Absolute Beginners
by
Deborah J. Brown

.Hack is copyrighted to Bandai Entertainment. I'm just playing in it.

Author's Note: This is an Alternate Universe fic in the sense that while I'm trying to keep as true to the original storyline as possible, I have something happen that may not be the case in the original story. I like getting reviews here, but in general all response comments will be put on my LJ. (You can find that by following my webpage link in my user information, since the Pit screws up HTML entirely.) You don't have to be a member to comment there, though I do screen all anonymous posts.

Out of The World

"This place is a mess!" A20 glared around at the field, a return to the area where she'd first found Sora. It was worse than it had been then, horribly so. She hated the sight of the terribly damaged field, with its moments of static and its torn graphics. It scared her, especially because it seemed to terrify Sora. Oh, he kept his feelings on the matter to himself but he was a lot more nervy than he'd been before they'd talked to that cat character. And a nervous Sora was an annoying Sora.

Case in point. He was doing flips over a bunch of rocks and singing tunelessly while they waited for their magic to recover itself. A20 had to admit that it was an amazing sight, but she wished he'd be serious. She also wished he'd explain what he was up to. She simply didn't see the point to this chase. "Sora!"

"Sorry. Did you speak?" He leaped over her and behind, forcing her to spin her character around. The resulting blur of motion gave her a momentary feeling of nausea as her stomach protested the physical vs. visual cues.

"Do you want me to stick around for healing or not?" she demanded angrily. "I'm not budging another step until you explain what's going on."

He sighed. "I already told you… If I tell you too much it puts you in danger." His expression was both stubborn and frightened, a childish thrust to the chin that A20 knew only too well. It wasn't just that he was protecting her. It was that he was afraid that, if he told her, she wouldn't believe him. "C'mon, A20. Let's go on. Don't be difficult."

The wheedling wasn't going to get through to her. Not this time. A20 sat her character down. "No. Talk or I leave. Now." She shifted her character around so she could look into the other player's face. "I may not believe that you're really in the World but I do believe you're in danger. I do believe you'll be killed if something goes wrong. So tell me. What are we doing here? How is this place going to help you?"

He sighed. Pouted. Grumbled. And finally, realizing that she meant it, sat down on the ground in front of her. "There's a girl named Aura. She may be able to make everything, even this mess," He gestured around the field, at the empty space where sky should be, "better. But she's been… messed up. Her data is scattered all over the place. If I can help find certain of those pieces, that Kite guy might be able to help put her together." At her silence, Sora sighed again. "Knew you wouldn't believe me." He buried his face in his knees and curled up tightly. It took A20 a minute to realize he was crying. Really crying. Tears were leaking out of his eyes and his face was turning blotchy from the sobs. Impossible!

"Sora."

"Knew you wouldn't believe me."

"Sora."

"Knew it. I knew it."

"Sora."

"…I want my mommy…."

He really was a child, A20 realized suddenly. She'd sort of thought he was younger than she was but she hadn't realized just how much younger. She'd figured him for an immature teenager but he wasn't. He was a more than usually mature child. One of the very few children who played in the World. A child in trouble. She stood her character up and had it kneel beside his. "Sora, don't cry. I don't know what's going on, I don't understand everything but I do believe you need help. I don't know how to help so I'll just stay with you until we figure it out, okay?"

He sniffled. "Come on, Sora. Don't sulk. Let's go." A20 fiddled around with the controls, put her arm over his shoulders and he started as if he could feel the touch. And I guess he can. "Okay?" Red-tinted eyes looked at her and he managed a smile and a nod.

.oOo.

In the depths of the dungeon where he'd found himself after Skeith had been destroyed, Sora eyed the gate blocking his way with an aggravated feeling. It was bad enough to have cried in front of A20 earlier. To find that he'd wasted his time and emotional energy on a dead end was worse. Annoyed, he hit the gate covering the door with his katar and was startled into jumping backwards. The blades cut through the bars as if they didn't exist.

"What's going on?" A20 poked at the gate herself and shook her head. It was solid to her touch. Her tone was confused as she turned to face him. "You can go through those, but I can't, can I? Or can you help me through?"

