...Second Fiddle…

Aurdel lay in bed with his eyes closed, the situation that he was in was still somewhat unbelievable. Effectively he'd been kidnapped by Princess Iris and taken back to the capital to tell her stories. Hopefully things hadn't descended into pure chaos back at home. He knew that at least two of his party members were reliable, another being smart enough to not cause massive issues at home themselves. Hopefully Claire or Rain would at least send a letter to them to let them know that he was fine and would be staying for however long he was supposed to stay. He took a deep breath, then felt something heavy land on his stomach and knocked all the wind out of him. His eyes shot open reflexively and he curled up a little bit.

"Good Morning!" It was Iris, she was the troublemaker. Apparently after one of the previous days stories and demonstrations she'd taken it upon herself to attempt some of the things he'd taught her herself. That was probably at the expense of both him and the others in the castle.

"I really shouldn't have taught you to ambush people like that," he sat up in bed with the covers covering him. She really was a fast learner if she'd performed that well already.

"No, it's great. It's how I was able to get out of my room without Claire or Rain seeing me." Oh, perfect. She was using her skills to avoid her own bodyguards and if something wrong happened to her all the blame would squarely be on top of him. "By the way, I handled our problem."

She pulled out a small flash and thrust it into his hands. Normally, he wouldn't accept something like this. But he was faced with the daughter of the king of the country he lived in.

There really was no other choice. He opened the flask and drank it, it tasted absolutely horrible. Within moments his face felt like it was burning. "What was that thing?"
"It's a remodeling potion," a what now? "That one specifically is made to make the user appear younger. But because you're so old it's one of the more potent potions." Great, not only was he completely unsure of what he'd been given but he was also being insulted too.

"And this is all safe?"

"Well, the potion line is actually banned in the country." …

"If it's banned then how did you get your hands on one? A specific variant no doubt?"

"I had Claire go out and find a known dealer who sold the potion, then I had her bring it back. Of course she didn't tell anyone else about it, so right now it's a well kept secret." Royals just do whatever they want, huh?

"And is it supposed to make me feel like my face is on fire and give me a migraine?" He put a hand on his forehead.

"Those are just some of the minor side effects." Just 'some' of the minor effects? This wasn't very confidence building.

"But since you're awake, why don't you tell me-?"

"Your Highness!" Claire shouted, slamming open the door to his room. "I understand that you're the reason for why he is here, but you must have some respect and restraint!" Iris hung her head and walked away from him, "Now come, you must prepare for your studies."

"Yes Claire…" She sounded really disappointed.

"Aurdel, Heidel will come by soon to prepare you breakfast. Until then you may remain in your room." Claire shut the door behind them as the two of them left. So Aurdel pulled the sheets off and stood up from the bed, stretching. The sun shined in from both the stained glass sunroof above him and the large window on the wall in front of the bed. He looked through. Outside was a beautiful courtyard he hadn't seen the previous day due to how dark it'd become, but now he was able to see it in its full glory.

There were mazes of hedges, bushes with flowers and rows of beautiful trees all over. Somehow, they kept all of it alive in this weather and it was a feat to be proud of. In the middle of it all was a large water fountain of marble. Then on the far end of the courtyard was a large body of water not too dissimilar to the Reflecting Pool in the URNA he'd seen in history textbooks. Tending to it was an army of servants and workers of the royal family. Looking at all of this while being here alone without his party felt wrong, he could easily imagine the things Aqua would say. "Aurdel, why can't we have a house like this? I want a giant pool!" Or "A Goddess like me deserves servants, don't you think?" It all led him to wonder just how they were handling him being gone. Hopefully, well.

"WAAAAAAAH!"

"Hiss!" Chomusuke was chasing Aqua around the mansion relentlessly, she was covered in scratches from the cats attacks. Apparently Aurdel had bribed the cat into defending his room whenever they were on quests, and because he was gone Chomusuke still considered it her duty to guard it until he got back. Yunyun didn't exactly know why Aqua wanted to go into Aurdel's room. But she and Megumin weren't exactly taking it well either.

