Personae Non Gratae

The curtain fluttered and hinted at the steel-covered heel of a Knight behind it.

What is a Slayer?

The struggle had ended: what void was left in the sole occupant of this prison cell had been filled by all that had greedily entered it. The mattress and its leather straps had been defeated with barely a noise from the woman that still pretended to be restrained by them. A Knight had dared a peek when she stopped struggling earlier; she laid still with the broken straps still apparently on her wrists and ankles. Kim Moon did her best to appear harmless.

“A Slayer kills.” Her father’s voice echoed in her thoughts. “A Slayer is cursed with the power of ****; he is the annihilation of life incarnate. A Slayer is the rage of Gaia, the murderous power that smashes ordered life into chaos. That is why you must remain disciplined: without control, all life would be extinguished without thought. This is not the way of Gaia; it cannot be the way of the Slayer. It falls upon us to know that which must be left to stand on the world... and that which must be returned to it.”

The guards had not bothered to peek since she had calmed. Silently she rolled up. Her new body—she struggled to accept that it was hers—felt powerful. She had grown taller still; her new chest now balanced better against the aching bones and strained, lean muscles of her new shape. She looked on her open palm... and could almost see it again.

The amulet. A meditation tool... a way to control the Slayer. This wasn’t some hidden leash on the Moon clan; it was an accepted necessity. Focus and clarity brought the raw killing might of a Slayer into a refined murderer of monsters... and it kept the Slayer from becoming a monster herself.

The memory came into sharp relief against the skin of her palm: an ancient Chinese coin with a hole through its center and a thin leather strap run through it. Her father had held it up by the frayed brown thong and flicked it to spin; she had watched, as every Slayer before her had watched, expecting it to rotate a few times before the two halves of the string it hung upon spun together and turned the coin the other way.

The amulet continued to spin. The halves of the strap did not knot.

It had confounded Kim Moon as it had confounded every chosen child before her. “Do you see it?” She hadn’t. He clutched the amulet to cease its vexing spin. “The clockwise turn: correctness, balance, and harmony. The amulet is the heart... and it spins by the whim of its wielder. I made it spin clockwise to do only good; I have mastered my heart and will never let it turn for ill.” He held it before his child. The child flicked the amulet as he had... only it behaved as it should have: the coin spun less than ten times before the cord had twisted together, slowed its spin, and **** the amulet to spin the other way. Her father did not seem disappointed... but she was.

With a smile, his lecture continued, “The coin resists because of the cord. The cord represents the arteries of the human heart: our blood, our human nature, twisting when we attempt to live as Gaia would will it. They betray our purpose; they **** us towards equilibrium. The undisciplined warrior, then, turns the coin for good or ill... but ill and good must then follow. This is Gaia's riddle for her proudest creation, the humans... but a Slayer is no mere human." He flicked the coin again. She saw no difference in how he did it, but the amulet spun endlessly, the cord seemingly unmoved despite being run through the coin. Magic, she was sure of it, but the lesson was there even for her young mind. "Master the turning of your heart, and you will master the turning of the amulet. This is the first test of the Slayer.”

The amulet had eventually spun even for her...

The Knight peeled the curtain back to dare a peek again; the silence from her made him worry. Kim remained mostly still on the mattress as she felt his gaze on her; she stirred with enough life to quiet his fear that she had fallen ill, at least. Satisfied, he resumed his idle guard by the cell door along with his fellow.

The amulet had vanished with so much of her soul... but she had her strength again, unbound by the forms taught to her, unhinged from the framing of her father’s wish. She was the Slayer again... and yet she was the Slayer for the first time in her life. For years, the amulet’s selfless spin was the only way she was allowed to learn and command that killing might... but now, with the ugly insight of doomed men and women once etched into these walls now etched into her heart, she saw the folly of her Clan.

The Slayer was not strengthened by control... but weakened.

The Slayer kills not the unnatural... but the unjust.

The Slayer does not kill with precision... the Slayer... kills.

The forms... the amulet... the chains upon her strength: broken. What irony was it to find freedom in a cage? She suppressed a bubbling laugh in her chest. Her mind searched for some other focal point, some reason to live and fight and-

John Newman.

