CHAPTER ONE - SOMETHING INCREDIBLE

A jellyfish floats alone in the darkness. 

In the not-so-distant past, humanity made a discovery that changed the world - The Void.

A small fire ignites in the center of the jellyfish.

A parallel universe to our own, containing an untapped, unlimited energy source.

When this was discovered, the world's leaders all rushed to find ways to utilize this energy, inevitably leading to war. The United States would come to use an untested bomb powered by the Void, bringing about the near-doom of the human race - Obscurus.

The lasting effects of Obscurus, even 70 years later, are still being calculated. Two thirds of humanity were instantly killed, and the rest found that their planet had changed. Deep forests now covered vast areas of land, creatures from the Void started crossing over to our plane of existence, and some of the humans who remained found that they would hear the screams of all those killed during Obscurus.

They would hear…

...The Call of the Void.

The city-state of Astoria. It's located on the east coast of what was once the United States of America, which is now covered from California to Mississippi in the Deep Woods. Technology is more or less similar to the technology of our world, but slightly ahead of us - the survivors of Obscurus only needed a couple of generations to rebuild to an approximation of where they left off, in a desperate bid for normality.

This particular part of Astoria is a small city in what used to be Wilmington, North Carolina. As such, there's a wide array of ecosystems there, with a downtown bordering a swampland and a short trip to the parts of the beach that are still habitable. We find ourselves in this downtown area, at a small bar close to the Riverfront called Magnolia Street, a bar that serves diner food and booze, with a massive greenhouse connected to it - it's both a plant nursery and a bar. It's owned by Lea O'Hare, a 5'5” slender woman with dark hair, bright green eyes, and scars across her lips and neck. Her sister, Abigail O'Hare, is with her as she's moving plants to her greenhouse. Abigail is shorter, at 5'2”, with striking orange hair, yellow eyes, and a slender build with a little more obvious muscle than Lea. As a third person exits the building, Lea allows herself to sigh. 

“You know, I hate it when you bring your clients here,” she says, looking back at Abigail from beside the massive planet she’s holding, leaves cut with natural holes and slits to protect from wind. 

“But my clients love it here! Great atmosphere, they can have a drink to do something with their hands, pretty plants to look at…” Abigail responds, immediately blowing off her sister’s concern. 

“Sure, but it’s not exactly a great look. Half the time your clients are sobbing and terrified - “ 

“The world’s a scary place! Isn’t it great to give them a place they can unload?”

“Maybe a therapist's office would be better?” 

“Therapists can’t fight real monsters, only mental ones,” Abigail says, wandering next to Lea and helping her pick up plants. 

Lea sighs again. She has a strong will, but that will crumbles in the face of her sister. “What was going on with that guy?” She asks. 

Abigail grins. She’s winning this argument now. “Just wrapped that one up, actually. He lives out at the outskirts of the city - closer to The Deep Woods than he should be, but what’re you gonna do. Somethin’ starts attacking his livestock, but the usual tell-tale signs aren’t there. No wolf howls, no signs of a struggle, no tracks. Just dead animals in the field.”

Lea gags. “I hate the animal ones.” 

“Same, big same. Turns out, dude’s getting haunted by a rogue Skinwalker. Usually they can turn between human and animal forms, but this one got stuck. Started to truly lose his mind to the animalistic urges, y’know? Just wanted to slaughter an - 

Their conversation is interrupted by a distant BOOM. The O'Hare sisters both turn to the window, and see a few people noticing something in the distance, and immediately turning around and running. Lea looks worriedly at Abigail, who is already slipping out of her chair.

“I guess we'll have to finish this later,” Abigail says, making her way towards the door.

“Abigail...?” Lea feels herself get shaky. “...Be careful, okay?”

Abigail looks back, a wide, confident smile crossing her face. “I'll be fiiiiine.” She straightens up and walks out, and as she looks towards where she heard the explosion, the smile fades into a serious stare. From where we can see, the only signs of something being wrong are a pillar of smoke rising in the distance, and people running away. 

She snorts, and a flash of fire escapes her nostrils.

Abigail begins her trek down the street, keeping a swift pace as she passes other businesses.

“Obscurus revealed to the world a deeper truth about the Void. It wasn't just pure energy existing alongside us - it was potential energy. Energy from ideas, concepts, from the way we interact with the things and people around us.”

Abigail starts to see the damage that something caused. Whatever is wrecking havoc on the city is big, and very powerful - storefronts are crushed, a few injured people along the road, which has indications of something big dragging itself along. As she stops to try and help the injured, she looks up to see a creature beginning to surface through the smoke clouding the street.

“As a result, humanity now had two issues to face. First, the stories told by generations past started to bleed with reality, and otherworldly creatures - cryptids, folklore, spirits and demons - broke past the veil of the Void to enter our world.”

The creature becomes more clear - it's a giant sea serpent, with loose, malformed limbs poking out of its side, painfully pulling it around. It sees Abigail, and with a loud roar, immediately charges at her. It slams into the ground, mouth agape, trying to get a meal - and as it recoils up after striking...

The second issue was a double edged sword. Those who heard the Call of the Void would be imbued with purpose and power - these 'Called Upon'...

...the dust settles, and where the monster struck is just a crater of damage. The remaining dust alights in flames, and Abigail charges forward, a massive smile on her face, fists coated in fire.

