Prologue

Note: This is a very long and exposition-heavy chapter and, even then, tries to rush through a lot. It's what I'm calling an unrolled scene, where I just create a narrative without recourse to an emulator or to the game rules. I'll probably have a lot of them, certainly all the sex scenes will be unrolled, but they'll generally be a lot shorter than this.

Valentine took slow, deliberate, sips of his beer as the night wore on. He'd never been drunk and he didn't intend to start now but he knew that drinking too little or too slowly would attract unwanted attention. What tonight called for was a healthy amount of social lubricant, regular smiles, laughter that didn't sound quite so **** and simple answers to increasingly banal questions. As the key to his wrestling team's win at the invitational, this was technically a celebration in his honour but really it was an excuse for his teammates to cut loose. They were well aware that he begrudged them their fun, which was probably why they always insisted that he accompany them.

'Proud of you, Valentine, always have been,' his coach said, pulling him out of his own head for a moment. The man, with short white hair, piercing blue eyes and a weathered face, was presumably a little tipsy, since he was repeating himself. Valentine idly wondered how the school would feel if they knew he was here, letting his boys drink underage. He didn't have to think of a response, in the end, as the old man stumbled out of the booth, presumably headed to the toilet. After quickly scanning the bar, to make sure that none of his peers would notice him trying to leave early, Valentine used the opportunity to get out of there, leaving a third of his beer undrunk.

He wondered if the **** was to blame for the headache he'd been dealing with for the last few hours but he doubted it. He'd felt off all day. It wasn't enough to affect his composure but it was deeply unpleasant. Leaving the bar brought him a lot of relief, as the cold air rushed over his face. The sensation was replaced, rather unfortunately, however, by a foul smell. The reek of ****, a stink that he somehow knew was emanating from an impossible distance. He'd so far ignored the strange sights, sounds and smells he'd been experiencing today but this one seemed much harder to drive from his mind. As if acting on its own, his body pulled him towards the source. As he raced through the back alleys of his Podunk town, he felt a wave of dread coming over him, like nothing he'd ever felt before.

He heard a woman scream just as he arrived and then he saw it, a thing of nightmares. He called out to it on instinct, demanding that it let the girl go, and it snapped its head towards him at an inhuman speed. Hunched and sickly, the thing, half-man, half-beast, had grotesque off-white skin and burning red eyes. It let out a horrifying squawk and lunged at him. As he swung at it, catching it hard across the face before it could put its hands on him, time seemed to move in slow motion. Every move it made became impossibly easy to react to and as the fight went on, he felt an animalistic hunger for victory come over him. Soon enough, the monster had been reduced to bloody pulp and Valentine was able to return to a more rational mode of thinking. He looked over at the woman, who was in tears, on the floor, but uninjured. The chivalrous thing would've been to escort her home but she ran away from him as soon as he helped her to her feet.

When he got home, his mother all but shrieked at him, 'Valentine, you're covered in blood, are you hurt?'

'I'm alright, mom, I just need to lie down. I've got a really bad headache.' She tried to stop him, and yelled some things at him that he tuned out, but he was able to push past her with ease and she didn't bother pursuing him into his bedroom. He at least had the sense to undress, or perhaps an animal compulsion to be nude, but as soon as he slipped under his cover and his head hit the pillow, he was out like a light.

In his dreams, he was a lion or something that roared like a lion, that tore through fur and flesh with the claws of a lion, that sank its teeth into its prey with the teeth of a lion. His prey, however, was not an antelope or a buffalo or any other kind of prey animal, but a wolf, monstrous in size with the rippling musculature of a man. It stood, somehow, on its hind legs and towered over him but he brought it down nevertheless. It put up a hell of a fight, hurt him like hell but he killed it. Blood ran down his mouth and filled him with an insatiable lust. He turned to his mate, the most beautiful girl in the world, and ravaged her. He took her, wild and hard, and at the moment of climax his mind raced through his past lives at a bewildering pace. He learned the intricacies of swordplay, dozens of languages (some of them extinct), and experienced the heights of joy and the depths of despair. He died half a hundred times, often gruesomely, and witnessed an overwhelming number of the universe's worst monstrosities.

He woke up in time for his morning run, one of many mercies. His headache was gone and his mind and body were no longer at odds. Not wanting to explain himself to his parents but feeling guilty for brushing his mother off, Valentine dumped his bloody clothes in the trash before he took off. The run, all along the river that ran through the town, was perfect and, when it came time to turn back, he strongly considered extending it another mile or more. He was only prevented from doing so by the sudden arrival of a woman who made a beeline straight towards him.

'Valentine Moore, do I have that right?' she asked. Her accent was English and she looked great for her age, slender and well-dressed.

