Post by SqiKy kLeen on Feb 2, 2010 1:55:20 GMT -5
Jack shuffled slightly as he lay on the beach, finally coming back to consciousness. The sun was high in the sky now, and the Earth Breaker suit had automatically retracted itself into its backpack state sometime over the course of the night. Slowly he blinked, as the brightness of the sun finally became too intense for him to remain asleep under.
He rubbed his face, feeling tingling sensations everywhere. Not only were his muscles still a little sore from the journey, but he had gotten a bit of a sunburn on his face from laying out in the open so long. Slowly, he climbed to his feel and allowed his eyes to adjust as his surroundings came into focus.
What he saw was actually quite the astonishing sight. The entire beachfront, as far as the eye could see was peppered with trees, sprouting in rich, lush green colors, some bearing flowers and others bearing fruit. The sand was a light brown color and the sea shone a crystal clear blue, with fish easily seen teeming just below the surface. It was quite an awesome sight for Jack... he had read of things like this in books and seen pictures, but never witnessed a forest like this until now. He had seen plants before, sure, but living in the desert of the dead, Jack never got a chance to see anything quite like this. He deeply inhaled and felt the incredibly fresh, clean air fill his lungs. It was invigorating, and he could feel himself wake up further and get stronger as he took every breath.
But his breathing soon turned to sighs as he noticed the wreckage of his motorcycle. "Aaaaawwww nooo...", he moaned, looking over the twisted heap. Everything was wrecked; the tank was severely dented and now had a hole, the engines support bolts were loose against the frame, and the frame itself was twisted horribly out of proportion. The headlight was even busted.
He picked up the broken headlight and held it as he looked on... Celica had given him this as a gift. It was old school, like the one dad had... and I was building my own bike at the time, and she knew what it would mean to me...
But just then, Jack heard something shuffle in the trees. His attention bolted towards the foliage, scanning for any sign of movement. He called out, figuring if nobody was indeed there, that nobody would think he was crazy. "Hey! I see you there, come on out!"
He wasn't expecting what came next... without warning, his friend Shiki flipped down from one of the tree branches and landed on the ground in a three-point stance. He looked up at Jack through his strange bug-eyed mask of his and began to remove it.
Jack: "Oh shit, that is you Shiki! You had me going for a minute..."
"God dammit Jack, you son of a bitch!", Shiki stated angrily as he walked towards Jack.
Jack: "Hey, is that any way to treat a friend? I'm beginning to think you suck at this greeting stuff."
Shiki: *sigh* "What did I tell you about using that suit?"
Jack: "Hey, you wouldn't believe the kind of shit I've been through in the last two days... if it wasn't for this suit, I probably would've been dead for sure!"
"...well, I'm glad you're alive... that's the most important thing.", Shiki stated with a tone of concern in his voice. "You scared the shit out of me when you just up and disappeared. You weren't on my sensors for nearly a week, and at that point I thought you were dead... Then a few days ago, you finally show up out of nowhere on the Alpha continent... right outside of Midgar."
Jack: "Wait... how did you know all of this?"
Shiki: "Remember what I said about there being tracking devices in that suit? Oh yeah... it didn't take me too long and I had the frequencies figured out."
Jack: Fuck! I forgot about that when I met Biff at the camp... I coulda got us all killed... thank god it didn't turn out that way... "I should've known..."
Shiki: "And I got other news for you... I ain't the only one tracking your progress."
Jacks eyes widened as the truth that he had feared to hear sunk in. "Oh no... dammit, I shouldn't even be here..."
"And me neither, if I knew what was good for me.", Shiki responded in a slightly sarcastic way. "But there's more information you need yet before I send you on your way. I was able to triangulate the frequencies between you, myself, and the third party who has been tracking you... Believe it or not, the signal is coming from this isolated tip on the North-east corner of the continent just a few miles north of here, the SAME place where I had tracked Celica to earlier."
Jack: "So... whoever is tracking me..."
Shiki: "Yeah... probably knows you took something of his..."
"...so he took something of mine." Jack grew enraged as he heard what Shiki had said. He gritted his teeth, unconcerned with the possibility of cracking them. "FUCK!!", he screamed as he threw his arms around wildly.
Shiki: "Hey! Relax, at least you know where the signal is... but I dont think you have any choice now but to confront it."
