~ Death, Goddess & Rebirth ~

~ Void ~

~ Drake Zoraiz - POV ~

'Who knew death would be so cold, but that was probably the warmth of my blood cascading out of my body through the many bullet holes those asshats put in me, shit I need a smoke just remembering it. Haha, at least that didn't kill me in the end, cancer would have sucked. I am 100% sure I'm dead, so what is this endless darkness I've seemed to awakened to? Fuck, there's no way I'm getting a cigarette here. Fuck, my head is feeling foggy.'

~ Sometime Later ~

As an atheist I've always known, or assumed that death was an entirely true end of an existence. I had no expectations of the pearly gates with Saint Peter awaiting me with open arms, nor Anubis waiting to weigh my life against a feather, I was not expecting 72 virgins awaiting my arrival even if it would turn into a nightmare later on, probably, nor did I expect that Thanatos would send for a ferry to get me across the River Styxs. That who or what ever made us more than just upright apes that we are or was in my case, with its complex evolutionary path, was just that, a cycle of a evolution based on the survival of the strongest. A happenstance of a maelstrom of chaos in a ever expanding cosmos originating from whatever caused the big bang, the theory of creation of the universe not the sitcom. That we were just specks on a rock floating in a universe filled with possibly infinite other rocks floating in a ever expanding space, and our rock was lucky enough to become hospitable for life, and nothing was waiting for us after we reached the end. Or so I thought.

Bewildered and cautious, I tried to find some semblance of normality in my situation in the never ending void, to reach out and wade through the darkness surrounding me, that is when I realized that I was no longer corporeal, my body was gone, I was just a gaseous silverish blue ball floating uncontrollably in the dark. I felt myself begin to panic for a moment before the memory of my death reminded me of the reason I no longer have a form other than what I'm assuming is my soul. Something that at one point I would have scoffed at as a real thing, I would have argued that it was just electric pulses of energy, like a meatbag circuit board that keeps your body alive, nothing more. Yet here I am, a gaseous silverish blue ball just floating around in this dark void. The great, maybe self proclaimed but true, Drake Zoraiz; orphaned at a young age in a violent crime, a realist, friend to very few, lover to a few more, three time war veteran, career mercenary, a great warrior, and now a helpless floating soul wandering the void, with no smokes. And now I'm rambling. Great.

~ Some More Time Later ~

In what felt like eternity or maybe a couple of years or a few days or maybe it was just a couple of minutes, I couldn't tell with the nothingness all around me. It feels like a lot of time has passed and at the same time none has passed since I've been stuck here. I can't imagine I've even really moved no matter how much I tried, I can't even really tell how or in which direction I'm drifting to and from. But oddly I never felt any despair in all this time, for however long it has been, like my mind was wandering from topic to topic to keep from going insane. The chaos of my mind is keeping me tethered to my own sanity, at least for now. So I just kept wandering the void until the void was, for a fraction of a second, illuminated by a brilliance like no other, but it was gone as soon as it came and in front of me stood a figure.

A Goddess. There was no other word to describe the being, she was statuesque, curvaceous, a divine pale beauty with long white luminous hair that would be dragging behind her if she wasn't at the moment floating in the void. She had eyes that immediately made me feel like everything and nothing was in her grasp, at one second it was like a aurora of colors and in the next empty and as dark as the void. I believe that all those jade beauties from those cultivation novels are nothing when compared to her beauty. I would have kneeled before her and declared her my Goddess from now on just for her beauty alone... you know if I actually had knees to kneel on at the moment.

Her voice, ethereal and sweet calls out to me, which in this void is weird enough, but it was just nice to hear something besides my own ramblings for what felt like eternity. "Why are you here in the void, young soul. And how are you not being erased right now. Interesting. Greetings young Drake Zoraiz, I am ¤♧°♤●◇▪︎♡¿¤, but you may simply call Goddess." I, still dazed by her brilliance and her appearing out of nowhere, awoke from my daze to rejoice, for I was no longer alone. Plus who better than a beyond gorgeous, with a big G, Goddess to show up. Plus bonus, it's not one of those Lovecraftine horrors, no elderlicht tentacles to drag me into Chthullu's maw thankfully. I was so happy I ignored the part about me or any soul supposedly being unable to be in the void without be obliterated while mine somehow did not and my newly discarded atheistism. Was that a good idea, no, but I was to happy to care, and it didn't matter now anyway.

