AN: I just want to clarify that conflict is ALLOWED at the end of the deadline. War isn't going to be armies battling in a snap of your fingers or meet ing in an agreed place like in real-world medieval times (they had an agreed battle location and marched their armies to the place to duke it out). It's going to be slow coming and there's going to be a lot of action before then. Even then, while conflict is allowed it won't be constant skirmishes or anything. Even in the eastern islands I interpret it as more of skirmishes over towns and settlements while armies stock up to really throw down. The kingdoms had been preparing for years but they hadn't expected a war so soon. Townspeople started it. The governments were unprepared. That's why the four years have been, while not peaceful, not filled with large scale battles so far. Besides, this is sort of a technologically and culturally skewed super late medieval era in remnant.
|-\\/-|
Grimm souls chapter 21
The calm
Dexter had been incredibly irritable for the last week before the conflict began. He had noticed it, his teammates had noticed it, and the citizens that moved out of his way timidly had certainly noticed it.
In the two -nearing three- weeks since his discovery of essence Dexter had made very little progress. He had no way of knowing how to create more essence or how he regenerated aura or anything like that. He needed answers but the only way of getting them was asking his mother. Given time maybe he could make some sort of breakthrough but for now his mother was the only way of knowing the further intricacies of aura.
Right now there was the slightly more pressing matter of reporting in to be done. It was somewhat hard to believe there was a battle set to take place in ten day's time. After all...
"This place is a dump." Dexter deadpanned. It was true. The joint high command of Vale and Vacuo consisted of a series of tents with messengers running between them. Signs were posted between the tents with arrows pointed to various tents labeled with logistics, military personnel, command, and a few other military departments. It was all rather chaotic with some men yelling at each other and messengers scurrying underfoot.
"Umm… I think it was personnel with a subsection to huntsmen. Then I show my badge of rank and… stuff." Laura said confusedly. Joan looked around trying to puzzle out where to go. Rella seemed to just throw the towel in the moment she saw the disorganization.
Laura grabbed Dexter and Joan's hands and walked with them to the personnel tent. Once inside there was another signpost pointing to infantry, support, ranged personnel, and finally at the bottom, huntsmen conscripts.
"I suppose conscripts is a good place to start." Laura walked down the path of the sign and followed the signs. A few more posts appeared with the number of messengers slowly decreasing. Eventually there was an office sort of tent series with a man sitting at a desk sorting some papers in drawers behind him.
"Excuse me," Laura called. The man turned around and stared at them. "I'm commander Laura Frost. I'm here with my team under orders of king Grant to be available for the upcoming engagements."
The man raised an eyebrow and held his hand out. "Do you have a missive?" Laura nodded and pulled out a letter from the inside of her cloak. The man carefully opened the letter and scanned the first page. His eyes widened a little but he schooled himself back to the neutral face he had before. "I see… Well you're classified under special orders so I trust you already know what you have to do. Will you be taking your team with you while you fulfill said orders?"
"I will be taking Dexter Frost and Joan Arc with me. Rella Goodwitch is assigned to support huntresses in paragraph eight. Third paragraph of the second page." The man glanced at Dexter and Laura and frowned before looking again at the missive. Dexter stared at Laura with stoic eyes. Why had she put her last name there? He supposed that he didn't actually have a last name but she could have asked. What was she thinking?
"I'll mark you down as present. No need to turn up for final call since you'll be operating independently. Miss Goodwitch…" The man grabbed a slip of paper and scribbled down something on it before handing it to her. She accepted it and nodded before walking off. "I'll see you all at the apartment." She called.
"Despite you and your team operating independently we need immediate information in case of reassignment. Especially considering we don't actually have any documents on your brother-"
"Husband." Laura interrupted. Joan and Dexter both frowned at her but said nothing. She ignored them anyways. The man stared holes in Laura and Dexter. Dexter stared back and he backed off. Sure Dexter didn't know what Laura was playing at but outright saying that he wasn't a frost would just be plain bad not just for Laura but he would have to explain himself and where he's from too.
