I was in a desolate planet, hunting for a man with a hefty bounty on his head in order to keep my tribe afloat and away from misery for just one more day. Once upon a time, we had been a thriving civilization, conquering the lands around us and living off of our own strength, a people as mighty as we were glorious. But that did not last. There was a grand exodus, and we were forced to abandon the planet or be annihilated by a force far beyond our control. Our Goddess was hailed as a heroine throughout the universe by those who had never before heard of her, renowned as a powerful guardian, a beacon of light and hope for the weak. But, us? The ones who had served her faithfully for millenia? The ones who had achieved countless deeds in her name? Forgotten. All forgotten. And even when the War that had begotten our exile was over, we were not allowed to return, we were denied our homecoming, denied the right to reclaim the land upon which our ancestors had bled. We were left adrift, and the others, they would not have any of us, would not help us. We were too violent, they claimed. Too stubborn, too volatile. Not fit for becoming a part of their 'new' civilizations. We had become outcasts, when we once were champions. These were the thoughts that ran through my mind as I sought my target, soon dominating my mind. I was angry, very angry. So angry, in fact, that unfettered wrath clouded my every thought, and the moment I set my eyes upon a man that was my prey and no longer my target, everything became a blur. The moments seemed to blend together, and even after the fact I was unable to remember any meaningful details, the very attempt nearly driving me into unconsciousness. There was, however, something clear, some sort of sadistic ecstasy that filled me. I knew that my colossal thirst for blood was being quenched, and though I did not know how at that moment, later I was able to give myself an accurate notion. It is not correct to say that I woke up, for I had never truly fallen asleep or unconscious, but there was a point where my head began clearing up and I was able to think again. The entire landscape was painted a deep crimson, or perhaps it was my own sight, though I had no way of knowing, and I became vaguely aware of my own grin and of the fleshy heart clutched in my claw. It was then that I saw him. It was a distant blot of black in the sky at first, difficult to notice through my red-tinted gaze, but it became clearer and clearer until I saw him in all of his macabre glory. A giant maw surrounded by a mass of barbed tentacles and jagged, leathery wings that served no practical purpose. His black scales had a twisted glint to them under the weary sunlight, and his eyes burned a path to my soul. It was the greatest monstruosity I had ever laid my eyes upon in my short life, and yet, I was not scared. It seemed as if he could tell, and soon, he shrank, slowly morphing, until eventually shadow engulfed his entire form, compacting itself before floating down to the ground, forming into the shape of a black haired boy who looked at me with curiosity. He was amused, I could tell, and I knew that his purpose was that of destruction, for it was written all over his existence, but even so, I did not back off. I thought back to my tribe, to my race, to my Goddess. What did I owe them? The Goddess had exiled us only to disappear and leave us alone, never to return. My race had abandoned me to my luck, and my own tribe did nothing to help me, instead opting to live off of the strength of their champion, having forgotten the glory that our people once had. I owed them nothing. I had nothing to lose. Yet, I stood to gain the only thing that I wished for: retribution. A way to quench my thirst. A way to feed the monster growing inside of me. Without even thinking anymore, I offered the crushed heart in my palm to the black God that stood in front of me, and when I saw his smile, I knew that I would be the first of his paladins. I knew that my wish would be granted.
I knew that the monster inside me smiled as well.
-The First Banshee, Hand of The Tyrant
Where Dragons Rule Enforcer Headquarters, ArkThe plastic bag flew forward into the room and smacked the very surprised inhabitant of the room, before falling to the ground with a small clank, the metallic cylinder rolling for a moment within the boundaries of the plastic bag, though none of the contents were spilled onto the ground, thankfully, and the plastic bag was soon picked up by the one whose face had been smacked. The other inhabitant of the room was a young man, only twenty years old, with a short mess of ebony locks for hair, and melancholic azure eyes that betrayed the wariness with which he picked up the plastic bag, setting the cylinder, the box and the paper-wrapped object on the ground in front of him, next to an assortment of tools with which he had been tinkering with several machines scattered on the back of the room and the table in the corner, which also hosted a number of handmade blueprints. The tools and machines had been slightly difficult to procure, and it was most definitely illegal to keep such thing inside one's room, but those laws had been designed by the Dragon Lords, and the Dragon Lords were above policing their own police force, believing that the indoctrination that the Enforcers had gone through would ensure their loyalty. And in that regard, they were not wrong: there were many laws that were regularly broken by the vast majority of the population of Ark, but this did not mean that the Muses and Banshees did not perform their duties with brutal efficiency when they were called upon; if anything, these broken vows, these 'luxuries' that the Enforcers procured for themselves ensured that they remained loyal to the greater cause. In addition to that, even if there were those who sought to expose their peers, who would ever think of suspecting of a Muse leader? No one in their right mind, for sure.
