As soon as everyone was inside, Paolo typed in a web address on the train's terminal. "FanFiction "
"Thank you for selecting this site. We will be leaving in five seconds. Please buckle up for safety. Thank you," a friendly female voice said on the trains speakers.
Everyone got in their seats and buckled up. One second later, the train jolted forward at full speed, twisting and turning through numerous cords and pathways, and forcing the avatars back into their seats. Exactly two minutes pass before the train slowed down to a stop. "Welcome to FanFiction. Unleash your Imagination," the voice said. "Please make sure that no belongings have been left unattended. Thank you and have a nice day."
The characters stumbled out of the train, looking and feeling nauseous. "Let's go again!" Jojo said before throwing up, unfortunately, on Lanie's dress. "EW!"
"Oops, sorry!" Jojo panicked. Lanie scowled at him and formed a water ball and used it to wash away the vomit from her dress. "It's fine," she said grumpily.
"Guys! Let's hurry. Who knows what Hazama can do in there," Paolo said as he pointed to a large building with a giant FF logo with white lettering in an indigo box above of the entrance.
The group went into the entrance and into the lobby but found nobody inside. "Das veird. Even for a site in cyber-space, there should be people like Surge in here to at least keep watch," commented Paolo.
"Just keep your guards up. Who knows what traps Terumi has set up in here," warned Ragna. The group walked through the corridors of the building, although it looked like a regular office building.
As they went through the building, a security camera saw them and sent an alarm. The signal was sent to a monitor in a room full of computer screens. A man in a chair noticed the alarm and clicked the screen to see the feed. "Ah, Raggy-boy. Nice of you to come." He noticed the racers with him. "Oh, and you've brought friends. Well then, this is gonna be fun." He took a hard boiled egg from a plate on his desk and swallowed it whole. He pressed an intercom button on his desk.
With the group, they were on the ground floor of the building. So far, no one has tried to block their path. That changed when they heard the voice through the intercom. "Hello Raggy-boy. Long time no see. How's your arm?"
"Terumi! What are you doing here?" Ragna said angrily.
"Why Rags, is that any way to talk to me?" Hazama said sarcastically.
"Enough of this! Tell me where you are so I can beat that tar you call a body."
"Tsk, tsk... No need to be rude. After all, there are kids here," the villain said, mocking Ragna. "But if you must know, I'm at the top floor. I'll be waiting."
The group continued on their way when suddenly, the speaker came back on. "Oh by the way, you're gonna have to get through these guys. Ciao!" The doors that lined the halls opened up to reveal multiple NOL soldiers, modified with masks that looked like they had the Troll face shifting in some black fluid, standing with weapons ready to attack. "Halt! Shinigami!"
"These guys again. I'll take care of them," Ragna grumbled. He got his sword, the Blood-Scythe, ready and charged and the soldiers, not even stopping until he reached the elevator at the end of the hall. He effortlessly slashed at the soldiers, hearing many of them cry out in pain before they fell to the ground.
After a while, he made it to the elevator. "Are you guys coming or what?"
"Well, you'll have to wait. In case you didn't notice, we still have to get through all this," Paolo said as he gestured to the fallen NOL soldiers.
Alden smiled cockily. "Don't worry. I got this." He put his fists together again and said, "SHAMONE!" before turning to his Runner form. "Grab onto me." The others all grabbed onto his arms, and with a flash, appeared on the other side of the hall with Ragna before turning back to his normal attire.
"Nice power there, kid," commented Ragna. "Thanks." Alden smiled back.
The elevator opened and they all stepped inside. But as they did, Lanie glanced back at the fallen soldiers and noticed the black fluid in their masks moving around. The fluid leaked out of the masks and started gathering in the middle of the floor and formed into a humanoid shaped blob. The middle of it had the troll face except the eyes looked like they were punched out.
"W-What's that!" Lanie said in fear.
"Is that Venom?" Barry asked as the blob began walking towards them, sucking in a few of the dead soldiers into its body.
