This was bad, no, this was horrifying.
The slain mechanical beast stared at me with its lifeless eyes and I found myself feeling fear tearing into my mind- ruining logical thought.
I felt like a few moments ago, I was walking through a haze and had only now woken up violently from whatever dream I had found myself in. My ignorance cast aside, revealing the undeniable, ugly truth staring at me from beneath the plaster of 'fucked' I'd just pulled off.
The sensations and immaculate clarity of everything had confirmed one sobering thought to me; this was no dream, the world itself was too vibrant and colourful- the feel of the sun on the back of my neck too real, the smell of fresh greenery so earthy and nature-filled, the feel of the serpentine machine's head, it's cold, metallic smoothness beneath my touch too chilling, smooth and physical to not be reality.
Even if it wasn't the reality I knew, it was real.
This was impossible, my mind knew it to be so, but the cold and solid feel of metal as I traced the sides of the beasts head said otherwise.
The Giga Aspis was, in essence, a giant snake. It had a purple and yellow colour scheme and was the first boss in the game Megaman ZX, something that I had once played religiously -because of how small my pile of games was- and had recently lost touch with, but I had held my memories of it dearly. Now, however, those memories left an irrational pit of dread inside me that made me feel they were more like a curse.
I held a hand to my chest, my heart felt like it was beating a mile a minute and my sweat was permeating through my t-shirt. In that forest clearing, I found myself doing something that I hadn't done since I was eleven.
I cried, and I cried some more until the tears stopped flowing and my tears had dried on my face, all the while my thoughts ran rampant, paranoia seeping in.
The realisation that I may very well never see my family again made me feel hollow, like a decrepit, barren shell of my former self from mere minutes prior.
My mother was barely able to support herself, even with financial help from me and my grandmother, how she would deal without my own help now? Maybe she would be fine? Maybe she could move in with grandmother? No, she'd never leave the old place even if it killed her.
A traitorous thought in the back of my mind whispered back 'it just might'.
I felt a shiver go through me at the thought. It was too much to even think of, let alone imagine.
Rationality told me I was exaggerating, that my mother would be more than likely fine, only heartbroken- but I was in no condition to let reason take hold.
I wiped away at my face with one of my sleeves and shook my head to clear my thoughts, if only a little. I took deep breaths until I calmed down to a manageable level.
A frenzied, but silent calm came over me- around me birds chirped, blissfully unaware and ignorant of my own inner torment.
Knowledge is power and the pen is mightier than the sword, these sayings could be true in the right circumstances, so... what did I know about this 'new' place I'd been dropped in that could help me now?
What could I do to make some good out of this situation?
The nearby city, maybe even the country, relied on a security corporation called Slither Inc. owned by a man named Serpent. He wanted to sacrifice the "souls" of the populace to a machine god thing to give him some sort of power in order to initiate what I think is, in essence, an extinction event. There are some vague thought about the 'evolution of humanity' or something equally silly when I think of him, but I don't remember how it relates to his goal.
Bah, that doesn't matter, if he gets the machine god then he wins and everyone else loses, including me, that's enough to go on there.
Don't go near Slither Inc., don't piss off the security company or seem too suspicious or bad things would happen.
As far as I can remember, the only ones who can stop him are 'chosen ones', which happen to be the protagonist.
Was it... Vent? yeah, that's the one. Vent was the name of the protagonist, I'm pretty sure.
Vent lost his mother in an attack of some kind by Mavericks and that was sort of important I think? Wasn't it... yeah, at an amusement park near the forest area I just so happened to be in and was probably under the control of that purple monkey thing.
Purprill, a name I remember well, if only because he had to be one the most annoying bosses I can remember fighting in anything in the harder difficulties I'd dabbled in at times- though that might be biased, half-remembered memories talking.
I brought a hand to my chin in contemplation as a plan began to start forming, or at least the skeleton of one.
The Guardians, a group of people who wear green uniforms and red visors, were the good guys. Slither Inc. is the bad guy in this world. From this information I should be able to formulate some plan that won't end in my horrific death or being tortured. I couldn't exactly walk into town, if my memories where correct then my ears may be a giveaway that I'm not normal.
The humans of this world had strange, rectangular, white boxes that covered their ears, presumably enhancing their hearing or something else that's useful- post modern societies tend to have those sorts of perks.
The Reploids, robotic people who are basically human, also shared this unique ear accessory- they just also had a red triangle stamped on their foreheads so it was easier to tell the difference in casual conversation.