Jack took a breather and settled down. "You're right.... So, anything else you manage figure out about the suit?"
"Well, take a look at this...", Shiki said as he pulled out what appeared to be a phone. But it wasn't exactly a phone, it was more like a mobile screen; almost the entire surface of one side of the phone was a gigantic touch screen, with one button on the 'bottom'. He scrolled through the various installed applications as he slid his index finger from right to left across the screen repeatedly. Eventually, he brought up an image gallery and started flipping through the various pictures. "I was able to make a rough diagram of the suit schematics with what little information I could get...everything looks how it should for a piece of technology of this caliber, but I just can't figure out what these connections do... I thought at first they were connected to the nervous system, but now I'm starting to doubt that... you been feeling ok? You haven't had any involuntary spasms or anything while wearing that suit, have you?"
Jack: "....No!!! In fact, I haven't felt anything ill from it at all..."
"Good, good...", Shiki pondered as he continued to look over the diagrams. "It looked at first like the connections were neurological... and there's definitely some of that going on here. But look at this..." Shiki zoomed in one one particular area of the image, right in the middle of the back of the Earth Breaker suit. He held the phone closer to Jack so he could get a better look. "See these paths? They're all connected by what seems to be some type of capacitor of some sort, but I've never seen anything like it before..."
Jack: "Weird... so what does this mean to me?"
"I don't know. I still wouldn't advise using the suit all the time though. Seems weird to have a functionless set of circuits...", said Shiki while backing out of one gallery, and opening another set of images. "...but anyway. There more here you need to know. Take a look at these."
This time, Shiki simply handed the phone over to Jack once the right pictures were selected, allowing him a better look at them. "What the... hell?", Jack asked curiously but quietly, as he saw the outline of two figures on the roofs of the buildings of the Super City depicted in the pictures. Each photo got closer and closer to the two figures, until Jack could finally make out just who was depicted in them...
Jack: "This is Claude right here... and this ones Sephiroth... but... he's different."
Shiki: "Those two made a mess of the city, Jack. One day they just showed up there and started wreaking havoc, fighting each other and shit with their swords and spells. Man Jack, if I woulda known that Claude kid was gonna become some kind of fighting magician like that, I woulda kept him a bit closer!"
His comment was supposed to be funny, but it flew by Jack entirely, as he was too preoccupied with scanning the various images."...Something isin't right here with this... Look at his face, he looks like the living dead with those circles around his eyes..."
Shiki: "Yeah.... it's kinda unsettling... But who do you think was the bad guy here? They couldn't have just been sparring, they made a complete mess. Maybe Claudes finally snapped?"
Jack: "I don't think so... look, Claude looks more distressed here. But Sephiroth... it almost looks like he's enjoying himself... I don't know man, but I've got a bad feeling about this."
Just then, Jack realized that his cell phone was still with him, and that the number of Zack's phone would surely be stored inside it's 'received calls' memory bank. "Wait, maybe I can get through to him yet...", he hoped as he reached through his pockets and scratched around in every corner before finally grabbing his cell phone. He flipped it open, but got no response at all. Not even the screen lit up.
"...nope. Batteries dead.", he said as he let out a small sigh. "Maybe this is for the best though... I can't be focused on this right now... This all does change things though; Sephiroth is a powerful warrior, and if he's on the side of Valtiel now..."
But Shiki didn't seem to catch the implications of what Jack was saying, and quickly interrupted him with another topic thread that popped into mind. "Oh... speaking of which, I need to ask you something. What exactly is going on over there? You HAD to be in Midgar when shit apparently hit the fan over there... damn man, there's stuff all over the intranets about the 'coming of the Devil' and end of the world apocalypse shit, but nobody's been able to confirm anything... I'm just wondering... if it's this Volatile guy. It's hard to believe though, cause everything out there sounds like a damn religious conspiracy theory..."
"...They aren't too far off." Jacks mind drifted off with thoughts of his time he had spent in Midgar, and the horrific things he experienced there. "Whatever he is, he has amassed nearly god-like powers over that city... It's like the whole town is one living entity... an extension of him. When I was taken there, the city was overgrown with fleshy protrusions, nasty hellish shit that consumed every wall and weak person within that city. Nothing was left of what we remember over there..."
