With blood red eyes, damaged clothes and the deranged grin of an uncontrollable maniac, the teenage newman boy opened fire, with twin photon submachine guns, on figures moving in the darkness, just beyond the reach of the moon's pale blue light. With each round, that sped off into the darkness, his cackle grew louder and with each sickening splatter said round gave off, his grin grew wider, as shot after shot impacted the flesh of his targets. And as the clouds above temporarily recede to allow the full shine of the moon to illuminate the ground, the true horror of the event is shown. The retreating darkness reveals him standing on the very top of a literal mountain of monstrous, mutilated corpses, with hands sticking out on all sides and grotesque faces locked in horrified grins, the buildings on either side covered in the tale-tale signs of a sustained firefight and in the night sky, an enormous circular object slowly eclipsing the moon from right to left.
As the object draws closer, blocking out more and more of the moon's light, so do the figures, using the cover of the encroaching darkness to hide their movements.
And as the object's eclipsing of the moon turned the celestial body into a crescent, the newman kid was suddenly overcome by a wave of despair, that forced him to drop his guns and grab his head, falling to his knees with a look of pure horror on his face. Screaming in agonizing pain, he reached upwards as if trying to grab the last sliver of light, before it was extinguished forever, as the parts of his body touched by the darkness turned black and began disintegrating until, moments later, the darkness finally engulfed him, covering his face as his screams came to an end…
That is when, jumping out from under the covers of his bed, his head contacted the shelf above, with a rather nasty sounding *krack* that immediately sent him right back down to the bed below.
"SonOvA…!" he began angrily spurting out quite a few moments later, as the realization and pain, of just what had happened, sank in and his right hand darted to the spot on his head that had just become a possible reason for a brisk stroll down to the local E.R.
With his heart running a mile a minute from his nightmare and now the mother of all headaches pounding away at his noggin like a bass drum from hell, he halfheartedly stumbled towards the bathroom, knocking over a lamp and a vertical rack of optical disks on the way. "Man, what a nightmare…" He thought as he, still somewhat woozy from the double whammy of the hit and the sudden wake-up, turned on the light and, both hands firmly grasping the sink, began examining the extent of his injury in the mirror.
"Owww… SonOvA…." He cursed in a low tone as he brushed aside locks of his dark hair, searching for the offending area on his head. "That was a hair's breath away from turning nasty." he finally concluded, wincing in pain, as the cursory mirror examination of his skull revealed no bleeding or any other signs of injury, besides a very large lump.
Having decided that his head was ok for the moment, his dizziness had subsided and that the menacing growls coming from nearby were just his stomach protesting, the newman kid decided to tackle the next biggest concern on his to do list. Namely, answer the doorbell that had been aggravating his headache for the past fifteen or so minutes.
Wanting to shout something to whoever was at the door, but deciding against it at the last minute, he halfheartedly went to check who it was, still wearing nothing more than his pajamas and a very messed up hairdo.
"Yea?" He said as the view screen of the door's exterior greeted him with the image of a blond male human, somewhere in his twenties, wearing a bright red jacked, a white pair of pants, red boots, goofy pair of glasses and a small package under his right arm.
"Good afternoon!, I'm from Giro Express with a package for a Mr…" He said pausing for a moment to check his clipboard Yut "Yuto" Jun Yunkers.
"Yeah, that's me…" The kid said as he moved to unlock the door. "Though I'm not expecting anything. So, who's it from?" He asked as he unlocked the door to get a better view of the courier.
"No idea, there's no return address and the delivery's been paid for upfront." The courier replied with an upbeat demeanor, before handing Yuto the package and the clipboard he was carrying. "Sign here please."
Not one to refuse a freebie, Yuto looked at the package containing his name and nickname, shrugged, then signed and returned the man's clipboard, figuring it was maybe some package his parents sent him from whatever colony, space or otherwise, they had been detached to defend.
"Have a nice day." The man said as he turned away, heading for the stairs at the end of the hallway.
