This page conserves the character fiction forum of the Agora forums. The posts have been left unformatted to make it easier for users to copy them here and paste them into the new forums.

Oren Itanooren12/10/08 18:25View
Missy12/10/08 22:22View
The backstory of Vulpes.Vulpes12/11/08 01:46View
Erica KesselErica Kessel12/11/08 07:52View
Missy's Story.. a Do-over and another ChapterMissy12/11/08 22:38View
UsrBinPerl12/11/08 23:48View
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Eternal SunsetMissy12/13/08 12:19View
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MasksAlissa12/14/08 00:58View
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Missy's Story Part 4: Innocence ShatteredMissy12/16/08 18:34View
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Her Bloody Tears [-Past Event-]Methias12/23/08 18:09View
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Usr's story Part IVUsrBinPerl12/27/08 20:34View
The EssexHeir Maelstrom12/29/08 04:23View
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Joint Round Robin Fic Anyone...?erinnic12/30/08 19:07View
God Was On Her Lips As She Diederinnic01/02/09 23:31View
Love and Betrayal - A New Beginningkessjuliesse01/03/09 13:46View
The Diary of Cody Woodhencodywoodhen01/05/09 21:35View
Missy's Story Part 6: Innocence AbductedMissy01/07/09 06:23View
Cursed BladeYannis_Martynov01/08/09 21:27View
Story Thread: Community Round Robin Ficerinnic01/09/09 23:25View
The demon withinCanly Fargis01/11/09 16:14View
Ziau- CoLA's Very Own CasanovaZiau01/13/09 02:09View
Twisted Attentionserinnic01/21/09 20:34View
Inspiration- music and roleplayZiau01/26/09 08:01View
Compilation! Where were you when it all happened?Ziau01/28/09 09:12View
The Clock Struck MidnightMalice Ashdene01/28/09 22:31View
With Precision- a poem by Kelly Welch A.k.A Ziau Jua.Ziau01/29/09 04:36View
Alisa's dicovery of a new world (character sheet + story)Alisa Draconia01/30/09 19:17View
The Shadow Stepper- Ziau the Enshadowed.Ziau02/01/09 07:26View
Krista Lemon arrives to the streets of Lost AngelsKrista02/03/09 00:09View
Back Story Upto the Excile of Rune.RuneCrimson02/03/09 21:59View
War with the Brood, war with the Coven, and the Pack.Ziau02/07/09 04:11View
-- Halcyon's Backstory --Halcyon Nacht02/08/09 00:22View
Planer/Exonar family (aka, Erinyse, Khalan, Viridian, Cummere, Selena)Cummere Mayo02/08/09 03:53View
Kit's BackstoryKit Ristow02/10/09 18:40View
Eyes in the DarkKeyla02/11/09 09:47View
Surfacing Part ILlyr02/13/09 22:21View
Surfacing Part IILlyr02/13/09 22:35View
Tama-Chan: A Cat's Story (Tamara's background)Tamara02/17/09 07:35View
Project: A map of Post Apocalypse North AmericaTamara02/17/09 19:21View
Dreamtime RevelationsWinter02/19/09 18:08View
Reaver-the echo of the BlackwindAntiZero02/23/09 00:43View
On the Origin of SpeciesTamara02/25/09 22:38View
ConfessionKit Ristow02/26/09 01:39View
Personnel File: Pointe, Zsuzsanna C. (Inactive, Deceased)Su Pointe02/26/09 03:32View
Malice, in a Different Kind of WonderlandMalice Ashdene02/27/09 18:07View
The Dark of InspirationKit Ristow03/01/09 21:42View
Jheric: CrucifiedKayle Ashdene03/03/09 10:53View
It's my lifearsene_Braveheart03/05/09 18:18View
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The Sin of Wrathmolly switchblade04/02/09 21:28View
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Story About A GirlAesendria04/24/09 15:34View
Climaxe by Smith and WessonSloan04/28/09 06:19View
My new project ATTENTION Russian Characters!Ziau05/01/09 06:42View
**NSFW** A Typical Tuesday Night for MissyMissy05/06/09 20:48View
Post your profile links!Cortero Landar05/07/09 10:25View
Making Logan SufferAesendria05/12/09 07:09View
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The Vanguard's True PurposeLogan05/16/09 01:03View
Cortero's Infernal ArmorCortero Landar05/16/09 06:52View
Bookstore SurpriseAesendria05/16/09 23:16View
Post your profile links if you have in-story info in them!Cortero Landar05/18/09 10:33View
PromisesAesendria05/24/09 02:44View
Cyber Evolution Bios, Anur Seda, Cyber Reaper, and Commander of CETheassassin06/08/09 11:28View
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Going homeLudvig06/17/09 19:10View
'Ren in Japanoren06/18/09 23:11View
Thelma across the boardThelemaJuliesse06/26/09 15:09View
Pre-fiction: How Kayteear got here.Kayteear07/15/09 16:43View
Story TimeCharissa07/17/09 19:03View
Pack Airship RP.Tai07/27/09 02:49View
My CharacterLilith1308/05/09 22:34View
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Young Cowards.Ziau08/23/09 08:28View
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AesendriaPART ONE: PROMISES

