Perks & Quirks of the Void (RQ)

[Gildarts]

A little girl’s face came into focus, cupped by a gentle press of ethereal light. Thin skin, heart shaped face, round innocent eyes. Rosy cheeks and nose, as though touched by the cold, or maybe a deep laugh. She had ash brown hair that swished with movement as her eyes looked up toward a distant voice called her name.

“Camille.” The voice echoed, the young girl’s name was called from the distance.

Christine felt a wound carve out whatever was left of her heart with a molten scalpel. The precision of memory. Suited for this moment.

“Mignonne.” Cute. “Except, Camille is dead.” A new voice called out, a shadow without form. Her own voice wielded against her, its tone victorious as the lithe posture wielded a blade over her shoulder. Haughty in nature, the apparition’s hips curved around the child with a direct tilt of the shadow’s head. While the form was faceless, Christine could feel a vicious smile reflecting back at her.

A gentle wobble poked against her chin. Christine’s eyes could not pull from the innocence of the little eight year old girl. The sweetness of memory. The irresistible nectar of nostalgia. It called her back to a time once forgotten. A time warded off by the shadow looming over the child’s neck with the too familiar blade.

“Don’t lose your ‘ead.” The sneering words were followed by a cynical chant of laughter.
…

Born from the void. Dying with a newly notorious face plastered next to the administrator, Karl Jak. For all the many worlds to see. Fame was a bloody slash away. Slash or slasher though, depending on if you included Jason in the equation.

Christine’s last thought was a moment, or a memory, whichever came first.

Je suis fini.

She could feel the still tangible cut nicking her throat despite her lack of tangible flesh.

Her head had fallen off her body. In a gruesome fashion. It wasn’t even a guillotine. That was fate for you. Disappointing, or just ironically unexpected.

The woman could still feel it, the tickle in her throat. It twinged with a sort of ache that had no real source, it was just present.

“So what am I now?” Her own voice echoed, the hint of her accent caressing the darkness. Both Christine, and somehow not Christine. For there was no body her voice was coming from.

Dissonant darkness cast across the endless void. It was a black abyss, with hints of pulsing purple and a scatter of fluctuating stars. The sky around her consciousness was breathing. The question was: Was she?

…

Christine focused, she considered the judge first. Chara had said her soul was back, hadn’t she? So why was it like this?

“Is this what my soul feels like? Why am I so damn tired?” Christine’s words echoed into the nothingness. She had no eyes to see around. Only could her sentience feel with a sort of extension of the mind. An eerie sensation. One that chilled her core in an unfamiliar way.

Still, no pain. And perhaps more particularly, no death?

She felt a twinge of a smile form on her lack of a face, if she could be heard, Christine mused aloud. “I’ll be honest with you, Judge Chara, I don’t think it’s back. My little slice of redemption is hardly enough to earn it. ‘Owever, I will keep my promise, even if it is the death of me, un millier de fois.” A thousand times. "I'll go back for him."

“So, I wonder how I can navigate this… New existence? How to make relevance of the old me? Perhaps I can be reborn with a soul this time? Would that be too much to ask? God?”

“Well then.” She said impatiently after there was no reply. “Guess it’s gonna be like any good old fashioned rebirth. I’m gonna have to break my way out. Wonder if this will be anything like an egg?”

To choose where she needed to be, she imagined the little goblin’s face. “Slurt, I’m coming mon prince. Just wait with Jester exactly how you were and I’ll be there. D’accord?”

Moments later, her hands materialized. Fingertips clasping against reality's dense wall, pulling the folds of it open as she slipped from a sliver of the void as though through a bending portal.

Christine’s head popped out into a new world. One not encased in darkness, but emboldened by life's powerful light. A crease of two glowing slits of eyes against the unfettered sheet of black surrounding her, with an off putting glow of broken Christmas lights.

She squinted at the nightlife blending around her in a mixture of sweet aromas and a hum sound. The environment was completely unrecognizable. Anything would’ve been, if you’d seen what happened to that log cabin after Chara totally wrecked it.

“Où suis-je putain?” Where the fuck am I?

…

“Oi! You there!” A voice called out, Christine’s head, still peeking halfway out of the void twisted curiously to find its source. “Yeah, you, I’m talking to you!”

