The path to eternity lies on the heels of hope.
We must have hope.
Hope is a very indefinite thing, but it can make the difference between a victory and a loss, a failure and a success. It is one of the most powerful psychological forces known to mankind.
Should we have hope? Most definitely. Hope gives us something to... well, hope for. It allows our minds to set high sights on something we may never reach, but as long as we strive to reach that goal, even if we die trying, we will know we have tried.
But some people spurn hope, saying it leads to a increasing lack of overconfidence. This overconfidence leads to cockiness, which in turn leads to the overwhelming belief that you are superior to everyone else around you. A misguided theory, as your superior self may actually end up on a very fast ride to hell driven by your less superior enemies.
So hope is a delicate balance.
Does the ending of the journey fuelled by hope matter?
Of course, some people say. But if we fail, we would probably be the better for it anyway. From this comes the belief that the ending of life doesn't really matter, for it is the journey that matters.
Isn't it?
f i n a l f a n t a s y : r e a l i t y
FINAL FANTASY REALITY
by chaosrayne
original concept by redshadow
disk one: 4our: it doesn't really matter
A battered Jeep with the hastily painted logo of the 7 in the silver circle on its front swerved crazily as heavy explosive rockets streaked into the dirt road ahead. The MEDUSA roared, unwilling to let it's target escape that easily. Gatling cannons popped out from shoulder compartments and peppered the vehicle, the heavy ammo denting but not piercing the armored hide.
Inside, Alex was tossed around like a pinball in a machine. Patch struggled to bring the 4WD under control as the MEDUSA Imperial Mech targeted it. Rain lay, unmoving, in a small, bleeding heap on the back seat.
"He's going to die! He's lost too much blood!" Alex yelled to Patch over the whine of the powerful combustion engine.
"Use a healing spell!" Patch grunted, terse and distracted as a pulse cannon shockwave shook the car like a rag doll. Twisting the wheel wildly, he managed to drag the Jeep back to the road.
"WHAT?" Alex yammered, right before she was flung into the car window as Patch made a sharp turn.
"DO IT!!!" Patch yelled in frustration as the MEDUSA began to follow them, jet engines whining as it followed the vehicle. "Hold your knife and say the words!"
"What words?" Alex drew her knife, trying desperately not to cut herself with the blade as the vehicle bounced about.
"Soul of the living world, aid your fallen child! Cure! Do it!" Patch gritted his teeth as the Jeep rammed full speed into an Imperial barricade, running over fence and man alike.
Nervously, Alex gripped her knife, gently touching one of the green orbs in her knife as if to will them into working. Talking silently to it, she muttered. "I'm sceptical, but right now you're the only chance Rain's got. Do what you will."
"Soul of the living world, aid your fallen child! Cure!"
Motes of green light sprang to life around Rain, and his flesh began to knit back together, cuts closing and sucking their own blood back inside, until not even scars were left, leaving an unconscious, but breathing and very much alive cadet.
Alex collapsed from exhaustion and nerves. She had not been sure whether it would work or not...
"Good job." Patch grimaced as the Jeep hit an uneven stretch of road. "You should be tired after casting your first spell. You can relax now, I think we lost them, but we need to get out of the range of the ion bomb." Shifting gears quickly, he cranked the already complaining motor up a notch.
With a screech of tyres, the car pulled onto the road, wheels now running smoothly over tarmac marred by warfare- craters and bullet holes.
"We've got to get out of range. That ion bomb kills everything in a mile radius." Patch spoke, keeping one hand calmly on the wheel.
"Who planted it?"
"We had a traitor in the O7 ranks."
"A traitor?"
"Yes, and a very skilled one as well. I think your pal there met him personally and knows his skills firsthand. His name is Renaku. He was a commander in our forces as well. Now he has doomed every one of the O7 force by using our own ion technology against us."
Then the sky flashed white.
Dreams. Darkness. Shadows. A memory?
That face...
Wild hair whipping about, black, long... childlike features, cold...
"KUNAI!!!"
I desperately flung my staff up to parry, but my weakened block was nothing...
Pain. Cold, alone. I was all alone in the rain.
A woman. Late home, having too much to do, arms full with plastic bags holding food and other items, comes across a baby lying in the rain.
A kind, caring face. Too much forgotten, too much not remembered.
Why?
That night, a long time ago, an extra child joined the ranks of Madame Tessaline's orphanage.
They named me Rain, for it was where I was found. Falling from the sky.
I awoke to blinding light.
