FicWad

-Jason inspected the bars to his cage. They weren't metal as he had thought at first, but rather the same stuff the walls were made out of. They were black and looked melted with an almost organic quality to them. As if they had grown out of the floor itself.

-"Sarah, are you awake?" Jason asked in a hushed voice. He heard a moan come from the opposite cell and the sound of shifting dirt. He knew she was over there, but he didn't know what condition she was in. Even he had taken a beating at the hands of the demon king.

-Jason had heard plenty of rumors from his people about what happened to humans, especially women, that were captured by demons. There was no end to the number of stories involving brutal rape and mutilation. He had even heard that the demon king turned some if his victims into high level demons, and that his generals were examples of such handy work.

-Jason wondered if that was going to be his fate. Was that why he was still alive? He didn't like the thought of becoming a demon henchmen; he was the last hope for humanity. He knew he had to find a way out, so he could keep on fighting.

-Jason gripped the bars and summoned up his strength. His body felt weak and it was hard for him to focus. The bars creaked in protest to his efforts, but they did not break. He slumped down to his knees in defeat, tears of desperation dripping down his cheeks.

-"Grief isn't going to help," a woman said. Jason looked up and saw the dark haired woman standing in front of him again. She looked at him coldly, as if he were beneath her. "Try getting angry. Think of your pain and let it consume you. That is the only way you're going to get out of that cage."

-"Why are you telling me?" Jason asked, "Aren't I your enemy?"

-"Then stay here and die," Raven said calmly as she turned her back to him. "I'll let you watch as I enjoy your little friend."

-"Like hell!" Jason yelled as he shot to his feet and grasped the bars again. The thought of someone else being hurt because of him was all it took to bring out his anger. Jason's body filled with the strength of his rage, and he tore the bars loose from the floor and ceiling, tossing them aside. He stepped through the opening, seething with rage but Raven didn't even look over her shoulder.

-"That's more like it," she said. Jason marched toward her, but just as he moved to strike her down, Raven turned around and shot him a steel glair that cut through Jason's anger and made him stop dead in his tracks.

-The look in her eyes made every primordial warning in Jason's body tell him he was in danger. The expression on her face promised such a certainty of death that she might as well have been pointing a gun to his head. She looked at him as if he were nothing, as if she could kill him at a whim. It was so unnerving that Jason lost his will to fight all together.

-Once it was clear that Jason no longer intended to follow through with the attack, Raven looked away and started to walk down the corridor. When Jason didn't move, Raven stopped and looked over her shoulder.

-"Follow me," she commanded.

-"Not without Sarah," Jason said. Raven turned and shot him an annoyed glance but she could see that Jason wasn't going to change his mind.

-"How touching," Raven said as she returned to Sarah's cell. She waved her hand and the bars of Sarah's cell thinned and retracted into the floor and ceiling. Jason entered the cell and picked Sarah's unconscious body up in his arms.

-Raven watched with unsympathetic eyes as Jason stepped out of the cell and followed her down the corridor. Jason saw dozens of humans hanging in cells who were in much worse condition than Sarah and himself had been in. Many of them were covered in blood, half starved and a few of them were missing body parts.

-"Where are we going?" Jason asked warily.

-"To the ocean," Raven answered, "I have arranged transport to take you to Europe. My lover's influence isn't as strong there, and there are more humans that you can recruit. You should have little trouble building an army, and you can use the local demons as practice if you like, or you can try and recruit them as well."

-"Why are you doing this? Aren't you one of his demon minions?"

-"No," Raven answered, "I'm just as human as you are. I'm doing this because it's what he wants. Your previous efforts were disappointing and he was not satisfied, so I'm going to give you the chance to try again."

-"What?" Jason asked in surprise. He stopped and stared at Raven in disbelief. "If you're human than why are you serving that monster?"

-"Isn't it obvious?" Raven asked as she turned and shot Jason a small smile, "because I love him of course."

-"How can you love that demented lunatic? He's nothing but a bully who kills innocent people!"

-The smile left Raven's face and she regained her frightening expression that she had shown him before, only this time she didn't stop with just a look. Her right hand snapped out and her fingers gripped Jason by the throat and lifted him off of the ground.

