04

[[50 years after the story of Theo, The Blood Angel of Lescatie]]

CHAPTER 3: Agrat, Empress of Monsters.

Reikshold.

The beautiful castle stood in the heart of Reikshold, a violet-pink heaven for monster girls and their humans whom they now treated as valued husbands. Laughter and joy was never in short supply amongst the pleasure gardens, its hidden coves, fountains and bedrooms. Its pink dungeons housed a thoroughly different sort of captives and prisoners, which was even open to mamono visitors and surprisingly, humans. It was fair to say less humans got out than got in.

Even the guards were far too busy, a pair of busty dark elf guards who were busy kissing two strapping human men behind them with their skirt armor and pink panties around their ankles. With intermittent moans and slaps, both were quite busy as both men thrust like horny rabbits and held them firmly, making the Anubis guard upstairs shake her head and groan, going inside.

Downstairs, the two chocolate-skinned curvy slots' tongues lolled, fully lost in the throes of sex, their pink, glistening slits pounded by the men's hairy cocks. Their mouths, between kissing could produce little more than grunts and moans, each loving the bitch treatment, gleefully shuddering in orgasms as their ponytails were pulled, and hips worked to knock the two horny dark elves up. Every thrust jiggled their thick, round asses, both dark elves lost in pleasure with animal moans.

Some monster girls like harpies or lamias were milder, content in sighing and cuddling, straddling their lovers amongst the gardens, topiary and fountains, having their sex in slow, melodic moans penetrating the air with snake bodies, feathers and .

Inside the palace, life went on, visitors safely housed in quarters. Two of these were Anubii, or Kemet jackal girls invited for a mission.

After Theo sacrificed himself to kill the Demon Lord, the Mamono Reik, short for Monster Girl Empire, it had entered a period of peace with the humans, though it still had skirmishes. Skirmishes born out of necessity. The captives were all now alive and well, either living with monster girl captors, keepers, or distributed amongst the population as well-treated slaves, something Agrat tried to get under control and ban altogether...

If only the Theocracy would let humans go more frequently inside its borders... For now, the system would stay.

Otep, the Anubis Detective that helped so many to get a better life, was invited with her deputy, Saakali...

The Empress of the Monster Girls, Agrat's palace housed two little detective Anubis tonight, sitting in a palatial study room carved out of warm, scented wood, reading newspapers and smoking as a young boy servant massages Saakali's jackal paws, squishy little toebeans with his hands.

"Why are we having news of a worldwide civil war..."

Otep's tobacco and coffee felt stale on her tongue. Life felt sad, drooping her Anubis ears and making her whine like a puppy.

The world was reforming, love and intimacy freely available, but the last Demon Lord was now trying to come back to ruin everything. Maou didn't quite die, even when enforced by a Wish spell and 10000 willing sacrifices who gladly died in combat to dent its colossal demon God form.

The sounds of giggles, sexual activity and laughter around the monster girl castle was scant joy. This free love future was threatened, for the third time.Just because the old Monster Lord Maou wanted to tear apart the world.

Otep had to stop it again. By reading news and analyzing them. She smiled at the boy's hands occasionally wandering on her moccha colored thighs, giving quick caresses above her jackal-furred knees.

Otep winked at...me.

*-*-*-*

Hello!

And here I was, Saakali, another Anubis, warming my paws by the fire after a harsh walk. We sat by the fire, analyzing news and reports on how to stop another World War destroying all we loved.

Sometimes it's hard to fight for peace.

Freedom has a price, so they learned from Theo, the man who sacrificed himself and ten thousand willing souls to stall an apocalypse.

When you want to love and live, it will cost you. You can't have everything sitting in your room and demanding handouts.

You want to have a girlfriend, a job and freedom?

You must suffer and bleed for it. Every inch of the way.

But today, I loved my paws getting rubbed by the boy servant. And I didn't miss that...ahem...enlargement in his pants when he caressed my legs and even gave a touch...on my butt! He even caressed by tail, since I couldn't help but wag it when he slowly massaged my legs. Tee hee!

Maybe Miss Otep will let me take him upstairs! Gosh his hands are touching my butt and he even squeezed a little!

I didn't pat his hand away. Hihi! I'm a sinful Anubis!

*-*-*-*

"Detective Otep. What's that about demon magic and blood anyway? It's a hard topic but..." Saakali mumbled, reading another threat of civil war in far east Baharat of Hind.

"Another part of the game, Saakali. Civil wars cause nothing but strife, slavery and death amongst the humans."

