Voidchild Origin + Filling the Void

((Going to post the first fic I ever did for VC. Please be gentle and keep in mind that this was my very first piece written in english and that it contains alot of minor errors. Hope you can look past that (but feel free to point anything out, always helps) and enjoy yourself.

First comes the origin, later comes the storyline (in which my main CoV-villain is also introduced). Enjoy!))

Voidchild

Her name? I don’t know, we never knew her original name while she stayed with us. Although, we later found out her first name was Mary. That was her real name, we called her Snowflake. We did this because of her pale skin and hair that made her stand out among us like snow in the summer.

From what I’ve gathered, Snowflake... I mean Mary, was taken from her mother at infancy. This despicable act was performed by The Circle of Thorns, a powerful organisation composed of mystics and mages. However, Mary wasn’t the only one to be taken the Circle kidnapped many infants in order to find a child who would fit their needs. It was easy for them to know if the children were right for them. The mages who performed the inhuman ritual either saw quick results, or put the children to death. Mary was the seventeenth child on whom the ritual was performed. And she was the only one The Circle needed.

The ceremony was partially a summoning and partially a sealing. The mages was trying to contact the spirit world and draw upon the awesome power of The Spirit of the Void. The thought was to seal the spirit, or some part of it, inside an infant capable of carrying it. When Mary was tried in the ceremony, the spirit took a liking to her and imbued her with parts of itself. The Circle rejoiced at their triumph. A little too soon though. You see, the spirit was not at all willing to share its new offspring with them. The poor gathering of mages who performed the ritual were annihilated as the spirit opened a dimensional rift and hurled Mary through it. In an instant, Mary materialized in a secluded jungle in the depths of Africa.

One of our villagers, Raheem, was outside the village walking that night. He heard a loud crying, which he recognized as that of a hungry baby. He followed the loud crying and eventually came upon a small child, lying on the ground, wrapped in cloth. He leaned over it and saw this peculiar looking baby-girl. Pale skin and light-blue shining eyes gazed into his own and her crying ceased. Despite of her odd appearance, she was a beautiful girl. He had lived alone his whole life and relished in having some company as he carried her back to his lodgings.

He took her in and raised her as best he could. Over the first few year, his own, sometimes unrealistic, optimism seemed to pass on to Mary. She spent most of her time as a little girl clinging to his leg with a big wide smile across her face. It was good that Raheem taught her how to smile. She was never very popular with the other children due to her somewhat different appearance.

I wasn’t aware of how special Mary was at first. But I remember when I first began noticing her. Mary was around five years old. I was sitting outside their lodgings with Raheem as he was waiting for her to come home for supper. When she finally came up the hill, we could see that she was covered in bruises, her clothes were torn and soaked in mud. It was obvious that Mary had been out on one of her usual attempts to join in with the other children’s games and that they had discouraged her as they always did. While being examined by Raheem, Mary just smiled and told us that she was neither angry nor sad:

- The other kids are just scared because I look different, she said. But I’m not angry. I can’t be angry at them just because they’re scared.

Raheem smiled back at her and told her what a beautiful and intelligent little girl she was. Now, Raheem was probably used to Mary talking this way since they spent so much time together. But I had never met a five-year old who was so aware of herself and her surroundings. After this incident, I would often visit Raheem and talk with him about Mary since it was obvious that she was special in some way. He too was aware of this and we both assumed that she was an abandoned mutant-child. Raheem pointed out that this was all the more reason to raise her well so that she could shoulder the burden that would come later in life. It was obvious that he always had her best interest in mind.

The years went by and Mary remained an outcast among most of the villagers. She never despaired though. And thanks to Raheem, she was able to hold on to her patented smile throughout the years. He also taught her many valuable lessons. Among others, he taught her that if she ever made a mistake, she had to make up for it. This proved to be the most important lesson of all.

Around her 22nd birthday, counting from the day Raheem found her outside the village, he and I were beginning to dismiss the thought of her being a mutant since she didn’t show any signs of developing special abilities. However, we would soon experience the horrible truth. The Circle of Thorns had discovered her location and were determined to have their creation returned to them. In order to do this, they launched a full-scale assault on our village in order to seek her out. The attack came suddenly by night. They brutally slaughtered anything that got in their way and burned anything they couldn’t kill. Mary and Raheem had fled together but got separated by the fires. However, the Thorns soon found her cowering behind one of the burning lodgings.

