Ansem's Computer Room
Radiant Garden
The room was empty. It had been for some time, only rarely used, and mostly by specific people. The computer itself was massive, the digitizing laser inert and bereft of any real purpose as of yet, as it had been for roughly a year or more.
That said, something had to be activating the system, turning on the monitor and setting it into a variety of startup functions. Someone had to be pressing the keys on the keyboard, working at extreme speeds with intense precision. Somehow, the disc drive had to be opened by some outside force.
A young woman appeared suddenly, as if the light around the room bent to show what had always been present. She had fair skin, roughly shoulder-length red hair, and white eyes, the latter of which were covered over by a blue visor that flashed various colors and numbers in rapid procession. Focused as she was, Kira had a hologram of a camera's screen just to her left, pointed out of the once-secret passageway back toward the study of the recently-returned Ansem the Wise.
Working out in the open like this was a horrendously stupid idea. If one of those nearby came, one of those who wanted to go where she did, she was surely in a lot of trouble. There were many who could cause issues, and she even had a few she knew about personally through her research.
Stickin' me neck out for 'er, the natural Replica thought to herself. She better be appreciative.
The woman took out a small object, looking similar to a small, rectangular data drive, and touched it, letting it seemingly dissemble itself into a gray wad of some unknown substance in the palm of her hand. The object re-formed itself into the general appearance of a circular disc, complete with a hole in the center, otherwise featureless. Rather than dwell on her creation, she inserted the disc into the tray on the computer itself, and set to typing extraordinarily quickly for a human being, heart or no.
Of course, Kira was not a human being, so any comparisons were largely irrelevant. Her skin faded from its disguised pink to a pale blue, the circuitry along her arms and on her temples crackling to life silently as she focused. The magic she used allowed her to worm her way through the code from within and without, elusive even to the more resilient countermeasures put in place by the people who designed this program, most likely the leader of the group that formed it. Sure, there was little to no information on Nobodies or Heartless or anything of the sort, but she was not looking for that. She had to find something deeper, something she head heard existed here, in a place that was very difficult to access.
Within a few seconds, she had managed to do her work. Finally, the computer seemed fooled by her attempts, and believed that the disc she had put in was the same one needed to access a hidden program deep within the network. As such, a small input box came up, asking for a password.
Concentrating harder, with a bit more work, she managed to discern common passwords used for this system, specifically those linked to the drive she was utilizing. Doing so required her to backtrack through what existed, read everything that came up, and figure out where the specific measures were. While she was quite an elusive hacker, she was still getting into rougher territory, with more and more problems popping up, essentially needing to act through stealth within the system.
Be it to her benefit or detriment, the challenge did not dissuade Kira in the slightest. Instead, it exhilarated her, the chance to get new knowledge its own reward. Try as she might to argue against this kind of covert mission, the thrill of her own education, of stealing knowledge from others, was extremely enticing, and something she couldn't easily have turned down. Cracking this code and taking what was wanted from in that sanctum was too good of a chance to pass up.
For many, this attempt would take far longer, perhaps require more automated processes just to get through, or need up to at best a few minutes, at worst a few hours. However, she was used to this kind of hack, not to mention plenty in other languages beyond even humans. It was part of what she once was made to do in the first place. It took some time, a few seconds, but she managed it, aided by her accelerated perceptions that she had, due to her state of alert, at about forty seconds in real time to every second in her point of view, along with working both inside the computer and outside of it simultaneously.
"Jackpot," she muttered under her breath with a smirk, and typed in each of the passwords in order. The first one was odd, but perhaps related to the one who had created this location.
ANOTHER
Had it been just an anagram of the first apprentice's name minus the Recusant's Sigil, or a reference to something within? Difficult to say, and Ansem the Wise, despite noting this place's existence since his return from the Realm of Darkness, wasn't exactly telling. He had his own part to play through the strategies at work.
Speaking of the apprentices, a ball appeared on the screen, with six more spaces to put passwords pointing toward it with small thin lines. Those ones were also easy enough due to the approach she had used, so she wrote them each in turn. The placement of each was important, but it wasn't too hard.
