Phantasy Star Online: Blue Requiem By Ryuretsu

Chapter One: Just a Game

Her slender fingers wrapped around the playing piece, Rouge let out a defeated sigh. If she were to move the pawn to the left, her king would be in check, if she moved the piece to the right, her king would be in a checkmate. To move it up or down would also be pointless, due to it being unable to block the rook from checking her king. She took a quick look at her other pieces, two other pawns (nowhere near the action), a knight, a bishop and the king. She took her left hand, ran its fingers through her long, glamorous red hair, and let out another sigh. She was trapped. Any move she made either screwed her or just delayed the inevitable.

Her partner and chess opponent, Daisuke, looked up at her with his silent and emotionless eyes. The android's reflective, blue chrome forehead reflected her sorrowful face well and reminded Rouge just how pitiful she looked right now. As she gazed into his eyes or optics, as was the technical term, she realized she was keeping him waiting. In defeat she threw up her arms and proclaimed defeat.

"Oh.?" Daisuke proclaimed, a little too surprised for Rouge's taste, ".that's it?"

Rouge raised an eyebrow at him, "That's it? What do you mean, 'that's it'?"

Daisuke gave her a slight shrug, "Well, if you were to move the bishop here and take my rook; you could have forced me to move another piece to protect my king. This would clear the way for you to move your knight into a position to take my king and.", he stopped as he saw Rouge starting to lean in intently.

"You're telling me you didn't see that?" he asked politely.

The female humanoid gave the android a quizzical look, then looked down at the board, then back to the android, then once more at the board till she looked up again and said plainly, "You cheated."

Daisuke's optics flared in shock as though such a thing were impossible, "H- How did I cheat? All I did was tell you how you could've won!"

Rouge crossed her arms, "It doesn't matter, I never started to lose till I began to play you."

Daisuke leaned back in his chair and put his hand up to his face and gave a sigh, or at least the robot equivalent of one.

"Maybe you're just getting worse?"

Rouge glared.

"Careless?"

Glare.

"Your opponent is exceptional?"

Glare.

Daisuke pulled his hand down from his face and rested it in his lap with his other hand. Humans could be so impossible and unpredictable that it was just mind numbing. But then again, they did prove useful with their cunning/recklessness.

"Miss Rouge, you just said you were bored and I only offered to play a simple game with you. No need to get emotional about it, right?" Daisuke asked with a shrug.

The red haired human gave a very unlady-like grunt in reply.

"Do you want to take a look at the jobs the guild is offering instead of continuing this? They're might be something of interest." Daisuke suggested

Rouge sighed, looked at the chess board then quietly nodded her head and stood up. As she stood up, Daisuke made a mental note to let her win the next time.

With their game finished, Daisuke and Rouge quietly walked out of their small apartment complex and into the bright neon lights of the small city on board the Pioneer II. The Pioneer II, an intergalactic colonization ship, was created out of desperation in the Pioneer Project. This project was concocted so as to evacuate the inhabitants of a dying planet and to have them rebuild on a distant new world. The first part of this project was to send out unmanned space probes to find a suitable world for the soon to-be planet-less inhabitants. Once a suitable world was discovered, the Pioneer I, another intergalactic space ship was to be sent out with the first wave of colonist to settle the planet and setup the Central Dome. After this step was finished, the Pioneer II along with the main wave of refugees would be sent to further settle the planet and finish the project.

After it was approved, the Pioneer Project was put into effect immediately. Thousands of probes were scattered across the galaxy discovering many habitable and uninhabitable worlds. However, the one that stood out the most was the planet Ragol with its lush vegetation and beautiful tropic regions. After a long debate, Ragol was deemed to be their new home. With this decided, the Pioneer I was constructed and blasted off the face of their dying planet with a meager percentile of their population to ready their new home. After years of waiting, the ship arrived at Ragol and began construction of the Central Dome immediately. When it was completed the former home world was alerted and construction of the Pioneer II began. Once it was finished, the remaining population boarded and abandoned their planet just as the lasts of its forests became deserts and its seas to beds of rock.

