Looks interesting enough so far, and the concept seems pretty original. This takes place at the end of Madoka's Timeline 4, I assume? Unless you're having it be another timeline really similar to that...
Pain/Nagato is going to fail to defeat Kriemhild Gretchen, right? And, what, impress Homura with his power despite that? Assuming he's going to be part of the reset world, how are you going to have the mechanics of that work? I'd recommend having some reasoning for it beyond "he's from another universe": maybe talking to Homura who decides to take him back with her?
...Actually, I think I'm going to stop speculating and just ask what you plan to do with the story from this point onward.
There's several typos, but nothing impeding the flow of the story too badly. You might want to look into having a beta, though.
edited 4th Dec '11 8:45:21 PM by enviroguy
Wide-eyed idealists should just assume by default that life is poised to deal them a crushing blow and plan accordingly, i.e. become cynics.![]()
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And that my friends is why I like Kabuto. He actually invoked Back for the Finale and changed my view of him from the anime version of Mr. Smithers to Crazy Awesome Badass Bookworm.
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It's one similar to timeline 4.
I'll probably add more to the explanation but right now "He's from another universe and as such doesn't fight in with reality properly" is what I'm going with. In the reset world he's basically going to have his canon powers, and be trying to figure out what's going on, and then try to stop Gretchen from showing up. Not sure how to describe the mechanics of how he'll fit in, but some of his powers like reviving the dead and ripping out people's souls won't be working properly. Other then that regular ninjutsu will work just fine.
Nagato is going to end up getting involved after finding out what's going on, and try to help in an attempt to atone for all the stuff he did while he was still a Dark Messiah.
edited 9th Dec '11 8:19:12 PM by doineedaname
This is reminding me of As Time Diverges The Mitakihara Case and I like it.
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All right, "He's from another universe and as such doesn't fight in with reality properly" seems a bit too "IT'S MAGIC I AIN'T GOTTA EXPLAIN SHIT" for my taste, but your choice.
What kinds of challenges are you going to have for Nagato? Other Naruto characters as antagonists? Because Nagato could easily solo normal Witches, and possibly/probably even singlehandedly beat Walpurgisnacht.
I still haven't read that, due to hearing that L overshadows all the Madoka characters. Maybe I should give it a chance though.
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Thinking of having Oro show up as a villain, who wants to keep the loop continuing forever since he's essentially gained immortality thanks to it, and maybe some other people since Itachi is still running around with the Totsuka Blade.
Regular witches wouldn't be much of a challenge for him, but they're also probably not much of a challenge to Homura either.
As for a better explanation, it's really late at night and I need to go to sleep soon since I have school in the morning, I'll think of one later.
Edit: Just had a slightly better idea for why he gets rewound with Homura, Homura's wish/shield has no idea how to deal with Nagato as he was not in the loop when it started, so Homura's shield drags him back to the beginning with Homura in order to compensate.
edited 4th Dec '11 9:34:03 PM by doineedaname
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Whammy is often good. Yeah, I'll take a look at it.
True, but there's no consequence to Nagato beating Witches, while Homura still gains corruption, uses up her weapons, etc. And I guess Orochimaru could be a credible threat.
edited 5th Dec '11 12:38:57 PM by enviroguy
Wide-eyed idealists should just assume by default that life is poised to deal them a crushing blow and plan accordingly, i.e. become cynics.I hope I'm not missing the point of the core material with this.
We open, dear readers, on the image of a girl.
Running from the truth with your fingers in your ears and making loud 'la la la can't hear you' sounds was something that you got very good at in the position where our subject was in. However, the time had been destined to come when metaphorical running became literal running and you found the closest exit, threw it open and didn't look back.
Those of you who still care will be able to make an educated guess as to what the girl in question was currently doing, and you'd be right! (As long as you'd guessed 'running'.) Well, you were right up until about five seconds ago. Portals to a world you'd never been on tended to be rather erratic in the vertical-joining-up-with-the-ground bit.
It had been a fall of five metres, leading on straight from a full-pelt run. She'd only really survived because...
Ah, but finding that out will be half the joy, will it not, dear reader?
Around the same time, in another section of Mitakihara City.
"Answer me! What do you want from me?"
"I don't blab to little girls. Sorry," and it was abundantly clear that the respondent was anything but.
"You set my bloody house on fire and try to slice my head off, and don't even give me an answer when I'm about to impale you?"
A grin pierced the man's face, illuminated in flickering flamelight. His expression would have been bloodsoaked, if he'd been the type to bleed when he was wounded. "And what would you do with the information?"
She paused, heaving a weapon far too big for her proportionally across her shoulders, and smirked. "Well. First, I'd find who you were looking for, and then kill them out of spite. Then, I don't know, hunt down the rest of your group and wipe them off the face of the earth? Seems like a way to pass the time," she commented idly.
His face fell into a rictus of shock, before he unclenched his fist again. "...So I was yelling at you the whole time I was trying to kill you, huh? No real surprise, I guess," he murmured, and tried to pull himself upright to find a point of metal at his throat and her hand holding it there perfectly. "I was never any good at the whole 'ask first, kill next' thing," he continued, utterly uncaring of his imminent death by impalement.
She scowled. "You're a right freak, you know?"
"Sticks and stones, shorty," he chuckled nastily. "It's hard to hurt something that doesn't exist."
"Allow me to assure you that I have every intention of proving you wrong. Now cut the 'wah wah my soul huuuuuuuurts and I was deadened to emotions' crap and start giving me names and places."
He breathed, first raggedly, then simply... stopped. The gleeful defiance and agony that should have come with being slammed into a wall and stabbed repeatedly melted from his expression, leaving a perfect poker face in their wake. "Allow me to show you instead, if you will."
He reared up and lunged forward, driving the spear through his own neck, and the girl had barely enough time to flinch before they were face to face and he was falling apart at the seams. "Peekaboo!", he said suddenly, and a black world formed around them.
She spun her spear once to remove the body, only to find that there wasn't one to cast off. Then, she opened her eyes again, taking in bright lights and a rain-sodden city beneath a vast snow-white castle floating free of the ground.
But then, it wasn't like she was unused to seeing vistas that looked as though they were drawn by crayons and filled to the brim with horrors beyond imagining.
"Come out, come out, wherever you are," the girl called out, keeping a tight grip on her lance. "Who's a good Witch then?"
