The Defenders [PG-13][Giving reps for reviews!]Chapter Nine is up!

[Love of Ghibli]

[quote name='Spike the Bloody' timestamp='1356272316' post='6099942']
One question.

Dafuq is a Jumper teleport?
[/quote]

Its from the movie "Jumper" with Samuel L. Jackson, you could literally teleport anywhere you could think of in a second. And anywhere meant anywhere in the world as long as you could visualize the place you were there.

[Alice Moonflowyr]

Nope. That is not it.

As in, that isn't what Lily can do =P

[Lonk]

Chapter 4 for me was like "Da fuq?". I mean, I honestly did not expect James to do that, nor did I expect that Deus Ex Machina for Lily there. Now I am left with more questions than I have answers for during a chapter where some things are resolved

[Alice Moonflowyr]

Deus Ex Machina? I was introducing the rest of the main characters.

And now the plot can move in full force. Which was my plan all along.

[Alice Moonflowyr]

[spoiler=Chapter 5]I woke up in a sleeping bag in the back of a moving van. I panicked for a few seconds, not knowing where I was, and then yesterday came rushing back to me, along with a few other random things. I had a memory of myself, standing on some floating rock in a world with purplish mist swirling gently around. I shook my head and looked around. Everyone else seemed to be asleep in similar sleeping bags except for Jay, who was sitting on his. Noticing I was up, he motioned me over.

“We’re still on the road?” I asked quietly. “Where on earth are we going?”

“To a safe place to get you your memory back. You’re our strongest, and we can’t do what we have to do without you.”

Now, they had filled me in before we bedded down. Apparently, there were magical disturbances across the world, and Ashton, our driver/mentor guy apparently, noticed and determined it was bad. So he looked for warriors, and found us. Teens with untapped magical powers. So he trained us, helped us unlock our personal abilities, and told us what we’re up against. He told me again last night.

There’s Horo, whom you all know by now. Some really shifty guy named Barock, and that’s all he knows. He thinks there are at least two, maybe three more people behind this. Although I don’t really consider Horo ‘people’.

I sat down next to Jay and told him the memory I woke up with.

“Hmm…I don’t recall anything like that. You should talk to Ashton. He would know. Sounds like it has something to do with your personal power, because you were able to manipulate obsidian for some odd reason. Sounds like you were standing on some in the memory.” Jay smiled then and said; “Do you remember anything about us?”

I thought really hard for about a minute. My memory was coming back naturally, slowly, in fuzzy little tidbits. I then realized I remembered one thing. “I remember one time when you and I were younger, like six or seven, and you came downstairs one morning for school absolutely covered in chocolate. Mom thought you s*** the bed, so she started lecturing you. Then she went upstairs and found the stuff on your bed, and got a good whiff. I think you were hoarding leftover Halloween candy up there or something…” I said. I really did remember that, although it was kinda fuzzy.

Jay laughed quietly. “Mom then lectured me even more, and I got grounded for a week.” He had such a huge idiotic smile on his face. I guess it made him happy knowing I remembered something.

About an hour later we arrived at a cottage in a foresty mountain. I could hear Ashton futzing around in the front seat, getting out and coming around to the back. He flung the back of the van open, and the light from the sun was really bright so I had to squint. Ashton was an older man in maybe his fifties, and was already showing the signs. Wrinkles, grey hair. He wore a white jacket with a black tee, and jeans.

The rest of the group was just getting up as I went over to inspect the cottage. It seemed cozy, like the kind of house your family goes to once a year. I wondered if me and Jay and our parents, wherever they were, had a house like this somewhere. Then I remembered…we did. It looked similar to this, and me and my dad used to go rabbit hunting. I smiled.

Ashton had somehow managed to cram about three months worth of food, water, and other assorted necessities into the van, and once everything was unloaded he pulled me aside.

“Later on, we need to concentrate on getting your memory back. If we can fully retrieve your memory, I may not need to re-teach you to use your powers. Otherwise…we might be here longer than I’d hoped.” Ashton’s voice was deep and reassuring, and I nodded in agreement. When I told him about the hazy purple-mist memory, he smiled. “Yeah. That does have something to do with your personal power. I’ll explain it later. It might jog your memory back faster.”

Everyone was doing different things. Jay and Kyle were practicing archery with some bows and arrows they found, Rain was playing music…with no instruments, which I thought was pretty damn cool, and Will was adjusting the look of his hand to make it look really old and wrinkled. Kind of like a witches hand. I wondered why Rain and Will were practicing their powers, but Jay and Kyle were messing around with archery. So I went and asked them.

“Well, you see, our powers are more useful outside of battle than inside it.” Jay said, lining up a shot. “Will would be with us, but his power is weird. He likes to have looks that he can change into in a split second, and he can only do that once he’s really familiar with it. He’s enlarging his repertoire.”

“We on the other hand, use our Auras mainly. So we familiarize ourselves with different weapons so we can materialize them with our Auras.” Kyle said, landing a hit near the bullseye of his makeshift target. “Dammit, so close.”

I pondered on this, and decided to try materializing my Aura. Rain had said it’s just like picturing it in your hand, and willing it to be there. So I pictured a whitish mist flowing around me on the ground, like fog from a fog machine does. I closed my eyes and tried to feel the swirling fog, pictured it. When I opened my eyes, I nearly shrieked. I actually had some white misty stuff around my feet. I did jump about three feet in the air though.

