Arrival of the demon Takezo.

[Oleander]

Takezo scowled as light returned to the world. It was so bright it almost hurt his eyes. The words of Omni still ringing in his ear did not let the look if displeasure linger long. This was a new world, after all. Not only that, but he was immortal – so long as this Omni fellow saw fit.
 
When his eyes finally dilated enough for him to see, the immediate thing he noticed was a trio of men rushing towards him. With eyes like a true warrior, he quickly defined each of them. The tall, slender one carried himself with a limp. His right leg was injured or lame. The tall yet portly man was lagging behind, obviously slower than the other two. He did not wear the armor the others did, leaving him exposed from every angle. The third was a broad shouldered man bearing the look of a bear’s strength. He would be the toughest, as there was no outward sign of weakness, and his armor was full bodied.
 
His left hand fell to his scabbard; thumb pushing the hilt an inch free as a sign of defensiveness. “I would stop right there, if I were you…” Tall and Portly stopped, almost too happy to catch his breath. Lanky slowed, but was only the second to come to a stop. Broad-man continued on, slowing now that it appeared Takezo was standing his ground instead of running. “That makes this easy…”
 
“Yo, Ban, we’re not supposed to eng—“ Tall and Portly tried to interject, but it was too late. The one known as Ban had come into Takezo’s threat range. Just before, he had revealed two metal tonfa; slender bars with handles from the sides. They were already moving in to strike when Takezo unleashed his katana and struck in a single, fluid action.
 
“B… Ban?” Lanky’s face paled as the muscular man stopped in his tracks. Ban was physically strong and rather durable, but he was unskilled. Brute strength with little skill or even speed, was his downfall. Ban fell backwards, his face bloodied, his weapons dropped.
 
For a moment, shock brought only rasps, then the one called Bon finally found his voice. It came as a blood curdling scream. Takezo placed a foot on the man’s chest, right before he slashed across the softness of his throat. “If you intend to kill me… I will kill you first.” He stares with cold eyes at the soon-to-be corpse.
 
When his gaze rose to Portly and Lanky, they froze in terror. Retracting his sandal from Ban, he walks towards the pair. A flick, and the blood from his sword stains the white of the Nexus floor. Lanky was the closest, and the first to remember how to use his legs. He turned to run, but before he could, Takezo makes a dash and slashes at the man’s weak ankle.
 
Lanky’s shoulders were on the ground before his severed foot returned to the blood stained Nexus floor. Seeing Lanky fall, Portly drew his weapon; a mighty looking club with plated metal around the head. Portly screamed as he ran in, slow and clumbsily. “Get away! No! Joric!” Lanky tried to warn him, but it did no good.
 
The next few seconds were ones to remember. With superior skill and speed, Takezo moved out of the way of the portly man’s powerful strike. He stood over Lanky, glaring at the one known as Joric. Takezo’s shirt was stained with the blood of his fallen comrade, and it fueled the portly man’s kindled rage. With a two handed blow, Joric attempted to strike down at Takezo, who simply fell backwards to evade.
 
“JOR—“ Crunch. An instant wave of horror filled the portly man’s face as Lanky’s head caved in. Crushed beneath the mighty metal plated beatstick and the unforgiving floor, Lanky’s body twitched only once and then nothing.
 
Takezo rolled almost casually off of the corpse and rose to his feet. The portly man, Joric’s, face was frozen with a combination of rage, horror and fear. Takezo had no idea what they were aimed to do, but he guaranteed this was not how it was supposed to go down. With a straight kick to the portly man’s gut, he fell backwards. The loose grip on his weapon let it drop to the ground, the head still buried in the skull of his dead ally.
 
Without hesitation, the swordsman placed his crimson-tainted sandal on Joric’s rotund gut. “If you want to live… you will answer my questions."