Mitakihara City school district, a short time later.
Homura Akemi felt her words catch in her throat, and blinked rapidly to dispel the sickening feeling of the Witch's surroundings melting back into reality.
Madoka dispelled her white-pink archer's dress to end up holding a small gem in her hands, slipping the bauble carefully into her pocket and offering her hand to the bespectacled girl. "Are you okay, Homura-chan?"
"Y-yes," she replied, only slowly getting up. "...Um, what just happened?"
The older girl who'd appeared alongside Madoka similarly returned to her normal clothes. "That was what is called a Witch. It's our job—" Here, she motioned to herself and the pink-haired classmate of Homura's— "As Puella Magi to fight them and prevent them from harming people like yourself," she finished with a kindly smile.
"Guess you know my secret now, huh, Homura-chan?", Madoka laughed and scratched her head awkwardly. She brought her hands together in a begging pose and made big puppy dog eyes at the black-haired girl. "Pretty please don't tell everyone at school?"
"I-I won't tell them," Homura hastily assured her. Adorable pleading was one thing; in the hands of an expert like Madoka, it was akin to using heavy artillery in the war for a heart.
"Good!", she beamed at her and turned to the other girl. "Ah! This is Mami-san, Homura-chan. Mami-san, this is Homura-chan, my newest classmate," she said by way of introduction, and let the two shake hands in greeting before continuing. "She's a veteran Puella Magi, unlike me. I've still got a lot to learn," she emphasised.
"Actually, you were almost as good as I was today," Mami returned bemusedly, smiling a little at Madoka's modesty. She opened her mouth to continue, when a strange tune rang out to cut her off.
Kawashita yakusoku wasurenai yo...
"Oops! Be right back," Madoka exclaimed with a nervous chuckle, fishing her ringing cellphone out of her pocket and shuffling off to the side. With one finger raised to signal her immediate return, she motioned for Mami to continue. "Hello! Oh, Sayaka-chan? This, uh, isn't really a good time..."
"Ahem," Mami coughed into her hand, looking a bit ruffled. "Anyway, Homura-san, there is a lot you need to learn about both me and Madoka-san — since keeping you out of the loop would be a bit cruel, considering what Madoka-san has told me of your social status—" Mami quickly muttered, and Homura went slightly red. "I realise that you need to meet with your family and your other friends to let them know that you're all right—
"Oh no, it's quite all right," Homura said hastily, and she bowed her head. "I, uh, don't really need to go back just yet. I-it's not like they're going to hunt me down or anything..."
Ah. Mami smiled gently and tapped Homura's chin with her fingertip, just enough to get eye contact back. "In that case, would you like to join us at my house for tea and a proper explanation? The end of a bridge isn't really a good place for a talk like this," and Mami wasn't sure whether to be relieved or enraged when she saw the shorter girl's face light up.
"Yeah, I thought you were visiting Kyosuke-kun right n—" Madoka frowned, and pushed her phone closer to her ear, thinking she must have misheard her friend. "...You found someone strange lying in an alley? Um... Near the bridge, just by— I can be there quick, sure. See you in a minute."
The pink-haired Puella turned to her two friends, an unusually contemplative look on her typically-cheery face. "Mami-san, you go ahead and take Homura-chan to your home. Sayaka-chan needs my help right now. I promise I won't be long, okay?" She waited for the two to nod (Mami did so quickly, while Homura took a moment to realise Madoka was waiting on her approval as well), then pulled out her Soul Gem and leapt high into the sky, keeping to the rooftops to avoid being seen.
"...Sayaka was the name of her other friend from class, right?", Homura said cautiously, still trying to get a handle on the names of her classmates. "Does she know about the whole Puella Magi thing...?"
And when Mami shook her head for 'no', Homura was torn between feeling smug and intrusive.
Landing in an empty street a short distance away from Sayaka, Madoka changed back and ran out, breathing a bit heavier than normal to simulate her having run. Sayaka was crouched over a shape that was on the ground, seemingly all in black. "Hey!"
Sayaka's head snapped up and she was visibly relieved at seeing a familiar face. "Wow, you must've run really fast to get all the way here in just five minutes. How come you never move that fast on track...? Never mind," she said, shaking her head and moving around so that Madoka could see the girl — for it was a girl. She was clothed head to toe in a black leather cloak, with a hood that had been pulled back, and looked to be about the same size as the two girls.
"I see what you mean," Madoka said quietly, taking in the startling resemblance. "Where'd she come from?"
"I was just going along, and there she was on the pavement. It's... You know how I'm a sucker for those stories of destiny? Like, she could be my secret twin sister, the way she looks."
"I'll say. She even has the same hair colour as you," Madoka said back, shifting her arms to help Sayaka lift the unconscious girl onto a vacant bank.
"What?", Sayaka asked, looking quizzically at her. "Your eyes still okay? She's got black hair."
"Uh..." Madoka took a little handful of clearly blue hair in her hand and compared it to Sayaka's. The exact same shade. "No. See?"
"Either you're going colorblind, Madoka, or she's wearing some very weird light-reactive hair dye. That hair is as black as the ink on my last report card," Sayaka insisted, by now looking oddly at her friend.
Madoka frowned and bit her lip in thought. Why would Sayaka lie about something like this...? A thought came into her head, and she pulled her cellphone out of her pocket far enough to check the time. "Oh! Didn't you want to go and see Kyosuke-kun?"
"What? No!", Sayaka protested wildly, before her panicking brain remembered that she was in fact doing that, and had seperated from her friends earlier than usual to do so. "I-I mean, yeah." Realisation raced across her face, and she jumped up. "Oh, damn! I was running late, but then I saw her lying there and tried to help her up and then I called you..."
"It's okay," Madoka said soothingly. "You're fine, and you did the right thing. Besides, if you run, you'll only be a few minutes late, and I'm sure he'd think you were a better person if you say you were helping someone out."
"R-right," Sayaka coughed, face tinged red. "I, um, the thing is... I can't just leave her lying here where someone might come and attack her," she added wretchedly as she wrung her hands, emotion and altruism fighting a complicated battle behind her brow.
Madoka blinked for a moment. "Oh, it's no worry, Sayaka-chan. I'll get her to a safe place and you can see Kyosuke-kun, and I'll tell you what happened tomorrow, okay?"