“Pretty scary when it actually works, isn’t it?” Will had walked up behind me, and was observing. “Try to pick it up.”

I looked a bit skeptical, and bent over and scooped some of the mist in my hands. It stayed there, and swirled around.

Smiling, Will said; “Nice job. Now take the Aura in your hand, and picture a small dagger, or maybe a rock.”

His words had barely left his mouth when the aura changed into the shape of a wavy dagger. Wavy, as in, ready to fall apart at any moment.

“Just keep trying.” Will said, walking away.

It took me about half an hour, but I found I could hold the shape of a dagger in my hand for about ten minutes. I tried cutting a tree branch with it, and it slid through like a hot knife through butter. It was awesome. I practiced more and more, for about two hours, and eventually I could make a short sword, and hold it. I was getting a bit shaky by then though, so I went inside to locate some grub.

“I hear you’ve managed to manipulate your Aura?” Ashton said. He was in the kitchen, chopping up some carrots. “That’s good. It means that your abilities are still there, even if your memory isn’t.”

I then realized something I definately should have asked about from the very get-go, but with all the stuff happening, it had slipped my mind.

“Ashton…how on earth did I get the amnesia in the first place?” I asked. Ashton stopped chopping, and his shoulders sagged. “Ask your brother about that. He made us promise not to tell you, as he wanted to be. He feels…guilty about what happened I think. But…wait. Don’t talk to him yet. Wait until you get your memory back. Please.” He said, looking directly at me.

“…yeah, alright. I’ll wait.” I said.

The cottage was very roomy, so we all got our own beds last night. I fell into a dreamless sleep, and when I woke up, I got a little surprise.

I had more of my memory back. I woke up with the urge to try to remember stuff, so I thought hard for a few minutes. I remembered being really pissed off about something, and punching a hole through a tree, and I had this badass gauntlet on my hand. I also remembered beating the crap out of zombies. That felt awesome, and they were Horos minions I think. He can raise the dead.

I got a headache from the rush of memories, so I lied back down on the bed. About half an hour later, Ashton came down and told me we needed to work on my personal power. We went out into the backyard.

“Now, Jay, Rain, Kyle, and Will probably all told you that your personal ability is teleportation, correct?” At my nod, he continued. “Well, that’s actually quite far from the truth. You actually have control over a completely different dimension, and time there runs so slowly compared to here, three days can go by there, and less than a second will have gone by here. You can ‘bounce’ between the dimensions. Distance travel is also the same, but the time difference is so drastic, when you come out in a different spot, it seems like you teleport.”

“That’s pretty neat. Now explain the obsidian.” I said. Ashton smiled.

“I was wondering when you were going to ask about that. You see, not only can you bounce between this dimension and the other one; you have total control over that dimension. It is your dimension, and you are the queen. You can control that dimensions natural element, which isn’t obsidian, but rather something very similar called Crysteel. You can materialize it in this world as well. Just materialize your aura in a gauntlet around your arm, if you please.” Ashton said, gesturing at me.

I complied, and soon a misty white gauntlet was on my hand. I figured out what he wanted me to do next, and pictured it being this Crysteel stuff. My arm then felt like it was being pulled out of its socket, and I looked at the gauntlet. It had turned into Crysteel, and as I saw it, I remembered. I could materialize a complete suite of armor and even swords and other assorted weapons out of it. And it was usually as light as a feather…

“You’re probably wondering about the weight. It’ll take some getting used to again, but once you do, you’ll be running at high speed with a full suite of armor plus a longsword.”

I got an idea, and walked up to a really thick tree, and punched the middle of it really hard. My arm sailed right through it, punching a huge hole. “This. Is. Awesome.” I said, flexing my fingers, making fists.

“Practice for me. Get a suit of armor going, and a sword. Make sure you can handle the weight. Once you can get a full suite of armor going, come to me. I’ll get you in the other dimension.”

I went to sleep that night easily. No dreams, just a general feeling of happiness. And the knowledge that next time I saw Horo, I had something up my sleeve to kick his bandaged butt with.
[/spoiler]

One minor explanation, but in a spoiler. Dont look at it till you've read the chapter.
[spoiler=Explanation]Its been pointed out to me that Lily picks up all this really quickly. That is by design. She already KNOWS all this in her subconcious, so it's coming naturally to her. It's also a way to jog her memory back so she can proceed to go wipe the floor with ze bad guys.[/spoiler]

[Lonk]

I like this chapter, as it gives me much more insight into what the group can actually do (as well as help develop Lily a bit more). One thing that I can't help but notice is that you misspelled "Definitely" (You spelled it as "Defiantly" or "Defiantely" in the chapter).

I can't wait for the first real battle in the fic.

[Alice Moonflowyr]

Oh. Son of a...

I always misspell that too XD

But it's good that you liked it! And again, thank you for the comment and stuff!

[Love of Ghibli]

Grammar: I did notice the "and I" rule not taking effect. As in its "Jay, our parents, and I" and "my father and I used to go rabbit hunting"

Content wise this was sooo great. Just so much back story. A random campsite out by the woods for background development. People talking about powers. Learning about her herp derp dimension walking abilities. Personally I think it insist on itself but it is pretty close to nightcrawler's teleportation just exponentially greater. My only regret is that it sounds like she didn't get hit by a van which would just be so entertaining if that was how she lost her memory.

