Suranaku and the Moon Goddess

 A vast blackness, a sea of swirling nothing, interrupted by the occasional wave or whisp of dark shades of green, blue, red, and even purple. Amidst the swirling waves of blackness there lies a man upon a stone bed. Brown and grey cobbled stone no larger than a full sized mattress. On his back the man lies, the blue jeans, white t-shirt, and denim vest would seem to imply a man of a mundane world of cities and electric lights. His yellow pointed hair with its red tips hanging off his head and flat against the stone. Movement of his black boots revealing he is alive; or at least he is animate.

  His green eyes open and stare up. He knows not to stand, for there is only air for two feet perhaps, and last time he stuck his face into that darkness the things he saw, heard, and felt against his face linger only in his subconcious mind if even there as a sense of dread. Nor can he move beyond the edges of the stone without feeling that sickening pull of a thousand somethings into the darkness. He is reminded as he lies here, staring into the darkness not knowing how far or how close, how big or how small the twinkling distant lights and waves are, of another prison. He remembers his back against the soft green bed floating in the spirit river, the lavender and pink petals of the lotus blossom his supposedly eternal canopy, filtering all lights and shadows of the spirit world. He had been rescued from that prison by his fellow Dimension Police officerse; only to be taken to fight in a war they could not win, and did not know what they were trully after. To learn after all those millenia of madness focused as anger that the "witch" he had so single mindedly sought across the sea of stars and infinite variances of time was some eldritch horror from beyond the confines of reality, some "Architect of Hell and Magic", who could destroy and create worlds. A celestial sorceress indeed, playing pretend, obeying her own rules and limitations as a witch, a dragon, a demon, and even a kaiju.

  The whispering has stopped, he knows not its source, the whispers that retell his adventures back on Peres in varying details; almost always diminishing his role in some way, a strangely forgetful tale, leaving out names and details in each retelling. Perhaps it is his own mind trying to regain its sanity, having spent ages locked in endless battles in a looped hell prior to here fighting the infinite swarms of demons manufacutred by a goddess to keep him busy...he thought he was fighting to save Midgardia, there had been no war he realizes lying here, no battle. Those seven entities came together, and that was it, he was thrown into a personal Hell of battle.

   He *sighs* and glares at the darkness, stone cracks as he clinches his fingers and with a mighhty shove he throws his body into the blackness away from the stone.

  ******

  In Darkness there is motion, without reference or sensation there is no direction, Suranaku only knows that he is moving, at a great speed possibly, thanks to his millenia of training and flying through the vacuum of space. A tunnel of light slowly opens in the dark nether clouds, a warmth, a welcoming warmth like a song in his heart. He reaches towards, and everything suddenly stops. He finds himself encased in a bubble, four massive blue rune etched fish hooks on diamond chains blasts through the dark clouds and impossibly grip the bubble pulling him up through the darkness.

 Suranaku's bubble explodes from the black clouds into a dark sea, easily identifiable now as water instead of clouds. The speed is tremendous, however he can see strange things lurking in the darkness, there is life here, horrible twisted life the likes of which could only live in the darkest of places. However his destination is further still, beneath he sees a swirld pool of darkness close, his enhanced eyesight affording him this, the dark netherworld where he was is not beneath this place, a portal on the sea bed of this unknown world. Above he can see moonlight, he is approaching the surface. From the water he is pulled and lands on the deck of some barge of unknown origin taking designs from a variety of Asian and European ship designs. The hooks detatch, shrinking, and retract to a glowing blue fishing pole being held by a woman of east Asian appearance, dressed in a long sleeved grey and blue kimono. She is sitting atop a pile of floating pillows. She sets her pole down as Suranaku's bubble is locked into place by machinery that manifests from the deck of the ship, folding up to hold his bubble still. The woman with eyes of moonlight signals to an unseen something not even remotely in the shape of a human in the wheel house. The barge lurches from the dark sea and floats into the air, a swirling mass of stars appears and engulfs the barge.

  The tunnel of star light pulls the barge up into yet another realm, rising like a submarine onto a sea of silvery clouds and approach a dock to a massive oriental palace, a forbidden city, and above them a blue full moon.

