"Ah! We finally made it!" Sampo speaked, seeing the large mansion with an entrance garden full of nothing but snow ahead of them. "Clara's residence!...As well as Svarog's mansion."
"Quite the big home for a barefooted kid living down here." Morte commented, looking at the size of the place.
"We better get in." Acheron told to the three that came with her, seeing Seele and the others in the middle of the entry area. "They're already here. Let's not keep them waiting."
"Hum, excuse me, but that coming from the person who took almost every turn wrong on her way to the elevator sounds ironic." Sparkle giggled behind her, provoking the older woman. "Being from Nihility also gives you the sense of direction of a broken GPS?"
"Why don't you become a follower Nihility itself to know?" Acheron responded back, not even bothering to look at the Masked Fool behind her. Her mind was already well trained to ignore shallow and backhanded insults like the ones Sparkle usually threw. "It isn't my fault all of those streets looked the same."
"Nah, sorry Acheroni but I have to side with Twinkle-Sparkle on this one." Morte speaked, much to the Self-Annihilator's silent annoyance. "You just don't take an entire hour trying to find your way to the elevator!"
"Then get me a map next time. I'd appreciate it very much." Acheron responded with a tone that was very clear how she was keeping her cool despite having the two poking her, starting to head to the area where all of the others were, with Morte and Sparkle shortly following behind while Sampo was doing his best in walking forward and holding the entire bag shops at the same time.
"H-Hey! Can I at least leave these bags at the entrance? Guys?" Seeing that no one bothered to answer or helped him, the poor thief just sighed as he did and extra effort in walking painfully the last meters of the destination.
Reaching to the place, Acheron saw the same faces, altough a new one amongst their midst. "Eh? That's..."
"Captain Boy Scout's sister." Morte said, both he and Acheron noticing Serval on the courtyard of the mansion alongside the rest. The Emmanator of Nihility wondered what she was doing here.
"Acheron! Walking pole! You've arrived!" Seele approached the two, welcoming them.
"Walking pole? Seriously?" Morte acted offended and dejected, frowning sadly. "I do have a name and you know it!"
"Coming from the guy who I don't remember calling me by my name even once!" Seele replied back, feeling little pity.
Morte smirked, admitting Seele's good point. "'Kay. You got me there, spunky-girl."
Shifting her gaze, Seele stared to Sparkle who was cutely, if not mockingly, congratulating Sampo for having brought all of the shopping bags along the way, the thief utterly exhausted and panting on the ground. "Unexpected that they've end up coming too. Specially Sparkle." The way Seele speaked the Masked Fool's name, was clear that she wasn't very trusting of Sparkle.
"Don't worry about her. I've already made it clear to Sparkle that she better not try her shennanigans with me around" Acheron told to Seele, reassuring her that the tricky girl wouldn't dare to harm any of them as long as the Self-Annihilator was nearby.
"Great to see you're here!" Luka speaked, being the next one to approach the duo. "That means we're all here! How was your lunch by the way?"
To that, Morte gave a slight smirk. "Oh, wonderful! Watched quite a show and everything."
"..." Acheron stood in silent, opting to not comment on that. "Honestly, is there any good in him?"
Clueless of what Morte was referring to, Luka just continued smilling overall. "Neat! Also, sorry for not informing you prior to arriving here, but we got a new helping hand to aid us in this whole Cocolia thing."
"We already noticed." Acheron replied, staring to Serval as she walked torwards them. "Who is she?" She asked, pretending this to be the first time she was meeting the other woman.
"You've already heard about the Silvermane Guards, haven't you? Then you've probably either heard or seen their captain, Gepard Landau, before." Seele said, introducing Serval to the duo. "If so, then this is his sister and former Silvermane Guard herself, Serval Landau. She came looking for our help after..." She hesitated on saying a detail that she believed to be unknown to both Acheron and Morte.
"You can tell them, Seele. There's no harm in it." Serval told to the younger woman, not caring if they 'knew' what happened to her brother. However, she decided to tell them herself instead. "Earlier today...my brother, Gepard, ended up hitting an IPC official in public."
"Hm, that's shocking to hear." Morte commented, doing pretty well in faking his reaction as if he was hearing this for the first time.
"Yeah. Because of it, the IPC ended up apprehending my brother." Serval was in clear sorrow just by mentioning it, the recent memory still very fresh on her head. "And unless Lady Bronya health recovers and shows up during the next three days, they will oficially make Gepard a prisoner and take him away..." It costed Serval to speak about that, feeling her heart aching inside her chest.
Figuratively, Acheron bite her own tongue, holding herself from apologizing to Serval for not having watch it all happen and not intervene before the discussion had escalated badly. "I'm sorry to hear that. But having seen the captain of the Silvermane Guards before, I'm sure he's very resilient. Enough to be fine by the time we resolve this entire problem."
"I too want to believe with all my heart on that. Altough I can't help but blame myself for being the one responsible for my brother's arrest." Serval replied, thinking back to that moment where Gepard punched the IPC representative, the result of her inability to keep her emotions restrained. "Had I hold myself from speaking back there, maybe Gepard wouldn't have..." Getting emotional, Serval stopped, preventing from letting out some tears in front of others. She wouldn't want that embaressment for her. "Sorry. I just fear what they might do to my brother if we don't heal Lady Bronya in time."
