A/N: w00t! Got plenty of unique readers now! Thank you so much everyone, and keep spreading the word!
Clyde, through Nozomi, has learned far more about the atrocities caused by Martin than he wanted too hear. Because of this, he wants to treat the elimination of Martin as "more than just a job". His and Nozomi's levels of courage and determination are high, but will it be high enough to beat Martin and his gang of thugs? And what the heck is underneath the water?
Respond to the readers:
To those who given so much praise so far: Thank you so much! It's for readers like y'all that I keep trying to do better!
Concerning the originality of SO: FAB: Now that y'all mention it, I don't think I've ever seen any other original fics for SO that didn't have some sort of tie to one of the other games. It's a real shame when you think about just how much there is to play with in the imagination department of SO. Anyone who has played SO3 has surely at least flipped through the in-game dictionary at one point or another. This is a wonderful source for SO information and, as such, can serve as fuel for any number of original SO fics. I know it helped me out. Anyway, I am serious when I say that this is my grand project. I'm hoping for 100+ chapters. This will be, more or less, a novel. Perhaps a short one, but a novel nonetheless.
Oh, by the way, if anyone was curious, SO: FAB takes place in SD 873, 101 years after the events of SO3. I don't believe I ever mentioned that.
Also, I found out something interesting. Just for kicks, I looked up the meanings for Nozomi Hikaru's name. Surprisingly, Nozomi mean "wish; hope; desire" and Hikaru means "to shine; to glitter; to be bright". One way to twist this around would be to make her name mean "Shining Hope"… the last hope for her people. Creepy, huh? Man, I'm good.
Anyway, on with the show!
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Chapter 5: Beneath the Current
Clyde and Nozomi broke apart from their embrace when they heard what appeared to be the sound of several dozen bubbles popping. They looked around in their immediate area but saw nothing.
"Did you hear that too?" asked Cynthia from her crate.
Clyde nodded. "Yeah. Keep quiet for a sec."
Nozomi bent her knees and placed her right hand on the hilt of her blade. "Something's following us. Stay on your guard."
Clyde nodded and began to slowly unscrew the barrel extension off of his phase gun. "Any idea what it is?" he whispered.
She shook her head and spun quietly one-hundred eighty degrees on one sandaled-foot. "I'm not sure. I'm not very familiar with river-based monsters."
Clyde's eyes shot open when he heard this, He ceased work on his gun as he turned to Nozomi. "Wait… monsters?"
She nodded. "Yes. What's wrong? Monsters a fairly common part of nature, right?"
Monsters. He HATED monsters, especially ones that he wasn't familiar with. Yet, here was Nozomi, acting like nothing was terribly wrong. 'A fairly common part of nature'? He would've called her crazy, but he had to remember that, on a world such as Rainyv, monsters may very well be common. What seems weird to him was in fact very ordinary to Nozomi. Still…
He shook his head and tapped in a few keys on the hidden keypad imbedded into the handle of his phase gun. "Bah. Not where I'm from." He punched in the final key and watched as the display read, "Code accepted: Full-Auto mode engaged." Satisfied with the new configuration, he brought the stock of the gun to his shoulder and prepared for the worst.
He didn't have to wait long. A moment after he finished modifying his weapon, a very large tentacle covered with suction cups slammed onto the deck. Hitting no one, it retracted itself back into the water.
"W-whoa!" yelled Clyde as he took a few steps back. "What in the hell was that!"
Nozomi gritted her teeth and held the handle of her blade more tightly than before. "River Kraken."
Clyde frantically waved his gun around. "Like I asked before, what the hell was that!"
Nozomi began to step backwards towards as he eyes darted between her left and right side. "A rare, almost unique aquatic monster with over a dozen giant tentacles and an enormous head. Its strength is enormous and has been known to bring down entire river vessels by itself."
Clyde closed his eyes and shivered. "Just what I wanted to hear."
"Look out Clyde!" cried Cynthia as another tentacle rose from the water and smashed its way onboard. Lacking the speed necessary to dodge such an attack, Clyde fell victim to the tentacle's immense strength and was struck hard in the ribs by it.
"Gah!" yelled Clyde in pain as he hit the floor of the ship.
