Disclaimer: I do not own .hack or Kingdom Hearts.

.hack/Re:coded

Chapter I: Welcome to 'The World'

Data Riku was walking along the shores of the digital DestinyIsland, as he pondered recent events. It had been a week since Data Sora and King Mickey had decoded Namine's message, and now Sora has returned to the codes of the journal, while the King left to inform the real Sora of the challenges he will face.

Riku had thought about how Sora had just accepted that he was just a copy, and returned to the journal without question. Riku was still allowed to exist because, he was chosen to embody the journal's core data and therefore was beyond the system of the datascape. Riku looked out to the sea, "There must be something I can do."

Riku closed his eyes as he stood on the beach, searching for an answer. After several moments, his eyes opened as a solution hit him. "That's it!" he exclaimed before diving into the journal's data, as he searched for Sora's code.

Once he found it, he brought it to the edge of the journal's data and began searching for a world comprised of data. As he searched, he came across a virtual world simply called 'The World'. After searching through The World's data, he discovered that it was some kind of game, and that millions of players were playing daily.

He created a link between the journal and The World, and began to configure Sora's data. As he was doing so, he realized that the data for the keyblade was not included with Sora's data. 'That's right,' he thought to himself, 'Sora didn't acquire the keyblade until after the Heartless attacked.'

He thought about whether he should give Sora the keyblade or not. He doubted Sora would need it where he was going, but still, "Its better safe than sorry," Riku concluded as he added the data for the keyblade, and finished configuring Sora.

Once he was done, he sent Sora through the link to The World and closed it, "Sora," Riku said as he watched the stream of data leave the journal, "Good luck."

—EternalCity Mac Anu—

"Where am I?" Sora said, after surveying the unfamiliar surroundings and saw that he was in a town. He walked through the town trying to see if he could find anyone familiar, but found no one. He then looked to the sky, "Am…am I in another world?"

He then looked down at his feet, only to notice that his clothes were different. His big bright, yellow shoes were now armored boots, and his red baggy pants were partially covered with side armor. His short sleeve hoodie-vest now had a light armor over it, with an emblem in the shape of a heart and crown.

"Hey, are you a new player?" said a voice from behind him, and he turned around to see a girl with platinum blonde pigtails, ruby red eyes and lightly tanned skin. She wore a dark purple bikini top like armor, a purple armored skirt, with black leggings, purple gauntlets and purple boots. She asked the question again, "You're new to The World, aren't you?"

Not really sure what was going on, Sora nodded, "Yeah."

"Well why don't you form a party with me?" the girl said, "I only just started playing this game yesterday, so I'm still learning, but I can teach you the basics." Sora stared at her for a moment, still not understanding where he was, or what this game she was talking about was, but she was apparently inviting him to play with her, "Okay, I'll go with you."

"Great!" the girl exclaimed, as she jumped in excitement, "Oh wait, I forgot to introduce myself. My name is Nikki; I'm a Lord Partizan." she said ask she held out her hand to him. Suddenly a window appeared in front of Sora's eyes with the message "Nikki has invited you to form a party. Accept invite? Yes/No".

As Sora read the message, he thought 'Yes' and before he could do anything else, he suddenly saw Nikki's face in a small box appear above another box with his own face in the lower right hand corner of his view that he hadn't noticed before. Both boxes had two bars with numbers on them, next to their faces, a green bar next to a number 100 and a blue bar next to a number 50.

"Alright, let's go!" Nikki said as she ran through the town and Sora followed. They arrived at the Chaos Gate, and she said three words, "Guardian's, Sword, Rage, input those words at the gate, and we'll be warped to the corresponding area. Give it a try!"

As she said them, the words appeared in front of Sora briefly before disappearing. Sora turned to the Chaos Gate and a menu appeared in front of him, with only a single word. "Guardian's," he read aloud, and another menu appeared with another word on it, "Sword," he said and a third menu appeared, "Rage." Suddenly the menus vanished only to be replaced with a picture of a large open field, with the chosen area words displayed above it, below the picture, were three boxes that displayed a number of gems in certain spots.

"Oh and one more thing," Nikki said, "You see that little symbol near the area words?" Sora looked to see a triangle next to the first word, "That's the Delta symbol, signifying that we're in the Delta server. If you input these area words in a different server, you'll be taken to a different area, so be careful. Alright let's go!"

And with that, glowing symbols rose up in a spiral like pattern around them, and they vanished from sight.

Next Chapter: Tutorial

And that's it for this chapter. Any questions? Let me know in your reviews and I'll see you next time. Peace!