The stench. That was the very first thing eight year old Issei Hyoudou noticed as he returned home from another lonely day at the park–a copper miasmic haze that made him sick to his stomach.
He paused at the gate of his home, hesitant to enter, unsure of his next action. To his eyes, nothing seemed to be wrong, or out of the ordinary; everything was in perfect condition if he was being honest. A little too perfect…
"Mom?" Issei called, now resting himself against the outer metal fence of his house, peering through the simplistic bars like a prisoner in jail.
His call went unanswered.
"Dad?"
No response either. Now he knew something was definitely wrong, spooky smell aside. Maybe his parents were hiding, maybe there was a surprise waiting for him, like a birthday party or something.
Yeah! That had to be it. Today was his birthday after all, and he had noticed his parents dropping hints about something to come for the past two weeks, a great, big surprise for their beloved Issei.
How could he forget? He had been looking forward to this day ever since his friend Irina went away, counting down the days till he could be totally happy again. Thinking nothing more, the young boy set aside his olfactory discomfort and walked up to his door and entered his home.
He failed to notice that it was already open.
===Break===
The sorcerer hunched over his ancient tomb, reciting the arcane runes and incantations inscribed, lifting his cleansing litany across the insane hellscapes of the Immaterium. The surrounding Prodigal Sons, which encompassed him in a ring, mirrored his words, their combined psychic power radiating from each of their beings, reaching to him and orbiting him in waves of actualized greens and blues, strands of purification soon to manifest.
His arms forsook the leather bound book he was holding, letting it float before him, stretching his hands to the collapsed creature before him, impure and ready to be set free from its armored prison. The thing spasmed as the materialized psyker energies flowed from the sorcerer into it, linking them in a helical sparks of prismic lights. The once free floating colors crystallized with each pattern they followed, their radiance shining bright and promising a future worth sacrifice.
As if on cue, the being's armor began to dematerialize, fading in speckled mirages of dust and revealing the glowing white soul within. It pulsed in the cleansing energies of the sorcerer, leaking raw divinity from its slowly crumbling metallic prison.
Ahzek Ahriman, banished First Captain and Chief Librarian of the Thousand Sons, smiled to himself beneath his helmet, watching as the Rubric Marine before him began to be cured.
Yes, this was very good. With this power, he could truly bring back the glory of the XV Legion, restore them to the might they knew before the Heresy and before his failure.
This was a step in the attainment of his dream, his only dream: the curing of the skin change. One day, his brothers would never have to face the accursed transformations their gene seed could prompt. One day, they would be free; their fate would change and the creature Tzeentch would be cast from their brotherhood like the leper it truly was. The Thousand Sons would ascend one day to their idealized utopia, back to the pure light of knowledge and mystics they had long since abandoned.
===break===
Issei Hyoudou gazed about his home's deserted living room, his eyes wandering over the assorted clutter left about on the couch and coffee table. A bag of chips lay open and half finished upon the couch, a few of the potato slice pieces spilled across the hardwood floor beneath.
Not one to pass up a free snack, the boy snagged the chips, quickly stuffing a few into his mouth before resuming his search, wandering into the kitchen, likewise devoid of his parents.
Then his eyes fell upon the knife buried in the wall. Stuck up to its hilt, the cooking utensil was very much out of place, an anomaly of epic proportions that should not have been where it was.
Issei's mother was very particular about her kitchen wares, never letting anyone but herself touch them, as well as always taking the utmost care of them.
His blood turned cold and beads of sweat began to run down the side of his faith.
Something was terribly wrong.
His breath quickened, coming in ragged gasps as he turned to face the long dark hallway adjacent to the kitchen. The shadows were a vale of black which was only pierced by the evening light emitted from the slightly ajar door to his parent's bedroom.
The dark…it felt wrong. He did not know how or why, but it was off; it was unnatural.
"M-Mom? Da–dad?" he whispered, more to himself than to wherever his parents could be.
Everything still remained silent.
Against his will, he began to walk toward the hall, his body moving in slow motion out of the kitchen and towards the edge of the shadows. His mind had ceased to work; his body was not his own anymore as it was compelled to move to the blackness.
