Yang had returned to the capital of her Empire to rest in the room that now served as the Office of the Emperor.
She needed a nap to regain her strength, and then time to sort out her haunting thoughts about what happened, the people that she killed.
Gnarl's voice whispered in her mind trying to assure her. She appreciated it, she did, but maybe she wasn't like him, or maybe not like an Overlord before her, and many Overlords before that one too.
She felt wrong even when she knew it was probably the right thing to do.
"Overlord's life is the top priority, Master. They wanted to kill you", Gnarl whispered in her mind. It felt wrong, to kill that is, but she understood that, at least, in this Gnarl was right.
"An Overlord need not feel remorse about death of his enemies, Sire, and neither should you.", he continued.
She couldn't just see all of them as just her enemies like Gnarl wanted. It felt…not right to reduce the human life to only so little.
"The worth of life, Lord, is how much those in power give to it. We give not much worth to a life of a sheep, or even a Minion, and the Kingdoms give very little worth to the people they rule over. Why should you give much worth to those that stand against you? That seek your death, and end to all Evil?"
This has been going on for an hour now. All his attempts to help, in his own way, weren't helping her, but she couldn't bring herself to order him to stop. It felt nice that he cared enough about her to try and save her from pain.
She closed her eyes. She needed some sleep. Gnarl's voice lured her to sleep.
It did not last long, as she was soon awakened by Gnarl's sharp and worried demand that she wake up.
"What-", Yang asked yawning, "what is it, Gnarl? I was trying to sleep"
"No time for that, Master!", Gnarl screamed in her mind worried, "The assassins! The Kingdom of Vacuo send assassins to kill you!"
All sleepiness quickly fled from her mind, as she cast her senses all over the capital she was in.
There! She could sense two huntsmen! Entering her Empire! Just like Gnarl said!
"They must have found out somehow that you took over this village! Maybe some traveller saw the flags, Sire."
"I told you we should have had them removed", Yang responded annoyed.
"What kind of an Empire, city, or a village does not show proper allegiance to their Master, Sire? It's not right, I tell you! Not right!'
"Focus!", she commanded him.
They had no time for this. If Gnarl was right, and he usually was, then she was majorly screwed. She needed a plan, but more pressingly she had to deal with the huntsmen.
Kill them, she realized. She pushed away all sense of unease. Gnarl was a good teacher, perhaps he was right. If only for now, she should probably think of them as nothing more than her enemies. The fact that they wanted to kill her helped with that immensely.
"The spell!", she quickly remembered, "What kind of spell was it, Gnarl?"
Gnarl waited for a bit before responding, and she could sense that he was checking the Spell Totem himself.
"Ahhh", Gnarl said pleased, "We're in luck, Sire. That is a Slow Spell, Sire. It allows you to slow your enemies down, and deal more damage upon them! This should do wonders in crossing the gap between you and those Huntsmen."
Indeed she was in luck, she realized. But odds were still not good. One at a time she could take with surprise and some clever use of environment. Much easier with this spell. But two? She'd have to slow both of them down, probably frenzy her Minions, and hope that they could take down one of them while she took down another alone.
She gulped. That would be far more dangerous than any fight she fought before.
"Gnarl!", she demanded, "I need to know as many spells of intimidation you can teach me in a few seconds!"
"Well…", Gnarl mussed, "those take time. Time we don't currently have. You already know how to replicate the effect you used on that ally woman of yours…Ah! I do know one!"
Yang listened.
"Focus your Evil Energy into your throat, Sire, and hold it tight.", Gnarl instructed.
She did so. It felt a bit unpleasant, but as her body was already mostly made from Evil Magic she imagined that the unpleasantness would fade in time.
"Now, when you say something, release your hold on that energy and let it leak with your voice", Gnarl explained, "it will make you sound Evil, Imposing, and like a proper Overlord."
"That could work", Yang said, "with some luck I can scare them away-", "Unlikely", Gnarl interrupted, "-or, at least put them in some sort of unease to give me any bit of an advantage", she continued as if she was not just interrupted.
She cast her senses and felt that the Huntsmen were already near the Town Square. She contacted her subjects with telepathy and ordered them all back into their homes.
She won't let them suffer for her mistakes.
She left her office, which was just a minute away from the square. Once she saw the Huntsmen she began letting her Evil Energy leak as she put up her Evil disguise. Her face hidden by shadows, her eyes glowing frightful brown from the eye sockets in her helmet, and her armor spikier than normal. She looked proper Evil now.
"Greetings, young Huntsmen", came a strong, cold, and frightening voice, the voice seemingly carrying a tiny echo in it, "I am the Overlord, Master of this here land. You dare to trespass upon my property?"
Yang felt not even a bit of the confidence she put in the voice, and she hoped she learned enough from Gnarl's 'act dramatic like a proper Evil Overlord' lessons that her speech felt cool instead of silly.
The huntsmen turned to look at her, and it was clear that they were taken aback by both her voice and appearance.
"Score!", Yang happily thought to herself
"Leave this place…", Yang said as she took out her sword, its tip lightly touching the ground, "…or I will make you leave"
One of the Huntsmen, a black male with blue eyes, and red hair, wielding a war hammer, responded to her.
"Who are you? This is the Land of Vacuo. Are you the one who stole it then?"
"They admit it, Master!", Gnarl said in her mind, "They admit they are here to kill you! Because of the land you took!"
She wasted no more time. It seems they were unwilling to take her offer to leave. Using both of her hands, she flung the sword at the person who she spoke to. The Huntsman easily dodged to the left. Yang smiled behind her helmet. She fell right into her trap. She sent her Minions, all fifteen of them after the second Huntsman, a white female with black eyes, and orange hair who had a revolver on her.
