Young Writers Society

She opened her mouth to answer, then went silent, looking at the ground and cocking her head slightly as though she was listening to something. A moment later, her eyes slowly became luminescent and Apophis looked up into Maahes' eyes.

"Good question, sweetheart," she said, sitting back. "A bit of a long answer, though, so I suggest you take a seat."

He immediately tensed when he realized who was talking to him, and almost instinctively began to glance at the others in the room. But when he realized that they were all probably used to Apophis, he reluctantly did as requested and sat down nearby.

Both of the others tensed at Apophis' sudden appearance but despite the sour looks on their faces, neither one moved to stop her.

Apophis glanced at them and waved her fingers. "Long time no see, Vier and Zwei," she greeted with a smirk, then turned her attention to Maahes.

"We're going to start with the precursor to all of this," she said. "A long long time ago, Heaven and Hell were one. There were no demons, only angels, and that is where they resided. Now, when 'God' made the world, there was a force opposing him. As he was creation, we were destruction, and he and his daughter Azrael bound us in a pit in a place that no one could reach.

"Then there was Lucifer. He was the strongest of the angels, the smartest. He excelled in combat and in strategy and was well on his way to greatness along with his close brother Sathanus, who was not as skilled at strategy but was a finer fighter than even Lucifer. And Lucifer heard about this so-called Void one day and decided that, if he harnessed it, he could bring the angels more power than they could imagine.

"It was taboo, forbidden, but he blew the rules off and he released the chains in the false belief he could control us. We rose and we destroyed our ancient prison along with half a good chunk of Earth before Azrael stopped us - that was the first great extinction. Azrael chained us back in our prison Between and she struck Lucifer out of what is now Heaven. In the moment that the angels split, so did their home, and it became Heaven and Hell.

"Skip forward. Sathanus and the other Princes have fallen as well. They aren't important, not for the sake of this. Lucifer still wants this untapped power, especially now that he's at war with his former brethren, and he did something brilliant. He began experimenting. He learned how to take just a part of the Void out from the rest and give it form.

"And thus, he pulled me out of our ancient prison.

"But he was young, and foolish, and he didn't realize that the doorway opened for a moment - and when it did, my sister and my vessel stepped out. The part that became Auryon was too small to have a form, too fragmented, and it bound to a human soul that had been discarded - that wasn't suited for use. And with the Void in it, it became one, and it found its way to life in Sarah Sterling. In Auryon Blackthorne.

"The other part was much bigger than I was, and much stronger. That is Boomslang.

"So, anyways, we all got out and I worked for Lucifer and hunted Auryon down before the angels got to her. Couldn't let my own half-sister fall into the wrong hands, now could I? Boomslang wants to liberate the rest of us and join them once more, instead of remaining fragmented, and to do so she needs power. Power that is most easily obtained in the form of souls. So she started orchestrating wars and killing people and I became a few gods that required ritual sacrifice, an assassin, so on and so forth. Boomslang orchestrated the second world war where she got those two in with all of this and now she's very close to reaching her goal in letting the Void go despite the deaths of Lucifer and Sathanus. Cornyx Blackthorne works with her and these silly human-creatures are trying to stop her.

"Oh, and Fabian is Leviathan's son. He's got the power to go Between - between Heaven, Hell, and Earth, between reality, into where the Void is and into the place where our world meets others."

Some of the phrases and explanation went over his head, but there were a couple of details that made a lot of sense to him--and they were the details that he guessed most people wouldn't understand. He hadn't come from a void, but he had come from a chaotic place that wasn't supposed to have any distinction whatsoever: the Other Place. He had never mentioned it to Auryon. There had never been a need, especially when stuck in that strange house. But he could relate to being borne from chaos, and when they were no longer focusing on this conversation, part of him desperately wanted to ask Apophis about what it felt like being ripped apart and forced into structure.

"That doesn't sound like a mini war," Maahes said. He glanced at the faces of those in the room. "That sounds as bad as the war I-"

He caught himself before he could finish speaking. Even Auryon and Apophis were unaware of what exactly he was up against back in his own reality, and he really didn't feel like drawing attention to the fact that he was in the middle of an interstellar war.

A very interested look lit up the demons face, and as the somewhat malevolent smile grew, Diamond stood. "Alright, enough," she said shortly. "Bring back Aury."

"What? Why? We're having so much fun," Apophis protested with a sharp-toothed grin. "Just one more question, Ak-"

"Diamond," she corrected. "No. Get out, Apophis, no one wants to hear your bull****."

She frowned and rolled her eyes. "Fine." A moment later, her gaze dimmed, and a somewhat disoriented Auryon returned to her own body. She blinked and glanced around, getting her bearings before looking to Maahes.

