Written by saka, June 20, 2003
saka[at]belvedia.net
Pre-story Notes:
The whole story will aim to try and fill in the blank of Jet's life before he meets his traveling buddies. Like his relationship with Virginia's father Werner Maxwell. In the game when Virginia was going all whacky about her father, no one ever really cared to ask Jet how he was doing… which I thought was weird, because Werner practically raised the damn kid. Also has some filler-ins for Elliot Enduro, as well as clearing some things up on the borderline relationship with Jet and Virginia (there is NO romance between them in this story though. Sorry J/V fans). Has spoilers from up to the final dungeon (I haven't beaten the game yet). This will probably lead up to 3 or 4 chapters., but maybe more or less depending on how well I plan the chapters or something. Please give me your opinions, and support me through! Please?
Wild ARMS Advanced 3rd and all related characters are © Media Vision and Sony. The story's all mine. No touchy.
Hallucino
Chapter 1: Adam and Jet
"Open your eyes."
"Do you hear me? Open your eyes."
That's such an easy thing to say.
I open them, and I see the old woman concentrating hard on me. I blink slowly, the kind of blink you make when you've just woken up. I rub my eyes and give a loud, rude yawn.
"Jet, you've said quite a handful," she tells me. She scratches the end of her wrinkled, bumpy nose, and then hands me a notebook. "I recorded everything, right from the very beginning of the session. Would you like to read it?"
I shake my head, trying to decipher her words. My sleepiness is still intact. I squeeze my eyes shut, replaying in my mind what she had just said. "Uh… yeah, sure, let me see." Just as I took the notebook from her hands, three people burst into the room.
"Jet! Are you done?" Virginia calls out to me, leering over my shoulder, trying to read the notebook in my hands. "Is that it? Can I read it? What happened? How do you feel?"
"Retain yourself, leader," Clive says. "One question at a time!"
Virginia gives a shy laugh. "Sorry… it's just that I got such a kick out of my session." She pulls out a notebook with a cover similar to the one I have in my hands. Written on the cover in bold black marker was the words VIRGINIA'S PSYCHIC READING. "I talked about my dad a lot… and my aunt and uncle, and lots of other things. It was pretty surreal."
Gallows shakes his own copy of his session in the air. "Yeah, I told you already that I said a lot of stuff about the future. Maybe Shane's rubbing off on me!"
Clive readjusts his rimless glasses like he always does when he's about to say or ask something smart. "This practice of yours is very clever," he tells the old woman. "It's amazing how a couple of words can contact the subconscious. Is it popular with the children?"
"Yes, hypnosis is a very powerful medium," the old woman said, scratching the tip of her nose again. "It may seem like a game to you, but it surely is not something to play around with. You can learn a lot of things about yourself… but you can also surface things you are not ready to handle just yet." And she stares right at me.
I feel uncomfortable.
"Now please, Jet needs his privacy," the old woman ushers, and escorts my acquaintances out of the room.
"If it's not a game to play around with, then why do you promote it like it was?" I ask her when comes back to her desk in front of me. I paid her almost $10,000 for this "psychic reading of a lifetime."
The woman shrugs. "Good business, I suppose." She gives a hearty laugh that I cringe at, and she points at the notebook still in my hands.
"Go on. Read it," she says. "I think you'll find it very interesting."
I look down and see her handwriting. It's nice and elegant looking; her writing held a forward slant and went into a continuous cursive structure. A little too fancy though, I think. Some of the words are hard to read. But I don't have to read it. I don't have to ready any of it.
In my mind it's already playing a movie of what I saw.
I remember everything.
Three.
Two.
One.
What do you see?
I looked around. "I see children playing… I guess I'm in some kind of town."
Do you know what town it is?
"No… no, wait." Just as I said that, I saw a signpost marking the town's name. It was scratched up though, so it was hard to make out. "It's… Little… uh, something. Dammit, I can't read this sign."
That's okay, you don't have to know. What else do you see?
There was not much else to tell about the town. It looked rather plain and dull. So I tried to see if there was anything else I could talk about the children. "Um… the kids look about 10… I dunno, that's about it."
Okay, that's good. Are there any houses around?
"Yeah, I guess I'll take a look around," I said. There was a small wooden house that looked inviting, so I chose to check that out.
