THE STRIKE

The plan was simple. Diodora's former peerage- now her sworn servants- and her father's guardsmen would wait in an entirely separate room while Latia, her father, and her Knight Merimine Hanar would enter the throne room to seek an audience with Lord Astaroth and reveal their ancestor Astaroth's demands. They expected him to refuse, and declare them traitors. Diodora's former peerage and her father's guards would then land in the room by magic circle and they would fight Lord Astaroth's guards as Latia and her father made a rush for Lord Astaroth so he wouldn't escape and call his vassals to war. Once Lord Astaroth was secured, they would force him to sign an instrument of abdication and turn over power to Latia, who had been appointed by their ancestor Astaroth himself as steward in his absence. From there, they would secure the capital.

Everything depended on their ability to capture Lord Astaroth before he could escape. Which was a big if. And even then, what if his followers refused to recognize his abdication and fought back? Latia won Diodora's former peerage to her side, but there were more Astaroth soldiers in the capital than her father could summon from his lands alone. Eleven of Diodora's former peerage could not stand against ten thousand Astaroth soldiers.

And if they lost…

"It's a bad plan," she had told her father when he laid it out.

He had looked at her for a long time, before he finally spoke. "You're right," he said. "It's a bad plan. What's your plan?"

"I never should have told you about our ancestor's command," Latia said as she sank into a chair as deep as she could. She wished it could swallow her up; she knew that in the Underworld there actually were chairs that could swallow anyone who had the poor luck to sit on them. Somehow, the thought of being eaten alive and being digested into a fleshy mush was more appealing in this moment than contemplating what she was about to do.

Her father chuckled, his laughter low like some dog's growling. He pulled up a chair and sat next to her. "Oh, this isn't new. In fact, I know exactly what it is."

"You do?"

"I do," he affirmed, and he squeezed her hand, his big hand covering her dainty smaller one. "You're afraid. And that's a good thing."

"Why is that good?"

"It means you're not stupid." He sighed. "A hundred guards, eleven of Diodora's old toys, and a Knight. It sounds like the greatest joke in the history of our family, right? That so few should fight against so many."

"And yet, we're doing it anyway," Latia murmured.

"Sometimes, there is a certain logic to things that seem insane," her father said. "When your uncle and I fought the Leviathan woman at Gusion's Town—"

"You were at Gusion's Town?" she asked in surprise. She'd always known her father fought in the great civil war that overthrew the Old Satans, but she'd never known her father had been at that pivotal battle, the first of the great victories that the anti-Satans had won over the Old Satans on the road to creating a new Underworld.

"Aye," her father said. "I was at Gusion's Town. It seemed insane, meeting Tsufaame Teriaku Leviathan on the battlefield—one of the greatest devils of the time, and she had an army three times our size. But your uncle gave me command of the army and told me to hold the line, so I did it. For twenty hours we clashed; Tsufaame's commanders tried to break my lines with their soldiers over and over again until they had no more soldiers, and when they tried to do it themselves I put archers on the high ground to riddle them with arrows. And then Tsufaame had no more commanders, so she had to fight herself. And you know how that turned out."

Latia did know how that turned out. Forced to take the field, Tsufaame Teriaku Leviathan had transformed into the terrible serpent-beast that was the namesake of her clan, the leviathan. Uncle Ajuka slew her all the same.

"By all rights Tsufaame should have won," her father said. "She had more troops and she was Leviathan's daughter. And yet..."

"You had uncle Ajuka," Latia pointed out. "He was stronger."

"Aye, Ajuka was stronger," her father agreed. "But Gusion's Town was won as much by the commanders and the soldiers on the ground as your uncle obliterating Tsufaame with his power. It was definitely a battle we didn't think we could win. I certainly didn't think we could win. Before the battle, I was on my horse watching Tsufaame's army all gathered there in their tens of thousands and all I could think about was how badly I needed to shit—"

"Father!" Latia exclaimed in a mix of disgust but also surprise.

"Soldiers shit themselves all the time," her father proclaimed with all the confidence of one who has seen it with his own eyes. "They shit themselves because they're afraid or someone's buried five feet of steel in buried in their guts and they're on their way to dying. But I was nearly the first commander to shit myself before the battle."

"Stop it!" Latia begged her father, but she was begging through heaves of dry laughter. It was the lowest form of humor, but that was why lowbrow humor was considered lowbrow, because even though it was the lowest-hanging fruit it almost never failed to get people to laugh. For a moment she forgot about her ancestor's commands and the impossible situation he had placed on her. For a moment she was a young girl again, listening to her father tell stories that made her roll on the floor and kick her feet.

