Ahana laughed as her sparring partner’s blade struck her side, bouncing off after coming into contact with the flames which leapt up to cover her skin. She felt a tiny pinprick of pain as the weapon just barely grazed her skin, but only for an instant, before the miniscule cut vanished without a trace.
She swung her cursed sword, and for the first time in this bout—which had been going on for a few minutes already—b’Akphiyr, the demon imprisoned within her blade, actually deigned to allow her strike to land on target. The savage gasped as his stygian silver shortsword was knocked aside with contemptuous ease, and the massive bulk of her zweihander struck his right collarbone and tore down through his torso, splitting it in half almost to his navel.
Coughing blood, the soldier dropped to his knees. Chortling, the bunnygirl kicked him in the chest, simultaneously tugging hard on her unnaturally light sword. It came free with ease, and her opponent collapsed.
Only to then sit up a couple seconds later, the golden flames that had briefly flowed across his injury fading away to reveal fresh, unblemished skin, as the Divine Conflagration—Ahana’s magical aura—did it’s work.
“Ah, well, that could’ve gone worse, I suppose.” the nameless savage said, smiling sadly. He wasn’t actually nameless, of course, the general of Neo New Babylon simply didn’t know—and didn’t care to know—who he was. She was helping her army train, sure, but that didn’t mean she had to take the time to learn the names of all the random mooks who were honing their skills here, “Still, you’re just too strong, General.”
Ahana smirked smugly, “Well, obviously none of you are a match for me. What else would you expect?”
He laughed, “Not modesty, that’s for sure.”
She wasn’t sure if he was commenting on her arrogance, or on the habit she’d developed of not wearing clothes during practice. Most likely both, she supposed. In her defence, the bunnygirl was theoretically unkillable, so her narcissism had considerable justification, and with her healing aura being unable to repair damaged clothing, she’d end up constantly having to take her saris in to a tailor's to be mended if she wore them to these daily training sessions.
And it wasn’t like she’d been alone in coming to that conclusion; most of the soldiers from the crystal village now liked to remove their jewellery before engaging in any practice fights, and even amongst the dwemer and miner recruits, there were those who had begun stripping to their underwear to save on clothing bills. Ahana may have been the only one so far to be completely at ease being fully naked in front of so many people, but she thought it likely only a matter of time before her troops grew accustomed to the idea.
At least, assuming Sigmund kept himself out of military matters. Given how much of a prude that guy was, she supposed it might’ve been a small miracle that the wider society of Neo New Babylon had yet to devolve to the point that they considered it slutty for a woman to expose her ankles in public.
She grinned and gave him a shrug before responding to the man’s comment, “Modesty is for mortals.”
He snorted, grinning. Not everyone was so easily amused, sadly.
“Three and a half minutes. That was appalling, even by your standards as of late.” Beryl said, walking over to the pair.
Ahana glowered at her, “So, you were watching, were you? And counting.”
“Yes, General.” the lieutenant said bluntly, “You swung your sword at this guy for over three minutes before landing a hit, and he’s not even that good.”
“Ouch.” said the random dude, in a tone of mock hurt.
“Shut up.” Beryl snapped, not even glancing at him.
“So what?” Ahana demanded, looking sourly at the taller, more muscular woman.
“I know you like that sword. It has a couple of neat features, it’s all you've got left of your life before coming to Inverxe… you have your reasons. But it’s complete trash.”
b’Akphiyr lunged, yanking the healer’s arm out as it stabbed the dark-eyed woman in the gut. This wasn’t a hugely effective move, however, as the top of the cursed weapon’s blade was flat, so though she was cut, Beryl was not impaled, as she would have been on a more typical sword. The big woman calmly took a step back, and in the blink of an eye, her wound had healed over.
“You see? You can’t even control your own weapon, and it’s getting worse. It used to be that you’d hit yourself or an ally about half the time, which would still be pretty awful if not for your aura. As it was, though, you made it work… but ever since you went on your trip with the emperor and the high priest, it’s only been acting up more and more. By this point, you would literally be more useful if you went into battle completely unarmed.”
