Chapter 7: The Queen of Thorns

Sophitia was only a little bit surprised by the extent of Erasmus's brutality against Hildegard. If she was honest with herself, she had expected The Overlord to kill Hildegard on the spot, but leaving her alive just to be tortured definitely sent a message to the other remaining Wolfkrone soldiers. On the flip side, she also felt the slightest amount of sympathy for the fallen Queen. Objectively it could just be said that Hildegard was only trying to keep her kingdom safe, but as the target of that supposed 'righteous' fury it was very hard to be objective.

Erasmus turned back to her, and away from his new subjects. "You could return to the Tower if you like. After all, I will just be following these men back to their capitol to set up the new Tower Gate with Gnarl's assistance."

Unless Erasmus had eyes on the back of his head, which she knew from personal experience that he didn't, there was no conceivable way he knew about her little duel with Taki. Regardless, the offer was very considerate of The Overlord. "I think that sounds fine. I've had enough fighting for one day."

Erasmus turned his head to the side for just a moment, and then responded. "You aren't the only one."

A moment of confusion hit her, as she was sure her lover would not tire of fighting until the entire world went down in flames. Then she turned her head toward whatever might have brought on the cryptic remark. Shock hit her, "Ivy?"

The other woman was covered in scratches from head to toe with thin rivulets of blood running down all the way to the ground. Ivy's silver hair was disheveled and she could see patches where it was obvious that pieces had been crudely cut away by an enemy blade. Her knees were bent inwards from fatigue and her fingers were slack around the handle of the whip-sword. Every sign saying that Ivy had been right in the thick of the fray the entire battle.

Ivy scowled at her, leaning on her own knees for support. "You are 'tired of fighting?' This coming from the woman who fought one person the entire battle."

She opened her mouth to protest, but Erasmus beat her to the first word. "If one opponent is all Sophitia wanted to fight, then that is entirely up to her. I appreciate the effort you put in for the entire stretch Ivy, and I would not have thought any less of you had you done far less." The Overlord shifted his gaze back and forth between the both of them. "Now do you wish to return to the Dark Tower or not?"

She unconsciously shot a glance at Ivy, and observed that the other woman had done the same; "I'll go." This conclusion was echoed by Ivy.

In spite of Erasmus's earlier words to her, about how he wasn't going to make any effort to push Ivy's mind one way or the other when it came to having the other woman stay, she was starting to feel that perhaps that choice shouldn't be left only in Ivy's hands. After all, that comment about her participation was clearly meant to undermine Erasmus's opinion of her, even though it had failed. She didn't want a renegade element running rampant around the Tower, undercutting her actions at every turn.

Dark Tower: Private Quarters

Ivy staggered into her room and fell flat across the small couch, as limp as a rag. Current knowledge notwithstanding, she felt like a complete idiot for hurling herself into the fray like she had. All for the express purpose of sliding into the good graces of The Overlord. She validated her actions by telling herself that it would be thoroughly stupid to become the enemy of The Overlord, even more so in light of Hildegard's fate. She knew, without question, that her quest to destroy Soul Edge was now completely futile. She might be able to destroy the Evil Sword if she reached Ostrhinesburg before The Overlord, if she somehow fought her way through the warriors still in service to Nightmare, and if she managed to accomplish the herculean task of defeating the Azure Knight himself. Even if, by some impossible stroke of divine intervention, she managed all of that, The Overlord would kill her on the spot for robbing him of Soul Edge. Worse, she could be thrown in the dungeon alongside Hildegard to suffer for near eternity.

The fresh knowledge that, even if she had done nothing at all during the battle, she still had The Overlord's respect was, at the same time, both infuriating and, perish the thought, a little bit endearing. Try as she might she could not find one single hook in anything that he had done, no quid pro quo, no nothing. That sparked an idea in her head that, perhaps, there were decent men in existence somewhere. In stark contrast, every aspect of her life up until now rebelled against the very concept.

She muttered to herself, airing a rather crazy idea that coalesced in her head. "What if I just ask him point blank what he expects of me?"

