She opened her eyes, unfamiliar with the sensations she's receiving. Above her the twin moons shone brightly at opposite ends of the night sky and… wait, twin moons?
Suddenly, her mind burns as new memories flood in, memories of a man she doesn't know, who was killed at a wedding in a place very unlike this one.
"My head." she croaks as she forces herself to sit up, despite the protests of her broken body. She is lying naked in the snow, the scraps and tatters of what had once been her clothing lay all around her. Her She is covered in bite marks, dried blood and other fluids coating her wounded form as she also recounts what happened to her body.
Two lives rage within her mind, fighting for control over her psyche, and right now the only thing she's sure of is that she's very tired and in a lot of pain. She rises up on shaky legs, wrapping herself in the rags of the cloak she was laying atop, and then she stumbles away. The throbbing of her head and body is intense, blurring the line between what is real and what is dream, the part of her mind that is focused on survival knows that what she needs right now is somewhere safe to rest. She pushed through the pain, drawing from her imaginary experiences as a soldier fighting on enemy territory, and also drawing on the equally fictitious memories of living on the street, with shelter not far from where she is.
She forces herself to remain conscious and she makes her limbs to move through the pain as she treks through the snow, completely unaware of what is happening to her from within. The mutation that has already begun to change her fate.
Hours later, she finally regains consciousness. She is in a small shed that she vaguely remembers stumbling into. She feels less tired, less in pain, and tries to process what happened previously.
"I was raped?" she surmised as she recounts the recent experience that her body suffered. But she also remembers that she was murdered at a wedding. There are two lives worth of memory in her head, two lives that met a violent and horrible fate, and she remembers all of it.
She feels different now, the combined memories from both these lives are in her mind, she feels connected to both of them, yet disconnected from them at the same time. She is someone different… something new.
"This must be the shelter I remembered," she surmised. She looks at the broken mirror at the side and take the moment to take in her reflection.
In the mirror she sees that she has chalk pale skin with freckles sprinkled across her nose, her fiery red hair was up to her shoulders, wild and unkempt, what caused her the briefest pause was her eyes, they were unnaturally blue, almost glowing sapphires, and the sclera around them, which should've been white, were now pitch black. Her teeth also felt weird, her canines have seemingly grown stronger and more pronounced within her mouth. Looking down at her body, she found she was small and thin, barely over 5 feet, she was still filthy, covered in dried blood and other fluids from her rape, but her wounds didn't seem as bad as she thought, they were already healing even. As she continued to inspect her body, she noticed a blood red symbol on her back, contrasting against her complexion and made of shifting patterns.
"What am I?" she asks as she inspects herself.
She takes a breath, she has two lives in her and both are fighting for dominance. They both make up her existence now and she needs to establish her own identity before either of them try to overwhelms her. She sits back down on the mat she used for a bed and began to meditate. She didn't even know she knew how to meditate until she recalled it from the memories of the old man whose soul she now possessed. As she did that, she reviewed the two lives that made up her being. The soul used to belong to an old soldier who then became the head of a fairly successful family business, he had built the family into a great empire, but was killed because of some upstarts. From this life, she acquired the knowledge of intimidation, business and strategy, several forms of armed and unarmed combat, and leadership. This body used to belong to a street urchin, she ran away from her abusive family years ago and was actually older than she looked, she found various ways to survive from stealing to street performances, she even learnt how to be a mechanic by working at a garage for a few years, she was resourceful. She had dreams of leaving this backwater planet and exploring what Hyperion Space had to offer.
Is that's where she was now? Hyperion space? A massive expanse of space the that spanned several whole galaxies, and was inhabited by several interstellar empires and dozens of alien races.
She had died when she got caught trying to pickpocket some rich entitled assholes who were walking through the town drunk. It had turned out that those rich assholes were actually vampires on vacation and they were easily able to track her down in an abandoned alley, where they decided to have some fun with her, they gang-raped her, before feasting on her blood and leaving her for dead, but she was just alive enough for their venom to do its work. She was now a newly-sired vampire, which explained her eyes and teeth. From this life, she learned how to survive on the streets, basic mechanics, several ways to make money and the history of this place she found herself in.
