Why Video Game Characters Aren't Allowed to Add-Lib

The Epilogue

Once upon a time, in a theater far, far away...

Upon first glance, the cinema appeared empty of all life. But a well-trained eye would know better, and if one looked closely enough, they could see the outlines of three figures in the middle rows: two somewhat humanoid on one row, and in the row behind them, a most definite human. On the screen, they watched not a movie, but a cut scene from a video game. In fact, it was the last images one would see upon playing and completing the game "Legacy of Kain: Defiance", and the fact that they were playing on a large movie screen was no surprise. This was Edios Interactive's private game-viewing theater; it was designed specifically for the purpose of letting the characters of their games see how their scenes had turned out.

The three figures sat silently as they watched Kain walk into a large chamber and stare through a massive crack out towards the ruined Pillars of Nosgoth. He contemplated the Soul Reaver, it's skull's eyes glowing with Raziel's possession of the blade.

"Now, at last, the masks have fallen away," Kain was saying in a voice over, "The strings of the puppets had become visible and the hands of the prime mover exposed. Most ironic of all was Raziel's last gift to me: more powerful than the sword that now held his soul, more acute even than the vision his sacrifice accorded me. The first, bitter taste of that terrible illusion..."

There was a brief pause as Kain changed his gaze from the Reaver, back out to the Pillars. "Hope."

The scene faded to black and then to the credits. One set of human hands, along with two sets of clawed, talon like hands began to clap. As the lights came up, they revealed the human to be none other than Director Amy Henning who had gone to much stress and trouble to finish this game on time. The two in front of her were none other than Kain and Raziel themselves, both perfectly fine after their long endeavor.

"Wonderful," Kain said, still clapping slowly. "Very well done. The best one yet."

"He's right," Raziel agreed, turning around to look at the director with his glowing white eyes. "And not just the best of your, I mean, our Soul Reaver games, either. That's the best game in the series to date..."

Director Henning smiled. "I'm glad you boys think so," she said, "But of course, you know I couldn't have done it without my stars."

"Yes, yes, sing our praises," Kain said smugly as he reached for his mug filled with blood-flavored cocoa, now with "Legacy of Kain: Defiance" written on the side with a picture of both Kain and Raziel swinging their respective Reavers. The director just rolled her eyes. "Hey, Raziel, do that thing again..."

Raziel groaned and looked at Kain. "Oh, come on, I've done it all night," he groaned, "And besides, it's not even really my line, it's Michael Bell's..."

"Your close enough," Kain said with a shrug, and then took a drink of his cocoa. "Come on, do it!"

Raziel sighed. "Fine..." He said, then began to say in a rather sing-song voice, "My name is Raziel, his name is Kain. We are together once again."

Kain gave a loud snort, followed by bellowing laughter that seemed almost unnatural coming out of the old vampire. "Oh, I love it!" he cried out, "Love it!" He grinned a bit as he wiped a tear from his eye. "Yes, Director Henning, I believe that about sums it up, all and all. We may dislike one another from time to time, but together, we are an unstoppable team."

"Well, you know, we didn't get there by ourselves," Raziel said sensibly, "After all, we almost stopped ourselves in that last scene together..."

"Ah, yes, the Spirit Forge," Kain mused, "And of course, Razielia...We owe that little freak a lot."

"Now, Kain, it's not polite to call Razielia a freak," Amy Henning said gently. "Even if she was a fashion crazy, transsexual, soul reaving drag queen from another reality..."

"Since when did I give a shit about being polite?" Kain replied bluntly. Director Henning just shrugged—hard to disagree with that.

"Yeah, she was a lot of trouble, but she proved herself useful in the end," Raziel said, now staring at the screen as it rolled the last of the credits. "Especially when she told off Kain." Raziel wished he could smirk as he heard Kain growl. "Speaking of which, where is the little Drag Reaver anyway?"

"Razielia?" Director Henning asked, though she already knew the answer to that question, "Oh, she was so moved by your sacrifice, Raziel, that she decided that it was time for her to go home and face her own demons, so she left."

"She left?" Raziel said, blinking. He turned around in his seat to look at the director, almost spilling his can of "Spirit Plasma Cola" as he did so. "As in, she could?"

"Oh, sure," Director Henning shrugged, "All she really had to do was sweet talk the Elder God into sending her back where she came from. I think the only reason she didn't sooner was because she was quite taken with you, Raziel."

"That's it?!" Raziel's white eyes flashed a bit, "You mean, she could have up and left pretty much whenever she wanted?! The lying hussy! She told me she didn't know how to get home!"

