When You Go

“How may I serve you, Mistress?” Strength knelt at the entrance to the cave and the edge of the barrier. The opening was about seven feet tall, so kneeling down was the easiest way for him to see inside.

“Enter, servant.” Nairis’ voice was raspy in her true form. She took great heaving breaths after every sentence. “I require your assistance.”

“You sound like you’re one foot in the grave,” Strength commented, ducking under the entrance and into the cave. Luckily for him, the ceiling quickly rose on the inside. After a step further on his knees, he could stand. “I’m no healer.”

“Indeed. This operation will require the power I’ve given you.” The main room of the cave looked to be in the shape of a dome, and roughly thirty meters in diameter. A tower of metal, five feet tall, stood in the center. It was smooth save for the top and bottom. The bottom had a myriad of wires running from it, both into and along the ground. The top was circular, with the rim divided into four equal segments.

As he walked in, a skeleton clattered through an entrance across from him holding a cartridge filled with blue liquid. It pressed down the circle on top of the generator, and the four segments rose up. Three were full with blue liquid similar to the cartridge the skeleton held, while one was empty. The bag of bones removed the latter segment, pulled out the empty cartridge therein, and replaced it.

“Follow it deeper inside,” her rough voice called, and Strength did as commanded. If he tried hard enough, he could resist her influence, but he had no idea of the repercussions if he broke their deal. The skeleton led him down a long winding passage, ignoring several offshoots. Eventually, he came to a chamber which looked like an actual room. The floor was now a smooth white instead of the earthy brown it had been, and there was a young woman with white hair, strapped to an operating table on the wall. “I have built a more fitting vessel. You must transfer me.”

He was shocked to see Nairis’ lips moving as she spoke. She looked sickly, on the verge of ****. A glance at her aura revealed it to be non-existent. Though there was a bright shimmering ball where her soul should have been. “And how do you propose I do that?”

Memories flit through his mind as he asked the question, and he recognized the sensation as his mind being searched, experiences laid bare for this woman to peruse. He hated the feeling, but withstood it under the promise of greater power.

Behind him, two skeletons, one human, one elvish, brought in another body. It stood motionless against the wall. “Good for menial labor, the undead. Poor fighters.”

This new body looked to be similar to the other, but older and stronger. On close inspection, he could see small imperfections. Long, black nails, one arm longer than the other, a tinge of black on the upper part of the hooded face. “What am I to do?”

“Before, you had the ability to imbue your fists with ruinous power, in an attempt to deconstruct the body. When your soul was taken from you, this ability was lost. In its place, I have given you the ability to deconstruct the soul. For a time I resided in the soul of this girl, but I have long since absorbed it. I need you to reach inside of her to rip me out, plunging me into my perfect vessel. Then we will dispose of the body.”

He attempted to activate this power, and felt a vacuum surge through his veins. A hunger. A desire for emptiness to be filled. Instead of the radiant green that enshrouded his arm upon previous use, he saw black. Or rather, he didn’t see anything. His entire arm swallowed all light around it, trapping it and releasing nothing. He reached his open hand inside the girl, and found that it passed through effortlessly, his hand incorporeal.

It seized around the orb that contained his mistress, and ripped it out of her host. The girl let out a gasp which started in Nairis’ voice but ended in her own. Strength jammed his fist into the new body, and felt it be **** out as the soul and parasite took hold. “My apologies, servant. You may find it difficult to use that power on those with the ability to harness the magic of their soul. This body is so powerful that you were **** out.”

He felt her weight solidify on his mind, pushing down on the urge to run away from the beautiful monstrosity in front of him. “Here, let me make it better.” Her voice was no longer the raspy struggle it had been, but matched the seductive illusion she had portrayed. Her hand reached up and just barely managed to brush his check, nails leaving a blistering hot trail in their wake. It encircled his neck, hardly fitting around a third of it, but brought him down to look her in the eyes nonetheless. “Give me a kiss.”

After the show ended, they all decided to go out and eat together in Springfield, with the addition of Sable. The six of them sat packed into the booths of an upscale Chinese food restaurant. They had ordered and got their drinks so they were now waiting for their food.

