NT veRse - Lad 25 - Bad Ending pt. 2 (Patreon)

“We finished up here rather quickly.” Janna remarked in a neutral tone.

Joseph nodded behind her while letting his sleeves down. “If they were always this weak, I'm surprised they were able to be a problem at all.”

Kara sat back, one leg crossed over the other as she pondered the situation. “Seems like we got tricked pretty bad... To think the 'Hero' was willing to sacrifice each and every one of his underlings. This version of my sister that I'm sitting on top of.” Kara slapped the butt of the body she was sitting on.
“The Dryder that's over there being eaten by her 'daughter' like a crab.” A few yards away Driana was finishing her meal while the others averted their eyes. She stood up and dusted herself off.
“Then there's you...” Kara looked down on the Seraph. One wing had been removed, the other broken. She was kneeling down with Yeong keeping an eye on her. A blindfold had been re-wrapped around her eyes.
“You all, and all the mages and soldiers that were wasted. Is this the guy you chose to serve?” Kara asked.

Ai, the silver-haired Seraph smiled subtly. “My Lord had already sacrificed us in his heart long ago.” Was all she said.

Kara clicked her tongue. “How sad.” She turned her head to the side to see a battered Ciar Elf being restrained next to janna and Joseph.
“And you. I never thought I'd see you again. I learned that if the student fails it's the teachers responsibility... I- I learned that too late.” She bit her lip.
“So what do you have to say for yourself for swiping the Hero up in that path and letting it get to such an extent.”

Jeane coughed. “I... Have no regrets.”

“Sheesh.” kara rested her hands on her hips and glanced over at Kai, who was anxiously calling ChasAn for any response while Lad provided support beside her. She turned her attention back to Jeane.
“I would've thought that if he chose you from the beginning he would've been happier from the start, based on what happened.” She squatted down to be on level with Jeane. The Mage laughed.
“What's funny?”

“I-I see he chose me in this world, as well.” The Elf smiled widely.

“Yep.” Kara returned the pleasant smile and tussled Jeane's smooth hair. She left Jeane and walked over to Kai and Lad.
“I know you both have reasons to return... But that place is likely already completely taken over. We need to regroup somewhere else and resist.”

“It's what we did before, in my time. We can do it again.” Yeong remarked, appearing after properly restraining the Seraph.

“Y-you don't understand.” Kai said gravely.
“WE can't. Lad and I...”

“What?” Kara's eyes widened as a video began playing.

-

The Camera was zoomed in on Lacie's face. “Hi honey! We're having a great time with the Hero. It turns out we didn't have to fight at all because he just wants to rule over the world benevolently, okay? So... After being convinced me and Steph, we agreed to reorder ChesAn around the Hero completely.”

The camera pulled out to show Lacie's full body. She was nude except for a lewd ensemble with a little skirt no better than a belt and two straps like thin suspenders that ran up over her nipples and wrapped around her neck. She wore stockings and heels and seemed to be dripping. There was something else. Fingers sliding in and out of her cunt as she spoke. The Hero was behind her. She had been sitting at the side of his chair the whole time she spoke. The Fox panted, leaning over to kiss the Hero on the cheek gently.
“Kai... This is your new Daddy and our new CEO, okay? The Hero is kind and strong and smart and kind.”

A weak male voice corrected from the other side. “D-darling, you said kind twice.”

“Oh, well that just means he's extra kind, okay?”

The camera turned to view Steph on the other leg. His lithe body had been dressed up in a cute skirt and a tube top that hugged his flatness, showing off his puffy nipples and the definition of his chest.  He was done up with makeup and his hair styled to make him a rather convincing woman that was also hanging off of the Hero's other arm. He also leaned in to kiss the Hero's cheek before looking at the camera with an embarrassed expression.
“Kai, if you don't come home your mother and I will be said.”

“But also dead.” The Hero stated frankly.
“If you do anything I don't like, I'll kill them.” He hugged both the husband and wife to his side closely. The waved. Lacie in particular stuck her tongue out and flashed a peace sign, not caring at all about the ultimatum. Steph seemed to care, but could not say anything.

“Please save us, Kai!” Lacie begged in good humor.

“S-save us.” Steph stammered.

