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(First post, go me! Nice to be here!)

Well, I've posted this about the place on various forums and the like, but beyond a decent reception on the official PSU boards, it went with next to no replies elsewhere. So, now I'm posting it here - one of the biggest Phantasy Star Online forums out there. I won't bother posting on how I came to write it (I'm fed up writing it out); so if you're really that interested in the 'making-of', head over to the Fan-Fiction section on the PSU message boards and read it there.
I keep chopping and changing things, so this version is somewhere in the double figures. But anyway, here it is: part one of the first chapter. I'll post the following chapters, plus a short synopsis of what to expect, if it garners enough attetion. But we'll see...

EDIT: Bugger, I'm a thousand characters over the text limit! Double post time; what a start!

Phantasy Star Engine

First Movement, Part One


The Dome stood quiet, silent as a grave. Covered in a years worth of moss, and a years worth of damage from the ever active and violent native species of Ragol. Only the constant hammering of the relentless rain storm that lingered in the skies above brought atmosphere to the surrounding forest and indeed to the Dome itself.

The decrepit and unused perimeter wall surrounding much of the Dome area was in a similar state of disrepair, if not worse. Many of the 10-inch thick metal security gates that lined key areas of the wall were either damaged beyond repair or simply stuck permanently ajar. The wall itself was thrown cruelly at the mercy of nature; obscure plant life seemed to either wrap itself slowly around the wall or grow straight through it - destroying the walls innards and severing any power that the wall may have once had.

Beyond the wall lay the unchanged rainforest of Pheril, home to some of the worst rainstorms and most violent creatures on the Sus continent.

Through the almost deafening sounds of the storm and the distant roars of warring beasts, one such creature was alone, injured and searching in vain for food. It was a strange creature, at best description; a kind of damned spawn of a lizard and a wolf, standing roughly 4 feet high on all fours and about 6 feet from head to tail. It’s back, tail, skull and paws were protected with hard, scale-like hairs, often pale green or blue in colour, and the rest of it’s once sleek frame was covered with a fine tan fur.

All along it’s body, many of the protective scales had been torn off, and large areas of it’s once spotless tan fur had been bloodied and clawed.

The wolf limped wearily out of it’s natural home, the Pheril, and approached one of the many broken down security gates very near the Dome itself. The gate had been savagely pried open by a massive root - belonging to a gargantuan tree located a good few meters back on the edge of the forest. The once cautious predator summoned the last of it’s dying strength and trudged through the security gate into the Central Domes perimeter industrial area.

The wolf’s whole body was sagged from exhaustion and, add to that, it was half blinded from a day old scar across it’s right eye. It’s single minded brain was focusing furiously on the strong smell of a fresh kill just ahead.

Focusing so hard in fact, that it just barely realised that there was a seven foot tall Android standing just in front of it; and behind him, slumped at the base of a ramp, was a toppled Hildebear, spilling scarlet blood onto the overgrown grass.

The wolf struggled to raise it’s head, looking up and into the HUcast’s yellow, soulless eyes, and then struggled even more before releasing a final pitiful growl that would be incapable of striking fear into an infant. The wolf slumped again and swayed for a second, then, before it's little mind had time to realise the finality of it's death, a white bolt of super-cooled photon smashed into the side of it's head - effortlessly piercing through the skull while simultaneously flash freezing the skin and bone into a brittle solid. The front end of the creature's body was flung violently out to the side, causing it to near spiral away from the spot it had been standing in barely half a second ago.

It’s lifeless body landed in a crumpled heap, minus most of the head.

The HUcast said nothing for a moment then peered over at his team mate slowly. ‘What did you do that for?’ His voice was cold and critical and had a kind of soft spoken accent to it. ‘The thing was near dead, there was no need to waste charge on it.’

The HUcast was sleek looking yet still retained a sense of power. His armoured frame was dark purple and matt black in colour, and, coupled with the thin, piercing, lifeless eyes, looked utterly intimidating.

