Author's Note: Oh my, this story's been getting a lot more attention ever since the OFF category is made - hello, OFF fandom! Today, we'll be heading to Zone 2, and we'll meet with a character who's personality is different from their canon depiction. Huzzah.
The story is now on ON.
A figure stood alone inside Zone 1. "...Dedan is... gone? This isn't good. Not good at all. I need to report this to the Queen immediately!"
Chapter 4: The Uninformative Library
With a flash of light, the Batter and Alpha appeared in the nothingness, the whispers heralding their arrival. Alpha, being new to all of this, was understandably worried. "What's that noise? Who the hell is there?"
"Never mind the noise." the Batter assured him. He pulled something out of his pocket, a glowing trinket, holding it up to examine it. "The Cancer Card... this will let us access Zone 2." Then, like an impatient child, he was heading to the spot that would whisk them away to the next Zone.
"Hold on, we're leaving already?"
"Yes. Purification does not wait."
"Do you ever take breaks, man?"
"No." he answered plainly. He stood upon the spot that would bring him to Zone 2. "Now, come along."
With that, the two disappeared in beams of light.
"Hmmm... she's right. The specters in my zone are a bigger concern right now. I need to ensure the safety of my citizens..."
The heroes landed on a pink walkway, leading up to the Zone proper. The Batter looked at the sight before him and while he wasn't the type to get impressed, he thought that the environment was better than that of the previous Zone.
In front of them was a giant city, a mass of pink buildings, radiating a feeling of warmth and security. The buildings all surrounded a larger building, which, as if made of blocks, stacked up to the sky, a Tower of Babel.
The aura of safety seemed to affect even Alpha. "Huh.. this looks like a walk in the park."
Unfortunately, the Batter is too much of a stoic dick to be affected by such good will. "Don't get overconfident. We still need to locate the guardian of this Zone."
"Hm? You're hunting another guardian?" Alpha questioned. "What the hell do you think you're doing?"
"In order to purify the land, I need to defeat all of its guardians."
Alpha still couldn't wrap his head around that logic; aren't the Guardians technically protectors of the Zones? Well, regardless, he's still forced to go along with whatever the Batter is planning. "Right... I think this Zone's guardian is in that tower."
"What makes you say that?"
"Since when is a giant fucking tower not suspicious?" the Add-On pointed out. "Come on, don't be an idiot."
"...I suppose it's worth checking out first."
Despite the large scale of the city, it was unusually quiet, and the Batter and Alpha experienced no trouble finding the tower. To their surprise, the tower was a gigantic library.
"...That's the place you get books from, right?" Alpha asked - apparently, there weren't any libraries in Zone 1.
"I suppose so." the Batter huffed as he entered.
The place indeed checked out books - of course, our heroes were not here to check out books, they were here to check out ghosts... out of life.
"That is the most goddamn terrible joke I've ever heard." Alpha said.
I know. There were a few Elsens milling around in the lobby of the calming blue lobby. One of them was talking to another Elsen behind a desk. "...Yes. You shouldn't lend any more books to that man. He tears out the pages. It's almost dangerous."
"Yes. I... understand. Do not let this trouble you." the other Elsen, a librarian, answered. "I am sorry for... this inconvenience."
"Yes. Thank you. I'll be returning to the upper floor." the troubled Elsen curtly walked away and ascended a staircase.
The Batter walked up to the desk. "Excuse me..."
"Hello. Welcome to the library in Bismark, in the center of Zone 2." the Elsen greeted, launching into an explanation that didn't exist in the game, since I'm a scumbag. "It is here where we store books around the world. Here, we lend these precious tomes to the public, so that they may pursue knowledge - or, perhaps for simple entertainment. These words educate. These words relax. As one of the three comforts, books are the most important.
"Without books, the world will be uneducated of true dangers. They will be engulfed by untruths and paranoia until only worry is left."
"...I thought we were done with these stupid explanations." Alpha murmured to the Batter.
"There's always time for... explanations." the librarian answered. "Now, are you here to pursue answers or would, um, the plastic, less dangerous books be sufficient?"
