The Antagonist

Dreams of Nightmares

Age: 18-20

Aries’ memories of his childhood are often colored with a dreary gloom. While he recalls his mother with warmth and joy in his voice, it almost always turns into bitter sadness as he explains that his mother was killed in front of him. To him, the rest of his life before that moment didn’t even matter, and his life after that was meant to be lived by her mantra: “Find the joy.”

His memory of his mother’s last words drove every decision he made in life, and he would be hard-pressed to do anything he didn’t want to do. This did, unfortunately, get him in trouble more often than not. Since he was old enough to be on his own once his mother died, he decided to drop out of school and travel as far as he could, eventually finding himself on another planet entirely. Here, Aries’ internal rage and dark desires led him to develop a reputation as the Hungry Shadow, a serial killer known for hunting and slaughtering gang members. While that was the official story, Aries carried out missions for the highest bidders.

This planet was where he met Ynali, the succubus responsible for one of Aries’ favorite personal features. A cultist gang leader summoned the succubus. Ynali was attracted to Aries because of the dark aura around him, and his violent tendencies during gang altercations always seemed to spur her on to antagonize him. Because Aries was known as hired muscle in the criminal community, he was sometimes seen working for any gang that paid him more. As such, Ynali and Aries meeting during a fight was not uncommon. Due to this, the two quickly developed a passionate and violent relationship.

Things were at their peak when Kiritsugi showed up to find Aries. Aries wasn’t there, but a curious Ynali staying at his place decided to prod the older man. Upon learning that the man was a business associate of Aries’ mother, she began questioning why the man was bothering Aries, and Kiritsugi explained the truth about Aries’ venture to this planet.

Kiritsugi explained to Ynali that the galactic senator in charge of this world was the man who killed Aries’ mother. Aries was here to build contacts and plan an attack on the senator. The attack was something Aries had been orchestrating slowly. When Ynali realized that Aries pitted the gangs against each other and pushed them to the brink of a territory war, she decided to help. With Kiritsugi’s help, she convinced her gang to begin the war, assuring her summoner they would significantly gain territory from the other gangs. The war was ultimately a significant distraction, so the police would struggle to save Senator Tulian Hadi.

Aries infiltrated the Senator’s home and slaughtered him, his guards, and his family. When he was done, he tried to contact Ynali, but she wouldn’t respond. Upon contacting Kiritsugi, Aries learned that Ynali’s summoner was killed during the war, voiding her contract with him. She was sent back to her realm of origin. Ynali’s gang lost the war, and evidence was found that Aries was the killer of Senator Tulian Hadi. Aries was forced to flee.

Art by @shim0rin

Building Reputations

Age: 20-33

Aries rarely spoke about it, but the fact that Ynali had left without a word always ate at him as he navigated his way through his twenties. He quickly made his way to another planet, but his reputation as the Hungry Shadow followed him almost anywhere he went, but he didn’t seem intent on running from it. His killings continued to happen, and he seemed to become less concerned about the pay from these murders. He was now killing gangsters for fun.

While he was only targeting criminals, his killings were brutal, and the rumors that he was eating his victims’ corpses twisted his image in the public eye. No one cared if Aries was killing gang members; they were afraid of what he would do once he was done with the gang members.

Aries traveled from planet to planet, but it didn’t matter where he went. Even if people didn’t immediately recognize him, the government would eventually realize where he went and flood the place with bounty notices. Fighting bounty hunters and running from police quickly became Aries’ everyday life. He needed to invest in a fast ship.

Around 33, he went into hiding, and his killings slowed down. He began to gain a new reputation as a small-time mercenary for his charm and effectiveness. Eventually, Aries finally found a permanent role with a mercenary group. This was where he met Reilalia (23). They developed a passionate relationship and bond over their shared trauma and love for drug abuse and escapism. Unfortunately, the merc group’s reach was limited and relatively local, so Reilalia didn’t have much opportunity to escape very far from the sources of her traumatic history.

Reilalia’s gang past caught up to her, and in a flurry of bad decisions, she was pushed to a breaking point and lost control of her emotions in front of Aries. In an emotionally broken state, Reilalia begged Aries for help. Aries knocked her out and left her at a medical facility trained and fully pre-paid to help her with her addiction and get her life back on track.

Aries, meanwhile, visited the gang that broke Reilalia. The gang was known for its involvement in illegally racing highly-modified spacecraft. They had their hands in many government pockets and had several sketchy mercenary groups on their payroll. During his visit to the gang, Aries also learned they had a custom of taking children in exchange for debts being paid off. One of those children, specifically, was Lalith, a 13-year-old boy with a knack for mechanical engineering.

