.hack/SAGA

Disclaimer- same as last time, too lazy to retype it.

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Chapter 2: Party

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Unknown where the Cursed Wave was born...
After the stars doth cross the heavens...
The sky in the East doth darken.
And air doth fills with mourning.
From the chosen land beyond the forest,
A sign of the Wave comes.

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In The World:

The four of us appeared almost simultaneously. Next to me, on either side, were two spear-bearing Long Arms. The female was wearing a gold-colored outfit, with purple and red as the designs. Her hair was auburn, part of it held back with braids at the side of her face. The male was wearing brown "hakama" pants, and an open jacket with white bandages underneath. They were obviously Shion and Allen. Turning around, I noticed the figure behind me. chaos' character.

When chaos had found me, all alone on the abandoned colony, I thought he was an angel, or my knight in shining armor, come to take me from the place where my parents and everyone I'd known had been killed by gnosis, to somewhere safe. His avatar in the world reflected that, having both armor, as well as large, pure white wings. I knew that my body was blushing, I just hoped that I wasn't blushing in "The World" as well.

"Now we introduce ourselves and exchange member addresses, so that we can form a party, right?" Allen's character asked. "I'm Gojyo, the Long Arm," he said, giving us his member address.

"Nanami, also Long Arm," replied Shion's character, also giving over her member address.

I looked at chaos. He grinned at me, then identified himself. "kira, Blademaster." I wondered where he'd found that name. It sounded cool.

Since everyone else had identified themselves, I knew it was my turn. I'd done fine the earlier with Rushe and Onpu, but they hadn't known who I was. The words chaos had told me earlier came back: "You do realize that you're going to have to speak while you're playing The World, right?" I opened my mouth and spoke. "Chone, Twin Blade."

Nanami played a shock, as Gojyo spoke up "So, she CAN speak. Who'da thought?" I took that moment to punch him in the gut. "Hey!" he cried, but knew he deserved it.

I heard a sound, and realized that I'd received Flash Mail. "Hold on, guys," I said, pulling the menu up on the side of my vision, and checking. Rushe was sending me an invitation to join him and Onpu. Turning back to the others, I asked, "Would you mind joining up with the two I met earlier?" The others didn't object, so I replied back that I had three others with me, and to meet us by the Chaos Gate in Mac Anu.

When Rushe and Onpu arrived, member addresses were exchanged, and we formed the party. Once I joined with them, Onpu handed me my spoils from the dungeon earlier, an item called a "Grunty Doll." The description of the item said that it could be sold or traded, but that it had no game value. Could be useful, so I stored it in the Elf's Haven before we headed out.

Since we had lots of fighters, plus a Wavemaster to handle healing, we decided to go to a higher level field than any of us could've handled on our own, or even with one or two others. The field we went to was called Expansive Gluttonous Touchstone, and its level was 6, well above our levels of 1 and 2 (Rushe and Onpu had managed to get almost to level 3 after I'd left, and I myself was almost to level 2).

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By the time we were finished playing for that night, all of us had raised enough levels to get at least to level 4. We also all had cool new weapons, which increased our attack. We'd even lucked out and managed to get our hands on a Cougar Bandana for Onpu, which let her have access to the spell "La Repth," which would heal our entire party (as long as we were close enough together) 150HP, instead of just one person. We said our farewells, then logged off from Mac Anu.

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On the Elsa:

"Well, did everyone have fun?" chaos asked. We nodded. "We'd better get to sleep, though. Matthews will have us up early to help with stuff." chaos and Allen said goodnight and went to the boys' cabin, as Shion and I readied for bed.

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Noises of movement woke me the next morning. Seeing that Shion was already up, I dressed quickly, then we walked out to the hatch of the Elsa. Tony, Hammer, and Allen were moving crates of equipment into the ship, supervised by the Captain. Spotting me, he called us over.

"Deian!" he barked. "We'll probably still be here a while, so can you and chaos take care of 'that stuff' for me? Take Ms. Vector with you." Shion was about to object to the Captain's continued misnaming of her, but I nodded to him and pulled her with me.

"Where are we going," she asked. "And what's 'that stuff'?" I shrugged, and put my finger to my lips, as I opened the door to the boys' cabin. I stopped short of entering the bunk area, watching chaos sleep. He always looked so innocent like that, when he didn't know anyone was watching. Sometimes, I hoped I'd catch some stray emotion cross his face, but I never did. I sighed, knowing that just as I'd speak to people when I was ready, so would he tell me about himself when he was ready.

"Keiosu," I whispered, tapping him gently on the shoulder.

"Mornin'," he said, opening his eyes and smiling. "I take it the Captain wants us to take care of 'that stuff' for him?" I nodded. "You can get it ready, right?" I nodded again. "Then get it ready and meet me at the cargo elevator. Shion's coming with us?" I nodded for a third time. "Thanks, Day. I'll meet you there."

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Shion didn't say anything as she followed me down into the cargo bay. Neither did she say anything as I packed up some salvaged goods into crates, and brought them up to the cargo elevator, where chaos was waiting.

"Captain wants us to use the back door?" chaos asked. I grinned. "As usual..." he continued.

Shion was looking slightly nervous. "This stuff isn't illegal, is it?" I grinned again, at her discomfort.

"Don't worry, Shion. There's nothing wrong with selling this stuff. But as we're on official business for Master Gaignun, it's better if we're not seen, so it doesn't look like the Foundation is selling salvaged goods. You understand?" Shion still looked slightly uncomfortable, but she nodded to the silver-haired boy. chaos smiled. "Good! The let's go!"

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And chapter 2 is finally done! Sorry for the delay (although it's not as bad as the delay in some of my other fics). I'm starting to discover that I can't concentrate on many stories at once, so I'm only gonna be updating one or two until I get a smaller amount of 'in production' stories. But how to choose them? I'm letting YOU (the readers) vote, by giving me reviews. Once I've updated a new chapter to each of my stories (this one is #2), I'll wait one week. The stories with the most reviews will be put onto the 'front burner,' while the rest will be put on the 'back burner.' So review if you want me to continue this sooner!.

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Character Descriptions

Nanami's outfit- Nanami's outfit is very similar to Gardenia's, but with a gold color to the outfit, with purple and red designs on it. Her hair is the same as Shion's from the first game.

Gojyo's outfit- Gojyo's outfit is similar to Crim's, but slightly different. There are no patterns or symbols on it, and the pants are plain brown (hakama, like Crim's), and he's got an open brown jacket. His torso is wrapped in white bandaging, and for shoes he has Japanese sandals (the ones with the two sections for toes, that you wear the toed socks with).

kira's outfit- Think Balmung with chaos' face. Really. There are some slight differences, but for the most part, that's what it looks like.