A/N's: Hey! This is Sammy with the third chapter of "Log On!"
I'm glad I now have...9...reviews! -.- oh well, that's life, I know this section isn't as popular as it should be. Or maybe my fic is just super sucky and no one wants to hurt my feelings Oo;;;
Okay...enough of that, time for the chapter!
The next day at school, if one person had commented on Mai and Hiromi's matching rings then a million people must have.
"Oooo, look, you two are bound by love!"
"Where'd you get 'em? They're sooo totally romantic!"
"Are they made out of real crystal?"
Mai and Hiromi had to tell almost every student in the entire school that they were NOT dating and the rings were...ermm...they hadn't thought of that part yet.
It was math class and Hiromi and Mai sat on the same desk being pummeled by the same questions.
"Are you sure you two aren't going out?" a girl asked Mai.
"NO we are not going out!" Mai insisted.
"Where did you get those rings then?" the girl asked, "They're almost identical, except for the color of course."
"Well...erm..." Hiromi started.
"We won them," Mai stated and Hiromi gave her an odd look, "In a contest in "The World". The rings are also added to our character designs. They don't do anything, just increase our Water and Fire defense."
"Oh!" the girls nodded, "So they mailed you real ones too?"
"Uhh...yeah," Hiromi nodded, "That's about it."
"That's sooo cool!" one girl giggled, "I play the world too, I wish I had won that contest."
"So you're not really going out?" another girl asked, a tad bit disappointed.
"Well of course they're not!" a voice came from the back of the room and the group turned their heads backward. The girl that had spoke was a girl with bright blue eyes and platinum white blonde hair in high flowing pig tails. She had a young look about her and was holding two blue and gold pom poms. She jumped off of the desk she was standing on and did a somersault in the air to land gracefully in front of the desk. "I mean," she continued, "They can't be going out, because," she eyed Hiromi playfully and planted a small kiss on his cheek! "Hiromi-sama's going out with me!"
"WHAAAT?!" Mai screamed, blushed and turned to Hiromi, who looked positively dumbstruck. "HIROMI!?"
"I'VE NEVER EVEN SEEN THIS GIRL!" Hiromi desperately tried to defend himself. "I DON'T EVEN KNOW WHO SHE IS!"
"Silly you!" the girl pulled his cheek, "We're in love right?"
"LOVE?!" Mai loomed over her, "Excuse me miss, but Hiromi here has never mentioned you to me, what might your name be?"
The girl huffed slightly, but pulled out her pom poms and did a cartwheel back in the hall between the desks. She jumped and spun to land gracefully to applause. She bowed and then spoke, "Ayumi Kanzaki! Cheerleader and lover of Hiromi-sama!"
"YOU'RE NOT MY LOVER!" he yelled to her.
"HIROMI!" Mai yelled at him, "WHAT'S WITH THIS?!"
"I don't see why you have to be so jealous," Ayumi hugged Hiromi around the waist, "After all, you SAID you weren't his girlfriend!"
"Well, yeah, but--" Mai stated but was cut off by Ayumi when she glanced at their fingers.
"Hiromi-sama!" she scowled, "How could you have gotten matching rings for you and this girl and not for me, your girlfriend?"
"YOU'RE NOT MY GIRLFRIEND!"
"We won them!" Mai stated, starting to believe the story herself, "In a contest while playing "The World"." She smirked in Ayumi's face, "We're ALWAYS playing together..."
"Hrmph!" Ayumi turned to Hiromi, "Hiromi-sama! Why didn't you tell me you played "The World"?"
"BECAUSE I'D NEVER HEARD OF YOU BEFORE!"
"Well, then I think I know how to settle our little conflict," she told Mai, smiling, "I happen to play "The World" myself. How about we meet on together tonight at 6:00 P.M.? I'm a level 5 Wave Master, so if you want to level up before me that's fine."
"You're not saying we're going to fight each other?" Mai asked, gulping at the fact that she was only a level four Long Arm.
