Before I say anything let me point this out: I am a newbie. I'm probably messing up the entire process in how to post things because I'm not quite sure what to do although I've read the FAQ a half dozen times. But I figure you never know till you try, so, here goes. ^_^ This is a fully revamped first chapter of my fanfic, "Xenogears: Guardian Legacy", which is an alternate universe fanfic based on the similar concepts as Xenogears. I totally re-wrote the chapter today.
I doubt I'll post the entire fanfic here. It's just too freakin' long... 51 chapters and counting. Yes, 51 chapters. Definately an epic, or at least that's the idea. So instead what I'll do is post a message announcing when a new chapter has been made or when an old one has been revamped. Is that okay? If not then I NEED to know before I make everyone mad at me. The reason I'm posting the first chapter here is because I just totally rewrote the thing. If any of you have read X:GL (which I doubt -_-;;;) then you know how Ryukumu keeps talking about how much his life has changed. I felt it necessary to re-write the first chapter to show just how his life was before the whole mess started. It may seem like a slow start.
Also, and I just realized this, but there is one thing that's noted in a 'prologue' I wrote for this fanfic (which I probably should have made to post first rather than the first chapter) that won't make any sense unless you've read the prologue. Early on, a place called 'Elsrum' is mentioned. That's pretty much a place where 13 years ago in the storyline a major, MAJOR series of wars erupted. The wars were started by a man named 'Saul', who rules Elsrum now with absolute authority. The wars have been over for quite some time.
The fanfic ideas were mine, but not that of the Xenogears game. The only thing I had to do with Xenogears' production is that I own a legit copy of it. That's it. I hope it's formatted right... it took me a while to figure out how to use that '3FT' formatter. ^_^;;; Here goes:
Chapter 1
The independent city of Tishre is located on the western coast of
Ashkenazic, far away from New Tarsus-- Elsrum's capitol city. The
weather is moderate and comfortable, staying comfortably warm all year
long. There is a lake located a few miles inland, which is connected by
a river to the ocean. Legends say that at the bottom of the lake are
ruins left from an ancient, forgotten civilization. Most people regard
it as a myth and live their lives thinking nothing of it. Everyone will
soon learn of the truth regarding this myth, and a forgotten Legacy.
This is where the untold story of Xenogears begins.
The only noticeable settlement along the lake is a moderately large
marina. On one of the center docks a middle-aged woman, Anna Isora,
steps out of a houseboat and calls out, looking around while doing so,
"Ryu? Ryu? Ryukumu?" Her relatively youthful, despite her age, voice
echoes over the lake. There is no response. The woman pauses and looks
around. "Guess he's out on the lake again, I'm surprised he hasn't
gotten bored with that." Anna sighs, looking somewhat annoyed. "Oh
well, I'll have to ask him to do that tomorrow."
One of the neighbors walking by says to Anna, "I think I saw Ryu
over by the store."
Anna chuckles and says, "Is he talking with Ashley again? I thought
they broke up."
The neighbor laughs and says, "Well, you know how teenagers think."
There is a small store located near the road that connects the
marina to the city of Tishre. The store looks old but well maintained,
with a porch, which has a few tables and rocking chairs placed on it.
Inside the store is a common assortment of groceries.
A young boy with blue hair, Ryukumu Isora, sits across from a girl
looking to be about his age at one of the picnic tables. Ryukumu has
average build for his age, and although the weather is warm he's wearing
full-length pants with a short sleeve shirt. The girl, Ashley, has
slender build and has short blond hair. She's wearing a brightly-
colored sleeveless top with straps going over the shoulders, along with
a pair of jean shorts. All around, she has a very charming appearance.
Ashley says to Ryukumu, apparently the two are already engaged in a
conversation, "...but then I told him it wouldn't be a good idea. His
girlfriend'd probably be mad with him."
Ryukumu nods. "Yeah, that guy is kinda dumb." He takes a drink
from a soda can in his hand.
Ashley smiles. "I guess so."
There is silence for a few moments. While these two people seem to
get along very well, there is tension between them. They were dating
each other for a while, but it's clear they broke up. Luckily they are
still friends; not all relationships continue like that once they're
ended.
Ashley gazes off to the side at the lake and says, "Prom's coming up
in a month or so..."
Ryukumu nods between sipping his soda. "Yeah..."
"I'm wondering if I'll go this year."
"Why wouldn't you? It's our senior year; we've got to go."
"Well, I don't have anyone to go with."
Ryukumu sighs in the back of his mind. He knows what Ashley's going
to say, and he'd rather not talk about it. "Ashley, we've talked about
this."
