Death Gates: Act 1

[Wolfthunder7]

Subaru woke up with a sigh, exhausted after a very long sleep. The first thing he realized was that he was completely restrained, trapped in some kind of metal capsule with several others around the room he was in. Another thing he could see was his captor, a kind of floating octopus man with tentacles coming out of his head.

The octopus man slowly approached another capsule with a frog-like woman. Subaru couldn't see properly due to the distance, but he heard the woman screaming in agony before fainting.

"Shit, how did I end up here!" Subaru thought, feeling too tired to speak.

Suddenly he felt something crawling in his mind, making Subaru turn his attention to the creature in front of him that was holding some kind of maggot between its fingers.

At that moment, small tentacles came out of the creature and it opened its mouth revealing several sharp teeth hissing at Subaru before it advanced.

And once again, Subaru slept.

---

One of the capsules opened with a soft hiss allowing Subaru to stand up, feeling more energetic than before. He quickly got out of his prison and looked around the destroyed room, noticing most of the broken and destroyed equipment with another capsule next to it.

Subaru looked down at his hands before looking at his own reflection in the liquid on the floor and he couldn't help but reflect on how awful he looked.

His hair was longer, falling almost all over his head, his eyes were dark and there was an unnatural pallor to his skin. In addition to the state of his clothes, his old jacket was dirty with mud, blood and other things he didn't even know what they were, with a simple cloak around his shoulders in a similar state.

Unfortunately, the state of his clothes predated his capture. From the moment he was abandoned by Emilia...

"...Who are you?"

Startled by the new voice, Subaru turned around, pulling a small chipped dagger from his belt, his eyes widening at what he saw.

A humanoid dragon, it had white scales with a red tinge, with several horns coming out of the back of its head with crimson eyes staring at Subaru, with a mixture of confusion, doubt and... malice?

"Great... Another person with a desire to kill me, just perfect." Subaru reflects, taking a step back. "But he looks as lost as I do... do I even have a choice here?"

Suddenly they both had to grab their heads, a strong pain jolted through them as they felt something turning over inside their brains, while Subaru and Dark Urge were able to visualize flashes of blood, fighting, screams of pain, deaths, shame and fear. However, as quickly as the images came, they disappeared, leaving the two stunned before facing each other.

"I'm Subaru Natsuki." Subaru says hello, slipping the dagger back into his belt under the dragonoid's watchful eye. "And who are you?"

The creature in front of Subaru remained silent for a few seconds, frowning in thought. "...Dark Urge, I think."

"...Dark Urge? What kind of name is that? Your parents must have some kind of twisted sense of humor, huh?" Subaru couldn't help but laugh a little hesitantly, which was only made worse by seeing how lost Dark Urge looked.

"I wouldn't know, I can't remember anything before I woke up here." Dark Urge shrugged.

"...So I guess we're almost in the same situation, I'm not sure how I got here either, but I think we can escape from here together." Subaru offers, hoping that Dark Urge will accept, after all unlike him, Subaru was weak with nothing but a lousy dagger to defend himself.

"Okay."

"...You accepted?" Subaru couldn't help but ask incredulously, prompting Dark Urge to nod.

"Yes."

"Why?"

"I don't remember anything and you're here. Following you is a better option than just staying here." Dark Urge shrugged.

"...That guy's an idiot." Subaru couldn't help but sigh before accepting what Dark Urge said and moving on, they didn't have time to debate their partnership right now. "All right, let's go."

With that, Subaru turned to look around the room before heading towards a door there. He quickly pulled out his dagger while Dark Urge pulled out a staff, making Subaru notice that he was dressed like a media wizard from his world.

The two quickly moved on, entering a second room that was larger than the previous one and more technological than any Subaru had seen since he was transported to Lugnica. He glanced at Dark Urge and signaled to the second floor, making his companion nod before the two separated.

Subaru walked around the room, passing the tables as he looked at some kind of alien technology in a language that certainly wasn't the same language Ram had taught him, let alone Japanese. A feeling of dread began to build up in the back of Subaru's mind, trembling that his intuition was right.

Just then, Subaru noticed something, a body lying on a table. Slowly, he approached and felt his heart stop for a brief moment, he was seeing a goblin.

A goblin!

Goblins didn't exist in Lugnica, he knew that, just as there were no more dragons and yet here was a goblin and Dark Urge was a humanoid dragon. Unfortunately, he could no longer deny it...

"I..." Subaru muttered, falling to his knees. "I've been transported to another world..."

Subaru remained slumped for a few seconds before swallowing and getting up with a troubled but determined look on his face. This time he had an ally and a simple mission, to escape from his captors. After that, he could have his existential crisis.

"Subaru, come here!" Dark Urge called out, causing Subaru to raise his head where he saw his current ally waving at him.

---

Dark Urge, looked confusedly at Subaru who was visibly uncomfortable talking to the exposed brain that was responding to them telepathically.

"Yes, you two came to save us from this place, from this place you will free us." The brain continued talking to both of them, in a childish tone of voice. "Please, before they come back!"

"Who are we talking to? The man or the human?" Subaru asks cautiously, approaching the brain, somehow overcoming his nausea.

"A newborn. Born again from that husk."

"Yes, not at all threatening." Subaru thinks narrowing his eyes before looking at Dark Urge staring at him expectantly and all the destruction around them. "But we've been captured and this place is under attack from possible enemies, we'll need all the help we can get."

