"Thank you for coming! Have a nice day!" said a cheery-looking Kaguya as she waved goodbye to an elderly elf. She watched as the old elf hobbled out of her tent, step by wobbly step. When the elf was finally out, her smile slowly turned upside down and then she let out a long, irritated sigh. Reaching under her neatly decorated mahogany desk, she pulled out her sleek beast of a laptop and booted it up immediately. Her shift was about to be over in about 5 minutes but she didn't care. From late evening till night, she had been stuck in this white-washed tent, having to tolerate not only the blandness of the whole setup but also rows upon rows of people who believe that she could provide answers to all of their problems just because she was coerced into working as an 'information consultant' by none other than the Brain of the Moon herself.
She was never one to leave the confines of her own room let alone for the benefit of others. However, after Eirin suggested to her 'lightly' to take up the job by the Old Hell Geyser, she felt the need to be altruistic for once and 'willingly' accepted her offer (not before being dressed in a nurse outfit. For the right tone, 'suggested' Eirin). And so she found herself placed in a pretty little red and blue tent located by the rim of the geyser that led to the Underground.
It was a hectic place, that geyser rim. Medical staff rushed in and out of tents to care for the increasing number of patients that suffered wounds from demonic attacks. Moon rabbits acted as crude immigration officers, directing a seemingly never-ending stream of refugees; people running away from the hellhole below, into two campsites. The medical campsite on the eastern side of the rim or the shelters on the western side. The refugees were sorted into the camps by assigning them one of three colours: red, blue or red-and-blue. Red for medical wing, blue for shelters. Red-and-blue was reserved for refugees who had questions on their minds that were out of the officers' job scope.
And this was where Kaguya came in.
While the eastern and western wings encircled the geyser rim, one tent on the northern side stood out amongst the multitude of tents. It was located at the midpoint of the circle of tents and was easily identified by its distinct red-and-blue pattern with a smiley face on the sign in front of it, making it stick out like a sore thumb and thus led many a survivor towards the tent with entire arrays of questions to be answered.
Questions ranged from the sensible ("How do I know if the barrier outside can really protect us?"), to the non-sensical ("If I was turned into a guy and made out with you, would that make me straight or gay?"), to the outright stupid ("May I know where the information consultation tent is?"). She had to go answer every single question they had, as per her job description, sitting still by her mahogany desk. All the while smiling sweetly. She understood, and indeed she did, that these people were looking for help and were forced into leaving by beings from another dimension and thus it made sense that their minds may have been befuddled by the horrors they faced. Her inner princess dictated that it was vital that she be understanding of the circumstances of the people lest she be chided for it.
Her inner princess also reminded her that patience was a scarce resource and that it was ruthlessly depleted as each person came by with yet another set of questions.
Now, with 3 more minutes before the end of her shift, she could no longer hold herself back from engaging in her favourite pastime activity. The tent was filled with the soft hum emitting from her LunarWare gaming laptop. She checked the security feed outside to make sure that there were no people lined up in front of her tent. She felt her heart race. This was it. The moment she had been waiting for. After being denied access to it for over 4 hours, she finally was able to resume her paused game.
She gulped. Her hands began to sweat a little as she placed her left on the keyboard and her right on her mouse calculatedly. Out of compulsion, she looked at the clock on her desk.
One more minute till shift ends.
She gently pressed on each key where her fingers were placed to ensure that her keyboard worked fine. Her mouse was moved around the board sporadically for a brief moment to check its sensitivity. It was crucial that she did so for she was already up against the final boss: Deathshead himself.
Normally, she would never go through such a lengthy process before resuming a game. However, she was playing The New Order on Ironman difficulty, which meant that she only had one life and death would result in her restarting from the very beginning of the game as checkpoint saving was disabled. To make matters worse, it was essentially Uber difficulty on steroids thus meaning she had to fight through waves upon waves of enemies and bosses at their highest damage output and accuracy and still live.
10 seconds remained.
It was do or die now. Countless hours of playing and replaying, many sleepless nights restarting the game again and again, it all accumulated into this moment. The final step to glory and satisfaction was just one boss away and she would not let it go to waste.
The bell had rung.
Her shift, over.
She clicked 'Resume' as soon as the bell went off. She was now locked in a duel to the death with Deathshead, piloting his stupid robot.
The fight was long and arduous. Her health repeatedly being battered away by Deathshead's ruthless onslaught. Her armour completely gone, her ammo running low but she saw a silver lining in this gloomy situation she was in. Her enemy's health was also low. All she had was a couple of shotgun shells, some rockets and one rifle round. Not enough but the environment will help her gain that extra damage needed to take him down.
