Falling.
Falling forever.
Deeper into space.
Where am I going...?
I really don't know. I don't expect to find out, either.
Should I know?
Drowning in the darkness, a human satellite, falling through the worlds, away and towards stars, thinking, feeling...cold.
"Come with me." A voice said, and with it comes a hand, the reassuring warmth of human contact pulling me out of the darkness and into the light.
I blinked in the brightness, standing above a city as it erupted in flame, watching two people battle it out in the streets.
Magic flies back and forth as people steer clear of them, although they run everywhere. People are running. Running? Where?
We can understand our fear of the darkness, but why are we afraid of the light?
Dreams. Darkness. Shadows. A memory.
I awoke.
f i n a l f a n t a s y : r e a l i t y
FINAL FANTASY REALITY
an angelhawk studios production
original concept by redshadow
written by chaosrayne
disk two: 4our: s3lf ass3rt10n
Breathing hard, I jerk awake.
It is only then I realize Alex had been curled up beside me.
She is awake in an instant, clutching at my arm. "What is it, Rain?"
I hear her voice as if through a thick pane of glass. Muffled. Slowly but surely, my vision clears, but the painful, throbbing sensation between my eyes does not go away. The feeling of wrongness, the feeling that something was amiss, something invisible, but so tangibly there...
"Something's wrong with the Engine." I groan.
She is fully awake in microseconds. Somehow, I still don't see how some people can do that, even after going through SFMA training myself. "How do you know....?"
I put my head in my hands. "I don't know... but something's happening. I can feel it."
She gets up, yawns, and stretches. "Well, we should better check it out, while it isn't snowing." She gestures at the scattered groups of people napping around dead fires. "Better if they don't know we're gone."
"I have a headache." I complain.
She shrugs. "What else is new?" Pulling me to my feet, we step cautiously over assorted pieces of junk to avoid waking the poor scavengers of this Earth. "You know where we're going?"
I turn, and step closer to the north. The headache gets stronger. "That way."
"How do you know all this?" Alex asks me incredulously. "ESP? I don't think that exists even in this universe..."
I worry for a second. She's too quick to accept what she sees in each universe as normal. Me, I'm cautious as hell, but even then some things slip through.
Tara.
Shut up.
"I don't know." I answer Alex. "I... can just feel the Engine. I know something's wrong.... it feels... like... it's being used."
Her face is full of concern. "Let's get back to the entry spot as quickly as we can - "
"And just where do you think you two are going so damn early?" The voice stops us both cold. It is none other than Kyr-, no, Kira. She is Kira. At least, Durandal says she has a implant identifying her as an O7 operative, and that's good enough for me.
Looking at her, I notice that she looks tired and disheveled (well, slightly more than normal anyway), most likely the aftereffects of last night's alcohol. I had taken a small taste of the stuff, and it was most likely distilled from cleaning chemicals from the way it had gone down.
She had a hangover, and was in a bad mood. Although I know it's a cliche, I had to say it. She looked... cute when angry.
But the knife and plasma pistol at her hip reminded me to take her seriously. If she was as skilled as Patch had said...
"We're going for a walk. You know, fresh morning air and all?" Alex spat.
I shook my head. Was that the best she could come up with? Oh well. "You want to join us?"
Alex's eyes met mine in a split second of recognition.
Kira went slightly green for a second, then turned away and projectile vomited.
I sighed. THIS was why I didn't drink that much. Drunk me was equal to sick and worthless me the next morning. Evidently the same held true even in alternate universes. For other people as well.
"You okay?" I offer her a paper tissue, which she gratefully accepts, but mutters a Cure spell to get rid of the hangover. "I think the 'morning air' would do you good."
Kira nodded weakly.
Three solitary figures were seen picking their lonely way across the Outer Waste in the wake of the snows, leaving compacted footprints in the snow where they trod.
Unseen, black shapes hugged the shadows behind, ready to spring at a moment's notice, to sprout multifuntional pseudopods that would rend and tear flesh at will, to destroy whatever that stood against them...
"I am NOT having a good DAY!!!" Kyrina yelled. "It would be really nice if you could just LEAVE ME to have my HANGOVER IN PEACE!!!!!" Magic flared. "PLASMACASTER!!!"
She flicked her modified knife up, where it attached to her plasma pistol like some sort of bayonet. Firing, the plasma dripped along the blade length and formed a solid beam that ripped through black Anima like scissors through weak tissue paper.
