Uprising! And a Hero is Born!

Emma was willing to take a risk to get close enough to Luka to attempt to heal him, but Alice was being her lamia self and never letting him get more than a foot away from her. Emma was beginning to despair of ever getting a chance to make the attempt discreetly, and further she was getting hungry. She'd been living off the energy bars she'd packed, and for some reason none of the major manufacturers back on her world made semen-infused energy bars. She considered calling Ben, but the last time they had talked, Ben had sworn he was close to finding the wayward goddess.

Well, no monster had ever actually died from lack of semen. It just sucked not to have any. But she was a superhero now, and superheroes had to put the mission first. She had just one job: heal Luka. She would do that job as soon as she had an opportunity.

At the moment, Alice was carrying Luka towards the springs where Undine lived. Apparently she planned to continue getting him the spirits, whether he was conscious or not. Emma was pretty sure that wasn't going to go well, but she was the Monster Lord. If anyone could talk a spirit into inhabiting a catatonic body, It would be the Monster Lord.

"But he's going to get better!" Alice protested.

"No," Undine said firmly. "The answer is no. He can't pass my test in his state. Bring him back if he ever gets better."

"Undine is right, your majesty," Erubetie said respectfully. "You are welcome here, of course, and so is your human companion, as long as he behaves himself. Which seems…. Likely in his current state. Please stay as long as you like. He will never be safer than he is now. No one will dare touch him since he is with you, and no monsters who don't belong here would ever dare to enter."

"Undine, Sylph and Gnome haven't left him!" Alice protested, ignoring Erubetie. "He's worthy! And he'll get better!"

"Sylph and Gnome will jump inside anyone's heart," Undine replied.

"Hey! Not true!" Sylph yelled.

Gnome simply shrugged. After all, they'd both been forced inside Luka by some strange man with unbelievable strength and wielding holy magic. Gnome had no idea why that man was so interested in Luka having their power, but once inside Luka Gnome had felt that it was right, somehow. Sylph, on the other hand, never questioned any of it. It felt right, and that was all she needed to know. Gnome knew that Undine was a lot more skeptical, however. Had the strange man tried that with her, it would not have gone so smoothly.

"The minimum I require to contract with someone is that they be able to use the power of wind and earth at the same time," Undine insisted. "Among other, more subjective requirements. I don't know this man. If he wants to risk the test, he can do so when he recovers. In the meantime, enjoy your stay and remember that the spirits do not answer to even the Monster Lord."

"I'm well aware of that," Alice retorted irritably. "Fine. I'm a little tired after rushing over here so quickly. We'll stay a night or two and I'll keep trying to help him get better."

"Didn't you say that Luka could be…. Activated somehow?" Erubetie suggested. "Perhaps he could pass the test that way?"

"Erubetie, this concern of yours is very unusual," Alice said. "I thought you hated humans?"

"My liege feels strongly about this," Erubetie replied. "If you desire for him to contract with Undine, then I will help make that a possibility. Although I will shed no tears if he dies during the test."

"Well, he responds to threats," Alice mused. "But he does so unpredictably, and with strange powers that I don't understand. I'd rather him not activate in a place like this. It might harm your children. Their safety comes first."

"Very well, your majesty," Erubetie said, bowing her head slightly. "Shall I show you to your quarters? They aren't much, as slimes do not require the comforts solid beings do. But there will at least be privacy."

"Thank you, Erubetie. And thank you for staying loyal to me. It's good to know that at least two of my Knights haven't lost their minds."

Erubetie led Alice to a small area in the cave system that gave a small measure of privacy. It also had a tall rock outcropping that Alice could wrap herself around for sleep. Luka wouldn't be comfortable, but it wasn't even clear what he was aware of and what he was not. Alice laid him down on the flattest part of the room that she could. There was no furnishing, as slimes had no need for such luxuries.

Emma observed the distance between where Alice had set Luka down and the rock outcropping. The distance was approximately six feet. Definitely close enough for Alice's tail to reach Luka, but far enough away that she wasn't up his ass the entire night. If Alice slept deeply enough…. Of course, Sariela and Tamamo could be here and having similar ideas.

As Emma thought about it, she glanced back at Luka and quickly looked away again. Alice was stroking his dick with her hand and whispering to him. Emma thought that Alice had very strange ideas about how to revive Luka. Or more likely she was just hungry, as usual.

