Advance Wars: Twilight Sunrise (Chapter 1)

[Thar]

 

: Twilight Sunrise

 

[spoiler=Preface: How Day's of Ruin ended *SPOILER WARNING*]One year after Caulder was defeated…

 

“It's another cloudy day... Let's see how everyone is...”

 

Will, a cadet from the Rubinelle military academy, awoke to yet another day of peace. It has been a year, a year since the darkness of what could have been the end of all things living has met with the sunrise of hope.

 

But the sunrise had yet to appear on the new horizon. Each day the sky was still blanketed in clouds that could be the dust of the decaying world. However, there was one thing that the world still had left on it: Life.

 

“Will! Look!” A civilian from the farms that were started soon after the end of the war yelled frantically, waving his arm to signal Will to look. “Take a look at the fields! There are crops growing! All that hard work paid off!”

 

“Well done!” Will replied, his eyes glowing at the sight of what looked like a miracle, “I know it wasn't easy.”

 

“It was worth the effort. The soil is even better than we had hoped! The meteors have somehow fertilized it in a way. Now all we need is for the sun to break through the clouds...”

 

“Don't worry! As long as we don't give up...”

 

“There is hope!” a woman from the same fields shouted back in response, “You are right. Where there's life, there's hope...”

 

[hr]

 

Will took a stroll down the fields until he had reached the outskirts, seeing Penny skipping around the crops. She was holding her two teddy bears, which she calls Mr. Bear. A happy tune was heard humming from her lips, which drew a smile on Will’s face.

 

“Hey Mr. Bear, look at the fields! Let's play hide-and-seek...”

“Penny!”

“Who are you? How do you know Penny's name?”

“My name is Will. I spoke to you here yesterday.”

“Penny doesn't remember! Penny doesn't know anything! Come on, Mr. Bear!”

“We've been through this before...”

“Daddy is gone... Cyrus is gone... Where is Tabitha?”

“We believe she is still alive, though we aren't sure where she is.”

“Penny knows Tabitha is alive! All of us are connected, you know! We are part of the same system.”

“System? Is this what Caulder was talking about when he said one person could operate entire armies?”

“The sky!”

“What?”

“Isabella said she wanted to look at the sky. So we've been walking around here together. We went over there, near the doctor's house. What will we do next, Mr. Bear?”

“I'm sorry, Penny. I really don't understand...”

“That's okay! Come on Mr. Bear!” Penny’s smile never left her face as she skipped away.

 

“Wait, Penny... ummm... I'm not sure how to handle this.”

 

[hr]

 

Meanwhile, in the town medical center, Dr. Moritz was standing along the wall right across the room from the doorway, arms crossed. When Will entered upon request, he approached him with his arms held out, embracing him.

 

“Everyone infected by the virus has recovered fully. No one has relapsed... Thanks to the antidote, those particular flowers have been successfully uprooted!”

“Ah, I see... Very witty! We owe a lot to Cyrus...”

“It's hard to believe that upstanding young man was a clone of Caulder. It just goes to show how the same DNA does not mean the same personality. Cyrus was created to be a merciless killer, but it turns out that he had a good heart. All manner of influences go to make a person. Environment, personal relations... Even someone born in the most promising situation can still redeem themselves.”

“You're right, Doctor.”

“By the way, Will - I've been meaning to talk to you about Isabella and her sister.”

“What is it?”

“It is common for clones to have shorter life spans than the original organism. In the case of cloned sheep, the ageing process of the clone was accelerated. There are sections of DNA called telomeres which actually determine lifespan. The telomeres in cloned sheep are much shorter than in the DNA of normal sheep. Clone a 10-year old animal and the life expectancy of the clone is cut by 10 years. If you use this clone to produce other clones, life expectancy will be shortened further. If the same thing occurs in cloned humans... Then I am afraid that Isabella is most likely nearing the end of her life...”

“...What?!”

“Don't panic, Will! Let me finish... In other cloned animals, such as cows, the telomeres do not become shorter. There are even cases where longer telomeres in the clone meant they outlived the original. If the same quirk occurs in cloned humans... Isabella may have longer life expectancy than you do!”

“I see...”

“I have no idea how long the telomeres are in Isabella or other cloned humans. I have no idea how long Isabella still has to live... but sometimes I think it's better not to know...”