My only real problem is that Horo is starting to sound a lot like Zanka no Tachi from Bleach because the fire sun deity having zombies for minions is almost off putting. Though that doesn't really tear away from the goodness that is this chapter.

[Alice Moonflowyr]

Horo isnt a Fire sun deity. He just has mastery over this 'Sphere of Fire'. He's also hinted at that he can have control over death magic too. Fitting, since he himself has been hinted at being undead.

I dont understand what you said about Lilies Dimension Hopping. I think you have a few typos in there somewhere.

But still, thanks!

[Alice Moonflowyr]

[spoiler=Chapter Six]
I was sore. Really, really sore. For the past week, Ashton had insisted on training me for almost the entire day, every day. My arms hurt from the armor, my shoulder ached from pauldrons, my legs hurt from running around so much, and my head hurt from the messages of pain the entire rest of my body was yelling out. I barely was able to drag myself out of bed this morning, let alone train. Everyone else was peachy even having gone through pretty much the same training regimen as me. Guess this is what comes from being a vegetable for a month.

After a three-mile run through the forest, I collapsed on a couch in our very nice temp house. I was sweating enough to fill a small kiddie pool, and I felt like I could sleep for a month again. Probably wasn’t good thinking, so I dragged myself over to the fridge and grabbed a bottle of water, chugged it down, grabbed another one, drank half of it. I heard a giggle from the doorway, and saw Rain standing there.

“I haven’t seen you like this since we first started training.” Rain said with this big goofy grin on her face.

I smiled. A lot of my memory had come back over the week, and I remembered that. “Yeah. I hoped I’d never have to do that again. Sucks to be me I guess.” I polished off my second water bottle and tossed the two empties into a recycle bin. A side effect of the rapid memory gain had been massive headaches, but I didn’t really care.

What had also come with my memories was that I can now fully use my powers. I just need to get my body back in physical shape. I got back outside, and put on my game face, meaning my awesome Crysteel armor.

Now this bit is freaking awesome. When I get my armor on, I concentrate on one part of my body, and imagine the armor spreading out from that part over my entire body. I usually concentrate on my stomach. A small circle of Crysteel appeared at the focal point, and tendrils of the stuff began to expand all across my body, swirling around my arms and legs, and up to my neck. Once the tendrils were in place, they meshed into the shape of my armor. It kinda looks like the tendrils are melting and the melted Crysteel is hardening again once it’s in the perfect spot. It looked awesome. Once my armor was on, the tendrils proceeded to make a longsword in my hands. I could do this even while walking, which made it look even more awesome. My armor looks pretty damn cool when it’s fully completed. It’s completely skintight, which is just awesome, and has a bit of a plate armor look to it. I don’t wear a helmet though, and my hair looks like a goddess in the wind.

The weight still bugged me, but I didn’t really care that much. I just needed to get used to this stuff again. I spun my sword a bit as I waited for Jay to show up. He and I were sparring partners, although this fact had only just been recalled to me three days ago, we had been doing it ever since this whole damn thing started.

“That armor thing gets cooler every time I see it.” Jay said as he walked up behind me. He slapped my shoulder, and I noticed he already had his aura armor on. Jay’s armor looked more like scale armor than plate, and had a greenish tinge to it. Like a mint color. He walked about ten feet away from me, faced me, and raised his sword. Jay specialized in a two-handed bastard sword, and he had been kicking my ass as of late. We’ve figured out how to dull our swords so they don’t cause major injuries, but we still get bruised pretty good. Ashton also has managed to place these things called ‘wards’ over our vitals so we can’t die. I’m not exactly sure how they work.

He charged at me as soon as I gave the all-clear. He raised his sword and brought it down towards my head. I parried and lunged, which he parried in turn. I went for a heavier assault. My armor is slimmer than Jays by a longshot, so I was far more agile. I dashed around to his side and swung at his hip. He leapt backwards about a foot, and slammed his sword down towards my chest. I blocked, and we locked swords for about ten minutes before I won that bit and managed to push him back. I was already breathing heavily, and Jay had a hint of a smile on his face.

I went on the offensive and tried a very fancy attack that I remembered Ashton teaching me. A feint to his right, then his left, his right again, then an attack on his head that veered off towards his abdomen. I contacted and heard a large [i]oomph[/i] from Jay. That attack usually manages to blast out all the air in my opponents’ lungs. Jay attempted to take a breath, but I didn’t let him as I had zipped around besides him and smacked my hilt into his lower back. He collapsed, and his armor dissipated along with his sword.

“Good game.” I said. My armor started to fade too, and the removal of the armor is kind of the same as the way it goes on except in reverse, which is also awesome. I grabbed Jays hand, lifted him off the ground. He had a big smile on his face.

“Looks like you’re back to your old self.” Jay said. He then made his way back to the house, groaning.

I smiled. I was back to my old self.
…

Later on, I sparred against Rain. I made a point of sparring against both Jay, who used a sword, and Rain who used her freaky-deaky sound waves. I wore a lighter layer of armor than I would against Jay, but decided against the sword. Rain began by blasting a few projectiles at me, which I could hear and avoid with acceptable precision. Then I bounced. This was the third time I’d done it this week, and I still got a rush from it.

