"잠깐만요, 얼마나 많은 언어를 구사하시나요? (Wait, how many languages do you speak?)" She asks me.
"4. 영어, 중국어, 일본어, 그리고 약간의 한국어 (4. English, Chinese, Korean, and a little bit of Japanese.)"
Her eyes light up.
"정말 멋지네요! 이미 많은 언어가 있다는 것을 어떻게 알 수 있습니까? 우리는 나이가 같아 보인다. (That's so cool! How do you know that many languages already though? We look about the same age.)"
"부모님은 제가 많은 언어를 알기를 원하셨기 때문에 영어를 마스터한 후에 더 많은 것을 가르쳐 주셨습니다. (My parents wanted me to know a lot of languages, so they taught me a couple after I mastered English.)"
"영어가 모국어입니까? (Is English your first language?)"
"Yup, the moment I learned the word 'Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious' they started me on Chinese."
The girl just looks at me. Guess she really doesn't know English.
"예 (Yes)" I'll just speak in Korean from now on.
...
"영어를 배워야 할 것 같아요. (I think I need to learn English.)" She throws out.
"무엇을 위해? 한국을 떠난다고요? (Why? Do you plan on leaving Korea?)"
"한국을 떠나고 싶지 않아요. 하지만 정말 도움이 될 것 같아요. (I don't want to leave Korea. But I think it would really help.)" She explains, "제 말은, 저를 제외한 거의 모든 사람들이 영어를 구사합니다. (I mean, almost everyone here speaks English except me.)"
Here, this place. They really must be rounding up every kid who got those powers, I thought it was just people from the U.S.
Why though? I mean, I get having 13-year-olds running around with powers is an easy way to burn down some buildings, but there's not just people in my age range. There look to be some 2nd or 3rd graders here, and some high schoolers as well.
What's going to happen to us?
"야구를 하고 싶습니까? (Want to play baseball?)" The girl asks me.
I always saw her around the facility by herself, she looked really pitiful. But once I got this baseball bat and started just hitting a ball against the wall, she came up and started talking with me.
Pretty nice coincidence, that I was taught Korean and all that.
"예, 타격 또는 투구를 원하십니까? (Yeah, do you want to hit or pitch?)" I grab the bat.
"음조. (Pitch)" She smiles at me saying that.
If she uses her powers again, I swear.
We get up and I get into my stance. It's a bit open, but I can hit bombs with it, so who cares?
She gets into her pitching stance. It's not really a stance, and she can't really throw, but her power makes the ball go really fast for some reason, so it works.
The moment she throws a pitch without her powers, I'm hitting it through the roof.
"준비된? (Ready?)" She smiles and activates her powers I think.
"나는 당신의 힘을 사용할 것입니다, 당신은 내가 그들 없이 1마일을 칠 수 있을까 두렵습니까? (Using your powers huh, scared I'll hit it a mile without them?)"
I may have only known her for a couple days, but that doesn't mean I won't taunt her.
She look at me, "당신의 힘을 사용하면 균등해질 것입니다! (Use your power and it'll be even!)"
Oh, guess I haven't told her yet.
"그것에 대해- (About that-)" I open my mouth.
"HEY, DO NOT USE YOUR ABILITIES IN THE COMMONS!" A man in a white coat yells and walks up at her, "Do you have any idea what you could do?"
She looks scared and drops the ball, the man in the white lab coat screaming down to the foreign girl with black hair.
"E-Excuse me sir. She doesn't understand English." Shit, I stuttered, "Can you maybe not talk to her like that, she doesn't know what's happening."
"Of course, she doesn't know what's happening, you think you have to explain that to me?" He looks at me and then her, "Can you just tell her to stop? One more time and she'll be isolated from everyone else."
"Iso-Isolated?" What does that mean?
The man audibly sighs, "She'll be removed from the commons and put by herself for the foreseeable future."
He fixes his coat which got messed up from all the screaming and walks away.
"傻孩子，他们的实力更值得对付他们。(Dumbass kids, their powers better be worth having to deal with them.)" He mutters before leaving like I can't hear him.
I had suspicions over their motives, but did they really lock us up in here to take our powers for themselves? Wait, that's... really bad, wait, wait, wait, wait.
I start getting cold-sweats.
What are they going to do to us? What are they going to do with our powers? Why us? What did we even do to deserve this?!
*Poomph*
I feel... Is she hugging me?
"이봐, 방금 소리를 질렀어. 두려워하지 마세요. (H-Hey, I got yelled at, you shouldn't be the one scared right now.)"
Didn't she hear though? What the man said.
...
Ahhh! I forgot he spoke in Chinese, of course, nobody else would know what he said. That's why he said it out loud in the first place! Who here would know Chinese!
...
Just, deep breaths.
Let's try to think about something else.
