Daydreams of Devilish Delight, Part 1

STOP RIGHT THERE!!!! SSS:BETA IS AN OLD VERSION OF SSS:DEPARTURES HASTILY PUT TOGETHER FROM MY ORIGINAL SCRIPT PROJECT FOR THIS SERIES. IF YOU'RE AHEAD OF SSS:DEPARTURES GO RIGHT AHEAD, BUT BE INFORMED THAT SOME OF THIS WAS REALLY REALLY LAST MINUTE!!!!!!!!

The Savior looked across the burning and barren earth before Him. All of Its glorious color faded as smoke pillared and spread in the blue sky, slowly but surely, blacking out the realm He swore to protect. “If flames are all you wish to bear, than an endless red in your honor, the world shall know.”

- Excerpt from the Savior’s Prophecy.

Lonely Mountain Drenched in Chaos - The Hero - ???

Chaos. The Chaos that dictates every action and reaction, force feeding into one’s heart a need for change, a drive for freedom and happiness, or a nostalgic pain, a fleeting touch over the hands of the ticking clock of life. We humans work in circles, each feeling a pit in the heart, and no matter the burning flame of drive that fills one’s body, or the thunderous boom of the future, cautiously signaling life’s coming storm, we will be met with the Chaos every time, forever throwing the heroes of our world into remorseless battle against our own nature. Is this a curse borne as it’s told of the ancient sin? Or have our eyes, forever fixated on the red that He birthed, and of our own mortal blood, forgotten a truth lost inside ourselves? The Savior’s love is a riddle, but surely once uncovered will bring a peace, ascending our world to a land deserved of it.

The Savior’s Hero meditates on the thought as he stares off into the far desert with red eyes. 

They practically glow through a thin white mask fit for a masquerade. In his right hand, gloved too in white, is a golden Excalibur; its thick, double-edged blade drenched in blood. 

Hundreds of feet from the ground, standing atop the treacherous and decaying stone of a bridge eroding in the wind, the Hero stands loose, without a fear in his mind. His embroidered, gold-belted boots click as he carries onward, stepping over the carcass of a massive wolf lying in death before him, its bright blood seeping into the glyphs etched into the architecture.

The Hero flicks the blade in the air, cleaning it, and sheaths the glistening weapon.

The mountain encompassed in this climb of rock scaffolding burns red under the bloody sky and the accompanying crimson sun. The entire planet is caked in nothing but hot red. No color survives the sun’s wrath.

The decrepit buildings with caved roofs sitting broken and lost upon large platforms hanging over the abyss, the flashing gold that flickers on the Hero’s pauldrons, even the cathedral, far ahead, whose painted glass stands over the many bridges and walkways the Hero has yet to travel; none stand out amidst the soulless red, the blanket that may as well warp the world to gray.

The Hero picks up his pace, the wind cutting around his tailored clothing. As he steps up a set of stairs, the path turns him North, wrapping in toward the mountain, and leading him to another large platform with more strange broken houses.

Just as he passes the lonely foundations, a wet snarl is heard from behind. His fingers slipping under the guard of his blade, he waits. All of his focus is put into listening, his eyes empty, glossing over at the road ahead.

Paws and claws grind against the stone, before the Hero hears it jump.

Smugly exhaling air from his nose, he tightens his grip and draws, lowering his body as to dodge the incoming beast.

The lightning fast strike cuts along a coming wolf’s side, opening its stomach, and sending it leaping out over the edge of the stone plateau. On its descent, it slams against the remnant leg of a lost platform reaching up from the ground, and plummets to the mountainside.

Only one long bridge remains between the Hero and the cathedral. With calm breath, he continues, descending another set of stairs before reaching a courtyard at the cathedral’s doors. A sinister organ emanating from inside rumbles in the Hero’s ears.

The massive structure is held up by eight sets of pillars, reaching down to the mountain below. An eastern angle hides the courtyard from the early sun, drenching a shadow over the front window and doors.

The Hero’s thin lips curl into a frown. Something isn’t right.

“Hundreds of familiars had lay in wait for me, but now at the foot of it all, I’m without a welcoming?” The Hero asks himself as he steps inward to the court, momentarily planting his hand on the edge of the thick railing. 

“Some wizard-”

Dropping down from somewhere out of sight, two more wolves, a third in scale larger than the rest of the pack fought earlier, with ice-blue fur, and long tails, block his way. He draws once more, waiting for an approach.

The wolves however, are motionless, following him with golden eyes. Not a single heavy breath nor noise, just an occasional twitch of the snout, or scratch of the ground.

As the Hero plants another foot forward, their eyes suddenly grow large and pained, rigid as something stirs inside of them. The Hero stops, putting both hands on his blade, and holding it pointed forward over his head.

He shifts his weight to his back foot.

Nothing happens for several seconds, before a mass begins to sift around under the skin of the wolves, and a quick laceration tears the seam of their backs from the inside as if pulling apart stitches.

The Hero is taken aback, but watches closely as two steel swords, wrapped and bound by flesh and bone emerge from each of the wolves backs, creating massive, bladed, swinging arms.

“Even the anatomy of nature isn’t out of your grasp,” he whispers as the wolves realign themselves, crouching and ready to pounce.

“It’s no wonder the Savior finally woke me here, if such a fiend could reform the world in his own image,” he continues.

