Dimensions Collide: Destiny Bond

The party stared at the giant haunted armour towering over them. Despite the fact that there had only been twenty of the smaller variants, this thing was absolutely ginormous. It was easily taller than the mansion itself. A single swat from one of its hands, and it would be all over.

“Move!” Fate yelled, dodging the first blow with a gust of wind. He hesitated for a moment, then pulled out a bottle filled with blue liquid and tore the cork off with his teeth. In a single gulp, he downed the contents, then gagged.

It tasted terrible, but it was worth it. He felt energy coursing through his body as his missing mana was replaced. There wasn’t any time to relish the feeling, though, as the monster continued to swing. The only saving grace was how slow the thing was. Even a fool would be able to see where the thing was aiming.

“Just hit it!” John yelled. “We don’t have time to be playing around!”

Fate nodded and unsheathed his sword. His mouth moved as he chanted silently, and blue flames began to wrap themselves around the blade, the metal itself glowing white with heat. He leapt up with a cry and swung, his sword a deadly arc of heat, but he was only able to remove a singular arm.

“Keep going!” John yelled, firing his pistol off over and over again, but the bullets were just punching tiny holes in the metal. Sure, he was technically doing damage, but he might as well have been trying to demolish a house with a stick. His other guns were more powerful, but even if he used them, would they do anything?

Prota, too, wasn’t able to accomplish that much. While she had the capability to fight at a much higher level than John, her body was worn down from pushing herself so hard. There was a limit to the amount of times she could use mana recovery, and she was starting to reach that limit. Not only that, she was still shaken by what they’d found in the basement.

She looked over at Fate and saw his sword. Blue flames? Was that possible? Why were they blue?

“John,” she said as she felt him bump against her. “The colour.”

“What, the flames?” John gasped as he blocked a piece of flying rubble. “You want to know about that now?”

“Why are they blue?”

“You can’t wait for a science lesson?”

“Blue.”

“Argh, fine! Uh… flames turn different colours depending on how hot they are! Yellow flames are the weakest, I think? Red is weaker than blue. The hottest is white, if I remember correct…”

Prota was stunned. Fire could get hotter? It was already hot enough as it was. How did one make fire hotter? John was going to tell her to forget about it, but it didn’t look like she was planning on dropping the topic at any time.

“Haah… go for it.”

Prota nodded. Hotter flames. She would do it. Anything Fate could do, she would do as well. Just like the blossom, she gathered flames, putting them together and compressing them, trying to fit multiple balls of fire into one singular space. Hotter. Smaller. Compress the heat into one small space, take the heat of multiple flames and compress them into a singular, dense fire. The colour of her magic began to shift.

[You have succeeded in making blue flames.]

Prota didn’t waste any time and threw the fireball at the monster’s chest. Unfortunately, it was off just a bit and hit the other hand instead, but it flew right through, leaving a gaping hole behind. Unfortunately, since Prota had focused on condensing her fire, the size of the flame was rather small, and so nothing of value had been accomplished. It would’ve been more effective if she’d used regular flames. Not only that, she was now nearly exhausted of all energy, rendering her even more useless.

“Uh… I have zero clue how you did that, but maybe save it for another day?”

Prota nodded. It wasn’t practical right now. Thankfully, the fight was going surprisingly simply. Bit by bit, the monster was being destroyed. Another hand. A foot, then an arm, followed by a leg. The armour was collapsing.

“One more push,” Fate said. “We’ve got it.”

That was the wrong thing to say. There was a rumbling sound as the armour started rising from the ground, reassembling itself. In no time at all, it was back to its original state.

“Hey. You wanna shut your mouth next time?” John grumbled.

“What the hell?” Fate yelled, staring at the perfectly fine monster. “How is that thing moving?”

“Why are you asking me that?!”

“Maybe because you seem to know every-”

“Move!” John yelled, shoving Fate out of the way as the sword came crashing down again.

“Prota! Slow it down!” John yelled, but Prota wasn’t in any position to do anything like that.

“Argh! Why were you so focused on the flames?!”

