Welcome to Gaia! ::

This was the last chapter I wrote before I got stuck but fortunately today I got unstuck and wrote another chapter. heart
*CONTAINS SOME MINOR LANGUAGE*

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Chapter 15- The Surface World
Stephen’s Hospital Room
November 12th, 2004



“How’s he doing?”

“He’s getting better. Lucky devil, though. That assassin missed his spine by less than an inch. Thirteen stitches, though. Nasty wound.”

Stephen groggily drew himself out of a drug-induced sleep, and soon after regretted he did so. A throbbing pain was coming from the middle of his back. He could hear a nurse talking to a doctor a few feet away. When he opened his eyes, he saw white tile and realized he was lying on his stomach.

Footsteps caused him to attempt to lift his head, but the after effects of the drugs still held firm and he could only raise himself an inch or two.

“Ah, Mr. McLane, you’re awake,” a voice said.

Stephen tried to speak but couldn’t get his tongue around the words properly.

“It’s alright, sir. No need to speak. I’m Dr. Flanders. Do you have any recollection of what happened to you this morning?”

“Yeah,” he spurted.

“Good. Then what I’m going to do is…”

The doctor’s voice faded. Stephen was slipping back into sleep. When he awoke in what felt like seconds later, he was much more alert than before. The doctor was gone, and all he could hear was the steady blip of the heart monitor.

“Good morning, Stephen,” an all-too-familiar voice said.

“Two appearances in one day, Tyson. You’re on a roll.”

“I do my best,” the assassin responded from a corner of the room hidden from view of the nurses swarming the halls outside.

“How did you get in here?”

“You honestly think I’m dumb enough to use the front door?”

“You’re dumb enough to show your face to the entire world,” Stephen spat.

“I have my reasons. I got what I wanted, anyway. Did you know that my parents are still alive? Nice try, though, you deceiving worm. I commend you on your acting, though.”

“What are you talking about?” Stephen said, even though he knew the answer.

“Save it,” the assassin almost hissed, his voice full of venom. “You always knew where they were. You knew I wanted to find them. You knew that if I found them I could finally rid myself of this curse by getting rid of you. So you acted like you’d forgotten all about it. Don’t worry, Stephen. I figured it out. Finally. I’m amazed it took me this long. You tried to kill my parents, and me. We both know you missed each time. And I’m going to get my parents back and kill you- if it’s the last thing I do.”

“Are you threatening me?”

“You’re damn right I am,” Tyson snarled, before leaning in close. “You’re lucky I’m saving your skin today, McLane. Oh, and if you go looking for Alison Keyenness, she’s with me. In the Underground. And she came of her own will, so don’t go pinning the blame on me. She’s the one who told me all this.”

“You backstabbing b*****d!” Stephen shrieked.

“Got that right, in the literal sense,” Tyson said before vanishing. His voice, without a body, said, "You have exactly one month to prepare."

The first time I wrote it "b*****d" was in there twice xp I ain't afraid to use any language. This other story I'm working on is so heavy in language I only let trusted friends and adults read it.

heart

I have some good news. This is the last chapter I have, but I wrote another last night and I'm going to try out a new style of writing and editing. So I'll see how it works out and I should have a new chapter up sometime next week.
In the meantime...

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Chapter 16- The Underground
Main Complex
November 12th, 2004



Tyson stood on the edge of the roof of the Underground’s Main Complex building, staring out over his icy kingdom. He had always found it ironic that the penguin population of his domain outnumbered the human population. In moments of low self-esteem, he called himself the Penguin King. This was far from one of those moments, however; Tyson was probably in the best mood of his life, considering the circumstances.

It was a bittersweet sort of day. On the plus side, he now knew his long-lost family still breathed somewhere and Alison- for whom he was developing a schoolboy crush on- had come to the Antarctic of her own free will to aid in the works of a criminal. On the down side, he was angry at his former best friend for what he had done, he was confused as to his motives why, and he was confused as to why Alison was helping him. After all, she had told him that Vladimir- who was somewhat of her mentor- had expressed to her a powerful aversion to the assassin.

“He told me you were nothing but trouble,” she had said. “I knew different. That day in Stephen’s office, I remembered something he’d told me once, about your parents. It was a moment of badly judged intimacy. He talked a lot about you. None of it pleasant, let me tell you. But he did let slip that you had a good heart and that you would never do anyone harm, and when I met you that day, I saw that he was right. And I knew that I had information no one else would tell you. Information that could help you break the Rage and save us all. Stephen won’t tell you to save his own skin, even though he’d die either way.”

Sure, that explained why she was giving out information so freely, but why risk crossing enemy lines to do so? Surely there must have been a safer way for her to convey her message. Or was there something more? Tyson even dared to think that his feelings for her might be mutual-

No, Tyson thought to himself, shaking his head wildly as his high spirits faded. No one would want to consort with an assassin. Even her. No one could care for me, what with everything I’ve done. I doubt even my own parents would look twice at me.

