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Well, hope I put this in the right area...
Okay, a few notes before I begin. One, all of this fanfic is typed up from paper. I wrote it mostly at school during class, and it was often in the middle of the teacher explaining something so my mind was in two places at once. I tried my best with this fic to make it the best of my Phantasy Star Online ones, and I've been pretty satisfied with it thus far. Now, point two... I'm still working on improving my writing, so it's been taking some time to be able to get to making it all just right. I rushed through the first three or four chapters, so I ended up getting really dissatisfied with them, but never had the time to fully rewrite them. So, I'm just going through to make some quick changes so that it all sounds better, but it's still not just right. Also, during the later chapters, I can't get the dialogue to go just right, so eh... Still some frustration with that. I'm hoping that when I type it up from paper, I can make some improvements. And for just a bit of information so you understand, this takes place just a bit before PSO.
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Chapter 1: The Door to Darkness
A.U.W. 3082
A soldier dressed in the military uniform of an officer with a lieutenant’s insignia peered through the scope of his Sniper, tuning out the nervous chatter and whine of machinery as Pioneer 1’s military forces slowly made their way through the mysterious ruins. He was Lieutenant Michael Faye, an officer under the direct command of Deputy Commander Heathcliff Flowen and perhaps one of the best shots that the colony ship’s military even had. When someone would point out that some of the Rangers that had come aboard Pioneer 1 during the first migration were slightly better than him, he’d scoff and mention how no one gave a single care about those useless hunters. The only thing they were good for was cannon fodder, in his opinion.
The current mission of this military force was to explore mysterious ruins buried deep beneath the surface of this new planet, Ragol. Extensive operations had been underway for quite some time, including the building of military facilities underground close to where the entrance had been discovered. Getting the ancient door open had been hard enough, but eventually their best scientists had managed it. But when they began to send in scout teams to investigate, things began to go awry. Everyone who had gone before their team had never come back out. This made Michael nervous, but he did his best not to show it. A good soldier didn’t freeze of in fear in the middle of a battle… But still, he couldn’t shake the bad feeling he had about these ruins. Something evil was in here, something terrible…
Deputy Commander Heathcliff Flowen, leader of the force, approached him. He stood a good bit taller than Michael, wearing his usual dark blue military uniform and holding the massive sword that he was a master with. He stroked his grey beard somewhat with his left hand, scanning their surroundings before looking back at the officer. “Lt. Faye, have you spotted anything yet?”
He shook his head, not even looking towards his commanding officer as he continued to keep watch. “Not yet, sir. It’s strange… There doesn’t even seem to be any traces of the earlier teams that were sent in… Just what got them? And where are their bodies?”
“I don’t know…” Commander Flowen murmured. “But it does have me worried.” He brushed his grey beard once more with one hand, a grim look on his face. “Continue to keep watch. Whatever got the science team could come after us.”
“Don’t worry, sir. I’ll—“ A scream of terror cut him off, coming from the front ranks. Michael pointed his rifle to the front, his heart racing as he saw a pit there in front of the ranks. What had scared them like that? What could make grown men and women scream like little kids…?
That was when he saw it. A monster began to crawl out of the dark pit before them. Its body seemed to cycle through life and death, its flesh shifting and changing, mutating even as it pulled itself forth from the darkness. It was so horrible, so monstrous, that Michael’s mind couldn’t comprehend it accurately.
“Fire! Fire!” Commander Flowen shouted, raised up the sword in his hand. Photon bullets leapt forth, joined by the missiles from the Garanz assault mecha. But “IT” wasn’t even fazed. “IT” crawled forth with eager anticipation, cutting a swath through their forces. Michael stared wide-eyed as soldier after soldier fell. He was so numb with shock that he didn’t even see how most of his comrades died. Their dead and mangled bodies only hinted slightly at their terrible and sudden deaths. But its arms rarely even moved towards its victims, so how--
“Fall back! Lieutenant, provide us with covering fire, but do your best to stay out of that thing’s reach!”
Michael snapped out of his daze, immediately firing off rapid shots at “IT”. The Photon energy bullets did nothing more than draw its attention to him. He wasn’t able to move as he felt and ancient and terrible evil enter his mind, going through it as if it were reading a book.
“You are not the one…”
“IT” towered over him, its flesh rippling as a massive hand gripped him around his waist. He was lifted into the air, his Sniper falling to the ground with a loud clatter.
