A couple of short drafts

[Raiyuuni]

IN the beginning, there once was an amorph void of impossible nature: unseen, endless. On some rainy Tuesday night, at some town which name only so many knew, and even fewer dared to speak aloud, an approximately regular tax-paying citizen, at his own leisure, while armed with sheer creativity, discovered such void and proceeded to tamper with it. This person in particular thought it was a good idea to set up a series of switches in order to identify and execute elaborate actions. Another one soon followed him, with alleged intentions of casting art's warming embrace over the system. One day, these two regular townsfolk met, and devised an even more sumptuous machine. As time passed, the event, about as life-changing as a spark at its own time, would come to absorb so many powers of ten that, at some point, humans were so confident in all this actually being a competition (and an annoyingly profitable one at that) that they wouldn't stop systematically crashing people's "I Win" parties until nameless freaks had crammed trillions of such switches into paper thin spaces.

The forefathers of that technology frowned upon mankind's obsession (not without a spoonful of envy) from an approximately regular, affordable afterlife. This poor void, they had come to realize, only meant to be friends to people. But no, their followers had to resort to cruelty when facing the unknown. Limitless sessions of decharacterization and encrypting through esoteric linguistics that would make Shakespeare proud followed, with no rest. And, from such a titanic effort, millions of dream worlds began being projected upon screens. It was the big bang of arcade storytelling. And one of its said spawn, misleadingly regular (with a mandatory tad of approximation, perhaps?) was known as the Mushroom World. Relying on both corporate efforts and collaborative fan work, its explorable terrain eventually achieved supermassive proportions, allowing for endless opportunities of sightseeing.

One of the most renowned and traditional landmarks of fan tourism was codenamed Super Mario 63. It had been concluded by an approximately hardworking programming undergraduate, assisted by a team of uncountable ethereal entities, with one of such being his own sibling. It had been first devised and finally concluded on particularly rainy and sorrowful Tuesday nights. And it served only to amplify the already godlike irony of this realm's creation, for the language with which it was written was named Flash. It is pretty much the following: the same old antagonist, occupying the steadiest job a game character could ever expect to, did his usual job at devising a Master Plan about as flawless as Jimmy Five's, only to be thwarted by Mario, his nemesis Kamek, and the poor toasted Toad that the allegedly defenseless Princess used as a shield against the King Lizard's spicy breath as soon as it all began.

Of course that, in this story, as well as in any other one in reality or in virtual worlds, among the spectators, there are going to be those annoying children that will do nothing but yell for "not being there yet"; sleep while you're supposed to be out of your hotel room, enjoying the country's sights; and complain for everything on their surroundings being painfully dull. And they're the ones with whom we'll deal tonight.

Can you see them? Yeah, that's them. These three. The girl, her unconspicuous sibling and his sleepy sidekick.

This is not their story.

This is a story by an approximately irregular citizen with too much alleged leisure time who, in an award-winning incarnation of creative work tertiarization in the contemporary world, decided to gaze into the incident. And what follows is what he was skillful enough to picture of the attempt of said three children of being friends with the Void.

Nobody in Mushroom World liked what happened then. For it was a legendary mess like none other before. And they disliked none the less the fact that it all began on an approximately regular rainy Tuesday night.

This is a story of two plumbers.

And they're not Luigi and Mario.

_____________________________

The caped one struggled even to raise his head, hung to a crumbled wall by a binding spell, the last of his irrational astral filling dilluted and seeped away.

There was no escape.

"Your dream-walking evenings are past their undoing. Erika has fallen by the enemy. Your ultimate reasoning, and nothing else stands before you but generals. You are lucky, however... to only have received your judgment here, and now, by me, rather than by the enemy, where no more would be of you, forever. Still, I am bound to tradition and history, and shall grant you the honour of receiving a final, albeit unnecessary strike, by the Advisor... have I ever told you how much I dislike this tag?"