For the first time in this void as she called it, I felt like, my mind wasn't in a fog, in fact I now could actually remember everything about my life and death as if I've had perfect memory for my whole life. From my birth to my mortal end, I remember it all. Incredibly violent is the first thing that came to mind as soon as I recalled my life with perfect clarity, as if a gift just from the goddesses presence in front of me. Orphaned at a young age to a violent crime but old enough to remember it, then shoved into an underfunded orphanage filled with other unwanted or like me unlucky children, which made me mature faster and made me more of a realist. The things I've seen and been involved in that turned me against the idea of a higher being looking out for the innocent, turning me into an atheist. Wasting my time in underfunded public school's for years filled with the dreadges of societies future inmates of an already overcrowded prisons system or future lifelong cogs in the machine. Turning into another one of the sheepal flipping burgers or sitting in a office for nine to five.

Luckily I had Carina, Carina Rodrigo was another unlucky orphaned kid a year younger than me. When she got to the orphanage she apparently got attached to me fairly quickly and followed me around everywhere afterwards. Not that I minded, and she definitely blossomed in highschool, we became an on again off again, couple/best friends with benefits thing our junior year of highschool. Then me joining the military, Carina right behind me a year later, as soon as I could to get out of the streets and the cog life, unlike most of people and my classmates and then training, training and more training with anything and about everything, from a small knife to a military tank. Military training gave me discipline, drive and a great love for combat.

So much so that I spent most of the money I had been saving to bettering myself; physically by studying under mixed martial artists and fighting in underground fight clubs, and not the legal ones, for the experience, and mentally by studying anything from brewing alcohol to philosophy of war and psychological tactics to how to cook and generally how to survive alone in the harsh wilderness alone.

Then there was training with cold weapons, daggers, swords, the bow and arrow and the spear and more. Then my life as a mercenary after my discharge from the military, and my less than clean and legal work as a mercenary/assassin; where I realized that I truly loved combat, and I was good at it. Moving back and forth between battlefields, whilst always bettering myself, learning any fighting techniques I could learn and fighting in underground fighting clubs to instill the technique into my body through battle, unarmed and armed. Earning me a body filled with scars, which Carina and another women she brought to our bed seemed to appreciate.

Then finally my death during a mission that went south fast, as I was left behind during a gun fight and had to battle out of a ambush for an hour, because of useless intel, useless commander's and a cowardly teammate running away ending my life. Not that I hold any hate for them, as Martin Luthor King Jr. said, "Hate is too great a burden to bear. It injures the hater more than it injures the hated." I hope at least Carina, who obviously followed me into the mercenary life as well, and that ass of hers got out of there safe, and knowing her, she would have.

"Ahem." I was brought out of my little trip down memory lane by the Goddess. 'Oh, I beg you, forgive me my dear Goddess. I was momentarily struck by your unbelievably radiant ethereal beauty. As you seem to already know about me so I shall skip the introduction. How may this lowly soul earn your forgiveness and hope to earn a small favor, from a being as gorgeous and as powerful as you?' I tried to flatter the being so I wouldn't be obliterated for just being, well me. A being who easily saw through me and she, who was probably infinitly more powerful than I could ever imagine, and just as kind for skipping over my sad excuse for trying to flatter her, as she just had this small smile on her face, as she said. "It's quite alright young Drake, no forgiveness needed, and I just checked and your girlfriend made out of there safe, thanks to you actually taking a bullet that was meant for her, luckily for her. I was just wandering the omniverse when I spotted your soul in the void between some universes. I must admit it's been some eons since I've seen a soul wandering in the void, a human soul at that. More so than that, is that you seem to have not been erased by the void itself and instead it's as your soul is somehow almost perfectly at ease here, almost. Usually souls that are far stronger than a human soul could possibly be, and none from the universe you come from mind you, can survive leaving their own universe let alone their multiverse cluster's to even reach the rim of the void in between universe's. To say it's a surprise is surely the understatement of the last some odd few hundred epochs. Your soul, after death, as always should have been entered into your home universes cycle of reincarnation. What are those idiots doing on Earth, and how does a soul just slip by so many pantheon's watching over the universe? Well no matter how or why, you are here now." She says, and from what I understood, I am one, if not the most luckiest or unluckiest soul's to exist, and without a doubt. We are about to find out which.

