This is my first posted fic, so be nice. And it's my girlfriend that first posted this anyhow WITHOUT MY PERMISSION, so be extra-nice.
Scroll 1: The Empress and the Dead
She had effectively killed both the son of Trigon and the daughters of Doriflen, destroyed the god of Aether, beheaded the warrior Felf, and slaughtered the Atlantian.
It was those people who stood in the way of restoring the Empire of Trigon. Now that they were eliminated, there was nothing stopping her. Now she had inherited worlds that lived in fear of her. She could manipulate them to do her bidding.
The Empress flicked some violet hair out of her vision as she watched shipments of supplies and tributes come through the battered and scorched Stargate.
There was no one left in the universe that could stop her. No one in their right mind would dare oppose her rule. Almost every planet in the entire universe was under the rule of the empire that she had created.
It was only a few groups of rebels that opposed her rule. She watched as another group of rebels was brought in through a different wormhole. She sat on the throne, slightly slouching.
The Empress stared as the wormhole generated by the gate opened and closed.
Her empire was an impressive one, far better and stronger than her father could ever have, had he not been killed.
She had put the Stargate Network built by the ancients to good use, and had ripped the Ancient Gene out of the deceased god of Aether's body and placed it within herself, so she could use the gates as well. It was through the Stargates that her forces went forward, spreading fear and destruction throughout the galaxy.
The Empress watched a struggle between a guard and a rebel. The guard was losing the battle, and the others were too occupied to help. The Empress raised her hand, and several bands of dark energy surrounded the rebel, suppressing his efforts to free himself and escape through the Stargate.
The Empress didn't care whether she had killed the prisoner or not. She had killed thousands more.
She had even killed her closest friends in her quest for power.
It didn't matter anymore though. Several of the emotions that had been locked away kept trying to tell her that what she was doing was wrong. She hadn't used other emotions except for anger, rage, calm, and demon for several years.
She'd have the rest of eternity to figure out how to get rid of the rest of them—she had removed the immortality from her brother and the Felves when she killed them.
The voice in the back of her head appeared again. 'You forgot a Felf.' It said mockingly. She immediately removed it from her mind.
But she thought about what it had said. Had she forgotten a Felf? She couldn't have. She made sure she wiped out those closest to her. She surely could not have left one of them alive.
And yet she had. She remembered the one she had loved. She had left him alive. The Empress sighed, thinking of that particular Felf. She knew he would never return to her, not after what she had done to the rest of them.
Her rule over the universe was slowly turning every planet into a bloody wasteland, wiping out civilization. The bloodshed had already claimed the entire Outer Rim and it was spreading faster. Her main focus today was conquering the Draconian Galaxy without bloodshed, eliminating the dragons that would not bow down to her, and using the ones that pledged loyalty to aid the soldiers.
She dismissed thoughts about the Felf, and focused on the charts and graphs on the small monitor. There were more dragons accepting death than those that were bowing to her. That would have to be fixed. She called in her advisor.
"Tell them the dragons who serve me will feast day and night." She ordered the advisor, who quickly nodded and left.
Alarms suddenly went off in the Gate Room. She looked down through a window. The gate had opened unexpectedly, and the unstable vortex that had been shot out and killed numerous dragons and guards. The figure who stepped out was barely visible. She couldn't figure out who it was, but they had obviously taken time to devise this plan.
When the smoke cleared from the smoke grenade, the figure was nowhere to be seen. The Empress sat back into the throne. The door to her left opened with a slight swish.
"Boromir." The Empress said icily, rising from the throne.
"Raven." Boromir addressed the Empress just as cold as she had addressed him.
"Even you should know that name means nothing to me anymore." Raven snorted. She sensed more than just his presence in the room. It felt as if there were spirits following him, protecting him, but Raven could not identify them. "Have you come to pledge your alliance to me?"
"I would never ally myself with you." He unsheathed a magnificent sword whose blade glinted in the dim light.
The two violet eyes blinked and reopened as four red ones. "You would not dare."
She sensed power in the blade—demonic, Elven, and godly—but how? How could a blade more powerful than the Blade of Evil's Bane be forged?
Raven sensed the presence again. It was the dead. "You bring the dead with you to my palace. Why?" the Empress approached the Felf and began circling him.
"Because the dead wish to see you defeated as much as I do." The Felf watched as the dark empress circled him, never taking his beautiful grey eyes off of her.
Raven finally realized just who these spirits were. Agony, Simbelmyne, Aetherius, Dernhelm, Torvus and Niphredil. She could see their faces in her head—all of them glaring darkly at her. It was their power that flowed through Boromir's blade.