So she weaved around the claustrophobic map, taking potshots whenever she could as she ran from cover to cover grabbing anything she could find. Armour, small health packs, ammunition; she took them all if it meant surviving his onslaught of dual gattling guns in the tight industrial hellhole of a map. Pipeline fires obscured her vision, leaving her to pre-emptively guess his movement pattern in the already small area. She could hear the pounding thumps of his robot stalking the walkways, each thump speeding the beating of her heart in anxiety.
Then, she saw it. Her ray of light. He had walked past the pillar she was hiding behind and his back was now facing her. Without a moment's hesitation, she let loose a barrage of rockets followed by a head-on charge with her shotgun before finishing it off with a lucky headshot with last rifle round. Deathshead let out a roar of anguish as his robot began to fizzle and burn in malfunction.
She was done. At long last, she had won. Now, it was time for her to execute the twisted Nazi general that lay by her feet to officiate her long fought victory. She stepped up to Deathshead slowly and calmly. When the execution prompt popped on her screen, she stopped. It was an effort that cost her hundreds upon hundreds of hours of frustration, anger and grief so it was only right that she be granted the leisure of basking in her glory before she made it an actual in-game achievement.
A sigh of relief was heard in that dainty red and blue tent. Then, came the muffled cheers and intense flurry of fists being pumped in the air. The tears then came, rolling off the gamer's cheeks like dew falling off a leaf; strangely elegant. Her joy could never be expressed in words even if she lived through another millennium (or until the next big game came out). Kaguya, was indeed, in her own state of nirvana.
After wiping off the tears and calming herself down, she adjusted her seat and straightened her back. She then placed her hand on the keyboard and prepared herself to press the one button that will immortalise her victory in her computer…
"Lady Kaguya! The Enma wishes to speak with you!"
She felt her heart cease all activity. It could be possible that she actually died at that moment in shock at the sudden intrusion of the moon rabbit. If she were a mere mortal, she reckoned, she might as well have dropped dead and have her name in the list of silly deaths. Time to add another one to the list, she thought as she mentally placed it above 'death by late-night marathon'. "Let her in, then." Kaguya commanded, her laptop still on but game paused yet again.
The offending rabbit then left as silently as she entered before making way for Shikieiki and her fellow slacker, Komachi. Kaguya, following her usual routine, set her laptop aside and tacked on her service smile.
"So, how can I help you?"
There was a moment of silence as Kaguya stared upon a stern-faced Shikieiki. Noticing that she appeared to begin speaking, Kaguya opted to interrupt her instead lest she sits through another one of her sermons about the need of a productive lifestyle.
"I'm terribly sorry, dear customer. It appears that we are now closed. Why don't we arrange a meeting sometime later, okay?"
"Very funny. Look, I'm here today to discuss some urgent matters at hand that are of utmost importance regarding our current situation."
"If you're looking for Eirin, she's still holed up down there doing god-knows-what in that facility of hers."
Shikieiki groaned in annoyance. "No, we're not here for her and if we were, we wouldn't come looking for you. And wipe that smile off your face! If there's anything I hate more than false assumptions, it's fake smiles."
"Alright, alright…No need to get your panties in a twist, Judge Dredd."
A giggle escaped Komachi's mouth, earning her a sharp glare from her boss.
"Listen. We are here to talk about the demon invasion that we are facing right now."
Upon hearing that, Kaguya leaned forward a little. Her expression now colder but her smile still remained.
"You want me to just hand over some info, don't you? Just get me to relive the Night of Demons all over again, hmm? Get me to tell the tale so long that people actually sleep in the middle of it? Is that it?"
"Unfortunately, yes. We have a feeling that you may be able to help us as your people have encountered them several centuries ago."
oOo
Outside, one of the immigration officer rabbits spot a seemingly sickly old woman. The old woman hobbled with every step and was having a horrible coughing fit. "Ma'am, are you alright?", questioned the rabbit to the old woman. She stayed silent, holding firmly in her hand an orange glass orb. Panic flushed through the rabbit's system the moment she saw the old woman smirk and twist and deform her face into that of a hideous creature...
oOo
"Hmm. Very well. What do you want to know?"
She shot question after question to the lunar princess, gaining more and more pieces of vital information regarding the demons and their failed invasion of the Moon; where they came from, how they fought, how the Lunarians halted their invasion and, most importantly, the key figure that stopped them for good.
"We were on the brink of losing the war. Our men, outnumbered. Our people, slaughtered. All because of the insatiable desire of our king to expand our territory beyond our own realm. To create a 'pure' empire, he declared. And his first target was the unknown realm of Hell. The alleged 'fourth' Hell that Hecatia sealed away. Thus, he ordered his scientists to open a portal to the realm to begin his conquest of 'purifying' the most 'impure' of dimensions. But there was a reason the Hell Goddess put it away out of sight.
By the time we found out, it was too late. While we gained the upper hand during the first few days, they had already bargained a deal with a grieving general to resurrect his dead wife. However, like all deals with the devil, it will always be in his favour.
