System Hunt: Regalia

“Hey Sam! Check this guy out.” Yoko— at least one of three— called out a bit too enthusiastically.

Sam looked over his shoulder from the crevasses he was examine and found Yoko the Original miming the spectre of a Samurai. Sam rolled his eyes at her antics, not understanding how she could even think to play around in the situation they were in.

She made an attempt at mimicking the sour look on the ghost’s cloudy face as he soundlessly removed his helmet and sat on something that hadn’t been there for a long time. “Do you think we’re related? I am half Japanese and he looks half as strong and handsome as I would be if I were a man.”

“Yeah, I could see it.” Yoko#1 said…or was it Yoko#2 speaking? Sam couldn’t tell any difference between the clones, they were perfect copies of each other and perfect copies of Yoko without her glasses— Regalia.

Sam took a deep inhale at Yoko’s cavalier attitude. A part of him wanted to highlight the mission for what would be the thirteenth time but he refrained from anymore pointless repetitions.

He was stressed out of his mind. The migraine he suffered hours ago had subsided but one of the underlying causes hadn’t, namely; his world kept upending itself and now he was trapped in a dusty room with a crucified Belua and a plethora of ghosts.

They hadn’t had the windowless room long to themselves before Sam got around searching for an out. Yoko also searched for an out but a different kind. She wanted to return, she declared as much while they argued about which ‘outside’ to find.

Sam couldn’t call her a coward without being a hypocrite himself so he kept his dirty opinion to himself while he searched but it wasn’t long after he’d scoured around the large, regal thrones— four of which were arranged at the round table— that the spectres began to appear.

Yoko had screamed in terror at the extra presence when they first saw them, but there was little to fear. It had only been one or two hours since they were trapped in with the crucified Belua but he had counted sixteen ghosts that came and acted out as they pleased.

No, not as they pleased, as they had. Sam thought as he watched a Yoko pretend to be the stool, chair or perhaps throne that used to exist where the Samurai sat. The room had nothing else but thrones and the round table, its only source of light were the ghosts themselves and the shine of the crucified Belua’s Nuclei.

They’d seen ghosts of pretty women, a pair come together in dresses that would still be deemed fashionable today if it weren’t for the dated berets they wore. He’d seen men, looking like they’d come from war and some even sporting guns, wounds and backpacks like he and Yoko, though just not as advanced.

Sam had seen the Crusaders as well, at least he assumed them to be by the heavy mail armour and broadswords. They weren’t as vaunted as he imagined, them, the ladies, soldiers and Samurai were all regular humans and they were frightened, sad and full of as much grief as he was even though their cries, footsteps and mouthed words made no sounds.

Both Yoko and Sam had tried communicating after the initial bout of terror but it was no use, just as it was bothering to play around with them. Whoever these people were, they were gone from this room while he and Yoko weren’t.

“Leave the ghosts of past Regalia Wielders and help me find a way out, please. I can’t stand this dust.” Sam pleaded, it was true he couldn’t stand the dust but that was the true least of his concerns where it came to getting out of the room.

More than anything he wanted to return to Manila, to the base of the Doom Tower where he imagined Nyx calling out for him. There were Belua nearby when they left, chasing after them and only Alex and her subordinate Killer Bill were there when Sam and Yoko were taken.

I promised she’d be safe…with me. It hurt doubly so that his promise to Jess had been turned into a blatant lie once again. It had been one of the major pitfalls of their relationship, one he was eager to reignite should he leave the room and whatever lay beyond.

Sam knew the true exit out of the Tower wouldn’t be the first door they opened and so, unlike Yoko during the first hour of their entrapment, he gave up on that idea entirely and was looking for a way forward, a way to conquer.

“Where do you want us to look that you haven’t already?” Yoko the Original asked, sat on upon a throne she had her clones drag out of the only other room besides the main room. It had been cluttered with thrones and they’d helped themselves to seats.

Yoko#1 gestured widely at the room, “Yeah, there’s that wall over there and that wall, the one we thought would have a door, remember that? Oh and there’s also that wall too, which we also thought would have a door.”

“Show us the way.” Yoko#2 grunted back to her feet, her body passed through the Samurai who flickered like a cloud of smoke.

When Sam’s silence had gotten loud enough, Yoko the Original shrugged and continued fiddling with the long rifle in her hand, loading and unloading the weapon.

Sam took a throne for himself and sat beside her, “Isn’t this weird?” he gestured at the clones.

“What? You think having more of me is weird? I’m guessing you were a real hotshot with women wherever you’re coming from.”

The clones laughed at his expense as he groaned, “No, I mean just having them out and lingering. How do they work anyway?”

She gave him a look, “I don’t know, how does any of this fuckery work, huh Sam? Can you tell me how one bit of this makes any sense?”

“I have told you you just don’t buy it.”

“Yeah, because it doesn’t make sense and now you’re asking me, what do you want me to tell you Sam? That I think we’re actually messiahs? That the world almost ended a thousand years ago if not for Samurai Jack and Mary Poppins?”

Sam laughed for the first time, “Samurai Jack could totally save the world. But I mostly meant, how does the Regalia work for you? Yknow, watching these past wielders, ghosts, apparitions, replays, whatever they are, they’ve given me an idea.”

Yoko gave a deadpan look, “I am not going to commit double suicide with you.”

“Why is that your first thought? And no, that’s not it. The way out might just be the only thing that’s been coming in. The ghosts.”

“Oh, I get it. You want to watch what they’re doing? Where they’re coming from?”

“They aren’t coming from anywhere, they just…suddenly exist.” Sam had spent a couple minutes from his fruitless search of the walls to study the apparition’s movements and appearances. “A lot of them appear where we did. Some of them are confused, scared but others are injured, bleeding from wounds.”

“Yeah, so?” Yoko#1 shrugged, leaned against a wall, “If it weren’t for you and the DSF I know I wouldn’t be in one piece.”

“Hey! Nice one!” Yoko#2 said, high fiving her fellow clone for the lacklustre pun.

Sam wore a patient smile and continued, “That’s true but then I started to notice something. The ghosts that weren’t injured, confused or scared. There are few of them, only two so far but both have taken a beeline in there.” Sam pointed at the second room where Yoko had gotten extra thrones from. There were another six thrones were scattered in various positions.

The room was connected to theirs by a circular opening wide and tall enough to bring in the entire round table and its crucified Belua if necessary. The floors and thrones carried less dust and there was less paranormal activity in it which made Sam wonder.

“Why?” Yoko asked, she’d begun facing him now, intrigued if not hopeful Sam’s theory led to some salvation from the windowless room and their sole company of a crucified monster.

But Sam hadn’t the answer for her, “I don’t know yet but if you’ll stop fooling around and work on it with me, I think we’ll get out of here faster.”

She turned away and said, “Out of here but not back in Manila, in our world, where things make some sense.”

Sam sighed, exhausted but not unsympathetic. “Let’s just watch what the ghosts do for now, okay? I want to go home too, dare I say more than you do but first, we conquer this place.”