Categories > Anime/Manga > Dragon Ball Z > Illumination
Finale: The Memoirs of Ryan Rieve
0 reviewsTrunks's battle with the infamous Ryan Rieve comes to a conclusion, but who will be the victor? You'll have to read and find out...
0Unrated
Finale: The Memoirs of Ryan Rieve
The first hit to connect was a powerful right roundhouse, directly into the face of Ryan Rieve. With that strong first attack leading the way, Trunks was easily able to follow it with a veritable torrent of punches, very few of which Rieve blocked. Now fully powered up to his max, the battle was far more even, and it started to seem as if Trunks had the slight edge on Rieve. Of course Trunks wasn't going to let that go to his head-Ryan had already proven to have a few tricks ready in wait for the demi-Saiyan and he wasn't about to fall for any more of them.
What is this?! Ryan thought as he received a plethora of punches from his adversary. As he tasted the metallic liquid of his own blood in his mouth amidst attempting to block some of the punches Trunks swung at him, Rieve wondered how such a-a transformation/-was even possible. Sure, he knew his appearance altered slightly when he charged his body full of his life energy, but it was nothing like the night-and-day change he saw in his opponent. It was more than just physical, too-sure Trunks's energy increased, but his entire /aura/, the way he /carried /himself/, it all suddenly seemed so /different/. These thoughts were mere trivialities when compared to the fact that Ryan was taking a lot of hits in succession, and he deemed that it was time to end that.
Ryan dodged a few of Trunks's punches successively before he retaliated with his own offensive. Trunks didn't bother to dodge any of Rieve's shots; he simply blocked them. Angered at what he perceived to be arrogance, Ryan sped up his already blazing pace and internally focused his ki into his fists for a harder impact. He saw that within a few hits, Trunks had noticed the difference, and with a swift movement the mobster landed a hard left roundhouse into Trunks's right jaw. His opponent only slowed for a fraction of a second before he struck once more.
This time around, Trunks mixed in kicks as well as punches and went full force against Rieve. Slowly but surely, with each hit and each failed dodge or block on Ryan's part, Trunks realized that the battle was truly in his hands. A sudden wave of sadness washed over Trunks-he didn't want to kill Rieve unless he absolutely had to. Trunks then took initiative by leaving a slight opening for Ryan to react, in which the mobster did. Trunks, however, made a swift dodge of Rieve's attack and pulled back and away from his adversary. Now seemed like a decent time to stop and propose a truce with the mobster.
"I don't want to kill you Rieve," Trunks opened the lines of verbal communication rather bluntly. "I'll let you live if you leave us alone, for good." Trunks didn't like the idea of bargaining with the mobster and letting him go, but he didn't want to kill the guy.
"Heh," Rieve laughed, "you'll let me turn tail and run? Why is it I doubt you?" Ryan spat back, an odd smirk on his face.
"What are you talking about?" Trunks snapped back, wary of what the mobster was trying to suggest. Just what does he think he's doing?
"You're a fighter like me; you love the hunt," Ryan smirked. "You want to bargain with me, that way when you kill me you'll have given me the chance to escape." Rieve flashed his teeth in another menacing smile. "So your conscious can be clear because I decided to stay and fight!" With his last few words, Rieve charged at Trunks with blinding speed.
Trunks was partially caught off-guard, but only so much that Ryan could land a few hits. Those few hits, however, were powerful enough to inflict some pain and injury to Trunks's jaw, chest, and forearms which he blocked the rest of the hits with. Once Trunks gained his bearings, he blocked the next few swings before taking an opening to react. He brought a powerful right uppercut into Rieve's ribs, and the mobster's movements instantly slowed to a crawl. Following that hit, Trunks brought a hard left knee up into Rieve's gut, causing him to double over. Trunks then smashed his left forearm into Ryan's face, effectively bringing the mobster's head back up, leaving him wide open for a frontal assault. Trunks then planted a powerful kick to Ryan's midsection, sending him flying backwards. Trunks then charged and followed after the body he'd just sent hurtling away from himself.
***
Despite the fact that her head swam and the incredible pain in her abdominal cavity was a tale-tell sign of a serious injury, Armada slowly pushed herself up and away from the floor where she had resided for an amount of time that was unknown to her. After a moment of struggle, she finally made it to a shaky position on hands and knees. It was then that she sensed the ongoing struggle between her comrade and whoever it was he was fighting. Her senses were dull, and combined with the strange type of energy of his opponent, Armada couldn't tell exactly what was happening, only that their strengths were close-perhaps equally matched for all she could tell.
I've got to get back to the ship... Armada thought as she slowly rose from both knees to one, to none as she finally stood upright. She shakily headed on her way, with one hand on a wall at all times for extra support as her knees still shook in weakness as she walked.
***
Marice watched as Trunks and Ryan continued to fight and noted how the worried visage Hamad Gen carried slowly faded into panic. While he managed to stay quiet and keep his cool, his face betrayed his solemn exterior as even Marice could plainly see the panic that slowly crept into his features as the fight went on. There's something about those two... Marice thought as she watched Hamad watch the fight between Trunks and the prince's own ally and mafia leader, Ryan Rieve.
After mulling over the relationship between the prince and Ryan, Marice considered what she should do about her current situation, that being of course the matter of what to do with Prince Gen. /Confronting him now could be kind of risky/, Marice thought. /Who knows if he has a gun or some other weapon on him? /Once she'd gone over a few other options mentally, Marice decided that she'd wait to see what happened-maybe she'd snag Gen after Ryan lost to Trunks. He seemed like he'd get pretty emotional over something like that, so it might be an opportune time to strike. If not, well... /at least I have my sai/.
***
Ryan, of course, wasn't going to take the beating Trunks was giving him lying down. When the demi-Saiyan flew after his body, the mobster seized the moment and when Trunks approached, Ryan quickly charged a small but concentrated dose of his energy into this right fist and landed a firm uppercut into Trunks's abdomen. His adversary slowed a fraction of a second from the shock and power behind Ryan's strike, and he continued with the opening he'd created by placing his hands on the ground and turning his momentum upward to kick Trunks with both feet in the afflicted abdomen, forcing the demi-Saiyan away from Rieve. After sending his attacker away, Ryan used his current momentum to flip back and up into the air and proceeded to charge at his opponent once he'd regained his mid-air balance.
After taking two rather punishing hits from his adversary, Trunks also regained his balance in the air. Once upright and facing Rieve, Trunks only had time to raise his forearms to block the energy beam Ryan had fired at him, a move that he soon wished he didn't have to take. Rieve's white hot energy was deflected, but at a cost-Trunks thought for certain that his bones had melted away from the intense heat coupled with the matching pain he felt and the numbness that followed.
