Time Crush
Chapter 1
"What is it?" asked Paine, as she stared at the bizarre shapes the magical field in front of the Celsius was creating.
"I have no idea. I'm just a kid, what do I know?" said Shinra from his seat.
"It's the end of the world!" cried Rikku, from under the control panels near Shinra's desk.
"Rikku, calm down. We'll figure out what it is. Don't worry." said Yuna.
Suddenly, as if on cue, the Celsius was rocked by a massive explosion.
"AAGH! We're all gonna DIE!!!!!" shrieked Rikku.
"Cdibet kenm!" Paine shouted at the Al Bhed girl.
"Oui pimmo!" was the reply.
Another explosion caused Rikku to start sobbing.
"Buddy, what's the damage?" Brother asked.
"We've lost all power to the rear engines, and the front port engine's as good as dead. We're gonna crash."
"I knew it! We're doomed!"
"Rikku, SHUT UP!"
"Well, I can't help it that I have emotions, and FEELINGS!"
"Shut up, you obnoxious spoilt brat!"
"You shut up!"
"Will everyone CALM DOWN!" shouted Yuna.
Everyone was silent, and looked at her.
"Thank you. Buddy, can you and Brother land us safely?"
"We'll give it a damn good try!"
The Celsius began it's shaky descent. Things would have gone well if the crippled airship hadn't been struck by a bolt of lightning.
"We've lost all power!" cried Brother
"Paine, a… are we gonna die now?" Rikku stammered.
"Yes Rikku. We are going to die" the red eyed girl replied.
"Oh." She began to sob again.
The three girls huddled together. As the powerless ship continued to it's rapid appointment with the ground, various prayers could be heard from the members of the Gullwings…
---------------------------------------------------------
"Son of a Bitch!"
"Zell, mind your language."
"Sorry, Ma."
Strange things were happening in the town of Balamb. Cars were turning into piles of rust overnight, dead flowers had come back to life, and there was a blue haze to the air.
"Zell, there's a call for you. It's Squall, from the Garden."
"Ok, Ma."
The Boy rushed into the house, and grabbed the phone.
"Hey, whassup boss man?" he said loudly.
"Zell, you have to get back to the Garden right now. All shore leave for SeeD is cancelled. Matron say's it's really important."
"Ok. Who else is in Balamb on shore leave? I'll go get them."
"Xu says that it's just you and your lover."
"Shut up, man. We'll be there in about five, ok?"
"Ok. Squall out."
Zell, left the house, and wondered where his girlfriend would be. Typical, she's never around when you really need her, is she? He thought to himself as he headed to the harbour. Aha! He thought, as a familiar blue jacket came into view.
"Hey, Fujin!"
"DINCHT"
"Hey, is that any way to great your boyfriend?"
The albino girl smiled.
"APOLOGY"
"Nah, it's ok. Whatcha doin?"
"FISHING"
"Well, the fish'll have to go hungry, cos Squall wants us back on the Garden right now. Shore leave's been cancelled."
The grey haired girl looked disappointed. Turning to leave, she stole a quick his on Zell's cheek. Zell smiled.
"Come on, let's go"
"AFIRMATIVE"
---------------------------------------------------------
In the back room of a small local pub in a simple town on a strange shaped island on a pathetic bluish green planet, a long way away from all this, strange things were also happening.
"What do you mean, It's crushing up? It's TIME, for gods sake! It's not as if it's something you can just stuff in your bag and rumple, is it?" The Girl who spoke was of average height, and had dark red hair. She was wearing a pair of blue jeans, and a Black t-shirt with the slogan 'Why are you reading my chest?' on it. She also had blue and white trainers on, and had green eyes.
"Guess what, cutie. Time's really complex. However, it's also simple. If I said Quantum probability, it wouldn't even be the half of it. Humans didn't create time, they merely defined it. Just don't try to understand it. Do what physicians do, and ignore the bits that can't be easily explained, ok?" This speaker was a bit taller than the red haired girl, and had blond, almost white hair, and brown eyes. She was wearing a pair of camouflage style combat trousers, and a green halter top. She was also wearing a pair of black thick soled trainers.
