Chapter 53

***This article contains spoilers.***

## Highlights

* Progenitor John takes over, and they assassinate the Glowing Queen for the Trankaran Republic, acquiring advanced Trankaran engine tech in the process.
* Irillith Valaden finally gives in and joins the team.
* Progenitor John severs his link with the team, and enslaves Edraele Valaden to be his new Matriarch.
* Alyssa defeats Progenitor John, rescuing John from his prison in his own mind.

## Summary

John dropped his mind-shield. Forgemaster Gilgrem let Rachel get a male and female Trankaran sample, and talked to Dana about metallurgy.

Irillith asked John why he outed her as a Maliri (Chapter 52). Apparently it was to manipulate Niskera. Irillith pretends to be obedient. Alyssa suspects her deception. Jade thinks being around the Maliri is what made John's Progenitor side to emerge.

Faye helps sort Dana's metals database.

The approach to Demladuhr Trading Post is littered with wrecks.

Progenitor John uses a rebel cruiser as bait. When they surrender, he ordered Calara to keep shooting bits off the cruiser so they'll call for as much backup as possible. It worked.

The girls are worried John might be forever lost to his evil Progenitor version.

With 32 ships distracted with the distress call, they made their way to the far side of Trankara from other defensive fleet, and then landed in the Raptor in the planet's capital city. John brought Irillith with them as they took the underground tunnel to the Radiant Palace.

Progenitor John quickly gave up the pretense of a surgical strike, and ordered all Trankarans they see to be kill-on-sight.

When John was ambushed after an explosion, his railgun knocked from his hands, Irillith gets it and musters all her will and tries to pull the trigger, but it only clicked. Dana's DNA reader had prevented her from firing. She pulled out her laser rifle but was shot by a Trankaran soldier, so in desperation she flung herself into the lava.

John mentally shouted at Alyssa to catch her, and she did so on instinct, telekinetically placing her on the ground. Alyssa and Rachel evaced Irillith while John went to confront the Glowing Queen, this time no longer having to bother with pretense. He interrogated her about her master, and returned to the others carrying a cloth bundle. They were shocked that he was done so fast.

John woke up as himself, finding the Glowing Queen's head when he peeled back the cloth. He realizes he's losing to Progenitor John. Jade heals Irillith with John's cum after getting consent, and Rachel discovers Irillith has a tumor.

Faye helps Dana present her new tech, the Inertial Negation Device, which allows utilization of the full power of the Trankarans' most powerful engines. The downside is that driving a central core through the ship will take several days to complete. Dana wants to wait until her super material is finished.

They returned to Beta Cephei. There is news the rebellion is falling apart. Dana trades some tech for 30 tons of Tyrenium.

Irillith's hair changes from black to white, making her look like the women in the Ashanath pictograph. Her tumor and wound heals quickly. Rachel hypothesizes it's because her body doesn't need to change builds, and it's already modified for Progenitors.

John agrees to the plan to drop Irillith off at Geniya and then stay away from Maliri space to keep his instinctive personality from re-emerging.

Irillith's hair grows long and fully heals despite still having a huge belly. Rachel's hypothesis is that when he first starts feeding a girl, she needs to adapt to taking his loads. Now her body is specially adapted to thrive off your cum, so she can digest several pints in just a few hours. Irillith wakes up and they tell her about the tumor. She thanks John for saving her life.

While Alyssa is shaping Invictium and it turns white, John points out the similarities to Irillith's hair turning white. Alyssa can now quad-shape easily.

Irillith wakes up feeling conflicted emotions. She breaks her collar, and limps towards the grav tube.

John wakes up getting a blowjob from someone under the covers, but when everyone else is accounted for, he flings the covers back with a feeling of dread, and sees Irillith cradling her swollen belly.

The image of a blue rose appeared in Alyssa's mind. It had sharp thorns along its stem. The rose opened, showing Irillith’s smiling face in the petals, with background swirls of emotion ranging from anger to self-loathing.

Irillith was shocked and staggered away. Jade admitted to Irillith she now remembers her entire 10,000 years, and tried to get Irillith to understand that the pursuit of power can be a lonely, empty goal.

Irillith realizes her mother deliberately set her up for this to happen and confesses everything (Chapter 47). As soon as Irillith had seen the holo-projector Edraele gave John (Chapter 51), she knew Edraele's goal was to provoke conflict between them, and goad John into enslaving her by force.

Rachel remembers about the Eldritch Bloodline and realizes that Irillith was sent off as a test subject to see if being with John would heal her of her brain tumour.

Irillith admits to John she had tried to kill him for a second time just earlier, pointing to an abandoned steel knife. Irillith wondered if she'll still be herself after the behavior modification. John said instead of just physical scars, she has mental scars that once healed, she'll be the kind of person she'd be if she hadn't been abused for decades.

