LOCKERS: CODE 0

“LOCK OFF,” Kira whispers, Shori’s body slowly disappearing. In the span of but a few seconds, she was gone.

“Crystals again,” Riashi notes, picking them off the ground and retrieving the ones where Otari was, “just what are they?”

He does a full 360 as he looks for any other remnants. However, he spots nothing but a desolate, barren landscape.

“She was clearly lying about it being a prerecorded message, but the Matrix, the Sovereign… what was she going about?” Riashi stood there contemplating, a cloud of ideas rushing past him, but never landing.

“Huh?” 

Suddenly, a sound screeched before him, almost like a rip in the fabric of space; undeterminable yet familiar. Before he knew it, a glow blinded him.

“What the--”

He didn’t think it was possible, but a light-blue portal, shining with dull silver energy sparking from it, had opened.

“What is this…?” Riashi asks, rationally puzzled as to why such an event would occur.

He didn’t know what to think, but recalled Kira’s recent words, ‘The Matrix.’

“This must be it.”

Riashi had boiled all the ideas down to one. A portal to this mysterious area, the Matrix, had just appeared, inviting him to whatever lay on the other side.

“Well, I have no other choice I suppose.”

Without hesitation, he jumps through, all fear appearing to have been swept from his demeanor. Within mere seconds of darkness, he finds himself falling from the sky.

“Woah!”  Riashi exclaims, airborne and unable to fight against the forces of gravity. How? was the only idea that had coursed through his mind.

“Wait, wait, WAIT!” He pleaded and pleaded, unable to truly grasp the ever-mysterious physics of this new world. Before he knew it, he went splat on the ground, still maintaining his statuesque posture, an intense pain flowing through his body from his feet.

He shouted agonizingly as he slowly calmed down, still shocked by his descension.

“Is this the Matrix?” Riashi questions, observing the boundless emptiness of the area he’s now in. He looks down in front of himself, noticing a piece of something almost ancient-looking. He bends over to pick it up, tiny wires emerging from its side.

“Could this belong to an old device?” He wonders inquisitively, closely examining it. He stashes it away as he begins to look around.

“Why am I--”

He starts to shiver, the hair follicles across his body from every pore rising, as if answering to a calling. He snaps his head in all directions, unable to determine why he felt so uneasy. Before he knew it, a figure from the darkness rose before him. He jumped back, but still kept a steady impassive look on his face.

“It’s you…” the voice begins to say, “YOU!”

“Huh?” Riashi asks, clearly confused as to what the being is talking about.

“HOW DARE THOU’ OH SO UNCARINGLY INTRUDE UPON THESE SACRED GROUNDS! YOUR KIND WAS NEVER ALLOWED HERE, FOR THOU’ THEY SHALT NEVER!”

“Overreact much?” Riashi asks, nonchalantly eyeing her.

“What?” The lady suddenly lowers her tone, her devilish expression weakening and becoming softer.

“Oh, it’s just you. Never mind, then.” She turns her back on him and walks away, not saying a word.

“Wait!” Riashi shouts, “Could you at least show yourself and explain what’s going on?”

She reluctantly turned and glared at him, slowly revealing herself and allowing her bright, pale skin and long, silver hair to bathe in the moonlight’s elusive gaze. She stood donned a black suit, almost reminiscent of a butler, her silver eyes matching the color of the moon itself.

“Shall we get this over with, child?” She says briskly, tightening the gloves on her hands and coldly glancing at Riashi.

“I don’t know who you are, but if you’re looking for a fight, you’ve got one.” Riashi remarks.

“W-wait! Please don’t!” She stutters.

“What do you mean, ‘Please don’t?’”  Riashi questions. “You just said we need to get this over with!”

“No, n-not like that!  I don’t want to fight you, I just want to talk…”
“You could’ve said that before you walked up to me from the darkness saying ‘let’s get this over with’ like some evil mastermind.”

“I think you’re misunderstanding, my good sir, I cannot simply control where the light shines!”

“Huh?”

“I-I mean that I didn’t choose the darkness to be there…” She replies almost perturbedly.

She clears her throat and looks Riashi directly in the eye, her personality seems to shift completely. Riashi attentively listens in.

“Look, Riashi, you don’t have time to play games, and you know it. As you’ve already heard, hopefully, I’m the Sovereign, but you can simply refer to me as Argint. Your friend, Shori, is in a state, but I have a way to save--”

Riashi cuts her off before she finishes her speech, upset regarding how much she seems to know about his situation.

“How do you know all of this?”

“Riashi, please.”  She says sternly in response.

