Voided (Blackguard)

Gravvy rose from the spatially unstuck Isle of Fortune. Her connection the Void made this a difficult, but not impossible prospect. Somehow, she felt that the battery that kept her fed and stable was weaker after the attempt. She felt her alter ego, the Great Devourer edge its way back to her consciousness.

She felt it’s cold intellect grasp her mind, but she pushed it down for now. It wasn’t the time for a feast.

She landed in the UK, in a small Welsh village. She saw many tasty treats, a woman praying for a husband at battle, minions that smelled of another dimension and fear, it was when she saw the television in the woman’s home that she found focus again.

“We’re getting reports that the woman by the side of the Nightmare King is in fact English billionaire Katrina Russel who went missing a few days before the attack, attempts to contact Olympus for comment have met with failure.” The reporter stated blandly. ‘Mom?’ Gravvy thought, ‘If anyone knew how to fix my battery, it’s mom.’ Gravvy was definitely going to have to save her.

But how? Jack had that gross energy stuff that hurt her more than normal. She’d need backup… what was that number Mom gave her in case of emergencies?

She took the woman’s cell phone by force, texting the Blackguard private line “Mom in Vegas, kidnapped by scary pie man. Going to eat him. Need help.” Due to her haste, she chose to make her message short and clipped with only a couple emojis in strategic positions to emphasize her words.

She blasted off towards Las Vegas, leaving the woman’s home empty of all its contents and occupants.

Miguel just wanted to enjoy Vegas.

Debauchery, gambling and everything else included in that. Despite that he found himself  dealing with the random bullshit the universe was willing to throw his way. Here he was, in the middle of  some slots and so close to getting a jackpot. Then comes this vision of a pumpkin rising from a tower like a goddamn Lovecraft thing. That was how he found himself, fingers clenched and ripping through the delicate machinery of the slot machine. Miguel cursed when he saw it. ”Fuck, not my problem,” He muttered, speed walking away from the scene of the crime and around people waking from the same vision.

Luckily he didn’t dress up too much. Just dark blue shorts and a button up shirt that showed off the various tattoos on his arms and chest, some of them meaningless and others ancient nordic runes which had some magic in them. Spells he could pull out if he really needed them, not that they were any better than just punching something so hard it fell down. As he stepped from the casino he looked up, seeing dark shapes and figures forming from seemingly nowhere. Spiders with bodies like tanks, sharp hairs that rent people he set upon them, dragons setting flame to the city and even masked men with machetes slicing down those who couldn’t escape.

”What the hell!” He muttered, eyes wide in subtle disbelief.  The champions blade appeared into his hand, quickly shifting like liquid into a long spear and threw it. Slamming into the thorax of a spider as it reached for someone, quickly propelling himself through the air and slamming into the massive bladed back. Pulling what he could from the back of the smashed spider, some were alive though he had the feeling not all of them would be able to walk away. ”I think I have a healing rune somewhere around here,” He spoke the name, Ansuz as a cyan mist emanated from him, spreading out across the people with their shredded flesh and maybe broken bones.

The painful injuries knitted and righted themselves. Moans and whimpers giving away to shocked gasps as he heard the sound of gunshots in the distance, demonic things moving around the city and unloading bullets into what they could. ”Find some cover! The casino might have something like that,” Whipping around, he felt the spear return to his hand and then slammed it into a large, demonic looking raven in the neck and pinning it to the ground. He was pretty sure he saw the boss lady in that vision.

Shit, that meant he was gonna have to fight with them anyway. ”My luck is just shitty I guess,”

Victor paused for a moment, his knife held to the throat of the man he had been stalking for several days, as his phone buzzed in his pocket.

"Always when I'm working," he muttered, as he gave the knife a quick jerk.

The man let out a gurgle, and then fell silent. Victor let him drop to the ground and took a moment to wipe his blade clean, before it vanished under his coat. He pulled his phone free from a pocket and read through the message on it.

