Demon Queened - Chapter 90 - Rough Draft

Devilla

Stepping through the portal, I found myself staring into a wide, white room. A largely featureless area, with only two things to distinguish it. A large throne, toward the back of the room, with a rectangular pool behind it.

It was the pool that caught my attention, first. It was filled with a substance that looked like water, and yet something inside me screamed that it very much wasn’t. It held power. Power enough to draw my attention, keeping me from even thinking about the fact that - were Abigail’s spell properly functioning - I wouldn’t have been able to see anything at all.

“Devilla!” Liz called out, snapping me from my trance. “Look out! On the-”

There was a figure on the throne. I realized it, at the exact same instant as the figure moved - a blur of motion too fast for my eyes to properly follow. One moment they were on the chair, the next they were right in front of me, a finger pressed against my forehead.

“Now, now, Liz, no warnings or interruptions. In fact, I think it’s time your voyeuristic spell came to an end, don’t you? It’s rude to spare on family affairs, after all.”

No response came from the Goddess. Instead, I felt a heat radiating out from the point of contact, burning through my skull and lacing its way into my mind.

“What-”

“Nothing much, my descendant,” the figure declared, backing away far enough for me to get my first proper look at her. 

She was tall, even by the standards of my mother’s family, standing at a full six foot five. There was little family resemblance for me to grasp onto - she had the same white hair as me, the same black nails, but where my face was soft and round hers was harsh angles. If I could be called cute, she would be more along the lines of… statusque. “I just thought we’d be better off without interruption. Though, speaking of that…”

Her gaze turned to Lucy and Abigail, false familial warmth fading away in favor of a cold stare. Ashley, I couldn’t help but notice, was nowhere in sight. “Well, I suppose we can let them spectate. So long as they stay silent.”

A snap of her fingers, and a wall appeared between us. It was completely transparent, and yet I was aware of its boundaries in a way I struggled to explain. I’m sure the same was true for Lucy and Abigail, but that didn’t keep the former from ramming her shoulder right into the barrier. Nor did it keep Abigail from banging her hands furiously upon it, screaming words that failed to penetrate.

“Now it’s just me and you,” Luci said. Her smile was warm, in sharp contras to her cold eyes, and her sharp words. “The little trouble maker. The brat, with a knack for getting in the way of other’s work… Honestly, do you have any idea what a mess you’ve made of things?”

She held up a hand before I could respond. “No, no. No need to get into it. You were just trying to live your life, I know. You had no way of knowing you were getting in the way of your betters. At least when you first started. But there’s still time to fix things… for you to go back. It’ll be a while before the next Heroine is ready, of course, but once she is-”

“What makes you think I would ever work with you?” I interrupted, unable to hold my tongue a moment longer. “I’m here to stop you.”

The smile dropped off her face. “You think you have a choice. How… quaint. But don’t interrupt, hmmm? Or I’ll have to teach you a lesson.”

“By killing me?” I demanded. “Last I checked, you still needed a Demon Queen for your genocidal plan.”

“Oh, I do,” she replied, eyeing me up and down. “And you’ll be fulfilling the role, too. Unless you want me to torture your little girlfriends in front of you?”

“I won’t let you,” I replied, through grit teeth. “I’ll stop you, here and now, if it’s the last thing I do.”

“Will you now?” she asked, arching an eyebrow. Suddenly, she moved, her figure blurring as it had earlier. Before I could even question the efficacy of my senses, she already had her hand about my neck, and was holding me up and over the pool of ‘water’ behind her throne.

“Do you know what this is, Devilla?” she asked me, the pleasant smile from earlier fixed back in place.

I didn’t reply. Couldn’t reply, to be honest - not with her hand squeezing so tight on my neck. I might not have needed air to breathe, but I certainly needed it to speak.

“It’s divine magic,” she answered, for me. “In its purest form - worship, meant for the Goddess, that I’ve dammed up here. She gets a trickle of it, of course - enough to survive - but the rest? The rest is mine, to do with as I please. And what I think would please me most right now would be to dip one of your lovely girlfriends in this pool and hear them scream. What about you?”

She threw me across the room, not waiting for a response. I smacked hard into the wall, pain lancing through me as I struck its surface. Any injuries I sustained were gone in a hurry, of course, but as someone largely unused to pain it was still rather unpleasant, to say the least.

