Real Virtuality


In 2020, World War III came to an end, becoming the war with the fewest human casualties. This is because the war was not fought over land between multiple countries, but rather over the control of the worlds' computer networks, where both sides fought within every country. The White Hats, who want the networks to be used freely and openly, fought against the Black Hats, who wanted to control everything that everyone did and monitor everything so that nothing against them got out. Through sufficient technological advancements, the White Hats were able to overcome the Black Hats, physically locating and imprisoning the head of the group and many high up leaders.

But that's all in the past. Now it's the year 2024. Thanks to the need for advanced technology in WWIII, the same advancement of technology was quickly made available to the consumer in many household items when the war ended. Most everything became voice-operated; many appliances became smart and could figure out the technical programming of a simple command; computers went in two directions, powerful and wearable, but both became unbelievably fast. Even more impressive than the household items, though, were the things being produced by companies for use by the consumer (though far too expensive to be owned my most anyone).

Today, Square-Enix-Konami (commonly SEK, ess-ee-kay) has finally released a much-anticipated game; it's called Final Fantasy: Immersion. However, it's not the addition to the Final Fantasy line that has people so excited about it. It's because SEK has developed a new technology for the game play. Instead of holding or wearing a controller, a player would step into large, hard-as-diamond plastic spheres, and his or her brain would connect to the game through electron waves. They would then have the feeling of being inside the game, inside the character they are playing. The physical body of the player, disconnected from the motion part of his or her brain (as during sleep), would float inside the sphere.

Called Holo-Spheres, this new technology has been speculated to become widespread with popularity, putting a game station in at least every major city. The global grand opening in Japan has drawn many people worldwide, at least the ones who wanted to go and could manage to snag themselves a ticket.

You're one of those lucky people. You're absolutely ecstatic to be able to be at the grand opening. You look happily at the eight spheres being demoed, watching as people float inside, their minds connected to the game. You watch in amazement through in-game cameras as the players' characters defeat monsters, moving fluidly and very realistically. When you get in line, just before you're to go up a game host hands you a data pad, telling you to create the character that you will become in the game. Excitedly you do so, and as you go up, you see them plug the data pad into the console of the sphere you enter.

Once you're inside, the opening closes. You black out for a second, and you wake up and find that you're no longer in the sphere, but lying in a grassy field surrounded by seven others, the seven others who entered their spheres for the same game you did. You take a look at yourself and realize that you definitely are not yourself, but rather the character you created. You test your new body, try out the menus to make sure you know how they work, and begin to interact with the other players.

Not long after, the game goes to a battle, and everyone is ready to attack. When one of the monsters lunges, however, it freezes in midair for a second, as if it were slightly glitchy. But then it moves normally again, and you and the others battle through the rest of the monsters, as well as the following boss-style battle. The boss also glitches for a second, but you guess there must just be a couple bugs. After the boss battle, you go to logout as you were instructed, but the game glitches again and won't let you. You try saving, and the world goes black again.

But when you wake up, you're still your character in the game. A message comes up about the game being "patched." You try again to logout, but neither the Logout or Save commands can be found anywhere in the menus! Shocked and confused, you look up at where you are, noticing it for the first time. It's a fortress-like wall, and inside you can see a town of some sort. Suddenly a man comes out, greeting you as travelers and heroes...

In the real world however, panic and chaos are underway. The glitches in the battling were actually caused by some kind of malfunction in the game system, and something terribly wrong has happened, suddenly causing eight bodies to collapse into comas: the bodies of you and your game-mates. Your comatose bodies are hauled off to the ER, and the premises are evacuated, but nobody dares touch the machine anymore. The building is put off-limits and is guarded.

You know none of this, however, as the man who greeted you is taking you through the town, and you realize that you are suddenly "playing the game" that was demoed. But now that you are in the game, will you ever be able to get out?

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Characters
1. VirtualPlay -=- Mike Rampart | Miaka [White Mage]
2. Classy_cat18 -=- Nia Hawthorne | Kaori [Black Mage]
3. Kurosakura -=- Estelle Macchia | Akane [White Mage]
4. Crystal Tears -=- Ryou Saito | Akuma [Dark Knight]
5. Roy Karrde -=- Ryohei Chen | Yasuo [Gunner]
6. River -=- Sharika Narayan | Rei [Bard]
7. DivineAll -=- Joseph Masters | Takashi [Summoner]
8. Bear -=- Jay Weston | Kamuza [Thief]