XEHANORT
BRAIG
DILAN
EVEN
AELEUS
IENZO
She entered them all, and the computer processed. The curse of her perceptions meant that she saw it all in virtual slow motion, heightening her anxiety over being caught. If she were... If she was lucky, they would just get rid of her. After all, only a very small number of the highest ranking members had access to this room, something that tended to aggravate others, especially those who were outside of the original six.
If she was not... well, she had heard of the kinds of things the Savage Nymph did for fun, and her electrical powers would make things all the worse. Frying her from the inside out, sending Ninja Nobodies after her, keeping her around as a punching bag... and that was all before the idea of trapping her, itself her worst nightmare.
Come on... come on....
SYSTEM START
As a previously-hidden door opened to her right, one automated to slide to the side, and simultaneously about twice her height, the former artificial intelligence let out a breath she did not even know she had been holding. She barely needed to breathe as is, so the fact she was holding it in was enough evidence toward her anxiety. As the faux disc ejected, she pulled it out of the slot as quickly as possible, letting it re-form into a small drive before putting it away.
Doing this would take skill and precision. Drawing her power back and dismissing her camera hologram, her skin returning to its usually disguised look of a fair coloration, the silver lines along her skin fading enough to be unseen. her visor pulled back to be on top of her head as she sprinted through the door, descending the stairs as she scanned the area with her eyes, trying to find any purchase she could use to get to the place she was told. Down a few flights of stairs, no cameras in the area, just a floor lit up in bright white amongst the relatively boring gray architecture around. Using what she found in her brief look as she ran, she stopped precisely on one of the panels, nervously tapping her fingers to her side, prepared to take out a sidearm if necessary.
The floor opened, bit by bit, to show a passageway. She would have just slipped between them, but a set of stairs, seemingly formed of hard light rather than magic, did not appear until it was fully opened. Those precious seconds lost, she dashed down as soon as possible, ignoring as the door closed behind her, or as those same stairs disappeared the moment she stepped off of them.
Before her was a spiral staircase leading deeper into the depths, which she could see were peppered with odd red tubes. Perhaps from an earlier project? She would have to look deeper into that, see if the scientist above knew.
Down and down she ran, a spiral further and further into the depths, more and more dangerously deep into enemy territory without any backup. Was this how Tamashī felt when apart from her?
No, banish that thought. No room for sentiment. Had to get down there and get out with the prize.
She stepped through the doorway at the bottom, and was faced with a long, white hallway, one filled with doors on either side, each white and marked with black chains across it. There was also one at the end, which had chains of its own, but not crossing it at all, seemingly designating it as open. Luckily, it did not open, having been seemingly abandoned since Ansem the Wise had been brought back to the world he essentially seemed to rule.
Before moving on, she just stayed right where she was, silent and scanning the area around her. Whatever was behind those doors around, those chained up, it was not what she came for. Only the one at the end, her goal and the reason for her passage in this direction at all.
Once she was certain that the way was clear, Kira sprinted down the hall, barely making her way through the doors as they opened automatically on her approach. Within, she saw what she needed.
The Chamber of Repose. It was circular and gray, with black "chains" leading out in thirteen different directions on the floor, each to a different emblem of a Nobody on the wall. There was a single throne in the center, large enough for Xemnas, but perhaps a bit too large for her. At the other end, she could see a discarded suit of armor seemingly fit for a woman, enough evidence that she was in the right place. She couldn't carry the whole suit, nor was it really necessary in the first place. While she could just take the most important part, the left pauldron, she didn't see the need to risk more time separating it from the rest. What did interest her was the other discarded element.
Why Azumi Tamashī so wanted to retrieve this weapon, regardless of what type it was, remained outside of Kira's area of concern. What was important was that she was wanted to do so.
Her paranoia kicked in again as she walked closer to the armor and weapon. Was this place trapped? What would happen if something was moved? What if Xemnas would come back?
No, he wouldn't risk it. The loyal apprentices would have increased castle security, and the off-chance of Ansem coming back would dissuade him from going on one of his jaunts.
