The Lord of Void

Another Time, Another Place, Another Universe

*Knock Knock*

“G’ way” I mumble

*Knock Knock Knock*

“F’ off” I said louder

*BANG BANG BANG BANG*

“GOD DAMMIT OK I'M UP!” I shouted as I got up.

I headed over to the door and open it after removing the deadbolt.

“Someone better be dead or dying I swear-” I say as I opened the door and came face to face with.. Sollux Captor?

“Dude the con starts soon, get dressed and meet us downstairs.” He says as he begins to walk away but not before adding “Oh and you told me to wake you up before I went down. Ass”

Oh ya, It’s all coming back to me now

I had just finished my Graduate Degree and got my Master’s in Computer Science. I even had a few job offers, something a bit difficult in the world right now. As a graduation present my parents paid for an all expenses paid trip to this year’s Comic-Con for me and my five closest friends.

I closed the door and moved over to the closet. Inside was some casual clothing, but what I was interested in was the black wig, white dress shirt and black dress pants, black tie, long black suit coat, white gloves, and fedora hat.

I was dressing as Kuroudo Akabane from the Get Backers. I even had some plastic scalpels that I could bring out with a little bit of sleight of hand, looking strikingly similar to how Akabane did it.

Before I could begin getting dressed my alarm began to go off.

Must have hit snooze in my sleep I thought as I walk over to it.

After turning it off I got dressed and hid the scalpels then headed down.

When I got down there, I looked at my friends, we had kept who we were going to be dressed as a secret until the day of the convention. Sitting around a large round table were 5 people who I could instantly tell are my friends despite being in full costume.

Matt, the guy who woke me up, was Sollux Captor from HomeStuck. He was only wearing a black t-shirt with the Gemini symbol on it in a kind of sickly dark yellow. Gray jeans, and black and white shoes. He was also wearing troll horns, and was wearing a set of fake teeth that had two large fangs sticking out with two smaller fangs between the two big ones. Lets not forget the red and blue glasses that he was wearing. What was even more unbelievable is that he really LOOKED like Sollux even without the accessories. And to add to it he was a genius programmer too, 4.0 GPA his whole school life with a Masters in Computer Science. He was basically the human Sollux anyway. We were classmates since first grade and I would honestly say my closest friend. All in All not surprising to say the least.

Rob, my first and oldest friend, as dressed like Kakashi from Naruto. He had a white wig, a headband covering his left eye. He was wearing a costume that he had ordered that looked exactly like Kekashi’s jounin uniform. Complete with the fingerless gloves, leg wrap on his right thigh, and green jounin vest. He honestly didn’t pull it off very well. It was obvious who he was cosplaying as, but it just didn’t seem to work for him. Well he seemed happy with it so whatever.

Dave was Gildarts Clive from Fairy Tail. By the look of it he went all the way and dyed his hair orange, like in the anime version, and had a three or four day old beard. He was wearing what looked like one of those fake sleeve tattoo things that made his left arm look like it was made of metal. His costume was actually rather simple, and by that I mean it looked EXACTLY like Gildarts’ cloths. He was wearing a long, black, high-collared cloak that was ripped and torn in places with shoulder plates. He also had loose-fitting dark blue pants, with a belt and an armored waist-guard as well as some greyish blue boots.

Ashley was dressed like Erza Scarlet from Fairy Tail. And not just wearing any armor, she was fully in Erza’s Armadura Fairy armor. I must say it looked great on her. The armor itself is a light pink with a simple breastplate and a lot of wing motifs. She even had two Fairy Piercing Swords, they were sporting large and decorated hand-guards reminiscent of a pair of wings, and with the blades protruding near the hilts to with additional decorative motifs. She was definitely the most dressed up of us all.

Courtney was wearing a gray tanktop, blue jeans, knee high boots, some fake fangs and what I assumed was some red paint on her neck, made to look like bite marks. Yes a vampire, but not just any vampire she was the Vampire Queen, Marceline Abadeer from Adventure Time. Complete with an Ax Bass.

“Hello Dr. Jackal, so nice of you to join us” Courtney says.