"Do you like my hand better, or do you prefer it when I change them to tentacles?" Alice asked Luka quietly as she stroked. Her hand switched to tentacle form and Luka began to moan. That was new.

"Oh, so you like that," Alice purred. "My soft, slimy tentacle fingers. You're such a pervert. C'mon, give me another moan. Show me there's life there."

Luka didn't repeat the moan, but his reactions made it clear he definitely enjoyed what she was doing. So Alice continued, causing an ejaculation ever few minutes, which she then licked off of the hand she'd been using while she switched to the other. Luka seemed to like the alternating between a human hand and tentacle fingers, so she kept doing that, and kept getting fed, until she was satisfied and decided to go to sleep.

Emma waited. And stared at Luka. Since Alice had been using her hands, she'd left some semen on his body. There was a small amount on his belly, a little on his left leg, and most enticingly, a wet, fresh drip still on the tip of his penis. Emma wet her lips unconsciously. Damn, I'm hungry! She thought. She hadn't eaten anyone's semen but Ben's in over a year. She knew that for some reason humans liked their girlfriends to only eat their semen. Well, she had to admit that she didn't want other girls eating his semen either. But it wasn't intimate or anything, she rationalized. It was just food! One lick couldn't hurt. Maybe three, since there were three spots on Luka with semen. The other two were dried up, so it wouldn't be all that succulent, but that drip straight out of his urethra…..

As hungry as she was, she wasn't impulsive. Emma watched Alice carefully. Alice seemed to be quite asleep. And there was a good distance between her and Luka. Before Luka's weird display of power, Emma would never have taken this chance, even with semen tempting her. But Eden had told her she had to take a risk. It was time to move.

Emma kneeled down at Luka's side and dropped her concealment spell. She placed her hands on him and concentrated. She felt something. It was hard to describe, but it felt profound, as if Luka's power and hers had been reunited after a long separation. His power intertwined with hers, as if recognizing itself, which it probably did. After all, as Promestein had explained it to her, Luka WAS his power. His power was his soul, and so Emma had a piece of Luka's very life force within her.

Emma kept an eye on Alice while working. She wasn't sure what she was doing. She'd been hoping to instantly restore Luka to consciousness the way he had done for himself in another time, on another world. But he remained stubbornly catatonic, even though his power reacted to hers. They were glowing, the light spreading all over the dark room. And yet for long minutes, Luka's condition didn't seem to change.

Tiring, Emma stopped. She decided to take a break and try again. Maybe if I thought of something that might trigger him, she thought. But I don't really know him! I only know the stories! He loved Alice, but Alice is already right here. Putting thoughts of Alice in his head won't cut it. Maybe Tamamo? No, Luka was with her as well in Yamatai.

Emma stared at the semen, still wet on the tip of his dick and by that point trickling down the underside of his penis, which was still erect. Not uncommon when being pleasured by monsters, of course. Emma used to laugh at the boner pill commercials she'd see on TV that said to call a doctor if you had an erection for more than four hours. Four hours? Once a powerful enough monster pleasured a man, he'd be hard for at least twelve hours!

Thinking about erections and staring at semen finally broke her. Quickly, she sucked the semen off the head of his penis and then licked it off the underside. Luka squirmed in response. She then quickly licked the dried semen off his belly and inner thigh.

"Well that hit the spot, although it wasn't nearly enough," she muttered to herself. "But at least now I've got a little energy. Maybe that will be what I need to succeed this t-!"

Emma was snatched and lifted off the ground, coming face to face with a very angry Monster Lord.

"Did you really think a lamia would ever leave a drop of semen behind?" Alice asked. "You really are an idiot. Or starving. I guessed that stalking me meant you weren't getting proper meals."

"Look, I'm not your enemy!" Emma exclaimed. "I'm trying to help him! And yes, the semen you left behind was tempting, but it's not why I went to him! I'm trying to heal him!"

"I'm listening," Alice said. "I already surmised that we're being followed by multiple powerful beings, but you didn't seem to be working together. So start talking. What's your interest in us?"

Emma was in a quandary. What could she say? She didn't want to ruin Ilias' big plan for her best friends, but on the other hand there was now more at stake than that. And Ilias wasn't around to tell her what to do.