Trunks's teeth were still clenched tight in pain after the blast had passed and he was able to lower his arms and survey the damage. His forearms were scorched, yet at the same time they bled enough that they were drenched in blood that even snaked down his elbows and dripped into pools on the floor. If one blast can do that much damage... Trunks's thoughts ran at an incredible pace as he considered what amount of damage a much more powerful blast could produce and how-or even /if/-anyone could survive it.
When he looked up at Rieve though, he was a bit surprised at the condition the mobster was in. His breathing was labored, probably due to all the hits Trunks had landed on the mobster's abdomen; his face looked pretty beat-up; and Trunks noticed that Ryan's teeth were red from the blood that had seeped into his mouth. Overall, he was injured more than Trunks thought and Ryan himself let on.
/Still, it's obvious that I can't take another direct hit like that-even if I block it, my arms will melt away/, Trunks surmised mentally. The advantage Trunks had was overall strength; he could sense Rieve's already significantly lower power waning faster than his own, but the mobster still had that special energy of his which threw a wrench into Trunks's usual tactics. With all that in mind, Trunks knew that it had to end soon, otherwise Rieve might be victorious, and Trunks didn't want to consider the consequences that would result from his failure to stop the mobster.
***
"Hrrrmgh.....ahh!" Laiserta tried not to scream as another wave of pain ran through her shattered ribs. Her teeth and eyes were clenched shut, and her hands were gripping the operating table with enough force to bend the metal, which was already beginning to give way.
"I know it hurts Lai, but I can't give you any pain medication until you're able to tell me which ribs are broken," Naya tried to calm her compatriot but even she was becoming visibly shaken, though Laiserta could only hear the worry in Naya's voice.
"Working on it," Laiserta barely managed to whisper in a rushed breath of pain.
"Naya," Armada called as she stumbled into the infirmary, still leaning to her left as her left arm held on to her abdomen.
"Captain!" Naya rushed over to help her superior find a nearby seat in the now seemingly small infirmary.
"You've gotta get back in there," Armada managed to spurt out before she cringed and leaned forward, clinging to her apparently re-injured abdomen. "Trunks is fighting someone, or some/thing/, and it's not... it's..." Armada struggled to find the words through the pain she was currently experiencing.
Naya paused, one of the few times she hesitated to make a decision in her entire life. She turned her gaze from Armada to the fallen charge on the table behind her.
"Go," Laiserta ordered, her eyes and teeth still clenched in pain. Even in her weakened state, she could hear what was going on and had an idea that things were getting pretty bad in there.
Realizing that Laiserta knew more than Armada in this case, Naya heeded the words of the Taydran. She turned to face Armada once again. "Can you take care of her?" she asked hurriedly.
"Just go," Armada looked up at Naya with darkened eyes. "We'll be fine."
Naya took one last glance at both of her incapacitated comrades before taking off through the Verdandi and beyond back into the complex where she'd hopefully be of some use to Trunks in whatever battle he'd undertaken.
Mere seconds after Naya left, Laiserta spoke. "Get your ass over here," she said in a strained whisper, "and give me something to numb...everything."
"Working on it," came Armada's equally strained reply.
***
Trunks unleashed his energy and focused all that he could muster for the moment and started firing small but devastating blasts at Ryan Rieve. The mobster worked furiously to dodge as many as he could, and resorted to deflecting those he couldn't. Catching on to the pace Ryan had set for himself, Trunks started firing twice as fast and caught Rieve with several shots. At the end of his barrage, Trunks fired one larger blast, which Ryan did manage to dodge. However, that maneuver had left him wide open for Trunks to come in and attack, which the demi-Saiyan deftly did.
Trunks swung and hit with eight hard punches spread over Rieve's face and chest, and followed those hits with a hard knee to the abdomen. Ryan slowed just enough for Trunks to charge a fairly large energy blast and fire at the mobster. Rieve tried to catch the shot and deflect it, but was too slow. The energy exploded around him and the room was flooded in bright light, which Trunks had to shield his eyes from temporarily. After several seconds, he could finally make out Rieve's kneeling form and survey the damage.
Ryan knelt on both knees, with his left hand on the ground adding to the support. His shirt had completely disintegrated in the blast, and what was left of his pants were still barely clinging to his bloody and burned form. Ryan's most prominent wound was on his head, where half of his hair was mashed down from the blood leaking over his head and down his face, which covered most of his face in the red liquid. Trunks did notice, however, that Rieve's stark blue eyes contained a new sort of rage in them, different from what Trunks had seen in them thus far. They looked more resigned than ever, but not like he was about to give up... a look that Trunks was certain he'd seen somewhere before, and one that he was starting to become worried about.
Ryan painstakingly rose to his feet, and without uttering a single word, raised his fists behind him where they began to glow white as he charged his energy into them. With that look, combined with Rieve's stance and the amount of power Trunks sensed he was putting into those fists, Trunks knew what he had to do. The demi-Saiyan began to focus his energy into his hands as well, and slowly brought his hands together before him, aiming directly for Ryan Rieve. It was time for the showdown of who had the most power behind him, and Trunks knew that he had far more energy in his reserves than Rieve. What worried him, though, was the fact that if Rieve knew this, then why would he challenge Trunks so?
In a few scant seconds, it didn't matter anymore, as Ryan brought the charges he held in his fists together before him, and aiming for his adversary, he fired. Trunks immediately followed suit, and the energies of the two fighters soared at one another in what was clearly to be a bout of energy. However, what Trunks expected to happen and what /actually /happened were soon to take a divergence from one another. Right as the two seemingly similar forms of energy met, an enormous explosion occurred which riddled the room in a blinding light and shook the entire complex and the surrounding kilometer of earth around it.
What?! Trunks's sense of shock barely managed to pass through his thoughts as a mass of his energy mixed with Rieve's came flying at him. With nowhere to move to dodge the incoming blast, coupled with the shock that froze him in place, Trunks had no choice but to take the hits head-on. His form was engulfed in the white energy just before a second, much more powerful explosion rocked the complex and deformed most of the supports of the underground building.
***
When the second, much more powerful explosion hit, the room in which Marice hid from Hamad Gen's view began to collapse on the pair. Marice screamed and ducked down, still in the corner near the door, and covered her head with her hands. Hamad Gen was thrown backwards, over the desk he'd looked through earlier, to the other side of the room. Luckily for him, the center of the room collapsed just on the other side of the desk after he'd been knocked away, taking out the monitor which he watched the fight on along with most of the room. The prince had heard a scream when the explosion hit, but now as he turned to his left where he'd heard the sound emanate from, that side of the room was blocked off from his access by debris that had fallen through the ceiling from the floor above.
