A/N : Thank you to the people who reviewed.
---***--- The Gamer ---***--- Chapter II: Tutorial ---***---
A small window popped up and Tidus scanned it. It said something about attacking, and selecting things. Tidus closed the window with a thought and considered the menus before him. There was the little thing on the right, with the pictures and labels, and he figured that showed who went when. Across the top of his vision, there was a little bar that said "Help Screen." On the bottom left, there was a small menu. It said
ATTACK
SKILL
SPECIAL
ITEM
Tidus found he could move the little arrow that pointed to 'Attack' around with his mind, and did so gleefully - until he realized he was rooted to the spot until he made a decision. Hastily he 'pressed' the 'Attack' option. Auron ran forward and hit one of the spiny things; it disintigrated into lots of little ghost-looking things. Tidus shivered, but when the menu popped up again when his name was highlighted, Tidus obediently 'pressed' the 'Attack' option, sprang forward, and attacked. It felt weird, not having control over his body. But after a turn of battle or two, he got used to it.
He kept trying to raise Rin, all through the next few battles. They'd just encountered this odd little tree-like thing, and he was about to try again when a devastating hit of sudden increased gravity shook him down. When the menu popped up again, he noticed that the numbers that he guessed represented the amount of hits he could get and still live in the game had gone down – a lot.
TIDUS 320/540 42
AURON 860/1030 76
Tidus grunted as another hit from the thing decreased his health more. The number of health points remaining was now in yellow next to his name.
TIDUS 132/540 42
AURON 643/1030 76
The menu reappeared after Auron had gone up and hit the thing. Tidus searched through his menu for a way to heal himself. "Items" looked promising. Tidus 'pushed' the selection and another menu popped up out of the other one.
POTION 10 PHOENIX DOWN 10
In the help screen above, it showed potions to "Heal a character for 200 HP." Good, this was what he wanted. Tidus selected "Potion" and then himself when prompted to choose a target. The menus disappeared. He pulled out a small glowing ball of light and tossed it up over his head. Greenish ripples drifted across his vision; in a moment, he felt somewhat better. His health now read:
TIDUS 332/560
Tidus smiled to himself. He was getting the hang of this. When the menu popped up again (couldn't Rin have found a better way of propelling this thing other than menus? Tidus thought) Tidus saw little gauges under his name and Auron's. Auron's was full and orange; his was yellow, and only partially full.
Another informative message appeared. Apparantly, this was Auron's "Overdrive" and he could do more damage and use special attacks. Well, a special attack – it was a one-time-only deal, until the gauge filled again. Rather silly of Rin, Tidus thought. He'd known the guy since they both were in preschool; Rin had been designing games since he was seven. Real games that worked, too. Fighting games, driving games, role-playing games, adventure, whatever he wanted, he made. Complete with music and up-to-date graphics. No unimaginative 2D for Rin.
Tidus shoved thoughts of his friend out of his mind and concentrated on killing the thing. He had Auron use his Overdrive and was presented with a keypad, a series of shapes and arrows, and a timer that was rapidly clicking down. Hurriedly, Tidus tapped out the correct sequence and the timer shut off. Auron performed his Overdrive spectacularly; it nearly killed the thing. Tidus selected 'Attack' when his turn came again, and after his sword sliced neatly through the thing and back out again it erupted into a shower of the little ghosty-things and turned to an unremarkable hunk of rocklike stuff. Tidus had a moment to look out from the overpass they were on and over the city.
Zanarkand was in ruins; huge fires razed whole blocks of buildings, the waterbridges that had so revolutionized highway travel were disintegrating. Tidus shoved down tears; Zanarkand had been his home for longer than he could remember, and probably for all his life. He loved it, and to see it in such a state was disturbing.
"Tidus!" Auron yelled from further up the overpass. The man was a nuclear plant of energy; Tidus was panting from battle and from running. And he wasn't even real here. /I'm out of shape,/ he thought. /Gotta get back in shape for the Cup next month./ Up ahead there was a curious glowing blue sphere. Tidus ran over to it, holding his side, and looked at it. It was glowing blue mist encased in a glass sphere. Maglev, or something like it, caused it to hover above a base, and also held in a small rotating ring. Reaching around the ring, Tidus tapped the glass experimentally. Maybe it was a sphere recorded by Rin – an easter egg he slipped into the programming. Rin had those in all of his games. Instead, another (accursed) menu popped up.
SAVE
CANCEL
Tidus selected SAVE and was brought to a screen that showed slots that were numbered in ascending order. The top one was taken by a line of faces (one of which was his, disturbingly) and had the name "RIN" on it. That was Rin's file, and Tidus moved the arrow to the one below it. From the looks of it, Rin had put well over 100 hours into this little game, and Tidus wasn't about to break his friendship with the man by saving over his precious game. The save completed on the second file.
