Chapter 71: Rage Against Oneself
Priscilla eyed the fell beast with her pupils thinned to a paper-thin slit. She brushed off all the quivering of her skin with a scoff and then spread her claws wide beside her.
"Finally, you show your true colors! But all you've given me..." She raised her wings and took off like a rocket from the ground screaming, "IS A BIGGER TARGET!"
Invidia's pupils shimmered and its body creaked and moaned with every movement. It raised its brittle looking hand towards Priscilla and then, to her surprise, thrust it out incredibly fast.
Priscilla found herself swinging out of the way only for the wind coming off the blow sending her flying many feet away.
By the time she had stabilized herself the beast was leaping straight after her with the stiffness of a statue. Priscilla pulled away before she could be crushed underhoof, watching as black and green light radiated from the cracks it left on the ground.
"Tsk...!" Priscilla grit her fangs into a scowl.
Meanwhile, Belle was hyper-focused on her darling's conflict that she nearly failed to pull her head away from one of Amor's arrows.
"You have bigger problems to worry about, you harpy." Amor sneered, drawing her bow back a second time with greater emphasis.
Belle whisked her hand behind her back to draw out a few more cards, all the while waving her pool stick through the air to create glistening lavender fireballs.
They floated slowly towards Amor and then plummeted right to the ground to explode. Amor fluttered back away from them and continued to spring a volley of arrows towards her prey.
Belle felt hesitant to defend with her stick after what happened to her pool balls and kept her distance, returning one salvo of projectiles with some of her own.
Once she found steady footing on the ground she peeked over to her darling, finding her assailing the fell beast with a steady stream of fireballs. But her efforts only seemed to singe the hairs on the beast's chest.
She quickly shifted back to Amor and pulled her upper body to the left, an arrow grazing her by. She then flipped backwards and, once on her feet, snapped her fingers out to open up a series of portals all around her.
Each one came packed with a giant colored dart to be flung one-at-a-time towards Amor. The flippant fairy nimbly dodged around most of them, but Belle purposefully held one back to thrust at a much higher speed that finally, managed to land a hit.
Amor was cut along her left cheek but instead of bleeding, her skin hollowed out. Her smirk immediately snapped into a scowl and she started firing arrows with even greater fervor.
Belle whipped herself across the battlefield, mesmerizing her foe to the point they couldn't see straight. Until the point where she was underneath her, upon which Belle drew her cards at last and whipped the cherub's underside, wrenching her right back down to the ground.
Then she immediately turned around and leaped at her with her magically infused stick swung behind her head. Amor rolled away and sprung back into the air with her bow drawn back.
Belle hopped away and the arrow landed harmlessly at her feet. Amor then sneered, and Belle quickly looked back down at the arrow to find it glowing a vivid shade of pink.
It blew up, unsurprisingly, and knocked her off her feet with an electrified shockwave. Belle gracefully turned this into a flip and landed right on her feet whilst taking a bow.
And when she raised her head, she nudged her stick up a little behind her back to summon a huge party cannon filled with energy.
It exploded with confetti and a huge beam of light that Amor avoided. Belle kept the light in play with a series of funhouse mirrors to bounce it around.
Amor evaded the light and armed her bow, firing an arrow into one of the mirrors to hold it in her grasp similarly to the pool balls.
The mirror shifted and turned the light back onto Belle. Belle held her hand out and summoned a giant top hat to catch the light, then created another one to fire it back out.
Amor, however, fired another arrow where the second hat would appear and turned it upon its master. Belle swiftly looked at it in surprise and then disappeared into a giant handkerchief that fell on top of her.
She dropped down on top of Amor and took a swing at her back of her head. They fluttered away and aimed an arrow at Belle's back.
She landed and hopped away, drawing her free hand behind her back and shifting the position of her fingers rapidly. Amor fluttered overhead with three lights at the front of her bow, and a big sneer on her face.
Belle narrowed her gaze and briefly shifted her attention towards Priscilla's struggle with the fell beast.
