SkullGirls: Nightmare of Darkness

[OmegaVanguard]

Chapter 1

The battle was over. When Parasoul and Filia regained consciousness from their battles with Marie and Peacock, they saw the carnage that they had raised in order to destroy the Skull Heart. They recalled their shock as to Peacock's betrayal. Peacock was made and designed by Lab 8 to destroy the Skull Heart. Granted Peacock wished to fight Marie one on one, but still, to decline Filia's offer of aid and attack them, that was beyond belief. Still, both of them were glad that the Skull Heart was destroyed.

Peacock recovered a bit later and moaned. She still could not believe she lost at all. She had to learn that taking two skilled fighters on at once was never a good idea. She felt depressed when she saw that shattered remains of her best friend, Marie.

Meanwhile, in a hospital across the city, a young woman awakens. She is a patient there, she was dying of myocardial infarction. Her heart was slowly decaying. She sat up and looked around. She found her boyfriend, Tyrone, on the ground. She called out to him. He made no response. She got out of the hospital bed and knelt down beside him. She shook him. He did not budge. She screamed out his name and violently shook him. She soon realized that he was dead. She began to cry.

A nurse came in. "Everything alright?" The nurse then saw Tyrone's body. She called for assistance. Soon, several doctors took Tyrone away. Then another nurse came. This one less professional and more seductive than the last one, who left with the other doctors. The lady recognized the nurse. "Valentine. I'm so glad to see you."

Valentine was shocked. It was only a few hours ago that this woman was on an operating table getting prepared to have an artificial heart implanted. She was so weak back then. Now she is up and about. She left prior to the end of the procedure. She assumed all went well, until the woman told her about Tyrone's death. Valentine asked, "Where is he now?" The reply was, "I think they went to operating room 5."

Valentine told the woman to wait there. "Sit tight Melissa, I'll be back." Valentine went to operating room 5. She went in to see if she could assist and look at Tyrone's face. Melissa spoke highly of him while she never saw him. When she saw his face, she almost flew into a rage. An hour ago, this man had used a defibrillator on her chest to steal the Skull Heart from her. In her mind, she called him all sorts of nasty things as she assisted in the autopsy. She saw his heart. It was a regular one. Her next thought was, "He didn't."

Melissa was soon cleared to go home. The entire ordeal of saving her life almost bankrupted Tyrone, but her finances were left untouched. When she got home, she accidentally set off roub goldberg machine that turned on a video. It was one made by Tyrone. The video started, "If you are watching this tape, then I must be dead and I have put you in harms way."

 

[CHAOS_FANTAZY]

May I offer a few words? No? Okay.

Alright...there's a lot of telling rather than showing going on here. There's a lot of examples of this in what's presented, but I think the easiest one to work with for examples here is "Valentine was shocked." That's it. That's the entire sentence. Valentine was shocked. Okay...all you've really done is told me she was shocked, which is fine and dandy if this were a documentary, but given that it's a story, it fails to delight the senses (Or, to be honest, evoke interest). Instead of telling us, show us that she was shocked. Ask yourself the question, "What do people do when they are shocked?"—or, more accurately, "What does Valentine do when she is shocked?". Does she gasp suddenly, eyes widening? Does whatever she might have to be holding fall from her hands? Actually, would it even be in-character for Valentine to be shocked? Instead of explicitly telling us this, write Valentine's reaction, in the most exquisite detail possible. Any intelligent reader will properly glean what you wanted to say.

And that's another thing. Where is the exquisite detail? I'd like to think I know some writing, and this story snippet seems incredibly short. In my experience, you could probably spend an entire paragraph (Maybe even two!) simply describing Valentine's physical form (Though how to do that tastefully is a bit beyond me).

I am vaguely curious as to where this is going (The title somewhat reminds me of a CastleVania game, even), but if the narrative style does not improve I am probably going to drop interest.

 

[OmegaVanguard]

I would like to thank you for your criticism. I was wondering where I was going wrong. I will have to put some more detail into the next chapter. You sir are also probably the first person to point out these flaws where everyone else stayed silent. I'll be sure to improve before the next chapter is posted.

 

[Kai]

Alright...there's a lot of telling rather than showing going on here.

Exactly. We're only being given sterile information, as through we're blind men being told of the world around us.

I would like to thank you for your criticism. I was wondering where I was going wrong. I will have to put some more detail into the next chapter. You sir are also probably the first person to point out these flaws where everyone else stayed silent. I'll be sure to improve before the next chapter is posted.

