Taking The Stronghold

Doom spent a full twenty four hours preparing and now in front of him stood a small army. Immaculate Conception was already proving useful, but twenty four hours for twenty four soldiers is hardly enough to do much more than the current plan. "Perhaps I can increase it's efficiency or something in the future," Doom thought to himself as he looked over the creatures. With his army created, Doom goes to find Vox.

Doom finds Vox and the rest of the followers of Melanoche back where he first appeared. Belleza Lanoche has woken and seemingly cleaned up. The entire group seems surprised by the arrival of Doom with an army of creatures. Doom explains his plans and then demands Belleza to approach. She does so and he gently places his hand on the back of her head and pulls her into a kiss, his tongue slipping into her mouth. Her eyes drift closed as his tongue fills her mouth and then he pulls back releasing her, "how are you feeling, my pet?" he asks and she looks into his eyes, her cheeks flushed with desire and even just after such a simple kiss she's breathing heavily.

"I... I feel great, master..." she responds.

"I am glad," he tells her though in truth he didn't much care how she felt, he was just interested in seeing the effects of the mark and the result was... compelling. From the way the two darkness gods spoke, it seemed like followers of darkness were all borderline sluts anyway, so it wasn't a perfect test, but still. Doom Hoped he'd get to test the mark on one of the stronghold's defenders instead.

He examined his troops. There were more people than there had been earlier. He had hoped as much, even with the emanations he wasn't confident he could take the stronghold with just ten people, but it seemed that those ten were just the ones who had been there for whatever ritual was being held when he arrived. There were more now, not much more, but enough. At Doom's count, there were about 28 followers of the Black Night here now, counting Belleza and Vox. From what the priestess said there are twenty soldiers, four rangers, a guard captain and the stronghold's commander. That's twenty six opponents. Doom doesn't know the threat each individual opponent might be, but he also doesn't actually know the power of his own forces either, still even without the emanations his troops outnumber the stronghold's defenders now. He wouldn't even bother with the emanations if it wasn't for the fortified defense he'd have to overcome.

Getting through the first and second gates would likely have cut down his forces by at least half, but with his current plan hopefully he can get through without losing anyone which hopefully should give him a much greater advantage against the soldiers inside. Doom stops as he isn't sure how to feel about the fact the word hopefully came up twice in his plans. He sighs and looks over the gathered forces in front of him. He should have learned much more about his own troops first. He still could, but now he was feeling impatient.

Doom shrugged, "If the plan goes wrong, the worst that might happen is a bunch of my new disposable friends might die," he thinks to himself. He's not concerned about his own life. He doubted anything in the stronghold would be able to hurt him even if things did start going wrong. Reassured about his plan he speaks to the assembled crowd, his eyes catching on a few more women who hadn't been there last time and noting that the darkness seemed to be quite good at breeding attractive women, he would certainly get to know them a bit better later assuming they survived.

"I understand that you have waited for my arrival and now I am here," he announces, his hand resting on Belleza's head as she stands beside him, "with my coming, comes also the fall of the Light starting with the stronghold near here," he continues and there's cheers from the crowd. Doom grins at the cheers and then directs his next words to the emanations.

"Go forth and tear down the stronghold's gates," he roars and the emanations do as commanded. He watches them with interest, the words had been for the crowd's benefit, in actuality his commands flowed to them directly from his will, they form into a spear head formation and begin to march towards the Stronghold. Doom follows after them at a distance and beckons his troops to follow him.

Soon, the Stronghold comes into view and Doom is almost impressed how quickly it responds. Once it was visible to Doom, the emanations were also now in view of the rangers. The first arrows hit the lead emanation dead in the chest and it collapses, dissipating before it even fully hit the ground, as commanded the emanations quickly move to plug the hole in their ranks.

