Shadow Slave AU: Fluid Fate

Sunny started to hear the voice of the Spell, and jolted awake.

He was disoriented for a moment. Sunny had remembered being forced to his knees. He had been facing Dread lord, and . . . woken up here.

His surroundings were completely different from what they were only a moment before. Luckily, he was not so easily startled. Not anymore. As he quickly scanned his surroundings with Shadow Sense, he realized where he was and turned his head to the sky.

There, he saw the familiar sight of the Spell's inner workings. Countless strings made of light wove in between countless stars, and connected to countless more, stretching as far and as wide as the eye could see. Sunny remembered the first time he laid eyes upon it, and realized that he could now see much more of the bigger picture than he could before.

It didn't take long for the Spell to interrupt his thoughts.

[Prepare for appraisal...]

Indeed, it seemed as though the cohort had conquered the Third Nightmare somehow. At least that was what Sunny had wanted to believe until...

[Your Memories have been Destroyed]

[Your Shadows have been Destroyed]

[Your shadows have been Sealed]

[The Third Seal has locked your Potential]

[The Second Seal has locked your Potential]

[Ascended! Your trial has Failed!]

[A Divine Shadow Sailed the Endless River. He went mad until Madness was his greatest friend. He betrayed his friends until he lost his will to live. He corrupted all he could, and killed all he couldn't. In the end, he asked himself? "Could a wretch like me even be redeemed?" The thought ate at his psyche until he tried. Once he began to try, he found himself unable to stop. He created a plan, and began to absolve his sins, and was crushed under the weight of his sins. The world was almost destroyed after Weaver's plans for Lost from Light were ruined. In the end, Weaver, firstborn of the God of ######, had to make a final desperate gamble, and launched the soul of Lost from Light into the young shadow's own treacherous past, and laughed madly as they began to desperately reweave the fraying strings of Fate.]

[You have slain a Great Beast: Daeron of Twilight.]

[You have slain a...]

The Spell rambled on and on, but Sunny paid it no mind. He furiously dove into his Soul Sea. There, he was stunned by what he saw.

He felt regret. He felt fear. Most of all, he felt anger. His Shadows, Nightmare, Saint, and Fiend. He even felt that Soul Serpent was destroyed. Somehow he knew it didn't matter. Everything felt... wrong.

He was Dormant. He was Weak. He was... strangely, at peace. It was not a comfortable feeling. Something was forcing him to level his emotions. He needed to know what was happening.

It took a long time for the Spell to finish announcing his kills. He didn't even know how much time had past. He certainly didn't care. He knew that he had died. The memories of that dragon's maw, moments before the sickening crunch... he shuddered. That one was definitely going to the top three of his least favorite deaths.

Finally, a new notification rang on his ears.

[Dreamer Lost From Light. Your world has been destroyed.]

[Your Fate is weaker and more uncertain than ever before.]

[The path ahead is infinitely more perilous than before and, should you choose to proceed, you will perhaps be tested more than any sane mortal could ever bear.]

[Sunless. Would you like to try again? Would you like to continue your Nightmare?]

Sunless stood frozen. He stared at the runes, over and over again, but no matter how many times he read them, no matter how much he understood their meaning, he could not change what he read.

He felt Indignant. How many times had he brushed with death? How many times had he cheated it? What was the point of it all, if he had to go through with it all again? Could he? Did he even want to try?

Sunny knew the answer, and he hated himself all the same for it. 'Yes. It'd be a shame to throw away my last gamble. I just hope Weaver isn't going to get me killed this time.'

His vision went black, and the ground beneath him gave way. As he fell into a seemingly endless black sea, he also drifted into a comfortable sleep.

[Wake up, Lost from Light!]

***

Sunny opened his eyes.

The armored ceiling over his head seemed eerily familiar. The steel plates overhead were no comforting sight, but it felt nice to not see seven suns, high over his head. He had missed the real world, more than he would have liked.

It was safe, and familiar. No more monsters, no more corrupted versions of his friends, no enemies as far as he could sense. At least, not yet.

It was... alien.

The pain from his wounds was gone at least, so he could take stock of his surroundings in peace.

Slowly, he looked down and then froze, breathless.

Deja Vu, what a peculiar sensation.

He look down from his reinforced medical bed at the sight of a cheap plastic chair.

In it, he saw a very nostalgic sight. Her short, pitch black hair and her eyes which were a rich, deep blue. Her pale skin was as pale as synth paper, and yet she she did not seem unhealthy.

Jet was once again wearing the same dark blue uniform Sunny had met her in, with those silver epaulets and the tacky military boots. He even recognized the way she left her tank top open for view.

'What in the Spell?' he thought. 'This is like the first time I met her!'

Before Sunny had time to process where he was and why he was strapped to a medical bed, he was asked a question.

"What are you looking at?" There it was, that same humorless tone.

Sunny blinked a couple of times, and laughed mischievously. He opened his mouth and answered:

"A corpse."

Ah, there was that terror he remembered. He almost forgot how scary that smile of hers was. She even had that "this is going to hurt" gleam that radiated from her eyes.

He could say that the slap came without any warning, or that he didn't deserve it considering that he didn't pop off with a comment about her breasts this time, but as the most honest person in two worlds, he had to admit that he could have thought his words out a little more, considering it was a sensitive topic.

His whole body turned with the slap, and jerked against his bindings. He was once again lucky they were there.

'Damnation!' He thought. It shouldn't have hurt that bad even if she went full power, much less if she tapped him like that!

It took a second to take in where he was, and why this all felt so familiar.

'What the spell? I actually got sent back in time!!' Suddenly, Sunless didn't even have the first clue what what happening. He almost wanted to shout his frustration out at the world. He decided against it, since he was not particularly happy about the idea that everyone would know how crazy he was.