.Hack: Penance
A .Hack fanfiction by Renfro Calhoun

Disclaimer: Project .Hack and attached characters/concepts are property of Bandai and Cyber Connect. They are used without permission, but with the utmost respect.

Notes: Happens after the end of Quarantine. (Thoughts look like this). Edited for great justice. Some of the dialogue seemed redundant, other parts were a bit off.

This chapter done to the tune of: Fluke – Atom Bomb

Chapter 30 – Potential

"Here's what's going down."

Standing off to the side of the spinning Chaos Gate, Stolls addressed the small crowd of adventurers Kite had assembled, whom he recognized – BlackRose, Ryoko, Balmung, Orca and Sanjuro. The corpulent avatar of Lios was present as well, bearing his usual dispassionate stare, although he seemed more sour than usual in the presence of the Wavemaster. Most of them either looked at him pensively or casually, clearly unsure of the purpose of this summons.

"As you know, we're dealing with over a dozen men who are involved, somehow, with both Asara Corporation and Cyber Connect." He gestured towards the group, palm up. "Criminals, convicts… the exact relationship is unknown, but it's not hard to imagine what any of them would want with Aura. Now, she's basically an AI without any predisposition or initial programming, as far as we know. Like any one of us, she can adapt to an environment or a task, and be 'trained' to accomplish it. In other words, she's an artificial intelligence that, practically, has no restrictions on how she can develop."

"This, of course, we all know. Anyway, I was contacted recently by Helba, who claimed they're going to try and take her again." Stolls paused to catch his breath. "I don't think they're going to let us find them like last time, so we have to find her first."

"How do we do that?" asked BlackRose.

"That's a good question," he replied. "We're going to have to improvise. Lios," he glanced at the administrator, somewhat coldly, "I don't suppose you could tell us about anything unusual that's happened in the game lately? System anomalies, abnormal data volume, anything like that?"

Lios shook his head. "Nothing I could be sure about," he replied, stiffly. "There were a couple glitches on Theta server, one of which was in that field you fought in – Greedy Law's Messenger – but nothing I could pin down."

The voice caused prickles of unease along Dean's skin; the mere fact that Kite had invited him rubbed Dean the wrong way, and it appeared that he had a similar effect on the administrator, though he couldn't deny that they would likely need someone on the inside.

"That sounds like as good a place as any to start," said Balmung. "We should…"

A shout from up the broadway broke up the meeting, and all turned to watch what must have been a Long Arm pick and squirm his way through the foot traffic up to the gate, evidenced by the spear which poked out above the other, taller characters. Sure enough, a blonde-haired pikeman emerged from the crowd, dressed in blue pants and vest, eyes olive and skin tanned.

"Sorry, sorry," panted the Long Arm, looking mildly sheepish. "Couldn't get away from the meeting sooner."

Stolls chuckled. "Not a problem, Mr. Kerrek, nice of you to join us."

He was met with a look of mild annoyance. "It's Tamon, man, you know that."

Kite blinked. "Tamon??"

Grinning, TamonAdillo gave a short bow. "Well met, Hiro. Now, let's get down to business."

"Right," said Stolls, continuing. "Like Balmung says, Theta: Greedy Law's Messenger is a good place to start looking. The idea is if we can get to Aura before they can, she may be able to tell us what she remembers from their hacking attempt." He swallowed. "I just spoke with a couple others who were in the know, they're thinking she may be able to lead us back to the source of the hack – that is, where they're working from."

"You're talking about a piggyback," said Lios.

"Doesn't that require an active connection, though?" asked Balmung.

Stolls nodded. "That it does. We may not get an exact location, but with what I've learned about Aura, she should at least be able to recall the event and give us an idea of where to start searching."

BlackRose and Kite exchanged looks. "That's… not much of a plan," she remarked flatly.

The Wavemaster raised his hands defensively. "I know, I know. Look, our main goal is to find Aura before they do. Everything else is secondary. But if she does remember anything about the attack, well, more the better. We'll go from there." He scanned the party. "I'm skeptical too, but right now we don't have a whole lot to go on. You don't want in, you don't have to be in. All I'm speaking for is Max and myself, but I know we're gonna need the help."

"Are you kidding?" asked BlackRose. "We went through all that work to find you, we're not just going to quit in the middle of solving the mystery, right?"

"They're after Aura," said Kite, a look of determination on his face. "I'll do what I can."

There were other murmurs of assent from the group. Even Lios, who kept his odd stare trained on Stolls the whole time, nodded in agreement.

"Good," said Stolls. "Any questions?"

"How should we go about searching for her?" asked Ryoko.

"We'll have to split up into groups. There's eight of us, so we'll pair off and check the field. Be careful, though; this was one of the fields they hacked to, uh…" he fidgeted, fumbling briefly with the words, "copy… put in the copies of me. There may have… hell, you were all there, you should know. It's bound to be hacked characters, like last time. And you," he nodded to Lios, "should probably keep out of the field. If they hijacked Helba, they may be able to do it to you, too."

