A.N. -
This is a heads up, because I'd apparently underestimated the effect of "standard Waifu Catalog tropes" and over-estimated reading comprehension.
This is the only instance of this planned in the story, but this chapter has mention of Farah having been raped. Which I'd believed was clear from the rest of the story and the ending of the last chapter, but have been made aware that it was not.
She has not been NTR'd to be clear. By any remotely reasonable stretch of the term. But she was not particularly willing.
NO SERIOUSLY THIS IS IMPORTANT
Tags: Noncon
The guardsmen parted as I approached, "Sir Jacob-"
"I'm heading straight to her." I said simply, and stated rather than asked, "East wing."
As much as I wanted to continue my sprint, it wouldn't do to catch anyone up in my wake. For all that it felt extremely immediate and pressing to me emotionally, I was aware it'd been nearly a month since Farah had been captured. Whatever could happen probably had happened, and a few minutes wouldn't change things.
"I- uh- yes. Last I was aware sir." The guard nodded even as I made a brisk walk past him.
For all that my powers had been growing over the course of the month, I still hadn't developed X-ray vision, but my hearing had improved my leaps and bounds. I'd been able to hear Opala's voice, though not pinpoint it before I'd even left the bridge.
My tail lashed about behind me as I followed the sound of Opala's voice through the halls, feeling my way until my anima embraced the soft form of Opala once more, and moments later she came into view.
The royal guardsmen parted as I approached the queen of egypt, her honey-colored eyes meeting mine with an ocean of emotions, "Jacob-"
"Opala." She reached out to me, and I matched her, taking her hands in mine. Her grip was desperate, her bottom lip quivered as she looked up at me.
Oh, did she not expect her mother to be taken in, how did you put it, a 'porn setting'?
I ignored my coadjutor's commentary to instead reach up and cup her cheeks, stepping close and leaning in to press a soft kiss to her lips, Opala stretching on tiptoes to return the brief instance of affection and comfort before I straightened, "I'll get her back."
Her mouth worked silently for a moment before her eyes closed and she nodded.
"Where was she taken? I need to see it on the map. And I need something of hers that still has her scent to better track her."
"We have some things, but Sebastillion hasn't been able to find her…"
"And unlike him, I am a sorcerer." I reassured the beautiful queen.
I didn't wait for my mercenaries.
-oOo-
I touched a hand to the sand, able to see the faint brown tinges of blood compared to the rest of the intermittent sand and dirt around it. But there was no sense of the motherly and lustful flavor of Farah to it. Using a petal of power, I peeled aside the veil of reality to look deeper at the mystic associations, nearly a month later there wouldn't be any physical signs, but to the metaphysical?
The understanding of spatial magic wasn't natural to me the way the perception of physical forces or magic itself were, but I had multiple examples of teleportation and gateways to study and learn from. Proof of the illusion that was distance beyond a conceptual sense.
There, the tracery of connections, stretching out like filaments from the sand and connecting to the fabric from one of her dresses I had tucked in my clothes, hair of Sebastillion and Nehas, the lingering feel of Opala's kiss on my lips and my ownership of her… they were all connected to her… and here was the moment of her kidnapping.
This is because you decided to trust Osira–
I am entirely aware of that fact, Koya. The anger in my thoughts sent a pulse of emerald flames flickering atop my hand.
She chuckled, and for all that I wanted to smack her or shake her or something I was aware of the silliness of such. At this point, she was the voice inside my head, a part of me.
Then what are your plans?
I am going to express my displeasure at her decision. I made myself focus on the mystical associations before me and to analyze the supernal flavors that touched my tongue. Now, please, help me or let me work. I am still unfamiliar with this form of spell.
You could use the connections to weave a HUD or visual marker. Koya was all professional in an instant.
Mm, no, that doesn't work, but it's a good thought. The power of Awakened magic was understanding the measure of the Lie that was reality, and understanding how to manipulate the Lie with Truth. Every member of the Wise perceived magic differently, but in my case it was closer to a weave of code and circuits in the forms of mandalas and rivers and gardens.
The Lie of space was that distance was real, that all things were not one. There was a lot more nuance to it than that, it was about the understanding of how the distance between you and those you loved could be nothing even with miles separating you, about how a place important to you could feel extremely present and immediate, or how a scent could make you feel like you were home in the kitchen once more. The question was how to wield that Truth?
Koya's wording finally clicked, and I Knew.
The Truth that Farah was only as distant from me as my heart was from hers. And our hearts were connected by the Leash that was my Shroud of Power.
I reached out with my heart in hand and grasped that connection, that painfully real affection and hunger I had for the silly slut that my own choices may have caused pain, that leashed her heart to my soul.
Holding tightly to it, I used it as my guideline as to where to part the curtain of the Lie, to peek beyond it to where Farah was–
Rape.
