Gem

Wincing and gasping, a robed figure dragged itself across the ground. Sounds of gunfire could be heard in the distance, and a trail of faintly smeared blood droplets led back toward the battlefield. The figure reached a tree and pulled itself up, leaning back. The hood fell to reveal a woman's face, and she pushed back the stray red hairs that had fallen loose, closing her eyes and catching her breath.

Trust her to wander into a war zone. So much for vacation. She pressed a hand to the wound in her side. She didn't seem to be dying, so it must not have hit anything vital. Still, it hurt like hell and she needed to get it looked at. Having a hunk of lead stuck in her didn't exactly seem healthy.

Garnet took a moment to ponder her options. Her best bet was to find the old felid, K'toba. At least she knew she could trust him. Problem was, he'd always found her, not the other way around. While she was working out how to go about finding him there was a shift in the atmosphere, and Garnet heard the last voice in the worlds she wanted to hear right now.

"Looks like you're in quite a predicament, my dear."

Garnet shifted painfully, trying to drag herself away from the hooded figure that had appeared just a few feet away. "Shove off, Faceless, I don't need you right now." Her voice was strained… weak. This was not a good time to be caught off-guard.

There was amusement in the Wise Man's voice when he replied. "On the contrary, it appears that you do. Got ourselves in a mess, did we?" He chuckled and glided closer. "It must hurt. I could help, you know."

She struggled to her feet, tried to back away and fell. It was no use—she was too weak to escape this time.

"I had quite the time finding you. You always were my best student. But I knew I'd catch up with you in the end." Smoke-like tendrils of darkness crept out from around the Wise Man's body, seeming to suck the light from the air they touched. They reached out, wrapped around Garnet as she lay helpless on the ground. "You seem to forget, Athena, that you belong to me. You are mine. I made you what you are. I took you in, made you stronger. Yet you repay me by fleeing, defying my orders, resisting my help. Even now," he said, reaching out to grasp her chin in his hand, "you shudder at my touch."

The darkness surrounded her now, creeping inward. She felt it around her, inside her, smothering her senses in a cold, crushing blackness that was somehow both comforting and terrifying. For a moment she seemed to drift in nothingness, and then there was pain as the bullet was slowly extracted from her side. "Now then," came the Wise Man's voice again as the world reappeared around her, "isn't that better? I can't have you dying, Garnet. You're no good to me dead. Why do you think the Wisen haven't killed you yet? I have ordered them not to. You are far too precious to be eliminated, troublesome though you are."

"You tried… the list," she said through gritted teeth. The dark tendrils still surrounded her, lifting her up like she was no more than a puppet, with the Wise Man pulling the strings.

"A mistake that won't be repeated," he said simply. Garnet felt her wound closing itself up, though now there was icy coldness in its wake. It wasn't the first time she'd been healed by that darkness—she never liked the feel of it. The Wise Man ignored her shiver and continued his monologue. "You are unique in the Spiral. Did I ever tell you that? You aren't the first we tried it on. The others were too weak. They all died. Their bodies couldn't handle more than one or two extra souls at a time. I knew you'd be different from the moment I saw you, and look at you now—over a hundred souls coexisting, and the combined power of every one of them. The most beautiful of all my creations. And you did grow up to be quite beautiful…"

Garnet tried again to break free. She didn't much like being alone with him anyway—he was creepy on a normal day. But this… this was outright unnerving. The blackness closed in more tightly around her, holding her there like some giant, cold fist.

"Do you fear me?" The voice had become softer.

"Like hell!" She tried, and failed, to struggle free again.

"I see… you fear what I will do to you while you are so helpless. You need not. When you come to me, you will do so of your own will."

Garnet stared at him, desperately wishing she could see his face right now so she could try and discern what his game was. Was he seriously coming onto her right now? If so, that made her far more uneasy about the fact that he kept following her.

The Wise Man slowly released the magic he'd used to hold her, setting her gently back on the ground. "I killed him for you, you know. The boy who took you when he was meant to guard you."

Her eyes widened. "You… He didn't know!"

"That doesn't matter."

"He didn't know!"

"His own fault. It's done." The coldness has returned to his voice, dark aura pulsing around him. "You were not his to touch." The Wise Man drew nearer again, and once more Garnet tried to back away.

"There's something wrong with you… what the hell is going on?" Even when she had trusted him, even when she had been small, he had never approached this close on his own. Now he was bearing down on her, not threatening yet there was still a strange energy, a hunger, and she felt like she was being hunted. If he had threatened her, she might have felt a little less concerned—at least that was familiar. "You're insane…"

"Am I?" The Wise Man had stopped moving now, though the glowing black curled like smoke once more, rolling like fog in her direction as Garnet tried to put more distance between them. "Time will tell, my little gem. But until then, do try to keep yourself out of harm's way."

Garnet opened her mouth to retort, to try and bring some sense of normalcy back to the conversation, but before she could say a word the Wise Man had vanished and the darkness with him, leaving her alone in the empty wood. Very strange that he hadn't locked her up again. Stranger still that he seemed… well, she wasn't sure what. She had no idea what to make of it. What had brought on this sudden change? Or was it sudden at all? Perhaps she simply hadn't noticed it over time. But what was it? She knew it wasn't that he cared. She was a possession to him. Something to be owned, to be toyed with or thrown away as he pleased.

And yet the nature of this… ownership… seemed to have changed. Before he had treated her as a tool. A means to an end, so that he didn't have to get his own hands dirty. Now… she wasn't sure she wanted to know what he was thinking now. At some point, she supposed, the Wise Man must have realized she was no longer a little girl, but a grown woman.

Whatever it was, it was creepy as hell.

The sounds of gunfire reached her ears again, drawing nearer. Her little patch of woods was not going to be safe for much longer. She lingered for a moment, mind still reeling, before slipping back into the void between worlds. She needed a new place to hide.