So "doing as the Romans do" isn't completely possible, but I might be able to find a way around it, failing that I'd have to wing it, which all things considered is probably not the greatest idea- but the only one I have.
Though that raised quite a few issues that where rather awkward to solve, namely being that even in my time some places where apparently thinking about putting tracking chips in their populace to better catch criminals, even if this wasn't true and I was being told lies the problem was still there.
In this world, that sort of tracking could easily be the norm and could prevent me from doing anything at all, like using doors, for all I know they could be locked through some tech fuckery I can't even begin to understand that locks them to set frequencies that only said chips could emit.
Fucking Tinkertech man.
Anyway, assuming that could be just as dangerous to my personal well being as not assuming it because I would either be questioned by authorities or starve, damned if you do, damned if you don't.
Fuck it, I knew the general way to town and, despite my lack of technological 'upgrades' of any kind that the locals possessed, I could probably walk to the nearest government-funded building and ask for assistance there, even with how crazy my story sounds the evidence for my case is overwhelming.
...Or doing so could get me sent somewhere less than satisfactory, a mental institute or a police station come to mind.
Come to think of it, I never heard hide nor tail of any government in the game. It couldn't be that none existed and I doubted that the Slither company had taken charge, if so they would have been able to do more in a quicker time frame than what they did.
The only people I could think of who might be able to help me are the Guardians or the Slither company, one was controlled by a maniac who could- and probably would- torture me for my knowledge if he ever found out about it (and didn't consider me crazy), while the other was an organisation made for helping people (I'm pretty sure anyway).
The choice was obvious... But the Guardians main base is a giant fucking airship, so how I would reach them is beyond me-
A thought hit me, and I paused.
'Wait a minute, do I still...?'
I brought down my hand to riffle through my right trouser pocket and, sure enough, I found it, a light grey and black Nokia brick. Old faithful.
That could probably be tracked. The phone was old, even by the standards of the place I'd come from (which, granted, isn't saying much with smartphones and all), but here that age would be...
What does that make me, thinking on it? I came from a world that had gone past the Mayan calender's end of the world date, and the first Megaman took place in the very specific time of "20XX". If the past of this world is anything like my own, then I might have some of the oldest human knowledge and technology, though only by technicality, in existence on my person.
At that point, would it even be traceable? The period between the technologies of this world and my own might make whatever my phone used to send messages so below this world's tech level that it isn't even monitored by anything. I could have something untraceable... I doubt it, that would be too lucky.
After thinking on it for a while, I place the phone back into my pocket and turned it off with the familiar rumble against my leg telling me that, yes, it had turned off.
I'm pretty sure that should be enough to prevent any tracking of the device if someone were to become aware of it, all I have to do is not draw attention to myself and I should be fine.
Easier said than done when my ears alone are probably freakish to look at.
Anyway, I've determined that my best bet would be to group up with the Guardians. They might believe me if I drop all the info-bombs (all of them) I have available on the whereabouts of the boss robots which contain the magical (or, in this case, technological) maguffins they're searching for, they were looking for Biometal after all.
I just so happen to know where to find them, I'm sure I could convince them to help me for such information- that is presuming I can convince them that it is actually valid and I'm not trying to be a mole for... someone.
Maybe I could even save Giro from dying an early death!
...After a few seconds of thought, I drop that line of thinking entirely, it looked to be a bit early in the morning, maybe eleven or twelve, and the entire course of events that led to that man's death was already in motion.
The fact that it seemed to all happen within the time span of a single day certainly did well to discourage me.
An idea began to bloom- that I might be able to warn the Guardians-
And then I realised that the one place I'd find them, in town, was one I'd not be able to enter without going 'fuck it' and actively looking for them- which isn't exactly inconspicuous activity.
Well crap, there's that idea scrapped.
What could I do here? If I did manage to buddie up with the Guardians and warn them of Giro's imminent demise, then a rather important life would be saved, but then the protagonist wouldn't get the second Biometal they needed to become the badass they were meant to be.
I have nothing against changing the flow of events by itself, it's a good principle. The problem I is what the butterflies caused by the disturbance could do- that worried me enough that I actually had to think about the implications of what warning them could have.
If I tell the Guardians of the Giro dilemma, a few options for 'worst case scenario' are glaringly obvious.
Scenario one, Giro doesn't die, instead, Vent does and he takes Vent's Biometal instead of the other way around.
This could arguably be better, as Giro is older and more experienced with his Biometal, but someone still dies.