The Replica took a deep breath, then let it out slowly. "'E's gone," she reassured herself, and picked up the Keyblade by its hilt, shoving it into a nigh bottomless bag she had kept with her for this occasion.
Only once she did, due to her high alert, did she immediately recognize her mistake. The swirling sound of Nobodies arriving, of the sheer essence of Nothing seeping into reality, was enough to let her know that while perhaps an Organization member was not present, such a fact did not mean she could let her guard down. Moving quickly, she jumped back, landing on the throne nearby just in time to see a collection of black and white chains, formed of the raw power of Nothingness, to coalesce on top of the armor and where the Keyblade had been, meant to trap whoever was there. Catching no intruder, it dislodged itself from working on that one net, instead sending out several small chains along the ground and through the air, aiming to grab whoever was nearby.
"S***!" the thief exclaimed, then looked to the door she had come through, the same one that had closed behind her. "Open!"
Working in tandem with her technopathic voice, the doors, usually motion or proximity activated, parted, showing the crowd beyond. Five, perhaps six Dusks were along the hall, supported by two Snipers behind them and, at the far back, a Sorcerer guarding the way out. If she was going to escape with her prize, she had to be very, very careful, swift, and precise.
Taking cover behind the throne, she briefly rose up, her rifle at the ready in its long-range formation, and fired three times at the head of one of the Dusks. Luckily, that was enough to take care of it, and she aimed for another... only to begin feeling a prickling on the back of one of her legs. The chains were getting close.
No, no, no....
"You are not even a machine. You are only an abstraction. A set of calculations from another mind. A trick."
Without pausing for a moment or looking back, the magi-technological Replica vaulted over the throne and sprinted through the doors. "Close!" Her voice commanded them yet again, causing them to slam shut behind her and hopefully keep the tendrils locked within. The slime, the terror... The alien notion of pain... She couldn't let it back in.
Not gonna get me again, not gonna get me again...
She ducked under a Dusk that twisted toward her and tried to headbutt her in the chest, jumping over another that came to sweep at her legs, stomped on its head as leverage to keep moving forward, sometimes dashing from one side to another to avoid an incoming violet Sniper bolt.
Further and further she went, doing her best to keep ahead of those Dusks, to keep her rifle pointed forward... When everything went wrong.
First came a collection of cubes near her, set to detonate. She rolled forward from those, choosing her trajectory just so that she would avoid all three of them at once in spite of not having the enhanced abilities of a Keyblade wielder, but then something sharp pierced through her right arm, causing her to shout in surprise far more than pain, on account of shock taking care of the latter for the most part.
She realized what had happened immediately afterwards: at the same time as her roll had begun, both of the Snipers fired, each taking slightly different angles. She managed to dodge one, but they essentially had her in a "checkmate" position in this gray room amongst the black and white enemies, so damage was all but inevitable. One of those bolts had pierced straight through her arm, thankfully disappearing shortly thereafter, but she would inevitably leave some of her nanites on the ground, evidence that she would need to leave behind due to lacking much in the way of abilities to take care of everyone here.
Just then, she could hear the door opening behind her and the Dusks. Evidently, her loss of focus had allowed the chains to come through, and they were headed her way. She didn't need to look back to see that, nor to pay any more mind to the nearly faceless beings behind her.
Instead, she did her best to block out the pain as it started to come, her sight focusing in on her assailants. Time slowed to a crawl for her personally as she saw the arrowguns of the Snipers, prepared to fire once more. The one on the left had his fantasy firearm beginning to glow at the tip... and she knew exactly what to do.
Her circuitry began to flare up again, bright as she allowed her nanites to surge through her entire body at an accelerated rate. Every one of her processes was faster, more adept, from her speed to her accuracy and much more, though she couldn't keep this up for long without exhausting herself.
The left-hand Sniper fired a bolt five times the size of a normal shot, just as the one on the right fired a bolt of what could be considered their average size. Both of them stopped halfway toward Kira... who had been charging her mana into her own scope-less sniper rifle, and fired a single, charged bullet, holding the weapon in just her left hand, her right arm holding her front to keep from falling limp altogether.
