Power and What It Hurts
Chapter 1: Acquisition
A/N: Hello again, it is I Krulmagus, with what might be a one-shot of Haseo's acquisition of power. But maybe if I like it enough I'll continue it on.
Disclaimer: I do not own .hack despite all wishes and dreams of the money doing so would give me.
And it came to pass that 'The World' fell and all who resided within fell with it. Wickedness had spread throughout the land encompassing multitudes. Abominations abounded, death prevailed. Where was all this suffering generated? It was the death of God.
Aura… the child of light.
Was she truly dead? Of course she was not. Gods do not die. But the fact remained that her presence was absent.
Her heroes, the descendants of Fianna, were made into a mockery of what they once had been. A 'Tri-Surveillance Network'. They were Zombified Artificial Intelligence created to "maid" the system in Aura's absence. And to further the mockery, the Twilight Dragon was made leader of these A.I.
Her world, burned and scourged, was revived, but misshapen and incomplete. Thus it ought to have been no surprise when rumors of comas and other mysteries popped up, but surprising it was. And to those who had learned to love this new world, it was horrible.
People become heroes, heroes become stories, stories become legend, legend becomes myth, and myth fragments into dust upon the ages.
Ouroboros winds around.
Ovan looked over 'The World' dispassionately. He was used to that. Fields of yellow swayed. Waves gently lapped across sand, the setting sun creating a wavy snake-like image on the water. The twinges in his arm had quieted down for the moment. He was used to that, too. He was truly at peace, for once. He wondered about his current situation. If Haseo was unable to defeat the TSN, then he would not be able to count on the young Rogue to save him. Ovan had to remind himself not to let himself cry in frustration. Who could he hope to place his trust in for his survival?
To themselves, the wise are not wise. They are desperately foolish. But they were lucky.
But Haseo was not truly a lost cause now, was he? He hadn't been awakened, yet, had he? But if he couldn't be awakened by the TSN, then what would awaken him? It was surely not some normal monster, and probably not a PK or something like that. But who knew, he had been wrong once or twice before, after all.
"How are you today, Haseo?"
Atoli's trilling voice unnerved the lanky seventeen-year-old. She had a knack, a horrible, nasty knack of popping up where he neither expected nor wanted to see her. No doubt she did it on purpose, just waiting for his name to pop up on the 'Online' list so that she could stalk him and bug the death out of him.
It didn't help that she kept bringing up Moon Tree and Sakaki and then remembering that he had told her to shut up about it. She bugged him. But he had to admit that she was persistent. He had vocalized his dislike for her multiple times, yet she stuck around. He wanted to write it off as stupidity, but he knew she wasn't a complete fool. Yes, even he admitted that much in her favor. Maybe she believed in him, the way she said that she did. He doubted it.
"Aren't you going to answer me, Haseo?"
"No."
Wait a second… I'm supposed to be pretending to be nice to her.
"I'm fine, Atoli."
"See, I knew you could be a nice person! Don't you agree that everyone has a spark of some kindness in them?"
"… Whatever." If only optimism were a crime…
"So, what made you decide to accept my invitation, Haseo? Even after you yelled at me for being an idiot?"
It was at this moment, that Haseo came to a realization. Atoli was hurt just like anyone else, but unlike most others, she had the strength to withstand that hurt. He had given her the bashing of her life back when he had tried to recruit her onto his Arena team, yet here she was with him now, helping him. Whatever he had said before, she had saved him from being PKed by Bordeaux immediately after he had yelled at her.
"I-- umm I just wanted to say… umm thank you." He quickly looked away.
"Really?"
"Geez, you don't have to act all surprised about it. I mean, after all, we probably wouldn't be in the finals if it weren't for you." Now why on earth had he said that?
"That's very… nice of you, Haseo."
For an instant, the high pitched voice had softened to a murmur, almost a sigh on the wind. Haseo wondered why she couldn't talk like that all the time.
"Whatever, I need to go now. I'll see you at the tournament," Haseo turned his back on the Cleric and started towards a gate.
"That's right! We'll be going up against that mean Bordeaux person won't we?"
"Yeah, so don't go and not show up or something like that, we need to take her out."
"Don't even think about worrying about me not showing up! I'll be there!"
"Right," Haseo gated out, then proceeded to log out.
"Haseo is in the Arena tournament, hmmm?" Ovan looked up at the schedule. "Very good, nothing like a little competition to gather up power."
Then he saw another name on the schedule.
"And the Mirage of Deceit as well, very surprising,"
He then turned around and walked towards the Chaos Gate.
"Maybe I should stop talking to myself."
"Here it is! The moment you've all been waiting for!"
The tournament announcer's voice boomed out over the stadium sweeping across the crowds who looked out at the floating arena.
On one side, sat Gaspard and Silabus, the former jumping up and down with nervous excitement, and the latter just grinning at his friend and showing his anticipation in slightly less overt ways. Bo stood at another bench watching nervously to see if anyone would notice him. Kuhn and Pi stood at a balcony. The Steam Gunner was grinning at the screen, his confidence in Haseo showing clearly. Pi, however was staring dispassionately at the screen, waiting. And in the back, half hidden stood another Steam Gunner, his white and blue attire offset by the giant case covering his left arm. He was watching the area around him with as much interest as the screen in front of him. One had to be aware of their surroundings, after all.
"Are you ready Atoli?" Haseo was pacing back and forth, his face set with determination.
"I – I think so." Atoli's voice almost squeaked with nervousness.
"All right then," Haseo checked his new equipment, his new Broad Legged, his newly acquired Twin Blades. He was going to win this thing.
"Attention Team Haseo," It was a speaker on one of the walls of the waiting room, "You may now proceed to the Arena. Good luck."
"All right, come on, Atoli let's go."