Saakali sighed in relaxation, her fluffy black tail wagging with gentle motions on the divan, her footpaws were being squeezed: Lady Agrat really knew how to spoil her guests. She had sent a comfort boy to massage both Anubis' fluffy footpaws as they drank coffee and chatted about the events which seemed to lead the world into apocalypse. The air of gentle relaxation, human massage and refreshments melted the little two Anubis detectives into a pampered bliss.

Occasionally, Saakali could not stop but let out gentle whines. Her forepaw landed on the young man's head, ruffling his hair. Both exchanged loving glances as Otep rolled her eyes.

"Maybe you two ought to get a room..."

That made the little Anubis' ears perk up, little fluffy black skin flaps twitching in excitement. "M-can I? Lady Otep? You don't mind?" The young little Saakali was shocked: Otep was allowing her to have sex out of wedlock in blatant disregard of Kemet laws. The older Anubis just smiled, and shook her head.

"It doesn't hurt to have a little fun. I justify it as rewarding hardworking boys who love to serve us. Look at him." Otep smiled and patted the young man's head, earning a smile. "They were treated like animals, worse than animals before Agrat took over. Now they are in love with us, and many love their servitude. For those who don't, Lescatie takes them in eventually. What's not to justify? I think our duty as Anubises are pretty much relaxed: I believe we can justify sex out of wedlock as "rewarding good servants"..."

Saakali just blinked: "That's...very progressive." The boy held her paw tenderly, looking into her eyes. She smiled back, kissing his nose as her ears flicked. Her dusky face, save for ears and her Kemet kohl makeup, showed a contrast to the young man's blond hair and fair skin. Otep smiled at both getting along well, and added why she decided to relax her laws.

"My parents adopted Human Holocaust victims. One was Theo's sister which helped him stay sane. And that was enough to fix the world...If "progressive" means this, I suppose I am." Otep stated flatly. "I feel a strong desire to protect our human slaves, lovers and servants like the sheepdog protecting the flock. Last centuries has been horrific for man and beastgirl."

Saakali nodded, but was lost in the servant boy's blue eyes.

Otep bit her lips not to laugh, noticing how fast Saakali's tail wagged.

But the news before her were not good, neither the news to come in the shape of an urgent medical team dispatched to receive the heroes sent by Agrat. A joint Mamono and Human operation that went to shut down a Drow Remnant slavery ring, a slavery ring that kidnapped and tricked virgin humans to be sacrificed to reawaken Maou rather than lawfully selling them to monster folk that would make good use of husbands and living qi batteries. Even human women in vicinity of monster girls fed them with essence in a trickle.

"Maou." Otep sighed. "How hateful are you, beast-king, Dai Oni of the East? How will we stop your hate?"

*-*-*-*

Shores of Reikshold.

The Heroes were racing home.

Close to Reikshold's western port, a sailship was racing to the shore, carrying the wounded heroes back home, back home with clues about the Circle: the cospiracy that wanted to bring the old ways back and resurrect the old Demon Lord.

Inside the captain's cabin, a beautiful woman lay on bed, in bloodied bandages. Sibel was gravely injured, only kept alive by desperate magic and hope. The Seljuk Enchantress' hand was held by her love and husband, who had gone to hell and back with her to liberate slaves intended for sacrifice by Drow, the insidious relatives of Dunia's Dark Elves.

"My Lion..."

"MY WOLF!" Ulfric was on her bedside immediately, as an ex-slave, a tiny boy fed Sibel a healing potion, who was freshly rescued. "My She-Wolf, my moon and stars, are you alright?" The boy tried to wipe Sibel's bleeding which had turned a purple, stinky slime oozing from her blasted kidney.

"Better..." Sibel coughed some blood: a kidney was blasted, atrophied to uselessness. The Drow Guard had stabbed it so deeply that healing magic was ineffective from the black-green steel, the flesh turning green-black signifying necrosis. Ulfric could not sleep, as if he screamed at the four winds to deliver them faster to solid land and healing.

On deck, ex-slaves, Hellhound girls and Human warriors worked furiously to optimize the sails. Soon they'd be on land: for a life was at stake. The flares fired from the ship's deck alerted a sleeping Hellhound on the docks, her ears twitching, she barked orders for sleepy Red Oni dock workers to prepare the ropes:

"Zephyr's coming to dock! It's the Queen's Entourage! HURRY DAMNIT!"

Her big, cute, flaming eyes grew when she spotted a signal flag being waved, a red-black flag with a scary skull and a Caduceus sign. Her tail sinking in fear, the Hellhound struck a bell furiously as her tongue felt dry. The Queen's Entourage had encountered trouble, for the signal clearly spoke:

"Imminent death."

*-*-*-*

Reikshold docks.

