Vignette 23C - Mercie the Vampire Slayer, Part 3 of 3
Once everyone had been properly armed and equipped, the doors to the cathedral opened, and the larger of the two groups stepped out and made their way towards the heart of the monastery grounds. The smaller group, made up of Shez, Shayla, Balthus, Hapi, Flayn, Cyril, Alois, and Gilbert, had gone their own separate way through another exit to get to Abyss. As the assemblage got closer, Hilda finally noticed something that made her adopt a curious and confused expression.
"Oh-kaaayyy...what's with the outfit, Claude?" she asked. "Especially the sunglasses at night."
Claude, for some reason, had traded in his Golden Deer uniform for a more subdued ensemble, capped off by a black long coat and the pair of sleek and stylish sunglasses on his face.
"Dunno, really," the Riegan heir replied in a vaguely Snipes-ish fashion. "For an occasion like this, it felt strangely...right."
Hilda, dumbfounded by this response, shrugged with a resigned sigh.
Felix's eyes darted back-and-forth in a sweep of the monastery grounds. "It's quiet..." he uttered, before Annette ribbed him. "*Oof!*"
"Shhh!" the redheaded axe-wielding mage shushed him, a warning look in her eyes. "DON'T finish that cliché!"
Felix, a bit taken aback by her uncharacteristic gesture and genre-savviness, nodded.
Eventually, the group reached the center of the grounds, and it was then that Mercedes, eyes shifting to her left, quietly but swiftly drew two arrows from her quiver, and in one beautifully fast motion, pulled her bowstring back and then released them in the direction of an alcove near the upper floor where the sauna was.
"*URGHK!*"
On hearing that, the party looked to where Mercedes had shot her arrows, and watched as two bodies fell over the side of the wall, landing several feet away from them. Shamir, Dmitri, Byron, and Seteth ran towards the spot to look them over, and soon enough noted, with wide eyes, that Mercedes' shots had gone straight into the hearts of both corpses...as well as the faces of both being quite pale, and possessing fangs on their upper and lower jaws. The four looked to the others, especially Mercedes, who was looking at their present surroundings warily.
"They're here..." she stated ominously. It was then that the sound of someone clapping slowly was soon heard. All eyes soon turned to the roof of the building where the classrooms were. Against the backdrop of the bright moon, a lone figure slouched, and as she stood up and moved closer to the torchlit section of the wall the party was facing, said figure revealed herself to be the one Mercedes had rallied everyone together against: Monica.
"Bravo, Mercie, bravo," she said with a teasing voice and an impish grin. "Excellent shots-but then again, nothing less from von Helsing's granddaughter. Tell me-can you dodge as well as you shoot?"
As those words left her lips, those among the group with the most finely-tuned sense of hearing could swear they heard something flying through the air. It was then that Claude suddenly gripped an arrow aimed right at Mercedes while it was in mid-flight, to the shock and awe of most of those around him.
"Heard that coming a mile away," he said coolly.
Monica's grin became a fanged smirk. "Well then-can you hear...this?"
Confused at first by what she inferred, the party soon could make out the sounds of wings flapping. Many wings flapping. Before their eyes, a large shape soon began to almost cover the moon. Those with the sharpest eyes in the group soon realized that this wasn't just one large shape, but a lot of smaller ones that appeared to be flying in formation.
"All wings, prepare to dive!" Monica commanded loud and clear. She then turned to another section of the roof. "Orchestra-set the scene!"
At her command, the multi-piece orchestra began playing rather fitting music to accompany the beginning of the battle.
[Suggested music: "Ride of the Valkyries", Richard Wagner.]
Monica turned her focus back to the mass of small flying shapes. "All wings-commence saturation bombing!" The flying shapes soon turned downward and dove towards the group.
Petra and Shamir, thanks to their great eyesight, were able to make out what the shapes were, as did Ashe and Bernadetta due to their archery training. What they saw made their jaws drop slightly.