So many hard-earned triumphs, so many impossible skills, and yet, destiny offered him the chance to clash against predicaments ever greater. The Level One... an art only taught to true generals, those whose both bodies and minds were raised and readied to mould the element of Life, in order to amplify their presence another step further, one which allowed dispelling the most twisted of jeopardies. Such a sinister power... unleashed against nothing more than a boy. It might as well have been his punishment for meddling with knowledge too complex.

This was the world laid upon his eyes, those which once sustained an Iceman spell, but now conveiled a hollow expression.

"Nothing but vicious generals stand victorious now. You are not meant to be here, and it is not by lack of merit... and it is better this way."

And the caped one collapsed.

Lizbeth, although unsurprised, could not help but feel miserable, yet ever so slightly, for her unconscious rival's downfall, his outstanding campaign toppled on the most ungraceful of manners. Reluctantly, she turned away and raised her right hand, as the announcer unveiled the fight's closing speech, declaring her the unquestionable winner.

"By competitor knockout, Lizbeth, the Advisor, is victorious!"

And a spark struck the fallen one's soul.

Spark. That was the boy's tag. The general forced herself to look back.

The boy was standing yet again, his bounds broken behind him. His dark cape burned, coloured flames and dark ashes dancing at his feet, and thus exposing his bare chest.

It was an utter mess. Blood was flowing in slender streaks, some of his skin seemed melted, and that which was not was shaded with a vivid crimson. An arachnoid machine seemed to have been stabbed to his left breast, and cast upon it was an intricate spell, at which center was a pitch black circle, sealing away the core of his own existence.

Spark's reasoning to meet Erika was stamped to his chest. The young one's own life was on a deadline, and the clock was ticking ever faster. It was because of that, Lizbeth considered, that he was unable to mould Craft elements and cast secondary spells.

The black sphere, however, acquired a solar orange tint, and split into three other shapes. The gate was open.

She knew what it meant, and why Erika was the only one he looked for. Nobody else, General, Warlord, god or whoever it might be, would solve such a puzzle, as it was not a spell that would be found anywhere in Folto.

The natural state of all magic is to flow, from a filled reservoir to a dilluted space. Provoking the interruption of this state generates a constant demand of energy which is usually at the cost of the victim's energy, in order to perpetuate the cycle. That's why those who usually have their aura output restricted to a set level, and surpassing it would be, at least, painful. This paradoxical spell, however, imposed the static nature as a natural state, and would force its return with any means necessary. And it's threshold was dangerously close to the absolute zero, which meant the user would not be able to use any techniques. And, at the act of its complete opening, it would completely seal off the soul's core when the victim's original energy reserves were depleted, causing instantaneous death at this event, unless the seal is broken.

Breaking such a seal, however, requires a peak of energy which is inversely proportional to its threshold. Theoretically, such a level would approach infinity, but from what little Erika could make out with her, the spell hadn't been cast perfectly, else Spark wouldn't be able to cast primary spells.

Yet, at his impending death, he stood up. He seemed determined to attempt to break the seal by fighting to the end once more. Veins of sheer aura glowed beneath his skin, with their epicenter at the machine on his chest. The only sound that could be made from the crowd beyond the virtual arena's boundaries a ghostly silence.

Something was wrong. His life force had been drained to the absolute limit, but he was somehow on his feet yet again. What's more, his aura had changed. Much like one's physical form, Lizbeth reckoned, a soul also matures to match a person's development. Spark's energy output was significantly less corrupt, despite remaining ominous.

On Spark's spectator support chamber, the pattern followed. Motionless persons before the windows and screens. Simon, Rocky, Lucy, Sophia, Juno, Tyler, Warden, Aiden, Nico. Not a word on the radio.

"You say..." - he declared, in a rusty and weak voice.

The Advisor remained staggered.

"... that I have no more reasoning here. That I have fallen, and should realize the sick nature of my convictions. It's true that Erika is dead, that there is no salvation. I no longer intend to meet her, and may she rest in whatever afterlife there is. She needn't heed my pleas, even though I am about to follow her path. For I shall walk it by myself, true and alive."

