Ralli Hellknox, a deathspeaker in disguise and a sergeant of the knights.

The sun was setting, and all was quiet in the surrounding forests of Merridan. As shops were beginning to close in town, the students of the First Town Supplementary Barracks Class F were winding down what had become a daily ritual:

Getting their asses kicked. Fighting for their lives.

A small handful of students were gathered around the small, dirt-floored training arena, about eight in total. Whether they'd already practiced or hadn't had their turn, each of them was sweating and cursing under their breath as they watched the current combatant with eyes dead of hope.

If anyone was going to have a chance, it was probably him. Harvey Dustaine was, without contest, the biggest, bravest, and boldest among them. The oversized, padded training armor they all wore looked just-right sized on his bulging pecs and sun-tanned skin. His orange hair was matted in sweat, and there was a wild look in his squinted eyes. He was still a young man around twenty, but already he looked like a knight who could kill a demon with a glare. "This is it!" he shouted, raising a wooden training sword designed to replicate a broadsword's weight easily with one hand, then driving it down violently, over and over again, to beat his target into submission.

"... Worthless and weak," his target told him in her trademark cold tone, coming muffled from inside her helmet. Every day for the past year, Harvey had attacked Ralli Hellknox with intent to kill, on her order. Almost every day, it ended just like this: the brute's clubbing, repetitive blows clambering against her own mock broadsword as she held her ground without giving an inch. "You'll do this on the battlefield? You're dead, Dustaine."

That was practically Ralli's catchphrase. The barracks sergeant, nearly as tall as Harvey if not quite as huge, was never seen without her trademark black-armored helmet and its full-face visor, no matter how hot the weather (and blazes, was it hot). Her breastplate, armored gloves and greaves, and the buckle of her leather belt were all made of that same dark metal. Underneath that, she wore her own leather tunic and skirt combination: the fact that she was wearing a skirt, with just a bit of dark-skinned thighs showing between the fringe and the top of her tall leather boots, was the only consistent reminder she was a woman. Even those thighs seemed packed with tight muscle. She had long, black hair, but, far from feminine, it was un-styled (and, frequently, unwashed) and kept in a spiky mane. Her voice sounded like a chain smoker without the cough, permanently stuck in the tone of a doctor delivering a terminal diagnosis.

What thoughts were running through the head of such an impenetrable opponent...? This woman who treated her trainees like less than dirt, day in and day out, whose body was covered in scars nobody still alive could tell the tale of?

Her inner monologue ran through her head in careful, considered words even as she defended herself. "Dustaine started off differently, but now he's back to this attack pattern. He needs to un-learn this muscle memory. An attack like this is predictable and leaves him open to retaliation. Therefore, it isn't of worth on the battlefield. It isn't as powerful as the demon army's most powerful defense. It's just a bit too weak. If he does this, he'll die. I can't let him. I need to warn him."

"Worthless and weak. You do this on the battlefield? You're dead, Dustaine," the sergeant tried to considerately warn her ignorant pupil, releasing her words as a callous growl.

"Crap! Crap crap craaap!" Harvey shouted in his rough, masculine voice, bringing down the sword and again. "I'm gonna break it this time! I'll- gaaah!"

The man screamed as Ralli shot a swift kick to his side, uninhibited by her light armor. Her skirt fluttered briefly from the motion, revealing just a bit of the cloth shorts that hugged her wide (but angular) hips. "You're done. You're dead. Next." Ralli used her sword to gesture to the other Dustaine sibling, Harley, who'd been watching.

... One could presume, anyway. Harley's orange, curly mop of hair almost entirely obscured her big green eyes. Those eyes were full of determination, but after seeing Ralli defeat Harvey so soundly, who would possibly put money on her victory? Harley was lanky, but stringy: with her thin figure and the same padded armor as the others, she could easily be taken as one of the boys. Nonetheless, she tossed a training dagger from hand to hand before gamely diving in. "I'll show you this time, Ms. Ralli!"

"Harley's been practicing her footwork. I wonder if she's considered that as a way to offset her lack of muscle. Commendable. I'm happy for her. Unless she practices techniques, however, that weapon will prove hard to kill with, especially against armored opponents. I should warn her and advise a light sword. Also, even in practice, she should be using her enchantments if she wants to win. If she does this, she'll die. I need to warn her. She's not a man, and the demon army will be especially unkind to her on the battlefield."

"You think dancing around like that will save you? Amusing. You'll never hurt me with that weapon." Ralli nimbly sidestepped her student's attempted stabs, adjusting to her opponent's strategy effortlessly. "Did you forget you have magic?!" She harshly chopped the young woman on the back between the shoulder blades.

It was clear the padding couldn't absorb all of it as Harley cried out, collapsing onto the ground and clutching in vain for the stricken spot.

Her instructor pointed her training weapon at the trainee's neck. "You're dead... And you're still no man."

The trainee coughed weakly, repressing a sob as her week of practice came to an abrupt pratfall without results. "Next time, ma'am... I'll get it... next time... I'll show you I'm...! Hck, ack..."

Ralli sighed, then glanced around the arena. "... Baldwin, you're up. At least try."

The addressed young man, who was standing without his sword even at the ready, wore his blonde hair in an uncommonly fancy coif for a trainee at the barracks. His sweat was sticking it to his head, and in spite of his plastered-on good natured smile, that sweat wasn't all coming from the heat. "Hahaha. Teach, isn't it time we wrap up for now? We're all tired from training all day, and the sun's going down... I think everyone will agree we've learned a lot, and we're all looking forward to resting up for an early tomorrow." Liam Baldwin really didn't look like he belonged at the barracks, like dirt didn't quite cling to him... but neither did any particular muscle.

