OOC Authors Note:
Hey guys! It's me again, Trolli! This is technically the first chapter, and here you'll get to see all the Star Ocean characters you've been waiting for! I've gotnine out of the twelve characters involved through most of the story, excluding Chisato Madison, Bowman Jean, and Ernest Raviede. I'd have written them in as well, but I wrote this before I'd recruited any of them on my game, so I knew nothing about them! (Sweat drop)
I hope you enjoy this chapter! I actually have about nine chapters written already, but I'll post the others slower than I did last time. That way, people have time to read the story and it'll give ME more time to finish the following chapters! I'm currently working on a chapter called True Blue that you will hopefully read in the future!
Thanks and enjoy!
Chapter One: At the Final Stretch
"Easy does it…" a tall, dark-haired swordsman murmured to himself as he teetered slightly backward. One wrong move could lead to his entire tower's destruction! It loomed high above the ground, wavering slightly in its own foundation as he stood atop a tall ladder, attempting to put a finishing touch on the structure. The two dragons behind him, who had been merged straight into his back due to an accident in the mines of Salva, were becoming impatient. Gyoro, the blood red dragon, opened his strong jaws to growl something, but the young man, Ashton Anchors, quickly threw a hand up at him.
"Shhh… A single breath could send this thing tumbling to the ground in seconds, Gyoro," the Heraldic fencer whispered, hardly breathing at all himself. Gyoro groaned under his breath as Ashton continued critically. After shifting to gain maximum balance, he extended his hands toward the tip of the tower, holding a red-backed card between his fingers.
"Easy… Eeeeasy…" The dragons, Gyoro and Ururun, had been enduring this painstaking task for hours now, and both were fed up. Patience wasn't exactly their strongest point, so when the two annoyed monsters exchanged glances, they each acquired a wicked look in their eyes. Ashton paused a moment as Gyoro and Ururun snickered menacingly.
"What're you doing back there?" the Expellian swordsman inquired, looking at them through the corner of his eye. Both feigned innocence. "…Okay then…" Ashton lifted his eyes back to the top of the tower.
"Here we go… This… should do it… Agh…" Ashton was just about to put the final card onto his card castle when the two dragons of Salva Drift purposely 'sneezed' on the structure! Ashton watched in horror as all the hard paper cards drifted and fluttered down to the floor far below him likes leaves in the fall. Gyoro and Ururun laughed uproariously as Ashton dropped the card he'd been holding and glared at them.
"I was almost done… Why'd you go and do that, huh?" he sniffled.
"Uruuun! Uruuu ruuuuun!" Ururun, the icy blue dragon chortled, sounding like an excited sea lion. Ashton sighed and sat down on the top of the tall ladder.
"I should've taped everything together when I had the chance!" he sighed, smiling slightly as he shook his head at the destruction before him.
Ashton Anchors, Precis Neumann, Noel Chandler, Claude Kenni, Rena Lanford, Leon Geeste, Opera Vectra, Celine Jules, and Dias Flac had been sailing through space on Opera's spaceship, the Trine, for a week now, their purpose merely to see the planet of Tetragenes. Nobody knew much about Opera's home planet, since the way she described it was always so vague, so they'd planned on going there to see it themselves! Besides, over half the crew knew next to nothing about space, so it was a priceless opportunity to experience it. Everyone was very interested in seeing what was 'on the other side of the sky', as Claude had once put it while talking to Rena.
With Opera Vectra piloting the small starship, they were now somewhere between the planets of Expel and Tetragenes, but Opera found it odd that she didn't recognize anything they were passing. She wondered if she had somehow taken a wrong turn, but didn't say anything. If they really were off the trail, she could find the way back in a jiffy! She knew what she was doing. The only problem was the gas tank…
While everyone strolled about and did their own thing aboard the Trine, Ashton had been in his room enduring the meticulous task of building a card house. But since the project had been obliterated by the roguish dragon duo, Ashton just sat quietly on the top step of the ladder, resting his chin on his hands.
"I wonder what Tetragenes looks like… Do you guys?" Ashton commented to the dragons. Gyoro and Ururun looked at each other, then back at their friend.
"Gyooo. Awrk, gyoooroooo."
"Uruuuuun!" Ashton waved a hand nonchalantly at the two, grinning slightly.
"Thought so. …I wonder if Precis is thinking about it too?" Gyoro and Ururun sighed and stared a bit as Ashton went starry eyed. "Precis…"
"Gyooo," the dark red, golden horned dragon mentioned, rolling his eyes at the Expellian. Ashton's face went bright red.