"Lucky me," he stated, as he pocketed the phone and stepped out of the alley in downtown Vegas. He was just in time to run into figures rising from the shadows everywhere. From under his coat came a pair of twin pistols, which he began to fire at the figures that charged him.

The bullets spun through the air and hit the figures, which dropped. Moving quickly, Victor stepped over the vaguely-human shaped figures, moving towards his car. One of the pistols vanished under his coat again, as the drivers-side door opened. He climbed into the seat, turned the car on, and took off down the road, the car roaring. With one hand, Victor pulled his phone free again and pressed a series of buttons, opening a conference call with the Blackguard.

"Anyone know where in Vegas she's at?" he asked, once the call had been answered. There were several loud THUMPS as the car ran into massive spiders and undead rushing through the streets, crushing them under the steel of the car.

Today had started out a semi-normal day for Blackgaurd auxiliary employees, just giving a tour of facilities to a new member. She was a bit of an airhead and never seemed focused on anything in particular, however, whatever Katrina thought was Blackgaurd material was none of their business. All their job was was to attend to the needs of the heroes and apparently today it was this weirdo named Rai. Just as the tour seemed to come to a close an alert is sent out to the nearest phone outside of the 10 foot range of Rai to deploy literally everyone to Vegas….

The foolish woman didn’t even know where Vegas was.

So here they were, armored agents in a black van swerving down the chaotic streets and the back of the van grows restless. Why would whatever the hell this thing was not calm down, she was fine when they got her in the van but as soon as the demon-infested skyline came into view she was becoming so restless she threatened to knock a hole in the wall. “This has to be the only addition I’ve ever fuckin doubted.” The driver groans as he glances in the mirror only to see some big horrible creature tearing up the pavement after them.

“Fuck.”

His massenger scrolls away on an ipad, frantically searching for a new file on their cargo before suddenly bursting out laughing.

“What!? You think this shit is funny!”

“Pop the back.”

“...”

“She fights demons, just do it!” The goon repeats, shoving the ipad in his face to further emphasize his point.


“Fine, fine! I don’t get paid enough for this shit.”

From the back of the now open van comes barreling forth the hellish horseman, scythes poised as she slashes through the pursuing demon like butter. Grimmorah’s hellish squeal announcing his thirst for a fight. She stops to survey the ugly carnage, now free to wreak havoc upon all that is unholy.

She rears her horse in challenge to creatures down the main stretch of Vegas as Grimmorah bounds forward into the fray, leaving a river of demon blood in her wake as she barrels toward a swarm of demonic spiders with a car barreling through them.

From the coms echoes “Special delivery. Hope she finds ya!” The grossly underpaid auxiliary staff announces as they decide this was not the optimal place to be.

As the city of Las Vegas fell to chaos, Gravvy descended. Her white suit, similar to that of an astronaut, kept her from destroying pavement as she landed. She saw the lights of the city, the neon swirled around her. It was… gorgeous. The destruction, the entropy… the snuffing of the light. She smiled, child-like.

Then she heard her phone, over the din of beautiful destruction. "Anyone know where in Vegas she's at?" Gravvy was confused momentarily. ”I’m right here!” Gravvy said, cheerfully. Before her entire body shuddered, and made a noise not unakin to a minor earthquake as hunger pangs hit her. She grabbed her midsection out of instinct, something mom had taught her.

”We need to find mom, fast. I’m gonna starve…” Her voice suddenly fell cold, distant. Far older and intelligent. ”And this city couldn’t possibly satisfy me.”

She flew into the air, scanning the area for anyone she could meet up with… that’s when she saw her, the new girl. She’d make a great partner! Her reckless abandon against all things unholy meant that Gravvy could let loose and she wouldn’t complain even a little so long as demons were involved.

She landed near Rai, as the van drove away and before she could properly introduce herself, a centipede the size of a VW bus tried to eat them both. Gravvy unslung her hammer off her back, and with an earth shattering swing, splattered the bug all over Rai and Gravvy.

”Hi! I’m Gravvy! Do you know where mom is?”

