Transmigrated Teri is an ongoing isekai/portal fantasy series about Teri Graves, an embittered middle-age GenX office lady who gets into a massive car accident and wakes up in the world of the fantasy series she loves to hate, The Allisar Fireborn Chronicles. She knows the characters, she knows the plot, and she knows that its all a massive coma dream…except for how nothing is as it should be. Worse? She woke up in the body of the doomed evil stepmother! She escaped a pandemic for this?
Previously: Teri had a bad feeling about this…
It was not fine.
Teri sat in her car in the overwhelmed parking lot at Barkingham Palace, her hands once again white knuckling the wheel for no reason, since she was parked. The place was crawling with panicked people coming to pick up their dogs, and Teri thought that she should have expected as much, given how close to the university it was. She had already recognized three professors, a dean, two students who clearly lived off their parents’ money, and the vice-president of the student affairs department go inside.
She had made the mature decision to just wait out the rush, mostly because her incipient rage might end up with her breaking something if anyone gave her attitude. All she wanted to do was go home and lock herself in her bathroom so no one, absolutely no one, could talk to her.
Her phone pinged and she instinctively tapped the screen to answer it.
“DID YOU HEAR THE NEWS?” Her mother shouted.
“Mom, what are you doing in the kitchen?”
“IT’S MY KITCHEN!”
Teri counted to five as she took a deep breath. “I saw the news and I’ll be home with Theo soon.”
There was a long pause…too long. Teri knew her mother had already lost the thread of the conversation.
“Theo isn’t here. I think he got out!”
“No, Mom, he’s at doggy daycare. I’m picking him up now.”
“Why did you take him there? DID YOU STEAL HIM?”
“I did not steal our dog! Oh my God, just hang up. I’m coming home with Theo.”
There was another long pause, then what sounded like the receiver being put down on the counter.
“Mom? MOM!”
More rustling sounds, and then she picked up the receiver again. “He’s not out back! Theo got out! We have to find him!”
Teri clinched her jaw. “I’ve got Theo with me now. I’m coming home. Hang up the damn phone!”
“DON’T CUSS AT ME, I’M YOUR MOTHER!” Her mother shouted and then slammed the receiver down to hang up the phone.
Teri once again debated the merits of just pulling the ancient landline phone off the wall, but it was the only phone her mother could figure out how to dial anymore and even Teri could not stoop to leaving her mother with no way to call 911.
Thinking about serving time trapped in the house with her mother for an indeterminate lock down, Teri clutched her phone so hard she heard the case creak. Looking up at the entrance to Barkingham Palace, she saw the line for pick up was still out the door.
Resigning herself to at least thirty more minutes of waiting, she pulled up her audio book app and punched at the screen until the dulcet tones of baritone Harold McGuire filled the car. He was reading book four of the Allisar Fireborn Chronicles, The Forge of Fate. It was the start of the scene where Gervyn comes into his fireborn powers, just after his sisters Vycett and Aurguth die protecting him from a direct attack by the evil Emperor Nikodosis.
It was the penultimate scene of Gervyn’s character arc and Teri hated it and hated Fuckin’ Chad for fridging great characters like the Allisar twins and really, it was the worst section possible to pick up on, given her mood.
But it was the Allisar Fireborn Chronicles, and if nothing else, Teri’s antagonistic loyalty to the book series meant she could not skip a chapter, even if she hated it. She mouthed the words along with McGuire, who had once in his younger years been tapped to play the rakish ‘mentor’ character Valerontarius, before the movie series went into perpetual “development” and he had eventually aged out of the role. Still had the voice for it, in Teri’s opinion, and clung to the hope that the rumored animated series would be picked up by Netflix and they would hire McGuire as the voice actor for Valerontarius.
Despite the twins’ terrible and completely unnecessary demise, Teri found herself relaxing as she listened along, the familiar words and scenes washing over her. Her mind drifted to her favorite fix-it fanfics. There were so many. Sometimes she suspected the legendary fandom, which was over twenty years old, kept going strong on spite alone. She certainly did.
She honestly hoped that the delayed (and delayed and delayed) publication of the final book in the series would spell the end for the massive popularity of the story. Not that it would alter her own perverse dedication, though. No. It might be due to a sunk cost fallacy, but she had been invested in the story since her twenties and she would not drop it just because Fuckin’ Chad kept screwing it over.