"I never shut up about her? What's that supposed to mean…?" he asked with a sweat drop. Suddenly, the spacecraft groaned loudly and began to rumble. Ashton, Gyoro, and Ururun looked from side to side.
"Now what do you think that is…?" Ashton wondered aloud. As the vehicle creaked noisily and the lights flickered, the group just watched. In mere seconds, to the trio's shock, the spaceship suddenly lurched aside with such ferocity that it heaved Ashton backwards off the ladder, sending it falling after him!
"YOW!" Ashton managed to land securely in a kneeling position on the floor as the ship continued rolling sideways, the playing cards flying towards the wall. The Trine groaned and shrieked mechanically, sounding like a large rusty door, causing the thick plexi-glass window near Ashton's bed to rattle roughly.
"What's going on?" Ashton yelped as the ladder clattered onto the ground next to him. He jumped to his feet and ran toward the door just as the ship pitched the opposite way. The ladder flung at Ashton from behind, who hadn't seen it coming until it was too late…
Precis slid down the tiled dormitory hallway as the ship tilted violently. Her orange hair whipped aside as she tried to catch onto something with her robot Bobot held in one of her arms.
"EEEEK! BOBOT, I THINK SOMETHING'S LIKE, WRONG HEEEEERE!" Precis wailed as the ship changed its tilt again. Moments ago, the energetic teenager had been heading to the bridge room with Bobot when the Trine suddenly began to rock wildly! Was something wrong with Opera? Precis tossed Bobot up into the air.
"Turn into something useful, okay Bobot?" she requested in her high, violin-like voice. The small robot twirled in the air and in a flash, took the shape of a thick metal pole. As Precis continued to slide down the hall, he bounced up to her waist's height on the walls and clipped himself there. Bobot had become a colorful metal rail. Precis skidded down to it and caught on easily.
"Nothing to it, huh, Bobot?" Precis beamed. Just then, the door right in front of the Bobot Bar crashed open, spilling Ashton, Gyoro, Ururun, and a large ladder out onto the tile. Precis stared quizzically as her companion, with a lump on his head, slid down the corridor.
"Like, gee, I hope he didn't hurt himself," Precis remarked, blinking as Ashton and the dragons tumbled out of sight into the bridge room.
If he hadn't been bruised up enough from being hit in the head with the ladder and rolling through the dorm hall, Ashton then smashed in through the bridge door and was flung inside. Before anything else could happen to him, he latched onto one of the chairs that were bolted to the floor.
"At least the chairs aren't flying around," Ashton sighed, rubbing the bruise on the back of his head. Gyoro and Ururun draped their heads over the top of the seat, agitated and dizzied from being heaved around. But the ship soon regained its stability, allowing the floor to stand straight again. Ashton quickly raised his head up as Opera jerked the steering wheel, trying to keep the ship stable for as long as she could.
"Opera," Ashton breathed, "what's happening?" Opera was surprised to hear the swordsman's voice, so she turned her head to see him.
"Ash? Oh, it's just a bit of crisis. Nothing for you to be worrying about until I say so, okay?" she said coolly, even though she knew how serious this 'bit of a crisis' really was. Ashton cocked his head at her.
"Until you say so? You mean that you-" Before Ashton could finish, Claude, Rena, Leon, Celine, Dias, Noel, and Precis slid into the room, and Noel slammed straight into Ashton, knocking him flat. Having seen him sprawl heavily onto the ground, Noel Chandler quickly went to help his friend up.
"My deepest apologies, Ashton… I didn't see you there," the Nedian apologized, holding a hand out. With Noel's help, Ashton scrabbled to his feet and grabbed onto a new chair.
"It's alright," he assured as Gyoro and Ururun began snapping irritably at each other. Ashton peered up at his two permanent fixtures as he began losing his balance from their shifting weight. "Don't do that, guys! You'll knock us over," he warned, laughing nervously as the dragons of fire and ice cooled their jets.
The others were a mess too. Precis, Rena, Claude, Leon, Dias, and Celine were strewn across the room, each standing with at least one hand holding onto something, lest the spaceship rumble again. Everyone was pretty bewildered, especially Celine. She brushed her hair back with her hand, stealing a glance at Opera worriedly.
"Why, what's going on, Opera sweetheart? That was quite a jolt we got there," she panted, wrapping her arms over a rail. Dias Flac was standing behind her with one hand on the wall to keep his balance, just in case.
"…We all came here to see what the matter was… Is everything under control now?" he questioned flatly, his eyes glimmering with his natural cold light. Leon too asked the same question, his brown, cat-like Fellpool ears twitching slightly.
"It seems there's been a malfunction… Could you explain for us, Opera?" Opera tilted her head back in her seat to look at the others, her slightly curled blonde hair swirling around the pilot's chair.