With the civilians out of the way he could get to work seeing what the problem was. With a deep breath taken in he stepped over the feathered corpse of the twisted demonic raven.  ”What the hell is going on anyway?” He had gotten something about a scary pie man kidnapping a mom, though it was on the Blackguard frequency which meant it was important.  His shoulders sagged slightly,  eyes scanning the horizon with smoke rising from the many fires set on the street below. Was something causing these fires? Obviously, but he didn’t know what was doing that? Looters and rioters? Possible but everyone was running around, screaming as those creatures attacked them. Didn’t make as much sense to do any of the rioting and looting, not now. Afterwards maybe but not right now.

First he took off in a run, dashing down the debris littered streets of Vegas with the flickering and sparking lights of neon signs backlighting it all.  Running, especially this fast was just more convenient than driving around the city. The turns he could take were much tighter, capable of avoiding things a car would just crash right into. Some people considered him for a moment, possibly one of the many monsters that were roaming the city but he didn’t turn his eyes towards anything human.  They were by far nothing he was interested in, instead what he wanted was to take part in a fight against all these monsters. Kill every single one of them, until the city was no longer besieged by whatever they were.

He was pretty sure there were zombies. Didn’t the zombie craze die out like ten years ago? He wondered this to himself as he leapt into the air, speed breaching around 50 mph as he slammed into the approximation of a zombie. Reducing what felt like flesh and bone into a mulch across the pavement, followed by a few wide swings of his fists that quickly removed limbs and heads from a few of the zombies around him. They seemed to be attacking some people, who picked up the pace with their slow legs once he began smashing them.

Taking the spear he formed and whipping it around, slamming through more nightmare skulls and turning the scene even more into a gorey mess. ”Hope this isn’t the infectious type of zombie. Pretty sure that’ll be some kind of zombie plague on us,” He growled,  smashing more and more, not really thinking about anything else. Just the fetid scent of rotting flesh being smashed apart like a pumpkin. It felt glorious.

He didn’t even see the dragon.

Not until it had scooped him up in its mouth, and took flight. The teeth dug into his flesh, not enough to draw blood but it hurt like hell. ”ow fuck!” Miguel shouted, feeling the wind whipping through his hair, eyes tightening from the wind lashing against his eyes before peeking to see what had picked him up. Dark colored scales were what he saw, alongside massive fangs that he was sure could rip through human flesh and the blood which was slowly beginning to be drawn from his own skin.

”Shit,” He grumbled, slamming the but of his spear with all the force he could draw upon, cracking off scales from the dragons face and eliciting a screech from it.  So he gave a few more hard slams as blood spilled from the points of impact. The dragon shook its head, hurling him through the air and smashing through the roof of a building, further crashing into the street below.  It stung a little, though nowhere bad enough to actually hurt.

He leapt to his feet, seeing the dragon barrel through the remnants of the building with licks of flame issuing from its mouth. All he could do was shift the spear into a shield before the massive, hot gouts of flame issued from the things mouth. The heat was...probably the worse he had felt before, scorching some hairs from his arm and the scent was strong. That was followed by the weight of the dragon hitting his shield, forcing him back against the concrete as he bucked against the combined weight of the dragon and its strength. There was a pain that exploded from his skull, dragon snapping at his shield with those same powerful jaws.

Without thinking the shield came around, smacking the same descaled spot.  This was enough to force it back, fangs scraping away at the hyper durable metal though leaving not even a scratch.  The dragon reeled back, an earsplitting roar issuing outwards, the sound of glass shattering in the distance.  His ears hurt for a second, followed by something dribbling from them. Did it burst his damn eardrums? With teeth ground together, a swiftly raised the shield to block a lashing tail which only caused him to slide along the ground a couple feet as his strength rose to match the force that had come to bear.