Ion technology works by displacing ions in a mass of explosive, therefore creating a highly unstable material that is nearly thirty times more reactive than the original.
This meant nothing to Patch's logical, effective mind except that they were not out of the extensive blast radius.
The brilliant flash lit up the night sky for seconds. Then, the shockwave appeared.
A rippling wave of pure force shook the foundations of the ancient city of New York. Roads buckled and gave way under the constricting pressure of the waves. The already weakened frame of the city crumbled into dust, and metal structures toppled and fell, breaking like so much glass as they were bent and warped in directions it was never meant to go.
If the Jeep had been unsteady before, now it felt like it was in the epicentre of an earthquake. The car bounced into the air once, twice, three whole times before the wave overtook it and flipped it over, smacking it into the concrete firmly with an audible crunch.
Then, the explosion. Compared to the shockwave, Alex felt relatively safer in the car when the blast hit O7 HQ, even though she was hanging upside down, only held in her seat by the safety catch.
Patch could not contain himself, and slammed one heavy fist into the dashboard of the car, cracking the LCD display slightly.
"DAMMIT!!!" Flipping himself over, he kicked the door of the Jeep with so much force that it blew outward. "IMPERIAL ASSHOLES!!! COME AND GET ME!!" Grabbing his rifle, he fired wildly into the air, his fury at losing his family, Kira, and the rest of his friends in O7 to the Imperial war machine finally causing his normally rock-hard psyche to crack.
Rain began to fall, as the skies wept for the courageous little band of rebels that was Zero-7. They had died, and the world was worse for their passing.
Emptying an entire magazine into the night sky, Patch broke down and wept.
The teenage boy in the back seat shook his head to clear the vestiges of his dream from his head. Sitting up, he groaned as his headache returned, full strength and with a vengeance.
"Why are we upside down?" Rain muttered.
"The shockwave from the blast flipped us over." Alex supplied.
"Oh." Then, a split second later, Rain realised the implications of that. "What blast?" He asked, already dreading the answer.
"The O7 base." Alex sounded unhappier than he had ever heard. "Apparently there was a traitor in their ranks."
"That guy..." Rain remembered the grinning face of the man he had fought. "He planted a bomb?"
"Yep." Alex said, right before unstrapping herself from her seat and landing unceremoniously on her back. "Ow. He kicked your ass pretty well, too."
"I've been meaning to ask that... why didn't I die?"
"Wouldn't I like to know." Alex winced, rubbing out the kinks in her muscles. "Apparently I cast a healing spell."
Rain shook his head. "You've gotta be kidding."
"Nope. It was like back at the base with the medic."
"It's OVER!!!" Patch screamed, as the droplets of water streamed down his face, mingling with his tears and sweat, to run off around his ankles. In a smaller voice, he continued. "I've lost everything..."
"No."
"What?"
"Is this the real you?" Alex interjected.
"What are you talking about?"
"Are you just going to sit here on your ass and howl shit to the heavens until you sink into a pit of depression? Huh? What about the people who died for the cause of liberating this planet? They believed in the cause. That is faith." The SFMA cadet continued. "I, for one, do not think this is over."
"What can I do? Why don't you tell me, kiddo?"
"Go do what you set out to do. Take down these Imperial guys. You believe that they are evil and are worth fighting against. Are you willing to give vengeance?"
Then the MEDUSA caught up, effectively stopping any further discussion.
Whether Alex knows it or not, she is a good leader. Well, she managed to knock me out of my horror at killing...
Killing... it is a war after all. Either them or us. That is the life of a soldier.
Well, as I watched them bicker and Alex try to convince the big man that blah, blah, blah it's time to do what you set out to do... I sensed something coming.
It was big. It was fast.
My hand instinctively found the plasma staff, still grisly with blood dried over the grip. I ignited it at one end and looked out what was left of the car back window.
I guess the other two noticed as well, since it was firing as it flew.
I ducked down (up, rather) to shield myself from the bullets. The Jeep was armored, and although it was now virtually useless as a vehicle, it could be used as a cover in a pinch.
At least, that's what I thought, until I saw the rocket launcher pop out from the right arm of the thing. (Patch had called it a MEDUSA.)
I kicked the door open and ran towards the other two, rolling and diving, just as the Jeep went straight up, the fuel catching alight. I felt the heat wash over me in a wave as I hit the deck.
The massive robotic dragon drew closer. It had a short, stumpy body with some sort of door at the chest cavity that no doubt held a weapon of some kind, or maybe even the operator. The head was small in comparison, but it boasted wicked hooked fangs and what looked like several tiny weapons attached to the head. Its metallic wings folded into its back, and I saw two gatling miniguns attached to the shoulders.