Grateful for Madoka offering a favour she hadn't wanted to voice for fear of being seen as selfish, Sayaka breathed out and hugged her. "Would you? Oh, you're the best, Madoka! Thanks a lot!", she said, throwing her arms around her friend in gratitude. "You always know what I'm thinking. We're just like a married couple by now..." She purred at Madoka, grinning teasingly.
Madoka smiled and hugged her back tightly, before letting go and making shooing motions. "No problem, honey," she chuckled lightly back. "Now, off with you, right? Wouldn't want to keep him waiting."
"Right," Sayaka nodded, before she bit her lip nervously. "...Are you sure that it's all right for me to—"
"It's fine, Sayaka-chan," Madoka stressed, waving her hand. "Go on, will you? You're getting worked up over nothing, and that's not something the Sayaka-chan I know does."
Relief was etched onto Sayaka's face, and she turned to go, waving goodbye and breaking into a run around a corner towards the hospital. Madoka waved until she was around the corner, before tilting her head back at the black-cloaked shape sitting where they'd put her. Something about this girl was very, very strange, her gut told her, and her gut was rarely wrong. (Of course, later she'd find out that it was her evolving senses as a Puella, but it boiled down to very much the same thing.)
Ah well, Madoka shrugged mentally and looked around to check that no one was watching before transforming, picking up the girl as though she was a feather and leaping high again to make for Mami's house.
Guess what the crossover franchise is. First prize gets a shoutout in the first (proper) chapter to the fanfic/story of their choice.
Notes: I've noticed that I tend to slip between standard prose and narrating as though the narrator has a distinct character. Is this a good thing or a bad thing?
edited 3rd Jan '12 7:52:37 AM by IniquitusTheThird
Storm and trouble won't make you make you lose your way. (Tits might, though.)Girl...long black hooded cloak...practically a black-haired twin to one of the main characters....Is that Xion? Which would make the earlier scene Kairi (?) threatening some Nobody or other.
edited 5th Dec '11 12:48:18 AM by rikalous
Correct on the series, rikalous, and also right on Xion! (And here I was hoping it might be a little harder...) Now, which story of your picking shall I mention in the next chapter?
And no, it's not Kairi (she may not have a passive personality, but swearing and actively threatening people, even Nobodies, is a bit too far down the antiheroine path). You're... ergh. In a way, you're almost right, since there will be... Damn! How can I put this? Er, there would be much justification for guessing that's Kairi and not [the person it is], since her character and that of the person in the scene do grow more similar later on.
(I'm trying to stick to the tone of Madoka very closely, making this the early bits with lighthearted meetings and foreshadowing. I have plans for the later chapters.) Most of the people in-story die. In fact, only one person (sorta two, but... special case there, really) makes it out alive and kicking, though that's down to technicalities of life and death.
Nerdery ahead
: I always thought of the cloaks of the Organisation as a sort of funnel for them, and that their real forms are eldritch creatures made up of energy sorta like Witches. The cloaks give them a solid shape and a direction to march in. The idea is sorta like a mix between a power limiter and A Form You Are Comfortable With, though it's only a power limiter in the sense that it forces them to stick in one place at a time. (If you make the argument that directed and carefully-applied might is better than wild and aimless force, it's even a power booster.)
In Exemplis: Xemnas' real form might be like a hundred shadows melting into silver, stretching between gaps of existence like a slug, while Demyx' true shape would be a man of water with ten limbs who reshapes himself like an octopus where there are gaps to flow through. If that sounds like an Eldritch Abomination to you, you're right. Except that they're a huge bit weaker than your average trans-dimensional god and a lot less smart when unchained. /nerdery
Good to hear my weird narration isn't a bad thing. I'll stick with it for now, and if I get complaints about it, I'll try and make it better.
edited 5th Dec '11 1:42:32 AM by IniquitusTheThird
Storm and trouble won't make you make you lose your way. (Tits might, though.)If the Shouted Out story can be anything, than let there be Discworld! If you just mean a fanfiction story, then I'll have to think about it.
If it makes you feel better, if I knew of anything like those cloaks in anything other than Kingdom Hearts, I probably wouldn't have cottoned on.
How does your nerdery account for Riku and Mickey wearing, and then dramatically divesting themselves of, the cloaks? I always figured they were for making world-hopping easier, although the idea of a Mickey-voiced Eldritch Abomination made of light is at least three distinct forms of So Cool Its Awesome.
Say, did you ever get around to finishing Madoka?
Excellent choice there. (To be honest, it was probably all the narration jokes in the series that made me use that kind of writing.) Hrm... Now, how shall I do this...?
Well, at the time of Riku beginning to wear the cloak, he was still fighting with Xehanort's spirit and nearly a Heartless himself, so him being an Eldritch Abomination at that time isn't too much of a jump. Mickey... well, he'd be more along the lines of Physical God (albeit a non-omnipotent one, just a person with too much power to stay recognisably mouselike so that he'd need the containment cloak.), although recall that he cast it off when he thought one of his friends had died. Maybe the anger gave him enough of a boost of willpower to focus himself into his original form?
Besides, it could always be that the corridors of darkness are, by nature, a large threat to the individuality of the person travelling in them, which would be a very good argument for people wearing them in order to still be humanoid when they go out the other end. Anyway, [the person in the scene] did go through a portal without a cloak, and it will have ramifications along these lines.
I... did. (I'll need to, in order to be able to concretely write the end of this fanfiction.) I forgot to keep a log for, well, a lot of reasons, but if you want me to write one I'm fairly sure I can slap one together from memory and rewatching it.
(PS: The story starts... argh, I can't remember the exact number of the day since I haven't really played through Days lately, but it's around the time Xion runs away, and is set in the first loop of Madoka — I wanted to set it in the one the series starts with, but since time only resets, logically nothing new can introduce itself to the loop that wasn't there in the first iteration. So, Puella!Madoka, Moe!Homura and unknown!wish-of-Madoka are all present and accounted for.)
edited 5th Dec '11 2:07:11 AM by IniquitusTheThird
Storm and trouble won't make you make you lose your way. (Tits might, though.)I think Word of God is that Madoka's first wish was to save that cat that keeps showing up.
No need to do any more recaps, I was just curious. Matter of fact, reading your Apocalyptic Log is a mite Harsher in Hindsight now.
