The Ghost of Manticore

[Asila]

So, I have finally decided to post the story behind CM. I would just like to say that this stuff is deplorable. There was no poetry in my phrasing back then. It just seems so crude and undeveloped to me, now. But when you're 17 and in the business of creating worlds and adventure to keep the loneliness at bay, pretty phrasing and philosophical impact are the last things on your mind.

Anyway, I had the story organized into chapters, so I'll post it one chapter at a time. I might break the chapters up into separate posts if they're too long.

We begin with the prologue. Feel free to skim through it. I've already related most of the information here into my better-written accounts of background info that have already been posted on CM's boards.

Prologue


Asila walked the icy streets of Manticore. Night had fallen on the infamous city and the crime riddled streets were no place for a lone child. However, Asila refused to travel in any other fashion. She wasn’t afraid of the dark, and while on these self-assigned missions she could tolerate no company save for her own. The danger? No problem. She was equipped with pepper spray, a short blade, and a fierce disposition.

The girl turned onto Manticore Avenue, skipping over a pothole and kicking a small stone out of her path.

In the middle of Guardian’s Square stood the statue that had given Manticore it’s name. A large sculpture carved out of black marble crouched in the center of a spacious plaza. The harsh white lights that illuminated the plaza cast the legendary creature into a war of light and shadow. His barbed tail lay curled around his strong lion’s paws. His noble, startling human face was bowed over a piece of curled parchment whose message had eroded away long ago. Centuries of acid deposition had carved shallow hand-holds out of the broad back of the beast, providing the perfect climbing wall for the brave and foolish alike. The monument is twenty feet tall.

Asila scurried up the back of the ancient statue and sat between his massive shoulder blades, leaning against his neck. She would spend her night here, watching the silent streets around her, listening, waiting for action and becoming part of it when it occurred. She was known to the press as the elusive “Ghost of Manticore”, a modern day legend, the child who attacks the strong and protects the weak. The public loved her, the Guardians despised her.

If one is unfamiliar with the chronicles of the Four Cities, the possibility of a young girl keeping the gangs, muggers, rapists, and murderers of a large city in check will seem unthinkable. It is time to broaden your horizons.

The Four Cities consist of Roc, Griffin, Manticore, and Wyvern. Each city is named after the ancient statue and equally old buildings it was built around. They create a perfect diamond, each city separated by two hundred miles of ice and snow. They are the only populated cities left on the continent of Centerfade, which hasn’t seen a summer for over five thousand years.

What remains of the ancient texts tells historians that the sudden Ice Age was triggered by a series of great explosions that darkened the air and blocked out the sun. However, the particulates that have darkened the atmosphere have failed to drift out of the sky and clear a path for the sun‘s rays, as scientists say it should have centuries ago. The dust remains suspended in the air, defying the laws of science and causing the long ago starvation of billions of people and the extinction of nearly every other organism. The era is dark.

The Great Catastrophe wasn’t only about destruction and death, however. It also awakened the dormant magic that had gone unrecognized for thousands of years. The flux of energy actually changed the people who were most sensitive to it, creating two new races, the werewolves and the Guardians.

The werewolves are the more natural of the two. They have the keen sense of smell, hearing, agility, and stamina of the wolves they resemble when the moon lightens the night sky. The magic lies only in the transformation itself, spurring the super-humans into their remarkable canine form.

The Guardians are fundamentally wizards or witches, and are better able to manipulate the magic that has permeated the world. Unbound by the laws of nature or even by those of magic, the Guardians can twist or change whatever they desire. They are the stronger of the two groups and currently rule the most powerful city of the four, Manticore.

Unfortunately, the Guardians and werewolves nurtured a hatred for each other soon after they came into being. They have warred throughout the centuries, the werewolves as successful in warfare as their more powerful opponents. They owed their success to their powerful ally, the hybrid Zyren, a clan of warriors who are half werewolf, half Guardian, and more powerful than both. Unfortunately the Zyren met their downfall during the Battle for Wyvern. Their last accomplishment was to resurrect a force field around the city that prevented the Guardians from entering. The shield is maintained by the last of the Zyren, a mysterious character by the name of Shade. The Battle for Wyvern was the last victory for the werewolves. After the demise of the Zyren clan, the werewolves soon found themselves on the losing side of the war. Their population had thinned until the last of them were forced to take shelter in Wyvern. The war had ended four hundred years after it had begun, save for the persecution of those with the slightest percentage of werewolf blood in their ancestry and the half-hearted acts of retaliation launched by their kindred. The Guardian’s now rule from their Cavyrn in Manticore, unopposed..