The monstrosity roared, a sound of metal screeching on metal.
Patch jolted out of his reverie, and I saw him look at the MEDUSA with hatred and anger so deep I thought it would burn a hole right through the mechanical creature. But the thing was quick at targeting, and a rocket streaked towards the two. Alex dove to one side, Patch another as he rolled with the blow and came up firing.
Some of the bullets hit, forming small indents in the steel. The monster roared. The wings folded forward, shielding it from further damage. Bullets sparked off the metal wings. Apparently they were made out of tougher stuff.
I charged, staff ignited at one end. I had a strange thought as I rushed - it felt like one of the medieval fairy tales, where the knight goes off to fight the dragon with a lance. Except in this case, the dragon was made of metal, and had many weapons that could probably kill me in less than a heartbeat.
And I had something that was possibly a bit more damaging than a lance.
Putting all my weight behind it, I slammed the plasma blade into the metallic hide. With more than a little effort, the blade slid into the creature. It roared and shook wildly trying to dislodge the stupid human who had challenged it. I clung desperately to it, but I ended up flying, staff and all. I landed unceremoniously on my butt, rolled twice, and hit a wall.
The thing drew back a step. Clearly I had hurt it somewhat. Another barrage of bullets hit it, this time, on its unprotected head. Patch slammed a fresh magazine home as the empty one dropped to the concrete.
"Come on, you ASSHOLE!!!" Patch yelled, in reply to the creature's keening call. Plucking a grenade from his belt, he flung it at the MEDUSA. It exploded in a mess of metal shrapnel. The snakelike head screeched in pain as part of the head armor was blown away.
Alex jumped forward, aiming for the area exposed by the grenade. Her hand snapped outward in a blinding movement, and the knife Patch had scrounged for her back at the O7 base suddenly sprouted in the neck of the mechanical monster. I saw a surge of electricity flash near the unprotected area, and after looking closer, I saw a few severed wires.
But the eyes still blinked a malevolent red.
Alex swore heartily. Her thrown knife had failed to down it permanently, and now she had no weapon. Then she swore again, harder, as the two gatling guns on the MEDUSA's shoulders swung forward and began to rotate.
"MOVE! ALL OF YOU!" She screamed as bullets chewed up the point where she had been standing a second before. The miniguns chattered madly, ancient lead ammo destroying the pavement.
Patch grunted as the bullets impacted in front of him and shrapnel went flying. Shielding himself with his arms, he crouched down, trying to present as small a target as possible. He checked himself for spare magazines as his rifle clicked empty, and swore. His gun was dry, and the magazines were in what was left of the Jeep...
Rain shook his head to clear it... that thing had knocked him for a loop. Gripping his staff again, he activated the plasma blades at both ends. Then he noticed Alex's knife embedded in the MEDUSA's neck.
Trying to get close, he ran, only to jump back as he was very nearly caught in crossfire by the twin gatling guns, which continued to fire. He desperately needed an opening... but how?
Alex, perched on the still smoking hulk of the damaged Jeep, interrupted him.
"Hey, you big piece of robot crap! Yeah, you, you hunk of junk! You listening? Come and get me!" The blonde grinned crazily, face streaked with dirt. "What, or are you just a big metal chicken with a snake for a head? Huh?"
The eyes of the MEDUSA pulsed a bright crimson.
The closed chest cavity opened, revealing six missile ports that swung out, ready to fire.
Patch grimaced as blood trickled from his cut and bleeding arms. Shielding himself with them had been a bad idea...
Then he saw the chest of the metal lizard open, and the rockets ready to fire. Grinning, he drew his service revolver - a Desert Eagle. The laser sight painted a red patch on his target.
"Night night." He fired once. He was cool, calm, collected. His senses felt hyperextended and away from his body. He could see the MEDUSA clearly. He could even read the writing on the single spent brass that ejected from the side of the gun - SUPER X. 357 MAGNUM, as it spiralled up, over, and down to the floor, clinking gently.
The single armor-piercing shell hit its target - one of the missiles. Predictably, it blew up, causing a chain reaction as the other rockets exploded as well, with an SFX-budget boom.
The MEDUSA screeched once as its own weapons exploded inside it. High-density armor cracked and peeled from the strain of containing something like this. The mecha weapon created by the Imperial Empire was built to shrug off minor cracks and dents and even minor heavy-weapons fire. But six multipurpose attack rockets going off in its core damaged it beyond any hope of repair.
