Sella watched from her position across the room as the three patients suffered Villegast’s treatment. For the moment, she was bound as her living host, feeling the pain and suffering Lila experienced. This was amplified by the similar experiences from Koriand Relana, wearing replicas of the holy raiment, as the three suffered in tune with one another.
For Sella, though, it was all a muted experience. Being dead, even bound to a living being, had drawbacks after all. Had the same harsh treatments been in a more sanctified setting, with the blessing of Yurisaya, Sella may have felt different, and may even have experienced greater heights of pleasure herself.
That had never been the goal, of course. Her mission from all those years ago hadn’t been completed, a personal failure on her part, greater than even when Doctor Villegast had broken her spirit and made her into his loyal slave, had implanted his trigger words in her mind that would cause her deep submissive tendencies to rush to the surface, making her into his loyal doll eager to obey whatever command he had given her.
It was that role she assumed now, joining the three living companions in experiencing the terrible tortures Villegast had planned for them. She screamed with them, panted and moaned at the experiences that traveled through the raiment, through the sphere of psychic energy that had built up inside Villegast’s treatment chamber.
She never came, of course. Yurisaya wouldn’t have allowed it, even with a lessened influence in this place. Not that she wanted to. She knew that now. Death taught one much about themselves, about life itself, and the isolation she had undergone after, watching years and years pass from her tomb, only tempered that education.
For her, the ten or eleven hours of torture was but a blink of the eye, a dalliance that swept by in a momentary rush of mirrored sensory input. She could sense how the three had changed, how their minds weakened, near the breaking point, ready to submit to anything their tormentor wanted to make the pain stop. Villegast hadn’t started lightly with them, and hadn’t given them the rest they needed between sessions. Even if he were successful, his results would not be what he desired.
Unlike her, his shade had not learned a thing. He was stuck in the past, repeating the same experiments again and again, using up what living psychic energy there was, subtly reinforcing his realm once again in a vain hope of reforming himself into something more substantial. Over the years, perhaps a dozen beings had shown up and suffered his treatments, but never enough to reach the goal he desired. All it did was extend the time he and his loyal cadre of nurses had on the material world. That likely never would have changed had it not been for the arrival of Lila, Kori, and Releana, and that massive well of psychic energy one of them possessed.
Sella felt that well of psychic power, boiling now as Villegast tried to utilize it for his own twisted desires. Though brutal and effective on living flesh, his methods were crude when it came to matters of the mind, and he was far from breaking the mental block that kept the psychic energy in check, kept the person from utilizing said power themselves. They simply hadn’t awakened yet, but likely would soon, now that the dam had been fractured by this experience. The leaks were there, seeping out enough to subconsciously draw Villegast to them like a bee to pollen.
He couldn’t see what she saw, couldn’t understand that said power was unrefined, untrained…not focused in the way he wanted. HIs brute-force attempts to harness it would fail, as so many of his prior attempts had done, and he would remain a mere shadow of his former self for untold years, wasting away with her hospital.
And she simply couldn’t allow such an atrocity to continue. She could not allow a vile shade like Villegast to continue in this world.
It was time to end it, once and for all. Yurisaya’s will be done.
The screams stopped, Villegast’s torture machine winding down. It was at the point that even he had to stop to examine his handiwork, to consider whether to continue with more torture. Sella watched as he observed each victim, her eyes following her riding crop. It was a holy weapon, forged by herself and the divine will of Yurisaya when Sella had become a full-fledged priestess. It was a combination of the spiritual, of mortal and god, a pact between the two. It could inflict pain or pleasure as Sella willed, and it could cut as keenly as any well-honed blade. It was a conduit between herself and Yurisaya, a way to tap into power she normally couldn’t reach.
It was a part of Sella. It was the part of her that Villegast had taken from her, locked away in a hidden rift somewhere within the hospital that she could never find. To have such a spiritually saturated object taken away was akin to removing part of one’s soul. It was traumatic, to have part of oneself so close yet so far, enough that a soul may find itself ill at ease and unable to pass on to its promised afterlife.
