Day 19 / Village

"Hey… Psst! Hey! Get up, we're organizing."

One of the soldiers on guard duty poked his head into Garret's tent to wake both him and Annika. It was still dark outside. The sun hadn't risen yet, and the overcast, drizzly weather that rolled in last night made it difficult to get dressed – there simply wasn't enough light to see. Technically torches had been forbidden as well as their cooking fires, but Garret conjured a small flame in his hand to give them a bit of light to work with. They were still behind a hill, and even if they weren't, he doubted the village would see the glow from this distance.

When they were ready, they stepped out of the tent and pulled their cloaks tight around them in an attempt to stay somewhat dry. Rain poured down from the heavens, and around them, soldiers scurried about, whispering to their comrades in low voices as the battlegroups began to organize. At least the rain, while miserable, would let them approach the town unseen.

"Lovely weather for a fight, eh?"

A bit of moonlight filtering through the clouds gave just enough illumination for Eric to spot and wave to them as he trudged through the mud. No doubt he was on his way to his group's rallying point as well.

"Absolutely wonderful…"

When Garret and Annika arrived, they were surprised to find that only a few other soldiers had shown up before them, a welcome change from constantly being almost late. While they waited for the rest of the men to show up, Sergeant Evans had them inspect each other's armour and weapons to make sure everyone had managed to gear up properly in the dark. Once the rest of them arrived, he got them organized into formation, then instructed them to wait while he went to discuss the battle with the other group leaders and their officer. Twenty minutes later, a runner came and directed them to march to a new location, where they found the four other groups responsible for attacking the town directly. When they arrived, their sergeant had them gather around him to brief them quietly.

"Good morning everyone, I hope you slept well. We've got a big day ahead of us."

He unfolded what looked like a map, then looked over the group, searching for someone.

"Which one of you was the fire sorcerer? Garret? Give us a little light here."

Stepping forward, Garret dutifully obeyed, producing just enough of a flame to make out the writing on the parchment.

"Here's the plan, we're going to move straight down the town's main street, one group on each side, three on the road." He pointed to the positions on the crudely sketched map. "Our group is going to be on the right side, taking up the rear. Most of the fighting will probably happen on the main road as we push towards the town's center, so the groups ahead of us will remain in formation and deal with that. As they push up, we will disperse into pairs to clear the side streets and houses. We want to kill or drive away the monsters there and protect our main force's flanks. If the mamono flee the town, the units on the plains will deal with them, if they flee towards the road, they'll have to fight our soldiers. Any questions?"

One of the spearmen raised his hand.

"How many monsters are we going to be fighting?"

"Not sure. We don't know how many are in the town. Before it fell, it housed a thousand people, so expect a similar population. More than half are likely civilians, though. We won't outnumber them, but we have surprise and organization on our side. Anything else?"

No one spoke up.

"Good. Thanks for the light, Garret. Now everyone, get ready, we're going to move soon."

Garret slowly crept across the field with the rest of the soldiers. The rain and darkness obscured their advance, so they managed to get within a hundred meters of the town without alerting the guards. Once they reached that distance, a whispered command to halt was passed through their ranks. In front of them lay a cluster of four mamono, gathered around a fire beside the town's main road. The minotaur stood with her axe planted in front of her, diligently sweeping her gaze across the dark fields. An orc stood beside her, though she was more interested in fidgeting with her weapon, no doubt bored. Beside the fire, a satyros and a grizzly swapped stories as they shared a flask of wine. The fact that only one of them was taking their duty seriously didn't surprise Garret in the slightest. Hedonistic monsters… they knew no discipline – something that they were about to pay for.

Ahead of them, a squad of eight rangers had dropped to their bellies and crawled through the dirt to get closer, undetected. Four of them rose to a kneel and took aim with their bows while the others crawled forward, then switched, ensuring that someone always had a weapon trained on the monsters. When they were within twenty meters, they all rose and aimed. It was here that the minotaur thought she spotted something and began to take a step forward to investigate. That step was never completed, however, as a pair of arrows embedded themselves in her head. In the blink of an eye, six more arrows followed, slaying the other inept guards. After a brief pause, the lead ranger gestured for the soldiers to enter the town. Garret couldn't help but nod his head, impressed. The ranger corps in Naton must be extremely well trained if they were able to operate with that level of coordination.

When his group reached the town's main road, they quietly split off and began to make their way into the right-side streets while their counterparts and the main force worked on the left and organized in the middle, respectively. Quietly, pairs of soldiers eased doors open and crept into the houses to clear them or whispered for a mage to help when they found a rare door that had been locked. Garret and Annika's house was one of these as well, an anomaly amongst the almost entirely unlocked street. Strange. Monster territories were notoriously crime free and safe (if you didn't count rape as a crime), why bother locking it? Unlike the others, who needed to wave for help, though, Garret was more than capable of opening it on his own. He focused his fire into a white-hot and razor thin blade, slipping it between the door and frame to silently melt through the latch. When he nodded to Annika, she opened the door and crept in as quietly as her armour would allow.