Deeming it time to leave, and hoping Ryan would make it out alive on his own accord, Hamad started to rise but a sudden stabbing pain in his left knee prevented him from rising beyond the seated position he found himself in. "Ahh," he cringed as he looked down at his knee and was able to see blood seeping into his clothing around the left side of his afflicted joint. Hamad debated taking it slow for a moment until he heard the creaking framework of the now unstable building he was in, and realizing that he was at the bottom of an underground complex, he figured a little injury to his knee wasn't going to stop him from saving his own life. With that, he gritted his teeth and forced his way upright through the pain and headed to the only exit that wasn't blocked to him, hoping that he could at least make it up the stairs and outside the building before he'd lose all mobility in his injured limb.
After the explosion and Prince Gen's departure, Marice breathed heavily and her eyes were wide in shock. She only hoped that Trunks was alive, so that if she tried to leave the structure she wouldn't run into the deadly Ryan Rieve.
***
Trunks felt himself coughing up blood, and realizing that coughing while lying on his back wasn't going to accomplish much, he pulled himself upright in a sudden jerk. He coughed a few more times before his vision slowly faded back to normal and he could examine what he knew was going to be a pretty bad set of wounds. Like Ryan before him, Trunks's shirt, jacket, and a decent portion of his pants had been incinerated in the blast, and much of his skin was scorched and bleeding. Trunks only felt numb, all over, but he knew that whenever-or even /if/-he healed somewhat, it was going to hurt like hell. Once his vision cleared slightly more, he looked up, hoping to see what damage Rieve had caused himself.
Trunks thought Rieve looked bad before, but now the mobster's torso was almost completely covered in blood. Ryan also clutched at the right side of his abdomen with his left arm, as his right didn't appear to be functioning normally. It was then that Trunks noticed the mobster's abdominal cavity had been torn open from the blast, and he clung to the wound as blood gushed out. The mobster was shaking all over, but he appeared to be rocking back and forth as if he held back the instinct to vomit at the sight of his own injuries. Trunks figured he'd probably vomit too if he wasn't looking at Rieve's form from several hundred feet away.
Shocking himself and Trunks, Ryan Rieve slowly willed himself to stand, and after a minute of struggle, succeeded in doing so. How does he keep getting up? Trunks wondered as he watched blood ooze from his adversary's mouth. Following suit, Trunks forced his battered form into a standing position. He watched as Rieve opened his mouth as if to speak, but couldn't seem to form words, or even make any sounds at all. Just when Trunks thought the nearly-dead mobster was about to collapse, he released the grip on his wounded abdomen and flung his left arm away from his body and his back arched while the strange white energy he fought with seeped from his eyes.
Trunks took a worried step forward as his eyes widened in shock and confusion. His gaze was fixated on Rieve as the syndicate leader's body slowly began to glow the same color as his energy. Starting from his eyes, the 'infection' of sorts slowly spread across his face, down his chest, torso, arms and legs until every inch of Ryan glowed an eerie white, as if he were a shining specter of light.
"If I'm not go-ing to li-ve," Rieve managed to choke out in broken syllables, "then nei-ther a-are you!" With that, Ryan flew directly at Trunks as fast he could muster, his only goal to cling to his enemy long enough for the energy engulfing his form to take Trunks, too.
With the realization of what Ryan was attempting to do, and knowing that the mixture of their energy was deadly from the explosion that'd occurred only moments ago, Trunks was frozen in fear and confusion, uncertain of what to do. Knowing that white-hot energy of Rieve's would burn him into nothing, Trunks took what he figured was the slightly less risky maneuver of firing a huge energy blast at Rieve to try and knock him away. Time seemed to crawl as Trunks screamed, raised his hands and fired, praying to any deity that he might withstand Ryan's final attack. He watched as his energy sailed towards his adversary and wondered briefly if he'd live to ever see his home, his mother, his friends again. A wave of sadness came over Trunks just before the two forms of energy connected as he surmised that he probably wouldn't survive, but hopefully his comrades would.../hopefully nobody will ever bother them again...goodbye, everyone.../
Right as the second explosion sounded, and the energy deflected towards him again, Trunks didn't bother to move. He figured his time had come; there was no way out of the situation laid out before him. At the last second, he thought he heard someone scream his name...his mother? a comrade? Rieve? He didn't know; all he knew was that as the energy approached, his thoughts went blank, and he closed his eyes, embracing whatever fate was about to befall him.
Hold on!
That voice... Trunks thought. He'd heard it before, he was sure...but where? It sounded so distinct, so familiar, but most of all it sounded like it echoed inside his brain; inside his mind/. /Wait... he thought. Wasn't that the same voice that...?
Before Trunks could finish his thoughts, he was jarred back to reality by the sensation of wind whirling around him. Opening his eyes in curiosity, Trunks noticed that the energy before him was deflected away from his body, starting at a point a mere eight inches in front of his chest. Glancing to his left and right, the demi-Saiyan then noticed that the energy was deflected away from him by some sort of invisible spherical barrier that had been constructed around himself. Trunks stared at the phenomenon occurring around him with wide eyes and equally confused thoughts.
After several moments, the blurring energy finally waned away, and Trunks could begin to see the empty and deconstructed room before him. As the last bits of energy had dissipated around him and his protective barrier, Trunks looked to his left and could see Naya standing in the doorway to the room, her right arm outstretched toward him, and her eyes and teeth clenched in pain? concentration? Trunks couldn't tell for sure. He wondered what she was doing there, and how she managed to survive that blast, but since his mind and body were both already exhausted, he didn't mull over it for very long.
Once all of the energy in the room had burnt itself out, Trunks let himself fall backwards into a seated position, his eyes still wide and his mind floored at what had just happened. I'm not... I'm not dead? he pondered in sheer wonderment, his body still nearly frozen in shock.
"Trunks!" Naya called out to him as she ran over to his battle-worn form. "Trunks," she breathed through the heavy pant of someone exhausted from running, "we've got to get out of here now! The building's become unstable from your fight with Rieve!" She held a hand out to him, worry scrawled across her features.
Trunks nodded and reached up, taking Naya's hand and rising to his feet with her assistance. Once in a standing position, Naya began to take off, but the moment she released Trunks, the mercenary began to double over. With the swiftness of all of her combat training, Naya quickly moved to Trunks's side and pulled his right arm around her shoulders, giving him a support to lean on.
