Valla was not having a very good day, even by Demon Hunter standards. In fact, the only good thing about today was that she'd brought an end to the Skeleton King, formerly King Leoric of Khanduras, for his third and final death. To quote New Tristram's Healer, "From the west shall come a Monarch whose reign begins in blood and ends in bone. In the light of a comet will he die a third and final death, at the hands of true men." Valla wasn't a man, and she'd brought low the King by herself, but the healer hadn't been wrong.
Today, she'd gone through four floors of New Tristram's Cathedral, fighting off skeletons, zombies, ginormous bats, even grotesque monsters that seemed to defy all reasons for existence. Deckard Cain had called them "Unburied", demons formed from the bodies of many dead and given life through demonic magic.
Now, she was in some underground lair located in the middle of the Fields of Misery, having had to fight off tens of khazra, or goat-men, as the locals called them, savage beasts, "death with wings", or Plague Carriers, Nests, living trees hellbent on killing her with plants that released a poisonous gas, and scavengers; little denizens that burrowed underground randomly, leapt at their targets, and were generally a pain to deal with, just to get to the cave entrance.
Now? She was fighting cultists, lead by some witch who called herself Maghda, and laid claim to the sword piece that belonged to the Stranger. Who, by the way, had been the source of the comet that'd struck the Cathedral. Valla had been secretly hoping that that discovery would be the hardest part of her day.
It wasn't. It wasn't even close.
Valla's armor was shredded from fighting all manners of enemies, to the point that she almost, almost might as well have been in nothing but her underthings. Her Demon Hunter cloak, given to her at her inauguration to the order's ranks one year prior, was completely destroyed, having been ripped off her during a skirmish with a particularly powerful skeleton, with almost equally powerful skeletons accompanying it; Deckard liked to call these types of enemies "Champions", and the others "Minions".
Her normal armor, by comparison, had holes everywhere. She had a gash on her forehead over both eyes, a cut along her thighs running laterally, smaller cuts all along her hands and arms, a diagonal slash that had almost cut her open across her abdomen, and, worst of all, her Hand Crossbow had jammed.
Once, Valla had on a skintight black outfit, that attracted the unwanted gazes of men everywhere she walked. Now, that outfit was in tatters; if help didn't arrive soon, so would she.
Valla dropped to both knees as the last of the summoned cultists approached, fatigued, gasping for breath, bleeding everywhere, and out of options. Simply put, she was going to die. As she watched the closest one swing his arm back over his shoulder, preparing to cut her open from nose to waist, Valla had only two regrets: not being able to avenge her only family member's death was the first regret. Nobody could guess what the second regret was.
She closed her eyes as the cultist began to bring his blade forward; it wasn't until a hand landed on her shoulder that she realized she wasn't dead.
Viktor's day had been going exceptionally well, even by a normal person's standards. He hadn't been called on by the order at all today, a rare occurrence for a Veteran member like himself. Inaugurated ten years prior at the ripe age of fourteen, Viktor had survived longer than most members had, and already possessed gear and skills far superior to even some of the Elders, members who'd been a Hunter for over twenty years. This was because he'd survived encounters that even Elders would have been hard-pressed to make it out of alive.
Towards the end of the day, however, they called on him. A group of cultists had been sighted in the Fields of Misery around a khazra den with a strange blue light emanating from the entrance. A female Hunter was already on her way to investigate the den, but one of the Elders suspected there was more to the coven than meets the eye, and requested that Viktor go there as well just in case the female Hunter got into trouble.
Viktor might have been one of the best Demon Hunters the order had seen since Shrikewing, but even he knew better than to question an Elder; they hadn't lived so long thanks to stupidity.
He set out to Westmarch's waypoint, where he could teleport instantly to New Tristram via waypoint, and an old man by the man of Deckard Cain filled him in.
Valla, as she was named, evidently after the original Valla, had been sent to New Tristram to discover the source behind the falling star that had struck their Cathedral; the source was a man who had no memories at all, to the point that he couldn't even remember his name. Because of this, Cain, a respected man across the world, had specifically requested Viktor's assistance in retrieving the sword pieces that belonged to the Stranger. Cain believed that the Stranger was no ordinary man, which would explain why the Elder also believed there was more to the cultists than originally thought.
Using the waypoint, Viktor teleported to Valla's waypoint in the Fields of Misery, and set out to find the cave.
