Empress's Endgame (Book 5 and final of the Death Incanate Saga)

by Jr H. Lee Morgan

  “So I was right.” Cage said while loosening his powerful grip. “You can take my power.”

  “Very easily.” Brooke said as she sat the crystal aside. “But that is not all I can take.” She gave him a sly grin from over her shoulder before raising herself a foot out of the water, grabbed his lance and sat down right on it to widen her eyes at her other loves before smiling in pleasure. “OH CAGE!” She suddenly screamed as he bent her over the top of the tub and thrust to the hilt. He pulled almost completely out and slid back in, making her and the water ripple.

  “She’s right it does feel wonderful.” Tohka admitted and opened her eyes. “Meeka?” She asked when she didn’t see her woman right away. That changed when she looked down to find Meeka had dipped below the water, parted Tohka’s legs and began licking her flower. Tohka tossed her crystal aside not a moment too late as a few highly skilled flicks to her bud caused her to cry out. Meeka managed to lay Tohka’s legs over her shoulders to lift her out of the water without leaving the soft folds she loved pleasuring. When she could handle no more she grabbed Meeka’s head and coaxed her up for a well deserved kiss before both getting taken by their man at the same time.

  “Like this, Love?” Tohka asked after an early breakfast as she and her loves stood out behind their home where they trained.

  Cage commented “No. Bring your arm a bit further back and down… a little more… more… There!”

  Tohka then brought her arm around and the end of the whip cracked, this time not startling her. Again she did it, but instead aimed at the wooden dummy. Her eyes widened as she yelled “I did it! I got it around his neck!” she then pulled and twisted her wrist as she remembered and felt a slight rise in magic. Her pull not only knocked the dummy of balance, the power traveling down the whip increased its cutting potential and began spinning through the neck, slicing deeper and deeper till the head literally popped off. She jumped in delight.

  “Knew you could do it!” Brooke yelled in pride as she applied the only pair of greaves found in the Stronghold. She strapped the leather cords to the backside of her leg. The greaves needed modification to fit her properly, but they did not house a crystal. It was simple forged metal made from a titanium and tungsten carbide composite, or so Cage said. They covered the tops of her bare feet, had a plate joint for movement and a single one that hugged its way all the way up to just beneath the knee cap. On the top of either foot though stood out the infinity symbol.

  Meeka clapped, showing off her bracers, two forearm guards she slid her hands through, but adjusted a leather interior mainly at the wrist to hold it in place. To the inner forearms was a barren sliding plate that showed an inch and a half wide pocket she would learn to use to store her healing supplies. She could no longer wear her bracelet now that she had these, for on either outer part was a circular sapphire below the infinity symbol.

  Apparently from Daku’s memory, Cage had found out, the whip, greaves and bracers were worn by the only female elite warlock and were a single set, but now they would serve three much more capable individuals. At first Cage wanted to make all three a copy, but when Brooke found them in his office she had said it would be too much since they were all heavy. Dividing them up proved the wiser alternative. She had thankfully kept it secret as a gift. The only one who pouted was Rena because she knew she had her own sword locked away in her dad’s office, where she couldn’t even catch a glimpse at it.

  Cage came over to help Tohka as Brooke threw her leg on Meeka’s shoulder to stand and stretch her long legs. “Alright. You’ve still got some time mastering this, but try the defensive movements. Restrain me.”

  Tohka nodded and spread her stance while grabbing the cord with her right hand, spreading her arms wide to gather as much slack as she could manage. He drew Ghosts Bane from behind his shoulder and thrust its tip right for her heart. She moved aside with the grace of a dancer, not as Brooke would have, but still rather elegant. The blade pierced only air, but then she twisted her wrists while bringing them together, looped the cord around the arm, bent herself over at the waist and twisted to bring his arm back, swirl her left hand to wrap some length around his neck and kicked him in the knee. Cage began falling, but then she drove her elbow in the small of his back, putting her entire bodyweight behind it and slammed him into the ground and pulling on both the handle in her left hand and the cord in her right.

  In a tight voice she heard him cough “Nice, you broke my arm.”

  Fear had her release her hold and Tohka finally saw that both bones in his forearm had snapped and the wrapping style she had studied finally made her realize just how effective it was. “Love, I’m so sorry!” she pleaded as she quickly pulled the cord away from his throat.

  He turned over on his one good arm and smiled as there was another loud crack which snapped the bones in his arm back in place. “Don’t be!” he laughed as he also rubbed his neck. “That was wonderfully done. If anyone got that close and you executed that move, you would have him under your entire control. No mage would be able to heal the injury because it’s a magic-breaker and so long as it touches anyone other than you, they are helpless.”

  Hands came down on her shoulder and she saw both Brooke and Meeka laughing and hugging her. Meeka said “This is certainly your weapon.” She touched the cold whip. “First time I’ve ever seen anyone detain our man in such a way. You completely controlled the situation.”

  “Also being left handed coupled with an unorthodox weapon will make things better for her.” Cage said while standing. “But my bones again broke. I’m going to take care of that right now. You girls take it easy on her.”

  “Not likely. Just like sex, we like it a little rough.” Brooke teased.

