by Kell Inkston
Colette takes a deep breath, ignoring the remark, and starts up in response. “I’ll get her back! Chill o-”
“No you won’t. You’ve done enough, Colette. Tomorrow I’ll take you to the elder, maybe find someone to take care of you, put you in the worker’s house, I don’t know, but this has gone on long enough.” At that, he turns to the door.
“No, trust me! I can do i-” Her voice is overpowered by the door slamming shut. She freezes, staring as if he were still there for a moment, and then she leans back. Colette takes a deep breath, suppresses the pain both in her mortal coil and surrounding her emotions. Clenching a fist, she looks to the dark window and stares out to the stars. A minute of mental preparation passes; she slips from the bed onto her feet, takes up her crutch, and hops out the window.
She hasn’t recovered, not by a long shot— but so long as she has her crutch, she’ll get there.
Colette knows the roads well enough by night from her numerous moon-lit hunts. Before long, the teasing rays and purple swirls of dawn wrap around the sky. The world warms the earth and the dewed grass springs up to meet the day. Two hours of eventless walking goes on, and she finds the capital of the overlord at the end of it—spiraling gray stone towers, rows of luxurious buildings, gaudy banners, and the overlord’s stupid face plastered everywhere as an impressionistic icon of ownership.
She limps up with her walking aid over to the draw bridge. Two men, one she recognizes from the raider group, step forward. “Ay, you’re that bitch that killed the ol’ chief,” the left guard says, pointing a gloved finger in accusation.
“Oi, this is the one?” the right guard asks in shock, “She’s a little… eh, small, don’cha thin-”
“Let me see the overlord,” Colette hisses from between her teeth.
The two men look at one another and the left one addresses her. “Ayyy, well, I don’t think his highness would very much appreciate some blond bitch runnin’round the castle causin’ a ruckus.”
She grins and her eyes widen to take the both of them into her view. “Are you saying he’d have trouble with a cripple?”
The left one draws back. “W-well no, lass, ju-”
“Or a girl?” she adds.
The right one chuckles and nudges the left one. “She’s a good one, eh? Let’er see the lord.”
The left guard sighs, pauses and then nods in acceptance. “Fine, but if ya’ cause any trouble, we’ll be poppin’ those eyes of yours right out, just like yesterday, ya’stand?”
The two split to make way for Colette and, as she passes, she nods. “I ‘stand.” She continues through and into the regal halls of the overlord’s castle.
Stepping through, Colette scowls at the gaudy paintings and decorum. It’s obvious to her that the overlord keeps much for himself and provides little, if anything, for the people under his dominion. She passes by a couple of shirtless butlers, looking confoundedly at the bruised, bandaged, furious girl plodding forward on a crutch; it’s not hard to find the overlord’s throne room thanks to the linear, steadily-upward climb of the burgundy hall. When she reaches the end of the grandiose passage, she finds herself at two double doors— intricately carved with the overlord’s own naked figure, sprawling out for his beloved subjects. With a wince of disgust and some considerable difficulty, she pushes the door open with her head and shoulders.
A few dozen meters off is the overlord’s empty throne, lit by a faint light in the protruding darkness surrounding. Colette steps in twenty paces and takes a deep breath. “Overlord, I’ve come for you!”
“Oh my~” emerges a voice from above. The doors behind Colette shut immediately.
The room illuminates with a scandalous satin flush. Smooth jazz picks up to set the mood. Magic lights glow in sensuous presentation as the barely-clothed, horrifically-hot overlord of the realm descends from the air.
Colette draws back in a mix of shock and adolescent confusion. “Y-you’re the overlord?!”
He nods, his luscious raven locks cascading gently over his face as he bends in the air, the red light revealing his carved muscles with a sexy, well oiled array. “Yeah. So, girl, you’ve come for me?” He asks, kneeling forward and striking a domineering pose as he assesses her appearance; she looks— familiar to him, somehow.
Colette scowls as she searches the blank room for a weapon of some sort. “Yeah, to kill you!” She snaps, brandishing her crutch.
