Reign of Darkness Part 1: A Hero Falls By: Pik ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- There are times when an author must move from his current place and go on to new grounds. Writing the novel has sapped me, and therefore I am going to start on a series that I have been working on since even before Sword of Darkness ended. It is a continuation of the the Sword of Darkness series, picking up with Ray's story after he gains said Sword. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "How many of these bars have I been to in my short life? How many times have I entered one to take some criminal to justice? How many times I have been just as bad as the criminals I am bringing to justice," thought the young man sitting at the bar in some run-down liquor joint. He had been sitting there for hours, not really doing anything. He'd already tried drowning his sorrows in every substance there is, but nothing worked. He barely noticed the man who entered the room. It took him even longer to figure out it was he that this man wanted. "Didn't you hear me? I'm here to kill you." The young man merely looked at him, "Why do you want to kill me?" The man pulled a gun and held it to the young man's head, "You're the bounty hunter that took in my brother. I'm here to kill you for it." "Too late," was the sole response from the young man. "WHAT?" "Easy, I cut you into multiple peices as soon as you threatened to kill me." The stranger looked down, and saw his vision split in two as his head opened up verticly while his body fell into four pieces. "Abbie, is there a bounty in any dimension for this looser?" The young woman in the back of the room looked at her watch and nodded, "Yep, he's worth about 6,000 D. Cash. You were pretty lenient, he lived alot longer than most of the others." The young man stood up and payed his tab, plus some for any damages to the bar, "Well, I was in a good mood." He then walked out the door. "I remember when, if you were in a good mood, you were actually a very nice person. What has happened to you, Ray Doss: Chosen One of Light?" Ray sat in his bed and looked up into the ceiling. He looked at the clock beside his bed, "15 PM, Not even the middle of the night." He got up and looked out the window. "How many weeks has it been since I've slept at all? How many nights have I stood awake, looking out this window? I have no answers to the questions that haunt me to this day." Without warning, it grew much darker in the room as a sword appeared. "Why did I take this stupid weapon anyway? Why couldn't I have destroyed it, it would have been better for everyone. No Sword of Darkness, no Sword of the Whole, no possiblity of Saraphim coming back." He sighed and returned the sword to it's crystal form, the ten rings on his fingers flashed and disapeared. Ray jumped slightly as he felt familiar arms wrap around his neck. "Ray, why won't you come to bed? Maybe you'll sleep tonight." Ray shook his head, "Methought I heard a voice cry, 'Sleep no more, the Chosen One doth murder sleep.' The innocent sleep, the sleep that knits up the raveled sleave of care, the death of each day's life, sore labor's bath. Balm of hurt minds, great nature's second course, chief nourisher in life's feast," "What do you mean?" "Still it cried 'Sleep no more!' to all the house: 'Humanity hath mudered sleep, and now the Vortex shall sleep no more, The Chosen One shall sleep no more." Abbie giggled at his speech, "Hamlet?" Ray shook his head, "MacBeth, suitable to quote from a good man turning evil." Abbie fell silent at this, but kept her arms around Ray and sighed. "I love you, no matter what happens, always remember that I love you, and you love me," she thought to herself, knowing that if he wanted to, he would have heard her through the psychic link they had established on the day of their wedding, so many years ago...... It was 3 years earlier, a mere two years after Saraphim had tried to destroy the world, and the Ultimate Evolutions had risen up. She remembered that day well, Hell Blitzkrieg's evil rampage for the sake of goodness, Omni-Frag's appearance from the grave, and Ultimate Mac arising to assist his friends. But the transformation Abbie would never forget was that of her dearest Ray. He had tried to stop of the Dimensional Cannon's blast all on his own, willing to sacrifice himself for her. It was his love that transformed him into Warrior of the Cross. She had always wondered if he truely loved her, till that day. When he was willing to die to save her, she realized that he truely loved her, and she him. They dated another two years, wanting to wait till she graduated from the Academy to get married. Thinking back, she always had to smile at how he had proposed. Ray had been asked back to hold the ceremony, and give the newly named Gaurdians their rings. Everyone, including Ray, knew it was an attempt to boost moral, since NCC was just really beginging to separate into it's two factions. Abbie was last in line, due to her last name, but she was happy. When Ray took her ring off the podium and went to place it on her finger, he got down on one knee, and looked her in the eye. He smiled, then proposed. That seemed so long ago to Abbie, but her love for her husband had not changed, though he had. Days passed, and nothing more happened. It was time to move on for them. "Kouesi, come get us. We're leaving this dimension." Ray took his place in the captain's seat of his ship. Unlike any ship in the universe, Kouesi was the pefect melding of DGF Technology and Juraian organics. Due to her connection with Ray, and his connection with the Vortex, Kouesi was able to become any ship in the universe, yet still had the organic ability to rebuild herself when damaged. She had even been granted five Lighthawk wings with her upgrade. Kouesi had also noticed the slow changes in her lord's mannersisms. But she wasn't the one to mention it. "Kouesi, activate inter-dimensional drives and take us to another universe. I have gotten all the bounties I can here." Ray sat back and sighed, "Life is like and endless waltz, always dancing to the three beats of war, peace, and revolution.' We ended the war, there is a time of peace, will revolution occur in the near future. Or is revolution allready upon us?" In a remote dimension, there stood a lone island. This was the place of a great battle only a few years before. But it was not the battle that had left that one lone island, but the resident who chose that dimension for his final stand. This villian had since been buried there, the island turned to the graveyard for his twisted body. The ever-present storm howled with greater fury as the lightning slashed through the air like an iluminated knife. Had anyone been present, they would have swore they saw a hand thrust into the air from the lone tomb with one of those lightning flashes. And if that person had survived long enough, they would have heard satanic laughter.