I found myself back in the dark place, but this time, I can feel my body floating in the infinite darkness.
{I saved your life not too long ago, and you're already back here?} came the unidentifiable voice
'I remember you, you're the one who put me into this mess,' I said. 'What happened now? Why am I here?'
{You don't know? You died.}
'What? Again?'
{Well… you're near dead. That body of yours is fighting to keep you alive.}
'That's another point of contention. Last time I was here I was an old man, why did you put me in the body of a little girl?'
{She was the best compatible host on such short notice. You should be grateful; you could do a lot worse.}
'Grateful? The girl was FUCKING raped!' I yelled angrily.
{A vacant body is a vacant body.} the voice said {It was the best I could do.}
'And who are you? You saved me; you made me a Regis; you set all this up. But why? What do you get out of it?'
{That doesn't concern you, what is concerning is you. You have an activated prime crest but something's wrong, you should've been registered by now.}
'I don't know how any of this is supposed to work,' I informed the voice
{I'm sure it'll work itself out.} the voice audibly shrugged, {Anyway, I see you killed a couple of higher vampires and took their power, well played. That was very entertaining.}
'I didn't do it for your amusement. I was getting revenge for this body.'
{Oh I know.} the voice said smugly, {Anyway, you're making steady progress so I can't complain, but I'd advise staying outside the notice of the other major players, at least until you've got a stronger stat base. I'd say you should establish yourself…}
'Fuck no! I'm not playing your games.' I said defiantly, 'I'm not some game piece you can just move at your leisure.'
{Not even if it means you can complete your little revenge quest?}
I hesitated, 'what do you mean?'
{It exists, y'know. The planet I pulled your soul from? It's somewhere out there in your universe.}
'Earth is here.'
{Is that what you call it?} the voice asked skeptical.
'Where is it?' I demanded, 'I can get revenge on the Maccianos.'
{Hold your horses there, slick.} the voice snickered, {That isn't how this works. This is my game; if you want something you have to play by my rules.}
'What do I have to do?' I growled,
{Nothing much, just keep doing what you're doing.} the voice said, obviously amused by my irritation, {In life, the things you want most can often be found along the way.}
'So as long as I keep on my current course, I'll find Earth?'
{It looks that way, doesn't it?} the voice chuckled,
'I really fucking hate you.' I snarled
{Now that hurts my feelings,} the voice fake sobbed, {and here I was going to give you some help. Well, let's see how you like doing things the hard way.}
* * *
Nya woke up lying on cushioned bench, she was naked, apart from the torn bikini bottom that she's wearing. Her body had healed, but she still felt drained, she had lost a lot of blood.
"Oh, you're awake?" a voice speaks.
She bolts to look at the source and sees Terror, sitting on a jump seat opposite her staring at her intently.
"What happened?" she asked holding her head
"You lost a lot of blood, and passed out, then I saw what was left of that agent you were fighting… yikes." He explains, "It was really horrific and weird, but I figured I owed you, so I got you out of there."
"I was dead?"
"Damn near, I had to pump you full of all the emergency stims in the first aid kit just to keep you breathing." Terror states,
"Thanks," Nya said, then she looked around, "Are we in an escape pod?"
"A voyager pod, for planet-side exploration and maneuvering through small spaces during tours." He explained, "We're in deep space right now, nearest habitable planet is…" he pauses to look at a screen, "…Dera Marxa."
"Never heard of it," she says getting up
"I like your tattoo," he comments, "never knew you could get ones that were alive like that."
"You want an explanation?" she asked
"That would be nice, yeah," he replies
She considers lying to him, but for some reason she doesn't want to risk losing his cooperation since he could prove to be useful. Plus, she couldn't come up with an appropriate cover story.
She sits there silent for a few minutes before sighing, "fine, but it's a pretty unbelievable story."
"I can believe a lot right now," he replies
She then proceeds to recount her life story, starting from the moment she woke up after the rape and murder of her body and concluding with why she decided to help him.
"My god, that is quite the tale" he asks after she's finished with her story
"After the attack, the old me died and in her place, I woke up. I'm a different person, a new identity with a new mission."
"And your phantasm isn't to bend space?"
"That's just something I picked up from one of the vampires I killed." She answered
"And your tattoo is a 'prime crest'?"
"Yes, it makes me a Regis… or it will if I can get it to work right." She says, "your story wasn't completely wrong,"
"Why didn't you tell me any of this earlier?" Terror demanded
"I wasn't going to tell my life story to a stranger I just met, no matter how charming he was."
"But I told you my story," he argues
"And I wasn't going to be that stupid," she said back, "right now our interests align, so I'm willing to work with you if you are."
