VSDalSheron

ORIGINAL VERSION: Man lived beneath the surface since birth, but the elderly would just vanish. I am one to witness a brief moment of curiosity which was stripped from all. All the scrapped machinery were calling to me, calling me to make them a part of me. For the next six months from my own mind, I built an armor made for those who will fight a war against the unknown. So I traveled the networks of small geofronts until I saw many sealed off points: metal doors with broken panels or warded locks were the only security that would turn me away before. A dear friend came to me, worried about my well-being, it took an entire night to tell her what I had discovered, and expressed great interest in helping me. She was taken by my curiosity, so we worked together on her armor in much the same process as what it took to build mine. Once finished we trekked through the labyrinths until alarms started sounding off, followed by guards disappearing. We blasted our way past the doors and

ORIGINAL VERSION: I awoke from a deep sleep within my underground compound, which remained sealed from the rest of the world behind massive metal bulkheads. I geared myself as soon as my senses cleared enough to allow me to; as I had set aside a container with everything I needed for this moment. All my servers and systems were still running so booting up my modules was still fast, so I was able to force the main shutters open. I found massive scarring on the shutter as if some vain attempt to open it was made. I moved cautiously up the compound’s several floors until I arrived to the surface. Expecting a bright sunny day, I saw nothing but despair, for out the window was darkness like no other. A swirling red and black maelstrom dominated the sky, with its center held in place by a solitary supertower. The land’s flora and fauna was different also, corrupted would be the word for it. I walked the streets for a time aimlessly, only to realize things were much worse than

ORIGINAL VERSION: This world is as normal as it gets. Nothing is out of the ordinary here. There wasn’t much to stand out in this place that I grew accustomed to. I woke up every day, did my work, and returned to rest when my day ended. One day, I heard strange noises coming from the basement; upon investigation I saw a glowing tunnel. I walked the hundred feet from start to finish, and when I exited I found myself back in the same place, but...different. I examined the stuff around the place, all of which were not stuff found in my world. These products belonged here in this strange world I thought. I began to move upstairs to find more strange noises, this time from a television airing a dark hearted comedy program, violent and grim. Hearing a voice in the next room, I hid in the next room where I notice the resident of the house coming. I see him take his place in from of the TV, consuming his meal. He was gruff, stout, and strong looking, having a menacing appearance.

ORIGINAL VERSION: We were sent into the great mall that day, sixteen of us in all. Armed and armored from head to toe, we were directed to a grand flower shop, where a myriad of large opulent plants were sold. The objective, kill or capture Shelak the Toxicologist, guilty of countless plant based murders. We came down the escalators, which died as the last of us got down there, exactly as he planned too. The delirium set in as we had entered “his element” and found ourselves somewhat at his mercy. All of us were on edge, surrounded by such beautiful flowers, and an assassin who would use them to end our lives. I told my assistant, Talia, to gather data upon the surroundings and gather any information we might be able to use to turn the tides. She starts cutting samples from all the nearby plants for on-site testing. Just then, Shelak takes notice, chiding the group for their futility, and for killing his precious flowers for their own ends. Moments later a flash of red

ORIGINAL VERSION There was once a man who served as an adjunct to the lord of a mighty country. Kind hearted and strong willed, but relatively unknown, he sought to help those in need. He rose through the ranks with excellence and diligence, and with thunderous applause he would later assist in uniting the people. However this peace was short lived. They began to lose sight of their patriotism, their faith, their history, and then ultimately their purpose. They turned to communistic ideologies and increasingly leftist policies in place of the traditional systems that had always worked. The man was distraught, as was his lord. One day the lord handed the man a book, an ancient historical account of the rise and fall of a great nation, and its resurrection to greatness. The lord made the man promise him one thing, to kill him, and take his place to save the land from this self-gratifying madness of new age thinking. With a grieving heart, he went to his beloved wife and told

