The Paradox of Balance
Chapter 1: Prier's Bad Mood
An hour ago, we received an urgent call from Sister Prune who was stationed at Moutarde Road. It appears that a large group of demons have been seen advancing towards Pot au Feu. We had been dispatched immediately to stop the ambush and secure the main road that linked Mayonnaise Harbor to the town. But, to our surprise, this "demon ambush" could have easily been qualified as only one thing…
"This is so boring…"
Prier had already managed to destroy three Zombies only with one swing of her baton before the remaining demons started to advance on her. This "ambush", as Sister Prune had called, was nothing more then more or less ten regular Zombies. Of course, for the novice members of La Pucelle, this might have passed as a dangerous attack, but for Prier, and even Culotte, it was a joke.
Even the dutiful Culotte felt as if the battle was a waste of time. He was unenthusiastically throwing his arsenal of projectiles into the head of one of the undead, reducing it to ashes. His sister was eliminating most of the Zombies, although she was doing so in a rather unconventional way. She was halfway between her normal fighting techniques and some sort of ballet dance. In a desperate attempt to amuse herself, she had started to jump around the demons, throwing her legs from behind, knocking them out, and wildly gesticulating with her arms, unintentionally hitting them in the face. And she soon found out that her mock fighting had eliminated the menace quite effectively, despite the fact that she wasn't even trying to eliminate them.
"That's it? This was the ambush? These wimps weren't even worth my time!"
"Well, you looked as if you were having fun…"
"Well, you know what? I wasn't! This is so boring! I need a real challenge!"
Prier hasn't changed much… well maybe except for the fact that she is even more moody then usual. Her temper has been flaring up recently. I'm not sure if it's because of the lack of challenges, as she calls them, or the fact that she hasn't seen him for four months… Four months…
Anyway, Prier has been on demon watch for a while now. But, sadly for me, she hasn't had any real work to do recently. Sad for me, because I get to be the one getting the head trauma…
The two siblings were slowly heading back into town. Apart from the small battle that took place a few moments ago, it was a rather peaceful day whose silence was only broken by the birds and Prier's grumbling. But for once, her source of annoyance wasn't completely related to her lack of work.
A few days ago, Cresson Castle has been attacked. Nobody knows why or how, but it has been reported as a direct attack to the royal family. We were happy to know that nobody was hurt, the attack had targeted the royal library and no one was in it at the moment. This was reassuring. The Queen did not request La Pucelle's help: the police and the royal guard are looking into the matter. Prier is worried about Eclair; due to the attack, we haven't received the permission to visit her. Needless to say, this did not help my head trauma…
"I am a woman of action! Why can't I be where the action is?"
"Prier," started Culotte, "we are supposed to keep the balance between light and darkness, we are not supposed to hunt down all demons in Paprica just so you can get over the fact that Croix…"
He never got the chance to finish his sentence as a rather hard knuckle connected with the back of his skull.
"Do you really want to finish that Culotte?"
"Usually… you are supposed to say that before hitting me…"
Like I said, Prier... Head trauma...
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
"My Brothers and Sisters, the time has come!"
About three dozen men and women where listening to their Priestess. Even though the entire décor didn't inspire much trust nor optimism, all were in awe. The speaker was in a very good mood, something that her followers hadn't seen in a long while. She continued, "After all these years of discrimination and suppression, we can finally emerge. Long live the children of Poitreene!"
"Long live the children of Poitreene!" they all cried back.
"We can leave this underground hiding ground and worship Her without being branded as enemies," she said before being interrupted by more cheers from the crowd. Being unable to control them, she simply raised her voice even more and went on with her speech, "But our enemies are still present in the world. In fact, our most vicious enemy is still running loose. Our spies have confirmed our worries. Yes… I am afraid to say, the Dark Prince is still walking this Earth."
Although the entire assembly demonstrated various exclamations of surprise, fury, and desperation, it was the older generation members that had the worst reactions. Having lived during a time where humanity had been under constant menace by the evil servant of Calamity, the memories of their youth were usually dark and sorrowful.
"We have to unite! We have to secure our future!"
By any means necessary...
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
"It's nice of you to have us Fath… mister Salade."
"Well, it has gotten rather boring without your sister's presence."
"You think so? I'd give anything to have one day of peace and quiet."
After our battle with Noir, Father Salade resigned from the Church. Sister Olive has been temporally appointed as the head of the Church and the demon hunting squad. Father Salade, or mister Salade as he wants to be called now, now lives with his wife in the orphanage. Prier and me go visit him ever so often. He seems to enjoy his retirement, although the children and the director have told us that he stills sneaks around to go train in the Caves. I guess you can't teach an old dog new tricks.
"How is Prier nowadays?" Salade asked.
"She's good…"
"And you?"
"You know me, apart from head injuries, I'm fine!" he answered with a nervous laugh.
Salade looked down and sighed. "That's not exactly what I meant Culotte…"
A loud noise was heard outside, followed by the sound of broken glass, and giggling children. "Please don't tell me Prier has been teaching the kids how to play her version of kick the can," said Culotte, knowing far too well how any game played by Prier had a fifty percent chance of ending in propriety damage.
"No actually, that was me…"
"Father Salade!"
"Heh, heh, like I said, it's pretty boring around here…"
I'm beginning to understand where Prier got it all...
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -The entire church was busy. It was rare that a fellow congregation would come and visit. Usually churches didn't bother with each other. It was a simple fact that they usually didn't like each other very much, due to different points of view, different worship rituals, or, something that they didn't admit out loud, the fact that they were in constant war for followers. But Father Salade had managed to keep his church free of these problems that corrupts so many others. The Church of the Holy Maiden had kept its mission.
Culotte was running around the living quarters, trying to find his sister. He had already checked her usual hiding places, primarily used to make herself invisible whenever physical chores where mentioned. He finally found her in her room, dressed in traditional nun clothing. She had her : "Say anything and I will hurt you!" look on her face.
Sister Olive had selected them to help with the visitors, even though much of the Church thought that Sister Olive was committing double suicide by involving Prier, who still had the nasty habit of saying whatever she wants at the worst possible moment.
Nobody was sure of what to expect when the visitors arrived. "They seem normal enough," was Prier first thought as she saw three members of the other church arrive. She would be lying if she didn't admit that she was expecting more followers-slash-demons draped in black cloths to arrive and proceed to blow up her home.
The three members of what was called the Church of the Goddess Poitreene, to which Prier silently pointed out the un-originality of the name to Culotte, happily answered to Sister Olive's welcome. High Priestess Corail was leading her two followers for this visit. She said that this church had existed for hundreds of years and that her tradition had been passed on in her family. Although Sister Olive and Culotte seemed deeply interested in the whole church's roots discussion, Prier was more or less bored by the entire conversation. But, she remained calm and mature about it, and instead decided to observe the two Sisters that had been left out of the conversation.
She didn't understand at first, but the Sisters were nervous. Prier dismissed it as regular shyness, but something was off. They were eyeing the church much too intensely to pass as normal shyness. And when her eyes crossed theirs, she knew something was terribly wrong.
"Sister Olive!" she yelled, interrupting their conversation. Sister Olive glanced at Prier with a murderous look in her eyes that calmed down as she saw her "We have a problem" face.
"Please understand," said Corail cutting off the silent discussion, "that this world doesn't need or tolerate traitors."
And before their minds could even analyze what the Priestess had said, a brilliant flash followed by an enormous column of fire exploded out of the church, throwing everyone back in a shockwave of broken glass.