Sailor Moon Fan Fiction ❯ Mercury 2.0 ❯ CHKDISK ( Chapter 2 )

Jet looked down at his hands and found them to be shaking slightly. The last few minutes had been a blitz of typing to try and recover the lost data that would return Ami Mizuno to the real world, but every trick he tried seemed to weaken the server’s ability to fight back against the intruder. It was his responsibility to get that innocent girl out of the computer world.

And here he was, failing.

Ami’s friends, Makoto Kino and Usagi Tsukino were standing behind the young tech as he continued his efforts. The tall brunette, Makoto, was still glowering at the back of his head, and it was not helping his nerves. Usagi, the blond with the odd hair style, on the other hand was almost serenely calm, aside from a few excited outbursts whenever it looked like Jet was making progress.

No matter how hard he tried he couldn’t convince himself that the two young ladies needed to leave. Secrets or not, their friend had been dragged into this mess against her will, and he felt a great responsibility for the young schoolgirl now trapped inside the world of the computer.

On the screen in front of him was a jumble of code that constantly scrolled past his eyes. Jet looked for any trace, any clue as to where the intruding search program had hidden itself, but the program had spawned subroutines that began attacking different sections of the main memory. He knew that Ami, and his newest version of the gamebot turned security program, Mercury, were headed to that block of memory.

He looked back at the girls hanging on his every action, “Your friend is in good hands. If they get into a tight spot, she will be protected.”

“Don’t worry about Ami,” Makoto said with a small smile, “She has been through more than you know.” The brunette stopped there and went back to staring at the spot where her blue haired friend had disappeared.

Usagi added, “I believe in her. And I believe in you too Mister Jet. I know she’ll be back.”

Jet smiled at the faith of the two girls, and cracked his knuckles before attacking the keyboard once again, “Then let’s rock the system.”


Mercury 2.0
A TRON/Sailor Moon story
By Seth
Part 2: CHKDISK

Note: Sailor Moon was created by Naoko Takeuchi and licensed by DiC in the U.S. while TRON is owned by the Disney Corporation. I claim ownership of neither, but use them in this humble tale for the enjoyment of the readers and fans. Paid for in part by No One in Particular, Inc. and a few charitable trusts.


///R:SYSTEM/MAINMEM/SEARCH.COM///
///ROUTE AMI.MERCURY ver. 2.3///
///ROUTE MERCURY ver 8.7///

Two blue clad forms appeared on the transfer platform that led into the Main Memory district and stepped forward toward the security program that stood guard. One was familiar to the ICP Sentry and he raised one red glowing gauntlet as a greeting.

“Greetings, Tracker Mercury,” he called. He noticed a similar, but slightly shorter figure besides the freelance security program and added, “Is this a new subroutine?”

Mercury looked down at her smaller companion and shrugged, “Sort of. We’re here investigating an illegal entry in the mains, may we proceed?”

The guard stood aside and watched the two walk on into the cavernous city of Main Memory. As they left the platform behind, Ami looked up at her digital companion and wondered as to her position in this strange world.

“Mercury,” she asked with some hesitation, “What do you do here? If you don’t mind my asking, that guard seemed very polite to you.”

The taller woman smiled lightly, “That wasn’t so much for my function as for my history. An earlier version of me helped stop a viral invasion that almost destroyed the network. I also have a reputation from the time before that as a Video Warrior.”

Ami took this in and continued her questioning, “And a Video Warrior?”

“Plays games.”

Ami nodded, “So how did you go from a Warrior to an Anti-viral program? What was the reason for the upgrade?”

To Ami’s amazement, Mercury actually seemed to blush a darker blue for a moment before answering, “I met a User during the infection. He and I fought side by side against Thorn and later a group of evil Users called Datawraiths. When it was over he returned to his world, but there was a connection of some sort, and he reprogrammed me to continue his work here. He wasn’t at all like what I thought a User would be.” She looked at her companion and added, “I don’t think you are either.”

Ami glanced at the older looking woman, wondering if the program was in love. She shook her head for a moment, realizing that she was talking to a digital construct, and with that realization, she began to wonder about what she had always took for granted. Did the Mercury Computer she used in the real world have life inside it as well? What would those programs think of their ‘User’? Would they be proud, like her, that they were able to help people, or would they even know?

Sighing deeply, Ami decided that if she thought too hard about it she would never come to an answer, but she did know that she would never look at the small palmtop computer from millennia ago the same way.

The women worked their way deeper into the digital canyons of memory as Mercury kept her eyes in motion. Ami noticed the growing apprehension in the program next to her and looked around as well. She saw that the population was slowly thinning as fewer and fewer of the glowing residents seemed to move in the opposite direction of their progress. They soon came upon another guard program that stopped them from going further.

