Unfathomable [Gate in the Deep]

[Magus]

From the portal, he was ejected into an appalling, sweltering hell. The sun glared down its ultraviolet punishment upon the magister’s flesh from above while stinging, salty air fettered his eyes and mouth from below.
 
His cloak, like an oven, seemed to concentrate and magnify the already oppressive heat and dampness, and didn’t do him any favors in keeping a low profile.
 
All around him, people dressed for the beach. Thin shirts or no shirts, short pants, bikinis, and other clothing designed to be flattering (or, as Magus was dismayed to realize, quite unflattering on certain people).
 
They gawked at him like he was some kind of drooling moron, standing there in his thick, heavy clothing. Admittedly, he felt a bit of the fool dressed as he was, and loathing every sticky, sweaty second of it.
 
Magus hefted the cloak over his head and let the heavy, scarlet cloth fumble to the ground, leaving him in only a sleeveless top, his pallid gray arms exposed to the glaring rays.
 
He stood on a gleaming concrete pathway which snaked between two lush, vibrant gardens, full of exotic and brightly-colored tropical flora. Past this, a bustling boardwalk abuzz with people stretched out up and down the beach at its back, and the vast, shimmering sea beyond.
 
The boardwalk itself was full of buildings crammed into the beautiful beachfront, turning an idyllic scene into a chaotic mess. Oddly shaped and all crowding onto one another, they resembled teeth in a mouth too small to accommodate them all.
 
The Fiendlord indulged in a haughty, dissatisfied scoff. He’d arguably ruined a landscape of his own by putting a huge, imposing castle on it, but at least his aesthetic was uniform. Bloody commoners and their incessant desire to make their mark; as if anyone would remember them – or care – twenty years after they’d gone.
 
As if a fucking coat of paint was going to make anyone take notice of them.
 
Magus observed a number of heavily-armored soldiers – robots, maybe – patrolling along the boardwalk. They wore polished, white composite armor and carried matching rifles. He then spotted actual, metal robots marching along, armed with similar weaponry, and concluded that the white-armored ones must have been flesh and blood beneath their clothing.
 
So, this was a martial town. Magus would do well to keep his head down and out of sight. That was a problem; as a tall, pale, purple-haired man with scarlet eyes, he was probably not going to do a good job of remaining inconspicuous for long.
 
This place wasn’t like Camelot, he reasoned. Too advanced. If his notoriety had spread through that realm, it was unlikely that it had spread this far. The people were simply too different. Even if he did stand out, it wouldn’t matter so long as he got what he needed and was gone before he ruffled anyone’s feathers.
 
The only person he wanted to aggravate was beyond the Void, after all.
 
That goal, finally tantalizingly in reach. Somewhere out there, accessed from somewhere in this tropical paradise, was the path he’d been looking for, the path he’d been walking since he arrived in the Omniverse.
 
Magus walked the path through the garden to the boardwalk, and turned toward the small cityscape he could see rising to the west. He followed a road which swept up in a curve, running parallel with the beach which ran in an identical curl, toward a great port, studded with an array of mismatched ships – an enormous, modern cargo ship sat in harbor alongside old sailing ships with cannons lining the sides.
 
Small airborne transports hummed along overhead, flying toward the core of the city, which, like the docks, was itself was a juxtaposition of old and new. Ornate, stone buildings and brick houses shared space with dazzling metal towers. Stone walls and cobblestone paths snaked through neighborhoods while neon lights and electronic video billboards splashed across projectors suspended above the earth along designated air travel corridors.
 
Magus smudged a gloved hand along his brow, wiping the sweat from his eyes. So hot. He screwed his face into a sour expression and plodded on toward the city. He searched for a tavern of some sort to get out of this miserable heat. If they’d mastered air travel here, they’d better have figured out air conditioning.
 

* * * *

 
It was just the sort of place he was looking for. A dowdy, depressing dive of a place, languishing beneath other, more lavish edifices.

 
The bar was an old, squat building hewn from bricks and wood. It was crooked and disproportioned, with a dinged-up, metal chimney crooked out to one side. A hilariously out-of-place neon sign hung off the old Victorian rat hole, dim and flickering. It declared that the fine establishment before him was none other than The Lucky Old Lady.
 
Magus almost smirked. Seemed like luck would have kept the lady out of a place like this. He pushed the door open and stepped in. Though he had given up on it when he found the place, he was surprised when he was hit by a refreshing blast of frigid, dry air. Luckier than I thought…
 
Despite the welcome, air-conditioned surprise, the rest of the bar was exactly as Magus had envisioned: a crowded, smoky, dimly-lit bar, covered in filth and littered with human-shaped garbage all around. Some talked, some were passed out, and some stared blankly as they nursed their drinks. None seemed happy or healthy. Seemed like whatever ruling class presided here, they didn’t care much for poor people.
 
Magus made his way to the bar, noting that the interior of the Lucky Old Lady was needlessly tiered and separated by stairs up and down all over, dividing what could have been one room into a half-dozen, awkwardly height-separated spaces, which were probably perfect for a drunk to stumble on and lose his teeth. Maybe the bartender was also a dentist.
 
The wizard set his gloved hands on the bar top and leaned toward the mustachioed man on the other side. Almost stereotypically, he was cleaning a glass with a rag when he looked up at the imposing Demon King.
 
“You’re not one of my regulars. What can I getcha?” the man asked, finishing with his glass before setting it and the rag down. He was fairly well-dressed, especially compared to the slog that passed for patrons here. He wore a tan vest over a shirt in a different shade of the same hue, with little black bands around his upper arms. His brown pants hugged his legs, tailored well, and he wore his close-cropped hair well.
 
“Information, ideally,” Magus responded.
 
“Information?” the barkeep parroted and arched an eyebrow. “Well, just like the rest of the piss and poison, it ain’t free, friend. What are you looking for?”
 
“Where am I?”
 
The barkeep suppressed a chuckle. “Definitely not one of my regulars. Well, friend, that one is free. Welcome to the Vasty Deep. The begrudging jewel of the Empire.”

“Begrudging?”
 
“The Empire took this place. We didn’t have no say in it. Lotta folks lived better – freer – before the men in white armor showed up. Nothin’ doin’ now though, you won’t hear anything more on it from me. I’ve got a business to run and I won’t be doin’ much from inside a prison cell.”
 
“Not too different from where I’ve just been, then. Seems like much of the Omniverse are little more than pawns in Prime’s games.”
 
“Yeah, Primes. No quarrel with those folks, but it’s a bit of a raw deal for the rest of us, isn’t it? Unlimited potential for some, hard limits for the rest. Omni’s a right cock, you know that?”
 
“I think I do,” Magus replied. “Actually, that’s very much why I’m here.”
 
The bartender straightened up and looked Magus in his otherworldly eyes.
 
“I’m looking for a way to get to him. A... gate. A gate to the Void,” Magus leaned in toward the barkeep. “I’ve got very good information that suggests I should look for it here.”
 
“Aye, while I don’t doubt the validity of your information one bit, no sir, I dare say that this ain’t a place to go looking for any such things. This town hasn’t been much more than a tourist trap since the Empire took over in the days long before the Scramble.”

“No it’s here!” Magus hissed, his hand suddenly clamped down on the front of the barkeep’s shirt, pulling him in toward the wizard. A few of the more sober patrons were watching closely now, some of them in the limbo between sitting down minding their own business and standing up to help. “It’s in the Vasty Deep. It has to be in the Vasty Deep.”
 
“O-Okay. Well, maybe Vi could help? She kind of… calls a lot of the shots. She’s seen some serious combat. An adventurin’ type. She’d know about this ‘gate to the Void’, sure as anyone. Her or…”
 
“Or who, moustache?” Magus snarled, his eyes dazzling bright in the dim light. “Don’t make me ask twice.”
 
“…There’s a place I never been. A place I… don’t even know is real but I never want to go. Place for… intellectuals. People who push the limits of right and wrong. Experimenters. They’re animals with smarts, sir. They live in a place called Rapture.”

“Where?” Magus grip tightened on the barkeep’s shirt.
 
“Beneath the ocean.”
 
At this, Magus let go of the bartender and allowed him to regain some composure. This settled down the rabble, who seemed suddenly more willing to climb back into their cups. “What?”
 
“Rapture’s supposed to be at the bottom of the sea. Don’t know where you’d find it but Vi would. Dunno what this ‘Void’ you’re looking for is, but I bet that’s the place to look. Nothin’ told about that place but gods-forsaken things, sir.”
 
Gods-forsaken things and unspeakable experiments. That did seem like a good place to start.

[Magus]

Costa del Sol.

This miserable, hot, tourist-trap-yet-secretly-fascist town was called ‘Costa del Sol’, according to the stately granite tablet which sat before him on the well-kept grounds of a government building.

Beautiful gardens raced up on either side of a pair of gleaming, white stone-tile walkways which led along close-clipped grass lawns to a set of marble stairs, ascending in a three-tiered stack, to a stately forum beneath imposing white columns.

Magus followed one of these walkways to the staircase and climbed, ignoring the business-types who were streaming up and down them, or just loitering there like so much clutter.

The slightest snarl curled his lip, but he suppressed it. He had precious little patience for the disgusting chattel of the Day-to-Day: those who frittered their lives away making pointless plans and clinging onto whichever banal scrap of entertainment that would distract them from their own mortality for just one more second.

They wasted what little potential they had, surviving and thriving on the backs of those who did, geniuses, great warriors, captains of industry.

And these parasites.

Magus pushed through one of the heavy oak doors and was hit with a blast of chilly air conditioning. For the briefest of moments, he was transported back to his time – his real time – where those who did were well and truly separated from those who did not.

In the Kingdom of Zeal, the capable lived in floating islands above the earth, swaddled in all the splendor the world could provide.

The incapable were cast out of the Kingdom of Zeal, forced to live within the harsh conditions of the world beneath along with the rest of the flotsam.