He raises a subtle, teasing brow, and smiles the moment he realizes where he's seen her before. “Oh? Could it be one of my subjects has forgotten her place?”
She ridges herself for a fight. “No, I’ve remembered my dignity! My town won’t be your toy anymore! You can’t just do as you please from now on— or else you’ll answer to me!”
He flips in the air onto his stomach and rests his chin upon his steepled hands. “Oh?”
“Yeah! Now put up your-”
“Colette?” A voice calls from aside.
Colette looks over along with the overlord to see Grancis, peeking from a door-frame and dressed in a considerably-scandalous maid outfit.
The suave, sexy overlord looks between the two of them and a realization crosses his features. He nods. “Ahh, you’ve come for her, haven’t you?”
Colette nods. “That’s right. I’m here to kill you and save her!”
The overlord hums and floats into a contemplative sitting position. “So I guess she’s really special to you?”
“Of course!” Colette exclaims.
The scandalous overlord hums again and shrugs. “Very well then, maid, come over here.” He wags his finger forward to Grancis, who obeys and steps forward.
Colette spares no time to embrace her friend. “Are you oka-”
Grancis glances sharply at Colette. “You shouldn’t have come here,” she mutters before stepping to the overlord’s side.
Colette draws back as the overlord coos in interest. “Wh-what do you mean?” Colette asks.
“You can’t kill the overlord, idiot. Look, he’s floating! He’s obviously ridiculously powerful; this is just like the raiders. Know when to quit, Colette!” Grancis says this with a cross, direct gaze. “I’m okay here! Go back to the village and tell my dad I’m okay. They’re not doing anything to me, and I’m paying off the debt. It’ll take a few years, but I’ll be okay. You’ve done enough. Turn around—go home.”
Colette stares into Grancis’ indignant brown eyes. “Gran, I promised your dad I’d bring you back,” she says, winning a chuckle from the overlord.
“Well break your promise,” Grancis says plainly, tactfully ignoring the overlord’s touch along her neck and shoulders.
“I… I can’t do that. You know I can’t.”
Grancis takes a deep, deep breath and exhales. “Fine. Then,” she nods over to the overlord, now doing his best to relax her with a massage. “I suppose you’re going to try to kill him.”
Colette nods. “It’ll be hard— but if I don’t try, then I’ll be less than a coward.”
Grancis sighs. “Like alive? Is that less than a coward?”
Colette scoffs. “Get real.”
“And there’s absolutely nothing I can do to stop you?”
“…No.”
The two share gazes a moment and then Grancis nods with a bland expression. “Okay, I get it… You really are completely, irrevokab-” Grancis is cut short by a laugh from the overlord, simultaneously pushing her aside with a gentle, encouraging warmth.
“Well, this is just so heartwarming and all, but I think it’s about time we got started with our duel. You see, I’m a busy man and I don’t have time to play ‘hero and villain’ with just anyone,” he sneers, shifting his position mid-air a few meters to look as though he’s standing at the ready.
Colette turns from Grancis and begins limping forward.
Grancis puts her hands together to silently beg for mercy, and the overlord spots her.
Colette steps forward slowly, pathetically, but with every fiber of her
being pushing forward in her commitment to her goal. Everyone can see the killer in her eyes, but the body isn’t moving along with what they’re foretelling.
The overlord smirks crassly when Colette throws a punch forward. He only needs to raise his hand and redirect the force to throw her completely off balance. He watches her with a snide, superior gaze as she struggles to push herself off the floor. “Is this really all you have?”
Colette picks herself up again after a few seconds of struggling and, in a singular movement, the overlord puts his foot down and breaks her crutch. She falls sideways, and he laughs.
“B-bastard!”
His trim eyebrows raise in mock concern. “Oh! Was I not supposed to do that? I guess reality can be pretty hard to deal with when you’re the one on the floor, hmm?” He asks as he takes to the ground and crouches over her.