As the camera panned down they could see both Steph's and Lacie's hand on his cock, stroking and rubbing around the head. The pale while hair came into view. Lad's blood in particular began to boil even more as he recognized the hair. Then her face turned just enough for them to see that Leto was between the Hero's legs lapping gently at his balls and the base of his cock. The Hero turned her head. She turned around and sat, allowing his balls to fall over her eyes.
“Remember what we talked about.”

“Lad...” Leto began.
“So long as I'm good to the Hero he promised to take care of me and to take care of you, too. Also... If you come back I get to live as well. I th-think it's a really generous offer. The Hero is actually really kind...” The recording ended. Kai's arms dropped to her side lifelessly. Lad held his chest and tried to think.

“You guys... You guys aren't actually going to do what he says, right? We can fight him now. He's weaker than ever with all his people gone!” Yeong begged. She looked to Kara for support. The Fox merely stared at the two sadly and shook her head at Yeong.
“Halmeoni?”

“Yeong... We can't make this choice for them. They need to decide what's important. Their reasons for fighting are different from yours and mine so we can't judge them if they both have something that they can't afford to lose.”

“But-”

“No buts.” Kara stared acknowledgingly at Lad and Kai.
“What do you two want to do? The reason I'm fighting right now is different, and I'm sure it's the same for those two twins over there and Yeong. IF you feel like you can stay with us and fight and resist and solve this, stay. If you can't, go to your people and save them. Just know that the life they'll have after being saved, and yours, will be something bordering on death.” She motioned back to the Seraph and Jeane.
“It's like she said. They were sacrificed in his heart long ago. There's no chance that he'll have a change of heart where it regards you and Lacie and your dad. Or your sister, Lad. You'll just be on a clock for when it's time to be thrown away.”

“You're right.” Lad admitted, taking a deep breath.
“I think... I can't save Leto.”

“Lad! We can go there and they at least wont die.” Kai implored.

He shook his head. “As someone who was under his control already, that isn't living. You'll feel good serving him, but it wont be real. You're just a puppet as soon as you're under his control.”

“S-so you're just going to let Leto die!?” Kai shouted.
“My parents, too!”

Lad walked over to Kara. “You're forgetting I already made this choice once.”

Kara wore a small smile and touched the Human's face. “You've become so strong.”

Kai pouted. She tapped her HanComm. Off in the distance they heard a 'click'. He glanced over and saw the thick collar falling off of Driana.
“With this, they can't control her or restrain her through the collar anymore. She'll also be free to choose. I can't let my parents go.” She stated sullenly.
“You must think I'm weak.”

“I can't think that. Even if I was able to tell myself the same thing I just told you, I would still stubbornly make the same choice the first time.”

Kai chuckled. “God you're so hot... I guess this is goodbye.”

“No. We'll figure out  a way to save you all. Promise.” Lad held out his hand. Kai bypassed it to hug hug him tightly, then walked away without another word.

- Three Months Later -

“New rangers, huh...” Lad watched the screen with dark bags under his eyes. It was a display in a storefront.
“Hah... Wow.” They featured a pair of powerful Jackal twins with bronze skin for Green and Yellow, A white haired human Martial Artist in for Red, Blue was a familiar-looking Fox with red hair, but unlike their own team all of the 'New Rangers' wore masks. Finally there was a large Orc boy taking up the spot that was his. Black. Lad's hand began to shake as he noticed the gentle rapport between the White-haired martial artist girl, the red-haired fox girl, and the Orc.
“U-uhh... That's definitely-”

“Hey... Don't torture yourself watching that stuff.” Kara warned, pulling him along.

“I know it's just an illusion. They aren't actually happy but... They looks so happy.” He gulped. He looked around and saw the results of the Hero's control over ChesAn. A massive amount of wealth was redistributed throughout the whole city, turning the lower city slums into a genuine part of Orr's wealthy metropolis. Police actually patrolled the streets and punished crime and the Rangers were hunting down regular, high profile criminals. Not just Beasts.
“Did we make a mistake?”

Kara furrowed her brow. “I can't make that judgment for you. Honestly I'm surprised as well that things turned out like this.”

“If this was always in ChesAn's power, why didn't they do it before?”

“I know the issue of poverty is close to you personally. ChasAn needed to keep capital to fight back Fennek and other competitors. What we didn't expect was for Fennek to be working with them from the start.”

Lad stared down at the nicely paved sidewalk. “So... To sum it up there's no more competition, which means they can do whatever they want by collaborating. That's also a skill, I suppose.”

“If you look at it like that. Something they still haven't done is figured out where the Hero... The REAL Hero is, or why he's still tethered here. So cheer up.”

