LUNA IS IN CHARGE

I stare blankly at Luna for several seconds. The first thing that crossed my mind when she said she wasn’t well… herself, was confusion. Luna was never what I would call a normal person, but despite that she wasn’t one to make inane jokes like this. After the initial confusion, evidence started piling up. She had been acting odd ever since I entered the room. Following that thought, I wondered; if she isn’t Luna, then who is she? And finally, I arrived at, how couldn’t she be Luna? She looks exactly like her. I fixed luna with a practiced scowl and asked. “What are you doing?” “Whadaya mean?” Luna asked, head tilted, blood red eyes fixed on me. “Why are you trying to mess with me in such an inane way?” “Oh… I suppose this would be hard to believe wouldn’t it,” she said, half to herself. That statement in and of itself is rather telling. “Let’s suppose for a minute you are, in fact, not Luna Sang. Then, who the hell are you, and why do you look, and sound, exactly like her?” I asked, crossing my arms. “Well, for the first question, my name is Cheshire.” “Like the cat from Alice in wonderland?” Luna shrugged. “More or less. And for the second question; it’s a little complicated but long story short, my soul was placed into Luna’s body presumably after she died.” “Luna wasn’t dead last I checked, and if she’d managed to change that in the few hours since the last time, I saw her, there should be some sign of a cause of death. Like a stab wound or bullet hole.” “Actually, that’s a good point, one sec.” Luna took out her phone and began tapping away at it. “Who are you texting?” I asked. “Hmm… I’m not sure if I’m allowed to tell you that.” Luna flipped her phone around and showed me a contact. “What does the name of this contact say?” she asked. I quirked an eyebrow, I glanced away from the image of a large, red-eyed fly that I could swear I’d seen before and looked into the eyes of the small, red-eyed elf in front of me. “Unknown Number,” I said flatly. “Well, I guess she doesn’t want me telling people I know her then,” she said. I grit my teeth, but let it go. It wasn’t important anyways. “Okay, let’s see…. Oh… Luna was poisoned.” Luna’s face morphed into one of exasperation. “I’m going to have to deal with that aren’t I?” She said. “Okay look, Chanelle, was it? What the hell did Luna do to get… herself….” Luna, or I guess Cheshire, we were far past the point where this could be construed as a joke, trailed off. “What now?” I asked.

“Chanelle, you would never lie to me, right?” “Wrong, I would absolutely lie to you,” I say, voice flat. “What exactly is it that we do here?” “Quite a lot, what specifically do you want to know?” “Like, what’s going on in general?” I frown. Or rather, I don’t really frown since I’m already frowning but if I weren’t frowning, I would absolutely start. “Well, this is the Grey Nightshade guild,” I begin, humoring her. “We make and traffic drugs, run protection rackets, Usery, various larcenies, pimping, the list goes on” I said. The small dark elf flopped back into the large office char behind her and let out a long loud groan. “What the fuck!” she shouted into the office. I narrowed my eyes. I hadn’t considered this, but if she really wasn’t Luna, she might try to take sensitive info to the authorities. I flexed my fingers, feeling my saw in the other room. I was standing between her and the door, if she tried to run for the poodles, I could have her organs on the floor before she makes it to the door, unless she’s smart enough to go for the window. We’re on the second floor, but she could probably survive the fall, especially if she leaps for the building across the alley. If she were to do that then I could…. “Okay,” she says, slapping her cheeks, “As much as I want to run for the authorities, there are two things that make me think that’s a bad idea.” “Go on,” I say. “One: I have no idea what the situation actually is, everyone’s gotta put food on the table somehow and all that. And two: There’s a tall gangster lady in the room with me with a scary face, and inconveniently long legs. And bonus three: Luna’s probably a known criminal, so I probably don’t have much of a choice either way,” she said, before letting out another groan. It was weird seeing Luna act like this. People don’t usually show vulnerability around here, least of all Luna. It’s not easy keeping a criminal organization from tearing you apart while looking like a prepubescent. “True enough,” I say.