Entering the house felt nostalgic. "I think I've been in this house before."
Have you visited it before?
"No… I don't think… I don't remember."
This may sound strange, but could you tell me your name?
That was a strange question to ask. But I decided to bite. "Adam Kadmon."
Hmm, okay. Thank you, Adam. Tell me; is there anyone in the house? Or anything you see that's odd?
A kid, who looked about 11 or 12, came running down the stairs like something was chasing him. The boy saw me, and immediately latched onto my leg. "Hey! Kid, what the hell are you doing?"
The kid buried his face into the waist of my shirt, not looking up. "Hide me! Please, hide me!"
Adam? What's wrong?
I wasn't sure of what to do, so I tried to pry the kid off me when I heard a booming voice from upstairs.
"JET!! YOU GET UP HERE NOW, YOUNG MAN!!!"
The kid whimpered and whispered to me, sounding like a hiss. "Hide me! I know you're a stranger, but hide me!! Please!!"
Adam? Are you there? What's wrong?
"I dunno, but something," I muttered. This whole situation was giving me the creeps, so I was about to leave when that monster of a voice came roaring back again.
"JET!!! Goddammit, you come up here now or you know what's gonna happen!!"
I was wondering what "what" was when the boy let of my leg, grabbed my hand, and dragged me out of the house. I didn't have a clue of what was going on, but I definitely felt the kid's fear. He was dead frightened of that guy. Whoever he was. Sooner we were both crouched down under a bridge damp with rats and algae.
"Sickening, man," I complained, squirming around, being paranoid about getting algae on my skin. "What's with all this?"
Adam? Who are you talking to?
I wasn't sure of how to answer. I didn't want to sound like I was talking to myself like a lunatic. Taking refuse under an infested bridge was lunatic enough. I tried to be smooth about it. "Um, hey, kid? I mean, Jet, right? What was up with that guy at your house? He sounded really pissed at something."
Jet wiped his eyes and nodded. "That was my dad. I did something bad… I was jumping around and I a-accidentally broke a lamp." He was trembling as he said this, as if he had said he had just committed murder or something.
I sighed impatiently. "Kid, it's a lamp. Your dad can buy a new one," I said to him. "Why's he getting so bitched up about it?"
"He gets mad at EVERYTHING!" Jet's voice raised suddenly, and started crying again, hiccupping his words. "H-he's always getting m-mad at such s-stupid things! L-like breaking something, o-or missing a train! He scares me!!"
I was inferring something from this, but I wanted to make sure. "Does the guy hit you sometimes?"
Jet wiped his eyes again and sniffled. "All the time."
"What a jerk," I said.
Jet chuckled lightly and hugged his knees. "Wow… no one's ever told me that before."
I gave him a funny look. "You haven't told people about your dad?"
He shook his head. "No… I don't see any reason to. There's too much trouble."
"Trouble my ass!!" I yelled, quite loudly I may add. "The jerk's kicking you around and you're just gonna take it like a bitch, huh?! I don't think so! Why don't you run away? Why don't you fight back?!"
"Because I can't!!" Jet screamed back. "I can't fight back! He'll only hurt me more if I do! There's nothing I can do about it!!"
Adam?
"You could get rid of yourself."
Adam?
"What do you mean?" Jet asked. Even though he asked, I think he knew what I meant.
"I mean, you could get rid of yourself."
Jet looked down at his feet. "I… I can't do that. It's too scary."
I took out a small vial from my pocket. "I can help."
Jet's face became flushed and his breathing turned into heaving. "What… what is that?"
I snuck closer to him and gave him a closer look to the vial. "It'll make you sick. It works really slowly; it'll take a couple weeks for the symptoms to even show up, and you'll eventually die of it in a couple months. Call it pneumonia-in-a-bottle."
Adam, what are you talking about?
Jet's small hands graced vile, and then took it. He nodded in a blank consent. "Thank you."
That's when I wondered where I got that poison. I don't remember ever getting it. But for some reason I can remember taking it. I don't know… I don't get it.
"Uh… sir?" I looked up to see a little kid, one of the kids I saw playing, staring at me strange. "What are you doing?"
I shrugged. None of his damn business. "Nothing."
"Who are you talking to?"
