A/N: Hey everyone! It's been... heh, it's been a while, ain't it? Sorry about that, been dealing with some trouble on my side, but it finally looks like things are back to normal. I'll try to update multiple times a week until we catch back to the original schedule.
036 - The True Mastermind?
Elizabeth Bathory
How does one handle being slapped in the face with a living -after a fashion- and breathing -more or less- reminder of the many horrible mistakes one is fated to make in the future? Of mistakes one hasn't committed and has no intention of ever committing, but are engraved into the annals of history all the same, like an inexorable and undeniable fate.
Elizabeth cannot even begin to fathom how the poo people would do it. They probably wouldn't, it's not like poo people end up engraved into the annals of history in the first place. Honestly, she doesn't particularly care either. As long as they don't expect her to do anything about… Actually, no. Please, let the poo people pray to her for salvation, that'd be great!
No that she'd actually solve their problems, but she'd do her best -as always- to sing an emotional and upbeat song about it that would reach their hearts and make them feel better about it. Maybe even inspire them to do something about it themselves. Or cows could fly, nothing is truly impossible in this crazy world they live in.
"What's the problem, child?" Speaking of cows, her opponent is taunting her with a shrill voice that grinds on her ears. "I thought you had a Master to protect? Someone so incredibly soft and pliant that would even indulge your pathetic, childish delusions with a smile on her face?"
Elizabeth bites her tongue to hold back a very-much-not-PG retort, dodging under some sort of blood whip that barely misses her head. Seriously, who uses blood as a weapon? That's unsanitary! And disgusting! She could maybe understand using it for a bath, but… No, focus Elizabeth, that's not the point! The point is that the harpy should get canceled right now!
"If you're going to keep flailing around uselessly, this is going to take forever. I wonder if the old man would trade dance partners?" The harpy goes on and on, a supposedly-smug smile on her lips that Elizabeth can see right through. The yellow eyes of the tacky old lady who refuses to act her own age are filled with too much envy and hunger for her expression to be genuine. "That little queenie of yours is a much more enticing morsel than a disappointing, clueless idiot who cannot even face the simple realities of the world."
Ah, loathe as she is to admit it, Marie-chan is a really radiant person. So much so that Elizabeth would hesitate to accept a collab performance for fear of getting overshadowed, but at the same time would wonder if it wouldn't be worth it all the same just to experience it. Of course, that's the sort of thought she would die before acknowledging out loud, much less in front of a reject of society who failed even to die and fade into obscurity properly and should hurry up and take her final nap in a pine box already.
This time, only her sensitive ears picking up the faint but unmistakable sound of well-oiled grinding metal right behind her allows her to dodge forward in the nick of time. Still, she nearly gets her tail caught on an iron maiden coming out of nowhere. Creative usage of Presence Concealment, wonderful. As if she needed a reminder that her (future self) opponent would rather lurk in the shadows than enjoy the spotlight.
At least an iron maiden has some class you simply cannot match with more mundane tools like a rack or a stockade, that has to count for something.
The (older Elizabeth Bathory) overgrown dungeon bat tries to take advantage of her rather undignified dodge forward and make some rusty stakes sprout from the ground right in front of her with the specific purpose of ruining her life. But youth and energy -and a lot of dancing practice- beat age and wiles this time around and Elizabeth manages to twirl around them, neatly placing herself right in front of the Servant World's number one most disliked face.
Right where she wanted to be.
Yes, Elizabeth doesn't know what poo people would do in her circumstances, but she knows what she would do.
She'd stab them in the face with extreme prejudice.
"Shut up, you dried-up prune-hag!" She shoots back as she thrust her weapon, giving it her level best to bury it through one of the bat's eyes. Or mouth, or nose, or forehead, even someone with her very high standards has a few things she's not picky about. "Go back home before you break a hip or something!"
The strike lashes out like lightning and it's only due to a wide-eyed, hair's breadth dodge that the expired pickled cow somehow manages to avoid getting an eye gouged out. Speaking of hair, Elizabeth can't help but smile at the dumb face on the harpy's face as a white lock no doubt soaked in cheap care products slowly drifts onto the ground. Mad Enhancement or whatever, even if she could've never hoped to fight on equal footing as a Rogue Servant, things are different now that she has a first-rate Producer!
That fire snake is lucky the super-maids merced her before Elizabeth could humiliate her with her new super-idol specs!
"Age digs, how quaint." The fraud spinster retorts drolly, taking a step back to avoid her follow-up. But the twitch on her left eye betrays the truth. Age digs might be cheap, but they work all the same! "Are you familiar with the saying about throwing stones on your own roof?"
Okay, that was uncalled for. "I will never be you!"
"Sure, dear, whatever makes you feel better."
Ghiiiiiiiii!
Elizabeth would like to say the fight heated up from there on, but that would imply she wasn't giving her best from the very start. She still gives her 120% to beat that specter of futures past who looks nothing like her and acts nothing like her and thinks nothing like her. Unfortunately, the washed-out reject with way too much fondness for magecraft for a supposedly Berserker Assassin refuses to show a shred of self-awareness and go the way of the dodo.