“Eh? Who are you?” Christine raised a brow. Whilst she had learned mercy, she wasn’t particularly feeling it at this moment. As she crawled out of the flaps of her portal, her body materialized around her. Added with it, a distinct feeling of angry impatience.

“Yeah, I’m gonna need to talk to you lady. You can’t just go trespassing around here. I don’t care if you can teleport here or to the five moons, I don’t need it. Fuckin’ ghosts always bothering me. Listen, you want directions, don’tcha? They always want directions.” The man grunted, his own accent was one from the South Side of New York. Not that Christine had any idea what that was.

“Directions…?” Christine echoed. Then she thought about it and nodded. "Yes, I'm looking for a small boy, he's green. Can you help me find 'im?"

“Right, you’re gonna have to wait then. Just like everyone else.” He said, "It'll just be-"

“How long?” She asked again.

“However long I say.” The stranger grunted back. His eyes narrowed, prickling with superiority. He had something she wanted.

“My word, a little boy is waiting for me, can’t this go any faster? Plus rapide? I should’ve been there yesterday, instead I got hacked.”

“It takes as long as it takes, doesn’t matter if you think you’re Santa Claus or not.” The man rolled his eyes. "Little kid nonsense. They always got some noble goal. Would ya believe this is my off season?" He complained under his breath.

“Eh?”

“Sorry, Saint Nicholas.” He corrected himself with a meme worthy shake of his head. Thinking his specification to the French woman would clarify everything or even, anything.

“Am I supposed to know what that is?” Christine groaned.

“Well if you’ve got a little kid waitin’ for ya, you probably should.” He retorted with a triumphant grin.

Christine’s eyes narrowed viciously. “Excusez-moi?”

“He brings kids toys on Christmas? It’s like a holiday thing. Where’re you from anyway?” The stranger prodded as he rescinded into a digitized thought.

“Versailles.”

“Right…” This guy had no idea what that was, “Well, if you make it out of here, you won’t be going back there.”

“Good. Has it been a long time since the Revolution?” She asked him.

“What revolution?” Half his face scrunched up in confusion. His bushy mustache touching the tip of his nose.

“Hm.” Christine blinked casually, what an odd thing to consider. History was no more. “Regardless, all that matters is this little child. He’s a cute little green lump, also known as a green bean, or mon petit prince. If you ‘aven’t heard of him, good, that means I don’t need to swipe you with my blade. Carry on, then, peasant.”

“Right…” The New York stranger proceeded like he was used to the whole schtick. “Okay, what is the name of who you’re looking for?”

“Slurt.”

“Is that his actual name?”

“Don’t disrespect mon prince, or I will kill you.” Christine threatened with a cross of her arms. Her ashy hair tossed over her shoulder, her chin unyieldingly taller than the seated man at his desk.

“You ain’t doing much to me lady, donno if you realize this, but you’re dead.” He shrugged the shoulders under his shiny leather jacket.

“Dead?” She echoed and looked down at her figure. Folded arms together against her chest. The tips of her hair caught the edge of her vision. Her form seemed intact, so much so she could cross her arms.

“Yeah, you’re a ghost. Congrats. At least you made it this far. You still have a ways to go. There’s always somethin’ different. So you’re trying to find this Slurt guy and reclaim your body? Good luck with that.” He handed her a spectral sheet of paper. It had a particular sheen, one that her and the paper both shared, but not the strange man.

“What am I to do with this?” Her eyes narrowed angrily at him.

“Read it.” He shrugged. “Or don’t, but just remember you came to me, ight?”

Christine’s eyes fell upon the parchment as he added, “Though… To be fair, you look like a different kind of ghost than most.”

“A ghost?” She echoed once more, the new reality had sunk in. “How do I find my body?”

“Well,” He pointed to a screen so she could watch, “You were Jason’s first victim this year. That’s what happened to your body.”

A house imploded on it after she was decapitated. Fantastique.

“Hair’s different though. Less uh, oil colored I guess?”

“My… ‘Air?” Christine looked across the room at a window, however her reflection remained as invisible as the man had stated her to be. “If I'm truly a ghost, 'ow is it you can see me?”

“They call it a gift, but I certainly don’t.” The man grunted. “Gotta deal like this stuff even on the throne, if you know what I mean.”