I don't like the sacrifice idea, it feels wrong to think of someone like a pawn to be thrown away if a better piece can be saved from destruction, though if I have to I will.
Scenario two?
Both of them die, whether because they stay as a duo and one of them dies, likely Vent, who drags the other with them when they fight- or they both end up going to the highway that Giro would originally have died at, and instead of any 'Zx' union, the world is just left with a dead Giro and Vent, leaving no one to stop Serpent except for the Guardians, if they believe me.
It was... heavy. Thinking about this.
I knew so much, could do so much...
If I so much as gave the wrong information, I could be responsible for the death of two people. People who could have saved the world in life- but never had the chance because I'd have stolen it from their grasp trying to save them both.
Eventually, I hit a wall and just hit that button at the back of my mind saying 'fuck it', instead deciding to just go to the Guardians, hope for the best and throw what knowledge I have at them until they decide to do something with me, the genetically normal human in a world where technology on nature are one in the same.
Nothing can go wrong with this plan, nothing at all.
That's sarcasm in case you didn't catch it.
Rough plan formed in my mind, with haste, I walked past the scattered corpse of the first boss of a childhood favourite game turned reality and took long, brisk steps towards the mountain of dirt that could be seen eclipsing the tree line in the far-off distance.
Beneath it, I knew there would be a door to a 'transerver'. That was something I could work with, even if only as a landmark to base further travel off of.
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It had only taken at most six or seven minutes of searching for me to find, and then enter the transerver room, if I had any sense I might have come a bit quicker since Fleuve, a mechanic for the Guardians that I could have spoke with, might he have still been here.
Oh well, no use crying over spilt milk and what not.
The transerver was a machine in a box room that was covered in plating of some iron-like metal. It was placed on practically everything and everywhere, including the four pillars that held up the relatively simple room, covered in red wires and some bluish plating for what I assumed was variety.
Funnily enough, the floor itself was covered in blue metallic sheets that somehow produced heat. The effect was one that gave the room a comfy feel and left the bottoms of my shoes feeling pleasantly warm.
I guess the whole 'future' thing comes with some perks.
Never had I seen such a fantastically strange machine as the 'transerver', not that I was going to touch it, I was not willing to risk doing so lest I set it off and risk either being spliced into thousands of pieces or being torn apart at the atomic level, killed, then reassembled into a clone of myself somewhere else as is the theme with most teleportation technology as far as I am aware.
I'm probably being silly, but I don't have the required knowledge to make any true judgements for that sort of thing, all I know is that it can be used to teleport people who aren't even entirely human, and whether it works on me or not is something I'd rather not test.
I just had a quick nose around for anything that I could use to my advantage that might be lying around, but...
There was nothing. Nothing I could use to defend myself from the machines that I knew where outside, not even a crowbar. It was either them, or risk the teleporter.
I didn't like my chances with the teleporter, so I took the door and left as quietly and carefully as possible.
The door opened as I drew close, which at least answered the issue of if I could or couldn't use them, and closed behind me as I stepped out.
A few plants awaited me on the other side of the door, not much else. I knew that somewhere around here there was another door that led to the city, another that led to a scrapyard and, from past experience- the door before and the general placement of everything, especially the Giga Aspis corpse- I had a somewhat decent chance of being right on this one.
I turned to my immediate right, hoping that nothing was there to ruin my day and came face to face with what the data disks of the game called a "Eyeballoon", I could only blink in surprise.
The floating eyeball blinked back.
I slowly backed away, never turning my eye off of the floating thing.
It continued to stare at me, doing nothing, it is then I realised something that should probably have been very apparent the moment I'd seen it.
The mechanical eyeball had no reason to hit me, and as such, the ring around it that was normally a violent red was a rather tranquil light green surrounding it's orange 'pupil'.
They only shot their strange microwave-beam attack at you in game when you were carrying a weapon. Or, to be a bit pedantic, when you looked like an armoured maverick who was going around dashing and almost begging to be shot on sight for looking like you're about to murder someone.
Well, that's convenient.
I walked up to the mechanised, floating eyeball. After stopping before I go too close to the thing, I waved at it, putting on a smile to appear friendly.
Stupid, I know, but I was still getting use to the whole 'this is an actual robot with something resembling actual intelligence' part. You don't get that same feeling from a dead machine.
It just blinked in response, focusing on me for a moment, then moving it's single eye to the sky and lazily drifting off into the air, eventually fading from sight as it floated through the branches of some trees.
