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Luka's Story 2: Ancestors	By : Ditmag Category: +M through R > Monster Girl Quest Views: 1445 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: Monster Girl Quest is the property of Tortorro Resistance. I make no money off this project.

Chapter List
- 15
- 16
Author's Note: I'd intended this story to be bigger and have more things going on, but in the end I couldn't write that story well, so what was left was more compact but higher quality. Hope you like it. This is the last chapter.

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Morning came on the big day. We were all ready to go. The harpies had chosen their best to participate in the assault and awaited Tamamo’s signal back at Harpy Village. The elves had done the same. We would not be many, but we would be the elite. Likewise, the Knights stood ready in the center of Yamatai Village, everyone in their usual attire, Granberia in her new slim, black outfit, her twin katanas in scabbards on her back. Granberia held my hand excitedly. Even though I could teleport, no one was quite sure that I’d do it right, so Granberia would be taking me into the fight, and I would be staying with her the whole time, until we possibly separated to face our respective opponents. That decision would be made on the fly, as circumstances warranted. Granberia preferred a one on one battle, however, so I knew that my interference would not be welcome unless I judged there to be no other option.
Nanabi, Cindy, and Gabriella were there to see us off. Nanabi was too wounded to fight. Gabriella was willing, but she was judged too important for my future to risk in battle, and her offensive spells lacked punch. She was also not as quick as she used to be. Cindy was the most heartbroken of all to not be included. Alice had made it clear that a battlefield with dragons was no place for a slow, lumbering crab. In addition, Cindy herself was not at full strength. Still, it killed her to not be part of this final battle, after being so heroic in the last. Alice assured her that defeating an Ancestor made her every bit the war hero in this war that she had been in the last. The best thing Cindy could do for us now was stay alive and be a hope for the future.
This wasn’t quite how we had done it the last time. Last year, the Knights had teleported to different points of the world to place a worldwide seal on an aspect of holy power, and then teleported to the gates of heaven, whereupon they had to enter on foot and catch up to Alice and me. This time we were all jumping into the fight at the same time, almost like a stick of paratroopers. We all looked at each other nervously. This was it. My heart was thumping in my chest. The hand being held in Granberia’s began to shake. She squeezed it reassuringly and looked at me. I believe in you, she mouthed.
The next moment seemed to last forever. Even the normally stolid Granberia looked as if she would jump out of her skin. When Tamamo finally gave the signal, Granberia teleported us in front of the castle.

