It was AJ’s first time seeing a girl taller than her. She beat her by an inch. The redhead fit all the wild descriptions Zeke told her after the day they stopped Kian’s plans. This was Ashlin, the Container Specialist of the Tainted Generation.
There was cruelness to her extreme beauty, like a heartless heiress who would use servants as tables and ottomans.
“Why are you watching her? Are you working with the brothers?” Ashlin asked.
AJ glanced at her collapsed body near the kiosk and mall goers gathered around it. This was something else Zeke had shared with her. Ejecting one’s soul to enter the Astral Realm.
“I asked you a question,” Ashlin said, squeezing AJ’s throat tighter, pulling her out of her reverie.
“Yes!” She croaked.
“I see,” Ashlin smiled and let go of AJ.
Ashlin raised her hand with her pinky and ring finger pointed upward and struck herself in the breast. Her body dropped as her astral form stepped to the side, and then she clapped and wrapped her right hand over her left thumb while her right thumb touched the tip of her left middle finger. “Albutius,” she said.
Her revealing medieval dress was magically replaced with an onyx black low-cut corset dress with cyan blue ribbon bows tied down the sleeves. A black lace mask appeared and covered the bottom half of her face as a pointed hat bigger than her entire body materialized and hovered a few inches over her head.
“So, you’re part of the Infirmary… wait….” The hostility on Ashlin’s face eased a bit as she studied AJ up and down, and then her expression went vacant. “You’re just a normal human. No affinity with Mana. There’s not even Mana in you. What is this? You’re not special. What are you doing here?”
“I’m… he-he-re… to help!” AJ said, cowering.
Ashlin laughed. “You can’t be serious. How could those two be that irresponsible? You’re going to get yourself killed.”
The redhead began to examine AJ like an art piece. She was wide open, but AJ knew she couldn’t do anything about it.
“Your Container. It’s so… ugly.”
The word stung like acid, getting rid of the numbness she felt when first entering the Astral Realm. Even as the pain swept over her, she remained utterly still.
“Your face. That hair. Those glasses. Those clothes. That body. Bleugh. It’s all so hideous.”
AJ could feel the back of her eyes burn as she clenched all over to avoid tears leaking, but she couldn’t do anything about her quivering lip and labored breath.
“Did I hurt your feelings?” Ashlin said, putting her hands on her hips and looking at AJ, not paying any attention to the concerned people who gathered around her unconscious, physical body. “I am so sorry, really. I pity ugly women. I have a soft spot for them. I am only telling you the truth as a friend, you know? And I am not someone who would point out problems without offering a solution. I can make you beautiful.”
A sharp tingle shot down AJ’s spine. She knew that she shouldn’t listen to another word that came out of the redhead’s mouth. She was literally a witch and wearing the apparel of one. No good would come from accepting an offer from her, yet, she wasn’t strong enough to keep herself from asking:
“How…?”
“Well, with magic, of course,” Ashlin said, placing her finger on AJ’s nose tip. “I already know what kind of body you want. I have a design in mind, which I know you’ll love. Something elegant and nothing like this brutish vessel you’re forced to wear. Something… smaller.”
Her heart palpitated as if telling her this was the chance she had been waiting for and she should take it. The witch most likely read her mind, her pulsating heart. It was hard for her to ignore the sweet words that came from Ashlin’s red lips.
She didn’t need to consume a lifetime’s worth of comics and video games like Zeke and Ugo to know how these things worked and what she needed to ask.
“In exchange for what?”
“Ooh, smart girl!” Ashlin said and pulled back her finger. “Stop running around with those two morons and swear your allegiance to Gilliam. I promise you, you’ll get everything and anything you could ever want.”
“No… I can’t.”
Ashlin frowned. “Turns out you’re very stupid.” She bashed her knee into her gut.
As she hunched over, she saw Ashlin stretch her hand to the side, beckoning something over as she said something in a language she had never heard before. The wicked smile Ashlin had on her face while doing it made chills spread all over AJ’s insides.
----------------------------------------
Aida’s jaw ached as she pulled back the soul tethers with her mouth while planting her hands and feet on the floor. The food court was in chaos as the friends and families of the unconscious panicked.
The souls were deep within the endless pit of teeth of Ashlin’s monstrosity. It made a continuous sucking as it relentlessly fought against Aida’s grip, pulling the souls deeper into its funnel of mouths.
Aida had known Ashlin for years and had heard her many ideas for weaponized Containers for just as long. Therefore she suspected a portal to another Realm was inside the monster, meaning that even if it failed to sever the soul tethers, the souls would be stranded in the Astral Realm of another world with no means of returning to their Containers.