"You are." She casually says as a reply to my thoughts, which of course she can, she is a Goddess, a being as I am now can't even fathom and who moments ago I held no belief in. The blasphemy. I then asked her, 'what now?' with my thoughts, hopping she wouldn't just leave me here to float endlessly for a long as I can. While I am also interested in how and why, as she said, my soul was here in the first place and hasn't been obliterated. Or if, as she said, someone in all of those pantheon's that watch over my old universe, did something to help me survive my journey here.

"They did not. As for yourself, my young wandering soul, I would say it's fate that we met but that would just be bragging about one of my own domains, but either way it is what it is, a lucky encounter for both of us. As I was in need of someone for a job that just opened up. So I shall give you a choice; first, I can erase your memories and send you back to your original universes to be returned to the cycle of reincarnation. Or second, you can become my new mercenary from now on and gain a new life and you will be exclusively working for me for let's say, the next few millennium." It took me less then a second to think or more like yell 'Yes!' Without even asking for the job description or pay, just happy to be able to leave this goddess forsaken void. Not even asking how I was going to be able to work for her for a century, let alone several millennium, but I had faith, newly discovered but nonetheless a strong faith for my new Goddess.

She chuckled at my thoughts, the sound of her chuckling somehow bringing up a feeling of euphoria, she then goes on to me explain what my new job would be. "The job entails what any mercenary job usually does; the protection of a certain person or persons, to retrieving information, even a battlefield deployment or two, and even assassination of a target or target's. Also, If you get stronge enough than you may be sent to destroy a universe or two, but that comes much, much latter. Oh, and obviously these mission's take place all over the omniverse, so travel as well. That would be part of your pay, the chance to travel the omniverse. Other than that, I'll be giving you three wishes to make you more powerful for your future job. Well two wishes really, because I already used one to create something that you'll need for your future work. Also I'll be including the ability to choose a new body, created just for you and a background story in your new home universe. You'll be reborn into a new universe, one of your choosing, to grow your strength in any and every way you possibly can. Any and every ability you can imagine all you have to do is ask, with the sole exception of the three omni's, omnipotence, omnipresences, omnisciences. That would just be boring and in my own experiences, creates some powerful idiots. Those that are unworthy of their power. Remember this well young Drake Zoraiz, power that is unearned is power wasted on the unworthy."

As she explained all this, I couldn't help the feeling like this was all to good to be true. But the warning and worry behind her words reminds me to be more cautious, I am heading into the unknown after all. Obviously as she said, the wishes and the ability to create my new life comes with the job, but how hard is this job that I need all this, so I had to ask. 'What exactly is this job?' To which she replied. "The official job title would be something along the lines of; a Omniversal Mercenary. I'll be sending you into universe's that have either a potential problems occurring outside the world's fate, or some things or being is messing with the world. In some of these mission's you'll get to travel places you've only seen in movies and tv and read about in other works of fiction. Honestly though you'll probably not have any jobs to do for the first 30 to 40 years of your new life, so I would recommend that you take advantage of the time to grow stronger both mentally and physically. The gift I made out of your third wish should make that far more than easy enough for you. So, Drake Zoraiz, are you ready to choose your wishes?" She asked me.

'Yes, I'm ready, and thank you, Goddess, for first rescuing me from this abyss you call the void and for the opportunity to travel the omniverse.' At my reply she gave me a soft yet radiant smile as I continued. 'For my first wish, I want to create a primordial and powerful vampire bloodline with no weaknesses.' Before I'm even done with my wish, she replied. "I already know which vampire bloodline's and their abilities you are thinking of, and granted. Your second wish?" Wow, that easily really, she did say anything, but still. If this is nothing for her, then I think I'm truly going to love working for my new boss.