He turned away from her as he answered, and leaned against the barrier at the edge of the river. 'Yeah, so, uh, how do you know my name?'

'We've been monitoring you for about a year now.' The woman's words carried no threat and were spoken matter-of-factly, which softened their edge.

'Why?' he might've said a thousand other things but that seemed like the most interesting question.

'One of our agents saw you wrestle. He reported to us that he'd seen a young man with inhuman reflexes and reaction times. It was a hunch, really, but we had the resources to spare, so we put a detail on you. They confirmed that you were someone we'd be interested in. Have you had the dream, yet? The animal dream.'

'The dream? I dreamed I was a lion last night.'

'You are ... or something like that. You're the latest in a long line of hosts for the lion spirit. You've got all of their memories swimming around inside your head. You know things you have no Earthly way of knowing. I'm asking you to take a lot in but you need to be ready.'

What she was saying was outrageous and preposterous but all fit quite neatly into his understanding of everything that had happened to him recently. 'I saw ... I died, at least half a hundred times. It was hard to comprehend.'

'It's who you are, who you've always been. It laid dormant your whole life, flaring out on rare occasions, but now you've been called.'

'Called?'

The woman put a hand on his shoulder and spoke to him more gently, 'let's get some coffee. We can sit down and I can run through everything with you, at your pace. Sound good?'

Valentine simply nodded and remained quiet until they'd journeyed into the town centre and arrived at Charleston Coffeehouse. He'd been there once or twice before but it hadn't left much of an impression on him. Of course, food and drink rarely ever did. The server brought them their order, tea with milk and two sugars for the mysterious woman and black coffee with no sugar for him, and then left them to their private discussion in the nearest thing to a secluded booth the shop had.

'So,' the woman announced, as she removed her black jacket, folded it up, and placed it beside her, 'where would you like to start?'

'Who are you?'

'Fair enough, my name's Tanvi. I work for the Royal Society of Demonologists. We study people like you, and creatures like the one you encountered last night.'

He would've pushed her for more details about this organisation she worked for but that last remark threw him off. 'I ... killed something,' he said, keeping his voice low.

'A vampire. Don't worry, my daughter and I cleaned it up. The girl went to the police but they wrote her off as hysterical.'

'My mom saw the blood on my clothes.'

Tanvi replied more earnestly this time, 'don't worry about it, really. We'll straighten everything out. You did the right thing. That vampire was crazed from starvation, it would've killed that girl if you hadn't intervened.'

'Alright, so, what am I, then? You study things like that, and you study me, so ... are we the same kind of thing?'

'No,' she said, looking him dead in the eyes, to make sure he perceived her sincerity, 'you're nothing alike. You're the Chosen One.'

'What does that mean?'

'These creatures, demons, vampires, ghouls, more things than I can name, they're a blight on our world and you, and people like you, are the spirit world's way of fighting back. There are many people like you, with an animal spirit inside them, but only one in all the world is granted the power to truly harness it, that's you.'

'Why now?'

At that, the warm and friendly look on Tanvi's face faded. 'Ah,' she pronounced, 'that's because the previous Chosen One, the Wolfheart, he died yesterday.'

'The Wolfheart?' his mind conjured images of that terrible wolf from his dreams.

'His real name was Émile Boucher, but the Chosen One is known by the animal spirit they carry. He was the Wolfheart, you are the Lionheart. The last time we had an active Lionheart was about ninety years ago.'

Somehow, he could instantly recall the identity of the previous Lionheart as the man's life, and ****, flashed before his eyes. 'Simon ... he was ripped apart.' Valentine pinched the bridge of his nose, and willed the memories away from the surface of his thoughts.

'The life of the Chosen One is not easy. I know you won't want to hear this but your college scholarship, your wrestling career, those things are over. You can't run from this and, if you try, it will just make it easier for your enemies to hunt you down.'

'I'm not interested in running away. If this is my destiny, I'll accept it.' As he spoke those words, he saw genuine surprise cross over Tanvi's face.

'That's remarkably mature, especially for someone your age.'

'Mom always says that I have an old soul. I guess now I know that's literally true.'

Tanvi smiled at that and said, almost as though she'd have forgotten without the prompt, 'oh, that's right, we'll need to let your family know. We can swing by whenever you're ready.'

'What do we tell them?'

'The truth,' she replied instantly, and now it was his turn to be surprised.

He let some of the memories of his past lives wash over him and he recalled all the times a Lionheart had informed their family of their destiny. Sometimes it had gone well, most times it hadn't. 'I don't want to scare them.'

'Trust me, they'd find it much scarier if you shunned college, became unemployed without ever seeming to need money and were gone all hours of the night, without any explanation. As well, it's important for the Chosen One to let a select number of people into his life. It helps to ground him.'

