~Asha~
A flash announced the coming storm, the thunder is the booming herald that mirrors the joy in Asha’s heart as she finally found her quarry. Rain matted her auburn hair as she grinned her fangs glistening. She was fed up with locating her master. Five centuries and countless incarnations had worn her patience thin, and that was before she even found the first trace of his soul on this rock.
Upon his demise, she knew that a man as powerful as her lord would not be defeated by a paltry event such as death. However, as decades turned to centuries, she began to panic as no spell nor technology could detect the presence of his soul. Not in their world that is. It was a separate project, a failed portal that gave her hope.
She was attempting to open an entryway to the world of the dead to see if his soul had truly passed on when something failed, after all, it was illusions where her mastery lie, not dimensional forces. Her experiment instead ripped through the dimensional barrier to another world. It was faint, but her soul-bond to her master finally chimed with his existence.
Asha Qi, the succubus was elated, both at finally finding her master’s trail as well as discovering a world outside of her own. She could only imagine the terror the most powerful necromancer this world has ever seen was reaping in this new world. The elation she felt was fleeting as she dashed into the portal with nary a preparation. Shortsighted for one such as her, but she was too excited to think clearly. The passage of physical matter destabilized the portal, cutting her off from her home world. To make matters worse, this planet was a mana wasteland.
So devoid of the vital energy she would have to feed on the pitiful life essence of the native men every day to stay alive. It took her many years to find her master despite the world, Earth, being much smaller than her own. Her lord was noble even in this world, a Count named Vlad Tepes. She told him what he was and his history. Growing up in a mana void like this world, he was… skeptical to say the least. But after slaughtering the twenty men he sicced on her, he was more agreeable, especially when she reaffirmed her loyalty to him.
She awoke his latent power, but something happened. Something about the odd new power within and this man who bathed in the blood of his enemies, Vlad the Impaler, became something much more powerful than a simple necromancer.
Her master grew fangs and gained incredible power over blood and the dead. Bound as she was to him, the power clawed over their connection. It shredded her soul and remolded her in his image, changing her as it had him. Thus, the world’s first vampires were born.
Asha was heartbroken at losing her succubus heritage, but she was much more powerful. She no longer needed to sleep with men to gain their essence; instead feasting on their blood, her demonic charm was morphed into an enhanced form of hypnosis and illusion magic. The biggest shock was how it altered not only her race, but her very Dao. It was agony as the dark forces warped her soul from the Bastian, her Pillars, down to her Foundation, transforming a Dao cultivated from dangerous seduction to that of sanguine predation.
Where illusionary power had once teased out the desires of her victims, now they hid her and pulled at their fear. Her Succubi beginnings hadn't disappeared entirely. No, there were still echoes of demonic seduction, but much darker than before, twisting her prey's desires to her whims rather than transforming her to theirs.
She was no longer a weak demoness hiding behind illusionary entrapments. She now had the strength to rip apart her enemies. Unfortunately, just as in her own world, this universe detests a void. Therefore, weakness was introduced to balance the immense power. Though there was little mana in this world, there was an abundance of faith energy which was bane to vestiges of necromantic power within the Vampires. Thankfully, without abundant mana no god could spawn from the accumulated energy. It still shocked her that so many humans were faithful despite no god actually existing. After a brutal battle between the local religion and her master, he fell to their blade. The cowards couldn’t even face him on the battlefield, an assassin with a blessed blade pierced his heart while he slept. His hubris left him without guards.
Undaunted by this death, she tracked his soul from incarnation to incarnation across the world. Each time she got close her dear master died from his fragile mortal shell. Now it was the 21st century and she would ensure his survival even if she had to tape him to her back. His current incarnation was a 26-year-old man who lives in a small apartment in Nashville. The once proud ruler of men and monsters is now working in a factory making bits and bobs of machinery. She did not know this one’s name yet, but she would observe and wait for the right time to confront him. She once made the mistake of announcing herself to her lord when he was a 65-year-old police officer and he panicked and attacked her before passing from a heart attack before she could awaken her lord’s slumbering soul.
She sighed as she watched him walk home after a late shift. He was grumbling to himself, likely in distaste at the rain based on the way he glared at the sky. She couldn’t wait until she could meet her lord again. She regretted the deep breath she took, this damn world reeked of humanity and pollutants. It was bearable 300 years ago, but now the air was so choked up with contamination she could barely breathe. Later, she would blame this very pollution on how she missed the large man that ambushed her master.
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~Victor~
I was not having a good day. Shit, let's be honest, I was having a terrible week. My nerves were already shot from feeling like someone was watching me the past few days. Then I lost my Saturday to mandatory overtime at the factory where I worked in Nashville. Of course it had to happen the weekend where the new game came out. To make matters worse, they scheduled me for the night shift. This meant a good chunk of my Sunday would be lost to sleep.
Finally, good old mother nature decided I didn't suffer enough and plopped a storm right on my head. "Light chance of rain, my ass," I cursed at the weather app on my phone. I directed my curses to the sky when a blinding flash of lightning lit up the sky. However, it was uncaring to the displeasure of my puny self.