"Yeah, cos time can be rolled up like a carpet, and chucked into vans, can't it?" This speaker was almost 6 foot tall, and had a mischievous air about him. He had jet black hair, spiked up in such a way it made him look like he had a hedgehog on his head. He had blue eyes, and was wearing orange ¾ length shorts, and a yellow t-shirt.
"Ben, you're so full of crap, you know that." This was another boy, who spoke with a thick Irish accent and was throwing a tennis ball against a wall, and catching it. He was over 6 feet tall, and had dusty black hair and almost black eyes. He was wearing a green t-shirt and nondescript green trousers.
"Bollocks to you, Steve." came the reply from the one referred to as Steve.
"Will you two shut up and concentrate." This was the blond haired girl again.
"Sorry Sara." said Steve.
"Yeah, sorry. Won't happen again." Ben said, sullenly.
From a chair in front of a huge array of monitors and keyboards, and Indian voice said, "Um, we are having a problem."
"What's wrong, Raj?" asked the girl now known as Sara.
"Um, Ten minutes til the TSC gets totalled. If we're gonna do something, we need to do it now."
"Wait. What's a TSC?" the red haired girl asked.
"Time-space Continuum." This speaker was leaning on the wall near the door to the room. He was incredibly tall, about 6 foot 7, and he had a large bandana on his head, covering his left eye. He was wearing a black shirt, and black combat trousers. His visible eye was grey. He was also wearing the same type of trainers as Sara's, but bigger.
"Dave, ten minutes. What are we gonna do?" asked Sara.
"Well, the book says there's no way of stopping it. I say we find the most stable reality, and try to steer as many mainstream storylines onto it as possible. Then, just before the crash, me and Emma'll go there, and try to sort things out from the inside. I get a felling we'll need all the character help we can get."
"Whoa, wait a minute. Why me? I haven't had any experience of anything like this. What if I screw up?"
"Honey, no-one's had experience of anything like this. It's a 'once in the entire existence of the multiverse' kinda thing."
"Yeah, but why me? I'm inexperienced in these things anyway."
"Well, the others'll have to be here to bring us back, and I can't do it alone."
"You do realize that this stunt'll put some incredible stress on the timeline we focus on?" said Sara
"Yeah, no shit. I'm not happy about this either, but it's the only choice we have, apart from stand around doing nothing."
"Don't we kinda do that anyway?" Ben asked.
"Shut up, man." said Steve.
"Fine," said Sara," You two get ready, we'll find a timeline."
---------------------------------------------------------
Backed into a corner, the girl considered her best move. She could try fighting the huge, lion like beast, and die. She could try running away, and die, or she could climb up the cliff, fall of and die. The ninja started to sob to herself. Great, she thought, this is how I die, then? Mauled to death by I creature that appeared out of thin air. This is the end of Yuffie Kisaragi.
---------------------------------------------------------
Staring out to sea, the knight sighed. It had been a year since she had decided to start the search for her love again, and so far, there was nothing but more rumours about his death and wild goose chases.
"Why stare at water? Is tasty?"
The dragon knight laughed.
"No Quina. I was just… never mind."
"Freya come, eat. Is good" the Gourmand said to the sullen knight.
"Ok. Thanks Quina."
As the clown faced Qu waddled off to attend to the meal it had been preparing, Freya sighed.
"Sir Frattley, where are you?"
Suddenly, a large red jelly like creature appeared out of the sky.
"What… what is it?"
The creature bunched itself up, then let loose a flurry of volcanic blasts, knocking the knight off the cliff
---------------------------------------------------------
"Fifteen seconds to impact. It's been nice knowing you guys" cried Buddy.
"YUNIE! What are we going to do?" the Blonde haired girl said, amidst sobs.
"I…I don't know." the high summoner replied.
"Ten seconds"
"And now, it ends." said Paine softly, to herself.
"Twenty five seconds… Hey. What's going on here?"
Well, it's been…Buddy, did you just say fifteen, then ten, then twenty five?" asked Brother.
"Yeah… this is really weird"
As the Celsius continued it's strange descent, a dull grey light surrounded Yuna, Rikku and Paine.
---------------------------------------------------------
As the monster lunged, the ninja leapt up and drew her shuriken, plunging it's point right into the monsters back.
"YEAH! Serves you right for trying to mess with the great ninja, Yuffie!"