“Right.”
As soon as they reached the warehouse dwelling Lad walked past Janna and Joseph, avoided Yeong and looked up too late to avoid bumping into Driana. He smiled at her.
“Hey.”

“I missed you.”

He smiled wider and hugged her. “I was gone for less than an hour.”

“I still did. What do you want me to say?” She uttered in an annoyed tone. His smile became somewhat nervous as Yeong stood up and approached them from behind. She clung to Lad's arm and whispered in his ear.

“Got sent a video... I- I feel like I'm gonna relapse. Any day now.”

Lad cringed. “You need to stop watching those. Throw them out as soon as you get them.”

Yeong took his hand. “M-maybe I'd be stronger about it if we watched this last one together. Just this last one and then I swear we'll stop.”

“It's always the last one.” Lad protested weakly, his face becoming flushed.
“Alright. Dri, give us a little bit.” The two of them held hands and ascended the stairs. He looked at Yeong. His only hope was, if he kept her company like this she would eventually be able to stop.

Down stairs Kara massaged her temple. “Rough day?” Janna asked.

“I can't expect these kids to keep going like this while keeping it together.”

“Maybe it's impossible for them.” Joseph remarked.

Kara nodded. “You two still have each other, so it's natural that you would be fine wherever you went. Any luck?”

“Yes.” Janna nodded.

“Wait... Seriously?” Kara walked quickly over to where they were studying. The table had books and papers and copies of books and pictures of stolen papers scattered all over.

“Something that threw us off was that the Hero did not ever leave much behind in terms of personal writing or records. It's not too surprisingly that most of his actions aren't even recorded in history in part due to the shift, but also because of his intent to retreat into the background.” Janna explained.

“So..?”

“Jeane was a different story.” Joseph added.
“She kept records under a pseudonym right up until her eventual death, which is what threw us off. Once we figured that out it opened up a host of new first-hand records. First thing that was cleared up which we were not sure about. They were both definitely surprised by the bombing of Demonkine.”

Janna interjected. “Since it was them, we always assumed the possibility that they saw it coming but did nothing.”

“Instead, there are records right up to a few days before that managed to get rescued.”

“How?”
Kara asked.

“Jeane used automatic record keeping. It's an old method that was invented... By her, as far as we know. The principle is to write onto a piece of blank paper that shares a link with an itemized collections of books in storage. Each record is kept safe and locked until accessed at a later point. It's completely immune to any spying since the page being written on remains blank.”

“Okay.” Kara shrugged.

Joseph smiled. “You did not like out ancestor too much, did you?”

“I actually thought she was fine... People assume I'm bitter whenever they hear what happened, but I'm not...”

“Sure thing, Aunt.” Janna winked.

“Brat.”

She continued. “The second interesting thing is related to the first. That is... Those two were trying to prevent the Hero from dying at all cost.”

“So? Isn't that just a given?”

“No.” Joseph shook his head.
“It went further than that. It seems as though Jeane wrote about a force that the Hero found out about as Coda shortly after taking her power for himself and connecting with the planet's Aura. He should have been able to feel the lingering emotions of all those that he had lost within that Aura, since we know when spirits pass their accumulated energy and experience are 'returned' into that mass of Aura, and the  planet's Soma itself, eventually.” Kara listened carefully, covering her mouth.
“But... What they found was that every single soul... All the energy and experiences and memories were simply missing. All the people that were close to him including his Mother and Sister. Those people close to you all that died... They were never returned when they died. Then they began looking earnestly over the centuries. Watching for it. Others that should have passed on began disappearing as well. Not enough to raise complete alarms, just... enough.”

“What does that mean?” Kara's heart was beating rapidly.

Janna looked at her. “What that means is that something using an immense amount of Aura was intercepting souls from returning to the embrace of our planet and keeping them for some purpose.”

“The purpose seems obvious...” Joseph corrected.

“That's theoretical.” Janna scolded, causing her brother to roll his eyes.

“Don't leave anything out. Haven't I told you? I don't know what theory or a hypothesis or a guess is. I don't even know the distance, so just tell me.” Kara smirked.

“Sister, I think our Aunt is bragging about being stupid.”

“I think so...” Janna sighed.

“Just tell me,you kids!”

