"Transcending Reality" by: Emerald Eyes
Heh… this one's chapter three in my little freaky story. I
finally put something from FF9 in here. I wanted to wait before I beat the game
before I did anything with the characters. I don't
own any Final Fantasy characters. Squaresoft made them up, not me, and I am not
making any Gil off of this story. ^_^
"Please don't bring me down with that look on your face because
I almost didn't make it, and one day you just might know how that feels." --Joydrop
Chapter Three: Strawberry
Marigold
It had been a normal day. He had been aimlessly wandering around the world with his posse over the past few months. They had been on the bridge to Fisherman's Horizon fishing.
Seifer, having a highly irritable
personality, had become quite infuriated when Raijin, of all people, had caught
a fish. He just had to rub it in, doing that little victory dance of his. Just
when he didn't think he could stand it anymore, Fujin had decided to take some
action, "RAGE," she said in annoyance and kicked poor Raijin right off the
bridge into the blue waters of FH.
And for the first time in a long
time, he let out a genuine laugh. He had actually felt good about himself. The
sorceress's knight couldn't remember the last time he had had this much fun
with his friends.
But as fate would have it, or
perhaps by the hand of the deity that loathed him so much, something happened
to ruin the happy moment. Seifer didn't remember much of the disturbing event,
only that there was a man in a black trench coat… and a bright light.
Now Seifer Almasy found himself
swimming through the murky waters of unconsciousness. The twilight of
quasi-tangible and quasi-surreal bringing him to the surface, slowly luring him
out of the dream world.
It started with the sense of
touch: a cold surface beneath his head and arms; the numbness in his right arm
from him lying on it; the headache he was just now starting to develop. Then he
could start to hear things: a low humming noise that might have been emanating
from fluorescent lights, a coughing noise… and incoherent mumbling.
Finally his eyelids slowly opened
to reveal the world around him: the first thing he saw was a blank computer
monitor. Further observation led him to the discovery that he had been passed
out, sleeping with his head and arms resting on an office desk. He realized
that the rest of his body was resting in a rather comfortable swivel chair.
Seifer rubbed his eyes and yawned.
He suddenly remembered the coughing and mumbling he had heard in his sleep. The
ex-knight turned his chair to look for the source of all the cacophony. There.
He had spotted it: a young man with disheveled looking strawberry blonde hair.
He was dressed in a white, posh looking business suit and matching trench coat.
Seifer walked over to the
unconscious form to study it more. The blonde was curled up in a fetal
position, and occasionally would end up in a coughing fit after mumbling
something about an avalanche, an explosion, or a weapon of some sorts. Then he
would start to violently shake.
'How pathetic,' Seifer thought to himself. He decided that the blonde
before him was wasting too much of his time. He wanted answers. Seifer scowled
down at the man and unceremoniously kicked him in the ribs. Hard.
The man on the floor let out a startled gasp. His eyes shot open and immediately fell on Almasy's complacent face. "Who—" he fell into another violent strand of coughing "—Who are you?"
Seifer smirked when the man before him rubbed the spot where he had kicked him, then his smile faded. "I think you should tell me who YOU are! Tell me what the hell is going on! I remember fishing with my posse at FH, and then I wake up here, in a completely different environment. Can you explain any of this?"
The man stared up disdainfully at Seifer, "No, I can't explain any of this, and I think you should watch your mouth. You don't want to know what sort of things I could have the Turks do to you…"
Seifer cracked up, "What? You're saying someone like you could hurt someone like me? Heh, that's a good one."
"You don't have any idea who I am, do you?" Seifer shook his head and the blonde on the floor continued, "I'm Rufus Shinra, President of ShinRa Electric Company."
Seifer gave Rufus a pompous look, "And I was supposed to know that?"
Rufus tried to get up, but had discovered a little too late that he was still too weak to stand. He lost his balance and crashed tersely to the floor as another coughing fit overcame him.
Seifer was laughing hysterically now as the President of Shinra Incorporated stared up at him furiously.
"Don't be a smart-ass," Rufus said weakly, "Who are you?"
"Seifer Almasy, Sorceress Ultemecia's Knight."
Rufus smirked, "'And I was supposed to know that?'" he mocked.
"Tch. Fine, I guess we can call it even then. I've never heard of any of the things you talk about. It's as if they don't even exist." At hearing Seifer's words, Rufus Shinra flinched and seemed to lose himself in his thoughts, "And I'm not going to let anyone manipulate me! Especially you, Shinra!"