It is not so surprising that a child of questionable ancestry and unknown power can rule the night and dispel its demons. The world is no longer what it once was. This is an era of bitter ice and killing frost. This is a time of great turmoil, war, and death. This is a tale of innocence lost and the unwavering, all-or-nothing battle for freedom.

[Asila]

And part of Chapter One. Since the prologue mostly contains old information. *groans* Some of this stuff contradicts what I've established in my matured vision of CM. Just ignore what doesn't fit.

Why did I let myself get talked into doing this?

Well, while I'm reprimanding myself, I would just like to clarify that CM evolved from a much simpler sequence of short, concept stories. Originally, the theme was gang violence in a big city. Being me, I still had to have my touch of the supernatural in the story, but that influence was so vague that I can no longer remember exactly what it was supposed to be anymore. And in the earliest of the short sequences that still survive in notebooks, there was no element of the supernatural at all. Only the mysterious, demented Shade and the conflicts a teenage girl had with him. Shade being the one buried up to his neck in violence and ties to all the wrong people and the girl finding herself caught up in a mess she would have rather avoided. I'll post what I can find of those scraps once I've finished what I've started in this thread. Anyway, those mini-stories evolved as I thought of them until I began to type up this story, the earliest version of CM that resembles the world as I've currently established it. Yet this story was also just a step in the evolution. I stopped working on it once I realized that I would have to re-write it all if I ever meant to publish it.

Oh, and Zaq was younger in the original version. I changed that for the role-play because his age in here just didn't work for me anymore. I've dreamed up a lot more background information for the characters since I stopped writing this story, making so much of it out-dated and inaccurate.

Chapter One

Asila reclined against the statue she perched upon, gazing at the murky night sky, where an endless blanket of churning black clouds rolled sluggishly across the city. She sighed. What must it have been like to look up and see millions of stars blazing above you? To be able to see the distant galaxies, the planets, the silver disc of the moon? What had it been like to live in a world full of life and prosperity?

Asila had once scoured the libraries in pursuit of the answers and had come up with very little. Few of the books from that time have survived the onslaught of the centuries. The only answers lie in the beliefs of those who dare to imagine.

There would be more of us if the Guardians didn’t insist on strangling the idea of free speech. Asila clenched her fists, the thought backed with the anger that fueled her crusade. Someday she would reveal the Guardians as the tyrants they really were. Until then, she would stand in the path of their every plan and do everything she could to prevent its completion.

The continuous arctic wind bit through her tattered jacket and she began to shiver. She glanced at her watch. It was 2:56 AM. Zaq was almost an hour late.

A horrible feeling of emptiness began to spread through her trembling body. Zaq wouldn’t let her wait like this. Unless…

Asila jumped off the statue and disappeared into the night streets, ready to destroy anything that had purposefully hindered Zaq.




Zaq slipped through the allies, edging his way toward the statue of Manticore, where he knew Asila was waiting. Shapeless shadows blitzed along the rooftops above him, and he couldn’t maneuver any closer to her without bringing his stalkers directly to her. He had to lose them.

He darted between buildings, crept through abandoned businesses and homes, and still he couldn’t lose the Servants that followed him.

If I must I’ll stop and fight them, he told himself. I’m not going to die running away from an enemy.

He clutched his injured arm and increased his speed, knowing that unless something changed, escape was impossible. He noticed an odd, imperceptible disturbance from above him. He whipped around, ready to face the enemy.

Instead he found Asila.

“Let’s go.” said the girl in a low voice. She was trembling with what Zaq assumed was anticipation and anger. Brushing past him, she began to walk into downtown Manticore. Zaq followed, slightly annoyed that she had arrived in time to get him out of a sticky situation (again!), but mostly thankful that she had arrived.

Downtown Manticore was a desolate place, riddled with crime and aging, moldering buildings. The people who lived here benefited most from Asila’s endeavors to end crime. Her presence made life easier here, and the community was reluctant to turn her in, even for the reward the Guardians offered for her capture. Many of them even went out of their way to aid her, providing her with food, spare change, and any other gifts they could afford to offer her.