Stricken, the monster tried to fly, smoke billowing from the damaged core. But it was too late - this was just the distraction that Rain had been waiting for.
Jumping up from the remains of an old building frame, he whirled the glowing staff blades about, the blue energy flashing twice. Dropping to ground level again, he counted three seconds before the decapitated snakelike head of the metal dragon crashed to the floor beside him.
Another two and the body followed, crashing to the earth.
Rain sighed. Some thing he signed up on when he graduated...
From the dust, Patch picked himself up and reholstered his Desert Eagle. Striding over to the battered hulk of the MEDUSA, he pulled out a small soldier's tool kit from his belt and began to dismantle part of it using a laser cutting torch. Alex strode over to the neck of the thing and pulled her knife out of the creature in a shower of sparks and loose electricity.
"What are you doing?" Rain asked, seeing Patch continue to tinker with the machine.
After a few seconds, the hulking soldier managed to loosen the screws, grabbing one of the massive gatling guns from the MEDUSA and strapping it to his back, along with a long chain of ammo. His muscles strained from the exertion, but he made no comment.
"Oh." Rain cursed himself for being such an idiot. Of course... bigger is better, isn't it?
Patch didn't say anything, just handed Alex his dropped assault rifle and a mag he had retrieved from the Jeep. "You know how to use that thing?"
With a businesslike expression, Alex pulled off the safety, checked the slide, let it lock on the empty magazine installed, loosened the chamber, released the empty mag, snagged the fresh one, slammed it home, pulled back the slide, and let it lock on the first bullet before placing the empty mag back into her pocket. Thumbing the safety, she slung it by the safety strap over one shoulder. "Yes."
"Where do we go now?" Rain mumbled. He felt on the verge of collapsing again.
"This isn't your world. Take the Key and go home. It will be safer there." Patch said. "We go to the Reality Engine."
"What?" Alex's tone was outraged. "You drag us through time and space to get here, now you tell us to go back?" She looked to Rain for support.
"He's right. If these Imperial guys want the Key, they'll just have to cast another one of your spells, not take it from my dead body." Rain affirmed, while casually leaning on one side of the still smoking hulk of the MEDUSA. "Right now, I know what I want. I want to go home, chivalry and experience be damned."
"I can't BELIEVE you two!" Alex yelled. "We just fought a freaking metal dragon through teamwork, and now you want us to split up?"
"You will be safer back in your home universe." Patch grunted. "The enemy will not take kindly to a pair of kids holding the legendary Key from them."
"It's not a Key." Rain interrupted automatically, before Alex exploded with a fresh wave of anger.
. "Free will? I want to see this through to the end, now I'm stuck into it. Going on a suicide mission to avenge the O7 will not work! We can help you, and we're not a 'pair of kids', we're students at one of the toughest, if not THE toughest, military academies on Earth! Look, you wanted help? Here's help." She gestured vigorously at herself.
"Let me say she speaks for herself when she says that, not me." Rain sighed. "I just want to go home and forget about all of this. I want to wake up."
Alex was literally frothing at the mouth. "Wake up? WAKE UP? You still think this is a goddamned dream?" She swung a punch at Rain, who made no attempt to block or dodge as it smacked painfully into his jaw.
Patch knew a serious argument when he saw one. Instead of letting Alex beat an unresisting Rain to within an inch of death, he decided to prolong the issue.
"Guys!"
"I can't believe you're just letting this go-"
"Look, I want to go home-"
"CHILDREN!" Patch yelled, a small vein sticking out of his neck.
They shut up.
"We have to get to the Engine. Hopefully this issue will be resolved before then, since, even if you want to help me, we must go to the Reality Engine anyway. I have to save someone." He waited, trying to gauge their reactions. When no response was forthcoming, however, he continued.
"Until then, we work as a group. If you want to go, you can go. It you want to come with me, do so. I can allow that much."
Rain blew upwards, as a strand of hair had fallen between his eyes. "I'm with you until we get to the Engine."
"All the way." Alex stood, idly scratching something into the smoking hulk of the MEDUSA with her knife. "I'm with you until the Imperial Empire is dust."
"I appreciate your help." Patch nodded, shifting the gatling gun to a new position on his back. "But please try to work together from now on. Now shake hands."
"...What?" Rain responded.
"You heard me! Shake hands, seal the deal, whatever."
Feeling oddly childish, the teenagers shook hands, clenching each other's fingers tightly - a death grip.
