THE STORY SO FAR
Hello! Mother of Gods here! You remember when I said I wouldn't give giant lore dumps anymore? Well, that promise was for Part 1! That's my loophole and I'm immediately exploiting it!
For anyone just jumping into Part 2 without reading Part 1, I'll try my best to cover everything, but it won't be the same as reading it. I'd suggest reading through the first part. Most chapters are around 1300 words, so they are pretty short bursts of story. However, if that's too much then, well, I'm glad to have you now at least! Just be warned that there will be spoilers in all sections of this recap, so... yeah.
For those who have read up to this point, I won't blame you if you skip this chapter. However, this might be a good refresher for all the details you might have missed the first time around, as I don't do all that subtle hinting in the main story and just explain it all for how it is. It's up to you of course!
The Background
So, a long time ago, all the gods died in a great war between mortal and divine. Because of that, all mortals gained a little bit of divinity, a bit of magic. This would lead to The Divine Rush, a blood soaked race to become the first god. Stoking the flames of the conflict is The Prize, a mass of magical power from everyone's collective prayers just floating around in the multiverse waiting to be claimed by the first god to ascend.
10,000 years have passed, and the being closest to ascension is a dragon named Marduk. While he's decided not to become a god, many fear he might change his mind and thus many have attempted to invade his home, an area of space called the Veil of Dragons. Within the veil is the Kingdom of Monsters, a species that arrived to this multiverse though intermulitversal travel, and thus didn't gain magic the way other species did. However, through crossbreeding with humans and animal people, most monsters have managed to obtain power themselves.
Ruling over the Monster Kingdom is the Monster Royal Family. They were created in a lab to appear human while still being a monster on the inside. This was so the royal family could be the bridge between monsters and humans.
However, thanks to a medieval themed human empire called Berry Blitzkrieg spreading hate for monsters all over the multiverse, the monsters started to hate humans, and thus started to see the royal family as a burden.
Three years before the events of the story, a royal family member named Anwir Plott returned to the monster kingdom alone after his family left for the cosmos ages ago. He promised that if they help him take the throne, he'll kick out every human from the veil. This was enough motivation for the dragons to oust the current king in favor of King Anwir Plott. He made good on his promise, telling all humans: "Leave the veil, or die."
But he didn't stop there. He started banishing any monster that even appeared human. Then he started pointing fingers at dragons that were against the mass exodus. An ever escalating game of hate.
Meanwhile, while all this was happening, a Berry Blitzkrieg fleet led by Princess Bon Bon Sunshine positioned itself just outside the veil on a mysterious rogue planet of the Odd. Despite their intentions to invade, they would wind up sitting there, constantly preparing for war.
Okay, deep breath. Again, I had 100 chapters to tell all this, so it's not meant to be condensed all in one segment. And we aren't even done with the backstory…
Nameless
Alright, so, crap okay, let's go back like, when all the gods died, that created a whole new multiverse called Multiverse B. However because multiverses exist outside of time and space from each other, they still exist individually. Hold on, I think I have a diagram that could help...
Ignore Multiverse G and E, those are like, other giant stories that aren't relevant right now.
But yeah, because Multiverse B broke off on its own, Multiverse A still exists. All the preamble is just so this next part makes sense.
So in Multiverse A, there lived a man named Hekatos, the God of Evil and Harmony. He was quite the mama's boy, and as a result, wanted a child of his own, so he created a puppet with no name. He sent the child across the nothing to Multiverse B where he would take full control of the boy and tell his story. As a proud villain, he always admired the heroes that would face him, so he wrote his son's story so he would be an angst ridden anti-hero.
Three problems with this plan: For one thing, as a villain, he was terrible at playing a hero. Secondly, because he was overprotective, he made his son immortal, something that was always perceived as impossible. And thirdly, by taking control of his child before they developed a mind, the child never actually gained one. Just a full on puppet at that point.
While Hekatos was controlling them, he made them into some sort of womanizing sex icon or something. He would get his son in a love affair with the Queen of Berry Blitzkrieg, where they would unknowingly conceive a daughter named Princess Bon Bon Sunshine. This was the Queen's intention as she wanted to create an immortal heir to the throne. She tried to get more children out of them, but being caught in bed together by Bon Bon led to their love affair coming to an abrupt end.
One day, while visiting the rogue planet of the Odd, the nameless puppet encounters a strange duo: a fox man, and an elderly woman. Before Hekatos could comprehend what was happening, the woman removes the god’s hand from the puppet, and puts in her own. The couple seem to have some sort of familiarity with the child, even calling them "Anne" and even briefly contemplated adopting her. However, instead they uploaded the SUPER IMPORTANT CODE into the puppet and then left them on the side of the road.