"S-Stop it you two! Harassing me, no matter how nice this may be, won't get Aurdel back here quicker!" Darkness shouted. Yunyun and Megumin were shaking her violently, Anatalia poking her head out above the couch to watch with a bottle of wine cradled in her arms.

"I wanted to talk to him after we finished that dinner!" She pouted, "There was something that I needed to tell him!"

"I'm sure you'll be able to tell him when-" Darkness started.

"YOU want to tell him something?!" Megumin shouted back, "I'm the one that needs to tell him something!"

"You only want to say the same thing because I'm the one who wants to say it!"

"I do not!" The two of them began to grapple with each other.

"What has gotten into you two? You fight like starving wolves over a small scrap of meat."

"You wouldn't understand, Darkness," she felt embarrassed saying that. "I really am-!"

"WAAAAAAH!" Aqua came crashing through, knocking all of them down as Chomusuke meowed in victory

Yeah, probably well. Before breakfast came in he was able to get himself dressed, making sure to hide his weapons on his person again. It'd probably be a sign of bad faith if servant, maid or something of the like came to clean his room and ended up finding a gun, knife and grenade. Not soon after breakfast was delivered to his room just like Claire had said. Unfortunately breakfast was a lot more lively than he'd expected. The things he'd just eaten would make what people against genetic modification for foods look tiny in comparison. The same idea could be applied to any animal activists. For starters, the asparagus attacked him. Now why asparagus was being served for breakfast was one thing, the fact it'd gotten up off of the plate and attacked him was another entirely. He'd managed to go up a level by the time he'd caught and eaten all of it. It was only one of the items in the telltale meal to come. Next we're the eggs. To the untrained eye they looked like normal fried eggs, because they should be, but when he poked it with his fork he found that this egg to whatever animals was still very much alive. In fact it bounced around a little. He put the poor little thing out of its misery. The fact that he gained a level from it too only made it worse.

Last was the Lesser Dragon bacon. How they'd managed to slay a dragon? He didn't know. Why had they turned it into bacon? He didn't know that either. In the end the bacon turned out to taste good, even if the meat was a little bit tough. Fortunately the rest of the meal after that was normal. Unless the tea and bread was actually alive and had tried attacking him at some point, then he'd missed it. With breakfast finished he didn't exactly know what he was supposed to do. He'd been brought here to tell Iris stories, but right now she was in one of her lessons. And he didn't exactly know where he was allowed to go or wander inside the palace. But he wasn't just going to sit in this room all day either. So, since it'd probably bother no one, he'd take a walk. He left his room and stepped out into the gilded halls of the royal palace.

Everywhere he went the designs that were present were those meant to really evoke an air of nobility, these were royals after all, but he felt that in his taste it was much too showy. In fact, if anything, it probably took away from the palace's beauty. But besides that were all of the paintings and furniture lining the walls, each one more expensive the last . As he walked he made sure to keep track of where he was going and kept a visual map of the palace in his mind. Not only would it be bad to get lost in a place like this, but if he ever found himself needing to escape it would be good to know what ways to take to get out of here. And since he'd learned his lesson, he stayed on his toes and threw back an attack from Iris that came out of nowhere.

"Don't think you can me twice twice in the same day, you're not that good yet. But what are you doing here? I thought you were supposed to be having lessons?"

"I did," she proudly said, "But I snuck out."

"You what?"

"I snuck out, just like how you taught me the other day." …

"Then the next thing that I'm going to teach you is how to put people into a submission hold and drag them around, because they're not doing what they should be doing." A few moments later, he was dragging Iris back to her lessons."I apologize for the inconvenience, Rain."

"It's no trouble, I suppose I should have just kept an open on the Princess. We were just going over some battle tactics and she was struggling a little."

"Battle tactics?" He walked over and looked over the table that was set up in the room. There were various pieces placed standing in formations on opposing sides of a map on the table, clearly taking the place of an enemy and friendly army. For the side that Iris was taking there were two regiments of infantry, a battalion of cavalry, a battalion of archers and a battalion of mages, those with advanced magic available to them. The battle was taking place in what appeared to be a small canyon with an entrance and exit on either side. Far outside the canyon was an army, mostly infantry with a few groups of mages but no cavalry or archers to speak of, one supposed to represent that of the Demon King's. "How quickly are the opposing forces moving?"
"Erm, I didn't think of that. Let's say… half an hour?"