"Good." Patch looked from one to the other. It looked like they were each trying to break the other's fingers. Sighing, he set off, waiting for them to follow at a slower pace.
The SFMA cadets followed.
I really don't know about Alex. She is so emotional.
That's probably why she isn't a graduate yet, even though we are virtually the same age. Soldiers do not feel emotion. They kill for a living, anyway. I think emotion is nearly as looked-down upon as dreaming. Go figure.
But she punches hard. That one really hurt, although I passed it off as only mildly aching.
It surprises me about how much you can learn about people in so little time. How would I have known that the academy prom queen felt stress and insecurity just like the rest of us lowly human beings? Life's strange... I probably would never have met Alex personally if she had not followed me that night and gotten caught in the spell... call it fate? I don't believe in fate.
But I don't believe we create our own destiny, either.
So... what do I believe? I only know a few things: that I don't belong, that I am an orphan, who can kick 95 times a minute and punch at 96mph... I really don't know.
But Alex... intrigues me, in her own special way. I don't know many people, and I have never met anyone so free-spirited as this girl. She is so... strange to me... as well as her emotions and her passionate beliefs. I really wish I could believe in my values that passionately as well, but what do I believe?
She is so complex, in a way. Her values are so intricate, yet so straightforward... I cannot understand. Maybe I will come to know in time...
But I am going home soon, after all, and she is going to be caught up again in the war-torn planet that is where we are now. I really wish I could stay with her and learn more about faith. I remember her words clearly: They believe in their cause, and are even willing to die for what they believe in. That is faith.
What is my cause? Where is my faith?
A world apart from the rocky desert road where the group defeated the MEDUSA...
"Renaku." The president of the Imperial Empire sank into his chair, casually adding sugar and milk (luxuries in these days) to his scalding hot tea.
"You asked to see me, Your Excellency?"
"Ah, yes. Please, sit. Have some tea - its one of the few plants that survived the Five Minute War."
The Imperial spy and traitor to the O7 gratefully sank into a plush leather chair facing the president, taking the cup of preoffered tea. Casually flicking his hair back into place behind his back, where it rested in a tied ponytail, he waited for the order from his superior.
"The Rebels have been completely wiped off the face of this planet. Is this true?"
"Yes, Your Excellence." Renaku nodded slightly, with no small hint of pride.
"So, is it true that we should expect no more resistance from any faction or area?" The president flicked his gaze towards the raven-haired man's face, gauging his answer.
Renaku resisted the urge to cringe under the force of that glare. The president was incredibly cold and calculating, and had won many battles through sheer cleverness and strategy.
"Yes, your Excellence." Renaku repeated, but with none of the previous bravado.
"Then explain why an Imperial Class-IV MEDUSA robot mech's radar signal was lost scarcely hours ago on perimeter patrol duty around the ionized area."
"..." Renaku opened and closed his mouth, trying to find an explanation and getting only one, which was not a good one at all. "S-some of the Rebels must have managed to escape the ion blast radius. That's the only explanation possible."
"Why are they alive when you assured me that they would be wiped off the face of this planet?"
"...I don't know, Your Excellency."
"Find them and kill them. They can't have gotten far. We cannot have a small group of survivors creating another, possibly larger rebel organisation."
"I'll get someone on it, Your Excellency."
"And add an extra squadron of guards to the Reality Engine area. We cannot risk them destroying the Engine, either. There was a hit before - the damned thing misfired and sent one of the rebels someplace. Dr. Shaw is annoyed, as she says the Rebels took something called a Key they need to properly control the Engine."
"Yes, Your Excellency." Renaku reciprocated, getting slightly bored with all the orders.
"Do not fail me again." The president's glare hit him. "Your life depends on it." Leaving his tea unfinished, he left the room.
Renaku looked at his tea.
Focusing a tiny amount of magical energy on the cup, he swore.
The formerly scalding tea froze solid.
I concentrated, breathing deeply. The flow of air inside our bodies is controlled by our state of mind. Breathe in, breathe out. Relax. Find your ki, as the combat instructor taught us.
Standing perfectly still, I hold a stance, balancing easily on one black hightop sneaker.
Breathe in, breathe out. Rhythmic. Easy.
No distractions. No thoughts, no emotion. No feelings.
Now.
I swing my staff forward, plasma blade up and flaring, eyes closed, knowing without thinking that I will hit my target.
I open my eyes, relaxing. Turning around, I switch off the plasma blade. This staff is a great weapon.
Behind me, the tree splits in half diagonally.