“Are you… A king?” Christine echoed quizzically.

“The… Porcelain throne, m’dear.” He considered himself clarifying.

Christine blinked. She was unfamiliar with the terminology.

“The bathroom?” He shook his head finally.

Christine blinked, it had been quite a while since she considered the concept. “I can imagine that being… Quite the interruption, monsieur. I am quite glad I did not have the poor timing of that.”

She pushed the tiniest corner of her cheek up, boasting to her what was a joke.

The man leaned back in his seat laughing. Eyes tearing up, “You and me both, lady.”

"Listen, I actually, um," Christine looked down at the piece of paper. Scribbles upon inky scribbles to her against the plaster of white. "I can't read English. Will you tell me what it says?"

 

[Gildarts]

The man chewed his lip for a moment and eyed her as though trying to deduce if she was pullin’ one on him. Her expression remained unchanged. She either had a great poker face or was telling the truth.

Either way, he’d seen what she’d done in Dante’s Abyss. He knew she was dangerous.

Christine asked, as he was taking his time deciding, “Did you… Make a computer program just to ‘elp lost souls find their way?”

“You could say that.” He shrugged.

Her eyes gleamed in fascination. Meaningful to her, as his nonchalant demeanor remained unmoving.

“Will you… Show me?” Christine closed the distance between them in just a few amazonian strides, then she gazed at the screen. Not realizing technology’s norms, she touched the screen and immediately felt voltage connect with her.

The screen blacked out. The stranger groaned.

“You’re a ghost, don’t be touchin’ shit, you got it? Makes the system go hay…wire…” He looked at her again, taking a closer inspection to her eyes. Suddenly, he stood up. “I just realized, I’ve seen your face before.”

“Yes, getting beheaded on your television, ‘appy to provide the amusement.” She said through a roll of her eyes as her heavy accent dragged on the unwilling words of defeat. “Would you read the sheet? What happened to the boy I was with?”

The man rolled his eyes. For, his realization was far superior to her own. Ghosts had all the time in the world. And, this was the world of the living.

The man procured a book. One that seemed out of place in the… Particularly musty aesthetic with its pristine victorian bindings.

He flipped through to a very specific page. Then looked up to compare the painted portrait to her. The very picture of history lay on the page in front of him. Except, it looked a little more like the Christine that was on the television screen and a little less like the ghostly woman that stood before him. The woman before him seemed a little less menacing.

“Is that supposed to be moi?” She blinked, unable to read the words surrounding the rest of the page.

“Actually, Camille. It is you.” The stranger gave her a solemn look.

Christine’s expression fell.

A wordless moment passed between them. “Merde.” Shit. “So, then, what do you want?”

“Oh, well…” He tossed the idea back and forth in his mind, it flexed on the corners of his mustache-adorned lips and ended in a bristly smile. “Let’s just say, I want a cut of what you come back with.”

“What I come back with?” She echoed, out of touch, knowing she was supposed to know what the book said, Hell, what even the title had been. Yet, for once, she lacked a clue.

“You’re gonna do something for me. It’ll help you get your body back faster, believe it or not. The paper in your hand? Yeah, it’s directions to what you’re looking for. But no offense lady,” He paused and grinned as he noted again he had something on her. “Camille.” The name slithered out of his lips with satisfaction. “You can’t find the kid until you get your body back. You’ll be waving to air and ain’t no one gonna see you but me. So, I think you’ll take this little wager and do what I say. Got it?”

Christine’s blank expression fell into a rigid line. “And ‘ow am I to trust that you won’t give me another task when I’m done?”

“Oh, you don’t gonna trust me to do a job, lady.” He shrugged. “You in or you out?”

“What does the book say and why is my face on it? I thought you had no revolution here.” She responded slowly hoping to get any answer.

“This book ain’t from Erde Nona, lady.” He grinned and pressed his finger to the page. “This book is from a place you might be familiar with. See, in here, you’re folklore. I knew when I was watchin’ the summer entertainment that I knew you from somewhere. Seein’ you in person it just idonno, kinda clicked? You’re a murderer, but you’re also a legend. That explains your excalibur.” His eyes wafted over to her hip.

Christine looked down at her hitched burden. She had been happy to be rid of it. Perhaps that is what freed her long enough to see the truth of what was important.

