Thanks to all who reviewed! Again! And to junyortrakr, did you read past
chap. 7? Oh well.
Sky
Tsukazi kept walking in the steamy jungle. He still hadn't found his friends, and was beginning to worry about them. Were they alright? Could they log out while he couldn't? What was happening?
"Eh? Why is there this weird clearing in the middle of a tropical jungle? It looks kind of like a piece of the beach..." Tsukazi had stumbled upon a small clearing. It wasn't covered in tightly packed dirt though; it had light and fluffy beach sand. In one corner, was a small piece of ocean flowing in and out like waves.
"This place just gets weirder and weirder."
He stumbled aimlessly toward the middle of the clearing, and sat down to rest his feet.
* * *
Subaru woke on top of a white, fluffy piece of...something. She sat up, and looked around. The others were no where near her. She stood up, and walked in the direction that she was facing when she woke up.
Subaru looked at the ground where she walked. What she was on top of looked awfully familiar. As if she saw them every day. Then she figured it out. She was standing on top of-
"Clouds?" she asked herself. As she walked, Subaru saw something she hadn't before, a piece of a cloud was different. In fact, an entire circle of ground was different. It looked like a patch of desert.
"But in the sky?" Subaru asked no one. Before she knew what was happening, a strong gust kicked in. It blew her off her feet, and Subaru closed her eyes out of fear.
* * *
Sharie was falling again. But this time, she didn't slam into a ground. It was a normal experience, like warping to another field in the game. When she was about to hit the ground, yellow rings caught her, and she was warped.
Sharie landed on a small patch of desert that looked like the field she was just on. The rest of the ground was made up out of clouds. She looked at the sand below her, and smiled.
In the piece of sand, red letters were forming. This time though, they weren't bad. They spelled out; Phase 1 Complete. What confused her most was the phase 1 part. Were there more phases?
As she looked a little to the left to get an idea of her surroundings, she saw someone on the ground. The unconscious girl looked sort of like-
"Subaru! It's so good to see you!" she exclaimed.
"Uh?" Subaru slowly sat up and rubbed her head.
"Are you alright Subaru?" asked Sharie meaningfully. For a second, there was no response from her. Then she blinked a couple of times and answered.
"Aren't you...the one who wanted my member address so long ago?" she asked.
"Oh...that. Yeah, I guess I did," admitted Sharie, embarrassed at how she had acted when she first met her.
"Don't feel ashamed. You may have it now. We need to form a party anyway." Subaru said sympathetically.
"All right! YES!" exclaimed Sharie, but when she saw the look on Subaru's face, she dulled it down to a quiet "Thanks."
Subaru stood up. "Maybe we should keep walking?" she offered.
"Okay! And, just one thing. If you start seeing static, and then red letters, I'd be careful." warned Sharie.
"I will," Subaru said quietly, and Sharie got the feeling that she had lost her mind.
* * *
"Ah, Tsukasa. The essential part of my plan. You will help "The World" realize my dream, and help me rule everything," Varuchio whispered to himself.
"Subaru? Why are we on top of clouds?"
"I'm afraid I do not know. But we should try and find a red gate like yours."
The conversation tore Varuchio's eyes away from the still-life capsule in the corner of his office. He stared at the top-left screen because he thought he heard Sharie, but as he stared at the now blank screen, he realized that she cleared phase one.
His eyes darted from screen to screen, searching for the heavy blade.
The wavemaster in the forest, the blademaster on the cliff. his mind raced, trying to keep up with his eyes. Ah, the axemen in the clouds, how I should have known.
"Wait," he whispered to himself, "I didn't program in an escape system. How did she GET OUT!?!" As he finished his words, a cat appeared in front of him. It smiled, waved at the screen, and then faded away.
"MACHA!" cried Varuchio. "That cat...!" He smiled sinisterly. "If Macha is helping them, then the one who awakened him before me was...!" He laughed to himself. He threw on his trench coat.
"While I'm out, I might as well throw phase two with the angel-girl's worst fear," He laughed again as he threw down a switch. Then he disappeared in a swarm of yellow rings.