Kim did not lust for him, love him, or even care much for him... except that he saved her, restored her flesh... and gave her the first parts of her strange new life. What did he mean to do with her? Did he truly save her without reason? Guilt, perhaps... but Kim’s mind struggled with this curt dismissal. Did he believe he could heal her? She was healed. The man consumed her thoughts and questions... and now, as she had gathered from the stray comments or whispers of the Order dogs who passed her cell, that man was held somewhere below. Trapped... as she was. Could she escape what he didn’t? The shameful question filled her veins. She looked to the feet of the Knights. She had to escape... they had to escape. She would take John and make him talk... make him answer for what he did, good or ill. He seemed the only person left not ready to lie to or destroy her... and even now she was not sure if she would thank him or tear out his throat.

Her plot bubbled and vacillated between conclusions. The Slayer bided her time... and her time came with the song of a klaxon alarm.

The frayed leather snapped. The amulet cut through its cord and fell into the infinite Abyss.

Surveillance Room, Level A
Several minutes earlier...

"Sir, Safehouse Legio was supposed to check in three minutes ago. Contact attempted; no response."

Sir Yolanda Huey's desk was at the center of a number of computer banks, workers droning reports into consoles, and a few hallways leading into the many surveillance rooms she managed. She had neither the youth nor the patience for the young Knights stationed at the nearby safehouse who, in their exuberance, sometimes sparred and practiced until they lost track of time and forgot to report in... and the few times that had occurred might've been enough to disarm her on a normal day.

But these were not normal days: every unit in Springfield was on high alert in preparation for an attack. She glanced up from the extensive defense reports to glower at her young subordinate. The young man kept his eyes trained on her silver hair, lest he wither underneath the almost black eyes of his superior. "Advise Sir Krieg to go to high alert and have all reinforcements standby for deployment. Send a Pattern Alpha unit in a van to investigate the safehouse in the meantime."

Another voice joined the conversation via intercom. "Sir! T-The backyard...!"

Yolanda sighed in frustration as the call came from the camera room. "What sector?"

"A... All of them!"

Of the nearly two acres occupied by the Brighton Estate, nearly one whole of them was surrendered to the finery and majesty of a well-maintained backyard.

As was expected, it was no mere patch of grass: circled in tall, stone walls were the amenities of the rich. A tennis court and an Olympic pool dominated the western and eastern edges respectively. Marble statues of the Lady and various legendary Wardens stood watch along cobblestone paths, each one marking five meters of the path, and an impressive fountain of dancing cherubs filled out the center of the marble courtyard that reached out towards the green from the lip of the mansion. Despite all that, the backyard was dominated by nearly half of a soccer/football pitch of twice-weekly trimmed grass, nearly a kilometer of bushes and flowerpots, and some half-dozen maids in gardening wear. The noon sun still hung high overhead; the pollen of a fresh August was upon them.

At least they thought it was pollen. A keen-eyed young maid held her hand as she saw some curious colors in the air. They clung to her like glitter: it sparkled green and red and could not be confused for pollen now. She looked about as the curious dusting fell upon them and, as the others around her grew equally alarmed, thought to retreat into the house and offer a report.

But it was far too late for that.

The grass grew... visibly. Wide eyes and panicked cries followed grass shooting upwards into thick, grasping blades. The fat petals of green soon overcame the average human line of sight; the well-kept bushes swelled and branched out until they grew around and trapped one of the poor maids. The yard, now a sea of vibrating green swords, began to grow over the stone walls, slop over the marble of the courtyard, and vanish five women and one man who were working therein at the time. Knights charged out of the mansion, guns slung to their sides as they pulled out their best gardening implements: three-foot-long blades sharpened to a fine edge. They barked their chains of reports as command stations were warned before each readied for something to come out and attack from the ever-growing grass.

"Burn it all!"

"We've still got people in there!"

"We can't let it grow into the inner-perimeter!"

But grow it continued to do... and yet, the grass was perhaps the least of their worries, a flashy distraction to hide a certain goblin as he crept just outside the stone walls of the back of the garden. There, where yet more tall grass grew beyond the borders of the mansion, was now hidden a trail of fist-sized stone bottles that marked his passing. Each one was uncorked, bereft of contents... but the contents did not pool beneath them. Instead, they scaled the walls and prepared for a most intimate invasion.