“You know, I thought it would be scarier, though I guess I ain’t seeing it in its natural form, am I? Do you think, if you plunged it in my heart, that it would steal my soul when it has no steel to back it up?” He asked, his grin aggressively casual. A challenge glinted in his carmel eyes.

“You fucking… Bâtard.” She sneered.

“Now, I know you didn’t call me any mean names in French while I’m your only translator, now did you?” His smile remained as unwavering as his gaze.

“What does it say, bastard?” Her eyes cut him as the words left her tongue.

“Don’t let poor Slurt hear you talk like that.” He licked his lips, tongue falling under the grime of his mustache.

Christine lunged, her hand gripped his shoulder, “You keep his name out of your mouth you filthy-”

Her hand fell through the man’s body and the specter’s intangible shape phased through the man and into the floor.

“Like I said, lady, I hold all the cards. But, I will tell you what’s in the book. After you do this. Says here, you got some pretty cool moves. The one you’ll need to utilize is how you happened to appear in this very room. You ripped apart reality, I believe. See, that’s what’s useful to me.” He began.

Christine cut him off, “I will keep the book when I complete your request.”

“Gonna read Slurt a fairytale?” The man’s chin turned up in a mocking frown.

“I’ll do whatever I wish. What is the job, monsieur…?”

“You don’t gotta know my name to do this job, Camille.” He paused his lips on the edge of yet another sneer, “Oh, right, it’s Christine now, isn’t it?”

 

[Gildarts]

She could rip his throat out, right then and there. If… He didn’t have all the answers and something she did not just want, but unfortunately needed.

He had Slurt’s location. He had her body’s location. At the end of the day, he had… Answers.

She sighed and pressed her hand to her forehead. Unable to understand the game this guy was playing. Unable to do anything but take the cards he dealt.

Christine grumbled to herself as she passed through the void. The job probably would’ve been easier if she had a body. Supposedly this guy with her face in his book said her body would come to her? What exactly had that meant?

He’d called the story next to her face, folklore. Whatever it said, it even referenced her blade. Christine’s eyes fell regrettably down. Exactly what had it said? Was it… Ever a story that she could read to Slurt? Well, not in English at least.

Le batard had tasked her with retrieving something. The void was not a place mere mortals often passed through. He’d given her a map, drawn her a picture. But the void didn’t work like that. It wasn’t just a place on a map but a netting of energy that transcended thought and reality.

The specter sighed. She couldn’t believe this is how things had turned out. She just had to trust that Jester was protecting Slurt at this very moment.

A single slice, a wave of her magic wand, or as Batard had called it, her excalibur and she walked through the shadowed portal and emerged onto the other side of another world.

Christine’s gaze passed through her brown hair. The same haircut as the little girl she’d seen previously. A huff exhaled from her lack of lungs as her eyes took in the new scenery.

“Hm. That looks like the underworld to me.” She shrugged and sauntered forward.

A tall, regal room with pictures lining the ascension to a massive throne, elevated by hundreds of dead corpses. Thing was, they were still moving.

“Allo? Anyone there?” Her voice echoed up the ceiling that seemed to have no end. She rolled her eyes, she had no clue where she was but she did know it matched the picture. Just a perk of void travel.

“I guess… Not.” Christine’s eyes cast across the room. “Odd.”

Her eyes fell on the paintings, which seemed to twist and bend as she walked past them. However, nothing challenged her as she began to walk above the corpse-steps.

“This… Isn’t the best place to… Keep a treasure unguarded.” She echoed again, hand on the hilt of her blade. Her eyes waited as she teetered precariously on the edge, a step before the cushioned seat. A small black halo, a woven obsidian crown, lay waiting on the plush velvet.

“Uh… Really?” Boobytraps, surely.

Christine reached for it. Her fingers wrapped around it. Suddenly, the purple and black glow that surrounded the crown rushed through her body. Void energy crippled her hand as she fell to a knee. The crown levitated above her stooped head as the pain that shot through her passed.

“Quelle…?” She growled and looked down at her hand. The crown hovered two inches above her head. She blinked as she stood up, tilting from side to sight.

“I… Really don’t understand…” Batard had said to retrieve the crown and… Well, here it was. Christine did not bother to go back down the soul-stairs and cut a new portal out of the mysterious room.

