Chapter 1: Welcome to Rapture
Disclaimer: I own nothing except my OC.
This is essentially the events of the first game with my OC thrown in alongside Jack. There is some major AU that will be revealed when we get to it. Rate and Review and I hope you enjoy it.
The cabin of the airliner was smoky, not that Fletcher 'Fletch' Davies minded, for his family smoked before he moved out and he was used to the scent. The British man was feeling rather relaxed, not to the point that he was ready to go to sleep but still calm and amiable. He was looking forward to actually landing and getting over the jet lag that was soon to follow after and soon getting back into his regular routine.
Fletch was in his early thirties and in good physical condition. He was a medium build and quite muscular with sharp features and piercing green eyes, his brown hair was slicked to the side and well kept. He was dressed more relaxed than he was when he boarded, his suit jacket in the overhead compartment. He was wearing a black button up shirt and matching trousers with suspenders, a leather waist coat over that. His black tie was a little looser than what he normally had it and his sleeves were rolled up to his elbows.
Fletch was taken out of his relaxed state when the plane hit a particularly large air pocket and shook violently. Turbulence was what his mind told him and he tried to relax, however the plane continued to shake violently, before it eventually began to plummet. What happened after, he didn't know. All he remembered was pain and the stabbing cold of the Atlantic hitting him like a truck.
He regained consciousness just after the crash and was soon assaulted by salt water and the cold, and he was soon on the surface. It was a scene of destruction, wreckage strewn in the water, the inferno raging. He could see someone else emerge not far in front of him, and he swam towards the other man.
"I see a light house!" he shouted over the loud fire.
"In the middle of the Atlantic?!"
"We're in no position to wonder! Come on! Before we become human popsicles!"
With some difficulty they had made it to the steps of the lighthouse the two of them panting from the exertion as they looked out over the raging inferno that was their plane. The two of them were shivering, their clothes sopping and cold. They looked up at the large ominous lighthouse and then at one another.
"Any port in a storm, right?"
"Yeah…" Fletch agreed and the two of them walked upstairs. "I'm Fletcher…call me Fletch"
"I'm Jack"
They got into the lighthouse, the lights inside not working and their only source of light coming from the open door actually closed behind them. They winced when the lights came on before they could see a large statue of a severe looking man with a red banner that read:
'No gods or kings, only man'
"Do we go down?" Fletch asked.
"We have to find someone…or maybe some warm clothes" Jack said and they began a decent, more of the lights coming on.
The room was circular with what looked to be a submarine with a comfortable if not old interior. It was the only object in the entire room and they looked up, the statue looking as though he was looking down on the two of them. They stepped inside the small submersible and looked at the lever and then back at eachother.
"You do it" Fletch said first.
"For God's sake, you wimp" he said with a grin and pulled it.
The door closed behind the two survivors and the submersible began to descend and when it made it to eighteen fathoms, a screen lowered and an image appeared on the screen. The image appeared to be an advertisement for something known as Incinerate, and it looked like a man was making fire from his fingertips.
"What the hell?" Fletch asked and the other shrugged as the man who was the statue was shown on the screen.
'I am Andrew Ryan, and I am here to ask you a question. Is a man not entitled to the sweat of his brow? 'No,' says the man in Washington, 'it belongs to the poor.' 'No,' says the man in the Vatican, 'it belongs to God.' 'No,' says the man in Moscow, 'it belongs to everyone.' I rejected those answers. Instead, I chose something different. I chose the impossible. I chose... Rapture'
The screen had risen and as they passed over a reef, their jaws dropped at the sight. There was a city built in a large clearing in the reef, looking similar to New York if not for all the tunnels that seemed to connect the structures. Sea creatures swam between the buildings as though they were merely large, oddly shaped reefs, the city doing nothing to obstruct their regular routine. The message from the man known as Andrew Ryan continued on.
'A city where the artist would not fear the censor. Where the scientist would not be bound by petty morality. Where the great would not be constrained by the small. And with the sweat of your brow, Rapture can become your city as well'
"My good God…" Fletch muttered as they carried on towards what looked like a dock.
"This is incredible" Jack said, looking up. Suddenly, the radio that was in the small craft began to relay voices that must be coming from within the city, one with an Irish accent and the other with an American one.
"But the lighthouse is all lit up like hellfire, looks like some kind of plane crash-" Irish is cut off.
"We're in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. How could it-" American guy is cut off.