“Sorry Mercury,” he stated, holding up a hand, “This sector is being closed by Central Processing. There’s some kind of cache problem up ahead, and programs are being diverted to the secondary sectors.”

Mercury glided up to him and stated simply, “That’s why we’re here. I and my new partner have User priority to investigate the area.”

“I don’t know,” the guard said, his hand reaching for a wall panel with an odd control. Before his hand reached the panel, Mercury’s own hands dipped down to her hips and drew two short rods with prongs on the end. In a flash they were at the neck of the security program and sparking.

Ami jumped back with a startled cry, “What are you doing?”

“This null is wasting time and memory. He was about tot call for backup to stop us when we have priority access. I don’t like being interrupted mid function,” she told the girl. Turning back to the guard she added, “Be grateful that my friend has me in a good mood. You’re pretty dull for an ICP, but I’m letting you off lightly since you don’t seem to know who I am.”

The guard gulped and lowered his hands in surrender. With a flick, Mercury’s weapons were put away, and the glowing blue woman glided past the red man. Ami watched her partner move away and bowed to the guard briefly.

“Pardon us,” she said quietly, “We are under a great deal of stress and my friend seems to be very mission driven.”

Taken aback by the assault from one female program, and the formal sounding apology from the other, the guard could only mumble out, “No…No problem. We all have cycles like that I guess.”

Throwing the guard a nervous smile, Ami bowed again and jogged off after Mercury. Catching up, she fell into step with the taller woman and frowned at the program’s serious expression.

After a moment Mercury saw the disappointment in Ami’s eyes and asked, “What’s with you?”

“You were very rude back there. He was only doing his job…or performing his function. You had no right to threaten him like that.”

Mercury quirked an eye and said, “He was slowing us down. Every moment that we waste is an opportunity for the intruders to get away. If he had wasted more resources, I would have de-rezzed him.”

Ami almost shouted, “No!” She took a deep breath and then continued, “If I’ve learned anything over the last few years, it’s that no one deserves to be destroyed for simply doing what they are told. I’ve faced people who seemed truly evil, more so than a security program doing his job, and many of them were redeemed because someone gave them a chance.”

Mercury looked at the girl in amusement, “No disrespect to a User, but a young girl like you has not seen evil. Viruses that corrupt and worms that steal, we fight those on a daily basis in here. If you serve no function, then you are discarded.”

Ami shook her head, “I’m sorry, but I can’t agree with you. It just seems so…heartless.”

The taller woman shrugged, “We weren’t created with hearts, only function. Hearts are for Users.”

“Usagi would disagree with you,” Ami breathed out, steel in her voice. Mercury looked down to see the conviction in her companion’s eyes and wondered, not for the first time, what Users were exactly.

When Jet had roamed the digital corridors of her world, he had created feelings of compassion and closeness that she couldn’t quite fathom. And now this girl, younger then Jet, showed a fire that was stronger then any she had seen before. What was a heart, and why did it seem so important to these powerful beings from the other realm. Before she could further this line of questioning, however, her attention, and Ami’s were drawn to a molten green crack in the walkway ahead of them.

Kneeling down beside it, Mercury saw the fracture in the structure of the system and knew that they were drawing close to their destination.

“This is a sign of stress on the system,” she told Ami, “The invaders are drawing a great deal of power and runtime, and it’s beginning to wear out the sector. We’ll need to move quickly to stop this from spreading.”

Ami held her hand up, “But we can’t just go charging in, we need to gather information first. We need to find the force arrayed against us, and where they are keeping the stolen data. Stealth over speed.”

The former Gamebot looked at the girl across from her and nodded at the wisdom, “Alright. I’ll take the lead, after all I promised to keep you safe.” With that the two glowing blue women moved quickly and quietly into the large structures of the memory block.

Ami fell back on years of experience fighting monsters in the city and let her ears search for any sound that seemed out of place. She found it difficult due to the electronic echo that seemed commonplace in this realm, but she didn’t stop trying to adjust. She also found herself distracted by the digital surroundings, and often caught herself enthralled by the fluctuations of power visible from storage blocks that made up the walls here, or the geometrically shaped panels in the floor.

She also was fascinated by the way Mercury moved in front of her. Having seen her friend, Makoto, fight both in human form and in her super powered alter ego, she saw that the program had the poise of a fighter, her long legs tensed with every step, ready to strike out in an instant. The young woman felt a familiar pang of jealousy over Mercury’s grace, but let it go, knowing that she too was a warrior, only of a different nature.