  “Just be careful.” With that said, he teleported out to an isolated place where he could grow food and have plenty of water with which to not dry out the ground. he pulled out spinach seeds and began planting four hundred plants while magically digging channels with which to water the rows.

  As he grew the calcium rich vegetables, his focus remained on the area of his home where Brooke and Meeka pressed Tohka to master her weapon. Meeka gripped both knives and would attack when Tohka would pull back on her whip, thereby exposing a weakness. She had selected a simple forearm targe back home, but didn’t want to use it yet. Tohka though surprised her blonde lover by cracking the whip by her chest and opening a nine inch wound. Meeka stepped back, but before Tohka could say “Sorry.” Meeka surprised her by healing the bleeding wound in a few seconds without yelling. Foolish! He thought. I would have pressed he attack. That minor wound would hurt, but wasn’t deep enough to be considered deadly. Meeka’s tattooed chest and ample breasts bounced as she ran, but Tohka kept the advantage by constantly staying just out of range of Meeka and her deadly knife handling skills. Better. He thought again.

  Then Tohka sent another crack, but Meeka lifted her right arm and allowed the end to wrap harmlessly around her bracer several times before throwing her arm back and jerking the end from Tohka’s grasp. Before the nurturer could draw her own knife, Meeka already closed the distance and held one knife edge to her throat and another placed right over the heart. The healer sorceress smiled before giving a kiss and backing away.

  Brooke gave little time for rest as she began dancing with her tomahawks, slipping through and reading Tohka’s attacks. She’d jump and twirl, always avoiding the whip’s attacks. Inch by inch Brooke closed the distance, no matter how fast Tohka tried maintaining her weapon’s range. When it became more practical to begin close range maneuvers, Tohka reached and began blocking and wrapping her fearsome opponent up. Brooke stayed away, knowing when and when not to move. Both shifted between defend and attack, but it was immediately clear Tohka was losing as she did not have the endurance of the alpha female of their family, but Brooke was making her push those limits and adapt to this new way of fighting. Her long and armored legs were deadly accurate, but restrained to not overly hurt her love, but to teach. Then with one swift
sweep, Brooke took her woman down, gave a proud kiss and helped her back up to get more time with Meeka.

  The proud warlock smiled at just how far these three had come in so short a time. Each had blossomed to real women who knew what they wanted and fought for it. These were now real women and not emotional or petty girls. They could fight anyone and had few now who would be a legitimate threat.

  His eyes went away from the screen to that of all the full and lush plants he grew. He knew there was a lot of calcium in not only milk, but spinach. But last night, before he had his loves test themselves by successfully taking in his power, he found a shortcut to gaining all he required after realizing that all the cattle didn’t have enough milk for him to drink in ready enough quantities to be concentrated. Eating was out of the question as a single bit of cheese soured his stomach and made him break out in a cold sweat.

  “Absorb rather than consume.” He whispered to himself and sat down. Tendrils latched on to each plant to begin extracting the soft calcium metal along with other minerals that his bones were made of before collecting it all into a small sphere, like a dove’s egg. Then he shredded the plants and grew more spinach. In a minute four hundred more grew and were extracted of every single molecule of what he needed. Each time, the sphere grew and grew.

  In an hour’s time he held a large and heavy ball of white raw material in one hand and a gallon of truly pure water in the other. “This is not going to be fun.” He sighed and created a space around him free of bacteria and viruses, essentially making a sterilized clean-room outside. He then manipulated the calcium and water to combine and shape into an identical skeletal frame of what he sensed inside himself. Cage sent extra fluid to surround his brain as he expanded his skull out another quarter inch before numbing all his nerves and then peeled back all his skin in front. He then managed to keep from bleeding out as his insides could be seen, if anyone were to somehow stumble into the area. The idea of that made him laugh as it would send anyone else screaming.

  The raw material began floating in and seeping into his open body. Even with numbed nerves it hurt like laying on a bed of hot coals. Every section of his mind went solely dedicated to the bonding process. As soon as it soaked inside, Cage closed his separated skin, muscle and organs, making his entire body glow bright blue. This was by far the hardest and most complicated surgery he’d ever done to his body. As soon as everything was sealed up, he canceled the clean area effect. Then came the hard part, fusing the new bone matter to the existing frame. The additional clean water helped soften the manipulation as each and every section became coated. Every bone doubled in size, but as he worked, he compressed and mixed everything together before making the bones shrink and compress to be denser. His eyes remained shut and concentrated every iota of energy to complete the task. He also had to reinforce his cartilage to cushion the new weight and strain the bones would exert all before shrinking his skull back to its original size.

  When he did reopen his eyes he created a mirror to find himself exactly as he should be. He made sure he was no taller or shorter because his body was too trained to begin changing what it knew. Because of his years of training he could feel the minor increase in weight, but not overly so. He threw a punch and completed a series of advanced flips, kicks and jumps to find the loss wasn’t as bad as he imagined. As a benefit, his strike’s had more force behind them.

  After he relaxed and felt his cells accepting the bonding of new matter he looked to the East where a few strands of light found a way to penetrate the thick canopy and knew he didn’t have much time left, if he wasn’t already late. It took longer than expected, a good two hours.