“I agree. I believe that Catleia still has many happy years ahead of her. She believes that too.”

“That is good to hear.”

 

[hr]

 

The town’s dairy fields were marry alongside the rest of it. The cows walked and ate the grass as if there were no war. Gage could be seen sitting by one of them, visible just over its back.

 

“Gage, what is the current situation?”

“It is critical...” Gage’s voice seeped through his teeth as he frustratingly tried to milk the cow. Tasha’s laughing over his shoulder was not helping him, either.

“This is not like you, Gage. You normally keep a cool head...”

“Yes, in battle. I'm a soldier, Tasha. I wasn't trained to milk cows...”

“You have to loosen up a little bit. Are you worried it might ruin your image?”

 

As they exchanged remarks, Lin, the town supervisor after serving as the tactician for the 12^th Batallion, walked over with her arms crossed, giggling, “Good morning! Is there enough milk for everyone?”

 

Gage glared at Lin without moving his drooping head, “I'm working on it... I'm sure that cow doesn't like me... have you seen the way it's looking at me?!”

 

[hr]

 

An open field stretched out past the horizon, but there were still clouds. Isabella stood staring out, as if seeing something coming from afar.

 

“Isabella!”

 

Isabella was startled, but an overwhelming smile took over, “Will! Good morning!”

“Penny and the others are on their way. Let's wait for them here.”

“Yes, sir!”

“The war is over, and the Creeper has been completely eliminated. But this doesn't mean that our work is done. This world is still full of people in trouble, people who need our help. And then there are the people who we are not able to help...”

“Yes...”

“But we must keep trying. There are lives we can still save. We can't give up. Where there is life, there is hope.”

“Yes... There is always hope...”

“But Isabella, I worry about you sometimes. You've been through so much... Are you sure you're okay?”

“I'm fine! It doesn't matter how I was born... Whatever the future holds... ...I know I want to be here with everyone. I want to be with you.”

“I know we can all be happy. I am sure of it. I am too.”

“Oh! Will!”

“What is it, Isabella?”

“Look up there!”

 

From the edge of what felt like the universe, light began to form. At first it was dim, stretched out across the sky spreading outwards from a central point. But it soon burst into a blinding nova, emitting a light onto the world that rejuvenated what it had had before the darkness overcame it.

 

 “You were right, Will! Where there is life, there is hope!”

 

Will and Isabella took each other’s hands, soon bonded shoulder to shoulder, head to head, and sat in the field watching the start of a new world rise before them.

 

“The future is looking bright!”

 

[hr]

 

New life began for the world, but where there was life, there was death written in stone. Amongst the shadows of the rising sun lay astray the blooming of a rose, whose thorns glistened in the sunlight. Hidden in the darkness, a black hood could be seen as a silhouette in the brightly lit sky, hiding the face of the man who would give a whole new meaning to the new beginning.

 

“Tabitha…” he sighed, lifting the ruby red pedals of the rose to his nose, “Wherever you are… let your thorns glisten in this new light.”[/spoiler]

 

[spoiler=Chapter 1: From the Shadows Comes Light]One year earlier, as the war against Caulder commenced…

 

Nuclear fallout took place in the town below. Saidow could not remember the name, nor did he care. He was just outside the blast radius, but a chunk of the mountain gave in just before him and made him lose his balance. The fall was enough to dislocate his shoulder as well as cut up his entire arm.

 

“God damn,” he grunted as he snapped his shoulder back into its socket, “Who the hell is this guy? Where did he get such a weapon?”

 

He had one arm that wasn’t numb from injury. Climbing the rocks was a chore, but when he reached the top, he did not hesitate to continue along the top. It wasn’t far from the cave he had camped inside for quite some time.

 

“At least I knew what was gonna be used here. Now let’s see if the rumors are true.” Saidow walked into the cave, whose walls were lined with what appears to be advanced technology in its first stage of invention; wires and jumbled-up metals sat in a roughly assembled fashion, whirring with the energy that Saidow was generating with a wheel on the far wall of the cave. The whirring was beginning to settle, and Saidow turned the wheel to restore it.

 

Where all the wires met was a capsule with a little tray on the top. In the tray rested three different crystals: ruby, sapphire, and emerald. Hovering over the tray was a clear glass tunnel that Saidow had received from sand struck by lightning and smoldered using the abandoned warehouse of a nearby city where a battle took place. It was since the world “ended” when he began work on this machine, and it all started with the discovery of the mountain’s jewels laying in that tray.

