"Thank you for your contact. If you have any questions, feel free to call us again. Have a nice day!"

And done. I finally let out my breath and relax my neck. Was that the 20th? I never know. I guess I shoul-

Ring, ring!

And here we go again.

"Hello, my name is Jack Coast. Thank you for calling the Maxnet Support Center. How can we help you?"

"Finally! I've been calling for ages! Don't you people work there? Let me tell you..."

After 20 minutes of ranting and me trying to wrestle some semblance of cooperation from some angry lady, the call finally goes off and I hurry to log off the system. There are few things worse than that extra call you may get after your shift if you are too slow to get on your feet.

I head to the office kitchen, fill my water bottle, go to the bathroom for a quick piss and then hurry out of that hellhole - a place those that are unfamiliar with it call Maxnet Technical Support Call Center. My job, curse, and lifeline.

I've worked just over 6 hours - the morning and a bit - and still, I feel like I've survived a buffalo stampede going over my head while I tried to keep balanced on a tight rope. Scratch that. On poisoned and barbed tight rope. In flames.

To put it simply, I hate my job. I am pretty sure everyone else I work with also hates their jobs, but hey, we all got to make a living, don't we?

Still, some days, I just wished people were a tad little better. It would certainly make my job less miserable, not having to deal with insufferable assholes who just want someone to yell to. Or people that are so stupid that they could rival iron buckets on an intellectual match. Or even people that just think I am guilty of the massive incompetence the internet provider I work for is responsible for - if you had any doubts, DO NOT HIRE MAXNET.

Currently, I am waiting at the bus stop for my ride. Together with my fellow zombie workforce, we eagerly await the metaphorical moving jail and not so metaphorical body hugging.

It is funny to think that I have been so physically close to those people - for years now - and still, I have never really talked to any of them. It may have to do with the fact that we all have that void look in our eyes. The look of people resigned to do the same thing every day for the rest of our lives.

It is that kind of mentality that just feels it is okay to suffer daily so that we can actually live in the gaps between chores - what some call free time but is actually nothing of the sort.

What was this situation called again...? Capitalism, right?

But again, maybe not really. Maybe this is just life at its finest. I am not sure there is any better way to live in modern society.

So I just go along with it. One boring, stressful day after the other. Working in a job that is definitely not suited for me - not with my slight antisocial, human-hating outlook on the world - feeling like a robot following call scripts and compliance guidelines and then taking uncomfortable, personally intrusive rides back and forth between my home and workplace.

Talking about my ride, it is getting here. The bus of number 5106 comes forth, packed as always with what feels like hundreds of tortured souls, with desperate sockets of despair in place for eyes. I follow the line, with bodies pressing me from the back and front and get up in the bus.

The familiar, hot and sweaty air immediately fills my nostrils and I have to hold a sigh escaping my mouth. Some days are harder than others.

Oh, how I love my life.

It is only after over 45 minutes of sweaty, uncomfortable proletariat networking that I arrive at my destination.

To get off the bus I have to pull the signal, and after I am sure the driver has missed my stop, have to yell over the masses to tell that to the driver.

Then, when he stops, I get off the bus slightly off route and still have to walk over 15 minutes to get to my home.

But finally, I am home.

I open that door and welcome my dark palace. Heavy curtains blackout every inch of sunlight that could have made present inside my house, and the smooth, refreshing coldness embrace me after all that human contact. This is where I am alive.

Depressing? Not really. I actually enjoy very much the dark, and I still have the soft glow of multiple electronics around the place, blinking with ominous red and blue lights.

I say, fondly, that it is a palace, but it really isn't (obviously). It is just a small apartment on the 7th floor of a rundown building downtown. But it is mine (not really, I rent it).

My familiarity with the place relieves me of the need to turn on any lights upon entering it, and so I just navigate around blindly, depositing my backpack on a spare chair and then going take a bath to get rid of all the metropolis grime.