As Mary froze in fear, something was building up inside her. The memories of the ritual, which she could never have had and powers few living things possessed revealed themselves. The spirit of the void inside her did not intend to loose its much needed shell. Her powers were let loose all at once as the spirit seized control of her body and tore through the invaders. Near invisible energy spewed out from her as she took down the Thorns one by one. The spirit inside Mary had been let loose without her having any control over it. Raheem could not bear to see his little girl like this and tried to stop her. Without even knowing it, Mary shoved him into a wall with too much force for a human to handle.

The shock of causing her adoptive father harm helped Mary regain control over her powers and she shut them down. The Circle fled in panic while Mary threw herself over the body of her adoptive father. He gave her one last smile before he slipped away from her and died. I don’t know how long we let Mary lie next to him, she cried and held his lifeless body for what seemed like hours until we finally separated them. I could not contain my own grief as I leaned over Raheem’s lifeless body. I promised him I would look after Mary and help her for as long as it was needed.

Fearing the Circle of Thorns as well as Mary herself, the other villagers voted for her leaving the village. I took her with me to a secluded valley to help her train herself in controlling the spirit as well as her new powers. The awakening had provided her with memories her human mind could not have had. With these as help, we started training her to pull out and use the powers she had been granted. We trained for six years, and during that time, she never smiled like she once did. The best she could do was a depressing dead smile. She started to hide her lower face behind a mask, probably because she knew she couldn’t smile like before.

After the sixth year, she had gained considerable control over her powers and told me she was leaving. I asked her why. She told me that she had to make up for her mistakes. Just like Raheem had taught her to. She might have lost the unrealistic optimism Raheem had tried to pass on to her. But she was still his little girl inside the now silent and sad exterior. She said she was leaving for a place called Paragon City. She was gone the next day.

A while after I had returned to the village, I found out that Paragon City was the probable headquarters of the Circle of Thorns. Immediately, I understood her reason for going there.

Mary had ceased to exist when Raheem found her and Snowflake had ceased to exist when Raheem died. Her new name was Voidchild, she was the child of the void.

((Hope you liked it. There are two more storylines, one as crapaliciously written as this one and another that I feel I mastered the written english a bit better. ;P I'll be continuing with the story of Voidchild's very first few days in Paragon City in a short while.

Thanks for your time!))

((Part one of my Voidchild storyline "Filling the Void". Again, some of my earliest work. And the reason every episode is so short is because I was going to submit this to a writing contest at first (until I found out that I couldn't participate in US-contests =P). So they're all limited to 1500 words, no more. =P

Anyhoo, hope you like it. Remember, early work, me now know better how write english fics I do. ^^))

Voidchild - Filling the void, Part 1

It’s a cold mid-winter night in Paragon City. The only thing lighting up the otherwise so dark Kings Row is the snow falling from the even darker sky. Now, Kings Row isn’t a safe place to spend your time by day, but at night, it’s down right suicidal. Despite this, a lone woman is staggering around the streets calling out for help. Her name is Elizabeth and her calls sounds more like a whimpering. Her legs feel like some rubbery substance when she finally collapses on the sidewalk. She manages to drag herself towards and lean against a brick wall. She’s been running around for hours and her aching legs will not take one more step. It doesn’t take her long to remember her reason for running around like a madman though. And with the small amount of remaining energy she has left in her body, she manages to pull herself onto her feet once more and again tries to call out for help. But just like before, she can produce any sound at all. She starts to cry and curses herself for wasting the precious energy on tears.

It’s through those tear-drenched eyes that she sees the four figures approaching her from across the street. She acts carefully first, crying out to them for help as she backs up against the fire-escape. The four tall, robed figures are already moving towards her. Even though her vision is blurred, she recognizes her pursuers. Her careful behaviour is exchanged for blind panic which pumps additional adrenaline through her body. She hardly feels her legs anymore as she runs up the fire-escape. She can hear the clanks coming from the footsteps of the robed men chasing her. This only fuels her already massive panic, making her trip over the ledge when she finally reaches the top. She falls face down into the snow that’s gathered on top of the building. The fall also reminds her that she doesn’t really have the strength to keep running. She drags herself across the roof while her soar hands sting from the cold. Her legs feel as if they’re weights attached to her body in a cruel attempt by fate to make her situation even more impossible. When she finally manages to pull herself to the other side of the roof, someone grabs her shoulder and she is shoved into the brick wall. She looks up and sees one of the robed figures leaning over her with a dagger pointing between her eyes. His bright, almost blinding eyes, light up as he starts to speak:

“You put up a good fight woman.” he begins. “I almost feel bad about sending you to the afterlife.”

“N-no… Y-you don’t.” she stutters aching from the cold and over-exertion.

“All too true woman…” he says as he raises his dagger. “I couldn’t care less about your pathetic existence!”