Inside the nearly-suffocating grasp of greenery, the keen-eyed lass continued to try and push past the jungle that grew up and around her. Her gardening apron had been pulled away; her skirt, too, had been torn by some wild-growing branch, and she was webbed in the grasp of vibrating branches. In the middle of trying to snap the thick brown arms that held her, she winced as she felt something wet and warm on her leg and feared that she had been cut. She pushed the bushes aside to look. There, on her bare shin and visible through one of the gashes of her long skirt, she saw it: a small, pale gray globule of some menacing, viscous fluid, complete with stumpy parodies of arms and legs... and at the center of its quivering mass, a grinning face with a long nose. Its arms and legs moved in a mockery of crawling, but it was its bulbous torso that rolled and slid up her leg, leaving a trail on her flesh as it rode her leg up towards her crotch. "Gaa-! NO! Go away!" Her hands dove for it, but her fingers struggled to block it; it dived and dodged around her grip. It was nearing her crotch. She cried out as she finally went to crush whatever it was in her grasp, if only to fling it away... but most of it shot through the grip of her fingers to blast against her panties. She squeezed her thighs together while struggling to fling away the slime that stuck to her fingers... but it was already home.

The small dab of animated fluid seeped efficiently through the panties it found and wiggled between the soft, virgin lips of her pussy. She trembled at the violation and gasped as she felt the diminutive invader form teeth and chew, bite by bite, through her hymen. She cried and trembled against the blades of grass as she was bombarded with corrupting, pleasurable sensations... and soon she paid no mind to the overwhelming libido, the urge to breed, or the feeling of a mixture of demon fairy dust and goblin sperm inciting its prey to ovulate. The beast swam through the growing moisture that flooded her vagina... and with a gleeful mockery of a cry of victory, punched a fist into her cervix.

Moans soon filled the yard... and a single, animal cry from the lone man in the bushes echoed out as he felt his anus pried open. (The sprites were singular in purpose and did not discriminate upon not finding a womb.) Something in how... violated the echoing voices sounded redoubled the efforts of the men carefully hacking away at the encroaching grass with their swords as they tried to find and save those captured.

Leaping quietly over the wall, grinning toothily as he let loose the remaining dozens of his creations, came the small, goblin body of a thing enshrouded in black and carrying a heavy pack on its back. Kazex's smile broke into a snarl as a bullet shot through the tip of his pointed ear, sending him toppling into the grass as more bullets missed and whizzed overhead.

The overgrowing blades were more pliable to their master; he quickly worked his way through to avoid the unseen sniper. "Rotten nipple-fucking bastards! They're already trying to kill poor Kazex!" He pressed a clawed finger to his right ear. Hurry up and distract them before they get wise to my beauties!

Laksha ran through the dining room to see it: the sudden, wild growth that dominated every inch of the Brighton backyard that wasn't marble. Moans and pleasurable cries unsettled her expectations, but they came from unseen victims: the only ones she could see were still fighting to get to those victims. The Knights hacked away at the blades with their own. A Hospitaler had already arrived, though she merely watched and waited for some sign of a victim to heal. A Confessor proved more resourceful to the right: he whipped the golden lasso of his practiced, holy magic and found it cut well enough through the enhanced foliage. Soon he was slowly stepping through the growths as he cut a wide swath, his steps slowly followed by yet more growth behind him. A Knight joined his path before the two were hidden by new growth that replaced that which had been cut down only seconds ago. Laksha eyed the blades of grass that fell: each disintegrated into dust too fine to trace before they hit the ground. This was temporary foliage then... but it was enough.

Two more Knights, dressed in suits with their guns at the ready, scanned the top of the grass for any sign of an enemy. "Any sign of them?" she asked the nearest.

The female Knight nodded. "Sniper unit spotted one hostile so far in all this but lost contact immediately."

Laksha grinned as she readied her spear to throw it-

"S-Six of our people trapped in the grass, and we're not sure where!" the Knight hastily blurted as she realized the Warden's intent.

Laksha looked to the Knight, back to the grass, and slowly lowered her throwing arm in frustration. "Then I'll go in and find her myself."

The Knight shook her head. "It's not the Gorbachev; it's not even human-sized, whatever it is. Command is preparing our contract mages to go in and take care of-" The Knight's words cut off as she leaned her head towards the earpiece on her right. "Two more, up front... and one of them is a young woman!"

