The Empress

Here was theater made architecture, power given physical form in stone and starlight.

The throne room was a quiet and elegant psychosis rendered in marble, its structure a series of beautiful, looping paradoxes that punished the observing eye with a sharp, watery ache—so I focused instead on the floor, discovering it was not a carpet, but a placid, vertical river of petrified light, its current flowing silently upward from some deep and unseen source.

The chamber's color palette transformed as we ascended, blacks and whites bleeding into deep purples and midnight blues. Columns of veined marble stretched beyond sight into infinite darkness, while ethereal waves lapped at our feet as though we walked upon some cosmic shoreline where reality met dreams.

And there, suspended in this realm of impossible beauty, sat she who ruled over all—Empress Cleodiana.

Her presence commanded attention with the inevitability of gravity. A nun's habit draped her form, yet something felt profoundly wrong about the garment's proportions. The hemline fell scandalously short, revealing knee-length low-heeled boots of pure white that gleamed like burning plasma. Her sleeves billowed with excessive fabric that seemed to swallow her arms, while the dress clung to curves that no genuine convent would ever acknowledge. Her face remained partially concealed beneath the traditional coif, but what emerged captivated completely—scarlet eyes bearing the faintest suggestion of reptilian slits, lips full and inviting as poisoned fruit. A simple cross pendant nested against folded fabric at her neckline that coalesced into something like an angry eye that leered down at our party.

My mind reeled with recognition. This was no sacred vestment—it was of sexual theatrics, the sort of costume one might find in those garish Halloween emporiums that transformed religious symbols into objects of… other devotions entirely.

"I borrowed it during one of my dimensional excursions," she explained, her voice like the honeyed tolling of a great, submerged bell, a command that arrived as a vibration in the chest.

Could she peer directly into my thoughts? The possibility sent fresh tremors through my already overwhelmed consciousness as her legs crossed with casual authority upon a throne that refused consistency of form.

Uncertain of protocol, I offered a clumsy curtsey while Xiao Ru simply beamed and wagged her tail with characteristic innocence. Ashley and Serena exchanged worried glances—Serena even grasping her companion's hand in obvious distress. Only Yoko maintained professional composure, arms folded with stoicism.

The Empress observed our varied reactions with obvious entertainment, chin resting upon one pale hand as she studied us with scientific curiosity. Her throne shifted between heartbeats—now obsidian and pearl, now geometric impossibility, now plush velvet and precious metals.

Beside the throne stood a woman whose asymmetrical bright, candy apple red, blazer that looked drawn, not tailored, its lapels like sharp slashes of a cartoonist's pen, radiated a sort of malice that sent a wavering pressure. Her black shirt and patterned tie created sharp contrasts as dark hair framed features that seemed to be listening for a downbeat only she could hear. Earrings that seemed to mirror the throne's fluid reality caught the chamber's ethereal glow.

"That's Mariko," Xiao Ru whispered with reverent undertones. "Captain of the Royal Guard. The Empress's closest confidante… she is well known for her brutalism, though she is a kind woman rest assured, for every army she has wrenched the blood from, she has also danced upon neutron stars to redirect the radiation from its nearest life!"

I looked to Xaio Ru in perplexed awe. "Surely you jest?"

Xiao Ru shook her head, "Mariko is captain for a reason! She stopped a supernova all her own to maintain life upon a system of celestial worlds!"

Surely, just surely, Xiao Ru might have been taking happenstance legend as truth, but it did not seem out of reason for the Makai… could such powerful creatures truly be?

"Xiao Ru," the Empress spoke, investing the simple name with cosmic regality, snapping me from my reverie.

Xiao Ru's ears achieved perfect attention, her tail's rhythm intensifying.

"You've acquired a new companion, I understand? The curious detective Mei-Ling?"

My throat felt lined with desert sand. "Th-that would be me, Your Majesty," I managed, the words emerging as strangled whispers.

The Empress's smile widened, revealing teeth like perfect pearls, and I sensed she found my discomfort thoroughly delicious.

"A threat looms over our realm, does it not?" Cleodiana's voice was strangely domestic, regarding me as if I were a mayfly asking with genuine curiosity what one does with a tomorrow.

I nodded, my throat still parched from the chamber's overwhelming atmosphere. "Yes, Your Majesty. One appears to be manifesting."

"A creature of supercritical fluid in superposition," she explained with languid indifference, examining her fingernails as though they held more interest than our crisis. "Its flesh devours and absorbs whatever it touches. I imprisoned the thing in a mirror dimension eons ago—so long past that I had nearly forgotten its existence."

Relief flooded through me like cool water. "Then surely you can repeat the process! Banish it once more!"

Her laugh was sharp as breaking crystal. "As if."

The dismissal struck me like ice. "I… what?"

"This catastrophe bears your fingerprints, detective. You shall remedy what your meddling has unleashed."

"My fault? How could I possibly—"

But the Empress had already turned away, her attention drifting as though our conversation bored her beyond endurance. Beside me, Ashley trembled, pressing herself against Serena's protective embrace. Even Xiao Ru's usual brightness had dimmed to anxious stillness.

"Multiple paths exist to defeat this abomination," Cleodiana continued with maddening calm. "To prevent it from consuming the Makai entirely. But success will require you to kill—and that may prove… challenging."

Kill? I had dispatched monsters before. What did she mean by challenging? Even in the human world, I had taken men’s lives…

Without warning, she materialized directly before me, her face mere finger lengths from my own. The movement carried no sound, no displacement of air—she had simply translated herself through space like a thought made flesh, and yet, there she still sat at the throne. Her smile had transformed into something rigid and terrible, a rictus of barely contained malevolence. There was a wafting, cloying scene of vanilla that registered directly in my brain, as though I had not directly smelled it.

"When the creature breaks free," she whispered, her breath carrying the scent of winter roses and fresh snowfall, "and should you fail in your appointed task… I shall personally reduce both you and this capital to their constituent atoms."

The throne room erupted in gasps of horror—all save Mariko, whose expression remained carved from stone. Xiao Ru's tail had vanished between her legs, her ears flattened against her skull in abject terror. I had never witnessed such naked fear in her eyes.

Cold sweat traced rivers down my spine as the full pressure of cosmic responsibility settled upon my shoulders.

"B-but surely there must be—"

"Enough!"

The Empress waved her hand with casual dismissal, her laughter echoing through dimensions as brilliant light consumed our vision. The throne room dissolved like tears in rain, and we found ourselves standing once more within the familiar geometric confines of my office—transported across impossible distances by imperial whim.

My legs gave way beneath me, and I collapsed into one of the gelatinous chairs, my entire body trembling with the aftershocks of divine audience. The pressure of her threat pressed against my chest like a tombstone, making each breath a conscious effort.

Somewhere in the distance between worlds, a monster was stirring—and apparently, only I could stop it from devouring everything I had come to love, as the Empress would not play her hand.