He closed his eyes and rubbed them with his thumb and forefinger. This constant fury was doing him no good. Since the Colosseum, he had been burning with deep and terrible anger. Beaten by that woman and her robot friend. Then again by the Bandit. He’d given up before even ‘competing’ with the boy called Adam, and his time in the Graveyard had been an exercise in frustration and failure.

He’d failed when the bounty hunters pursued him. He’d failed in the Colosseum. He’d failed in the Graveyard. Even during the altercation in the Nexus, some divine comedy of errors had conspired to make him a part of the Harbinger.

He’d had success that day, but it came at the cost of touching his mind to those of some truly wretched people.

He knew many things they did, and could only assume they knew many things he did. That meant they could know about Schala.

That wouldn’t stand: his whole existence in the Omniverse had been marked by failure. He’d had one goal, and every angle he’d pursued was met with failure. He could accept that. He could fail at everything, but if he failed to keep her safe – to rescue her from the grip of time – that was unacceptable.

The Fiendlord opened his eyes and found himself standing inside a beautiful, ornate structure awash with polished marble and plush fabrics. He strode to a grand, dark wood reception desk which was staffed by a trio of women. He went for the one to whom the others looked, identifying her as captain of this ship.

She was a little on the plump side. Her face was flushed, and her hair pulled back into a tight bun. She seemed flustered to see one such as him.

“Good day,” he breathed. He was going to be calm. Pleasant. No altercations like in Dalaran. “I’d like to speak with Vi. I’m told she can be found here?”

“Vi won’t be available today, but if I can take your information, I can schedule an appointment for tomorrow morn-”

“No,” the word strained, starting life as an angry rumble, but ending as a metered, calm expression. “I really do need to see her today. I can wait if necessary, but it is very urgent.”

“Vi’s not available without an appointment,” the woman retorted, visibly rolling her eyes at the wizard.

Oh. Oh really?

I’m sorry, sir but-”

“Please,” Magus wrapped his lips around the word as though it took great effort to speak it. It did. “It is an emergency.”

“Vi’s not available without an appointment.”

“Do you understand what ‘emergency’ means?” Magus’ eye twitched, but aside from his teeth clenching tightly, he showed no signs of aggression. Inside his mind’s eye, however, he’d already killed her about five or six times.

“Don’t take that tone with me, sir! I don’t have-”

“I need to speak with Vi. It is very important I speak with Vi. Go get Vi,” Magus had exhausted his capacity for pleasantries but fought to avoid being openly confrontational.

The woman sighed derisively. Magus clenched his fists so tight he thought the seams of his gloves might burst. “Vi’s not available, but there are a number of-”

“No, it has to be Vi,” Magus interjected. “It’s very important.”

“Look, sir, I’m sorry-”

“God,” he drew the word out even as noxious energies swirled invisibly all around them. He gripped the edge of the huge, wrap-around desk. “Dammit!!”

With a furious grunt of effort, Magus literally tore the front section of the desk off, splintering it into three jagged-edged pieces, and hurled the piece he’d lifted aside. It smashed into the ground with great crash of wood and the pebble-like clatter of hundreds of splinters bouncing along the shining marble.

So much for avoiding a confrontation.

The self-important bitch had suddenly taken ill. In truth, Magus’ Wither had a hold of her now, and she grew pale and corpse-like. Her hair thinned and her skin sagged and discolored. She wheezed and hunched, suddenly weak and frail.

Magus looked up at one of the other ladies. “Please get Vi.”

He received only a nod in response, but then she was gone. The wizard released Wither’s grasp on the unhelpful receptionist, who collapsed while rapidly regaining what youth she had left. While she gasped like a dying fish, Magus strode away from the desk, deigning to await Vi without talking to the snide woman any longer.

[Magus]

“Fuck you.”

She’d said it after she punched him in the face, and though he found the response quite unfair, Magus was apt to try a different tack than his usual ‘scorched earth revenge’ play. Partly because the punch had sent him hurtling through what remained of the huge desk he’d only partially destroyed before she sent him smashing through the rest like a human wrecking ball. Partly because it was just good business.

Coercion was risky and he was close to his goals; the idea of fucking up and being tossed into a prison cell now didn’t sit well with him.

“I understand your frustration,” he said, rubbing the already swelling flesh of his cheek. “But if you’d simply direct me to Rapture, I’d be on my way and out of your life.”

Vi looked at him with eyes that threatened to bug out of their sockets. “The docks are not even two fucking miles from here!! There’s ships all up and down them! Just go there and charter a boat! What is wrong with you?!”

Magus’ teeth grated against one another, not unlike tectonic plates colliding against one another. Only if he decided to tear a San Andreas fault into Vi, he suspected he’d have a much harder go of his journey.

There were things he could have said. Like how chartering a boat – a vessel designed not to sink –  wasn’t something that seemed particularly advantageous to a man trying to get to the bottom of the ocean.

“I’m leaving now,” he said instead. “But I’d like you to look into the Demon King of Camelot. Just… gather an idea of who this person is.”

“Why? You need someone to hold your hand to find him, too?”

Magus smirked. “Heh,” he snorted. “Something like that.”

He strode out of the ornate lobby, now diminished by the scattered debris that had littered the place. At least this was one mess he couldn’t be held accountable for.

Though Vi would be repaid for that punch. In time. After accruing one serious amount of interest.

- - - - -

He’d tried to speak with many of the various ship’s captains and deckhands, all of whom seemed to shut down upon the mention of ‘Rapture’. It took entirely too long to weed his way through the miserable chaff who seemed nonplussed by his inquiries, but he’d finally found a man working a rickety old boat by himself who’d seemed willing to entertain him.

He was an unfortunate-looking soul; thin wisps of hair barely covering his mostly-bald, mostly-sunburned head. He was short and squat, with a big paunch and few teeth, and those that he had were yellowed and rotten.

“Whatcha want in that forsaken place?” he’d asked.

It wasn’t the positive response he’d wanted, but at this point Magus was willing to accept any sort of progress.

“I have business in Rapture.”

The old sailor didn’t seem satisfied with the answer, but he didn’t press the issue. “Difficult sailing. Expensive. Could be real expensive.”

Magus’ lips curled into the slightest frown. “Is this thing even seaworthy?”

“She’ll get where she needs to go.”

“For a price.”

“Aye.”

“I’m a Prime,” Magus responded. “What would satisfy you? Gold?”

“Gold?” the ugly old sod perked up at this. “Yeah, gold’d do.”

The wizard’s haunted eyes grew colder, and he watched the homely man shrink from his gaze.

“Get this boat ready immediately. By the time you do, there’ll be more gold here than you can carry.”

“Aye, sir. I’ll go rouse a couple of mates straight away, I will,” the ugly fuck blustered before scrabbling away. Magus scoffed. What the rabble wouldn’t debase themselves for in exchange for wealth.

The former Demon King strode across the rotting deck boards of the boat he’d chartered and leaned onto the railing, resting his palms on the seasoned wood. The sea was calm and dazzling, an azure tapestry filled with a million stars. The salty sea air floated from it and across Magus’ flesh, carrying with it a cool, fresh scent. He took a deep breath and relaxed.

How long had it been now, since he’d come to the Omniverse? What an adventure he had. Was he really this close? Was he really almost home?

Schala, he cast his eyes down, away from the water. Be strong. I’ll be back in our reality soon, and I will find you.

He turned back to the ship and held out his hand. He didn’t even know the boat captain’s name, but he was going to make him rich. Magus snorted a repressed chuckle; he could topple the economy if he wanted to, just by pumping an endless supply of valuables into it.

The thought was worth a moment’s entertainment; it would serve, if nothing else, as a pretty fun middle finger to Omni – that was, if Omni even cared about his Secondaries, and Magus had an inkling that he didn’t. Besides, crashing the economy would only hurt people and wouldn’t benefit him at all.

For now, he’d settled on only a few hundred pounds of gold ingots for the ugly sailor.

[Gildarts]

Shimmering, oh, there was the water. Gleaming with sunlight. It was warm here, much warmer than that hellhole of a verse in the Pale Moors. Not that she didn’t like it there, but the victims there were just too easy. Poor little Marco, and his abusive father, Martin. Here, people were smiling happily, basking their pale skin in the sun, she liked to rip their smiles away. It was nice here, the endless potential. Though, the crossroads demon looked out of place in her all-black jumpsuit covering every layer of her skin, tightly without wrinkle, cupping every nook of her petit curves. Soon she shed her outer skin, the jacket, revealing a black tank top which showed every smooth mound of her body, and continued to strut along the town’s edge, her dark eyes looking off into the distance at the ocean.

It looked familiar, in a past life sort of way, but becoming a demon has a way of making even the most moral human forget. Now the sable-haired woman didn’t feel remorse, nor humiliation, nor any sense of triumphant glory as she walked with a click in her shoes over the cobblestone streets, and drew the eyes of many men and a few women, who liked the way she looked. It made men, innocent on the outside, in their business suits, or the women, quaint in their sundresses, immediately think of the whores they wanted to be. Demons of course, carry a certain confident and seductive atmosphere, for she walked like she had everything anyone could ever want in the world and many lusting and greedy eyes followed, ready to believe if they gave her something more, she could give them back all that she desired.

A toss of her softly curled hair and she had a few suitors walk up to her, thinking there was a chance to seduce her in for the upcoming evening. None of them had power, she could tell in the simplicity of their gait, or the way their back slouched as they laughed. Many of them had boring stories written on their minds and in their hearts. He’d been cheated on, she’d been doing his husband’s brother, and Jimbo over there, the hotel owner where all these affairs usually happened, was recording it all on camera and selling it for profit.

All of them were fools. Easily falling victim to her insidious charms, and this demon liked a challenge. Plus, from what she could tell, none of them were Primes. She needed to find a place which dealt information, or a person. Maybe at the pier? But they looked like simpletons too. So she opted for the tavern, where at least, the lights would be dimmer, and make her easier on the eyes of those who could see her true form.

