"Let's play a game." The bitch queen repeated herself.
"I heard you the first time."
"You did not respond the first time."
Lex snorted derisively at that. "Funny. Because I thought I didn't have a choice in the matter. I did just get dragged away from my unconscious friend and held at spear point. But what do I know."
The bitch queen smiled sadly and began slowly pacing the room. She was the definition of queenly beauty and elegance. Even with a snakes lower half, every move felt methodical, like it was rehearsed beforehand, and in terms of looks, she rivaled princesses and queens way above her stature. Lex couldn't help but to feel a hint of jealousy.. it made her hate the bitch even more.
"I believe to choose is a cruel thing. Do you not agree?"
Lex flexed her fingers to loosen the tension building in them. This bitch had just taken her brother hostage, but not before threatening her life, and leaving him in a "to be continued" moment, and she wanted to talk about philosophy.
She took a deep breath, calming herself down before answering. "No, I don't agree. I believe only those who have had their choices made for them can understand the true cruelty of not being able to make their own choices."
The queen stopped in place and cocked her head. "It sounds like you are speaking from experience?"
Lex shrugged. "Not really. At least, not compared to some people I know. Like my brother."
The queen laughed, but there was no humor in it. "I should have known."
Lex lifted her chin in challenge. "Known what?"
"The way you look down at those above your status, and that aura..." The queen looked at her as if examining her inch by inch. "You two do not look much alike, however."
"Thanks for noticing, I'll pass on the message. can I go now?"
"You don't get it!" The queen hissed, losing her composer for the first time in the conversation. "He told me that he had no siblings."
Lex rolled her eyes. "What? Am I supposed to feel bad for you or something? That's just who my brother is. Get over it. The next thing you're going to tell me is that he made you fall in love with him and then disappeared. Oops, wait, he told me this story already. He was a kid back then under orders by the most powerful shifter alive. He had no other choice, so get over it already."
"Is that what he told you? That all he did was play me like some kind of fool, and now what? Do you think I am doing this out of some... petty revenge? Well, you are correct. But you are also incorrect. This is revenge, but it is not because of his departure." She shook her head as if the mere idea was idiotic and then turned her back to Lex.
Lex took the opportunity and lunged forward, charging at the snake lady. They were both unarmed, but Lex was lethal on a bad day using only her feet.
This wouldn't take long.
Lex closed the distance in a matter of seconds and thew a punch, but the queen ducked it and countered with a tail whip, and now the same momentum Lex had used to close the distance was being used against her. The bitches tail made impact with her ribs with a loud crack! And launched Lex through the air.
The moment that she collided with the floor, her entire body began to scream in pain. She quickly recovered, however, rolling onto her stomach and pushing herself up to her feet in a single move, using two fingers to check her ribs. She had broken 3 of them.
The queen sighed and then gave Lex a look that chilled her to the core.
"I am the warrior queen Eleanora Vitania The Fourth. I have been trained by and fought side by side with many of masters, including your brother, so unless you want to see if that was just a fluke or not, I suggest you stand there, shut up, and play my game."
Lex shouldn't have underestimated the bitch just because she was nobility. A mistake that won't happen the next time.
"Okay fine," Lex spat out some blood. She had taken worse blows before, from her own best friend, in fact. She couldn't help but wonder what Elizabeth was up to right now. Once she found a way out of this, she'd call her. She hadn't heard her twins' voice in a few days, and after an ordeal like this, she needed her bestie. "What's the game?"
The bitch queen turned her back again but this time Lex stayed put. She'd wait, pretend to get caught up in the psychos game, and then when the bitch least expected it. She'd try again.
The sounds of a crank turning filled the room, and the floor in front of the queen began to shake and then split apart a few feet in every direction, leaving a square shaped hole not large enough to fit a body, but apparently just enough to fit the glass dome (that covered something that Lex couldn't see), on a rising, ocean blue platform.
"Have you ever heard of two truths and a lie?" She didn't wait for Lex's response. "Well, this is that in reverse. Two lies and a truth." She removed the glass dome from the now still platform revealing three syringes with some kind of purple goo inside, and Lex had to stop herself from reacting. She had to be strong for Kaerons' and Lily's sake.
The bitch queen picked up one of the syringes, and turned her way a smile on her face. "This is the result of 6 generations' worth of trial and error. It is a highly experimental drug that allows one to transfer their own memories to another. We mostly use it on captured terrorists or those who have attempted or are planning to attempt some kind of act of terrorism. It's great for extracting information from the unwilling."
