Author's Note: So my personal favourite Mirelia Melromarc moment in this chapter, not one that has appeared in the series but rather my own personal version of the woman. Read, Review, Favourite and Enjoy!
Chapter 34: Faubrey Invasion: First Phase
Tulina and Nelshin had both been killed by the Sword Hero like wild monsters, Rulina was killed by the Bow Hero during the border attack and Ashil was missing, her Monster seal had been removed from his authority, Shate was killed by the Spear Hero's monsters, Melrith had been vaporised when the Queen's trap went off. How many were left now? They can't consider Ellie as a combatant, Malty was grinding with him but they can't consider her a combatant either, that's just Leludia who can help him fight and even then the enemy likely had dragon slayer weapons on them, they wouldn't have been able to kill Nelshin without one. That just left him to fight by himself.
"You've got a plan don't you?" Malty was currently helping him to drown his sorrows through the use of her smoking hot body along with Ellie and Leludia but that said Malty was the one who preferred the use of Angry sex, likely because she's got her own rage issues that she needed to work out.
"I should've never let all of you fight for me." Takt stated making his opinion clear. "This has become painfully obvious now." Takt looked up through the sky light that hung over his bed room and grinned nastily. "If you want something done right then you need to do it yourself!"
"Kyurie!" Katarina had been brought to tears. "Kyurie!" The vampire boy had been taken back to Melromarc where his injuries were being seen to by the castle's healers. As far as he was concerned having his lady relieved sobbing into his torso was well worth the temporary loss of limb that resulted from it.
"Katarina I understand that you're happy to see him again but if I could pull you away from your pathetic weeping for a few minutes the King wants to have a word with us." Elena stated bluntly arms crossed and tapping her foot impatiently. Elena was not aware that she would literally have to drag the younger girl away.
"That's all that I know." Melty stated and the King nodded his head in response.
"I can't tell if your mother is being brave or foolish." The King stated as he let out a sigh.
"Your turn now." Melty stated in reply.
"What has been going on here?" They received rumours that the shield hero had been killed yet was still alive roaming about the country side dishing out meals, medicine and accessories in maid outfits. Near half of the nobility in the country had been placed under house arrest, most of them part of the pro-demi-human faction while others had been killed in mass demi-human uprisings. The Church's forces had seen mass arrests and she personally witnessed the pope being dragged into the newly rebuilt dungeons.
"Your mother left me with a mess to manage." Trash stated letting out a sigh. "The majority of nobility in this country are still worshippers of the church of the Three Heroes, your mother's efforts to the contrary. Perhaps she can change the minds of every noble in the country, or failing that replace them with people who share her desire for peace." Trash's look turned hard at that statement. "But the waves are not a time to do that."
Perhaps things might have been different if the Lord Seatto was still alive, or his wife trusted him enough to run the country in her absence. But the Lord Seatto had been hit by a unexpected pincer, the waves and then Rabier's betrayal on top of them. Thanks to his years of deliberate ignorance to Malty's psychopathic behaviour his wife also believed him to be senile on top of that. So he had to make some bad decisions in order to keep the country from falling apart. Not that he was the only one making some stupid decisions. Speaking of stupid.
"Oi!" Elena kicked open the door leading into the throne room, literally shivering though the cause wasn't the temperature. "What the hell is wrong with this one!?" Elena snapped gesturing to the child she had dragged in there by her collar.
Katarina had a aura of dark energy surrounding her person, like she was still using the cursed series even though she put the damned weapon away.
"Hmm." Trash looked at the younger girl and assessed her, while physically she seemed to be okay there was something clearly... off about the girl that he couldn't put a finger on. "Take the Spear hero to see the royal mage, with instructions to use the royal assessment orb."
"You want me to keep staying with her!?" Elena asked pointing at Katarina though the girl was already leaving.
"Where is your mother?" Trash asked brow raised into the air.
"She insisted on staying behind in Faubrey." Melty stated closing her eyes as if thinking about something unpleasant.
The old man groaned as he thought about the situation.
