Disclaimer: I do not own .hack/ or any of the characters from the animes, games, or books or 'The World'. I DO claim Jo Velez & her family, Astral, and these stories. Also, I'll be slipping some descriptions in from the books at times. Those will be denoted by single quotes ', italics, and the source of the description in parenthesees( ).

WEEK'S END

God, this sucks... Jo thinks, plopping down into her computer chair and boots it up. Logging into The World, she opens her email and sends one off to Orca. "Tomorrow we got to pack, and then we're moving. This sucks so badly. At least it's to Mom's family, so I just have to worry about jetlag for a few days. I don't know when I'll be able to access again, but I hope it doesn't take too long. I'll see you when I can, Orca. Astral" with that, and since it was in the middle of the night, Jo closed out The World and turned off her monitor. I can always try their server during the day. It'll actually be interesting to see who I get. She thinks with a smile.

Things never go as planned, however. Jo's packing was forced to begin with her computer, so she couldn't even login to see Orca's reply if he'd sent one. The entire day was spent with her family, helping them pack when she was finished. Matt, her little brother, was easy enough. His room was basically a giant library, lots of mangas and books laying in the shelves. Sometimes Jo wondered if one of the two of them were adopted, and she'd really hoped it was him more often than not. Her parents, however, both Matt and Jo had to help the pair. So many books of their father's, and all the dishes and things. But, it was at least half worth it.

Early two days later, Jo and Matt are woken by their father. The day of the move was upon them, and the movers had just arrived. Intrusting the men to get everything into the truck, the family heads to the airport. "So, I guess all those hours you spent on the computer won't go to a waste, huh, Jo?" Matt asks, looking at his sister with a smile. "All those hours talking to those Japanese people. Guess I should've thought about something like that."

"You mean you don't have any Japanese-to-English textbooks in your room?" Jo jokes, staring out the window. "Man, this's going to suck so badly. We'll be like tourists over there. The only one that'll be comfortable would be Mom. God, she'll be so embaressed!"

"Yeah, you said it, Sis." her brother agrees, looking across the vehicle and out her room. "So, does this 'Orca' dude know you're coming to live in Japan?"

"Don't be silly, Matt. Odds are we won't even be living in the same city. I'll be willing to bet he lives at the other end of the island, too."

TWINBLADE

The schoolyear passed quickly, and Jo was finally able to log back into The World. As to be expected from a long absence, she had a pair of e-mails from Orca, but also several from that strange person. The first from Orca was dated back to when she'd e-mailed him about them moving, his second saying he hope'd she'd be getting back soon. The emails from the strange one, that 'Ly' person... they were all scrambled, as with the first one. Straining her eyes, Jo tries to understand what was written there, but all she could pick out were those two items with the file extentions. The last three from the person, though, had only three words in each, along with a server. Writing them down, Jo ponders contacting Helba and asking her about the items again, to see if she'd heard or knew anything new. Interrupting her thoughts, however, was a message coming in from Orca asking if she was in yet. With a soft chuckle, Jo sends her reply, then logs herself on as Astral.

Looking around Mac Anu, Astral shakes her head, seeing that the city was the same as ever. "Wonder where Orca is?" she asks herself, moving herself around a tad akwardly, re-familiarizing herself with the controls of the game. Before she can really do anything, however, her vision is covered by the face of a male twinblade with green hair. "W-what the heck?" Astral stares into his eyes, a bit startled.

"Hello there! Say, you looks strong! You wanna form a party?" he asks with a half-smirk, half-smile on his face. "C'mon! Lemme have your member's address!" Taking a step back, Astral's player briefly switches from first-person to third, then back.

"Well... I'm actually supposed to meet someone. But he hasn't shown up yet. I guess we could go to a dungeon until he lets me know he's here." she says, wondering why she was getting a slight eerie feeling from the twinblade before her.

"That's great! I'm Sora the Twinblade!" he says with a jovial smile. THe next sound that greets Astral is the dinging of his member's address. Sending hers in exchange, she was quickly pounded with his invite to the party. Smiling a bit in real life, Astral accepts and sees the twinblade's level. "Alright. You got anywhere to go?"

"Yes... actually. I heard there's a wierd rare item at the Hidden and Forbidden Field of Water on this server." she says, motioning to the Chaos Gate.

The pair soon find themselves in the field, the entire map seeming to pulse with a wierd, red hue.

"Woah! This's awsome!" Sora says cheerfully through his mic.

"Awsome to you, but it's very eerie... Hey! Do you see that?" Astral points at a white orb that was floating slightly above eye-level, but as Sora is called to it's presance, the orb disappears.

"I think so... a white willow-the-whisp. Didn't know they came as single enemies."

"C'mon!" she points, spotting the orb a bit further away. "I thinkwe should go to the dungeon. That'd be the best place for the item to be found." Agreeing, Sora and Astral both start towards the dungeon, the red-clad blademaster keeping her eyes on the orb, not paying attention to the ninja-like twinblade behind her.

As the two reach the lowest level of the dungeon, Sora pauses for a moment, but Astral doesn't notice and proceedes into the room with the Gott Statue. Opening the treasure, she reads quickly the items she'd found. A pair of Silver Grunties, which was a VERY big surprise to AStral since they were said to be fairly rare, and another of those odd items with a file extention. "Rae.cyl" she whispers. However, the next thing she knows, she has a pair of twinblade weapons at her neck. "W-what the hell?" she demands, looking over her shoulder at Sora.

"Give me the items." he says. Wordlessly, she hands over the two Silver Grunties. "There's always three. What else was there?" he demands. Keeping her lips closed, Sora demands it again. "What else was there!" Silence. "Hmph." and with that, Sora draws both his weapons across AStral's neck, killing her character, and causing the game to reload.

"Damn him! Damnit, damn!" Astral curses, looking at the wierd items. Even though she hadn't saved when she was PK'd, she still retained the rae.cyl. Saving and loging off, she was in a foul mood as her trust had been betrayed by the twinblade.

Kaitlin-well, i feel really honored that you feel inspired to write more because of this fic. i'll continue to do my best to help!

kulaguy2-i noticed. i grabbed the 'Twilight' manga set and saw that. kinda sad that they do that. mebby Del Ray should've done the dot hack series...