He only stopped when he stepped in something wet, his feet failing him as he quickly fell into some sort of pool. Issei reached out to touch whatever he was now in.
His fingers came up red.
It was blood.
His eyes could now see within the shadows, perceiving a long trail of the body's life essence leading to the open door, littered with mangled shapes.
Limbs.
Organs.
Heads. His parents'.
The pieces of what was once living lay all around Issei, a tribute to death for his viewing pleasure.
The vomit flew from his mouth as fast as the tears from his eyes.
His parents were…dead. Murdered. The young boy faltered in the face of such disgust, curling himself into a ball within the blood and crying uncontrollably.
Then he heard a voice, sickeningly sweet and sing-songy.
"I was beginning to think you were not going to show up," something whispered, seeming to reach the deepest parts of his mind and soul, "I would not want you to miss play time."
The door slammed fully open, the sunlight cloaking the…thing in the doorway within a shadowed embrace.
All Issei saw or even noticed was the black, decrepit wings, sprouting from the creature's back.
===break===
Ahzek Ahriman was no stranger to the cruelties of fate, its conniving villainy that made all suffer in the end. He knew it came to punish wherever it saw fit, and he knew he should have foreseen the inevitable corruption of his purifying ritual. He had been blinded to his own grand designs, and a price had to be paid.
The psychic energy connection was the first thing to fail, its crystallized state slowly cracking and fracturing, bit by bit. The raw power it had channeled began to leak from these structures, blackening the divinity they produced. Then followed the marine itself, whose soul darkened, falling from the light and future it promised, decaying along with the dematerializing armor that was its prison.
With all the might he could muster, Ahriman tried to counter this cursed change, hastily reciting new incantations from his vast halls of memories. Countless mysticisms and pleads fell from his lips but to no avail. His dream continued to die.
In inhumane clarity, piercing the dark recesses of the Immaterium, he could hear the whisper of a thousand tormented voices, coalesced into one vessel.
Lord Tzeentch spoke.
The skin change is a gift
The Changer of Ways mocked him, cackling at his failures.
It is not your place to challenge my will, to reject my blessings.
Ahriman's fury began to rise. His one hope in his cursed life was being crushed by the very creature that enslaved his legion and proclaimed itself the Master of Change.
Now suffer for your transgressions
In a flare of psychic horror, the remaining divine light of change vanished from Ahriman and the Prodigal Sons, exploding forth in a wave of infinite wrath around the banished sorcerer, passing through his followers as if they were specters.
The blessed tome of salvation slowly turned to dust before Ahriman.
The Prodigal Sons and Rubric Marine followed suit.
Even he, the mighty, feared Arch Sorcerer Ahzek Ahriman started to fade.
Everything he had ever worked for was being undone in mere seconds. He was attacked, laid low by the…creature, the abomination, the false-god his brothers followed and slaved themselves to. His rage returned, overpowering his horror and igniting a flame within him, a final flare of psychic perfection that would echo throughout the cosmos and the Immaterium.
Beyond the realms of reality, the echo of pain was heard. Something awoke, something answered the dying will of the Son of Prospero.
As his body finally withered to nothingness and his soul flew from the dusty remnants of life, Ahzek Ahriman did not meet death or the afterlife. He was graced with something far older than these abstractions, something that gave him the one thing he had long since forsaken, hope.
In the darkness he found light–a blinding star in the nothingness of his deceased consciousness, sprouting forth from empty death and pulling him back to reality, a reality not his own, aged and primitive.
Breath was forced back into his form, his spirit pulled from the dominions of war and the far grimdark future. He knew life again.
A choir of voices, harmonious and angelic, spoke to him as his rebirth began, burning him with its sanctified purity. His sins and corruptions clawed and ached within his soul as the voice of the heavens thundered.
Protect him.
That was all that was bestowed upon the Arch Sorcerer as he was pried from the abyss of decay reforged.
Sense returned to him. Power returned to him. Purpose returned.