"Don't know, you best get over there, and be quick about it. The splicers are coming" the Irish man said and the two rose a brow at that.
"You've got to be kidding. How do you know someone's even coming?"
"Because we got a bathysphere on its way down. That means we've got company"
"Okay, just one more minute. The sphere is coming up now"
"Johnny, security's banging off all over, get a move on!"
The submersible went through three gates that perfectly outlined the craft, words forming a sentence along the top. 'All good things of this Earth flow into the city.' The two stumbled as the small submarine shuddered, the craft emerging in a dark room where they could hear a man begging for his life and some woman breathing heavily.
"Please, lady. I didn't mean no trespass. Just don't hurt me. Just let me go. You can keep my gun. You can-" he's cut off violently as the strange woman impaled him with a hook.
"Bloody hell…" Fletch muttered in horror.
"Something tells me the ocean would have been better…" Jack said as the woman approached them, peering into the bathysphere, as they found out it was known as.
"Is it someone new?" she asked, voice raspy.
She suddenly screams and jumps on top of the submersible and she begins trying to carve into the metal, successfully breaching some of the areas. The two of them look around, back to back and all of a sudden she screamed in frustration. She hopped off of the bathysphere and skulked off, having given up apparently.
"Would either one of you please pick up that shortwave radio?" the Irishman asked and Fletcher picked it up. "I don't know how you two survived that plane crash, but I've never been one to question Providence"
"Who are you?" Jack asked.
"I'm Atlas, and I am going to keep you alive. Now keep on moving, we're going to have to get you to higher ground" he said and the door to the bathysphere opened. The two of them gulped. "Take a deep breath and step out of the bathysphere. I won't leave you two twisting in the wind"
"This could go from bad to bloody worse…" Fletcher muttered.
"What choice do we have?" Jack asked.
"Listen, you two ladies can gossip when you're in a safer place. Now get a move on you two, before more of the buggers show up"
The two of them set off heading to what appears to be a loading dock for several bathyspheres with signs strewn around, the protesters long gone. Some of them said things like 'Rapture is Dead' or 'Ryan doesn't own us!' which earned more raised brows from the two. An official notice by the entrance to this area read 'Attention! All bathysphere travel is now denied!' and above that was a symbol with the word Rapture on it.
"Rapture must be the name of this place" Fletcher said as they moved on into what looked like a departure lounge. Part of the room had collapsed, have the screens were flickering, some of the lights had failed altogether and it in general looked like a bit of a warzone. They saw the woman from before running with inhuman speed and they jumped momentarily.
"We're going to need to draw her out of hiding, but you're going to have to trust me" Atlas said.
"And how do you propose we do that?" Fletcher hissed as they slowly moved.
As they made it to a more lit area of the room, the woman could be seen on the wall and they finally saw her appearance. She was grotesquely deformed with various tumours and other growths all over her body.
"Just a bit further – how do you like that, sister?" Atlas taunted as an odd floating drone dropped down and started pelting the woman with machine gun fire. She crawled into an air duct as the drone backed off. "Now, would you both kindly find a crowbar or something? Bloody splicers sealed Johnny in before they- goddamn splicers!"
"Splicers?" Fletcher asked.
"I'll explain when you have a moment. Just find a bloody weapon"
"Got a wrench" Jack said and Fletcher dug around in the rubble, coming across a steel pipe that was sharp. With some effort, Jack broke the rubble blocking their way and they progressed into another room.
"What in the name of all that's good happened here?" Jack asked as they narrowly dodged a burning sofa.
"Looks like this place isn't as peaceful as we first saw…" Fletch noted grimly. They went into a large atrium with a banner that welcomed people to Rapture. They could hear a man using some quite frankly violent language and he looked similar to the woman, with tumours protruding all over his body. "Jack look out!" he shouted as the man charged. The other male swung the wrench towards the crazed man, caving his head in with a crack and the body crumpled with a wet thud.
"Given his looks, I did him a favour…" Jack noted grimly.
'My daddy's SMARTER than Einstein, STRONGER than Hercules and lights a fire with a SNAP of his fingers. Are you as good as my daddy, Mister? Not if you don't visit the Gatherer's Garden, you aren't! Smart daddies get spliced, at the Gardens!'
"Think that refers to the corny advert we saw before we came to this hole?" Fletch asked.
"Could be…"
They went upstairs and saw a vending machine where there were two vials filled with bright red liquid. They each took one and with uncertainty in their eyes, they looked at one another, as though waiting for one to inject.
