First Meeting

A boy was wandering the streets at night. A plastic bag from a convenience store in one hand, a half eaten hotdog in the other. He was dressed in a sharp black suit which clashed with his unkempt hair and bright blue backpack. He had nothing to do and nowhere he needed to be. He’d been walking through Tokyo all day and finally stopped at a park, where he sat down next to a pond. He dropped the bag and devoured the rest of the hotdog. Mustard spilled on his tie, though he seemed not to care. Not like he’d be wearing this stuffy suit ever again anyway.

He removed his backpack and took the time to arrange a scene with the contents. Two photos rested upwards facing him, in between them was a cupcake with a lit candle sticking out of it.

“I hope you’ll forgive the cheapness, I’d have baked a cake but well, you remember how that went last time mom.” The boy let out a dry chuckle that echoed across the still water of the pond. “Well, I graduated, even got decent grades. I didn’t get scouted of course, but I was offered a uh, assistant position…” His words trailed off as he looked up at the sky. A light breeze threatened to blow out the weak flame of the candle. His throat felt dry and his eyes were heavy. He wished it was simply because he was tired. “But uh… What the heck am I doing? Not like you can hear me.” He let out a sigh and stood to his feet.

He walked to the pond’s edge and picked up a round rock. He tapped it into his left hand as if he were batting it against a baseball glove. His body moved in the way only someone that had pitched thousands of times could as he prepared to throw the rock. He hesitated, knowing what he was about to do was stupid. But he couldn’t help it.

He threw the rock with all his might, it skidded across the pond’s surface an impressive distance before sinking below. The boy meanwhile, was screaming in agony. It felt as if a crocodile had his right shoulder in a death roll. He forced his mouth shut by shoving the cupcake into it. “Gah!” The deluge of processed sugar along with the fact that he’d forgotten to remove the lit candle helped him forget the pain in his shoulder as it dulled.

He spat out the half chewed candle along with a disturbing puff of black smoke. He looked around to see if anyone had witnessed him making a fool of himself. He let out a breath of relief seeing he was alone, only to nearly jump out of his shoes as he heard a distant voice. He turned his head left and right, but couldn’t see anyone. In spite of that, the voice only grew louder. He could just barely make out the words. It sounded like a girl, a screaming girl. He planted his feet to run in the direction of the voice, but found himself facing the pond. He stiffened up as he thought that he’d decked some poor girl across the body of water with his fastball. He then heard the scream again, only this time he could swear it was coming from below the pond.

“What?” He knew his hearing was fine, his last checkup was only a week ago and the doctor, besides warning him not to play baseball, explicitly told him his hearing was in perfect condition. He heard another scream from the pond. There was no doubt this time, someone was down there. So not only did he beam someone, but they fell in the pond? “Oh crap oh crap.” He stammered, running to the pond’s edge. He had to go in, but what if he really was just hearing things? He smacked the sides of his face and steeled himself.

Afterall, what did he have to lose? He dove into the pond, trying to ignore how dirty the still water had to be at this point. It was cold, and he’d forgotten to take his shoes off. God, wet socks were the worst. He swam downward towards the voice. He swam and he swam. He swam his heart out until he had a scary thought. This pond wasn’t that deep, why was he still descending? In fact, hadn’t the water gotten oddly warm? To make matters even worse he was running out of breath. “My life is what I have to lose, huh?”

He was getting lightheaded and his chest hurt. He couldn’t help but open his mouth as his body desperately wished for air. Tepid water flooded his mouth. He had perhaps only a few moments more of consciousness, but before those few moments passed, He could only think to himself “I really am useless. Whoever that was, I hope they’re alright.”

The boy breached the water’s surface. Or rather he fell out of it. He landed on something hard which collapsed below him. He stumbled to his feet to get his bearings. His eyes were blurred, and his clothes were soaked. He wiped his sleeve across his eyes and looked around. He seemed to be in a forest with trees so tall that they nearly blotted out the sun. Whatever it was that he’d landed on suddenly moved, knocking him over. He’d thought it was a pile of rocks, but rocks didn’t usually stand on four legs.

The boy still had a mouth full of pond water in his mouth, in his shock he hadn’t spat it out. The impossible sight unfolding in front of him changed that.

A now slightly more wet than before creature was standing there. Its body was gray and eerily rigid, as if it were made of stone. Its form was like that of a large canine. He realized now this thing was what he landed on.

“My summon, destroy my enemy!” He heard someone yell from behind him. It was the same voice from the pond. He wondered who she was talking to. A summon? He didn’t have much time to think or turn around, because the stone dog was done being confused and now simply seemed angry. It snapped its jaws at him and lunged forward, an unnerving crunch reaching his ears as he jumped back several times to avoid it.

“What the hell is going on!?” He yelled. He shifted his feet to turn and run when the dog jumped with surprising speed, knocking him to the ground. He struggled to keep the dog’s stone jaws from piercing his neck. “Hey, you’re still there, right!?” He yelled, his view covered by the rampaging dog. “Help me out here!”

“H-Help? Why is a summon asking for help? Why are you not using your magic to dispatch it?” The girl said.

“What? Stop joking and get this thing off me!” He yelled, his right shoulder flaring with pain. He wouldn’t be able to fight it off for long.

“With what? My magic is depleted, I cannot summon another-”

“I said that’s not fucking funny! Just pick up a rock and bash this thing’s head in!”

“Ah, I see now!” The girl responded much like a grandmother being shown how to check her email for the first time. She picked up a rock the size of a softball and ran over to the dog. Meanwhile the only thing between the boy’s neck and the jaws of death was his tie wrapped between its teeth. “Now then, I will strike you down!” The girl brought down the rock onto the dog’s head. However, much like carving a statue with a chisel, a single strike was not enough. The rhythmic song of rock bashing on rock soon filled the air, along with two young people yelling back and forth.

“If you move so much I won’t be able to hit it!”

“Stop complaining and keep swinging!”

It took sixty seven seconds for the dog to stop moving. For the boy it was the longest sixty seven seconds of his life. His eyes had been shut the entire time as he didn’t want stray shards of rock flying into them. Now that the threat had passed he looked up to see the girl standing over him.

She looked to be around his age, with long violet hair and sharp eyes of the same color. For someone that had just murdered a dog with a rock she had a surprisingly gentle face. But more than that, what he couldn’t help but notice was her pointed ears and the horn sticking out of the right side of her head. Smooth, sharp, black, and just large enough that he could see her goring some poor fool with it. Other than that, he could see that she’d been through something terrible. Her body was covered in wounds and her dress dirtied with blood.

“Uh, I’m Ataru.” Was all he could manage to say.

“Rosalind.” She said, “and you are a rather strange summon.”