But when she looked up at her father again there was no more mirth in his eyes. "It's a good thing to be afraid, to have fear," he repeated, "Tsufaame was fearless, and you know her fate. Tsufaame's commanders were fearless, and you know their fate."

"I do," Latia said quietly, "but at least you had an army to command… and Uncle Ajuka, too."

"Aye, I had an army. But what good use was that army if I was too afraid to lead them? Fear is a good thing, but too much fear and it glues you to your feet. You need bravery as well as fear, daughter. Fear was why I placed those archers on the high ground because I knew I couldn't meet Tsufaame's commanders in a straight fight… but bravery is what made my men and I stay on the field to give those archers a chance. Too much bravery means you're fearless… too much fear and you've lost before you've even started."

Her father stood up. "We can sit here and make all the plans we like, but at the end of the day plans only work if you have the will to act upon them. The will to act is everything."

Latia stared at her dainty slippers, shaded green in her family's colors. In the recesses of her mind a plan suddenly began to form, like the first flowering after a torrential rain. "What if there was another way?" she asked.

"There is no other way," her father said. "If you want to win the throne, there will be blood on your hands before the thing is done."

Our blood, if we fail. The blood of those we want to serve us, if we win. Either way, it is an ugly choice.

One way or another, though—she had to decide.

She rose. "We move," she said, and in the light of the noon sun outside her father grinned. Was this something he had always wanted, the chance to overthrow his cousin Lord Astaroth? It did not matter now, not as they left the little room they had been planning in, called her father's guardsmen to their side, and made for the throne room.

The Astaroth palace's throne room was not the palace's largest room—that would be the main ballroom, a massive yawning cavernous space that seemed to be without end. But the throne room made up for that with opulence. The sun filtered in through glittering green glass windows expertly worked to resemble the shimmering and rippling surface of water, bathing the entire throne room in greenish-tinted light. A long green carpet ran from the entrance doors to the base of the throne itself, which was a massive chair carved from emerald and jade and peridot. Behind the ducal throne hung a massive banner upon which was emblazoned the Astaroth family sigil on a black background. Green was the color of their house, and it was everywhere in sickening colors. Even her father's throne room at home was not this green.

Astaroth guardsmen ringed the green carpet and lined up against the walls. Latia counted fifty guards… half the number of her father's guards yes, but this was the smallest part of Lord Astaroth's power. Lord Astaroth himself sat upon the emerald seat that was his throne, swathed in ermine and a green velvet cape. Lord Astaroth's father stood beside him; the older man bore no cape, but he wore a brilliant dark green suit interwoven with cloth-of-gold. They were both tall thin men with dark-green hair and yellow eyes: it was obvious who Diodora had inherited his looks from.

"It is customary for a vassal to kneel before their liege lord," Lord Astaroth's father called out, interrupting her thoughts.

"Nonsense, Father," Lord Astaroth said, raising a hand. "Ajtora is kin, after all." That was her father's name, Ajtora, though Latia didn't refer to him as such. He was always Father in her mind.

Behind Latia and her father was, of course, her loyal Knight Merimine Hanar, who slipped in with them when they entered the throne room. His hand was tight on the hilt of his blade.

"I thank you for that courtesy, cousin," her father said in a flat tone. "We have news to share with you."

"Oh?" Lord Astaroth said from his perch on the sparkling emerald chair.

Her father nodded his head at her. Latia cleared her throat, and spoke.

"My lord," Latia began, "just earlier, our ancestor spoke with me… and me alone."

"I do remember," Lord Astaroth said. "What of it?"

"He… well…" The words were lodged in Latia's throat; she could feel the tension rise within her.

"What, child?" Lord Astaroth's father was demanding. "What did our lord ancestor say to you?"

The will to act, her father had told her. The will to act, to uphold honor and justice. The faces of Diodora's old peerage swam before her. Girls (and the one male) kneaded and shaped like clay at Diodora's hands. And Lord Astaroth and his father either turning a blind eye to what was happening in his very own palace…

Now comes history.

"He wanted your head on a pike," Latia said, with an anger and clarity that surprised even herself. "And you, my lord," she said, rounding on Lord Astaroth, "he called you a fool. He said that if you had been paying any attention to your son it would have been obvious that Diodora was aligning himself with the Old Satans and the Khaos Brigade."

