I was cold, I couldn't see anything. I felt limbs so I was at least somewhat coherent, but for some reason I felt as if that shouldn't be the case. Feeling around I was in a kind of limbo wondering how I got here, when suddenly a series of images pierced the void, still images of people, places and events, a cacophony of sound following with every image, and a different thing attached to every image and sound.
Wait, I remembered what those things were called feelings and emotions… I found them wired like why would I feel those things and why should I? This chaos continued for what felt like an eternity, yet still too fast, until one final image showed. It was the 'protagonist' of the image's hands aiming a… car, yeah car, at a 'tree' when suddenly everything started moving in slow motion. Until suddenly the tree and car impacted and the vision faded with the lingering feelings of, what was that emotion? Sardines, Saladin? Wait sadnesses, an overwhelming weight of sadness that acted as if spiked chains were bound at the shoulder, and the feeling of the impact echoing through the void slowly losing the, well, impact.
I just sat in the void again for an eternity or was it just a few seconds but the time doesn't matter, what does is that I realized why I saw and felt those things… It was my life. Wow, my life was bland. Sure it had a good start for a 'Rise from the ashes' story and some interesting parts but he hadn't acted on it, hell my life was so clichéd of a story without any of the follow through, something straight out of a middle school writer's angst'y mind.
Raised by a single father after my neglectful mother divorced pops and took my little brother, her favorite child, with her. Just barely making through high school and college before getting an engineering degree with a masters in mechanics. Joining the military and then working on tanks and other military vehicles, even a blackbird at one point! Then after a tour, before leaving the military, getting screwed out of my pension and check by some asinine bureaucrats who were trying to show that they were good and moral pacifist, peacekeepers and not willing to reward what they called 'career killers', despite the fact that it was (A. Against the law not to pay me, and (B. I was in logistics and mechanics not frontline duty. Getting off that tangent, I was able to pick up a few odd jobs before founding a mechanic's and prosthetics shop and I made good money despite the fact that it was a slow place and somewhat niche in a small town.
Then one day I randomly turned on the news and who do I see but my pops on trial for the attempted murder of my shitty mum. She apparently became some high up politician and was nearly killed in a drive-by shooting, and guess what the shooter had my pops car and he had supposedly been sending death threats to her along with buying the exact same gun that did the shooting. I ended up following the trial and tried to call and get him a proper lawyer since he was only working with a public defender and those guys are overworked to hell and back but no lawyer I could afford would take the case since it seemed open and shut. At twenty-six I watched my sixty-eight year old father get put in for the rest of his life, he didn't even make it a year.
Then at his funeral, guess who showed up, that's right shitty mum and my little brother who when called up only insulted the man who raised him for the first six years of his life. I'll admit I wasn't in a good headspace for a while but I got better and then as it rained it poured. An investigation was launched due to large amounts of government corruption and guess what came to light. Dear 'ol mum and little bro were revealed to have been near the top of the pyramid and amongst their many crimes, framing pops.
I… I ended up doing something bad I'll admit but it was worth it. Maybe that's why I'm in this void? Maybe it's my personal hell, which didn't make much sense since I meditated quite often in life but, too much good and it becomes bad, maybe that's the shtick of my hell.
So there I sat, err floated? In a void of vast emptiness my only companions were me, myself and I. That's what it was like for an admittedly long and short time, till something happened. I started to feel grass, damp grass. I started to feel occasional drops of rain, fabric on my skin, air in my lungs, oh hell I felt the ground clash with my torso as I drew deep breaths and light started to appear, shining against my eyelids.
I slowly opened my eyes as I drew myself up somewhat. Rubbing my eyes I took in my own hands and apparel. I had darkish skin, like someone who was out in the sun a lot. I felt my hair and it was short, a messy-bed head style, a somewhat skinny frame but by tensing my muscles I could tell it was more like a swimmer with a surprising amount of muscle. I was wearing black coat and felt that there was some kind of print on the back, under the coat a dull purple sleeveless shirt, some a type of cast on my left hand that felt like it could be removed easily, which was weird, a black leather bandolier crossed my torso staring at my left shoulder ending at my right hip, I also wore a pair of black jeans that faded to almost black/purple flames at the bottom, and a pair of grey tennis shoes.
Looking around where I felt something prod my left side looking down I was shocked to see a large hand cannon, it was like a large and blocky Deagle made of violet metal from grip to barrel, hanging in a holster off my jeans belt. I slowly withdrew the gun and noticed that it wasn't a solid violet and had engravings of different shades and the occasional gunmetal grey shine out, I could make out from the engravings a name 'Violet End', what an emo name and a damn pun. Putting the gun back into its holster I looked around the area and saw another weapon, sticking out of a tree like the sword of Sigurd.
