If there was one thing Giu hated, it was being caught in the magic of a mystic. And if there was one thing he hated even more, it was being toyed with.
“Do you want to know what you are, Yisto Gustav?” the voice said.
Giu growled. As frustrating as it was, it wasn’t completely hopeless.
“Tea!” he called. “Tea!”
“They can’t hear you. Not here.”
He kept shouting anyway, hoping that some part of him in the outside world would catch their attention. Maybe a whisper. A tail wag. Something. Anything.
“Tea!”
There was no response.
“It’s futile, Yisto.” the voice said. “You’re in our world now.”
The ground in front of him split, Giu wincing as it became enveloped in light.
“You should just relax.”
Something took shape in front of him. A visage that caught his breath for a moment. Especially as it matched the scent perfectly. And the voice.
“We have much to discuss,” the emerging visage of Immy said.
Giu had to take a step back.
Fake. She’s just a fake. He repeated the words to himself. Just an illusion. Stay calm. The visage of Immy smiled. He looked away, trying to keep his focus on escape. On Tea. No doubt they were on their way now to break him out. Probably.
“Maybe they're just being held up.”
Giu blinked.
The Immy visage continued to smile, her voice the exact same as he remembered. But what she’d said. It was the same thing-
“That I’d been thinking.”
He immediately went silent, the Immy visage tapping a finger on the side of her head.
“Did you think your thoughts were your own here, Yisto?” she asked. “We see what you see. Hear what you hear. Every smell. Every sensation.”
The ground opened up again, a second figure appearing in light. An all too familiar pixie.
“You’re in our world now, Yisto Gustav,” the Tea visage said.
He fell backward, his heart rate rising as he saw more visages appear. Of old relatives. Of Auntie Fluff. Of Mom. He tried to form change on instinct, but nothing happened. Nothing changed in his form. He crawled away, but his legs had suddenly shrunken. As did his arms. His body.
“This is our world, Tiny Paws,” the Immy visage said.
He looked down at his hands. There was no mistake about it. He’d shrunken both in size and in age.
No. No no no.
He tried to tell his mind it was all fake. That it was just magic. An illusion. But the smells. The sensations. Even his thoughts. The ground felt as real as it did anywhere else.
No…It’s…
The Immy visage broke through his thoughts.
“Tell us, Yisto,” she asked. “Which world do you prefer? Yours? Or hers?”
He looked up from his hands, everything shifting around him once again. He shut his eyes against it. When they opened, he was sitting in a room lined with shining hardwood.
Huh?
Giu stared around, spotting people in glimmering white armor. Insignias that he recognized all too well. The Paladins of Tulla Villa. And at the head of the pack were two faces he recognized just as easily.
The first was another visage of Immy, the fox standing by the wide open door. But the second…Giu squinted.
Wait. Anome?
The Captain stood with arms folded at the head of the group. And though he looked a bit younger, his model-like appearance still made him stand out from his fellow soldiers.
“What is this?” Giu asked.
The Immy visage stepped in front of him, their head hanging low.
“The final moments of Immy the Paladin,” she said. “Failed Hero of the Villa.”
“Failed?”
He looked at his younger master, her hands buried in her face as Anome seemed to speak to her without a hint of the gentle air Giu remembered seeing at the monument. Nor could he quite make out what was said between the two. The world shifted again.
“A failure of a model,” the Immy visage said. “She never told you why she wanted to run away, did she?”
Giu grabbed his head, but it did little to stop anything from happening.
They were suddenly in a forest. One lit by several lanterns, some of which the people gathered around them with holding. Giu’s eyes widened as he spotted the masks across their faces. One of which was being handed to his master.
And she took it without a word.
“Even a failed model could redeem herself,” the visage said. “Once upon a time, she too shared in our vision. To rid the world of its wretched past. And to create a better one.”
When she put the mask over her face, the world shifted again. Several times.
