Only Half Angel (Diablo/Worm)

During summer camp, Taylor gets lost in the woods and finds herself elsewhere….

For the curious, this will use a mixture of Diablo lore and gameplay mechanics, with a dash of stuff I made up to make things interesting. Be ready for a Nephilim!Taylor eventually.

1. Fear Will Find You

She was lost. Taylor had walked down one of the forest paths away from summer camp, but she had become turned around. She couldn't' tell where she was, and more worryingly she couldn't tell how to get back. She began walking faster and faster as panic build up within her until she burst into a wild sprint, calling and then screaming for help, for someone to find her as the sun was inexorably dragged towards the horizon. Fear settled down around her, smothering her breath and her sight as night descended upon her. She tripped on a root and fell, hitting the ground hard enough to send shocks of pain through her. She tried to stand, but searing hot pain stabbed into her ankle and toppled her. She lay on the ground, barely able to breathe as dark clouds hung over the forest, ready to drown it in despair. She couldn't move, she couldn't catch her breath, she couldn't get back.

And that's when she felt Terror.

+OHA+

Taylor awoke to the sounds of a crackling campfire and opened her eyes to see a large bonfire before her.

"She's awake," a woman said.

"Good, there is much we must learn from her," a man said. As Taylor shifted she saw a man come step from around the fire and walk up to her. When she saw him, she was unnerved, he wore dark armor decorated with what looked like bones and in the light of the fire he almost looked like he was already dead. He crouched in front of her, holding his hands splayed before her to show they were empty. "Where are you from and why are you here, child?" he asked with a quiet voice and a strange accent.

Taylor looked at him with wide eyed fear. It was obvious he was some kind of cape, and judging from his armor's macabre theme he was either a villain or a very intimidating hero. The silence dragged on for a long moment before she stammered, "I-I was lost in the woods. I'm from Brockton Bay."

"You are very lost to have would up here," the woman said as she walked up to meet them. She was dark skinned compared to the man's pale skin and she wore a green skirt and long sleeved shirt that left her abdomen exposed. She also had long brown hair with a gold circlet and carried a wooden staff with a purple crystal on the end of it. "These are no woods for a child to be lost it."

Taylor turned back when she saw the man hold his right hand over her. "I believe that these aren't the woods she was lost it," he said. "We felt the trace of power when we found her, and she has that same power within her and on her. I believe she teleported her, or was perhaps brought here."

"I teleported?" Taylor asked in confusion, latching onto the comment that made the most immediate sense to her.

The woman crouched next to her and frowned. "I know not of a place called Brockton Bay. Though I am new to these lands myself," the woman explained, "you must have come from a distant land for that to be the case."

"Very distant," the man mused. "What is the name of the realm you call home?" he asked Taylor.

"Uh… America?" Taylor replied uncertainly. Their accents didn't sound American, exactly, so where was she? In fact, there was something odd about how they spoke, but she couldn't put her finger on it….

The man hummed in thought before asking another question, "What do you call the world you call home?"

Taylor was confused, but at the same time she had a sinking feeling, the fear was back inside and around her. "Earth. Why?"

"Or world is called Sanctuary," he replied solemnly and she could hear the pity and regret in his voice and see it on his face as he spoke. "I'm afraid you're far from home."

"No! No!" Taylor denied, that fear from before clawing at her insides. "You're lying, that can't be right!" She scrambled to her feet and looked around. The campfire was in a clearing surrounded by two low rises on either side and darkened trees in all directions. She couldn't see far in the night, but there was a path opposite the fire from her. In her fear, she took off at a sprint, ignoring the calls of the two.

She dashed through the dark forest, the two of them following closely behind. She wanted to get away, go back. They had to be lying.

Then she heard a sound like someone spitting or coughing, and suddenly pain stabbed through her arm. Taylor fell the ground screaming as she heard the two cry out and several more of the coughs. Taylor clutched her arm, and through the incredible pain, she felt her hand touch something wet. Then she felt another spike of pain stab her stomach and she cried out louder still as red and white light played around the forest. Taylor looked down at her abdomen and saw a long needle-like spike sticking out of her. Even with the brightly flashing lights, her vision started to darken.