"...shattered dreams/empty souls/broken for the world to see/wide open for everyone to hurt/this is what I am/this is what I am..."
[journal entry: catherine shaw]
0215 hours, location unknown:
Why am I here?
Why do I exist?
Is anyone out there?
Does anyone care?
I'm alone.
I failed in my mission. My allegiance is to the great and powerful Imperial Empire!
Is it...?
Renaku tried to kill me because I failed. Is this the future I want? One ruled by him?
Where is the vision of peace and prosperity the President promised when we swore allegiance to him? Dust and ashes... after the Five Minute War, anyone who had power enough to group people towards him ended up more powerful. Charles Kinglow and his Earthbreaker Army had proved that. And he used his power for justice, rebuilding a broken earth.
Then Rezo... Rezo had killed him.
All the lies, hidden under a thin veneer.
I was one that knew the truth. One day working on a terminal, I had hacked the Imperial database, and in Rezo's files, I had found the reality. The truth. All in a small file marked 'The Rise and Fall of Mankind'.
Our great president Rezo Takada was nothing but a fraud. A killer. He had murdered Charles Kingslow in his sleep, and taken over. Rezo had passed it off as a suicide, and renamed the Earthbreakers as the Imperial Empire.
The Imperials now had a red diamond tattooed on their bodies as soon as they were born, marking them as one of the Imperial-sworn, to Rezo and Rezo alone.
There were those who resisted. Those who fought. The Rebels and the Imperials had fought hard for every inch of their new earth, people, forgotten Ancient technology, atrocious ion weapons and mecha in a desperate struggle for their existence.
The Rebels had been crushed.
And not for the first time, I felt myself doubting my cause.
Limp strands of my flaxen hair hung down into my face. I would have brushed it off, had not my hands been tied behind my back.
I was a captive. Of the Rebels. Two of them. I knew both.
I needed to get loose.
Patch picked dirt from underneath his fingernails with his standard issue M41-A trooper knife. Muttering to himself, he stabbed down into the ground with the knife, the weapon sliding effortlessly into the earth. A few feet away lay the captive's firearm, a Magnum revolver. It gleamed in the flicker of the flames, shells removed and lying in a small pile at its side.
"Talk." He said, facing the woman in front of him, hands tied behind her back by a short length of rope. "All you know. You're a pretty high level Imperial scientist, and you hafta know somethin'."
The woman didn't reply. She kept secrets tighter than the mage cloak she wore.
"TALK!" Patch barked, losing his patience and hefting his plasma rifle, charged and ready. "What did you do for Renaku?"
Tara grabbed the rifle barrel, and with a expert flick of her wrists, popped the weapon loose. "She won't tell us anything if she is dead. Let me talk to her."
Patch fell back and stared aimlessly into the fire, brooding.
Tara knelt down, facing the captive. Blue eyes set in a beautiful, high-cheeked face met Tara's own brown, matching her red hair.
"You...traitor..." Catherine spat. "You betrayed us. You should have killed them all when you had the chance."
Tara backed up a little. She still remember when Catherine had her at her mercy, and pretty much forced her to kill Rain, and she was still sore about it. But Patch came to her rescue, still looking omniously at the flames. "You would have been killed for trying to kill Renaku as well."
Catherine did not look at him. He was the stronger one - a hardened Rebel. Tara was the weak link. She was still suffering from emotional trauma at nearly having to kill the one she had hopelessly fallen for, and underneath all the brash assassin bravado, she was still pretty much a girl at heart. But she had to be careful with her, maybe even more so. Push so far and she just might snap...
"We have you are our mercy." Tara hissed, angry that she had needed Patch to come to her emotional rescue. "We can kill you right now, and nobody in the world would even care."
The Imperial mage sighed. "So what? You do know that your cause is worthless, you know. You will be dead within days, weeks, months.... they wil come for you eventually. It doesn't make a difference."
There was a short rustling in the grass. Patch's eyes turned to the local flora just as a breeze swept by.
"What makes you so sure that we will die?" Tara said, little more than slightly unnerved at her nemesis's prediction.
"Because...." Catherine muttered, half to herself. Then she was up and moving, a small flare of shadow magic burning the bonds from her hands, blade up in a practiced motion, magic flying through the air to hit a hidden trooper who screamed at the impact and fired his rifle wildly. Another one behind him screamed as a small throwing knife sprouted from his midsection, and then the one behind Patch took a knife through the throat and fell, dead.
"...shit." Patch breathed.