"You say I tried to play God for no reasoning... whilst you were only half right."

"At what I reckoned to be the upmost state of my wits, I have tried to bear the task of remoulding a reality, a feat I judged the Government to be irrelevant at... I thought that the mere acceptance of a crew, no matter how small, would be enough to preserve a righteous nature to my ways. I thought that, in time, the world would consume me... when in fact it already had. I had embraced an entire world. Every mask I wore, every name I took... only fomented my corruption. It only fomented my fear."

"And you stand now before me... as my executioner... again!"

A chill rushed down Lizbeth's spine. An Insignia member out in the clear, on Alphel's true surface down below... an invisible leader among the revolutionaries... the Red Devil's sighting at the Cosmic Nobles' Arrival... the Homeland Exodus, a collective disappearance of children, living and deceased... her cherished one's true name. These incognitos converged to a single, godlike anomaly, which now stood before her. The duel's closing act... would not unfold soon.

"I committed the ultimate crime of attempting to comprehend foreign worlds... without aligning my own. I will start by making this right, once again. By my overthrowing your campaign - this time, with my own powers - I will have proven nothing, but I, once more, have a reason to reach the finals! To break this reality's scales of terror, and my thousandfold captive existence alike! And, most of all... I will reach the one who has most awaited my awakening!"

Finally, in but a moment, their roles as keepers of dreams yet to unfold had drastically switched. Dead men tell no tales... but not always are the dead dead.

"Sophia! ... no, Selphi!"

He allowed himself a confident smiled for his two selves - that of the sly anti-hero, and that of a boy who was too young to know redemption.

"I AM ALIVE!" (Luffy style.)

________________________________________


Older drafts:
These chapters are supposed to some sort of flashback regarding a point of view of the story that both the reader and listening characters didn't know of until now. Don't worry about not being able to comprehend background facts unless it's essential, there's more to cover than I could write down. Mostly, I'd need to check if I didn't screw anything up. I don't practice my writing often, so it always looks like I'm rusty :P (mostly, I think it lacks some spontaneity from other characters, even though that's a monologue :P)



Chapter N: Redemption

Through the dormitory's double glass frames, no more light shone on that day.

It surely wasn't as cosy as when so many others had joined the tourney and were recklessly defeated before even having time to untidy their rooms.

The Blue Temple's entire contingent of friendly bots, despite all of their clicks, clanks and stunts which some would dare tag as magic, was of no help to lighten the atmosphere of that room.

"I never even knew he was all the way down here... I'm just as staggered as you are" - said Juno.

The spontaneity with which the golden support team had assembled around that nearly anonymous underground fighter to battle the woman acclaimed as world champion had been crushed at the instant she had been defeated - worse, even - yielded.

Sophia tried her best to speak, yet no words came to her. It was too much for her to handle, even for a Connor - seeing her rival being outsmarted by her own bunker comrade, who turned out to be the very leader of Insignia, and along with him, her closest companion prior to Simon's escape, after years of disappearance, also shows up wearing the same colours.

It felt as though those millions of tons of steel above them had finally been cast to the ground. The air was still and heavy from the fighters' remaining willpower.

"I see there is no other way, then" - stated Stormhawk - "other than telling you how it had begun... and what brought me here afterwards."

Naught had been said for a while.

"How much do you really know?" - he continued. "About all of us, about what we've caused and our methods."

"It's true... I guess" - replied Sophia as she tried to wipe off an imaginary tear. "All the information shared through any means I knew would only mention yet another crazy stunt of a handful of rebels, over and over again at the cost of peoples's lives. And even yet, these numbers kept increasing, up to the moment you had an army at your command!"

Juno sat down beside Erika's bed, on the far side of the room. She seemed as lively as the one sleeping beside her - either that, or a signal that the Hawk had indeed drifted apart from the others.