"Half an hour…" he repeated with a mutter, "I suppose I see a way this battle can be fought. Given the size of this canyon."

"Given the size of this canyon…? I'm not sure I follow."

He pointed to the cavalry and one of the regiments of infantry, "First, given the size of the canyon and the pace that enemies are approaching my approach would be to exit the canyon and travel along it, behind cover, towards the other side. They would arrive by the time the opposing force had arrived and entered the canyon." He pointed to the remaining infantry. "The infantry will push forwards towards the entrance of the canyon and will hold there until told to retreat. After some time they will feign a fighting retreat into the canyon that coincides with the arrival of the other regiment, causing the hostiles to pursue them inside. Those that were outside will then close off the entrance and finish the encirclement of the enemies. From there the cavalry will assault the enemy from behind with support from the infantry, and from the front the infantry will engage with the supporters of the archers and the mages in the rear."

"That… that doesn't sound like a very honorable way of combating them."

"Honor? It's a battle of survival against a foe of superior numbers, there is no honor here. You need to take any valid strategy that will ensure victory, that's why something like surprise tactics are so effective and commonly used. BUT, they are NOT something to be practiced on your teachers." He shot a glance at Iris, who was sneaking up on Rain to possibly attempt the submission hold he'd done earlier. After that Rain turned and saw, so she backed. "If you really want to train like that, do it after your lessons. The mind is as important as the muscle," Rain gave him a small bow .

"Okay papa." Both him and Rain stopped in their tracks.

"What did you say?"

"I called you papa, because you're acting like my father." He blinked, he knew that someone had entered the room and was standing in the doorway.

"How could you…" Someone said with disgust, it was Claire. He hadn't done anything, but she was staring him down.

"I'm interested, why would you pick a tactic like that?"

He crossed his arms, "I fought a battle similar to this some time ago, though not with the exact same troops or in the same exact method."

Iris grabbed his arms, "I want to hear!" He looked over to Rain, she nodded in allowance.

"Alright, I'll tell you."

"Damn, long range comms are down. We've lost contact with command," the Major near him said, "All we have is the short range with the troops here."

"What are we supposed to do? The Covies are less than an hour away from us!" A Lieutenant shouted. Aurdel stared at the tactical map in front of him and the other officers, looking at the approaching Covenant forces. There was a brigade worth of Covenant foot infantry approaching with the support of light mechanized forces, around the size of a batallion. They would have had Banshee air support but a wing of Longsword fighters had swung by and wiped out their squadrons, nuking a cruiser that was deploying the hostile forces.

"Pull it together," Aurdel said, the officers around him stared at him. He pushed a series of buttons of the holotable, transferring the regional comm to his suit. "Attention men of the Two Hundred and Twelfth Engineering battalion, Third Marine regiment and the Sixty Third Mechanized battalion, this is Spartan Sierra zero zero nine. Communication with command has been lost." A large amount of chatter immediately erupted on the comms, but he spoke through it. "All fireteams willing to fall in with my command, report in."

"You can't assume command!" The Major said, "You may be a Spartan but chain of command suggests that one of us should take charge." He put his finger in his visor.

The replies of officers in command of each fireteam started coming in, every single one had accepted his assumption of command. He stared down the Major, who sat back down in the chair. "Good, now listen to my orders carefully as you will need to follow my exact instructions to get through this battle." He began to divide them up. "Battalions A and B of the Third, move up to Sector B-Twelve and establish minor defensive positions there. Companies A and B Two Hundred and Twelfth hold your position and establish defensive emplacements here, C and D move up behind the Marines and set a net of C-12 charges and Lotus anti-tank mines with one detonation sequence. And for the Sixty Third and Battalion C of the Third, exit out of the canyon via the rear entrance and travel along the outside. The cover will be enough to hide your approach from the Covenant, be ready to move into the canyon from the opposite entrance on my order."