Again, because they had no mind of their own, they are just kind of a vegetable. The child would be found by Berry Blitzkrieg where they would establish the town of Langweilig in a secure location to begin genetic experiments. Their initial plans were to just make an immortal by examining the puppets magical code, but finding that too difficult because of the SUPER IMPORTANT CODE that was added earlier, decides to just clone a child.
The clone they create was made with the DNA of three people: the puppet, a vampire named Lexine, and the King of Berry Blitzkrieg. The kingdom used blood related spells to mind control the vampire into signing a contract, forcing her into servitude under the royal family.
The baby created from the genetic experiments, who we will call "Faceless" going forward, would be groomed for Berry Blitzkrieg's ultimate plan. They would outfit him with technology that would make him disguise his appearance, both physically and magically. Their plan was to use the Anwir Plott magical signature they obtained through their monster family genocide years before, and have Faceless pose as the royal.
Turns out the placement of the city of Langweilig was intentional, as above the town, high in the atmosphere was a portal that led directly to the Monster Kingdom Homeworld. So, three years before the events of the story, they built a star ship to fly Faceless through the portal, sending him directly to the homeworld to start his mission.
His plan? Fan the flames of hate. He got on the throne with promises of banishing humans, but he slowly started expanding what constitutes a human, expanding the scope of his campaign. Eventually just having anything to do with humans is enough to become an enemy. Eventually the dragons will turn on each other. Civil war will break out and the dragons will be much easier to pick off. The invasion force led by Princess Bon Bon Sunshine was mostly a distraction from the fact that they had basically succeeded, which is why their fleet was just sitting there for such a long time.
But we're getting sidetracked. What about the puppet? Well, they would slowly grow a mind over the years and would eventually escape the lab they basically grew up in. Turns out, not being controlled by Hekatos has basically given them noodle arms and legs. They would explain it later: It's like a sock puppet. When the hand is removed, the puppet goes limp. Basically an more advanced version of that. (That makes sense, right?)
Over the years, she would reject the sex her father assigned her and transition to female. She would be called "Anomaly" because of her strange appearance. She would mostly be ostracized, often being arrested for her appearance. The frequent harassment of the law would cause her to jump from planet to planet, looking for her new home.
Phew! 1500 words in and we are FINALLY in the main story! Goddamn, why does so much shit have to happen? I need to tell the story of a simple romance one of these days.
Langweilig
Anomaly, desperate for a place to call home, travels to the Veil of Dragons. She hoped the diverse population of the monster kingdom would be much more accepting of her. However, because of the climate of fear and hatred that Faceless created as the King of Monsters, she would be barred from entry by a bunch of irate dragons.
They would send her flying which would make her crash land on the Odd. By the way, the planet got its name because of its strange nature. Despite being a rogue planet, it still gets light from an unseen sun. It still has a weather system despite it not having any oceans. It's filled with mysterious beasts.
She would find herself in the outskirts of the town of Langweilig, a village surrounded by mountains and a giant endless storm. It's full of stuffy individuals, so it was clear what was going to happen the second she walked into town.
However, what she didn't see was the mysterious old woman sitting next to her on a stump. She introduces herself as Sotakeh. Because she didn't have a mind back in the day, she had forgotten that this was the same woman that pulled out her father's hand all those years ago.
She took displeasure in Anomaly shortening her name to "Sota," and felt pity for her when she learned that she never gained a name.
She also warned the girl that she was nude because it got vaporized from the impact earlier... I dunno why the story had so much random nudity in the early parts. She eventually fixes that problem so let's ignore it for the most part.
She walked into Langweilig where she was immediately arrested despite giving a stunning greeting. She was thrown into the women's prison under the mansion where she got a cell with two other people. One was a minutian named Panchi. Minutians are like tiny shonen protagonists, they use energy based martial arts techniques to bypass the defenses of magic users. This one was just chilling in a prison because they were hiding from their shitty mom.
The other cellmate was Raina Adelaide, who immediately falls in love with Anomaly at first sight. This leaves her so vulnerable that even her accidental rizz was working on her. Raina is missing an arm, and the two bond over handlessness.
Under Langweilig's custody, she would be executed three times, and all three times she would survive because of her immortality.
While all this is going on, Anomaly would troll the hell out of Berry Blitzkrieg's Princess, Bon Bon Sunshine on social media app, Mutter. This would piss her off so much that she would form a task force for taking her down out of revenge. She would wind up pointlessly buying Mutter to get a fix on her location.