“No need to rush to a decision,” Luci declared, calmly walking towards me. Or no - not towards me, but towards the center of the room, where a table was materializing from thin air. Food appeared next - a roasted bird, a plate of sliced and roasted beef, mashed potatoes, peas, a gravy boat, and so much more, enough to make any earthly table creak under the weight of dishes piled upon it. The table wasn’t made of  normal wood, though - it was made of divine magic, and it held its shape just fine.

“Come sit with me,” she said, sitting herself down even as a chair appeared to catch her rear. “We can discuss your future together.”

“My future?” I asked, not making a move closer to the table. “What future? I already told you I won’t be working for you.”

“And I already told you the consequences of refusal. Or do I need to melt one of Abigail’s arms off before you truly begin to grasp the situation you’re in?”

I didn’t answer. I just moved towards the table, and sat down - expecting a chair to appear beneath me, as it did for Luci.

It didn’t.

“Ha!” She let out a bark of laughter, a true smile appearing on her face for the first time. It suited her face - but not her personality. Beautiful as she might have looked, she was rotten to her core inside. “Oh, don’t give me that look. I’ll conjure you a chair - you only had to ask.”

Saying so, she made a chair appear slightly to the side of me. I glared at her, even as I took it, and moved it into position, sitting at the table.

“Help yourself to whatever you fancy,” she declared. “A leg of lamb? Some wine? Potatoes, perhaps? Whatever you’d like.”

“No thanks,” I replied, refusing to give the mashed potatoes so much of a glance. It was hard - I was willing to bet that the gravy boat had something fatty, brown, and delicious inside it, just perfect for pairing with mashed spuds - but quite frankly, I had more important things on my mind. “I’m more interested in what sort of insanity you think you have the leverage to drag me into. I’m supposed to go home, and… what? Wait for the next Heroine to kill me?”

“You’re supposed to go back and live your life,” she replied. “Terrorize your people. Make sure they continue hating you. Preferably to the point where they’d actually welcome a Heroine - can you imagine that? Just like in the game - them inviting doom to their own table…” Her smile grew. “Tell me. What do you think would have happened, in that timeline? With the Demon Queen dead and gone, or else enslaved? Do you think your little Heroine could have led your people to a peaceful age? Because I don’t think so. More likely the church would have taken her down, before she could make use of her influence to try and bring about positive change. The demons in the tower would have been killed, or perhaps turned into slaves. Your precious peace scattered to the wind…”

“Why are you telling me this?” I asked. “It’s not as if the timeline actually went that way.”

“No… but you considered allowing it, hmm? And I imagine one day, you’ll go back to thinking about it. Thinking it might have been good, if only you’d made a different choice. That your Heroine and maid could have survived. That they could have lived wonderful lives, had you only made a different decision. But no. I’m here to tell you that it's a fantasy. No choice you could have made would have ever lead to a happy ending - because happy endings don’t exist. Not for you.”

“So what?” I demanded, clenching my fists. “You intend to break my spirit through hypotheticals? By making me believe my choices don’t matter?”

“Honestly, I couldn’t care less about your spirit,” Luci replied. “What I care about is whether you’re willing to stifle this rebellious phase of yours, and go along with my plan.”

“Right… the plan where I… what? You still haven’t explained how exactly I’m supposed to put things back on track. The next Heroine won’t be like Lucy, ready to unite my people. They’ll be a tool of the church.”

“Probably,” Luci agreed. “But the church listens to me. I’m sure I can work something out… It can’t be that hard to produce a bright eyed optimist who thinks she’s here to save the world, can it? Especially when all I really need her to do is doom it.”

“Doom it?” I asked, arching an eyebrow. “How exactly does the fall of demons doom anything?”

“Well, for one thing, it might finally disillusion my dear Goddess, and help her understand what a mess mortal kind is…. Honestly, all she needs to do is let the world fall and she’d be free.”

“And you think making her watch demons die will do that?” I asked. “No offense to Liz, but if a two thousand year genocidal war didn’t make her give up on humanity I don’t think anything will.”

“Oh, the demons are just the start,” Luci replied. “Next we’ll see how she handles it when humans turn upon each other. Not to mention the lovely slave trade that’s bound to spring up soon - can’t wait to see how my dear Goddess responds to that.”

