EarthBound 201X-Rise of the Star Faction: Vincent’s Story

Chapter 1: Crisis

4:45 PM

Friday, April 20, 201X

In a sparsely populated subdivision in Peridot

The school bus rolled to a stop and the driver set the parking brake. Vincent almost fell over as he struggled between the other passengers to get off. It had been a long bus ride, a long day, and an especially long year since he had moved from his original state of New Goshen last summer. So far, he hated his new home and school; he barely had any friends and had constant problems with being picked on. Vincent liked to blame this on himself for not having the social skills that his peers expected from him.

“Hey Vincent, wait up, bro!” called someone from behind.

“Oh, hey, RC.” Vincent said as he turned to see one of his few friends step down from the bus’s stairs. “Thought you weren’t riding today. Don’t you have soccer practice today?”

The bus backed up some and drove away from Vincent’s street, and the roar of its diesel engine soon subsided. Both boys started down the cul-de-sac, under the placid April sky.

“Nah, coach decided he cancel it today. He says he doesn’t wanna keep us after school before spring break.” RC answered. “Hey, what’re y’all doing this weekend?”

“What do you expect? I’m always stuck at home on the weekends. I never have anything to do.”

“Don’t your parents ever do anything fun?” RC suggested. “Like, they ever gone out and see a movie with y’all or go bowling or something?”

“I can’t do any of that crap now ‘cause they won’t be home the entire week.”

“Where’re they going now?”

“They got the crazy idea to leave me and Cody at home because they want to spend the whole week in Los Veranos.” Vincent explained as he hoisted his backpack on his shoulder. His right shirt sleeve slid up his arm, briefly exposing a jagged, brown birthmark encircling his bicep.

“Los Veranos? Shoot, that’s way out west! How long will they be staying there?”

“Until next Saturday. That’s how long I’ll have nothing to do. I hate my life.”

“Hey, don’t be blaming yourself, chief,” RC advised, the black irises in his eyes focusing on his friend. “You just gotta be more open with people. You need to break the ice; you don’t just wait there until someone decides to talk to you.”

“Every time I try that, it never works. People just like to hate me.”

“That’s ‘cause they’re jealous. That’s ‘cause there’s something you’ve got that they don’t and they want it. It’s something you make sure you never let them have.”

“I know that already, okay RC? You’ve told me that more than enough times.”

“My girlfriend told me that. It’s wise advice, Vincent. You ought to learn to listen to it.”

Vincent cringed at the word “girlfriend,” mildly aggravated. He had an aversion to other people’s boyfriend-girlfriend references, because it rubbed in the fact that he was still single. RC had figured this out by now, but it was too late because the word “girlfriend” had already slipped.

“Oh, sorry.” RC apologized. “I talked about my girlfriend again, didn’t I?”

Vincent nodded, glowering at RC with eyes that resembled a vast, majestic ocean.

“That’s another thing. Don’t be worrying about not having a girlfriend, Vincent. It’ll take time. I bet you’ll meet your girl sometime soon.”

“You tell me that and you’ve been dating your girlfriend for more than a year now? Like, before I was even here?”

“It’s not as fun as it looks, though. But don’t worry. Just be patient.”

“Okay, okay. Whatever.” Vincent grumbled as they neared RC’s house.

“Eh, I’ll see you tomorrow.” RC said. “Later.”

They performed an odd, loose handshake, and RC turned towards his driveway.

“All right. Bye.” Vincent answered.

RC turned his head around. “Bye.”

Vincent was seventeen years old, and was a junior at Peridot High. He had brown hair with several lighter-colored streaks, and vibrant royal blue eyes that his father, an officer in Eagleland’s navy, jokingly called “sailor eyes.” RC, a sixteen-year-old sophomore, was one out of scarcely any people that had befriended him here in Gemme Valley. They had first met at a summer camp last summer, after Vincent had moved.