Silence, silence in the throne room. Lord Astaroth's eyes were wide; she could see Lord Astaroth's father's veins throb in his neck. She turned her head back briefly and she could see the beginnings of a thin smile on her own lord father's lips. Merimine's hands were on the hilt of his blade and his blade was starting to slither out of his scabbard, but her father stopped him and whispered, "Sheathe that steel until they move first".

"He wants his throne back," Latia proclaimed. "And he wants me to hold it until he returns."

For a moment there was stunned silence in the throne room, a silence that Latia hoped would hold. Long enough for her to speak her mind, to convince everyone not to take their swords out and fight each other, because they were family and they could just sort this out if they—

But Lord Astaroth's father drew his blade, and the sound of steel sliding against scabbard filled the throne hall as he pointed his blade at Latia. "Latia, daughter of Baron Ajtora Astaroth—I name you a liar and a traitor. I knew your grandfather, girl. He was ever the schemer and a grasper... it seems your father and you are just as grasping as he was."

"This is definitely a significant development." Lord Astaroth added, his fists gripping the shimmering armrests of his emerald chair. "I would like to hear it from our ancestor himself."

"Tell me, cousin," her father said, "when you order your vassals to do something, do they wait until they hear the words come from your lordly mouth?"

"Where's the decree, then?" Lord Astaroth's father barked in response. "Are we supposed to just believe that on today of all days, after my grandson and heir to the House was consigned to the flames, that our ancestor decided to strip my son of his lands and titles and give it to your whelp?" He laughed, a harsh, dismissive noise. "I don't think so. GUARDS! Seize the Baron and his daughter Latia. Kill the servant!"

The first thought she had was that Merimine's life was nothing to Lord Astaroth's father... and she saw Lord Astaroth looking at his father in surprise, and all around her Latia heard the swift movement of wood as the Astaroth guardsmen levied spears and halberd axes. Some drew their swords. It seemed to her that Lord Astaroth clearly didn't have as much control over his men as he liked.

And then the first guardsman was already in her face, swinging the blunt end of his wooden spear towards her face. She watched it cut through the air to her line of sight—

Steel flashed, and the wooden spear's butt fell to the floor. Merimine was in her face and with a sweep of his sword he chopped the staff of the spear in two and jammed his elbow into the guardsman's throat, avoiding all his haughty armor. Behind her loyal knight was her own father, a deadly storm of steel whirling around her and driving spearmen and halberd-wielders back with a flurry of blows.

"Don't hurt them!" Latia called out, but a spear caught her father in the back, but it tore only the clothing and she could see his fine dark armor chased with green underneath, surely woven with spellwork to ward against common weapons such as these. He came ready, she realized. More ready than I ever was with my plan. Her father turned around and smacked the guard in the face with the flat of his blade; she heard a noise like a small pop and the guard fell back, his nose a bloody ruin.

He'll live, Latia thought, but her father was already running up to her all the while he was trading blows with a halberd-swinging soldier. "What are you standing there for? Get your women in here, and FIGHT!"

She reached within herself and felt the familiar tingly sensation as she prepared to perform magic, summoning a small magic circle by her mouth. "Theresa," she spoke into it, "if there ever was—"

Above her the Astaroth-green magic circles opened and in dropped Theresa and Benedict and Eunice and all the rest. They landed in between the guardsmen and right away the Pawns leaped into battle, moving and dancing in between the guardsmen and their swings. She saw Bridget and Mildred—green and sapphire hair respectively, firing bolts of demonic energy which sent guardsmen sprawling to their knees. Theresa's arms were wreathed in demonic fire and bolstered by Eunice and Benedict's healing abilities; she weaved in and out between guardsmen, blasting them into the air with her literal firepower. And behind them all the throne doors opened and her family guardsmen rushed into the throne hall, spears and swords and shields and maces and axes all held aloft.

"It's a coup!" Lord Astaroth's father roared. "Defend your liege from this traitor lord!"

But it was too late. The Astaroth guardsmen fought bravely but they were distracted as they were by fighting her father and Merimine and now her newly-minted sworn servants. Her family guardsmen took them in the rear and broke them as they stood. All around her Astaroth guardsmen threw their weapons to their feet as they yielded, not wanting to give their lives for a fight they could not win. Eunice, the female dark-blue-haired Bishop, was busy extinguishing the flames off of one screaming guardsman while Theresa looked on with a contrite expression on her face.