Within moments of orders a stampede of footsteps and engines rang out, the men moving around the canyon according to his orders. The Mechanized forces and Battalion C split up, one half of each going to the east and west respectively. Aurdel walked out of the command post, "Where are you going?!" The Major shouted after him.

"A leader can't lead from behind the frontlines, Major. If I make them take risks I will do the same." He grabbed his gear, taking a DMR and an M6D along with spare ammunition and a belt of grenades. The ride he hitched was one with two other marines, one driving and one on the gunner's position. Aside from the roar of the engines it was quiet as they drove up and took their positions. Half an hour passed.

"Sir, confirmation of Covenant forces approaching from the north. They're a few minutes away from us."

"Let them come Sergeant, it's just as we planned. We'll hold them here until the mechanized are ready to assault from the rear."

"Yes sir," the Sergeant gave a salute and went back to his position. Aurdel looked off into the distance, scoping in with his rifle. He could see the cloud of dust as the Covenant light armor and infantry moved across the badlands like landscape. From here he could see the Ghosts, Shadows and Revenants following the infantry in the rear. Luckily there were no Wraiths, they'd dealt with that heavy armor in an earlier battle with an air strike. Standard AT procedure would work here against the light ones. A few more minutes passed, plasma bolts began to fly through the air. His men returned fire, so did he.

With AP rounds loaded into his rifle he was focusing down on some of the Covenant light armor, taking shots at the Ghosts and Revenants since they were the biggest threats. He fired, the bullet passed through the armor of the ghost. He fired again, the Unggoy behind it had his head splattered and presumably fell on the controls as the vehicle spun out of control and collided with another in an explosion. He fired three times, the propulsion system on a Revenant went out and it dropped onto the dirt. The vehicle was then struck by a rocket shot by a Marine, combusting into a haze of purple plasma and flames. The Warthogs they'd brought did their work too, chainguns spun and did their rounds on the Covenant infantry.

A Shadow charged the frontlines, boosting forward at top speed. Then it was bisected by the gauss cannon of a hog, killing the driver and all of the infantry it carried. The battle had gone on for about twenty minutes when he got the message from the mechanized commands. "Spartan, we're in position and awaiting your order to move in."

"Affirmative. In 0020 hours move from your position and hit those bastards from behind. Battalions A and B, we are moving out!" The men around him got up from their positions, beginning the fighting retreat. He himself made sure to step forward and preserve any lives he could, taking out any Covenant infantry that he saw getting close before they could fire and get a kill on a Marine. Most of the Covenant's infantry here was composed of Sangheili and Unggoy units, though there were a few Kig-Yar here and there. Luckily there were no Brutes or Hunters, so dispatching them was rather straight forward.

They retreated back towards the emplacements established by the engineers, being supported by their covering fire as they fought towards them. Before they knew it they were back in safe positions and off the field of explosives. Unfortunately for the Covenant, they weren't. The Covenant never seemed to hold back or let a foe go, so to see them retreating? They just couldn't resist pursuing it. But that would be their downfall here. "Detonate the charges!" After a five second delay, the charges went off. A cloud of smoke, fire and dirt filled the space where the Covenant had been changing across. Within a moment it cleared, its resulting damage could be seen. Nearly all of the Covenant armor was blown sky high or had become near inoperable, making them a much lesser threat than they were before. And much of the infantry was wiped out too, with those that remained being severly injured but still attempting to fight.

"All units, you are free to engage!" He shouted over the comms, hails of bullets wailed out from their defensive positions and they began to gun down the injured hostiles. Many, mostly Unggoy, of those who'd survived dropped their weapons and began to flee. Even some of the Sangheili which was a surprise, since they supposedly treated fighting as death before dishonor, had fled. They wouldn't find their safety though. The Mechanized and remaining infantry attacked them from the former rear, shells and bullets hailing down on them. Within twenty minutes more the entire enemy force had been wiped out, with medium casualties to their own. The battle was a success.