Then she heard a deafening roar and a huge, incredibly muscular man wearing a loincloth, boots, leather armguards, shoulder pads and some extraneous straps crashed down from the sky next to her. He turned to her, ignoring the spike the bounced off his head as he crouched in front of her. He quickly yanked out the needles embedded in her abdomen and arm, sending shocks of even more pain through her. She writhed in pain until she felt him press her down, and she heard his authoritative voice declare, "Take this, it will heal you!" He held a vial full of red liquid to her lips. When she opened her mouth, he poured it in, and before she could swallow or choke she began to feel the pain begin to lessen. Shocked, Taylor swallowed the liquid and saw the man, who she now noticed had curving blue lines tattooed on his body, nodded before crying out and leaping above the trees in the direction the needle had come from. A moment later she heard a crash and a shriek, and then the forest fell silent.

With the pain fading, Taylor stood up. A stray thought occurred to her: was this why she didn't feel her twisted ankle from earlier? She cautiously poked the hole in her bloodied shirt when she had been impaled. Her skin was whole and healthy.

Out of the corner of her eyes she saw the two from before walking up to her cautiously and she demanded of them: "What was that!?"

"Spike Fiends, dangerous pack predators in these parts," the woman explained.

"Spike fiends?" Taylor asked in confusion.

There was another thump as the muscular man from before crashed into the ground beside her and dropped two carcasses on the ground, one a deer and one a four limbed and long tailed creature with long spines along its back like the needle that had been shot into her. The monster was clearly dead from some sort of cut to its head.

"Oh," Taylor said.

"You did not know of these creatures before coming here?" the muscular man demanded, shooting a dark look at the other two.

"No, Barbarian," the first man said, "she was somehow teleported here, perhaps through an accidental use of her own power. However, it is clear that she is from very distant lands."

The Barbarian, as he had been called, looked down at Taylor with assessing eyes before replying, "Do either of you intend to help her return to her homelands?"

"I fully intend to," the woman replied, "but my talent with elemental magic doesn't lend itself to this endeavor. The Sisterhood of the Sightless Eye is nearby, perhaps they would be of help? They would at least be able to point us towards those who could help us."

"I have heard that the last of the Horadrim makes his home in Tristram, the town from which this darkness is rumored to originate," the first man added. "If anyone were to know a solution, it would be him."

"You'll help me get home?" asked Taylor with a mixture of uncertainty and hope at the thought of the surreal situation coming to an end.

The Barbarian nodded. "I swear on my name Chilanik of the Shadow Wolf Tribe that I will see you returned to your homeland, young one." He hefted the two carcasses. "Now come, when I saw your camp fire I hunted this deer so that we might share food and stories, and now we shall taste Spike Fiend as well!" With that he strode off towards the camp fire.

"Do you even know what that tastes like?" the woman asked after him.

+OHA+

"Tastes like chicken," Taylor said after her first cautious bite of the Quill Rat, apparently the subspecies of Spike Fiend that attacked them.

"To me, it tastes like victory," Chilanik proclaimed.

"Indeed," the man armored in bones agreed. His eyes focused on Taylor. "However, this world is a dangerous place and you nearly died." Taylor shrank back at the unpleasant memories. "You have the Potential, so I shall train you as best I can that you might survive until your return home." As this all three others looked at him questioningly.

"The Potential?" Taylor asked, having heard the emphasis on the word.

"It is the ability to channel and use one's inner power," the woman, who had introduced herself as the sorceress Isendra, said. "All of us have our own pool of Mana through which we work great feats, from my fires to Chilanik's leaps and blows, all living things have Mana and can use it. Not many can or learn to use it to its fullest extent, but the fact that your own power brought you here means that your potential is great." She glanced at the last man. "While the Necromancer's power is great in its own way, I feel that you might be better suited to elemental magic than his own dark powers."

The Necromancer shrugged. "We do not have the time to teach her sophisticated techniques, I intend to teach her the simplest applications of my abilities so that she might defend herself." He gestured towards the trees with left hand as his right was holding a dagger upon which rested a slice of venison. Glowing white fangs flew from his free hand and tore into several trees along the edge of the clearing.

"If you both will be teaching her to use her 'potential' for magic, then I will teach her how to really fight," Chilanik declared. "Relying on magic weakens one's resolve, and if her potential is as great as you claim then I will turn her into a great warrior, even if she is not one of my people."