Laksha nodded and readied to bound over the mansion-

John, no...!

A **** prayer... and not her own. Laksha’s eyes went wide as she felt it: peril... danger... a threat to her sister-in-arms. Laksha didn’t know how, given all the Order had done to prepare to keep the Warlock locked down... but somehow, Moira was in danger at the very bottom of the mansion’s levels. She stared into the mansion. Did they get past us, somehow?! Fearing the worst, Laksha bolted in as she yelled, “Keep them busy!" The Knight looked at the Warden’s back in confusion before reporting her commands as best she could.

"The time has come, now let us run!" Penelope sang over the low-ringing alarm as she struggled to get her panties back on.

"Who launches a fucking attack on some fucking suburban fortress at noon?! This cunt's touched, is what she is," grumbled Victor as he lifted his skinny jeans back up.

The two continued to rush to get dressed once again in Victor's bedroom where, despite the judging eyes of the Order stooges present, the two had both retired after a long night of waiting for an attack. Neither had gotten much sleep; like for many Gorbachevs, sleep was something of a stranger to them anyways. Unlike most Gorbachevs, they did manage to find some intimate comfort.

Penelope threw on a black camisole as she continued, "Forget not our mission true-"

"-we'll claim her body and kill her too?" Victor interrupted with a grin.

Penelope stared daggers at the man until, after clasping a black skirt around herself, she rushed at him to peck him on the lips. He stared into her eyes--dark, smoky pits of blue and black, a harmless if unsettling mutation--until she finally put her sunglasses back on. "I appreciate a bit of sass... but don't forget: I own your ass."

The two shared one more grin before moving out... but they had barely escaped the door before the world blurred.

"An illusion barrier?!" Victor spat. He looked about as he waited for some enemy to appear. "She must've known this house was... fuck! I knew we should've fought to stay over there!" Victor tied the gun holster against his bare torso and forsook any attempt to put his shirt on. He motioned towards the stairs as he led the way.

Penelope followed close behind. "We need only find the barrier's caaaster," she sang as she tried to peer out of the window at the elbow of the hall, "and we must proceed with haste to stop it ever faaaa...iry?"

Victor stopped his march towards the stairs to join Penelope at the window... and catch sight of child-sized fairy hastily zipping by as Knights opened fire on her. Her flight path shot up as the gunfire attempted to lead her, making her pass near the window for a split second, long enough to give the Gorbachevs a close-up view of what looked like a skin-tight tactical suit mismatched to the mystical creature who wore it. She was somewhere over the roof now, out of sight as the Knights scrambled into the front yard with their long arms drawn. Their confused scanning of the sky revealed that they had already lost her.

"Odds that she's the fairy that Warlock was supposed to have?"

"Ever high and all but true... but hunt it down we must not do."

Victor nodded. "Right... if the others aren't here, then this one's just the decoy. The barrier looks sealed, right about to... there," he muttered over the continuous ring of the alarm and gunfire. Penelope followed his finger to the very edge of the front gate. Just beyond those bars, the world blurred intensely enough to mark the edge of the illusion barrier.

Victor waved his fingers briefly as he muttered sorcerous words; Penelope watched with an embarrassed smile as he engaged in such dated magic. "But... fuck yeah! It's just a simple trap barrier, nothing fancy... Hell, they probably didn’t think any serious mages would be in here. Let’s bust out of here while the hounds chase the hare."

"Without escort, Knights or banes, upon us shall be less eyes... sharp of you, my lovely thing!” Victor beamed proudly until she finished, “... Truly, a surprise." She gave her "partner" a soft pat on the butt before running ahead towards the stairs.

After all I did for her last night... Victor sighed in mock frustration as he gave chase.

The mansion before the Brighton Estate was suddenly bereft of all living occupants, each one spirited away to an illusion barrier layered over the real world. The cameras inside the same had remained as part of the decor; to their mechanical eyes, every conscious Knight patrolling or relaxing in the house had suddenly vanished as one. Additional alarms were raised as the command center tried to keep up with the spiraling chaos: the Warden was suddenly trapped in a maximum-security cell with the Warlock, the backyard was growing out of control, reports of strange, tiny monsters ambushing personnel and... doing things to them rolled in with an alarming frequency, and already some dozen personnel appeared incapacitated. With another forty, and the Gorbachevs, suddenly gone, the enemy **** was suspected to have come into full swing.

