.hack/FRAGMENT
Saya
version 9
Another Piece of the Puzzle
new topic posted 12.1.05
Erika dealt the last blow on the monster before it evaporated, leaving a blue treasure chest in its wake. The girl shuffled through her items and was about to unlock it when a message appeared on her screen, a notice telling her that she had new mail. The girl immediately gated out and checked her inbox and sure enough a new message was there, a button blinking beside it. It was from Amaya.
"Hey, I haven't had the chance to go online since that Wave Master event. I wanted to test out the new staff, would you mind meeting me in the…beta server? Send a reply as soon as possible."
The girl smiled and typed in her reply before logging into the beta server. It wasn't her particular favorite, she preferred the delta server with the beautiful city of Mac Anu, but it seemed as though, in this case, the young woman didn't have much of a choice.
Erika looked at the city around her when she heard Amaya calling her name, "That was fast," the other girl said when she had caught up with her friend. The Twin Blade noticed the odd weapon in her hands and her grip tightened a little on her own odd weapons. "Let's get going. Claire was telling me about this really awesome place we can go to." The other girl smiled and accepted her friend's invitation to join the party before the two of them gated out.
It was certainly an interesting place (I've never been there myself, unfortunately), but as soon as she set foot inside of it, Erika was sure that something was odd about it. It wasn't surrounded by data in the sky, or streams of data floating around them, or the screen fizzing on and off. But there was a feeling about it that the girl just couldn't shake. "Come on!" Amaya's voice broke through the other girl's thoughts.
A swirling golden light not unlike that of a Chaos Gate (I've always hated people who write stuff like that and yet here I am writing it) stood not-too-far-off from where they had first appeared in the area. Amaya ran towards it, and although Erika's Twin Blade avatar could have quickly outrun her, she stayed a little way behind.
The Wave Master activated the portal and an ordinary enough monster appeared. But the ordinariness of it could not stop the chills that were running up and down the teenager's spine (even outside of the game she was feeling it). "This staff works great!" Amaya exclaimed after they had defeated the creature in a matter of two or three attacks. "Hey, is something the matter?" she asked (took her long enough to notice).
Erika smiled unconvincingly and waved her friend's worry away somewhat tiredly, this feeling of apprehension, this unending dread was wearing her thin. "I'm find, I'm fine," she said and the other girl shrugged and ran off in a different direction in search of new gates. With a slight sigh, the Twin Blade followed her friend along, her character showing no emotion but her real self fighting visibly with her confusion.
But her confusion soon evaporated when she watched her friend throw something into a tiny lake and the creature known as 'Monsieur' appeared from the water's surface (I always thought he looked kind of like an evil mutated water drop bent on taking over the world, but maybe that's just me). "What?" Amaya exclaimed after she had gotten her item back from the creature (the lake monster), "It got weaker! That's no fair!"
Erika grinned and walked closer to her friend, "Yeah, well, that's just the way luck works, isn't it?" she said, knowing full well that luck had nothing to do with it. It had everything to do with the conditions of the area and what the Wave Master had thrown into the water. But she wasn't about to say that (it would require too much effort, no wait, that's my reasoning behind everything, not hers).
The brunette sighed and put the item back into her bag before picking up her staff off the ground where she had placed it when she went to give her item to Monsieur. The Twin Blade turned around to see if she could find the dungeon somewhere over the horizon, she always found the field itself boring (same for me, the dungeons hold so much more excitement…and they have more treasure chests).
The white-haired girl heard a scream and looked around to find Amaya with her staff held in a defensive position, trying to block the attack of a monster that was clearly corrupted: purple patches of skin, floating data streams. The screen went in and out of focus and briefly Erika heard a voice ring through her speakers, "I'm going to find it, I'm going to find it before she does!" The same strange voice she had heard over and over again, the voice of the mysterious girl known only as Sky. What did all of this mean?
Erika didn't have the time to ponder it, with one attack Amaya was knocked to the ground and half of her hit-points had disappeared, swallowed up by the strange creature. "This is just like last time!" she said, comprehension dawning on her face as she referred to the monster she, Erika, and Claire had fought against to obtain the weapon that the Wave Master held now.
"Yeah, just the same," the Twin Blade muttered to herself, her brilliant blue eyes focused on the creature's movements. She had fought so many of these corrupted monsters that it felt completely normal when she sliced through its skin while no one else could. Her blades became flames in her hands and she jumped into the air, as she fell to the ground Erika brought them both down onto the monster.
The creature toppled to the ground and dust flew around them causing the characters to choke and gasp for fresh air that they could not find. But rather than watching for where the monster fell, the blue-eyed teenager looked to the sky and watched streams of data float into the blue expanse. "Another treasure chest," Amaya said, her voice breaking through Erika's thoughts (that voice can break through anything).
The Twin Blade walked over to where her friend stood, a blue treasure chest rested between the two girls as the brunette shifted the staff from hand to hand. She undid the trap easily and opened the chest. "Wow, I just got this really weird Blade Master weapon…it has almost the same stats as my staff!" she added in surprise. It most likely had similar stats to Erika's weapon as well, but she didn't say anything because at that moment a message appeared in the center of her screen: a new file had been obtained.
"Hey, Amaya," the white-haired girl said, already preparing to leave so, "I have somewhere I have to be. Sorry about that," she apologized though she did not sound very convincing as her thoughts were on something completely different.
The Wave Master shook her head as if snapping out of her own trance, "Huh? Oh, yeah, sure. Keep in touch, I'll be sure to!"
Erika sat at her computer screen, twirling her long dark hair around her finger as she sent a message to Koto, the strange new file attached at the bottom. The other girl would be able to decipher it; after all, she was the only daughter of the infamous Helba. She couldn't shake the odd feeling left behind by that fight from her mind. It was something she couldn't explain, something that felt too natural to explain but so foreign that it could not be normal (did that make any sense to you, because I have no idea what I just said).
Well, at any rate, hopefully the brown-haired, slightly abnormal Heavy Blade would come through and decipher the file. Hopefully, it would answer the questions left behind by its predecessor.