"Okay, we'll help you, but what can we do?"

"Remove us from this body. You must free us from this husk. Please!" The brain begged, making Subaru sigh before looking at Dark Urge and waving at him.

Seeing the signal, Dark Urge approached the body before placing his hands inside the sides of the skull, causing Subaru to shudder as he noticed how the Draconate didn't seem bothered by it, and with that, gently removed the brain from inside the body.

Suddenly, the brain began to shake in his hands and fell to the ground, growing in size as tentacles came out of it along with four legs, causing the creature to stand up and face them.

"We're free! Our freedom is ours! Thank you friends." The brain thanked them before stopping for a few seconds and looking directly at them. "We should go to the control booth. In the cabin they need us."

"What should we call you then?" Subaru asked as Dark Urge crossed his arms watching the interaction.

"Us. We're Us."

"Okay then, Us. What exactly is in the helm?" Hearing Subaru's question, his brain tensed, seeming to think about the question.

With that Subaru turned quickly to Dark Urge, catching his eye before whispering:

"If it attacks us, kill it."

Dark Urge nodded at the request and the two of them went back to staring at the brain.

"Didn't you hear? We're going to die if we stay here. We must sail, we must leave this realm." The brain explained in a confused tone of voice.

"...It seems we don't have much choice. Are you ready?" Subaru asked, looking at Dark Urge who just stared at him. "Perfect, then let's go."

---

The unlikely trio made up of a human, a draconate and a brain, managed to get out of the ship where they saw an unrecognizable place, mountains in the distance, with a dark mist surrounding them with a reddish sky. Subaru stopped briefly to observe his surroundings, hearing roars in the distance.

"Sure enough, we're not in Lugnica anymore..." Subaru's eyes widened at the destruction.

Suddenly, a shadow passed over the three of them as a dragon passed them by when a new figure landed right in front of them, this time it was the toad woman Subaru had seen earlier wearing armor and wielding a longsword.

"Abominations. The end of you is here!" growls the woman, readying her sword.

Suddenly, Subaru, Dark Urge and the woman clutched their heads as images began to appear in their minds: dragon wings, the silver sword and their faces seen through the woman's eyes.

"Oh, my head, what was that... ngh." The woman grunted in pain, clutching her chest, before her eyes softened in relief and she faced the two boys in front of her. "Tsk'va. You're not Thralls. Vlaakith has blessed me today, perhaps together we can survive."

The woman put her sword away, making Subaru and Dark Urge stare at each other.

"What made you think we were Thralls? You don't even know us!" Subaru exclaimed incredulously, making the woman glare at him.

"We have parasitic mind flayers tadpoles. Unless we escape from here, unless we cleanse our bodies and minds, we will be changed and transformed forever. In days we will be transformed into ghaik. Mind Flayers." The woman explains, making Subaru's eyes widen.

"How do you know all this? Who are you?" Subaru asks.

"...I am Lae'zel, a Githyanki warrior. My people have faced the mind flayers before." Laezel explains, causing Subaru to nod.

"Ok...Ok! That's great, so we're being turned into mind flayers? There's got to be something we can do, right?"

"We can't do anything until we escape. That must be our priority." Lae'zel declares before hearing something behind her, which makes everyone look towards the source of the noise where they see what appear to be red demons with wings feeding on a body.

"First, we'll exterminate the imps." Lae'zel comments with a frown.

"Right, then we'll go to the helm to take control of the ship." Subaru added, swallowing as he removed the knife from his belt.

Suddenly, Lae'zel grabbed the knife and threw it away, startling Subaru before pulling out a dagger of her own and handing it to him.

"That toothpick of yours won't be any use in the battle to come, use a real weapon." Lae'zel scolded him with narrowed eyes before looking at Us. "As for that thing. It'll stay tamed as long as it thinks we're Thralls, maybe it'll be useful in battle."

With that, Lae'zel stepped aside, causing Subaru to sigh and grip the dagger tighter before he, Us and Dark Urge stepped forward, standing next to her to face the Imps. They slowly rose from the corpses and roared as they faced them.

Dark Urge was the first to move, summoning a fireball which he quickly threw at an Imp, exploding it on contact. After that, Lae'zel moved to the side allowing one of the Imps to pass her before attacking it with her sword, breaking it in half.

Subaru meanwhile jumped backwards in surprise at the Imp's speed before plunging the dagger into the creature's chin. He fell to the ground as blood poured down his face before throwing the Imp aside.

"Shit!" Subaru shouted as he stood up in a panic realizing that he hadn't been hurt. before looking at Dark Urge and Lae'zel staring at him. "I mean... it went exactly as planned."

"...You were lucky." Lae'zel sighed before stepping forward, while Dark Urge remained still.

"You're covered in blood." Dark Urge commented as Subaru tried to clean himself up.

"Really? I didn't realize." Subaru muttered.

"Don't just stand there, let's go." Lae'zel calls out to them from a distance.

"Sure... let's get this over with, come on Durge." Subaru asks, giving Dark Urge a friendly slap on the arm as he looks at him in confusion.

"Durge?"

"Oh yeah, it's a nickname." Subaru explains, hiding the real reason for changing his name, after all Dark Urge could be seen as some kind of bad omen and it was also too long.

"...I like that. Durge." Durge commented smiling before following Subaru, while the boy couldn't help but smile nervously.

"Why did that give me deja vu?"