LOST LIVES

Chapter 0.787: Changed Fate

The fates of the Three Mage Sisters were always set whenever the time of their ordeal came in the Gamble Galaxy. Their path was simple. They would wander into a place that is coated with their element and die. They would be revived by a Hooded Man. They become indoctrinated into the Hooded Man's religion out of pure loyalty to him saving them. They learn to utilize their own magic and signature weapons. They help the hooded man along with his dark army in gathering materials for their ritual to revive their god. Some of the materials are in the home of the Star Allies, a high opposition to the ritual. The girls fight back. Twice. They lose. The Hooded Man fights back. He loses. He essentially kills the sisters in order to fight back more. He loses again. He uses everyone as the final sacrifice needed to revive the god. The god awakens. The god attempts to terminate the Star Allies. It fails. The world is at peace. The Hooded Man attempts another ritual that opens a portal in which everyone falls through. The girls fight the Star Allies one more time for their Guardian. They fail and almost die. The Star Allies give mercy and revive them. The sun comes out and everyone, including the cultists, is happy. The end. It is the same way every time. Whenever it restarts, it's the same thing. Always.

Not this time.

A god did rise.

A god did fall.

A second ritual did occur.

A portal did open.

But they didn't all go to the same place.

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Francisca's dream was filled with fantasies of having a new family that she wanted with her sisters and Hyness all those years ago. Scenes of them laughing. Playing together. Sitting next to each other and watching a movie of some sorts. Literally anything. Just, being happy. It was something she always wanted out of her life. Together. Being a part of a true family. A recurring fantasy that she saw the potential of coming into fruition after the girls meet Hyness and were reunited. She really hoped that it would work out in her, no, everyone's favor.

That changed once Hyness enforced his hyper fixation on his religion and his ritual on the three girls, mentally engineering their minds onto assisting with anything that was beneficial to his religion and the goal of the ritual. Sure, he allowed them to have hobbies in their downtime, which slowly decreased the more they got older from the time he found them as 9 and 10-year-olds to their mid-teen years at 15-16, but all he essentially wanted them to do was train their magic and fighting skills, making sure all of the ritual materials were intact, and scouring planets for the most important of the materials necessary: Dark Hearts. No time for "family" time, even mealtime and sometimes sleep. No. Always stuff about "Void Termina" or whatnot. Francisca always seemed less into the whole "religion" thing than her other two sisters, who took their responsibilities with grace. Francisca was clever in not showing her doubt and questioning spirit when it came to the religious events that they held for their god. If she did.... Who knows.

She showed enough loyalty to the religion to take part in trying to eliminate the Star Allies from their space shuttle, the Jambastion, twice until her sisters' corpses and magic was used in a final push by Hyness to try to keep the Allies away until he finally gave up and used the bodies to complete the ritual altogether. All while Francisca was in excruciating pain all the way through. At that point, she gave up. She realized that this wasn't the life she wanted. She and her sister did thwart his plans for a second ritual for a reason, and that's why they all fell through in the first place. She was done with everything Hyness had to offer. And you know what? It's finally time to say that in his stupid face.

Francisca's determination for her own opposition led her to slowly open her eyes to see her surroundings of Another Dimension. A place she knew that Hyness would attempt to venture in search of a way to resurrect Void Termina a second time. A place she knew would be lacking in order and organization. A place she knew that she and her sisters had never seen before.

Everything she saw contradicted everything she thought of Another Dimension.

What she saw was that she was encased in a mass blizzard that raged everywhere she looked. Snowflakes constantly falling down and meeting their destined location before joining the snowflakes piled beneath it. It was like she was standing on a giant hill of snow. She looked around. Francisca couldn't find her sisters or Hyness. She looked around some more and saw a girl laying on the ground in front of her slowly being covered in more and more snow as she laid there. Francisca walked toward the body and spoke to it in an attempt to try to wake the girl up, as well as shaking the girl to try to get her to wake up. She turned the girl around to see if her face could give her any answers.

Boy, it did.

The girl was Francisca. Dead. The same way she was right before Hyness found her. Before she had blue hair and facial markings near her eyes. Francisca was in deep confusion and shock before dropping the girl and letting her be covered in more and more snow before she finally looked at her hands as well as her body. She was still wearing her dress, but her entire body took on a hue of transparent blue. Literally. She could see the ground through herself. She was in utter shock, confusion, and fear. Why was she like this? Why was her own dead body right in front of her? Where was Hyness? Where were her own sisters?

Along with seeing a single town she had never seen before, as well as a house the size of the altar she grew to know the size of, she had one question to ask herself and to find the answer to. A question that wouldn't recieve an answer for as long as her dress and her long, blue, straight hair kept flowing in the fierce blizzard in the snow graveyard:

"Why am I back here again?"