There was another problem. In the form of the first monster Ashlin let out to play. As Aida pulled, she watched the giant, zombie-like women reach into the space between their sewn-together torsos, making squelching noises.
It pulled out an oversized cleaver and laughed maniacally.
Aida’s eyes widened as it approached her, realizing what it wanted to do. With Ugo out of the picture, Aida screamed in panic through her clenched teeth at the thought of what could happen next.
It stood between Aida and the other funnel-mouth monster, positioned its cleaver a few inches over the soul tethers, and raised it high.
Aida was lucky to have joined a team with such dependable allies.
A broad stream of gray fire blasted at the cleaver-wielding monster, and it was sent flying away, screaming in agony.
Aida smiled as she looked over at Naomi. She was in the Astral Realm with her beautiful tricolored wings out and wearing the expression of a warrior.
This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.
“Thank you!” Aida said through her teeth.
Naomi nodded and then moved her hand with an open palm in a circular motion, creating a gray flame ring hovering in front of her. She pushed her hand forward, and the flame ring shot at the funnel-mouth monster. Following the movements of her hand, the ring flipped over, opened, and then closed around it.
Naomi made a fist, and the ring shrank, constricting the monster. As she squeezed her hand, the ring tightened around the freak like an anaconda, crushing it until it forced out the souls it gobbled up.
With the sucking motion suddenly cut off, Aida fell onto her back, losing her grip on the tethers, and the souls flew into the air.
Naomi rushed to Aida and kneeled to her. “Sorry, Aida! Are you okay?” she asked in a brittle voice.
“I’m fine,” Aida said as she sat up. She watched the souls return to their respective Containers easing their loved ones as they woke up. Then Aida looked over at the squealing giant women, rolling across the floor as the inextinguishable gray flames burned their dying flesh mercilessly. “Your gray fire has the properties and functions of hellfire and holy fire, right?” Aida asked Naomi.
“Yes,” Naomi replied, watching the monster burn. “It must hurt a lot, but it was doing bad things, so I had to stop it, right?”
“Of course, Naomi,” Aida said and studied the flames. It was a frightening ability. No matter what Realm a being was from, Naomi’s flames would hurt it, and being burned with ethereal flames while in the Astral Realm allows for triple the pain. Hellfire could be extinguished with White Magic spells and holy fire with Black Magic, but what could get rid of the gray flames?
“I sense a soul in it,” Naomi said as she stood up, looking at the constricted funnel-mouth monster. “In that one, too.”
Aida got up and focused on her senses. She felt hot all over, realizing that Naomi was right. “She used real souls,” Aida said, growling. “Ashlin once said that she was trying to look into making artificial souls, but it was hard. So sometimes, when she creates a Container and needs a soul to occupy it, she takes one from another Container. Even if it’s against its will.”
Naomi’s clenched her fists. “That’s terrible,” she said, then frowned as the giant women melted into a burnt puddle. “So that means I….”
Aida touched Naomi’s shoulder and gave her a solemn look. “You did the right thing. It’s better for them this way.” She twitched, having trouble containing her vexed growls and holding back the urge to bark until her throat hurt.
As Aida’s eyes moved away from Naomi’s dejected look, panic took over as she failed to locate the funnel-mouth monster. She began to scout the place and sniff but to no avail. She couldn’t sense it either. It didn’t just leave the area. It blinked out of existence.
Now that things had calmed down, she began to pick up a myriad of clashing Magic Energy sources in various spots of the Cold Phoenix Mall, including Ashlin’s… and Gill’s.
“Naomi, let’s get going….” She turned back to Naomi and found her standing with a blank look. Aida raised her brows and looked in the direction she was staring at. There was nothing. She studied Naomi and slowly approached her. “Naomi?”
The little blonde didn’t respond. Aida waved her hand before her eyes, and she didn’t react. “Naomi!”
----------------------------------------
As AJ fought against the pangs in her gut and straightened herself, a cyan blue light shone to her side, and once it dissipated, a monster appeared in place of it. It had the body of a man in street clothes, and that’s where the normalcy ended. Its head was a meaty funnel of mouths with sharp teeth.
Seeing it made AJ scream at a pitch higher than she knew she could reach. The tears were released but for a completely different reason than what she had been holding them back for.
“I’m still thinking of what to name it,” Ashlin said, looking at her monster and then redirected her look at AJ.
AJ hated feeling like a defenseless child left to fend for herself in the woods. She could barely see Ashlin in front of her with her glasses all foggy and her eyes welled with tears.
“Last chance to change your mind,” Ashlin said.