Asila retreated into their newest haunt, a small ice-cream parlor that had closed only a year before. The building was well insulated and kept them sheltered from the viscous, arctic chill of the outdoors. Zaq paused at the threshold, searching the neighborhood for signs of the shadows that had tailed him before. He found everything as it should be, the streets abandoned and the rooftops clear. Satisfied, he followed Asila through the door.

She was beside their old electric heater, trying to get the aging piece of junk to flare into life. Zaq wished as he did every night that the previous owners of this place hadn’t taken all the electrical appliances with them when they abandoned it. As things were they were stuck with what they could find or what charity allowed them, which wasn’t much. At least they had electricity, though by what miracle Zaq didn’t know. Though he would bet it was the neighborhood that sponsored them. What was a few extra dollars every month in exchange for safer streets?

Zaq approached one of the mattresses beside the sputtering electric heater. He dropped a dark blue duffel bag onto the yielding surface and sat down, the creaking of stiff springs heralding his descent. He unzipped the bag and began to pull out the assorted items.

“Gifts from your supporters in the West Side.” Zaq said when confronted by Asila’s curious glance.

Asila took a seat upon an empty spot of mattress and began to sort through the various items. A couple loaves of bread, cold-cut meats, small bags of fresh vegetables, and a plate of slightly smashed cookies would keep them fed until they came across their next meals. Among the perishable goods there were offerings of money and a new jacket of a slate-gray color with pale blue accents.

“I think this is yours,” said Zaq, tossing the jacket to the girl. He gathered up the rest of the items and began to put them away.

Asila freed herself of her old jacket and put on the new one, throwing the old coat aside.

Zaq stood and moved to the stretch of countertop and electrical outlets that served as their kitchen. “What will it be Asila, left-over stew or ham sandwiches?” Asila rose and joined Zaq behind the counter without comment.

“I’ll go for stew.” Zaq picked up the plastic bowl that held the soup and reached up into the cupboards for another bowl. He snatched his arm back with a yelp of pain and dropped the stew where it spilled across the floor.

“Zaq!” Asila leaped forward and snatched at his arm before he could turn away from her. Three deep gashes marked his left shoulder. The wounds were deep and still streamed blood. “Wicked.” Asila said shakily, attempting nonchalance and failing.

Zaq jerked his arm out of Asila’s light grip and stepped back. “I’ll be fine,” he said with a show of masculine bravery. “It’s not that serious.”

Asila’s incredulous expression couldn’t be lost on him, however. He gave in and pulled out the first aid kit. Asila grabbed a role of paper towels and began cleaning up the ruined stew. “Males.” She muttered to herself as she wiped up the mess.

Zaq snorted. “Don’t even get me started about your gender.”

Asila wouldn‘t be baited. She knew perfectly well that she had nothing in common with the most other girls her age. Or any other age, for that matter.

While Zaq finished disinfecting and bandaging his injured shoulder, Asila made the cold-cut sandwiches they would have for supper.

Zaq watched her make the sandwiches, noting the quaking of her hands. He realized that she had been afraid for him, that when he had run into her in the alley her trembling had been caused by fear on his behalf. A year ago she would have felt nothing but anger for the Servants that had harmed him. Concern was a new emotion for her.

Asila paused, feeling his gaze. “Need any help?”

“No, I’ve just finished.” Zaq rose to his feet and took four of the six sandwiches Asila had just made. Asila sat down with her usual two and a bag of mixed vegetables.

They ate in silence, listening to the melodious howl of the wind as it rattled the boards that barred the windows.

“I’m sorry I was late,” Zaq told her as he finished his last sandwich.

“Don’t say that!” Asila exclaimed, startled. She paused, visibly composing herself, and continued. “It wasn’t your fault.”

It was theirs. The words hung in the air, shivering with unusual tension. Zaq’s injury had really shaken her, and she was furious at the Guardians and their servants for getting to her.

“Nonetheless, I left you on top of that forsaken statue for an hour in the most risky time of night. You were a sitting duck out there. You could have been ambushed.”

Asila shrugged, her eyes alight with righteous fury. “Let them come. We’ll see if they can take on a force that fights back. They haven’t waged a fair battle since the days of the Zyren.”

Zaq stood up. “Curse it, Asila! When are you going to end this suicidal campaign? You can’t go on like this, you’re only twelve!”

