Misty Lola didn't try to break.
She was quite certain it would hurt when she crashed, but she didn't care, not at this point: her brother had done this, her mind hissed, you should, too; can you really live without him? It was your fault, you were supposed to protect him, it was your fault, it was your fault! Crushed to death, lifeless and cold!
And so she plummeted.
She screamed, of course, but it wasn't for herself: it was for him, the memories of him that flooded her mind and pervaded her thoughts, twisting and turning until, as her life flashed before her eyes, she saw nothing but his own.
The first time she saw him. The first time she held him. The first time he said her name. The day he got his first deck – a good old-fashioned Venom setup, the same deck Misty had played before the Reptilianne monsters were released. The day their mother died, and Misty – fourteen years old – started to do what she could to take her place, to make sure her brother (just six years old) would never be without her.
The first time she tucked him in. The first time she made his birthday cake without her help. His first day as a first grader. The day she turned eighteen and she took him out for a drive the first time in her new (used) Taurus. The day she was on her first magazine cover, and he grinned and said she'd always be her smelly big sis to him.
The day their father died, a heart attack – the day she took sole guardianship of the one person left who actually mattered to her. The day she turned twenty-one, and instead of going out drinking, she stayed in with her brother and he gave her a gift, her prized possession – a locket. It was a pretty thing, silver, the sort of thing one might buy for a lover, if one had one. To her, it was a priceless gift from her brother, and she wore it with pride and joy.
It wasn't like she had to pick between his photo and anyone else. Her parents were dead, and as much as she missed them, they were gone. She didn't have any other siblings, or grandparents. She'd never had time for dating, and it's never really been an option, anyways – people would look down on a woman like her, it would hold her back, no one would want someone like her as a model. She's never minded. Even now, moments from death, she doesn't regret it. It's something she would have liked, yes, but there were more important things to worry about. Her brother was more important than that.
She'd lived her life around him, and if there was anything she could do – to save him, to bring him back, to make sure no one ever met the same fate he did – she'd devote everything to it, because she truly, desperately, entirely and with the whole of her being, wanted to live. She'd do anything to actually live. But without him, she was dead, more than dead than she was certain she would be in mere moments. She couldn't live without him, and at least this way, she wouldn't be alone.
When she flew through the windshield and hits the gravelly water, it hurt, horrifically and twistingly, a mind-bending sort of agony: shards of glass embedded beneath her eyes and throughout her body, blood running down her face and smearing across her body. But the darkness – the gentle darkness, smooth and cool, comforting in its soft embrace – surrounds her, and in its presence she feels a peace she hasn't felt since her brother's death.
She was gone before the EMTs arrive.
The violet fog rolls in, permeating her bones. In the silence and the dark, it is the only thing she can comprehend; it is the only thing that exists to her, for a moment, and then, quietly, she hears the hissing. It's an almost completely silent sound, like a serpent, or perhaps a lizard; it's coming closer, growing louder, and if she could move she would shiver.
Death, she thinks absentmindedly, sounds different from what I expected.
Most don't hear me. The creature's mental-voice is like a high-pitched hiss, very vaguely feminine. You are quite special, Misty Lola, and I have come to you to make a deal, of sorts.
Why? She thinks back. It is an almost intuitive method of communication, but she can't help but worry she's getting it wrong, that she's displeasing this being that has chosen to seek her out in the realm of what is without a doubt Death.
Your single-minded devotion. Your knowledge that current society – that the weak and meaningless citizens of this broken nation – will never allow you to blossom into your true and full potential, even when you bury that knowledge far deeper than you should. Your sorrow at your dear brother's death – strong enough to drown out a rage that boils deeply within you, a true hatred that we share. Your desire to live, fully and completely. You have every trait to see your true purpose, your true Fate.
Who are you? What are you? Why do you know so much about me?
Ccarayhua, the devourer of Man, of the Jibakushin – the Earthbound Gods. In spite of my nature as a God, I require someone who will summon me into the world and assist me in protecting the binding pillars from those who might interfere with our Grand Mission, so that it might be shaped into its ideal form.
Its ideal form?
Yes. The very one who stole your brother from you opposes this. Her name is Aki Izayoi, face of the Arcadia Movement. She can see something silhouetted against the fog, looking for all the world like the Leviathan, the reptilian king of the proud and the haughty, had come forth from the depths to carry out its agenda. Worry not. In the power of the Earthbound Gods, you will exceed her. You will be unharmed, and you will not be alone in this goal.
Not alone?
Others will stand beside you: there is our leader, Rudger Godwin, who serves the Spider God called Uru. There are your brothers in arms – first Kiryu, with the great Cyclops Ccapac Apu, and also Demak, who serves the Spirit Monkey, Cusillu. In time, another brother-in-arms will join you: the Whale, Chacu Challhua, has chosen a lost soul named Boomer.
…It won't bring my brother back. I'm alone without him.
I wasn't finished, little mortal, although I must apologize that the last of ours is no more your brother than the previous have been. Still, the woman who killed your brother is out there, still dangerous, still reckless and still encouraging others to be as chaotic as she is. It shows her images, then, short clips of scenes of psychics. She took your brother from you. She took that beautiful little boy and crushed the life out of him under a ton of fallen stone. She'll do it again, too, and the final Dark Signer – the final member of our alliance, your final compatriot – will be a victim of her organization the Arcadia Movement.
Who is she?
Her name is Carly Nagisa – a reporter for a New Domino newspaper. She is innocent and kind, and it will be her good and protective nature that leads to her death at the hands of the cruel and the callous and the greedy. It shows her, then: smashing through a window, falling (her face surrounding), crying, scared and cold, shivering on the cold concrete. In her vision, Misty comforts her; in her vision, the girl kisses her, softly and tenderly.
The vision stops abruptly, and the warmth of the vision is replaced by the calculated inhumanity of Ccarayhua's mental voice: My desire is hardly that you are miserable in your servitude to our goal. We share a desire, a hatred, don't we? For the light, cruel and conniving and destructive, for the Arcadia Movement, spillers of blood? Come now, Misty. Reach out to the Gentle Darkness.
And as she listens – as she gets up onto her knees and kneels before the revealed figure of the Great Lizard, of the Devourer, of Ccarayhua, equal but opposite to the rear-talons of the Scarlet Dragon, as the creature opens its great maw and wraps its tongue around her, as it swallows her, even as they wheel her dead body through the hospital – she is whole, rage and her peace.