For my second wish I wanted something that could be used to make me stronger fast and not only physically or mentally, but all around more powerful. While also with the ability to make my new life easier, easier even then the gift the goddess made out of my third wish. A literal bulb lit up above me, looking up I see the Goddess soft chuckling to herself, it sounded like the tinkling of silver bells. Not even wondering how that was even possible and going back to me recalling a certain blue slime that ate a dragon and became a Demon Lord and two abilities that grew with him and made him a literal God in his universe incredibly fast. 'For my second wish I want two abilities of the one and only Demon Lord Rimuru Tempest, even though you'll probably already know which abilities, specifically I want; Raphael, Lord of Wisdom and Beelzebub, Lord of Gluttony.' Man I'm going to be so OP with these abilities, even if I don't use them to their full potential I should be fine in almost any universe I travel to from now on.

"Granted; but know that because of those abilities if, in the future, you decide to go to the Cardinal world using my gift to you, it well be one of a alternate universe where Rimuru Tempest was never reincarnated into the world, since the universe Veldanava created doesn't allow two of the same kind of abilities, especially as powerful as Raphael and Beelzebub to exist. Now for your final wish, my gift to my future mercenary. As I said I used your final wish to create a unique something that will, not only make your work much easier when you start in a few decades or sooner if you use it right. That should take your already powerful wishes and make you a great asset for eons to come." She says casually while creating a vial of rainbow colored liquid, the vial shined intensely in the void, as if to make the darkness surrounding it back away so it could shine.

'What is that?' I ask curiously. "This my dear mercenary, is a mixture of a few CYOA Essences that I wiped up just for a moment like this. It is made up of the Essence of the Archmage, Blank, and the Essence of the Adventurer. Don't worry, the information of their capabilities and how to make use of them comes with ingesting the essence. Speaking of which, it's time to create your future body and choose your starting point. Some advice, pick a universe you know well enough and a good background so that you can make use of the time you have to grow. Because you will be seven years old in your new life when the memory of this; the void, your wishes including my gift, which you shall consume in a second, your new job and your past life will come back to you."

'Woo-hoo, all hail the most beautiful, the most generous, the best boss in the omniverse and did I mention drop dead gorgeous, The Goddess!!!' Seriously, just the Essence of Blank alone is ridiculously overpowering and add the Essence of the Archmage, and I'll be a walking catastrophe by the time the Goddess sends me my first job as a mercenary. I wasn't familiar with the Essence of the Adventurer, but if it did what I think, I may be able to speed up my application for the title of "catastrophe class being" sooner than I thought. As for which universe I should be reborn in and my background, and taking my Goddesses advice in consideration, I thought of the perfect place. And going by the radiant smile on the divine face of my Goddess, she believes it's a good idea and gives me a nob as to say, "out loud." Or think it at this moment, for the fact I still didn't have a mouth at the moment.

'I want to be reborn in the A Song of Ice and Fire universe, fifty years before the Doom of Valyria, born to a dragonrider mother of House Targaryen and a powerful Greenseer father of House Stark.' If I had a body at the moment it would be vibrating with the amount of excitement running through me at the moment. I truly loved the books of A Song of Ice and Fire, I also loved watching the show with Carina, even if the show kind of killed the unreleased book for me, I was still looking forward to buying it just to get the bitterness of the last season of the show out of me. Now I get to see the story come true and probably change a few things when the time comes latter. And this way I'll already have two to three of the most powerful magical abilities in the world just from my parents and with the Essence of the Archmage, I'll be the most powerful Greenseer, Dragon Dreamer and Dragonrider as soon as I'm born.

