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"Don't Jump, Kain! Don't Jump!"
by Anna-mathe
NOTE: This does not happen in the game
. . . . not that it couldn't. There's nothing to say that perhaps it didn't,
except for the simple reason that it didn't. The reason I write this story
is not only for all others who were extremely annoyed by the line "Jump,
Kain, Jump!", but because it could have happened, although it didn't.
Pop it into the storyline just about
anywhere you like between chasing Golbez and FuSoYa to the Moon and actually
finding them.
"EvilMask!" Rosa yelled, spotting the
monster before the others.
It had caught them by surprise. Before
anyone could make a move, it fired a Wall upon itself.
"Dang it," Rydia muttered, having hoped
to fire some sort of spell on the creature. They'd been walking for a long
time, and in the interest of saving MP, Cures had not been used liberally.
She herself was rating about half her HP, and had wanted to get through
this battle as soon as possible without using the MP it would take to call.
They were saving their assets, because none of them were sure what would
confront them when they tracked down FuSoYa and Golbez . . . and Zemus.
"Aren't you used to it by now?" Cecil
inquired, charging past her, lunging at the monster with his sword.
"Every EvilMask does the exact thing,"
Edge muttered more to himself than to the others. "I hate these things.
They're so annoying." He drew his own two swords and also attacked the
monster.
The EvilMask growled at them and fired
Walls at the party.
Rosa fumed and grabbed her bow. No
matter how many times they went through this, it grew no less irritating
to be unable to Cure and Heal her own people.
"Jump, Kain, jump!" Cecil prompted
the Dragoon.
"Jumping, sir!" Kain replied with a
mock salute as he leapt into the air.
"I hate these things!" Rydia informed
the others as she swung at it with her whip. "And there're so many of them!
Where do they come from?!"
"Checked under any rocks lately?" Edge
quipped.
Rosa was about to shoot at the Mask,
but thought the better of it and parried.
The Mask growled again and cast White
on itself. It reflected off the Wall and bounced at the small party.
"Ack! Duck!" Cecil called in warning
to Rydia, who shrieked something undecipherable as the force of the White
spell hit her head on. She swooned into an unconscious heap on the ground.
Kain slashed out at the Mask and landed
back in his place.
"Did I miss anything?" he asked in
a coy voice.
"Oooooh, shut up," Rosa mumbled under
her breath, chanting out the Life spell over Rydia. At least when she
swooned, the Wall wore off.
"Keep jumping," Cecil shortly ordered,
again rushing at the Mask. Kain's jump was the most powerful attack they
had, not including the magic ones.
Kain shook his head and glowered at
the Mask.
"I hate you," he stated with a grin,
watching the monster's outraged expression as he again took to the air.
The Mask growled continually louder.
For a moment, Rosa thought it was going to cast White again, but then realized
from its words that it was actually casting -
"Edge!" she yelled.
It was too late. The Charm spell had
reflected off the monster's Wall and right into the face of the Ninja.
He looked at her with unrecognizing eyes and slashed at her with his swords.
She recoiled from the blow and began
her Heal spell.
"Rosa, don't - " Cecil called to her
too late, reminding her about the Wall around the Ninja the moment she'd
finished casting it. The Heal instead reflected back to the Mask.
"Oops," she grumbled under her breath.
Edge was still under the Charm spell.
Rydia lashed out at the Mask, but succeeded
in taking off no more damage than she usually did. She had to face it:
being a Caller meant that you were a somewhat crummy fighter.
The Mask cast a refreshing Wall over
itself as Kain struck it again.
"Now what did I miss?!" he demanded,
noting that Rydia was steamed, Rosa had the appearance of someone who had
done something exceedingly stupid, and Edge was brainwashed.
"Just keep jumping!!" Cecil, Rydia,
and Rosa all hissed at him.
Cecil attacked the monster again, telling
him to jump as soon as he was able.
Kain considered the thought that he
was jumping his life away, or that one of these days he would jump to high,
and the airless upper atmosphere would cause him to die of lack of oxygen
to the brain. But he jumped anyway.
The Mask was still growling. Still.
Growling. Just like every other EvilMask they'd fought. Augh. It cast another
Charm, this one hitting Rosa.
"Uh oh!" Rydia exclaimed, shooting
caution and beginning the chant to Call Leviathan.
It was a long spell to cast. While
she was still chanting, Edge lashed out with his blades, this time hitting
Cecil, who yelped in surprise, then began a Heal spell, hoping that the
Wall had worn off the Ninja.
Kain swooped down again, swiping at
the EvilMask.
"Don't even ask!!" Rydia snapped before
he could even open his mouth. As soon as the words were out of her mouth,
the monster fired another Charm, this one hitting the Caller before she
could finish summoning the King of Monsters.