Alipheese had been ready for us. We were already in the middle of a pitched battle the second we jumped in. Dragons roared, spouting flame everywhere. One dragon swooped down on us and unleashed a huge stream of fire. Alice was still close to me and surrounded Granberia and I with a domed shield that protected us from the flames. She returned fire with ice bolts. I saw the dragon scream and crash to the ground a good distance away. Elsewhere on the battlefield I could hear screams of agony and grunts of effort. I heard and saw explosions. It was even more chaotic than the battle in heaven. I couldn’t even figure out what I was supposed to be doing. Granberia had not yet released my hand.
Another dragon made a pass, belching flame. She got the same unsatisfying results and joined her fellow dragon in a heap on the ground, far behind us. The fight was intense. Elves and harpies firing arrows, peppering behemoths, who crashed into their ranks. The harpies would fly into the air to avoid the charging behemoths, only for individuals to end up in the jaws of a dragon, if not incinerated. The harpy queen had magic of her own, using her mastery of wind to blow the flames away when they reached masses of her troops. She could not, however, protect those who became separated from the larger group.
The elves, unable to fly, simply absorbed the behemoth’s charges, drawing swords and mobbing them. The behemoths fought fiercly but unimaginatively, charging into masses of elves and sending bodies flying, but usually going down in a storm of swords. The smell of blood and seared flesh was everywhere. Somehow the battle in heaven had seemed so much more… sanitized. There had been much death, but the weapons used had generally resulted in total obliteration, or disintegration, or combatants had fallen due to the effects of pure energy attacks. If that battle had been like a PG fantasy film, this one was all Game of Thrones. I was getting ill, regretting that I hadn’t done more to avoid this outcome.
Alma Elma had taken to the air to give the dragons a tempting target that they would never hit. With her mastery of the wind, the dragons were simply too slow to hurt her. She couldn’t hurt them much either, but her careful, skillful palm strikes at their vulnerable human portions, and her limited combat magic at least told them she was a threat, which caused an inordinate number of them to chase her around rather than slaughter my other friends. It was the bravest thing I’d ever seen Alma Elma do.
Erubetie’s slime was at its most acidic, as she shot tendrils of it at any enemy within reach. Her reach was quite far. Behemoths and vampires went down under her assault. Even dragons decided that it was better to stay out of her reach, preferring to focus on more vulnerable targets.
Tamamo’s fire was far more deadly than the dragon’s fire. She used her tail to catapult huge fireballs into the air. Not all of them hit, but those that did took a dragon out as if a huge dragon was merely a footsoldier to her. Where she saw masses of behemoths, vampires , or other enemies, she gave them some attention as well, causing huge explosions that sent bodies and parts of bodies flying.
Granberia pulled on my hand and we rushed towards the castle gates, Alice blasting a path through the enemy. My sword was drawn, ready to fight. Granberia released my hand as she drew her katanas and cut a swathe through a group of dark elves who had tried to surprise us by approaching us invisibly. I was surprised, anyway. Granberia probably smelled them coming.
We almost made it inside with little trouble. Almost. The biggest dragon I had ever seen landed right in front of us and roared, the gust of wind from its roar alonealmost knocking us back. Was this the queen dragon or something? Perhaps it was, because Alice’s ice bolts weren’t sufficient. She got batted aside for her efforts. Then the dragon belched flame at Granberia and I. Granberia shoved me behind her while entering the flow at the same time and held one of her katanas up. The flame split to opposite sides of us. Granberia’s awareness of the flow was not quite as good as Undine’s. She was clearly being hit by some of the fire and grimacing. She held firm, however, protecting me with her own body. When the flame subsided, I gave the huge dragon a little taste of mine, emerging from behind Granberia and throwing a ball of pure force that went directly into the dragon’s mouth. To my horror, the dragon exploded.
Granberia was sizzling, but seemed to be mostly unhurt. She was dragonkin, after all, and fire resistant. Unwilling to touch me, she beckoned for me to follow her into the castle. We ran inside. Just before I entered, I saw Alma Elma caught in a dragon’s flame. She plummeted to earth like a flaming meteor. I couldn’t find Alice anywhere. I knew that a hit from a dragon’s claw couldn’t do too much damage to her. She was probably already back in the fight. I had to believe that. I had to believe that Alma Elma was alive. For now, I had a job to do.
Inside the castle, it was quiet, in stark contrast to the battle going on right outside. I knew this was what the Dark God had intended all along when the drawbridge closed behind us.
“Do not fear,” Granberia said. “She only seeks to frighten you. We can get out of here easily enough if we must. Alice will still get in.”
“Unless she seals teleportation again,” I replied, quite unnerved by what I had witnessed out there and feeling like less than a man. Granberia seemed to be solid as a rock.
“Listen to me!” she said, grabbing me since she had cooled down somewhat. “You are not being the brave Luka I know! You are letting your fears rule you! Yes, she may seal teleportation to prevent our escape! Yes, what is going on out there is horrible. I have not seen anything like that in my life, either! This is as new to me as it is to you! Remember your training! Remember your power! You and I will end this! But we cannot continue with you as you are now! You must find your courage! Find it soon! I will wait!”
I took some deep breaths and tried to calm myself. I wasn’t afraid of what was in here. I was horrified by what was out there. Monsters slaughtering each other seemed so wrong. It had to be killing Alice as much as anyone. I needed to be brave for her sake. For Granberia’s sake. I took only a minute.
“Let’s go,” I said with renewed determination. “Let’s end this.”
“That is the Luka I know and love,” the dragonkin warrior said approvingly.
We moved down the hall cautiously. It was so quiet.We could barely hear the sounds of the battle outside. No one seemed to oppose us. This was familiar. It had been that way when I’d invaded this very castle over a year ago.
A vampire entered the hallway a few dozen feet ahead of us. I knew this vampire. It was our butler.
“Saja awaits you in the great hall,” the butler said. “The Dark God Alipheese awaits you in the throne room.”
“Thank you,” I said. “I’m glad to see that you’re okay.”
“Good luck, Luka,” the butler said. “And you too, Heavenly Knight of Fire.”
We made our way to the great hall with no opposition. Apparently Saja desired this fight as much as Granberia did. All of their forces were committed to keeping everyone else out with the exception of the two of us.
Saja was indeed waiting, alone in the great hall. “I see you’ve come to this battle with a new strategy,” Saja said, noting Granberia’s black outfit and her two swords.
“A Heavenly Knight adapts and adjusts,” Granberia replied. “I never lose twice in a row to the same opponent.”
“I never lose to any opponent,” Saja bragged. She turned to me. “Luka, it is good to see you. This is my first time seeing you in this world, with my real eyes. Before we begin this decisive battle, I wish to tell you that I would have liked all of this to have gone differently. My heart aches at the slaughter outside these walls. I am glad that you have chosen to decide this quarrel with one decisive engagement. Whatever the result, it ends today. Let peace reign after today’s horror.”
“You can always do the right thing and join us,” I said.
“I have served the Dark God for my entire existence,” Saja replied. “She created me out of her own essence. She knows best. I could never side with a whelp like you who knows nothing of the world over her eternal wisdom.”
I’d heard that before, but I was done wasting time. People were dying horribly outside. “So you’ve made your choice,” I said. “Let’s do this.”
“You can both fight me,” Saja said. “Or you, Luka, can enter the throne room. Alipheese awaits you there for your final battle.”
Granberia beckoned for me to go on to the throne room. Saja made no attempt to block me. I took one last look at Granberia. She gazed at me tenderly, before her expression hardened as she faced Saja again. I saw her slowly draw both katanas from their scabbards. I began my lonely walk down the hallway to the throne room.