-Jason dropped Sarah and grasped at Raven's wrist, trying to take some of the strain off of his neck, but Raven's iron grip tightened on his trachea. Jason looked at Raven and saw a feral rage in her eyes. He couldn't believe that such a frail looking girl could be so strong without being a demon.

-"Don't you dare speak ill of him around me again," Raven said with rage in her voice, "given how easily he defeated you, you don't have the right. Without him, neither of us would be here."

-Raven released her grip and Jason dropped to the ground. He rubbed his throat and looked up at her. She looked down at him with her cold, emotionless eyes. Her face showed neither remorse for hurting him, nor the rage that she had displayed only seconds before.

-"What do you mean...we wouldn't be here without him?"

-Raven looked away, as if gazing back to a distant memory. "You saw it didn't you," she said, "the darkness..."

-Jason's expression changed from confusion to terror; he knew what Raven was talking about. He remembered the black void that had enveloped him before he had awakened to this hellish world. But how did she know about it, and what did the dark lord have to do with it?

-"I was in that place...for a very long time," Raven continued, "then one day I felt a presence, and I was rescued from that darkness. He was the one that saved me from that hell; while I had coward in fear of it, he had freed himself through sheer force of will. Without him, you and I would both still be lost in that horrible void. Now I don't know the details of what this world did to him before he was reborn, but I know that it was bad enough to make him feel justified in all that he has done. And I have no intention getting in the way of anything he plans on doing. So pick your little friend up and let's get to your transport before things get complicated."

-Jason did as she said and continued to follow her the rest of the way without question as he mulled over what she had told him. The demon king was somehow responsible for him escaping the terrible darkness, and may even be responsible for his new abilities. But he still didn't understand how, or why.

-The two of them moved down deeper into the castle. It seemed that the deeper they went, the more grotesque the denizens became. The walls crawled with all manner of mutated insects, rodents and even living slime which quickly retreated back into whatever crevice they called home at the sight of the trespassers.

-They eventually came to a cave that served as a dock. There was a roughly rectangular pool that led out into the ocean. Jason stepped into the open area and noticed something in the pool. At first, Jason wasn't sure what he was looking at in the water. It looked like an overturned boat floating inside the enclosure. Jason stepped closer to get a better look and a spout of water shot out of the object. The thing was alive.

-"Get on his back," Raven ordered, "he will get you to the other continent in a few days. We don't have as strong a presence there as we do here, so there are more humans that you can use to build your army."

-"What will we eat on the trip?" Jason asked, not fond of the idea of traveling on the back on a demon beast.

-"You don't need to eat," Raven answered, "but if you want to give your little pet a snack, you can create food whenever you want."

-"How?"

-Raven looked at Jason as if he had just asked a very stupid question. She thought for a moment and then shrugged, "I guess now would be a good time to explain the rules to you," she said.

-She pointed to a nearby rock, "focus on that, and turn it into a glass," she said.

-Jason looked at Raven and then at the stone that she was pointing at. He tried to imagine it as a cup in his mind, tried to will the stone to be the cup. Slowly, the stone warped and changed into a rough approximation of what Jason had intended.

-Raven cocked an eyebrow at the deformed object and looked back at Jason. "As one of use, you can physically manifest your will if you concentrate. Up until now, you have been using that power instinctively, out of reflex. With practice, you'll get better at it, and use it to mold weapons, vehicles and even people as you see fit."

-"I won't turn people into monsters!" Jason proclaimed defiantly.

-"Well you had better think of something," Raven said, unimpressed by his resolution, "you have one year to prepare for us, and then we are coming in force to kill you."

-Raven turned to leave, having said all she needed to say. Jason held Sarah in his arms and jumped onto the back of the sea creature that would take them to their new home. Before the creature began to move, Jason turned back to his guide.

-"What are your names?" he asked.

-Raven passed and considered his question, "well you are one of us so I suppose you have the right to know. I am Raven, and my husband is Jeffery."

-"Jeffery?" Jason asked in disbelief.

-"You were expecting something more sinister?" she asked with a sly grin. She disappeared into the shadows before Jason could respond. The creature under him rumbled and then began to move out of the cave. Within a few moments they were under the moon, silently heading across the ocean.