The building's interior answered the question of why it was locked. With crates stacked behind the counter and till, and various bits of merchandise dotting the room, it was clearly some sort of shop. To see what they were doing, Garret kept a tiny flame going as they snuck up a narrow set of stairs towards what he assumed would be the bedroom. They cracked the door and were greeted by loud snoring. On the mattress before them, lay a human (transformed into an incubus) wrapped in the coils of his lamia 'wife' as she cuddled him. What they were about to do wouldn't be considered particularly honourable, but monsters didn't deserve that consideration. Garret extinguished the flame and quietly drew a sword. Annika did the same and crept up beside the man while Garret took the lamia's side. On the count of three, they both plunged their swords into their foe's heads, easily piercing through their skulls and eliminating the enemies of humanity in a single motion.

With the house clear, the two turned to leave, though Garret paused a moment. He looked around the surprisingly opulent bedroom, examining pieces of artwork (paintings of the two 'lovers') and the finely crafted furniture (many with snake motifs). On the nightstand beside the lamia's half of the bed lay an ornately carved box with a partially glass lid. When he flipped it open, he discovered a collection of expensive looking jewelry inside. Bangles, necklaces, rings and earrings all decorated either with precious stones or beautiful engravings. "For Ina, the light in my nights" read the inscription on one of the rings. Garret shook his head at the sight. If it had been a human couple, he would have been touched by the romantic gesture, but this was anything but touching. Demonic energy corrupted men, and this 'romantic' gift, forced by the mental conditioning, was a perversion of true devotion. Monsters enslaved their captives with lust, hedonism and mental control, it wasn't like they were actually in love… right? He quickly pocketed the jewelry to sell later. They certainly weren't going to miss it.

The next house was unlocked and much more modestly decorated. With no second floor this time, Garret and Annika crept between rooms until they found the family, also happily snoozing away in each other's embrace. This time it was a succubus, thankfully a lesser one. He doubted they'd be able to sneak up on a succubus proper this easily. Once again, he and Annika stabbed their foes through the temple for a swift end. This time, though, one of the bodies spasmed and woke something they hadn't noticed before.

"M-Mommy?"

The covers wriggled and pulled themselves back as an adorable little girl, no more than five, was roused by the motions. She rubbed her eyes and stared at the two intruders, shocked, then opened her mouth, about to scream. Garret immediately prevented that, lunging forward with his sword. The telltale horns and tail (even if they were small) meant she was a monster, and there was no mercy for monsters. Besides… monster children matured at a much faster rate than their human counterparts. It wasn't like he had really killed a little girl… right?

Annika looked at him in horror as he pulled his blade back, letting her slump onto the increasingly blood-soaked sheets.

"Garret, you…"

He didn't want to hear this. This was for the good of humanity and the mission! It had to be done!

"It was her or us, Annika. If she screamed, she'd wake the neighbors, you know I had to do it."

Annika's whispered voice shook as she struggled to maintain her composure. "For God's sake, Garret, she was just a child! I… How could… She hadn't even done anything…"

As she spoke, her anger shifted from Garret to the situation in general. He was thankful that she was usually levelheaded when it came to things like this and knew she couldn't fully blame him.

"Look, I don't like it either… but we didn't have a choice. Lets just finish our mission and talk about it later."

"Yeah…"

Nothing he could say would convince Annika quickly enough, and their mission was still going on. They were soldiers, they followed orders, and right now the mission came first.

The next fifteen minutes continued the trend of sneaking into houses and butchering their sleeping occupants. With such a low crime rate, there was no need for guards to patrol the streets outside of the town entrances, and the lack of monster soldiers made the initial stages of their attack incredibly easy. Garret did a bit of mental math in his head, trying to figure out the progress they had made. With this many soldiers, using two to deal with each house, over that length of time… If there were two monsters per house (or a monster and an incubus), they had probably killed well over a hundred by now. Maybe even two. A fifth of the village dealt with? This easily? That was phenomenally good luck.

All 'good' things must come to an end, though, and eventually the town was alerted. Maybe someone hesitated like Annika had when faced with a child. Maybe a monster had woken up and decided to go for a midnight stroll. Maybe a soldier had just gotten clumsy and knocked something over, alerting their targets. Garret didn't know for sure what caused this, but he heard a scream, followed by more as the monsters around them woke up and looked out their windows to see soldiers killing everyone they could find. Following this, there was another twenty or so minutes of relatively easy work, as mamono, dragging, carrying, or running with their husbands as quickly as they could, frantically fled the approaching soldiers. Their disorganized retreat made it easy for them to isolate pairs to kill, or for rangers to shoot down the runners. The few monsters that did turn and fight at this stage were easily overwhelmed. What was a single minotaur or jinko to a dozen soldiers attacking in tandem? All they had to do was try their best to herd the majority towards the main road where an even larger force of soldiers was waiting for them. Eventually, though, a defense was organized, and the true battle began.