/Tidus! Man, are you all right?/
/Rin? What the hell did you do?/
/Sorry./ Rin's mental voice sounded rueful. /Duty calls.../
/You were screwing someone, weren't you, Rin?/
/No! No!...well, yes. Not like you ever do./
/Rin. Get. Me. Out. Now./
The shock of returning to normal life and a place where Zanarkand was not being engulfed in flames nearly overwhelmed Tidus when the pod was opened and all the leads and nodes removed. The face mask popped off, and Tidus gasped. The glovelike things enclosing his arms and legs retracted, and he stood shakily.
"That...was..." he choked out. Rin slapped him on the back, and as his arms flopped limply around he caught a glimpse of the chrono on his wrist. "Great Holy, Savior of Spira! It's almost three...!"
"You have to go so you can sleep and get to classes on time."
"Yes, Rin. See ya later."
"Hey, come back anytime, awright? The pods'll be here, ready for your login." Tidus left, sliding into his floatcar and speeding off towards the waterbridge that would take him to home.
The waterbridges were just that; bridges made out of water. Cars now were made with hoverpaks that converted to propellers. They sucked the hydrogen out of the water and turned it into power. The waterbridges were the brainchild of Dr. Virithra Mataias, after her many decades of research on the subject. Waterbridges made travel that much easier; one could conceivably drop out of it at any point, provided your car was fast on converting. Generally, a smartcar just kept the hoverpaks closed with a watertight door which was opened at the press of a button, just as they were closed. But on some of the older models it was necessary to go all the way on the waterbridge before going through the maze of tunnels that allowed your car time to adjust to using hovers again.
Tidus had made the route so many times already it was etched into his subconscious, but he still paid close attention to his driving. Tidus had been happy when they'd dropped the legal driving age to 15, but he was still careful. Auron was a nice guy, but Tidus wanted to stay on his good side.
Yawning, Tidus parked the car in front of his house and quietly opened the front door. His mother was curled on the couch, asleep in front of the vidscreen. Tidus shut the vid off and tenderly tucked a blanket around her. Tidus loved his mother greatly; it was mostly because of her pain that he was mad at his father for just disappearing.
For disappearing, for being a womanizer, a boozer, and a complete failure as a father.
Determined to be happy, Tidus shoved the thoughts away into the dark black hole in the very deepest metaphorical corner of his mind and crept up to his room. Laying down in bed and pulling the covers up took longer than it did for him to fall asleep.
---***--- The Gamer ---***--- Chapter II: Tutorial ---***---
A small window popped up and Tidus scanned it. It said something about attacking, and selecting things. Tidus closed the window with a thought and considered the menus before him. There was the little thing on the right, with the pictures and labels, and he figured that showed who went when. Across the top of his vision, there was a little bar that said "Help Screen." On the bottom left, there was a small menu. It said
ATTACK
SKILL
SPECIAL
ITEM
Tidus found he could move the little arrow that pointed to 'Attack' around with his mind, and did so gleefully - until he realized he was rooted to the spot until he made a decision. Hastily he 'pressed' the 'Attack' option. Auron ran forward and hit one of the spiny things; it disintigrated into lots of little ghost-looking things. Tidus shivered, but when the menu popped up again when his name was highlighted, Tidus obediently 'pressed' the 'Attack' option, sprang forward, and attacked. It felt weird, not having control over his body. But after a turn of battle or two, he got used to it.
He kept trying to raise Rin, all through the next few battles. They'd just encountered this odd little tree-like thing, and he was about to try again when a devastating hit of sudden increased gravity shook him down. When the menu popped up again, he noticed that the numbers that he guessed represented the amount of hits he could get and still live in the game had gone down – a lot.
TIDUS 320/540 42
AURON 860/1030 76
Tidus grunted as another hit from the thing decreased his health more. The number of health points remaining was now in yellow next to his name.
TIDUS 132/540 42
AURON 643/1030 76
The menu reappeared after Auron had gone up and hit the thing. Tidus searched through his menu for a way to heal himself. "Items" looked promising. Tidus 'pushed' the selection and another menu popped up out of the other one.
POTION 10 PHOENIX DOWN 10
In the help screen above, it showed potions to "Heal a character for 200 HP." Good, this was what he wanted. Tidus selected "Potion" and then himself when prompted to choose a target. The menus disappeared. He pulled out a small glowing ball of light and tossed it up over his head. Greenish ripples drifted across his vision; in a moment, he felt somewhat better. His health now read:
TIDUS 332/560
Tidus smiled to himself. He was getting the hang of this. When the menu popped up again (couldn't Rin have found a better way of propelling this thing other than menus? Tidus thought) Tidus saw little gauges under his name and Auron's. Auron's was full and orange; his was yellow, and only partially full.