 

On the top of the mountain above the cave there was a dish-shaped receiver, not to be confused with a satellite. There was an opening in the center of the crevice with a condensing funnel deeper inside. This was not easy for Saidow, but the engineering of it was viable enough to withstand a one-time use.

 

“Now that there is enough radiation in the atmosphere from the bomb,” he said to himself, “I can gather it and smelt these crystals together to form the ultimate radioactive super-mineral. With it, I can survive this war. It’s only a matter of time before this whole planet is crumbled into darkness.” He looked at his arm, the one that was scarred from the mountain, and sighed, “let’s hope this works. It’s all or nothing now.”

 

With the good arm, he flipped a switch, activating the receiver atop the mountain. The air around it was visible in the shape of a ball that twisted and morphed and got sucked into the dish. The glass tube over the tray with the crystals was lowered onto it, and Saidow braced his arm inside the capsule, breathing deeply. The machine began to shake violently and let off a lot of steam. As the tension in the process of the experiment rose, a massive form of condensed radiation reached the crystals and melted them.

 

They leaked into the capsule where Saidow’s arm tightened in pain. He yelled out loud as the heat and pressure of the melted crystals seared through his tendons as if it was being bathed in lava and stabbed at by a thousand nails. The shock was just barely enough to keep his sanity in a non-lethal state, and after a minute or so passed, the process halted. Saidow laid limp with his arm still caught in the capsule, but pulled himself up and opened it, pulling out his arm. He could not believe his eyes.

 

“It…it worked…” his breath was thin, but rapid with excitement. Before his very eyes, his arm, which was previously scarred and scraped all over from the mountain, had regenerated with perfectly healthy skin. “I… can’t believe it! The rumors are true! The ultimate radioactive mineral, right here in my flesh! There’s hope!” An ecstatic laugh burst through his lungs as he jumped in joy, “THERE’S HOPE!”

 

He clenched his fist, releasing a faint, white smoke that centered around a piece of the mineral that showed on the back of his hand like an emblem. His mind drifted to another more sensitive subject.

 

“…Tabitha,” he looked back at when he first say her: commanding her squad in the field of battle; her turquoise hair in two ponytails and wearing that white dress that made her collarbones pop out like an angry vein. Veins also popped out with her fury, which turned Saidow on.

 

“Oh, Tabitha. Your fiery personality on the battlefield sets ablaze that dress you wear that almost never gets dirty yet the blood of your enemies drenches it. It smells amazing.” He sighed, looking outside from the cave entrance, “One day I will find you again, and this time, we WILL be together,” he looked at his open palm which released more white smoke, “I swear.”

 

[hr]

 

Present day…

 

Tabitha could still feel the burns from the collapsing laboratory that was her father’s, but the hollowness that came with the end of her purpose was even less manageable. She was alone; on her knees in the open fields of the barren wasteland that the war had caused. For the first time in her existence, she had felt a tear flow down her face onto her thick, red skirt that her knees dug into the dirt.

 

“Daddy…” she could barely mutter, “I’m… I’m sorry. Sorry… for everything…” More tears came down like a waterfall, and she was weeping, “I… I-I have no reason to live. I am… nothing.” She sniffled and wiped her nose with her knuckle, simultaneously widening her eyes while looking at the horizon.

 

The sun rose. The light of the new world shined onto Tabitha’s nearly blinding eyes that summoned for tears, tears of happiness. It was such a controversial feeling in Tabitha’s soul. Having felt hollow and worthless an instant before and now feeling like she can start a new life on the new world.

 

“It’s… it’s so beautiful…” she said almost breathlessly as she got to her feet, still entranced. She could feel the voice of hope ringing through her head. It was a familiar voice, one that she felt related to. It actually felt like this voice was connected to her.

 

…Tabitha! Tabitha is still alive! Mr. Bear? Do you know where Tabitha went? Mr. Bear doesn’t know.

 

Tabitha gasped, “PENNY!” she shouted, but settled, “…typical Penny, always talking to that teddy of hers. When’s she gonna grow up?” She caught herself and sighed, slouching as she walked over to sit on a nearby rock. From there she started sensing her other sister, Isabella, sitting at peace watching the sunset like she was from the lonely rock. Her shadow stretched far into the empty fields as the sun crept up further, and from there she felt what she needed to do.

