Hello everybody! Well, the moment you've all been waiting for…the sequel to Nobody, Nothing, No Matter is here! I'll let the first chapter speak for itself; let me know what you think.

The air was perfectly still over that desert of a world, the same as it had been for over a century. The wide hills rolled silently across its surface, the plateaus carved jutting angles through scarred plains. The sun shined with the same, almost routine brilliance it had the day before. Its rays reached out with all of the heat they could muster, but fell pitifully upon a dry, cracked earth. Once the land had held great promise, and its people were among the best and the brightest of explorers and heroes…but those days had long since passed.

A great war had torn through this world, one which found solace only in a final clash of anger and darkness and violence resulting in…silence. There were no victors to praise, no spoils to indulge in or treaties to sign. In the end, the war itself claimed its prize, and only the yawning void of silence survived its passing.

The silence consumed everything: all life, all time, all meaning…all purpose. An object at rest tends to stay at rest…and so that world stayed, for the longest time.

Until it happened.

It began slowly, incrementally: a degree drop in temperature here, a rise in humidity there. Nothing any living being would worry over. But for a land left in total stasis for so long, it meant everything. The lifeless land became charged with some new, otherworldly vigor, and the air held its breath in anticipation for something, anything, to bring the change it so craved. The stillness, once lazy and complacent, tensed itself as it prepared for the event. Where was it? The sun was setting, and all it needed was a spark, a trigger, a—

FLASH!

A single bolt of lightning sliced down from the heavens, calling forth a roar as much of pain as of relief as it struck a crater into the smooth plain. As the force sent rubble flying all around, the air itself broke free of its static routine and dove in, dividing and evolving into a collective of ferocious winds. Together they lunged into the crater, flying readily in to claim their newfound prize.

The bolt had given the winds life anew, and oh how they relished the powers it gave. They had been stagnant for so long—now they were free! Did they not deserve all they could have, after ages of petrifying stillness? Just a little closer and they could fill all the space the lightning had left in its passing. Just a little closer and they could grow and merge once more, become a storm, the likes of which this world had never seen! Just a little closer…

But no! They were kept from their goal, and it was all they could do for the winds to wrap angrily around that which had taken their birthright out of their clutches. How could this be? The lightning had come in a flash; it should have left just as quickly...

…Except…it hadn't. The bolt of lightning had not left but condensed, formed a small, crackling ball of white electricity at the center of the site. It fizzled as random, castaway strands of energy were picked along by the winds, but it did not back down. Not for lack of trying, of course: electricity moves by nature, and even as the current stayed its hand, it longed to be done with this place and on to the next. Still it stayed, shifting only very slightly to accommodate more of its kind.

Strange…more lightning was coming, yet the sphere was no bigger than a baseball. No…bigger; a basketball, a beach ball—it was growing! It swelled, like a giant soap bubble, stretching its field farther and wider and thinner…so the hand behind its containment could better adjust to her surroundings.

Yes, just within the hollow of the lightning bubble, the Nymph held her stance. She stood firm, feet firmly planted under her black coat and every muscle tensed, yet her eyes, squeezed shut, gave away her fear. She was entirely focused on the matter at hand, and she had arranged herself very specifically so as best to survive it.

Her hands, for starters, were curled into fists—except for two fingers each, the pointer and middle fingers, fully extended and gushing in the lightning's lifeblood. The hands were kept separate: the left high above, guiding the lightning's path, and the right crooked below at the arm's elbow to control the intensity of the current's flow. Like a child flying a kite, the Nymph jerked her arms this way and that, directing the power which flowed from her long yellow locks towards her intended goal: salvation. She had driven through too treacherous a storm for too long to lose to the power now.

"Nggh…c'mon…heel!"

As always, the mistress of the lightning had her way. All the lightning swelled once more, taking in just one last gasp of freedom…then falling back into her, sending her hair alive with bristling power before finally settling deep within her heart. Freed of the burden of her voyage, she dropped to her knees; her arms fell out of position and hung loosely at her sides. Her eyes were now open and relaxed, staring blankly, betraying none of the turmoil behind their emerald gaze…

"Forgetting something?"

A voice! Curious…the Nymph had not sensed any others. But where? There was no place to hide. The land was as flat and seamless as ever outside the crater, and while the winds still roared in a disjointed cry of release, they did not yet enter this now hollowed space. It was the eye of the storm—silent and oblivious to the change once more—and no disturbance could penetrate it.

Unless…no! She looked to the skies, praying desperately to some unknown god that what she feared would never come. A useless act: right away, her trained eye caught sight of the speck up above as it fluttered down towards her. It drifted lazily in its descent, a shining pink light against the newly darkened sky. For all of the Nymph's might and magic, it was all she could do to watch with dread as the sweet little petal landed softly on the parched earth before her, sank into the ground…and promptly exploded forth again in a dazzling fountain of roses and thorns. There, perfectly poised at the center of a newborn rosebush, was the one person she had hoped never to meet in this place…the Assassin. And he gave an evil smile at the sight of her terror-filled face.

"Surely you don't expect to lose me that easily, do you Larxene?"

Deep down, the Nymph, Larxene, felt her heart began to throb. It was the first of many times to come.

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