"We won't let that happen!"Acheron tried to comfort Serval about her brother's well-being. "I promise that your ruler will be back in good health before any harm can be done to your brother."
But while the Self-Annihilator was trying to pacify Serval's anxiety and concern, Sparkle decided to add fuel. "Uuh! Is Belobog gonna have gallows and public hangings now? Or will it rather be by firing squad?"
Serval looked down at Sparkle with barely contained disgust and antipathy as Acheron, Seele and even Luka threw a distasteful glare at her, wondering how many screw looses the masked fool had.
"Shush you!" Sampo immediatly tried to prevent Sparkle from saying anything else, also not having liked the comment at all. "Don't make this worse!"
"Pay no mind to what she says." Acheron advised to Serval, Sparkle clearly just wanting a reaction out of her. "It won't come to that. Fortunately, we already have found the possible reason for Bronya's current ill state."
"Yeah, I've already heard about it. Seele and Luka filled me in on that." Serval stated that she knew already about the entire Cocolia thing. "Apparently, that means Lady Bronya's nightmares weren't really product of her mind. Cocolia, or whatever is imitating her, is tormenting her and roaming around Belobog as some sort of ghost. Tsk! Just when we thought bygone problems stood in the past..." Frustrated that Cocolia was back in someway, she decided to put her head up. Her brother's life was on the line here. "Let's make sure it is a problem that gets buried once and for all! As Belobog future depends on this, I will give all the aid possible!"
"That is great to hear. More help is always valuable." Acheron gave a small reserved smile to the other woman. "Still, if the Supreme Guardian cannot currently attend to Belobog's matter and the captain of the Silvermane Guards is under arrest, who is in charge of dealing with the nation's bussiness and administrating it then?"
"It's Pela. A trusty advisor of Bronya herself." Seele responded to that question. "Until we can get rid of Cocolia in order to cure her, Pela will be the one handling Belobog's administration in the meantime."
"Four eyes?" Morte replied, his mind faintly remembering of the small woman with glasses that he and Acheron met at the museum. "Talk about a rough situation. Better hurry up then!"
"You took the words right out of my mouth!" Luka replied to the tall man. "The quicker we defeat Cocolia, the faster we save Belobog from a dire future!"
"Let's head to the entrance. Clara and Svarog are there waiting." Seele told to the party that had reunited at the courtyard. "Svarog may even have already come up with plans to fight against Cocolia."
As they all begun to head to the mansion's entrance, Sampo turned around to face Sparkle. "And please! I beg you this. Don't open your mouth to say those sort of things with the others around."
"Hmmm, I'll see if I can. And sorry about that unhappy comment." Sparkle giggled, not truly feeling sorry at all. "It was just force of habit, teehee."
Near the entrance door of the mansion, as Clara and the tall automaton known as Svarog were seemingly discussing something, the girl heard the sound of footsteps nearby, turning around to see the party already at the place, walking torwards the two. "I see you've all returned. That's good! Me and Mr Svarog were just calculating the hypothesis of defeating Cocolia."
Looking over to the robot, Acheron got a bit of initial curiosity at the sight of Svarog. Throughout her endless journey across the stars, she hadn't seen or remebered many mechanical beings with the physique of Clara's guardian.
"He sure looks like big deal." Morte scratched his chin, also somewhat interested in the automaton's appearence. "Think you could win against him?"
"We're not here for a fight." Acheron monotonously replied to Morte, not having the patience to hear whatever he could say next.
"Sure, I know. It was just a harmless question produced by my imagination. That's all. Can't do those now?" Morte chuckled in his reply. It was as if he found Acheron's botherness of him to be amusing. "Eitherway, tin man here reminds me of some other kinda type robot enemies I fought before once in some planet. It was quite the long time ago ehehe." He rubbed his forhead, doing an 'attempt' at remembering it. "Now, what was that planet called? G..Gla..Gle...Gla-something. I don't really care remembering it right now."
"And I'm supposed to be the one with bad memory." Acheron threw a sarcastic comment, having taken the opportunity to make one.
"Were you expecting my memory to have the storage capacity of Nous?" Morte replied back.
Standing in front of Clara and Svarog, Seele took a step forward from the rest of the group, proceeding to talk with the girl. "So? Do we have a chance? What is the plan to defeat her?"
"Well, we are still trying to come up with one." Clara responded, looking up to Svarog. "Being an ancient automaton of Belobog's highest technology, Mr Svarog has the capacity to process and recreate a visualization of the fighting styles and capabilities of the people he observes fighting as data. That's what allows him to layout hipothetical fights." She explained to them. "We spent some hours in observing and analysing different strategies that included your combat skills and prowess as a way to determine which tactic is the best out of them all."
"Just like a supercomputer on calculus. That's very handful." Serval commented.
"Wait! You had the ability to do that all along?!" Luka exclaimed to Svarog, never been aware of that aspect of the automaton. "Why didn't you used that back when we where at the Loufu? It would have helped me out alot during the tournment!"
