"What are you doing here Bara?" Dana asked when the feline artist fiend stood as the only blocking their way to the palace (the rest had already
been ordered to evacuate).
"Hopefully either stop you or save you."
"Bara . . . you're an artist! Not a warrior! You didn't stand a chance against me when I was Astara's second."
"I was also your best friend . . . even before Astara made darwinism and hedonism the law of the land. . . And Astara hate her or love her, is my
princess, OUR princess! Yes she's a spoiled brat! But you can't say she hasn't -matured- in the eons since we took this world. The uniqueness
of the human heart entranced her, that one spark of humanity she let us all keep . . . SOMETHING YOU'VE LOST! That makes you LESS THAN
ME!"
"So you're going to fight me with the delusion you're in the right and think you're going to win?"
Everyone else was totally confused by this. They had been expecting to be cutting through Astara's armies by now. Not to be blocked by what
was apparently the royal painter.
"No . . . This gate is bound by me. It's the only way in. The only way through for me to chose to open it myself, which isn't happening. kill me,
or corrupt me like you've been so that version of me will open the gate for you. Either way you stop here. Or the foreigners you brought with
you see you for what you really are. I have no intention of attacking you or fighting back in the least. But the gate doesn't open and can't be
smashed through unless I will it or I die. We both know there's no way in all of the worlds that anything can get through the palace except
through this gate way. . . . So either you destroy my spark of humanity which will make me just another demon who will have no question in
obeying a stronger demon like you. Or you kill me where I stand. I am unarmed and I have no protection. Or maybe your teammates can kill
someone whose never harmed a mortal soul in her life.
"Atara's done things that would make her a criminal on just about any world, but she's never killed one of her own kind to get what she wanted
or even to amuse herself unlike some of the other princesses' . . . "