Demon Queened - Chapter 92 - Rough Draft

Liz

Walking - or more like sprinting - out of my room for the first time in a couple of decades felt nice. Seeing Luci crumpled on the floor, determination tainted by resignation in her eyes as she looked up at me? Less nice. Surprisingly less nice after everything she’d done to me. But then, I guess I had considered her my bestie, once upon a time.

“Get up,” I said, gesturing for her to stand. 

She didn’t.

“I can make her stand, if you’d like?” Devilla suggested, but I shook my head.

“You should go check on your girlfriends. They’re pretty obviously worried about you. Also your Mom. She’s in the cell next to mine - though maybe don’t blow open her door? You nearly gave me a heartattack…”

“I’ll have to try and find the keys then,” she replied.

“Oh, Luci has them around her neck,” I told her. “Proooobably should have mentioned that before, but I was kinda hoping she’d have backup keys somewhere we could nab them.”

“...Right,” Devilla replied. “Well, I suppose it’s a good thing we ran into her, in the end then, isn’t it?”

“No, it isn’t!” Abigail called, fury in her voice. “Just like it’s not a good thing for you go diving into a pool of… of divine acid or whatever! Do you have any idea how horrific it was to see you disappear into that water?”

“About as horrible as it felt to be dissolved?” Devilla suggested. “I am sorry for worrying you, but it was the only way out of the situation that I could see.”

“What if you’d died?” Abigail demanded.

Lucy, though silent, seemed just as eager to hear the answer from the way she was looking at Devilla.

“I… didn’t really think that far,” Devilla confessed. “It seemed like the only option, so I simply ran for it…”

“Well, next time, maybe consider the people you’re leaving behind. I’m pretty sure we would have been taking a bath right after you if your ploy hadn’t worked…”

“And if I hadn’t tried anything you might have been dunked in first,” she pointed out.

“I’m mostly just glad none of us ended up dissolved,” Lucy said. “Permanently, at least… But I’m also want you to consider your own well being more, Eena! For all our sakes!”

“Oh, you won’t have to worry about that anymore,” I replied. “Devilla’s current body could basically bathe in divine magic if she wanted to! Even I probably couldn’t kill her without expending, like, a lot of resources…”

“How does that work?” Devilla asked with a frown. “Are you saying I somehow came out of this experience stronger?”

“Well… kinda?” I hedged. “Your current body definitely is, but only because it’s made of divine magic. And… actually, I guess we are sorta gonna have to find some way to kill it if we wanna get you back in a holy body, so you can go home…  at least temporarily…”

“Temporarily?” Abigail demanded, eyeing me like a hawk. “What do you temporarily? Is something wrong with her?”

“Not exactly!” I hedged. “It’s just… um… Well. In order for you to be here, and survive slash control a divine body… I sort of um. Had to… plant a seed of divinity in you?”

“And what does that entail?” Devilla asked, now eyeing me as well.

“Well, it means that you’ve officially started the path to godhood! Congratulations! In a hundred years, you’ll be one of us complete! Or faster, maybe, if you use a lot of divine magic…”

“That doesn’t sound bad,” Devilla replied, cautiously. “A little… heavy, and I’m not entirely sure to process it, but it doesn’t sound bad at least.”

“What about the only going home temporarily thing, though?” Lucy asked, concern laced through her tone.

“Well… it’s just…”

“Gods can’t walk amidst mortals,” Luci said, with a bitter laugh. “Enjoy the next hundred years, because after that you’re going to be trapped up here.”

“I-it’s not that bad!” Liz assured me, hurriedly. “You can still watch the people below! And your girlfriends can join you. And we’ll talk a bunch! I’ll even teach you how to make your own world, so you can start feeding yourself and stuff down the line - not that you aren’t welcome to crash with me and your mom for as long as you need, of course! Just… you know, if you want to, for the future?”

“That’s… II think that’s something for future me to figure out,” Devilla replied, sounding dazed. “I’m… not entirely sure what to make of it, to be honest.”

“You can do an avatar, too,” I added. “Though it’s not really the same… sorta like squeezing into a too tight suit that covers your entire body and muffles all the sensations and…. Yeah…”

“Later,” Devilla repeated, a little more firmly this time. “I’ll think about that later. For now, I think I want to… to see my mother.”

“Go for it,” I replied, gesturing towards Luci. A key on a necklace, came up and out of her shirt, lifting off her head and floating over to Devilla. “It’s a skeleton key - should open anything in the house.”

“Appreciated,” Devilla murmured, before turning to her girlfriends. “Girls? Are you coming?”

“Of course!” Lucy replied.

“Like I’d leave you to face it alone,” Abigail all but snorted.

I smiled as they walked out of the throne room Luci had made. Right up until they were out of sight. Then I turned towards Luci.

“They’re good kids, you know? You must have produced a pretty good bloodline if her and Grimmilla are what you have to show for it.”

“That was hardly my intent,” Luci said, her words soaked with bitterness and perhaps a touch of regret. “I simply needed the mixed breeds to keep my work going. Which they did, up until recently.”