"Of course not!" Ayumi huffed, "Player Killers are despised in "The World"! Instead, we'll hold a contest. Each of us will go to a certain area and count the number of portals we open and defeat! No cheating when you count cause I'll know from my map and the fairy's orbs that both of us will use! Monsters that come from no where don't count, they're just bad luck for you. Then we'll fight in the dungeon with fairy's orbs and go down to the next level at the same time! The one to defeat the most portals wins!"
"Sounds good!" Mai smiled.
"And the winner gets Hiromi-sama's heart!"
"Yeah, yeah, whatever," Mai continued to smirk and Hiromi blushed slightly, looking at Mai. "See you on the game!"
"See you!" Ayumi did a back flip backwards and out of the room.
That night, Mai got home around five o' clock to level her character before Ayumi's challenge came to her. She logged into "The World" and noticed that she had new e-mail. She opened it up and saw Orizo's picture on the e-mail labeled, "You Don't Have To."
She opened it up and saw that the message read:
Hey,
About Ayumi's challenge, you don't have to do it you know! I can tell Ayumi to bug off myself, thanks for sticking up for me and all but...I'm a guy! I'm supposed to be protecting you, not the other way around!
Well...if you want to that's fine,
Orizo
Mai felt herself blushing as she finished the e-mail, but quickly replied:
Orizo,
Hey! Got your mail, thanks for being considerate, but this is between Ayumi and myself, I'm NOT backing down!
Thanks again,
Iam
She sent the e-mail back to him and clicked on "The World" button on her desktop. As she logged into "The World" menu she saw that there were new board messages, and she clicked on it to see what it was.
She scrolled down until she finally found the one with the yellow bar next to it. Her eyes widened as she saw the title, "FRIEND IN COMA, PLEASE HELP!"
The message was from a player named Wikiwen and it read:
HELP!
Someone has got to help me! My friend and I were playing "The World" and we were attacked by a weird monster with infinite HP! My friend was beaten by it, but I was able to escape! His mom called me and told me that he wouldn't wake up and had gone comatose! Someone's GOT to help! Is it Pluto's Kiss all over again?! Or what happened five years ago?
The area we went to was Delta, Chosen Grieving Widow! It looked really weird and it creeped me out!
HELP!
As Mai closed the board message, she thought about the strange area mentioned. Something about the weird monster with infinite HP. It was a Data Bug... The kind she and Hiromi had fought before! But why would Moyotu attack innocent players!? There wasn't any report of another player being there. What in the world was going on? All she knew was that she wasn't in the mood to fight another data bug; this message would keep people away from the area... But that player...
She noticed it was almost 5:30 and she quickly logged onto "The World".
Iam materialized in front of the Chaos gate and quickly went to find an area to level up in. As she cycled through possible keywords, she bit her lip when she came to Chosen. She selected it, and Grieving after that. He cursor was set on Widow when she quickly went down and selected a different one. "It's none of my business," she sighed and quickly warped to the level 3 area.
When she came back, she was level 5 and it was almost 6:00! Ayumi would be on any minute. She quickly ran to save her progress and waited by the Chaos Gate. Her player glanced at the computer's clock. 6:05... "She's late!" Iam huffed, but then felt a hand on her shoulder. "EEEEKS!" she screamed and spun around to see Orizo waving at her. "Oh..." she breathed deeply, "It's just you Orizo..."
"I got your message," Orizo told her, "You're not really going through with this are you?"
"You bet!" Iam told him, "If I don't, Ayumi will have a field day and I won't be able to stop her!"
"I guess." Orizo nodded and stood still for a few seconds. Neither player spoke as an ominous silence filled the Chaos Gate area. "Hey...umm...Iam?"
"Yeah?" she asked him, still surveying for any sign of Ayumi.
"Wha-what exactly..." he stopped to reword his question, "Well, when Ayumi told you that the winner would...umm...win my heart, you still accepted. What...what did you mean by that?"
