JENNIFER KALE	IAN MCNEE	WILDPRIDE

“You guys mind telling me what this is all about?” Jen asked as she looked at the two strangers she had just teleported into her brother’s apartment.

All Ian could do was expose a satisfied grin as he stared at Jen Kale. He had heard of the name for quite some time as he dabbled in his training to become the Sorcerer Supreme. “Do not mind my friend but we do thank you. It is not every day one is saved by a spell of Zhered-Na.”

Cautious by his understanding of her mystic training, Jen redirected the comment. “Why do you think I used a spell of Zhered-Na?”

“I can smell it in the air,” chuckled Ian. “You have nothing to fear from me, Jen. The source of your teachings was just part of my quest when I prepped to be the next Sorcerer Supreme. I learned that Zhered-Na was one of the few who had the privilege of protecting our realm under the title along with others such as King Solomon and Zhang Jiao.

“Zhang Jiao?” shouted Andrew Kale from around the corner. “Isn’t he that lousy character in the Dynasty Warriors video game?”

“Well… yes,” Ian said as Andrew revealed himself. “He is the guy that leads the Yellow Turban Rebellion stage. I’m a fan of Lu Bu or Xiahou Dun myself. You get online with PS3?”

“You can’t really be that daft, Ian. We were just attacked and you are talking about video games,” barked Kyllian.

“It’s actually quite a good series.”

“I don’t care!”

“Mr. Tattoos has a point, Ian. Who or what attacked you?” Jen asked.

“I don’t have a clue,” replied an angered Kyllian.

“I do,” Ian remarked with a stern look from Kyllian. “At first I didn’t know what it was due to his injuries but when you teleported us away it was very clear. It was a soldier from the Bird Men of Akah Ma’at.”

“Never heard of them,” Kyllian coldly said.

Ian’s breathe shortened, apprehensive of the tales origin. “Ch’thon corrupted the clan, splitting them into two parts. Oshtur banished both of them for waging war on Earth, and from what I read, it was the war of wars,” Ian grimaced. “We know them now as the Seraphim and Asura.”

The names made Jen take a step back, and worry what she had just involved herself with the duo. “You are dealing with some major forces.”

“This has something to do with the Vishanti?” Kyllian asked.

“I don’t think I’m the one who can answer that, Kyllian. I’m more curious to why the Bird Men would challenge the law of Oshtur and come back to Earth. The Planes of Sephirot are on the outer limits of realms and reality. I don’t think Dr. Strange could teleport there without some help and a few pit stops and they show up here with some purpose. I want to know why.”

Planes of Sephirot
War of the Seven Spheres

For the first time she could ever recall, the sky bled a crimson red which blanketed the endless horizon. Immense colored flashes sparked randomly in the backdrop as the boom of thunder echoed the intense war in the distance.

A tear appeared on the corner Alja’re’s eye as she worried for the man she grew to love. She could feel her stomach churn and her heart quiver as concern for her loved grew. It started the moment Oshtur appeared and requested their aide in the war against the Trinity of Ashes. He did not have to say anything. The look in his eyes told the story. The Seraphim were to stand side by side with Vishanti and many others in the battle. She carried that heavy feeling within her for years until a speck she saw in the distance grew. It was him. She knew it. Though he flew toward the floating city blindly he had returned home.

“Taji,” she called out as her pair of feathered wings carried her into the courtyard where he had crashed. “Are you…Taji?”

She choked on the name she loved saying. Beneath the pile of debris which had fallen on his body, rested a body of burnt flesh that reeked of an unknown stench. His body barely moved as the damage inflicted to it made identifying the victim difficult to the crowd which had gathered. Alja’re knew it was Taji once she saw his eyes. It screamed with pain yet a determined hand reached for her.

“Alja’re…” he mumbled weakly.

“Taji,” she cried. “What…what has happened?”

“The war…it spawned something. It grew from the power of everything.”

“Do not say anymore, Taji. You need to rest.”

“You… do not understand. It is spawned from everything. This war has created something that should not have been created.”

“Oshtur will protect us.”

“Oshtur helped create it,” he hollered. “Stephen Strange. The Vishanti. The Trinity of Ashes. The Octessence. It is all of them!”

“How can that be?”

“Agamotto was birthed from a tear from Oshtur. This… thing… it came from the unadulterated power of everything unleashed in this war. We are doomed, Alja’re.”