Ashley looks over at Ryukumu.
Ryukumu sighs and says, "You're my best friend, and I think you're a
great person, but I don't think we should start dating again."
Ashley stirs the glass of ice water in front of her with a straw.
"You never told me exactly why we stopped."
Ryukumu tries to think of the right words to say. He knows what he
wants to say, but he can't seem to word it right. He decides to give it
a shot and says, "Something just didn't feel... right."
Ryukumu thinks back to earlier that year during a dance at their
high school. He and Ashley appear to be having a good time enjoying
themselves at the dance. Ryukumu thinks to later that evening when
they're sitting together on the beach at Tishre. The two are embracing
each other and are in the middle of a kiss. Suddenly, Ryukumu opens his
eyes and breaks away from Ashley and looks off at the ocean. He sees a
faint image of a girl with angel wings and purple hair, which
immediately vanishes. Ashley looks at Ryukumu with a confused look on
her face, wondering why he stopped. Ryukumu says something to Ashley,
then stands up and walks away in a hurried pace.
Ryukumu says in Narration back in the present, "Something just felt
wrong. Like we shouldn't have been doing that. The thought just...
well, terrified me." Ryukumu thinks to himself, "I've seen that girl
again and again since I was a kid. I almost feel like she's been
watching me...who is she?"
Back in the present, Ashley just sighs and says sarcastically, "Am I
that scary?" Ryukumu shakes his head. Ashley looks at her drink and
says, "A lot of guys have asked me to go with them to Prom, but I told
them I wanted to go with someone else."
"..." Ryukumu isn't quite sure how he should respond.
Ashley looks at Ryukumu. Her eyes almost seem desperate. "Ryu..."
At that moment, a familiar call is heard. "Ryu-------u!" Anna
comes walking down towards the store, completely oblivious to the fact
that Ryukumu and Ashley are having an important talk.
Ryukumu looks over his shoulder and sees his mother coming. "Oh
great..." He whispers to Ashley, "(We'll talk about this later, okay?)"
Ashley nods her consent.
Anna steps up the porch and says, "So this's were you've been all
day?"
Ryukumu nods. "Yeah."
"Didn't I ask you to go get some fish?"
Ryukumu nods again and points to the door leading into the store.
"Yup. It's in there, I just haven't bought it yet."
Anna rolls her eyes. "I thought you were gonna go catch some..."
Ryukumu chuckles and says, "Well, you didn't tell me that."
Ashley chuckles too. "Hi Mrs. Isora."
Anna says, "Hi." She looks over to Ryukumu and says, "Could you go
catch some tomorrow?"
Ryukumu says, "Sure, no problem. Been wanting to see how the repair
work on the wave-runner turned out."
"If you wouldn't go so wild on it, you wouldn't have to put it in
the shop so often. Repairs aren't cheap, y'know."
Ryukumu nods again. "I know, I know. But I'm paying for them."
Anna laughs. "True. Well, I'll see you later."
"Later Mom." Anna walks away back towards the dock.
Ashley says to Ryukumu, "Was it just me, or did she sound kinda
upset?"
Ryukumu blinks and says, "Now that you mention it..."
"Your mom's usually really nice. Something must be bugging her."
"I guess... anyway, Ashley, about going to Prom with you..."
Ashley listens with keen interest. "Yeah?"
"I'll think about it."
Ashley smiles as if she knew that whenever Ryukumu said that it
often meant 'yes'. There's a difference between 'often' and 'always';
he might say no, but she's thinking optimistically. "Okay."
"I gotta go, the guys and I were gonna go hang out in the town."
Ashley nods. "Okay, later."
Ryukumu stands up and steps off the porch. Ashley is watching him
as he walks. Ryukumu stops once he's a few yards away from the porch
and turns around to Ashley. "I really mean it; you're a great person.
I just don't think we should start dating again. We're lucky we're
still friends after what happened."
Ashley smiles and says, "I'll change your mind, Ryu!"
Ryukumu laughs and smiles. "I better watch out, then. Later!"
Ryukumu waves lightly then runs towards the docks.
Later that evening, Ryukumu and his mother Anna are eating dinner at
their houseboat. Anna says, "...so that's what you were talking about.
Sorry, if I knew I wouldn'tve interrupted."
Ryukumu shakes his head and says between eating, "No big deal."
"She's a good girl, Ryu. I don't see why you stopped dating her.
That's okay though, you two are still friends." Anna thinks then says,
"Come to think of it, you've always had a tough time with girls."