"Okay, so….. I'm from another world, you see, and…. I have this power. And it's just like his power…."

"Are you related somehow?" Alice asked. "No, that's not possible, I smelled no monster blood on him. It doesn't matter. What is that power of his?"

"What is it? I don't know! It just…. Is! I barely know how to use it myself! We can just… do shit, I don't know!"

"What kind of shit? Like make people see possible futures?"

"Maybe? The important thing is I was trying to heal his mind."

"And what was the other one trying to do?" Alice asked.

"Take him. They want to remove him from this world and take him to their own," Emma answered.

"Why? What's the point of that? Do they want to use his power?" Alice asked.

"Nothing so complicated as that," Emma replied. "It's really just about revenge."

"Revenge? What could he have possibly ever done to them? Or is it something I did?"

"That's really hard to explain right now," Emma said uncomfortably.

"You might want to start trying then," Alice said, squeezing Emma more tightly.

"I can't breathe…. And yet that feels surprisingly good…." Emma gasped.

"When your ribs start to break there will be a lot of pain mixed in with that pleas-" Alice started, then abruptly dropped Emma, who hit her head on the rocky floor. Since she was a dragonkin, it didn't hurt all that much. She had a very hard and thick skull.

"Luka!" Alice cried.

Emma picked herself up and looked towards Luka. He was standing, but he didn't have the vacant look anymore. His eyes were clear and lucid, and he was looking at Alice affectionately.

"Alice, what happened?" he asked. "Where are we?"

Emma took the opportunity to conceal herself again. Thanks for the save, Luka! She thought. I almost blew it there.

Elias woke up the next morning, feeling pretty satisfied with himself. He'd gotten great sex, some nice cuddle time(although ant bodies weren't always the most cuddly, alas), and had some nice conversation with five very sweet girls who deserved more out of life.

Elias took a long, hot shower, enjoying the luxurious hot water that was rather uncommon outside of the big cities. He toweled himself off in front of the bathroom mirror.

Elias looked at his naked body in the mirror. He experimentally flexed a pectoral muscle. He grinned at how it moved. He flexed the other one. Then he flexed them both at the same time. His smile grew wider as he flexed them alternately. I really am a heck of a guy, he thought. No wonder the ladies can't resist me! He brushed his teeth and then smiled into the mirror. Oh yeah baby, he thought. If the muscles don't get them, the pearly whites will. He began to comb his short blonde hair. How did I comb it before? He wondered. He hadn't given much thought to how his hair should look. To his satisfaction, he found that his hair behaved no matter how he combed it.

Elias got dressed and exited his hotel room into pandemonium. There was screaming everywhere, humans running around being chased by ants. When the ants caught them, they'd lift them over their heads and carry them off.

"Well that doesn't look good," Elias thought, sipping some orange juice from a small bottle that had been left for inn guests. He picked up a newspaper that was laying on the ground. Whatever was happening must have just started, because the headline said nothing about a riot. That was good. Elias would have felt very unheroic if he'd slept through an all night riot.

"Excuse me!" Elias said to a human woman running and screaming past him. "What's going on?"

"The ants are going crazy!" she yelled back as she ran, two ants in hot pursuit.

"Excuse me, ant girls?" Elias asked. They ignored him, but didn't come after him. Huh. That was odd. Why were they more interested in the lady than the most tasty man in Grangold? He felt mildly insulted.

Elias continued to peruse the newspaper. The Hornets had defeated the Bees in a game called tokus. What was tokus? It appeared to be a game where teams played on two sides of a court and hit a ball with their hands. But there was no net. Interesting. He'd have to go see a tokus game sometime.

An ant girl ran up to him, looked him over, and then ran off.

"Hey, wait! Why is no one trying to carry me away?" Elias asked after her, but she had already found a young boy and was running off with him.

"Is it a sporting even, and not a riot?" he said to himself, sipping the orange juice again. "I wonder if I'm not eligible to play? It looks like fun."

No, he rejected that thought. That lady had looked really scared. Something was going on, something big. His hero senses were tingling. He was needed. He finished his orange juice, put the paper in the recycling bin, since heroes are responsible like that, and ran in the direction the ants were carrying the humans.