John pulled something out of his pocket. It was a small canister with a label written in clunky letters. Without wasting any time, he pulled a pin out of the lid and threw it with all his might, hitting the giant in the arm. A white mist began spewing out of the container, freezing the metal with some kind of chemical.

“What the hell is that?!” Fate yelled.

“It’s called an asspull! Are you going to use it to your advantage or not?!”

The frost began to spread everywhere, slowing the arm down and causing the metal to turn brittle. Fate didn’t waste any time following up, lifting chunks of earth from the ground and flinging them at the frozen limb, causing it to shatter.

Despite the good progress, everyone was running out of energy. If they didn’t end things fast, it would be all over.

“It’s ok,” Fate assured John, seeing the look on his face. “Kit can… she might be able to help.”

“No,” John said quietly. “There’s someone watching us. We’re gonna have to avoid using her help.”

“What? Since when? And how do you know that?”

“I- move!”

John was starting to gather an idea of how to beat the thing. One idea was phases. A common trope was for a boss to be defeated three times in order to defeat it. Theoretically, they just needed to kill it two more times.

The other idea, however, was easier and simpler. Weak points. There had to be weak points they could target, and those would stop the monster from regenerating. The only problem was that he had no evidence to-

“John,” Prota wheezed. “Souls.”

She pointed at the armour. Head, chest and stomach. She pointed to those three areas.

“Huh?”

“Too much… mana. Souls. They’re there.”

“The regeneration… hold on, you’re only telling me this now?”

Prota shrugged.

“Can you do something about it?”

Prota shook her head.

“Can you still drain any mana?”

“Nn… mm hm,” Prota nodded. “But Prota is tired.”

“That’s fine. Just drain the mana and leave the rest to Fate,” John nodded, putting his hand on her head.

It was a poor plan, but they were running out of options. If only they hadn’t wasted so much energy earlier… no, that wasn’t important now. Option two it was. This was probably easier than option one, anyway.

Prota would absorb mana from the souls, hopefully slowing them down. She didn’t have the strength to absorb the souls completely, so John was hoping that that would cause even the slightest of delays in movement, and in that moment, they’d strike.

“Fate!” John yelled as he dove out of the way of yet another attack. “Plan!”

Fate nodded and ran over.

“We’re gonna take the mana out of the souls and weaken it. You need to destroy them during that window, got it?”

“There are souls in there?!”

“What, did you think it was powered by triple As?”

“You’re serious?”

“Why would I joke about something like that?”

“It’s impossible to tell with you!”

“Fuck you! Chest, head and stomach. Those three areas. Got it?”

Fate nodded. It sounded simple, but it definitely wasn't an easy task. They had one shot.

“Ready?” John said in a low voice.

Fate nodded and gave a thumbs up. This was it.

“Prota! Now!” John yelled.

The small girl nodded and stretched her hands out, absorbing everything she could. She quickly passed out from the effort, but the effect was there. The giant staggered, just for a moment, but a moment was all they needed. Fate didn’t waste a single second and leapt up, his sword burning bright. The neck. He had to aim for the neck. Just one cleave, one slice, and one soul would be gone.

“Fate! Look out!” John yelled.

The moment wasn’t as long as they’d hoped. Fate watched as a giant hand was approaching him.

He wouldn’t be able to hit the neck at this point. He could fall back…

Or he could keep going.

With a gust of wind, he propelled himself towards the head, his sword leaving a trail of flames behind him.

“Fate! What are you doing?!”

It looked like he was going to crash into the helmet, but with split second timing, he managed to dive between the slits in the visor. John stared. He hadn’t thought of that. It made sense, though. He’d thought that the armour in the mansion wasn’t enough to make a monster this big, but if it was just paper thin and hollow on the inside, then it was doable. If that was the case, then Fate should have an easy time, right?

The monster started moving randomly, jittering and flailing around. There was a bright flash of light, then a second, then a third, and then the metal stopped moving. Then, piece by piece, the metal began falling to the ground, clanging loudly.