After a time, the two cautiously moving women made their way into the central block of the main memory. Ami had found a ramp leading to high ground on one of the towers surrounding the I/O node for the area, and she and Mercury had stealthily taken place above and looked down into the clearing.

Below them they saw a small group of programs, a deep purple in color, moving a stack of memory caches onto a floating platform. Another group was adjusting what looked like a hastily constructed pad of the type that Ami had used to transport from one sector to another.

“A backdoor routine,” Mercury said quietly, indicating the pad as one program ran a clear cable to the I/O node and began splicing the constructs together. “I think they are trying to get out of the system, but it’s supposed to be locked down. If they can make a transfer, we’ll never find them.”

Ami nodded, “Then we need to stop them now. How many of those programs do you think you can handle?”

“Not enough,” Mercury replied.
Ami scanned the assembly with her eyes and counted their opponents in her head, “We need a distraction. If one of us can lead off a group, then the other can get in close and cut that cable. It won’t stop them, but it will slow them down.”

“I guess I’d better get started,” Mercury said, and began working her way back towards the ramp. Ami stopped her at the top of the ramp, however.

“I’ll be the distraction. I’m not very good at close in fighting, and all I have to do is get them to follow me back to the guards. Once there, I’ll have plenty of back up, and can come back to help you.”

Mercury attempted to stop the young User, but the blue haired girl was already running down the ramp, pulling her disk from its shoulder mount. Letting out a sigh, Mercury hid as best she could and hoped that Ami knew what she was doing.

Ami, meanwhile, crept up to the enemy encampment, moving from cover to cover as best she could. Finally, she sat behind a stack of data blocks with one of the purple armored programs on the other side. She quickly peeked over the barrier and found that he was watching his cohorts work, and crept on top of the stack, bringing her disk back so that it was ready to strike.

“Excuse me,” she said quietly. The enemy guard spun around, surprise on his face, and Ami whipped the disk around to hit him with the flat side across the jaw. He spun around, caught off guard and let out a shout of pain as he dropped to the ground.

The other programs noticed her then, and several let loose with a volley of disks and odd rifle like weapons. Ami rolled back, falling behind the barrier and moved to peek around the edge. As the disk flew by, arcing around to return to their owners, she moved quickly out from behind cover and let her own disk fly, attempting to copy her friend, Usagi, and her attack style.

She didn’t bother seeing if she hit anything, instead she copied another of her friends moves and started running like hell. She looked back to see that many of the guards had indeed given chase, but were being outdistanced by a blue streak headed right for her. Somehow sensing what it was, Ami reached out and caught her returning disk. She didn’t bother with another throw, as she found herself too busy dodging energy blasts sent her way by the persuing programs.

She knew that in her civilian form she wouldn’t be able to outrun the attacks long, but Ami only needed to travel a few more minutes. She felt an energy blot graze her, and winced in pain as she looked back to see how many were following her. Out of the fifteen or so programs at the platform, seven were hot on her heels as she rounded a corner, only a few dozen yards from the security checkpoint that she and Mercury had passed earlier.

For the guard standing watch, it was a surprise to see the unusually polite Tracker that had spared him from her partner’s wrath barrel around a corner at full tilt. Her legs were pumping like crazy, and the taller construct was nowhere in sight, but a group of unidentified programs came around the corner right behind her, and the young guard felt a moment of panic.

That is until the blue girl shouted out, “Sound the alarm!”

He reached out and triggered the Security Rezzing Station next to him as the girl sped by, coming to a stop behind him and turning, disk in hand. The seven charging purple programs stopped and took aim at the two, but as they fired two additional red colored guard programs teleported in.

The more experienced ICP troopers saw the incoming fire and swung their large riot style shields around to intercept the destructive pulses. As the attack was blocked, they smoothly drew their own disks and prepared to return fire.

Back in the center of the sector, Mercury flowed out of concealment, attacking the remaining intruders with her charged batons. With quick strikes, she dropped three guards as the other programs stopped their work to charge her. With a flip of the wrist, she brought her batons together to form a single rod, and with a command it extended out to a long staff.

Moving with the grace she had gained in her time as a warrior on the Game Grid, Mercury moved to attack the remaining purple programs All the while keeping her goal, the cable, in sight.

Ducking a clumsy disk throw from one of the loader programs, she slid the end of her staff into his stomach. In a flash of light, the program dissolved, and Mercury spun her staff around to deflect another attack.

Back at the ICP guard station, heavy troopers met attacking intruders in a three on seven battle. Ami hung back, still unsure of her skill in the ranged combat that the guards were engaged in. When one of the energy pulses from the attackers hit the guard that had summoned help, Ami was jolted into action. He was falling backwards, but she slid behind him.