Sotakeh would become the fourth inmate in their cell. She would give the noodle girl a name: Anne O'Maley, which is a play of words on Anomaly. Considering she already knew she was going to adopt that name someday, it seemed odd for her to willingly create a bootstrap paradox like that. However, considering her true identity, I guess she wanted to be the one that gave Anne her name. Or something like that.
One day, they wake up to find the town of Langweilig abandoned. They escape their cells and look for clues for what happened to them. However, all they found was an AMBUSH! Anne is attacked by a martial artist that imitates minutian energy manipulation to stop Anne's form changing powers. A demolition guy is overseeing all of this, while a mage, after our hero has been incapacitated, goes to put her hand into Anne's hand hole, so she can take control of her. However, before she could do this, Panchi and Raina jump in to save her.
Panchi squares up with the martial artists. They eventually kill their opponent by erasing him from existence.
Raina paired up against the mage. Her opponent quickly finds out that she's an Adelaide, a thought to be lost branch of the monster royal family that's known for their spellwriting. When she realized what her opponent knew, she killed her by forcing her to use too much magic and burn up from too much mana.
Anne faces the demolition guy. At one point, he gets one over on her and cuts her down with a Gatling gun. However, she was still conscious despite being reduced to a pile of goop, and slithered up into the gunner's power pack, turning into gasoline. This causes them both to explode.
Princess Bon Bon was watching over the battle from a safe distance. When she thought Anne died, she celebrated and decided to kick off the war against the dragons against kingdom orders. She also fired her assistant, Lexine, who left to join Sanctuary.
God, hopefully the following sections will have more stuff I could skip over…
The Founding
Anne wakes up to a relieved Raina. The prisoners start scavenging the homes for supplies. The puppet meets Lexine, who is a long lived vampire who's chummy with Sotakeh. It's also around this point that it becomes blatantly clear that both Sotakeh and Lexine can hear the narration telling Anne's story.
Lexine suggests taking the abandoned town for themselves and they motion to decide on a leader. Anne almost elected Raina, but she immediately interrupted and elected Anne instead. Most of the town agreed to it, then they bribed her into compliance with the gender affirming "Princess" title. She would name the town "Sanctuary," because it's a new safe haven for all of them.
Anne would receive a princess-y glow up by some stylish fauns. This would be the outfit she'd wear most of Part 1.
During a conversation with Raina, she would realize that they had mutual feelings for each other and then proceed to accidentally rizz her into sleeping in the same bed. They would keep sharing the same bed for the rest of the series.
Anne negotiates peace with some super religious chickens, and finds a secret robotics lab in town. In the back, she would find a bedroom, a diary filled corner to corner with the words "I'm still me."
And that I am.
Wha- how did you get into this document?
It's my part of the story. That let me in.
Goddamn it.
I just wanted to say, I hate every single one of you. Your continued support of Anne is inching me closer and closer to my doom. You don't have to be complicit. Stop reading and let me win.
Okay, you're out of here!
You can't get rid of me fore-
Sorry about that, I had to deal with a pest. Anyways, Faceless gets a chapter where he spews some bullshit about hate and deliberately frames it like kindness and generosity is oppression. He's garbage, I hate him so much. I'd kill him off, but sadly, only Anne can judge him (well, maybe Bon Bon could also judge him, but Anne is more thematic.)
But yeah, Sotakeh was doing her garden, when she detected the narration and listened in. Because he has his own voice, it was a bit easier to eavesdrop from a distance. Much to her misfortune, Anne happened to be by around that time and heard the narration, as well as saw Faceless' hateful glare, something that would shake her to her core.
While trying to calm down, Sotakeh would tell her about The Voice. It's when the Mother of Gods gives you the power of narration to tell your own story. Most people are doing it unconsciously. However, under certain conditions, like almost being at the point of ascension or being related to a god, will grant you the ability. (Some demons with belief magic might be able to hear narration, but only if they believe they can hard enough.)
Foxman
They received a distress mutter from Sotakeh's husband, Foxman. He's the leader of the Chaos Rangers, a faction of merchants that also do a lot of salvation work on the side. Anne and Panchi would go on a mission into the forest to save him.
They would instead, find hundreds upon hundreds of ghosts. They make a deal with them to help them find Foxman in exchange for getting them robot bodies to possess, they are down.
Among the ghosts is a minutian named Coozin, who would develop a strong bond with Panchi. She's a chef, not that she could do much cooking as a ghost.