Creaaaaaaak!

The door opened. She held her lips in a ruby line across her face, as she made a beeline for the barkeep. “Hi, what can I getcha?”

“No drinks today,” she said, eyeing the glass already in his hand, “I need some help, I’m trying to find a friend of mine.”

“Help? A friend?” he parroted and the woman procured a phone, which she had screen shotted a part of the video the little boy had shown her of the woman called ‘Christa Adams’ and she was powerful, for a human.

“Her name is Christa Adams, she’s the one who found Omni with a group of other secondaries, they say she’s immortal now.” And there she was, out in the open, her desires too. She would see where this would get her.

“Well, I don’t know if I seen a girl like that, but there was a fellow in ‘ere earlier talkin’ about how he was going to see Omni. Methinks he was a Prime.” Her interest was piqued. The demon snickered. A Prime among this cesspool of despair and hopeless people. Perfect. Time to track him down.

“Oh?” she said, her tone playing at being acutely interested, “Can you tell me where might I find this gentlemen?”

“Well, I sent him outta here looking for the Rapture, at the bottom of the ocean, so I reckon he’ll be needing a vessel,” the barkeep informed, his brow knitted together with thought, “He looked real peculiar like, I don’t think he was from here.”

“Any particular features?” she inquired, business-like now, it was impossible not to respect the tone that filled the space between them.

“Uh, yeah, but just take my word for it lady, you’ll know it when you see him,” she thanked him for the tip and dashed off. To the pier, where there would be boats, where she could find this man. She hadn’t asked his name, Alex realized as the door closed behind her, Oh well, I’ll just ask him when I find him. Peculiar-looking, huh?

...

A wheezing cough, a stumble too close, a brush of fabric on her arm. The woman -demon- was repulsed. She was once human, but since then she never had to cough, or sway, or let herself get too close in a clump of people. To touch who she didn’t want to touch. Alex’s face remained neutral throughout the entire affair, though her skin could’ve been peeling off, layer by layer, sliding slimily off by a razor or some roughly blood-burning sand-paper. Encountering the lowest of lows would always be a noxious, erosive process. There was one highlight of it all, one woman, holding a potted plant, a leafy forsythia, dropped it and gasped as Alex walked by.

The demon turned all too quickly, to greet the woman with a smile, “Oh my God...”

Obviously, the woman saw her true face, “Quite the contrary, actually.”

A friendly grin rolled off her ruby lips, while the woman, shoes now covered in soil, could only arm herself with a grimace. Alex continued her stroll, feeling a little lighter as her feet carried her to the wooden steps of the pier.

Something about the coming events seemed so easy to the woman, and it wasn’t just the fact that she couldn’t be inflicted with the annoyance of fear. Perhaps that it was coming along so fluently, she couldn’t help but ride the wave. A calm curve soothed one half of her face, as she approached, clunking along the dense wood of the boardwalk, and walking just above the water. Her eyes slid from one side to the other, angling at everyone in between.

Boats. They had nice designs and pinned up sails that would help their soft shapes glide over water. Boats were nice, that was all. A means to get from one place to another. A meaningless means. If she had the need, she would’ve yawned. A few sailors whistled to her as she passed, it gave her no satisfaction, nor did it feed any part of her that could ever be called woman. Her eyes stayed sharply forward, pinpointing her prize, a tall man with peculiar looking hair. Yes, surely that was him. There was a man he seemed to be waiting for. Or something like that.

Her stride carried her to him, it was forceful, vehement, and unrelenting until she yielded just two invasive feet from his face. The clack of her shoes halted. Magus was currently being greeted by a sailor on his right, who had arrived, seemingly just a moment ago, with a crew of men who knew not the dangers of lingering eyes. The captain, though she wouldn’t really call him anything other than a drunkard sailor, was grinning tooth to no-tooth. His gums were stained various shades of veiny black, but his disheveled and full beard seemed flamboyantly cheerful. He’d be a rich man soon. That was what he wanted, and that is what he’d get.

The woman, demon, invasive like leech who had not quite yet readied herself to suck on, tipped her chin toward the captain, as her eyes flashed at Magus for a brief moment. She was talking to the captain, but with her eyes, the man paying him. Her deeper tone of voice, mirroring the depths of temptation, played on the light movement of her finely colored lips, she kept her words short and simple, just like the man who she was talking to, for she knew not any word she spoke would be satisfactory to the man donning too much fabric on his shoulders, “I’d like you to invite me aboard,” his eyes lit up as she spoke his language, she read the lustful glow in them easily, he was the kind of man who liked to hear women beg and of course, she felt no shame obliging, “Please.”

[Magus]

The captain smiled his ugly smile as his eyes roved up and down the curves of her body with obvious intent.
 
“Oh, aye, missy, we can keep a place for you, right cozy in the captain’s quarters,” he said. He’d begun to sweat now; his dirt-caked forehead gleamed with it. Magus’ cold eyes moved from the captain to the woman and back again.
 
“No,” he said.
 
“What?” the captain glared at him, but his eyes kept trailing back to the beautiful lady in the tight clothes who’d so earnestly asked to be aboard the ship. His ship. “Ye might be charterin’ this boat but it’s me who is the captain-”
 
“And it’s me who promised to make you rich,” Magus turned his gaze to the lady who’d invaded his personal space. She really was quite lovely, but there was something clearly unnatural… predatory… about her. It was too much of a coincidence for her to show up now, too much of a liability. His eyes flicked back to the captain. “If you want your gold, you won’t take her.”
 
“Well, where is this feckin’ gold?!”
 
The wizard sighed and strode right past Alexandria, to a cloth covering a large container of some sort. With a single tug, he yanked the black cloth away, revealing not a container, but stacks and stacks of solid gold ingots.
 
The crew and the captain – once smitten by the beautiful woman who’d suddenly entered his life – were dazzled by the sight. The gold gleamed in the sunshine, and even the strongest crewman struggled to lift even one of the ingots.
 
“Either this is real, or it’s lead plated with the real thing,” one said.
 
Magus scoffed. “It would require just as much effort to make those from gold as it would to do it out of lead. Or marshmallow.”
 
“This much gold, just waved into being,” the captain breathed. “Gods.”
 
“And I’ll wave you out of being if you don’t get her off this ship and me to Rapture,” his tone was icy now. Non-negotiable.
 
“Now hold on,” the invasive woman coolly breathed, catching the eye of the strange, knife-eared man. Her eyes met his as she sought to read his motivations, but those bloody red eyes betrayed little.
 
There was anger there, something great and terrible. He had eyes like Martin, the eyes of a practised killer, cold and withdrawn, but unlike Martin’s, these were supremely calculating, too. There was something more, too. Guilt. It sloughed off of him in waves, chilly and sour.
 
But there was no lust, no curiosity. Whoever this man was, he was used to keeping his cards close to his chest.
 
She couldn’t see much more in those eyes. This was a man who’d trained himself to be difficult to read, but there were things he couldn’t hide. His regal posture belied a confidence – or arrogance – which could be manipulated.
 
“You need me,” she finally said.
 
Magus closed his eyes and took a breath, making no effort to hide his annoyance. He didn’t need to say anything to convey that he demanded an explanation.
 
“You’re looking for Omni, aren’t you?” she put her hand on his chest, but he immediately stepped back, out of reach. She looked up at him expectantly. The captain and the crew seemed wide-eyed; they knew he’d wanted to get to Rapture, but nothing more. What kind of man would attempt to get an audience with the Creator?
 
“…What? I hardly tried to keep it a secret; were you expecting me to be shocked that you knew?”
 
“And you’re going to Rapture, aren’t you?” she pressed, shifting her attack. “You’re going to need a guide when you’re down there. It’s very different than any surface city you’ve been to.”
 
Magus appraised her for a moment while Alex watched the gears of his mind work. Who knew if what she said was true? It didn’t matter, so long as he believed it.
 
“You’re a liability,” he finally said. “It’s too convenient that you’re here. Why did you come here? Why choose me?”

“Simple. You want what I want-”
 
“I doubt that very much.”
 
“All the same,” Alexandria continued. “You want to get to Omni. I want to get to Omni. I found out that’s who you were looking for, and you seem capable. I’m going to need help to get to him, and, let’s face it: so will you. The path ahead is a long one.”
 
“You’ve been to Rapture?”
 
The crossroads demon fought the overwhelming urge to grin in triumph, holding her poker face together perfectly. “Yes, that’s right.”

“You know how to get to the Void from there?”
 
That was a loaded question. He was testing her. “I have an idea,” she manoeuvered. “I know who to talk with to find out.”
 
Magus turned from her and strode across the boat to reflect on the sea for the second time that day. He scowled down at the sea returned his scowl with a blank stare.
 
“Fine,” he said before turning around. He glared at the captain. “Keep an eye on her,” he said, not that he needed to. He was confident the captain would be paying her more attention than his work, or anything else. He turned to the newcomer. “You cause me the slightest iota of grief, and I’ll send you to the bottom of the sea in pieces.”

[Gildarts]

So that’s his angle, she thought through slanted eyes. A few lies, a truth here and there, and they were sailing smoothly on snake oil. Oh, and quite literally, sailing. They had boarded the dinged-up ship and taken off in nearly the same instant. The demon watched almost too intently where she trod upon the panels of wood, as though she were expecting some undefinable force to seize her. Her eyes hovered over the purple-haired man, he was still unhappy with her presence, though it was nothing personal, she was sure, it just marked his own defeat. A victorious smile slithered on her lips as she looked out over the tranquil ocean, leaving the shore behind, and thinking of the days to come.

It could be a long journey, and still, she wasn’t sure where she was going, the place where the one called Omni dwells. It was all so elusive, but then, the truth very frequently was. Magus was on the far side of the ship and breathing in the ocean air, just as she was. Alex was getting closer to reading his encoded mind, but there were secrets hidden behind the mask he wore, ones she couldn’t quite pry out of his unknown weaknesses just yet. The shoreline now looked line a fine, thin pigment of white over the horizon, as the sail, full of gusts of wind guided their passage over the glassy waves.

