.melancholy.: Gale: Chapter 1 -part 2-

STOP! Read part 1!

[“Mother Kuroi has run away,” Travis hisses, his eyes narrow as he scans the snowy wasteland through parted curtains. His face fixed into a scowl, he called for Lin-Li, hoping that he could quickly rectify the issue of the Warlords’ absence. Lin-Li enters Travis’ chamber, his head bowed and a small smile of uncertainty on his face. “I am assuming you are ready to go, Sir…?” he asks humbly.

“Yes. Let us go to Cloud 9 and revive Corruption!” Travis replies, a glint of madness in his eyes.]

[It took a while, but Gale Shurinai had finally arrived at Rebel HQ on Auro Island. The HQ was situated in the middle of a massive desert; the storms he had come to know had stopped. Taking note of this, Gale rushes to meet Terry in the TatiTech level in hopes of the boy having good news.]            

Terry greets me solemnly, which isn’t normal for a boy with his energy. Judging by the look on his face and the greeting, it’s safe to assume that Luke has not awaken. Terry didn’t have to utter a word dealing with that topic for me to figure that out. “Oh no…” I whisper, shaking my head slowly. “He’s alive,” Terry says. “Just not… conscious.”

He leads me to the infirmary, where Luke is resting. “Earlier he broke into a cold sweat. We thought he was going to come to, but… I don’t know. It almost seems as if he’s refusing to wake up,” Terry informs. Is it really possible for someone to refuse to wake up…? Luke was always the stubborn type, but he is the type of man who would not rest until his mission is accomplished—in spite of his laziness, which I have come to accept. I hear Terry shuffling about and look up to see him tapping at a holographic interface. “What… are you doing?” I ask him.

“I’m going to see if the Network has answers to this,” Terry replies. I’m not sure if it is my place at this point to decide whether or not he could go. Terry was always able to hold his own. I trust him. “Lords of Light be with you,” I say to him with a nod. With that, he disappears into the Network. I only hope that he will be fine.

[Terry appears in the null zone, a vast, flat landscape outside of a virtualized version of La Seri, known to him as the “Hurricane Network”. He sits down, folds his legs, and proceeds to program a bridge into Luke’s Personal Domain . It takes him a bit, but he pulls it off and projects himself inside the domain, only to be met with complete darkness. “Kid, what the hell are you doing here?” a gruff voice booms from the darkness. Terry squints as a flash of light slowly approaches him. When his sight clears, he notices that he is staring at Luke, only he is and clad in a white and blue version of the outfit that Terry has become accustomed to seeing. “I came here to save you, stupid,” Terry replies. “Why aren’t you waking up?”

Luke gestures to the area around them. “Don’t you see, kid? The Devil’s vomit pile took the wheel,” he answers bitterly. Terry furrows his brows and looks towards what he perceives as the sky. “Yeah… I’ve never seen anything like this outside of the Shadow Network. This is bad,” he mutters.

“Ya think? I’m struggling enough keeping my physical self asleep. The last thing I want is for him to undo what I’ve woven.”

“True… I need to get to your central core and reboot it so that you can get back in control.”

“Can’t you make an antivirus or some shit?”

“You see, I would, but your body’s used to this thing being inside it to the point where…”

“Where what? What, Terry?”

Terry looks away from the levitating program and scratches his head. “Well… you’re kinda… beyond repair. But…”

Luke narrows his eyes. “Everything after ‘but’ is bullshit.”

“Hear me out, dammit,” Terry says, pouting and turning back to face his boss. “Your memory is fragmented. If I can defrag it, we could find out why you’ve had to force yourself into a coma in the first place.”

Luke steps back, bobbing his head and raising his brows with approval. “I like the way you think, Kid,” he mumbles.]