• "Has the world ended? It has for me. I am but a fox, yet betrayed I was. I no longer have a name. All I have is my tome, the clothes on my back, and some anklets that shackle my memories to that fateful day. For I am no longer a member of the living, yet I have not joined the dead. I am.....A shattered union.....and that's what every one calls me."

    Only two things were apparent to this one called shattered union: Extreme heat and disembodied voices. He couldn't move. His eyes now opened to find that he was surrounded by flame. Spirits around him were speaking in tongues. He could barely make out the langauge of the foxes, yet the roar of the flame reduced the words to jiborish. Some of the feeling began to return to his body as the world now swung into focus. Jagged peaks of mountains surrounded him. There was no wild life or trees...only fire and lava and broken rocks and rubble. He groaned as he tried to stand. His shirt was shredded to pieces, his pants covered in scorch marks, and chest covered in bruises and gashes. He closed his eyes in a struggle to remember what had happened.

    He could see three women: One with brown hair and a mangled nose that made her look like a witch, one with brown hair again but had red streaks and smelled of burnt matches, and the last a girl that was in heavy armor that masked her body but her face was clear and somewhat pudgy. The girl with the mangled nose cackled in sadistic glee as she raised a hand and called out something in her strange witch tongues of spells that he had never heard of. Fire erupted from all around her and scorched his body. The girl that smelt of matches drew two daggers that were set aflame and covered in purple poison. She vicious tackled him and began to stab his chest over and over again, each stab becoming more grotesque and graphic which each raise of the arm. She jumped back and in came the girl with the armor. She picked up his broken body and began to smash his face in with armor gloves made of steel. She finally dropped him to the ground after five bone shattering punches. They now left him to die as they all walked away laughing as they spoke in their strange demonic tongues.

    His eyes flew open. He now stood as if he now had a purpose. "The three witches....they will pay for this disgrace!" he said coldly. He knew who had betrayed him. His three earlier lovers whom had been angry with him had killed him most likely to take his throne and rule over the Fox Demons. "I'll kill them....," he said. He looked around and saw demons now approaching him. Their claws were sharpened and mouths agape and watering as they looked at his flesh. Shattered was in hell. And he was going to do the impossible:

    He was going to escape


    The demons continued to slink closer and closer. Each step was unbalanced and unrulely. Their mouths hung agape as they stared at him hungrily and drool was trickling down their jaws. Their claws were caked in dried blood, no doubt from their last meal. Their teeth were jagged spikes and their bodies dirty and covered in dried blood. Shattered opened his tome. He held a hand over the book and the pages began to turn at blinding speed. Soon the pages were stopped by this unseen force and now levitated before him. He began to chant in the ancient langauge of the Fox Demons, "Ryteno (Black) Kysenotype (Bolt) Syntick (Storm) Rye (Of) Rune Tyn (Rune Tail)" The Tome glowed a deathly black as Shattered placed his hands out before him. The demons grew closer and closer. Ten feet...Darkness flowed around shatered...eight feet....The darkness formed spikes like shapes...four feet...the bolts now erupted from the space around Shattered and pulverized their way into the two demon's bodies. The bolts ripped into their flesh as blood exploded into the air followed by various colors of internal organs. The demon on the left got one to the head and was greeted to flying brain matter, teeth, hair, and white bone matter. After the attack was done, the two demons were reduced to nothing more than mere corpses that were missing limbs and had enormous gaping holes in their bodies. Shattered now slowly closed the tome and walked past the broken corpses as though nothing had happened.

    The chazim in which shattered was walking through was high and jagged. The rock was a strange red-orange color like looking into the inside of a valcano. The rocks were sharp and jagged which meant that some kind of element used to flow through this tunnel like chasim which shattered could only guess was lava. Small fires were lit along the sides of it. The gave off a weak orange blaze but the combined heat from all of them made it almost unbearable. The amount of orange on the surrounding land scape hurt his eyes. "Man could this place be anymore orange?" he muttered to himself. His foot steps slightly echoed around him almost as if mocking his slow yet continous pace. As he walked, he made another attempt to rebuild his memories before the betrayl that lead to his gruesome demise.