The demon thought it was all so nostalgic, to be cast away, but she couldn’t quite put her finger on why. There was a sudden prickle sparking her neck, then her eyes caught on the man with the beard, he had been watching her dark hair sail with the currents of wind, and evaluating her shape in his mind’s eye. The man who didn’t even look like a captain. Maybe there’d be mutiny on this ship yet... she plotted and looked around for an ambitious man suiting her needs, yet, to her distain the view was filled with but a few men doing a few laborious tasks involving ropes or pulleys. Should’ve kept my eye on the ocean, she complained inwardly and imagined a few other ways to get out of the lustful gaze of the captain... As he approached.

He introduced himself, and then his first mate, Jimmy. Alex shook neither hand, she didn’t like to get hers dirty nor it was not required. “So you’ll take us both to the Rapture then? Do you need navigational advice?” her tone was monotonous, telling not of information, but boredom. Alex listened with half a year, but it was hard hearing them over the roar of masculinity in their eyes. They must’ve thought they’d take turns, it was despicable, even a bottom-dwelling demon like her could tell right from wrong. There was a solution after all, that popped into her head, which set her at ease.

“... And from there we’ll go into the Blue Vast, I think, but I’ve got me map in the quarters, ain’t no problem navigating, it just comes down to whether or not the winds are in our favor.” To Alex, this sounded like quitter talk, but she wasn’t one to snatch anyone’s enthusiasm when it was in her favor. The crossroads demon nodded once, and then tossed her breezy hair over her shoulder, squinting as she thought she had seen a speck in the direction they were headed.

Looking down her olive-toned nose, her brown eyes remained trained on this speck, as at first she was sure it was just some anomaly of glinting light, now she was sure, since they were deeper in the ocean’s stomach, it was an object, if not a creature of the ‘Deep. There was a CLAP! sound in the distance, followed by a wavering whistle and a SPLASH! too close to their vessel for comfort; the woman could taste the salty, acrid spray and traces of gunpowder from the saline water.

[Magus]

“Pirates!!” Jimmy bellowed, before a second shell smashed into the deck at his feet, swallowing him up in a maelstrom of fire and shattered wood. Magus found himself missing his cloak as he shielded his eyes from the debris.

Not one, but two ships now approached, flanking the leaky tub Magus and Alexandria had set out on. On the starboard side, a hulking grey destroyer lumbered toward them, bristling with guns. On the port side, an old-yet-formidable Man O’ War made to broadside them, its cannons and sails poking out in all directions – and in this ridiculous universe, there was no way to tell which was the more significant threat.

Still. It wouldn’t hurt to reduce these odds.

A pair of booms rang out from the approaching sailing ship. One massive cannonball sailed between the demon and a deck hand, crashing through the railing on the far side of the ship. The other smashed into the side of their vessel, doing untold damage to whatever decks the dingy boat might have had.

“Surrender immediately!” came the amplified, squelching boom of a voice augmented by a PA system, even as the greasy captain began passing out what looked like AK-47s to what remained of the crew.

He handed one to Magus, who waved it off. “I won’t need it. But you,” he pointed to Alexandria, all but turning his back on the captain. “Take whatever gear or crew you need and keep the old ship busy. I’ll deal with the other.”

Alex’s appraising eyes reflected her lack of confidence in Magus’ statement, but she turned and rushed toward the Man O’ War all the same.

“We’re only here for your cargo!” the amped-up voice droned. “Surrender or we’ll hit you again!”

The wizard didn’t actually need more of a reason to slaughter the entire crew of a warship, but it was nice to have one just the same. He strode to the now-smoldering edge of the ship closest to the enormous metal vessel, and lazily extended a hand toward it.

Hateful energy coalesced and congealed before his palm as he tossed a casual glance over his shoulder to witness Alex burst into a cloud of smoke. Nearly too fast for him to track, he spied bursts of water, like splashes of someone running insanely fast across it, and then another burst of smoke on the deck of the Man O’ War. The captain and crew supported her with little more than gunfire from the boat, but she seemed confident in spite of the situation.

Good. Perhaps she’ll be of use after all, he thought as he turned back to the destroyer, before a closing his fist around the sickening glob of negative energy. He leapt into the air and vanished in a burst of greasy smoke.

Magus flew – literally flew – across  the void between the two vessels in the In-Between of this world and the other, slipping straight through the armored plating of the destroyer like it wasn’t even there.

He found himself inside a ready room of some kind, positively teeming with soldiers who were presumably going over the final briefings before heading topside to board Captain Fatass’ hopeless ship. He raised his killer’s hands, crackling with dark energy, when he saw one of those damnable Shadow People leering at him from over the shoulder of one of the many troopers.

“Not today,” he hissed, Shadowstepping back into reality. Time caught back up and to his soon-to-be-victims, a deathly pale man had just popped into existence right in front of them. There was barely enough time for a handful of shouts before dark bolts of Gloom lit up the room, filling it with sizzling bursts of impact and the screams of his enemies.

When he was done, only the hiss of scorched flesh remained to greet the silence.

- - - - -

Word swept through the ship like fire. A man like a ghost, a walking apocalypse, was cutting through sailors from deck to deck, killing everyone in sight. Some screamed, some hid, most ran. Some tried to fight back, firing on him with automatic weapons. Wisps of purple smoke enveloped him wherever bullets seemed to strike him, but rather than bite into his flesh, they passed through him like he wasn’t there to begin with.

Relentless, untouchable, the Demon King strode on, charring his enemies with magic and cutting them down with his scythe. He continued downward, deck by deck, sometimes lashing out with a barrage of energy, sometimes cloaking the corridor in a Miasma before slaughtering his victims one by one like cattle.

Magus descended another staircase and was ambushed by a young boy in dress whites who made to bludgeon him with a fire extinguisher. The Fiendlord easily deflected the strike with the haft of his scythe, before raking the sinister blade across the boy’s back. A weak, gurgling grunt was all he managed before he collapsed in a bloody heap.

He made his way forward through the deck, having finally found what he was looking for; a vast cache of armaments – explosives and artillery, hidden deep in the bowels of the ship to keep them exploding prematurely from a lucky shot from an enemy vessel, but totally defenseless from a strike coming from inside the ship.

The room was large and heavily defended. Almost at once, a barrage of gunfire assailed him and he was forced to Shadowstep in order to evade the incoming hail of lead. Magus charged through the monochrome reflection of reality, unwilling to spend any more time in this place than he had to. His foes, nearly frozen in time, were helpless.

The One Above All burst into existence, slicing his blade across the throat of an officer before vanishing and then almost instantly appearing again to cut down another soldier. Panic soon gripped the men as Magus blinked in and out of view, claiming a new soul each time he reappeared.

Soon, the men ran, many of them casting their guns aside in their haste. Soon, Magus blinked back into being in a room nearly filled wall-to-wall and floor-to-ceiling with military-grade high-explosive. Just what he needed to take care of this little problem.

[Gildarts]

Cooling molten iron streamed inches past her face. Inches. Had the massive ball of metal steamrolled into her, there would have been a massive splatter of gore everywhere, on the deck, on the crewman, all marked with her black blood. While Alex would be left with nothing, if not death in this mortal world where the elite Primes rule. Worst yet, when she imagined what could’ve happened to the beauty of her skull’s bones, her cheeks boiled red with anger. She liked this face. She’d taken it fair and square-as fair as a demon could get- and now it was hers.

Heat seemed to roll off the demon with steam while a sweep of chaos took over on the deck. The Fiendlord was a sorcerer, wielding magic powerful enough to slay her. She’d have to assess that later, though, since now, her body had smushed into its torrentially smoking form, and was bulldozing its way over wave and wind in a speed that one could barely track with sight. Her tongue tasted the sweetness of revenge to the steel ship that would’ve so carelessly broken her face. Had it been any others -even the Prime’s- she wouldn’t have taken it personally. But now, this was war.

The steel ship looked more like a battleship from the distance, colossal even over the grand expanse of never-ending ocean. It was tall, wide, and narrow, and looked like some sort of enlarged torpedo mounted with guns of all kinds. Her senses jumbled with every zig zagging move she made in the air while her trail left a smell of scorched wood and charred carcass. Finally, free from the sky, it took her body a moment to materialize, and she was slammed into the cold hard ground as she landed. Flesh again.

Her feet were heavy, legs stable, and the last of the smoke disappeared at her shoulders. The woman’s eyes were entirely black, accentuating the long and lovely lashes of the human suit she wore. The demon, fueled by rage, used her speed, and their lack of, to her advantage. Her eyes grasped the sword sheathed in its hilt on the man closest to her, while they grazed two men, on the upper deck, loading their guns with machine-like momentum. Next, smearing in lack of color, were five deck-hands who were loading canons, two over at a starboard station manning a very powerful looking machine gun, and finally, more crewmen coming from below, the haste of their stomping masking the telling vibration of their numbers.

To her, a demon hundreds of years old, infiltration was easy. However, more than just protecting the ship was on her mind, and the selfish side of the woman always tended to win. Her black eyes only saw the blood that would be spilt, and her calculations were more or less complete. She’d cover the entire place, and then, toy with the last man standing before sending him down with the rest of this damned ship. Damned, because she was now on it. A slow smile coiled on on her cheek before the lightning speed of her movements caused her to burst around the ship in a blaze of movement.

The demon’s lithe form lunged for the sword on the nearest pirate’s belt, as she lifted it upward, she angled it just so, and his own blade sliced away half of his abdomen. Alexandria’s eyes widened, as a splatter of crimson violently splashed through the air, in that moment, she realized she held the sharpest sword she’d ever touched in her hands. Her arms tingled with excitement, as her eyes slid to her next victim, and she was soon there.