When I am all refreshed and comfy, I go to the freezer, take a beer can and pop it open.

Slowly, I sip it.

Jubilation. Damnation. Pleasure. Hopelessness. All in that first sip only good alcohol can provide you with.

Oh yeah, I am not sure if I've said it, but I am slightly alcoholic.

So I take my beer, head to my coach, and sit on it, drinking in the dark. After a few moments, I turn on the television and put a game to run on my gaming device. The current RPG I am clearing.

I select my saved game, wait for the loading screen and then a new world opens up in front of me. My body slowly becomes the joystick held in my hands, and all the worries and pains disintegrate, bit by bit.

Money? Love? Pain? Life, Death, Despair, and Pleasure? It all loses meaning, dissolving on the chase of the perfect game, the strongest build, the most daring achievement, the before unreachable ending. I am no longer a hopeless cog of the machine, but a force of nature, someone who can bring change and make my own choices about what is right and wrong. I can shape myself and the world around me. It is beautiful.

But then I am off. My cellphone alarm yells at me, saying it is time to sleep. Best to heed its warning, lest I fail to wake up early and get late at work.

So I turn off my console and TV, go to the kitchen to pacify my raging hunger and finally go to bed.

It takes a while for me to be able to sleep, and when I do, I dream of dragons and magic, of sword and sorcery, heroics and sacrifices. I dream of a better world and better people.

[http://gbika.org/site/media/2013/08/divider4.png]

And then I woke up. Day began anew and with it came my daily drudgery.

Around me, everything is still total darkness. I, however, know I am awake because that is just how my body is conditioned to work.

Every day, at 6:00 AM I wake up like a fucking robot. That is the hour a dipshit like me has to start his day if he wants to be in time for his dipshit's job, at 7:30 AM.

Unfortunately, no matter how hard I tried, although my body wakes at this hour, my mind has never agreed to do the same.

So I use my secret weapon.

A cellphone sleepily rises and suddenly lights up like a white sun, banishing the darkness to the far-reaching corners of the room. The full brightness of my totally white background blasts through my retinas and truly wakes me up, grumbling.

The pain gives me momentum to abruptly rise, and go straight to the shower.

After a bath, I go to the kitchen and grumble once again, like every morning, about how there is nothing tasty and easy to make.

In the end, I just dump a bunch of cheap tasteless cereal in a bowl and shove it up in my throat with milk. In minutes my belly is half-satisfied.

Then it is the bathroom, brushing my teeth, making it kind of inhabitable to anyone with a nose, and then I am ready to go.

About 15 minutes and a short walk later, I find myself getting to the bus stop - and hey, it seems today I will be able to sit while waiting.

So I sit, take off my phone and start browsing through the news. These bus waits are really the only moments I have to catch up with the world.

But is it worth?

Movie Star Hits Hobo And Spends Night In Jail!

Boring.

The economy in crisis! Specialists predict a never seem before unemployment rate by the end of the year!

Predictable.

Gun On The Rise! Polls indicate that over 68% of the country's before unarmed population have acquired guns in the past 10 months!

Stupid.

President Declares War On Yet Another Country!

Predictable AND Stupid.

Hardzen Studios Announces Sequel For Blood Fields Series.

Now THAT is interesting. That game sucked balls. Why the hell are they going to make a sequel for it?

I open the link, but before I can fully delve on the depths of enterprising stupidity, my bus comes with a blur of movement from those around me.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

With my phone pocketed, I prepare for it.

And then it comes.

Bus hell.

Telephonic torture.

Bus hell.

Gaming bliss...

... And then awakened.

And all over. Over and over again. Every day.

I can hear the cheap infomercial in the background: Jack Coast, the perfect mindless drone, offered to you by Modern Society. On sale! 90% OFF if you come and kill it right now!

It may sound sad - because it should be - but by now I am just numb to it. I wear irony and self-mockery like a cloak and just flow with the reality of things. Life sucks and that is it. Not sad, not bad, just a fact. Keep going.