"What is it? What are they?" Byleth asked.
"They're...bats," Ashe answered.
"L-l-l-lots and lots of them!" a quivering Bernadetta fearfully added.
"They also appear to be..." Petra started to say.
"...Constipated?" Shamir finished, in a rare moment for her of being baffled.
"Constipated?" Marianne softly and confusedly repeated. It was then that her expertise on animals kicked in and her eyes widened considerably. "EVERYBODY TAKE COVER, NOW!"
"What? Why?" Caspar asked.
"GUANO INCOMING!" Marianne loudly answered as she grabbed a surprised Hilda and ducked behind some stacked crates. Once the sound of multiple *splats* were heard, the others soon followed her lead and jumped for cover behind anything they could find, be it the large shields held by those of the fortress knight class, barrels, bushes, or picnic tables they turned on their sides.
Monica chuckled to herself as she watched the scene unfold before her, while her minions that weren't in bat form gathered about her. "Ah, the children of the night," she said amusedly. "What a mess they make."
Down below, the archers and long-range spellcasters of the group tried to take out the squadron of bats as their friends covered them (only managing to get very few lucky shots in the process), while also avoiding the rather foul projectiles the flying furry creatures sent their way.
"Dis-gusting!" Constance grimaced while attempting to use her parasol as a shield. "Who fights their battles in such a literal dirty manner?!"
"Mercie did warn us they were playing for keeps-!" Dorothea reminded her. Her train of thought was interrupted when she and Constance both felt a little something land on their hair, the sound of a *splat* just within hearing distance. Both girls looked at their respective locks, and on seeing the offending stains, felt their left eyes twitch. Their fellow students, seeing their reactions, slowly backed away.
"Uh-oh..." Ingrid said forebodingly.
"You said it," Yuri concurred.
Things were quiet for a few brief moments, until Constance finally broke the silence. "...My hair," she said with an even tone with an underlying hint of shock.
"...They made. A mess. In my hair," Dorothea said in much the same way.
Both girls, now with furious looks on their faces, their hands glowing with fire spells, suddenly stood up, glaring at the flock of winged rodents that was getting ready for another pass-around. Both then shouted the same thing simultaneously:
"YOU LITTLE BAT-STARDS!"
The two magic users soon launched a volley of fireballs at a (fittingly) rapid-fire pace, the sounds anachronistically akin to those of a World War II anti-aircraft gun. Both girls ruthlessly hit their targets dead-on, as the enormous flock of bats was subsequently turned to ashes, the vampires utterly unprepared for the consequences of giving two of the beauties of Garreg Mach's student body a bad hair day. Once the two girls stopped, panting as they did, they brought their arms down, their hands smoking from the inferno they'd unleashed on the bats. Their friends and teachers slowly stood up, totally astonished by what they'd just witnessed, the ashes falling like snow in front of them.
"HO-LY $#!+..." Raphael uttered.
"Took the words right out of my mouth, kid," Catherine said.
Up on the roof, Monica and her minions were just as astonished. "Huh-did not see that coming," she said, before giving the word to her minions. "Take them." Said minions hissed and leaped down from the roof, fangs bared as they made their way toward the group.
Said group soon noticed their undead opponents coming towards them, and readied themselves to meet them head on. "Remember, aim for their hearts or lop off their heads," Mercedes emphasized. "Contrary to the teachings of the Goddess, show them no mercy-they haven't been human for a long time." A sweat drop then appeared by her head. "Also, be sure to watch your step-I don't think any of us wants to slip on bat guano anytime soon."