The creature merely roared and pulled the star out of it's back, and snapped it. With one sweep of it's claw, it picked up the girl, and held her up to look at.
"HELP!!" she shouted
Suddenly she was enveloped in a grey light.
"What the…"
---------------------------------------------------------
The knight reacted quickly, and dug here lance into the rock face. She then leapt up and kicked the red blob, causing it to split in half. This didn't stop the blob, which merely turned into two smaller versions of itself. It then started dividing rapidly.
"Uh oh…" was all the woman could think to say, as the blobs divided themselves every few seconds. Suddenly, a giant frog appeared in the air and dropped onto the gels, squashing them into the ground. Quina waddled up to Freya, and said, "Quina fat but not stupid! Quina eat lots of frogs, Quina get more power!"
As the two fighters recovered, a grey cloud formed around them.
---------------------------------------------------------
"What is it?" Rinoa asked.
"We think it's like the time compression that happened when we fought Ultimecia." said Quistis.
"Oh, man! Don't tell me we're gonna have to fight her again?" said Zell.
"I do not believe that this is her doing, although I can sense her power being used," said Edea, almost in a whisper, "and what's worrying me is that there's more than one evil influence in the swirls."
"ORDERS?" asked Fujin.
"Make sure people don't panic, and be prepared to fight at any time. Junction with your assigned guardians now, and try to calm people down."
"That's all very well and good, but who's going to calm us down? Last I saw Selphie, she'd locked herself in the bathroom and didn't want to come out." said Irvine.
As they set out to do their assigned duties and tasks, only Nida, the Garden's pilot, saw that the swirls of energy had turned grey.
---------------------------------------------------------
"OK. That's the last of them."
"Good. This isn't going to be any fun, so I need you guys to be alert. Set up shifts, so no-one's tired on the job, ok? Emma, pick up the strategy guides, I get a feeling that we'll need them."
"Right!"
She rushed over to a television, where a large pile of magazines sat.
"Dave, you be careful, ok?" Sara said.
"You know me."
"Exactly. We'll get the bastard that did this, won't we?"
"Course. Ok, tell me who and where are we going to be dealing with?"
"Well, you're going to 8, and we've managed to divert all of the x2 girls, the clown, the rat from 9, and the thief from 7."
"WHAT?! You mean I've got to deal with two gung ho psychopaths, two manic depressants and two hyper freaks? Oh, thank you very much. You know how I am with people skills."
"That's why Emma's going. Anyway, quit your bitching, it was the best we could do."
"Twenty seconds to collapse."
"You'll be going in just before it happens, we'll be using one of the echoes, so good luck."
"We'll need it. You ready?"
"Yep" said Emma.
"OK. Lets go!"
---------------------------------------------------------
The following event can only really be described thus:
Every single decision that has ever been made in the past, present and future has a number of different outcomes. Each one of these different outcomes gets lived out, in what can only be described as parallel universes. There is an infinite amount of them. However, I doesn't stop there. Every action, not just every decision, has it's own infinite amount of different possibilities. The Event about to happen here, known as a "Time Crush", compresses all of these different points of the multiverse into an area about the rough size and shape of a potato, chucks it into a blender and expands the result. However, before this happens, it sends echoes of this back into the past, causing hilarious mishaps all round.
As you may have guessed, this causes a lot of confusion and general milling around whilst everyone waits for the apocalypse to happen.
---------------------------------------------------------
There are some great and legendary stories on this planet. Little red riding hood, King Arthur and his knights to name but a few. Now not many people… no, not many sane people would believe that they're all true. Every single one of them, even the one about the pigs and the wolf. And the one about the guy who turned water into wine. Not only that, but most of them get played out all the time. There is a great power within these stories, and if an individual can guide the story to it's completion, then that individual can harness the power contained within this story. It has only ever happened once.
This story is the result of one of the echoes from the Time Crush.
(AUTHORS NOTE: Well, here it is, the start of my legacy to the world. I'm really looking forward to sitting staring at my empty inbox waiting for someone on the other side of the world say I'm an ok writer. Many thanks to Diablo for giving me great vegetable related inspiration. I would also like to thank Ben for inspiring his character, and I'd like to say to Brid, you're character's coming in later.)
