Koldan, Sin and the Doomed Ship

Not a lot of demons know this, but Wrath was supposed to embody Sathanus, incarnation of wrath in Hell. However, her personality was so strong that it became more of a burden than an asset for the demonic forces. Rare were the ones calling her Sathanus; most would use her more common name: Wrath. However, her real, very own name, was not one that could be pronounced. She eventually didn't become Sathanus anyway, so that could have hardly been how she was really called.

No. Her real name was made of thoughts and emotions that are not describable. No one really knew what it was exactly, as she never accepted to share this very personal definition of herself with anyone ("No one has the right to penetrate my mind."). But it was common for other demons to communicate between themselves using their own mix of sensations.

Most of the time, Wrath was a fighter. Above anything, she liked slaying Angels and, when possible, Archangels (she hadn't the chance to meet a Heavenly entity of a higher rank). She had known defeats, obviously, but it had been ages she had not experienced one, and even her name was mentioned sometimes in the Heavens as she was taking down more and more of her enemies.

Her exploits allowed her to receive recognition from the Demonic Hell Council and be given the rank of Duchess of Anhetas, a sizeable land in Hell where she reigned with an iron hand. It wasn't the favorite place where demons would go, but it was still attracting some of the most radical of them. Wrath had her lair there, with piles of treasures gathered from her fights.

The Demonic Hell Council

Composed of the most powerful demons and rulers of Hell, all Master Lords of Hell included, the council rules over all demons and makes sure that the chaos reigning in there is more beneficial to their ultimate goal than not: ending the battle against the Heavens by destroying it. There decisions are respected by all, mainly because any protest would be mercilessly crushed under their overwhelming power.

The confrontation

The Persephone is an experimental starship designed by an interstellar corporation called Nastrand Industries. It was the first ship to use warp drive technology. It was sent into the warp on its maiden voyage, carrying a full crew for unknown reasons, many of them cryogenically frozen. Something went terribly wrong.

Demons

The Persephone passed through a nightmarish realm in the warp, inhabited by malevolent entities. These beings are called demons by many. The ship’s warp core has become a constantly activated portal to Hell, through which demons and their psychic influence can reach the crew.


Demons seem to take a deep interest in the negative emotions of humans and other sentient creatures, and can both possess them and manifest through them when they have been thoroughly corrupted. Demons are often classified according to the sin(s) they enjoy indulging in when they are free to interact with the physical world.

Some human religions from back on Earth seem to know useful information about the demons, while the rest of their writings are misleading and incorrect. For instance, Krof [an inhabitant of the ship, see further below] carries a chain with numerous religious symbols on it. It’s useful for finding demons among the survivors, for they react distastefully when these items are shown to them. Exorcisms also seem to be effective, at least when done properly by someone with true religious conviction. Krof lacks any sort of belief in this.

The ship

These victims can be from any time or place, and when they have the time to compare histories of the galaxies they come from, it becomes obvious that they are often not even from the same timelines…the Persephone can pass through time and even alternate universes.

Trapped!

Krof came on board around three years ago. He was involved in ship boarding actions during a war the NovoSov Commonwealth was fighting. The Persephone showed up and was assumed to be a hostile vessel joining the fighting. The rest of his boarding team was killed as they attempted to breach into the ship, but Krof survived and was trapped on board when the Persephone went back into the warp.

His immediate concern was re-arming himself, which he did by tracking down his dead teammates and scavenging their armor and weapons. He also did not initially speak English, and had a difficult time communicating until he found translator software.

A more long-term concern was his metabolic failsafe. Skolls are designed to not be able to go rogue and operate on their own. His body is intentionally designed to not produce a specific enzyme that he needs to live. This chemical is instead given to him in his rations. When he is away from support, he eventually dies of malnutrition due to this missing enzyme. He befriended a surviving Nastrand scientist, who was eventually able to synthesize the chemical for him.

Krof befriended some Nastrand marines despite them being enemies of his nation, and worked with them to defend the crew deck and make scavenger runs to the Maintenance deck. All of these Marines are now dead, however.

There was an uprising over a year ago where the remaining survivors on board attempted to regain control of the ship. Parts of the ship were isolated from the Persephone’s possessed computer by severing them from the network and installing portable CPUs. Some of the ship’s functions like astrogation and communication have been liberated in this way. Many of the Power cells were captured and made unavailable to the reactor, and now it runs at less than full capacity and often can only be open for short periods. This has made the demons’ presence on the ship less frequent, and they usually try to influence and possess the crew mentally more than they directly manifest these days.

The ship has responded to this rebellion by ceasing its agenda of torment and actively trying to kill off the remaining crew. This doesn’t mean that the demons on board don’t still enjoy their sick pleasures, though.

Krof

Skolls are artificial life-forms made by the NovoSov commonwealth. Their DNA is put together from many different species. Human, canine, creodont (a large, prehistoric, now extinct life-form from Earth), and also entirely artificial genes written by scientists.

Skolls are designed to be bred and sent into battle quickly. There are no female Skolls – whelps are born in artificial laboratory wombs and are force-grown to adulthood within a year. They are trained in units made up of Skoll teachers and human commanders.