Since his parents, a beast father and a newman mother, were mercenaries under the employment of some private contractor, Yuto neither new nor cared about, they were often deployed on long missions throughout the solar system. That meant that Yuto, as an only child, was often times alone for months, before his parents returned for an equal number of months of rest and relaxation. And during the times they were away, they would often send him stuff they found on their missions, labeling the packages with both his name Yut Jun Yunkers, as well as his nickname Yuto, so he would know where those packages came from.
Curious about the package's contents, he locked the door then made his way to the kitchen, fully intent on first silencing the beast that was his stomach, whose angry growls demanded the blood of the innocents…, or at least a koltova sandwich, to pipe down.
Sandwich in hand, Yuto's attention returned to the package and, after bumbling a one handed open, pulled out an odd-looking device from inside the small box. The device, which looked like the bottom part of a sawed off cone, measuring a little over two centimeters in height and about five in diameter, had a big red stylized X on the bottom along with some very small text above, that together read Nanotranser X.
Nanotransers, he knew, were devices primarily used to store large amounts of items, in small amounts of space, with high end models additionally incorporating the kind of functionality one would typically associate with small, powerful computers. And to top things off, they do all that with no physical interface or controls to speak of. Once activated, they wirelessly link to the user's brain, responding to their thoughts as gracefully as if they were a biological part of their users' bodies.
How they did all that, he did not know. All he knew what that they tended to be on the... "expensive" side, to say the least, with X versions the bane of wallets the world over.
His curiosity peaked, at what could possibly be so big or important as to require something this expensive to store, Yuto gulped the remaining sandwich in one bite, then headed to the living room, confident he'd need all the space he could offer, for whatever would be stored inside.
Grabbing the Nanotranser with both hands, he twisted the upper part clockwise and the lower part anti-clockwise, until he heard an electronic voice inside his mind.
"Nanotranser X powering on… Authenticating user… User authenticated! Welcome Yut "Yuto" Jun Yunkers … Establishing cerebral link to user… Link established!… Imprinting on user… Imprint complete!… Nanotranser X Online."
Although the device offered Yuto a variety of options for managing its contents, Yuto was too impatient to sift through everything by hand and so, with a simple command, he emptied the Nanotranser of all its contents… and got the surprise of his life at what he saw.
Guns! A bewildering amount of every type of gun, sword, saber, whip and WhatHaveYou available on the open market and probably the grey one as well.
While owning weapons was nothing new on any of the planets, the governments going so far as to allow people to own most types without a license, they were nonetheless not cheap and the arsenal before him had to have set someone back a cool couple grand, in the least.
More than a little intrigued by the strange delivery, Yuto returned his attention towards the box hoping to find a letter or something that would explain the armory he had just been made owner of. One inside out turning of the box and no anything later, as curiosity started making way for frustration, Yuto picked up the closest weapon in the pile, a weird, elongated, crab claw like organic rifle, the Nanotranser listed as being called a Bringer Rifle and then threw himself on the nearby couch. Gun savvy enough not to take off the safety, he began casually examining it, occasionally sifting through the Nanotranser's listing of its specs, ultimately limiting himself to just admiring its intricate design. It wasn't until several minutes later that a sudden thought crossed his mind and one quick check of the energy level later, Yuto realized that this day, had just taken a turn for the interesting.
The gun's energy cell was only partly charged.
What made that so noteworthy? The fact that energy weapons, like the Bringer Rifle, cannot be charged to anything other than full, no matter what charge you're starting from, as a side effect of the physics and technology that make portable energy weapons so common and accessible. Thus, the fact its cell is anything BUT fully charged or completely empty, meant that THIS particular weapon was used. The fact it came in an anonymous package, didn't do much to help either.
Intrigued, Yuto started browsing through the nanotranser's listings, for the other directed energy weapons, checking energy levels along the way.
Used… All energy weapons inside were used. Some extensively, others less so.