With that, the battle was soon joined as living clashed with undead in the heart of Garreg Mach. It was unlike any battle seen in the monastery's history as the students and faculty fought ferociously against the horde of vampires that threatened to take them on all sides. (At one point, the archers managed to take out the orchestra on the roof.) Byron and Byleth especially were each able to freely go to town with the Sword of the Creator in its 'whip mode', as they passed it between them like a baton, completely in-synch with one another. This did not go unnoticed by one Church soldier who quickly rushed to the monastery's carrier pigeon coop with a few papers in-hand. He then immediately got to work writing a letter to go with said papers, which read:
Dear Trevor,
You know that new whip-based fighting style you're looking for?
Well, take a look at the included artist's renderings!
Your cousin,
Marvin Belmont
Back with the Eisner twins, the two of them continued to trade the Sword of the Creator back-and-forth while Sothis acted as their second set of eyes.
"Crack that whip!" she shouted.
Byron quickly did just that, a loud *CRACK* sounding off as the sharp tip on the end got one vampire right between the eyes.
"Give that vamp the slip!" Sothis shouted next.
Byleth proceeded to trip another vampire, causing them to fall flat on their face.
"Step on his crack!" Sothis shouted after that.
At this, Byleth stomped on the fallen vampire's rear end, in particular grinding her heel slowly as she did, which in turn did not bode well for the part of their anatomy that was on the other side, as the vampire went bug-eyed with an almost indescribable amount of pain. "WAY-BINNNNN!" said vampire cried out.
"Break that monster's back!" Sothis followed up with.
Byron tossed the Sword of the Creator to his sister as he grabbed the vampire about to jump him and rammed his spine over his knee; on dropping him to the ground, Byron proceeded to send his spare sword right through the bloodsucker's heart.
"Now whip 'em-!" Sothis shouted. Byleth snapped the whip-sword towards another vampire and got them right on their backside, causing them to jump up in pain. "-Whip 'em good!" Byleth snapped the whip-sword again and this time sent the tip right through the vampire's heart, before retracting the sword.
Over with Dmitri, he was presently engaged with his own vampiric opponents alongside Dedue, Marianne, Ashe, Linhardt, and Hanneman.
"Dmitri! Behind you!" Marianne shouted.
Dmitri barely had time to look over his shoulder as a vampire managed to bite into the area where his collar met his left shoulder. Things went still for a moment, until the vampire let go and recoiled in pain, gaping as his fangs crumbled. He then noticed that where he'd torn some of Dmitri's jacket off part of an additional garment showed underneath. The logo resembled two of the letter 'U' merged together, with one upside down; the label beneath it said 'Ye Olde Under Armour'. The vampire's shock further increased when Dmitri stabbed the head of his lance right through his heart; he did a brief double-take from the prince of Faerghus to the now-gaping hole in his chest and back.
"Bites, doesn't it?" Dmitri quipped before removing the lance from the vampire, who promptly fell over. (Thankfully, Linhardt had been looking the other way at the time, and Ashe made sure he didn't turn around.)
In another corner of the main square, Hilda lopped off the head of another bloodsucker, and was about to be set upon by yet another before a powerful wind spell blew him face-first into a wall. It was then that Hilda was joined by the source of that spell when Annette came up beside her.
"Thanks," Hilda said.
"No problem," Annette replied.
"By-the-by..." Hilda began to ask as they stood back-to-back, "...do you know 'praying mantis'?"
Annette smirked at this. "You're looking at her."
The two girls, uttering a brief battle cry, soon assumed the same hinted-at martial arts stance and, with great swiftness, proceeded to wail on the vampires surrounding them with a series of chops, punches, and kicks that wouldn't have been out of place in a low-budget 1970s Hong Kong kung-fu film.
"HEY! Save some for me!" Caspar called out from a short distance. "Raph, need a lift!"
Raphael nodded and, in one quick motion, the smaller Black Eagle student leaped onto the larger Golden Deer student's open palm, curled into a ball as much as possible; from there, Raphael threw Caspar into the group of vampires, where the Bergliez brawler immediately got two from behind thanks to his outstretched gauntlets (equipped with wooden stakes as the spikes), before joining in Hilda and Annette's melee.
