I came up with a pn, a desperate, a stupid, impossible pn. I’m going to present it to my mother, and Raftilia in mother’s safe haven, the only pce on earth, besides Raftilia’s ship, where she cannot hear. I won’t let this cruelty go any longer, I will save my mother from her duty. Otherwise could I even call myself an Umbra Girl?

  Cherry still hadn’t gotten over the shock of finding out that the Faerie Queen, the Luminescent who got Ice Dust killed, and almost would have killed Bunberry was her mother. It was hard enough to fathom that the Luminescent themselves used to be human, but the fact that someone so prominent was her mother was even worse.

  She y in an empty stone room, unwilling or unable to change it as she had her own Umbra room. Supposedly it could be changed, simir to Umbras, but in a more nature focused manner. The walls were stone. The floor was stone. The ceiling was stone. Everywhere but a golden glowing portal facing her was stone. She decided she wasn’t going to lie here until she herself became a stone, so she picked herself up off the ground, and brushed off dirt from her clothes. Then she walked out the portal. She was met with an open hallway with simir glowing portals. Each one leading to a different Royal’s room. Even more simir to the Umbra. Just instead of a more modern hallway, it was made of twisting branches, grass, dirt, and flowers. It was actually quite beautiful.

  In the hallway to meet her was a woman that looked simir to the girl that Bunberry had said attacked her and her friend before she became Bunberry. The woman approached her, shark teeth and all.“You that Cherry girl? Nice to meet you. My name is Lampina Allbright. You must have a lot of questions. Things probably not easily expined.” She still had that southern accent Bunberry told her about. Her dark skin, her eccentric clothes, everything checked out. Still, she was offering to answer Cherry’s questions, there was one that was burning in her soul.“Why…” Cherry paused for a second, thinking how to form her words. “... do you purify people?”

  “I’ll answer that, but first we have somewhere to be. Auntie, who is your mother, told me I should show you this.” She beckoned Cherry down into a glowing golden portal. Inside was a room she could never have imagined. It was made entirely out of trees, the branches stretching and twisting together to create pces to walk and walls to observe. In front of her was a pool of orange liquid that was surrounded by two walls and a pathway around back. The pool itself was filled with strange yellow orbs. “Careful, you don’t want to fall in that, it gets everywhere and I do mean everywhere.”Cherry backed up away from it and watched as Lampina kneeled down and leaned over the pool. “What these are Cherry, the orbs I mean, are spirits. Human spirits. I don’t know if Umbra girls can see what we see but I’ll look for a particurly benign one.” She reached inside of the pool and pulled out one of them. “Here, hold it in your hands.”Cherry didn’t know how to feel now that she was holding a literal human spirit in her hands. She was even more concerned as suddenly she saw a rapid series of visions. She saw a little girl that liked to py and have fun, somehow she knew her name was Heather Carpenter. She had blue eyes, bck hair, was rather short for her age, and pale skin. She wore a light blue dress, white frilly socks with ce, and bck shoes.Cherry watched the vision as she was swinging on a swing. Heather didn't have a care in the world. She swung higher and higher, loving every second of it. Cherry somehow could feel her exuberance as if she was the one on the swing. It was like with Kibby when her Trait would cause everyone to feel her emotions.