The sword's grip was weird and nudged a few memories from the back of my mind but I shrugged those off. The grip looked more like a large motorcycles hand bar with two levers, a pair of gun barrels instead of a guard and the barrels for some reason looked like they could move, which was stupid in my opinion, cool but stupid, the bit of the blade that was exposed looked sharp and had teeth like a chainsaw, it looked like it was recently oiled so was in good condition. The whole device nudged something in the back of my head, especially the gun barrels. With a shrug I grabbed the strange sword and pulled it out of the tree with an instinctual flourish and sheathed it through my bandolier on my back.
I couldn't help but blink once I finished. I had no idea how I did that. I mean I wasn't a nerd but that was way too instilled in my body to have been anything other than muscle memory, which brought up way too many questions and implications.
Suddenly a shrill voice broke me from my thoughts as loud; "What the hell!" Sounded off from behind me. Looking back I realized that I was in a forest.
"Why is it always a forest?" I ground out, as I made my way to the source of the scream. I didn't have to wait long though as I came across another clearing much larger than the one I woke up in and in the center was a young woman.
She was short standing at about over five feet, looked to have a lean body with a pale complexion an angular face, long and straight kinda dull red coloured hair that reached her lower back and that spiked at the end, round bright blue eyes, and a small but still noticeable tattoo with a rune below her right eye. She was wearing a light grey hoodie with large, red patch of a wolf holding an axe with its teeth on her right shoulder, over her hoodie she had a studded leather cuirass, on her forearms she had a pair of steel-plate gauntlets, she also had a pair of baggy black cargo pants with patterns of red wolves sewn on them, and finally a pair of military combat boots laced with red laces. The other most noticeable thing about her was the fact she was freaking out, like a full on mental breakdown.
I was about to ask if she was… not alright since she was having a breakdown but if she was alright to accept help when someone beat me to it.
"Do you need help ma'am?" Asked a baritone voice coming from another edge of the clearing. Standing at the edge of the clearing was a giant standing at a little over seven feet with a heavy stubble of blond hair, light tan, long straw blond hair that reached his shoulder blades, and warm golden eyes on a squarish face. He wore a golden brown cuirass made of gold coloured metal with a second portion over his torso in the shape of a triple pointed Y, rune engraved pauldrons made of the same metal, bracers with fur lining near the elbow, a pair of dark blue jeans, and a pair of greaves made of the same metal as the rest of his armor. In his hands was a giant axe that was larger than him in length, the axe had strings running down the haft showing it is also a musical instrument.
I was startled again as another voice sounded out this one a slightly higher pitch but still masculine and a little off my right. "Took the words outta my mouth Godfrey, the Off-brand."
The final newcomer had a sharp face, a near unhealthy pale complexion with black stripe like marks randomly placed around his body, two in particular coming to a end just under his cheekbones, somewhat long wind blown black hair with dull orange tips, sharp amber coloured eyes, and the thing that stood out the most a pair black of feline ears with orange tips place on the top of his head. He wore a burnt orange sleeveless muscle shirt with a black image of a Tiger in a ouroboros fashion of biting its tail on the back, orange metal armbands in the shape of the image on his back over his biceps, a pair of gloves that covered his forearms and held a absurd amount of bullets, a belt that on his left held a quartet of grenades and on the right a octet of knives, below the belt he wore large white baggy tobi pants with black stripes and were taped at the calves with black tape, and a pair of black tennis shoes. In his right hand he held a lever-action pistol with a bayonet under the barrel.
My eyes focused on the newest-comer's head as my snark ran through my head and spoke without thought. "Said the ideal yaoi husbondo, to Erza and Adolf's wet dream."
The other three instantly turned their attention to me. While I kept a facade of snarky confidence my insides were in turmoil.
The cat-eared person seemed to glare at me. "The fuck you mean 'ideal yaoi husbondo' 'ya prick!?!" He snapped. "If anything I'm just a cat-person husbando, not yaoi!" The guy was going to continue with his counter argument until the girl was suddenly tackling him.
I tried to not laugh at the guy's pain as the girl was screaming at him at a rapid pace. I was soon joined by the giant guy who stood next to me pinching his nose.
"And people wonder why nobody is polite anymore." He groaned.
My eyes quickly met his as I spoke. "Sooo… you know this chick?"
"No, I do not. I had just woken up in a nearby clearing and heard a scream then decided to see wI was cold, I couldn't see anything. I felt limbs so I was at least somewhat coherent, but for some reason I felt as if that shouldn't be the case. Feeling around I was in a kind of limbo wondering how I got here, when suddenly a series of images pierced the void, still images of people, places and events, a cacophony of sound following with every image, and a different thing attached to every image and sound.
