Avatara

"Grace!"

Pixel returned her attention to her and saw she was unresponsive; her body limp and her eyes closed. She noticed a deep dark grey mark on Grace's forearm from where Knightmare-Grimm gripped her.

The complete dissolution of Knightmare-Grimm's body seemed to mark an acceleration to the environmental collapse and everything around them started collapsing to be replaced with dark abyss. An earthquake sounded.

"Grace wake up," said Pixel. "We have to try and get out of here now somehow. The whole place is about to blow. Yi are you in there?"

No response.

A huge piece of rock disappeared taking the kernel with it and soon large areas of the rocks and sky also disappeared. Pixel held Grace's lifeless body close to her in her arms, Grace's head flopped to the side resting in her c.h.e.s.t.

"I'm not going to let you go," said Pixel. "I never got to say this but in all our time together you have felt like an older sister to me." Tears fell down her face, she looked round seeing that they were on the final piece of rock sounded by an infinite darkness.

"This is it," said Pixel. "We'll die here inside the oblivion of a server."

"Not quite," said Grace. Pixel looked down at Grace and saw her blue eyes looking right back at her, blinking.

"Grace?" said Pixel.

"No, its Yi. Grace is too weak, so I just managed to take control of her body."

"Just managed?" said Pixel.

"No time to explain," said Yi. "We need to project back out of here right now and it will take all of our soul energy to do it. Bring your forehead to my forehead."

Pixel did as asked.

"We look into each other's eyes," said Yi. This felt incredibly uncomfortable for Pixel, hearing Yi say this and looking at Grace with no space between them.

"And now we kiss." Yi, as Grace, kissed Pixel on the lips. Pixel felt surprised but a rush of power went through her like a strong wind, everything around her looked fuzzy with scattered noise like a scrambled TV picture. Then it went pitch black.

***

The grenade Jazz threw destroyed the head that originally belonged to his friend, Brian Burnside. A head that had been taken over by Knightmare-Grimm. The headless body in its electrified armour suit fell to the ground and keeled over. The explosion worked; at least this version of Knightmare-Grimm was dead. But as far as Jazz knew, he still existed in the Avatara system, and both Grace and Pixel were still in those servers with no sign of their return.

Jazz did not intend for the servers to get damaged by the grenade as well but Knightmare-Grimm was close to them when the blast went off, so they caught fire. The policeman had fallen to the ground, hitting his back and the back of his head on the stony floor, after throwing the grenade. He fell on one of the dead mercenaries, who lay in a pool of their own blood. Jazz lacked the strength to get up but felt extra resolve within when he smelled the smoke.

He grimaced as he strained to get up but someone else grabbed him with a strong grip enabling him to get up and stand. It was Byte. The lanky boy's skinny arms gave a lot of leverage for the policeman to spring himself up.

"Cool, you're alive," said Byte. "But we gotta get out of here. This place is gonna blow thanks to your grenade."

Jazz noticed the server mainframe on fire beyond any chance of repair. He felt a pressure in his c.h.e.s.t from the possibility that Grace's soul may not be salvaged from the system.

"Grace is still in there," he said vacantly staring at the flames.

"And so is Pixel, and Yi is already dead," said Byte. "But we can't stay here or we'll die with them."

Jazz raged. "I'm not leaving without them. I let her down before and not going to let her down again."

Byte, standing a few inches taller than Jazz, holding him at the shoulders, looked him straight in the eyes.

"Jazz! Listen, really listen, there's nothing we can do for them inside there now. Basically, we have their bodies." Byte coughed in reaction to the smoke. "So let's get them out. The smoke's taking over, soon we won't be able to breathe and their bodies won't be able to either. Come on let's get out of here."

Jazz's helplessness evident from this trembling eyes and creased facial expression. Resigned, he hobbled towards Grace's body on the other side of the room.

"Nah, go towards the lift now," Byte said, pointing towards the elevator. "You're too busted to help me carry her."

Jazz accepted his statement but his eyes caught sight of Yi to his right on the floor. The young boy's neck was twisted to an unreasonable degree. Jazz noticed the massive dislocation of the bones. There were no signs of life in the contorted body.

"What about Yi?" he said.

"I've checked him already," said Byte, running over to Grace's body. "He's definitely dead. Get to that lift."

Jazz coughed and spluttered. He would have to be quick. Thankfully, the smoke had a lot of areas above to rise into. Above them were rows and columns of structural metal beams. The systems of metal work that Escape Key and Snow Globe's men had ambushed the mercenaries from. Also, the metallic chassis of the robots that Knightmare-Grimm and his Q-division had been working on still hung above them. With menacing expressions and in all different shapes and sizes, some humanoid and others like wild animals such as rhinos and big cats. These monstrous ideas, now would never see the light of day.

Jazz may have been damaged and unable to bear anyone else's weight but he could at least hobble quite quickly. He made it past the dead bodies of Snow Globe's men and the mercenaries. These men who had been like fodder for their respective masters during his process, lay as a pile of bodies in the centre of the room. Disposable men; as it is written and often reported in war, save the women and children. Men are expected to die, an even price maybe for the privileges of masculinity. He was the last surviving a.d.u.l.t male, so what kind of man did that make him? These ideas and loose understandings circulated in Jazz's mind beneath the level of his conscious awareness.

He made it to the elevator in twelve seconds and pressed the button, opening the lift doors allowing light from within to illuminate the dark room a little bit.

Qwerty and Byte were still dragging Grace and Pixel's body. The clothes of both women covered in dirt on their backside with their heads flopping backwards as the guys pulled them closer and closer to the lift doors with much effort.

Jazz kept his foot over the elevator door track to stop the door of the lift from closing.

"Come on boys," said Jazz. "The way this fire is catching on, it could short out the electricity in the whole building and stop the lift from working."

One of the robots fell from the level above and dropped next to the pile of human bodies with a heavy thud, echoing in the acoustic environment of the hard b.a.r.e surfaces. A fire blazed over the whole server system now on the other side of the room and Jazz couldn't even see where Yi's body was anymore. The three of them froze for a split second and then Qwerty snapped them out of it.

"Byte, get Grace into the lift. Just push her in, use all your strength bro. We gotta get out."

Grace's floppy body was crumpled in a heap at the elevator entrance. Jazz tried to help drag her in but could not muster the strength to do so. Byte stepped around the side of her body and then gave one more moment of heavy effort to pull her body right into the lift.

"Move her legs," said Qwerty. Jazz managed to move Grace's legs with his own feet. Kicking her legs across to the side of the lift underneath her black ankle boots.

Qwerty pulled Pixel in, like a sack of potatoes. He bumped his back against the left side panels of the elevator as he pulled in Pixel with great strain. Qwerty's short overweight stocky frame in comparison to Byte's stringy appearance meant that he had a lower centre of gravity, which gave him some advantage to lifting things. He crouched down and pulled over Pixel's legs into the compartment.

"Good," said Jazz.

A female voice sounded on the elevator speaker.

"Fire alarm activated. Lift deactivating in thirty seconds."