---

"I have lied to you, Cove. The women I previously possessed are all dead now."

Cove felt like the world was falling away from him, and he grabbed the balcony's railing. "Wh--what?"

"I...I am sorry, my champ--Cove. When the orb is used after it drains an enemy of their magic, it allows a copy of my consciousness to enter another mind, but it overwhelms, replacing them entirely. I have to use the knife to end their existence, returning that copy of myself, memories and all, back to my lava pool."

Cove's mind was whirling. "So that maiden, the mermaid, and Mistralle..."

"Who?"

"I met her on my last visit to your world...oh, but you were here, so a different 'copy' of you took her over. My head hurts..."

"I cannot live like this, Cove."

He looked up. Ignis was climbing over the railing! "NO!" He grabbed her arm, pulling her back before she plunged to the ground.

"Unhand me!"

"No! We have to talk about this," Cove responded. "We'll figure this out, without killing Julie."

"Hey! What's going on over there?!"

Both of them turned to see a man two balconies over, phone in hand, ready to video them or call 911.

"Sorry! We'll be quieter!" Cove called back. "Please, Ignis, just come back inside..."

Ignis lowered her eyes and nodded, allowing herself to be pulled back into the apartment. They sat back down on the couch.

Cove took a breath. "You said Julie was sleeping...that was a lie?"

Ignis nodded. "Her mind was destroyed and replaced with mine the moment she touched the orb."

He put his head in his hands. "Fuck."

"Cove?"

He looked up. Julie -- no, Ignis -- was still shivering.

"I feel so strange. Will you please hold me?" she asked him plaintively.

He looked at Julie's beautiful face, at the blonde's sexy body, and opened his arms. At least she won't be hurling herself off the balcony if I'm holding her, he told himself.

After a bit, they both fell asleep.

---

Cove opened his eyes to the sultry interior of Ignis' chamber once more.

After a moment, her torso once again rose from the lava. "You return so quickly...excellent." She gestured to the knife and marble at the edge of the lava bowl.

Cove made no move toward the obsidian objects. "I need you to tell me more about these people you've asked me to kill, Ignis."

"They manipulate the energies of this world to further their own sick fantasies...their desire fuels their murderous intent. Is that not enough?" She tilted her head to regard him. "What has happened?"

He paused, startled. "What do you mean?"

"You seem different."

He thought quickly. "I've ended lives for you...that would change anyone."

She nodded, seemingly thoughtful. "I have been unsympathetic to your situation. Just know that the services you perform on my behalf save lives, Cove. The rewards for your actions have been pleasurable, have they not? I had not expected to enjoy them as much as I have, but it has been a delightful surprise." Her fingers caressed her hips and moved up to her rocky breasts.

Cove knew that to confront Ignis about destroying the minds she had possessed would probably not end well. "I'll do it without reward. I'm...not feeling good about having you take over innocent women's bodies, even if we both enjoy it."

"If that is what you wish, Cove. The orb will continue to function as it has, so you simply need to keep someone else from touching it once it has absorbed an enemy's power. You can touch the knife to the orb afterward to discharge the energy from it."

He took the knife and marble, slipping them into his belt and pocket, respectively. "Okay...where am I off to?"

---

"What...the...fuck?" Cove murmured. He had followed a trail leading from Ignis' mountain to a large gray stone building that was decidedly not medieval. In fact, the big red tapestries draped down on each side of the large entrance were modern, comparatively speaking, given that the 1930's were almost 100 years ago. The black swastika in the white circle on the tapestries made absolutely no sense. How could these be here, on another world?

He heard someone's raised voice echoing out from the building and headed inside, though he couldn't make out any specific words yet. The large interior was like a courtyard, filled with people, and, somehow, electric lights lined the walls. No, Cove realized as he looked closer, they were more of those glowing crystals, made up to look like modern fixtures. He looked around at the gathered throng, all attention focused on the speaker at the far end, standing at a dais erected on a stage.

"What the fuck?!" he muttered again. He had only seen him in black and white, and of course portrayed in color in all those World War II movies, but that was Adolf fucking Hitler!

The man was in his brown uniform, his greasy dark hair slicked to his head and that stupid tootbrush mustach on his upper lip. He was gesticulating wildly, no doubt pontificating about the evils of all people that were not his own.

"Well, it couldn't be more obvious who the asshole is this time," Cove told himself, and he headed along the wall to get closer. There were several other Nazis up there on the stage with Hitler, as well as a brown-haired woman who he guessed was Eva Braun, Adolf's younger girlfriend. Cove paused, listening...it didn't sound like Hitler was yelling in German; it was some other language that Cove couldn't place. "So weird..."

With those Nazis up there, Cove knew that he'd probably be shot before he got within throwing distance for the marble. He wondered if those sidearms would actually work in this world of magic, but perhaps like the fake electric lights, they'd be magically effective anyway. Typically, the marble would get rid of the threat, so Cove's top priority was getting it to touch the evil leader.

He glanced over at a young man in the crowd about his age, and hanging out of his back pocket was exactly what Cove needed.

--

Hitler looked out over his people, pausing as his eyes caught a strange sight: a young man wearing a large red undershirt with some sort of colorful design on it. That seemed very out of place, and so he called out to his followers to grab the interloper and bring him forward.

