Deja was falling. How long had it been since he started? Hours? Days? Weeks? It felt like an eternity had passed since he last touched solid ground. An endless void encapsulating his body and soul, slowly eating away at his mental health. His sanity slowly dripping away, Deja lay in the endless expanse of void. His view of time started to slow to a drip, making his fall less like a rushing river and more like a steady drip of water from an melting icicle.
[Rift in dimensional fabric found. Propelling to nearest dimension...]
Deja felt his body be flung off course, turning his downward spiral into a streak to the left. Feeling his body reach a speed higher than he'd ever gone before, Deja saw a small crack in the void, spilling out a radiant white light. Deja closed his eyes as the light slowly became unbearable to look at. He braced himself for a hard hit, tucking his head between his shoulders. The came the bone crushing impact.
°°°°°°°°°°°
The first thing Deja felt was a breeze drifting gently over his face, the smell of food wafting under his nose. Then the breeze picked up, and he felt pain. Pain almost like nothing he had ever felt before.
"AAGH!"
Crying out in pain, he felt his {Ultra-fast Regeneration} activate and heal his bones, and all the rips, tears, and cuts on his skin. With the pain slowly lessening, Deja opened his eyes. He found himself laying on a ground of luscious moss, with trees that seemed to reach the clouds surrounding him. He lay there for a while, listening to the gentle rustle of the shimmering green leaves, the birds chirping, the screaming men... Wait, the screaming men? Deja jumped up from his position and stealthily hopped into the higher branches of one of the nearer trees. Swinging like a monkey, Deja hopped from one branch to another, his speed ever quickening. Finally arriving in a clearing, He saw a group of 50 or so men trying to fight a massive beast. The beast on its own was enough to make Deja draw in a sharp breath. Standing probably around 20 feet tall, a massive hippo like animal glared at the men surrounding it. Based on the shine of its hide, it seemed to be made of some kind of metal. The beast was sitting there, glaring at those around, but not attacking, as if it wanted to see what these beings would try to do. However, when one man got to close, the creature opened its wide maw, revealing thousands of razor sharp teeth, with three or four rows in the front, and even more visible in its throat.
'Wait, how does that work? does its throat rotate or something? or is it just there to kill of any extra hope a person has once they get bitten?'
Pretty soon, he got his answer, with a man raising his sword to attack the hippo-like creature. The mans upper body was shaven clean off the rest, with intestines and viscera falling out from between the hippo's teeth. However, in the next moments, Deja witnessed something even more terrifying. The hippo's head started to rotate, spinning faster and faster. With all the motion, The remainder of the man was launched out upon a nearby boy, splashing him with the first souls bones and blood. Deja watched as the child fainted, and the hippo lumbered over to him, crushing the boy beneath his foot, the mush dying the ground blood red. Deja felt sick, his stomach churning. He had just watched probably the most gruesome scene in his life, but he put that behind him. readying himself to jump and attack the creature, he noticed the men starting to run back into the forest, the beast giving chase. Deja watched this all with wide eyes, and took off after the beast, determined to stop any more lives from being lost. As the men (and Deja) arrived in the next clearing, Deja noticed a teenage boy straight ahead, followed by two younger children, and a woman. He was about to yell to them to forewarn them, but the teenage boy moved at a speed only visible to Deja. The beast seemed surprised to be passed by, but then, the boy's sword vanished, and the hippo fell apart into well cut slices. Deja's mouth gaped, as the boy walked back over to his companions, and they proceeded to move deeper into the forest.
°°°°°°°°°°°
Following the group from behind, Deja made sure to be as quiet as possible, trying to keep out of their detection. Every so often, the boy at the lead would stop, and stare in Deja's general direction. Every time the boy did this, Deja's heart nearly stopped. However it seemed they weren't aware of his presence. Or so Deja thought.
About another half hour passed, as Deja continued to follow them. Finally, the boy turned around, sighed, and looked Deja directly in the eyes. He spoke quietly, but the voice somehow was heard by Deja hundreds of meters away.
"Whoever is following us, come out. I know you're there."
Deja's heart stopped. He groaned, and hopped down out of the tree, onto the ground in visibility of the group. The boy's glare turned ice-cold. He spoke once again, "Why are you following us? And no excuses, I don't have the... patience for that."
Deja's mouth gaped open and closed, like a fish, as he tried to think of something to say. In the end he came up with:
"You seem powerful, so I came to challenge you to a fight!"
Meanwhile, inside Deja's Head:
'WHAT THE FUCK'
[WHY DID YOU SAY THAT]
'I DON'T KNOW'
[AHHHHHH]
'AAHHHHH'
However, despite his internal screaming, Deja's outside maintained a calm façade. The boys face ran through multiple emotions, starting at stupor, then disbelief, then anger, and finally he seemed interested. The boy sighed and held out his hand, which Deja quickly approached to shake, agreeing to a friendly duel. "By the way," the boy whispered Deja, "I forgot to ask for your name"
"Oh!" Deja grinned at the boy. "Deja. Deja Vos. And you?"
"Alex King."