As the upper body fell apart, Fate emerged from the metal, desperately trying to land feet first. It didn’t look like he’d be able to do it, but then a flame emerged around his feet, every so slightly cushioning his fall. There was still an audible crack as Fate landed on his arm, though. John winced.

Everyone was exhausted and injured, but they were alive.

“You good?” John called out. He himself had multiple cuts and bruises everywhere, but that crack sounded rather nasty.

“What does it look like?” Fate groaned. He pulled a potion out and downed it.

“Seriously, you’ve got to introduce me to your sponsor. Whoever’s rich enough to give you that many potions is rich enough to set me up for life.”

“That’s precisely why you won’t be meeting them,” Fate said, wiping his mouth before pulling his mask back down. He pulled out another one and tossed it to John. “Use that on your sister.”

“Nothing for me?”

“You barely did anything.”

John just sighed and jogged over to the unconscious Prota. He quickly checked her pulse, but it was a useless action. He could see her health status in his system. She wasn’t in the best state, but she was alive, and considerably less injured than Fate. He opened her mouth and tiled her head back, then poured the red liquid in.

Prota coughed twice as she woke up, her body slowly recovering.

“Did we… win?”

“Yeah, we won.”

“We won… John is… alive…” Prota mumbled as she fell asleep. The potion had merely served to help ease her into a more gentle sleep. After all, it was meant to heal wounds, not recover stamina.

“Your sister’s incredible, you know that?” Fate said as he sat down next to John.

“Not you?”

“Well… I’m supposed to be incredible, no?” Fate said. “I suppose that comes along with being the hero. But even if she has Soul Siphon, she doesn’t have a complete version. Which means she learned how to make blue flames on her own.”

“You saw?”

Fate laughed. “It was kind of hard not to notice.”

“Then how did you learn?”

“Kit taught me. Well, it’s not just that. I guess… well, a ridiculous amount of talent helps as well.”

John was visibly holding in laughter, but Fate shook his head.

“Blessing from the goddess. I’m not being cocky or anything, I’m serious. But Prota… she doesn’t have any of that, right? She’s just a kid.”

“You act like an adult.”

“That’s rich, coming from the ancient mummy.”

Kit hopped back onto Fate's shoulders, her pink fur dirty and tangled. She nodded once at John, then closed her eyes as she, too, fell asleep.

“Damn. Getting dark,” John muttered. “Maybe we just camp here-”

“John!” Fate yelled. “Dodge!”

Despite his injuries, he threw himself in front of John, who had reacted but hadn’t had the physical skill to dodge the incoming knife. It buried itself deep into Fate’s arm, who winced as he got back up.

“Damn!” he grunted, pulling the weapon out. He pulled out a vial of red liquid and downed it.

“Another one?” John frowned.

“Yeah, and the last one. You’re not supposed to take more than two in a day. This is pushing it, but with my broken arm…”

“Ah. No more healing, then.”

“Basically.”

From the shadows of the forest, three men emerged.

“These are… you said people were following us.”

John grit his teeth. “I don’t think so. Prota only felt one presence. There’s three people here.”

“...maybe they got backups?”

“I don’t think so,” John shook his head. “I don’t have any proof, but I’ve got a feeling there’s still someone else out there. Be careful.”

Fate wasn’t happy about that.

“Seriously… I’ll deal with this one. You stay back.”

John grimaced but did as he was told. He watched as Fate ran towards their assailants and engaged in combat. Truth be told, John would probably do better here, but it was clear. Fate didn’t want to kill them, and he knew John would do so. Prota’s worries weren’t baseless.

The boy wasn’t exactly a one man army, though. The assailants weren’t bad. He was winning, probably, but it was close. If Fate needed help, though, he would ask for it. Probably. So John just sat back and watched. He pulled a bottle of water out of his pocket dimension and took a sip as he thought about the day’s events.

“Something doesn’t feel right…”

The boss monster had been taken care of too quickly. There’d been very little struggle in getting to this point. Sure, they’d fought monsters, but something like this was supposed to have a few incidents before reaching the climax. There’d be no puzzles. No struggle. It was a matter of entering the mansion, finding the gimmick, and then fighting a boss. Speaking of the boss, it, too, hadn’t felt that praiseworthy. Sure, it’d required some luck and quick thinking, but had it really been a good fight?

