As wonderful as the Primal Void was, as intoxicatingly elevated beyond all things meagre and human, Larry had to admit…the place was fucking boring. Say what you would about the monkeys playing with their own shit in corporeal space, but they at least had things to play with. Still, it wasn't a job if you like it.

It'd been a slow thousand years, as far as years could be said to pass at all in the Void, but Larry was getting a new batch of idiots soon for a new world of other idiots. He prepared himself, then brought them on through. For the most part it was just the usual types. Sweaty nerds, 'gamers' they called themselves. Larry didn't like humans in general of course, but he had a particular hatred reserved for these ones. He especially hated the ones reading this story right now, in real life.

But that was neither here nor there. He had a job, after all. And he would do it.

Larry moved down the rows and sent all the idiots off to die their stupid little deaths. The fact was it just wasn't worth exerting the effort to ease their time in the new worlds, doing so would just give the Enemy an extra leg up against him. Besides, watching them squirm was the closest thing he had to the movies.

It was only once Larry approached the last of the new group that he noticed something was different about them. Her, specifically. That was the first thing. Another was that she was practically vibrating in a way he didn't think was normal among humans.

"Hello, chosen one," Larry began with the usual tripe and didn't even listen to himself as he started formulating the bait. It wasn't like he needed to, none of these idiots were ever the least bit suspicious anyway, "I am sorry to inform you that your life is—"

—this idiot didn't seem to doubt him, but she did interrupt.

"This is so cool!" the woman beamed, "oh my god this is amazing! It's like I'm in..In…"

Larry braced himself, right before she said it.

"Like I'm in an anime or something! I didn't see this coming when I woke up today, ha! I just got up for school, headed out and then halfway across the road I hear 'Mama dudu you no dey see road' before BAM, everything goes white and I wake up here!"

He could, at least, verify that much. Larry had glanced at the last few moments of everyone here, and as usual they'd mostly gotten themselves killed by having the peripheral vision of a telescope.

"Yes," he replied patiently, "you were struck by a bus."

It had been the best part of seeing the idiot's demise, the actual dying. But then that always was—pure catharsis in a job that all too often forced him to see humans waddling around and not getting what they deserved.

This one didn't seem to even be listening to him, just staring around, awe lighting up her face.

"I never thought I'd find anything as incredible as this," she gasped, "it's…God. It's like—"

Larry tuned her out as she started describing all the anime it was like.

"You do look a bit silly, though," she finished. He blinked at that, tilting his head.

"Excuse me?"

"I mean with the robes and stuff, you know, you…No, sorry, nevermind." The woman smiled apologetically, "I shouldn't have said that, I'm just a bit…I don't know, excited, you know?"

"I know," Larry smiled back. He hid his rage. "Now are you ready for your new life?"

"I am!" she grinned, "alright, let's go, let's….Uh, wait, so you'll send me to a fantasy land right?"

"That's right."

She looked nervous now. "And one that's technologically in the past. I'm, uh….you know, I'm a black woman? From Nigeria."

Larry laughed. "Don't worry, the place you're going will be more egalitarian than most of your own planet's history."

He took in her look of relief, her joy, then he sent her on, imbued with power…

…To the most horrible place he could think of. After all, she'd made fun of his robes.

The Slave Pits of Araginya were some of the strongest evidence Larry had in favour of humanity deserving mass genocide across the entire multiverse, and that Temi woman soon saw why.

Larry had been truthtful when he said the world she'd been now dumped in was, generally speaking, pretty egalitarian compared to most of her own history. In that all of the highly bigoted, warring factions driven into perpetual conflict by idiotic mini-Gods were of comparable enough power that they weren't fully domineering and imperialising each other.

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For an individual though, there was far less distinction. The place she'd been fallen was actually more misogynistic and racist than any place earth had ever, to his knowledge, even temporarily produced.

He sat down, and enjoyed the show.

Right away she was of course enslaved, toyed with and cut apart, used for all the nasty things the locals found so fun. Larry grinned and watched as, day after day, she was put through all the worst things Araginya had to offer.

At first she didn't seem to even register it, kind of shrinking into herself and going placid. That bored him, but fortunately she started struggling back soon. Plotting, planning. When she discovered what her powers were she—wisely, Larry had to admit—kept them to herself and practiced them in private. Started using them to amass coin, storing it away and hoarding it as she slowly worked to gain more and more trust among her captors.

Then she made her move, another smart one. Concealing her ability to naturally read and write the language of her world, she'd managed to pull one over on her owner and buy her own manumission papers. Freedom.

But not for long. He was angry when he found out, and Temi was driven fully from the city. Larry giggled as he watched her struggle her way through the wilderness, starving and weeping herself to sleep every night, trembling and twitching. Eventually she was picked up by a group of travellers.