Villegast laid the crop down, went back to his screen to examine the data he had gathered from the latest session.
It was now or never.
Sella could only hope that Lila wasn’t too far gone. The kerryn’s tormented cries had diminished over the last few hours, becoming more willing, more excited. Hopefully, she realized what Sella was doing, and hadn’t shut her out entirely.
“Snap out of it! Lila Darius, get your head in the game!” Sella kept her eyes on her crop, but opened her mind again to Lila, bringing back her full, commanding tone. “Now, Lila. Now is the time. Wake up! You aren’t that far gone yet, don’t get dragged under!”
Lila stirred, weakly. Sella could feel the confusion in her pain-addled mind, could feel the agony of her host’s body, even the tail she herself didn’t possess. As Sella reached out to Lila, their bond began to grow more brilliant. The raiment reacted, and began reforming itself. “Do I really need to give you a reminder? I swear, half a day of torture and you’re already this far gone…I thought you were tougher than that.” Knowing what she did about Lila, Sella had made sure to use a tone that was stern and condescending.
The kerryn’s eyes focused on her, revealing vague recognition, but they were still listless and distant beneath the lenses of the gas mask.
She needed a jumpstart.
As they were akin to one being, Sella’s far more intimate knowledge of the raiment allowed her certain control over it, as she had demonstrated when she had helped Villegast capture Lila to begin with. Given the situation, she was certain that Yurisaya wouldn’t deny her a brief moment of indulgence.
Before Villegast could learn what Sella was doing, the priestess willed her raiment to torment her body, or rather, Lila’s. It was a special condition, used only when she felt the need to admonish herself. The devices would briefly release their full potential, a singular burst of maximum vibration and discharge of all elemental stimulus at once.
All eyes turned to Lila as she writhed and screamed, none of the nurses, not even Villegast himself certain as to what had caused it.
“Say my name! Say it or you’ll be begging for mercy later!” Sella commanded, her eyes boring into the kerryn.
Lila’s eyes finally snapped back to the present, her thoughts becoming clear to Sella once again. Sella killed the admonishment pulse, and all was silent.
Villegast stepped away from his console, head tilted curiously toward Lila as he tried to puzzle out what had just happened.
Sella shifted her ghostly form, dropping any pretense that she was required to be restrained as her host was. She stood at her full height, bringing forth her full dominating presence and stepped to the nearby table, taking hold of her crop for the first time in decades. A familiar warmth surged through her as recognition finally struck Lila, and she slapped the crop against her palm.
“Sella! Praise Yurisaya, it’s about damn time!” Lila cried, an overwhelming sense of relief spilling through their bond.
So powerful was Lila’s declaration, all of the spirits within the room heard it, even Kori and Releana seemed to snap out of their hazy fugue and started looking at Lila and Sella, not understanding what was going on.
Villegast whipped around, his eyes glowing red behind his glasses as his vile gash of a mouth distorted into a sharp frown. “What are you doing, Sella? Be a doll and put that down.”
Sella stepped forward, continuing to tap her crop against her palm, smiling openly now that her gag had vanished. “Funny thing about dying, doctor…all those things that weigh you down when you’re alive, all those restraints that can hold someone under the thumb of a monstrous tyrant…they get broken.” With a quick thought, the cuffs of her raiment detached themselves from the bondage chair, releasing Lila from its hold. The kerryn wasted no time in working to free her legs from the stock that held her ankles, the straps on her toes already dislodged thanks to the regrowing of the raiment’s latex.
Sella called upon Yurisaya in her mind, and her form began to radiate with a nimbus of light. Even in a place like Villegast’s private realm, with her crop in hand, her link with her goddess was as strong as ever. She leveled the crop toward Villegast. “Even for you, it’s not too late to beg for mercy. I’ll even be magnanimous enough to allow you to do so.”