"Like the way you think, short-stuff!" Catherine complimented him as she slammed the two vampires she was facing head-first into one another; while they were dazed, she quickly pierced their hearts with her own stake-gauntlets.
Over in another part of the main square, Rhea and Seteth proved to be holding their own greatly alongside some of the other students. "Do you think the Abyss team is faring well?" Seteth posed as he thrust his lance into the undead minion in front of him.
"I'm praying they are," Rhea replied as she punched her own foe square in the face before sending her blade into his heart. "The fact we're lasting this long is proof the Goddess is watching over us."
Somewhere in the section of the main square the Eisner twins were fighting in, in their shared headspace, Sothis sneezed.
Abyss, around the same time...
"Keep going, you're almost there!" Shayla shouted while she sent her blades into the hearts of the two bloodsuckers she faced.
She, Shez, Balthus, Alois, and Gilbert were acting as a wall, with Hapi providing long-range magical support, while Cyril and Flayn went to work on the boxes of cursed soil that had been placed in the center of Abyss. As instructed by Mercedes, they were burying a holy wafer in each bed of earth, rendering it cleansed and utterly useless to the vampires. When Flayn had buried the first one, the sight of the soil glowing briefly, followed by a sudden *Snap!*, *Crackle!*, and *Pop!* had convinced her and Cyril that it worked. The two worked quickly to dig a hole, drop a wafer, and then cover it, and it was proving to pay off, as their protectors soon found that, even with their superior numbers, their opponents getting slower and less coordinated with each box purified. Finally, after what seemed like an hour of planting wafer upon wafer, Flayn and Cyril reached the remaining box. Just as they were about to dig a hole for the wafer, they found that it wasn't entirely unguarded, if the vampire that jumped in front of them menacingly was any indicator.
Hapi, noticing their predicament, did the one thing she knew would save them, and sighed. It was then that just as the vampire was about to go for Cyril's throat, he was suddenly devoured by a giant crawler that appeared from the ground beneath him. Thankfully, Hapi had surmised that aside from stakes, pure water, sunlight, garlic, and goddess icons, a vampire was more than likely extremely vulnerable to the powerful stomach acids of a giant crawler's digestive system.
Their goal now clear, Cyril quickly dug a hole in the boxed soil and Flayn dropped a wafer into it, which Cyril then quickly covered back up. Once the soil glowed and made that trio of indicative sounds, the two of them sighed with relief. "This basement is clean!" Flayn cheered in a manner akin to a Southern Baptist preacher having performed a successful exorcism.
On hearing that, the others (save for Gilbert) grinned knowingly at the remaining vampires, some of whom swallowed and tugged at their collars uneasily.
In the shared headspace between Shez and Shayla, even Arval got in on the mood. "See ya," they playfully let out with a teasing wave, even though only their hosts could hear it.
Garreg Mach, topside...
Petra momentarily found herself dumbfounded when the vampire leaping towards her suddenly lost a lot of its momentum and fell to the ground at her feet. Not wasting the opportunity, she plunged her sword into his heart, and then noticed that the other vampires were exhibiting similar signs. It was as if something had taken the bite out of them. (No pun intended...?)
Mercedes was quick to immediately pick up on this, and knew it could only mean one thing. "The Abyss team did it!" she loudly informed the others. "Go hog wild on these bloodsuckers!"
[Suggested music: "Livin' in the Sunlight, Lovin' in the Moonlight", Tiny Tim version, God Bless Tiny Tim (1968).]
Taking heed of her suggestion, the others did just that and soon found themselves overpowering the now-reduced vampires in spite of their numbers. For the best examples, Sylvain and Ingrid's lances tore through their contingent as if they were engaged in an elaborate dance; Manuela, Marianne, and Lysithea found holy magic to be quite overkill when it came to eliminating their foes; and Felix, Dmitri, Edelgard, Claude, and the Eisner twins utterly decimated their opponents with controlled yet swift ferocity.
