RPG .hack//UPGRADE

[The (Sic) Shape]

Rumors of ?The World? being the reason for all the recent comas and ALTIMIT and CC Corporation?s denial in the rumors have caused the sales of the game to drop, as well as players began dropping out of ?The World?. But unbeknownst to the public, ALTIMIT and CC Corp have come up with a something to take the public?s attention away from the recent rumors as well as to pin the blame on someone who have caused players of ?The World? to fall into comas?
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[i]ALTIMIT and CC Corp have recently announced of a new and rare upgrade program called the ?Upgrade of Twilight?. It can be acquired by either finding it and buying it in the real world or search for it in the dungeons throughout ?The World?, but the chances of finding it are little. It is said that the ?Upgrade of Twilight? has the ability to greatly increase your stats. I thought that once I got it, my hacking skills would be better and less noticeable but even though I have just acquired this upgrade program in ?The World?, and asides from the new clothes I have been given, I don?t feel any different?[/i]
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?The World?-Theta Server Dun Loireag

The entire highland city seemed to be calm and peaceful as players were chatting, going through shops, and forming parties. The only thing that seemed suspicious was a male player clad in red armor who had his weapon, a katana, pointed in front of the chaos gate, his eyes closed, and remained perfectly still. If anyone had stopped to notice this player hadn?t moved from his spot for about a minute. Suddenly, his eyes opened, and he flashed a small grin.

?There,? he simply said, ?Chosen Hopeless Nothingness,? he muttered as he suddenly vanished.

He then reappeared in a dark field. He could barely see anything. All he could really see were huge rock canyons.

?Strange. Nothing seems interesting here. Wonder why they blocked this place. Looks like I wasted my time. Oh well. I might as well check out the dungeon.? he said as he walked toward the dungeon.

[Epsilon]

Gingetsu walked around, scanning through the crowd of players. All walking about forming parties, and buying new items. There seemed to be no sign of troubles on this server. Strangely enough, Gingetsu found herself walking to the chaos gate. Taking up her Laevateinn and rising it to point upwards to the sky. She warped to through the chaos gate and on to another plan.

Coming through, she put the blade's tip to the ground and curved it. Leaving a thin cut in the ground. Looking ahead, a small figure seemed to disappear into the entrance of a dungeon. [i]How nice...[/i]:Gingetsu said to herself: [i]A player who chooses to come to an off limits field. I'm just going to have to teach them not to deify the rules.[/i] Gingetsu went over past the ridges and drops over to the entrance of the dungeon.

Walking in, it was a deeply lit and so it lead a possibility to arose a few minor problems. But Gingetsu continued to walk further inside. At the corner of her eye, she saw a shadow growing smaller. It was swift and quickly disappear out of sight. She began to fallow the player through the dungeon. Just to see what may occur.

[OtakuSennen]

[color=midnightblue]Heh, I'm second to reply..
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[b]"The World" Dun Loireag Root Town- Theta Server[/b]

"Oh, the joys of being in a semi-foreign land," Shikan proclaimed to nobody in particular as he walked through the lush, green hills of the American Root Town. Today was one of those days where the young Twin Blade decided to visit the United States server. After a week of English class in school, it felt good to leave the Japanese server once in a while and meet different people, from a different culture and land. Of course, it doesn't beat actually [i]going[/i] to America, considering you're still in a virtual fantasy world, and you are still sitting in the same old room, really doing nothing special.

Seta walked through the crowded courtyard with no particular destination in mind, and received some rather odd looks from other players. A lot of them were muttering as well.. Was this outfit he got from that "Upgrade of Twilight" really that special?

"Like, omigod!! That is [i]SO[/i] cool!!" Ugh. Locals.. From the sounds of it, Seta thought, they were probably girls from California about his age. Honestly, he found such people to be more irritable than most Gangoro freaks. They, unlike the other vibrant characters, were being open with their fascination with Seta, whereas everyone was just staring from a distance. In fact, they were fawning over him.

"Eh..." The Japanese Twinblade felt rather awkward in the presence of the attractive, scantily clad female blademasters. He flashed a rather strange smile. "Heh, what is the matter?"

"Oh, oh, nothing at all, don't worry!" They were carefully examining his cape now.. "It's just your outfit! Did you get this from that new, rare upgrade?"

"Well, yes. I recently purchased [i]The Upgrade of Twilight[/i].. Is this outfit really that amazing?.." If he had known more about American slang and such, he probably would have tried sounding more casual.

"Haha, like, what's with your accent? You sound so formal!" They backed off now.. In real life Seta breathed a sigh of relief.

"I'm from the Japanese server.. Just visiting the US server."

