Dimensions Collide: Destiny Bond

“Help… us?”

Fate looked at the dirty boy standing in front of him, sword held out front. After everything they’d been through, it just wouldn’t be right to die to a simple sneak attack. For all they knew, this was the enemy.

“Us,” the boy stammered. “All of us. Me, my sister… you- you don’t understand. The things we’ve been through…”

The boy started trembling as he remembered what had happened in that place. There was no way this was an act. Fate sighed as he sheathed his weapon and approached the boy. He knelt down and put his hand on his shoulder, consoling him.

“Hey. Calm down. What’s going on?”

“They- my sister! She’s- they threw a bag over my head and took me here. They moved me to a different lab. Why did they-”

“Whoah, whoah, hold on, let’s start from the beginning. Who are you? What’s your name?”

The boy flinched. “Can we get out of here first?”

John yawned and waved his gun around. “Hey, nothing’s gonna happen. I can guarantee it. Just answer the questions, alright?”

“...my name is Danjo. I’m a dwarf.”

“Alright, Danjo. How did you- no, that can wait for later. Do you have somewhere to go? Do you have family nearby?”

“Um… I have a sister, but she’s… well…”

“Also captured, right? And you went looking for her and got yourself kidnapped as well?” John said, finishing the sentence.

Danjo nodded dejectedly. Fate sighed. John was helpful, but the bluntness of his words weren’t exactly kind, especially to someone in Danjo’s position.

“Come on, let’s get you out of here first. How many other people are here?”

“I don’t know. The cell rooms are dark. I don’t get a good look.”

John groaned as he got up. It seemed that he’d been sufficiently healed. “Come on, let’s just deal with it. If you really need to, you can use your little ability, but let’s just get it over with, alright?”

Fate nodded. This was a situation that needed the truth. He turned to Danjo, and his eyes began to glow.

“Are you an enemy?”

“An enemy?”

“Answer the question.”

“No, I’ve been trapped here! Why would I be an enemy?”

Fate nodded. “Then how did you get out?”

“You trust me?”

“Answer the question.”

“My chains had been loosened. The place is pretty old and worn down. I’d been working on a master key in secret, and it happened to be done, so I just used it to get out…”

“A master key?”

“Yes!” For the first time, Danjo’s face lit up. “I’ve been interested in artificing for a long time, so I always used to tinker around with metals. It wasn’t too hard to…”

The boy started rambling on, but something had piqued Fate’s interest. Artificing?

“You can make artifacts?”

“Well… mm… no. But- but I’ve been trying!”

“But you’re trying.”

“...yes?”

This boy was working on making artifacts? Even the elder dwarves had given up on making artifacts. Everyone had long since assumed that they could only naturally form. After all, it was a matter of survival of the fittest. Only the best of tools could survive the battering of mana for long periods of time. It was theoretically possible to create artifacts in a controlled environment, but people had assumed it was impractical and resorted to working on mana tools instead.

Was this boy just foolish? Or did he really have the talent required?

“How long have you been here for?”

“I don’t know. They- they don’t really feed us regularly or anything. They bring stale bread when they take one of the prisoners…” the boy trailed off, shuddering.

“Huh. Damn… well, do you still have that key?”

“No. It broke after I used it.”

“Well, nothing to it, then.”

Fate unsheathed his sword and walked towards the door but stopped as he felt a hand on his shoulder.

“Hey,” John wheezed. “I’m coming with you guys.”

“You need to rest!”

“I’m fine. I just want to check if everything’s ok. Your potions work fast.”

Fate hesitated. It was true that John was the one who’d warned him about a lot of dangers, but at the same time, they had no information here. Could John really tell the future? In the end, it wasn’t Fate’s choice to make. It didn’t look like John was taking no for an answer.

“Alright. Let’s go.”

The party approached the door. Surprisingly, Danjo followed, but he’d already been confirmed as a non-threat. Besides, with the way the dwarf looked, what could he do? There was no way he could pose any danger to them.