The possibility that The Overlord would be insulted by a direct approach did not occur to her. Instead, she found herself thinking of what the answer would be if she did carry out her thought. Of course, there existed the possibility that he would lie. And she felt that, with that voice of his, she would feel compelled to believe him anyway. A prospect that she found strangely frightening was that he might actually be honest. If in fact The Overlord had helped her out of the decency of his heart, and admitted to it, she really couldn't begin to think about what she would do. It had just never happened to her before.

She rose from the couch, feeling only moderately better than she had when she lay down earlier. According to The Overlord, he would be returning to the Dark Tower in a very small time frame, which gave her only a short while to make herself somewhat presentable. She froze, she had never, not since she was a little girl, felt the need to make herself presentable to anyone. What was it about The Overlord that dragged her vulnerable side, albeit kicking and screaming, to the surface?

Dark Tower: Private Quarters

Sophitia slowly took the stairs up to her room after returning to the Tower. Not after returning from Wolfkrone, but a later trip. The servant girls had insisted that she accompany them on a shopping trip to a town called Heaven's Peak. Erasmus apparently paid all of the girls quite well, as there was no real sense of frugality in the spending. However, given that The Overlord's treasury upstairs was overflowing into the hallway, there was no need to be thrifty. It had been a little bit of an eye opener for her, being immediately respected just because of who she was. And it wasn't just respect; there was also a bit of fear no doubt due to her eyes, at least at first. As time had wore on her gentle manner and easy smile seemed to win over the majority of the people she had met. It was certainly more rewarding than running around the world trying to destroy Soul Edge and likely being forced to kill most everyone she happened to cross paths with.

As she approached the top of the stairs the start of a conversation reached her ears. There were two voices, one was obviously Erasmus, and she thought the other might be Ivy, but the tone seemed just the slightest bit off. However, after a few moments she concluded that she was right. Ivy must have had something on her mind that was seriously disturbing. She stopped, holding herself absolutely still so she could listen.

Ivy's voice carried only the slightest hint of a quiver, otherwise as brash as ever. "I'm going to ask you right up front, what do you want from me?"

Erasmus was obviously a little bit surprised; "Ah, what?"

Ivy seemed to get angry, and the hint of a quiver vanished. "Don't play games with me. No one does anything kind or considerate for someone without expecting something in return. So I'll ask you again, what do you want from me?"

The Overlord seemed to get a little bit exasperated in response, and his tone reflected that. "Ivy, seriously, look around you. What am I lacking that I could possibly desire from you?" There was a pause, and then Erasmus continued. "And before your mind heads to the bedroom, consider this. Even before Sophitia moved in I had ten women already as permanent residents. Had I felt like it, I could probably have taken any of them to my bed without a single complaint. So no, I do not need you in that capacity either."

Anger seemed to be Ivy's way of coping with confusion, because both notes were clearly there. "Then why? Why help me at all?"

Erasmus laughed, only once, before replying. "People call it many things, a moral compass, personal ethics, that little voice on your shoulder telling you right from wrong. I however, like to think of it as something I just do." There was a moment of silence. "Go ahead, laugh. The Lord of Evil has an internal voice that compels him to do very un-Evil things on occasion."

And Ivy did start to laugh, low at first, more of a chuckle. But as the volume built it became a deeper, almost musical sound that she would never have expected to hear coming from Ivy's mouth. Taking the risk of being discovered, she poked her head around the corner so she could see. Ivy was leaning back against the wall opposite of the door to her own bedroom, eyes closed, and smiling. Up until now the only thing she had seen from the other woman was a sardonic smirk, the smile a torturer gave to their victims before hammering nails into the soft parts of the human body. The simple act of smiling changed Ivy completely from a hardened, cruel person into someone that looked quite approachable, even pleasant.

Ivy kept smiling, and shook her head before looking up ever so slightly at The Overlord. "Right now, I don't whether I should punch you in the jaw..." She chuckled again, "...Or kiss you for making me laugh for the first time in a very long while."

Erasmus had his back to her, so she couldn't see how he reacted, if at all. "Well, you let me know when you decide on which one. Let me just say that the first option would probably hurt you a lot more than it would me."