"Well in that case your husband still needs to fill out a few forms so we know about his capabilities. Semblance, skills, aura levels, combat rank, and the such. Do you or Sir Arc need to update your profiles?"
"I do." Joan said stiffly. The man nodded and handed a few papers to him.
"Just use the staff rooms. They're over there. Take the first right and it'll be on your left a few tents down." The man pointed to an exit on his left and Joan nodded and left.
The man reached to hand some papers to Dexter but laura intercepted them before him and walked after Joan. Dexter growled a little before walking after her. When he caught up to her he hissed "The hell was that?!"
"I don't know your last name so I used mine. Also, since you're not very educated on military intricacies like rank you'll probably need some help. I'm just helping out." Dexter didn't buy that for a second. Something was up.
"Why are you being so possessive?" Laura tensed and glanced to Dexter.
"I'll tell you after the battle. Can you contain your curiosity until then? It's… somewhat complicated. Dexter looked searchingly at Laura… He trusted her. He could trust her with this. He nodded.
"I expect an answer to all of that soon." Laura smiled in relief and nodded back.
The two soon turned into a sort of common room. A quartet of workers, presumably on break, were playing dungeons and dragons on a table over in a corner. Another was reading a book. Joan was filling out his forms on the coffee table in a ring of sofas.
Laura and Dexter sat down opposite of Joan and set the forms down. Dexter rushed through the basic information. Age? Twenty… wait, what was his age? There was the twenty in the grimmlands, the one with Laura, and three with his team so… Twenty four? He put that down. Sexuality? Uhm… Dexter paused at that one. Laura actually froze at that one with some odd expression on her face somewhere between disbelief, confusion, and horror. Dexter put down straight and she sighed in relief. Joke's on her. He actually didn't know what those terms meant for humans. He just filled in the bubble Joan did.
Lineage? A milennia old demon goddess who made him from her pet dog when she fed it a bad soul… No. Dexter marked his mother as a hermit and the rest of his family as deceased.
Wealth? None, which was totally a lie but no way was any kingdom getting his stash of… you know it actually was underground and gold and gems qualified as treasure, right? You know what let's not think about that.
Criminal record? Dexter paused and had a flashback. Stealing every racist's money in cities, breaking into a huntsman academy and evading the authorities soon after, a few counts of property damage (he hadn't meant to blow up that dust! He had never used it before so he didn't know!)... Laura took the pencil from him and wrote down none for him. Dexter looked to her. Oh right. She had done even more crimes than he had. Yeah, he was a model citizen compared to her. How many cliffsides had she defaced? Too many. And then there was the time that she kidnapped that mayor of that one time and switched him with another mayor because of a misunderstanding with a bandit clan. And the other time she purposefully let grimm into a town to trap them and make them easier to kill. Sure everybody had evacuated but that was because Laura tricked him into walking outside in his beowolf form… okay so Laura was basically a demon if you look at it altogether but she wasn't that bad… moving on then.
After filling out the easier stuff it was on to the fun part. Combat skills. Dexter moved to circle B rank but Laura stopped him. "Actually you're more like a high A rank. Calling you an S would be a stretch since you can't always go all out though."
The workers looked to Dexter in surprise at Laura's assessment. Joan didn't look particularly caught off guard.
"So A rank then?" Laura nodded. Now combat skills. Semblance? Transformation. Under description Dexter noted his ability to physically change to a grimm, gave a few of his forms, and his ability to create weapons like a bow, daggers, throwing knives, spears, and swords from bone.
Under abilities and techniques Dexter marked his sword as expert level and remarked that he could use generally any weapon pretty well. He added his experience in using dirty tricks but refused to specify, naturally.
With that done there was just one more thing to do… "Laura? What are these?" Laura stopped looking over Joan's papers and looked to Dexter's.