The bitch said the last part with a smile in the words like she was going to enjoy this and Lex involuntarily sucked in a breath. Was this really happening? She was about to have her memories probed or.. wait? Why her? This didn't make sense. Lex didn't have any memories relevant to the situation... right?
The bitch continued seemingly satisfied with herself. "I would tell you how it works to make the entire ordeal a bit easier on you, but," The bitch fucking winked. Like this was a game or something. "Seeing as it's top secret, and I trust you as much as I trust your brother, we can just skip that part. It would not matter, sadly. Not even I really understand how it works. It has something to do with sending nanobots infused with my blood, throughout your brain, and other complicated things, but let's not get caught up in the details. What matters is that we can show you memories. But we can also alter those memories." She paused in order to let that sink in; Lex made sure to show no emotion, which just made the bitches smile grow.
"I will be showing you three different memories. All three will look as if it were the story of me and Kaeron, but only one of them will be the true story. The game is simple. By the end of story three, you must answer this one question. Which story is true. If you can do that, you win, and you can have whatever you want, even if it's to save that wretched brother of yours..."
"And if I choose wrong, then you'll kill us both got it, just give me the damn shot already, and let's get this over with."
The bitch frowned, and Lex couldn't help the satisfaction that washed over her because of it.
"You're as impatient and arrogant as your brother." Her frown disappeared, replaced by a dark smile. "Let's see how long that lasts. Come, let's begin."
Lex kept her face blank as she moved her feet forward. One foot at a time, she reminded herself. Making sure to control her breathing. She wouldn't give the bitch the satisfaction of any kind of response.
They were now face to face. The heels that the bitch wore made it so they were about the same height, but unlike the few people of royalty Lex had met before, the bitch didn't give off that, "fear me or be reprimanded," vibe.
"Brave. I admire that." The queen smiled grimly. "If only you weren't so blinded by your bastard of a brother.. maybe we could have been friends."
"Doubt it." Lex spat back.
"Maybe not. Don't move, I have to inject you in exactly the right place, or I could accidentally paralyze you."
Lex froze but kept her face blank. "Shouldn't a doctor or someone qualified for the job do this? Preferably someone not holding a grudge against my brother?"
The bitch snorted a laugh. "If I weren't capable of doing this, I would have called for somebody who is." When Lex looked unimpressed by this, she continued. "Why would I purposely end my own game before it even began?"
Lex was still not convinced.
The bitch sighed. "Believe me or not. I do not care, but you will stand still."
"Bitch." Lex muttered under her breath.
The bitch queen ignored the comment; fidgeted with Lex's hair; parting it in the middle, and then came a sharp prick, followed by the feeling of fire spreading throughout her head.
She tried to scream bloody murder, and on reaction, she tried pulling away from the source of the pain, but it was as if she no longer held any sway when it came to her body and mind.
One moment, she felt like she was being cooked from the inside, praying that the god of death would end this misery, and then all of a sudden. The pain vanished... but something was wrong.
She still couldn't move or speak, and..
A giant of a man rocking one of the largest, most scruffy, grey beards that Lex had ever seen before came into view. For some reason, Lex found the man's smile comforted her and made her feel safe.
"Sweetheart. I understand that you do not like watching the duals, but honey. Our people see it as a great honor to fight for the chance to be one of the royal guards. How do you think Syphon came to us?"
He was talking to her, but she didn't understand. Syphon? That was the guy that Kaeron had worked with while... wait, was she in the memory?
She felt her mouth begin to move involuntarily, "But daddy, it looks scary."
Daddy? Was this man supposed to be her father?
The man gave an amused smile. "That's because it is. Sweetheart, what makes them warriors is being able to push past that fear and do what has to be done..." he laughed, which triggered a cough, and her body tensed, she was scared, but he continued, "... the attention they get afterward is also incentive enough for most."
"He's speaking of something inappropriate." Nobody had spoken those words, and yet... it was as if they had just appeared in her head.
The man cleared his throat and smiled softly at her, getting down on one knee like some kind of knight. "We have to go honey. You know how impatient your sister is. She is already terrorizing her maids, and I'm pretty sure she's only a few more minutes away from setting a curtain on fire and smoking you out of here."
A sadness washed over Lex, followed by a wave of anger that didn't go away so easily. "Why is she so mean?"
The man laughed and coughed violently once again before answering. "She gets it from her mother."
Now, the anger was wiped away by another wave of sadness. "Oh. Ok. I'm ready now daddy."
He smiled. "Good," he reached out with both arms, and Lex's mood immediately improved as she was lifted up onto his shoulders. "Let's go, my little warrior princess."
And that confirmed it. She wasn't just inside of the bitches memories. She was the bitch.