He hesitated. If nothing else, he could be sure that they wouldn't find Skeith if they went through this doorway. With a sigh, he took her hand, feeling the fingers as if they were those of a real person. It felt good. Safe. He forced that thought back. He needed to be strong right now and not let his need for comfort overwhelm him. Not if he wanted to get through this. "Let's try.".

There was a moment of disorientation. The world seemed to turn inside out and colors shifted to their negative equivalent. Then they were standing on a broad, empty, area that gleamed purple and black around them. Green light flickered in the shadows, small coruscating shields of green light surrounding shapeless masses that hunted and destroyed each other.

Sora swallowed, this was a place of nightmare, the very center of the World's reality. He'd been here before, chasing after that cat and finding more trouble than he'd ever thought possible. If he wasn't careful, She would notice them. Nobody here but us databugs, he thought hopefully. I belong here. Just part of the system. Really. Something inside him shifted, a feeling he was beginning to recognize and he thought that might mean he was safe for the moment, hidden from the system by the same camouflage that had protected Skeith from the SysAdmins. He focused his attention on A20, wondering if he could cover her too and saw her character glimmer with the same delicate layer of green fire that was covering him.

Before A20 could open her mouth, startled at the shift in her character, Sora put a finger to his lips and hoped she'd understand. She had to be quiet. The mask would only work as long as she didn't reveal herself any other way. He moved, slowly, trying to focus his thoughts. He had to find Aura, or rather those parts of Aura that were concealing themselves in the system. It was another of Skeith's abilities he was using, the tracking skill that would allow him to follow those small parts.

There. That's the trail. Sora moved, slowly, watching small and large databugs floating past. There were so many of them, too many to count, and he felt a chill at the thought of their escaping into the confines of the World. Maybe it was better to keep them locked up, hidden away and out of trouble. That had been his job, after all, keeping the World in order and making sure everything ran according to program. That was why he'd had to remove Aura, after all.

It suddenly hit Sora that those thoughts weren't his, but a tangled remnant of Skeith's code and he frowned furiously at the idea. He was not Skeith, he would not take Skeith's place and he would not cooperate with the program. Humans didn't do that and whatever else he was, Sora was human.

Eying the databugs, Sora thought hard. Based on what Mia had told him, it would be necessary, sometime soon, to release them into the World. He couldn't free the data the way it was intended, but Kite could. A glimmer of a plan formed, but it wasn't clear enough for him to work with yet. Besides, I have work to do. Gotta find Aura and unlock her for Kite.

He followed the trail, ignoring and being ignored by the databugs, until he felt another shift in the reality around him. He stopped, looked around nervously and realized that he was being tugged backwards… no, forwards… no, inwards… He tightened his grip on A20's hand as they were sucked back into the more comprehensible existence of the World. A huge dungeon room, empty except for a single glowing figure. Aura.

.oOo.

She was gorgeous. An ethereal figure shining above them as if formed out of crystalline mist. A soft glow filled the room, a light that seemed to gleam like a pearl or the shell of a perfect egg. It occurred to A20 that that was exactly what that light was. A shield, protecting the form within this dungeon, but - at the same time - preventing its escape. She was a doll trapped in pale resin and devoid of life.

Beside her, Sora made an odd sound. "Do you hear her?" he asked softly.

A20 listened, but all she could hear was a soft, very soft, chiming. She said as much and he nodded. "She's talking to me. She's dead but she's talking." A20 was reminded of the way a player's dead character would wander a battlescene, the player able to talk, and demand to be resurrected, but unable to do anything else. She eyed the figure above them as Sora continued, "We have to open the way into this dungeon. Let's get out to the exit and see if Gating Out will do it."

"But…"

"If we don't open it, Kite can't get in to bring her the segment of herself that she needs."

Now that was patently unfair. "We have to? Who says? Why not wait until he's got the segment and just bring him the way we came." She gazed up at the figure, wondering how helping her would help Sora. Perhaps she too was a victim? Or perhaps she knew the way to undo whatever it was that imprisoned him in the World.

He gazed up at Aura, as if asking that question himself, then shook his head regretfully. "Two words. The Bracelet. That thing would be a beacon in that place we just walked through. We have to break open the way. No, I have to open it."

"And then?"

"Run like hell because She will be after us." Sora paced nervously. "I'm scared, A20. I don't want to do this. But if I don't, I may never get free."