The two quickly made their way out of the room, and just as they did, the door to the left side of the hall just outside the room in which Trunks's battle had occurred burst open, and a weary Marice appeared standing on the other side amid a pile of debris. "Hamad got away," she blurted out while jumping down from where she stood and into the hallway next to her comrades. "Trunks," her eyes filled with worry upon seeing her injured and battle-weary comrade.
"It's okay," Naya answered the teenager's concerns about Prince Gen and cut her off mid-sentence. "Go on ahead and prep the ship for launch; I have a feeling that neither Laiserta nor Armada was able to do so."
"Right," Marice nodded and turned away from the pair, taking off at a sprint down the hall, trying to make it to the Verdandi as quickly as possible if that would help her comrades in any slight way.
Within several minutes, Trunks and Naya had made their way to the surface and the cargo hatch to the Verdandi was open as the ship was awaiting their arrival before launching into the air once more. Once the pair had made it up into the cargo bay, Marice closed the hatch as she stood and waiting on their arrival. Trunks stumbled as he continued to the stairwell that led to the upper level where the bridge, barracks, and infirmary were among other things. Marice immediately ran to his left side and helped Naya in supporting their comrade.
"Thanks," Trunks managed to choke out to both Marice and Naya, the latter of which he felt especially thankful...he had a nagging feeling that she had something to do with his miraculous survival and that seemingly magical barrier that protected him from what he had deemed certain death at the hands of Ryan Rieve.
The trio slowly but surely made their way upstairs and led Trunks into the infirmary, where an unconscious Laiserta occupied one of the two beds in the small medical bay. Armada was hunched over a counter nearby, leaning on it and holding onto it with her left hand for support in standing. Despite the pain on her face, the worry was far more prevalent when she saw how Trunks looked, coupled with the fact that she was the only member of their group who could sense how drained and damaged he really was.
Naya and Marice led Trunks to his sanctuary next to Laiserta, and once he was in the other bed next to his unconscious comrade, he suddenly felt the need to sleep was overbearing, so he gave in and closed his eyes, embracing the rest.
"Naya," Armada spoke from where she tried to stand several feet away from her two severely injured comrades. "Get us the hell out of here."
"Yes captain," came Naya's curt reply as she headed straight for the bridge to pilot the spacecraft out of Virda's atmosphere and back into the relative safety of space. Just after Naya left the room, Armada winced as another pang of pain washed over her, and she slowly slid from her standing position to one sitting with her back against the counter on the floor.
"You okay?" Marice hovered over her leader in worry.
"I'll be all right," Armada answered, "but I need you to start tending to Trunks and Laiserta. I'll tell you what to do."
Marice nodded, and as Armada began giving orders, the youth starting moving around the infirmary as if she'd been a doctor her entire life. And as the Verdandi ascended into space, the conscious members of the crew could only hope that this was the worst of their troubles, but all still wondered what would be next.
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I hope you're doing fine out there without me
'Cause I'm not doing so good without you
The things I thought you'd never know about me
Were the things I guess you always understood
So how could I have been so blind for all these years?
Guess I only see the truth through all this fear,
And living without you...
And everything I have in this world
And all that I'll ever be
It could all fall down around me.
Just as long as I have you,
Right here by me.
I can't take another day without you
'Cause baby, I could never make it on my own
I've been waiting so long, just to hold you
And to be back in your arms where I belong
Sorry I can't always find the words to say
But everything I've ever known gets swept away
Inside of your love...
And everything I have in this world
And all that I'll ever be
It could all fall down around me.
Just as long as I have you,
Right here by me.
As the days grow long I see
That time is standing still for me
When you're not here
Sorry I can't always find the words to say
Everything I've ever known gets swept away
Inside of your love
And everything I have in this world
And all that I'll ever be
It could all fall down around me.
Just as long as I have you,
Right here by me.
And everything I have in this world
And all that I'll ever be
It could all fall down around me.
Just as long as I have you,
Right here by me.
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The song quoted at the end here is "Here By Me," by one of my favorite bands, Three Doors Down. The song really doesn't have any significance to the fic as a whole, or on this chapter, but I just like the song and it's one of those album ending songs, which I feel is so appropriate an end to my labor of love, "Illumination." So if you have iTunes or some other form of /legal /music downloading, I suggest you download the song and check it out. Ahem, moving on.
Yes folks, that's it, it's over...well, not entirely. Evil snicker Yeah, you guessed it, there's a sequel well underway. More on that in a minute.
First of all, I have to thank you, the reader, for making it this far. Yep, it took me over two and a half years to finish this sucker, but it's really just the beginning of something larger. So will I still be writing for "Illumination" and anything it spawns in the next ten years? Who knows, but at the rate I'm going now, if I want to finish it all, then yes, I will be, heheh. Anyway, for those of you stuck it out until the end, and maybe even enjoyed this crazy adventure, thank you, and I can only hope to continue to entertain those of you who are crazy enou-I mean, dedicated enough to read all this muck I throw at you. ^_^;; Since I have all of two fans that I know of, (and one of them can vouch for me on this), I'm always willing to chat about the fic with anyone who's really that interested. Got any questions, comments, general rants about characters? Send 'em my way at lennandale@gmail.com. Also, you can check out my Internet house where I store the fic, along with plenty other little good treats at Absolution (http://illumination.atspace.com/index.htm), the home of "Illumination" and all related material.
Now, as for that sequel I mentioned, well it's called "Illumination: Second Wind," and you should definitely be on the lookout for it soon-I've already started writing the prologue, and hopefully this time around I'll have better, shorter chapters, though at this point I do plan on having more than twenty-seven (the number of chapters for this fic).
Now for the juicy part. Smirk Below is a list of tentative quotes from season two, as I like to call it. Now keep in mind that these are tentative, and may very well change by the time they appear in the actual fic. Oh, and one last thing... the characters who say these quotes, well, I won't tell you who they are. :P C'mon, it ruins the surprise! And trust me, do I have some surprises for you. Anyway, enjoy this little "sneak peak," and hopefully I'll see you again for season two!
-Silver
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Teaser for season two, "Illumination: Second Wind"
"All this time, and you lied!!"
"Ours is a noble mission, my son-to save the universe from what is has become!"
"Well of course I know where she's from-we grew up together."
"Heheheh! And the Flame Master is back in business!"
"You have betrayed our fair nation, and for that... you must die a traitor's death."
"Maybe... you left for the right reasons, Naixame."
"I pulled all of us-every one of us into this mess, all because I didn't have the courage to say 'no'."
"On behalf of the Vincan Empire, I order you to return to Vinca immediately!"
"I don't know what happened to him... He used to be a good man."
"Now is not an apt time to pursue, Lord Darien."