Her phone chimed, and she looked at the text on the screen.
HI, Ms. Graves. It’s Louis at Barkingham. We’re closing in fifteen minutes and Theo is ready to go.
Startled, Teri realized she had been sitting in the car listening to the audiobook for nearly forty-five minutes.
She stumbled out of the door and clattered up the stairs and into the lobby to find a very exhausted Louis holding Theo’s leash like the last soldier standing. He all but tossed the leash at her.
“Good-bye and good luck,” he said and spun around to disappear into the back again.
The front desk was empty, and as she stood there, the lights shut off.
Theo was just smart enough to realize that things were not going as they normally did and walked all hunched up with worry, whining forlornly when Teri buckled him into his security harness in the front seat. She might have felt worse about it if he weren’t so dumb. As it was, she just slammed the door in his sad face.
Getting home was the priority, and fortunately she was not even worried about their toilet paper stash since she had grabbed as many rolls as she could the previous Friday, when it had finally sunk in that a lock-down was likely to happen.
Unfortunately, the traffic situation had not calmed down. As the clock ticked closer to 4:00 pm, it was clear that more and more businesses around town were sending people home. Teri drove along the main drag back to her subdivision, but it was moving at a crawl. Despite the AC running on high, Theo was panting heavily, his eyes a little wild as he strained at his harness, getting more and more freaked out by the chaos of the day.
Seeing an opportunity, Teri took a right turn and went into a maze of back roads through older parts of the city. Harold McGuire was still talking through the car speakers, and she found herself pacing her turns and speed to his voice.
In that pivotal moment, amidst the swirling chaos of battle, Gervyn felt a surge of energy welling up from deep within his very core…
She ended up on the two-lane frontage road that ran parallel to the highway and gunned it. There were a few other locals who had the same thought she did, and everyone was jockeying to get ahead. She managed to speed around one slower car, but found that just ran her up against another one.
“Oh for fuck’s sake!” She slapped the wheel with the flat of her hand and Theo startled. “Oh, stop it,” she snarled at him, although it felt more like she was talking to herself.
The air crackled with anticipation as his trembling fingers reached towards the heavens, their tips igniting with an ethereal flame. The sheer intensity of the power coursing through his veins sent shivers down his spine…
She hit the brakes as the car she was tailing suddenly slowed down to take a turn. Theo panicked as he bounced in his harness and started jumping around.
“Would you STOP?” she shouted and pushed him into the seat with her free hand.
He stood unwavering, his eyes blazing with a newfound resolve. The forces of fire answered his call, bending to his will like loyal subjects. With a single gesture, Gervyn the Fireborn unleashed a torrent of scorching flames…
Theo barked and jerked away, and Teri heard a tight, plastic snap. She only had a moment to realize something was wrong before she had eighty pounds of panicked dog in her lap, yanking her hands off the wheel, making the car veer wildly. Time slowed down as she made a grab for the steering wheel. Her eyes darted up over Theo’s back and she saw a large delivery truck barreling towards them, its horn blaring. Her breath caught and a surge of terror overwhelmed her as she realized what was happening.
The forces of Emperor Nikodosis’ army were engulfed in a blazing inferno, heralding the dawning age of Gervyn’s destined greatness. The howls of the dying surrounded him but he held strong, determined to wring justice from the blood of his enemies…
Everything went black.
NEXT: Waking Up is Hard to Do
Authoria:
I should probably have mentioned this earlier, but the incredibly popular, world-wide best-selling series The Allisar Fireborn Chronicles by Chadwick Jarvaldson is entirely made up by me, KimBoo York!
The series is based on all those wildly popular, overwrought, epic fantasy “Chosen One” Tolkien ripoffs from the 1980s and 1990s with cover art by Larry Gilmore or the Hildebrant brothers. Yes, that one, and also that other one. You know the ones I mean.
Did I actually have to outline the whole series and develop all the canon story elements and character profiles for it? Yes I did. Fuckin’ Chad owes me a drink.
Thank you for reading! 🎊 I’d love your comments and feedback! ☕
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Chad owes you several drinks!!