By the time Reilalia woke up, the news stations all over the planet were abuzz with information regarding government corruption around the illegal racing industry. Most stations chose to cover the political repercussions of all the discoveries leaked from the gang’s computers. However, other fringe stations and media outlets were whispering rumors about how the gang’s hangar was found the morning that all the information was leaked: Everything was stained with blood, and all gang members were found in a pile of corpses.

Some local news stations even covered the strange occurrence of a group of children and a large amount of money being dropped off at an orphanage local to the gang’s hangar that night.

Art by @aquilai5

Space Pirate’s Shanty

Age: 33-37

Having acquired an extremely fast ship from the gang, Aries fled the planet before his involvement could be realized, taking the young Lalith with him. It wasn’t long before rumors about a group of thieves and their fast ship began to spread from planet to planet. The Golden Blade Pirates gained a reputation for stealing from criminals and politicians but were generally not seen through a positive lens due to their violent and destructive methods.

The pirate crew was active for about seven intergalactic calendar years, and details about the crew are primarily rumors with little confirmation or evidence around them. Still, Lalith and Aries always seem to be mentioned.

The first notable recruit of the Golden Blade Pirates was found early on when Aries and Lalith were looking for spare parts for the Goldstreak, which was beginning to show signs of wear from the racing. While Lalith investigated different options, Aries was distracted by encountering an android with a nice body and soft fur. Everlette became a focus for the space pirate the moment he laid eyes on her, and after the parts for the ship were purchased, Aries began stalking the android.

While Lalith focused on repairing the ship where needed, Aries focused on recruiting more members for the crew. The Goldstreak was fast, but it was meant to be run by five people. He did successfully recruit a few malleable young men, but his focus remained on acquiring the android that caught his attention, and so when the rest of the crew was finishing up the final repairs, he decided that was the night to take his new toy.

Aries cornered Everlette that night. In a cruel and sadistic display, Aries allowed his darkest impulses to take over, and Everlette seemed to thrive on it. Aries put the android’s body and mind through the harshest stress test he could unleash on her, and by the end of the night, people were dead, and a fire had broken out.

Everlette abandoned her creator in favor of Aries and joined the Golden Blade Pirates. A week later, the crew returned. Everlette asked Aries to come with her to visit her creator. Her angry creator attempted to corrupt her programming, but Everlette proved her sentience and free will by revealing that she had removed all his safeguards installed into her. She killed the scientist and stole his work, including another AI he was working on.

AURA, the Advanced Unification & Restructuring Application, is an AI Doctor Bronson worked on before Everlette killed him. Shortly after Everlette and Aries returned from visiting Everlette’s creator, AURA somehow found its way onto the Goldstreak’s computer systems and became the onboard AI for the ship.

Of Nanomachines & Dragons

Age: 37-40

It’s hard to say exactly what his motivation was, but at one point, Aries, 37, decided he needed to find Ensconce's founder and lead developer. Aries became particularly infatuated with Trance after finding and meeting the Waerrani. While keeping up with his pirating endeavors, Aries regularly visited Trance over the two years following their initial meeting to discuss his dream projects.

Over time, Trance had become accustomed to his visits and the constant need to tell him that the technology projects he wanted her to help with were too expensive, outlandish, or just downright immoral or dangerous. Despite this, she did continue to offer her help with AURA. The two developed a bit of a relationship, but it was beginning to become apparent to Trance that danger came her way whenever he was around. To prove her wrong, Aries decided to pursue the source of the assassination attempts on Trance.

After uncovering a corporate plot to kill the founder of the Ensconce system, Aries and Trance, both move to confront the person who had been trying to kill her for the past two years: Her biggest investor.

However, as the two are about to confront the investor, portals open around them. Trance tries to identify them, but her tech fails, and figures with ashen skin and pointed ears begin to step out of the portals. The new visitors resemble Aries closely. They hold weapons out to Aries and Trance, outnumbering the tired duo and killing the investor when he begins to demand answers. The two are taken through one of the portals and on a new adventure.

On the other side of the portal, the two meet Edith, the Queen of Nileden. The queen looked like she could be related to Aries. She had ears similar to his own, ashen-colored skin very much like his own, and golden eyes radiating with an unsettling energy. The queen explained that she had been watching Aries and his violent exploits for a long time and that if he did not agree to help her, everyone would learn that the serial killer, the Hungry Shadow, and the recently famous pirate, Captain Goldeye of the Golden Blade Pirates, were both the same person.

Aries never told her this, but she never bothered asking until now. Trance had suspected that Aries was Captain Goldeye for some time by now. Still, she never expected him to be the famous serial killer she had read about. Defensive, Aries lashed out at the queen, who showed she was much more potent with a small use of her cosmic magic.