A/N: Viktor is equipped with the Unhallowed Essence Multishot build used by Demon Hunters on the Seasonal leaderboards in Diablo 3: Reaper of Souls.
Reaching the khazra den was relatively easy for Viktor. A master at Multishot, he ripped through hordes of enemies like they were paper targets, using his Vault to cover large distances at a time. Once he was inside, though, he switched to stealth tactics and stalked through the den. Cain had informed him that Valla was a very recent addition to the order, so there could still be an enemy lying in wait; the bodies on the ground testified to that claim.
It was when he reached the opening to where the first sword piece lay that he drew his recurve bow; Valla was on her knees, injured and unable to fight back, and one of the cultists was in front of her, swinging his blade to cleave the girl in two. A single Multishot ended the lot of them, and Viktor took a moment to inspect the open space.
To his right was a giant rock formation that connected to the ceiling far above, split down its front with a giant crater at the base, where the sword hilt lay. The hilt, crater, and the streak it'd carved into the rock glowed with a blue light; Viktor had the faint feeling that it wasn't from Sanctuary. Farther ahead to the right was another path, and a third path was to the left. Left of him was the rest of the cavern; open, rocky space, with stalactites scattered haphazardly.
Valla was silently crying to herself as Viktor walked over to where she was sitting. It wasn't an unusual sight among new Hunters; she'd almost died and failed to avenge her family's death. Revenge for familial deaths was the most common reason that people wished to become a Demon Hunter. Since she was still shaking, he assumed that she hadn't realized the cultists were now dead, so he tentatively placed a hand on her shoulder.
Valla stopped crying when she felt somebody's hand touch her shoulder. Still sniffling, she slowly turned her head, only to come face-to-face with none other than Viktor, a legendary Demon Hunter in Westmarch who was rumored to be more skilled than some of the Elders. Not doubting that Cain had asked the leading Elder to send a Veteran Hunter to aid in recovering the sword, she allowed him to lift her up off the ground, and then quickly faced her body further away from him as she realized that her armor and undershirt were basically non-existent on her person. Viktor merely retreived her Initiate's Hand Crossbow from where she'd dropped it on the ground, unjamming the self-loading mechanism and handing it back to a now stoic Valla who simply nodded at him over her shoulder before taking the handbow from him.
"There's no need to act tough, you know." Valla turned her head to look at Viktor as he walked over to where the shard was, picking it up and sitting on the rocky base while inspecting it. "I've never understood why Demon Hunters try to act so tough, bottling up their emotions and acting as if they don't have any." He turned the shard, which appeared to be the tip of some kind of blade, over in his hands, and inspected the other side. "Ignoring our emotions makes us no better than the demons we're trained to kill. It's better to acknowledge them and let them out." He stood up, facing Valla as he stowed the shard somewhere in his Quiver, and walked over to her. "My father killed himself some time before my house was ransacked by demonic creatures. I later discovered that he did so because he'd ignored his emotions before meeting my mother." Her eyes widened as he told her this; she could count, on one hand, the number of people Viktor had told anything about his past.
"Now then," Viktor began, walking towards one of the three paths extending from the cavern, "let's get out of here. Deckard Cain will be pleased to know we have recovered one of the three shards belonging to this 'Stranger'." Valla meekly followed behind him, trying not to cry as the thought of her near-catastrophic failure of a multitude of objectives plagued her mind. Tears slid down her face silently as she failed once again, and her shoulders shook from the overwhelming disappointment she felt. Before she could fall to the ground and bury her face in her hands, Valla felt Viktor's arms slide around her, a comforting embrace, and she instead buried her head in his chest, sobbing as her emotional barrier shattered like heated glass dropped into cold waters.
Viktor held her for close to five minutes as she cried her heart out, using one hand to lightly stroke the back of her head while his other stayed wrapped around her waist. Eventually, her sobs slowed to sniffles, then stopped entirely as she slowly wrapped her arms around him to hug him. "T... Thanks." Viktor smiled at her, then released her from his hold, stepping back as he began channeling a return spell, one of the few spells he'd bothered to learn. Said spell would return you to whatever your place of residence was at the time of casting, which for Viktor and Valla, was New Tristram. "Shall we?"