"Okaaay then, be off on your way, Mr. Foreigner." The trio of girls giggled some and walked in the opposite direction.

And with that, Shikan the Twin Blade decided to hang out by the Chaos Gate for a while.[/color]

[T man]

Maverick was waiting for his friends to come by. "Where did maverick go to now" a persion in maericks party asked. Maverick smilled as he jumped out of the sand. The guys in his party screamed. "Don't do that maverick. You know it scares the heck out of us" another party member said catching her breath. "Oh come on. I find it fun to scare people" maverick said smilling. "Well it's getting late for me guys. I'm logging of" one of them said before they left. The others nodded as they left to. "I guess i'm not. I might as well go to a dungon" maverick said raising his weapon. He activated on of his hacking programs and entered a dungon that had been put on off limits. "I might as well start looking around" maverick said as he started into the canyon.

[KKC]

OOC: Yeah... well... Im 4th to reply!

IC: [b][size=1][color=green]Nitsuke stood up and stretched. She had decided to take a break and escape the huge masses of "The World" by hanging around the desert area where not very many players would come to. She decided to head to Dunloreag in hope of finding something entertaining, being she had spent a half hour doing nothing. She glanced around to make no one was watching her, raised her double bladed glaive into the air and gated out.

In a momnet she was standing infront of a chaos gate, she knew that she could have warped anywhere she wanted to in the server, but didn't want to make any comotion. She turned around and ran smack into a twin blade. The both fell over backwards with surprise. Nistuke rubbed her head as she saw the Twin blade laying on the ground. She gave him a hand up.
"Sorry bout' that, I have a bad habbit of poping up everywhere." She said with a cocky smile. He smiled back and brushed himself off even though he really wasn't dirty or anything.
"My apologies as well. I guess I shouldn't be standing infront of the gate." He made a short bow which was something you didn't see everyday in "The World" English servers. Nitsuke also bowed. 'He must be from Japan' she thought.

She didn't really have anything better to do, so the two talked a bit about the new upgrade that they had both purchanced. [/b][/color][/size]

[Ayokano]

[size=1]Dun Loireag Root Town- Theta Server

Ayokano sat in a wooden chair in the Theta Server. He sat there thinking and whaching others talk to other players. He sat thre in peace, and soon a party of three players came to him.

"Would you like you form a party?" a female Long Arm asked. She was wearing a deep pink, and her eyes were blue and hair blond.

"Yah, we've heard alot about you!" a other female player said. She was a wave master, and wore a light baby blue robe. She had brown hair and blue eyes. He looked at the other player and........ also a female player. He really felt weird....... and didn't like fan clubs of girls chasing him around.

"Sure!" he said with a fake laugh with his right arm on the back of his head. Anyone could tell that was a fake laugh. The soon came near the Chaos Gate, and saw a few other players. One seemed to stick out of the crowd more........ but his mind was awoken when they asked what field they should go to.

"What about "Happy Sunshine Hills"?" he asked the three female players. They blinked dumbly at him, as if he was crazy.
"..... Why?" one asked.
"Don't worry, it is hard." he said to them. They picked "Happy" then "Sunshine" then "Hills". Soon the were brought to green hills, where the sun shined brightly. They awed, and soon high level monsters came. They were bug-like, and attacked the party. Ayokano slashed one, and it feel in half, when he let the other three fight the others. Soon it feel, with a loud roar. They party came to the entrance of the dungon.[/size]

[Zephyr]

[b]Theta Server dungeon: "Closed" Field[/b]


*It was obvious now why Korekuta had been sent to this particular dungeon. Between the "closing" of the field and total lack of monsters to defend the treasure, which did not seem to exist either, anyone would be able to tell that this field had been corrupted. The point was further driven home by the very fact that Helba hereself had sent Korekuta to this area.

To many this would appear on their screens in the standard, drab color scheme, but a special program allowed Phelan to see much more. Lines of codes appeared like shadows, or ghosts over the image of each wall. The top floor of the dungeon was displayed in the usual calm green, indicating that the codes were all in their correct form. However, as he went to lower levels areas of red code began to appear increasingly. This was not a good sign, and may well have proved that Helba was correct in believing the area was soon to be a sourse of trouble.

[i]I best head back to town and send a report.[/i] The image blinked for a moment and Korekuta was back in the highlands of Dun Loireag. With a few keystrokes Phelan condensed the info he had collected and sent it off to Helba. Having completed his task, Korekuta moved into the town and worked on collecting any extra info he could get from the players themselves.*

[The (Sic) Shape]

Shape walked into a large room and spotted only a portal floating in the room. He let out a sigh. After five floors of monsters he was getting tired. He quickly ran up to it as three giant monsters appeared and surrounded him.

