When I first heard about the Hellions and Skulls, two warring gangs in Paragon City, I figured it was going to be like every piece of trash I ran into in other cities, like New York and Los Angeles. Just another bunch of punk thugs who’ve got nothing better to do with their time than kill each other and terrorize the normal citizens.
Usually I stay out of normal garbage like that, but Calvin’s notes on them interested me. Someone was giving these kids toys, and not the kinds of toys the rest of us want kids having.
Magic, especially when dealing with demons, is a deadly thing. They lie and they cheat. They want your soul and will promise you anything to get it. Very few people ever manage to outsmart them. Very few walk away from the deal with real power, and less walk away with their souls. Someone is teaching these Hellions just enough about magic to get them in trouble. I suspect someone is trading the Hellions’ souls for something more.
Mr. Meeks has entire notebooks full of the names of runaway kids and missing persons he believed were tied to the Hellions. The City wastes too much time dealing with the pests, and I need to find Meeks or rule the Hellions out. To that end I’ve made an agreement with the Police Department. They’ve given me some teleport patches, similar to what the heroes use to get to the hospital in times of life threatening danger, which I’m to use to send any Hellions I find to their psyche ward for deprogramming and reuniting with their families, and a source contact to get more as I need them. In exchange they’re willing to overlook my failure to apply to practice as a “hero” within the city limits.
Every where the Hellions go, they litter the area with glyphs and alters. Most of them are wrong, incorrect in the slightest ways, twisting the incantations. The books they have are missing pages. I know these books, and the missing pages are both some of the most powerful rights and the ones used to control the rights that remain.
The Hellions are a cult, built on the weak minded and based in violence and the promise of power. The more I learn about them, the worse I feel. This level of ignorance shouldn’t be allowed to continue. They could accidentally summon up powers that shouldn’t be summoned. If they ever saw true demonic power most of their members would probably soil themselves and run back home, assuming they weren’t killed on the spot.
These boys also seem to really enjoy setting things on fire. Doesn’t bother me any, I like to play with fire too.
After a few forays into Hellions hideaways, I’m getting a better feel for their methods. I’m also getting familiar with what few toys their backers have given them. A few fire tricks is all they appear to really have.
Their rivals, the Skulls, however, seem to have similar backers, but their toys are of the dark variety. Not dark as in evil, but dark as in physical darkness, the essence of night and the universe. Darkness is much baser, more dangerous than fire. Before there was light, there was darkness, and in light there is shadow. The Skulls bear more looking into.
