Hello there! This is my new story, and is going to be both a prequel and a stand alone fic. It has my original heroine, Psydoll (Dahlia Dreycourt) in it, and I am planning on writing another story after this one, but following the Avengers Assemble storyline, with Psydoll added in. Think of this story as what Iron Man is to Avengers Assemble; a movie about one of the Avengers, before Avengers Assemble takes place.
I do not own Avengers. If I did, I would be very happy and create Dahlia as an actual superhero with her own comic book!
Prologue
Humans live in such ignorance. Everyday, they walk around, oblivious to what is really happening up in the stars. Yet, it was to be the human world that would be the battle ground, host planet to the inevitable war.
An awful, burning, diseased world. Screaming, tormented shadows. Monsters, dripping saliva, slithering and crawling through the hellish brown-red fog. Humanoid creatures, with blank, milky stares, slowly rotting away in the darkness. It looks like hell, because it is hell.
The Hell dimension, where criminals and unspeakable evil of all races are exiled for eternity. It is both a help and a liability, a cosmic dumping ground that helps to bring peace, but also carries the risk of disaster.
A tall, imposing figure, wearing a long, billowing cloak. His face covered by a simple, glossy black mask. In contrast, the small woman facing him looks weak as she wields a lethal looking blade. The masked figure's eyes glow a malevolent blue colour, and in response the woman's eyes also glow the same blue. Her braided white hair whips behind her as she flys at the masked one, blade raised above her head. At the last second, the masked one parries her blade with a similar one, this one crusted with blood.
There was one who sought to turn the dimension into a weapon. His name was Koruth. He had been a valued member of his society, but tragedy had befallen him when his lover was imprisoned within the Hell dimension. Blind with rage, Koruth vowed to unlock the dimension, permanently, releasing all of the evil resting there into the universe, including his beloved.
Koruth, the masked one, and the woman fight viciously. All around them, others are fighting. Some are like the woman, human in appearance with glowing blue eyes, some are also humanoid, but lack blue eyes, and some are clearly not human at all.
Koruth suddenly tumbles out of the way of the woman's attacks, and thrusts his hand out. She flies back, smacking into a black marble pillar. Koruth immediately begins to sprint through the surrounding melee, towards a collection of slowly rotating silver hoops in the middle of the grand, marble hall. A blond man with blue eyes goes for him, but Koruth stabs him in the stomach, and continues.
The woman recovers, and begins to make her way slowly after him. Koruth has his back to her, and has his hands pressed against tall, jagged purple stones coming up out of the floor. The rings are beginning to spin faster and faster. A small portal is beginning to form in the middle, growing steadily bigger and bigger.
The woman, in a last burst of strength, thrusts her blade through him. He falls, and the portal begins to pulse, flashing and shaking. Koruth looks up at the woman, his eyes fading back to brown. Before the woman can stop him, he disappears in a flash of blue energy, as the portal begins to cause havoc and destruction.
The Melorans, the creators of the Hell dimension, realized with horror that their salvation could be turned against them and the rest of the cosmos in the worst way possible, by one of their own kind. For Koruth was a Meloran, and forever a dark shadow staining their history.
The portal was fractured, not fully closed, yet not fully open. The only way to stop the ensuing devestation was to close the portal permanently, by placing the unstable fracture into a small, artificial dimension.
The white haired woman is given a glowing purple pendant, a smaller version of the jagged crystals set in front of the Hell portal. She places it around her neck, and walks away from the black palace.
The fracture was given to the defeater of Koruth, a woman named Haela. She did not remain on Melor, instead deciding to travel to Earth. The Melorans breathed a sigh of relief, for they believed that they, and the cosmos, was safe.
And so it remained for many years, until the portal was threatened once more...
There was a crowd of people gathered in the black marble hall. The rings of the portal were completely still, the purple crystals dull. Suddenly, the large doors to the hall flew open, and Haela stormed through them, trailed by two nervous looking men. She looked a good few years older than she did fighting Koruth, but her eyes are glowing again, just as brightly.
"What the hell is going on!" She demanded. There was muttering in response to her choice of words.
"Hell!" One woman shouted."The Keeper has spoken!"
"Hell is upon us!"
Haela rolled her eyes at the panicking crowd.
"It's just an Earth phrase," she informed them, folding her arms."Honestly, you'd think you would know this by now, what with all of the surveillance you've been conducting on my family lately."
"You...know about the precautions...?" a muscled, golden haired man, standing in front of the portal, asked uncertainly.
"Of course, I'm not an idiot," Haela gestured to the men either side of her."Besides, these two haven't exactly been discrete. You know, my daughter called me yesterday because she thought that she was being stalked."
Haela pointed at the blonde in a menacing fashion.
"Now, I don't mind about you keeping an eye on me, I understand that, with me being the 'Keeper'," she narrowed her eyes at him."But you leave my girl out of this, Sil. She has nothing to do with Melor, or the portal. She doesn't even know you exist."
"We know," Sil nodded.
"What?" Haela near spat at him. Sil gave her a cool stare.
"We have, of course, been monitoring the child," he informed her. Sil clicked his fingers, and what looked like an oval of blue glass was given too him. He held it up for Haela to see, and a picture appeared on the surface. It showed a young woman, with blonde and pink hair, wearing a short black dressed patterned with roses and skulls, sitting drinking coffee, and reading a book entitled 'Steampunk!'.
Haela's eyes widened , before she marched over to Sil and grabbed the oval, flinging it across the room, where it shattered against the doors. She turned back to Sil, her eyes glowing with a new intensity.
"How dare you!" She screamed."My daughter is none of your business!"