"Everything's fine for the moment, but I'm going to need to find a place to land soon," the pretty Tetragenes informed, blinking her three eyes at the scattered group. Now holding Bobot in his natural form again, Precis leaned forward and brought her free hand to her mouth curiously.
"Like, why do we gotta land so soon, Opera? I mean like, I know there's gotta be something wrong with the Trine, so like, what is it?" Forgetting to take discretion of the rookie space travelers' fears, Opera told them all like it was.
"Well Precis, it looks like we're going to crash if we don't get more fuel. We're just about out. See what I mean?" Half the crew yelped in horror, including Ashton, who jumped back with surprise.
"We're almost out of fuel? That means you won't be able to control the ship, doesn't it? We could be sucked into space and lost forever! Uhh… Well, well quick! We should find a refueling station or something!" Ashton exclaimed frantically, his eyes flashing to the window, hoping to see an inhabitable planet nearby. All he saw, though, was dark, endless space and the large hunks of rock, the asteroids, which were drifting thickly passed the ship.
"I haven't seen anywhere to fill the tanks for about a week now, so I don't know what our chances of that'll be." As everyone murmured amongst themselves, wondering what to do, Claude jogged over to Opera and checked the fuel gage.
"…You're right; we barely have any at all! Why didn't you say anything?"
"I'd have just scared everyone, you know that."
"I guess you have a point…"
"There has to be a planet around here somewhere Claude, so how about everyone just sits tight and-" Just then, the Trine smashed up against one of the large chunks of rocks drifting beside it and was barreled over like a bowling pin! As Opera quickly leaned forward and took a grip on the wild wheel, the others dove onto rails, chairs, and bars so they wouldn't be knocked to the floor.
"AAAHHHHH!" Precis spilled backwards a bit but caught onto the wall, Celine screamed and hugged her pole tightly, and Rena grabbed onto the door frame and held on for dear life. Noel and Ashton latched onto the same chair and hung on, Claude caught onto the back of Opera's seat, and Dias shifted himself to stand against the lean of the ship. He kept his balance with no help from a stable fixture at all. The only one who hadn't been able to steady himself was Leon. As the Trine bellowed and heaved aside from impact with the meteor, the young Fellpool was lobbed backwards.
"YIKES!"
"Leon?" Instinctively, Ashton reinforced his grip on the chair as the twin dragons surged to the side. As Leon flew backwards, the two lizard-like beasts bit into the collar of his thick white lab coat and caught the twelve-year-old. As the ship began to gain solidity again, Gyoro and Ururun set Leon down in Ashton and Noel's chair.
"Are you hurt?" Ashton inquired, looking down at him with equal concern as Noel and the dragons. Leon calmly cleared his throat and buckled his seat belt, strapping himself to the chair.
"I'm okay… Thanks Gyoro and Ururun," Leon let his head drop a bit as his Fellpool ears cowered down into his ice-blue hair. Although he wouldn't say anything, Leon was terrified now. And to make it worse, the Trine began to bump along through the traffic of meteors, rumbling badly like a wagon train over a wooden road.
"Like, whoa!" Precis shouted. "The ship's not stabilizing!" Since Claude hadn't quite recollected himself yet, Rena nodded to herself and looked at the others.
"I think it's going to get worse from here, but don't worry, everybody! Just buckle into a chair and you should be fine." The group was glad to hear some instruction. Nobody had known quite what to do, so Rena's words had been very helpful in straightening them out. Since the chair they were holding onto was taken, Ashton and Noel jumped into new seats and strapped themselves in. Everyone else followed the example, especially Celine, who scrambled to a chair, trembling so badly that she almost couldn't buckle the seatbelt.
"C-Can you see anyplace to land, O-Opera darling?" Celine asked, almost pleadingly. She dug her long fingernails into the armrest, her bracelets jangling slightly as she leaned forward hopefully. Opera didn't turn around this time, since she was having so much trouble keeping the ship at the moderately rough jumble it was now! But she still called back.
"I can only see these meteors, actually, and they're not fit at all to rest on."
"Everyone keep your eyes on the windows; look for somewhere to land, okay?" Claude requested, shutting the buckle on his seat.
"We'll surely find something," Noel encouraged, leaning aside in his chair to watch out the window. As the Trine popped along like a rock tumbler, shaking and rattling horrendously, the team of travelers each plastered the windows with their eyes, fearfully searching for something, anything resembling a planet. Just a sizeable shard of rock would do! If they didn't find a place to stop and find more gas, the group would be in terrible trouble! And what exactly were the chances of finding a planet with breathable air?