  Suddenly Heather slowed down as a man approached. He had short bck hair, hazel eyes, he was incredibly tall, built like a brick house, and he had pale skin. He wore a white shirt with a pair of brown dungarees, bck socks, and sneakers.“Heather.” The man said. “It’s time to go inside, your mother made your favorite.”Heather excitedly held her feet down and stopped the swing from swinging. Then she ran over and jumped into his arms. The scene ended there, then jumped to the next vision. Heather was older now, and was with several other girls pying a game Cherry didn’t recognize. It involved jumping with numbers written on the ground, hopscotch she seemed to realize it was called. It looked really fun, Cherry wondered if she could py that game back at the Umbra base once she was rescued. Then it showed a group of boys off to the side, Heather approached them, heading over to one of the boys who had a basketball in his hands.“Hey Kyle,” she called out to the boy with the basketball. The boy had slicked back brown hair with hazel eyes, was lean and athletic, and also looked tall for his age. He wore bck basketball shorts and a white jersey with some white socks and bck trainers. However he didn’t wave back, he turned his back on her and walked away with the other boys. Heather felt sad that her friend didn’t want to py with her anymore and Cherry felt her sadness too. The next vision showed a Heather that was a bit older. She had on a school uniform and a piece of paper was in front of her on her brown desk. Heather tapped her mouth with her pencil in thought. Then a smile beamed on her face as she realized the answer to the question. She scribbled it in, then half skipped to the teacher, turning her test in. Then Cherry saw it. A massive shockwave of golden light that flew through Heather and everyone. She realized this was The Coming of the Light. Kids were screaming and panicking, the teacher tried to tell them to calm down and hide under their desks. The teacher activated some kind of shield for each kid, protecting them in case of a bomb or any other kind of danger. At least, they thought they were protected. Suddenly from out of the walls a Luminescent appeared, one Cherry had never seen before. It wasn’t a lizard, It looked like a floating golden semi transparent sheet. It had white cylindrical eyes, a mouth full of jagged white teeth that made Cherry think of a ghost. The Luminescent floated through the shield and pced a gnarled golden hand on her former friend, Kyle. He instantly was purified. After that the teacher deactivated the shields and tried to usher the students out. While the ghost flew through the room and started rapidly purifying everyone, she hid in a nearby supply closet. As everyone else was purified, she held her hand over her mouth to stop herself from screaming, and to catch the tears that were falling down her face. The ghostly apparition started to leave through the window when suddenly Heather accidentally bumped into a box of supplies. The Luminescent flew over fast, faster than she could have imagined, ripped open the door and pced it’s gnarled hand on her face. After that it ended.

  Cherry’s breathing became erratic, harsh, and she found her throat closing up. She would have fallen to the floor if Lampina hadn’t caught her. Lampina patted Cherry’s back to help her breathe. “Hey, hey, it’s okay. First time is always intense. My first time I was so overwhelmed I fell into the pool, which is how I know how awful it is to be covered in those things.” Lampina shivered.

  “What… what was that?” Cherry asked, coughing as Lampina rubbed her back.“What you saw was the life of a human who lived. That little girl? She was a person at one time. Now she’s that orb you’re holding in your hands. When humans die or become purified they eventually end up in this pool, the Lifestream.”Cherry couldn’t believe her ears, but if she hadn’t just seen all of Heather’s life she’d never have believed it. Now though? She definitely doubted her own thoughts on the Luminescent and what they were.

  “Now come with me. We have one more choice to make.” Lampina led Cherry around the pool walls and down into the path in the back. Cherry saw two things of note, a smaller green pool, and a bowl filled with golden liquid. “Here we decide if the person should become a Luminescent, or feed the pnet. If they’re a particurly awful human being, we feed them to the pnet. Spirits fed to the pnet are repurposed to create the growth of pnt life on Earth. Surely you’ve seen how green everything is out there, even in ruined cities? That’s because of the spirits we feed to the pnet.” Cherry shuddered at the matter-of-fact revetion. “The bowl, however, is something else. I’m curious if it’ll work for you. So unless you think she’s evil, put her in the bowl.”Cherry held the orb in her hand, unsure what to do. She wasn’t sure what was going to happen but Lampina’s burning gaze made her act. However, before she could even put it in a surge of golden liquid reached out of the bowl and grabbed onto the orb. It surrounded it and fshed with golden light. At the end Cherry saw a miniature Luminescent. She felt like it had an air of authority too, whatever that meant.“Nice! That one is a general, she’ll be really smart. Imagine, someone so young becoming a general. I wish I knew the criteria for being a grunt or a general, but no one truly knows. Not even mother or auntie.”

  Cherry picked it up, and the little golden lizard nuzzled her fingers. It was… extremely cute. “What do I do with it? Why are they normally so big? This one is kinda tiny, is it because she was a kid?”“No, that’s not why. It’s because she hasn’t been released yet. Try to imagine her going inside of you. That’ll make her disappear.”

  Cherry closed her eyes and thought about Heather going inside of her. She jerked open her eyes when she felt a presence inside of her. She knew it was Heather.“Now, if you want to summon her, you just imagine her coming out of you. She is your Luminescent now… I’m actually surprised Umbra Girls can make Luminescent too. I didn’t think it was possible…” Lampina spoke with awe.