Asila managed to look surprised for about three seconds. Then she grew defensive. “What else would you have me do, Zaq? Sit back and allow all this to happen? To just let the Guardian’s continue to oppress us, to allow them to destroy people who are werewolves in the most relaxed version of the term? I won’t do it! And in case you have forgotten, Zaq, you have the blood of a werewolf in your ancestry. They destroy people like you, yet you wish to allow it?”

Zaq just shook his head. “It shouldn’t be you.” he said softly. “This burden shouldn’t lie with you. You are only a child.”

“And you are only seventeen.” Asila sat back down, looking exhausted. “I am no more unfortunate than you are.”

Zaq began to open his mouth to argue but realized she was right and kept it safely shut. Maybe living in poverty while battling the forces of evil single-handedly wasn’t the richest of childhoods, but being persecuted by those same forces as he had before he met Asila had hardly been any better.

Zaq crawled onto the mattress that was left over and pulled a pile of fleece blankets up to his chin. Lit by the soft glow of the heater, he watched Asila do the same.

“You know, age has nothing to do with it.”

Zaq blinked. “What?”

Asila turned her head to face him. “Protesting what is wrong. It has nothing to do with age. Maybe experience, since you can’t stand up for what you don’t understand. Age itself is irrelevant.”

Zaq remained silent, gazing thoughtfully at the ceiling. There was a lot of meaning behind Asila’s short speech. He knew she had been through a lot, but she made it a point not to bring up her past. He didn’t know if she had any family and he didn’t know what had caused her to turn on the Guardians. Every child was raised with a love for their warlock leaders. Before Asila had successfully rebelled, the city had been content to follow the orders of it’s leaders.

One million people who would do as they were told without wondering why. Funny how the Old Ones would mock the lemmings who would unthinkingly follow another off a cliff. Humans had the same tendency to follow the largest party to it’s end, whether right or wrong.

[Seven]

As I said in the CBox..BAD! You're not allowed! The original CM is not as bad as you're claiming! You are NOT allowed to delete it! Got that? Noooo deleting allowed!!!

*ehem*

I do know where you are coming from. The story does have its immaturities, but I don't find it to be entirely immature (writing style included) like you claimed (if that makes any sense...). No, it's not as good as what you're writing right now, but that's a good thing isn't it? It means that you're always improving--so one should hope that their older work doesn't seem as good as their new pieces. It's only natural, but it doesn't mean you should off them entirely. The story would need polishing--and perhaps a few different literary techniques to ease the reader into the world rather than blatantly stating the facts the encompass it. But still, like you said, you were more or less writing for yourself at the time. To me, this piece seems like a first draft--as though you just wanted to get your ideas onto paper (or rather text) so you wouldn't forget them. I think that's actually a very good way to start as forgetting concept ideas is the worst part, and more importantly, I think its a lot of fun to compare this original version to the rp we have going on now. For instance... Griffin? Roc? Centerfade? You had never told us about these places! What were they like? I get that Centerfade is the continent, but the other two cities? How were they different from Manticore and Wyvern? Were they like extensions of Manticore, or something entirely different.

Basically, reading this has made me more curious about this world that we rp in It's fascinating. (You had better continue posting chapters!!! Every chapter that you wrote!!!) I admit, knowing that Asila--who was taking on the Guardians and Servants (*grins* I liked how they were called Servants rather than Forsaken as we are accustomed to. I think it makes a cool dynamic between the way that people outside Caveryn perceive them to how Guardians and Forsaken themselves perceive them) alone--was only 12 made me a bit skeptical at first. Even if someone is mentally mature, which alone is highly unusual for some one of that age (I mean, she's really just a kid, and kids without all those problems she'd have deal with fear and anxieties and the like), to be powerful enough to stand up for the truth is a lot to be claiming for someone so young.

