A Witch From Another World

As she did so, she felt him move inside her, if only a little, then paused, and then started moving again. His hips managed a lazy churn, giving her a warm and slow treat of wet friction, the perfect dessert to their maddened banquet of sex. She lifted one leg, letting him get a little deeper, her brain completely awash in happy natural chemicals of bliss. "Mmmmmm. Thank you. Your cock feels so blastingly good. Fuck me every night with it, Shadrach. Fuck me deeeeeep." She blinked. "Why'd you stop?" She looked back over her shoulder, and his face was filled with confusion, his brow furrowed, his body completely still. "What's wrong?"

"...Blastingly?" She was suddenly empty, gasping at the sudden withdrawal as he climbed out of bed. He picked up a large candle that was on Natshka's desk. "No one on this world uses that word. That's a word from All Stone. I thought I felt resonance from you a moment ago as well, but I wasn't sure. Did you get sent here too? Who were you?" He touched his fingertip to the wick, and it immediately sprouted fire, filling the room with light.

Her eyes widened in horror. There'd been no sigil cast just then. No resonance-trace whatsoever to produce that fire. He'd simply willed the fire into existence. No mage could do that. No one at all, except... "Oh gods. Oh fucking gods. You're the Abomination of Flame." She stood up, hands flexed and blazing with arcane light. "I destroyed you once, I can do it again." She tried not to stare at him as he stood there before her, completely naked, shining with sweat, his standing erection still wet with her arousal and his own seed.

His mouth was wide open in shock. "Wait. 'Natasha' -- Veltris? Are you Natashka Veltris?"

"THAT'S THE DREAD-WITCH TO YOU, MONSTER!" With a rapid mind-trace, shackles of purple light shot out from her hands, wrapping around his wrists and ankles. They drew taut and began to pull him to the ground, but with a single flash of light from his eyes, they shattered like wind-crystal. "Natashka, please..."

"You nearly destroyed my first home -- I won't give you a chance to harm this one!"

To her shock, he dropped to the floor, just sitting there. His arms open wide. His eyes were pleading. "I'm not going to! Natashka... Natasha... please! Stop! I'm not going to fight you! I didn't want to fight anyone!"

Her hands flexed, fingers crackling with even brighter purple light. "And you expect me to believe that? After all the people who were killed in your name? By people who you empowered?"

He rubbed his forehead. "I'm not proud of that. I didn't understand what was going on."

The dread-witch grit her teeth. "Oh, so it was all the fault of Kalandraxus? You were ignorant of his lust for power? Baz-shit, creature. Baz-shit and lies."

Now his eyes flashed with real anger. "I am not a liar."

"Oh no, you're just an ageless power of destruction from beyond the veil, unleashed upon a world that would have been helpless against you if not for me!"

"That's right!" He looked right into her eyes. "Natashka Veltris, Dread-Witch of the Emerald Forest -- know this to be true. I will not fight you. I don't want to die, but if you are so convinced that I am nothing and worth nothing, then I won't stop you from killing me, right here, right now. But hear me out for one moment. Please." As he sat there, he ran his fingernails across his chest, leaving small trails of blood. "I've disabled all my defenses, Dread-Witch. My body heals with extraordinary speed -- it's how I drink the delicious boiling brew this world loves so much without lasting harm." He smiled, but only briefly. "Useful, that. But I've shut that down. Hear me out. Please."

She hesitated. Why would the Abomination of Flame say something like 'Please'? "This is a trick. This has to be a trick." Her voice rose to barely controlled shriek. "Kai! Scan him!" Her eyes never left Shadrach's. "Don't you even so much as move a finger." He nodded, his hands now resting on his knees as he leaned back against her absent roommate's bedpost.

Kai's ghostly visage appeared before her. "Mistress, as strange as this may sound, I believe him."

Her cheek twitched. "Explain yourself, Kai!"

"I've scanned him quite thoroughly, mistress. He has exposed every part of his inner soul. His body is indeed only functioning as a normal human body would, but I see echoes of where it had been empowered to a great degree of resilience and regeneration, now that I am looking for such enchantments." The spirit created an overlay image of Shadrach's body and soul. "Mistress... he is so exposed now, willingly on his part, that even I could kill him alone without your help, right now. If I wanted to. But I do not."

Shadrach nodded at this, but said nothing.

"I believe we should allow him the opportunity to speak, Mistress."