“But you will suffice…”
“IT” pressed him against its rippling flesh, and immediately Michael could feel the flesh crawl forward onto his body, as if its flesh was alive also. An excruciating pain spread forth wherever the flesh touched him, and Michael began to scream in pain and agony. His struggles only quickened the process, his body now being pulled into “IT”. With a final scream, darkness filled his vision, and his soul was ripped from his body by the dark force that had slumbered in the ruins for 1000 years…
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A young girl in simple civilian clothes of teal and white stood at her door, straining to listen to the conversation her father was having with his colleague. Danielle Sterling was the daughter of a big-time scientist aboard Pioneer 1, but she was too young to really understand the significance of much of what she heard. Her blue eyes were narrowed somewhat as she focused mainly on what she was hearing. She couldn’t tell what it was about, but she knew it was serious.
“Whatever was in there was incredibly strong and nearly wiped out the entire force. Flowen barely escaped, but he now has this strange new infection that we believe is from the life form that killed the unit. Dr. Osto will soon send you a sample of this D-Type Factor to you, since he believes its uses as a catalyst in creating bio-weapons will be unparalleled to anything else,” the unfamiliar voice spoke.
“Bio-weapons? Perhaps… I will carry out my own controlled experiments on it. We may finally make a breakthrough…” Her father trailed off, discussing some scientific jargon that just made Danielle more confused. She quietly shut her door, making her way to her bed and lying down on it. Confused thoughts swirled through her head. Her father had grown very secretive about his research and wouldn’t tell Danielle a single thing about it. It was a boring life, with him always obsessed with his work and not caring about her. She yearned to get away and do something exciting instead of always sitting around…
“When Pioneer 2 gets here, I can go back to Mom, and she’ll be nicer to me than Dad is…” she whispered to herself, repeating what she would always tell herself over the years. They would be here in two years… Just two more years… But despite this hope that kept her going, she couldn’t help but thinking about something else. Lately, she never received any more messages from her mother. Danielle couldn’t understand why she had stopped so abruptly, and she felt a little hurt. She knew her parents had a strained relationship, and she wondered if that had something to do with it.
Danielle sighed, turning onto her side and closing her eyes, trying to push the unsettling thoughts out of her mind. Maybe her mom was just busy with a lot of things. She wouldn’t leave Danielle, especially when she sounded so eager to be back with her daughter in all of her messages. She curled up under the covers a bit more, closing her eyes and thinking instead of all the times she enjoyed with her mother as a small child and how much fun it would be when she met Kate Sterling again.
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A young woman sat on the edge of her bed in spartan quarters, her head down, tears trickling slowly from her dark red eyes down her face. Dressed in a peculiar red and white uniform with a red armlet on her left wrist, she was someone that anyone here on Ragol recognized, especially due to her efforts as part of the Surface Exploration Team, which had been in charge of survival planning and terraforming opportunities. Her red-trimmed glasses lay on the bed beside her, and she was running a hand through her reddish-orange hair that contained a few teal highlights. Just a few seconds ago, she had received a message from Pioneer 1’s military command that had took her breath away and make her feel numb. Heathcliff Flowen was dead. Her mentor, her hero, the one who she had learned so much from and crafted her infamous “Red weapon” set, was dead in the blink of an eye.
She wiped her face with shaking hands now, unable to retain her composure. Ignoring the glasses that she normally used to see far away, she looked out her window at the full moon above. The soldiers didn’t tell many of the details behind his death other than that it involved one of the recent earthquakes, making her suspicious. What exactly had happened? Lately, the government had been keeping a lot of secrets from the citizens, the people they were supposed to be protecting. Rico and a few others had noticed strange reports about the food consumption and the size of the Central Dome. While the public was oblivious to this, she and her friends immediately knew something was going on. But they couldn’t really look into it, seeing as how this was a government matter, and the hunters were scorned by just about all of the military personnel.
The government has always been unreliable… I bet the Alliance of Nations back on Coral is having some major problems now… There’s always war and corruption when it comes to our government, it seems…
Rico let out a frustrated sigh, wiping the tears from her face. She could only imagine how her father would react to this news, hearing that his close friend and the one who he told to watch over her was dead.
“Two more years,” she whispered softly. “They’ll be here in two years…” Rico shook her head slightly, her mind racing through her thoughts as she pulled the covers over her. So many things had happened. She would get to the bottom of this, no matter what it took.
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Last edited by Stormsworder on Tue Aug 19, 2008 9:16 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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