"네, 죄송합니다. (Yeah, sorry.)" I face her as she stops hugging me, "그래서, 당신의 이름은 무엇입니까? (So, what's your name?)"
Can't believe I haven't asked her name yet.
"아, 한선우입니다. 남자 이름이기 때문에 별로 좋아하지 않습니다. (Oh, it's Han Sun-woo. I don't really like it though, it's a boy's name.)"
"글쎄, 나는 그것이 꽤 좋은 이름이라고 생각한다. (Well, I think that's a pretty good name.)" I don't really know about Korean names, but it rolls off the tongue nice.
"나는 여전히 그것을 좋아하지 않는다. (Still don't like it)." She sits next to me, fiddling with the baseball in her hand.
"글쎄, 내가 당신에게 별명을 주면 어떨까요? (Well, what if I give you a nickname?)" I always liked nicknames.
She looks at me and her smile goes wide.
"나는 그것을 좋아할 것이다! (I'd love that!)" She says, getting closer to me.
Looking at her, she has really black hair. Like really, really black hair. What do they call black hair again? Pitch black, dark black, oh!
"Jet! 머리카락이 새까맣기 때문에 제트라고 부르지 않겠습니까! (Since your hair is jet black, why don't I call you Jet!)
"Jet! 마음에 듭니다!" (I like it!)" She says it to herself a couple more times before looking back at me, "별명을 알려드릴까요? (Can I give you a nickname?)"
I nod my head.
"괜찮아요! 체인은 어때요? (Alright! Hmm... How about Chain?)" She says.
Chain? It'd be a good code-name, but... Hmm...
"당신의 타격 자세는 이 야구 선수를 생각나게 합니다, 그의 별명은 체인이니 체인이라고 불러주세요! (Your batting stance reminds me of this baseball player in the KBO, his nickname is Chain, so I'll call you Chain!)" She smiles at me.
...Maybe I do like it. She's just too joyful to not agree with.
"좋아 제트기, 좋은 선택. (Alright Jet, good choice.)" I tell her.
Her smile manages to get even wider.
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"엄마! 아빠! 도움말! (MOM! DAD! HELP! PLEASE!)" Jet screams louder.
"STOP! STOP PLEASE!" I yell at the scientists dragging her away.
"SHE DIDN'T DO ANYTHING WRONG, LEAVE HER BE PLEASE!" I try to get louder, I try to run to her but the guards keep pushing me away.
Look! THINK!
"WHY AREN'T YOU GUYS HELPING! ALL YOU GUYS HAVE POWERS AND YOUR LETTING THIS HAPPEN?! PLEASE JUST SOMEONE HELP!"
Fuck! WHY aren't they HELPING, is everyone with powers like this?!
"JET, JET!"
She looks at me, crying.
"체인! 그냥 도망쳐! (Chain! Just run away! Plea-)"
"Shut up you brat!" He jostles Jet around, "And you too you annoying ass prick, you're next!"
No, NO! I can't do anything, I don't have powers like the rest of them. Where are they taking her, maybe I can sneak into it and save her! I have to!
Past the doors, a big bright... teleporter thing?! What!
They're not going to throw Jet into that area they? No they can't!
"PLEASE, let her BE!" I scream out.
"Kid can you shut up, I know your girlfriend is being taken but there's nothing we can do, stop annoying us." This fucking high schooler tells me.
"Shut up! Please, she needs to be-"
*SLAM*
Th-The door closed.
"See, she's gone you fucking retard. Now shut up, don't scream when you get taken away next."
They're gonna take me away next? To that room, that teleporter thing? I-I have to run, get out of her and save Jet!
...
B-But I can't go now. I need to wait and l-leave at night.
I just need to leave! I need to!
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"God, of course those memories come back." I take a cigarette out of my pocket, it's my last one.
9 years since I've last been to this place. It's rotten and destroyed now, as it should be.
All those radiant fuckers came from here.
Well, the beginnings of their dictatorship over the Earth started here.
...
And no matter how many times I kill them, they always come back. It's that Sage radiant.
If she even showed herself once on the battlefield, I wouldn't be standing here right now.
Radiants would be gone, and the world would go back to normal.
Now, there's only about a couple thousand humans who haven't been turned into slaves or radiants. Probably less than a thousand now.
...
It's over.
I've lost, humanity lost.
The last thing I can do now is give myself closure. At the place it all started.
*Pwhooo*
I take a drag and prop the cigarette back in my mouth, I can't believe after all these years, I'm finally back here.
Let's get to it.
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"Same spot still worked, those vents on the north side."
I mutter to myself.
"Used it to escape, used it to enter." Fits the Radiants didn't patch it up. All they have is their powers, none of them have brains.
If only that fucking Sage didn't exist.
...
I take another drag.
Finally back in here, the building.
Were the walls always this short? Or did I grow that much?
"Hahh, if only this place was more colorful, I'd spend as much time as possible wandering around."
