Just Don't Call Me a Demon

Swirls of glowing, golden particles overtook the pink, green and red pixels around Alesha, as if washing them away. Soon, she found herself surrounded in a column of golden dust. None of it touched her, strangely enough, and she found that the particles were even repelled as if by opposing magnetic forces when she stuck her arm in their cascades. "This is so weird," she muttered.

She continued to play with the cascading dust as time passed. One minute, then two, and she started to grow bored. "Am I just gonna stand here in golden dust forever?" She wondered aloud. Alesha tried to move in order to walk around, if only to explore her surroundings, but found that her feet were stuck to the ground for some reason. 

[You're mid-summoning,] Rogork stated proudly. [I heard the call and answered it for you, this way you don't have to face your brainwashed sister!]

"What?? Are you actually that dumb or are you pretending?" Alesha asked angrily. "This will clearly only make things worse!"

As she thought about all the various ways in which being summoned again would make things worse, she became more upset. Not only had she been summoned mid-interrogation, thereby exposing that she could teleport (whether her choice or not, she didn't think the Alliance would care), but now she'd be gone again for who knows how long. What kind of world would she be visiting? What would she face while there? For what purpose did they need a summon? Would she be forced to play "demon" again? She hoped not. All she wanted was to be treated like a human being. Maybe she wasn't technically human anymore, but being called a demon last time -- even though she'd been treated well for the most part -- had pained her more than she wanted to admit. 

Please, just don't call me a demon, she thought. 

She decided to distract herself by noticing the differences in the summoning this time around. Last time, she'd been summoned with a magic circle, bright red and with lots of mystical characters, with a column of light surrounding her. It had been a quick summoning, taking less than 30 seconds before she arrived in the new world. This time, however, there was no magic circle. Instead, she found herself glued to the spot and surrounded by cascading particles of golden light, and it had been more than a couple minutes since it began -- with no sign that it would end soon. She had no way to guess the significance of the differences between the two, but it was fun to compare at least. And, the fact that the light was golden rather than red (if she were to believe stereotypical fantasy color meanings) meant that she was unlikely to be summoned as part of an "evil" or "dark" ritual. This gave her hope that she wasn't going to be mistaken for a demon this time. There was no way to be sure, of course, but at the moment, she wanted every bit of reassurance that she could get.

Before long, the golden particles of light dissipated. Alesha found herself standing in a cramped room in front of a nervous-looking man with cropped black hair, a goatee, and blue eyes. He was dressed in a simple tunic. He had been waving his hands around, but upon seeing her, he collapsed in exhaustion, panting heavily. He hung his head and pointed at her weakly. "There we are, it succeeded. Take her instead of me."

Alarm bells ringing in her mind, Alesha quickly asked, "Wait, wait, what's going on? Why are you taking me?" There was no one else in the small room. How could someone else take her?

Her question was quickly answered. She felt a sharp chill surround her neck as several points pricked her there, drawing blood. Alerted to danger by the painful sensation, she glanced down without moving her head, discovering that what was likely a magical sigil was floating around her neck. She couldn't see the whole thing. It was large enough, however, that she could tell it was circular, with many points directed inwards and three-dimensional lines of a script she couldn't read weaving with one another around the sigil's basic form. The circle and the points that had pricked her floated steadily, but the script rotated slowly, as if gently swimming around an anchor point.

"What is this?" She asked. "Could you please tell me what's going on?!"

"I'm sorry," the man apologized weakly, not explaining anything. "I'm so, so sorry."

Getting angry, Alesha snapped, "You bastard! Don't just apologize! Explain to me what the hell you just did!"

A simple wooden door, which Alesha hadn't noticed previously, opened and a being that reminded her of what ancient Earth's games called an Orc came through it. Without bothering to introduce himself (the creature was topless, so she guessed it was a he), he grabbed Alesha roughly by the hand and pulled her after him. The goateed man continued muttering apologies over and over again until she could no longer hear him.

Alesha was upset by how this summoning was developing. What was going on? She had been summoned and relinquished to an unknown fate by a strange man, a sigil had appeared around her neck, and she was being dragged off by an Orc. Was she being sold into slavery?! He'd said, "Take her instead of me," so did that mean she'd been summoned to replace him?!

[What an amusing situation,] Rogork remarked.

Ha ha, Alesha thought sarcastically towards the System. You're the one that brought me here. Tell me what's going on!

[While it is true that I accepted the summons on your behalf, which you wouldn't have been able to do without me I might add, I was not the one that brought you here and as such I do not know the situation. That goateed man was the one responsible. If you want to be angry about not knowing what's happening, be angry at that useless slob.]

I AM angry at him, Alesha corrected, still being tugged along by the Orc. But I'm also angry at you. I didn't give you permission to do that. I didn't need your help getting out of that interrogation and I certainly didn't want it.

[Since when have I needed your permission to do anything?] the System retorted. [And I seem to recall you very much didn't want to be there. I just helped you realize your unreasonable expectation of being able to escape.]

Thinking back, Alesha recalled that she did, in fact, have a fleeting fantasy of escaping the interrogation room and the CT-VR. But that had been while the man was interrogating her, not during the meeting with her sister. You're twisting my desires, Alesha concluded. 

The System did not respond.

She huffed, mentally cursing at the System for appearing and disappearing in conversation whenever it found it convenient. Whenever it didn't want to respond, it simply wouldn't, and as such she could never really feel that she had the upper hand. Was she just being played with by the System? Would it ever take her seriously? She didn't know.

The Orc shoved her in front of him through a darkened doorway, and did not follow her in, instead closing the door after her. Pink and purple fluorescent lights flickered on, lighting up a narrow hallway. Unlike the medieval-type setting of the previous hallway, this one felt rather cyberpunk, with the walls covered partially in various pipes, framed metal signage hung at intervals and everything lit in bright colors as if to contrast the dirty metal environment. 

Alesha walked down the hallway. She read the signs on the walls, finding that they made no sense. Most of them were in languages she couldn't read, but of the few she could, she could tell they had letters missing. They said things like, "Kle f the Va rant Elk," "Dange : oxic wa te," and "D gon Cros ng." 

The hallway was much longer than she expected. There was a sign or two every 10 meters or so, and by the time she'd passed 12 signs, she began to wonder if the hallway would end. It was hard to tell. The lights, though bright-colored, weren't spaced very regularly and she would occasionally run into darker patches. Furthermore, the hallway wasn't completely straight either, so the end could be right around the bend.

Just as she was thinking about it, she found herself face-to-face with a dead end. Upon closer inspection, however, it was a door that could be pushed open. She did so.

The door's hinges protested the action, squealing. 

Its squeals weren't nearly as loud as the room beyond, however, and the door's protests were completely swallowed by the music. It blared loudly, vibrating through her very bones. Lights of various colors danced across the surface of a crowd -- each of whom had a sigil like hers around their necks -- and no one turned to look her way.

Alesha entered the room, confused, and the door closed behind her.

She was being forced to take part in… a concert?