Devotion

Devotion

"Wha!" Coral grasps her head in pain as screams echo in her skull. Is this what Lilith heard? The constant Wailing of Madlings. Why her? Why Now? She didn't have time for this. Coral had already sent Aurora into the tunnels in a last-ditch effort to save the children. Coral breached the main hall of the Castle when another cry of the damned rang through her head. How did Lilith think through all the noise? Then as fast as the wailing had begun, peace, tranquil peace.

"Madlings, our Queen of Atlantis faces her greatest challenge," Coral spoke in a trance-like state, her voice not her own but the tranquil melody of Coral's mentor Lilith. "Vesper has set Atlantis on fire in his demented lust for power. Coral's father was a lost soul willing to allow the Or-Ne-Dra free reign over his Kingdom. The daughter sought to bring peace to her people."

Coral couldn't move, no matter how hard she tried. As she struggled against the voice drilling into her skull, it consumed her more. Her every instinct told her to fight and scream against the torrent of regrets and pains. Yet no matter how loud she cried for help, her body made no sound.

"This Queen that refuses to learn anything from my lessons. A gremlin child who still fights against things she can't control." Coral was still in her trance. Some force was driving her body. Something was pulling her strings. Did her mentor fight this feeling every day? If Coral just closed her eyes and gave in, what then?

"Madlings, this one has not earned the gifts required to survive this night." The trance continued. Was this Lilith's voice? As Coral struggled against the Wail of Madlings, she couldn't tell. "Fortunate for her," Coral couldn't stand the pain any longer as she closed her eyes, collapsing upon the stairwell she had run down so many times before to greet her mentor. "This Madling Queen had other gifts. The elixir to her aliments isn't one borne of power. It is earned by Coral's greatest strength, the love for her people." Coral was so tired. She could feel something draining her away. She just needed to sleep, deep, tranquil sleep. Coral felt as if she could sleep forever. "Madlings, spoilers for the climax of our Madling Queens story lie ahead. Let's see how much our gremlin student learned."

"My Queen!" A voice familiar to Coral was calling to her through the screams. "Wake up, my lady." The calm voice of a woman that had been with Coral most of her life. "Up we go, my lady!" Was she being carried? She was unbelievably tired.

"This need not end in bloodshed, child." Another voice that has followed Coral since her youth. Douche lord Supreme himself.

"Then I request you allow passage, m'lord." The voice of her savior once again rang in her head. Why couldn't she move?

"You are free to leave, child. The heretic stays," Douche lord Supreme staying true to his desire to kill her.

"I shall not abandon my Queen m'lord. I have been tasked with her safety." Her champion spoke with devoted unwavering fidelity. This always made Helen so boring a plaything. "The Goddess has instructed she must survive this night," Helen said, lowering Coral to the ground. Goddess? That couldn't be right. Lilith had been gone for years. She had returned home. This display of dominance hurting her people wouldn't happen if Lilith were in Atlantis.

"Child, that woman is no Goddess. She is a flawed child. She is so full of pride and knowledge and still knows nothing." Douche lord Supreme Vesper vomited from his mouth hole. Coral was beginning to be less groggy. She could remember the names of the voices now. "So blind to her destiny! I will bleed the woman dry and burn the Sacred Glade to the ground." Vesper spat with such righteous indignation Coral could feel the backup in his loins.

"I do not serve the Blood Dragon, m'lord," Helen said. Excuse me? Helen pledged loyalty to Coral. Coral sought to service Lilith. Therefore by proxy, Helen did serve the Blood Dragon. Also, who were these two nuts of the Or-Ne-Dra to ignore her? Coral couldn't move, but the wailing had subsided. She was free to think clearly.

"It matters not who you serve, child. You, Aurora, that lecherous Queen you protect. Each of you is an extraordinary failure of mine." Vesper spat on the floor. "All you needed to do was swear loyalty to the Or-Ne-Dra. To the Dragon God Ultima." Vesper stated. Coral was Queen. He should swear allegiance to her. Not some fairy tale Dragon God.

