Welcome to Gaia! ::

Here's a short story I wrote for the RP in my signature surprised I hope you like it!

Mage: the Ascension Copyright White Wolf
Terrence Shade Copyright White Wolf



Mission Specialist Terrence Shade sat in his office, staring into the prominent mirror fixed across the room. A young technocrat was gagged and bound in the chair in front of Shade’s mahogany desk. The young man’s eyes were bulging in fear.

Getting up from his seat, Shade fixed his gaze on the mirror as he prepared to summon Aliara, the Empress of Envy. As one of the Maeljin Incarna, she was a demon who lived Beyond. The barrier between her home Malfeas and the Earth, called the Gauntlet, was created by the Technocracy specifically to keep Aliara and her demon ilk out.
Now, Shade was about to invite her in.

He checked his watch to make sure the time was right. One hour remained before the AW clone’s Awakening. One more hour until his wildest dreams came true. He pressed his fat hands together in anticipation. One hour until Aliara assumes control of the Pattern-Clone. One hour until I control the New World Order.

If anyone had told him that he would have ended up betraying the Technocracy, Shade would have laughed in their face and then arranged for an untimely accident. The Technocracy had given him everything – a home, education, his values – and more power than he could dream of. But all that the Technocracy gave him just wasn’t enough when confronted with the likes of Aliara.

He placed a hand on the terrified young Technocrat’s shoulders, who shook under his grasp.

“Jacen is your name, am I correct?” Shade asked, his voice pleasant as always. The young man nodded, willing to do anything for Shade. “A novice of Iteration X, I see,” Shade noted, looking down at the small insignia pin on Jacen’s breast.

“Well, Jacen. Since we have a bit of extra time on our hands, I’m going to tell you a story. This story is about me, when I was your age.” Terrence smiled. “Would you like to hear it?”

Jacen nodded.

“I used to be a student like yourself. I even graduated from high school, an impressive feat considering that no one in my family had been educated past the eighth grade. Can you imagine that, Jacen? America, a continent full of dunces? The progressive education reform that had helped me attend school just wasn’t there for my parents, and my older brothers. Your generation has impressive education opportunities.

“But of course you made use of the opportunities available to you, or you would not be here, in this top echelon Technocracy research station. You were a great student, weren’t you?”

Jacen nodded again. His blue eyes rolled all the way back, trying to look at Shade.

“I graduated at the top of the class of 1920, East Lansing High.” Shade moved away from Jacen, and walked over to one of the bookshelves in the room. He pulled out a dusty leather yearbook, and opened to the graduating class pictures. Shade flipped through until he found his page. He walked back over to Jacen, and held the book up to his face.

“Here I am,” Shade said, pointing to a picture in the middle of the page. The young man in the picture was pudgy, with light brown hair and a sardonic smile, almost as if he knew a dirty secret about the person taking the picture. “Terrence Shade. Valedictorian. Voted by my classmates as “Most Likely to Succeed.” I think I’ve lived up to that expectation.

“But of course, we were all just kids then. We didn’t know anything about how the world really worked. The only thing we knew was that the war was over and our whole lives were ahead of us—living in the greatest country in the world! How could we not be excited at our grand destiny?”

Shade pointed to another picture, of a woman with short blond hair and a beautiful smile. Her eyes were faraway, as if she saw something fascinating in the distance. The text under the picture read, “Lillian Skarn, Voted Most Outstanding Girl.”

“This was the daughter of Niels Skarn, founder of Skarn Tools Supply Co. Biggest business in Lansing. Lillian wasn’t a flapper, but she did have a lot of her father’s money to burn. I had a silver tongue, but I couldn’t get her to go out to the movies with me. No amount of sweet talking could have overcome my disadvantage at being born poor.”

Shade flipped back a few pages.