...would find their 'Callings'.

The surrounding people who hadn't escaped the sea serpent see Abigail's flames, and some start to get excited. She's something of a local celebrity, and her fire is a symbol of hope for some Astorians. She uses her flames to zip around the serpent, firing blasts of fire from different angles and narrowly avoiding the extending limbs and tails growing out of the creature. She gets caught by a surprise tail whip and is blasted into the side of a building, landing in someone's apartment. The family living there turns to where she landed, unsure of what to do, until one of them asks if she's okay. Abigail gets up, bleeding from the nose, but her smile has grown even larger.

“I'm just gettin' started.” She says, a palpable sense of joy escaping her lips. She looks at the family for a moment, and on her way out of the hole she made in the wall, she pulls a business card from her pocket and tosses it to them. “Gimme a call if you're ever in need.”

We get a shot on the business card as she jumps out of the building and hops back into the fray - it only has her name, a phone number, and a message: “For all things that go bump in the night.”

Back on the street, Abigail has led the creature closer to the water, in an attempt to minimize damage to the city. Very weird, Abigail thinks to herself. These things never come on land, let alone morph like this... The sea serpent continues growing limbs around its body, and they're starting to look more and more human. This is more than just a serpent - Her thoughts are interrupted as the creature reels back, and breathes a massive amount of its own fire at her. She barely manages to block it with her own flames, and her smile finally fades. Oh. Yeah. Something's up here. She continues zipping around, flying via quick bursts of fire from her feet. She lands in front of the creature as it prepares another blast of flames, and she charges up her own - but the creature gets hit from all angles by bullets and lasers. Abigail looks surprised for a moment, but the look is quickly replaced by annoyance.

“Damn it,” she mumbles, as the serpent falls. “Peacekeepers.”

Two uniformed and helmeted warriors float down from the sky, one with a ring of teal crystals surrounding him and another with a strange sword on her back. They are Michael River and Maya Olvide, and they're Peacekeepers - Called Upon who work for the Astorian government and deal with the majority of the Void-related threats across the city-state.

“O'Hare!” Michael says, as the two of them land. “Always good to see ya.”

“Michael. Maya.” Abigail responds, contention clear in her delivery.

“Coming in hot, as usual, huh?” Maya asks, chuckling.

“I could've handled this on my own, you know.”

Michael approaches the serpent, and one of his crystals morphs into a knife. “Mm-hmm. We always appreciate a civilian's help.”

“I'm not -”

“Right, you're a Freelancer, whatever.” Michael interjects, cutting off a piece of the serpent's flesh. “You know we're always taking applications for more Peacekeepers, right?”

Abigail shakes her head. “Not looking to join the Feds, but thanks.”

“Hmm. Well, in that case, I'll make sure to note that Freelancer O'Hare bravely fought the serpent and was ready to burn down the Riverfront before we showed up.” Michael says.

A shaky, barely controlled sigh of frustration escapes Abigail. “So sweet of you. I guess I'll leave the clean up to you big boys, huh?” She snarks, turning to take her leave.

“O'Hare,” Maya gently says, “wait. Really. Thank you for what you do around here. But these Void monsters are getting worse and more dangerous by the year. With the Peacekeepers, you wouldn't have to fight alone.”

Michael snorts. “Don't waste your breath. O'Hare isn't the teaming-up type, am I right?”

Abigail doesn't look back as she walks away, leaving the Peacekeepers to deal with the serpent's remains.

She's got her reasons for working alone.

It's now evening, and Abigail goes straight home to her apartment, a small little place on the other side of town. As she takes the elevator up to her third story apartment, she pulls out her phone to see multiple texts and calls from Lea.

“Shit,” she mutters. “sorry, sorry.” She reads over the texts, and it's all permutations of “you ok? call me back”. She puts an earbud in as she calls her sister back, knowing exactly what lecture is headed her way.

“Hey. Sorry, I - “ She begins.

“Abigail. You know what the rule is.” Lea bluntly states.

“.....yeah. Call as soon as the monster's gone. Sorry, got -”

“Why didn't you come back to Magnolia?”

Abigail stares up at the ceiling as the doors to the elevator open. “Peacekeepers showed up. Pissed me off. ”

“What, they steal your glory again? It continues to blow my mind that you keep doing this freelancing thing.”

There it is. The crux of the issue.

“I'm not joining the Peacekeepers.”

“You'd probably get your own office eventually if you did join them.”

“I don't need an office to do what I do, and besides, Magnolia -.”

“If you’re going to keep this up, you can’t bring your clients to Magnolia. I mean it.”

Abigail makes her way to her front door, frustration growing. “Whatever. Whatever. It's fine. I can figure out another solution. I'm not joining them, that's final. I'll talk to you later.”

“Abby -” Lea's voice is cut off as Abigail hangs up. She lets out a groan of annoyance as she shuts the door behind her, and she turns on the light to her studio apartment. It's a very tiny apartment with a small step on one end that goes to a bedroom “loft”, barely separating it from the rest of the space. A tiny kitchen with very little counter space sits at one end, and a bathroom is connected to the bedroom “loft”. Her main room is sparsely decorated, only having a couch, small table, lamp, and TV, along with a few pictures and paintings hung up on the wall. The most important part of the room, made clear by how put together it is compared to the rest, is a small enclosure against the “loft” - a little hutch for an equally small rabbit.

