Sorry it took me so long. I finished this chapter in like, two days but then I lost me floppy disk :sweatdrop:
"Who does that girl think she is, just walking into me like that and then just casually walking off? And what the hell did she mean when she said 'we'll be seeing you, fullmetal'?" Ed grumbled as he walked along. The others looked at him with some sort of fear lurking in their eyes (except Amaranthus).
"Does he always do this?" Sora whispered in Al's ear. Al nodded meekly, making an effort to stay behind Winry so she could protect him if Ed decided to go on a rampage. It was difficult however, as Hikari was trying to do the same thing. Sora and Inu stayed close to Amaranthus as she seemed to be completely unaware of Edward's rage.
"Do you think he'll explode and try to kill us?" Sora asked Inu.
"I don't know, maybe." Inu whispered back.
"Um, Winry? He wouldn't try to kill us would he?" Hikari whispered to her friend. Winry looked back at her and smiled.
"Don't worry about it, you can't kill anyone in your own party. Or at least I don't think so..." Winry answered as Hikari's eyes grew wide.
"Will you stop whispering back there?" Ed yelled, turning around to face his party. "I know you're all talking about me so don't even try to deny it!"
The girls and Al drew back in fear of being attacked. Well, except Amaranthus. She stayed where she was, smiling down at the boy.
"And you! You haven't said anything since we left the monster area! Not to mention you're some kick-ass woman who take down eight monsters at once!" Ed shouted, pointing at the neutral-faced Amaranthus.
"I'm not that old." She said simply, still staring down at him, smiling. "And I just don't like to talk a lot."
"And what's with that creepy smile of yours? You're always smiling at me and Al like that and it gets creepy, you know?" Ed continued. Amaranthus averted her eyes.
"You two... remind me of someone." She said quietly. Ed silenced and suddenly seemed uncomfortable. The group stood there in silence for a few minutes until Amaranthus looked back up.
"Well, are we just going to stand here doing nothing or what?" She said, here usual expression of neutral returning. The others glanced at each other before looking back at Amaranthus and nodding. "Then what are we waiting for?" She continued walking and the others followed.
After a few minutes of aimless wandering, however, the group of girls and two boys realized that they had no idea where they were going and were extremely bored.
"I'm extremely bored." Inu complained, dropping onto the ground. "Where are we going anyway?" Everyone else pondered for a moment before Winry thought of something.
"Let's go to my hideout!" She suggested.
"You have a hideout?" Inu asked disbelievingly.
"No fair!" Sora exclaimed. "I've been questing for one forever!"
Amaranthus and Hikari said nothing but stared at Winry. Hikari looked jealous and Amaranthus looked impressed.
"Winry! How come you never told me you had a hideout?" Al whined.
"How come you never told me that you played the world?" Winry asked Al.
"Um excuse me..." Ed started. Everyone looked at him. "What's a hideout?"
"Well, it's like a house that a player can buy if their rich enough. Obviously, it's a detail that Winry conveniently forgot to tell us." Alphonse explained.
"Newb." Amaranthus muttered under her breath.
"Um... okay then. I don't see what's so great about it but whatever..." Ed responded.
"Do you know exactly how rich you have to be to buy one of those?" Inu exploded. She leapt off of the ground and grabbed Ed's shoulders and started shaking them. "You have to be friggin' LOADED!"
"Exactly how long have you been playing the world Winry?" Al asked. Winry chuckled.
"Obviously long enough to save up to get a hideout." She laughed.
"Well what are we waiting for? I wanna go there! I wanna see it! I wanna know what it's like inside a hideout, I've never even been in one before!" Sora shouted enthusiastically.
"Okay then, follow me." Winry said happily.
MOMENTS LATER!
"Oh wow!" Sora exclaimed once inside. "It's just like I imagined it would be!" She then commenced dancing around the room, giggling like a school girl until she came to a rest on a couch.
"This is pretty nice." Amaranthus commented, sitting down in an armchair.
"I am SO jealous." Inu commented, examining a box of event items.
"W-wow Winry." was all Hikari said.
Ed and Al said nothing, but stood uncomfortably in the darkest corner they could find, being surrounded by the sea of lavender, sky blue, and pink that made up Winry's hideout.
"I guess this is why she never told us about this place." Al whispered to his brother who nodded weakly.
"What're you two doing there all by yourselves? Don'tcha wanna come look at all this cool stuff?" Sora called over to the boys.
"Uh, no, that's okay! We're fine right here..." Ed answered, sweatdropping. Al resisted the urge to poke it.
"They probably don't like the colors." Amaranthus said with a smirk.
"I think the colors are very nice." Hikari said quietly.
"So, how'd you manage to afford all this stuff?" Inu asked, walking up to a smug looking Winry.
"Hm? Oh, I just made sure to clear every event I could find and sell the items if they were uninteresting to me. One day I want to meet Balmung and thank him for making so many uninteresting items for me to sell." She answered.
"Event items alone won't buy you a hideout. I've tried." Sora piped up.
"Okay, so I also bought a few cheap items and sold 'em to newbs way overpriced." Winry admitted with a nervous laugh.
"What a devious trick." Amaranthus said from her spot in the armchair. "You know Winry, I think I'm starting to like you." She added with an evil smirk.
Winry let out another nervous laugh.
MEANWHILE!
"Really now? You've found fullmetal? Impressive." Flame said with a smirk. Dianva and Kiyuu grinned broadly.
"But your mission is not completed." Hawkeye reminded them.
"Yes ma'am." The girls responded in unison.
"We just thought that it would be a good idea to let you know." Dianva said.
"Well, thank you for telling us. Now all you need to do is get more personal information on him. And I highly doubt that will only take you a few hours." Mustang said with a smirk.
"Well, at least we know who our guy is, no thanks to you, only giving us his username to work off of." Kiyuu muttered.
"Hey." Mustang said in a warning tone, his fingers ready to snap. Kiyuu shut up.
"Anyway, moving on to business." Hawkeye said, putting her hand on Roy's. "We have received reports of a group of hackers calling themselves 'Humunculi'. There are seven of them, and each had to have joined when The World first came out as they are named after the seven deadly sins. This is not a mission for you two, you still need to keep your minds focused on fullmetal, but we are supposed to alert all CCCorp administrators. They have already broken the rules by altering their characters to have special abilities, but what's even worse is that they have been killing players ruthlessly. You are to be on the lookout for these hackers and report any suspicious activity to either us or Kamui, head of the debug team. She, of course, has already been putting in overtime over these players, but every little bit helps."
"Also," Roy snatched his hand back from Hawkeye's, "we are supposed to tell you, Dianva, of another player. His username is Scar, and he has been killing administrators. He is an alchemist, we know that much, but not a lot else. Those who have been killed by him said that he told them that he was killing in the name of Aura, and is on a quest to preserve The World and keep it pure." Dianva looked scared at the alert.
"W-who is Aura?" she asked. Hawkeye and Flame exchanged glances.
"Kiyuu will tell you." Mustang said before teleporting out.
"If you'll excuse me." Hawkeye said before teleporting out as well. Dianva looked at her partner questioningly. Kiyuu sighed.
"This is going to take a while..." She sighed before explaining the legend of Aura and The World.
Yay! I updated! And now more .Hack characters are going to be thrown into the mix! Okay, it's mostly going to be admins but hey... Aura's coming :sweatdrop:. And soon it will be revealed what exactly Roy wants with Ed! More yay! I'm gonna shut up now! HUZZAH!