"Never Again" by Marie Krepps

BOOK TITLE: Never Again

AUTHOR: Marie Krepps

YEAR: 2016

GENRE: Fiction

SUBGENRE: Creature Fantasy

GRADE: Pass

In a medieval world inhabited by animalistic shape-shifters, Lord Sable is the ruler of the Southern Territory, but he is far from a typical politician. Instead of pushing papers behind a desk, he’s brawling with bandits and monsters as a way of protecting his people. He’s also protective of his little daughter, whose mother died after giving birth. Sable is crass, angry, vulgar, and emotionally cold. When another shape-shifter named Nessa comes into his life, the Southern Lord has to choose between keeping his trauma locked up forever and letting someone in to ease his pain. Nessa has pain of her own and wants to run into Sable’s cold, but strong arms. Will these two come together or tear each other apart? Cooperation is a must considering an unknown enemy is targeting Sable and his family.

I have to be honest here for a moment. At first I was critical of Lord Sable’s character development. He came off as an abusive jerk-ass who would never survive in a liberal democracy. And then I remembered that the story’s environment is anything but a liberal democracy. This is set in medieval times, which means literacy is at its lowest, ignorance is at its highest, and bigotry is everywhere. Instead of scoffing at Sable’s negative attitude, I’m praising Marie Krepps’ ability to stay true to the times. Even with a fantasy genre label, it’s important to keep things real and believable. High five to Ms. Krepps for doing an awesome job of that! And if you’re still not convinced that Sable is capable of being a decent person, keep reading, you’ll get your moment….sort of.

Another thing that deserves praise is a staple of most of Ms. Krepps’ books, the delicious sex scenes. I won’t say who they feature because that would count as a spoiler. But when the sex happens, you feel every muscle twitch, you feel every drop of sweat, you feel ever orgasmic burst of energy, and you’re hungering for more afterwards. Marie doesn’t just tell you what kind of hot sex is going on; she puts you right there in the middle of the action. I’ve always praised her ability to show instead of tell and these luscious scenes are living proof. She’s been doing these kinds of scenes for a long time now and experience has always been the best teacher. Try to remember: this book is not meant to be pornographic. Try really, really hard to remember!

The final thing I want to comment on is this book’s similarities with the long-running anime Inuyasha, which also takes place in medieval times and features demonic animals. Creative fuel can come from anywhere and Marie Krepps is a lifelong fan of anime, so that’s a lot of inspiration to work with. I often picture what it would be like to have Inuyasha and Lord Sable eat dinner together. There would be a lot of wolfing, a lot of swearing, and a lot of lewd behavior. The difference between them? Sable doesn’t have a “sit” necklace to hold him back. On the contrary, he’s made of 100% raw power with cold emotions to boot. In a way, Sable is also comparable to Koga since they’re both wolf shifters and equally vulgar. It’s always nice to see an author use creative fuel in such an innovative way.

This is a Marie Krepps novel in the truest sense: sex, violence, fantasy, romance, and an invitation to a front row seat for the action. She knows exactly what she’s doing when it comes to hooking in readers and never letting go of her death grip until she damn well wants to. This isn’t the last we’re going to see of Lord Sable, Nessa, and the evildoers who want to tear their world apart. This is only the first in what will eventually be a long series of awesome storytelling, high drama, and explosive action. I think she deserves a passing grade for her effort, don’t you agree? Excellent work, Marie! You’ve done it again!

Stardust

When Mitch O’Connor’s spacecraft touched down on the world of Stardust, he couldn’t believe how small it was. It truly was a retreat for an introverted hermit like Marcus Edge. The door to the pod-like spacecraft opened and Mitch clunked down the stairs in his spiked metal power armor while carrying a gauss rifle that was bigger than his own arms. “Oh, this is too easy. Too damn easy!” he said to himself.

Stardust wasn’t the most complex world in the galaxy. Smallness aside, it appeared to be a jungle land complete with coconut trees, dirt trails, tall grass, plant life, just your everyday nature trail on planet earth. Even for a planet this tiny, Mitch still had a problem finding his target Marcus Edge. It didn’t help matters that the space mercenary was stomping around on the ground in his gigantic metal boots. Then again, his job didn’t require a great deal of stealth, so he didn’t dwell on it much.