"Okay… so an anonymous package full of used weapons… Nope! Nothing suspicious about that at all…" Yuto said out loud. "Do I keep it, give it to the cops or throw it away and pretend I didn't see anything?" He asked himself, as a cold bead of sweat trickled down the back of his neck. They were obviously not from his parents. They'd never send him anything like this. "Well, I obviously can't keep these, so... send it to the cops." he though. "But would they buy that I don't know who sent them to me? I mean, mail with enough weapons to topple a government, doesn't exactly sound like THE most credible of stories. And plus, the cops are run by the CASTs. Damn machines might throw me in jail just to pad out their statistics. Didn't have any qualms about doing just that to dad's cousin, ol'… WhatsHisName…"
"So I can't keep 'em and I can't turn 'em over…" he mused. "What should I do… What. Should. I. Do? GOT IT! Tyrol!" The answer, he had been looking for, finally hit him. "Tyrol's got ties to the rogues." Yuto said, bolting from the couch, nanotranser in hand. "If anyone can get rid of this stuff, it's those guys!" He figured, as he collected all the weapons back into the device, before making a line for his room, to get some black, rogue-esque clothes that would'nt draw any attention, where he was going.
Moments later, he grabbed the hover board he kept next to the main entrance and, at full speed, dashed down the building's stairs and towards the nearest bus station, hoping to catch the afternoon bus from Rozenom to Melvore.
Hovering at break neck speeds along the streets, he dodged people, obstacles and vehicles, being more than a little grateful for the fact that he lived in Rozenom, which was populated by a mix of humans, newmans and beasts and not any of the other major cities which were all run by CASTs.
It was safe to say that Parum had the strangest political situation of any planet in the Gurhal solar system. Though only about fifty thousand in number, as opposed to the hundreds of millions of humans, elf like newmans and beasts, the sentient AIs known as CASTs ruled with an iron fist, backed in no small part by the mostly CAST run Alliance Military Force, stationed in and around the planet itself. The CASTs that had usurped control, over one hundred years ago and which made up less than one percent of the planet's population, ran all aspects of life, either directly or indirectly, from the planetary government down to the privately owned corporations.
Only two exceptions existed to this rule…
The first exception were the two independent cities of Melvore, run by a mix of all three non–CAST races and Rozenom, the GUARDIAN led city that operated under the same equality laws and legislation as the GUARDIANS colony directly above, in geostationary orbit around the planet.
And the second exception was the Parum Transportational Authority, the largest non-CAST run section of the governing body. Theoretically, in charge of all of Parum's transportation infrastructure, it was in practice handed over to the non – CAST races in order to keep them placated and only handled the two cities not under CAST control and their suburbs. Underfunded and under equipped, the PTA still fielded archaic technologies such as wheeled vehicles and steel rail trains, as CASTs made sure to turn the PTA into the laughing stock of the Gurhal system.
However, politics was the last thing on Yuto's mind right now as he sped towards the closest station, hoping to catch the bus that would be leaving for Melvore. Luckily for him, the bus was just then arriving and so he caught a front row seat with an unimpeded view of the surrounding area.
Settling in for the long road ahead, Yuto let his mind wander as the bus closed its doors and began pulling out of the station, with the seven or so other people that were also on their way to Melvore or the surrounding towns.
With time to spare, he began pondering about just who might want to frame him for anything and why. Could it be someone he knew? It had to be, since the package had his nickname on it. If so, who and why... why was…
It was at this point however that he was snapped out of his reverie when it dawned on him that, although there was nothing else in front, the bus had stopped and had been idling for the better part of the past 15 minutes. Brought back to reality from his daydream, Yuto began scanning his surroundings for whatever reason the driver might have had to stop, since they couldn't possibly have reached Melvore in such a short time frame.
"Driver, what's the matter? We can't be there already!" Yuto asked, as his attention was drawn to the combination of a faint rhythmic beats and something off in the distance to the right.