From her observation spot, Monica realized quickly that this was turning out to be a losing battle. "*Sigh* All right, this is telling me I'm better off with a strategic withdrawal and recovery..." She shrugged before getting up on her feet. "Fun while it lasted..." she said as she leaped off the roof ledge and started fleeing.
Back on the ground, the students and staff were dealing with any stragglers remaining, until there was just one vampire minion left. Said minion, (un)fortunately one of the dumb ones, found himself against a wall. "You haven't seen the last of us!" he shouted defiantly while shaking his fists. Claude, unamused, removed a 'magazine' of six arrows, knocked them onto his bowstring (the action making an anachronistic cocking sound), and let them fly. The vampire soon found himself pinned by his cuffs and the sides of his shirt to the wall, a look of dread now on his fanged, pale face. "Uh, heh-you've seen the last of us," he said sheepishly, fervently nodding his head.
Claude, holding another arrow he'd taken from his quiver, shook his head. "Some mothersuckers are always trying to ice skate uphill..." he said, before tossing the arrow into the air, and then hitting it with a super-fast spinning kick that sent the arrow dead-on into the pinned vampire's heart. Said vampire, shocked by this, then slumped over, now freshly dead.
Claude dusted his hands off as Hilda passed by him. "Showoff..." she muttered.
It was then that Mercedes noticed something. "Hold on, where's Monica?"
"Saw her bound off the roof a few minutes ago," Petra answered her.
"She went that way," Shamir added, pointing in the direction indicated. "If I remember right, that's where the old cemetery behind the ruined chapel is."
"She must have a backup resting place," Mercedes quietly surmised. "Edelgard, Hubert, Ferdinand, with me!" she said as she ran towards the location. The three Black Eagle students, confused at first, proceeded to follow after her before anyone could object. Moments later, the quartet found themselves a third of the way into the cemetery, which was covered by a slight fog. After gauging their surroundings, Mercedes held her left hand up, motioning to halt. "Ferdinand, stand right here for a moment, if you would?". The Von Aegir heir nodded a bit hesitantly, before Mercedes motioned for herself, Edelgard, and Hubert to get behind a nearby tree while they observed their fellow student.
"What exactly are we doing behind this?" Hubert quietly questioned.
"Luring Monica out," Mercedes answered. "I spoke with one of her former classmates a while back. Turns out she has a bit of a type."
"And that is?" Edelgard asked, she and Hubert both arching skeptical, yet curious eyebrows.
"Handsome, self-assured, overly-confident himbos."
Both Black Eagle students sweat-dropped on hearing this, doing a double take towards the standing-vigil Ferdinand and back. "...Can't believe I'm saying this," Edelgard said quietly, "but with Ferdinand, that makes considerable sense."
Unassuming of the conversation taking place behind him, Ferdinand warily eyed his surroundings, until he heard a voice in the distance.
"Ferdinand...Ferdinand..." the voice called out, full of temptation.
Hearing it startled the Von Aegir heir for a moment, as he recognized said voice. "Monica...?"
The undead girl in question appeared out of the fog, smiling seductively. "Come away with me, Ferdinand," she said persuasively as she got closer to him, causing him to tighten the grip on his lance. "We could make for a fine pairing, don't you think...?"
"Er, ah," Ferdinand started to say, doing his best to maintain his composure. "Monica, I...I quite like where I am at this time. I'm enjoying my time at the academy...and you're dead."
"Oh, but I'm not dead..." Monica replied with a honeyed voice, her left hand on his chest while she ran one of her right fingers along his cheek. "...I'm undead."
"Yes, well, I'm not un-satisfied with my life, thank you," Ferdinand said, a hint of nervousness in his voice.