Ivy pushed herself up off of the wall, still smiling. "I'll keep that in mind." Before Erasmus vanished into his room the other woman called out to him. "One last thing..." Ivy waited until The Overlord was facing her; "...If you like, you can call me by my full name, Isabella."

Erasmus nodded once, slowly. "I'll keep that in mind, Isabella."

She pulled her head back and pressed her back up against the wall behind her, mind working a feverish pace to process everything she had just seen. She knew the face Ivy was making right now, it was one she wore when thinking about Erasmus with the utmost of affection. It meant that if Ivy didn't love The Overlord already, she would soon. In spite of Erasmus's words to her earlier about this exact situation, she wanted Ivy out of the Tower before the break of dawn tomorrow.

Dark Tower: Throne Room

Ivy stood on the balcony behind the Portal, staring up into the night sky but not really seeing it. She couldn't sleep, and she was starting to get an inkling as to why. Every single time she had drifted off a dream of The Overlord almost instantly brought her back to the realm of the aware. The fact that she could not get him off of her mind, and that she felt a wisp of something stirring in the void left behind when her adoptive parents both died told her the single most miraculous fact of her entire life. She was in love. For the first time in her life she felt every single gushy feeling that she used to look down on other people for. Especially that disgustingly affectionate couple that kept coming back into the race for the two swords, Xiangua and Killik. She had caught the disease as bad as those two had it for each other, and the wound to her pride was nonexistent. What she did not know, was what to do about it. This feeling had been completely absent from her body for more than twenty years, it was impressive to her that she still remembered what it was called.

A slight sound from behind her, by the Portal, caused her to wheel about with her hand automatically going to the hilt of her sword, "Who..." She saw two angry red eyes in the relative dark and calmed down, slightly. "Oh, it's just you Sophitia." She paused as the blond said nothing in response. "What exactly are you doing down here in the middle of the night?"

Sophitia rounded the Portal and leaned on the railing of the balcony, facing inwards but still looking up. "I could ask you the same thing."

She found herself staring at Sophitia's eyes without meaning to. The overall unnaturalness of the obsidian orbs drew her eyes to the other pair like a moth to a flame. In the dim light, she thought she could catch just the slightest glow from the blood red irises, but it could have been a figment of her imagination.

Sophitia lowered her gaze and caught the stare, remarking matter-of-factly; "It's the eyes, right?" She nodded once before the blond turned her gaze towards the heavens again. "They are a 'gift' I suppose you could say, from the Tower Heart downstairs in the Spawning Pits. Lately, I've begun to wonder if it gave me something else as well."

She was rather surprised that Sophitia was being so open with her. "What else do you think it gave you?"

The blond kept looking up while speaking. "Precognition. I'm seeing things a few seconds before they happen when it could cause me, or someone close to me, harm. It's spotty at the moment though, comes and goes."

She felt her eyes widen ever so slightly. "Still, sometimes is better than nothing. It almost makes me want to go and touch this Tower Heart myself."

Sophitia looked down and met her eyes, a smirk playing across her face. "Somehow I don't think that the Tower Heart would find you 'good' enough to constitute a threat."

A short laugh escaped her. "You're probably right. I'm about as corrupted as they come, considering who my father is."

Sophitia frowned, before leading into the obvious question. "I'm almost afraid to ask, but who is your father?"

She clicked her tongue once against her teeth before responding. "And I'm amazed that I even mentioned it. You've probably already met him, multiple times. Cervantes de'Leon, the Immortal Pirate."

The blonde's red eyes went wide, and she could have sworn that the phantom glow she kept imagining flashed brighter for a moment as well. "He's, I, I am so sorry."

She crossed her arms and leaned on the railing next to the blond, looking out over The Overlord's domain. "Don't be, I'll kill him one of these days. And if I don't, The Overlord will seeing as they have conflicting goals." A long moment of silence passed before she rekindled the conversation. "So, how exactly did you get here in the first place?"

Sophitia smiled and shook her head. "Not much different than how you arrived actually. The Overlord found me near the coast of Wolfkrone while I was fleeing from the soldiers, we fought, he won."