The Archers take out the next leader, but it too is quickly replaced and the Archers begin to vary their shots, hoping to take out more at a time. Unfortunately for them this doesn't work as well, one emanation falls and is quickly replaced, but the other three hit easily tanked the arrows which made Doom unreasonably proud. The next volley manages to down four of the emanations, one more taken out by one shot, while the other three were the ones hit previously. It seems to take two shots to take down one of the emanations, except one of the rangers seemed to be more powerful than the others and was capable of taking down emanations in one hit. There was still a distance to go before the gate was reached. There were twenty four emanations when the march started and seven were now dead. There are still seventeen left and with a loss of only five every two volleys they would reach the gates before they were all dead, but that wasn't good enough. Doom needs them for the second part of the plan.

He knows what he has to do, but it was going to hurt. He orders the emanations to part as he rushes forward, when the next volley comes he breaks through the line and takes the arrows instead. It did indeed hurt, but much less than he was expecting. It was like being poked with a needle, the damage didn't seem to be too bad, but this was a risk. Luckily the sudden appearance of Doom and his horrifying form seems to also stun the rangers and their next volley is delayed. Doom allowed himself to be hit by that volley as well, before backing away and having the emanations close up around him. He can feel his breathing slightly slower than it was before, he didn't take too much damage, after all these arrows would hardly deal much damage to him through his incredible physical defense, but he didn't want to risk it. Even if they were only dealing the equivalent of one damage it could be dangerous at this point in time. Another two volleys are all the rangers manage before the Emanations reach the gate, still twelve of them left, "that's good enough," Doom thought to himself. The Emanations make short work of the iron gate and as close up as they are now they can also harry the rangers keeping them from attacking through the slits without having to worry about being attacked as well. The Emanations begin to funnel into the killing corridor instead as Doom and the following troops reach the gate. The Emanations are positioning themselves as directed to work as a wall preventing the rangers from being able to shoot Doom as he prepares to enter the corridor.

"Just a second," he hears Vox say from somewhere beside him before a horrible and intense pain runs through his body. He lets out a roar of anguish and instinctively strikes out at the source of the pain. Vox cries out as Doom's hand impacts her and launches her away. She lands with a thud a short distance away. It occurs to Doom in moments what happened. She had tried to heal him, "that fucking idiot," Doom swears gripping his chest. He feels awful and weak. She had almost killed him. He let out another roar and charged into the corridor. He slams into the steel gate and feels the entire thing shake. The Emanations are dying all around him and he has no idea how close he is to ****. He needs to get through this gate, before all the emanations are killed. He might have killed Vox, he isn't sure and at the moment he doesn't care. Each crash of his body against the steel fills his mind with a rush of fear, determination and anger. The sound of voices yelling from nearby enters his hearing, he doesn't know who it is or why. The steel gate starts to crumple and then with one more blow he's through just as the last Emanation falls. In front of him there's a line of humans, most of them are wearing heavy armour, but at the back stands a dark skinned woman wearing only a fur bra, a white peaked cap on a head of black and red streaked hair, a pair of short white shorts and knee high white boots. Her cap is tipped to cover one eye and she has a large steel battleaxe held on her shoulder.

Doom lets out another roar, but the opponents don't seem intimidated. The rest of the followers of Melanoche come rushing in around Doom and the battle starts. He does what he can, his hands lashing out and grabbing the heads of two of the closest soldiers and crushing them like grapes, before starting to use the bodies as clubs against their allies. Elsewhere a petite looking girl slips between the legs of one of the knights and then slices the back of his knees. He falls and she then stabs her blade into his neck, before quickly turning to another opponent.

Another woman wades into combat with a pleased grin. She wields a large club made of onyx and uses it to kill multiple foes with each swing.

Lastly another woman is dual wielding a hand crossbow with some sort of auto-loader and a knife to cause quite a bit of chaos. Doom makes note of these three and hopes they don't die before he can properly meet them afterwards.

Doom commands some of his troops to go deal with the rangers and then turns his attention to the guard captain. She's pretty calmly dealing with any of the followers that approach her and calling out orders to her own troops. Even outnumbered they're putting up a pretty good fight and it's seemingly all because of her.

