SilentMage
ShinRa Guard
Chapter 8: In The News
Mort’s Antique Shop, Washington, DC, United States of America
Tucked between two new buildings, one of which was still under construction, Mort’s was one of the few holdouts left in his aging three storey building. The store sold an eclectic selection of furniture, accessories, and music from decades past, the front windows lined with old loveseats, lamps, a couch and an oak bookshelf with plastic dolls in dresses alongside old books.
Four kerosene lanterns filled the store with a warm light, as the florescent lights that normally kept the store lit were turned off since they flickered constantly as the three otherworldly women explored the store. Mort, a man in his seventies, observed these women from behind his glasses, more curious than scared. For the past ten minutes he found himself answering their questions as they explored his store. Government agents stood just outside the front door, preventing onlookers from entering.
“This place reminds me more of home than anything else I’ve seen so far,” Terra said with a sigh as she caressed the top of a maroon couch along her slow walk into the music section.
“I dunno, I kinda like the sleek look of their newer stuff – looks alien!” Relm said, gripping Terra’s hand a bit tighter as she walked alongside her.
“I wouldn’t mind a bit of ale from the pub back in Kohlingen, myself,” Celes lamented as she examined an empty glass bottle with the Coca Cola logo on it.
“So where is the music?” Relm asked as she looked over to Mort. “I don’t see any instruments over here.”
Mort walked over to the aisle Relm was in, where racks of vinyl records were on either side of her. He picked up a random album and slipped the record out. “This is the music, my dear. Do you not have records like this where you come from?”
Relm took the record and held it in her hand, both sides with a big “45” near the middle and the title “I Want You Back – Jackson Five” just below that. “I don’t get it – how do you play this? Blow through the hole in the middle?”
“We have live performances and operas where we come from,” Celes said with a wistful smile as she recalled her brief stint as Maria the opera singer.
“Vinyl records are an old recording medium. You place these records on a record player, which would playback the sounds mapped onto the surface,” Mort explained.
“I don’t understand,” Relm shook her head as she waved the record in her hand up and down like a fan. “I want to hear this… record… make sounds!”
As he realized that these people haven’t heard anything from their world, he smiled as he went behind one of the nearby counters and pulled out a small, black suitcase with rust-colored clamps by the handle.
“What is that?” Relm asked as he popped the clamps upward and opened the case. Terra and Celes joined Relm as Mort removed a single record sleeve from the counter that had “The Beatles on Apple” in cursive on a black cover, the middle of which exposed a record with a green apple dominating it.
“This is a gramophone, a wind-up device that can play these records.” He gestured to the crank on the side of the case that he flipped outward. Inside, there was a metal circle in the middle of the case, with a small lever coming from under it. A large, metal arm with a circle at the end rested at the back of the case, the end of which was a short needle. After he turned the crank several times, he removed the record from its sleeve and placed it on the turntable.
“So it’s like an entire band inside this record?” Relm asked, her eyes transfixed on the box in front of her.
“Something like that,” Mort chuckled as he pressed the lever under the turntable to the right, causing it to spin. At the same time, he lifted the metal arm from the back of the box and moved it over the spinning record until the needle at the end of it was gently dropped on the edge of the record.
Relm’s eyes widened while Terra and Celes listened in fascination as the first lyrics to “Hey Jude” came from the speakers on the sides of the gramophone.
March 11th, 2014, 3:01PM EDT (+1 day 19 hours)
Patuxent Research Refuge, Laurel, MD, United States of America
Strago pushed the trap door to the Blackjack deck open and climbed back down into the ship to grab a book he wanted to read outside, but away from the eyes of their assigned US agents. Fortunately, it didn’t take much convincing to keep them several hundred feet away from the Blackjack in their black vehicles on a nearby road: If they wanted to follow the Blackjack, they’d have to stay really far away unless they wanted to walk back home.
At the recommendation of those assigned to them, the Patuxent Research Refuge was the best place for the Blackjack to land as it was still close to DC and the government-controlled park was large enough to provide suitable protection from the effects of the ship. Just before they landed in a large field near the center of the park, most of it was closed to the public.
