Prelude to disaster

Irvin Maximillian was drowning, he knew not in what or why, but all around him he could hear whispers and the touch other beings drowning him in a black ooze like substance and yet he could not see anything as there was nothing around him. He tried to think to wonder, but he could feel that his mind would slip away if he remained in there any longer, but a force dragged outwards and back into the light just as sudden.

“Agg..aa..” Irvin tried to regain his breathing as he emerged from within black puddle of that strange ooze, he regained his footing while all of that black liquid began to fall of his clothing without leaving a single stain on it. Irvin found himself to be standing on an empty lot behind some abandoned building and nowhere, he had emerged from a simple puddle that was now completely banished.

“Sorry for the unpleasant trip, but it was the only way to get you out of your little mess.” Irvin heard the familiar voice of a woman, but he couldn’t quite place it,. He looked around till he found her sitting on top of a concrete fence. A woman with long golden locks and kept white pale skin, she had blue eye that almost seemed to glow and red lipstick to accompany her makeup and eye shadow. Her attire was black and well fitting for the grey visage around them, a black dress that was a tad too full of frills to feel modern at all, but with a skirt that ended quite small to be a real old fashioned bell dress, not proper attire for a trip, but her black long boots do seemed to be made for mobility. Her face was rather beautiful, her eyes seeming kind as her lips moved into a smile, she was glad like a cat cornering a mouse, but her attention remained mostly in her black nails she kept glancing back at, he recognized that gesture after all he had seen her almost every day in class.

“¿You are one of my classmates right?” Irvin fixed his shades and grabbed his briefcase clumsily, his stuff seemed to have followed him thought his bizarre journey, he spoke with indifference and showed her no emotion in his voice or face, but his posture was still apparent of his nervousness.

“I´m glad you notice me.” She stopped fiddling with her nails and crossed her legs, looking at him from feet to head.

“How could I not you almost picked a fight with our classroom teacher, one of Salvatore’s three great generals.” She let her chin rest upon her palm as she leaned forward from on top of the tall fence. “And a very boorish man so I had to give him a piece of my mind, it just happened, I´m fickle like that.” Irvin more than anything couldn´t understand why she was in this place at this time and for him of all things. He understood nothing about this woman and that made him fearful.

I’m not out of the fire yet, so I must truly mind my words.

“¿Would you mind telling what is it that you want Ms…?”

“Noretta Nyarloth, and yes that’s a real name, at least to me.” Irvin scowled at her answer, but remained quiet. “As to what I want, well aren´t you a bit rude, I saved your life shouldn´t you be more pleasant, with a thank you perhaps or maybe…” She leaned back again covering her mouth with her nails in thought. “How about a kiss for your savior, you are rather petite, but pretty like a little porcelain doll and I wouldn’t mind it.” Her eyes glimmer, her tone rather playful.

“Thank you very much but I´m quite busy right now so I´ll be on my way.” Irvin said as he turned around and walked away merely waving back at her.”

“¿Can´t you take a joke, seriously?” She snapped her fingers.

Irvin was stopped as a tall figure sprouted from the ground right in front of him, what he could see was an enormous shield, a plate of metal that now cover all of his field of vision.

He heard a moan behind as a bulky and wide figure came closer towards him, Irvin walked away slowly without saying anything, the figure in front was a knight a tower in man in bulky armor from which black ooze dripped down from, making a small puddle upon his feet. The knight had no face, just a dripping black hole under the helmets open visage.

“Hmm… if you want to kill me, please do otherwise I have to be on my way.” He looked back at her barely showing any reaction, as she descended the fence by being carried by countless hands that came from within a darkness that spread like mud through the concrete wall, hundreds of skeletal hands carefully aided her descend till her boots touched the ground.

“You are no fun to tease, every bit as boring as you looked, but you got guts, quite bold for a weakling and I truly sure don´t mind that.” The darkness swirled below her feet as all the hands were sucked back inside it. She strolled toward Irvin still looking quite glad; at the very least he had yet to anger her. “If you want to go straight to business, It´s all right with me.” She snapped her fingers and the huge knight collapsed into himself and began to drown into a pool of black ooze.

Irvin looked back at her as she smiled and pulled out a small black card from her chest.

“Don´t mind them they are just my many beloved who swore their soul and live for me, just think of them as my very own limbs, and now here you go. I was sent to deliver you a message.” Irvin slowly reached out for the card, his expression failing to hide fear while his hand shake at the moment he saw it.

It was a business card, an introduction card in black and red displaying a cartoony smiling face with a black hat and a small white ribbon on top of it, it looked rather tacky, but he knew exactly what that silly thing meant and couldn´t help but gulp.

“¿The society for villainous ladies, you are one of them? She smirked deviously as she leaned forward and gave a bow with her dress. “Yes in fact I only came here because they called for me.” Irvin stood dumbfounded staring at the calling card; it had no elegance at all almost like a logo for a Saturday morning cartoon, but it instantly called to mind the name of the society’s founder.

“Miriam Dastarly told me too keep an eye on you, she said to be enjoying the little show you prepared on slaver´s bay, but that she is quite upset with you as well.” Irvin placed the business card inside his lab coat. “I don´t remember doing anything to upset her…” Irvin began to fiddle with his tie. “Well that’s the problem, you went and made all this fun party with Tony and Kojiro and never invited us. Honestly you men should know it’s not fun to be excluded.” Irvin ended up wrinkling his tie from how hard he grabbed it.