In truth, it had barely begun.

A heavily tinted Order sedan rolled up to the front gate. The Knight on duty behind the camera and intercom was absent; no one needed to wait for guests during a lockdown, after all. With the forest growing behind the mansion, only the two Knights still posted by the door spotted the vehicle as it approached. Neither relieved the tension of their grips on their guns until the one on the left touched his earpiece. "One of our cars is at the gate; occupants not confirmed, but the front license plate is from the Legio safehouse... wait, they're getting out of the car now... and.... uh...”

"Reinforcements en route, sniper team repositioning," called the Knight's ear, but the latter took a moment to contemplate what he was seeing. "Do you have a visual on the driver?"

"It's... a disco ball."

".... What?"

A young woman's hand clad in pink, fingerless leather gloves extended out of the driver side door to hold aloft a glittering mirror ball in the light of the sun. The rest of the lass soon followed: a head of bright pink hair grown down to her shoulders, a matching crop top, a dark pink crop jacket that shimmered with pink scales and silver zippers, hot pink biker pants with pouches strapped to her thighs, and white and pink sneakers to complete the eye-searing aesthetic.

Neither Knight was sure of what to think of the threat before them... nor had they any more clue as the front passenger door opened to reveal another: a tall and muscled man that, unlike his partner’s screaming outfit, seemed satisfied wearing a basic black t-shirt and navy blue jeans. His head bore a healthy crop of black hair, and his irritated gaze was hidden behind cheap sunglasses.

Travolta leaned on the roof of the car as he watched the mansion’s doors open to let four more Knights pour out before the home with their guns trained on the invaders. He shook his head in disbelief. “Did you really have to insist on using the front gate?”

“We’re Collide, Baldy,” she declared with a grin, “what better way to show it?”

"Pretty sure that nickname doesn't make sense any-"

"Close your eyes, Baldy," she hissed with a grin. Grumbling, he nodded.

She held the disco ball aloft as she inhaled deeply...

The Knights readied to open fire the moment they tried anything. Over the mansion, a sniper and spotter sharing a cloak of magical camouflage repositioned to try and get a bead on the new enemies. Travolta gently closed his eyes. A certain dark elf readied to leap out.

Rave exhaled... and the world flashed into negative.

The Knights, Confessor and Hospitaler cried out as one as they were knocked aside or to their feet by the immediate vertigo caused by the flash. One’s gun went off before he quickly released the trigger for fear he might hit an ally; the bullets were buried harmlessly into bushes and the brick wall beyond. The sniper, who had nearly drawn a bead on the pink-haired target, screeched as the scope magnified the flash. Her spotter, a slim young man with a keen eye, joined her in being stunned as the binoculars did the same to him.

The camouflaging cloak they shared parted enough to reveal the ruse... and as the light dimmed, the third person to emerge from the car trained black, dated weapons on the new, obvious threats.

A bolt suddenly shot into the sniper’s arm; another was buried, shallow, into the spotter's shoulder. Both cried out in pain... and then immediately fell asleep on the flat of the roof.

Alysha emerged fully as the ball’s light continued to dim: clad in her dark elf armor and, now, a black hood with a cape of tendrils ending in daggers, she still pointed one of her two repeating hand crossbows at the fallen sniper team. The targets had been subdued; only now did Alysha (tentatively) trust the man-made instruments. Her red goggles glimmered as they filtered the oppressive light of the human world and let her keen sight reign. Do not disappoint me, Order... show me why your fellow human scum fears you so. Show me how you overcame my husband.

“Alright, fastball special!” Rave declared as she slid over the hood of the engine towards Travolta.

“We really don’t need to do-”

“Like you mean it!”

The most fortuitous of the Knights finally began to blink away some of the stunning effect. He groped around for his dropped gun the moment he recognized the stone of the steps he was laying on, slowing only when he saw something absurd: the casually dressed man with his hands over his head and cocked back as if ready to toss a ball back into the pitch... and squatting on those hands was the pink-haired girl, holding up her disco ball in a similar fashion.