ORIGINAL VERSION: I found myself face to face with a house of resplendent nostalgia, the one I just bought on a whim. It was a nice house on a massive hill, surrounded by well-tended acreage on all sides with a view to the ocean in the distance. As far as I observed, nothing here was dark, as there was tremendous brightness of the sun, but everything was of a navy/midnight color persuasions with splashes of brighter coloration within. I entered this house of mine and immediately got a nostalgic feel from it, with the wood panel walls(going to have to change that,) flowery linoleum kitchen floor(that too,) and even genuine old world Formica(oh god that too.) It was quite the rustic abode, one that time seemed to forget. Looking to the navy colored daytime sky from the bay window didn’t fail to impress. I found a letter in the bedroom, almost as if it were placed there just for me. It read, “To the possessor of this house, what will you do with the treasures hidden beneath the

ORIGINAL VERSION: Due to an unforeseen event, our probes were lost on this planet we were in orbit above, which prompted us to investigate the lost communications of our first landing party. This planet was number five in the orbital lineup, and we had set our sights on this one for the prospect of mining gases discovered during our probes initial functioning period. We made planet fall after setting up a G3 load out, light weapons, heavy environmental protection. Three heavily armored landers touched down on the surface about one hundred miles from the first team’s landing site, any closer and we would have landed on rocks and crags, not a fun day. With the lander’s touch down, our armored carriers rolled out the loading hold, onto the somewhat flat ground. This world had a very slow rotation speed, which gave us a 500-hour span between rotations with little axial tilt. I began to suspect the weather on this world was abnormal, even through the clouds, enormous amounts of

Original Version The fog kept my visibility down to ¼ of a mile, which shouldn’t matter here since all that remained was large trees on both sides of the streets, with a sodium vapor light source between two trees every six trees. The opposite side was staggered with the same order of trees and lights, going on until the fog obscured the rest. Whatever houses I saw, were dark, solid, and most assuredly unoccupied. Before I took off in my car, I took one last look at the trees. Taking a leaf for myself, it appeared black under the sodium colored street lights but under the light of my visor, the leave’s color was more violet than blue, almost iridescent, quite pretty to the eye. Alright, time to roll. As I drove, the only thing I saw was darkness, fog, and more trees. The lights did nothing to dispel my worries that there was nothing here, not even the lifeless houses within each tree surrounded plot had any clues to offer me about the area. So, I kept going, with little thought

The Terror Twins, identical girls with a strong discipline for knife combat, each one knew the thoughts and actions of the other. This was what made them so effective in combat. It was a roulette selection this time around, and Sephiria watched the two wheels turned opposite to each other on the large, black granite wall. We saw the first name selected, Sephiria’s was the one, and moments later, the Terosha twins were selected on the other wheel. I wished my beloved Sephiria well as she prepared herself mentally and before every match, I offered up a prayer for her success along with a kiss to seal our vows. She never looked back because by doing so, she would be expressing doubt and hesitation, something she learned the hard way how dangerous that could be. I took my place in the front row, where I watched Sephiria fighting most clearly. ~~Phase 1: The Opening Clash~~ The Terror Twins entered the arena quickly, lunging for Sephiria as she deployed her Mantis daggers to counter

Our latest campaign was an astounding success, the Raven Principality now lived in ruins and its people were dead, exactly as Arkanon had instructed us. However, ever since we got back from the mission, Eirika had seemed to be out of sorts, like her heart was… elsewhere. When asked about it, her answer was unclear, and a medical test came back negative. Eventually, she asked me how it was that I could maneuver my flight forms with such efficiency, regardless of visual obstructions. So that was what this was about, now I got it. Coming back all beat to hell was a good reason for such a distracted mindset. At least we had eyes on the problem now. I remembered when I had this problem many years ago and fixing it was no cake walk either. I placed us both on leave for a few weeks so I could take her out to the training fields, to a place few go and even fewer return unscathed. Planet Zeklos, gas giant, distinctive rings of dust and ice. It was here I learned the way to perfectly evade.