“Tch. You don’t know what you’re talking about.” the healer growled, her grip on b’Akphiyr’s hilt tightening, while her free hand clenched into a fist.
“You're absolutely right. I have no idea... because you won’t tell me.” Beryl shook her head, clearly just as frustrated as her superior officer, “No matter how much we ask about what happened on that journey, all we ever get from you is something about walking until you met a couple elementals and got given a magic crystal that gave you a weird daydream. That doesn’t explain why your sword hates you even more than usual. Were you cursed? Was it?”
“I’ve already told you, no.” speaking through gritted teeth, Ahana became aware that over a dozen people nearby had stopped fighting to watch them argue. Whipping her head around to give them dirty looks, she snapped, “Get back to work!”
“I’m going to go fight someone else now,” the bunnygirl then said to her lieutenant, not looking at the other woman, as she began to walk away, “Don’t follow me.”
Beryl didn’t follow, but she did try once again to convince the general, “We have plenty of fine weapons, especially now that we've got all the metals from around this city, rather than just our village’s crystals. I’m sure that you could find something you like, and-”
Ahana tuned her out. The lieutenant was still well within her hearing range, as her rabbit ears heard much better than human ones, but by focusing on the sounds of combat coming from the scores of soldiers training in the military base—which Victor had recently had construction workers refurbishing and expanding for her army’s use—she was able to ignore Beryl. It wasn’t like she needed to hear that spiel yet again.
Now that they had the dwemer on their side, they had access not only to higher quality materials, but also to magic. It was entirely possible that there was an enchanter or magic blacksmith somewhere in the city—which Victor had recently rechristened ‘Neo-Nippur’, because he thought the old name sucked—who could sell her a weapon far better than her demonblade, and with all the money she was getting paid now that she had a place in the upper echelon of society, she had no need to worry about the cost of such an item… especially since she wasn’t being forced to constantly shell out for clothing repair costs.
Still, she didn’t like the idea of parting ways with her cursed weapon. Perhaps it was just sentimentality or nostalgia, she couldn’t be sure, but for whatever reason, she’d grown quite fond of the belligerent blade. It may have been due to this fondness that she understood the demon so well… or perhaps she was simply imagining things and didn’t really understand him at all.
Whether she was correct or not, though, she felt certain that she knew the reason for her armament’s recent unruliness; it was in no way due to a curse, or any other outside force. The healer believed that b’Akphiyr must have realised, when she last used him to cut off her arm, that it was becoming harder and harder for him to injure her as her powers grew. It was no longer simply a matter of her body regenerating rapidly; by this point, her Divine Conflagration had begun warding off damage before it could even be inflicted.
It was likely that the demon was infuriated with her for making him feel weak, which she could understand. Thinking back to how Victor had pinned her down and hacked off one of her arms while she simply lay there, stunned and helpless, the bunnygirl imagined she could empathise with her greatsword here. No longer being able to maim her with impunity must really suck. She felt bad for b'Akphiyr, because maiming people was fun.
She thought of what it would be like for her if she were forced to hang around someone practically 24/7, for years on end, without even the ability to leave the room of her own volition if they got on her nerves… and then to lose even the chance to relieve stress by brutally injuring them whenever she felt like it. It sounded practically hellish. She was sure that this must be a very trying time for the demon in her sword.
“Are you alright, General Varma?” a voice asked.
Snapping out of her daze, Ahana turned to the speaker. It was the white-haired dwemer who had been recently promoted to a warrant officer of her army, Reinhardt Margrave, “Yes, of course. What do you want?”
“You’ve been staring wistfully off into the distance for the past few minutes, and in that time, you've walked past several people who’ve called out challenges to fight. To put it bluntly, that’s not like you. You’re generally much more eager when the opportunity arises to inflict pain upon others.” the bearded elf commented calmly.
“So what?” she asked argumentatively. She was pretty sure that he would be in on the other officers’ scheme as well, and was likely about to go off on his own rant about why she ought to discard her demonblade.
