.hack//slash

[kidcopious]

((No relation to similarly-named anime! I thought it would be fun to mess around with a virtual reality gamer/hacker setting. "Log in" and kick someone's ass. Eat their heart drive to gain their power!!))



Edward stared at his glowing screen, tapping his foot impatiently as he finished his cup ramen with a satisfying slurp.

"Come on, come on."

Finally, the pixelated castle displayed on his laptop lowered it's drawbridge with a tinny MIDI fanfare, and the screen began to flood with lines of numbers. Edward tapped in a shorthand command and watched as his programs went to work solving the barrage of mathematical puzzles that ensured only the finest hackers could dare to play this game.

Cracking his knuckles, he tossed his noodle cup onto a small snowdrift of similar trash and began digging around for his electrodes. He found the small copper discs and held them in his hand, hesitating for a moment. This game was nothing to play lightly. These electrodes, once attached to his head, bound him in a grim contract. Should he die in the other world, they would route the full force of his household A/C outlets through his brain, leaving his body to decay and his humming hard drives of carefully scripted programs to be picked over and looted by his killer.

He licked each copper disc and stuck them carefully to his temples. Inhaling slowly, he let his consciousness slip away, and by the time he exhaled, the cracking walls of his apartment had transformed into a craggy landscape of melted rock, rendered in garish oversaturated hues.

Quickly he dashed for the cover of one jagged shard of rock, looking around him for signs of other players. His fingers punched at an invisible set of keys as he summoned his basic inventory. shortsword.exe...scalemail.exe... With a hint of a prideful grin he selected his newly-created pride and joy: crossbow.corrosive.exe. As the smooth ironwood stock iterated into existence, he double checked the mechanism, then thumbed a switch to ready a bolt. The projectile slotted into place, tipped with what looked like a large green marble. He rounded on another spire of rock and squeezed the trigger, launching the short bolt into the stone. Upon impact, the green head smashed open and left a tennis-ball sized gouge of melting rock hissing and spitting with digital acid.

Edward grinned and jogged off toward the horizon, where flares of magic power and arcing arrows of light showed that the world has begun to fill up and the first fights of the night had ensued. He made a mental note to keep his eyes open for a solid melee weapon and loot the owner as soon as he could.

 

[Armin Arlert]

Holding the copper disks always filled Arekusu with excitement, she loved play this game so much (despite always getting into trouble and nearly dying each time she logs in). The rush of energy, seeing each world it was a kick!

So this time it was no different, gently licking the disk she places them carefully onto her temples and he closes her eyes.

When she opens them she is in town, needless to say that the towns folk still aren't to pleased with her from the previous game play (long story short she had received a bounty on her head for five grand).

After a fit of running and being chased by other players they cornered her.

"Seriously this tiny thing is worth five grand?"

"Looks more like an assistant or pet."

Arekusu glared "Shut up!" She growls casting a fire spell.

She loved her strange dog like avatar, she realized most of the players tend to underestimate the strange animal like avatars.

 

[kidcopious]

Edward ran into a town, looking around cautiously as he slipped through a back alley and ducked into the doorway of a shop. Weighing a pouch of coins in his hand, he sighed at how light it was. He touched a glowing image of a potion, and a whetstone, then emptied his entire 15 credits into the NPC shopkeeper's cupped hands.

whetstone.exe

He ran the smooth oilstone down the length of his shortsword, the little snippets of code decay pinging off like barnacles. In a few strokes the sword's edge had the dull gloss of razor sharpness and the stone dissolved in Edward's hand. A burst of noise from nearby caught his attention, and he peeked around the corner just as a gout of flames roared out of the alley.

He quickly ducked back to safety, getting his breath under control from the near brush with fiery death. He couldn't see the caster through the red wall of burning air, but his HUD displayed a reticle around some unknown person, tagged with a 5K bounty. A commotion of yelling and crackling lightning from behind him warned that a pitched battle would soon spill out into the street. He shifted from foot to foot, weighing his options. "5K... A dangerous mage.. could use arcane support."

Taking a deep breath, he materialized an item and stuck it out around the corner. "YO! Peace Bond! ...This place is filling up, I could help you even the odds!" He cringed, praying the wall that hid him wouldn't explode into a thousand flaming chunks. He held out a small white flag around the corner, in a traditional request for alliance.

 

[Armin Arlert]

Notching the white flag, Arekusu casted another spell sending flames to the ones that currently surrounded her "A Peace Bond!? ACCEPTED!"

Arekusu wasn't too sure what to expect.

 

[kidcopious]

Edward ran around the corner just as a tall wave of water sloshed across the front of the alley, then instantly crystallized into a slippery landscape of sculpted ice. Finally getting a look at his new ally, he stopped short, at a loss for words.

"Wha--.. You... Youre some sort of little dog." Having only played a handful of times, he's never seen an avatar like Arekusu.

Beildered, he asked, "What kind of little dog has a bounty on it's head?!"

His pondering is quickly interrupted as shards of magma lance into the street behind him, vaporizing billowing clouds of steam from the foot-deep ice.

"We should go," he said, trying a couple of locked doors into the adjacent buildings. Cursing under his breath, he moved to an alley heading the opposite direction from the chaos of the street and tried the iron gate. Finding it locked, he fired a bolt at the latch with a loud THUNK and kicked it open as the lock and surrounding metal fall away in a hissing blob.

He dashed in but didnt get more than a few strides before pulling up short as an ogre-sized figure dressed in layered plate burst out of a connecting alley. A bolt snapped out of his crossbow but did little more than melt a hole in the side of the enemy's armor, revealing a neat pink circle of unscatched flesh.

With a bloodcurdling scream, the beast arcs his oversized greatsword vertically into the cobblestone floor, sending splintered rock flying as Edward just manages to scramble out of the way by ducking between the towering warrior's legs.