It was Kain's turn to snicker at Raziel's dilemma, thinking as he did so Some things will never change between us. "Oh, come now, Raziel," he said smugly, "At least that way you had a groupie following you around." Then, suddenly, a thought struck Kain for the first time since entering the cinema. He mentally kicked himself or not wondering about it sooner. "Raziel, if you sacrificed yourself to create the Soul Reaver and are now imprisoned inside the blade...what are you doing here?"

Raziel shoved his outrage aside for the moment and shrugged at Kain. "Animators," he answered, "and developers, and other such people. They made a new me for...Well, for me. You know, for just such an occasion as this..."

The director chuckled and shook her head. "Speaking of which, I have a bit of last minute tweaking to do. You two enjoy yourselves—I presume you know the way out. Oh, and try not to wreck anything...you heard what happened when Croft viewed her last game."

"Oh, yeah," Kain shook his head, "Got mad at that what's-his-face she was working with...I hear Edios just got done rebuilding the theater after that little incident."

"Exactly, so don't make them do it again," Director Henning said, and then stood, "No matter how tempting it may get. Now, if you will excuse me..."

As the director made her way from the cinema, Kain and Raziel exchanged glances.

"What does she mean, 'No matter how tempting it may get'?" Raziel asked, reaching for a half-eaten box of candies labeled "Chocolate Covered Soul Bites". Kain shook his head.

"No clue," he replied, then curled his lip at the box of Soul Reaver candy. "I can't believe you eat that..."

"Hey, this is the first time I've been able to have chocolate in centuries!" Raziel exclaimed. Then, as though to prove his point, he pulled his tabard forward and poured a few chocolate-covered bits of someone's soul down it. He let his tabard fall back into place and looked at Kain. "Besides, it's no worse than asking for extra bloodon your popcorn, as you did."

Kain smirked and glanced at the empty bucket in the seat next to him. "That I did, and enjoyed it to fullest extent," he turned back to Raziel, "One more time."

"Kain, no!" Raziel groaned and shook his head. "Okay, one more if it'll make you leave me alone. My name is Raziel, his name is Kain—"

"Hey, guys!" came a familiar voice, and both Kain and Raziel's eyes widened as they spun around to look.

Coming towards them, balancing some sort of carbonated drink and a large tub of bloody popcorn as he squeezed between seats, was none other than Janos Audron, who was proud to say he spent his off-hours 100 Hylden Lord Free. "Has it started yet?" he asked curiously as he sat down next to Raziel.

"Has what started yet?" Raziel asked, baffled. "You mean the private screening? It's over, and besides, it was for Kain, Director Henning, and I only..."

"Oh, that was the first one," Janos said as he raised his drink to his lips. After he was done, he wiped his mouth and looked at Raziel. "This screening is for everyone from Nosgoth. Hey, Kain, have you tried this Blood-A-Cola? It's surprisingly refreshing..."

"Everyone...from...Nosgoth?" Kain blinked, shared a concerned glance with Raziel, and then looked back to Janos. "As in...everyone from Defiance?"

Janos laughed and shook his head. "Goodness, no," he said with a chuckle, "No, everyone. From all the games, I hear..."

Raziel and Kain shared another look.

"I think it's time to leave," Raziel said, sounding somewhat urgent.

"Agreed," Kain replied. They got up to walk out, only to see Nupraptor and Ariel walking towards them. Raziel took a moment to wonder how they could stand to look at each other, considering one was dead and half decayed and the other had a giant green head, but then he realized that thought sounded like a case of the pot calling the kettle black.

"That won't work," Kain mumbled, then turned to see that a group of Turelim vampires had already seated themselves in front of them. "That either...Great, now what?"

Raziel looked around, and was shocked to see how rapidly the cinema was filling up. Already he could make out the rest of the Circle of Nine sitting two rows down and to the right, and Vorador discussing something with Sebastian and Marcus three rows down and to the left. Near center, two rows down from Vorador, King Ottomar had set up shop with his entire court, including his daughter. Raziel wondered if Kain even bothered to learn her name before he sent her father off to slaughter in "Blood Omen". "There's no one behind us," he said as he looked behind his seat.

"Go for it," Kain said. They climbed over their own seats into the row behind them, turned and began to run down towards the nearest exit. Unfortunately, that path quickly became blocked by the Elder God's numerous tentacles (his one giant eye fixed firmly on the screen as he waited for the reel to run), and as they tried to figure out another way out, yet another voice made itself known.

"Kain, you dirty, rotten, son of a bitch!"

Kain cringed. He'd recognize that voice anywhere. Warily, he turned towards the sound and saw none other than Umah, the vampire he'd once loved and murdered (as well as dumped into water after being drugged) marching towards them.

