TONFA
The Original Naruto Fanfic Archive

Main Categories

Het Romance [1092]
Any Naruto fanfiction with the main plot orientating around different sex couples.
Alternate Universe & Crossovers [651]
Where cast of the Naruto Universe are inserted into an alternate universe.
Essays & Tutorials [17]
An area to submit intelligent essays debating topics about the Naruto Universe and writing tutorial submissions.
 
General Fiction [1739]
Any Naruto fanfiction focused without romantic orientation, on a canon character in the current Naruto Universe.
OC-centric [865]
Any Naruto fanfic that has the major inclusion of a fan-made character.
Non-Naruto Fiction [291]
Self-evident
 
Shonen-ai/Yaoi Romance [1575]
Any Naruto fanfiction with the main plot orientating around male same sex couples.
MadFic [194]
Any fic with no real plot and humor based. Doesn't require correct spelling, paragraphing or punctuation but it's a very good idea.
 
Shojo-ai/Yuri Romance [106]
Any Naruto fanfiction with the main plot orientating around female same sex couples.
Fan Ninja Bingo Book [125]
An area to store fanfic information, such as bios, maps, political histories. No stories.
 
 

Site Info

Members: 11985
Series: 261
Stories: 5884
Chapters: 25418
Word count: 47689150
Authors: 2162
Reviews: 40828
Reviewers: 1750
Newest Member: Redxkenny
Challenges: 255
Challengers: 193
 


Tradewinds 14: No Way Out by shadesmaclean

[Reviews - 0]   Printer Chapter or Story
Table of Contents

- Text Size +
Chapter notes: tomorrow finally comes
Shades slept in his usual place on the couch near the helm. As he slowly awakened, he vaguely dreaded what he might see, though in his half-awake state he couldn’t quite remember what it was he was supposed to be so apprehensive about. Found he couldn’t quite get back to sleep, either, as he felt too hot to get comfortable.

He rolled over, opening his eyes— and immediately snapping them shut again against a glare that dazzled him in spite of his shades.

Damn sun…

Then he opened them again sharply, blinking away furiously to adjust to a light greater than he had become accustomed to of late, which it now dawned on him could mean only one thing, now that he was awake enough to make the connection.

“Max! Justin!” he called out as he rolled over and sat up, knees and ankles were sore from that crazy jump he made against the nasty robot guardian thing, but now that he was more awake, he took that as a good sign. Arms and shoulders stiff, as well, but it was a welcome, satisfying sensation. Feeling a rough battle’s worth of scrapes and bruises made for still more compelling evidence, as, during the repeat-loop, any injuries or other conditions they may have acquired during the previous visit always ‘went away’ while they were asleep, so… “Wake up, guys! We made it! We’re free!”

Down below, Max blinked away at the sleepiness, and Bandit looked up from his side of the cabin for a moment in idle feline curiosity. Wondering, perhaps, what the humans were making such a fuss over during his nap time, then nodded off again. For his part, Max glanced up, seeing sunlight streaming through the skylight on him. Like an old friend, he reflected, smiling as he sat up.

It was already looking like a great day, indeed.

In his room, Justin slowly, cautiously, opened his eyes, looking around blearily. At first, unsure if it was even worth it to wake up, with the kind of days he’d been having lately. And already, Shades was yelling at him about something…

Then the words finally registered.

Seeing the sunlight dancing on the water outside his porthole snapped him awake, and he bolted out of his cabin and up the steps to the bridge. A moment later, Max came up, as well, Bandit tagging along at his side. Now that he saw it for himself, Justin blinked. Both at the atypically welcome glare, as well as a desire to make sure he wasn’t seeing things.

“Is it really over?” he asked.

“Yes. At long last,” Shades remarked, “tomorrow has finally come.”

“Had to sooner or later,” Justin said, smiling for the first time since this ordeal began.

“A beautiful sunrise,” Max agreed.

“That it is…” Shades seconded.

“So, what’s for breakfast?” Justin interjected.

“Hmm…” Shades pondered a moment before answering, “I’m thinking anything besides whatever we had during our stay in St Lucy.”

“Sounds good to me,” Max added.

With that, they settled in for breakfast. Any lingering doubts or worries were quickly dispelled by the fact that their money and supplies had failed to magically revert back to their pre-repeat-loop status. In spite of the cheerful mood as they ate, nagging doubts still tried to creep in from time to time, a rational enough reaction after the repeatedly unsettling events of that day, but when the Isle of St Lucy failed to appear before them in their sights by the time they finished eating, they took that as the final proof they needed.

As Shades took his turn at the helm, he decided to keep an eye out for Camcron and its sinister Research Institute in the future. If they could do this… Interdimensional technology opened up possibilities he hadn’t seriously considered before. If it could be made to do more practical things, it could be a powerful tool in his search for John and Amy. Even, potentially, a way back home.

Of course, anymore, that line of thought, of going back to his own dimension, opened up a mixed bag of feelings. Homesickness and restlessness, loneliness and comradery. Though he knew he wouldn’t give up the search, had no intention of going back with so many questions left unanswered, his time here had served to make him wonder more about what he might do, where he might go next, if he did find his old friends. Perhaps, he concluded, it was a decision best left until he had caught up with them.

