Sword Star Online

Chapter 11: Torn Apart

Nona grimaced with pain as she lay with just an inch of her life left on the floor. She coughed blood, turning over on her side to view the menu screen. She got a B for beating Jabberwocky, but at what extreme cost? The beast dropped a weapon synthesis item for a Jabberwocky fan (Jabāu~okkīfan). Nona closed her window, opened her menu and healed herself. She was exhausted from the battle, having had to kill the Jabberwocky by charging straight through it while being engulfed in flames, and then bursting through the other side. Never again will she try a stunt like this unless Amos is in the room...

Nona frowned looking at her party's health bar. It had temporarily disappeared when she entered the room to fight Jabberwocky, and had now reappeared revealing some shocking surprises. Shooting up from the floor, Nona sliced and diced her way to get to her teammates. The person behind her followed obviously curious as to what happened to make Nona so vigorously ruthless.

"Get outta my way, dammit!" she cried, the worry and anger apparent in her voice. Five by five, ememies were being slaughtered for one sole purpose. To get to Amos and the others as quickly as possible. Unknown behind her grabbed her hand and went about cutting the ememies faster, seeing the exit just ahead.

Outside, Hitoshi was still trying to override Amos' death sequence by giving part of his health to her, but Amos was also blocking him. He cursed to himself, having to quickly override everything in the system. Ezra was exhausted, running low on photon bullets, and even on photon charge with her spare dagger. She yelled at Hitoshi to hurry up, in which she got a snappy retort back. Both were highly panicked, just wanting to get Amos back to herself. Hitoshi grunted feeling a zap in his brain, but continued to work on stopping Amos from dying.

"Amos! Hang on, I'm reversing the...effects..."

"Make way, everyone!"

Nona flew out the door, twirlling in air with her twin daggers, and Unknown came right behind her, slicing everything else. Ezra hoist her guns and ran to Amos and Hitoshi. She used Star Atomizers to heal Hitoshi and keep his health up. Amos stared lifelessly at Hitoshi, before grabbing the cables and pulling them from her system. Hitoshi screamed in pain, and shock. Amos gasped, breaking apart then shattering into oblivion data pieces. Ezra stared at where she was, tears falling. Nona came over holding her chest and looking down. Unknown stayed silent. Ezra crawled over to where Amos just died.

"A-Amos...?" she laughed patting the spot where her partner once laid. "Amos.. why did you do that?"

Hitoshi shook his head, placing his wires back in his system. "As soon as the death sequence began, a virus started spreading through her systems, eating her information, and trying to destroy her code. She was trying to keep them away from me so I wouldn't be infected by the virus. If I had known..."

Ezra slammed the ground, ice cracking on impact. "Damn this game! She may have been an NPC, but she was just as human and real as I..."

Nona balled her fist. "Fuck it all!! If I had come sooner then I...I..!"

Ezra got up and grabbed Nona by the shirt. The Newman grabbed the Beast's neck, hands heating up. "Where the hell were you?!? Why didn't you realize sooner we were in trouble?! The only way you couldn't have known was..."

Nona's eyes widened when Ezra's eyes gazed elsewhere. Yes, Nona had jumped a few levels in fighting Jabberwocky. The only other way the group could ever level up by a few levels was by a high leveled boss fight. Ezra growled.

"What did you fight?!"

"Dammit Ezra, I couldn't help it! I thought it was someone with information on the Xenia Knights, but it turned out to be the Jabberwocky. I was locked in the room so I was forced to fight with him."

Nona grabbed Ezra's hand and pulled them apart. She brought her into a hug, both of them sobbing. Hitoshi smashed the ground, and stood up.

"Damn you, Game Master!!! Why!!!" he yelled. He growled, and broiled with rage. "NPCs were supposed to be brought back with power transfer! Why did you...You deleted everything Amos was, damn you!"

Nona stared at Hitoshi, taking in everything he said. If NPCs were the only one's who could be brought back through a power transfer, then why did Amos die? Why was she deleted? She looked back at Unknown and frowned. He looked back at her, swiped down his menu and began typing quickly. He closed his menu and teleported out by telepipe. Nona looked at her message, then closed it.

'I know what you may be thinking, but I'm a solo player. I like you, and your will to fight and get out of this game, so I'll be around, watching you.'

Nona sighed, "Feh, we don't need another member anyways..."

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Another short chapter. Sorry guys Dx

Hope this was sad enough though. I hated to kill off Amos... I'm sorry if she was your favorite.