Following the sounds of the screaming, he reached Grangold castle. All of the humans were being taken there. Despite the fact that ants were everywhere, they continued to ignore him. So Elias decided to take a more aggressive approach. He scooped up an ant girl in a powerful arm and forced her to talk to him.

"What's going on here?" Elias asked her, cradling her firmly in his right arm.

"How….so…. strong?" the ant girl whimpered. "Humans…. Not…. Strong…."

Great. He'd forgotten most ant girls spoke human poorly.

"I'm not going to hurt you!" he assured her. "I love you girls! But something about this looks very not okay to me!"

"Humans…. Made us slaves," she said haltingly. "Queen…. Was controlled. Free now. She orders us…. Gather the humans for judgment."

"And why am I not being gathered?"

"You…. Friend. No…. enslave or hurt ants. Nice guy. Not from here."

Interesting. He knew the ants could communicate with each other efficiently, but apparently he'd developed a good reputation with them overnight. Maybe he could use that to settle whatever this was peacefully.

Since the ants seemed uninterested in him, he simply walked into the palace and looked around. Ants continued to carry screaming humans towards the main hall, so Elias simply followed the crowd. What he found was at least half the city already gathered in the enormous main hall of the castle. The king was among them, although he didn't seem to be even attempting to act like a leader. But when he noticed Elias, his demeanor changed.

"Hero!" he called. "Thank Ilias you're here! Save us!"

"Save you from what?" Elias asked. "I don't understand what's going on here! Something about you enslaving these nice girls?"

"It would take too long to explain!" the king blurted. "We can talk about it, after you've rescued us from this uprising!"

Uprising? A slave uprising? Elias' hero senses were tingling like mad. He had no prejudice towards monsters, or favoritism towards humans. He didn't believe he was smart, but he did believe he was impartial, and everything about this situation told him that the humans were actually the ones in the wrong. The fact that the ants weren't harming anyone reinforced his view. But whatever the wrongs of the humans, it wasn't right to hold the entire human population of Grangold responsible for it. Elias made his decision.

"Stop!" he bellowed in his most heroic bellow.

The ants completely ignored him, continuing to drop humans off and run off to go get more.

"Halt!" he thundered, using his most heroic, thundering voice.

He continued to be ignored, and ant literally dropping a small girl right next to him.

"I said cut it out!" he caterwauled, which didn't seem nearly as heroic, and predictably brought the same unsatisfying results.

"Okay, enough is enough!" he exclaimed, placing himself in the path of two ant girls carrying humans. "Whatever's happening here, I'm sure we can talk this out!"

"Move…." One of the ant girls said. "Not your concern."

"Well, I'm not moving," Elias said confidently, puffing out his chest. "No more…. Doing whatever this is. I, Elias, the legendary hero of….. of….. the legendary hero has spoken!"

"Elias is a hero…. Enemy!"

Every ant in the great hall put down their humans and focused on him. Uh oh, he thought. I guess I got their attention? Did I say something wrong?

The next thing he knew he was being mobbed. His clothes were ripped off and the ants began pawing him and licking him all over. He couldn't even see, due to the swarm of ant bodies dogpiling him, but he felt his penis enter a warm, soft place. Ant pussy, he thought. Definitely ant pussy. Good ant pussy, too.

Elias fought back, groping breasts and sucking whatever seemed suckable. An ant girl that was foolish enough to put her crotch in his face was rendered harmless in seconds by his skilled oral technique. She fell off of him, quivering in ecstasy on the ground. He felt the unseen ant that had been riding his cock stiffen as well, and she too fell off of him. Another took her place.

All the crowd could see were dozens of ant girls ganging up on the legendary hero that strangely, none of them had ever heard of.

"Oh my goddess, they're eating him alive!" a woman cried.

"There'll be nothing but bones left!" a man screamed.

"No! Wait!" a boy yelled. "He's fighting back! Look at how they're being tossed aside! And they aren't moving when he tosses them!"

Indeed, Elias was beginning to get into a rhythm, using his hands, mouth, and penis to neutralize ant girl after ant girl. He was dispatching them at the rate of one per minute once he got going, and despite their best efforts, they could not bring him to orgasm. They just weren't strong enough to do it if he wasn't submitting to them.

