Still inching closer to the end of Phantom Dawn, and in today's chapter we see Rose join the fray! How much longer till the end? Well, you'll just have to read on to see for yourself! (Spoiler warning, a few more chapters to go!)
There's something else to talk about today, of course, but we'll have to head over to see our favourite man and rat duo to learn more...
The Comic Tales of Brennan and Riz
Yup, one hundred and fifty issues. Feels like it was just yesterday that I was talking about making it to issue 100. The amount of times I felt like quitting has been a lot more numerous (particularly over the summer where I was stuck in a low mood for a lot of it), but I made it to this milestone. Thank you to everyone who's read this far with me.
As for the comic itself, it may not be a flashy extravaganza but it does what it needs to, which is set up a new three part arc (definitely three parts as I've already got the ending in mind!). This, and what follows will tide things over till the three year anniversary hits in early January.
I must apologise for how off model Brennan and Riz look here, can never seen to get it just right at the moment, but at least you can tell its still them, I suppose.
Hope you all stick around till the next milestone.
Short Diversions: Phantom Dawn Chapter 19
At the end of last chapter, Kurz was shocked to see Rose racing to his rescue, but what is really running through her head as she stands ready to face this nes gargantuan threat...Let's find out together...
Phantom Dawn Chapter Index
Chapter 19
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Chapter 19: Rose Blooms
Rose didn’t know what had awoken her from her nightmares, but she had been grateful all the same. She had bolted upright from the cold hard floor she had woken up on, scaring the life out of Si who had not been expecting it.
“Rose!” Neal exclaimed as he turned to see her looking around dazed.
“Where…” She said, not even understanding what she was supposed to be searching for. “Where is it?”
“Where is what?” Neal asked as he went to her side, trying to calm her down, but she was too restless to be settled
“I need to find it…I need to find what I lost!” Rose shouted.
“Lost? What are you talking about?” Neal wanted to make sense of what she was saying, but he also had other concerns that he needed to focus on. “Please listen, there is something I need to tell you.”
“Yeah, we’re all going to die!” Si blurted out, which did distract Rose from her own woes.
“Die?”
As if on cue, the monster roared from far away, but its intensity shook the buildings and the people, and left no room to doubt what Si had been ranting about.
“Another monster?” Rose felt that feeling that had overtaken her before already tugging at the corners of her mind, but that other voice she’d heard was also there.
“Go…Do what you do so well…” the voice teased, but Rose knew that she had little choice in the matter.
“Where is Kurz? And Mason?” Rose looked around, seeing neither of them.
“They are…” Neal wanted to find the right words to tell her, but the explosion that rocked them said everything. Everyone who had gathered there, stared in the direction of the plume of smoke that drifted upwards.
“Did they do it?” Si asked softly at first, but repeated it louder when the silence lasted longer than a second, this was then followed by an outburst of pure exhilaration.
“WOOO THEY DID IT! THEY BLEW IT UP! Isn’t that fantastic, Rose…Rose?” Si realised that she was no longer there. “Where did she go?”
“Rose?” Neal hadn’t even seen her move, but now, he could see her, very faintly in the distance, running at full pelt in the direction of the blast, and towards where he knew Kurz and Mason had been. Mason’s sword that they had laid at her side was also missing, leaving no mistake that Rose had taken it. Neal’s only hope was that she’d find them there, maybe battered, but otherwise safe and sound. That hope was short lived when they heard the monster yet again, a roar that now seemed more intense than before. They knew the battle was only just beginning.
Even when running at full pelt, Rose felt something shift inside her. All the other times she had fought, she only became aware that there had been a change in her demeanour after the fact. Now, her senses sharpened, and there was an overriding drive to fight. She lost direct control of her body to this drive, but had remained conscious throughout, a huge change from her last fight. The sword that she had been gifted was firmly in her hand.
“Enjoying the action?” The voice called to her. “You can take control whenever you want you know, you just have to remember who, and what, you are.” The voice sounded like she was teasing now, knowing far more than she would ever let on.
“I just want to save my friends…and everyone else.” Rose admitted. Looking through her own eyes as if they were windows, she saw the monster for the first time, a large humanoid shaped mass of stone with pulsing magma veins. She saw Mason and Kurz on the floor, cowering before the creature. Rose’s body continued to move on its own, and she kicked the creature hard in the chest. Despite not being in control, Rose still felt the impact keenly, but it worked as the creature was knocked back.
Rose wanted to reach out to her friends, to check on them, but her eyes, her real ones, were still locked on the creature that was getting back up, its own gaze fixated on her.
“Remember, you can take control at any point, but if you do, who’ll protect them? You need this power, like the monster you are.” The voice openly mocked.
Rose wanted to scream out that she wasn’t a monster, but it dawned on her that she still had no idea who she actually was. Maybe this state she was currently in, was her real self.
The creature was quick to stand again, but Rose stood in between it, and Kurz and Mason.
“No, you’re wrong! See? I’m not a monster at all!” Rose screamed in her head, trying to silence the other voice who kept laughing.
“If only you knew what I knew, then you wouldn’t be saying that at all! What you have to do…It would make you crawl into a hole and wait for the end!” The other voice responded.
“If you think that’s what would happen, then why don’t you just tell me who I am! Let me have my proper name back!”
“Because it’s more fun this way, besides, telling you everything I knew wouldn’t do much for our situation right now? You’d be dead before I even got half way through the story! Now, be a good girl and shut up and watch the fight, or again, if you’d prefer, you could take over, just without all the benefits you’re currently enjoying.”
The way the voice spoke irritated Rose to no end, information wrapped in insulting riddles covered with a hint of sadism. Whatever this voice was, it was enjoying Rose’s plight all too much. What the voice was though, would have to wait as the creature stole Rose’s attention once more, as it ran it, arms ready to grab her. As loath as she was to admit it, she knew she’d have to leave whatever force was controlling her behind the wheel.
Kurz and Mason were completely oblivious to what was going on in Rose’s head. They had simply thought that she was in the same state as before, that strange fighting urge that took control of her and allowed her to do superhuman feats. They were worried about her of course, but only in the sense that they didn’t know how long she could keep this state up before succumbing to exhaustion, especially given the short amount of rest she’d gotten since last time.
“We have to fight alongside her!” Mason gasped, fighting through his pain. He clutched his chest where his lungs were, aware that he must have had several broken ribs, and potentially worse.
“You know just as well as I do that we’d just screw things up!” Kurz snapped. “We’re no better to her than a paper shield!”
“Dammit! Dammit!” Mason cursed, but he didn’t even have the strength to lash out in anger.
“All up to you now Rose…” Kurz offered a prayer. It was all that he could do.
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Next Chapter (Not written yet!)
Sorry if the ending was a little abrupt there, time got the better of me when writing the chapter. I was planning to go into more detail over the initial stages of the fight, but that'll just get rolled into the next chapter, which coincidentally will fall around the first week in December.
Till next time...
Keep on writing
Peter James Martin
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