It took a long seven years, but Pioneer II finally made its way to Ragol. The inhabitants onboard rejoiced as Ragol entered the ship's windows in all its glory. However, once a communications link was established with Pioneer I, a very odd thing happened. A tremendous explosion shook the planet. As the blast ended, Central Dome was in ruins, and all communication had been cut off with thousands of men and women onboard the Pioneer I. All that remained on Ragol's surface were the ruins of the Pioneer I and horrendous monsters and mutants of unknown origin.

With the public in a panicked frenzy, the government began issuing the Hunter's Guild permission to send down their agents, Hunters, to the surface to investigate. Daisuke and Rouge are both three-year veterans of the Guild. The Guild classifies their Hunters into three different categories: Hunters, Rangers and Forces. Hunters, being melee class agents, excelling in martial arts and close range combat. Rangers are long- range weapon experts and snipers. The last category of hunters, Force, is something else entirely however. Forces, in layman's terms, are magicians; using 'technique disks', they are able to acquire the knowledge to control various elements such as fire, ice and lightning. With these disks they form various spells that can either save a life by healing one's wounds or even end a life. However, Forces are not the only ones who can use these disks. Hunters and Rangers both can use technique disks (assuming they're not robots, spiritual energy, which robots don't have, is needed to form the spells), but cannot use them as effectively as Forces. Forces are trained exclusively in this field; therefore they completely outclass almost any other non-Force hunter.

In general, all categories of hunters are simply called, hunters. Daisuke, the android, is a HUcast type Hunter, meaning he is a Male (as far as machines go) Android of the Hunter classification. Rouge on the other hand is a RAmarl, meaning she is a Female Human of the Ranger classification. Though neither famously well known nor infamously, both are exceptional in their fields of expertise and have completed a large list of cases together.

As the two hunters walked through the streets, the various sounds of the city filled their ears. People finally beginning to come to terms with the situation talked and gabbed, various vehicles floated and whizzed by overhead; the sounds of life and of modern civilization. It brought a smile to Rouge's face; people were finally beginning to become themselves again and resume their lives. For three months after the explosion, almost everyone onboard Pioneer 2 was too afraid to come out of their homes. But now. Now everyone was alive again, they were a people, a culture.

The Guild building came into view as they turned the corner. As they stepped up to the door, a mechanized whooshing noise occurred and the door split in two and gracefully slid off to either side, welcoming the two returning hunters in. As they entered the Guild lobby, hunters of all shapes and sizes talked and traded stories of battle and of home. Others sat on the couches and chairs and rested their eyes after a long and tiring mission. But no matter what they were doing, they were all busy and were all doing their jobs: Trying to make the best out of a bad situation and to carve a new home out of Ragol.

As the two trudged through the crowd of hunters to the front desk and the waiting Guild Official, Daisuke wondered curiously as to what kind of job they'd receive. The Hunters Guild was pretty much a guild that accepted any and all jobs, well, so long as they were given the proper amount of meseta, the currency used aboard the Pioneer II. Jobs ranged from picking up the groceries for a senior citizen to the protection of important surveyors through the wilderness of Ragol. All jobs were classified into various levels determined by difficulty and pay: S, A, B, C, D. S being the most difficult and D being the easiest but the lowest paying.

However, a hunter must have completed a certain amount of each mission type before being able to perform a job of a higher level. This was done so as to lower hunter causalities and to prevent green hunters from attempting S rank missions and having their lives wasted. As one would guess, any hunter was allowed to do a D rank mission. Next, a hunter who has completed ten or so D ranked missions was allowed to perform C rank missions. A hunter who had completed twenty C rank missions was then permitted to do perform B rank missions. Then once the hunter completed fifty B rank missions, he was then allowed to move on to the A rank missions. And finally, once they completed one hundred A rank missions, they could move on to the more difficult S rank missions. Both Daisuke and Rouge were C rank, soon to be B, hunters.

"Hello and welcome to the Hunter's Guild. How may I help you two?" Asked the Guild official when they got to the counter.

"Hunter C Rank Daisuke and Ranger C Rank Rouge, we're wondering about something to do to pass the time." Proclaimed Daisuke, trying to get a smile from the official.