For the first time in years, Raven slowly backed away. "No…You can't be…" she then regained her confidence, and returned to her position in front of Boromir. "You think you can kill me, don't you?" she grinned demonically.
Both of them stood there, waiting for the other to make the first move.
The Empress Raven could've killed Boromir the moment he stepped in the room, and she could kill him now with just a flick of the wrist. But something held her back.
Boromir stood there, holding the sword steadily. He could swing it right now and end the reign of terror Raven had instated upon the universe. Why was it so hard to do then?
Raven's hands glowed with the dark magic she had always used, but this time it was much stronger than it had been years ago when she had just revived the tattered remains of the empire. Boromir readied his sword.
But neither of them attacked.
Raven had finally had enough of waiting. She pushed her other emotions down, all of them screaming at her not to kill him. She released the deadly beam of energy at Boromir, laughing darkly all the while. Boromir tried to block with the sword, but the beam sliced the blade in two, and killed Boromir the moment it hit.
Raven laughed darkly as she floated over to Boromir's cold, unmoving body. She always knew she had the power to kill him, she had just never decided to use it until now. The Empress cackled.
She picked up the broken blade. It sparked back with demon energy, elvish magic and had a godly glow to it. Draining the energy of it, she then tossed it aside. She took her place in the throne once again and began shouting orders at the soldiers.
Inside the Empress though, a part of her had died when she killed Boromir. True, parts of her had died when she killed the others, maybe a little more of her when she killed her brother, but not as much as this.
This part of her that died threatened to consume her and kill her itself. She ignored it though, and decided she'd give in to it when she felt the time was right. For now, she'd just send her armies through the Stargates, and go occasionally herself, and would stay alive until there was someone strong enough and willing to take her place as Empress, continuing where she'd leave off.
Raven still felt the presence of the dead within the throne room, though. She tried to ignore it, but failed. Finally she thrust the blade out the window, and ordered it thrown through the Stargate. She relaxed and sat back in the throne, not knowing that the spirits of her friends and brother had only hidden themselves from her detection, and were waiting, waiting for the right moment to take her down and punish her.
The number of spirits in the dimension where they lived had increased greatly in the few years Raven had taken over.
Some were wondering why they were here, others were running around like headless chickens trying to find someone they knew.
But it was in a small area where a few spirits were plotting against Raven.
Agon paced back and forth. "Damn." He cursed under his breath. He continued to pace until he came to a wall, and then began banging his head on it. "Damn." He cursed again.
Bel pulled him away from the wall.
"Damn damn." He cursed. "I happened to like that wall."
"Too bad." She said, holding him back from walking into it again.
"If only there was some way we could've stopped her before all this happened. Then we probably wouldn't be here." Torvus grumbled, sitting angrily in a corner with Phred.
"We tried, remember? This is what happened." Rius shot back.
"I thought you said you couldn't die." Dern said, raising an eyebrow in the process.
"Well, apparently I can." He muttered something else under his breath and sat down grumpily.
"We must be dreaming." Agon said to himself. He tried pinching himself, but his hand went right through his arm.
"Great." He said sarcastically. "Either I just figured out how to phase through myself, or we really are dead."
"We've been dead for a while, Agon. Get used to it." Rius grumbled.
"I am, Rius. I just wish that I hadn't died so soon." He growled.
"It doesn't matter now what happens. It's all over." Boromir said, quietly sitting in a corner.
"Damn." Agon cursed again under his breath. He then chuckled insanely to himself. "We are hopeless. Death really does change a person, doesn't it?"
"Yes, yes it does." Elmir suddenly appeared and sat down.
"Magikoopa? How in the world did you get here?" Agon had nicknamed Elmir 'Magikoopa', since the robes he usually wore reminded Agon of the wizard turtle.
"The 'Empress' ended my existence. How else would I get here?" Elmir looked around.
"Great." Dern whispered to Rius while rolling her eyes. "Elmir the asshole's here."
"I heard that." He snorted.
"I've got it!" Rius shouted, but then the expression of joy on his face left him. "Never mind, it wouldn't work."
"What wouldn't?" Dern asked, turning to face Rius.
"I was thinking we could send somebody back, someone who could actually influence her, but then I realized that reviving the dead when you're one of them is physically impossible." Rius sighed and returned to staring at the ground.
"No, there is something we can do." Bel spoke up after a few seconds of thinking.
Everyone looked up. "What?" they all asked her at once.
Bel took a deep breath. "There was a ritual I read about, where the dead can revive only one, but a sacrifice has to go to eternal hell."
Then it went silent.