"I have served faithfully every day, m'lord. You still cannot have my Queen." Helen spoke with such determination it finally knocked Coral out of her stupor.

"Do I not get a say in how I die?" Coral said as she blinked her eyes back into focus. She had been carried. She was now aware of the cool breeze upon her flesh. The screams of Madlings were being replaced with the crackling of a fire. After Coral sent Aurora into the escape tunnels, Coral sealed off every entrance to the inner chamber. Coral had ensured whatever happened tonight. It won't be the end of her people.

Coral was in the garden outside the Castle. Helen had laid her gently on a bench. If only she had taken Aurora's advice and chosen a proper outfit for her climatic battle for her Nation. Instead, Coral put on the white robe of a devoted Or-Ne-Dra nerd. Tore the side hem to her hips before tearing her neckline down to reveal as much cleavage as possible without just popping a free breast. Her plan was simple to make Vesper so uncomfortable and horny that he just turned around and let her keep her crown. A joke Coral was now regretting.

"Thousands will die tonight, and for what?" Vesper gazed at Coral. She was able to lift her body to a seating position but was slumped over. Maybe full nude was the better play. If she was this cold, she might as well have gone full nosebleed. "This woman who can't even stand as her nation burns," Vesper stated, "A wench whose lovers outnumber the years she has lived?" Vesper spat. What was it about these Or-Ne-Dra nerds? Can't a woman enjoy sensual pleasures and be left alone?

"I have watched this sprouting grow into a mighty Queen. A lustful sin-filled creature (Wha! Harsh!). This Madling Queen has enjoyed every pleasure this Nation could offer." Helen said. Was this helping her case? "She genuinely loves the people of this Nation. She wants them to be free, to be happy. You know you disagree with my path, m'lord. So," Helen hesitated as she unsnapped a two-handed broadsword from her back. "I ask one last time, allow us to pass," Helen said calmly, gripping the hilt of her sword firmly.

Coral took in a deep breath. Here she was, a Dragon surrounded by her natural element. Yet, since the voices rang out, she felt as if she was drugged and far away. She was struggling to keep her eyes open, let alone move. How did Lilith fight this constantly? Coral head jolted to attention as a cold laugh broke her thought bubble.

"Child, I have always appreciated your devotion to our cause." Vesper began as a chill spread through Coral. "Should I choose to refuse your offer," Vesper's words Coral could swear she had heard this before. "What then, Child of Ultima?"

"If I must die today," Helen hesitated. Coral took in a deep breath as the fog around her instantly lifted. "It was Gaia's will." Helen finished in a voice similar to her teachers.

"Heathenish child!" Vesper's eyes twitched as he exploded in anger. He pulled his own Or-Ne-Dra broadsword from his back in a single motion slashing it down toward Helen.

Helen gripped the hilt of her silver and blue blade with such force her hands began to bleed. The squire fledgling would never outgrow her penance. Helen swore that if blood needed to be spilled in the name of her faith, hers would flow first. Unblinking, Helen lifts her sword to block the strike using her right hand to brace the blunt back side of the blade. Helen pivots her body, gripping her broadsword with both hands. Using momentum to swing her sword in an uprising arch.

Vesper only had time to react because Helen's sword had cut through the ice at their feet. The moment of resistance was enough for Vesper to back step the attempt at cleaving him in two. Why couldn't she have just ended it there? Douche lord Supreme was slain by his greatest knight (Coral's biased opinion).

Helen had not wavered from her spot planted in front of Coral. Gripping her sword, Helen again bleeds, awaiting Vespers' next strike. Vesper had trained Helen too well in her 30 years of service to the Or-Ne-Dra. In that time, she had seen much death serving as a front-line knight in the Vermilion Wasteland. A pointless war Coral sought to end. The very first time Helen drew her sword in service of the Or-Ne-Dra, her life was spared by the kindness of another. Yet, that day and many after, Coral had watched Helen blindly cling to her faith. Adhering to a lie, Coral didn't understand.