As soon as they stepped in, they were met with the stench of rotting flesh and sewage.

“Fuck,” John muttered as he covered his nose with his scarf. “That stinks.”

“They, um… the bodies aren’t cleared out. I try to avoid them. Sometimes I hear chewing noises, but I try not to look…”

John leaned over, out of Danjo’s hearing range. “They probably eat the corpses.”

“Eat the-”

Fate stopped, surpressing his gag instinct as he nearly threw up.

“What… what do you guys eat?” he asked Danjo hesitantly.

“They throw us scraps of bread once in a while… water, too.”

John sighed and pulled out a bottle of water, tossing it over to Danjo. “Drink.”

Danjo took the bottle greedily and emptied it in a matter of minutes, then gagged and threw some of it back up. The bile was clear. Danjo hadn’t eaten in days. John looked at the scene sadly. It reminded him of when he’d first met Prota. It was objectively pitiful.

“Are there any guards? Any traps?” Fate asked as Danjo finished the water.

Danjo shook his head. “That man comes by sometimes, but he came yesterday, so he shouldn’t be here today.”

“That man?” John frowned. “What?”

“He’s super thin, frail, but strong,” Danjo said, shivering as he remembered his tormentor. “I thought I was going to die yesterday. He picked me up with his tentacles…”

“Tenta- what are you talking about?”

“He wears a lab coat. You’d think he’d be weak, but he has these tentacles that come out from underneath,” Danjo stammered. “He’s not human. He looks human, but he’s not. He’s a monster. A monster.”

After walking for a bit, they’d reached the cells. Just as Danjo had said, the people inside were thin and pale, just like him. They were all chained to the wall, despite not being in any condition to go anywhere, and the constant moaning and cries of pain made the place feel like a haunted graveyard. Even the prisoners looked like skeletons.

“What the hell?” Fate stared in horror at the dozens of prisoners. Prota, too, stared in horror. Her childhood had been a hell in itself, but this… this was probably worse.

“Come on, guys. Let’s get to it,” John sighed, taking his gun out and blasting the lock off one of the doors. There were screams as the crack of the gun rang out, but John ignored them.

“Fate, can you get in contact with Albert? We’re gonna need help getting these people out. It’s gonna have to be discreet, too.”

“You don’t find this repulsing?”

“Sure it is,” John shrugged. “Are we gonna get these people out of here or what?”

Fate stared at John. There was a strange dichotomy between John’s admittance of how horrible the scene was and how casually he was treating it.

“I’ve seen worse,” John said in a low voice. “Are you gonna stand and gag, or are you gonna clean it up? Hop to it, hero boy.”

The group set about unlocking the cells by brute force, with Danjo watching nervously. The people looked relieved to be set free, but there was a fear and distrust in their eyes that couldn’t be removed. Prota threw up a few times after coming across rotting bodies in some of the cells. Some of the bodies had suspicious marks in them, too. It looked like John’s guess was correct.

In the end, they’d rescued a total of fifty or so prisoners, all barely standing. Fate didn’t have the supplies needed to feed all of them. John technically did, but it wouldn’t do to pull out a buffet from his backpack.

“Fate,” John whispered. “Now.”

A small circular mirror appeared from his cloak, and he smashed the glass surface. Underneath was another glass surface that revealed a familiar office.

“Fate!” Albert exclaimed. “It’s been three days! Are you alright?”

“We’re all good,” Fate nodded. “We found a facility. It’s confirmed. Something’s going on.”

“You didn’t use the emergency communication device just to tell me that. What’s going on?”

“Prisoners. We found about fifty of them, and it’s going to be hard to get them out. They’re starved and half dead.”

“...it’s noon right now,” Alber muttered. “I’d prefer to get this done at night. Sit tight until then.”

“Roger that.”

The glass went dark.

“Will they really be ok for another twelve hours?” John said. “We could just leave now.”