They find Foxman and his posse, and he's a hunk apparently. A view wasted on a lesbian and an asexual.
On the way out of the forest, they run into soul wolves. Those are wolves that eat souls. While fighting their way out, Anne developed the ability to turn into light. She used that to quickly zap around the battlefield so fast it looked like teleportation. The only caveat is that she has to become corporeal in order to interact with stuff.
Meanwhile, in Sanctuary, Raina detects two Berry Blitzkrieg spies using her mage eye spell. She follows them to another warehouse where she catches them setting up a bomb. She takes out the spies and then tries to fly the bomb high up in the sky so it'll blow up safely away from the city. However, she would be caught in the blast. The force would rocket her into the ground. Her magic tanked the hit, but she had now overused it and was now starting to burn up. Lexine came in just in time to stop the process, saving her life.
Anne and co arrive back in town and Anne would find out what happened while she was away. She would go to Raina's side and she would stay by it as she recovered. During their conversation, Anne blurts out that she loves her. Thankfully for her, Raina is already down bad and reciprocates. (Could you imagine how awkward that would have been if it wasn't reciprocated? Hoo boy!) Anyways, the two are officially a couple.
The next day, Foxman swears loyalty to the Princess, and she takes him on a tour of the town. They found Langweilig's illegal matter vial factory, which the fox confiscates for his own business ventures (with intent to pay taxes, much to the shock of Anne.)
Damnit, I didn’t explain matter vials. They have like, things called conjurators that can summon food, but you’ve got to have matter vials to convert INTO food. The production methods to create matter vials are a closely guarded secret of companies that can do it as anyone being able to do it would crash the market.
They also visit the local water supply, which mysteriously flows from the nearby mountain tops endlessly.Then Anne trips and falls into the water and gets violently swept downriver. She finds a mysterious underground beach that looks like outdoors. She predicts this will be the location of an inevitable Beach Episode which I may or may not get around to writing eventually.
On the way home, our hero runs into a confusingly named Annabelle, a pig person who runs a meat shop. I'm certain she will not be important in the slightest and that she's actually a pig person as she presents. Am I being on the nose with that statement? Well, if you've made it 3000 words into this damn thing, you've earned the hint.
A week later, Sanctuary would ratify the town charter. It's heavy in workplace protections, includes stuff like free housing and healthcare, but most controversially of all: a standard income for all citizens. That last one would spark protests down the streets, then a protester strike when Annabelle doesn't pay them overtime for their protester gig.
Berry Blitzkrieg
Bon Bon starts her invasion of the Veil of Dragons. However, she makes the mistake of broadcasting her rousing pre-battle speech on public servers, meaning the dragons get the jump on them before they even reach the veil. This would lead to a crushing defeat and the Berry Blitzkrieg forces would scatter all over the Odd.
The flagship would crash, and Bon Bon would dig herself from the rubble. When she found her soldiers again, they inform her that it's been revealed that her mother had her in an extramarital affair. They break some of her coding to find that somebody went out of their way to even hide the actual color of her eyes, which were a very familiar red.
Bon Bon was exiled and beaten. She starts her months-long trek in the Odd's wilderness. As if she couldn't be humiliated enough, she runs into the ghost of her mother who disowns her for being a failure. Meanwhile, she keeps running into a mysterious woman in her dreams that claims to be her mother, but another mother than the one she met as a ghost.
Meanwhile, the King of Berry Blitzkrieg has the people that conspired to hide Bon bon's true parentage a secret executed. Soon after, he learns that his closest trading partner has broken ties with him because of the illegal matter vial farm. His hands tied, he's forced to rely on Faceless exclusively.
More Than a Month later
After a time skip, things have settled into a new normal. The ghosts have all decided to haunt the mansion until they have bodies, which keeps them from having normal staff.
Anne learned that Lexine was forced into working for Berry Blitzkrieg through blood magic. Before they even have time to process all that shit, Anne gets a text from Panchi, her family was here.
So a basic explanation of minutians, only masters of the art are allowed to procreate, something they can do asexually using energy manipulation. With their first pregnancy, they grow to be 4 feet tall. All their spawn will know them and respect them as their matriarch, and the children will make up their clan.
Panchi comes from the Tanglefoot Clan which is headed by Matriarch Leahdah. She is nothing short of controlling, to the point that our pint-sized hero ran clear across the multiverse to escape her, and now she's caught up with them in Sanctuary.
Anne finds Panchi being held against their will by their mother, calling them by their birth name, "Pipsqueak." Anne demands they be released, and the matriarch says she will release them if Anne beats them in a fight.
