Lilu's face scrunched and her soft lips opened in a short gasp after reading the note. Her eyes grew a hint of anger in them the more she thought about this situation. She had spared that slimeball purely because she had more or less crippled him with her kick, but he didnt take her kindness. He had just proven that he was one of those men, one like that type that had used her and discarded her in that dreary dark filthy alley. To Die.
Wait she wasnt dead, she is alive again. Her mind worked a little quicker, and realized something had happened. No longer did she feel like her old Lilu self, she felt a little more mature and driven. She also didnt feel like her old Pamela self, feeling a bit more fun and carefree.
It hit her like a ton of bricks. Herself, Pamela, Lilu, Her, She, One person. The slightly dazed looking, golden haired, curvy woman didnt feel like two people were talking anymore, with different opinions, but somehow, meshed together, and became a single mind.
Macky screamed at her through her phone, thinking the strain of what had just happened might have broke the "fragile honey haired girl" on the other end of the line. When her Raven haired friend shouted at her to get her attention, she snapped back. She figured she would shelve that thinking for now and concentrate on what had just happened. One of their friends had been kidnapped, and it was her fault.
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In a warehouse somewhere off near the edges of this large city, a man in a wheelchair screams b****y murder at a giant wall of a man next to him. That wall is currently on one knee trying to clean what looks to be a large stain off the pant leg of the man in the wheelchair. The slicked back, greasy looking man, with a thin face and rattish features slapped the brute with his hand berating him for spilling the drink on him.
Across the room, on a metal folding chair. There sat a small blue haired boy with hands duct taped behind his back and also to the chair, ankles ducktaped to the chair legs and thighs to the chair seat. His mouth was currently covered with a piece of duct tape. He glared daggers at the brute who was a mere 6 feet away. This man was dressed like the rest, but had a sleeve pulled up, and was nursing what looked to be several bleeding bite marks on his arm.
Near the door of the warehouse, a tall, dark skinned man, with broad shoulders, and a face that screams of an 80s TV star who used to wear a lot of jewelry, thundered up to the slimeball in in the wheelchair. "They have taken the bait, What do you want to do with them when they get here?"
The seated greasy haired man cackled "We are gonna kill them, then r**e them, then toss their bodies into the sewers for the monsters to eat. Especially that blonde, No one touches that blonde but me, UNDERSTAND?!" his mouth showering spit out in a disgusting mist of fowl breath as he shouted.
The B.A. man sighed and nodded "Ok, but ummm, I get the killing part, but how are you going to do the second bit? or half the men here for that instance...." he said motioning to the crowd of burly figures standing around the warehouse. He was of course, indicating in the fact that most of them had their man bits more or less obliterated by that girl with that horrendous attack.
Mr Greaseball's eyes began twitching at that. And he shouted back "with a pipe, a rod, I will use my F#|<&$g hand if I have to!"
The giant man with the fancily cut facial hair asked another question "Would not it be better to do the second part first, and the first part second?"
The man in the chair's face turned bright red as it seemed steam was rising from his slicked back head. Almost as if hot enough to set his head on fire. He screamed at that part "GOD F#|K&%$ DAMMIT I WILL DO IT IN WHAT EVER F#|<&^$G ORDER I WANT TO DO IT IN!!!! NOW SHUT UP AND LOOK SCARY!!!!"
The dark hulk sighed again "I Pitty these fools that have to deal with you....."
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Lilu and her friends had decided to do this themselves. The reason they were all here was to try and qualify to attend the local academy,except for Lilu who was here for the fun at that time. Each of them had their own skills and classes and werent to shabby in their own right.
Macky was a caster who specialized in elemental ice magic. Most of the spells she knew were either basic, or didnt have much value in combat, but she still had a couple of spells she could rely on. She had placed first in the high school regional shooting competition back home, and had also broke the local record by scoring a perfect 10 in the Finals against her competitors.
Rose and Thistle were both fighters. Rose had placed in the top 5 in the regional battle royale. This battle puts 40 of the top contenders in their selective areas into one giant colosseum together, and makes them fight till only one is left standing. This means she was able to outlast over 30 other fighters, all fighting at once in the giant arena. Thistle on the other hand had placed 2nd. Only loosing out to a truly better warrior, who was able to combine both fighting and magic. While she seemed like a fairly shy and quiet girl, when it came to combat, she was cold, and brutal. She had earned the nickname "Little Demon" for how she would just continually pummel her enemy until they either submitted, or were knocked out.
Nadiri, the purple haired chocolate skinned girl was a rogue. Common people would instantly think thief. But she was actually closer to an agility based fighter with perks that benefited from stealth and fast reflexes. This also helped her with a little pocket picking. Nadiri and Rose had a mutual respect for each other because of how they met. Rose caught Nadiri trying to take a charm bracelet off of her. Technicaly She didnt catch her till after she had already managed to take the bracelet off of her and start walking away before she noticed. This ended up in the two of them fighting. They had fought long and hard and eventually both of them realized neither could best the other, and they helped each other to the infirmary.