  Cherry couldn’t believe it. She had created a Luminescent. She had a Luminescent inside of her. Her mortal enemy, her natural enemy was now inside of her. She was feeling very conflicted to say the least. She needed a subject change so she decided to ask her previous question.

  “Why do you purify people?”

  Lampina sighed heavily. “Our peculiarity, it must be fulfilled at least once a week. Generally we’ll try to stretch it as far as we can, but if we wait too long…” Lampina paused ominously. “Our peculiarity will be fulfilled even at the cost of our own sanity. I’m sure you remember Allightstar when he attacked you and went crazy? That was because he didn’t fulfill his peculiarity.” Lampina started to walk out of the room.

  Cherry tapped her chin as she followed. “What is a peculiarity? What does that even mean?”

  Lampina led Cherry outside the door then answered. “It’s not just the reason we purify, it also is a way for you to escape being purified. It is an action that the humans must perform, if they fulfill it, then they will go free. The problem is how random it can be, or how hard it can be to fulfill it sometimes. There was a pair of twins whose peculiarity wa—” Lampina stopped mid sentence and grew pale.“A pair of twins whose peculiarity is what?” A voice cut through the air behind Cherry. It was a nasally tenor masculine voice that also had a touch of sadism in its tone.

  “Yes, I do also wish to know who you are talking about.” Another voice, this time one whose voice was a deep bass with a heavy accent that had a bold tone.

  A unique thing about the voices was it was like they were finishing each other’s sentences. After one spoke the other also did immediately after. It was kind of unsettling to Cherry.“H-How? You two w-w-were—” Lampina replied, struggling to get the words out and nearly stumbling. The fear in her voice was palpable, Cherry’s own fear escated knowing that this girl, the one who Bunberry described in her origin story, was afraid of these two. Regardless, curiosity got the better of her, and so she turned around to face them.

  There were two men standing next to each other. One was very short, and incredibly skinny with extremely pale skin. He had honey blonde hair with soft green eyes that beyed a twisted smile. He wore an unbuttoned white shirt, slick bck pants, two bck gloves on his hands, a pair of bck shoes, and a pair of bck shades that were resting on his head. With a more careful observation Cherry saw that his gloves had fresh blood on them, which sent a chill up her spine. The other had pale skin and to contrast the short one was incredibly tall. About 7 feet tall from the looks of it, and built like a brick. He had bck hair and brown eyes with a stoic look of unidentifiable emotion. He wore a brown suit, brown shoes, and a pair of square gsses. Not to mention how incredibly bulky he truly was, his suit itself seemed to bend under his massive muscles. Cherry couldn’t take her eyes off of them, it was like watching a train start to crash, she just couldn’t look away even if she tried.

  “Yeah, mother stuck us in the center of the earth, but she finally let us go. We’ve already had a mission too.” The short one with the nasally voice said nonchantly.

  “Yes, and we only killed 20% of the humans instead of 30%, it is much improvement.” The rge mountain of a man that possessed the bold accented voice said. The matter-of-fact way the rge man said those words sent a shiver throughout her entire body. It didn’t help that he gave a wide smile too, as if that was something to be proud of.

  “K-Killed?! Do-Don’t you mean purified?” Cherry’s voice squeaked out.“Eh, Purified, killed, doesn’t matter honestly, you still end up in the life stream one way or another. But… mother frowns on it so we try not to. Though sometimes they’re just so whiny and I just want to shut them up.” The short one’s smile twisted on his face, his words dripping with callousness.

  “Yes, mother doesn’t like when we kill, sometimes I cannot help it though. If the dice call for it, I must follow them. It is—how you say—unfortunate. I do not want to roll but I have to.” He almost sounded mencholic about it, as if he truly had no choice. Cherry’s mind was aswirl in confusion. Why would he regret purifying someone, wasn’t that the entire purpose of the Luminescent to begin with? Was Lampina telling the truth about this peculiarity thing?

  “Anyway, how rude of us. Introductions. I’m Jolt Allbright.” He smirked and put his bloodied gloves in his pockets.“I am Bolt Allbright.” The man’s suit seemed to bulge even more as he spoke, drawing Cherry’s eyes once more.