Aesendria could already feel the deaths mounting as she crested the hill in central Henan province. Up ahead she saw the black smoke plumes from the caravan under assault. There were banners, soldiers, screaming women and children, death and dying... all the usual accoutrements of warfare. She didn't need to see it, she could feel it, she was eating it. Nothing human was as intoxicating to her as the beautiful sweet dance of death of warfare. The sweet release of hope and fear and shaking body jarring turmoil of watching yourself die helpless to do anything about it.

She gorged on the sweet release of negative emotion as she neared the place. Chinese soldiers of two factions crawled on their bellies on the ground, begging for the aid.. the more realistic begging for the sweet release of death. She just giggled and danced among them. They were such a sweet feast and she didn't even have to do anything to gorge herself. The soldiers were sweet but apparently at least a few civilians were mixed within. Soldiers had at least some modicum of training and were expecting death. It was so much more delicious to taste the civilians' churning emotions, so unprepared so fearful... consumed with the last feeble flickerings of their lives before the embrace of death.

So it was that Aesendria found herself standing at the edge of a rocky ditch. Something about it made her head hurt. She didn't like the ditch... a few people, mostly women, had crawled away from the battle on their bellies, into the ditch, a few died there after a short crawl, some struggled on. A baby was crying... she could hear it now that the sound of steel clashing against steel was more distant.

A Chinese peasant woman was crawling on her belly like the others. Her wounds were betrayed by the long red smear trail that marked her trail back towards the caravan. Her crawl was slower than the others thanks to the infant child she cradled in one arm.

Aesendria skipped over towards her humming a Pashtun children's song. Approaching her, she put her foot on the woman's still bleeding and poorly bandaged side. “Going somewhere?” she said in the local dialect.

The woman howled in pain and roughly rolled over. Unusually high pangs of fear and confusion shot through the woman. Whatever she was expecting to see, a pale naked Pashtun woman covered in tattoos with giant tentacles and dicks growing out of her back was not it.

She cradled her child against her chest. She was coughing up blood and Aesendria could tell she felt death approaching swiftly. Her thoughts now were only on her child's life, not her own. “Are you Red Turban, or Yuan?” In her arms the baby cried and cried. Its what babies did.

A voice groaned in the distance and Aesendria lashed out with a tendril to wrap around someone's neck, another woman, off in the distance. The tendril snapped the other woman's neck like a twig and Aesendria made a shhhh sound. “We're trying to talk here. Don't be so rude.”

Turning back to the woman with child, Aes said, “I'm neither my dear. Your silly civil wars and dynasty changes don't matter to me.” She leaned in more closely and said, “Truth be known, most people outside the Middle Kingdom couldn't care less about you.”

The woman looked up, faint embers of hope burning in her eyes but mixed in a cauldron of despair. “Are you a demon?”

Aesendria nodded. “Something like that. Everyone makes that assumption but actually I'm a Risen. Vengeful ghost, that kind of thing.” She tapped her tentacle against her cheek and continued. “I think I'm going to kill you now. You seem sweet so I'll make it quick.”

The woman looked up at her and said, “Kill me as you wish, demon, but promise me you will take my infant son to the Shaolin temple. He will be safe there.”

Aesendria laughed. “And why should I do that. Silly mortal. You have nothing to barter --”
She cut Aes off. “If you wish vengeance, he is newborne and did nothing to you. If you wish to corrupt he is still too innocent. If there is any shred of humanity left in that wicked shell you will promise me to see my son to safety.”