Back at Batard’s, crown hovering overhead.

“Oh, wow. So quick.” He sneered. “I see you got it.”

His expression did not seem in the least bit surprised of the crown that now lay on her head.

“What is it?” Christine seethed.

“Oh, that?” He grinned, “That’s you completing your destiny. What did it look like? Did you see em?”

“See… What?” Christine’s lips parted.

“Didya see all the people you killed? C’mon, I know you’re pretty unabashed about that sorta stuff, you don’t have to play dumb with me.” He nodded convincingly. “What did your throne look like, Christine?”

Christine’s jaw unhinged. “What does that zut book say?”

“Alright, alright, you just take it easy.” He held his hands up and pulled up the book.

Christine wondered if this little black disk had brought back her body. The man’s demeanor had… Acutely changed, she regarded.

“See, I knew you wouldn’t do it for yourself and well, what can I say, I’m a big fan?” He began to explain.

“I ‘ave no idea what you’re talking about!” Christine shouted and unsheathed her blade, pointing to the open page with her face on it. “READ!”

“Christine Calamity,” He looked down and read, “Formerly known as Camille, ascends the throne she paved with a thousand deaths. The throne offered by the blade of souls.- You see, that little crown there-”

“FINISH.” Her patience had worn out.

“When she enters the room, forged by death, violence, the soulless woman will take up her rightful place, owning death as though it were her own shadow.” The man paused and annotated, “So ya see, you’re alive again, well, whatever that means for someone like you, and now those slain by your sword are your army. The army of the fallen.”

Christine’s jaw dropped, protesting weakly. “M-my soul was back…”

“Hm.” He looked at her, “I don’t know about that. I don’t see souls, lady, just ghosts.”

“WHAT DID YOU DO TO ME?” Christine’s eyes were wild, in a rage. His uncouth shrug offered no penance.

She knew he could not hear them.

The screams of the souls chanting.

 

[Gildarts]

Wisps of ghostly hands began to form in the air around her as though clawing their way back to life. The spectral entities began to consume the room’s walls. She was forced to consider the faces of her past long forgotten as they stared back at her.

Some ghoulish, some skeletal, all murdered by her.

Fingertips began to snake their way across the man’s being as though pulling him into themselves, pulling his life into that of a soulless shadow creature.

It was… No way to live.

The hum of dissonant screams faded with the necromancer’s emotion.

Christine, after the climax of pure horror left her, found her fist balled up at the collar of his shirt. The fabric squished in her palm. Her own flesh… Had she returned to life? Only Chara had the answers and Christine had to find Slurt first, before she could think about her own fate.

As for Batard, she could not kill him, for he would just become another voice. The ones currently living in the hollows of her mind. The ones yearning for life that she took.

Jenkins.

Her eyes wavered, looking down regretfully. Her voice echoed weakly. Numbness washed over her. “What did you do to me?”

“I didn’t do anything, I just let you finish your story in the book, that’s all.” He said calmly. “You don’t like your new digs?”

Christine shook her head, “I thought I was retrieving this thing for you.” Flatly gleaming, it was oddly reminiscent of Karl Jak’s own shackle.

“Eh, I can’t do nothin’ with that. I ain’t a necromancer, even if I can see ‘em, ghosts that is. Which uh, oh, you’ll have to get used to that.” He shrugged and offered a playful chuckle, “No more alone time on the throne for you.”

Christine’s eyes narrowed. “I still don’t understand how you know these things from that book. Where did it come from? Any specific part of the void? And just what is in this for you?”

“I ain’t never been. It was a gift from a friend, I swear.” He shrugged, eyeing the crown on her head. “Anyway, to better explain, you owe me one. Plain and simple. I’ll cash it in now that you’re queen of the dead. Or damned. Or maybe it’s both?”

Christine offered an admonishing expression as she watched him nervously chuckle.

“Eh, anyway. The book said you’re a legend. Capable of lots of dark evil stuff… Well, now.” Batard leaned in examining her neck, “Machete didn’t even leave a mark, did it?”

“Oh mon dieu. What do you want?” Christine snarled. “I have a child waiting for me, you’re wasting my time! Tell me what you want and I’ll do it, then you can point me in the right direction and I’ll be on my way!”

