Disclaimer: I do not own Aizawa Inori, nor anything affiliated with her. This is totally non-canon.
The edge of the city held a few suburb-styled houses and nothing much else. Good. Ignoring the thick violet dome in our way (probably the 'firewall' Eulith was talking about), that'd make exiting all the more easier. Out of curiosity, I walked right up to it and gave it a slight touch. Gasping in surprise, more so than pain, I jumped back.
"It's freezing!" I yelled back at Ophelia, wincing as I realised she was right behind me, "Sorry…" I murmured, sheepishly. She laughed. Weird, Ophelia wasn't one to enjoy others' pain, it was near the opposite.
"It's not like that, Inori, it's just…that was the exact same reaction you had when you first touched the borderlines!" I tried to remember that incident, with little success. "Just walk through, like…that." And Ophelia pushed through the dome, mime-style and disappeared. I eagerly followed suit, with the sensation of swimming, in the Antarctic, washing over me. Fortunately, it didn't last, and I stumbled out, gasping a little. I absorbed my new surroundings, and realised why the firewall wasn't transparent.
"The Internet…is like this?" Completely different from the city inside the barriers, it went for the more traditional look of tall skyscrapers. Roads, now cracked with wear, networked the place. What could have once been thriving cities were now in ruins. What wasn't reduced to rubble looked ready to collapse. Fortunately, they were sturdier than they looked, since we were in the shadow of a particularly large building. We stepped out of it anyway.
"Courtesy of the Botnet and countless malware. Yes. Let's consider ourselves lucky that there're plenty of safe zones. Anyway, see that violet speck in the distance?" she pointed with her unoccupied hand, to the horizon. The city stretched on and on… Framed by the broken remains of a few skyscrapers, was a small dome.
"Our destination, right? But that's at least a couple of kilometres. How exactly…?" Ophelia released her sack and knelt, as if in prayer. I was about to ask what exactly she was doing, when her star-shaped pendant began to glow and…levitate? The warm glow was soon replaced with a beacon. Looking at her silhouette, I could see strips of clothing pulsing out from her necklace, covering her entire figure. Then, the light intensified, and I looked away.
"Like this, Inori." I finally looked back at Ophelia, my eyes widening at her transformation. Where her subdued dress was just seconds ago, a Cosplay-like outfit took its place (still just as modest of course). Apart from her necklace (now part of her outfit, like a large, star-shaped breastplate), Ophelia's costume took its colour palette from the flag of Norway; red, blue and white. Her dress was multi-layered and lightly frilled at each end and a hat sat on her head, a bit like a cavalier's one, with the flowers, feathers and a ribbon in her hair, but with a very prominent upturned brim. And to finish it off, some fancy opera gloves. Ophelia pointed at the skyscraper's wall beside her. A red ring the size of a large hula hoop appeared. Then she did the same thing, but this time on top of a distant building. The hoop in the wall changed from brick to a vista. "We teleport!" Ophelia shouted, and grabbing the sack, leapt through. I looked gingerly at the portal, as if it were going to bite me, then slowly…carefully, I stepped in…and walked out of an apartment wall. Looking behind be, I could still see the ground we had just stood on. Even though we were on the kind of balcony with solid iron grails up to the shoulders, the sheer height of it made me queasy.
"So…protection, huh?" I asked, Opera, looking at her star-necklace-now-breastplate. I thought about my shield-badge and wondered what kind of 'protection' I'd get from it.
"Yes, in the form of a very useful transportation. Hence why people like me as a messenger." 'Useful' was a bit of an understatement. Our starting point was just a small splodge in the distance.
"Couldn't you be more than a delivery girl? I mean, there's got to be plenty of people who need to travel to other cities and all…" She shook her head.