An exploitable zealotry Vesper had beaten into Helen since childhood. Vesper didn't need to face Helen in a display of swordsmanship. Coral and Helen both knew that wasn't why Vesper was feared. Turning his blade towards the ground, he strikes the ice with the tip of his sword. Geysers of crystal blue water erupted from the ice floor in nearly every corner of the inner chamber. Douche lord Supreme claimed the title of Dragon before Coral formed her first snowflake. That was to say. They were fucked.

Once the geysers collided with the ice dome sky box above them, the multiple streams swirled together, forming a whirlpool that capped the sky box above them. Coral had been playing dead for a while. Her eyes shook as she watched the radiant beam of moonlight that had bathed the Castle her entire life, and from what she knew, many lives before hers vanished. Miraculously for some reason, Coral didn't understand. The Dragon prism above the Castle still radiated silver light throughout the chamber.

"Your Goddess is powerless here." Vesper spits in a guttural growl. Coral had never heard such a thing from Vesper. With the sky box filled with swirling water, the geysers curl around themselves, tearing a path through anything in their wake. Helen stood before Coral, gripping her sword like a statue, her gaze never breaking from Vesper.

Coral bounces to her feet, still on the bench, bending her knees, so she is crouching. Lifting both to be level with her neck, she thrusts them up palms to the sky. Coral forms a dome around her and Helen, extending the ice floor under them. As the waves of water clash at its side, Coral thrusts her arms forward. Ice walls extend ahead, narrow enough to wrap around Vesper and seal him with them.

"My Queen?" Helen asked in a calm voice, eyes steadfast on her target.

"You utter fool, can it be more obvious." Coral gasped. Was Helen going to stand there as the tide swept them away? Coral couldn't believe Helen had a fantastic body and a rotted brain. "Yes, Go! Goddess, pretty sure I'm fine," Coral stated in the routine comeback of "Wha!"

"I understand, Madlings." Helen stated in a trance tone Coral had only heard spoken from one person in her life. "Forgive me, my Queen," Helen said once more tranquil. Coral's eyes grew wide. Helen's eyes simultaneously narrowed.

"Wha!" Coral whispered, jumping from the bench to catch Helen's crumbling body. The moment those unwavering eyes of Helen closed, Coral was alone. Water was beginning to puncture her ice like needles. Coral once again had a resounding inner monologue of "Fuck!" Just like when the assassin woke her earlier in her evening.

Coral had little time to respond. Swinging her hand backward. Four little imps made of ice appeared from the floor. Each little gremlin, as her teacher liked to call her, grabbed a limb of the unconscious knight. Raising her hand to close the tunnel between her and Vesper. The imps drag Helen down a tunnel Coral was pushing forward against the violent sea, wishing to engulf her. Luck for Helen. She hadn't carried Coral far from the Castle entrance. Once her minions had dragged Helen through the wide double doors, Coral encased the doors with a thick sheet of ice.

A crack echoed through Coral's little ice dome. Coral built this thinking she was trapping Vesper in with her and Helen. Two nasty bitches standing up against an oppressive evil. That evil had just cut through her ice wall like it was butter. She mustered every ounce of will she had to hold the final barrier. That, too, was sliced like a mere inconvenience as her entire dome shattered. A torrent of freezing water crashes into Coral, washing her away in the current.

The force of the waves had complete control of her motions. The pressure was squeezing Coral so tight she felt like she would burst. Clenching her eyes while biting her inner lip Coral musters everything to close her left palm. She could will a tiny bit of the raging fluid to her control. Gripping it fiercely, the small shard extended to the ground under her. Coral didn't open her eyes till she broke the raging waterline.

Coral gasped for air as she froze a sheet of ice large enough to sustain her fall. Coral rolled from her back, gazing out at her home. The inner chamber was already flooded well above the Gardens. The water, thankfully, hadn't engulfed the entire Castle. The three towers were somehow still above the waterline. So was the prism illuminating the chamber. The rest of the Castle was well underwater. Coral wasn't sure where Helen was, but she had to stem the tide somehow. Thrusting her hands into the raging waves jostling her about, beads of sweat form on Coral's brow. Biting her lip so hard that it bleeds. Coral manages to pulse out a magic wave, freezing the thrashing sea.