Shape jumped up and quickly slashed through one of the monsters, instantly cutting it in half. He then turned around and faced the next.

He started to mutter a chant as fire started to appear around the monster and it quickly burned to ashes. Shape then ran up to the last monster and slashed it repeatedly. He let out a sigh as everything calmed down.

?[i]I wonder why they closed this. After five floors there hasn?t been anything interesting. Oh well, I?m not going to stop now.[/i]?

After going down to the next floor he followed the path leading to a hallway. Shape stopped suddenly has he saw that the door to the next room was sealed like a gate.

?[i]I guess this is the reason why they blocked this area. There must me something beyond it.[/i]?

He touched the gate and closed his eyes. He then let go after about a minute.

?[i]Strange. I can?t hack through the gate. What?s going on? Oh well. I might as well get out.[/i].?

He pulled out a sprite ocarina and was about to teleport, but he didn?t go anywhere. He then turned around to see someone walking toward him.

[Sakura]

[COLOR=darkblue]A harsh,cold wind blew through a barren wasteland.In the center was a female.It was a cold scene.The wind blew her hair and jacket to the side as she stood with her glaive.Mika had a blank expression on her face,her eyes hidden behind her sunglasses.Mika raised her arms and she muttered a spell and she was transported to another area.

When she arrived she saw the green grass under her feet.She looked around and saw she was where she had planned.Dun Loreig.She walked forward and into the town.She gripped her glaive in case anything went wrong.Mika had been having trouble with Mods and Admins like usual and was on the run.[/COLOR]
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Sorry that I posted late and that the post is pretty short.

[T man]

Maverick walked up to the guy he had seen battleing. "you've got some nice skills" maverick said. "I guess so. What do you want" the player asked. "Basicly what all players of the world want. To have some fun and meet new people" maverick said smilling. "Well in that case i'm shape" shape said. "And i'm called maverick. So have you tried hacking through the door yet" maverick asked. "Ya, i've tried but nothing happened" shape said. "Let me take a try at it" maverick said walking up to the door. All the blades on his weapon retracted except for the middle on in the front. Maverick spun it around then slashed at the gate. The seal broke and dissapeared. "We should be carefull. A mod is in here so she shouldn't be to far behind" maverick said as he opened the gate.

[Ayokano]

[size=1]"The World"

Ayokano and his party entered the fourth floor of the dungon. Their Wave Master had been killed on the secoun, and the Blade Master third. This room seemed emty, and the Long Arm and Ayokano started to talk.

"Why is such a hard place like this named "Happy Sunshine Hills"?" she asked. Ayokano laugh.
"Nothing is what is seems in "The World"." He answered her. She sighed, and laughed with him.

"Real World"

Austin looked at his screen as a message popped up. He read it, and smiled. He always like making new buddies. He sat there, and started to sleep, but was awakened by a roar.

"The World"

Ayokano and Lilith readied for battle. He unshealthed Strum Tyrann, and a large monster came. It was a silver armor, named "Holy Armor" and carried a silver lance. Energy charged from it, and shot torwards Lilith. He pushed her out of the way, and was shot with the white energy. The beam of energy stopped, and only some of Ayokano's health was gone. Lilith had got up, and the two players striked the armor with everything they had. It feel in pieces, and they advance torwards the entrance to the fifth floor.[/size]

[Epsilon]

"Actually, I had been waiting here for you to arrive Maverick." A voice said, "I had simply wanted to hit to birds with one stone. Your not ment to be here."

"Why'd you close off this field?" Maverick gripped his weapon, "I see nothing wrong with this place..."

"It was not my decision, I had been fallowing orders," Gingetsu said, jumping out into view from the shadows, "Fallowing orders as you should have been fallowing rules."

Stepping forwards, Shape said: "You like to talk a lot don't you?"

"I'll talk as long as I need to, to get it through your heads. Now leave!"

Foot steps where heard lightly.

"Some one else, who is it now?" Maverick siad, "I can't be another mod can it?"

Before Shape could answer. Gingetsu, rising up her Laevateinn sword. Forwarded one foot, and came with a slashing charge at Shape.

[Zephyr]

*Korekuta bid farewell to the Long Arm he was speaking with. The Long Arm was one of his informants, and though she lacked any info most of the time, when she did manage to find something it was always worth checking out. Too bad this was not one of those times.