"Those are attribute ranks. Normally people do a test for this stuff but with my vouch you skip the tests and go straight to writing results with my supervision. There's speed, strength, dexterity, aura, endurance, and perception. There used to be intelligence but it was removed a decade or two ago. I think Mantle still uses that attribute though. They go by letter grade with a, let's say C+ right below a B- and then it would be B and then B+ and so on. After S, which is above A, you get SS and SSS. The king actually has an S in agility but he makes up for it with a SSS in aura. Beyond that you would theoretically put down an X. There have been a few people that have a semblance that makes them tireless or gives them incredibly enhanced senses so we can put down an X there. Really X just means too high to classify or there's a serious technicality from a semblance."
Dexter frowned at the attributes list. "So what are mine then?" Laura rattled them off without pause.
"Strength: B, perception: C+ but you can change that if you change forms… um, endurance: S+, agility: A-, aura: A-." Dexter filled in the attributes and smiled. He was pretty strong, huh? He wasn't specialized at all but there weren't many situations where he wasn't prepared it seemed. His endurance, though… It would probably be unclassifiable since he didn't need sleep or rest. Perhaps an X… That actually made classifying grimm skewed since aura would be lower than F and Endurance above SS. The way to measure grimm could only take into account strength, perception, and agility. Perhaps armor and size would replace aura and endurance. All grimm had no techniques though. They were beasts so they fought as such. An interesting measurement.
"You done?" Laura asked. Dexter handed the paper over and Laura scanned it. She frowned. "It says here that there's no emergency contacts. There's also no location for your mother." Dexter nodded.
"My mother doesn't really… she doesn't like to be bothered." Laura chewed on her lip.
"There's no way to get in contact with her?" Dexter nodded. She sighed.
"Well alright. Joan, do you mind being his primary emergency contact?"
"I'm fine with that. If it's an emergency I don't mind helping."
"Good. I'll be his secondary." Dexter looked to the two amusedly. He didn't even get a say? Well he didn't much care anyways. There wasn't much he couldn't get himself out of.
The trio returned to the man at the desk and turned the forms in. The man put them in a drawer and waved them away. The three walked back to the apartment in silence.
|-\\/-|
"So…" Joan murmured. "It's tomorrow, huh? That we finally get to actual fighting." Nobody replied. It wasn't like anybody actually had to. They had been counting down the days. For the last few days the team had been coming to terms with it. Training had been put on hold since nobody could focus properly.
"So what's it going to be like?" Rella asked.
"I've imagined it as we sit there and wait for them to come or we come first. One side puts up a shield wall and braces as the other side comes closer." Laura said quietly.
"I thought of it as two armies cavalry going in first. Bodies fall. Then the infantry goes in." Joan said.
"Nobody will be using cavalry this time." Dexter pointed out. "Huntsmen and huntresses will be there. I wouldn't be surprised if they have some sort of animal control semblance. The only competitors will be soldiers and the huntresses and huntsmen. Huntsmen hounds will be held back to track down stragglers most likely."
"And what do you think will happen?" Laura asked. Dexter looked thoughtful for a moment.
"The armies meet. They're ordered forward so of course they start to meet in the center. But here's the thing. Huntsmen and huntresses are allowed to operate independently. Like us. Somebody is going to pull some sort of dirty trick. Like Laura's semblance. Five people like her throwing wide area attacks to whittle down infantry would be near catastrophic without a countermeasure. Huntsmen and huntresses might have trapped the battlefield beforehand as well. There's also the matter of constructs like what Rella has. I once met a girl who could personify nightmares. At least, that's what she thought they were. Creatures like those nightmares and golems will walk the battlefield."
Everyone looked grim as Dexter finished. "Chaos." Rella whispered softly.
"Battle is a measurement of power. Nobody said anything about tactics. When it comes to huntsmen and huntresses you can only operate small group tactics. Hunters are too diverse and unique to operate uniformly. That's why we're given free reign. Nobody can regulate us as a whole unit." Joan stated. "Luckily we're not quite to that point yet… but obviously this is going to be… new."
Laura got up out of her seat and walked to the kitchen. She knelt down and reached into a cupboard. When she got back up she had four wine bottles in her hands. She walked back to the table and passed them out. Dexter had what could almost be called a smile when he saw that they were chilled by her semblance. She walked over again and retrieved glasses for everybody.