Garret could tell that the easy part was over when the last of the stragglers disappeared, either from being killed, or from successfully escaping. This intuition was not lost on the sergeant either, who called for them to form up, then split them off into groups of ten each and ordered them to patrol the streets. They needed to protect the flanks of the main force as it moved towards the town center. Already they could hear the sounds of combat coming from the road.

As his group patrolled, Garret and Annika kept a sharp eye out, watching the dark alleys and roof tops. If the monsters of the town had any sense at all, they'd be coming shortly.

"Shh… did you hear that?"

One of the other soldiers from Northreach stopped and put a hand to his ear, trying to listen. The whole group immediately halted and formed a circle, looking around. Five minutes, then ten went by, but nothing happened. They didn't hear anything, and eventually the all-clear was sounded.

"Sorry guys, I guess I was wrong."

The eight of them took one last look around before moving again.

A few minutes later, Garret heard a crack, like a stone had fallen. This time, he called them to a halt, looking and listening. Five minutes passed… nothing.

"I don't like this… not one bit…"

Was he actually hearing a monster? Or was it just his imagination? The six of them formed back up and-WAIT, SIX?! They had started with ten, hadn't they?! The other soldiers seemed to come to this realization at the same time and immediately panicked, looking around franticly, pointing their swords and spears at whatever direction they thought looked the most dangerous. Annika moved to within an inch of Garret, raising her shield to protect the two of them and shoving him into the middle of the formation while he prepared his magic.

From somewhere above them, a roof shingle cracked.

Time seemed to slow to a crawl for a moment. After hearing the noise, he produced a brilliant blast of vertical flame to illuminate the area. A pair of mantes, mid-jump, were blinded momentarily. Beside him, the pair they were aiming for flinched and began to twist towards the light. The soldiers already facing them reflexively thrust their sword towards the mamono, grazing them. Blinded by the light, when the mantes tried to grab the man and woman, they found that their targets had moved just enough to thwart their planned attack. Instead of being able to latch on and then jump away, the shifted positions caused them to stumble. The targeted soldiers, also off balance, fell to the ground, pulling the mantes with them. The two mantis-girls were quick to react, but so were the soldiers. As the mamono scrambled to their feet, a swordsman slashed at one of them. The mantis raised a claw to deflect it. She in turn, swiped at the soldier with her other arm, but was blocked by his partner's shield. It received a nasty looking dent but stopped the blow. Somewhere in the commotion, a spear-woman got an attack through, piercing the mantis' thigh, eliciting a scream from their usually emotionless foe. Annika rushed forward, bashing the other mamono with her shield (blocked again by a claw), but using the distraction to slip her sword through its guard and gut it. Garret fired a blast of flame at the first mantis again, scorching her mildly, but more importantly, blinding her again for just enough time to allow another soldier to bring her mace down on its head. Mantes were terrifying huntresses, but if you managed to pin them down, they could be overwhelmed all the same.

"Is everyone alright?" One of the soldiers asked. Everyone nodded in affirmation.

"Good work, Annika."

"Thanks, Garret. You too."

"We should start looking for the others. They couldn't have been taken far!"

The spear-woman from before piped up, leading to more nodding and murmured agreement. They couldn't leave their countrymen behind. Soldiers of Northreach stuck together. They quickly organized into a defensive formation, light a few torches, and then advanced into one of the dark alleys. Almost as soon as they stepped out the other side, though, they discovered a much more immediate problem and realized the search would have to wait.

The street ahead of them was full of weapon and torch-wielding mamono. Minotaurs, orcs, lizardmen, and the occasional werewolf or werecat all milled about, some heading towards the main road to flank it, others moving towards the alleys to attack from the rear. Needless to say, they were spotted almost immediately. A minotaur roared, Annika began shouting for help, and the soldiers quickly formed a shield wall, retreating to the alley's mouth. There was no way six soldiers could fight this many mamono without help, they needed to hold out long enough for the other patrolling soldiers to arrive.

The monsters charged. Garret threw a burning spear into the lead minotaur and detonated it, before hunching over as the energy was sucked out of him. The beastman roared in pain, but unlike the slimes, was not stopped by a single spell. It tried to rush the line, but the spear-woman braced her weapon, impaling it through the chest and giving the rest of the group enough time to slash or stab it to death. A few lizardmen approached, skilled enough with their blades to make advances safely. They slashed quickly, deflecting the counter attacks, then disengaged to begin the process anew. The werecats and werewolves waited until the other monsters had the line's attention, then lept forward to try and overwhelm them. Annika slashed one out of the air with her sword, wounding (but not killing) it, and Garret let out a few flashes of fire, scorching fur and blinding the others to give their soldiers enough time to react. They may be weak, but these spells at least didn't require much energy.

