Chapter 1 | The Sinful Savior
1
2024—
Los Angeles, California, USA, Earth—
A hulf-drunken man exited the bar from the back door. His walks stumble and his eyes droopy.
He bumped his head on a light pole in the dimly lit alley. A feeling of vomit nearly reaching his chest.
“Aarghhh!!” The man groaned to hold the rising feeling of vomit. “Shrimp and tequila ain’t the way! Fuck me…”
He nearly lost his footing again before he heard the sound of someone whistling at him.
He turned his head to the direction of the sound…
…there was a girl.
Not much older than his own daughter. She appeared to be around late teens or early twenties.
She wore a black hoodie. A band merch of the death metal band Cannibal Corpse.
On the front side was their third studio album—Tomb of the Mutilated. Such a vile and visceral image printed on the front for anyone to see.
The way she made up her face made him believe that she is this goth.
Pale finish, eyeliner and the amount of piercings on her ears—her Chucks being the only contrasting feature as most goths would wear boots or a Vans.
The weirdest part of her fashion were the red ice box and what appears to be a sword sheath slung around her shoulder. She doesn’t look like she sold ice cream or yogurts nor does she look like a sales rep.
…She walked closer to him with eerily quiet footsteps.
“Hey… I’m” A smile tugged from the corner of her lips. “...Wanna have some fun?”
“...Eh?” The drunken man looked at her in confusion. “What the…” he stumbled back, “...What are you… talki… talking about?”
“Come on. Don’t play dumb with me.”
She began to lift her hoodie with her left hand and lowered her skirt slightly with her right. Showing bits of her underwear and bra.
“Come… Give me company,” She said with a soliciting tone, winking at him.
The man gasped for a moment before he shook his head. Clearing his thoughts of dirty mind.
He rubbed the back of his neck. His face plastered with worry.
“Sorry, kid,” He said softly. “I don’t roll with underaged girls. I mean—you’re practically not much younger than my own baby girl. Imma have to pass—”
Rather than backing down discouraged, the girl seemingly flashed a wicked smile in return.
“It matters not, old man…”
She pulled a Japanese-style single edged shortsword of menacing sharpness.
“My mom and dad always said, ‘If you want shit done, you gotta do it on your own’.” She flashed another smile.
The man gasped in horror. Was he about to get killed? He dragged himself back frantically.
The girl paced towards him while letting out a mad cackle.
“I want to play a game or however John Kramer said it…”
The half drunken man shrieked. His legs moved as fast as they could but the alcohol inside his blood made him stumble again and tripped on an uneven chip on the alley street.
The girl got down and swept him with her leg. He fell forward and butt his face against the ground. His face slightly dipped into the puddle of rainwater.
She twirled the wakizashi then kicked him in the face. He rolled to the side. Pain shooting everywhere on his face as he lay flat on his back.
His eyes shooting towards the sky. Groaning and mumbling incoherently.
The girl held the sword behind her back, wielding it with her right hand. The spine of the blade pressed against her skin.
Its metal was cold and smooth. Like when a sanitizer made contact with a skin.
With a quick downward motion to the left, the razor sharp front end of the blade slashed through his throat.
He gurgled and bleeding uncontrollably. Both of his hands touched his neck, trying hard to press the wound to stop the bleeding.
After a minute of useless struggle the man stopped moving altogether. His body motionless like a statue as he let out his last breath.
The girl quickly gets to “work.”
From inside the fold of her hoodie she pulled a rolled up cloth. Inside it were her tools. Everything she needed was placed inside, ready for use at a moment's notice.
Surgical scalpels of all sizes. All neatly arranged according to their number.
A chisel for bones, also known as osteotomes.
A rib shears and a general use scissor.
And the almighty tool of multiple purposes—the wire saw.
She begins by cutting through his clothes with the scissor. As his abdomen was completely exposed she began to pick the #10 blade.
Lining her dominant hand perfectly on the top of his sternum, she pushed the blade into him, slowly dragging the knife downward.
After the vertical cut was made, she proceeded to make a horizontal incision.
She lined her hand on his left collarbone and dragged the scalpel to the right.
Once she finished the two incisions, she pinched the skin on the edge of the vertical incision and pulled each to the side.
Pulling the skin and fat with her left hand, her right moved the scalpel. The cut begins to widen slowly, cut by cut.
Finally she went through his muscles and tissues, slowly pulling the intestine out. Carefully she severed both of his kidneys ureters then picked the two up and into a plastic bag she filled with ice cubes.
She sighed and wiped her sweat off her forehead.
“...Now THIS is where the hard part begins.”
She took the rib shears and proceeded to cut through all of the bones making his ribcage. The cracking sound they make still hasn’t felt familiar to her even after dozens of times doing it.
Minutes later she finally reached his heart. The most intricate and complex organ in the human body to harvest.