AJ wiped away the tears, shook her head, and hated herself for it.
The unamused Ashlin groaned. “So stupid.” And then she looked to her side, and her eyes popped out. “Hey! What are you morons doing? Where is the girl?”
Kimberly’s suited bodyguards were startled and looked around. Kimberly was nowhere near them.
“Absolute morons! How do you lose a pregnant lady? Oh, Gilliam will hear about this, I promise!” Ashlin snapped her fingers, and her physical body disappeared. Then, she spat an order in an unknown language to the monster and ran off.
The monster she left behind for AJ to deal with dropped on its knees and pushed its palms into the floor.
AJ turned and made a break for it. The monster started to make an eerie sucking sound, and AJ felt herself being pulled back. She refused to look over her shoulder and focused on out-running the monster’s gravitational pull.
She had no idea if all her physical attributes had transferred to her astral form. It was like she was on a treadmill, and behind her was a jet engine propeller, pulling her towards it for a gruesome end. Even in the Astral Realm, she could feel the muscles in her legs burn and beg for rest, her chest tightening, her body struggling to get enough oxygen. Every time she made significant progress in distance, she was pulled two feet closer to the monster.
AJ reached for a wooden bench in front of her—her hand passed through it; she cursed at the physics of the Astral Realm and tried again. No dice. Her heart rate accelerated as the inside of her gut grew colder, and the taste of death in her mouth became more pungent.
She clung to how much she wanted to live, to see herself accepted as a worthy asset to the group, to see herself happy in a beautiful body… with Zeke by her side.
Ashlin had given her an answer that should’ve been clear to her ever since she discovered the existence of the supernatural. Magic was the key.
AJ let out a sharp cry and reached for the bench. She grabbed onto it, making for a short moment of relief. Her legs rose behind her as the gravitational pull of the monster intensified. She held onto the bench with her other hand, hanging on for dear life, and closed her eyes.
The vision of herself in a beautiful, petite body worked as fuel to strengthen her grip on the bench.
----------------------------------------
The giant white doves pecked and clawed Ugo as they took him into the air.
Ugo suffered a bad case of motion blur while fighting with the white birds in the air. They began to go after his eyes, trying to poke them out.
Somehow, amidst the chaos and whirling in the air, Ugo was able to bring his hands together for a spell exclusive to the Surgeon of the Tainted Generation. He rubbed them quickly, making an electrical charge. Then, like a defibrillator, he touched each bird with a palm, sending an electric shock that had them blast away.
As Ugo fell through the air, he glided towards the glass railing on the third floor and gripped the top. He looked at the screaming birds, flapping about hectically as they were continuously electrocuted.
Ugo summoned his surgical knife, pulled himself up, and perched on the edge of the railing. He squatted further, collecting more potential energy, feeling his muscles contract, and then zapped at the birds. He cut both birds on their back with some electrifying incisions. Then, while freefalling, Ugo faced up at the birds, held his hand out to the side, and locked it in a contorted shape—summoning his black needle holder.
Ugo flipped and landed on a glass railing on the second floor. He squatted and bolted up at the birds again. He moved the small needle with a long blue thread hanging off it with incredible speed and stitched both of the screaming birds together, hoping Aida would forgive him for hurting otherworldly animals like that. He could feel that there were legitimate souls within them.
The last procedure of the impromptu surgery had Ugo close one eye and hold his knife like a pencil, keeping it tight between his thumb and index finger while the blade’s tip rested on the remaining fingers.
He threw the knife, and it blasted like a lightning bolt. It went through both of the birds’ heads, but no blood was spilled, and no wound was made, but at the end of the knife that rocketed toward the floor were two tiny brains in perfect condition.
The birds turned stiff, like they had turned into magic props, and plummeted.
Ugo managed to grab onto a glass railing on the third floor again as he fell. He pulled himself up and sat on the edge, catching his breath. The time to rest didn’t last long as he reminded himself he needed to help Aida. He hopped and stood on the railing but was stunned by the overwhelming collection of different Magical energy surging from various areas in the mall.
While trying to determine which energy source he should follow first, a crying scream from below forced him to pay attention to it. He looked down and saw a distressed girl hanging onto a bench with her legs wailing behind her as she was pulled by the sucking winds of the funnel monster he left Aida to deal with alone.
He silenced the questions that began to sprout in his brain as he noticed that he couldn’t feel any Mana from the screaming girl—it was AJ.
She lost grip, and he blasted downwards with an outreaching hand.
Even with his lightning speed, he wasn’t quick enough and only managed to touch the tip of the fingers of her desperate outreaching hand.
AJ was gobbled up by the monster.