[Oleander]

“L-look, we’re just supposed to capture new primes… Three on one new prime, this was supposed to be easy! You guys aren’t supposed to be so… so…”
 
“Strong?” Takezo smirked at the indication.
 
The portly man grimaced. That smirk was sickening. How many times had this man smirked at the killing blow of his blade? This Prime was a killer. Sure there were killer Primes around, but e had been told that even the evil primes were weak when they first arrived.
 
“If you answer my questions, I’ll let you go.” The sudden thought of survival brought the faintest glimmer of hope to Joric’s face. “Unless… I think you are lying to me.” The spark faded. There was barely any to hold onto, but the longer he stared into Takezo’s eyes, the more he hoped he did not end up like his friends.
 
He nodded. It was weak, but it was there. The blade to his neck would not let him fight back, even if he wanted to. In the moment of friendly fire, he had left himself open to this pathetic takeover. Fighting back at this point was not much of an option.
 
Releasing the katana with one hand, Takezo straightens his back, to further tower over his prey. “Question one. Where are we, and how do I get out of here?”
 
At least these questions were easy. “This is the Nexus, it’s where all new Primes show up, and where you’ll appear if you die.” This further confirms that he was now immortal. Takezo’s smirk grew. “There are gates around the outside, each to a different Verse…”
 
“Good…” He used a softer voice, one not quite as full of malice. It was still rather cold, but Joric got the meaning of it; Takezo liked his answer. “Another answer like that, and I might let you stand.” There was that hope again. “Question two. Who is the strongest… what did you call us?”
 
“Primes…”
 
“Right. Who is the strongest Prime?”
 
That question was a bit more difficult. Politically? It would have to be one of the rulers of Coruscant, or Camelot – though he could not say which. Something told Joric that this man was not interested in Politics. “I… I’ve heard tales of a man named Gildarts… A-and Protoman… There was a girl too… um… Goop, or something…”
 
Takezo slowly removed his foot from Joric’s gut and steps to the side. Two names were good enough, even though he doubted this… “Goop” was a real person. Slowly, Joric rose to his feet. His eyes glanced in the way of his weapon, but the glint of steel near his face told him to ignore it. Takezo practically guided Joric to his feet at the tip of his sword.
 
“Question three, and this one is important… What were you and your friends doing out here?”
 
Color retreated from Joric’s face. This answer would be hard to make appealing. “Well, we… I mean, they…”
 
With a flick of his wrist, Takezo left a three inch long shallow cut across the side of Joric’s face. The man hissed in pain. “You were all three charging me… just because you stopped when I said does not mean you are innocent.”
 
“We! I meant we!” He quickly corrected. “We were sent to capture new primes! Our boss is trying to make a name for himself by forcing a Prime to join his gang, and training them to enter Dante’s Abyss!” His words came quickly, spilled without sugarcoating in hopes of mercy.
 
“Dante’s… Abyss?”
 
“It’s a competition between Primes… To see who’s the strongest.” Takezo’s sword slowly drifted from Joric’s face. The portly man thought that this may be his way out. “You want to join? If you let me live, I can take you there! You can fight other Primes like you! They’re all really strong—“
 
Takezo laughs. The sound is both joyous and terrifying. “A competition in the Abyss? It seems that Omni has a sick sense of humor, dragging me in here at a time like this!” The swordsman flicks his blade, slinging blood from the honed edge to paint the floors in yet more crimson splatters. The flick has Joric flinch, but he sighed in relief as Takezo sheathed the weapon.
 
“Let’s be on our way, then… Joric, was it?”

[Oleander]

Joric was walking out front with Takezo following behind. They had left the corpses and Joric’s weapon near the fountain for someone else to deal with. Takezo was more than used to a battlefield of the dead, rotting under the hot sun. The rotund fellow in front of him had wanted to bring them along, to bury them. Takezo denied – he could care less about his fallen enemies.
 