As the pile cleared and only a few ants remained on top of Elias, the crowd could see what was happening. Mothers covered their children's eyes. When only one ant remained, Elias took her in missionary position, pumping her until she spasmed underneath him.

"Too…. Good…" she gasped, before passing out.

Elias surveyed the great hall. The humans remained cowering at the far end of the hall. Unconcsious and semi-conscious ants lay everywhere, some of them comically lying on their backs with their hands and feet in the air. At some point, the ants had stopped streaming into the castle to attack him. He counted the bodies. Only about one hundred. He knew there were a lot more ants than that in Grangold.

"You saved us!" the king said, clearly quite shocked. "It's not how I imagined a hero would save us, but…. I cannot deny the effectiveness of your methods."

"Stay here for now," Elias cautioned. "I'm going to see if I can find this queen of theirs and talk with her. So far, no one has been seriously hurt as far as I can tell. And frankly… I think you guys were wrong to do whatever it is that enslaved these wondrous beings. But that doesn't mean they should seek revenge. I'm going to put a stop to this. No matter how many ants I have to…. Well, you know."

The king nodded his understanding and Elias bolted towards the castle entrance. When he emerged outdoors into the warm sun, he saw why the ant girls had stopped coming in. They could only fit so many inside the castle at once. Outdoors, their numbers could be near limitless. And they were. Thousands of ant girls were arrayed against him.

"I think I made a booboo," he said as the huge ant army charged him. He bravely held his ground, determined to stop them from getting to the humans inside.

Queen Ant watched in satisfaction as the ant girls swarmed the lone, idiotic hero. She had ordered them not to hurt him. After all, she had received the same information they all had. This Elias was a kind, if deluded man. He was a tough nut to crack, but no mere human could resist her children's techniques forever. He would come, and come again and again, until he was neutralized. Then they'd lock him up in the dungeon until their work was done.

Except she wasn't hearing the usual cries of ecstasy. At least, none with a male voice. In fact, she was hearing the cries of females climaxing. Already, dozens of ant girls lay quivering on the ground, barely able to move.

"What sorcery is this!?" Queen ant exclaimed. "Humans can't make monsters experience critical ecstasy!"

Queen Ant extended her senses towards the man desperately "fighting" her children while taking as much care to not harm them as they were to not harm him. His sword had been taken from his scabbard and thrown a distance away and he hadn't made any attempts to retrieve it. What kind of hero was this? She detected no magic in him. He seemed to be completely human. But something was causing her children to go into critical ecstasy when forced to orgasm. Well, she'd have her answers soon enough. He couldn't possibly defeat them all.

Four hours later, Queen Ant grew impatient. The streets were littered with ant bodies. Half of her army had fallen. Some had recovered just enough to jump back into the fray. There was no way for the hero to win. The inexorable logic of math would defeat him. There was no possible way to keep all twenty thousand of her soldiers down at the same time. And even if he sped up his efforts and found a way, she had workers, some of whom were skilled prostitutes. He could not possibly win. Yet he fought on, denying himself release in the process, lest he fall as well.

It was the most heroic thing she had ever witnessed. Such valor deserved a reward, even though she was curious to find out just how long he could last. Eight hours? Twelve? An entire day? But there was work to be done, and it couldn't be done as long as he remained an obstacle to their progress. With a telepathic command, she ordered her children to stop. All retreated from him except the lone unfortunate(or perhaps lucky?) soldier girl that was still under him. Queen Ant calmly waited thirty seconds until he finished her. When she climaxed, Elias stood up straight and strong, his gigantic penis erect in a gesture of penile defiance.

"Why do you fight for them?" the queen asked, striding towards him. "Do you not know that they enslaved us? Did you not know that the women who prostituted themselves to you were forced to do so by humans impersonating me?"

"I admit I understand little about this situation," Elias answered. "But revenge isn't the answer. Clearly they made a mistake. I've lived my life trying to bring about coexistence between humans and monsters. This has been a tragic situation, but it's also an opportunity. Together, the two races that live in Grangold can find a better way!"