"Now, wait…" Lios began, his protest dying as soon as it left his throat. "Rrgh… you… you're right, I suppose. I will be monitoring your progress from outside the field, however. If anything goes wrong, report back to me immediately." His eyes narrowed. "And I want to speak with you after this is over, even if you don't find anything here."

Stolls kept his calm to Lios' face, but turned around and grit his teeth. "Yeah, yeah," he muttered, adding mentally (I'm sure I'll have a few words for you, too.)

Kite looked back and forth between the two men. "Wh… what's wrong?"

"Nothing," said Stolls "Nothing at all."

Lios frowned, but turned back to Kite. "Forget it. Proceed to the field. As I said, I'll monitor you from outside."

"All right," said BlackRose, happy to direct the discussion away from Stolls and Lios. "So, what are we waiting for, then? Let's get going!"

One by one they turned towards the gate, preparing to jump to Theta server, eventually leaving both men alone.

"Another paperwork nightmare," grunted Lios. "You really think you can find her?"

"I don't know." He watched the gate for a few seconds, then faced the administrator. "You know, I still owe you for Shinji."

Lios blinked, looking genuinely confused. "Shinji? What are you talking about?"

Before Stolls could explain, a familiar female voice called to him. "Going somewhere, detective?"

He froze for a second, then turned around, facing another Wavemaster; a blonde woman in elaborate dark-and-light green robes, a curious, knowing smile on her lips.

"Didn't know you were online," said Dean, trying not to sound surprised. Lios gated out, but Dean could have cared less.

"I was invisible," BT replied, uncharacteristically straightforward. "What are you doing?"

(Yeah, that figures.) Stolls glanced back at Kite, and motioned towards the gate towards the gate. "Go on ahead, man, I'll be right with you."

Kite shifted his gaze between the two magicians for a moment before nodding compliantly. "See you there!" he said with a wave as the rest of the party teleported away.

Turning back to BT, who had since closed the gap between them, Stolls said "We're going to look for Aura. Checking back at that field where they attacked us, figure she might be able to help us find them." She was about to ask a follow-up question when he shot one of his own. "How'd you know to find me here?"

"I didn't," she answered evenly. "I saw you sign on, but didn't know where you were."

"You could've just messaged me."

She started to say something, but stopped, her mouth hanging open. She looked away, perhaps in embarrassment. "I suppose I could have."

Stolls blinked, obviously confused. (What's with her? She's not usually THIS obscure…) "Is everything all right?"

"I was hoping to ask you the same question," she replied.

"Huh? Um… I… guess?"

Sighing, BT stepped past him, towards the gate. "After talking with An last night, you seemed kind of upset."

His eyes followed her, feet rooted in place. "Well, kind of. Let's just say we've got our work cut out for us," he half-lied. Changing the subject, he added, "Is that all you tracked me down for?"

She smirked. "Well, that and it's been a quiet day so far… I was just wondering what you might be up to. Apparently, quite a bit."

"Heh," grunted the male Wavemaster. "Bored, huh?"

There was a twinkle in one of her eyes, looking an awful lot like amusement. "Curious," she said, her smirk widening.

(You don't say…) "Lovely," he said dryly. "It just so happens I'm in the middle of something, for which I could use all the help I can get." Offline, his fingers danced over the controller, opening a menu and preparing a flash mail. "Whad'ya say, Bacon-Tomato?"

She narrowed one eye at him, raising the brow of the other. "Only if you never call me that again."

"Heh heh. Fair enough." He kicked the invite her way, and was promptly rewarded with acceptance. Her stats appeared on his heads-up display as he turned towards the Chaos Gate. "Yaknow," he said as he sought the desired keywords, "you are one confusing woman, you know that?"

She answered with that all-too-familiar soft chuckle, a noise which singularly encapsulated all he knew about her. "So I'm told," she then said, just before he hit 'yes' and everything went black.

His eyes were filled with color; white, red, white again, tan and pink, green, blue, red and orange, and so on. The combinations were simple, but contrasted enough to be visible despite the darkness, standing out amidst the rocky, arid plains around them. Bits of rubble and rock formations dotted the horizon, all surrounding the clearing where they stood.

Stolls pointed to the red-capped Twin Blade. "All right, Kite man, you take BR and Tamon, levels one and two." Then to Balmung. "Balmung, you take Ryoko and Orca, you're on levels three, four and five." He made a wide sweeping gesture towards the field behind him. "Sanjay, you and BT are with me, we'll check this place out topside."

"Clear out the whole field," said Balmung, "just to be sure. Portals, chests… everything we can find. If Aura is here, there's no telling what could trigger her appearance."