Ragna looked closer at the creature and quickly remembered who it was. "No! That's Arakune!"
Arakune walked faster and absorbed more of the dead soldiers. He then spawned a skeleton arm before using it, along with its blob body, to reach for Ragna's hand. "The Azure! Give it to me!" he demanded, although the voice sounded strained, as if it was drowning.
"Never, you freak!" Ragna yelled back. Arakune launched several tendrils at them but Ragna used the Blood-Scythe to block it. "Close this thing, now!" he ordered. The kids pressed the close button on the side of the elevator. "Hurry up, damn it!" The door closed just as a small piece of the blob made it inside and was cut off by the closing doors.
"Ew! Get it! Get it!" Lanie said as the blob piece began slithering around the floor, as if looking for something to hold on to. The racers backed themselves up against the walls, hoping the blob wouldn't do anything to them. However, the blob saw Lanie and tried to latch onto her, but Ragna just grabbed it and stomped on it. "Thanks Ragna," she said in relief. Alden pressed the button for the top floor and they started moving.
5th Floor...
Ragna did really respond to Lanie. "Tch... I can't believe I'm stuck babysitting you brats," he scoffed.
"Hey, we are not! We are some of the strongest racers in our game!" defended Barry.
"Oh yeah? What can you do? So far, I've only seen this guy do something. Even that 'power' didn't seem much," Ragna said, referring to Alden.
"Well, we-" Barry started saying but was cut off when the elevator suddenly stopped. "What the-" they said before hearing a pounding sound from below them.
(Bang...BANG...BANG!)
Out of nowhere, Arakune punched a hole in the flooring of the elevator and started crawling into the small space. "The AZURE!" he said as he tried to reach for Ragna's arm again with a skeleton claw. Alden and Jojo took out their balisong and hidden blade, respectively, and attempted to cut off Arakune's claw, only for the black mass to summon numerous bugs from within his body and have them attack the racers.
Barry turned to his B.I.T. "B.I.T., do you have anything in there we can use to fight off these bugs?" he asked as he covered his face in an effort to keep the bugs at bay.
"I think I might," B.I.T. said. The Intelligence Terminal generated a wrist-mounted flamethrower from Star Wars. "Here ya go." "Thanks buddy," Barry said as he took the flamethrower and aimed it at Arakune.
The monster screamed in pain, Barry took this opportunity and used the flamethrower to kill off the remaining bugs. He succeeded just in time for Arakune to recover. Barry aimed the weapon at Arakune again but this time, the blob just used another claw and swatted away the gun. "Hehe... Can we talk about this?" Barry asked as he put his hands up. "Azure." was the only reply he got.
Arakune turned towards the hero in red again and grabbed onto his arm in an attempt to get his hands on the most powerful weapon in their game.
"Enough!" Ragna exclaimed as he released some seithr from his hand, momentarily stunning the black mass. Looking around for an escape, the group saw an emergency hatch on the ceiling. "Quick! Up there!" Ragna used his sword to push the hatch open and they all tried to climb out. Alden, Paolo, Jojo, Barry and Ragna managed to climb through. But when it was Lanie's turn to climb, Arakune regained his senses and tried to grab her leg. "Help!"
Worried, the racers, and Ragna, took her hands and tried to pull her to safety but Arakune was too strong. One of Lanie's arms slipped from Jojo's grasp. "Lanie!" He tried to reach for her arm again but failed.
Now, only hanging by one arm, Lanie looked at the creature holding onto her in terror. The blob had somehow managed to spawn teeth now, and looked like it was going to eat her alive. Thinking there was no other way, she decided to use her power. She formed a water ball in her hand and threw it at the beast, but it didn't seem to have much effect. She tried again but this time with a bigger ball. Arakune still seemed unfazed. She tried one last time but instead of a water ball, she used a torrent of water that immediately filled up the elevator compartment.