In case you’re late to the story, I’ll explain. Everyone in our little group has different abilities, and mine is the ability to ‘bounce’ into a different dimension. I literally jump into the air, do something with my mind, not sure what, and when I land I’m in my dimension. Time is stupidly fast here, so three days here is like a second in the real world, but I can edit the time difference as necessary. Did I mention that I have total and complete control over what goes down in this place? Distance travel is the same unfortunately, and it’s also the one thing I can’t change about this place, oddly.

When I landed, I was on a platform of Crysteel, floating in a world full of purply smoke stuff. Wherever I stepped, Crysteel would form right under my foot so I didn’t fall into whatever was below me. In this realm, the Crysteel moved of its own accord to ensure my safety, which was nice. I closed my eyes and tried to remember exactly where Rain was standing, but then I remembered another little tidbit about this realm.

I can replicate the real-world in this realm for about thirty yards out from where I currently am. Takes a bit of concentration, but once it’s done, this world updates itself to accommodate whatever’s going on nearby me in the real world. Everything is even colored right.

I saw Rain with a [i]very[/i] puzzled look on her face. I ran behind her, and bounced back out, aiming to slam a fist in her back. She must have heard something, because she blocked me. Just barely though. The look on her face said this was game over though. I smiled an evil smile, and bounced backwards. I had edited the time difference so it’s right on the money, and I wandered around Rain for a bit while she tried to puzzle this out. I decided to be extra-evil here, and formed a gauntlet of Crysteel on my hand. Bouncing back out, I attempted to slam the gauntlet into Rains’ back, but it stopped about three inches from my target. [i]s***.[/i] I thought.

Now I needed to actually [i]think[/i] about a trail of attack, which didn’t really work well with me. I bounced back. The resistance I had encountered was a wall of sound, and it ticked me off. Rains’ sound waves can stop almost anything, but her armor always has a chink. I smiled. This was going to be close. Literally. I ditched the gauntlet and formed a small dull dagger in about a second. I then bounced [i]right[/i] behind Rain. Right freaking behind her. The dagger was on her throat in a second.

“I win!” I said in a singsong voice. Rain sighed, and then giggled.

“Good job! Just one thing.” She said.

“What?” I asked. Not exactly sure what I did wrong there, I was awesome.

“Your boobs are pressing against my back.” I could tell Rain was trying quite hard not to laugh.

I blushed and quickly backed off. No pun intended. Rain laughed a bit.

“I see you mastered your teleporting again though! Nice! Although why did it take you a minute or so that one time?” Rain had a frown on her face, the kind you get when you’re trying to figure out a really tough math problem.

“Oh, when I’m concentrating on a very specific way to teleport, it takes longer that’s all.” I said dismissively. Ashton had wanted me to keep the alternate dimension secret, for a multitude of reasons. None of which I understood, but I wasn’t exactly eager to find out what Ashton does if you really piss him off. None of us except Jay have ever really PO’d Ashton, and he refused to talk about what Ashton did to him.

Rain accepted my excuse, which sounded kind of lame to me, but then again, Rain uses sound waves to block physical attacks. I’m STILL not sure how that works.

By the time me and Rain were done, it was dinnertime. Ashton was making steak. [i]Steak.[/i] He managed to bring freaking steak all the way out here. It was all I could do to not drool when I smelled the delicious smell of steak coming from the kitchen.

When the dinner was finally served, I wolfed down my steak like…well, a wolf. Ashton made steamed carrots as well, which I also devoured with a fury. I would have licked my plate, but everyone was looking at me weird. I had a mouthful of food when I noticed everyone kind of staring at me. I swallowed.

“You try being a vegetable for one month living off an IV drip. See how you care about manners then.” I then dove right back into my food.

After dinner I was flipping through channels on a very nice HD TV when Will plopped down next to me on the couch. I stared at him for a few seconds. Will was kind of a mystery to me. I remembered a lot of my childhood, so I remembered Kyle as Jay’s friend, and Rain as mine. But Will had only shown up a few weeks before this whole incident started, and I was still a bit fuzzy there.

He [i]was[/i] cute though. Short blonde hair and hazel eyes. Tall at around 5’8. Pretty slim. I knew this was his default appearance, since this is what he looked like when I met him. It then dawned upon me that I had a freaking crush on this guy. Not surprising, I did say he was cute.

But it was also his calm, collected personality that just drew me towards him like a magnet.

It also occurred to me that he had no idea of what was going on inside my head, and for now I think I’ll let it remain that way. I did allow myself to feel a girly pleasure at having him sit next to me. I was just flipping through channels, so he grabbed the remote from my hand in one fluid motion and put on this sci-fi show.

“Hey!” I said. I didn’t really care, but it’s fun to do this.

“What? You were just channel-flipping, and I wanna watch this!” Will said, smiling.

I put on a hurt face, which he burst out laughing at. “Nice try.” Will said. He leaned back and watched his show.

I tried pouting. It almost worked. Then he smiled, poked my nose, and just went right back to watching.

I was silent for the rest of the evening, and allowed a goofy smile to creep onto my face.[/spoiler]

[Lonk]

So, Lily finally has mastered most of her abilities pre-amnesia.

In addition, the love interest has appeared. It has definitely gotten better since the beginning. What seemed to be somewhat lifeless from the beginning is sprouting out into a vivid setting with, not only characterization happening over time, but with good traces of foreshadowing as well. Needless to say, I loved the new chapter, and Lily is becoming more awesome without overshadowing the awesomeness of the supporting characters as well.