"What could she be doing that warrants that she remain in Faubrey?" Trash put his hand on his chin as he mentally recited the options.
I refuse to put up with Faubrey's constant bullying a single moment longer. If they mean to attack us I will not waste time pandering to them and will instead act to spite them!
Trash shook his head in the negative. His wife is not so hotblooded as to pointlessly sacrifice herself.
I intend to sacrifice myself to ensure that Melty can get out of the country safely, she will go through the border in a low quality carriage while I will stay behind to draw their attention.
No that wasn't it either, her actions didn't fit with that plan considering that she still had yet to be found. Suddenly a light bulb went off above the head of Trash as he came to the conclusion he had been looking for.
"Oh Mirelia you sneaky little minx." Luckily he already sent Tanya ahead in order to infiltrate Faubrey.
The Bow hero had been rather annoyed by the antics of the church of the Three Heroes. The Church already managed to self destruct, culminating in a flat out attempt to kill Maple through repeated holy smiting, figures that girl already gotten durable enough to tank repeated smiting from god. As for those who believed that the Shield Hero would have no offensive power, they clearly didn't see whatever the hell the church fanatics saw when Maple decided to go on the offensive. Either way Tanya had other priorities to attend to, and getting there was as easy as acquiring a few more levels.
"Figures that Fighter pilots got it easy." Tanya muttered from within the confines of her newly acquired Silphene bow transformation sitting on expensive leather.
"What was that?" Katarina asked her voice coming out of the communication crystal bow that Tanya had transformed the rifle closest to her cockpit into.
"Approaching the capital of Faubrey and awaiting clearance." Tanya was soon sent over the coded sequence that the fighter pilot that they were able to capture had generously given them after some slave seal aided enhanced interrogation and so was now rapidly approaching the capital. She was given landing instructions once over the capital, and so opted to ignore them now that she was past the outer rim of the countries defensive perimeter, flawed system that was.
"I have the church in sight." Tanya stated and so landed outside of it. She turned two rear mounted guns into Usapil Bows and so as a result acquired crude legs while she prepared the remaining four mounted weapons to go on the offensive. "I am the Bow Hero and You are in my way! Surrender or be destroyed!" Tanya snapped angrily and to her surprise the doors opened up for her.
Course now she was left with the awkward situation of being fifteen feet tall trying to fit into a door way for people who are below six feet. Course Tanya saw no reason why that should stop her and so walked through the opened doorway and in the process corrected the egregious issue of it's height.
"Sir Hero." The old Priest greeted Tanya warmly, even as a section of the destroyed doorway fell on the ground next to him. "It is good to finally get to meet you, circumstances as they may be what they are." Tanya raised her brow suspiciously even as the priest led her away. "You've come for the Dragon Hour Glass right?"
"Among other things." Tanya stated sounding clearly confused. It wouldn't be hard to figure out. And indeed he led her to the Hourglass and she registered with it. "You do realise I'm invading you correct?"
"I am not ignorant to what our king is like girl." The Priest stated and there was anger in his tone however much calm he forced into it. "I would invade us too." Light suddenly started to glow coming from above them.
"You should go now." Tanya immediately recognised the light of the magic of judgement. Course she wasn't without her ways of disrupting it ether. Tanya smashed her way through the roof and her ship's systems told her where she could find the source of the magical energy that was about to come crashing down on the church and acted appropriately, using several bows to fire into the area where the people were casting the spell was located until they either stopped or were killed.
"The Bow Hero is attacking the country?" Takt asked a tone of disbelief on his features. He expected them to wait until after the wave had started, what they were doing here now was a mystery to him. No, it didn't matter. He needed a test subject for his new weapon, and if he got the legendary bow out of the bargain? Bonus. "Ellie have we found the Queen yet?" Takt asked as he put his shirt on over his new armour.
"No Takt, and the rest of the Dignitaries have disappeared too. We can't even find Nelshin's people." The Maid that Takt had bent over a table as he plowed her earlier that morning explained before she turned and faced Malty. "Perhaps if someone who knew the Bitch better was out looking for her..."