  Cage created rings around his legs and jumped, clearing the canopy in that one bound before running through the air while sending one ring at a time swiftly down a leg. It took several minutes to travel to the northern section of the island, where seventy six fully grown dragons stood out over the water, all their partners waited back on shore. The sky run felt good and the weight of his reinforced skeleton actually made for a fine workout. He waved at his family as they called out from shore and rushed to the center mass of the many dragons where every single one that were allowed inside the barrier quieted at his approach. None though wore their armor, having likely stored it all away in a space altered pocket only they can reach. He came down to see Mox, Barbav, Xamii and Ulon were talking. He said “Sorry I was late. I was busy strengthening my bones.”

  The four of them sent magic to see for themselves and they all slapped their wings against their sides while laughing. “All have rested. Are you prepared?” Mox asked.

  “Sure am.” Cage spoke in Draconian, increasing his voice so all heard over the wind. “I’m going to go dead center where the asteroid will sit. I alone will Teleport it from its decaying orbit and make its momentum go up so Raliea’s gravity slows it down. The rest of you likely have done this before, but if you haven’t, Semek wanted me to remind you to add your power to the net I’ll create on what will be the underside. It’ll be too big to maneuver it, but we’ll have plenty to slow it down. By the time it gets within ten feet of falling on me we’ll have slowed its descent to a foot per second. If it goes any faster it will be too dangerous to displace the ocean water and make a tsunami. If that happens I’ll sharpen the net to slice through the asteroid so it falls in huge pieces we’ll compress later. Any questions?”

  Mox alone asked “Have you calculated just how fast the object is moving?”

  “I have verified it independently from Semek’s own report and have come up with the exact same numbers. By the way, has Gralla finished going over the calculations I used when overcoming her trial in The Deep?”

  “Not yet. She is fascinated by your mathematics. It is quite different than our own and she has little time recently to dedicate to this. She will return your journal as soon as she is finished.”

  “Alright. Anyone else?” None around him did more than breathe. “Then let’s take our positions.” Every dragon and the lone warlock teleported to their designated area.

  Cage dove into the right diamond of his left hand and located the spell he had been given and wove it to locate the debris far from Raliea. He sensed magic all around him rise while another part of his mind created a gigantic black net over a hundred miles across and was boosted in strength by all the others he could not see. Mox though created a vacuum to push all the air above the net away because introducing something this large would make a sonic boom that would destroy the entire area and be heard on the other side of the world. Making a vacuum as it entered would safely make its entrance work. The seemingly round asteroid shaped like a raw potato tumbled ever so slowly and would cause an extinction level event if not done just right, became his greater focus. He clamped his jaw shut and infused every pore of his body with a tremendous amount of mana he stored in all his diamonds and created a tiny portal which took all he sent into it and teleported it directly into the heart of the asteroid he watched. As soon as it disappeared it consumed the asteroid until not a single piece of sand could escape. Then it disappeared.

  Sudden darkness covered Cage as the massive object successfully teleported, making a deep vibration as Mox released the vacuum to suck back in. The black sphere that brought it here vanished and as far as Cage could see was a ceiling where sky once held domain. It’s release though still had momentum, but he had worked it so as soon as the spell released, the object flew straight up. Such powerful forces such as gravity acted immediately to slow it down. Cage continued fortifying himself as the net quickly hugged the several thousand mile per hour mountain going up. Smaller debris rained down first, some the size of houses. But when the asteroid had become no more than the size of a boulder in the air, his mind felt the full weight sink into the net, as did every dragon. They resisted its speed and Cage’s muscles strained as he was pivotal to its placement. Over the next twenty minutes they brought it down. A thought made a section in the protective wards open up to accept the incoming piece of
new land while another pushed all marine life out of the danger zone. Soon enough it filled Cage’s vision and as it came within twenty feet they slowed it to actually less than six inches per second, taking every last ounce of concentration he and everyone else could exert.

  Then he teleported away and reappeared out over the beach to watch as it was lowered inch by inch into the water. He heard his tribe cheering, but before he could block a rather strong wave he saw Megdline standing with Brooke and Meeka, all their hands were out as they caught it.

  Cage landed among family and wiped his sweating brow. “Now that was teamwork.”

  “Love, are you well?” Brooke asked as there was a slight earthquake as the new island settled on the sea floor.

  “Yeah, but that was the hardest thing I have ever done.”

  “We’ll I can say not even I have seen that done before.” Megdline admitted as her wide grey eyes looked from coast to coast of the new addition to Raliea. “Great work, Jackass!” She laughed.

  Many congratulated him as he sat down to rest for a few minutes, many being from how impressed his Familiar was. It was one battle he didn’t want to attempt anytime soon.

  The rest of that day was dedicated to having Rex Gralla’s casters come to bond and then begin the process of excavating the new mountain, using the excess to make a bridge between the two masses so it can still be considered Cage Island rather than Islands. Many seeds and plants were transported to begin breathing life into the new mountain. Two newcomers made it rain to get water into it and get it ready for the night when Moril had to accept the rest of the bonding dragons until most of the tribe were linked to another.