[Alice Moonflowyr]

[quote name='Tentalus Therapist' timestamp='1358096136' post='6119661']
So, Lily finally has mastered most of her abilities pre-amnesia.

In addition, the love interest has appeared. It has definitely gotten better since the beginning. What seemed to be somewhat lifeless from the beginning is sprouting out into a vivid setting with, not only characterization happening over time, but with good traces of foreshadowing as well. Needless to say, I loved the new chapter, and Lily is becoming more awesome without overshadowing the awesomeness of the supporting characters as well.
[/quote]Yayz~

I find it funny that I have...what seems to be 2 readers now and you both say its pretty good xD

And I still somehow have just 2 readers =P

[Alice Moonflowyr]

BUMP.

[Alice Moonflowyr]

Le bump.


Currently writing Chapter 7. Should be here in maybe a few days or so.

[Alice Moonflowyr]

BUMP.

Chapter 7 comes out later today!

[Love of Ghibli]

Yay another chapter and it wasn't bad once again. Then again not much happened but not every chapter has to be ground breaking.

There are only three things I have a problem with. 

 

1. While its not really a major problem I just don't understand her problem with the weight of her armor. Is it dense or what? I mean I'm having a couple problems imagining the physics of something being skin tight and still light and agile enough to perform triple feints, and just pwn a man. 
2. Second fight with the sound chick. Yeah here's the problem, the sound chick is throwing attacks at the speed of sound! The match was over when our protagonist mentioned that means she heard the attacks coming. To hear the attack means that the sound has reached your eardrum and has been processed by the brain. But in this case the sound itself is the attack so she should just be getting her behind smacked around despite her armor. Now sure in future combat you can simple discuss the level of skill it takes to watch a person's movements and predict there attack seeing as that is more light based and light is way faster than sound. 
3. I alluded to this before in my comment about the other chapter and I guess I was just to lazy to expound upon when you inquired but here it is again. I do not like her dimension hopping abilities. Or at the very least her intense mastery of them. She's pretty much a God of some other dimension at the age of what...17? Why is she this strong? I mean I can't think of a fictional character that had that much mastery of such a insane power at such at early age. What's worse is that this mastery of the other dimension doesn't seem to come from years of intense training. Its more like her birth right and therefore she should just be allowed to do things like...adjust the flow of time. Seriously I was okay with the hopping because I knew it would be the troll hax dodging power (as it should be), but for her to just get the black armor of doom, master over time, and dimension hopping dodges just seems a bit much. Also is there going to ever be a discussion about how this world effects her aging lol.

 

Other than those things I really like the chapter, maybe Will dies an ugly death and something can from that. Though I think my favorite part is remembering that you have a crush on someone. That just sounds funny.

[Alice Moonflowyr]

1. Its ARMOR. And she's obviously used to it by now =P

2. Ehh. If you start concentrating on this stuff this entire fic pretty much just goes out the window.

3. Oh belive me, her opponents have badass abilities too. And its her personal dimension. Its not like anything there actually effects the outside world, its just a cheap dodge trick. Now, if someone figures out how to get IN the dimension then they're automatically screwed. But otherwise, in the real world, the dimension hop is a cheap dodge/getinclose trick. Nothing in that world has any effect on the real world, and the time difference is just something Lily can edit to time her attacks just right with everyone elses attacks.

[Iam Isthename]

Sorry, Spike-san if I just started reading your story recently...but I already finished the first chapter. I'm looking forward to the second chapter but I have to sleep early so maybe I'll try reading it tomorrow after school.

 

So far, so good.

[Alice Moonflowyr]

Bumping.

 

Sorry for lateness in posting the next chapter, but IRL stuffz be busy atm, and plus i realized I made a gigantic ass inconsistency in the new chapter, so I haffa rewrite it from scratch DX

[Alice Moonflowyr]

Chapter 7 should be out today if Gar gets back to me on the beta read~

[Catterjune]

It's an alright story, in that it isn't written like crap with hours and hours of exposition.

The biggest problem, a more technical one then anything, is that the characters don't particularly have any kind of motivation. That is to say, everyone acts like exactly the opposite of what a normal person in their situation would do.

So there's this girl who wakes up and she just goes with some random man to his house. I mean, I guess I'll just chalk it up to amnesia, but did she didn't even bother to ask who he was? Or he didn't try to explain that maybe he knew her or something? Maybe answer the question the other way...

James is allegedly some fire monster, and he doesn't know Lily has amnesia (but he may know something about Lily, or know enough about her to know she's a threat to his plans). So she's been asleep all this time, she sleeps in house, and he has to kill her. Why two days after? Why not immediately? Why not when she slept? Just doesn't make sense.

So anyway, her first task after eating pancakes is to get some human bones. Rather then ask or anything she just kind of does it. Again, I guess I'll just chalk her idiocy up to amnesia but it's kind of beginning to stretch.

So the next day Jay sees her in a pharmacy and rather then him saying "Oh are you Lily [Last Name Forgotten]? I'm Jay [Last Name]! I'm your brother! You should come with me." he... asks her what she thinks her name is and then just kind of leaves? Why? It just puts her in needless danger for no reason. He knows her name and he probably knows what she is.