Stolls nodded. "Got it. We're all in the same party, but local chats won't work between floors, so send a flash mail to anyone in either group when you find something. If you spot any suspicious characters in the field, keep an eye on them, it could be Felix and his men." His eyes wandered between the other eight adventurers. "Eyes and ears, boys and girls. Let's get to it."

"Uh…" Kite mumbled, eyes wide and raising a gloved hand to point behind Stolls. "I think our search is over."

Perplexed, Stolls spun around, and inhaled sharply as he spotted a faint, transparent figure amidst the night sky, a billowing whiteness that coalesced and brightened before his eyes. The figure took a more definite shape; sure enough, within seconds the ghostly Aura had appeared before them, and slowly settled to the ground, staring at the group with solid blue eyes that were eerily empty.

"She was waiting for us," hissed Tamon. "What's going on?"

(What the hell?) Dean said silently. (How'd she know to find us here?) Thinking quickly, the silver-haired Wavemaster took a step forward. "Aura," said Stolls, "it's me… from before, in this field. You woke me up… do you remember?"

To his surprise, she nodded. Even more, she began to speak. "It's you… I do remember. I didn't know if you would be back."

Stolls glanced over at Kite, who could only shrug. "What do you mean? How did you know to wait for us here? Did you know we were coming?"

The girl stared at him; if she could display sadness, he could only imagine that's what she'd be doing. "I… can't leave. They did something to me. I can't leave."

"They trapped her here," BlackRose said. "During the last attack, maybe? But how?"

Briefly looking over at the Heavy Blade, Stolls quickly turned his attention back to Aura. "What did they do to you?"

"It happened… just now," she said, her voice seeming to echo in the empty plains. "You're too late. They were here again."

"Ahh!" Dean grunted in shock. "No… no. Shit! Damn it!" he cursed, spinning away. "I don't believe this, you mean to tell me they got her?!"

There was a chorus of alarm and confusion through the group. "They copied her?" mumbled Sanjuro. "How? Didn't they need a hacker last time?"

(They must've had one already,) thought Dean, letting his head hang and balling his hands into fists. (They wanted to use Helba instead, or maybe they just needed Helba to draw her out… I don't… aw, shit! Aw, goddamnit! Now what the hell do we do?)

"There were so many," said Aura. "I could do nothing…"

"Well, what do we do now?" asked Ryoko. "Can we still, um… can we still find them?"

BT watched Stolls from afar, who was shaking his head listlessly. "Dean…" she whispered his name, taken aback at the look of frustration on his face.

"You could do nothing either."

Stills lifted his head, looking back at Aura. "Wha?"

"You never had a chance, did you?" the girl queried. "You couldn't save yourself then, and you couldn't save me now."

"What…" he murmured, giving his head another vigorous shake, dispelling the beginnings of an offline headache. "What the hell are you talking about?"

Slight chills of unease crawled up his arms when she spoke again, her voice taking on a somehow malevolent quality. "Not even when you sold out your friends."

He was about to turn and ask, when the scuffling of feet and the drawing of a blade preempted a sharp, short sword being rammed through his upper back, bursting out his chest and rendering him virtually paralyzed. Before he could even cry out, half his hit points were gone, the backstab having landed almost perfectly.

The blade was withdrawn, and Stolls crumpled to the ground, groaning weakly. His vision flashed red, indicating that he'd been hit, and critically so. He was barely able to turn on his side and, alongside the rest of his astonished party, stare at his attacker.

Aura was no longer the cryptic, demure-looking girl, having brandished two short blades and assumed a combative stance, a vicious look in her eyes and a cruel smile on her face. The sight would have been more absurd than frightening if she hadn't been standing over the half-corpse of Stolls, who fought off his weakness and scrambled madly away from the berserk AI.

"Aura!" cried Kite. "What the hell are you doing?!"

"Paying back an old debt," said the girl, in a voice that most certainly did not belong to a girl. It was now that of an older man; deep, low, smooth and harmonious. "Because after all… I needed money, 'cause I had none."

Almost in unison the team had their weapons out, cautiously approaching the armed girl. "What are you talking about?!" hollered BlackRose. "Why did you attack him?"

She recoiled in horror as Aura turned and smiled coldly at her. "I fought the law," she said, in that same male voice, " and the law won."

Stolls was panting as he climbed to his feet, leveling a hostile, if disbelieving glare at the girl. "Croker," he growled. "What did you do to Aura?!"

"Monroe," said 'Aura', "let's introduce them to our contestants!"

From behind rocks, beneath piles of rubble and around hills, ten heavily-armed characters sprang into action, racing into the small clearing and forming a loose circle around the gathered party, with Aura forming one of the segments of that circle.

Felix's voice came through loud and clear through Aura's mouth, booming across the field in a shouted command, heard by all. "Kill every last one of them!"

- End of Chapter 30