Random notes from the Author
Well, folks who felt like riding it the whole way through, its finally over. Over over, too. It wasn't just the end of the third book, this was the end of the entire "series" (for lack of a better word). And let me just say, it sure did end in a way that I didn't expect when I first sat down to write this back in February of 2000.
First, I'd like to speak on behalf of the third book as a whole. This was defiantly one of the more odd chapters since I kept on changing the style in which it was written. First, I told myself that it would be many, many small chapters that would tend to be a bit more on the zany side of things until the end where, well... However, I really sucked at keeping this definition of short and kept on making them three or four pages long, as opposed to the normal two. Another shaky grounds on my part were the battle scenes. I originally told myself that there would only be the final battle between Rei and the "Dragon Master" (oOo, I bet you don't know who that is, do you? :B ), but it is really hard to have stuff happen in a Pocket Monster's fan fic without battle. I did manage some, though, compared to the before of, what, one?
Something an REL fan might note is the appearance of a couple more of my gym's characters. Electra, the Headsman, the Grave Yard Keeper, and Rick (one from the first version of the REL) have short cameos as ghosts and such. That one chick, though, Divinity, was just made up on the fly to fill a spot. The same applies to the background characters in the bars. Thinking about it now, I should have given them hidden personas, but, oh well. There was one character who didn't get to be used, so I sorta change someone to him, though. In the dumpster, the punk that Rei takes the clothes of was suppose to be revealed as Sanders, the son of Electra in my REL GSC gym. The connection, however, was never brought up.
The final battle. Oh, how I wanted that to be the epic struggle between all of Rei's stuff versus a Dragonite and a Tyranitar named Gabriel and Lucifer. However, with RS's release, I actually had a selection of dragons to choose from to make a full lineup. To keep with my initial intentions, I kept the Tyranitar in there and the angelic names (there is a group of seven angels that rank really high, so used the best six to name them). Aside from that, the chapter went just as I planned it, which was when I first thought of writing the third book a year ago, and, by that, I mean the end of it, for that's really all that wasn't affected. You have to admit, that was pretty sweet ending.
The sole reason I endured the many months of dishing out chapter after chapter, the ending as a whole was reworked more times than you could believe. The actual, full end of the series was just suppose to be the word "good," followed by Rei's smoking gun and blood. The reason the picture was really there, beside from looking cool, was for those who honestly wouldn't get what happened. A lot of people have trouble understand some stuff I think up, so I wanted it to blatantly slap them in the face without writing "She's dead!" at the end. Much more subtle. Also, so no one thinks me an illiterate hack, I'd like to mention that the tense change during the last chapter was intentionally. The shift occurs as soon as Shade puts down the book, telling that all that happened before this was just the words on the pages while after was stuff that ... happened. Yeah. Some more stuff that was kind of neat to notice, if you did not catch it before, but 1) the Lance rip-off's last words to Rei are really exactly what Rocket said to her as she took the gun from him and 2) the last word in the entire fanatic fiction is the word "rain," which was also the first.
Anyways, I spoke of the many changes I had to struggle over choosing between, so here's a list of what ideas I compiled while reaching that last chapter, more or less copied straight from the source but given proper grammar:
First Ending- Her and "Lance" with guns to each others heads, saying, "You know if you do this, you'll die," to which she replies, "Good," followed by a picture of blood and a smoking gun.
Blunt Ending- Shade walks in, says, "Looks like you finally found what your looking for," and writes some cryptic message in the journal in her blood.
Sappy Ending- Shade walks in, says line, then leaves while Rei opens her eyes as a child in field with father.
Dark Ending- Shade walks, speaks, and leaves while Rei opens her eyes, is still there and alive. "No, it can't be," she says, feeling hole inside of skull. "It was suppose to be over. Why? Why won't it stop? Why won't I die? ..." She can't die! It's evil, people!
Ominous End- Continuation of previous. Voice calls out to her as she wonders why she is not dead, being the voice of Vengeance (her monster or the Spirit of Vengeance itself incarnated as the Gengar), and ask if this is what she wants. All of Lost Soul, starting from the point were she first clutched the Pokeball in fear (about the fourth/fifth chapter), being nothing more than a premonition given to her by the spirit which asks her "You have the choice little are given for the tragedy of your path has moved even our hearts. You have seen where the road of vindication will take you. You can prevent all of this suffering before it starts. You will not remember any of this, but the thoughts will only be taken after you choose." With the choice of a normal life or one of endless suffering and blood, she takes the latter, just as before.
Blunt and Sappy merged- (This was the one actually used, so I'll omit it)
Never-Ending- The used End, except as Shade takes up the phantom axe and departs, the Graveyard Keeper follows him instead of venturing off to the netherworld.
Isn't that all crazy? Now, if I could (and shall), I'd like to say a few things about the trio of stories as a whole that never was/will be done. For starters, there were going to be two more books. Yes, two. More oddly, they were suppose to be written simultaneously. The fourth book was going to be Forsaken, in which I would literally just fill in gaps of Rei's life, mostly the two year span of her killing spree in the second book. There, she was suppose to get a Gyarados and an albino Wigglytuff. It was intended to just continue indefinitely with non-sequitur and random acts. This, also, was a contributing factor to why it probably won't get made. The only thing I ever had for it, anyways, was a neat teaser/intro thing in which Rei was riding Squishy through some rough waters and gets challenged by some guy on a Blastoise. She accepts and makes some type of call as the giant leviathan rises from the waters behind her and arches over, staring down the guy's now puny ride, to which Rei says, "I win."
The fifth book was going to be Salvation. This was going to be the actual continuation of Lost Soul (in fact, I may have wanted to switch the order of them, but this is how it's catalogued in the notes) in which it followed Shade, now with the curse of death Rei had and a hefty axe. The problem was I couldn't think of much more than that to happen, so... yeah.
Here's something that never will get done, Rei's actual name. No, not Jacquelyn. That was just some hackney stuff I thought up towards the end. Her real name was Kabigon, the Japanese name for Snorlax. I was suppose to do an entire chapter where Shade tried to guess her name and then it cut to a flash back of her and her father, and it reveals that she was born really, really fat. And, you know that joke: When two cat lovers have a baby, they name it Fluffy, so two PokeManiacs would do similar.
To end, I'd like to do an apology. I'm not certain if I said it before, but I will anyways: Dude, I had no idea that the Rei from my fan fic was so much like the Rei from NGE. I mean, I ever say or really heard about the anime before, so I didn't know there was a blue haired, red eyed, somber chick who had that name already. I just thought, hey, its about a Japanese game, I should take a Japanese word as her nickname. And, really, when I first wrote the fic, in its long replaced, never worked on, earlier stage, Rei had green hair and golden eyes. Creepy much? (as if the blue and red are somehow more appealing) So, I wanted that said. I did not rip off the character intentionally or knowing.
And this is it. Normally, here I'd be saying "See you soon in Lost Soul, Book IV: Something!" but I can't, because I won't. In fact, about the only way I will work on LS again is re-reading it and fixing all the grave grammar errors or just plain rewriting it as an almost entirely different story plain. What it is now... who cares.