Basically, it's an Idiot Plot. Being an Idiot Plot isn't so bad if the characters are supposed be acting like idiots, but it's pretty bad overall if the characters are supposed to be average citizens, or in Rain's case have "increased intellect".

I quit reading after the fourth chapter. It's more patience then I give most fics because it wasn't so poorly written. If you can shut off your mind for a second and ignore how stupid everyone's acting it's an alright story, or at least it's written well enough by YCM standards.

tl;dr - It's okay.

[Alice Moonflowyr]

It's an alright story, in that it isn't written like crap with hours and hours of exposition.

The biggest problem, a more technical one then anything, is that the characters don't particularly have any kind of motivation. That is to say, everyone acts like exactly the opposite of what a normal person in their situation would do.

So there's this girl who wakes up and she just goes with some random man to his house. I mean, I guess I'll just chalk it up to amnesia, but did she didn't even bother to ask who he was? Or he didn't try to explain that maybe he knew her or something? Maybe answer the question the other way...

James is allegedly some fire monster, and he doesn't know Lily has amnesia (but he may know something about Lily, or know enough about her to know she's a threat to his plans). So she's been asleep all this time, she sleeps in house, and he has to kill her. Why two days after? Why not immediately? Why not when she slept? Just doesn't make sense.

So anyway, her first task after eating pancakes is to get some human bones. Rather then ask or anything she just kind of does it. Again, I guess I'll just chalk her idiocy up to amnesia but it's kind of beginning to stretch.

So the next day Jay sees her in a pharmacy and rather then him saying "Oh are you Lily [Last Name Forgotten]? I'm Jay [Last Name]! I'm your brother! You should come with me." he... asks her what she thinks her name is and then just kind of leaves? Why? It just puts her in needless danger for no reason. He knows her name and he probably knows what she is.

Basically, it's an Idiot Plot. Being an Idiot Plot isn't so bad if the characters are supposed be acting like idiots, but it's pretty bad overall if the characters are supposed to be average citizens, or in Rain's case have "increased intellect".

I quit reading after the fourth chapter. It's more patience then I give most fics because it wasn't so poorly written. If you can shut off your mind for a second and ignore how stupid everyone's acting it's an alright story, or at least it's written well enough by YCM standards.

tl;dr - It's okay.

An 'it's okay' coming from Pika is pretty good IMHO =P

 

Thanks for taking the time to read the first four chapters though. I appreciate it :3

[Alice Moonflowyr]

Finally here!

[spoiler=Chapter 7]Excitement. I woke up in the morning to hear a lot of footsteps outside. I flung the covers off of me, and proceeded to go wake everyone up, forgetting I was still in my nightgown. Rain was already up, although Kyle was sleeping like a log and I had to shake him violently to wake him up.

We all gathered in Ashtons room, and waited for him to tell us what to do. He looked outside, saw whatever was out there, and gave us a plan of action. I bounced, reconstructed the world in my dimension, and saw for myself. We were surrounded on all sides by what looked like zombies. I sighed. I figured Horo would have to find us eventually, and this was eventually.

I got to the position Ashton specified for me, and bounced back out. I could tell no more than a second had passed. About a minute later, I saw the whole group burst out the front door and proceed to kill zombies like killing machines. When the zombies on my side of the house got on their backs, I came up from behind, completely suited up with two swords, one in each hand.

I carved through three zombie torsos with my left, and brained another with the hilt of my right. Two came in front of me, and I lunged, giving them each a sword in the gut. Kicking them off my swords, I noticed three to my left, and two more to my right, plus another behind me. I held my swords out to the side and spun in a huge circle, causing zombie parts to fly everywhere. Rain was playing support, blasting a projectile here and there, but mostly shielding our backs.

Jay was tearing it up with his aura weaponry. One minute he had a bow in his hand, firing Aura Arrows, then the aura changed into a sword to chop up some zombies too close for comfort. It then changed into a dagger, which he threw. It embedded itself in the throat of a zombie, and the aura dissipated. Jay quickly formed another bow, and began firing again.

Kyles’ fighting style was quite different. Instead of using weapons, he hurled exploding orbs of aura into the zombies midst, and he also would blast a beam of aura out of his palms at more lined-up groups of zombies.

Will hung back, although I saw what he was doing. Will was sitting down by the front door of the house, and tendrils of his aura were seeping out from him like tentacles. They wrapped around zombie legs, picked them up by their torsos and throwing them, and generally causing havoc around the battlefield. Er, battleyard.

And that’s how my morning went. Took us about an hour to eliminate all the zombies, and we then headed back inside to replenish calories and generally laugh about the idiocy of the enemy.

Ashton heard us unfortunately. “No. He isn’t an idiot. That force was too weak for us, so he sent it here to tell if we were here or not. He’s probably sent another force to all of our safe houses.”

That kinda killed our mood. We glumly finished the rest of our breakfast, and proceeded to move out, on Ashtons’ insistence. I didn’t want to go, but whatever dude. Then Ashton told us where we were going.

“Horo has other mansions around the general area. We’re going to find him.”

We all whooped at that. I knew Horo was going down. Only reason he didn’t before now is because of my little memory setback. Which I still don’t know exactly how it happened.

A little update. I’ve remembered pretty much my entire life leading up to what I’m guessing is a day or so before the memory incident and everything after I woke up at the hospital thingy. The last thing I remember before waking up is overhearing…something…between Ashton and Jay. I can’t remember what they were talking about, or what happened after. I do remember being pretty pissed off though. But the gist of what we’re doing here is this.