Iam felt her face becoming extremely red. She HAD said that! And now she had to cover her tracks, "Umm...well...what...I um...mean...is..."
"I'm HERE!" Between the two players, a girl materialized. She had a staff with a cross on it and Iam could only guess she was a Wave Master. The girl wore a long yellow dress with a lighter yellow skirt underneath and yellow slippers. The dress had long yellow sleeves and the girl had cute blonde short hair with a halo dangling over her head. "Ready to fight Yanagi?!"
"I'm here!" Iam sighed, thankful to be out of the conversation with Orizo. "And so is Orizo...or "Hiromi-sama."
"Orizo-sama!" the girl hugged him, "You came to see my victory!"
"NO! PLEASE GET OFF ME!"
"Anyway, introductions!" the girl nodded to them and bowed, "My name is Chikoro!"
"Iam," Iam told Chikoro, shaking her hand with slightly more force than necessary.
"Shall we go?" Chikoro asked Iam, gesturing the portal, "Mind if I pick the area?""Go ahead," Iam spat and walked forward.
"Iam..." Orizo whispered to her, trying to stop her from getting into anything she would regret.
"Then...how about this one?" Chikoro paused and then smiled, "Chosen, Grieving, Widow."
"You're joking!" Iam insisted, "That's the infected area on the boards! Where that guy went into a coma! There is zero way I'm going there!"
"Scared?" Iam felt a vein start to pulsate in her head. Chikoro gave a hearty laugh, "Well, you said I could pick the area. If you refuse to my terms then you'll just have to forfeit I guess..."
"Fine!" Iam screamed, "I'll go!"
"That's what I like to hear," Chikoro smiled and then stepped through the portal, "Last one there is a rotten egg!"
"Come back here!" Iam jumped head first into the portal after Chikoro, leaving poor Orizo alone to wonder about what his friend had just jumped head first into...
"Well, here we are..." Chikoro told her as they both landed in the area. Iam gasped as she saw what had happened to the place. It was a forest with trees and grass everywhere...but what was really strange was the fact that it looked broken. As if someone had taken pieces of the graphics away, only leaving the 0s and 1s that made up the CG surrounding them. The area shook from time to time, like static on a TV. Iam and Chikoro looked fine. Iam saw that Chikoro looked completely calm and tried to make herself calm as well, not wanting Chikoro to see that she was afraid. But little did Iam see Ayumi's hand sweating over her controller. "Shall we start?"
"I...I guess..." Iam nodded warily, talking a small step forward, then breaking into a run, getting a Fairy's orb out and heading towards the closest portal. Chikoro headed the other way, grabbing her first portal as well.
Soon, all the portals had been cleared and Iam headed towards the dungeon, where Chikoro was waiting. "Finally!" She rolled her eyes and tapped her foot on the ground, "How many did you get?"
"8..." Iam told her.
"I got 8 too," Chikoro raised her eyebrows, "Then I suppose it's time for the dungeon! Follow me!" She ran in, Iam following her down the stairs.
"Fairy's orb!" Chikoro and Iam both threw Fairy's orbs into the air and Iam saw the layout of the dungeon. Luckily, there were a lot of rooms, so she could get to some before Chikoro. "Shall we go?" Chikoro asked her, smiling wryly.
"May the best player win," Iam told her.
"Don't worry," Chikoro smirked, "I will." With that, she ran off, leaving an enraged Iam alone to fight with her side of portals.
"I'll – show – her!" Iam screamed as she defeated her next portal of monsters. She smiled triumphantly, "That's 16! And this is the fourth level!" She ran into the next room, and scowled as she saw Chikoro waiting for her. And then...she gasped at what was at her feet. The purple smog...like before. "Chikoro..." she started.
"I got 16, like you" Chikoro nodded her head, "And this is the last room. The fastest one wins the prize and Orizo-sama!"
"Chikoro, don't go in there!" Iam insisted, "You've gotta stop!"