  Suranaku *blinks*, he knows this place, he has been here once before, ages ago.

  As the barge docks the bubble bursts and Suranaku stands.

  "The Palace of the Moon," he says looking at the floating woman, "So you must be the Silver Sea goddess of fishing."

  She does not speak and instead merely indicates the plank stairs descending to the dock, with another woman in a grey kimono waiting down there. He *grumbles* and departs.

  "Welcome to the Palace of the Moon Goddess," says the woman adjusting her glasses, which Suranaku knows she wears only for looks and does not need.

  "I have been here before," he says.

  "Ah yes," says the woman looking through a magical log book, "Suranaku of Peres, you once attempted to force your way into the palace; insisting upon seeing the Moon Goddess, despite being told she was still sleeping. Well, she is awake now and going through the requests, yours has come up and her majesty has chosen to see you."

  Suranaku *glares* at the palace, "I put in a request here...thousands of years ago...possibly over seven thousand years ago...back when I still worshipped these gods...I know better about how the universe works, and Peres..."

  "The false gods are being removed," says the woman interrupting him, "The Ten Queens of Heaven are reorginizing Peres' pantheons right now. Which is why she is here and awake and looking over the requests...the request system was inherently broken we must admit, given her majesty is so often asleep and otherwise as is the nature of goddesses shifted her spiritual mood to a form that would not care about them."

  "The goddess of the Monsoons," says Suranaku, "yeah, I know, gods become other gods with vastly different forms and powers by nothing more than a change in their mood. Its one of the reasons I didn't bother trying to come back here...but I've died since then...twice."

  "Death does not mean the same thing for us as it does you."

  The voice is coming from a black panther lying on a pedastal as they enter the palace, "welcome home administrator, this is the immortal her majesty has invited."

  The cat looks him up and down, "what anime did this reject drop out of."

 "Anime?" asks Suranaku confused, "Since when does Peres have that?"

 The cat only *laughs* and jumps up, shifting to swirling shadows in the rough shape of a cat girl that spirals and slithers through rafters.

 "We are not isolated," says his guide, "to Peres alone, nor should you think of us as primitive young gods believing the lies of their ancestors that they are the sole pantheons and creators of a world. We are far greater than that despite what you may think."

  Suranaku is lead inside, he falls silent, the halls, strange shadowy pillars, he feels that if he should lose sight of his guide he'd be lost forever. Doorways of contrasting styles, western castle halls, stone archways, cylopian frames, many doors appear in the shadows among the massive red pillars.

  "The hall of doors," says the woman, "connecting to many parts of the Eternal Palace shared by the goddesses."

  A blast of blue light blinds him and suddenly he finds himself not in a hall but on a massive balcony overlooking a dark sea over which floats a blue moon, vastly different than the dock. Red wood beams seperate the polished wood balcony from the sea, and sitting upon a raised platform atop many pillows is a giantesss in white and grey robes, a long sleved kimono of a simple style with a red sash around the waist. She reaches to a silver bowl, her hands are giant white unnatural claws seemingly carved from wood or stone, although the bowl would seem to be empty she plucks from a wavy cloud appearing over it a small blue fruit. She raises it up, however her face is covered in a white mask in the shape of a woman's face with red painted lips, red stripes on the cheeks, and blue swirling lines around seemingly empty eyeholes, made even more ominous as her incredible long black hair frames her head and neck like a cobra's hood and down her back like a cape, offsetting the white robes and the blue moonlight. There is a rustling in her robes and a white snake with a beaked mouth slithers up from between her full breasts and takes the fruit from her hand, slithering back into her gown.

  "Suranaku," the woman speaks with an echoing and enchanting voice.

  Her clawed hand shifts into that of a human woman's with long fingers and sharp nails, from her robe a white slip of paper emerges. She holds it with her fingers before letting it go. It floats about, twirling in the air before landing at Surnaku's feet. He bends down to pick it up and feels his body become stuck in a kneeling position. The parchment has his hand writing on it. It is the request he sent to this very palace in ages gone by, asking for a way to defeat or destroy the witch who became a dragon.

  The goddess waves her hand gently by her lap, an image appears, the dark red haired sorceress Rhulan in her black cape, top, boots, her sharp european features, and dark blue eyes.