Granberia faced her enemy. Saja once again had both short swords out, at the ready. She knew Saja had much more than that. She possessed magic, as well as a whip that was capable of killing angels. None of that had been necessary to nearly kill Granberia the last time. This time she determined to force Saja to use every trick she knew. Granberia herself planned to use a few of her own.
With a battle cry, Saja charged at Granberia, sliding across the floor at incredible speed. As she struck with her swords, she also lashed out with her tail. Granberia leaped to avoid the tail and with her much quicker katanas, parried both swords. Her counterattack was swift, swifter even than she had hoped for. This graphene armor was even better than she had expected. It felt light, but she also moved easily in it, far easier than she did in her dragonsteel armor.
The two warriors traded blows impossibly fast, four swords clanging together again and again. If one had dropped an apple above them it would have been like tossing it into a blender. And yet they did not wound each other, skillfully parrying every blow. Granberia used her first cursed sword technique of the battle, a quick thrust that Saja barely avoided. Saja’s counter was a tail strike at Granberia’s feet that put her down on the ground. She leaped up in an instant, then bent backwards to avoid a slash from one of Saja’s swords. She could never have performed a maneuver like that in her old armor.

Luka walked down the hall, thinking about the first time he had made this walk. It hadn’t really been a walk. It had been a sprint. He’d been eager to see Alice and pass whatever test she intended. The ‘test” was that she wanted me to murder her. It hadn’t been about marriage at all. I hoped that this throne room confrontation would be less complicated.
I entered the throne room. Alipheese sat on the throne. She greeted me.
“Congratulations, hero! You made it! Of course, I didn’t try very hard to stop you. Made it pretty easy for you, in fact! Did you enjoy the goings-on outside?”
“It’s the most horrible thing I’ve ever witnessed,” I said. “Let’s get this over with so the killing can stop.”
“I’m with you, hon,” she said, rising from the throne. “You only have to see it. I feel it. My children, suffering, dying.”
“Then why do all this? How can you stand it?”
“If you want to join the ranks of gods, kid, you gotta take on the responsibilities. Some have to suffer now so more don’t have to later. I’m not gonna sit here and debate this with you for long. I want this to end as well. No tricks, kid, this is the final battle. I never wanted even this much. The dragon threat on Sabasa? I didn’t want to actually carry it out. I wanted you right here where you are now. It’s either gonna be you or me.”
“If you wanted that, you should have just challenged me to a battle to the end from the start!”
“Probably should’ve,” she shrugged. “Honestly, I thought I could either talk you out of this, take you out sooner, or hold the threat of your friends dying over your head. Didn’t work. So here you are. You ready to do this, kid?”
“I am,” I said, and drew Angel Halo, summoning the spirits, and grabbing my power. Alice was not yet in the throne room. Please let her still be alive, I prayed.

Saja and Granberia had taken to teleporting madly around the room trying to guess and anticipate each other’s destinations. They had landed hits. Granberia was bleeding from a small cut on her side. She had been hit many more times than that, but the graphene armor combined with her tough scales where she had them made Saja’s other cuts harmless. Granberia had scored only once, but due to Saja’s preference for no armor, her sword had bitten sharply. Saja healed quickly, however, the minor cut already no longer bleeding.
Granberia could not teleport around all day. Magic was one of her weakest skills. She only knew some basic spells, teleportation and telepathy being required for a Heavenly Knight. She had a few other minor offensive spells that would certainly not hurt Saja, but they might be useful for keeping her on her toes. She was worried about the teleportation, however. She could not keep this up long, and she had no idea how well Saja could. If she could not teleport and Saja could, the battle would become a lot tougher.
For the last two minutes, they had been very good at getting to within at least a few feet of each other, one never succeeding in getting behind the other. When they next reappeared, they were comically back to back. They turned and their swords clashed once again.

I had to husband my power, so I first attempted to put a shield around my entire body as I charged at Alipheese, fueled by Sylph’s gale. That didn’t go as well as I’d hoped. I still couldn’t get that quite right. I was peppered with bolts of dark magic. Between the not so great shield and Gnome’s protection, the bolts caused more pain than actual damage, and I made it to Alipheese. I swung my sword at her. She turned into smoke and was gone, my sword failing to make contact, even with the smoke. The smoke reformed at the other end of the throne room, near the entrance.
“Now the throne is yours!” she said. “Sit on it! Make yourself at home! Or you can come and get me!”
I ran back towards the entrance, this time with a more reliable shield in front of me. This time I took no hits, reaching Alipheese and swinging. I once again didn’t even hit the smoke. She reformed back at the throne.
“I knew I was gonna make your power drain, but I didn’t know I could sucker you into tiring yourself out, too!” she taunted. “We can do this all day if you got the cardio. It ends the same way no matter how we do this.”