They had chosen a direction based on Joric’s minimal intel. Takezo acknowledged this was most likely a trap. Joric would undoubtedly lead him to the gang he was a part of, at which time he would have to fight again. That was fine. He would kill or be killed – the law of nature. The only difference is, while he was immortal, they were not. This was an interesting fact to Takezo. He truly had become immortal under the heavens.
 
“How much farther?” Takezo grumbled. The blank white of the nexus was getting under his skin. The featureless world was much better when it was painted with bodies and blood, but he realized now it was only because the blank white slate of a world felt unnatural to him. It was devastatingly pure. It almost felt like he stained the ground by walking upon it. Granted, for a while when they first embarked, he did… leaving a single-foot trail of blood off in one direction. His sandal has since dried.
 
“Another… twenty minutes, I think. Look, we’re almost at the gate. Beyond that, Carrefore. I think you’ll like it there…” Joric almost tumbles onto his face when Takezo pushes him from behind. It was a silent way of saying ‘don’t get too chummy.’ He quickly corrected himself, hoping the next thing pressed against his back is not a blade. “What I meant was… it’s a rough town... and if you go further in, it’s nothing but desert and monsters.”
 
A brow rose. “Monsters?” Slaying monsters might be an excellent way to train. Maybe this Gildarts had done something similar to become known as the strongest Prime.
 
Joric slowly nods, looking over his shoulders. “After the Empire left, the monsters spread and grew… The desert is full of them. They’re like demons.”
 
“Would you say these are some of the worst monsters?” Joric immediately nodded. He was about to speak, but  Takezo cut him off with another push. “Good. I’ve never fought demons before… I get called one often enough, I’d like to see why.”
 
A number of times Joric would attempt to continue the conversation, but Takezo was ignoring him. His eyes stare at the gate as they slowly approached. His left hand rested upon the scabbard at his side and he awaited the moment Joric’s gang members would swarm out to greet them. This never happened.
 
“Tell me. What gate did you and your buddies come from? Should I expect them through here?”
Takezo could see tension spread through the portly man’s body. “We’re from Camelot… It’s a longer walk to Minas Tirith, so… so I chose a closer option.” The swordsman chuckled at the hesitant response.
 
“Why else?”
 
“I… didn’t want to run into any of my friends. Some of the guys I don’t care too much for, but when you are in a gang, sometimes you get close, you know?”
 
“No. I am strong enough that I don’t have to rely on the strength of others.”
 
Joric looked over his shoulder at Takezo, his brows furrowed. “It’s not weakness, man… Strength in numbers… The Boar-Pit gang is small, but every initiate is told to keep each other alive… We may not be friends, but we’re true warriors. And we’ll be th—“ Joric’s words are abruptly cut, just like the man’s spine. In his rambling, he had not even heard Takezo draw his sword.
 
The slash across the portly man’s back had been swift as they were deadly. “So what I’m hearing is… if you go back to your friends… they’ll hunt me down for killing the others?” Joric was on the ground, face down. “I guess for my own sake… no one can know about this.
 
“There can be only one at the top.” And with that, Takezo slashed through the man’s neck, letting his head roll free. With a graceful flick, blood splattered across the white nexus floor. He sheathed his sword, sidestepping the growing pool of blood, and continued towards the gate to the Endless Dunes.

[Oleander]

Enter Deon, Leo's twin brother.

It had been hours since Ban, Joric and Leon had checked in. Leaning against the gate all day and watching the shadows elongate had become boring. "Common, guys... If you found nothing, the rules are you check in every five hours." The words were to no one specifically. The slightest breeze carried them off to the uncaring ears of wildlife. The same damn squirrels he had been watching almost all damn day.

The leather-clad Deon practically throws himself to his feet. "That's it." Fed up with waiting, he storms through the gate and into the nexus. Despite having been watching the bright sky, the white of everything here still felt like it blinded him. Squinting, he took off at a casual jog to the fountain. "Good for nothing louts, probably sleeping on the job or swimming in that damn fountain again!"