"Ferdinand, don't be a bore..." Monica urged. "Just one kiss? Let me show you some deep, raw passion...the kind associated with torrid, unbound-"
It didn't take long for Ferdinand (and by extension, those behind the tree) to realize just what Monica was getting at. "B-But, Monica-I'm of nobility!" he pointed out.
Monica's smile widened a bit. "So are these," she hinted as as she undid the top two buttons of her blouse.
Ferdinand's eyes widened on seeing this. "Oh-!" It took all of his willpower to not look down from her eyes. Thankfully, he was spared further effort when a goddess icon was soon held in front of her face by Mercedes, who along with Edelgard and Hubert, had sprung into action from behind the tree.
"Back, you hemoglobin-hungry hussy, back I say!" Mercedes commanded.
-X-
"'Hemoglobin-hungry hussy'?" Maribelle repeated flatly, one eyebrow arched.
"Sheesh, talk about corny!" Soleil said with a chuckle.
"Eh, I was in the moment at the time," Mercedes replied with a shrug. "It could've been worse-Alois could've been the one to say it."
-X-
Monica recoiled with an animalistic hiss and soon fled into the abandoned crypt a few yards ahead of her.
"Let's get after her!" Mercedes urged. "This is our best chance to destroy her!"
"She's right," Hubert added as he looked towards the horizon in the opposite direction. "If my guess is correct, morning is approaching, and Monica knows it."
The door to the old crypt opened at Hubert and Ferdinand's hands, and they, with Edelgard and Mercedes ahead of them, entered. Soon, they came upon their target, finding Monica resting in a coffin, conveniently filled with a small layer of cursed soil.
"All right, now what?" Edelgard asked.
"Now, for the sake of her eternal soul," Mercedes began to answer as she looked at the Adrestrian princess, "you must drive this wooden stake through her heart." She proceeded to hand Edelgard the stake and a hammer.
Edelgard stared incredulously at Mercedes on hearing this. "Hold on, why does it have to be me?"
"The vampire must be destroyed by one who loved them in life," Mercedes explained plainly.
"But I never really hung out with Monica!" Edelgard pointed out as she handed the implements back to Mercedes. "We were acquaintances at best!"
"Close enough!" Mercedes replied as she shoved the hammer and stake back into Edelgard's hands.
"...*Sigh* Very well..." Edelgard muttered resignedly as she removed her jacket and cape, handing them to Hubert, who instantly produced a coat hanger from out of nowhere and proceeded to hang both garments neatly on it. Edelgard then positioned the point of the stake over Monica's heart and raised the hammer. Just when she was about to strike...
"Hold a moment!" Mercedes called out, to Edelgard's surprise. She motioned for Hubert and Ferdinand to get behind a pillar, while she did the same at another. "Okay, now!"
Edelgard then swiftly struck the stake with the hammer, piercing Monica's chest. A geyser of blood soon came bursting out, drenching the gobsmacked future empress in liquid gore; both Hubert and Ferdinand went dinner plate levels of wide-eyed on seeing this. Ferdinand then began to turn green, and immediately rushed out of the crypt to lose his lunch somewhere.
Hubert, on the other hand, briefly looked our way, muttering "Thank the Goddess we didn't bring Linhardt along...".
Edelgard stood there, wide-eyed herself with shock, for a short moment before she finally spoke. "...Oh. My. GOD!...There's so much blood!"
"That's to be expected, considering she recently ate!" Mercedes called out from behind her pillar.
Edelgard shuddered, her eyes squeezed shut. "*Eeeeuuuuuggghhhh* Grossgrossgrossgrossgross-" She then slowly opened one eye, only for both to immediately shoot wide open upon seeing something in the coffin. "SHE'S STILL STIRRING?!"
"Hit the stake again!" Mercedes urged. "It needs to go all the way through the heart!"
Edelgard, for her part, already had a good idea of where this would undoubtedly lead. "...Do I really have to?", she uncharacteristically groaned.
"Like Grandpapa used to always say," Mercedes began to reply before donning an accent, "'It ain't over until the fanged lady shrieks!'"