The HUcast’s team mate was another Android, a RAcast, but this time much bulkier and armed with a long metallic grey rifle, still trained on the spot where the wolf had been.

The RAcast’s chassis was radically different from the HUcast’s. It was a militaristic tan colour and was noticeably armoured to a much higher degree. In fact, the whole Android looked like a walking tank, and, for that matter, looked as though it could take a good few hits from one, too. The head, though, was somewhat similar to the HUcast’s - albeit slightly larger and less sleek - and shared the same yellow, soulless eyes of his team mate.

The RAcast lowered his weapon.
‘Sorry,’ the RAcast grunted, his voice was much lower than the HUcast‘s, but, oddly enough, was far less threatening. ‘You'd be suprise what those things can do when they're injured,’ he said. ‘Didn’t notice at first anyway. You would’ve done the same, Ares.’

The HUcast, Ares, eased the safety off on the ancient Yasminkov pistol at his side. The RAcast did the same with his photon rifle.
‘No, I wouldn’t have,’ Ares said. ‘Conventional bullets for this gun cost me, and I’ve barely got enough as it is.’
The large RAcast tilted his head to side quizzically but said nothing.

The rain storm in the heavens above mercilessly strengthened, producing gale force winds that were causing the rain to travel in an almost horizontal fashion.
Ares marched, unhindered by the gale, over to the body of the Hildebear - a massive red ape-like creature with horns. He stood next to the corpse for a second, eyeing it, then clambered up and over the carcass and onto the metal rain drenched ramp on the other side. He strode up the ramp and looked around at the main working area just outside the Dome’s back security door.

Old lifting machinery and empty supply crates were scattered about the place thinly; all of the still working or repairable equipment had been scavenged by the Pioneer 2 Planetary Committee, some contract Guild Hunters, or by the latest extremist group to hit the colony: Arks, who were recently making a bad habit out of annoying people and blowing up government property - usually at the same time.

The bulky RAcast was still down beside the Hildebear corpse, mucking about with a fresh photon core for his weapon. He removed the longish, glass-like photon core from beneath the barrel of his rifle, dropped it to the floor, and replaced it with a fresh one. It snapped in nicely and immediately glowed a dim white. The small dial on top of the gun went from zero to a satisfying 100 percent.

‘Bishop,’ Ares called down to the RAcast from the edge of the working floor just above him. ‘The Dome’s back door is just up ahead; get up here before the smell of those bodies attracts some other god-forsaken animal,’ Ares wandered out of sight of his team mate and called back at him. ’And hurry up, we’re on limited time here. I’m not having money subtracted from me again because I’m late from hunting.’

(EDIT: Still too long? Arrgh! The ridiculously short second half will require another new post. Making it a tr-tr-triple post! On second thought, I'll wait; don't want to burst in on the scene with such threefold post heresy.)

Alright, you may post now!

I read this, and it's PSO, yey! Pretty good read. Good scene setting and accurate/believable descriptions of the creature and the hunters. Better than most of PSO fanfiction I've come across.

Get rid of "[censored]" in "a kind of [censored] spawn? Looks funny. XD
The extremist group sounds like Arkz to me. Is your Arks actually Arkz?

Welcome to Ragol Forums. I love PSO fanworks, so hope to see some more.

Mirinee Wrote:Alright, you may post now!

I read this, and it's PSO, yey! Pretty good read. Good scene setting and accurate/believable descriptions of the creature and the hunters. Better than most of PSO fanfiction I've come across.

Get rid of "[censored]" in "a kind of [censored] spawn? Looks funny. XD
The extremist group sounds like Arkz to me. Is your Arks actually Arkz?

Welcome to Ragol Forums. I love PSO fanworks, so hope to see some more.