"We've come for answers." the Batter said. "What is in this library?"
"Um... we have various books on different subjects. Of course, we also have plastic books. Some, um, readers complained that the normal books were... well, dangerous."
"Beside the books." the man said, sighing.
"...Um... we have shelves..."
The Batter glared at him.
"Oh... well, the upper floors are suffering a particularly nasty phantom infestation. I... I've placed barricades to keep them at bay."
"The specters? I'll eliminate them for you."
"I... um... really? You know, you could, uh, get hurt. There isn't even a substantial reward to be found up there. Just books... walls... er, those shelves... and an old cat."
This further piqued our hero's interest. "Cat?"
"Yes. One that used quite sophisticated vocabulary. Truly, he is an educated being." he paused. "For a cat... at any rate."
If the Judge was in this place, surely, the area was significant. "I'll purify the upper floors for you."
"That's... um... good. But, um... the fourth floor and onward is inaccessible. I'll open the way for you if... um, you do this library a civil service. A very unkind man, er... ripped out the pages... from some of the books on the 3rd floor. Would you be so kind as to put them back together?"
"Do we have time for this?" Alpha asked the Batter.
Unfortunately, there didn't seem to be a way around this. 'Very well then." The Elsen behind the counter gave him a nod. The Batter left to go up the stairs, closely followed by Alpha. The second floor of the library had bookcases lining up its walls, filled to the brim with blue covered books. Alpha noticed a nearby Elsen reading one of the aforementioned plastic books.
"I really like these plastic books... you're not in danger of damaging them..."
The Add-On looked over the pale man's shoulder. "...That book doesn't even have any words. ...Or pictures..."
"Yes. It's safe." the Elsen rasped. "Information can be, uh, dangerous..."
Surely, if Alpha had a face, he would be making a weird expression.
The Batter took a quick glance around. Even though the bookcases contained real and plastic books, the Elsens were all intent on reading the plastic ones. Not that the baseball player garbed hero cared, at any rate. As he made his way to the staircase to the next floor, a book managed to catch his attention. The Batter, mystified, entranced, walked up to the bookcase that held the precious book on its mantle. He read off the spine,"How to become super combat master of the universe in 5 lessons?" He spent a few seconds to consider reading it before shaking his head. "No, I don't have time for this."
Alpha watched the Batter mutter to himself as he ascended. "...God, you all sicken me..."
The third floor seemed devoid of life - however, faint, ghastly giggling proved otherwise. The specters on the floor was nowhere in sight, though, so our heroes chose to ignore them for now. On one wall, the Batter spotted a piece of paper stuck to it - one of the ripped out pages. He was not sure what kind of asshole rips out book pages and sticks them on walls, but it was hardly relevant.
The Batter tore it off the wall and looked at it. The book page looked like a giant, pink three of clubs card that looked rather worn out. In fact, it was so worn out that it was hardly legible. "Hmm, where would this go..."
Alpha was looking at the nearby bookcases and found a book that wasn't made of plastic. The Add-On flipped through the book (somehow) and found a place in the book where a page was torn out. "It looks like it goes here, but the page next to it is an ace of spades. ...I can see why someone would rip out the pages, nobody can read this trash."
"This book here has diamonds..." the Batter said, across the aisle of the room, looking at a similar book.
At another bookcase, Alpha shouted, "Fucking seven of hearts!"
"You shouldn't shout in a library." the Batter sternly reminded.
"Who cares? Like there's anyone up here to tell us off!"
"We're here." a quiet voice murmured. Then, a specter floated down through the ceiling. The specter was floating upside-down and was giving the Add-On a lopsided, judgemental look. "No shouting in the library, heh heh." Then, two more Upside-Down ghosts floated down to, also giving Alpha annoyed looks.
"Great! It's the peanut galle-"
"Heavy Silence." one of the ghouls chanted.