To top it off, there were random strangers attacking them for no reason at all. John didn’t usually think too much, but if this were a story, then things were going way too quickly. There was supposed to be a break. A period of rest to allow the [Characters] to rest, recover and recoup.

So what was going on here?

“...the souls. Was the whole point for us just to find the souls?”

The souls. The energy source. John had completely forgotten about the request Albert had made of him, the one related to the slaves. There had to be pieces that would fit together. Souls. A strange request. He’d already come to the conclusion that the mansion was bait in order to collect souls, but who was behind this?

The group they were chasing after?

That normally would’ve been a rather large leap to make, but given the kind of world John was in, it wasn’t impossible. In fact, it was probably likely.

John heard Fate let out a furious roar, causing him to lose his train of thought. He turned his head to look back at the fight. Fate’s speed had increased, and he was now pushing the opponents back. This was probably some sort of last ditch effort, but it was working. John shook his head. Why didn’t he just ask for help instead?

“Fuck! What the hell is this?”

“He still had energy left over? After fighting that giant thing?”

Backed into a corner, the mercenaries had no other option. If they couldn’t attack Fate…

“John!” Fate yelled, but he was just a bit too late. A dagger flew in John’s direction, aiming right for his head.

John let himself fall flat, causing the dagger to barely miss, but it still drew blood from his cheek.

“You idiot!” he heard one of the men yell. “We’re not supposed to kill them!”

“We don’t really have a choice here!”

…a kidnapping? Who could possibly want to kidnap them? No, forget that. John had to focus on the present. Staying alive was a good thing. Their opponents wouldn’t kill them, but with Fate on hand, this was actually a bad thing. If John was right, and there was still someone out there with unknown intentions, then they needed to wrap things up as fast as possible. Fate wouldn’t do that. He’d struggle to keep his opponents alive.

“Fate! We need to get the fuck out of here! Wrap it up!”

“I’ve got it, so just-”

“You don’t have time to be talking!” one of the mercenaries roared, leaping forwards.

Fate grunted as he blocked the blade, preparing to counter attack, but then stopped. The mercenary stopped, too. They all stared at John, who’d just fired his gun into the air. Fate stopped because he’d recognized the sound, but the mercenaries had no idea what the loud crack was. And because it was unknown, they were hesitant.

“Right, the opponent gets it before the ally does. Fate, I don’t think you understand. We need to leave. Now. So I’m going to give the opponents a chance to run, just for you, or I’m going to kill them all. Got it?”

“You think I’d fall for such an obvious bluff like that?” the mercenary who was attacking Fate laughed. He took a step forward.

There was a bang.

Everyone stared as the mercenary fell down, dead. A thin stream of blood and brain sprayed out from the man’s head, and there was a thump as he fell to the ground, but other than that, everything was still.

“I’m in a rush here, ok?” John said, exasperated. “Give yourself up or die, make up your mind. Quickly, please.”

“That wasn’t what you said-”

“What was that?”

No one moved. There was undeniably an aura of fear, but it wasn’t just because of the man’s death.

It was how John had done it that everyone was concerned about. It was almost as if John was bored. He’d raised the gun and pulled the trigger with the same kind of expression one might have while washing the dishes.

“Ten,” John called out. “Nine.”

The two men quickly raised their hands and walked towards Fate.

“We’re having a talk about this later,” Fate said quietly as he pulled a rope out from somewhere and tied their hands.

“Hey. I left two of them alive. That not good enough?”

“That’s not what it’s about.”

Fate just looked away and focused on tying up the second assassin.

“Hey,” John said, walking over to the first assassin. “Who hired you?”

“Why would I-”

John pulled the trigger, and a bullet flew right past the man’s head.

“The next one won’t miss. Who hired you?”

“I really can’t tell you.”

“Or else what? You’ll die?” Fate said.

His voice was just as cold. He wasn’t keen on killing these men, but he had no plans on going easy on them either. In his opinion, they were weak enough that they could be spared, but… he had to admit that John’s method had worked out pretty well.