Priscilla was currently trying her damnedest to avoid getting swatted by the beast's swift hands. Her flurry of fireballs and electric blasts were doing nothing, and she couldn't afford to get close.
She landed on the ground with steam spewing from the sides of her scowling face and the beast creaking its head to stare at her.
"Feh...!" Priscilla smashed her hands upon the ground and exclaimed, "It was worth a shot! Now the real fight can begin!"
With a mighty roar that shook the foundation of the building she transformed into her full dragon form, coming closer to the fell beast's size.
She immediately lunged at the beast's chest and tackled them off their feet. The beast moaned and their eyes glistened briefly with shock.
Then they took their arms around Priscilla's neck and pulled them both to the ground at the same time. Priscilla cracked her jaw wide-open and blasted the beast's face with a point-blank spread of flames.
Whereas the beast, without hesitation, went and stuffed its fist down her throat. Priscilla got choked up momentarily, then clamped her fangs down on the beast's arm.
The beast squirmed, but refused to budge. And the more Priscilla pressed down, the harder the pressure got to her fangs. They were feeling ready to crack without making any progress, so she gave up the ghost and reared her head away to force the beast's fist out of her mouth and allow her to breathe once more.
She then stood up on her hind legs and smashed all her weight down upon the fallen beast through her front legs. The beast reared their head back and a massive tremor rippled throughout their body.
Nevertheless the beast started pounding their fists into Priscilla's chest. Each blow rippled into her rib cage and affected her ability to breath cleanly.
Priscilla's coughs were like distorted thunderclaps. Her girthy body cobbled away from the fell beast all on its own, allowing it time to stand again.
It then grabbed onto the sides of Priscilla's head and smashed her chin against the floor, pressing her hoof down onto her spiky nape.
Priscilla growled and roared defiantly, pushing the beast's leg off slowly until her mouth was line up with the other one. Then she scorched it with a wide breadth of flame, setting the whole thing ablaze.
The fell beast hopped off and shook its leg around, making the flames climb further and further up its body. Priscilla made a mighty leap away and lowered her head, sharpening the horns on her head with pure steel, and stampeding head-first into the beast's gut.
Ramming the beast into the wall with thunderous force, Priscilla reared her head back and ground the beast against the weakening walls, blood trickling down her roguish mane.
The beast dragged their fist back and clobbered Priscilla across the jaw, dislodging her from their abdomen. As both forces smashed upon the floor the beast hunched down and tackled Priscilla's neck between its horn.
Forced onto her hind legs, Priscilla pressed her front claws against the beast's shoulder to slow it down. The beast reared its ugly head back as hard as it physically could, ripping her free from gravity's protection in an instant.
Priscilla was flung overhead and then hit the ground hard on her back, her spine making a sharp "CRACK!"
Her whole body trembled as she tried to stand, and the fell beast wasn't going to give her a moment's rest to fight through the pain.
It came charging forth like a force of nature, undeterred by the whims of gravity that should have been holding back its stampeding speeds.
Priscilla stretched her maw and bombarded the beast's chest with explosive fireballs to hold it at bay for a little while. The beast continued to rear its fist back until she struck it with a fireball as big as it was. Finally, the beast took pause.
"Grrr...!" Priscilla growled and with one hefty thrust of her head flipped herself back onto her feet. She then took this chance to swing her tail like a thick club into the fell beast's hip.
The beast dug its hooves into the ground and grabbed onto the tail, letting itself get dragged around until it suddenly let go and propelled itself straight at Priscilla's face.
Priscilla's eyes bulged as the beast plunged its fist into her jaw and dragged her all the way across the room into the opposing wall.
Flames spurted from Priscilla's jaw only for the fell beast to clamp its hand around her snout. Then it dragged her head down the wall and buried it into the floor.
Belle, meanwhile, continued to dance around Amor's arrows in a mad attempt to land hits with her magic. The cherub was as agile as she was ornery, she could be granted that much.