The pair gated out with a swirl of blue, reappearing on a stand on one end of the Arena. They watched as Bordeaux and her cronies gated in on the other side of the platform. Watching as their stats were run across the screen, Haseo caught a glimpse of movement out of the corner of his eye. He glanced back at Atoli, only to see her trembling.
"Come on Atoli, don't freeze up on me. I know you can do this." It was probably his calm voice that stopped the shivering, rather than the actual words he spoke, because as soon as he spoke she jumped and stared straight at him.
"You're right, Haseo. Thank you."
Then there wasn't any time to reply, because the battle had begun.
Haseo's Twin Blades came out of the empty space behind his back with a flash, and he immediately targeted the leader, Bordeaux, with a Skill Trigger, catching their entire team off guard. Unable to defend against the skill, Bordeaux was knocked aloft by the power of Haseo's blades.
"Little brat!" she called as she brought her wickedly curved blade about in a swipe that nearly took Haseo's head off. He ducked the blade only to feel a sharp pain in his back. He was being attacked by the Twin Blade friend of Bordeaux's, Negimaru. He instantly swiveled around to defend himself, and pushed a powerful combo against the lower level Twin Blade, only to be distracted by a screech from the other end of the arena.
"Crap, Atoli!"
Haseo turned to face the third assailant, against whom Atoli was desperately trying to defend herself, and triggered a Skill, shooting himself over to her and slashing wildly with his blades. Temporarily incapacitated, the large Edge Punisher, Grein, flew back against one of the force-fields ringing the platform, adding an additional point of damage.
"You need to start healing us, Atoli!" shouted Haseo, as he used himself as a wall so that the Harvest Cleric could get a chance to stand up.
"Right! Repth!" Instantly a blue aura swirled around Haseo and a "+100" popped up over his head.
"Good. Keep it up!"
Haseo launched himself into another combo, this time at Bordeaux. She tried to block the attacks but was only successful at fumbling about and looking foolish. Suddenly, she glowed purple and a lines of blue swirled around her.
"Rengeki!" Haseo cried, as he jumped into action, blades spinning.
And then was stopped suddenly, as a giant sword blade knocked him into the air.
"Counter Strike!" shouted Grein triumphantly.
"Repth! Repth!" Atoli was shouting the spell over and over again regardless of whether either of them actually needed it or not.
Haseo jumped back to his feet, and spun about to face his enemies. His blades flashed into nothingness as he put the away, and with a grand gesture he lifted a hand over his head and swung out his fearsome Broad Legged. With one sweeping motion, all those surrounding him flew back against the force-field. He then proceeded to run towards Bordeaux, his blade's chainsaw edge running at full speed. The Blade Brandier had no time to even defend herself against the onslaught, with a result of high damage.
"Yes!" Haseo shouted exultantly as he cut down a path towards Atoli.
"How's your SP?" he asked as soon as he got close enough to be heard.
"I'm nearly out!" she wailed, her hands gripping her staff so tightly that her arms trembled.
"O.K. don't worry about it. Just stay back and recover while I hold them off."
"O.K."
With that, Haseo turned around, just in time to take a slash of Bordeaux's blade to his face, dropping him.
"Haseo!" Atoli was down by his side in an instant. "Repth!"
"Face it, Haseo, you're outnumbered and inferior," Bordeaux was standing over him, making no effort to hide a malicious grin.
All Haseo could do was stare at the crowd screens behind her. It seemed she was going to win, after all.
Flicker
He saw Kuhn and Pi staring at him, disappointment on Kuhn's face and what could only be called an "I told you so" face on the old hag.
Flicker
Silabus and Gaspard were watching him. He hadn't been able to stand up for them after all. Some Guild-Master he was.
Flicker
It was that boy from the guild shops. Bo. That's right, that's what his name was. Well, Haseo had certainly shown how great he was now.
Flicker
The Tournament announcer
Flicker
The Girl he had saved from Bordeaux, that day he had met Tri-Edge. Tri-Edge!
Flicker
Flicker
Ovan
Flicker
Wait a second! It was Ovan! No, He couldn't let Ovan see him so weak. Not now. Not after he had gone through so much!
"Ovaaaaaaaaaaaan!"
Ovan grinned as he saw the young Rogue double over clenching his head in his fists. Words from the Arena could be heard overhead.
"It's here! It's here! It's here! It's here!"
Yes, it certainly was here.
"Finally, Haseo. After all this time, now do you see? This is what I mentioned when we first met. I have waited eight and a half months for this day. Show me your Power!"
Atoli opened her eyes when she heard Haseo yell. Opened her eyes and stared in wonder at what she was seeing. This wasn't the Arena platform. Where was she? She looked around again. Haseo was gone! All of a sudden she saw a giant monster hovering above her. It's black spiky body glowed red. In one large segmented hand, it held a large glowing scythe. It seemed to look at itself, then with a buzz and flicker was replaced by Haseo, looking at his hands.
"Haseo!" She called out, but he didn't seem to hear her.
Suddenly she heard someone else shout out.
"What are you doing?"
She noticed then that in this warped space-like area, she was not alone with this Haseo-Monster. Bordeaux, Negimaru, and Grein were also there, looking about them in unseeing confusion and wonder.
"What do they see, I wonder?" she asked herself.
Suddenly she noticed that the Haseo-Monster was back, preparing to swing its weapon at the unsuspecting PKers.
She heard Haseo laugh then shout, "Say goodbye!"
"No don't!" she cried helplessly as she watched them burst into a flash of light as the scythe struck them.
She blinked. She was back on the Arena platform. So was Haseo, his eyes wide with wonder. Slowly, too slowly, the other team fell to the ground one by one.
"No, Haseo," she whispered shakily as she watched him laugh maniacally, "What have you become?"