"There were a lot of things I didn't understand about that story. For example, what does mechanized mean? And why were you using Scorpions and the enemy using things such as Ghosts and Revenants? Was your time as a Spartan also spent fighting armies of undead?"

"This all sounds relatively far fetched to me," Claire said, "I doubt someone like you could lead an army."

"There have been at least three events where I've done that. Two were at the city of Axel, leading all of its adventurers in its defense. The third was at the Crimson Demon village. In all cases all of the opposing forces were wiped out." Claire looked stunned. But Iris had been listening intently the whole time, following every word. There was a look of amazement and wonder on her face.

"So, do you understand it now?" Iris nodded her head with excitement, "Good, now, I want you to finish your lessons with Rain but with what you've learned. Alright? Once you're done, and I'll make sure you're done, you can come and find me and I can tell you another story."

"Okay papa!" Claire's face twitched, Iris sat back down in front of Rain who was still at a loss for words after the whole experience of having her intended lesson shattered by him and his story. So he left the room, he could explore the courtyard next. There was immediate discussion in the room once he'd left and the door shut behind him. "I want him to have dinner with us!"

"Absolutely not Your Highness!" Claire protested, "I don't think that man can be trusted. And please don't call him 'papa!'"

...Worries Unjustified...

"How long does it take to get to the capital from here?" Yunyun asked.

"To the capital from here?" Darkness said, "It takes four to five days by a non-stop carriage, over a week if you go on foot. Why?"

"Because we're going to break Aurdel out!" She was resolved in this.

"Break him out?! He was brought back by the royal family, not imprisoned!"

"Even so, I don't trust it especially if he was the only one taken by that Princess," Megumin said, for once supporting her.

"Yeah! And I don't have any drinking money left and I can't find Aurdel's stash!" Aqua added, caring more for her personal problems.

"That's because the only people who know where it is are me and him," Anatalia said, swiping Aqua's face with her tail, "He knew that if he was ever gone and you were here that you'd look for it."

"You damn fox!" Aqua tried to grab hold of her but missed and stumbled, Anatalia kicked out her legs and sent her crashing onto the floor. After that she sat on her back and held her down as she thrashed around.

"You are right though," she conceded, "I don't trust any nobles, not even royalty. They could easily be doing something bad to him while he's there."

"So, does that mean we're going to get him?"

"Of course we are!" Yunyun said, "It's four against one Darkness, we're going to save him."

"I suppose we are then," she admitted defeat. "Then if that's the case we all need to get ready. The roads to the capital can be especially dangerous with the war against the Demon King going on."

"Maybe we don't need to take the roads. Why don't we teleport there?" Anatalia offered.

"I don't have a teleport point at the capital yet," Yunyun said sadly.

"Who else can we go to that might be able to teleport us there?" They collectively stopped to think for a moment

"You want to teleport to the capital?"

"Yes Wiz, Aurdel needs our help there," Megumin said.

"Well I'd love you to help you all, but I'm afraid I don't have any direct teleport points to the capital either." Four of them let out a sigh of defeat.

"I suppose that settles it then," Darkness said, "If we can't teleport then-"

"But, I do have a teleport point that is relatively close by to the capital."

"What is it?!" Yunyun asked, getting close up.

"I-It's a dungeon near the capital, one that's been completely cleared out and turned into a tourist destination. It's within a day's worth of travel from the capital, so you should be able to get there quickly as long as nothing gets in your way."

"You Goddess of Plagues! Take your hands off of our merchandise!" Vanir was yelling at Aqua, who was busy concerning herself with all of the things that were in the store.

"How rude! Isn't it supposed to be that the customer is always right?"

"Unfortunately for your idiom, you are no customer!" Vanir turned to Wiz, "Wiz, send these troublemakers away before they send us further into debt that you've already plunged us."

"Vanir-san, there's no reason to be so rude. They simply wanted-"

"Vanir Style-"

"Eh?! Alright, I'll send them away!" She had tears as Vanir put down his arms and the glow disappeared from his eyes. "Really Vanir-san can be too mean sometimes." The five of them all huddled in on spot, "I wish all of you luck on your trip! Teleport!"