“This is Homer Lawrence. See how he dressed in a dapper suit for his picture? More expensive than anyone else could afford. My partner in crime during high school. Homer nearly got us expelled. “

Shade shut the yearbook and set it on his desk. Then, he stared at Jacen. “Remember those names. They’re important. I couldn’t afford to go to college after I graduated high school, and the government didn’t help out valedictorians those days. I became a line supervisor at a telephone company.

“This job was extremely boring, but the pay was good. That all changed one day in 1925. One of the girls I worked with raised her hand, indicating that she needed help. Bessie, I think her name was. I walked over to her. She had grown pale. I put my hand on her shoulder, knowing in the past that this gesture calmed the women down.

“I asked her what was the matter. Very condescendingly, by today’s standards. But these women would take it from men without batting an eye. Pity your generation never got a chance to act like that.

“The woman on the line won’t hang up,” Bessie whispered. “It won’t hang up. Try it, Sir.”

“I grabbed the listening apparatus from her and stared at the switchboard, frowning at Bessie’s incompetence. Though these mistakes were common during the first few weeks on the job, Bessie had been here long enough that there were no excuses. And I said as much.

“Bessie apologized profusely, and then came the tears. Bessie had three kids at home, and her husband was an alcoholic who couldn’t hold down a job. The small income she earned working at the telephone company was all her family had to live on. I had fired women in the past for similar mistakes. So she had good reason to be afraid.

“Her pathetic crying distracted me. I swallowed my annoyance and patted her on the back. As the noise stopped, I focused on the switchboard again, adjusting the wires. I held the apparatus to my ear to make sure my movements were correct.

“Then, a voice came on the line. The same one that had upset Bessie. And a voice I’d heard before. ‘Good evening, Terrence. This is Lillian Skarn. I’m sure you remember me?’

“Lillian. Now I was the one who went pale. My hand dropped off Bessie’s shoulder.

“ ’Who is this?’ I shouted. ‘You can’t be Lillian. She died five years ago, for Chrissake! Why would you say something like that?’

“ ‘I remember that day quite clearly,’ “ Lillian replied, thick with sarcasm. ‘You were driving Mr. Lawrence’s Ford, if I remember correctly. You hit me head on, going the wrong direction down the road.’

“ ‘I watched you die!’ I exclaimed. I tried desperately to hang up, ripping wires off the switchboard. On the other end, Lillian laughed. “THIS CONVERSATION ISN’T HAPPENING!” I screamed. I threw the earpiece against the wall as hard as I could. Bessie and the other girls shrieked, hiding in the corner away from me.

“ ‘Oh, but I’m afraid it is,’ Lillian continued, her voice clear even though the earpiece was across on the other side of the room. ‘Terrence, you see, I have a bit of a problem. One that only you can—’

“At that moment, Homer Lawrence entered the room. I had not seen him since high school, but I knew it was him.

“ ‘Everything is under control,’ Lawrence said. He smiled arrogantly. At that moment, I would have killed to be him. ‘My name is Homer Lawrence. Bell Telephone Operations Manager. Please don’t be alarmed. We’ve had some problems with the main system, but my technicians are coming in later today to resolve any problems you have experienced. ‘

“Lawrence turned to me. The only hint that he recognized me was a raised eyebrow. ‘Supervisor Shade,’ Lawrence said. ‘If I may have a word?’
“I took his arm and followed him outside. ‘You’ve just experienced something that shouldn’t be,’ Lawrence said.

“Not meant to be, Homer!” I cried. “I remember killing her!”

“ ‘Yes, about that,” Homer continued, his voice nasal. I hadn’t seen the man since graduation. His society was just too high to associate with the likes of me. He’d gone to Harvard while I spent my time terrorizing my female employees.

“ ‘She didn’t actually die, you know. Although we did our best to destroy her.” I remember backing away from Homer, like he’d just tried to hit me.
“We—you what?!”

“ ‘Lillian was dangerous, Terrence. I’ve been meaning to talk to you earlier about this, but unfortunately I’ve been a bit busy with business matters. A shame, that. I remember we used to be the best of friends.’
I stared at him incredulously.

