The Monster in the Mirror
The underground stronghold that housed Xerath's elite was often described as a cavernous abyss of dread. Its halls echoed with the murmurs of tortured cries and the humming pulse of corrupted ancient energy. Yet, behind one inconspicuous reinforced steel door, a different kind of chaos reigned—one filled with bubble wrap, loud music, and questionable cooking experiments.
Vornyx, the most terrifying of Xerath's Twelve, was currently engaged in mortal combat with... a pancake. Shirtless, wild-haired, and covered in flour, he yelled, "You think you can conquer me, batter beast? Think again!" as he flipped the pancake mid-air with a pirouette and a grin. The pancake smacked against the ceiling. Vornyx stared up, eyebrows raised. "Ten second rule, right?"
Despite being a 35-meter-tall beast capable of leveling cities and tearing through steel like butter in his Ancient form, Vornyx's day-to-day life was surprisingly... mundane. He kept his room obsessively clean, had posters of vintage anime girls on his wall, and collected plushies of extinct Earth creatures like pandas and koalas.
"Fluffy-san, we dine tonight!" he said proudly, placing the slightly burned pancake in front of his koala plush. Then he paused, sighing. "Ugh... still not as good as mom's."
Vornyx's real name was Varun, back before the transformation, back when he was just another street urchin scavenging scraps in the underground shantytown of the Eastern Ring. That name had become a whisper even in his own head. Now, even among Xerath's servants, he was "Vornyx the Unrelenting." The name struck fear into his enemies and respect into his allies—but within the safety of his quarters, he was just Vornyx. No titles. No expectations.
His daily schedule was a chaos of contradictions: brutal training at dawn, breakfast with plushies, philosophical debates with himself, and pranks on his fellow hybrids.
Thorne once woke up to find his entire bed replaced with a block of gelatin. Kael returned from a training session to discover all his clothes had been dyed pink.
"Think of it as stress therapy," Vornyx would say while sipping from a mug that read #1 Nightmare Fuel. He laughed louder than anyone in the fortress, joked with the guards, and once painted a mustache on Xerath's statue.
No one dared to scold him.
Despite all his antics, there was a quiet sorrow buried beneath his antics. At night, Vornyx sat on the edge of his cot staring at a small cracked mirror. His reflection shimmered, showing hints of the monstrous form that lurked within. "What are we doing, Varun?" he asked himself. "Are we the villain... or just the weapon?"
He hated the silence of midnight. It reminded him of the day he was captured by the Ancients as a child—how he screamed for help that never came. How Xerath offered him food, warmth... and power.
Yet even with this past, Vornyx wasn't without his contradictions. He secretly rescued stray animals from raids and trained them to dance. He remembered everyone's birthdays and always made them gifts—usually horribly misshapen clay sculptures, but from the heart.
He also loved stories. Ancient ones. Forgotten ones. He kept a massive book on the Twelve Arcanums under his bed. His favorite was the story of Aravelle, the wind dancer who had created the first glider wings. He'd read it every week.
He wasn't just muscle and menace.
One evening, while walking the halls after a mission briefing, Vornyx overheard a few of Xerath's other hybrids.
"Did you see how he fought those three? Monsters, all of them... but him? He enjoyed it."
"He laughs too much. There's something wrong with that one."
Vornyx paused.
He smiled, at first. Then he didn't.
Back in his room, he stared into the mirror again. The monster was still there, half-shadowed and grinning.
He spoke quietly, "If being a monster means smiling so the others don't cry... then maybe I'm okay with that."
And with that, he turned on his speaker, blasting cheerful tunes through the stone walls, flopped into a beanbag chair twice his size, and held his favorite plush close.
He named it Hope.
Because even monsters need something to hold onto.