Granberia was definitely tiring, at least magically. She could swing a sword all day long. If necessary, she and Saja could swing at each other until night fell. But teleportation was difficult. Granberia would have to take a different approach. She lowered her katanas and entered the flow as Saja disappeared yet again.
She saw the wave coming and let the flow carry her away from Saja’s blow. The flow directed her sword and she followed it, but there were no openings in Saja’s defense. Only her heavily scaled tail was vulnerable. That was fine. Granberia summoned up her power of fire, causing her new enchanted dragonsteel sword to glow white hot. It cut through Saja’s tail like a hot knife through butter. Saja screamed in surprise and pain, teleporting away to the far end of the room to check her wound.
“Heavenly Knight of Fire, indeed,” Saja said, saluting her opponent. “While this battle is not a contest, I pledge no more teleportation. Will you reciprocate?”
“I will,” Granberia said, relieved.
Saja charged towards Granberia again, the battle rejoined.

I was dumb enough to try two more times. Angel Halo was supposed to drain her energy no matter what form she took. But she would always turn into smoke just before I reached her, careful to keep even the tiniest wisp of it away from my sword. Meanwhile, she was hitting me with dark magic, which forced me to expend power to shield myself. I was definitely stronger. I still had the vast bulk of it left. I might have to start using it more aggressively. I wanted to wait for Alice. She would tell me how best to use it. One big blast might give me the satisfaction of putting Alipheese through the castle wall, but it wouldn’t finish her.
I did get an idea, however. This power does whatever I can imagine, within limits, right? Maybe it’s time to get creative, I thought. I reached for my power and tried to hold her in place. She stiffened somewhat.
“Uh uh uh,” she said. “don’t try to match magic with the master. Believe me, you’re better of just slugging it out with me. Case in point…”
She hit me with a very similar spell, which caused me to feel like my feet weighed a ton. That freed her from my own attempt at slowing her down. She calmly walked towards me hitting me with ice, fire, and dark magic. My shield went up again, sparing me any damage, but slowly and surely expending my power. And now I was nearly immobile.

The battle in the great hall raged on. Saja had begun employing an array of offensive spells, dark magic, ice, and even fire, even though fire was not terribly effective against the dragonkin warrior. Still, it was all taking a toll. Granberia could have retaliated with her own fire breath, but she could only use it very infrequently and it didn’t do much damage anyway to one who was probably also fire resistant. Instead, Granberia employed a minor missile spell, targeting both of Saja’s sword hands. She succeeded in getting Saja to drop one of her swords. Saja’s whip was out in an instant to replace it. Granberia barely dodged the first strike. Granberia dearly hoped that she had seen everything Saja had. Because Granberia had shown nearly everything.
A mistake that caused Granberia to lose her balance, if only slightly, resulted in two quick cuts to her torso, one that actually got through the armor to her soft skin. She knew that these cuts were every bit as energy draining as Angel Halo’s because they caused blood loss. If this battle went on too long, or she was cut even one more time, she might have to become recklessly aggressive. That had cost her against Luka in their final serious battle. She did not wish to lose the same way twice.

Alipheese now stared me right in the face, a few feet away. My feet were still so heavy. I could take one step, then another step, with great difficulty. I decided not to waste my energy. Where was I going to go? I tried dispelling it. I wasn’t sure how and imagining being able to move again wasn’t working. She had her hands up, no longer firing, but ready to fire at me as soon as my shield dropped. I was rooted into place, holding up a shield that caused my energy to slowly but surely deplete.
“It’s over the second that shield drops, hon,” she said, smiling sanguinely. “I got nuthin’ better to do. I’ll wait.”
I tried to think. Fortunately, I was so good at the shields that I could keep them up without too much concentration. I tried the Iron man trick, pretending I had boot jets. Nothing. I changed her hair color out of spite. She just laughed and changed it back. I really wished Gabriella was with me. She would have given me good advice. I wished that Alice was with me. That wish was answered. She appeared right on time and my feet could move again. She had dispelled the magic with barely a thought. My reflexes were as good as ever. I stepped forward in a flash with Thunder Thrust, landing a solid hit on the Dark God. Her eyes widened in shock. She backed off, putting some distance between Alice and me, throwing spells of various sorts at us as she sought to gain room to work.

Granberia had Saja right where she wanted her. Saja still had one sword, and the whip was dangerous, painfully striking Granberia again and again, but usually failing to penetrate her graphene armor. A whip enchanted especially to kill angels was proving less useful than hoped against modern technology. Granberia’s estimation of what she owed Hiro went up with each strike that spared her further blood loss. Granberia had intended for Saja to bring out her legendary whip. Saja’s swords, along with her unreal speed, had been excellent for countering Granberia’s ultimate move. The dragonkin warrior expected that the whip would prove less useful in that respect. She could have used the move much earlier in this, their second battle. But she needed Saja to be in position for what she wanted to try.
With that in mind, Granberia increased her aggressiveness dramatically, intentionally leaving herself open for counterattacks as she had in her last battle with Luka. Saja was driven back, but her skill was formidable, exacting a steep price from Granberia in blood. Granberia was connecting as well. Even before Granberia unleashed her ultimate move, Saja had numerous cuts on both her snake and human anatomy. A wing hung limply, a deep cut through it. She had not taken to the air in this rematch, and the deep cut to her wing made such a tactic impossible in any case.
That meant that it was time to finish it. As Saja was backed up to a wall, Granberia unleashed her ultimate move. Even with only one sword, Saja’s ability to avoid getting cut was incredible. For every four swings Granberia attempted, Saja dodged or deflected three of them. That still meant that she was cut numerous times. Then Granberia did something she had never done before: she cut the move short at the halfway point.
She summoned up her fire elemental ability and infused it into her dragonsteel sword. It glowed white hot as she thrust it deep into Saja’s left shoulder and through the wall, pinning Saja in place. She released her hold on her fire, the sword instantly cooling so that it would not be so easy to pull out of the wall. Granberia backed up a step and pulled out the sealing device.
Saja knew immediately what Granberia intended. She desperately grabbed at the sword hilt and tried to pull it out of the wall and her shoulder. She screamed as she pulled, the sword slowly making its way out. She had no time. Granberia turned on the device. In the two seconds that remained to Saja, she cursed Granberia as a coward. Granberia didn’t care. Saja had said herself that this was no contest. It was war. Granberia was fighting for the survival of everything that she loved. She smiled in grim satisfaction as Saja disappeared, sealed again.
The dragonkin knight pulled her katana out of the wall and prepared to rush into the throne room to aid Luka. She staggered and went down to one knee. She had lost a significant amount of blood. Endure! She commanded herself. It was far worse last time! She picked herself up and staggered towards the throne room to aid her best friend.