"Scared?" She asked and then ran into the room before Iam could stop her! "Hah! The prize is mine!"
"Idiot!" she screamed and ran in after her.
"AAHHHHHHH!" Chikoro screamed as Iam saw what she thought she would. As she burst through the door, she saw a screaming Chikoro staring at a large red stingray, covered in green scales. A data bug. "Th-that's a really weird monster! That's not in the strategy guide!"
"That's because it's a Data Bug!" Iam insisted, pulling out her spear, "Look, just attack it! I'll handle it from then on!"
"Well...okay..." Chikoro quickly sent a Friend's message to Iam and Chikoro was added to her friend's list. "Let's join in a party!"
"Not much else we can do!" Iam insisted and invited Chikoro to her party. The two, once formed, looked at each other and nodded. Then, they unleashed an all out assault on the monster.
"GAN DON!" Chikoro yelled and stones attacked the monster. She looked at its HP and gasped, "It's full of weird symbols! It didn't go down at all!"
"That's because it has infinite HP!" Iam told her, hacking at the monster, taking hits and hate.
"Then why are we attacking it stupid?!" Chikoro asked, dumbfounded and scared.
"Just trust me!" Iam told her, "Just keep hitting it!" She grit her teeth as her spear get stabbing. "Moyotu...why make this one? Nobody knew your secret... What's wrong?"
"Stop mumbling and fight!" Chikoro snapped Iam out of her conversation with herself as she cast another spell, "Vak Kruz!" The fire converged on the Sting Ray, making it writhe in pain. Iam gave it another fatal swoop with her spear and she smiled as the words "Protect Break" came over it. "Now what?!" Chikoro asked.
"Leave this part to ME!" Iam held out her right hand, her ring extended and pointed at the monster! "RED DATA DRAIN!"
"OW!" Chikoro screamed as she was infected with poison. Iam felt herself not being able to move. She was paralyzed! "How's THAT handling it?!" Chikoro screamed, helping herself and Iam to remedies and antidotes. "What now genius?!"
"I don't get it!" Iam told her, "It worked last time!"
"Think..." A voice crept in the back of Iam's ear and she felt a bead of sweat trickle down her neck. She turned around, as did Chikoro and Iam gasped as she saw none other than Prisma standing there in her black robes.
"Is she going to help us?" Chikoro wondered out loud, "What class is she?"
"Think..." Prisma repeated to Iam again and Iam did think. She thought long and hard, and then gasped as she remembered what had happened.
"RED AND BLUE DATA DRAIN!"
She had been with Orizo! Their Data Drain was double the power! "Your ring alone is too weak to fight the monster..." Prisma explained, "You'll need help..."
"Crap..." Iam muttered as the monster drew closer, now recovered from the deep gash that Iam had created, "But...but Orizo isn't here!"
"Child..." Prisma held out a long, pale finger and motioned to Chikoro, who was looking extremely frightened. "Come here...I won't hurt you..." Chikoro gulped and then silently made her way over to Prisma who smiled weakly. "Give me your hand..." Chikoro held out her right hand and Prisma lightly touched her middle finger. "You have the power of the .hackers..." Prisma smiled, "Use this ring to defeat the Data Bug..." In a flash of bright light, Iam shielded her eyes. When she looked up, she noticed a shimmering yellow ring on Chikoro's finger, Chikoro looking at it. She turned to Iam.
"So...those rings...that Orizo-sama and you had were..."
"Our power to beat the Data Bugs," Iam nodded to her and held out her ring, "Come on! We've got to Data Drain it before it changes back!"
"Right!" Chikoro nodded and then ran up to Iam, her finger outstretched next to Iam's, pointing straight at the monster, as if to challenge it! "Ready?"
"When you are!" Iam nodded.
"Right!" Chikoro took a deep breath, then glared at the monster with determined eyes. She and Iam finally screamed:"RED AND YELLOW DATA DRAIN!" Red and yellow light shot from their rings, dissolving the green flakes, turning the monster to normal! "Let's get it!" Iam told her and Chikoro grinned and nodded. The two launched an all out assault and soon the monster was disposed of!