Travolta tried hard to ignore how lame he felt.

Rave caught the Knight’s eye and yelled, “Ever play Street Fighter?”

“... Wh-”

[MUSIC: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGw8DWctAts&t]

Travolta’s arms flexed with unnatural might... and viciously threw his good friend's daughter directly at the wrought iron gate from less than twelve feet away. Her body straightened out and spun with the dazzling ball held ahead of her... and with her newfound focus, every facet thereupon shimmered until each mirror became a closed fist of power. “PSYCHO CRUSH-!”

Her words barely escaped before the potent light she focused into the ball nearly touched the gate... and, as the thin layer of radiance cast by dozens of mirrors came into contact, twisted and tore the black metal beams of steel until the entire gate had been ripped from brick pillars. "-A!"

The gates so spun as her flight path towards the mansion continued, each eventually flinging clear from the impact: one flattened itself into the driveway, and the other flung high until it would eventually crash into the mansion's reinforced roof. But Rave’s mad siege was hardly finished: her path continued as she spiraled, a dart of radiant power, straight towards the knot of Knights and the front door of the Brighton home. The rest of the Knights struggled with their guns and with escaping the path of the projectile mage as she quickly drew upon them; a few stray shots darted past Rave as they frantically avoided her. Three bullets bounced cleanly from the mirror ball without damaging it. Two Knights remained with huge shields as they readied to bar her way-!

Inside the manor, a pair of Hospitalers rushed towards the front to offer their support. The male between them reached the door first only to be smashed against the far wall as a disco ball, and an attached pink-haired firebrand, blasted through. The Knights who had barred her way rained into the hall along with shattered wood; the ball smashed through yet one more internal wall before the girl flipped and, upon landing among a knot of cowering (but armed) butlers and maids, spiked the mirror ball into the ground. The energy she had maintained through the enchanted orb blasted out in a visible shockwave, launching the staff against walls and pillars and through doorways as vases exploded, portraits imploded, and tapestries were torn along with the wallpaper behind them. The Lightbearer inhaled and opened her eyes, each now shimmering with the pink afterglow of her power.

She held the unharmed ball of glass aloft with a triumphant yell, “Hell yeah! That was even more metal than I thought it’d be!” She glanced back at the wreckage of debris and **** bodies. Through the hole, she watched as the Knights still capable of fighting stood and, following a soft thwip for each, were struck by one of the poisoned bolts of the dark elf. This all seemed a bit too easy to Rave-

"Kelthos dara-tuk!" Rave dove back through the hole as a wave of animated ice spikes ran across the ground she had just abandoned. The words had come from some unseen woman who, without visibly walking, glided into view.

Rave looked the newcomer up and down: dressed in simple blue robes and a thick, wool hood, she seemed to be a middle-aged woman, bald and blue-lipped. Visible veins of navy ran crooked trails under the naked skin of her face and hands. Rave had never met or seen this one before, but she knew enough about the Abyss to know a Cryomancer at a glance. The woman's lips moved as if she were carrying on a conversation, but no words escaped her. "What, Moi-Moi’s got an entourage now?" Rave whimsically asked. Her grin hesitated as another robed figure appeared next to the icy stranger: a man, or something like a man, standing nearly eight feet with a broad body and stumpy limbs that, together, made him twice the width of a weightlifter. His sleeveless arms were such hideously bulging affairs that Rave couldn’t be sure where and if he still had elbows, and his face bore enough fur to put humanity into question as he snarled with a wide mouth and glared with beady eyes. “Any chance you two could go let her know I’m here? I think I ruined the surprise-”

"I'm afraid they will both refuse..." Rave glanced to the top of the staircase to her right and spotted the origin of the voice: a woman in a quieter blue outfit, blindfolded, and yet seemingly staring directly at Rave. The woman made no attempt to approach.

"Where's Moi-Moi? I'd like to have a chat with her."

"You were always difficult to see in your misadventures with our Warden, given how remote I've been and the wards in place around you... but here...”

Rave stifled an impolite yawn. “Let me guess: blind with super-hearing? It’s like a whole comic book supergroup in here-”

“... I can finally see you, Jane Hollmey."