Severing the blood vessels required extremely stable hands. One wrong cut and the entire heart will turn useless.
She sweated through the whole time consuming and mentally taxing process.
But her patience and care paid off. The heart is now finally severed from his body without any damage.
She placed the harvested heart into the red ice box, cooling it in temperature transplant organs meant to be stored.
She took off her gloves and tossed them into a nearby garbage bin.
…Her “work” is now done.
*
She headed straight to her contractor’s base. A storage unit a few blocks away from the alley she harvested the man.
The alley around the unit was dark with zero lamps illuminating it.
Cold breeze of the night blew at her but she was used to the cold night air.
She banged her hand against the rolling door of the unit and whistled. Due to the dangerous work she had, her contractor had to enforce different knocks as signals.
One for a stalker following her.
Two for the police stake out.
Three to ask his men to go full guns blazing to protect her.
Four followed by a whistling of September by Earth Wind and Fire to safely open the door.
The rolling door lifted up and there stood a tall man with a shotgun in his hands.
He peek his head out and look around the alleyway before asking her.
“Password?”
The girl snickered and raised her middle finger at him.
“Go fuck yourself, Hector…”
“What took you so long? The boss is waiting for you.”
“You are very welcome to try harvesting them organs next time, asswipe. Now move.”
He nodded and shook his head, groaning, “Puta madre.”
She continued to follow him inside. “Pendejo,” She whispered to herself in annoyance.
She entered the unit and pulled the rolling door down, closing it. The door automatically locked from the inside.
The interior was barely habitable. Only items or appliances that serve their organ trafficking work are allowed inside.
Inside were multiple professional, restaurant grade coolers, an array of tools for cutting and dismembering hanging on the walls with a magnet, and a map of the city.
Though in the middle sat a cheap PVC desk and two plastic stools.
Nine coolers on each side of the walls, stacked in 3x3 arrangement.
Her contractor, a cruel yet fair man formerly of a mafia family, Bradley, sat behind the cheap PVC desk.
His eyes fixed to Krista the moment she entered the unit.
He gestured at one of the plastic stools. “Krista, sit. Hector, get the ice box and put her merchandise in a cooler.”
Hector nodded and took the red ice box from her hands.
Krista pulled the stool back and sat down, leaning back slightly.
Bradley placed an envelope filled with money and slid it forward to Krista.
“Here,” Bradley said, crossing his fingers, “Your payment as agreed. 20 grand cash, 380 grand wired to your second account, and 52 Benjamins to your Chase main account.”
Krista took the envelope and peered into the inside, shaking it slightly to see the money jiggling.
She nodded and put the envelope into her hoodie front pocket and took her phone out. The sound of her game screen loading blurted out.
Bradley eyed her through his crossed palms on his desk.
“Kris, I gotta ask. Why’re you splitting your stacks into three different pools? What’s a college girl like you doing with that kind of money?”
Krista turned to him and flashed her usual grin, shrugging nonchalantly.
Hector too called out for her.
“Yeah—You are by far the most insane 20-year old I have ever known,” He nodded. “Aren't you a little too young to be in the organ trafficking business? I mean most kids your age don’t even have the balls to cut a fish open during cookouts—And you’re out here killing motherfuckers and taking their innards out. Don't you have an assignment to do? Isn’t engineering a hard major to enroll in? Where the hell are your parents anyway?”
Parents. Such foreign word to her.
Her parents weren't even hers to care about.
They were nothing but absentees who actively ignored their children and gambled their savings. Idiots who thought that they could control how fate really works.
Krista wanted nothing to do with them. They meant nothing to her after what they have done to Olivia. They are dead to her—metaphorically and literally. Though as much as she wanted to despise them, she can't seem to be able to.
Her sister's love for them kept telling her that they were loving parents—just misunderstood. But Krista just doesn’t have the guts to tell her that she’s wrong and they aren’t—They will never be.
She hummed and cupped her chin for a moment, figuring a way to explain it to Bradley without telling too much about herself or her own sister.
…Then an idea grazed her head.
She showed her phone to Bradley and Hector. A highly detailed background from a fictional female anime character.
A smiling girl with orange hair and horns smiling wielding a large lance. To her bottomleft were two symbols.
Six stars in italic and three lines diagonally down to the left.
The two looked at the character on her phone. Wondering why Krista showed them that.
“This is Bagpipe,” Krista gestured at the character, “She is a 6-star vanguard operator and arguably one of the best starter units in the whole game—beating even Siege and maybe even Saga.”
The two men glanced at each other confused.
“This game—Arknights—costs real money.” She waved her hand half-unsure. “I mean technically you don’t have to but many of the skins are locked behind paywall so I’d say it is critical for people to spend their hard-earned money if they want their favorite waifus or husbandos to look cool.”