I've already admitted that I've lost, the moment I go through that portal, if it's still on, I'll consider that my death.
...
These are my last moments.
...
I take another drag and wipe a tear off my eye. Maybe in the next life, It'll all work out.
...
I scout the room, the commons, where I met Jet, and where they took her away.
The only radiant I will ever care for. Jet.
Guess I'll finally find out where you went after they took you.
You know, there's another Radiant South Korean girl who is called Jett? They put another 't' on her name so it's not complete plagiarism, but still. Can you believe how unoriginal they are?
They don't have your black hair though, they have the opposite, pure white.
Ironic, given how nice you are with black hair. And how... how horrible she is with white hair.
...
"Why am I talking as if she can hear?"
I continue looking around the room. That's, where we used to play baseball, right? That little corner.
*Step, Step, Step*
I've never been more aware of my footsteps, as I walk towards the corner. In the back of my eye though, I spot something.
...Jesus, stop crying.
It's just a baseball. The baseball that we played with back then.
...
W-Wow, I really had nothing else in this life. I'm getting so emotional over a keepsake of someone I knew for about a month.
...
I'll- I'll just keep it in my pocket.
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It's still glowing bright. This portal.
Or maybe it's something else.
Whatever it is, it's where they took Jet.
It's where my time on Earth is finished.
...
I take one last drag and throw the cig into the portal, as expected it goes through it and disappears.
"I guess it really is a portal."
I check everything on me, as if I'd survive wherever this takes me.
Everything is all here.
...
I need to do one last thing. Just to leave humanity's mark on the ground zero of its destruction.
"Marker. There."
Pop off the cap.
*Scribble*
"Never Break the Chain"
A smile escapes my lips, a tear too.
Kay/0 and I made this phrase up one night around a campfire. A simple line to unite all of the remaining humans. To never break the chain, always keep together, and always keep going.
...
The chain was definitely broken, but the radiants still get mad whenever they hear it said, so of course I'd write it here.
Fuck the Radiants. The only good radiant was thrown into a portal when she was 13.
"And at 22, I'm joining her."
...
Jesus that was fucking horrible. Kay/0 never told me to say one-liners for a reason I guess.
...
Kay/0. I hope you're still doing good.
...
More tears start coming down.
This is the end of my life, Earth is gone. Taken by radiants.
Family, Jet, hopefully Kay/0. I'm joining you.
"Never Break the Chain."
I step into the portal.
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POV CHANGE, SAGE.
"So this is the portal Jett came from." I think out loud, "This is a portal to Omega Earth."
"Pretty crazy, ey?" Skye put her gun down, "I mean, to think our Jetts were swapped through this portal. I could not imagine if that didn't happen. Our Jett's much nica' than theirs."
"That's for certain!" Phoenix says, "I mean, imagine if she had a different nickname for me!"
I feel a smile forming, "I think it'd be a good ego check if she called you 'ugly boy' rather than 'pretty boy'."
"Ditto." Skye nods her head.
"Well, I think it'd be horrible!" Phoenix emotes, getting a smile out of Skye as well.
"Alright, let's calm down." I say, "We've secured the position and functionality of the portal. Let's head to safety and report back to Brimstone. Our mission's done."
Phoenix looks at me and smiles, "Dat' easy ey? Knew this was the right mission to sign up for."
Skye sighs, "Really, you can't have that playboy attitude if you take the easiest missions all the time."
Phoenix looks over to her, "Yeah, If I were to be run over I'd rather be run over by a coupe than an SUV."
Skye look at him, confused on the analogy, "You'd still die either way."
"Exactly!" Phoenix does not elaborate.
*ping*
Hmmm?
A... Cigarette? A lit one too?
"Phoneix, you didn't-
"Stop right there Sage, I don't take up any of those cancer sticks, they smell like ass."
"It might ov' come through the portal." Skye says, holding up her gun, "Might wanna be wary."
"Oh shit, she's right. Sage, if someone comes through do we kill them?" Phoenix asks, reloading his gun and taking cover.
Should we kill them? Probably. But if they're from Omega Earth, then they might be valuable...
"Capture them if possible. If not, kill them." I say, grabbing my gun and taking cover.
"Gotcha." He smiles.
...
...
...
*WHOOMPH*
Something came though!
"Am I not dead? It really was a teleporter."
A person came through.
*Click*
Cocking his gun? This is serious.
"On my signal, you too come out and knock him out." I whisper into the comms.
"Hmmm?" 狗屎, did he hear me?
"Maybe I really am dead, imagining sounds." He solemnly chuckles to himself.
Now!
Phoenix and Skye both jump up and restrain him. I come out and run to him.
"Huh? SAGE?! You fuck-"
I knock him out with the butt of the gun.
...
How, how did he know my name?
Why was he so mad when saw me?
...
This is going to be interesting when he wakes up.