“Hey, Miki.” Abigail says, tired and defeated.

Miki is a little, grey, fuzzy rabbit, barely a couple pounds and less than a foot long. She wakes up and looks at Abigail, small sparks of purple flame igniting around her as she hops out of her enclosure and towards her owner.

“Abigail! You're home! Hello! Raisins?” Miki asks, nay, demands.

Abigail offers a light smile. “Gotta eat your dinner first, lil' lady.” She reaches out to Miki, who hops into her arms and nuzzles in. Abigail nuzzles her face into Miki, too. “It's so good to see you.” Abigail says softly.

“Yeah, yeah.” Miki says. All of her attempts to seem like a cool customer are betrayed by her immense love of Abigail. “Not a good day?”

Abigail shrugs, putting Miki down and getting her a meal of greens. “Had way worse. Just annoying, really. Was fighting a monster and the Peacekeepers showed up and took it down, and were total pricks about it. Then Lea got all pissed that I didn't call her.”

“Hmm.” Miki heads straight for her greens, chomping them down as she thinks about which subject she actually wants to talk about. “What kinda monster?”

“That's the weird part. It was a sea serpent, which we've seen dozens of times - “

“Is this a radish?” Miki interjects.

“Oh. My bad. Grabbed the wrong mix of greens. Just eat around it.”

Miki stares at her bowl of greens. Abigail just laughs. “Fine, fine, I'll take them out for you.”

Miki watches Abigail closely as she removes the radishes. “So a sea serpent?”

“Right. But it looked...wrong. It was growing all sorts of weird body parts and was breathing fire like a dragon.”

“Huh. That is weird.” Miki says, going back to eating her greens. “Mutation, maybe?”

“I dunno. Maybe. But...” Abigail remembers back to the fight, and seeing how awkwardly and painfully the creature was moving. She shakes her head. “Yeah. I dunno.”

“You know what I like to do when I don't understand something?”

Abigail smiles. “Please, enlighten me.”

Miki smiles back at Abigail. “Eat raisins until I'm sick.”

Abigail laughs, and pulls out both a box of raisins and a bottle of wine. “You know when you get sick, I have to take care of you, right?”

“And you always do such a good job.” Miki responds, as Abigail grabs her a few raisins and then begins to pour a glass of wine before shrugging it off and holding onto the whole bottle.

Later that night, Abigail is watching news on her phone while laying in bed, Miki passed out at the foot of the bed. She's looking at a news article about the sea serpent, and taps on a video:

“Today downtown by the Riverwalk, a massive sea serpent erupted on shore and started attacking random civilians. We've had a number of serpent attacks over the past few years, but this one - a bizarre, pale version of a serpent with gangling limbs - seemed to be the most destructive in the short amount of time it was onshore, before the Peacekeepers showed up t-”

“UGH.” Abigail groans and plops her phone down on the bed, groggily grabbing the last of her wine before rolling over under the covers and closing her eyes to sleep as another news story starts to play.

“We are currently investigating a number of disappearances across Coastal Astoria from the past few weeks....”

—----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A loud ringing cuts through the silence of the hotheaded O’Hare’s apartment. 

Abigail picks up her phone, awoken by the noise. She sees a number she doesn't recognize, but accepts the call anyway. “Mmmpph...Abigail O'Hare, Void Investigator, uh...what can I do for you?”

“Oh - Hi, uh...My name is Danny Calloway.” A quiet, nervous woman says.

“Hey, Danny Calloway.”

“Hi. Sorry, I don't know how to ask this - you kinda smashed into our apartment yesterday, your card said you can help with, uh, 'things that go bump in the night'?” She asks, stumbling over her words.

“Mmhmm”, Abigail murmurs, getting out of bed and beginning to brew some coffee. “What's causing you problems?”

“Well...look, it's kind of weird, can we meet in person?”

Abigail stops in her tracks. Shit. She never cleared the air with Lea. She'll just have to be okay with one more client, she thinks to herself.

—----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“So you hang up on me last night, and now you're bringing a client here?” Lea asks, staring at Abigail through the closed doors of Magnolia Street. “You're bold.”

“Last one, I promise, and then I'll find some other place to go.”

There's a moment of silence between the O'Hares. Neither of them like being in a tiff with each other.

“Last one.” Lea says, the authority in her voice halfheartedly present.

“Last one.” Abigail responds, insincerity in her voice fully present.

A beat passes. “Come on in.” Lea unlocks and opens the door, and Abigail sheepishly enters.

“Hey, uh...sorry again that I didn't call.”

“It's fine.” Lea's curt tone informs Abigail not to press any further.

“Right.” Another beat. “I told my client to come by in like half an hour, so - “

“Perfect, you can help me get some stuff together for Jade Fest next week then.” Lea motions with her head to follow, and Abigail dutifully obeys. Not the time to piss Lea off any further.

Lea leads Abigail to the greenhouse, and further into a tent inside the greenhouse, locked behind several locks.

“Playing this one close to the vest, huh?” Abigail asks, desperate to break the silence.