She closes her eyes while waiting to experience that last painful feeling of her life. But nothing happens. She’s almost too afraid to open her eyes but pushes herself to do it anyway. She sees the four robed figures backing away from her looking into the air just above her. The robed man standing in the back of things reaches into his cowl. But before he can pull out whatever it was he was reaching for, a large chunk of the brick wall is torn loose from the rest of the wall by some invisible force and smashes into him from the side, sending him flying across the roof. The three others now pull out crossbows from their cowls and aim up into the air. The next few moments is just a mish-mash of robed figures flying up into the air, across the rooftops and smashing into each other while blindly firing in all directions with their modernized medieval weapons.

After a short while, there is no fight left in the robed men. They fall onto the roof, no more threatening than the snow which is beginning to cover their unconscious bodies. Elisabeth now wonders if she has, to use a cliché, been tossed out of the fire and into the frying pan. This is either one of Paragon City’s many heroes, or it is something much worse than the robed men chasing now lying unconscious before her. As her heart starts to pound she hears a faint swooshing sound right above her. Another figure now sets foot on the roof just in front of one of the unconscious robed men. As he lands with his back turned to Elisabeth snowflakes dance around him. She observes the possible new threat while trying not to breathe in hope that she won’t be noticed. This new character is clad mostly in dark. In something that looks like a baggy form of a jumpsuit. The pant-legs are adorned with a circular pattern and stuffed into the banded boots that come in a dark purple color like his matching wristbands. His hair and bare-skinned hands are as pale as the snowflakes themselves.

The new character leans over the bodies and starts examining them” Why are you still here?” he asks.

Elisabeth is scared stiff by the fact that he’s noticed her and barely manages to raise her voice for a reply “A-are you a hero? Sir?”

The dark clad character turns around and faces her “I’m neither of those things.”

Elisabeth’s eyes open as she discovers that her saviour is a woman. A woman with glowing light-blue eyes, a dark mask hiding her lower face and with short white hair hanging down on her pale forehead. She looks almost as eerie as the robed men who’d been hounding her all night. Her calm yet determined voice makes her appear less frightening though.

“I’m so sorry ma’am.” Elisabeth begins. “But if you are a hero, I desperately need your help! Please!”

The mysterious pale woman looks at her for a while. Elisabeth gets an uneasy feeling looking into her empty light-blue eyes. ”Alright…” the dark-clad woman begins “I’ll hear you out.”

Elisabeth starts to cry. At last, someone who will listen to her. “Thank you.” she whelps while wiping the tears off her eyes with her torn sweater. “They have my daughter…”

“Who has?” the woman asks.

“Them, the Circle of Thorns! The same robed murderers that were chasing me!“

Elisabeth can see that she’s clearly gotten the attention of her mysterious saviour. She tells her about how the Circle tried to kidnap her daughter earlier tonight. Elisabeth’s husband, Roy, was killed while trying to stop them. After a few futile attempts get away from the Thorns, they were caught up with. She remembers how they gathered around her husband during his last stand and how they kept stabbing at him with their knives even long after he was dead. She could only watch as her husband’s body was cruelly abused and her newly born daughter was carried away. Elisabeth herself managed to pull free from the Thorns and ran off into the night to look for help. After a long and tiresome chase, this rooftop is where she ended up.

The mysterious woman stands silent while listening to Elisabeth’s story. After Elisabeth has finished talking, she feels uncertain as to how the woman actually wants to help her or not.

“Fine…” the woman finally replies. “I’ll help you find your daughter.”

Elisabeth can hardly believe what she’s hearing, after all she’s been through tonight, she might finally be able to turn things around. Pain and worry is exchanged for feelings of relief and safety.

The woman bends over one of the Thorns and rips of his cowls. She walks up to Elisabeth and wraps it around her. “I’m Voidchild by the way.” the dark-clad woman clarifies.

“Oh, I’m so sorry” Elisabeth sniffles. “I’m Elisabeth. In all this excitement, I forgot to ask you for your name. It sounds like a hero’s name. You sure you aren’t one?”

“I’m very sure…” Voidchild whispers to herself with a grievous voice and moves back towards the unconscious Thorns.”

She decides not to ask again. It’s clear from the sound of Voidchild’s voice that she’s struck a nerve. It was best not to upset this person. Otherwise she might not get the help she so sorely needed. As she feels her body getting heavier she takes comfort in having such a powerful new ally watching over her. With this Voidchild-character on her side, she has no doubt she’ll soon see her daughter again.

Elisabeth now also feels her head getting heavier and her body shutting down. It finally gives up from exertion as she travels into the oblivious land of dreams.

((Part 2 comes after this! *gets smacked in the head for stating the obvious*))