“You’ve got two choices. We throw you in prison, or we let you go. Which one do you want?” Fate said, joining in.

The prisoners refused to speak.

“Hey,” John said. “If I kill one, the other will probably speak. Thoughts?”

“Wha- no!”

“Aw, come on, seriously? It’s just so much easier.”

“There are other ways to get information.”

“Like what, torture? I’d rather not.”

“...really?”

“Well, killing’s pretty merciful, I think. I’m not super into torturing people, though. “

Fate stared at John as if he were some kind of alien.

“Fine. Just do it your way. I’ll sit out of this one.” John sighed in disappointment, but he was also relieved.

Killing was easy for him. It was quick and easy. There was no afterlife for [Characters], unless the [Story] had such a place like that. But once a [Character] was offscreen and irrelevant, well, they were essentially gone, right? But suffering would always be there. Whatever pain someone suffered would be, well, pain. Death just didn’t mean much to John in a world where nothing was real in the first place, but that didn’t mean he was a sadist.

That didn’t mean he was incapable of torturing, though. He just didn’t find the thought of inflicting intentional pain on people who meant nothing to him. He wasn’t even mad about the fact that they’d had tried to kill him. That was just how things worked. He shook his head. If Fate could deal with it, then it didn’t matter.

He sighed as he walked over to Prota, who’d been awake for a bit.

“John…” Prota muttered as he walked back to her.

John sighed and rubbed the back of his neck. “Look. If you don’t want me killing people, I can stop. Is that what you want?”

John was being serious. It wasn’t that killing was what he wanted to do; it was just usually the easiest, like the scenario he’d mentioned earlier. But if Prota was against it, then that meant it was no longer the easiest option. Maybe it was time to rethink things.

“Prota. Is this just about Fate?”

“...”

“If it’s about you, then why don’t you want them dead?”

Prota looked at John uncomfortably.

“I don’t really care. Honestly. It’s just… isn’t it a lot easier to kill them? It just saves a lot of work.”

Prota shuddered. No matter how many times she heard him say it, it never got any more normal. Something about the way he said it just felt so surreal.

“Well, if you guys are uncomfortable with it, then I’ll hold myself back a little, I guess,” John shrugged. “It’s no big deal.”

John leaned back and sighed, closing his eyes. Prota looked to where Fate was, then looked away. The scene wasn’t pleasant. She looked back at John and nearly jumped as she found him staring at her.

“Hey. What about you?”

“...?”

“You’ve killed before. I didn’t want to bring it up at the time, but… are you ok with it? I know it’s kinda late. You’ve probably killed a lot more people than the average person. But, well… do you want to stop?”

John faced her with a serious look.

“You can try to kill everyone, save everyone, or a little bit of both, but eventually, you’re going to have to choose. We can always change paths if you don’t like it, but still. I can’t have you hesitating when it matters.”

Prota looked away. Yes, she had killed. She’d been killed. Was she ok with it? Things had been progressing so quickly that she hadn’t had time to think about it, but… well, she, too, was starting to lose her touch with reality. Dying over and over, seeing dead men come back to life, it was all so strange that her brain wasn’t even processing it. On top of that, in the heat of battle, it was easy to justify things under the guise of self defence.

But what if she was eventually presented with the choice? To kill or spare?

“Don’t think so hard about it,” John sighed, putting his hand on Prota’s head. “We’ll deal with it when we get to it.”

Prota nodded slowly. Eventually, Fate walked over, looking disappointed.

“...they’re not speaking. It seems they’re more afraid of whoever hired them than torture,” Fate called out. The mercenaries were unconscious and tied up.

“What’d you do to them?”

“Just knocked them out. They wouldn’t talk after a bit of pain, so…”

“So you’re gonna leave it at that?”

“Well, yeah,” Fate said. “If I hand them over to the authorities, they’ll do the job for us.”

John sighed. “No, they won’t.”

“What makes you say that?”

“I’m guessing. But I think we both know by now what usually happens with my guesses, right?”