I wonder if I can mess with the Three Eyed Raven from the past. I'm coming for you Brynden Rivers, dude is seriously a dark and suspicious character and I'm not talking about the nice old man stuck in a tree of the show, no I mean the Bloodraven from the books. And then there is all the magic that was mentioned in the books, like the shadowbinders of Asshai and the Fire Gods pyromancers and healers, the preists and priestesses of the temple of Rh'llor and of course the blood magic practiced by the mages of the Valyrian Freeholds, the blood magic which they are famously known and later despised for. Not to mention any lost or hidden magic from both the other thirthy-nine drangonlords of Valyria, because I don't and can't believe a prophetic ability that runs in blood of just one of the forty dragonriding families of the Valyrian Freehold is all of the bloodline abilities of the mighty dragonrider's of the Valyrian Empire. And of the Rhynore and their water magic or maybe even something from the Empire of the Dawn, an ancient empire that existed far before the idea of Valyria. Thank the Godess, I'm going to have a great starting point.

"You are welcome. Now for your new future appearance, just think about what your ideal look is and I'll create a future you, at your peak, when your immortal body well stop growing using the new progenitor bloodline. You'll get to see what you look like as a new primordial vampire, and I'll be able to get you drink my gift." My Goddess explained as I closed my... soul eyes? Anyway, as soon as I did whatever it was and imagined my ideal looks, I felt it. It was a weird feeling, one second I'm a gaseous blue ball the size of a basketball and in the next I feel the familiar feeling of being corporeal, of having a body just far more powerful. If I had to explain the experience, it's like being hungry one second and the next you feel like you've eaten a grand feast, and you're beyond full. I opened my new eye's to see my Goddess had created a mirror in front of me so I could get a good look at my new self. And damn, I am ridiculously handsome, like I hit the damn handsome button to many times, but I can't and am not going to complain. Oh, looks like my little brother got a upgrade as well, good for me.

I looked just like Henry Cavill as Geralt of Rivia from the Netflix series The Witcher, the only difference is my eyes and my hair. While Geralt has yellow cat like eyes, and mine are a pale amethyst with gray spots around the pupils. And while Geralt had a all white head of hair, mine started as black as the void and it then soon fades to a grayish silver color all the way to a snow white the longer it grows out. I even have his jacked physic, while standing, in my birthday suit, at a very respectable six feet six inches.

At that moment. Instinctively, I activated my new primordial vampire bloodline, and immediately my pupils started turning a dark crimson red, as if someone spilled blood into my irises. As I opened my mouth, I can see eight sharp fangs, both my canines and the slitly smaller premolars right behind them, these things are going to be fear inducing just from the sight of them. I willed them away, and while my fangs retracted they were still pronounced enough to be noticed, my new smile is both charming and horrifying depending upon the situation, while my eyes returned to their pale amethyst with light gray speckles around the pupils. I knew instinctively that I could transform further into my true vampire form and more, but I'll keep that for later, I really shouldn't keep my Goddess waiting.

After taking a minute or two to admire my Goddesses work, I turned to said Goddess and knelt to her, opening my mouth for the first time, as I said in Geralts gruff, deep and with, for some reason, Henry Cavills English accent, not that I'm complaining, really. "My Goddess, please allow me to sacrifice the endless scores of your enemies for your noblest of names. I shall carve your image in the very eye's of any heretic that does not kneel before your holiness." I half jokingly declared to her. She just chuckled at my antics and handed me the vial containing the Essences that will make me invincible in the long run. I pulled off the cork and downed the rainbow drink. If I had to describe the taste, the only word's that come mind are, power and power tastes great.

"Good, and nice choice by the way. Now then, it is time to send you on your next grand adventure. I will send someone for you when you are ready for your first job, until then grow and enjoy your new life Drae, my future mercenary. Farewell." She says to me while waving her hand, next thing I know I'm rocketing away from her while blacking out, her last words to me being both freeing and spirit thrilling, regrettably the Goddess figure got futher away, until there is only...

