Digging her claws in the wheel rims Meroa cursed Allen for this abominable creation of indestructible parts.
There was one thing he couldn't make indestructible, the computer, beating heart of a metal beast, cascading complex user interface commands to simple linear actions, and every computer ever made was vulnerable to high voltage charges, this explained the lightning Allen told her about when describing how she got rid of the highest ranked Avatar in the game.
Legacy weapons had a bond to the peasant overall build, if she could disable the weapon wielded at the moment it would buy her enough time to try and do something that might actually work, "message
Red turned the car to Allen again, she forgot to tell him not to cry, there was no more time for another message spell, at the last moment Meroa pushed the car downward and they missed the white starburst dragon.
Turning again put the mountain right in front of her, this was her moment by Allen's words, bracing every muscle in her arms and legs she pulled the car straight at the peak.
"Greater lightning zone" drained all her mana at once and lef her groggy as the blue arcs of cobalt fire and stench of burnt flesh and ozone filled her nose, her own burnt flesh where she touched the metal plated contraption.
Closing her eyes and gritting her teeth at the pain Meroa hung on when two streaks of fire shot from under the car into the mountain, like rails of white fire leading the vehicle to nowhere her world becoming a white screen before being notified of blocked system messages as happened not twenty minutes ago.
Electric currents jarred her teeth when the backup server couldn't utilise her blockers, whole body convulsing as they moved through the mountain like a hot knife through paper, the rocks becoming strings of vr infrastructure threaded by data probes and design queries before they were caught in the web of displayed probable enviroment, meaning they were stuck in a cave while the system created a path for them to get out.
Rolling off the car to drop boneless on her side hurt less than clinging to the red hot husk melting the rock under it and getting stuck, peering inside she saw the burnt corpse of the impossible peasant sitting motionless when a bolt of something blinded her.
Convulsing back she fealt something push inside her own body, "not the only hacker in town bitch", the voice was clearly female, "I'll take your priceless avatar now".
Meroa pushed back, "who are you?", trying to reclaim her distorted user interface.
"Pretend you don't know who you just killed", the hatred in the voice was contagious.
"You deserved it bitch", Meroa wasn't one to give up to a hacker, "attacking us unprovoked like that",training in avatar self defense could never prepare her for the real thing, "and now you show your real face", closing down user interfaces as the other woman was taking over them, "get off you crazy hacker", the invader's connection was morphing too fast and she couldn't just lock her out like the manual said.
"This avatar shows your real face", the woman hissed back, "got you", Meroa was almost removed from all the central interfaces, "get off bitch", blurred displays and fractured interface icons making her sick as she followed them to the control cores, "JUST FUCKING LOG OFF ALREADY", the hacker sounded desperate as she couldn't force Meroa to give up her avatar.
"Check your system messages dumbass", Meroa cursed pushing through to the cores where her interface was limited but stable, "there is nowhere to log off to".
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"What kind of hack is this?" apprehension followed disbelief, "how is that even possible?" after a few more seconds, "you are bluffing".
"No one is bluffing", she said, taking over the skills and spells core while leaving the outer corrupted cores for now, "this is how the system deals with temporal dislocation".
"Fix this now psycho", moving from the corrupt interface core to a clean energy pool Meroa could almost see the infection inside her as a jolt of pain rammed through her mind, "I can hurt you worse than you could imagine".
"Two can play this game", linking the corrupt and broken core was as easy as turning a hand from inside the skill core and she could feel the pulsing infection receeding, "don't try that again".
"Fine", the defeat in her voice sounding fake, "just take us back".
"I need to figure out when we are first", checking her system clock didn't reveal anything, "I need access to the main system interface".
"No way bitch", the venom floating back to the surface, "tell me what I'm looking for and I'll tell you what I see".
"Just ping the system clock", explaining as if to a child, "then tell me the date on the ping back", seriously basic stuff.
"How the fuck can we be a thousand years in the past?", at that moment the De-Lorian chose to wake back to life with Red looking healed as if nothing touched him, "what the fuck?", the car revved its engine before vanishing in a blast of lightning,"the avatar was on deaths' bed"
"The impossible Peasant wasn't dead when you jumped avatars?" Meroa couldn't believe this, "how stupid are you?", looking at the holes where the indestructible wheels melted their shapes in the molten rock, "that was our way back that just vanished".
"Well smartipants how are you planning on taking us back to the future now?", some of the rage was melting away from the inner voice.
"I just figured something out", Meroa finally said, "it should be easy in this avatar", calculating, "I can wish us to sleep for a thousand years and we will just wake up again in our own time", getting the idea from the size of the monster dragon attacking her in the future.
"Wish is a banned spell", came the immediate retort, "pull another one".
"I know the spell 'dark wish' and can cast it if we find the ingrediants", Meroa explained her impossible suggestion, "and I know the perfect place to find them", looking at the fidgeting interface and trying to make out what she was seeing, "I can't see where we're going".
"Fine", the invader sighed, "what do you need?"
"Are you going to make me negotiate for the avatar controls?", Meroa couldn't understand the craziness of the woman.
"I don't trust you", came the mumbled reply before the display cleared, "and I hate that I need you", Meroa fealt sensation in her body when she got more parts of the interface cleared.
"Thank you", relieved to feel the avatar body again, "we will get out of this", knowing they already did gave her confidence.
Their wings dragged as she walked through the tunnel back up before the other woman flapped and tucked them to their back, "my name is Meroa", she paused trying to get the answer without literaly asking, "what is your name?".
"Vera", was the short answer, "leave me alone"
A voice behind the bend stopped her before moving slowly and listening to their conversation, used to live in a world of poliglot and nonsense spewd by every monster and avatar they were surprised the sound came as clear words, coming across was a goliath practicing silly prose while munching on some avian creature, sitting at the ledge of a cave looking over a small vally, its walls dotted with more caves, a few of which also had a fire burning before them.
Meroa snatched the small giant, balancing it on her back with the folded wings and runing down the path they just came through, upon reaching the cave she didn't wait before using "greater stone wall" to block the way, placing the giant on a rock like an altar, she equipped a dagger and stabbed through it's heart while casting "dark wish", the tables manifested in her mind and sleep was there but to her dismay the sacrifice was only enough for a single year of slumber for both or ten years for one of them, which she chose to cast and let Vera sleep for ten years while she found a better solution or a better sacrifice.
Vera woke up in a cramped cave, her wings and other limbs all stuck in strange angles as she tried to move in the tiny space, remembering the last day she pinged the server and to her relief the date matched her original memory, it wasn't all a dream as she could feel the serpentine body she inhabited, "Meroa?", she hesitantly asked, "hello" when no answer came about she logged off with great relief to find her own body hooked to her real world rig, almost dismissing all the nonsense that happened as a silly dream she logged back in to find herself flying through a cloud of dirt, she had the dragon Allen tagged and he was clearly marked on her map so without further delay she hurled herself in his direction to get the new password by whatever means necessary.