Kira's bullet seemed a bit off to the right from the marksperson, seeming to hit the enlarged bolt instead... but then it ricocheted off, the curvature of the crystal making up the bolt allowing it to make nearly a right angle. It changed again on hitting the smaller one, still hovering in the air, then back to the enhanced bolt... and finally hit the back end of that one, instead making another angular change to aim directly at the Sniper on the right side, hitting it directly between where its eyes would be.
The Sorcerer at the back actually dispersed its cubes it was preparing to send out as the Sniper dissipated, while the bolts, expanded into six total as the giant one detonated into five, scraped the side of Kira's face as she came running forward again, putting away her "Flake" rifle to her holster. Taking advantage of their surprise, she charged electricity into her free hand, muttering to herself, and shouted as she slammed her palm into what could pass for the Sorcerer's face, causing it to bend unnaturally backward as they were prone to do when injured.
The hacker swung her legs over the side of the Nobody, then she ducked into a roll off of her good arm, landing on her feet and continuing running forward without a hint of a pause. The only thing she did to prevent chase was to motion backward with that same non-wounded hand, summoning a wall of hard light that appeared similar to the light given off by the claymore security system above. That Firewall spell in place, she sprinted up the stairs the fastest that she could, going the entire way on what passed for adrenaline in her bizarre biology, aided by her nanite surge.
Only once she reached the top of the spiral staircase did she slow, the circuitry lines fading to their normal light as she stumbled, collapsing on the ground beside what would be the stairway up once summoned. She fell on her bad side, and cried out in pain that suddenly came rushing back, her arm twitching involuntarily. She held it in her free one, and looked at the damage at last. The shot hadn't gone through her entire arm, but rather had shaved off a sizable amount of synthetic flesh, near to, but not all the way to, the bone. It appeared similar to a type of ammunition from her original world, capable of dispersing into shrapnel upon release, but due to the magical nature of such a device, it disappeared after hitting, likely some perverse way of defending viewers. It was still bleeding, of course, and had left a trail back this way.
The woman bit her lip, concentrated through her tears, and focused in what was left of the excess energy in her blood nanites to get to work. And get to work they did, repairing her musculature, "blood" vessels, and skin. The process would take a few hours, considering the amount of power she had put into her escape coupled with her difficulty focusing, but it would eventually repair.
To make up for the time, she reached into her bag, taking out a white bandage, and covered the wound, wincing as she tightened it, and glad that she did not break any bones on the way out, due to lacking an appropriate splint.
She looked in the direction of the way she had come. "Activate stairs," she gasped, relieved as the staircase appeared suddenly from light, as it had before. "And hold," she added, making sure they wouldn't disappear just yet. She first had to check on the item she had retrieved, which she pulled out of the bag.
It was a Keyblade. The guard was circular and somewhat jagged around its edges, with the upper half of said guard being black, the center gray, and the bottom white. Within that grip was a featureless, gray rod as its handle. It had a navy blue shaft, with the exception of a silver tip and two diamond-shaped bumps at the base before hitting said grip. The weapon's teeth were in the normal skeleton key formation, comprised by a rectangular frame with four short, blunt spikes, all of which were navy blue, with silver pieces on the teeth pointed at right angles pointing inward toward the shaft.
Judging from what she had heard, this one was the Stormfall, the evolved version of Master Aqua's "Rainfell," lost over a decade ago before the fall of Radiant Garden itself.
"Bloody magic stick," she grumbled in annoyance at this horrendously over-the-top errand.
Still, she put it back, grunting as she got back to her feet, and began walking up the stairs, letting them slowly disappear behind her as she did until she had exited through the door, luckily back in a room free of any trespassers.
...okay, any trespassers except for herself, but she was allowed to be here by the person who technically owned this place. If she went into secret passageways, that wasn't his concern until he found out.
She was glad that the the way to the Chamber was devoid of cameras, and that Nobody security didn't seem to find moving further than the doorway to be in their interest, if they had enough intellect to even believe so.
That said, she believed her part in this war, at least as far as direct influence, was essentially done.
If Tamashī wanted her to go on a one-woman mission again, she would have to pay her first.
