“You damned fool! That is not how this works. God wouldn’t have waited for this long to punish us if what you said is true.”

“God exists outside of time. To him, it is irrelevant how much time we spend believing in something heretical.” We had been going at it for… at least half an hour, and I had controlled the conversation completely thanks to him falling for my traps again and again.

“It does matter! If he is benevolent, which we can agree on, then he wouldn’t want millions and millions of souls to be doomed to eternal hellfire!” And again.

“Why do you reference the fictional works of Dante? Hell does not exist. It is barely mentioned in even your holy book, to the point where even some of your own people debate if souls just disappear if they don’t get into heaven.” This argument would poke holes in the belief systems of the people. I wouldn’t normally comment on if hell and Dante’s Inferno were part of the biblical canon, but the argument for it not being so was more convincing to the people, and would be more useful anyway, so it was preferable.

“Another bull– Skewed belief that is not substantiated. Mariel, I will ask you once again. What proof other than some manic dream of your…” He was struggling to keep insults down. “Suspicious founder do you have? I do not know her, but women often do find themselves being manic about their beliefs.” Well, he just said that. If this was the environment of thirty years ago, that would’ve probably flown with his audience, but this wasn’t the 2020’s anymore.

“Really? When you feel a warmness in your heart, that’s devine messaging, but a literal angel descending down and showing her the truth is just mania? What a double standard you have there. How can you confirm that the prophets that put God’s words to paper weren’t also maniacs? Is it just because they were men and she’s a woman?” Oh, I could tell he was done with this. What a glorious day to be me.

“Yes! Women get vivid dreams if anything goes bad for them. They were tricked for a reason. A man knows when to obey God, and his word, a woman does not. Your founder is just an insane woman who thinks she can go against the people who were directly created to serve God.” The press were going to have a field day with this.

“Again, those were teachings from–” Oh, his face was red.

“Shut up about the interpreters! They were right, and you have no proof otherwise. This was not the rapture as they described it, and god would have punished us far sooner if we were wrong. All your arguments are irrelevant. The church has all the answers you desire, yet you ignore them just because of some stupid vision from a man woman!” I stared at him in silence for a while, emphasising how uncouth his outburst was.

“Are you done?” He had initially been getting calmer, but those words brung the redness back to his face.

“Did you not listen to a single word I said?! You should be reflectful, you disrespectful young apprentice of evil. You still have a chance to be saved, run away from the foolish cult dragging you away from the true words of–”

“With all due respect, I will not let you day dream endlessly. We have a theological discussion to finish, and we won’t get anywhere if you continue shouting about a scenario that won’t happen. My allegiance is to the church of change, and no amount of shouting will change that.” I already knew how the rest of the conversation would go. He’d angrily shout at me, I’d respond calmly, and when he began calming down, I’d say something seemingly innocent to get him riled up again.

“You did so well!” Liz was practically jumping for joy when I left the stage. I just wanted to sleep, and some ibuprofen, or whatever painlessness spell Liz– Oh, she’d already used it on me. Thank god. “I honestly didn’t imagine you’d do anything more than satisfactory on such short notice, but you amaze me yet again. Is there a reason you never ran for office?” Why was she asking me that now? Sure, I can speak, but there was no way in hell I could handle the sheer amount of paperwork someone actually involved in running more than the diplomatic part of the government had to trudge through. I had no ideas of my own, no ideologies. I was an agent of the state, no matter what their ideology was. Or, as was more commonly said, a realist’s dream. Would my ascension to office even count as nepotism if I did well? That was often an insult thrown at me, since I did not run for any office, yet was elevated to diplomat because of my mother’s connections.

“I don’t have the ego for it.” Her smile softened as she ruffled my hair. I had to grab her hand to stop her. “Enough. We have things to do.”