The former president didn't even hear the last part of Seifer's speech. The ex-sorceress's knight was about to tell the blonde before him to stop ignoring him when Rufus came out of his trance. He looked up at Seifer quite alarmed and quickly stuttered out "Are you supposed to be dead?"
"Huh?" Seifer's indignant look quickly dissipated to be replaced with confusion.
"Did you die?" the president asked again.
"Uh…no…" Seifer answered hesitantly. "Why would you ask a question like that?"
Rufus Shinra looked horrified, "Because I'm supposed to be dead, Almasy!"
Seifer took a long moment to look over his blonde companion on the floor: he was shivering again, so much that his teeth were chattering. He looked very pale and had also shut himself off to the outside world again since he had last spoken. 'He doesn't look so good', Seifer thought, 'Talking about being dead, being president of a powerful company that everyone should know about…he's delusional…insane.' But what was he supposed to do? Leave him here?
Seifer sighed and began to help the man to his feet. "Come on, Rufus. I'm gonna go find someone who can help you."
Rufus looked at the boy that he was now leaning on for support. "Help…?" he asked ambiguously, then struggled to get free of Seifer's grasp. "Gotta go to Midgar," he mumbled, "Turks, Reeve, Scarlet, Heidegger, Palmer…they'll help."
The ex-knight struggled to control the delusional man. "Hey! Take it easy. I'm not so sure I can get you to this 'Midgar', but maybe I could take you to Esthar or Galbadia. I'm sure there's someone there who could help you."
"…Esthar…?"
^_^_^_^_^_^_^_^_^_^_^_^
And Seifer was looking for help. He had dragged Rufus down hallway after hallway in the deserted building. No one was there. The president, however, was getting much worse. He was only half conscious at that point, and he had started to carry on a conversation with himself.
After a while of searching the vacant hallways, Rufus had grown too weak to walk, so he had leaned him up against a wall, and had continued on without his burden. He had walked past many unoccupied rooms and hallways that all looked the same. I'd better be careful or I may never find my way back…
Lost in his thoughts, Seifer absently rounded the corner to the drab hallway… and ran right into a little girl. The ex-knight stared openly at her. She had thick lilac hair that ran to her shoulders, and to make the sight even more amazing, Seifer noticed that she had a horn on her head.
"Hey!" the girl huffed, "You should watch where you're going, Mister! You nearly ran me over!"
Seifer, ignoring the girl's comment, asked curiously, "What's a little girl like you doing in a place like this?"
The girl shrugged. "I dunno. I was with Cid in Lindblum and there was a light. Then I was here."
"Cid…? Lindblum…? Whoa, did you say you saw a light?"
"Yeah," the girl said, "It was bright and it hurt my eyes," the lilac-haired girl ran her green eyes curiously over Seifer. "What are you doing here?"
"Um…" the ex-knight tried not to gape at the girl's appearance. "The light. It was the light that brought me here: just like you."
The girl's eye's widened, "Really? Whoa, that's weird. I wonder if there's anyone else stuck here like we are…"
"Actually," Seifer started, "I woke up in a room with another guy. He said his name was Rufus." the blonde desperately hoped that he could remember his way back to the unconscious president.
The girl giggled. "'Rufus.' That's a funny name. By the way, my name's Eiko. Eiko Carol. And you are…?"
"My name's Seifer Almasy." The blonde seemed to muse a bit before he spoke again, "I have to get going, Eiko. Rufus is sick and I need to find help," he explained.
Eiko's eyes brightened. "Seifer, wait! If he's sick, I can help him! I know White Magic!" Seifer stared at her blankly. "Where's he at?" He pointed off the way he had come. The girl left the ex-knight's side and ran off in the direction in which he pointed.
"White Magic?" Seifer stared after her, "What the hell is that?" He followed the girl with his eyes for a while longer, then decided that he would find out exactly what this Eiko girl was up to. "Hey, Eiko, wait up."
^_^_^_^_^_^_^_^_^
"How old are you?"
"Eighteen."
"Oooo…that's old. I'm six."
"Yeah, that's nice."
"This place looks strange, don't you think?"
"Yeah, now that you mention it, it does look a little outdated."
"What?! No way! It looks so… futuristic."
