Thank you so much for reading Our War Torn Earth! And I did not notice it until today, but the title has a typo! Oops.
Well now, I've been having really bad karma. First, this morning I slipped on a sheet of ice on my driveway as I went out to bring my yard waste been inside and now I have a fancy bruise on my behind. Second, my cat barfed at five in the morning and I had to get up to clean it up to find that my house was fifty degrees inside. Talk about cold reality. And finally, I swallowed a chicken foot knuckle. On purpose. And then it got stuck. I almost choked on rice trying to get it all down. Now, as I am working on the sequel, I am waiting for a lightning bolt to strike me dead as I sit.
Yes, that's right. Sequel. The next sequel will be up within the next day or two, so check my profile page! The title will be The Hanging Man. This is based off the card The Hanging Man in a deck of tarot cards, who represents paradox, that things are not what they seem.
Thank you to ElTangoDeRoxanne, fallacies, and emeraldonyxdragon. If you wish, I shall send you a PM when the next one is up! Thank you for taking your time to read my craziness!
Disclaimer: I own nothing.
The new Strahl hummed to life, glossair engines whirling. Fran flicked a few switches, and Balthier's fingers twitched on the joystick. John glanced back at Nono from his seat. The Moogle was sitting in Jack's lap, watching the pilot and co-pilot's every movement with his button eyes. Fran looked out the window at the Strahl's shimmering wings, spread to allow them the most maneuverability in the low speed test flight. The test: going through the hole at the Ridorana Cataract.
Balthier also looked out of the window as he skillfully steered his ship, but his gaze focused on John's reflection in the glass. "Ready to return home?" he asked. John met his eyes in the windowpane.
"Perhaps. I will miss the peace, and my number might be up as soon as I return," he said quietly. Balthier averted his eyes, but Fran shook her head.
"That is the lot of the mortals. Death waits at the side of every road." She said as the Strahl glided forward, light flashing off its gold paneling. Balthier steered them south toward the Naldoan Sea.
"Well if you die, you'll be in good hands." Jack consoled him. "Will is a good man."
"He hasn't grown tentacles yet, has he?" Balthier asked. Jack shuddered.
"Oh, no! I'd have jumped ship if he did!" the pirate exclaimed, shivering again. "He ain't no Davy Jones!"
The Strahl made good time over the Naldoan Sea when Fran and Balthier retracted the wings. Unlike the old Strahl, which boomed over land and sea, the new Strahl screamed through the air, ripping it apart with her dragonfly's head and razor edged wings. Marcus closed his eyes against a wave of nausea that rippled his stomach.
"You okay, Marcus?" Barnes asked, and Marcus looked at him in surprise.
"Yeah… why do you ask?"
Barnes shrugged. "I care, that's all." Marcus smiled.
"I'm fine."
"Where are we?" Blair whispered. The sea beneath them was as smooth as glass, and a night sky stretched above them.
"This is Earth," Fran stated as their map system fizzed and died. "The Strahl does not have charts for this world, so the navigation system has failed," she informed Balthier. The sky pirate cracked his knuckles.
"Flying by hand was always a fashionable way to go," he quipped, gripping the control stick. "Jack, where are we?"
"Er… I don't really know…" Sparrow replied, squinting out of the window and upsetting Nono, who had been dozing in his lap. "Will and Hector will probably show up soon and guide us back to LA."
"And back to the daily regime of life and death fighting the machines." Kyle said gloomily.
"We would do more for you if we could." Fran said, "But the only way we found we could help was to give a parting gift to you."
"A parting gift?" John leaned forward, and Balthier gestured over his head awkwardly with a ring-bedecked hand.
"Look under my seat. It's the package wrapped in wanted signs." John snorted when he saw it— there were wanted signs for Fran, signs for Balthier, signs for Solanum, even signs for Nono. Wrapping gifts in one's wanted signs must have been a pirate tradition or something.
He unwrapped the box carefully, and stared at the contents. Bullets.
"Very practical... um…" he laughed.