Gasping for breath, Coral looks out across the sheet of ice. It was as if the inner chamber had been cut in half. Maybe 20 feet of each tower was visible. Coral felt she could grab the rotating prism from her vantage point on the ice. That rock had circled without wavering for hundreds of years. She couldn't help but be awed by its splendor whenever she entered the inner chamber.

Coral wasn't allowed long to daydream as a tiny pool of water began to expand across the surface of the ice feet away from her. Rising from its depths was the fucking bane of her entire existence. Douche lord Supreme was unscathed and trotted towards her. Coral threw her arm up in front of her, desperately attempting to form a shield of ice. Coral's heart jumped to her throat as the shield of ice dissolved into droplets before her eyes.

"Wretched, sinful child," Vesper growled, backhanding Coral across her left cheek. "Madlings, this lecherous whore believes her willpower more potent than a god." Vesper's voice was a hissing growl. "She put her hopes in you!" Vesper spat, kicking Coral so hard in the stomach she slides across the ice further from the Castle.

"Bitch slapping me wasn't enough?" Coughed Coral. "You had to break my ribs, too?" Coral asked, wincing as she sat up as best she could. Coral gasped for breath as she gazed at the looming shadow that followed her life. "Spit in my mouth Daddy!." Coral laughed through blood-stained teeth as she held out her tongue, panting. Another gauntlet-covered hand smashed her across the jaw. As Coral's head collided against the ice floor, she could swear little birds were dancing on the ice.

"You disgust me," Vesper said, kneeling before a whimpering Coral. Coral was fighting to be strong, but she was a magic user at the end of the day. Her body was not toned steel. She wasn't a knight.

Instinctively, Coral tried to curl ice around her body from the floor to protect herself. It dissolved, soaking her white acolyte robe again in freezing water. Their magic borrowed from the same elemental source of power. Using magic meant dominating the will of a source of energy. To Coral's dismay, Vesper was a Dragon of Water long before he was Douche lord Supreme. Sadly, Vesper's will had always been stronger than her own.

Coral's entire life, her mentor, had prepared her for this day. A day when her people would finally be free to choose their paths. They no longer would be sacrificed leagues from their home and their families. All in the blind pursuit of the resurrection of a myth. Lilith tried tirelessly to prepare her for this moment. Ultimately, Coral was the same powerless girl Lilith found ages ago.

"You defile a robe to illicit a lustful desire. I have buried your Kingdom, and you still spout lewd jokes." Vesper growled again in a guttural tone. "Madlings, this festering meat sack of sin thinks her devotion matches mine!" Vesper spat in a primal trance. "Ultima shall feast on your pathetic people!"

With a defiant spark of anger, Coral ripped a dagger of ice from the floor and thrust it forward. Vesper gripped Coral's wrist so firmly she couldn't help but drop the blade. Bells rang in Coral's head as Vesper once more backhanded her to the ground. The pain was meaningless. Coral wasn't sobbing because her body struggled to rise from the floor. She wept for the pirate who rode the waves between Atlantis and the Obsidian Wail. Coral cried for the magicians in the foundry who were always willing to teach her. The acolytes who toiled in service of a dead god. The prostitutes that serviced the hypocritical acolytes. Coral wept for all of Atlantis.

Vesper could call Coral whatever nasty thing he wanted. Coral didn't care. To Aurora, she was a vulgar vapid royal brat. To Lilith, she was a clueless gremlin that refused to learn. To Vesper, she was a lustful beast unworthy of her crown. Coral looked up at the crystal prism as the ringing in her head continued. The light in Coral's eyes faded as Vesper mounted her. More flickering light as two giant hands grasped her throat. More ringing of bells as blood vessels burst in her eye.

"All most there." Coral gasped for every syllable as Vesper's hatred focused on choking the life from her. What will her people remember Coral as? What was she to Helen?

