The Nexus From The Ashes.

Kyle had been dreaming of his past. His body long since been hardened by the Shadow Realm. Long ago it has taken his body away, leaving only energy and stone. His consciousness loomed within the never lit walls and wet floors, awaiting the chance to become one with himself again.

Echoes of footsteps approached the unlit doors as Kyle drifted from one thought to the next. He could remember when he had taken Death's first assignment. A boy. Young. Dying of something. It had taken him a day longer to do the assignment because his mentality had not hardened. He had not become the cold and distant man he was now.

After the transformation of power from first to second death, he became forgotten, and when the transferance occurred from second to third, he was lost and the shadows became his enemy. They assaulted him in every way, mentally, physically, emotionally, spiritually and all they wanted was for him to say that he no longer had loyalty to Death.

He knew his contract with death was done. He now had the power to live his normal average everyday life but instead remained loyal and with that loyalty, the shadows claimed his body and forger it into stone in the darkest halls then placed him with its shell as a final punishement for not doing what all humans were supposed to do in time. Die.

As the lights began to reveal the room, a women screaming,
"I know your here! Hear me! I have a task for one of you. Step forth and do your masters will..."

Kyle summoned his spirtual and inner strength to answer, trying to break the binds of the shadows. Like being in a cage, he fought and screamed mentally until in that very moment when the words "Hear me" struck him, the binds and powers of the shadow realm shattered.

He summoned what strength he had and visualized his old body. The tanned skinned, darkened armor, the weapons bestowed upon him by "the first". He conjured the strength that few ever had and when he thought that his mind couldn't take it, he appeared at a kneel before her.

His breath was shallow, and blood seeped from his wrist, back, chest and nose. His new body was created by Death's Aura. It had never taken a physical form and upon its creation caused wounds to appear.

After a minute, he looked at the women and blinked with a cold, thousand yard look.

The armor he wore was black and seemed like stone more than metal, black as night but absorbing as though it took in light instead of reflecting it. The etchings on the breast plate appeared moments later of the 'first's' seal of power, Kyle was an Old Servant.

The dual ended pull arm scythe extended the length of his body and was crossed by a long black shadow like long sword on his back. His hair fell off to a side and piled up next to his fist next to his knee as he knelt down.

Tattoos covered his arms and were of the age of the 'first death', their meanings being almost cuniform in nature. He looked at the women and stared for a moment, taking in what light there was in this room.

As he stared, scythe shapes formed in the pupils of his eyes and they glowed an eerie blue. His voice was unknown to him when he spoke. As the words came out of his throat, the depth of each syllable and the tone of each word quite nearly surprised him, his voice was almost monotoned but unnaturally deep.

"M'lady. Your call has been answered by only one on this day. This realm lays in shattered ruins and so your voice carried back to those of only the most loyal and unchained followers. It brings me honor to serve once more, I swear to reclaim my honor.", Kyle said as he continued to kneel.

He didn't have binding of any sort on him and his soul seemed intact if not a bit unsettled. Those who are loyal to Death become enslaved by it, but this subject was bound by something else.

Kyle knew this was his chance to relive a life he had lost. He would not forsake that and with that he closed his eyes and stood tall looking her in the eyes.

His presence seemed strange, his physical side was of a man who was recent in his years but his aura and power seemed ancient, as though he had been "the assassin of Death" for a millenia or more.

"What would you need of me M'lady?"

Kyle felt the power bestowed upon him through forces of this women. She gave him a cloak, a weapon and the power to travel. These gifts were something of an odd thing to him.

As she collapsed, he placed a hand under her arm and lifted her a bit, emotions from an old life becoming real again as his mind and body became one. He stared as she bestowed upon him a cloak that would protect and reflex, and a scythe that would take the soul of those who pass.

He smiled at these things and shook his head as she said that she could no longer fight.

"M'lady, the will to fight is in that which give. The most precious of these gifts you bestow are movement and the rest although powerful are somethings that i cannot use because I already have them.", he said as his stone armor became a cloak as he pulled his duel ended scythe from his back.

He looked at his scythe in its ancient ways and smiled as it glowed a dark light nearing her weapon. He watched as his scythes own life force reached out and snapped bindings into the given weapon and began to fuse the materials together. The dual bladed scythe cracked and popped as the fusion completed to look like his old blade with her markings of her old blade.

The cloak she gave enveloped him very well, hiding all physical features and creating a field of power as it layed atop his own cloak. The cloaks together felt strange, almost emotionally connected as they two began to form. Night's Veil had taken in his own cloak and made an entirely new cloak with the powers of both and a couple of new.

Kyle smiled and looked to the woman whose physique made him long for something different. He swiped the thoughts from his head and held out a hand as the portal opened and she faded from site.

"It would seem the shadows have chosen you to be my inspiration and it would seem out mystical objects have become anew. You have my word that this realm shall not fall. I shall return him in one piece and guard him with my all.", he said dropping his hand he knelt down and looked to her with green static like eyes of new power and resource,
"May your trip be safe M'lady, may you find pease where ever you may go, I will be your champion, and worry not about being forgotten, for old shadows never die... they just fade away."

With those words he passed through the portal and turned to face it as it closed. As he looked around at a world so beautiful and untarnished by the foulness of a darkness that loomed at every corner of every existance, he smiled and closed his eyes.

He could feel the cool breeze moving around him as the air became tendrils that he used for searching the area for something that should never make it to this untouched and serene place. Death.