"Aw c'mon, gimme a break..."
"You haven't dated that many girls, but when you two stopped dating
it'd always be the same thing: you didn't feel it was right. Ashley's
the only one who's still willing to try."
"I'd rather not talk about that, Mom."
Anna chuckles and says, "Your father was a lot more daring. Not
just with girls, but anything. That's how he died..."
Ryukumu nods. He can guess what she's about to say.
Anna says nostalgically, "The fishing boat he was on went into a
storm and he was thrown overboard, thought to have drowned. They never
found him." Anna sighs. "How ironic... he loved the sea so much and
it's what did him in."
"Mom..."
Anna doesn't seem to be sad by saying this. She accepts it as the
truth, and that there's nothing she can do about it now. "You're like
that too. You love the water... so much that it's turned your hair
blue."
Ryukumu rolls his eyes and says, "It has not... it's always been
that color."
Anna laughs and says, "I know, I know." Anna stands up from the
table and walks over to the sink to begin washing dishes. After a few
moments Anna says, "Ryu."
"Hm?"
"Promise me something."
"Sure, what?"
"Once you're done with high school you'll go off on your own and do
your own things. Probably go to college, get a job, raise a family..."
Ryukumu nods. "That's the plan..."
Anna continues, "Promise me that you'll be careful."
Ryukumu blinks and says, "'Careful'?"
"It's okay to take risks, but don't bite off more than you can chew,
okay?"
Ryukumu says, with a puzzled look on his face, "What brought this
on?"
Anna shakes her head. "...Nothing. Just promise me."
Ryukumu sighs and says, "Well, okay mom. I promise."
Anna nods. "Good. Now could you give me a hand over here with
these dishes?"
"Sure."
Much later in that evening, Anna is in her room on the houseboat.
She's sitting down at a table, which has a picture frame and a hand-
written letter sitting on it. In the picture there are three people:
Anna, Ryukumu, and Lazarus, Ryukumu's father. This picture looks to
have been taken a long time ago, Ryukumu only looks to be about three
years old, and Anna looks younger as well.
Anna picks up the letter and reads it. It reads:
Tomorrow morning before 10 a.m., have Ryukumu head to a hidden
military base with the coordinates enclosed farther down on this paper.
It is urgent that he is away from your area before 10 a.m. It is
crucial to me that he survives. -Saul
Anna finishes reading the short letter and begins to cry. "You
jerk... you disappear entirely and then you want me to do you a favor?"
The next morning, Ryukumu gets up early to go catch some fish. The
sun is up, and while it is rather late to start fishing, Ryukumu appears
to know of a good fishing spot so he can catch what his mother needed.
While riding down the lake on a wave runner, Ryukumu glances at his
watch and says, "9:57... man, I woke up late. Wonder if there're any
good spots left...?" Ryukumu looks forward to see something directly in
front of him: the same girl he saw the night of the dance with Ashley:
The girl with angel wings and long purple hair, standing on the water.
Except this time, this doesn't appear to be an illusion; the girl looks
real. Ryukumu's eyes widen in surprise and he says quietly to himself
while looking at the girl, almost in a daze, "...It's her again..."
Ryukumu blinks and shakes his head, realizing that he's about to hit
the girl, and quickly turns the control wheel so that the wave runner
makes a hard left turn. So hard, that Ryukumu falls off of the wave
runner. When Ryukumu resurfaces he looks around to find that the girl
has vanished again. Ryukumu sighs and says, "I need more sleep, I'm
seeing things..."
Ryukumu climbs back onto his wave runner and turns it back on. He's
about to engage the throttle, but stops as he sees something out of the
corner of his eye in the direction of his marina. There are a number of
planes flying overhead the marina, as well as a large number of Gears.
Back at the marina, Anna is standing outside on the houseboat
holding the letter, also clutching on a small book that looks to be a
diary. She looks up at the armada overhead and says, "I had him leave,
Saul... But, he's not going back to you. He's free." Beneath one of
the planes is a glinting object, as if the plane has just dropped
something. She sighs and says, "You're after him, aren't you? Sorry,
Saul, not this time." She thinks to herself, "Be free, Ryukumu... my
dear son..."
The object that the plane dropped, which is clearly a bomb, falls
down towards the lake near the marina. Upon landing on the surface of
the lake the bomb detonates, causing a massive explosion that completely
obliterates the marina and causes a massive wave to surge through the
entire lake like a tidal wave.