Chapter 1
"What is it?" asked Paine, as she stared at the bizarre shapes the magical field in front of the Celsius was creating.
"I have no idea. I'm just a kid, what do I know?" said Shinra from his seat.
"It's the end of the world!" cried Rikku, from under the control panels near Shinra's desk.
"Rikku, calm down. We'll figure out what it is. Don't worry." said Yuna.
Suddenly, as if on cue, the Celsius was rocked by a massive explosion.
"AAGH! We're all gonna DIE!!!!!" shrieked Rikku.
"Cdibet kenm!" Paine shouted at the Al Bhed girl.
"Oui pimmo!" was the reply.
Another explosion caused Rikku to start sobbing.
"Buddy, what's the damage?" Brother asked.
"We've lost all power to the rear engines, and the front port engine's as good as dead. We're gonna crash."
"I knew it! We're doomed!"
"Rikku, SHUT UP!"
"Well, I can't help it that I have emotions, and FEELINGS!"
"Shut up, you obnoxious spoilt brat!"
"You shut up!"
"Will everyone CALM DOWN!" shouted Yuna.
Everyone was silent, and looked at her.
"Thank you. Buddy, can you and Brother land us safely?"
"We'll give it a damn good try!"
The Celsius began it's shaky descent. Things would have gone well if the crippled airship hadn't been struck by a bolt of lightning.
"We've lost all power!" cried Brother
"Paine, a… are we gonna die now?" Rikku stammered.
"Yes Rikku. We are going to die" the red eyed girl replied.
"Oh." She began to sob again.
The three girls huddled together. As the powerless ship continued to it's rapid appointment with the ground, various prayers could be heard from the members of the Gullwings…
---------------------------------------------------------
"Son of a Bitch!"
"Zell, mind your language."
"Sorry, Ma."
Strange things were happening in the town of Balamb. Cars were turning into piles of rust overnight, dead flowers had come back to life, and there was a blue haze to the air.
"Zell, there's a call for you. It's Squall, from the Garden."
"Ok, Ma."
The Boy rushed into the house, and grabbed the phone.
"Hey, whassup boss man?" he said loudly.
"Zell, you have to get back to the Garden right now. All shore leave for SeeD is cancelled. Matron say's it's really important."
"Ok. Who else is in Balamb on shore leave? I'll go get them."
"Xu says that it's just you and your lover."
"Shut up, man. We'll be there in about five, ok?"
"Ok. Squall out."
Zell, left the house, and wondered where his girlfriend would be. Typical, she's never around when you really need her, is she? He thought to himself as he headed to the harbour. Aha! He thought, as a familiar blue jacket came into view.
"Hey, Fujin!"
"DINCHT"
"Hey, is that any way to great your boyfriend?"
The albino girl smiled.
"APOLOGY"
"Nah, it's ok. Whatcha doin?"
"FISHING"
"Well, the fish'll have to go hungry, cos Squall wants us back on the Garden right now. Shore leave's been cancelled."
The grey haired girl looked disappointed. Turning to leave, she stole a quick his on Zell's cheek. Zell smiled.
"Come on, let's go"
"AFIRMATIVE"
---------------------------------------------------------
In the back room of a small local pub in a simple town on a strange shaped island on a pathetic bluish green planet, a long way away from all this, strange things were also happening.
"What do you mean, It's crushing up? It's TIME, for gods sake! It's not as if it's something you can just stuff in your bag and rumple, is it?" The Girl who spoke was of average height, and had dark red hair. She was wearing a pair of blue jeans, and a Black t-shirt with the slogan 'Why are you reading my chest?' on it. She also had blue and white trainers on, and had green eyes.
"Guess what, cutie. Time's really complex. However, it's also simple. If I said Quantum probability, it wouldn't even be the half of it. Humans didn't create time, they merely defined it. Just don't try to understand it. Do what physicians do, and ignore the bits that can't be easily explained, ok?" This speaker was a bit taller than the red haired girl, and had blond, almost white hair, and brown eyes. She was wearing a pair of camouflage style combat trousers, and a green halter top. She was also wearing a pair of black thick soled trainers.