Radiant Garden
The room was empty. It had been for some time, only rarely used, and mostly by specific people. The computer itself was massive, the digitizing laser inert and bereft of any real purpose as of yet, as it had been for roughly a year or more.
That said, something had to be activating the system, turning on the monitor and setting it into a variety of startup functions. Someone had to be pressing the keys on the keyboard, working at extreme speeds with intense precision. Somehow, the disc drive had to be opened by some outside force.
A young woman appeared suddenly, as if the light around the room bent to show what had always been present. She had fair skin, roughly shoulder-length red hair, and white eyes, the latter of which were covered over by a blue visor that flashed various colors and numbers in rapid procession. Focused as she was, Kira had a hologram of a camera's screen just to her left, pointed out of the once-secret passageway back toward the study of the recently-returned Ansem the Wise.
Working out in the open like this was a horrendously stupid idea. If one of those nearby came, one of those who wanted to go where she did, she was surely in a lot of trouble. There were many who could cause issues, and she even had a few she knew about personally through her research.
Stickin' me neck out for 'er, the natural Replica thought to herself. She better be appreciative.
The woman took out a small object, looking similar to a small, rectangular data drive, and touched it, letting it seemingly dissemble itself into a gray wad of some unknown substance in the palm of her hand. The object re-formed itself into the general appearance of a circular disc, complete with a hole in the center, otherwise featureless. Rather than dwell on her creation, she inserted the disc into the tray on the computer itself, and set to typing extraordinarily quickly for a human being, heart or no.
Of course, Kira was not a human being, so any comparisons were largely irrelevant. Her skin faded from its disguised pink to a pale blue, the circuitry along her arms and on her temples crackling to life silently as she focused. The magic she used allowed her to worm her way through the code from within and without, elusive even to the more resilient countermeasures put in place by the people who designed this program, most likely the leader of the group that formed it. Sure, there was little to no information on Nobodies or Heartless or anything of the sort, but she was not looking for that. She had to find something deeper, something she head heard existed here, in a place that was very difficult to access.
Within a few seconds, she had managed to do her work. Finally, the computer seemed fooled by her attempts, and believed that the disc she had put in was the same one needed to access a hidden program deep within the network. As such, a small input box came up, asking for a password.
Concentrating harder, with a bit more work, she managed to discern common passwords used for this system, specifically those linked to the drive she was utilizing. Doing so required her to backtrack through what existed, read everything that came up, and figure out where the specific measures were. While she was quite an elusive hacker, she was still getting into rougher territory, with more and more problems popping up, essentially needing to act through stealth within the system.
Be it to her benefit or detriment, the challenge did not dissuade Kira in the slightest. Instead, it exhilarated her, the chance to get new knowledge its own reward. Try as she might to argue against this kind of covert mission, the thrill of her own education, of stealing knowledge from others, was extremely enticing, and something she couldn't easily have turned down. Cracking this code and taking what was wanted from in that sanctum was too good of a chance to pass up.
For many, this attempt would take far longer, perhaps require more automated processes just to get through, or need up to at best a few minutes, at worst a few hours. However, she was used to this kind of hack, not to mention plenty in other languages beyond even humans. It was part of what she once was made to do in the first place. It took some time, a few seconds, but she managed it, aided by her accelerated perceptions that she had, due to her state of alert, at about forty seconds in real time to every second in her point of view, along with working both inside the computer and outside of it simultaneously.
"Jackpot," she muttered under her breath with a smirk, and typed in each of the passwords in order. The first one was odd, but perhaps related to the one who had created this location.
ANOTHER
Had it been just an anagram of the first apprentice's name minus the Recusant's Sigil, or a reference to something within? Difficult to say, and Ansem the Wise, despite noting this place's existence since his return from the Realm of Darkness, wasn't exactly telling. He had his own part to play through the strategies at work.
Speaking of the apprentices, a ball appeared on the screen, with six more spaces to put passwords pointing toward it with small thin lines. Those ones were also easy enough due to the approach she had used, so she wrote them each in turn. The placement of each was important, but it wasn't too hard.