"Haven't ya heard? War ended hundred five years ago today. Then ther's today bein' 5 years since Karen Erra got picked the Divine Maiden. She's gonna' be leadin' a massive parade for both events comin' down the crossroad up ahead. And we gotta' sit tight 'till it passes." The beast driver, a scruffy looking man in his forties, with a messy beard and a purple trench coat, replied, turning the best he could, in his seat, to get somewhat of a look at the newman kid. "Downtown's still close, so if 'ya wanna' bail an' find some other way to git where ya'r goin' then be my guest." He then said as he turned back towards the front of the bus, making a move with his hand to show that he will open the door if Yuto wants to leave.
"No, I can wait. Parade can't be THAT long." Yuto replied still looking at the proceedings of the parade that was now starting to come into full view. Waiting there in his seat, he watched as the parade drew closer and closer. First to pass were six or so police cars in groups of two, followed by a platoon of fully armed AMF CAST soldiers, then a motorcade consisting of ever heavier vehicles starting from light scouts and going up to things like support vehicles, artillery, tanks and the list went on. And it soon dawned on Yuto that this parade WAS going to take THAT long, since it was now 35 minutes since the first vehicles passed and the parade was not even one third through.
"Driver!…" Yuto eventually called out, as his frustration at the whole situation started to get the better of him. "Kraz kid, just Kraz. Ya' make it out like I'm your chauffeur or sometin'. Ya' wanna' bail?" He intuitively cut short Yuto's request, while opening the door closest to himself so he could get a full view of the kid as he passed by. "Subway's that way." He added, gesturing with one hand in the general direction of the downtown area. "Scram. Ya'll pro'ly get ther' before I will."
"Uh…thanks…" Yuto bewilderedly replied, not expecting the driver to be this frank.
In one move, he brought up his hover board and gunned it in the direction of downtown, again darting in and around cars, people and obstacles, some destroyable, most not. Had he thought things through, from the beginning, then he probably would have gone for the subway in the first place since, in hindsight, it was definitely the better option. But alas, he hadn't and now he was paying the price for his hasty decision, since by going all out, he missed a few turns and, soon enough, found himself lost in a part of the sprawling metropolis that he had never been to before. Even better, he was lost in the closest thing Rozenom had to a red light district.
"Oh you have GOT to be KIDDING me!" He practically shouted as he jumped off then kicked his hover board across the street, when he saw and failed to recognize the name of said street. "What else could go wrong today!?" He again shouted as he furiously crossed the street then kicked his hover board again, sending it into a darkened alley. "WHAT?" He shouted as he stomped in the direction of the hover board and onto the darkened alley with every intention of kicking said hover board one more time for good measure.
Something, which he should not have done, this time around, since this time, his hit sent the hover board on the perfect path needed to land a headshot on the kind of individual you REALLY don't want to meet on a dark alley.
Turning around while clutching his head, the leather clad beast, towering at over two and a half meters, made direct eye contact, then grabbing the nearby hover board approached Yuto fully intent on inflicting some serious amounts of pain on the newman kid. "You the one responsible for this?" He asked raising the hover board to Yuto's eye level. "Well, are you?!" He irately repeated his question, before slamming the board against his knee, breaking it clean in half.
Trying not to show any fear, but more or less petrified, Yuto's mind raced for an answer and sure enough, he got one when he noticed that this guy was wearing the kind of outfit that showed he belonged to the same gang as his old acquaintance Tyrol, the guy he was on his way to see.
"Not my intention. Say, have you seen Tyrol around lately? I'm an old acquaintance of his." He said, trying to show as much confidence as possible, under the given situation.
"Is that so? Well, he ain't here. What's a runt like you want with someone like him anyway?" The guy replied, throwing the two halves of the hover board to either side.
"He wants something and you should know how mad he gets if things don't go his way. You know where he is?" Yuto, showing a little more confidence after seeing that mentioning Tyrol hit a chord, replied.
"You don't say..." He said moving to one side… "Well in that case…brothers! Come here a minute!" he called to his fellow gang members, in hiding nearby.
"Yea brother?" Said a newman, dropping down from a nearby rooftop.