Fortunately, this was solved by a message from another informant, and one that usually reported directly from Helba. Though short, the message still said a enough.*


[i]To: Korekuta
From: ---
Re: Your next assignment
Korekuta, proceed to the following field's dungeon. You will understand why soon enough.[/i]

*From the wording it was obvious that it had been sent directly from Helba like the last one, and not actually forwarded from the informant he had thought. Phelan wondered why they were being sent directly to him recently. Instead of worrying about it he merely followed instructions.

The trip through the dungeon was longer then normal, but at the end he had found out why he was there. In the lowest level was a mod fighting with a player. For a reason he was not meant to understand, this is why he was sent here.*

[The (Sic) Shape]

Shape took up his blade and blocked Gingetsu's blade. He was pushed back and started to mutter a spell, but nothing happened.

"Sorry," Gingetsu said, "But I've put up a barrier so you can't cast any spells or escape."

She came running up to Shape ready to slash again. Their blades clashed again. They were both trying to push each other away.

"Maverick," Shape called out to him, "Try to take out the barrier while I hold her off!"

Mavierick remained still. Both Shape and Gingetsu could tell that he was trying to turn off the barrier by hacking. Suddenly, ice began to surround Mavierick. It shattered around him and he was kneeling down, weak from the spell, and there was no way that he could heal himself.

?Don?t bother trying to take it down! The barrier has no effect on me! I?m too powerful for you two! I?ll simply cast a spell on you!? Gingetsu yelled out.

Shape was taken off guard and Gingetsu attacked him. She slashed Shape several times and soon he was on the ground. Gingetsu stood over him.

?Now hold still while I ban your character,? she simply said.

Shape couldn?t believe that he and Mavierick was taken down so quickly. Suddenly, he felt his right arm began to shake, and he stood up, looking at his palm on his right hand. Shape started to see a weird symbol appearing on his palm. Gingetsu then held her blade over her.

?I told you to stay still!?

As her blade was about to hit him, his right arm moved for no reason and the symbol on his palm faced her and suddenly, four beams came out and pierced through her. She screamed out in pain and kneeled down on the floor. When everything was quiet, she realized that she was inflicted with several status effects.

?H-How did you do that!?!?

Gingetsu started to cure herself of the status effects while Shape just stared at the symbol on his palm, breathing heavily from what he just did. He didn?t even know how he did it. Was this what the "Upgrade of Twilight" was meant to do? He snapped from his thoughts as he felt Mavierick grab his shoulder.

?I got the barrier down,? he said, ?Let?s get out of here before she finishes curing herself.?

He pulled out a sprite ocarina and the two teleported out of the dungeon.

[OtakuSennen]

[color=midnightblue]Now I have to be creative and find a way to fit in the storyline.. Why did I not post again sooner?
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[b]Theta Server-- Dun Loireag[/b]
Shikan opened his eyes. He had been sitting by a cliffside, shrouded in mist.. [i]I must have dozed off,[/i] he thought. He had not gotten much sleep in the past few months.. Ever since he got The World, it has taken up almost all of his time. He then drifted to the tangent of him having no friends in real life. Just acquaintences and study partners..

He pushed the sadness away and forced a grin onto his face. [i]This is The World,[/i] Seta thought. [i]People come here to immerse themselves in a fantasy, to get away from their real lives. No time for thinking about such things here.[/i] The twin blade got up and headed to the Chaos Gate.

As he headed down a flight of stairs made of wooden planks, Seta felt a raindrop on his head.. "That's funny," he muttered to himself in his native tongue. "I don't recall it being cloudy." For a minute or two the rain came down softly, and gave off a calm sound and scent.. Seconds later, though, the rain began to come down harder and harder. Shikan ran as fast as he could, covering his head, and hid under a low-hanging cliffside rather near to the Chaos Gate.

The roar of the rain was near deafening within five minutes of when it started to fall. Puddles of mud were forming everywhere, making what is normally a pleasant green plain into a wet, dirty patch of grass pushed to the dirt by the large raindrops. One by one players were logging out, or at least, going to different servers. This continued until maybe a handful of players were still in the general area.

[i]Argh, it's getting late,[i] Seta thought about logging out. He stood up, and picked up his swords, and was just about to run out to the Chaos Gate, when at that exact moment a flash of light threw him back at the wall. After several seconds, when his eyesight came back, Seta gasped at what he saw. In the distance there were dancing flashes of light falling from the sky, lightning of a strange, glowing hue. Mental images flashed in front of his eyes, of various things he was not quite familiar with. A girl, some strange monster, some sort of circular object.. He looked down at his hand and saw a strange mark.. Some sort of emblem, he thought.

But what did it mean?

