Wraith

PERSONAL

Gender: None

Kit: Alien

Location: Percy's right hand

AFFILIATION

Alignment: Villain

Team: The Children of Sayang

VITAL STATS

Strength: superior (rank 2)

Agility: standard (rank 1)

Mind: standard (rank 1)

Body: superior (rank 2)

Spirit: (rank )

Charisma: (rank )

RECORD

Infamy Points: 493

Personal Wins: 58

Personal Losses: 40

Team Wins: 0

Team Losses: 0

Tourney Wins: 0

Tourney Losses: 0

STATUS

Status: Active

Pseudonym

The dumpster outside of Chuck E Cheese was an odd meeting place to negotiate dangerous and illegal activities, but for some reason, Stone had decided to meet there and Tyler Cook had no choice but to follow. Stone was an angry faced man. His eyebrows were eternally furrowed into a mild-curdling scowl and Cook was sure that if ever this strange and terrifying man were to smile, it would be the most manic and terrifying expression in the history of humanity.

“Look,” Stone pulled a wrinkled piece of paper out of his pocket. “Here are the instructions. You do this project right, and I’ll get you right in.”

Cook leaned back on the dumpster and snatched the paper out of Stone’s hands. “I’m gonna be a big league man, neh?”

“Head of your own damn section”

Cook smiled contentedly and looked down to read the first instruction.

Find an Obtain a Virgin for Sacrifice.

“N-Nah man,” Cook stammered, “I can’t do that.” He crumpled up the piece of paper and tossed it on the floor next to him in a show of defiance.

“You already saw. There’s no way you’re walking away from this one.” Stone’s voice maintained level, as though he had expected this development. Johnson’s swiveled, not five steps away from Stone, hands above his head shaking with terror. “Now, come over here and pick up this piece of paper.”

Never taking his eyes off the silver pistol that Stone held extended, Cook shuffled over to the paper and grabbed it before leaving. As he walked out, he heard Stone call out, “Don’t try to run. We’ll kill you and your family.” Fully convinced of Stone’s readiness to gun him down at a moment’s notice, Cook hyperventilated on his way back to his car.

Stone, smudged the makeup off his face, and tore the fake eyebrows off his forehead turning back, once more, into Mr. Ray Talbain. During Talbain’s transformation back into himself, a beleaguered employee of Chuck E Cheese’s walked out with a bag of trash in each hand. Talbain looked up at him, one eyebrow hanging askew covering his gleaming black eye and laughed maniacally. Before pulling out his cellphone and dialing in some numbers.

“Hello, Percy.” Pause. “Yeah, plans have been set in motion.” Pause. “I’m going back to the guildhall.”

-----

Johnson pulled up to the church, mission buzzing in his head. In the backseat of his car, Anna, aged 8, lay unconscious and bleeding from her forehead into a makeshift bandage made from Johnson’s left sleeve.

“I’m gonna be top of the Syndicate,” Johnson whispered to himself. He pushed the driver side door open, and ran around to pick Anna up from the backseat. Johnson carried the unconscious girl into the church to prepare for the sacrifice.

Johnson had read through the instructions after kidnapping Anna from the Capable Hands orphanage on the south side of Khazan City. At the end of the ritual, Anna died and something took her place. Johnson was ready, whatever it takes to get ahead in the syndicate.

The inside of the abandoned church smelled musty. Johnson loved this place, whenever his parents were getting on his case, or the stress of school was getting to be too much – Johnson used to drive himself out and read aloud from the altar to an empty church. Now it was to be the site of his greatest victory.

Johnson pulled a black sharpie out of his pocket and slowly began to inscribe the summoning circle on the church floor. Within a minute, he stood up and admired his work. It was more oval than circle, but that would work as well – as long as there was a boundary to stop the demon from attacking.

Johnson checked his watch. 11:59. Just seconds until his job was complete. Johnson rubbed his palms together with anticipation. And then the watch alarm went off.

Beep-Beep-Beep

An unearthly roar erupted from the center of the church as gates to another dimension opened in the floor. A pulpy red, bloody mass shaped like chewed bubblegum materialized in the circle. The roar intensified as the pile of meat grew taller.