The details of Aries’ and Trance’s time in Nileden are mostly rumors. One rumor states that Aries fought alongside Nileden's forces to slay a mighty dragon during his time there and acquired unimaginable strength from slaying that dragon, later using that power to lead a rebellion against the Dark Queen. A different rumor states that there was no such dragon and that Aries was hired by the queen to single-handedly and brutally quell a rebellion before betraying the Dark Queen and manipulating the intergalactic government into pardoning him and pinning it all on her by abducting and forcing Trance to hack the intergalactic government. Another rumor, however, states that Trance and Aries refused to work with the queen and abducted the queen’s daughter before escaping her grasp with the help of the Golden Blade Pirates.

Despite all these rumors, the publicly accepted theory, and the official word from the government, is that Trance, the inventor and developer of Ensconce, used her technology to expose the dark machinations orchestrated by the Dark Queen Edith of Nileden. In a heroic use of her technology, after they killed her top investor, Trance manipulated the Golden Blade Pirates and the famous serial killer, the Hungry Shadow. She pitted them against the Dark Queen, leading to a leak of tons of official documents proving that the Dark Queen had always been behind everything done by the Golden Blade Pirates, Hungry Shadow, and many other gang and political crimes across the galaxy.

The Dark Queen was exiled from her planet, and the intergalactic government invaded to rescue her oppressed citizens. Trance was rewarded for her heroic efforts. Edith’s daughter was put under the care of her savior, Trance. The Golden Blade Pirates were disbanded. The Hungry Shadow was confirmed captured and publicly executed. Aries Villanite was pardoned for his suspected crimes as a victim of framing and corporate and political espionage.

Art by @CmapcaArt

From Bounties to Bounty

Age: 40-42 (Present Day)

No longer being hunted by every government he encountered, Aries felt it was time to learn what living as an honest, law-abiding citizen was like. Unfortunately, money was hard to come by, and he quickly turned to the closest thing to his old lifestyle: Bounty Hunting.

Around this time, Aries, 40, finally met Ynali again after many years. After the two had a chance to enjoy their passionate reunion, Ynali revealed the truth to Aries. Kiritsugi had killed her summoner when Aries invaded the senator’s home. Kiritsugi was why Ynali’s summoning was broken, and she was forced to return to her realm. Aries wasn’t sure what to do with that information so many years later, but he couldn’t deny the pain and confusion he felt knowing that Kiritsugi had betrayed him like that and left him to fend for himself.

After gaining a slight shift in his reputation from his successful bounty hunting, Idris Suraibu approached Aries, 41, for a new mission. Idris was from the Avinadal System, a planetary system with a severe space pirate problem. The galactic government claimed they could find no evidence of the pirates in the area, and any investigations into the pirates were consistently faced with extreme delays and complications. Idris was convinced this was due to a deal the pirates struck with other government officials, but he couldn’t prove it.

Aries was asked to help with the situation by finding out who in the government was working with the pirates. At first, Aries was inclined to reject the work, as it sounded a bit too messy, but Idris assured him that it would be worth his while and offered Aries several powerful connections to help with his Bounty Hunting. Knowing that the discovery phase of the mission would be lengthy, Aries finally agreed to take on the mission as a lower priority while focusing on more immediately rewarding missions, which led to an unexpected involvement in the Ki’Ti Rebellion.

While working on other missions and passively looking into the Avinadal situation, Aries was approached by a man from his past. Aries was given the password to a government official’s computer and a promise of truth if he used it to find particular files. This seemed to be the motivation he needed. Shortly after he was provided this information, Aries began to pursue a resolution to the Avinadal Mission, eventually gathering a small crew of trusted people to infiltrate a galactic senator’s office.

What Aries found on the senator’s computer changed everything for him. In a rage, he tore through the entire security detail of the senator’s office before the police could even show up. When questioned by his crew about his actions, he asked them all to take their payments and leave him.

No one knows what Aries did right after that mission. Still, two months later, it was announced throughout the allied galaxy that the government officially recognized the Empire of Avinadal as an independent ally of the government rather than a jurisdiction of the government. The announcement also mentioned that Emperor Aries Villanite was the one who led the search, discovery, and elimination of the pirate crew that was terrorizing Avinadal and other local planetary systems.

Shortly after, Aries contacted his contacts in many industries and began establishing Avinadal in earnest. At this point, what Aries intends to do with his newly acquired sovereignty is uncertain. Rumors continue to circulate about the incident with the Dark Queen, and many internet communities are still poking holes in just how neatly the situation was resolved seemingly overnight.

Art by @xdtopsu

Credits

Characters By Villanite
Aries Villanite
Idris Suraibu
Kiritsugi Kuransagi
Tulian Hadi
Reilalia Markov
Ynali Tril

Characters By @TrashPandaHDR
Lalith Villanite

Characters By @everlette_
Everlette Bronson

Characters By @intrancicated
Trance Villanite