“...you’re joking, right?”

“Um… yeah.”

“Hey. Weren’t you the one who suggested that we ask Albert for help?” Fate just sighed. “We can’t take them out. They’re barely capable of moving themselves. Come on, there must be supplies somewhere.”

With an order for everyone to stay put, the party continued to explore the facility. Danjo seemed like he had enough energy to keep going, so he continued to lead the group with the limited knowledge he had. The experience seemed traumatic for him, but he pushed through.

“There are screams that come from over there,” Danjo said, pointing to a door at the end of the hallway. “I’m not sure what’s in there, but the people that go in don’t come out.”

“We’re going to get jumped,” John muttered. “The genre switched from fantasy to horror. Sure, that’s fine.”

“What’s that?” Fate said.

“Nothing.”

“Come on, let’s check it out.”

John sighed as the group walked towards the door. Prota looked up at him with concerned eyes, but John just shook his head.

“We’ll deal with it,” John said. “It’s fine. Trust me.”

That didn’t reassure Prota all that much. Granted, John seemed to know what he was doing, but then again, he always seemed to know what he was doing, and history had shown that he wasn’t always using his brain.

“...it’s silent,” Fate whispered as he pressed his ear to the door. “Go in on three. Ready?”

John didn’t wait and kicked the door. There was no resistance as it swung open.

“Wh- what the?” Fate exclaimed. “Hey, what’re you-”

He stopped as the lights inside turned on. There were ten cages, all containing people. They had no clothes on, showing the difference between these ones and the other prisoners. Their muscles were well defined, even though there were a variety of people. Dwarf, elf, human, child, adult, it didn’t matter. They were all well built and healthy.

“Is this some kind of preparation center? Why are they healthy?”

Fate walked closer to a cage to observe. Both Danjo and Prota stood near the doorway, waiting for something to happen, but so far, it didn’t seem like anything would happen.

“John, come take a look,” Fate said, waving John over. “Their eyes. They’re like wild animals.”

John walked over to another cage and took a look. As soon as he got close, though, the man inside started reacting violently, thrashing around and rattling the bars. John stepped back calmly.

“Hm.”

Without warning, his gun came out. There was a loud bang, and the man inside the cage was dead. Blood began pooling underneath the body and started flowing towards a drain in the center of the room.

“Come on, let’s clean this up and we can-”

John froze as Fate’s sword came up to his neck.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m dealing with this,” John said calmly. “Don’t tell me you’re trying to save them?”

“Of course!” Fate exclaimed. “Think of what they’ve gone through! You’re just gonna kill them, just like that? What the fuck is wrong with you?”

“A lot of things. Go ahead. Kill me.”

Fate grit his teeth but then dropped the blade with a sigh.

“Have I told you that you’re a little off? John, when I said save, I didn’t mean kill! I meant get them out of here!”

“Fate. Look into their eyes and tell me that they can be saved.”

“...what?”

Fate went back to the cage he’d been looking at, but this time, he got closer. As soon as he approached the cell, the woman inside started going feral, just like the man John had shot.

“I- surely there’s something we can do, right?”

“I mean, maybe? It’s possible, I guess. But do you really want to go through the effort of trying to save them? Let’s say they’re saved. They have to live with whatever the fuck happened in here. Is that saving them, Fate?”

“...so you can think about others. And here I thought you were just a heartless killing machine.”

“Mm… well, sure. You can call me that. But when there’s a stain on the floor, you’ve gotta clean it up, right? Let’s just deal with this and carry on.”

“Is that what this is? A mess?”

“Yeah.”

Fate looked at John. “...we can save them.”

“Then do it without me,” John said. He didn’t seem annoyed or upset. He really just meant for Fate to find a solution on his own. “I’m gonna go look for food.”

Fate looked at John as he began to leave the room. His shoes left bloodstains on the floor, but it seemed that John wasn’t concerned about the cleanliness of his shoes.