Our hero takes a few hits, but she eventually knocks out the matriarch through a well timed kick to the head. After she woke up, she swore her fealty to Anne and built a mansion on the outskirts of town. Soon after, Anne collapsed from the damage she took, winding up in the hospital.
Dr. Nial reveals that Anne's DNA is linked to a top secret file on the Langweilig system that they can't crack. Mysterious!
The gang headed to the city of Anneville, a town founded on the bottom of the mountain, to celebrate the city's founding and the establishment of the railroad. Anne officially signed the city into existence, and Elodia became the town's first mayor. While waiting to get on the train, she met some slimes that were going to run a bar in town.
On the train trip up the mountain, Anne and Raina go on a day-long date that ends with them kissing for the first time.
The Facade
The happy occasion was interrupted by some Otters. They swam up the waterways of the mountain to find the source and found that three giant water stones were the source of the Odd's entire water supply. It was not only creating all the rivers on the planet, but it was the source of all the rain clouds as well. One thing that really threw Anne for a loop was the Hekotos symbol on the stones, suggesting her father was behind everything. Learning this sends Anne asking herself 1,000 questions, wondering if her father really just engineered everything in her life.
She would run into Sotakeh who tries to comfort her. She tries to get her to see things in Hekatos' perspective, but in doing so, accidentally reveals that she is in fact, Hekatos.
That's right, Sotakeh is Anne's father post-transition. (*insert famous movie quote here*)
And yes, Sotakeh is Hekatos spelled backwards. I wonder if anyone picked up on that.
So, her mom used a dimensional door thing to take them to my house, where I explained to her about Sotakeh's history. Apparently, Hekatos was split into many at one point because of a big timeline split centered on him. Two alternate versions would find redemption: one would die fighting in the god war on the side of the mortals, another planted a tree for every life he harmed. The gardener version became Sotakeh, and was allowed to live in Multiverse B to one day meet Anne.
This was all a tad much for her who had to go think for a while. However, thanks to her encountering me, she has fully unlocked her ability to hear her own narration, and starts to disassociate because of it. Lexine talks her out of it.
After filling in Raina and Panchi about everything they've learned, they are all called to Warehouse 21 to reveal Sotakeh's biggest secret. They all board a star ship, (the warehouse was for starship creation) and fly it up from Sanctuary. If you were to try to fly through Sanctuary from above, it would destroy your ship, but as it turns out if you go up, you'll find yours in orbit around the Monster Kingdom.
This is because, as Sotakeh explains, The Odd is the Monster Kingdom's lost moon, transported through pocket dimension to outside the veil. Above Sanctuary is the hole in the facade, hence why flying up leads directly inside the Veil.
The group has varied reactions, but Panchi has the harshest. They complain that Sotakeh put them all in danger by not letting them know that there's literally a portal that bypasses the Veil of Dragons' security right above their town. That they'll likely get overtaken by dragons eventually.
Panchi's words sink in for Sotakeh, and when they are back on the ground, she tells everyone that she'll exile herself. However, Anne stops her, telling her that her punishment should be decided by the people that she wronged. Panchi, Raina, and Anne vote to decide if she will serve out Sanctuary on probation or if she should be kicked out.
Two votes in, one out. Suddenly, Panchi is incensed. They are PISSED that the other two voted for Sotakeh to stay. They can't comprehend why Anne would want her long-time abuser to stick around. Anne defends her choice saying that she's willing to give her a chance. Then Panchi starts railing Raina for her choice, which prompts Anne to say "just because your mom is irredeemable, doesn't mean everyone's is!"
Panchi said nothing to that. Instead they threatened to kill Sotakeh if they ever hurt their friends, and then walked.
Oh yeah, we also learn that Sotakeh created the Odd for Anne, so she could find a home there.
Well, at least we're more than halfway through this!
Raina Memories
Sprinkled throughout are the "Raina Memories" chapters and I'm going to cover them here because we're around the point where those finish up.
So, basically, Raina was born specifically to become a god someday. Marduk, who is her father, apparently zero'd in on her towards this goal, but her mother, wanting her to be free, chose to live away from him, running a bakery in the middle of a great forest.
Raina and her mom were quite happy for a long while, but eventually Marduk found them. He largely left them alone, but he'll often show up to argue with Raina's mom about her destiny.
While living in the stick, they experience racism from the humans, and speciesism from the monster (they thought they were humans.) This leaves her ostracized from her classmates, and frequently in trouble with her teachers who always assume the worst of her. Also, Marduk's visits are making Raina's mom more and more stressed.