There are many familes, or ‘clades’ of Skoll that are descended from a single ancestor. These clades are all named after Heroes of the Soviet Union from old Earth. Krof belongs to the Zhukov clade, named for a historical general. Skolls are given first names while they are in training, one-word descriptions in old Russian, much like a human would name a dog. Krof means ‘blood’, and he was named this because he often became covered in blood during live hand-to-hand training exercises.

Skolls are never given control over human troops, and are given ‘sub’ ranks that indicated the rank only applies to other Skolls. Krof is a sub-sergeant,for instance.

The Skoll mindset is very different from a human’s, and instead of revolving around personal advancement or protection of relatives it is based on competition, and their perceived prestige in the eyes of their ‘pack’. No Skoll wants to fall behind in performance and become their unit’s omega.

As far as everyone knows, this is when Koldan and Sin talked for the first time. It happened in a pretty crowded Shemales Hideout; visitors were enjoying the view of the sexy dancers and Sin was quietly blending in the atmosphere. The wolf was standing not too far from her, seemingly looking for something to do. Sin suddenly smiled as a friend of hers entered the place.

  Sin got out of her slumber. "Hello Angelaaaaaa!"
  Sin looked around, hesitant. "Oh, hello everyone! :3"
  Koldan Illarion: Shyness in a demon. That's...adorable. :P
  Sin: If I could, I would have a halo above my head right now o:)
  Koldan Illarion: But you had to turn that in before you plummeted from heaven, I assume.
  Sin: Ah! Good question. Not all demons come from heaven :-)
  Koldan Illarion: Misinformation from scripture? I'm shocked. :P
  Sin saw the angel [that was standing in the hideout] and... just sat next to her =^_^=
  Angela: mmm heaven and hell collide, -only at the hideout-
  Sin: Oh wait! A free pole! :3
  Koldan Illarion: The Devil made her do it.

Sin excitedly got up, climbed on the bar and started dancing around the pole. Soon after, Koldan sat on one of the chairs facing her. He tipped her for... her curves, I guess... and the discussion continued.

  Sin: Thank you my dear!
  Sin smiled at Koldan and blew him a kiss.
  Sin danced closer to Koldan so he could see the view... better :)
  Koldan Illarion took a good look at Sin's body, built for her namesake, and decided that lust was definitely his favorite of the seven.

At that point, Sin was already starting to like Koldan, even if they had not talk much. She teased the wolf some more, feeling warmness in her heart. Some time passed. Both of them naturally interacted with the several people staying around the bar; Koldan and Angela even decided to have a "very intimate" moment together, oblivious to all the persons that were watching. Then the wolf threw another wad of cash in the tip hat next to the demoness.

  Sin blew another kiss at Koldan. "You cute canine are a wonderful person."
  Koldan Illarion: Hah. I dunno about that, but thank you for saying so.
  Sin: Yep, trust my demoness instincts. You are a rare kind of person.
  Sin opened her wings.
  Koldan Illarion: You, dear, are gorgeous and I hope we see a lot more of you.
  Koldan Illarion: What sort of origins do you give your demon? There are a lot, after all. Hell? Extradimensional being?

She replied she was coming from Hell. Obviously. How could someone possibly be more desirable otherwise?

Please let me introduce Sin. She's a demoness, but she does not have the common particularities of her kind, being sweet, usually attentive, and not a dominant. She does not spend her time (as the image below suggests) on her computer, since she does not have one, but instead hangs out with her friends at different locations, being mainly the Futa Breeding Lab and the Shemales Hideout. Yes, she's pretty given into naughty things, but not as bad as you might think.

At the latter location, she recently and randomly met someone — a wolf-looking giant creature — with whom she quickly became close friend. She does not know why, but she immediately felt she had some connections with him even if she was sure she had never saw him before. She is confused with a large part of her past, everything being like a shadow before a certain period she... does not even remember correctly.

What she knows though is that Koldan Illarion, her recent new dear friend, is more than just a friend. She spent countless night with him chatting or wandering in his mind when they were far from each other (an ability she was using with very few people as it was giving them access to her own mind). But one night, she saw things that she didn't expect and it deeply troubled her. Some part of his past, harsh and bloody.

  "Koldan Illarion tried to recall his past, as he had so many times before, a rapid-fire series of images forming in response, plain for her to see too in his unshielded thoughts. Impossibly small, a whelp, looking up at a towering cadre instructor as the adult clouted him across the snout. An electronic klaxon sounding and red medical alerts flashing in his heads-up display, looking down at his armor as his blood fountained out into space, the cold of the interstellar void seeping into the wound. Day after mind-numbing day of barest survival, alone in a jungle where green light filtered through trees. And finally - hands reaching out from a glaring nuclear furnace, so bright it stung the eyes even as a thought. A malevolent, somehow female presence that whispered, "Persephone" like a death threat."

What was more troubling was that sentence Koldan shared with her afterwards:

  "I don't know, Sin." Ever since he had met her, he used her name reluctantly. To him, the word did not seem to fit her. "I am not sure I want to find her. She wants to kill me. And you." His paws clenched, gripping weapons he had trained with that were no longer in his possession. A strong, automatic reflex. "And she's not a she. An it."

Since that night, Sin cannot stop thinking about it. What would be this Persephone thing? Why would it try to kill both of them? Did they knew each other in the past, even if it didn't make sense at all? Her mind is now caught in a spiral of questions, and she wants to know everything... because it may help her find out what her past is.