Horo was committing arson all over the country, and it apparently became apparent to Ashton that he was not using normal means to do so. So he found us, trained us, and so on. But he’s found evidence that Horo is just a lackey of someone bigger. Something that’s a huge threat to this world. We don’t even know what it is yet, but there’s this one other guy called Barock that’s part of whatever shindig Horo is part of. Ashton is hoping to be able to wheedle some information out of Horo about Barock and whatever the freak is going on.

I personally am hoping to sink a lovely Crysteel sword into Horos stomach. But Ashton says I have to wait to at least see if he’ll talk. Spoilsport.

But I knew that we were planning to take Horo out maybe a week before Fuzzy Memory Area. So I knew we could take him. We all piled into the van and drove off. Ashton had given us a map marking each of Horos’ mansions. I checked it out.

“Alright. So he’s got about five mansions spread out through this entire county. Are there any more elsewhere, or do we think this is it?” The group shrugged.

“Not sure if he has any mansions that aren’t in the general area, but we’re pretty sure he’s in one of these five, keeping an eye on us, as evident by our morning visitors.” That was Will. He looked so cute when he was strategizing.

I wondered how exactly we were gonna do this. We had no floor plan of the mansion, so we were pretty much winging it.

It took us about an hour to get to the first mansion, and it was high noon by the time we had double-checked the locations of all of them. We headed back to the first one, and waited.

At about five o’ clock, we quietly exited the van. We had planned out what we were gonna do in the van. I was to enter via the front door, smashing it only if I absolutely have to, and let everyone else in through various side doors, and Will through a skylight we saw on the roof. We then sweep the house in pairs, if we find Horo, we raise holy hell. If we don’t, we tear this stupid place down.

At least, that was the plan. Yet here I am telling you it all went to hell within the first five minutes.

I managed to get in the front without too much trouble. It’s one of those doors that has windows on it, so I smashed a window to unlock the door. So far so good, I went to the back of the house to let Jay in. When I got there, he wasn’t there, so I figured it might be taking him a bit to get around to the back. I went to let Rain in from the western door. She was there, wondering where Jay was.

“He isn’t by the back. I dunno what’s up.” I muttered to her.

The house was eerily empty. No servants, no Horo, and no signs of life. Rain ran her finger along a desk.

“Dusty. No one has been in this house for maybe a week. Possibly two.” Rain frowned.

“Then where’s Jay?” I wanted to ask. But I stayed silent, and headed back to the back door. Jay still wasn’t there, and now I was starting to get worried. Rain went to let Kyle in through the eastern door, and we met up on the second floor near the skylight where Will was supposed to show up. Took him about two minutes, and since there was no obvious way to open it, he smashed it with a rock.

“This house gives me the creeps,” he muttered. “Where’s Jay?”

“He wasn’t at the back door. Not sure what he's up to.”

“Well, we can scold him later. Sweep the house, we’ve got four people. Rain, you and Lily take the top floor, and me and Kyle will take the basement.”

The entrance floor had already had a thorough sweeping in our getting to the various doors, so me and Rain began the top floor sweep. It was pretty simple. There were three bedrooms, two bathrooms, and what looked like a balcony. The first bedroom was the one with the skylight, and that one was clear. The second bedroom had an eerie feel to it. It was completely empty except for a four-poster bed that was smack dab in the middle of the room. I refused to touch it.

The third bedroom was bigger than the last, and had a lot of boxes in it. The search turned up nothing, although as we left, I thought I heard a whispering. I shook myself. The first bathroom was clean, except for the layer of dust.

As I turned the handle on the second bathroom door, Rain put her arm in front of me. I gave her a puzzled look.

“Don’t open that. I’ve got a really bad feeling about this room….” Rain said, her voice trembling a little.

I sighed. This was the last room, and we were done with this. I heard a thumping on the stairs, and whipped around, armor beginning to form. Will appeared, hands in the air.

“Whoa there. Settle down.” He was grinning.

“Sorry. This house is just freaky.” I said, the armor receding.

“You got that right. We can’t get the door to the basement open. Give us a hand, eh?”

“Why can’t you just smash it open with your Auras?” I asked.

“We tried. Didn’t work. The Aura just kind of went right through the door.” Will said, rubbing the back of his head.

“Alright. But help us out with this door though.” I said, gesturing at the last door.

“What, is it stuck?” Will asked, inspecting the door.

Rain got that look on her face again. “No, it’s just….”

“Rain’s getting the chills. Just open the damn door.”

Will shrugged, and turned the handle. Opening the door, we saw…a bathroom. Identical to the last one. Will threw me a funny look, and stepped inside.

“Nothing in here.” He said, coming out. “Dunno what you were afraid of.”

I was about to chide Rain, but then I heard it again. The whispering. It was really strong this time, but I still couldn’t make out what it was saying. Then an idea popped into my head.

“Hey uh…guys….can’t Horo raise the dead?” I asked, hearing a tremble in my own voice. I cursed myself. But Will got this wide-eyed look on his face.

“Damn! Damn it!” He yelled. He then raced down the stairs, quick as lightning.

“What the hell? Will?” I called down the stairs.