"We did it!" Iam cheered, but then noticed Chikoro looking slightly frustrated, and then, a pout spread across her pale face. "What's wrong?"
"Well...you were the one who knew how to defeat the Data Bug..." She sighed, "I guess that it's only fair that that portal go to you..."
"You're still on that stupid contest?!" Iam asked disbelieving, "After you could have died?!""You win," Chikoro sighed and then started to walk sulkily out of the room, "I resign. You can be Orizo-sama's girlfriend..."
Iam would have been cheering, but Chikoro looked so sad that she couldn't help but feel sad for her. Just as the angel wave master was about to walk out, Iam called out to her, "Wait!" Chikoro turned around and looked at her with empty eyes. Iam smiled widely, "We were a party right? So that means we each get half that portal!" Chikoro's eyes lit up, "So I guess it's a tie. We'll have to settle this conflict later!" Chikoro paused, then smiled and nodded.
"You bet Iam!" She told her, "And next time I SHALL be the victor!""Iam!" A voice from the back of the room called to them, and Iam smiled as she saw Orizo running into the room, out of breath, "I saw that strange post and got worried! So I came after you guys, are you okay?"
"We're fine," Iam insisted, "There was a Data Bug, but we got rid of it. And look!" She pointed to Chikoro's hand and showed off the ring, "It seems that Chikoro has joined our group."
"That means we'll be hanging out together every day Orizo-sama!" Orizo was immediately met with a large glomp from the wavemaster, and Iam felt her blood pressure rising, "We'll always be together!"
"Ack! GET OFFA ME!"
"Hahaha!"
"EERRG! DARN YOU!" Iam screamed and ran after her, but she was too quick to log out. Iam growled to herself as the sneaky wave master disappeared, but stopped as she saw Orizo looking at her. "What?"
"So..." Orizo asked as they Iam sifted through her bag for a Sprite Ocarina, "Who won?"
"Hmm...?"
"The contest I mean...""Oh! It was a draw," Iam told him, and he blushed, slightly. "But we'll have a rematch!" She smiled kindly at him and his face started to match the color of her clothes, "And that time, I'll make sure to win!"
Orizo nodded and the two warped back to Mac Anu...
Little did they know that someone was watching them...
"Well...it seems that that Data Bug was too weak..." A voice came from the shadows, "I'll have to make it stronger next time..."
All of a sudden, with a clack of shoes, none other than Moyotu, dressed in her white Heavy Blade attire landed in the room and looked around worriedly. She didn't see anyone, and sighed, "I thought this was your doing..." she breathed and looked up, "I saw the board message and I don't approve of this behavior! Data Bugs are to be made for one reason and one reason only!" She was met by no response and sighed heavier, "Come out Circeca!" From the shadow arose a woman with white dog ears that matched her dog tail. She was a Werewolf. She had blue spiky short hair to her shoulders and was wearing a white long sleeved top with short shorts and white long boots. Around her neck was a blue fur boa. Her armor was all decorated with blue engravings in the shapes of ancient runes and she smiled as she met Moyotu.
"Sorry Moy," she bowed to her and came up smiling. Her blue eyes sparkled, "I just wanted to have a little fun...after all..." She gave a small skip, "What's the point of making Data Bugs if you can't have fun with them?" She ran a claw down Moyotu's cheek, "I though you taught me that..."
"I suppose..." Moyotu nodded, "After all...he was just a stupid player...who cares if he dies anyway?"
"I sure don't..." Circeca smiled, "And I doubt the rest of the Prism players do either..." She laughed, as did Moyotu and the two quickly gated out back to wherever they came from...
A/N's: COMPLETE! Do you like? Do you like?! Tell me! I hope you do!
As always, R&R PLEASE!
Till then,
Ciao for Now!