~ Planetos, Essos ~ Volantis ~

~ Barthogan Stark - POV ~

I paced throughout the corridors and passageways of the Grand Temple of R'hllor in Volantis in Essos of all places. Instead of being in my home back in Westeros, back in the North where I belong. Then a woman screaming out in pain and effort sounds out from a door near where I was pacing and I'm reminded of why I was here, and the reason for my restlessness. Then I, somewhat calming down after taking a few deep breaths, stopped the constant pacing. But earlier in my life, my restlessness always got the better of me no matter how many time I took a deep breath. My own royal father, brother and sister have always said that it was the 'wolfs blood' that was strongest in me.

Early in my childhood, I realized that I was different from every one else around me, even including my own family. It started with me dreaming of being a raven and flying around the skies of Winterfell, the ancient home of the Starks, and then it only got stronger from there as I grew. With help from my family and the extensive library housed in Winterfell, we came to realization that I was a Greenseer, a warg blessed by the Old Gods to be able to see more than through the eyes of animals and commanding them. Magic of the Old Gods that even the Children of the Forest are not even blessed with, not that we could know for certain at this time. Magic was in our blood, the blood of the Kings of Winter of old, who ruthlessly conquered the harsh North and took in some of the magical blood from rival northern houses by killing all the males and marring the females into House Stark or submission to their rule, the last of them being the Red Kings of the Dreadfort, the Boltons, who now kneel to the Starks of Winterfell, the Kings of Winter. The bloodline of magic and if the legends are true, even the blood of the Children of the Forest, messengers of the Old Gods of the North.

Now years later, after honing my magic, and even bonding with a Direwolf pup, the very sigil of House Stark. Who I found during a trip to the north of the Wall, a seven hundred feet tall and three hundred miles long wall of ice, stone and magic built by my ancestor and founder of my House, Brandon Stark, better known as Brandon the Builder. When I reached my majority at ten and six name days I decided to travel, my first destination being beyond the Wall, where I met and bonded with my black and gray furred Direwolf. Who is at the moment laying down in front of the door to the room which the sound of a screaming woman in labor is originating from, as to guard the door from any threat.

'Or just waiting for the new pup to be born.' I think as, at the same time, a loud beasts roar sounds from outside the temple shaking the very building itself. The sound of a now familiar anxious she-dragon that belongs to my wife, contradictory to the quiet waiting of my own bond, Nightwind, which calms me futher. Which in turn brings a smile to my face, knowing that such beasts were bonding with us through the magic that runs in our blood. Gifts that our child would soon inherit and exceed us in soon enough, if what we have been told is true. A prophecy, about my child, at which I first scoffed at the mear idea, but here I am. Halfway across the world from my home, awaiting said child. 'The God's truly love to throw unexpected things at use mortals.' I thought to myself as I recalled my journey here.

At that moment the door opened up to reveal a priestess who momentarily froze at the sight of Nightwind as he had raised his head and was staring at the door, before she even opened it. But she quickly composed herself and turned to me and said in High Valyrian. "Aōha dārōñe, aōha riñnykeā ābrazȳrys se se limari issi hart se rytsa. īlon issi sir syt ao naejot." (Your grace, your lady wife and the newborn are both hart and healthy. We are now prepared for you to enter. )" Nightwind is already up and moving into the room before she is finished speaking.

'Probably eager to check on the new pup of the pack.' I jape to myself to calm my nerves as I walk right behind my direwolf into the room to see midwives and priestesses cleaning up around the bed. A bed currently occupied by my beautiful silver haired and amethyst eyed Valyrian wife, with her long time friend standing beside her. My dragonrider of a wife and mother to my first born, Daenora of House Targaryen gently cradling a small bundle in her arms as her long time friend and priestess, Kinvara, stood there staring at our child almost as he is Azor Ahai reborn. Daenora turns to look up at us as Nightwind and I enter the room. And in High Valyrian says to me, while sounding both excited and exhausted at the same time, in her enchantingly sweet voice. "Barth, māzigon se rhaenagon īlva tresy, Draegon Targārien Stark." (:Barth, come and meet our son, Draegon Targaryen Stark.)" Nightwind and I moved closer to see our new little pup, the future Dragonwolf, my son, Draegon Targaryen Stark. A song of a Direwolves icy bite and a Dragons devastating fires.

~