She commented, with a bit of a teasing barb mixed in. "And I'm supposed to be surprised by that fact?"

The blond smirked, and shot back a barb of her own. "At least I lasted a bit longer than you did. The Overlord disarmed you in three exchanges." Sophitia shook her head and continued the story. "Anyways, he used some magic to force me to tell him about Soul Edge, where it was and such things. Then he let me go. A short time later he comes sprinting through the forest ahead of the same army that had been chasing me; he scooped me up and carried me the rest of the way. After he used more magic to slaughter the majority of the soldiers he brought me here. At the time I considered myself little more than a prisoner, so I escaped through the Portal until he eventually rescued me from the mess I got myself into."

She thought the majority of the tale unremarkable, just The Overlord doing what he was best at for the entire stretch. But she could tell from the amount of reverence in her voice that Sophitia was deeply in love with The Overlord. As if the entire Tower quaking to their act of love-making wasn't an obvious enough sign. She didn't really know how to take that, the knowledge that another woman was already that involved with the man she herself was falling for.

Lacking the proper response, she went with something that sounded reasonable. "You activated the Portal yourself? I thought only The Overlord could do that."

Sophitia smiled and pushed herself away from the balcony. "No, it's actually rather easy." The blond gestured to the pool of water. "I could show you if you like."

She nodded to show her approval. "I think I would like that."

Odd as it was considering their vastly different backgrounds, she almost felt a bond of kinship with the former holy warrior. Something far closer to a friend, which was also a foreign concept to her, than real kinship however. As things were, the only explanation she could come up with was that something about The Overlord's magic was making her feel heavily inclined to get along with Sophitia regardless of her personal feelings on the subject, this thought was in the back of her mind though and quickly faded away.

The blond knelt by the Portal and gently tapped the water once. "That's about it; now all you have to do is slide your fingers across the water to the left or right to pick where you want to go."

She knelt as well to, literally, try her hand at using the Portal. It was rather amusing to her that operating a magical thing like this was really this simple; a five-year old child could do this. With a simple twitch of her finger she changed the destination from an open, sun-dappled hill side to a stand of barren sand, from a stalwart mountain peak to a dreary forest swamp, it was incredible.

She gestured to the forest with her free hand. "Where exactly is this?"

There was a palpable shift in the atmosphere, from friendly to hostile inside of a second. The same could be said of Sophitia's voice. "I don't know, but you'll soon find out."

That was all the warning she received before a strike to her back sent her headfirst into the Portal.

Dark Tower: Throne Room

Sophitia felt her breath coming to her in harsh gasps, like she had just run over a hundred miles. She knew that she had followed Ivy down here with the express purpose of getting the silver-haired woman out of the Tower, but after that long and honestly heart-to-heart talk they had had she had started to think that she could bear to live with what might happen. Then, when the opportunity presented itself as it had, an image had flashed through her head of Erasmus and Ivy intertwined beneath a set of sheets while all she could do was watch, isolated. It had been too much for her to stomach. She really didn't even know where she had sent the other woman, if it was perilous or not, or if Ivy would somehow survive and return enraged.

Evernight Forest: Two hours later

Ivy trudged her agonizingly slow way through the thick greenery, trying not to crack her head open on the branches that seemed to materialize out of the bushes inches from her face. She was already dazed from landing on her head when she emerged from the Portal, partner that with the anger she felt towards Sophitia for that sudden blindside and she wasn't thinking at all.

Something sharp pricked her ankle and she slashed at it with her sword. The blade hit something hard and chitinous, before sliding off. When she looked, a large green beetle the size of her entire head scuttled away into the bushes with a large dent in its carapace. A few moments later another stabbing pain hit her from the other side and she missed when she swung at the pest. With the thick foliage she could barely see, so she eventually gave up and just ignored the continual pricks on her heels. Slowly, her ankles went numb, and she started to get the feeling that the beetles carried some kind of poison. That would explain why none of them had tried to physically bring her down; they were just waiting for her to be too weak to fight back. Fury pushed her onwards; she refused to be brought to her knees by a collection of simple-minded insects. Ahead, she saw a light and instinctively made her way towards it. Her legs grew numb, and she was forced to look down to confirm where she was putting her feet. Her torso grew numb, and she had to use the surrounding trees to keep from falling over. Her arms grew numb, and she toppled over forward, physically incapable of taking a single step. She barely registered the feeling of downy soft grass on her cheek before the numbness took over completely.