Perhaps she could admit that Priscilla's condition was making it hard to concentrate at the moment. But she needed to keep her attention on Amor at all costs. She felt as though they hadn't revealed all of their tricks. She needed to force her hand somehow...
Belle continued to weave signs behind her back with her fingers and left her major magic work to her stick. She rapid-fired some small pool balls across the air and managed to get a couple clean hits to toss Amor around.
The cherub continued to lock her sights onto the other balls and hit them with arrows to turn them on their master.
Belle caught them in a magical hat and then switched up her volley to include a few dozen darts. It was improbable for the cherub to light an arrow into every dart, so she forced herself to continue flying away and turn the arrows back onto Belle.
Belle waved a hand of five-cards before she smirking face and then swung them out around herself as a protective ring. One card was sacrificed to protect her from the arrows, and the remaining four boxed her in safely.
She leaped towards the cherub and whacked the back of the card in front of her. Lightning blasts erupted from all the cards, which in turn began to spin around and strike Amor multiple times over.
"Y-You...!" Said Amor in a fizzy tone, ripping her static clung body away to charge up a very large arrow.
Belle suspended herself in place and swung her hand out, commanding the four cards to stack up and keep the arrowhead inches from her face.
Belle's heart raced and it made her smirk. With a snap of her fingers she flipped the cards around and then whacked the arrow out with her stick.
Though Amor got out of its way the breeze spun her around like a top. Then Belle rushed in and whacked her up, down, diagonally, getting quite a numbers of hits in with the glistening streaks off her stick. Ultimately, culminating in her pressing the tip of her stick against Amor's nose and surrounding her in a barrier shaped like a pool ball.
What happened next obviously was Amor getting bounced around the walls like she was trapped in a pool table, and after ten seconds of this Belle broke the protection by whacking her down into the ground.
She then prepared to launch forth to assist Priscilla when a glint of pink forced her back from an arrow's path. She looked down and saw Amor's face creased up at every corner in rage, "Leaving so soon? Why? WE'RE HAVING SO MUCH FUN!"
She lobbed a trio of arrows while lifting herself off the ground. Then Belle, holding up a card to catch them all, proceeded to slice through it to break it apart and rain magic droplets upon Amor.
Then she swiftly turned her hand towards her darling and through a fission of magical gates, threw dozens of magic meteors at the beast.
The beast hurled its head back as the meteors burned down into its skin and then swatted its hand around, trying to deflect the rest.
Priscilla's eyes ferociously thrust open and she shoved the beast's hand off of her mouth. Then she reared herself up on her hind legs, waiting for the moment where the beast's hollow gaze turned on her to spray her with her flames.
The intensity of the flames quickly turned them pure white, and the beast just stood there even as the ground melted to nothing behind it.
Priscilla clamped her jaw shut and headbutted the burning beast towards the hole. It stumbled on the edge, clawing at the air as its face was fully on fire.
Priscilla charged in for one more headbutt for good measure.
Then, the beast threw out a massive punch into the front of her skull that held her completely at bay. She dug her claws into the ground and kept pressing on, watching in utter shock as the fire parted the beast's head with but a huff from its nostrils.
At worst, its horns were starting to melt and embers lingered on its stitches.
Priscilla nevertheless kept inching it closer and closer to the hole, shouting, "Just DIE already!"
She began to push its hand back into its elbow and its bones breaking sounded off the wails of a hundred undead souls.
Priscilla froze there, leaving the fell beast to swiftly kick her underside the chest and knock her airborne. Priscilla spread her wings to suspend herself and pulled away when the beast went for an uppercut.
Then, just as quickly, it spun itself around trying to decapitate her with a kick. Priscilla ducked under the foot and blasted the body with massive fireballs.
The fell beast crashed down covered in smoke but continued to keep leaping up and take its shots at her. Priscilla used her head as a hammer to swat it down.
