.hackPRESENT

Disclaimer: I don't own .hack

CHAPTER 2: FOLLOW THE BRACELET

All groups stood in OMEGA: Humorous Revised Episode. Nothing happened at the NPC's call to start the event.

"Uh, our apologies, because there are so many players here, there was an overload in teleporting all of you to the root town. You'll have to go there by regular means of gating out." As soon as the NPC was finished talking, all players were rushing to gate out first and get a head start in the search for the spring.

"What are you waiting for! Gate us out now Kite!" Blackrose yelled to her orange-red clad partner.

"Huh? Oh, right!" Kite gated them back to Lia Fail. "Okay, where should we start looking first?"

"Let's go to the Delta server. We could go through the fields with ease at our levels."

"Right!" Kite selected the Delta Server and gated out to Mac Anu.

"HUH!" Mistral said, trying to sneak candy from the shop again. "AH! No!" With that, Mistral was warped to Mac Anu with the two others.

Golden rings disappeared as the group came into view. There were already players asking about the spring and others who were stocking on items.

"Okay, we'll start at the top of the list and go down. DELTA: Bursting Passed Over Aqua Field!" Kite said as the trio found themselves in the grassy field. The field where Kite began his whole journey. He stood there and closed his eyes. "Ah… this brings back memories…"

"HELLOOO!" Blackrose yelled in his ear.

"Ah! Huh? Yeah?"

"We don't have time for flashbacks! We need to get going. According to someone I spoke to earlier, the spring can even be located in a dungeon. So let's move!" Blackrose grabbed Kite's and Mistral's arm and rushed over to the dungeon.

The dungeon was the same as Kite remembered. The group walked past the two chests at the entrance and searched down the hallway.

"I wonder what item is at the spring?" Kite thought out loud.

"It's obviously some sort of ultra-powerful weapon that can slay any monster with one blow!" Blackrose said while envisioning herself casually walking through a level 99 dungeon killing monsters left and right without worry. Her thoughts were interrupted by the familiar sound that went off whenever Kite's bracelet appeared. "Huh? Hey, what's up?"

"I don't know…" Kite said as he looked at his bracelet made of green and blue transparent shards. The five arrows that always appeared in Data Drain flashed in front and pointed down the stair way. "This has never happened before… I guess it's telling me to go down."

"Well whatever. I'm going downstairs anyway. Plus, according to the board, all gott treasures were reset, so it's full again!" The heavyblade walked down to B2 with the twinblade following. They entered the gott statue room to find Natsume, Terajima, and Wiseman. "Hey? What are you doing here?"

"Well, we were searching for the special Spring of Myst, but it seems it's not here. I figured we might just take what's in the gott treasure chest, but all that's there was this yellow candy and…AAAH!" Wiseman fell to the ground, hands covering his crouch as he moaned in pain as another wavemaster swiped the yellow candy away from his hands.

"Mycandy!Mine!mine!Mineminemine!" Kite and Blackrose had totally forgotten that Mistral was with them. The hyper wavemaster ran up the stairs and to the floor above. Blackrose, Natsume, and Terajima just fell to the floor laughing at what Mistral had done to the old guy. The heavyblade stopped and took advantage of this opportunity and grabbed Kite's arm and pulled out a sprite ocarina to warp themout of the dungeon while Terajima was still laughing.

"HAHAAHAAa…huh?… AH! They left! We need to hurry! We can't let them beat us to the spring!" Terajima exclaimed.

"Yes… uh oh, I forgot to buy a sprite ocarina. No matter, let's run out!" both girls left the room, leaving Wiseman on the ground.

"Uggggh…. Hey...wait… ugggh… not even my recovery… spells can help me with this…ugggghh….."

Back in Mac Anu, Mistral made a quick stop to Elf's Haven to store away any extra items she had.

"Do you really think kicking Wiseman there was really necessary?" Kite asked.

"GottamakesureIgothiscandy!Betterbesafethansorry."

"Uh, yeah. Well, let's go to another field…" Kite walked to the chaos gate and warped them to DELTA: Enclosed Vindictive Sipping Bug. The field was a desert with the red sky of a sunset. Kite used a fairy's orb to check for any magic portals. "This place has been cleared of portals… someone must already be here."

