Original Title: Call of the Void
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The being known as the Whisper in the Void stood motionless in the ritual chamber, her ancient presence a shadow that even darkness dared not approach. Before her was a mirror--if such a simple word could capture its nature. Framed in jagged obsidian and taller than any mortal, its surface swirled with inky blackness, punctuated by distant, faint glimmers of light. These lights were not stars but worlds--separated by space and time. Each represented a parallel reality teeming with life, their secrets laid bare to the Whisper's unblinking crimson gaze.
She tilted her head, her clawed fingers hovering over the distant spheres reflected on the mirror as she contemplated these worlds. Each was vibrant with life, brimming with potential, and utterly oblivious to the decaying ruin of her own. The men in these worlds, she mused, would sustain the demons of Mayko--her mother's creations--for a very long time. That was the plan, anyway, to weave a spell that would call out to the soul's of men with the potential to commit sin.
She spared a thought for her earlier attempts. Those first summons had been... disappointing. So many of the men she'd drawn into Mayko had vanished without a trace, likely succumbing to its unforgiving wilderness before encountering even a single demon. She had forgotten just how fragile humans could be. Millennia had passed since the war that shattered their species and left them a shadow of what they once were, and those humans had belonged to this world. She had not considered how outsiders might react to the chaos of their abrupt arrival. They were not properly motivated to survive; ill-prepared, and wasted--a mistake she would not repeat.
She brushed her hand against the mirror, the ripples distorting to reveal a new world--a blue sphere, eerily reminiscent of Mayko in the days before its ruin. The sight of it stirred something. A memory, long buried from a time when she still had passions to rule her: It was a game. Her sisters and she had played games once. The rules had been cruel, but there had been joy in the cruelty, the faint echoes of it still lingering in her. She smiled faintly. "It will be like a game," she murmured to herself, "like the ones we used to play."
This time, she would do better. She would warn them, offer them a chance to prepare. She would tell them of this world and its plight, then, let the men know they would be hunted. Let them struggle, fight, and find meaning in a new world. The strongest might even prevail, and the others would sustain the demons, for a while, at least. A game of survival, then. She'll give them a head start, as a kindness--or perhaps as a way to ensure the outcome that she sought.
The Whisper in the Void turned her attention back to the mirror, finding a remote valley crossroads in the vast wasteland of Mayko. The location was suitably distant from both the ruined human settlements and the sprawling demonic cities. It offered equal opportunity for both good fortune and bad, a fitting stage for her players.
She extended her will into the aether, weaving ancient and potent magic. The threads of her spell reached across the boundaries of worlds, seeking a variety of men of different backgrounds, each with an unanswered desire to seek out something beyond their mundane existence. Each selection resonated with a faint echo of sin, their soul's answer to the demonic call of the void. Slowly, the chosen began to appear, their bewildered forms taking shape in the valley.
She watched through her mirror as the men stumbled into their new reality, confusion and fear etched across their faces. Beneath that, her own reflection caught her attention. Beyond the vision, she saw something unusual on her face. It was a small thing, a simple curving of her lips, but it gave her pause.
Why am I smiling?
She hadn't anticipated any reaction from herself. Was it happiness? Excitement for what was to come? The thought lingered briefly before she dismissed it with a blink. Such things didn't matter.
With her preparations complete, she stepped away from the mirror and receded back into the void. The game was about to begin, and the players deserved their introduction.
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Original Title: The Strong & The Unfortunate, Part 1
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Jon Walsh came to with his face pressed into dirt, his heart hammering in his ears as it tried to keep up with whatever had just happened. Had a bomb just gone off? His fingers twitched against dry, cracked earth. Luckily he hadn't hit the pavement, although he hadn't remembered there being a yard around the building he'd last run into. His ears rang, and for a moment, he thought he could still hear the gunfire.
Where in the world...
He pushed himself up, his breaths coming quick and sharp as he tried to scan his peripheral for anyone that might still be chasing him. Jon blinked then, his vision swimming as his brain struggled to catch up with what his eyes were seeing.
A valley stretched out before him, wide and vast, the ground uneven and lifeless, broken only by jagged rock formations jutting from the earth like old, forgotten bones. A thin, hazy mist clung to the distance, swirling lazily at the edges of the horizon, obscuring whatever lay beyond. Above it all, a dark sky loomed--not the dull, polluted gray of London. A sickly red moon bathed everything in an eerie hue that almost distracted him from noticing that there were others. Men were scattered about the valley like debris from an explosion. They were murmuring, speaking in hushed voices, in languages he didn't understand or even recognize by sound. Some stood like him, while others were doubled over or kneeling in prayer; but not to the Christian God. Others just looked around in stunned silence, their eyes darting upward as if expecting to wake up from a nightmare.