"Once I did. And I was good at it too. But now, I leave those kinds of things to other browsers. Letters you see, even with their paper bodies, are much less fragile than people…bad memories. Can we change the subject?" I opened my mouth to do so, when a man's scream somewhere behind the building did the work for me. Ophelia, eyes wide, placed her sack securely between a cast-iron seat and a table and quietly generated a portal to the ground. "Don't move an inch. I'll be right back." She stepped into the wall and the loop disappeared right after. Damn…she anticipated my thoughts.. Looking down from the balcony, I saw her round the apartment, then…nothing. How long had it been? Five minutes? Ten? I wanted to see. The balcony door was locked shut. Adding a little more pressure, the rust gave way and I was through. The apartment room could have been cosy once, with its fading Persian carpet and tasteful wooden furniture, but after something akin to a tornado hit it, it just felt…sad. The doors leading to the rest of the apartments didn't even swing. They literally collapsed. There had to be some emergency stairs somewhere…and finding it, I began my descent, wishing that my business dress had a slit in it…
Ophelia finished off the last of the malware, a humanoid leech-like being, slime oozing from its pores, with an unceremonious kick in the stomach. It burst in an explosion of flesh and…some indescribable gristle. The terrified young man had nearly been consumed by them. Lucky him. But…where was he now? She had told him to take cover before the fight, but now, he'd disappeared. To lose the person just after she'd saved him…that would be a tragedy. A horrible thought passed her mind. Ophelia hurriedly ran to the other side of the building. There was no trace of Inori. 'If the capture was a farce…Then…that man…' She sprinted back to the doorway, hoping she was not too late.
After a few uncomfortable and uneventful flights, I reached ground level. I peered out of the emergency door. Empty. I walked out. Unlike the more cramped upstairs, the reception was designed to impress. A formerly luxurious red carpet covered the floor and the remains of a chandelier lay shattered in the centre.
I felt a hand on my shoulder and whirled around, knocking a terrified man to the ground. Carpets! Stupid sound mufflers…
"S-sorry." Apologising, I gave him my hand. He was probably in his early 20s, with the typical surfer-build: blinding yellow hair and blue eyes. And right now…blushing? "Uh…" I started, "so, you screamed back then?" He nodded, but didn't reply. "Do you…know where the exit is? I need to find a friend…" he pointed to the large wooden door a few metres away, unnoticeable in the dim light. "Thanks. I think you'd better come too. She could help." Unlike most of the building, the door seemed to defy destruction, and was well cleaned. I turned the knob to find it wasn't working. Strange. Perhaps the door was warped? One more twist…and yes, it was officially locked. I looked for an alternative exit. No windows. What…? "The doo-"asking half in question to the guy, half in surprise, I looked around…he was gone. "Hello…?" the reception was silent. Maybe it was time to go back up. The emergency door opened without a problem. It was the stairs which got me. Standing on the nearest flight, was a…thing, not moving an inch. Barely human, where its eyes should have been were two hollows, where skin was, bone…I closed the door with more force than necessary. I was not alone. As I turned, another of those…things was inches away from me, bloody mouth frozen in a smile. I couldn't even scream. How did he sneak up on me? The carpets. Of course, the building must have had a lot of visitors, so they needed some way to muffle the sound. But it served another purpose now. My hearing was stolen. I backtracked to the exit, keeping my eyes fixed on the Hollow-eyed figure. It followed shortly after, his friend from the stairs joining him. The door was still locked. And now I was surrounded, by two…monsters. In tandem, their faces made a disjointed smile and opened their jowls to kill. Protection. A faint glow emanated from the badge in my breast pocket. Just centimetres from my skin, they stopped. I ducked out of the circle and the glow disappeared. The hollow-eyed monsters whipped their heads in my direction, sharp scowls reaching to their jawbones and lunged. Swipe. My right arm involuntarily went to my left and whipped out at them, and for a second, turned blue. The two stumbled back, clutching their faces and burst into pieces. With the adrenaline still coursing through me, I returned to the emergency door, trying to control my shaky hands.
"Um…" I spun around, on edge. That guy again! His reappearing act didn't do anything for my nerves. Fine, if he wanted to he could come with us. I almost reached the handle, when the door burst open.
"Fia!" accidentally using her childish nickname. But she didn't pay attention. Pushing herself past me, Ophelia pointed at the ground the surfer-guy was on, then at the ceiling above him. Two rings appeared there. His screams, though loud, were dampened. After she decided he had enough falling, she beckoned to the ceiling portal and shifted it to the right. I heard an audible crunch. "What…?" She simply locked me in a hug.
"Door…locked…had to go…long way…never-mind. Look at it." Ophelia pointed at the figure on the ground. There was no sign of the man. In his place, a mutilated figure, with the mouth of a leech... "An elaborate trick, using a Trojan, just for the sake of killing you…" I found myself cutting through the body, soon exploding due to the stress. She turned away, observing the room, and frowned as her eyes passed the patches of gore where the monsters had attacked me. "I'm glad you remembered how to defend yourself." I shook the remnants of the 'Trojan' off me.
"Let's get out of here."
Please review constructively.
And a fight scene is born! Her mini video showed what she could do...maybe this is what Inori was like in her early stages?