Their battle continued like this, with neither side gaining much ground, for several minutes. The monsters outnumbered them ten-to-one, but the alley meant only a few could approach at a time. When things got too dangerous, the group would take a step back to make space, covering each other, but never crumpled. The greatest danger for that came when a witch made an appearance, riding over them on a broom and casting blasts of dark magic down at them. The first and second spells struck a pair of swordsmen, staggering them as it knocked them back, but by the third, Garret had spotted the magician. He intercepted the spells with bolts of his own fire, using the magical interference to either dispel them or make them veer wildly off target. Eventually he found an opening in her barrage and invested a significant portion of his energy to conjure and throw an immolating lance at her. She easily dodged it on her broom, but he kept hold of the magic, using sheer force of willpower to shift its vector and make the spell swerve. The burning spear made a wide arc through the air and took the witch by surprise when it impaled her from behind.

"Die!"

The girl's life ended with the detonation of his spell, and Garret slumped to his knees again, nearly falling over from the exertion. As a magic user, shouldn't she have had wards protecting her? Maybe she had forgotten to cast them, or maybe she didn't know warding magic... Either way, he wasn't going to complain. He couldn't do something like that very often, though, he needed to conserve his energy. There was always Catherine's crystal, but wanted to avoid using it for as long as possible to keep it as a contingency.

Gradually, the other Northreach soldiers arrived, with groups of ten opening up new fronts in the monster's lines as they attacked from other alleys. They slowly began to surround the mamono and push them away from the main column's flanks, then started picking them off a few at a time in a careful, but unrelenting advance.

Over the next hour, the soldiers fighting on the road pushed into the town, eventually reaching the main square. Garret, with his group at its side, dutifully followed, clearing the alleys of whatever stragglers or flanking monsters they could find. When they also arrived at the center, they hurried to the side of the main force. There were no back alleys here, only a veritable sea of mamono. It seemed that every last combat capable monster in town had arrived for a final decisive battle. The way that they had rallied like that was strange. Garret had been expecting the monsters to fight like they always had, in small packs or on their own, not loosely organized into a hoard. Someone must be calling the shots on their side.

By luck, he and Annika found themselves side-by-side with Eric and Aisha as the shield walls from the Northreach troops and the Natonian soldiers merged. Eric gave a quick nod in greeting, though there was no time for conversation. Monsters were hurling themselves against the formation in droves, trying to open a breach in the lines. Eric had to frantically block or deflect crushing blows from minotaur or grizzlies, and Aisha was obviously busy singing. Amongst the monsters attacking them, Garret spotted many lesser succubi who were casting spells to lure, entice or distract the soldiers – magic that Aisha and the rest of the spellsingers seemed to be trying to counteract with their music. A volley of arrows flew just overhead as the rangers in the rear fired into the horde. One of the soldiers in front of Garret made a particularly unadvised attack and was almost immediately killed when his blow was parried. The lizardman in front of him knocked his axe aside and impaled him with her sword. Garret cast a burning arc at her, wounding and forcing her back enough for the formation to adjust to the loss of its member. The monsters must be getting desperate. Normally it would be unheard of for a monster to outright kill a human instead of kidnapping him, but these mamono probably already had a family (if you could call it that) to protect, or more likely, were too desperate to try and convert anyone when killing would be quicker and safer. The Order had already captured half of the town and showed no signs of ceasing it's advance, if they wanted to stop them here, killing would probably be the only way they could do it.

Occasionally, monsters would break the shield wall, maybe from a group of were-beasts charging all at once or maybe from an orc shattering a shield, but nevertheless, the horde would surge forward. One of those times came a few minutes later, and Garret (as well as the other mages and rangers) were immediately commanded to direct their fire and suppress the advance. He threw a roaring ball of fire, blasting one of the werewolves off their feet, while the other rangers and mages acted in similar fashion. As every advance before had been, it was eventually dealt with when the leaders were cut down or riddled with arrows, but not before a handful of Order soldiers had been slain. The troops around the 'wedge' had managed to defend themselves rather well, a testament to the competency of The Order's military, but every death meant their advance had to become a bit more careful and a bit more cautious to prevent another.

Despite this, victory was becoming more and more certain as time went on. Mamono fell in far greater numbers than the soldiers of The Order, and they had only ever been slowed, never outright halted or pushed back. They were about to engulf the surviving members of the monster horde and finish them off, when they heard the tramp of metal boots approaching. A formation of infantry, in varying states of equip and readiness, pushed through the monster's lines from behind, letting the mamono reorganize behind or beside it. The male citizens of the town, fully transformed and equipped with whatever armour or weapons could be found, were advancing towards The Order's soldiers. A rarity in the war between humans and monsters, a proper battle between infantry formations was about to begin.

