Fire in Darkness

[Vince the Dark]

*sigh of relief*
Finally finished it! After agonizing moments of not coming up with how to write this chapter I finally did it so I hope you all like it. ^.^

Chapter Fourteen: Flames times two?

Flames woke up the next morning as the sun started to rise in the sky, throwing its first rays over the treetops. He had no idea about what had happened the night before, but he could feel something being different with his brother, although not able to put his finger on what it was.
Flames decided to take a stroll in the woods before the rest would wake up, thinking about the dream he had had last night, and still going on about the happenings of late, trying to get some sense to it all. His training, the kidnapping of his brother, and generally everything that had happened in the five years since Vince had gone missing.
And all this seemed to somehow revolve around himself, as if he was something special.
It didn't make much sense to him at the moment, so he decided to make go back and see if the others had woken up already.
At the camp, the others had started waking up and noticed that Flames wasn't there, although they took no bigger concern about it, knowing that he'd be back in a while. Vince, who was one of the first ones to wake up from the group by the fire, took a good look at the others while they were still sleeping. A husky and a full-blood dragon. What on odd bunch, he though.
Ravus and Fey woke up soon after Vince, and after a moments  silence they started to chat. They then talked about Vince's and Flames' past, not knowing of something that was heading right at them from the sky at high speed...

The anthro at inside her mechanic pod, trying to steer it down to the planet without getting burnt up at the same time. She moved her paws with quick movements over the different buttons and controls, keeping an eye on everything, not able to afford any slip-ups. Just ten minutes ago she had been fighting a hard headed evil scientist, and now she was stuffed into a pod, somewhere in space. She couldn't believe she had fallen for such a trap, but there was not much she could do about that in her current situation, so she tried to focus her mind on the task at hand and survive through this.
As the pod hit the planets atmosphere, it started to glow red, getting warmer and warmer, so the anthro had to do something fast or she would be burnt alive. She hit a couple of buttons, getting the pod to slow down its fall, but it still wasn't enough.
The fiery anthro cursed her lack of knowledge about this kind of technology, and slammed her fists into the control table. And just then, the pod seemed to slow down just enough so that it wouldn't be burnt up while going through the planets atmosphere.
The anthro looked out the the main window, seeing all the trees down below, noting that she would hit ground in a couple of minutes.
“This is going to hurt...” She thought to herself.

Meanwhile, Flames made his way back towards the camp, looking at the trees around him. He was still deep in his own thoughts as he came to a clearing up ahead, looking at it from side to side.
The fox anthro took a while crossing the clearing, looking at the peaceful scenery around him as he went. When he had waked a bit into the woods at the other side, he suddenly heard a roaring sound from behind him, following a loud crash. Flames turned around quickly to see a huge pile of dust coming from the same direction where the clearing he had just walked through was. Not knowing what had happened there, he spurted back into the direction of the crash, back to the clearing.
As he came to the edge of the trees, Flames looked at all the dust in the air, trying to see what had crashed there. With slow, cautious steps, Flames made his way closer to the crash site, soon covered inside the smoke. As the dust cleared off, a metallic pod came into sight from under a pile of rubble.
Flames, curious to what it was, went towards it, having drawn the X-sabre and having it ready at hand if needed, when the pod suddenly cracked and opened up.
A slender paw, covered in fiery fur, pushed open the hatch of the pod, peeking her head out and looking around before jumping out of the pod.
Flames could nothing but let his jaw drop as he looked at the female anthro that stepped out of the mechanical pod. She was like and exact copy of him: the fiery fur, the fox-like characteristics, although being much more slender and having such elegance.
If someone had seen them, he would have thought he was hallucinating, because the two were so alike, yet so different at the same time. One male, the other female...

[Vince the Dark]

No comments... Now that's boring...
Here's chapter 15.