Here was another snag in the grand scheme of things. Why would he try and track down his parents if they wouldn’t spare a passing glance?

“Tyson,” a soft voice behind the assassin said.

“Hello, Alison,” he said in a somber tone.

She stepped further away from the door that led back inside the building and more toward Tyson.

“It’s rather cold up here, isn’t it?” she said, merely making conversation.

“You tell me. I can’t feel cold.”

“Oh. Right.”

She stood just to his left, parallel to him and within arm’s reach.

“Wow,” she said softly. “I didn’t realize how big this place is.”

“It is fairly large,” Tyson concurred thoughtlessly. “It’s almost double this size underground. Hence the name. The Tzechlimona is even bigger. There’s a long-disputed idea around here that the Tzechlimona covers the entire world. To the extent of my knowledge, however, it touches the surface in only two places: here, and what I imagine to be as a northern portion of some beautiful green country, most likely in Scotland or Ireland.”

“So why is the Underground set here?” she asked.

“Well, I’m not entirely sure, but I like to think it’s because one, Scotland or wherever the other Surface World entrance to the Tzechlimona is too easy a place to find, and two, because Assassin Lords can’t feel cold or heat, and the normal soldiers feel it to a certain less-than-human extent. It’s the best hiding spot there is from the Surface World. It’s difficult for normal humans to thrive here. It’s easy for us.”

Silence reigned momentarily.

“What would you give to have your old life back?” Alison asked quietly.

“Everything,” Tyson whispered.

She stepped closer to him and, after a moment’s hesitation, kissed him gently on the cheek before leaving the roof for the warmth of the Main Complex. He stood there in her afterglow, unmoving, except to touch his face where she had. His heart was racing and his mind was torn with disbelief and joy.

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Teh cuteness.

Well, a couple folks on a different site (www.youngwriterssociety.com) convinced me to work on my prologue a bit more, so I'm going to drop what I was doing and completely re-write it. I'll let you know when I repost it. Anyway, in the meantime, here's a chapter with no dialouge! eek

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Chapter 17- The Underground
The Tzechlimona
November 13th, 2004

The huge, empty darkness of the Tzechlimona echoed with each step as Raidon worked his way along the icy paths that meandered through the Underground’s crown jewel. The former Assassin King carried a newfound Underground Chronicle in his arm, and his excavating tools in his free hand. Raidon had spent the past week reading the Underground Chronicles for any useful information, ranging from Tyson’s unfinished Chronicle to careful interpretation of the first Chronicle. Finding no further useful information, he had begun searching for the rest of the lost books. After several days of fruitless searching, Raidon’s hopes were beginning to sink lower than the bottom of the Tzechlimona.

He stepped onto one of the many icy plateaus that were placed sparsely throughout the Tzechlimona. Monstrous bookcases carved from the icy stalagmites that dotted the area covered most of the plateau, and there were several Underground Chronicles resting there. He sighed, and placed his newly discovered tome in its proper place, according to chronological order. He set his excavation tools- the tomes were frozen inside the stalagmites, and Raidon needed these tools to get to them- next to the tome and began the ascent up to the plateau where he had set up a campsite sort of plaza.

Raidon had lived on this plateau and in the Tzechlimona since he had surrendered control of the Underground to Tyson fourteen years ago. He knew that he had left the boy early on in his training, but the quake in the Frozen Hell was unexpected. Besides, he always had full confidence in Tyson as an Assassin Lord. The boy had a commanding aura about him even when he was still training in the Assassin School, a meager training compared to what Raidon had to offer. He had, unbeknownst to his apprentice, snuck up to the Underground several times to check on things and to take food from Rick’s kitchens.

Raidon sighed. He would hate to have to tell his beloved apprentice that he was stuck figuring this sticky mess out on his own. The former assassin rummaged around in his personal belongings he had brought with him and pulled out Tyson’s unfinished Chronicle. Licentious boy has forgotten about it, Raidon thought. He flicked through the parchment pages, reading the life story of Tyson Whetlander.

Most of the beginning was Tyson ambling on about his childhood in Brisbane. He told of his friends, his family, his love of the town, and himself. It was stocked with fond memories of the assassin before he was an assassin. Raidon had always liked how Tyson ended the section of his childhood.

If I could have one perfect day, it would be to go back to those innocently pure days of my childhood in Brisbane. Back to a time when I didn’t have thousands of deaths on my hands and consciousness. That would be my perfect day, just kicking it at the beach with my old friends, with all this violence behind me.

Raidon thought that it told a lot about what kind of person Tyson was. Raidon always knew that Tyson was deep down a good man, but he had some “misfortune” befall him in life.

Stephen had indeed attempted to murder the Whetlander family. But Tyson wasn’t the only victim in that incident where the future senator concocted a dangerous mix of flammable chemicals and strapped it to the Whetlander’s car.

Stephen himself was a casualty.