“Marcus Edge!” shouted Mitch through an amplified microphone inside his space helmet. “I know your ass is around here somewhere! I’m feeling pretty good today, probably because toasting your little world is going to be the easiest thing I’ve ever done! So here’s what I’m going to do, Marcus: I’m going to give you the chance to get your hermit ass off this planet so that when I burn down the plant life and kill all the animals, you won’t have to be a part of it. My boss at World Corp wants to turn your little home into a vacation getaway. It don’t look like much of a vacation right now, buddy boy. It looks more like…”

Before he was allowed to finish his oratory, Mitch O’Connor’s legs were snatched up from underneath him and he hung upside down on a vine. He was so far off the ground that when he dropped his rifle, he couldn’t pick the damn thing back up again. “Oh, you’ve got traps now?” he said. “Well, I got news for you, smart ass: I’ve been doing this shit for a whole decade and ain’t no vine going to stop my ass from burning everything in sight!”

His boldness turned to fear when he found himself face to face with a Venus Fly Trap, the owner of that tight vine. This particular plant had teeth the size of railroad spikes and blood oozing from its mouth like a waterfall. Mitch’s lips were vibrating and his eyes widened at the sight of this monster. And then he went back to being bold when he said, “Wait a minute! Why the hell am I scared of a goddamn plant?”

With his metal space helmet, Mitch O’Connor unleashed a powerful head butt to the Venus Fly Trap, loosening a few teeth and spraying some more blood, but more importantly, loosing the vine’s grip on the mercenary’s legs. Mitch plummeted to the grassy ground below, but his metal armor protected him from injury, so he pretty much picked himself up, dusted himself off, and found his rifle again.

“Is that all you got, Marcus? Some stupid plant? Oh, this is going to be easier than I thought! And I’m making millions off of this job! It’s like Christmas came early!” boasted Mitch.

“Don’t be too sure of that, you disgusting human!” said the busted up Venus Fly Trap in a raspy voice. With Mitch watching in awe and horror, the plant morphed into a human being wearing bear skin clothing and a raccoon cap on his head. This was him alright: Marcus Edge, hermit druid.

“Oh, so that’s how it’s going to be, huh? You want to put up a fight? Well, goddamn, man, you’ve got one now, bitch!” shouted the soldier for hire when he raised his gauss rifle and opened automatic fire. That many plutonium bullets would have been enough to shred a normal human being into dust. Hell, the surgeons would need a microscope to put his sorry ass back together again. But when the storm of bullets ended, there was no corpse.

Instead all Mitch O’Connor got was a deafening bird squawk right in his left ear. Marcus, who now morphed into a parrot, continued to blast his windpipes in his opponent’s ear and double the man over as he got a headache. When the druid believed his adversary had enough, he flew off into the sunset and left Mitch to clutch his aching head.

The sudden drop in volume inspired the mercenary to aim his rifle and unleash another rainstorm of violence upon his opponent. The shredding impact only resulted in one feather this time. On measly little feather.

“What the hell’s going on here?!” Good question, Mr. O’Connor. What was going on was that Marcus Edge had now morphed into a charging rhino. The tank-like beast barreled and stampeded his way across the grass and knocked a few trees over. With little time for his opponent to react, Marcus gored Mitch and sent him flying backwards several feet, knocking a few trees over himself.

That power armor was a blessing for Mitch since he had just survived a high drop and getting spear tackled by a rhino. But now the mercenary was feeling the pain. He was so exhausted from these attacks that he took longer than usual to get up. He crashed into trees, for god’s sake. Trees! Yet he continued to be brash and cocky in the face of danger.

“Is that all you got, you son of a bitch? What are you going to change into now, a small puppy? Are you going to bark your way to victory?” yelled Mitch.

Changing from a rhino back to his human form, Marcus slowly approached his nemesis and said, “No, I’m not going to do any barking today. That’s been your job since you landed on Stardust, you asshole.”

With Mitch watching in awe of his opponent, Marcus continued his speech with, “You know what I detest about the human race? You people think you have the right to conquer whatever the hell you want. You did it on earth with pretty much every group of people that wasn’t white, including Indians and Africans. That’s all you guys do: just take, take, take. You have some oil? I’ll take that. You have human rights? I’ll take that as well. Is that supposed to be impressive? To who, exactly? Your mother? Your father? Your trophy wife? The president himself? How many more people have to die before you’re finally satisfied with the things you already have! You make me sick! You all make me sick!”

An uncomfortable hush had fallen over the scene and then Marcus laid into Mitch some more, “That’s why I came to Stardust: to get away from it all. And now some space jockey like you decides to come to my world and sell it to some rich asshole? Let me fill you in on a little secret, buddy boy. Stardust isn’t just any tiny planet. It’s the product of my own imagination. As long as I keep being creative, I can manipulate any part of this world I want while you only have that stupid rifle to overcompensate for your small penis. To put it in words even a money-hungry thug like you can understand…you were screwed the minute you stepped foot on my world.”