“Listen. I’m a Time Bender but I’m different from the rest of them. I act not as their comrade; I stay around them for the sole purpose of gathering information. Regardless, at the moment, that’s insignificant. You have no other option than to trust me, as I assume you haven’t figured out any other way to free Shori.”

Riashi, having no reason to neglect her, accepts whatever she has to say.

“Okay, what do you have in mind, Argint?” He asks.

“You remember that old piece you picked up earlier, correct? That belongs to a machine that can overwrite any additional commands in a data chip. A bit too convenient you might say, yes, but Kira made it just in case something went wrong. I took it from her laboratory a while ago when we were partners.”

“How can we trust it if Kira made it? As you seem to somehow already know, she’s the one that possessed Shori in the first place, remember?”

Argint looks at Riashi and then slowly closes her eyes, mysteriously circumventing his stare.

“Cube.”  She states, her eyes still closed and lifting her left arm. She opens her palm and soon before it, a cryptic black cube inscribed with countless gray patterns appears.

“This is the Cube; it is one of the 7 renowned items of Generation 0, our current generation. Every single marking represents a living human being. If a mark’s gray, that person’s been infected by L-0, the virus that The Lost are currently spreading.”

“But… aren’t all of them gray?” Riashi questions, observing the cube’s markings.

“Correct. L-0 has infected every alive human in this universe. That means they’ve all been turned into The Lost, and we’re a select few that’s left.”
“We?”

“The time benders. We transcended time that day, allowing us to avoid the convergence; thus our name arising.” She says, a smile on her face.

She tightly grasps the cube, it slowly fading in her hand with a silver glow.

“Don’t you see, Riashi? We don’t have time to mess around and experiment with ways to save her. There’s a clear path, and we need her to help in such a dire time as this.”

“I have so many questions about what you just said,”  Riashi states, “but none of that matters now. Let’s go save Shori.”

“Excellent, I see you’re willing to cooperate. The pieces for the device should be spread across the Matrix. Although tedious, I know, it’s the only way.”
“How’d they end up all spread about?”

“Hmmm…” she ponders, “let’s just say that someone was after me; no, is after me. That doesn’t matter as of the moment, they shouldn’t be able to find my location.”

Suddenly, a thought struck Riashi’s mind. Kira wanted him to kill her, so is she perhaps the one who’s after Argint?  He kept the thought to himself amidst all his uncertainty, pertaining to no final mindset.

“Any clues as to where  here specifically the pieces are?” Riashi asks, desperately in search of any more intel he could gather.

“Hmmm…” she ponders again, “you’ll find a way.”

She took a step back, then stopped.

“Wait… how is this…!?”

Suddenly, without any signal, she leaps forward in front of Riashi; a combustion of energy seeming to combine into two mysterious hand-gripped blades. Cherry blossoms surround them as a glint appears in Argint’s eye.

“How in the world are you here!?” Argint questions distressingly.

Soon enough before her, a figure: dark and hellish, raises a blade, reflecting Argint’s attack. Sparks arise as the swords collide with one another. Argint jumps back in resolve.

“I thought I lost you, Zyreth, how are you here!?” Argint yells as she grinds her teeth, not deterring her eyes from the figure.

“Isn’t this karma, Argint?” He says, pushing his sword back into its sheath.

“Who are you?”  Riashi asks, contemplating who the figure is and its relationship with Argint.

“My name is Zyreth. You probably don’t recall, but we’ve actually already met. It was quite a short interaction, but still one nonetheless.”

Riashi thinks back, unable to remember when he’d seen or encountered the figure’s face.

“You’ve already started going after them?” Argint asks concernedly. “They had nothing to do with it!”

“It doesn’t matter if they did crap; I’ve got a mission from the Order, and I won’t rest until it’s complete.”

“You Order snob, you KNOW they’re selfish and using their subordinates as pawns!” Argint shouts obstreperously.

“I don’t care, Sovereign. All that matters is I get this over with.”

Riashi sits down and pulls out the mechanical piece from earlier, fiddling around and playing with it.

“What are you doing!? I’m trying to KILL you, remember!” Zyreth says, a look of indignation coating his face.

“Such resolve…! I’ve never seen as fierce a warrior as you, Riashi!” Argint remarks cheerily.

“No, I think he’s just relying on you to protect him,” Zyreth says as he releases a sigh.

“Enough of your injudiciousness, Fantasy Play: Spotlight!”

Riashi and Argint suddenly lie with only the color of hollow black surrounding them, disoriented by the instantaneous change in landscape.