I think Energy Being!Mickey is going to be my headcanon now, because it's just too amusing not to be. I'm pretty sure I can Hand Wave all the times he's seen without it as "Disney Castle makes remaining corporeal easier" or "being around three different Keyblade users makes it easier" or whatever.
I'd want to go the other way. Everyone thinks that, but it turns out...nope! It's just a cloak and he's just a badass. So much so that he can go toe to toe with such "creatures" and win.
Yea, Word of God is that it was the cat. I don't know what 2 and 3 were (but it ain't a stretch to say it was the same wish). 4 was something and she got the power to take out "the final boss" and 5 well...you know
edited 5th Dec '11 8:17:56 PM by Nicktendonick
Silence in the face of evil is itself evil: God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act......uhhh....
Found it at a cosplay shop? (wouldn't that be funny)
No real reason is ever given, he just found it and thought it made him look swell.
Or he's been wearing it and fooling the dumber mooks/ones the whole time. "he's got the cloak. He must be like us. Let's not gangkill him."
Silence in the face of evil is itself evil: God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act.Works for me, then. I'll mention the cat living at Madoka's home, perhaps?
Yeah. I was trying to go for a sort of weird backstory to the log, but I kinda collapsed in real life, so it was half-exaggerated, half-real. Probably shouldn't have tried, looking back.
Bwah ha ha. One more convert!
Homura sat down at the table. "...Um! So, Mami-san," she floundered, glancing around the immediate area. "How long have you been a... pulley?"
"Puella," Mami corrected, pouring three cups of tea and placing them on the table. "And... a while is the best I can say, unfortunately. I don't really do a lot of things socially, and that makes it hard to keep to the same time as the others," she said delicately.
Homura nodded sheepishly and blew on her tea. What the heck could be taking Madoka-san so long? She'd know what to say to break the silence.
Rain City, around the same time.
She grinned savagely, seeing the vast thing rise up. It would almost be a pity to destroy it, considering the way this one looked. The girl couldn't quite put her finger on what differentiated this one from the other Witches, but it was somehow sleeker and looked more polished. Two hands that looked like feet were covered in tight white leather-skin, and a scrap of material bigger than a bedsheet wrapped around a neck that led to a face which had no features, barring a strange white tattoo.
One arm extended like a rubber band and threatened to catch her, but the girl was already jumping up and over, spear extending to cut into the vulnerable head—
The creature contorted and spun, changing shape to avoid the stab and it's head pulsed with a strange harsh light. Moments later, streaks of wire-like matter burst out and caught the girl, slamming her into the closest building.
Silence reigned for a few moments, until the girl sat back up and dusted herself off, shaking off the impact as though it was a tap on the shoulder. She rotated her head to a set of little cricks, working out the edges.
"Well," she said casually, raising her spear again. "I gotta say, this is a lot more effort than Witches usually put into their lairs, and the familiar was a lot more lucid than they usually are. I'm guessing that you're a more powerful type than I've seen around."
Two arms snaked out while she was talking and grabbed her around the waist. Not missing a beat, the girl snapped her spear once to cast it apart into a dozen little chained segments, each bladed and dangerous, cutting off the hands.
"Anyway, you have no idea just how dead you are. I'd offer you a chance to surrender, but then..." The girl made a bored sound. "We both know you understanding me is about as likely as you having any chance to kill me."
And she jumped high and fast, and the being had perhaps a split-second to respond with a desperate flailing at her before she drove her weapon deep into it's chest, using the edged point of her spearhead like an anchor to stay in place. An inhuman roar came from... truthfully, the girl wasn't overly concerned how a mouthless thing could scream, only that it did so in pain.
It bucked and writhed where it stood, and the girl tightened her grip and grimly hung on as it wound. Just when it looked like the thing was finally about to give up the ghost, it shuddered once and the whole city seemed to move with it. Glancing towards the ground in preparation to jump off, the girl saw the pavement turning blacker and a familiar cocoon of darkness forming...
"Oh, come on! Can't life figure out where it wants me to be?", she groaned, giving one big heave to free the spear and white 'blood' flowed from the wound to dissipate into smoke, and tried to get away before—
The world turned dark and stayed so this time, and all the girl could see was the crumbling giant falling above her and the surface rushing up towards her.
Tomoe Residence.
A knock came from a glass pane, and the two girls inside turned to look out the window. There on the balcony (having jumped up to avoid having to carry her passenger up the stairs) stood Madoka, carrying the black-cloaked girl in her arms and looking ever so slightly awkward. Mami went to the balcony door and opened it, letting Madoka come inside, setting the girl down in a seat.
"Sorry about taking a while, Homura-chan, Mami-san," Madoka puffed, worn out from carrying someone across a city, even with her boosted physical capabilities. "Sayaka-chan found her lying on the ground and then she had to go meet Kyosuke-kun, so she called me to help her out and I volunteered to look after her and so I brought her here!"
Mami took a moment to respond, lips moving silently as she divided the run-on into manageable chunks. "Madoka, I understand that you want to help, but... wouldn't calling the emergency services be a better idea than bringing a stranger to this place?"
"I... um, could I just show you something?", Madoka asked, and when Mami nodded reluctantly, she went over to the girl and pulled back her hood to reveal her face. "See how she looks just like Sayaka-chan?"
The older girl was quiet for a brief time, trying to remember what Sayaka looked like (not having met her yet). "Well, I suppose you know her best," she said doubtfully.
Madoka mentally slapped herself on the forehead. "Well, trust me when I say that she's got, like, the exact same shade of blue hair."
"...But she has black hair," Homura said in the confused silence that followed. "If there's any colour it might be apart from that, it's a little pinkish around the edges..."
"What? No! Her hair's blue! Sayaka-chan said the same thing, but I thought she was just in a hurry and didn't look properly." Madoka scratched her head, and turned to look at the small white animal apparently dozing in the corner. "Kyuubey, you're with me, right? Her hair's blue, right?"
'Kyuubey' stretched his limbs and hopped nimbly on the desk, causing Homura to flinch at the speed with which the little thing moved. He regarded the cloaked girl for a moment, unblinking eyes looking carefully at her.
...Madoka, could you do me a favour? Please examine this being very closely, while not thinking about who brought her to your attention. Do not think of Miki Sayaka while looking at her. Imagine yourself to have been the one to find her.
Mami raised an eyebrow, but Madoka tried to comply nonetheless, closing her eyes and doing her best to obliterate Sayaka from her thoughts. And when she opened them again...