When they arrived in New Tristram, Viktor wasted no time in handing over the shard to Cain and discussing their next course of action regarding the shards. Valla, on the other hand, rushed into the Slaughter Calf Inn, ignoring stares as she headed to her room, locked the door, and stripped to her undergarments, throwing her destroyed armor and undershirt in a pile by the door while she pulled more casual clothing out of her dresser. Viktor had told her before they returned that they'd continue the quest tomorrow so that she would be able to recover from her ordeal in the cave. Before she put the clothing on, she decided to check her injuries in the mirror and then wash herself.
The person that looked back at her in the mirror was definitely not the same girl that had departed earlier that day for the Tristram Cathedral. Valla had jet-black hair that came down in waves to her shoulders when unbound. Her eyes were yellow, a rare sight among female Hunters, and she sported a full set of lips. Her eyebrows were gone, singed off by one of the spell-wielding cultists that had thrown a fireball at her, and the rest of her face was scarred and bruised. Her body had fared similarly; small cuts and bruises adorned her arms and her modestly-sized breasts, while larger gashes cut across her thighs and abdomen. Her lower legs were largely unmarked, thank Akarat, and none of her injuries were life-threatening, nor would they prevent her from completing the task.
Turning to head to the washroom, Valla jumped slightly when a knock sounded at her door. Throwing on an oversized white t-shirt that covered most of her thighs, she opened the door to the sight of Viktor in casual wear, and had to catch her breath for a second as she took in the sight of him. He was slightly more than a whole head taller than her, which put him somwhere around 5'10 or 5'11. Like her, he sported jet-black hair, though his was somewhat unkempt and didn't come past his ears. Unlike her, his eyes were a shade of red, something she hadn't noticed earlier back in the cave. Also unlike her, Viktor was completely uninjured, a testament to his skill as a Hunter. The only other things he shared with her were a full set of lips and a slim body type. Where Valla was just slim, though, Viktor was fit. He wore a very, very form-fitting black sleeveless shirt that hid none of his physique, as well as black jogger's leggings that showed off his toned thighs. Valla had to fight to pull her eyes away from his physique, and up to his face as she stepped aside, allowing the man to enter the room, before closing the door and facing him.
"How are you faring?" Viktor turned to face her as he noted the various minor injuries on her face and arms, not doubting that more were hidden under her shirt. Valla moved to sit on her mattress, and after a moment, Viktor followed suit, sitting on the edge and turning his body so that he was facing her again as she stared at the ground, hands resting on the end of the shirt that covered her legs. "I'm doing-" "What did I tell you in the cavern?" She sighed, then slowly faced him as she pulled the hem of her shirt up to her groin, face turning slightly red as she revealed that she was only wearing her underthings under the shirt. Viktor's gaze, however, was fixated on the two gashes running across her thighs. "I've definitely had worse..." Valla hissed as Viktor slowly ran his finger down one of the gashes. "Have you treated any of your cuts yet?"
She shamefully hung her head, silently answering his question as he pulled a salve from God knows where on his person, trying to keep quiet as Viktor used his finger to put dabs of it across her cuts on her thighs. Moving up her thighs, he became painfully aware of the fact that Valla was wearing nearly nothing, and averted his gaze, holding the salve toward her as he asked, "Would you rather apply it yourself?" Valla's face became a deeper shade of red when she realized why he'd asked, and had to look away from him as she replied, "I don't know how to..." Looking back, she saw that Viktor was sitting closer to her, and tried to keep a straight face. "Lay down for me, would you?"
Valla didn't think she could turn any redder than she already was, but was proven wrong when she felt her shirt ride up her body, exposing part of her slim stomach. Viktor averted his gaze as Valla fidgeted for a moment, before taking a deep breath and pulling the hem of her shirt up until her entire stomach was exposed, stopping before she revealed that she wasn't wearing one of her exercising bras. Viktor wasted no time applying the salve, teasing her with his gentle touch as he moved across her body, treating each cut and gash on her stomach and sides before moving to her arms. Valla sighed as he began treating her arms, before asking her to roll over so he could check for and treat any injuries on her back. Doing so, they both realized at the same time that her entire backside was exposed, revealing the fact that Valla was wearing no bra. While her face burned even hotter, Viktor ignored this detail, treating the cuts across her back and the backside of her thighs before setting what remained of the salve on her dresser. "I'll leave that here in case you have injuries..." He gestured vaguely in her direction. "Elsewhere." Still red-faced, Valla silently nodded, and didn't loose a breath until Viktor had closed her door again as he left. "Now for that bath I was going to take..."
