jon, how you doin," a calm voice said from behind him and tapped his shoulder.

In a reflex he threw his arm back knocking down the person, and surprised that it was Lan he had knocked over, "Ack. Sorry about that Lan. You just startled me," he helped her up, and froze as he looked at her, reminding him of Morganna. Lan must have used the same character model because the only difference between Lan and Morganna was her voice, a pink dress instead blue, and raven black hair.

"What's wrong with you? You seem like you've seen a ghost," she waved his hand in front of his face.

He regained his composure, "It's nothing. It's been a long day, he yawned to ease her mind, "How come you're here anyway? You normally don't come see me unless I call you or your tagging along with Kelly or David."

"I have some bad news to tell you," tears formmed in her eyes, "It's about the real world."

"If it has to do with my parents or me in the hospital, then please don't tell me anything. I have too many things to deal with here, and I don't need to think about problems I can do nothing about. For one I have Balmung tailing me and attempting to kill me, administrators doing the same, Skieth, and now some entity called Morganna. Oh yeah, I almost forgot, Skieth is gone. Kite, Blackrose and I killed that bastard."

"You don't seem too happy about that," realizing the situation, "Oh I see what you mean," she didn't have the heart to tell him about what was going to happen to him in the real world and add on more saddness, "Sorry to have bothered you. I see you have you have a lot of things going on here so it's better that you don't here what I have to say now. I be going then," she turned to log out but she felt her arm held back.

"Do you mind staying with me until I fall asleep Lan? I just don't feel right being here by myself for tonight."

She saw that he was really shaken up, "Yea, I don't have anything to do," they sat by the fire and talked for a bit before Jon finally passed out in her lap. She laid him down and let him sleep as she turned to log out someone else was entering the field. She quickly put out the fire and hid herself and Jon. At first she thought it was maybe Kelly or one of the others but then she noticed multiple people were entering the field. Each of them were fully covered in silver armor from head to toe and had CCcorp. logos on the right side of the breastplate. The last two to enter was a heavy axewoman and a female wavemaster.

The axewoman stood silent for a second then made a few hands signals that Lan couldn't see very well then yelled to the soldiers, "Everyone spilt up in teams of two and capture the AI. I want him alive so I can delete him personally," the soldiers ran in different directions.

As one of the soldiers reached the abandoned camp he shouted to everyone to meet with him. As the axewoman approached the soldier saluted, "Lady Kamui, this camp has been recently abondoned. He's probably still arond here ma'am."

The axewoman turned to the wavemaster, "Magi, get me the gate log to this area now!"

"Hai," the wavemaster brought up a small screen and quickly searched through information and then handed the small screen to the axewoman, "Ma'am."

Kamui quickly looked over the logs and handed back the screen back to Magi, "He's not alone. An axewoman named Lina entered here about 30 mintues before we did. She may be a player who stumbled across this field in a random word search or aiding the AI, either way secure her and bring her to me. MOVE OUT!!"

Fortunatly for them Jon had made a hiding spot under one of the large ice boulders in the area that Lan had carried him to. She wondered how in the world he could sleep through this and as she got to the spot she attempted to wake him up but proved useless. They entered to spot and Lan covered up the hole with snow, but left some room for her to see what was going on outside. She wanted to gate out and just run from them, but she couldn't leave Jon here alone to fend for himself. The soldiers wandered around the field for about ten mintues before reporting back to Kamui.

"You idiots, he hasn't logged out so he has to be here and so does that axewoman. You three search the dungeon to see if either of them is down there," as three of the soldiers ran off Kamui turned back to Magi, "You're sure no one else is here and that neither of them have gated out?"

"Hai, Lady Kamui. The logs have not been tampered with and it states that only the AI, Enigma, and that axewoman, Lina, are here. No one else has entered the field nor have they gated out since we arrived ma'am."

"Very well, we'll just have to search harder then," she sounded pleased that she was unable to find them right away, "Magi you're with me, and you two stay by the camp and see if he comes back there."

The other to soldiers ran back to the camp while Lan's attention was truely on the two officials. The axewoman, Kamui, as she casually walked around the field with the Magi at her side. Kamui went up to some of the other ice boulders around the field and stopped and seemed to investigate them. Magi recived mail as the loud mail chime could be heard from halfway across the field clearly and Lan quickly put a silent warning on all incoming messages. She attempted to access Jon character data to do the same and after some searching through some wierd data, she successfully did the same for him. She checked back on the two officers to see that they were standing directly at the boulder where she was hiding. She almost screamed out of surprise, but caught herself before any sound came from her mouth. She saw that all Kamui would have to do is look down and she would most likely see the hole leading to their hideout. Kamui tapped her ax against the boulder and had Magi run a few diagnostic programs on it like she had the others. Magi shook her head in dissappointment and Kamui growled in anger. As they began to walk away, Lan breathed a sigh of relief that they hadn't been spotted. The three that had been sent to the dungeon returned thirty minutes later, and Kamui showed her anger even more. She slammed her axe into the ground using a Gan Drive attack in the process.

"They must have logged out, and thus, the records wouldn't record them leaving. Damn it," Kamui huffed.

"Ma'am," one of the soldiers stepped forward, "Why would the higher ups want you, the leader of the Cobalt Knights, go on a simple AI hunt when there's that hacker, Helba, on the loose?"

Kamui shot him a death glance that made him cower in fear, "You have your orders and I have mine," she walked closer to the soldier and held her axe right next to his neck, "I follow my orders down to the last word. Never make the mistake of questioning my orders."

"Yes, L-La-Lady K-Kamui."

"But if you must know it seems that this particular AI has faced Balmung of the Azure Sky and survived. Instead of letting that failure make another attempt, administrators turned the file over to me. Magi, assign two of our best to watch the chaos gate in Mac Anu and have them report to me directly once they've spotted the AI. The rest of you are dismissed."

The soldiers gated out and Lan crawled out of the hole, but had Jon stay down there. If those soldiers came back while he was asleep, he would stand no chance against all of them. She heard of the Cobalt Knights, but what struck her the most was that Kamui had come to get Jon and not just plain soldiers. She covered up the entrance to the opening as much as she could and gated out to Mac Anu.

Chapter 18 End

A/N: I'll try to hurry up and finish this but there are no garantees on this. School/Games/Other fics are keeping me from finishing this. I was planning to make a sequel to this in the time of .HackLegend of the Twilight Bracelet, and if I don't here any objections, then I'll do it. Maybe that will get some of you to review, but I could just be kidding myself. Whatever, LATES people.