Chapter 25

Note: Thanks to Alex for beta reading this!

Leo’s words echoed through my mind. Almost there...

The door to the throne room burst open and the thing represented by the red dot entered. Flying above the others, Lana had her first glimpse of him.

It was a man with black hair and a grizzled face. Black blood dripped from a cut across his forehead and ran down his right cheek. He had a burned scar across the left side of his face, the skin puckered and raw.

And that wasn’t the only thing wrong with his skin. It was gray. Like ash. Almost as if shadows had poisoned him. He wore black armor, heavy plate that clad him from neck to foot. Gouges, scrapes, and rents marred it. It had weathered the damage of an army of monster girls. In his hand, he held an inky sword that bled darkness, but it wasn’t a straight sword. It was malformed. Bent in strange ways.

Mrs. Baldwin’s roots surged in at him as Lana gathered her lightning and unleashed it. The arcs of white-blue plasma fired from her wings and shot down at the man. A void ripped open before him. A tear in reality that led to pure darkness. It swallowed her blast of electricity.

“What?” Lana gasped.

A heartbeat later, the lightning fired back out of the void at Crystal. The ice sprite dove to the side, the electricity blast arcing through the mist she left behind. She rolled and threw her ice daggers. They hissed through the air.

Only for the void to swallow them.

Baaghi charged in, the rakshasa’s striped body almost a blur. A feline roar exploded from her lips. The shadowy man slashed his deformed blade. An arc of shadow hissed out at Baaghi. She leaped over it with the nimble grace of a catgirl. She landed while the dark blade slashed through Leo’s throne, cutting it in half.

Lana’s wings crackled with lightning. They had to stop him. Leo believed in her. She would not let down her number one fan.

Crystal threw another ice dagger at the shadowy figure as lightning crackled down. The void swallowed the electricity attack and spat it out at Mrs. Baldwin. Crystal’s mother gasped and barely dodged it, her roots, creeping at the intruder, snapping from the motion. The broken ends vanished.

“Damn it!” Crystal hissed and formed an ice dagger in her hand.

All her fury transformed into an icy blizzard in her. She rushed at the enemy just as Baaghi bounced. The rakshasa hurtled in at the shadowy knight. His blade flicked out before him and cut Baaghi in half.

She barely screamed out her pain before she vanished into motes that sprayed over the enemy.

Crystal reached the enemy, hissing her fury. Mist spilled off of her body as she stabbed her dagger at his neck. He moved in a blur, leaving behind a streak of darkness. Then something hot slammed through Crystal’s guts.

She looked down to see his sword had buried into her frozen guts. The ice sprite gasped in pain and then she vanished into a burst of motes. Her soul flowed to the darkness of the Void Crystal to slumber in the arms of Souleen.

Will I ever wake up? floated through Crystal’s mind before she fell into her dreams.

“NOOOOO!” screamed Mrs. Baldwin. “That’s my daughter!”

Fury shot through the dryad at the death of her eldest daughter. She rose from her tumble and sent her roots growing fast across the floor. More lightning shot down while Terra rushed in to hit him with her hammer fist. Already, their defense had been cut nearly in half. She had to stop this.

Her roots seized the shadowy knight’s armored feet. As he drew back to slash at Terra, Mrs. Baldwin yanked hard on her tendrils with all her rage. The loving satyrs and motherly werebears had died. All the other monster girls had perished. Now her daughter!

The man crashed to the ground in a clatter of metal.

He snapped his gaze to her and then slashed his weapon. She grew her vines up his body as death hurtled at her. She snapped her roots and turned to dodge, but it was too late. She wasn’t a warrior. Didn’t have the reaction speed.

Lana swooped down and snagged her.

The shadow cut beneath Mrs. Baldwin and hit the wall. Lana’s wings crackled as she carried them up into the vaulted ceiling of the throne room. The man snarled and shadows chased them. Blades of darkness flashed up at them. Lana banked and turned and swooped to avoid them.

“Drop me!” Mrs. Baldwin shouted. “You can’t dodge these forever carrying me.”

“He’ll kill you!” Lana shouted.

“I know!” The dryad squirmed hard, breaking out of Lana’s grasp. She fell twenty feet and landed in a crouch, breasts bouncing.

She turned to see Terra slamming her hammer fist into a raised arm, doing nothing to the armor. The knight slashed his blade at Mrs. Baldwin, his eyes intent on her. She dodged it to the right, rolling and darting into a spring.

Lightning arc down only to be swallowed by that rip in space. Mrs. Baldwin changed direction, knowing where the lightning blast would fire. It shot at her, but she was already moving to get clear. She ran two steps only to realize her mistake.

He had anticipated her dodge and slashed his sword to strike her where she had turned. The shadow cut her body in half. She hardly felt the pain. Something cold washed through her body and then she felt herself falling to the ground. She hit and then...

Fell into the dream.

I jumped into the water of the flooded bridge room and swam to it. The bridge lay just above the water level with a spot to climb up in the middle. Behind me, monster girls jumped into the water. Garnet, Isatu, and Mrs. Lucina soared overhead and landed on the bridge. Garnet fell to her knees, thrusting out her hand to me.

I swam with power, Strength of the Mountain giving me the prowess to swim in the heavy plate. I reached the bridge and climbed up, Garnet helping me. Isatu watched on with worry on her face while Mrs. Lucina stared at the concealed door that had been burst open. A corridor lay beyond, pit traps triggered, arrows lying broken on the ground.

My mother died.