One of my strategies to keep numb about it all is... Guess what?

Drum-drum-drum... Alcohol!

Yeah, I never said I was authentic.

But it just proves my point. Thousands of years getting people through it all and they still have not discovered something better. Not even illegal drugs managed to worm their way into people's hearts as beautifully as it.

Oh, and by getting you through, I don't mean it will get you through AND healthy, okay? Nor alive. But that would be asking too much, don't you think? No one here is in the miracle business.

Aside from alcohol, the other two things on my happiness - or something like that - recipe, are:

Diligence and routine.

Okay, okay, it might not make any sense at first. A man who complains all the time about how shitty life is, says he is actually a diligent person who never fails to accomplish his routine tasks? Yeah, well, my reasoning is as it follows: If you are going to take an outlook on life like mine, the last thing you'll want people telling you are things like "You are just not trying hard enough, son", or "You are doing it all wrong, my dear". No. Just no.

So you do your shit right. If you are going to be a dipshit, at least be the best motherfucking dipshit there is out there.

I may hate my job but I do it like a fucking artificial intelligence (which is what they should be actually employing).

I never get to the job late. I never get sick days. I never stray out of the script they give me. I never even use company time to take a shit (and trust me, I know everyone does that).

There is a total of zero complaints about me and that is because that is the number of reasons I give people to have them for me.

And I am the living proof that IT DOESN'T MATTER.

You will still have a terrible job. Your boss will still treat you like a piece of garbage. The bus will still stink like an outhouse when you leave for home.

But still, you remain diligent. Because only then you will have your point proven.

After that, it comes routine. Make yours and stick to it. Then everything becomes easier. Humans beings are funny like that. We may get used to pretty much everything.

So set your alarms and push yourself to do what must be done. When you realize, your body will have taken over. No longer you will have to put actual effort into being diligent.

Automatic self-torture. No need for thanks, mate!

But alas.

The reason I am saying all of this to you, dear reader, is simply to explain that when you get all of those things together, there is a single, inevitable conclusion.

Bar Night.

That is right. Today is Friday, and instead of taking my bus home, I am heading to my favorite bar in this part of town. It is part of my routine and I crave for it every other day of the week.

My taste for alcohol, my diligence for doing things throughout and my set routine have contributed for me making all my Fridays afternoon and nights into drink-yourself-into-oblivion-nights!

So it is a good day, and maybe that is why I am so talkative today.

People give me strange looks when I pass them by with my creepy smile and I give zero fucks.

It doesn't take long and soon the rundown building around the corner enters in my view.

It is old. It is dirty. It smells. I don't think it even has a name.

This is a bad part of the city, and still, this must be one of the most trashed places around.

But still.

Its decadence strikes a chord in me. A place that makes you think that maybe your life is not that bad.

I enter the place with the sun on my back, and, unsurprisingly, find it empty - with the exception of the owner.

It is not that this bar doesn't have its clientele. There is plenty of old broken men that will come here this night.

It is just that I come here too soon. It is very rare for someone to be so eager to desecrate themselves in the middle of the afternoon. People have to work, after all.

Luckily, federal law states that, and I quote, my job is "too stressful, mentally exhausting and absolutely unbearable for regular, self-respecting human beings to waste more than 6-hours per day into".

Ok, maybe I am not really quoting. But it was something like that.

The fact is that my job only allows for 6-hour shifts, instead of the regular 8, or even the extra-demanding 10 to 12 hours. A mental health program or simply a way to diminish the number of psychopaths running around.

That, together with my early start on the day, gives me the delicious opportunity to have this shithole all for myself.

It is just past 2 PM, and the skinny and crooked old man behind the counter looks at me with the same dead eyes of always. I think he likes me.

The inside of the place is smaller than it looks from outside but just as terrible. Dusty wooden floors framed by walls covered in mold. Cobwebs are visible in the room's corners and the chairs and tables seem to be all eaten halfway by termites.

