Project Rebirth: Part 1 [One-shot]

[Celia Darkson]

The lab lights were particularly dim this night, as Celia had focused a good amount of luminescence upon the research in front of her. She had gained quite a bit more power since her arrival in the queer universe and decided that she were finally strong enough to tap into that forbidden power, that lied dormant within her Grimoire and Staff. Two interesting artifacts that were gifted to her by a Great One. A being so powerful and beyond the normal perception of man and man's concepts, that the mere sight of it maddened even the most hardened of mystics. Celia was one unfortunate soul to have come across this being.

She crossed into his realm, his domain where he remained trapped and required a form of intrinsic, complex rituals for him to break through into the mortal plane. This wasn't by accident either, no, Celia thirsted for this knowledge more than any of her colleagues could ever explain and finally, she reached it. There, the being was impressed with her manic resolve to delve deep beyond the meaning of forbidden and step into a world of higher knowledge, of enlightenment. Others viewed her as insane and mad, which to the very definition of the two words, she were. However, He saw her as a champion among her race and decided to fester that growing madness, while he decided to feed her hunger for information.

Three long years spent in consistent agony, mentally, physically and emotionally, she lived through it all. He wanted her conditioned beyond that which could be thought humanly possible. The creature needed her to be strong, if she were to carry out his will or better yet, establish herself among their pantheon. She aged with ideals to ascend further than what she had already become, but knew it weren't her time just yet. There was more to the world around her, nay, the very universe that she had yet to understand and doing so would take many long years to accomplish. But this is hat her training with the Great One prepared her for. Without warning, he thrust his knowledge into her.

Celia's mind was raped with the many facets that concerned life, the universe and the questions that sought many answers. Needless to say, her mind was crushed beneath the vast wealth of information blessed to her. She died... Only momentarily, however, for the being took the steps necessary for this contingency and brought the fledgling vampire girl back from the depths. Despite her brief death, it actually meant something. Her mind had supernaturally voided itself due to the overdose of knowledge and "sprouted" an oddity of the universe. A grimoire.

The grimoire had become the collective information that Celia had gathered over her years, the database granted to her by the Great One and the madness sprouted from both aspects of mentioned knowledge. It had become a living, deadly weapon capable of understanding everything around it, should its pages ever be exposed to the outside world. The book was granted to the mage as a graduation present. Alongside it, another present came. A cane that writhed with tentacles that were bound to it. This cane originated from the young girl as well and represented every sin she committed in accomplishing her goals. Great a many things seeped from it, that even He himself had to wrap and contain. It were in much better hands with Celia than with Him, so he gave it to her and shipped her back to her time and universe.

That was nearly 4 years ago...

Now, she worked on reviving her relics, her gifts. They had become limp and powerless since her transition, but she resolved to fix that. With the magical knowledge she gained so far, she focused the entirety of her power on reactivating her weapons of maddened evil.

A snap of her fingers and the room brightened to reveal the entirety of it's floor, walls and ceiling, covered in alien runes and symbols. These were to protect her friends and family on the outside, for any loose magic that came through would surely spell disaster for the outside world. The middle contained both of her weapons in suspended animation, with the grimoire hovered over the staff. Celia closed her eyes and took a deep breath, after she brought herself upon the items. Foul energies mixed into her and she exuded them thus. Her soul and body filtered this energy, made it pure, raw darkness and madness that seeped into both artifacts. It granted them power to exist almost wholly in this new universe. Almost because Celia knew she hadn't yet returned to her empowered state just yet.

The silver-haired witch broke out into a series of guttural chants and sounds, that she used to summon the power back into her tome and cane. This revealed itself has a black lightning that crackled all over the two objects and whispered back with dark, manipulative energies. It were in this state that Celia were most vulnerable to the forces that be, but she had already been through the same song and dance. Naturally prepared, her will beat back the unexplained influence that attempted to grab at her and redirected it to being housed within her weapons. The room thundered, roared and quaked with unimaginable power, as the ritual neared its successful completion. She raised her pitch, tone and picked up the tempo in which her chants were sung and opened her eyelids, to reveal the white of her eyes. Celia, the grimoire and the can rose into the air, as the unholy act intensified and eventually, silence...

There the three floated and in a burst of darkness, a powerful explosion originated. The sigils and symbols strewn about prevented this explosion from growing any larger and escaping into the surface world. A crisis none would want to have the pleasure of being under...

"Finally..." Her voice rang out as if she were still possessed from the energy of before. All three floated back down and with slow, careful steps, she approached her prizes. Elegant hands reached out gingerly and grasped the spin of the book, while the other acquired the shaft of the cane. Both in hand, her powers had amplified and her golden-eyes glowed with an eerie black, flame-like mass of tendrils along the sclera. Slowly but surely, the Archmagus had been returning to power.