“I thought something might be bothering you.”
“You thought wrong.”
“Mhm,” Reinhardt responded, not sounding convinced in the slightest, “then would you care to spar for a short time?”
He raised his celestial gold rapier, angling its tip towards her heart. Celestial gold, and its counterpart, stygian silver, were two of the more common metals found in the cavern surrounding Neo-Nippur, and appearance-wise, they were very close to true gold and silver, respectively. The main difference was that they were lighter and more durable than their more generic counterparts, making them much more suited for use in weapons and armour.
The warrant officer was dressed in dull, yellow robes, a breastplate of celestial gold to match his sword, and thick, brown leather boots. He was not amongst those who believed in removing most of their clothing to avoid damaging it. He preferred to simply prevent anyone from ever managing to touch him with their weapons in the first place. He was, as far as Ahana knew, the most skilled swordsman in the whole army.
“Sure, fine.” she said, and attacked without hesitation.
He made no move to evade or defend himself.
She missed anyway, b’Akphiyr twisting in her grip. Her greatsword struck the stone floor, jarring her arm, and bounced back up, managing to jam one corner of its top-edge into her eye socket. Grunting, she tugged it out, and in but a moment her eyeball had fully regenerated.
Of course, by then, Reinhardt had already thrust his rapier’s tip smoothly between her ribs and into her heart. His weapon was enchanted, with a line of runes carved along its narrow blade which dispelled magical defences, and as such he could slice her flesh with impunity.
“Tch.” she muttered, stepping in closer, forcing herself further onto the blade whilst trying to bring down her own sword, to slice into his neck.
Not showing even the slightest strain or concern, the old elf slapped the flat of b’Akphiyr’s blade with his palm, knocking it to the side. The cursed sword then lurched back, and took off one of Ahana's human ears, as well as giving her an impromptu haircut. Of course, both the ear and the strands of hair grew back in no time at all.
Reinhardt took a few steps back, withdrawing his blade from her torso with a flourish. He then beckoned her forwards.
Snarling, the bunnygirl leapt at him, clutching her weapon’s hilt in both hands, she tried for an overhead strike this time, hoping to be able to hold b’Akphiyr on course, so long as the weapon didn’t struggle too violently.
It didn’t fight her at all. Instead, its blade took on a smokey, translucent appearance, as it became ethereal. This meant she couldn’t cut anyone with it, of course. It wasn’t quite as bad as it sounded, though, for b’Akphiyr had been known to sometimes return to solidity whilst halfway through a person’s body. There was no telling if he’d be willing to do that in his current mood, but it was at least worth a try.
Reinhardt Margrave held up his rapier overhead, in one hand, while meeting her gaze unblinkingly, and blocked, despite her sword’s insubstantiality. Pale blue light danced across several of the runes on his weapon’s edge.
“Oh, come on.” the healer spat acidly. She had sparred with him often, but b’Akphiyr rarely pulled his phasing trick, and this was the first time she had seen it used against the warrant officer, so it came as an unpleasant surprise to her that his enchanted sword could so easily counter the demon’s trump card.
The fight carried on for almost twenty more minutes, though it was utterly one-sided the entire time. It ended when Reinhardt sheathed his blade and admitted defeat, breathing heavily. At which point, the healer immediately sropped down to sit on the floor, feeling glum.
Her bare skin glistened with a fine sheen of sweat (at least, where it wasn’t liberally coated in her own spilled blood) but even so, it was clear that the white-bearded dwemer was by far the more worn-out of the two. Despite this, all the way up to the moment he had declared her the winner, he had been dominating their duel. Just like with Victor, Reinhardt was a man who, in her current condition, she could hope to defeat only by running down the clock until he was too exhausted to defend himself.
Winning like this wouldn’t have bothered her had she at least been able to put up a fight (this method was the core of her battle strategy, after all), but the fact that b’Akphiyr had made practically every attempt he could to frustrate her had not improved her mood.
