Collide Gamer

“Is that so?” Claire hummed and scratched the chin of the bat dangling from her arm. To human eyes, it would have been mundane, though the bits of dark red on its wings may have raised some eyebrows. It squeaked and scratched, formulating sentences only the head of the vampiric Household understood. “Very good, very good… thank you for your service.”

A flick of her will and the bat turned into a band of red ichor, rejoining her essence upon contact with her skin. The little soul likewise rejoined the greater Claire, to be summoned once again at another date.

“No signs of detection,” Claire said to her fellow infiltrators, “we are clear to proceed. Mission paradigm 2.”

Fianna let out a displeased hum. “I admit that I had hoped I would be deployed,” she stated.

“Wanted to kill someone today?” Siena asked.

An immediate shaking of her head was Fianna’s response. “I merely wished to be useful. My particular skills are rarely in demand.”

“Assassinations are his least favourite tool, effective as they are,” Siena sighed, between lamentation and admiration. “Though Ernst would be a difficult target to penetrate anyway. He would catch your bullet like a baseball.”

“Affirmative.” Fianna rose from the mossy stone that served as her seat. “Further delays are inappropriate. I will find a vantage point; proceed with the mission.”

“Affirmative,” Claire purred.

“Such an abrupt end to the foreplay,” Siena bemoaned, but moved all the same.

The infiltrator trio of the harem had met in a remote, unimportant spot in the forests of northwest Austria. It was inaccessible on foot for most people, up several steep slopes, several of which had been reinforced by metal mesh and concrete to prevent mudslides from hitting driving cars. This same remoteness that kept them from being spotted by their enemies had also prevented them from being found. The only way to even get in range of their base was to make an Illusion Barrier at the base of the slope and climb using superhuman abilities.

Fianna disappeared up one side of the slope, while Siena and Claire left the Illusion Barrier. They traversed the sharply angled land. Well, Claire traversed the sharply angled land, Siena had the luxury of wandering the shadows. As it was the dead of night, she had ample routes to pick.

Judas’ instructions guided them to a specific rock, which served as an orientation point to find a specific cliff wall, which was the entrance point they were looking for.

Claire counted to thirty, then entered the Illusion Barrier. The world was starkly different on the magical side. The cliff wall before them had been burst open, shattered by a cataclysmic punch that had revealed a cave system hidden behind several metres of rock. The boulders created by the impact were scattered across the slope.

Fresh blood marked the sides of the entrance. Two corpses lay in cold dirt, dismembered heads just a few centimetres removed from the still gushing neck stumps. Siena shook out her left hand and crystal-bladed tail. The remnants of vitae departed from the smooth surfaces of the inbuilt blades.

Claire’s vampiric nature turned the iron smell into a delicious aroma. She could hardly believe regular humans didn’t pick up on it immediately. Ignoring the urge to make this a feast, she strutted forwards. Her hands did the talking, literally, as the two of them communicated in sign language. “They seem every bit as lax as we thought they’d be. How were their reactions?”

“Slow. Without Ernst, their ceiling is not high enough to threaten us,” Siena responded. “I am going ahead.”

Claire nodded, watching the shadow spirit drop into the darkness. Without John around to communicate between them, the vampire was oblivious as to where the midnight elemental was. After another thirty seconds, she began her own approach.

She did not bother with a disguise. Her lovely little familiars had scouted out the cave ahead of her, confirming that the floor plan Judas had given them was correct. More importantly she knew where the enemy patrols were located.

These fighting addicts were capable brawlers, but they did not make for a tightly run ship. Patrols were non-existent and guards were assigned based on short straws. No one was paying attention. The closest thing to actual security were the wide-awake orgy piles going on.

‘I do have to wonder how long this would be stable,’ the vampire maid thought. ‘They seem to have about one woman per five men. These debauched gangbangs may gratify the flesh, but how long will it be before it stops satisfying the soul? Men are competitive beasts, after all.’

Claire cut short her musings on the matter. Whether this arrangement of few women for so many men could work out in the long run was ultimately unimportant. She could not believe it would, but even if it did, her superior household would produce a great many more children. Better to concern themselves with that matter than how others lived their lives.

