Copyright
.hackGODDESS © 2003 SmkViper
Oh My Goddess! © Kosuke Fujishima
Japanese Language Version © Kodansha Ltd.
English Language Version © AnimEigo, Pioneer, Dark Horse
Project Dot Hack © Project Hack, Bandai, TV Tokyo, Comptiq
.hackGODDESS is a fan fiction work based off the
Oh My Goddess! and Project Dot Hack universes. It
is not affiliated with Kosuke Fukishima, Kodansha Ltd,
or Project Hack. And resemblance to any person, living
or dead, is purely coincidental.
Author's notes:
Text in > are a character's thoughts.
Chapter 9: A Discovery, A Date, A Demon
Tal sat in his office in Hell brooding over his next assignment. I'm a demon, 1st class. I shouldn't have to do something as menial as causing an "accident" with a life support system. Still, since Hild specifically passed this assignment to me, there must be something important about this person… "Well, guess I could start by researching this person in Hell's database." After a few quick keystrokes he had brought up the relevant information.
"Hmm… name is Miyuki Kamina… born and lives in Tokyo, Japan… 16 years old… oh this is interesting: admitted to a local hospital after being found unconscious next to her computer. She is stable, but is in a coma and on life support. Father has apparently discussed euthanasia with her doctor. I wonder if it has anything to do with Hild's latest 'project'?" "Getting a bit nosy are we dear?" said a sultry voice over his left shoulder.
Tal shot up in his chair and was only saved from falling by grabbing onto the lip of his desk before the chair could tip over.
"H-Hild! What are you doing here?" "Just checking up on a little demon who seems to be sticking his nose into places it doesn't belong…" "Well I hope you find him then…" replied Tal as he attempted to regain his composure.
Hild just grinned at him like a predator that just cornered its prey.
Tal sweated.
"Well thank you for the sentiment dear… I just want your little job done by the end of the day. Ta ta!" Hild called as she gave a little wave and left.
How the hell does she know when to come by… "I heard that Tal! And unless you get working again I think we'll be seeing a lot more of each other." Tal squeaked and immediately went back to work. He didn't think she'd be seeing him for social calls if that happened. After taking a few good minutes to calm down he began working out his plan for causing a "failure" in Ms. Kamina's life support equipment.
That night, a hobo got the shock of his life as someone seemed to literally jump out of the fire he had built to keep himself warm.Damn the human that invented the light bulb and got rid of torches and candles… thought Tal to himself after dusting himself off. He then spotted the disheveled man looking at him and shaking with fear. Tsh… looks like I can still cause a bit of fear in people… at least I'm not losing my touch> "What are you looking at? Get out of here before I make you regret it!" said Tal in a low, menacing voice. The man turned tail and fled.
"Now to find that house…" Tal muttered to himself as he studied the piece of parchment on which he had written some notes in an evil looking script that seemed to glow slightly red on the page. After studying them for a while he took off down the street. He quickly found the house that he was looking for and slipped inside. A few minutes later, a man looking identical to Takuya Kamina, Miyuki's father, stepped out of the house, an evil glint in his eye as he walked towards the hospital.
The nurse on duty though it was odd that Mr. Kamina was visiting so late at night. He usually only came by to talk to one of the doctors about his daughter's condition and never just to visit her. But since he was family she let him go in. "About time the man visited her, the poor thing," she said to herself.
Tal quietly slipped into the hospital room that Miyuki was staying in. Fooling the nurse had been too easy with the help of the spell that changed his appearance. Of course it would have been easier if it had been 300 years ago and he could have just teleported in through a torch on the wall or a candle sitting next to a bed. Modern times had definitely not made travel easy for him. But what did it matter? He was here and just had to sabotage the equipment, he was a demon 1st class after all. However even demons 1st class cannot be expected to know everything. It's not like Tal had learned about electronics, but he at least knew that unplugging the unit from the wall would probably work. So he did. In hindsight, this was probably not the best option he could have taken.As soon as he had pulled the plug out of the wall, the monitors by the girl's bedside gave out an annoyingly loud tone and he was about to quickly make his exit when a man threw open the door and saw Tal, still looking like Takuya Kamina, holding the plug to the life support machine.
"What are you doing!" the doctor yelled at the man as he rushed towards Tal and grappled with him, fighting for the plug. "Stop it! Calm down!" Tal decided the fleeing was the best option. He could not risk using his power in a visible way, so he simply pushed the doctor away, into one of the blaring machines and ran out of the room.
Damn it! How could that have gone any worse! Damn Hild and the stupid rules she created that prevent me from directly hurting them!