"Yeah, cos time can be rolled up like a carpet, and chucked into vans, can't it?" This speaker was almost 6 foot tall, and had a mischievous air about him. He had jet black hair, spiked up in such a way it made him look like he had a hedgehog on his head. He had blue eyes, and was wearing orange ¾ length shorts, and a yellow t-shirt.
"Ben, you're so full of crap, you know that." This was another boy, who spoke with a thick Irish accent and was throwing a tennis ball against a wall, and catching it. He was over 6 feet tall, and had dusty black hair and almost black eyes. He was wearing a green t-shirt and nondescript green trousers.
"Bollocks to you, Steve." came the reply from the one referred to as Steve.
"Will you two shut up and concentrate." This was the blond haired girl again.
"Sorry Sara." said Steve.
"Yeah, sorry. Won't happen again." Ben said, sullenly.
From a chair in front of a huge array of monitors and keyboards, and Indian voice said, "Um, we are having a problem."
"What's wrong, Raj?" asked the girl now known as Sara.
"Um, Ten minutes til the TSC gets totalled. If we're gonna do something, we need to do it now."
"Wait. What's a TSC?" the red haired girl asked.
"Time-space Continuum." This speaker was leaning on the wall near the door to the room. He was incredibly tall, about 6 foot 7, and he had a large bandana on his head, covering his left eye. He was wearing a black shirt, and black combat trousers. His visible eye was grey. He was also wearing the same type of trainers as Sara's, but bigger.
"Dave, ten minutes. What are we gonna do?" asked Sara.
"Well, the book says there's no way of stopping it. I say we find the most stable reality, and try to steer as many mainstream storylines onto it as possible. Then, just before the crash, me and Emma'll go there, and try to sort things out from the inside. I get a felling we'll need all the character help we can get."
"Whoa, wait a minute. Why me? I haven't had any experience of anything like this. What if I screw up?"
"Honey, no-one's had experience of anything like this. It's a 'once in the entire existence of the multiverse' kinda thing."
"Yeah, but why me? I'm inexperienced in these things anyway."
"Well, the others'll have to be here to bring us back, and I can't do it alone."
"You do realize that this stunt'll put some incredible stress on the timeline we focus on?" said Sara
"Yeah, no shit. I'm not happy about this either, but it's the only choice we have, apart from stand around doing nothing."
"Don't we kinda do that anyway?" Ben asked.
"Shut up, man." said Steve.
"Fine," said Sara," You two get ready, we'll find a timeline."
---------------------------------------------------------
Backed into a corner, the girl considered her best move. She could try fighting the huge, lion like beast, and die. She could try running away, and die, or she could climb up the cliff, fall of and die. The ninja started to sob to herself. Great, she thought, this is how I die, then? Mauled to death by I creature that appeared out of thin air. This is the end of Yuffie Kisaragi.
---------------------------------------------------------
Staring out to sea, the knight sighed. It had been a year since she had decided to start the search for her love again, and so far, there was nothing but more rumours about his death and wild goose chases.
"Why stare at water? Is tasty?"
The dragon knight laughed.
"No Quina. I was just… never mind."
"Freya come, eat. Is good" the Gourmand said to the sullen knight.
"Ok. Thanks Quina."
As the clown faced Qu waddled off to attend to the meal it had been preparing, Freya sighed.
"Sir Frattley, where are you?"
Suddenly, a large red jelly like creature appeared out of the sky.
"What… what is it?"
The creature bunched itself up, then let loose a flurry of volcanic blasts, knocking the knight off the cliff
---------------------------------------------------------
"Fifteen seconds to impact. It's been nice knowing you guys" cried Buddy.
"YUNIE! What are we going to do?" the Blonde haired girl said, amidst sobs.
"I…I don't know." the high summoner replied.
"Ten seconds"
"And now, it ends." said Paine softly, to herself.
"Twenty five seconds… Hey. What's going on here?"
Well, it's been…Buddy, did you just say fifteen, then ten, then twenty five?" asked Brother.
"Yeah… this is really weird"
As the Celsius continued it's strange descent, a dull grey light surrounded Yuna, Rikku and Paine.
---------------------------------------------------------
As the monster lunged, the ninja leapt up and drew her shuriken, plunging it's point right into the monsters back.
"YEAH! Serves you right for trying to mess with the great ninja, Yuffie!"