“I’ve got you,” She said softly, her eyes running across the circuitry armor, looking for injury. He attempted to croak a reply, but before her horrified eyes began to fade from existence in her arms.

You always wanted to help people, to heal people, she thought to herself. Now you get the chance, and there’s nothing you can do.

He had almost faded from sight, and let out a small cry, “The Users…”

Shocked, Ami replied, “I am a User.” Then with more confidence, she repeated, “I am a User!” Grabbing the guard by his slowly fading shoulders, she reached deep into herself. It was a place that she normally found the magic that enabled her to transform and fight evil, and she had heard Rei, a friend, shrine maiden and fellow champion of love and justice, call it her chi center. She desperately grabbed the energy there and forced it out.

A soft blue glow encompassed the area behind the two shielded guards covering their downed comrade and the young program holding him was its source. The ICP troopers and even the attacking programs stopped for a moment to stare in wonder as the dying guard began to reform. With each passing moment, his form sharpened and solidified, until he was once again whole in the arms of the small blue girl.

“You are a User,” he gasped in awe.

Ami helped the stunned program sit up, and then stood herself. She looked past the shields of the guards and saw the purple programs coming out of their surprise, readying another attack while sending a few of their number back into the memory sector. They would come up behind Mercury as the warrior was working, and Ami could not allow that.

She began running towards the intruders, putting as much speed as possible into her sprint. It startled the attackers momentarily due to its recklessness, but they quickly brought their weapons to bare on the charging girl.

“Protect the User!”

The shout came from the resurrected program, and three red disks spun past Ami as she ran, slamming into the distracted programs. She continued her sprint past the renewed battle with far more even odds and ran after the two programs who were making their way back to their fellows.

They moved faster then her, however, and when she neared the final corner back to the I/O node and the backdoor platform the two combat programs had joined their remaining cohorts and overpowered Mercury as she attempted a final cut on the connecting cable with her staff.

Mercury was knocked away and landed on the platform as the purple programs quickly pushed the waiting floater onto the platform. She made to stand, but one of the large combatants stood over her, her own staff held in his hands and pointing at her throat.

“Get us out of here,” the intruder yelled, “There’s a User coming! If she gets here before the connection is made, we’ll all be de-rezzed!” Mercury looked up in surprise and wondered what had the construct so unnerved.

Ami was only seconds away, but her legs were burning and she was short on breath. Never before had she pushed herself so hard in her normal form, and she knew that if she tried to attack the encampment as she was it would only lead to her and Mercury dying. Stopping at the edge of the wall before the enemy’s position, she flexed her hand behind her back and drew out her transformation wand.

I really hope this works, she thought silently.

“Mercury Crystal Power…MAKE UP!”

The raw magic welled up in her as it had so many times before, washing away Ami Mizuno with elemental water and covering her in the identity of the reincarnated warrior from millennia ago.

///Meanwhile in the Real World///

Jet pulled his hands back from the terminal as a new flood of data cascaded across the screen. The cooling fan on the primary server box kicked up in speed as a wave of light passed over the equipment. Once the light died down, Jet looked at the monitor to make sure that nothing was damaged.

To his shock, the data stream representing Ami in the digital world had been transposed with an all new set of…he wasn’t sure.

“What the hell,” he said aloud.

Makoto leaned over, looking at the screen, “What is it?”

“Ami must have done something big in there,” the tech stated, “It’s like she’s over clocking herself or something. She’s running with…I don’t know…ten times the power she was using before.”

Makoto shot a look back at Usagi and saw that the blond had one hand holding the broach in the middle of her uniform bow. For a moment she looked concerned, but a small smile appeared on her face.

“Don’t worry, Mr. Jet,” Usagi said in a calming voice, “Ami is just fine.”

Makoto glanced at her friend and leader once more, and got a silent nod in return, then said aloud, “Go get ‘em, girl.”

///R:SYSTEM/MAINMEM/SEARCH.COM///
///UPDATE: AMI.MERCURY ver. 2.3 to SUPERSAILORMERCURY ver 2.3///
///PRIORITY ONE ACCESS GRANTED///

The purple guards watching for the arrival of the User that had brought a program back from deletion shielded their eyes as the blue light finally dropped in intensity. Then found themselves flatfooted when a powerful looking figure stepped forth.

It was a female program, shorter then most of the invaders, but carrying herself with confidence. Her blue form was covered across the chest and torso with white armor imbedded with pulsing blue lines of power. A skirt of blue filament wrapped around her waist and glowed with bright blue light at the edge. Her gauntlets were also white with blue circuitry and bore a strange symbol of a heart with a cross coming out of its bottom and a v sprouting from its top. Heavy boots of blue armor incased her feet and came up to the knees. Pulses of power raced along her brow and came together in the center of her forehead where a bright oval sat with its long axis vertical glowed with a deep power.

