The dragon's harem

Time had passed, and the blossoming Plum trees had invaded the world, engulfing it with a thick carpet of trees and flowers. Among the endless branches and leaves, a quiet moaning could be heard, coming from the millions of crucified clones the fairies had captured.

It didn’t matter how hard or desperate the clones resisted; Plum’s ever-expanding forest dominated all, growing too fast to be cut or burned.

At this moment, almost all of the clones were captured and neutralized. Plum was aware that some of them still hid in the shadows, away from her trees, but looking for them would take too long. It was time, the time to flip the switch and summon whatever horror had consumed this world.

Plum took a deep breath and shifted in her seat. At that moment, all spirits left the throne room, except her two assistants. They approached Plum, looked her in the eyes, and smiled.

Sitting on the throne, Plum was drenched in sweat, tearing up, and her skin as pale as snow. Each breath was strained, and she didn’t look all that happy or pleased. Her eyes moved, and she looked at the two spirits looking at her.

Both of them were beautiful ladies, clean and collected, the exact opposite of her sorry state. Looking at them was a bit irritating, but she knew it couldn’t be helped. She is the Queen who wanted to do this.

The two spirits knelt down and looked at Plum. One of them then spoke in a calm voice. “My Queen, this is the last push.”

The other nodded. “But it shall be the worst, all of the trees around the globe, they must all kill the clones at once.”

Plum gasped for air. “I know, but it’ll hurt like hell… damn it, I hate this job.” She clenched her hands on the armrests of her throne, took several deep breaths, then started.

The throne rumbled, then a tenuous viridescent conflagration took hold, quickly growing into an incandescent inferno.

Plum screamed as her body was swallowed by the flames, her clothes burned away, and her skin melted. The more mana she drew through her roots, the more mana she had to expel out of her skin and into the throne.

The two spirits remained kneeling at her feet. The flames burned their faces and hair, but they didn’t budge, remaining right there beside their queen.

When enough mana had been pumped through Plum’s body, into the throne, to the world tree, and then distributed across every single Plum tree she created around the world, it was time to finish it all.

With a single thought, a wisp of light spread across the entire world, sparking like lightning from one branch to another. All of the fairies and treants got Plum’s order. Kill all of the imprisoned clones; it’s time to force this abomination out.

The fairies had noticed that killing the clones resulted in stronger clones showing up, which meant the abomination had spread its power across its creations. To force it out, Plum and the fairies made a simple plan. Capture as many of the clones as possible without killing them to prevent stronger variants from showing up, and to give Plum a measure of control over when the true abomination shows up.

All of the fairies and trees worked simultaneously, guided by their queen’s magic and will. It looked simple on the outside, but it was nothing short of a miracle. All of the fairies’ hands, the trees’ branches, and their spells all fell down at the same time, killing all of the captured clones at the exact same time.

For a second, there was nothing but silence. But then, shimmering lights emerged in the sky like northern lights, booming with the pained screams and moans of the dead clones.

All of that power flew back to the abomination it came from, and soon, the horror’s true form would be forced out without a doubt.

In the meantime, all of the fairies around the entire globe jumped into the plum trees, using them as teleportation gates to return to the world tree. None of them knew; they weren’t told. Plum intentionally hid one truth from them so they wouldn’t hold back and use the teleportation to escape.

Plum had just started to catch her breath from killing the clones, but then was hit with another painful strike. As all of her fairies wanted to teleport back home, she was forced to draw even more mana from her roots, causing her to scream in agony, feeling as if all of her bones were getting plucked out after another, torn from her body.

As a Queen, she was powerful, far too young to handle that amount of power or authority over a world tree. This wasn’t a matter she could fix or train for, but a simple fact of her body being too young to handle the power.

When all of the fairies were finally home, Plum could finally get off her damned throne.

She fell from the throne, leaving the skin of her butt and thighs glued to it with countless roots. She had suffered too much in the last hours, but she could finally relax for a moment.

The two spirits kneeling caught her and immediately started healing her. Like all of the queens, Plum had two kinds of servants. A private corps of women that follows her everywhere and are her personal caretakers, then everyone else who serves her as their queen.

The two spirits were of her private corps, and soon called for the rest. The wood spirits had no reason to see their queen in such a state, so the extent of her suffering and injuries was going to be kept a secret, only known to the private corps.

She had done her job and invaded the entire world; she had managed to finish off all of the clones at once and then set the stage for the other queens to face the harrowing abomination. All she had to do now was rest and hope they would finish the fight without needing her help again.

Plum hoped the other Queens would be able to kill the abomination without her, but there was a good chance they could lose. Because if the abomination conquered this world once, that means it has already killed the previous queens.

It won’t be an easy fight. So while the spirits treated her wounds, she got some of them to monitor the other queens. In case something bad happens.

****

Far outside Plum’s world tree, all of the spirits have gone into hiding, leaving only the queens outside.

On a mountain’s snowy peak, Zephyr sat on a stone, looking at the expanding forests beneath her with an aloof face. It’s been an hour since all of the clones have been killed, and the abomination is yet to reveal itself.

“Don’t tell me it’s dead.” Nar sighed, leaning on Zephyr’s arm. “And I was looking to earn a few points here.”

Gaia was far behind, leaning on a massive boulder with her eyes closed. “Nothing underground, albeit it’s hard for me to expand my senses, so take my words with a massive grain of salt.”

“Won’t it take time?” Rilyeh lay on the snow, making an angel with a passive face. “Let’s just wait.”

Salamander looked at the forest and then frowned. “What if it’s trying to circle around us and attack Plum’s tree? We have to assume the thing is intelligent, right?”

Undine, who sat beside Rilyeh, suddenly stood and summoned her spear. She glared down at the expanding forest of trees and closed one eye as her magic slowly rushed out of her body.

Zephyr stared at her, asking with a puzzled face. “What are you doing? I said to conserve your mana.”

Undine turned around, pointing her spear at Zephyr. “Turn into elemental energy, now.” Her body burst into flames from the inside out. She was a water spirit, so seeing her using flames was enough to shock the other queens, except Salamander, who already knew.

But in the next second, all fell silent.

Undine was the only one standing there; the rest had changed. Their faces twisted and contorted, taking a harrowing, familiar form. Those deadpan faces of the clones glared right back at her.

“Damn it. It was a disease.”

Zephyr, Gaia, Rilyeh, Nar, and Salamander have all been overtaken by the abomination, leaving Undine standing there alone, the last spirit queen able to fight.

****

“My Queen…” One of the spirits looked at Plum’s bleeding and broken body, not wanting to tell her what happened.

Plum understood that things had gone wrong, so while still bleeding, she growled. “Take me back to the throne.”