Sir!
Emerald flames had erupted around my extended hand, teeth like thorns sprouting and gnashing.
Farah was being raped.
I'd known. I'd known. I'd known.
Farah, topless, scraps of clothing on her, a collar around her neck that I had not placed– spunk fresh and drying and old scattered across her body, violated by multiple jackal-headed, gray skinned monsters that I was going to fucking unmake–!
Sir, please-
Apologies, Koya, I am… Mine! My servant! My slave! My nymphomaniac! ... trying to get a handle on it.
Find her then.
It was but a thought. An insistence to the Lie that I knew where she was because I refused to believe the falsehood of distance, that my greed and hunger were greater than any mere aspect of reality. And I knew where she was as easily as I knew where my hands were relative to one another.
Emerald flames and crimson winds exploded in a firestorm, leaving behind crystal petals as I burst into motion, feet thundering against the sands as I ran.
I couldn't just teleport to her, unmaking that distance was beyond me. I couldn't undo the harm that had already been done, even if it was far lesser to my nymphomaniac than it would have been to any other woman. I couldn't uninvolve the children of the gods. But I could get to Farah as soon as possible, comfort her, and try to diffuse or deflect the likely apocalyptic recoking.
The moment I'd heard that Farah had been kidnapped… I'd known.
It was an infamous little comic series the creator of the series had commissioned. Involving the same frequent dub or noncon fetishes, oversized assets, copious amounts of spunk, and other fetishes frequently incorporated into the original games.
And you didn't think it could happen to your waifus–
I thought that I was going to be the one doing the non-conning damnit! I snapped internally, teeth bared as the ground exploded beneath me, sending me flying through the air in a parabolic leap over the sands of the desert, I'd thought we'd been on the track for the first game! Not this comic series!
A moment of silence from the internal commentary before Koya more helpfully noted, You were confused why Gabby was here.
Yes! It should've been a sign! But there weren't any others! But Gabby being in the city threw me off–! My feet hit the sand in a small blast of sand before I launched off into a sprint an instant later, hunger and worry gnawing at my soul, ... and if anything, should've been a sign we were in this far more dangerous variant.
... how much more dangerous? My coadjutor's tone was far more wary now.
A lot. I had to admit, the feeder tendril of worry worming its way through the white-hot rage I still felt, memories of the comic flashing through my mind, The gods that are a problem are strong enough to trivialize a charged up Osira.
A Tier 6. She agreed as I made the ground disappear beneath us, likely absorbing and parsing the information my brain was turning over before noting, Though you could do similar.
Yes. Even before absorbing the bullshit elemental bending adjacent abilities of the Guardains I was stupid strong and durable and fast and mystically potent by local standards, But how do the three gods compare to me? How big is their army, really? Will there be other problems?
Your loss of metaknowledge concerns you.
Loss of metaknowledge and clear discovery that we've been in a more dangerous variant! I corrected, It's not quite as bad as going from the Sailor Moon anime to the manga but this is still concerning.
On top of them taking your waifu.
My agreement was nonverbal.
We should contact the office once we have a moment. Koya continued, Even with our loans, this is a clear violation of initial Danger Rating budgetary rules.
When those jackals are dead and Osira is chained at my feet. I agreed.
-oOo-
It was deep in the desert, a desolate wasteland around isolated mountains in the sands with a few sparse hills around it. Nestled in a ravine towards its base, a large jagged hole burrowed into the side of the sheer cliff face.
The entrance was marked by several bags and crates of pillage around it as well as skulls, attached to a time-worn stake in the ground, and spiral patterns carved into the mountain-face, cracks running through the walls and defiant little dead bushes still clinging to life even as bleached, half buried bones not far from the entrance emphasized the desolation.
"You'll need a bath once we get back. You reek of jackal musk and canine semen."
A single, black, laden horse stood outside the cave without a care even as I landed from my leap, merely looking back at me unimpressed.
"And whose fault is that?" I asked, voice pitched to carry, tail lashing behind me and ears swept back as the target of my ire walked out of the cave and leading my slave forward with the chain leash, "Osira."
"Jacob…?" Farah's quiet, hoarse voice hurt to hear, the matriarch in much the same state I'd seen not long ago via my scrying, though her face brightened as her eyes focused on me, "Master~!"
"Jacob." Golden eyes with snake pupils narrowed at me, grip tightening on the chain in her hand and pulling at it to stop Farah from rushing forward, "You dare?"
"That's my line." I growled.
Blunt bangs, black, straight hair nearly to her hips, a black scarf, black dress, a single black glove, the intricately laced sandals, a trio of sharp scars on her left cheek and a golden nose stud… she was a picture of beauty even as she snarled, "This only happened because you interfered with my plans-!"