"You have no idea who you're messing with."
"You and your disgusting kind will die in excruciating pain-I'll make sure of it!"
If only the nightmares would end...
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See you next time! ^_^
The first hit to connect was a powerful right roundhouse, directly into the face of Ryan Rieve. With that strong first attack leading the way, Trunks was easily able to follow it with a veritable torrent of punches, very few of which Rieve blocked. Now fully powered up to his max, the battle was far more even, and it started to seem as if Trunks had the slight edge on Rieve. Of course Trunks wasn't going to let that go to his head-Ryan had already proven to have a few tricks ready in wait for the demi-Saiyan and he wasn't about to fall for any more of them.
What is this?! Ryan thought as he received a plethora of punches from his adversary. As he tasted the metallic liquid of his own blood in his mouth amidst attempting to block some of the punches Trunks swung at him, Rieve wondered how such a-a transformation/-was even possible. Sure, he knew his appearance altered slightly when he charged his body full of his life energy, but it was nothing like the night-and-day change he saw in his opponent. It was more than just physical, too-sure Trunks's energy increased, but his entire /aura/, the way he /carried /himself/, it all suddenly seemed so /different/. These thoughts were mere trivialities when compared to the fact that Ryan was taking a lot of hits in succession, and he deemed that it was time to end that.
Ryan dodged a few of Trunks's punches successively before he retaliated with his own offensive. Trunks didn't bother to dodge any of Rieve's shots; he simply blocked them. Angered at what he perceived to be arrogance, Ryan sped up his already blazing pace and internally focused his ki into his fists for a harder impact. He saw that within a few hits, Trunks had noticed the difference, and with a swift movement the mobster landed a hard left roundhouse into Trunks's right jaw. His opponent only slowed for a fraction of a second before he struck once more.
This time around, Trunks mixed in kicks as well as punches and went full force against Rieve. Slowly but surely, with each hit and each failed dodge or block on Ryan's part, Trunks realized that the battle was truly in his hands. A sudden wave of sadness washed over Trunks-he didn't want to kill Rieve unless he absolutely had to. Trunks then took initiative by leaving a slight opening for Ryan to react, in which the mobster did. Trunks, however, made a swift dodge of Rieve's attack and pulled back and away from his adversary. Now seemed like a decent time to stop and propose a truce with the mobster.
"I don't want to kill you Rieve," Trunks opened the lines of verbal communication rather bluntly. "I'll let you live if you leave us alone, for good." Trunks didn't like the idea of bargaining with the mobster and letting him go, but he didn't want to kill the guy.
"Heh," Rieve laughed, "you'll let me turn tail and run? Why is it I doubt you?" Ryan spat back, an odd smirk on his face.
"What are you talking about?" Trunks snapped back, wary of what the mobster was trying to suggest. Just what does he think he's doing?
"You're a fighter like me; you love the hunt," Ryan smirked. "You want to bargain with me, that way when you kill me you'll have given me the chance to escape." Rieve flashed his teeth in another menacing smile. "So your conscious can be clear because I decided to stay and fight!" With his last few words, Rieve charged at Trunks with blinding speed.
Trunks was partially caught off-guard, but only so much that Ryan could land a few hits. Those few hits, however, were powerful enough to inflict some pain and injury to Trunks's jaw, chest, and forearms which he blocked the rest of the hits with. Once Trunks gained his bearings, he blocked the next few swings before taking an opening to react. He brought a powerful right uppercut into Rieve's ribs, and the mobster's movements instantly slowed to a crawl. Following that hit, Trunks brought a hard left knee up into Rieve's gut, causing him to double over. Trunks then smashed his left forearm into Ryan's face, effectively bringing the mobster's head back up, leaving him wide open for a frontal assault. Trunks then planted a powerful kick to Ryan's midsection, sending him flying backwards. Trunks then charged and followed after the body he'd just sent hurtling away from himself.
***
Despite the fact that her head swam and the incredible pain in her abdominal cavity was a tale-tell sign of a serious injury, Armada slowly pushed herself up and away from the floor where she had resided for an amount of time that was unknown to her. After a moment of struggle, she finally made it to a shaky position on hands and knees. It was then that she sensed the ongoing struggle between her comrade and whoever it was he was fighting. Her senses were dull, and combined with the strange type of energy of his opponent, Armada couldn't tell exactly what was happening, only that their strengths were close-perhaps equally matched for all she could tell.
I've got to get back to the ship... Armada thought as she slowly rose from both knees to one, to none as she finally stood upright. She shakily headed on her way, with one hand on a wall at all times for extra support as her knees still shook in weakness as she walked.
***
Marice watched as Trunks and Ryan continued to fight and noted how the worried visage Hamad Gen carried slowly faded into panic. While he managed to stay quiet and keep his cool, his face betrayed his solemn exterior as even Marice could plainly see the panic that slowly crept into his features as the fight went on. There's something about those two... Marice thought as she watched Hamad watch the fight between Trunks and the prince's own ally and mafia leader, Ryan Rieve.
After mulling over the relationship between the prince and Ryan, Marice considered what she should do about her current situation, that being of course the matter of what to do with Prince Gen. /Confronting him now could be kind of risky/, Marice thought. /Who knows if he has a gun or some other weapon on him? /Once she'd gone over a few other options mentally, Marice decided that she'd wait to see what happened-maybe she'd snag Gen after Ryan lost to Trunks. He seemed like he'd get pretty emotional over something like that, so it might be an opportune time to strike. If not, well... /at least I have my sai/.
***
Ryan, of course, wasn't going to take the beating Trunks was giving him lying down. When the demi-Saiyan flew after his body, the mobster seized the moment and when Trunks approached, Ryan quickly charged a small but concentrated dose of his energy into this right fist and landed a firm uppercut into Trunks's abdomen. His adversary slowed a fraction of a second from the shock and power behind Ryan's strike, and he continued with the opening he'd created by placing his hands on the ground and turning his momentum upward to kick Trunks with both feet in the afflicted abdomen, forcing the demi-Saiyan away from Rieve. After sending his attacker away, Ryan used his current momentum to flip back and up into the air and proceeded to charge at his opponent once he'd regained his mid-air balance.
After taking two rather punishing hits from his adversary, Trunks also regained his balance in the air. Once upright and facing Rieve, Trunks only had time to raise his forearms to block the energy beam Ryan had fired at him, a move that he soon wished he didn't have to take. Rieve's white hot energy was deflected, but at a cost-Trunks thought for certain that his bones had melted away from the intense heat coupled with the matching pain he felt and the numbness that followed.
