56

Chapter 56: Facing an old opponentNotes:

Surprisingly I haven´t managed to kill myself yet while working with dangerous chemicals. So have another chapter :)

EDIT: 29.000 Hits!

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

Chapter 56

There stood it, propped up on her desk.

A small, unassuming casket, lined with red velvet.

It would have been a harmless looking object, pleasant even with its intricate details that had been carefully carved into the wood.

But alas Tanya could only feel dread whenever her eyes wandered over to its frame. For inside shimmered a bright, golden gemstone on a silver necklace that seemed to almost call out for her to touch it. The jewel appeared perfectly smooth to the touch and practically brimmed with mesmerizing light. It was that strange amulet which Regulus had delivered to her for some nebulous reason.

She had put off examining the potentially dangerous object until now so that the magician Reinhard had hired could examine it closely. In case it suddenly blew up or carried some nasty curse she wanted to be as far away as possible from it.

Despite her precautions she honestly doubted that it was a trap designed to physically harm her. If Regulus had wanted her dead then he could have easily accomplished that with his own powers. He had no need to rely on such cheap tricks like curses or poisons, because his own powers were far more effective in eliminating others.

Non-physical harm though was a different story.

What if the witch's cult planned to mind control her? Or steal her soul or something like that? Nothing seemed impossible for these freaks. So hopefully the magician had activated every single trap in that item before she took it herself. Although he was not the most capable magic expert even a fool like him could trigger a metaphorical tripwire. Dogs and rats had been used with great success to set off landmines in the past.

Of course the safest and most logical thing to do would be to quietly dispose of the necklace and never go near it again, but she was just too curious. For all his excessive talking about his supposed superiority the sin archbishop of greed had appeared far more calm and reasonable than the raving madman Petelgeuse. He didn´t strike her as the kind of person who would go out of their way to promote some pointless delusion without evidence that it would be worth their effort. As such, the probability that his words had some kind of truth to them was relatively high in her opinion. (At least for a member of a religious terrorist sect.)

He had claimed that the artefact was of "grave importance for the future" whatever that meant and as such she could not ignore it (as much as she wanted to). Tanya had never been a person who ran from her problems if she could solve them so that they would not come back to inconvenience her later. This mysterious object could be source of innumerable troubles in the future if she did not discern its function.

In the best possible scenario it was just a piece of pretty, useless jewellery, but should worst come to worst then it could be something like a magical nuke.

Well, she had stalled enough time now. She had stared at the accursed stone for nearly an hour with nothing to show for it so she needed to come to a decision. Time was money and money was always in short supply.

Hesitantly she stretched her finger out and gingerly touched the golden glowing gemstone, letting her magic flow through her skin into the object.

A decision she came to instantly regret as her vision blacked out and she was promptly sucked into a white room of pure nothingness. A blinding, uniform void surrounded her on all sides and made it impossible to tell if the empty space had an up or down or a definitive border. However when she looked hurriedly down at herself she could also find no physical body, leading to the realization that what she was experiencing was most likely not real.

Looking around was obviously pointless as there were no directions or shapes that could catch her metaphysical eyes, but Tanya did it anyway.

Pure white.

"Why couldn´t this happen to the useless magician? I will have to tell Reinhard to fire him for gross negligence in his duties. Obviously he did not do his job right or else he would have reported this to me."

Nothing changed in response to her plight. Typical.

"What now?" she asked.

"I am here child." suddenly echoed through her mind. It was a voice that seemed to consist of thousands of sounds made by different people of all genders and ages. Yet at the same time it was uniform and clear to understand. Familiar dread and disgust pooled in her stomach.

"Being X!" she hissed, her nonexistent face twisting in rage.

He was here! He had followed her even to this world! She should not have expected anything less. Naturally this devil was in cahoots with the maniac terrorists! The foul witch who destroyed half the world out of petty spite sounded exactly like that bastard!

"That is what you call me."

"Have you sent me this trinket to mock me? Is this another cursed instrument of your torture like the Type 95?"

"No. I am not here of my own volition."

She would not be tricked by his poisonous lies!

"What? You expect me to believe that? Hysterical!"

"It is your choice to believe me or not."

Tanya huffed indignantly, but continued to listen.

"You and I are both being played here. We need to work together if we want to take back control."

"Ha! As if! Time and time again you have preached to me about your might and wisdom. Your supposed divinity was the whole selling point behind your ill-fated attempts to 'convince' me to worship you. And with 'convincing' I mean brainwashing. What a brave and fair method to win a philosophical argument. How 'godly' of you to resort to such measures as the allegedly more wise and rational being between the two of us."