Wait, I remembered what those things were called feelings and emotions… I found them wired like why would I feel those things and why should I? This chaos continued for what felt like an eternity, yet still too fast, until one final image showed. It was the 'protagonist' of the image's hands aiming a… car, yeah car, at a 'tree' when suddenly everything started moving in slow motion. Until suddenly the tree and car impacted and the vision faded with the lingering feelings of, what was that emotion? Sardines, Saladin? Wait sadnesses, an overwhelming weight of sadness that acted as if spiked chains were bound at the shoulder, and the feeling of the impact echoing through the void slowly losing the, well, impact.
I just sat in the void again for an eternity or was it just a few seconds but the time doesn't matter, what does is that I realized why I saw and felt those things… It was my life. Wow, my life was bland. Sure it had a good start for a 'Rise from the ashes' story and some interesting parts but he hadn't acted on it, hell my life was so clichéd of a story without any of the follow through, something straight out of a middle school writer's angst'y mind.
Raised by a single father after my neglectful mother divorced pops and took my little brother, her favorite child, with her. Just barely making through high school and college before getting an engineering degree with a masters in mechanics. Joining the military and then working on tanks and other military vehicles, even a blackbird at one point! Then after a tour, before leaving the military, getting screwed out of my pension and check by some asinine bureaucrats who were trying to show that they were good and moral pacifist, peacekeepers and not willing to reward what they called 'career killers', despite the fact that it was (A. Against the law not to pay me, and (B. I was in logistics and mechanics not frontline duty. Getting off that tangent, I was able to pick up a few odd jobs before founding a mechanic's and prosthetics shop and I made good money despite the fact that it was a slow place and somewhat niche in a small town.
Then one day I randomly turned on the news and who do I see but my pops on trial for the attempted murder of my shitty mum. She apparently became some high up politician and was nearly killed in a drive-by shooting, and guess what the shooter had my pops car and he had supposedly been sending death threats to her along with buying the exact same gun that did the shooting. I ended up following the trial and tried to call and get him a proper lawyer since he was only working with a public defender and those guys are overworked to hell and back but no lawyer I could afford would take the case since it seemed open and shut. At twenty-six I watched my sixty-eight year old father get put in for the rest of his life, he didn't even make it a year.
Then at his funeral, guess who showed up, that's right shitty mum and my little brother who when called up only insulted the man who raised him for the first six years of his life. I'll admit I wasn't in a good headspace for a while but I got better and then as it rained it poured. An investigation was launched due to large amounts of government corruption and guess what came to light. Dear 'ol mum and little bro were revealed to have been near the top of the pyramid and amongst their many crimes, framing pops.
I… I ended up doing something bad I'll admit but it was worth it. Maybe that's why I'm in this void? Maybe it's my personal hell, which didn't make much sense since I meditated quite often in life but, too much good and it becomes bad, maybe that's the shtick of my hell.
So there I sat, err floated? In a void of vast emptiness my only companions were me, myself and I. That's what it was like for an admittedly long and short time, till something happened. I started to feel grass, damp grass. I started to feel occasional drops of rain, fabric on my skin, air in my lungs, oh hell I felt the ground clash with my torso as I drew deep breaths and light started to appear, shining against my eyelids.
I slowly opened my eyes as I drew myself up somewhat. Rubbing my eyes I took in my own hands and apparel. I had darkish skin, like someone who was out in the sun a lot. I felt my hair and it was short, a messy-bed head style, a somewhat skinny frame but by tensing my muscles I could tell it was more like a swimmer with a surprising amount of muscle. I was wearing black coat and felt that there was some kind of print on the back, under the coat a dull purple sleeveless shirt, some a type of cast on my left hand that felt like it could be removed easily, which was weird, a black leather bandolier crossed my torso staring at my left shoulder ending at my right hip, I also wore a pair of black jeans that faded to almost black/purple flames at the bottom, and a pair of grey tennis shoes.
Looking around where I felt something prod my left side looking down I was shocked to see a large hand cannon, it was like a large and blocky Deagle made of violet metal from grip to barrel, hanging in a holster off my jeans belt. I slowly withdrew the gun and noticed that it wasn't a solid violet and had engravings of different shades and the occasional gunmetal grey shine out, I could make out from the engravings a name 'Violet End', what an emo name and a damn pun. Putting the gun back into its holster I looked around the area and saw another weapon, sticking out of a tree like the sword of Sigurd.