Balthier grinned. "They are our special bullets— filled with very corrosive acid. Let the Terminators chew on that."
"Once, Balthier was drunk while we were making these. He melted his fingertips off." Fran said in a surreptitious manner, but Balthier flexed his right fingers.
"Please, Fran, don't air out my dirty laundry like that," he complained over their laughter. She shrugged, a small smile playing about her lips.
Just then, the Flying Dutchman sprang from the waves. Jack hailed it by waving wildly from the window.
"Well, there's our ride!" he exclaimed. Kyle looked at it.
"That thing?" he asked. Balthier looked at them sadly.
"Gentlemen, lady," he gave a courtly bow to Blair, kissing the back of her hand. She blushed, though she shivered at the touch of his icy lips. "It is here that we must part. I thoroughly enjoyed your company over the past week, though I admit I have never been killed in so many different ways in one week before. May you have luck in winning your war."
"He means he's sad to see you go and wishes you luck." Jack chimed, and Balthier stomped on his foot. The pirate gasped, doubling over and cursing profusely. "You haven't lost the ability to stomp like that, I s— oh!" Balthier's steel shod heel ground into Jack's leather booted toes.
John shook Balthier's hand, swallowing a lump in his throat. "It was an honor to fight at your side."
Fran smiled at him warmly. "Perhaps we shall meet again, in this world or the next."
The Resistance members and Jack descended the Strahl's ladder onto the deck of the Flying Dutchman. Balthier poked his head out of the trapdoor.
"Will!" he shouted, and the man emerged from his cabin. "How's Elizabeth?"
"Alive and kicking—quite literally." Will grinned. "You'll find her in LA."
"Elizabeth with a machine gun… Nightmare fuel, that." Balthier shuddered, and Will laughed.
"See you around?"
"Maybe. Ivalice is changing— and the leading man must change as well, or his act will get boring quickly." Fran said, dragging Balthier back into the ship.
Marcus watched as the Strahl refolded her wings and zipped toward the horizon, light from the rising sun gleaming on her sides. "There goes a man of many talents. If it wasn't for him, I wouldn't be here." He said. Blair put a hand on his chest, where the pump whirred away under her fingers.
"We wouldn't be here, metal man. We wouldn't be here. Now, don't we have a city to save?"
In Ivalice, One-hundred years later:
Two figures in black travel stained cloaks walked through Rabanastre and down the stairs into the Muthru Bazaar, carrying nothing but an empty crate. More than one passerby stopped to stare at the odd pair— a young man and a Viera. It was the latter who attracted the most attention, though more than one woman paused in her shopping to take in the man's handsome face. The pair stopped at the far end of the bazaar, setting their crate down in front of them. However, they produced no wares, and a few people began to wander toward them, curious. It was then that the young man raised his voice, just loud enough to be heard over most of the Bazaar clamor.
"Come one, come all, and hear stories and legends dating from the Antiquity period!" he called, and several heads turned. "Listen to a story of Princesses and Princes, Empires and Emperors, Dragons and Warriors! Listen to a story of the struggle for Dalmasca's freedom, and the fall of Nabudis!"
Very soon, a large crowd of people were conjugating before the man and the Viera and their empty crate. The Viera nudged the tawny Hume's shoulder. "I think there are enough now, Famfrit," she whispered, and he smiled at her charmingly.
"Of course, Francesca," he replied, and turned back to the crowd.
"Now, many of you, I am sure, have read about the Nethicite War in your history textbooks. Am I right?" Heads nodded, and a murmur swept the crowd. The two people were storytellers. Excitement visibly crackled in the air. "I am here to give a true account of that tale: the whole truth, the real truth, and nothing but the truth. That includes the romance and the drama, the battles and the adventures, exactly as they happened." Famfrit gave them a sly, quicksilver smirk, and bowed to Francesca. She stepped forward onto the box he gracefully vacated, and held up a hand for silence. The crowd immediately stilled.
"Once upon a time, in this very place, in Lowtown beneath our feet, there lived a young orphan named Vaan…"
Ta-da!