She looked down at Shadrach where he sat, trying not to think about how only minutes before they'd been making love. How happy she felt. Content. Blissful. Aroused beyond anything she thought possible. Relaxed, truely and utterly, for the first time in either of her two lives. "Fine. We'll talk. Why are you here?" She gestured, and a spear of ice formed in her left hand. She drew back to be ready to throw it right at his heart at any time. Her right eye took on a purple glow, now monitoring his body's vital signs. "If you lie, I will know immediately and you will die a moment later. Now talk."

"I was never supposed to be here."

"Obviously. Earth is better off without your taint."

"No! I meant I was never supposed to be anywhere! Here, All Stone, or any of the other infinite worlds that surround us! You called me an ageless power of destruction, and that is exactly correct. I existed in potentia, a latent force waiting to wipe the slate clean when a universe died from ancient entropy after millions of years, scouring away what remained so that a new universe could be born from its ashes." He took a deep breath. "I was never, ever, supposed to have a mortal soul. Somehow Kalandraxus pulled me forth from the fabric of reality and personified me. Birthed me, incarnated me, however you want to call it. He made me a person, not a function." He closed his eyes tight, tears running down his cheeks. "Even now, I still don't know if I should thank him or curse him for that. But I am glad he's dead, for everything else he did to me."

Natashka Veltris paused. When a person lied, their heart rate, blood pressure, and respiration rate all spiked. Ageless thing the Abomination of Flame might be, but he still wore this human body, and even skilled liars couldn't hide those involuntary responses completely. She could see all this with the seeing-eye spell she'd cast on her right eye. He was telling the truth, or at least what he thought was true. "What did he do?"

"He hated me. He knew that without my power backing him, he would never have what he wanted, so he resented me. I see that now. He beat me with word and hand, convincing me from the very start that I owed everything to him, that I was nothing without him, and that no one else would ever understand or love me." His face clenched. "I was his tool for conquest, but he never let anyone else speak to me. I was alone with no one except him. He made sure of that. In all my years living that mockery of a life on All Stone under his thrall, I never had a chance to learn anything. How people thought. How people felt. How people were... people. I wasn't allowed. I was empty."

She narrowed her eyes. "I'm the most powerful witch who ever walked All Stone, and you shrugged away one of my most potent spells like water off a swan's back. You expect me to believe you couldn't stand up to that asshole Kalandraxus?"

The Abomination of Flame looked away. "Where the mind goes, the rest follows. He had his claws in my mind and thoughts from the very first moment I was incarnated. Not with magic. Just... well, psychology's the Earth word for it. Just pure and ugly psychology." His gaze returned to her. "Hindsight's an ugly thing. His lies seem so obvious now."

She lowered the spear, but didn't dismiss it. "You're not telling me the whole truth. There's something else. I can hear it in your voice."

He took another deep breath. "No, I'm not going to talk about that. Not even for you, Natashka. He hurt me in ways that will never heal, not fully. When you and I lay on that bed behind you, we did so out of... good feelings. Lust, companionship, desire, maybe..." Tears fell again. "Maybe something more. I don't know. But Kalandraxus used similar acts as weapons. For cruelty. Control. Hate. Pain." He lifted his chin defiantly. "If you're going to try and make me spell that out any further and relive those horrors, then to hell with you. Just cut my throat and put that damn spear right through my eyes, end me and be done with it. It's painful enough just having those memories in my head at all."

She opened her hand, and the spear of ice disintegrated into vapor. She sat down across from him, leaning against her own bed. "I believe you, Shadrach. And I'm sorry."

He nodded. "It's been... a night. Yeah."

She looked at him. "You never answered my question, though - not really. Why are you here? On Earth? Did the Lord of All Stone send you here as he did me?"

"He did. After you killed me -- well done and thank you, by the way -- he ripped my soul out of that grotesque chimera Kalandraxus had stuffed me in, and said that what I lacked most was empathy. That if I could learn that, that maybe I could be a true and full person, a fully realized soul." He shifted position, looking a little uncomfortable. "Um. Could I, ah, stand up and use the bathroom? This tile floor is cold on my bare ass, and I really need to piss. Sorry. I promise I'll be right back, there's more to this." He picked up a towel. "Just be a minute."