“Sorry I was held up!” Alice shouted as she unleashed as much power as she could muster at the Dark God. “You know how battles can be, sometimes you get stuck in the middle of something! Was having a rather heated argument with a few of my relatives! I think I made them see things my way!”
The throne room was getting a serious renovation. One on one, It had been a game of chess between Alipheese and I, one in which I was getting outmaneuvered. With Alice in the fight, it was turning into a brawl. Alipheese was getting the worst of it, between Alice’s power annoying her like bee stings and my hammer blows with my own power causing her to reel. I knew that this was not normally Alice’s strategy. She was creative. She would think of something.
That something occurred when Alipheese tried to turn into smoke and get behind us. Alice cast a spell that dispersed the smoke, so that it was all over the room.
“Luka, hit the smoke with your sword! “
I did, swinging at it again and again. It didn’t seem to be doing anything from my perspective, but Alice knew what she was about, so I kept It up. Apparently it did get results, because the smoke eventually reformed back near the throne. Alipheese stumbled and held onto the throne for support, looking very ill.
As if things couldn’t get any worse for the Dark God, Tamamo teleported into the room. She looked at Alipheese with pity in her eyes. I remembered how hard this must be for her.
“It’s over, mother!” Tamamo shouted. “Your forces have surrendered! Your daughters are all sealed! It’s just you, now! Please don’t make us seal you forever! You can still have your daughters back! You can all build new lives!”
Have her daughters back? Tamamo looked at me. Trust me, she mouthed. I did trust her. Completely.
“You…. Betrayer!” the Dark God shouted. She had always been flippant or hard nosed, but I’d never seen her enraged before. She was losing it now that she was on the verge of defeat.
“I love you, mother,” Tamamo cried. “I know you’ve had doubts. I know my sisters have had doubts. Let’s walk out of her as a family again. Let’s try to build a better world. You could be such a force for good in that world! The monsters need a god to look up to like the humans do. Not a sealed god that can’t answer prayers, but a real god! You can be that for us, mother!”
“I will kill all of you!” Alipheese raged, now standing up straight, her entire body crackling with dark magics. “I am a god!!!! Even the three of you, even if this throne room fills with Heavenly Knights, you can’t defeat me! You will surrender!!! You will all serve me!!!”
“Oh, mother,” Tamamo said. “I believed in you. But the way you sound now, it sounds like everything you told us before wasn’t really true. Was it really about you this whole time? Please don’t tell me that it was just about you and an insane desire for control over everything and everyone. Even Ilias wasn’t like that.”
“You…. DARE compare me to that bitch?!”
Alipheese lashed out at Tamamo. A quick shield from me absorbed it completely. Tamamo fired back and advanced on the now weakened dark god. She briefly turned back to Alice and me. “I’ll keep her occupied for a few seconds. You two know what to do.”
Alice nodded as Tamamo suicidally engaged the Dark God directly. We’d have to be fast. “Do it, Luka!” Alice ordered.
“Come, Sylph!”
No longer protected my my shields, Tamamo was taking damaging blows from Alipheese’s assault.
“Come, Gnome!”
Seeing that I wasn’t being targeted by Alipheese, so focused was she on her traitorous daughter, Alice tried to give Tamamo some cover with her own magical support.
“Come, Undine!”
The magical assault from Tamamo and Alice actually seemed to be working. Alipheese’s own attacks were growing more feeble.
“Come, Salamander!”
As my sword became infused with Salamander’s fire, along with the other elements, it bucked in my hands. I prepared to add my otherworldly magic. Alice stopped her assault to rush over to me to add her own dark power.
Alipheese was not unaware of the danger, however. She hit Tamamo with a blast of dark magic that sent her flying past me. She no longer stood between the Dark God and me and Alice. Before we could infuse my sword with our own eldritch energies, the Dark God turned into smoke and swooped at me, grabbing me. My sword was ripped from my hands, the elements explosively detonating as it fell to the ground, stunning Alice. I saw Granberia shuffling towards the throne room as I was carried down the passage to the throne room and into the great hall.