"Who do we send back?" Torvus asked, almost silently.
"Me." A voice said. The voice sounded as if it belonged to someone extremely tall, but it turned out that the source was slightly shorter than Torvus. Mel-Dagor walked silently out of the shadows.
"Mel? What influence could he have on her?" Agon's head was hurting, which he thought was impossible since he was dead.
"Plenty. She's never met me; my powers are as dark as both of yours, possibly darker. If anyone could change her back, it would probably be me." Mel grinned confidently.
"Okay then…so, who gets the eternal doom?" Phred asked, her gaze traveling around the room.
It was several minutes before there was answer.
"I will." Elmir said quietly, taking a deep breath.
Dern's mouth almost dropped. "You?! Have you gone completely insane? You'd never do something like that!"
Elmir glared. "Maybe it's time I did. I want to see Raven taken down just as much as anyone else. I don't care how it happens, only that it does." He then turned to Mel. "Good luck."
Mel nodded. "Alright, Bel, perform the ritual."
Bel nodded, and began to chant in Quenya. Light surrounded Mel and Elmir, and rings of strange symbols circled them, each sending them to a different place.
They watched as the two disappeared in a flash of white. "May the grace of the gods be with both of you," Bel sighed, snuggling into Agon.
Mel appeared on a cliff on the planet where Raven's palace stood. He stood on the rim of a gigantic crater, and sitting in the middle was Raven's Palace.
"Do what you must, but take her down. We're counting on you, Mel."
The voices appeared in his head. He nodded, and then ran towards the palace, sliding down the crater wall.
'The most direct path is always the best.' He told himself. It was what he usually told himself on missions like these, before he was killed.
He met a few guards, who blocked his path. Mel reached for a sword that was not there.
"Um, hey fellas, why don't we sit down, talk, and have some tea and crumpets?" Mel scratched the back of his head nervously.
The guards looked at one another, and then grabbed him. He merely shrugged, adding this to his plan that didn't exist yet.
They dragged him through tunnels and corridors, until they reached the throne room. They opened the door, and Raven turned.
"Why do you bring people to me at the most inconvenient moments?" She snarled at the guards.
"He-he-he was sneaking around the crater's rim." The first guard said, hoping the Empress would tell them to leave.
Raven examined Mel. She then told the guards, much to their relief, to leave.
Raven sat back down and stared out a window. "Why have you come here? Have you also come to try and stop me?"
Mel didn't know what to say. He thought for a moment. 'Gain her trust, take her down.' He came up with the idea quickly, and decided to figure out the details later.
"I am Dagor of Erasia. My planet wishes to pledge it's allegiance to you and your empire." Mel kneeled before the Empress.
Agon returned to banging his head on the wall. "We're screwed."
"Really. I have never heard of a planet called Erasia." Raven glanced at the bowing Felf.
"We are closer to the center of the Tetra Galaxy than most other planets are." Mel rose slowly. "You would not have even learned of our existence had I not been sent."
Raven thought for a moment. "Your name. It sounds so familiar." The Empress paused. "You wouldn't be Mel-Dagor, would you?"
Mel froze inside. "I, uh, er…" he had no clue what to say.
"It probably doesn't matter. I heard the name long ago, the day I caught a glimpse of a boy who looked like you. I was very young then." Raven slouched in her throne.
Mel realized she had no clue who he was. He could use his real name! "Yes, I am Mel-Dagor."
Raven sat up a bit, and turned to him. "Really? I always wondered what had happened to him." She rose and floated down to him. They were the same height, Mel only very slightly taller.
"Now you know." He said, looking at her. The ruby gem on her forehead glowed with extreme power.
"Yes." She circled him. "Come with me." She said, walking out a different door.
Mel shrugged, adding all this to the plan that still didn't exist. He followed her to a set of Rings, which dropped down and transported them to a hilltop, seemingly the only place with vegetation on the entire planet.
"This is my sanctuary. I come here to unwind after long days." Raven leaned against the tree.
"Why am I here?" Mel asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Because there's something about you. Something…dark. Darker than me." Raven turned to face him, resisting the urge to pry open his mind. She didn't want to lose the trust of a powerful ally.
"Look at the stars." Mel pointed to the sky.
Raven looked up. "Beautiful, isn't it?" she moved closer to Mel.
"There won't be many sights like that left if this war continues." Mel sighed.
Raven scooted away from Mel. "I know what you're trying to do." She looked at the ground.
"What am I trying to do, my Empress?" Mel asked, raising an eyebrow.
"You're trying to change me back. Make me one of those people who hated evil again." She turned to him, putting her hood up and said "That Raven died long ago." She floated down the hill.
