Second Queen

On a hill outside of the burning city, a lone woman was walking, a lantern in her hand.

She wore a beautiful red dress, adorned with gemstones of various colours and fabrics that the most talented of seamstresses would have killed to get their hands on. Shards of glowing glass clung to her dress, like she had just broken a window or another item made of the fragile material.

Every step they took left a mark in the snow, only for that mark to begin getting filled in by the heavy snowfall not even a moment later.

Slowly, the woman walked up the hill, listening to the roars and cries of the two titans behind her battling.

In the light of her lantern, her green hair almost looked a dark shade of black. It hung freely down her shoulders, not tied in a braid of any other sort of hairstyle like Anastasia would often have.

After reaching the top of the hill, Yelena turned around and admired the sight.

The city was in ruin. A gargantuan cloud of smoke rising above it, the burning buildings illuminating the night sky. Combined with the constant snowfall above it, the image almost looked poetic.

At the same height, a menacing four armed beast fought against a raging woman with tentacles emerging from under her dress.

It was a fierce and ruthless battle, one where they didn't care for their own health, they only cared for causing as much harm to the other party as possible.

The Plague Harbinger's tail acted like the whip of a God, always striking their target and injecting them with various diseases it had stored.

Anastasia on the other hand actually looked more menacing than the beast itself. Her bloodlust was ten times more powerful than that of the beast's, Yelena could tell as she could faintly sense it from where she was standing.

Yelena sighed softly as an item appeared in her free hand. It was a rather dull looking book, one which had an equally dull looking story to accompany it.

Fangs of Love - Written by E.Q.A.V

Scrolling through the horribly written smut, Yelena wondered how messed up a woman had to be to write something like this.

As for how she knew it was a woman?

"Eldritch Queen Anastasia Venescence... Could you have been any more obvious?"

Yelena threw the book on the ground, letting the snow cover it so it would never be found by anyone.

As it turned out, Anastasia had been writing her own smut for a long, long time. Yelena wasn't sure why she did it, probably because Castillian was a pig who couldn't even satisfy his own needs, let alone a lady's, so she had to resort to writing smut to get off.

How sad was that?

Still, smut was a lot less sad when compared to what Anastasia herself had done.

Anastasia would regularly sneak into the city, looking for anyone she could have a little fun with. Then, when she was finished, she would dispose of them so no one would ever find out about her little secret.

However, that all changed when one red headed boy came along.

Yelena felt guilty about this whole thing, she really did, but in the wider view of things she really didn't have a choice, it was the only way.

... The only way.

Sighing once more, a small bead appeared in Yelena's free hand. The bead was gray and swirling, like it had a raging storm contained inside it.

Looking up at the snowy sky, she remembered back to the day she realised what she would have to do.

The third night where Anastasia paid Kai a visit with the purpose of seducing and taking advantage of him.

Yelena had baited Anastasia out of the room before swiftly knocking her out and taking her place. She didn't think that Kai had realised she wasn't actually that perverted Queen, she had done quite a good job copying her mannerisms and the way she spoke.

Well, all except the head patting, Yelena had forgotten to do that before leaving, but luckily Kai had already been influenced by the mind hex so he had simply overlooked it.

As for why she had to step in at that moment? Kai wasn't fully under the mind hex, meaning he would have remembered what happened that night, and someone that young shouldn't have to remember having to be Anastasia's plaything.

That's why Yelena also made sure that Kai wouldn't remember any of the other nights either.

Glancing down at the Memory Bead in her palm, Yelena closed her eyes and glanced into it. Instantly, her mind was flooded with images of what Hex Kai endured. Those nights that someone so young should never have to go through, they would definitely have damaged Kai's soul if he had gotten his memories back after breaking free from the mind hex, so she had to steal his memories before they could harm him.

And in the process, she stole one other memory.

Here was a little theory lesson about the collar Kai was forced to wear during his time in the cell. It had been created by the First Lord, sure, but it had also been ever so slightly tweaked by Anastasia before hand.

Anastasia was skilled in manipulating peoples memories as it was part of her Innate Ability. She could have people forget the time they spent under her command, so that is what she had done to the collar.

After all, a collar that could nullify all sorts of skills would be a little too high tech even for a Queen of a Subdimension, so she had it work a little differently.

No, instead of nullifying skills, Innate Abilities and Items, the collar nullified memories.

After all, how could someone use a skill if they didn't remember how to use it.

Of course, there was the outliers. There was that strange bead that Yelena had seen Kai use, which she still wasn't sure what it actually did. If she had to guess, she would assume that it was a device to store stats inside as she watched Kai get weaker after using it.