Dark Tower: Two days later

Sophitia couldn't take it anymore. It was far too soon since she had gotten over the guilt of losing her family for her to be burdened with the knowledge that she sent someone to their death because of her possessiveness towards Erasmus. Especially someone that she had, for at least a moment, felt a flicker of kinship with. Ivy didn't deserve death no matter what might happen between the other woman and Erasmus. On the topic of her beloved, Erasmus had almost brushed off the news that Ivy had vanished in the middle of the night. That in and of itself was odd, but she hadn't been complaining about the apparent lack of interest.

She approached Erasmus as he sat upon his throne, where he appeared to be deep in thought; "Darling, I-"

Erasmus cut her off without even looking in her direction. "You finally came to confess to shoving Ivy through the Portal?"

Having herself cut off with her own admission from someone else's mouth was disconcerting enough. Hearing it from The Overlord was downright frightening. The only thing she could bring herself to say was rather painfully cliché. "How did you know?"

Erasmus smoothly stood, turned to her, and sat on the armrest of the throne. "Sophitia, dear, do not take this the wrong way, but you are almost as transparent as the glassware in your bedroom. Which is fine, you wear your heart on your sleeve, but really, I thought I had put you at ease earlier when we talked."

All she could manage was a helpless shrug, as she felt saying anything else would just make her sound foolish.

Erasmus sighed and pulled her in closer, gently setting her forehead against the front of his great helm. "Well, at least I know your heart was in the right place, even if you overreacted by a small margin."

She pulled away and shook her head. "A 'small margin?' I sent Ivy off to die."

Erasmus then shocked her by starting to laugh. "Had you sent Ivy to the Golden Hills I might agree with you, but Evernight Forest is hardly the place where you can send anything to its death. Don't fret, the elves found Ivy after only three hours, she's fine."

She set her lips in a firm line, not even bothering to question the concept of elves. "And you knew that all along, yet you still let me beat myself up over it?" She shook her head, and let out a short laugh as the irony of the situation hit her. "You're lucky that I love you, otherwise…"

The Overlord stood; "I'll keep that in mind, but hopefully this won't happen again. If so, I'll never have to find out the meaning of the word 'otherwise."

Erasmus headed for the Portal, and she marveled to herself how he had turned a reprimand into a compliment, then into a joke.

Evernight Forest: Elf Village

Ivy slowly opened her eyes, and squinted against the glare, the very fact that she wasn't dead a welcome enough thing to keep her calm for a moment.

A voice spoke, gently admonishing her. "Careful, watch your head."

She promptly ignored that advice and roughly shoved herself up, just as promptly cracking her head against a wooden beam that couldn't have been higher off the ground than the top of her hips when she was standing.

She commented on her observation while clutching her forehead with both hands. "What sense is there in putting a bed in when you can't even sit up?"

The same voice as before responded, in an almost too calm manner. "When the bed in question is meant for a child instead of an adult."

She struggled to put a face to the voice and stared into the glaring light as part of said effort. Slowly, as her eyes grew used to the intense illumination, a face that could both be described as beautiful and disturbing came into focus. She assumed that she was looking at a woman, but to be fair they could simply be an extremely effeminate man. A half-second glance down at the chest area solved the riddle for her, the person, or whatever, was female. Most of the features of the woman's face seemed relatively normal, with the exception that every one of those features looked more fragile by an order of magnitude. The single most striking thing she noticed was that there were pointed ears on both sides of the woman's head. So striking in fact, that she was staring in a way that would be considered quite rude by most people.

Apparently, the woman she was staring at counted among the category 'most people.' "What exactly are you looking at? Have you never seen an elf before?"

