(Authors Note: Sorry it took so long X-x
Even though I don't have many readers on this story, I hope you like it!
Anyway, Most of the characters belong to Bandai, Sunshine belongs to Sunshine the Sacrifice, and Artemis belongs to me!)
Artemis yawned as she opened the treasure chest, and a scythe hook greeted her eyes.
"Such a pitiful weapon…I'll sell it when I return to the town." She watched as the treasure chest faded away, leaving behind nothing but memories. Walking onward, she thought aloud.
"I wonder….what happens to the chest when it leaves….it reappears when you leave the area and return…but what happens to it before it returns? Does it feel it self-fading away? Or reappearing for that matter? Does it feel anything? Its only data…..right?" She sighed as she entered the middle part of the dungeon.
"But then again….so am I…and yet…I can feel everything around me." Artemis sighed again and felt tears welling up in her eyes.
"I hate this…sometimes I wish I hadn't been created." Her thoughts went to the first things she remembered.
A spark. A jolt of electricity. That was what had given birth to her. She was a computer program, an AI to be more precise. After the twilight incident, CC corp. had decided never to use AI's again, because of Aura. The Shining girl, as they called her, was a complete success, she became the greatest AI ever created. And yet, because of her, many people were put into a coma, and some suffered the long-term side effects. Even though it wasn't directly Aura's fault, AI's were placed in a negative light in CC corp. Thus, when R:2 came out they were proud that no AI's were involved with it, so they believed nothing could go wrong. That was incorrect, as the threat of AIDA occurred. At first CC corp tried to fix the problem by their selves, by using the Epitaph Users. And that worked, for a while. However, after learning that an Epitaph User was the main source of their problem, and also that The Shining Girl had returned, bringing along three new AI's, CC corp reluctantly undertook a project to create an AI to combat Aura. Thus, Artemis, The Girl of Shadows was created.
But many problems faced CC corp. 's plan, they had never created an AI before, as Aura was created by Harald Hoerwick, not CC. And they had still not found the way to open black box full of Harald's data, so they were basically making an AI from scratch
But they had given it there best shot, and Artemis was made. Even now Artemis didn't know if she was as good an AI as Aura, but it didn't matter if she was or not. Artemis was made to protect 'The World' and she would do so with all her power…even if it wasn't as good as another's. She shook her head and brushed the tears from her eyes.
"Time to get rid of the AIDA here…"
Artemis picked the sword that she called her own and marched deeper into the area.
"Whew that's all the normal monsters here…how pitiful…it was almost fun." She spoke quietly as she watched the monsters fade away.
"Now to the deepest part of the dungeon." She slung her sword over her shoulder and ran off toward the last room to explore. Dashing into the deepest part of the cave Artemis saw the AIDA. It was in the shape of a huge butterfly, its translucent wings flapping beautifully.
"To think such a thing could cause so much trouble…"
The thing roared at her and squirmed around in the air. It didn't look happy to see her.
"Time for you to die." She whispered and brought her sword off her shoulder and held it in front of her with both hands on the hilt. With a cry she ran toward the creature, and an Avatar battle area surrounded both of them. One odd thing about Artemis was the fact she didn't have an Avatar fight her battles for her, she was the only one inside her head. So she didn't change at all as she attacked the AIDA.
"Argh!" She screamed and swung her broadsword around from behind her back and landed a blow on the butterfly's side. It roared in pain and made to counterattack her with a volley of energy orbs, but she quickly jumped back and went out of range. The butterfly dashed over and tried to ram into her, yet she front flipped over it. Returning the favor she dashed at it's back for it hadn't had time to turn around yet, and impaled it on her sword. The monster wailed out and spun around, creating a whirlwind. Artemis tried to pull her sword from the beast, and she did, but she wasn't fast enough to avoid the attack. She was violently tossed up, down and from side to side by the winds. She was starting to feel ill, and had lost her sense of humor. She closed her eyes and gathered the energy around her. She could feel herself glowing brightly, and knew it was time. She opened her now black eyes and crossed her arms in the shape of an X over her chest. She curled her body up tight and then… She yelled and released the power around her as she pushed her body back to normal. The energy hit the monster and it screeched loudly, and the data around it broke away. Artemis held her sword over her head, as the energy flew into the blade. She gave a battle yell and flew at the AIDA. Her blade plunged into the creatures' body and its cries blocked everything else out. Then suddenly, it was silent, dead silence. Artemis closed her eyes and gave a sigh, the area was now back to normal.. She opened her eyes and went to grab her sword, but her fingers felt sticky. Moving her gaze down she gasp as she saw the red fluid on her hands.
"Blood?"
Looking down at her sword she noticed that it was too was covered in blood.
"What the hell?" She whispered rubbing her fingers together, enjoying the warmth.
"So we can bleed too…does that mean we are human?" Tears welded up into her eyes at the thought that maybe…just maybe she could be human. She shook her head fiercely and brushed the tears away. Thinking such thoughts can only bring misery when they don't come true. She let her sword's data slip away from her, and the blade melted back into the world. She closed her eyes, broke through the area's data, and entered the data stream. 'The World's' systems were something she could easily break through, not as well as Aura, but she could still do it. She flew toward the Mac Anu server, trying to keep her mind off the possibly of becoming human, yet she could feel the tiny seed of hope growing in her heart.
Back in the home she was surprised to see that all the groups had returned before her, well except Pi and Haseo.
"Well Well, look who decided to show up. What, were you busy napping or something?"
Sunshine barked from her place on Kite's arm at Artemis.
"I don't need sleep." Artemis replied simply and walked past them.
Sunshine whispered a naughty word under her breath and Artemis rolled her eyes.
"Has anyone seen the Terror Of Death?" Artemis asked the group. "Or Miss Pi for that matter?"
"No, I was thinking about him myself." Atoli peeped. Artemis looked over at the nerous girl.
"Really?"
"Ahh..umm..I..I ..I was j..just wondering where he was.." She blushed tomato red.
Note to self, Artemis thought, Atoli likes Haseo.
"Well lets see…" Artemis turned on her heel and walked to the Serpent of Lore.
Player Name: Haseo. She said in her mind. The computer screen blurred and a whole boatload of images flashed by. After a while, Artemis tapped her foot in impatiens
"What the hell is taking so long?! Did you break it pirating songs online?" Once again Sunshine taunted. Artemis was about to reply when a red flashing light appeared on the screen.
"NO SUCH PLAYER" It said.
"What?!" Artemis yelled while everyone gasped.
"Player Name: Pi"
"NO SUCH PLAYER"
"Look again!"
"NO RESULTS"
Artemis then began to look through all the records, anything and everything that Haseo or Pi would be in, and nothing came up. It was as if they had never existed.
Artemis dashed into the center of the room and motioned for everyone to come over, which they did. They all looked questionably at her.
"We're going to see to the area I sent them too. We have to find them."
Closing her eyes, Artemis broke a hole in the data of the server.
"Go" She said to everyone, and they jumped into the hole, Artemis following them.
"Next stop Theta Broken Appealing Song!"