“What do we do?”

“There’s nothing we can do,” Taji said as the sky shifted from a dark crimson to a radiating white which made his eyes widen in fear.

The air became still with a strange cold only to be followed by an unnatural heat. He had witnessed the sensation before as it was the source of his charred exterior. He grabbed his love’s hand, grasping it tightly as he expected the force of what was next to sweep across them.

The rush of gushing air made it impossible for Taji to hear Alja’re’s scream as she dangled in the roaring winds as his free hand rooted into the ground. He could feel tendons snap and muscles stretch as he cried to Oshtur for help as he too was ripped from the ground. The blast had a deviant strength to its aftershock causing his grasp on Alja’re to slip. He screamed an unheard cry as he then witnessed Alja’re’s body blown into dust. The blast soon subsided as his now limp body came crashing back onto the pavement. The winds had stopped but he could still hear nothing. There was nothing to listen for. Everything he had known; Alja’re, the floating city, even the lives of many of his people were gone.

Taji arose a shattered man, bleeding and battered on every inch of his body but it was his soul that was critical. He gazed around his position wanting never to forget this moment as it now became his fuel. He wanted to remember Alja’re call his name.

“Taji...”

Taji’s eyes opened from the memory as two of his surviving soldiers stood in front of him on Earth.

“Have you found them?” Taji asked.

“They still manage to elude us, Taji. One of them has the scent of the Vishanti upon him. We shall find him and his offshoot comrades.”

“Make sure you do. For to hurt the Vishanti we have to strike at the thing Oshtur loves the most; the people of Earth.”

Chinatown

Wai Chee sat in the back of a Chinese restaurant, both his hands grasping his hot tea as the steam slowly rose inches from his glasses. The clatter of dishes and conversation had taken place for awhile as he remained silent, waiting for the moment which came when the door next to him opened.

“Follow me,” a voice said.

Wai Chee nodded, silently following the man down a dull lit corridor, until he reached another door which was opened with another man waiting inside the room. Wai Chee entered, still silent until greeted.

“Why does the pupil of Sun-Ye grace me on this day?”

“Sun-Ye has taught me as much as he could on this plane.”

The news caught the man by surprise, his hand holding a lit match closely to the first set of candles which surrounded the room as he remembered his long-time friend. “What is it that you seek?”

“Tao,” Wai Chee replied.

“Why?” the man asked as he continued lighting the flame to the other candles.

“A man walks a path in which he finds nothing. He looks in the eight directions to still find nothing.”

“Is he at the beginning or end of the path?”

“I do not know. The start of one is the end of another, thus the end of one is the start of another. Who knows which came first?”

“Why would you risk everything for nothing?” the man inquired.

“To have everything is limited, exhaustible. Nothing is to be limitless. There is nothing limitless outside which is limitless.”

“Why do you seek nothing?”

The question sparked something inside of Wai Chee. From the day Sun-Ye took him in as a youth, he had always thought of everyone else and nothing for himself. This day was different. This day he thought of the people and himself with a unified purpose. “Because I have ran out of everything that I have.”

The man simply nodded, sympathizing with his loss, stopping in an aisle in which the candlelight illuminated a lone small pillar which was roofed by a red box with brass edging. “This is Tao. This is what you seek.”

Wai Chee nodded, thanking the man for the item as he grabbed the box, feeling the energy within.

“The Scrolls of Tao are not to be taken lightly,” the man reiterated. “A Sorcerer Supreme was the last to use such magic.”

“I would not have come here if I thought otherwise.”

Purple Dimension

Various shades of purple crystalline shards lace the fields of the dimension, stretching as far as the horizon can reach. A quick, bright current of light can be seen periodically in each shard as their ability to harness mystical energies makes them desired by many and accessible to very few.

The purple shards are not alone as they are harvested by many races of different color and size, each slaving away endlessly as they mine the purple gems. Some slaves have forgotten what their home world looks like. Some just slave away in a dimension of nothing but lavender skies and roads wishing to return home. If heat was a color, the slaves with the misfortune of being in the Purple Dimension would most surely think it would be purple.

A loud clap of thunder is heard by the many in the fields, the sudden appearance of other color qualities of the rainbow appearing brightly within the crystal shards make them seek out its source. Many turn to face the purple sky part to a bright light as dazzling as a sun, its mere magnificence washing out the purple into an endless whiteness as many cover their eyes from the brief intensity of the light.