The Muse leader carelessly tossed her own plastic bag onto the nearby bed, before walking over and sitting down on the edge. The room was quite spacious, more so than the rooms of the other Muses, able to house a bed, a table and a large trunk and still allow for ample space. Of course, most of that space was still occupied with items that were not actually meant to be there: for starters, there was an improvised bed on the ground, made of an assortment of identical bedsheets hoarded through the course of several weeks. There was a smaller trunk, hand-made, about half the size of the larger one, but still spacious enough to fit the belongings of the second inhabitant of the Muse leader's room. There were the previously mentioned machines, tools and assorted items. In the end, though there was enough space to move around, the room had more than half of its empty space used up. Yet, the Muse leader did not seem to mind. To her, this was perfectly normal, and so, she simply stared at the human, curious.
The human stared back for a moment, before looking at the three objects in front of him, the cylinder in particular. He flicked it with one of his fingers in order to hear the sound from within, he knocked on it, shook it and even brought a measuring tool of sorts to use upon it, but nothing seemed to satisfy him, and he continued acting in this manner until finally, the Muse leader, tired of his antics, leaned forward and nabbed the cylinder from the human's hands. She tapped one of its ends lightly, and part of it seemed to slide into the rest, leaving a small opening which exposed the contents of the hollow piece of metal. Filling the cylinder was a black liquid that did not seem very healthy to consume, and yet, the Muse leader put the cylinder's opening to her lips without a second thought, taking a good drink before finally moving the object away from herself, letting a sigh of satisfaction at the sweet taste of the liquid and then placing the cylinder on the ground next to the human.
Still a bit suspicious, the young man took a quick sip. Then, he took a huge gulp before finally pausing for breath.
"It has been three years, Mars. I had been hoping that you would stop checking for bombs." The Muse leader spoke, her voice soft and perhaps even caring, though it was still lacking in emotion, as if emotion was something hard to feel. Regardless, she shook her head at the human and then set about removing her black scale armor and placing it within the larger trunk, along with her helmet and the rest of her equipment, keeping only her simple clothes on.
"...Old habits die hard, Kiris." The young man replied. Indeed, it had been three years since the Muse had found him, spared him and taken him to what was arguably one of the safest places to be in an universe in turmoil. By now he was quite aware that she was not her enemy, and had admitted it several times, but before, he had been cautious to an absurd degree, a mess of paranoia. It had taken several months for him to even bother to speak a word to her, and if he had ever decided to eat the food that she brought him regularly, it was because, despite his immense willpower, he was not quite capable of starving himself to death. With time, he had opened up, realizing that, bizarrely enough, the Muse leader did not seem to have any purpose with him other than keeping him alive. Why he had been shown this kind of mercy, though, was something that nobody knew, not even Kirisvala herself. But if there was a habit of his that prevailed, even after all of that time, it was that he
always checked the food.
"I can't argue with you there." The Muse leader replied, shrugging. She then sat down on the floor, next to him, and took out the contents of her own plastic bag, setting the cylinder aside and removing the paper wrappings from the round object. She bit into the burger, and devoured it with a ravenousness that betrayed the level of exhaustion that she had so masterfully kept hidden away. She was clearly very tired from her campaign in Shamra, having been the one who had spent the most energy while casting the spells that had turned the city of Mireshar into ash, and so, she quickly ate the deceptively nutritious burger and then moved on to the fries contained in the small cardboard box, though she took her time with these.
Mars nibbled on his fries as he observed her intently, watching her as her carefully constructed guise fell apart, revealing her true nature. He knew very well that she was a Muse, a Muse leader no less, and he knew what that entailed, having witnessed the destruction wrought by those creatures upon any and all who opposed the Dragon Lords. He knew it very well, and he also knew why she had been absent, he knew that she had marched off to siege the capital of a distant world that had dared to defy the Dragon Lords. By her presence, he could also deduce with some reliability the ultimate fate of the inhabitants of that planet. He knew all of this, and yet, when he looked towards her, he did not see a monster; in fact, it was impossible for him to see a monster in her. Sometimes, what she saw was a tool, an unfortunate person who had been forced into a heinous task by a cruel destiny. In most instances, though, all he could see was a young woman, and a beautiful one to boot. He did not often say it, but he was scared, scared to death that, one day, she would march off to a campaign and never return. And it was not his own safety that made him afraid, not quite.