Madoka screamed in a horrified voice, recoiling and bringing up her arms to block her view of the girl. She fell back, unable to see where she was going, and Mami and Homura reached out instinctively and fruitlessly to catch her as she scrabbled backwards. Mami turned rapidly to face the girl on the chair and transformed, fingers coiled, and drew up a rifle which was immediately rammed into what passed for the unconcious girl's mouth to no reaction. Homura meanwhile tried to get closer to Madoka as she whimpered and found herself with her back to the wall, feeling more than a little helpless at this sight.
Kyuubey, who hadn't moved throughout the sudden shift in mood, turned away from the girl and locked Madoka into eye contact. Strange. It's not really that frightening to look at. You were just caught off guard, it continued as Madoka scratched and clawed at her arms in a futile attempt to rid them of the feeling of having held... whatever was sitting in that chair.
"What is the matter? Madoka, what did you see?", Mami asked clinically, placing a second muzzle against the girl, this one against her ribcage in case the headshot was somehow blocked.
Homura patted her friend encouragingly on the shoulder and smiled hopefully, and Madoka swallowed the lump in her throat away. "I-I-I saw her f-face," she began raggedly, still looking haunted. "I-it had nothing on it. No h-hair, no eyes, no eyes, no eyes, no mouth, nothing, just a shape..." She clamped her fingers over her mouth to silence the second scream before it came. Homura awkwardly settled her arms around Madoka's shoulders in a comforting gesture, and she struck by how weak and terrified she felt when Madoka clung to her in return.
Mami's eyes widened and she looked queasy, but bit down before anything could happen apart from slightly shaky hands. "Kyuubey," she murmured, focused as though hypnotised on the not-girl on the chair. "Is this possibly a new type of Witch? Or maybe a familiar?"
Kyuubey's head shook. Highly unlikely. There's no lair, or scent of a lair anywhere nearby. In any case, if she was a Witch, she wouldn't have waited before attacking. The little animal went to the very edge of the table, peering intensely at the girl. Fascinating. Perhaps this is a form of unforeseen planetary defense mechanism against the Witches?
Mami tilted her head. "What are you talking abou—" She froze again, ice-cold realisation washing over her as her eyes focused on the clear steel in the girl's mouth. The clear steel that didn't show the lightest hint of condensation despite being fairly cold.
Who or whatever this was, they weren't breathing, and Mami found that this did not comfort her one bit.
Madoka groaned again and slowly nudged Homura away, pushing off the wall to lean against it as she stood. Homura rose with her and placed her hand on Madoka's forehead, noting the high temperature. "It's okay, Madoka-san. Everything's okay," she murmured as calmly as she could manage. "...Do you still see it?"
Madoka shook her head erratically and began breathing at a marginally more normal rate. "I-I'm sorry for f-freaking out l-like that," she whispered ashamedly. Already Homura-chan had seen her squeal and act so immaturely when surprised...
"It's perfectly all right to be scared, Madoka-san," Mami managed without moving her mouth overtly, afraid of shaking like a leaf. Had Madoka carried a corpse here inadvertently...?
All of a sudden, the world seemed to tingle, and the girl on the chair's eyes opened. She made a terrified noise moments later upon noticing the rifle rammed into her mouth, and her hands began shaking. Mami ignored her obvious fear and pushed it in deeper, while Kyuubey watched intensely.
"You. Who are you? How did you—" Mami thought of a better question to ask, and drove the metal further into her ribs. "What are you?", she demanded.
Horrified blue eyes began filling with tears as they looked into Mami's cold gaze, and Madoka rushed forward to place a hand on Mami's arm. "Mami-san, that's enough. Look, she's really scared..."
"So were you, just now, and what you described definitely wasn't human," she retorted. But the touch did make her ease up a bit on the pressure, enough to allow the girl to take a gasping breath in. "You. Who are you?", Mami repeated.
"Sh-shi...Oh, no, p-please no... O-oh no, i-it's Shi-shi-Xion," the girl gabbled, mortally afraid. The tears of panic were starting to drip, and that was good enough for Mami to pull back the rifles from her. 'Xion' slumped in her chair, one hand on her ribs and the other around her neck as she gasped for air. Madoka threw Mami a reproachful look, before crouching enough to get down to Xion's level and smile hesitantly, only a little pale from her shock.
"That's a nice name, Xion," Madoka said calmly, and Homura nodded in support and edged closer. "Do you want to tell us how you got here?"
Xion retreated into the chair and drew her hands to the edges, clinging on tightly as she shook her head.
"That's okay," Madoka reassured her soothingly. "We're not going to hurt you. We just found you lying out cold and thought you looked like you were in trouble."
Homura frowned minutely, but soon her positive side came to the fore and she held out her cup of tea to Xion. "Sorry about attacking you like that. Something just—" Homura shot a look at Mami, who rolled her eyes in response. "Set us a little on edge then."
Xion nodded slightly, still looking a bit as though she was staring into a pair of headlights. "...Are you with the Organisation?", she asked, and the dread in her voice told the three more than Xion intended.
"No, we're not," Mami said for them. "...Why don't you stay here for a while, at least until you feel ready to leave? If you want to leave, of course," she added reluctantly after seeing Homura's and Madoka's faces.
"C-could I?", Xion asked, and the look of gratitude and amazement on her face was almost enough for the blonde to forget what she'd caused Madoka to do.
Almost.
Destiny Islands, around the same time.
"...And then, the teacher said that if I didn't stop messing around in class, he'd give me detention," one schoolgirl was telling her friend.
"Let me guess what happened next," her friend said back with a grin.
"No, I actually sat down and paid attention," the first girl complained, pouting. Her friend raised an eyebrow, and not ten seconds later she was giggling. "Okay, you got me. But I did pay attention! ...For about ten minutes."
Her friend soon began laughing too, and they strolled onward, down towards the beach.
A few minutes later, a block away from the beach: "Hey, Kairi, are you gonna go down to the island today?"
Kairi slowed down, and Selphie had the impression that Kairi was looking at something other than the lazy afternoon sky. "...I don't know. I mean, I would have, just a week ago, but..." She sighed. "It feels like... like I'm missing something. Like I've forgotten something. It's weird, but... I don't know. Maybe just to the pier, Selphie."
"Ah well. You're gonna miss out on Tidus chasing Wakka around the night campfire with a stick, you know."
