Summon, or She Dies.

[Gildarts]

“No, miss Prime. What you’re seeing isn’t real. I’m inside your head. Currently, I have a gun pointed at your very real skull. I could kill you, but that would be a waste of effort for all the time you took to get here. And well, a waste of a bullet. Perhaps I should just banish you instead, then you’d be hitting the Underverse right about now and well, you’ll likely never see her again. Trapped for eternity has a pretty nice ring to it, especially when you’re standing in my shoes and just want a tiny favor from a big bad Prime.” Behemoth concluded his thoughts.

Shit. Fucking shit. He’d had her the entire time. None of this was real? That explained why her bullets hadn’t worked and well.. The trippy scene in front of her. She’d been beaten before she’d walked through this man’s door. Christa looked down at her hands, or rather, the image of them. This was a room inside her mind of images conjured by her enemy’s ability. It seemed she had no choice.

Memories flooded back. Those which carried the agony of the torture she’d endured, then, joined forces with the military she’d despised, because yes, it would have gone on forever. Imagine being tortured until you reach a hundred, that’s what the organization had planned, she’d escaped both with a false promise. But that part of her life was over. She wouldn’t be strong armed by this asshole.

“Why me? Why Katia? There are hundreds of Primes around, you could’ve employed them with money or something, or do you just get off on this type of thing.” Christa asked, partially stalling as she closed her eyes and willed herself back to normal. Her eyes peeked open, same room, same trippy scene. Shit. This was a lot harder than it looked.

Behemoth cackled, “Ha! The blonde thinks she’s funny, well I’ll have you begging on your knees soon enough, when you realize you can’t escape this prison I’ve created in your mind. Anyway, why should I indulge you as to why? If you remember, I’m inside your mind, it should be quite obvious that I can read it. The question is a waste of time, not genuine curiosity itself.”

“Listen, you’re a jackass and a very big pain in my ass, but I still want to know why I specifically was involved. Omni send you or something? Maybe it was the people from Coruscant, or their shit government, you could’ve left my sister out of this, now this is personal, which makes it a lot more interesting for you, if I can escape the prison you put in my mind.” Christa’s voice as genuine and low-toned, sure, she was pissed off, but answers were important to putting this puzzle together and then getting the fuck out of this mess in one piece. . . Without being banished.

“Plotting your revenge already?” Behemoth’s chuckle filled her ears, “I wouldn’t bother, not if you want to see your precious sister again anytime soon, but if you must know “Why you?” Perhaps you should ask yourself who you are and what you have done in the scheme of things. Perhaps, all I wanted was your sympathy. The girl in the photograph I sent you was my daughter. It has been too long since I’ve held her in my arms. I’ve become a monster who they imprisoned, then, I escaped with the help of a Prime. He was on his way before I could ask him my favor, though it is as you say, I wanted perfection, I wanted my daughter to come back exactly as she is remembered for me.”

“So why didn’t you use your abilities on any of the Primes you’ve encountered, make them summon your daughter for you? Why take this extra step, come on, you know, the villains like you always spill their guts before the wrongly attacked people like me win.” Christa challenged.

“They had to be willing, secondaries really don’t have the ability to manipulate Primes into manipulating their own omnillium for them, it isn’t allowed, believe me, I’ve tried,” the monster continued as he explained his reason, “Anyway, I had heard about you, you’re a little famous, aren’t you? And then when I found your sister, I saw all the potential that you left behind. I read her mind, she felt immense sorrow she couldn’t venture with you. Why didn’t you stay with her after getting her back? Why didn’t you spend time with her like you should have? It was all very pathetic teenager thoughts, mind you, however she did have it right. You abandoned her. You never wanted the responsibility, a rebel like you wanted freedom, eternal, however, that just isn’t how life goes, and maybe if you realized that, you’d grow up to actually be your age and be responsible when life takes a wrong turn. Regardless, she was alone, I was alone, I thought it would ease our pain if we were alone together.”

“So what, you sick fuck, you kidnapped her in order to become her dad? Our parents were killed isn’t that trauma enough for you? Also she wasn’t alone, she had school and a stable family which you fucking murdered. You want to play the savior then act like it, but you’ve killed innocent people, and you’ve done it for the last time.” Christa’s eyes were still closed, twitching with the amount of effort she was putting into resisting this guy’s spell over her. He had a really good grip, it felt like every time she got close and put more effort in, he got stronger and more elusive.

“Just because my means are not… Conventional, doesn’t mean their purpose wasn’t served. I trained your sister, was her mentor in a way you couldn’t ever be, I made her realize her true potential, perhaps you won’t judge what you come to find after you give me what I want. Yes, I know you’re stubborn, and it is just so sad that your mommy and daddy were killed by stormtroopers, even more tragic, that you seem to have fallen in love with one.” A smile curved on his thin lips, “Abner, is his name? Maybe I should go have a chat like this with him next.”

“Don’t you dare!” Christa seethed as her eyes burst open, anger boiled on her face and her muscles tensed. The pissed Prime scowled and bore her teeth at the two Behemoths, the same room she’d been in. Nothing had changed. Her eyes narrowed, “He would never murder anyone in cold-blood. Unlike yourself.”

“How do you know? How can you really ever know?” His smirk continued as the buttons he was pressing seemed to work perfectly as he toyed with her, still trapped in her little box. “Aren’t all stormtroopers the same?”

Christa felt her eyes widen, just how much of her thoughts, memories, private moments could he see? Fear and shock froze her heart into a glacier. Those had been her words, verbatim. How could any one person inflict this kind of pain? Be capable of creating a world within a mind? The pain twisted and turned within her and she felt a tear form at the corner of her eye as the words echoed in her mind. Her words. She should own them, not be ashamed. She wasn’t ashamed of him. No, and she wouldn’t be manipulated like this. And yet...

“Stop it! How dare you! Who do think you are?” Christa screamed helplessly and fell to her knees. The guns she’d held in her hands clattered with the empty metal they were, to the very real cold rocks that were stabbing through her pants and scraping her shins. Her palms covered the trickles of rain from her eyes as she wept.

Not only had she been beaten. She had lost.