Bradley curled his brows at her statement.
“So you’re telling me—you pay money for in-game cosmetics…” Krista nodded, causing him to sigh in disappointment. “Your generation worries me, Kris. The things you do to escape reality…”
Krista chuckled but secretly laughing madly that they decided to probe no further than her game addiction answer.
“I appreciate your concern, Danny DeVito, but it’s none of your concern.” She paused for a bit before continuing, “Brad—about the thing I asked you about—”
“I already asked around. Old guys of mine have been doing their diggings. The stuff you're asking about is not out yet—It’s not even out from its prototype stage.”
Krista noticeably snickered again. “How long?”
“I talked with an old pal of mine—Gremlin—he said that he knows a guy who knows a guy who knows another guy who can get a prototype design of the thing.”
“How much?”
“His guy asked for 15 mils. But if you want the company's newer rendition, he wants 25 mils of clean dough. I know his insider—He’s clean. I can vouch for him. But with quality comes cost.”
“That expensive, huh…”
“Listen, Kris…” Bradley turned towards Krista, his eyes curious and confused. “What are you doing with this… inter something something—”
“Inter spinal nerve extension cybernetic replacement implant.”
“Yeah that's the one… What exactly do you want with it? Be honest with me. You've been working for me since you're 15. I deserve at least a portion of your life story.”
“They're none of your concern, B. We agreed to keep things on a need to know basis, ain't we? I'd like to keep it that way.”
She stood up and put on her earphone, plugging the wire to her phone.
“Now if you excuse me—I have places to be, games to play, and sleep to catch.” She winked. “Ciao!”
2
1099—
Cleonic, Eulacyda, Rivens—
In a kingdom in the world not Earth—Rivens, as it was called—There was an urgent and dire assembly.
Under the capital city of the Kingdom of Eulacyda—Cleonic—Countless priests, priestesses, deacons, and deaconesses gathered inside the large and spacious underground church.
Led by the most important man of the night—The High Priest—They knelt on the floor to focus their faith and powers for the prophesied ritual. They crossed their arms and kept their eyes closed.
Their mind thought of one thing and one thing only.
Their supreme goddess and the central figure of their religion—
…Grantora, the goddess and patron deity.
She who blesses their daily lives.
She who grants their wishes.
She who cures the sick and forgives even the most sinful mortal.
For years they have been waiting for her divine order.
For years they have been waiting for her to choose a champion. One that will release them from the hold of the Demon Lord—The vilest of them all, the most corrupted of a demon can be, the darkest of a being can be—Caligo.
For one day the goddess will take a sacrifice to open a portal—A gateway that will connect their world to others.
That day is today.
The hero of the kingdom, Ava, took a look at the nearly countless number of religious figures in the capital’s underground church.
Unlike her companions who all put their faith to the supreme goddess completely and blindly she was not.
She never took religion seriously.
For her—They are all the same.
For her—Only mortals themselves could truly change their own lives.
But after years of unending war between the living and the dead—Caligo’s army of demons and those not touched by the divine—She began to feel some sort of draw towards the religion.
She has seen countless men and women die from the brutal and endless conflict. Every kingdom in Rivens has tried everything to push the Demon Lord’s conquest back or at least to a halt but no effort seems to even slow them.
Caligo and his army have taken nearly four fifths of all lands in Rivens. And it wouldn’t be long before he reached the northernmost and the last remaining human kingdom that still stands—Eulacyda.
One day he will come right on their doorstep.
One day he will put an end on them all—For them they need something to turn the tide of the conflict—fast, if possible.
For her—They would need something else—Something not a native of these lands. Something so unknown that even the Demon Lord himself would be perplexed to comprehend clearly.
A chosen champion of the goddess.
*
Eobard the High Priest took his cane and tapped the bottom at the floor. His face was desperate yet hopeful at the crowd. He announced in a loud voice for everyone to hear.
“Good night everyone! My fellow Grantorarians… It has been an honor to be here in front of you all in this holy night to finally commence the most sacred ritual the goddess has introduced to our knowledge.”
The crowd scrunched their eyes harder and their palms crossed tighter. Their minds share the same thought—the goddess and no one else.
Each of them began to recite their prayers to the goddess in thoughts and whispers.
Eobard turned his back to face the sacred artifact—The dagger the goddess left behind for them—The Bane of All Evil.
A magnificently made double-edged dagger about thirty five centimeters long and decorated with gold and a blue gemstone unlike anyone had ever seen on each side of its crossguard.
An artifact once used by the goddess herself in times of great peril in the old times. Once—She cuts through the undead army of the previous Demon Lord.
Every demon in the ranks was annihilated with only one swing.
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Ever since that time thousands of years ago the dagger has been safeguarded by humans. Now sitting behind a safe and unbreachable vault under Eulacyda’s Royal Castle.