I think you should also aim for more content per chapter, 500 is too few to make for a cogent slice of a story, imo. When I wrote my own FF, I tried to keep every chapter above 1500 words AT A MINIMUM, and more often above 2500.

 

[OmegaVanguard]

Chapter 2

Melissa finishes watching the video. Tears freely fall from her eyes. They only joy she took from the video was that he truly loved her. She sat on the floor for what seemed like an eternity. She was piecing together what he had done and what to do next. She knew it was no longer safe.

Melissa then got up and went into her room. There, she opened the closet and yanked out the suitcase. She threw it onto the bed. As it landed, it opened. Recklessly, she threw open the drawers of her dressers and started throwing clothes into the suitcase. She made haste as she dashed to the bathroom and collected her hairbrush, toothbrush, and toothpaste. She then hurled the items into her suitcase and closed it up. She picked up the suitcase. when she did, it popped open and everything fell out. "Are you kidding me?" After a heavy sigh, she repacked her suitcase while making sure everything was able to actually fit into it. Once she was done, she closed it again and made sure the locks clicked before picking it up again.

She then walked to the front door. She stopped and looked at the TV. inside the Blu-ray player was the message Tyrone left her. She walked over to the player, opened it, put the Blu-ray into a CD case, and put it in her suitcase's front pocket. As she reached for the doorknob, she heard someone sneeze on the other side. She froze for a few seconds. She then looked out the poop hole and saw someone she did not recognize outside with a Baretta 9 mm in his hand. She slowly crept away from the door and headed back into her room. She opened a window and carefully slipped onto the fire escape. She looked down. Five stories down, on the ground near the dumpster, she saw several more men there. All in suits. She quietly made her way to the roof. Looking around, she saw nobody. She then made a mad dash across the rooftops.

Meanwhile, outside the apartment, Cerebella approached the three men set up at the door of the apartment. She had on her trademark hat. Her gown sparkled purple in the light. It was the type of gown a lady wore to a high society party, not one for strolling through a neighborhood. One of them asked, "You came to help us nab this woman wearing that lovely outfit?" Cerebella quickly slapped his mouth shut. She then said, "I came because the boss asked me to check up on things. Did you forget this is Feng's mission?" She shot a glance at the other two and knew what they were really looking at. She used only one slap motion to strike them both across the face.

A girl's voice blared over the radio one of them was carrying. "What the hell guys?" The loudmouth crook pulled out the radio, juggled it for a few seconds while the girl started cussing him out and demanding him to answer the radio. When he did, both the girl and Celebella were less than pleased. He asked, "Yes Feng?" Feng yelled out, "Get some eyes in the sky. She's running on the rooftops!" He then switched channels and nervously called for air support. All the while, Cerebella looked on unamused.

Feng chased her target from one rooftop to the next. Her target was clever as to make a lot of sharp turns. Feng did gain ground. She made a diving leap at her target. The target shifted directions and Feng flew over the side. She was able to grab a hold of the edge and pull herself up. Looking around she realized that she not only lost sight of her target, but had no idea on which way she went. She called on the radio, "Anyone see her?" Everyone reported in as to not seeing her. Even the helicopter had no sight of her. Feng bellowed out, "Are you telling me I am the only one on the rooftops?!" The pilot replied, "Yes." She then sighed and ordered everyone back to the casino.

Melissa finally found a safe place to descent to the streets. She looked around and saw that she was near some sort of church. She ran inside to hide. She then heard a voice, "It would seem this place is very popular with all the girls nowadays." Melissa breathed heavily for a few seconds. She had never heard this voice before, but somehow knew what was making the voice. She turned around slowly while shaking a bit. Behind her was a nun. Melissa asked, "P-p-popular?" The nun nodded. "The last five Skullgirls came here at one point or another. The last one made this her base of operations." Melissa said, "I...I think I should be on my way." She tried to walk past the nun. The nun shoved her back. She then said, "I can see you are not worthy of the Skullheart. Give it back."

It was then that Melissa remembered some of Tyrone's words. She would need it soon. Melissa refused to surrender it. The nun said, "Fine then." She then melted and transformed into a hideous monster. Her voice changed, "If you will not surrender it, then I will take it by force!"

 

[OmegaVanguard]

I hope that last chapter incorporated everyone's advice. Also about being under 500 count, I have been on a few fan sites where the character limit was around 500 words. I did used to do longer chapters until I ran into that problem.

 

[OmegaVanguard]

sorry for the lack of updates. I am still ironing out a few things with the next chapter.