Inside his own room, Viktor loosed a breath as he stripped down to only his boxers, having bathed before he departed from Westmarch, and climbed into bed, drawing the covers over his body as he rolled onto his side. 'I wonder how she felt during that ordeal...' He could feel the comforting darkness of sleep overtaking his thoughts already, being a light sleeper, and rolled onto his back as his eyes closed. 'I hope she'll be fine tomorrow...'
Viktor woke up before Valla the next morning, stretching loudly before climbing out of his bed and donning his casual wear from yesterday, stopping by Valla's room on his way down to the bar. He heard snoring, and chuckled to himself at the thought of Valla sleeping haphazardly in her room as he walked down to the main floor, greeting the innkeeper before taking the waypoint to Westmarch to begin his daily jog routine.
Valla woke up some time after Viktor had departed to Westmarch, yawning loudly while stretching before she sat up in her bed, blinking away the lingering sleepiness as she lethargically climbed out of bed, throwing on a more proper white shirt and a pair of blue jeans before walking down to the inn's main floor. Yawning still, she greeted the innkeeper, and walked outside just as Viktor teleported back from Westmarch.
"Good morning Viktor," she called out, placing a hand over her mouth to stifle her yawn. She was not a morning person, and her cheeks puffed as Viktor chuckled at her yawning. "Good morning Valla. Shouldn't you be, you know, more awake than you are right now?" Valla turned red as he chuckled again, facing away from him as he walked over and patted her shoulder. "Not everybody's a morning person like I am, hehe." Viktor began walking over to the inn. "Come see me when you're fully awake, there's something I want to do that I didn't last night on account of your state of undress." Valla turned even more red, and turned to say something before realizing that Viktor had already walked through the door to the inn. Behind her, she heard Cain chuckle at her predicament as he exited his house, staff in hand.
"I've had the honor before of being one of a few outsiders to visit the Hunters' HQ in Westmarch, and I ran into Viktor while I was there." Cain walked over to Valla as she took deep breaths, trying to get her emotions under control. "He's always been like that, so I hope you're ready for more teasing." She turned red again as Cain chuckled, before the grin fell from his face. "Alright, time to get down to business." Cain walked into the inn, Valla trailing behind her, and over to where Viktor was sitting at the counter. "Innkeeper, if you would give us a moment." Nodding to him, the innkeeper wandered off, and Cain addressed the two Hunters. "The second shard of The Stranger's sword is kept in a location north of the Fields of Misery. Acquiring this shard, however, will be tougher than the first shard." He waited until they were focused before continuing. "The shard is in a place known as The Drowned Ruins, an ancient, sacred location for the nephalem of old. The nephalem are what humanity used to be when we were first born, and our power was such that it was feared we would tip the scales in the Eternal Conflict between the Angels of the High Heavens, and the Demons of the Burning Hells. The problem is that only nephalem can enter these ruins, and the ruins themselves are guarded by an ancient nephalem spirit."
"However, there is hope yet. The Worldstone, an artifact older than even the Angels themselves, was used to lessen our powers. That same stone was destroyed twenty years ago, so it is conceivable that the nephalem of old will again appear in this world." Viktor spoke first. "So you want us to go to these ruins, and hope that we're nephalem?" "Correct." Viktor shrugged. "I'm ready to go then." He then looked at Valla. "You coming?" Valla stared at him incredulously. "Of course I'm coming, it's my quest!" Viktor laughed and set his drink down. "Good." Cain left shortly after, and Viktor gestured to Valla to follow him. He led her to his room, where he opened the door and let her in, and then closed the door and faced her. "Lay face-down on my bed." She did so, wondering what he was going to do. The answer became obvious when Viktor straddled her waist. "I'm going to give you a massage before we head out."
As soon as his hands began their work, Valla melted, and she couldn't stop the moan of pleasure that escaped her lips as Viktor began his massage, kneading her shoulders and the back of her neck before slowly progressing down her back, finding all the knots in her muscles and undoing them with extreme ease. She was in blissful heaven as his hands worked their way down their back, a moan escaping her each time his hands found a knot, and again when he finished unknotting it. When he finished his massage, Valla felt better than she ever had, and she was full of energy as Viktor rolled off of her, allowing her to shoot up off the bed and head over to the door. "Alright, let's go find these nephalem ruins!" Viktor chuckled to himself as she threw open the door with previously unseen vigor and jogged out, before climbing off the bed to follow. 'This should be a fun trip.'