"Really?"
"Of course, I'm up against some of the most powerful people in Hyperion space, I'll need all the help I can get."
He thought for a moment, then nodded, "Alright, I'll help."
"Just like that?" she asks skeptically
"Just like that," he says holding out his hand, "Partners?"
She looks at him, then shakes his hand, "Partners."
"So why did you throw up blood?" Terror asked
"I think that was a violent rejection to that lykan; I absorbed his vapor into my blood, but then he tried to reconstitute himself while he was still in me. I didn't expect that there'd be a phantasm that could reject mine."
"So you didn't get anything from him?"
"No, not all of him got away from me." Nya said, "while he was still in me I had begun breaking him down and had already assimilated some of him, but right now I'm in pretty bad shape, I'll need to meditate for a while to recover my strength."
"Right here? In a voyager pod in the middle of nowhere?" Terror says, "Don't you need a Zen place, like a garden or a temple or something?"
Nya chuckled, then assumed a lotus pose on the floor, "This'll do just fine, while I'm in my trance, don't disturb me, I don't know how I'll react." She warns as she closes her eyes.
"Uh, alright?" Terror says unsure of what she meant.
She steadied her breathing and let herself become detached as she began her cultivation. She could feel the pieces of lykan still left in her after the failed consumption, traces of vaporous flesh that circulated in her blood, and she started to break them down. Once they were broken down to their most basic form, she began assimilating them into her being, immediately feeling this burning sensation rage throughout her body. It was so painful at first that it almost pulled her from her trance, but she pushed through it, letting herself mutate and evolve even further. She knew that she would no longer be just a vampire, she could feel every cell in her body change as her very DNA was rewritten.
The assimilation expectedly took longer than before, since she was reprogramming her very being after all, but now she had to incorporate the new phantasm. The ability was molecular reconstitution, the lykan she fought could only turn himself vaporous, but she could see all the possibilities for this power. She could feel her blood emptying from her veins and flowing around her, she could feel it changing its structure, from ichor to another state and back. Each time her blood reconstituted itself felt different; some, she had no control over, some would've killed her if she let it continue, finally she settled on one that felt the most stable; a new form of energy, it felt like her blood was on fire… or more like her blood was fire. Internally she smiled, she was ready.
* * *
Back in the real world, Terror watched Nya as she meditated. She'd been in that same pose for days, not moving an inch, which was pretty unnerving on its own, then her body started to change, but when her blood flowed out of her and hung in the air, it was pretty terrifying. Then her blood went through several changes, shifting into different states of matter, still the same blood color and still flowing in the air around her, despite turning completely solid once. Then it burst into flames, or rather, turned into something that looked like fire.
After a while, the fiery blood recedes back into her body and she opens her eyes. She untangled herself and stood up, all the while Terror is watching her, speechless.
"How do I look?" she asked as she stretched.
She had grown taller, now standing over six feet tall, her complexion was still pale, but she had put on more meat; her modest breasts had grown larger, and her hips were wider. Her crimson hair had grown out, now reaching the back of her thighs in a wild mane, her eyes were still luminescent blue in pools of black sclera. Her finger and toe nails were now extended and hardened into lykan claws, and even her ears even had elongated slightly like Terror's.
"You look more like me," he said, "like a vampire-lykan hybrid."
"Yeah, no offense, but I prefer my skin hairless." Nya said "plus I didn't have a lot of that lykan to work with, just enough to take on some physical traits, I didn't even get any of his memories."
"You can do that?" Terror asks
"Oh yeah, I had access to the knowledge, skills and memories of the three vampires that raped this body. Not much is useful all things considered, and it does come with the drawback that parts of their personality is now a part of my psyche."
"So you now have his power?" Terror asked, "You can turn yourself into vapor?"
"Not quite," Nya explains as she held out her right hand, which then spontaneously combust, now aflame like a torch of fiery blood red energy, "I call it my 'blood aura'. The rejection really messed me up, so I had to remake myself and this seemed like the best use for what I took from him."
"That's cool," Terror says as she waves her red hand, leaving a trail of red energy, "and all this energy is your blood, right?"
"Yes, my blood is now highly volatile and reactive, like napalm," Nya explains as her arm returns to normal
"Cool," Terror commented, not sure what 'napalm' was
"So, what did I miss?"
"First of all, you're naked," Terror explains. For a while he'd been trying, very poorly, not to look at her nudity.