“Prota. Stay with Fate. Make sure nothing goes wrong.”

“John…”

“I’m fine. It’s just way too much work. If Fate wants to save them, he can. I’m not gonna stop him.”

Prota stared at John as he headed back down the hallway, Danjo following after him.

“...Fate?”

“Oh. Hey, Prota,” Fate said, looking up from the cage. “There has to be something I can do…”

He approached the cage. He wasn’t naive. He wasn’t under the delusion that he could save everyone, and he wasn’t so innocent as to believe that everyone could be spared. He’d killed before. He would kill again.

But surely these people could be saved.

“Hey,” he said quietly. “I’m gonna let you out. You’re safe now.”

The woman continued to thrash around the cage.

“Easy. Easy.”

Fate slowly turned the lock, which had no key.

“You’re safe now-”

As soon as the cage door was open, the woman threw herself at Fate, growling loudly. The sound alerted all the other caged people, who began to yell and thrash around in their own caves.

“Prota! Freeze her!” Fate yelled, struggling to hold her under control.

Wait. He was struggling? Even though he’d put all his mana into augmenting? The woman’s movements slowed as Prota surrounded her with ice, but it was only for a moment. The woman burst out, clawing at Fate’s face, which was luckily protected by a mask.

“Kh- I’m trying to help you!” Fate yelled. “Stop!”

He thought back to what John said. Was the best option really to kill them?

“Prota! Help me out!” Fate yelled, but looked over to see that Prota was doing all she could. Eventually, she reached out and started absorbing mana, but then froze.

“Two… two-”

The woman stopped, then looked over at Prota, who froze. With a growl, she jumped off of Fate, pushing him to the ground, and leapt over to Prota.

“No!” Fate yelled, but he was too late.

Someone else got to the woman first.

“Haah… seriously? I thought you had it,” John sighed, lowering the freshly fired revolver. “Fate. I left for, like, ten minutes, and you’re already getting killed?”

Fate swallowed and looked around the room. There was still a cacophony of sound and chaos.

“...do you really think killing them is the best option?”

John sighed. “Danjo, can you tell Fate what you told me?”

Danjo nodded shakily. “There’s always five people that go in here at a time, but no one ever comes out. However, judging by how many people have gone in, and how many people are here… it doesn’t line up.”

John shrugged. “These people are probably survivors.”

“Survivors?”

“Probably pitted against each other. There’s a story about poisonous snakes or something. You throw a bunch of poisonous snakes in a jar, and the one that survives has the deadliest venom. They’re probably trying to recreate that.”

“John,” Prota said hesitantly. “That woman… had two souls.”

“Two… souls?” John frowned. “Mm… well, I guess that would explain why you were struggling, right?”

Fate stared at the corpse on the ground. Two souls? What the hell did that mean? The implications were incredible.

“Prota. Can you check the others?” Fate asked.

After a brief pause, Prota nodded. “Two.”

Fate sighed. “Just… just do it.”

“You’re giving me permission?”

“I don’t want… to watch.”

John lowered himself a little and looked Fate in the eyes.

“Hey. Tell me about it. You feel guilty, right? That you can’t save them?”

“...I’m the hero. Shouldn’t I be able to do that much?” Fate said in a quiet voice. Danjo was still standing at the door.

John shrugged. “Are you going to try to save everyone?”

“...no.”

“Then why these people?”

“Just… I feel like I can! It shouldn’t be hard! They’re right here in front of me. We found the lab. We freed the prisoners. There’s no threat, right? Why can’t I save them? They’re right here!”

John just sighed. “Fate. There isn’t a solution for everything. Things don’t just work like that. Sometimes, there is no solution that satisfies you. The best option is sometimes the one you regret the most.”

Prota looked at John. It seemed he was talking about himself. But what about himself? His previous world, maybe? It was a jump, but the thought had come to her. Did he regret his choice?