As this was done, the Nazi leader got down from his dais and moved to the edge of the stage to get a better look at the restrained intruder.

"Hey, Adolf! Blitzkrieg, motherfucker!"

Hitler looked to the side, at another young man aiming a slingshot at him.

---

Cove was glad that he had wordlessly convinced the other young man to change shirts with him in exchange for the slingshot when the crowd then grabbed the wrong kid. The poor guy had been overjoyed to wear Cove's colorful Flash t-shirt with its yellow-on-red lightning bolt design. Cove pulled the slingshot taut as he pointed it at Hitler. What was that German word meaning lightning storm? Oh, yeah.

"Hey, Adolf! Blitzkrieg, motherfucker!"

"Ti?" Hitler asked in confusion, and then the onyx marble bounced off his forehead. "Och!"

As Hitler fell to the floor of the stage, his body transformed into a naked, overweight olive-skinned man with dark hair.

"Skotosee ton!" the man yelled, gesturing at Cove. The crowd turned, but many just kept turning and then wandered out of the building, including some of the Nazi officers. Unfortunately, a few of the crowd did start heading toward Cove with murder in their eyes.

"Shit!" Cove ran onto the stage, the ebon blade in hand. Eva Braun was standing over the former Adolf Hitler, confused by his current form. The fake Hitler got to his feet, ready to fight Cove, but the teen had been through this a few times already. He ducked one of the man's ham fists and then plunged the knife into his chest.

Unfortunately, as the man's dead body dissipated into those sparks and disappeared, his remaining followers became even more incensed and charged the stage. Cove estimated there were probably about a dozen of them, too many for him to fight. He quickly grabbed the marble and pocketed it. "C'mon!" He grasped Eva's wrist and pulled her through a door behind the stage, slamming it behind them and dropping the latch. Turning, he groaned as he realized that they were now trapped; that was the only way in!

"Help me," Cove asked Eva as he pulled at a metal cabinet, and with her assistance they managed to use it to barricade the door. They heard their attackers bashing on it from outside. "Shit, now what?" Cove knew there were too many out there for him to use the knife on before they bashed his brains in.

He didn't know what would happen if he died in Ignis' world, and didn't want to test it. Previously, after taking out the bad guy, he'd have sex with Ignis and then fade back to his own world. The next time he went to sleep, he'd reappear in Ignis' chamber, safe and sound. Could he whack off and disappear? His penis was absolutely soft due to the danger, so that wasn't going to work.

Then he looked over at Eva Braun. She had a round face but was slim, with small breasts under her blouse. Not a looker, but not bad. She looked back at him, concerned. He took her hand and pulled her close, but once she realized that he was going to try to kiss her, she slapped him across the face.

"I'm sorry, but it's you or me," he informed her as he pulled out the marble and tapped her shoulder with it.

Then her demeanor changed and he knew that Ignis was looking back at him with a lascivious grin. "You have changed your mind, my champion?"

"Just this once," he replied as he shoved her back against the wall.

"Ooh, I think I like you being so...energetic," Ignis/Eva breathed as Cove unfastened his pants and raised her skirt. Now that he knew that he was going to get laid, his penis responded quickly, and he pulled the woman's undergarments to the side before thrusting into her hard.

"Hohh..." she moaned. "Yesss...take your reward from this body..."

Cove could hear them pounding on the door. How long did he have? He pulled back and thrust in hard again.

"Huhh...huhh..." Ignis moaned in time with his thrusting.

He couldn't believe that he was fucking Adolf Hitler's girlfriend! As unreal as this world had seemed before, this made things even weirder. He knew that he had to cum fast, so he imagined that she was Julie, with her voluptuous body, so amazing and soft...

"Ugh...ungh...GAH!" Cove cried out as he inseminated the possessed woman.

"Yesss..." Ignis moaned as she shook in orgasm upon feeling Cove's semen filling her.

Sure enough, after he pulled out, Cove could feel that he was already fading. The mob outside wouldn't hurt Eva Braun, but the woman had already had her mind 'overwritten' by Ignis. Then he remembered that it would be even worse: Ignis would use the knife to end Eva's life in order to return this copy of herself back to her lava chamber. He gave the woman a silent apology as he returned to his own world.

---

When he awoke, he was still on the couch with Julie -- shit, no, it was Ignis. He let her sleep and thought about what had happened this last time in Ignis' world. What had that fat guy yelled? 'Skotosee ton'? Cove pulled out his phone and loaded a translation app. Soon, he found that 'Skótosé ton' was 'kill him' in Greek.

But what did that mean? Why was a bad guy in Ignis' world speaking Greek and pretending to be Adolf Hitler? There was clearly some sort of connection between their worlds, as Cove realized that most everyone there that he had been able to converse with had spoken English, but in fantasy novels, everyone spoke whatever language was native to their land...it was just in movies that actors spoke English because who wants to just read subtitles the entire movie? In their world they should have spoken their own language, not English.

And that bald guy who had been the fire demon in the tunnels that second-to-last time...Cove could have sworn that the guy had asked him if he was English before he died -- "Angleeskee?" he had said -- but what language had that guy been speaking?

As his mind wandered, Cove flipped to the world news app. There, at the very top, was that same bald man's face looking back at him, with the headline, "Russian President Dies In Sleep."

"Oh fuck."

To be continued...

Chapter 6

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