"Those are nice words, but they are nothing more than words!" Queen Ant raged. "Do you think years of slavery can be forgiven by mere words? I like you human, and I am grateful that you treated my children so well. I am also grateful that you have defeated thousands of my host with your body rather than cold steel. Although I have no idea how such a thing is possible. But I cannot be moved. And you cannot win. Already those you defeated at the beginning of this battle are ready to rejoin the fight. They will not give up. Their desire for revenge burns too hot for them to ever give up! So unless you really like sex so much that you want to keep doing this for many more hours, you'll step aside."

"I can't do that, your majesty," Elias said. "Stepping aside is not something a hero does."

The Queen sighed. "Then I'm afraid you have become our enemy," she said regretfully. "Subdue him! And stop being gentle about it! Force him to come!"

"Your majesty, no!" one of the ant girls cried.

"No?! My children can't say no! Who dares?!"

"I dare," an ant girl said from behind the queen. Elias recognized her: Taliyah. The one who wanted to be a warrior.

"A worker ant denies me?!" Queen Ant roared. "This is your doing, hero! You broke one of my children!"

"Elias is a good man!" Taliyah insisted. "He didn't break me. He taught me that it's okay to be an individual. That we don't have to just blindly do whatever we are told."

"You betray me?!"

"Never," Taliyah answered. "I will obey any direct order you give me. I just want my voice to be heard. Despite the fact we were enslaved, the humans were kind to us. And if I'm being honest, we weren't any more free before. We simply followed your orders rather than theirs."

"But I am your queen!"

"You are, and we love you," Taliyah said. "But I don't want to hurt the humans. I just want to live the way they do, free to choose our own destinies."

"Does anyone here agree with her?" the queen asked.

Many ants tentatively nodded their heads. Others looked at them in disbelief, the idea of a life that didn't involve total devotion to their queen's wishes an alien concept to them. But when the Queen communed with her colony as one mind, she saw that most of them did not hate the humans as she did. They had not been mistreated. They'd only had their agency taken away. But how was she any different? She had never questioned the rightness of being an absolute ruler. Every Queen Ant in history had maintained complete control over her colony. That way of things had never been questioned, until now.

"Perhaps I have been in the wrong," Queen Ant said reluctantly. "I have made this about me, failing to consider the feelings of my children. I assumed that my feelings were their feelings, but clearly that is not universally the case any longer. Hero Elias, you may stand down now. I must retreat with my children and commune with them in ways that will take longer than we can discuss in this place and time. But this isn't over. I have not renounced revenge just yet. But I now realize that in my own way, I am no different from the humans. I will first listen to what my children want before acting."

"That's all anyone can ask," Elias said.

Taliyah winked at him, as if to assure him that things were going to be all right. She may have known the true feelings of her colony better than her queen did, given her queen's long imprisonment.

Still, Elias decided it would be best to remain until the ants had decided. Heroes don't leave before the job is finished.

Not only did Luka pass Undine's test, he passed it with flying colors. He seemed bemused by his own success, although Emma knew the truth. Using the spirits was natural to Luka now, even if he couldn't consciously remember having done so. Once he figured out how to touch his power again, he'd probably improve there by leaps and bounds as well. Unfortunately, he remembered little to nothing of what happened after the coliseum match with Alma Elma. It had been a blur of dreamlike states, some pain, a lot of pleasure, and he honestly couldn't remember who did what to him. Alice seemed slightly miffed at that.

The two of them left for the Gold Region the next day to get the final spirit, Salamander. Emma knew there would be adventures along the way. Plansect Forest lay in their path, for starters. Emma would have to continue to shadow Luka and Alice until Ilias could safely rewind time for Luka again. Despite the fact that the opponents were easy, death was still a possibility. Emma would have to be ready to intervene should Luka get into trouble.

Alice spent the day catching Luka up on what had transpired. But the biggest question on his mind was: who was that dragonkin girl?

"Oh, I'm sure she's a lot closer than you think," Alice answered.

Alice then looked directly at the invisible Emma and smirked.

"Now what?!" Tamamo exclaimed. "We're back to square one!"

"I'm thinking!" Sariela shot back. "Your stupid rules make this revenge thing so difficult!"

"The rules aren't stupid!" Tamamo yelled. "I'm not letting you kill him!"

"Yes, yes, you're stupid debts!" Sariela exclaimed. "Still, ruining his happy ending is far more delicious than simply killing him. Hmmm….."