Behind the owner there is a bunch of unlabeled liquors, showcasing for god knows how long. There is no menu or price table, nor any kind of inclination from the man to serve you.

The only noteworthy furniture in the place is an old jukebox in one of the corners. It looks really old, and I would not believe that it still worked if I hadn't seen it making grown men cry on multiple occasions.

Ahhh. So refreshing. There is no need to look alive here.

"Hey, Mr. Johnson. How're ya doin?"

I greet him with true enthusiasm - very rare for me - and get exactly what I was expecting. A grumble, a scowl and the question I wanted.

"Jack. What's gonna be today?"

"Ahh... Let me see. Let's start with a bottle of Hilly's Grape, will we..? Yes, give me one of those"

Like all the other things in my life, I like my drinks cheap. I don't care so much about taste as I care about how it makes me feel. Hilly's Grape is the cheapest of wines - I don't think it can even be considered wine, as it sure as hell doesn't taste like one - but it always makes me feel all fuzzy inside. I like it for an opening.

With my order made, Mr. Johnson opens the old freezer at the counter's side and takes from it a plastic bottle with a darkish purple liquid inside. Not the kind of color that would bring forth desire to any sane person.

He puts it in front of me and returns to a seat in the back of the counter without a word, fully immersed in a piece of paper he takes from his back pocket. I think it is crosswords.

With the wine in hands, I go and sit on one of the less damaged chairs, at one of the room's corners. When I am settled, I eagerly open the flimsy bottle seal and take a big mouthful, directly from it.

Ahhhh... Disgusting as always. It is slightly sour and it goes down burning like acid. When it is all done, though, it makes your belly all kinds of funny. Slowly, a smile blossoms on my face.

After a few more mouthfuls, I pick up my phone and start-up Twitter.

Yeah. I have one of those. Ya got any problem with that?

This isn't a social network for amateurs and is definitely NOT a social network for young girls to pretend they are snowflakes. That was Tumblr.

No. This one is made for people that like to whine about every little thing that happens to them and those around them. And in case you still haven't noticed, that is pretty much the definition of who I am.

So I tweet away. Mouthful after mouthful of wine I write increasingly outrageous things about the most varied things. The funniest thing about it all is that the more I drink, the more reasonable everyone on it seems.

Sometimes, I secretly suspect that everyone using Twitter is under the effects of at least one kind of drug. I at least, always am.

After hours of that and runs to the counter for more booze, it is night and I am slightly drunk.

Young me would already be wasted, but god has blessed me with something called alcoholism. It is like a passive skill that gives you alcohol resistance.

By now, the bar is filling up. Old, gruff and unfriendly men start popping left and right of me. They are all poor looking, but before long the jukebox is playing one of the many depressing folk songs available on its array.

Feels like home. I pocket my phone and just stare around, thinking about life and looking nostalgic.

23 years today. It is my birthday, you know? A long time ago I had been a bright child, coming from wealthy parents and with equally wealthy opportunities waiting in the future.

Child prodigy. Academic awards. Smiles all around me. Unhappy.

Why? I never knew. It just always felt like something was missing. As if I had been starved from something I never even tasted.

In the end, the equation is simple. A bunch of rebellious years, plus cut ties with parents, plus a new city where you know no one, plus obscene quantities of alcohol, equals me here.

But still. Maybe this is the place I have felt the happiest in my life. In this terrible, oh so terrible bar.

The floors, the walls, and the furniture may all be very dirty. The food may be un-eatable. The patrons may be losers that have nothing else to lose. But still, there is something valuable here.

A silent agreement. Knowledge of a hidden truth. An absence of words that tells you more than any amount of said things could.

Here I feel everyone gets me, just like I get them. I don't have to complain to anyone. They all have their owns complaints to give and to live with.

Holes in their chests they don't know how to fill.

For them and for me I smile. I smile and drink.

Together our souls cry, even if our bodies are too dried up to do the same.