A mistake roughly born of frustration at this point though, as it allowed the beast to grapple onto her horns and drag her down with it, laying her body out against the ground like a fresh rug.
It then proceeded to start wailing on her back, but the pain in her spine only swelled the frustration in the furnace that was her heart.
She forced herself up and charged through the beast's legs to knock it up, then spun around and pounced onto its back to pin it down.
She then sharpened her claws in black steel and started slashing away at its bare skin as hard as she could. She couldn't get much blood from it, and her claws were beginning to wear away like pencil lead over time.
The beast's head creaked around a full 180 degrees, her spine literally snapping like a twig. Then its arms rotated around a similar way and grabbed onto Priscilla's neck.
"Not THIS TIME!" Priscilla blasted it with pure white flames, this time throwing electricity into the mix for extra "oomph!"
She made sure to personally ensure that she was damaging the beast's face before even considering relenting in the slightest.
The beast's hands began to pull away, looking rather limp and frailer than they ever were before.
Meanwhile Belle continued to engage Amor in projectile combat with the cherub briefly getting distracted by her partner's fall.
"You useless fucking thing, get up!"
Belle pelted Amor with a flurry of pool balls and smirked, telling her, 添ou seem to have underestimated us.
Amor drew her bow back with incredible fury that almost caused the bowstring to snap and remarked, 泥on't be stupid! I am still winning!
"This is what you call winning?" Belle flipped her stick around overhead and then lined it up like she was about to break pool balls, "Don't speak such mockery to a gambler."
She rushed forward with blistering speed through her magically charged legs and Amor just froze in place with a mischievous smirk.
Suddenly a pink fog drifted over Amor's body, and in her place stood Priscilla's regular body. Belle's eyes thrust open and she continued to push forward. Yet when she was ready to strike a fatal blow to this impostor, her body completely froze inches from them.
Her stick shook as she tried desperately to strike. Every neuron in her brain knew she faced her enemy donned despicably in the skin of her darling. But every instinct, every muscle, and even her eyes, betrayed what she knew for a fact.
The fake's skin glistened. The eyes shone with tenacity and timidity, struggling with feelings of love behind a rough exterior. Her sweet, tender lips. Her lovely, hand-picked suit.
To be denied her moment of triumph by being stared at by this beautiful lie was by far the cruelest act this cherub had performed at her on this day.
And while she struggled to break this spell over her body, Belle felt her back lunge out and a hefty gasp of air escaped her lungs.
She was hurtled across the room glued to one of Amor's huge arrows and crashed into the weakening wall, the debris above dislodging on top of her in an avalanche.
Amor's disguise then fizzled out with her wearing the biggest sneer ever.
Priscilla turned from her battle with her flames reduced to embers and gasped, "BELLE!"
The fell beast pulled itself up from the ground grabbing tightly onto Priscilla's neck, dragging even her hind legs up as it stood.
It twisted its upper body back around and bashed Priscilla's girth against the wall, then lifted it up and bashed it down. The mighty Scourge Draconis, now treated no better than a trash bag.
Amor floated towards Belle with her bow drawn once more. The rubble began to move, with Belle using a barrier to push it aside. Her normally clean hair was disheveled and her tuxedo was undone at the collar.
She took a moment to fix her collar and then rubbed a hand over her hair to put it back in place. She glared at Amor and drew a hand behind her back, raising the pool stick towards the cherub with a gesture towards herself signaling "Bring it on".
Amor fired her arrow and Belle zipped forward past it. She drew giant darts out from her magic portals and thrust them forth with lightning speed.
Amor took to the skies and volleyed a rain of arrows around her enemy. Belle dropped into a slide and spun her pool stick around to deflect as many as arrows as she could with magical force, then thrust the discus up at the cherub.
Amor rode the disc to the ceiling before hopping off, firing a gigantic arrow that split into a circular rain of smaller one upon hitting the ground.
Belle swiped her stick to the left briefly to fire small meteors at the fell beast, then swung it back the other way to deflect the arrows falling directly towards her.