A sharp pain went through Alpha's circular body. He tried to go back to shouting insults, but the Add-On discovered that he could not yell at them. Enraged, he tried to use one of his Chain attacks to fly into them, but for some reason, he found himself incapable of doing so.
"Haha. We may be specters, but please uphold common library courtes-" the specter was quickly defeated with a swift swing of the bat.
The Batter faced down the two specters, ignoring Alpha's mute antics (which involved slamming into walls and floors like a child going through a tantrum). "Purification in progress." he said - very quietly, I might add. He unleashed a Furious Homerun Competence on another ghoul as Pepper Steak played in the background (very very softly).Eventually, Alpha realized that having a fit was stupid and chose to redirect his fury at the Upside-Down Specters, finishing one off. A short moment later and the last remaining ghost was defeated.
The Batter fished through his pockets and pulled out a slab of Bellial's Meat, hoping that it comes through again. He tossed the hunk of flesh straight through the hoop that was Alpha. Goal! Or, touchdown! Look, the Batter and I know jack shit about basketball, okay? After a few seconds of awkward silence, Alpha shook and said, "It's called a 'hoop', dumbass."
With that, everything was back to its usual status quo. With that problem out of the way, the Batter went back to their daunting task. Fortunately, progress was finally made when he found the right book. He slipped the page in its rightful place and slid it back on its shelf. "Do you see any other pages?"
"I think I saw one over here..."
The two went about gathering torn pages and searching for their respective book. While they did so, two more groups of Upside-Down Specters appeared, apparently summoned by the sound of the Batter's noisy footsteps - it quickly became apparent that the blockade that halted progress to the next floor was doing absolutely nothing to stop the specters Luckily, they weren't much trouble. After several minutes, most of the books were reunited with their missing pages - most of them, anyway.
"This book is still missing a page." the Batter said; there were no other ripped out pages present on the floor, however.
"Maybe the librarian won't notice?" Alpha suggested.
They started their trek back downstairs to the lobby. They walked up to the librarian but before they even said anything, the Elsen said, "Not all of the books are repaired yet..."
"We know." the Batter said with a sigh. "One of the book pages seem to be missing."
"Um... well... then... the perpetrator must have it. He... hhhh... I've heard that he's in the western part of Bismark. ...I was too scared to... hhh... go after him, though." the Elsen rasped. "...A person like him truly is... a hardened criminal."
"...I'll see to it then." the Batter said with a slow nod. He and Alpha exited the library and circled around to its west side. They proceeded to head down the path that led away from the library.
On the western side of the Zone, they could see something they didn't initially see when they entered the Zone. A kilometer or two away from the land, divided by a plastic sea, was something that resembled an amusement park. There were several structures on the small metal island, the most notable one a towering skeleton of a rollercoaster. There didn't seem to be any clear way across the plastic, however. There was a platform several yards away from the mainland that had a staircase leading down into the earth, but that too was unreachable.
An Elsen was transfixed by the sight, standing at the edge of the metal landmass, breathing heavily. The Batter cautiously walked up to him and tapped him on the shoulder. "Excuse me. Do you happen to be the one that's been ripping out pages in the library."
The Elsen turned around, looking a bit shaky. He made a nervous smile as he pulled out a crumpled paper from his pocket. "Yes. It.. it is my secret to happiness. To a true feeling of safety. J-just holding this page makes me feel secured and enlightened."
"...Give that page to me, now." the Batter said with an aggressively outstretched hand.
"I... no... you're not taking this from me..." the Elsen murmured, a bit of smoke pouring out of his mouth. "It... it makes me feel safe... I... you... you will not be taking this!"
Then, his head exploded - this time, more like an actual explosion. The Batter and Alpha moved away from the Elsen. A cloud of smoke covered where the Elsen's head should be, and despite the lack of a head, he screamed. He shook violently as his hands started to darken, being burned to a crisp. The smoke started to condense into a solid stream. As the smoke condensed, it revealed that there was a thin circle floating above the Elsen's body, like a halo. The stream of smoke coiled its way through the circle, heading into the sky.
The creature that used to be an Elsen roared.