Granberia saw Luka carried back into the great hall in a cloud of black smoke. She turned back around to give chase, but it was useless. In horror, she saw both Luka and the smoke disappear. They had been teleported away. To where, Granberia had no idea. Alipheese was taking Luka away to finish him without interference. Then she would return and no force could stand against her. Granberia knew that they had to find Luka, somehow within minutes, and go to him.
Alice came rushing out into the great hall, looking a bit dazed and desperate. “Where are they?!” she shouted to Granberia. “I don’t see them! I can’t sense them!”
“They simpl y disappeared!” Granberia shouted back. “Do we have any way of knowing where they went? Even a guess? We must try!”
“The tracker!” Alice cried, with sudden realization. She could at least feel Luka’s need. The magic tied to the tracker could at least tell her that Luka needed her,as well as his general location. But she was only feeling his need. She could not feel his location. His heart was beating so fast! She had to go to him!
“Yamatai!” Alice yelled, and grabbed Granberia. They were both teleported instantly to the door of Hiro’s house. Without knocking, Alice burst in, Granberia in tow.
“Where’s Luka!?” Alice shouted at Promestein. Promestein hurriedly brought up the display for Luka’s tracker.
“Oh no,” Promestein said softly.”She took him to subspace.”

I was in a strange place I had never been before. It was like space, except that I didn’t need to breathe, and I felt a little transluscent. I guess that in other mythologies this would be called the astral plane, but in this world they called it subspace. It was pretty accurate either way. The Dark God had released me, allowing me to float aimlessly through a vast emptiness that would drive a man mad should he stay too long. Alipheese merely floated next to me, in complete control of her own movement, while I helplessly floated.
“I’m really beginning to not like you,” Alipheese said. “I should have done this a long time ago. I just don’t like bringing people to my home.”
“This is your home?” I asked. “I would have assumed it to look something like hell.”
“It’s mostly empty,” she said. “this would be hell to some people. Now you understand why I sealed myself here. If I was going to sleep for eons, I wanted to do it here.”
It wasn’t completely empty of course. It was a lot like conventional space. Stars were everywhere. I could see some planets. I saw Alice’s world below. It wasn’t literally there. I couldn’t simply fall into its atmosphere and burn up or hit the ground with a thud. It was an astral representation. Strands of power connected Alice’s world to many others. I looked around. My own world was the closest, as visible to me from where I was as the moon would be from my Earth. A particularly potent looking force line connected our two worlds. But not just mine. Countless worlds, all more distant than my own, but also connected by those force lines. No wonder Alipheese knew something about this kind of magic! Those force lines were part of her home!
“You can access an unlimited number of worlds from here!” I said in wonder. “have you been to mine?”
“I’ve been to none of ‘em,” she said. “it’s too dangerous. Some worlds, you go to and you can never leave. It takes magic to travel between these worlds and many have no magic. Go to one of those worlds and it’s your new home. Others have so much magic that even I would be nothing there. I don’t like being nothing. If there’s too much, I’m nothing. If there’s no magic, I’m still nothing. So either way, not much reason to visit. I’m not that curious.”
“You really do care only about power, do you?” I asked. “All that concern for your people, your daughters? It really wasn’t about that? Are you really that evil?”
“Nah, I was just pissed,” she said. “It’s hard when your own daughter betrays you. Maybe I’m not as wise as I thought. Maybe I don’t even know myself all that well. Tamamo brought out that side of me. Anyway, it doesn’t matter. If I do want all the power, it’s because I want what’s best for my children. I’m not gonna feel guilty about that, sorry. It’s time for you to die, Luka. I only brought you here so that I could do it without interference. No one’s coming to help you. I just need one thing from you before I kill you.”
“I’m assuming you mean my power,” I said. “Well, come and take it then.”
I invited her to do this because I had a pretty good idea how she would do it, and what that would mean for her. She would become mortal, and thus vulnerable, as long as she held my power within her. If she didn’t know that, and I had no reason to think that she did, it would be a fatal mistake. I hated killing, but I was prepared to break her neck as soon as she turned mortal. I’d be stuck in subspace, but I had faith in Alice and Tamamo. Even Promestein. They would pull me out of here.
“Oh, I’m going to take it, but not yet,” she said. “I know what it’ll do to me. I can’t take it from you until you’re nearly dead. I don’t even really want it, to be honest. Ilias had more ambition than intelligence, and she was pretty smart, so that’s saying a lot. I just want one thing. I want my daughters freed. I’ll bring you to the brink of death, take your power, and the act of taking your power will kill you. You thought Minagi was bad, wait until you see what the Dark God does to you. I expend your power freeing my daughters, and you know what happens after that.”
She was right. I had no sealing device on me. The spirits were not here with me, apparently unable to stay in subspace. I had no sword. I had my power. That was it. It wouldn’t be enough. Even Eden couldn’t save me here. The only person who could come and go as she pleased in this realm was the Dark God. My only hope was to fight to the end and hope that she’d make a mistake, give me an opportunity that I could use against her. I also desperately tried to think of creative ways to use my power that could snatch victory from the jaws of defeat.
“You ready, kid?” she said. “It’s been one hell of a ride. Time for one last scrap.”
“I’ll find a way to beat you,” I said with determination.
“Maybe,” she said. “I’ve learned not to bet against ya.”
With that, she floated a short distance away and began to blast me. I put up a shield, but concentrated most of my efforts on returning fire.