Amor plunged out of the sky and rammed straight into her using the trident shape of her bow to lock into Belle's pool stick and hold herself in place.
The cherub's frenzied expression thirsted for pain, her pain. Belle began charging energy in her stick when Amor donned her deceitful disguise yet more.
With the false face of her lover leaving her body stiff and unresponsive, Belle was left to Amor's aggressive whims and received a giant arrow point-blank to the gut yet again.
But this time Belle managed to slip her pool stick between her gut and the arrow head and with a little slicing magic, cut through the arrow in one fell swoop.
Amor charged forth again with the same disguise, thrusting her trident bow repeatedly into Belle's body with her unable to mount a response.
"Isn't it frustrating?" Amor spoke with a perfect mimicry of Priscilla's lovely voice, "To be SOOOOO helpless while your enemy wails on your wearing the face of your loved one?!"
Belle grunted and twitched, her body failing to do anything but stand there and take every attack head-on. Amor guffawed, the echoes of sheer insanity radiating out of Priscilla's mouth hurting Belle down to her soul.
Belle tried to close her eyes and ignore the presence of this fake, but her body so thoroughly believed this lie that it was impossible to break the spell with her own deceit.
The one thing she could do was put her free hand behind her back and continue to move her fingers around in a variety of manners.
Amor's brows raised in a hefty fervor and she declared, "How cute! But there's no breaking this spell!"
She drew her bow back hard and fired an arrow that curved around Belle and aimed for her open hand.
In a moment of panic Belle flipped around with her stick to deflect the arrow, but instead the arrow lodged in deep and spread its glow throughout.
Belle immediately let go of her stick and watched as it started taking swings at her, firing a plethora of magic pool balls, darts, and lightning bolts in all directions.
It was pure, undiluted chaos, just the way Amor liked it.
All Belle could do was snap her fingers and dispel the stick for the time being. She was beginning to sweat and the cherub putting her bow to her back was not helping matters.
"Run run until your mind is done." Amor said in a grim tone.
Belle athletically flipped over the cherub and got behind her, coating her hands in magic to apply a firm grip to their neck. But then the cherub cast their illusion and Belle could do nothing except watch her body freeze in place.
Amor creaked her false smile back and chuckled, "You can't hurt me, I'm your darling dragon."
She then drew her bow before her face and nearly took Belle's head off with an arrow. Belle ducked out of the way and stepped back, tucking a hand behind her back and moving the fingers around some more.
She summoned a lone pool ball in her other hand and drew it around her body as a protective shield, deflecting a flurry of arrows from Amor's bow as she began a slow, methodical stroll towards her.
"Being Lust has its perks, I must admit," Amor chuckled deeply, "Like how I'm able to make anyone see the person they care for the most. An illusion so entrancing, it prevents anyone from doing harm to them."
She pulled her bow back to create a larger grow, the glow of the arrow casting a sinister light on her sneering face, "Even the toughest souls have their spines crumble like jello. And you are no different, my darling Belle."
The arrow was set loose and crushed Belle's barrier apart like glass, sending her tumbling along the ground.
Priscilla freed her face from the floor to scream "BELLE!" only to be smashed back down, the fell beast hunched over with a firm grip on both her skull and neck.
"Cgh...Cgh!" Belle coughed up a little blood as she pressed her elbows down to rise. The cherub, still donning that horrible veil of lies, stood over her with a sneer.
"You've. Lost," Amor said grimly, "You lay on the floor, defeated. Your lover, laid at the mercy of my beastly sibling. Your casino, soon to have its reputation plummet into the deepest abyss, its customers' souls a banquet to my father's ravenous appetite."
"All that you've built will be torn down. All your hopes assailed."
And in this moment, where Amor had Belle completely at her mercy, the cherub bent down and grabbed her by the chin and brought her in closer.
Still wearing the face of her beloved, Amor let out a chilling whisper of, "But it doesn't have to be that way..."