"You called brother?" Came a second voice, this one from a human, that had been waiting in the darkened stairway of one of the nearby buildings.
"This kid has something important for Tyrol." He said with a grin on his face, as his friends pulled out a photon cutlass and a handgun respectively. "Here's what we'll do kid. As of late, we've had some… issues with the guy and we figure that if we were to deliver whatever it is that's so important to him, then maybe he'll get off our backs for a while. So, hand over whatever it is he wants and you're free to go. That sound like a fair deal?"
"Thanks, but… that's pretty much the reason I'm delivering it…" Yuto said, as he started slowly walking backwards… before darting off in the opposite direction, with two of the gang members in hot pursuit.
Although it seemed like he would be getting away, it wasn't long before Yuto turned around a corner and was hit square in the chest with a crowbar, instantly falling to the ground in pain.
Turns out, as soon as he ran, the third gang member took a short-cut and was able to get right in front, in perfect position to take action. Even more, he was aiming for Yuto's head, but only through dumb luck, on Yuto's behalf, aimed too low.
Now, in a crumpled mess in the alley dirt, Yuto clutched his chest as the other two punks caught up with their "brother".
"Do you think you're the first to try running from us?" The newman gangster taunted, still holding the crowbar in his hand.
"Yea, we know this place like the backs of our hands." The human said, as he moved near Yuto's head and kicked a patch of dirt straight in the newman kid's face.
"Get up." The beast gangster now said, as he grabbed Yuto by the collar of his jacket, lifting him up to eye level… then threw him back further down the alley, out of view of any potential passersby.
Realizing that he's a goner, if he doesn't act now, he turned to his last hope, the device that started everything and the reason he's in this mess to begin with. Reaching into his pocket as he struggled to stand up before the three gangsters got to him, he sifted through the Nanotranser's contents in search of something, anything, that would give him an edge. But all it contained were weapons and, soon enough, he was forced to do what he had been trying so hard to avoid. He called up the first twin handguns he could equip and, staggering to his feet, pointed the guns in the direction of his attackers.
"Hold it brothers, he's actually putting up a fight." The beast said as he motioned for the other two to stop.
"This might get interesting... I call dibs!" The newman gangster said, as he called up a technic wand and equipped a line shield.
"Good thing you didn't hit him in the face" The human said, as he called out a GRM rifle and a line shield.
"Alright kid, make it interesting and you might still walk away from this." The beast then said, as he called out a pair of heavy iron fist gloves and a line shield.
Not waiting for an invitation, Yuto immediately opened fire with the two handguns and hit the beast with two shots, while the human and newman took one shot each… for all the good it did him. Their line shields had easily absorbed the hits, something his Nanotranser handily informed him of.
Since the earliest days of Nanotranser existance, their computers have not only been used to manage thir contents, but also provide situational analysis as the situation demanded. As a result, a Nanotranser's computer and sensors could accurately measure just how much damage an attack inflicted on an opponent's shields and would display this to the user in the form of numbers floating away from the target, after each hit.
And now, this function informed Yuto that his attacks had only drained about 100 units of power from the beast's shield and 50 from his partners'.
"That the best you got kid?" The newman teased as he readied his wand and prepped a Megid technic. "Tell ya what, seeing as how we're not in any particular hurry to do anything or be anywhere, I figure we'll let you take another stab at us. Now, HIT US!" He shouted as Yuto replaced his handguns with the first twin submachine guns he found… and instantly dropped them on the ground in shock, as he realized by their look, weight and general feel, that those submachine guns were the exact same ones he was firing, from atop the mountain of corpses, in his dream.
"I don't believe this." The newman said, as his brothers started laughing hysterically at Yuto dropping his arms. "I'm embarrassed to even think that I considered you the least bit interesting. You're nothing but a dumb klutz who can't even hold a gun." He said as he deactivated his line shield in mockery, on the premise that he'd rather save it for when he'd be out killing something more dangerous, like say a cat.