Trunks's teeth were still clenched tight in pain after the blast had passed and he was able to lower his arms and survey the damage. His forearms were scorched, yet at the same time they bled enough that they were drenched in blood that even snaked down his elbows and dripped into pools on the floor. If one blast can do that much damage... Trunks's thoughts ran at an incredible pace as he considered what amount of damage a much more powerful blast could produce and how-or even /if/-anyone could survive it.
When he looked up at Rieve though, he was a bit surprised at the condition the mobster was in. His breathing was labored, probably due to all the hits Trunks had landed on the mobster's abdomen; his face looked pretty beat-up; and Trunks noticed that Ryan's teeth were red from the blood that had seeped into his mouth. Overall, he was injured more than Trunks thought and Ryan himself let on.
/Still, it's obvious that I can't take another direct hit like that-even if I block it, my arms will melt away/, Trunks surmised mentally. The advantage Trunks had was overall strength; he could sense Rieve's already significantly lower power waning faster than his own, but the mobster still had that special energy of his which threw a wrench into Trunks's usual tactics. With all that in mind, Trunks knew that it had to end soon, otherwise Rieve might be victorious, and Trunks didn't want to consider the consequences that would result from his failure to stop the mobster.
***
"Hrrrmgh.....ahh!" Laiserta tried not to scream as another wave of pain ran through her shattered ribs. Her teeth and eyes were clenched shut, and her hands were gripping the operating table with enough force to bend the metal, which was already beginning to give way.
"I know it hurts Lai, but I can't give you any pain medication until you're able to tell me which ribs are broken," Naya tried to calm her compatriot but even she was becoming visibly shaken, though Laiserta could only hear the worry in Naya's voice.
"Working on it," Laiserta barely managed to whisper in a rushed breath of pain.
"Naya," Armada called as she stumbled into the infirmary, still leaning to her left as her left arm held on to her abdomen.
"Captain!" Naya rushed over to help her superior find a nearby seat in the now seemingly small infirmary.
"You've gotta get back in there," Armada managed to spurt out before she cringed and leaned forward, clinging to her apparently re-injured abdomen. "Trunks is fighting someone, or some/thing/, and it's not... it's..." Armada struggled to find the words through the pain she was currently experiencing.
Naya paused, one of the few times she hesitated to make a decision in her entire life. She turned her gaze from Armada to the fallen charge on the table behind her.
"Go," Laiserta ordered, her eyes and teeth still clenched in pain. Even in her weakened state, she could hear what was going on and had an idea that things were getting pretty bad in there.
Realizing that Laiserta knew more than Armada in this case, Naya heeded the words of the Taydran. She turned to face Armada once again. "Can you take care of her?" she asked hurriedly.
"Just go," Armada looked up at Naya with darkened eyes. "We'll be fine."
Naya took one last glance at both of her incapacitated comrades before taking off through the Verdandi and beyond back into the complex where she'd hopefully be of some use to Trunks in whatever battle he'd undertaken.
Mere seconds after Naya left, Laiserta spoke. "Get your ass over here," she said in a strained whisper, "and give me something to numb...everything."
"Working on it," came Armada's equally strained reply.
***
Trunks unleashed his energy and focused all that he could muster for the moment and started firing small but devastating blasts at Ryan Rieve. The mobster worked furiously to dodge as many as he could, and resorted to deflecting those he couldn't. Catching on to the pace Ryan had set for himself, Trunks started firing twice as fast and caught Rieve with several shots. At the end of his barrage, Trunks fired one larger blast, which Ryan did manage to dodge. However, that maneuver had left him wide open for Trunks to come in and attack, which the demi-Saiyan deftly did.
Trunks swung and hit with eight hard punches spread over Rieve's face and chest, and followed those hits with a hard knee to the abdomen. Ryan slowed just enough for Trunks to charge a fairly large energy blast and fire at the mobster. Rieve tried to catch the shot and deflect it, but was too slow. The energy exploded around him and the room was flooded in bright light, which Trunks had to shield his eyes from temporarily. After several seconds, he could finally make out Rieve's kneeling form and survey the damage.
Ryan knelt on both knees, with his left hand on the ground adding to the support. His shirt had completely disintegrated in the blast, and what was left of his pants were still barely clinging to his bloody and burned form. Ryan's most prominent wound was on his head, where half of his hair was mashed down from the blood leaking over his head and down his face, which covered most of his face in the red liquid. Trunks did notice, however, that Rieve's stark blue eyes contained a new sort of rage in them, different from what Trunks had seen in them thus far. They looked more resigned than ever, but not like he was about to give up... a look that Trunks was certain he'd seen somewhere before, and one that he was starting to become worried about.
Ryan painstakingly rose to his feet, and without uttering a single word, raised his fists behind him where they began to glow white as he charged his energy into them. With that look, combined with Rieve's stance and the amount of power Trunks sensed he was putting into those fists, Trunks knew what he had to do. The demi-Saiyan began to focus his energy into his hands as well, and slowly brought his hands together before him, aiming directly for Ryan Rieve. It was time for the showdown of who had the most power behind him, and Trunks knew that he had far more energy in his reserves than Rieve. What worried him, though, was the fact that if Rieve knew this, then why would he challenge Trunks so?
In a few scant seconds, it didn't matter anymore, as Ryan brought the charges he held in his fists together before him, and aiming for his adversary, he fired. Trunks immediately followed suit, and the energies of the two fighters soared at one another in what was clearly to be a bout of energy. However, what Trunks expected to happen and what /actually /happened were soon to take a divergence from one another. Right as the two seemingly similar forms of energy met, an enormous explosion occurred which riddled the room in a blinding light and shook the entire complex and the surrounding kilometer of earth around it.
What?! Trunks's sense of shock barely managed to pass through his thoughts as a mass of his energy mixed with Rieve's came flying at him. With nowhere to move to dodge the incoming blast, coupled with the shock that froze him in place, Trunks had no choice but to take the hits head-on. His form was engulfed in the white energy just before a second, much more powerful explosion rocked the complex and deformed most of the supports of the underground building.
***
When the second, much more powerful explosion hit, the room in which Marice hid from Hamad Gen's view began to collapse on the pair. Marice screamed and ducked down, still in the corner near the door, and covered her head with her hands. Hamad Gen was thrown backwards, over the desk he'd looked through earlier, to the other side of the room. Luckily for him, the center of the room collapsed just on the other side of the desk after he'd been knocked away, taking out the monitor which he watched the fight on along with most of the room. The prince had heard a scream when the explosion hit, but now as he turned to his left where he'd heard the sound emanate from, that side of the room was blocked off from his access by debris that had fallen through the ceiling from the floor above.