The problem wasn't that incubus soldiers were better than human soldiers, but rather one of morale. While it was true that the demonic energy tended to enhance their physical prowess, it hampered them mentally with countless intruding thoughts of sex… or so the priests claimed. Supposedly, if they kept their calm and focus, they'd be able to win by superior discipline, training and equipment. That assertation turned out to be accurate as The Order began to cut into the line of men who, though they were stronger and tougher, could not match the skill of their trained soldiers.

The morale problem was the one that ended up having the biggest effect on their performance. The sun had started to rise, and it gave enough light to allow them to see exactly who they were fighting. When Garret finished off a spear-wielding incubus with successive blasts of fire, he was surprised to see the snowflake insignia that marked a Northreach soldier adorning the armour of the man who replaced it. The soldiers that had been dragged away in the battle, the men who went missing when the mantis girls attacked, and guards lost during the monster incursion from long ago were all present in the enemy's army… and that was something especially unnerving. Soldiers gasped or froze when they found themselves face to face with one of their missing friends, and that pause was usually fatal, as the incubi-who-were-once-men attacked without mercy. Some of them called out to their former comrades, encouraging them to give up or turn on the other soldiers, promising how wonderful life under the demon lord could be.

"Johann! Come on, man, I know you don't want to fight me. Just give it up! The Order is finished, the mamono can't be stopped. Don't throw your life away!"

"Hey, Niles~ Remember that blonde tavern girl you always liked? I know a cute succubus just like her! Come on, I can introduce you~"

Between the peels of steel on steel, the incubi shouted to the friends that they recognized. Sometimes they were returned with a cry of "Shut Up!", and a flurry of blows, but other times their words did more damage than a sword could ever do. This was especially true when it came from an old partner or someone who's 'death' they hadn't come to terms with yet.

"Hannah!"

"No... No, not you too, Sam…"

"Hannah, please! Please! I don't want to lose you again!"

The man didn't attack, and the Natonian girl froze, unable to bring herself to harm her lover, monstrous though he may be. A soldier beside her tried to attack him, but she screamed and used her shield to block the blow.

"No! Don't…!"

She never got to finish the sentence. 'Sam' dropped his sword and grabbed her during her moment of distraction, hauling her out of formation, and disappearing into the ranks of the other incubi.

It made no sense… How could soldiers from the Theocracy of Northreach have been corrupted this quickly? They should have been stronger than that, mentally.

In front of him, Annika was dueling with a soldier from their number, though thankfully neither of them knew each other.

The transformation to an incubus only took a few hours at most, but to reshape their minds into something capable of fighting and not just lusting? That should have taken a day at least!

When Annika battered the man's shield aside, Garret let lose a blast of fire that flew just over her shoulder before arcing down to scorch the man.

What could have caused them to give in so easily? When a flying shape rose above the chaos, he knew he had his answer.

"SUCCUBUUUUUS!" A soldier yelled to alert them. At the sight of a greater demon, Garret felt a shiver run down his spine and a tremble through his legs. She flared her wings menacingly, then dove towards the formation with supernatural speed. Like the mantes in the alleys, she tackled a soldier faster than he could react, then took off, taking him with her into the air. Unlike the mantes, though, she didn't kidnap him to be converted (likely by her). Instead, when she reached a sufficient height, she threw the man, letting gravity do the work for her, before immediately diving down for another victim. The rangers quickly switched targets, firing at her as she flew, but to little effect. Not only was it difficult to hit a target moving at that speed, she also reached out with her hand, calling forth a wall of energy sprung to shield her. Soldiers with spears, she left alone, likely because of the danger of being impaled, but those who wielded shorter weapons found themselves at her mercy with little that could be done. Some tried to hit her before she grabbed them, but she was too fast for them to do any more than superficial damage. On the off chance that a soldier was prepared for her and had his sword at the ready, she'd just swerve erratically and grab someone else – usually from the frontline – who had their focus elsewhere.

A magician from somewhere cast a bolt of arcane energy, but the beam warped around the succubus instead of piercing into her. Wards… Maybe he could punch through it with enough power? Garret took a moment to prepare himself before investing almost all of his remaining energy into a single flaming spear. He hurled the spear towards her as she began to hover to prepare for another dive. Like his fireball in Catherine's house, the flaming spear halted an inch or two from the succubus' chest and began to fight the wards. The extra energy he had invested allowed it to persist much longer, but it still sputtered out after a few seconds with no success.

"Shit!"

Garret hunched over, hands on his knees as the energy was sucked out of him. Even that wasn't enough… With ragged breaths, he wiped the sweat off his brow before grabbing the crystal around his neck and siphoning the energy from it as fast as he dared without damaging it. Not for the first time, he whispered a quick 'thanks' to his dead friend for giving him this.

