Jade Benz

Jade entered her void space again and looked around. It was a patchwork mess, but it looked like the scars were already healing. If nothing else went wrong, she might be back to normal in a year, great. She moved over to the stationary gargoyle; Vice had the weirdest names for things. It looked like a huge winged ogre made out of stone to her, but whatever, he was the boss.

That brought Jade up short, and she turned the idea over in her mind for a time. Why was he the boss again? She hadn’t voted for him, and she was the only one around. Well, besides the goblins but they had to do what he told them, they were like his ogres…only smaller, and weaker. She wondered briefly why he hadn’t pulled them out, normally he couldn’t get away from his green girlie. Instead, he had just pulled out the shaggy wolf.

Shrugging it off she moved over to the new table, Vice had left it for her. A simple metal folding table that matched the meditation chair, not that she cared much about that. Pulling out the big game box the Erlking had given her she plopped a checkers board down on the table.

“Come on over here Tok, I’ve got a new game to teach you.” She said, smiling up at the ogre.

Glancing over to the black, winged ogre…gargoyle… she thought about inviting him to play. Nah, checkers was a two-person game after all. She supposed she could let him play winner…if it was Tok.

* * *

Benjamin Vryce

The first thing he did upon entering his void space, was to activate the standing form of Ice. He thought, again, about partitioning a part of his mind off to do that automatically. It just wasn’t important enough to mess with at the moment however. Greeting the she wolf, he sat down in his meditation chair. He’d given his table to Jade, so he quickly made another one.

Making things was almost too easy, but they were inanimate objects. He assumed that made them easier to produce, they didn’t have to do anything after all. he pulled the case off his back and opened it, removing the two fractured patterns. He understood intellectually that he wasn’t actually removing the case, he was in his mind space. It was effective though; he could still manipulate things on his person from here.

“Are you going to try again?” Ice asked, from where she had settled down beside his chair. “I don’t understand why you are so fixated on this, just create your own creature.” She continued, looking at the two damaged orbs.

They had this discussion before, she wanted him to scrap the idea of combining the patterns. She didn’t see the point in it, why use something of the enemies when it could end up biting them.

“I’ve told you before, Ice.” He said, “her memories are intact…mostly…if I can bind her to me, then we should be able to understand the enemy we face much better. Besides, she nearly killed me in one-on-one combat, adding her power to the team wouldn’t be unwelcome.”

There were other reasons as well, and they both knew it. The she wolf decided to let it go though, and rested her head back on the floor to watch. The opposition cleared; Benjamin focused on the patterns. He wanted to pull aspects of the demon and goblin together into a new personality. One that, he hoped would be useful to him going forward.

Firstly, he brought up the three-dimensional image of the two women. Looking at the aspects of each he wanted to incorporate into his new creation. The goblin’s memories were gone, but her loyalty to kin and clan were still there. He needed that aspect to keep the demon bound to him. The goblins were also stronger than their size would indicate, and he wanted to incorporate that strength into the new creation as well. Enough, he had done this a thousand times in his mind already. He knew what he wanted, even the parts he didn’t like admitting to himself. Taking a deep breath to steady his thoughts, Benjamin began the process.

He didn’t separate the essence this time, from what the Erlking had told him the combined essence was more efficient. Besides, he wanted this creation to be compatible with him completely and that required a dual nature. The light and dark twisted strands connected to each of the patterns, bringing the three-dimensional images into clearer focus.

Next, he selected the aspects from each of the images that he wanted to keep, cutting the rest away. This is where he had always failed before, trying to use only what was here to match up into a solid whole. The pieces just didn’t create an entire image alone, they needed something extra.

Holding the portions of the patterns in place, Benjamin reached deeply inside himself. Pulling another strand of essence from his core, he began to feed it into the pattern along with his desires. When his impressions touched the essence strand, the draw intensified. It looked like this was going to be a costly procedure.

He thought about Stomper; how he had stayed quiet and followed orders, but when he was needed stepped up to fill the role of command. He thought about Honor; how he had been willing to die to be with his pack, and how he had sacrificed himself to save Benjamin. Silver came next; the little drone had been an ever-watchful presence in his time here, and was even now watching his descendance in the forest world.

He worked his way through the creations he once had held. Pulling inspiration from each of them, to fuel the working he was trying to perform. All except one, he couldn’t think about that one right now. Instead; adding in the nimble ferocity, of the blue king and the stalwart defiance of the red queen.

When he had gathered everything he wanted, he filled in the gaps left in the two patterns. They flowed into place, changing the shape and feel of what he was creating slowly and gradually. He had pulled nearly half of his core into the working already, and more was being drawn in to fuel the connections.

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It all started to unravel when the demon’s psyche connected with the ideals he had so carefully crafted however. She was cold, calculating and unfeeling. That sterility bled into her forming pattern, and wiped much of his work away. Some of it leaked in however, softening the otherwise emotionless demon. It wasn’t enough though, there needed to be a balance.

The aspects of the Hive monarchs had actually stuck quite well, but that further tipped the scales away from the loyalty and connections he was trying to build. He cast his mind around for more, the process was draining more essence with every passing second, and he was in real danger of losing everything.

His mind flashed on her sleeping face the morning they’d woken up together. He had stared at her for long hours after she had fallen asleep, and her face had burned itself into his memory. That was the crack in his mental wall against using her for this pattern, his memories of her and his emotions came pouring out.