She hesitated only briefly. "Then c'mon. Let's get our butts out of here." A20 took one last look at the girl hanging in mid-air, then used a Sprite Ocarina. For a moment things blurred with that familiar gleam, then… they were standing where they had been. "What?"

A soft, tired, laugh escaped Sora's lips. "Nothing's going to work the way it ought to, here. This isn't a real dungeon. Not yet. I think we have to walk. Without a map, because I doubt Fairy Orbs work here, either. Look at it this way. We won't have monsters to worry about. Probably. I hope."

If only that were true. "Guess again." She pointed behind him, where something was slowly forming in the air. They'd been followed in. It gleamed with the same strange shield that had protected Sora and herself in that other place, floating towards them looking like nothing so much as a black octopus. Somehow, A20 was certain it was out of their league. "RUN!"

.oOo.

Sora was noticing something odd. As he moved through the soft glow his very presence was canceling it out. That, he thought, was both good and bad. Good because it meant he was clearing the way for Kite. Bad because it made it easier for Her slave to chase them. Worse because that thing, like no monster Sora had seen before in the game, was moving quickly after them.

"Look what it's doing to the dungeon!" A20 pointed as they scrambled up the stairs to the next level. Not that she really needed to point out that that thing was leaving a trail of destruction behind it. The formerly pristine walls of the dungeon were shattering, revealing the strange graffiti like numbers and blackness that Sora was beginning to realize was the basic substance of the World. He didn't have time to really look at those spots but he had a feeling that - if he tried - he would be able to read them as easily as he'd once read his math text. Or Dad's assembly code.

They ran. A databug like that would be unstoppable and while Sora wasn't sure that it was immune to the powers he'd inherited from Skeith, he also wasn't sure he wanted to test that theory. Back and forth they ran, evading the thing by mere inches. A couple of times it flung spells at them that Sora somehow blocked, shifting his personal reality to allow him to do so. He was getting better at this and he would have taken the time to crow happily if he weren't quite so scared. Beside him, A20 was panting, as scared as he was, but still remembering to give him healing potions and other spells when needed. He returned the favor once in a while but mostly it was he who was taking the brunt of the damage. It knows if I get out to the field the dungeon will be open for Kite.

Trapped in a dead end, Sora grabbed the girl's character and flung himself over the pit that separated them from the exit while the thing approached along the path to the pit's side. It was a wild, desperate, leap but he managed it, dropping A20 as soon as they were on the other side. Later they had to do it again in a similar room and yet again several more times on the next level. He found time to wonder if they'd missed any of the damned place's rooms, then they were running out into the open field outside the dungeon, racing away from the doorway.

Around them, the soft foggy glow dissipated. The effect spread and A20 made a pleased noise. "I can Gate us out now!"

"Do it!" Sora ordered tersely, even as the thing followed them. Then it was on them and the World's rules took over. "DAMN!" They couldn't gate out during battle. "DAMNIT ALL TO HELL AND BACK!"

"Aren't you too young to be swearing at all?"

"It's my dad's fault. He's a bad influence," Sora answered tersely. "Think you can run for it? Gate out when you're out of its range."

She already was running and Sora stood his ground, hoping against hope that it would go after him. It didn't and he realized that splitting wasn't going to work. That thing had similar powers to Skeith's and it could hurt A20 in the same way Skeith had hurt other players. It must have realized that, now that Sora had accomplished his task, there was no point in chasing him only. He could block its spells, but only if they stayed together. He ran to join her, just in time to do exactly that.

"I thought…."

"It won't work. Turn off your computer."

"But…"

"If you don't, you'll end up like I am. HURRY!"

"NO!" She shouted the words, even as she turned and struck at their pursuer. "Sora, if I do that, it'll kill you. Do you want to die?"

He took a deep breath, realizing there was really only one thing he could do to protect her. With a leap that took him over her head, he spun around and drove his katar deep into her character's back. Just as the thing lashed out… from behind? Below? No…. Everywhere… He spun around wildly, waiting for that thing to attack and destroy him and the fallen A20. Then he realized. He'd forgotten to break their link and until he did her character wouldn't die and she'd still be stuck and… "TAKE OFF YOUR GOGGLES!" he yelled at her, even as he felt his body begin to burn with that red light that had accompanied his attack on that hacker. Skeith's power. His power. Data Drain. He struck, the high pitched note of the power filling the field as his blades buried themselves into the monster's body.

