Chapter 15

As they all looked at her in shock, that she had found them so easily, they didn't know what to say to her. They assumed it was Teresa from the night before but her appearance was radically different than before

Instead of her strawberry blonde hair that was in a ponytail hanging just past her shoulders she now had long brown hair that was freely hanging midway down her back. Instead of the striking blue eyes, they were a rich deep brown. Instead of the athletic build with very large breasts, she had above average breasts on a softly lush figure.

But they were all struck by how young she looked. She didn't look to be a day over twenty or twenty one seasons at best.

While she was still extremely attractive she physically didn't look remotely like she did before.

But the evil smile she had when she attacked Nathan was still there. That wasn't something that any of them would ever be able to forget.

"So we can do it the easy way, which I'll make sure that you enjoy everything we do right up until the end. Or we can do it the hard way which still involves you enjoying yourself at some point, but I will have to kill everyone here first. Which is it?" asked the woman

"You won't hurt my husband, I won't let you do it," said Ariel softly with a dangerous edge.

"From what I've seen earlier I'm sure you won't. But I had to ask myself a question. While you might be willing and able to kill me easily enough, are you just as willing to kill completely innocent strangers as easily? I'm willing to bet you won't," said the woman mockingly.

The shocked look Ariel gave her caused her to laugh. It was a rich sound that didn't match the evil look she was giving.

"See I thought not. Just so you know these men behind me aren't here willingly. I have them in thrall. Well I did need to borrow just a bit of their essence over the last few days to ensure it, but they are here to help me none the less," said the woman smiling still.

"Just who are you and why do you want me so badly?" asked Nathan as he took all this in.

"My name doesn't matter. I mean, it's not like it will matter to you soon anyway even if I did tell you. As to why, you are a very powerful mage. And I so do like the feel of mages when I can get them.

"There aren't many, if any at all, still left around here so I try hard for them when I can. Something tells me you have a lot of secrets for me to explore. And your power is something I've never felt before," said the woman licking her lips.

"See, I know that you still need me to be willing to be with you because you can't forcibly take anything from me that I won't freely give up, and you have to know by now that will never happen. Even if you took my wife's form and tried I would still know it wasn't her. So you can't even get it that way," said Nathan confidently.

"No, no you are thinking too literally. What would happen if I, oh I don't know, had you beaten almost to the point of unconsciousness and then took your wife's form? Still think you could resist me willingly in that state?" asked the woman seductively.

The look on Nathan's face went grim.

She had thought of everything. She was going to use the men to keep all of them engaged as she attacked him. But he was betting she wouldn't use anything too vicious, loud, or even obvious, to risk drawing attention to herself as she fought with them. Even the men made no noise as they stood there with blank looks on their faces.

As the men started forward Nathan freed his staff and quickly assembled it.

The men suddenly attacked them and Terrance was the first causality.

One of the men, almost as an after thought, threw a back hand at Terrance and he couldn't get his hands up in time in his weakened state.

Terrance flew backwards and hit the wall with his shoulders and back and was out cold before he slid to the floor.

Rory was next.

He was very proficient with his swords, but knowing that the men were being used against their will and were being controlled by the woman, he tried to fight with them just using hand to hand moves, but he was soon grabbed by two of them and repeatedly punched by another until he lost consciousness.

Then he too slid to the floor.

That soon only left Nathan and Ariel.

Ariel was doing a good job between throwing around the ten or eleven she had on her and kicking them far enough away to get some breathing room. So far she didn't feel she had to take them seriously yet.

Nathan was trying to trip, push away, and knock the men who were left fighting him out with his staff. But each time he hit one of them behind the head or in the solar plexus they kept getting back up and attacking over and over again.

It was soon apparent that they acted as if they didn't feel any pain. And they still had the same blank look as they continued to come after them. With no pain to slow them down their strength seemed almost superhuman.

Nathan was starting to get gnawing fear that he would have to kill them to stop them.

The woman laughed as she slowly moved around the large stable and watched the pair struggle with her puppets as they fought.

For her it was an easy thing to do to block out pain from them so they could fight on. It was often one of the means she used to keep men from realizing the pain when the transfer first started. She could make it feel as if it was intense pleasure.

As Nathan fought with the men he was happy to be using such a non lethal means. For the first time this trip he was suddenly glad Ariel insisted on him carrying the staff. The staff gave him enough reach to fight 2 and 3 men that would normally have to be taken one at a time in hand to hand.

And hand to hand would have worked equally as well, but eventually he would get tired of throwing them or trying to dislocate something.

Since Terrance and Rory had already been knocked out Ariel was still fighting hand to hand with the men, and she still wasn't struggling with them yet. So far she felt that she was having it pretty easy.