"That was a journey of your own to surpass. My storaged analysis data aiding you would make it less significant of an event." Svarog responded, speaking with a metallic and robotic deep voice as expected, extremely fitting for his more intimidating side. "Dialoguing on the subject that matters and reunited all of you here, while we were testing out the best approaches for your possible next fight against Cocolia, there is still intel that halts us from a greater result."
"Hm? What do you mean by that?" Acheron asked to the humanois automaton. A question to which Clara was the one to respond.
"Allow me to clarify. While Mr Svarog does have the complete combat information from the people that are native to Belobog, the same isn't the case for the newcomers." Clara proceeded to stare to Acheron, Morte and Sparkle. "Due to have never seen watching you fight before, Mr Svarog had to make a presumption of your fighting style through the description I could give him from the little I saw of you battling against Cocolia. If you could please share more of your fighting skills to Mr Svarog, the data of your fighting styles would be more accurate and lead to better new ways of planning on how to defeat the enemy."
"I see." Morte crossed his arms. "So in other words, we aren't quite installed on the patch yet."
Sparkle shook her head in rather dissapointment, both her hands up. "No good at all. Are the developers sleeping on this?"
"Then you're requesting for us to demonstrate our capabilities?" Acheron asked to Svarog.
"Affirmative." The robot responded shortly. "It doesn't have to be a fully fledge fight however. A small demonstration should provide with enough data to store on my automated cerebral chip that will allow to replicate your abilities."
"Eeh, seriously? Putting on a little show now?" Sparkle huffed, not quite pleased to do so. "Where's exactly the fun in it?"
"With that body of yours, I can't really blame you." Morte smirked down to the masked fool, making fun of her seemingly weak body frame. "Even the lightest weight must be too strenuous of a task for those arms."
"Pff! I can do alot of gymnastics y'know? Better than being a muscle gorilla." Sparkle responded dismissingvily, throwing an insult back.
"Before that, do you have like, an exact percentage of our chances of winning against Cocolia?" Seele asked to Svarog. "Like, which scenario we win the most easily and without any of us getting seriously injured or dead?"
"As of now, the variables to that hypothetical outline are scarce." Svarog responded. "The inofrmation on the combat skills of the previous Supreme Guardian of Belobog, Cocolia Rand, are lacking, making almost impossible to provide enough of a meticulous demonstration of her fighting style through my chip, since I never witnessed the previous Supreme Guardian fight before in my presence." He gave them an unfortunate downside. "Thus, while I can strategize and visualize your different combat patterns in different plans, the same cannot be applied to Cocolia."
"So we're going to fight an enemy that we aren't fully aware of what she might do on the upcoming fight? That sounds fantastic..." Sampo sighed as he brought a hand to his head, displease.
"Unfortunately, the short fight you had against her some hours ago is all that we can have on Cocolia's way of fighting." Clara told them, a bit sadden with it as well.
However, Seele's mind remembered something. "Hold up!" She then stared to Serval next to her. "Serval, you used to hang out with Cocolia years ago while you were both students, correct?"
"Yes, that's true." Serval confirmed.
"Then you must have seen Cocolia fight before, haven't you?" Seele brought up a good point.
"Well, not as much as you'd think." Serval gave the reply, breaking the expectations. "During that period, Cocolia would spent more time studying science and technology in order to understand the Stellaron rather than practicing her combat skills. It isn't like I've never seen her fight before, but it wasn't that much of a regular basis. And mind you that it was years ago, so I am not really all that familiar how Cocolia used to fight in these last years."
"So we are still stuck in square zero with this?" Luka replied, bummered, before something popped up on his mind. "Wait...Seele, you fought alongside Cocolia in her final moments to save Belobog, didn't you?"
"Oh,yeah! I almost forgot about that!" Seele slapped her own head quick. "True, I fought Coco-I-I mean, I fought alongside Cocolia in her final moments, yes." She said, almost accidentally letting the truth about Cocolia's real ending slipping out from her tongue to all the others present.
"?" Acheron's eyebrows frowned a bit, finding weird Seele's clumsy response. It was clear she was hiding something. But she wouldn't question a thing that wasn't going to help them at this moment.
"Then you can inform Mr Svarog of a more detailed way on how she fights, can you, Seele?" Clara speaked to her.
"W-well, yeah! I surely can." Seele responded, trying to remember of the last time she 'fought alonside' Cocolia. "Hmm, if I recall it right...Besides those dual spears and ice attacks she does, Cocolia also...also..." She was having an hard time remembering it. "Summoned bigger spears and transformed or something...I guess."
"Don't tell us you can't remember it right!" Sampo told, a bit dissapointed.
"Hey! A lot of wild things were happening in that battle and I was on adrenaline!" Seele justified, being somewhat true as she remembered of the intense fight happening in a flash to hardly memorize any detail out.
"Then you aren't quite sure on what you're telling us right now?" Acheron asked her.
"Eeh, bit iffy. I'm more-or-less sure on it." Seele admitted.
Serval sighed. "That will hardly lead us anywhere."