"Because," Catherine finished. "Lord Renaku sends people like... me."
Patch's rifle dropped from limp fingers. "Sweet mother on a stick."
"Now I suggest we move." The Imperial scientist returned the small fan of throwing knives she had out into various compartments under her black cloak. "That was just a scout party. Then the assassins will come, and then the MEDUSA. I am sure your friend is informed of that pattern, having been one herself." Here she gestured at Tara.
She ghosted away under the trees.
Tara shrugged and followed.
Patch picked up his rifle. "Hey... wait a sec - !"
0925 hours, Hades, Yahl Russa Waste
Rain whipped his staff around in a glowing blue arc, freeing Alex from the brackish black ichor that had trapped her and had been trying to rip her to shreds.
"Some peaceful morning walk, huh?" Alex yelled, teeth gritted, knife out and spells at the ready. A series of plasma scored the Anima beside her, and she made a mental note to thank Kyrina, no, wait, KIRA, for that small favor.
She was Kira. As unbelieveable as that seemed, it was true. 'Kyrina' was not from Hades at all. She was the girl who had been accidentally sent to Hades via uncontrolled Reality Engine. And the process had changed her. She had lost her memory, and in the process had lost a few years of age.
Well, Alex thought. I suppose forgetting all your bad past can take a few years off you.
And now there was something wrong with the Engine. At least Rain said so, and he had muttered something about being 'bonded to the Engine' when she had questioned him, so that was a big blank.
But something WAS wrong. Kira had said the Anima barely ventured outside in broad daylight, and now there was often a random encounter every few minutes. So far, she had lost count of the black, twisted forms she had to hack her way through now.
The 'early walk' Rain had suggested was in fact only a ploy to get Kyrina back into her own world, but there was definitely something wrong about the whole thing, as if the Anima knew where they were going.
Jogging, she called to the other two. "Hurry up!"
"Where the hell is your girlfriend going in such a hurry?" Kyrina grumbled.
Rain started, more at the fact that Kyrina had called Alex his 'girlfriend' more than anything else. "Wha-.... oh. She's not my girlfriend."
"So why the hell do you two travel together?"
Rain blushed. This was unusual for him, as he wasn't really a ladies' man back in his own universe. He lived a lonely existence. But so far since coming to what he thought of as some long, intricate nightmare, he had had not one, but TWO girls kiss him, in very interesting positions as well. "I... I guess it was just coincidence that decided to... throw us in together." As if on cue, his headache doubled. Something was definitely wrong with the Reality Engine....
They topped the next curve of the pile of Junk, and ... stopped, staring.
At the middle of the oddly-shaped crater that had first marked Kira's entrance to this world and then Rain and Alex's, black ichor foamed and flowed, Anima gathering up and bunching themselves in the middle.
"They're trying to get through!" Rain exclaimed, the reason for his headache suddenly becoming all too clear. "They want to get to the other universe!"
"The WHAT?" Kyrina stared at him as if he had just suddenly grown a second head. "Are you crazy? You must have hit your head on something in that last battle - "
Alex, however, went pale. "You don't mean....! Can you stop it?"
"No... need time...." Rain muttered over the growing throb in his head. "I can't stop it...."
Alex ran through the options in her mind. If the Anima got through to other worlds like the one they had been in... or even their own earth... Her eyes grew wide. "There's only one thing we can do."
"I get the feeling I'm missing something here." Kyrina quipped. "Okay, tell it to me straight. Who the hell are you two?"
Alex shook her head. "We don't have time for this...."
Rain turned around and gripped Kira by the shoulders, somehow feeling nervous about the physical contact with a girl even though he knew this had to be done. "What do you live for?"
Kyrina met his gaze nervously. "Um... ah... I don't know."
"Are you willing to risk everything to find out what you do live for?" Rain asked. "Will you do this?"
"Wait a sec... just what are you two on about?" Kyrina blurted. "Can you at least explain?"
"No time... Rain..." Alex said, her voice quaking slightly as the massive black mass began to take on a smooth shape and form, an Anima made out of a lot of the things combined. "We have to do this..."
"No! I am not going wherever the heck it is you're going until you tell me where we're going and why!" Kyrina yelled, her anger showing through the cracks in her confusion.
Rain sighed. "Kyrina... I need you to trust me. I know that in someplace else there is a man who loves you very much and wants you to return to him. I know that the world and life you have been living so far is a sham."
Kyrina faced him with a sort of stony silence.