“Sorry I brushed you off before. No offense, but people who perform covers are a dime a dozen. You’ve really got it though!” Sable elbowed Jenny playfully before offering her something, a white plastic card between her middle and index finger. “This is a permit to play outside of the Inferno on your off days. Exclusivity was built into your contract, darling. Don’t worry, though, I took care of it for you.”

She’s still acting like she’s so much better than everyone else! She’s doing me a favor though... Jenny took the card gracefully from the guitarist and slid it into her back pocket. “Thanks! I guess I didn’t think about that before. You really saved my ass.”

The waiter came over with their food, save for John’s, which had yet to be finished. Plates were laid out in front of everyone except for him. He was tempted to pull out the remaining cookies, driven to hunger by the intoxicating smell of beef, chicken, and pork all around him.

“Well, you can repay me by starting to perform your own music. You’ve got your own message, your own style, and it’s not too dissimilar from the covers you perform, but once you play what you’ve written, I think you’ll find it’ll resonate with people a lot more. Say, Gracie?” Sable nudged her sister, who was busy watching Abigail destroy a plate of pork-fried rice.

“They made the rice taste like meat! How is that possible!?” Abigail commented, as the server took her old plate and brought her a new one.

“Yeah?” Grace eventually managed, tearing her eyes away from the voracious beast next to her.

“Isn’t this that bird what you had your bounty hunting test with?” Sable asked, unwrapping her chopsticks and snapping them apart.

“Oh, yeah. My second one. Small world and all that. Why do you ask?” Grace replied, looking Jenny up and down.

“Didn’t want to be a bounty hunter, did ya? We’re performers you and I. They destroy, we create. So it goes.” Sable hooked an arm around Jenny and took out her phone, turning on the camera. “I think you’d make a good rival. You should aim for center stage, I’ll have you open for us on Sunday. Gotta rise through the rankings first. Let’s have a picture, for the fans.”

“I’m not gonna turn something like that down. You’re really going to have my band open for you after hearing one performance?” Jenny asked, smiling into the camera and flashing a ‘rock on’ symbol with her hands as the fake shutter clicked.

“As long as you perform your own stuff and you find a guitarist other than this one,” she reached over Jenny to poke John in the chest, the blow to his pride ignored as his food was finally set in front of him, “then yeah! Have you thought of recording an album?”

“I have the songs for it, but I think I’m gonna try performing them first,” Jenny replied, sipping her water. “I know them but I haven’t played them. I’ve got a feeling that what I think is going to change.”

“Yeah, makes sense,” Sable responded, grabbing a piece of beef with her chopsticks. “So, what’s your deal then? Gracie’s been making googly eyes at you all night.” Her chopsticks were pointed at Abigail, who paused her eating when she noticed that all the attention was on her.

“Wha?” Abigail asked through a mouthful of rice, looking around at the table. All eyes were on her, and she swallowed before saying. “Oh! I’m Abigail! I’m a bounty hunter too! I turn into fire and beat up strong people.”

“Strong evil people, right, Abigail?” John corrected, laughing in his seat. It felt nice to not have the attention on him in this awkward situation. He looked at Grace smugly, who was looking away from the table, doing her best not to attract any additional attention.

“Yeah, if there are any. I’m not really picky though. I did beat you,” Abigail replied with a thoughtful look, bringing the handle of her fork to the tip of her chin.

“I was being mind controlled! Besides, that was after I beat you,” John argued as the brunette resumed her eating.

“Yeah, I don’t remember that,” Abigail replied nonchalantly, not bothering to look up from her food when she replied.

“Fine! You want round two!?” John asked in disbelief, slamming his fist onto the table.

“Uh-huh. Let’s do it. I’m going to finish eating first though.” Her self-satisfied smile tipped him off, and he immediately realized what he’d done.

How did she do that? John looked to Jenny for support, but she shrugged as if to say ‘you walked into that one.’ Sighing in defeat, he decided to enjoy his food before getting the crap beaten out of him.