The Weird Fangs - Friesia, Ruin, Jude, and Golgius - all huddle around the damn letter sent by Gilthunder. They couldn't believe he had actually had a letter sent.
Friesia huffed, moving to her chair and reclining in it. "I don't see what the big fuss could be. Surely that brat doesn't believe this, he's supposed to be smart. I mean, a giant green pig?" She cackled. Golgius chuckled, taking his own seat as the other two continued to go over the rather rushed letter. It wasn't technically written by Gilthunder, probably just some lower-ranked guard working under him, but still, he would have had to clear the letter being sent.
"It is strange," Golgius agreed. "Especially since we did capture the Fox Sin, a testament to our powers. Surely Sir Gilthunder doesn't have that little faith in us."
Jude hummed low, the sound echoing in his armor. "We should still take caution. It wasn't an easy feat imprisoning the Fox Sin. No need to lose him now that he's here."
"We don't know how strong these opponents will be, either." Ruin finally took a seat at the chess table. "If they exist at all."
Friesia sighed. "Alright, I'll send some lookouts." She glanced up when Jude stood. "Now where are you going?"
"To make sure our prisoner remains our prisoner, and does not find out anyone is coming this way. You know how people like to talk."
Friesia muttered something the others couldn't quite catch. Jude left without another word. Friesia began to summon her spy bugs, creating enough to spread around the city. If they were to take this seriously, it'd do good to have eyes on all directions one could enter the city.
She laughed to herself when she glanced up and saw Ruin polishing his hypnosis staff. She would take this seriously, for now, but she was certain they had nothing to worry about. They had already captured the immortal sin, she was sure they could handle the others. It wasn't like they were all together, an uproar would have started if that were the case. And with Ruin's hypnosis, ability even stronger than it had been years ago, along with her own swarms and Golgius' invisibility… just the three of them would do more than fine. Jude could just stay holed up inside and taunt the prisoner for a bit while they dealt with the issue.
Elizabeth was tapped on the shoulder the following afternoon, a light shaking to wake her from slumber. She jumped, heart racing as she looked around wildly, nearly banging into the window.
Her eyes landed on Gelda, who was laughing silently, hand over her mouth. Gelda was practically glowing in the light, the sunlight glaring through the window and leaving the room bathed in complete brightness. She was grinning at the princess, and was still smiling when she regained her composure.
"Ah, Lady Gelda… Good morning."
Gelda shook her head and pointed to a clock across the room. Elizabeth followed her finger, and her eyes widened.
Her cheeks dusted pink as she curled in on herself a little, laughing nervously. "Oh, I- Sorry for sleeping in so late." It was well past noon, according to the clock. Gelda waved her hand, smiling reassuringly at Elizabeth before pointing to the night stand, where there was a tray of food just like before. Elizabeth stared at the food for a moment before her stomach growled loudly, and her cheeks flushed further.
Gelda nodded again to the food before waving to Elizabeth and leaving the room.
The tavern was extremely quiet, the only thing Elizabeth could hear as she began eating being Mama Hawk's footsteps. She wasn't sure if she should be a bit worried about that. Quiet didn't seem to fit the family she was currently living with. It would be a complete shock to her if any of them besides Gelda knew how to be silent.
The food was definitely not Meliodas' doing. It tasted pretty good, actually. Not the best she'd ever had, but also nowhere near the worst. She frowned down at the food. Like Meliodas' cooking, this tasted just as familiar to her, and she couldn't place why. After years of sneaking into the kitchen with her sisters and the troublemaking Holy Knight sons to steal snacks, she had learned that everyone had a slight difference in flavor when cooking, something unique to them, and all six of them had gotten quite good at pinning taste to people or places they had been before.
But Elizabeth had never met the Sins, or whoever had cooked this. It was either Gelda or Zeldris, this she knew - she didn't quite believe Hawk could even reach the stove.
Maybe it just reminded her of one of the castle cooks. That had to be it.