"Ultima's bell tolls. You die here, child of Gaia." Vesper seethed as he leaned in to press more weight on Coral's throat. Coral's eye bulge as she tries to focus on the prism of light. She wanted it to be the last thing she ever saw. She had one shot at making this work. When Vesper was close enough to Coral to feel his breath, Coral jolted her head as much as she could off the ice ground and licked Vesper. She liked his face with the ferocity of a puppy that hadn't seen its master in weeks. Revolted, Vesper released Coral's throat.

"That's it?" Coral laughed. She couldn't move. Vesper had straddled her waist in his attempt to choke her. "I've fucked pirate hookers that choked me better." Coral spat blood into Vesper's face as she wiggles her hips under him. " Need me to teach you?" Coral purred through blood-stained teeth. As Vesper's mighty backhand momentarily motioned to silence Coral, a silver blur shot like a bullet from the ice. Vesper rolled off Coral just as Helen's sword shot passed his skull.

"Good try" Vesper still reached his feet before Coral could even roll onto her front. Coral had Vesper's full attention as she gasped for breath. As the ringing grew louder.

"Didn't.. aim.. for you." A new cracking sound echoed through the chamber. As another crack bellowed, the silver light of the room began to flicker. Coral could barely breathe as she turned her head to look past Vesper falling onto her ass, huffing, defeated. "Your right, Vesper. I don't deserve to be Queen. I would rather live with my people than rule them." Coral raised her head with enough time to catch Vesper dashing towards the Castle. Towards the cracking sound in the air. Coral lifted her hand with the last of her strength, grabbing both Vesper's legs in ice. "She's my toy, this one I won't share!" Coral said, swaying from consciousness.

Coral's eyes began to close as Vesper quickly dissolved her ice binds. As Coral's body began to fall, she saw Helen lift the sword Coral had shot her from the ice. Helen cleaved the head from the dragon prism with one slash of her sword and one final crack.

The reaction was instantaneous. A powerful explosion shot directly up into the sky. The torrent of magical energy evaporated Vesper's seal of the sky. The entire chamber grew misty as the cyclone of silver fire tore through the sky box. As the magical power of the prism faded, it seemed to merge at the source of the explosion. Then fade entirely. The darkness was absolute for what felt like an eternity to Coral. Coral felt revitalized with an odd power as a singular beam of light trickled down from the sky.

Coral scurried across the ice towards the solitary source of silver light. Arriving at the base of the western tower, her tower, Coral could finally make out two figures. Closest to her was Vesper, who had claimed his sword and was slowly backing towards Coral. It was odd, but Coral believed he wasn't even aware of her. Vesper's attention was hyper-focused on the figure bathed in the moonlight. Coral could see her protector's face clear as day, or who she believed was Helen.

Whatever stood in the center of the beam of light had the same face as Helen, the same unwavering stance of Helen, but everything else was different. Helen's raven hair was now silver like Coral's, yet seemed to shimmer in the moonlight as if it were on fire. What Coral couldn't stop looking away from were Helen's eyes. Once green eyes were now a solid ghostly silver. Misty silver vapor was emanating from her tear ducts.

Vesper backed away from Helen, matching her actions forward with one back. With each step she took, the light seemed to follow Helen. As Vesper came close enough to see better, Coral would swear his sword was shaking. Was that scenario even remotely possible? Was Vesper scared?

"Will you not embrace me? Will you not embrace your kin?" Helen raised her arms like a mother waiting to embrace a child. Coral had heard this voice before, and it wasn't Helens.

"You are no kin of mine!" Vesper spat on the floor before him in his deep trance state.

"Pity. Here I was only looking to thank you, dearest kin." Helen stopped walking, lowering her arms as a sinister smile foreign to its face spread.

"Thank me," Growled Vesper, "By returning to your cave and fucking off!" Coral was beginning to feel like a very insignificant fly on the wall. All she could think was, "Wha?"

"Oh, too late for that now," Helen exclaimed. "The Mother already sleeps in the Glade," Again, Helen laughed in a way that felt wrong to Coral. This wasn't her protector. "Even now, the seed sails to my domain." Coral felt uneasy listening to Helen laugh in a voice that wasn't hers.

