“Mr. Goldspanner, isn’t this a bit much? The little thing is locked up like she’s Zelroth the Vicious or something?” Alexander asked with a look of incredulity.
“Hmph! I told you I won’t be taking any more chances with this one! Go ahead and laugh, but I refuse to let her continue traumatizing more members of my staff. She’s more of a beast than a little girl, despite her innocent appearance.” Goldspanner harrumphed and stomped his foot as he cursed the girl.
“It would be a lie to say I wasn’t interested. After all, I love those types of people! So much fun to play with. Now what kind of price are you thinking?”
“I knew I had called on the right person. Considering the costs I had healing the maids and fixing everything she destroyed, I’ll come out at a loss regardless. She has the standard enslavement cuffs on her arms and legs. So for the sake of our future...shall I say ‘business’...I wouldn’t mind handing her over for 20 gold.” He said while twirling the end of his gray mustache with his fingers.
“Such a bargain! With such generosity, I can see where your namesake comes from. Of course, we greatly value our relationship with your organization. There will be no problem if we give you higher priority when it comes time to move our ‘goods’.” Alexander spoke while giving a short half bow towards his hefty business partner. Snapping his fingers, another member of the Hounds brought a pouch and handed it to Goldspanner.
“I knew I had good eyes when I started working with you boy! I know you and your men will have no problem handling that beast with the rune controller I gave you before. Well, I look forward to future exchanges. You know how to contact us!” Goldspanner offered parting words as his escort helped his round body back onto the carriage.
“A pleasure as always, Mr. Goldspanner. Everyone else! Get our new toy linked with the controller and bring her to me.”
The sturdy door of the cage was thrown open and Mina was dragged out by her chains. Members of the Hounds held her down, as both a member of Goldspanner’s escorts and one of the Hounds took out a small device. Around the size of a small book, the device called a rune controller was made of white crystal and covered with an unknown blue script. Nex observed the scene with renewed interest.
The two men brought the two white crystals close together.
“[Transfer Ownership]” Chanted the escort, as both the crystals started to glow a faint blue. One of the sections of script appeared to peel itself off of the crystal held by the escort. It soundlessly floated towards the other crystal and attached itself to an uncovered section.
“Transfer of ownership complete.” Shouted one of the escorts as they both mounted their horses and returned to the side of the carriage.
Alexander watched the carriage continue to get smaller and smaller, as it disappeared down the road. Finally, with the carriage out of sight, his true feelings came to light.
“I thought that money-hungry fucker would never leave. I hate having to kiss his ass so much, but it’s true he’s a valuable asset to our plans.” He murmured with a dissatisfied expression.
“Boss, we will present your purchase!” One of the Hounds bellowed in a theatrical manner with a smirk on his face.
Brought before him was the heavily restrained Mina. Her scowl, which was already evident during the purchase, grew even more intense as she locked eyes with Alexander.
“Yes, that’s the look! I love that look! You’re looking at us like we just butchered your whole family right in front of you! I can’t get enough of it. But, what I don’t get is that you seem to not understand your place yet.” Alexander laughed as he seemed to savor the feelings of disgust and hatred coming from Mina.
“I’ll make sure to make you look at me the same way when I chop your fingers off and feed them to you, shithead.” The undeterred Mina responded with any icy glare.
Despite having her limbs bound and being restrained by several Hounds, she still exuded a dangerous aura. Her dirty brown hair fluttered in the breeze as her eyes, filled with murder and killing intent, remained fixed on the smirking Alexander.
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“Well, let’s see how long you keep that attitude now that you’re our property. I, personally, hope that you struggle as long as possible.” He remarked and snapped his fingers.
Without batting an eye, one of the Hounds struck the back of Mina’s head, knocking her unconscious.
And like that Nex was holding the book, standing back in a world of swirling black and white.
It seemed like little time had passed as Nex peered into the memories of Mina’s past. She still lay sleeping, comfortable and disheveled, upon the top of the large teddy bear.
“Looking at that, she only has become slightly more bloodthirsty than before. I wonder why she’s like that?” Nex mumbled while observing her sleeping twin with curiosity.
Nex was only slightly curious, however. The origins of Mina’s nature would be placed quite far down her list of priorities, with the removal of the village being foremost among them.
She calmly focused, closing her eyes and leaving the metaphysical space.
[Somewhere and Nowhere]
Larry was doing his job just like any day, but for some reason today felt even slower than usual. He sighed, dipping the donut into a hot cup of coffee in front of him, he then popped the remains into his mouth. As Larry finished eating, he continued to observe the holographic display on his desk. Just like every other day.