"Liam's crafty. He's earned the trust of the other students. He might actually have the makings of a leader, even if he doesn't excel as a physical combatant. He's a strange one... I can't see him winning in a fight with the demon lord alone. He needs to make use of his allies."

Ralli didn't say anything as she grabbed Liam by the face and threw him onto the dirt. "Baldwin's down. Let's wrap up. If any of this equipment is still here tomorrow, you're all dead. Put it up." "Proper equipment maintenance is critical for a knight. It would also be a significantly dangerous tripping hazard..."

The heartless sergeant turned to leave her class, slinging her own sword over her shoulder to put it in the rack as she slung it over her shoulder to carry it. She paused as she heard two call out.

Harvey and Harley, still nursing their wounds, bowed to their departing instructor. ""Good work today, Ms. Ralli!!"" they shouted in loud, hoarse voices.

"... Good work, Dustaines," she replied, just barely loud enough to be heard, before she continued plodding off.

As usual, Ralli took her gruel from the mess hall to the teacher's residence hall before anyone could stop her (not that many dared to approach her). She balanced it carefully as she unlocked her door with one hand, then opened it and stepped inside. Her room was practically without decoration, excluding some framed sketches of her previous classes and many, many mountains of books: on shelves, on the floors, on the table, in the corners of the bed, stacked on chairs... Everywhere. It was completely impossible to draw a straight line through the mountain of works, other than that they were largely non-fiction or educational books.

Setting down her bowl on the windowsill and removing her helmet, she shook the sweat from her brow. Now that her helmet was off, there was even more to see... in a manner of speaking. The woman had a surprisingly well-sculpted face with high, proud cheekbones, but her face was covered in scars like the rest of her hidden body. In particular, an X-shaped scar across both eyes and the bridge of her nose seemed to have permanently robbed her of eyesight. Even alone in her room, her eyes stayed closed, but she didn't appear inhibited by the blindness. Another sigh escaped her full lips... She looked frustrated, but in fact, that strange expression, with her lower lip at an angle that revealed part of her lower teeth, was essentially her resting expression.

Even as she began eating, she grabbed an in-progress book and began quickly scanning. Long ago, Ralli had found she could read to increase her understanding while simultaneously thinking to herself. One of the surprising benefits of her race...

Just as she was settling into a groove, there was a knock. The door swung open before she could answer. Another instructor swayed in, holding her porridge in both hands and kicking the door shut with one heeled foot. "Ralli, darling! How does the night find you, sweet thing?"

The other woman was probably Ralli's only friend at the academy, and the two made a strange pair: Bella Tasteasy was as close of an opposite as one could imagine. Heavy, bubblegum-pink curls fell around her face in a short bob, with large bangs that seemed to completely and inconveniently shade her heavy-lidded dark eyes. Most prominently on her face were her two large, painted lips, curved in a smile. The knight's pendant, matching Ralli's own, hung around her thin, rosy-complexioned neck. For garments, Bella wore layers of red baggy-sleeved robes that fell away from the shoulders, with a deep enough neckline to reveal plenty of her generous cleavage. The robes were long enough to hide both her hands and feet, but her painted nails became visible anyway as she seemed to gesture with them frequently while talking.

"Same as usual. I still don't... understand humans," Ralli muttered, hanging her head. "Not completely. Then again, I don't understand demons, either. Got Dyna's letter. Not much for me."

"Not much for you? Not much for you?! Ohoh, darling," Bella giggled, sidling up familiarly close to her friend and waving the same letter she'd just received. "This letter can change your life, if you let it! Doesn't it get you excited?! I'm ready to start sucking more than just those little girls' brains, teeheee," she tittered more lewdly, wiping her mouth on her long sleeves as she evidently pictured her own magic students.

Ralli sensed that the door was shut and sighed again, removing her own knight's pendant. Bella was the only one Ralli felt comfortable to show her true appearance to...

That was because the true identity of the sergeant was that of an incredibly rare defected Demon Army deathspeaker. As the amulet left her body, she regained her true form: her skin became a paler, waxier black, covered in scattered black exoskeleton armor. The entire face was pale and unarmored, unblemished with scars... In truth, those scars were a way to hide that her real face had no eyes at all. ("Funny how easily humans buy into the 'blind warrior with heightened senses' bit if you're enough of a badass!" Bella had tittered while helping Ralli select her disguise in the past.) She still had attractive lips, but past the end of them, flesh of the cheeks were missing until her pointed ears, giving her a permanent skeletal grin. When she opened her mouth even slightly, a rolling, dark fog emitted from the corners, dispersing before it could thicken to an actual cloud.

She looked to Bella and retracted her exoskeleton. All of her dark armor plates receded in, in a process like relaxing a flexed muscle... With all of them retracted, her true body was, in fact, notably more soft than muscular. In actuality, her freakish muscles were a manifestation of her armor plates in disguise, and she was capable of relaxing them and returning to a softer form Bella had once described as "plump in pleasing places." By which, Ralli later understood, Bella had seemed to mean the thighs and ass.

Bella took the dismissal as a cue to make herself more comfortable, as well. She removed her necklace. Her changes were less, but no less alarming. Her skin became fully pink, the same color as her hair. Her hair, meanwhile... was not hair at all, but a series of stalks with big, dark-pupiled eyes on the end of each. Her lips were even bigger than in her disguise, covering almost all of what would traditionally be a human "face." Rows of sharp teeth were visible in her grin, as the former Demon Army braineater continued to make girl talk. "Come now, Ralli! You're a sharp young woman in her sexual prime. Tell me you haven't thought of some fun project you want to do to 'spread the prestige of the knights.'" Her voice had fallen in volume to a hiss, in an effort not to drive any unsuspecting listeners mad by accident.

Ralli dug into her porridge with greater fixation, seeming to ignore the question. The truth of the matter was...