Strago stepped onto the top deck and took a deep breath with closed eyes as he listened to the sounds of nature around him, almost like the fields and forests north of Thamasa, his home. However, a new, consistent sound filled the air here, which to him sounded like a waterfall from a distance, but never went away. The occasional rumble from an aircraft far overhead could be heard, too. He didn’t know how anyone could live with this racket around them twenty-four hours a day. The thought made him clench his eyes before he opened them. That was when he noticed Setzer against the wooden railing on the right side of his ship, looking into the distance. He noticed an open flask in Setzer’s hand and a short, square bottle with a reddish-brown liquid within.
“What’s your poison, Setzer?” Strago asked as he joined him by the railing, his book gently placed on the deck.
“Megalodoth Blood Whiskey, from the distilleries of Narshe,” Setzer responded with a gloomy sigh. He picked up the bottle and admired the label a bit before he turned it toward Strago. “I didn’t get a chance to restock prior to our battle at the Floating Continent so there’s only one crate left in the hold.”
“So perhaps you should save that bottle for a special occasion, then,” Strago said. He could smell Setzer’s whiskey-filled breath from two arm lengths away.
Setzer eyed Strago as he took another gulp from his flask. He then looked at the flask, shook it, and groaned as he threw it across the deck of the ship. “And what special occasions are there to celebrate anymore? We’re trapped on this alien world with Kefka, of all maniacs, and everything we were fighting for is now… somewhere else!” He picked up the bottle of whiskey and took a good amount down his throat before coughing. “And on top of all that, we’re on a world that hates us because we’re destroying it without even lifting a finger!”
“Setzer, what are you going on about?” Strago grabbed the whiskey from Setzer and placed it on the floor behind him. “What’s really bothering you?”
Setzer shot a look of drunken anger at Strago, but it faded quickly to one of resignation. “One of the agents told me that on Earth they regulate flying. Can you believe that? Governments around the world tell pilots and the companies they work for where they can fly and when! That’s blasphemous!”
Strago let a laugh slip out, even though he knew Setzer tried to open up. “I had a feeling that your airship took priority over everything else you just said.”
“There’s more to it, though,” Setzer continued with a lower voice. “I can’t ever pay my respects to Daryl again now that we’re here…”
“Who’s Daryl?” Strago asked.
“She was a young girl that piloted the Falcon, the fastest vessel ever made. We were bitter rivals at first, but eventually became best friends and more. One day, after a race, Daryl wanted to press the Falcon to its limits and ‘fly to the stars’ as she put it,” Setzer wistfully said, but then closed his eyes. “She never returned home… I found the wreckage of her ship a year later.”
“What did you do?” Strago asked as he rubbed his beard.
“I restored her ship, but put it to rest underneath her tomb – I couldn’t bear to look at it.” Setzer moved around Strago and grabbed the whiskey bottle, which was promptly brought to his mouth. Some of the whiskey dribbled onto his frilly white collar as he rested the bottle on the railing. “Now I regret leaving it behind.”
Strago placed the palm of his hand over the mouth of the bottle before Setzer could lift it back up again. “We’ve all lost something as a result of our being whisked here, Setzer. Thamasa and all my friends and allies… even my close friend Gungho and our decades of hunting and escapades. Though Celes believes we may be able to return home, we have to also consider the possibility that we are here for keeps.” Strago lifted his hand off the bottle while he looked at Setzer, who looked down briefly before looking back at him, the bottle unmoved from the railing.
“For all intents and purposes, we are family now, the party from another world. And we must stick together and not fall apart if we’re to defeat Kefka and find our place on this new world.” Strago picked up his soft-cover book, simply titled ‘A History of the United States’.
“And if we’re going to figure out more about this land that we’ve accepted as home for now, we must continue to learn more about them!”
Setzer shook his head and smiled. “Thanks, old man. I’m finishing this bottle, though – not wasting a single drop!”
Strago kept a stern look as he leaned his back against the railing and slid to the floor to read cross-legged. “We’re in this together, Setzer. We are family now – never forget that!”
IAI Military Aircraft Group, Lahav Division, Lahav, Israel
For the past day thousands of slaves, from bankers and musicians to children and the homeless, brought pieces of pure mythril by hand to the growing manufacturing plant in Lahav. Kefka personally used his Spitfire to cut off a football field-sized chunk which fell on the small municipality of Lehavim, which was only three miles from Lahav. Most of that town was destroyed instantly upon impact, while those that survived, which numbered in the hundreds, were turned and subsequently brought into Kefka's growing populous.
