Heroes needed. Inquire Within.
By: Ninn
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You know, I don't really know.
Just read it.
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It all started innocently. A simple sidequest to get an ultra
powerful materia. Everything
necessary had been done, but the chocobo had never ridden on water
- not even a
puddle - and didn't know how to. It did decent for the first half,
even if it was sinking
slowly. The riders didn't notice until it was too late, and everyone
was on the bird, so no
one was left on land. They couldn't turn back, and they couldn't swim
the distance necessary.
It ended in tragedy.
Not just for them, but for the planet.
Or did it?
Well........
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............
............
............
............
......Sorry.
No one knew what had happened. Ok, maybe that's a bit of a lie.
One person knew what had
happened. How could he not? He was the person that was waiting patiently
for them to come
to the crater and destroy him.
...You do know who I'm talking about, right? Right?
*Ninn listens intently and hears crickets chirping*
I'll take that as a yes...
Sepiwoth had been floating in the middle of the crater when it
happened. Actually, the only reason
he knew was because of the chocobo they had been riding - it had been
an experimental chocobo,
and it had belonged to him for a while, so he had become connected
with it. He couldn't care less
about what it had taken with it, but he also knew that it was his destiny
to be destroyed in a matter
of days. And Sepiwoth wasn't going to let a silly little problem like
that stand in the way of his destruction.
So, he began to formulate an idea. An idea so genius that only
someone as smart as he would be
able to come up with it.
...Or something like that...
Actually the idea was rather dumb, but Sepiwoth wasn't about to
admit that. And he continued working
on it, day in and day out. It wasn't really that tough, but his photocopier
had been broken the last time the
Lifestream had leaked through the walls, and it took a long time to
write out thousands of fliers.
Finally, he threw his pen across the room and leaned back on the
rock he had been sitting on. Surveying
his work he slowly stood and gathered up the fliers, which he then
placed in his magical backpack*.
*You know, the item screen. Allows an unlimited
amount of items.... *groans*
All the fliers but one, actually, which he carried with him to
place on the entrance of the crater. After all,
it was a hidden entrance, and for his plan to work people would have
to be able to find it.
Sepiwoth then found himself with a problem. He had to get to the
main continent, he had no gold chocobo,
didn't feel like floating over, and had a feeling that it was too cold
to swim over. So he stood there, looking
quite idiotic, until he spotted a glimmer of silver in the distance,
which, upon closer inspection, turned out to
be the Higwind. Apparently it had been abandoned when they took the
chocobo to the island.
It took him awhile to get it open, and even longer to figure out
how to fly it. One stick and a couple of buttons
are kind of confusing, especially when labeled "Side to Side", "Forward",
"Reverse", and "Land".
Somehow he managed to get down to the main continent, and accidentally
landed on top of Kalm, crushing half
of it, and wrecking the Highwind. Sepiwoth didn't care about that though,
he could get back easily.
So he wandered around Kalm, handing out flyers until people started to get mad. Then he ran - quickly.
He then went to the Chocobo Farm, and stole a gold chocobo that
just happened to be grazing in the field,
and visited every town on the planet, and in each place he got the
same reaction he did in Kalm. The get out
or die reaction.
And that wasn't part of his plan. That wasn't how he was going
to be destroyed, that would just be embarrassing.
So he handed out the flyers and made his way back to the crater, grateful
that his chocobo could walk on
water - he had accidentally passed where the other had sunk...
By the time he made it back to the crater, the was a long line
outside, so he took the back way in and made
it to the center where his nice comfortable rock chair was. The crowd
could wait.
**I'll bet you're wondering what the flyer said. Well,
here it is.
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Heroes Needed. Inquire Within.
North Crater
Do you want to become famous?
A legend?
Can you use any type of weapon?
A sword? A rifle? Even a pea-shooter?
Can you fight? Even bar fights are good.
Will you be willing to kill me?
If yes to all of these, come to the North
Crater.
8 will be chosen.