Larry couldn’t complain too much about his job; he was literally made for it after all. His work at the Temporal Monitoring Bureau of The Fabric Guardians was important to maintaining existence. He and his many ‘brothers’ were artificial beings called Watchers. And that’s what they did. They watched. Forever.
Larry didn’t lament the specifics of his duties either. Besides only having a paid vacation every few million years, the working conditions were considered pretty humane. There was no hope of career advancement, but Larry didn’t yearn for it either. Considering that all of his coworkers felt the same way, he often believed that it could potentially be a characteristic that was deeply rooted in their nature since creation.
While he was reflexively checking the incoming readings and the status of the temporal border zone, as he usually did, a notification suddenly popped up on his display. Opening the report showed it was the reconnaissance mission he had passed on to the Scout Corps.
In all his millions of years in his position, Larry had never seen an intentional break of the temporal zone. He would sometimes even find it amusing that his entire department's job was to constantly monitor a wall that no one ever attempted to breach. The closest they would ever come to any real work was whenever there were instances of the fabrics of two realities equalizing. Primordial energies that were beyond his understanding would shoot from one reality to another.
Larry once was heard at a mandatory cross-departmental seminar, that he fell asleep in the middle of, that the transfer had something to do with the shelf life of a reality. Sometimes smaller instances of these exchanges would trip some of the more sensitive measuring instruments and show up on Larry’s display.
Nine times out of ten, Larry would ignore most of these incidents. He was even advised, by the senior who used to work in this sector, to not bother to issue reports on incidents that didn’t go over 10 PUs (Primordial Units). Not too long ago Larry was slightly troubled, however. A reading came in, when he was feeling even less motivated than usual, that registered at 11 PUs. Should he report it? Would his manager scold him for submitting superfluous reports like the last time he sent one that was under the recommended 30 PUs? Larry agonized over the issue for a long time. Someone with a standard perception of time would have seen him sitting deep in thought for several days.
Finally, Larry remembered the face of that senior. He was teary-eyed as he spoke to Larry before leaving his position for the last time. Larry assumed he must have really loved and been committed to his job. For that, he had only a deep sense of respect for his old senior. It was for that reason that he submitted the report and sent a copy to the Scout Corps.
If Larry had known the true reason behind his senior's tearful face, his determination to submit the report might have wavered.
Watchers were, by design, built with planned obsolescence in mind. Either the Watcher discovered this fact somehow, or they would reach the end of the shelf life for their cloned ego. In both cases, they would be recycled, and another version would replace them. Larry-0436748, or the old senior, by chance discovered the truth and was dismayed. As the old Watcher observed the enthusiastic expression on his replacement's face, he could only manage a wistful smile and fight back his tears. The new Larry, or Larry-0436749, would be lucky if he never found the truth.
Reading the report shocked Larry to the core. He just didn’t understand. He wondered if someone from the Scout Corps was trying to pull a fast one on him.
The reality on the side the energy emerged from was completely empty. Normally, a plane of existence being dead and empty just meant that it had hit the end of its cycle. Either from the death of stars or wiping themselves out, the dates were always accurately predicted and cataloged.
The problem was that this reality, Universe-0809970, had ended 20,000 years ahead of schedule.
Larry knew this wasn’t something he could hide from his boss, hell, he was probably already on his way here. His face paled as he realized something so ridiculous and way out of his pay grade had been thrust upon him. As he sunk deeper into despair, the door to his office burst open.
“Dammit Larry, you always know how to put more work on my desk! Twenty thousand years! You better be thankful that this little fuck up has been passed on to the Interference Bureau! That’s the only reason both of us are still here.” Larry’s Manager, Garry, continued to fume as he spat his feelings.
“Manager, what happens now?” Larry dared to ask in a small voice.
“Hmph. The investigators at Interference are likely to wait and observe whether they receive any complaints from the other universe. Which one was it again?”
“Universe-4745038?” Larry answered after checking the report.
“Yes, they’ll probably refrain from doing anything unless one of the local deities from Universe-4745038, that has high enough construct clearance, reaches out first. After all, those guys seem to do even less work than we do! Always crying, ‘We can’t interfere, it’s against the regulations’, useless bastards. I feel worse for those drones in the Fate Department, they’re totally going to get ripped apart by their Director for being that far off in predicting the end of a reality.”
Larry broke out in a cold sweat at his manager’s mention of a Director. Every bureau and department had a Director who reported directly to the Council of High Guardians. Getting on your Director’s bad side was a quick way to a lifetime of excessive overwork.
Larry said a quiet prayer to those in the Fate Department in his mind.