Immense speed flashed through the batting of her eyelashes and she could feel the energy draining through her body, but still, she pressed on, she didn’t want to waste a minute that could’ve been used slashing some throats. The deck-hands shouted “Intruder!” and took up their arms, she wasn’t in the mood to give them a fair fight, but kept her legs grounded to the floor as the blade was grasped firmly in her hands, lifted higher by the might in her elbows. The movement began so naturally while the men now armed themselves with their semi-automatics and single-shot revolvers. The gleam of dark metal wielded by the even darker hearts of man was seen as a challenge to the woman who stood defenseless, with a narrow scrap of steel separating her from the bombardment of bullets.

The cascade began to fall, followed by the chorus of sound. Click, Ca-thum, Ca-chink, POW! Were the whispers of the gun’s mechanisms as the gunpowder ignited and rocketed through the air. The mini-blasts continued while the demon charged at them, before sliding as a baseball runner would to home base. The bullets rolled through the air above her, though even her eyes could not see them moving in a slowed speed, time continued to bare on, and with it, the slice of her sword.

The gentle swishing sound was dulled against the “Argh!” groans of her assailants and more silent when she tore through bone, albeit, with some effort. Cracks and slices and all the other grotesque sounds filled her ears as red painted around her eyes. The slash of silver caught one man in the leg, while her momentum kept going, with her two-handed grip, into the man who was also next to him. Both of them fell with pained screams and a thump, she could finish them, but her sword followed through to the next victim, one who had seen his allies fall, and aimed his gun right at her forehead. Click, Ca-thum-

The spit of his blood was everywhere, and she was grazed by the bullet which had caught a portion of her swishing hair off guard. Four and Five had fired too, but their eyes deceived them, for each of them saw the woman as one another. Each held the gun out at the exact same time, and fired. Click, Ca-thum, Ca-chink, POW! The echo of the mirrored shots was followed by their body’s steady decent to the ground, where a puddle of drooling blood filled the steel below their corpses. Two and Three were still alive, she reminded herself and quickly delivered the killing blow, while one was attempting to grasp for his weapon, and the other, had already bled so much, he’d lost his sight and his gun was wavering in his hand, his ears telling him there was firing all around, but nothing stuck long enough to tell him where he should aim his next shot.

Slice. Alex cut through the wind, and also their windpipes. Another blink, her body was moving fast, she liked the exhilaration filling her lungs, but did not feel a rush or thrill in the violence, only the victory as their motionless bodies fell. Her hair flicked, and she ran full force at the giant machine gun that had been pointed to her, of course, it had enough steamrolling bullets to destroy their own ship, so they couldn’t possibly be stupid enough-

Blood gurgled in the empty hole now a part of her thigh. Sizzling pain winced, but the heat of the gun had already cauterized the wound, huge bullets sprayed everywhere, enough to take down the armor of a tank, or a ship in the distance, but the crewman had seen what massacre she had brought to those loading their state-of-the-art canons and would rather abandon ship and defend themselves than fire aimlessly at a weak-looking ship far off. Priorities, she understood, but it was also partly betrayal.

She winced as she continued to pound her legs into a run. It was not the bullets that were slow, but the man aiming that particular automatic, which had a gentle readjustment delay, causing the bullets to just follow her heels as she ran. Another in the wrong place and she’d be just another body for them to clean up at the end of this. The taste of war filled her nostrils, mingling with her own demon blood, as well as the taste of their fear trickling in, carried by the saline wind.

“It’s not working, you have to-” one of their voices began, though it was drowned out by the endless peppering of firepower, and the gleaming piece of bloodstained metal sliding out of his throat.

Alex had ascended and covered the space between her and the turret. Next, she’d take his head before he could twist five feet to the left, and fill her body with lead. Her sword extended, faster than her wrist flicked it, and the man at the turret had been too slow to even pull his finger from the trigger. The peppering spray of bullets still continued with his lifeless finger still on the trigger, pouring downward, into the depths of the ship, and surely creating irreparable damage to the heavy ship’s steel hull.

Creeaaak! the steel door opened, the next fleet had ascended from the many depths of the warship, while she felt the lurch of a torpedo spiral below the waves, headed straight toward her own dinky little ship. “Damn,” Alex said, as she looked down to her wounded leg, maneuvering to use her sword would be much too taxing and she could feel the strength that fueled her fiery speed draining.

“Tch. I hate guns, but I guess it won’t hurt me, more than it will hurt them...” The pepper of the machine gun continued into and through the first deck of the ship, while the men who had come upward, tried to assess the situation. To their left, the deck-hands were slaughtered, to their right, another one fallen, and up above, a gun was still firing, though its sights still in one place. Where were the people that had done this though? It had to have been at least ten men, to slay their own with such ease. The spray of bullets were everywhere, holes in the deck, the sides, and even the doors they had just come out of. Now they were corralled, and with Alex’s finger on the trigger, she sent them all to the slaughter.

The power behind the blasting turret was significantly reduced as she wielded it, whatever battery charge it had was evaporating, and she too, noticed the many ribbons of bullets being eaten by the machine were dwindling. Still, nothing would stop her from aiming down the sights of the weapon, and bringing the bullets through the group of men in one swift slash. Some ducked, others ran, but no lives escaped that day.

Click. Click. Click. The barrel spun, but it was empty. A sigh, that had been fun, but it hadn’t lasted. The woman blew away a tuft of hair that had tickled her nose and tiredly stood up, hobbled with the sword down the stairs, and hoped she’d find a manual self destruct button in the lower and flooding section of the ship.

After venturing past a few corners in the labyrinth below, she did not find neither the captain’s quarters, nor any accessible buttons in the control room that warned of it. Of course, if it was her ship, she wouldn’t have put the option there anyway. One of the crewman got in her way, so his life came to an end before he could gasp and fill his lungs with enough air to apologize, or kill her.

Lazily, under the streaming lights of red and orange, telling her to evacuate the ship, she wandered to one of the fuel rooms, and struck her blade against the metal, igniting a spark. The flames chased her smoky form out, as the fire enveloped the ship, and filled the air with the sound of a volcano’s relentless eruption.

[Magus]

With his surprise ready to go, Magus rocketed up, flying through deck after deck until he was soaring above the hulking, metal destroyer. Cannons erupted their gunfire all around him, but at this point, nothing they could do would matter.
 
He observed with some amusement the sinking Man O’ War he’d tasked Alex with. Impressive.
 
He observed their own sinking ship with significantly less amusement. Less impressive.
 
It was too late to capture the destroyer either, and as if to punctuate that point, the air itself reverberated with a rippling, mechanical roar, followed by a flurry of explosions which tore outward from inside the great metal ship.
 
It rolled over like a wounded dog, plunging sidelong into the drink. All three vessels were crippled now, and survivors were no longer focused on fighting and instead they were shouting to one another and scurrying about, trying to save themselves from the inevitable.
 
Magus flew over to the tattered old boat which, while still afloat, was quickly lower and lower in the water. Alex was there already, along with Captain Needs-a-Shower.
 
“We’re takin’ on water!” the fat oaf immediately exclaimed as the wizard touched down between him and the dark haired woman. He tried to say it authoritatively, like a man in control of the situation, but the terror in his eyes and the waver in his voice betrayed him.
 
“Indeed. I’ll need some moments to prepare an alternative. Unless of course,” Magus paused, holding Alex’s gaze for a moment. “You can summon some transport.”
 
There was a moment’s pause, but it felt a great deal longer, and not only because they were literally on a sinking ship. Finally, it fell to Magus to break the silence. “Very well. Give me a moment.”
 
The two great ships which flanked them groaned and burned but he blocked them out. He blocked out the shouting and clamoring of people scurrying to survive. And when their boat sank low enough for water to begin rushing over the edge of the deck and around his feet, and then soon above his toes, he blocked that out too.
 
They were a little worse than ankle-deep when Magus’ creation started to coalesce, and almost up to the top of his boots when he had finished.
 
“A raft?” the soon-to-be-former Captain cried. “You expect us to sail across the bleedin’ ocean on a raft?!”
 
Magus leapt to the primitive flotation device. He turned and shrugged. “Feel free to stay on your boat.”
 
Alex blinked onto the raft in a puff of smoke, and after a moment, the Captain waded over and pathetically struggled to climb aboard. Twice he reached out for Alex and Magus to help him, and twice they had refused. The Captain was waist-deep and wheezing before he finally hauled himself onto the raft, lying flat on his back, exhausted from the effort.
 
His boat drifted beneath the waves, while the two mighty aggressor ships remained – albeit temporarily – afloat.
 
Magus sat on the raft he’d created – simple, exotic logs lashed together with vines – and watched as the three ships sank below the horizon. He found himself able to will the raft into motion and made it drift away from the wrecked ships just fast enough to outpace any survivors who tried to swim for their raft.
 
They had damned themselves when they had picked a battle with the Demon King.
 
“Alright,” he said once they were clear of the ongoing disaster. His brusque demeanor seemed to sicken the boat captain, but Alexandria seemed completely unfazed – maybe even a little impressed – by his utter lack of sympathy. “We need a boat. Any suggestions?”
 
Alexandria made a derisive snort. “Something a little more well-appointed than his tub,” she hooked a thumb at the wheezing captain.
 
“That got you this far, it did-”
 
“Yes, and thank whatever god or gods you wish that it takes us no further,” she retorted.
 
“She’d have gotten ye both to Rapture if not for these… these… super-pirates!” he pointed a fat finger in Magus’ face. “An’ you!! You owe me a fat lot o’ gold, you do!”
 
The mage’s hand shot forth like lightning, and his gloved hand clamped down around the Captain’s wrist. “You were paid your gold, you snivelling cur. What’s happened to it since it’s been in your possession is your responsibility, not mine. If you’d prefer to stay and collect it, I’d be happy to send you along with your boat.”
 
The Captain folded fast, suddenly at peace with his very brief period of wealth.
 
