Lapland
Many Decades in the future...
On a new full moon night, in the remotest lands of the kingdom of Lapland, dozens of young monsters gathered, covered in blankets, sitting in a group in the middle of a large circle of megaliths lit by large braziers arranged all around and another large central fire to warm up bodies and minds. Among the monster children were also strangely some human children, some exhibiting animal physical transformations, and others appearing quite normal but not at all frightened. The youngest of them were 7 or 8 years old.
Then, an old woman, human, wrapped in a fur cape and a hood, arrived, using a walking stick to move around, and came to sit on a rock, facing the assembly of children who seemed to be waiting patiently for her to speak.
_ "Good evening, my dear little ones." said the old woman with the graying hair. "I'm glad to see that so many of you came tonight."
_ "What are you going to tell us tonight?" asked one of the younger children.
_ "Ah, an excellent question." replied the woman. "Well, tonight I'm going to teach you something first: that stories can turn out to be true, and tonight we're going to talk about people who are real, but who have gone down in legend, not just this world... but in all the worlds. Souls coming from different worlds, whom everything could have divided, but who nevertheless are united, and who together have changed the course of history, forever..."
The old woman then walked towards the large megalith on her right, illuminating it with a flaming torch and revealing the carvings on its rocky surface, depicting a couple, a monster in demonic armor and wings, armed with a double axe, and a young human woman with angel wings and armed with a sword. The engraving showed them holding hands, flying into battle against an army of demons.
_"Here are the first of them: The Monsterman, Mr. Lordi, and Emily the Lady of Light." said the old woman, under the fascinated gaze of young children listening. "Long ago, a young lord in Lapland, lonely and in the grip of his own darkness, set out in search of the only thing that could save him: true love, for only a sincere heart and soul would be able to love a monster and understand the beauty of the beast. And that love he found it, in the person of a young human woman with a pure and valiant heart, also lonely and seeking her place in her world. Their hearts and their minds united as one, and together, thanks to this unique love that bound them together, they were able to thwart several enemies as terrifying as they were implacable: Evilyn, the demon queen and first of the succubi. Her brother Vexus, master of the invisible and illusions. Mr. Lordi and Emily thus became the pioneers of a new era, one that would see the unification between humans and monsters."
The children had listened, still captivated, and saw the old woman then move towards the megalith on the left, representing other engravings and other stories, that of a second couple, a young human man armed with a flaming claymore , and by his side a monster woman resembling a living doll and armed with a sawed-off shotgun. The two stood together and faced a sprawling, misshapen abomination.
_"And here is the second couple, the Vengeful Ones. Hella and Mathias." said the old woman. "Their story is very different. They both shared the same pain, the same losses, the same demons... But when they could have given up and fallen, they held on, until they finally met, and so, a shy but sincere love grew in them... Together, they were finally able to take revenge and annihilate their mutual demon, Ruiz, who had made them suffer so much in the past... Since then, the revenge couple never stopped fighting to work to eradicate the beings who deserved no leniency for the crimes they had committed."
As always, the children were fascinated by these stories that really happened, by these heroes who became legends.
_"But Sarah..." asked a little girl. "Where are they now? Have you met them before?"
The old woman then removed her hood, revealing her gray hair and age-scarred face, and showed a wistful smile and a deep gaze as she gazed up at the dancing, crackling flames of the central fire.
_ "Oh yes, I knew them..." she breathed. "But that's another story..."
**********
Lapland, centuries in the past...
A violent snowstorm had just risen in that gloomy night, reducing visibility to almost zero. Lost in the middle of the woods tossed about by the violent wind, a Monsterman, still a child, ran staggering, lost and his face disfigured with confusion. Completely naked, he collapsed to his knees in the middle of the snowstorm, as if drained of his strength, but then looked at his clawed hands and his body, completely covered in blood. But it wasn't his. He had committed a massacre of incredible violence, and this, after being born from the womb of his troll mother, dead giving birth to him and having been tortured for years by his demon father. Trolls. Demons. He had massacred them without any restraint, as if possessed by a dark power of which he had no knowledge or control.
Confused and overwhelmed by everything that was happening to him, the child Monsterman let out a powerful and desperate howl. But just as he seemed resigned to staying here and letting himself die alone in the middle of the cold and the storm, the sudden appearance of a white light dispelling the darkness caught his attention, making him raise his head. He then saw a tall female and humanoid form, with luminous angelic wings and golden hair, coming gently from the air and coming to land right in front of him. Too weakened, the young Monsterman could barely look at her face, even believing that he was hallucinating and tried to reach out his hand weakly towards her, as if to touch her and make sure she was real. But he couldn't and eventually lost consciousness, but the winged woman caught up with him, gently taking him in her arms.
It was then that another humanoid and winged form, male this time and seeming to be dressed in armor, arrived from the sky and came to the ground, immediately turning towards the woman.
_ "Naaririel, what are you doing?" asked the winged man. "Why are you helping this child? He was born from the rape of a demon and a monster. We can't afford to leave him alive."
_ "Killing him would be a big mistake, Michael..." replied the angelic woman. "I saw his future... He is destined for something very big, much more than we or himself could imagine..."
_"And what do you see in this future?" Michael asked.
Naaririel raised her head a little, her gaze lost in space, and her mind traversed by these visions of an angel of Destiny... She could vaguely see... Yes... a young human woman, with red hair, who were not even born yet, but who one day would come to unite with this Monsterman... Naaririel saw the union of two opposed souls, the balance restored... She also saw another couple, composed of a young human man, but also of a monster woman...
_"A new hope." Naaririel said with conviction.