She felt her face contort out of skepticism, but that could have been a headache from whacking her head against the beam. "No, should I have?"

The 'elf' woman's mouth twisted in a grimace that still managed to look dainty. "Point taken, we still are very few in number."

The comment was baited, and after a moment's deliberation she took it. "Ok, I'll bite, why are you 'elves' so few in number?"

The grimace was instantly replaced by an expression that you would expect to find on a particularly devout priest, where the term 'faithful' was not so accurate as the word 'zealot.' "Up until recently we were, the rest of the elven women and I, the prisoners of the dwarf king, Goldo Goldenson. The Overlord…"

She stopped listening at the mention of The Overlord for two reasons. One, if The Overlord was involved the tale was only going to end one way, with Goldo dead. Two, there was this little whisper just on the edge of her hearing that was pulling her attention like an angler would a particularly heavy fish. There were no words she could make out, but it carried with it a feeling of duality; serene and savage, beautiful and terrible. Try as she might she simply could not ignore it.

The elven woman started to finish the story. "…And The Overlord stuck his sword through Goldo's head!"

She commented on the, to her, obvious ending, her voice dripping with enough sarcasm to poison an entire city. "Oh wow, I didn't see that coming at all."

The elf obviously didn't get sarcasm. "Oh I know, no one had ever thought he could defeat Goldo's warbeast, but he did easily!" The amount of excitement went up to a disturbing level. "And the best part is that The Overlord made a conscious choice to save my fellow elven women and me, but to do so he had to pass up the personal gold hoard of a dwarf king!"

A flap on the hut opened and the light actually dimmed. This was accompanied by a voice that could only belong to one person. "Regaling my guest with tales of my former conquests, are we Enyala?"

The elf reacted as quickly as if she had been struck by a bolt of lightning. "Oh, only the story about you killing King Goldo, my lord! She just woke up, impeccable timing as always my lord."

A sigh escaped from within the mighty helmet. "Enyala, what have I told you and the other elves about the flattery? Don't keep doing it." The Overlord turned his golden eyes upon her; "Now…" A note of suspicion entered The Overlord's voice, which made her feel uneasy. "Enyala, the messenger neglected to mention this. Was I supposed to wait until now before hearing-"

Enyala's eyes went as wide as dinner plates and her hands started waving through the air in a gesture of harmlessness. "I'm sorry sire! It, it didn't happen right away and-"

She cut the elf off. "Ok, what is 'it?' Don't talk about me like I'm not even here."

Enyala started talking slowly, like you would expect to hear someone to talk in the presence of a violent psychopath. "We, that is to say the elves, have never used our medicine on humans before. It, ah, did something extra after clearing the poison-"

She shifted around until she was kneeling in the small hut, barely brushing the beams with the top of her head. "Spit it out, what 'extra' did your medicine do?"

While Enyala cowered under her glare, The Overlord stuck one of his arms into the hut and subtly pointed to the elf woman's ears. She was skeptical, but given The Overlord's perfect history of being honest with her there really wasn't much reason for her to be, other than she didn't want to believe him. Taking the hint, she felt for the top of her ears and found them about two inches away from where they had been before. Thankfully most of them could be hidden underneath her hair, but the very fact that she had elf ears was enough to almost make her strangle Enyala on the spot.

She made her anger quite obvious, closing the meager distance between herself and Enyala even more. "You, why I ought to-"

The Overlord reached over and seized her extended wrist. "Ok then, we will be leaving now. Enyala, thank you and the other elves for bringing Isabella back safely. I'm sure she'll thank you herself at a later date." The Overlord physically dragged her out of the hut and tucked her waist under his arm without so much as letting her feet touch the ground. "As a token of my appreciation, I'll waive the tithe for this month, farewell."

She struggled against the unyielding metal embrace, full knowing that it was a futile endeavor. "You can't do this to me you-"

The Overlord cut her off once he had left the boundaries of the village. "Can't I? Please, remember who you're talking to."

As usual, The Overlord was going to get his way. Knowing this, she stopped struggling and just waited. Eventually he was going to put her down, for one reason or another.