Walls of magic rings, enchantments of all kinds, curses and hexes of all severity, and runes so old that they themselves are lost to time prevent intruders from ever wielding it ever again.
But now is not the time.
The dagger needs to be out and ready to be wielded once more by the goddess. They patiently wait for the goddess to descend from heaven and appear before them.
And it happened…
…She manifested from sparks of lights. Slowly taking shape of the most gorgeous woman the mortals have ever seen in their entire lives.
She turned her body gracefully and left everyone in awe.
Even the most agnostic of them like hero Ava was not immune to her divine figure.
All Ava could do once the goddess took shape was gasp with her jaw dropped completely and her mouth agape.
The goddess Grantora walked towards the dagger.
The dagger gleamed with a golden hue once it sat on her hand. Shining bright like the sun itself. Everyone gathered covered their eyes from the blinding light.
With a dignified and divine tone she spoke.
“It is time…” She handed the dagger to the high priest and he bowed deeply, taking the dagger with his two open palms.
“Bring me the virgin,” She continued, reaching her hand out.
From the crowd out comes a young girl still in her teens. She wore an elaborate white dress and a crown made of dried roots wrapped like a bird nest and a single calendula sitting on the top.
She knelt before the goddess, her eyes nothing but reverence.
Eobard took the dagger and held it in his right hand. He began to say his prayers to the girl. Kneeling with her, he made a poking gesture from the center of her chest to her two shoulders in order and her lips.
“Be not afraid, mortal,” Grantora said, her tone calm and serene. “Do it for your people. Your sacrifice must come from your heart. Open your heart to the blade and you will not suffer.”
She looked up at the goddess.
“My god… What of my soul?” She asked.
“Eternal peace awaits you in my kingdom in heaven,” Grantora assured her. “Your name will be remembered by those of your realm and mine.”
She nodded her head and closed her eyes again.
Afraid but relaxed, she laid herself down on the slab of stone in the middle of the church. Every eyes are now looking at her. She put up a face of serene smile as she willingly drew her last breath.
Eobard raised the dagger above his head.
With a final nod from the girl, he pushed the blade down. The dagger went deep into her chest and stopped her heart from beating. Her blood began to flow down from the slab to the goddess’ feet.
“A blood sacrifice from a willing virgin…” Grantora announced loudly then reached her arms out. “...The key to open the hearts of many.”
Then a portal of blinding light opened before her. It looks like an endless space of white and humming sound.
Eobard bowed to the goddess, inquiring of her choice of champion.
“My god… May I, your simple creation. humbly ask you what kind of mortal will you summon to aid us?”
She pushed her hand into the portal before giving him a graceful and beautiful smile.
“Eobard, my mortal… The new Demon Lord is far more dangerous and more thirsty than everyone preceding him,” She said. “This one—Caligo, the 17th of them—would need a new kind of champion to defeat. Not one of pure bravery and mind full of justice. Not one of divine qualities. But one of pure unpredictability and will to commit even the most vile of acts and a heart already numb to pain and hardship. One with hands wet not from tears but of blood.”
Eobard blinked momentarily in confusion. Surely he wasn’t hearing the goddess correctly.
“Pardon me, my god, for my rude inquiry but I have a feeling that from the way you said it you are going to summon a mortal with qualities a jester and an evil equal to the demons themselves. Surely I am hearing these wrongly—”
“You are not,” Grantora cut him off, “This new Demon Lord is not anything you have ever fought. To battle a never seen before evil, one would need an evil of their own to fight him on equal ground. Fighting fire with fire, as you mortals said it.”
“But my god… Is not the chosen champion supposed to guide us and lend their wisdom that would aid us in battling the demons, not being just as worse as they are?”
“No, my dear mortal,” She shook her head. “I have seen a prophecy of my own. This would be the final conflict between mortals and the demons. There will be no more in the future.”
“My god, what do you speak of?”
“For the first time in my existence I cannot see the prophecy, my child. My next champion would be the key to a new age,” The goddess tapped his shoulder in assurance, “Be not afraid. Everything has a reason. And from this portal I opened, I shall summon an angel who knows no fear. An angel with wings made of the blood she spilled. An angel who cares for her loved ones and an unstoppable annihilator for her enemies. An angel with a mind so analytical, strategic yet cold and logical to the feelings around her. A heart made of love yet dark as the darkest of night itself. A creator and a destroyer in one.”
Ava tilted her head in intrigue. What does the goddess mean by a champion of those qualities—Qualities that befits not of heroes but a pragmatic savior.
What does she mean by wings of blood? Mind so analytical and strategic yet so cold and logical? A loving heart yet dark as the darkest night? A creator yet a destroyer? Is that even possible for one individual to have such duality?