XEHANORT
BRAIG
DILAN
EVEN
AELEUS
IENZO
She entered them all, and the computer processed. The curse of her perceptions meant that she saw it all in virtual slow motion, heightening her anxiety over being caught. If she were... If she was lucky, they would just get rid of her. After all, only a very small number of the highest ranking members had access to this room, something that tended to aggravate others, especially those who were outside of the original six.
If she was not... well, she had heard of the kinds of things the Savage Nymph did for fun, and her electrical powers would make things all the worse. Frying her from the inside out, sending Ninja Nobodies after her, keeping her around as a punching bag... and that was all before the idea of trapping her, itself her worst nightmare.
Come on... come on....
SYSTEM START
As a previously-hidden door opened to her right, one automated to slide to the side, and simultaneously about twice her height, the former artificial intelligence let out a breath she did not even know she had been holding. She barely needed to breathe as is, so the fact she was holding it in was enough evidence toward her anxiety. As the faux disc ejected, she pulled it out of the slot as quickly as possible, letting it re-form into a small drive before putting it away.
Doing this would take skill and precision. Drawing her power back and dismissing her camera hologram, her skin returning to its usually disguised look of a fair coloration, the silver lines along her skin fading enough to be unseen. her visor pulled back to be on top of her head as she sprinted through the door, descending the stairs as she scanned the area with her eyes, trying to find any purchase she could use to get to the place she was told. Down a few flights of stairs, no cameras in the area, just a floor lit up in bright white amongst the relatively boring gray architecture around. Using what she found in her brief look as she ran, she stopped precisely on one of the panels, nervously tapping her fingers to her side, prepared to take out a sidearm if necessary.
The floor opened, bit by bit, to show a passageway. She would have just slipped between them, but a set of stairs, seemingly formed of hard light rather than magic, did not appear until it was fully opened. Those precious seconds lost, she dashed down as soon as possible, ignoring as the door closed behind her, or as those same stairs disappeared the moment she stepped off of them.
Before her was a spiral staircase leading deeper into the depths, which she could see were peppered with odd red tubes. Perhaps from an earlier project? She would have to look deeper into that, see if the scientist above knew.
Down and down she ran, a spiral further and further into the depths, more and more dangerously deep into enemy territory without any backup. Was this how Tamashī felt when apart from her?
No, banish that thought. No room for sentiment. Had to get down there and get out with the prize.
She stepped through the doorway at the bottom, and was faced with a long, white hallway, one filled with doors on either side, each white and marked with black chains across it. There was also one at the end, which had chains of its own, but not crossing it at all, seemingly designating it as open. Luckily, it did not open, having been seemingly abandoned since Ansem the Wise had been brought back to the world he essentially seemed to rule.
Before moving on, she just stayed right where she was, silent and scanning the area around her. Whatever was behind those doors around, those chained up, it was not what she came for. Only the one at the end, her goal and the reason for her passage in this direction at all.
Once she was certain that the way was clear, Kira sprinted down the hall, barely making her way through the doors as they opened automatically on her approach. Within, she saw what she needed.
The Chamber of Repose. It was circular and gray, with black "chains" leading out in thirteen different directions on the floor, each to a different emblem of a Nobody on the wall. There was a single throne in the center, large enough for Xemnas, but perhaps a bit too large for her. At the other end, she could see a discarded suit of armor seemingly fit for a woman, enough evidence that she was in the right place. She couldn't carry the whole suit, nor was it really necessary in the first place. While she could just take the most important part, the left pauldron, she didn't see the need to risk more time separating it from the rest. What did interest her was the other discarded element.
Why Azumi Tamashī so wanted to retrieve this weapon, regardless of what type it was, remained outside of Kira's area of concern. What was important was that she was wanted to do so.
Her paranoia kicked in again as she walked closer to the armor and weapon. Was this place trapped? What would happen if something was moved? What if Xemnas would come back?
No, he wouldn't risk it. The loyal apprentices would have increased castle security, and the off-chance of Ansem coming back would dissuade him from going on one of his jaunts.