Alpha was unnerved by this new Elsen transformation. "What the hell is that thing?"
The Batter, staring down the creature, used another Wide Angle. "That is a Valzong-Burnt. More stronger than a normal Burnt and is capable of silencing us."
He swung his bat at the new Burnt's stomach, but the Valzong-Burnt seemed unfazed. The enemy countered by swinging his arm, his hand scratching the Batter across the face. Alpha launched a Competence attack, Awaited Embrace, at the Valzong-Burnt. The enemy reeled back from the attack, his bleeding wound suddenly turning darker; the Valzong-Burnt cringed as if in pain, despite nobody making a further attack.
While the Valzong-Burnt was dealing with the poisonous blow, the Batter was running toward him. Before he could do anything, the Batter hit him with a Furious Homerun. The Valzong-Burnt screeched, the piece of paper scattering to the wind as he fell backward - into the plastic.
The Batter indifferently placed a Luck Ticket where he was scratched while the Valzong-Burnt screamed as he sunk into the molten plastic. The smoke that came out of its head soon dispersed and the screaming silenced. Alpha floated over the plastic, shocked. "That... that was pretty gruesome. Even for you. You asshole."
The Batter ignored him, picking up the fallen page, grateful that it hadn't fallen in with the Burnt. "Let's go back to the library."
Alpha begrudgingly followed the Batter back to the library. Upon getting there, they saw an Elsen running in circles in the lobby. "Aaaaaah t-there was a Burnt outside! How terrifying!"
Luckily, it didn't seem that the librarian wasn't losing his shit. "Ah. You.. have the page?" he made a pleased expression upon seeing the paper in the Batter's hand. "Wonderful. Hopefully the... hhhhh... thief will be rightfully punished for this."
"If you can call drowning a rightful punishment." Alpha muttered.
"Okay. Um, put this page back in the last book and I'll lower the barricades. Yes... the fourth floor can only be accessed by, well, you two... yes, only you two..." the Elsen said.
The Batter and Alpha started scaling the stairs again. While passing through the second floor, they saw that every Elsen there was panicking as much as the one downstairs. They ran in circles, ignoring the Batter and Alpha as they passed, screaming - as quietly as possible. The purifiers went up to the third floor and the Batter looked for the book that still needed a page. Upon slipping the paper inside, they heard a whirring noise as the block barricades retracted into the ground.
As they started going up the opened passage that led upstairs, the Batter said, "Our first priority is to find the Judge. Perhaps he has some information on this Zone's guardian."
Alpha floated behind him. "Yeah... maybe this will be a walk in the park, and we won't have to deal with shitty puzzles."
They got onto the next floor, which was a small floor filled with fake bookshelves and crates. Then, at the same time, somebody started strutting downstairs from the upper floor - a cat. However, the cat didn't look like the one the heroes were accustomed to; this cat had wide eyes and lacked the smile the Judge had, his open mouth showing that all of his teeth were at the front.
The cat noticed them and confronted them, looking confused. "Who... who are you?"
The Batter was just as befuddled. "You're not the Judge."
"The Judge? ..I'm sorry, I don't know who you're referring to." he seemed apologetic. "I am Japhet, the creator of this city. Who might you two be? I've never seen you two in this Zone before, and it's nice to have visitors."
"I am the Batter, and this is my Add-On, Alpha."
"Ah! You have an Add-On? How extraordinary! This further proves that you're a man of great virtues. What business do you have in this Zone, visitor?" Japhet said.
"I'm here to purify the specters."
"Purify the specters? Oh, are you here to help me? I've been trying to clear out the recent specter infestations, and I can't just be everywhere at once - your help will be appreciated!" Japhet said cheerfully. "Have you been sent by the Queen to help me restore order to this Zone?"
The Batter paused before saying, "Not exactly."
"Hmm? Then how did you come here? Are you an acquaintance of Zacharie, perhaps?"
"Nah, but that weirdo pretends that he's our friend." Alpha answered.
"Then... how did..." the city's creator stopped to think for a bit before saying. "Do you have... the Cancer Card?"