Her explanation worried him in a way that he cannot understand. He was both curious and anxious about her supposed final champion. One champion that would bring about a new age for them and Rivens.
“Now let us begin… I hereby summon thee… ”
3
2024—
Los Angeles—
Krista went straight from her base of operation to her apartment.
A refurbished unit formerly of a storage warehouse in the proximity of the various train tracks near Amtrak's Maintenance Facility on 8th Street.
Four bedrooms and two bathrooms. A fully furnished kitchen. A living room. A laundry room. Two multipurpose closets. A fire escape stair outside the windows. And a plastic tree from three Christmases ago that she hasn't taken out yet.
She entered the apartment. Immediately hearing the sound of TV running from inside Olivia’s room.
Usually Olivia would only turn her TV on after she was done streaming. A good distraction for Olivia whenever Krista needed to be out to work.
The first time they moved into their apartment, Krista bought her a decent computer to play with.
She was bored of playing games.
Eventually, Olivia found her calling in learning how computers and programs actually work.
Studying programming in her own free time, she now has reached a point where she can utilize the power of artificial intelligence to the fullest.
Everything in their apartment can be accessed by Olivia from her own phone. From door lock, to light, to control of electricity, security system, etcetera.
Krista tossed her keys to the small bowl on the counter. Olivia heard Krista had come back and asked from her room.
“Sis?” She called out, “Is that you?”
“Yeah, I’m back,” Krista took off her Chucks and entered the unused bedroom near the door.
She took her rolled up tools cloth and opened the hidden compartment under the floor. Filled with cash and her other tools and supplies of gloves and bleach.
Her spare scalpels, chisels, saws, and shears hung on a line of magnets along the side. On the bottom sat a duffle bag.
Inside were the piles of every twenty thousand dollars she collected in cash from her job, now making the pile at least two million dollars in one hundred dollar bills.
But the contents weren't just her cash. Krista also puts weapons inside in case she needs to make a quick getaway with Olivia.
A TAR-21 assault rifle, an M203 with a pistol grip, two M1911s, several grenades, and spare cell phones.
Around the unused room were metal canisters each containing one gallon of napalm. Near the door was a silicone tube hanging on the wall vertically.
Separated into two airtight chambers by a single rubber plug connected to a rope. Inside the two different chambers were calcium metal and water.
Should the rope be pulled, accidentally or deliberately, the apartment will set ablaze and eliminate any trace of Krista and Olivia's existence.
But they aren't everything Krista put strategically.
In the first year, she secretly installed four explosive charges inside the four foundation pillars of the building, each of them weighing twenty five pounds each and are connected to a specially made detector inside her unused room.
Should the detector reach a certain temperature from the chemical reaction and napalm, it will trigger the explosives.
“Are you okay?” Olivia called out again.
“Y-Yeah! Just, uh, tidying stuff up,” She replied, quickly and silently closing the hidden compartment with the panel before rolling the rug back to cover the lines.
She entered Olivia’s room.
She still laid there on her bed. Still unable to move from her paralysis that completely took out her ability to move anything below her waist ever again.
*
2019—
Orlando, Florida—
The car crash that a few years ago caused a complete spinal cord injury to the only person Krista ever cared about.
The moment she woke up a few years ago, her parents still can’t seem to open their eyes and see the fact that one of their children is paralyzed—They only care about when they are gonna be able to make bets again.
Another day.
Another argument.
Another day wasted trying to wake them up from their idiocy.
Olivia—Once a bright and cheerful girl brought down to a paraplegic at the age of ten.
One day Krista snapped out. She showed paralyzed Olivia a newly released song—The Earnest Game by FantasticYouth. Insisting her to listen to the song with her earphones and fully concentrate on the beats.
Once she exited Olivia's room, she plugged rolled up towels to her door and began her revenge.
She knew that her mom and dad would never care for her nor Olivia. She was perfectly fine with only her—But to also include Olivia was her last straw.
Krista paid one last visit to their kitchen. Her hand reached for two knives—A yanagiba and a cleaver. With her first ever sinister smile born from the billowing rage from her heart’s deepest part, she took their lives.
Their smile was all she could enjoy that day.
The day their uselessness decided their fate was the day Krista forced herself as the sole feeder, keeper, and protector of Olivia. She reveled in their agony.
The yanagiba easily goes through the space between their ribs and into their hearts. Their gurgling sounds felt heavenly to her.
But dead they are not.
…It matters not for her.
Fortunately for her, she had just sharpened them merely hours ago.
Each swing dug deep into them. Bits by bits, their limbs disconnected. Swing after swing, their breaths faded. They stopped breathing altogether once she’s done with their heads.
There was only one logical thing left to do.
She dragged their bodies down to the basement towards his table saw. It took her considerable strength to pick each of them up onto the table.
But when they were on it—Everything felt easy, almost effortless for her.
