.hack/FRAGMENT

Saya

version 11.0

In a Place Called Confusion

new topic posted 12.27.05

"Erika! Erika!" Koto called as she made her way through the crowd of people over to her friend. It seemed that all the PCs, Player Characters, were there, standing around that tiny billboard in front of the café in Mac Anu.

The Twin Blade looked around for her friend through the people but she could not find the brunette. The next moment, though, the Heavy Blade had drawn her weapon and was swung it in the air above her head, a beacon of sorts (not exactly safe, but at least it worked…). The white-haired teenager grinned and made her way to where she knew her friend was. Only Koto would do something like that. "You called?" Erika asked when she had managed to make her way to her friend, looking up at the taller girl's features.

"Yeah, I called, come on. We'll go to that special place," she winked and the other girl knew exactly what place she was talking about: the Net Slums. The Twin Blade nodded her white head and followed the other girl onto the open street and toward the Chaos Gate. The two teenagers formed a party and stepped through the swirling golden light.

No matter how many times Erika went to the Net Slums, the place always made her feel uncomfortable, as if she didn't belong there (so, okay, this was only her second time…). When she looked up at her friend's face, she noticed the expression of calm, relaxed, familiarity. This place was like a home to her, it probably came with being an experienced and talented hacker, and the daughter of the best hacker 'The World' had ever seen. "I deciphered that new file," the Heavy Blade said after she had checked around to make sure no one was listening in.

The other girl rolled her unnaturally white eyes (no, really, she never would have guessed). "And…?"

"It's strange, weirder than last time. At least with the other file I got a fragmented movie, this time I don't even get that. Nothing, nada, zip—"

"I got it. You didn't see anything. I know what you're thinking, give it here," the white-haired Twin Blade held out a thin, pale hand while her friend shuffled through her items for the file. It didn't take long for the file to switch hands and as soon as it was in her possession, Erika double clicked and awaited the results…

And waited, and waited…Koto turned to the other girl who was looking around in what appeared to be a mix of amazement and horror, it was a facial expression that even she had trouble with. "Well, I guess that's a dud, give it back, I can try to get more information on what exactly those files are—"

The Twin Blade began to glow, an eerie blue white light much like the color of her hair, eyes, and clothes. "Wha—what's going on? Koto!"

"Hey! I'm not doing anything!" (Which, strangely enough, was the truth).

In an instant, however, Erika stopped glowing and returned to normal, but apparently things were not so normal on her end for the odd look on her face had intensified. "I think we have a problem," she said with false casualness. Koto gave her a questioning look with her chocolate brown eyes. "Umm…I can't see the screen any more, is that normal?"

"What?" the Heavy Blade yelled so loudly that digital dust fell from the surrounding buildings as they shook (alright, that may be a slight exaggeration). "That sort of thing is definitely not normal, I haven't heard of this ever happening before—wait a minute, scratch that thought. I have heard of it! I'll be back in a second!" Her character stopped still and would not move as the girl left her computer screen IRL

Meanwhile, Erika was slightly busy panicking, and imagining her own funeral inside her head. "What happened to my body? They're all going to think I'm dead! They'll bury me and I won't ever be able to go back home! I'm not dead yet! I'm still alive!"

"I'm aware of that," Koto said, she had apparently already made her way back to her computer. "I remember a few years back, Mom told me about a kid who couldn't logout—"

"I never said I couldn't log out…"

"Try it!"

But what if Koto was right (of course I was right, how dare she doubt my integrity), and she really couldn't log back out of the world. What then? Swallowing her fears, literally, wondered how she was supposed to access her menu screen when somehow she felt herself floating upwards in much the same way one did when they were logging out. There, in your face, Koto! It was working! All of a sudden, everything around her stopped moving and she slammed back onto the ground.

"Told you, will you let me finish, now?" Erika nodded and the brunette continued, "Mom said there was this one kid who couldn't log out, and he couldn't see his screen at all. Apparently he was connected to something called the Key of the Twilight and Aura. I just went to ask her about it…let's just say, we've brought Helba the hacker out of her retirement."

"Well, how am I supposed to get out of here?"

The Heavy Blade shrugged, "One of those weird files is what started this, so maybe we have to find another one and it'll set things back to normal."

"So what are we supposed to do? Check every single area there is? There are thousands of areas on each server, and then there are dozens of servers. I wouldn't live to go through them all!"

"That's why Mom's decided to get back to hacking. Even though she swore she'd give it up. She's a lot better than I am, so she should be able to find something that could help, then all we have to do is go there and get it, no big." Erika felt like smacking her but she knew it would do no good (I wouldn't have been able to feel it) when Koto's expression cleared. "Mom just found something, a malfunctioning area, blocked off…the whole nine-yards. I'll bet almost anything one of those freaky files from the bottom pits of hell is somewhere in there."

Without another word, the two girls made their way back to Mac Any where Koto punched in the coordinates. It was just the kind of place that the Twin Blade had been expecting: spooky, definitely, but more than that. Broken streams of data, fuzzy vision, an oddly colored sky…Koto was right, one of those fragments had to be here. It would be a matter of finding which monster held it, as well. One after another, the players made their way through the hordes of monsters, but to no avail.

The two girls had just made their way out of the dungeon when they were attacked by another monster. "This has to be it, this is the last one!" Erika yelled as she slashed at the creature and thought up the combination moves she wanted to use. It was as if this body already knew what it was doing as it performed her abilities. But they got nothing.

"I don't get it, Mom's never been wrong before!"

"She gave up hacking for a while, though, didn't she? Hey, I just e-mailed you my phone number IRL, could you tell my mom what's going on and that I'm really sorry for causing her so much trouble. Can you thank her for taking me in, for me?"

"You're talking like you're dying!" Koto said angrily as she kicked a stone into a pond much like the ones usually associated with Monsieur, "we'll get you out of here. We just have to look again, a different area or something!"

"Koto—"

"Don't worry, I'm sure we'll figure out what's going on!"

"Koto—"

"What? What is it?"

The white-haired teenager pointed a shaky hand at something in the lake behind her friend. Koto turned around and immediately jumped backwards out of reflex, what stood there (or floated as the case may be) was what looked like Monsieur but with streams of data floating off of him and patches of purple on its skin. "Great, just great, we have to beat a Monsieur. No one's ever been able to hit a Monsieur, that would go completely against their programming!"

Erika grimaced and settled into her fighting stance while the other girl did the same at her side. "After you!" Koto yelled, pushing the Twin Blade forward unexpectedly (I must have underestimated you, assuming you'd expect that of me…you disappoint me, I shun you!). Instinctively, the girl thought of a combo to unleash and was surprised to find that one of her volley of attacks had actually hit its mark; one of countless attempts.

"Alright! I hit him!" She continued hacking away at Monsieur while Koto stood to the side and watched, assuming that she would have gotten in the way in such a situation (I wouldn't have been able to hit the stupid thing anyway, trust me, I've tried). Eventually, the Monsieur let out a piteous moan (it was more like someone crying into a filled teacup, very difficult to hear) and fell back into the pond as numerous drops of clear water. Rather than a blue treasure chest appearing where the defeated creature once stood, as that would have been very difficult considering the circumstances, a message rang through Erika's head. She immediately sifted through her items and took out the strange new file she had received. "Let's hope this works!" she said as she closed her eyes and opened it.

The young-looking dark-haired girl that was Erika outside of the confines of 'The World' opened her eyes to a clean white ceiling in a clean white room with a clear plastic mask covering the bottom part of her face. She had finally made it out of the game, but what awaited her now?