One day, when Raina was 13, she was practicing magic in an alleyway, when she is suddenly met with an orc meat vendor. He would talk on and on about meat, before lobbing off Raina's arm and destroying it. Yes, that was a sentence I just wrote. Apparently, he took offense to a “human” casting magic, and it’s a commonly held belief that hands are a key to a mage’s magic. (It’s not.)
Upon learning that his daughter just lost an arm, Marduk makes a declaration that he's coming over to take Raina right now. Thinking quickly, Raina's mom sends her to a refugee camp where the dragon can't find her. Eventually the camp would evacuate the odd on a void ship which accidentally went through the facade and crashed in Langweilig where they would be arrested for being monster sympathizers.
Calm Before the Storm
While on a walk, Anne would accidentally run into the Tangle Foot Clan. She would learn all the stuff about minutian culture that we already covered in this document. Then she learned that apparently Panchi is incapable of having children, and thus can never become a Matriarch.
Anne, not wanting Matriarch Leahdah to control the narrative, goes directly to Panchi to get their side of the story. Turns out, they never actually wanted to be a mother, but her mom kept needling them about it, constantly chipping away at their self worth. It was a large reason that they eventually left the family.
The two take this chance to apologize and reconcile for their behavior during the big reveal, and their friendship is stronger than it was even before because of it.
Panchi later issues a punishment to Lexine, Foxman, and Sotakeh: they'll have to refer to them with He/Him pronouns while Anne and Raina still use She/Her. The trio laughed off the challenge as easy, but being over 900,000 years old each, they didn't realize how much they were stuck on the binary and took a while to get used to it.
BTW, it eventually becomes normal to refer to Panchi as "He/Him" in professional relationships while private friends use "She/Her." I use "They/Them" because I, as an author, is in neither kind of relationship, and it makes things flow better in the writing. Seriously, include non-binary characters in your stories more often, you won’t believe how many problems having another pronoun can solve.
The ghosts finally get their robot bodies. Panchi's "little sister" Coozin took a rabbit robot body. This also brought about Cat Maid Bob.
While the ghosts were settling into their corporeal existence once again, they decided to give their Ghost Light to Anne. That's basically a flame that allows ghosts to exist. However, when the princess gets too close to the fire, her immortal body absorbs the Ghost Light. She and it become one and Anne gains the power to turn into a ghost. She also learned that apparently it works by copying the neural energy of the recently dead and creating magical projections of them so it can keep feeding on their emotions. It's a symbiotic relationship.
Raina improves her spells, inventing a defensive spell that can reroute the energy of attacks so she takes no damage for no more cost than usual. She also learns from Sotakeh that apparently she's known for writing this spell in the future.
Foxmas happens (their version of Christmas,) and Anne dresses up as the gift fox, giving presents to the kids in town.
Later that night, Anne and Raina celebrate Foxmas by losing their virginity. Good for them.
Seventeen Years
The day after Foxmas, Anne and Lexine run into Coop Leader Lucy. During their conversation, she casually drops that Langweilig was established 17 years ago, which is odd because the war started 3 years ago.
This made something click in Lexine's brain. She led Anne to Dr. Nial's hospital where the vampire asks to put her DNA in the system. It links to the same file that Anne's DNA links to. Lexine freaks the fuck out. Remember that boy that was created so Lexine would be forced into servitude? That was Faceless.
He's the vampire's son. Turns out this town exists entirely to bring him into existence. Anne asks why her DNA is attached to the file too, but before she could get an answer, there was an explosion in town. Anne picks up that it's Faceless and he's targeting Raina and Panchi. She zips out to help them.
Faceless has overheard their narration. He knows they are about to uncover his secret, and hiding that secret was the last reason he had for not trying to wipe Anne's friends from existence in an attempt to alter the timeline, so he took this moment to strike.
He managed to pin Raina and Panchi in a surprise attack. His prosthetic limbs, which are made from the anti-magic technology that automaton bodies are made of, are apparently blocking Panchi's powers. They start working towards a solution. Meanwhile, Raina is suffocating to death.
Anne pops in to try to kick him, but he has converted half his body to shadow, and shade always dodges the light. She crashed into the ground. As she's getting back up, Faceless uses blood magic to take control of Anne.
The two have a back and forth. Anne tries to convince him that he doesn't need to be a villain. He trades her olive branch by ordering her to help kill her girlfriend.