He jogged down the street towards his house, frustrated by the exceptionally long distance he had to traverse twice each day. He came in through the garage, where his mom was loading luggage into the trunk of the car.

“You’re taking dad’s car?” Vincent questioned.

“Better on gas,” his mother replied, arranging stuff in the trunk. “Can you get dad’s luggage out here? I left it on the bottom of the stairs.”

“Right.” Vincent opened the door to the house, welcomed by the cold blast of air from the air conditioner. He rolled the suitcase back to the garage and set it behind the silver sedan.

“Thanks.” Vincent’s mother straightened up out of the trunk and grabbed her husband’s luggage. She was a short woman, her height being only up to Vincent’s shoulder, and she had chin-length auburn hair and solid green eyes, as well as a particularly young physical appearance.

“That’s just about it,” his mother confirmed, slamming the trunk shut. “Honey, let’s go!”

The door opened and out came Vincent’s father, a tall, muscular man with chestnut-brown hair and royal blue eyes. After ruffling his son’s own thick hair, he got in the driver’s side, started the engine, and waited for his wife to get in. Vincent’s parents drove out of the garage and up the driveway several feet, then stopped as the passenger window rolled down.

“Vincent! C’mere!” his mother called, sticking her head out the window. Vincent scoffed in frustration and trotted to the car.

“What now?” He wiped the sweat off his forehead. He was tired from running from the bus stop in the 80 degree heat.

“Don’t forget to feed the cats next week, okay? And if you two get hungry, we still have frozen pizzas and TV dinners in the freezer in the basement. Oh, and there’s mail for you on the kitchen table.”

“Right.”

“That’s my boy!” she chimed. “Keep an eye on Cody and make sure he gets to bed on time, all right?”

“Okay, mom.”

“Attaboy! Okay, we’ll see you next Saturday at noon if our flight isn’t late.” She leaned over and kissed her son on the cheek, causing him to grimace.

“Bye. Have a good trip, guys.” Vincent said.

The car continued up the winding driveway and down the cul-de-sac. After it was out of sight, Vincent wiped his cheek in disgust where his mother had kissed him.

In the house, he picked up the pile of mail and thumbed through it like a hand of playing cards, muttering out the names on each envelope.

“Bruce Marino, Bruce Marino, Bruce Marino, Martha Marino, the Marino household, Bruce Marino… ah. Got it.”

“Anything for me?” asked Vincent’s brother, Cody.

“No. Just dad’s mail from the navy and my report card.”

“Awww. How about now?” Cody persisted.

Vincent scoffed again. “Why don’t you go play a video game or something? I’m busy here!”

“All right! Sheesh!” Cody left for the living room where the game system was. Vincent had just started to open his envelope when the phone rang.

He scoffed a third time, thinking his parents had forgotten something, and picked up the cordless phone on the counter behind him. “What?”

“Way to answer the phone, man! Sheesh!” RC scolded over the phone.

“Oh, sorry RC. I thought my dad was calling me or something.”

“No prob, bro. Listen, you don’t have any plans for tomorrow, right?”

“You know me. I’m never doing anything. Cody’s here driving me up the wall, though.”

“Oh, he’s just a kid. That’s what you get from thirteen year-old’s.”

Vincent laughed gently. “That’s true.”

“Hey, uhh, me and a couple buddies are fixing to drive to the beach tomorrow morning and spend the day there. You wanna come? ”

“You mean all the way down in Sapphirenia?”

“Yeah, it’s only about fifty minutes from here.”

“Okay, well, what about Cody?” Vincent roamed towards the couch while he talked.

“Yeah, he can come. You’ll have to ask him, though.”

“Okay, um, what should I bring?” Vincent leaned against the couch and one of his cats jumped up to it. “C’mere, Sketchy,” he said to the kitten as he picked it up and carried it to the laundry room with one hand.

“Just pack two towels and sunscreen.”

“Sweet. When are you guys leaving?” Vincent asked, wedging the phone between his ear and his shoulder and picking up a bag of dry kitten food. He dumped some food into a small metal bowl on the floor and put down Sketchy, who sniffed the bowl and began to chow loudly.

