Can't Be Wasted

TheRunawaySavior

Before I begin, I just want to welcome you to the world of 'Can't Be Wasted'! Here, I've decided to take the time and recreate the world of Mira, but now, grit is a thing. It's not the stats and health of the people in this world that keep them living. Similar but unique to real life, this world thrives upon willpower and effort.

For anyone new to this story, who'd like to begin reading ASAP, I do warn you that there is an OC. Not like 'Cross' OC but more along the lines of a fleshed-out character that would add balance and variety into the world.

For any returning readers to this story, I'm fixing the story as a whole. As such, Chapter 4 will become what Chapter 3 was beforehand. If you want to reread, that's fine, just don't become so salty that you could turn a lake into an ocean when you realize I didn't change TOO much.

And please, make sure to RnR, I'd really appreciate the support, and I hope you have a good day!

Arc 0: Prologue

Chapter 1: Star-fall Basin Battle-cry

"Attention: external access confirmed."

"Disengaging stasis in ten seconds..."

"Nine..."

"Eight..."

"Seven..."

"Six..."

"Five..."

'… What?'

"Four..."

'What?! What is this?!

"Three..."

'Where am I?!'

"Two..."

'Why can't I talk?!'

"One..."

If only I knew then what was ahead of me…

Who am I kidding? I wouldn't have cared.

"Beep..beep..beep..beep..beep.." I look down to see my hand. It looked thinner compared to the hand I was used to seeing, like I hadn't eaten for some time. The beeping continues, as I look down even further to see that I'm standing, and that I'm wearing some kind of uniform. It consists of some yellow t-shirt that just perfectly fit my body and dark pants with a belt that had attachments I wasn't familiar with. As I stretched for the first time in who-knows-when, the fabric of the skin-tight tee shifted with me. Moving around a little more, the cloth seemed to loosen from the inside a bit, while keeping it's tight stature on my body.

In other words, it felt weird.

"Click!" I turn my body to realize I was in a small container. Shifting my hands around the dark room, the cold metal and plastic of the wall's machines felt rough underneath my thinning skin. A slight humming rose underneath my feet as lights from the computers that surrounded me lit up in unique ways, like from a science-fiction movie or something.

"Releasing hatch: Please stand clear." The quick reaction of my body was stronger than the will of my mind, so I flinched in great pain, as the back of the room opened up with a blazing light that forced me to look back with a scowl. A powerful headache set ablaze within my skull as the light and muggy temperature of the outside forced me to crouch away from the door, almost slamming my head into the new back of the area.

"Ow!" I whined in pain as the headache grew even larger, forcing me to slam into the back of the machine, making it hurt even more.

"Are you okay?!" A delicate yet fearful call came from the outside, where all the stress in my head built up. At first, I was concerned. 'Who is this person? Are they concerned for me?' and '… Did I know the person?' were all questions that filled my head. It took a good while, but one question came to mind that forced me to suck all the pain up.

'Does this person have answers? Can he/she explain all this?'

Taking a deep breath, I clenched my eyes as tight as I could before slowly climbing up from my crouch. 'One deep breath after another…' I though as I shifted my hands to the wall, just to make sure my balance was steady enough.

"Hello?" The voice was feminine, I could confirm that now. It was much more steady and strong than the delicate concerned tone of the last thing she said. But I couldn't focus on her then. I was only halfway up. The muscles underneath my knees and in my thighs were stressing themselves out the more I used them to push up, forcing me to push upwards with my arms.

"Hold on..." I could finally talk. With all my strength, I pushed back the urge to strain my voice and talk to the lady, and focused more on reaching my height. After another moment of pushing forward, I was three-fourths the way there.

"Almost… there!" I squealed with some of my last bits of energy as I pushed through one final charge of ground-breaking pain that now echoed through all of my body. But I didn't care. I NEEDED to know what was going on. For all I knew, this could be a joke of a dream or some sort.

