Chapter 4

Capture the Flag

Everyone on the bridge was thrown back, as if the entire ship had been shot out of a cannon. The Shera did the job of bringing itself to a halt on its own within a few seconds. Though, not before everyone was thrown swiftly to the ground.

Vincent and Cid were both on their backs. Somehow the chair Vincent was hanging on to had come off the ground entirely. Even if the chair had stayed connected, there was no way he could have kept his footing.

Sam walked casually to the front of the bridge as Tifa, Cid and Vincent attempted to pick themselves up off the floor.

"Come on guys, no lyin' around, we got places to go," Sam said walking past.

"Too bad he can't die," Cid muttered, and headed off to steer the ship.

"What exactly are we looking for here?" asked Vincent stepping up beside Sam, who was looking through the front viewing area out over the scenery below.

"This isn't right," Sam said quietly.

Vincent looked at him curiously.

"It just looks like normal," Sam said looking at Vincent, "Edge is only a few miles from here, this isn't right."

"Why not?" asked Vincent.

"This is a fringe existence, these ones don't usually take the form of your world," Sam explained, "they usually model after some kind of fiction, an imaginary place, like a movie or a story. The place you come from has too much substance; fringe existences don't have the capacity to imitate it. This is wrong."

"Are you sure we're in the right place?"

"Positive, I didn't screw up the destination; the destination's just screwed up."

"Could it be the paradox?" asked Tifa.

"Paradoxes don't generally make things better," Sam replied. "Paradoxes mess things up. If a paradox did this, it actually improved the place."

"It's possible though, ain't it?" asked Cid.

"I suppose," Sam replied, "highly unlikely, however. We Cetra have a name for this kind of thing."

"What's that?" asked Tifa.

"Sephiroth," Sam muttered, then looked off to the side.

"Sephiroth?" asked Vincent.

"The Cetra word for bad news?" asked Cid.

Sam pointed at Cid, "You got it, my friend, really bad news."

"I suppose that makes sense," Vincent shrugged.

"This is straight up Sephiroth," Sam said. "It's almost like a paradox within a paradox. The paradox itself affects the existence, but a paradox within the paradox allows for the paradox to have different qualities."

Cid tried to think about what Sam said for a moment, but stopped almost immediately.

"The kind of thing that doesn't occur naturally?" asked Vincent.

Sam smiled, "You guys are really starting to get this time travel stuff. That's exactly what I was thinking. Question is, mister tall dark and intelligent, why would someone do that?"

"They knew someone would come to check it out," Tifa guessed.

"You're thinkin' a trap?" asked Cid.

"Maybe," Sam muttered. "Cid, fly us around, random pattern. Let's see what we can see."

Cid nodded, and the Shera shot forward. Cid maneuvered the ship into a few turns every now and then, just to adjust their course. He did a back and forth pattern to try and cover as much area as possible. Everyone's eyes were fully alert, looking for any sign of trouble.

"There's one constant," Sam said, suddenly, "this is a paradox, weird or not, a paradox, which means, even though it's strange, it has to follow the rules, so this place has to have some kind of connection to a book or a movie, something fictional."

"A movie from which existence?" asked Vincent.

Sam nodded, "That's the question, I know them all so that shouldn't be a problem, it just depends on what sort of media the paradox is imitating."

"Whoa, jumpin'…what the hell was that?" asked Cid looking around frantically.

"What is it?" asked Vincent.

"Somethin' just flew over us, movin' real fast!" Cid said throwing Shera into evasive maneuvers.

"I didn't see anything," Tifa said looking around.

"It was a small thing, sorta purple coloured," Cid said.

"Purple," Sam muttered, "purple."

"You know what it is?" asked Vincent.

"Maybe," Sam muttered, "Cid, see if you can find it again."

"Workin' on it!" Cid replied throwing the Shera in different directions.

Suddenly, the ship rocked slightly.

"Somethin' just hit us, port side!" Cid growled. "There, look, straight ahead!"

The purple vehicle was flying away from them. It was a strange shape. It was sort of like a malformed oval in the middle, almost more like a peanut of sorts. And appeared to have no wings, there were two things that appeared to be bars of some kind shooting out the sides, the bars met at a point creating an almost triangular shape though they didn't look much like any kind of useful wing. The thing was sure flying fast. It did a flip in the air and was coming back.

"Where have I seen that before," Sam muttered, "purple flying thing…purple."

"Shouldn't we be shooting at it?" asked Tifa.

"Oh…right," Sam said nodding, "yeah sure, blow it away."

"Gladly," Cid muttered and fired one of the Shera's guns. Bullets flew out of a gun battery somewhere on the ship and the purple aircraft was blown out of the sky. What was left of the hull crashed to the ground.

"Cid, put us close to the ground, I wanna check that thing out," Sam said, "Vincent, you come with me."

Cid put the Shera low over the crash site and Sam and Vincent jumped off the outdoor platform to the ground. They walked over to the burning wreckage.

Sam looked around; it did appear to be an exact replica of Vincent's world. That fact still left him uneasy.

"There's someone inside," Vincent said putting a hand over his holstered weapon.

Sam walked over to where Vincent stood. There was indeed someone inside the wreckage.

It all came together at once.

"Of course," Sam said, "how could I forget?"

"Forget what?" asked Vincent.

"The purple ship, I knew it from somewhere," Sam said, "knew I should've stuck with Xbox."

"X-what?" asked Vincent.

"It's a Banshee," Sam said, matter-of-factly, "Covenant attack craft."

Vincent looked at him blankly.

"Okay look, the Covenant are bad alien dudes trying to destroy humans," Sam explained.