The injustice suffered in both lives burned deep in her mind. She knew she was no longer those people, but she could still avenge them.
"I don't know where this 'planet Earth' is located, so I can't yet hunt down these 'Maccianos'," She reasons to herself, "But I can get revenge on those vampires that raped this body,"
Formulating plans and setting goals for herself helped to solidify her own identity, but she was still missing something.
"What should I call myself now?" she mused, she wasn't either of the people who made her up anymore, and she couldn't in good confidence use their names, or at least her semblance of a moral code wouldn't let her. She needed a new name.
As she contemplated this, she looked around, there was a broken piece of a packaging with writing on one side. It looks insignificant, but she read what she could of the alien language,
"Nh-eey-ah? Nya?"
She considered it, it was good enough.
She then looked into her mirror again, practicing the name, and saw the strange markings on her back and its vibrant crimson color, the same color as her hair.
"Nya Crimson?" she mused then shrugged, it sounded good. Intimidating and awe-inspiring.
"My name is Nya Crimson; I have the lives of two people wrongfully murdered in me, and I will have vengeance."
* * *
Using her body's memories, she reviews what was known about the vampires of this place, which wasn't much. They were a race of long-lived predators, one of a dozen other genetically-deviant races that were classified as 'omen'. Omen were generally regarded as divergent to the other races of Hyperion, classified as 'fae'.
Vampires were basically superhuman, with greater strength, speed and reflexes, on top of having advanced regenerative and sensory abilities. They were infamous for their thirst for blood and propensity for overindulgence. They were pretty strong, and the vampires she was up against were superior to a beginner like her, at least physically, but if she applied her combined knowledge and skills, she could be able to outmatch them.
She spends the next several hours preparing, she knew she had time; those vampires were staying not too far from where they raped her, they had told her so. She first needed to understand how strong she was before she could learn to control that strength. Her experimentation with the limits to her vampiric physiology wasn't extensive, but it did prove informative, even in a limited capacity. One of the things she found out about herself was that newly turned vampires couldn't last long without sustenance, so she had to go out and hunt. Her first prey had been an alien cat –or what could be compared to a cat— the small stray creature was no match for her superior physiology. Once she had caught her prey she let her new-found instincts take over as she sank her fangs into it drained the blood from the small felines body. The addictive coppery taste of its blood lingered on her tongue after she was done, and she found that feeding had temporarily increased her capabilities, allowing her to finish healing from her earlier assault. She also discovered that vampires were indeed extremely photosensitive, almost aggressively so, brief contact to light from the alien sun caused her sever sunburn that took a while to heal, and it had also weakened her as well. Imagine what extended exposure would do to her?
After gaining a sense of her capabilities, she then proceeded to arm herself, crafting makeshift knives using sharpened scrap metal and cloth she was able to scrounge up.
Now armed and ready, she waited until sundown before she made her move, figuring that it would be when those vampires also became active. As she left her shack, she set it, and her past connection to it, on fire.
"No turning back now," Nya said as she ran up a wall with the quickness and nimbleness of a cat, "it's either kill or be killed." She determined
Using her enhanced senses, she picked up the scents of the vampires that attacked her rather easily. As it turned out, they were pretty active that night and had actually attacked another street girl, Nya had found her, lying in the snow, just barely clinging to life, like she had been not too long ago, and decided to put the poor girl out of her misery. Tasting human blood for the first time sent pure ecstasy coursing through her system, and the taste could not be compared to the cat she had fed on earlier. There was a slight bitterness in her blood, possibly from the vampire venom in her system, that should be trying to turn her. As Nya ingests it as well, she feels like she just took a hit of cocaine, becoming hyper aware of her surroundings.