'Him? Is it always a guy?' He knew he'd been male in all of his past lives but for all he knew there were animal spirits out there inhabiting the bodies of women.

'Usually, but there are a few female lines. Hold on, I've got a book with these kinds of details,' she said, as she unfolded her jacket and searched through its pockets, with no luck, 'uh, I guess I don't have it on me. Sorry, it's really not like me to be forgetful. I'll call my daughter and ask her to bring it here.'

With that, Tanvi made her phone call, they each got a refill and Valentine was left alone with his thoughts for a while. He wondered if his stoical and apathetic demeanour was preventing him from suffering an identity crisis or if there was simply no crisis to suffer. His past lives were a part of him but apart from him, he was them and not them in equal measure. They had different tastes, different wants, different views and different styles, but a common throughline had been determination, ambition and pride. Most had loved and lost, others had been scoundrels and rakes, a few had even been gay, but a rare number had been more like him, all alone but tantalised by the promise of a perfect girl who never seemed to turn up.

By coincidence, or not, he was roused from his thoughts by her arrival. Standing next to Tanvi, carrying a strange pocketbook, was the girl of his dreams, literally. She'd been wearing something else in his dream, not the pink off-shoulder top she now wore with cream pants, but her face was unmistakable, as was her black hair in the same long braid. Her eyes were golden brown and her skin was wheatish like her mother's. When she beheld him, she smiled nervously, and his heart melted.

'I saw you in my dream,' he said, without thinking. He dared not mention that, in his dream, he'd fucked her into a senseless delirium, though his cock stiffened slightly from a mere glimpse of the memory.

'Okay,' she eventually announced, nervously, before thrusting the book at him and rushing off.

'Priyanshi!' her mother called after her, before giving up and plonking herself back down at the booth, 'sorry about her, she's quite shy. Now, I'd very much like to know the circumstances in which you saw her in your dream.'

Valentine's jaw clenched as he carefully considered his words, his eyes and fingers lazily skimming through the pages of the book. 'I just ... saw her. She was wearing a dress. That's about it.'

Tanvi's brow furrowed, 'it's unlike her to wear dresses but I suppose that's just how your mind would be inclined to imagine a girl. Obviously, it's a sign, but I'm not sure what purpose it serves. At least she wasn't in danger.'

'Was the dream prophetic?'

'No. There are answers to most of your questions in that book but, no, the spirit can show you things you haven't seen, it can show you what it wants you to do, but there's no fixed version of the future for it to conjure up.'

He left the question of whether the spirit wanted him to fuck her daughter unspoken. 'So, how does this work? Do I get assignments? Who's in charge?'

Tanvi shook her head, 'you're in charge, always. There are many organisations that will want to help you, there are all sorts of traditions that they observe but you don't have to work for anyone. The spirit will guide you sometimes, other times people will contact you for help, and you can conduct your own investigations however you'd like. The Royal Society has a facility nearby that could serve as your headquarters but you'll soon be swimming in stipends and donations, so you could even acquire your own property.'

Valentine hummed at that before abruptly changing the subject. 'So, who wrote this book? It doesn't say.'

'No one knows, or, if they do, they're not saying. It's hundreds of years old, the earliest version was written in Greek but it might've been a translation itself. At this point, it really only exists to jog the Chosen One's memory. You'll realise that you've read through it several times, at least. Anyway, shall we confront your parents?'

He considered his answer for a good long while, after stowing the book in one of his pockets, eventually replying, 'I guess.'

They left, soon after, and maintained a brisk pace during the walk home. Valentine's parents were waiting for him in the living room, upon his return, and his sister had apparently decided to stay behind and gawk. His mother was still in her light blue dressing gown from the previous night and she was stood up, with her hands on her hips and a harsh frown on her face. 'You've got a lot of explaining to do, mister,' she said, before spotting the woman who was following him inside, 'and who is this?'

'Sorry to intrude, Missus Moore,' she said, extending her hand, 'I'm Tanvi Patel.' The handshake was accepted, somewhat apprehensively.

Her tone somewhat softened by the disarming power of Tanvi's manner, his mother asked, 'is my son in trouble?'

'No trouble at all, I assure you. He does, however, have something very important to share with you.'

With his mom, his dad and his sister all now looking at him expectantly, Valentine decided to just get on with it. 'I'm not accepting my college scholarship. I'm going to fight monsters instead.'

At that, his dad was **** up from his chair, as his mother was too horrified and shocked to reply. The skinny man with a full brown beard, ugly ponytail and round spectacles cradled his wife and chided his son, 'it's really not like you to play pranks, Valentine.'