Jack paced back and forth nervously as he relived his story. "But then I passed out. When I woke up, the town was different. It was back to normal, but with one exception... a mist pervaded, everywhere. It was thick, and nobody was left, in the town, including the hellish monsters Valtiel had spawned earlier..."
"...And then I saw Celica. Clear as day. She appeared to me like she was tempting me to come and play with her or something, and then ran off... I never did find her after that."
A twinge of anger that had overtaken Jack many a time lately once again took hold. "It was all an illusion! And 'He' was just toying with me the whole time! Toying with my fears!"
Shiki: "Woah, woah... it's alright man, you're through it."
Jack took another deep breath and looked longingly towards the North. "I should be going man... I gotta get this done with... I gotta get this off my back."
"I understand.", Shiki said as he reached into one of the pouches on his clothes. "Then here, take these." He handed Jack a standard magnetic compass along with a sandwich in a plastic zipper bag. Curious due to his large appetite, Jack inspected the contents of the sandwich carefully. "Wow, beef?"
Shiki: "Yeah, they can actually get that over here."
"Nice, thanks man." He took a look down at his compass, then took another look North, his thoughts still on those of Celica and her current condition. He looked at the sandwich and decided he would eat it later after he had covered some ground. "Well, I guess I'll see you around then man...", Jack said in an effort not to make a big scene of the goodbye, and started to walk off.
Shiki: "Hey wait... what about the bike?"
He stopped in his tracks and took a look back at the mangled machine. "Yeah, son of a bitch, hey..."
Shiki: "You know, those are pretty rare over here... I can get some good money for it if I part it out the right way..."
Jack: "Hah! You'll be selling the bike over my dead body!"
"Heh, I thought you'd say that... just giving you some shit.", Shiki commented. "I will see if I can have this frame re-bent, or get a new one put in. But I'll keep her around till you can get a chance to work on it again."
Jack: "Alright. Thanks much man."
...
And it didn't take too long after that for Jack to put some distance between himself and his crash site, the foliage being so dense you could lose track of anybody. He stuck faithfully to the guides of the compass and the shoreline, but it wasn't long before the hunger acted up again, and Jack could literally feel his stomach shrink all at once. It practically stunned him, and eventually he was forced to sit himself down. He pulled out the sandwich reluctantly, yet thankfully, chowing it down faster and faster once he remembered how good it tasted.
He rubbed his face, feeling tingling sensations everywhere. Not only were his muscles still a little sore from the journey, but he had gotten a bit of a sunburn on his face from laying out in the open so long. Slowly, he climbed to his feel and allowed his eyes to adjust as his surroundings came into focus.
What he saw was actually quite the astonishing sight. The entire beachfront, as far as the eye could see was peppered with trees, sprouting in rich, lush green colors, some bearing flowers and others bearing fruit. The sand was a light brown color and the sea shone a crystal clear blue, with fish easily seen teeming just below the surface. It was quite an awesome sight for Jack... he had read of things like this in books and seen pictures, but never witnessed a forest like this until now. He had seen plants before, sure, but living in the desert of the dead, Jack never got a chance to see anything quite like this. He deeply inhaled and felt the incredibly fresh, clean air fill his lungs. It was invigorating, and he could feel himself wake up further and get stronger as he took every breath.
But his breathing soon turned to sighs as he noticed the wreckage of his motorcycle. "Aaaaawwww nooo...", he moaned, looking over the twisted heap. Everything was wrecked; the tank was severely dented and now had a hole, the engines support bolts were loose against the frame, and the frame itself was twisted horribly out of proportion. The headlight was even busted.
He picked up the broken headlight and held it as he looked on... Celica had given him this as a gift. It was old school, like the one dad had... and I was building my own bike at the time, and she knew what it would mean to me...
But just then, Jack heard something shuffle in the trees. His attention bolted towards the foliage, scanning for any sign of movement. He called out, figuring if nobody was indeed there, that nobody would think he was crazy. "Hey! I see you there, come on out!"
He wasn't expecting what came next... without warning, his friend Shiki flipped down from one of the tree branches and landed on the ground in a three-point stance. He looked up at Jack through his strange bug-eyed mask of his and began to remove it.
Jack: "Oh shit, that is you Shiki! You had me going for a minute..."
"God dammit Jack, you son of a bitch!", Shiki stated angrily as he walked towards Jack.