“He’s in subspace!?” Alice cried in disbelief. “Promestein, get me over there! Find a way!”
Promestein desperately fumbled for a mini transporter. She unscrewed a cap at its bottom and ripped some wires out. Granberia looked at the screen. Luka’s health and magic reserves were starting to fall quickly.
“Hurry up!” Alice cried. “He’s dying!”
“I’m trying!” Promestein yelled back, her voice shaking. “You’re asking me to repurpose a device for sealing to get you into subspace without actually sealing you! That’s not the kind of thing one does in minutes!”
Still, she was trying. She grabbed a soddering tool. Alice, not used to being helpless, had her eyes locked on the screen as well. Promestein put the cap back on, having altered the device in record time. She silently concentrated, casting a new spell on it. Without hesitation she turned the device towards Alice. Alice made no objection. Even if this thing vaporized her on the spot, it was worth the risk. Promestein switched the device on. It sparked, but nothing happened.
“Shit!” Promestein said, and grabbed another one, quickly unscrewing the cap and starting over, urged on by Alice’s increasing desperation. Granberia stared at the screen. Luka’s health had dropped to zero. His magic down to a small sliver.
“Is Luka dead?” Granberia asked, her heart in her throat.
Promestein glanced at the screen. “Not yet,” she answered. “But he’s got no more fight left in him. As long as that device is on, it means he’s still alive.”
Promestein continued to feverishly work. Her hands were shaking. Was it the pressure that was making her so frantic, or did she actually care?

I floated around, battered and nearly drained of power. Alipheese had taken care to not damage me too much. If she blew my dick off or made it impossible for me to feel pleasure, she couldn’t take my power. Her magical attacks had instead focused on destroying my life energy. She approached closely, sensing that I was just about finished.
“Don’t go using that last bit of energy without me,” she said. “I need it.”
I considered expending it all just to deny it to her and buy some time. It would regenerate, probably within an hour, although I wasn’t sure how much she needed. But a different plan had been forming in my mind. I was drifting close to the force line between my world and Alice’s. I had one last gambit, one that I imagined even Alipheese couldn’t guess, given that she disdained traveling among the different worlds.
She was definitely worried that I’d try to expend it, so she embraced me and placed my penis into her as easily as any succubus. She hadn’t been kidding. It was even more intense than Minagi. I thought of mimicking her sexual power with my last bit of energy, but decided that my plan had a better chance of success. Oh, but what that plan would cost me if it worked!
I began to orgasm almost immediately. While I wasn’t mimicking her sexual power, the infusion of my own power into her had a profound effect. She was enraptured. She was also quickly becoming weaker herself, as my power made her mortal. But I had no strength. I would probably be dead before she even finished absorbing my power. I would never get the opportunity to kill her with my bare hands.
We tumbled through the vastness of subspace in our embrace. She no longer had control either, her ability to move herself around subspace apparently lost as my last bit of power began leaking into her. Assuming she knew how to use my power, that wouldn’t be a problem once she was done with me. She wouldn’t have risked temporary mortality if she wasn’t sure she could utilize my power to free her daughters.
The force line between my world and hers grew closer. I knew we would miss it. Grabbing it would be impossible, if grabbing it was indeed even possible. But physically holding onto it hadn’t been my intention. Instead, I imagined that I was Spiderman and shot a tendril of my power at the force line, wrapping around it. I imagined that my aim was perfect. The thought became the deed, as my pretend web made the connection. I held onto Alipheese, who continued to pump me. This wasn’t as easy for her as it had been when Eden had tried this. When Eden tried, I’d been full. Alipheese was trying to squeeze out a nearly dry tank.We were fighting over droplets. If I didn’t have enough, this would be all for nothing.
We began to swing around the force line that my tendril of power had grasped. Alipheese noticed and looked me in the eyes. “What the hell are you up to, kid?” she said. She had stopped moving. I held her as tightly as I could. In critical ecastasy, that meant not tightly at all, but she was now fully mortal. Trapped in corporeal form, at the moment no longer a god, she was weak. And she hadn’t even realized her danger yet, nor begun to struggle.
My heart nearly broke as I fired the last bit of energy I had at the force line. The results were as spectacular as they had been the last time I’d destroyed one of them, more spectacular in fact because of the sheer size of it. The results must have been seen all over Alice’s world. I imagined that it would later be interepreted as the most spectacular signal of victory anyone had ever seen.
The force line between my world and Alipheese’s was severed. I held onto Alipheese and the side of the force line still attached to my own world. It was as if we were holding onto a rubber band or a bungee cord. We were yanked at seemingly light speed towards my world. The world I’d grown to love, the world of my true love and all my wonderful friends, began to recede in the distance.

