Pain filled my senses as I was struck, but instead of the overwhelming burning sensation I had expected, it was more like the tingling jolts of electricity arcing through my body. I opened my eyes to see that I was hurtling to the ground, cradled tightly in the arms of a gorgeous woman with glowing blue cat’s eyes and fuzzy white ears with blue stripes. I heard the sound of arcing lightning and our descent slowed just before we landed on the ground. Nialla looked down at me and nuzzled my cheek, before lightning surrounded both of us and we blasted off into the air again.

“What kind of demon wife would I be if I just let you get killed by some dumbass hero stunt you decided to try?”

I tried to speak, but the electricity surging through me was making every muscle in my body seize up uncontrollably. Nialla shifted her gaze towards what I assumed was the giant armored creature and used another blast of lightning to alter our trajectory. As we started to descend back towards the ground, she looked down at me briefly and gave me a toothy smirk.

“So… you tell me you love me and then I don’t see you for a whole fucking day. What am I supposed to do with that, Allie?”

“I…Uh-”

I couldn’t get more than a few syllables out as my mouth refused to work. Nialla took this as an attempt to interrupt her and narrowed her eyes at me.

“No. You’re not gonna stop me from getting this off my chest, Allie.”

I forced my mouth closed and just stared up at the gorgeous catgirl as she continued to glare at me.

“I’ve never had a real relationship, Allie. Not a meaningful one anyways. Yeah, I dated a few people in my homeschool group, but it never progressed beyond some heavy petting.”

Nialla continued to tell me everything on her mind as she turned her focus back on the creature and shot out another lightning spell to change directions in mid-air. I focused on using my connection to Emelia to look through her eyes, and I was able to see that she was channeling a beam of ice into the joints of the creature’s armor in order to slow its advance. The massive armored figure was slowly turning in place and continually emitting beams of destructive energy at the rapidly moving Nialla with me in her arms. It seemed that the thing was completely focused on trying to kill me, so the lightning mage was using that to keep the thing distracted as best she could.

“Don’t get me wrong… I’ve had tons of VR sex… so it’s not like I’m some innocent virgin. Well, not really. I mean… I am technically a virgin since I’ve never had sex outside of VR… but you already know all that.”

Emily could sense my growing frustration and I heard her mentally chuckle inside my head.

*She’s actually far more maneuverable than you are in mid-air, Allie. It may not be the most comfortable situation, but you brought this on yourself, my love. Besides… you owe it to her to hear her out after declaring your love for her.*

“So, after you changed me into this form and invited me into your clan, I finally felt like I had found people I could actually connect with. Sure… most of you are way older than me, but no one seemed to treat me any differently after you guys found out how old I am. Then you told me how much I had helped you become powerful and how much you enjoyed having me as a friend and… I think that’s when I started to fall for you.”

Nialla let out a gasp of surprise as she narrowly avoided another twin beam attack. She looked down at me briefly and gave me an apologetic look.

“I’m sorry… this is gonna hurt… I’m gonna have to ramp things up a bit… that armored asshole’s attacks are getting closer and closer.”

I groaned in pain as the lightning coursing through my body began to surge through me more intensely. I used my connection with Emelia to focus on something besides the pain and that was when I saw exactly what Nialla was doing. As each of the creature’s attacks lanced towards her, she always managed to position herself in such a way that when she dodged, the beams would cut through the stone ceiling above us. As she kept continually changing her trajectory in mid-air, the creature blasted more and more of the ceiling. Nialla’s seemingly random bouncing around had actually been so precise that the beams of energy had carved out an almost complete circle of heavy stone above where the creature was standing. It would only take just a few more attacks before the enormous chunk of rock would break free and crash down to the ground, hopefully crushing the armored creature in the process. As the wind whistled around us, I turned my focus back to Nialla as she continued to pour her heart out to me.

“It didn’t take me too long after that to really confirm how I felt about you… It wasn’t even the sex with you and Emelia, you know. It was the way you held me, made me feel so protected, so… loved. But… it wasn’t just you, either. I was starting to fall for Emelia too. And that confused me even more. Here, I had just met this awesome group of people, they had given me this badass body, we had had some fucking awesome sex, and then BAM, my emotions got involved. And to make matters worse… I had fallen for two people… not just one!”

Nialla let out a long sigh and I felt suddenly weightless as she turned us so that we were now upside down. Her face suddenly adopted a look of determination as she clutched me tighter with one hand and held out the other over my shoulder. I heard the sound of lightning crackling from her fingertips, and then we jetted upwards as she released the spell. The lithe catgirl let out a little grunt as her feet impacted against the ceiling and no sooner had we struck against it when she pushed off with her legs and propelled us in a different direction. I could actually hear the devastating beams of magic melting through the stone in the spot we had just been in.