Cutting them in pieces made it easy for Krista to carry.
Reduced weight, reduced size, easier to dispose of.
Krista dumped their parts into a large plastic bag and stuffed them into their car’s trunk. She wishes not for another reminder of their failure of parents.
All of those finished within three repeats of the song.
Going back up, she cut gas pipes and shoved their phones into the microwave.
Her last stop was Olivia.
She carried her in her arms, keeping her eyes closed with her Hello Kitty eye mask. Olivia does not need to see the aftermath of her doing.
But she knows that Olivia sniffed her, she might smell the blood but maybe she did not.
Once they reached the bus stop next block, their house exploded into a giant ball of flame.
Krista—and to extension, Olivia—never looked back ever since.
…Their old lives are gone.
There’s only a bright future waiting for them. They moved from their house in Florida on the East Coast all the way to California on the West.
But Krista needed money.
She was on the verge of selling herself.
In a twisted sense of hope, she was approached by a man when they were in a diner—Bradley.
He knew what she had done and he knew that it wasn't a freak accident that killed their parents.
He offered her a way out.
He saw a horribly efficient potential within her. To kill someone in cold blood and cut them up—He knew that he had struck a gold mine.
Everything else kind of came along perfectly for them.
Krista took on the mask for Olivia’s sake—
*
Krista brought a tray full to the brim with warm food for Olivia. A bowl of hot cream soup with corn and mushrooms, a loaf of garlic bread with melted mozzarella fresh out of the pan, a jasmine tea and a Jell-O.
Olivia greeted her lovely big sister with a smile.
“Here you go…” Krista slowly put the tray on a raised platform she made on the side of Olivia’s bed specially for her. “I call this… the Sister’s Supreme.”
“Thank you!” Olivia took the tray from her hands and slowly inhaled the incredible smell of her cooking. “You know what else is missing—”
Krista quickly cut Olivia off and giggled. “No you’re not getting Cookies and Cream Ice Cream, especially before bed.”
“Aww,” Olivia put up a fake pouting face. “Drats.”
“Don’t think I don’t know your blood sugar, young missy.” Krista smacked Olivia on her forehead playfully. “We will not be eating trash under this roof.”
“You eat protein bars and kale juice… you are in no position to lecture me about food taste,” Olivia threw her stuffed animal at Krista, giggling along.
Krista turned to the TV—
…Everything Olivia watches these days is getting weirder and weirder.
“What the hell are you watching?” She took the remote and scrolled down through the Netflix recommendations. “Restaurant In Another World… Campfire Cooking In Another World… So I’m A Spider So What—Jesus H Christ—You watch this kind of transported to another world or summoned or reborn crap? You know they’re bad for you, right?”
“They’re not bad, you know,” Olivia defended her shows but slowly agreed with Krista. “Well, at least not all of them.”
“Most of this shit is written by idiots who just wanted to insert their teenage self and imagine themselves as the hero with one dimensional fictional girls riding their dicks.” Krista continued to scroll through the endless anime Netflix recommended. “Jesus didn’t die so you could waste your life watching these crap, Liv. Watch some real shows.”
“Like what? Your iZombie? Your Breaking Bad? Your Dexter—”
“I mean I’m glad that you’re not one of those freaks who watch 1000 episodes of One Piece but come the F on. You’re better than this.”
“What’s the big deal?” Olivia flailed her arms in the air. “What’s not to like about isekai anime? You got magic, you got pretty girls, you got hot guys, you got cozy fantasy world feels.”
“Okay I hate to pop your bubbles, Liv. One, magic is fine on its own but those MCs are so dense, hopelessly clueless and beyond the definition of the word naive. They are brought to a world where they have powers that literally put them on a level equal to the deities that summoned them yet act like retards when it comes to even the most basic of things. It’s the equivalent of Bush giving fake justifications to send our men and women to the Middle East yet can’t understand how and why they are there. Two, those pretty girls are only fitting female character tropes—the really bitchy tsundere who can’t express her love, the kuudere who might as well be mute, the comic relief yandere who exist just to make the MC suffer. Three, them hot guys—Equally bad as the bitches. Four, most of them are transported or summoned to save the fantasy world—What sense does it make that a world that is supposedly in a looming danger from a demon lord still has the cozy country almost West Virginia feels? If I’m being transported to a world that is supposedly threatened by a Demon Lord, I would expect to see the forest dead, people rotting everywhere, waters turned red from blood and literal hordes of low tier demons roaming the lands—Not country roads take me home to the place I beloooong.”
Olivia chuckled at Krista's sarcasm. She nudged her arm like she wanted her to stop.
“Surely you have an exception,” Olivia said.
“I like LLENN,” Krista replied out loud.
Olivia perked up to her choice and leaned forward. “The pink chibi with the P90 from SAO?” She asked. “What’s so special about her? I think that she’s mid at best and trash at worst.”