Aesendria sat back on her haunches, a little stunned. Beyond the ditch she saw a little stream and saw a naked deformed girl playing in the water. She nodded. “I... I promise.” She looked down at the little mewling glob of flesh, sensing only hunger and discomfort from it.

She felt the soothing touch of her Asura's serpentine tongue flicking the back of her neck. “Beautiful flower, this is a mistake.”

Aesendria nodded as she watched the life drain out of the woman's eyes. The promise secured, her child's life given some feeble hope, she let herself fall back and rest in peace. “I know it is,” Aesendria said.

Both Asura and Aes looked at the child, still bawling his eyes out in his death mother's arms. “This may very well destroy you,” the Asura said.

Very carefully, she wrapped her tentacles around the infant and picked it up the way a mortal might pick up an especially foul smelling piece of dog manure. “I made a promise.”


FIRST INTERLUDE


The carriage rocked back and forth so much that Aesendria thought it was going to collapse at any moment. She could barely concentrate on it because of the screams.

“Please don't kill me! Please don't kill me! Sacred Buddha don't kill me!”

Aesendria rolled her eyes. “If I was going to kill you, don't you think you'd be dead by now?”

The woman had the infant against her breast and was breast feeding it. The baby still cried and looked a sickly color. This caused the woman no end of worry, which was a steady stream of nourishment, if a little tiring. Aes looked to her Asura and growled, “I got it food, I got it shelter from the sun, I got us a carriage hauled by a blood slave to take us right to this temple. What more does that brat want!”

Before her Asura could answer, the frightened woman said with a nervous stutter, “My lady, you didn't feed this child for three days, its a miracle he's still alive...” The woman sniffled, snot and tears running down her face.

Aesendria just sighed and looked out the carriage's window at the Henan countryside going by. “Its a miracle any of you disgusting creatures live long enough to be interesting...”


(to be continued...)
05/24/09 02:44
AesendriaIt all started when a vanguard member called Epsilon made me promise to end the pain of a poor neko girl called Sunshine. It was probably among the worst ideas in the history of CoLA but I was left wondering how Aes would react to a sincere, no bullshit plea for aid from someone. That pondering sat in my head and rattled around for awhile and the result is this story. It also explores some of Aesendria's weaknesses in greater depths.05/24/09 02:47
AesendriaPART TWO: DEFEAT

“Aesendria of the Hindu Kush,” a shaolin monk called out from the back of the courtyard as he flipped through the wrinkled pages of an impossibly old looking book. “Her name is Asuran for Flower of Hate and she is a major demoness responsible for a great deal of death and carnage.”

Aesendria held out the mewling blob of flesh in her tentacles. “Yes, that's my name, as I said. And I'm a Risen. Not a demon. How many times do I have to clear this up.”

She smiled at the men surrounding her. They were all shaven headed and they had on fancy looking jumpsuits with very spiffy looking sash belts. They were oh so cute and carrying odd looking weapons like sticks with chains attaching them together and oddly curved swords and things like that.

She grinned with her usual uncaring attitude, but her ethertendrils were having a hard time. She sensed nothing from the men. Not anger, not fear, not hope, not love, not lust, nothing. Only serenity and emptiness. There was a faint trickle of foodenergy from a row of younger people... students? Off in the distance, but it was so far away it would be no use in a battle.

The one that seemed to be in charge stepped forward. “You're a long way from the Hindu Kush, demoness. What brings you to our monastery?”

She held the boy in her tentacles and offered him up. “This child's mother asked me to see this child to your temple. I have, now here take the disgusting thing away from me.”

He walked up. Not a drop of fear or rage or anything. It made Aesendria's lip tremble with anger. He took the baby and cradled with the gentleness of a mother, then calmly walked back to one of his aids and passed him over.

Aesendria didn't like the monastery or the eerily serene monks and wanted to be on her way. “Very nice place, I love the little sticks with the chains. Shaved heads are a very nice touch. Now I'll be going.”

The monks nearby readied their weapons in unison, as if one mind controlled them all. In an even tone, the leader said simply, “I don't think so.”

Aes let out a cackling childish laugh. “And you're going to stop me I suppose mortal? With your little sticks?” She giggled and giggled and let her acidic cum drip down burning the stones beneath her feet and sending up a foul smelling plume of smoke. Nothing. No fear, no trepidation, not even the tiniest morsel.