“But it’s all fine, especially now that the school president is interesting on you, you see, the student council and us have quite the rivalry going, so if she wants you we rather not let her take you, who knows you might just be what we needed to shake the balance of things in this island, that is if you can make it out alive.” She giggled a little and Irvin let go off his tie and stared back. “Unfortunately I cannot risk myself anymore, if the president sniffs me out, well Miss Dastarly will star bitching at me, so do your best to leave this place alive and you may prove to be worthy of being used by us.” She turned her back and began to walk towards the concrete fence and as she did black ooze began to form at the center of it. “And if you start another party ignore us at your own peril.” She slipped thought the black mud entering the wall itself and before finally banishing her hand came out and waved at him goodbye. “Let’s try to be friends from on, we are classmate’s right, so see you tomorrow, we can even hang out and stuff now, so bye.”

She waved happily as she slipped through the wall into the black stain and banished inside it, leaving Irvin completely alone as he slowly composed his tie again and took a long deep breath.

That was rather ominous, but never mind them I don´t have the time to even think about them. Irvin began to walk forward with the briefcase in hand and quickly took out a small radio with a screen on it from his pocket. He turned it on and saw his current position and then changed his tracker to find the position of his only ally in the surroundings, Danny Storm.

Good I´m not that far from Tony´s escape boat and Danny can reach me easily as well. I have to escape, there is no doubt the student council will find me otherwise and judging by her comment it’s likely that the president herself will be on the prowl.

“Danny can you hear me.” He spoke through the radio as he continued his march.

“¡Holy smokes you are alive, alive!”

“Yes, yes, it’s impressive, but focuse right now. Check my current location and try to find some place for you took keep track of me from above within a shooting distance.” He heard a weird cuffing from the other side of the line. “For real… I can shoot? I thought I would just get myself killed if I did it.” Irvin sighed. “Can you make a proper shoot are you good enough to hit the target now.” “¡Hell yes, of course I can, I´m the future storm of America, man!” He screamed making Irvin recoil back from the noise, his pace still fast as he moved into the dark alleys behind the abandoned factories.

“Well then, I will need you to keep your aim at anyone that attack me, but do not shoot till I send you a signal with this radio.” Irvin placed his finger on a small red button at the side of the speaker. “¿Wait, even if I have a good shot?” “¡Absolutely, even if it looks like I´m dying, in fact even if I die, don´t shoot without the signal just run if it happens!” Irvin´s voice was turned more desperate by the minute as he passed thought a dusty scrapyard, his eyes always looking at every corner.

“¿What the hell, is this some sort of weird plan?” “¡The timing must be exact, only shoot at the precise moment of the signal, if we don´t do it perfectly there is no surviving that woman.” “¿Woman, what woman, what exactly is happening? Irvin stopped for a second before continuing his speech. “Is Domina Salvatore, student council president, I´m sure she might be searching for me right now.”

There was a sudden silence at the other side of the line. Irvin just kept walking finally reaching an old plaza upon the shades of towering chimneys of iron, it had once been an elegant side of the streets before must people ceased to live in this area, now a single fountain remained with a pile of garbage on top of and behind it as its only memento of those times, long stairs of stone leaded into another plaza surrounded by dried tree´s and a statue upon the center.

“¿Seriously?…You got it, this time I will shoot that woman; they will all see that I´m the best shot in this school, thank you man for giving me a second chance.” Irvin turned off the radio and placed it back on his lab coat.

You shouldn´t thank me, in fact I´m deeply sorry that you had to meet me Dany…truly what was I even thinking, why did I reached out for Danny? I should have known there was only one end to our meeting.

Irvin walked up the stair and into the plaza above that lead to a nearby canal his one route out of the hell he made himself, as he walked, he finally the long shadow of the tall statue that now covered him, the statue of a woman carrying a staff with her eyes covered by a small clock and within her other hand she held a long string connected to her staff, most of her face had been broken by time. Irvin couldn´t help but to see her face as he moved by her side, it almost felt like it was looking down upon him and he felt nervous somehow.

Sorry father, but I couldn´t really help Danny, I’m no hero and I… don´t want to be one.

Irvin pressed his hand against the statue to keep he standing, all that had occurred till now may not have harmed his body, but it had tired him to his very core, he felt desperate to reach it now, to leave the stage and see the play end without him.; So he pushed himself forward to pass by the side of the tall stone statue while hoping that Danny would reach him at time just in case.

“Oh, so you did come just like that woman said.”

A calm voice froze him in place as he reached the end of the statue with his palm, behind the statue´s base she was waiting for him. A woman of olive skin and black long hair wearing a green uniform with a long red cape that fell only at the right side, she was leaning against the statue with a sword sheeted on her hip and her arms crossed, she was the heir of the Salvatore empire and this was the second time he had seen her.

“Seems like the both of us, are well chained by that woman´s so called fate, truly disgusting. ¿Don´t you think so, brother?” She looked at him her brown eyes glowing with a dim purple light, she was just right there a mere breath away and so he couldn´t comprehended what she said nor the fact that she could be even there.

School president Domina Salvatore, stared at him with a prideful content and he felt that his very legs finally give up.

“¿Huh?” That was all he could said.