"Cecil, I have a Heal left - " Kain
began, going through his items.
"No, mumble mumble, just, mumble, keep
jumping," Cecil instructed while chanting the Heal spell. "I can, mumble
mumble, handle it." He finished casting his spell, and Edge suddenly shook
his head and looked around himself in confusion.
"Huh?" he asked, still bewildered.
Then, acting with a part of his mind
still numbed by the Charm, he lashed out at Kain.
"Whoops! Sorry!" he said sheepishly,
as the Dragoon sighed and jumped.
Cecil again began the Healing spell,
but before he could even half complete it, Rosa stepped forward with a
Charmed spell of her own.
"Exit!" she called.
Blinking as the world wavered around
them, the four members of the party were transported from the battle scene
. . . or maybe it was the monster who vanished, because they were still
in the same place they'd been a moment ago . . . anyway, the EvilMask was
gone.
"O-o-oh!" Rosa exclaimed as her senses
returned. Likewise said Rydia.
"Well," Cecil sighed, sheathing his
weapon, "I may not like to run like that, but at least it restored everyone
to their senses."
"Yeah, now please Cure! I'm almost
dead," Rydia informed Rosa, who grinned and was about to begin a Cure,
but was cut off by a question from Edge.
"Hey," the Ninja inquired, "where's
Kain?"
Cecil threw a startled glance around
and up, but could find no trace of the Dragoon.
"What could've happened to him?!" Rydia
asked, her eyes wide with astonishment.
"Maybe . . . " Rosa wondered aloud.
"I wonder if maybe, because I cast a Charmed Exit while he was in the air
. . . I don't know . . . something went wrong somewhere?"
"Whatever happened," Cecil firmly stated,
"we've gotta figure out how to bring him back before we go any further!"
Kain had just reached the peak of his
jump. Bracing himself for the impact of his attack, he looked down on the
scene below to check his aim just in time to see Rosa cast the Charmed
Exit spell. He rolled his eyes, really hating it when they Exited when
he was in the air. It was just humiliating to have to land again and put
up with Edge's wisecracks about how far they could've gotten if they weren't
waiting for him to come down from out of the clouds.
As the waver evaporated the world around
his friends below, the air around him also wavered and vanished, but instead
of him reappearing in the air and landing back on the ground as usual,
the waver didn't end.
Slowly, though, it began to dim. He
could still feel the magical tingle all around him, as if the Exit spell
had just been cast, and he also maintained the feeling of the air rushing
past him. It was as if he was still jumping, but he didn't know where he
was, or where he was going.
After what seemed like an eternity
for the nervous Dragoon, the space around him lost the appearance of wavering
and was a steady black. The sensation of movement suddenly halted, and
was replaced by a cold chill. And the magical tingle persisted.
Okay . . . this is new.
For a moment, he felt frozen and couldn't
move, but then he could, so he turned his head and looked around for .
. . something.
All around him, above him, and below
him was nothing. Total darkness. Nothing.
As a test, he crouched down and put
his fingers to where the ground, floor, or some sort of support for his
feet should have been. His hand went through as far down as he could reach.
It would appear that he wasn't standing on anything. He was just floating
there.
Wherever here is.
His nervousness increasing, Kain gingerly
picked up one foot and attempted to step forward. Startled, he snapped
his foot back when he couldn't get footing anywhere, and found that he
couldn't even seem to replace his step back to where it had been.
Great, now what? Do I fall?
So he stood there, balancing tentatively
on one foot, debating over what he could possibly do about this situation,
when a voice from behind him startled him to the point of losing his remaining
footing.
"Kain? What are you doing here?"
He lost his footing and hit the floor.
The floor? He was lying on something. Or was something nothing? Deciding
not to think about it, he got back up on his feet, somehow.
This is too, too, weird.
"Well? What are you doing here?"
Turning around in annoyance to face
the person who had caused him such an embarrassment, he was prepared to
give a fiery reply, but stopped short when he recognized the face before
him. A face he'd seen only once, but had haunted him constantly ever since
that one sight.
The woman crossed her arms and tapped
her foot.
"C'mon, Kain. You're not dead yet.
Why are you here?"
"But you're - "
"I? Well, I'm so glad you remember
me. I suppose it's the least you can do, after killing me the way you did."
"You're Rydia's mother!"
"Well of course I'm Rydia's mother!"
Kain blinked in disbelief.
"But . . . you're dead! Cecil and I
killed you! Sorry about that, by the way."
"Oh, that's just fine. Sorry, he says.
Sorry. Humph."
Now at a total loss for words, the
Dragoon fumbled a bit for something to say.
"Yeah, see, uh, we didn't realize that
we were - "
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