Chapter Fifteen: Introducing, HoKaze no Blaze

As Blaze jumped out of the pod, she looked had a quick look around the spot where she had landed, although not noticing Flames, who standing only a few feet away from the pod. Blaze then started looking at how much damage the pod had sustained from the crash, muttering to herself as she looked at the damage.
“Great job guys...” She muttered to herself. “This is just fantastic... They said that they had taken everything into calculation and then this happens?!” She then kicked at the pod, hurting her hind paw. “Blasted piece of... Ouch!”
Frustrated, Blaze looked into the pod and taking out a piece of metal that had been a sword at some point, throwing it aside after looking at it.
“Ah... The glories of time travel thanks to an evil mastermind...”
Blaze then looked around another time, and this time noticing Flames who was still just standing silently and looking at her.
“Oh. Heya Flames.” Blaze said, turning back to the pod again. Then something struck her, making her turn around and look curiously at Flames again. “Flames?”
Flames, who had simply stood silently watching her, finally snapped back to life with the mentioning of his name.
“What?” Flames replied, before remembering who he was talking to. “Wait, how do you know my name? And who are you..? You look like me, but at the same time anyone can see that you aren't...” Flames looked confused at the other anthro, the sheer impossibleness of the situation hurting his brain.
“Ah... Still walking in the dark eh, Flames?” Blaze turned back to face Flames, leaning backwards on the pod. “But I'll shed some light into the situation, to help you out a bit. I, am HoKaze no Blaze. And I am you, as you are me.” Blaze then smirked, continuing to look at Flames and leaning on the pod a bit more. “Well... Somewhere in space and time at least.”
Flames tried to understand all that Blaze was telling him, but even as he tried his hardest it still made no sense to him. “HoKaze no... Blaze? That makes no sense at all!” Flames held up his paws to his head, starting to walk in a circle and rubbing his hurting head.
“That's delusional! No, completely insane!” He made a stop and turned towards Blaze, his gaze trying to drill its way through her very being.
Blaze shrugged. “Flames, Flames, Flames... Snap out of that illusion of yours and start believing your eyes.” She then started walking towards Flames, looking around. “Although... I can't find any memories of this place...”
Flames noticed the small loophole that had shown itself with Blaze's last sentence, deciding to go for it. “And that proves that you can't be me, because otherwise you'd remember this place, and have my memories.”
“Not exactly” Blaze replied shortly thereafter. “It just means that these memories are locked somewhere deep inside my mind, or, I have yet to experience them.”
“And in plain English?” Flames answered, simply more confused from the way the conversation was going.
“Which means I just need to unlock them first.”
Blaze had now started moving towards Flames, taking gracious steps forward.
Flames took a few steps backwards as Blaze moved towards him. “And how do you intend to do that?”
“It's pretty simple actually. I just need to activate the parts of our brains that hold the memories while touching each other.”
Blaze was now standing right in front of Flames, looking at him.
“And how do you intend to do that?”
“It's easy, just relax and it'll be done before you know it.” Blaze gave a reassuring smile to make Flames relax, before suddenly leaning in to kiss him.
As Flames tried to relax, he didn't have enough time to react to what Blaze was doing before her lips had locked on to his own and his cheeks went to glowing a bright red. Flames every muscle became stiff as his cheeks continued to glow red, making him unable to move until Blaze broke the kiss and stepped back.
“There, all done. Now let's see what we got, shall we?”
Blaze then started going through the short bits of memories that she had unlocked inside her mind, noting the major things that showed up over and over again.
“Hmm... Traveling... Meeting people... X-sabre... Brother... Kiss...” Blaze then suddenly stopped her counting of things that had happened to Flames. “Hold on... Brother? You have a brother?! And what was that last thing now? Ooh...” Blazed growled for a short while before hearing some movements from the bushes a short walk away from them and stopped.
After a short while, Vince, Ravus and Fay come out of the bushes, stopping with a confused look as they see Flames and Blaze standing face to face in front of them. They weren't able to say anything, simply look at the two with a confused look on their faces.

[flames]

It wasn't what I was expecting, but the suprise made everything so much better!
I love the way you wrote Blaze, Flames' confusion and the whole scene in general. Heck, I think you wrote Blaze's personality better than I could! I'm impressed and really enjoyed that chapter!

[Dr. Strange]

wow.... there's no way that came from you....








That was awesome!!!!

[Vince the Dark]

Thanks guys. ^-^

And Flames, how could I write your characters better than yourself? That's a bit weird, isn't it?

[flames]

Thanks guys. ^-^

And Flames, how could I write your characters better than yourself? That's a bit weird, isn't it?

Not really, I'm not always that good at transferring my crazy ideas into words. You however, were able to seize the "essence" of Blaze and write her into your world masterfully.

[Vince the Dark]

Chapter 16, ready to be read.
Wow... Can't believe I'm this far already in the story. Hope everyone's enjoyed it so far, also the ones that just read it.