Yosef, former General Manager and now a not-so-human creature with the sole purpose to make Kefka happy and proud, achieved what even he thought was impossible in record time: the bridging of MagiTek and Earth technology. The solution proved to be remarkably simple, especially with access to raw mythril and Magicite, which was provided by Kefka. Though it took the work of many slaves, the first ever MET Rod was built. The MET Rod was a thin, purple tube that was made entirely of mythril. The inside was hollow, yet had a glass sphere in the middle of the tube which would contain a fraction of an esper’s soul which was extracted from Magicite. The tube could be of any length and could be molded around anything – regardless of its dimensions, the results proved to be the same: the tube would melt slightly into whatever object it was against and become integrated with that object’s processes and functions. When this was done on the backs of exposed mobile phone innards it would turn on and function normally. When a series of rods were placed within a truck by the electronic and engine components it roared to life.
"The bessst part is that anything powered by MET Rods don't need to be charged or fueled anymore," Yosef explained excitedly to Kefka as several large transport trucks were being retrofitted with MET Rods behind him. "Your Magiccccite provides all the energy we'll ever need!"
“As much as I’d like to think of myself as savior for all of your civilization’s energy problems, I have more entertaining plans in mind!” Kefka quipped as he finished reading another Hebrew newspaper. He grinned as the newspaper suddenly burst into flames, thinking briefly about the esper he had that allowed him to understand just about any language heard or read, as well as to convert the words from his mouth into any language. “So much EVIL in this world, I take back what I said earlier!”
“What’sssss that, master?” Yosef asked. He absent-mindedly scratched a boney protrusion that grew just under his chin.
“Oh, nothing you fool!” Kefka turned away from him and crossed his arms as he marveled as the raw efficiency in front of him. In a matter of days his teams of undead workers were rebuilding the mechanical army and air force he always wanted to have in his name. This small group of a hundred men, many of them magically altered to become grotesque wolf-like creatures with pores that opened and closed slowly all over their bodies, will soon attack the nearby city of Be'er Sheva. Most of the nearby military bases were overrun and repopulated with his demons and zombified soldiers.
“Are we ready for the attack?” Kefka gestured to one of the commanding soldiers, who saluted quick enough to hear a bone crack.
“We’re just about ready, master. The city’s manufacturing base will be yours – the rest shall be destroyed.”
“And do you have any problems knowing that your family lives there?”
“No, master.”
“Good!” Kefka laughed as he returned to Yosef, who tinkered with a powered iPhone, a small MET Rod running the length of where the battery would be, the home screen on display and ready to use. “Yosef, I think I may give you a promotion! You’re no longer some peon managing a factory. You will be my Head of MET Research and Second in Command!”
“Yes… thank you massster.”
“You hear that, idiots?!” Kefka yelled loudly, his echo bouncing off the tall ceiling and long walls, which brought all the work done to a halt. “Yosef is your boss when I’m not here. If he wants someone dead, do it without question! A town razed? Why not! A line of heads on pikes outside, line up the children! Wheeeeee!”
“Yes, master,” the entire factory’s population said in unison, their voices rumbled with intense loyalty.
“So Yosef,” Kefka said with a disgusting white-and-red grin as he wrapped an arm around this mutating undead human. “What do you need from me for this raid to be successful?”
Without looking at his master, Yosef responded with a smile, his canine teeth prominently displayed which looked more like a dog’s than a human. “A distraction.”
March 10th, 2014, 8:00PM EDT (+1 day 1 hour)
CNN Newsroom
LIVE: OBAMA HOLDS PRESS CONFERENCE AT WHITE HOUSE
“Good Evening. Now, I’m sure a number of you are aware of the various rumors and speculation on what’s been happening across the world, and the story regarding the airship that landed just south of the White House a few hours ago. What is going on?
“Around 8pm yesterday an island roughly the size of Texas… appeared… over the United Arab Emirates. I say ‘over’ because this island was floating about two miles over the nation. It is currently moving in an orbit around the earth at about 74 miles per hour and weighs in at about 1.6 quadrillion tons. To put it another way, this island is larger and weighs more than anything that’s ever impacted the earth, and it falling from a height from two miles would bring an end to all life and civilization as we know it.