* * *
"Huh? Hey! Subaru! Up ahead, there's a tower!" Sharie cried.
"Really? Then let us hurry to it." Subaru said flatly.
Sharie ran forward to the tower, and tried to push the front door open. It wouldn't move. She tried again and again, ramming it with her shoulder, and then finally giving up.
"It's locked," Sharie wheezed out.
"No it isn't." Subaru argued as she pushed it open easily. "I'll go in first." She took a few footsteps in, and then motioned for Sharie to follow. After that, she kept walking, as if examining the place.
"Okay!" Sharie exclaimed. She tried to run through the door, but was sprung back by an unseen force. "What the hell?!?" Subaru kept walking. "SUBARU!" Sharie called out.
"What is it...!" Subaru turned around and the door started closing. She ran, trying to reach the exit before it was too late. The door slammed in her face only a few feet away.
"SUBARU!" cried Sharie, and rammed the door with her shoulder. It was locked. Subaru was trapped, and she couldn't get out. Sharie had a growing felling of terror. She knew what was in that tower, and why she couldn't get in. It was phase two, and Sharie couldn't help Subaru through it in the slightest.
* * *
Macha hovered above Aura's old bed. Aura sat calmly on it. She looked up at Macha.
"Macha, I sense that...something...is wrong. If something were to happen to me, or to you, never summon...it...again," Aura spoke softly, but her word echoed, and Macha nodded a nod of understanding.
"Thank you, Macha. Never summon it again."
* * *
"No!" Subaru cried as she banged on the door with her fist. It wouldn't budge. She finally gave up, and slid down to the floor. As she got a good look around, she realized that there were no stairs leading up.
As she walked to the center of the room, something happened. The environment around her flickered.
"What..." started Subaru, backing up a little, "was that?"
It flickered again, and again. Eventually it flickered so often that it was like a sheet of static. She vaguely heard a drop of water in the background. Then red letters flashed angrily in front of her until they stopped on a horrifying message. They spelled out; PHASE TWO: CRYSTAL INNIS: THE TORMENT OF MEMORIES.
"Memories?" Subaru asked herself. A large chunk of the ceiling slowly came down to the floor, and divided itself into steps. A staircase leading up to the second floor. She backed away from it.
Three yellow rings formed in front of her. A player gated in from them. Subaru knew this twinblade well, and his name was-
"Kite! What are you doing here?" she asked.
"Listen to me Subaru. Whatever you see up there," he pointed towards the staircase, "I want you to remember something,"
"What is it?" asked Subaru.
"You are Subaru. Nothing can take that from you. And no matter what you see, things past by are things past by, and they can not hurt you. Good luck."
Subaru wanted to say something more, but Kite logged out.
"How did he...?" she gave up, and walked up the staircase.
* * *
**REAL WORLD**
"An?" asked a father.
"...Yes?" answered a girl in front of a terminal.
"What are you doing?"
"...I'm...play-ing... 'The World'."
"I thought that after the incident with...her...you decided not to play that game again."
"You...mean...Mor-gonna?"
"Uh...yeah,"
"I...decided...to...play...anyway. To...meet...Subaru." The girl answered with a strange distance between her words, and in a voice that sounded cracked.
"Well, do you want some dinner?"
"..No...thank...you."
"Really?"
"...Yes...!" The girl started to cough violently. After a little while, a small dribble of virus leaked out of her mouth, and dropped onto the keyboard. It slithered into the keyboard.
"AN!" called the father. The girl's body grew limp. The father was about to panic, when mail flashed under the user name. He clicked on it, and Aura's face popped up. It read;
To Bear, H^lp Tsukasa! He is tra**ed! Seek Ryuoku! The e*e(y impl&nted virus in the real body to delay y&ur @ction! Seek Ryuoku in Mac Anu in an hour! T^e*e i(n't m*ch T@me P!e$#e he%* Tsukasa! Beware of V^%#ch^( P#e$^e H&**Y
The message was scrambled at some points, but he got the general idea. In an hour, he would meet Ryuoku in Mac Anu.