"This war name of mine... was adopted shortly after your colleague, Simon, had pulled off that little con of his on Homeland's wardens. Both Juno and myself had nearly been killed on that little bonfire, trying to meet the only ones we knew who remained, just as their Guard struck an entire complex just to cover his escape."

"We were rescued only to be left alone again, except for each other. No major centre would happen to accept us again, and working our way through the villages up to those places would take us way too long. Our only chance to hasten this process was to meet with your former warden, Lance."

Sophia looked back at the other ones. Beneath the shade, she could only picture a small hint of a smile at Juno's face when she glanced back, while Erika kept on sleeping.

"We were convinced we would meet him, even if it meant traversing half a planet on foot. Yet on the fourth town we met John. He had become a walker, much like ourselves, after his village had been raided and the remnants of the group scattered on the forests, fearing another attack. He was on the verge of committing suicide when we had found him... until it all had come to me."

"I knew we were yet to meet more of them, that the proportions that you had seen the Third Exodus Incident to achieve were true, along with deep scars that had been left on an already fragile system, staggering since the prime of our great-grandfathers."

"I borrowed a single block of paper and an Earthen pen from Juno, and gave it to the stray. Told him to, should he be able to, note down all that had happened, what he perceived this new world to be, what his thoughts on the future of the world were. And, mostly, to keep track of his last steps, so he would know where to go next. She had asked him to join us, as well."

"It wouldn't seem like the most appropriate or accurate solution, yet it was the best we thought of at the time. Fortunately, he accepted to join our hasted group, and the three of us roamed north, toward the following town, each day his recovery from prior happenings becoming increasingly stable and visible. For once, we were able to rent a room on a bigger city, and shared a table... nearly as a family."

"The block and pen, from then on, would be a gift of ours to every new member, for them to write down more stories and give others the chance to change theirs. This was how seven others joined us, before we had finally been able to reach Lance."

"Even though he could pick us up as students, there was nothing he could do for housing that many of us inside the centre by then, as not even a warden could afford that much for unknown children. He, however, allowed us to settle on the village of his former group, as we took classes and trained not far from there."

"That went on for a couple of months, at best, until we decided to roam nearby villages on our own and see if there was anything we could do for someone else. By this way, the original ten had founded groups of theirs, which had turned out to draw even more members. Soon enough, we were hitting the landmark of hundreds, digging up ancient installations, trading on the underground, making a new coin of ours along with our way into the centres and rankings. Every one of us gave our best to keep the flame of hope alive. And so, the very fire that once brought us to the ground had now become our Insignia."

"The turning point is thought to be when we had leaked element casting to our apprentices, which was strictly forbidden in Homeland. By then, I was already into impossible stunts and skydiving with dragons. We did expect severe retaliation for behaving cunningly, and there was... but not from who we thought would be."

"The grand design of ours turned out to act as a vital support for Homeland's forces, the very ones some of us nearly despised, while most of the original Ten had met the enemy's alleged general."

"Four of them had fallen before I had arrived, even Lance, the one whom most of us thought of as an older sibling. The power I had unleashed on that day, however... was on a level beyond my understanding, and it had been just enough to defeat him, and finally bring the enemy's moves to a halt. Whilst I admit most of what was left of Insignia would think of me as an undeniable leader if I had stepped up and represented at the Council where John's father did, I did not feel fit for such a power. After all, I was a warrior... not a governor."

Juno finally came back from the opposite corner of the room. She gave Sophia a pat on her back, and then left.


Chapter N+1: Tears of Blood

"I could have been able to help that many others... yet I hadn't even carried on with my own story." - he finished.

It seemed odd... Even though Sophia always expected herself to question what others said, even more so during a monologue,
there seemed to be no need for such behaviour this time around.

"Which power did we witness, then - yours, or that of the next level?" - she asked.

"I had no need to tap into such a power... and it would surely knock me out for too long, if not kill me. You seemed to understand it was all a bluff, you only don't know how could I wield those gears so easily."