“Now despite what physics would tell us about our situation with this island, it continues to stay inexplicably suspended above the earth. Why? The answer came from those that appeared along with the island, a group of men and women who call themselves The Returners. According to Cyan Garamonde, one of the group members that agreed to be their speaker, they and the ‘Floating Continent’ as they call it, came from a world that was in the midst of its own Industrial Revolution. However, the core difference between their world and ours is… the inclusion of magic. According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, ‘magic’ is defined as a power that allows people to do impossible things, to have supernatural power over natural forces. For us, magic is mostly viewed as a form of entertainment with smokes and mirrors, with people and creatures with magical abilities relegated to children’s stories and cultural mythos. For The Returners, magic is a fact of life.
“What does this have to do with their floating island? This island is, for their world, the source of all magic. Within the island lies a portal to another world where dozens, if not hundreds, of powerful, magical creatures reside.
“Unfortunately, there is a significant downside to the presence of both this island and The Returners. As news spread about the sudden severing of communications between the western world and the Middle East, many suspected that it was a precursor to a terrorist attack or something worse. Those rumors are untrue. What’s happened was the complete neutralization of almost all technology when in the presence of the floating island. When it appeared over the UAE, dozens of planes lost their power, as did Dubai, one of the first major cities to be completely cut off from civilization. It’s been shown that in the presence of magic, technology malfunctions: batteries drain, electricity is disrupted, and more modern devices can even literally destroy themselves. According to Celes Chere, a former general on her world, the more powerful the source of magic, and the more intense the effect it will have on our technology. With their cooperation, we will learn more about the finer details of this relationship, but for now we’ve kindly asked them to relocate to an undisclosed location. However, we do not have any control over the floating island, and since it is moving it is only a matter of time before it crosses over the United States.
“This brings me to my last major point for tonight: The islands projected path and what it means for us. Over the last 24 hours several nations have fallen silent due to the island, including Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Israel. According to our projections, which were confirmed by other teams in various nations, the island will be over northeastern Italy in 24 hours, taking Rome, Athens, and Budapest off the grid; in two days, almost all of France, Munich in Germany, and Madrid in Spain will also be without power. Four days from now, the effects of the island will be within range of Boston, Massachusetts. After five days… New York, DC, Tampa, and Atlanta, among other cities, will be without power.
“What does this mean for us? Beginning tonight, and until the coming crisis passes, I am declaring a state of martial law. The National Guard and Armed Forces are working with local law enforcement. Starting at midnight tonight there will be a national curfew and any crimes against others will be dealt with swiftly and harshly. In order to preserve our federal government I’ve enacted the Continuity of Operations initiative, which will temporarily relocate the nation’s capital to Denver, Colorado, which has the infrastructure already in place in the event that DC was ever incapacitated. All essential staff will be receiving notifications via email and phone at this point – if you receive this notification, begin preparations for the move immediately. Under this initiative, I am also suspending all electoral midterm campaigns until further notice.
“The coming days will be hard for everyone, not just here but overseas as well. With your continued support and cooperation, our great nation will rise to this challenge that was thrust upon it. Our nation, our people, and our world will prevail. Life will go on. Thank you.”
March 11th, 2014, 3:00PM GMT (+1 day 13 hours)
BBC
CONTROVERSIAL CHUNNEL CLOSING TRIGGERS RIOTS IN COQUELLES, FRANCE
The near-unanimous decision to close all traffic in the Chunnel Tunnel to the UK proved to be too much for the tens of thousands that traveled to Coquelles, the town that houses the Eurotunnel terminal. With many families spending their life savings to leave their home, the coming floating island being the sole driver for these people, they were stunned when authorities formally closed the terminal altogether and turned them away.
Local police were enforced by the Republican Guard who used teargas against stranded passengers after a few younger people attempted to rush the gates.
Parliament also swiftly voted and approved to close all UK international airports over the next 48 hours.
After repeated inquiries, the speaker for Prime Minister David Cameron told us that “given the extraordinary circumstances, Parliament and the PM agreed that this would be in the best interest of our country.”
“What would you do if a million people wanted to enter your city, but you could only support half that many?” he countered before ending the call.
March 11th, 2014, 2:18PM EDT (+1 day 18 hours)
Mort’s Antique Shop, Washington, DC, United States of America
Tucked between two new buildings, one of which was still under construction, Mort’s was one of the few holdouts left in his aging three storey building. The store sold an eclectic selection of furniture, accessories, and music from decades past, the front windows lined with old loveseats, lamps, a couch and an oak bookshelf with plastic dolls in dresses alongside old books.
