Summon, or She Dies.

[Gildarts]

Villains come in all shapes and sizes, but yeah, usually they’re simple and usually, they’re killable. Christa fell through the portal leading to the other world with heavy thoughts adding pressure to the sole of her boots. The taste of war never left this woman’s tongue, and always found its way back to her, for it, she had compromised happiness and sacrificed life. For it, she had lost herself, and forged a new one. She would never be free of it, even in death.

Last she could remember, was Karl Jak, Red, and Abner. Each one a priority, neither, her priority, at least yet. Karl Jak was the closest thing she had to a nemesis, but even then, he’d made good on his word. Red, her partner, a talking red panther that had saved her life. And Abner, well, he doesn’t get a definition yet. All of them were like her sister, MIA. Somehow, it seemed like that was all it would ever be.

Clouds filled her thoughts as Christa stepped into an ocean-tasting air, and fog filled her vision. Quite literally, as though it had been stacked on bricks, she couldn’t see an inch past her nose, and she looked, twice. This was bad news, since she was rather unfamiliar with this verse already. While she had enough sense to not walk into a wall, she wouldn’t even know how close she was to the ocean unless she sliced through the noise pollution and listened to the tide of the waves. All she heard now was the wind and some faint murmuring.

“Is there someone there?” Christa called out to the ominous darkness, tainted by the smoky mist.

“No,” a voice answered, and another voice tittered.

There was single footfall ten feet away, it chimed loudly in her ears and she pinpointed it, turned on a dime, and slammed into the figure with all her force. His shoulder bones painfully met a wall, and his friend’s eyes widened, dazed and confused, and stinking like booze. The man who’s shirt she had bundled in her hands, stared forward, his eyes blank of fear, but behind them, his thoughts were swimming.

“Lissssten lady I don’t want any trouble, I’s just seein’ if my friend Jimbo over here was ratin’ you a five or a siz.” The man was on drugs, or something. It only stood to reason that Omniverse had to be full of them, since the market was surely fresh. Christa couldn’t help but think she was trapped in another void, it was night, it was dark, and things were practically materializing themselves in the fog.

“Is this the Vastly Deep, or have I taken a wrong turn? What day is it?” she gave him a very gentle shake, which left him quivering in his bones. Luckily, Jimbo over there, stayed silent, as well as non-violent. This made the negotiation easy.

“No, thisss izz the Ommmy-verse, mizz. Today is January... January...Tenth, nineteen-forty-two,” the man hiccuped, “Friday! Today’s my birthday.”

Christa’s grip loosened. This was going less than nowhere, fast. Jimbo responded, “Oh happy birthday, Larry! Care for another swig? How’s the wife?”

“She’zz dead, Jimbo, jus’ like the rest of ‘em, but I’m still alive... Right?” they clinked glasses, and Christa found inklings of truth in their words.

“Listen, I just need to know-”

“Wooaaahhh there missy, jusss take it easy. You don’t need nothin’ you just think you do,” the man tapped his forehead, where wrinkles suddenly appeared. “Jimbo, give me another swig, I want this to happen quick!”

“Want... What to happen?” she couldn’t help but to ask, and her head turned to see Jimbo, who suddenly was cloaked in a long, black robe. In his hand, a scythe steadied. Christa backed up immediately, not sure what she was witnessing.

Jimbo didn’t speak, but another vial was given. Larry slurped it up, laughing as he did, until he used the balance of the wall to slide to the ground. Behind his eyelids, memories swarmed faster than bees. Still, he managed to speak through the drug, “Ssssweet, sssweet endingz, m’ dear. I wanted an ending... That I never gott to have.”

And those, were Larry’s last words, before his entire face wilted into wrinkles, his hair grew out past his shoulders until they too, curled upon the cement ground, and his skin became spotted with brown and shriveled up to his bones. Christa gasped, the terror in the man’s eyes compromised the smile that held on his decaying, withered lips. The Prime turned to the black figure, his face was now cloaked in shadow and for some reason, Christa couldn’t remember any distinctive features of his face. She gulped.

The figure stepped forward, to the live one in his presence. She stepped back. His gaze, though invisible, looked at her feet and read her actions. “Who are you?” she asked the most obvious question.

“Who are... you?” it answered slyly. In one hand, she saw the scythe, framed in dark cloud, in the other, it was hidden, like her future and fate. The choice, hers.

“I won’t give you any money, you can’t kill me like you did him.” she declared, calmly.

“He.... Assssked.” The voice slithered.

She blinked, and took another look at the man, she had seen the life taken from him in a way that seemed so... so similar. Then she remembered, through the confusion of her thoughts, “You are from the Pale Moors, aren’t you?”

“I am from here, I am always where I stand, and those who fall, ask me to live so that others too, can have their choice,” the figure’s words hissed at the end.

“You take the whims of cowards and call it granting their wish. I should kill you, for their lack of judgement. And to make sure what I just witnessed never happens again.” Christa pulled out her sniper, and loaded one in its chamber.

“You cannot kill the choice, I just make it easier for them.” the mysterious voice whispered.

“Living isn’t supposed to be easy,” Christa brandished her teeth.

“Living as a slave without those they love is impossible for some people. I give them rest. I give them the ending they seek,” Christa looked down at the coffin-less ending while the voice continued, festering with tranquil hatred, “I am the Story Master. You cannot kill me, I was created by them.”

Then the dark figure’s cloak was gusted by wind and Christa fired as it charged at her. Suddenly she was tangled in it, every second she struggled as she fought the dark cloth, expecting too soon, to feel the cold glint of the scythe on her neck. She dropped her sniper and pulled the fabric away from her face, only to find it was empty. A laughter filled the fog followed by the words: “I am the wind.”