“Pretty sure your daughter tried her best to screw you too, from what Doll said,” I replied. “Otherwise you wouldn’t have had to come up with the geas… You always did think people should just listen to what you had to say, like it’s the natural state of things or something. But people are more complex than that. People are-”

“They’re insects!” Luci interrupted. “Livestock, at best, overgrown pests at their worst. And my children are-”

“Angels,” I interrupted, this time. “The children of angels are full angels. I made sure of that. Didn’t want any of you watching your mortal kids dying. And I kinda figured we could always use more hands on deck…”

“They’re tainted by mortality,” Luci replied. “You can see it in their arcane magic. It’s not something a proper angel wields, or needs. It’s-”

“Actually pretty cool, in my opinion,” I interrupted again. “I mean, it’s so flexible! Not that divine magic isn’t? Like, I can just will things into existence, but one stray thought and everything goes crazy. Arcane magic isn’t nearly as powerful, but it also can’t create or destroy dimensions just because you got a little ADHD during your casting, so… you know, I think it’s a pretty cool thing to have, in my book. I’m almost jealous that Devilla can wield it.”

“...You would be,” Luci said, the bitterness drained from her voice. Everything was drained from her voice, in fact. She sounded defeated. “You always did love mortals… I think you’d actually be one if you could…”

“Maybe for a life or two worth of time,” I replied. “Not permanently, though. Probably. Their lifespans are just way too short for everything I wanna do and see! I at least want to live long enough to see them come up with television, you know?”

“No…” Luci replied. “I don’t. I don’t understand your fascination with them. Why you love them so - so much more than me. Why don’t you love me the way you love them?”

“I do love you! Just… not in the way you want me to. You were like, my best friend. And a fuck buddy. Which was probably a mistake, looking back at it, but I figured it was just sex and I didn’t exactly build you guys with a lot inhibitions in that regard, so… yeah…”

I sighed. “I’m sorry, you know?”

“Sorry?” Luci demanded. “Sorry for what? For leading me on? For leaving me alone, for a hundred years, while you went to your precious little coding camp?”

“It would have been a lot less time if you’d slowed things down in heaven and Solla, like you were supposed to,” I pointed out, only to receive a glower. “Right… not the point. But yeah. I’m sorry. I’m sorry for not realizing your feelings. I’m sorry for thinking things were okay with us when they weren’t. And I’m sorry… for failing you.”

“Failing me?” she asked, blankly. “How? Other than all the ways you’ve already mentioned?”

“I failed you from the start,” I replied. “From the moment I created you. All of you. I popped you into existence as fully formed beings, and then just started treating you all as friends when you needed a leader - when you needed a foundation to build your lives upon. Someone you could trust to be there and solve your issues… I failed you. And now… now I have to make up for it.”

“Make up for it?” Luci asked, flabbergasted. “How?”

“By taking responsibility,” I replied. “For you. For the angels. For all of this…”

“So what?” she asked. “You’re going to take my punishment for me?”

“No…” I replied, with a sigh. “But I might give Solla over to Devilla, as soon as I feel safe with it… this place deserves to have someone it can trust to look out for its best interests. I don’t know. We’ll see… All I can say for sure is that I’ll be doing better by her - and the Demon Queens you had trapped - then I did for you and the others. That I’ll try my best, same as I always have, but with a lot more understanding of what went wrong…”

“And why are you telling me this?” Luci demanded. “To rub it in my face that Devilla will have all the opportunities I never did? That you care more about the filth that sprung from my loins than me?”

“...I don’t know,” I replied, honestly. “I really don’t. I just… thought you deserved to know, I guess. Before the end.”

“...The end?”

“The end,” I repeated, closing my eyes. “I’m sorry, Luci. The other angels… I’ll have to decide on a case by case basis. Maybe some of them can be redeemed, still. Maybe. Otherwise… Well, I might have to wipe them clean.”

“You mean killing them,” Luci accused. “Wiping their minds and erasing who they are.”

“...Yeah,” I agreed, the words heavy on my tongue. “I do.”

“And what about me?” Luci asked. She tried to speak with confidence and bravado, but I could hear the undercurrent of fear in her voice. “The ringleader?” 

“I’m sorry, Luci,” I repeated.

There was no response.

There was no longer anyone to respond, as the glow around my hands faded. Not even a soul left to look upon. 

I opened my eyes to an empty room, and - alone, at last, without any of the people Luci had hurt around to witness it - I allowed myself to grieve.

I allowed myself to cry. Not for the woman who I’d killed,  but for the friend I had lost - or perhaps never truly had. 

I don’t know how long I sat there. How long I cried, alone in that room. Only that it ended eventually.

I stood up.

I walked over to the throne, pressing a button upon its armrest to lift a screen and produce a holographic keyboard. Keying in my credentials, it was easy enough to log in and find the right program.

The one for world-wide announcements.

Then, with a forced smile on my lips, and cheer I didn’t really feel in my voice, I began to speak.

~~~

Author's Notes

Another chapter written in about an hour... Hope you enjoyed? It was originally going to be a bit longer, with Devilla talking to her mother in the same chapter, but... I don't know. This just felt like the right ending point. (If anything, I worry I dragged it on too long? But I really wanted to get to at least 2,000 words. And also the announcement. Which definitely won't lead to any problems whatsoever down the road, because - as we all know - Liz is a perfectly capable and responsible young goddess who can totally make an impromptu speech to the world without issues.

Yuuuup....)