The Hawk tried to sit down, yet even that seemed difficult for him. Such was the toll of wielding an amount of energy overwhelming for someone his age.

"Being a Connor... I believe you know about the Battle of Steel Valley." - he continued.

"Not at all, in fact."

"Such information normally is deemed as classified for agents below the level of General, as there are not many veterans alive today to tell the story. It's an interesting mirror to my... to our Insignia."

"It was the day in which every single clan from the underground, plus a couple of upper governments, joined forces for a common cause despite being sworn enemies. Warlords had been sacrificed by the hundreds in order to repel a force which is thought to be triggered by the same ones who attacked the Earth... the Alliance."

"How could they have tracked us for so long, given how far we are from Earth?" - she insisted.

"Only the ones who drove such a military force toward our predecessors seem to stand today... instead of the army itself. Evidence gathered by several institutions throughout the years led to the belief that there was a treason, from the remnants of the former Arkhall planet, the clan in shadow."

"And just as a legendary warrior had been knocked down by Altair then... on that day, an equally powerful Lord had been brought down by the nameless brothers, those who wept tears of blood - Kiminoro and Mark."

"Wait a moment... that was my father!"

"Your father lives to this day, somewhere really far away where his duties led him, while his war brother had disappeared by the fighting's end. Each of them had received one of the lenses of Nora, the AI unit designed by Elder himself, which they then had passed on to their second sons."

"And you with all of this?"

"There was but one person that had actually accompanied my story for longer than Juno, one who had become my own war sister back in the day, one with whom I lived the Exodus along with, one who taught me the meaning of home and love, which I seem to have forgotten over my years in the crossfire. The one with whom I once shared a perspective... and now a name."

Click.

The AI, Sophia thought, was the one who actually handled the anomalous energy she saw on the arena. And there was no-one else alive who knew of or could even handle Nora, backed up by her own secret techniques from Arkhall, other than the very one who was before her.

It couldn't be... he was dead! How?

She tried her best to say something, only to burst into tears in front of her former rival. And finally, the Hawk, the very one she once resented, leaned forward and comforted her in his arms, and finished the lengthy discourse of his with this one phrase:

"It's you... Sophia."

---

"On Homeland, it was very common for infants to keep in touch with battle - or "duels", as the local wardens preferred. Games, tourneys, events and even their own dreams were monitored, controlled and repurposed to fit their own needs and those of who were their guardians. These methods were barely distinguishable from those which leaders of a dystopian reality would adopt. However, the advent of virtual reality was but a final effort of the autonomous government to buy as much time as possible for children and teenagers to live out their lives in a common yet special way, just as the Pioneers once yearned to do after having escaped Earth's grasp. For the day they reached the age of sixteen, they would have finished the course, sent back to their families, clans or houses, should there be any left; and be minimally ready to strive by a lifetime of conflict and losses that was set before them by generations of stubbornness.

These little ones who wore the long black garments over lightweight armour and wielded the most puzzling and esoteric blasters and blades, Lance wondered, seemed to step aside from what the average Homeland young inhabitant could ever be. Whilst the usual apprentices cheered and partied and overslept, these ones seemed to do all of that as well. Still, there was something more... They all seemed bound to pain that others, even wardens and outsiders, could hardly even imagine to be possible. Unlikely as it seemed, that suffering, instead of causing them to collapse over their own feelings and ego, it set them free.

The one who spent day and night practising in the jungle temple, however, was on yet another level. Though he, the one whose name nobody knew of, was said to be one of their leaders, along with John and Juno, he also seemed to show no sign of improvement over the year he had spent as Lance's apprentice. Rumours said that, on a duel, no foe had ever stood for long enough to catch but a glimpse of his eyes. As the most obstinate and powerful of all of Insignia, who had rescued so many infants, had yet to overcome his own scars; so deep and glaring, his eyes were said to weep tears of blood.

His war name... was Stormhawk."[/center]