Chapter one:
The ever waking dream
/Bastion/
I stood there in some sort of clearing in a forest when I came to. Leaves falling gently floating in the strong breeze that was blowing through the forest under the light of the full moon. "He-llo?" I stuttered out into the chilled air that filled the silence of the forest .I tried to remember how I got here stranded alone in some sort of forest raking my mind to find any piece of information. "Da-Darren? Logan? Di-Diane? C-Come on guys this is-isn't funny!" I pleaded turning my body all around pivoting on my feet to try and get even a glance of any of my friends attempting to hide amongst the trees surrounding the clearing as if it was some sort of set up to a cruel prank. Panic started to set in as the silence seemed to start to strangle me each breathe becoming shorter and shorter with each gasp.
The bushes and shrubs of the undergrowth the right of me caused my head to snap to face that direction. I could just make out the silhouette of a man through the shadows cast by the thick density of the trees. "He-Hello?" I called out to the figure in the shadow of the trees as I took a tentative step forward as he seemed to stumble to me. A soft groan that carried over the wind was the only response I got for the figure as I took another step towards the man.
"Hey mister are you all aright there?" I questioned as I took another step this one seeming like giant leap compared to the last one that I took. I could vaguely make out that the man was wearing some sort of lightly colored vest with a dark dress shirt underneath it along with some dark slacks. I noticed his shirt seemed to cling to his body as if it was soaked by something staining sections of his chocolate colored dress shirt a dark black. His head as facing the dirt and roots that covered the forest floor. Form what I cloud see he seemed to be in his late forties his short tan colored hair having dark rivers of the staining substance running through it. "Hey are you ok?" I asked in a shaking voice as I noticed the dark stain that covered the front of the man's shirt.
As the man got almost arm's length form me I could barely make out some of the words that he moaned out in a low groan over the softly blowing breeze." ..why..did..." his voice croaked out in a gravelly voice.
The man took another shambling step towards me almost falling over if I had not caught his falling body at the last second. My hand making a wet squishing noise as it made contact with the dark stain that covered his shoulder. It seemed to be made of some dark slick substance making me pull my right hand away from it almost immediately out of instinct. In the pale light of the moon my hand came away coated in a dark red substance like blood, but it couldn't be, right?
Griping the man by his shoulders I said "don't worry I'll get you help." The man's head tilted back as I grabbed his shoulders and the sight I saw chilled me to my core. Where the man's eyes should there were just empty pitch black holes that stared back at me. I was unable to look away from the two bleeding holes in his face.
Out of nowhere the man's arms snapped to my throat like vipers and clamping down with his icy fingers digging into my throat. His gravelly voice no longer muttering whispers but chanting in a yell "WHY DID YOU KILL ME?! WHY DID YOU KILL ME?!" as he started to throttle me. Cuts and wounds started to appear over his body and started to ooze blood. My hands scrambled at my neck to try and break the death grip he had on my throat as I gasped for air feeling a burning need for air. As the darkness started to creep in from the corners of my vision, the man's chant changed ever so slightly "WHY DID YOU KILL US?!" as a tower of bloody corpses rose up from beneath my feet.
The bleeding and decaying bodies slowly clawed up my legs dyeing my slate colored pants a deep crimson with their bleeding and mangled arms. The tower grew in size till it towered just over the tops of the trees in the forest. All of the bodies that comprised the tower seemed to join in with the man in chanting demanding an answer of me. The once pale white moon being slowly infected by the same deep crimson color the tower leaked from in between the bodies.
Just as the dark almost had over taken my vision completely I felt the man's iron grip release from my throat the sound of some motor revving filed the air almost rivaling the chanting of the damned that chorused over and over like a demented melody.. I dropped to my hands and knees onto the top of the tower of corpses the chanting stopped replaced with incoherent mummers of the dead. As I lifted gaze from the bodies that made up the tower coughing and gasping for air as I did so I saw the man that had held me in his dead grip stand rigidly still. Pierced through his chest was the still spinning drill, flinging bits of what was the man's chest across the now still air of the starless sky. Just as quickly as the drill seemed to appear it vanished from sight retreating back through the man's chest.