  "Rhulan Rokonaka," says the goddess, "The Celestial Sorceress is who you fought, glimpsing the Dragon of Cataclysms, indeed it seems you also fought the Queen of the Abyss."

  The image shifts to Rhulan as a dragon, then as a scylla with black tentacles and a massive fin for hair, "Hmm, you also fought the Netherqueen, Architect of Hell, The Black Empress of the Void, and the Architect of Elemental Magic; my you have made a list of enemies among her forms have you not."

  Suranaku looks up to see the goddess lifting her hand to her mask and taking it off, she is gorgeous, soft yet sharp pale features, red lips, violet swirls around her eyes, she could swoon any king or queen she laid eyes on. She opens her eyes, solid blue jewels of light. She cups her hands on her lap and looks down at Suranaku silent a moment, "Am I not gorgeous?"

 "Yes...my goddess."

 "Tell me, hero of Peres, who joined the Dimension Police who disguised themselves as gods upon your native world. Although the madness of immortality had befallen you, did you not once question why you should continue to hunt a person, after learning they were at the least a dragon, at the most an eldritch horror beyond your comprehension? A goddess of magic and madness known on countless world with powers limited only by the chosen form's body and mind."

 She smashes her hand down on the image of Rhulan as a demon, tendrils float up around her fingers, tiny replicas of the dark hair with white masks and glowing vibrating blue eyes within, "Even as you too had seen the rage, lust, and unstoppable nature of the Primal Shadow?"

  "Her true form," says Suranaku, "wait...goddess of the moon, mighty Lunavera, this eldritch horror, this outer god of oblivion has invaded Peres' pantheons. Yi-natta herself appeared during an Overlord tournament, proclaimed herself part of Rhulan's court!"

  "Netherworlds like pantheons," says the moon goddess, "are not bound to one world or another. Yi-natta can do as she wishes."

  The tendrils vanish under the moon goddess' fingers, she raises her hand and inside her palm is a tiny red fox-squirrel, "how cute."

  She places the image to her side, giving it substance as a tiny plush doll which grows in size to a something still small but large enough to hold. From her gown a shadow slithers with a cat like head and grabs the plush toy dragging it back into the gown.

  "Fuzzy," says the moon goddess, "my lovers are excited I am awake, and taken advantage of this form and their abilities to play in my robes."

 She points at Suranaku, he can suddenly rise again, "Suranaku of Peres, the Dimension Police are being reorganized by their creator as they had become more a nuisance on many worlds than they were meant to be. Protectors against absurdity should not themselves be the cause of it. Perhaps they simply grew too big, but their corruption has led to several worlds being damaged and endangered; some of them even attract the attention of certain entities...such as yourself. Rokonaka is not the only being you had made an enemy of in your career, many others would hound you and seek vengence upon you, if not directly than to torment what you care. For instance Sha'raka the Queen of Sharks whom you blasted apart in the Overlord tournament has traced your life essence and is now on Peres, so many thousands of years late. Perhaps you'd like to join the now reformatted branch of the Dimension Police there, no longer the Gods of Justice but the Hall of Champions, to protect the people of that world as you once did."

  "Moon goddess, Lunavera," he says, "I appreciate your concern, but my request."

 "For attacking this palace," her words make his blood figurativly freeze, "you are lucky I am giving you this much. However know this, death does not mean the same thing for these beings, what you sought was how to defeat and destroy Rhulan the sorceress. You defeated her twice, however that limited form was upgraded with her...higher celestial powers after she next awoke from a defeat at the hands of a mortal named Gyro-Lee not long after. You simply lack the power to trully defeat her, however you inconvienced her other forms enough to invite their wrath. However I am far more leniant and understanding, I am returning you to Peres, you may keep your power; however know that you should seek better options, for my blessing is my curse."

 Her eyes glow intensly, a blue aura appears around Suranaku, "You are the High Champion of Peres, the Legendary Hero Suranaku. You are tasked with that world's defense from external horrors and threats. With this I bind you to Peres till the day the world its self is no more."

  A portal opens beneath him and he falls through, landing in a forest outside a small sea side town.