"Your plan was crap!" I nearly exploded, emerald light flickering against the walls as I hungered for retribution.
But her beauty was currently ruined by our collective attitudes, the edges of hunger in my gullet, and the infuriating state of her mother beside her.
"Crap?!" Osira sneered, "Better than yours to try and capture me-!"
"I was trying to get an audience and I did you a favor by binding that dumbass-! Valencio just fucking gave me the armor because he didn't even know what Strider looked like!"
"An audience, you really expect me to believe that when you've already branded my mother?" Her gloved hand tightened around the chain, and Farah looked between us both in a daze.
"She did that herself-!" I snarled, "I came to offer you power, immortality, conquest unmatched-!"
Something hit the edges of my perception, big, humanoid, sharp edges of weapons, leather-
"As if you were-!" Red painted lips twisted unhappily as she hissed out, "When you had my dear little sister to lavish with gifts instead-!"
Likely exhausted, Farah had slid down to kneeling in the sand, still dazed, but I was grinding my teeth even as Osira's eyes widened briefly before scowling at what had walked up behind me.
"Are we interrupting something?" A dark, gravelly voice asked from behind us, the trio of scaly, green humanoids having dropped from the cliff faces around us, their feet landing quietly in the sands.
All three of the assholes were wearing were mustard cloaks and a harness on their torso, leaving oversized and apparently spikey cocks swinging freely and the tactile field only meant it made me angrier.
"Yes~!" Burst out of me as I refused to turn, "You rather are, if you'd be so kind as to wait your turn–"
"Oh but we insist."
Breath and flames hissed between my gritted teeth.
"Who are you supposed to be?" Osira demanded.
The reptile man behind me looked past my shoulder at the sorceress, "You killed Lord Anubis's children. Most… unwise."
"Change your tone." She snapped with a colder hatred than she had with me, pink arcane sparks burning from her eyes and hands, "I'm not in the mood to deal with more pets of the gods. I suggest you withdraw, unless you wish to turn into sand."
"Sacriligious cunt-" the lizardmen started to draw their blades, spikey dicks starting to raise, "You dare to defy the gods-"
"Gentlemen," my voice was thunderous to my own ears, the sands shifting in response and the locals pausing, so I continued softer, forcing control over my ears and tail and face as I continued facing the royals, "Please, if you would, get in line. I'm certain there's appropriate recompense and bloodgild to be paid for the offense-"
"Silence outsider," the lead lizardman cut me off, "The gods will not be denied their vengance, this cunt and her bloodline will serve to return more of Anubis's children–"
Fire. And hateful, wretched screams.
The decision was made and I burned, petals and tongues of emerald flame licking at my skin, the burst of hellfire fading, the functionally nude lizardman-adjacent rapemonsters had staggered back, shielding their face and bared dicks.
I hadn't tried to vaporize them, but I was… unhappy. My heartbeat was nearly an avalanche in my chest, heat and hatred and anger and horror and frustration and so much more all demanding my attention, but I was in control. I was the one in charge of me. I was-... I would like to handle this without getting into a fight with the egyptian gods from a hentai setting, even if I was increasingly certain that was not an option. I had to at least try.
"I… insist."
I had to, for me.
Wicked looking swords were brandished and a bow drawn as the lead lizardman snarled past the singed scales of his face, "You dare-?!"
"These women are mine..." my voice was softer now as I focused on gathering that hatred, that anger, feeling it bubble beneath my skin and encouraging it to travel through me, to gather in my palm, skin cracking as fissures showing the green hellfire beneath my skin formed, "And you will not touch them."
It hurt, but it hurt the way pulling a scab or popping a zit or peeling sunburnt skin free did, the fissures in my skin hurt because they were the release of something worse within me.
The weapons raised further, the two sword wielders crouching, and I had to note, "There's still ways out of this without murder–"
The arrow caught in my shroud on the way to my face as the swordsmen charged forward-
With a snarl, I slapped reality so hard it cracked, and the horrors exploded forth from my palm, cancerous emerald hellfire, black acidic waters, flaying silver sands, silent crimson winds, all unleashed in a chaotic blast.
It burned and crushed and ripped and flayed and ate away, but it did not utterly destroy them, one continued to stagger forward even though his companions had been knocked over-
This time I unleashed a stream of pure hatefire from my palm, venting the white hot surge of coronal fire of my heart, filtered through the gift of the Flame Guardian and pushed out of me, a few petals of power consumed in the flame as I kept the gout of flame going until I felt the screaming masses dissolve into ashes.
With a shuddering breath I clenched my hand and clamped down on my fury, smothering the flames and revealing regained control of my fury.
Molten sands and radioactive embers were all that was left in the stretch before me, rapidly cooling into green and silver glass.