“Uhh, nine thirty. You gonna be up by then?”

“Hopefully.”

“Okay, bro. Bye.”

“Bye.”

Vincent hit the End button on the phone and returned it to the charger. He was too exhausted to pack, but luckily he had a duffel bag in his room full of camping gear he had brought with him to summer camp. He washed his hands in the downstairs bathroom to clean off the cat food, splashing some water onto his face. After he dried out his hair, he left the bathroom and lay down on the couch, relishing the comfort on his aching, sweaty body. Before long, he was asleep.

********************************************************************

He slept for a good three hours, until suddenly the house began to shake violently. There was a deep booming noise from a distance, and the power blacked out.

Vincent woke up, shocked, and sat up on the couch. The sky outside was a dark, navy blue, and the sun was in the midst of setting, providing just enough light for him to see his immediate surroundings. He rushed around the house until he spotted something through the glass door to the back yard.

It was a tall, orange mushroom cloud, coming from east of the house.

“Whoa!” he shouted, petrified by awe. He ran to the living room, where Cody was sitting in front of the blank TV, holding a game controller.

“Vincent, what just happened?” Cody asked, frightened.

“How should I know?! C’mon, look for some candles or something!” Vincent started down into the basement, where his bedroom was. He grabbed his pocket watch off his dresser, a small, brass clock about an inch and a half in diameter. It had a compass on the opposite side, and was hinged so that it could open. Vincent opened it and turned the tiny built-in LED flashlight on, utilizing it to navigate around the room.

“Me look for candles? Where are you going?” Cody demanded from upstairs.

“I just saw something blow up outside,” Vincent called. “I’m going to get a better view of it.”

“Isn’t that dangerous, though?” Cody continued, coming down the stairs with a lit candle in a jar. “You don’t go around stuff that blows up!”

“It’s pretty far away anyway. And it’ll only be a minute or two.” Vincent answered, changing out of his school clothes and dressing warm. He put on a pair of thick sweatpants and a long-john style undershirt, over which he wore his old hockey jersey from when he played ice hockey for his old school back in New Goshen.

“Can I come with you?”

“It’s getting cold outside, though.”

“So?”

“So, you’ll freeze out there,” Vincent explained, pulling on a pair of socks and slipping into his tennis shoes.

“Whatever. Suit yourself.”

As Vincent headed for the sliding door in the basement, he tripped over his hockey stick lying outside on the patio. He picked it up and carried it with him, not having enough time to put it back.

Finally, he reached the edge of a ravine off the side of the street leading into a vast, woody area that continued down the mountain. This spot overlooked the area where the mushroom cloud had been. It had been replaced by a thick, black column of smoke that looked to be about ten miles away.

Hearing footsteps behind him, he set down his stick in front of him and turned around to see five other dark silhouettes of people gathering around the same spot where he was.

“RC, is that you?” Vincent asked.

“Yup. You lose power too?”

“Yeah. It looks like whatever that is down there’s doing it.”

“You mean that power plant down there?” another kid asked.

Vincent sifted his fingers through his brown hair. “I’m still wondering how it just exploded like that. It must’ve been a meltdown or something.”

“But it’s no nuclear power plant,” RC replied. “It couldn’t have been no meltdown.”

“Well, I know that, RC. They’re too chicken to build nuclear ones.”

“I hear it’s a geothermal plant or something,” someone else suggested.

“Yeah, but if it’s a geothermal power plant, it wouldn’t have exploded so big.”

“It’s gonna be hard to fix that, I’ll tell you that much,” RC added. “I mean, it’s nothing like a wiring problem or anything like that. The whole thing just… boom.”

Vincent continued gazing out at the cloud of smoke. He heard police car sirens in the distance, coming from around the power plant. “That does not look right,” he said suspiciously.