"Time for Bear to log back in!" The man picked up the girl, and laid her down in her bed.
* * *
Subaru climbed up the staircase. The second floor was as empty as the first.
"And I was worried." She said to herself. But soon the area in front of her began to warp and change. In front of her, she saw a young girl. She was around the age of 11. She was walking on her balcony in her house.
"It's...me!" Subaru cried uneasily. She watched her younger self walk carelessly on a balcony. She leaned against the part of a railing her father had been working on. It broke, and the girl fell.
"NO!" cried Subaru as she watched herself plummet towards the ground.
The girl woke up in a hospital bed. She couldn't move her legs. The father slapped her, and walked away.
"No..." Subaru stared at her supposed 'memory.' She never was slapped by her father.
"This is wrong! This isn't the way it happened at all! That's no even how this happened! It's all...WRONG!" The last yelling echoed through the tower, and a third set of stairs crushed the incorrect memory. Subaru climbed them, and didn't look back.
* * *
Sharie sat down in the clouds. Subaru had been gone for a long time.
"What is taking-!" In the middle of her words, the tower vanished. A barren field appeared with some type of crystal demon. Sharie ran forward to Subaru. She could enter the battle field at least.
"Crystal Innis!" gasped Subaru. Sharie took one swing at it, and took a large slice out of it.
"Come on Subaru! Help me hack this thing!" cried Sharie. Subaru ran forward, and took another clean slice out of it. Eventually Crystal Innis was gone, and a red gate appeared in the center of the field.
"Let's go!" cried Subaru.
"Right behind ya!" Sharie exclaimed, and ran after her. They warped away, and left the swirling mass of clouds behind them.
* * *
Macha sat in the middle of the field where Aura's bed was. He picked up a blade of grass, and twirled it between the fingers.
"Hello, Phase Six,"
Macha felt a cold hand clasp his shoulder, and his thought started to fade.
**END**
Thanks for reading! Be sure to drop a review when your done! Sorry I took a little bit to update, but I'll try not to again.
Sky
Tsukazi kept walking in the steamy jungle. He still hadn't found his friends, and was beginning to worry about them. Were they alright? Could they log out while he couldn't? What was happening?
"Eh? Why is there this weird clearing in the middle of a tropical jungle? It looks kind of like a piece of the beach..." Tsukazi had stumbled upon a small clearing. It wasn't covered in tightly packed dirt though; it had light and fluffy beach sand. In one corner, was a small piece of ocean flowing in and out like waves.
"This place just gets weirder and weirder."
He stumbled aimlessly toward the middle of the clearing, and sat down to rest his feet.
* * *
Subaru woke on top of a white, fluffy piece of...something. She sat up, and looked around. The others were no where near her. She stood up, and walked in the direction that she was facing when she woke up.
Subaru looked at the ground where she walked. What she was on top of looked awfully familiar. As if she saw them every day. Then she figured it out. She was standing on top of-
"Clouds?" she asked herself. As she walked, Subaru saw something she hadn't before, a piece of a cloud was different. In fact, an entire circle of ground was different. It looked like a patch of desert.
"But in the sky?" Subaru asked no one. Before she knew what was happening, a strong gust kicked in. It blew her off her feet, and Subaru closed her eyes out of fear.
* * *
Sharie was falling again. But this time, she didn't slam into a ground. It was a normal experience, like warping to another field in the game. When she was about to hit the ground, yellow rings caught her, and she was warped.
Sharie landed on a small patch of desert that looked like the field she was just on. The rest of the ground was made up out of clouds. She looked at the sand below her, and smiled.
In the piece of sand, red letters were forming. This time though, they weren't bad. They spelled out; Phase 1 Complete. What confused her most was the phase 1 part. Were there more phases?
As she looked a little to the left to get an idea of her surroundings, she saw someone on the ground. The unconscious girl looked sort of like-
"Subaru! It's so good to see you!" she exclaimed.
"Uh?" Subaru slowly sat up and rubbed her head.