  “You new? You look like one of those Umbra Girls, though you wouldn’t be the first Royal to dress like that. I remember this one girl that wore a full on Umbra girl outfit. She was kinda nice but sadly didn’t st too long. The nice ones never do.” Jolt said almost mencholically.

  “Yes, Torchina was quite pleasant to talk with. I miss her.” Bolt looked down, his face glum.

  “Yeah. Anyway, kid, we won’t depress you with any more sad stories. We got pces to be.”

  “Yes, we have to report our mission and we do not want to get in trouble again.” Bolt said, trepidation in his voice.Jolt gave one st wave and walked away with Bolt in tow.

  After they left out of sight, Cherry spoke up. “They’re an odd pair… and kinda frightening.”“Their story is… quite dark and it made them dark in return. It’s sad, but it is what it is. Anyway, you must have so many other questions, feel free to ask and I’ll answer.”

  Cherry nodded rapidly. “Why did that man, the rge one, seem as if he had no choice but to, umm, roll dice?”“His peculiarity is so strong that he cannot resist it. If he sees even a single human, he will roll his dice, a d20—err, a 20 sided dice. If it’s an 11 or above, they go free. If it’s below he purifies them. If it’s a 1, though then they suffer a brutal fate.” Lampina paused, biting her lip as she thought about what to say. “On the contrary though, if it’s a 20, the individual can let themself and two others go free without rolls.”

  Cherry tapped her chin. “What about the short one, umm, Jolt?”“His peculiarity is not as strong as his brother’s but it’s still pretty strong. His peculiarity is that he wants to hear you scream. If he likes your scream, you go free, and if he doesn’t, he either purifies or kills you in ways that are too cruel to say.” Lampina shivered. “The problem is, it’s random whether he likes your scream or not, so there is no way to know if your scream will be good enough for him. He himself can’t even choose which scream is good or bad, but… he also doesn’t care.”

  Cherry felt a chill reverberate through her entire body. Then she took a deep breath and looked Lampina in the eye. “What’s yours?”Lampina looks glum as she looks to the floor in shame. “My peculiarity is if I see a settlement or a group of two or more humans, I ask them for something. Something they are usually holding or working with, but I can’t choose what that something is. If they share it with me, then I let them go. If they refuse, I purify them, or destroy their whole settlement sometimes, along with purifying every single one who is caught in the carnage. I don’t kill, though, that’s not my style.

  Cherry wasn’t sure what to think of that. She may not have killed but she would destroy entire settlements? She shivered at the thought of if Lampina had ended up at her own settlement before she became an Umbra Girl. Then she thought on Lucid’s words, how the Luminescent used to be human. “Were you also human? Like Lucid?”She nodded. “Yeah, I was. I don’t mind talking about who I was, though. I don’t know if you were old enough but myself and my best friend were the developers of the MMO KAOS online. It was just us, Jamaal and Tyrel and we took the world by storm. I was in charge of visual assets, Tyrel was in charge of dialogue, server maintenance, and coding and other things you need to make a video game. I don’t quite remember them all, sorry.” Lampina rubbed the back of her neck nervously. “Anyway it was incredible, two bck people from poor backgrounds becoming billionaires. It made us very popur in our communities, and inspired many other bck creators to make their own products. I’ll never forget what happened the first time I wore a cospy of my favorite character I created; this one I’m wearing in fact, her name was Amara. Anyway this adorable little girl came up to me and said, ‘You look like me, you’re so pretty, I wanna be like you when I grow up.’ It melted my heart.” Lampina’s eyes grew a little misty. Then her expression turned to sorrow. “Well, I will say one thing, the only regret I ever had was never admitting I was really a woman to my best friend. Also, to tell him how much I loved him. I was purified about two years after The Coming of the Light and I haven’t been able to find him since. I miss him and pray every day that he wasn’t killed by an Umbra Girl.”

  Cherry looked at her confused. “Why does that matter?”Lampina dabbed her eyes with part of her sleeve. “Luminescent that are killed by an Umbra Weapon, don’t go to the life stream, Cherry.” Lampina’s words hung darkly. “Their spirits are gone, forever.”