They had already started disembarking from the boat when Dani finally finished working on her latest updates and setting them to update on a schedule for the next few days just in case something happened.
She wasn’t too worried. She was due to start at the ‘temple point’ starting position along with three others and if she was reading the map in the guide book right, it was the closest starting point to the docks. She had plenty of time to gather up her things and head out.
She could hear the sounds of people moving around in the corridor, rushing to get off the boat and start playing. She could understand why. If SharpShade Inc. wasn’t involved she would have been ecstatic to be testing out the VirtualNet. However, knowing that the ShadowSwords were involved left her wondering why the hell she had agreed to Pegasus’s request for help in the first place.
On an intellectual level she knew why and it wasn’t because of anything as simple as a desire to prevent other people getting sacrificed. It was partly because of that, but mostly it was because Pegasus had promised her backup and a rather large sum of money towards her expenses. She still felt like she was a complete and utter moron for agreeing to do it though.
As the voices outside faded away she packed her laptop away in her shoulder bag and shrugged on her jacket. Finally she attached her DimDIsk to her arm, enjoying the reduced weight. Even though she didn’t generally compete in tournaments, she still had one of Kaiba Corp’s Duel Disks and often used it to play against her university course mates. She had mentioned a couple of time on the blog that the Duel Disk was more than a little bit heavy. She wasn’t sure that the lighter DimDisk was the answer though.
The VirtualNet system looked impressive, she couldn’t deny that, but she had little hope of a city allowing someone to install the projectors all over town. They were an eyesore and they would, most likely be expensive. Still she wanted to see what the new tech could do in a game.
A knock on the door made her jump, causing her to drop her bag. She flinched as the expensive piece of equipment within hit the floor hard. “I’ll be out in a minute.” She called, picking up the bag and checking the contents.
She let out a frustrated huff as she noticed a crack in her laptop’s casing, but she didn’t get a chance to see if the machine was broken or not. The door slammed open and three men entered the room.
“Umm, hi?” Dani asked, backing up rapidly, glancing around for a way out.
“It’s been a while, Green.” One of the men told her, causing her to look at him, startled. Her face paled as she realised she recognised the man in front of her as one of the men who had held her captive the last time she had run into the ShadowSwords. “You honestly thought we wouldn’t be waiting for you when you got here? Especially after you got Pegasus to add you to the rosta specifically?”
“Honestly?” Dani asked, edging around the room and trying to lure the men further in. It worked on two of them, who moved towards her. The one who knew her stayed in the doorway. “I wasn’t planning on coming, I got bribed into it. And I didn’t expect enough of you to have survived the last few years to remember me, considering the way you off each other at your little Gatherings.” She explained, before grabbing the chair and chucking it at the man by the door.
He yelped and jumped away, allowing Dani a chance to dart out of the room. The men followed, nearly catching her as she raced up the corridor. She managed to gain some ground on them when she grabbed the arm of one of the crew members and used him as a post in order to turn sharply and escape down a corridor.
She was almost to the exit, not that she had anywhere to go after that considering that it led out onto the bad guy’s island, when something heavy came out of nowhere and slammed into her stomach, sending her tumbling to the ground, winded.
As she coughed and gasped, she glanced around, trying to work out what the hell had hit her. It wasn’t hard to work out. One of the other mooks she had seen on the boat was stood by the door with a rather sturdy looking pole.
“Pick her up.” The man from her room gloated as she was dragged to her feet and her laptop and her phone were pulled from her bag.
“No, please!” Dani struggled, watching as her machines were carried over to the edge of the walkway that led out over the ocean and onto the docks below. “No. No. No!” She watched, horrified as the goon holding her stuff dropped the equipment into the water. “You son of a bimph!”
Dani’s cursing was suddenly muffled by the rag that was shoved in her mouth. She tried to spit it out but another cloth, wrapped around her head kept it firmly in place as she was dragged away from the exit, kicking and screaming, fury obvious.
“She’s a feisty one.” The one holding her laughed as she tried to scratch and bite, his amusement fading fast when she elbowed him in the nuts, pulling the cloth way from her head and spitting out the rag as she darted out of the exit and into the nearby forest.
“Should we go after her?” One of the men asked, watching her rather than his colleague who was curled up in a ball on the ground, trying not to throw up.
“No, she’s wearing her DimDisk. It’ll lead us right to her.”
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