"Have you ever felt the feeling that no matter how hard you tried, you didn't belong? You didn't know who you were or what you were?" Rain said, his words echoing his own thoughts. "I'm offering you a chance to find out the truth. You want to or not?"
The brunette he held hung her head.
"Come on." Rain said wearily. "What have you got here at Tribe Omega that you treasure?"
Alex smirked inwardly, remembering the time when she had pretty much said the same words to Rain in a sense.
Kyrina stood straighter. "I don't know how you know all of this, I don't know who you are, I don't even know what the hell kind of weed you two been smoking... but I'm coming with you. I need to find out about my past. I want to know. I need assertion of who I am. Why I am."
"Self-assertion." Rain nodded.
Alex turned her attention back to the Anima. "Um... guys?"
It had noticed them. One massive black mask turned their way. The impossibly large Anima stretched out to a full standing position - a full 40 meters. It would easily have been the equivalent of two Chaos mecha.
One black arm shot out, formed into a tentacle, and the group scattered as the large arm slammed against the area where they had formerly been standing.
Rain was the fastest to recover. Driven by a sheer amount of adrenaline, he jumped on the arm tentacle and actually ran up it, as the arm began to lift for a second swipe, intending to squash the stupid humans.
Rain pounded up the arm, sliding down it when the Anima lifted it, and came down in a single swipe across the shoulders, drawing a glowing blue slash of plasma lengthways across the face.
The mask split in half, and hundreds, no, THOUSANDS, of shimmering black ribbons lashed out at Rain as he fell. One snagged his arm and flung him around like a weak rag doll filled with flesh and organs.
"Di-Ice!" Alex shrieked. The freezing spell froze a portion of the Anima's foot, but it seemed unaffected... the thing was just too large. "It's not working...."
Kyrina jammed the trigger of her plasma pistol repeatedly, chewing holes in the Anima's torso, but they reformed as quickly as she could cause damage. "We're not doing enough damage! Haven't you got any bigger spells?"
"Cover for me!" Alex yelled as a dozen larger tentacles streamed out at her. "I need to find something that might work!!"
The other girl concentrated and shot down the tentacles as they approached Alex, every plasma burst tearing through alien flesh and hissing straight through it. "I can't hold them off for long...."
Alex dug through her pack frantically. All her materia were pretty low-level... she needed something powerful... like.. like....
She held up the ornately carved wooden box Tara had thrown her before she had disappeared through the Engine. Shaking it, she found it rattled.... Sliding open the lid revealed a small pile of red materia.
Intrigued, she slid one into the empty materia groove on her M41-A trooper knife. It seemed to shine with an inner light.
Summoning up all the willpower that she had, she forced it through the materia, hoping for something... anything... a spell of some sort....
Words came unbidden to her mind, as she held her knife up. "Sage of sages, keeper of the wisdom of endless time, father of the storm..." Alex blinked. Was she speaking like some sort of bard? "...I call to thee, I beseech thee, bring the swift punishment of nature to all those found wanting! Decreed by thine hand, the sentence from on high... JUDGEMENT BOLT!!!"
The world faded to white around her....
Alex looked around. She seemed to be standing on thin air, above what seemed like clouds. Hesitantly, she took a step forward.
Through the mists, she caught sight of something that looked like the outline of an old man.
What is the matter, child? The voice sounded infinitely old, full of wisdom and power. It didn't sound weak and frail... just... old. You call upon me.
"We... we... needed help." Alex stuttered. "...Please."
The wizened old man stepped forward, creating a small hole in the clouds with his staff, to get a good look at the Anima. A worthy foe indeed.
...You are welcome. Ramuh said.
The skies boiled with thick, black clouds. Lightning churned, rolled, and crackled through the dark heavens, ringing a vortex which formed in the center of the storm. An ancient man in impeccable golden robes descended from the clouds, a crackling staff in his hand. Lightning surged and sparked around him as he threw the staff down, piercing the large Anima below.
Frantically, the Anima pulled one arm tentacle around, tried to pull the staff out, but electricity rippled along it's form even as it did.
Rain and Kyrina were whisked to safety an instant before the full force of the storm was unleashed, pouring into Ramuh's staff, electricity razing the ground for 50 meters in every direction and frying the Anima. The monster itself writhed and spasmed wildly, tentacles in every direction, before exploding in a shower of blue sparks and black ichor.
Rain appeared on the scene, looking at the charred black crater. "...Wow."