The general did as he was told and snuck in a Summoner disguised as a frail old woman into the Lunar Capital. Once the deed was done, the Summoner wreaked havoc within the capital and summoned entire armies of demons. The general was rewarded for his treachery by having his wife return in their form as a Succubus and had his life essence drained to produce more of their unholy soldiers.
And it was during our darkest hour, when hope seemed to have all but faded away, he came. The Armoured Man. He annihilated wave upon wave of those reckless heathens with nothing but his bare hands and flaming sword.
His rage was felt and shared by the Lunarians who then fought with rejuvenated spirits and ferocity. It was called the Night of Demons for a reason: everything ended within the span of a night. And it truly ended when the Slayer destroyed the teleportation facility that housed the main gate and chased them back to Hell. Before his departure, he left a scroll containing crucial information about the Slayer which is now in the Vault of Secrecy."
As Kaguya finished, she noticed a soft snoring sound in front of her. Komachi, it seemed, had dozed off. Shikieiki, having heard the whole thing, already had her Rod of Remorse hanging above her subordinate's head. She smiled softly at the sight before her. However, there was something else that needed completing and that would bring her a greater feeling of satisfaction. She quietly dragged her laptop back in front of her and proceeded to press the key that will signify her triumph over the game.
Just as the execution animation was about to play, just as the Rod of Remorse was about to smash in Komachi's head, the world flashed brightly and darkened.
"Please help me!"
"Don't eat me!"
"We're dying over here, help!"
Kaguya awoke to find the campsite around her in ruins. Her two guests were gone and apparently aiding the rabbits in protecting the survivors. The barrier erected by Yukari was still up but the barrier team were being overwhelmed by the sheer number of demons. The familiar smell of centuries past filled the air around her. Death was around wherever she looked. A woman just got ripped in half by a Hell Knight several metres from where she lay. To her right, a dying moon rabbit was in the middle of breathing her final breaths, her shotgun held firmly in her arms.
She looked over to her left. There, right next to her, she saw a most heart-rendering image. Her sorrow quickly overwhelmed her as she immediately sat up with tears flowing down her face. Her laptop had been destroyed. With it, her hard-earned victory. It was the ultimate level of griefing and it was administered by none other than the harsh reality of life around her.
Sorrow turned to grief. Grief turned to rage. Rage then moulded itself into the purest form of anger: tranquil fury.
Kaguya, with steel resolve and clear mind, grabbed the shotgun from the dead moon rabbit beside her and charged head-on into the thick of the action where the demons had most of the survivors cornered.
Upon arrival, the first thing she did was smash the butt of the shotgun into the head of an unsuspecting imp and kick it to the ground. Then, as the imp yelled and screeched in pain and anger, she shoved the shotgun down its loudmouth and blew its head clean off. Then, realising that the surrounding demons had noticed her, fired off an elegantly dizzying storm of danmaku to disorient them. She checked the amount of shells she had left. Just enough. So, while the imps and Unwilling fruitlessly try to regain their senses, she took aim and fired a shell at each and every single demon that encircled her.
One to the head. Blew off a leg on that one. Shot that imp's arm away.
This calculated dismemberment of the circle of demons went on until she eventually ran dry. By then, she had five dead demons and fifteen others wishing they were. While they were as good as dead already, she wanted to make sure that she finished the job. She wasn't willing to have another 'laptop incident' on her hands. Her moment of victory must be officiated as soon as possible. Thus, she walked over to each of the fifteen dying imps and Unwilling and proceeded to mercilessly stomp their heads in with her stilettoes, whack them repeatedly with the solid rear end of her shotgun until their bones went soft or take a lesson from Eirin and surgically remove their organs from their gaping wounds. When she came up to the fifteenth imp, she saw that it was simply too weak to extract any sort of reaction and allowed it the luxury of bleeding out.
The spatters of blood that pelted her face with every hit did little to disgust her. If anything, it made her feel an odd feeling of bliss. It was almost like she was playing The New Order again on her beloved gaming machine but this time, she was Blazkowicz. She was the hulking beast that struck fear into the heart of Nazis and executed them with extreme prejudice. The demons; the other imps, Unwilling and lesser demons that bore witness to her fury indeed felt fear being instilled into their heartless hearts. But not for the same reasons that the blood princess believed to be.
Rather than the Lunar Princess being similar to that of a Nazi-killing Polish American, they saw Him within her. His tenacity, his relentless anger and brutality. Their fears would soon be amplified once they noticed that she wasn't alone.
They could almost hear him coming already, pumping his shotgun that blasted their names on them...
A/N: Hey there, guys. KobeNiku here. First off, I'd like to apologise for the late update. The new academic term began sometime last month and the amount of work and studies I had to do essentially doubled so updates will be irregular for quite a while. Anyways, let me know if you have anything to say about this chapter or this story as a whole. Or anything, really. See you then!