The flickering black of the dark elf’s cloak caught the eyes of the warriors present only long enough to see who shot them into unconsciousness. Alysha had quickly leapt on the lip of the wall after Rave started the siege and launched herself into the air with both black crossbows drawn and firing. Stumbling humans were child’s play for her; centuries of marksmanship combined well with the absurd ease and tight arcs produced by the crossbows, and the poisons refined by the goblin’s alchemical teachings no longer found resistant targets among even the hardier humans below. She was nearly bored with the siege when, upon her last bolts finding their targets, the windows exploded.

Gunfire filled the air as the elf twisted and juked as best as she could to avoid the firepower of some dozen Knights, butlers, and maids with rifles unleashing bullets at the airborne elf. They seemed to care not about hitting their neighboring house across the street, nor would they: the bulletproof glass and walls of the secondary mansion more than stood against the rain of errant bullets that missed the enemy monster.

Sparks and small explosions of blue blood flew from the dark elf as she hit the ground. The gunfire began to take its toll: her bolts flew only to get plucked from the air by stray bullets. One bolt found its target—the extended arm of a confident Knight—only to be replaced by a maid who quickly took the gun over and resumed its controlled bursts. Alysha thought to dash forward-

“Fuck off!” Travolta screamed as he landed next to the dark elf... and smashed the Order sedan onto its side. The bullets peppered the reinforced car like so many gnats onto glass. Travolta stared wide-eyed at Alysha and glanced down at her wounds. The blood was falling fast. "The fuck is wrong with you?! You know you didn't get any tougher in there!"

"These wounds are nothing," Alysha spat as she coughed more of her own dark blood.

"Drink one of the damn potions! We can't stay here!"

"They seem distracted," Alysha spat back as she unsheathed one of the blue phials from the holster on her hip. To her surprise, the other two holstered were unharmed despite the remains of a bullet flattened against the magically-sealed leather. "This should suffice-"

"Hell no, we can't leave Rave in there alone!" Travolta peeked past the rim of the car as the gunfire slowed with the sound of reloading magazines... and by chance, he spotted one Knight struggling to get a rocket launcher pointed through the window. "Shit shit shit-!"

"My Lord, we have the situation under control," Sir Krieg pleaded.

The house shivered as if to punctuate how wrong Sir Krieg was. Lord Brighton struggled as he dressed; after managing to find the only shirt without buttons in a drawer of the guest bedroom, he now hastily drew ill-fitting pants over his muscular, scar-riddled legs. He had barely gotten used to laying down and resting without the benefit of his sword arm; getting dressed was another matter entirely. Still, he struggled. "Then I am safe in your careful control," Lord Brighton muttered without a hint of sarcasm, but Krieg knew his leader long enough to sense it all the same.

"My Lord, I was commanded to protect you," Sir Krieg pleaded, "and letting you go out there-"

"I am the Lord of this home and the father of the enemy's target. I will not be lectured by even my most trusted and honorable subordinate," he yelled as an iron-wrought gate bounced off the fortified roof, "and surely shall not be barred-"

"My Lord, the Warden herself ordered that I protect you," Sir Krieg interrupted, surprising his senior, "and so I must make clear: I am a servant of the Lady... and cannot disobey Her, even if it means that I must disobey you."

Lord Brighton stood still as he clasped his pants to a close. He finally saw Sir Krieg as the warrior stood before the door leading out... and saw the turmoil in the loyal man's heart by way of his trembling face. In Lord Brighton's haste, he had disregarded his trusted Knight... and only now felt a pang of shame in his failure. "I understand, Sir Krieg."

The Knight exhaled.

"... but if I were a man who abandoned two of his greatest duties... for want of a sword and an arm to hold it... then I can't imagine I would have ever been your Warden-Lord."

"My Lord..."

"You shall protect me," Lord Brighton clarified, "as my daughter has commanded... and you shall do so as my sword."

Sir Krieg stared hard at the man... and nodded as he pulled his blade. Lord Brighton held his arm out; Sir Krieg took his enchanted revolver and readied to give it to his master-

"No, Sir Krieg... your shield."

Sir Krieg stared wide-eyed... but nodded as he drew the massive, gold-plated shield from the hook on his back and strapped it to his Lord's remaining arm. With his gun in his off-hand and his charge just behind him, the two ventured into the war, sword and shield, together.