Jack: "Hey, is that any way to treat a friend? I'm beginning to think you suck at this greeting stuff."
Shiki: *sigh* "What did I tell you about using that suit?"
Jack: "Hey, you wouldn't believe the kind of shit I've been through in the last two days... if it wasn't for this suit, I probably would've been dead for sure!"
"...well, I'm glad you're alive... that's the most important thing.", Shiki stated with a tone of concern in his voice. "You scared the shit out of me when you just up and disappeared. You weren't on my sensors for nearly a week, and at that point I thought you were dead... Then a few days ago, you finally show up out of nowhere on the Alpha continent... right outside of Midgar."
Jack: "Wait... how did you know all of this?"
Shiki: "Remember what I said about there being tracking devices in that suit? Oh yeah... it didn't take me too long and I had the frequencies figured out."
Jack: Fuck! I forgot about that when I met Biff at the camp... I coulda got us all killed... thank god it didn't turn out that way... "I should've known..."
Shiki: "And I got other news for you... I ain't the only one tracking your progress."
Jacks eyes widened as the truth that he had feared to hear sunk in. "Oh no... dammit, I shouldn't even be here..."
"And me neither, if I knew what was good for me.", Shiki responded in a slightly sarcastic way. "But there's more information you need yet before I send you on your way. I was able to triangulate the frequencies between you, myself, and the third party who has been tracking you... Believe it or not, the signal is coming from this isolated tip on the North-east corner of the continent just a few miles north of here, the SAME place where I had tracked Celica to earlier."
Jack: "So... whoever is tracking me..."
Shiki: "Yeah... probably knows you took something of his..."
"...so he took something of mine." Jack grew enraged as he heard what Shiki had said. He gritted his teeth, unconcerned with the possibility of cracking them. "FUCK!!", he screamed as he threw his arms around wildly.
Shiki: "Hey! Relax, at least you know where the signal is... but I dont think you have any choice now but to confront it."
Jack took a breather and settled down. "You're right.... So, anything else you manage figure out about the suit?"
"Well, take a look at this...", Shiki said as he pulled out what appeared to be a phone. But it wasn't exactly a phone, it was more like a mobile screen; almost the entire surface of one side of the phone was a gigantic touch screen, with one button on the 'bottom'. He scrolled through the various installed applications as he slid his index finger from right to left across the screen repeatedly. Eventually, he brought up an image gallery and started flipping through the various pictures. "I was able to make a rough diagram of the suit schematics with what little information I could get...everything looks how it should for a piece of technology of this caliber, but I just can't figure out what these connections do... I thought at first they were connected to the nervous system, but now I'm starting to doubt that... you been feeling ok? You haven't had any involuntary spasms or anything while wearing that suit, have you?"
Jack: "....No!!! In fact, I haven't felt anything ill from it at all..."
"Good, good...", Shiki pondered as he continued to look over the diagrams. "It looked at first like the connections were neurological... and there's definitely some of that going on here. But look at this..." Shiki zoomed in one one particular area of the image, right in the middle of the back of the Earth Breaker suit. He held the phone closer to Jack so he could get a better look. "See these paths? They're all connected by what seems to be some type of capacitor of some sort, but I've never seen anything like it before..."
Jack: "Weird... so what does this mean to me?"
"I don't know. I still wouldn't advise using the suit all the time though. Seems weird to have a functionless set of circuits...", said Shiki while backing out of one gallery, and opening another set of images. "...but anyway. There more here you need to know. Take a look at these."
This time, Shiki simply handed the phone over to Jack once the right pictures were selected, allowing him a better look at them. "What the... hell?", Jack asked curiously but quietly, as he saw the outline of two figures on the roofs of the buildings of the Super City depicted in the pictures. Each photo got closer and closer to the two figures, until Jack could finally make out just who was depicted in them...
Jack: "This is Claude right here... and this ones Sephiroth... but... he's different."
Shiki: "Those two made a mess of the city, Jack. One day they just showed up there and started wreaking havoc, fighting each other and shit with their swords and spells. Man Jack, if I woulda known that Claude kid was gonna become some kind of fighting magician like that, I woulda kept him a bit closer!"