He was so wrapped up in cursing at himself that he didn't notice the goddess standing outside the hospital til he had slammed face first into her force field and fell, dazed, to the sidewalk.
"Well, well, well, what have we here?" said a female voice as she walked closer to Tal. "A demon? In a hospital? What's the matter? Visiting an old friend? I think not." Tal shook his head so he could see again, but he wasn't feeling any better once he saw who was talking to him. She was tall, dressed in purple and white robes with a large single-bladed axe in her hand, the handle as long as she was tall. Three purple dots adorned her forehead in the shape of an upside-down triangle. Crap! A valkyrie!
"Go back to Hild and tell her that Miyuki is now under our protection. You are not welcome here," she said coldly, her face hard as ice.
Tal, knowing that he did not want to mess with a valkyrie, one of Heaven's elite soldiers, took off down the road, desperately looking for a fire where he could transport back to Hell. Once he got back to Hell though, he was not in a much better position.
"Tal dear, we need to talk about the meaning of the word 'subtlety'." Said Hild with her eyes smouldering.
Tal gulped. He knew he was going to see a lot more of Hild in the near future, and it wasn't going to be pretty…
The following morning Bear and BT met in a small grove of trees in a vacant field in The World."The time the patient fell, the circumstances, the place, it's more then enough corroborating evidence. I'm pretty sure I'm right. That patient is Tsukasa," said Bear."So, what about the big commotion at the hospital?" asked BT.
"They found him relatively quickly so the situation was never critical. He had limited use of his respiratory functions in the first place, so he was also lucky that the respirator was only being used in a support capacity."
"But still, wouldn't this be considered attempted murder?"
"In this case, I think it would be considered temporary insanity. The patient in question had numerous bumps and bruises on his body when he was first brought into the hospital," replied Bear
"That is so depressing," said BT with a sigh.
"That's for sure. The hospital itself is having difficulty because of this case as well. It's very serious," replied Bear.
Back in the real world things are just getting underway at the hill where the race is to take place.
"Morisato!" yelled a big booming voice as the owner of that voice, a big man himself, walked towards Keiichi who was doing a final inspection of the bike. With him was another tall man with spiky blond hair, which made him look taller then he really was, and also wearing sunglasses.
"Tamiya, Ootaki, how are you guys?" "We are ready for you to lead our club to victory bro!" said Ootaki in a less booming voice.
"But guys, you haven't been in the club for several years!" insisted Keiichi.
"We may not be members of the club but we can still inspire them
with out gung-ho spirit and make sure future generations will carry on
our legacy! Your performance today will inspire members of the club for
years to come! Now go out there and do our club proud!" said Tamiya,
his voice still exceptionally loud.
Keiichi sweat-dropped and flashed a half-heated grin before turning back to the bike.
"Oh hello Tamiya, Ootaki. Would you like some tea?" asked Belldandy as she came up to them with a thermos and a few cups in hand.
"Thank you Miss Beldandy," replied Tamiya, a little more quietly this time as he and Ootaki accepted the offered beverage.
"Ootaki, is your wife here today?" asked Belldandy again.
"Satoko is up in the stands cheering us on," replied Ootaki, pointing to her.
"Thank you," replied Belldandy before heading towards Satoko to talk with her.
"Well," said Keiichi, looking up from the bike, "everything seems to be ready to go. Now we just have to wait our turn."
The races lasted all day with several bike riders failing to reach the top of the mountain. A few, including Keiichi, were able to reach the top however, but Keiichi beat them all out in the speed at which he did so. After the races were over, there was to be a party at the clubhouse on Nekomi Tech's campus, but Skuld and Kenaz had other plans. Before they took off however, Keiichi thanked them for a job well done on the bike.
"So Kenaz," said Skuld once they were walking alone, "what did you have in mind tonight?"
"Well, nothing fancy I guess. There was this new ramen place I wanted to check out for dinner, then we could hit 131 flavors for some ice cream, and finish up with a trip to the arcade. How does that sound?"
"Sounds fancy enough for me, but how about we skip the dinner and go right to the ice cream?" said Skuld with a mischievous grin on her face.
Kenaz laughed. "Belldandy wouldn't be too happy with me if I took her little sister out for nothing but ice cream!"
Skuld laughed with him. "No, I suppose she wouldn't. And anyway, Urd would probably give me a hard time about it too."
Dinner passed quickly as Skuld and Kenaz spent the time talking about the race, the bike, and what they could have done differently that might have made the bike run better. After they picked up their ice cream and were walking to the arcade their conversation drifted towards The World and what was going on there.
"You never told me what you found out about that guardian monster, and how my data got corrupted," said Skuld.