Magus put his back to the chaos behind him and raised his hands to the glittering sea ahead. He focused on the shape of the new vessel, and considered their needs. Magus agreed with Alexandria, it would need to be of an elegance befitting one such as he – or such as she, Magus conceded. It would need to be fast, above all else; Magus was tired of this journey, especially now as he zeroed in on his goals.
 
He turned his head to Alexandria even as the Omnilium began to glaze into existence before him, swirling in its rainbow brilliance as it had done each time he had called upon the unusual substance. “How did you come to be in the Omniverse?” he asked.

[Gildarts]

Burning, smoldering sensations ripped along the cords of vein in her body. Alex looked down and the rest of the world clouded around her and fell into a foggy, unfocused back round. A dry gulp chaffed her throat as she hastily slurped in a few breaths, eager to cool this sensation she had so long forgotten about.

Pain. That every day thing that humans have to deal with, whether it’s monthly, a surprise illness, chronic, or comes on swiftly with age. Of course, Alex’s body was human, but she had not felt this sensation since her experience with Hell itself. As a demon possessing a human’s body, she could easily segregate any inflicted portion of pain on the body to the human’s soul that is stuck inside. It was really quite simple, and pain was an annoyance at best to demons; torture on the other hand, that was a whole different story.

Today, Alex had been shot in the leg, and her black blood, shining almost with a hue of crimson, poured out of the hole unendingly. The pressure she had put on it hadn’t helped either, nor the stress of battle. Damn. Her dark eyes glittered down, while the demon tried to make sense of this new predicament. She’d been shot hundreds of times before in the past, now the only difference was this world. This world’s kingly god wanted her to know she was nothing but a parasite, well, Alex had a few words for him now too.

The many splashes of blood pooled through the cracks of the shifting raft the magician had materialized, no doubt, drawing any stray sharks or lurking monsters below the surface, to the bitter and iconic taste, reminding all those predators the triumphant and power-inducing flavors that would be delivered when dining on a demon. The bark from trees dug into her derriere uncomfortably, and had she not been bleeding the fuck out, forced to sit down on this swaying nightmare, the demon would’ve sat on one of the floating dead men’s corpses, corpses from the mismatched wreckage that occasionally grounded up against the sides of their square raft.

The mage was making small talk, meanwhile Alex tried to wrap her shiny black jacket around the injury, trying to remember basic first aid, then seeing if it was in her human’s memory files. Nope. S. O. L. Meanwhile, she might as well request an S. O. S. too.

The captain, sitting not-so-smugly in his corner of the raft, offered no favors as she looked at the jacket he was wearing. Back in the old days, she would’ve ripped off his arms and his jacket at the same time, but right now, that wasn’t the mask she was so proudly wearing today. Today, it was a weak, little woman, injured after blowing up a fucking battle ship, with not a single crease of pain on her perfectly stoic face, with mystery following her as a shadow that Magus now asked more about.

The woman eyed the shining glob of matter glowing over some ocean waves, hopefully there would be a fucking first aid kit on what she assumed would soon be a boat. Alex admitted to herself, that she was impressed. Primes had power, and she was sure he was immortal too. Following in Christa’s footsteps had better pay off, else she might just have to resort to rituals of her own, regarding immortality.

“How did you come here?” he repeated, not the kind of man who prized being patient, especially after the day he’s had so far. Captain over there might just dump him the second the day is made, since the layers behind his face told her Magus owed him a new ship. Alex would see how that played out later... It could be very opportunistic to have the Prime in her debt.

“Hmm?” her eyes lifted from her ‘mess’ to show him that she was preoccupied, but not enough that she couldn’t spare him some time, while he was making them a safer vessel, “To the Omniverse? Well... It’s a bit of a long story.”

Magus lifted his brows, and Alex noted the creases of a resting expression that never seemed to change from the man’s face. Hmph. She’d find out the source soon enough, until then, it was time to spin a web of well-thought-out lies, twist the truth into one that was believable, reasonable, and seasoned to this man’s tastes. And so she began, strategically choosing a relatable beginning, all good stories started on a basis that could be understood by the general public. Eh-hem, her voice became modulated with every slanting tune of each word.

“I was... Asleep when it happened. I woke up, and someone was on top of me, in the darkness I saw a flash of fangs coming down on me, I wasn’t sure what to do, but he was so close to chomping my neck, I grabbed the thing closest to me -a dead branch- and hit his head with such force, that it rolled right off. I was startled, and it splattered all over me, and most of all, thought I’d wake up after my fright was over. So I waited, and no crickets chirped, I wasn’t sure how much time had passed. I was in a dark forest that I later learned was known as the Pale Moors. Monsters chortled in the night while supernatural forces hurtled all around me, but I didn’t see of it. After wandering, I finally found some normal-looking people who were camping, but after approaching them, I found they were each monsters in their own way. It was a father and son, they seemed pleasant enough, and they welcomed me to their campsite, to warm by the fire, since it was still night time and very cold. They told me where I was, what I was, but they showed me what they were, when they killed each other without hesitation. But, I admit...” her eyes looked up, a small painful twinge in them, one that glittered with the well-lit sun lounging high above.

“I helped the son do it. And y’know, I thought it was strange that I had just been wondering in vampire-infested forests and I was lucky enough to find decent people. It all happened at once, I asked why they were out here, and had explained why I was a mess, covered in vampire blood, since they thought I was a monster myself. The father answered with a drunken smile, ‘I came out here to kill my son,’ and then, turned on the boy with the flames licking his chin and casting shadows in the hollows of his eyes. That’s when I grabbed a hunting rifle sitting near me, before the man could draw, but the kid grabbed it from me, and I let him. There were two gunshots, one fatal, one in the gut. I ran after that. I left the father to die,” she concluded, her story was not even a bit elusive, which was key to telling a true story. Of course, she ‘remembered’ it a little different than it had really happened, but that didn’t take away a single ounce of the guilty feeling she implied. Her eyes read: It was all my fault. Had I not stumbled into their campsite...

Magus could see the way she’d demolished that ship, that she was a warrior, and this altercation between family, father and son, was not the kind of blood she ever thirsted for. Or at least, that’s what Alex hoped she saw. Being cold, and pretending to be, only got people so far, mercy, guilt, burdens, and sympathy were the emotions humans thrived on, to feel alive. Honesty, such as admitting she was a demon who bought souls for the King of Hell, was not something she told to just anyone, especially not when she had something to lose. But, the blood was all there, thick and black, and oozing lifelessly over the newly painted bark.

Decisions, decisions.. The woman pondered, her thoughts were full of turmoil, from the screeches of pain that still throbbed from her leg, but it looked like the ship was almost made, which gave her a fresh sense of hope. “The world I came from before, is called Earth, and there, I was a part of an organization. I had power, wealth, esteem, merit, and ambition, but now here, everything was taken from me, stripped. So I plan to see the one called Omni, and see about fixing that. This place has made me much weaker,” she offered this information, since she had evidence, and it only reinforced the truths she had already told.

“I don’t usually bleed.”

[Magus]

A clever girl could play the damsel in distress when she needed to get her way – it was a sound, if unscrupulous, tactic for those too strong and independent to conform to the old, patriarchal traditions – but it was hard to sell the act when your audience just watched you single-handedly murder nearly a hundred men with what barely amounted to more than a nasty wound.

Maybe Captain Fat-Fuck might have bought it, but the first rule of deception was pretty simple: don’t bullshit a bullshitter. And Magus was a bullshitter of the highest order.

“Interesting,” he said it with a tone that perfectly conveyed kind of disinterested attention, devoid of the sharpness of doubt. “I understand your… difficulty dealing with that. It’s an unfortunate situation, indeed.

“I’ve been pressed into some unfortunate situations. I once had to do battle with the queen of the kingdom from which I hail. It was a bloody and ugly fight, and the kingdom was utterly destroyed. My home disappeared beneath the waves,” he looked out at the endless ocean, and he saw the floating continents of his home plunging through the surface as if it was happening all over again. “I may never know if I could have altered history…”

Magus sighed. He didn’t need to be as candid with her as he had been. Perhaps the isolation of the Omniverse had gotten the better of him.

It’s almost over.

There was a bright flash as the Omnilium he expended finally took solid form, and there, before them, floated a small submarine.

“That’s your ship?” Alexandria sounded unimpressed.

“Rapture’s beneath the waves, isn’t it? We’d have needed some kind of submersible eventually. Besides, you haven’t seen the interior,” Magus replied, leaping from the rickety raft to the sub. He opened the hatch and climbed down, with Alexandria in tow. The Captain followed them, sealing the hatch behind.

Inside, Alexandria and the Captain were greeted to a ridiculously opulent setting. Gleaming marble clothed the floors and the walls were clothed in finely-hewn stone. Rich, leather chairs and benches lined the rooms and corridors, and equally fine bedchambers were tucked away within the vessel.

Before them, the command center of the sub, replete with reams of displays and consoles and other technology, awaited their further instruction.

“Consider this a promotion,” Magus said to the ship-less captain. “Get us to Rapture without incident and you can keep this tub.”

“I-I don’t even know how-”

“Can you read coordinates on a map?” the wizard interrupted.

“Aye, o’course.”

“Then just punch them into the console. This thing should mostly drive itself.”

“A-Are you certain?”

“Well, not entirely. I did only build the goddamn thing by summoning it into existence.”

“Right. Right ye are. Apologies,” the sailor replied, and sat himself in front of the grandest-looking console, in the hope of making himself look busy enough to avoid the purple haired man’s ire. There was a sudden lurch and hum as the sub’s engines spooled up, and they could suddenly feel themselves in motion.

“Well, hopefully the fact that we’re underwater means no more pirates,” Alexandria quipped. “Or maybe mer-pirates? At least that would be interesting.”

Magus snorted a laugh in response. Not that she’d know it, but it was genuine. Alexandria was a snake, but she was bright. That might be a problem in the future. At least for now she wouldn’t be tedious.