"Which is why we better start planning now instead of continuing wondering what ice queen can and cannot do." Morte stepped up from the party, standing almost as tall as Svarog while in front of the automaton. "Show me your strategies that I'll come up with the best one for us."
"Uh?" Acheron just gave a puzzled look to Morte, sensing how confident he himself was on his own words.
"B-But we still barely know that much about Cocolia's skills!" Clara tried to speak with the tall man. "We should plan it carefully! The more we could know about our opponent the better!"
To that, Morte simply lifted up his hand, gesturing to Clara to stop talking while not even looking to the girl. "I am talking to your robot, Clarice. Sit this one down." He said, proceeding to continue speaking to Svarog while Clara pouted angrily at him by the side. "Now, my dear metal friend, what is the percentage of victory that we have in the best outcome out of all the strategies you've analyzed?"
"Calculating the uttermost best variable, the chance of winning against the previous and deceased Supreme Guardian, Cocolia Rand, are of exactly 65,00007%, according under the assumption that it goes exactly as envisioned on the simulation of my neuro chip."
"Tsk! Only 65%..." Morte expressed his slight discontent, putting a thumb to his chin. "I'm sure we can pump those chances up. As long as you hear the indications and plan I'm about to have."
"So you conjured an entire plan in your mind while we were all debating?" Acheron crossed her arms. "From you, I don't know if that can either work or not."
"You saw how Cocolia fought, didn't you? She's no small fry at all." Seele warned Morte about how powerful the resurrected Supreme Guardian was. "Are you sure that whatever plan you have is going to result?"
"I am also a bit skeptic with it." Luka rubbed the back of his head. "I mean, you're quite strong but Cocolia can kill us if we're not careful."
With the two doubting of him, Morte simply turned his head to stare to both Seele and Luka, his cold and sharp blue eyes throwing a menacing glance to both. "You want Belobog to continue living on, don't you?"
"..!"
"..!"
Seele and Luka felt a terrifying chill running down their spines in that moment, a feel that Morte's question wasn't exactly a question, but more of a subtle threat.
Even Sampo that was behind the two and whose words weren't directed at him, feel the fright as well. "Alright! This guy gives me all the creeps!"
"Fools don't strategize plans at all. Bigger fools overstrategize their plans to the point of hesitation and unwilling mistakes." Morte told them, being serious about it.
Acheron listened to it carefully. She could tell by the way Morte was speaking about it, he had some prior experience on planning and strategizing upcoming battles. It made her ponder about his background again. "Was he a leader of sorts? A commander?"
"If you want Belobog and this entire planet to not hear the melody of a requiem, then heed to my words." Morte told them, grasping the group's attention while leaning his fingers on his own chest. "If you do and follow as I say, a sour ending to your precious nation can be avoided. If not, then this entire planet will be fated to decay and ruin." He warned them, wanting the natives of Belobog to fully trust in his plan as the only way to save Belobog from the consequences of the IPC and future ones. "Your and Belobog's lives. Trust them to me."
A bit reluctant, neither Seele nor Luka pronounced themselves. In their own minds, they also sensed that Morte sounded very convicted in his own plan and that his statement now carried deep meaning. But there was still a part of them that didn't knew if they could exactly trust on someone new and as 'eerie' as him. Clara also was hesitant to say something.
"Kay! Let's do as you say." Serval speaked up, staring to Morte, her answer unwavering.
"Serval?" Seele was quite surprised in seeing the older woman speak out of all of them.
"He's right. We can't just stay and stand here, afraid of going to battle because we aren't entirely sure of what our enemy can do." Serval explained. "There's just so much thing in game her and you know it, Seele. Time's essential." With that being said, fueled by the extra motive of wanting to get her brother back, Serval went up to Morte. "If whatever strategy you have planned can guarantee us a win, I'm all ears in following it!"
The man's lips went up, smilling while looking to Serval. "Smart choice pf a smart person." He then looked to the others behind her. "So?"
"We really don't have much choice, do we?" Seele said with her head a bit down before pulling herself up. "What the hell am I even saying?! Bronya's health and other things are at stake like you said! So let's give it a shot!"
Being convinced as well, Luke made his own choice. "Yeah. This is a matter that we shouldn't be prolonging. If we have a chance to end it, we will take it!" He closed his mechanical arm into a fist. He proceeded to look to Sampo and Sparkle. "You are going to help as well, aren't you?"
"That clearly goes without saying!" Sampo was quick to respond, showing his willingness to save Belobog. "I might be a charlatan and all that, but I do still care about my home! Count me in!"
"Hum? What are you all jabbering about?" Sparkle on the other hand was rubbing her own ear, showing to be little interested in it. "I mean, yeah sure, I can help as long as you don't make it boring."
"..." A bit indecisive, Clara looked up to Svarog, wanting to know what his opinion in this was. And a simple look back of the automaton to her was all that the girl needed to know what was Svarog's opinion in this, almost as if they could understand each other telepathically. "Okay. Me and Mr Svarog also approve of your plan. Hope we can succeed with it."
"And how 'bout you?" Morte turned around to ask Acheron, wanting to know her position in this.
"You already know the answer to that." Acheron replied, showing that she was ready to go along his plan as long as it didn't envolved with innocents suffering.