Four kerosene lanterns filled the store with a warm light, as the florescent lights that normally kept the store lit were turned off since they flickered constantly as the three otherworldly women explored the store. Mort, a man in his seventies, observed these women from behind his glasses, more curious than scared. For the past ten minutes he found himself answering their questions as they explored his store. Government agents stood just outside the front door, preventing onlookers from entering.
“This place reminds me more of home than anything else I’ve seen so far,” Terra said with a sigh as she caressed the top of a maroon couch along her slow walk into the music section.
“I dunno, I kinda like the sleek look of their newer stuff – looks alien!” Relm said, gripping Terra’s hand a bit tighter as she walked alongside her.
“I wouldn’t mind a bit of ale from the pub back in Kohlingen, myself,” Celes lamented as she examined an empty glass bottle with the Coca Cola logo on it.
“So where is the music?” Relm asked as she looked over to Mort. “I don’t see any instruments over here.”
Mort walked over to the aisle Relm was in, where racks of vinyl records were on either side of her. He picked up a random album and slipped the record out. “This is the music, my dear. Do you not have records like this where you come from?”
Relm took the record and held it in her hand, both sides with a big “45” near the middle and the title “I Want You Back – Jackson Five” just below that. “I don’t get it – how do you play this? Blow through the hole in the middle?”
“We have live performances and operas where we come from,” Celes said with a wistful smile as she recalled her brief stint as Maria the opera singer.
“Vinyl records are an old recording medium. You place these records on a record player, which would playback the sounds mapped onto the surface,” Mort explained.
“I don’t understand,” Relm shook her head as she waved the record in her hand up and down like a fan. “I want to hear this… record… make sounds!”
As he realized that these people haven’t heard anything from their world, he smiled as he went behind one of the nearby counters and pulled out a small, black suitcase with rust-colored clamps by the handle.
“What is that?” Relm asked as he popped the clamps upward and opened the case. Terra and Celes joined Relm as Mort removed a single record sleeve from the counter that had “The Beatles on Apple” in cursive on a black cover, the middle of which exposed a record with a green apple dominating it.
“This is a gramophone, a wind-up device that can play these records.” He gestured to the crank on the side of the case that he flipped outward. Inside, there was a metal circle in the middle of the case, with a small lever coming from under it. A large, metal arm with a circle at the end rested at the back of the case, the end of which was a short needle. After he turned the crank several times, he removed the record from its sleeve and placed it on the turntable.
“So it’s like an entire band inside this record?” Relm asked, her eyes transfixed on the box in front of her.
“Something like that,” Mort chuckled as he pressed the lever under the turntable to the right, causing it to spin. At the same time, he lifted the metal arm from the back of the box and moved it over the spinning record until the needle at the end of it was gently dropped on the edge of the record.
Relm’s eyes widened while Terra and Celes listened in fascination as the first lyrics to “Hey Jude” came from the speakers on the sides of the gramophone.
March 11th, 2014, 3:01PM EDT (+1 day 19 hours)
Patuxent Research Refuge, Laurel, MD, United States of America
Strago pushed the trap door to the Blackjack deck open and climbed back down into the ship to grab a book he wanted to read outside, but away from the eyes of their assigned US agents. Fortunately, it didn’t take much convincing to keep them several hundred feet away from the Blackjack in their black vehicles on a nearby road: If they wanted to follow the Blackjack, they’d have to stay really far away unless they wanted to walk back home.
At the recommendation of those assigned to them, the Patuxent Research Refuge was the best place for the Blackjack to land as it was still close to DC and the government-controlled park was large enough to provide suitable protection from the effects of the ship. Just before they landed in a large field near the center of the park, most of it was closed to the public.
Strago stepped onto the top deck and took a deep breath with closed eyes as he listened to the sounds of nature around him, almost like the fields and forests north of Thamasa, his home. However, a new, consistent sound filled the air here, which to him sounded like a waterfall from a distance, but never went away. The occasional rumble from an aircraft far overhead could be heard, too. He didn’t know how anyone could live with this racket around them twenty-four hours a day. The thought made him clench his eyes before he opened them. That was when he noticed Setzer against the wooden railing on the right side of his ship, looking into the distance. He noticed an open flask in Setzer’s hand and a short, square bottle with a reddish-brown liquid within.