‘Now I am wondering if, provided there’s a mechanic to do so, we should aim for many more daughters than sons?’ Claire pressed herself against one of the cave walls, waiting for a man, carry-fucking some woman, to pass around the corner. ‘John has taken so many gorgeous women off the proverbial market, ought we to refill it? I mean, Master has his harem for good reason… but if I crunch the numbers on it… if we all have a bunch of sons and even half of them take after their father… then again, this planet has like 4 billion human women. Maybe that degree of harem-seeking is sustainable?’

Claire continued to advance through the tunnels while she asked herself the difficult questions. The cave system was about half natural, large underground chambers connected via excavated tunnels punched crudely through the rock. Here and there, the ceiling had collapsed. The architecture of the place was as shoddy as the discipline of its inhabitants.

The leader’s chamber was neither especially deep in nor in any central location. It was, in fact, located in a remote side arm, far away from everything.

It was one huge cave, separated into rooms by drapes hung up on clothes lines. A natural pool was turned into a hot bath by various pieces of magical and mundane tech. A corner of the cave became a bed, courtesy of a small ocean of pillows and blankets.

‘This is almost insultingly easy,’ Claire thought.

Ernst was sawing logs loudly enough to mimic an entire deforestation effort. He lay on his back in nothing but a pair of loose pants that he likely had been too lazy to strip out of before collapsing. Claire crinkled her nose at the state of the sheets. Nice for him that he clearly had regular intercourse, but that also required regular washing! Would her Master be this filthy if he did not have a cadre of maids?

The answer was, from what she knew of his life before his powers: perhaps. He had changed a lot since then, but he always seemed more concerned about the kitchenware being sorted symmetrically than it being spotless.

‘Ah, well, time to commit homicide,’ Claire thought.

Siena revealed herself, hanging from a nearby cave wall. Though alluringly curvy, the midnight elemental reminded of a scorpion, her tail raised to commit to an attack the moment someone stepped too close. Though she could have struck, they had agreed it was best if Claire delivered the stab. This was for a simple reason.

She had access to an inventory.

The vampire maid stood beside Ernst, always observing him. Nothing about him indicated he had realized she was present yet. The Perfect Challenge did not bless him with perfect awareness, it seemed. That being said, Claire was still expecting her weapon to shatter on impact.

A weapon that she drew out of her inventory. It was a simple Baelementium dagger, nothing fancy in terms of its enchantments or material. It was the kind of weapon that Fusion produced half a dozen of daily, arming its elite soldiers and stockpiling them for the next war effort. What made it threatening was its coating.

The purple fluid, ever so slowly running down the length of the blade, was a potent cocktail of Nahoa’s virulent goo and various alchemical neurotoxins that Delicia had whipped up in a hurry. Any individual compound was unlikely to achieve much against this man, but combined with combat they would serve to strain him to the breaking point.

Such was the hope, at least.

Claire gathered herself. She had the courage and the will. Murdering someone in their sleep was firmly inside her comfort zone. She had done it before, for food, for shelter, and had cursed many times that Ironborn didn’t need to sleep. What she did not have was certainty. This stab had to count. She held the grip firmly in one hand and put her palm flat against the pommel of the weapon. Then, she plunged down.

Ernst’s eyes opened the moment the weapon broke his skin. Though his Innate Ability made his flesh sturdy, it did not reinforce him beyond the point of injury. His reflexes were swift, but only so swift as to match her tempo. By the time he raised his arms, the dagger had penetrated through the firm layer of his pectorals and found its way between his ribs. Claire sensed the beat of his heart through the weapon. It had found its mark. A sickly sweet scent wafted from the wound. Veins rose from surrounding flesh in a deep purple colour.

“Oh, we’re playing it like this!” Ernst roared.

Claire turned into a swarm of bats. The flying elbow killed one of the lot, but the rest coalesced again a few metres away.

The Survivor pulled the weapon out of his chest. Abyssals of this level wouldn’t be killed from something so inconsequential as a puncture wound to the heart. Somewhere in the ascension of a Latebloomer, the body transitioned from the mortal form of a person to a chassis of the greater will of the person. Claire understood that well by now.