Edraele read a report from her assassin, Luna, that she infiltrated House Ghilwen and murdered Aradrea Ghilwen’s eldest daughter and third daughter, staging it as if they'd killed each other.

She received a call from John, saying Irillith was injured but now recovered, and put her on the line. Edraele demanded a full scan, and rejoiced when she found no tumor. Edraele had dismissed Tashana's story about Mael'nerak until she mentioned it, and eventually realized had a basis in fact. When Tashana had been banished, Edraele had given up on curing her tumor that way. Like her mother, Edraele had agonizing migraines that got progressively worse with age. Now that her plans worked out, she just had to position Luna and the rest of her most capable women in her palace, and wait for John to return.

When Calara plotted a flight path back into Terran space, John's mind-shield came back as he told her to plot the quickest course for Maliri Space. The girls couldn't stop themselves from obeying him.

Irillith decides to keep her hair long to please John as he calls her to the Ready Room. As she started to give him a blowjob, he tried to enter her mind, but found he couldn't. Progenitor John realized, with fury, somehow John was behind it, despite the complexity. John also cut Progenitor John from tapping his matriarch and thralls for energy. Progenitor John slipped back, leaving John dominant once again. Progenitor John returned, pretending to be John, and asked Irillith all about the planets under her control. Irillith happily complied.

Over the next few days Progenitor John secluded himself in the Ready Room, only permitting Irillith to bring him food and answer his questions. He's planning on conquering the Maliri.

A merchant named Degory Milligan called, trapped in a gravity well, asking John for help. Smiling, Progenitor John said, "*Do I look like I’m running a fucking tugboat service?*"

Dana and Irillith make up by making out. Rachel and Irillith do too.

When they arrived at Valaden, Edraele sent Luna to pick him up, and Progenitor John ordered them to stay on the ship, forcing them to obey. Alyssa spirit walked and found a crack on the crown on his head where Edraele had been trying to break in.

Just as Edraele was looking forward to being a queen with a pet Mael'nerak of her own, John showed up, and scared her by his odd behavior. She spirit walked, saw the broken crown, and realized that it was from her null zone. (Chapter 47). For some reason he never repaired the damage. When she broke the rest of it, Progenitor John laughed, and with terror she realised that his mental barrier wasn’t to keep people out; it was to keep something in.

Luna and two other assassins dashed in, and John effortlessly threw them back out with telekinesis. Edraele tried to throw a telekinetic spear of force to pierce his heart, but he just laughed and casually deflected it. Progenitor John sent tendils to bind and lift her, and then taunted her. He planned on killing her, replacing her with Irillith, but John prevented that, so he broke Edraele's will and made her his slave.

Alyssa was slumped over by the airlock but Irillith, being new, wasn't as affected. Irillith taunted Alyssa, tricking her into overcoming the compulsion to stay. As Irillith drove Alyssa in her hover-car, Alyssa felt Progenitor John cut the connection and screamed as she clutched her head. Irillith taunted her again into action.

When they arrived at the palace, Luna told them she can't get through the barrier. Alyssa was the only one who could pass through. Edraele Valaden was unconscious on her bed with a swollen belly. Progenitor John grinned at her malevolently, and she knew she was in mortal danger, but even if fighting him meant death, it was better than living without him. She felt a murderous rage building within her, and crackling surges of psychic energy cascaded down her arms to gather at her fingertips.

John had been using meditation for years to keep his Progenitor side at bay, but Maliri brought it back with a vengeance. When Progenitor John gained strength, John was forced to watch through an opaque barrier as his Progenitor side plotted the conquest of the Maliri. He was only able to intervene to save Irillith from it. When Edraele destroyed the mental barrier, he was bound and thrown into an abyss, taunted. He wanted oblivion but knew he'd be stuck forever.

Alyssa hurled a ball of white energy crashing into Progenitor John's shield, knocking him back and surprising him. When he summoned shadowy tendrils around his fingers, she created a scything arc of pure force that severed all the writhing tentacles. He threw a telekinetic spear at her, but was deflected by her barrier of white hexagons. She unleashed a blindingly bright beam of pure white light that slammed into his barrier, hammering him into the floor. Progenitor John shrieked and staggered backwards as John regained control.

Alyssa pierced the darkness with shards of light, freeing John from his bondage, and he reached out to take her hand. Alyssa grasped his hand, a lance of pure white energy blasted out from his chest, and pierced the center of her own, and she embraced the comfort with all of her being. They were linked again, but he’d withheld the compulsion to obey him. Without the compulsion, she was free to act in kind. She channelled the positive emotions throbbing within her into a massive beam of pure white energy, and sent it flowing back into him.

Progenitor John was banished into a pit of blackness and despair.