The Replica took a deep breath, then let it out slowly. "'E's gone," she reassured herself, and picked up the Keyblade by its hilt, shoving it into a nigh bottomless bag she had kept with her for this occasion.
Only once she did, due to her high alert, did she immediately recognize her mistake. The swirling sound of Nobodies arriving, of the sheer essence of Nothing seeping into reality, was enough to let her know that while perhaps an Organization member was not present, such a fact did not mean she could let her guard down. Moving quickly, she jumped back, landing on the throne nearby just in time to see a collection of black and white chains, formed of the raw power of Nothingness, to coalesce on top of the armor and where the Keyblade had been, meant to trap whoever was there. Catching no intruder, it dislodged itself from working on that one net, instead sending out several small chains along the ground and through the air, aiming to grab whoever was nearby.
"S***!" the thief exclaimed, then looked to the door she had come through, the same one that had closed behind her. "Open!"
Working in tandem with her technopathic voice, the doors, usually motion or proximity activated, parted, showing the crowd beyond. Five, perhaps six Dusks were along the hall, supported by two Snipers behind them and, at the far back, a Sorcerer guarding the way out. If she was going to escape with her prize, she had to be very, very careful, swift, and precise.
Taking cover behind the throne, she briefly rose up, her rifle at the ready in its long-range formation, and fired three times at the head of one of the Dusks. Luckily, that was enough to take care of it, and she aimed for another... only to begin feeling a prickling on the back of one of her legs. The chains were getting close.
No, no, no....
"You are not even a machine. You are only an abstraction. A set of calculations from another mind. A trick."
Without pausing for a moment or looking back, the magi-technological Replica vaulted over the throne and sprinted through the doors. "Close!" Her voice commanded them yet again, causing them to slam shut behind her and hopefully keep the tendrils locked within. The slime, the terror... The alien notion of pain... She couldn't let it back in.
Not gonna get me again, not gonna get me again...
She ducked under a Dusk that twisted toward her and tried to headbutt her in the chest, jumping over another that came to sweep at her legs, stomped on its head as leverage to keep moving forward, sometimes dashing from one side to another to avoid an incoming violet Sniper bolt.
Further and further she went, doing her best to keep ahead of those Dusks, to keep her rifle pointed forward... When everything went wrong.
First came a collection of cubes near her, set to detonate. She rolled forward from those, choosing her trajectory just so that she would avoid all three of them at once in spite of not having the enhanced abilities of a Keyblade wielder, but then something sharp pierced through her right arm, causing her to shout in surprise far more than pain, on account of shock taking care of the latter for the most part.
She realized what had happened immediately afterwards: at the same time as her roll had begun, both of the Snipers fired, each taking slightly different angles. She managed to dodge one, but they essentially had her in a "checkmate" position in this gray room amongst the black and white enemies, so damage was all but inevitable. One of those bolts had pierced straight through her arm, thankfully disappearing shortly thereafter, but she would inevitably leave some of her nanites on the ground, evidence that she would need to leave behind due to lacking much in the way of abilities to take care of everyone here.
Just then, she could hear the door opening behind her and the Dusks. Evidently, her loss of focus had allowed the chains to come through, and they were headed her way. She didn't need to look back to see that, nor to pay any more mind to the nearly faceless beings behind her.
Instead, she did her best to block out the pain as it started to come, her sight focusing in on her assailants. Time slowed to a crawl for her personally as she saw the arrowguns of the Snipers, prepared to fire once more. The one on the left had his fantasy firearm beginning to glow at the tip... and she knew exactly what to do.
Her circuitry began to flare up again, bright as she allowed her nanites to surge through her entire body at an accelerated rate. Every one of her processes was faster, more adept, from her speed to her accuracy and much more, though she couldn't keep this up for long without exhausting herself.
The left-hand Sniper fired a bolt five times the size of a normal shot, just as the one on the right fired a bolt of what could be considered their average size. Both of them stopped halfway toward Kira... who had been charging her mana into her own scope-less sniper rifle, and fired a single, charged bullet, holding the weapon in just her left hand, her right arm holding her front to keep from falling limp altogether.
