Side Story II - Entrenching (VI).

A heartbeat.

Ernesto could only gulp as he heard it. A testament to just how damn resilient a demon was, that was for sure.

Uther was still alive. He could still breathe, even if it came in and out as ragged, pained gasps as black blood spilled forth from his mouth and the massive cavity in his chest. The chunks of what had once been his chest, be it bone, organs or just flesh and blood, coated Ernesto and his mother while everyone looked at the mess.

Not Ernesto, though. He sure spared a glance or two, but the young man was cutting down the ropes tying him up as fast as he could. If there was one thing he could say about the cutlery that the Cannibals were going to use on him and his mom, it was that they did their job just fine.

A small snap heralded the first bit of freedom. It also pushed the scene forward in some way.

"You w-wench!"

The fact that Uther could still spew bullshit as he spoke, or that he could speak - AT ALL -, was surprising. Not so much to Rosie as she retracted her hand enough to push it into the hole on Uther's chest, squeezing something that made the man cry out in pain.

"I think you should watch your tongue, young man." Rosie had finally lost all composure and that facade of a gentle old lady.

Gentle she could be. There was no doubt that Rosie was a dear when engaged politely.

Age she had to spare. Rosie had at least a century on her shoulders, not that she went around telling how old she really was of course.

But the manic grin on her face and the copious salivation from her mouth was a telltale sign of how much of a dangerous predator the Overlord was. There was a struggle there; a desire to rip the man apart and be done with it. Despite the grievous wound this was clearly not enough to kill Uther and medical attention could easily stitch him up, if provided with the right kind and a good dose of (likely painful) magic.

"So here is how this is going to work out for you." Rosie's free hand went to grab for Uther's throat, squeezing it to the point Ernesto heard a small crack as another rope snapped. Uther tried to let out a scream as Rosie not only did that, but she tore a small chunk of his flesh to devour, likely calming her murderous intent at least in part. "You either drop this little stunt of yours, flee with your tail between your legs and drag your two harlots with you, then beg your grandmother NOT to kill you for what you have done here, or…" The squeezing sound on Uther's neck became so loud, and his gagging breaths so ragged, that Ernesto had to fight his vile rising up. The sound was sickening. "I do as my Deal requires of me and I unmake you, child."

"G-g-go f-g-g-!"

Uther's attempt at an answer wasn't what Rosie had wanted to hear, clearly. The woman squeezed even harder, making both Polly and Esther flinch and attempt to move, only for Rosie's heated glare to stop both of them.

Manuel's swift "HEY!" probably didn't hurt any.

Another rope snapped. Ernesto was just thankful that the woman that should be watching him was focused on her 'man'.

"Uther." Rosie growled, her voice slightly distorted as her anger grew. "You have attacked TWO of my charges. Not just with the intention to hurt, or to scare, or just as a way to challenge Carlos. You were here to eat people under MY protection. People that CANNOT come back."

"So wg-what!?" Uther managed to snap back, either overcoming the pain, Rosie's strength or his own self preservation instincts. The latter seemed to be the most likely. "They are food! They are power! You are babying some mortals for no-ARGH!"

Rosie had torn away another piece of Uther. The ripping sound made Ernesto gag, but there came a satisfaction with it. The bastard deserved that and more.

"You are an ignorant buffoon, Uther." Rosie spoke, her mouth stained with the blood of Uther's flesh as her form seemed to contour, bones cracking and body growing spindly, tall and bony. "I know for a fact that you would not have lasted a week without springing this." Her free hand, black with Uther's blood, pressed her claws, now long as a kitchen's knife, against Uther's back. "So I know this stupidity comes from someone else." A single push and Uther's silent scream said enough: His spine had been pierced. Both Polly and Esther gasped, their restraints breaking down. "So you will either speak, confess, and LEAVE, or I will do what has to be done."

Ernesto was almost free. The last ropes were there to hold his neck, mouth and head in place. Even then he refused to move enough to make the two women focus on him. The tension in the air was enough to tell him this was going to end really fucking badly in a moment.

"M-my grandmother-."

"Will rip you apart herself if you keep fighting me." Rosie pressed her hand deeper into Uther's back. The following scream was even louder than any of those prior. "My patience is limited, Uther!" And Rosie's own below was a break of character from her. Indeed, her patience was likely gone at this point, and those present saw just the beginning of how petty, cruel and brutal the woman could be. "So. Tell. ME! Who made you attack my charges, Uther!?"

Uther opened his mouth, and Ernesto really thought the man was going to cave in. Perhaps everyone could get out of this alive. That was something the young man knew should NOT happen.

Rosie was an Overlord. She had an image to maintain. Here she had a traitor to kill, and one she would've squashed without remorse, like a bug, not too long ago. Ernesto, and likely his mother and grandfather, probably knew this. They most likely also knew that, not ripping Uther apart, was for their benefit, and perhaps to show Rosie as having a level of clemency, magnanimousness and general self control in the face of such acts against her person and those under her care.

To be honest, Ernesto knew he and his grandfather wanted Uther to be ripped to shreds. His mother? That was something else, but Ernesto would bet money on his mother likely wanting the man done for.

So when Uther finally turned his head around, facing the cadaveric looking Rosie, with her new height and size, as well as her magic letting out the visual effects that'd have told anyone not to fuck with her, he did a stupid. In fact he did something Ernesto knew would've made most of those in his family torture the man, at least after what he had done prior.

Uther spat on Rosie's face.