    A firm knock came to Shattered's door. It was shattered's personal room. It was of considerable size and appeared to be quite elegant. Woven tapistries of silk hung from the walls with varies sapphire stones sewn into the bottom. In the middle of the tapisty woven in orange colored silk that stood in sharp contrast with the dark blue silk of the back ground was a sword running paralell with a fox tail and ears. It was the symbol of royalty for the fox demons. Also in the room was a television set with various game systems hooked up to it, but strune around the T.V. in an unorganized heap. Shattered's bed wasn't anything to interesting with it's normal sheets made of cotton and a conforter made of silk. In a strange sense, shattered's room wasn't very elegant at all. It would have been just any ordinary room if it weren't for the tapistries that were hanging from the walls around the room. Shattered had been asleep on the couch when the knock woke him up. He slowly rose and looked out one of his many windows to find that night had already fallen. He stood and went to the door and asked, "Who is it?" A familiar voice came from the other side. "Open the door and find out!" said the voice. Shattered's black hair slightly fell into his face as he chuckled. "Ok then," he replied as he opened the door. In the doorway was a man. He had wolf ears atop his head and a bushy wolf tail that protruded from the belt line of his combat pants on his backside. He wore a black "vice admoral" (as shattered likes to call it) jacket which symbolized that he was very high up in his army. The man stood at a good six feet which meant that he was shattered's height. He had brown hair that was sort of spiking up from his head. This man's name was Ryan. He was the head of shattered's sniper team and one hell of shot. Ryan laughed slightly as he said, "No you dumb a**! Who else would be knocking at your door at midnight?" he paused to hold up a bottle of scotch, "I was thinking we could sit and discuss things." Shattered laughed as he replied, "About what? Our current string of victories or my good for nothing ex girlfriends?" Ryan laughed as he said this. "Well your luck with girls is bad indeed my friend but why not talk about both of them?" And with that, shattered let Ryan into his room and they sat talking about strategies that had worked for them and how they could further expand their influence of various countries. That later changed to ex girl friends which later turned into laughing at just about everything as drunkeness took over.

    Shattered gave a light chuckle as he remembered Ryan. "Now that's a man if I ever did meet one. Nice guy. I bet he wouldn't mind helping me get my throne back," he said. As shattered now finally reached the end of the chasim, it emptied out into a huge open area. The area was orange and black with lava pits in various areas. A good number of demons were walking around this large expanse as if patrolling for food. At the very back of the area was a strange sight to see: A portal. Where this portal lead was anyone's guess, but he had to take that chance.

    The tome began to act strangely now. It gave off a strange pulse as it seemed to sense the portal. Hmm....the tome appears to be reacting to the power of that portal. I only have one teleportation spell, but maybe that might get me back to civilization. But first I'd better deal with these demons, he thought. The tome began to hover before him again, the pages turning by the same unseen force as before. But instead of casting an attack spell, the tome turned and faced him. The pages now turned at a blinding fast speed as shattered began to chant in the same langauge of the foxes. "Kyh (Come) Flare (Forth) Ryteno (Black) Resentoget (Rapier)!" From the pages of the book, emerged a black sword hilt. Upon grabbing this hilt, shattered gave a powerful pulling motion and drew this blade. It was a black Rapier from anceint times. The conjured blade was unbreakable and sharper than any sword that could be made in a black smith. "Here we go," shattered muttered as he began to slowly walk forward.