Deon ran for a bit. Walked for a bit. Ran for a bit longer. The time it took to make it to the fountain was spent cursing the lazy men his that had teamed up with his brother on this job. That Joric especially, the lazy loaf of lard could hardly stand a hard day's work without whining like a little milk drinker.

Something stopped him as he approached. There was too much color in one spot - and the particular color left a sickening sensation bubbling in his gut. He could see in the distance now a pool of blood and two bodies laying in the center of it. "Oh no... No no... Nonononono..." His pace quickened to a full sprint.

The two bodies became clear as he closed in the distance. "FUCK! LEO!" His leather soled shoes slip not two steps into the puddle of blood, leaving him slipping to his rear beside the lanky corpse. His brother's jacket was clear as day, customized with that odd green trim he liked so much. Even with the heavy mallet flattening his skull, Deon knew this to be his twin brother.

Covered in blood, Deon yanked the club from the crushed skull and tossed it to the side. As the metal plated club clatters across the ground, he notices that its owner is not among the corpses. "JORIC! THAT FAT FUCKING BASTARD!" His breaths were ragged from the run and more so from the weight crushing down on him. "Leo! Come on man, wake up! Don't do this to me, man!"

There was no doubting that Leo was dead. His body was cold and stiff, and his head was caved in a good three inches. Deon had noted all of this, but he was not working on ration right now. "DAMNIT! Ban? BAN! BAN!" He turned to see Leo's team mate, the muscle bound oaf, laying on his back. There was a deep cut across his face and a second across his throat.

His breath caught in his throat. A cut? Ban had twin tonfa, blunted sticks, and Joric had a plated club. Leo was an archer, so...

The wave of realization set his blood to boil. He stood, darkened blood matting his clothing and staining his arms and face. His breath had calmed, each exhale coming as a growl more than air. Eyes of growing malice turned htis way and that before finding exactly what he was looking for. Tracks. Blood prints of two bodies walked away, one of Joric's fat feet, and the other a slimmer appearance of woven sandals, he would find in the village markets.

Someone was here. A Prime, no doubt. They lead off away from Camelot. From the angle, he would guess the Endless Dunes. "Where are you going, you rat bastard?" The words were snarled.

He would follow the prints, but first he kneels once more beside his brother. "I'm sorry, Leo... I'm sorry. We'll catch this bastard... I promise. If it's the last fucking thing I do... We'll make him pay."

[Oleander]

The first few steps were the hardest. It felt like the weight in his gut gravitated towards the corpse of his fallen brother. A trembling hand retrieved a scroll from his leather jacket. The Boar-Pitt symbol on his right breast, as well as most of the jacket as a whole, was covered in the blood of two of its members.

Deon unfurled the magic paper, watching as the text arranged itself in neat little boxes. The wizards of the floating isle really knew their stuff. Each time he saw the drifting words it gave him an eerie sensation. He used his finger on the scroll to tap a section of text. The letters all scatter, swirling about before rearranging into new words, as if the entire page had changed. It was hard to believe this thing was really connected to the Dataverse.

As he walked, he slid his finger across the page, writing with no ink onto the magic parchment. A smudge of blood was left along with the words, a reminder of the horrors he had just witnessed.

Boss. Leo and Ban are dead. I'm following a lead, I think whoever did it took Joric with them to the Endless Dunes.

It would take some time before one of the guys checks the message. Deon rolled the scroll back up and tucked it into his blood stained coat. The swift pace he took was not quite a jog; he did not want to be winded if he caught up to the murderer.

"Oh no..." He had not even been walking ten minutes when he saw another pool of blood centered around a third corpse. This one was definitely larger than the others... more rotund. "Joric.." With a hastened speed, Deon moved in to examine the corpse.

There were shallow cuts, one along the lower back, the other across the back of the neck. Deon's brow furrowed. "Joric..." He placed a hand on the large man's shoulder. "Joric." Deon sighed. He gave the body a solid shake. "JORIC!"