I relax slightly, she’s clever enough to realize the gravity of her situation. Now, how might I take advantage of this? I already basically run the organization, and if anything, bad happened, Luna was always the one who would take the fall for it. It doesn’t really matter if Luna’s been replaced by some weirdo. Actually, if anything, it’s better. This Cheshire chick probably doesn’t care enough to involve herself with the organization to any extent, meaning she’s just a figurehead. Unlike Luna, who always had a possibility of realizing what I was doing, Cheshire won’t care even if she did know. I just need to establish dominance, and I will have nothing left to worry about. Should be easy enough. I was about to summon my saw to my hands and hold it against her throat when she clapped her hands together sharply. “Alright,” she said, standing, “Now that I’m in charge, we’re gonna need to make some changes,” she said. I fixed her with a vicious scowl. “Who the hell said you were in charge?” I said, letting my voice redden with blood. In response Cheshire let out a piercing whistle with her teeth. In an instant, the decorative claws flew from the box on the desk and a split second later, I felt the cold metal on my throat. Nine tiny pinpricks of dangerous sharpness. I held perfectly still, hands at my sides. It’s best not to cower when someone has a weapon to you, but it’s also best not to make any hasty movements. So, this is what she did to the claws, I should have known she’d done something to them, I was just too stupid to assume the worst. “Look, Chanelle. I know some weirdo coming out of nowhere and essentially taking over may seem like the end of the world or whatever. And I know you’ve probably been taking power from Luna for who knows how long. But here's the deal. I don’t care. I’ve been thrust into this position and as much as I hate it, I feel like if anyone’s gonna be in charge it should be me. I have a fresh and pristine moral compass by which I can slowly and surely reform this place into a nice upstanding portion of society. But the thing about that is, I’ll need your help.” “What?” I asked. Suddenly the blades around my neck vanished. The tension flooding out of me so fast, I fell to my knees. “So, Chanelle, we’re going to reform the Grey Nightshade guild. Because by hell am I going to get thrown in jail with the rest of you if this all goes to shit,” Cheshire said. I looked up at the woman wearing Luna’s skin. She smiled down at me, red eyes seeming to glow in the dark office. “Pleasure working with you,” she said, with sickening sweetness. I swallowed. I have absolutely no idea who Chesire actually is, but one thing is for certain, she is dangerous. The sort of dangerous it’s best to just play along with. If she wants to run Grey Nightshade, that’s fine. If she’s successful in driving this place onto the straight and narrow, I have no qualms, if not then she’ll still take the fall and I’ll be in the perfect position to take charge. It’s not like I want to spend the rest of my life in this god forsaken city anyways.

When Chanelle finally left the room, I flopped backwards into my chair and let out a long sigh. “Are you sure we had to threaten her?” I asked. Spvhanha let out a high-pitched trilling noise I identified as assent. During the conversation with Chanelle, I had been having a second conversation with Spvhanha with soul communication. She was the one who had pointed out that it was a bad idea to run, as well as the one who had said we needed to threaten Chanelle. Lastly, we discovered that while Spvhanha could now fly in this new form of hers, she could no longer speak. Instead, she could make various high pitched metallic flutes and trills, which she quickly formulated into a language and taught me. While soul communication was fast it still wasn’t fast enough to get across the entirety of Spvhanha’s language, especially not while we were also talking to Chanelle. “I don’t know how I feel about having to threaten her. I mean, I know why we did it, but something about it just rubs me the wrong way,” I said. Spvhanha let out a reply of several warbles and chirps. “Wait, wait… too fast. I’m still new to this,” I said. Spvhanha let out a condescending trill. “Oh, you’re one to talk. You know how hard it is to learn a language where every word is based on pitch, rhythm, vibrato, and whatever the hell resonance is, without being able to actually hear anything?” I sighed remembering my situation. How in gods name am I going to get out of this? Maybe I could get some money together and disappear. It’s not like it’s impossible. Well, I should at least go though Luna’s memories and figure out what exactly is going on.

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

Luna Sang grew up in a rather rich family. This was the norm in Hope’s Cradle where the price of lunch at even the mid-grade restaurants were worth half my rent. She was a studious young woman with a drive imbued into her by her parents so that she may better survive in the rather cutthroat society of the city. This all changed when one day, a rival took over her parent’s businesses and soon after that, her parents vanished. Presumably they were killed by that same rival, but Luna didn’t know for certain, nor did she know who that person was. Luna had desperately tried to scape together what little she had left, but she failed miserably. Now with no money and few assets besides the home she was born in, Luna turned to the streets. Luna joined Grey Nightshade as a sort of hail Mary. Liquidating all her assets and using them to essentially buy her way into the gang. Once she was in, she found that the drive she had, meant for elevating herself in high society, would work wonders in low society as well. Very few people knew her, but she swiftly elevated herself in the eyes of her fellows. Made all the easier by the organizational program the previous leader had. Although there was no promotional program, Luna managed to promote herself anyways. She did it so well in fact, that when the previous leader had been mysteriously killed, everyone voted for her to be in charge despite not really knowing what she looked like. Once on the throne, Luna had been… rather lax. For all the effort she’d put into becoming the leader of Grey Nightshade, she didn’t really care to run it. Leaving most of the running to her assistant, Chanelle. Their relationship was strained at best. Chanelle had joined Grey Nightshade many years ago and was well known despite not doing much. She was known for being a serious, reliable, clever and a little aloof. Not to mention she was actually rather dangerous, wielding a large tenon-style saw with vicious precision. All of that was probably what lead her to be the treasurer, and later she became the assistant to the previous leader whom I am deliberately attempting not to remember the name or face of because of what Luna did to him. Either way, Luna was able to convince Chanelle to back her as the new leader, and afterwards those two were more or less left alone. Chanelle spent more time actually running the organization, while Luna mostly just signed whatever Chanelle put in front of her and blew away loads of money on random purchases. Although aside from Chanelle, Luna was never actually close with anyone, and I’m only including Chanelle by default. Luna was rather reclusive and never talked with anyone. I actually kind of felt bad for her. She’d lost her family and was put out on the street at a rather young age, and since then she’s basically been all alone. Either way, none of this matters too much. What does, is how Grey Nightshade actually works.