“Oh yeah.” Lea responds, flicking a lightbulb on. The room is filled with an array of plants, of varying shapes, sizes, and colors. Some are long, trailing plants, others are succulents, their leaves plump with water, and still others are stems with leaves half the size of Abigail on them. All of the plants are planted in a massive, u-shaped terracotta container. “I've got about 35 different species of plant in this particular display.”

“Holy shit.”

“Yup. Different watering cycles, different amounts of light they all need, different soils and supplements - “

“All in the same pot?”

“Mmhmm.”

“How's that work?

Lea just gives her a smile back, the tips of her fingers glowing green. “Magic.” She runs her hands over the plants, and each of them echo a green glow back for a moment, rising slightly and then falling, as if a tiny breeze lifted all their sails.

LEA O’HARE

CALLING: MOTHER NATURE

Abigail laughs. “Right. Duh. Cheating.”

“Hey, it's not a competition or anything. I'm allowed to use my Calling for this. Besides, this'll be a good way to drum up some extra business for the shop.” She looks at the plants for a moment, running her hands down a particularly huge leaf. “I've got a big plan for the Festival itself, too.”

“What, breaking all the Sacred Rules of Horticulture not exciting on its own?” Abigail jokes, allowing herself to also touch some of the leaves. “Oh, this one's fuzzy.”

“You'll just have to see it when it happens.” Lea replies, the smile on her face growing wider. “Yeah, it's a Teddy Bear - “

“Excuse me?” A soft, unsure voice calls out.

Lea and Abigail look at each other, and then poke their heads out of the tent. Abigail is the first to respond. ”Are you Danny, perchance?”

“Oh, uh, yes, you must be...?”

“A massive pain in my ass,” Lea responds. Abigail nudges her with her elbow. “Ow-”

“Har har. Yeah, I'm Abigail.”

“Oh, wonderful, uh, sorry I'm early - “

“It's fine!” Abigail says, leaving the tent. “Let's grab a seat and chat, huh?”

As the pair leave, Lea takes an extra second to watch her sister walk away before re-entering the tent.

Abigail and Danny grab a seat in a booth in the bar, and Abigail pulls a small notebook from her jacket pocket. “Okay,” she begins, pulling a pen out as well, “how are you this morning?”

“I'm good! Shaken up. But I'm good. Better than I should be, really.”

“Why do you say that?”

Danny sits back, trying to formulate her words. “Look, this is going to sound stupid, okay?”

Abigail raises an eyebrow. This whole thing feels off. “Hit me.”

“Have you heard about all the disappearances happening around here lately?”

“Vaguely. You lose someone?”

“No, thank goodness. But I almost did, and that's what I wanted to talk about.”

Abigail starts writing in her notepad. “Almost lost someone? Huh. You contact the authorities?”

“Um. No.”

“Why not?”

Danny sighs. “I can't, because uh, okay, just - here's what happened.” As she tells her story, we see what happened, somewhat, through a flashback. “My cousin and I, we were uh...out on the town, the other night, is the best way I can put it...she's from out of town, so she doesn't know the...safe, uh, places to go. Or safe people to talk to.”

Abigail stops for a minute, and connects the dots. “You're sex workers.”

“....right.”

“Thus, not reaching out to - okay, I getcha now. Keep going.”

"We just need some extra cash to get by, so - “

Abigail raises her hand. “Don't gotta justify it to me.”

Danny half-chuckles. “Okay. Cool.” Her voice has a little more confidence now. “So, we were...in the not-so-nice part of downtown, right? And the last thing I can remember clearly is passing a broken church, off of Oleander and....9th, maybe? I saw someone down the street, and when I looked at him, her, them, whatever...it's like the world started spinning around me, while also staying in place? It was...really weird.”

Abigail's pen is moving faster. “Induced hallucination?”

“I guess. I remember a few shadows coming to us, and they said they wanted my cousin, not me -”

“Wait, so these aren't disappearances at all? They're kidnappings? How do you know your case is connected to the others?”

“I don't, really. But if they can make you see shit, and turn off your brain...”

“...then no one would be the wiser. Huh. Okay. But they didn't take her?” Abigail asks.

“They couldn't. Someone else showed up - I couldn't really see anything at this point, but I heard another voice. The other guys all started yelling, and then I was out.”

“Someone saved you.”

“Yeah. And that's where you come in.” 

”Pardon? You don't want me to find the would-be kidnappers?”

“Nah, I mean I won't stop you if you do, but I'm after the other guy. Whoever saved us.”

“Why?”

Danny takes a moment, and then looks right into Abigail's eyes. “I want to say 'thank you' to whoever that was. Look, in this line of work, people don't really see us as people all the time, y'know? So for them to go out of their way to save us...Yeah. I need to thank them. In person. Human to human.”

Abigail nods slowly, and looks up from her notepad with a smile. “Well, normally I go after stuff that goes bump in the night, but I guess I can make an exception. Is there anything at all you can tell me about your savior, or the kidnappers?”

“Not much. I'm sorry. It was dark, and everything got all messed up and -”

“It's fine. The church is as good a place to start as any, then.”

“Okay. Um...look, I don't really have that much money - “

Abigail lifts both hands. “Hey, I'm not in the business of making people go broke. I ought to try and find this dude first before we think about money, or whatever. Fair deal?”

Danny gives a relieved smile. “Fair deal. Thank you, Abigail O'Hare.”