But there was one other skill that had slipped through the nullification of the collar, that skill being Soul Flame.

And the reason that skill hadn't been as badly affected by the collar was because of Yelena herself.

Or more importantly, the Memory Bead she had slipped into Kai's bread on his first day in the cell.

After eating it, he regained some of his memories on how to wield the skill, meaning he would have a constant heat source for his time in the cell.

But that wasn't all Yelena had done for Kai. She had also guided a certain rat away from the Plague Harbinger and towards Kai instead.

She had been the one to slip Kai the note saying 'do not sleep tonight' as she would much rather have had Kai meet Cecilia sooner rather than later.

She had also kept Petunia some company from time to time whenever she was scared or crying. Yelena had lied saying that she was a friendly spirit that roamed the castle, which seemed to entertain the young child much more than she originally expected.

She had even sneakily swapped the book Kai was about to grab in the library at the last second. Wristology was honestly the most useful for him, and the one he was about to grab before her interference was about how to wield a sword using your tongue, which probably wouldn't have been as useful.

And lastly, she had shattered the teleporter that led to another Subdimension. That itself might not seem like it would actually help the boy, but Yelena knew that it would, and she knew that it would help tremendously.

But there was still the question of why. Why would Yelena help Kai so much? Why bother buying him for this Subdimension? Why not meet him even once after being the reason he got put under a mind hex and forced to spend a month in a cell of ice?

There was a simple reason for that.

They were simply worried that Kai would recognise them.

Yelena's body began to change. Her height increased by a few inches, her breast and hip size considerably decreased, the glasses sitting on her nose disappeared as her long green hair grew shorter and turned a light brown colour.

The elegant and gorgeous dress on their body turned into a common cotton shirt and brown trousers, a pair of boots on the now man's feet.

The Ever-changing sighed, their appearance now being that of the boy he would show himself as in his dream meetings with Kai.

They glanced down at the stormy Memory Bead in their palm before closing their hand and mercilessly crushing it. Sparks of light escaped through the gaps in their fingers, but they didn't care.

They knew that they were a shit master, they knew that what they were doing was a horrible thing that no one deserved, but...

"... I'm sorry."

The least they could do was make sure their apprentice didn't suffer from any unnecessary pain, like regaining the memories of what he had endured while under Anastasia's mind hex.

With a solemn expression on their face, The Ever-changing looked up to the outer wall of the city. Their vision pierced through the blizzard, catching sight of five figures escaping the city.

A red haired boy on the verge of collapse, a pitch black wolf carrying a blonde haired girl and a rat, and then there was a black haired woman who seemed to be doing the worst of them all, she had technically failed her mission again after all.

The Ever-changing never was going to punish her though. Even after all the years they had been imprisoned, they still had some loyal followers. Even though they had technically bullied Cecilia into accepting her role, she accepted it gracefully and tried her hardest, and that was all they could have asked for.

So The Ever-changing would make sure to treat her right.

The Ever-changing watched as Kai collapsed onto the back of his familiar. It seemed like so long ago that they had gifted a skill to the cute little wolf, who would have known that they would have grown so much in such a short amount of time?

... Other than them, of course.

After Kai passed out, The Ever-changing saw Cecilia turn her head to look towards them. Thinking that she was actually able to see them, it took them a second to realise that she could only make out the light of their lantern and not them themselves.

Still, they gave the tired Queen a little wave anyway.

However, mid wave, the blizzard began to shift behind The Ever-changing. A spear of pure ice began to manifest behind them, it's tip aimed right at where the God's heart would be.

It took a fraction of a second to form, and it shot at The Ever-changing as soon as it was completed.

But just as it was about to pierce their skin, the spear of ice shattered into a million pieces, like it had hit against an invisible barrier.

The Ever-changing shook their head softly before turning around.

"I know, I know... I'm leaving now, outside the wall is your area and all."

The area fell silent for a moment before the snow around The Ever-changing began to react. It flew into the same spot before eventually spelling:

'Boy?'

The Ever-changing nodded.

"They'll be fine, I'm sure that you'll look after them, if it comes to that. Of course, you don't have to if you don't want to, but I know you will."

The blizzard did not respond this time.

The Ever-changing cast one last glance back at the group, watching them set off towards the Royal Peak.

... If only they knew how torturous the journey would actually be compared to what they were expecting.

So, with another sigh, The Ever-changing shook their head and said:

"Good luck..."

Then, the area where they had been shimmered as they vanished from existence, like they had never been there to begin with.