“Failed hero,” the visage said. “Failed paladin. That fox you worship. She never told you of the things she’d done, had she?”
Images flashed in front of him. People he didn’t know. People he never wanted to. Her sword never seemed to hesitate. No matter who it was.
“She was one of our best,” the visage said. “Losing her was a blow we wished not to repeat. But in trying to correct it, I fear we almost made one equally as terrible.”
The world shifted one last time, and suddenly Giu was back in the chasm.
With all the other visages of his relatives. The fake Immy squatted down in front of him.
“Your mother,” she said. “Your father. Your aunt. So many Gustavs we’ve made this offer to. And so many we’ve been forced to kill to preserve our goals. But you are the last that remains. The last Gustav in our world.”
She extended a hand out to him. As did the many relatives around him.
“Be the one to break the chain, Yisto,” she said. “It’s what your master would have wanted. It’s what we all want.”
A light shined down from above, Giu wincing as another visage made its appearance. One whose face he dreaded seeing most of all.
“It’s what she would have wanted,” the visage of Maria Gustav spoke as she floated down from above. Giu looked around at everyone. At all the people who’d died and were looking to him expectingly. Of all the relatives who’d left him with the burden of the Crystallites. Of the ones he loved. The ones he hated. The ones who he wanted more than anything to see again.
I…I…
Maybe they did want him to help these guys. But even so.
“I think you’re full of crap.”
He smacked Immy’s hand away. As if he was ever trying to be a paragon for his family.
The Immy visage stared down at him, Giu breathing a small sigh.
“Dang,” he said. “Almost had me for a second there. You mystics really are a pain to deal with. But you picked the wrong guy to brown nose.”
The many relatives lowered their hands, though Giu barely paid them any mind. He was too busy staring at his own. The small paws which Immy always made fun of. He hadn’t noticed until then how soft they were. Like tiny pillows. Guess I should be grateful that’s not my nickname. He snickered at the thought.
Jumping to his feet, he found he still was much shorter than everyone else. But that wasn’t something that bothered him anyhow.
“See, that’s the thing you crystal guys probably don’t get,” Giu said. “Spouting all this crap about my folks and Immy’s past and blah blah blah. I’d really like to know who told you I cared about that kind of stuff. Because they definitely lied.”
He put a paw to his chest.
“Doesn’t matter if it’s Immy, Maria, or even my own Mom,” the canine said. “I already decided. I’m not letting some past define me. Heck, I had it erased for a while and I was still the same old dummy I always was. That’s something they helped me realize.”
He looked over to the fake Tea, who just like the others only made him more anxious to see the real one. He cupped his hands.
“Yo, T!” he called. “How long are you gonna keep a guy waiting?”
The visage of Immy narrowed at him. As did the other relatives.
“I already told you they can’t-“
“Hang on a ‘sec, will ya’! These guys ain’t exactly pushovers!”
He smiled, the fake Immy looking up at the voice. Within seconds, the world around them peeled away as if a film was being removed.
Giu felt warmth running through his body, the flow of magic spreading from head to foot before it all began to retract towards his forehead. The same place where he found a paw retracting, the shining green eyes of his partner looking back at him. Tea’s concern turned to relief.
“You alright, Gi?” they asked.
Giu glanced around.
They were back in the chasm, the many Crystallite bodies having returned. A lot of bodies, in fact. More than he remembered seeing before he’d gotten trapped in that mystic prison. And the fact that most were burned could only mean…He smiled at the pixie.
“Never better.”
He made a mental note to thank them later.
For now, though, his attention fell to where there had once been a visage of Immy trying to taunt him with the past. Only, now there was no look-alike fox. Or scattered relatives for that matter. Instead, there was only one Crystallite in the way. A canine who tried to hide their face with a mask even if his armor was a dead giveaway.
“How are you…? When did you…? Just who do you think you are?”
Tea glared at the other canine, their voice coming out almost like a hiss.