“Perhaps we’ll be attacked by a giant squid.”

“Original,” Alex quipped. “Maybe we’ll also find a giant white whale being pursued by a one-legged man.”

“Less original than mermaids?” Magus retorted. “What’s the allure to them anyway?”

“Well, they’re supposed to be stunningly beautiful and captivating-”

“With a fish’s lower half. If anything, they’re just the world’s greatest disappointment. The fact that they’re so captivating would just make it worse.”

“You’ve thought about this a lot, haven’t you?”

“Enough to know that the whole idea is so ridiculous it wouldn’t hold any weight if people just stopped for a single second to think about it.”

“Okay, clever boy, so if not a mythically beautiful fish-woman, what kind of girl does a man like you go after then?”

Magus seemed genuinely put-off by the question and stammered for a moment. “I haven’t put a lot of thought into it.”

Alex suppressed a laugh and stepped in close, running a hand up Magus’ chest. He immediately pulled back and she realized she’d finally found a chink in his armor. The lithe woman folded her arms and shot him an appraising glance.

“You haven’t put thought into it?” Alexandria scoffed. “Surely even a man as driven as you has slowed down long enough to decide what kind of person he wants to fuck. Don’t be so dull.”

[Gildarts]

The tactfully potent words rolled off her tongue as smooth as luck. She watched the wave of reaction pinch the corners of his face with tension. He blinked slowly, as though trying to be sure someone as little as her had said that to him the Fiendlord. Surely not. But alas, surely she was right. Magus blinked again, his mind recoiled at the pressure he added to snap back a witticism at the woman in front of him. His mouth moved, but no words exited. Interesting.

For now she would let him be, but the serpentine woman pulled out her mental notebook and etched in this new fun-fact. Because indeed, it would be fun.

“Eh? What is that?” the captain keenly interrupted, whether out of his own foolish audacity, or the simple fact that he was curious.

Suddenly, the alarms on the boat went red, and crimson strobed before their eyes. Alex’s gaze was pulled away from their conversation, and unto the more pressing demands of their fate in this submarine. Surely, they hadn’t been going at least five minutes and something had gone wrong? Alex secretly did hope for mermaids, every one she’d met was always such a- well, let’s just say she never got along with them.

The five hundred year old demon checked the controls of their busty rig, and tilted her head at the verdict that she concluded after assessing all of the screens. The verdict that nothing was wrong. Radar, clear. Engines, running. And their oxygen was being amply supplied.

“Did one of you sailors accidentally hit the self-destruct button, or something?” she grumbled, but no such button was giant, red, and cased in broken glass. Not that she thought Magus would be foolish enough to forge a ship with one anyway.

But, she thought as the treads in her boots squeaked in the puddle of her own blood, two contrasting commands could’ve been hit. A scowl grew on her lip as gravity pulled her face into a frown, out of the corner of her eye, Magus had only just started moving. Now, whether that was because of her demonic speed, or because of the shattering impact of her words on the blessed virgin’s ears, she didn’t have the time to figure out.

Finally, the hunk of junk announced what was wrong in a computer’s automated voice, “Security breach, Classification A. Security breach, Classification A. There is a dangerous creature on board. Classification A. Please use caution. Attention, there has been a security breach, the vessel will now go into lockdown. Attention, there has been a security breach, Classification A, highly dangerous creature on board, the Leviathan will now be going into lockdown. Remain calm, there has been a...”

Her icy voice continued to grind on Alex’s ears as the doors of the ship became reinforced with another set of steel doors, dropping down from above. Alex growled to herself, “What the hell is aboard the ship? Magus, what is cla-”

“Classification A is a creature that is deemed more dangerous than a hundred men, they do not have a humanoid cellular structure, and are very dangerous to the integrity of the ship. Species that fall in this classification could sink the Leviathan without even thinking about it...” the robotic voice droned on.

Alex’s eyes narrowed before she gulped and looked around the control room full of panicked sailors who’s eyes told her that they were facing certain death. The demon thought of her annihilation of that last boat, and she was able to concluded aloud, “It’s me.” This sealed their vindictive expressions. The crimson strobe hit her face just so, bringing out the darkness in her eyes. Temptations of mutiny leaked in their minds, filling their desires that had once been so easily controlled lust, into that of fear and anger. And worse for Alex, that cat was out of the goddamned bag. Shit, “I’m within Classification A,” she announced again, her eyes tilting to Magus whom she was unable to read, meanwhile she reminded that by speaking this truth that she was indeed human, opposite from the monsters that crawled under their beds at night.

“Attention, there has been a security breach...” the robot’s voice blared on. Alex’s eye twitched, annoyed by the reminder to the sets of eyes that she was indeed a monster.

“And well, I don’t know what sealing a threat like that in would do anyway,” she grumbled to herself, thinking of Classification A’s ramifications.

“Commencing stage two of lockdown,” the voice boomed over her head, while Alex cursed and the lights went out. “Attention, there has been a Class A security breach, please remain calm, the doors to each deck have been sealed and the lights terminated. The engines will halt, and there will be a systems check to locate where the threat is. Remain calm.”

The voice stopped now, giving Alex some time to think, Wow. What a b- the boat lurched to a stop as the engines jarred with sizable effort. The sub was shaken, and they lay dormant in the boat leagues below the surface, marooned in their own, destructive island as they waited for the diagnostic check. This was, at the very least, a setback. She wondered if she could hack the system and override it.

Suddenly, out of the all-consuming darkness, Alex felt hands clasp around her shoulders. The hold was tight, unforgiving, and shook her with enough vehemence to rattle her bones. Her nocturnal eyes looked up, seeing the pale Fiendlords’s face just above hers. Simmering in his eyes was something more than anger, but pure, unadulterated loathing.

[Magus]

He glared at her for what seemed like an eternity. For once, Magus was utterly easy to read, and Alexandria drank in frenzy, fury, and fear. Not of her, but it was fear that drove his manic emotions. It was fear that had possessed him to engage in his mad quest.

She knew this at once.

“I knew you were lying to me.”

“Please, I haven’t been-”

“I could taste your power,” Magus hissed low enough so that only she could hear. “The Black Wind was shrill at your presence. I felt your otherness. Your… darkness.”

Alex said nothing, but Magus backed off.

“I want you to be more honest with me.”

“Likewise,” Alex retorted. “I don’t even know who you are!”

Magus shrugged, turning to the Captain.

“Get this ship on its way to Rapture or I will literally skin you alive,” he shouted loud enough for the crew to hear. Everyone, not just the Captain, immediately scrambled. None doubted his threat.

The crew. Odd. He hadn’t tried to create life, just a ship.

Magus had created life – or summoned it – on a whim. He ground his teeth roughly ran his thumbs along his knuckles.

Who was responsible for these men? Did they have agency over their own actions? Was Magus responsible for their livelihood now, having abducted them from their realities as Omni had done to him?

Had Magus been plucked here by accident, too?

Godhood. It was an inescapable comparison. Every day he drew closer to real godhood, and the more and more distinct that reality became, the more uncomfortable did he.

He turned to Alexandria, shutting the thought down for now. “Well,” he said. “What do you want to know?”

“Well, start from the beginning,” Alex leaned against the wall and folded her arms, her tight clothes creaking under her movements. She smirked. “I want to know what makes a man go around calling himself ‘Magus’.”

“The beginning?” Magus arched an eyebrow. He thought about it for a moment, then shrugged. The truth was far more ridiculous than any story he could tell. “I was born a little over twelve thousand years ago. Relatively speaking, anyway. Time in the Omniverse seems… odd. At best.”

“Twelve thousand years, huh?”

“Technically.”

“Technically?”

“Well, I wasn’t alive for all of it.”

The bemused Alexandria didn’t have much of a retort to that. Instead, her mind worked to determine what that meant. After all, she hadn’t been alive for her entire existence.

She swept her eyes over the man called Magus. Pallid skin, red eyes, other-worldly powers, and a birthdate – if he was to be believed – over twelve millennia behind him.

“What are you?”

Magus chuckled. A sharp, halting sound. “Prophet. Tyrant. Devil. Savior.”

“Prophet?”

“Relative to my reality, I’m from the future,” Magus allowed himself another chuckle. “And the past.”

“You’re just going to be as enigmatic as possible, then?”

Magus frowned. “You’re lucky I’ve told you anything at all. I don’t know what game you’re playing but I know the game is being played. I will not play the hapless pawn.”

“Have you ever loved someone?”

The sub lurched into motion while the red warning lights, and most importantly, the annoying, repeating messages ceased.

Magus nearly leapt into the control deck, already roving over the various data feeds and images that spilled off every monitor within the highly sophisticated command center.

“Are we en route?” he demanded.

“Aye, sir,” the Captain replied. “We’re moving at full power, too. We’ll be there as fast as this vessel can carry us.”

“We’d better be, and you had better keep control of this ship going forward,” Magus growled, ignoring the sheer hypocrisy (as the ship’s designer) of the statement. “If I have to come back here before we’re ready to depart the ship, I will be less than pleased.”

Magus turned and glided away, toward a solid steel wall. He didn’t break stride or direction as his body seemed to disassociate from itself, becoming translucent and smokey. The wizard passed through the obstruction and vanished, leaving Alexandria, Captain, and crew alone in command.

- - - - -

He’d been lying in his bed with his hands laced behind his head, staring at the ceiling for what must have been at least a couple of hours.

He closed his eyes and inhaled relief. It felt like ages since he had gone this long undisturbed. It was that, then, which ensured it could not go on.

The sub lurched and shuddered as an awful thunder reverberated throughout the vessel. Magus bolted upright as the tremors rumbled throughout the ship. Already cursing at the Captain’s incompetence, the ethereal wizard charged through walls and bulkheads.

Materializing on the bridge in a bloom of black-and-purple smoke, Magus found himself in the center of madness, even as the ship continued to rock and groan.

