Chapter Text
The City of Zaleasia was one of the far-off places on Eternia, deep within the barren wasteland simply called the Dark Hemisphere. A large gate stood in the midst of towering city walls and buildings. The place was known to be home to several of Eternia's cults and other dark and mysterious organizations. None of them paled in comparison to what lurked deep within the city's undercities.
Deep within his lair, going through various potions, vials, and other files, was the mysterious Faceless One. A being of ancient myth, he was a sorcerer of great mystery—the biggest being why he lacked a face in the first place. No one quite knew why, but despite his immense power, he right now had only one emotion… fear.
"Where is it? Where?" the Faceless One muttered, his anger growing by the minute.
The Faceless One floated across his lair, his dark purple robes billowing wildly as he tossed book after book aside. He had to hurry—time was running out. Forces of darkness were nearing his gate, and if they got what they desired, not only he but the entire planet would soon be in mortal danger. He had to move quickly; he had to find it before he…
"Father!" A voice, soft and female, rang in his ear.
The Faceless One turned quickly and saw through the shadows a tall, slender young woman wearing a spiked headpiece and carrying a long witch's staff, its dark orb reflecting a bit of light.
"Daughter," the Faceless One gasped as he gazed upon the face of his daughter—Evelyn.
"What are you doing here?" he asked.
"To warn you," she said, her voice stoic, unaware of the danger. "They are coming."
Before the question could be asked, a large BOOM rang in his ears, a large chunk of the wall of his lair bursting inward. Rocks scattered everywhere.
The Faceless One looked through the scattered dust and saw a figure begin to emerge from it. Draped in a purple robe and hood that concealed his features in shadow, he began to slowly approach, a large staff in one hand with a ram's skull at the center. It was instantly recognizable as the mythical Havoc Staff, a source of great evil and power. Blue-skinned hands gripped the staff with an almost casual confidence, as if wielding such a terrible artifact were second nature.
"You—" the Faceless One hissed as he recognized the approaching figure.
The figure chuckled speaking with a high pitched nasally voice. "Yes, me, in the flesh… up to the head."
Slowly the figure pulled back the hood just a bit with his blue-skinned hands, and where a face of skin would have been, instead a skull floated—teeth sharp, and black voids where eyes would be. Only two tiny dots of red flickered for a moment as if to show great power.
In a time past, this figure had gone by another name, but now he was simply known to the Faceless One… as Skeletor.
"I know what you desire, and you will not have it," the Faceless One stated. He darted toward his
daughter, who just stood there and watched. He wondered what exactly she was planning.
Skeletor, for his part, just gripped his staff, preparing himself for a fight. "Oh, I anticipated as much, which is why I brought some friends along. Evil Warriors!... Attack!”
More figures began emerging from the smoke—goons and thugs of various shapes and sizes, all of them charging toward the Faceless One.
"Fools," he thought to himself.
The Faceless One raised his hands, and arcane energy crackled between his fingers. With a swift motion, he unleashed a wave of violet lightning that tore through the first wave of attackers, sending them flying backward into the rubble. They hadn't even gotten close.
One of them with a mechanical three eyed headpiece screeched in agony, “Ugh…My eyes. Do you know how hard it is to keep maintenance on this thing. Ugh, I just polished this thing too.”
Another group rushed in from the side, weapons raised. The Faceless One didn't flinch. He twisted his wrist, and the very stones beneath their feet erupted upward, forming a barrier that knocked them sprawling. One particularly large brute tried to flank him with a spiked club, but the sorcerer simply gestured, and the warrior's own weapon wrenched itself from his grip, spinning through the air before striking him squarely in the chest.
"Pathetic," the Faceless One murmured.
“Ouchie, my knee” The large fury one groaned as he skidded across the wall.
Two more warriors attempted a coordinated assault, coming at him from opposite directions. He phased through one's attack as if he were made of smoke, then snapped his fingers. Both attackers suddenly froze mid-stride, their bodies locked in invisible chains of pure magical force before crumpling to the ground.
Skeletor's confident posture began to falter. His grip on the Havoc Staff tightened, knuckles—or what passed for knuckles on skeletal hands—whitening. "Get him, you incompetent boobs!" he shrieked, but his voice carried a note of desperation now, “What do you think I pay you for?”
“We’re getting paid” One asked.
The Faceless One swept through the remaining warriors like death itself, each movement precise and effortless. Every spell, every gesture was economy in motion—no wasted energy, no unnecessary flourish. Within moments, the last of the Evil Warriors lay groaning in heaps around the shattered lair.
And still, the Faceless One had not moved from his position.
The Faceless One now turned to Skeletor, his power radiating.
“Now to deal with you boy.”
Skeletor scowled, “I’m not a child anymore!”
"Then stop acting like one," the Faceless One replied, raising his hands as dark energy began to swirl around them.
Skeletor barely managed to raise the Havoc Staff in time, conjuring a shield that absorbed the blast. The force still sent him stumbling backward several steps. "You think yourself so powerful? Fine then! By the Powers of Darkness. Evil and fear, I command you…Dissapear" he snarled, firing a bolt of crimson energy from the staff's ram skull.
The Faceless One deflected it with a casual wave, the magic dissipating harmlessly against the walls. He pressed forward, unleashing another volley. Skeletor dodged rather than blocked this time, scrambling behind a fallen pillar.
"Stand and fight, coward!" the Faceless One commanded.
"I prefer to fight strategically, as in I fight to win!" Skeletor shot back, teleporting to the far side of the chamber in a flash of purple light. He fired another blast, but it was weak, poorly aimed—buying time more than anything.