"That's cute you think I understand how my mother thinks." Malty stated letting out a harrumph. "When I was a child my mother shipped me off to have my education done in a country whose ruler is known for taking young women and killing them slowly and cruelly. By the time I nearly got back to my home land with my life I had discovered that my own mother had already replaced me!" The red headed woman snapped before she stomped over to Ellie and glared at her in her eyes. "So ask me again how well I know my mother!"
"Enough!" Takt snapped as he glared at the City's horizon. "There are more important things to do here then bicker! Do we have any Silphene left?" Takt asked as he adjusted the cuffs of his clothes.
"They were already dispatched." Ellie quickly proved that she knows Takt a lot better than most. "But they weren't able to find where the diplomats are located."
Takt wanted to curse again. They already turned the city upside down looking for the Queen and now they had lost track of where they were.
"Expand the search and find out where their carriages have gone!" Takt ordered as he got several injections ready.
"Those haven't left their stables yet." Ellie stated prompting a scowl from Takt.
"None of them?" Not all of those people were smart enough to think that their carriages would have giant targets plastered on their backs. Others would use them as decoys, only a few would be smart enough not to use them at all. Which meant that no one had left yet. Which came back to the previous issue of the entire city being turned upside down and not finding them. Then a thought occurred to Takt.
"Where haven't anyone looked yet?" Takt asked narrowing his eyes as he growled in displeasure at the situation.
"We only looked inside of the Royal palace once." Ellie stated plainly. "After Melrith was blown up. But you seriously don't think that they would've gone back inside after..."
Why not? All the guards were sent out into the streets so there were none left in the palace. Sneaking back in would have been easy as pie and no one was looking for them inside. Thus Takt ground his teeth as he gave out orders to his associates.
"Tear down the palace if you have to, but find out where the Queen and the other diplomats went!"
Tanya had just finished dispatching the people who were dumping judgement on the Church of the Four Heroes, they're more amicable than the Church of the Three Heroes, so she would preserve them for the time being. Then someone started shooting at her.
"Locking onto target." Tanya traced back the source of the person who was shooting at her and eventually found a young man who was standing on a nearby roof top. "You appear to be male, so you're not a subordinate to that womanizing man-whore who nearly killed Kuro." Tanya flew over and hovered in the air above the building in front of the man. "And yet you are still attacking me, so I must therefore assume that you are said womanizing man-whore."
Takt's brow twitched his face warping in anger.
"You do realise that I have a name right?" Takt asked as his brow twitched in sheer annoyance.
"What you have is a massive target strapped to your back. You have managed to piss off myself, my associates, and every leader of every country in the entire world, even the man you supposedly work for is going to get rid of you if he's not a complete idiot." Takt threw a ball of flesh before him, a giant fat face attached to a skull, and a crown that had somehow been situated there for so long the fat had somehow managed to grow around it it. "Ah. So he was a complete idiot." Pity, as Tanya understands it Trash had some kind of grudge against this guy so killing him would've made him rather happy. No matter.
"I really do have to thank your friend the sword Hero." Takt stated as something seemed to ripple underneath his flesh. "You have no idea what it's like constantly living in fear of some divine lunatic suddenly deciding to wipe you out from existence some day."
"Really?" Tanya's tone of voice was as flat as her chest. "Tell me all about it." Mostly because she reasonably suspected that he would do that anyway.
"She called herself Medea." And thanks to Kuro severing all of his magical contracts he could talk about her now too. "Said that it would destroy my soul to speak of her." Because unlike Being X this creature he spoke of maintained no delusion of being a benevolent ruler. "Sent me here to place this world under her control, through me." He shook his head in the negative. "Now no one controls me, and when I'm done here I'm going to find that bitch and teach her what a living hell is really like!" Tanya noted that he didn't have one of his precious rifles on him or near him, which was confusing considering the fact that he was supposed to have been the one who was shooting at her a moment ago. "Come on!" As if answering her question the fake Hero stretched out his hand and some kind of metal sand like substance flowed out of his sleeve and formed a whip. "I want to peel that Tin Can you stole from us off of you!" And on that note Takt struck out with the metal whip.
