//------------------------------// // Kidnapping // Story: I summon... // by Xinrick //------------------------------// “You are really lucky I don’t play for money.” Brandy said as Nick and I sat in defeat across the table. Nick was ten now, and a very healthy mix between Harlow and I. Loves card games, cooking, all that. And Brandy showed him no mercy. “I genuinely don’t understand how you are this good.” I frowned. “Cosmic joke can only go so far before it’s just boring and overplayed…” “I have skills.” She chuckled. “How do I get skills.” Nick asked. “Time, patience, practice, and luck.” Brandy replied. “And Brandy is one of the luckiest people in existence as far as I know.” I said simply. “Only because your luck is terrible.” Brandy chuckled. “No, my luck is fine, yours goes beyond ‘heart of the cards’ and more ‘my dad glared at my deck to give me the best outcome’.” I rolled my eyes. “Considering I beat him when I was ten, he’s just lucky I didn’t want his job.” “...That’s pure nonsense…” “Get good.” She grinned. “I am good, you just cheat at that point.” I huffed. “Wanna fight about it?” She asked with a raised brow. Right… she doesn’t like being called a cheater… last time my knees bent the wrong way for a week… “...Yes.” I frowned. “Cause I’m tired of reality somehow bending to favor your nonsense.” I said. “Called Brandy a cheater again huh?” Harlow asked as he visited me in the hospital. “It was insane dad! Aunt Brandy went bam, pow, kick and dad’s body went crack, and-” Nick was saying. “I don't think your father wants a recap…” Harlow said, putting a hand over Nick’s mouth. “And did Brandy make it out of the ER finally?” I asked petulantly. “She was leaving when I got here.” I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, of course even after I beat her ass just as hard reality just bends to her whims.”  “We’ve both known Brandy our whole lives hun. You know as well as I do Brandy doesn’t have Reality Warping powers.” “Cause that makes sense, I work and suffer for millions of years, she gets a desk job and not only is able to keep up with me in a fight, but is also just immediately fine after the fact.” I rolled my eyes. “We both know that when it comes to the Family, logic is often tossed out the window at times. Just comes down to… well, dumb luck. That or she’s got some understanding of the cards unique to her.” “And it only works for her.” I frowned, as I was a part of the Family as well and I still get shat on. “You could ask her to teach you, you know, like a normal person rather than spend ten years making a highly convoluted plan…” “It worked.” “Yes but… really?” “Cause I know her well enough to know she’d just sass me and say ‘get good’ or some crap like that.” I said, as while I am always happy to be around my best friend…half the shit she pulls is just getting on my damn nerves. “Best friend in the world, glad to spend time with her…but…come on…” I sighed. “So, that aside how long you gonna be here then?” “Just waited for you.” I said, getting out of the hospital bed and getting rid of the bandages and cast simply. “Sorry Nick…didn’t mean for that fight to break out…” “It’s alright. It was cool! Are you gonna go get beat up by Aunt Brandy again?” Nick asked as Harlow held back a chuckle. “...Whatever…” I said, walking out of the room as I didn’t want to get upset with my son for just saying something innocent but…my own kid focusing more on Brandy ‘beating me’ and not how I hurt her enough to send her specifically to the ER is…dumb… “... What do you mean she’s gone?” I asked. “I mean she’s not at her place, work and I’ve been looking across the Realm for her… Brandy is just… missing.” Pegasus told me. “It’s been a week now.” “...Can I ever catch a fucking break?” I growled as I rubbed my temples. “Fun, fantastic, when I’m this close to finally going home, I just need to fuck everything up…” I grumbled. “Now…are you sure you looked everywhere?” I asked Pegasus carefully. “Mike I’ve looked everywhere. All her usual spots, her place, her work. There’s no note, no trace. All I found was her decks laid out. I think she was fixing them up and just… gone. Like she left them there.” That made me worried… Brandy never goes anywhere without her cards… “And it’s all my fucking fault…” I thought, knowing that big ‘cheater’ fight must have been the cause of this…”I’ll look for her, got anything with her scent on it?” I asked, knowing my scent is good enough to hunt down anyone. “Yes.” He said, pulling out one of her decks.  I nodded, gently taking it and sniffing it, trying to get her scent as my Dire Wolf and Griffon senses would help find her. “Even if she hates me…I’m not going to let her disappear from the people that care…” I began sniffing and searching for everywhere I could. Every realm, every timeline, every dimension… … … … “It’s okay, it’s okay…” Harlow said as I just… wallowed into his arms… twenty thousand years of searching and… nothing.  “No it’s fucking not!” I cried. “It’s all my fucking fault this happened! If I didn’t start that one damn fight…if I wasn’t just-” “Mike.” Harlow cut me off. He lifted my head to look at him. “It’s not… While you were searching for her, I looked into things around her place. Her cards were left behind, even if she were mad at you, we both know she’d never leave them behind. She was a card dueler and collector to her core. I looked into it some and… she’s not the only one who… disappeared.” “Who else disappeared?” I asked carefully, cause if…this was the cause of a Dimensional Kidnapping…that would…at least help me feel a bit less like shit. “It’s mostly mortals across the realms. Few million or so per dimension, per realm. In terms of people like us… nine.” “This…it’s an epidemic, what the hell is going on?” I asked. “Don’t know.” “Right…” I muttered. “I…I hope wherever she is she’s safe…” I said weakly. “Though…this makes me feel worse as she was kidnapped and