The man slowly fell to the side his body falling like puppet with its strings cut. What stood in his place was even more terror inducing than the man and the tower of corpses we stood on. What laid before me was blood stained clone of me. His dark blue, almost black in color jacket with it's high upturned collar, was mired in crimson blood. Some spots were a dark wet freshly applied blood other spots were already drying. His face, splattered with the man's blood, shook slightly as he tried to hold in a chuckle. The lens of the leather goggles that covered his held speckles of crimson on the lens. "Heheh... This dream again huh?" my blood soaked twin asked in a causal manner as if one were asking about the weather. His face split into a cruel wicked grin as he continued "Ohh! Look how high up we are!" he exclaimed in a cheerful yell as if he forgot about what the tower we stood on was comprised of. He placed his left hand to his brow as if to see farther in the horizon as he turned to the right and stepped toward the edge, his right arm resting at his side along with the massive drill that covered it up to his elbow.
He turned his head to the side slightly to look at me with one eye as I just stared wordlessly back at the black lens. Silence overtook the night air once again as neither of us spoke a word till the other me broke the silence once again. "You know we really haven't killed THIS many people yet. Unless this is your end game goal" he said taking a seat on the edge hanging his feet over the edge of the tower. "Meh, if this was showing the end goal to my plans there would be way more depravity, fire and a kick-ass throne of the bones of our enemies," he emphasized with both of his arms stretching as far apart from his body as he could.
He leaned back and walk towards me as he did so he started to whistle some sort of pop tune merrily. "Well as fun as it is to see this dream repeat for like the thousand time" he stated as he gripped the collar of my jacket with his left hand picking me up off my feet easily. "Now I I'm begining to wonder why this tower keeps showing up in here?" he asked mockingly as he walked back toward the edge with me in his grip. As much as I struggled in grip his hold didn't relent. As I continued to struggle he continued "you must want to fly don't you? Don't worry little mole I'll let you have a great big tastes of the sky!" He gave a short mad laugh as he walked right up to the edge as I begged and pleaded for him to stop. "Now don't worry about all the killing and death we spread, it's my job to handle the violence remember?" he said as he brought his arm back as if were to prepare to throw a shot put. He gave me one last look as he said one final thing to me "Just play in the ground with your little friends like a good little digger and let me worry about the dangers in the sky okay? Kay"
I felt a sense of weightlessness as I flew through the crisp night air after my blood caked clone through me through the air with the ease as if I were a simple ragdoll. The experience like most like it seemed pretty alright at the time till the inevitable happened and gravity reinserted its control over me and I started the terror inducing plummet back the ground. I heard my twin call out to me "Try flapping your arms like wings little mole maybe that will help you!" before my screams of terror filled the air as I plummeted back toward the earth.
Just as I was about to crash face first in the ground a crevice opened up like a gapping maul of the very world itself to sallow me whole. Just as I past the earthen lips of the crevice it shut itself sealing me into never ending darkness.
I awoke with a jerk my sky blue eyes snapping open. Looking around me I saw that I was in some sort of airplane cabin. Wait no, it's called an airship in this world instead. Looking behind me there was a window that looked outside across the clouds as we passed them by. To the left of me sat my long term friend Darrien Hunt. His auburn hair swayed slightly side to side as he bobbed his head to some song he had playing through his red ear buds. He wore his usual clothes today like always a long sleeved gray shirt with a dark black set of pants along with a few leather straps that acted as a harness for his weapons. Looking forward I saw our other two friends Lance Penrose and Diana Boltner sitting across from us in the hallway of the viewing gallery.