Satisfied with this, I walked past where it had been and hoped that my ears were at least somewhat obscured from view by my rather bushy hair. It was a good strategy for concealing them, if it worked.
I decided to feel my ears to be sure- a quick check told me that they likely weren't visible without a good eye (ironic, considering what I'd just seen). I tried not to think about it in a rather silly attempt to not put any attention on my ears and continued going to my immediate right until I came across the end of the line in the form of a machine.
There stood a giant, robotic yellow giraffe, chewing peacefully on something that I'm pretty sure isn't vegetables or plants (the glowing green stuff looked like cartoonish radioactive goop for God's sake!).
It's neck was a long collection of ball-shaped segments, it's front had a duo of pipes flowing with glowing green fluid trailing down it's 'stomach', and it was made from yellow metal with the occasional bits of green.
It flicked a single robotic ear in my direction, as well as an eye for a moment, before turning back to looking out mindlessly at the forest and... chewing.
Chewing without a care in the world.
It almost seemed like it had the mind of an actual animal- though if that's actually true or not I'm uncertain and am unwilling to test- just because something eats the vegetation it doesn't mean it won't try to fuck you up.
Stags are proof enough- I don't want firsthand experience from some giant, radiation-chewing giraffe.
I did my best to ignore the docile creature-robot-thing as I pulled myself over the hill it was 'grazing' near and walked on.
I knew where to go, I'd gone through something somewhat resembling this section of the forest many times before- I just needed to apply my knowledge, hope the two dimensional level was accurate to the world around me...
And hope I didn't get lost, that to.
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I didn't take very long to get to the top of some nearby hill, find the path at it's top, then walk down said path until I eventually ended up in the area I wanted to be, one I was familiar with- a certain clearing and a certain door.
A pair of giant lizards with treads for legs continued to pretend to eat from the local plant life as I pondered what I was to do next, ignoring them in their entirety.
I wasn't sure if this was the door that led to the city, and I'd already past the other one rather idiotically.
Knowing my luck, it would be the scrapyard.
Thinking 'screw it' I walked in, expecting to see a lot of scrap metal and robots wanting to kill me.
Instead, I got a city. A second example of my knowledge not being entirely correct.
This was... nice to say the least. There was a few people milling around, minding their own business and, just in general, relaxing. Not wanting to be singled out, I pulled a bit of my rather lengthy hair over my ears, did my best to hide any worries or woes I had and tried to walk like I knew where I was going and had a purpose.
Emphasis on "tried".
I could tell from here that people where curious about me, I probably would be as well in their case, I was painfully aware that I didn't fit in despite my best attempts to do so.
A young adult with a not-so freshly shaven beard wearing a t-shirt with a band on it likely more than a few hundred years old as of the time, wearing worn jeans made from the cotton of plants that might not even exist anymore and trying rather visibly to not be seen is probably not the most inconspicuous of people.
Especially when you look at the far more complex and fantastical outfits that everyone else wore, from purple and black, almost Victorian style skirts to minimalist, green 'jackets' with long short sleeves and other strange things. Another problem for me in trying to 'fit in' would be the generally more 'healthy' look everyone seemed to have wherever I look.
Everyone stood out- very few of them even looked like you could label them 'unattractive' (something I easily could be, especially when compared to these people with almost 'clean' faces and my own with a few little marks on my face, mostly dirt) and I was obviously not the same as them, it was just a matter of looking at me.
I was... different and an alien in unknown territory, and in this case, that probably wasn't a good thing.
More sarcasm, read it and weep.
After a while of just wondering around looking for something that might point me in the right direction and hoping I wasn't approached, I was of course approached by someone.
Now, I'm not exactly shy. I'm not talkative unless it's snark in response to an insult, but if I get talking I can talk for Britain- my mouth runs fast, but it's hard to get it running, so to speak.
The girl that approached me? She was someone I didn't want to meet, didn't want to speak to or acknowledge, but had to to prevent further suspicion.
She was shorter than me, a common thing at least where I used to live, and wore a blue jacket that reached down to around the bottom of her ribcage. It's sleeves were basically maybe a meter off from her shoulders, beneath it was just a layer of really dark grey- pretty much black. It was like a body-wide swimsuit for the closest comparison. The only places I could really see it end would be the tips of her fingers.
She was the only one wearing something like that in particular, it was unique, and it tickled a memory I couldn't quite bring forth.