“Well, I’m going back home. Gotta be up early if we’re going to get to the beach tomorrow.” With that, RC left, followed by the others.

“Good luck sleeping with no night light tonight!” Vincent called sarcastically.

RC laughed “You know you’re gonna be scared silly without yours!”

Vincent chuckled and turned to head for his house, accidentally stepping on his hockey stick in the process. The stick tumbled down the steep ravine and hit the ground at the edge of the woods.

“Crap,” he muttered, crouching down at the edge of the ravine and cautiously sliding down. At the bottom, he hit a sharp drop and landed hard on his feet. The force of the fall made him roll over onto his shoulders.

He snatched up the hockey stick and tried to climb back up the ravine, but it was too steep to even get a firm grip on. He hastily tried to look for another way up, observing that the ravine flattened out further to the left. When he tried to approach that spot, he heard movement in some bushes behind him, and stopped.

The rustling continued, and began to disturb Vincent. His knuckles paled around his hockey stick as he backed away from where the sound was coming from. The next thing he knew, a fat, stocky figure crawled out of the bushes.

It looked at him and began to growl.

Vincent’s skin crawled. He had to get out of there!

The animal jumped at his face, only to be halted mere inches away by his arms as he struggled to keep it off of him. Eventually, Vincent managed to force it hard into the ground.

The beast rolled over and continued growling. It made another leap, but Vincent deflected it by swinging his hockey stick hard at it. This time, the animal slammed into a nearby tree, while Vincent’s stick vibrated briefly from the force of the impact.

The fight wasn’t over yet. The attacking animal made one last jump. Vincent stopped it by jamming the butt end of his stick into what looked like the throat. Finally, it became tame and limped away.

Vincent guessed that it was a wolverine that attacked him. At least, it looked like one. He had seen them before at the zoo as a child.

What was that all about? he wondered to himself, approaching the flatter portion of the ravine.

Unfortunately, he never got close. He heard more wolverines zeroing in on him.

“Oh, no.” he said, bracing for another fight.

The wolverines came, and there were a lot of them. Vincent repeated the same technique, successfully fighting off three more, but he knew he couldn’t handle as many as there were coming at him. He ran into the woods, zigzagging between trees in a desperate effort to lose them.

They caught up, and Vincent responded by swinging his hockey stick in all directions, deflecting them one by one, but they soon began to overpower him. Some made it to his skin and bit hard.

He thrashed around wildly, wrestling to shake off the two wolverines that were on him. He tried flopping into the ground in order to crush some of them, but he didn’t have the upper hand for much longer. A whole pack of them had crowded around him, intent on finishing him off.

Cornered against a tree, Vincent spotted a particularly large wolverine that was preparing to lunge at his face. When it finally did jump, a much larger figure brushed past him and rammed the animal directly. The other wolverines turned their attention to the newcomer, and attacked. The large animal fought back hard, swatting the muscular wolverines left and right. It gnashed at them with its sharp teeth, grabbing hold of some and flinging them high into the air, all without taking a single hit itself. Finally, the battle was over.

Vincent slouched against the tree, terribly exhausted from the fighting. The figure that had rescued him trotted up and eyed him carefully. Opening his blue eyes wider, Vincent recognized it to be a fox, which had a strange white swirl on its chest that sharply contrasted the orange fur around it.

“Hurry up and leave!” it said, startling him. “You’ll die out here!”

“Wh-what are you?! What do you want from me?” Vincent panicked.

“These animals around you… are possessed.” the fox told him.

“Possessed? What do you mean, possessed?”

“I don’t have a lot of time to explain, so listen carefully. There’s a powerful creature on the loose that has the ability to influence the behavior of weaker life forms. He’s under the control of someone bent on controlling this entire universe.”

“Wow. That sounds bad.”

“It is. The creature was spawned from a rich source of energy very close to us. He can absorb energy from powerful sources anywhere in the world and become even stronger. If he gains enough energy, he could do anything with it.