Elizabeth is faster and nimbler. Her Class advantages, paired up with an incredible Producer and the energy of youth meaning she can zip and flit all around her opponent, searching for openings to exploit and weaknesses to capitalize on. But she's not stronger, even if she should. The old lady who dances with the grace of an old willow tree is stacking far too many unfair advantages on herself for that.
For every time Elizabeth's spear bites into the cow's flesh, there's three where it's parried by a metal staff, redirected by a blood shield or blocked by a random torture implement come out of nowhere. Meanwhile, she's bleeding through far too many glancing blows, her pretty pink dress in tatters and her decency only spared due to torn shreds clinging in place through sheer idol power. That twisted harpy is far too crafty for someone whose brain should be already fossilized.
"Really, it's like you can't decide whether you're an Assassin, a Caster or a Berserker." She complains during a lull in the duel. "Did you steal the entire bag with the Cavalry Classes and run away with it? You're only missing Rider!"
The dumb dinosaur overcompensating for the beauty she's lost through the ages with trashy and overly-sexualized clothes looks inordinately smug as she opens her mouth to reply. So of course Elizabeth cuts her off.
"Actually, you probably whore yourself out in your spare time." She speaks up again before the hag can get a word in edgewise. "That'd fit the Rider role rather well."
The smugness turns into an affronted glare that warms Elizabeth's pure heart and loving soul. Of course, the old vampire harpy fossil poorly-aged cow without taste or class can't take the L with dignity, so she throws a fistful or boiling blood at Elizabeth's face that forces her to dodge and tries to retort.
She gets interrupted again. This time by an insane energy buildup quickly followed by the un-aliving of that scary black uncle that makes normal dragons feel inadequate. Wow, the fried dragonslayer guy sure showed them, as expected. Elizabeth always believed in him, by the way.
But any satisfaction she could've gotten from the circumstances suffers a swift death when her (hated older self) opponent suddenly explodes into tentacles. It's only the finely-tuned flight-reflexes of a natural prey that allow Elizabeth to escape the disgusting grasping things covered in sharp and pointy ends before they can pierce her pliant flesh and violate her very soul in all sorts of unpleasant ways.
Her frantic retreat is accompanied by nerve-wracking dodges as the fastest tentacles manage to overcome her Lancer speed and lash out at her, sometimes coming so close she can feel the displaced air brushing against her bare skin before their lunges fail and they end up buried on the ground instead.
By the time the insane overgrowth burst is finally over, Elizabeth stands a good couple hundred yards away from her original position, warily watching over a grotesque tentacle garden that used to be (herself) an old dungeon bat from a safe distance. A shiver runs down her spine at the sight. Idols and tentacles don't mix. Or rather, they mix far too well, but it never ends well for the idol and—
A hint of movement within the garden has her whole body tensing up, ready to pull back again at a moment's notice. When her eyes lock on into the source of the movement though, she finds something even more unsettling than a flesh garden straight out of a nightmare. (Her own) the old hag's face is still there, glaring at her while slowly sinking within the grasping tentacles.
"With my dying breath…" The hag whispers hatefully. "I curse not this treachery that ended my life, but my failure to take you down with me."
And that's it, really. The unpleasant (reminder of her fate) lady without style or self-awareness sinks under the tentacles for good and Elizabeth can only blink in nonplussed fascination. That's… that's some dedication to a grudge, right there. Not that she can't empathize, of course, she'd probably feel the exact same in these circumstances.
But seriously, what's going on? What did she miss?
A glance around reveals a disheartening picture. The rest of the Berserker Servants, and even the remains of the black uncle, have exploded into similar flesh gardens, greedily claiming ground like some sort of creepy alien infestation.
Her brain immediately goes to P-san, so cheerful and optimistic (and hot and confident), who is wounded and defenseless after the black uncle swatted her like a fly. Much to her relief, her ticket to fame (and hopefully a scandal or two) is just fine, with that cute cyclops protectively standing guard before her.
The rest of the group is mostly fine, the super-maids are a given and the stage isn't anywhere near glamorous enough for a queen to pass away either. That absolute unit of a hunk is clearly either a main character or a mentor figure and too resilient to die without at least wounding the final boss to buy time for the others, so of course he's fine too.
The dragon slayers weren't so lucky and Elizabeth has somewhat conflicting feelings about that. On the one side, that's two (convenient meatshields) dependable allies they have lost. On the other, that's two less dragonslayers for her to worry about. Besides, they fulfilled their role of killing the black uncle, so it's not like they died useless failures. That has to count for something.
Yup, Elizabeth might even compose a song about them or something. She's thinking epic rock, which isn't usually her genre but she could make an exception this one time and—
Her brain (grinds to a stop) stutters slightly when her eyes fail to find the last member of their little band. Instead, there's the Dragon Witch, with her hand stretched towards (a mutilated corpse being devoured by tentacles) one of these creepy flesh gardens and a horrified expression on her face.
The Penniless Saint is gone.
That's—!
That…!
That kinda sucks.
She liked the Penniless Saint, damnit!
She's still (reeling) fuming when the mass of tentacles in front of the Dragon Witch start to twitch and curl into themselves until they compress into a human…ish form. Ah, that must be the mastermind! Some sort of eldritch invader from outer space!
Of course, she should've noticed immediately. No matter how close that outlandish abomination attempts to mimic entities from this world, it's clearly failing. No actual human could have that face.
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