Bandits, as it happened, who tried to toss her around like a dog toy. Unfortunately for them, her magic was developed enough that a mere dozen killers wasn't quite the equal of it. They died easily, and she took their food.

Over the next few weeks, Temi was forced to fight to survive. She went hungry still, cried herself to sleep, persevere, slowly did more. Built something for herself, until she finally arrived in the enlightened lands of the Eramade Republic. Eventually, she worked her way up to serve as one of its most trusted members, finally finding a place she fit in and yadda yadda yadda. Larry was bored, he changed the channel and started watching some other idiot get their nuts ripped off.

***

"And that was my first few months in this world," Temi finished. Emma saw her looking wrung out as she concluded her own story, as if every word of it had drained some vital essence from her. Emma could obviously appreciate why. Her own early days had been a dream compared to that, all thanks to Aexilica, the thought of going through what she had…

All eyes turned to Larry as Temi finished speaking, and the head looked around the room.

"She was a bitch," he replied, as if that was, in some way, a perfectly reasonable explanation. Emma thought back to all the unrelenting torments and cruelty she'd unleashed upon Larry as he remained helpless and at her mercy, and she found whatever sliver of regret had been needling her about it disappear then and there.

Everyone else seemed to have a similar realisation, save for Temi. She just started towards him and raised her gun, only for Emma to step in front of her, armour flowing up.

"Hang on," she cut in, "we—"

Temi blasted Emma hard enough to send her flying backwards through the air and hit a wall hard. Evidently, her gun was a bit better than those of her men.

When she straightened, groaning, to her feet, Emma saw Aexilica was now standing between Larry and Temi, scowling at the smaller woman.

"Hurt her again and I'll wring your scrawney little neck," she hissed.

Emma was quite surprised, and almost catatonia-inducingly aroused, to hear her say that, but Temi didn't even flinch.

"You know what I went through because of him, and you're still trying to stop me from killing him. Why?"

"He's useful," Emma called out, slowly, sluggishly, stepping forwards.

"Useful," Temi spat the word as if it had done something to offend her. "You heard everything I just told you, and that's still all you're taking away about this fucking fuck, that he's useful?"

Emma met the woman's eye, finding herself entirely without the moral highground and, for once, knowing it.

"He's really fucking useful," Emma pressed, "to the point where he's the only one who understands my powers, the powers that might be able to get us all back home."

Kruger perked up at that, staring at her.

"What?!" he asked.

Emma realised, then, that she'd actually never mentioned that fact to him. It had never occurred to her. Shit, was she a bad person?

There was no time to ponder that though, because Temi was speaking again and the redness in her eyes seemed to be moving back into anger rather than rage.

"I don't want to go home, I've made a life for myself here—a good one."

Huh. That legitimately surprised Emma, but not as much as what Larry said next.

"Then don't go home," he replied, "but there's other shit I can help with too. How would you like to be able to beat the Dark Pharoah?"

Emma had no idea what that was, but apparently Temi did. The woman couldn't have stiffened up so fast if her entire body had been suddenly rigomortisised. She spent precisely one moment staring at Larry, a mix of distrust, scepticism and general paranoia plastered across her face, then she looked back to Emma.

"Can he do that?"

"What's the Dark Pharoah?" Emma asked, by way of answering.

***

Larry was screaming as he pressed against the wall, drooling and spasming, swearing as steam billowed off him where Temi's lightning forked and licked him. She seemed to be in much higher spirits now, watching him convulse.

Nobody tried to stop her. She had, after all, promised not to actually destroy him.

"I've been waiting so long to do this," Temi giggled as she blasted away. Emma didn't stop her, as she saw it the girl was owed this much. Kruger himself seemed too…shocked, maybe, was the best word.

Temi had actually put Emma in something of an awkward situation, as she'd blatantly lied about Larry having brain damage to make him less reliable. But, going by Temi's story, Kruger now knew—or at least had been told—that he was a dick from the start. Not exactly compatible with a damaged angel image.

Emma had resolved the problem by dodging every question Kruger asked her and trying to steer the conversation elsewhere.

She had partly succeeded.

"So, this Dark Pharoah," Emma began, aiming the question at Temi, "what can you tell us about him?"

Temi spent a few more seconds gleefully electrocuting Larry before sparing a few words to answer. It was not lost on Emma that the girl seemed excited beyond a simple taste of revenge.

"Uh, have you ever watched um…Overlord?"

"Yes!" Emma grinned, "yeah I have, what about it?"

"So, basically that."

Emma's spirits dropped instantly.

"Oh…Fuck."

"Yep," Temi agreed, "he's a massive dick and I can't really do anything about it, though maybe a whole group of earthlings could pull up on him together…?"

They gave that a bit of thought.

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