“His name is Nema, and he’s been turned into a tool in part of a grandiose scheme for world domination. He has a will of his own, but apparently he’s been tricked somehow.”

“So what do I have to do? Isn’t there a way to stop this from happening?”

“I have powers like Nema as well, but both our potentials are closely matched. I am on my way to stop him before he accomplishes this scheme.”

“How will you do that? And who are you, anyway?”

“My name… is Giygas. And twenty years ago, I was a victim of a scheme similar to this. But the world is in greater peril now, because Nema doesn’t realize what he is doing!”

“Well, how do you think you’ll stop him?”

“Right now, Nema is very weak.” Giygas explained. “Like I said, he only gets stronger by absorbing more energy from the earth. He could be stopped if he is prevented from getting to this energy.

“The best choice for you to make is to avoid Nema’s influence the best you can. You’ll be safe if you don’t fall victim to his clutches.”

They were interrupted by more sounds in the distance, coming from the direction of the power plant. Giygas’ fur rustled as he turned to face the noise. Trees swung around like metronome needles, signaling that something was approaching.

A strange figure stepped out of the trees, and Giygas flattened his body against the ground. The figure was large and dark, about six and a half feet tall. Night was beginning to fall, and Vincent could hardly make out any features on the beast, save for two purple, glistening eyes.

It muttered one word, “Foe.”

Giygas trembled tensely. “That’s… that’s… Nema!!” he whispered.

Nema began glowing in its torso, and let out a bright burst of energy, directed straight at Vincent and Giygas. Vincent leapt sideways, hockey stick in hand, and barrel-rolled across the dirt, while Giygas jumped high and vaulted over the blast, which roasted the tree Vincent was sitting against.

Giygas landed in front of Nema, and the white swirl on his chest began to glow yellow. “PSI Thunder Alpha!!”

The electric attack tagged Nema directly, but it seemed unharmed by Giygas’ PSI move. It turned to stare at a petrified Vincent with its evil purple eyes.

“I am destined to dominate over all mankind.” it proclaimed stoically. “Anyone who resists, I kill them.”

Nema launched its hand at Vincent, who jumped away and ran in a circle around the beast. He closed in at an angle and speared it as hard as he could with his hockey stick. Nema fell to the ground, and Vincent hurried to Giygas’ side.

“Quick! Before he gets back up! Use your PSI!” Giygas suggested.

“PSI? What PSI?”

“Trust me, you have it too. It exists in everyone, but not everyone chooses to use it. Believe me, you can do it!”

“How?”

“You’ll just have to get a feel for it. Hurry! I can’t resist much longer!”

By the time Giygas said that, Nema was already back up, preparing another attack. Hastily, he tried to feel for PSI inside himself. He found nothing.

Nema used the same energy attack as before, but this time it hit Vincent and Giygas. Both flew in opposite directions. Vincent made a hard and painful landing, aching around his joints and feeling some blood on his lip.

C’mon… c’mon… c’mon… he thought, trying to get a hang of PSI. He finally felt a sensation in his chest when he searched hard enough, and discovered that he could control the sensation around his body with his mind.

“PSI Lifeup Alpha!” Giygas suddenly utilized another PSI technique to heal Vincent. His body stopped aching and the cuts on his skin dissipated.

Nema powered up again and shot its special beam at them. Before it hit, Giygas used a third technique, announcing, “PSI Shield Sigma!” A lavender force field appeared in front of them, and Nema’s beam disappeared along with the force field.

“Nema, stop!” Giygas pleaded. “Don’t you realize you’ve been tricked?”

“I am destined to dominate over all mankind.” Nema repeated. “None can stop me. The Faction is on my side.”

The Faction? Vincent asked himself. He knew that something was wrong with the way Nema was talking, but he didn’t have time to wonder. He had to stop Nema here and now. He felt for the PSI sensation and controlled it more, with images of fire in his mind.

Nema reared up, intent on eliminating the two opponents. Vincent’s PSI gradually heated up, and finally, he moved it out his hands. It collected in two separate balls in each hand, appearing as faint orange fireballs.