The man nodded and took off his coat. Always a bad sign when someone does that. He was getting serious. But still there was no shift in his serene mindstate, no growing angry as was so common among warriors. He walked forward with a calm, precise gait. “That's right, demoness. But not with my sticks, with only my fists and my training as a shaolin master.”

Aes sighed, “Its not demoness its --” But her words were cut off as she found the man's fist at her throat before she could react. Her flesh buckled under his blows. She couldn't track his odd movements... she'd never fought a martial artist before and the odd stream of kicks and punches and leaps... and his speed.... to her he was like a painful blur flitting about her. She wound up on her back on the ground, writhing in pain. How had this happened?

She hissed in anger and unloaded a torrent of acidcum out into the courtyard. “Die mortal insect!” she hissed out.

This made the man fall back a distance to safety. When she looked him over only a few specs of her acid had singed his shirt. He stripped it off and turned back to the scholarly man in back. “Brother Xiang, please amend Aesendria's record to minor demoness. She does not seem to be much of a threat for anyone beyond women and city guards.”

Aesendria crawled back onto her feet. “Come dance with me again and I'll show you what a threat I can be.”

He didn't even respond to her. “Han, Li, Jun, Kai, this will be a good test of your training. Take her.”

The four students leaped forward and surrounded her at the cardinal points and slowly circled her, waiting for an opening. Though they were younger and less experienced, there was barely a ripple of emotion amongst them. Her body still ached from the beating their leader had given her.. she had trouble moving quickly... her rhythm was shot. She wanted to get away but the walls of the monastery were too high for her to simply leap over.

“Sending children to do your bidding old man? What a coward! I'll show your sweet succulent boys a good time I promise.”

“Do not listen to her taunts. Center yourself. Focus only on the task at hand, nothing more.” Their leader's words were calm, soothing, centering. Even the faint ripple that existed before vanished. Aes knew she was in trouble.

Her Asura appeared behind one of the men. “I tried to warn you my dear.” He said in his usually calm voice. “Oh shut up,” was her angry response.

The battle was short. With no empathic energy to draw from her targets, they made short work of her. Rather than wait for them to strike, she picked one of the four and sprayed out her acid cum. He ducked to the sides and rolled out of the way completely untouched, but this was the opening the others had been waiting for.

The other three leapt at her all at once and rained down blows upon her. Tentacles were severed, a sword was slashed through her back, damaging her spine. She howled in pain as her body already began buckling, so early. Only through sheer will did she lash her dozen tentacles back at them, seeking to strike any or all of them at once. Her tentacles found only one and lashed about his arm trying to drag him closer before one of the others simply slashed it off.

She turned in time to see the first one she had targeted roll in front of her. He slammed his hand palm down against her chest between her breast. “Quivering Palm!” he shouted out in a fury that was not matched by the serenity in his mind.

Pain. Her body was filled with an eternity of pain, a sea of it. Every bone snapped... a blackened blood blister of his palm seemed burned into her chest. Blood shot from her eyes, her mouth, every orifice, and she crumpled to the ground, broken, defeated.

The leader moved closer again. “Good work men. Please return to your positions so we can dispose of this creature.”

Her body was broken and without sustenance, she couldn't repair it. She lashed out with her ethertendrils but there was nothing to eat, nothing to feast on. Nothing anywhere... but there, in the distance, a courtyard away... children were watching. Sweet delicious children full of sweet delicious emotions.

The man advanced and pulled out a scroll. Scrolls were bad. If she was to act it would have to be now. As he started reciting some kind of shaolin prayer, she opened her mouth wide like a serpent and vomited up a huge puddle of black tar blood... all her blood... her essence, herself.

She felt herself become free from the restraints of her broken and useless flesh. Her blood oozed quickly across the courtyard towards the children like a black wave. Finally a twinge of panic, just the faintest ember from the man but unfortunately for her it was just a moment.

The man completed his incantation and she felt a jolt of energy sieze her body. She was being tugged backwards. And as blood there was no way for her to grasp anything or hold on.

Her bloodform was drawn back into a souljar, a glass prison. She tried to scream but she could not. She tried to lash out but she had no tendrils now. She compelled her bloodform to ooze up the sides but before she could escape, the lid was shut and sealed.

She was trapped.

As she screamed her rage within her prison she could see her Asura's face distorted through the glass peering in. She heard him laugh his wicked laugh. “I told you!” And then he waved and walked away, laughing still.
05/24/09 03:53
Tempest EllaReads / <3's / Claps ..