"It's a mini war because there's so few fighting it," she explained. "Otherwise it'd be WWIII."

"Oh," he softly said.

He let himself drift into silence for a few minutes, trying to figure out what the next plan of action should be. He had his abilities at his disposal. And while he wasn't exactly eager to share those parts of who he was, none of the people present were human either. There was also the added benefit of being able to use his powers to help win this war, even though he wasn't sure how much he'd be able to do with them.

He took a deep breath.

"Auryon and Apophis already know this, but I'm not human," he admitted. "I'm something called a spirit. Some languages would also call me a demon or a djinni. I can do...I can do a lot of different magical things. I don't know how helpful my powers will be, but if they can help, I'll glad use them."

"We'll take all the help we can get," Kratzer said. "We're losing, badly, and, ah...well, we're all a bit ficked if we can't prevail."

Auryon's eyes widened with realization as they spoke. "Maahes, you can shift!" she grinned. "I bet you can even fool Boomslang! Guys, all we have to do is replace Kratzer, Sieben or Cornyx!"

He didn't like the idea of having to replace people he didn't even know - or, in Kratzer's case, barely knew - but he had just offered his help and abilities. He also was fairly decent at this sort of thing, though it usually involved creating his own identity instead of pretending to be someone else.

"How would I be replacing them?" he asked. "Also, what would I be trying to accomplish?"

Diamond's eyes widened and she grinned, gaze alight. This was brilliant.

"Vhat do you mean, shift?" Kratzer asked at the same time Maahes spoke. Auryon only smiled and turned to Maahes.

"There's three objects we need," she explained. "We've got two of the three." As she spoke, Diamond pulled two spherical, royal blue gemstones from her pocket. They seemed to be blue diamonds but their shape and size was unnatural.

"Boomslang possesses the third," Auryon continued. "Kratzer was going in to get it since he knows the lay of the land but there was a bit of a snafu and he got caught. His son - Sieben, aka Gunther - was the one shooting at him. You'd just have to shift into either of them or the King of Hell, Cornyx, to get in close enough and steal the last piece. She's got it hidden somewhere but we can't find it. Come on, you can shift in the bathroom."

With this, she took Maahes by the hand and led him into the bathroom, a telltale smile dancing across her lips the moment she turned away from her comrades.

He wanted to protest that he didn't need to hide away when changing his guise, but Auryon had already brought him into the room by the time he was trying to voice it. Once there, he looked Auryon over. The smile on her face made the reason for the closed bathroom door suddenly quite clear: she wanted to mess with her friends. More specifically, she probably wanted to mess with Kratzer, since he was one of the options mentioned.

And while he didn't want to make Kratzer feel uncomfortable, he was the only one he had seen. Maahes sighed. It looked like Auryon would be getting the mischief she wanted.

It took less than a second for the change to occur. Maahes felt a little off thanks to the shift in height and other features, but he knew it wouldn't take long to get used to the guise. He thought for a moment, mulling over what Kratzer's voice sounded like.

"How does zis look?" he asked.

She had to stifle her laughter as he turned into the spitting image of her boyfriend partner and proceeded to perfectly imitate his accent.

"It's perfect," she grinned, then grabbed his wrist and dragged him back out.

If Kratzer had a beverage, he would've spit it out when Maahes was pulled into the main room. Instead, he merely stumbled to his feet in surprise and let out a startled exclamation. "Ach, vhat ze Hölle--?!"

Diamond burst out laughing at Kratzer's surprised reaction and Auryon snickered, thoroughly amused by the entire scene.

"Hallo," he hesitantly said. The familiar word felt strange coming off of this tongue; he didn't like the sensation of wanting to say something and hear another person say it.

"Vhy does he have to be me?!" he protested, sitting back down, and looking paler than usual. Auryon was still smirking in the background.

Maahes shifted his weight from one foot to the other, feeling slightly less uncomfortable than Kratzer was with the situation. "You're zee only perzon out of zee three zat I know," he hesitantly said. "I don't know vat Sieben and Cornyx look like, and, effen if I did, I couldn't do zeir voices vithout hearing zem speak first."

He sheepishly rubbed the back of his neck - or, rather, Kratzer's. "I'm zorry."

Perhaps it'd just been a long day. Or maybe he really was just unprepared for seeing himself walk back out of the bathroom and start talking in the same voice and the same manner. He put his head in his hands and sighed through his teeth.

This wasn't going to be a pleasant week, was it?

"Nein, don't vorry," he said, somewhat exasperated and resigned. "Vell, if you're going to pretend to be me, zen ve're going to have to vork on ze mannerisms. Ze voice and appearance vill only get you so far."