"Worthless fools," Lord Astaroth's father spat, and he grabbed Lord Astaroth's arm and wrenched him off the emerald throne. And Latia remembered: Lord Astaroth couldn't be allowed to escape. But she was down here and he was too far away! She threw off her slippers and broke into a mad run towards the emerald chair, hoping beyond hope that Lord Astaroth's father was a little slow on the draw.

He saw her coming, and he turned his own magic circle around and fired a bolt of energy at her. She raised her own magic circle as a shield and it barely stopped the bolt of energy from striking her; she felt the strain of having to hold the bolt back. She let the shield dissipate and kept running; Lord Astaroth's father opened another magic circle to escape.

nonononoNO!

She grabbed a sword where it lay on the ground, and a chopped-in-two spear butt and she threw it at Lord Astaroth's father. It caught the old lord in the face and although it wasn't the strongest of blows it was enough to send him stumbling back. And then she was by the emerald chair and she stood over Lord Astaroth, brandishing her stolen sword as she faced down his father.

"It didn't have to come to this," she said through bated breath.

"You started it, little girl," Lord Astaroth's father said. Blood streamed from the new-made cut she'd made on his face, covering one eye and staining his face and making him look like a demon of old. "Take him if you want. It won't give you the legitimacy you seek," Lord Astaroth's father said, gesturing his blade at Lord Astaroth. "This isn't over." And with that, he manifested a magic circle and disappeared in a brilliant flash of green light.

Behind her she heard the rustling of footsteps, and up came her father, Merimine, and Theresa the Queen. Her father's clothes were torn to reveal the armor underneath and Merimine had a sickening gash on his face. Theresa was the only one who looked unscathed.

"That's the last of them, my lady," Diodora's former Queen said, looking on the throne hall. It seemed that miraculously, no one had died. Oh, there were the cries of the wounded and the crippled, but it was nothing that couldn't be fixed with healing magic and long-term care. Somehow, miraculously, no one died.

Latia breathed a sigh of relief. Then she turned to look at Lord Astaroth, who was so alike to his son that for a moment Latia thought the ghost of Diodora was staring up back at her. The line of his face, the yellow of his eyes and the dark-green of his hair... he was taller, sure, and older, and richer-dressed than Diodora, but it felt like staring at Diodora all the same.

"Do you yield, my lord?" she asked him. She turned the blade away from him, but even if she had had no sword it would have been painfully obvious to all that this was an admission gained at swordpoint.

"You should yield, Gandora," said her father, using Lord Astaroth's name. Like her father's own name, Latia had never had the habit of using Lord Astaroth's name in her head, thinking of him all the while as 'Lord Astaroth'.

Soon I will be Lady Astaroth, she realized with a quiver.

Lord Astaroth looked at Theresa, and his face narrowed in recognition. "You betrayed my family," he croaked.

"I still serve the House of Astaroth," Theresa said, her eyes averted. "Just not you."

"Do you yield?" her father asked impatiently. Unlike Latia he had no qualms with pointing the blade in Lord Astaroth's face.

Lord Astaroth laughed. "Maybe my father was right," he said. "You say that our esteemed lord ancestor wanted Latia to succeed the throne, and yet you had a very involved role in this, Ajtora."

"It doesn't matter what I want, Gandora. Yield."

Lord Astaroth turned to Latia. "I will not," he said, addressing Latia but not his cousin, her father. He got up on one elbow, clasping the emerald chair for support with the other arm. "I know I'll get no fair justice here, not with your blades in my face like so, not with my own son's peerage now fighting for you." He stood up, and his lips curled as he spoke the dread words that she feared almost as much as fighting with sword and axe:

"I demand a trial by Rating Game."

A/N: The battle of Gusion's Town, where Ajuka met and defeated Tsufaame Teriaku Leviathan, is actually canon by the way.

Updated family tree for the Astaroth clan:

ASTAROTH, Pillar, founder of the Astaroth clan, Duke

* Elder son of Astaroth, ex-Duke
** Lord Astaroth's father, ex-Duke
*** Gandora Astaroth, ex-Duke
**** Diodora Astaroth, formerly heir to the duchy (deceased)

* Koren Astaroth, younger son of Astaroth, ex-baron
** Latia's grandfather, ex-baron
*** Ajtora Astaroth, Baron
*** Ajuka Beelzebub, Latia's uncle (disinherited)
**** Latia Astaroth, heir to her father's barony, acting Duchess

*11 other sons of Astaroth (deceased)