Just as Ryukumu sees the armada, flying overhead, the bomb had
detonated causing the tidal wave to surge through the lake. His eyes
widen in complete and total fear at the incoming wave, which he can't
possibly outrun. "Oh my god..." Futile as it may be, Ryukumu presses on
the throttle and speeds away from the incoming wave as best as he can.
It is to no avail, however, as a few moments later the wave is quickly
catching up with him. The wave throws Ryukumu off of the wave runner
and deep into the blue water.
Ryukumu desperately tries to swim back to the surface, but the
undertow from the wave keeps pulling him further and further downward.
Ryukumu thinks to himself, "I can't die here... no way... I've got too
much left to do! I've gotta graduate! I've got to go to Prom with
Ashley!" If Ryukumu weren't underwater, tears could be seen rolling
down his face. "But most of all, I've got to find that girl!"
Ryukumu screams underwater as if it were an involuntary action, his
voice muffled by the water filling his mouth, "Qaterra!!!" His eyes
widen in horror at what he had just done-- any air he had left, he just
expelled by his scream. "So that's it... I guess I'm just gonna
drown... like my father did..." Ryukumu closes his eyes and stops
moving. "Sorry Ashley, I can't go to prom with you this year..."
Meanwhile, elsewhere on the bottom of a lake, a young woman looking
to be about 20 years old is swimming around looking for something.
She's not wearing any kind of oxygen tank; any normal human would drown
at this depth. But she appears to have no difficulty underwater. The
only thing close to that is a backpack. She's wearing a red vest on her
torso, but what's peculiar is that the left arm of the vest is
sleeveless while the right arm is a full-length sleeve. The long sleeve
along with a glove completely covers up her right arm. Her brown hair,
which is tied back to a ponytail, is suspended in the water.
"Where is it... where is it...?" The girl spots something shiny on
the ground, then proceeds to swim over to it and pick it up. It is a
triangular crystal about two-thirds the size of a forearm. Right next
to the crystal is a sheathed katana, whose sheath is blue. The girl
smiles and puts both items in her backpack.
Hours later, Ryukumu's body washes ashore near the rubble of the
marina. After a few moments his eyes slowly open. "I'm still alive?"
He slowly rises to his feet and coughs, then proceeds to wipe the sand
and mud off of his pants. He takes a long look at his destroyed home,
then proceeds to walk towards it. He stops at the entrance of the
marina, and sees that all the buildings are either leveled or are
burning. Ryukumu slowly shakes his head and says, "No!" He falls to
his knees and leans forward, slamming his fists on the ground. "This
can't be happening to me! Where the hell am I supposed to go?"
A young female voice says from behind him, "That's up to you,
Ryukumu."
Ryukumu quickly looks over his shoulder and sees the young girl who
was swimming at the bottom of the lake. He wouldn't know her, of
course. "What?"
The girl shakes her head and says, "Your best bet is to try to hide
in the forest. There's a cabin on the western side of the forest, there
should be a guy there who can help you out."
Ryukumu stands up and says to the girl, "Who're you?"
"A friend. That's all you need to know for now."
Ryukumu crosses his arms and looks the girl over. "...Whatever..."
The girl blinks then puts down her backpack and starts looking
through it. "I've got something that'll help you... lesse..." She
thinks to herself, "Here's the sword... wait, where's the crystal? Oh
my god, don't tell me I dropped it! Well, first thing's first..." The
girl pulls out the sheathed katana and hands it to Ryukumu.
Ryukumu takes the sword and raises his eyebrow. He clearly doesn't
trust this girl. "Why're you helping me?"
The girl chuckles and says, "Are you complaining?"
"Well, no, but..."
"We'll meet up again." The girl puts on her backpack and starts
walking away.
Ryukumu steps forward and says, "Wait, what's your name?"
The girl looks over her shoulder and says, "I'm Josepha. Good luck,
you're gonna need it."
Ryukumu nods and says, "...yeah, thanks."
Once Josepha walks away, Ryukumu unsheathes the sword to find that
it is badly rusted, to the point where if he were to strike it on the
road that it would probably break. "'Something that will help you',
huh? Gimme a break. This thing's not as useful as a pocketknife..."
Ryukumu sighs and sheathes the sword.
Ryukumu looks back at the marina and says, "Well... I guess I'm on
my own." He narrows his eyes and says, "Mom, Ashley... all you
guys..." He closes his eyes and shakes his head. "I'll find out who did
this." Ryukumu turns away and starts running towards the forest
opposite the marina. "...And I'm gonna make them pay!"
Please send C&C to davidbeach@hotmail.com
Xenogears: Guardian Legacy- http://come.to/xgl