Raising his wand he triggered the Megid, an ink blue ball of photons known to sometimes cause instant death regardless of armor, that went speeding towards its intended target, Yut Jun Yunkers. Rolling towards Yuto it seemed like this was it for the young newman, that he was destined to die in this unnamed alley, at the hands of some unnamed gangsters… until it impacted the side of a doublesaber, bouncing off and to the side, hitting a nearby building. In what was literally the last possible moment, Yuto had managed to call up and parry with whatever weapon could block a technic, in this case a light pink doublesaber with a three pronged leaf design, that the Nanotranser listed as being called "Vivienne".
"A Vivienne? Really?" The newman hung his head in disbelief while his brothers were practically rolling on the ground in laughter. "You actually went ahead and used a girl's weapon? Man you're more pathetic that I thought." He said as he switched from a wand to a pair of Twin Knives, then started slowly walking towards Yuto, confident his target was in no condition to put up a fight.
But just as he got close, Yuto slashed at him with the Vivienne, forcing him to dodge backwards so as to not get hit.
"You little punk!" He protested as he moved back in range to take a slash at Yuto.
But by again managing to block, Yuto had proven to the bully, that he had recovered enough to start putting up a fight. Circling around, the newman again tried to slice Yuto and again Yuto blocked with the front part of his Vivienne. Now thoroughly ticked, the newman started stepping up his attacks, trying to find a way through Yuto's blocks, but the Vivienne's large surface area made blocking easy and, try as he might, the gangster could not strike at anything other than the broad side of the blade. Not managing to land a hit, the gangster decided to go for a cheap shot and, using the latest slash as a distraction, used his left foot to pick up dirt and throw it in Yuto's face. Caught off guard, Yuto raised his hand to eye level to block the dirt and was instead hit square in the chest by a roadhouse kick, knocking him over again, aggravating his earlier crowbar injury. On the ground in pain, Yuto could only watch as the gangster came over by his side, switching from his Twin Knives to a standard GRM sword as he raised his right arm over his head, readying the final blow… and then dropped his sword as his hand no longer had the required strength to hold it. Looking down towards his chest area, he was as shocked by what he was seeing, as he was by the intense pain that now errupted from that area.
In his cockiness to humiliate Yuto, the gangster had failed to reactivate his line shield and, as he paused for dramatic effect, Yuto got just the break he needed. Managing to grab one end of the doublesaber, Yuto spun on the spot and succeeded in slicing the gangster part way across the chest, lodging the doublesaber in the newman's sternum.
Looking down on his injury, all the gangster could do was extend his right hand slightly, as if trying to grab the weapon, but soon his failing strength prevented that and as his legs gave way he was further impaled on Yuto's doublesaber, his bones crackling against the Vivienne's incredibly sharp photon blades. The last thing the newman ever saw, before his lights went out was something happening to the weapon lodged in his chest.
To say that Yuto himself was also taken aback, by this turn of events, would be quite the understatement. Lying flat on his back, in the alley dirt, still gripping the part of his weapon's second blade, Yuto watched in shock, as the newman's blood started spilling out from all the cut vessels in his sternum. That didn't last long however, for no sooner had the first drop of blood fallen on Yuto's face and the first drop of blood fallen from Yuto's now cut hand, the doublesaber came to life.
Overcome by pain Yuto screamied as red pulsating lines, covered the weapon in an instant, then spread to the body it was embedded in, completely covering it, as the corpse began turning black, then started disintegrating from the outside in.
In mere moments the newman was gone, having been reduced to ash and, shouting as loud as he could, from the immense pain the weapon caused him, Yuto lost consciousness.
Witnessing what had happened to their friend, the two remaining rogues snatched their newman bother's Nanotranser from the ground where he had thrown it after disabling his shield, then ran as fast as their legs could carry them. In moments, they were gone and Yuto was left convulsing on the ground, where he fell, as the red lines that had disintegrated his foe, now covered him.
Unconscious on the alley floor, the hours passed and soon enough, night had fallen over the city as Yuto's body continually convulsed from the changes the Vivienne was now inflicting on him.