The sword's grip was weird and nudged a few memories from the back of my mind but I shrugged those off. The grip looked more like a large motorcycles hand bar with two levers, a pair of gun barrels instead of a guard and the barrels for some reason looked like they could move, which was stupid in my opinion, cool but stupid, the bit of the blade that was exposed looked sharp and had teeth like a chainsaw, it looked like it was recently oiled so was in good condition. The whole device nudged something in the back of my head, especially the gun barrels. With a shrug I grabbed the strange sword and pulled it out of the tree with an instinctual flourish and sheathed it through my bandolier on my back.
I couldn't help but blink once I finished. I had no idea how I did that. I mean I wasn't a nerd but that was way too instilled in my body to have been anything other than muscle memory, which brought up way too many questions and implications.
Suddenly a shrill voice broke me from my thoughts as loud; "What the hell!" Sounded off from behind me. Looking back I realized that I was in a forest.
"Why is it always a forest?" I ground out, as I made my way to the source of the scream. I didn't have to wait long though as I came across another clearing much larger than the one I woke up in and in the center was a young woman.
She was short standing at about over five feet, looked to have a lean body with a pale complexion an angular face, long and straight kinda dull red coloured hair that reached her lower back and that spiked at the end, round bright blue eyes, and a small but still noticeable tattoo with a rune below her right eye. She was wearing a light grey hoodie with large, red patch of a wolf holding an axe with its teeth on her right shoulder, over her hoodie she had a studded leather cuirass, on her forearms she had a pair of steel-plate gauntlets, she also had a pair of baggy black cargo pants with patterns of red wolves sewn on them, and finally a pair of military combat boots laced with red laces. The other most noticeable thing about her was the fact she was freaking out, like a full on mental breakdown.
I was about to ask if she was… not alright since she was having a breakdown but if she was alright to accept help when someone beat me to it.
"Do you need help ma'am?" Asked a baritone voice coming from another edge of the clearing. Standing at the edge of the clearing was a giant standing at a little over seven feet with a heavy stubble of blond hair, light tan, long straw blond hair that reached his shoulder blades, and warm golden eyes. He wore a golden brown cuirass made of gold coloured metal with a second portion over his torso in the shape of a triple pointed Y, rune engraved pauldrons made of the same metal, bracers with fur lining near the elbow, a pair of dark blue jeans, and a pair of greaves made of the same metal as the rest of his armor. In his hands was a giant axe that was larger than him in length, the axe had strings running down the haft showing it is also a musical instrument.
I was startled again as another voice sounded out this one a slightly higher pitch but still masculine and a little off my right. "Took the words outta my mouth Godfrey, the Off-brand."
The final newcomer had a sharp face, a near unhealthy pale complexion with black stripe like marks randomly placed around his body, two in particular coming to a end just under his cheekbones, somewhat long wind blown black hair with dull orange tips, sharp amber coloured eyes, and the thing that stood out the most a pair black of feline ears with orange tips place on the top of his head. He wore a burnt orange sleeveless muscle shirt with a black image of a Tiger in a ouroboros fashion of biting its tail on the back, orange metal armbands in the shape of the image on his back over his biceps, a pair of gloves that covered his forearms and held a absurd amount of bullets, a belt that on his left held a quartet of grenades and on the right a octet of knives, below the belt he wore large white baggy tobi pants with black stripes and were taped at the calves with black tape, and a pair of black tennis shoes. In his right hand he held a lever-action pistol with a bayonet under the barrel.
My eyes focused on the newest-comer's head as my snark ran through my head and spoke without thought. "Said the ideal yaoi husbondo, to Erza and Adolf's wet dream."
The other three instantly turned their attention to me. While I kept a facade of snarky confidence my insides were in turmoil.
The cat-eared person seemed to glare at me. "The fuck you mean 'ideal yaoi husbondo' 'ya prick!?!" He snapped. "If anything I'm just a cat-person husbando, not yaoi!" The guy was going to continue with his counter argument until the girl was suddenly tackling him.
I tried to not laugh at the guy's pain as the girl was screaming at him at a rapid pace. I was soon joined by the giant guy who stood next to me pinching his nose.
"And people wonder why nobody is polite anymore." He groaned.
My eyes quickly met his as I spoke. "Sooo… you know this chick?"
"No, I do not. I had just woken up in a nearby clearing and heard a scream then decided to see what the situation was." The giant man put his free hand into his pocket and in it was a black coloured piece of metal with a bottom press that piece quickly expanded showing a light cyan touchscreen between the metal. "If you can, would you answer my query?" He asked loudly, gaining the attention of the arguing duo.
I started at the tech as the furry spoke. "Ah… I've been Isekai'd." As the last word left his mouth one singular word was echoed through the clearing by four different voices, causing nearby wildlife to flee.
"FUCK!"