Hope's Light

Prologue & Chapter 1

by Erisian

Book 6

Part One

Prologue - Bargain

“Are you certain this is the right path?”

Two figures crept down a narrow underground passageway, shoes slipping across shallow puddles lining the curved concrete floor. Their coats, one jet black and the other a lighter brown, flickered in the weak light offered only by a white crystal held forward by the taller and much darker-skinned man.

“They didn’t provide a map, Callas. I told you the same instructions they told me, and your memory is as perfect as mine. If you think we’ve misapplied the sequence, you should’ve spoken up.”

“Hmm.”

“Come on then, hopalong, we ain’t got all day!” Paul said with a chuckle, which became a full blown laugh when his son regarded him with an angry glare.

“It DOES still hurt, ya know,” Luke replied as he hobbled into the house, carrying a shopping bag in one hand and leaning on a crutch with the other arm.

“Aye, and tha doctors say it’ll hurt more in tha long run if ya don’t regularly exercise it,” Paul retorted. “And yas got ta keep those lungs o’ yours working too!”

Jack, Nick, and Cheshire along with their pets have made their way to the temple. All of them were exhausted and had numerous cuts, bruises, and small wounds covering their bodies. Even Sher Khan and Chaos had blood coming from wounds covering their bodies.

Chaos was favoring his right paw. A hunter set a trap and he stepped right into the trap. Jack tended to his injured paw, but it still bothered him.
Samson was resting on Nick’s arm as they stood inside the temple. They spotted a gem hovering over a pit in midair. The pit was to big to jump across.

Boys can dream, can’t they?.

Bryce and Paul were boyhood friends. Many Saturday afternoons had been spent horizontal on sofas watching sports on the TV. As the years went by the cans of cola were replaced by beer, razors were in each bathroom and their voices had broken, of course. Commercial breaks were now occupied by discussions of the attractiveness (or otherwise) of various girls of their mutual acquaintance and the ruses needed to get them wearing as little as possible, as quickly as possible.

Monday started out weird and just got weirder. First, I was up early and spent most of the morning before school trying to decide what to wear for my second date with Ross. It had to be something that would also be good to wear all day in school. It took forever to decide on an outfit that, last week, I probably would have chosen without a second thought. The worst part was my assumption that Ross probably wasn’t thinking about his outfit at all.

Vantier a Whateley Tale.....Ancient and Powerful Vantier awakens in a foreign world, struggling to find her place in it.

He is saved from the death of his race and planet....to start all over again....but can she survive?
A human high school and being a teenager? Will she remember what was? And grow in power?

This Chapter---dealing with life's issues and a hidden danger GROWS!!
dun dun daaaaa!!!!!!

Well its been 4 years since I posted a chapter....so I guess its well past time?

The growl was the same, but the effect it had on me wasn't, even doubled up as this was. Last time it had been full of intimidation and malice; this time it was nothing more than the taunt of a bully, containing little more than hot air. I'd already beaten one of these guys and I’d been almost totally unprepared. This time I had some measure of confidence and, despite the peculiarity of it all, I was properly equipped.

It. Was. Divine. I had to have more! More! But, I didn’t take more. I took my hand away with my trick still active. I was in control, at least I was when I was not starving for the stuff. "That's it. Now, you just have to wait it out." I closed my eyes and opened them. The urge subsided a bit.

I walked back inside. "I'm done," I told the others. They went outside to see Douglas.

The destroyer Kraben assumed a synchronous orbit over Russia, a silent but powerful reminder of the consequences of their earlier actions. These actions, a series of aggressive moves in space, had provoked the interstellar power and led to the current tense situation. The tension that rippled through Earth's governments was palpable, especially in Russia, where the leadership now found itself in a precarious position. They had acted hastily, and now they were dealing with the fallout—literally and figuratively—of provoking an interstellar power.

“Jack, look out!” Nick throws the survival knife she had in her hand and throws it into the guy’s back.

Jack scrambles out of the way, as the guy falls forward towards her. There was a gash on the side of Jack’s right leg where she had been slashed by one of their attackers. Just as Jack moved, a guy managed to get close to her.

“Where do you think you’re going, bitch.”

“RUN FASTER!” Nick was running as fast as he could in the new body he was in.

Jack was in front of him and Cheshire was ahead of both of them. She was leading them towards the river on the map. Explosions were going off around them.

Whoever was after them this time decided they weren’t going to play nice anymore. They were bombing the area with missiles and rockets. Several trees explode behind the three of them, sending them flying over a cliff and into the river they were heading for.

March 15th, 3040

Shadowsblade a Whateley Tale: Written by Shadowsblade

Created for war and forged in pain, dealing with demons within and without.

Unknown, South Pacific Island:
Nick looks over where Cheshire and Jack are sleeping. He knew the two of them were lightly sleeping. They had managed to tear the sleeves off the jumpsuits they were forced to wear. All the weapons they took had been reloaded. Each weapon had three reloads to it. After that, they were shit out of luck.

Chapter 1

"Hey, Gorgon, did you twist last night?" Called the familiar and unwanted voice of Tommy Radner. "Look, somehow you got uglier." Suddenly a hideously mangled image of my face appeared floating in front of me where everyone in the hallway could see it.

"Tom, I think you may have improved his looks." John Lee joked. Tommy and John were both on the football team and could do no wrong according the school administration. No wrong apparently included accosting innocent students such as myself.

In a story I posted earlier in the year – ‘Life at Tethers End’ – I had my main character as a writer of racy stories. I’ve had a chat with Adam, and he has allowed me to post the first four stories as listed in that one. They are heavily edited to cut out the more explicit sexual details. This is the first story. They run to a total of 19 chapters and are sequential.
Marianne

An interim story in Dragonfly's adventures with her team.

Written and posted with permission from Morpheus, this is a non-cannon fan fiction that takes place in his Legacy universe.