Logan like always decked out in what only could be his "Sunday best" if he lived in the wild west. He wore a white dress shirt with a black vest with gleaming silver colored buttons and tie to complete what he always referred to as proper gentleman's attire. His messy sandy brown hair shifting ever so slightly as head was tilted back over the headrest of the bench he sat on. He sleeped soundly through the duration of our trip.
Seated to Logan's right sat Diana in a pose that you would associate with how a refined lady should sit with one leg crossed over the other. She wore a red open jacket with long sleeves over a plain black shirt. Covering her hips was a short plaid skirt with a black lace at the bottom. The whole skirt ended around three-fourths down her thigh to her knees. Her long hair flowed down from her head like silver curtains flowing down ending just past to her shoulders. Her amber eyes staring directly at her scroll as she fiddled with some app or program on it.
After a few seconds Darrien seemed to notice my looking as he removed the earbud that was closest to me as he turned to face me with one of trademark grins firmly plastered onto his face. "Hey man how was the nap?" he asked good-naturedly setting his scroll to its standby mode before putting it away.
"Umm it was o-okay I guess…" I stuttered out looking away I wasn't really good at being the center of attention at all. I knew if I talked about the dream I had or that would be the focus of any conversation me and him had. I nervously fidgeted with the desert sand colored cloak I wore over my usual gear hoping for the conversation to switch to another topic.
Having been my friend for since grade school Darren knew me pretty well because he quickly changed the subject of the conversation for now "It's unreal you know how things turned out." He said his voice losing a bit of its normal cheer as he stared at his own clenched fist. "It's been five years since we all wound up here. I still feel like I might wake up one day back in my bed back home" he said putting extra emphasis on the word 'here' to get his message across.
After a few seconds of silence his mood did flipped going from seriousness back to his default mood of light hearted cheerfulness. "Just think man, we got into beacon. Us, just a bunch of no name crooks form the Badlands got into the premiere school for hunters and huntresses." He said as he started to lean back and rested his head against the glass viewing window of the airship. "I'm starting to think that things are finally looking up for the good old four amigos. No longer will we have break necks and let the heads roll in lawless lands of the badlands to barley get by but just knocking some bad guy heads and breaking their spines for the big bucks!" he exclaimed phantioming chocking some poor victim out.
"I think it might be be-better to focus on grim slaying" I barely whispered out. As always I would come across as the stark contrast of Darren. "I would rather only hurt those without a soul. I would feel less bad about it then."
Darren shook his head in response of my answer to his excited statement "No man what I'm talking about isn't about isn't the violence but how we are now new path a new adventure. It's like as if we beat the game and started the new game+ option." He said holding his chin in one of his hands and nodding slightly as if he was spouting some form of divine knowledge "we got a new start man with all of the EXP from before man. I think that deserves a special event flag to start this grand new quest we are going on" Darren started to rummage through the red army styled duffle bag next to him looking for something only Darren himself knew he needed in this exact moment.
"Umm what are you looking for?' I asked nervously I really hoped that this would end up to be on of Darrien's more tame ideas that he has I really didn't want for us to get into the massive amount of trouble that normally follows one of his 'event flags'. The last time one of those happen lead to us stumbling upon a nevermore nest.
"Ah ha!" Darren exclaimed as he must have found whatever he was looking for in his duffle bag. He removed his hand form his bag to reveal the thing that he was rummaging through his bag for. It turned out to a black permeant marker [was the thing he was searching for]. "Now Logan shall have to suffer the penalty event for failing this event flag by sleeping through the start of our journey!" Darren said as he struck a quick pose with the marker as if he were leading a charge into a great battle with his trusty sword raised in arm. Before he strides over to Logan's sleeping form, a devious smile formed on his face as he drew near to his sleeping victims form. I could do nothing but watch because whenever Darren got like this not much could deter him and it didn't seem like much could go wrong. I just hope that Logan won't mind this too much. I mean, sure he'll be mad for a bit but he won't hold the grudge for too long, will he?
