Two best friends, created by a machine, became TANTARA's first-class. No one believes that artificial creation has feelings like humans. Xander and Raphael are two friends who grew up together and were separated by a war on their planet. It turns out that when Raphael disappeared, Xander felt his whole life was slaughtered as if it had been cut into hundreds of parts. Xander almost sacrifices himself to meet Raphael, but when they meet, the first thing Raphael says is... "You are an idiot, Xander! Stop loving me! You better just die and don't expect peace for the planet!" But like a boomerang, those words turned against Raphael. Because when Xander was almost killed by continuous torment, Raphael saved him. "No one can kill you but me, You stupid Xander!" "Tell me you love me" - Xander. "You have to cut the rope first."- Raphael. "I'll do it."- Xander "You fool."- Raphael "And I love you too."- Xander
Chapter 1 Fatal Trouble : Act 1
'There is no hate, only joy. For you are
beloved by the goddess. Hero of the dawn, Healer of worlds.'
The chains had been broken.
Pale, shimmering eyes snapped open, their striking emerald depths
pulsing with Michael-infused light. Elliptical pupils contracted and expanded
with each haunting surge of power, yet were unable to penetrate the utter
blackness which spread out before them. He could not see, but he didn't need to see to know
the truth. He could feel the stirring, the awakening somewhere deep within the
bowels of Tegral, and his heart rejoiced in that which would herald his own
resurrection.
Raphael.
Long repressed emotions rushed to the fore, staggering in their
intensity, purifying in their power. Pride, honor, horror, loneliness,
passion-and strangest of all-hope, swept through him, nearly eclipsed by a love
so strong that it had all but destroyed The Planet. The force of his feelings
was maddening, overwhelming, much like the man who had inspired them, yet they
remained true, untouched by his mother's madness.
She screeched a protest, that magnificently malevolent being he
called 'Mother', but her voice was had been dimmed by time and defeat. There
was virtually nothing left of The Bozorgh, of the beast named Irene, and he
found himself glad for it. Never again would she darken his thoughts and twist
his emotions, or compel him to destroy what little he held dear. Much like his
newly awakening lover, he found himself liberated from the bonds of godhood,
and the downward spiral that inevitably accompanied such greatness.
He had been called many things in his too-short life: General,
friend, monster, hero, demon, weapon, villain, lover, nightmare. . .Now there
was only him.
A warrior born and bred, educated in the art of war, a swordsman unmatched who
fumbled like a child when confronted with simple human emotion.
A man with
amazing preternatural abilities, one whose name evoked both terror and
veneration, but a man nonetheless.
Xander closed his eyes as he searched for the source of Tegral's
power, using his Michael-enhanced senses to reach into the MAMA itself, to find
the other half of his tattered soul. He smiled unconsciously as he touched the
passion, the fire-that
was Raphael Redwood. It flowed unabated through his mercurial lover, singeing
everything around him with its white-hot heat, including the silver-haired man
who had once matched him betrayal for betrayal.
Never again. Xander sent the mental message to his lover,
wondering if it would-could-reach
him as he was reborn. It was a vow, a promise not to repeat the mistakes of the
past, an oath meant to reassure his heart that he would not be betrayed a
second time, and that he would never again be forsaken.
Xander frowned as the aura of power suddenly disappeared, his
cat-like eyes opening in narrowed slits. As though a wall had slammed down
between them, the power was gone, leaving nothing but silence, and an uneasy
fear, in its wake. Had Tegral disrupted the bond between them? he asked himself
apprehensively. Surely, Raphael wouldn't
do such a thing?
Of course not, he assured himself quickly. No matter what had
passed between them, Raphael knew-had always known-that he was loved. Xander
had shown it in small but significant ways, although he had always regretted
that he lacked the ability to vocalize his feelings. Nevertheless, he refused
to believe that the other man-friend, lover, and rival that he had been-would
turn his back on the passion that even now bound them together so tightly.
Xander fought the urge to curse The Planet for her actions. After
all he had done to her in the name of revenge, he understood why she would try
to deny him now. Finally, after eight long years, she had chosen a new
champion, a new Weapon. Raphael would have been purged of the madness that had
accompanied his degradation, his mind and body made whole once more. It made
perfect sense that Tegral would attempt to separate her champion from the
source of his past downfall.
Not that he would allow it. He had spent eight years-a lifetime,
it seemed-trapped in this nothingness, in the void created to keep him
segregated from the whole of the MAMA, forced to watch in maddened agony as Irene
used his form again and again. For a time, he had managed to overpower her will
with his own, intent on using his godlike power over his clones to search for
the one who meant so much to him. Irene had proven herself surprisingly
resilient, her alien will forceful enough to overpower him whenever he came too
close finding that which he so desperately sought.
In the end, his own frustration with his inability to bend the
world to his will had portended his own defeat. His fall from grace, which had
begun that fateful afternoon in the Galdheim reactor, had been made stunningly
complete. In one endless moment of infuriated agony, he had-to put it
simply-given up. His lapse of willpower, while only momentary, had given Irene
all the time she needed to erode what little had been left of his shattered
mind. She had forced him to manipulate the boy she saw as his puppet, the
young, damaged Calvin Steel, into giving him-them-the
Black Rock. Meteor had been cast, his own destruction assured from within, as
The Planet's had been from without.
Chapter 1 Fatal Trouble : Act 1
29/11/2024
Chapter 2 Fatal Trouble : Act 2
03/12/2024
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