View source for The Fickle Games (Queen Beryl)

{{Cutscene Header
|Date of Scene=2024/06/04
|Location=Dark Kingdom
|Synopsis=Following the fall of Sunset of Sora, Queen Beryl draws the Doom and Gloom Girls to the Dark Kingdom for a meeting.
|Cast of Characters=213
}}
There were many benefits to working within Obsidian's framework. The endless tide of employees, handling insignificant, mundane matters. The easy luxuries, the salary, the wealth that made living in such pathetic times all the more tolerable. The fear in those quaking, shaking wretches that were her employees, who offered her everything she was due and still more. 

But there were costs, too, and one of those costs was ''constraint''. Begrudgingly respecting the opinions of those lesser powers that had nonetheless been given seats at the table, and voices she might at least pretend she cared to pay heed to. 

Those voices are why Hinoiri Kirara - the failure who had arrogantly dubbed herself Sunbreaker - is still alive. If the maggots have decided to swarm the carcass, she, a woman above the masses and their blunt, pitiful whims, would focus on other matters. 

Like the weakness of her latest creations, whose training and initial care she left to Riventon and Sunbreaker. A mistake, clearly. Even a queen could err. 

The five Doom and Gloom Girls, as that overly dramatic rat Hawkmoth had dubbed them, stand before her, five pitifully human girls, one of them still bandaged at the arms, where she had been drained of her power, clustered in the center of the pack. (And isn't that interesting, how these girls, picked for their cruelty, their callousness, the petty and spiteful nature of their 'crimes' to the public, have become something of a unit?)

They are wary, her new warriors, brought before their queen for the first time in her Dark Kingdom, her true realm, rather than the opulent but mortal office she maintained. Here, lounging on her throne, dressed in her familiar attire, surrounded by the grotesque beauty of her own realm, they are clearly struck silent with awe, with terror. 

It's enough to make Queen Beryl smile. 

The girls shiver. 

"My poor, darling, ''pathetic'' girls... have you recovered from the damage that upstart caused you?" She knows their names, but they haven't done anything to deserve being acknowledged as individuals just yet. It's enough that she acknowledges their suffering. 

"Y, yes Direc-" the leader of the group, Aon, who was typically blue-hurred and blond-haired, froze for a moment, eyes widening as Beryl allowed her face to express her displeasure - "A-apologies, I meant, yes, my queen, everyone has - everyone has recovered. And we're ready to continue our duties -"

"Mmm... but are you truly ready?" It's a coy smile that curves her lips, malicious and yet enthralling, filled with the charisma that had won over whole city populations, that had swept nations with fervor. It had not ''all'' been corruption and dark forces that lead the people of Earth down to the end of their line. "What has changed, compared to then?"

The Doom and Gloom Girls had already been visibly anxious, eyes tight, backs straight, hands fidgety. Now, there was fear in their round eyes, in the trembling corners of their mouths, in the way they flinched towards each other.

Beryl delighted in it. 

"We - " Aon started, and stopped, because there was nothing that had changed, between then and now. Chaar was still bandaged, still recovering. Drie had fled in terror, barely escaping with her power intact. Their enemy had been conquered, but it had had nothing to do with ''them''. 

There was nothing the leader of the quintet could say.

"Oh, my girls, don't fret," Beryl drawled then, and there was a hint of something sweet in her voice, poisoned honey. The girls were wise - they did not relax. "I have thought of this. You are strong, of course, but there is strength, and there is power. You have been taught, but have you truly learned, in the hands of those who would not wish to see you rise to challenge them?" 

Riventon wouldn't dare to displease her, but he was intelligent enough to see the danger in training his own replacements. He ''had'' taught her girls, as had Sunbreaker, but he had hardly gone out of his way to teach them to ''excel''. He had hardly sought to increase their power beyond his own. Why would he have?

"You stand in the seat of my power. In the place where I am more goddess than queen, more queen than woman, for a purpose. You girls are the fruit of my labor, the weapons I myself envisioned. It is only natural that in your hour of need, I come to empower you."

And she smiled, then, a full and proper smile, and despite themselves, the Doom and Gloom Girls began to relax, because they were vicious creatures, petty and vile and filled with spite, and like recognized like. 

"Our Great Leader will ensure you wield true power. And then... we'll finish these fickle games. No more caution. No more tiptoeing about." 

A gesture of her hand and there came the harsh rasp and rumble of stone shifting against stone, as a passage way opened, dark and ominous. Deep within there was the faintest hint of ''red''. 

"You were chosen because you impressed Obsidian. ''Now'', it is time for you to impress me." 

Metallia's voice was an eerie thing, felt in the bones, less message of words than of feeling, than of hunger, than of ''want'', to devour and destroy, to grow, to consume, to rend and tear and take. 

As the Doom and Gloom Girls approached the pathway that Beryl had so casually opened to their great leader's shrine, she could ''see'' it in them, when they heard the voice. When they felt the temptation.

When they offered themselves, freely, and felt the quiet burn of her power in the pit of their souls, the spark that would become a devouring inferno. 

And she smiled.