“What is this, Zyreth? I’ve never seen you cast a spell like this before!”  Argint says, perplexed as to where they now were.

Suddenly, hints of bright white paint in the vacant void, small buildings seeming to form in the distance. A pathway appears beneath their feet, leading them into the undivulged.

“Wait…!”  Riashi says, finally coming to a realization.

He recalls when he and Shori went airborne on the track-covered grounds,  mysterious chanting filling their ears. More specifically, he remembers two specific words that appeared to summon the sphere that day: “Fantasy Play.”

“Zyreth, you’re the one who attacked me and Shori at Revera Station, aren’t you?” Riashi bellows.

“Well, well, well, I see you finally remember me. How intriguing that day was; it was my first time facing your generation of LOCKERS.” His voice undeterminably chuckles.

“This is my second time hearing about a generation, are you saying that LOCKERS are created in batches?”  He asks, directing his question to Zyreth’s voice.

“Kira never told you?” Argint asks, cutting into the conversation.

“Not unless it was hidden on a secret document I didn’t read or something,” Riashi states irritably.

“I’ll inform you later, but we must first find a way out of this surreal world. Follow me, Riashi!”

She seizes his hand as she looks forward, setting her sights on whatever lay in the distance. She bends over, her gallancy apparent as she prepares to plunge into the depths of the abyss. She cognitively readies herself, for she suspects that the psyche could play the foremost role in ensuring their escape.

“Every path has an end,” Argint states, propelling herself forward without hesitation.

She begins to sprint, Riashi being dragged across the ground behind her forcefully.

“Ow! I’m still here, you know!”  Riashi complains as he continuously bumps against the rough surface.

She shows no signs of halting as she keeps a steady momentum, wherever the terminus lay in wait. Unable to fall apart; break down.

“How long shall you run?” Zyreth’s ringing voice asks, still unable to be pinpointed.

Argint and Riashi soon approach a series of white buildings, all seeming to shift as they travel further.

“Where’s the end…?”  Argint wonders.

“You’ll reach it eventually,” Zyreth says, “keep going…”

Argint gasps, soon coming to a complete stop.

“My face…!”  Riashi says, out of breath.

“Wait! As I suspected, this isn’t a game of perpetuity; but rather one of neurological deception. You said ‘Fantasy Play: Spotlight’, correct? Shall I be right to assume that this path we stand on is not merely a path; but the said spotlight? And these buildings that surround us are the audience?”

“Good question, Sovereign, and what of it?”
“If this entire world; no, illusion, centers around this spotlight and audience, there’s only one way we can escape… Performance!” She shouts enthusiastically.

"What? No.” Riashi says as he snatches his hand away from her palm.

“I’m not going to dance for the pleasure of these buildings.”

“But wait, notice how they shift as we move? Perhaps, if we remain here and perform for them, they’ll reveal the path out of here! Right, my cutie buildies?”

The buildings contently move side-to-side.

“How the heck do you sway buildings, and why are they responding?” Riashi questions.

“Why are they listening to you? No, my fantasy, do not succumb to them!”  Zyreth exclaims.

“Come, Riashi! For if we’re to save Shori, we must overcome this obstacle first!”

She clasps his hand firmly, almost reminiscent of a mother protecting her child, and lifts it into the air.

“Let us make a performance they’ll never forget!”

She takes two steps to the right, still holding Riashi’s left hand.

“Twirl me!”

Riashi spins Argint, her elegant footwork prominent as she remains in a rotatory motion and doesn’t trip.

“More, more!” The buildings demand as they bounce up and down.

“Riashi, we must push beyond our limit!”  She says as she begins to spin Riashi into a gyratory motion as well.

“Wait!” Riashi says, wholly unrehearsed.

“Rev! Rev! Rev!”  The buildings chant as they slide away, a bright white growing before them. Argint and Riashi find themselves back on the Matrix’s crystalline ground, Riashi sitting once more.

“Of course you found a way to escape, Argint. I expected nothing less of you.”

“Every path has an end, Zyreth, including yours—the woman you see before you is not the one you faced all those years ago.  Don’t interfere.” Argint says with resolve.

“Come on, Zyreth, you don’t have time to mess around with this crappy scum.” A voice states intimidatingly.

“Queen Yortyr…! Why are you speaking to me through emergency transmission right now!?”

“How informal, did I ask you to speak to me like that!?”  Yortyr shouts.

“I didn’t ask you to interrupt me during something as important as this!  Whatever. If you all were to have stayed in the illusion, everything would’ve been easier. Truly, it’s the end we all wished for.”