"Are you alright Subaru?" asked Sharie meaningfully. For a second, there was no response from her. Then she blinked a couple of times and answered.
"Aren't you...the one who wanted my member address so long ago?" she asked.
"Oh...that. Yeah, I guess I did," admitted Sharie, embarrassed at how she had acted when she first met her.
"Don't feel ashamed. You may have it now. We need to form a party anyway." Subaru said sympathetically.
"All right! YES!" exclaimed Sharie, but when she saw the look on Subaru's face, she dulled it down to a quiet "Thanks."
Subaru stood up. "Maybe we should keep walking?" she offered.
"Okay! And, just one thing. If you start seeing static, and then red letters, I'd be careful." warned Sharie.
"I will," Subaru said quietly, and Sharie got the feeling that she had lost her mind.
* * *
"Ah, Tsukasa. The essential part of my plan. You will help "The World" realize my dream, and help me rule everything," Varuchio whispered to himself.
"Subaru? Why are we on top of clouds?"
"I'm afraid I do not know. But we should try and find a red gate like yours."
The conversation tore Varuchio's eyes away from the still-life capsule in the corner of his office. He stared at the top-left screen because he thought he heard Sharie, but as he stared at the now blank screen, he realized that she cleared phase one.
His eyes darted from screen to screen, searching for the heavy blade.
The wavemaster in the forest, the blademaster on the cliff. his mind raced, trying to keep up with his eyes. Ah, the axemen in the clouds, how I should have known.
"Wait," he whispered to himself, "I didn't program in an escape system. How did she GET OUT!?!" As he finished his words, a cat appeared in front of him. It smiled, waved at the screen, and then faded away.
"MACHA!" cried Varuchio. "That cat...!" He smiled sinisterly. "If Macha is helping them, then the one who awakened him before me was...!" He laughed to himself. He threw on his trench coat.
"While I'm out, I might as well throw phase two with the angel-girl's worst fear," He laughed again as he threw down a switch. Then he disappeared in a swarm of yellow rings.
* * *
"Huh? Hey! Subaru! Up ahead, there's a tower!" Sharie cried.
"Really? Then let us hurry to it." Subaru said flatly.
Sharie ran forward to the tower, and tried to push the front door open. It wouldn't move. She tried again and again, ramming it with her shoulder, and then finally giving up.
"It's locked," Sharie wheezed out.
"No it isn't." Subaru argued as she pushed it open easily. "I'll go in first." She took a few footsteps in, and then motioned for Sharie to follow. After that, she kept walking, as if examining the place.
"Okay!" Sharie exclaimed. She tried to run through the door, but was sprung back by an unseen force. "What the hell?!?" Subaru kept walking. "SUBARU!" Sharie called out.
"What is it...!" Subaru turned around and the door started closing. She ran, trying to reach the exit before it was too late. The door slammed in her face only a few feet away.
"SUBARU!" cried Sharie, and rammed the door with her shoulder. It was locked. Subaru was trapped, and she couldn't get out. Sharie had a growing felling of terror. She knew what was in that tower, and why she couldn't get in. It was phase two, and Sharie couldn't help Subaru through it in the slightest.
* * *
Macha hovered above Aura's old bed. Aura sat calmly on it. She looked up at Macha.
"Macha, I sense that...something...is wrong. If something were to happen to me, or to you, never summon...it...again," Aura spoke softly, but her word echoed, and Macha nodded a nod of understanding.
"Thank you, Macha. Never summon it again."
* * *
"No!" Subaru cried as she banged on the door with her fist. It wouldn't budge. She finally gave up, and slid down to the floor. As she got a good look around, she realized that there were no stairs leading up.
As she walked to the center of the room, something happened. The environment around her flickered.
"What..." started Subaru, backing up a little, "was that?"
It flickered again, and again. Eventually it flickered so often that it was like a sheet of static. She vaguely heard a drop of water in the background. Then red letters flashed angrily in front of her until they stopped on a horrifying message. They spelled out; PHASE TWO: CRYSTAL INNIS: THE TORMENT OF MEMORIES.