"...On second thought, maybe I should—" Kairi came to a stop as they crested the little hill that overlooked the beach, and Selphie almost walked into her.
"Uh, Kairi? Helloooo?", Selphie tried, waving her hand in front of her friend's face. "Earth to Kairi? This is your conscience speaking..."
"Who's that?"
"Who?", Selphie returned, confused. She turned and followed Kairi's raised arm, and there was indeed a strange shape lying in the shallows on the island. The predominant colour seemed to be red.
Oh no. Did a boat crash? Are the sharks back?, Selphie thought worriedly, and she took a moment to realise Kairi was running down to the shore.
"—Can't just leave her here, she'll die of swallowing so much salt water."
"Yeah, but we're just schoolgirls. Shouldn't we get help if we see someone washed up on shore?"
"Selphie, this is what all those CPR classes were for that you signed up to. How else are you going to use them?"
"...What, you mean like... mouth-to-mouth? But, um, that's a girl..."
"W-well... that's not the point! She could be in danger!"
"So do it!"
"..."
"...Oh, fine! Just... look, this didn't happen, okay?"
The red-haired girl coughed raggedly, and her eyes opened a crack. A vaguely red head was floating somewhere above her, and moments later a water bottle was forced between her lips. She drank gratefully, and she could have sworn she heard a pair of relieved sighs.
"Well, at least she's not dead," the first voice came.
"Don't jinx it," the second one warned.
Dead.
Dead...
The girl sprang up and shoved the two moving things away, fists balled. "I'm not dead!", she croaked, feeling her soggy clothes weighing her down and her exhaustion clawing at her legs. "I-I'm just..."
"Eaaaasy, huh? We're not going to hurt you—"
"I'd like to see you try," the red-haired girl spat roughly.
"And you're not going to," the second person said. The girl blinked, and things started to swim into focus. A... beach? But there'd been an ocean...
"Well..." She said and suddenly swayed, tiredness dragging her down as she sat down hard. "I-I mean..."
"Look, you're a bit tired, probably from making it to shore and so you may feel disoriented, but we're going to help you," the first person said, a short, brown-haired girl with an earnest look about her.
"Don't need looking after," she said thickly as she rose again, and the universe went dark about the edges as she struggle back to her feet. "Don't need no help..."
"Hey, careful!", the second person said, a deep-red-haired girl with piercingly blue eyes, as the stranded girl toppled forward and leaned heavily on her. "Look, what's your name?"
Colours swam before her eyes. A name couldn't hurt that much, could it...? And it's not like they could do anything with it... "K-Kyouko. Sakura Kyouko," she mumbled, and the last thing she remembered before blissful sleep took her was slipping from the supporting pair of arms and falling towards the wet sand.
Kairi almost slipped over herself, and only with help from Selphie was she capable of keeping the ragged girl off the sand. "Hey, hey, easy now. Listen, Kyouko, could you maybe...?"
"Uh, I don't think you're going to get an answer before tomorrow," Selphie observed, poking Kyouko's cheek and earning a tired mumble.
"I guess so," Kairi said, thinking fast. "I'll take her to my house to take care of her for now, okay? Here, I'll hold her legs and you get her shoulders."
Selphie tilted her head. "You sure we're allowed to do this? It might be a good idea to tell someone."
"I'll tell my parents, don't worry. I can just say that I found her on the street and she asked for my help before falling over."
"Why not just tell them everything?"
Kairi rolled her eyes, as though it was obvious. "They might blame the guys for her condition. Face it, she's not in the best of ways, and we don't need to cause trouble for them."
"True enough," Selphie shrugged, and pulled Kyouko's unconscious body up the pierside towards the boat. Once they were in the boat, she smiled briefly. "...I guess you did end up coming down to the island after all, huh, Kairi?"
"I guess. But... I only wanted to save someone who looked like they were in trouble..."
Save...
"I'll save Kairi, no matter what!"
"There's no way you're taking Kairi's heart!"
"Kairi?", Selphie asked, looking concernedly at her friend.
"Huh? What? Oh, sorry," Kairi said nervously and took the second oar to begin rowing the boat back to the mainland. "Just... remembering something."
Notes: Kairi and Selphie knowing their shit about salt water and the dangers of it is due to them living, y'know, more or less by the beach. For an idea of what Xion looked like to Madoka: (potential Nausea Fuel, so spoilered) remember in The Matrix when the Agents skin-taped over Neo's mouth? Kinda like that, only with everything on the head. Think mannequin in place of something you thought was a human. ...Still not sure how to make a proper excuse for Twilight Thorn try to escape to Destiny Islands. I'll throw in some half-assed symmetry-symbolism stuff later on about it trying to copy Darkside.
Oh, and this is the end of the 'introduction' chapter. It's far too short, all things said and done, but it's only the prelude. Nothing really important's happening/has happened yet.
Edit: I'll put the shoutout into the first proper chapter. Should be interesting to mess around with.
(To those who will point out that I said this chapter was going to be lighthearted and then used death, loneliness, near-drowning, nightmare fuel and death threats: I told the truth. It's still lighthearted for this story's standards. No, it will not end well.)
edited 3rd Jan '12 6:46:54 PM by IniquitusTheThird
Storm and trouble won't make you make you lose your way. (Tits might, though.)Sorry about the delay, had to pinpoint a sequence of events and discard a few things, plus think up a suitably pretentious title. First part of the first proper chapter is here, anyway, so hopefully things will actually start happening.
Musings: Are my fight scenes as crap as I think they are? Because they seem clunky to no end, to my spellchecking eyes.
Recommended/appropriate music (you'll either like this or hate me SO MUCH for this, Mage): 'Meer Sein
' by Silbermond. Translations of the lyrics here
. Yes, it is partly a pun on Kairi's name. See if you can guess the person from whose point of view it's sung.
Rain City Castle, shortly after the girl leaves.
"Fellow members, it is now that we must make a choice as to how we proceed."
Thirteen seats, tall and made of white stone, formed a ring in a cavernous room. Black-cloaked shapes filled seven of them, ranging in build from lanky to solid and from short to towering.
At the centre of the circle hung the image of a similarly-dressed person, as big as the smallest of the seated.
"Fourteen, as you know, left this organisation a short while ago. Eight was sent to track it down, but... Those of you who have passed by the Graveyard will note the change in his status. Thus, we must send forth scouts to ascertain who eliminated Eight, as well as continuing our search for Fourteen."