    He treaded lightly and reduced the amount of weight he placed on each step to limit the amount of echo that his shoes produced while walking on the hard rock. He counted the number of demons in his immediate vecinity to find to his disgust that there were more than twenty of these hulking, dirty, and vile creatures. He could smell their combined scent of blood and decomposing organs on their bodies that seemed to make a combined disgusting scent that would make just about anyone begin to empty their stomachs. Shattered noticed that there was also the scent of burning flesh that seemed to waft through the air like a wraith floating down dark corridors of a lost mansion. The sweet and acrid scent came from the lava pits where he now saw the black and chared bodies of various creatures. It was like a cooking pit to the demons in a strange sense. He was going to have to be careful. Should he alert more than around two demons, then he was going to be overrun, swarmed, and ripped limb from limb. His life would then truely be over.

    He noticed that one of them was withing ten feet of him with it's back turned. It was gorging on a newly mutilated body. The slurping and crunching nioses were gut wrenching to be vague. Shattered figured this would be a good start to slowly finding a way to the portal. Blood from flesh it was eating continuely sprayed and gushed into the air. The red life blood fluid dripped down just about every part of it's body. It's muscles flexed with inmense power and strength. It's manhood unrulelingly swung like the pendulums of a giant clock as it continued to gore and eat it's meal. Shattered could feel thick, warm bile rising from his stomach in his throat. He crouched slightly as he calculated his leap onto the demons back. He was going to give a sharp thrust with his rapier through the beast's throat to sever important arteries and then, ultimately, behead the creature. Ten feet forward with a 60 degree arc. Shouldn't be too hard. Let's just hope my math is as good as it used to be he thought rolling his eyes. He now took a deep breath, closed his eyes and jumped with all of his strength towards the creature. His jump was slightly off, but he still got the desired distance he was looking for. He landed on it's back and drove his rapier through the thick hide of the disgusting monstrousity. He viciously twisted the blade to the side, severing and twisting around vital arteries. The beast attempted to scream, but all that came from the beast's throat was a low bubbling sound. Shattered now twisted the blade once more and slashed to his right severing it's head. It's head rolled into a pool of lava where it became eveloped in bright orange flame and the flesh melted from it's face. Blood arched through the air as if it were a gyser. Shattered turned his back to it and said in the langauge of the fox's, "Mina (May) Rune Tyn (Rune Tail) Habe (Have) merecines (Mercy) on nitu (your) soulina (soul)." He now walked away from the corpse.

    Shattered continued to elminate the demons one by one. It was taking a pain stakingly long time. Shattered wasn't one for patience and this wasn't exactly the best situation in which to learn it. There were five of them left which was still a highly dangerous number. They could easily over power Shattered should he alert more than one. Shattered was just about to use the same tactic to attack another demon when he heard a shrill screech. His blood turned to ice. He saw one of the demons now pointing at him and the others were now looking to his direction. "Son of a b***h!" Shattered shouted as he began to sprint towards the portal. The demons gave chase. Shattered sprinted as fast as he could towards the portal.

    Twenty Feet...


    Shattered opened his tome and let it hover before him as he ran. It flipped through the pages till he reached his teleportation spell. He now began to heredly shout the incantation. The demons were still behind him and gaining.

    Ten Feet...


    The Tome now began to glow and the portal also began to glow a dark blue tint. His lungs burned, his stomach ached, and his heart pounded inside his chest. The inspcriptions on the page began to float off the page and swirl in a strange aura around his body.

    Five...Four...Three...


    Shattered jumped for the portal. A demon managed to grab hold of his leg. Shattered gave a loud grunt as he stretched his finger tips towards the portal. His middle finger scimmed the energy inside of it. His body glowed and just as he was about to be pulled into the waiting jaws of the demons, his body burst into tiny particles and shot into the portal.

    Shattered had no idea what was going to be after the portal. But hell it was better than getting eaten for lunch by a group of red skinned, foul smelling, naked demons. His body now turned back into a whole form with not a single particle missing and now came flying out of a portal onto the ground. He swung his rapier around him as he looked around heridly to see where he was. As the view swang into focus, shattered breath now began to calm. He fell back onto soft grass and warm sunlight. His fox ears twitched as a soft breeze tickled his ears. He gave a huge sigh of relief. It was a crack shot....however it had worked.


    Shattered was back in his world.