“I won’t… give u-” The overlord raises his finger, carrying a magic presence, and Colette can no longer push the words from her lungs.
“Of course you won’t give up— stupid human,” he says, making a slight hand gesture that turns her over onto her back. “Only the smart ones of your kind know when to bow down and obey… here.” Grancis flinches and Colette cringes as the overlord reaches up her pant leg. There’s a thin light that emerges around where Colette’s injury is and then strangely enough, it stops hurting. “And while I’m at it…” He touches a couple other spots on her body over the next minute, pressing with a closeness that causes to Colette to reel in a simultaneous attraction and agony. Immediately after each touch, the pain and weakness leaves each area.
Colette sits up a moment and the overlord offers her his hand. She refuses and stands up by her own accord, swiftly adding distance between them. “Why?” she demands, suddenly able to push out words again.
“I have a proposition for the two of you,” he says with a devilish, handsome smile.
Colette raises a blond brow. “Speak.”
The overlord shrugs in feigned offense. “You want to kill me, right?”
“Of course.”
He draws back more. “Oh! Not even a second needed to think about it! Well okay then, miss heroine. How about you and I make a wager?” Colette’s silent. “Very good! So, I’ll give you a whole year to train up, learn from others and become as strong as you possibly can. At the end of the year, you both will return, and we’ll duel. If you can’t kill me, then you’ll both agree to become my brides— you’ll have to do whatever I say for as long as you live, and I promise I’ll go especially hard on you. Sounds good?”
Colette squints. “Why would you offer this?”
He grins. “What a simple question! I want to see you fail completely. I don’t want you to have any excuses besides your own pathetic human weakness for when I take ownership over your soul. I only like obedient spirits, after all, and you’re not ready yet.”
Grancis is stunned, and Colette stares deep into the overlord’s piercing crimson eyes. “And if I refuse?”
His grin is long. “I’ll kill you right here, and you can bet I’ll just take your little Grancis as my bride anyway. I am the overlord here, after all. I can do whatever the hell I want with you little monkeys. Surely even you can’t be so dull as to overlook the grace I’m showing you.”
There’s a silence amidst the smooth jazz music as it tunes out into the open hall ambiance. Colette nods. “You have yourself a wager. Four hundred and forty eight days from now, you’re a dead man.”
He laughs. “Very well, my dear. I’ll be counting the days until our reunion,” the dark lord coos as he waves his hand forward to open the doors leading out of the palace. “I wish you the finest success.”
Colette stares at the brilliant tyrant with a last look of pure contempt before she turns, takes Grancis by the hand, and leaves.
“Wh-… so you’re letting us go? Really?” Grancis asks, still failing to register what just happened.
The overlord nods with a smile. “Toodleloo, my little pet. Such a shame we couldn’t get properly introduced. I suppose I’ll just have to fantasize about you for the coming year,” he says with a surprisingly friendly wave off.
“So… I’m free,” Grancis mutters, just loud enough for Colette to hear while they step out.
Colette nods. “Yeah. A year to get ready and then I’ll kill him.”
Grancis is wide eyed as she’s pulled along. “But… then we’ll be married… to the over-”
“No. I’ll win. Don’t even worry about it because that’ll never happen,” Colette promises as they exit the keep. The two step outside and stand still in a bustling square of people.
“Colette, we’re… we’re going back to the town, right?” Grancis asks this with a nervous look as she wrings her hands.
Colette says nothing, but looks around, searching for someone strong— someone that would look to be the apprenticing type. She sees no one that really looks the part, and as she continues looking, her gaze is increasingly drawn to a mysterious structure down the street.
What she sees is the overlord’s personal space gate, an enormous stone structure charged with magical energy that has existed long before most realms began recording time.
“That’s a good…what is that?” Colette asks distractedly, watching a pair of guards input sigil coordinates into the side of the gate and step through the emerging portal.
The guards disappear, and Colette’s fascination emerges— Grancis will have none of it.