"We have the heart!" Vesper stated.

"One scared girl," Helen waves her hand, dismissing the claim. "You lost that gambit when you tossed the friend in the ocean."

"Claimed her too!" Vesper again spat at Helen's feet, interrupting her. "I shall tear the seed for your hand. I will drag the Mother from your cave. Your Mountains will crumble as I feast on every soul you have stolen from me!"

"Always with the Apocalypse!" Helen rolled her eyes as she stared at Vesper. "Well, I suppose you have two pieces of the pie, as do I. What now?"

"More pieces, More Pie!" Vesper growled. "Wha?" Coral was very much an insignificant fly.

"Pity. Will you truly not embrace me, my kin?" Again Helen holds her arms out to Vesper, motioning for him to come closer.

"We shall embrace when I tear down your walls." Vesper spat in a guttural tone. Coral's head was spinning. She had no idea what she was listening to. "Your domain is stained red. Your subjects reject you. They show devotion to me!" Vesper screamed.

Coral's heart jumped once more to her throat as wet popping sounds broke the silence. Black tendrils of blood had erupted from Vesper's back. Dozens of thrashing extensions reach out to grip Helen by the ankles before looping around her body like a cocoon. Helen did nothing to stop the encroaching darkness even as it lifted her body effortlessly from the ground. Helen just stared, her eyes unwavering towards Vesper as the final lash whips across her face engulfing her entire body in the blood.

"Stop! Please! Don't hurt her!" Coral had witnessed this before. She was a weak child then, pleading with a woman that tried to teach her so much. Lilith spent years trying to warn Coral of this day. Stories she never believed of ancient powers sleeping within the Sacred Glade. Now she was Queen racing across the ice and somehow still just as powerless to stop the scene before her.

"Madlings!" Helen's laugh stopped Coral in her tracks. The cocoon of blood burst in an explosion of silver light that blinded Coral. Instinctively lifting her hands to form a shield of ice Coral's eyes widened as no shield formed. Coral tried again as she peered into the light that had begun to coalesce back at its source. "My kin speaks of devotion." Coral thought the trance-like voice was her teacher. She was so wrong. So much "Wha?" was breaking Coral's brain.

As the light dimmed enough for Coral to make out the figures before her, she hid behind her western tower again. Coral didn't understand what was going on. She knew her magic wasn't working, making her useless here. She was a passenger in a game where she couldn't see the board. Vesper was not backing away. He was retreating towards Coral.

"Madlings, it will take decades for me to condition the girl Myrilandel." Helen's trance mode was not something Coral liked hearing. Coral gasped as two large feathery wings of pure silver light burst from Helen's back. With each step Helen took towards her, the ice floor cracked with silver lightning from the magical energy Helen was producing.

"I'll drench your forest in never-ending blood before your voice is heard again." Vesper roared, bearing eight fangs at his relentless pursuer. "My children will devour your defenders."

"Yes, my kin, you shall wound me gravely." Helen continued her advance towards Vesper. "You murder, rape, pillage, hate, indoctrinate." Helen sighed, "You demand the unwavering loyalty of countless souls lost to the allure of your dark path." Helen's trance doesn't break as multiple tendrils of blood pierce through Helen's chest

Coral grips her hand across her mouth to muffle her cry. Tears well up in Coral's eyes as she is fixated on the unwavering stare of Helen. Whatever wore her protector's face was not Helen. Whether it was gathering tea for Lilith, fighting in a war for the Or-Ne-Dra, or just drawing Coral's bath. Never once had she heard Helen complain about anything. Never once did Helen dwell on her misfortune. Helen always walked a lighter path than Coral. Punctured by the dark will of a God, Coral had once believed to be a fairy tale. Helen's path of blind devotion had her skewered like a pin cushion.