The two of them ate in silence, and even after the wrappings and the boxes and the cylinders were emptied and thrown into a recycling tract, they remained silent for a long while. Three years had passed, and even after all that time, they had not yet grown entirely used to each other, they found each other's presence strange, alien. Alien, and yet somehow fascinating.
"If the Dragon Lords had never come, do you think we would have met?" Kirisvala finally asked, surprising Mars, who mulled over the question. It was unlikely, he decided. He knew that the Enforcers were the orphaned children of the Black Dragon that had saved the universe from the Builders before disappearing, but they were scattered throughout the stars, and he, on the other hand, had never left Earth, staying in his homeland, the lonely defender of Jump City until it was invaded and he wound up saved and sheltered by the Muse leader. They were from radically different backgrounds, and though there were coincidences in the universe, the odds that they would have met without this crisis were very small, laughable.
But as all of these thoughts ran through his head, he merely shook his head.
He was quite surprised to notice her scooting closer to him, her white-coated claw reaching up and gently tracing a scar present on the young man's cheek, something that was ever so slightly uncomfortable, though Mars did not move. "Then... I suppose that means I am glad that all of this happened, in a way." She admitted, looking down, as though disappointed, before meeting his gaze once again. "Does that make me a monster, Mars?" She asked sincerely.
Without really thinking, Mars reached up, cupping the Muse leader's cheek and caressing it gently as he looked into her red eyes. "No, Kiris, of course not." He replied.
She smiled and then leaned forward, their lips touching like many times before, their kiss the mark of a love that could only bloom in shadow.
Gotham City, EarthThe Silhouette of Adventure wrote:---
The general had walked in without fear, and had waited patiently to be received. Of course, he hadn't been expecting holograms, naturally, but he had expected
some kind of trick to be keeping the presence of an armed resistance cell within the building masked and hidden, some sort of measure that guarded them from possible intervention by the Enforcers. In that regard, there had been no surprise for him when the walls of the building suddenly flickered and then vanished, revealing the armed surprise that awaited behind them, several armed soldiers with their weapons trained on him. He stared down the barrels of death with little care, knowing that they would not touch him, as they had been the ones to invite him to that place, the ones who had requested his assistance in their time of need. In any case, he had to applaud their measures. If they still bothered with ballistic weapons at this point it meant that these soldiers were well trained in identifying the seams and other weak points of the armors of the Banshees and Muses.
Staring on at the soldiers and at the two members of the Bat family that stood in front of him, he simply waited, ignoring the snide comment of the male one and focusing his attention on the female one, who seemed like the more serious of the two. He was soon proven correct in his assumption, as she motioned for him to follow her, to which he complied immediately, trailing behind her and entering the elevator, ignoring all the chatter outside, as it was none of his business. He was not here to listen in on their security protocols, he was here to speak to the heads of the Gotham City Defenders, he was here to speak to The Runner, and nothing more.
Feeling the elevator begin ascending, General Graham became abstracted in his thoughts, going over the myriad of information that his brain had to process in order to keep the Rebellion afloat. Being the mastermind behind an insurrection spanning the entire world was taking its toll on him, clearly.
AsgardThe golden city of Asgard did not shine. The glorious Enclosure of the Gods was still in mourning, even now, five years after the irreversible destruction of the child of the late Odin Borson at the hands of the Dragon Lords. The Asgardians that walked to and fro did not seem to have that joyous fire within them that had driven them at every moment before the arrival of The Tyrant. Indeed, their faces were somber and stern and they spoke nary a word, be it to each other or to themselves. If an outside observer were to watch them now, in this state, they would undoubtedly assume that the spirit of Asgard had been broken by the tragedy that had occurred five years ago on Earth, but this observer would be wrong, oh so terribly wrong. The Asgardians had been touched by the death of the brave Thor, that was true, and they had changed, for the tragedy had made them cold, calming their inner fire, but the mistake was in assuming that this somehow made them any less dangerous. Like a blade newly forged that must be allowed to cool before it will be able to stab deep into the heart of an enemy, the Asgardians had needed to let go of their bloodlust and their passion before they could become a threat to the Dragon Lords, the threat that they needed to be.