 

Impenetrably inky black smoke steamed off the pile of meat sitting in the aisle. The smoke curled off, floating through the dusky, church air. Johnson was already pulling his phone on his pocket and speed dialing Stone as fast as he could. When someone on the other line picked up, Johnson stuttered into the receiver.

“I-I think my job is done.”

A voice on the other end of the line laughed. “Thanks, kid. Have a nice afterlife.” And with that, the line went dead, leaving Johnson alone in the church with the beast.

The dark smoke continued curling through the church like a big incorporeal snake. The body of the serpent never dispersed, it just extended as the head meandered through the building. The flesh in the summoning circle the floor had dissolved into the hellish fog. With a sudden jerk, smoke turned and lunged at Johnson.

Within seconds, Johnson was dead on the floor with fang marks covering what parts of his body still remained. After eating Johnson’s brain, left hand, liver, heart, stomach, lower intestine, left foot, spleen, right eye, left ear and kneecaps, the smoke flowed out the doors of the church and out to the west where Khazan City slept.

 

Prey

     Inhibit Senses: standard (rank 1)

 

A quarter-mile down the road from the church where the Wraith was borne into the earth, the two people in a diner milled along through their night shift. Cindy was having trouble keeping her eyes open through the boring-as-shit stories of her boss, Marvin Dean Crowley – Night Shift Manager Extraordinaire. Crowley, of course, was enjoying himself immensely, chatting with his cute coworkers.

“Mhm,” Cindy mumbled, stifling a yawn.

“And then,” Crowley chuckled. “Hoo boy, then my buddy Keith is just standing there on the mayor’s roof pissin’ on his lawn. We was drunk of course.”

“Really?” Cindy sat behind the counter and lay over the top of it, rubbing her eyes to try to push the sleep off more. She really needed to keep this job and besides, the idea of losing consciousness around Crowley made her uncomfortable.

“C-Cindy?” She ignored him. “Cindy? Cindy, wake up!”

Cindy’s head shot up off the counter and with some vaguely affirmative sleepy grunts she replied to Crowley.

“The kitchen, look!” Black smoke curled into the small restaurant from the kitchen. Crowley leapt up from his seat and rushed to the fire extinguisher. Cindy swung her way out of the chair and almost fell because her leg had fallen asleep. The smoke thickened in the air. Crowley brandished the fire extinguisher in front of him and charged into the smoke.

He felt it immediately in his mouth and nose. His throat itched terribly, his eyes began to water and burn. Crowley pulled the pin out of fire extinguisher and kicked open the door ready to meet the roaring flame.

 

Predator

     Piercing Weapon: superior (rank 2)

 

Crowley was sent wheeling back through the door, blood leaking down his shirt from puncture wounds in his shoulder. “Cindy, Stay out! Don’t go in there!” There was no response.

Crowley’s head spun. He felt sick. Blood flooded out of his shoulder. The world spun around his head. Something the shape of a man stepped out of the black smoke and hit Crowley’s psychological panic button.

Crowley screamed and backed away from the kitchen. The smoke had already spread out through the diner. Crowley couldn’t see through it to the black wall. One thing remained barely visible through the impenetrably inky, black fog; a monster, with a head much too big for a human and claws at the end of its arms and legs.

Right arm out of commission, Crowley looped his left over the counter and pulled a pistol from the secret drawer he’d had installed. With a sordid oath, he fired at the demon before him.

 

Black Smoke

     Energy Body: superior (rank 2)

 

On contact with the bullet, the beast shattered into trillions of little black pieces which melted into the obscuring fog that had consumed the back wall of Crowley’s place of business. The manager took a deep breath, convinced that he had triumphed over the beast.

It was only a few quick breaths of relief that Crowley was able to take before the dark fog rushed forward to claim him and tore his head from his shoulders and left it staring at his body.

Unseen by anyone, the smoke crystallized back into its physical form and entered a number into the phone behind the counter. Its voice was grainy and even through the phone it sounded as though it was screamed from very far away.

“Hello?” someone answered on the other end.

“Percy,” responded the daemon, “based on the details of our previous correspondence. I believe I am now under your mastership.”

“One Year.” Percy responded tersely

“Excellent.”