.hack//G.U. - Jester Whore

Author's Note: This continues an idea I've grown to LOVE with Pi, and that I briefly touched on in "Scarlet," but later read through again to discover I hadn't gone nearly as far as I thought I did. Long story short, I love Pi as a character, but I love this contrast a lot more. I was moreso inspired because as an Xth form, I'm disappointed in what .hack//Link is going to give her unless it turns out the team put more thought into it than "give her a random costume that doesn't suit her, good, next." It's been a few years since I played G.U. so please correct me if I have certain details wrong. Also, I realize long description paragraphs can be boring; sorry, it felt appropriate where used.

"Ugh, where am I?"

Pi stood... or did she? Vast blackness obscured the digital space around her. She called out. "Yata! Kuhn! Haseo!" No answer. Her words faded into the vacuum. Rubbing thumb and forefinger to her chin, she looked down. "I guess... I'm alone."

"Because you're always acting like an uptight old hag."

"Old hag?!"

Haseo's face flashed in Pi's head, until she recognized the feminine allure to the voice insulting her. It was mature, strong and... familiar. Its distinctive haughty tone suggested a woman of power or money, perhaps both, high and mighty from her place in life. Yet the words she used rang like those of a certain unruly brat, words she often replayed in the back of her mind. Exactly those words. Her head shot up, gazing as the truth she tried to deny came floating down in a large beacon of light.

"You heard me, grandma." Alter-Pi landed, or at least appeared to do so, in front of the real deal. Her color scheme reversed Pi's, from her long red hair to the skimpy pink outfit along her body. Every gesture and remark she made echoed opposite of Pi's real intentions, the Avatar Tarvos taking form in front of its user as the devil to Pi's self-imposed angel. "You need to take that stick out of your ass once in a while. Or I don't know, maybe you need to shove it in deeper."

"My, you have a mouth on you. I didn't know my Avatar could be such a bitch."

"I watched the best in action," Tarvos grinned.

Pi pushed her glasses up her nose. "The problems with The World are serious business."

"So serious you can't get up and leave your desk to masturbate? With all the money you make in this job, you can at least hire a man to fuck you while you do all that hard work. Do you really want Master Yata to walk by your office and think your idea of a fun time is sitting in front of the computer eating take-out while masturbating to lines of code?"

"I... that's..." For once, Pi's sharp wit faltered. Calming enough for her thoughts to clear, she spat, "that's personal!"

"What's wrong? Am I striking a nerve?" Tarvos' high heels clicked as it closed the gap between them, its hand rising to Pi's chest and twirling her orange necktie. "You wouldn't be so embarrassed if I wasn't right."

Pi knocked Tarvos' hand away, crossing her arms beneath her chest. "Any woman with manners would be offended when someone insults her to her face."

"Do you see what I mean when I say you take things too seriously? You need to lighten up a little."

"And act like a self-important snob who cares more about goofing off than saving The World? I'll pass." Silence flooded the digital space, as they stared into each other's eyes. At last, Pi blinked, adding one more little quip. "I guess this means you're going to leave me for another Chosen One, huh?"

"Why would I ever want to do that?" One press of Tarvos' forefinger to its Epitaph User's forehead, and...

"GAAAAAAHHH!" Pi convulsed, online and off, as electricity jolted through her PC. The link between player and character shot through the game's instruments in sparks, tweaking her nerve endings at the same time Tarvos altered her PC's data. Her Avatar's cheshire grin served as the last sight upon her teary eyes, Tarvos' final words dripping away with her slow loss of consciousness.

"I'm going to make you loosen up that tight ass of yours."

------------------------------

"Ugh, where am I?" Pi groaned. Rubbing her temples, she sat up and blinked some of the haze from her eyes. By instinct, she jerked forward at someone touching her lower back, settling when she heard Kuhn's voice.

"Zelkova, she's awake."

A strange, soft jingle assaulted her ears. She stumbled from the moment she stood, her weak legs tripping up. Every step threw her off balance, careening one way into the next, until she hurtled toward the nearest wall. Her head whipped against its hard metal surface and drew back as she rubbed the throb in her forehead.

"Ow," Pi simply said. With her vision cleared, she assessed the small band of Haseo's allies in this strange, unknown realm. "Would someone like to explain what happened?"

"Allow me."

Pi looked down at the small, silver-haired boy approaching her. She bent down, matching him at eye level. "Zelkova?"

The boy nodded. "We're in the Net Slum Tartarga. The World knows me as a guild master and captain of Moon Tree, never knowing I have a secret life as an expert hacker. I tried to repair your PC. It worked well for Haseo, but..."

"But?" She mentally damned the failure of PCs to bring over all of a person's tiny expressions, the ones that could help her guess what Zelkova meant.

He explained, "Your Avatar kept some data corruption from when you were infected by AIDA. I wish I could do more to thank you for protecting me from it. I've done everything I can to fix your PC. I don't think even Helba could repair the damage."

"What kind of damage...?"

"It might be best to let you see for yourself."

By Zelkova's guidance, she turned right and gasped at what looked back at her in the mirror.

Her face, painted white, bore swirls of pink on her cheeks. Caked red eyeshadow accentuated her ruby lips. All four of her bangs and pigtails chimed her new ball bells on each end as they came to rest. She glanced at her collar, her professional orange necktie replaced with a red bow tie, and stared disbelief when her eyes traveled lower.

Her chest. Held up by a bra, it wasn't the flesh she could see through sheer red lace that gave her pause. Nor was it each large nipple, pink as her hair, jutting out plainly through exactly cut holes. It was their size. They bloomed out like oversized melons, threatening to spill from their new support. The weight alone unsteadied her feet, fighting to keep the mammoth pair from dropping her forward.

Her gloves, same as ever, added to her comical flair when her stick-thick arms entered their wide flares. She trailed one hand down her bare tattooed stomach, stopping at her more ornate red panties. Gone were her large leather hip guards, her legs permitting a perfect view of her clothed crotch... or so she first thought. The burn of lust grew on her groin when touched, a careful spread of her pussy lips revealing that they were merely colored to match her panties. Her other, wandering hand felt up her rump, the cloth tight as leather around each buttock. Following into the rift, her finger dipped into her anus, proving her latest suspicions.

The last corruptions showed on her long, shapely legs. Ball bells attached panties to stockings. Thin and soft, the stockings' silky smoothness snaked down to her high heels, each shoe curling at its tip to hold another bell each.

With her new ensemble announcing every fidget with a jingle, Pi took in her whole form and balked. "You have GOT to be joking."