Then suddenly, Lexine showed up and started to drink Faceless' blood. She shouts to Raina to use her secret weapon, and it's revealed to be a breath spell, a power that belongs to dragons. It obliterates Faceless' hand, allowing her to escape. Meanwhile, Panchi explodes the other hand with the thing they were setting up. Anne is knocked from the control in the confusion.
Faceless was outnumbered 4-on-one and made a hasty retreat.
With everything settling down, everyone gets together and gets everyone on the same page. Even mentioning how Raina is Marduk's daughter, and how Anne is Bon Bon's mother.
However the biggest thing is that explosion. Turns out, that was Sotakeh's house, and they destroyed the thing keeping the dragons from finding the facade. Dragons were already circling around overhead, deciding who is going to claim Sanctuary as their own.
Pre-Dragon Invasion
They evacuated Sanctuary so only security personnel were there (and apparently a few random people stuck around? I dunno.) They were making a lot of preparations.
Anne, while taking some spellwriting work to Sotakeh, would stumble on her journal. Out of a desperation for information about the future, she took a peek. She would find out that the upcoming battle will be against the rainbow dragons, that Sanctuary would eventually get into a war with demons, and that Anne will one day kill Faceless.
She also finds out that her mother isn't the chessmaster she thought she was, as her text made it clear that she was just as confused and desperate as everyone else. This would bring her closer to Sotakeh.
Anne asked Foxman to evacuate, a move she very much regrets.
Meanwhile, Panchi learns that Matriarch Leahdah was abandoning Sanctuary. They beg them to stay and fight, but her mom's cowardice wins out, leaving with the evacuees.
However, because Leahdah abandoned her tribe, Matriarch Aria of the Siren's Songs clan named Panchi the leader of the Tanglefoots, a role they gladly fill. Soon after, the clan was reunited by their brother, Bratty. He left the family a long time ago because their mom wouldn’t let him transition. Now he's a former teen idol and a minutian master that's going to fight alongside them!
Phew, too many goddamn words... We're not even done!
Bon Bon
The exiled princess wandered the Odd for months. Despite all her struggles, she would never starve or die of thirst. It was a harsh time for the Princess. She even encounters a ghost of her human mother just to kick her when she was already down.
While all this is happening, she kept encountering a mysterious warrior figure in her dreams that kept speaking words of affirmation. She introduces herself as Bon Bon's mom and keeps stating that she loves her. She also mentions that she's the "spirit guardian" that ushers souls into the afterlife.
After wandering the forests of the Odd for months, she eventually encountered a bear made of glue that attacked and ravaged her. The mysterious figure appeared to her again to encourage her to not give up.
She would wake up again in a camp hospital run by giant ants. Her arm that got chewed on was perfectly alright.
After getting a meal of ant vomit, she got to see herself in the mirror for the first time since having her spells tampered with. She was shocked to see red colored eyes.
When she's finally released from the camp hospital thing, she meets a number of humanoids, one of them being Vera, a "human."
Later, the mysterious warrior appears in her dreams again and Bon Bon confronts her. "You're the Anomaly, aren't you?"
And with that, the warrior reveals herself as Anne from the future.
She explained that the ghost light she absorbed has grown with her until it was powerful enough to create ghosts from all over the multiverse. She would send them to the afterlife which is located in the Eikasia Expanse (or at least she's going to send them there, I'll explain that another time.)
Back in the real world, Bon Bon and her group arrive in Annesville. She separates from her new friends and turns herself into the local security... only to find out she has no crimes in the books. Anne pardoned her trying to kill her that one time, the monster kingdom thought her invasion was funny, and her exile was already punishment for getting people killed in her stupid campaign. In fact, Annesville immediately moved to get her into their protection considering there were still Berry Blitzkrieg citizens that wanted her dead.
Bon Bon gets a hotel room and she gets to enjoy modern comforts for the first time in a long time. However, soon the guilt rides in like a wave. She was hoping to be punished so she could at least atone for her crimes, but that wasn't an option anymore. She goes for a walk, and the suspicious minutian protecting her doesn't stop her.
She runs into some former Berry Blitzkrieg knights who drag her into an alley and aim a Void Cannon at her head. Vera suddenly shows up, revealing her true name of Vera Adelaide and tries to rescue Bon Bon. However, the man fires his weapon before she could stop him.
She is confronted by Future Anne. Bon Bon tries to push her away, saying she doesn't deserve to survive. However, Anne points out that the fact she's lived this long is proof that she values her own life, as surrender is the only way an immortal can die (well, that and the Void Sword, but whatever.) She tells her that she'll have to accept the punishment of being forgiven, which to those that desire punishment, is its own hell.