Edelgard glared at Mercedes before she responded in turn. "*Hhhhhhh* Fine." Edelgard struck with the hammer again, sending the stake all the way through, and causing another torrent of blood to spew all over her, much to her physical revulsion. It was then that Monica suddenly awakened and let out a horrified shriek on meeting her fate, before slumping over, apparently finished. Edelgard let out a sigh of relief, before Monica unexpectedly awakened to give her some parting words.
"I always thought you were a bitch!" Monica let out in a peeved manner (to put it lightly), before slumping over again, now genuinely dead.
"D'oh!" Edelgard uttered with a wince on hearing those words. Mercedes and Hubert then came out from behind the pillars and looked Monica over.
"You did it, Edelgard," Mercedes congratulated her with. "Thanks to you, Monica is now truly at peace."
Edelgard, glare still on her face, wasn't amused in the least, as one could tell. "She'd better be," she said flatly before casually tossing the hammer aside as she looked her blood-soaked self over. "*Ugh.* This...was utterly disturbing."
"Agreed," Mercedes concurred with a nod. "We should've laid a tarp down beforehand." She then turned and began to make her way out of the crypt. "I believe we should report to Lady Rhea of our success." Edelgard and Hubert gave each other a brief look before following Mercedes out, taking a still-queasy Ferdinand with them as they did. Along the way, Hubert handed his liege a handkerchief for her to wipe her face with. Edelgard took it and did so, and when finished (as best as she could), she held it back towards Hubert.
"...Please, keep it, Milady," the brooding vassal said in a rare bit of hesitation.
The archbishop's office, moments later...
"So she's completely out of action?" Rhea asked the two girls in front of her. Hubert was waiting outside the office, while Ferdinand had been dropped off at the infirmary.
"Very much so," Mercedes affirmed with a nod. "Edelgard staked Monica herself, as you can see." Edelgard, speaking of, still had an unamused look on her face, as blood dripped from her hair onto the floor, much to Rhea and Seteth's thinly-veiled disgust. "Though I would advise you send someone to ensure that her body is cremated to be on the safe side."
"We will take that under advisement," Seteth said. "We are already doing the same to those vampires who haven't already crumbled to dust yet. We've also sent out a patrol armed with anti-vampire weaponry to seek out any that may be hiding."
"In the meantime, efforts are already underway to cleanse the monastery and Abyss of any undead detritus," Rhea added. "Miss Bartels, you have my sincerest thanks for your expertise in helping us deal with this threat, as do you, Miss Von Hresvelg, for dealing the finishing blow. You and your fellow students will be happy to know that, in light of the exhausting experience we all went through, classes will be canceled for today so everyone can rest and recover. Now then, is there anything else I can do for you?"
Edelgard gave Mercedes, who shook her head at Rhea, a brief look, before doing the same. "No, thank you, Lady Rhea," Edelgard said, a hint of terseness in her voice. "If it's all right, I wish to go do a bit of cleansing myself with a nice, long, hot bath." She gave the archbishop a slight bow before turning to go. "By your leave." She then exited the office, Hubert accompanying her as she began leaving the administrative floor. Mercedes offered her own goodbye as she then left the office herself. Seteth and Rhea then gave each other a brief look before turning their focus on the spot where Edelgard had stood, uncomfortably noting the blood drippings still present, and the trail she inadvertently left in her departure.
"*Sigh* Thank the Goddess we had Cyril Scotchgard the rug," Seteth said with a shake of his head.
Rhea slumped a bit in her chair before wearily replying. "Indeed. It really ties the room together."
-X-
The others stared, more than a bit dumbfounded by Mercedes's story.
"Well, at least you had a bit of time to rest before Askr came calling," L'Arachel stated.
"After hearing all that, I don't know how much I'll be able to sleep tonight," Céline added as she sipped some tea to calm her nerves a little.