And there. I was at the top, standing as upright as I could. My legs and arms barely held me up, but there was enough of a relaxing moment to take in deep breaths. They felt so good compared to hell.

After recovering from the moment, I shifted my focus towards the light coming in from the other side. As I turned around and calmed myself a bit, I could hear the quiet sound of raindrops clapping on top of the room. Once I faced the light dead-on, I held onto the sides of the door before opening my eyes once again. The pain coursed through my body once again, but I gripped the door tight enough so I could adjust my eyes.

Soon, the scene started to shift. I wasn't looking at just a burst of light. The silhouette of a young woman began to form in the light, as shadows of trees and raindrops in the background set the mood. After another moment, color grew within my eyes giving more detail to the world. I started to see the face that was in front of me, and I was finally able to see what the world was like, for the first time in who-knows-when.

"Hey there… looks like you're all in one piece. As the colors of the light saturated my eyes, I could finally start to see the lady in front of me. While my eyes still needed adjusting, from what I could tell she was in her mid-twenties and had shoulder-length snow-white hair. Her clothes looked like a red suit, with several other colors mixed I along the waistline and back to normal by her legs, but they were too detailed to get an accurate description at a first glance.

She shined a small flashlight around the interior of the space I was in, before putting it within a concealed pocket to the left of her waist. The steady sounds of rain slowly filled my ears as the level of sound grew until I could hear it perfectly.

Without time to react, my legs gave out, forcing me to fall out of the room.

"Careful..." The lady spoke after catching my body adrift, before slowly steadying me back up. "Just it nice and slow, okay? Your senses'll need time to reactivate."

As I was being pulled up from the ground, I got a good view of the world in front of me. I couldn't see far, but the colors of green and the outlines of thin trees gave me the impression we were within some form of forest. Before pulling me back up fully, I got a good look at the lady's face. She had a slightly-dark olive skin tone and shimmering blue eyes. She looked to me with concern as I pulled back from her embrace, trying desperately to stand on my own.

Let's just say it didn't work out.

"You must really want to get up." She whispered. "Can you talk? I heard you say something earlier."

"I can tAlk." My voice cracked as I tried to speak, forcing a strong pain within my throat. Once again, I tried to get up, but my noodle-legs forced me to collapse for the third time.

"I wouldn't talk now." She spoke with concern, yet held a steady confirmation in her voice, like she knew everything was going to be okay. "You were in there for a while. It really takes a toll on the body when you're trapped in a place like that for so long."

Once back up, I tried for the fourth time to get up, but this time I used the exterior of the room to balance myself as I went up. Feeling in my legs and arms came to me as I pushed forward, and soon enough, we were both standing equally. Of course, she was taller than me, but still.

"I'll talk wheN I wanna tAlk." I tried to speak, but the cracks in my voice broke stronger than before. I cleared my throat before speaking, "Who are you?"

She gave me a warm smile. "My name's Elma. You wanna tell me yours?" I hesitated for a moment, as I really couldn't remember my name. I tried to nod, but right before a wave of information hit me. A wave of questions that I could finally answer.

"My… m-my name's Steven. I-I'm fourteen, and the last thing I remember is a man talking to me."

"Talking to you about what?" She looked to me in concern.

"I don't know, but it feels important. WheRe are we, Elma?"

Her face grew slightly grim before going back to that warm emotion. "This place, people like to call Star-fall Basin."

Now being able to get a good look at her clothes, it was a mix in style of cos-players' dreams and actual clothing. The top part of her clothes looked like a blur of perfectly placed white lines adorning a red shirt, that blended in with a skintight suit of black and purple that showed of in her waist and upper thigh, her hands and her lower arms. Embezzled with a unique yellow gem underneath her neck, she also had two belts strapping her whole suit together. One was on her waist, also doubling as the storage pack she put her flashlight in, and one under her… chest. Yeah. And finally, it would be blasphemous not to mention the cherry-red metallic leggings and white-metallic heels that together made up her legs.