But she noticed that they couldn't fight well, and her strength and stamina was far greater than theirs, so it wasn't all that hard. She was sure that the woman must not have known anything about fighting and she was just throwing the men at them, and they were easily fending them off.

As Nathan continued to fight, the three men he was fighting suddenly turned and headed straight for Ariel, and as he went to pursue them it felt as if the sun was trying to set behind his eyes. He closed his eyes and dropped to one knee in unbelievable pain.

Try as he might the pain was just too intense for him to open his eyes right then. It was so painful it was making him lightheaded and extremely nauseous. He found himself gasping as he tried not to scream out from it.

As he struggled and slowly opened his eyes, he looked her direction he could see her smiling as she held out her hand. He realized that the pain was from her doing a psionic attack to slow him down.

But try as he might he couldn't stop it. He did realize that it would have been far more painful, if not knocked him out right from the start, if he hadn't automatically fought it as hard as he had.

As he fought the pain he realized that all those men were still attacking Ariel as the woman attacked him and he couldn't do a thing about.

But Ariel was still easily holding her own. She still had not found any of it taxing when the rest joined the ones attacking her as she threw one man into another, flipped some, tripped others, or knocked them backwards.

They were still over classed by her, but they kept coming after her time after time, and it was only a matter of time before they wore her down at this rate.

It wasn't that she couldn't defeat them normally, but the fact was that the twenty five of them wouldn't stay down no matter what she did to them.

Even the ones with loosely hanging arms from breaks or dislocations got back up like nothing was wrong to try again, throwing the limb in questions at her as if it still worked normally.

And she was growing concerned that she might actually have to kill them all to save Nathan. She didn't want to, but she would trade Nathan's life for theirs in a heartbeat.

But as Nathan continued to struggle with the woman the only thoughts that were able to race though his mind were "How is she doing this? My mental defenses are very strong. I've never read or heard of any Succubi who can do magic attacks like this!"

"You're ... using the stolen ... life essences ... to augment your power ... aren't you?" gasped Nathan in continued pain and he realized how she was able to over power him.

And as he continued to struggle against her he couldn't stop himself before he threw up all over the ground in front of himself. He just couldn't keep taking the sustained attack by her. If they didn't stop her soon he would pass out from the pain.

"Why yes I am. You are pretty smart aren't you? Once I add your power to my own I'll have all that power and knowledge you have as well. You have a power unlike any I've ever sensed before and for some reason it is drawing me to you in a way I find that I can't resist," said the woman smiling big.

If she wasn't trying to kill him that smile would have been pretty warm from her.

Making up his mind Nathan took aim and fired off a lighting spell hoping to force her to stop her attack against him to combat it, but she harmlessly cancelled it.

He then decided to chance a fireball, that if it got away from them would set fire to the barn, but she did the same to it as well.

Nathan was trying to figure out a way to fight her, but he wasn't doing well. And all the pain in his mind was keeping his normal thought process from working. It was hard to think of anything else but the intense pain. Unexpectedly he threw up again.

He realized that the woman must be trying to disable Ariel before she had the men work him over because he still wouldn't pass out, so the woman was doing all she could to keep him from being able to do much else to help Ariel.

But the men were still finding it hard to disable Ariel, but Nathan knew it was only a matter of time before she eventually would tire out. That is if she didn't fly into a rage first. And if she tired they would disable her and then him so the woman could eventually kill him.

If she flew into a rage though she would kill them all and then she would have to live with the intense remorse over killing men who were fighting with her against their will.

The only trump card he had left was an explosive release of his power, but that would also kill Terrance and Rory for sure. Ariel could only survive it if she was pissed off, but most certainly she wouldn't survive it if she wasn't.

And the explosion it would leave him passed out for days, with no way to know for sure if it worked against her.

If it didn't, then he didn't have any other way to keep her from making him willing to have sex with her while he was defenseless either, that is if she had some way to survive it. And she just might since she wasn't acting like any other Succubus he had ever heard of before.

Not to mention it would also destroy a good chunk of the city in the process.

But as he tried to work it out while he was in pain there just wasn't any way he could see his way out of this without the death of a lot of people just to save his own life.

He thought about trying to make a run for it, but even then he couldn't and leave Ariel, Terrance, and Rory to face her if he tried. She would just kill them all for spite and then chase him down.

As it stood the only one she was here for was him. If he couldn't think of a way to save everyone then he would sacrifice himself to save them.

But what would she do with his power and magical abilities? What was her plan then for it? Did she want to rule the world? Eventually she would be able to at this rate.

Nathan was struggling still on one knee trying to find a way for everyone to survive this encounter the door behind him softly swung open and Elliot looked inside.

He could hear something as he approached the stable to look for Ken, but he wasn't sure what it was. He hoped that it might be Ken back from wherever he was. And if it was he would give him an earful for making Carol worry like he did. She deserved better than that.