The Faceless One closed the distance with supernatural speed, his robes billowing as he materialized directly in front of Skeletor. Their eyes met—or rather, where eyes should have been. Skeletor's red pinpoints flickered with something that might have been fear.
“Nyaaaa”
"The Havoc Staff won't save you," the Faceless One said, his voice cold and final. He reached out, magical tendrils wrapping around Skeletor's arms, binding them in place. The skull-faced sorcerer struggled, but the Faceless One's power was overwhelming. Victory was within his grasp.
Then pain. Terrible pain.
Sharp, searing, and utterly unexpected. The Faceless One gasped as he felt the blade pierce through his back, dark magic coursing through the wound. His concentration shattered. The bindings around Skeletor dissolved.
He turned his head slowly, disbelief flooding through him even before he saw her.
Evelyn stood behind him, her staff glowing with malevolent energy, its pointed end driven between his shoulder blades. Her expression was calm, almost serene—no surprise, no regret.
"Daughter..." he whispered, his voice breaking. "Why?"
"Just picking the winning side," she smirked. "And by the way... it's Evil-Lyn."
Skeletor's laughter echoed through the chamber, confident once more. "Well done, Evil-Lyn! Well done indeed! You see? My plan worked perfectly!"
She turned to him, one eyebrow raised. "Your plan?"
"Yes! Lure him into a false sense of security, let him think he's winning, then—BAM! The old stabby-stabby from behind!" He made exaggerated stabbing motions with his free hand.
"That wasn't the plan."
"Wasn't it?" Skeletor paused, genuinely confused.
"No. The plan was for you to keep him distracted while I found the sword. You getting your boney backside handed to you was just you being you."
"Is that what he calls it?" a mechanical, three-eyed goon groaned from the rubble.
Skeletor waved the Havoc Staff dismissively, nearly smacking her in the process. "Details, details! The important thing is we won, and it was all thanks to my brilliant leadership—"
"I literally saved your life."
"Which I greatly appreciate, yes, but let's not dwell on the minor setbacks..."
"You were screaming Nyaaa during the whole fight.'"
Skeletor's jaw dropped indignantly. "That was a battle cry!"
“Really?”
Skeletor groaned and grunted before scoffing, “Bah! Forget it! We have matters to deal with!”
The Faceless One watched in agony as Skeletor hovered over him, a wicked grin spread across his skull face. The almighty sorcerer who had spent years studying the dark arts in a time long before any of them were ever born now lay helpless at the feet of former students who had turned traitors.
"What you seek is beyond your comprehension," he groaned, focusing his energy to look at them. "The power, in the end, will be your undoing."
"Like I haven't heard that before," Evil-Lyn scoffed.
Skeletor blasted the Faceless One with the Havoc Staff, causing him to scream in agony.
"Tell me where it is, or face your own destruction!" Skeletor shouted.
"Never!"
Skeletor raised his Havoc Staff again, but Evil-Lyn lowered it, smirking.
"You don't have to tell us, Father. It's written all over your... face."
Skeletor's grin widened. "Ooh, nice punnage, Evil-Lyn!”
The Faceless One's voice came out as barely a whisper. "Lyn... please..."
But there was no mercy in her eyes as they began to glow with arcane power. She placed a hand against the wall, and he watched helplessly as it shimmered and transformed into a vault door. His final safeguard, breached so easily. She reached inside and pulled out the Sword of Darkness—that jagged, obsidian blade radiating purple energy he had sworn would never fall into the wrong hands.
"Finally!" Skeletor lunged forward, his skeletal hands grasping. "Give me! Give me! Give me!
Evil-Lyn pulled it back smoothly, just out of his reach. "What's the magic word?"
Skeletor's impatience was palpable. "Please?"
"There. Was that so hard?" She handed it over with an air of condescension.
Skeletor snatched it greedily. "Extremely!”
Skeletor held aloft the sword, his cape billowing dramatically. Its power began to radiate through him.
“At last the Sword of Darkness is mine!” He declared bombastically, his other warriors cheered, “And now we can free ourselves from our exile, and our glorious conquest of Eternia can begin again.”
Skeletor let out a loud manic cackle as he exited the lair, the other Evil Warriors following.
Now it was just him…and his daughter, alone, in silence.
The Faceless One tried to lift his head, his strength nearly spent. "Do you know what you've done?"
Evil-Lyn looked down at him, her expression cold and triumphant. "I do. I have shown you what you dared deny me for so very long. Now we command the dark forces while you waste away."
Each word was a dagger to his heart. "I was... protecting you," he managed, his breath coming in ragged gasps.
"Were you?" Her voice dripped with bitterness. "Or were you merely protecting yourself because you feared my power?" She paused, then added with a smug smile, "Not that I blame you. I would have done the same in your shoes."
The Faceless One fixed his gaze on her—the daughter he had raised, now lost to him forever. A low, bitter laugh escaped him, painful in more ways than one. "Then I was right, and the two of you will continue to bring out the worst in each other."
"I like to think of it as our true selves," Evil-Lyn replied coolly.
He had one warning left to give, one final prophecy. "Then you are lost. But I warn you—a hero will rise to defeat your villainy."
"A hero?" Evil-Lyn's eyebrow arched. "Set to defeat us?" She exchanged a glance with Skeletor, then looked back down at her dying father. "I'd like to see them try."
The Faceless One saw the fireball growing in her hand, its light illuminating the chamber with a terrible, final glow. He closed his eyes—or would have, had he possessed them.
The last thing he saw was her cold, merciless smile.
BOOM!
The explosion echoed through the undercities of Zaleasia, and the lair of the Faceless One collapsed into darkness.