Graceless Union
Chapter 4: The Machinator
Disclaimer: La-dee-da, nope, I don't own .hack. Tum-tee-tum.
A/N: has anyone ever done a G.U. fanfic? I think I may be the first. Is there anyone who knows? Please REVIEW, without reviews, my stories are not worth writing, so do it, please?
"Kite."
Aura's voice was tinged with grief as she spoke the word.
And Haseo could barely believe his ears. Without thinking, he burst into laughter.
"Now isn't that ironic! You've called us together to complete the mission Morganna sent us on? Like mother, like daughter!"
The others shifted uncomfortably at the out-of-place comment. They failed to see the humor in my words.
"We must save Kite." Aura finished.
Haseo's cheeks tinged red with embarrassment as he realized his mistake. Aura wasn't asking them to kill the red hawk; instead, she was asking them to rescue him.
"I'm sorry," he said, "I should have not spoken so thoughtlessly. You are not like Morganna, and I should not have compared you to her."
Aura shook her head, "You need not apologize. You may speak of me as you will, for I am not your master, nor will I ever punish you for speaking of me in any way."
Her frown turned upwards to a mischievous little grin and she spoke, "Though what you have said has some truth to it, I am like my mother in a very few aspects. For instance, the only way I know to save Kite, is by fighting him."
All the phases were taken aback by this little shocker.
"How does that work out?" asked Sakubo, her tone held a disbelieving note to it.
"You must know that Morganna has taken residence in Kite's body, she now controls his completely controls his actions, but not his mind. I know this because for a short time, she possessed me, and though I could not control my movements or speech, I was still aware and could think. We must remove Morganna from Kite, but in order to do this, we must come into contact and conflict with him."
Haseo, and most of the other phases had looks of understanding as Aura spoke of the plan, however, Pai, "the avenger", didn't quite get it.
"But how can we remove Morganna from the red hawk when she is embedded within him?" she asked.
"Isn't it obvious?" replied Yata, "We must fight the boy until he becomes Protect Broken, then we use our Data Drain to remove the data of Morganna from his character. Once this is accomplished, we convert Morganna's data into something destructible, and delete it. It's simple enough."
"Oh, Now I get it." Pai thought for a second, then asked, "But why must we all do this?"
Atoli replied this time, "If one of us should fail, then there must be others to take their place."
"Yes," finished Aura. "I will need all of you to work with me in this. If any you fail, then you are automatically returned to the darkness, and I will not be able to retrieve you until the plan has run its course. You have all experienced the darkness and know the horrors that await you there, so I urge you all to be careful, please."
They all nodded in agreement. They knew the consequences of failure, and none looked forward to returning.
"Now, I think it's time you met the rest of our team." Aura said, and she seemed to zone out as if sending her mind elsewhere. Then she spoke, "I have invited them to join us here. So it is here we shall wait."
Blackrose had logged out and showered, but now she had returned, and was waiting on a vigil in Lia Fail with Balmung, Kazu, Moonstone, and Sanjuro, those being the few remaining Dot Hackers who still played the game. They had all met in real life at the party hosted by Blackrose, but most did not speak of their real lives even though they had been friends for years. Actually Moonstone rarely talked about his online life either, and all Sanjuro was interested in was old movies, and Balmung was the type who liked to RP, so getting a real life answer out of him was like getting old honey through a straw. Of course, Blackrose knew all about Kazu, and she even knew the real life Kite pretty well also.
After the party, they had started hanging out together about once a week. That had come to a sudden end, though, now that Kite was surely in a coma. The chances that he wasn't in a coma were pretty slim, seeing as how he was being controlled by a malicious purple orb that had sucked his mind into the game.
Suddenly an image of an envelope popped up above her head and started dinging, breaking her out of her reverie.
The rest of the grouped glanced at her as she opened the envelope and read the flash mail.
"It's from Aura," she said after finishing it, the relief was evident in her voice, "She says to come to Theta: Bursting Confused Remnant to meet some friends of hers that might be of some help to us."
"Well let's go then, shall we?" replied Sanjuro, testing his sword hand reflexively.
They went to the Chaos Gate, and changed servers then headed off to Bursting Confused Remnant.
There they saw a group of people with Aura in front of them all.
"Welcome," greeted Aura, "I would like to introduce you to some friends of mine that will be working with you to save Kite."
"We have a plan to save Kite?" asked Blackrose hopefully. She had hated feeling so helpless while waiting, with nothing to do to help Kite.
