In the forest, outside of the Dahag school building

Wood creaked and snapped as something truly monstrous plodded its way through the forest. A hulking behemoth, seemingly composed of stone, trampled through the forest recklessly…

"Watch where you're stepping, big stone piggy! You're going to make me chip a nail!"

The shrill female voice was followed by a draconian tail swatting the monster on the head and it whimpered, now starting to plod along much more carefully. On its vine-wrapped stone shoulders were two people… riding on it like some beast of burden.

One was the owner of that draconian tail, a pink-haired girl that was dressed like an idol. The other was a ginger-haired fellow in a green mantle that looked quite disgruntled by this situation. Who wouldn't be with that source of irritable noise next to them?

"Liz… this is a bad idea."

"This thing tried to attack us, so I simply put the arrogant piggy in its place. This is punishment for trying to harm a precious idol such as myself."

"I was the one who weakened it with poison, you did nothing but scream! Still…"

It was a wonder that the monster was actually cowering before her. It was either impressively craven or impressively clever. No one should have to deal with this idol-wannabe on a daily basis.

"I'm pretty sure that sick girl from earlier thinks we've been kidnapped."

"An idol such as I being kidnapped? Preposterous. That's her own fault for underestimating me."

"That's not hard to do."

A path of trees had been cleared out, marking out a rough route for the would-be heroes to follow. Not that this monster was actually out to threaten anyone in its current state of affairs.

Thanks to the fact that this thing was about twenty fucking feet tall, it was simple for the protagonist's party to find it.

"The protagonist is also keeping his distance, well away from that damn thing."

… NOBU's heroic party, then. Though I suppose it's more of a power duo now. Cat only came along with the promise of food as a reward. Turns out she's great at following orders with that kinda premise.

The team of Cat and Nobu jumped in and obstructed the behemoth's path. The idol called Liz squealed as her mount came to a sudden halt. She stood up, tail raised behind angrily, as she started to stomp up and down.

"Nyeh?! I chipped a nail! Why did you stop?! Stupid pig!"

Nobu wielded matchlocks in both of her hands as she pointed one up towards the golem's head. The golem, quite frankly, felt a tad bit perplexed by this.

"You're in a bad place there, newbie. Get off the Spriggan or I might shoot one of your horns off by accident."

"Hold on a sec."

The protagonist suddenly made an intervention. Is he actually going to commit to some heroic acts?

"That is a Spriggan? Aren't those meant to be like, tree things? I think you need to re-evaluate the sources of your monsters, cause that is not a fucking Spriggan. It's more like… like… uh, like a cyclops."

It doesn't even an eye! Cat, please.

"Woof."

The useless main character is taken off stage by the unusually strong Cat, carried underarm like simple luggage.

"H-hey! You can't just enforce your will on a character and remove me from the scene like that! I'm fairly sure that's a breach of the-"

While the fairies repair the mess that is now my fourth wall, let's see how this battle between the SPRIGGAN and Nobu goes. I don't make the rules, I just enforce them.

Liz groaned in annoyance and flared her tail up again as she stood on the Spriggan's shoulder.

"Leave me and this piggy alone! I found it first!"

"You're kinda wrecking the forest. You'll get our House in trouble. Well, more so than usual."

"This House is stupid anyway! Like you!"

"Hoooo! Shall I make some grilled lizard, eh?!"

BANG!

A blazing shot panged off of Liz's left horn and knocked her onto her butt. She blinked, and then screamed…

OH GOD SHE JUST SCREAMED.

The monster clutched its head in agony, dropping the column it had been using as a weapon. In doing so, it shook the screaming lizard off of itself as it started to berserk.

Actually, pretty much everyone had a bit of a moment of madness from that horrendous wail. Seriously, that shit will make you go deaf. Especially with ears as poor as those on Angra-

"WHAT?!"

Yup.

Landing on her backside again, Liz scrambled away from the distressed monster.

"Hyaaaah! R-Robin, save meee! … Robin? Wait, where did you go?! All I can see is a green-mantled stranger running off into the distance?!"

A fist slamming into the ground caused a shockwave that propelled Liz away from the monster. While this was a good thing for her, it did just so happen to launch her directly into our useless protagonist.