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Name: Mike Rampart
Gender: Male
Age: 17
Country of Origin: America (Boston area), although he was born in England, so he has an accent that's a mix of British and Bostonian, though he speaks like an American.
Appearance: Tall, with dark brown hair that he's letting grow out, and bright green eyes; lanky build, and palish skin. Wearing a generic black tee and slightly baggy jeans.
Personality: He's recently been very quiet, often seen thinking deeply about something, or possibly nothing at all. However, he gets overexcited when something he really likes happens. He's usually one to agree with people rather than argue, and he's very pacifistic most of the time. He tends to get along better with girls than other guys, though he doesn't usually mind this.
Other: Maybe later...
----CHARACTER----
Name: Miaka
Gender: Female (see Reasoning)
Appearance: Average height, about 165cm (about 5'5"), with light brown hair down a little past her shoulders; her eyes are a bluish green, sometimes appearing more blue and, other times, more green; her build is a bit muscular, but not very much so, and her skin is slightly tanned. She wears a silky white knee-skirt with a bright red, 15cm bottom hem, a silky, white, long-sleeve robe top with a hood, also with a 15cm bottom/sleeve/neck hem; she wears simple, soft brown leather boots, and has her hair in two pigtails held by two small red glass spheres.
Class: White Mage
Weapon Description: It's a 145cm staff, made mostly of oak, but the bottom 20cm is covered with a silver metal, and the top 15cm is a large red spherical gem which glows when Miaka is holding the staff (and can glow brighter if she wills).
Personality Changes: Now as Miaka, she is feeling less 'down' and isn't as quiet anymore, possibly owing to how she's taken the female change; she actually ends up being quite cheerful after a little while.
Reasoning: Mike chose to play as a girl because he's trans-gendered, and wants to see if he feels more comfortable as a girl (or if he should just stay a guy), without going through the painful and semi-irreversible surgery.

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Mike Rampart ~ British Bostonian
State of Pseudo-shock
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"Hey! Final Fantasy XIII for sale here, mint condition! Own a classic!"

"Get the latest version of the Super-Glove controller, 2000Ľ off for the next half hour!"

"You know you want to check out this new..."

Merchants all over were screaming out to draw people in, trying to sell their products or advertise their upcoming developments. This section of the floor was just packed with tables, and almost no space in between them. Navigating with all the people hovering was near impossible, it was a wonder I was moving through the area at all.

But I needed to escape, the constant crowds around me were cutting into what little personal space seemed to be allowed at this place. Muttering a few "Excuse me!"s and "Coming through!"s, I managed to reach a not-so-enclosed area of the floor. Which was pretty much everywhere else. The only other masses of people were either in line for the cameras, or for the game itself.

People were still just about everywhere, moving around between places, so it took me a good fifteen minutes to walk across the hall to the Vid-Sets. I stopped just outside the Vid-Set area and took a look up at the main game station; each sphere had someone getting in; I watched as they lost consciousness and started floating.

"Hey," a voice said, "d'you want to use this?" I turned to see a guy around my age holding out the controller for one of the Vid-Sets. He was standing in the next spot over.

"Sure," I said, walking over. "Thanks," I added, taking it from him.

"No problem, name's Jay by the way." He smiled widely and held out his free hand, which I shook.

"Mike," I said shortly, returning only a half-smile. I felt kinda jealous that he was so cheerful, but I had my reasons. I pulled the Vid-Set up to my face and started looking around the field as the group that was currently in the system got into a battle stance. The classic Final Fantasy battle music started playing in full orchestration, and a group of enemies.

"This is pretty amazing!" Jay said after a few seconds of watching the battle go on. I had to agree, the fact that all the characters in the game were moving realistically and not in some mechanized way gave the game some kind of life that I've never seen.

"Yeah..." I said, not really having much else to say. After a couple minutes all the monsters were destroyed, their bodies decomposing and disappearing. Out of nowhere a huge wolf appeared, and the music changed to being the more intense boss battle theme.

As I watched, I could feel my inner child start to well up. This was classic Final Fantasy, something I'd grown up with, and seeing it put this way just gave me chills of excitement. "Man," I said suddenly, "Look at those cuts and burns on the wolf just staying there. It's so much more realistic that way. They really did a good job with this!"

"I agree," Jay said, as the wolf boss dropped. "I can't wait to try it out for myself."

I pulled my headset off and put the controller down. "Yeah, I think we should get in line," I said, and we both headed over to where the line end was.
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Basically the building is split into three sections: a too-small-for-its-own-good section for the Dealers (selling games/accessories and displaying upcoming products), a large floor with many tables/booths filled with the camera visors (with a controller to move the camera), and a stage with the 8 Holo-Spheres around a large rectangular box.

Also, I'm not going to demand it, but I would like very much if everyone used the format I did for my character topper; it's not as needed now, but when we get into the game it'll make it easier to remember who's who. The format is:

Name ~ Class (e.g. White Mage)
Current Status and/or Location