Shaking her head, she finished her breakfast - or was it lunch? - and got ready for the day, changing from a nightgown into the tavern uniform. It wasn't really practical, but she didn't exactly have a very wide choice of clothes.
Elizabeth walked downstairs with her empty platter, finding only Gelda behind the bar and Hawk napping under one of the tables. Gelda was wearing a long yellow dress instead of the tavern uniform, like she had been wearing the day prior. She stuck close to the wall, carefully watching her step. Gelda smiled and took the tray from her. Elizabeth returned the smile, glancing around as Gelda began to clean up.
There weren't any sounds coming from the kitchen, and Elizabeth couldn't hear anything else in the entire tavern.
"Where are Sir Meliodas and Sir Zeldris?"
Gelda glanced up from the plate she was washing and tilted her head. She frowned slightly and glanced out one of the windows, before holding up her hand and moving it in a circular motion.
"Around."
That cleared nothing for Elizabeth, her brow creasing as she tried to figure out what Gelda meant. Gelda frowned, before realizing that Elizabeth didn't understand and laughing silently to herself. She waved her hand around in a more dismissive manner, and mouthed the word 'around.'
"Oh! Around?" Gelda nodded. Elizabeth laughed awkwardly. "Sorry. I'll… I'll work on that." Gelda shook her head and shrugged again, smiling reassuringly at Elizabeth. Elizabeth relaxed, glancing around and drumming her fingers lightly on the counter.
"Are we getting close to Baste?"
Gelda glanced out the window again, squinting, then to a map now hanging on the wall behind the bar. Gelda tapped her chin before reaching under the counter. She pulled out her notepad and pen, quickly scribbling something down. Gelda turned the pad to Elizabeth.
Just a few hours more.
Elizabeth sighed, slumping onto the counter. "Alright then." She folded her arms. They were both quiet for a moment. "So…" Gelda tilted her head at Elizabeth. "Sir Zeldris said you and him did a lot of jailbreaks. Do you have a favorite?"
Gelda grinned.
They had been outside for hours now, Zeldris and Meliodas. Zeldris was sharpening his sword, while Meliodas fiddled with his broken one anxiously, eyes trained on the land they passed but not really paying attention to it.
Zeldris was honestly just glad he wasn't pacing again. It had taken forever to get Meliodas to just sit down.
"What if she gets hurt?"
The younger brother rolled his eyes. Meliodas had asked this question at least three dozen times now.
"She won't."
"But what if she does?"
"She won't."
Meliodas put the broken sword back into its sheath before burying his face in his hands, a strangled noise escaping him. Zeldris sighed, plopping himself down next to Meliodas and he rested his hand on his back.
"Look, we already agreed to go through with this. And Elizabeth was insistent on helping. We'll just have to accept she may get hurt, but we're all going to be there. If she does get hurt, it won't be terribly. And if she is hurt badly, well…" Zeldris flashed his sword. "That'd be their mistake."
Meliodas sighed heavily, letting his head fall to his knees and tilting his head to look at Zeldris. "I don't want her getting hurt at all."
"I know, but she's going to get hurt eventually and we need to accept this." Meliodas glared half-heartedly. "If we, or rather you, don't accept it, we'll have another…" Zeldris didn't finish, and he didn't need to. Meliodas tensed at the implication.
"Look," Zeldris sighed, "Elizabeth isn't going to be hurt that badly." He shuffled closer to Meliodas and nudged him. "She's not. We'll do everything in our power to keep her as safe as possible."
Meliodas looked unconvinced, and was about to retort but quickly shut his mouth, bolting upright and surveying the horizon again. They were nearing the town closest to Baste Prison, Dalmary. Zeldris also looked around. A low buzzing was filling the air, not too close but close enough to be a little unnerving, especially when you didn't know what it was.
They left their spot at the side of the tavern, Meliodas pointing inside. Zeldris went in, coming out moments later with Hawk, Gelda, and Elizabeth in tow.
"What's the matter?" Hawk asked, looking around in confusion. There didn't seem to be anything wrong.