Janna nodded. “If the energy and experiences could be intercepted, they could also be used and re-created. Over time... It would build and build off itself to make itself more powerful. This is simple... It's just the cycle of life and death that we all know about. But, if something got in the middle of it they could reap the benefits.” Janna paused, flipping through the notes.
“Before the day the bomb dropped the last entry Jeane made mentioned that they were on the trail of those responsible. Write, Painter, Musician.”

“Wait... Those idiots?” Kara blinked. She held her head.

“Regardless of their intelligence, if we're correct those three have taken over the power of the Turais, which was likely their goal from the start.”

“If they figured it out then why did the bastard sacrifice himself?” Kara questioned. She stopped and chuckled.
“Never mind... It's obvious why. Fuck, what can we do about this now? We're lucky if the Primals remain enemies with this replacement Hero and refuse to cooperate. Maybe this is actually incredibly lucky.”

-

Lad curled up in the dark room. Yeong placed a hand over his. “Last one, I promise.” She said wearily.

“Okay.” He stared at the screen with a lifeless expression.

They were wearing masks, but Lad could tell it was Leto and Kai bending over with Sebek behind them. They were rocking forward as he pumped into Leto with his thick Orc trunk while his fingers plunged three at a time into Kai.

“Say hi to the camera, girls.”

“Hi!” They both offered in unison in labored tones.  

“Sorry for the cold open, this time.” Sebek grunted.
“Girls, give a status update.”

Leto began. “Hey Lad...” She panted, her small breasts bouncing up and down. The camera was angled in such a way that they could see his cock bending to sheath completely inside with each thrust.
“I'm actually doing great. Sebek should've sent a present this time. If you send back a video wearing it he says I can send a private vid where it's just me! I promise it wont just be me masturbating this time.” She giggled.
“I'll send something actually nice.”

“Next.” Sebek wrapped his arm around Kai, placing a hand over one of her perky boobs to grope it and provide leverage at the same time while he swapped to fucking her.

Kai turned her head to kiss Sebek lovingly. “What's there to say? Lad, I think I'm fully over you at this point. I think... I think I can move on. We got a new team now. Before I really wanted you to come join us. Now... Since you've been gone so long I kind of just want you to never show up again at all. We'll keep sending these as payment so just keep hiding and disappear to save yourself.”

“Haha...” Sebek pushed her face-down into the bed and began ramming into her lifted ass while grabbing her tail firmly to stop it from wagging in his face.
“That's rough...”

Lad stared at the screen sadly. “You- You saw this already?” Yeong hid her face in her hands.

“Why did you-”

“Yeong. If you manage to show Lad this video we'll make a place for you both again. The Hero is reasonable. He'll overlook Lad's betrayal if you guys just come join us.”

“You're kidding.” Lad swayed back and forth.

Yeong shook him. “Listen! This isn't living... I was the first person to say we should fight but what can we do? The world just keeps improving and we've done what so far?”

“Is this seriously what you want?” Lad asked. He felt dizzy. Yeong gave him a very obvious, shameful look. She seemed defeated and done with the meager resistance they were putting up.

“If we keep going... You've seen it now. We'll have to fight and kill our friends potentially. I can't do that. I don't want to.”

“Then go.” He leaned back, offering a fake smile.

“What?”

“Without me. Just go if you want. I wont. I'm going to stay here because I already decided. You don't deserve to hurt and feel pain, though. So if it feels too bad then go.”

“That's the same as saying you're hurting a-and that you're just going to keep enduring it.” She whined.

Without looking at her. With just staring at the paused screen of both girls lavishing attention on the Orc, Lad asked.
“What do you want to do?” He cracked a little.

'Am I allowed to be greedy? Can I be a little manipulative if it's for her? Even if it's the truth.'

“It'll be the same as that time, you know... That time you were a machine. You'll feel like that all over again, only it wont stop ever.”

Yeong began crying and hugged him. “Oh god! I'm sorry, I don't know what I was thinking. This was the last video, I swear! I wont watch these anymore...” She pounced on him and began to ride him as he closed his eyes and laid back.

'How many times has it gone like this?' He wondered.
“Is... Is it okay if I roll it back? Just to get myself... You know.”

“Hah...” Lad grunted, hiding his face in his hands.
“Go ahead.”

She smiled brightly, though he couldn't see it. He heard the sounds of Leto and Kai being fucked and of Sebek taunting him as Yeong rode him without a second thought.
“W-with this I can avoid going back!” She promised with a lewd moan.

“Sure.”