Deeming it time to leave, and hoping Ryan would make it out alive on his own accord, Hamad started to rise but a sudden stabbing pain in his left knee prevented him from rising beyond the seated position he found himself in. "Ahh," he cringed as he looked down at his knee and was able to see blood seeping into his clothing around the left side of his afflicted joint. Hamad debated taking it slow for a moment until he heard the creaking framework of the now unstable building he was in, and realizing that he was at the bottom of an underground complex, he figured a little injury to his knee wasn't going to stop him from saving his own life. With that, he gritted his teeth and forced his way upright through the pain and headed to the only exit that wasn't blocked to him, hoping that he could at least make it up the stairs and outside the building before he'd lose all mobility in his injured limb.
After the explosion and Prince Gen's departure, Marice breathed heavily and her eyes were wide in shock. She only hoped that Trunks was alive, so that if she tried to leave the structure she wouldn't run into the deadly Ryan Rieve.
***
Trunks felt himself coughing up blood, and realizing that coughing while lying on his back wasn't going to accomplish much, he pulled himself upright in a sudden jerk. He coughed a few more times before his vision slowly faded back to normal and he could examine what he knew was going to be a pretty bad set of wounds. Like Ryan before him, Trunks's shirt, jacket, and a decent portion of his pants had been incinerated in the blast, and much of his skin was scorched and bleeding. Trunks only felt numb, all over, but he knew that whenever-or even /if/-he healed somewhat, it was going to hurt like hell. Once his vision cleared slightly more, he looked up, hoping to see what damage Rieve had caused himself.
Trunks thought Rieve looked bad before, but now the mobster's torso was almost completely covered in blood. Ryan also clutched at the right side of his abdomen with his left arm, as his right didn't appear to be functioning normally. It was then that Trunks noticed the mobster's abdominal cavity had been torn open from the blast, and he clung to the wound as blood gushed out. The mobster was shaking all over, but he appeared to be rocking back and forth as if he held back the instinct to vomit at the sight of his own injuries. Trunks figured he'd probably vomit too if he wasn't looking at Rieve's form from several hundred feet away.
Shocking himself and Trunks, Ryan Rieve slowly willed himself to stand, and after a minute of struggle, succeeded in doing so. How does he keep getting up? Trunks wondered as he watched blood ooze from his adversary's mouth. Following suit, Trunks forced his battered form into a standing position. He watched as Rieve opened his mouth as if to speak, but couldn't seem to form words, or even make any sounds at all. Just when Trunks thought the nearly-dead mobster was about to collapse, he released the grip on his wounded abdomen and flung his left arm away from his body and his back arched while the strange white energy he fought with seeped from his eyes.
Trunks took a worried step forward as his eyes widened in shock and confusion. His gaze was fixated on Rieve as the syndicate leader's body slowly began to glow the same color as his energy. Starting from his eyes, the 'infection' of sorts slowly spread across his face, down his chest, torso, arms and legs until every inch of Ryan glowed an eerie white, as if he were a shining specter of light.
"If I'm not go-ing to li-ve," Rieve managed to choke out in broken syllables, "then nei-ther a-are you!" With that, Ryan flew directly at Trunks as fast he could muster, his only goal to cling to his enemy long enough for the energy engulfing his form to take Trunks, too.
With the realization of what Ryan was attempting to do, and knowing that the mixture of their energy was deadly from the explosion that'd occurred only moments ago, Trunks was frozen in fear and confusion, uncertain of what to do. Knowing that white-hot energy of Rieve's would burn him into nothing, Trunks took what he figured was the slightly less risky maneuver of firing a huge energy blast at Rieve to try and knock him away. Time seemed to crawl as Trunks screamed, raised his hands and fired, praying to any deity that he might withstand Ryan's final attack. He watched as his energy sailed towards his adversary and wondered briefly if he'd live to ever see his home, his mother, his friends again. A wave of sadness came over Trunks just before the two forms of energy connected as he surmised that he probably wouldn't survive, but hopefully his comrades would.../hopefully nobody will ever bother them again...goodbye, everyone.../
Right as the second explosion sounded, and the energy deflected towards him again, Trunks didn't bother to move. He figured his time had come; there was no way out of the situation laid out before him. At the last second, he thought he heard someone scream his name...his mother? a comrade? Rieve? He didn't know; all he knew was that as the energy approached, his thoughts went blank, and he closed his eyes, embracing whatever fate was about to befall him.
Hold on!
That voice... Trunks thought. He'd heard it before, he was sure...but where? It sounded so distinct, so familiar, but most of all it sounded like it echoed inside his brain; inside his mind/. /Wait... he thought. Wasn't that the same voice that...?
Before Trunks could finish his thoughts, he was jarred back to reality by the sensation of wind whirling around him. Opening his eyes in curiosity, Trunks noticed that the energy before him was deflected away from his body, starting at a point a mere eight inches in front of his chest. Glancing to his left and right, the demi-Saiyan then noticed that the energy was deflected away from him by some sort of invisible spherical barrier that had been constructed around himself. Trunks stared at the phenomenon occurring around him with wide eyes and equally confused thoughts.
After several moments, the blurring energy finally waned away, and Trunks could begin to see the empty and deconstructed room before him. As the last bits of energy had dissipated around him and his protective barrier, Trunks looked to his left and could see Naya standing in the doorway to the room, her right arm outstretched toward him, and her eyes and teeth clenched in pain? concentration? Trunks couldn't tell for sure. He wondered what she was doing there, and how she managed to survive that blast, but since his mind and body were both already exhausted, he didn't mull over it for very long.
Once all of the energy in the room had burnt itself out, Trunks let himself fall backwards into a seated position, his eyes still wide and his mind floored at what had just happened. I'm not... I'm not dead? he pondered in sheer wonderment, his body still nearly frozen in shock.
"Trunks!" Naya called out to him as she ran over to his battle-worn form. "Trunks," she breathed through the heavy pant of someone exhausted from running, "we've got to get out of here now! The building's become unstable from your fight with Rieve!" She held a hand out to him, worry scrawled across her features.
Trunks nodded and reached up, taking Naya's hand and rising to his feet with her assistance. Once in a standing position, Naya began to take off, but the moment she released Trunks, the mercenary began to double over. With the swiftness of all of her combat training, Naya quickly moved to Trunks's side and pulled his right arm around her shoulders, giving him a support to lean on.
The two quickly made their way out of the room, and just as they did, the door to the left side of the hall just outside the room in which Trunks's battle had occurred burst open, and a weary Marice appeared standing on the other side amid a pile of debris. "Hamad got away," she blurted out while jumping down from where she stood and into the hallway next to her comrades. "Trunks," her eyes filled with worry upon seeing her injured and battle-weary comrade.