Abigail stands, and Danny follows. They shake hands real quick. “You're welcome, Danny Calloway.”

As Danny takes her leave, Lea comes back from the Greenhouse. “What kind of danger are you getting into this time?”

Abigail looks back with a gentle smile. “Hopefully, none.”

Lea chuckles, and makes her way behind the bar. “I don't like the 'hopefully' part.”

“She wants me to find some person who saved her and her cousin a few days ago. So, the “hopefully” is that I can just find this dude, and not the people they were being saved from.”

“Fair enough. I gotta start opening this place up, you gonna stick around for a while?”

Abigail shakes her head. “Gonna try and find some busted church, and work my way out from there.”

Lea nods and looks away. “Okay. Just...”

“Be careful, I know.”

—----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

On the other side of town, Abigail begins her early investigation. She starts off at Oleander and 9th, where Danny mentioned, to find a chain of bars and restaurants, a church that was decidedly still standing, and a Coastal Astoria Tourist Gift Shop. This neck of the woods is definitely worse for wear - faded signs on storefronts, apartments that never got rebuilt after a previous monster attack. Half of the buildings looked like they didn't have power. She checks her phone's clock - 10:45am - and sighs. “Maybe someone will know where a busted church is,” she thinks to herself. “But I've lived here a long time, and I definitely don't remember any place like that.” She evaluates the options ahead of her, and heads to the Gift Shop. “Doesn't Carlos work here sometimes? Maybe he knows what's up.”

She enters the store and immediately feels hopeful - sitting at the desk is a man with an undercut on the left and long dreads on the right, with joyous brown eyes and a happier smile. “Finally, something interesting! It's Abby!”

“What's up, Carlos?”

“Oh, just selling the world's finest hats and shirts to people visiting our amaaaazing part of Astoria!”

“I can never tell if you're full of shit, or if you're actually this excited.”

“Call it an even 50/50. The hell're you doing here?”

“On a case, actually. Know anything about some broken down church around here? Or maybe further down Oleander?”

Carlos slightly recoils, both in interest and confusion. “Hmm? Not the Protestant place right there?”

“She distinctly said a 'broken church'. That place doesn't look great, but I'm not sure about broken.”

“Hate to tell ya, but that's the only church for like twelve blocks. Maybe she was speaking, like, in symbolism?”

Abigail raises her skeptical eyes. “I'm pretty sure she was being literal.”

“Well, the community over there sure is broken. Never quite got its parishioners back after the flood a couple years ago.”

Abigail pauses. “Then why is it still here?”

Carlos shrugs, and then leans back, thinking. “Huh. Never thought about it.”

Abigail looks back at the church. “I guess it does look bad...maybe that's enough to count as 'broken'?” She looks back at Carlos “You ever see anyone go in there?”

He thins his eyes as she asks the question, coming to an answer before she finishes. “You know....I...can't remember.” He cocks his head in confusion, and gets lost in a daze. “...huh...?”

“....Carlos?”

He snaps back to reality. “Oh shit. Sorry, I - what were we talking about?”

Oh. Abigail thinks. It wasn't a person giving her hallucinations....? She notices as Carlos takes a staggered step back. “You good?”

“Yeah, just been getting these headaches the past couple of days.” He stops, and then looks back up. “Oh my god.”

“The church.” Abigail says.

It's Carlos' turn to pause. “What kind of case did you say this was?”

“I didn't. But...” she says, turning to leave, “It's a “just got more complicated” case.”

Now knowing that Danny was right about the location, Abigail sets off towards the church. Weird. She stares up into the windows. They're completely dark - in fact, the whole building appears to look worse and more vacant the closer she gets. Why did Carlos' brain get zapped, but mine didn't? As she approaches, an ornate gate seems to appear out of thin air, blocking her from getting in. She makes a small hop, and flames jet from her feet to take her higher up. Oh, this is bad. The gate is following her up, getting taller and taller as she rises. She cuts the flames and lets herself land - she wasn't going to get in like this. Maybe if I come back at night, I can find someone getting in or out. She makes another small hop, and jets off across the city, headed home for the time being.

As she flies away, we see the inside of the church, and a figure rises.

She's been seen.

“I don't think she saw me,” a voice murmurs into a phone, “but the Dragon's Flames didn't do anything to her.” The voice goes quiet, listening to the other end of the call. “Right. No, the gates worked - Of course. Yes, I suspect that as well. Understood.” The call ends, and we cut to black, one last line from the voice echoing into the dark.

“Praise Ryu'djinn.”

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Night falls upon Astoria. The streets are alive with drunken celebrations for nothing in particular - it's Friday night, and the wage slaves finally have a taste of freedom for a couple of days. For Abigail, this night was about to take a major turn - but for now, she's at a bar nearby the church, drinking a glass of dark liquor. As she starts to cash out, we can see from outside the bar, where two figures are watching her. She leaves the bar and walks down the street towards the church, and the figures begin to follow her. 

She thinks back to a conversation with Miki from a few hours before. 

“So instead of trying to find the person you were hired to find, you're doing the exact opposite of that?” Miki asks, hopping around Abigail on tufts of purple flame.