She grinned from cheek-to-cheek, "I can give it all back. Your life, your casino, even your wretched lover. With just a snap of my fingers, chaos bends to my will."
"All you have to do is...make a certain bargain with me," Amor pinched Belle's cheeks between her fingers and wiggled her pouting face around, "See there's a certain person I've been...forewarned not to lay a hand on. You know him as...the Elemental Overlord, do you not?"
Belle's eyes widened briefly.
"Yes, of course you do," Amor chuckled in a deep, fatal tone, "See, he needs to pay dearly for his insolence in daring to challenge our kind. We...who were birthed in the shadows cast by the flames of creation...
"So! My offer is simple..." Amor stiffened Belle's eyes directly in front of hers, "Help me and my sibling kill the Elemental Overlord and all his friends...And your life will be yours once more. All the freedom you could ever want, as one of my personal favorite people. I will even tolerate your acts of lechery. Go wild! Defile any sense of reason you dare wish!"
"You will be granted the greatest freedom a mortal could ask for. And all it costs is the lives of a few, miserable souls you likely care little about."
Belle's body trembled, her gaze slowly panning over to her darling pinned down by the fell beast. Through the brutality inflicted upon her, Priscilla shook her head and tears ran down her scaly cheeks.
Belle was granted freedom from Amor's grasp and immediately hung her head.
Amor gently set her hands upon Belle's shoulders and murmured, "This shall be your finest wager. Your lives? Or theirs?"
Belle lifted her head and slowly began to raise her right hand up. Amor smiled her brightest smile and raised her hand as well.
Priscilla frantically lashed her head around, struggling to break free. Her moans of desperation seeming to have no hold on her darling's ears.
Belle took her hand in Amor's without hesitation, and the cherub sneered.
You made the right decision, Belle. She said, hardly containing her laughter.
Priscilla collapsed onto the floor, her tears streaming down into a puddle below her chin.
Belle slowly turned to face her beloved...
And winked.
Priscilla paused, her heart thumping loudly against her chest.
Belle then faced Amor, taking in her fake appearance with naught but a confident smirk, and proclaimed, "I have never been more confident in my decisions than at this very moment!"
Amor's eyes widened as a near-endless stream of handkerchiefs started flying out of Belle's sleeve, coiling around every square inch of Amor's body in seconds.
"W-What...?!" The cherub screamed, as her body was bound up from head-to-toe and sent crashing against the ground. Her lie became undone, her cherub body now trapped within these silly, multicolored chains.
Belle stood and shook her right hand around, disgusted at the filth that now dirtied it, "That's a more fitting look for you, deceiver."
Amor squirmed around trying to face Belle, her eyes practically firing out of their sockets from the sheer rage she was now experiencing.
"IMPOSSIBLE! This illusion is unbreakable! W-What...what the HELL are you?!"
Belle whipped her hand out and summoned her pool stick, now cleansed of the cherub's filth, then used it to tap the side of her mouth.
"Methinks you speak too much," Belle smiled, "You said it yourself...'I can do nothing to harm the one I love'."
"Fortunately for me, a couple thousand years of marriage forces us to experiment with new ways to spice up the love-life and keep things fresh in the bed," Belle tenderly poked her stick out from her hip towards Priscilla,"And my darling has sort of taken a liking to bondage."
Priscilla huffed a hefty amount of reddish steam from her nostrils and growled.
"FREAKS! FREAKS! YOU MORTALS ARE ALL FREAKS!" Screamed Amor.
"Its rather funny isn't it, how our fetishes have proven to be your undoing?" Belle couldn't help but chuckle, though she quickly toughened up and snapped her fingers, "Oh, but that reminds me."
"Speaking of undoings..." She extended her hand out and opened up a magic viewing screen to the casino.
There, Amor stared blankly as she saw not a mountain of corpses littering the facility, but rather a bunch of sleeping, yawning aliens, all adrift in a sea of lavender fog.