The official, a woman in her late twenties at least, had a healthy head of short golden, blonde hair and wore a very low cut and revealing light blue top. Her face was covered with a light douse of makeup that made her age seem at least two years younger. She gave a slight smile for Daisuke's attempt at humor.

"Alright then, just let me scan your section Ids for one second and I'll see what I can do." She replied with a smile.

A section ID is very similar to a high school diploma, it is proof of one's successful graduation from a Hunter Academy, a place where a hunter learns his or her skills of the trade. On Pioneer II alone, there are currently nine Hunter Academies, or Sections as they're called. Each Section has its own circular symbol for a type of logo; it's this circular logo that a small, round data disc is embedded with. This data disc is a hunter's section ID when they graduate and is later used as a record for the hunter's past job experience and, as its name states, identification.

To the official's request Daisuke removed his section ID, a Viridia type, from its resting-place in the middle of his breastplate and handed it to the official who promptly scanned and returned it. Once Daisuke's was finished, Rouge unbuttoned hers' from the left strap of her black top and handed the Purplenum type ID to the official. The official did the same and quickly returned it.

The official quickly looked through the assembled information from the section Ids on her monitor. As she glanced through their work history and finally at their ranks for confirmation, she looked at the two and smiled.

"So what sort of job are you looking for?" she asked with a smile.

"Nothing too exciting, just something to take up some time." Replied Daisuke.

The official typed something into her computer system then looked up again, "Would you mind helping the Tinkerbell family find their lost dog for three hundred meseta?" she asked.

Before Daisuke could answer, Rouge quickly spoke up, "Something with a little more relative importance."

"Like?"

"I dunno, doesn't somebody need a bodyguard or anything? Something that might have a little action?"

"Hmm." replied the official as she looked down at her monitor again and typed something else in. The computer made a slight beeping noise that made the official's eyes widen slightly. Rouge and Daisuke leaned forward, curious as to what the computer had displayed.

"You know. I'm probably not supposed to do this, but I guess I can do this just this once. The job I just pulled up is actually a B rank job, but I doubt you two care about that?"

Daisuke just stood and stared, Rouge had a slight gleam in her eyes.

"This job shouldn't be too hard, but it won't be a walk in the park. Currently, the government onboard Pioneer II is getting very jumpy about the current situation. They're afraid that we've wasted too much time and resources floating around the planet and that we should begin colonizing Ragol as soon as possible."

Daisuke's optics flared in surprise, "What in the world are they thinking!? We still don't have a clue as to what happened to Pioneer I! If we're to settle down now, the same might as well happen to us!"

Rouge put a hand on Daisuke's arm to try and quiet him down, some of the other hunters were beginning to stare. Daisuke put his hand to his face for a second and shook his head. Rouge nodded to the officially to continue.

"Ahem, as I was saying. The government has funded the Maxtor Organization with enough money and supplies to begin construction of a small settlement. This job asks for a dozen or so hunters to monitor and protect the construction of this settlement till to the completion of its defense shell. The payment for this job is fifty thousand meseta. Do you want to commit to it?"

Rouge blinked her eyes in disbelief, "Fifty thousand? I don't think I've even heard of A rank jobs going for that much!"

"I don't think I'm supposed to be telling you this, but the government wants to keep this operation very low key for right now. All S Rank jobs catch the attention of a large majority of the populace, very few people except for B rank hunters look at the B rank jobs. It was agreed upon with a small tribute that this job would be rated a B." Daisuke rubbed his fingers on his metallic chin, "So that's it."

Rouge, being about five-six, still a good, almost one and a half feet shorter than the android, looked up at him and asked, "Well what do you think? We might be gone for a good while."

Daisuke pondered the thought for a second then replied, "Fifty thousand is a good deal of money and we have been on dry land as far as good jobs go. We've got nothing better to do, right? And besides, I want to make sure the government doesn't intervene and screw this up."

Rouge wrinkled her nose, "Since when have you cared about what the government did?"

Daisuke shook his head, "Does it matter?" he turned towards the official, "We'll take the job. When do we start?"