Chapter Sixteen: Confusions

Vince, Fey and Ravus had been talking for a while when they heard the sudden crash and the cloud of dust that had been shot into the air. They had rushed over to see what had happened, but nothing could have prepared them to what they were going to see next.
As they came through the bushes and to the clearing, they firstly saw Flames, but the second figure was what amazed them to the point of confusion.
A female anthro that looked exactly like Flames, even though her obviously more slender and gracious female body. She truly was like an exact copy of him.
When the silence at last broke, Flames could do nothing but blush because of Blaze's kiss, although it had only been to serve the purpose for giving Blaze enough knowledge about what was going on.
When Flames then gathered his thoughts, he made a gesture for the others to come over to them, the obvious confusion of the situation still apparent on their faces.
“Blaze, these are my friends...”
But before Flames could continue with his sentence, he'd been interrupted by Blaze who had stepped forwards towards the group.
“It's okay Flames, I know who they are.” Blaze then gave Flames a smile. “Shared memories, remember?” She then turned towards the others again, searching the scattered  memories in her mind for their names. “Let's see now... Vince, is it? Brother, against all odds...” Blaze then made her way to Vince, eying him as throughly as she could before moving her fingers over his scaled chest, making him blush. “My my Flames... You really made a good catch with this one.”
With that, she made her way to the next one in line: Ravus.
“Ravuscale, a powerful dragon and one of the few survivors of his race... I'm sure he'll prove useful in what's still to come.”
Blaze then made her way to Fay, starting to growl as she stood in front of him, making the husky take a step backwards.
“You... You should just feel lucky that I'm not more than five inches away from hurting you very badly.” Fay let out a whimper hearing this, taking another step backwards.
Vince and Ravus looked even more confused at Blaze now, wondering how she possibly could know their names and relations to Flames, although, in their eyes Blazes reaction to Fay was more than odd considering the circumstances.
But in Blaze's eyes, Fay had done something that not many others never had. Fay's kiss might not mean much here, but fact was, that it happened so rarely that Blaze could possibly use her own fingers to count them. So many tears shed because of what never came to be, so many friends lost through time...
Blaze turned away from Fay, a faint tear running down her cheek.
“Damn...” Blaze murmured to herself, wiping away the tear from her cheek before anyone noticed it. “I've gotten soft with all this time...” She then looked up again, turning towards Flames. “Shall we get going then?”
“What?” Flames looked up from his thoughts. “Yes, of course.” But before Flames had time to take more than a few steps, he remembered that he hadn't introduced Blaze to the others. “Oh yeah... Everyone, this is Blaze. She'll be accompanying us from here onwards.”
Blaze tilted her head to the side as Flames spoke, before turning around and bowing to the others with a slight grin on her face. “HoKaze no Blaze, at your service.”

[flames]

*Claps hands* Bravo! Yet again this scene flowed together perfectly. Blaze's sadness and how she reacts to the kiss Flames was executed masterfully, the mentioning of its rarity and her own feelings both were very true to Flames' series.
The group's confusion, Flames' deep thinking and his hesitant, absentmindedness all enriches this even further. Might I also add that Blaze's attitude towards each character (especially Vince) made me smile.
Excellent chapter brother!

[Wulf064]

sweet like it ^^

[Devault]

Whoo... Just read the entirety of 16 chapters in one sitting. Guess I just couldn't stop after a while!

Great characters, definitely. Each one is different, unique, and really well thought out. I gotta say that in the time you've been writing this you've gotten quite a bit better. The story's intriguing, and the subtle hints and foreshadowing keep me on my toes ^^

After looking a bit, I realized something. I really can't find anything to criticize for the most part... The only thing I can really find are a few spelling errors, but those are unavoidable unless you go back and reread everything. I'm watching this story, that's for sure!

[Vince the Dark]

Heh. Thanks a lot Devault, and everyone else for that matter. My reply is somewhat late because I've been kinda busy lately, and I was hoping to finish chapter 17 before posting.
But anyways, here it is then chapter 17, after a long wait and lots of hardships for my part. But I can say that I can see that end coming in the distance already, don't know if that's a good thing or not, but every story has to end sometime, right?
Enjoy everyone.

