Death

An Abrupt Mission Is Never Safe In Any Way

I stood up and saw that I was now in the real world. How could I tell? Well, there was a complete lack of ominous, all-covering shadows, for one thing. For another, the extremely annoying lookalike was gone. Unfortunately, I still had a war to win. How was training a little girl like me going to help when there were other demi-humans like the shadow girl who could probably do much better than me?

And why were the shadows that I had summoned so bad? Nobody had yet given me a straight answer about that, and I was starting to suspect a dark and dangerous secret. A secret that must be kept, no matter what the cost! Nah, I had been watching too many Marvel movies. I gasped as a thought occurred to me.

Was it possible that this was a dream? Then, I shook my head regretfully. I knew that my mind was messed up, but even the most irretrievably screwed up basket case couldn't have invented this. It would take a special kind of insanity.

With that all figured out, I looked around. I was standing on a sand-covered rocky floor, with wooden walls all around me, stretching out at least a hundred feet in front and only about five feet behind. Connected to the wooden wall was what looked like an iron gate, which was closed. I was most certainly trapped. Lovely.

I looked across the oval-shaped area to see another iron gate, which was now opening. A man walked out. He looked completely normal except for the fact that he was sparkling. That was because he was made entirely of gold. It seemed to be living, but I didn't really want to find out. He was obviously supposed to be my opponent or something of the sort, and I figured that living gold beat uncontrollable, unusable shadows any day.

Fortunately for me, it happened to be night. Maybe I would be lucky. Even so, I would have to be wary. A careless human was a dead human, and a careless demi-human fighting a living gold statue was a very dead demi-human.

Ha, ha, idiot. You don't even know how to summon anything. You've literally been doing this for two days and you think you can take on Midas if you're a little careful? That's funny. Oh, wait, did I just spoil something? Whatever. I'll go back to my popcorn now.

"Hey!" I called out across the arena. So far, everything in the Underworld had been completely unexpected. Pluto was an anti-Democratist that loved potato chips, Fiery Eyes was... well, a woman, and I was a demi-human with strange and wonderful powers. Perhaps this gold man would be odd, too.

"Prepare to die!" he called out, and I sighed. I guess not. He held out his hands, his only weapon, and prepared to charge at me.

I closed my eyes and remembered the shadows, but then hesitated. They were dangerous. I couldn't summon them again, or I would try to plunge the world into darkness.

Finally! She understands! Why in hell did it take you so long? Those shadows bad. Other shadows good. It's not that hard at all.

So I brought to mind the memory of the shadows that had been around me my entire life, on Earth. Protecting me, I imagined, as a gift from my mother in heaven. Well, not heaven now, but from wherever she happened to be. Where did reapers go to die? What would happen to me? Would I be like the shadow girl in my mind, reduced to a reflection of someone else, forced to reprimand them for the rest of my terrible existence?

Geez. Melodramatic, much? It's not like you can die, you know! I mean, authors don't kill off their main characters until the end. It would be a crappy story if you died here. Well, I mean, that wouldn't change much. What kind of a name is Mortician?

I shook away my sudden fears and held out my hand. As I closed my eyes and thought about the shadows, I could feel the temperature change in the arena. It grew warm and muggy. Everything was wonderful, and I was happy.

Rather than going after the gold man in front of me, I started to laugh. He looked at me strangely, and I spun, holding my hand out. The shadows swathed around me, and when they pooled at my feet and dripped off of my arms, I felt the cold handle of a weapon in my hand. When I looked at it, it seemed to be a wand of some sort, made of dark iron with an intricate twisted part at the top.

To test it out, I flicked my wrist at the ceiling of the arena, and a writhing ball of purple darkness emerged from the end, floating towards the top of the room. When it reached it, there was an odd noise, like a squelch, and the entire ceiling was gone, just like that.

Lava rushed into the room, flowing down the sides of the empty arena and towards the gold man and I, destroying chairs and aisles as it went.

Seriously? What a terrible idea. Do you never think of others? What about the skeleton workmen who have to go and fix that? But sure, just go and destroy a random building before knowing where you are. Smooth move, Copernicus. How are we supposed to keep you alive until the end if you do stupid stuff like this?

I looked up in horror as the lava washed in around me, into me, and then I thought no more.