But when I really thought about it, it actually doesn't seem as strange. (I admit, I grew up on DBZ, and there was nothing more entertaining that seeing 12 year old Son Goku defeating an army of adults by himself and walking away with hardly a scratch ;D ) People in high stress environments adapt incredibly quickly after all, and considering that whatever small Zyren trait in her flared up and became rather dominant, her power is also justifiable. And so far even that doesn't seem like just a scapegoat to make her overwhelmingly powerful because you haven't made her overwhelmingly powerful. Just powerful enough to do damage and tick off the Guardians. It's great! ;D

Yeah, it's a great story. In fact, because of Asila's youth, there's some pretty intense psychological themes that really haven't or can't occur in our rp version of CM. What felt like for the first time, the term "Guardian" really hit me. All of these elderly, sagely, and 'wise' dictators making commands of the citizens of Manticore without giving them any explanations, simply excepting them to comply because 'they know best.' In a funny way, what I realized only became obvious to me because Asila is 12 in this story--on the macroscopic level, it seems to me to symbolize the ongoing struggle between the younger generation with the older one, and on a microscopic one, it seems to be the struggle of a child against their parents (Their guardians... ), the struggle most all children have on some level when trying to assert themselves and independent, thinking, rational creatures that need to be respected.

Wow. It feels so intense now. *grins* I can't help but think that this story would have been incredible to publish in the 60s. No, it'd still be incredible. In a way, I think that if you wanted to market it, the target audience ought to be young adult if not children, oddly enough. (Children need to stop being spoon-fed happily-ever-after in my opinion. It infantizes them and mocks their intelligence. Then we wonder why our nation has some of the more entitled and 'slow' kids as compared to the other democracies and superpowers around the world. ) In fact, it would be really cool to pull a J.K. Rowling, by starting with a young target audience and allowing them to literally 'grow up' with the books like what happened with our generation in Harry Potter. Each book was written for a more mature age level. Though admittedly, a CM reader would already have to be a pretty mature damn child, hence why I thought young adult.

Anyways, now I'm rambling. Please keep posting. I want to know more and the story is fascinating. So....no more complaints. Just constructive criticism, okay?

[Asila]

I don't know, Seven. I disagree with you very strongly. All I can think is "Gah, no! It's bad! BAD!"

Really, it's terrible. Absolutely terrible. In fact, I kind of hate myself as a writer now.

I mean, I get why it is the way it is. Asila was my way of rebelling against my mother and her husband, who seemed to think I didn't have the faintest idea concerning what was good for me. I was under eighteen, and therefor didn't know enough to deserve any rights or freedom. Which pissed me off, because I felt at that point that I'd aged five years for every one that passed while I was living with them. Time certainly seemed to pass about that slowly. So I used Asila as my example of that concept. That girl was in so much trouble that she had to grow up quickly in order to survive. And I guess I can't think of a time in my life when I was more fierce and instinctual than I was at about the age of 11. It was so much easier for me to survive back then. I didn't have any emotional baggage holding me back because I just didn't think. Being young was all about survival, and nothing else.

Anyway, Asila represented all of those ideas to me. The problem was just that I was A.) an inexperienced writer and B.) still too rebellious and full of hope, however deranged and bitter that hope had become, to pull off that story. I feel like I could now, but I couldn't then.

And my pitiful early attempts irritate me. I hate myself for ever wanting to be a writer. I never had a chance.

I really should thank you for being supportive, though. Your response kept my own bitterness from engulfing me, but I'm still disgusted by what I've written in the past. Though I suppose I can post the rest of the story as long as I only copy and paste and keep myself from reading. *shrugs*

[Seven]

And my pitiful early attempts irritate me. I hate myself for ever wanting to be a writer. I never had a chance.

What do you mean!!? You shouldn't think that way--or that at all! Yes, perhaps your old work wasn't up to publishing par, but just think about how much you improved in what, a few years? That really ought to be something to be proud of. You shouldn't say you hate yourself for wanting to be a writer and that you don't have a chance, because that's simply not true. I'm not trying to force you to be an author or something if that's not what you want to do, but I feel that you have more than enough ability to do so if that's what you desire, so you shouldn't give up on it if the only reason for not doing so is a self-perceived lack of competence. I'm sure everyone will agree with me in saying that your a great writer and you have such awesome concepts. And when you really think about what gets published, terribly written books with uber-thin plots and characters are published all the time, so someone as talented as you are shouldn't be worrying so much!

I'm sorry I made you depressed by insisting that you post the old CM up on here. I really did enjoy reading it, but if it's only going to depress you if you keep posting it, then you can stop. I guess we should just focus on the now rather than the past anyways. So thank you, Asila, for going through the hell of posting the prologue and chapter one of your story, but if you don't want to you anymore, that's okay too. Let's just have fun, okay?