Sometimes I wish life were like a battle. There are no hesitations, no second thoughts, as they would surely mean death. You know when to parry, when to dodge, when to attack... Everything is preordained. A battle can be won before it starts.
But life is different. Feeling all the worries and thoughts I had return with the end of my practice session, I sigh as I make it back to camp and the sky grows dark.
Some long hours of journeying later, the group had come across a wide expanse of forest. It was much more appealing than the dried, hardened rock and sand of the desert, so there they went.A good soldier should always have:
1) A weapon.
2) Training.
3) Experience.
4) Food.
Patch mentally ran over the list in his head again. He only had three of the items on the list.
He was hungry.
Point being, he had not eaten since the disastrous mission to destroy the Reality Engine in which Kira had been lost. It had been a long time, and now he was hungry. Cursing under his breath, he slung the minigun to one side of him and turned over, trying to ignore the aching in his gut. Maybe after a good night's sleep he could forget it...
"You got anything to eat?" Alex asked, poking him in the back with a finger.
This question was answered a few minutes later by a small local earthquake, the source of which being the O7 trooper's stomach.
Alex laughed. "I'll take that as a 'no'."
"Actually, I do have something. Military rations. Want some?"
The SFMA cadet pounced on the small, foil-wrapped package. Opening it and stuffing the contents into her mouth, she was surprised to find that the contents tasted much like bland, dry cardboard.
After a few minutes of extensive coughing and choking, Alex spat the 'military rations' back out onto the forest floor.
It was Patch's turn to laugh. "All the vitamins and minerals you could possibly need for 24 hours, crammed into a single small package. Can I add that it's also completely inedible?"
"You're not joking." Alex muttered after chugging deeply from a bottle of water that she had left in her pack after academy sports day. For a bottle of water that had been broken into individual atoms and re-formed again on a journey through time and space, it still tasted like a bottle of water.
"It's more useful as an explosive than it is as a food source." Patch flicked a stray crumb of the nutrient biscuit towards their small fire, where it erupted in a small frenzy of sparks. "Saw a barrel of this crap fall into a beachhead bunker once. Blast put two ships in dry dock for six months. Great stuff."
"Really?" Alex spat out the mouthful of H2O, forcing the acrid taste out of her mouth. "For a high explosive, it doesn't taste half bad."
The man chuckled, gazing at the dark skin of his arm. This girl was so much more than a weak young female... Alex, intruding once more, interrupted his thoughts.
"I want to know something." She tossed her ponytail over her shoulder and played idly with her knife. "Who exactly are these Imperials? I mean, we know that they're trying to kill us, and trying to steal technology from other realities... but not much else. What are their goals? Origin? And why the hell are you guys fighting them?"
Time to get to the truth. Patch cracked the knuckles of his right hand. "Listen up, kiddo. History lesson 101."
"It began with technological advances in their own world. Simple, as always. Man, creating something he thought he could control, becoming prideful and content in his own power. Power beyond understanding, power to shape worlds and destroy them in an instant. Power to create and destroy life itself. The race of man now known as the Ancients.
With a world like that, there were bound to be problems. Instead of dealing with the problems that they already had, they decided instead to build on those problems. The lower sections of the Ancient cities were slums, as the more affluent sections of the capitals were supported upwards. Technology grew so new and powerful that it could not be controlled. Biomechanical limbs replaced artificial limbs. Cloned limbs replaced biomechanical limbs that in turn were replaced by brain transplant surgery - transferring someone's mind into a new, desirable body.
Terrorist groups quickly took control of this technology, however, as many political leaders' minds were replaced by insecure maniacs that governed the country to a religious end or a cult belief. Take for instance the Blood Wake - an insignificant street cult with a heavy emphasis on crime and murder showing the strong over the weak. Add brain transplant and the brain of the leader of Russia ended up dead, with the head of the cult in his place posing as him.
Then we have the beginnings of a new USSR and the Second Cold War, which eventually developed into the famous Five-Minute War. Nuclear missiles were taken over by people who fired them off randomly at will. Sections of the earth became so irradiated that the very genetic structure of the humans was changed, and they roamed the earth as monsters. Most animals died in their millions, bodies not built to take the massive level of gamma rays.
Viruses mutated as well, finally forming an extreme variant of the Ebola virus called the 'blood sick'. Humanity suffered, feeling their own comeuppance caused by their own pride that they were safe, that they were supreme on their planet.