Her blood-shot eyes curdled at the sight of Belle, who wiggled her free hand playfully in the air, "You were so worried about my hand crafting something to fight you when that was the farthest from the truth. This whole time I was working on a spell to put my customers to sleep so they couldn't act under your influence."
"GRRRR...!" Growled Amor.
Belle leaned her arms atop her pool stick and smirked, "You asked a simple question...Who am I?"
"I am Belle, a business owner...And a passionate lover!" Belle stood and flourished her hand out to the right, "You cannot put a price on what I cherish, for that is my sole invaluable treasure! So poison the wells with your satanic ways as much as you wish! The power of love shall purify it every time!"
"I. Will. Fucking. END Y-"
Amor had a fat piece of tape slapped over her fat mouth, upon which Belle leaned over to her and whispered in her ear, "You shouldn't have fucked with this witch, little cherub."
Amor grunted madly while Belle set her priorities elsewhere. Quickly aiming her gaze upon the fell beast, she sprinted forth as fast as her lithe legs could carry her and charged her pool stick full of magic.
The fell beast released it grip on Priscilla's neck and tried to crush Belle under its fist. Belle leaped and landed on its arm, running all the way towards the shoulder while lashing up its arm.
At the end she leaped towards the beast's with a big smile and told it calmly, "That's my wife you're messing with, demon!"
With a snap of the wrist she cracked the beast across the cheek with her stick and forced its head to look behind the spine.
The beast turned with its bone structure coming undone like brittle stone and a devilish gleam in its eyes.
Suddenly its other hand was forced up and Priscilla rose to full height, throwing the beast towards onto its back while roaring loud and proud.
Priscilla crashed its full weight upon the beast's chest and a loud crack could be heard echoing within its body. She then clamped her fangs into the beast's neck and began lifting and flailing it around with incredible ferocity.
Belle stayed out of the way and let her have her fun for a while. Once Priscilla tired she flung the beast over to the center of the room where it trembled the whole time it struggled to stand back up.
Priscilla crash landed beside Belle and embers flared out the sides of her mouth and nostrils, "I think its time we wrapped this up, Belle!"
Belle twirled her stick around and thrust it diagonally at the air beside her hip, "Lets make this a grand finale!"
She shot a few orbs from the tip of her stick while Priscilla took flight to the ceiling. The orbs splashed out into a tower of three runes each larger than the last, all intertwined by a series of energy strands and glistening sparkles.
Priscilla ripped her head back, struggling to contain the pent-up white and lavender flames in her mouth. Her eyes roared with light as she forced her head downward at the runes.
Belle raised her hand up high and declared, "Now my darling, lets show them a good time!"
"WITH PLEASURE...!" Priscilla roared, letting rip a massive flame blast that was magnified through each of the runes, "MALPURGIO ZETTAFLARE!"
The runes shattered apart and the flames scorched right through the fell beast's entire body. The roar of flames would've been deafening, had Belle not prepared herself ahead of time.
The flames busted a hole through the floor and continued to fly further and further away. Millions of light years away, it'd continue to shine, and be worshiped as a good omen on roughly five other aliens worlds.
For now though, it served its purpose well.
The fell beast had been reduced to ashes, albeit one with a small lump in the very middle of it. There were holes surrounding where the beast's figure once lay, and the suction of space was pulling the ashes off.
Belle patched up the holes with some magic and then floated on over to lump, finding, to her surprise, the one called Vyvy lying there in a genderless state of nudity.
Before Belle had a chance to examine their body Priscilla came crashing down onto the floor looking completely exhausted.
Belle floated on over and Priscilla reverted to her normal form, collapsing into her lover's embrace.
Belle greeted her with a warm smile and helped her hang on her shoulder as she stood. Priscilla looked at her and scoffed, "T-Thanks, Belle."
"Were you REALLY that worried about me?" Belle teased.
Priscilla turned away with a pout and muttered, "I-Its been a long, annoying day, give me a break."