He’d been forced to learn the truth about his existence after choosing to save his previous world. He was forced to live with the knowledge that even if he could somehow return, the people he’d met weren’t really real, that they were all just characters. He’d saved them all, but had he really?

What would she have done? Did she even have the strength to make a choice like that?

She was starting to understand John a bit more. She looked at him with sad eyes. She wanted to run up, to hold him and give him a hug, to tell him that it would be ok, but how could she do that when she, too, was broken inside?

“It’s fine,” she heard John say. “I’ll deal with it. Come back in when the gunshots stop.”

Fate nodded and left the room.

John sighed. “Prota, you wanna leave too?”

Prota shook her head. She’d stay with John.

“Alright. Let’s get started, then.”

There was a click as John pulled the hammer down, followed by a bang. Without hesitating, John moved on to the next one. A chill ran down Prota’s spine as she watched him casually end life after life. They weren’t even threatening him. Those people were just… what, obstacles? She kept telling herself. They’re not real. They’re not real. They’re just things that we need to remove-

Prota caught herself and shook her head. No. Even John didn’t want this. She didn’t want to think like this. As she watched, though, something John had said echoed through her mind.

“But when there’s a stain on the floor, you’ve gotta clean it up, right?”

She tried to think of it from his perspective. This was a story. Currently, the heroes were in a dungeon, and they’d found a bunch of rabid prisoners. It was just a story. She tried to tell herself everything she’d seen as if she were reading a story.

It still didn’t sit right with her. Was that how John saw it? Just an unpleasant story that needed fixing? He wasn’t compassionate for the lives of other people; he just needed an ugly scene to be cleaned up.

“Fate! All done,” John called out. “Hey, there’s a door over here.”

Fate walked back in, telling Danjo to stay outside. He averted his eyes from the mess and scanned the room, spotting a door in the corner.

“A door, huh? Maybe this is where they keep the food.”

He opened the door carefully and was blasted with the stench of rotting meat.

“Shit! If this mask didn’t have a filter…” Fate muttered, lighting up the room with a fireball.

“Hey, what’s the holdup?” John said as he pushed by Fate. As soon as he walked in, he, too, froze, although he wasn’t nearly as horrified as Fate.

“Oh. I see. Hey, Prota, don’t-” he started, but it was too late. For the fourth time that day, Prota threw up. Her stomach was likely empty at this point.

There were dozens of patties of meat lying around in packages, some rotting, some freshly ground, but that wasn’t the horrifying part. The horrifying part was the source of that meat.

In the center of the room was a giant meat grinder. Hanging above were dozens of bodies strung up by the feet, like cuts of meat at a butcher shop. They’d clearly been dead for a while since they looked stiff and cold, but the injuries on the bodies were terrible. Scratch marks, broken necks, twisted limbs… it was as if an animal had torn them up.

“The losers,” John said quietly. “I get it. Fight to the death. The loser turns into protein for the winner.”

Fate gagged. “What?!”

“Think about it. Meat. It’s a good source of protein. How do you think those people were so fit? They were fed meat. Danjo said they were fed bread, right? Not meat? So this must go to the victors. You don’t get that strong off of stale bread alone, I think.

Fate stared in horror. These people had to fight to the death to survive, lose their minds, eat the remains of the people they’d just fought against… he was starting to understand. Maybe death really was the better option.

“Man, I’d hate to walk in while the machine’s in operation,” John muttered. “At least they’re not being ground up alive.”

Fate glared at him, but John shrugged it off. He closed his eyes and came to a decision.

“Let’s burn this place down.”

Fate summoned a volley of fireballs, and Prota summoned a pair of blue fireballs. She was getting better at that.

“Did you guys find the food?” Danjo said as the group walked out of the room. Smoke soon began to trail out.

“No,” Fate said in a shaky voice. “Let’s keep looking.”

They almost back at the entrance, about to go the other way, when there was a rumbling noise from the large cavern. The group stared warily at the door, which was shaking more and more with each rumble.