“She’s not overpowered in a way that breaks the game. She never tries to be idealistic, optimistic and is majorly flawed. She has genuine connection to her friend—the lunatic who dual wields grenade launchers—and the freaky, bumbling creep—M.”
“Umm…” Olivia recalled the anime from her memories, “Didn’t she annihilate players left and right during that competition? You sound a bit hypocritical here—”
“No she was not. Her only power is being really fast and really small, enough to turn her hitbox into a flying saucer. She’s also not overpowered in the sense that her aims are horrible and she needs to shoot from close range bearing too close for anyone’s comfort, which is why she uses a submachine gun with a high rate of fire and large magazine capacity. She didn’t need to be accurate, she just had to throw enough shit at the wall and some of them would eventually stick.”
“Alright alright, chill.” Olivia pouted. “Isekai is fun for me. I didn’t need to use my brain too hard to understand the premise and concept.”
“I’m fine with the genre, Liv. Don’t get me wrong. It’s the writing, the horribly predictable characters and the god-awful amount of tropes its shows have. The last good isekai we have that I can make exceptions is Overlord—Everything else is shit. Even then I still have sub-exceptions—I like Momonga, not Ainz, not Satoru—The real Momonga that if I’m being honest should be how the story is played out.”
“Alright. Let me ask you something different then—If you were transported or summoned to another world, what power would you want and why that power specifically?”
“I’m not going to another world, Liv. Who would take care of you?”
“It’s just a hypothetical question. Answer it.”
“Alright fine,” Krista sighed then cupped her chin in thought. After a moment she replied, “Logically, the most broken of any fantasy power—summoning.”
“Summoning?” Olivia repeated. “What’s so good about being able to summon something?”
“No, not something—anything,” Krista said, “Imagine being able to get anything you want or need at any given moment. Summoning is simple in its face value but unbelievably broken if you break it down to each of its principles and every possible thing one can summon.”
“I don’t get it…”
“Think of it this way—The power of summoning can negate basically any debuff anyone could ever have, can prevent said debuff before it can occur, outright deny the debuff caster from being able to cast said debuff, feed the hungry, alter entire market and economy, educate the stupid, turn entire tide of a battle with just a snap and a thought and permanently change how a world sees itself.”
Krista took her phone out and flashed it to Olivia.
“This is a cell phone. One of the most basic things anyone on Earth has. It has internet that can connect you to Wikipedia—the biggest archive of human knowledge, play music from a library of near infinite song, provide a fully functional map, help people calculate equations beyond their own brains, take picture or video or sound, communicate with other holder, scribble notes down, detect dangerous electromagnetic waves, light a dark room, and many more… and that’s just a basic modern day cell phone—If I’m including AIs like Gemini, GPT—the people from another world are gonna lose their goddamn minds. If we’re talking about modern Earth’s military might, even the most powerful sage, mage or demon wouldn’t survive through sheer firepower and confusion alone. We homo sapiens evolved from throwing rocks at each other to hurling nuclear missiles traveling at several times the speed of sound across the continent. You’d think a fictional character with a summoning power in a fantasy world wouldn’t be a new deity from the amount of things they could do with even the most basic Earth things?”
“Alright alright! Damn… You’re so passionate.”
“I’m just voicing my thoughts.”
“By the way… What took you so long?” Olivia asked Krista curiously. “You said you'd be back before eleven yet it was one twenty five when you stepped inside.”
Krista shrugged as she pretended nothing happened despite just cutting someone up hours ago.
“I had to take out a rat,” Krista smirked, twitching her eyes, “I hung out with my boss and a dick of a coworker after I was done.”
“Must be hard being in a pest extermination business,” Olivia said. “Sudden call in the night before bed.”
Krista let out a side eyed giggle. If only she was taking out a rat. “It is what it is… It paid our bills, your food, my education.”
“Well that's too bad. I was going to ask you to stick around for my stream. Chat has been curious about you.”
Krista then turned to Olivia's still powered computer. Being unable to move around freely like she used to, Krista gives Olivia her support to start streaming.
Going from three viewers to a hundred to now tens of thousands of subscribers and an official partner, sponsored by various gaming brands from the likes of Asus and Razer alike.
When Krista was out, Olivia would stream for hours after she finished her online private school class.
She wanted her to have the necessary twelve years of education before she fully delved into the entertainment world.
“What do they know about me? What did you say to your chat?” Krista asked.
“Just the basics—You taking care of me, your age, your daily routine, the fact that we're California based—Nothing too personal as you told me.”
“I see… Maybe I'll join your stream when I have some free time.”
“Great! By the way…” Olivia turned her TV, switching from the Netflix UI to news channel, “... Somebody got killed near your office. Look—”
Krista watched the news broadcast. The same man she killed and harvested. The same alleyway she committed her deeds.
