I looked around at the heavy fog surrounding me before I reached up instinctively to see if my mask was still present. I let out a sigh when I flt the comforting presence of its cool metal plates on my fingertips. "Comforting? That's a new one!

I spin on my heel to see... Myself? Well, more like a reflection of myself. It was me but instead of my casual jeans and black as night hoodie with neon blue lightning streaking across it, the doppelganger had the blue jeans and neon blue changed to a rather deep blood red. The soft blue coming from the mask also had been changed to a deep bloody red.

My doppelganger walked a complete circle around me before saying, "Would you kindly not call me a doppelganger? My name is Gewalt. And I would like to offer you a proposition."

I backed up and sharply spat, "Why the Hell should I trust you? For all I know you are a figment of whatever twisted imagination I have!"

'Gewalt' chuckled before saying, "I'm from the Void kid, better believe me when I say you'd want to hear me out."

We stayed there for a minute before holding out a hand tantalizingly and said, "Come on, just one little hand shake. And you can have an almost unlimited power source to tap into~!"

I looked at his hand and back to the mask before asking, "Why take the shape of me? Can't you take a different form?"

He nodded before replying, "I suppose it's best to tell you straight. I'm basically attached to you right this second, and I don't have a stinking clue to undo it. Plus, this'll end up helping both of us!"

I reached out a single hand and hesitated before firmly grasping his left hand with my own. He nodded before snapping his fingers and opened a door way. He tugged my unreleased hand and pulled me through.

Whoah! I could see darkness in every direction, but spaced throughout the darkness was beautiful bands of light that seemed to slowly gyrate and move throughout the void of darkness. I looked around to see if Gewalt was anywhere near me when I nearly collided with the rings of a bright, almost neon, red bands of light. I stared at it for a minute before it clicked. This was Gewalt, in his normal form. Or whatever that is.

I held out a hand and lightly tapped one of the circlets when I was assaulted with sounds, emotions, and different colors briefly flashing. After a minute of head splitting sounds and bright lights it stopped. I let out a groan of pain as the bands of energy seemed to flash and began to condense back into Gewalt's human form. He shook his head and said something, but I couldn't understand him. All that noise practically destroyed any hearing I had.

He tried again before putting his fingers to work and started snapping. I could hear again, if that was the familiar sound of snapping fingers was any help. I cracked open my eyes to see Gewalt creating a door and, with another snap of the fingers, tossed right into it.

I sigh in relief at the muted gray of the fog. The door back into whatever that was closed and collapsed on itself. I heaved myself to my knees and faced Gewalt, "What the hell was that!?"

Gewalt chuckled and simply said, "Home of course! That's also the only way to show you my other form."

I raised one of my eyebrows when I realized how sweaty my face had become. I pushed the button and waited a minute before realizing that nothing was happening. I started panicking when I realized I couldn't take it off. I started breathing heavily when I felt a hand on my shoulder, "Take it easy David, it's a dream, just imagine it gone.'

I nodded, closed my eyes, and thought about a cool breeze blowing across my face as if the mask didn't exist. After a tense minute of concentration I felt a cool breeze pushing my hair back with the familiar sound of birds calling. I opened my eyes to see the peaceful forest that surrounds Lakern, rainier forest. I carefully touched my face and was relieved to feel my skin. I looked over towards Gewalt and realized he still had his mask on.

He had a comforting aura and had almost looked... Sympathetic? I chuckled and said, "Thanks, I was getting panicked in there..."

Gewalt looked uncomfortable for a second before nodding and replying, "No problem, that happens to me a lot. Since I was a being of pure energy I couldn't feel anything, and I often felt crushed by the silence of my world. When I came here I felt so... Overwhelmed. I suppose I should've prepped you for that, but as usual I get ahead of myself."

I nodded in agreement before remembering the void, "What are you exactly?"

He shuffled and shook his head before explaining, "I can't say exactly, and no, it's not because I can't tell you, but rather the fact that I don't know myself. But I can tell you what we are made of. We're made of energy, but there's a few like me. I symbolize violence, but others symbolize different things, like my sister, who you can call Betrug. She symbolizes deceit, or the act of lying."

I frowned at that. Deceit? Violence? I looked him in the eyes before asking, "Is there others? And if there are, are they here?"

He shuffled nervously before nodding slowly and said, "Yes... and yes. There are more than just maybe three or four here. I'm positive there's at least seven others, but others could be hiding like me and my sister, so I don't have a defined count. For all I know there could be from five hiding to a few dozen, I don't know."

I shivered at the thought of more of his kind running around wreaking havoc without abandon. I nodded once before realizing something, "Where's your sister Gewalt?"

He stopped shuffling and stood stock still before practically melting into the floor, er, tried to anyways. I stopped his descent with a thought and dragged him towards me and snarled into his face, "Where. Is. Your. Sister!?"

He tried moving but after a minute of useless struggling he stopped and looked at me dejectedly before muttering, "...Your sister..."

No. I growled and I could feel his fear. He just squirmed a little bit before saying, "At least she has someone to turn to if we don't... survive?"

He looked nervous for whatever reason. I personally didn't care, but the fact that my younger sister has a being of energy inside that bases itself on lying wasn't comforting. I dropped him before storming off, forest or fog, I didn't care.