“Why, thank you! I’m not used to being up this early” I say not bothering to try to imitate Akabane’s manners.

“It’s 9am... Didn’t you just finish getting a masters degree or something?” Matt asks

“Exactly!” I say without missing a beat.

That got a few laughs or at least a smile from everyone. They know I am not a morning person in any sense and had scheduled all of my classes to be in the afternoon or evening.

“Well let’s go it’ll take a few minutes to get there” Dave said.

“Right, Right. Let’s go” I said

We ended up reached the convention center but a few minutes after they opened the doors.

We stayed together for the first few hours or so. Looking at everyone’s costume and generally doing some people watching. Checking out the stalls and such. Convention things basically.

I got challenged to a fight by Deadpool. I actually managed to rush up and put a plastic scalpel to his neck just before he finished drawing his swords from his back. I was honestly quite proud of myself for that victory.

Soon after that we decided to split up and look around the convention center, planning to meet up together towards the end of the day. I actually was asked to pose for some pictures and even met two people dressed as Ban and Ginji. Had quite a lot of fun with them.

Actually sneaked up behind them as they were talking to other cosplayers and actually was able to give them the “We've just got to stop meeting like this.” line from the manga. It got quite a few laughs and they asked if I could take some pictures with them as well.

It was just when I was heading to the rendezvous point that I saw it. Now I saw a lot of stalls that were selling things, but this one… There was just something about it I just could not put my finger on. I decided to have a look to see what kind of things they had for sale.

After looking at a few of the things I saw a sword that actually looked identical to Akabane’s Sword from the manga, with bloodstains and all. I was very tempted to buy it but, at the same time… I wasn’t a collector or anything and what the hell was I going to do with a sword after the convention. It didn’t even have a scabbard or anything. Like hell I was just going to walk around with it in my hand. I decided to skip it and move on.

The next thing that caught my fancy was a mannequin hand with a bunch of rings on it. Most were gaudy or things I would not be caught dead wearing. However there were some that actually looked rather cool. I decided to buy two of the rings I liked.

I picked a regular looking black tungsten ring with writing on it like the One Ring from Lord of the Rings or something, and finally an unassuming gold ring with a good sized gem in the center. It actually looked kind of like the rings that you could make in Skyrim, but what really drew me to it was that it didn’t look like any kind of gem I had seen before. It was a deep red but in the center was this black ball with what looked like tendrils snaking their way out towards the edges of the gem. All in all it looked amazing.

It was as I was going up to the merchant that I passed a stand with necklaces on them. Out of the corner of my eye but I saw what looked like the Void Aspect symbol from Homestuck. I turned and took a look and sure enough, there was a black amulet with a dark blue void symbol on it. I always thought of Void as one of the most interesting Aspects from Homestuck. It even had amulets with the other Aspects. I decided to also get the Void amulet and tell Matt about the Doom amulet. It was him that got me hooked on Homestuck in the first place.

I walked up to the merchant and got my first look a the guy… Or tried should be the operative world. He was wearing a full size black robe with the hood up. I can’t really explain it but just being in this guys presence, just gave me the creeps.

I just put the rings and amulet on the table.

“How -” I started

“20 for the amulet, 10 each for the rings” He interrupted, his voice sending a shiver down my spine.

I dropped two twenties and simply left without another word, wanting to get away from this guy. I put on the amulet and the rings.

I met back up with my friends and we showed each other what we had found or bought. Dave and Matt liked the rings while the rest thought they were a waste or didn’t really care. I told Matt about the Doom necklace, but apparently he already had one.

As we began to leave I started to feel… strange.

I can’t even really explain it…

Ever have the feeling that you're not you anymore, like someone else is moving your body but at the same time you know that it is you moving it. It was like that until I stumbled. I could hear my friends asking me something, likely asking if I was alright, but I just couldn’t process the words. Like they were very far away from me. I kind of heard them yelling at people around us, but my vision had begun to go dark and blurry. I barely realized I couldn’t feel anything anymore.

Next thing I know?

I’m lying face down in the middle of a forest.