The one who was talking was the one with the highest chair, a deep, powerful voice booming down and making a mockery of distance.
"I have assigned those of you to the search who were deemed to have the best qualifications. Speak with Seven to determine if you were reassigned. Dismissed," and oval portals consumed each of them individually as they warped away to their quarters.
The youngest of the group was the first to approach Seven. "Saix! Is it really true?", Roxas asked, worry on his face. First Xion, now Axel too? Was he next?
"The Superior is not in the habit of calling meetings to cause unnecessary work for me," Saix said abruptly. "Now, you are assigned to hunt down a large Heartless which was recorded near Agrabah—"
"What?", Roxas interrupted, throwing his hood back. "Don't give me another mission, tell me where Axel was last."
"You are not a part of the operation to recover Fourteen," Saix said irritably, and swept past him, seeing another member approach for his assignment. "Now, get to the portals and put that Keyblade to good use."
The shorter man scuttled around him and blocked his path again, holding up a hand. "No. I'm going out to look for my friends, Saix—"
Saix glared coldly at him, and Roxas felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand on edge. "You are not a viable member. The Heartless population in the area is trace. You must recover more hearts to fulfill the goals of the Organisation. In any case, it is not a world which has been charted and linked properly, meaning that we need members who are experienced at exploring unfamiliar worlds to go. This is something that you are not," Saix told him, and pushed him aside like one would a leaf from a shoulder. "Get back to your task."
"I'm not going to—" Roxas tried.
"If Eight and Fourteen do indeed return, then would you rather regale them with tales of you dragging down the investigators or present them with the ability to recover their hearts?", Saix asked, cutting him off, and Roxas flinched back. The smaller man bowed his head and grunted unhappily to the affirmative, turning away and heading for the portal entrance in the corner of the room.
The other member arrived, one yellow eye glancing out from under the hood at the retreating Roxas. "Kiddo isn't happy, huh?"
"He is purposefully obstructing our goals. Recovery of the backup plan has the highest priority," Saix said shortly, and fell silent for a second as he mentally consulted his list of assignments. "You and Three are to be the trackers, following on from Eight's last-confirmed location. The Corridor has been attuned for you to use—"
"Hey, hey," Xigbar interrupted him, waving a hand. "We've got names, ya know. Might help morale a little if you started calling us by them."
Saix only glared at him.
Destiny Islands, shortly afterward.
Kairi stood up slowly in the little boat, securing it at the pier. Selphie helped steady it, and lifted Kyouko up to let Kairi grab her under the arms to heave her onto land. The red-head shifted as they lifted her, groaning and her eyes fluttering open.
"Huh. She certainly recovered quickly," Selphie noted, placing Kyouko on the boards of the pier and clambering out of the little boat. The red-haired girl was dressed in fairly typical clothing, consisting of a grey-brown sweater and shortened jeans (both soaked through, naturally) while long red hair was tied back in a ponytail.
Kyouko groaned again, more loudly this time, and she pushed herself far enough off the ground to collapse back down. The two schoolgirls backed up enough to give her room, and Kairi knelt down in her line of sight (or what would become that when she opened her eyes). A faint clattering could be heard in the background, but Kairi ignored it and hesitantly shook the girl's shoulder. "Hey, you awake?"
Her eyes fluttered open and she sat up, clutching her head. "Urgh..." And a few moments later, the two friends found themselves leaning in and pricking up their ears as they heard her muttering to herself while she looked puzzledly at her surroundings: "...I'm not going to say 'where am I', I'm not going to say 'where am I', I'm not going to say 'where am I', I'm not going to say 'where am I'—"
Selphie and Kairi had just enough time to exchange a puzzled look before she stopped and shrugged helplessly at herself. "Oh, like it's going to help me like this. Okay, fine: 'Where am I'?"
"You're, uh..." Kairi blinked, still distracted by the non-sequitur muttering. "This place is called Destiny Islands. My friend and I found you lying in the water just by the beach, and we thought we'd—"
"Waaaait just a second," Kyouko interrupted, her vitality returning with her ire. "You actually, genuinely, really call this place 'Destiny' Islands? What, like the kind of place you grow up in if you want to become a person who's destined to fight infinite darkness for the rest of your life?" She examined Kairi. "Did your parents hate you, perhaps?"
"Beg pardon?", Kairi responded puzzledly. That clattering sound, punctuated by occasional whistles, wasn't helping her concentration. "Where'd you get that from?"
"Look, this is obviously some sort of hallucination I'm living through while I'm drowning," Kyouko replied in a bored tone. "It's not like there's any other expl—" Her speech faded away, and her eyes were looking past Kairi at the beach. "There you are!"
Huh? What's she looking at?, Kairi asked herself, and Selphie gasped as she followed Kyouko's line of sight.
There, sitting on tracks that had somehow appeared out of thin air, stood a single-car antique train, streaked with purple and stars. Selphie gaped at it for a few moments, until she noticed that Kairi was running after the newcomer. "Kairi? Hey, w-wait up!", the girl called out, hopping down to the sand and going after thw two. "Wait! Where are you going?"
The girl with the darker red hair turned back, biting her lip, and a spark of excitement lit her eyes up. "Selphie, I saw someone! I need to find out if this is real!"
"Kairi! Slow down! We've got school tomorro—"
"I'll be back in a moment!", Kairi yelled back, accelerating now that the shorter girl had entered the train car. "I just need to do this one thing!"
Kyouko slammed open the door to the driver's cabin, to find it completely empty. She turned again, and the rush of adrenalin ebbed when she found the rest of the car just as bare. Scowling, she sat on one of the benches. She could have sworn that she'd seen the little white-furred animal slinking inside this strange train.
The faint clinkings of machinery sounded out, and the door began to close as if the train was about to leave. Kyouko sat back and sighed, reasoning that if she was going to have a probably-symbolic dream, she might as well take her time with it. She'd leafed through a book on dream interpretation out of sheer boredom one day at a flea market; the colour probably displayed her 'deep-seated insecurities' and 'royal ego' or somesuch.
Just before the door closed, a hand slapped on it and Kairi prised it open far enough to slip in. She panted for a moment, slightly out of breath after the rowing, before straightening up and casting her glance around the cabin. When it became obvious that only her and Kyouko were here, a puzzled look came onto her face, and she cautiously raised a hand. "Ah... you didn't see a guy with brown hair jump out of the window just now, did you?", she asked hopefully.