Mel mentally cursed at himself. "Almost had her trust and you had to talk like that? You frakkin' idiot." He said under his breath. "Raven!" he shouted, running after her.
Raven ignored him. Mel hurried alongside her. "I'm not one of those people who tries to influence others to do something that they don't want to do."
Raven stopped and digested this. "Then what are you?" She glared at him out of the corner of her eye.
"A friend." Mel held out his hand.
"I told you we were screwed." Agon told Bel, who shook her head.
Raven hovered there for a moment. "Not yet…" she began. "I can't put that much trust in you yet, not until I know what you're capable of." She continued back to the Transport Rings.
"You can stay in my palace for tonight. I will evaluate your talents in the morning." She led him back to the transport rings, and they were sent back to the palace.
Raven headed down a hallway, leaving Mel in the Ring Room. He decided to head down the opposite corridor.
The moment he entered a metallic smell of blood reached him. It made a weaker part of him feel sick, but he kept that part of him locked away; he didn't want to show any weakness. Not in this place.
He passed a guard that wore a headdress shaped like a raven.
The next hall held several cells, with thick bars. Only one was occupied. There was a figure curled up in the corner in pale blue bloodstained clothes. The figure faced away from the outside, so Mel couldn't figure out who it was. He came closer to the bars, his footsteps echoing in the emptiness that was the hallway.
The figure turned their head for a split second, a faded sapphire blue eye glancing at him, then returned their gaze at the wall.
Mel recognized that eye. That eye belonged to Adana Novar, the girl he was in love with before his death.
"Adana?" he called quietly, watching the figure glance at him again. He squeezed through the bars (much to his surprise) and walked over to the figure.
It WAS Adana. But she was a fragment of her old self. She had been tortured severely, and looked as if she was on the edge between insanity and sanity.
"Adana?" he said again, kneeling to look her in the eye. She quickly wrapped her arms around him in what seemed to be a death hug. He hugged her back. She trembled in his arms.
"Mel." She said quickly. Her breathing was odd and irregular. "There were rumors. Rumors that you died. I thought you had. Then they found me. I was hunting them as Nova. I thought I was hunting them, but they were hunting me." She panted. "They caught me and put me in here. Tortured me for information."
"It's okay now…" he said soothingly.
"No it's not." Adana whispered. "I hear them. Every day. They're coming. I hear them, coming to eat. Each day they get closer. They'll eat me. Eat." She was panicking for no reason. She shuddered uncontrollably in Mel's arms.
"Dana, no one is coming after you." Mel had no clue what was going on. Had she gone insane? No, that couldn't be possible. Nothing could break Dana, not even death itself.
"Yes. Yes they are." She shivered again. "They keep coming. Each day. Getting closer. I hear their footsteps. Louder…thump…thump…thump…thump…"
"Dana, who are 'they'?" Mel tried to get her to look at him, but she kept her face hidden in his shoulder.
"Them. They keep coming after me. Coming to feed. Coming to eat. EAT. THEY'RE COMING TO EAT ME." She sobbed into his shoulder.
"Dana, snap out of it! No one is coming to eat you, 'they' don't exist!" Mel had no clue what or who he was talking about when he said 'they'.
Dana leaned on him, removing her face from his shoulders. "Oh, they are real. They are very real, Mel." She clutched him as one would cling to life while dying. "No longer are we the hunters, but the hunted." It was the first thing Mel heard that made sense from her.
Her hand found its way to his, and locked it in a death grip. Mel stared in dismay at her wrists. There were large gashes from shackles that were way too tight, and the blood had dried and was peeling off. He saw these kinds of wounds all over her arms and her neck.
Mel spotted several thousand white lines on the wall, and wondered what they were. "What're those white lines?" he asked, hoping to get an answer that made sense but doubted it.
"A calendar. It tells me how long I have until they eat me." She shuddered again.
Mel stared at the fear that had taken up residence in Dana's eyes. Something must've done this to her, but what could've been this horrible that would make her go insane?
He felt rage course through him as the name of the Empress came to his mind. "Dana, who are 'they' exactly?"
"They! They're going to kill me god's sakes Mel!!" she shuddered in his arms, "They're coming! I hear them now!"
Footsteps echoed through the corridor outside, so quietly that Mel could barely hear even with his heightened senses, but still there. And getting closer.
"I'm so sorry Dana," he breathed, breaking away from her iron grip with great difficulty "But I need to go. I can't get caught."
Just as the footsteps turned a corner he disappeared in a cloud of deep red magick to the sanctuary the Empress had taken him to earlier.
EOC