"Garret, look out!"

A warning was shouted from his partner, but by the time he raised his head, it was too late. Having apparently taken an interest in where the latest spell had come from, the succubus swooped down and was almost upon him. To his surprise, though, salvation came in the form of a tackle. Annika had abandoned the frontline and dove into Garret, knocking him to the ground and, more importantly, out of harms way. Unfortunately, that meant Annika was now the one in danger, and the succubus grabbed her instead.

"No! Annika!"

He scrambled to his feet, coming face to face with a group of mamono that charged into the gap she left.

"OUT OF MY WAY!"

He raised his hands and threw a wide blast of fire across them, badly burning the monsters and knocking them back a step from its pressure. That gave him enough space to move, and the soldiers enough of an opening to counterattack… but at the cost of a lot of energy. Damn it! Using all his strength, he might have been able to punch through the wards once, but now he had no chance! He frantically searched through the brightening sky, looking for the succubus. … There! Flying through the air, she dodged shards of rock fired by an earth mage and blocked the ranger's arrows with another spell. When she reached the apex of her flight, Garret watched in horror as she let go of Annika, then pried her hands off her leg when his partner tried to catch herself and hold on. She plummeted a half dozen stories, through the thatched roof of a house, landing somewhere inside. Shit, shit, shit!

Though every fiber of his being was telling him to run to her side and see if she was alive, Garret managed to remain still. Leaving the formation might well be suicide in a battle like this, and that succubus was still around… Shit, what was he going to do… The demon made another swoop, but Garret made himself scarce this time, blending into the crowd and nearly hugging a spearman for shelter as she grabbed another victim. Again, she dodged the blasts of rock and blocked the arrows with impunity. How were they supposed to fight against that?! The battle was still going well on the ground, but if she picked off enough soldiers, the tide would quickly turn… how were they going to stop her? They couldn't hit her with magic or arrows, and she avoided any of the soldiers that could actually harm her. When she flew by again, Garret let out a half-hearted blast of flame that (predictably) fizzled when it hit her. Nothing. Was there really nothing they could do?

"Hey. Hey! You're the wizard shooting fire, right?"

A minute later, a man dressed in brown and green robes pushed his way through the soldiers and grabbed Garret by the shoulder. He spun around, startled, then nodded.

"Yeah, I'm a flame sorcerer. Not that it's-"

He got cut off as the man interrupted him.

"Can you make an explosion?"

"Uh, yes."

The man's eyes lit up. "How precisely?"

Garret conjured a small flaming spear for his viewing pleasure.

"If I use one of these, I can detonate it wherever it lands… But what good is that? I can't pierce her wards!"

"Doesn't matter! Did you see my rocks? She always dodges them; I can't throw them fast enough." The ground at their feet split open to produce another shard of rock which the earth sorcerer threw at the succubus making another pass. As before, she swerved slightly, just enough to avoid the rock before grabbing the soldier she had been aiming for.

"But she can't block them like she does the arrows and she doesn't move much! She never dodges by more than a few feet!"

True… presumably if the sorcerer could guide his rocks like Garret could guide his fire, the succubus would have been long dead. Wards didn't work against mundane (but magically propelled) rocks. They needed to find a way to do that, though… Suddenly the answer came tumbling to him.

"You want me to detonate one of your shards, don't you?"

The earth mage snapped his fingers and nodded.

"Bingo. But not a shard, we'll need more rock than that. I'll make a much larger rock for you to blow up. If the shrapnel hits her and takes her down, she's finished."

They didn't have any other options, so Garret nodded.

"Let do it then."

The earth sorcerer shoved a few swordsmen away to make room, then split the earth with a spell. When the succubus reached her preferred altitude and dropped another unfortunate man, he called forth a large, somewhat spherical ball of stone about two feet in diameter. Judging by the sweat pooling on his brow, it was as taxing an effort as it looked.

"We've only got… one shot… gotta make it count."

Shattering something this size was going to be tough. Conjuring another flaming spear, Garret punched it into the middle of the rock, using a sizable amount of energy to make sure It reached the core, then nodded, his whole body tense as he held the spell.

When the succubus began to swoop down again towards another terrified soldier, the mage roared and shoved his arm forward like he was throwing a shot. The rock followed its movements, then was catapulted into the air as the magic propelled it. Drained from the effort, the sorcerer collapsed. Now it was Garret's turn.

The rock was slightly off target, owing to its size, but that didn't matter. As before, the succubus shifted one wing to roll slightly and let the rock harmlessly pass her… only this time it didn't. Garret channeled all of his remaining strength into the spell, causing the spear within the rock to detonate. It fractured and exploded into a hundred tiny fragments that, even if the succubus could block them, were too close for her to do anything about as they shredded her wings, punctured her body, and did exactly what they had hoped for: knocked her out of the air.