“WHAT THE FUCK HAVE YOU DONE NOW?!”

The Captain visibly recoiled from Magus’ verbal fury, but did not fail to respond. “We’re… snagged.”

“What?”

The word rolled out short and sharp, its tone communicating far more than simple meaning.

“It seems we’re… under attack.”

“From what?”

“We’re not sure yet,” came another voice, a young radar operator who sat at a station nearby. “But it’s enormous.”

As if to punctuate the point, another shrieking groan tore through the ship, and a sudden wave of alarms and warning tones sounded off.

“Hull pressure’s out of control. If it keeps up, we’re going to be crushed!”

“Find out who’s doing this and get us free,” Magus hissed, and at the Captain’s brief hesitation, he expounded. “Now!!”

“Well, that’s the thing; we know what it is – it’s some kind of… animal,” he pointed to a series of screens which showed huge, tendril-like masses stretching across the front of the ship. The main mass of the thing seemed to be behind or beside them, out of view of the cameras.

“An animal that can crush a submarine?” Alexandria quipped, having just returned to the bridge.

“Apparently,” the Captain replied, even as the groaning and shrieking continued.

“Right,” Magus said with a sigh. “How do we get it off of us?”

“The ship’s equipped with electric countermeasures,” spoke another of the console jockeys. “Basically the whole submarine’s one huge Faraday cage. We send a big, nasty shock along the outside of the ship, hopefully it convinces whatever’s got us to let go.”

“How far is Rapture from here?”

“Actually not far. We should be able to stun the thing and get to Rapture before it can catch up with us again.”

“Do it.”

Almost instantly, a bright, sizzling static discharge erupted along the skin of the sub, and suddenly they were on their way again, with the alarms and sirens mostly silenced.

And they raced toward Rapture because their lives depended on it.

- - - - -

When Rapture raced up out of the sea floor to meet them, Magus could hardly have been prepared for it. He gasped in wonder as a city awash in bright lights stretched up from the sea floor to meet them. There were no domes or other tacky, utilitarian solutions to a city underwater.

Instead what greeted them was a stunning, art deco vision of a 1920s metropolis, seemingly transplanted under the sea. Not one building seemed aesthetically compromised, aside from the many glass tubes that seemed to snake from building to building, inter-connecting the myriad skyscrapers.

Near the bottom were a handful of places to dock. They likely weren’t designed for a submarine that Magus had simply created based on his recollection of what one ought to look like, but the Captain and crew were confident they could make it work.

The crew. Magus still felt somewhat sick about that.

“Oh shit,” he heard someone say. “We better not take our time with getting buttoned up; that thing that had us is on radar again, and it’s coming at us fast.”

“Get us docked and off this boat. Consider yourselves free to do whatever you want after this. If the sub survives, you can take it. If not, this place seems interesting,” Magus breathed, hardly satisfied with pathetic self-absolution.

The sub careened between buildings, over and under tubes, toward its destination, even as proximity warnings blared at them.

Magus watched the feed before him with dogged intensity. The way to Omni was there, somewhere among the retro-futuristic nonsense before them, and he was practically upon it.

[Gildarts]

Terrible, snarling, seething eyes. A monster just like her. He was vicious, destructive, and Alex had found it intoxicating.

Then weakness reared its ugly head, "Have you ever been in love?" Even her own insides had chilled at that question. For its answer told so much about Magus's fear. The silence was the very definition she had sought.

While her body stood still while the creature had been shocked, Alex's mind hadn't even been present. Magus's crimson eyes drizzled brightly in her mind. She wanted to know his secrets, to have that power over him, and she felt herself getting impatient, curiosity tortured her in the most uncomfortable way, like worms crawling below the thickness of her flesh.

She shook her head, attempting to keep her eyes on her eyeless prize. Omni. This world's divine. They were close, she could taste it.

The crew was ditched, and she was glad to get on stable ground, still unsure of the swaying sea above. Separated from drowning her in salt and death by the single lining of a bubble. And what if that creature came back? All it would take is a single... Pop!

A crewman'a gum had burst and he was collecting the chew all over again, eyeing the her hair as she climbed out of the vessel. Tch. Monsters that wore the mask of man. She knew all too much about them. Saw through this man's brown eyes, eyeing the pain as gems to collect, glimpsing at the memories of tears and regret, then, deeming him unworthy, snarling at him with just her eyes. His expression wavered and he looked away, proving her correct, like a wounded puppy with its tail between its legs. Tch.

The captain of the ship looked expectantly at her, it was so disgustingly  human of him, his puny expectations of the woman who had hitched a ride on his ship with incentive that his sexual needs would be taken care of. He would get what was coming to him, which is a fat load of nothing. Had Magus not been there, she would've snapped his neck more simply than she would squishing a mosquito between her hands. See, Alex liked justice, and she also liked to be the one to deliver. For now, she read the man's mind, and sent him back a truly horrible wavelength, one that would haunt him in his sleep. Every night, cursed until his death.

Magus had stayed, admiring the city, but not only for a moment had he paused and Alex came up impatiently behind him, "Are you just going to stand there? Or are you going to get a move on?"

"You seem more pissed than usual," he quipped, and set off. The demon's dark eyes widened, shocked for he was right but what had she done to be so easily read? She played it back in her mind while Magus's heels kicked up sand and the doom of saline water loomed over her head. Meanwhile, Alexandria had an itch that needed to be scratched and it prickled insatiably, with the more people swarming around.

She wondered where Captain Magus was taking them, but thought not to ask, for curiosity was a burden and asking was a sign of weakness. He seemed, at first, to know where he was going, but after he double-backed at the church twice, it began to get dark, so that the lanterns lining the streets sprang on and the blue sky overhead turned into the darkness of midnight. With the freshly sprung darkness, so came the crawlers of the night and the stench of alcohol on their breath.  

"Would you like me to get some directions, or do you know where you're going?" The question was simple enough, but Magus was scathing with anger.

He huffed and then growled, "Actually, we are looking for someone," but was interrupted by the click of a bullet being loaded mechanically into the chamber of a tall, trench coat covered man with a dark hat, the hat's brim shading over his eyes.

It seems he knows about her too, Christa, and we've come this far, only for... What's this? Does this man think I'm being robbed or raped? she couldn't keep her mind from chuckling, but kept the veil of her face perfectly sculpted with a well-chiseled beauteous shock.

"Hands off, back away from her, or I pull the trigger." His focus was on Magus's body language, he also glanced at a window which was allowing some reflection of Magus's face. The man's voice grinder against their ears like coarse gravel. Alex let her face fall into an unassuming expression, not giving away too much, yet laden with emotion that could be interpreted many different ways. Her eyes fixed on the man with the hat, and as Magus was instructed, he stepped aside slowly, while his mind snaked around the edges of the scene, seeking the best course of action. Strangely, his eyes went to the best liar, knowing he wouldn't be believed, knowing he was already marked as the perpetrator.

The man with the gun stepped away from the streetlight yet their eyes adjusted accordingly. Half of him was scaled in glittering red reptilian skin. Like that of a lab experiment gone wrong. She smirked. He seemed like the kind of guy that knew someone. Well, she was looking. The gun was still on Magus, and maybe, Alex liked that, for she didn't speak against or for him. She had to evaluate her cards and wore her best poker face. The real question sprouted her mind like it so often did. Was it time to cash in? She laid down a few cards onto the velvet night.

"Where is the woman who knows how to get to Omni?" Alex said, her voice unwavering and her eyes, uniquely defined by both the darkness and the light.

The man who had been looking at Magus with a seething abhorrence was a bit surprised. Surprised the damsel in distress had not immediately flung to his side upon being rescued. Surprised she had not been screaming. Surprised even more that rather than doing the finding, he himself had been found. He glimpsed at the woman, attempting to take in the truths her appearance would tell him, and with that, his guard was down, his attention not so focused on the trigger in his slithery hand, but on her, a fixed point of beauty in this moonless night, who hadn't needed rescuing at all.

WHAM!

Right in the teeth. Bright red gooey blood glossed over the pistol-wielding man's lips while he fell with the perpetuated force of the blow. Magus had taken her less than charming distraction and gracefully punched the man in the teeth. Ol' trenchy wasn't getting one over on him any time soon, yet Alex would keep her options open. Magus pinned the lizard down, and tossed away the half man's gun, yet suddenly the man beneath him lost his shape. The coat he wore, as well as the hat, fell empty, as used laundry and nothing more.

Magus clawed and could barely believe his eyes. Their lead, one who responded to Alex's question, had gotten away. He looked up, feeling the fury on him, knowing she would quip in something about him biting the dust. He tasted the bitter shame of defeat and pondered the blood on his not-so-bruised knuckle. Meanwhile, his ears were left empty.

The mage's eyebrows raised as he looked up, and Alex was no where in sight.

...

One street over, she'd appeared behind the coatless man with her smokey form and shoved him nearly through the brick wall of a street. The half lizard's cheek stung with cold stone while his lip dribbled with the warmth of his own blood.

"You ran because you know something, tell me or else," she threatened lightly, though it weighed heavy on his ears. She had the strength of a monster, and he would know.

"Vi won't associate herself with the likes of you, I'd rather die than rat-" Alex sighed and tuned him out.

"Vi? I was looking for Christa, but it seems you've piqued my interest. Perhaps I won't throw you into the coffin just yet. I'd like to meet her, and I'm afraid, there'll be no dying today." Smugly, she held him by the collar of his shirt. He squirmed and she broke his non-reptilian arm with ease. He screamed and Magus came running. Click, click, click, his footsteps patterned until his abrupt stop. He wouldn't be slighted so easily, yet it was her who held the prize.

"How did you-" the mage began to ask.

"Capture him? It just so happens we have a similar power, his however, is honed much less than mine. He's going to take us to the woman, aren't you, Jones?" her lips slithered into a smile while his skin covered itself in goose flesh as she spoke his name, "Or I'm going to break more than that little arm of yours."