“Colette,” Grancis steps in, “No. That’s a space gate; you missed that class— well, that entire week— in school, so allow me to fill you in.” Colette looks to Grancis with curiosity. “Demons! Witchcraft! Realms of violence and horror beyond human understanding! There’s a reason people go through those gates only once— they get lost and never return! Like, you put in a gate code for the dimension you want to go to, but we obviously don’t know where we’d end up. We'd probably end up in some terrible desert, or a jungle filled with all sorts of deadl-”
“But the portal from those guys is still open. Let’s just follow them!” Colette begins tugging Grancis along.
“Colette, no! We don’t know where they went, it could be anywhere!” Grancis breaks free of Colette’s grip.
“Hey, what’s the matter? Are you afraid?” Colette asks, turning back to her friend.
Grancis’ expression is indignant and wide-eyed as she shakes her head sarcastically. “Afraid? No! I couldn’t possibly be! We’re just going to walk through that gate and get eaten by a dragon the second we exit, or we could drown, or burn, or get dissolved, or electrocuted, or be decompressed, or something else that would be ‘super cool’ if we were lucky. Mr. Ja-”
“I don’t care what that nerdy teacher said. If it’s that scary in there, then I’m sure there must be some real badasses, too. Let’s do it, Grancis!”
Grancis pushes her hands into her face and takes a labored, exasperated breath. “Colette, please! My father’s waiting for me.”
“What are you gonna tell ‘em? ‘Hey I’m back pa, but just for a year, then I’m off to be in the overlord’s harem forever— thanks!’ ”
“N-no! But at least I’ll get some time to… you know, spend with him. Time to grieve— and at least he’ll know I’m oka-”
“So you don’t think I can do it?” Colette’s stare is firm, but she’s smirking confidently.
Grancis looks to the road leading to their village. “I just… I don’t, Colette.” She steps back, toward the road of the village. “I really don’t, and I’d rather have one more year with my dad than walk through this gate and be imprisoned for life as intruders or something.”
“Yeah, but if we stay at the village, we’ll have no chance… Look, I was deluding myself. If the overlord can fly around and cast spells and shit like he did, then he’s tough. I thought that I could beat him with my will alone, but he was right— I’m going to need to train. If you and I are going to see the light of day a year from now, I’ll need to find the biggest,
baddest killing machine in the Omniverse and get this bastard to train me! Someone with so many souls under his belt that he could make a planet out of the bodies, and the only way is through that portal! Come on, Gran; take a risk for once in your life.” Colette reaches out her hand to take Grancis’. “I can’t do it without you, Gran. You’re my only friend… please.”
Grancis hesitates. “But— but I’ll never see him again.”
“That’s up to you. We can get through this but only if we do it together! Now are you going to accept defeat, or go with me and strive for the gold?”
Grancis takes a deep breath and takes Colette’s hand. “Okay, Colette. Fine. If we die, we die to save the village.”
Colette’s smile turns into a radiant grin, and the duo takes off to the gate. There’s enough time in the portal’s opening to take them to the same place the two guards went off to, wherever that might be. At the precipice of the portal, shining with colors their eyes cannot even process, they look back to the great wood— the one containing Grancis’ home, friends, and father. For Colette, she feels she may never see the town again, and she’s okay with that. With a solemn, smiling nod, the two enter the swirling vortex and feel their entireties pulled into the vast expanse of the Omniverse.
Where the Freaks Call Home
All the two are aware of for the next ten seconds, is smallness, confusion, awe— and something resembling terror, but of the most beautiful kind. Colette cannot see Grancis, and Grancis cannot see Colette; they feel as if they’re bearing witness to the truth of all that exists, yet the language is indecipherable to them.
It passes like a howling breeze in the void of a dark winter, and the next step they make is on black rain-slick brickery. The duo realizes their surroundings as a vast misty port, lights and buildings as far as their young eyes can see— which isn’t all that far, mind you, because the fog’s really thick. Before they fully regain themselves, the two are approached by a man wearing a full, concealing, shining protective suit. His helmet visor blinks blue at the sight of them.