“Oh yeah. So, there’s this guy, his name is Jimmy. Jimmy Satanic. He’s a real cool guy, you’re gonna love him. I told him that someday he’d reunite with his wife in the afterlife. ‘Course, I never imagined I’d be standing in the presence of you yourself, and see, I fibbed a little when I told him this. His wife ain’t dead, you see. She never was. But, she left him and well, to make a long story short…”

Christine’s brows raised, her eyes erratically waiting.

“You gotta chop his head off for me.” Batard surmised with another simple shrug.

Christine blinked and retorted, “Why don’t you just do it yourself?”

“I ain’t much of a killer, the ghosts, see, they’ll just haunt me until I die and become an old haunt myself. But you, your ghosts, well,” He offered a sly grin. “They don’t come back here.”

“Yes, because their souls get consumed you fucking….” She reeled herself in. “You’re asking me to commit a vile act.”

“You’re asking me to fulfill your wish.”

“Or… I could kill you instead.” Christine twisted, a quick swish left the silver blade against his neck. “Would you say that you’re… Undeserving? Will you plead for your life, Batard? Or will you promise to finally be of some use this time?”

“You know you ain’t gonna do it. Because if you take my soul, you ain’t never getting the boy’s whereabouts and you know it.” Surely… He was bluffing.

Christine bit her lip. She couldn’t gamble and waste her time when there were precious matters to attend to. Every moment mattered. Every second that kept her away from Slurt. All this dilly-dallying.

“You’re a foolish man.” Christine sighed. “Because I’m not certain I can kill ‘im in the way you request me to.”

“Well, you can try, can’tcha? Wait, what do you mean?” He asked.

“I mean, if I have regained my soul, yet somehow inherited my blade’s army, as narrated from your senseless yet mystical livre, then I don’t know if my blade takes souls anymore… Maybe it even gives them.” Her tone was far too optimistic.

“Listen, lady, legend says you gotta christen the crown with blood, why not let it be… Mutually beneficial? Eh?” Batard expressed his proposal with a raise of his brows. “Besides, you still need me to find the little one. I ain’t gonna be able to do that for ya while I’m dead and you know it.”

“There is… So much of this I do not understand…” She sighed and closed her eyes. “Why is ‘is name Jimmy Satanic?”

“Well, that’s what they call him. Nobody knows his real name. Much like yourself.” Batard showed his teeth under his mustache.

Christine sighed and placed a taxed palm to her forehead. “You do realize, I’m not a bounty ‘unter, right?”

“I don’t need to realize nothing. You do the job or you don’t.” He wagered, pulling the book closer to him, as well as the scribbled spectral paper.

“What… Did you do to Jimmy’s wife?” Christine deduced.

“Nothing. You’d be proud of me, if your little justice streak in the Abyss is to be believed, I saved her life. She decided it wasn’t one she wanted anymore and disappeared. Course, I couldn’t tell that to Jimmy, it isn’t my job to tell people all this hard news all the time about living customers, you see.” He shrugged.

“You know, Batard, I really don’t see.” Christine sighed. “You can’t just tell Jimmy she’s gone? I don’t understand why death is the answer?”

“You know, lady, you’re right. The woman in this book, nice little dainty crown on her head, knows death is the answer. But you, you’re that lady on the screen, over there dying for someone who already stabbed you to death. How’d that feel? Selflessness, for a soulless demon like yourself? You haven’t been alive for a hundred years yet the next time you’re spotted it’s on screen being one of the first to die in a murder competition. Fun stuff, really, but I just… Really thought you had more in you than that.”

“You called yourself a fan of me… Who else is in this book?” Christine leaned in again, eyeing it in order to snatch it from his grasp.

“Ah-ah, after Jimmy’s done.” He waved his finger in front of her.

“I am going to tell you this one more time, Batard. I’m not killing Jimmy. You think that I ‘ave to kill you to get what I want?” She offered a bloodthirsty grin, “How about floating around in the void for oh, let’s say… Thirty years? You can’t die in there… Not really. It’ll be your own personal Hell. One thing’s for sure, no lost souls will bother you in there. In fact, the only person who’ll be able to get you out is… Me.”

Batard raised his brows. He’d been had. “Who’d have thought, you wouldn’t be up to task?”

Christine offered no response. “Like I said, I just need directions. Or you are next.”