Dark, darker, ever darker... Hikari found a world devoid of her name surrounding her. Or at least it felt that way. A regular at lucid dreaming, she wasn't quite sure this was in fact even a dream... She certainly felt the falling as if it were real. And so she fell through the darkness, through what seemed to be even somehow darker still, and found herself landing on a solid surface. She didn't feel any pain from it, but she certainly felt the impact regardless. There was the sound of a small bell, and she turned to face the direction it had come from. As she turned on her feet, she felt and saw the world around her change. As if looking at a black and white gradient on a computer, her turning brought white light into view, momentarily blinding her and forcing her to raise her left hand to cover her eyes.
When she lowered it, she found herself looking at a strange hallway, one that seemed to have darkness flowing from its front into the back of it in a repetitive pulsing. She decided to walk through it only to find that she couldn't seem to progress. Or perhaps she was, and it was simply too far of a journey to notice in the strange darkness. After what felt like hours she finally arrived at the end, a strange room with tacky furniture and a... man? Woman? Someone sat in the back of the room. It was as if they were being looked at through blurry lens, and their voice sounded just as strange.
"Greetings, young one. Welcome to your new role." It began. "You've been chosen to help defend your home, isn't that wooooonderful?" There was no joy or excitement in its speech.
Hikari simply cocked her head to the right slightly, a blank expression on her face. To be honest, she was too busy trying to influence her dream into something more interesting than a blurry person in a strange room. The figure slammed shut what appeared through the distortion to be a book in a loud *crash*. Loud enough to break her concentration and make her pay attention to the figure.
"Could you repeat that?" There was a hint of boredom still in her voice as she asked.
"Absolutely not." The figure replied in an empty tone. "Pay attention the first time. Now, if you want to save your planet and species, then you'll need power. So that's what you'll get." Another flash of light, and again Hikari lifted her left hand to block it out, though with that came a stinging pain in the back of her hand. "That symbol will allow you the honor of summoning demons to fight for you. Simply call out the name of the demon that contracts with you and they will appear. Now leave."
That seemed awfully convenient. Hikari tried to ask for more information, but it was too late. She could feel the dream slipping. As she was focused on retaining the dream, her hand burned again and, after a quick look at the symbol that formed on it, she found herself awake in bed. Despite being one of the stranger dreams she'd had, she thought nothing of it and rolled over to go back to sleep.
"- accounts of the rising murders are-"
Click."- the end of days! Why are people joining this new -"
Click."- sighting of the supernatural at S - "
Click."- SPECIAL -"
Oh. Anime. That's worth watching, at least. Hikari thought to herself. Being her day off, Hikari was flipping through channels on TV as she ate her breakfast,
loud music blaring on repeat from her phone. Of course, normal people wouldn't be quite able to multitask listening to music and watching television, but she was decidedly
not normal, and was very used to the situation. It was hard to occupy her mind fully otherwise.
It was around forty-five minutes later, as she was going to put the dishes away, that
it appeared. Just outside her kitchen's window, there was a strange
something watching her. When she first glanced out she saw what appeared to be horns at the bottom of the window, but she thought nothing of it and continued what she was doing. Once she was done though, she walked over to take a closer look. She hadn't left the window open, had she? There was no sign of whatever was out there, so she stuck her head out to get a better look, and that's when it happened. A strange red creature grabbed her by the neck and pulled her out into her backyard through the open window. It was probably a good thing that she's as small as she is, as it prevented her from being slammed into the top half of the window, or rather through it, when she was yanked outside.
The creature held her at arm's length, which wasn't that far, by her neck causing her to be about an inch off the ground as she grabbed at its wrist and thrashed about to try to break free. But the creature just smirked at her and kept her there. As she was about to lose consciousness, she noticed a pain in her left hand and, taking it off the creature's wrist to look more closely, she could see the symbol from her dream present on it.
A voice rang through Hikari's mind.
Call for me. She tried to draw in a breath, but the creature's grip was too tight.
Hurry!"H-hei..." she managed to cough out.
"Long!" A darkness appeared behind the monster, and from it stepped a small... dragon? A small blue bipedal dragon, at that. Its red eyes focused on the red monster that was holding Hikari just as it turned to face the blue one.
"Die." Came from it as it slashed at the goblin-esque monster with [Crush Claw], quickly slicing it in half horizontally. Blood spattered onto its arm and Hikari's stomach as she fell to the ground coughing and trying to catch her breath. The dragon simply flicked its wrist to get the blood off as it walked towards her. Hikari, for her part, did not feel much fear from this one.
"Get up." Hikari stood and looked the demon in the eyes. The dragon simply smirked.
"Yeah, you'll do. The name's 'Akane.' Don't forget it."
Noctis,
AlmostEternity,
Legend,
Festive,
AtomicNut,
Sky Blue,
Vertigo,
LimeTime966,
Rhona W,
Expendable
