wry

“He WHAT?”

“That’s what I heard.”

“I… No. No. No. No no no. Hell no. I refu- no. Noooooooooo.”

The two young women sat sipping coffee as the elder Existen approached them with the news.

“We can’t let this happen!” Zorana snapped. “I… how could we… she married him for corn’s sake! How could we not have caught this!”

“In so many words, we couldn’t. It was unprecedented.” Astra stated, brushing her rainbow hair to the side. “He acted perfectly normal up until now.”

“How did you find out about this?” Q tilted her head, “Like, I have to assume it’s something he would make her keep on the down low, y’know?”

“I overheard him… threatening her. I heard the sounds of a beating. I‘d only stopped by to see how they were doing, I had no idea…”

“That… explains the bruising.” Zorana took another sip. “Good thing no one’s around… We have to do something about this. But we’ll need to do it swiftly and cleanly… Wait any longer and he might kill her, but no one should ever be able to find the body. A good Murderess never leaves the body behind.”

“I would just reverse him into a fetus and abort him but… no.” Astra growled. “I want to watch him suffer as the miserable adult he is. Maybe I’ll super-age him, yes… Watch him deteriorate into bone.”

“You had better let me take a crack at him.” Q stated, popping her knuckles. He won’t know what hit him. And then I’ll hit him again, and he still won’t know. It’ll be like psychically induced Alzheimer’s.”

“I get first blood.” Zorana rolled her shoulders and grabbed the hilt of her claymore.

“We’ll need a plan.”

“I’m thinking, I’m thinking… I know. That Magmarnian girl left her phoenix here. We swipe it, and I can use it to fly. We’ll travel by air, less likely to be caught at this hour. We all make our way to Zempheriea Castle… and he’s the game plan. Q, you defend Luna. Not for nothing but you’re pregnant and I bet you’d rather not be in the direct line of fire.”

“Yeah… yeah, I mean she might be sad if I lost it…” Q got a bit of a wistful look in her eyes.

“Okay. Skittles, you freeze him if he can’t get away, and freeze the crazy sister if she busts in.”

“…Excuse you.”

“What? You’re rainbow aren’t you? Anyway. I’ll confront him direct. It’ll be hard for him to argue with a sword this size. Then, we feed him to those flesh eating lions in their dungeon. We savvy?”

“I’ll make sure Alastor sends him straight to Hell.” Astra folded her arms. “Wife-beating… not on my watch.”

“Good girl.” Zorana stood up and whistled. There was a whooshing noise, and then a large orange bird with long plumage and a flaming aura landed on her shoulders. “I’ve been training her to respond to my calls also. Let’s hit it.”


The three took off swiftly from Nintendria Castle - Astra using her own wings, Q levitating sonically and Zorana flying on the phoenix. However, they would only barely reach the Zempheriean border before they noticed something flying toward them.

“What the-”

“Who’s that?”

“Oh no…”

They halted in midair as the something approached, revealing Kaj with jet black wings of his own.

“What?!” Zorana looked taken aback. “Where the hell did you get wings you’re not supposed to be up here!”

“… That smell.” Astra looked dead on at him. “A kind of… smelly smell. A smelly smell that smells… smelly.” She stared at him a moment longer. “…Demons.”

“What?”

“Demons! And not the good kind!”

“That’s right! I already knew you were coming! Did you know that demon jellyfish can grant some pretty magnificent powers? For example, psychic powers and the ability to fly.”

“…Curses.” Zorana mumbled. “That is… really contrived, you know that? Like something a really bad writer would come up with instead of just incorporating the psychic powers into his elemental system like he should have.”

“It might be contrived, but I have unlimited power! All it took was my soul!” Kaj laughed. “And now, I need no one else, I’ll rule over all of you! Wifey there? Useless! She needed to learn her place! And you…” he glared back at Astra. “You and your buddies are nothing more than glorified mortals! There are no gods!” Now he turned to Zorana. “Your band sucks and you’re also utterly useless.” Finally, he rounded on Q. “And you… what a whore! I’ve never known another who could get pregnant from another woman! Oh, but, no. Look at the things you wear every day. You deserve to be pregnant, maybe it’ll teach the men to stay away from a tramp like you. Maybe I should kill it and have my way with you, right now!”

“Kaj, what happened to you?” Zorana asked, unfazed by his comment.

“I denied the gods, and it’s the best decision I ever made!” He laughed. “I’ve never felt such… power! Nice guy Kaj is gone, his soul is destroyed! Bow to your new ruler!”

Astra, thoroughly unimpressed, snapped her fingers. Several time portals opened up and a bunch of socks started falling through, accounting for millions on millions of missing socks since their invention. The massive timey-wimey sock ball landed on Kaj’s head, causing him to falter long enough for Zorana to move in and strike him down with her claymore.

“Down, you dirty bastard, and reaccept the love of the gods into your heart! It’s not too late!”

“Never! I’ll never accept them, no!”

Astra rolled up her sleeves. “Leave this to me.” She floated on down to him and placed a hand on his shoulder. “Are you absolutely sure you won’t reaccept us? There’s nothing easie-” She stared downward as she found herself suddenly stabbed in the gut, though she seemed relatively unfazed by this.

“Then die.”

She snapped her fingers again, indicating to Q to lift up the sock ball and drop it on his head. At the same time, she froze everything but his head in time, ensuring that he would be held fast to suffer.

“No… no! No, I repent! I repent!” Kaj screeched. “I regret everything! No, stop!”

“No, you already rejected scripture thrice. Enemies of the gods shall be smited!” She dropped more and more socks over his face, where soon he would be unable to scream.

“Aaaaaa… no…. AaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA-”

~~~

“-AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA- Oh….”

Kaj sat bolt upright in bed, looking rapidly around. Luna was laying there safely with no injuries, and certainly not ones that he inflicted, there were no piles of socks and his friends weren’t trying to kill him.

“I… it was only a dream… just a dream…”

And he lay back down to try and recover from the most disjointed, religious nightmare he ever had.

He would never look at a sock the same way again.