Raziel was suddenly glad he'd never killed any of his mistresses before Kain had him executed.

"Uh...er..Umah...Umah!" Kain faked a friendly smile, which was rather bad and made his unease stick out like a sore thumb. "How nice to see you again..."

"Don't give me that shit, you murderous bastard," she growled. "You saved me, you gave me hope, you questioned me...and then you went all crazy and started dancing around like a lunatic singing about hope!! Not to MENTION dropping me to my doom...which you did again later on!"

"I, um, er..." Kain looked about, frantic. His eyes fell on Raziel. "Oh, Umah! Allow me to introduce to you my fallen son, the spirit of the Soul Beaver..."

"Reaver," Raziel quietly interjected.

"...Soul Reaver, Raziel."

"Ha! Your own sword and you can't even say it!" Umah snorted, then turned to Raziel, her demeanor changing so quickly the only word Raziel could thing of to describe it was "bi-polar". "Greetings, Raziel. I am Umah."

"Nice to meet you," Raziel said politely, "I've heard so much about you. All good, of course."

"Damn well better be," Umah snarled and turned back to Kain. "And what do you have to say for yourself, after all these years?? Well???"

Kain, having been caught by surprise by the encounter to begin with, did one of the worst things he possibly could have. He said the first thing that came to mind. "Well, they always told me that Hell hath no fury like a woman's scorn..."

"WHAT?!" Umah roared, making both Kain and Raziel cringe. (He wasn't sure, but Kain could have almost sworn he saw the Elder God's eye squint in a cringe as well.)

Just before Umah could really unload on them, Elzevir the Dollmaker ran into the cinema. "Come quick!" he yelled, "Mortanius is fighting Mortanius in the lobby!" There was a great deal of commotion, and then everyone began to file out, even Umah. The statement had been quite the curiosity catalyst, after all, and after a few moments, even Raziel and Kain had to give into temptation and go see.

In a rather large lobby, complete with extensive snack bar (the lettered menu reading "Welcome Nosgoth! Special Prices on Blood-A-Cola, Blood Flavored Cocoa, and Chocolate Covered Soul Bites! Don't forget to get your Reaver Cookies—They're Out of This Realm!"), two strikingly similar figures wrestled each other on the carpeted floor. One was darker, more fragile looking—in fact, he appeared almost to be a corpse though he held his own quite well. The other, however, favored red attire, and looked very human, especially when compared to the other.

"You lying son of a jackal!" the more fragile looking, black-clothed one yelled in a voice so eerily similar to the Elder God's it made Raziel shudder. "I am Mortanius, Guardian of Death!"

The other, fleshier individual laughed as he kneed the former in the gut. "You are old news, old man!" he exclaimed, "They redesigned you, changed your mythos, even took your voice away and gave it to a giant squid! Now I'm Mortanius, Guardian of Death!"

"What's going on?" Kain asked, perplexed.

"Well," said the devolved Melchiah beside them, (Raziel suddenly remembered being possessed by Michael Bell's other voices, and knew he could sympathize with the older Mortanius when he heard the Elder God speak), "Apparently, no one introduced Mortanius to...well, Mortanius before tonight, and when he saw the new and improved version...Well, he wasn't happy."

"I bet," said Raziel, sympathetically.

They watched for a few minutes as the two Mortanius' wrestled each other. The crowd began to take sides (the older Mortanius' glee club led by the Elder God, of course, and the newer one's lead by Ariel) and chants began to run through the crowd. A few, namely Moebius and Vorador, placed bets on the outcome. All the while, the situation was escalating.

Plus, Kain reflected, Umah was still running around somewhere.

"We have got to get out of here," Kain said, and looked around. "But most of the crowd is standing in front of the doors. There has to be another way..."

"Well, it's been my experience that if you can't find a way in the Material Realm, you can in the Spectral," Raziel said knowingly.

"Oh, a lot of good that does me," Kain snorted, then blinked. He gave Raziel a wary look. "Unless you're implying what I think you are..."

Not for the first time, Raziel wished he could smirk. Instead, he just held out a clawed hand and said in his best Arnold Schwarzenagger mimic, "Come with me if you want to live."

Kain groaned, but rather than stick around and wait for Umah to find him again, he accepted the offer. As Raziel's energy flowed around them, and their bodies dematerialized as the faded into the Spectral Realm, Kain asked, "I'm going to end up regretting this, aren't I?"

Raziel eyes seemed to brighten. "Oh," he said in a happily smug voice, "probably."

"At least your honest," Kain sighed as he made his first journey into the Spectral Realm hoping it wouldn't also be his last.

The End