Granberia barely noticed the pandemonium in the small room in Hiro’s house. Promestein still struggled with the device. Her second attempt had been a failure as well. Alice was hysterical. Granberia could only stare at the screen. Luka’s power had dwindled quickly, going from 90% to 10% within minutes. After his health had gone to zero, his power had dwindled at a far slower pace. A trickle. 9%. 8%. 7%. Then, without warning, the screen went blank. The tracker was off.
Alice and Promestein froze. The room went silent. Alice couldn’t even bring herself to ask. Granberia did. “Is he…?”
Promestein frantically tried to bring the tracker back online. “I…I don’t know,” she said. “We didn’t just lose the tracker. We lost internet. Maybe Hiro’s network is down.”
“Well, get it back!” Alice yelled.
“Hiro!” Promestein yelled. “Get our internet working again! I need to keep working on this device!”
“It’s not my network,” Hiro said. “It’s everywhere. It’s all down.”
“What?! How!?” Promestein asked.
“What does that mean?!” Alice cried, grabbing Hiro and shaking him. He shook his head, He had no idea.
Promestein’s fingers flew over the keyboard, bringing up data, at least the data she could read before the network went down.
“Oh my God,” Promestein breathed. “He took her back to his world.”
Alice nearly collapsed in relief. “I knew he would figure something out! She has no power there! I’m going back to the castle and using the portal! I’ll go bring him back!”
“No,” Promestein said. “You can’t. He severed the link. That’s why we have no internet. Our internet came directly from his world. “
“I.. I don’t understand,” Alice whimpered, her voice cracking. Granberia could see realization dawning on her. Granberia herself had figured it out. Luka had performed one last heroic act for his friends.
“The link between our worlds is severed,” Promestein said. “There’s no way to get there. He and the Dark God…. They can’t get back here. He made sure that she’d never be able to threaten us again.”
Alice could no longer deny the reality. Her love was gone forever. Her children would never know their father. It was so unfair. No Monster Lord had ever had a father involved in the lives of their children. Luka would have been the first. But now…
Granberia reached out to hold Alice as she wailed in Granberia’s arms. The Knight was determined to be strong for her Monster Lord. But later, when she was alone….
There were shouts outside. Erubetie threw the door open. “Monster Lord! Come outside at once! What does it mean?”
Collecting herself as befitting a Monster Lord, Alice moved outdoors. Granberia, Promestein, and Hiro followed. The sky was filled with fireworks from horizon to horizon, the spectacular effects of Luka’s destruction of the force line that had once connected the two worlds.

We materialized about fifteen feet above the street, and landed hard, in an alley, falling through a balcony and next to a garbage dumpster. I took the worst of the fall, cushioning Alipheese’s now quite mortal body from serious damage. Except for the damage from the fall, I was completely restored. She had used only dark magic and critical ecstasy on me, concepts that had no meaning in the laws of my home universe. I had no physical wounds other than from the fall.
I unsteadily rose. She popped up angrily. “What have you done?! Where are we?!”
“This is my world,” I explained, panting. “It’s over, Alipheese. We’re both stuck here. There’s almost no magic here.”
“i… I’m nobody! Look what you did to me!!!”
Despite me taking most of the brunt of the fall, she had cuts and bruises. She stared at the blood on her hands. The cuts weren’t bad at all, just some scrapes, but she was probably not used to this kind of pain, or the sight of her own blood.
“You’re mortal now,” I said. “For the rest of your life, you’ll live like the rest of us. It will be good for you. It’ll change your perspective. And while I’ve heard you’ll live a very long time, even here, someday even you will grow old and die. Make the most of your life until then.”
“I’ll kill you!!” she raged, putting her hands around my neck. I roughly pushed her away. She hit a brick wall and fell to the ground.
“You won’t hurt anyone!” I yelled. “You’re weak now, a puny human! Now you’ll know what it’s like!”
I turned to walk away. She sat on the ground, the former Dark God, looking pathetic, in her dark robes, now stained with grime from the alleyway. In her current state, she would appear to passersby as just another one of this city’s homeless population. Whichever city this was. I had no idea. I had no gold pouch, no money. I’d have to figure out how to get to my apartment. Hopefully I wasn’t in Berlin or something similarly far away from Florida. At least my bank account was huge.
“Wait!” she cried. “Don’t leave me like this! I don’t know this place! You’ve taken everything from me! Help me! You did this to me!”
I turned on her. “You did this to me! You did this to yourself! You have natural gifts. If you’re as wise as the legends say, you’ll make your way here!”
“Please,” she said, now crying. “Please. I’m so scared. You can’t leave me like this. I don’t know how to live like this!”
I was who I was. For a moment, I didn’t think I could in fact leave her there. She needed me. Then my heart went cold. I’d lost everything because she just couldn’t understand. Another god’s arrogance had ripped me from the life I knew. At least this life was familiar to me. I would have to learn to find happiness in that old life again. As a nobody. No friends, no family, no love.
I turned from her and walked away, towards an uncertain future.
- 15
- 16
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Luka's Story 2: Ancestors