1 Chapter I

Slowly, she opened her eyes. Recharged was how she always felt after a good sleep, but this time was different. This time, Iva felt very energised, ready to clean her entire palace three times over. She tried to stretch, but found that she was already in stretch position. When she tried to retract her arms, she found that they would not obey her.

Whether or not they were being restrained by something or not was impossible to tell as the room was pitch-black and she lacked night vision. So, she snapped her fingers, trying to spark a light. No sparks. She tried summoning a firefly, but one did not appear.

"What on earth is going on?" She attempted to exhale fire, but failed that too. Slowly, she realised that she had been cut off from all of her sorcery, light and dark.

"Hello? Is anyone there? I can't really move and I need some help! Hello?" No response.

After a few more seconds of silence, light slowly came into existence, barely filling the room, leaving it dim-ish, just lit enough for her to see her limbs in fixed positions maintained by nothing. It was sorcery. She also realised that there wasn't a single piece of clothing on her body and she was suspended in mid air. Her royal, dark and sparkly attire was gone, all of it. Even her various pieces of priceless jewelry were all gone. All that was left was herself, her body and her short, jet-black hair.

"Finally awake, I see," ushered a very familiar voice from behind. "Took you long enough." When she tried to turn her head to look at the owner of the voice, her head turned back to face the front against her will and her entire body became completely paralysed.

"Ezarin. This is your doing, isn't it?"

"Indeed, my queen."

"Why have you brought me here, stripped me naked and left me suspended in the air?" Ezarin let out a sinister giggle, remaining behind her. "Answer me!" Ezarin stopped laughing and remained silent. "Well?!" After a few more seconds of nothing, she slowly made her way to Iva's front, allowing the restrained queen to gaze upon her large, long , horrific millipoid form. Iva laughed.

"Enjoying your punishment?" Ezarin frowned, then brought her deformed face up to Iva's, glaring her in the eyes. She started grinning.

"It was very painful, you know? Beyond excruciating even. Being turned into this. Having my body stretched out so far, millipede legs violently bursting out from the entire front side of my body. My own human limbs folding in on themselves and disappearing. My beautiful, long, silky hair burning away."

"You brought me here to share a sad memory?"

"You turned me into this... monster. You made me suffer, scream and beg for myself, for mercy, and for the pain to stop. But did you stop? No, no, no. No, no, no, no, no, no. You just kept on going and going and going and going and going and going, until I became what you see before you now. And now," she coiled her millipoid body around Iva's entire body, "I have you all to myself to do with you as I please."

Iva could feel Ezarin's sharp and pointy legs pressing hard against her skin, making her wince in pain.

"You brought me here to torture me."

"Yes."

"How did you take away my sorcery?"

"With sorcery, obviously. Not very bright, are you, my queen?" Iva frowned deeply. Any who insulted her usually wound up dead or in very horrific states. That couldn't happen this time, however.

"You can't even perform sorcery or anything related!"

"True. True. Thing is, though, when you're an enemy of the queen, everyone is your best friend."

"What about my kingdom?"

"Being annihilated as we speak. The leader agreed to let me take you. You'd be dead otherwise. I'd say you're lucky, but after a few hours with me, you'll be wishing I hadn't taken you."

"...Well... what are you waiting for?"

"And the best part is, even if anyone did change their minds about our agreement, there wouldn't be anything anyone would be able to do about it, because no one knows where we are!"

Iva swallowed, her nervousness and fear increasing exponentially. No sorcery, no guards, no weapons, completely paralysed and at the full mercy of an extremely vengeful millipoid whom she had wronged terribly.

For a few minutes, neither of them said anything. Ezarin continued glaring Iva in the face, Iva broke eye contact out of increasing fear, keeping her gaze on the legs and millipoid body, which covered everything beneath her chin. Ezarin eventually broke the silence.

"Want to see a neat trick I picked up over the years?" All of the millipoid legs pressing against Iva's body slowly morphed into arms, which slowly sprouted very small, bony, clawed hands. A total of 1554 hands were now pressing lightly up against Iva's naked body, all of which were almost half the size of a human eyeball and bore 6 miniscule, clawed fingers.

"Pretty nifty, eh?" Iva did not respond. "And the other best part is, you are immortal. So, we can keep on going for as long as I please. Normally, I would start off with something light and work my way up the scale. But I don't really feel like it today. Okay, let's get ri-"

"Wait!"

"Hm?"

"...I-I... I can change you back!"