Chasing a Dream

Adam's midnight visitors had become somewhat predictable. A cloaked figure appears outside of his window... Hundreds of stories in the sky. Adam chases it down only to lose the person in the streets.

But if you do things enough times there is usually going to have some variants. Adam was getting better, learning the strangers movements but the closer he got the stranger things became. It felt like he was chasing a mirror image of himself... But warped. Familiar but utterly foreign.

Tonight though will change things... perhaps more then anyone would know. Crossing across rooftops at breakneck speed the chaser and the chased made their midnight journey. Usually the chased would pull away, getting faster and faster until disappearing in the starlight.

Adam had other plans though. He dipped below the building line breaking line of sight. The stranger looked back and saw his pursuer vanish and dropped his speed just a notch. A notch was enough. Adam appeared from below with his Volstandig released. It might have been excessive but Adam wasn't taking chances.

In utter shock the stranger let fly an arrow from a Quincy bow. It was bright red and made the buildings shake. It missed its intended target and fizzled out. Adam landed next to the stranger and heard him speak.

"Oh man, Gadreel will not be happy" he muttered indistinctly. When he looked up at Adam, his face was adorned with the grinning black and white mask of a hollow

"Who are you?" Adam asks. He really wanted to ask what are you but some sense of grace prevented him.

"John but that's not what you want to ask is it?" The masked man said

"No..." Adam chose his next words carefully. The mask and human appearance screamed Vizard but the cross, bow and arrow said Quincy. What was stranger still was the amount of power that poured from him... It was intoxicating. "Where do you come from?"

The masked man laughed darkly throwing his head back slightly. He wags his finger mockingly "Only the Shadows know the answer. Care to try ag-"

He was cut off abruptly by a searing arrow smashing into his face. It shattered the mask revealing a very normal looking man behind it. His presence dropped considerably. "Now that was just rude"

"Answer the question or I'll drag you back to my place and introduce you to some people who really know how to extract information"

The mask finally reappears over the stranger's face and Adam feels the man's power returning. He couldn't tell if it was a weakness or one hell of a strength.

Not bothering to wait for an answer Adam charges in, sword in hand. The masked man jumps back and parries with his bow and kicking Adam square in the chest.

The attack caused little damage but knocked Adam off balance just enough for "John" to leap back and fire a hailstorm of arrows. Adam swung is blade in an arc creating a barrier with his energy to disrupt the attack but it wasn't enough and the attacks found their mark pummeling Adam. He fell to the floor gasping for breath and "John" walked over to him.

"Tut tut tut. Is this really the great king of the Wandenreich? The man even Gadreel feared? How pathetic. I'm better off killing you here" He pulled back his bow with a cero laced arrow charging.

Adam looked disheveled and beaten but managed to speak "What are you? Who are you?"

"Its been right in front of you. Staring you in the face. How can you be so naïve?"

"Nothing else to say then? Fine lets end this charade" Adam said flatly. He clenches his fist and the taught strings wrap around "Johns" body and slams him to the ground.

"A trick! You-" he began to hiss. Adam stood up and dusted himself off.

"Oh just shut up. Your usefulness has run its course and playing possum is a tiring affair." Adam brings his sword over his head and in one fluid motion beheads his opponent

In the distance he can hear a clapping sound in the distance. Adam turns to face the sound and sees 9 figures in hooded black cloaks. They began to encircle Adam with their bows.

"I assume you are members of the same lost tribe?" Adam asks simply. One figure, the leader, stepped forward and took off her hood revealing a beautiful woman who appeared to be in her mid thirties.

"That is correct. I am Gadreel, Queen of the Lower Depths." She said with a slight curtsy. "And you are Adam, King of the Wandenreich. I have wanted to meet you for some time."

"Could have sent an e-mail... Or a letter" Adam said difficulty.

"True... But I've seen the way you treat entreating royalty" Adam tilted his head to the side. She had a point. There was little chance that he would have met with her, Queen or no.

"Ok, so now you have my attention... what do you want with me?" Adam had a feeling it wasn't going to be an easy request to fulfill.

"What else would a queen want with the world's most eligible bachelor? I want your hand in marriage" Gadreel said coyly. Adam rolled his eyes.

"Did Selena... You know what? Never mind. I'm already engaged" Adam said. Truth be told he had agreed to it but hadn't told anyone yet. It would probably make a lot of people very happy, even if it didn't make Adam happy. Stranger still was the smile on Gadreel's face as if she'd known he was going to say that

"Yeah... About that." She snapped her fingers and two figures that flanked her side pulled off their hood revealing more masked men. One takes a sack out of his cloak and tosses it at Adam's feet. The contents of which spilled out on to the floor. It was the head of his recently betroved. A princess of another Quincy tribe. Her name was Abigail.