Shortly after feeding, she finds the vampires as they are on their way home, the three of them were completely drunk and are laughing and shouting joyously, devoid of any guilt for the crimes they have done. Seeing them so jolly infuriates Nya, but she keeps to the shadows, observing them from a distance. She follows them all the way to their destination, a two-story guest house. When she observes no other people come or going from the house, and there seems to be no other person inside, she makes her move, breaking in through an upstairs window.
Inside, she can sense that they are all downstairs in the living-room. She is sneaking towards the stairs when one of them speaks loudly,
"We know you're there, you've been following us for a while now, why don't you come down now?" hearing this language for the first time, she notes how similar it seemed to English, but yet at the same time completely alien. She recognizes it as 'Neo Van'xi', the universal 'common' language spoken across Hyperion space.
So much for the element of surprise, she thinks, sighing inwardly, there is no point in sneaking around anymore.
She proceeded down the stairs to the large living room where the three of them are sitting around a sofa, looking up at her, expectantly.
"Who is she?" one of them asks, he had a shaved head. As she looks at them now, she notices that the three of them are rather good looking,
"She looks familiar," the second one commented, he had blond hair tied into a ponytail, "maybe she's one of those strippers?"
"Why are you here," the third asks her directly, he has short dark hair and sharp eyes
"You raped this body, and left it for dead in an alley" she said, "I thought some payback was in order."
"I remember you!" the blond ponytail exclaimed, "You're the bitch who tried to pick my pocket the other day. I was sure you were dead after we were done with you."
Her eyes glowed red, something she discovered happens when vampires became excited or agitated, she forces a smile on her face, exposing her fangs.
"Ha! Well, fuck me!" the dark haired one laughs, "You actually turned? That is hilarious! I was sure you wouldn't survive."
"The one from this night wasn't going to survive either, maybe we should wait for her to join us,"
"I finished her off for you," Nya retorted
"Shit, so you got a double dose of venom," the blond ponytail states, "you must be seriously tripping balls right about now."
"So… you found your way here, I'm guessing you felt the pull?" the bald one said, "Very well, who did the deed? Which one of us is your sire?"
Nya looked at them. Sire?
"Oh, you don't know, do you?" the blond ponytail said, "a vampires has influence over any lower vampire they sired, like you. And since you're doped up on our venom from the other bitch, the effect is heightened, so bow." He said, putting extra emphasis into the last two words.
Nya felt her body tense, as it instinctively tried to comply to her authority, but she still remained standing.
"Tough little bitch, aren't you?" He sighed, "It isn't me, Shame,"
"My turn," the bald vampire said as he smirked, "I'm gonna make you into my personal slut, strip for me." He ordered
Once again, she felt a pull on her body to submit, to comply with his demands, but she forced herself to remain in place.
"Damn, she's one stubborn bitch," the bald one hissed, "I guess she's yours then, sir," he says as he pat the dark haired one on the shoulder
"You came here after we left you for dead. That's some serious loyalty, girl. On your knees," he orders, looking right into her eyes
This time, she dropped to her knees, her body completely obeying his will.
"Ha, ha, look at that. I've got myself a thrall!" he boasts
His gloating over how he's going to make her a sex slave and how he's going to share her with all his friends infuriates her. She was once at the top of the food chain; she can't lose to bottom-feeders like these. Mustering all the will the both her past lives can give her, she rises to her feet.
"What do you think you're doing?" the dark haired vampire demands, "kneel."
She can still feel her body wanting to obey, but she is more than just her body and she stands her ground.
"What are you doing?" the vampires snarl, "I turned you, I own you."
"You wondered why I would come here after you left me for dead?" she asks, "You thought it was to swear loyalty? To you? Losers, drunks, and rapists? You are beneath me."
Her words enrage the three of them, but she continues,
"You may have turned my body, but you will never own me!" She declares as she runs the dark haired vampire. She pulled her knives from her pocket and jamming it into the side of his neck.
"Oh god, what the hell is she?" one of the others said in shock. "no lower has ever rebelled against their sire like that."