“Aww, is someone still grumpy? You did well Mariel. You- We deserve a break. This was one of the best openers I could’ve had.” Was this a game for her? Why was I asking that, reality is a game for everyone in power. There was not one of them that didn't see it that way. “Besides, you’re a good person, Mariel. I did not believe you were actually humble, but you’ve proven yourself to me. Even if you are egotistical, you’re good enough at hiding it that it doesn’t matter.” Sucking up to me wouldn’t get me to change my mind, but she did it anyway. I’d have to figure out why eventually, but now was not the moment.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

“Sure, whatever. Just teleport me to the dimension.” She smiled, put her hand on my shoulder, and tried teleporting only me to the dimension. She probably had to speak after me, so she couldn’t waste time and energy teleporting back and forth. Unfortunately for her, she didn’t know how to do that properly. Liz’s lack of companions had meant that she didn’t know how to teleport others. It probably didn’t help that she had to overcome the will of her enemy if she wanted to teleport them without permission, which meant she didn’t even gain experience for that spell from her fights.

Her teleportation had brought me to the outskirts of the city, which was fine. We had taken over a small building to act as our church until we could be sure who the governor was. If he was someone against religion, we’d keep the smaller building. If he wasn’t, we’d bribe him until we got a bigger building. Life was really simple when you enabled corruption. Well, that was a problem for me in the future. Right now, I just had to remember the path to it.

And so I did.

I navigated this city, coming in and out of street after street, doubling around and changing directions entirely only to end up further away from my original goal. I stopped for a second, then tried to remember the city’s layout again. I thought, and thought, and thought, long enough for me to feel someone watching me. It was probably nothing.

“Hey there.” It was not nothing. It was something, and a very big something at that. It was Charlotte. “I finally caught you alone.” She was wearing a different outfit from last time. For her top, it was just a more casual white shirt, with the top button unbuttoned and with her sleeves rolled up, and below that she wore some typical black business pants. Her shirt was over the pants, and not tucked in as was the tradition for these types of outfits. Maybe she wasn’t going for a casual look, and was just actually– “Hello? Earth to… whatever your name was.”

“What do you want?” Since Liz hadn’t teleported next to me yet, I could guess that she wasn’t actually spying on me this entire time, which was pretty good news.

“Straight to business. I like it,” She genuinely smiled, not forcing it in any way whatsoever. “I wanna free you.” Huh? Was she stupid?

“And how do you plan on doing that?”

“Well, we just removed the mark. It should be that simple.” Yea, she was stupid. Well, in this aspect, at least. I was sure she was smart when it came to combat.

“Do you think she’ll just give up after I do that? I already know what to read when I want to know how to destroy the mark, but removing it would just cause her to chase after me and break me mentally after putting the mark back.” Her smile didn’t even waver

“Then I just beat her up until she gives up.” She really just didn’t think that deeply about stuff, did she?

“What if she sneaks up on me while you’re sleeping? What if you can’t beat her? You can’t just beat her once–”

“I’d just kill her then.” That… would work. It made me feel bad though. I couldn’t explain why. It just made my stomach churn from the thought alone. Must’ve been the mark.

“And if you can’t?”

“Then you can just join me in reincarnating.” Seriously?! How could she say that with a straight face? Was this all a game to– Huh, I really didn’t learn, did I? This was probably just a game between the two of them, one that Liz didn't want to play anymore, but one that Charlotte played regardless. I was just a pawn in that game, one move away from becoming a knight, or… wait, that allegory didn’t make sense. There was no reason to pick a knight over a queen, and I couldn’t exactly become one, could I?

“I don’t want to die. It’s not like she’d let me anyway.”

“Oh, nono, not in that way. You’d just fight her, and if I lose, you’d stand no chance, so you would join me regardless of what you wanted.” Did she really think Liz would kill me that fast?

“I’d contribute nothing to that fight. I can do no damage–” Why was I in a field now?

“Fine, I’ll train you. If you’re really too weak to even hurt her, I’ll teach you how.” Excuse me? When was my life going to stop being a roller coaster? I just wanted to sleep.

“Do I get a choice?” She shook her head, then unsheathed her sword. Well… shit.