"Huh?! I'm up!" The rotund man jolted awake. It was a struggle to turn his head with his spine seemingly severed. When he caught sight of Deon, his eyes widened. "L-Leo!"

The hope that washed into his chest faded when the man he looked upon shook his head with a deep scowl. "Leo's dead..." He hated to see the hope drain from the wounded man. "I'm guessing whoever cut you and Ban down was new... His cuts were lethal for normal folk."

Joric was not exactly unique, but among ordinary humans he was tough. He rolled over and slowly sat up, the slashes upon his back no longer bleeding. "Yea... but if I didn't play dead, he would've killed me... He has eyes like a demon!"

While Joric yammered, Deon was retrieving the scroll from his jacket again. "Set up a bounty... Dead or alive, I want his head."

[Oleander]

After the bounty was posted, Joric crawled to his feet. Each movement earned a groan, his wounds not yet healed. "I want you to return to base. Try to describe who did this, maybe one of those bastards can draw or paint or sculpt or some shit," said Deon. "I'm going after that man. I know the Dunes best, if I find him, I'll contact the gang the coordinates... I don't intend to fight fare with this mother fucker."

Joric immediately shakes his head. "I wouldn't either... he's a demon, I swear it! He cut everyone down - made me ... made me..."

"I know. I saw... You aren't off the hook, but... it wasn't entirely your fault." Deon imagined it was an accident in the heat of battle, though the details eluded him. Friendly fire was not unheard of in very close quarters, especially with a particularly skilled opponent. "Go. Get everyone you can ready." The scroll chimes a light little tune, far too jaunty for the grave situation.

This will not due. We mourn Leon and Ban's loss. Have you learned of Joric's fate?

"They're asking about you," Deon stated. He furled the scroll and tucked it back in his bloody leather jacket. He said no more. Instead, he steps past Joric, through the man's pool of blood, and continued towards the gate his brother's murder had used. The straw sandal foot steps were visible for a brief moment after the pool, continuing in an unyielding path. Deon's feet made the second set of prints, though his boots left detailed print of heel and toe. The leather cowboy boots, compliments of the Dunes, were returning to his and Leon's original home. Deon's face was twisted into a look of pure malice. No more curses spilled from his lips. The silence was filled with far more rage than he could verbalize.

Joric was less cocksure than his friend. He was quick to flee in the opposite direction of the demon swordsman. It took him much longer to reach his gate, especially considering he was so slow. Not ten minutes into the long treck, he was huffing and puffing, forced to slow down. He had to make a stop first. Approaching the Fountain, he cringed at the smell. The corpses of his friends had not yet begun to decay, yet he could smell the stench from a fair ways off. He had heard stories, apparently true, that a dead man's last act is to release their bowels. "How foul," he muttered.

As he enters the pool of blood, he is forced to change his original plan. He would not carry Ban and Leo on his shoulders like previously considered... Instead, he took the massive metal club from the head of his fallen camrade and fitted it into a metal ring on his thigh, till the head was about hip-level. "Forgive me," he muttered as he grabbed each corpse by an ankle. Joric began a slow walk towards the Camelot gate. His jaw tensed. The smell was stomach curdling, and the thoughts running through his head only made the long walk worse.

Of the three members, Ban had been the fastest, with decent strength and resilience. Leo was the back-of-the-line cover fire with his deadly longbow. Joric was the slowest, but his strength and resilience were unmatched. Joric was supposed to be out front, not Ban. Joric was the one who could survive most lethal blows and still keep fighting. Ban is supposed to full-circle and strike from the back, while Leo snipes from any open angle. That is how this was supposed to be. It was a flawless plan! "Damn you, Ban," Joric muttered through clinched teeth. "This is your fault... You brought this on yourself, we had a plan... We had a god damn plan..."