The tentacle slowly began to wrap itself around Clyde's legs. Before it could get very far in the process however, it was sliced off by a well-aimed blow from Nozomi's blade. What was left of the tentacle slithered back into the water with great haste. What sounded like a great cry of pain could be heard from underneath the water.
"Clyde! Are you ok?" asked Nozomi without looking at him. She held her blade tightly with both hands as she kept turning her entire body left, then right in a continuous cycle.
Clyde sat up, river water dripping down his face. "Yeah, I'm fine. Just watch out for yourself!"
"Clyde," said Cynthia. "This may be a bad time to bring this up, but there's something strange about that sword she's using."
Clyde stood to his full height and slowly paced around the deck. "It'll have to wait Cyn- oh crap! Look out Nozomi!"
At the front of the ship appeared three more tentacles, reared back and ready to strike. Clyde stepped in front of Nozomi and braced the phase gun against his shoulder. "Stand back and watch! Eat this!" Clyde held down on the trigger and let loose a large spray of phase bullets at the grouping of tentacles, driving them further and further off the ship as each bullet struck. Finally, this group of tentacles retracted themselves and retreated back into the sea, but not before Clyde had expended thirty rounds into them. "Hahaha! How do ya like that, punk?"
Clyde ran to the front of the ship and pointed his phase gun at the water beneath him. "Oh no you don't! I'm not done with you yet!" he yelled as held down the trigger once again, releasing another long spray of phase bullets. "Hit me in the frickin' ribs, will ya!"
Clyde stopped firing for a moment and continued to scan the water. During his latest barrage of fire, he had not heard another cry of pain or anything else of the sort. Rumbling could still be heard underneath the ship, leaving Clyde with little doubt that the monster was still alive. "Damnit. Where did he go?" he said as he marched back to the middle of the deck.
He didn't have to wait long for his response. Two tentacles clung onto the back of the ship. Following these was the gigantic head of the Kraken. Its head, shaped almost like a bullet, was surrounded by loose flaps of flesh that fluttered slightly as the boat continued to make its way down the river. It had great, yellow eyes that had a kind of dark shine to him, making the Kraken look almost evil. Letting loose a mighty roar, it exposed a large, perfectly circular mouth filled on all sides with incisor-like teeth. Finally, from either side of the ship appeared another tentacle, both situated not far from Nozomi. Just as before, they seemed poised to strike.
"Nozomi! Look out!" yelled Clyde.
Both tentacles made their move at the same time. The one coming from the left was dodged in the nick of time and was promptly sliced off. However, she was not quite as lucky in dodging the second one, for it struck her cleanly in the back, knocking her to the deck as it did so. Just as it tried to do before with Clyde, it wrapped itself around Nozomi's body and began dragging her across the deck and towards the gaping mouth of the beast.
"Clyde! Help me!" screamed Nozomi is utter horror. She tried to struggle, but made no progress what-so-ever. She was simply too weak to put up any sort of resistance to a creature as powerful as the Kraken. What made it worse was that the handle of her blade was being crushed against her hand, causing her additional pain.
Clyde immediately leapt into action. Dropping his phase gun, he instead brandished his knife and activated the laser edge on it. He dashed over to Nozomi and plunged the knife deep into a part of the tentacle that was not wrapped around her. A very dark red substance came seeping out of the wound, looking more like oil than actual blood. The smell of burning Kraken flesh caused by the laser edge was nauseating. Despite its cries of pain, the Kraken refused to let go of the defense-less Nozomi. Realizing this, Clyde plunged the blade twice more into slightly different spots on the tentacle. Finally, the tentacle unwrapped itself from Nozomi and retreated back into the sea.
"Nozomi, are you ok?" asked Clyde as he helped her to her feet.
She wearily nodded her head. "I-I think I'll be okay, but we have to stop that monster! None of my attacks are powerful enough to hurt the head though."
Clyde watched as two more tentacles made their way on deck. "Feh. Will this ever end?" He reached down to his belt and unattached one of his AM grenades. "I think I can get him with this, but I'll have to find some to get it into his mouth or something. Otherwise, it'll just bounce off that cavernous skull of his."