He was scrambling to catch up when I whirled around and yelled, "What do you fucking want!? You want to add more of my friends and family to your little group!? What's next!? untrustworthy!? Greedy!? How about something more your speed, death!?"

He stopped as if I had slapped him. I grabbed his collar again and yanked him close and snarled, "What do you want dummkopf!?"

He just kept quiet before saying, "I'm going to tell you, but why do you think I enjoy death?"

I just continued to stare at him before dropping him on the ground and kept walking. When he appeared in front of me I simply walked out of his way and straight into a wall. I looked around and saw that I was completely entrapped in a stone box. I turned around and saw Gewalt standing there patiently. I just stared right back at him. He shook his head and spoke, "I need you and you need me. Why do you think I asked for you to shake my hand? I needed help, and you needed help too."

I clench my fists as I shakily nodded my head, "Yea, but why? Why do you need my help?"

He chuckled before saying, "I've never had a body, I've always been energy. So I have not a clue on how to operate a body, but I'm also a tad lazy. I don't want to have to create violence, but you with your anger issues..."

I glared at him before turning away and muttering, "I'm not that bad... Am I?"

He chuckled as he shook his head, "No, you're much worse. I've seen your more violent thoughts and boy were they beautiful! But that's the point! My, and by extension, your magic is fueled by anger, violence, and all around terror."

I flinched at his lat word. Terror...Many students at Lakern High school feared me, and with good reasons. I've beaten up dozens of kids, I've beaten up other bullies who went after my sister, and I've once sent an entire group of drunkards to the hospital. I'm a rather terrifying person to be honest. Gewalt nodded and said, "Yes, terrifying. But you have a certain flare for it and you put in a different perspective!"

I raised my eye at that, "What do you mean a different perspective?"

He chuckled before pulling out a thick book out of... somewhere... and opens it and says, "There's so many different 'villains'! But they were always so, 'I'm evil because I am!' Or, 'I'm really jealous so I'll kill to get what I want!' There's rarely a bad guy who is 'evil' because of an actual reason! They're always just plain evil or 'misunderstood', but not willing to be evil on purpose because of something worthwhile! You want to protect your sister! You're willing to do evil to accomplish it!"

I ponder that. Be evil to protect my own sister? "Do I have to always do evil? Isn't it possible to do it with as little of bloodshed?"

He again nodded sagely before tossing the book behind him and put his arm over my shoulders and walking me... Somewhere. "You see, there's tons of people who've tried that already! But they don't get recognized! Soldiers, mercenaries, even a few diplomats! But they're left behind in the dust because of them dying while they do it, and therefore are seen as corrupted and swayed when they are killed because of someone important to them being took and held hostage and are given orders to follow or their relative or whatnot gets their head blown off. But your different! You've gotten your sister, but you need to keep her safe and sane!"

I nodded before a random thought shoved its way forward, "What do you mean by 'sane'? Is the virus going to destroy her mind!?"

He pause for a second before busting out laughing, "W-what do you mean 'virus'!? They're actually calling it a virus!? BWAHAHA! That's fucking priceless!"

I blinked in shock at his blatant ignorance of what I had just asked. "Are you going to answer my question or not!?"

He wheezed as he nodded before letting out a few final chuckles before saying, "Yes, your sister will be mentally tried and you'll need to be at her side at all times to keep her sane. And as for the 'virus', it's corrupted magic from a different dimension across the void."

I thought about it for a second before looking at my hand and asked, "What makes your,er, our magic so different?"

He actually paused and said, "My magic draws off of violence, therefore it's looked upon as shady and the world reflects that. The magic you use will be shadowy and rather dark physically. For others their 'nicer' magic is looked upon as better and friendlier than our magic. So their magic could be almost transparent, more shaped, and most of all, less conspicuous then ours. You'll think of the evil wizards magic and you think of dark magic, which is colored darkly or sinisterly. A unicorns magic is seen as healing and luck inducing when a unicorn could very well impale you on their horn using levitation should they fancy it. The point is, our magic is just like theirs, just a different source."

I nodded as I drank in the information when a large question popped up, "How did I get you? I didn't get infected nor did I get caught in whatever started this."

He nodded again before explaining, "I'm in the mask, and I'm not the first mask he has created either. He's made another three. Whatever he's doing with them is probably not very good, especially since hes got another being like me in him."

I could feel my blood freezing. It would explain so much. Such a his ability to predict things, make things that have no reason to exist, and his odd behavior! But that means, "If there's more of the masks, who's going to get them?"

He paused and stroked the bottom of his mask before stopping abruptly and yelling, "No time, you've got to wake up!"

I tripped as I felt a violent shudder go through the misty realm before everything started to fall off into an abyss below. I turned towards Gewalt when I saw the last of his body melting into the ground. "Fuck!"

I felt a shudder go through the ground once more before it crumbled beneath me as I screamed, "FUCK!"

Author's Note

Hi guys, I'm even more tired and errors might have been made. So please alert me to any and all errors that have occurred because of my tiredness or any way to improve this chapter, why? Well because something feels off and I can't place it. And as usual, goodnight and enjoy! Shadowmancer out!