He saw with eyes not his own–perceiving black wings and remnants of death all around him. He was living a life not his own. He was changed, his soul altered, combined with that of another, a weak and pitiful creature, a child, a boy.
He felt emotions not his own. Rage, confusion, pain, disgust; and most of all fear. Ahzek had long since forgotten such an emotion in his path for the ascension of the Thousand Sons. Fear was a waste of thought to him, serving no purpose to his goals, besides that of a tool to be wielded against the lowly sheep.
He felt afraid for the first time in many, many years, and he would not stand for such lowly, base experiences.
The words of eternity spoke to him once more–Protect him. This child he had joined with was in danger, he knew that plain as day and thus acted. A surge of reawakened psychic power flowed from his manifested soul into that of the being he was a part of now.
The child became conscious of him, materializing in this soul mindscape with Ahriman, still unaware of what was happening, yet accepting of the might that flowed from the banished Son of Magnus.
The Arch Sorcerer took no note of the boy cowering before him, focusing on survival and the punishment of this…devil that had attempted to wipe out this pitiable, bawling child.
Ahzek Ahriman may not have been able to save his brothers and fulfill his great purpose, but in this new life, he would accomplish this single task set before him by the star of eternity.
===break===
Pain flowed through Issei Hyoudou as he was flung through the air like a ragdoll, colliding with the wall on the opposite end of the hallway.
Stars clouded the boy's vision, fear his thoughts as he knew that death awaited him. He did not want to die. He did not want to hurt.
"Look at you go" the devil in the dark giggled as it inched closer to him, skipping like a little girl and singing to itself.
Issei tried to force himself to his feet, his eight year old body failing to heed his commands, managing nothing more than the movement of a single arm.
In a single second, his hand was gone in a flash of light, nothing more than a gored stump of flowing blood and cracked, exposed bone.
He screamed.
"It's music! Musicmusicmusicmusicmusic to my precious ears!" the monster hailed, flying at breakneck speed from the shadows to grasp the young boy, hoisting him to face height.
What held Issei was a creature straight from hell that would eternally haunt his nightmares. A disturbingly perfect face of marble white psychotically grinned at him, its smile unnaturally large and extending to the eyes in a ragged cut. Razor sharp black teeth glowed from the abomination's mouth, complimenting the minute eyes of a similar color. Two horns, red as blood extended from a perfectly groomed head of blonde hair that cascaded all the way down to the creature's feminine waist.
"Prettyprettypretty boy we are going to have fun! we are going to plaaaaay a game!"
Issei tried to wriggle from the devil's grasp, only finding himself shoved back into the wall headfirst, a single claw holding his head in place and piercing his scalp.
"Let's play…How much can I make you scream, starting with your fingers!"
His remaining hand was wrenched from his side, brought to the mouth of the devil. She toyed with it, running each trembling digit over her extended teeth, savoring his whimpers and pleads for mercy.
With a chuckle it bit down on his thumb, shaking its head and slowly prying off the finger, watching with delight as the muscles and bone slowly separated and broke.
"You taste wooooooonderful! So juicy, so sweet! Me want more!"
Saying nothing else, the devil shoved his entire hand in its mouth up to the middle of his forearm, biting down and pulling as she did with the thumb.
In spite of the exploding pain, Issei did not scream, his mind had been jolted from this moment in time, pulled into his subconscious and a realm of pure white.
His senses ceased to be, his emotions seeming to go haywire, worse than when in reality only calming down as he came face to face with a creature of metal, crimson robed and armored in blue and gold, bearing a horned staff and towering over him.
The helmet it wore scared him, the tusks and cold purple eyes shielded behind gold plating glared at him for but a moment, before turning upwards.
Issei remained as far from the thing as possible, unsure of what it was, where he was, why he was here with it?
Then the young boy felt something strange yet strong; he felt power emanating from the armored thing that paid him no mind, that glowed in violet light and commanded attention, fear, and respect.
No matter how scared he felt, Issei knew safety in the presence of whatever it was that he was staring at. The child barely noted the sudden feeling of the thing seizing control of his body, ascending to consciousness. He could not find it in himself to care as he crawled over to the armored warrior, latching on to its massive gauntleted leg and holding on for dear life.