Plenty of people had stopped their own training to watch her get her ass kicked, but she didn’t bother to chastise them. They were irritating, but not nearly as much as having to admit to herself that the warrant officer’s weapon vastly outclassed her own. She knew that the logical choice would be to give in and get a new sword. She hated logic.
The bunnygirl eventually looked up at her subordinate, and when she spoke she was surprised to find that her voice came out simply sounding resigned, rather than angry, “So what now, is it your turn to lecture me on why I should be looking for a new sword? Or do you need a few minutes to catch your breath first, old man?”
Reinhardt smiled slightly, “I’m fine. I can begin your ‘lecture’ whenever you’re ready to listen.”
“Sorry, but you’ll need to put that on hold, Master.” a newcomer said. Even if she hadn’t been intimately familiar with that voice, the man’s word choice alone would have told her all she needed to know; only one person in her army referred to the Warrant Officer as ‘master’.
“Hey, Nisse, what’s up?” the healer asked disinterestedly, glancing across at him.
The man who stood by her side now was a far cry from the slender jeweller whom he had been when she had first met him on the outskirts of his village, prior to the founding of Neo New Babylon.
Ever since her expedition with Victor and Sigmund, when she’d left him behind after giving Reinhardt strict instructions to train him intensively, no matter how much he begged to get out of it, Nisse had been the dwemer’s devoted disciple. He had previously had short hair, but now that was gone, shaven off entirely. He had also stopped wearing most of his jewellery, though his numerous piercings were still present.
Lastly, the skinhead had taken to wearing dull, grey robes—presumably received from Warrant Officer Margrave—over his loincloth; at least, whenever he wasn’t sparring with real weapons. Since he was all dressed up at the moment, she guessed he must have been engaged in some other form of training.
Neither of the pair had ever volunteered any information on what exactly had occurred during Nisse’s private training. She was sure they’d be willing to share if she asked, but the bunnygirl didn’t actually care enough to do so, and as such it remained a mystery to her.
“His Imperial Majesty, Emperor Victor I, has sent a messenger to request that you come to his palace at once.” her boy toy informed her, somewhat sarcastically. He wasn’t exactly their esteemed leader’s biggest fan.
“Oh?” she said, perking up a little. She was growing tired of looking like a fool in front of her own soldiers, so an excuse to duck out of today’s training session early was fine with her, “Did the messenger say anything else? Like maybe the reason he wants to see me?”
Nisse raised an eyebrow, “Come on, Ahana, really? What do you think?”
She snickered, getting to her feet, “Vic does love to keep others in suspense. Well, I’d better not keep him waiting, so I’ll just head off n-”
“Like hell you will.” barked another voice she knew all too well. She groaned, as Sapphiro—the dashingly handsome, blond-haired and blue-eyed cousin of Beryl—pushed through the crowd, “We agreed that you don’t go out in public without clothes, and I know you remember, so don’t even try acting innocent.”
She snorted, “Since when do I ever ‘act innocent’? Look, Vic wants me to go see him immediately, so I have to hurry, you know?”
“I don’t care. You’re going to go wash off all the blood and sweat, dry yourself off, and get dressed before you go anywhere. If you refuse, you can find yourself two new lieutenants.”
She groaned loudly, like a child protesting wordlessly against the unfairness of life, but allowed herself to be led away towards the bathing area of the building. Sapphiro waited outside the small room she was washing in for the entire time she was there, and in the first instance that she tried to leave, he sent her back in, telling her to go wash her hair properly.
She swore to his face that she’d kill him and Beryl as soon as she had anyone competent enough to take their places. His only response was, “Mhm, that’s nice.”
This may have been jumping to conclusions, but something told her that he was not overly concerned. Still, eventually he judged her ready to go out in public, and she was finally allowed to leave the building. He went along with her, as did Nisse, while his fellow lieutenant and the warrant officer stayed behind to continue the soldiers’ training. Even though they couldn’t duel with actual weapons when the healer wasn’t around, there were plenty of other things her troops could do to strengthen their bodies and improve their reflexes.