Y'see, this is why I hate posting my fan-fics on forums. It ignores indents between paragraphs and has censoring; all in all, it looks messy. What I wrote was actually 'a kind of dam'ed spawn of a lizard and a wolf' (except add the 'n', obviously). There's some grammatical errors that have been pointed out, too, and I apologise for that (truth be told, I was knackered when going over it). I'll sort them out when I post the second part.
And yes, you are partly correct on the Arkz. Let me explain: I'm not sticking to the sightly ridiculous plotline of PSO, PSO Ep. 3 and PSU; I'm making it... well, less fanciful. For example: the Photon Rifle that Bishop uses is my version of an Ice Rifle. I couldn't have the poor animal freeze into a big block of comical looking ice, could I? Instead, I had the rifle flash freeze the tissue and bone, which is much more interesting and 'believable' to write. Similar can be said about my 'Arks'; they are instead a much more violent group made up of ex- and current Hunters, as well as disgruntled civilians and soldiers, and they use every dirty method in the book in order to overthrow the current Pioneer 2 government. And they don't use bloody cards! That's my Arks. Oh, and the 's' is my fault; I hated PSO Ep. 3 so much that I hardly remember anything about it, mainly 'cause I don't want to. Plus using the 'z' spelling looks cheesy, so I'm sticking with Arks, thanks.

Cheers for the feedback, guys; the following parts are much more eventful, I promise.

I was just joking when I said "you may post now". It's okay to double/triple post if it's because of the word-limit problem when you're posting a fanfic.

Looks okay to me. Why do you need indents between paragraphs? Double enter is enough for word processed text, right? You don't need to go as far as censoring with [censored] or apostrophies. It's alright. XD Don't need to apologise for the spelling/grammar. I know how hard it is to proof-read your own writing. Get help from a friend or something.

Haha, I think I'm going to like your version better. Don't need PSU! *Dodges the PSU fans*

I agree that the Ep.III plotline is ridiculous. The whole game seemed to be unfinished to me. The gameplay is actually pretty good, but the plot could have been given more thought. I digress. Heh, I would have chosen a different name, since Arks reminds me totally of the one-three-three-seven sounding Arkz. ;D

Particle Ghost Wrote:Y'see, this is why I hate posting my fan-fics on forums. It ignores indents between paragraphs and has censoring; all in all, it looks messy. What I wrote was actually 'a kind of dam'ed spawn of a lizard and a wolf' (except add the 'n', obviously). There's some grammatical errors that have been pointed out, too, and I apologise for that (truth be told, I was knackered when going over it). I'll sort them out when I post the second part.
And yes, you are partly correct on the Arkz. Let me explain: I'm not sticking to the sightly ridiculous plotline of PSO, PSO Ep. 3 and PSU; I'm making it... well, less fanciful. For example: the Photon Rifle that Bishop uses is my version of an Ice Rifle. I couldn't have the poor animal freeze into a big block of comical looking ice, could I? Instead, I had the rifle flash freeze the tissue and bone, which is much more interesting and 'believable' to write. Similar can be said about my 'Arks'; they are instead a much more violent group made up of ex- and current Hunters, as well as disgruntled civilians and soldiers, and they use every dirty method in the book in order to overthrow the current Pioneer 2 government. And they don't use bloody cards! That's my Arks. Oh, and the 's' is my fault; I hated PSO Ep. 3 so much that I hardly remember anything about it, mainly 'cause I don't want to. Plus using the 'z' spelling looks cheesy, so I'm sticking with Arks, thanks.

Cheers for the feedback, guys; the following parts are much more eventful, I promise.

You dont need to censor that. We dont have an automatic censor and the only thing about swearing in the rules is excessive amounts of it.

Ah, I know what's happened now. I lost the original work I saved onto my laptop a while back due to accidental deleting, so I found one of the forums I posted it on previously and copied it from there. The forum in question must've had a censoring 'hing enabled. That's why.
Phew. :$

Mirinee, sorry, but there's certain PSU aspects in the plotline that I've already planned out. I won't say anything (I will say that my friend was violently adamant that I include a catgirl in there, so Beastmen come into play at some point in the future), but you'll recognise them when they crop up.