The stretcher was covered with a white cloth as if it was a shroud, Hellhounds ringing bells for everyone to get the hell out of the way.

The gates opened with a loud clang. Before the dust cloud disappeared, furious monster girls, Hellhounds by the look of it, hurried through, carrying a severely injured, tan skinned woman wearing a wizard's robe, her hip oozing with purple blood, looking like as if it's a magically corrupted wound. Her one dainty hand was held by a terrified, bearded human knight, a man of flaming red hair. His eyes looked like a scared child losing his sister.

The Hellhounds, usually brazen and cheerful girls, looked somber, trundling towards the glorious palace in tatters. None were dead, but they were all at death's door with bandaged injuries, leading a group of ragged human slaves and adventurers behind them. Their leader, the one with the fluffiest mane, largest breasts and biggest, fluffiest ears, roared towards her sisters, the Gendarmerie Loups de Inferne.

"We have injured sisters, allies, and liberated illegal slaves in tow! SEND MEDICAL AND CLERGY AID NOW! BANE SWORD! BANE SWORD!"

The General Hellhound's eyes grew wide, and she dashed screaming towards the palace on all fours.

"MISTRESS AGRAT! WE NEED YOU NOW!"

The crowd fell silent when the dying woman was carried by a crying, huge, red-maned man in armor towards the hurriedly established tent in the gardens.

Bane Sword.

The name sounded ominous, few knew what it meant. Maou's corrupt blood was used to forge swords before the end of the First Demon War. The wounds struck by the sword never healed, growing necrotic and killing the injured. Maou had experimented on thousands of men, women and children taken from the front as prisoners with sick undead doctors dissecting writhing captives alive...

Sibel would die, unless pure blood, equal to Maou's would cleanse the wound. Blood that flowed in the noblest women of the Reik's veins.

*-*-*-*

It was a miracle in making.

Agrat, Empress herself knelt over the dying human and slit her wrist, chanting.

Sibel's grievious wound, which was surely bound to kill her, and made Ulfric keel over in pain and desperation, started to knit in front of the shocked onlookers. Ulfric's eyes widened when he realized a miracle had happened: Sibel's closed eyes, soul wandering between life and death, suddenly opened, her eastern features flush with life.

Her parched lips croaked a single utterance.

"My Lion?"

"My She-wolf!" He yelped like a young girl in joy, hugging Sibel who started to cough. He was looking in awe at the tall succubus Empress who herself came from her palace to cleanse Sibel with her wound. All monster girls, human servants and refugees looked at her intensely, who, eventually realized she had to tell a thing or two about herself.

"Children. You were struck by my evil ex-husband's blood curse. I believe it's time I told who I really am, and why Detective Otep sent you to stop his old followers."

Agrat stood like a blue-clad statue in the middle of the crowd, everyone staring at her in admiration and love, some falling to their knees. The succubus empress was like a giantess with blood on her hands, still fresh from the spell she used to purge Sibel's blood from Maou's blight.

"Please, children. Stand. Or sit. It's a long story. Tell the maids to bring seats." She closed her wounds with a magic syllable, and in her blue-skinned beauty, sat down and called for chairs.

*-*-*-*

So did the Succubus Empress started to tell her story to her servants and lovers, her maids and beloved subjects as monstergirls and men gathered around her. Her first words already shocked everyone, exiting her lips.

"Once I was human."

A throng of monsters and humans were gathered around Agrat bat Mahlat, and as time passed, the palace fell quiet, bearing an expectant air they were usually not subject to.

Before the vampire delegation visited, Agrat decided to tell them her story. She started to speak in a different tone, a somber voice telling a story of lament.

"My name was, as a mortal woman, Zuzanna von Wallenstein. I am, or was, what you call, a Yehudist. In our world, we were named Jews, offshoot from Kemet, or Egypt, as followers of a single, indescribable God."

"I lived in a country called France, equivalent of this world's Marignon, Frankonia and Temirburg combined. A country similar to this world's Ulm, Germany, had attacked and occupied our capital. Paris. This capital, Reikshold is NOTHING compared in beauty to Champs Elysses, my children."

"Paris had become a hotbed of sedition of the so-called Vichy France conquered by Germany, led by an insane man with no sanity of his own. I was back then, a French citizen of Jewish heritage, who was proficient in what was named, Burlesque Opera. Singing and performing satire, so to speak."

Agrat could almost remember the German soldiers marching down the Champs Elysses as she spoke, everyone dead silent. Jackbooted thugs with Stahlhelm headgear, bullying anyone that remotely looked like the people they aimed to exterminate. There she was...

...for one moment she felt herself back on Earth, in Paris, as a human...