“Ha ha!” he laughed, throwing the two fireballs at Nema. They collided, but with a weak effect.

“Try saying the name of the technique!” suggested Giygas. “Your mind can utilize it more easily.”

“PSI Fire Alpha!” Vincent announced, and the PSI flow was more powerful that time. Orange streams of fiery light streaked at Nema, knocking him back a considerable distance and reducing the underbrush below to ashes.

“What’s the matter? Don’t like the heat?” Vincent taunted as Giygas continued with another PSI technique of his own. “PSI Freeze Alpha!”

The air became cold and began to swirl around Nema. Icicles appeared in the vortex and battered the creature repeatedly, causing additional damage. Vincent used another PSI Fire Alpha technique before Nema could recover. Finally, it knelt on the ground and started glowing.

“What’s it doing?” Vincent asked. The glow became brighter.

“He’s getting away! Stop him!”

They were too late. Nema disappeared in a bright white burst.

“Look, kid,” Giygas started, “you have to get out of here right now! I don’t know where Nema could be next! If he gets a chance to become stronger, people could die!”

“What can I do? Do I have to stop him now?”

The fox went on. “He has to be stopped eventually. I’ll do everything I can, but if this world domination plot progresses any further, you and everyone around you will be in mortal danger. You’ll have to fight back if you come across any more trouble like this.”

Vincent took a deep breath. His adrenaline had gone haywire and his heart was pounding intensely. Just the very idea of having to struggle to survive every second of his life made him sick. “Giygas, I’m not sure I can live a normal life anymore with all this going on. Everyone on earth is in jeopardy now.”

“Just stay away from Nema’s accomplices the best you can and you will be safe. You’ll know if you see them. What I know about this plot is that its perpetrators are keeping it secret and avoiding contact with society until they finish. And by then, there will be no way to prevent them from ruling the world you know now. I will expose their scheme before it is completed.”

“Well, what should I do if I need to fight back?” Vincent continued.

“You’ve already shown yourself to be a brave fighter, young human,” Giygas reassured. “It will get dangerous for you in the future, but if you encounter any threats in the future, you’ll know what to do. I believe in you.”

“But…” Vincent was still puzzled. “Will I be alone? What if there are other people who will have to fight to survive like I just did?”

“There are other people like you who won’t be afraid to fight. They will arise eventually. They could come from anywhere on earth, and they’ll always be by your side, no matter what.”

Vincent felt inspired by Giygas’ pep talk. Maybe he could handle himself after all. He had gotten this far, survived an intense battle, and learned how to use PSI, all in one night. For the first time in his life, he began to believe in himself, and felt peace of mind; the feeling that all was well.

“You’d best get out of here now, young human. It might still be dangerous out here.”

“Thank you, Giygas. But where will you be?”

“I’ll be watching over you. If you need help, I’ll be there. Remember, you choose who you are.”

“I’ll remember that,” Vincent replied confidently, and then realized that Giygas had never referred to him by name yet. “My name’s Vincent, just so you know.”

“Understood. Take care of yourself, Vincent.” After saying that, Giygas turned and trotted onward into the forest.

I choose who I am… Vincent repeated to himself as he climbed the less steep part of the ravine. I choose who I am.

The house was still dark when he returned, with the exception of several candles that Cody had lit. His pocket watch’s light was still on in his bedroom.

“‘It’ll only be a minute or two!’” mocked Cody, who was waiting for him in the basement. “Dude, you were out there for like, an hour!”

“I’ll explain later, okay, kiddo? Now get to bed.”

“Why? It’s only 9:30!”

“We gotta be up early.” Vincent replied, remembering the trip to Sapphirenia that RC was planning. “We’re going somewhere fun tomorrow.”

Cody headed back upstairs, while Vincent switched off the flashlight in his pocket watch and climbed into bed. The bed never felt more comfortable than on that night.

I choose who I am.