.hack//Secrets of Equestria

by Hallowedsoul

Ch. 2: "Sigma: Ancient Destroyer's Battlefield"

Chapter Two
“Sigma: Ancient Destroyer’s Battlefield”

Jack’s head swam and he felt himself laying on something soft, the first thought he had being that he must’ve passed out at his computer and had fallen out of his chair.

But then he remembered that his house was full of hardwood floors, not carpet, and the events of the last couple of hours came back to him in a flash and he snapped his eyes open, glancing around at the forest canopy above him before sitting up and looking around.

“Haruka? Rosemary? You two al-” He began to call out but he was cut off by a hand gluing itself to his mouth and a head appearing next to him.

“Shh…” Haruka whispered and Jack saw that her normally playful eyes were focused “Stay silent and don’t panic; we’re surrounded.”

Jack’s heart froze solid, but he nodded his assent and Haruka removed her hands before crawling quietly over to a prone form that he immediately recognized as Rosemary, whom she began to shake gently. The Twin Blade stirred and made some kind of soft noise, which turned into a startled squeak as Haruka placed a hand over Rose’s mouth while she held a finger up to her own.

Just as they crawled back to Jack, he heard it, a low growling come from all around them. He peered into the shadows of the dense forest around him and saw several pairs of glowing green eyes staring back at him, all of which gave him the feeling that he should be running as far and as fast as humanly possible in the other direction.

“What are those things?” Rose asked quietly, fear heavy in her voice “Some kind of new monster in the system?”

“I don’t think so, Rosemary.” Jack replied just as quietly “And I don’t think we’re playing the game anymore, everything feels too…”

“Real.” Haruka finished for him and he nodded.

“So what do we do?” She asked, slowly looking around at the numerous green eyes.

Jack honestly didn’t know, but he wasn’t going to say as much to the terrified Twin Blade. He was the ranking player here which meant the other two were looking to him to get them out of this situation, so he calmly swept his gaze around him until he noticed that the eyes weren’t as numerous in one direction.

“Okay. Haruka, Rosemary, there are fewer eyes at our eight; that’s behind and to the left.” He whispered quickly and the other two nodded slowly “I’m going to cast a tornado spell over there and hopefully create a path out of here. Once I do, we are going to run like hell, understood?”

“Understood.”

“Gotcha.”

“Alright, on three; one, two… three” He said, crying out the last part and spinning to face his target “BiVak Rom!”

A vortex of flames appeared at the spot and the eyes closest to it leapt away immediately, leaving their path clear.

“It’s open, let’s get out of here!” He yelled and the three of them immediately tore through the brush and into the forest.

At the exact same time he said that, a chorus of howls rose from the shadows and the creatures leapt out in pursuit of their prey. Jack only caught a brief glimpse of one as he ran away, but he could’ve sworn that it was a wolf made of freaking wood!

‘Well I’ll be damned; Timber Wolves, how very literal.’ He thought dryly as they ran away from the monsters.

They were running for a good couple of minutes until the dark forest broke abruptly into a bright green meadow, with a gorgeous view of an incredible expanse of apple trees. Jack didn’t have time to enjoy it, though, because he saw a bunch of the stick wolves ran out ahead and cut them off before they could get to the apple trees.

The three players stopped running and regarded their new predicament carefully.

“Well…” Haruka said, drawing her massive sword and holding it in front of her “Doesn’t look like these critters are gonna let us go, huh?”

“They’re wolves, at least I think they are.” Jack replied, raising his Staff of Jordan “They’re just doing what comes naturally to them.”

“What’s the plan, Mu?” Rosemary asked, pulling out her weapons as well “Are we fighting them?”

“Don’t got much choice, babe.” Haruka replied, though Jack saw that her eyes were playful again and a huge smile played at her face, revealing sharp canines “I was starting to get a little bored anyway.”

Jack was about to give orders, but then he remembered a detail they’d temporarily forgotten in the chaos.

“Rosemary, you’re still Party Leader; how do you think we should handle this?” He asked the Twin Blade and she blinked at him, mouth agape.

“Is now really the best time for that?!” She asked incredulously and he shrugged.