"Really?" Really.
The mass of metallic sand thinned out to blade like proportions, the bits of iron sand inside vibrating against each other, generating a electrical current at the same time it produced a huge amount of cutting power. The metal screeched as it left a gash in Tanya's armoured suit though thankfully the stubbornly durable weapon managed to push most of the attack away. It did however damage that particular transformation badly enough that it was knocked out of that form causing Tanya land on the ground.
"Another little brat?" Tanya cracked her neck as she glared at Takt. "What kind of criteria are these blasted weapons working off of?" Takt manifested several spheres of the metal sand and prepared to chuck them at Tanya. "How old are you exactly?" Takt asked glaring angrily.
"Counting the previous life? Over 50 years old." Tanya stated prompting Takt to go wide eyed in surprise. "Oh yes. I am a reincarnation, taken from my death bed in Japan and shoved into this... scrawny little body in the middle of a planet wide war zone." Tanya glared at Takt, eyes glowering with anger. "But I am not like you. I would sooner die and have my soul destroyed than be their pawn." Takt was grinding his teeth now, even as the gatling weapons manifested on him.
"Die!" Lightning flared as the bullets flew.
"Meteor Shot!" Tanya fired a round directly through the roof of the palace though Takt was quick to follow any way using the bullets to punch holes all throughout the royal palace. Admittedly fleeing would have been faster with either the rocket powered jet fighter or the heavily armed chasis to project her but she didn't have either of those right now so she had to make do. So breathing deep Tanya transformed her bow. On one side was a crimson red and black dragon, on the other side a bright gold and white lion.
"Lion and Dragon. What does it mean?" As soon as she got back to the castle that was the first thing Tanya demanded of Trash.
"Huu. Was it too much to ask that at least one of you don't unlock the cursed series?" Trash looked a little overworked from the war that he helped start.
"What do they do?" Tanya asked forcing the situation back on point.
"Lion is pride, it induces a brainwashing curse but drains your will power in exchange. Dragon is Wrath, it produces a cursed black flame that severely impairs those that are burned by it ability to heal but it also impairs your ability to heal as well." Trash explained cynically.
"Noted." Tanya stated bluntly.
"Don't rely on them!" Trash snapped emphatically. "The last thing we need is one of you people breaking yourselves on that power!"
As if having emphatically ignored the King's request Tanya was now taking aim with the bow with two curses equipped into it and fired, blowing the roof out from underneath Takt's feet in a geyser of black flame.
"Wrath?" Takt's flesh rippled as the burns Tanya induced on him healed near instantaneously. Right, based on what Kuro mentioned this guy should have unlocked all seven of them before she unceremoniously ripped ownership of them away from him, and had some way of either reducing or outright nullifying the effects of the curse. Perhaps she should stuff him into her bow when this is over. "What have you got to be angry about!?" Takt snapped as he unleashed another salvo at the hero. "I'm the one whose friends keep dropping like flies!"
"Would you like that list in alphabetical or chronological order?" Tanya retorted while a wall of stone was thrown up around her, after extensive training she was able to silent cast stone walls which while they wouldn't be as sturdy spoken aloud they would do for now, and she noted the count down in the corner of her vision. "I've no time to deal with him." The next wall Tanya had erected was cast aloud this time, stronger and sturdier and therefore better suited to keeping her alive. Tanya searched through the palace and found something of use, a maid woman. "Prideful Shot." Calling out the name of the skill Tanya shot the maid that she found while being shot at by Takt.
"What are you doing to Ellie!?" Takt had changed his nanite weapon over to a large chainsaw like weapon which started to go through the material of the stone like some kind of giant oversized wood chipper. Tanya had no time to answer him.
"Where is the meetings of the world Leaders taking place?" Tanya asked brow cocked in the air.
"They were taking place in the meeting hall." The maid girl with a mysterious gold glow in her eyes directed down the hall. "You start with a left down there...!"