"Well, I'm still not completely sure what went on at that time. Unfortunately the tracer program was destroyed before it could send us any data." Skuld looked a bit downcast at the mention that one of her programs failed.
"However, what did help was you getting hit by the monster."
"Hey, I'm not going to go back in there and set myself up as a target just so you can get more data!" said Skuld indignantly.
"Sorry, I didn't mean it to sound like that," Kenaz replied with a sheepish grin. "Anyway, when the monster hit you, it somehow corrupted your data in Yggdrasil through your connection. Fortunately the anti-virus program was able to contain it, but not before it was able to hurt you. That's why you were sick."
"I still don't see how any program made by humans could even know how to use our connection to Yggdrasil, let alone access and corrupt data."
"That's what also had me worried. Unless…"
"Unless what?" asked Skuld.
"Nah, it's nothing," replied Kenaz dismissively.
"It's got to be something. Come on, out with it!"
"Alright, fine. What if the virus was not made by humans, but made by a demon? I've heard their computer system is similar to Yggdrasil, and demons are connected to it like we are connected to Yggdrasil. So they could possibly have the knowledge to make a virus like that."
"But why? They know that if they kill any god or goddess that they will lose one of their own because of the doublet system," stated Skuld, a puzzled look on her face.
"I know, that's what doesn't make sense. I can't see them risking the death of, say, Hild, just because their program hit the wrong person. Well, maybe looking more closely at what the virus did or left behind will help us with that question… oh, here we are," said Kenaz as they arrived at the arcade.
Skuld was like a kid in a toy store, which might be a more accurate description then she would have liked. She and Kenaz played several games with and against each other until it got late. On their way home however, Kenaz's cell phone rang.
"Hmm, wonder who that is?" asked Kenaz as he pulled out the phone to check the caller ID.
"Probably Urd, wanting to know if you've made your move yet," replied Skuld with an odd smile on her face.
Kenaz didn't recognize the phone number listed, so he let the call go to voice mail. "If it's anyone important, they'll leave a voice message," he said, putting the phone in his pocket again.
A few seconds later, it rang again, signaling that a new voice message was in his mailbox.
"Well I guess it was important," Kenaz said, dialing into his voice mail and listening to the message. As he listened his eyes grew larger and he scribbled something down on a piece of paper.
"What? What is it?" asked Skuld, a little worried.
"That was… that was someone who claimed to be Helba."
"Helba? The famous hacker?"
"The same. She said that she had something interesting for us and if we wanted to meet with her, to go to the address I wrote down in the next few minutes."
Skuld looked at the address, it was only a few minutes away by walking. Obviously Helba had not only found out Kenaz's phone number, but where they were when she called them, which was a little creepy.
"What do you think? Should we go and meet her?" asked Skuld, a little worried.
"I think so, she might have some important information for us," replied Kenaz. "Don't worry, I'm sure we can handle anything she might try."
A few minutes later they had arrived at the designated address, a technology store that was closed for the night. After they had arrived, the door to the store opened and a woman called them inside, turning on the store light. She led them to a back room and turned on the front store light so the store looked empty again.
"So, am I right in assuming you are Helba?" asked Kenaz.
"That is correct," replied the woman. "Normally I wouldn't show myself in person, but because of what is going on in The World, I felt the risk was necessary, and that I could trust you."
"Why do you think you can trust us?" asked Skuld.
"I have watched you play the game. Seen what you can do. No ordinary player has the abilities that you do, and you also seem to be investigating The World."
She must have seen us use our divine powers that one time when Sora attacked us!> thought Skuld to herself.
"I have some information that you might find useful," said Helba, "but of course, the information will not be free."
"I thought so, what do you want in return?" asked Kenaz.
"Simply your help and access to the information that you have that I do not possess. I may not look like it, but I am just as worried about the problems that The World is facing as you are, perhaps more," she replied with a slight grin.
"Alright, we agree. You give us your information first," said Kenaz.
Helba looked annoyed for a second before starting. "Well then, in order to give you what I know, I need to know how much you know about The World. For example, who made it, and why did he make it?"
"Well," replied Skuld, "I assume it was made by CC Corporation, since their name is the one on the game box. And I assume it was made to make money, like all computer games."