She pointed each of her hands at a different Huntsman, and cast two Slow Spells, one for each of them. Significantly slowed down, the woman was unable to dodge the tackle from the Browns, followed by them all pilling up on her. Yang cast Frenzy at them. It will drain her mana, but it will keep the Huntress busy for a bit she hoped.
With her telekinetic powers she summoned her sword to her, the black Huntsman being right in between her and the sword. As the sword neared him he seemed to sense it and tried to dodge, but his slowed down movement prevented it, the sword knocking him on the ground face down, saved only by his aura.
"Aura!", Gnarl cursed, "Some talented users of it can use it to sense when they are watched. It seems some more talented can use it to even predict an incoming attack to their blindspot!"
"That was a useful ability", Yang mussed to herself, "I really need to find an Aura teacher".
She heard a sound as if a small rock was shattered, and when she turned to look at the direction, she saw the female, with a flash light, appear outside of the Minion pile.
"Useful Semblance, Huntress", Yang remarked.
She received an interesting thank you for the compliment in the form of a small icicle launched at her head from the Huntress' revolver.
Yang pointed her arm at the projectile and used the Slow spell again before calmly walking around it.
"Huh", Gnarl said surprised, "I didn't know you could slow projectiles with the spell. I thought it only worked on creatures and other living things"
"AND YOU DIDN'T THINK TO TELL ME THAT BEFORE I GOT INTO THE FIGHT?!", Yang raged mentally at him, "I COULD HAVE DIED!"
"I'm sure you would have survived, Master. Little Ice Dust is not enough to take you down"
The Browns tackled the surprised Huntress to the ground, as Yang could see the other Huntsman getting up.
She had some Dust Grenades on them, but she wanted to keep them with her for longer. Vacou is now her enemy, she'll need all the help she can get against the others.
Instead, she rushed over to him, and just as he got to his feet, Yang punched him, as well as stabbed him, in his face.
While flying away from the force of the impact, the Huntsman created three clones near her, all looking identical to her.
As she fought them her worries turned out to be unfounded. It seems that whatever Semblance this was, it split his speed and power between the copies, and as weakened as he was from her Slow Spell, dodging the attacks of the copies was not a very hard task.
She suddenly jumped to the right, as an icicle pierced and killed one of the copies. She thanked one of her Minions for the warning, thankful that he had seen the attack to her back. She could have sensed it, but not in the middle of a fight. She wasn't that good yet.
"Watch where you're aiming, Moccasin!", angrily yelled the male Huntsmen.
"Stop complaining, Dodger, and take down that armored monster while I deal with its servants!", Moccasin bit back, teleporting out of another of the Minion's attacks.
Taking advantage of the situation, Yang stabbed one of the copies, and sent a Fireball at another.
With his copies dead, the Huntsman rushed at her with his war hammer. He seemed faster than his copies. Their deaths must have returned their strength to him.
Yang allowed the war hammer to hit her shield that she had just conjured, letting it and her Aura tank the damage, as she punched the man in his stomach, while using her telekinetic powers to drive her sword in his back. For good measure she also kicked him in his leg. He fell, and she jumped to the side to avoid him falling on him. Taking his war hammer, and boy was it heavy, she infused it with Evil Energy and smashed it on him.
As the explosion threw her away she realized that it might not have been her smartest idea.
"One down, Sire", Gnarl informed her, his sharper senses allowing him to sense that the enemy was down.
"Dead?", she inquired
"He will be once you finish the job, Sire"
Yang turned away as she gathered her will, and telekinetically stabbed her sword through him. She now looked at the woman who had taken out ten of her Minions, all Brown. She could see they were alive, just incapacitated by clever use of Ice dust. Some frozen solid, others had icicle pining them to the ground.
"She probably wanted to interrogate them", Yang concluded, "or they were just that lucky".
She cut of the Frenzy spell as it now seemed useless. The fight hadn't lasted even full ten minutes and the spell had drained half of her reserves.
The woman, Moccasin, if she remembered correctly, seemed tired. She could see that the Reds haven't done much damage to her, but with their good aiming they probably forced her to teleport to avoid their attacks more often than not. The Browns attacking at the same time didn't help the woman one bit.
The Woman looked past Yang to her fallen comrade. Her eyes teared up, as her face contorted in rage.
"You will pay for that, Monster! I'll avenge my friend!"
"You will die. And your Kingdom shall die with you.", was Yang's simple response.
"Then I shall make sure to kill you then"
With a flash of light she disappeared, and her sword impacted the shield Yang conjured when the woman disappeared. Yang turned around to look at the woman behind her.
Her revolver had turned into a sword, how that had happened Yang wasn't sure.
"That was strong, I'll give you that", Yang commended her, "but you lost"
The woman seemed confused for a moment, before she asked "And why is that?"
Twenty Browns who had served as this ex-village's guard struck her in the back.
"Because I cheat", Yang replied amused, as she summoned her Sword and chopped her head off.
She turned away from the gross sight.
"Disgusting"
"What now, Master?", Gnarl inquired.
"You were right, Gnarl", Yang said
Gnarl patiently waited for Yang to elaborate.
"They are all our enemies.", her magic from her voice disappeared and it was slowly replaced with rising anger, "They tried to have us killed! And for what?! For protecting those they couldn't protect?!"
The glowing brown began flickering, red struggling to replace it.
"Gather all of my Minions, Gnarl. I won't be made a liar. Vacuo will pay. We wage war."
The statement was simple, and determined without any bit of anger being heard anymore. The brown faded, red having fully replaced her eyes.