Prologue

“Alright, now that you’ve made your choices - good ones, mind you - I’ll replace your core. Would you like anything to help with the process?”

Ariel reaches for your chest with a slow but gentle grace, resting his hand near your heart…or Monster core now, you guess.

You grin, “When the other goddesses did it, I didn’t feel weird at all! Go ahead, I can handle it.”

He scrunches up his face a little, “Okay, if you say so…”

Bright flashes of light cover your eyes as the angelic being rips out your monster core, the sting of your newly-made flesh being separated from you, still a foreign, but absolutely painful experience. It takes all you can muster just to stay conscious as you witness your inner workings become ‘outer’ workings. The entire area stings and your limbs start to spasm to try and cover your brand new hole. Who knew that having the equivalent to your heart being torn out would hurt? Your vision blurred immensely, that blasted entity of Light just a smudge now. Ariel gave off a bright light, effectively blinding you again, “…okay, and now to put the new one in…it’ll feel a lot better after this, I promise.”

You try to pull away from him, though he grabs you by your neck and holds you in place. You just barely manage to mutter out, “S-s-stop! I would like to use som-…” Wait, is that a smile on his face? You can’t tell for sure, but that definitely looks like he’s smirking.

He plunges the new core into your cavity, and a new swelling comes, the core itself feeling like fire inside your skin. The angel’s hand lights up with a green energy, and he hovers it over your chest.

“Huh?…”

He pulls his hand back, looking at it, confused, and tries again. But nothing happens. The unending stinging flaring up in your chest…wait no, it actually is heating up! Your entire skin begins to crawl, reaching all the way up to your head when the pain, all of a sudden, stops.

“Was that it? Is it over?” You check your chest to see it’s slowly healing over, the grotesque view of bone, muscle and sinew growing back over your new core an unpleasant sight.

Ariel steps back and says nonchalantly, “It’s not over yet, although it does seem your body was fighting back against the core, the core settled in nicely. Your body does seem to be resilient to any attempt at…” The angel trails off, your ears seeming to fall deaf to his words as a constant ringing takes it’s place. Everything around you starts blurring once more, you close your eyes to try and block out the incessant noise - the fire in your chest only subsiding a small amount. A sharp pain emanates from the new core, as if pumping something akin to acid. The burning sensation reaching first to your throat, then your arms, torso and legs. The feeling of being burned from the inside out would have to be akin to this!

You endure this insufferable pain for what seems like hours, curled up with your fingers digging at your skin, trying to get the horrible feeling to stop, until it finally does.

Ariel seemed to be sitting at a distance with what looked like a book and reading glasses on. That angelic guy didn’t mention anything about the pain not being nullified, that biscuit-eating bullfrog!

“I tried to warn you…” Ariel glances up from his book, “and I can read your thoughts all in your face - which looks a lot better, matter of fact, but that isn’t important right now. I’ve already spent too much time with you.” Ariel gets closer and helps lift you back onto your feet “I know it’s been short but if I stay any longer those two goddesses will catch-on for sure.” He extends the book out to you that he was reading, the title on the front says, ‘My new core and how to adjust 101’. “Take this, it has information based on the current leaders of Dark…as well as some additional bits. If you really do see that Light is a better side to follow, you’ll need-…” He stops his sentence abruptly as he rapidly turns his head to look over his shoulder. “Now it really is time for you to get along to Riyuail. Enjoy!” Ariel turns you around and gives you a slight nudge from behind and you stumble a little from the unexpected strength he put into the push. Once you regain your balance, you turn to try and face him…but he isn’t there anymore.

End of Prologue