Helba sighed. "Looks like you have much to learn. So I will start from the beginning. The World was originally not a massively multiplayer online role-playing game. It was a small program called Fragment, developed by a man named Harold Hyuek. He wrote Fragment to be virtual world where he could develop a new breed of artificial intelligence. The AI that he developed he called Morghanna. After watching Morghanna develop in Fragment, he noticed some shortcomings in her programming, so he decided to make a new AI. Since a lot of the base programming for Morghanna would work for this new AI, he decided to slightly restructure Morghanna to make the AI for him, thereby saving him some work. At this time however, CC Corporation heard about his program and decided to offer to buy it from him. They didn't care about the AI, in fact, it's probable they didn't know the AI even existed. They just wanted the world that Harold had created. Harold refused, he did not want his creation turned into a video game, he felt that that would diminish what he was trying to di. This angered the CEO of CC Corporation. I do not know many other details other then that CC Corporation now owns Fragment, which they have re-made into The World, and Harold died shortly after he refused to sell Fragment to them."
"But that doesn't make much sense, why would they want Fragment so badly? Wasn't there any other software that CC Corporation could use?" asked Skuld.
"No, there wasn't. After the Pluto's Kiss incident, the only operating system was Altimit, developed by CC Corporation. And there were no online games at all, none even in development. Because Fragment was designed to use a network so that multiple computers could run it and develop the AI contained in it, it was an ideal base for what CC Corporation wanted to do. Harold has already developed everything they needed except for making the actual zones and allowing players to play in the world contained in Fragment. And, as always, it is cheaper to steal something then to develop it yourself. Anyway, CC Corporation took Fragment and developed it into The World, but there was one problem. There seemed to be no way to administer The World, as an autonomous program managed everything. This, of course, was Morghanna, but CC Corporation did not know this. Since they could not get rid of the program, they cut it off from the rest of the system and put in their own administrative system that could be managed by people. But Morghanna is still there in The World, probably still trying to create the new AI, which Harold called Aura."
"So what does all this have to do with what is going on in The World today?" asked Kenaz.
"It seems that Morghanna has been able to slightly break out of the shell that CC Corporation put her into. However I don't think she did this on her own. There seems to be someone helping her. As a result of her increasing influence, strange things have been happening, odd monsters are appearing, pieces of dungeons are getting corrupted, and now even a player named Tsubasa is unable to log out of the game. I fear that if Morghanna takes over the world, that her anger and being shut away from it by CC Corporation will manifest itself and she will lash out against the players. And from there she might even be able to get outside of The World. She seems to be acting much like a mother would act if her child was threatened. Though whether that child is Aura or not is up for debate. It would be Pluto's Kiss all over again."
"So basically, you're worried that this AI, Morghanna, will wreak havoc in The World, and possibly also in the real world by hacking its way out of CC Corporation's servers?" asked Skuld.
"Basically, yes," replied Helba.
"So what do you need us for? You seem to be doing just fine collecting data yourself," Skuld asked.
"There are still some areas I cannot get into in The World, and you seem to have done more research into who Tsukasa really is. I get the feeling that Tsukasa is a major part of this, and your abilities in The World might help me find out just what is really going on. Now, what have you found out?"
"Well, you know more then we do. All we really know at this point is that something is definitely wrong in The World, but it seems to be the result of a virus running around. The guardian monsters seem to be able to spread it around by attacking. We are also pretty sure that someone outside The World is the one who created the virus, not some AI in The World. Of course, we didn't know about the AI before," said Kenaz.
"Hmm… can you send me the information you have on the virus?" asked Helba.
"Sure, just e-mail me with instructions on how to contact you," said Skuld. "I assume you already have our e-mail addresses since you seem to have our phone numbers."
Helba gave a little grin, "yes, I can do that. Unless you have anything else to tell me, I have work to do."
"Alright, then we will be waiting for your e-mail. Thank you for your help," said Kenaz as they left the store.
"Well, what do you think? Do we trust her?" asked Kenaz.
"I don't know now, but I will tomorrow," said Skuld, a mischievous grin on her face.
"What do you mean?"
"Well, I took her picture, so we can run it through Yggdrasil and find out who she really is."
Kenaz did a double-take. "You have a camera? Where?" Skuld held her palm up, showing him the small camera she had hidden there.
"How long have you had that and what other pictures have you taken?" asked Kenaz.
Skuld grinned, "that's a secret!" She then ran off towards home.
"Hey! Come back here!" yelled Kenaz as he chased off after her.
Author's note: Hello faithful readers. I know I haven't done an author's note before, but I always felt that they kind of took away from the story, so I've avoided using them. The reason I am putting one in now is to let you know that this story will be on hiatus for a while. Due to the lack of readership and reviews, my motivation for continuing this fic has dropped. I will probably still continue to write, but this fic may not see more chapters for a while. I wanted to at least get this chapter out so that you can pretty much figure out most of what is going on in The World, though there are a few twists and turns I have planned for up ahead. Thank you again for reading and see you in other fics!