I was broken from my thoughts by a loud burst of juvenile giggles by Darren as he started what he would call a 'Bonus painter mini game' on Logan's sleeping form with the practiced form only a skilled repeat offender could have. His light strokes did not seeming to disturb Logan from his sleep in the slightest. Diana not even looking up from her scroll as if she was trying her hardest to seem like she doesn't know us or notices what is going on but I see the slight changes in her demeanor such as the slight shaking in her shoulders as she seems to try and keep from giggling at the comedic scene that Darren seemed to be causing.
Darren pulled back from where he was leaning over Logan's sleeping form to reveal his great masterpiece. Drawn over Logan's face is a black drawn on monocle over his right eye and a large comical gentleman's mustache rested on his upper lip in the black ink of the marker that Darren still held in his as he gave one final check to look over his artwork for errors that he may have made. "looks good, now before we begin the event we just need to get rid of the evidence without drawing attention to ourselves." he stated the obvious pun in a low whisper as he seemed to think about what to do next.
I felt a cold sweat come over me as Darren seemed to process what to do next because this is usually the step in any 'event' Darren comes up with that normally everything comes crashing down around us like if he's a rock throwm at a glass house that we were still in. Not that it's always his fault its just that when Darren's habit of finding 'Adventure' where ever he is combines with my naturally bad luck, things tend to go from bad to worse. But maybe things are going to change like Darren said.
"Ha! I got it!" Darren exclaimed as he seemed to figure out a solution to the problem he had found for himself. Darren then leaned forward slowly and gently placed the black marker into the pocket that was on the black vest he was wearing. "there, now he will be the mostly likely culprit for the crime!" . He solved the problem the way only Darren could ever solve a problem for as long as I could remember, in a way the nobody would suspect, with a giant grin on his face.
The rest of the duration of the trip to vale was relatively peaceful as a whole. Logan just kept on sleeping for the rest of it. Diana went back to watching her scroll next to Logan's seeping form occasionally shifting his head to the side when it would fall over onto her shoulder in his sleep. Darren spent the time talking all about what new games he found to play on his scroll and where they placed on his top hundred adventure games list that he had started when he first found out about the small RPG game apps on the scrolls we had that we could play. He called the list 'one of his life's greatest quests' whenever someone new would ask about his life goals. It was up there with 'killing a giant dragon-like Grimm to save a princess' and 'finding a legendary blade of evil slaying to save the world'
The city of vale loomed in the distance as we neared our destination. The high walls that surrounded the cities connection to the continent growing larger stretching towards the clear blue sky. The walled city was more than just a large group of buildings hiding behind some massive concrete like walls to me and my friends. It held a deeper importance than one of the four major kingdom, no to us it was the symbol of a new start, a way to crawl out of the darkness that shallowed us for the three years since we arrived on this dying rock. Though I can feel my shake uncontrollably I know that like the legend of old that we would grasp and climb the spider's thread that would lead us back into the light.
"Wow!" Darren exclaimed as he stared out at the approaching city of vale breaking me out of my thoughts. His right arm resting on the top of the bench as he had turned his torso so he could face the window showing the city through it. "It has to be at least ten times bigger than any of the villages out in the badlands, talk about a map size increase!" tearing his eyes for the walled city to look me in the eyes as I heard Logan and Diana move over to where we were watching our approach to the city. The shaking in my hands subsided slightly as I felt a pair of hands rest on my shoulders as we looked out across the horizon. "Let's carve our own path through this quest!"
"It would be a shame to have to walk away before we even took the first step, no?" Diana hummed the question behind me, chiming in her own thoughts about the current situation. I didn't have to look back at her to now she probably had a smirk on her face as she thought about the new dawn we were going to face soon. "So, any words to christen this new start for our rag-tag group our fearless leader?" she asked giving my shoulder a good squeeze as she asked me shifting the attention of the group onto me away from the window of the airship causing me to squirm under their combined gaze.