Doom smashes through some of her troops to reach her and swings one of his man clubs down at her, but she quickly dodges and moves in close, a twisted grin on her face as she swings her axe up and he feels it slice through his chest, Doom returns her grin as the strike does very little damage. He doesn't want to let on that he's likely really close to dead anyway and as her grin falls and her one visible eye widens it seems he managed it. She thinks she's outclassed and begins to retreat. Doom doesn't let her escape, pressing the attack, swinging at her wildly. She continues to dodge nimbly and he can't get a hit on her. Even swinging both his clubs horizontally, one at head and the other at knee height fails to catch her as she manages to jump and dive directly into the gap between them and roll, coming back up in time to dodge his next attack.

The good news is she's not attacking back either, the fight is a draw at current, but luckily for Doom he has another card up his sleeve. She dodges another attack and Doom opens his mouth and casts an earth bullet. A ball of rock launches from his mouth and hits her in the gut, knocking her onto her ass. He drops his clubs and slams his hand down on her chest pinning her against the ground. She struggles, but Doom's strength is greater and he easily holds her down, starting to press down on her, forcing the air from her lungs.

The combination of seeing her downed and her current inability to give orders sees the battle rapidly begin to turn. Doom grins down at her as he watches her struggling to breath, his hand crushing the air from her lungs when suddenly there's an intense heat. Her axe has suddenly lit ablaze. Doom notices someone new standing on the battlefield a short distance from the battle. A fair skinned woman with knee length blond hair and light blue eyes. She's wearing a tiara on her head and a, seemingly glowing, white regal gown. Her hands are clasped in front of her as if in prayer and Doom realizes what's going on. The commander is here and she's buffing her soldiers. More importantly for Doom, he is now pinning down a woman with a free hand wielding a battle axe engulfed in flame. His life flashes before his eyes and the Captain notices it, she swings the blade towards his face and...

There's a gasp of air as the blade embeds itself into Belleza's chest. She took the hit for Doom. She collapses to her knees and Doom wastes no time. He lifts the captain, turning and tossing her like a projectile at the commander. The commander's eyes widen as the captain approaches her at high speed and then she's hit. The two both land in a crumpled heap. Doom grabs Belleza and rushes towards the two of them. Around him the battle is ending. He drops Belleza beside the two and then grabs the Commander and Captain in one hand each. Tendrils begin to emerge from his hands wrapping around both their throats and starting to squeeze. The Commander looks terrified, her legs kicking wildly as she tries to get free, but Doom only constricts tighter. She lets out a choked noise and then he slams her down on her knees in front of Belleza and roars, "heal her!"

The Commander speaks with great difficulty, "I would rather die than save even one of you," she chokes out and Doom growls.

"You don't care if I kill you, what about her?" he states, bringing the captain into her view, his tendrils winding tightly around her throat, her face already starting to turn red from lack of oxygen, her legs dangling uselessly. The Commander looks horrified. It had been a **** attempt, but immediately Doom knows it was the correct move

"Heal her and I'll let you and your friend live, if she dies, so do both of you and I will ensure it is not quick," he threatens and The Commander closes her eyes.

"Fine... Just... Don't hurt her," she says and Doom retracts the tendrils from around her neck letting her work. She does so reluctantly and he watches as she heals Belleza's wounds. Doom is deep in thought as he watches her work. He thinks about how dangerous this is, if the commander tries to heal him it would likely kill him at his current strength. "She'd have no reason to try that right? My skeletal self is visible, but I hardly look like an ordinary undead," Doom thinks to himself, hoping she doesn't realize. Aside from that he also finds himself wondering why he even cares if Belleza is healed? She doesn't actually mean anything to him, he might have killed her sister earlier without even a thought so why does he want her healed so badly? He tells himself it's because she saved his life. No other reason, he simply can't allow such a debt to go unpaid.

The Commander sighs and turns to him, "it's finished," she informs him, glaring at him with hatred. He examines Belleza, but sees no sign of life, her wound does seem healed, but she's not moving, nor breathing. Doom is about to kill the captain believing that the healing had failed when Belleza suddenly coughs and then begins to breathe normally and he relaxes. The battle is over and some of his troops come over and begin to bind the commander who lets herself be bound knowing that she's defeated. Doom gives them the captain to bind as well.

The living captives are bound and placed together in the middle of the courtyard. Doom stays with Belleza until he's sure she's okay and then goes to look upon the defeated.