I could feel the arcane sparks still buzzing around Osira's hands even before I turned back to her, the virility of monstrosities converted into violence. My eyes met her yellow ones once more, and while they were wary, she was not afraid. Forcing a smile onto my face, "Now-! Where were we?" Her mouth started to open but it was rhetorical, "Oh yes! That you'd managed to involve and provoke the children of your divine pantheon!"
Golden eyes analyzed me for a long moment of silence, "You didn't entirely destroy the guardians."
Bristling, I had to grind my teeth for a moment, "No. No I didn't! The powers I was planning to offer you were far greater than anything you could have done drawing power from the dead!"
That caught her attention, the arcane power flickering before returning in a surge as she bristled, "So you knew."
"Yes-! I- agh!" My scream of frustration was strangled as I threw up my hands, "I knew what your plans were because they had been prophesied and scried by my employers! And I'd come here with the intention of wooing you with what they had to offer-! But that same knowledge of the future means that I know how this-!" I gesticulated wildly at the still molten sands behind me and the cave behind her, "Ends! And it's not good! Without me you would be turned into Sobek's toy! He would empower Sebastillion to rape you-! Egypt is overrun by the minion rapemonsters of the gods, men slaughtered or made into slaves for the mines as every woman becomes a fucking cumdump for them just like they were doing to Farah! And all of that is because you made a deal with the sons of Anubis-!"
"I only did so because of your interference!" She snarled, "Even if I believe those wild claims, your brutish assault on my minions was enough to reveal the lie. Not to mention that I know what the catch is," her hand rose threateningly, her voice low, "What it always is."
"I wanted to actually woo you! I'd been considering potential betrothal gifts-!" My fists clenched as I paced to burn off the angry energy buzzing beneath my skin, "I wanted to enable you-!"
"Lies-! You really expect me to believe such blatant-"
"They're not lies-!"
"Lorj Dacob!" I blinked, surprised by the sudden familiar voice, turning to look to find- Ali? The royal guard stood upon the cliff face, his bronze armor gleaming with the sun at his back, his head bandaged, armor and clothes scuffed, short brown hair still stained with blood, sword in hand, the man truly looked like a hero, "I'll get Lady Farah back to Thebes-! You handle the witch-!"
Ah, shit, he was the guard that normally survived.
In that instant it'd clicked, and I saw the Fate planned for him, the conflux of probabilities, the scales being leaned on by genre and conventions and tropes- it was like a mass of chains weighing him down, his soul shining in defiance but the results as inexorable as gravity, as determined as a stone falling down a hill, all laid out behind him like old school game guides showing possible fates for an NPC in an RPG.
He was going to die as a joke.
"Ka-karr!"
Bird shit hit him right in the eye with a wet splat, making him flinch and curse for just an instant- and in that moment step on a sharp rock that cracked and crumbled and sent him spilling forward over the edge of the cliff–
Like a thunderbolt, my Shroud snapped onto the man and expanded into a cottony mass, tossing out tendrils to catch onto the cliff-face and slow its descent as it caught the injured man and safely lowered him to the ground.
No matter how inexorable gravity was, we could catch a falling stone, and lift it in defiance of the cosmic force.
A flick of my wrist accompanied the focused will, and my shroud slithered back to my side with a shocked Ali on its back. It dissolved beneath him and eased the guardsman to the ground as it reformed around my shoulders. One brilliantly auburn eye glanced over at me as he relaxed from his braced position and started to scrub the bird shit from his closed eye, "Sorcerer. Right. I-"
My gently raised hand cut him off, and I reassured the poor soul as best I could before turning back to Osira, "I've got it."
This close, I could feel the puncture in his skull from the arrow beneath his bandages, the damage to his brain-matter, the scab tissue that had formed in defiance of the damage that he had self-treated.
"More chaff." Osira sneered, flicking a hand and loosing an arcane mass of Z's towards the injured man–
A snap of my finger and a burnt petal popped the bubble of power that was her spell, which my brain finally processed had been invisible to mundane senses. I didn't know much about the Truth of mental magics yet, but I knew enough to pierce the bubble of unconsciousness with a needle of Awareness before I corrected her as gently as I could manage, "A man that would have tried to save you and your mother had I not already intervened."
Osira didn't quite manage to make a snort dignified, but it was a near thing, "Again with the prophecy."
She was surprised you countered her spell. Koya informed me even as I started to respond.
"Yes. I had a rather good idea of how things could have gone without my interference, this is one of the outlier paths things could have taken, but it was still expected." I gestured broadly at our blasted environment, "I'd hoped to improve the course of things for you and Opala and Egypt as a whole, to bring you into contact with a greater world and give you avenues that suited your capabilities and desires while Opala had ones that suited hers."
"Serving you." Osira's disdain was like a knife.