1st child of their ailing King who had sought out Adam in the spirit of reunification. They were a small group with a heavy military tradition. Descendants of Atla Kahn that merged with a splinter group out of the old Roman Republic. This was before the move to Constantinople.

Adam did his best to keep his cool and through gritted teeth said, "I refuse"

Gadreel's bodyguards stepped forward but she waved them away. "I'm not asking for your permission. You'll forgive me, but I'm not in the habit of being told no. I take what I want and I want you." A golden hollow mask appears on her face. Adam rolls his eyes. She draws her bow and Adam does the same.

Ooc: I guess I have one more post left here. Thought it would be enough to finish it but so it goes

The two begin to fire a barrage of arrows each one canceling the other out as they begin to run towards each other until the force of their attacks blew them both apart. Adam recovered first and pulled out his SSs and threw them at Gadreel. She deftly parried them with her bow and took One of them and charged at Adam with it. The normally white blue blade glowed angrily black and green instead.

Using his Reishi blade he parried her charge and swung around behind her in an attempt to decapitate motion. She ducked and body checked Adam off balance but he was able to somersault out of it and into a powerful fully charged arrow which threw Gadreel into her retainers. They caught her but she slumped to the floor. Her mask disappeared.

"Very good. A trophy husband wouldn't be much of a trophy if it was earned easily. I don't take rejection too well but by the end of this, you'll be begging me to take you." She looked up her eyes yellow with black pupils. Blood rolled down them and dripped off her chin. She licked her lips almost seductively and howled. Her body convulsed and her mask seemed to grow out from every orifice until it engulfed her whole head and then every bone contorted. She grew 4 extra limbs and the rest of her golden body seemed to have surreal kind of luster. Once more she howled at the moon and in some kind of mockery of life she laughed a distorted, ghoulish, mad cacoughony of sounds and lunged with inhuman quickness at Adam then disappeared.

He looked around for any signs but only saw the black cloaks of Gadreel's entourage. Things became uncomfortably quiet and then she reappeared, a golden blur in the night. With ferocious might she punched at Adam with all 6 of her arms. He parried most but 1 got through. Then another and another and another until Adam was starting to look more like a giant bruise but he struck back with his soul strings, hog tying her limbs and throwing her off the balcony along with himself.

Mid fall she broke her bonds but Adam had already drawn his bow. She reached for him but was too slow. He nailed her in the chest with a powerful arrow and sent her hurtling into the next building.

He forged his reishi sword and in a calm cold lust for blood he ran in after her. The room was cold and dark. It looked to be an empty jewelry store. He could feel Gadreel's presence but not the exact location. He knew he had hurt her but no idea how much.

Adam saw a golden figure out of his peripheral vision and looked up to see Gadreel hanging from the ceiling. She turns her head 180 degrees and screeched angrily before dropping. She teleported before getting hit by another arrow and appeared 2 feet away charging ceros in each hand before letting it fly. Adam increased his Blut to weather the attack but it still managed to wound and daze him.

By the time he recovered she had leapt on top of him and pinned him to the ground. He struggled against her grasp but couldn't push her off.

"I guess I should be grateful on some level to that man you beheaded. I knew he'd draw you out and a lone. Curiosity always was a weakness of yours. Your thick head always gets you into trouble. Always charging into things as if you were invincible. I just needed to take you down a peg but even still you are quite dangerous." Gadreel says.

Adam spits blood at her face "Just shut up already and kill me"

She tuts again places one of her hands to force Adam's jaw open. "I told you before, I want you and I will have you. It may take some time but when you are broken and hollowed out you will find me and I will have my way with you in every way imaginable and you will say 'please may I have some more'"

She hissed and a dark black and red liquid flowed from her mouth and into his. Adam's pupils constricted and felt an alien presence grow from within. His pupils turn black then white and black and white again occelating back and forth over and over. In Adam's mind he sees visions of a great shadow. A world just on the other side where light and darkness meet. A vast force gathered there and Adam was afraid.

He reeled back into reality and gasped. Gadreel got off and returned to her normal state. Adam rolled on to his side and started to cough out a black smoke like matter. "What did you do to me?!"

"Just gave you a bit of succor... Or poison. Depending on your persuasion. Soon it will consume you. At best you'll die and at worst you'll just wish you were. Stuck as the monster takes over." Adam rolls on to his stomach and pain radiates through him. His power fluctuating between extreme highs and dramatic lows. He begins to dry heave. When he looked up Gadreel had her mask on. She takes his head and slams it into the ground knocking him out cold.

Adam wakes up with a splitting headache. He was back at home in his bed. If it hadn't been for the pain he was in would have sworn it was a dream but the feeling inside was still there and his former fiancee's head was lying on the dresser.

He stood up and got dressed calmly feeling anything up. It was going to be a long day. He sent a message to Selena, telling her that he needed to meet her urgently. In the mean time he would speak with Abagail's other dignitaries... If they were still alive