The citizens of the city were still mostly dwemer, but of late the bejewelled, half-naked savages had become a common sight around here, so no one was taken aback by Sapphiro’s attire. And with her ex-jeweller dressed somewhat similarly to the elves themselves (albeit, sans shoes), he was hardly worth taking notice of either. So when the trio inevitably found themselves the centre of attention, there could be no doubt that it was due to Ahana’s presence.
Being one of the three most powerful people in the empire, that was hardly a surprise, though. Thankfully, everyone she came across was smart enough to stay out of their way. The guards at the castle didn’t bother asking for any sort of identification, as they also recognised her. Whilst one could argue that this approach left them vulnerable to illusionists and shapeshifters, the general doubted any assassin would stand much chance against their glorious emperor. So that was probably fine.
Upon making their way to his throne room, the trio discovered Victor Wolfe lounging casually on his throne. Also in the room were half a dozen human women—none of them with particularly athletic builds—in skimpy, silk outfits which made even the loincloths of the empire’s more primitive citizens seem conservative and modest by comparison. If they should ever be exposed to so much as a stiff breeze, these girls would certainly give everyone around them an eyeful.
Not that Ahana, with her casual opinion of nudity, was one to care about that sort of thing. What she did care about, though, was that the red-eyed assassin was lazing around on an ornate, golden—yet amply cushioned—throne, with young, attractive women feeding him grapes, strawberries and other fruits which, though they may have been common elsewhere, were rare and expensive delicacies here on Inverxe.
Admittedly, he’d almost certainly just used his godlike powers of creation to will the fruits into existence, so it wasn’t like he was squandering money on them, at least. Still, that knowledge did little to comfort her. While she’d been slaving away training troops and worrying about her demonically-possessed weapon’s hurt feelings, he’d just been relaxing like this?
"Hello Victor.” the bunnygirl said, her tone saccharine, an obviously-forced smile plastered on her face.
“Oh, Ahana, glad you could make it. How’s the military doing?” the emperor enquired, giving her a cheeky smirk which told her he was well aware that she was pissed off, but was just going to pretend not to notice unless she confronted him openly about it.
Deciding she couldn’t be bothered listening to whatever excuses or justifications he’d come up with to defend this time-wasting, self-indulgent lifestyle (which she envied tremendously), the general gave a long, drawn-out sigh, willing herself to let it go. She wasn’t very successful.
“You seem stressed, is there something I can do to help?” a gentle, kind voice asked, at the same time as one of the barely-dressed girls came to stand by her side, taking her hand and leaning so close that the bunnygirl’s arm was pressed to her chest. Ahana peered into the other woman’s pale blue eyes, and saw in them only earnest concern. Either the assassin had done a tremendous job of picking naive, innocent, and willing women to be his maids (or his harem?), or this lady was a fantastic actress.
The general may not have been the sort to get distracted by the mere sight of exposed skin, but soft, pretty, young women rubbing their bodies against hers in a plainly sexual manner was another matter entirely. Grinning fiendishly, she removed her hand from the girl’s grasp, only to slip that arm around her waist and pull her even closer. When she spoke, their faces were hardly an inch apart, “Well, I can think of a few things you could try.”
Sadly, her fun was immediately interrupted by Sapphiro being a killjoy. The lieutenant cleared his throat before speaking, whilst giving her a death glare the entire time, “You were called here for a meeting with the emperor, not to play with his servants. Try to stay focused.”
Ahana glared back. She bet he was just jealous because there were no hot guys draping themselves all over him. It’d be a different story if that were to happen!
Actually, on second thought, no, it probably wouldn’t be. Like his cousin, Sapphiro was such a workaholic that he probably wasn’t even capable of thinking lewd thoughts while on duty. Ahana sighed, reluctantly disentangling herself from the cute girl.
“You’re right, I did call Ahana here for a meeting. Nisse, and… whoever you are,” Victor said, gesturing lazily in the direction of the blond lieutenant, “you aren’t needed here, so you can both leave.”