Her name was, though I didn't know it at the time, Aile. She looked so familiar to me that it wasn't even funny, but I ignored that line of thought in actually trying to listen to her and not incite further attention from anyone.
"-re you sure you don't need help? You look lost" Her eyes reminded me of my mother because of their colour- emerald green, I found that I couldn't bare it and instead just settled for staring at her nose.
I didn't want to think about that right now. Especially not now when I need to not be conspicuous as fuck.
"I'll be fine, just doing a bit of wandering is all." I gave her, trying to end the conversation there without leaving an opening for further words.
She merely shrugged and raised an eyebrow at me, tilting her head quizzically.
Thankfully, after a while she took the hint, shrugged, and walked off on her merry way humming a tune.
One that was so familiar yet so impossible to pin down.
After that was over I turned to a street that I didn't go through last time and walked onwards, my search for any of the Guardians had so far been unsuccessful, but I believed I could (and would) find them eventually.
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I had spent what felt like a few hours just wandering around aimlessly on a slowly emptying stomach in search of what was feeling more and more like an unreachable goal. I should probably ask around about the Guardians but... I just didn't want to draw attention to mysel-
A loud groan came from my stomach, a few people looked at me curiously while I tried my best to ignore my hunger.
Traitorous gut! You're meant to work for me!
In response, my gut started rumbling even more, if I was fluent in the language of my own body I probably would have heard something along the lines of "Get me more food or I'll eat you."
I'm probably going to starve if I don't try getting something soon, the only ideas I could think of were:
A) Attempt to steal food from someone, I didn't see that working well.
B) Try to hunt for leftover E-Crystals in the scrap yard area near Innerpeace, this I saw going even worse.
Or C) Ask around for information on the Guardians and hope that they'll be able to get me something to eat, presuming I can manage to grant myself leverage over them).
The first two were... not exactly something I wanted to do and the third option seemed logical, but-
My stomach grumbled at me, breaking my thoughts into a jumble as hunger took over.
Fuck it, C it is.
I turned to the first person I saw and attempted to initiate a conversation, hoping to find a way to the closest equivalent of a Guardian office.
He was a man in a suit, when I approached his face seemed to tighten.
"Excuse me sir could yo-" I began.
"Leave me alone, can't you see I have better things to deal with?" The cold voice answered back, cutting through my reply like a... really sharp thing through water, I guess.
The butter metaphor is overused, bite me.
He seemed to speed up as he passed me by- the thought that he might just not want to talk with someone as shady looking as me came to mind, and I accepted that as the logical answer.
It didn't take more than a few seconds to find a woman on a bench. I asked her about the Guardians, and she didn't seem overly skittish when I introduced myself, so I likely don't have to worry about her pulling what the other guy did.
Apparently, they had a HQ in Innerpeace in the western area of the city- after she gave me directions I thanked her and walked towards what may be my salvation.
I guess all I had to do was ask...
Who would have known? Not me apparently.
I'm denser than a neutron star after all.
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After getting a few more directions from other people on the way to the local Innerpeace Guardian HQ I finally arrived. A clock on one of the walls in the circular main room read 14:12, it was a lot earlier than I thought it was apparently.
That raised another question: what was the month and year?
Somewhere around the 2300 - 2500 mark I think.
Not sure, should probably check discreetly whenever possible.
I slowly headed on up to the main register, but found myself stopping as many different scenarios went through my head that made me begin to question my judgement and the actual merits of attempting what I was about to do- but alas, I had my choice forced onto me before I could really think on the matter.
A middle-aged man wearing the Guardian get-up (a green cap and cyclops look-alike visor with a green vest, the Guardian symbol of an orange box with a red 'G' at its centre on both shoulders) called to me.
"Hey, we haven't had any visitors in a while, why don't you take a seat?" He asked with a warm smile, motioning to one of those office seats that kids always wanted to have in school that could spin and move because of wheels attached to the base.
Swivel chairs, I think?
I gracefully took the seat and sat in front of the green-clad gentlemen, very, very uncertain about my new plan, hunger having been forgotten for the moment.
Even then I knew for sure it would fail, but I still don't regret doing what I did.
"I would like to forward a message to the leader of your organisation" I spoke with a voice as confident as I could make it.
Even then, I knew that I was about to do something that could end in disaster and more than likely would.
"Oh really? A letter I presume?" He seemed a bit peeved, but I just hoped that the aggressive approach would work here, I didn't have much to really leverage if this didn't work.
"How is Alouette?"