After about thirty paces into the forest, along the clearly defined path, The Overlord set her back on her feet. "You are aware why we made such a hasty exit?"

She sighed; "You wanted to get me out of there before I killed most of the elves in a murderous frenzy."

The Overlord nodded once, "Exactly. If you still feel the need to brutally murder elves, there are plenty of them in the Dungeon for you to perform whatever horrors you wish." The Overlord gave her a slight nudge forward with his hip. "Now come on, Sophitia has been beating her head against the wall for two days over kicking you through the Portal."

A sneer twisted her mouth. "Really? And you just happened to know the whole time where I was?"

The Overlord shrugged; "I had to let her mull it over for a little bit. I do love her, but what she did to you was wrong. Besides, it's not like she sent you anywhere particularly dangerous. Here in Evernight the only thing you need to worry about is the occasional…" A heavy thud preceded a quake that threw her to the ground. "… troll."

She sprang to her feet and beheld the most hideous thing she had seen in her life, and she had crossed paths with Voldo before. The creature waddling its way down the path towards The Overlord and her was almost unbelievably fat, and every flap of the bloated green flesh bounced with every step. The pair of tiny eyes in the small head seemed glazed over, and a cloying odor of rotten flesh mixed with feces hit her with the force of a charging bull. It was all she could do to not vomit up everything she had ever eaten.

She drew her blade, ignoring what The Overlord had just said about trolls being the only thing he worried about in Evernight. It was high time that this forest learned that she was not a woman to be trifled with, and if this flabby monstrosity wanted a bite out of her she was going to make sure that it didn't have a mouth to use. To that end she extended her blade and looped it around the troll's neck, before giving the bladed whip a violent yank that sent spurts of translucent green blood flying all over the narrow forest path. However, much to her surprise, the troll's head stayed right where it was and the beast simply kept advancing like nothing had happened at all. Enraged by the futility, she attacked again, and again, each lash sending vast quantities of troll blood flying around the path but not hindering the walking blob in the least.

The Overlord barked a command at her. "Isabella! Back away from the troll, now!"

Unable to ignore the voice she turned towards the sound to find The Overlord standing a few paces back down the path towards the elf village. Were trolls really dangerous enough to cause a man as powerful as The Overlord to retreat? While she was looking the other way a flabby fist landed a solid hook to the side of her stomach, sending her crashing against a large tree slightly off the side of the path. She was dazed, but she retained enough presence of mind to watch the obese monstrosity draw nearer, almost mocking her with the languid pace of approach. A thought flickered through her mind, that she was about to die because of her foolish pride, and she silently cried out for help for anything to stave off this horribly ignominious end. A few moments passed, and then a low groan filled the air that could only have come from the troll.

She looked up, and beheld the troll that was now trapped in a net of constricting, thorny vines that were slowly tightening around the doomed animal. The thorns were the color of blood, but deeper, more vibrant. The vines themselves were a poisonous, attention-demanding shade of green that seemed to glow with delight at the little pitiful moans from the captive troll. As she watched, the troll made one last effort to escape and roared in defiance at the greenery. The instant the troll opened its mouth more vines snaked down its throat, moments later emerging from the tiny ears on the sides of the corpse's head. Had the animal not been trying to kill her, she might have even felt a smidgeon of pity.

A metal gauntlet grabbed her by the shoulder and hauled her to her feet before the owner of said gauntlet commented on the twitching thing in front of them both. "I must say, that is one of the most brutal ways I have ever seen something die." The Overlord lightly cuffed her on the back of the head. "That's for almost getting yourself killed. Look up, and to your right."

She obliged, and a dozen or so little green faces were staring down at her with barely contained aggression. What had she heard them called before, minions? These particular ones had a set of long metal spikes attached to each wrist, perfectly suited for stabbing something repeatedly.

