Do you know what the worst thing about this wRHG world is? It’s the fact that it’s no different than the real world at all. The streets are busy with people, the cars are just as obnoxious… and advertisements that cluster among the walls of downtown, they’re all just as desperate to rake as much money out of you as you can. Though their companies don’t even exist.
That’s where I was. In the middle of a people-clustered sidewalk in a city that looked a lot like Chicago once did. As usual, I was fully armed with my magical utilities in case of danger, and as usual I couldn’t shake the feeling that something bad was creeping up on me. Who knew which one of these suitcase-lugging men and women were really a warrior, looking to kill the first true Gladiator that they came across?
I tightened my fist around my staff a bit more, and trudged onwards.
“Liam.” A voice called. Amid the cluster of bodies, I had no idea who it came from, or who it belonged to. My first thought was Titania, whose name shall not be spoken aloud, lest I cause her to appear. To say her Name three times could very well summon the Summer Queen, and in her rage I could be sent to a hell much worse than this one.
“Liam?” It seemed to come from behind me.
I took the initiative, turning sharply, whipping my staff around me and cracking into the skull of the nearest person behind me… who was nothing but a homeless man, who I sent crashing into another woman and careening onto the floor.
The voice turned into a chuckle. “Suspicious as always. Don’t be. Walk into the next alley, and you’ll find me there. We need to talk.”
Don’t be suspicious? Like hell I wouldn’t be. I reached into my pocket and pulled out a handful of gems, filled to the brim with power.
The next alley came, and with a small effort I projected a shield of kinetic energy around me, ready to fling back the first body to come into contact with it.
Fortunately, it wasn’t needed.
Unfortunately, it was because the man who was speaking to me was inside of the shield I had around me. He smiled softly, and spoke, “Hello, Liam.”
“Dear God!” I jumped like a frightened cat, quickly putting two arm’s lengths between me and the man who seemed to materialize beside me.
Though when I looked at him…
His right eye was gone. A puckered hole that stared angrily back at me, though appearing to have known more pain and loss than I will ever feel, despite the lack of an eye. His skin was grey and as dead as the pits of Titania’s dungeons itself, and his right hand… I don’t even know. It was dark and cursed and… evil. Looking at it seemed to almost suck the life out of me.
So I did what any reasonable man would do. I gathered the energy of the gems in my hand, condensed it all into the crystal at the tip of my staff…
And I blew him the fuck apart.
It was like shooting a kitten point blank with a tank’s cannon. With a thunderclap the man’s very body was splashed against the walls, and a mist of blood swirled angrily through the storm of air that had been created by my cannonblast of kinetic energy.
Alpha striking. It’s the best way to fight if you know you’re not gonna miss.
But... before my very eyes, the man’s body seemed to move. Gore and bits of flesh scurried across the walls, conjoining together into mostly-liquid lumps, until I was beginning to recognize pieces again. A bloody arm here, an ear there, even a shoe could be seen rolling across the pavement. They all condensed into what looked to be a fleshy lump floating in the air in front of me, until the lump grew clothes and a head with just one eye, and an arm that looked like it belonged to Death itself.
It dusted itself off.
“What… What the hell are you?” I gasped. It looked at me, more annoyed than anything else.
“My name is Stan Aschebrise. Todesberùhrung. That was not the first time I’ve died, nor the thousandth. I am here before you because I wanted to discuss your death civilly.”
Mostly to hide the pit of terror that was beginning to form under my stomach, I laughed at his face. “MY death? What I did to you was just a fraction of what I’m capable of. I will not be the one who dies if you want to fight me.” A lie, of course. I didn’t want to check and see how much power I had lost by that strike.
Stan seemed to know that, and he almost seemed to grin. “Yes, your death. Although you’re welcome to blow me apart as much as you need to until you’re willing to talk to me calmly.”
I was rattled. “What is there to discuss? What do you have to say?”
“It’s simply a request. Stand still, and let me touch you with my death hand. I don’t want to make this any more painful for you as it has to be.”
“Like hell I’d go down without a fight. Who sent you?”
He paused for a second, mulling that one over. I almost took the opportunity to incinerate him with fire and see if he’d recover from that, but I decided against it. I wanted to see if I could worm out a way to kill Stan before I squandered all of my power.
“She called herself the Summer Queen. She said you’ve done some terrible things. Killed hundreds of people. I think her name was Titani—“
“God dammit, don’t!” I nearly screamed. “Don’t say her name!” Stan quirked an eyebrow at me, but didn’t finish that Name once he saw my fear was genuine.