I wiped at my waterlogged face as another flash of lighting lit up the dark street. The reason I had to suffer the elements was because I had to sell my poor car to pay for my deadbeat brother's funeral. I may have disowned the rat bastard, but I couldn't dishonor my mother’s memory by letting my brother not have a plot next to her and dad.
Lost in thoughts and deafened by the pelting rain, I didn’t hear the footsteps behind me. Nor did I sense the large man stalking me until a ham sized hand shoved me into an alley, a dumpster softened my fall, barely. Silver linings I supposed. I groaned on the ground, dazed at being ripped from my inner monologue. An absolute unit of a man wearing a balaclava and a thick coat loomed over me.
“What the fu-”, my expletive was interrupted by a sharp kick to the ribs. The question, while reasonable, was cut off by the forced evacuation of my lungs.
Gasping, I glared at the big lug as he sneered at me, “To answer your question, consequences, is what the fuck is going on. You see Victor, Rico doesn’t appreciate being ignored, especially when a promise is broken.”
Ah, so this ass-hat was Rico’s goon. My breath recovered; I got up only to be pushed back down. I decided to compromise by laying on my knees. For him, it was a humiliating and subservient position. For me, it allowed me to slyly shift my weight so I could spring into action at a moment's notice. “I told Rico I’ve got nothing to do with him. His beef is with Christian and since he died, he took his debt with him. Maybe Rico would get his money if he didn't get his debt slaves killed.”
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My brother, Christian Gale, was a bright kid just a few years older than me. He was at the top of his class and was on track to graduate high school as valedictorian. Unfortunately, he was extremely awkward and didn’t have many friends. Things went downhill in his junior year when he befriended Marcus Alvarez , a local thug whose father was the leader of a local small-time gang. Chris was manipulated into spending tons of money to impress his new “friends” only to end up with a gambling problem and a debt to Marcus’s father Rico.
Years of my brother's life going down the drain culminated in Chris being shot and killed by police in a botched gas station robbery in an attempt to pay off Rico a few weeks ago. Not even a day later had Rico and his sneering twat of a son darkened my porch with a bill of Christian's remaining debt. I slammed the door on his face. The only ray of sun on this shit show was that our parents weren’t alive to have their hearts broken. We lost our dad in Iraq while we were in middle school and our mother died from a stroke when I was 21.
My reminiscing was cut off with a sharp pain in my jaw. The goon cocked his leg for another blow to my ribs, and I used the skills I gained in my martial arts training. See, I had some decent experience in Judo and Krav Maga. I started the training due to a desire to join the army like my father, but with maturity came the realization that I couldn’t do that to my mother. She lost our father to a war and I knew she would have worried herself to an earlier grave had I deployed. It turned out to be a good decision. Had I enlisted, I likely would have been overseas instead of at her side when she died.
However, I kept my martial arts training as a fun way to keep fit. I wasn't about to be winning any championships, but to a thug who’s only way of winning fights was his ugly mug or with a finger on a trigger, I could hold my own.
I shifted enough for the incoming kick to fly by and unbalance the gangster, I hooked his leg over my left shoulder and grinned evilly as my right hand grasped two ‘roid shrunken orbs and wrenched hard. A shockingly high-pitched squeal came from the large man who lashed out in panic and landed a lucky backhand on my chin, rattling my brain.
Good god, those catcher mitts he calls hands felt like a bat to the face with just a glancing blow. Both of us were now stunned on the ground, but the goon recovered first and shakily got to his feet, a 9mm pulled from his jacket. “That was a mistake you fucking bitch. The nuts? What kind of pussy are you.”
Still a bit dazed, I drunkenly replied, “Is that what those were? They were so small I barely noticed." If I'm going out, I'm going out on a zinger.
“Alright, Rico said you’d be like this. He told me to give you a chance after giving you some… persuading. I said we should just be done with you. Either way, he ain’t gonna get the money, but nooo, 'he just needs some perspective.' ” The thug raised his pistol at me. "How's this perspective working for you?" Not good. I'm going to die at the hands of a guy with shitty one liners.
However, if he thought I'd go out without a fight, the dumbass had another thing coming. I found a shard of glass, likely from a broken bottle. Hiding it by cradling my ribs, I rushed the thug and stabbed out with the shard, wincing as the shard cut into my hand. Shit, how long ago was my last tetanus shot?
The shard bit deep into the thug’s stomach and with a sharp CRACK the gun went off and I felt an impact in my chest. I didn’t know what it felt like to be shot. It surprised me that it hurt less than the thug’s kick, less impact too. I chuckled as it reminded me of getting slug bugged my my brother when we were young. Blood began to ooze from the entry wound. I stumbled backwards, the adrenaline keeping the agony at bay. As I slid my back down the dumpster, leaving a trail of blood, I looked at the cursing thug. 'Twas but a flesh wound, damn it. He’d live, but I hoped he’d at least get an infection.