The Grey Nightshade Guild was essentially founded nearly eighty years ago by a woman referred to as Lady Nightshade as well as her brother. It was headquartered in a pocket dimension sprawling out along the layout of Hope’s Cradle. The pocket dimension was created by Lady Nightshade’s brother who no one has seen in over fifty years. Lady Nightshade, however, does pop up on occasion and is the one who is keeping the pocket dimension intact. Whenever she does show up, she is treated with respect and reverence by the members of the criminal organization squatting in her dimensional bubble. No one really knows for certain how she feels about us using her pocket dimension. I mean, she has to know what we’re doing right? Although the fact that she hasn’t done anything to expel us is telling. Moving on, while the pocket dimension is the size of the city, the actual inhabited space is rather small, as the Grey Nightshade Guild isn’t large enough to use the entire city. Grey Nightshade is one of the four major criminal organizations in the city and is the one on the east side of town. East side is where the somewhat poor people live but isn’t the slums. We’re mostly known for being the median. We aren’t as violent as some of the others, we don’t have any particular focus. We mostly just wander around sticking our fingers in whatever pie seems lucrative. Aside from us, there’s the Misfit Toys in the west, Echelon in the north and C4 in the south. The most important of those ones is C4, since they and us are in a sort of gang war. I say gang war, but it’s more a cold war than anything else. Neither of us like each other so an actual gang war could break out at any moment.

With all that backstory out of the way, I could finally have a look around… sort of. It’s not the best idea to walk around the pocket dimension alone. This is a den of criminals after all, Although I wasn’t likely to get stopped. Luna had carefully crafted a persona that would prevent her from being stopped, well she actually crafted two, but one was far more desirable than the other. So, I spent the next fifteen minutes getting into character, while Spvhanha spat barbs at me. Finally ready for the outside world I took a step towards the doorway. And ran face first into someone’s crotch. I let out a yelp and stumbled back looking up at who I just ran into. I came face first with… Lady Nightshade. “H-hello,” I said a little nervously. She nodded at me, before walking past me, looking around the office with extreme focus. “Can I help you?” She looked back at me and said…. nothing. She simply continued investigating the office in total si…. “There was a god in this room,” I let out another yelp, surprised she’d actually spoke. Her voice was somehow deep and rich, while also being light and childish. She was very tall, dressed in a long grey-white dress with lavender highlights. She was a light elf, which meant that while she was at least eighty, she looked to be in her late twenties to early thirties. She waved a hand through the air, and I could feel the very fabric of the reality we inhabited ripple. “You know who it was, don’t you?” she said, not looking over her shoulder at me. I frowned. I felt it was probably best to be honest here. “Yes, I do.” “And I suppose you can’t tell me.” “No, I don’t believe so.” Lady Nightshade let out a hum. She stood there for several seconds before finally turning to face me. She leaned down, fixing me in her eyes. Hey irises were an extremely pale blue, so pale they looked like a chilly white. She focused on me. Feeling embarrassed, I broke eye contact. She grabbed my chin and brought my face back up to hers. “Look into my eyes,” she said. I just swallowed, and acquiesced. “You’re not Luna.” “N-no,” I said, suddenly a lot more nervous. Unlike Chanelle I somehow doubted she’d balk to over half a dozen blades to her throat. “You’re in her body. Soul transference?” Lady Nightshade released my face. “What happened to Luna Sang?” She asked. “I think she was poisoned.” “By you?” “No.” “Very well. If Mortella wants to reincarnate someone I suppose it’s none of my business,” She said off handedly, turning towards the door. “Wait, how did you know it was Mortella.” “I’m familiar with her. Shame she didn’t stop by it would’ve given me an excuse to get out the good tea. Oh well, I should just call her, it’s been a while,” she said, half to herself before walking directly through the closed door. So… that was something. You know, suddenly I don’t really want to go outside anymore.