I love reading your writings nice work
05/24/09 04:31
AesendriaSECOND INTERLUDE

Patience.

Aesendria was patient.

The room was about twenty by twenty feet and lined with magickal protections and other soul jars inhabited by the essence of other undead and demons. Aesendria spent her days imagining suffering she would inflict on the monks and testing the wards on her jar. She picked one spot, one specific spot above and hurled herself against it constantly, wearing away at the wax seal ever so slightly.

Time was as always a haze to her. Occasionally she would see her Asura through the distorted glass of the jar, sometimes others from her memory who couldn't possibly have found their way into the prison room. But always she wore away at that spot.

How long did it take before she could exude a tiny ethertendril, barely a hair's width in thickness? It was hard to say. But it wound out and searched the room around her. Nothing, nothing.... for so long nothing, but then she found insects crawling in cracks near the roof. So little to work with, but she coaxed them and cajoled them and had them work on a single spot... a crack near the door...

“Break the sealing sigils my dearies,” she said in her prison, “I am patient...” And day by day, year by year, the ants traced a pattern for her tiny hair tendril.

How long did it take before that tiny filament was able to push under the door of her cell and out into the hallway beyond? She didn't know. It didn't matter, all that mattered was now and now she needed out of this prison.

Her hair tendril looped up to the ceiling, out of sight out of mind. Or so she hoped. Guards patrolled but if they noticed they never paid her any mind. Her tendrils swam out until she found something appetizing. The childre. Those lovely children the priests had kept hidden from her. Children with nice juicy fears and rages and tantrums and all the emotions of the immature.

Dinner!

And as she fed, her blood in the jar bubbled ever so slightly and expanded. Then something even more surprising happened. She noticed the boy. The one she had promised to bring. How old was he? He had to be at least fifteen... had it been that long? Fifteen years already? She tried not to think about. She had work to do. Her hair tendril slipped down from above him, wrapping around his neck as he slept and positioned itself at his ear.

She began to whisper to him at night. Sweet, seductive, whispers from the only mother figure the boy had left.

PART THREE: BLOOD

“Lan... I don't think we should be doing this....” Niu was always a little timid, but even Lan was hesitant about breaking into the forbidden chamber. It had taken months for him to figure out how to do it unnoticed, even with the whispering in his ear.

“If what these voices say is true, my mother is inside her. I have to find out the truth.” He looked to Niu and said, “You wanted to come with me. If you can't handle it, stay behind. I won't think less of you.”

Niu sighed, “You're my friend, Lan. I just want to keep you out of trouble!” He stood behind Lan, gripping his shirt. “You're too impetuous...”

Lan smiled. “And you're too timid. That's what makes us such a good pair.” He knelt down and began casting the spell the whisper voice had showed him. Sure enough, the inner door opened at his words. “Let's go...”

Lan and Niu stepped inside the actual chamber now and beheld a surprisingly small chamber. He had expected a forbidden chamber to be vast and impressive, but it was just a room, though it was stuffed to the gills with books, scrolls, jars full of strange liquids, golden boxes sealed with wax, ancient horned skulls covered in glyphs and covered in ricepaper ofuda strips.

Niu hesitated at the door. “Lan... mistake. Stove hot. Bad idea. Go back now.” He gripped Lan's sleeve. “You wanted me to come to warn you when you were going too far. This is too far!”

Lan wanted to stop, he really did. Why was his mother in here? Was it even his mother? He took a deep breath, though. “I have to find out the truth. I've been an orphan all my life without even a hint of knowledge of my past. If I can find it here, I will. You couldn't understand.”

Lan stepped inside, and he could feel it.. a dozen powerful entities trained their eyes... or whatever... on him. Studied him and evaluated who he was and why he was here.

Niu stepped inside, keeping close to Lan. He studied the various seals and read off their names. “Succubus of the White Bones, Pipa Demon, Queen of the Bikkhus... Lan... these are demons!”

Inside her jar, Aesendria bubbled. “And Risen!” She wanted to say. Risen never got any respect.

Maybe that bubbling caught Lan's attention. He walked up to her jar and read off, “Aesendria of the Hindu Kush. This is it.”

Niu stepped forward and put his hand on the jar. “Lan, this is our last chance to turn back. Its madness to open this jar. Why would your mother be bound inside here? This makes no sense!” Niu studied his friend's eyes, trying to talk sense to him.

