Chapter 23: Terra's Quest for a Spinoff

Walking like a certified, fortified, semper-fied badass, Terra of Awakened Rage and Nickelback CDs strutted into the lobby of the Square Enix HQ Tower, waltzing right past the front desk.

"Yo, what-up, Terra," Reno the secretary greeted.

"The ceiling," he shot back. "Tell Nomura I'm on the way to see him."

"Sure thing," said Reno. "I'll get to it by tomorrow."

Terra called the elevator like a badass, stepped in like a goon, and rode that sumbitch all the way to…well, somewhere near the top. Stepping out like a rockstar, he strutted down the hallway and took a stylish left turn.

"Damn."

He went back the other way and took the correct route, now zeroing in on Nomura's closed office door. Knocking a totally metal tune, Terra announced himself, "It's me, Nomura. Don't hide yourself."

"Huh—? Uh, yes—come in!"

Entering the office suite and spotting Nomura stacking and shuffling papers, the earth lord of awakened perception greeted, "Hardly working, I see."

"Indeed. How are you, Terra?"

"How am I? How am I? Oh, just thinking it was high time I got my own badass spinoff."

Taking it slow, Nomura asked, "You want your own game?"

"Abso-(expletive)-lutely. Let's make it happen."

"Yeah, that's not how it works. We simply document your adventures and digitally recreate them. And, of course, take all the credit."

"Nomura, baby—you're not hearing me. Just think about it: a badass story, a badass protag, and all kinds of badass action all the way through. It's gonna be badass!"

"Stop saying 'badass'." Nomura then glanced at the clock, realizing the following, "I've got some time to kill. Explain the premise of your spinoff that's not happening."

"Sweet—so, it's both a prequel and a sequel. We're gonna go beachballs-deep into my troubled past, which is gonna play out in flashbacks in between my present day struggles of being a wanted Keyblade Master Assassin."

"Nice. Go on."

"And it's gonna be dark and gritty and all about the action. Plus, I'm gonna need a few stunning female Superstars competing for my affection, namely Aerith, Lightning, and that Aranea chick from XV. And is it possible to show some full frontal, side-al, and rear-al nudity?"

"Anything's possible, Terra. What else?"

"I want swearing, blood, bar-scenes, combat racing, and uh…and an unlockable sex-scene, too."

"Oh, really?" Nomura showed his intrigue.

"That's right. We should probably do two or three. Scratch that: at least eight."

Nomura asked, "Is Aqua in this game?"

Nodding, Terra confirmed, "Of course. Ventus, too. Maybe they get kidnapped—actually, let me stop right there and just show you the trailer I made."

"Dear Lord. This is happening."

"Where's your projector? I'm gonna hook it up to my phone."

And so, Terra proceeded to fiddle with the cables connecting his phone to Nomura's projector, and after pulling down the screen, he surprised the armored game director enough for him to state, "I'm surprised you did that so quickly."

"Never tell me the odds, Nom-Nom. Now…" He activated the projector. "…watch and be amazed."

After Terra hit play on the MP4, Nomura was subjected to A, a licensed song, and B, some grand footage of Terra standing atop a mountain, fully armored up sans the helmet, and posing like a true hero. We'll get to the song in a minute. So, it proceeded with a voiceover in the background, courtesy of what sounded like Xigbar being dramatic, "Some heroes are always on the job. Some heroes only have one job."

The scene changed to Terra, shirtless, practicing his techniques in the rain, with another dramatic voiceover, "One job, one destiny—"

"Okay, pause it," Nomura requested. Once it was paused, the game director in charge sighed heavily behind his mask, then said, "Okay, resume."

The scene switched to shaky-cam footage of Terra and Aqua sitting down at a diner, featuring a subpar lip-sync of Terra telling her, "I love you, Aqua. Forget those other girls, I want you in my life."

"I looove—you too, Terra," was Aqua's suspiciously disjointed and one hundred percent lip-synced response.

And unexpectedly, the place exploded—meaning, it cut to the outside of another building and a computer generated explosion totally took place. It then cut to a closeup of Terra yelling, "AQUA! I have to get her back! Because they kidnapped her!"

The next scene was Terra fully armored up and running awkwardly toward the camera, all while Aqua's disjointed voiceover told him, "Just remember—you're—awesome, Terra!"

"Okay, pause it again," Nomura requested. He wanted answers regarding the soundtrack. First, he asked, "Which Nickelback song is that?"

"'Someday'," Terra replied confidently.

"Yeah, I noticed it sounded a bit sentimental. I thought this spinoff was 'all about the action'?"

Terra scoffed. "It is. You can't have action if you don't have emotion to balance it. Remember that movie from a while back, Batman Begins? That movie changed my life, Nomura. It changed my life."

"A Batman movie changed your life?" Nomura said it just to fathom it.

"Shit yeah. Now, let's watch the rest of it."

Trailer playing again, Terra finished running awkwardly toward the camera, and it cut to a surprisingly well-shot scene of Terra driving his Keyblade in Bike Mode. While the camera swooped from behind and around him, Xigbar the narrator added, "This fall…or whenever this is gettin' made…experience the experience of a lifetime."

The camera revealed another person was riding with Terra, and "she" appeared to be perched on the handle bars. With "her" flowing blue hair dominating the scene, Xigbar finished his voiceover, "Kingdom Hearts: Dust to Dust."

Before the trailer ended, the shot lingered on the blue-haired "woman" for a second too long, allowing Nomura to observe, "So that was Ventus in a wig."

"It was Ventus in a wig," Terra confirmed. "Aqua was too busy. Also, I didn't even ask her to do it. Anyway, whatja think?"

"First, thanks for not putting Ventus in a dress, otherwise I would've been scarred for life. Second, I actually did like the title, KH: Dust to Dust. We might steal that. And third, yeah, we don't make games like movies, meaning we don't write the script until you've already experienced it firsthand. I mean, I'm still on board with the sex scenes, though."

Lighting up, Terra asked, "You are?"

"Of course not, Terra. Please, humble yourself. Be a strong man, for both yourself and whomever it is that's most special to you. And also, stop using Ventus like a prop. He looked a tad bit homicidal in that trailer. And I think it was last week when Aqua showed me pictures of him in a stroller."

Highly freaked out, Terra shrieked, "What the (expletive)!? A stroller?! What, she wants a baby or something?"

"Maybe you should talk to her, Terra. You're both grownups, and you're more than capable of starting a family together."

"Uhhhh…" Terra hummed, searching for any excuse to avoid that. "I don't know, Nomura… She's got a thing for trinkets and knickknacks and swap meets…and talking."

"Doesn't she also possess a high level of flexibility? You know, in the legs?"

"Damn." Terra leveled his gaze sternly. "I will certainly have to think about it." Holding out his hand, he smiled and said, "Good talk, today, Nom-Cat."

Shaking that hand, Nomura agreed, "Indeed. On your way out of the building, can you knock all of Reno's desk items to the floor and call him a 'bandersnatch' for me?"

Nodding, Terra obliged, "With pleasure."

As the earth lord of raging weaknesses for flexible women departed, Nomura reclined in his chair, humming a low tune. Then, the humming got louder. Finally, he sang it out loud, "'Someday, somehow, gonna make it all right, but not right now~. I know you're~'—dammit."