"Your Glade will BURN!" Vesper's voice quivered, breaking Coral from her "Wha?" stupor. Coral saw Vesper was struggling to pull frantically from Helen. Her arms had once again reached out towards Vesper, unflinching. Vesper had connected blood tendrils to Helen and couldn't break free for whatever reason. "Your Mountain wall that separates us, this prison made of ice, your precious forest." Vesper spat again, bearing his massive fangs at Helen. "Before we are done, I will feast on it all!"

"Embrace me, my kin! Let me share your pain." Helen wraps her arms around Vesper as his eyes bulge in fear. As the silver wings of light wrap around Vesper. Helen pulls Vesper's body close to her own as the tendrils of blood that bound them together change to the same silver light Helen seemed to radiate naturally. Coral gasped as the glow spread to envelop all of Vesper's body. Then Helen seemed to hug Vesper so tight that Helen absorbed his body into hers.

Everything grew silent as Helen stood alone in the light, tears of silver fluid streaming from her eyes. Coral cautiously began to step towards the lifelong protector. The light surrounding Helen dimmed with each step Coral took toward her friend. The silver wings vanished entirely as she stepped a few feet from Helen. In the darkness of the inner chamber, all she could see was the light vapor of silver in Helen's eyes.

"Madlings, my kin seeks only to spread the Madhouse and all its darkness to a new generation." Helen gasped. The trance voice remained, but it was labored. "He couldn't understand the power of one stalwart beacon of faith. My kin didn't understand a Madling Queen was more than a lustful soul in a crown. Ultima relies on dominating obedience and hatred to feed his Empire." Helen gasped once more for breath. Deep pools of crimson blood were forming at Helen's feet. Her radiant silver hair was once again raven black.

"Stop, please, Goddess lady, let her go. Please!" Coral was ripping off her sleeves. She pressed as hard as her exhausted body could against Helen's wounds. Again Coral was a powerless child. Why didn't she listen to Lilith better?

"Madlings, Ultima couldn't understand the love these souls have for their Queen." Helen gasped. She seemed to be unaware of Coral. Her eyes were unwavering. "Twice now, my kin has played his hand against our path of light." Helen continued ignoring Coral's cries to stop talking. "He tested the devotion of his acolytes against a nation's love. Our champions met in the climax of our Madling Queen's Tale." Helen laughed, hesitating to take in a deep breath.

Coral shook Helen with all her might. She just needed to see those eyes. Those deep green eyes followed Coral her entire life. She had to see them one final time.

"My Madlings, Ultima handed me a child that unknowingly followed my path her entire life. This gremlin child welcomed me with open arms, unwavering." Helen reached out a hand to gently caress Coral's cheek with her fingertips. "Helen, singular, no surname, no family." Helen hesitated as the last bit of silver light left her eyes. "What did you say, my kin? More pieces? More pie? Thank you for the sword, dearest Ultima." Helen sighs gently as she closes her eyes.

"Helen?" Coral whispered as her eyes swelled with water. Tears of pure joy as she stared into the emerald eyes of Helen.

"My Queen?" Helen blinked her voice once more, "May I be of service?" Helen asked as if none of the destruction around them existed.

"Wha!?" Coral's brain again broke. "You fucking fool, half dead and asking if I need anything?" Coral laughed, gripping Helen's neck while standing on her tippy toes. Coral stared into Helen's large emerald eyes as their lips met.

"Coral?" Helen's voice quivered as Coral pressed her body to her companion.

"It's My Queen? My love!" Coral once more pressed her lips to Helen's. The woman who protected Coral her entire life wrapped her arms around her warmly. Coral swore she would never be powerless again. She now had a Kingdom to lead.

Coral had freed her people from Ultima's desire to build Atlantis into another Madhouse. It was now Coral's turn to lead her people into the future. Coral still had so much to learn to stem the tide. Civil war had left her Nation weak. This supposed weakness will only escalate a war she meant to end.

Across the sea, plans are already being hatched for the third act in this war between Gods. Lilith alone failed in saving her homeland, instead being exiled from it by the Sons of Cayn. Coral, who all thought doomed, succeeded due to the bonds she forged with her people. With an even score, all eyes fall upon the Vermilion Wasteland.