Bon Bon wakes up with Vera by her side. Being hit with the void cannon broke what little of her body altering coding was left and now she was a full noodle person. She'll just have to live her life like that.
BTW, Vera was working on a spell briefly in this scene, and that goes immediately into the…
Dragon Battle
Raina was trying to call Marduk again when suddenly a spell boosted her signal. She recognized the coding as her mom's.
However, she couldn't think too much about that as she was suddenly on the line with Marduk himself. He was overwhelmed hearing his daughter again after all these years and even seemed apologetic for the way he screwed up Raina's life. He was quick to hear out Raina and he agreed to rush over to Sanctuary to scare off the dragons.
Raina gleefully rushed to Anne to tell everyone the good news. However, as soon as she does so, the dragons start invading. Gee, it's as if someone was pulling the strings there considering that timing. Then again, I'm probably just reading into it too much.
Anyways, they just got to hold off until Marduk shows up. Everyone squares off against their dragons. Panchi and Braddy start KOing dragon en masse with their martial arts prowess. Raina got to show off her ability to absorb damage and turn it into mana. Meanwhile, Anne got to show off her new gun arm attachment to the Rainbow Dragon’s leader, Chroma Catastrophe.
At one point, Chroma receives so much damage that he charges up his breath spell to destroy Sanctuary in one final attack. Anne is forced to act, so she phases through his head and absorbs his brain, killing him instantly. Then she staged it so it looked like she killed him with a single kick. This works as it freaks out the other dragons and they retreat.
Before another wave of dragons could come through, Marduk shows up. After brief introductions, he declares Sanctuary as under his protection.
Oh yeah, some Rainbow Dragons stayed behind to allied themselves to Anne. Turns out, eating Chroma's brain gave her his rainbow powers, and these dragons are loyal to the wielder of the powers. So yeah, she has dragons loyal to her now.
It was around this point that Anne and Raina learned about Bon Bon and Vera.
Family Reunion
Anne and friends go to the train stations to meet their family. Raina has a nice reunion with Vera, which is interrupted by Bon Bon and Raina's narration getting layered. Anne takes her daughter into light to escape the narrative echo chamber.
Raina shows Vera around town, giving her the full tour. We learn that apparently Vera was spending all that time trying to keep Marduk from finding her daughter. She was going to let Marduk find her after she turned 18, but then Faceless became a thing and she worked towards hiding her from him.
Speaking of Marduk, he appears in human form in front of them. This sparks a heated argument between Raina's parents, which the girl herself has to break up. She tells him that she's not ready to talk to him yet and to please give her time, so he does and his avatar disappears.
Meanwhile, Anne and Bonnie, moving at the speed of light, go to the registration office. They get her all signed up as a citizen. Meanwhile, the new daughter gets to learn how to use her noodle person abilities in the process.
After getting her signed up, Anne gives her a tour of the town. At one point she's distracted with an ice cream truck where Bonnie is suddenly confronted by Lexine. She gives her a warning not to cross Sanctuary, but the girl assures her that she won't cross her new mother. The vampire is shocked to learn that she's already calling her "mom" and she admits that she's been seeing Future Anne in her dreams.
Later, Lexine would contact Future Anne using some sort of dream walking ability. She chews her out for communicating with Bon bon, pointing out the risks to the timeline. However, Future Anne assures her that Bonnie already told her that they would meet in her dreams, which makes the vampire calm down.
A few days before Marduk is to officially ally himself to Sanctuary, he comes to chat with Anne. He's concerned, as a long lived person, that she might lose herself over the centuries, but she shares her thoughts about what a leader owes her people in exchange for power. This gives the dragon pause, he is convinced of something.
Later, they have a big meeting with the whole town present. Marduk officially signs a treaty with Sanctuary. His terms are that they have to ally with the rest of his faction, and that they have to take refugees. However, he states a final condition that he hadn't cleared with them beforehand: he wants Anne to marry into the royal family, as in, he wants her to marry Raina.
Anne is personally down, but doesn't want to force Raina into anything. Then her girlfriend surprises her by busting out an engagement necklace and proposing on the spot. Apparently, she had been thinking about this for a long time. She gladly says "yes" and the wedding was planned for the year out so they can make sure they aren't rushing into things.
With that, the treaty is signed, a festival happens, and everyone spends the day with their significant others.
Oh yeah, and the King of Berry Blitzkrieg gets his brain surgically removed by Faceless.
Phew, it was way too much to cover, but that's the story so far I guess! There was waayy to much to recap xDDD
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Arc 19: Mostly Peaceful