"No-! Agh!" The frustration gushed forth from the emotional wound, having only been briefly staunched by the circumstances, "If anything I'd expected to be serving you! To enable your ability to conquer and trusting in your greater skill and talent and simply offer advice as you brought more lands into the fold of power that was the kingdom-!"
"How blatant do you intend your manipulations to be?!" The dark skinned roya's voice almost cracked in disbelief and almost laughter, "Do you truly take me for such a fool?!"
"Dears…?" Farah's voice, soft and tired and hoarse still somehow pierced the echoes of our emotions bouncing off of the cliff walls, "Don't fight… there's fun to do…" Her exhausted giggle hurt me even as she said, "He's good at the fun Osira~"
"Mother-!" Osira started, torn between exasperation and affront even as I sighed, fury guttering out as I rubbed my face with both hands; Ali letting out a strangled noise beside me.
Recalibrating may be appropriate, sir.
"Thank you for trying, Farah, but sex won't solve this, no matter how much I might wish it would." With a sigh I dropped my hands, "Right-! Okay, look, we've got Anubis at minimum and, if my knowledge is correct, Sobek and Set coming for both of us as well, with Egypt caught as collateral damage." That had the poor guardsman choking on his own breath for entirely understandable reasons, "Please, truce for now and we'll scream at each other later, but dealing with the divine punishment attempts now?"
Finally, finally the arcane power she'd collected about her hands was dismissed with a dismissive flick, "I do not trust you."
"I don't-!" I caught my frustration in my throat, "I don't expect you to. But any and all options and armies to bring to bear against their own to protect Thebes is better than otherwise."
The scarred egyptian woman scowled at me, crossing her arms beneath her generous bust, but her response was cut off as her eyes widened, jumping to behind me, mouth closing with a snap.
A large clawed hand brushed through the edge of my tactile field like a stranger's hand brushing through the hair at the base of my skull. "An interesting awareness technique."
My teeth ground briefly but I forced calm onto myself, how had they snuck up on me? I didn't have Superman's level of awareness but my hearing was superhuman, so how…? I could hear every breath the egyptians and horse took, their collective heartbeats almost hidden under the sounds of winds and sand and cracking of semi-molten glass… but only now that I paid attention I could hear the moving of the air in and out of the gods nostrils but I heard nothing from within them. Neither their heartbeats nor the air moving in and out of their lungs, even when I turned to see them.
Stealth magic? No, a basic but overcharged spell to prevent mortals from interfering with the movements of the divine. Koya murmured, seeing the same arcane structures of the magic around them and interpreting the structures far faster so I put that out of my mind as I focused on the trio of basically nude Egyptian Gods from a noncon hentai setting.
"Osira. Outsider Jacob. Your futile actions have not gone unnoticed." The lead figure of the trio, all of them at least a head taller than I was and standing just beyond my tactile field, his skin was jet black and was covered in soft fur, golden accents of metal that parodied armor and a headdress upon his body alongside a cape and a flared horsecock with a cockring and holding a small scepter, the furry divinity's voice boomed both audibly and metaphysically. His muzzle not of any species that I recognized though somewhere around aardvark, donkey, and dog.
"You are…" Osira began to whisper even as Ali scrambled to bow and I scowled.
With any luck I might be able to head this off and avoid literal divine conflict, "I did not expect them to-"
"Foolish children," Set spoke as if I wasn't in the middle of responding, "To challenge the Gods is to merely bring their attention upon you."
My mouth shut with a frustrated click of teeth. Oh this was starting great.
"If you wished to become the Deities new pets, then so be it." He managed to sneer with an inhuman and unnaturally shaped muzzle, with glowing pools for eyes, even though I could somehow tell where he was focusing.
I will prepare for battle. Sir, you should as well, nothing you can say or are willing to do will avoid it at this stage.
"Bow before your Masters. Bow before your Gods." He was flanked by two other animal headed humanoids as would be expected of the Egyptian pantheon. One a giant crocodile man with something resembling armor Conan would wear if he discarded the idea of a loincloth in favor of letting a demonic spikey dick wave about, carrying an entirely impractical if rune inscribed khopesh, the other certainly the actually offended party with the jackal head, extremely pale skin and fuzz, alongside more clothing and pseudo armor than the other two and a proper staff and monocle, those hadn't even been invented yet!
"Bow before Sobek, Set, Anubis."
I let the silence hang for a long moment before tilting my head, "Osira?"
"A truce does seem appropriate." She responded, voice calm even as I felt the tension in her form.
"Good. Ali," my Smart Device was dropped onto the guardsman's stomach, "Get Farah to use this to find and open a portal to my plane and from there travel to Thebes."
"You-"
"Do not bow,", was my instant counter, "Not before things lesser than my immediate supervisor at absolute least."