However, aside from the differences in the demeanor of the Asgardians, there was something else that was amiss in the city, something that was there, but should not have been, something that did not belong. Not too far from where the glorious halls of Valhalla stood solemn, there was an open space, cleared precisely for the purpose of hosting that anomaly within the landscape. It was an assortment of large green containment cells that had been brought to Asgard by the All-Mother herself after a particularly risky incursion into the territories controlled by the Dragon Lords. Many had feared that the All-Mother had finally gone mad in her quest, or that her suicidal endeavor was a way to die a honorable death in order to make up for failing to protect Thor, but they were wrong, they were all wrong. Not long after she had left, the All-Mother had returned, carrying with her an enormous shard of land that was held aloft by the Valkaforce. The earth itself was swiftly stripped away and the green cells located and placed in a location where they could be easily accessed, not because of their functions, but because of something that they may have been housing within.
And now, the All-Mother herself was in the process of inspecting the cells, one by one. From what the Asgardians knew, these were but a fraction of the cells that had once existed, though most of them had been destroyed by The Tyrant, along with everything inside them. However, these were to be searched, in the off chance that they contained something that might be useful to Asgard's looming war against the Dragon Lords, and so, Valka searched diligently, inspecting the current cell and then flying off and entering the next one in line if nothing useful was found. More often than not, the cells would be completely empty, as if they had never been occupied in the first place, though sometimes the All-Mother would find a corpse, or the remnants of something that indicated that the cell had once been inhabited. In more than one occasion, broken artifacts had been found within the cells, but Asgard had no use for such worthless trinkets and so, they were discarded at once when it was determined that they lacked any value.
As this happened, the Valkyries awaited outside patiently, the Fairest of the Fair standing among them. Ever the faithful servant to the All-Mother, she had also been one of the most affected by the news of Thor's death, and now, she was one of the most determined to bring the Dragon Lords to their knees. Yet, she too understood that Asgard needed to wait, to move slowly and thoughtfully, lest they make a fatal mistake and wind up like their fallen brother, unable to avenge him as they too would have fallen prey to the greed and the desolation brought by the servants of The Tyrant. Instead of charging head first into battle, they bid their time, preparing for the inevitable war, preparing their victory, a victory that would be the first of many.
The curiosity of all those present was piqued when the All-Mother entered the very last cell and remained within for far longer than she had bothered to remain in any of the other ones. Some, who represented the vast majority of those observing the All-Mother's search, believed that she was staying inside the cell in order to think of how she would break the news that her dangerous venture, which had greatly concerned all of Asgard and caused much discontent, had been all for naught. Some others suspected that the All-Mother, after having found nothing, instead of plotting, was attempting to suppress her rage and frustration, for she too had been quite affected by the death of a dear friend and a brave warrior. And then, there were those who, despite the crushing evidence to the contrary and all of the indications that the holding cells as a group were empty and devoid of anything useful, believed that the All-Mother was lingering inside that place because she had found something of worth, contrary to the opinions of the others.
In the end, it was these last ones who would be proven correct, as the All-Mother emerged from the sciencell. She was not empty-handed, but the object that she bore in her hand was nothing impressive, at least at first glance. However, there was a strange power that radiated from the object, and if one paid much attention to the All-Mother, one would be able to notice that, despite the stern expression that was on her face as she looked at it, there was some sort of satisfaction coming from her. She was content to have found something; what the others did not seem to realize, however, was that Valka had found
exactly what she had been looking for, an ancient power locked away in one of these sciencells in the planet of Oa by the children of Maltus so that it would not be able to harm the universe, an ancient power that had been sealed and transformed into a small black sphere.
The eyes of all of the Asgardians present were set on the All-Mother, but she did not seem to have eyes for anything that was not the dark ball.
"So the rumors surrounding your existence spoke with the truth, creature." The All-Mother spoke, clearly addressing the black sphere, something that made the other Asgardians wonder once more if Valka had finally gone mad. However, she did not seem to care. "But I remain astonished. From one such as thee, I had expected a more deign and glorious appearance." She stated. "But I will not complain, for you will assist us in our vengeance..."
As she trailed off, she raised the black orb into the air in order to observe it more carefully.
"...T:D:H:D."