The sarcasm in her tone was so thick her words came out as more of a beastly snarl than a human voice.

"Enough! I am serious. There is not the time to discuss such bygone trivialities."

"Trivialities? Really? Corrupting my mind with fanatic faith whenever I am forced to use the Type 95 is a triviality for you? Yanking me into an entirely different dimension after you tried your damndest to make my life a living hell is a triviality for you? Not for me dickhead! And now you played your puppet to give me this cursed stone! Like a fool I touched it. I should have known better really. Your tricks are as despicable as they are predictable."

"Whoever gave you entry this place was not one of my followers."

"Give up. It´s pathetic. Say your piece and leave me be."

The entity began to sound frustrated:

"This world is not one of my making. I did not bring you here."

"Of course. Then who else? Buddha? Or perhaps your son Jesus Christ?"

"No. Like I said I am not here to debate with you. I understand that you despise me although I pity you for it. You attempt to stray so far from my light, yet you cannot see how close I always was to you. But I digress. I offer you peace my child. I will respect your feelings for me and you in turn will cooperate. Let us leave the past behind us and work together for the moment. Is that not a reasonable agreement?"

"Huh? Are you serious? After all these years you finally got it through your thick skull that I will never join the cult of a bloodthirsty maniac? And I am supposed to be thankful for that and play along as if I could ever forget what you did to me? Forgiveness has to be earned and you have done nothing to prove yourself as trustworthy to me! Not to mention that I would receive no benefit from this arrangement."

Tanya was well aware that her hatred for Being X was clouding her judgement to a certain extent, (as all human emotion did) but she could not bring herself to care. In her opinion she was more than forthcoming by engaging in conversation at all. This pretentious entity wanted her cooperation in whatever hare-brained scheme he had cooked up now, but could not get the basics of business right: Provide an incentive.

At the end of the day peace was also just a product that needed to be bought with goods and services. Without a price nothing would change.

"I see. You are as greedy as always Tanya. How annoying. Then I shall make an offer. For freeing me from this place I am going to be indebted to you. As a sign of my thanks I will not ever bother you again if you so choose. My word might not mean much to you, but I do solemnly swear that we shall never meet again if you help me out."

Oppressive silence filled the void.

"Calm, Tanya. Think logically." she reminded herself

Alright. That was tempting. Too good to be true in fact. How could this situation actually be real?

It had to be a trick. A delusion. A ploy.

But if he spoke the truth...

She roared in laughter: "Hahaha! You idiot! Repeat what you want from me."

"I wish for you to free me from this prison and in exchange I will leave you with the loneliness you so desire."

She laughed harder.

"Hahahahaha! Ha ha –wheeze – So you are saying that you are trapped in this place, presumably in the gemstone and can´t get out?"

"Yes?"

"Then I already got what I wanted! I just throw you in the ocean to be buried for all eternity! Hahaha! You are at my mercy! I´ll never have to see you again if you are trapped in here!"

...

"Not gonna respond to that? Did it now dawn on you how utterly helpless you are? You have nothing to offer me while I got everything I ever wanted. Wallow in your misery you parasite! Perhaps you should try praying to ME from now on!"

With a calmness that felt very off-putting the featureless voice spoke once again:

"Your species takes comfort in being led and guided through life. You search for meaning where there was none and create your own. The desire for reason and purpose... is that not so terribly human?"

"What are you talking about?"

"In your specific case you found meaning in your continued resistance against me regardless of how futile."

Like so often she wanted to punch his arrogant face which was unfortunately impossible since he lacked a face and she a fist.

"You let your hatred define you so that you could find your path in existence."

"Your point?"

Unperturbed by her interruption he continued:

"Opposing me for the difference in philosophy I represent has become a staple of your personality. And when you are confronted with a situation that requires you to ignore your disgust then you are unable to realize the bigger picture."

Incorrect. She had thought her response through completely. It wasn't her fault that he was so stupid.

"For you see... As much as I am unable to escape this void alone..."

Even without a body she flinched at his next words.

"So are you."

"Shiiiiiiiiit."

Notes:

All the build up for this? Was it worth it? Probably not, but I have plans for this plot twist that will come into play later on hehe

Well at this pace it´s gonna take another 50 chapters to get there, but what can I do ¯\_(ツ)_/¯