"Thankfully, we never had to deal with any vampires from that point on, and Monica found eternal rest at last," Mercedes said as she took a scone. "I'm just glad someone kept Linhardt blindfolded while the clean-up was going on."
It was then that Sharena came up to them at that moment. "Hey guys! Hope you don't mind, but I wanted to introduce you to one of the newest Heroes we summoned." She then motioned for the person accompanying her to come forward. "She's from a variant of Realm-X, so you should be familiar with her, Mercedes." Sharena then grew confused on seeing how the eyes of Mercedes and the others widened as their mouths went agape, both with surprise, on seeing the person in question. Though her clothes were different, and her hair was of a just as different style, for Mercedes, there was no mistaking her identity.
"Um...hi," the newcomer greeted. "Though I'm sure Mercedes knows another version of me, I'm guessing the rest of you don't, so...Nice to meet you all. I'm Monica. Monica Von Ochs."
End of Part 3 of 3.
**Author's Note(s)**
Sorry for the wait, folks. This one proved to be a bit of a pain in the neck (HA!) to write. Hope you enjoy the concluding portion of this flashback tale, and see if you can spot the additional references for kicks.
Omake
In a private bath she had set up for herself, Edelgard was currently scrubbing herself clean in a pool of warm, bubble-filled water, the liquid itself being constantly replaced with cleaner water as the bloodier liquid was changed out. For Edelgard, she was just glad to be rid of the damn stuff on her person. Hubert was present in the room, his back turned to her.
"Hubert, make a note," Edelgard began to dictate. "When we make our move against the Church, I want it to be as completely bloodless as possible-not a single drop spilled. Is that understood?"
"Completely, Milady," Hubert replied.
"Good," Edelgard said before briefly shuddering. "(I never want to see another drop as long as I live...)" It was then that she noticed something off about her bath. Something...missing. "Hold up-where's my squiddy?" She unintentionally splashed some of the bubble-filled water as she fervently felt around the tub. "Where's my squiddy?!"
Hubert, worried, replied "I-I'm sure it's around here somewhere. I didn't see it at first when we entered..."
"Well LOOK, damn your eyes, look for it!" Edelgard barked in an uncharacteristic mix of panic and frustration.
Hubert immediately complied and reached his hand into the tub, feeling around for the object in question. The back of his hand, at a brief point, unexpectedly made brief contact with something else in the water, which made Edelgard utter a quick yelp in surprise.
"Hubert..." Edelgard intoned evenly, yet menacingly as she glowered at him, "are you thinking of going into gynecology as an alternative career?"
It took Hubert a brief moment to realize what she'd implied, which made him turn bright red as he sputtered out a response. "OH! Oh, goodness-my sincerest apologies, Lady Edelgard," he said as he swiftly removed his hand from the water and began looking all over the room.
"Hurry-find it, get it, get it-will you look around?!" Edelgard said as her panic returned.
Hubert's gaze soon fell upon a small table full of bathing implements nearby, and a look of discovery then appeared on his face. "There it is!" he said before he dashed to the table and retrieved the object in question.
"Quick! Give it to me, hurry!" Edelgard urged. "Quick, Hubert! Quick!" Hubert soon returned, squeaky kraken in-hand, and swiftly handed it to Edelgard, who breathed rapidly for a brief moment as she clung to the cute approximation of a mythical squid as if it were a lifeline. "*Whew!* That was too close..." she said, slowly calming herself down as she eyed her prized item. "Momma missed squiddy," she said in a very uncharacteristically cutesy manner. "Squiddy miss Momma?" She squeezed the kraken a few times near her ear. "Aaaahhhh..." she uttered softly as she sunk halfway into the bubbly water, contentedly making glubbing sounds once her mouth was below the surface. Hubert, having returned to his usual level of calm and collected, swiftly turned around and exited the room to wait outside, left arm still wet and covered in bubbles.