“They’re with me.” the healer said, before either man could move to comply with the emperor’s command, “Unless you have something to say to me alone, that’s not in any way connected to my army, I want them to hear whatever it is… mostly because it’ll save me from needing to repeat it to the other soldiers if I can get them to do it for me.”
It was Victor’s turn to sigh, “Alright, fine, have it your way. Anyway, the reason I asked you to come here was because I have something I’d like you and your troops to take care of for me. As you know, Sigmund & I recently found a nest of xenomorphs nearby, after which you helped me with a little experiment involving them.”
“An experiment, huh? Is that what you’re calling it? To me it looked more like you just gave one of them a rabbit to eat, then killed it before it could do so. Not that I object to excessive and arbitrary animal cruelty, of course.”
“It wasn’t animal cruelty. For one thing, the xenomorphs are horrific monsters, not just simple animals, and for another, my experiment yielded valuable-”
He paused abruptly when Ahana held up a hand to stop him, ”Alright, already, you’re a genius scientist. Bravo. I don’t actually care. Just tell me what you want.”
Victor pinched the bridge of his nose, “... Fine. We obviously can’t allow them to just keep living so close to our empire, especially since we have no idea how far underground that cave system of theirs goes, or if any of its tunnels connect to our own. If they do, it’s entirely possible that they’ll start using our citizens as breeding material before too long. At the same time, however, it would be a shame to just wipe out such interesting and potentially useful creatures, so I’d like you to kill off the unwanted ones and bring back at least one egg for study.”
“You want me to kill some big bugs?” the healer said, sneering dismissively, “Does the great city of Neo-Nippur not have anyone more suited to the task? Like, say, roach exterminators?”
The assassin gave her a dull, unimpressed look, “They aren’t bugs, and you’d do well to take them seriously. Don’t, and you’ll end up dead.”
Ahana simply stared incredulously at him for a moment, wondering if he was trying to insult her, or if he genuinely believed the nonsense he was spouting. Deciding to be generous, she laughed long and loud, as if he’d said something truly hilarious.
The emperor scowled, “If you don’t have any questions, you’re free to go now.”
“Nope, no questions. Later, O’ Great Emperor Vic. And don’t worry, I’ll make sure to bring back plenty of little larvae for your ant farm.” after giving him an overly dramatic and utterly insincere bow, whilst smirking broadly, the bunnygirl turned to leave, her two companions trailing after her. She could feel the emperor’s glare on the back of her head as she departed.
She swung her cursed sword, and for the first time in this bout—which had been going on for a few minutes already—b’Akphiyr, the demon imprisoned within her blade, actually deigned to allow her strike to land on target. The savage gasped as his stygian silver shortsword was knocked aside with contemptuous ease, and the massive bulk of her zweihander struck his right collarbone and tore down through his torso, splitting it in half almost to his navel.
Coughing blood, the soldier dropped to his knees. Chortling, the bunnygirl kicked him in the chest, simultaneously tugging hard on her unnaturally light sword. It came free with ease, and her opponent collapsed.
Only to then sit up a couple seconds later, the golden flames that had briefly flowed across his injury fading away to reveal fresh, unblemished skin, as the Divine Conflagration—Ahana’s magical aura—did it’s work.
“Ah, well, that could’ve gone worse, I suppose.” the nameless savage said, smiling sadly. He wasn’t actually nameless, of course, the general of Neo New Babylon simply didn’t know—and didn’t care to know—who he was. She was helping her army train, sure, but that didn’t mean she had to take the time to learn the names of all the random mooks who were honing their skills here, “Still, you’re just too strong, General.”
Ahana smirked smugly, “Well, obviously none of you are a match for me. What else would you expect?”
He laughed, “Not modesty, that’s for sure.”
She wasn’t sure if he was commenting on her arrogance, or on the habit she’d developed of not wearing clothes during practice. Most likely both, she supposed. In her defence, the bunnygirl was theoretically unkillable, so her narcissism had considerable justification, and with her healing aura being unable to repair damaged clothing, she’d end up constantly having to take her saris in to a tailor's to be mended if she wore them to these daily training sessions.