“Right...” He said. “But, what do you say to this?”
“I say that she’s a trickster. I’ve killed hundreds of people, but they were all hell-bent on killing me. I never had any choice. You should know that this universe is a damned dangerous place.”
“Of course you’d say that. Who’s to say that you didn’t attack them first, or provoke them to try and kill you themselves? You were quite the assassin back on Earth…
“I don’t really like killing people who squirm and scream as I do it, but I made up my mind a long time ago that you had to die.”
I frowned, quickly planning my escape routes if worst came to worst, and wracking my mind furiously for some method of killing Stan before he could touch me. He began to step closer to me.
He made it a quarter of an inch towards me before I let loose with another attack, sending a concentrated ball of fire right through the bastard’s missing eye. It exploded like dynamite inside of him, and his headless body flailed for a second or two before collapsing.
And it again pieced itself together.
“Oh, for the love of…” I backed away as Stan shambled towards me again, his head still halfway torn apart.
That cursed hand of his, the death hand, scared the shit out of me. I’m not gonna lie. I kept myself away from it at any cost, although assault after assault was proving to be hopeless. My power was running out quickly, and I was running out of ideas even faster.
I tore him apart and launched his head into another part of the city. I blew apart a brick wall and buried him beneath the rubble. I imploded his body with a blast of energy from all directions. Nothing worked.
And I was now out of energy.
Stan looked angry. Furious, but still feeling pity for me. What I did was obviously painful to him, but to him it was no more matter than a wounded dog’s dying howls before he shot it in the head. He wanted this over with.
“Maybe this is only a trial before the Summer Queen lets you go.” Stan suggested as he chased me tirelessly. “Once you die, maybe your hell will be over and you’ll be back in the real world.”
“Like hell she’d do that for me.” I gasped, breathing heavily. We were now in a different part of town, and there were shadows all around me. I didn’t notice until it was too late that I had reached a dead end. Even my diamond amulet was depleted at this point, and I was exhausted. Trapped. Hopeless and helpless. I almost wished that I had let Stan end this terror quickly for me.
Stan forced something that almost looked like a smile, as if he wanted to make the last thing I ever saw less terrifying. He was only ten paces from me. “Just out of curiosity, why didn’t you want me to say the Queen’s name? What’s so bad about that?”
I sighed one last time. “It’s because she’d…”
Something clicked inside my head.
Dear God, that was it! And Stan had given it to me himself! Holy moly, if anything could do it, this had to be the thing. The insane risk was worth it!
“It’s because I’m extremely sure that She would end this universe if her name was uttered. For all I know, she created it just to torment me.” I lied to him, not letting Stan see the hope that threatened to show in my eyes.
“I see. Can we get this over with?”
I nodded sadly.
Todesberuhrung raised his arm to touch me.
I waited until the last possible moment, and with adrenaline screaming through my veins and with a surge of wild terror I have never felt before, I shouted into the sky, “TITANIA, TITANIA, I SUMMUN THEE TITANIA!”
And it was the Summer Queen, conquerer of Winter and terror of the Day, that appeared before me. The power that coursed through her was incredible, and time and space literally bent around her as the might inside her being struggled against this world’s confines.
And Stan’s death hand touched her instead of me.
“What is this?” Titania screamed in confusion, while the power of her voice ripped through me and caused my ears to bleed.
She whirled around to face Stan, even as her body began to shift and melt. Even as flakes of skin began to peel off her body.
She looked at herself in terror. “What have you done to me?! Foolish HUMAN! Your power belongs to Death itself! You have no idea of the forces that you wield! The way that every single being you have ever loved will be destroyed by this power!”
She continued to disintegrate before our eyes, and every word brought another assault of agony as her voice ripped through my mind. Stan and I could only quake in terror as a being with the power to destroy galaxies withered away in front of us.
“That will not be enough for me. As I die, I will take you with me, Todesberuhrung. Your suffering will not be forgotten for thousands of years, as we meet again in HELL.”
Bones were sticking through her skin at this point, but she still was able to reach forward, and touch Stan’s temples lightly.
His tortured screaming was the last thing I heard before I passed out.
…
I woke again in the same spot, in a puddle of my own blood. I could hear faintly out of my left ear, but everything else was silence. I could only hope that my hearing would return.
But Stan…
All that remained of him was his cursed hand, sitting on the pavement.