Its too bad he wasn't focusing on the jar because that was close enough for Aesendria. Her tiny hair tentacle wrapped around his arm and coiled up into his ear and pushed in to his brain. It was a crude form of possession, would hardly last more than a second, but she compelled him to pick up the jar and smash it on the floor. Her glass prison shattered and Aesendria sprang to work.

Her bloodform quickly coiled up Niu's leg. He shrieked in panic and Lan stepped back, stunned and unsure how to react. The black blood slithers like a serpent around the boy and poured into him through his mouth, his ears, his tear ducts, his anus... every orifice... until it all disappeared inside him.

Lan shouted his name, “Niu! Are you alright!” Niu smiled. He never smiled. Then he giggled and looked down at his hands.

“Well its not what I am used to but it will have to do for now.” Niu turned at looked at Lan. “Ahh and you must be my beautiful bouncing boy. Hello Lan.”

Lan backed up against the far wall, his hands digging into the stones. “What? Niu? … Are you, was that black blood my... mother?”

Niu giggled a very feminine giggle. His entire body posture changed. “Of course dear, try to keep up.” He looked around the room and said, “I've been kept here for far too long, thank you for letting me loose.” Niu walked towards him and Lan could see his face changing by the moment, his body growing more feminine. “Now give mommy a kiss.”

Lan recoiled... tried to push himself back into the stones if he could. “Niu was right! You aren't my mother! You're just a demon!”

Not Niu ran hisher fingers over Lan's shaved head. “Well its true I told you a few little white lies, but it was me who brought you here. I … more or less adopted you when your mother died. I promised her I would take care of you, on her deathbed she made me promise. Now, perhaps you can argue I'm not the best godmother to have. But I'm yours. And I intend to keep my promise.”

Lan started to scramble towards the door. His fright was off the charts and she ate it like a banquet feast. A tentacle lashed out from Aes's new back and wrapped around his waist pulling him back. “Not yet my pretty pretty boy. You have a bit more work to do for me. There's no way I could get out of this place alone so I need a bit of a distraction.”

She pulled Lan in closer as she walked over to one of the skulls covered in ofuda. “Succubus of the White Bones! Now that sounds promising.” She smiled down at Lan and petted his bald head again. “Release her. And the rest of them. We'll start a little war, and won't it be pretty.”

Lan whimpered in fear and said to himself. “Niu I'm so sorry... I should have listened...”

Aes touched the back of his neck. “And after that, you'll show me to the children's quarters. The monks don't feel any emotions, but those delicious children do.” She giggled and leaned down to kiss Lan's neck. “Don't worry Lan now that we're together again, I'll take good care of you.”
05/25/09 16:50
AesendriaTHIRD INTERLUDE

Lan sat on the ground, a magical leash and collar fastening him to Niu's rapidly changing form. Still obviously male, his features were decidedly androgynous. Behind them Lan could see flames and hear screaming. A powerful rumbling voice shouted about its desire to slaughter all Shaolin monks.

Niu-Aes tapped him with the long stick he she was carrying. “This is the last of the charnal pits you say? Well... it just has to be here then.” He dipped the staff deep inside and churned up years of bones and burned remains. “I know my body is in here somewhere...”

Lan began to cry in sheer desperation at his situation. “They're all going to die aren't they? All my friends. They're going to die.”

She tugged up a few particularly foul smelling corpses with the hooks on the end of the staff and the smell made Lan turn his head and puke.

Aesendria giggled. “Oh no I'm sure most of them will live. They're tough and resourceful! Don't worry about them.” And then she pulled up a familiar looking form. Familiar to her anyway though it was just bones with some desiccated flesh hanging from it. “And here we are! Home sweet home!”

NiuAes opened her mouth wide like a serpent trying to eat a particularly large prey and disgorged a huge torrent of the black bile blood that Lan had seen before. The blood poured onto the desiccated corpse and poured inside it and through it. Immediately the flesh plumped up, though it was still horrifying looking. The corpse opened its dead eyes and looked up at Lan. “Boo!”

Niu's abandoned body collapsed in a heap and the chain that he'd been holding was released. Lan saw his opening and started sprinting. Aesendria's corpseform sprinted after him, laughing all the way.

“Lan its no use running. We're going to be together for a long time.”

