Chapter 203: The Truth (1)

With a wicked grin from ear to ear her sister, Emilia Reid, slowly lifted her hands up to her face, and with one swiping motion, she began to change… 

Her previous sandy beige skin slowly crackled and dissolved, revealing the pure white, almost ghost-like skin that laid underneath. Her long crimson hair immediately changed its colour, length, and style, making it more silky smooth than ever before, turning from ruby to silver with various strands of red, shortening from long to just right under her now even larger bust. The sound of bones crackling filled the air as her body began to even further morph, her height growing taller from 5'8" to 5'10", as well as a change to all her assets, including her face that now showed off her glowing, blood-red, fiendish eyes that had red lines flowing from underneath them, a single large, white horn growing from the right side of her head with a crimson flame burning on top of it.

Abby's eyes that were once deadly slits grew wide. She felt a searing pain in her lurching heart that now had a massive void, almost like there was a hole in her chest. She felt her stomach turning as she tried her best to not throw up all she had in her tightly secured muzzle that just barely allowed her to breathe. If she was able to move her mouth from under her bindings, her mouth would have been wide open in shock, and her body would have been shuddering as a reflection of her mental state that was both blank but in complete turmoil at the same time…

Nothing felt real yet she knew full well that it was real… Was her sister ever even her sister? How long did this last? How did this even happen? A Shalker as her sister? Does she, a Shalker have an ability? Do her parents know? What more secrets is she unaware of? Why does she want her lord? Did she even have a sister to begin with? And if she did what happened to her? 

Thoughts such as those ravaged and tore her mind apart, her expressionless face only being there as a result of her extreme mental turmoil.

"HAHAHA! I bet you must be pretty confused right now! Like your entire life had been a lie! What more did you not know? Well, let me tell you now that you know nothing! You were just my puppet! A crippled doll that I used as both a pawn and a test subject! You were never my sister! You and I were never related! I am a Shalker! The Great Villanova Igris!"

The Shalker's words, every last one of them began to slowly trickle into Abby's mind, steadily adding fuel to her inner burning inferno known as her madness, more than ever she needed answers.

"Before you fade away into nothingness, I am going to share some of my secrets with you, a present from me to you for all the amazing help you've been to me! Consider it the last thing you see before your current self dies…" Villanova said, an amused smile on her face, only leading to nothing other than Abby's shaky eyes now looking more intently at her "sister's" visage, a face more calm yet more monstrous than she had ever seen her before. 

She looked both so familiar yet so foreign in her true form.

"As you probably guessed. Yes, I am in fact a Shalker with an Ability, very rare indeed for my kind, or at least that used to be the case," She said, mumbling that last part from under her breath that Abby was not able to pick up on.

"Since so few of us had abilities and we were on fighting fronts with various different species, we were on the losing end on many of those wars because we lacked 1 very important thing that many people from those other species possessed, magic, or what you here like to call them, abilities. But, out of every single planet. Earth was the only one with those weird pillars and the only one with over 90% of its population possessing abilities."

"Me along with a few other people of my kind were lucky enough to possess an ability, we were in the right place at the right time, on a planet when it just suddenly rained unknown green liquid. Yet, despite having these abilities, we had no idea how to replicate them. Thus began the war with earth who seemed to know how to do such things,"

"Despite being severely outnumbered and outmatched in many ways, you managed to fight us back to a standstill! But, if you think we are of equal status you are fools! We were still fighting wars in many regions of the galaxy! Most of our strongest generals were not even there! You all would be trampled without a second thought if we had our main force. Even I would admit that despite my hatred for them…"

"My lord, who is no doubt the rightful ruler of all existence, had been searching the entire galaxy for one person and, had predicted that earth would be a key planet that the main Shalker force would focus on so he sent me here many years before the war even started to spy and learn the ways of the people, their abilities, and those weird beams of light that shot out of the sky that appeared on no other planet but this one,"

"I managed to infiltrate the planet when it was still in a time of peace, lacking security. If I had tried to get in now I would have undoubtedly failed. I searched for the perfect newborn child to assume the life of since it was the perfect way to learn and the most likely reason why my lord had chosen me for such a mission."

"I only had 1 shot at doing this and a powerful, rich child from a noble family was undoubtedly the best option since they tend to be pampered and given the best and most secretive educations. And, out of all the newborns in the world at the time, your sister seemed to be by far the best option. Not only was your sister's strength and potential outstanding, but she was also the first child of the powerful, esteemed Reid family, one of the most influential people in the world,"

"Thus, when she was only a few weeks old, I managed to infiltrate your family mansion and kill her, assuming her life perfectly using my ability. Everything was going perfect, I learned so many things from that experience, I was an adult in the mind of a child, I listened in on so many conversations that were most definitely not meant for me to hear, I witnessed first hand how you humans absorb ability crystals and so many more things. I was pampered, given everything I ever wanted and more, my plan was going much better than I even expected. That was until you were born and ruined everything…" 

"Not only were you cuter, stronger with more potential, but you were also loved by our parents even more than me! You stole all my spotlight! All that pampering and information gathering had halted to a standstill! I could not allow you to get in my way, and since I could not change bodies again to assume your life, I decided to kill you."

"However, in the end, I decided against it and crippled you instead, power is everything in my world and it seems to be the same in this one as well. Then, I also spread false rumours about you in order to ruin your life even more, heinous things to paint you as an absolute monster of a child, the spawn of the devil… Since I was a child, I assumed they would think I am innocent and tell no lie. And it worked, everyone hated you and thought of you as a dog, our parents, even all the servants thought so too. You were an absolute failure that was both weak and lacking any sort of decency as a human."

"You being a cripple at birth was just a lie, it was simply the only conclusion that the doctors could deduce from your symptoms. I still have no idea how you overcame that special, undetectable poison I used but I am sure to find out soon enough,"

"Our parents had contemplated killing you as a demon spawn several times yet for some reason, they could never bring themselves to do it, which was good for me since I had my own purposes for you!"

"I decided to use you as my test subject. You were perfect, not only were you the only person weak enough for me to fight due to my still weak, child body, but no one would even care if they find out what I did to you since they would think you did something to deserve it. And, even if you reported me no one would believe you, who would believe you after all they thought you did and all that you had been proven to do due to all my orders and peer pressure."

"I told you things like"If you do this, I will stop hurting you and be friends" in my usual warm, welcoming smile. Then, as the naive child you were, you would actually do it and get in major trouble and beaten, pleading to them that it was not your fault and it was me who told you what to do, which only left you to be called a liar and a demon child since they thought of me as an angel who would be too young and innocent to order such things! It was too hilarious! They now had clear proof of my words!"

"I used you since I was really curious about many things, the human nature, the human anatomy, how humans react to certain pain, what breaks them the most, how do they grow to hate. And many more things. You were indeed a nice guinea pig that has taught me a lot. Even now, still, in the eyes of our parents, you are the devil and I am the angel, although they did seem somewhat genuinely happy that you got first on the exam and were genuinely angry that you decided to go to the Griffith party instead of theirs that they had made just for you,"