At this moment a group players warped into the area from the Chaos Gate. [/color]

[Sakura]

[COLOR=darkblue][B]Dun Loreig-Theta Server[/B]

Mika held her glaive and saw a group of players.They had just appeared out of a Chaos Gate.Rain had started to fall so she zipped up her jacket and pulled the waterproof hood over her head.She glanced at the people as they ran for shelter.Mika looked around curiosly.Mika mumbled a spell and she sprouted angel wings from her back.She ran towards the end of the cliff and jumped off.she spiralled downwards before her wings opened and she flew upwards,into the clouds.She reached clear sky and saw the dark storm clouds below her.She just grinned and flapped her wings powerfully and took off.

She landed at another location.She broke through the clouds and touched down on the ground and her wings disappeared.She saw that she had flown to Mac Anu.She was standing next to the river.Mika walked into town and decided to rest in an inn.She walked to the building and entered.She booked a room and headed up.She opened the door and put her glaive down,before jumping onto the bed.It felt good to rest again.She had been on the run from the Admins and Mods for the past few days.[/COLOR]

[The (Sic) Shape]

Both Shape and Maverick appeared in Dun Loireag, and they were both starting to become completely wet, but they remained in front of the chaos gate.

"Hey," Shape started, "Thanks for helping me out back there."

"Don't mention it," Maverick answered, "But what I'm mostly interested in is that ability you did on that Mod, giving her all those status effects. What was that?"

Shape just looked at his right hand, staring at the symbol on his palm.

"To tell you the truth, I'm not really sure what I did. Maybe it was given to me by that upgrade program I recently got."

"You mean the "Upgrade of Twilight"?" Maverick asked, "Because I also just recently installed it."

"Really? Then I guess this is normal."

The two of them started to go off into deep thought, and they just remained there for several minutes.

"Well," Shape said, "I'm going to head off into another server. See ya. I got a feeling that we'll meet again."

Shape pointed his blade at the chaos and gate and warped out.
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Come on guys, let's get this started up again.

[Shanghai]

[COLOR=blue][SIZE=1]

Snow was seen falling around in this server, it was quiet, a bit too quiet some may say. But, as you would go deeper into the place, pass the dungeon that consisted of the head of a frozen fish. You would see it. A chain was caught in the hands of a player, known as Shinigami. He, flipping his scythe around before holding it still and watching, O, how he watched with those eyes of his as his prey fell to the ground. Two of them, only two had fell to the ground, for they were the only ones there.

"Foolish hackers," Shinigami would say to himself before looking over to the temple," I should check in that dungeon over there...there [I]should[/I] be others since these two weaklings were guarding the place."

Taking a step forward, he would stop, turning his head a bit in a way as if there was someone watching him. Staring off into the distance, he had seen nothing, shrugging to himself he would continue to walk. Taking a step down in the mouth of the fish, he would quickly turn around and hurl his chain outward, it hitting another player and instantly, their body fell to the ground.

As the chain recoiled and came back, he caught it in his left hand, neatly wrapped it around his scythe, and advanced into the dungeon.

OOC: Just something I thought I'd post. Kinda short though. ^.^;
[/size] [/color]

[T man]

Maverick thought about what he could do. He could go back to the dungeon and finish looking around, get some practice in or get a little vengence on the mod that had stoped them. He decided with the little bit of vengence. He started a hacking program that he had origanily made for fighting monsters. Four sparks of light appeared next to him then flew toawrds the gate. As they dissapered a screen opened up. It showed the mod geting up after geting read of the status effects. the sparks appeared around her then started spinning around her. She tried hitting them but they just avoided her swing and formed bonds around her. She fell to the ground as she tried to get out. "It'll probaply be a couple of mintes before the program stops" maverick thought as he closed the screen. He raised his weapon and warped to another dungeon.

[Mage of Asgard]

-- Aqua Capital, Mac Anu--

Balmung had just logged into The World after a short vacation. He went directly to the Chaos Gate and was about to go to "Chosen Hopeless Nothingness".

"Hmmm... I wonder how the developement of this place has changed since last I visited....." he said entering the keywords and going to the area with the huge Chapel. He walked in and saw the chained statue of Aura. "now this wasn't here before......" he said looking it over and flring up to feel the stone chains "Hmm...... I wonder if they plan on opening this area to the public any time soon......" he mumbled and landed back down, seeing a data bug in front of him, he bdrew his blade "Another corrupt monster... this is gonna be hard...." he sliced it with the blade, cutting it in half and running, through. The monster began to reform and he had just logged out of the area, returning to Mac Anu and saving his progress, then heading off to the weapons shop.

People were staring at him and the occassional girl would say "Oh Lord Balmung has returned!" in a really excited voice, though he payed no mind to it at all.