"Yes, I have already explained to them the details of our situation, and we will discuss it in a minute, but first I would like to have them introduce themselves to you."
At this, one from the group walked forward. It was a tall young man decked out in black armor that had been tinged red. His grey hair swung to and fro as he walked. He grasped Blackrose's hand and shook it lightly. Smiling, his eyes locked onto hers and she thought she saw a gleam of dark triumph in them.
"How are you, Darkest Flower? It has certainly been a while since I last laid eyes upon you." His mouth curved into an amused grin as confusion entered into Blackrose's face. "You do not recognize me? Ah well, I expected as much. Allow me to introduce myself, for I am Haseo, 'the terror of death.'"
Recognition of the title caused Blackrose to jerk her hand away from the boy. "A phase in disguise?" she asked in shock. Behind her she heard the drawing of swords from Sanjuro and Balmung.
Suddenly Aura interposed herself in front of Haseo. "Do not draw your weapons," she commanded, "The phases are no longer under Morganna's control, and they now have agreed to help you. You would be ruining our hopes for success if you were to turn this into a battlefield." With this, she moved aside to allow Haseo to speak again.
"Relax humans. We mean no harm. I, along with all my brothers and sisters have seen our evil past, and we hope to make up for the damage we have done. I see no better way than by saving the one who saved us from that evil Morganna."
He put forth his and again, and waited for Blackrose to shake.
Blackrose was shivering from the chills. She remembered all the work she and Kite had gone through to eliminate these creatures. But to see them now, so suddenly restored and imitating humans was a creepy thought. Slowly, she reached up and shook his proffered hand. His smile widened, yet his eyes remained dark and distant, as though nothing could truly cheer him up.
Quietly and nervously, Blackrose murmured, "Thank you… for helping us."
Slowly Blackrose's hand slipped out of Haseo's, and he backed away, only to be replaced by a smaller girl with golden hair, a large hat, and small smile on her face.
Taking both of Blackrose's hands, she stared deep into her eyes. Blackrose saw sadness reflected back by her own eyes.
"Do not fear, friend Blackrose. You may call me Atoli. I understand how it feels to lose one dear to your heart." Blackrose looked surprised as Atoli leaned forward and whispered, "You cannot imagine how frightened I felt when Skeith fell before the red hawk. He guesses, but does not know that I have held feelings for him for a long while. I hope this is some conciliation to you."
Blackrose saw tears in the girl's eyes. She could feel tears welling up in her own eyes, as well. Silently, she nodded.
Then one by one, the rest of the phases stepped up and introduced themselves. Blackrose had started crying now, thankful that she had friends in this dark time.
After the introductions were complete, Aura came forward again.
"Now we must talk of the plan." She said simply. Her body floated to rest in a sitting position on the ground, and she motioned for everyone else to follow suit, which they did.
"Now, Morganna's remnant has embedded herself into Kite's character data. This does two things. One; it puts Kite's real body into a coma. And two; it gives her complete control over his movements. Basically, she possesses him. The only way we have to extract data from a character is by Data Draining, and there are only nine bracelets in the entire world capable of this power. So the most logical thing to do is get the eight bracelets Morganna does not possess, and use them against her to extract her data from Kite. Does this make sense to you?"
The Dot Hackers all nodded. But Balmung raised a question.
"Back when Kite went about collecting virus cores and such from data bugs, he would have to fight and Protect Break the monster before using the Data Drain. Does this mean we will have to fight Kite in order to Protect Break him?"
Aura's answer was quite simple, "Yes."
Blackrose couldn't believe her ears, losing Kite to an evil A.I. was hard, but being forced to fight him? She didn't know if she could bring herself to do that.
An hour later, she logged off, feeling more worried than she had before. Now that they had a plan, she didn't know if she could go through with it. It seemed to be all wrong. They should have been fighting some monster that would unlock Kite from his coma. That was how she preferred to do her fights. She quailed at the thought of having to face someone she knew, someone she… (Dare she say it?)… cared for.
With this in mind, she dropped off to sleep.
A/N: So, what do ya think? I thought it was kinda off from how I imagined it. But it'll do. Please, I must know how you feel about my work. PLEASE REVIEW!
And now to answer my last reviewers!
RedBandanna: Yay TY for reviewing! As I've said before, I don't know how the story will be, I'm just taking a wild guess and seeing how it turns out. Hope you enjoy the rest of it though.
kao5600: Thanks. I too was feeling braindead, when you reviewed, but you helped get me started again, so thanks a lot.