His comment was supposed to be funny, but it flew by Jack entirely, as he was too preoccupied with scanning the various images."...Something isin't right here with this... Look at his face, he looks like the living dead with those circles around his eyes..."
Shiki: "Yeah.... it's kinda unsettling... But who do you think was the bad guy here? They couldn't have just been sparring, they made a complete mess. Maybe Claudes finally snapped?"
Jack: "I don't think so... look, Claude looks more distressed here. But Sephiroth... it almost looks like he's enjoying himself... I don't know man, but I've got a bad feeling about this."
Just then, Jack realized that his cell phone was still with him, and that the number of Zack's phone would surely be stored inside it's 'received calls' memory bank. "Wait, maybe I can get through to him yet...", he hoped as he reached through his pockets and scratched around in every corner before finally grabbing his cell phone. He flipped it open, but got no response at all. Not even the screen lit up.
"...nope. Batteries dead.", he said as he let out a small sigh. "Maybe this is for the best though... I can't be focused on this right now... This all does change things though; Sephiroth is a powerful warrior, and if he's on the side of Valtiel now..."
But Shiki didn't seem to catch the implications of what Jack was saying, and quickly interrupted him with another topic thread that popped into mind. "Oh... speaking of which, I need to ask you something. What exactly is going on over there? You HAD to be in Midgar when shit apparently hit the fan over there... damn man, there's stuff all over the intranets about the 'coming of the Devil' and end of the world apocalypse shit, but nobody's been able to confirm anything... I'm just wondering... if it's this Volatile guy. It's hard to believe though, cause everything out there sounds like a damn religious conspiracy theory..."
"...They aren't too far off." Jacks mind drifted off with thoughts of his time he had spent in Midgar, and the horrific things he experienced there. "Whatever he is, he has amassed nearly god-like powers over that city... It's like the whole town is one living entity... an extension of him. When I was taken there, the city was overgrown with fleshy protrusions, nasty hellish shit that consumed every wall and weak person within that city. Nothing was left of what we remember over there..."
Jack paced back and forth nervously as he relived his story. "But then I passed out. When I woke up, the town was different. It was back to normal, but with one exception... a mist pervaded, everywhere. It was thick, and nobody was left, in the town, including the hellish monsters Valtiel had spawned earlier..."
"...And then I saw Celica. Clear as day. She appeared to me like she was tempting me to come and play with her or something, and then ran off... I never did find her after that."
A twinge of anger that had overtaken Jack many a time lately once again took hold. "It was all an illusion! And 'He' was just toying with me the whole time! Toying with my fears!"
Shiki: "Woah, woah... it's alright man, you're through it."
Jack took another deep breath and looked longingly towards the North. "I should be going man... I gotta get this done with... I gotta get this off my back."
"I understand.", Shiki said as he reached into one of the pouches on his clothes. "Then here, take these." He handed Jack a standard magnetic compass along with a sandwich in a plastic zipper bag. Curious due to his large appetite, Jack inspected the contents of the sandwich carefully. "Wow, beef?"
Shiki: "Yeah, they can actually get that over here."
"Nice, thanks man." He took a look down at his compass, then took another look North, his thoughts still on those of Celica and her current condition. He looked at the sandwich and decided he would eat it later after he had covered some ground. "Well, I guess I'll see you around then man...", Jack said in an effort not to make a big scene of the goodbye, and started to walk off.
Shiki: "Hey wait... what about the bike?"
He stopped in his tracks and took a look back at the mangled machine. "Yeah, son of a bitch, hey..."
Shiki: "You know, those are pretty rare over here... I can get some good money for it if I part it out the right way..."
Jack: "Hah! You'll be selling the bike over my dead body!"
"Heh, I thought you'd say that... just giving you some shit.", Shiki commented. "I will see if I can have this frame re-bent, or get a new one put in. But I'll keep her around till you can get a chance to work on it again."
Jack: "Alright. Thanks much man."
...
And it didn't take too long after that for Jack to put some distance between himself and his crash site, the foliage being so dense you could lose track of anybody. He stuck faithfully to the guides of the compass and the shoreline, but it wasn't long before the hunger acted up again, and Jack could literally feel his stomach shrink all at once. It practically stunned him, and eventually he was forced to sit himself down. He pulled out the sandwich reluctantly, yet thankfully, chowing it down faster and faster once he remembered how good it tasted.
