Long, long ago, in a galaxy far, far away…

Really? You fell for that? Sorry, this isn’t a B-grade scifi movie. There’s not of that ‘long ago but somehow in the future’ crap here. I’m only a fan fiction writer, after all, not a real successful writer with a future.

Smiling at my thoughts, I continued tapping away at my keyboard, my eyes glued to the screen as I forced Rachel and Al into situations Kim Harrison was too brilliant to bother with. I didn’t feel bad at all turning Rachel into a simpering, pathetic Bella type, or about castrating Al- metaphorically, of course, no need to make the story any worse than it already is- and making him brooding, sensitive, and spineless. No, once I had thoroughly ruined those amazing characters, I threw them into a completely unrealistic scene that would never happen in the books.

My smile widened to impossible lengths as Al comforted Rachel, who was impossibly distraught over Ivy’s new girlfriend. He wrapped his arms around her and ever so gently kissed her forehead, nothing like the way Al usually approached moments like that. As the scene progressed from ridiculous to downright laughable (I was too naïve to be able to write a sex scene to save my life. You mean there’s sweat involved? Ew!) I glowed at the idea of demanding hearts and comments to stoke my ego.

My happiness was interrupted when the keys stopped working. The letters I tapped were not the letters that blinked onto the open Microsoft Word document. My eyes grew huge as I desperately pounded on the backspace button, but the letters kept going. Frightened, I stared at the screen as the story changed.

Al swore, struggling against a will that was not his own. He looked around his bedroom, shocked and angered by the roses and candles that were supposed to make it look romantic; he felt like he was trapped in a Hallmark commercial.

At last, Al broke free of the will that had trapped him, nearly falling over backwards. Rachel, sprawled across his bed, was still struggling with it. Al pushed at that will, and the connection snapped with an almost audible crack.

Rachel fought to sit up, her red hair mussed. “What the hell was that?” she sounded as if she’d just woken up from a deep sleep.

“I’d bloody well like to know!” Al snapped, not caring that Rachel was- for once- innocent. Neither of them would consort willingly, not while Al was under threat of death and Rachel was, well, Rachel.

Dismayed, I tried to delete what my computer had typed. The more times I tried to delete it, however, the faster the letters came, turning my awful writing into something shamefully good and actually readable.

“Damn, there it is again!” Al slid off the bed, his eyebrows furrowed in concentration. Rachel quickly averted her eyes from his naked form- she’d seen it far too many times, as far as she was concerned.

“What is it?” Rachel shoved her hair back, irritation making her glare sharp.

Al returned her glare, exasperated. “If I knew what it is, I would have taken care of it already!”

“No need to be snippy.” Rachel said indignantly.

Al snorted, truly irritated. Not only was his Itchy Witch being her usual abrasive self, but now he had an actual threat to deal with.

I squeaked as I watched Al trying to figure it out, wondering what in the world was happening. I’d sat down to write a less than sub-par story that all the other twitterpated tweens who swamped the decent writers with their heart-whoring would enjoy. I tried to close the window, but it merely popped back up again.

“There you are!” Al crowed victoriously when his curse latched onto whatever had taken him over. He was forced to draw from several lines to sustain the curse, which had to be fed a massive amount of energy.

“There who is?” Rachel asked through gritted teeth, arms crossed, not enjoying being out of the loop.

“Our invisible puppeteer.” Al muttered back absentmindedly while he once more tapped into his store of curses. He was dressed again in moments, making a tiny dent in the line energy. Then he dug deeper, finding a curse that would work for what he wanted. “Be right back, Itchy Witch.” With that, he disappeared, leaving Rachel alone and fuming.

There was a loud thump behind me that made me shriek and almost tip my chair over as I shoved away from both the noise and my traitorous computer. That act made the wheeled chair spin, putting me face to face with someone I would never in my tiny imagination have thought to meet. My tiny black heart thrashed in my chest.

“Algaliarept?” my already high-pitched adolescent voice was so squeaky it would have made a dog whimper in pain. In fact, it even made Al wrinkle his nose in disdain.

A fierce scowl was on his face as he stalked across my floor, his smoky glasses hiding eyes I knew were slitted like a goat’s. I tried to wheel my chair away from him, but he put a hand on the arm and caught it fast, keeping me in place like a hamster on a wheel. “How did you do it?” he asked, his voice gravelly with anger. I could do nothing but squeak, almost knocking myself over again when he leaned close, swamping me with a scent I assumed was burnt amber. “You’re a child, for god’s sake! How did you manage to overpower me and my Itchy Witch?”

I could hear the scorn in his voice, and it frightened me even more. I was just a nit who pilfered other people's ideas, I wasn’t prepared for this! With another squeak when he leaned even further into my personal bubble, I pointed to my computer. He was at it in an instant, scrolling to the top of my work.

Al’s eyebrows rose with every sentence he read, until it was a miracle they were still on his head. By the time he reached where my part ended, he was furious. He turned on me, his glasses gone so I tasted the full brunt of his heated flare. “What in seven hells is this?” He hit the top of my computer with the palm of his hand, making it flicker.

I sucked in a breath to protest, but he seemed to know exactly what thoughts were in my unimaginative, unoriginal brain. “It’s a… uh… f-f-fan f-f-fiction.” I stammered.

A look of profound disgust spread over his features; it truly was bad if a tasteless demon with no morals was horrified by it. “A fan fiction! You’ve got to be shitting me!” he exclaimed, turning to the computer again. “You made me into a bloody imbecile! And my god, why in the world would you take all the fun out of my Itchy Witch?”

I opened and closed my mouth like a fish out of water. “My writing is good. People read it all the time!” I finally protested.

Al laughed, mocking me. “They read it because they need a good laugh, and you’re the easiest target. The internet is a den of lies, child.” He swept the mouse across the screen and, unlike me, was able to erase everything with a single tap of the backspace key. With a few more clicks, he’d wiped my entire hard drive.

“What are you doing?” I cried, jumping out of my chair and trying to stop him, only to have him easily bat me away.

“Saving the world from your atrocities.” He answered. I watched, outraged, as Al deleted all the stories I’d spent so much time on- at least five minutes apiece. That was absolutely forever!!!

“You… you… you’re so gay!” I shouted, using the worst insult in my repertoire.

Al only laughed. “You’re an immature idiot.” He shook his head at me. When he raised his eyes to mine, they glinted deviously and there was a devilish smile curving up his lips.

“You know,” he said thoughtfully, “I’ve always wanted a pet.”

Rachel was clothed and rightfully enraged by the time Algaliarept reappeared. In his hands was a squirming, panting, terrified mink. Rachel raised an eyebrow at him, a slight frown turning down her pretty mouth as she put her hands on her hips. “Where did you get that?” she asked.

“Trust me, Itchy Witch, you really don’t want to know.”