He was saved, and this thing was now a part of him–that much Issei knew–and by whatever deity existed he could not be more thankful.
In a matter of moments, he was asleep at the foot of his giant savior.
===break===
Ahzek Ahriman opened the boy's eyes, awakened in the primitive reality he had felt his soul transported to. The devil that held him twitched its head to the side like a bird, knowing that something had changed with its captive.
In the creature's eyes, the Arch Sorcerer could see his reflection.
His eyes were glowing a psychically awakened turquoise light, and power radiated from him in waves.
"Mymymymymy! What do we have…"
The creature could not finish its thought as it was flung from Ahriman in a burst of energy, landed gracessely and bruised on at the end of a bloodied hall.
Ahzek collapsed to the floor, letting out a primal scream as he felt the boy's pain and the limitations of the vessel he resided in. It was not attuned to psyker workings and mystics, weak and untrained. The simple sorcery he had enacted burned, straining the body and what little power it possessed.
But not for long, Ahriman swore to himself. Once this abomination was banished from his presence, he would ensure that the boy's body, his vessel, would walk the path of the Thousand Sons. Creatures such as the one before him would tremble at his coming.
He merely had to dispose of the trash before him, which still lay crumpled on the floor, struggling to find its feet.
"Hear my words daemon for they are the last that shall ever grace your rotten existence. You dared to harm my vessel and by default myself. For this sin you shall know the unmerciful wrath of the Sons of Prospero."
The moment the devil rose, Ahriman struck, waving the boy's stump hands in the air in an arc, conjuring forth the smallest amount of psyker power he possibly could.
A single line, a fluctuating purple manifestation fazed into reality, curling gradually into a circle of ruins as the daemon approached, a sadistic smile upon its face and talons extended, believing the Arch Sorcerer to be unprepared and incapable of standing against it.
With the drop of his destroyed hands, the runic shape expelled forth, catching the creature in the face and spearheading it out of the house in a flaming violet haze.
In the empty street in front of the house, the devil did not rise from its crumbled state, lying still with its murderous smile forever etched upon its corpse.
Before he could revel in his easy victory, Ahzek Ahriman felt the clutches of fatigue seize his vessel, his legs giving way and consciousness leaving him.
Much work needed to be done if the usage of such simple abilities was so costly. But the Arch Sorcerer did not fear. Even in this state he could hold his own, he knew how to fight, and the boy and himself had compatible goals of survival and protection.
With his second chance, Ahriman would fulfill his new goal in life, and by such a pursuit of protecting this innocent child he would bring about the second coming of the Thousand Sons. They would rise again in this vessel, uncorrupted and powerful beyond all imagination.
There was no stopping the reborn Son of Prospero.
Holy fucking shit! This was epic to write. After reading A Human Touch (I recommend it, it's exceptionally wholesome) as well as getting into the epicness of the Thousand Sons (both with the fanfic Fifteenth Ascendant and the Ahriman Omnibus) I decided to try my hand at a Warhammer High School DXD crossover.
And thus you have this thing. Yeeha! Here comes some ranting and disclosures.
Firstly, there was not a lot of exposition about what the hell Ahriman was doing, where is Magnus, how Ahzek got to Issei–what star/eternity thing got him there. Y'all need to trust me here, I got shit waiting for ya on those accounts, and did not want to expose too much in the first chapter. Gotta get y'all to read the next bits.
Secondly I must point out that I will tweak things like making Ahriman less evil and inhumane (though he will still have plenty of bad in him) and making a few devils in DXD so much more horrifying. There will also be small changes to Issei's character, since you know, he has the fucking Arch Sorcerer of Tzeentch residing as part of his soul, so he won't suck so much (he won't be overpowered though, or at least at the start, he's gotta work for his abilities) or be a shameless pervert.
I should also point out that since it is DXD, I should inform my homies out there that there will obviously be a harem and some…nookie…to say the least. So you have been warned.
Anywho, this stuff aside, I hope you enjoyed; I will see you in the next chapter.