Nozomi brandished her blade once again and stepped in front of Clyde. "Leave that to me! I'll blind the Kraken so you can get close to it!"
Clyde looked at her, puzzled. "How?"
She didn't answer him. She closed her eyes and began to twirl her blade in front of herself. On the blade, Clyde could see what appeared to be glowing symbological markings. "Whoa, what the-"
She opened her eyes and pointed the tip of the blade at the Kraken. "Shining Light!" From this blade erupted a great flash of light that Clyde thought for sure would blind him. As it turned out, it proved to be only harmful to the Kraken. In fact, the light was rather soothing to not only his eyes but his entire body. The Kraken reeled back in pain as it tightly closed its eyes, unable to see now.
"Ok Clyde!" yelled Nozomi. "Do it!"
Clyde shook his head, remembering that he had a task to accomplish now. "R-right! Here goes nothin'!"
He readied his knife once more and dashed down the deck towards the head of the Kraken. Once close enough, he leapt onto its head and plunged his knife as deeply as he could into it. This attack wasn't meant so much to cause any damage to the Kraken, but to instead give him something to hold onto as he carried out his part of the plan, much like a climbing spike. As the Kraken thrashed about, Clyde held onto his knife as tightly as he could with his left hand as he brought the grenade to his mouth. He plucked out the pin with his teeth and spit it into the water. "Open wide!" yelled Clyde as he tossed the grenade into the gaping maw of the aquatic beast. Now all he had to do was get away, and he only had seconds to act before he too would be vaporized by the explosive. Holding onto the knife with both hands, he used both of his legs to deliver a vicious kick to the beast's head, sending himself flying off of the Kraken in a back flip-like motion. At the very moment that he landed on the deck, the Kraken's head exploded into a very gooey mess of sinew and bone. If it weren't an AM explosive, the mess would've been even worse. Clyde was thankful for that. The remains of the Kraken, including the tentacles, slid off the boat and sank to the bottom of the river.
He smirked. "Good guys: 1, Stupid Kraken: 0" he whispered to himself.
An excited Nozomi ran over to Clyde and knelt down next to him. "That was amazing Clyde! You- oh my!" It was then that Nozomi noticed what appeared to be a very nasty bruise on the back of Clyde's neck. "You're hurt!"
Clyde felt for the bruise on the back of his neck. "Ah, its nothing. Besides, you're not looking much better yourself." He pointed to two bruises that had formed on her right arm during the fight.
At the same exact time, they reached for each other's wounds. "Here, let me-" they both said at once. "…heal…you." Their eyes locked for a moment before an obviously embarrassed Nozomi looked slightly away. A soft, blue light formed around their hands as the bruises slowly began to fade away. Once the healing was finished, they retracted their hands.
"Thanks," "T-thank you," said Clyde and an even more embarrassed Nozomi, respectively, at the same time.
A long moment of silence followed. Unable to take this awkward silence, Clyde decided to break it by saying, "I see that you can use Symbology. How di-"
"Symbology?" asked Nozomi. "You mean magic?"
Magic… so that was what the people of Rainyv called it. He had heard of it referred to before as Runology and the Federation once called it Heraldry. However, never before had he heard it called 'Magic'. When most people thought of the word 'magic', most people thought of magicians pulling rabbits out of their hats or the kind of force wielded by the heroes of countless fantasy novels. He brought a hand to the few symbols that had been inscribed just below the collar-bone of his neck, normally unseen because of his clothes, and rubbed them.
"That's your word for it?" asked Clyde. "In the Federation, we call it 'Symbology'. Your 'Magic' makes use of special symbols on your body, correct?"
She held her hand out and shook it from side to side. "Yes and no."
"Yes and no?" asked Clyde.
She pulled back the loose sleeve of her right arm and turned her wrist upward toward Clyde. "See, these are the special runes that allow me to use my personal array of magic spells." She pointed to the rune closest to the bottom of her hand. "This is the rune that allowed me to use healing magic on you. However, this is not the only source of my magic."
She unsheathed her blade, allowing a dazzling ray of moonlight to reflect off the surface of the smooth side. The unsheathing caused Clyde to feel a bit light-headed. At one point, he could've sworn he heard someone whispering from very far away. He shook his head and fixed his attention once again on Nozomi.