"Memories?" Subaru asked herself. A large chunk of the ceiling slowly came down to the floor, and divided itself into steps. A staircase leading up to the second floor. She backed away from it.
Three yellow rings formed in front of her. A player gated in from them. Subaru knew this twinblade well, and his name was-
"Kite! What are you doing here?" she asked.
"Listen to me Subaru. Whatever you see up there," he pointed towards the staircase, "I want you to remember something,"
"What is it?" asked Subaru.
"You are Subaru. Nothing can take that from you. And no matter what you see, things past by are things past by, and they can not hurt you. Good luck."
Subaru wanted to say something more, but Kite logged out.
"How did he...?" she gave up, and walked up the staircase.
* * *
**REAL WORLD**
"An?" asked a father.
"...Yes?" answered a girl in front of a terminal.
"What are you doing?"
"...I'm...play-ing... 'The World'."
"I thought that after the incident with...her...you decided not to play that game again."
"You...mean...Mor-gonna?"
"Uh...yeah,"
"I...decided...to...play...anyway. To...meet...Subaru." The girl answered with a strange distance between her words, and in a voice that sounded cracked.
"Well, do you want some dinner?"
"..No...thank...you."
"Really?"
"...Yes...!" The girl started to cough violently. After a little while, a small dribble of virus leaked out of her mouth, and dropped onto the keyboard. It slithered into the keyboard.
"AN!" called the father. The girl's body grew limp. The father was about to panic, when mail flashed under the user name. He clicked on it, and Aura's face popped up. It read;
To Bear, H^lp Tsukasa! He is tra**ed! Seek Ryuoku! The e*e(y impl&nted virus in the real body to delay y&ur @ction! Seek Ryuoku in Mac Anu in an hour! T^e*e i(n't m*ch T@me P!e$#e he%* Tsukasa! Beware of V^%#ch^( P#e$^e H&**Y
The message was scrambled at some points, but he got the general idea. In an hour, he would meet Ryuoku in Mac Anu.
"Time for Bear to log back in!" The man picked up the girl, and laid her down in her bed.
* * *
Subaru climbed up the staircase. The second floor was as empty as the first.
"And I was worried." She said to herself. But soon the area in front of her began to warp and change. In front of her, she saw a young girl. She was around the age of 11. She was walking on her balcony in her house.
"It's...me!" Subaru cried uneasily. She watched her younger self walk carelessly on a balcony. She leaned against the part of a railing her father had been working on. It broke, and the girl fell.
"NO!" cried Subaru as she watched herself plummet towards the ground.
The girl woke up in a hospital bed. She couldn't move her legs. The father slapped her, and walked away.
"No..." Subaru stared at her supposed 'memory.' She never was slapped by her father.
"This is wrong! This isn't the way it happened at all! That's no even how this happened! It's all...WRONG!" The last yelling echoed through the tower, and a third set of stairs crushed the incorrect memory. Subaru climbed them, and didn't look back.
* * *
Sharie sat down in the clouds. Subaru had been gone for a long time.
"What is taking-!" In the middle of her words, the tower vanished. A barren field appeared with some type of crystal demon. Sharie ran forward to Subaru. She could enter the battle field at least.
"Crystal Innis!" gasped Subaru. Sharie took one swing at it, and took a large slice out of it.
"Come on Subaru! Help me hack this thing!" cried Sharie. Subaru ran forward, and took another clean slice out of it. Eventually Crystal Innis was gone, and a red gate appeared in the center of the field.
"Let's go!" cried Subaru.
"Right behind ya!" Sharie exclaimed, and ran after her. They warped away, and left the swirling mass of clouds behind them.
* * *
Macha sat in the middle of the field where Aura's bed was. He picked up a blade of grass, and twirled it between the fingers.
"Hello, Phase Six,"
Macha felt a cold hand clasp his shoulder, and his thought started to fade.
**END**
Thanks for reading! Be sure to drop a review when your done! Sorry I took a little bit to update, but I'll try not to again.