Chapter 1: Terrifying Tutorials!
Please enter your name.
Well? Enter. Your. Name.
Hellooo?
Oh, yeah. I forgot. This isn't OFF – the game anymore. Now it's OFF – the fanfiction rewrite made by a really bored dude in his spare time.
Well, we'll submit your name as Adam, for convenience's sake.
Listen carefully – you have been assigned to The Batter, a man with the sole purpose of purifying the zones of this world. Make sure he doesn't destroy the universe or something, heh heh heh.
A tall, slender man wearing monochrome baseball garb stood on what seemed like a sort of bridge to a tall building, blinking away the sudden bright colours and light.
So, this must be zone 0. He thought to himself as he walked steadily across the bridge of yellow metal. Doesn't look like much.
Suddenly, an enigmatic looking cat with an unsettling grin strode out of one of the doors of the building and stopped in front of The Batter. He didn't look half surprised, for he knew exactly who this feline was.
"You must be The Judge." The Batter said, clutching his baseball bat.
The cat regarded the newcomer and its grin got even wider.
"The Judge or THE Judge?" He asked. "That, my monochromatic hallucination, is one of the omnipresent questions I ask myself every day in this lieu."
"I am not a figment of your imagination." The batter replied. "I am made of flesh and blood. I was told you could help me in combating the ectoplasmic threat to this land."
The Judge continued fixing The Batter with his calculating stare, and then shrugged as well as a cat can shrug.
"I can indeed help you on your quest, though I confess I find the notion of clearing the world of ectoplasms laughable, to say the least."
The Batter seemed to be satisfied by the exchange, though his face remained as unfathomable as ever. "Sure."
The Judge nodded. "Let us begin your training then, Batter and Adam."
The Batter was just about to follow The Judge when he stopped. "How do you know of Adam?"
The Judge blinked, then replied:
"I am not sure as to how, but I suspect that it is due to my extraordinary cat eyes."
And, before The Batter could start poking holes in his rather feeble explanation, The Judge sauntered up to a ladder and began to climb it.
"Well, what are you waiting for?" The Judge purred. "I suspect even your unremarkable brain can comprehend THIS task."
But it seemed The Batter was not interested in climbing ladders; he had started rummaging inside the few chests littered around the warehouse's exterior, pulling out luck tickets and cuts of meat.
"I would rather you focused on the task at hand-" The Judge called down, but The Batter had already looted all of the chests, apart from the one hidden behind a yellow cube. The sports pyjama wearing clown, now satisfied in acquiring various healing items, finally climbed up the ladder to meet The Judge.
"…Lovely." The Judge said feebly. "Now, inside this warehouse there are several puzzles, each of which are designed to mimic the puzzles you will encounter on your quest in the other 4 zones. I would like you to solve them."
The puzzles were rather menial – nearly all of them involved pushing blocks down in a specific order. One of the puzzles made the yellow cube blocking the way to an aforementioned chest disappear, which The Batter shamelessly opened and looted, leaving with a piece of Silver Flesh.
After finishing all the puzzles, The Batter went up to The Judge, who nodded approvingly.
"Very good," he purred. "Now, in order to leave my lovely little zone and enter Zone 1 you will need two things, both of which are at hand."
He walked up The Batter and gave him a peculiar looking card that had the face of a lion engraved onto it.
"A zodiac card." The Judge purred. "Only with these can you enter the kingdoms of this world. Now, the second thing."
The Judge walked out of the building onto another bridge similar to the one The Batter stood on when he first arrived, except this one was slightly different. A large red box floated at the end, sticking out like a sore thumb amongst the pale yellow of Zone 0.
"This is a very handy means of transportation." The Judge said happily. "Not only can it send you almost instantaneously to The Nothingness, which can then send you to the various regions of our world, but it can help recover your HP and CP whilst simultaneously recording your progress."
The Batter looked pleased with the abilities of the somewhat unremarkable cube. "Okay then."
He walked up to the cube and put his hands on it. Almost at once he could feel the incredible energy emanating from it.
And in a flash of white light, he was gone.
The Judge continued to smile at where the capped man stood.
"A rather futile endeavour. I shall not be seeing him again." He said to himself.