The Overlord confirmed her thoughts. "Had you only taken three steps back the troll would have been dead before you could blink." A sigh issued from the crowned helmet. "Still, I suppose if you hadn't been so stubborn we might not have known about the little perk that mishap with elven medicine seems to have granted you." At the prompting of her clueless gaze, The Overlord elaborated. "All elves have an innate connection to all things green and growing, you obviously do not or else everything around you would have sprung to your aid, but you do seem to have earned the attention of this one plant, the alraune, the death rose. I find something Evily poetic about that, don't you?"

She groaned in exasperation. "Let's just go back to the damn Tower. I've had enough of this forest to last me a lifetime."

Dark Tower: Private Quarters

Sophitia was making a beeline towards Ivy's room, hearing that the other woman was back only moments earlier from Heather. She didn't know if Ivy would be open to an apology, or if the silver-haired woman would want to physically tear her blond head from her shoulders, but whatever consequences there might be she had to get this weight off of her chest. She tested the door, found it open, and went inside. Inside the chamber, that was almost the polar opposite of her room only two doors away, Ivy was lying on a couch wrapped in a black blanket with her face looking away from the door.

Before she could open her mouth Ivy beat her to the first word. "Stop, don't say anything. I don't want to hear it."

Her mouth shut with an audible click, then opened again and spilled her thoughts anyways. "I'm sorry for pushing you through the Portal. I was being overly possessive of Erasmus and I don't have the right to-

Ivy rolled over and unfurled herself from the blanket, revealing that she was wearing nothing more than the bottom half of a slinky set of undergarments. "Look, I said I didn't want to hear it because I get where you were coming from. Had I been in your position, I would have kicked me through the Portal as well. The Overlord is a decent man, the first I've knowingly met, and I'm feeling possessive of him already. But, I know that you aren't going anywhere and I've accepted that."

Ivy's mostly-naked state was making her feel rather embarrassed, and uncomfortable. "Well, ah, that's very good to know. Um, I, I think I'll just be on my way now."

Ivy caught her by the shoulder as she was walking away. "I don't see what you're getting so flustered about. It's not like you're only going to see The Overlord when we're all in bed."

A shock traveled up and down the length of her spine and forced it to become ramrod straight, "We?"

Ivy turned her around and smirked. "What? You didn't think I was going to let you and The Overlord have all the fun by yourselves, did you?"

Wolfkrone Wilderness:

Taki sat high up on a ledge overlooking the remnants of the great battle she had attempted to intervene in. By now, the dead had been taken care of, leaving the battlefield strewn with other remains, lost weapons, pieces of broken steel that had once been armor, pools of congealed blood. All that was left a grim reminder of what she was up against, well, the single most important element she was up against. This Overlord, whoever, or whatever he was, ruin followed him as surely as night followed day. He could not be allowed to acquire Soul Edge, for if he did the results could be cataclysmic for the entire world.

She took her mind away from her musings and focused on the rudimentary first aid she was performing. She had not been surprised that Sophitia had become stronger with the aid of her new benefactor, but the degree to which that strength had grown was impressive. Not that she thought the former holy warrior knew it. The sharp boost in power had only emerged under duress, if she wanted to call her attempt to reach the better half of Sophitia duress. Regardless, she had a few broken ribs to deal with, and she couldn't fight or move properly with jagged shards of bone jabbing her insides whenever she moved a single muscle the wrong way.

She put the handle of Mekkimaru in her mouth and bit down hard, mentally bracing herself even as she prepared to cinch the bandages tight enough to choke a small child. With a muffled cry of pain, and a few tears from the same source, she gave the ends of the knot a harsh pull. In a moment, when the red haze of pain faded, she took the time to examine her handiwork, noting the contrast between the fire-blackened bandages and her exceptionally pale skin. There were reasons for that, like how she never traveled by day unless she had no other choice, and if she did it was always hooded and cloaked. Then there was the fact that she conducted most of her 'work' in the dark as well. On the subject of her work, she was reminded of the Fu-ma ninja clan that she had left behind, of Toki, her foster father. She missed them, and there was no way she could lie to herself about that. But Toki was gone, his mind poisoned by Soul Edge, and the clan desired her life in repentance. She would be alone for the rest of her life, and she accepted that, but she would purge all evil from the world before her time came, and on the morrow, she would start with The Overlord.