"I sense the makings of an evil plot."

"I may have one last card to play," Sariela confirmed. "Enough of this useless following them around. Back to Hellgondo! There was one point in their story where it all could have gone horribly wrong. I think it might be time to put a finger on that scale. Luka must not die, but that doesn't mean someone else can't."

Three days passed in Grangold. The humans were just beginning to resume the jobs they'd held before the ants had been forced to do all the labor. It wasn't going well. It had been a long time for most humans. They'd grown fat and lazy. Elias' room at the inn hadn't been cleaned. Worse, he was still horny. He'd spent hours screwing ant girl after ant girl with no release. He thought of trying to woo a human woman. He'd also seen the sex robots they had. But he had to admit he'd become addicted to monsters. Nothing else could satisfy him.

There was a tentative knock on his door. He answered it. Standing there was Queen Ant.

"Oh, come in, come in!" Elias said eagerly, stealing a glance at her enormous red chest.

"Thank you," the queen said graciously, presenting him with a small rectangular box. "I have a gift for you. Candy, made with love by my children just for you."

"Oh, thank you!" Elias said gratefully. He'd heard about ant candy but wasn't sure if he'd ever tried it before.

"I have other…. Gifts for you," she said, removing her top. Elias' eyes bulged as the queen's breasts burst free.

"Yowza!"

The queen grinned. "I thought you might be horny given the condition you were left in," she said. "You will find my power far greater than my children's. You will find release with me. Many times. But first, I must inform you of our decision. It sounds so strange saying 'our'. But it was the right thing to do, and I am grateful that you opened my children's eyes."

"Freedom is the right of all sentient beings," Elias replied.

"I had not given it much thought, but yes," she agreed. "It has been decided to attempt reconciliation. If the king and the people of Grangold are truly sorry for what they have done, we will come back, live in peace with them, and help them rebuild. And I will no longer seek total domination of my children. Except in emergency situations, they will all be free to work whatever jobs they wish, even if those jobs aren't necessarily the ones they are most suited for."

"That's wonderful!" Elias gushed. "And I'm glad you're free too. How did you get free, anyway?"

"How? I regret that I didn't do anything. I think their device that kept me sealed simply failed."

"Huh…." Elias said. "We humans never build things to last. I think this city will benefit greatly from your people's superior engineering skills."

"We sincerely hope so. Now, about that reward….It is time that you enjoyed some relief."

The "relief" took quite a bit longer than Queen Ant had anticipated, although she wasn't complaining. Elias was an incredible lover, making her feel things she'd never felt before. When they were finished, having both been thoroughly satisfied, she lay in bed in his strong arms.

"If coexistence feels like that, I want more of it!" she breathed into his chest.

"I'll promote coexistence any way I can!" he replied.

"You aren't like any hero I've ever met," she said.

"Maybe the other heroes are misinterpreting Ilias' wishes," he mused. "All Ilias wants is for humans to be able to live without fear. But we've been trying to exterminate monsters for centuries. It's futile. Why not try a better way?"

"I confess that we monsters have often resorted to similar measures. While extermination is out of the question, as we'd only kill ourselves in the process, we have too often chosen force to get our way. I wonder…."

"What do you wonder?" Elias joked. "How far you can take my dick in your….?"

"Oh, I already know the capacity of all of my holes," the queen giggled. "You are an impressive human in so many ways! But no, I was wondering if you could persuade the Monster Lord as you have persuaded me."

"The Monster Lord!" Elias exclaimed. "If I could convince her…. That would change everything!"

"It wouldn't change as much as you think," she cautioned. "Coexistence is a two way street. But yes, if the Monster Lord became an ally, it would be most significant."

"But how would I get to her castle?" he asked. "I've heard that there's no way over those mountains without a Garuda Girl."

"I know of a way," she said. "Even the Monster Lord doesn't know about it. My children built a tunnel through the mountains. It will be dangerous, but I have little doubt that you can traverse it. I will give you a map. The tunnel is well hidden, so you will have to know where to look, but if you go to the correct location and look carefully, I am confident you will find it."

"Queen Ant," Elias said. 'This morning, you've done the nicest thing a woman could possibly do for me."

"I'm that good in bed?"

"Oh, you're good…. But more importantly…. I've got a quest!"