Ashton had one of his gloved hands on the armrest as he scanned the window nearest to him. Even Gyoro and Ururun tried to help with their sharp-eyesight. But nobody got the chance to look very long before the spacecraft banged into another meteor! The force of the hit lolled the ship over like last time, but now, all the papers on the desks around them fluttered off like panicked quail, blasting all around the bridge! Ashton ducked down, the dragons leaned back, and Noel leaned forward as the flurry of papers sheeted between them. They watched as a mass of them hit Dias in the back of the head.
"…Whose idea was it to keep all these loose papers around…?" Dias demanded flatly, peeling a piece of paper away from his head. Opera hardened her eyes on the windshield for a moment, then let them down to the dashboard. As she caught a glimpse of the fuel gage, she bared her teeth slightly, but held her head down so no one would notice her stress.
"I don't mean to rush you," she stated, keeping her voice level so as not to scare the others more than needed, "but if we don't find something quick, we're not going to make it." Celine turned her head slowly from the window and looked at Opera as she spoke. The Expellian froze that way for a moment or so, then just screamed.
"AAAAHHHHHH! WE'LL NEVER FIND ANYTHING, WILL WE? WE'LL CRASH FIRST!"
"Celine, calm down!"
"AAAAHHHH!"
"Hey!"
"It's alright…"
"We'll be fine, come on!" Everyone onboard lost their focus on finding a planet and turned their attention to Celine, who was panicking now. Through this stress, nobody yet noticed the massive green sphere out ahead of the ship as it drifted into view from the sides…
As the ship quaked and trembled harder than Celine, the windows threatened to shatter, which could kill everyone aboard. One of them rattled violently as if it'd been kicked and made such a noise that Ashton had to look up at it. The swordsman hardly glanced at the window pane before turning back to his friend, thinking nothing of it at the moment. But as Noel, Precis, Claude, Rena, Leon, Opera, Dias, and Celine began to talk all at once, Ashton double-took and peered at the window again. What he saw was huge and green, nothing like the meteors by their sides! It dwarfed everything within range of it, a god among the rocks. It took Ashton a moment to find his voice.
"It… That… I think… Hey Opera!" he shouted to the blonde haired pilot.
"Yeah? What's up?"
"I think I see something!"
"What?" Everyone quieted down, even Celine, and looked at Ashton. In almost a flash, a cloud of silence fogged over the group. Ashton had found something? If he'd seen something useful, the group had a chance of survival!
"…D-Did you really see something, Ashton darling?" Celine wanted to know, clasping and unclasping her hands hopefully. Nervous under the whole team's eyes, Ashton clumsily pointed at the window near him. Being the closest, Noel looked through.
"Why yes, that is something, is it not?" Noel pointed out, his voice excited but low. Everyone else got loud again.
"What's something?"
"It's something big enough to land on, right?"
"No kidding? Like, totally rad!"
"Th-That's wonderful! What is it, sweetheart?"
"Way to go, guys! What did you see, Ashton?"
"I hope it's s-something sufficient…"
"Well…?"
"It's a planet," Ashton announced, pointing at his sighting again. "See, right there! It's close too."
"It's impossible to tell though, if we could survive on it outside the ship…" Noel put in, sitting back in his chair as the ship threatened to implode itself. Opera and Claude pinned their eyes to the windshield as the Tetragenes spun the wheel and turned the craft straight toward Ashton's side. They saw the planet too.
"It looks a lot like Earth!" Claude exclaimed, sitting forward. "Maybe its composition will be like Earth's too?" Opera made a fist and pulled it to her chest.
"YES! That'll work great! Nice job, Ashton!" she shouted, taking the wheel again now. But before Ashton could respond, she continued. "But nobody do the victory dance just yet, alright? We could still burn up in the atmosphere, explode when we crash-land, or plunge into an ocean when we get there."
"…AAAAHHHHHH! YOU MEAN WE'RE NOT EVEN SAFE YET?"
"Hey, calm down! Celine? Guys? Ohhh… I didn't mean to scare them, Claude…"
"Just head toward the planet and do your best, Opera. It'll be fine!" Claude encouraged, his blue eyes flickering determinedly. They just had to make it there! As the group peaked to a frightened roar again, the three-eyed woman cranked down on the gas and sent the space shuttle flying forward at the planet. The mysterious globe had large green portions, brown flecks of land, and oceans that didn't seem to end. But maybe they did, on the other side? As they sailed very close to the orbiting planet, Opera forced the last bit of fuel to rocket them forward. But it was then that the red arrow on the fuel gage dropped dead like a fly. Even the lights on the ship went out as all power was finally lost.
"This is it, everyone! The final stretch!"