It wasn't until well into the night that the spasms stopped and Yuto began moving in anything resembling a controlled manner.
First a tortured attempt to turn from his back and onto his stomach, then a struggle to get on all fours and finally a stagger to stand upright, all the while not letting go of the weapon that started it all.
Finally managing to stand, Yuto opened his now blood red eyes and, with a mad grin on his face, dashed off into the darkness. And no sooner had Yuto disappeared into the night when screams began erupting from the distance, going on for a little while, then eventually coming to an end as their sources fell silent.
Well, well, well... What have we here... A reader? On one of my stories? Are you sure you're not lost or something? What's that, you're not lost? You came here on purpose? Liar!
But oh well, regardless of how you stumbled in here, as long as you're here I might as well do my best to entertain you.
So sit back, grab something to munch on, and hold on for the weirdest story you're likely to ever find in the Phantasy Star category.
Now a few words beforehand and i'll leave you to your fate...er...I... mean...fun, yea fun is what I meant.
This story is a very AU take on the Phantasy Star Universe series that will include parts from all games starting with vanilla PSU and going on to Portable 2 Infinity. The story will have some very gruesome parts, but those will be comparatively rare and hopefully far between.
The story focuses on Phantasy Star Portable 2's main newman protagonist Yut Jun Yunkers and while this chapter only features 2 characters so far, future chapters will include more from the whole series. Also, this chapter is mostly story driven so don't expect much from it. I will do my best to make the next chapters more action packed, but for now this will have to do.
o_O you still with me? You are? Oh, I see, you fell unconscious and only just woke up. Aaaand... I see you still have some IQ points left. That's always nice to see, anyway time for some of the senseless bantering you will be hearing from me at the end of every chapter of this story.
The chapter was initially going to be so much longer than what it actually is, but not even I could guess how long until I actually started writing it and realized, "whoa momma that's... gonna take a while to write" so I ultimately decided to just split the first chapter in half, and post the first half as chapter 1. Second half will be chapter 2, and if this is anything to go by, so will the following chapters. (Quick reference, my previous story has so far about 27k words spread across 10 chapters. By comparison, this chapter alone averages a little over 6k words. o_O)
To anyone wondering why I refer to Yut as Yuto, we have to go back to the time when Phantasy Star Portable 2 was released in Japan. Yuto, from the time he first appeared in an article on the Japanese version of the game and until the English version was released, went through at least 3 name changes. He went from (as far as I know) Yuto Yun Yunkers his original name in the Japanese game, to Yuto Jun Junkers when the English version was first announced, to Yut Jun Yunkers in the released English version of the game. So, although I'm keeping with the final version of his name "Yut Jun Yunkers", I am also keeping as personal preference his original name of Yuto as a nickname (Kind of like how people named Alexander/dra frequently have their names abbreviated to Alex)
The idea that eventually became this story came from a dream I had a few months ago. Though not many changes were made between this story and the dream that spawned it, the major ones are as follows:
The parade that stopped Yuto's bus wasn't in honor of Karen Erra nor the 105th anniversary of the war. It was a parade for the 100th anniversary of the queen of Britain. Why the queen when I'm neither British, nor have any connection or interest in the brits? No one knows. All I remember is that it was a massive parade in front of Buckingham palace and massive posters of the queen were carried by the procession. Also, I can't remember if it was the 100th birthday anniversary or what.
Also Yuto's devouring with his Vivienne doublesaber was A LOT more gruesome in my dream than I made it out to be in the story. Something to do with not wanting to have to rate this story with an M perhaps?
And the initial scene with him on the mountain of corpses wasn't part of the dream, it was a part of the intro to Shikabane Hime and though it fit rather nicely. Feel free to look up the intro on the you tube site.
And, I'm sure I had a lot more things to say down here, but I can't think of anymore right now. Oh well, they'll come to me after it's too late to do anything about it. In the meanwhile, why don't you go play some Phantasy Star while I hammer out the second chapter, ok? See ya!