She carefully observes Olivia's eyes. There was yet a hint of Olivia knowing her work.
“Good night everyone. Breaking news, a man was just recently murdered not hours ago in Werdin on 5th Street. Police report confirmed that he is now the 76th victim of an unknown and illegal organ harvesting in 2024 alone. Forensics are now trying to uncover how the gruesome act was done. In a surprising turn of events, the FBI is now jumping in on the hunt for these individuals who murdered these people and illegally harvesting their organs.”
Olivia wowed in surprise and Krista silently and nervously glanced at her sister's eyes as she kept watching the news.
“Damn! Even the FBI is involved too!” Olivia tapped Krista's shoulder, gesturing at the TV.
The reporter then turned to an elderly homeless man sitting down on the ground and leaning against the garbage.
“We do have a witness here that partially saw the act… Sir, good night, would you explain to our audience at home what you saw?”
“Yeah yeah. So I was just looking at the dump right and this young girl with an ice box slung around her approaching me. She crazy I can tell you, she give me a hundred dollar and a sandwich but only if I stay out of the alley for an hour. I ain't gon’ lie, I thought that she was a gold digger at first but nigga no gold digger carries around no damn ice box and a sword.”
“Wait wait… a sword?”
“Yeah like them swords from old Japanese cartoons and comics. You know, the curvy swords that samurai used…”
“This girl… What does she look like?”
“She young definitely. Maybe 20 or younger, big titties and black hair.”
“What about her face?”
“I don't know man she wears a face mask like them nurses or doctors. She creepy as hell I know for that fact tho.”
“And how did you found the victim?”
“I was going back here from a liquor store down the block. I saw a nigga on the ground I thought that he just another homeless like me. Wasn't until I'm like four-five feet later that I noticed that he dead. A whole cavity on his chest and blood all over the puddle. It was disgusting I tell you.”
“Is there anything else you noticed about the girl?”
“Hmm… maybe an ID or a tag? It look like a Uni card.”
“What do you think, UCLA?”
“It does look like a UCLA ID, though. She does look young. I wouldn't be surprised if she was a student.”
“Alright. Thank you very much, sir.”
Krista took the remote and turned the TV off. Her eyes twitch slightly. Olivia turned at her sister while taking a bite of her garlic bread.
“That’s a bit close to your place, isn't it? 5th—Isn’t that like five minutes away from your office in Skid Row? I know that bar too… Damn! You're lucky…”
“Yeah,” Krista rubbed her head, “... I'm very lucky.”
Her phone rang as she finished. It was just the letter B—Bradley. Krista was hesitant whether to pick it up or not.
Olivia looked at her ringing phone and nudged Krista. “Are you not gonna answer that?”
Krista stood up from the bed and headed out. “Give me a minute.”
Once she exited Olivia’s room and entered her own. She swiped the animated green button up. Bradley’s voice sounded worried and frustrated.
“Hey.”
“Yeah, wassup?” Krista answered.
“I’m canceling your job next week.”
Krista was surprised as the more time she took between jobs, the less money she would make. She needed all the money she could make, especially considering how costly the implant she sought was.
“You… You can’t do that!” She whispered through her hand covering her mouth. “I need that money—”
“I know, Krist. But the FBI is on the case. I’ve been hearing words that they have begun their investigation. A birdie told me of a whole pack of black SUVs gunning it down I-5 on Portland, heading south here to LA.”
Krista went silent for a moment before responding to his information. “Oh, shit…”
“Correct—Oh, shit.”
“So that’s…” Krista made a quick approximation in her head. “About fourteen-twelve hours, give or take?”
“They’d be driving much faster than that considering the sensitivity of the case.”
“So… morning at best?”
“Exactly. They’re gonna be here by the morning.”
“Damn it!” She punched her desk whisperingly. “I have class tomorrow. I can’t skip it if I want to pass.”
“Well you better hope they won't find you…”
“Thanks!” She said, her tone bleeding with sarcasm. “I’ll be sure to grab a lawyer on my way to the campus!”
“Just relax and act like nothing happened.”
“Wha-Wha-What… Have you ever escaped their searches?” She asked Bradley, curious for any tips or tricks.
“No they definitely will get whoever they’re looking for. You are now on borrowed time… but you just act natural and don’t give them any reason to sniff you, they might back off due to the lack of evidence gathered and they’ll be back to Langley.”
Krista began to sweat. Her mind was wondering about the other result. “What if they sniffed me?” Her tone now dreaded with worry.
“Then you better say your goodbyes—From the amount of people you killed, your charges will most likely result in an instant death penalty. I mean 700+ kills… You surpassed even all US serial killers combined. You should consider yourself a living legend, Kris.”
She hung up the call and looked around her room nervously.
*