PART FOUR: ABANDON

Aesendria skulked across the rooftops as the predawn mist from San Francisco Bay sheathed the city in an eerie haze. It made her work easier. When she heard tiles snapping and smelt the stench of sulphur, she was aware he was finally here.

“Well well, Lan Po the Nether Demon, Its been awhile since you said hello to your mother,” she said with a grin. She didn't look back at him but she could feel the weight of his massive bulk sense the heat from his flaming hair. Below them her prey waited... crooked cops. They were down below breaking up a speakeasy, smashing the liquor drums and confiscating some tommy guns from some black fellows in zoot suits.

Lan Po let out a sigh. “You aren't my mother. And the only reason I even came is I have some contacts in Chinatown. There's a big meeting between my clan and the Brood. I'm to meet with Lady Charissa and Lady Odoriko of the Brood and … You're not even listening are you?”

Aesendria looked up at him for the first time. He was dressed in a business suit. A... a business suit! She shook her head. His flame hair was brushed back out of his face, kept to a bare smolder so as not to burn the suit off. He had a big ring with the sigil of his demonic clan, and carried what could only be described as a demonic pimpcane complete with diamond skull head.

“Lan, what the devil happened to you! You look so... respectable!”

Lan Po looked down at her, his ten foot tall bulk huddling so he could look her almost in the eyes. “Its been a hundred and fifty years since we've spoken Aesendria. The world has changed around you.” He looked down at the speakeasy being raided. “Prohibition is in full effect, my dear 'mother.' So tell me why you brought me here, I could use a good laugh.”

Aesendria smiled and settled back on her knees. Her tentacles coiled around her as she waited to spring into action. “I thought you and I could share a hunt like we did when you were younger, when I was first training you in how to be a demon.”

Lan Po rose back up and looked down at their ostensible prey again, a sneer on his lips. “And that was six hundred years ago. I'm on a tight schedule Aesendria. We have quite a little plot going. Perhaps you'll be interested in helping out. You see its all about this new form of music called Jazz. I've noticed it has some rather interesting effects on releasing people's inhibitions. What we plan to do is so simple really just weave a bit of magic into some recordings and play them on the radio – “

“Radio? Music? What the devil are you talking about! Are you so refined you've forgotten the thrill of the hunt? Feeling your enemy's life drain out of their eyes in your arms?” She hissed angrily. She didn't like this strange new Lan Po.

Lan Po shook his head and turned to look on the city. “Think of it Aesendria. With this new human technology we could corrupt thousands... perhaps millions of souls all at the same time. So easily! The slow daily corruption you don't even see! No priest or monk or holy order can protect you from it because its all around you, every day. It will be a new world of darkness.”

Aesendria growled. “What rubbish. What kinds of things are those demons teaching you.” She looked down at the half forgotten police officers, already packing up and getting ready to go.

Lan Po looked back at her. “Ah yes... and spending a thousand years skulking on rooftops murdering policemen and prostitutes, that's the way to live your unlife isn't it Aesendria?” He gripped the skull on his cane and twisted it in his hands. “Its been a hundred and fifty years since we've spoken... and you act as if not a day has gone by. You're still the angry eighteen year old pakistani girl raging against people who have been dead in the ground for a thousand years. You're chasing ghosts... the shadowy echoes of ghosts. They're gone! Move on!”

Aesendria hissed and shot out with her tendrils. They wrapped around his neck and constricted as hard as she could. “How dare you speak to your mother this way!”

Lan Po spoke a single dark word of power and Aesendria was wracked with pain. Her body shot across the rooftop and skidded over the side. She wrapped a tentacle around a chimney and vaulting back up onto it. “Touch me again and I will nullify you from existence, little Risen.” His words carried a dark infernal majesty to them. When had little Lan gotten so regal?

She started to hiss out a response when he choked back her words with a wave of his huge fingers. “None of your childish taunts Aesendria... I'm tired of them. I'm tired of you.” He walked closer to her, his massive feet shattering tiles as he walked. “I'm half your age, mother. A little over half. And in that time I've founded my own demonic clan. I've built up my power. I could crush you like an insect here and now. And you... well... “ He looked down at the speakeasy. “I'm sure there are some policemen to murder somewhere.” He waved a hand and Aesendria was sent to her knees before him. “Its been a hundred and fifty years and to you its as if its hardly been a day.”