"On three?" Jack asked and the other nodded. "One…two…three!"
The two of them injected the substance into their arms and pain flared through the both of them. Fletch noticed that Jack's arms seemed to glow blue with electricity and in his pain induced haze, said man toppled over the balcony whilst Fletcher writhed on the ground.
"Steady now! Your genetic code is being re-written. Just hold on and everything will be fine!" Atlas said, sounding calm.
Fletcher was still in pain but he could hear as some of the splicers wondered whether or not Jack had any Adam on him. As if that wasn't concerning enough, he heard the eerie voice of a little girl and a sound he could best equate to as the sound of a whale. He weakly got up and headed to the balcony to see a small girl with glowing yellow eyes and something in a large diving suit, its visor glowing green. The duo left and Fletcher hopped down, stumbling on his landing and he ran over to Jack just as he regained consciousness.
"Jack! You alright?" he asked in concern.
"Been better Fletch…" he muttered before looking at him. "What about you?"
"I'm not the one who took a tumble off the balcony" he said with a small grin.
"You all right, boyo? First time plasmid's a real kick from a mule. But there's nothing like a fistful of lightning, now, is there? Or telekinesis in your friends case"
"Need I ask? Or will you tell us when you can?" Fletch remarked and the Irishman chuckled..
"I like you already. A plasmid is a gene altering compound that gives the user the ability to use powers that normal people can't. Consider yourself lucky, because you'll need 'em to survive in this blue hell" Atlas said.
"So how the hell do we get out of here? It looks like the bulkhead door is sealed" Jack said.
"Use your lightning. It short circuits the panel" Atlas said and Jack fired a bolt, the door sliding open.
The two of them walked through, looking around the tunnel as the continued to remember the fact that they were in fact beneath the Atlantic. A city beneath the water! Who'd have thought? Fletch noticed that a section of their plane had sunk and was heading right for the glass window, smashing through and letting water in. The bulkhead door behind them sealed shut to prevent flooding and they decided to make a run for it.
"I am not swimming in ice water again!" Fletch said as they climbed through.
"You and me both!" Jack said.
The two of them made it through the bulkhead at the end of the tunnel and it sealed to prevent the flooding from spreading. The two of them took a moment to catch their breath and allow the feeling to return to their cold and numb limbs.
"City beneath the Atlantic…a very bad idea…" Fletch said.
"Agreed…but we have to get to somewhere relatively safe…"
"Yeah…after you"
They'd gone into another dark room and they were attacked by two more splicers. Atlas gave Jack a basic technique to use which involved stunning his enemy with his lightning and then caving their deformed heads in. Fletch was advised to lift them, rotate them and slam them into the ground with quite a bit of force, to gruesome effect.
"I'd advise searching the bodies. Plasmids only last a certain amount of time and need to be charged, if you would. Look for EVE hypo's, bright blue in colour and shaped similar to the Plasmid hypo" Atlas said.
"Looting the dead…" Fletch sighed. "Not what I had in mind on a return trip from San Francisco" he said as they looted them.
"Where were you headed?" Atlas asked curiously.
"To London… my home" he said, wondering if he'd see it again.
"Well I'm gonna get the two of you out of here so you can get home and somewhere less war torn. I promise you"
The two of them headed into what looked like an elevator room and cleared out the splicers, finding some medical supplies and EVE hypos along the way to recharge. When they began to head up in one of the elevators, Atlas started talking, sounding a little bit desperate, almost pleading with them for one favour.
"Listen, I've got a family. I need to get them out of here, but the splicers have cut me off from them. If you can reach them in Neptune's Bounty, then maybe, just maybe – I know you two must feel like the unluckiest men in the world right now, but you're the only hope I'll ever see my wife and child again. Go to Neptune's Bounty. Find my family, please" he said and they shut off the radio to talk about it.
"What do you think?" Fletcher asked.
"He's helped us survive this far… it wouldn't hurt to help the man"
"Yeah…alright…"
Their plan of action decided, they steeled their resolve and armed only with a wrench and a pole as well as temporary powers, the two of them were ready. Or they were as ready as one could be in the supposed paradise built beneath the waves. Neptune's Bounty would hopefully be one of the few stops they would need to make in the city, then they'd have to get Atlas and then back to the main bathysphere station so they could get out. That was simple, or it would have been if the tunnel that was connected to the main entrance wasn't flooded. Surviving Rapture would prove to be more of a task than what they initially thought.