“Mmhmm.” Abigail responds, laying on the couch and trying to nap. “I figure if these kidnappers are paranoid enough to put up automatic defenses around the church, they aren't thrilled that there's someone running around who knows anything about them.”

Back in the present, Abigail stops across the street from the church, staring for a moment. She crosses the street, and the two figures get closer to her.

“You guys wanna back off?” She says, stopping right in front of the gate. “I'm trying to get to mass.”

“Oh, we love a comedian.” One of the figures says from behind her.

“You still have a chance to walk away.” The other one says.

Neither of them can see the grin forming on Abigail's face. “I'm not sure what kind of tricks y'all are pulling, but you already know they don't work on me.”

The figures behind her both pull back to strike, but Abigail is far faster. She lets her legs go limp for a second, gravity pulling her down - then immediately ignites her feet and hands, spinning around in a whirlwind of flame. She's surprised to see them both block with fire of their own - flames with the same shade as the sea serpent. “Fire!” One of the figures exclaims, almost disgusted. “But your fire doesn't burn with our Lord's purity!” He yells, his arm growing into a massive dragon's arm that swipes at Abigail with a rush of fire. She backflips to avoid the strike, but the other man is right behind her, both arms transformed into dragon limbs, ready to bash her into the ground.

“But don't you know anything about them now, too??” Miki is now standing on Abigail's side.

Abigail grunts. “Yeah, I was talking about myself and our mystery savior. I'm sure they're on high alert that someone else is on to them - and when I go back there tonight...”

Abigail, bloodied and beaten, is being dragged by the two figures into the church.

“...they'll attack and just waltz me into the church,” her flashback continues saying. “Once I get in, I can try and find information on our client's hero, and maybe even see if they're connected to those other disappearances.”

The figures enter the church itself, and the inside is no better than the outside. Dilapidated and snowing with mold, the two figures breathe out fire with every breath. “Y'think Our Lord will like this one?”

“Maybe, but if he doesn't, that means she's all ours.” The two laugh as they reach towards a podium in the center of the room, the only thing that looks brand new in the building. On top is a small goblet, with a decorative dragon's hand designed to be grasping the goblet as it burns with a small flame. “Prepare the Wandering Flames of Our Lord,” one figure says. The other leaves Abigail in the first figure's hand and wraps his own around the flames of the goblet, chanting quietly.

Abigail, however, was still wide awake. Her eyes quickly open and close, trying to gleam a hint of the room she found herself in. She had to wait for the right moment to strike. I didn't expect this...the “wandering flames”? Can they teleport? Who are these people?

The flame in the goblet starts to flutter and dance, slowly growing with the figure's chanting. An echoed chanting starts to come from the goblet, and as the flames start to grow rapidly and cover the room, Abigail's eyes fly open. “Sorry, only room for one on this ride,” she says, her whole body catching aflame and shooting out all around her, causing the church to explode and the two figures to get blasted back - but the flames of the goblet swallow her up, and she vanishes. As she flies though the fire, the remnants of her conversation with Miki ring through her brain.

“What if they end up being dangerous?”

Abigail, who has now given up on a nap for the time being, is sitting up with Miki in her lap, slowly petting her rabbit. “Then I'll kick their asses.”

Miki looks up at Abigail. She takes a beat, and softly chuckles. “You're brave and stupid.”

Abigail laughs along, and stares up at the wall. “Yeah...”

The fire dissipates, and Abigail is in the middle of a very different room, one with a circle of five hooded figures surrounding their own goblet. They instantly realize something's wrong and each blast fire at Abigail, as the final line from the flashback can be heard - “We'll call it an even 50/50.” She deflects all the fire with her own, spinning in the air with the force of her jetflames. She sends out another shockwave of fire, and books it out of the building - to find that she's in the middle of a compound in the middle of nowhere. She takes a quick look around, and sees trees in every direction she looks. “The Deep Woods? Is that where we are?” She wonders as hooded figures start following her out of the building, ready to fire.

Abigail isn't interested - her feet ignite as she flies across the compound, looking for anything, until she finds a massive crowd before a pedestal, a strange man giving some sort of speech.

“You're not the special guest I was expecting,” the man says, and the entire crowd turns to face Abigail as she lands behind them. “But you seem feisty. I like that.”

Abigail grins. “But you were expecting someone? Great! That's what I was here for.”

The man laughs, and the crowd laughs with him. “You have a bone to pick with our special guest too?” He asks, his face straightening to a more serious expression, “Too bad you won't get the chance to meet him.” He gives a half-nod to the crowd, and one by one, all of their fists ignite into flame.

Well, now I know I'm looking for a dude, Abigail thinks, slinking down to a fighting position. “Glad I got the chance to at least meet you, bud.”

The man steps back, incredulous. “Bud?! Do not speak to me like I'm some ordinary human like you! I am the Lord RYU-DJINN!”

The crowd roars with his declaration, beginning to chant, “WE ARE THE ROKU'KUS! WE HAVE THE MIGHT OF THE DRAGON! OUR BLOOD WILL BURN SO YOURS WILL BE SHED!”