“Shit. I’m gonna let go of you on three. When I do… you are going to have to spread your wings and push against me as hard as you can. K?”

She took my grunt of pain as acknowledgement and started to count down from three. When she reached one, the flow of lightning arcing through my body ceased all at once and released her hold on me. I fought against the g-forces and spread my wings as wide as I could manage and pulled my legs against my chest and then kicked out against Nialla’s body. The momentum propelled us away from each other and a pair of beams barely missed both of us as we soared through the air. 

As I flapped my wings a few times to try to orient myself in such a way I could safely descend towards the ground, I heard the unmistakable sound of cracking stone overhead. I glanced downwards to see how the armored creature was going to react, and I swore loudly as I saw it was now aiming up at the ceiling and unleashing a concentrated blast in an effort to destroy the falling stone.

“[*Overlord of Corruption*]!”

My voice resonated with an unnatural intensity and boomed around me even as the sound of breaking rock filled the air. The misty red forms of my Corrupted flowed out of me quickly, and they each instantly knew what I wanted them to do. They all flew as fast as they were able towards the creature, readying every attack they had at their disposal. Nialla’s storm tiger form was the first one to make contact with the creature, and as it landed on its shoulder it opened its mouth to unleash a blast of red lightning directly into its face. Mellic’s berserker form was next, and as I flapped my wings hard in an effort to propel myself out of the way of the falling stone, I saw both of his giant claymores cleave deep into the creature’s metal helmet. I glanced upwards and growled in frustration as I realized that I wasn’t going fast enough to clear the massive chunk of rock hurtling towards the ground. Thinking quickly, I waved my hand to dismiss all my armor, my chainmail, and even my clothing in an effort to reduce my weight and give me a bit more speed. I pumped my wings as hard as I could and angled my body so that I was now flying backwards. I stretched out my hands and hoped that my author’s comment about always having my back was more than just words.

 “[Blastburn]!”

Two purple lances of fiery electricity blasted out of both of my palms before I stopped channeling the spell and immediately cast it again.

 “[Blastburn]!”

After the second time I had cast the spell, I could tell that the force of the blast was adding enough momentum that I should be able to just barely get clear of the falling ceiling. Not content to just hope that I had enough room to make it to safety. I cast the spell over and over and over until my MP dropped below 10%. I was just about to look up to see if I had moved out of the way enough to be safe from both the falling stone and the massive shockwave that was sure to follow the impact of it hitting the ground, when an explosion so loud my eardrums instantly burst blasted through me from below. As I looked down at what remained of the battlefield, my heart sank to my stomach when I realized I couldn’t feel my connection to Emelia. After a few seconds, however, my mind connected to hers, and I let out a sigh of relief. Judging from her reaction to feeling my presence connect to her mind, she had probably been just as worried about me as I was about her. It took my brain a few seconds to realize that she was now standing outside the entrance to the building, and as I wondered if the rest of my clan had made it out safely, she turned to face the others in response. While each of them looked banged up and bruised, the only one that I needed to see was Gehenna. Emelia sent me feelings of reassurance as she turned a bit more and looked down. Gehenna was sitting up with her back against a large chunk of rock, talking quietly to a very worn out looking Jade. As Em moved closer to them, Gehenna’s golden eyes looked upwards and stared deeply into my fiancée’s eyes. As if sensing that I was watching through Emelia, Gehenna smiled warmly as she spoke.

“I’m alright, Allie. Thanks to you, I’m OK. Now… get out here so me and the rest of your clan can congratulate you on a most epic victory. And then... we have a lot to talk about.”

Immense relief flooded through me, and it felt like a million pounds had just been lifted off my shoulders. Seeing Gehenna alive and well made my heart soar and I felt my eyes growing damp with tears of happiness.

"Allie is happy you're safe, Gehenna."

Before Gehenna could respond, Nialla's voice sounded from behind Em.

“Wait… Allie can hear through that enchantment thingy?”

Em turned around to look at Nialla, who was standing there with her ears flat against her head and her tail twitching.

“She can. Whenever we focus on it, we can sense each other’s thoughts, emotions, and whatever is currently happening in each other’s mind.”

“Does that mean you could hear what I was saying to Allie earlier?”

“Yes. I could. For now, let’s leave it at that…  As Gehenna said, we have a lot to talk about.”