The few great minds on earth that still survived struggled to change their past by creating a Reality Engine - something that could warp both space and time to change the universe. It was completed, but none of the scientists lived to see its success. They were killed when one of them betrayed the rest by releasing a biological weapon inside the lab as he himself escaped inside the Engine, presumably to another time and universe.
What was left of the human race banded together under a brilliant military leader known as Charles Kingslow. Forming a group known as the Earthbreaker Army, he established firm control over the world, purging the world of religious beliefs and cult terrorists, as they had started this whole business. Once finished, he ordered all Ancient technology to be smashed and destroyed, believing human pride and knowledge to be the cause of all this.
Starting from scratch, he built an empire from a tattered and broken Earth, based on hope, sweat, and tears. By dint of blood and bone, the human race rebuilt itself. But Kingslow had many enemies, and a few short years after he established a new democracy, one of his opponents assassinated him.
This opponent was Rezo Takada - one of the Japanese scientists left over from Neo-tokyo, the new Japanese capital city. Managing to pass off Kingslow's assassination as a suicide, he took control of the man's empire that he had worked so hard to build, and named himself president in Charles' place. Renaming the last empire of humans as the Imperial Empire, he took over as a dictator, immediately restarting projects to uncover the power and technology of the Ancients. Specifically the Reality Engine, as Rezo coveted the power that it could give him if he could bring the Imperial war machine to bear on another universe, uncorrupted by man's spoiling existence.
But a powerful and righteous man such as Charles Kingslow did not die without having a few close friends wonder why he committed suicide.
Captain Army Major Frost was one of those, and with a little of the pre-earthbreaker leftover reconnaissance military equipment at his disposal, he quickly discovered the truth - that Rezo had taken over by killing Charles. But before he could do anything, Rezo exiled him from the city of the Imperials, knowing that Frost knew the truth.
Frost, being the military genius that he was, grouped together a small band of expert soldiers who were loyal to him and to Charles, and nicknamed them the O7, in comparison to the Imperial Army's six types of military division."
-'The Rise and Fall of Mankind' - 2030
"...And that's the history of this world in brief..." Patch smiled grimly, idly cleaning the long cylinders of his chaingun.
"...Wow..." Alex breathed, her mouth a small, round 'O'. "You know..."
"Hm?" Patch looked up from his gun to appraise her, looking for a response.
"You know..." She repeated. "That... really sucks."
Patch raised a hand to his face in exasperation and resumed polishing his gun, frowning slightly at the disrespect Alex had for history... well, then again, she was only a girl. "I was hoping for more of a '...good story...' actually."
"So? It just royally SUCKS! Your world has been screwed over at every turn! Nuked! Wasted! Betrayed! It is just so DIFFERENT!!!" Alex sat up from where she had been lying down, exasperated.
"What makes you think your world may not end up the same way?" Patch's dark eyes stared into hers.
She had no response to that.
As I stumbled wearily back to camp, I approached a clearing that I had not seen before.
It was atop an elevated cliff where the treeline met a river. I took a deep breath to calm myself, steadying frayed nerves with a large amount of air. Looking over the cliff, I could see a small human settlement below, parked next to the river that gave the forest life in the desert.
They were scavengers, from what I could see. Swarthy and heavily muscled, they clustered around a heap of something that I recognized as the remains of the MEDUSA. They must have dragged the mechanical carcass from where we had downed the thing.
Loud voices and the smell of cooking food drifted up from their position. The men laughed and the women chattered, so peaceful despite the fact that they lived in houses patched together from rusty hulks of machinery.
Man. Such an adaptable race. It was what had made us conquerors of this planet, rising above other, maybe more powerful species. We changed. Changing meant surviving.
Dragging my mind away from that easily debatable subject, I noticed that many of the houses had a red diamond painted on their front doors - the sign of the Imperial Empire. Patch would not be happy if he found out that he was sleeping next to a camp full of staunch Imperial supporters.
Then I perked up as I saw what looked like some sort of large mechanical vehicle parked behind the rows of squalid huts. Maybe I could steal it and get to this Engine thing, go home, crack open a Coke and forget this whole thing ever happened? Yeah. Maybe.
Life's a bitch, and then you die. Nihilistic, but it works.
I really wish I had a family. Even in this war-torn planet, people still have parents, children... they still have people who care for them. I have nothing and no one. I have nothing to live for.
When I was in the SFMA, I had something to prove. I had to show them that I could succeed. I graduated. Boom. Finito. Now is there anything left to live for? Military service? Fighting for something that we don't know about? Religion? Morality? Belief?
I sigh a lot. I wonder why.
Patch's eyes snapped open in an instant as he sensed movement.