Now, with a clear idea of who I was with and the environment I was treading through, I could begin my journey.

"So you don't remember anything?" Elma questioned. "I'll try to catch you up to speed as soon as I can. Are your limbs feeling better?" She spoke over the rain, which had grown stronger since my awakening.

"Absolutely." I said, as I stretched all the time I spent in the capsule away.

"Then I guess we should get going. Here, take this." Saying that the realization that she handed me a gun was a bit of a bombshell would be the understatement of the year compared to what I felt.

"What's this?" I ask, with a bit of concern.

"That..." She pondered for a second, before getting back to me. "That, is a Proto Assault Rifle. You might want to reload that before heading onto the field, Steven. It might get dangerous."

"I don't mean the gun itself! Why's this place so dangerous?"

She gave me a heartbroken look. "You don't remember, do you?" I give her a confused look.

"What do you mean?"

"Nothing!" Quickly reverting back to her kinder self again, she shifted her index finger as she walked away, telling me I should follow along.

"Wait!" I called out. She turned to me with a curious expression as I handed her back the gun. "I don't use guns."

She gave me the most mind-boggled look of the day. "What do you mean, 'You don't use guns'?"

"I mean, I get a bad feeling when holding the gun. I can't remember too much of what happened before this and that doesn't scare me. But, when I held that gun, I FELT the past hit me, and it didn't feel good."

Her look shifted from 'mind-blown' to 'I-don't-trust-you' within a matter of seconds. "In other words, you don't want the gun?"

"Pretty much."

Reverting back to a 'Casually-serious' look, Elma took the gun back and replaced it with a small dagger. "You still need to protect yourself." She cautiously said. "This is a Proto Knife. USE IT." With nothing left to say, we both started down the trail, heading towards an intersection in the canyon that surrounded the land on all sides. Looking around then, it was pretty obvious there was only one way out.

'I wonder where we're going…' Popped into my head, and it really did make me wonder. Was the place we were going to any good? Would the people there be friendly or savage? What was I doing in the capsule to deserve a guide to this place? All these questions and more raged on within my head as we came closer and closer to the gap. I knew I needed to ask something soon, so I asked what came to the top of my head.

"What's that?" I pointed to the right of the opening, where a large machine lay in relaxation. Slowly, we came up to the machine and an explanation began over the sounds of the rain.

"Most of the White Whale's life-pods didn't survive the crash, like this one. You're one of the lucky few..."

"What?" I questioned, in complete curiosity for what her answer would be.

"Right – you don't even remember the White Whale, do you?"

"What's the 'White Whale'?"

The steadiness within her voice grew weary. Whatever the White Whale was, it was something to her.

"It was the ship we escaped Earth on."

If Elma had understood the gravity of that statement, then I bet she probably wouldn't have said it. It took a while, but the steady realization of what she meant drew me into a deep concern. "What do you mean, 'Escaped'?!"

She paused for a second. "So you remember Earth?"

"Of course I remember Earth! What do you mean by ESCAPED?!"

"… 'sigh'… It was caught in a battle between two alien forces… and destroyed. Their technology was far beyond our own, so the only thing we could do was leave. Now… we're here."

I bent down to the ground and plucked a blade of grass from the ground. "So you're saying this isn't grass?"

"What? No, this world is habitable, just like Earth. Its features may remind you of Earth, but once we get outside Star-fall Basin, you'll understand."

"No, I won't understand!" I yelled. "Do you understand how ridiculous you sound? I mean, 'alien forces' and 'destroying Earth' are just stuff out of the movies, right? Why should I believe you? For all I know, this could just be some prank. A very well executed prank at that, but..."

A loud shuffling came from a bush to the left of the canyon's gap. A second time it shuffled, before a large bug of sorts jumped out like a hunter of the forest, waiting for the perfect time to strike on its prey.

"What is that?!" I yell in complete confusion.