The Necromancer nodded. "There are few better than the Barbarians when it comes to skill at arms, though the evil that has come to this land means that we should be wary of putting her in danger until she is ready."

Chilanik scoffed. "I know this, Necromancer, fear not. I have given my word, she will be safe."

"Very well then," the Necromancer agreed. He then turned to Taylor. "We'll give you your first lesson, Taylor. I want you to close your eyes and focus your mind."

"Okay," Taylor said before closing her eyes.

"I want you to focus on that same feeling you had when you first teleported," the Necromancer commanded. "That was you using your personal mana to either teleport yourself or call on some other force to teleport you here." Taylor concentrated on the memories of chocking fear. She concentrated enough to feel its creeping return. Eventually the Necromancer continued. "Your mana is a part of you, it is who you are. Be aware that you can shape it and control it. However that is not this lesson. Instead, I want you to reach out with your mana. It is a sixth sense that few learn to master, though all of us here have. You should be able to see this entire clearing in your mind's eye. When you're ready I want you to tell us where Isendra has moved too without opening your eyes and where my other companion is."

Taylor concentrated on the fear, and focused on it; trying to make the creeping fear calm down and slowly the choking darkness in her mind subsided and became a dark window that looked down on the clearing from above. She could see a vaguely Isendra-shaped and colored figure standing near the trees at the edge of the clearing. "She's at the edge of the clearing, over there," Taylor said, pointing.

"Not exactly, I'm a little to your left," Isendra corrected, "but still good for someone so new to using your mana." Taylor corrected where she was pointing, and Isendra chuckled. "Now, Taylor, where is our Necromancer's friend?"

Taylor concentrated and the window reformed in her mind. When she looked through it, she first saw Chilanik and started to point at him, but stopped when she saw something move in the undergrowth. "There's something in the undergrowth, over there," she pointed out worriedly.

"Yes, it's his 'friend,'" Chilanik informed her. "A petty creature he brought to life with his magics."

"Petty creature?" the Necromancer asked incredulously. "It tore apart Quill Rats just as easily as you did."

"Bah, they are weak beasts so that is no great feat," Chilanik argued.

Taylor opened her eyes and looked over to where her mind's eye had shown the creature. It was dark, but she saw a metallic gleam in the darkness under the trees. It moved out of cover and she gasped. It looked like it was made out of pieces of metal that had formed together into a humanoid shape. Despite its humanoid appearance it was clearly not human and it lumbered into the fire's light. It stopped a short distance into the clearing.

"This is my golem whom I created from a magical steel war hammer I found for sale in my travels," the Necromancer said. "He is a loyal servant created by my power and will protect us in the night while we sleep." He looked at Taylor and continued, "It's a complicated ritual that requires some skill with Necromancy and some knowledge of Prime Magic, but I can perhaps teach you to achieve a lesser form if you remain with us long enough."

"It is better for her to rely on her own prowess," Chilanik countered. "However, it is late and we should sleep."

"Indeed," agreed Isendra. "We can instruct her more when in the morning."

With that, they all turned in shortly thereafter, with Chilanik donating his fur cloak to Taylor, citing the fact that he didn't need it to sleep comfortably, used the wilderness as he was.

Taylor lay on the ground watching the fire for what felt like a long time before drifting off to sleep on that strange world. She had always wanted to have powers and be a super hero like Alexandria, but was it worth it if the price was being dropped in a strange fantasy world? She didn't think so, she just wanted to go back home to her dad and Emma. She hoped they would find the Sisterhood or the Horadrim soon so she could go back.

+OHA+

A/N: So, that was an introduction to the story Only Half Angel. I wrote it while I was waiting to hear back from someone who is collaborating with me on the A Big Enough Lever (Worm/Leverage) crossover story. All of the player characters are roughly the equivalent of roughly 50th level characters that just started Nightmare difficulty, while Taylor is a lowly first level equivalent, though she happens to be able to learn skills from the characters willing to teach her, though that doesn't make things pleasant for her in the slightest. After all, if she wants to see home again she'll have to literally go through Hell itself.

Also, does anyone have any good names for the Necromancer, the Assassin, the Paladin, the Druid and the Amazon? They should really have some.

+OHA+