Abigail sighs, and charges straight for Ryu'Djinn. Before she can reach him, she's grabbed by multiple dragon arms from the crowd, which drag her down and toss her around. The entire crowd is moving in tandem, trying to crush Abigail with fire and dragon's limbs. A purple flame explodes out from the crowd, sending everyone flying, while Abigail stands in the center, flames firing in columns out of her arms. Shit. These people are terrifying. She thinks, taking off into the air and taking another glimpse around to get the bearings of where she is. All around her is The Deep Woods, but she notices one more thing - right behind where she had been standing, directly across from Ryu'Djinn's podium, was a wall covered in -

“Where are you going?” Ryu'Djinn asks, now floating in the air next to Abigail. He grabs her by the neck and rockets straight down, smashing her face into the ground. He pulls her back up, and gets in close to her face. “You know today's a really special day, right?” He throws Abigail to the ground and leaps back to his podium. “We've been preparing for this for weeks.”

Abigail shakily pulls herself to her feet, looking behind her at the wall - on it are two concentric circles of people, all bolted to the stones of the wall by their wrists and ankles. Easily 30 people, all in various states of undress and life. Abigail couldn't tell who was alive or dead already. “They were kidnappings...” she mutters, turning back to face Ryu'Djinn, who has a growing ring of fire surrounding him.

“We've been collecting proper sacrifices for the Great Dragon's Flame - it's what allows me to share my Calling with my loyal subjects. It's what allows us to control reality. It allows us to do anything we want to.” He says, the flame ring growing massive and then condensing around his hand. “And you will be a delicious meal for my ambitions.” He throws his fist forward, shooting out a massive beam of fire directly at the sacrifices on the wall.

Abigail throws both of her hands forward as well and catches the fire, barely holding it at bay. Her feet carve into the ground behind her, breaking through her shoes and starting to crack into the earth. Her teeth grit and she swears she feels them breaking in her mouth. She yells out in pain and intense focus as flames erupt from her own hands, and she raises her arms, making Ryu'Djinn's beam and her fire shoot straight up into the sky. As Ryu's beam fades away, she slumps forward, barely catching herself on her feet. Her hands are smoking and bleeding, her legs feel strained with muscles stretched out to their limit.

The entire compound is silent, the cultists all staring first at Abigail, and then at Their Lord. Ryu'Djinn is staring wide-eyed, a rising tide of confusion and anger filling his expression. “You dare deny me?” He asks, voice quiet with rage. “You...you have been marked for sacrifice,” he says, taking a step forward but appearing directly in front of Abigail. “YOU...” He punches Abigail before she can move, a straight shot to her guts. He begins to strike again, but has to dodge a wave of flames from Abigail throwing her fists forward. “You...are out of your league, girl.” He grabs her by the face and gets ready to throw her again, but she kicks him with a jet-flame powered leg directly in the chest, knocking him back across the compound.

Ryu'Djinn pulls himself to his feet, barely able to catch his breath. He looks up, and sees the grinning visage of Abigail barreling towards him, flames spiraling around her. He manages to dodge and they both trade blows - but he can't focus. Abigail's face isn't the despair he imagined it would be. She didn't look afraid at all, despite being coated in blood and bubbling burns - she looked delighted. She looked like she was experiencing something divine.

Ryu'Djinn, for the first time in as long as he could remember, was scared. But this fear shifted quickly to the anger of inadequacy. The longer they fought, the more hits he was taking. The fewer he could land on this ferocious creature, laughing her way through the carnage. And he refused to accept it.

“ENOUGH!” He yells, smashing the ground and causing everything around him to erupt in a massive explosion. Abigail gets knocked back, flying into several Roku'kus. She pulls herself up, and watches as all the Roku'kus around her fall to their knees, screaming in pain as a yellow flame begins to emerge from their mouths, noses, and eyes. The flames of the Roku'kus all fly into Ryu'Djinn, and his body erupts with power - his body starts to bulge between human and dragon, but settles as he maintains his mostly human form, one draconic arm raised to the sky, sending a constant wave of fire and lightning into the heavens.

Abigail takes a shaky step back. Her smile is gone. “What did you just do to them...?”

His voice speaks in two, with a human voice and a conglomerate of screams and snarls acting in tandem. “I took back what was mine.” He laughs. “You want to know a secret, girl? Callings are so, so much deeper than a superficial superpower.” He takes a step forward, and the ground begins to sizzle beneath his heat. “My Calling isn’t just the concept of a “Dragon”. I can pass it along to others, allow them to cultivate and stoke the flames...but when, inevitably, what's mine comes back to me, it's powered up in proportion with the strength of their faith.”

Abigail starts breathing faster. She can feel his power pressing against her like a hurricane. But she ignites her fists anyway. Her eyes are locked on Ryu'Djinn, ready to fight -

KABOOM!!!

An explosion goes off on the other side of the compound. Instinct takes over, and she glances towards this new information...

....and then she feels Ryu'djinn's fist against the side of her skull like a thousand compounded freight trains, and she feels herself pinball off of walls and fists until she lands directly in front of the wall of sacrifices. She lays still for a moment, and then struggles to even bring herself up to her knees.

“I must admit, you're tougher than I thought.” Ryu'Djinn says, now floating several dozen feet above his podium. “But you won't make it past this.” The sky above Djinn starts to twist and crackle with energy, an impossibly large pillar of lightning and fire beginning to take the shape of a distorted dragon. Abigail's eyes widen as she manages to pull herself to her feet, watching this otherworldly energy bend the atmosphere above them. She looks back at the people behind her, and then back at the dragon, gasping for breath.