Dexter made a corkscrew out of bone for everyone. They all screwed them in and small smiles were passed around. "On three." Rella said. "One… Two… Three!" The corks all came out with soft pops. Everyone carelessly threw the corks and corkscrews aside. The bottles would be empty by morning.
The wine was quickly poured into the glasses. The glasses clinked as they met in the center. "Cheers!" the four said in dissonance. Dexter savored the taste. A smooth and fruity taste complimented a strong and pleasant smell. Dexter liked it. He hadn't actually tried wine but he liked it more than the whiskey or beer he often found in taverns with Laura.
"I actually don't much like wine." Laura admitted. "Whiskey is more my type. I thought of a few other drinks but alcohol is expensive with the soldiers taking all of it. They pay for it of course but good alcohol is becoming a rarity."
"Why didn't you just steal some?" Dexter asked. "I know you could have." Laura shrugged.
"Vacuo is poor. Wine is expensive normally. This here is two weeks worth of earnings." Dexter glanced at the glass and smiled as he sipped it.
"I actually stole alcohol once." Joan spoke up with a fond smile. "I broke into my family's wine cellar and drank maybe four bottles until I was too drunk to stand. It wasn't until later that I found out that the wine was so young that it was practically grape juice."
"I did the same." Rella said with a nod and a smile. "But I didn't drink fruit juice. It was some vintage wine. My father had had the barrel fermenting for quite a while. He had planned to drink it on his anniversary. I actually spilled it on the floor when I was on my fifth glass. My father was furious but I apparently said something funny and he got over it. I still don't know what I said. I was too tipsy to remember."
A round of laughs went through the group. "Is stealing your paren't wine just a rich kid thing?" Laura asked. "I mean, I stole from my family's wine cabinet but I was caught before half a bottle went down."
"It's more like a tradition all the cool rich kids do." Rella explained. "The cool kids go 'I stole like three bottles and drank them with my sister.' and all the normal kids would ooh and wow at the kid. Then everybody else wants to try it. It's like a right of passage for some."
"I just wanted to see what being drunk was like." Laura admitted. "Now I find it silly but back then it was a whole mysterious spiritual experience. Like losing your virginity sort of."
"Ah yeah. Kids did brag about that." Joan recalled. "Kate Taylor mostly. The pretty girl in classes. I'm pretty sure she slept with two guys at once a few times in Vale's royal hunter school."
"That sounds like Matthew Nemesis in my class. Popular kid who sleeps with all the others?"
"Yeah. That kid."
"Why are you rich kids so bad?" Laura asked curiously. Dexter started on his second glass of wine. "I never had a class whore and nobody talked about breaking into wine cellars or cabinets when I was in school."
"Maybe it's a desire to act out?" Joan guessed. "I was actually a pretty good kid most of the time. It was kind of hard to be bad when all that was expected of me was to know how to use a sword."
"I had to keep grades up, make friends, do chores, and half the time I needed to cater to my grandmother and grandfather! Why couldn't I be rich?!"
"Oh yeah? I had to know how to sew. Take that!" Rella teased.
"Oh my," Laura drawled sarcastically. "I NEVER did that. I just had to know how to garden, clean, cook, and… oh wait, I did sew. All the time." Another round of chuckles went around.
"Dexter what did you do as a kid?" Joan asked. Dexter finished his sip and set down the glass.
"I didn't have what most would call a normal childhood. I was eight years old when my mother unlocked my aura. She then kicked me out of the house and I survived on my own." At this point Rella's eyes were wide. Joan had choked on his wine and Laura's mouth was open in shock. Dexter was trying to lie as little as possible. He had actually been nearing seven months old when his aura was given. He also hadn't really survived as learned to fight.