Before Lilu had acquired her gifts, she was just your average teenager with a poor sense of money. Her friends had begged her to come with them on this trip. Each wanted her with them for differing reasons, but all had one common reason, she was their family, and they loved her. Before her gifts developed, her friends would constantly try and get her to pick up a vocation. They thought having something to dedicate herself to would help her immensely with her parents being gone.
Lilu's parents had perished in one of the main different dangers that plagued this world. The prominent difference were obvious, such as magic, and training classes. The others were subtle. While both worlds had technology, this one, because it also had magic, had a bit of a jump in technology compared to Pamela's earth that we all know. Cellphones were one of the differences. Where our world has large touch screens now and resembled large flat bricks, Lilu's world had the the tube design with the retractable screen. Magic had allowed them to miniaturize the components, and also develop flexible transparent screens that could be rolled and unrolled. With magic energy crystals to power these devices vs standard batteries, this allowed many changes in design. Cars were also a major difference. In our world cars were a gas burning machine with many intricate parts working hand in hand. In this world however, cars were able to truly evolve. The designs ranged widely, and so did the functions. Because magic allowed them to condense certain parts, and then directly control certain other parts, the possibilities were almost endless. And also because these were considered magically enchanted golems, they were actually quite expensive when comparing base models of this world to that of ours. If a brand new compact car in our world cost $12,000.00 US, The cheapest one in this world was $60,000.00. In this world, the cars could also be imbued with magical aspects, allowing some to fly, or travel at supersonic speeds, or even carry massive weight.
While magic was commonplace for the most part, it still had to be converted into the items we see in this world to be combined into the items they purchase and use every day. This required skilled enchanters and alchemists who could form the magic stones, and enchant the aspects of magic into solid objects forming their grids. These magic grids are the mana pathways between magic devices. If you were skilled with controlling mana, you could make smaller devices talk to each other and thus create a single line grid. If you were a masterful adept, you could combine multiple items forming a network grid of mana, and create wonderous items such as the cars, cellphones, and defense items.
This comes back to the main follies of this world. Fate always seems to balance things in life. For every equally awesome thing it gives you, there are also equally troublesome parts. This world had inherited magic, and the ability to combine it with technology. But this had also spawned the Rifts. Rifts were tears in the dimensional fabric of reality. Multiple worlds did exist on top of each other in different frequencies of energy and space. Normally they could not interact. The Rifts literally tore into both worlds, linking them for a period of time. Rifts were not permanent. They would come, and go. The worlds they would link to were numerous in nature. Most, however, seemed to link to dangerous planes, where massive or gruesome creatures lurked. Lilu's parents had died when a giant rift opened in their home town, right down the street from her house. Tons of black winged flying goblins scrambled forth in what looked to be a giant cloud, and decimated the entire area. Lilu only survived because she was on a camping trip with her friends in the mountains, miles from their home town.
Black winged flying goblins are nasty creatures. Each about the size of a small child, if that child were to be possessed by a demon, sprout wings, and could fly around. Their skin was a dingy grey, the eyes looked like a goats, and they tended to be vicious, and perverted little creatures. They were known for capturing and eating men alive, while torturing and r****g women to help increase their horde. Most women would not survive the birth of these evil little creatures, and those that did would be eaten alive by the new offspring and the rest of the troop. Like a shark, the more they smelled blood, the more violent and craven they got. This is why they were also known as the black plague in this world, mostly due to the incident that involved all of their families.
Lilu was not the only one in their group to suffer losses that day. Macky lost both of her brothers and her father. Rose and Thistle lost their mother. Nadiri had lost all of her younger siblings. Willow, like Lilu, had lost everything. Because of this event, all of them banded together, their friendship growing into that of family. Each with their shared reasons wanted to grow stronger. It was not as if Lilu didnt want to also become stronger, but unlike the others, she hadnt found her gift. Originally she was not very strong like Rose or Thistle. She also couldn't use magic like Macky, and was not very agile like Nadiri. She was clumsy, shy, and quiet. She had followed her friends in their dreams, wishing she could join them as a rival instead of a spectator. Now having Alice, her dream had been sparked into reality. She had something that could help push her dream of being able to prevent atrocities like what happened to her family, and herself in the other world from happening to others.
This had led them to their plan to get Willow back and make whole their family again. The plan was not very complex, which was a good thing. Nadiri would use her skills to scout the area and report what she found. Rose and Thistle would create a distraction away from main building, and Macky and Lilu would go inside to save their friend. While this seemed to be a great idea in theory, there were lots of holes. It would take a lot of things going their way, and a lot of luck for this plan to go off without a hitch.
It would definitely have hitches. Lots and lots of hitches....