“I've outgrown you. We will not meet again.” And with that Lan Po was gone, the only remnant of his presence was shattered tiles and the lingering stench of sulphur.

Released from the spell, Aesendria howled out her fury on the rooftop and lashed out at everything nearby. Her Asura came out of hiding to sit beside her on the tiles. “Well that was a productive bit of destruction wasn't it dear?” his serpentine tongue curled around one ear soothing her.

“Has it been a thousand years, my Asura? I'm a thousand years old?” She looked at him, not sure what to think, her memory such a haze. He shook his head. “Not quite, you're about a hundred years short now but soon enough, yes.”

“It feels like a month... a year perhaps, but... What have I been doing for a thousand years!” She coiled her tentacles around herself into a tight ball, feeling safe within it like her old burka. Soon that gave way to the familiar sensation of her burka wrapped around her childish body. She wrapped her good arm around her bad one, tugging the useless mass of flesh close in with herself as she looked up at her Asura with her good eye.

“This, pretty much. Murdering people, causing mischief, having adventures. This is what you are.”

Little Aesendria rocked back and forth on the tile and in Pashtun she said, “I don't want to be this anymore.”

Her Asura leaned in and kissed her forehead. “Oh my dear, as if you have a say in the matter. You are damned you see, and this is your hell.”

A tear rolled down her cheek as she continued to rock back and forth. “I don't want to be this anymore.” She said to herself again.
05/25/09 18:09
AesendriaEPILOGUE

Steve came into the ops center carrying his laptop under his arm. His expression was ashen, more harrowed than Jason could remember seeing. “What do you have for us Steve?” he asked. “Must be something good you look like you've seen some hairy shit!” The room was lined with monitors and cameras and high tech gear, some of which Jason had to admit he didn't understand. They recorded everything about the old San Francisco building from sight, sound heat, and even more obscure measurements.

Steve laid his laptop down and punched a few keys. A recording started playing. “We got a lot of hot activity up on the rooftop.”

Jason looked to Grant and shook his head. “We were up there for an hour and it sure seemed like we didn't get jack shit, frankly. What did the machines catch?”

Steve hit play and there was a recording... it sounded like the wind blowing over the rooftop as Jason and Grant sat up there. “This is nothing --”

“Yeah just wind right? But now let me slow it down...” he fiddled with the controls and as the sounds were slowed, a voice emerged. It sounded like a little girl speaking either gibberish or some foreign language. Steve said, “It took me awhile but I finally figured it out. This is Pashtun, a really old form of it too. From what my interpreter told me, the little girl is saying, 'I don't want to be this anymore' over and over again. Its all through the tape up there.”

Grant listened intently in the seat next to Jason and said, “Wow that's intense but there's one problem. What's a little girl ghost speaking Pashtun doing on a rooftop on San Francisco? This is looking like a hoax to me.”

Steve tapped a few keys on his laptop and said, “Oh it gets better. This is the strongest evidence I've ever seen. Look here at the thermographics.” He pushed it closer and they could see a definite heat outline, a cold spot shaped very much like a little girl huddled in a corner up on the roof. “There's our little girl ghost.”

Jason got up and got a fresh cup of coffee from the machine. “This could be it gentlemen!”

Grant watched the playback carefully and noticed a strange flicker. “Wait what's that?”

Steve nodded. “Way ahead of you Grant. Look at this.” He slowed it again and it appeared that the cold spot of the girl suddenly shifted and changed. “The ghost changed once you started speaking in Arabic, like Ms. Wells recommended. You said 'show yourself to us we want to speak to you,' in Arabic and immediately after this...” he played it again and the little girl form changed. “It looks like a woman now. Look here is the breast, the hips, the legs... I don't quite know what to make of these,” he said, pointing to some strange growths out of her back.

“Looks like she has a squid strapped to herback or something. Or maybe we're seeing multiple ghosts overlapping? Could that be it?” Jason sipped his coffee and stood a few feet away from the other too. That's why he noticed her first. She just appeared out of thin air, a beautiful, pale naked woman covered in tattoos. She stood directly behind Steve and Grant as if looking over their shoulders at the displays.

“Thank you for waking me up,” she said in a beautiful voice. “My name is Aesendria and I'd like to play with you.”

[color=#808080][i]Added 05.25.2009 13:27:28: [/i][/color]
And finished! Finally! Hope you all like it!
05/25/09 18:26
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