"I learned how to fight on my own. Food and water wasn't a really big issue. I was actually trapped in a canyon for a time before getting out." Actually it had been a continent full of deadly grimm and twenty years but same difference. "I began to get a grasp on my semblance abilities around then. Transforming to make myself stronger. I didn't figure out bone weapons for a while. Until I met Laura for the first time." Laura laughed then.
"I never actually told you how we met did I?" Laura said. "Sorry, Dexter. Is there anything else?" Dexter shrugged.
"I eventually escaped the canyon and met a few different kinds of people. I got a handle on social skills pretty quick and wandered around a while. Being a nevermoore makes travel easy. Then I wandered into the town Laura was in and… well I'll let you tell that part."
"Right. So I woke up one day and went into a town. For the life of me I can't remember the name of it. It was a trade hotspot. I was walking down the street and saw a cat laying on a fat man's lap. It was the most peaceful scene I had ever seen. The pastries the man was selling weren't even being stolen despite the man being asleep. Now, nothing actually happened there. But then when I went to sleep I had a man coming after me. An assassin."
A small gasp came from Rella and an interested hum from Joan. Dexter frowned as he remembered that. No pastries had ever compared since he had those.
"I dealt with the guy pretty easily. But before I went to sleep I saw these eyes. A spooky grimm eye and an indigo one. I fell asleep before I did anything. I was tired, had a budding hangover, and had been briefly woken up. I wasn't exactly lucid. I was kind of paranoid the next day. I kept an eye over my shoulder as I got rid of the assassin's body and counter-stalked Dexter."
Dexter took over for a moment. "For the entire day I was just screwing around. I got conned, met a weapons guy who offered some ideas for weapons, and tried making my bone weapons on my own."
Rella and Joan seemed to be happy to sit back and enjoy their drink. Laura took this as a cue to continue talking.
"I slept the night through again as a test to see if Dexter would hurt me. He didn't but obviously I still wanted answers. I did normal things for the whole day. I did my laundry, got new polish for my rapier, and generally did chores. Then that night I laid in wait on the rooftop I saw Dexter go to before. He was a tiny cat you would see as a pet at the time so I just snuck up on him and snatched him up. I gloated a little but he surprised me. He, get this, punched me in the face with his fluffy kitty paws! He just moved around my cheeks a lot and smooshed up my face. It was hard to keep up a deadpan when it was utterly adorable."
Joan laughed at the description and Rella smirked at Dexter as she took a sip.
"I was trying to escape!" He protested. Laura grinned.
"After harmlessly attacking me he decided to transform to his sort of leopard/panther form. He grew too heavy to carry and I was left with a dislocated nose while he ran away. He ran away but he jumped through the window to the room I was in. Unfortunately for him I had trapped the hell out of my room so he set them all off at the same time. He utterly wrecked the room and ran away. I didn't want to be questioned so I packed my bags in record time and got out of dodge."
"I met up with her a little after and we got together." Dexter finished. Laura blushed but shook it off. Dexter winced internally as he got how his words could be misinterpreted. A glance at the others showed Joan to be red faced from the alcohol. He was drinking slowly now. Rella was alright at a glance. She could hold her drink well though.
By now most of the wine was gone. Laura noticed this and walked back to the kitchen with a slight stumble. She came back with a small assortment of alcohol. Dexter eyed a few types before getting a gin. It was tasty. Definitely his favorite kind of alcohol though bourbon was alright and wine was quite nice now that he tried it.
"Is there anything else to do than drinking and talking? It's alright but I doubt this is all you had." Dexter questioned Laura. She smirked.
"Yup! We're going to watch a play."
Dexter wondered if there was some sort of non-literal interpretation he was missing but then again… this was Laura, who thought flying a nevermoore in a storm while tossing lightning bolts around was a fantastic idea. Who adopted a beowolf and made it into a guard dog. Who rode ice skating goliaths on a large pond she personally froze over. She might be talking literally. He really hoped she was. Just seeing a play would be nice for everyone. Especially since everyone but Dexter was having a pleasant buzz. Except Joan but he was a lightweight. It's his own fault.
|-\\/-|
"That was horrible." Dexter groaned in disgust.
