Welcome To Wishworld

May your stay with us be long and enjoyable.

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Wishworld

Chapter One

In the obscuring gloom of the underground room, several figures were gathered in a circle, their faces hidden in shadow. How many there were was left to imagination in the unyielding darkness. Each sat in contemplative silence, pondering a question of great personal gravity. Slowly, a pale blue fire came to life in an open space in the middle of the circle, casting dancing shadows on the walls but it was not bright enough to reveal the identities of the watchers.

A cloaked figure stepped forward, and from the confidence of his manner it was apparent that it had been him who had conjured the fire.

“So what will it be, chosen?” He spoke to all of them, but in his words there was a personal message for each. “What does your heart desire?”

A tall youth lifted his head, revealing a grin of malicious intent.

“Well,” he said, choosing his words carefully. “I wish…”

The Kremlin, Moscow. Seven days after the start of the Third World War.

The man gasped a final time, and his body went limp. The veins in his face and neck pulsed green, then faded to a dark purple. The steel claw holding him aloft released his neck and his body crumpled to the floor, a broken sack of meat and bones.

“In performing my duties as the President of the Russian Federation, I pledge to respect and protect the rights and liberties of every citizen; to observe and protect the Constitution of the Russian Federation; to protect the sovereignty and independence, security and integrity of the state and to serve the people faithfully.”

The owner of the claw mocked the fallen leader, his eyes glowing red with ill-suppressed joy. With his normal left hand he tore the Imperial Flag from its post and, ripping through it with his claw hand, let it fall to the floor atop the body of the former President of Russia. Then he drew back the fur-adorned hood of his winter cloak, revealing the face of a young man barely out of his teens. His youthful features betrayed nothing of what he was, a killer without conscience and a conqueror of nations; a ruthless mercenary who would do anything for wealth and power. He had proved as much, on countless occasion in the past seven days alone.

Turning his attention the window, he watched as a mob gathered just beyond the gates of the Kremlin despite the darkening skies. Ignoring the obvious impatience of the others in the room, he spoke in a low voice, so soft it was almost to himself.

“And so tonight, Russia joins the rest of the world in mourning. I think we can allow them a few hours to get used to the fact that the balance of power in their government has shifted; though every soul on Earth with eyes and ears would have seen, after the events of the past week that it was inevitable. The new government will be installed tomorrow at 1200 hours. Milford, Hubert, stay behind to ensure the ceremony goes as planned. The rest of you -” He turned to sweep his eyes across the cadre of bodyguards and acolytes standing around the office. “The rest of you follow me to the jet. We’re heading back to the citadel.”

Without warning, the door to the room burst open, and a man wearing a tattered and blood-soaked Russian army uniform stood in the doorway, his eyes narrowed in hatred. Leveling the barrel of his assault rifle at the man who had brought war to his homeland, he fired.

Before his finger ever hit the trigger, the room was filled with an overbearing demonic aura. One of the hooded and cloaked figures near the doorway moved with such speed he seemed to vanish. The Russian soldier certainly never had time to scream. A blinding flash of motion brought him halfway through the wall. His spine snapped loudly and he slid off the cracked depression in the wall to lie still in the rubble. A stray bullet from his gun hit the window inches above the murderer’s shoulder, only to be stopped by the bulletproof pane. The cool-eyed killer never even flinched.

The demonic aura flared then receded; gathering into increasingly smaller swirls around the dark-haired man standing over the dead soldier’s corpse until it vanished completely, leaving only a faint trace of power in the air.

The murderer’s eyes flared red once again, then faded as he glanced with appreciation at the man who had just moments ago displayed such an impressive show of power.

“Well done, Dass.”

A smile flickered on the man’s face as he looked up from his victim, revealing for the first time the full scope of his features. He was, in a word – stunning. He had perfectly sculpted features, the kind that could stop any woman in her tracks.

But in a case like his mere looks do not matter, as Wan Dassila bin Annuar was one of those special young men who crop up every now and again like Casanova or Don Juan or James Bond or Marten Reed, and who drive otherwise sensible women straight out of their wits.

In such cases it is the inner man that counts, with that certain ferrous quality, always in a state of magnetic flux, that can draw a woman with even the trace of a nail in her head into a condition of animal, mineral and vegetable collapse. When he spoke it was in alluring tones that could lead a woman straight into bed by the mere sound of it. He was, in every sense that mattered, an Adonis of a man.

“Thanks, Dexter.”

And just as all attention in the room had turned from the still form of the Russian soldier, a red light flashed in his hand as his lifeless fingers slipped on a dead man’s trigger, and the interior of the presidential office spectacularly blew up, shattering the windows and bringing down sections of the walls and roof.

The man called Dexter was struck by half the contents of a bookcase and hit the ground hard. The other members of his entourage were similarly incapacitated, caught off guard by the explosion. Only Dassila’s superhuman reflexes saved him from the blast. Before the smoke had even cleared, he saw a person standing right beneath the spot where the ceiling had caved in. The newcomer was female, suited in what appeared to be light body armor of a design Dassila couldn’t recognize. She wore a helmet that hid most of her face. The array of hardware sewn into her costume and helmet looked as though it cost about five times as much as Ethiopia’s national product. Not that there was much time for contemplation, as she was already leaping towards him, firing a similarly alien carbine.

Dassila kicked into speed, sending thrills of impulse into his brain. The speed factor in his movement worked in his brain too. Dodging bullets, he dashed around his assailant and leapt into the air, bringing her to ground. Bearing down on her, he saw her move, in his eyes almost in slow motion, defying gravity to somehow leap away to plant herself on one of the walls. No matter. He sped towards the woman, then brought down sections of wall as she moved again, landing in a crouch in the centre of the floor.

Filling the room with swirls of the same demonic energy he had unleashed moments earlier, Dassila tightened his focus, starting off towards the woman again. She was doing unusually well, anticipating all his moves and keeping one step ahead of him despite his speed advantage. Increasing his speed to a point where he was practically teleporting through space, his mind shifted into overtime calculating a hundred different ways he could take her down.

He was so caught up he never noticed that she didn’t seem intent on following his plan. Any one of his plans. Even as he drew close to her, he noticed that she wasn’t moving an inch. Why should she? To her eyes he just vanished into thin air. Then he realized that she was looking right at him, and that he was beginning to slow down.

He hit the dirt at the woman’s feet. His mind spun with confusion and anger. Who the hell was she, and how did she do this to him? He tried to summon the strength to move, but there was an invisible force pulling him down. Even his aura was receding. Dassila tried one final time to break free, then her boot came down hard on his head and his world went dark.

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So that was the first installment of Wishworld. For those of you who were waiting, hope it was worth it for you. By the way, despite what I wrote it's not really Chapter One. It's more like installment one. Several installments will be compiled into one chapter, and update time is every Saturday.

While I'm full aware it's way too early for extra content, I wanted to do something special for release one. So I made wallpapers. I'm using the second one.


Tune in the same time next week for more Wishworld. In the meantime, my blog will operate as normal. Don't forget to write in to tell me what you think. All opinions are welcome. Except for Mark's. You're not wanted, scumbag!

PS: This is how you start a WC rivalry.