“Who are you?!” Joana demanded. “Where’s the Grand Patriarch?!”

The creature behind the desk - the thing that looked like Doll, but wrong, with a vapid smile and no light behind …her? Its? Its eyes gave no response as it moved forward. It hopped up on top of the desk and stepped over the paperwork before landing lightly on the ground again in front of us.

“Watch out!” I called, just as the thing drew its arm back for a punch. Of course, the warning did little good when I was the intended target but I failed to realize as much until after the creature had already struck its fist upon my cheek, lifting me off my feet and sending me slamming into a wall.

A moment later another thud followed and Abigail landed next to me. Noticeably, however, she lacked a mark upon her cheek.

“What the heck was that?” she mumbled, looking more confused than injured. 

Not that I was in any lasting pain, myself - the sting upon my cheek was nothing more than a memory a mere second later - but the fact remained that I had been hurt. There was little time to think on the matter, however, as a moment later I heard a clang - a sound that shouldn’t come from flesh meeting a blade head-on, and yet I heard it clear as day as Lucy parried the creature’s fists with her unbreakable blade.

“What the heck is that thing?” Abigail muttered. “It looks almost like Doll, but…”

“I am an automated doll,” it replied, its chipper voice a stark contrast to the ferocity with which it was attacking Lucy. Thankfully Lucy seemed to be holding her own in terms of defense, but she was so busy dodging and parrying the creature’s fists that she had no time to strike out herself.

“What did you do with the Grand Patriarch?!” Lucy demanded, repeating Joana’s earlier question.

This time, though, the thing actually replied.

“The entity formerly known as ‘Grand Patriarch’ has graciously donated his mass to form my vessel.” 

For a moment, Lucy faltered - either surprised by the answer, or taken aback by the fact that the doll answered at all. Either way, it was enough for the creature to land a blow upon her, causing her to double over before kicking her in our direction.

Again there was a thud as Lucy impacted the wall, groaning and clutching at her side. “Ow…”

“It should be getting better already,” I reminded her, rising to my feet. “Which makes me wonder what exactly this thing is planning. It’s attacks aren’t strong enough to kill us, so-”

“Subjugation procedure now commencing,” the doll announced, holding her palm out towards us. At the same time, I felt energy - warm, familiar, and yet oh so worrisome holy energy - push against me, pressing me back against the wall. Lucy, too, went rigid, leaving only Abigail standing in place.

“Uh… Guys?” Abigail asked, her voice laced with uncertainty. The hesitation cost her and the doll had its fist in her stomach a moment later, causing her to double over in surprise. Another strike at her head sent her tumbling to the ground, seconds before Lucy and I were sent flying through the air towards her, pushed back by that same holy magic. We landed in a heap, a pile of tangled bodies each desperately trying to get out of one another’s way and back to our feet even as the doll’s fist began to glow again.

“Beginning annihilation procedure,” it announced next, opening its palm to face us. The glow around its hand was growing even as it moved, a bright bolt of energy coalescing in its palm. I knew instinctively that what it held should not exist within this mortal realm. As it was, it seemed to make reality itself scream in pain just being there.

Divine magic. Not a wisp of it, such as the one from Doll that had burned me earlier, but a large, concentrated amount aiming straight at us. Ready to annihilate us.

The orb of light grew brighter until I could hardly see, and though I tried desperately to get to my feet, or at least push Abigail and Lucy’s bodies further away from me and the blast, I knew deep down inside that there was nothing I could do. That no matter how fast I moved, that blast would be faster. That nothing could stop it.

Nothing, that is, except that oversized swivel chair being slammed into the doll’s head. It stumbled, not damaged but caught off guard, momentarily thrown from its position, and in that moment Abigail’s tail whipped out, wrapping itself around the doll’s leg and yanking it off its feet, causing the orb to shoot towards the ceiling, blowing a hole in the roof. A moment later the doll followed, less tossed towards the ceiling than flung upward by the ankle with another movement of Abigail’s tail, dramatically widening the already present hole.