"I- *sniff*- I-I just wanted Koko to be happy! Why did she have to- to- to d- die!" Rella cried into Laura's chest with hiccuping sobs. Joan seemed apathetic to the whole thing.
"I think they could have done a better job with the other characters. Really only Koko and Banri were important. Besides, the ending was exactly as expected. Completely predictable."
Laura shrugged. "I zoned out around the last quarter. I'm more curious how they can legally play this. Doesn't it make people sad and attract the grimm?" Joan nodded.
"It's supposed to be a mark of how we freely display art and emotions rather than bind them like Mistral and Mantle. By showing this people get less paranoid about the kingdoms shutting off sad films to reduce grimm attacks." Laura made an "Ohhh." of understanding and kept walking.
"So… sleep?" Dexter asked. Joan nodded. Rella tried to nod between her crying. She got her point across. Laura yawned loudly.
"Well… Actually I've got an idea for you Joan. I zoned out and realized something. Well you see…" Joan listened to Dexter's plans before grinning devilishly.
"Yes. Yes Dexter. This may be the best idea you've ever had." Dexter laughed lowly. Tomorrow was officially the start of the conflict and skirmishes were expected between hunters. Hunters weren't actually allowed to publicly kill the enemy yet though they were allowed to kill hunters (As if they could). For the armies it was to see who struck first but… If Dexter's plan worked it would be a fun day and a VERY productive one. It wouldn't exactly be fun for Mistral or Mantle but at the very least he would make it easier on Vale's side for a little while. Though to call him on Vale's side would be a bit of a misinterpretation. For the country he didn't hold any loyalty whatsoever.
"I'll find a red contact lens. There's bound to be one around the camp somewhere." Laura said with a sly grin on her face. Dexter's face mirrored hers.
Omake: Ice skating with goliaths
"Laura there are too many!" Mancer cried. The grimm howled at the team of five from the edges of the pond. They were completely surrounded on their little ice floe in the pond.
"... I have a plan. Dexter, sneak off and blend in with the pack. Joan, amplify Mancer's aura. Mancer, flare your aura with Joan's semblance boosting it for a moment. Make it a big flare." Mancer looked wary of the orders. A flare of aura like that would attract grimm for miles. But Laura knew what she was doing.
"Rella, make constructs with range and pick off some grimm or cripple them. Keep grimm off of Mancer. Now, start."
Dexter became a smallish taijitu with some fins he added on himself and leapt into the water. He squirmed a little and wriggled through the water like an eel. Above him Laura was standing still as power grew dense around her. She pushed out to the water and began making a thick sheet of ice over the top of the water. She was careful not to trap Dexter in ice. Mancer ran away from the group and sent a thumbs up to Joan. Joan flicked the switch on his semblance and felt the twinge that set Mancer's aura aflame.
A brilliant flash of light briefly blinded every grimm in the area. They howled in a frenzy at the large amounts of aura in one person. Joan's semblance lowered and Mancer could tell he had lost a fifth of his aura in that one flare.
A hail of arrows fell onto the grimm from some constructs Rella had made from ice, wood, and stone. Some grimm fell but most were annoyed and lightly injured. Only one or two died from lucky shots. They growled but none of them were distracted as they began swimming after Mancer.
Dexter reached the shore and transformed to a beowolf alpha. He slipped into the distracted horde of grimm and ran after Mancer with them. He made sure to slow down those that got too fast to be a threat to him.
The lake finally froze over completely and Laura sighed in relief. It was far easier to keep ice cold than make more of it. She could keep this up for a half hour if she had so. Beyond that she would feel the backlash of splitting headaches and lose concentration.
Everything seemed to grow quieter as a pounding of footsteps grew close. Everyone, be they man or grimm, looked to the noise. A huge form came out of the trees. Four tusks the size of the largest spears emerged and a dark hide painted with slashes of white scars came marching from the sparse forest. Seven other smaller goliaths followed shortly after.