...Where she was Zuzanna. Young again. With no burden of a world on her, not as a demon empress, but as an innocent Jewish Frenchwoman...

"My people were being targeted for EXTERMINATION." Agrat somberly spoke. "No persecution, no punishment for slights. Every last Jew, the people that I belonged to... was on the target list." She was clutching her golden pendant with a strained hand as she kept remembering in a painful vision...

*-*-*-*

"JUDENHURE!" The jackboot exploded on a Jewish woman's stomach who was accosted while taking a walk. The thugs, collaborators of the invaders, had beaten her senseless as the people stared, doing nothing.

Zuzanna had kept on walking, hiding her face under her clothes and hat.

"They would beat, kill or abuse my kin on the streets as we looked on, helpless."

"KAUFT NICHT BEI JUDEN" Was a sign on a Jewish shop, plastered with lime. Zuzanna shuddered, the shop was ransacked. "DO NOT BUY FROM JEWS"

She had to dance and sing for a last hope. A last hope the world would recognize her plight. A chanson to tell the patrons about her. A last Burlesque without the joy the artists brought to it.

The stage was set tomorrow. If all else failed, Zuzanna would use her grandfather's final Theorem, the True Name of Beings. The whole SS Officer staff would be watching, knowing her as a white Christian Frenchwoman.

She would use a 72 letter name to change the world, at the cost of her own life, if need be.

*-*-*-*

Zuzanna swung and sang, danced and sang the lyrics, the black-clad SS Officers drunk and singing along, oblivious that the French words referred to them as pigs, and how France would rise again...

As the music reached to a crescendo, Zuzanna threw a leg, turning and singing how the "pigs would fly". As she sang, she realized the darkening gaze of the clearly French floozie in the black dress in the SS Officer's arm, whispering words in the drunk German's ear.

Zuzanna noted: The French were the worst collaborators when it came to that. But it was time. She drew the little wire across her hands, bloodying her hands.

Time to employ Kabbalah, the name of Beings and Arts. As the final refrain approached, some of the SS were blinking surprised when Zuzanna started singing, uttering words that made no sense at all.

The black haired Frenchwoman whispered as the SS officer's eyes twisted in anger, standing up.

"WAS SOLL DENN DAS BEDEUTEN?!"

"Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta..." Zuzanna was chanting, hands drawing patterns on the curtains in strange Hebrew letters.

"WAS IST DAS?" He was drunk, hands shaking when German soldiers fumbled with their weapons, some of the musicians confused.

"S'hma Yishrael, Elleihau Adonai..." Zuzanna's eyes started glowing when she raised her hands in anger, pointing at the SS Officer who was red-faced.

"KAMERADEN! VERHAFTET DIE JÜDIN! SIE IST EIN JÜDISCHES SPION!"

German soldiers started lifting tables and marched ominously as patrons screamed and ran, German soldiers starting to trash the joint and rushing to tackle Zuzanna, who chanted with blood on her hands.

Lifting his Luger, the officer aimed.

Too late.

When the letters left Zuzanna's mouth, all hell broke loose.

The Nazi soldiers and the officers started vomiting, eyes popping out of their sockets when the Jewess lifted her hands and screamed as ancient powers woke up, and the entire city of ocupied Paris shook.

For the first time in millenia, G-d's true name was invoked in a thunderstorm, as electricity died across Paris, screams erupted, and guns blazed as freedom fighters acted on instinct.

The officer's face started to melt, the cowardly Frenchwoman screaming when her dress, and herself caught on fire, burning with G-d's holy rage.

"I INVOKE THEE, GOD OF WORLDS, GOD OF HOSTS AND HEAVENS! I INVOKE THIS: THOU SHALT MAKE ME THE SAVIOR OF A WORLD, AT THE COST OF MY OWN LIFE, IF NEED BE!"

Remembering grandpa's words, Zuzanna clapped her hands in anger. And then...

...there was silence.

She was nowhere to be found. That day was attributed to Allied bombing, and Jews were rounded up and exterminated. Up to this day, no Jew ever survived Paris.

*-*-*-*

"My soul was bound with the succubus you see, children."

The French woman in a distant world spoke somberly. "The Universe's first succubus, Agrat Bat Mahlat was fused with me. There is no Zuzanna, there is no Agrat. But there is me."

Everyone was silent.

"And I came to see ANOTHER world, HERE where humans were slaves and animals, killed and eaten for sport. I cried, children, I cried for a hundred days until my eyes bled, my throat was sore, and I nearly died. For one hundred days I cried blood in my new form, with Agrat being me, and Zuzanna melded with her. All that is Zuzanna is now Agrat. And Agrat is Zuzanna, the first succubus in history."