"Well, we can't let them take the prize!" the pink-haired heavyblade said, running off toward the dungeon. As few moments after beginning to run, Kite's bracelet began to point in the direction of the dungeon.

"Huh? This again…?" Kite began to scratch his head.

"It's pointing in the direction of the dungeon… hm… HEY! I think I know! That bracelet must be acting like a compass!"

"A compass?"

"Yeah! It must lead us to clues of sorts or anything that will lead us to the spring!"

"Hm… now that I think about it, I found a virus core near the gott room statue at the Passed over Aqua field before we warped out."

"That's it! The virus cores must spell out an area name or be the cores needed to hack to gate to the area! HAHA! This is great! We're a shoe-in to win! Man, I love you Kite!"

"Wha…HUH?" a shocked Kite said, looking to his heavyblade partner. Blackrose realized what she said and began talking again.

"Uh… for the bracelet. Without you, we wouldn't be able to use it! Now come on!" she grabbed Mistral's arm and a very perplexed Kite's arm and ran off to the dungeon.

Meanwhile at the dungeon in DELTA: Enclosed Vindictive Sipping Bug

"We haven't found anything in the past 5 dungeons." The winged Descendant of Fianna said.

"Hey, there are practically an infinite number of areas here in 'The World'. I doubt we'd find the spring by just checking a few." Orca said to his partner.

"Hm… you're right Yasuhiko."

"Huh? What'd you call me!"

"Uh… sorry Orca. I've been training with Kite too much lately."

"Geez, by the time we're through with this, the whole 'World' will know my real name!"

"Hm… now that I think about it…" Balmung's memory just sparked "This is the area where Kite beat me the other day…"

"You mean where you slipped off the edged?" Orca said, trying to contain a laugh.

"I thought I made it clear never to mention an event like that in front of me ever!" Balmung snapped with veins marks appearing all over his forehead.

"Yeah, yeah. Let's keep going." Orca traversed across the hallway. For a brief moment, he heard another set of footsteps behind him. He assumed Sanjuro had just returned from checking the other room, but called himself an ass for assuming wrong. A quick glare of silver went by his neck and he fell to the ground, his character model loosing its color.

"Hm? Orca?" Balmung looked to the side to see his partner laying on the ground, dead. "AH! ORCA! What happened here!"

"Hey, I'm back. Nothing was in that room and…HUH? Balmung! What did you do to Orca?" Sanjuro shouted.

"What? It wasn't me! I just found him like this a few seconds after I looked away."

"Well, there's no one else in this level of the dungeon, and you're the only one who went with Orca when we split. So it has to be you!"

"No! We are the Descendants of Fianna! I would never kill my own partner!"

"Hey? What's all ruckus down here?" a voice came from the staircase. Kite and his party entered to see Orca on the ground. "A colorless character model? Orca's been killed!"

"Yeah, betrayed by his own…" Sanjuro began.

"It wasn't me! Why would I want to kill Orca? He just came out of a coma not too long ago! I would never do such a thing!"

"Mm-hm…. Suuure…." Blackrose said, not believing the winged knight.

"Playerkillerplayerkillerplayerkiller!" Mistral began pointing at Balmung.

"I'm telling the truth! Kite, you believe me, don't you?"

"…so… it's true…" Kite said. Balmung fell over anime style.

"What do you mean 'so it's true'? YOU don't even believe me!"

"Well, during that sparring match the other day, you did mention a number of angry remarks about Orca… and now I see him dead…"

"So, he was planning this all along!" Blackrose said.

"What! I was just angry because he's owed me 2000 GP for more than a two weeks now! He promised that he'd pay me back so I could purchase the Made In Heaven Sword and…"

"Aha! So it's rivalry! You wanted to be stronger than Orca and by not getting your item to make you stronger, you went and killed him!" Sanjuro shouted.

"NOO! That's not it! I didn't kill him! I…" Balmung stopped upon seeing the 3 players in front of him giving him a glare.

NEXT CHAPTER: FUGITIVE OF THE AZURE SKY

Preview: News flash! Balmung of the Azure Sky has betrayed and killed his partner Orca of the Azure Sea. The winged knight is currently hopping from field to field now avoiding players who take pity on Orca's misfortune. More news tomorrow.

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