the last thing she remembers of me is being an asshole to her…” “... I might have a hunch on where she could be.” “Where?” I asked quickly. “Remember what I told you, when I told you I was… well, that we knew each other back on earth? That… thing that offered to take me to where you were… that unopenable door in the Afterlife?” “Yeah…you…you don’t think she was taken to the other side…right?” I asked worriedly. “... that thing promised me it could… whatever it was. It might be possible.” “But…why would Brandy want to take that thing’s deal? She basically had everything and…we had one fight where she was…I…still took it too far…damn it…” I growled as I just blamed myself more for this. “I don’t think she did. I looked into the cases amongst the Family and even a lot of the mortal ones. All just vanished with no trace of anything, nothing but the clothes on their back. Whatever happened to them, I don’t think all were given an option like I was.” “Motherfucker…” I grumbled. “So…either we figure out how to get to where Brandy is…or we’ll never see her again…” “There’s one person who might be able to answer this but… getting to them is gonna be a pain in the ass.” Harlow sighed. “And who do we have to get to?” I inquired. “All Maker Lord.” “Oh god.” I groaned. “Haven't met the guy but only heard…a lot about him…” “Same… that’s gonna be… fun…” Getting to All Maker Lord was the easy part… getting an answer out of him… less so… He stood almost twenty feet taller than Harlow and I, working on some machines and such. His body looked like living metal, like his skin was armor. Didn’t help that his head looked like an armored helmet too. “So what do you two chuckle fucks want?” He asked, not even looking at us as he kept working on something. “We want to know who’s been kidnapping an asston of people and where they got kidnapped to.” I said simply. “That’s all you’re asking? Yeesh, you two must not have much going on.” Lord said. “Currently there’s been nine members of the Family and millions of mortals that have been disappearing, that sounds like an important thing to look into.” I frowned. “Everyone’s got their priorities.” Lord said with a groan. “They’re in the New Reality.” “New Reality?” Harlow asked. “You two went to school right? Know about the war and all that shit? Well, that war ended with our old reality, where we are now, being moved outside it’s machines confines into a new reality with infinite potential. We kept the machine on, which is where we are now, and for now the two are kept isolated from one another.” “Huh…” I said slowly. “So we weren’t told about why that’s a thing…” “Because the machine is Finite. The other new reality isn’t. Finite and Infinity, two sides opposing yet similar. After all, if you put infinity into a bottle, it can only hold so much before it needs to be… removed.” “What about the all white being that can take you over to it?” Harlow asked. “A remnant of the war, an imprinted echo onto the machine itself that refused to move on and die, so All Maker Dark Grey gave it purpose.” Lord stated. “And that purpose is to kidnap people and throw them into the Infinite Reality?” I asked. “On the surface level. The how and why are irrelevant. Whether that person held purpose in their home reality or not, whether they were on death's door or a newborn, or perhaps already dead, it will find them and take them to the new reality. As it has been doing long before Dark Grey gave them purpose. Control the chaos, prevent the unexpected.” “By…kind of doing exactly the opposite of what it was told to do…” I frowned. “But…good to know all that nonsense is happening…” “Is there any way we can get to her?” Harlow asked. “Bring her home.” “No. That is not how it works.” Lord said simply. “So people can kidnap innocents from their homes and lives if need be…they’re just fucked?” I asked. “You speak as if mortals don’t do this to one another already. You two are no different. Your divine trails, taking a hero from one world to fight in another, how many spent their lives in the other worlds? How many died? You speak as if this concept is new to you.” “Ah, the age old ‘I’m Divine, I don’t gotta explain shit’ argument.” I rolled my eyes. “So I believe…we can’t get her back due to the Door being closed?” “One can’t open a door that had no handle from their side, yes.” Lord said, still working on the device before him without looking at us. “Why Brandy?” I asked. “Is this a random chance or was there some variable’s taken into account?” I asked. “In terms of the mortals, it’s always random. Mostly. Sometimes they’re picked by it personally. But that’s rare. It does not explain nor tell why, doesn’t need to I suppose. Odds are, it took her out of humor. It finds the guilt of others most entertaining.” “And where is it so I can have a nice simple conversation as I feed them their own teeth?” I growled. “Technically, nowhere and everywhere. It does what it wants, no longer bound by the role it once held, torn out and nearly killed by All Maker King long ago, but chose to remain and survive out of spite. After all, it was once part of this grand machine, who was King to kick them out of their own home?” “Uncle was very pissed during that time…” I said nervously. “So…shit…” “Yes, there is much of their past that haunts them now. As well as all the others.” Lord said flatly. “Well, then how can we get to this realm?” Harlow asked. “Become an All Maker and impress someone. They might gift you a one way ticket.” “Well it’s a good thing I was already on the road to do that anyways.” I rolled my eyes. “Christ…” “Well… it’s a one way ticket… that means if you want to find and see Brandy again… we’d be leaving all this behind.” Harlow said. “And we’d never get to come back.” “That much is obvious, yes.” Lord said. I pinched the bridge of my nose. “Yeah…yeah of fucking course…” I muttered. … Fuck… why can’t things be simple… To be continued...