“I am Sailor Mercury, warrior of water and wisdom. And in the name of Mercury, you will be punished!” With that she jumped high into the air, leaping over the startled guards.

Ami’s body sung with the magic that flowed in it, but here it was so different. It flowed through her as the waters did back in the real world, but there was a taste of electricity in it, like bottled lightning. As she reached the apex of her jump, she wondered if this was how the magic felt for Sailor Jupiter, the lightning warrior.

Clearing her mind, she brought one hand up and lightly touched the stud earring on her right lobe. The command, almost instinctual for her after so many battles, triggered the appearance of a blue visor that covered her eyes and began feeding information to her. She smiled when she discovered that a magical computer inside a regular computer seemed to be that much faster.

It quickly locked on to five worker programs and three combat types. Designating the program Mercury as a friendly, Ami descended and landed in the middle of the group, her arms crossing in front of her.

“Shabon Spray!”

Ami spun around and a static laden mist appeared blocking the view of the purple programs. A few fired blasts of energy randomly into the fog where the warrior had been, but the cries of their comrades indicated that the only targets hit were allies.

The digital blue warrior exited her mystic smoke screen and noted the positions of her targets on the visor. Its sight was not impeded by the cloud at all, and she began to mental task of focusing on the outlined enemies. She let her right arm move out wide and began sending power for her next spell. Her symbol on the back of her glove flared brightly as the power coursed through the circuits on her arm, and when the critical point was reached Ami activated the power.

“Mercury Aqua Rhapsody!”

The harp that formed in her hands was not composed of water as it usually was, but the strange charged fluid that this world had. As Ami’s fingers played across it, arcs of power passed back and forth and she knew that there was so much more about this world that she had yet to learn.

Finally, the spell complete, tendrils of magically charged power shot out from the Mercury Harp and raced into the rapidly dissipating fog. The enemy programs had only a moment to realize what approached them, but the fog had served another purpose, their reflexes had been slowed slightly by the mystic covering.

Digital water met program bodies and in flashes of light the attack discharged its power. Purple bursts accompanied the disappearance of each program as the power overwhelmed them, ending their ability to function.

Only one combat program had survived the onslaught. He had dived behind the few remaining data caches that were waiting to be loaded and the lines of energy that were directed at him dissipated harmlessly against the solid construct. Taking a heavy breath, he resolved to stay under cover for the moment, hoping that this super powered warrior hadn’t noticed his escape. He hid quietly, waiting to complete the mission.

Meanwhile, Ami had deactivated her visor and trotted over to where Mercury sat; stunned at the power she had just seen. When the digital fuku clad warrior approached her, the taller program had to fight to keep herself flinching back from intimidation.

“Who are you,” she asked in a shaky voice.

Ami looked down at the confused program and extended an arm to help her up, “A friend. My name is Sailor Mercury, and I’m a warrior of love and justice.”

Mercury rose to her feet and looked down at the slightly shorter woman, “A warrior of love? How did one so powerful come to be?”

“I can’t really tell you that much,” Sailor Mercury said, “But I can say that the User known as Ami Mizuno sent me to help you.”

Mercury gaped at the Sailor version of herself and said, “I’ve never seen anyone fight like that. No program, no User. How…how can you do all that?”

“Magic,” the armored girl replied.

She was about to say more, but movement out of the corner of her eye caught her attention. A purple form dove for the I/O node, slapping its activator and causing a power surge to jump along the attached cable to the platform beneath the two Mercury’s feet.

The backdoor opened, and with a flash of white light, the sector was empty.

///Back in the Real World///

“Damn!”

Jet’s curse made the girls behind him stiffen as he slapped his hands down on the keyboard.

“Maa,” he shouted, “Try and run a trace on whatever just happened!”

The synthesized voice responded, “It’s no good, Jet. The hack already closed itself off. I only have fragmentary address code at best.”

“Damn,” the tech restated as he lowered his head in defeat.

“What happened,” Usagi asked with a wide, worried look.

Jet responded by pointing at the screen and sighing, “Their gone from the system.”

Three lines of text were all that was left on the screen.

///MERCURY ver 8.7 DISCONNECTED FROM SYSTEM///
///SUPERSAILORMERCURY ver 2.3 DISCONNECTEDFROM SYSTEM///
///AMI.MERCURY ver 2.3 FILE NOT FOUND///


///END OF SEGMENT///