Nya looks down at herself; the shredded remains of her robe and bikini bottom were on the floor, torn off due to her sudden growth spurt. The sudden realization of her nudity didn't even make her bat an eye, although, her cheeks did take on the faintest of a pinking tint as her only sign of embarrassment. Only for the sake of modesty, did she cover her breasts and crotch with her blood aura, "I didn't even notice. Are there any clothes in this thing?"
"I don't think so," Terror says,
"Right," Nya said. She then opens her crimson void and retrieves an extra set of clothes, she puts on a simple t-shirt and pants, although she didn't have any extra footwear –none of those vampires wore her shoe size.
She inspected her reflection in the window and tied her hair into a ponytail with a small strip of cloth. "This'll have to do,"
She then turned to Terror, who was still staring at her, nodding, "the look works,"
"Moving on… what exactly did you steal that Providence are hunting you for?"
"Right," Terror says as he lifts a large metal briefcase. "Now Providence operate all over Hyperion space, providing security for all sorts of conglomerates and galactic aristocracy, basically anyone rich enough to own a planet."
"I knew that already," Nya said with her arms crossed
"Yes, well I pinched this when I was on Ventris, an out-of-the-way world near the galactic core, nothing really special about the place… except for a Providence bigshot and his family who coincidentally were vacationing there when I was passing by."
"Hmm," Nya said, "So, how did you get it?"
"I managed to find myself on board their ship while the bigshot was away." Terror said with a satisfied grin, "he wasn't too happy when he caught me though,"
"What did you do?"
"I slept with his sister," Terror admitted, "and his daughter… and his wife."
"Well, you must have been quite busy," Nya teased
"Well, they all had a thing for rugged omen, it was easier than you'd think." he said, slightly boastful, "he was very mad when he caught me in bed with his wife, and when the other two decided to join in, it gave me the diversion I needed to grab the case and make a run for it."
"Quite the ladies' man," Nya noted, "I bet you were planning on bedding me when we met?"
"Well… maybe at first." he admitted
"So, what's in this case that you had to cuckold a Providence bigshot and ruin his family getaway for?"
"It's locked, but that didn't hold much against a lykan," Terror boasted as she opened the case. Inside was a data core, a small cube the size of a baseball. "Unfortunately, I cant get it to work,"
As soon as Nya held it, the data core lit up, the two of them looked at each other.
"I think it likes you." Terror grinned, "you immediately turned it on,"
Nya just rolled her eyes.
Plugging it into crafts primary console activated a holographic map displaying the current Hyperion space, the map is divided into different quadrants with different colored dots scattered across.
"Pretty," Terror commented, "what is it?"
"I think this is tracking the activity of the other Regis." Nya explained. She then zoomed in on a cluster of blue dots to reveal that they were crests,
"Isn't that the emblem for Providence?" Terror asks
"It's also the crest of one the Regis," Nya tells him
"Providence is controlled by a Regis?"
Nya felt her own crest writhing on her back. It hissed in her mind.
"Look here," Nya said pointing to a cluster of blue dots, "if this was just to mark their territory, the whole segment would be shaded blue, wouldn't it?"
"I don't think it's to mark their territory," Terror said, "there are isolated blue dots around Hyperion. I think that large dot in the middle of the blue cluster is Templar, this huge space station, Providence galactic HQ."
"There aren't any defined borders," Nya said, looking at how several different colored dots overlap into other clusters, "I think this shows the different assets of each Regis out in Hyperion."
"So what do we do now?"
As if on cue, an alarm went off inside the craft.
"What's going on?" Nya demanded
Terror ran to the controls to check the reading, "Oh no."
"What?" she asked joining him
"Proximity scans just picked up a foreign object in the area." He said as the entire craft is rocked around violently.
Nya looks out the window to see that their pod, along with some small asteroids and random pieces of space debris, were being pulled towards a massive mechanical construct with a large opening in the front that had a huge turbine with spinning fan blades that seemed to be fan that seemed to suck in everything in its path. And they were in its path.
"What the hell is that thing?" Nya demanded.
"That's a sweeper! They clean up space debris, but we shouldn't be anywhere near a scavenger route." Terror said panicked, "Dammit, we're caught in its pull,"
"Well get us out," Nya ordered
"I can't, this thing is automated; I had to disable the autopilot so Providence couldn't track us. I just barely managed to get us this far without navigations."
"So we're caught in a deathtrap?" Nya asked
"Not if you use your space bending powers," Terror said
"I can't, it only has a range of about twenty meters."
"What?" Terror said as he looked out the window. They were drifting towards the spinning fans that threatened to tear their pod apart.
"Brace for impact!" he yelled,
Nya grabbed him and activated her blood aura, surrounding them in a bubble of red energy as they reached the intake of the sweeper and the pod was ripped into by the massive blade.