Ryu'Djinn pulls his arm back, and the beast of hell incarnate pulls back with him, clouds screaming in thunderous roars of opposition. “You were marked for sacrifice. It was decided by the Will of the Dragon, and that Will shall not be stopped by anything.” He says, his body twisting in preparation. “Least of all...some tiny girl like you. Now...” He throws his body forward, his fist leading the dragon forward, “DIE!”

Abigail closes her eyes.

The sound of an opening door creaks and echoes in the distance.

“You could just walk away.”

Abigail opens her eyes again, and she's in a completely white space. Miki is floating next to her, atop a purple cloud of fire.

“Huh?” Abigail asks.

“You don't owe these people anything. You don't have to die for them.” Miki says, hopping in front of Abigail. “I know what you think you have to do, and you don't. You don't need to do this to yourself.”

Abigail's silence speaks for itself.

Miki sighs. She looks down at Abigail's hand, which is starting to crack. A stream of blood escapes from the crack, bleeding up her arm and into the air. Miki feels the tears welling up in her eyes. “Oh.” She looks to Abigail's eyes, but they're tightly closed, tears of blood falling from them and floating off her face. “You already opened it.” Miki says, the words barely escaping her mouth. She looks at the ground for a beat, and then looks back to Abigail, a gentle smile on her face. “You can have my share of raisins when you get home. You'll need them more than I do.” She says, nuzzling up to Abigail and blinking her back into the real world. Miki is gone, but Abigail hears her say the only thing that could get her through the next thirty seconds.

“I love you, Abigail.”

The jellyfish erupts into flames.

Abigail's eyes open, staring intently at the dragon careening towards her. Tears of blood fly off her face as her body twists and ignite as she pulls her right fist back. The blood leaking from her hand mixes with her fire, turning it a deeper shade of purple. The dragon approaches with an ear-splitting roar, made of the screams of the Roku'kus vibrating and reverberating off each other. Abigail responds with a roar of her own, as she throws her fist forward into the dragon.

Ryu'Djinn couldn't even tell what happened. One moment, he was watching his unstoppable spirit destroying everything he wanted to destroy, and in the next, all he could see was purple. An endless, unceasing tidal wave of purple energy that seemed to rewrite reality as it saw fit, converting all it touched to more purple fire. Everything around him, inside of him, all that could be experienced, was replaced by the might of Abigail O'Hare.

And then it was dark.

Overhead, a helicopter begins to fly into view. Inside are three people - a pilot and two passengers. The pilot and one passenger were in familiar Peacekeeper uniforms.

“What was that...?” Michael asks, hands holding tight to the controls of the craft.

Maya pulls binoculars off her face. “I think that was O'Hare....”

“What? No way.” Michael retorts.

“If that was O'Hare,” a third, more commanding voice says, “We need to have a little chat with her.”

Ryu'Djinn falls to the Earth, staring up above at a cloudy sky ready to unleash a downpour of rain. He lands hard on the ground, and all he can feel is terror. He can barely will himself to sit up and look at the woman who managed to completely deny him of his victory, but he feels a compulsion to do so. The dust settles as rain begins to fall, and he sees Abigail, still standing in front of his sacrifices. All still alive. “I....I don't understand...” He stammers, feeling a pathetic imitation of rage. “Just what the hell are you?!” He screams.

“Huh?” Abigail pulls herself up, standing as straight as she can. “You mean you can't tell? Ain't it obvious?” She asks, a weak smile growing on her face. Ryu'Djinn notices her right arm, or rather, what's left of it - her hand has melted to the bone, and the rest of the arm looked like it had been left in the oven to roast.

For some reason, this scares him even more.

“I'm a big, scary monster.” Abigail says, now smiling widely as the rain comes pouring down.

Ryu'Djinn feels the urge to fight, but his body won't react. At first, he thinks he’s frozen in fear. But he realizes it was a series of teal spokes holding his limbs to the ground, and he was too weak to move.

The Peacekeepers land on the ground around Ryu'Djinn, with their leader landing right after. Michael focuses on Ryu'Djinn, but Maya makes her way to Abigail, who has already fallen to the ground, out cold.

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Abigail wakes up in a shock, gasping for breath and clawing at the sky. ”Relax, O'Hare, you're safe.” Michael says, gentler than usual.

She looks up to see Michael and Maya around her - they're at a hospital in Central Astoria, hundreds of miles away from home. “What - why are you here...?”

“The better question,” the leader says, “is why were you there?”

Abigail squints towards this new figure, and her eyes widen in recognition. “You're - “

“Ian Crowley, President of the Peacekeepers,” he says, sitting down in a chair next to Abigail's bed. “Nice to meet you, Abigail O'Hare.”

“Uh...yeah.” She says, weakly reaching to shake his hand, but seeing her entire right arm wrapped up in bandages.

“Yeah, you did a good bit of damage to yourself, doing whatever you did.” Ian says, nodding to Abigail's arm. “You're powerful, O'Hare. No denying it. But you need training. Discipline. I'd like to offer you a position where we can help those things happen.”

“What do you mean...?” She asks, already knowing the answer.

“What I mean is, I'd like for you to join the Peacekeepers, with these two, as my personal elite squad. What do you think?”