“SHE WAS A NINETEEN YEAR OLD GIRL!” I shouted. “DANGEROUS TO WHOM!? FILTHY TEENAGE BOYS, WITH THEIR MINDS FULL OF BOOZE AND DUNG!? To our egos, as men she wouldn’t have considered if we were the last alive on Earth!?”

“ ‘Listen to me!” Homer hissed, grabbing my shirt and pulling me forward, so I was just an inch away from his face.

“ ‘There’s no easy way to say this, Terrence, but everything is not as it seems! That switchboard is operating normally. Lillian was – IS—a member of a group that uses power that shouldn’t be available to them! They call themselves the Electrodyne Engineers.’

“I stared at Homer like he had three heads.

“ ‘There is a certain power which most scientists haven’t discovered. Thank God, for it’s too dangerous. This quintessence lets us do great things. Automobiles? Quintessence. Airplanes? They all come from quintessence. This has to be kept a secret from mankind at large, Terrence! Imagine what would happen if Kaiser Wilhelm had gotten his hands on this technology! We’d all be living in the Ottoman Empire!’

“ ‘Lillian wanted to spread the technology to everyone through her father’s tool company. Do you have any idea the damage this would have caused? If quintessence could be bought and sold like aspirin or soda pop? Mass produced?’

“His words sounded like the ravings of a madman. But I believed him. “She was asking for my help,” I told Homer. Waves of shock passed over me. I sat down on a nearby bench and put my head in my hands, not knowing if I was going to cry or throw up. Everything started to spin.

“ ‘That day of the accident,’ Homer said, ‘Remember how everyone just assumed that Lillian was at fault?’

Yes, I remembered. How easy it was for Lawrence to convince the police of what they wanted to believe to begin with. The officer was so shook up by the sight of Lillian’s broken body that he swore about how women shouldn’t be allowed to drive. I hadn’t corrected him.

“ ‘I took the car back with me. She’d made changes – on her own. Dangerous changes. There were notebooks detailing her plans. Our friend Lillian just happened to be a prodigy.’

“Why shouldn’t I just turn around and run? “ I asked Homer, my eyes swimming. “Who made you God?”

Homer stopped talking. He crouched down so that he was at eye level with me, lifted my head up by the hair, and slapped me.

“ ‘You think I give a s**t about you, Terrence?” Homer snarled. “We’re right and you know it! You’ve always known it. I can help you. I can show you the true nature of the world. You want your college education? I can give that to you and more. Power? Subordinates? Yours. But you stand in my way and so help me God I will destroy you!”

“He smashed my head down into the pavement, and I screamed. As I lifted my head back up, blood pouring down my face, the pedestrians continued to walk around us, evidently not curious about us. I shouted for someone to help. No one came forward. It was as if we were invisible.
‘Are you finished?” Homer asked, and I knew this was my last chance. I wiped some of the blood off my face with the handkerchief in my pocket. I also felt a trinket that had been there. Lillian’s pendant, I realized. Everything told me to throw it away, as far as I could. But something stayed my hand.

“I’m finished,” I told Homer, looking at my old friend with new eyes. “I’ll do what you want.”

‘Terrence, I’m part of an organization called the New World Order….”



Jacen watched Mission Specialist Shade in horror. “And so,” Terrence said, smiling wickedly, “Operative Lawrence successfully initiated me into the New World Order. He provided me everything just as he said. And though for the first few years I couldn’t get Lillian out of my head, I forgot her for long periods of time. You see, the New World Order has many fun toys to play with. For those who are interested in such things.”

Shade smirked, knowing that Jacen knew what he was talking about. The New World Order was responsible for ensuring the loyalty of all the Technocrats, and most new recruits had experienced some of their more ingenious mental probes. Shade had designed a number of them himself.