“What’s your poison, Setzer?” Strago asked as he joined him by the railing, his book gently placed on the deck.
“Megalodoth Blood Whiskey, from the distilleries of Narshe,” Setzer responded with a gloomy sigh. He picked up the bottle and admired the label a bit before he turned it toward Strago. “I didn’t get a chance to restock prior to our battle at the Floating Continent so there’s only one crate left in the hold.”
“So perhaps you should save that bottle for a special occasion, then,” Strago said. He could smell Setzer’s whiskey-filled breath from two arm lengths away.
Setzer eyed Strago as he took another gulp from his flask. He then looked at the flask, shook it, and groaned as he threw it across the deck of the ship. “And what special occasions are there to celebrate anymore? We’re trapped on this alien world with Kefka, of all maniacs, and everything we were fighting for is now… somewhere else!” He picked up the bottle of whiskey and took a good amount down his throat before coughing. “And on top of all that, we’re on a world that hates us because we’re destroying it without even lifting a finger!”
“Setzer, what are you going on about?” Strago grabbed the whiskey from Setzer and placed it on the floor behind him. “What’s really bothering you?”
Setzer shot a look of drunken anger at Strago, but it faded quickly to one of resignation. “One of the agents told me that on Earth they regulate flying. Can you believe that? Governments around the world tell pilots and the companies they work for where they can fly and when! That’s blasphemous!”
Strago let a laugh slip out, even though he knew Setzer tried to open up. “I had a feeling that your airship took priority over everything else you just said.”
“There’s more to it, though,” Setzer continued with a lower voice. “I can’t ever pay my respects to Daryl again now that we’re here…”
“Who’s Daryl?” Strago asked.
“She was a young girl that piloted the Falcon, the fastest vessel ever made. We were bitter rivals at first, but eventually became best friends and more. One day, after a race, Daryl wanted to press the Falcon to its limits and ‘fly to the stars’ as she put it,” Setzer wistfully said, but then closed his eyes. “She never returned home… I found the wreckage of her ship a year later.”
“What did you do?” Strago asked as he rubbed his beard.
“I restored her ship, but put it to rest underneath her tomb – I couldn’t bear to look at it.” Setzer moved around Strago and grabbed the whiskey bottle, which was promptly brought to his mouth. Some of the whiskey dribbled onto his frilly white collar as he rested the bottle on the railing. “Now I regret leaving it behind.”
Strago placed the palm of his hand over the mouth of the bottle before Setzer could lift it back up again. “We’ve all lost something as a result of our being whisked here, Setzer. Thamasa and all my friends and allies… even my close friend Gungho and our decades of hunting and escapades. Though Celes believes we may be able to return home, we have to also consider the possibility that we are here for keeps.” Strago lifted his hand off the bottle while he looked at Setzer, who looked down briefly before looking back at him, the bottle unmoved from the railing.
“For all intents and purposes, we are family now, the party from another world. And we must stick together and not fall apart if we’re to defeat Kefka and find our place on this new world.” Strago picked up his soft-cover book, simply titled ‘A History of the United States’.
“And if we’re going to figure out more about this land that we’ve accepted as home for now, we must continue to learn more about them!”
Setzer shook his head and smiled. “Thanks, old man. I’m finishing this bottle, though – not wasting a single drop!”
Strago kept a stern look as he leaned his back against the railing and slid to the floor to read cross-legged. “We’re in this together, Setzer. We are family now – never forget that!”
March 12th, 2014, 4:01AM IST (+2 days)March 11th, 2014, 7:41PM EDT (+1 day 23 hours)
First DIGITAL photo of the magical airship as it sat in DC! Taken from the top floor of the Hilton Alexandria Hotel, which is about 6 miles from the Washington Monument!!
Likes: 5,762,010
Comments (view previous 301,594 comments):
James Dodd – I cannot believe they’ve landed in the US, of all places! And now they’re learning about our culture. I give them another day before they discover Honey Boo Boo Child and fly the fuck home without looking back.
Rita Sung - I cannot believe we’re all living to see this! It’s so beautiful…
George Spanzo - @Rita @James, I can’t believe it’s not butter.