"Mama Hawk! Can you stop here?" Meliodas called down. Mama Hawk slowed to a stop, blowing steam from her nose before burrowing into the ground. Elizabeth stumbled at the sudden rocking, and Meliodas steadied her until the dust cleared. He gave her a small smile before looking around again. "Listen- there's a low buzzing around Dalmary."
Neither Elizabeth or Hawk could hear anything, frowning. "So, we're going to be careful going into this, and we're gonna walk into town but stick to the outskirts." Zeldris looked to Gelda. "You gonna be good?"
Elizabeth's frown deepened and her brows furrowed as Gelda nodded. Before she could ask, though, Gelda straightened her back and closed her eyes. Within moments, a dark shield appeared above her, large enough to cast her in complete shadow. Elizabeth's jaw dropped, and her confusion only grew.
"Gelda and the sun do not mix," Meliodas explained when Gelda was done, a thinner layer of darkness dropping around her to filter out the sun without completely obscuring her vision. "Normally, we could wait until night time, but… we shouldn't stay here long. Baste is protected by Holy Knights, and we wouldn't be able to lay low anyway.
"Now, you ready to break into a prison?"
"There's actually a mobile giant green pig," Friesia deadpanned, and Ruin choked on air.
"Seriously?!"
"Yeah. Building on it and everything." Friesia was quiet for a moment. "It just burrowed into the ground. There's… four people, from the looks of it. And some small pink thing with them." She tilted her head. "Ruin?"
Ruin took a deep breath, getting over the shock of the giant green pig not being some rumor started by a person drunk off their ass, before answering. "Yes?"
"Didn't the princess go missing a few weeks back?"
Ruin shrugged. "Honestly, I never kept up with what was happening in the capital."
"She was," Golgius said, looking up from the chessboard. "Why?"
"Well. There's a girl with those four walking towards Dalmary that looks an awful lot like the princess, just in some bar uniform. Long silver hair, bangs, lemme see if I can get a bug closer." Friesia was silent, and neither of her companions dared to disturb her concentration. "Yep- definitely her. Blue eyes too, and that stupid earring the middle princess gave her."
Friesia glanced to the other two. "So, are we still going to go through with the plan and get rid of them?"
Golgius hummed. "Maybe. Doesn't Hendrickson want the princess?"
"We can just get rid of her new friends and take her," Ruin suggested. "What do the others look like?"
Friesia tapped her fingers on her armrest. "Two guys are super short and definitely young, have got to be teens. One has ridiculous spiked black hair, dressed in red. Other is blonde and in a bar uniform. What's a kid like that working at a bar?" Her question went unanswered. "Both are armed with swords, blondie's is on his back and looks wicked, a dragon handle. Haven't seen something like that in ages. The other one's sword is at his side."
"A dragon handle?"
Friesia nodded. "Green, scaled dragon handle. Why's that important?"
Ruin scratched his head. "Didn't Meliodas have a sword like that back in the day?"
"Sir Gilthunder was concerned this could be one of the Sins. If they're after the Fox Sin, it makes sense the captain would come to break him out."
"But this is a kid wielding it," Friesia pointed out.
"Maybe he had kids, then, and this is a descendant. The guy was always secretive about his history. Maybe he died already and passed it on to his kid."
"So, we're going to kill them both and take that sword, just in case."
"Yeah, it'd be best to get rid of everyone but the princess."
"We shouldn't forget the last person, Friesia said there were four."
"Yep! Last one I can't get a good look at, though. Somehow shrouded by a ton of darkness, it's not intense but I can't see it well from where this bug is. And the kids look on edge already. If we wanna surprise them, I don't wanna risk getting closer."
"Well then, Friesia, you gonna surprise them with a swarm, and I'll go in and exterminate whatever's left?" Golgius asked.
"Should work fine."
"While you two do that, I'll update Jude."
"Great!" Friesia jumped up, clapping her hands together. "Let's get started!"