”I am going to fucking kill you,” The sound was muted to himself as he rushed towards the massive dragon, breaking into a shoulder tackle using the shield as extra leverage to slam the thing through the rubble fo the building and into the side of another one.  He didn’t hear any sounds beyond the faintest rumbling and shattering of masonry, as glass showered over him, tinkling uselessly against him. It thrashed around as it was slammed further and further into the building, through what looked to be some kind of office as it was shoved with greater and greater strength. He wasn’t aware of that fact, instead letting the rage propel him forward and the destruction mount.

That being until it flapped its wings to release a surprisingly powerful gust of wind that began to twist into a spiraling winds that lifted him before throwing him through one of the many casinos in the area. A massive, gaudy thing with crystal exterior that only managed to produce even more shards that showered down on the interior. He pulled himself from the ruins of a roulette wheel, seeing the various chips fall away from his form as they to him soundlessly clinked onto the ground.

The dragon was already chasing, slamming a powerful clawed foot onto him, knocking the breath out of him and shattering the floor beneath him as it destroyed the entirely floor beneath the two of them.  How much solid concrete could this damn thing punch through? He didn’t know but it did hurt like hell, flaming veins of what looked to be magic pulsed along the things throat as even hotter fire pulsed throughout what looked to be a boiler room. That was followed by a powerful explosion, something that threw him back upwards as he flew through the air and onto the street. The sound was loud despite the muted nature of his eardrums being what he assumed was burst.

His clothes seemed fine, though that mostly came down to a special little rune he had been taught that mostly kept clothes from being destroyed. He didn’t have the patience to go clothing shopping every time he was caught in a fight. Luckily, this wasn’t the casino he had sent the people into, otherwise that would have made things awkward. Despite that a massive explosion had rung out, causing a large portion of the street to begin to collapse. ”Serves you right, fucking dream dragon!” He shouted, before turning and walking away with the slightest limp.

It would have been a victory. If not for the massive clawed hand breaking up through the street and pulling him down. Slamming the god of war around, against walls, ceilings and even the floor as each slam rattled his brains more and more. He barely managed to draw in a breath with each hit, until he produced a spear in his hand and slammed it into the hand holding him, causing it to release him. He flew through the sewer, fetid water splashing all around him and shattering the concrete floor below.  Without even thinking his body leapt up, dashing forward as he felt even greater strength rising within. Barreling through the water with all the speed available, he was soon under the things head, propelling himself like a missile into a headbutt that slammed into the dragons jaw. Frazzling its brains, this gave him enough time to uppercut the creature and sending it hurtling through the thick streets into the air.

He had hit it hard enough to send the thing flying. Without thinking he formed a long chain with a wicked sharp hook at the thing, throwing it after the dragon until it latched onto a spot where the scales were broken.  Then rooting himself, he jerked, slaming the dragon through another building, sending out rippling cracks throughout the block.  This devastating blow was enough to force most of the block to collapse under the sheer strain of the fight as more and more buildings sagged into the rapidly growing sinkhole. That had become the block he ran into. Fair enough away from the casino he had ferried people, though he was in too much of a frenzy to really think of that.

Instead he leapt from seemingly a massive hole in the streets and with a snap of his finger various swords, axes, and spears appeared into the air.  The dragon weakly rose from the sinkhole, nostrils flaring with fire as he unleashed the rain of weapons into it. Axes hacking into its neck, hammers bashing away scales to allow the swords and spears that were now cutting into it. Token efforts were made to break free from the rain of death, wings hacked away and eventually even the head was freed from the bleeding stump of a neck as it collapsed. Without even thinking about it, he began to laugh a loud and booming sound that rose upwards towards the heavens despite his inability to hear he was laughing.

”See that fuckers?! I killed a fucking dragon! All yall nightmare bitches aint shit!” What civilians were close enough had only seen a mandman slamming a dragon around, smashing multiple different nightmares under the body of the dragon. He was splattered with gore and viscera, nightmarish colored spattering that dripped down even his forehead, some of it sticking to his forehead.  ”I can’t hear people tell me how great I am,” He frowned, drawing upon the Ansuz rune to fix the lack of hearing. Looking around to see people skittering away from him when he noted them, frowning even harder.