Then he smiled.

The bastard was beyond dead.

"..." Rosie lost what little was left of her smile at the disrespect on top of it all. "That was a… poor choice, Uther." She quickly silenced Uther's next words by cracking the man's spine with the hand around his neck. "A pity you are nothing like your grandmother."

And, with a sickening wet crunch, Rosie plucked the man's head off his body.

She unceremoniously placed the head, almost unscathed, on the table without making a sound. Then, with that grizzly scene done, black blood spurting from Uther's decapitated body, Rosie dug her free hand under the hole on the body's chest to rip it apart, snarling in anger as she did so.

This had been an affront to her, her position and everything she held dear: Politeness in her little chunk of Hell. Manners and respect for those within her community. And, above all else: Fucking RESPECT.

But this was largely unimportant for Ernesto, even if he saw it happen and understood Rosie's mind, at least to a point. He just had those things out of focus in his mind as Polly and Esther lost their shit.

With a wordless scream Polly lunged past him and at his mother. Ernesto was too slow to finagle himself away from the remains of the ropes, but he managed to discard them all and get up *after* the Cannibal woman's brains were smeared all over the place.

Manuel, finger on the trigger and aiming clear on the sisters, had taken a risk and gone for the one too close to his family. Had he done otherwise, then his daughter would've been mauled at best, dismembered at worst (and the most likely outcome too). It was a snap decision that saw Polly's head being obliterated the moment the Cannibal woman was within inches of clawing Mireya's face off, tears on the demoness' eyes creating little sympathy considering what had almost happened moments prior.

Rage and loss are barely any different between species however, and a second death made Esther screech like a maddened bird of prey as she crossed the space between the kitchen and the dinning room in a flash. She was far too fast for Manuel to reload in time, and the older human man was just too far out of shape in age to contend with a hellborn native geared for hunting and killing humans and humanlike prey.

That is when Ernesto jumped from his seat and did what had to be done.

A fancy way of saying he jumped to his feet and collided with Esther before she tore Ernesto's grandfather to shreds.

It was not a singular, brutal strike that got Ernesto to emerge victorious from that mess. It was more like a mix of frantic flailing and a discharge of adrenaline so hard and so fast that his heart almost gave out, but Ernesto was not going to go down when the only one that could stop the madwoman was him.

Had anyone been more attentive they would've asked what Rosie was doing, but the Overlord was eyeing both the situation and the head of Uther with a dark focus no one would've been able to place. Whatever the case, Ernesto's fight was quick, messy, and ended as brutally as could've been expected.

The impact itself wasn't brutal in the slightest. A shock indeed, it even threw Ernesto off. The reason for this? Esther herself, blind with rage as she was, had been caught off guard. It would be safe to assume the woman had degenerated into a feral state in the moments it took for her to lose both her sister and lover. A huge dose of emotions, hormones and a raw discharge of hellish magic had made sure that, whatever happened, Esther, as a person, was gone.

Esther was now an animal; she had grown in strength in a second, and soon her body would change, if she survive that long, into a spindly, frail thing. Her resilience was gone, but the power of a feral Cannibal could easily make up for it.

But she was just an animal now, and animals could get spooked.

As such Esther tried to push away from Ernesto the moment the collision took place. Her mind registered all previous anger, hate and grief into a target it designed as prey, and the prey had gained support out of nowhere. Esther's nearly mindless body tried to recoil, while Ernesto's bracing was left without any strength to fight against.

So he pushed too hard, making Esther falter.

Which her now deranged mind took as a challenge from a completely different prey.

Ernesto managed to get his balance back up before Esther tried to push back in full force, almost making him stumble. Instead, he had to move his head to the side, Esther's maw having almost dislocated itself to try and capture his whole head into a massive bite that would have, without a doubt, beheaded him. That the woman's addled mind still tried to get to Manuel, her arms flailing about, just a few inches away from the older man, was all that saved Ernesto from a brutal and short lived hug that would've led to a much grizzlies and bloodier 'kiss'.

Even then Ernesto knew it was a matter of seconds, and that was being optimistic, before Esther took him in a bear hug to rend him limb from limb in as many ways as she could. In fact, by the time he decided on what to do, he could feel the woman's claws grabbing at his back. So by then Ernesto's decided path was the only one he had.

He was just lucky he timed it well.

"DIE!"

The scream, however, was him releasing tensions and all but praying to Satan (or whoever) for this to work.

Because he stabbed the knife in his hand into Esther's mouth.

Not her neck.

Not her chin.

He shoved his hand into her mouth, right past her uvula, unknowingly cutting the connection between the brain and the rest of the body, but not killing the woman. And in her state of automation and feral frenzy, with her mouth less than an inch apart from tearing Ernesto's arm in a single sake, she still managed to slowly grind her maw closer and closer to snapping shut. So Ernesto did what came natural.

He screamed, pulled away, only to stab again, and again, and again. Six more times didn't do the trick, but the eight stab, when he began to grind the knife side to side, up and down, making contact with Esther's deteriorating brain, only to turn it into chunky salsa as the knife tore through muscle, brain mater, bone and indeed part of itself, was the finisher needed.

In just a few brutal, bloody and frantic seconds, Esther was dead. Her body slid away from Ernesto and slumped against the ground, her expression firmly retained in Ernesto's mind.

All he could do after that was sit, and let his grandfather free his mother.

Today had been… it had been just another day in Hell.

Only now Ernesto understood what that expression meant.