[http://gbika.org/site/media/2013/08/divider4.png]

While the mundane life of Jack proceeded on Earth, far more extraordinary happenings unfolded on far more extraordinary universes.

One of such legendary moments, however, was about to cascade into a truly unimaginable series of events for Jack.

It all started in a place that could be called both magical and strange for earthling standards.

Terra was the name of this universe. A big, infinitely vast flatland, full of mysteries, wonders, and opportunities. It was a place where the dreams and fears of young earthling children could all be found and touched. A land of dragons, fairies, witches, and magic.

And it was in the capital of one of the many kingdoms of this land that Xerxes Vash started it all.

Where previously there was nothing, suddenly there he was, popping up from dust.

In such occasions, what most people would ask themselves would be something along the lines of...

"Where did this man came from?"

But in this particular instance, the 'there' was far more important than the 'from where'.

For you see, the 'there' was the Royal Palace of the Kingdom of Takresh. More specifically, inside the throne room. The place where King Baglamesh currently held court.

In such an environment, any disturbance to the ruling voice of the King would be noted.

Watching from above, there were Archers posted on alcoves. Down on the floor, there were royal guards standing at every corner of the room. Individuals encased inside so much metal that it was surprising how they still moved around and glared at everyone.

There was no chance whatsoever of an intruder appearing unnoticed inside the place.

So when the man appeared with a flash of light inside the room, everyone gaped.

And the gaping did not stop when the light went off and the human's visage was made known. For that man was more than it looked. Instinctively, everyone on the room knew that the frail flesh showing itself was but a shell for something much greater.

With that said, it must be known that the flesh of Xerxes Vash was no small thing either. His height alone was almost two meters. He wasn't overly muscular, but his body radiated strength and tightly shut potency.

Nevertheless, what made him big was something intangible. A presence.

It was not a royal presence, although he certainly had that. His sharp, refined looks were composed by pale skin, piercing green eyes and raven black hair pulled back. It did make him look like an heir prince if accounted together with his exotic, fine clothing - heavy robes blurring in a hurricane of every existing color, each color accompanied by matching sets of perfectly cut gemstones.

It wasn't simply an intimidating presence either. That would imply people inside the room would be feeling fear. It wasn't that.

They felt what every young peasant must feel when they realize that they are not anything special. That they are not heroes, nobles, kings or even leaders. That they are each just one more cog inside the blurred machine that is society.

And still. Those feeling this now were not peasants. They were used to be the very subject of such feelings, the ones that made everyone else feel as ordinary. The noblest of Takresh. Powerful, rich, beautiful and extraordinary. Now all reduced to mere peasants.

So it was not fear they felt. It was hopelessness. Something that made even the hardened warriors of the Royal Guard freeze their steps and lower their arms. The battle was already lost.

And then when Xerxes walked, the people parted for him, slack-faced. He walked among nobles made peasant and there wasn't but one voice that managed stop him.

"Enough. Who dares to invade this one's court!?"

The deep, powerful voice reverberated through the marble walls of the palace. It came from the big black beast seated on the throne. Beast King Baglamesh, previously known as the Black Fury of the Lion Tribe.

The King, like all the other warriors and nobles inside the room, was a beastman.

The difference between him and them, however, couldn't be bigger. Standing as a mass of muscled sinew and fur, the King physically dwarfed even Xerxes. Of leonine heritage, his face looked like that of a black lion. His beautiful mane cascaded his shoulders and gave way to furred and ripped humanoid chest and legs.

Similar to Xerxes, he too, had his own aura. Brutal strength and authority radiated from him, making the room grow heavy with tension. The clash of potency between the two brought forth a pressure that few could resist bowing to.

And it just got worse when the stranger answered his name.

"I am Xerxes Vash."

A name with as much weight as any. Maybe the heaviest of all. His fame followed him through the ages. Immortal, legendary and utterly bloodstained. Akin to a myth, and yet, here real.

"And I have come to bargain."