“I left Kyle by that door! And I think I heard a shuffling or something behind it! I thought it was just the house settling, but now…”

I didn’t really get what he was getting at, but I followed him anyway. As we neared the basement, I heard a yelling. Kyle. My armor snaked on, and a sword formed in my hand. We caught up to Will on the stairs down, and saying nothing, rushed towards the yelling.

We found the door to the basement wide open, and the room was pitch black. The yelling was coming from inside. Every once in a while, we heard a thunk sound, like wood being struck with a blunt object. I figured either Kyle was whaling on some bad guys, or some bad guys were whaling on him. I hoped it was the first option.

“Kyle? What’s up?” Will yelled inside the room.

“It’s about time you idiots got here! Shine some light on this willya? I left a flashlight on the stairs.” Kyle yelled from inside, followed by another thunk.

I grabbed the flashlight and shined it inside the room. I saw a rather empty, unfinished basement. Kyle had what looked like an Aura Sword in his hand, swinging it around. The thunks were him hitting the boards. I was about to laugh at him when I saw a shimmer in the air by his side.

I could barely make it out, but it looked like a wraith of some sort. Kyle was seemingly surrounded by what looked like three of them. Putting the flashlight down in a spot where it continued to light up the room, I quickly bounced to his side, and went back-to-back with him, sword at the ready. “How can you even see these things?” I asked him.

“I can’t, really. But I see a shimmer, and I swing at it. Pretty simple. I think there were about six at first, and I think I got two of them. Dunno where the third went.”

I heard Will and Rain yell.

“I think they found it.” I said, stabbing a shimmer. My sword embedded itself in the wood. I began letting out a stream of obscenities trying to pull it out. Kyle was obviously trying quite hard not to laugh. Another shimmer got a little too close for comfort, so I punched it. Bad idea. The wraith used my arm as kind of a pipeline to my brain, and I screamed as it got right up in there. I bounced on reflex, and immediately felt the wraith leaving. I replicated, and saw the wraith kind of floating where I was. Probably wondering what the freak just happened. I made myself another sword, bounced out, stabbed the wraith, and heard a shriek.

When a wraith shrieks, it isn’t pretty. I swear my ears were bleeding. I stabbed it again and it shut up, and then the shimmer was gone. “Got one!” I said, one hand still on one of my ears.

“So help me Lily if you make another wraith shriek, I am going to kill you.” Kyle grumbled as he missed again.

I bounced over to Rain and Will, and found Will shaking Rain. “That thing went in her head!” Will yelled.

I wasn’t sure what to do. Should I bring Rain into the other dimension? Could I? Rain moaned, and I gave it a shot. I grabbed her arm, and bounced.

My plan sort of worked. On the upside, I got rid of the wraith. On the downside, I had brought the wraith with me instead of Rain. Thankfully, I took care of it. I pointed at it, and clenched my fist. Spikes of Crysteel came out of thin…purplyfogstuff, and impaled the wraith.

I bounced back to Kyle, who was fighting the last two wraiths. I decided to do this in style. Pushing Kyle out of the way, I placed myself in between the two wraiths. I hugged myself, waiting for just the right moment. When the wraiths charged in, one on each side, I threw my hands out at them. Crysteel snaked out from my gauntlets, wrapping around the wraiths. At my will, the Crysteel kind of imploded, ripping the wraiths to…pieces. That doesn’t really sound right does it?

After making sure there were no more wraiths, I backed out of that stupid basement, with Rain, Kyle, and Will following. Kyle was in awe of my total badass moment, and Rain was out cold from that stupid wraith. We made it back to the van.

“Nothing in this one except some wraiths. We took care of them.” I reported to Ashton.

“That’s good. But…where’s Jay?” He asked, looking us over.

I spun around. I had thought he stayed back here for some reason. But apparently not.

Jay was gone.[/spoiler]

[mirandasouthard]

I really like the way you described James, saying that his voice was like poison honey. Really gives his character a subtle undertone of distrust. In the second chapter, I felt like lily should have met someone who knew something about her so that we can get some insight on what's going on with her before the plot goes full drive and the audience is left in the dust.

is that Edward Elric i love full metal alchemist its one of may fav animes

[Love of Ghibli]

Okay there is only one major problem with the chapter. Why can she recreate things she hasn't seen or can't see? Seriously the zombie reveal just made no sense, if she is the one recreating the world in her own dimension then logic would dictate that its from her memory and she can't (or I guess in this case "shouldn't be able to") create things she doesn't know about. The same goes with the wraiths, if she can barely see them then how can she make an image of them in her own little world. If she has this derp ability then how come she didn't just use her omni creation in the other world, Make the current scene and reveal where every wraith was, then proceed to go in and kill all of them within the a second? This just came across as plot hax, but I already disapproved of her power level and mastery so I can't simply reemphasize that point.

 

As for the breaking and entering...I guess with no actually description of where this mansion is (is it in town, is it in a forest, or anything of that nature) I want to complain that a bunch of teenagers pulling up in a van and surrounding a house should be alarming to someone in nearby area. But there isn't any real setting here. No time, scenery, anything. I assume its later in the day...maybe.

I wait for the chapter that the sound girl becomes broken. As stated in previous reviews I feel she got cheated out of a fight and even in this moment there was a bangin opportunity for her to use echolocation on the Wraiths and the house in general. But it looks like that just wasn't in the cards for this chapter.

 

Finally the cliffhanger saved  the chapter for  me because that just leaves so many wondrous possibilities.