It was like that for the past ten minutes. Seifer was thankful that Rufus wasn't much farther. He didn't think he could stand the girl's annoying questions any longer.
"Oooo, is that him?" Eiko pointed towards an unconscious blonde man dressed in white. He was lying in the exact same position as Seifer had left him. Eiko giggled, "He's dressed funny."
"Yeah," Seifer unenthusiastically answered, "That's him."
Without a word, Eiko marched up to the unconscious form. She closed her eyes and started chanting something incoherent. A white light made of pure energy began to form in front of the girl. "Curaga," the girl said simply. The light transferred from Eiko's outstretched hands into the unconscious blonde that lay before her.
Rufus stirred and blinked his eyes wearily, "Seifer?"
Seifer gaped at the girl once again. "How did you do that? You don't have a GF junctioned, do you? But you were able to cast Curaga."
"What's a 'GF'?" the girl asked curiously.
"Guardian Force," Seifer replied, as if Eiko could understand the meaning of the words he had just spoken.
"What's a 'Guardian Force?'" Rufus asked, "And why do you need one to use magic? The girl obviously has a cure materia. Materia is the only thing you need to use magic." He had been following the conversation very closely since he had been healed, and by the dumfounded looks that appeared on their faces when he had mentioned materia, Rufus was beginning to believe that he was someplace far, far away from Midgar.
"What's a 'materia?'" Seifer and Eiko asked simultaneously.
"And what's a Guardian Force, Seifer?" the lilac-haired girl added.
Rufus looked at the two and sighed. He searched his pockets for one of the smooth, marble-shaped objects known as materia. When he had found what he was looking for, he brought the object out for his two curious comrades to see.
"This is an ice materia," he stated, handing the glowing green orb to Eiko, "It lets you cast ice spells."
"Whoa," the girl marveled as she delicately held the orb in her hands, "This'll let you use magic? How does it work?"
"Uh… well," the blonde started, "You hold the materia and… I guess you just concentrate on the spell. I don't know. It's kind of hard to explain."
Eiko looked thoughtfully at the materia, then stared deeper into it, concentrating. She then looked up at Seifer. "Ice," she said. Without warning, ice crystals started forming around the prone figure. The ex-knight was nearly cleaved in half by the jagged shards of magical ice. The girl looked pleased with herself.
Rufus struggled to conceal a smile as Seifer began to get up from where the spell had knocked him to the ground. The blonde that Eiko had harassed was shivering violently.
"That wasn't funny!" he growled at the two. He the turned to the contented girl and snatched the green orb from her hands. "Gimme that, you brat!" He then pocketed the materia.
Rufus glared at him, "What are you doing with my materia?"
"Keeping it," the blonde replied simply, "You never know…I might need it. Especially with people like you around," he sighed, "I'm not junctioned with a Guardian Force at the moment, so this may come in handy."
"Hey," Eiko started again, "you never did tell us what that GF thing was!"
Seifer looked less that pleased at trying to explain what a GF was, but he tried his best to make them understand. "A Guardian Force is a monster that you can summon from another dimension." He was going to try to explain more when he noticed the looks of revelation on their faces. Apparently it didn't take much to make them understand.
"Oh," mused Rufus, "I see what you mean. A Guardian Force is like a Summon."
"You have eidolons where you come from?" the girl asked curiously.
"Uh," Seifer tried his best to answer the girl's question, "Yeah, I guess I do…if these 'eidolon' things are anything like GFs."
Rufus Shinra looked at his surroundings and then began to get up. He could stand fine on his own this time, thanks to Eiko Carol's mysterious Curaga spell. "I don't know about you," he started, "but I'm very curious to know where we are and why we're here." He started to walk in the opposite direction that Eiko and Seifer had come from. He didn't look back.
"I don't know about you," the exuberant little girl stated, "but I certainly wanna know where we are, don't you, Seifer?"
^_^_^_^_^_^_^_^_^_^
Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!! This chapter took
for-(&@*%ing-ever! I must have written for about four hours straight today.
I don't know what I want to do with this story next… do I want to continue
where I left off at chapter two or do I want to bring in some of the other
characters like Elena, or Fujin…hmmm… I don't know. I think I'm gonna return to
our leader of Balamb Garden and his Turk friend… but don't worry: the Turks and
the Disciplinary Committee will reunite soon enough… --Emerald
Eyes
Hey! Wanna talk? E-mail me: spookyfox1@hotmail.com