Jon's own thoughts raced. The shootout. He'd just been fighting for his life. He remembered the black cars pulled outside of his apartment. The fear, the anger, the way he clutched his gun as he fired it without remorse. And then...
What?
His hand instinctively went to his chest, half-expecting to feel a sucking bullet wound. Nothing. Just his jacket, damp with sweat. He patted himself down, searching, until his fingers brushed against something familiar in his back pocket. Cold, reassuring. His backup. He exhaled sharply, glancing around before covertly slipping his hand inside, gripping the revolver's worn handle. He supposed he wasn't dead.
As Jon looked up, he caught the eyes of a man flicking over in his direction before darting back nonchalantly, pretending not to have seen anything. Nosey bastard. The man was thin, maybe a decade older than he was, and was the only other person that wasn't visibly panicked. He was dressed up, rather cheaply Jon noted, missing both a jacket and tie. Just a plain white button-up with the sleeves rolled to his elbows. His dark hair was a mess, sticking up at odd angles as if he'd just woken up, and his glasses looked more like two tiny beads on a wire, too small to fully cover his shifting, almond-shaped eyes. An oriental, Jon thought. Maybe Japanese? Not that it mattered. It set Jon on edge, the way people like him dismissed him, as if he were nothing. He'd always hated that look--first from adults in his youth, and now even when he was in his prime. Correcting others' bad habits was a knack of his, like those wandering eyes. Nothing a good headbutt couldn't fix. It was always best to establish who was in charge right off the bat.
Then Jon noticed the man was carrying a briefcase. He had a tight grip on the handle, looking like he was here on a business trip and was waiting for the bus to arrive. As soon as he realized Jon was staring, he subtly turned his body, angling himself away to keep the case just out of sight, still pretending not to notice. What could he possibly have in there that still mattered in a place like this? Did he have a gun as well?
The longer Jon took in his surroundings, the more he realized he and the briefcase bastard weren't the shadiest ones here. Hell, he wasn't even the only one carrying a weapon. His eyes swept over the other figures in the valley, spotting two--no, three--men armed with swords, and not the decorative military kind either. The fact that no two men were wearing clothes of similar fashion, or had tattered garments that made them look impoverished third-worlders, it was as if...
Jon felt something coil in his gut, the slow-burning tension that came whenever he felt himself lose control of a situation. A cold simmering, followed by sweating.
Just who were all these people?
A ripple passed through the valley--soundless, unseen, but heavy, like the air itself had thickened. Jon felt it settle on his skin, in his bones, a pressure that made his breath hitch. The murmurs around him died down. Something was here.
Then she appeared.
A figure took shape in the center of the valley, rising from nothing like a shadow unfurling against the dim light. A woman--no, not quite. She had the shape of one, slender and poised, but everything else about her was wrong. The hue of her skin, a deep, unnatural blue. The curve of her horns, sleek as polished onyx, sweeping up like a perverted halo. The inky fabric of her flowing, form fitting garment, drifting as if submerged in unseen currents. And her eyes... Jon couldn't stop staring at them. Framed by her long raven coloured hair, her eyes burned red--twin eclipses in a starless expanse, dark suns that pierced through everything. A pair of blood-red wings spread out from behind her, their edges lined with black spines like the ribs of a billowing cloak. Along with them, a long, sinuous tail uncoiled from behind her, its tip a deadly looking spade that gleamed like a razor.
The men around him reacted in fits and starts, a chorus of disbelief. Some gasped, some took staggering steps backward. A few dropped to their knees, hands shaking as they formed half-remembered prayers. Others reached for weapons they hadn't yet realized they carried. Jon didn't move. His hand twitched toward his coat, fingers brushing metal, but he stopped himself. He was surprised by his own instincts, but he needed to know just what this creature was before could allow himself to shoot.
Then came her power.
The blue-skinned woman raised a hand, slow and deliberate. No words, no gestures beyond a simple, weightless motion, but Jon felt something strike him--even pass through him. An invisible force, like a blade of cold wind slicing across his ribs. He inhaled sharply, bracing for pain that never came.
And then the world changed.
The confused voices around him sharpened into clarity. Languages he hadn't recognized a moment before were suddenly, impossibly clear. They were speaking the King's own English. He understood them all, as if they were fluent and he'd just refused to listen before.
The valley erupted into noise again. The men groped at their arms, their chests, wherever the unseen force had touched them. They spoke in frantic, disbelieving tones, their accents bleeding together, yet Jon heard every syllable.