Kyouko stared back stonily.
Kairi turned around, looking for the release on the door catch, or rather, where there should have been one. "Wha— Hey, let us out! There's people in here!", she called out (not sure to who exactly, but hopefully someone was listening).
"Keep it down, why don't you? Some of us are trying to enjoy our dying hallucinations, thank you," Kyouko said irritably, settling where she sat. "Personally, I'd give this an eight out of ten for realism," she added absently.
Kairi blinked owlishly at her. "...You do realise that this is real, right?"
"Oh yeah? Here: what's your name?"
"Uh, Kairi."
Kyouko tutted and leaned back again. "Dropping to a seven out of ten. Come on, brain, I have an imagination."
"Hey! My name's completely sensible!", Kairi said back hotly.
"It means sea, dammit. A thing which you live by. Honestly, there're better names you could have. How about 'Minako'?" She cast a suspicious glance skywards. "Are you listening in, conciousness? I want to die in delusion, not with my mental fingers stuck in my ears while muttering 'Don't think about it, just go with it' to myself! It that so much to ask?"
Kairi tilted her head. "You're a strange person."
"And you're made largely of water. That's humans for you," Kyouko responded immediately.
The jolt that ran through the carriage prevented Kairi from talking back, as she struggled to stay upright and an unsuspecting Kyouko fell over, swearing. A steady sense of movement was pulsing along the carriage, the click-click of wheels on rails communicating the movement of the train.
"And now we're moving. I seem to remember there being an ocean in the way, from outside," Kyouko noted grumbling, getting back up. "I suppose drowning isn't a bad reset button, all things considered."
"No, you're wrong," Kairi said quietly from where she knelt on the bench to look outside. "It's... beautiful."
"Well, yes. Imminent death usually is."
"No," Kairi repeated. "The stars..."
And the train moved along, along rails that only ever appeared a few inches before they were needed, through a canopy of galaxies.
Ah, hello. ...And who might you be again? There was a scratching sound, which only sounded like the sound of a bony finger going down a list because it was, in fact, the sound of a bony finger going down a list.
The shade scowled at Death*, and really meant it for the first time in ten years (give or take an interquel). "Axel. A-X-E-L. What, a poor bit of nothing isn't important enough to be remembered by name?"
Sorry, sorry, I usually make sure I've got all the names memorised before I leave the house in the morning. Ah, here we are: Lea, also called Axel. Though we had an appointment you missed ten years ago?
"House?", the burning man asked, seizing on this fact in the hopes that the inevitable could be put off long enough for it to think 'bugger it' and give up. (He'd gotten rather good at this in the preceding ten years.)
Oh, yes. A beautiful little house in the country. You could come and visit, if you're up to it aft— afterwards.
"Afterwa—?" The terrible curse upon all humankind that is Curiosity struck true. "What country?"
The country, Death replied, and there was just not enough time for Axel to interject before he continued. Anyway, mister Axel, I do believe that you might have an idea as to what you might need to cross to reach that point. There's a light at the end of every tunnel, Death added with a distinct flicker of gallows humour.
Lea scowled again. "Yes, and it's a train. I've heard this one before."
Death gave him a look which was most grave indeed. Have you considered the possibility of you riding that train?, and Axel suddenly felt like he was looking at the closest a skull could get to a self-satisfied expression.
"No," his fading spirit retorted. "In fact, that sounds like you're overextending the metaphor in entirely the wrong direction..."
Oh, Death replied morosely. ...Well, I thought it was clever.
Trivia: This is the reworked version of a story I wanted to write for ages. The original story called for it to be a crossover with Naruto, Bleach and Negima as well and had Madoka learning Magia Erebra, Sora and Riku entering the Ostia tournament and coming up against Rakan — only to be utterly shitstomped by him —, the Puella becoming Madoka's Ministrae, Sasuke having a swordfight with Ichigo, Rukia beating the shit out of Vexen, Sextum awkwardly hitting on Aqua and Byakuya becoming Captain-Commander after the Organisation helped Aizen kill Yamamoto. And man did it suck. (It missed the point of the story of Madoka entirely, and the entire arc post-Mundus Magicus revolved around bland yuri shiptease.) Also, this chapter features the first time I referred to a character by name without having someone say it first. ...[toot] The mission for Roxas is also supposed to be the one with Dustflier. He is not going to be very reasonable or calm when he gets back.
Notes: Yes, I'm going to commit to doing Death scenes for everyone who cops it. Yen Sid's hand has been forced because the world of the Puella Magi — where Xion is — is outside his 'reach', meaning he needs a person who knows it and he needs that person pronto. And hey, if a Princess of Heart can be trained to fight and put her heart to use, bonus. Saix is still holding up the pretense that Xion is a Nobody to manipulate Roxas and also subtly suggested that Axel might not be all the way dead. Also, the Kyuubey was an illusion cast from Kyouko's memory by Yen Sid. He's called 'Master' for a reason, people.
Jeez. Trivia, songs, notes, nerdery... I need something else to occupy my time with. I'm starting to put too much effort into this.
Rushed, edited-in reply mentioning you by name, opening up a new lane of conversation for us to follow in the hopes of attracting others' attention to my story with the honeyed stench of serious conversation.
Also, apparently the word 'prised' does not exist. The more you know.
Next bit will actually feature the Puella apart from Kyouko. Just needed to add in some development while I had the idea for this scene in my head.
edited 3rd Jan '12 6:48:36 PM by IniquitusTheThird
Storm and trouble won't make you make you lose your way. (Tits might, though.)@Nicktendonick: Glad you think so.
I've got the first 2 chapters mostly done, just need to fix some typos, and maybe change the dialogue a little bit before they're ready for posting.
@Enviroguy: Most weapons that Homura uses against normal witches probably wouldn't help against Walpurgis since Unlimited Explosive Works didn't even do anything.
edited 8th Dec '11 6:45:22 PM by doineedaname

OMG Pain comes back from the dead? I lost track of this series at the manga chapter of Sasuke vs the Raikage (not the fight, the chapter before it). I SO have to see this.
It does sound good, or at least has my attention. I'd like to see more eventually.
edited 4th Dec '11 8:37:25 PM by Nicktendonick
Silence in the face of evil is itself evil: God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act.