In one quick motion, she rips his throat open, his blood gushing our violently from the fatal wound all over her face. Covered in blood, her vampiric urges took over and she licks it, which spurs her to bite into his wound and suck him dry, the second she gulps down the vampire's blood, she feels a surge of power electrify her entire body, stronger than anything she's ever felt.
As her vision goes red, she sees the other two horrified vampires, stuck between the options of attacking her and running away.
She doesn't allow them the choice.
When she comes too, she is lying on a bloody sofa, completely naked. The three vampires are in pieces all over the room.
"What the hell happened?" she wonders as she looked around. The sofa she was lying on, as well as the rug underneath and... pretty much everywhere, are spattered with dried blood, it's a veritable crime scene. Curiously, though, her body is unsoiled, not even a smear of blood on her pale skin.
In the decorative mirror, she gets a good look at herself, she had changed slightly. She was slightly taller now, about 5"6', and her scrawny slender body has started filling out, with her breast and hips slightly fuller than she remembered. The most obvious change was that her hair seemed to have grown out, now reaching her mid back, and slightly obscuring the shifting patterns of the blood red markings on her back.
"What are you?" Nya asked it
The red markings shrank, forming a symbol on her back.
"A Prime Crest?" she said, somehow knowing instantly what it was even though none of her previous lives had ever seen it.
In response to this, the crest hisses in her mind, followed by a screeching in her head that left her with a headache and bits of information that she suddenly now knew.
"I activated my phantasm, my latent omen ability, and went into a blood frenzy." she recalls, "I killed my sire, and absorbed his essence, and did the same to the other two. My phantasm is called Blood Cultivator? Sounds cool, I guess." she replied. Instantly, the information about her phantasm and all its abilities were at her disposal.
Information was flowing into her subconscious mind, from somewhere beyond her comprehension, in rapid flashes of thoughts that too fast for her to process. Just when she felt like she would be overwhelmed, the information seamlessly organized itself and, in her mind's eye, now appeared a digital window;
[SUMMARY]
Name: Nya Crimson
Age: 19
Condition: wary
Titles: N/A
Classification: Omen
Species: True Vampire
Rank: N/A
Phantasm: Blood Cultivator (ability to assimilate attributes from the life matter of other beings.)
[Notice: You have been designated a 'Special Existence; REGIS' whose choices may shape the fate of the cosmos. More information will be available at a later point.]
She read the details on the window intently, she didn't know how, but she knew that this window was now part of a much grander network that she had access to.
As she contemplated on this, she realized something,
"Oh, I have fragments of memories and knowledge from the vampires I killed… it's not as substantial as the memories from my past lives."
The markings hissed again,
"Urgh," she grunted as she held her temples, her head was throbbing from all the activity going on in her mind, "My head is killing me. Why does it hurt so much? Goals? Well, I've killed the three vampires that raped this body, so she's been avenged. I know that there are other inhabited planets out there in Hyperion space, thousands of them, but I don't know whether any of them is Earth where I can find the Maccianos who wiped out the family of this soul."
The markings hissed some more.
"Regis? I saw that on the Status window but I don't know what that is." Nya said. Even with the information that was available through the Status, there was still so much she didn't know… but she was going to find out.
* * *
For the next few days, Nya was living in the guest house. The place was apparently designed for vampires; lost of open spaces, appropriate decor, and all the windows were screened with a sun filter that let light in, but reduced the intensity so it was safe to vampires. She needed a safe place to get re-acquainted with the changes to her body, which had become about twice as strong as before in the span of a night, and the previous occupants didn't have need for it anymore.
After going through the memory fragments, Nya had discovered that her sire was actually part of a vampire aristocracy who, along with two of his closes confidantes, had gone on a vacation. This briefly worried her, she didn't think she could take on an entire noble class of vampires, but she soon dismissed it, opting to focus on immediate concerns. Further snooping discovered that the vampires had been getting ready to leave. They had even booked passage off-world in advance. They weren't really using it anymore, so she would inherit it.