Everybody watched as the alpha goliath tested the ice. It put weight on it and the ice creaked slightly but did not break. It slowly trodded onto the ice and found that the ice would hold. Laura had made the sheets extra thick and hard to support their weight. She had made a few small pillars of ice underwater to help support the weight on the sheet as well.
As the others looked to Laura for directions she grinned ferally. "Now jump onto them! From the trees opposite their side! Except Mancer!"
Mancer and Joan paused for a moment in shock before Joan ran to the trees with a shout of "sorry!" while running to the trees. Joan took the liberty of inflaming his aura slightly to get to the trees faster. Dexter sprinted after them with a blast of aura from his hind legs to give him momentum on the ice. It also blew the other grimm back from pursuing the squad.
As the squad reached the trees they scaled the trunks hastily. Dexter also shifted back to a faunus form. The goliaths seemed to be getting ready to charge the tree line to stop whatever the hunters were doing. Little did they know this was exactly what Laura wanted.
As the goliaths' charge neared the tree line Laura, Dexter, and Joan leapt onto their backs. The goliaths they jumped onto were so surprised that they stopped their charge abruptly.
"Joan! Supercharge Mancer's aura! Mancer! Flare it!" Joan used his semblance again and Mancer lost another fifth of his aura. Even the goliaths, while smarter than normal grimm, felt a rage set in on their minds at the quantity of the aura. Even the alpha succumbed to the urge to pursue the aura. They initiated another charge against Mancer.
The goliaths rapidly gained on Mancer. However, the assortment of grimm that had been chasing Mancer since the lake got frozen were in the way. The goliaths didn't even notice as they trampled the grimm underfoot. As the stampede overtook the horde the group had been reduced to a fourth of it's former size.
"Okay that was smart." Joan shouted from his goliath. "But what now?" Laura cackled. Under Mancer a pillar of ice rose under him. He caught on quick and hopped onto a goliath.
"Now… let's have fun! Flare your auras to direct goliaths to you. When yours wears down hop to another one!"
On the sidelines Rella, forgotten, gaped at the pure absurdity as she watched goliaths slide around the ice rink Laura had created. Ten minutes later the alpha goliath accidentally stepped on a fallen compatriots head and the first goliath died. Ten minutes later two more accidents had happened. Ten more minutes and only the alpha and one somewhat lucky goliath still lived. It was an absurd sport somewhat like bowling, jousting, and ice skating rolled together mixed with a rave from the lights of the auras being flared that bounced off the ice.
"That's enough! From above the goliath on the count of three attack the head as much as you can on the count of three. Rella! Get some golems patrolling the perimeter while we rest up! We used a lot of aura. Now… One. Two. Three!"
On the third count Joan coated his blade in aura and sliced and stabbed furiously into the alpha goliath under him. Dexter turned to a beowolf and with a large amount of aura funneling into his claws he did what could only be called digging into the skull of the smaller goliath. Laura and Mancer hung back in case the others were thrown off or they had to stop for some reason.
Within half a minute the goliaths were dead and gone. "That was the most absurd and idiotic thing I have ever seen." Rella said in disbelief. "I'll remember this for a long time."
"That was definitely not the orthodox way of dealing with goliaths." Joan observed with a wide smile on his face. "Certainly far more fun and satisfying than luring them into traps.
"I kind of want to figure out how to transform into a goliath now." Dexter muttered. Sure he could fly but… that was REALLY fun.
"Maybe we can do it again." Laura mused. Everyone wondered if her crazy was infecting them because that actually almost sounded like a good idea for a moment. Just one. Then they came back to the smallest bit of rationality adn decided against it.
With an alarming cracking noise everyone's attention turned to the goliaths . Under them were cracks on the ice. The alpha was the first to go. The instability from the big hole in the ice made a second corpse fall through then. And then a third. Things seemed calm for a moment then.
"Let's… let's not do that again. For our safety." Rella said shakily.
"I still say we should." Laura muttered. Dexter actually found himself agreeing somewhat. He couldn't die of hypothermia so… but Rella would scold him. Yeah let's not do that again.