The sound that Villegast made was entirely inhuman as his jaw distended and his wide mouth became a fang-filled maw, a shriek that would have made Sella’s blood run cold if she had any at the moment. She saw Lila flench behind the doctor, grasping at her ears while Kori and Releana fought their bonds, their own pained screams drowned out by Villegast’s unearthly sound. His form grew darker and larger, his body elongating and twisting into something that could have been described as demonic, horn-like shapes growing from his extended head, his hands becoming claw-like.
“You call that begging? Remind me, what exactly is it that classifies as worse than pathetic?” Sella leveled the head of the crop at the looming monstrosity Villegast had become, the aura of holy energy swirling around her growing brighter, expanding outward as Yurisaya’s essence was manifest.
Villegast recoiled from the light, snarling defiantly. His cadre of nurses screamed, their voices ringing and echoing in a similarly inhuman nature, though their forms quickly dissipated and blew away in the divinely charged wind that swirled through the chamber.
“Be silent! I’ve had more than I can stand of your vile nature!” Sella snapped the crop, a tendril of holy energy whipping out from the tip and striking Villegast, leaving a glowing gash in his dark form. “Were I strong enough then, I would have banished your whole essence into the void!” She struck again, striking the arm that had been raised to defend himself, then a third strike landed on his leg, causing him to drop to one knee. “Much better! I like you like this, doctor! Kneel before the divine judgment of Yurisaya!”
The black, twisted form of Villegast roared again, and picked himself up despite the searing gashes in his body. His feral eyes glared down at Sella, and a shadowed aura manifested around him, diminishing the wounds that she had inflicted. “You have become a disappointment, Sella! But I know your trick now…it’s the kerryn! Your power means nothing if you don’t have a host body!”
With snake-like speed, Villegast turned, his massive clawed hand slicing through the air toward Lila. A triumphant roar escaped his maw.
Then, the roar quickly became a shriek of pain, the claws he had tried to tear Lila to pieces with flying through the air, burning away in the divine aura of the goddess.
Sella saw that Lila stood tall, almost a mirror of herself, a tendril of divine energy in her hand mirroring Sella’s.
“We’re as one being, you freak! Guess that means I can do this kind of thing too! Now fuck off!” Lila screamed, swinging the light-whip over her head in a wide arc, catching Villegast across his mouth, making him teeter away from her, the divine light spilling from the wound.
“To the sweet void of oblivion with you, Villegast! In Yurisaya’s divine name, I banish you from this plane!” Sella struck with her crop, Lila striking along with her from the opposite side. For a few moments, Villegast’s demonic form howled in rage as he was struck time after time, rocking between the two of them as holy energy assailed him.
Then he roared once more, somehow knocking the light-whips away, and tried to make a run for it. Sella and Lila were too quick, however, the whips moving as Yurisaya willed them, one wrapping around Villegasts’s legs, the other around his throat. His form began to dissipate as clouds of dark energy roiled away from the wrapped whips.
Hauling on their holy power given shape, Sella and Lila toppled Villegast, standing over his thrashing form as Yurisaya’s essence consumed him.
“Kneel before Yurisaya’s divine will!” the pair screamed, the holy light filling the room as the doctor’s shadowy form continued to burn. His agonized shriek faded rapidly as his body disintegrated, the last vestiges of his glowing eyes consumed in a final explosion of holy power that spread through the room and beyond, searing away whatever of his darkness remained.
Sella and Lila screamed too as the explosion passed through them, but not in agony, rather from the massive surge of pure positive energy that filled them.
For the first time in so very long…they came, a divinely powerful orgasm dropping them to their knees and causing them to fall toward one another, catching each other in their arms to ride out the goddess’s reward together.
Hey there, everyone! Hope you enjoyed this climactic chapter as the story winds down and approaches its end! I’ll admit this was a shorter chapter, but you can’t draw out the climax…or can you? *wink wink* As much as I wanted to make it longer, I think it would’ve diminished the overall chapter. But, there are some juicy bits to be had in terms of lore and action. Stay tuned for more! There’s one more chapter plus an epilogue coming, and then this one will be drawn to a close!