I was scrambling in my mind to think of something to cool to say to them in what could be one of the, No the most inspiring moment in our lives. I needed to not screw this up they deserved this much for sticking by me all these years. Oh my god what if I screwed this up? That single thought seemed to cause me to spiral out of control in my thought process. They might of finally had enough of me and they decided to all leave me for not even being about to do this much. I mean what kind of leader couldn't even give his team a good inspiring line from time to time. If they left me I wouldn't even be able to work up the nerve to take the entrance exam for beacon in the first place much less make it in the actual school. Even if I did would always be alone because no one would want some failure like me on their team. I would be alone on the cruel cold streets having to beg for scrapes or return to a life of crime.
"You okay there man?" Darren asked shaking me slightly dragging me away from my dark train of thoughts. "you have something you want to say or are you going for the mysterious ever silent lone wolf leader type this play through?" he said jokingly a hint of concern peeking through his light hearted tone "because I don't think you might have the stats to pull off something like that. I think you might prefer the smart, kind hearted leader instead" he finished ruffling my hair with as he did so.
"Umm-umm. L-ets t-t-ry our best?" I offered up weakly as I finally built up the courage to say anything at all. I was meet in silence after I gave my 'inspiring words' to my team mentally kicking myself for giving such a lackluster response to question Diana and Darren gave me.
Then out of nowhere Darren busted into a belting laugh startling my in how quick overtook the air. "Nice!" he yelled in between his laughs giving me a thumbs up with one arm as the other was clutched around his side as if to contain his side splitting laughter. "Classic! Retro! The perfect line any good hero needs to say to start off a great adventure!" the words he said driving back any dark thoughts in my mind with their pure honest tone. His idiotic grin spread across his face alone made me feel foolish for doubting the friendship we had.
A tired sigh broke though Diana's grin as covered her face with one of her hands pretending as if she at her wits end with how I acted. "Certainly quite the speech to start off our new life with."
A sturdy hand clamped down onto my shoulder causing me to shift my gaze form the doubled over form of Darren to look at the form of Logan to sit on the opposite side of me form Darren. "Don't worry about what words you say friend, for you do not have a silver tongue for such an effort." He stated with his usual proper gentlemanly tone which was dampened by his tiredness from just waking up from just waking up the hour long rest he had on our current flight to Vale. "But do not fret my dear friend, it is as a wise gentleman said "A man's worth isn't in his words but his acts" and my, what you have done for us more than anything has proved your worth" Logan started to adjust his tie as he finished taking his hand off of my shoulder.
We just sat there enjoying the silence as we wait the last few moments of our travel to our new beginning it was hard to believe it had been only five since we had woken up in that godforsaken place. It had felt as if centuries had passed since then we weren't the same people we were when we arrived here in this world of monsters those that hunt them.
"Attention passengers" the automated female voice over the speakers in the observation deck of the airship. "We will arrive at our destination shortly please remember to collect all of your belongings before leaving the airship. We hold no responsibility for any items that are left aboard the airship." The airship started to slow as it neared it's landing platform in the city of Vale.
"Th-this is i-it guys" I managed to stuttered out as I began looking through my duffle bag to make sure I that everything I had was together in my bag. The others were doing the same as me Logan and Diane walked back to where their bags were on the opposite side's benches.
"Hey Bastion" Darren said not looking up from his duffle bag "Remember you aren't alone man, we will always have your back so don't worry too much." His face was like it was set in stone determination chiseled into face. His face remain that way for all of a second before it sprung back to his usual carefree look a wide grin filled face turning to face me. "For a fair share of loot and EXP of course."
/chapter end/
/AN/
Well this is my first fiction that I am posting online so I hope that it is not too horrible. I have to give a big thanks to one my very good friends who helped me write this and proof read this before posting it. I know I am not the first to write this type of fanfiction and that I won't be one of the better writers trying to write either. If anyone that decides to read this wants to help me out and point out any errors in it I would be very great full.