Thank you, sir.
The rumble that came from Sobek was the familiar bass rumble of a gator as he bared his teeth in an entirely in-crocodilian expression, and Set also seemed quite unhappy, though Anubis was more on the disdainful side of things.
"You dare to insult the gods further?" It was Sobek that stepped forward, his sword raised threateningly as his tail lashed angrily, crimson eyes blazing.
"You say that like there's anything I or her could do to prevent you from doing horrible things to us, like you would treat anything we could say or do with anything other than disdain. If that is an option, please, do tell me," I spread my arms out beseechingly, and honestly, "I would prefer to resolve this dispute without violence. But I am also aware how unlikely that is. And…" my eyes swept from one divinity to the next, meeting their eyes one by one, "If our only options are submit and suffer horrors… or fight and potentially suffer maybe worse horrors?" I leaned forward and felt the tongues of cancerous hatred and rageflame dance through my breath and gaze and skin, "Then I shall choose violence."
Anubis' motion was dismissive, the bolt released from his finger encapsulating an entropic end to complexity that did not compute for me enough to counterspell… but my Shroud launched forward in the instant of the realization to intercept, the deathbolt splashing against the material harmlessly.
I looked at the annoyed divinity with a vicious smile, shrugging appearing on my face in spite of the tumult of emotions in my chest, "Violence it is then–!"
Sobek had launched into the air, leaping towards us before I'd even finished the rejoinder. From behind me Osira unleashed a blast of destructive energies that splashed as uselessly against Sobek's scales as deathly waters would against those of a gator.
My Shroud surged through the air to slam into the god midair and knock him aside an instant before I raised a hand and with it an eruption of earth and silver sands to intercept the bolt of sand and lightning and violence that Set had fired my way, "Osira-! Go with Ali and Farah, inform Opala, prepare Thebes-!"
Another blast of- two blasts-! Anubis and Set struck again with divine power and once more I defied them, a sweep of my hand bending earth and reality to create a barrier of suddenly silver sands to absorb the attacks-
Sobek powered through the sands like a train through fog, blade ready-
My Shroud burst from my other palm as a dandelion of death, spikes and hooks and blades at the ends of chains-! That I felt the failure of such to pierce his scales, their sheer volume and mass the only thing slowing him down- a frustrated thought sent the tangle of chains wrapping around him before launching itself aside–
Sir-!
Stomping, I forced stone upwards to shield myself from the blast of divinely empowered sands that poured forth from Set's scepter before sweeping my hand to unfold it to block Anubis' follow-up-!
"If I can't handle this, Thebes needs to be ready-!"
Set cursed my name as degenerate, weak, and without honor but I barked out laughter and dismissed the claim, undermining the curse not only with my disdain but by saying, "The servants and sons we'd slain were weaker and lesser, breaking pacts and propriety and to say we broke honor by responding to their violence in kind? Shallow."
I could feel the curse drip from my skin and name, sickly waters failing to stain me.
Sobek swam through the hardpacked sands of the little valley even as I heard Osira shout orders to Ali and Farah and the panicking horse she'd brought, but my focus had to remain on the divinities before me-!
A stomp sent a surge through the earth that geysered the crocodile god from the sands– and he was still coming at me- right kopesh- My follow up double palm thrust released a blast of crimson winds that knocked him flying once more before an aggressive sweep of my hand at Koya's prompting sent my Shroud back out as a wall of threads that rusted under Anubis' attack-
Curses against my bloodline that I had to defuse to prevent that from backgracing- deflect the khopesh and intercept that spell-!
I moved, trying to keep all three in my awareness even as Osira wrangled the others through a portal that was apparently behind us-
Loosing bolts of green fire before spinning in a devil of silver sands and crimson winds to deflect Sobek before forcing the molten glass into a crystalline shield on top of the half-summoned spirits Anubis had begun to call, disrupting their magic with my own.
Even as they fled through the portal I was struggling. I was fast, but so were they.
Pain lanced across my chest as a bolt of chaos and violence from Set struck me when I'd thought he'd take longer to cast again-
I felt the portal close behind me-
With the field cleared of collateral damage I could clear it-!
Leaping back and catching a double fistful of the petals of my power I burned and unleashed them, bending the landscape and unleashing my burning fury in a maelstrom before me before catching the twisting threads and funneling them at the divinities.
This bought me an instants time before Anubis and Set both Spoke against my Authority, snuffing out my control of the sands and a significant chunk of the mystical power.
Hellfire licked at their skin, rough red patches of worn away scales and skin on the three divinities, their glowing eyes glaring back at me from their defensive postures as the moment hung, the damage to them was minimal, singed clothing and mild burns and abrasions… but that had gotten their attention.