Blood gushed from the wound. It clotted up rapidly. The injury, however, showed no sign of healing. Ernst hissed as he got on his feet. The Perfect Challenge provided him with the means to stay standing despite the hole in his chest, but it did not grant him rapid healing. A vital limitation for them to confirm.

Ernst charged forwards, but Claire had no intention of meeting him head-on. She kept her distance, leaping back before any of the punches could connect. As terrifying as Ernst may have been in a fair fight, in an unfair one he was a sitting duck. The same Innate Ability that made him borderline untouchable also meant that he could not close the distance unless he was allowed to.

“You started it! Come and finish it!” Ernst demanded.

Claire smiled, though it wasn’t at him. A gorgeous touch had reconnected to her mind, filling her being with sublime purpose. “I truly have no desire to.”

“Coward!”

“Indeed, I am a cowardly woman, I am a maid to John Newman, I am at no liberty to get myself killed.” Claire side-stepped a strike, then put a stalactite between them. They danced left to right, like children playing a game of dare. Despite the situation, Ernst was grinning even now. “You do not seem terribly offended.”

“All of this is just an extension on my life well-lived,” the Survivor barked back. “You want to end me like this? Then you are welcome to try!”

“I shall not. I am merely buying time.”

“Time for- Oh, I can feel THAT!” Ernst tilted his head back staring at the cave ceiling. The earth rumbled, shifting as the godly mana reserves of her Master were poured into Gnome. The mountain slope parted above them. “WAKE UP ALREADY, LADS AND LASSES!” Ernst’s voice managed to overpower even the cracking of the world. “WE GOT A LEGENDARY FIGHT BEFORE US!”

The underground chamber turned into an arena at the bottom of a great ravine. Down the sides of the gap glided Claire’s beloveds, from John himself to the manifold women she had become intimately familiar with. Of lesser import were the three dozen knights of Austria, led by their king and his concubines.

In a fight between the forcefully equalized, those knights would be more than spectators.

Ernst watched them all land around him. Shoulders pulled back and legs bent, he readied himself to counter any attack. “Wise not to jump me all at once,” he complimented. “So this is your plan? Occupy me while the poison wastes me away? I’ll have you know that I stormed a machine gun nest with dysentery before!”

“Underhanded methods,” Maximillian admitted and stepped forwards. “Alas, you are just too powerful. Such a threat to my realm cannot be tolerated.”

Erst narrowed his eyes while mustering the monarch of Austria. “So, you’re the king, ey?” He scoffed. “At least you’ve come here yourself.”

“And I will fight you myself as well.” Maximillian loosened his royal cape. Laralia, in both of her bodies, caught it before it could touch the ground, then handed it off to a retainer. The water spirit proceeded to surprise them, turning into a dual stream of water that twirled around Maximillian’s neck. A long cape of shifting waters cascaded down his back a moment later.

‘Gemini elemental no more,’ Claire thought. The transformation must have happened a while ago. She couldn’t believe Laralia went from Tier 3 to Tier 4 in the time it took them to set up this operation. Maximillian had simply hid this change from the rest of them. ‘A wise policy.’

The stomping footfalls of the cave’s other inhabitants echoed down the attached corridor. It was the signal of much of the crowd around Ernst to disperse, to meet the charge of the reinforcements before they could make a mess of the duel. Only the confusion of a large battle could now mess with Maximillian’s stalling tactics.

Claire remained right where she was, taking bouncing steps towards her Master. She flashed a smile at Metra in passing, an unspoken wish for best luck on her mission in all of this. The First of Wrath appeared mildly miffed that she didn’t get to fight this Perfect Challenge. She was simply utilized better elsewhere.

Only John, his elementals, Aclysia, Nahoa and Claire remained in the chamber, to take over the fight if it became necessary. Everyone else was now on duty to deal with the goons. Lovingly, she attached herself to John’s back. His sides were, predictably, already taken by the two other maids. ‘Do you think he’ll win?’ she asked, mentally.

‘I trust my friend to perform well,’ the Gamer responded diplomatically.

‘Time to see, then.’

Ernst and Maximillian slowly approached each other.