Morte grinned. "Great! Now that it seem we are all rowing to the same side, let me show how we're gonna do this!" Turning around, the man pointed to Svarog. "Taking into account all the noises and rumours of Cocolia's sightings, see if you can calculate where she's gonna appear next."
"..." Svarog did not respond. Instead, he stared to Morte silently, his big single red eye gazing at the man in front of him. The automaton could not help but feel there was something extremely wrong and disturbing about the individual.
Morte begun to suspect the lack of reply from Svarog. "Hm? Is he broken or something?"
"Mr Svarog?" Clara glanced to the robot, a bit worried that he hadn't said anything yet.
"I was compiling all of the information about Cocolia's recent whereabouts at diverse locations of the Underworld and utilize it to determine the highest probability of where she would appear next." Svarog explained, masterfully making up a quick lie as the computer that was his own brain was doing that right now.
"Oh. I see." Clara responded smilling a bit shyly to the automaton. "Sorry for having interrupting you then, Mr Svarog."
"It is alright, Clara." Svarog responded to the girl as he then showed the location to Morte and the party through an hologram projection. "This is where Cocolia as the most chance of appearing next. The 3D of this map allow us to-"
"Okay, I've see enough of it. You can turn it off." Morte said, picking up a stick from the ground. "I prefer some of the old ways."
"Huh? What are you doing?" Acheron asked as she leaned over to see what Morte was drawing on the snowy ground with the stick.
"That's..." Clara was able to recognize it as the map of the location Svarog had just showed them on the hologram, but now on 2D instead.
"As you can see, this is quite the spacious area. Enough entrances and hidden spots that we could use to surprise attack the ice queen on some kind of set-up." Morte said, doing some lines and circles on the ground.
"A surprise attack? That wouldn't be bad thought at all." Seele commented. "However, Cocolia by now knows that we are searching for her, so is she really going to appear on a place where her enemies will be waiting in order to activate a trap?"
Morte chuckled in response to Seele's observation. "You ain't wrong for pointing that, spunky-girl. However, that is why for every ambush, we always come up with a bait."
"Are you implying that for one of us to serve as bait for Cocolia to appear?" Serval asked.
"Indeed." Morte said, turning his head to look to someone at the back. "And luckly, we have the perfect bait right here."
Looking to direction Morte was staring at, everyone was now glaring at Sampo, the thief feeling kinda surprised and embaressed at the same time. "Uuuuhhhh..." However, he came to the realization that they weren't staring at him but somebody BEHIND him, making Sampo stepped out of the way, showing Sparkle to the group who was now inspecting her own fingernails.
Noticing that everyone's sight was now at her, Sparkle stopped paying attention to her nails and stared back to the entire party. "Hm? What's the matter? Got something in my face?"
"Tsk! Of course that it had to be something dumb like this!"
Sparkle hissed annoyed to herself while walking across the location where Cocolia was presumed to appear next... tied up and inside a barrel. When she was looking for entertainment, Morte made sure she would get some by chosing Sparkle herself to be the bait out of the entire party. And none of the group opposed to that decision, much less so Sampo. Neither did Sparkle as she reluctantly obliged despite her expressed frustration. Well, not like she wasn't asking for it. At least it was a bit of unexpected. She could give credit to Morte for that.
"Now let's see if this will actually work or it's just an excuse for that bastard to humiliate me."
Despite being 'kindly' put inside the barrel by the collective work of Acheron and Seele, the masked fool made sure to hear to Morte's instructions and what she would do next as the bait that would attract Cocolia to the area of the ambush. And if Sparkle was enough of a person to dish out, she could also take it. So, assuming to have reached to the center of the area, Sparkle did what the man told her to do next.
"Here goes nothing..." Crouching down, Sparkle laid her body and barrel on the ground, and stretching up her legs, she begun to spin the barrel, going around with it as her body was spinning alongside on the inside. She was doing consistently, being told to not stop until she could 'feel' Cocolia's presence. Thus, the masked fool was spinning and spinning with the barrel until that objective was met. "I admit, if this was other person doing it and not me, it would actually be pretty funny."
As Sparkle continued, she was getting to the point of dizziness when her feet touched on something, colliding with it. "Hm?" Doing her very best to have a look to the outside while inside the barrel, Sparkle lowered her head and was able to see someone's legs next to hers. The touch felt cold and the legs were familiar to the masked fool. It was her, Cocolia, right in front of Sparkle, staring down to the barrel she was in. "Oh! She's actually here!" Having accomplished the presence of Cocolia with this little theatric of hers, Sparkle smirked, proceeding to go for the next stage of their plan. "About time!"
Even if her arms and torso had been tied, Morte had told her a secret to how she could free herself from the ropes through a specific manouver of her hands. Of course she could have always try and do that in order to free herself from the stupid barrel. But taking into account that the party would beat her up if she tried that, Sparkle decided to comply anyways. But back to the business, Sparkle moved and squirmed her hands in the specific movement that Morte had told her, managing to slips her wrists off from the ropes and arms as well. Being free, the masked fool now had to give the signal.