Chapter Seventeen: Towards darkness

“Who is she?” The same question had been going through Vince's, Ravus' and Fay's minds during the whole time they had been standing still, looking at Blaze. And when she finally did say her name, after Flames reminding her to do so, none of the
three could hold back the next thing that formed in their minds, hence why it came out as a loud burst from everyone.
“WHAT!?”
The whole thing about Blaze knowing so much about them was confusing itself, but that her name was almost completely the same to Flames' was even more confusing, making the three look at each other in disbelief before turning to Flames for an explanation.
Flames simply shrugged off the looks and walked up to them, taking his time before saying anything.
“I'm just as confused as you are... But somehow, it just feels true... I can't really explain it, but she is who she says that she is.”
“Hold on a moment...” Vince took a step forward, motioning to Flames to wait a second. “Does that mean we're related, nii-san?”
Flames hesitated a bit before answering. “Yes and no. Although the fact that she is me, somewhere in time and space, I'm not sure if you can relate her to you really...”
“Yeah, I guess so...” Vince took another look at Blaze, who was standing a bit away from everyone else. “This is all just really confusing right now.”
“You're telling me...” the entity mumbled inside Vince's mind.
Vince was shocked by suddenly hearing the entity inside his mind, quickly turning away from Flames and walked to a short distance from him. “Hey! Don't you start poking your nose in other people's business. You've caused enough trouble as is.”
“Me? Trouble? Oh come on... You know you liked all the power and fear,” the entity answered, clear sarcasm in his voice.
Vince went silent, unable to fight back against what the entity had said, but just then, he felt a paw on his shoulder, making him turn around. It was Flames who stood there, looking concerned at his brother.
“Is everything alright, nii-san?”
Vince looked at Flames for a moment before answering. “Yeah, everything is fine. Don't worry about me.”
“You sure nii-san? Flames took a closer look at Vince. “Hold on a sec... Your eyes, they look different somehow...”
“It's nothing. Let's just continue, okay?” Vince turned away from Flames, starting to head on forward.
Flames let out a sigh and shook his head as he wondered what was going on with his brother, he was always so warm and compassionate, so this wasn't like him at all. But yet, Flames gathered his thoughts and turned towards the others.
“Okay, we're heading onwards everyone. And Blaze, could I have a chat with you as we go?”
With that, the group was on the move again. Vince, who was lead the way, kept silent for the rest of the day, but the others were having eager discussions behind him; Flames talking with Blaze, and Fay talking with Ravus.
Flames looked at Blaze as they walked. “How far does your memories of this place extent now, thanks to what you did?”
Blaze looked back at Flames. “I'm not sure... But for now, it looks like I only have parts of the things that have happened to you so far, although...”
Flames continued looking at Blaze as she lost herself in her own thoughts. “Although what?”
“Spoilers.” Blaze had quickly snapped out of her thoughts by Flames words, but didn't give Flames the answer he was hoping for, though her mind was exploding with different images from all of Flames past lifetimes, some good, others bad. And it was at times, that she had a hard time stopping the flow of distant memories from popping up in her thoughts. But what was different from all the other times this had happened was, that many of the images she was seeing now, were such that she had never seen before.
But there was something connecting it all, a figure always standing in the shadows, barely visible, but always there, looking over all that happened.
Blaze didn't know who the person was, but he, or was it a she? Had some strange resemblance to someone she had seen before. She couldn't help but wonder what this person enclosed by shadows had to do with what was going to happen, but his, or her, part would be very big in the end.
Fay and Ravus had been talking about their thoughts about Blaze a while, exchanging their different ideas and speculations about her. A person who looked almost exactly like Flames, and he had just taken her with them, not telling the others why.
“I wonder if it really is a good idea to take her with us?” Fays asked after a while of talking with Ravus.
“I don't know.” Ravus replied. “But it is his choice in the end so...”
“I guess you're right, hon.”
Ravus gave a sharp look at Fay. “How many times have I told you not to call me that? Can't you get that into your little brain, or is it too full with images of all the guys you've seduced?”
Fay blushed hearing Ravus' words and looked away for a while. “It's just a habit. And as you know, old habits die hard.”
They then continued walking, chatting about things that had happened as of late.
While continuing further, everyone started to notice how the landscape was becoming more rough by the moment, and after a while longer, the sky itself had started to turn pitch-black. At nightfall they came to a high cliff, looking over a huge wasteland. And in the middle of it all, Malakar's fortress...

[flames]

What can I say? Another great chapter bro, although it's a little sad knowing that it'll soon be over. I can't help but wonder what everyone is talking about...
In any case the characters are as well-written as always, with the interactions between Vince and Flames being handled well.
You should take a nice long break now

[Vince the Dark]

I think I should actually write now what they were talking about, to get some more into the chapter. And I'm not going to take a long break from writing, I just did. So expect there to be a modification of the chapter sometime in the future, before the next chapter.

[Devault]

Go ahead and take a break, I take breaks every once in a while from my story All writers deserve rest!

And another good chapter as well ^^

[Vince the Dark]

Okay, I have now added some more to the last chapter, so go ahead and read it again if you could everyone, because there's new things there to read.
And thanks for your thoughts Devault. ^.=.^