The succubus crashed to the ground, knocking over a couple soldiers as she did. When she skidded to a halt, she found herself looking up at the man she had originally been aiming for. The two of them froze, the man from the start, and the demon, still disoriented from the blast and crash. The soldiers around them, though, didn't take much time to process what just happened. All they knew was that the woman harrying their forces was at their feet and they descended upon her in a flurry of swords and axes.

Garret managed to hold onto his strength for just long enough to watch her crash before ending up in a similar state to the earth sorcerer. He slumped to his knees, then fell over as the spell took its toll. His crystal still had some power in it, so before his consciousness fled, he placed a hand on it and absorbed the remaining energy – just enough to get him walking and maybe cast a single flame arc.

"Did we…. Did we get her?"

The green-brown robed man, slumped on the ground beside him, looked like he was on the verge of unconsciousness as well, though he managed to hold on. Lucky.

"Yeah… She's gone. Nice job."

Garret pulled him to his feet and slung an arm over his shoulder, before helping him walk to the rear of the formation. Neither of them were in any shape to fight, and they only risked being trampled by staying here.

Without the succubus harassing The Order, victory was assured. The presence of the corrupted soldiers slowed and inflicted more casualties than expected but did not stop them. Within an hour, the monsters had broken and either fled the town or died where they stood. As The Order dispersed to sweep the town, Garret knew exactly where he had to go. Leaving the sorcerer behind, he sprinted through the streets until he found the house with a hole in its roof. Barging through the door, he headed for the second story, frantically calling for his partner.

"Garret! Over. Here."

The reply he got was curt and punctuated by sharp breaths, but it filled him with hope. When he ran into the room that the voice came from, he saw Annika sort of slouched against a bed, with broken pieces of wood and straw scattered on the floor around her. By some miracle, she had missed the main beams supporting the roof and crashed through a thinner section, cushioning her fall and allowing her to survive.

"Annika!"

Garret ran over, about to hug her, but she put an arm up to stop him. When he looked her over, it made sense why. One arm lay limp by her side, and her legs were splayed at strange angles… her survival had been bought at the price of many broken bones.

"I'll get a priest!"

She nodded, whimpering as she breathed. Maybe she had some broken ribs as well.

It turned out several priests would be needed to heal Annika… but given the amount of wounded, only one was available. The man numbed her pain and healed enough the damage to allow her to move, then helped Garret limp her out of the house.

"Thank God you survived, Annika… I was so worried."

"Yeah. Well. I almost didn't."

Even with the divine magic muting the pain, her sentences were still short and sharp. It seemed it couldn't stop everything, and speaking still hurt.

"Are you. Alright, Garret?"

Her concern for him, when she had been the one dropped, caused him to look at her like she was crazy.

"Am I ok?! I'm not injured, but of course I'm not ok! I almost lost you! What were you thinking, diving on me like that?!"

He paused for a moment, realizing that the last thing he should be doing was berating her and lightly squeezed her hand.

"But uh… Thank you for saving me, Annika… That's twice I owe you for."

She smiled at him and squeezed back.

"That's what. Partners. Are for."

As they walked back to the town center, she searched the sky and ground, looking for the foe that grabbed her.

"Did they get her?"

"Yeah, an earth sorcerer hit her with an exploding boulder."

With the state Annika was in, Garret had no desire to take credit and, by comparison, make her performance look even worse.

"Dead?"

He nodded and thumbed to the spot where she had fallen.

"She crashed down in the middle of our soldiers and they did what they did best."

Annika nodded, then winced.

"Good. I don't. Want to see. Another. For a while."

After their joint experience of being nearly helpless in the face of a proper demon, Garret completely agreed.

In the town square, opposite to where the battle lines had been drawn, a medical tent had been hastily erected with several more on the way. Cots, little more than stretchers with a pair of cross-pieces under their poles, had been set out in rows with wounded soldiers laying on them, waiting to be tended to as priests and chirurgeons scurried about. Whenever a wound was deemed severe enough, a priest would be called over to use healing magic, otherwise a chirurgeon would simply clean and bandage the less critical ones. Likely all of the injured would eventually get healed by magic, but with a limited amount of energy to go around, priority was given to saving lives. Once assured that they could stand by themselves, the priest helping them went off to find an empty cot, then, failing that, retrieved one from a supply wagon and quickly set it up. Garret nodded the man his thanks as he helped Annika walk over to it and lie down. He wanted to help her remove her armour, but decided to leave that to the medical staff. The metal plates might be holding broken bones in place, and he didn't know enough about wound treatment to avoid doing further harm.

With only (a lot) of broken bones, but no danger of bleeding out, Annika was marked as one of the lowest priorities for treatment, so Garret made himself comfortable at her bed side while they waited.

"You don't. Have to stay. Garret. I'll be. Fine."

He took her hand and shook his head.

"No, I'm not going anywhere. Not until we get you back on your feet."