I still had the shard clasped tightly in my bleeding hand. The bastard slammed his foot down and I cried out. I didn't know which was worse: not knowing if the crackling crunch was the glass breaking or my hand, or the awful sensation of shattered glass grinding against my bones. Thankfully, the streaming rainwater would mask the indignity of the tears flowing down my face. The scent of rain and ozone doing little to mask the sour scent of blood mixing with rotting garbage.
Lightning flashed once again revealing not only the sneering face of the thug, but also the silhouette of a woman standing at the entrance. I doubt this was the type of guy to want witnesses. I silently urged her to run, not daring to alert the gangster to her presence.
Unfortunately, she didn't get the memo and started walking towards us. Seriously? Did this lady have zero survival instincts? It was too dark to be sure, but she seemed really pretty. Not sure what she intended to do, but if that was her attempt to sneak up on the thug, it failed when he noticed her footsteps echoing in the alleyway. He turned around and growled.
The goon shouted at the girl, “The hell you looking at? Fuck off lady, this ain't your business!” She ignored him, her oddly red eyes locked onto mine. She had to be wearing colored contacts or my condition was worse than I thought and I was hallucinating. Likely the latter as I took a breath only to cough up blood. Yep, definitely a hole in my lung. That's not good. Wait, is that part of my lung?
The woman was damn captivating, though. Shame she'd be following me in death. She had long red hair with the left side of her scalp shaved short. She had enticing hips despite her short and slim frame. A long black raincoat hid most of the details of her body. She seemed to be muttering something as she stared at me, though I couldn’t make it out over the ringing in my ears. Turns out being next to a gunshot without ear protection isn't great for your hearing. Who knew?
The big bastard seemed to be done with today, between the deep wound in his side and the woman ignoring him. “Bitch, you deaf? I told you to FU-”, he was cut off as the woman, faster than a human could possibly move, blurred in front of him and lifted the man by the throat above her head. This was impressive as he was a good foot and half taller than her.
His eyes bugged out in shock and pain and the gun clattered to the ground as he scrambled at the slender hands clenching his throat. Thankfully it was some type of Glock, so it didn’t discharge. With how today had gone, the damn gun would have gone off and hit me again.
Through bloody teeth I grit out, "Damn lady, what do you bench, a Chevy?"
The woman glanced back at me with amusement and concern warring in her eyes. She snarled at the nameless thug, “You hurt my master, worm. If I had time, you would suffer the slowest death, but I REFUSE to lose him again.” Without another word, she clenched her fist and ripped out so much of the man’s throat that his head dangled down his back only supported by his spine and some gristle. Oh yeah, I'm having some spooky ass hallucinations.
She returned her focus to me and smiled sadly, “I apologize, my lord. I had wanted to ease you into this, but that dumbass forced my hand.” she brought her extremely sharp fingernail to her wrist and sliced quickly causing blood to fleck my face. Gross. “Now, sire, please drink. It's the only way for you to live. I must awaken your slumbering soul before you die again.”
Okay, this woman was nuts. I needed a hospital, not some mistaken attempt at a blood transfusion. I attempted to tell her such but all that came out was a rattling cough that flecked bloody freckles on her porcelain face.
She sighed in frustration and thrust her bleeding wrist on my mouth. With her other hand she clamped my nose shut. I struggled for a moment, but her grasp was that of steel. The fuck, woman? With no choice but to drink or suffocate, the salty and metallic ichor drained down my throat.
The woman took her arm back and fell to the ground in front of me with a dazed grin and a light flush on her face. She opened her mouth to say something, but a flashlight lit up the alley and a man’s voice called out, “Hey what’s going on here? We heard a gun- what the fuck?” A pair of police officers were at the entryway, and they were looking between Nearly-Headless Dick on the ground, the blood drenched woman, and the GSW victim that looked on the verge of death.
There was a beat of silence and many things happened at once. The officers pulled their weapons and began shouting commands, a deep thud like a heartbeat on stadium sized speakers rang out from my chest and a burst of energy swelled from within me. With it came an intense heat that infused every atom of my body. My muscles seized so hard I felt and heard my bones snap. My teeth were on fire and every sense was dialed to 100.
The last thing I saw was a strange distortion that warped the air like a heat mirage as that energy spread out from me. Then the pain was too much and my vision went black. Unbeknownst to me, the anomaly diffused throughout Nashville and beyond covering the world until it came in contact with a small, invisible scar on the fabric of reality. A simmering weakness on the barrier between two worlds where, if Asha had witnessed this spot, she would have recognized this as the place where she emerged onto Earth.
To others, it was some random place in the Middle East between Israel and Egypt. Of course, my dying ass had no clue of this and when the energy wave impacted that spot mere seconds after being released from me, there was a prismatic flash that encased the world and the sky turned into a shimmering mix between the aurora borealis and black and blue colors of a photo-negative image. Night turned to day and the earth shook. Then every single living entity on earth blacked out before even the quickest could take out their phones to record the strange phenomena.