My Shroud coalesced back around me, bristling with thorns and teeth as the extension of my will embodied the gnawing hunger within me, No longer an insect to snuff out-
And now a threat. I see why you were concerned, sir.
Options. I prompted, mind racing and unable to properly strategize. I did not have the appropriately intense combat experience, let alone experience with my abilities or magical combat to think calmly here.
Circuitstrands of power began to snap and weave to Anubis' hand as Set and Sobek began to shuffle through the partially glassed sands in opposite directions, clearly trying to surround me-
I shuffled backwards, gathering my own collection of power to divert whatever Anubis or Set were working on, We need to isolate one of them. If we can disable Anubis we can retreat.
How to isolate them though? Shroud? No, I needed that for its offense to be sure I could hurt one. My flames weren't enough, crimson winds didn't last, water-
As the spell in Anubis' hand began to crystalize it clicked-
Double handed, I lunged towards Set, grabbing at the air as the deity leapt back, the other two reacting the instant I moved-
But I caught what I'd wanted, grabbing the entire cliff face, my lead foot stomping into the ground and severing it free as I swung the wall of stone over my head and at Anubis and Sobek-
"By the boat-?!"
Both dodged it backwards, and as thousands of tons of stone tethered and cracked I launched back at Set.
Sands unleashed and were batted aside as a burning lance of teeth sprung from my hand, dodged only for a twist of my wrist to swing it into a whip of thorns, cracking the air and sending a pulse of flames into the animal-headed deity's black hide-!
Pain-!
I snarled as the blast of Foreign thudded into my chest, but my sweep of the whip was unimpeded, thornteeth tasting flesh and drawing blood in his upper arm before it was deflected by his scepter- a thought transformed the whip into a serpent that struck back out as I continued to close the distance-
Set's spell severed the serpent's head before swinging on to strike at me- which I caught and crushed the assault of Foreign magic for the brittleness of the concept with my left hand, right gathering a spear-
"Anubis-!" He cried, muzzle tense as I finally closed, the mass of teeth and flames around my right hand deflected by the divine authority embodied in his scepter- panic flashed as his one handed deflection rapidly became two as he struggled against my strength, feet digging into the sands as I continued to run, pressing him backwards, towards the fractured cliff face, seeking any opening to use my left hand to gut him, "Right-!"
Sir-!
Pressure gone, I nearly tumbled, the pop of displaced air- Set- Sobek before me had dodged my sudden overextension of the teleport-!
My arm came up in desperation to deflect the khopesh-!
Pain.
The heavy khopesh struck strands of shroud material and cut through, slicing into my skin and digging in, my teeth gritting as the crocodilian face snarled back before he asserted his divinity over my own and cut through-!
I screamed power into his face and the silent shout shredded scaly skin while shoving Sobek away, the teetering tons of stone hitting the ground an instant later and sending tremors through the ground as dust and splinters of sandstone shrapnel shot out-
Seconds later my Shroud springing into reality with a suspicion as strands stitched a structure into reality between me and the divinities, only seconds before spells would have struck me-!
Blood dripped from the stump of my left arm, pain burning through me as I stopped trying to stand my ground and moved, sprinting with the winds at my back as I tried to circle towards Anubis-!
A trio of spells from them were flung my way without a clear way out over the boulders-!
Fire and blood, the droplets willed into deluges of vitriolic fervor with an aggressive sweep of my stump and burning away the divine magics, but it'd stopped my sprint–
This isn't sustainable.
Koya's statement was true, in that instant of breather she'd spoken it in.
I was burning away power far too fast, the flower of power within me was quickly becoming sparse of petals even with the efficiency the Authority over the elements the guardians had given me. I did not have control of this fight even when I'd thought I had-
Shroud. Take it. It was all I could think before I bent reality once more, twisting the sands and glass into a spike wall to stop the spells slung my way-
Set's Authority of the sands of the desert asserted themselves though my own and it was only the spontaneous appearance of my shroud between me and the attack that saved me from taking another blast of divinely entropic power to the chest.
I felt it then, the distribution as Koya took control of my Shroud and manipulated it with adroit awareness even as I struggled to handle the multi-vector combat while down a hand.
A fox of tails and teeth leapt beside me as I burned and breathed, trying to close in on Anubis as Set and Sobek both tried to strike at me and Koya, Anubis switching places with the two or switching their places rapidly as appropriate.
I was fast, faster than they were, but not enough to eclipse the disadvantage of three on two, let alone one. I was strong, stronger than they were… but not strong enough to simply crush them in a single strike. I was skilled but nowhere near enough to compete with who knows how ancient divinities, the trio clearly coordinating even without words, simply knowing what their compatriots were likely to do and accommodating that in their own plans.