She smiled slightly and closed her eyes.

"Sorry. I won't be. Good company."

He returned the smile and half-heartedly chuckled.

"Don't worry about it, Annika, get some rest. I'll stick around."

Outside the tent, a horn sounded, signaling for the soldiers to rally. Apparently he had somewhere to be, but they wouldn't miss one person skipping out. He intended to ignore the call, but Annika had other ideas. She released his hand and cracked an eye.

"Go to them… they might. Need a mage."

"They'll be fine, Annika, I'd rather stay here with you."

"No… It's your. Job. I'll be fine. Better to. Do something. Useful."

He looked her over, torn between wanting to support his partner and acknowledging the truth of her words. Eventually, though, her reasoning won out.

"… Alright, Annika. I'll be back soon, just get some rest."

"Good luck. Garret."

Author's Notes: "Oi, Raven! Where's your chapter? You were supposed to publish a month ago!" "Uuuuuuuughhhhh fiiiiiine..." *uploads file*

Yeah, I've been pretty busy lately and there seems to be no end of that in sight. Sorry about keeping y'all waiting. Rest assured that I am squeezing in as much writing as I can and have no intention of abandoning this story until it is done. Hopefully this abnormally long chapter makes up for my absence. Now, with that out of the way, on to my commentary.

Part of the reason this chapter took so long to write was me constantly redoing the battle scenes. Back when I did a bunch of text-based roleplays, I had a tendency to be very matter-of-fact when describing scenes. This doesn't really mesh well with the advice that you should 'show, not tell' when writing a story, though, so I had to redo a lot of sections to make them more fitting to the medium. I still am not convinced that I did a great job with making the scenes particularly interesting or expressive, but trust me... they were actually terrible before I did my second and third revisions. I'd like to think they're better now, but this is a skill that I'm definitely still trying to develop.

One thing I wanted to do with this battle was to avoid glorifying it and portray the war in a more grey fashion. Is stabbing to death a bunch of sleeping men, women and children honorable? moral? chivalrous? It certainly doesn't fit the idea of what a legendary knight in shining armour would do. How about killing the fleeing civilians? Looting the belongings of the dead? All of this looks like something you would see in the opening scenes of a fantasy movie... but in those, it would be done by an 'evil empire'. This is being done by the 'good guys'.

I wanted to be careful to not make The Order into a good organization free of flaws and, by extension, show that there are certain times when Garret is... not a good person (more on this next chapter). Portraying the battle strategies as ruthlessly pragmatic (Why give the monsters a fair fight when, by killing them as they sleep or run, you lower the risk to your soldiers?) and disregarding our own contemporary laws of war facilitates this, I think. It also gives me the chance to write for how a 'good' person would justify these actions. What does Garret do when he decides to kill a child or destroy a loving family? He plays it down. It's not really a little girl, it's a monster. It's not actually a loving relationship, it's just brainwashing. Really, he's setting the men free by killing them, so it's ok. ... Right? What this war does to the people fighting it and the justifications they make to excuse their actions is going to come up a fair bit in later chapters.

Corruption is also a big topic I wanted to start to touch on. As written in the MGE, when you become an incubus, your beliefs and allegiance change, but not much else... so if your friend goes missing, you might have to fight that very same friend later on, who is still conscious, still acts like they used to, still seems like the same person... except they've become completely loyal to the demon lord, and are drunk on pleasure. What does that do to a person who has to face them? Would they still be able to fight? Some would, others wouldn't. I hope I did a good enough job at portraying this, but even if I didn't, it's definitely going to come up again in later chapters, so I'll have another chance.

Now, lets move on to the monsters. Succubi are written strangely in the MGE. In almost every profile or lore entry, they're shown to be the default state when you become a monster (admittedly, with a transition phase from lesser to full), however the first line of their profile states 'A greater demon possessing extremely powerful abilities'. If we take the MGE at face value, that means the most common type of monster is also one of the most powerful ones, which doesn't seem right. I've altered this by changing it so that lesser succubi are the common ones, and full succubi are much more rare. If you encounter a full succubus, though, oh boy, you're in for trouble. I think this makes much more sense.

As for the monsters found in the town, well, since it was written that the town fell to a mamono incursion years back, I thought it made sense to have it mostly populated with the kinds of mamono you would find in a reverse crusade. That means common, weapon-wielding monsters like minotaur, lizardmen, etc. or ones that could use pack tactics to fight (were-beasts).

Shit, this is getting long. These notes added over an extra 1k words to the chapter, but I think it's important for me to write them to reflect and give a bit of insight to why I wrote the way I did. Lets wrap it up now.

Once again, thank you everyone for reading, and a double thank-you to those who reviewed, followed or favourited. It's always nice to watch those numbers creep up and to receive feedback, even if it's just a few words.

That's all I've got for now, so...

Until next time, Sayonara!