The creature merely roared and pulled the star out of it's back, and snapped it. With one sweep of it's claw, it picked up the girl, and held her up to look at.
"HELP!!" she shouted
Suddenly she was enveloped in a grey light.
"What the…"
---------------------------------------------------------
The knight reacted quickly, and dug here lance into the rock face. She then leapt up and kicked the red blob, causing it to split in half. This didn't stop the blob, which merely turned into two smaller versions of itself. It then started dividing rapidly.
"Uh oh…" was all the woman could think to say, as the blobs divided themselves every few seconds. Suddenly, a giant frog appeared in the air and dropped onto the gels, squashing them into the ground. Quina waddled up to Freya, and said, "Quina fat but not stupid! Quina eat lots of frogs, Quina get more power!"
As the two fighters recovered, a grey cloud formed around them.
---------------------------------------------------------
"What is it?" Rinoa asked.
"We think it's like the time compression that happened when we fought Ultimecia." said Quistis.
"Oh, man! Don't tell me we're gonna have to fight her again?" said Zell.
"I do not believe that this is her doing, although I can sense her power being used," said Edea, almost in a whisper, "and what's worrying me is that there's more than one evil influence in the swirls."
"ORDERS?" asked Fujin.
"Make sure people don't panic, and be prepared to fight at any time. Junction with your assigned guardians now, and try to calm people down."
"That's all very well and good, but who's going to calm us down? Last I saw Selphie, she'd locked herself in the bathroom and didn't want to come out." said Irvine.
As they set out to do their assigned duties and tasks, only Nida, the Garden's pilot, saw that the swirls of energy had turned grey.
---------------------------------------------------------
"OK. That's the last of them."
"Good. This isn't going to be any fun, so I need you guys to be alert. Set up shifts, so no-one's tired on the job, ok? Emma, pick up the strategy guides, I get a feeling that we'll need them."
"Right!"
She rushed over to a television, where a large pile of magazines sat.
"Dave, you be careful, ok?" Sara said.
"You know me."
"Exactly. We'll get the bastard that did this, won't we?"
"Course. Ok, tell me who and where are we going to be dealing with?"
"Well, you're going to 8, and we've managed to divert all of the x2 girls, the clown, the rat from 9, and the thief from 7."
"WHAT?! You mean I've got to deal with two gung ho psychopaths, two manic depressants and two hyper freaks? Oh, thank you very much. You know how I am with people skills."
"That's why Emma's going. Anyway, quit your bitching, it was the best we could do."
"Twenty seconds to collapse."
"You'll be going in just before it happens, we'll be using one of the echoes, so good luck."
"We'll need it. You ready?"
"Yep" said Emma.
"OK. Lets go!"
---------------------------------------------------------
The following event can only really be described thus:
Every single decision that has ever been made in the past, present and future has a number of different outcomes. Each one of these different outcomes gets lived out, in what can only be described as parallel universes. There is an infinite amount of them. However, I doesn't stop there. Every action, not just every decision, has it's own infinite amount of different possibilities. The Event about to happen here, known as a "Time Crush", compresses all of these different points of the multiverse into an area about the rough size and shape of a potato, chucks it into a blender and expands the result. However, before this happens, it sends echoes of this back into the past, causing hilarious mishaps all round.
As you may have guessed, this causes a lot of confusion and general milling around whilst everyone waits for the apocalypse to happen.
---------------------------------------------------------
There are some great and legendary stories on this planet. Little red riding hood, King Arthur and his knights to name but a few. Now not many people… no, not many sane people would believe that they're all true. Every single one of them, even the one about the pigs and the wolf. And the one about the guy who turned water into wine. Not only that, but most of them get played out all the time. There is a great power within these stories, and if an individual can guide the story to it's completion, then that individual can harness the power contained within this story. It has only ever happened once.
This story is the result of one of the echoes from the Time Crush.
(AUTHORS NOTE: Well, here it is, the start of my legacy to the world. I'm really looking forward to sitting staring at my empty inbox waiting for someone on the other side of the world say I'm an ok writer. Many thanks to Diablo for giving me great vegetable related inspiration. I would also like to thank Ben for inspiring his character, and I'd like to say to Brid, you're character's coming in later.)