A moment of silence passed between us. Then there was an explosion as the doll collided with the divine energy it once housed and reality shattered. The colors bled from the world around us, sound was washed out to nothingness, and the planet itself seemed to tremble. 

…Though, on second thought that last bit might have just been the building, as the walls and ceiling had begun to crumble.

“...Well,” Joana muttered after a moment, “that’ll teach it not to ignore people, I guess.”

“...Yes, I suppose it will,” I replied, my voice slow and my words drawn out.

“Just like Luci,” Liz giggled in my ear, causing me to flinch. I was starting to think I’d prefer actual thought-to-thought communication over these auditory hallucinations. “She probably told the doll specifically to focus on you three, so it just ignored the ‘random human.’ Those things aren’t very smart by default, you know? Especially not a knockoff model like that one - she didn’t even use any divine magic in its construction! Not beyond powering it up for that last spell…”

“What the hell was with its attacks, anyways?” Abigail asked. “They didn’t even hurt, but they still sent me flying!”

“They hurt me,” Lucy protested.

“Me as well…” I replied.

“Oh, that’s because holy and unholy magic repel each other,” Liz explained, causing me to stiffen. “Kinda? Theoretically they should actually be able to blend together back into divine magic, but that’s mostly impossible without me willing it to happen, so there’s a sort of safety measure in place that makes them repel each other instead. It’s the same reason you wouldn’t have been able to tear apart that collar!”

“Wait, does that mean Abigail and I are going to repel each other?” I demanded, not caring in the slightest about the strange look Joana was giving me at my outburst.

“Neah, you can touch just fine! The repelling is more at, like, the atomic level. Or what would be a atomic level if you were actually made of individual atoms and not holy energy. Basically as long as you aren’t into pain play you should be fine.”

“Thank goodness,” I sighed in relief.

“I take it that’s a no on whatever you were worrying about, then?” Abigail asked.

“Yes… Liz was just explaining to me why you took no damage - apparently that doll wasn’t technically able to touch you, on a… Well, suffice it to say that she essentially repelled you instead, which had much the same result from a physical standpoint but without any of the actual harm.”

“Right… Because I’m made of unholy magic, or whatever?” Abigail guessed, clearly connecting the dots. “Wait… does that mean your spells won’t affect me?”

“Not only that, but you wouldn’t even show up on any of the surveillance instruments the angels have~!” Liz added. “In fact, if you covered your group with a bubble of unholy energy you could basically make yourself invisible and invulnerable to angels pretty easily… Not that there’s a spell for that yet, but I could program one up in a jiffy! Thankfully, programming and implementing spells is one of the few things I can do remotely! It was sort of needed during coding bootcamp, after all - half my homework involved creating new spells, and since I was ‘heavily discouraged’ from leaving the local universe… Oh my me, I can’t believe I’m feeling thankful for meforsaken homework…”

“As interesting as that all is, you speak as if it’s somehow relevant,” I remarked, arching an eyebrow. “I thought you were keeping the angels from messing with the mortal realm?”

“Who’s she talking to?” Joana asked, eyeing me in a way that seemed to indicate she was questioning my sanity.

“The Goddess,” Abigail blithely replied.

“But she prefers Liz!” Lucy added.

“Well, that bolt you sent flying upwards did sort of tear a hole in reality, you know? I bet I could reconfigure it to get you into the holy realm pretty easily…”

“You can’t be serious,” I protested. 

“I know, I know,” Liz said, “that’s only halfway there - you’d basically have to find your way to the divine realm from… Well, who knows where? There wasn’t quite enough oomph in that attack for me to be picky with the coordinates, you know? Proper teleportation spells are expensive.”

“No, I mean you can’t possibly be suggesting we launch some form of attack on Heaven!”

Joana paled.

“It’s not as bad as it sounds!” Lucy hurriedly explained. “I mean, the angels are sort of kind of really bad! They’re keeping Liz locked up and everything!”