"Heya there!" Lifting the barrel up and getting her upper body out of it, Sparkle happily greeted Cocolia before quickly taking out her pistol and pointing it to the Supreme Guardian's face. "Say cheese!" Pulling the trigger, she fired the bullet torwards Cocolia's face who swiftly dodged it by a simple tilt of her head. But it wasn't Sparkle's objective to hit her with the bullet. Quite the contrary, the bullet ended up exploding into fireworks in the air, being the signal for the rest of the party to act. Their strategy had been put in motion.
From the shadows, five bombs were launched torwards the resurrected Supreme Guardian who had figured out she had just fell into a trap, only having time to shield herself. The smoke bombs went off, lifting up a giant smoke curtain in the entire zone.
"Sampo Koski coming right up!" Getting out from his hidden place, Sampo rushed torwards the arena where both Sparkle and Cocolia were, doing his own part of the plan. Reaching next to his fellow masked fool, Sampo picked Sparkle up and dashed away from Cocolia as quick as possible. "Now this is the type of prank worthy of having some laughs!" The thief smirked, having liked the view of Sparkle rolling inside the barrel like an idiot.
"Ehehe! Funny, wasn't it? I also have some other ones in mind for you." Sparkle smiled and giggled, obviously a mask to her inner anger and sadism, clearly telling Sampo to not poke her with that.
Sampo immediatly gulped, continuing to run. "I didn't said anything!"
Seeing Sampo fleeing with Sparkle, Cocolia immediatly tried to give a response, picking one of her two spears in order to throw at them. However, someone intervened fast before she could try.
"Look here!" Exclaming, Luka flanked Cocolia from the left, his robot arm about to strike her. The Supreme Guardian was agile to react in time. blocking Luka's fist with her spear, resulting in a disputed clash between the two as Luka was trying to hold her back.
And it wasn't all yet.
From above, a vibrant purple thunder rained down on Cocolia, accompanied by a guitar sound, forcing the former Supreme Guardian to take a step back and give up of the clash with Luka, avoiding the thunder attack.
"How many times do you have to torment us?" Serval appeared from the other side, sighting Cocolia with disdain. "May this be the last time you cause us trouble!" With the guitar chip in hand, Serval begun playing her instrument strings, sending more thunders torwards Cocolia who was evading every single one altough Serval was hardly letting the resurrected Supreme Guardian breath.
Luka and Serval both tagged along against Cocolia, with the young man engaging in a more closed combat with the enemy while the rockstar gave him support on the back with her attacks. Eventualy, still dodging and parrying the attacks, Cocolia ended up being pushed back some meters away as she blocked a powerful punch from Luka.
This was exactly where they wanted her to be.
From behind, two quick flashes sprinted torwards the unaware ex-Supreme Guardian, suffering two slashes, one in her left hip and other in her right shoulders, stunning her for a bit.
"You really left quite the damage on her, Acheroni!" Morte praised while chuckling, he and Acheron having landed the hits on Cocolia at almost the same time.
"..." Acheron did not replied, her eyes closed as she got focused in order to slash the enemy.
Recovering from the initial pain of her injuries, it was however, too late for Cocolia already as a restraining spherical shield was put around her, locking the resurrected Supreme Guardian in place.
"You got her, Mr Svarog!" Clara exclaimed as she and Svarog were both standing a few meters away from the fight, the automaton having used one of his controlled giant robot hands to put a weakening shield on Cocolia.
She was now paralysed and her whole defense down. The opportunity to deliver the fatal blow was clear. Both Acheron and Morte were nearby as they could easily kill the resurrected Supreme Guardian with one single hit already. Yet, they decided to leave that honor to someone else.
"She's all yours now, spunky-girl!" Morte exclaimed torwards the top of a chimney from one of the abandoned houses in the area. "Make sure to end this in style!"
Standing on the top of the chimney and carrying her purple scythe, Seele took a deep breath while staring down at her target, the one who was hurting and tormenting Bronya these past few weeks. She would make sure that would be the last time. With a determinant and serious glare, Seele stepped down from the chimney and went all the way down to the floor at an incredible speed, moving like the wind while leaving butterflies behind.
"Go back to your grave!" Positioning her weapon, Seele dashed all the way torwards Cocolia, Svarog turning off the shield at the precise moment the girl's scythe swinged torwards the previous Supreme Guardian's chest. And in a quick manouver, Seele delivered the final blow, the sharp blade of her scythe slicing right through Cocolia who immediatly fell to her knees and collapsed on the ground, utterly defeated.
Spinning her scythe a bit and sticking it on the ground, Seele slightly adjusted her scarf as a soft breeze blew against her. "You will never dare hurt Bronya again."
And it was done. Morte's strategized plan had been executed to perfection, resulting in the party's victory against the resurrected Cocolia.
"Uhuu! We did it!" Luka went to congratulate Seele instantly, surprising her as he hastly put an arm over her shoulder and pulled Seele closer. "You were awsome, Seele! The way you ended up finishing her was pretty cool!"
"Eh, right back at ya, Luka!" Seele smiled to her friend. "With this, I hope Bronya gets to recover better now."
"Not only that, but Belobog can avoid severe consequences." Serval added, a satisfied and happy smile on her face. "And Gepard can come back."