“Until such time as we can determine whether or not we’re still in the game, let’s just assume for the moment that we are.” Jack replied and Rosemary frowned, before nodding and glancing around at the slowly approaching wolves.

“Okay.” She stated, her voice strong “MuSeiryu, stay in the center and keep us healthy with magic, using Area spells if you can spare them. Haruka, take the point opposite me and keep the wolves focused on you and not Mu while I do the same on my end. Use AoE skills if you got them but only if you have more than two wolves attacking you at a time. Another thing, these guys look like they’re Wood Element so Fire Element attacks will probably hit Weaknesses.”

“Got it. Anything else, Rose?” Jack asked and she thought about it a moment.

“Considering they’re wolves, don’t let them distract you; wolves have been known to take down bears by tag-teaming them to death. I think that’s everything, though. Here they come, are you two ready for this?” She said and her companions nodded grimly “Alright then; Operation Union Battle, let’s go!”

The wolves began their charge just as she finished speaking and the battle began in earnest. Jack felt the wolves were surprisingly easy, considering how terrifying they appeared to be, with Haruka taking down about four in just a couple of smooth sword strokes and Rosemary deftly dodging the lunging wolves and methodically tearing them apart in a graceful flurry of blade. Jack was especially impressed by the Twin Blade when her analysis of the wolves proved to be accurate; they burned very easily and were no match for Fire-based attacks.

But then they encountered a problem; the wolves were wising up to their tactics and had begun to swarm Rosemary while ducking away at the last minute as Haruka’s sword swung out to meet them before lunging during her attack recovery time, which was lengthy.

Fortunately, Rosemary noticed their change in tactic and acted immediately.

“Mu, try and slow Haruka’s wolves down a little!” She yelled in between dodges and strikes “And see if you can’t give me a bit of breathing room!”

Jack’s response was to create a vortex of fire near Rosemary and then to start casting Suvi Lei and Dek Do on Haruka’s wolves to prevent them from avoiding her devastating sword strikes.

After a minute more of fighting, the wolves were all in pieces and the three players let out relieved sighs even as they began to recover their breaths. Haruka shoved her sword into the ground and then began to massage her shoulder.

“Well, that’s my exercise today, I dunno about you two.” She said in between breaths, but Jack just held up his hand and examined it, rubbing his thumb across his palm thoughtfully. He shouldn’t be able to feel his avatar’s hand, but… he could, just like he could feel the clothes on his back, the staff in his hand and the glasses on his face.

His musings were interrupted by Rosemary, who suddenly took up an aggressive stance again, facing back towards the forest.

“Don’t get comfortable, you two, the wolves are doing something new!” She yelled and the other two Fireflies immediately took battle positions again, with Haruka giving an exhausted sigh before effortlessly plucking her sword out of the ground.

At first they had no idea what was going on, but then Jack saw that the twigs and leaves were moving towards the forest. They began to pile up and form something curled into a ball as the Fireflies all stared at it curiously. Then a pair of enormous green eyes appeared and the pile began to unfurl.

This new enemy was still wolf-shaped, but the difference was that this one was huge and very, very angry.

“Aw snap, we got a boss fight on our hands!” Haruka cried out excitedly but then she sniffed a couple of times and put a hand up to her face in disgust “Ugh, what the hell is that smell?! It’s like something crawled up its butt and died!”

At first Jack didn’t know what she was talking about but then the smell hit him in the form of comically green smoke and he was crippled by the urge to keel over and vomit his guts upon the ground and when he looked around, he saw that Haruka and Rosemary were in the same state, the Heavy Blade more so since she was on all fours vomiting profusely.

He could tell they were in trouble then because they were all being crippled by the monster’s foul stench and the wolf knew it as well, judging by the fact that it stalked slowly forward, a wooden tongue hanging out as it drooled at the prospect of the meal before it. Jack could only close his eyes and await the inevitable.

And then… they were saved.

Author's Note:

Here's chapter two. I hope to get character descriptions out in the next chapter.

Enjoy!

Comments

[EmiletheUndying]

This is fantastic, when is more coming out?

[Hallowedsoul]

2985331 It will come out as I write them. ;)

[EmiletheUndying]

2985356 My good friend, compatriot, ally, amigo, fellow, ect...
Write fast