”Fuck you guys. I did something great!” With a huff he walked away from Vegas’ new crater, brushing away a bit of dust and pulling a few strands of gore from his hair as he looked around. Would Blackguard be here? Well if they were they would know he made this kind of mess, and it was glorious.

Victor stomped on the brakes as a horse leapt from the back of one of the Blackguards vans, with a rider wielding a scythe, and cutting down creatures. Victor stepped out of the car and turned to fire his twin pistols at more of the demonic-looking spiders and undead that were swarming towards them. Just as he turned back to say something to the newcomer, Gravvy fell from the sky, splattering a giant centipede everywhere. The cyborg sighed softly, and slid both pistols under his coat.

"Shit," he muttered to himself. He made as if to step around the car when, again, he was stopped, this time by the sight of a massive dragon falling through the skies of Vegas and slamming into the ground. Victor ducked down behind his car as the shockwave rippled over him.

"Fucking dragons?! I don't get paid enough for this shit," he yelled, before he dashed around to the trunk of the car. He popped the trunk and reached in. As he did, a second dragon, smaller than the first, but still large enough to cause problems, flew by, screaming.

With a grunt, Victor pulled a tube from the back of his car, stepped back a few paces, lifted the tube to his shoulder, looked through a scope attached to the tube, and depressed a trigger. With a TWHUMP, a blast of smoke and fire shot from the tube, and a missile flew out, heading straight for the dragon. With a muffled WHUMP, the missile hit the dragon, and then exploded, blowing the dragon apart at the neck, and raining bits down on the street below.

"BLACKGUARD, let's get our shit together!" shouted Victor, as he dropped the depleted missile launcher to the ground and pulled another gun from the trunk of the car. "We've got work to do!"

Boy was this something different than Rai was used to. Nevermind the usual carnage and destruction, that was actually semblance of normalcy for the reaver, rather the disarray of people fighting into was the odd bit. No whitecloaks to make the war commands and no fledglings for her to keep tight in formation in hopes some of them live to see another fight. This was just unbridled chaos and she had no idea who was with her and who wasn't, but she supposed it would just be whoever was killing monsters.

Speaking of, she was splattered with the usual spray of whatever unspeakables that come with this line of work as a girl with a big ass hammer fell from the sky and smashed some insect into smithereens. “Hi Gravvy. Are you with Katrina?” She asks, still not fully familiarized with her new role or the people she was supposed to be associated with, Katrina called it Olympus if she remembered correctly, but right now she found it hard to focus. Her blood rising with rage as the atmosphere gets to her. Rai urges Grimmorah back as the concrete splinters, a man driving a massive beast face first into the ground without prejudice had her tilting her head in confusion and minor bemusement.

These were definitely her people.

“Great it was.” She affirms as she locks onto another target, the sky filled with all manner of bad things one dragon getting blasted from the sky with some form of explosive but another odd creature looking like a mix between a lizard and a bat swoops in from around a corner. With a squeeze of her heels she pulls Grimmorah back, whirling him around to follow its path at a light trot then a full gallop as it speeds up. It was making another pass, possibly to come back and fight, but not if she had anything to say about it. Following its bank, Rai hops up, one foot set upon the cantel of her saddle and the other in her seat, perched to a low crouch as Grimmora continues his dead sprint, focusing down the giant bat. Rai lifts her bow from it’s place and knocks a glowing grim arrow. Just as it turns, her new friends in its sights an arrow looses, jamming itself under it’s jaw and lead pulling taught. Rai effectively clotheslined it, sending it crashing face first into the dirt as Grimmorah stops abruptly, even throwing into reverse, hooves scraping against the ground as he pulls against the beast now tethered to his saddle. Rai was on it in an instant, dashing from saddle to this thing’s back and sending sharp blades resonating down it’d the back of it’s head in an awfully clean kill.

“What is the plan then?” She asks undead eyes venturing to Victor for further elaboration. If it was just defending, that she could do. She never really got briefed, so as far as she knew it was to minimize death and destruction to the best of her ability.