"This is Reisame," she started, "In Uzbeijin, the native tongue of my people, it means, "Spiritual Rain". It has been passed down in my adoptive grandpa's family for generations and is said to be the most powerful item on our planet, Rainyv. My brother was next in line to receive it…"
She paused for a moment and looked down at Reisame. Clyde laid a hand on her shoulder in an attempt to comfort her. She took a deep breath and continued. "…a-after he died, grandpa passed Reisame to me, even though I was only his adopted granddaughter. He passed it on to me in hopes that I would be able to defeat Martin with it."
"Nozomi…" said Clyde, unsure of how to respond.
She shook her head. "Anyway, from Reisame flows a special kind of magic that requires no runes of any sort. With this blade, I can bend both the forces of light and water to my will. It is a holy weapon that is said to be one half of a legendary pair of swords."
Clyde brought his hand to his chin. "So there's another sword like Reisame?"
"Yes," replied Nozomi. "However, the two blades are also completely different. Herufaia, or "Hellfire" is the complete opposite of Reisame. It is said to be a dark weapon that gives its bearer complete control over both fire and darkness. No one knows that has become of Herufaia though. Supposedly, it's been missing for six-hundred years."
Clyde closed his eyes. "Reisame and Herufaia, huh?" He smiled. "I guess Cynthia was right about your sword." His eyes shot open. Cynthia! Where was she? He hadn't heard from her since the beginning of the battle against the Kraken. He looked over to her crate, but the communicator that she had been uploaded into was nowhere to be seen.
"Cynthia!" yelled Clyde. "Where are you?"
"In the water, you dolt!" yelled back a very aggravated Cynthia.
Both Nozomi and Clyde rushed to the back of the ship and couldn't help but laugh when they saw the (thankfully) water-proof communicator bobbing in the water. "Hey Cynthia! Going for a little swim?" asked Clyde. Nozomi giggled.
"Ha ha ha," laughed Cynthia sarcastically. "I hope you two are enjoying this, because I sure's hell am not! Get me out of here Clyde! I'm an AI, not a swimmer!"
"Heh. Chill out Cynthia. I'm coming," said Clyde as he began to slide off his PGF jacket. He was prepared to dive in when Nozomi placed a hand on his shoulder.
"Leave it to me, Clyde," said Nozomi. I'll get her out."
Not questioning her ways, Clyde stepped back and watched. She drew her blade once again and, tip of the blade on the deck, she slowly turned a circle with it. Once the circle was complete, she swung the blade upward in a large arc and yelled, "Geyser!" With this, an explosion of water coming from underneath Cynthia launched her up into the air and onto the ship where Clyde caught her.
"Nice catch, Clyde," said Cynthia. "Still, it would've been nice to not get thrown into the water in the first place!"
Clyde rolled his eyes. "Yeah, yeah." He slipped back on his jacket and stuck Cynthia into one of the inner pockets. "Well, quite an exciting night so far, eh?" He smiled and turned to Nozomi. "You better get a few hours sleep before we get there. I'll stay up and keep watch."
"Are you sure?" asked Nozomi.
He nodded. "Positive."
She nodded back. "All right then. Good night Clyde." She took a blanket out of the pack she had brought with her on the ship, laid it out, and laid down on it herself.
He smiled. "Good night Nozomi." He picked up the phase gun he had dropped earlier, sat down on a crate, and began to work on it once again as he anxiously awaited the arrival of their ship at Martin's hideout.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
With the Kraken defeated, Clyde, Nozomi, and Cynthia can do naught but wait as their ship slowly drifts down the river. What lies in wait for them at Martin's fort?
This chapter was a little longer than usual (yay!) so I hope you liked it. Thank you again for all the reviews and I hope you're looking forward to the next chapter!
Also, anyone out there looking for a little bit of Star Ocean humor? Then please R&R my one-shot humor fic based off of SO1 called "Cius Versus Alcohol"! What do you get when you mix Cius with copious amounts of alcohol? Loads of fun, even if you've never played SO1! Please check it out!