Jumping from a lying position to a fully upright one, he snapped his arm up to face the intruder, Desert Eagle already in hand -
-And Rain casually brushed the barrel of the gun away from his face unconcernedly.
"Geez, kid, you scared me for a second there."
Rain glared at him. "No time for jokes. We have a possible hostile situation here. There's a camp full of people about 200 yards that way." He gestured behind him with his staff, deactivated and inert.
"So?" Alex replied. It was not her day for making mental connections.
"We need food, and rest. Any ideas?" Patch grunted, heaving the heavy chaingun onto his back and standing up.
"They're a simple settlement. No need to hurt them." Rain muttered, clearly annoyed. It was a matter of personal interest that he got to the Engine as quickly as possible. If that meant he had to work with the O7 trooper, that meant it.
Patch raised his voice. "You don't know nothin'. Here, everybody is the enemy. They support the fuckin' Imperial cause, and for that they would be willing to kill us."
"So? There's still no need to hurt them. We can steal what we need and continue." Alex stifled a yawn. "And I'm tired."
"They got some sort of machine down there. I don't know what it looks like, but it looks like it can travel." The SFMA graduate ran a hand through his dark hair. "It would be faster than walking, at any rate."
"Good idea. Where you brought up, kid? Your mind works like a tactician."
"It's the way we're taught." Rain answered readily. "Now... any ideas?"
A man with his scalp shaved bare to show the Imperial diamond tattooed on his forehead patrolled the perimeter of the settlement, a cigarette clamped between his lips. It was unlit, since fuel for his lighter was out. Idly playing with a short knife, he scratched a few patterns into a table; the most recognizable being the Imperial insignia.
Then, a rustling was heard.
The guard's eyes flicked to the small patch of brush marking the edge of the camp, and the forest beyond. Probably just a forest animal of some sort. If it didn't bother them, he wouldn't bother it.
Then a boy stumbled out of the brush. His dark hair ruffled about his head in a sort of untidy way, and a narrow strip of cloth tied around his head hid the universal Imperial tattoo the man assumed would be there.
Something was odd about this boy, though... he carried himself with a certain air, but not arrogance. He was... unsure of himself. For some reason the guard was reminded of a redwolf cub - young and not completely in power, but still dangerous.
"You got a light?" The man mumbled around a mouthful of damp tobacco. Quality was scarce these days... the Imperials in the cities despised smoking, deeming it a filthy habit. But he was damned if he'd let a political asshole somewhere accuse him of damaging the environment. As if there was much environment left to destroy anyway.
The boy looked at him, startled. Evidently he had not expected the big, tough man to talk to him. Maybe he was scared. A grin split the guard's face, showing yellowed teeth discoloured by chewing unlit cigarettes.
He was not prepared for the boy to flick out a platinum lighter and offer him the flickering yellow flame.
Surprised, he muttered, "Thanks." Shielding the lighter from the wind, he held the narcostick in the flame a few seconds before the tip glowed. "Not many lighters these days."
The boy replied in a cool, calm voice. In that next split second, the guard had to re-evaluate his opinion of the youth. "It was only fair to grant a last request."
Eyes widened, the guard stumbled backwards in shock as the boy punched him in the face. Something gave - probably his nose, maybe a few teeth. He staggered wildly, trying to find the strength to yell out a warning.
But then he noticed something was missing, and he shut up.
The 'boy' held the lit cigarette in the two fingers of the hand he had used to punch with. "Don't you know smoking kills?" And with a perfect throw, the glowing narcostick hit the edge of a barrel. The symbol on the side was familiar; the flame and cross of a flammable liquid.
Shoddy barrel work had ended up in a small leak of fuel at the bottom. It was enough.
With an expanding CRUMP of heated air and combusting fuel, the camp awoke.
Nothing was left of the guard except his smoking boots, which would have been almost funny if his feet weren't still in them.
Rain sighed. Too easy. He only hoped the other two fared as well as he did.
Over the noise and distraction of the explosion, two dark figures crawled behind the camp. One was a large, hulking figure, the other a slim female. In the shadows, hidden from sight, the girl slipped ahead and broke the neck of a guard with his back to her, requisitioning a plasma pistol.
The bigger figure grunted as he sneaked ahead to join her. "Did you have to kill him?"
"Felt like it." The girl cricked her neck and holstered the pistol. Gesturing to the side of the vehicle, she motioned him over. "Let's see what this is."
The two fugitives sneaked into the scavenger camp to do a little grand theft auto.