Some rejoice in glee as other weep at experiencing another color not native to the damn dimension. Some pray while other prance joyfully but it is one man who notices the sudden shake of the ground underneath his feet. The once firm crystal-like ground explodes softly into purplish dust as his attention turns ominously to the white light. His eyes widen as his heart races and then it over. The sudden force erupting from the light shatter bone and shard alike, nothing remaining as the force continued endlessly across the fields of the dimension.

Silence fills the dimension as just dust remains from the destruction. Mountains are erased evenly into the horizon to a flat, barren dimension. Then it is gone. The light which appeared and destroyed everything disappears with nothing proving it had ever appeared.

New York

“Why did we have to drive to see Stephen Strange, again?” Jen Kale asked.

“There are mystic spells around Greenwich,” Ian answered. “Do you think we are the only ones that know that?”

“I still do not like it,” grumbled Kyllian as he continued to peer out the car window. “We are too far exposed on the streets of this city.”

“I don’t like it either, but when the Seraphim or the Asura come hunting for people it usually doesn’t turn out good. It’s the reason why Oshtur banned them to the Planes of Sephirot,” explained Ian. “We just have to make it to… Strange.”

“What’s the matter?” Jen asked as a perplexed look overcame Ian’s face.

“I smell it too,” said Kyllian, his movements within the car becoming more frantic by the second as he tried to look for something unusual.”

“Smell what?” Jen asked.

“Them…” Kyllian responded with a worried look. “There.”

Ian’s body shifted to Kyllian’s side of the car as his eyes opened at the incoming. “May Hoggoth have mercy upon us.”

BOOM

Blood trickled downward toward the roof as Ian’s seatbelt pinned him in an awkward position. His eyelids fluttered at the constant blare of the car’s horn which was being pushed by the head of an unconscious Jen Kale. Gaining consciousness, Ian’s hand grasped his head as the loud noise added to his piercing pain. His vision focused, aware of what was around him. A lone man, staring at the crash as he sat calmly in the distance briefly caught his attention. Ian regained his attention as he tried to wake the others. “Kyllian… Jen… wake up,” pleaded Ian as he tried to awaken the unconscious duo. “Wake up!”

Ian could sense the foreign presence reveal itself in the area. His head swayed frantically from side to side, trying to locate their attacker as he struggled to free his legs from the crash. A gust of wind carried the ominous smell he experienced previously in the subway drift into the wreckage. His eyes widened as his head turned to witness the burnt body of the Akah Ma’at soldier make his way toward his position.

“Who the hell is that?” groaned Kyllian.

“That is an Akah Ma’at solider.”

“No,” coughed Kyllian as he struggled for another breathe. “The other guy coming this way.”

Ian turned, gazing through the cracked front windshield, to see the silhouette of the man who looked upon the crash. He calmly walked toward the wreckage, his hand coolly running through his blonde hair. He stopped, positioning himself in front of the car, placing himself between them and the Akah Ma’at soldier.

“Who the hell is this guy?” Ian murmured. “He is going to get himself killed.”

The soldier gave the man a sinister look as he looked downward at the now grimacing man. There was a momentary stand off, each man trying to assert their dominance of will upon the other.

“You do not want to hurt these three,” suggested the man.

“They are guilty,” the Akah Ma’at soldier said. With a squint of his eyes and a sharp sniff, the soldier then took hold of the man’s neck, lifting his weight into the air. “You are not what you seem.”

The man began to laugh as a sinister look shot the soldier. With his head, he gestured to an image upon a broken shard of glass. The man produced no reflection as the soldier quickly looked back upon the man.

“What are you?”

“Does it really matter?” He replied, gesturing once again toward the glass.

The soldier’s eyes timidly shifted once more. He saw something this time; something unnatural. The reflection was not corresponding with the actual event. The soldier saw a beast of a man in his grasp. It grabbed at his arm to show its strength only to plunge his fist through his chest, ripping out what was his heart. The strength in the soldier instantaneously lost his strength, dropping a limp corpse toward the asphalt.

“What the…”

“My name is Mortigan,” he said as he dusted off his suit which the soldier once held so firmly. “We have to get away from here.”

“What the hell are you?” Kyllian asked.

“You will learn soon enough,” Mortigan replied as he pulled the unconscious Jen Kale from the wreckage and into his arms. “Follow me if you want to live.”