This would have been the best time for Mitch O’Connor to get back in his spaceship and tell his bosses at World Corp to shove it. Just leave now while he still had his peace of mind and still had his health. But instead he decided to keep playing the role of an arrogant jerk-ass. He yelled, “You worthless piece of shit!” prior to opening fire yet again.

Except this time it wasn’t just plutonium bullets. It was also fireballs, ice sickles, lightning bolts, biological sludge, and laser beams, all of which were hidden compartments on his rifle and all of which were necessary in doing his job to destroy entire planets to get them ready for flipping.

After unloading a cataclysm of agony that Armageddon itself could never produce, Mitch didn’t even check to see if there was a corpse this time. He just dropped to his hands and knees, breathed deeply, and laughed his ass off. “I got you, bitch! I got you this time! And there ain’t nothing you can do about it!”

Mitch was so busy laughing his way to insanity that he didn’t realize he was sinking in a mud pit. Even when the mud was completely covering his space helmet, he couldn’t have cared less. It was when he was underneath the mud pit and into a cavern of filth that he realized what was going on. The realization hit him even harder when Marcus was standing there with his arms folded saying, “What took you so long?”

“No…no…this ain’t happening, man! This ain’t happening! Don’t you ever fucking die, man?!” screamed a deranged Mitch O’Connor.

Marcus laid a hand on his invader’s metal shoulder and said, “Old druids don’t die. They just get better.” With Mitch shedding tears of defeat, Marcus Edge transformed into a gigantic grizzly bear and started chewing and mauling his way through the metal armor, which at this point was a lot like opening a can of Chef Boyardee ravioli. Oh, the meat sauce inside was going to be so worth all this rage.

Marcus Edge

Diablo II: Lord of Destruction wasn’t just a videogame for me back in the early 2000’s; it was an influence. It was a digital drug. I killed the brothers of evil over and over again as time passed into the 2010’s. I used a variety of characters to do it, but my favorites were the barbarian and the paladin since they were both badass brawlers. Then again, any character class from that game can be a badass brawler if the right skills were chosen.

Which brings me to the druid class. Druids, like any other character, had a skill set sorted out into three categories. The ones particular to him were elemental magic spells, shape-shifting spells, and summoning spells. If you’re playing Diablo II and you want to turn your druid into a brawler, put your skill points into the shape-shifting category, particularly were-bear transformation and maul. How the hell are Diablo’s minions supposed to compete with a big ass bear who only gets stronger and hungrier with every blow?

The answer to that question is easier than you think, unfortunately. When druids transform into were-bears, their attack speed is significantly slower. Even when they’re armed with weapons with a very fast attack speed, the strikes still come slowly and awkwardly.

Now imagine if the druid was armed with something heavy like a great maul, which has a very slow attack speed. If he transformed into a bear, his new attack speed would be so slow his victims would look like Matrix characters with how easily they dodge the strikes. Now imagine if your ursine druid was frozen, which slows down running and attack speed. Duriel, the boss enemy for act two, has a freezing aura around him at all times. Do the math and you’ll see right away that tortoises don’t always beat hares.

This was the story for a druid I played with named Marcus Edge. If that name seems familiar to you, you were probably logged onto Deviant Art and reading a story called The Meaning of Laugh, which was about a raunchy comedian of the same name who has a heart attack on stage. That story won’t be published in any short story anthologies anytime soon due to the crappy writing style I employed in 2012.

The Diablo II version of Marcus Edge was a lethal warrior. His slowness, however, made it impossible to defeat Duriel and I ultimately deleted him from my archives. But this doesn’t mean his career in a creative field is over. Druids in general are fascinating to me. As an animal lover, I should know this, because druids specialize in summoning and transforming into these furry creatures. If I ever write another dark fantasy story and need a druid, I would gladly use Marcus Edge as my main character. Perhaps he can get notoriety in more ways than his name being used for a crappy comedian character.

　

***FACE BOOK POST OF THE DAY***

“When I was playing Final Fantasy videogames as a child, I’d always wondered what the hell a ‘phoenix down’ was. I knew what it did, but I didn’t know why it was called that. Turns out this whole time I’ve been sprinkling bird feathers on my unconscious warriors. Smelling salts would be more practical, but they probably wouldn’t conform to the magical element of Final Fantasy games.”

-Me-