If nothing else, he was beginning to feel that, from here on out, he could face the distance from here to there, even the distance between himself and his friends when they were finally reunited.

Though Justin smiled outwardly, for he was indeed thrilled at finally being free again, he was also deeply troubled by what he had seen underneath that building. He wasn’t sure if they others would buy it, but he would swear up and down that whole portions of that computer apparatus looked like it was copied straight out of the derelict halls of Tranz-D. Wanting to know how the hell these guys got their hands on technology supposedly sealed away for thousands of years in the void between dimensions, let alone who in their right mind would attempt to rebuild it, he vowed to keep his ear to the ground for any further word of this Camcron outfit.

While Justin brooded, Max found himself picturing Mr Donaldson getting more people to investigate Project Pythagoras, wondering what else they might find.

“You know,” he told them, absently scratching Bandit behind the ears, “I think the people of St Lucy are going to be alright.”

“I’m sure they will,” Shades nodded. “If nothing else, it was an interesting day.”

“It sure was!” Justin told him pleasantly. “Now let us never speak of it again.”

And so the Maximum sailed on, destination unknown. Just as it should be, her crew concluded, looking out and enjoying a sunny sky they had feared they would never see again. A sky that told them it would be a great day, without a doubt.
Chapter end notes: -original draft: 1998-9
-notebook draft: Dec 28, 2008 – June 09, 2009
-word-processed draft: Nov 02–25, 2009
-additional revisions: Dec, 2009 – Jan, 2010

While Part 13 was a step into new territory, with nothing more than notes existing for it prior to the notebook draft, 14 brought me back one last time into territory I had covered in the older drafts. Much like what went before it, this one also underwent a lot of major changes between drafts. Often, a "repeat-looping" scenario is used for "Bottle Episodes" (props TVTropes) in TV shows, or as a way to conserve set budgets or some such. In writing though, simply copy-pasting text will merely bore the reader. In addition, my own vision of the story included a lot more variation between cycles.

One of the things this story originally included was a "Read The Book" scenario, in which Justin found a book written about the same-- or else a very similar-- situation, but there were always issues with spoilers, or making things too easy for our heroes, so that ultimately got cut. It's only remaining vestige is the diary Justin snags from the cabin, which provides a couple clues, but doesn't give it all away. The other thing that got the axe was a derelict with the horribly cheesy name Davey Jones. Part of this was because I had already done a story about a derelict at this point, and the other part was because there were gruesome clues that the crew had gone insane and killed themselves after experiencing too many repeats. Aside from a lame and pathetic end, being permanently dead would also contradict the repeat-loop itself, and adding more (especially unrelated) characters to the mix would only stretch and dilute things, so I left it out entirely.

Which came back to one of the key questions I had to resolve before I even proceeded with the notebook draft: the full extent of the repeat-loop. In the end, it was a video game I played years ago, The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask, that set the tone for the repeat-loop this time. The only thing the crew would keep between repeats was their memories, and built the scenario and tactics of their adventure from there. While I had thought about letting them hang on to "key" items between repeats, it only seemed to crack open a Pandora's Box of inconsistencies that would have undermined the story's credibility.

Some other important aspects were increasing both Sheriff Boggs' and Dr Grady's mobile phone's involvement in events, as well as creating a more definitive backstory about Grady's ouster from the Institute and its impact on Adnan's Academy. As well as Mr Donaldson getting killed by the fugitive robber if the robbery scenario ran its original course. And while Donaldson and Boggs got to keep their names throughout the different versions, the earliest draft called Grady "Birkin" (a name Resident Evil fans ought to recognize), but later decided the name was entirely too derivative, and so my nod became more subtle, relegating it to the name of the Research Institute itself, rather than a specific character.

In the original version, our heroes never set foot inside the Camcron Building until their final visit, yet that struck me as horribly unrealistic when the time came for the rewrite. Yet, when I tried to think of compelling reasons for why this should be, I realized that the answer was simple: given that they didn't know about the inner workings of Project Pythagoras, the mere deletion of data as a security measure would have been enough to halt their investigation. Thus, a very realistic way to herd them into finding the proper key without turning it into a Insurmountable Waist-Height Fence (props TVTropes). Of course, even the guardian itself underwent a few changes. In its original incarnation, I had named it "Sentinel" (after a local newspaper where I lived); it wasn't until over a year later, watching the first X-Men movie, that it dawned on me that naming a gigantic robot Sentinel would come off sounding very derivative, even if that wasn't my intention.

From here on out, though, there are no more old manuscripts, so everything from this point on will be entirely original to the notebook drafts. I'm not sure how much effect it will have on how long it takes to write each part, but I guess we will see. This had me rather worried, based on how long it took me to come up with the ending to Part 13. But part 15, at least, so far offers hope that it won't average much shorter or longer, per chapter, than the draft-based versions before. Even so, I fear the gaps between parts will become longer from here on out. Rest assured, though, this is my life's work, and I have no intention of abandoning it; no matter how long it takes, Tradewinds will continue to the very end.
You must login (register) to review.