Chapter 58: Family Fights

Warsaw, Poland

The beeping of machines and the blinding sterile lights are what Druella, the fourth born of Lilith, awakened to. She blinked a few times before the gogginess left her. She surveyed the room she resided in. It looked a bit like the CRISPR laboratory, but this felt more friendly and accommodating than that cold and almost lifeless environment.

There were no windows but there was a huge mirror that seemed to not belong. As if the frame it sat in was intended for a window but got replaced with the reflective sheet instead. It perplexed her, she felt as if she was being watched from behind it. Perhaps it was some sort of magic, likely provided to the Earthlings by the Order. Either way she didn't like it, as she instinctively tried to use her wings as a sort of cover.

Only to realize that one of them was missing.

Nausea built up in her gut as she turned her head to look upon the stump. What was once her beautiful wing was now nothing more than the remnants of something precious. Something precious that was lost was lost to that valkyire bitch.

Something snapped in Druella's head, something that made her angry. She wanted something, something that was quite rare within mamono society, though not completely gone. Druella wanted revenge, revenge on the valkyrie who turned her into this, this cripple of a lilim!

Before she could collect her thoughts the door to the room opened and several people filed in. While most of them were unrecognizable to Druella, one did stand out. Her father was here! He quickly pushed his way through the small group and made his way to the side of her bed. A mixture of worry, sadness, joy, and other emotions flashed across his face.

"DADD-father!" Druella corrected herself as he embraced her. Tears began to spill out of not just her eyes but her father's as well. It felt good for Druella to be held by her father again.

"Sweetheart," her father began. "I'm glad you are ok. If something had happened to you your mother and I would never forgive ourselves! Why did you come to Earth! Why put yourself at risk?! Why would you disregard our orders?! We were trying to keep you safe!"

Druella looked down, embarrassed at the situation. She wasn't a child! She wasn't stupid! And yet…

She looked back up at him and contemplated what to say. But before she could, the humans in the room finally began to raise their voices.

"Your majesty," the one in front started. "We must ask you to step away from the princess. Obviously the situation has left you rattled, but still, we need to begin asking her our questions."

Druella turned her head to finally get a good look at these interlopers on her and her father's time. Most of them wore the typical suits she had seen the humans of Earth wear. It seemed to be their uniforms of sorts. A few of them wore more traditional looking armor, however, it was definitely of Earth design. In bits and pieces around the more vital areas as opposed to the full body suits of armor Order knights and heroes typically don.

But something else that the humans wore did peak her interest. All of them wore reflective spectacles. Like the mirror on the wall, the spectacles allowed for Druella to see only herself, and not the eyes of the humans behind the lenses.

She turned to Arthur again. "Why are all these humans here? What do they want from me father?"

At this Arthur's expression changed, something more serious and condescending. Druella had seen this before, when she was younger. This was the kind of face her father would make before giving her some sort of punishment.

"I'm sorry Druella, but your actions in Warsaw have made the Earth governments very upset. While you were no doubt defending yourself from that dreadful valkyrie, the fact you are here at ALL is a worrying sign for them. Your reputation had already preceded your arrival. You need to explain yourself to them before any consideration can be made about you moving freely."

Druella's brow furrowed. "Move freely? Do you mean that they intend to keep me prisoner here? Me, a lilim!" Druella laughed. "Now that's quite a funny joke father! You and I both know they couldn't keep me here if they tried! Even with their technology!"

Arthur frowned at her words before placing a firm hand on her shoulder. "Druella, let me be clear, you blatantly defied your mother and I. We are trying to create peace here. A lasting peace! Earth has been more mamono accommodating than almost anywhere else outside of the demon realms! The chance of not only having peace with the humans, but the survival of our kind without harming theirs, has never been more possible!"

Arthur then stepped away from Druella while continuing to speak. "So if it means I have to do this, then so be it. Druella I will be forced to keep you here myself if you are unwilling to cooperate."

The lilim's eyes bulged out of her head as she stared at her father. Was he crazy?! Siding with the humans over her! Her face twitched.

"How could you!" she roared. The humans in front of them jumped at the sudden outcry, the armored ones reaching for their guns.

"How could you father? How could you just side with these humans!? These inferiors! Over me! I've been conquering them because there can be no peace so long as there are humans who dislike mamono! Even here on Earth there are those who would rather harm or kill us than live with us! They need to be shown that we are superior over them, that it's stupid and useless to try and stay apart!"

"They can't be responsible for themselves, otherwise they'll just kill each other and try to kill us. They're barely better than animals, they need us and if it takes mamonokind dragging them kicking and screaming then so be it. I don't care if they have questions father, really I don't. What I want is to be left alone."

Arthur's frown deepened as he turned away from his daughter and towards the group. He simply made a shooing motion as he and the others left the room. Just before the door closed he turned back to Druella.

"Your mother is coming. I can't fix your wing, nor your attitude. Perhaps she can do both. Cooperating or not, I will make sure you sit tight. I've given my word to these people, and you know how I like to keep it."

With that he closed the door and went over to the group. At the head of them was a UN ambassador, though representatives from INTERPOL, NATO, and other organizations were also present.

"Your majesty," the ambassador began. "Why are we standing out here instead of questioning your daughter? You do know that it's vital we find out her intentions, not that she hasn't already listed plenty of them."

"I know I know. But you must realize Druella will never willingly speak with you. Not unless both myself and Lilith are present. Druella has always had this rebellious nature to her. And I will not allow you to do anything to her to get the answers you seek. I will however be here to ensure she doesn't try to escape. She may not like to listen to anyone, and there are VERY few people who can actually stop her. Fortunately, my wife and I are some of the people who can."

At this the ambassador shook his head rapidly. "No no your majesty! We had no intention of trying to coax answers out of the princess in any, unfortunate, way. If you are serious about ensuring that she stays here yourself, that's fine. But you and especially her WILL be monitored until her majesty arrives. We can't risk her escaping after all."

Arthur nodded at this. For all he knew, Druella hadn't come alone. For all he knew, she could have minions around just waiting for the chance to try and release her from the human's custody. He just hoped they weren't so foolish to try and challenge him. Sure, it has been quite a while since he had last fought a true battle. That scuffle with the valkyrie didn't count, but he was still one of the most powerful beings of his world.

Too bad Druella's minions really didn't care. As Svetlana, Tara, and Hannah looked down at the hospital where Druella was being kept from the rooftop of a nearby building. They were determined to get their leader out of her jam, no matter what.

Yeah so I'm still not satisfied with the amount of replies to my question in the previous chapter. Don't want a silent majority situation and all. However, I did see a couple of different suggestions that I am interested in. Such as finding a collaborator or even a discord server. For now I'm gonna be working on a new story and won't be updating this one for a bit in the meantime. Perhaps by stepping away from this one and working on something else it might ignite my inspiration to work on this one again. Either way, thanks for all the feedback regarding the future of this story. I very much appreciate it and I hope you all continue to stick around!

Thanks, MojaveMarshal

PS: By the way, I've gone and started a new story. Here's the link. Also someone put forward the idea of a Discord. I'll chew on that for now and get back to y'all on it later.

s/14281481/1/Team-JOKR