“I rose quickly in the New World Order. Within a decade I had surpassed Lawrence. I had my own teams, my own missions. And then I received the greatest mission of them all: oversight of the Gray Collective. Home of the Technocracy’s most ambitious project, the Ascension Warrior. Our greatest weapon against the Traditions to date. A body capable of withstanding just about any punishment inflicted on it. Mental prowess allowing it to automatically gain control over all computer systems it touches. A living God.”

“The perfect body for Empress Aliara, don’t you think?” Shade asked Jacen, feeling satisfaction flow through him as Jacen screamed.
Shade checked his watch. Just another minute or two.

“You get to play the most important role of all. Your blood will allow Aliara entrance to our home. You should be honored, Jacen.”

Knowing that now was the time, Terrence pulled the primium knife out of a hidden pocket in his pants. He raised the blade to his lips, and a single drop of blood touched the blade.

“Aliara,” Shade called, his voice throaty, “I offer you this blood in sacrifice!” He drew the blade across his wrist, and blood spurted across the room. Shade felt no pain.

In the mirror, Aliara began to materialize. Shade slit Jacen’s throat. As the lifeblood flowed, Aliara’s features became clearer. She was the most desirable woman Shade had ever seen. Green hair, green eyes, skin paler than the Cainites. Androgynous, but very feminine. Today, she wore red. Red like the blood from Terrence and Jacen.

“Hello, Terrence,” Aliara purred, stepping through the mirror into the room as the last of Jacen’s life spilled upon the floor. Fear rolled through the Mission Specialist, knowing that at any moment his life could end. Aliara was notoriously capricious.

“Our agreement,” Terrence said, getting right to business. “I want power to defeat my enemies. And control over the New World Order.”

“Done,” Aliara replied, with a brilliant smile. “I always reward my loyal followers with riches beyond their dreams, should they succeed in the tasks I assign them. You have done well to bring me here, Shade. Now, it’s my turn to help you.”

She touched Terrence’s face with her fingertips, sending rivers of flame down his body. Shade opened his mouth to cry out, but no sound escaped his lips. As his form slowly began to disappear, Shade realized through his agony that he wouldn’t be lucky enough to die. Not until Aliara was finished with him. And possibly not after that was done, either.



Aliara moved through the complex unseen. The halls were deserted. Everyone had gathered in the labs for the unveiling of the AW clone. She would be there too, there was no question of that. The demon had been waiting centuries for this moment to arrive. But first, there was one other matter to attend to. In this building lay the enemy of Lord Steel, the Duke of Hate. Lord Steel had stakes in this game too. And Aliara intended to make Lord Steel’s game much harder.

Terrence, bless his soul, had given her the schematics to the Gray Collective. Aliara knew exactly where she was going. The cell control block. As she arrived at her destination, a guard who couldn’t have been older than eighteen quickly stood up and saluted her.

“You fool!” Aliara shouted, slapping him across the face. “Do you actually think I belong here? Do you have ANY idea who I am?!”

The young boy’s eyes went wide in terror as realization dawned on him. He lifted one hand to his scalded cheek, tears forming in his eyes.

“That’s right,” Aliara said, satisfied. “Now, I want you to help me. You can do that, right?”

The technocrat shook his head. Aliara frowned. “Why don’t you change your mind?” she asked him, leaning close to his face. Through his pain, he stared at her beauty in awe.

“Go ahead,” Aliara purred. “Touch me.”

The young man slid a hand across her waist. Aliara smiled evilly, feeling her influence flow through her skin to his body. The young man was now a thrall.

“Go over to the control panel, would you?” she asked politely. The blond boy did as she asked.

“Now, I want you to open the cell blocks. It is very important that you do this for me.”

Before she had finished speaking, the technocrat’s hands were already on the buttons, issuing the general commands to the machine. The control panel fought against him, asking for several security clearances, but Aliara was able to dismiss them.

“Very good,” Aliara whispered, pressing her body against his form. “I’d love to spend time with you again. Why don’t we continue this at my place?”

He screamed as his body disintegrated into dust.