'It's not a prank. I'm the Chosen One. Monsters and demons are real and I've been called by the spirit world to defend humanity. It's not a joke, it's not a psychotic episode or a **** trip, it's the truth. Look at me, all of you. Mom, just look at me. Look me in the eye for a second, just a second.'

She eventually did as she was told, twisting her head away from her husband's chest. Once their attention was fully on him, he drew upon a lesson from the book, and let them see his eyes change from blue to yellow and his pupils shift from circles to slits. For a while after, he just let it sink in and no one said anything.

His sister, Lydia, was the first to speak, beginning with a half-smile that turned into scoffing laughter. 'Holy shit, it's real. That girl ... from last night, she was telling the truth.'

'What girl?' his mother asked, finally stirring.

'There was this girl, I don't remember her name, but she was going crazy, one of my friends told me about it. She swore she was attacked by a monster, everyone just thought she was on something.'

'She was attacked by a vampire, that's where the blood on my clothes came from.' That seemed to be the opening Valentine's mother needed to come around, as it allowed her to put some of her worst fears to rest.

'This is a lot to take in,' she announced, before defusing the tension with a great big hug.

Valentine generally found physical contact, even from his own mother, quite uncomfortable but he leaned into it this time, if only to help ease her towards acceptance of his destiny. He turned his head to Tanvi and said, 'well, that could've gone a lot worse.'

'Yes,' she began, as much to his family as to him, 'it's really important for you to have a support network. In the past, the Chosen One was often expected to work alone and maintain strict secrecy but it's a hard life to live. The more friends you can include, ones you trust, the better.'

Lydia scoffed at that, 'uh, Valentine doesn't have friends.' Her words were not malicious, just statements of fact.

'Lydia!' his mother scolded, 'he has lots of friends, Adam, Mark.'

'My boyfriend and my boyfriend's best friend,' Lydia returned, 'those are my friends, not his.'

Tanvi then interjected, 'can those boys be trusted? It'd be very good for him to have some male friends his own age.'

'Of course,' Lydia replied, shooting her brother a wry smile, 'hey, why don't I just bring the whole gang in on this? They could be his support network.'

Valentine found the idea repulsive but said nothing. If Tanvi said friends were important, she was probably right and the book had hinted at the need for the Chosen One to remain grounded by human connections. Things settled down after that and he allowed Tanvi to take the lead on explaining all of the whys and wherefores to his family, as he sat and read his book.

It was charmingly illustrated and seemingly titled The Chosen One's Guide, and it did indeed have an answer for just about all of his questions. The sensation of recalling each sentence as he read it was unusual but not unpleasant and, by the time he was done, he found that the knowledge came very easily. The book talked a lot about walking the path between the spirit world and the human world and he intuited it quite well. Some of the previous Lionheart champions had clung dearly to their humanity, even to the point of eschewing some of the power the animal spirit offered, whereas a rare few had given in fully to what was called The Beast and transformed themselves into something that was more monster than man. Most, however, had managed to find a good balance.

The book did not trouble itself with specific advice to each animal spirit but it did contain interesting titbits. The Lionheart, it said, was supposed to wield a magical sword. The image of the thing was lovely, red and gold, and he instantly recalled the feel and weight of it. 'Tanvi,' he finally said, after at least an hour of silence, 'where is my sword?'

She looked over the picture as he held it up for her, before replying, 'lost, I'm afraid. When Simon Durand, the last Lionheart before you, perished, the sword was stolen by a demon. Through the years, there've been rumours that the sword has been sold on the black market but our organisation has never been able to verify those claims. Some organisations have gone looking for it, others have posted rewards for it, but so far it has remained out of sight. With you having been called, however, I expect that interest in the sword, both for good reasons and bad, will spike.'

'Recovering it will be my first mission, then,' Valentine announced, pushing himself up from his chair. 'I don't think there's any point in wasting time.'

'Certainly not but, if you'll indulge me, there are a few things you'll need.'

'A guard and a guide,' he said, remembering the words from the book. It had very little good things to say about the organisations that tried to help the Chosen One but still spoke highly of that particular tradition. A Chosen One must have a guard, to watch his back, and a guide, to light his way.

'A guard and a guide,' she repeated back to him, 'indeed, your guard has already been selected, and he's on his way. He should be here by tomorrow.'

'And my guide?'

Tanvi seemed unsure of herself, 'I think ... well, there was always a part of me that knew it was the right time for her but your dream made me a little trepidatious. I ... you'll think this a tad nepotistic but ... I'd like to volunteer my daughter for the role. She may not have made the best first impression but I assure you that she is both learned and dutiful.'

'Yes,' he replied, with an uncommon enthusiasm.

Tanvi smiled at that, 'well, that settles it, then, you have your guard and your guide and, tomorrow, you can begin.'