"With all due respect, Keeper, she is technically of Meloran blood," a red haired woman commented. Haela was momentarily silenced by this.
"She is still under the impression that she is a...ah...what do the humans refer to them as?" Sil looked to Haela for guidance. Haela gave him a venomous scowl.
"A mutant," she nodded."She is. She hasn't told me, but I heard her thoughts."
"Good, keep it that way," Sil ordered. Haela's expression soured further at being told what to do, but she did not argue.
"You didn't pull me here to talk about Dahlia, did you?" Haela asked, eyebrow raised."So, what's going down?"
"Going down? Why would something be going downwards?" Sil questioned.
Haela gave a sigh,"It's just another Earth...nevermind, what could be so bad that you drag me from Earth to Melor on such short notice?"
Sil hesitated, and the room broke out into whispers again.
"Sil, I could just reach in and pluck it out of your head, and, frankly, I am very tempted to at this moment in time, so tell-me-what-is-going-on!" The last few words were practically snarled. Sil sighed, and placed his hands behind his back, strolling towards her. Everybody in the room followed his progress. He stopped just in front of her, his eyes full of despair.
"Koruth has been seen again," he said.
Those five small words made Haela's entire persona change. Immediately she was on her guard, her fist clenched. She ground her teeth together angrily.
"No," she spat. Sil nodded slowly, his expression suddenly weary.
"Narla, please," Sil gestured to the red head behind him. She unsheathed a sword from her belt and handed it to him. He held it out to Haela, and she took it with shaking hands.
"How..." she said, looking utterly mortified as she held Koruth's blood encrusted blade. Quickly, she gave it back to Sil, who gave her a pitying look.
"It was found buried in one of our ambassadors," Sil told her solemnly."Then, the next day, another ambassador was sent to us...in pieces."
"How can you be sure it's him?" Haela put her hands defiantly on her hips."He was fatally wounded! He would have died a minute or two after he teleported, even with some medical help!"
"Really?" Sil asked.
He then thrust the bloodied sword through her stomach. Haela gave a scream of pain, and fell to the ground as he retracted it. There were screams around the hall as a handful of other Melorans suddenly stabbed their fellows savagely.
Sil straightened, a long cloak forming around him. A mask also formed over his face, his cheekbones becoming more prominent underneath the mask. He grew a good few inches taller, so that he towered over the fallen Haela, now bleeding badly all over the floor.
"Did he now?" Koruth, in Sil's placed, questioned mockingly. Haela looked around the hall, where various Melorans were beginning to morph into vicious looking lizard creatures. Koruth grabbed her by the collar and lifted her up, slamming her bleeding body up against the dull portal crystals.
"You know what I want," he hissed, as Haela's hand went to her throat, covering the simple leather cord visible around it."And I am not in the mood to ask nicely."
"Go to hell, bitch," Haela gave him a weak smile, as she spotted Narla sneaking up behind him.
"That's the plan, dear," Koruth said, in an almost friendly tone. He grabbed Haela's hand and began to prise it away from her neck. Haela shook her head, now fully grinning at him.
"I've always been stronger than you, Kori," Haela mocked him. Her insult seemed to completely bounce off of him.
"That is true, but then again, you didn't have a huge hole in you then, did you?" Koruth continued in his attempt whilst Narla crept ever closer.
"Oh, and Narla?" Koruth asked calmly, as if making normal conversation. Narla froze, her sword raised above her head.
Koruth turned, still gripping Haela by the neck,"Would you be a dear, and stab yourself through the chest?"
His eyes glowed a green colour this time, and Narla, tears in her eyes, complied with his wishes.
"YOU BASTARD!" Haela screamed, her free hand reaching up to smash the back of his head. Koruth turned his head, and grabbed her fist, flinging her back against the silver hoops. Haela's grip on her throat loosened as her wound bled out even more. Koruth was on her in an instant, ripping the leather cord from her throat, and shoving her out the way of the portal hoops.
On the end of the cord, was the small, purple fracture. Koruth's eyes went back to blue, and he held the crystal up.
"STOP!" He shouted. The lizard men stopped fighting, and the remaining Melorans kneeling slowly down to the ground, eyes wide with fear, staring at the crystal in Koruth's fist.
"We have been successful!" He shouted, before gesturing to Haela."The Keeper is dying, and I have the fracture!"
He held it up for all to see.
"Drama...queen..." Haela gasped. Koruth gave a short bark of laughter, and knelt down beside her.
"Still with the pathetic insults?" He asked."When will you admit defeat, Haela?"
"When I am defeated," Haela gave him a smug, victorious grin.
Koruth's eyes glowed brightly, and he held up the crystal. Suddenly, he smashed it against the marble floor, where it shattered into five, very normal, pieces of amethyst. Haela laughed at him, blood pouring out of her mouth now.
"Got you...bitch," she smiled. Koruth looked at her, clearly furious.
He took out his sword and stabbed her right through the neck.
"No matter," he muttered to himself, standing up and sheathing his blade."An object containing that much power never stays hidden for long."
He walked over to the shattered glass, still showing Haela's daughter. He picked up one shard, showing half of Dahlia's face.
"And I think I know exactly where to begin."
O.K, I know the main character, Dahlia Dreycourt (Psydoll), has a really small part in this opening, and it's a little boring at the start, but bear with please. It will get more interesting, and as it is an Avengers story, there will be at least one Avenger appearing.
Until next time!
Reganmacneil
P.S Who recognises the girl playing Dahlia? She is in the cover photo! Tell me her name for lots of cookies, or just the band she is in, or even her line of makeup and fashion. Leave the answer in the reviews section please, and I may send you a sneak peak of later chapters, if you want.