"Yes." the Batter said.
"Then, you must have..." the cat looked horrified before letting out a hiss; Japhet looked ready to pounced. "You... you were the one that killed Dedan, aren't you?"
"Yes." the Batter repeated, bluntly.
"You... you haven't the slightest regard for what you've done! You... you murderer! You heathen! You criminal scum! You sport pajama wearing monster!"
Alpha snickered at the last comment, prompting a glare from the Batter. The man stared down at Japhet, not caring about the latter's accusations. "You said that you were the creator of this city - does that mean you're the guardian of this Zone?"
"Yes, I am - do you intend to cut me down as well?" Japhet shouted. "Well, I won't be letting you! I am the Queen's servant, the champion of the people, the agent of justice! I will deal swift justice to you before I continue with my task! Taste my righteous vengeance!"
Japhet pounced, a lion going after its prey. The Batter swung his bat at the mid-air feline, knocking him back - Japhet simply shrugged the attack off and hissed. The baseball bat wielder quickly took the chance to do a Wide Angle. "Japhet, guardian of Zone 2..." he paused. "How odd, there's no other information on him..."
"As if I would be read by enemies like an open book!" Japhet spat out. "Alto!" He opened his mouth and a diamond shaped ray of light came out. The diamond expanded into a multitude of diamonds and rammed into the Batter, knocking him not the floor. The Batter groaned, feeling a scalding burn where he was hit.
"Tsk. There's no way we're getting our asses kicked by a goddamn cat!" Alpha rammed into Japhet, grinding the small body into the floor. Japhet roared and stuck his claws into the ring shaped body. "Ow!" Alpha floated up to try to get the cat to get off, but to his horror, he was still stuck; to add insult to injury, Japhet used his other hand to start clawing the Add-On. "Fuckingshitgethimoffgethimoff..."
The Batter ran toward Alpha, bat in hand, and swung at Japhet like he was a pinata. The force of the hit was enough to send Japhet sailing straight into a wall. "Oof..." he stood back up, glaring at them. "Your arms are as strong as your spirit... but, I will not let a crime go unpunished!" He opened his mouth again, and this time, a strong gale of wind came out, heading toward the two heroes. The shockingly powerful winds hit the Batter and Alpha, cutting them up from all sides.
The Batter was a bit worried now - he felt very close to defeat. He dodged Japhet's next pounce and immediately used Save First Base on himself. "Alpha, use some Luck Tickets on yourself." He was, however, unanswered. "...Alpha?"
"..." Alpha was simply floating there. His body had darkened, as if he was a lightbulb with its switch turned off. He did not do anything. He did not say anything.
Alpha was dead.
"Oh." the Batter briefly cursed himself for not buying any Jokers; Zacharie said that they revived people, but the Batter believed that he wouldn't need one. Surely, the masked salesman was having a good laugh about this.
Japhet was ready to pounce again, but he hesitated. The cat looked around, an uneasy expression on his face. "...A powerful specter is coming..."
"What?"
"...No doubt, the specter is getting attracted by the sounds of our clash - if there's anything to like about the specters, it's their respect for my library and its rules." Japhet shot a look at the Batter. "I think I'll be leaving you to deal with the specter. You'll be joining your Add-On soon, Batter!"
Japhet disappeared in a column of light and the stairs that led further up the building was suddenly barricaded. The Batter gripped his bat tightly.
How powerful was this specter, if it worried the guardian of the Zone?
The Batter saw something float in.
"Purification in pro-"
"Excuse... me..."
The Batter paused.
From out behind a bookcase, a circular ring appeared - another Add-On. The Add-On examined his surroundings before asking, "You... shouldn't be so loud in the library..."
The story is now on PAUSE.
Author's Note: What's this? Japhet acting like a true agent of justice? Utter madness!
Notable changes:
* The holy trinity of comforts.
* In the original game, the Elsen on the western part of Bismark would sell you the book page. I decided to make it more interesting.
* Japhet is now a pretty decent guy.