"Hey, kid, are you blind?" I pointed to Jet, who was looking squeamish with the vial in his hands. "I'm talking to a dumb kid!"
The child, dead silent, looked over to where I was pointing, stared, and then looked back at me.
"Sir… there's no one there."
Adam? Why are you talking to yourself?
I looked at Jet. I saw him there. He just stared silently at me.
Was he there?
Was I here?
Where the hell was I?
"You're nowhere."
A sudden voice from behind me made me turn around. Once I did, I realized that I wasn't in a small, nameless town anymore. I didn't even feel like the same person anymore. Once I turned around, I found myself watching people from inside a chamber, like I was inside a laboratory.
"Energy transfusion is 99.8% complete," I heard a woman say. "He almost done."
A man walked up to me and placed his hand on the window. I saw his pale handprint from where I was. "He's almost done… yes, finally…"
I knew him. I knew him because he gave me a pang of fear. I wanted him to go away.
"You know how I feel then."
The voice rose again. I saw him, but he wasn't in the room. I saw him in my mind. Jet. He looked older by a couple years, but was looking better than ever. He was sitting there in the darkness of my mind, laughing at me in a tone that gave me chills.
"Feel about what?" I said coldly. "It was YOUR dad that threw you around, not mine."
"But you feel the anger, don't you? You and I are connected." Jet pointed at the people outside my mind. "Do you know who those people are? They're scientists. They created you. They created you to be their Adam Kadmon, but they're going to call you Jet Enduro. Me."
"Didn't you kill yourself?" I asked. I knew the answer, duh. I just wanted to hear it from him.
"Oh yeah, sure did." Jet yawned. "Everyone thought I just caught something. It was the most painful, horrible experience I ever had. Eh, the throwing up blood and 110 fevers weren't so bad. Dad kept beating me, telling me to get over it. So guess what? I eventually died.
"You know what the scariest part is?" he chuckled and pointed at the man who was eagerly looking at me through the chamber. "Dad wants you to be Jet."
That was scary.
Who wants you to be Jet?
"Dad wants to start over," Jet said, sounding bored and uninterested. "He thinks that if he can create you again, he'll be a better father this time. Whatever! It won't work."
"Why not?" I asked.
"Because he won't change," he said, this time much more serious in his tone. "He'll never change. Never."
Elliot Enduro.
Jet wanted to get away from him so bad that he killed himself to do so.
"You are such a pussy," I said to him.
Jet scowled. "Why is that?!"
"So he loses his temper when things go wrong!! So he hit you! So gives a fuck!" I was feeling really heated up. I didn't know why. Maybe it was because I was against the whole suicide thing, or maybe it was because I was against suicide and I went through with it… sort of. "You were only 12 years old… you never thought that sooner or later the pain would all just go away?"
Jet snickered.
"What's so funny, dammit?!"
He gave me an eerie smile. "That's so easy for you to say."
As I stared at him, he playfully looked down at the scientists outside. "Maybe you're just jealous that my problems are over and yours have only begun."
He snickered again. "You've got a world of problems ahead of you. You're going to have to see the world and how much you mean to it. You're going to have to see the world. See it."
I was feeling scared again. Scared of Elliot. I didn't want to go. I wanted someone to hide me. I wanted someone to hide me and offer me a way to escape. But I was alone in this one.
Jet won't return this favor. He's done.
"Maybe you'll be lucky," Jet added. "Maybe someone'll save you like you saved me. Sorry I can't do that for you… but I'll be sure to meet you up there when your time's up, okay?"
I nodded with a blank face. And he was gone.
And he never came back.
Elliot wanted to love me. But I knew he couldn't. His love was of obligation, a paternal love he had never dared to feel and never did feel. In return, I didn't want to be near him. But I had to meet him.
But not before I met Werner Maxwell.
He was the first person I heard when I was complete. He was the one who told me for the first time
Open your eyes.
Do you hear me? Open your eyes.
That's such an easy thing to say.
Sub-story Notes:
It could be too serious for Wild ARMS… I don't think the game's THAT serious… actually I think it's pretty whimsical, which is why I wrote comedy stories for it first. But I couldn't resist this idea; the plot hole on Jet's past is way too big.
So please, give me your opinions, criticism, flames, I don't care. Just talk! Please?