Another informative message appeared. Apparantly, this was Auron's "Overdrive" and he could do more damage and use special attacks. Well, a special attack – it was a one-time-only deal, until the gauge filled again. Rather silly of Rin, Tidus thought. He'd known the guy since they both were in preschool; Rin had been designing games since he was seven. Real games that worked, too. Fighting games, driving games, role-playing games, adventure, whatever he wanted, he made. Complete with music and up-to-date graphics. No unimaginative 2D for Rin.
Tidus shoved thoughts of his friend out of his mind and concentrated on killing the thing. He had Auron use his Overdrive and was presented with a keypad, a series of shapes and arrows, and a timer that was rapidly clicking down. Hurriedly, Tidus tapped out the correct sequence and the timer shut off. Auron performed his Overdrive spectacularly; it nearly killed the thing. Tidus selected 'Attack' when his turn came again, and after his sword sliced neatly through the thing and back out again it erupted into a shower of the little ghosty-things and turned to an unremarkable hunk of rocklike stuff. Tidus had a moment to look out from the overpass they were on and over the city.
Zanarkand was in ruins; huge fires razed whole blocks of buildings, the waterbridges that had so revolutionized highway travel were disintegrating. Tidus shoved down tears; Zanarkand had been his home for longer than he could remember, and probably for all his life. He loved it, and to see it in such a state was disturbing.
"Tidus!" Auron yelled from further up the overpass. The man was a nuclear plant of energy; Tidus was panting from battle and from running. And he wasn't even real here. /I'm out of shape,/ he thought. /Gotta get back in shape for the Cup next month./ Up ahead there was a curious glowing blue sphere. Tidus ran over to it, holding his side, and looked at it. It was glowing blue mist encased in a glass sphere. Maglev, or something like it, caused it to hover above a base, and also held in a small rotating ring. Reaching around the ring, Tidus tapped the glass experimentally. Maybe it was a sphere recorded by Rin – an easter egg he slipped into the programming. Rin had those in all of his games. Instead, another (accursed) menu popped up.
SAVE
CANCEL
Tidus selected SAVE and was brought to a screen that showed slots that were numbered in ascending order. The top one was taken by a line of faces (one of which was his, disturbingly) and had the name "RIN" on it. That was Rin's file, and Tidus moved the arrow to the one below it. From the looks of it, Rin had put well over 100 hours into this little game, and Tidus wasn't about to break his friendship with the man by saving over his precious game. The save completed on the second file.
/Tidus! Man, are you all right?/
/Rin? What the hell did you do?/
/Sorry./ Rin's mental voice sounded rueful. /Duty calls.../
/You were screwing someone, weren't you, Rin?/
/No! No!...well, yes. Not like you ever do./
/Rin. Get. Me. Out. Now./
The shock of returning to normal life and a place where Zanarkand was not being engulfed in flames nearly overwhelmed Tidus when the pod was opened and all the leads and nodes removed. The face mask popped off, and Tidus gasped. The glovelike things enclosing his arms and legs retracted, and he stood shakily.
"That...was..." he choked out. Rin slapped him on the back, and as his arms flopped limply around he caught a glimpse of the chrono on his wrist. "Great Holy, Savior of Spira! It's almost three...!"
"You have to go so you can sleep and get to classes on time."
"Yes, Rin. See ya later."
"Hey, come back anytime, awright? The pods'll be here, ready for your login." Tidus left, sliding into his floatcar and speeding off towards the waterbridge that would take him to home.
The waterbridges were just that; bridges made out of water. Cars now were made with hoverpaks that converted to propellers. They sucked the hydrogen out of the water and turned it into power. The waterbridges were the brainchild of Dr. Virithra Mataias, after her many decades of research on the subject. Waterbridges made travel that much easier; one could conceivably drop out of it at any point, provided your car was fast on converting. Generally, a smartcar just kept the hoverpaks closed with a watertight door which was opened at the press of a button, just as they were closed. But on some of the older models it was necessary to go all the way on the waterbridge before going through the maze of tunnels that allowed your car time to adjust to using hovers again.
Tidus had made the route so many times already it was etched into his subconscious, but he still paid close attention to his driving. Tidus had been happy when they'd dropped the legal driving age to 15, but he was still careful. Auron was a nice guy, but Tidus wanted to stay on his good side.
Yawning, Tidus parked the car in front of his house and quietly opened the front door. His mother was curled on the couch, asleep in front of the vidscreen. Tidus shut the vid off and tenderly tucked a blanket around her. Tidus loved his mother greatly; it was mostly because of her pain that he was mad at his father for just disappearing.
For disappearing, for being a womanizer, a boozer, and a complete failure as a father.
Determined to be happy, Tidus shoved the thoughts away into the dark black hole in the very deepest metaphorical corner of his mind and crept up to his room. Laying down in bed and pulling the covers up took longer than it did for him to fall asleep.