“It’s Liz.”

“...What was that?” Luci asked, tilting her head to the side.

“I said her name is Liz. Or at least that’s what she prefers to go by, now - you could at least get that right, no?”

“You… think you know the Goddess better than me, do you?” Luci asked, quietly. All warmth was gone from her tone. Her eyes were cold as she stood, the chair disappearing before it could even clatter to the ground. The table and food was next, all of it dispersing into thin air as she blurred before my eyes once more, again grabbing me by the throat. “You think you can just come in here and get in the way of our relationship? Telling me what to call her? What to think of her as? Like you actually know her? I was made by her! I spent my every waking moment speaking of her! Doing things for her, being there for her, serving her, being the best head angel I could be for her - all that she could go away for a hundred years with barely a goodbye! All because she couldn’t stand to let one measly world full of mortals die. Do you know what that did to me? Do you know how that felt?”

“No,” I replied, forcing the word out with what little air I could manage. Her eyes widened, and her grip loosened in surprise, allowing me to finish speaking. “And quite frankly? I don’t care. You’re a horrible old hag, and I’m ashamed to know that we’re related.”

“You… you…” she sputtered, before growling. “I should throw you into the divine pool.”

“Then why haven’t you?” I demanded, grasping her wrist and trying to tear off her hand. It wouldn’t budge, though. “You need me. Admit it.”

“I need you to shut up!” she screamed, throwing me back against the wall. After her figure blurred again, but this time it wasn’t me she grabbed, but Abigail and Lucy - taking down her divine barrier in the process. “One more word, and I’ll end their lives.”

“You can’t,” I replied, pushing myself up to my feet. “If you could kill us that easily, you’d have done that to my mother instead of this whole convoluted revenge plot you’ve managed.” Doll had mentioned that all the other demon queens were alive, too, so there was no way she had the power to just… end a soul.

As if confirmation, I saw Luci gritting her teeth. “I can still hurt them. Hurt you.”

“Is that so?” I demanded, moving towards her. Except she wasn’t really my goal. She was just in the same direction as it.

“What are you doing?” Luci demanded. “You can’t hurt me, you know. Or do you intend to forcefully pull them from my grasp? Even if you manage to get one, I’ll just snap the neck of the other.”

I didn’t say anything. I just kept walking towards her, trying my best not to look at my true destination even as I began to circle around Luci’s current position, maneuvering myself closer to the back of the room as I did so.

“You can’t stop me, you know. You don’t have the power.”

“I know,” I replied. Then I smiled at Abigail, and Lucy. “Thank you, girls, for everything. I love you more than words can say.”

“What?” Luci asked, confused by my sudden confession.

The next few things happened in quick succession. First, Abigail spat at Luci, hitting her right in the eye and causing her to recoil - momentarily shutting her eyes.

At the same time, Lucy struck out, grabbing hold of Luci’s arm and twisting, trying to pin it behind the angel’s back. A futile effort, in the end - Luci didn’t even budge - but it was more than enough to distract her.

At the same time, I took off towards the pool.

The pool she had threatened me with, but never actually let me touch. The pool of divine energy she had actively thrown me away from. The pool she’d then proceeded to threaten everyone else with - as if she couldn’t have tortured me directly, for just as good results. 

I remembered, still, how Liz had taken advantage of the divine energy in the void. How she’d taken control of it, using me as a relay signal of sorts. In theory, her spell was gone from my head - I could no longer hear her - but just because Luci had the power to disrupt Liz’s communication didn’t mean she’d removed the spell entirely. If it was still there, if Liz could still make use of it…

It was a gamble. A desperate one. 

I was desperate, though. So, before Luci could take note of what I was doing, I flashed the girls one final smile, ignored the looks of mounting horror on both their faces, and dove into the pool.

~~~~

Author's Notes

We're so close to the end I can taste it...

Speaking of the end, I was a little unsure about the end of this chapter - I hope Devilla's reasoning makes sense/comes through okay? As for whether her reasoning is accurate we'll of course have to see, but I didn't want her to just dive into the pool with no explanation for that nonsense whatsoever.

ETA: Very small edit - just a single line, really. It's important, though, as it establishes that Ashley isn't around.