Kira's bullet seemed a bit off to the right from the marksperson, seeming to hit the enlarged bolt instead... but then it ricocheted off, the curvature of the crystal making up the bolt allowing it to make nearly a right angle. It changed again on hitting the smaller one, still hovering in the air, then back to the enhanced bolt... and finally hit the back end of that one, instead making another angular change to aim directly at the Sniper on the right side, hitting it directly between where its eyes would be.
The Sorcerer at the back actually dispersed its cubes it was preparing to send out as the Sniper dissipated, while the bolts, expanded into six total as the giant one detonated into five, scraped the side of Kira's face as she came running forward again, putting away her "Flake" rifle to her holster. Taking advantage of their surprise, she charged electricity into her free hand, muttering to herself, and shouted as she slammed her palm into what could pass for the Sorcerer's face, causing it to bend unnaturally backward as they were prone to do when injured.
The hacker swung her legs over the side of the Nobody, then she ducked into a roll off of her good arm, landing on her feet and continuing running forward without a hint of a pause. The only thing she did to prevent chase was to motion backward with that same non-wounded hand, summoning a wall of hard light that appeared similar to the light given off by the claymore security system above. That Firewall spell in place, she sprinted up the stairs the fastest that she could, going the entire way on what passed for adrenaline in her bizarre biology, aided by her nanite surge.
Only once she reached the top of the spiral staircase did she slow, the circuitry lines fading to their normal light as she stumbled, collapsing on the ground beside what would be the stairway up once summoned. She fell on her bad side, and cried out in pain that suddenly came rushing back, her arm twitching involuntarily. She held it in her free one, and looked at the damage at last. The shot hadn't gone through her entire arm, but rather had shaved off a sizable amount of synthetic flesh, near to, but not all the way to, the bone. It appeared similar to a type of ammunition from her original world, capable of dispersing into shrapnel upon release, but due to the magical nature of such a device, it disappeared after hitting, likely some perverse way of defending viewers. It was still bleeding, of course, and had left a trail back this way.
The woman bit her lip, concentrated through her tears, and focused in what was left of the excess energy in her blood nanites to get to work. And get to work they did, repairing her musculature, "blood" vessels, and skin. The process would take a few hours, considering the amount of power she had put into her escape coupled with her difficulty focusing, but it would eventually repair.
To make up for the time, she reached into her bag, taking out a white bandage, and covered the wound, wincing as she tightened it, and glad that she did not break any bones on the way out, due to lacking an appropriate splint.
She looked in the direction of the way she had come. "Activate stairs," she gasped, relieved as the staircase appeared suddenly from light, as it had before. "And hold," she added, making sure they wouldn't disappear just yet. She first had to check on the item she had retrieved, which she pulled out of the bag.
It was a Keyblade. The guard was circular and somewhat jagged around its edges, with the upper half of said guard being black, the center gray, and the bottom white. Within that grip was a featureless, gray rod as its handle. It had a navy blue shaft, with the exception of a silver tip and two diamond-shaped bumps at the base before hitting said grip. The weapon's teeth were in the normal skeleton key formation, comprised by a rectangular frame with four short, blunt spikes, all of which were navy blue, with silver pieces on the teeth pointed at right angles pointing inward toward the shaft.
Judging from what she had heard, this one was the Stormfall, the evolved version of Master Aqua's "Rainfell," lost over a decade ago before the fall of Radiant Garden itself.
"Bloody magic stick," she grumbled in annoyance at this horrendously over-the-top errand.
Still, she put it back, grunting as she got back to her feet, and began walking up the stairs, letting them slowly disappear behind her as she did until she had exited through the door, luckily back in a room free of any trespassers.
...okay, any trespassers except for herself, but she was allowed to be here by the person who technically owned this place. If she went into secret passageways, that wasn't his concern until he found out.
She was glad that the the way to the Chamber was devoid of cameras, and that Nobody security didn't seem to find moving further than the doorway to be in their interest, if they had enough intellect to even believe so.
That said, she believed her part in this war, at least as far as direct influence, was essentially done.
If Tamashī wanted her to go on a one-woman mission again, she would have to pay her first.