"Gaaah my ears… hey wait a sec I thought I was removed from the- OOF!"

Spriggan used Ballistic Blood Countess: Clamorous Cachtice Collision!

Back to the important part, Nobu started to fire off several matchlocks at the Spriggan, chipping off parts of its stony hide. However, this just seemed to anger it further as it reclaimed its column and swung at her.

"You think a slow titan such as yourself can hit me like that? Wrong!"

Ingeniously using her matchlocks as a series of steps into the air, she hopped up and over the Spriggan's head. Each of the rifles fired off as she stepped off of them as well, hitting the beast with some glancing point-blank shots.

"The Demon King is a formidable fighter in her own right! Enough to warrant announcing herself in the third person! I shall bring about your defeat..."

She unleashed an arcing volley of shots into the Spriggan's back as she flew through the air before she landed behind it and summoned a battery of them behind herself.

"Without fail! Mwahahahaha! Eat a fraction of my power!"

Nobu used Three Dozen Worlds: Half-a-Circle Formation!

A concentrated blast fired off from all those rifles at once, the blazing red beam punching into the Spriggan's back and straight through the other side, causing stone shards to fly everywhere as it groaned in agony. Without a central mass to support itself, it simply crumbled into pieces and became one with the earth again.

"And that is how "D3M0NK1NG" plays. Game over!"

Nobu laughed triumphantly over the remains of the Spriggan. Meanwhile, now that the cool part is over, I suppose we should focus back on the "main character".

When he came to, he was met with a pink and white striped expanse before him… now, this would've been possibly a glimpse of heaven if it weren't for the fact that a leathery dragon tail was repeatedly smashing his head in.

With a grunt, he shoved Liz off of himself and rubbed his head.

"Jeez, watch where you swing that thing! Or I'll cut it off and sell it on the black market to buy myself ALL the ramen!"

Liz yelped as she fell flat on her face… but her anger allowed her to recover quickly as she shot up and confronted Angra.

"How could you just sit on the sideline and watch a beautiful idol such as myself become subject to such torment?! Consider yourself lucky to have had the honor of softening my landing!"

"If I wanted a face full of lizard ass, I would've gone to the local exotic pet store. I'm pretty sure the specimens there would have finer asses that I could delicately smother against my shady cheeks than your skimpy, scaly derriere."

She gasped and clutched her backside as if those words had just given her a righteous spanking. Her face went beet red as this hooligan just spoke so freely about her body like that.

"H-h-h-how ruuuude! You can't speak to an idol like that!"

"Probably not. Good thing I'm talking to a pink piece of trash."

That meant the literal equivalent to fuck-all nothing, coming from HIM of all people. Not that Liz was much the wiser to that fact…

"Y-you're the trash, stupid pig! Stupid!"

The green-mantled stranger approached them, before throwing his hood back… oh, wait. Where did the stranger go? That ginger-haired guy from before just appeared in his place.

"Yo."

"R-Robin?! Where did you go? Why did you just leave me with that thing?"

"Oooh, whoops. Did I do that? I thought it wasn't really my problem since it was the monster you managed to conquer and all… I figured you had it all under control."

Liz started to weep a little at all this bullying as she curled up with her tail a little. Cat patted her on the back while Robin came up towards Angra.

"Don't worry. Picking on her like this is the only way to make sure she doesn't get outta hand."

"I wasn't worrying. I was enjoying myself."

"... Well aren't you just a cunt?"

"The most craven and deplorable of all."

"Noted. I'm Robin Hood, if it's any consolation. The girl is Elizabeth."

"Angra Mainyu. Feel free to forget it at any time."

This Robin guy seemed relatively chill, despite the exasperated sigh he gave when he figured out how much of an asshole Angra was. The kinda guy Angra could probably get along with without much problem. Quite the rarity. And by getting along, he meant being able to torment him without much in the ways of violent retaliation. Those kinda guys were great!

"Hey! This is meant to be my victorious moment, yet I haven't even had a chance to speak until now!"

Oh yeah, Nobu beat the thing. Revelling in the success of the little rescue-turned-extermination mission, the group of Dahag newbies made their back to the old school building. There was a feast waiting for them!

A lurking shadow in a nearby tree watched them go, before vanishing at the snap of a branch.

Foreshadowing intensifies.