 

A strange new desire burned within her. Her father’s image found its way back into her conscience and her sad joy turned to happy anger. A message was delivered to her being that her purpose was not done yet. She felt this swell within her and the feeling was refreshing.

 

She had to avenge her father and start a new world.

 

[hr]

 

Not several miles from Tabitha’s deserted whereabouts was Saidow, as usual camping on the sides of the mountains watching like a perched crow the ground below. His arm was shrouded in white, glowing smoke, and the emblem on the back of his hand shined bright. To his side was a tank, which was run down from the aftermath of the battle that took place. Nobody had bothered cleaning up after their mess, which made a scavenger like Saidow giddy inside.

 

The tank was roughly still assembled, but Saidow lifted his Rusifald arm, which he calls the alchemic breakthrough that he unfolded a year ago, and a cloud of white smoke caressed the tank and held it anew. The tank moved with his arm and raised and lowered its guns with his fingers. Saidow laughed with glee, looking around for a target. At last he saw a pile of rocks just waiting to be blown apart. He pointed his arm at the rocks, the tank followed, and Saidow gestured a gunshot by jerking his arm back, prompting the tank to fire a blast into the rocks, scattering it into dust.

 

“Oh, how long I’ve been wanting to do that!” he shouted with a tightness in his words from excitement. He looked around for more targets, aiming at them and firing, making more scatters and blasts tear up the landscape. His laughs were maniacal with the destruction, and following his satisfaction for the night, he looked down at his open palm into the emblem that glared back, “Hope was what saved us from the darkness. Such an cliché term, ‘darkness.’  Why not fall into the light? Why not make them SEE their own downfall rather than be blinded into submission? Why should one have to NOT see their hope corrode before them?”

 

Saidow clenched his fist, squinting at the thought of him going mad with power and losing his cool, “All this time alone with nothing but a miracle that I’m using merely to entertain myself…”

 

A slight movement caught the corner of his eye. Almost in a whiplash, he cocked his head in that direction. There was nothing, “Great. Now I’m hallucinating…” He shook his head and put his pure hand on his brow to wipe the sweat, “I think I’ve had enough fun for one day. Tomorrow, I shall put this power to use-”

 

He was interrupted by another movement, this time it was real. It was still faint and far away, but from the distance he noticed a figure in a red dress walking along. It was hard for him to make out, but a squint later he noticed her and his eyes sparkled.

 

“…T-Tabitha,” he stuttered like a broken radio signal. The white smoke from the tank that kept it together disappeared and the tank fell back into a rusted mess, making a loud clanging noise that echoed throughout the wasteland. His eyes still locked onto her, he saw her flinch and look in his direction; albeit he was not visible, he felt the static run through his veins, “All these days of waiting and building up to this moment; at last I have found you!”

 

His happy face casted with love for his dream girl turned into a smirk, and he made for the mountain to scout his prey.[/spoiler]

[Catterjune]

You didn't even proofread the prologue you copy-pasta'd?

[Thar]

You didn't even proofread the prologue you copy-pasta'd?

 

What do you mean?

 

I took the script for the ending, took out the script format, and changed the Japanese names to the American names.

 

That's not a problem, is it?

[Catterjune]

There's two different translations for Days of Ruin. The European one that calls the protagonist Ed and the American one that calls the protagonist Will.

 

In the beginning you call him Will. In the scene with Dr. Moritz, you call him Ed. In the second-to-last scene where he and Isabella are in the field and the sun comes out for the first time, she calls him both Will and Ed.

 

So really, you didn't proofread it at all. It's a sloppy amateur mistake and really telling that the rest of your fic will also probably be sloppy and amateurish.

[Thar]

So really, you didn't proofread it at all. It's a sloppy amateur mistake and really telling that the rest of your fic will also probably be sloppy and amateurish.

 

Except that's hardly relevant at all, because first of all: I only know the protagonist as Will, not Ed, so I could only name him Will when writing the story. Copying the European script and changing every name is guaranteed to result in a few missing links on the first submission.

 

Second, Chapter one doesn't involve Will at all, so jumping to that conclusion makes you just as ignorant as the kind of writer you accuse me of being.

 

And third, it can easily be fixed. Boomdone.