"Meteor Shot!" Tanya fired the skill point blank into the half destroyed wall turning it into shrapnel and tearing off chunks of Takt's body in the process. "Point me to the rough location of where the meeting room is located." The maid woman directed Tanya's attention with her finger. "What's your relationship to that Asshole behind me?"
"He's my lover Takt-sama." The girl admitted, the whole time giving off the air of someone who was only cooperating because she had to.
"Keep him busy for me, don't stop until you're dead." And on that note Takt's body regenerated and Tanya took off, blowing her way through the palace while Takt came to terms to the fact he would have to go through one of his remaining harem members.
When she did arrive at the room Ellie had described she was treated to the sight of a group of soldiers who were using a stone bench as a battering ram to try and take an extremely well made door down. Deciding to gamble on her stats being higher than their's to begin with Tanya grabbed hold of the back of the bench, timed her swing, and then smashed!
"It's about time!" The Queen of Melromarc snapped, seated in the designated position of the senate for Melromarc which it should also be noted was relatively close to the door, the various other delegates of the other nations in their own positions with only Faubrey's seat left empty. "How long does it take to break a door?" Tanya, and the soldiers who still didn't realise who had helped them out, dropped the bench and looked at the Queen blinking stupidly.
"You do realise that there's a lunatic on the loose trying to kill you all right?" Tanya asked eyes wide.
"If the affairs of state halted every time someone took a swing at the head of state nothing would ever get done!" The Queen snapped acting as someone who has had to answer that question far too many times today. "Now would you like to make yourself useful and bring me my fat tub of lard of a brother in law?"
"Um..." Tanya still looked deeply confused here. "He's sort of dead now..." Most of the room cheered, which given what Tanya understands about the man is a somewhat expected reaction but moot to the point.
"And what of his murderer?" The Queen only rolled her eyes in response. "If he is going to inconvenience this peace conference by launching a coop then he could at least have the common courtesy to fill in the role that he so rudely left empty."
"Um... that would be the aforementioned lunatic on the loose." Tanya stated before a sound of a inhuman roar of anger was sounded from throughout the palace. "Did I mention that he might've made some upgrades to himself?" On that note part of the palace suddenly collapsed on itself indicating a very angry man who was currently going on a rampage. "Also he still wants to kill you so can we... I don't know move this meeting elsewhere?"
"What is he using?" The Queen asked clearly not concerned about the eminent death coming down on their heads.
"Nanites." The Queen cocked a brow as if asking Tanya to elaborate. "Machines so small they can't be seen by the naked eye individually, but tend to do a lot of damage when you get a few pounds of them together." Tanya stated noting that she really didn't have time to be talking about this.
"Move." The Queen stood up, drew lightning of some kind to her hand, and fired it at a somewhat familiar monster looking like some broken patchwork of machine and flesh that smashed it's way through a far off wall and fried it. A pulse was fired out and the entire thing short circuited.
"An electromagnetic pulse?" Tanya asked sounding confused. There were so many things going on right now that she was not aware of. "What?"
"This meeting will not be dismissed until all points are agreed upon!" The Queen snapped magically forcing the half metal abomination formerly known as Tact back. "Now your answers!?"
The end result of the next few moments came as follows. Waves? Aye they all needed to go in a bad way. War with Faubrey? Considering all of this that seemed to be unavoidable yes. But seeking compensation from Melromarc for summoning the heroes and not wasting anymore time when the apocalypse was beating on their doors? No. That was not okay.
"I'm so glad you all got that sorted out!" Tanya spat sarcastically while she sent a party invite to all the world leaders and then everyone portalled out of there leaving what was left of Takt to scream in frustration.
Author's Note:
RonaldM40196867: What is? No one likes working with Malty.
Captain Imaginat: Glad you liked it. As she said before, not as satisfying as she would like it to be, but she got justice all the same. No no, Takt is just as stupid as he was before.
RedBurningDragon: And no I have the image of Kuro drinking a Glass Milkshake.
drmcgraw186: Sorry for ruining your expectations.
Kisame Hoshigaki: I do.