He squares his hips as the wolves attack, each set of arms extending outward, held high and ready to sweep down like a farmer’s scythe over fields of wheat.

“Easily spotted!” He bellows, pressing off of his back foot and leaping into the air.

The Hero bends forward, tucking his chest and swinging his legs upward to flip over the coming blades. He slices beneath him, cutting cleanly against the now attacking joint of the wolf gunning for his left.

As the blade flies off, the other wolf pulls to the side, barely missing a graze from the airborne arm.

The Hero lands into a roll, orienting his back against the wall of the cathedral. He prepares as the uninjured wolf leads the charge, rapidly fanning its arms in a full offensive.

He dashes in just as its left arm passes. Jabbing his blade into path of the right arm, he sends it to the ground, locking it there, meanwhile pulling his head away from the next of the left arm’s rotation.

The wolf resorts to a bite, and the Hero pulls away with his sword, allowing him to cross with a left hook to its jaw.

The wolf is knocked across the court, and as its ally comes to help, the Hero takes the advantage, cleaving the right arm of the thrown wolf as it tries to use its blades to keep itself upright.

It staggers over toward him, throwing its intact arm over its body to pinch him with its partner.

The attack doesn’t reach, as the Hero has already severed the arm during its swing.

The other wolf is still to come.

After kicking the weaponless wolf back to the ground, The Hero turns to the other opponent and presses both arms forward in a thrust as the wolf’s blade glides off of his shoulder-guard.

His sword reaches straight into the monster’s mouth, cutting through its insides and killing it.

He grips the fallen wolf’s snout, and without removing it from the sword, turns, and throws the body at the other. The force of the connection sends them both straight through the heavy railing, and with one last desperate howl, they’re sent over the edge.

“Banding the souls I try to save against me. Truly evil,” He mutters, catching his breath.

He then takes a knee, and putting a hand to his heart, utters a prayer.

“May the Savior grant you rebirth in a colorful world.”

His eyes turn to the large cathedral doors.

Cathedral in the Sky - The Hero - ???

Marble flooring, pillaring, walls and high, vaulted ceiling all shimmer inside the cathedral. A red carpet contrasts against the bright, reflective floor, as the Savior’s world outside doesn’t seem to affect this place at all. The organ’s pipes are overpowering, even as their sound comes from yet another room behind this hall.

The doors burst open, and reveal the Hero, one hand already on his glorious Excalibur; but not another second later, he’s lost.

“What sort of decadent- You-!” The Hero begins to exclaim valiantly, looking around the shining interior before another sight baffles him, leaving him speechless.

At the end of the hall, the red carpet snug beneath its legs, sits a throne. It’s ordinary, a dark finish with knobbed arms and a tall back. What blows him away however, is the man sitting in it, and those surrounding him. 

The evil wizard awaits, delicately nursing a chalice of wine, clothed in a big hat. In fact, the big hat is the only thing covering his body, and just his face at that. A crossed leg is the one thing separating the Hero from the odd sight of the wizard’s genitals.

Gathered around the wizard, laying about on the throne arms, are two women, whose make and outfitting fall in line with the fantasy of a young boy.

The first, with warm dark skin, sitting with her backside presented on the right arm, raises her head, and tilts its forward, smiling at the Hero. Her shiny black hair flows over her shoulders, finding a resting place running down her back. Her red eyes narrow to daggers as she licks her full lips and runs a hand down a high-cut leather bunny outfit, her fingers dancing along the furry seams, across the broad end of her ‘more-to-love’ thighs, and down over her legs.

The Hero swallows heavily.

“Hero,” the wizard coolly calls out in a voice identical to the Hero’s own.

The Hero is frozen, a cold bead of sweat running down his temple. His eyes force themselves upon the next shape.

“Why don’t we put our differences aside…?” the wizard starts, but his words fade out as the Hero is sucked into an adolescent trance. 

He tries desperately to evade the sight, but he can’t look away from the other woman, sitting on the head of the throne in nothing more than a bra and shorts, the front unbuttoned, with an olive, muscular leg propped on the left arm. Lush moonlight filters in through the window beside her, shading her toned abs and large chest.

The Hero’s eyes meet with hers, prompting her to return a disgusted face, barely twitching her head to deliver a glance of dissatisfaction. The move fluffs at her short silver bangs just slightly.

The Hero has lost. The music has stopped and the game is deemed over. 

Dazed in this unimaginable situation, the Hero tries to no avail finding a word to release.

Out from a passage behind the throne, a third woman appears.

Tall, slender, and pale, she walks lightly, with hands clasped at her stomach. Fanning out an elegant blue dress, she sets herself on the floor, and drapes herself over the wizard. With long blonde hair falling lightly over her shoulder, her large, dark-red eyes gloss over, staring up at the wizard into an endless space of melancholy and loneliness.

“Does he wish to take us away, Master?” She questions with a frog in her throat.

“We’ll just have to see,” the wizard returns.

Both sets of eyes disengage and lock onto the Hero. As the hat pulls back the shadow on the wizard’s face, the Hero finds his own features pointing back at him.

The queenly woman gives a sincere, but all be it faint smile.

She lifts at the bottom of her blue dress, as if to effortlessly imply a curtsy.

She reaches a hand out.

“Join us, Adam-” she calls.

As the words trickle out of her hollow mouth, Adam wakes up.