While the water filled up the space, Arakune was distracted enough that he eventually let go of Lanie's leg, giving the chance to escape as the others pulled her up. "Thank you!"
"You're welcome," replied Jojo and Alden.
"Great! Now that we're all here, How are we supposed to get to the top?" asked Ragna.
Alden got an idea. "Why don't we use the cable?"
"Are you kidding?" asked Jojo, "That'll take too long."
"Not if we hang onto the cable. Ragna can cut it with his sword and we can all use it like a grappling line to get to the top."
"But-" Jojo was interrupted when Arakune began crawling through the hatch.
"Azure!" He tried one last time to reach for Ragna's Azure Grimoire, his right arm. Ragna pulled away and used his sword to cut off Arakune's appendage.
"No time for discussions, grab onto Ragna, now!" Lanie yelled. As they saw Arakune trying to summon more insects, Lanie snapped her fingers, and ordered the water to freeze. "Freeze!" The water froze with Arakune still in it. "Quick, that might not hold him long."
Ragna nodded and grabbed on tightly to the cable holding the elevator's weight, while the racers and Paolo grabbed onto his legs. "Don't worry, he has two belts. His pants won't fall off," joked Paolo. The others just rolled their eyes. "Not a good time, Kuya," said Jojo and Alden.
"Hold on," warned Ragna. The others took his warning and braced themselves. Ragna was about to cut the cable when Arakune broke free of the ice. "AZURE!" Panicked, the hero cut the cable, releasing the elevator from it and sending it plummeting several floors below with Arakune screaming. "Nooo!"
The group held on tightly as they sailed up through several floors, missed nearly getting hit by the counter weight at the tenth floor, and stopping as the line ended just short of the 18th floor. "That's perfect. How are we gonna get up there now?" complained Jojo.
Thinking quickly, Paolo hatched a plan. "Okay, just climb up the top of the line, Jojo. You're the only one who can reach the door. When you get it open, we'll swing one by one over to you while you pull us up."
"Fine," Jojo said before sighing. "Why do I have to do this? I'm not even a main hero," he thought to himself. He climbed up the remaining length of the cable until he reached the mechanism that supported the elevator. He unraveled his Airheads whips and used it to swing over to a pipe above the door. As he did, however, his foot slipped, leaving him hanging with the whips the only things keeping him from falling down the 18 story shaft.
Trying to pull himself up, he remembered a feature added to his shoes. He tapped the heels together and the soles of his shoes began turning orange as liquid Fruit Roll-Ups started coating the bottom. As the liquid candy dried, Jojo put his feet up against the wall, the candy sticking and giving him traction to make easier to climb up.
As he reached the door, he found it difficult to open. He flicked his wrist and used his hidden blade to pry the door open before climbing up and entering the 18th floor. Inside, he thought it was too dark but decided not to worry about it now. He still had to help his friends.
He made two more Airheads whips and lowered down enough to reach his comrades. "Come on!"
One by one, the racers, and Paolo, were swung over by Ragna until they got hold of the whips and used it to aid in their ascent, the candy getting worn out every time someone tried to climb. After a while, it was Paolo's turn. Just as he was about to reach the door, the whip snapped. Luckily, Jojo managed to catch him before pulling him to safety.
Ragna noticed how risky this was and looked around the shaft, trying to find another way. He saw and old, rickety looking ladder next to the door. "Come on, Ragna!" Jojo said as he lowered one final whip. Ragna decided against using the whips and instead, swung himself over to the ladder. But, like Paolo, it gave way and sent Ragna falling. "Aaahhh!"
"Ragna!" the racers screamed. Jojo quickly sent to whips to catch the hero in red. Fortunately, his whips were able to snag onto Ragna's leg. The group worked together to pull Ragna up. "Thank.", Ragna said as he entered the 18th floor with the racers.
"Hey, that's what we're here for...to help." Alden smiled. Ragna smiled back and the group continued down the darkened hall.