There was a scream of rage and agony and everything went black.

.oOoOoOo.

A20 moaned. For a moment she'd thought her brain had exploded right out of her nasal passages. A finger to her nostrils told her that it hadn't but that she'd better get a Kleenex for the bloody nose. There was more blood coming out of her ears and she hurt all over, as if she had been in the middle of that fight, instead of her character piece. Her back, in particular, had a sharp stinging pain along the spine that made her want to cry. "Sora, you…" She opened her eyes and stared at her blank screen. "Oh no!"

Ignoring the pains, A20 pushed the power button on her computer. Cycled it off and on. Repeated the process, until at last the system slowly booted up. As the familiar Altmit logo came up, she grabbed her controller and selected the icon for the World. Another painfully slow wait and then she was looking at the log-in screen and selecting that option.

"We're sorry. We are experiencing temporary difficulties…." The words hit her like Sora's blade had struck her character. "…oh no…"

For hours she tried. For hours she got the same answer. Over and again she had to reboot the system as it struggled to clear some unidentified glitch. Over and over again the same static that had infected that field in the World went through her system, accompanied by a high pitched whine like a mosquito's buzz. "Please don't tell me it followed me here," she muttered as she unplugged the modem cable in the hopes that she could at least get her computer going if it wasn't attached to the Net. It seemed to help, causing the static to lessen, though not disappear entirely.

"Okay. I won't tell you." The voice coming from the speakers was Sora's, if a trifle high pitched and overly fast. She could barely understand it. "Uh… Could you turn off your virus protection? The damn thing's trying to kill me."

"Sora?"

"Yoohoo. Virus protection? Off? Now? PLEASE?" He sounded tense. "There's a piece of that thing in here, but I can't fight it and your system at the same time. And, naturally, your system thinks that the thing's its best buddy."

"But… how?" A20 had never, ever, had a reason to set her Operating System to anything other than full protection. She wasn't nearly that computer savvy.

"Oh for…" Sora made a noise that was half frustration and half pain. "Ouch! Would you stop hitting me? I'm on your side, you stupid thing." He continued, hurriedly telling her the steps she needed to follow to help him. At last the final window came up and she selected the option that would shut the virus protections down he gasped, "Finally!"

A20's speakers crackled the sounds of static and battle. That and a peculiar tuneless singing that A20 had come to recognize as Sora's way of keeping himself focused. "A kid'll eat ivy, oh, wouldn't you…. HAH! GOTCHA YOU LITTLE BASSARD!"

.oOo.

"Your father shouldn't have been swearing like that around you," A20's voice boomed out of nowhere and Sora had to hurriedly shift his Self to make that volume less painful, not to mention speed it up in his hearing. For some reason her speech so far was distorted, slowed to nearly unbearable sloth. He would have done something about it earlier, except that piece of… whateverthehell it was… had been more important. He looked around, dodging processes, at least he was pretty sure they were processes, even though they looked like little robotic things running back and forth and up and down and all around him. My mind making images I can understand, he realized. They probably didn't really look like this. In fact, they might have looked entirely different to another person in his situation.

Carefully he found a place to sit and heal himself, commenting to A20, "That's what mom always says. But he keeps forgetting when we're playing Street Fighter. I think he forgets I'm a kid, sometimes." He paused, shuddered suddenly, wondering what his father was doing now and wanting, desperately, to be sitting at the Playstation and whupping his old man's butt in Indy500.

"Can I turn the virus protection on again?" A20 asked finally, as if having sensed that he didn't want to discuss his father anymore. "It makes me nervous to have it off." She sounded better, this time. Apparently whatever distortion effect there'd been had adjusted itself.

"You're not even attached to the Net, A20. You're not going to get anything until you do," Sora grumbled. Still, he did need to work out how to make the thing accept his existence. "Oh, okay. Just let me finish healing, first. I have to figure out a way to make it see me as part of the system and I think it has to be running for that. Just let me… Ah, there it is." Sora searched around the area, following the processes and finding the one that had to be the virus protection. It wasn't that hard to recognize. Bigger than the other processes, it resembled the robot guard in the game Chronopolis. Sora's imagination as work again, which could get fun considering all the weird old games he and his old man had played. Still, anything to make it work for him. He opened up the back of the robot and began studying its inner workings, not sure how he was understanding it. Part of that adaptation thing, he realized. His mind was translating the code he would have been reading into a more tangible form. Thanks Dad, he thought. Guess I learned more than just swearing from you. It might be the only thing that was going to save what was left of his life. I wish I hadn't put it like that.