Moments after he ran down the hall to a restroom wearing nothing but that towel, Natashka grabbed a nightgown, slipped it on, and took the opportunity to do the same. As she sat on the toilet trying to process everything, Kai hovered there before her, smiling what he probably hoped was a comforting smile, but said nothing.

A few minutes later, they were both back in her room, and Shadrach was sitting on a chair across from where she sat on her bed in her nightgown. Her purple underwear and his clothes lay in a mingled pile between them on the floor. "So. That story I told you about how I nearly broke my neck playing football."

She looked at him thoughtfully. "I suspect there was no 'nearly'. He did break his neck. Died instantly -- and the Lord of All Stone dropped you into that empty body and fixed the damage. Would I be right? That's how it happened with me, sort of."

"Mostly. Shadrach Nelson wasn't all the way gone. He was still hanging on to life by the thinnest of tethers -- so when I got thrown in, Shadrach's soul and my incomplete mockery of a soul merged, or maybe it would be better to say I absorbed his. Not something I had any control over. I experienced all of his life and knowledge in an instant, as if I'd lived it myself. It was horrible."

"Horrible? Why?"

He rubbed at his eyes. "Because calling Shadrach Nelson a 'bully' would be understating it. He didn't just treat other people like shit -- he enjoyed doing so. It wasn't even some old trauma that pushed him to do that, he just liked having power over others because it made it easier for him to hurt them without consequence." He winced. "He never killed or... hurt anyone the way Kalandraxus did. But he was a Kalandraxus in the making. I witnessed everything he did, and saw the pain he caused others that he cared nothing about. But it made me care. It made me determined not to be like that. So after I woke up in full control of his body, his soul completely subsumed by mine, I decided to do better." He stood up, slowly and carefully while holding onto the chair's back for balance. "Although I'm still getting used to being a biped rather than that weird centaur-like thing from before. Still working out the bugs on using the right instincts to move around." He started pacing. "I turned down the scholarship from a school that would have encouraged his worst instincts and came here instead -- which incidentally got me blessedly far away from his wretched parents, who actively encouraged him to be a monster. I hope you never meet them. His father especially. He lost his mind when he found out that I'd been using the platinum card he gave me to try and make things right with people I'd hurt." He looked around, lost in thought. "I wish I could make up somehow for all the people I hurt, indirectly or otherwise, back on All Stone. Including you."

She pondered this. "Honestly? Dwelling on it won't bring them back. Better to do something constructive instead. Sounds cold, but -- well. I believe in making the best with what one actually has on hand, not what one wishes for. She cocked her head to one side, watching him. "Looking back, when Kalandraxus died, we just went right for you, blades out and spells blazing. Didn't exactly give you a chance to explain yourself, especially after we realized you were intelligent. I feel bad about that."

He waved that off. "Don't. I was lost, angry, confused, and all of the restraints and controls that I'd allowed Kalandraxus to embed in me had just faded, leaving me eager to just lash out and hurt everything in sight. You were right to attack me. I remember seeing a city in the distance, thinking that maybe if I burned it away, the hurting would stop. You wouldn't have been able to reason with me." He looked down at the floor. "I know I killed some of your friends in that fight. I'm so sorry." He paused. "Why are you smiling? Are you laughing?"

She blushed, covering her mouth with her hand. "I'm so very sorry, I didn't mean to. It's just, ah, you've been walking back and forth, and watching your manhood bounce back and forth in the process like a metronome has been, ah, distracting." She cleared her throat, and stood up to approach him. "Look. This has been a chaotic night in every possible way, and we're not going to resolve all of our thoughts on it tonight. Agreed?"

"Agreed."

At that moment, the door burst open, and Jen Harper stepped into the candle-lit dorm room, wailing and crying with her face in her hands, absolutely drenched from the rainstorm outside. "OH MY GOD NATASHA I NEED TO TALK TO SOMEONE!"

Shadrach and Natashka both froze like deers in headlights, completely uncertain of what to do next.

Jen looked up, her eyes streaming tears and ruined mascara. "I've been such a bitch to everyone for no reason! I'm an idiot! I'm trash! I'm..." She stopped, suddenly registering that her roommate was wearing nothing but a paper-thin and nearly transparent nightgown while standing right in front of a man, and that said seven-foot wall of muscle was standing there completely naked, his flaccid cock swinging in the metaphorical breeze. "Oh my god. Oh my god! I can't even apologize right!" She broke down crying again, sinking to her knees.