"All is well that ends well!" Sampo commented, also reuniting with the group alongside Sparkle. "That better mean I at least get a month of immunity from the authorities. That and an official thank you from the Supreme Guardian herself."
"Not happening." Seele quickly told him with a rude glare. "Altough, I can make her consider that a bit."
"Don't know if I should feel hopeful or not for that..." Sampo replied, forcing his smile to stay.
"All that to defeat the 'bad guy' in under two minutes. Talk about fast." Sparkle said dismissingvily, having found this whole battle to be 'whatever' and way too quick for her enjoyment. She then stared up to Morte. "Next time, try adding a bit more of tension and explosions. It felt as entertaining as watching paint dry."
"What? And I thought spinning around in circles inside a barrel was a thing you would find entertaining." Morte 'lamented', shaking his head in a clear faked sadness, taking a jab at Sparkle.
"Glad that we were able to finish this and fast. The plan couldn't have went more perfectly!" Clara speaked. "Looks like Mr Morte really has the gift of crafting a perfect strategy."
Morte looked down to the child. "Well, I did said for you to put your lives and trust in me, didn't I?" He chuckled. "It helps having people who follow instruc-"
Looking to the defeated body of Cocolia, Clara noticed something. "Hm? Whats happening to her?" She pointed, making the entire party stare to the body of the previous Supreme Guardian.
Thankfully, it wasn't her getting back on her feet again to continue fighting. Quite the contrary, Cocolia's body begun to dissipate, crumbling away and deteriorate like greyish sand, her lifeless face fading away alongside the body, leaving nothing behind but a small pile of that sand and a seemingly small fragment of crystal on top of it, gaining even more attention.
"Uh? A crystal?" Acheron raised up an eyebrow, wondering what was a mineral doing inside Cocolia's resurrected body while Morte walked torwards it and grabbed.
"That does look suspicious." Seele commented, staring at the crystal now in the man's hand.
"Could that be the reason how Cocolia came back to life?" Clara pondered. "Was the crystal the source of energy that revived her?"
"The answers for that question can vary." Svarog responded. "Altough, if I can analyze it-"
But Svarog didn't even finished speaking when Morte, without warning, crushed the small crystal into dust with only the power of his sheer hand, having closed it tightly into a fist, much to the others collective shock. Now there was no way to know what it was.
"Why did you do that?" Acheron questioned Morte, kinda of rebuking the man for having acted hastily in destroying the crystal without hearing the other's opinion on it first.
"Why shouldn't I have done it?" Morte answered back. "For all we know, this crystal could have had the potential to be greatly dangerous in resurrecting people on the wrong hands, amongst other stuff. I was simply preventing such bad things being eliminated from happening."
"Still, we will never know what it was exactly as well as its properties since it's gone." Clara also wasn't particularly a fan on how Morte decided to just destroy the mineral instead of choosing to perserve it so that they could analyze exactly what it was.
"Some things are better left unspecified." Morte responded to Clara, smilling as he poked her forhead. "Ever heard about 'curiosity killed the cat' Clarice?"
"My name is not Clarice!" Clara responded angrily and frustrated, altough still cute.
"Whether the crystal was evil or whatever, I do not care." Seele gave her honest opinion about it. "All that matters is that we got rid of this problem. Now things should get back to normal."
"Eh, I suppose you're right on that." Acheron smiled to Seele. Truly, saving Belobog and ending what was causing Bronya's suffering was always more important. "With Cocolia gone, I think I know what you're going to do next."
Seele smiled back as answer as it seemed the Self-Annihilator's mind guessed correctly to where she was going now after the battle. "Yeah. Gonna check up on Bronya now."
.
.
.
"N-No! Stop! I told you to stop already!"
Fighting and trying to resist a losing battle inside her own mind, an injured and bruised Bronya got kicked to the ground by a relentless and cold Cocolia who was taunting her.
"Stop? This would have never begun in the first place if you had been a good obedient daughter and stayed by my side." Cocolia's distaste was palpable in her voice, staring to Bronya with vitriol. "I was the one who fed you. Dressed you. Teached you. I always made sure to take care of you, Bronya! And in the end, where is your gratitude for all that?"
"I'm...grateful for all those things you did on my childhood. Truly, I am." Bronya speaked with some difficulty as she was slowly and painfully getting up from the ground. No matter how much she tried, Bronya was unable to hit back or counter attack Cocolia, the deceased Supreme Guardian being nigh untouchable and assaulting the feeble current Supreme Guardian relentlessly. "However...the Stellaron ended up taking a tool on your mind in the end! You were too far gone, mother!" Bronya exclaimed, gathering the strenght to pick up her musket and point at Cocolia. "There was nothing else that could've been done!"
Firing a bullet, Bronya hoped that it would make the ghost of her mother to back off. Unfortunately, Cocolia easily parried the bullet away with one of her spears, proceeding to dash torwards the beaten Bronya and kick her daughter to the ground again.
"Ugh!" Groaning in pain, Bronya let the grip on her weapon go, falling to the ground. As she tried, with struggle, reach out for her musket while stretching her hand, Cocolia ended up stepping harshly on Bronya's hand, making her unable to grab the gun.