"It's okay," Naya answered the teenager's concerns about Prince Gen and cut her off mid-sentence. "Go on ahead and prep the ship for launch; I have a feeling that neither Laiserta nor Armada was able to do so."
"Right," Marice nodded and turned away from the pair, taking off at a sprint down the hall, trying to make it to the Verdandi as quickly as possible if that would help her comrades in any slight way.
Within several minutes, Trunks and Naya had made their way to the surface and the cargo hatch to the Verdandi was open as the ship was awaiting their arrival before launching into the air once more. Once the pair had made it up into the cargo bay, Marice closed the hatch as she stood and waiting on their arrival. Trunks stumbled as he continued to the stairwell that led to the upper level where the bridge, barracks, and infirmary were among other things. Marice immediately ran to his left side and helped Naya in supporting their comrade.
"Thanks," Trunks managed to choke out to both Marice and Naya, the latter of which he felt especially thankful...he had a nagging feeling that she had something to do with his miraculous survival and that seemingly magical barrier that protected him from what he had deemed certain death at the hands of Ryan Rieve.
The trio slowly but surely made their way upstairs and led Trunks into the infirmary, where an unconscious Laiserta occupied one of the two beds in the small medical bay. Armada was hunched over a counter nearby, leaning on it and holding onto it with her left hand for support in standing. Despite the pain on her face, the worry was far more prevalent when she saw how Trunks looked, coupled with the fact that she was the only member of their group who could sense how drained and damaged he really was.
Naya and Marice led Trunks to his sanctuary next to Laiserta, and once he was in the other bed next to his unconscious comrade, he suddenly felt the need to sleep was overbearing, so he gave in and closed his eyes, embracing the rest.
"Naya," Armada spoke from where she tried to stand several feet away from her two severely injured comrades. "Get us the hell out of here."
"Yes captain," came Naya's curt reply as she headed straight for the bridge to pilot the spacecraft out of Virda's atmosphere and back into the relative safety of space. Just after Naya left the room, Armada winced as another pang of pain washed over her, and she slowly slid from her standing position to one sitting with her back against the counter on the floor.
"You okay?" Marice hovered over her leader in worry.
"I'll be all right," Armada answered, "but I need you to start tending to Trunks and Laiserta. I'll tell you what to do."
Marice nodded, and as Armada began giving orders, the youth starting moving around the infirmary as if she'd been a doctor her entire life. And as the Verdandi ascended into space, the conscious members of the crew could only hope that this was the worst of their troubles, but all still wondered what would be next.
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I hope you're doing fine out there without me
'Cause I'm not doing so good without you
The things I thought you'd never know about me
Were the things I guess you always understood
So how could I have been so blind for all these years?
Guess I only see the truth through all this fear,
And living without you...
And everything I have in this world
And all that I'll ever be
It could all fall down around me.
Just as long as I have you,
Right here by me.
I can't take another day without you
'Cause baby, I could never make it on my own
I've been waiting so long, just to hold you
And to be back in your arms where I belong
Sorry I can't always find the words to say
But everything I've ever known gets swept away
Inside of your love...
And everything I have in this world
And all that I'll ever be
It could all fall down around me.
Just as long as I have you,
Right here by me.
As the days grow long I see
That time is standing still for me
When you're not here
Sorry I can't always find the words to say
Everything I've ever known gets swept away
Inside of your love
And everything I have in this world
And all that I'll ever be
It could all fall down around me.
Just as long as I have you,
Right here by me.
And everything I have in this world
And all that I'll ever be
It could all fall down around me.
Just as long as I have you,
Right here by me.
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The song quoted at the end here is "Here By Me," by one of my favorite bands, Three Doors Down. The song really doesn't have any significance to the fic as a whole, or on this chapter, but I just like the song and it's one of those album ending songs, which I feel is so appropriate an end to my labor of love, "Illumination." So if you have iTunes or some other form of /legal /music downloading, I suggest you download the song and check it out. Ahem, moving on.
Yes folks, that's it, it's over...well, not entirely. Evil snicker Yeah, you guessed it, there's a sequel well underway. More on that in a minute.
First of all, I have to thank you, the reader, for making it this far. Yep, it took me over two and a half years to finish this sucker, but it's really just the beginning of something larger. So will I still be writing for "Illumination" and anything it spawns in the next ten years? Who knows, but at the rate I'm going now, if I want to finish it all, then yes, I will be, heheh. Anyway, for those of you stuck it out until the end, and maybe even enjoyed this crazy adventure, thank you, and I can only hope to continue to entertain those of you who are crazy enou-I mean, dedicated enough to read all this muck I throw at you. ^_^;; Since I have all of two fans that I know of, (and one of them can vouch for me on this), I'm always willing to chat about the fic with anyone who's really that interested. Got any questions, comments, general rants about characters? Send 'em my way at lennandale@gmail.com. Also, you can check out my Internet house where I store the fic, along with plenty other little good treats at Absolution (http://illumination.atspace.com/index.htm), the home of "Illumination" and all related material.
Now, as for that sequel I mentioned, well it's called "Illumination: Second Wind," and you should definitely be on the lookout for it soon-I've already started writing the prologue, and hopefully this time around I'll have better, shorter chapters, though at this point I do plan on having more than twenty-seven (the number of chapters for this fic).
Now for the juicy part. Smirk Below is a list of tentative quotes from season two, as I like to call it. Now keep in mind that these are tentative, and may very well change by the time they appear in the actual fic. Oh, and one last thing... the characters who say these quotes, well, I won't tell you who they are. :P C'mon, it ruins the surprise! And trust me, do I have some surprises for you. Anyway, enjoy this little "sneak peak," and hopefully I'll see you again for season two!
-Silver
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Teaser for season two, "Illumination: Second Wind"
"All this time, and you lied!!"
"Ours is a noble mission, my son-to save the universe from what is has become!"
"Well of course I know where she's from-we grew up together."
"Heheheh! And the Flame Master is back in business!"
"You have betrayed our fair nation, and for that... you must die a traitor's death."
"Maybe... you left for the right reasons, Naixame."
"I pulled all of us-every one of us into this mess, all because I didn't have the courage to say 'no'."
"On behalf of the Vincan Empire, I order you to return to Vinca immediately!"
"I don't know what happened to him... He used to be a good man."
"Now is not an apt time to pursue, Lord Darien."
"You have no idea who you're messing with."
"You and your disgusting kind will die in excruciating pain-I'll make sure of it!"
If only the nightmares would end...
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See you next time! ^_^
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