"They call it the Origin Blatta!" She called to me, before pushing me away from the beast's line of sight. "Be careful, you only have that dagger to protect you if things get dangerous."

As it came up to us, its true form exposed. Like a darkened ladybug the size of a leopard, its shimmering wings unfolded as its bangs clashed together with an irritating howl. Without hesitation, Elma pulled out two rifles strapped to her back and aimed them both at the beast.

"I assume you wouldn't wanna fight, so get out of here!" She pushed me aside before firing her first shots. Startling the enemy, Elma dashed towards the canyon's exit, making sure its attention was still on her. Before long its vision was completely off me, yet at what cost.

"Watch out!" She fired several more shots that were in the bug's and my direction, forcing me to dash behind the machine. As I patiently waited behind safety, more and more shots were fired, before I heard the sound of mechanical whirling. Taking a peak from the spot I was in, Elma had now switched to a dual-wielding sword that looked as though it was made from scrap metal.

"Shadow Strike!" Her swords began to glow, before she dashed higher in the air than the beast even was, doing several spins within the air before thrusting the swords into the back of the beast. Besides BLOWING MY MIND, the attack was just as effective as the rest, with the beast knocking her off a second later.

"The shell!" A broken piece of the bug's facial shell had broken off, allowing for a weak point to be exploited. "Go for where the broken shell was!" She looked at me from across the area, before the beast charged forward and knocked Elma off her feat. "ELMA!"

Without hesitation, I broke away from my hiding space before yelling, "HEY UGLY!" The Blatta and Elma both turned towards me, both with complete shock.

"Get back!" She called, with complete fear in her tone. "You can't fight that thing!" All I did was bend my knees down a hair before analyzing the beast. Ready to charge, the broken shell came off to the right of its face, a perfect aiming point for a right-handed fellow such as myself. "Please, get back! You're too weak from the stasis for this!"

"Don't you understand, Elma!" I called to her over the intensity of the rain, with just enough strength in my voice to let her know I was serious. "You don't need guns..." At this moment, both me and the Blatta broke into a mad dash for each other, with only one claiming victory for the charge. As the distance between the two of us shrunk, I finished my cry before driving the dagger into the skin of the beast.

"You don't need guns to protect your friends!"

As the great strength of the rain slowly weakened to a mild drizzle, Elma lay propped behind a flat rock to the left of the canyon's exit, while I quietly sat with the broken machine as a resting point. Several meters in front of me, lay the corpse of the Origin Blatta, the dagger still pierced through its skin.

"So, you aren't kidding about Earth being blown up?

"To be honest, that's a day I wish I could forget. I mean, we lost everything."

"Sounds rough. And I've been meaning to ask, who's 'we'?"

She gave me a smile from across the field. "The people that resided on the White Whale, our ship from Earth to here, the planet Mira. Of course, the equivalent of a city's population isn't all we had. When the ship came crashing down here, bits and pieces broke off, including the storage units that were hosting passengers."

I looked towards the machine. "So you're saying there's a person in there?"

Her expression became ever more grim. "If there was anybody in there, the lack of power wouldn't have kept them alive for very long. I'm lucky I found ANYONE here in Star-fall."

The realization that I was partially a lone survivor in some freak accident to Earth really put things in perspective. I bet if I didn't see that bug, I'd still be denying I was away from Earth, hoping for even a second longer my adventure didn't begin as confusing as this.

"We should get going." Elma said, as we both got up from our spots. As she started of into the corridors of the gap, she stopped before commenting, "And thanks, Steven. From the way you were acting, you felt like some kid. Which you ARE, but it took real courage to stand up for me like that."

"No problem! Glad I could help!" She gave me a warm smile, before we both started off down the winding corridor of the pathway. With nothing behind me then, all I could do was really look forward. 'For what?', you may ask. I was looking forward to a future unlike any other.

Thank you SO MUCH for reading! I hope this is only the beginning in a great adventure!