Prologue – a tasty mortal…err, morsel.
The being watched as the foolish mortal chased its own trail through his garden of shadows, his enchanted forest. Within it, and outside of it, he was the king of the night. The other potentials were either destroyed or enslaved to him. They came back, of course, they all did. But they'd never challenge him again. As the mortal ran, clutching at a strange light-emitting barrel of metal…a torch, he remembered…. It stumbled and fell repeatedly on the tree roots he yanked upwards with his magic.
Ah…at last, it had found one of his notes. Time for the hunt to begin, then. A burst of static and the being was gone. The mortal jerked its head around frantically, looking for the source of the static burst that had taken out its odd form of communication device. Let the games….BEGIN!
He ported closer, reappearing in another burst of static, freaking out the mortal even more. Oh dear. It had urinated in its coverings. How he hated it when that happened. Still, it could've been worse. He sprouted his writhers from his back, tearing through the skin and dripping black ichor onto the ground, where it sizzled and burnt a scorch mark into the earth. Using his freshly emerged appendages, he swept up into the trees and swung ever closer to the prey, releasing bursts of static as he did so and occasionally letting the terrified mortal catch a fleeting glimpse of him in his impeccable black Armani suit, red power tie (it had started out as a dull white but blood had seeped into it over many hunts), and his blank white featureless face – or what passed for one, anyway.
He steadily stalked closer, savouring the heady tint of terror singing in his prey's blood. Sweeping his serpentine tongue around the edges of his maw, he gathered up what little moisture he could; preparing his papyrus thin skin for clearing up the blood later, because if he didn't it'd stick and then he'd scare the children he watched over. Such was his duty after all. It wouldn't do for anything to deny the Almighty's plan for them all, now would it? Shame then, that he didn't believe in the Almighty but instead chose to watch and protect the…not-so innocent ones from their despicable relatives, 'friends' and the all-knowing, all-powerful entity mortals controlled with petty trinkets called the system, the rest of the brats be damned.
This mortal had become prey because it'd tried to forcibly remove a child under his care from the orphanage where it lived to do who knows what with it. Naturally, he couldn't allow that to happen, so he'd immediately connected a tendril of Aether to the mortal's mind and transported it to his realm, soul and all to hunt.
BANG! BANG! BANG! The mortal was shooting those pesky little metal projectiles at him. How quaint. How simple. How ineffectual. Oh well, it'd just have to die a bit sooner than he'd planned. Couldn't let the prey think it was safe now, could he?
He ported directly behind the mortal and used his writhers to suspend the prey in the air. Revolving the prey to face his featureless 'face', and relishing the terror on the prey's face – it would spice the meal up quite nicely. He opened his gaping maw, revealing dagger like teeth, just as pearlescent as the expanse that served for his 'face', if a little bloodstained in places. Oh well, he'd take care of that tonight.