Another function of her phantasm she soon discovered was that she could also synthesize abilities from any omen whose blood she consumed; so she could now use her sire's phantasm to bend space. It was a moderately impressive ability, completely wasted on such an asshole, she would put it to much better use.
Experimenting with the limits of her newfound power allowed her to realize it true potential; not just bending space, but also the possibility of folding it to create pocket dimensions. An idea that proved possible when an alert went off inside her mind;
[ALERT; SPATIAL-DIMENSIONAL ANOMALY DETECTED! CONFIRMING THE CREATION OF AN ALTERNATE SPACE! YOU ARE NOW LINKED TO THIS SPACE!]
Nya had been trying to tidy up after her massacre, first she had mostly cleaned up the living room, though some of those stains refused to come out, and the white carpet was a complete write-off and would need to be destroyed. Then she went to work dismembering the bodies to make disposal easier, she had decided to leave them out in the yard, knowing that the constant exposure to sunlight would incinerate them for her. The only things she had kept were their heads, which she lined up on the coffee table like ornamental decorations
She had been growing bored as of late, it was only a few more days until the vampires were scheduled to leave the planet so she was just biding time. She sat down on the couch and started turned on what she concluded was a TV.
Suddenly a thought forced its way into her mind. "What is a Regis?" she wondered, it had popped up in the info dump she received and the voice in the dark place had said it to her right before she first woke up here.
"Regis? It's also connected to my prime crest,"
The crest hissed at her and information found itself in her subconscious.
"There are other Regis out there, I can almost feel them, and they can feel me. We're all connected… like a network."
From the days she's spent meditating and the information being forced into her head, Nya had discovered that Hyperion was always in a constant state of political flux.
Within Hyperion, aside from the great technological advancements that are expected from an interstellar community, the arcane also had a place among the stars through the practice of magecraft. Mana was a mysterious and esoteric energy that permeated through all creation, and tapping into the natural ley-lines of the mana stream granted access to near-unlimited power. Those who were mana-sensitive and could draw power from the mana stream were known as adepts and could wield awesome and terrible psionic abilities.
Territories all over Hyperion are constantly being fought over in search of origins, powerful ancient artifacts from a far superior race that existed billions of years ago; technology that harnessed primordial forces of the universe in ways that were beyond current understanding. Even dormant, origins were incredibly powerful and dangerous, and the only people who were capable of fully controlling the origins were individuals known as Regis.
There were currently about a dozen or so active Regis in this corner of the universe, each possessing an entity known as an Prime, a virtual consciousness that existed within their prime crests, that allowed them to interact with origins. The Regis and their Primes consider themselves to be the inheritors of the Io –the mythical beings who created the first origins t the dawn of creation—, entrusted with their legacy to dominate the universe, and thus the Regis are locked in an eternal shadow war against each other for supremacy.
Nya is the newest Regis to enter that war and take her place among the stars.
A noise from the TV drew her attention from the cosmic revelations that had just unfolded within her, and she turned back to the TV to find it displaying a particularly graphic sexual scene, she had subconsciously tuned to a pornographic channel.
Watching the scene greatly aroused her and she could feel her pussy tingle, this was the first time she had felt arousal this intense. "What's happening to me?" Nya demanded, "I shouldn't be this horny all of a sudden"
Her crest hissed into her mind
"Psychic feedback?" She asked, she then put it together, "Of course, those vampires had so much libido that it might as well been a dominant personality trait, when I assimilated them, it all got compounded with my own. I need to watch out for that in the future."
Following memory and experience on all she knew about female pleasure, she proceeded to masturbate to relieve the building sexual frustration.
"That was interesting," she panted as she came down from her climax. She briefly wondered how actual sex would feel like.
Her crest hissed at her,
"If I don't properly manage the blood I assimilate, who knows what could happen to me next time, I need to be careful."
Nya continued watching porn for the rest of the night, fascinated by how creative the performers could be, finding compatibility despite their physiological differences.