by Grimm
The dark form that still hovered in the shadows called out to the mysterious stranger who was impossibly choking Kristofer Schanz. "Grimm..."
"He is not the one. Let him go."
At these words, Schanz felt the grip around his throat loosen and relax. Schanz touched his hand to his throat and felt it for the first time since he himself had been killed. Schanz looked up to see that the man was offering him a hand up. He took it.
"Thanks. Quite a grip. My name is Kristofer Schanz, and you are?"
The stranger paused for a moment. "Grimm."
The voice from the shadows said, "Grimm! It returns!"
Schanz glanced over to the shadows and saw a skeletal arm covered in darkness. The hand at the end was pointing off in the distance. There was a red glow that seemed to be approaching. It looked like a pair of transparent red eyes.
"We must hold it off this time, Grimm. You must reclaim your body and assume your duties back in the physical world."
Schanz spoke up, "I will aid you, if I am able." It was not the first time his good nature had brought him into a perilous situation, and he was sure that, if he survived this, it would not be the last.
The being moved forth out of the shadows, and Kristofer Schanz gazed upon a being out of myth he had hoped never to lay eyes on. The Grim Reaper.
"Worry not, Kristofer Schanz. Your time is not come. You have a destiny to fulfill in the physical world, as does my avatar, Grimm."
The Reaper reached out a skeletal hand, and Schanz grasped it in his own. He tried not to think about the immensely cold sensation that passed through his form. Grimm, grasping the Reaper's other hand, seemed unaffected.
The mental struggle lasted for what seemed an eternity to Schanz. He felt himself beginning to slip, weaken. He looked over at his two allies. Was this really happening?
Just as Schanz did not think he would be able to take it any more, there was a blinding, searing flash. He instinctively turned away from it to cover his eyes, and...
Kristofer Schanz sat up, his astral body moving up out of Grimm's form. Pete Glover quickly came to attention.
"I was startin' ta get worried! Not five minutes after ya went in there, Toby up and jumped in the hole with the rest of 'em! I take it ya weren't able to controls it?"
"You might say that," he replied, pointing his thumb over at Grimm's body, which was now getting up under its own power.
"Halp! It's alive again!" Pete screamed.
"Relax, Pete. I did him a favor, then told him about our situation out here. He's gonna help us out."
Pete stuck out his hand. "Yeah? Nice ta meetcha, uh... um..."
Grimm took the smaller man's hand in his own iron-covered one, somehow managing not to crush it. "Grimm."
Grimm felt his axe urging him toward the hole and to combat with the monster his new allies had told him awaited. "We don't have any more time to talk. Your friends will need help with that... thing down there."
"And ye can helps, right? Blast a hole in that thingy like ya did before?" Pete said animatedly.
Grimm looked at the small, monkeylike man with what would have been confusion on a normal person's face. "I did WHAT?"
"Oh, great -- anudder one wit' amnesia!" Pete slapped his forehead.
Grimm thought for a moment, Amnesia? No, but there did seem to be a few... fuzzy spots in his memory. He would have to deal with this later. He felt the pull of the axe again, a slight blue glow surrounding it.
"No time," he said, grabbing Pete in one arm and jumping feet first into the hole. Kristofer Schanz in his ghostly form followed quickly behind them.