-Sepiwoth
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A few hours later, Sepiwoth decided to go up and pick the eight
people. He was supposed to have
been destroyed thirty minutes ago, and he always liked keeping a tight
schedule.
He had to kill a few creatures on the way up, but that wasn't
a big deal, he just wanted to get this over
with. He found it annoying that the freak accident had happened, and
that he had to do this. He'd much
rather be destroyed by the group that had been following him for the
past weeks, not a group of unknowns.
He wasn't even going to ask for names, just pick randomly. He
wouldn't even put up much of a fight.
Maybe he'd take out two of them and then do nothing. Or just use the
reduce HP to 1 attack over
and over.
Sepiwoth had to stop thinking when he got to the entrance.
There was a collective gasp from the people standing there, and
suddenly eight of them were floating in
the air. They flailed a bit, and disappeared.
Sepiwoth disappeared back into the crater and the group of people,
now disappointed, wandered back
to wherever they had come from.
Back in the middle of the crater, everything had turned a shimmery
green, and the group of eight was
standing in the middle of it, staring at it, staring at each other,
staring at Sepiwoth, then staring at the
shimmery green again.
Two of them took pictures of the shimmery green, and one took a picture of Sepiwoth.
Sepiwoth groaned, and poked the one who had taken his picture with his sword.
The person gasped, and whipped out a ............ PEA-SHOOTER!
The other weapons of the group weren't much better. Two broken
sticks, one rusty gun that was empty,
a rock, the hilt of a sword, a long piece of string, and a frisbee
with serrated edges.
Sepiwoth groaned again as he got hit in the forehead with a pea.
This was going to be a long, boring battle.
He stood there like an idiot as he got pelted with peas, poked with
sticks, thumped with the sword hilt and
empty gun, whipped with the string, and scratched with the frisbee.
The people, on the other hand, were having a good time. They all
liked fighting, and never got to beat up
on someone without getting in trouble. And the fact that they got to
kill the person? Well, that made them
even happier, especially since they wouldn't get in trouble for it!
Sepiwoth stood there for hours, too dumbfounded to even attack,
until he got tired. Then he took a nap,
he was too bored to stay awake.
He woke a few hours later, smiling. He had been dreaming that
things were happening the way they were
supposed to. He could almost imagine that it was really happening.....
Until he got pegged with another pea.
Finally remembering to attack, he reduced everyone's HP to one,
and was disappointed when they didn't
heal, or even seem to notice what had happened.
Soon, he got fed up with the peas and everything else, and drew
his sword, walked over to one of the people
holding a broken stick, removed the stick from her hand, and replaced
it with his sword.
She stared at it for a while, then cautiously poked him with it.
Sepiwoth was pleased to see white numbers appear above his head.
She poked him again, then got a bit more aggressive, and slashed a few times.
And yet another pea hit him.
Sepiwoth deflected the next pea, and threw a piece of materia he found at the person with the pea shooter.
The piece of materia hit him in the forehead.
He groaned. Why did he have to mention Pea-Shooter?
But at least the girl with his sword was still using it.
Sepiwoth looked at his watch, and saw that he was over five hours behind his schedule.
The girl wasn't as weak as she had originally appeared, but while
no means his match, she was ok. She had
taken half his HP and was still going at it. She and the pea shooter
guy, everyone else was just watching.
Sepiwoth sat down and pulled a deck of cards out of the magical
backpack, and began to play solitaire. He
was just about to place the winning card on his fifth game when she
struck and he disappeared.
In the crater, the 8 people stared in awe, then panicked and ran.
So.......
What started innocently and ended in tragedy
didn't really end in tragedy.
Just 8 people being called heroes for something they
barely did.
And 8 people who were really heroes
ended up dead.
And the bad guy,
well,
he didn't really do anything.
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I still have no idea. I don't know
where that came from, I don't know
why I kept writing it, but, I kinda
like it.
Did you?
Well, you have to admit, it was original.
Yes, the spelling of Sepiwoth was intentional.