"There was. You could have always opted to follow me till the end. The entire nation of Belobog would be better that way." Cocolia said, her stoic and souless face staring down at Bronya. "With me, we could have prospered for eons."
Bronya just shook her head in denial. "No, mother...that's not..."
"It is true and you know it, Bronya. But instead, the child chosed to rebel against the parent who welcomed them. Thanks to that, the nation is now slave to the interests from people beyond the stars. Never to be truly free." Cocolia criticized Bronya's administration and deal with the IPC, stating that she had doomed the entire planet on the long run. "You have sealed your people's fate. Destroyed our hopes and dreams in favor of a more mediocre reality. Maybe, you jusnt wanted all the power to yourself, didn't you? That's why you wanted to get rid of me."
Being tormented and insulted by the very figure of her deceased mother, Bronya was starting to get on the verge of tears. "No! I-I didn't want that..! I still love you!"
"Lawless brat!" Cocolia rised up her voice, squeezing harder Bronya's hand. "If I knew you would end up backstabbing me, I would have locked and chained you on the deepest and coldest dungeon of Belobog until you learned your lesson. But maybe the blame is also mine for letting you get closer to those people of the Underworld." She said with disdain. "Perhaps it was my mistake for not having get ridden of them all when I could."
"P-Please, stop..." Bronya couldn't hold back anymore and so, tears begun to flow down her cheeks. "Stop saying all those disgusting things!" Looking up, Bronya's crying face met up with Cocolia's cold and stern one. "Don't defile my mother's memory like that..!"
As Bronya sobbed helplessly, with nothing that she could do, the Supreme Guardian felt a caressing hand of Cocolia softly touching and rubbing her head. "Aww, poor child. Look at you, so laughably pathetic." Crouching down, Cocolia drew a devious and vile soft smile on her face as she approached her mouth to Bronya's ear and whispered. "Belobog will fall. And it will be your weak reign that will cause it. A fragile nation, mirrorring its fragile ruler. With you in command, this planet shall collapse in ruin, Bronya. Give a year or two, and very soon, you will be cursing the day you and the people from outer space took away the salvation from Belobog's people."
"..." Bronya couldn't even reply, her daunted eyes just crying endlessly as every dooming word of Cocolia's mouth, even if spoken softly and gently, hammered roughly in her mind.
"So keep up with the 'good' job, my dear daughter. May the history books recognize you as the Supreme Guardian who failed to protect her nation." With that said, a cold icy breeze blew hauntingly against Bronya's back as Cocolia got up and begun to walk away and into the darkness around them, her chilling steps echoing less and less as she got further.
Hugging herself in agony and anguish, Bronya tried to call Cocolia back. "Don't...go away. Please mother, I'm...I'm...I'm sorry! I'm sorry for having killed you! Please forgive me! I'm sorry for what I've done!" She stretched out her arm, trying to reach for her fleeting mother, feeling like a lost child that was left behind.
"Don't abandon me! I don't want to be alone!"
"Mother!"
"MOTHER!"
"MOTHER!"
.
.
.
"Mother!...Ah...Ah...Ah.."
Waking up in frenzy, Bronya panted and breathed heavily, her entire body sweating, her pjama clothes feeling damp. Calming down and looking around, the Supreme Guardian realized it was all just an awful nightmare and she was back to her bedroom...again. For entire weeks, it had been an awful night after awful night, never been able of getting rest. But it all felt so real for her that Bronya even doubted if the visions and encounters she was getting with her deceased mother went way past just bad nightmares.
Even when looking to her own arms and legs, Bronya could see the visible bruises in them. Was Cocolia truly back and harming her? Or was Bronya just getting paranoid and harming herself? All in all, she knew this was no good, as it only caused her sanity to deteriorate. For over a week and half, she was uncapable of carrying out her functions as Supreme Guardian due to her recent poor health. She feared that deep down, she was starting to lose her mind just as her mother was, going down the same path as her.
"When will it end?" Tired and pained, Bronya brought her knees to her head and put her arms around them, feeling that if it continued like that, she would have no other choice but forfeit her duty as Supreme Guardian before Belobog could take any consequences from her absence. She just couldn't take it anymore.
"Bronya."
Hearing a voice, the Supreme Guardian lifted up her head and moved to the diraction from where the sound came. From her bedroom's door, she saw the only person who could've comfort her during these rough times: Seele.
With her by Bronya's side, the Supreme Guardian always felt her nights were less painful, her beloved's presence helping soothing the fear and suffering she was getting these past few weeks.
"Seele..." Murmuring, Bronya felt comfortable enough to let all out and start crying, having spent another dreadful sleep being terrorized by the ghost of her mother.
Fortunately, Seele understood it and immediatly went to consolate and calm Bronya in a warm and caring hug, letting her cry all the tears on her chest while gently patting her girlfriend's hair. "It's alright Bronya. It's alright. You don't have to weep anymore." Seele told her calmingly and sweetly, a comprehensive smile on her face, for she was about to bring great news to Bronya.
Cocolia was done for, never to harrow the Supreme Guardian ever again.