The Grand Catastrophe

…

Calvaria sighed in her mind as they clashed yet again. She didn’t know when Demiurge wanted this to stop, and he seemed to like roleplaying a bit too much. He probably just wanted to spend time with her, like a child ignored. She blinked in her mind at the sudden thought.

‘Have I been ignoring him?’ she asked herself, and flinched at the thought.

It was a simple thought, yet a potent one. She was rather annoyed, now that she had spotted it, that she hadn’t seen it before. He just wanted to spend time with her.

‘I’ve been a bad parent. I think I’ll ask him what he wants to do later, maybe spend some time with him and his hobbies?’ she asked herself as she parried a blow from him.

It was so fucking weird that he chose a female demon. Well, she assumed that it was kind of just a spur of a moment thing. Sure, it kind of made sense if the two of them were supposed to be canonical rivals, but whatever. She had got her head back in the game.

She parried another blow from him. His claws were extended, and she captured them on the hilt of her sword. Her second sword came in from the right, and he was forced to dive backward. Remedios came in with an overhead swing that Demiurge faked a hit from.

Calvaria then went in for a stab with her sword, which was dodged as Demiurge jumped up, and swarmed them all with evil tentacles. Calvaria spun her blades in a circle, and cut them from the air as they reached her. The paladin was less lucky, and had to dodge them all. She failed in this, and got caught by several dozen of them.

Calvaria ignored her for the most part as she dived back into cover and began to heal herself with magic. It was nice that paladins had healing magic. Otherwise, so many parts of this plan would have gone up in smoke.

The plan wasn’t really that complicated in all honesty. Sure, Demiurge may have made it. Yet, he could make some decent plans that weren’t more complicated than religious politics, which half of his plans revolved around now that she was thinking about it.

“Hm, it seems we have come to an impasse. Shall we call this a draw? I shall return of course with an even larger force to show which side is superior,” he said in the guise of another demon.

He stood on the far side of the clearing. The area had been totalled. The ground had rips throughout it. Places were simply on fire. It was a mess. She herself had her plate armor on. Places on it were scorched. Her swords had been scuffed up. All around miserable looking. In truth, she was fine.

“Perhaps. Yet I find myself of the mind that the fight should carry on until one of us is dead. After all, you should not be,” she said, and demiurge bowed at the waist.

“Very well, en garde,” he said and charged with a punch from a massive hand.

The plan was simple, fight until the demi-humans were fully spent. Nothing more, nor anything less. She liked this plan, it was just plain roleplaying.

…

“I’m out of arrows.”

Neia was out of arrows. As one could expect from hours of fighting, one would spend all the arrows that they brought to said fight. Now, the demi-human army was fully sending itself against them all. Shizu was mere feet away from her.

Neia sighed as Shizu tossed her a sheath of arrows, and she looped it around to her hip. She drew back an arrow, and loosed it into the head of a leader who was about to kill a paladin on the far side of her area. It was a good shot. She ignored the little feeling of pride, and aimed for another.

A flying demi-human, one she couldn’t be bothered to learn the name of, swopped at her, and she shot the thing in the eye. Neia then drew her bow again, knocked an arrow, and loosed into the thing.

It flinched in the air, and fell to the earth. Its back broke, and it let out a wheezing breath as it died. She ignored this all. She focussed, and her mind narrowed into a thin line.

She drew and fired. Shot after shot, she slew them all. Shizu fought by her side, the two of them growing better and better at covering each other when fighting. For each foe they slew, their actions grew closer. Sure, they weren’t any closer than maybe decent team members, not like how seasoned adventurers are.

Yet they still seemed to oddly resonate. The two of them working in sync worked well. For every arrow slung, Shizu cut down another foe. It was oddly impressive how well they worked together.

Neia shot another demi-human commander point blank. The body of the massive goat-thing slumped backward from the recoil. Neia nearly missed it when another flying one swooped in on her, and she shot it out of the sky. The demi-humans had piled themselves so much so, that they could climb all the way to the top of the walls.

Soldiers still shot them down from there, but most of the fighting had moved on top of the fortress. Neia was in the zone. HYer mind was razor focussed. An arrow from a foe whizzed to her, and she flowed to the side as she knocked another arrow and fired. Shizu killed the ones that got to her back.

Then a sound was heard. It sounded like the beating of a cat's paws across the ground. It was coming from beyond the wall, and sounded like it was about to leap at her. Neia dodged, spun and knocked and arrow. She drew, then loosed into the shoulder of the thing. The glowing arrow sank into the shoulder of the beast. He flinched, not expecting such a punch from the dainty little woman.

“I am Vijar Rajandala. I heard the Mad-Eyed Archer was here. I wasn’t disappointed,” he said, she rolled backward as he swung his ax into the ground where she had been.

“He’s my dad. Your Demoness killed him,” she said, and Shizu darted in.

He brought up his ax to deflect the attack. At the same time, fired an arrow into his side again. He tried leaping up like a cat, but Shizu aimed low, and clipped his un-armered knee. Neia’s eyes then widened as she darted froward pushing past Shizu with mass, and leaping up onto her.

She didn’t think. As she was pushed into the floor beneath her by one foot, she drew her bow and fired another arrow up his front. He pulled back, but the blade of the glowing arrow zipped across the front of his upper half.

Neia coughed as she was covered in the steaming guts of a high level demi-human warrior. She could hear Shizu mumble something. not what it was though, over her panicking over being covered in guts again that hour.

“Neia,” Shizu asked, and she looked over, “do you want to go on a date after this?”

Neia sputtered, but she did say sure in the end, that was a win in the end. What a good day to be a battle maid. Neia wondered just what her life had become as of recent.

…