“R-Right… Liz… The… Goddess…” Joana muttered, shaking her head. “Look, you can’t come up with some vaguely religious-sounding name and just expect me to believe it’s the Goddess, even if you are the Heroine! This… This is just…”

“Oooh! Oooh oooh oooh! Do the thing again!” Liz excitedly demanded. “Do the thing where you broadcast my voice! There’s a thing I can do to convince her.”

“A ‘thing?’” I asked curiously. Nevertheless, I complied.

“Hi~!”Liz - no, the Goddess Said - and with a capital S, at that. If the world had gone quiet at the presence of divine magic, it went still at the sound of this. It was only a word - a singular, half-sung word, at that - and yet within that word was power beyond what I could comprehend, and knowledge - no, Knowledge that sunk deep into my bones, Knowledge that this was indeed the Goddess speaking.

“That’s… the Goddess?” Joana whispered, eyes wide with awe.

“Yup!” Lucy confirmed, somehow seemingly unphased.

“...I liked it better when I could deny that fact,” Abigail muttered. “That level of certainty almost feels like something’s fucking with my mind… And the fact that I’m somehow equally certain that it isn’t the case isn’t actually helping!”

“Yeah, I might have overdone it,” Liz admitted, giggling. “Sorry! It’s what I sound like when I do official broadcasts and the like. Probably a waste of my limited magic power, but like I said, I spent a lot of my magic on this communication spell so draining a bit of it wasn’t exactly concerning.”

“Magic?” Joana asked, seemingly coming out of her shock as she frowned. “I thought they said you were being held prisoner. They left you with the ability to do magic?”

“Well… not … exactly,” Liz confessed, sounding almost guilty. “I told the other girls already, but Luci - the evil one in Heaven, not the cute one down here - has the system set to send me just enough to keep from destabilizing… But like I also told the girls I am my magic, and my magic is me. That means every single bit of me is magic! Including the bits that can separate from me.”

“Like spit?” Lucy asked.

“Not… exactly… I don’t build up saliva unless I’m actually using it to eat, and I haven’t been given any physical food in a long while now.”

“Your hair, then?” Joana suggested.

“No, my hair doesn’t come off naturally…” Liz admitted. “And I can’t cut it without special scissors.”

“It’s sexual fluids, isn’t it?” Abigail all but accused her.

“...Alright, you got me,” Liz confessed. “I made Grimmilla talk dirty to me so that I could get really wet, and then-”

“Can we please get back to the matter of us storming Heaven’s gates?” I demanded, suddenly wishing very much to be talking about anything but this. Not that there was anything wrong with my mother and her girlfriend having an active sex life, but… I didn’t particularly want to hear about it.

“I kinda thought you were against the idea of doing that?” Liz asked.

“Yes, well, I’m still against it, but I thought I’d at least hear your logic,” I replied, not wanting to admit that I’d chosen the topic more out of desperation than anything. “Though you can’t seriously expect us to go through with it, can you? The three of us, against the entirety of Heaven?”

“Well, preferably you’d be sneaking through it with Abigail’s magic,” Liz reminded me. “Not that anyone but Luci would be able to do anything to you, so long as you had Abigail defending you, but they could probably at least pin you in place until Luci showed up if they found you…”

“You’re not making a great case,” Abigail remarked. “I mean, as badass as us standing against all of heaven might sound, I don’t really see us winning at this rate.”

“But we’ll never win if we don’t do something!” Lucy pointed out. “Liz, you’re suggesting that we come free you, right?”

“I mean, that is the only way that this ever ends,” Liz pointed out. “Sure, you can maintain the status quo for the next unknown number of years, maybe work on challenging the church’s influence and making some level of peace with humans, but… it’s only a matter of time before Luci finds some way to slip around me. Maybe next time she makes a hundred new Heroines - or whatever she can make with the limited number of blank souls around…”

“Blank souls?” Joana asked, again seemingly finding something to latch onto. I was starting to think the woman only knew how to process this conversation if she could play the role of interrogator. “What the hell are those?”