"I think we've BOTH earned a break after this," darling, Belle said with a chuckle, "Though first we'll need to clean up the main building and explain to the guests what happened..."
As they both seemed content to just go along their merry way, they both caught Amor squirming and bouncing around in her bindings.
Priscilla's mouth drooped and she muttered, "Ah right...What are we going to do about these things? I ain't got the strength to kill the beast one."
"Hmmm, I'll get in contact with Catherine to see about detaining the chimera until we can figure out how to finish it off. As for this one..."
The two walked on over to her and Belle smiled brightly, "Have fun, darling."
Priscilla huffed out one puff of embers from her nostrils and smiled, "Oh, with pleasure."
Amor froze stiff as Priscilla turned her foot draconic and smashed right down on top of the cherub, shattering their whole body to glass pieces.
Priscilla pulled back and muttered, "Good fucking riddance..."
Belle patted her on the back and with a slight blush in her cheeks, they turned and slowly walked away.
Suddenly the hairs stood up on the back of theirs necks and they looked over their shoulders to see all the pieces of Amor rise up into the air. Her eyes and mouth stretched out and became flushed with white light. A terrifying dark pink flame burned her body whole while she let out a long, piercing wail whose pitch grew higher and higher.
Right as the two lovers clamped their ears shut, the wailing stopped, and Amor vanished entirely.
Priscilla muttered, "Annoying even in death..."
They continued to trudge forth towards their room with Belle inquiring, "So where would you like to go vacationing at this time?"
"Feh...You know, we haven't been to Pokitaru in forever. Maybe-"
A sudden tremor throughout the building made them stop and take pause. Priscilla looked at the ground and grumbled, "Shit, don't tell me I damaged the gravitational core."
The tremors worsened, a thick pressure following suit. It was like a gravity swell, only they were being pressed down by a sheer, unworldly cold.
"...No, I don't think that's what this is, darling." Belle murmured, hesitating to turn back and face the direction the pressure exuded from.
The tremors grew one final time, this time a sharp, slimy and massive appendage penetrating through the ceiling. And with one mighty tug it ripped the whole roof of the building right off.
Behind it stood a stone face carved into marble as big as their building alone. It depicted a divine beauty with sealed eyes and a big, bountiful smile. The appendage, looking akin to a dark and murky tentacle, withdrew behind the stone face as it slowly began to float away from its meager prey.
And more and more of the statue was revealed, displaying a woman of average measurement bared naked before a horde of hundreds beneath her feet. Her hands gestured towards their approach, but at her wrists were cuffs lined with chains hung tightly around each figure's neck.
The figures looked starved and meek, their bone-like hands clamoring for even a suckling of the goddess' beauty. And the further down you gazed upon the statue, the more violent and bloody the depiction of the figures got, until there was literal blood rusted onto the very bottom of its body.
The statue towered at least a few miles tall. The dozens upon dozens of slimy tentacles drawn out from its back, on the other hand? Each at least as long, if not longer, than it was tall.
"Look at the little love birds, trapped inside their cage...!" Amor's voice came beckoning out from the statue as a planet trembling echo.
"You think you've won...Just because you got a little lucky?!" She screamed, the weight of her voice pushing the weakened Priscilla onto her knees.
"Why cower?" The statue's tentacles squirmed around it, "I have plenty of love for EVERYONE and EVERYTHING! And I'll squeeze that love into you, until you POP!"
First you two shall be crushed, and then the rest of the degenerate mortal life in this universe shall follow suit! She bellowed, "AND THERE IS NO ONE WHO CAN STOP ME!"
And at this point that may very well be true. For having discarded her chains of mortality at long last, Amor bore the armor of the one who waged war on the first heavens alongside her brothers of the first hell. She, now and forevermore, only desires for her true name to be wailed by man's last dying breath...
LUXURIA, LEVIATHAN OF DEATH'S EMBRACE
Next Time: Sinful Resonance