Kelly Emright – Anyone from DC posting here? I want to meet the returners so bad! D: #thereturners
Vanessa Simpson – Did you see the pics of Locke? SOOOOOOOOO HOT! #thereturners
Nabil Bapu – Does anyone realize there’s an ISLAND IN THE SKY, and people with MAGICAL POWERS walking the Earth? And whole nations about to burst because of the loss of modern tech? I’m breaking out the popcorn, cuz this shits gonna get good…
IAI Military Aircraft Group, Lahav Division, Lahav, Israel
For the past day thousands of slaves, from bankers and musicians to children and the homeless, brought pieces of pure mythril by hand to the growing manufacturing plant in Lahav. Kefka personally used his Spitfire to cut off a football field-sized chunk which fell on the small municipality of Lehavim, which was only three miles from Lahav. Most of that town was destroyed instantly upon impact, while those that survived, which numbered in the hundreds, were turned and subsequently brought into Kefka's growing populous.
Yosef, former General Manager and now a not-so-human creature with the sole purpose to make Kefka happy and proud, achieved what even he thought was impossible in record time: the bridging of MagiTek and Earth technology. The solution proved to be remarkably simple, especially with access to raw mythril and Magicite, which was provided by Kefka. Though it took the work of many slaves, the first ever MET Rod was built. The MET Rod was a thin, purple tube that was made entirely of mythril. The inside was hollow, yet had a glass sphere in the middle of the tube which would contain a fraction of an esper’s soul which was extracted from Magicite. The tube could be of any length and could be molded around anything – regardless of its dimensions, the results proved to be the same: the tube would melt slightly into whatever object it was against and become integrated with that object’s processes and functions. When this was done on the backs of exposed mobile phone innards it would turn on and function normally. When a series of rods were placed within a truck by the electronic and engine components it roared to life.
"The bessst part is that anything powered by MET Rods don't need to be charged or fueled anymore," Yosef explained excitedly to Kefka as several large transport trucks were being retrofitted with MET Rods behind him. "Your Magiccccite provides all the energy we'll ever need!"
“As much as I’d like to think of myself as savior for all of your civilization’s energy problems, I have more entertaining plans in mind!” Kefka quipped as he finished reading another Hebrew newspaper. He grinned as the newspaper suddenly burst into flames, thinking briefly about the esper he had that allowed him to understand just about any language heard or read, as well as to convert the words from his mouth into any language. “So much EVIL in this world, I take back what I said earlier!”
“What’sssss that, master?” Yosef asked. He absent-mindedly scratched a boney protrusion that grew just under his chin.
“Oh, nothing you fool!” Kefka turned away from him and crossed his arms as he marveled as the raw efficiency in front of him. In a matter of days his teams of undead workers were rebuilding the mechanical army and air force he always wanted to have in his name. This small group of a hundred men, many of them magically altered to become grotesque wolf-like creatures with pores that opened and closed slowly all over their bodies, will soon attack the nearby city of Be'er Sheva. Most of the nearby military bases were overrun and repopulated with his demons and zombified soldiers.
“Are we ready for the attack?” Kefka gestured to one of the commanding soldiers, who saluted quick enough to hear a bone crack.
“We’re just about ready, master. The city’s manufacturing base will be yours – the rest shall be destroyed.”
“And do you have any problems knowing that your family lives there?”
“No, master.”
“Good!” Kefka laughed as he returned to Yosef, who tinkered with a powered iPhone, a small MET Rod running the length of where the battery would be, the home screen on display and ready to use. “Yosef, I think I may give you a promotion! You’re no longer some peon managing a factory. You will be my Head of MET Research and Second in Command!”
“Yes… thank you massster.”
“You hear that, idiots?!” Kefka yelled loudly, his echo bouncing off the tall ceiling and long walls, which brought all the work done to a halt. “Yosef is your boss when I’m not here. If he wants someone dead, do it without question! A town razed? Why not! A line of heads on pikes outside, line up the children! Wheeeeee!”
“Yes, master,” the entire factory’s population said in unison, their voices rumbled with intense loyalty.
“So Yosef,” Kefka said with a disgusting white-and-red grin as he wrapped an arm around this mutating undead human. “What do you need from me for this raid to be successful?”
Without looking at his master, Yosef responded with a smile, his canine teeth prominently displayed which looked more like a dog’s than a human. “A distraction.”