Sands surged, fires raged, spells flew through the air and aether, struck down with structure and thought–
pain
Skin and ribs cracked like brass and basalt as Set's scepter slammed speartip first into my ribs, knocking the wind from my lungs-
Sobek swung his khopesh mid lunge and my hand snapped out to catch his wrist- for all that the scaly mass was as thick as my own thigh his strength wasn't-
A snarl, snap, swish-
He'd dropped his sword from one hand to the other and it'd been a quick scramble to catch it again before he could bring the divine blade to bear against me again- his free hand reached back out but my tail caught it-!
Spells crashed against my Shroud in the shape of a mighty fox that swept back around, the feeling of erosion a distant thing-
Koya's efforts were a peripherally heard even as I struggled with Sobek, back and forth moment by moment-
This was not sustainable.
I was expending resources faster than they were collectively, I was injured, they were whole, I was starving and hungry and–
Sobeks tail caught my ankle and pulled my stance apart-
Cutting edge clipping my temple even as I lifted the arm rapidly, blood spraying across my vision even before Sobek's teeth clamped down on my forearm, his legs twisting as he prepared to deathroll-
Pain.
Lamprey teeth slammed into Sobek's elbow, crimson eyes widening as blood dripped from my face, the stump a mass of teeth and mouths as I snarled-
And I bit off his sword arm.
The crocodile god staggered back, gasping in pain and clutching at the stump of his left arm-
The hunger consumed the meal voraciously as the sudden snapping of teeth severed Sobek's arm and devoured and digested it- enough to graft his larger arm onto my stump, still holding his Kopesh.
My khopesh now.
Blood dripped from the now much smaller wounds in my forearm and head as I glared at the shocked meal before me, "You…"
I pointed at him and said the only thing I needed to before turning towards the two divinities.
"Koya."
She descended upon the crocodile in a feast of fury and fangs, devouring Sobek and his screams even as I deflected a pair of spells from the other two meals.
The flavor of scales and swords and sex all with the familiar textures that I knew as the two other gods looked on in horror.
My left forearm was now what Sobek's had been, scaled, overly large, clawed, and carrying his overdesigned blade. And as the flesh of Sobek filled my stomach through the shroud, rapidly digested and feeling scales filling in the bite marks on my forearm and cut on my forehead as I healed from the meal.
He'd tasted like briney chicken.
I glanced at it, the blood covering it before looking back to Anubis and Set as Koya settled back around my shoulders as my Shroud, my Coadjutor settling back in my heart as the fox head on my shoulder glared at the divinities, "So… about those possibilities for…" I trailed off in thought but used the framing Koya supplied, "Options without further violence?"
Licking some of the blood from my arm, I twisted my wrist a bit, flexing my hand and testing my flexibility and soreness. The bastard had tried to break my forearm. The single gold pauldron he'd worn on his right shoulder bubbling up through my flesh to appear, the magical thing reshaping to my smaller form.
"Abomination." Set hissed, raising his scepter.
"Godslayer." Anubis whispered, the pale jackal headed divinity clutching his staff, his monocle long gone in the fight and his cape in tatters.
"You did attack me-" I started to say before Anubis swung his staff, my blade coming up to deflect before the flash of holy light from them blinded my physical eyes even as I felt them teleport away.
I pushed more power into my anima, extending it further to feel for them, to feel for potential attacks–!
... but they were gone.
That was a tactical withdrawal. Koya noted.
Not a full retreat. I agreed with her assessment a sigh, the blade dropping to the sands as I relaxed ever so slightly, This isn't over.
No.
My pulse was beating my inner ear, chest heaving, skin feeling crusty from evaporated sweat, rivulets of blood covering the left side of my face and right forearm… I rubbed my face with my hand, futilely trying to grind the stress out of my mind with my palm.
We need to get in contact with the Company and acquire restitution.
And probably put in a request for help. I agreed before sighing, the anger bubbling within like methane from the swamp that was my soul, catching fire in the emerald sun, But first? Get in touch with the others, make sure Farah and Ali are okay… a thousand small torments and punishments flashed through my mind, sexual and otherwise as my mouth pressed into a thin line, And deal with Osira.
A.N. - And yes, this is back!
While this didn't get quite as far as I'd intended as a chapter, that was the natural end point for it. The full confrontation(s) will all be handled next chapter.
As for the elephant in the room, that Farah was raped. I'm aware this bit's going to ruffle some feathers, but to be blunt? Too bad. I tried very hard to make it clear that this story was not a traditional Waifu Catalog fic, that problems could happen, and that it was a rapey setting. I legit don't know how clearer it could've been in the narrative that this was actually a possibility. Seriously, if a woman had been captured for a month in Kuroinu or Taimanin you'd expect them to have been raped.
Regardless, I do appreciate commentary and criticism, and hope you enjoyed.