Vincent was still blank.

"That dude in there," Sam said, gesturing to the person in the Banshee who sported red armour and a reflective visor on his helmet, "is a Spartan."

Still blank.

"Spartans are the dudes that were made to destroy the…"

"Okay, hold it," Vincent said, cutting him off abruptly. "What movie is this, then?"

"This is one I hadn't expected, it's a video game," Sam replied.

"Okay, I know what that is," Vincent said, "what's the goal of this video game?"

"Not feed the Kupo Nuts to the Mog, if you know what I mean," Sam said smiling. "God that game blows, but you have to play it to move on in the Gold…"

"Could we stay on topic here?" asked Vincent cutting him off again.

"Sorry, well, by the looks of things, this must be the online aspect of the game," Sam guessed, "as Spartan-117 wears green armour, and he obviously can't die…unless you play on Legendary, you can get your ass totally…"

"Sam," Vincent growled.

"Right, sorry, online, so the idea is you go on this game with people all over the world, get on a team and try to kill each other. Sometimes they play capture the flag which is…"

Vincent only gave him a warning glance this time.

"Sorry, yeah, that's the idea," Sam finished.

"So there are more of these people?" asked Vincent.

"Yeah, somewhere," Sam said. "It's a strange cross, putting characters from one video game into the setting of another."

"The paradox…" Vincent paused, "wait, what other video game?"

"Huh?" asked Sam.

"You said characters from one video game, being the one with these Covenant, into the setting of another. The setting is where I come from."

"Oh…" Sam said looking around, "uh…well…Vincent that's really hard to explain right now."

"Are you suggesting I'm in a video game?"

"Well…no, well, yeah, but aren't we all? Don't we all just feel like we're being used by others all the time? It's really like a metaphor for…"

Vincent waved him off, "I really don't want to know."

"That's the safest way," Sam agreed.

Vincent shook his head and walked back to the Shera.

"Dodged a bullet there," Sam muttered.

"Sam," yelled the voice of Tifa from the Shera, "something's going on!"

Sam headed back for the Shera and got on.

"What's up?" asked Sam.

"Cid saw explosions up ahead, moving away from us," Tifa said.

Sam nodded, "That must be them."

Capture the FLAG!

Tifa jumped and looked around, "Did you hear that?"

Sam looked up in the sky and back to Tifa, "Hear what?"

"Someone just said something," Vincent said looking around.

"You guys are crazy," Sam said shaking his head.

"I heard someone say something," Tifa said walking around, looking for the source of the voice.

Sam laughed quietly and walked into the Shera, "Now, I can tell this is gonna be fun."

They entered the bridge again and Cid already had the Shera headed off toward where he spotted the explosions.

"Did you guys hear something?" asked Cid, looking around.

"You heard it, too?" asked Tifa.

Sam smiled, "You guys are losing it."

"No, I heard it; some guy said something like capture the flag," Tifa said, "what does that mean?"

Sam laughed quietly again and turned to look out toward their destination. The others continued to try and figure out the voice. Sam decided he'd let them try and figure it out for a while before he told them.

The Shera arrived in seconds; the ground below them was covered in craters and wreckage. No people.

"Sure was some kinda battle here," Cid muttered.

Dark smoke rose from various pieces of destroyed metal and burnt earth.

"Wait, capture the flag," Vincent said. "Back when you were explaining the game, Sam, you said capture the flag."

"Oh, now you wanna hear what I have to say about capture the flag!" Sam said in a singsong voice. "Strange how you only listen to me when it suits you."

"What is capture the flag, Sam?" asked Tifa.

"The idea is for one team to capture the other team's flag, by the looks of this game, red vs. blue," Sam said.

"What's the difference between red and blue?" asked Tifa.

"Nothing, just different people, it only separates teams," Sam explained.

"So blue tries to get red's flag," Vincent said.

"Right," Sam said nodding.

"And that voice we heard?" asked Tifa.

"That's just the announcer for the game," Sam said.

"Wait, game?" asked Cid.

Sam shook his head, "It's all very complicated. Look, we're in a video game right now, not one you know of, but I do, so trust me here, alright?"

"What do we do?" asked Tifa.

"I don't know," Sam said, "this paradox is strange, it'll take me some time to figure it out."

"Maybe the people here know something," Vincent suggested.

"I doubt it," Sam said, "they're probably more clueless than we are."

"What's our next move?" asked Vincent.

"Cid, find the people who were here, follow any explosions, gunshots, anything like that," Sam said, Cid nodded. "Now there are just a few things you gotta know about these people. Generally, there are a few constants. There's always at least one with a really high-pitched, whiny, voice. It's tempting to kill him, try not to, try not to kill anybody at this point."

"It's tempting to kill you and we do alright with restraint there," Vincent said.

Sam smiled, "Thank you for your input tall dark and shadowy, may I continue?"

Vincent nodded.

"Usually, there's a guy that swears a lot, sometimes there's a lot more than one. Some you can't understand at all so don't try. Others use a form of talking that I don't think any of you will really be able to grasp, so I'll handle that."

"A different language?" asked Vincent.

"Well, sort of," Sam said, "just let me handle it."

"Are these people gonna be friendly or what?" asked Cid.

"I doubt it, their job here is to kill people," Sam grinned. "W0n'+ LiKE J00 Cau53 yOu'R3 n00bZorz."

Everyone looked at him blankly.

"Most of that is spelled with numbers instead of letters," Sam said, "it's called 1337, or L33t, that's spelled with two 3's in the middle, too."

They continued to stare.

"Like I said, leave the talking to me."