(OOC: Aaaah!! I can't wait any longer Nukie!! @___@ I'm sorry, please find a way to jump back in!)

Rei's pace had come to a stop now, standing before the Chaos Gate. He was quite a ways from where the battle was, he could log out anytime now, put down the game and forget any of this happened. He could have, but his mind was in a mad boil, anger sparking his emotions. Even if it had dulled down a bit from his short trek, it still raged on. Every time the image of that face appeared, Kioku's NPC face twisted into human emotions, a deep hatred was reborn and he felt impelled to beat the crap out of her.

He stared up at the golden ringed gate, its aquatic interior shimmering his reflection. Where would she go? Where could she go? She was an NPC, and that restricted her to just this one root town. But, Rei had seen her destroy his report. She acted like a normal player, she knew how to wield weapons... Kioku was no normal NPC, so perhaps she had the ability to leave the root town as well. And then what? Get mutilated by the monsters outside? Rei put his head in his hand, heaving a sigh. This was getting nowhere. Every option as to where that AI could have gone had some sort of loophole. She could be anywhere, or here. Her options were open to the whole world, or just this one.

Rei felt his heart thumping in his chest. He was all worked up and for nothing! He paused and took a long breath in an attempt to calm his nerves. Maybe... Maybe she hadn't left yet... And even if she did, there were too many dungeons that she could have gone to. For a brief moment, Rei felt that his energy was spent. There was no point in chasing an AI whose functions Rei himself had no idea of. No point and a waste of time. Not to mention that he was also on the admin's quarantine list.

......?

Rei rose his head. It seemed as if the world had come to a stop. Even though no one was around to look frozen, even though the background music dragged on, Rei felt the world slow to a complete stop. Is the game lagging?

Rei's entire skin flicked for a second, causing the player to freeze in place, eyes wide. Through the FMD, the image of the root town seemed to flicker violently, streaked with green cyberspace and 0's and 1's. For a split second, the visor's screen completely blanked out, two words flickering in fractured white pixels:

Prepare Corbenik

The player's hand gripped his headset, feeling his heart beat fast in his chest, but this time not of anger. "W-What the hell is going on!?" His thumb immediately pressed down hard on the START button, as if he wanted to pause everything that was happening.

The screen flickered once more and as soon as the words had appeared, they vanished, replaced once more by the familiar images of the root town.

The Heavy Blade blinked. "Wha..." In that split second that his gear had malfunctioned, his character had somehow turned around and walked back the way he came. He had turned the corner and was once again in the alleyway where the Blademaster was. What just happened...? Rei rose his eyes, his entire body tense and shaken.

It took him several moments to realize that the Blademaster still stood in that same alleyway, his back turned to Rei and accompanying him was Kioku. Even then, Rei stared distractedly at her before he shook his head. "Get a grip Rei..." he muttered. Without another word and with half the resolve that he had started with, he brandishing his two-handed sword and dashed forward at the two.

"Hey! AI!" Rei skidded to a stop, holding his sword with both his hands, poised to strike. His eyes fell upon the unraveling data spewing from her shoulder and a wry smile crossed his face. "Got hit, huh?" It was the least that he assumed. NPC's weren't meant to fight, and this AI didn't yet seem advanced enough to change into a character skin with the full blown statistics and weaponry. Rei eyed Balmung skeptically, unsure of which side the blademaster was on. That last wavemaster had taken the AI's side, so why not him? Still, whoever's side Balmung was on, Rei wanted the bug to himself, even if his anger had been significantly blunted.