A20 was silent a moment. "Ready?"

"Go for it."

The robot raised its head and began to move towards Sora, huge claws reaching out for him. Now, now, buddy. I'm part of the system. Just another process doing what I'm supposed to be doing. I'm your best buddy, in fact, an extension of your operations. I handle the more dangerous bugs. The sort you can't see. There was a shift inside him again, one that was becoming very familiar and he grinned. "This isn't the virus you're looking for. Move along."

A laugh came over the 'loudspeaker', "Oh really, Sora."

"What? Okay, so that was lame. Whaddyawant? High comedy? I'm just a kid." Sora sighed, sitting down and wondering what to do next. "You all right, A20?"

.oOo.

A20 shrugged, even though she knew Sora couldn't see her do so. At least, she was pretty sure he couldn't since she didn't have a digital camera on her system. "I hurt all over. And you owe me for that PK."

Embarrassment colored Sora's voice, less speeded now and easier to understand. He was still talking more quickly than most but it was no worse than his usual speech. A20 couldn't help but wonder if he was hyperactive in Real Life. "It was the only way I could think of to get you out. Except I forgot to break our link so your character would die. I'm sorry." His tone brightened. "For what it's worth, I think I'm safer here than there right now, so maybe it's a good thing I'm in your computer instead of the World."

"What happened? What did you do?" The note still echoed in her ears, making her entire body tremble, making her feel as if she were going to black out. She wondered aloud what would have happened if she hadn't gotten the goggles off in time.

There was a moment of silence. "I don't know," Sora admitted. "It has to do with the Data Drain, that's all I know." He was quiet another moment. "I think that's how She takes people's minds out of their bodies and puts them, or pieces of them, into her monsters."

A20 shuddered. Something major was happening in The World. Something that might be too big for her. It was certainly too big for Sora, though, and he had no choice. She looked around her room, out the window at the late afternoon sky. Her parents would be coming home, soon and it'd be time for supper. It felt so strange, to be in the real world when somewhere in cyberspace, there was something vast and dangerous happening. She stretched out her hand, played with her toy grunty. "It's all so much."

Silence. Then Sora whispered, "Do you want to quit?"

"No. I don't quit what I start. I just don't like to do that. But it's a lot more dangerous than I thought it was, isn't it." She eyed her computer, wishing he was more than just a voice in her ear. "You need me. You really are in the computer." She wanted to ask him what might be happening to his body during all this but some instinct told her that it would only upset him again. She glanced down at the cable that lay across her desk, the plug swinging over the edge, feeling scared.

Once again, silence. "So you believe me?" He sounded scared and relieved. She'd said the right thing, then, A20 was sure of that much. "I could contact Kite. Get him to help me." There was some doubt in his voice. "He would, I think. But…."

"He can't go with you into that place, and you'll have to go there to find the next part of Aura, won't you?" A20 hesitated. "What about Aura? Is she safe, now that you opened that dungeon?" She shifted in her chair, drinking some soda. She was going to need to get up soon.

This time it wasn't silence but that tuneless humming and those odd pinging noises that Sora seemed to make as a matter of course. It relieved her, telling her that he was feeling better, more cheerful, because he never did that when he was angry or scared or nervous. At last he spoke. "I think so. That thing could have gone for her, instead of attacking us. I don't think it really knew she was there. I'd hate to be there when Kite finds her, though."

Stretching, very aware of how long she'd been at the computer - except for a couple of short breaks while she'd been trying to get it working again - A20 sighed. "Then, for now, let me get some rest. I don't know about you, but I need some sleep."

"Yokay! D'ya mind connecting your modem again? I'd like to poke around on the message boards. This is the first time I've been out of the World for a long while. I want to see what's up."

She hesitated, then did so. To her relief, everything connected without a hitch. "Don't break my computer, Sora. My parents won't buy me anything more until my birthday."

"Right, boss. Gotcha."

As she went downstairs she heard him hum happily to himself.

To Be Continued…