Shadrach retrieved his boxer briefs while Natasha steered Jen into a chair and handed her a bottle of chilled water from her mini-fridge. "Jen, it's okay. Take a deep breath. What happened?"

Jen managed to swallow a lungful of air, followed by some sips of water, and it helped settle her down. "I'll -- I'll keep this short. Julian's been using me like, like some spare sex toy! I wasn't his girlfriend -- I wasn't even his side piece! I was, I was just there for him to have easy pussy handy at one of his crash pads if his first two girls were busy! I'm a pathetic idiot!"

Shadrach pulled his shirt on over his head. "Getting cheated on hurts. Seen that first-hand. My condolences."

Natashka looked over at the pile of boxes on Jen's bed that had been there since they'd moved in the week before. "Look, we'll help you get your things moved so you have a place to sleep."

"No, that's okay." Jen sniffed. "I already have a hotel room booked for tonight, and I've gotten in your way enough." She sniffled again. "But... no one else on campus would talk to me! No one cared! Everyone thinks I'm some stuck up bitch -- AND THEY'RE ABSOLUTELY RIGHT!" She broke down crying again, and it took a few minutes of Shadrach and Natashka working together to calm her down.

Jen eventually took another deep breath and a chug of her water. "Look. I'll get out of your hair, you've obviously got, ah, plans. And I think tomorrow I'm going to file transfer papers. I've probably burned every possible bridge here before the term's even started, and it's no one's fault but my own."

"Don't do that." Natasha and Jen looked up at Shadrach, surprised at his words. He continued. "Don't run from your problems. If you hurt someone, if you really burned bridges and you know it's your fault, you owe it to them to make it right. Or at least make the effort to try." He crossed his arms before his chest. "Get some rest at your hotel room, and tomorrow come back and we'll help you get unpacked. Then we can all get breakfast, and we can meet the real Jen Harper, not the one from last week. And once you've got us as your friends, you can try and patch things up with other people, people you owe it to." He gave her a stern look. "After all, you wouldn't want to be a selfish asshole like Julian, right? Because he's a dickhead!"

Jen blinked. "You're, you're willing to forgive me?" She turned to Natashka. "Where did you find this guy?"

The witch looked up into his face. "Oh, worlds away. There was this whole fiery affair some months back, ended badly, but then we ended up both enrolling here by coincidence, and we've been, ah, getting reacquainted." She found herself smiling.

Jen sniffed. "And I interrupted that." She looked back up to Shadrach. "You'll really forgive me for this? Really really?"

He shrugged. "I'm willing to give you a chance to earn it. What say you, Natashk-- er, Natasha?"

Natashka looked up at him. "Sometimes the best thing to do is to give people a second chance. My dear friend Malice used to say that. She was very wise."

"M-Malice?" Jen looked confused. "That's an odd name. Is she French, maybe?"

Natashka winced at her slip. "No, but she was from, ah, overseas. Sadly, she died a few months ago in an, ah, accident. She was a lovely lady, and probably would have found you very interesting."

"Sorry for your loss." Jen sniffed again and stood up. "Okay. I'm going to get out of your way. I'll see you tomorrow and we'll get this mess sorted out. Ten o'clock okay?"

Shadrach hooked his khaki pants with his toes and kicked them up into the air to grab them. "I should probably get going as well."

"No! Nononononono!" Jen Harper moved to block his way to the door, her arms out wide. "I'm the one who ruined your romantic evening just as clothes were coming off, and I'm leaving right now so that you two can pick up where you left off!" She pointed at Natashka. "Now I'm going to leave and stop ruining your night, so you can get back into his pants and do something wonderful with that handsome-looking schlong of his!" She whirled to point at Shadrach. "And none of this chivalry shit! You were about to get some, and now you're gonna get some! The instant I walk out that door, you better have those pants off and in that bed pronto! You're going to enjoy yourselves tonight without my ruining it, and that's an order!"

Natashka had to restrain herself from laughing out loud. "It is a rather handsome-looking 'schlong', I'm rather compelled to agree."

"See? So that's my first good deed. You two -- get busy and have fun! See you tomorrow!" With that, she walked out and closed the door behind her.

Shadrach blinked, and then shook out his pants, throwing a mock salute in the direction of the door. "Ma'am yes Ma'am!" He laughed. "Well, um. That certainly was an odd little way to end the evening. I guess I'll see you tomorrow--"