“Souls that have never been put into the reincarnation cycle!” Liz explained. “They’re basically blank slates - a lot easier to work with, especially if the angels wanna skip out on properly scrubbing past life memories and the like to save time. The thing is I only left so many of those in storage, and I’m not exactly making more. As the population increases, the number of free ones is only going down… I’m guessing that’s why they’re skipping steps like the past-life-memory scrubs in the first place… and even then they’re probably coming up short. Hence the whole ‘let’s make a video game that steals people’s souls’ thing, I guess?”

“Wait,” I interrupted, holding up a hand. “Are you saying that Tower Conquest was some sort of… soul trap?!”

“I mean, I’m just guessing here,” Liz admitted. “It’s not like I’ve ever gotten to see a copy. Honestly, I didn’t even know it existed until I overheard you talking the other girls about it.” 

“So that wasn’t why you chose to give me access to my past life memories?” I asked, unable to help myself. We were getting wildly off topic, but at the same time the matter did concern me. “I would have assumed you were after the knowledge I received.”

“Nope! Honestly, I had - and have - no idea what soul you have. I was just crossing my fingers for something stable, to be honest - knowledge of the video game and Earth was an unexpected bonus!”

“So you just… you were just hoping for the best?!” I demanded. “You hinged your entire plan to thwart Luci and escape on me having a soul that would somehow stabilize my mental state?!”

“What grand plan?” Liz scoffed. “You think I’m like Doll? Waiting for the perfect chance? We’re talking about watching my future stepdaughter as she walks down a path of ruin while her mother cries endless tears. Of course I had to do something.”

“...I… I see…” I murmured, before glancing up at the sky - through the ceiling, mind you. I could still see that gaping hole in reality, that wound in the very fabric of our world. It seemed to be getting smaller as reality stabilized itself. “If we let this chance go, there’s never going to be another, is there?” I asked.

“Not unless Luci makes another mistake,” Liz confirmed. “Which… y’know, is possible, but I’d really prefer not to bet on it.”

“...You’d better make me the best woman at your wedding.”

“You’re going?!” Liz asked, suddenly very excited. “Really?! I thought you were against it!”

“As if I could let my future stepmother spend the rest of eternity locked up in her own bedroom,” I replied, shaking my head. “...Though, in truth, I’m loath to ask Abigail and Lucy to come with me.”

“Like you have a choice,” Abigail scoffed.

“Yeah! There’s no way we’re letting you go alone!” Lucy agreed.

“Even though the plan only technically requires Abigail and I to put ourselves at risk?” I pointed out.

“I mean, technically, it only requires Abigail,” Liz pointed out. Unhelpfully.

“Bet you’re not letting me go alone, either?” Abigail asked, a smug smirk upon her lips.

“...Very well,” I muttered. “Let’s get on with it.” I jumped through the hole in the ceiling, not even bothering to summon my wings until I was already halfway to the portal through the power of my jump alone. 

A moment later Abigail flew past me in a blur, also under the power of a jump, I couldn’t help but notice. A power she was now actively fighting against with her wings.

Below, Lucy had… apparently not jumped at all? Or had jumped so slightly that I couldn’t even see it. It looked more like she’d bent her knees and then straightened them again.

Had she perhaps tried to use the smallest fraction of her strength she could…?

“This… might be even harder than I thought…”

~~~

Author's Notes

I return! Hey there! Sorry for the late post - didn't get back until 8 last night, and needed to decompress before I could get into editing. (Speaking of which, many thanks for FallingLeaf for doing said editing - I mostly just had to approve stuff, and maybe shift a line or two to reflect my style more than his.)

In terms of the chapter itself... I know a lot of you were hoping for a direct confrontation with Luci (not quite yet, I'm afraid!) so I hope the reality isn't too disappointing? There was also a rather interesting theory about the GP actually being a doll floated about in a couple of the places I post, and I liked the idea so much I was almost tempted to steal it... but no. I'm afraid the GP is gone, and poor Lucy has been deprived of her answers for the time being...

I'm currently still sitting at 87 chapters on Patreon - though I'm hoping to get 88 done sooner than later. If you want to show your support and read ahead for as little as $1, I hope you'll consider joining up!