How he felt when he had touched her face. The sadness and helplessness that he had felt from her when they first bonded, the joy that flashed in her eyes when her Clan brother was returned to her. The terror he felt, watching her ride Honor into the attack meant for him. All these feelings and more, combined and flowed into the pattern.

It drained even more of his essence; his core had been reduced to a quarter of its starting size now. The solid core at its center having almost completely dissipated. The part of his mind reserved for spinning and compression was working like crazy to keep it fused together. His channels were beginning to burn again from overuse, but he couldn’t stop yet.

The pattern was almost complete. Grace had tipped the scales; her love for him, and his in turn for her had balanced out the heartless and cruel nature of the demon. It was still there, and a large part of who she was. It would be tempered now however with feelings of clan loyalty and love. Now, for the final touches.

He wished that the original obsidian blade and rod hadn’t been lost, but he could make due. He envisioned a new blade for her, one that was nearly identical to the old one. Along with a shield, reminiscent of the one Stomper had used, only made of obsidian to match her blade. Armor came next, and a set of clothes.

The final part of the process was to imbue her with a name; he had thought about this for some time, he needed something fitting to her origins. Remembering back to an old book on mythology he had read, be gathered up his remaining essence and imbued her with the name of the first daughter of chaos in Greek legend. Nyx. Essence reduced to vapor; he was able to activate his creation to start binding with his soul, before he passed out.

* * *

Nyx

When she returned to herself…Nyx…felt her body in shock. She wasn’t dead? She thought that beast had killed her. Wait…Nyx wasn’t her name she was…Nyx. It was gone, who she had been was gone. Her hands paused in their search of her body for wounds, she looked down in fresh shock. Her figure had changed.

Before she had been slender and graceful, now she was filled out. Her hips, thighs and calves had thickened and strengthened. her breasts had grown too and her flat stomach now rippled with abdominal muscles… what in her mother’s name? that stopped her short again, her mother wasn’t chaos. She had been created by her lord Benjamin to invade this blight and…wait that wasn’t right either, who was Benjamin?

She clenched her fists in confused frustration, and felt the new power in her form. Her arms had grown thicker, and it was all tightly compact and toned muscles. She gave her wings a tentative flap, they had new strength as well but felt different. Looking to them Nyx found they had grown in both thickness and strength; this was likely to compensate for her newly added weight.

At least her beautiful crimson skin hadn’t changed. She ran her hands up over her horns, they were still there, protruding from her forehead near the hairline. Sweeping back to protect her head before pointing up again. Lifting a lock of hair, she confirmed it was still it’s natural maroon color. Thank Benjamin for that.

Glancing around at last, she found herself in an endless expanse of white. There was nothing to be seen anywhere, turning slowly her eyes caught on the unconscious form of her murderer. Filled with sudden rage at this beastly man she began to move forward with murder in her heart. A strange feeling of kinship with the man pulled her up short at the same time the white beast stepped between her and her murderer, lips pulled back to reveal long rows of sharp teeth.

“That is far enough Nyx.” The voice resounded inside her mind, coming from what she now recognized as Ice; one of the five elemental wolf daughters of the Erlking’s mount, from her people’s legends. No, that wasn’t right, where had that memory come from?

“I…” she started to say, her voice different to her ears. “I don’t understand, I was sent to destroy this blighted sore on the Creator’s perfect uniformity…why…this man he seems so…” her voice trailed off again, her mind was jumbled. Memories that weren’t hers had overridden what she had understood about the perfect expanse. these emotions as well, she wasn’t used to feelings. She had never had them before.

With deep breaths she managed to get herself back under control. The still lake of calm descended over her mind once more and she could think clearly again. looking back down at herself and the strange yet simple soft hide clothing she wore, she snorted. Making them vanish before donning her armor once again and summoning her sword and…shield?

What had happened to her rod of power? It had been gifted to her by…someone. It was gone, replaced with this heavy yet well balanced shield. Her sword was different too, but it had a good balance and heft. It didn’t matter, regardless; armor was armor and weapons were weapons. She was created to kill; her master might have changed but her mission hadn’t, she was made to kill all in her master’s path. Protecting her clan with…protecting her clan?

“I see that you are at least calm now,” the she wolf said. “Your mind is unstable but it will settle with time,” she continued dropping to the floor near Benjamin. She was still wary of her; Nyx could tell that from her body language.

Not that she had ever seen a beast quite like this before, being close in appearance to the hellhounds… That wasn’t their name… it was no use the original name was gone. She shared their shape but was larger and held a greater sense of danger. Nyx wasn’t sure if she could defeat this beast without her rod of power. Not that she wanted to, for some reason the Wolf was important to her, almost as important to her as her master Benjamin. She shook her head; it was all too much. Sitting down cross-legged before the wolf she banished her arms and armor, returning again to the tanned tree climber hide clothes, that tightly hugged her new curves…not that she knew what a tree climber was.

“Tell me, wise wolf of legends…what is my purpose here?” she asked, the words not coming out as she intended but they still conveyed her desire for knowledge.

She didn’t know how much time passed while she listened and asked questions of Ice. Her mind had stilled back to the calm surface of an undisturbed pond, strange new feelings falling away in favor of her emotionless nature…until she looked at Benjamin, then the surface would ripple and feelings she couldn’t understand washed through her mind. she couldn’t tell if it was a weakness or a strength, her goal was to protect this man and kill his enemies. These feelings would help her do that more intently…but still they were, distracting.