And it wasn’t like she’d been alone in coming to that conclusion; most of the soldiers from the crystal village now liked to remove their jewellery before engaging in any practice fights, and even amongst the dwemer and miner recruits, there were those who had begun stripping to their underwear to save on clothing bills. Ahana may have been the only one so far to be completely at ease being fully naked in front of so many people, but she thought it likely only a matter of time before her troops grew accustomed to the idea.
At least, assuming Sigmund kept himself out of military matters. Given how much of a prude that guy was, she supposed it might’ve been a small miracle that the wider society of Neo New Babylon had yet to devolve to the point that they considered it slutty for a woman to expose her ankles in public.
She grinned and gave him a shrug before responding to the man’s comment, “Modesty is for mortals.”
He snorted, grinning. Not everyone was so easily amused, sadly.
“Three and a half minutes. That was appalling, even by your standards as of late.” Beryl said, walking over to the pair.
Ahana glowered at her, “So, you were watching, were you? And counting.”
“Yes, General.” the lieutenant said bluntly, “You swung your sword at this guy for over three minutes before landing a hit, and he’s not even that good.”
“Ouch.” said the random dude, in a tone of mock hurt.
“Shut up.” Beryl snapped, not even glancing at him.
“So what?” Ahana demanded, looking sourly at the taller, more muscular woman.
“I know you like that sword. It has a couple of neat features, it’s all you've got left of your life before coming to Inverxe… you have your reasons. But it’s complete trash.”
b’Akphiyr lunged, yanking the healer’s arm out as it stabbed the dark-eyed woman in the gut. This wasn’t a hugely effective move, however, as the top of the cursed weapon’s blade was flat, so though she was cut, Beryl was not impaled, as she would have been on a more typical sword. The big woman calmly took a step back, and in the blink of an eye, her wound had healed over.
“You see? You can’t even control your own weapon, and it’s getting worse. It used to be that you’d hit yourself or an ally about half the time, which would still be pretty awful if not for your aura. As it was, though, you made it work… but ever since you went on your trip with the emperor and the high priest, it’s only been acting up more and more. By this point, you would literally be more useful if you went into battle completely unarmed.”
“Tch. You don’t know what you’re talking about.” the healer growled, her grip on b’Akphiyr’s hilt tightening, while her free hand clenched into a fist.
“You're absolutely right. I have no idea... because you won’t tell me.” Beryl shook her head, clearly just as frustrated as her superior officer, “No matter how much we ask about what happened on that journey, all we ever get from you is something about walking until you met a couple elementals and got given a magic crystal that gave you a weird daydream. That doesn’t explain why your sword hates you even more than usual. Were you cursed? Was it?”
“I’ve already told you, no.” speaking through gritted teeth, Ahana became aware that over a dozen people nearby had stopped fighting to watch them argue. Whipping her head around to give them dirty looks, she snapped, “Get back to work!”
“I’m going to go fight someone else now,” the bunnygirl then said to her lieutenant, not looking at the other woman, as she began to walk away, “Don’t follow me.”
Beryl didn’t follow, but she did try once again to convince the general, “We have plenty of fine weapons, especially now that we've got all the metals from around this city, rather than just our village’s crystals. I’m sure that you could find something you like, and-”
Ahana tuned her out. The lieutenant was still well within her hearing range, as her rabbit ears heard much better than human ones, but by focusing on the sounds of combat coming from the scores of soldiers training in the military base—which Victor had recently had construction workers refurbishing and expanding for her army’s use—she was able to ignore Beryl. It wasn’t like she needed to hear that spiel yet again.
Now that they had the dwemer on their side, they had access not only to higher quality materials, but also to magic. It was entirely possible that there was an enchanter or magic blacksmith somewhere in the city—which Victor had recently rechristened ‘Neo-Nippur’, because he thought the old name sucked—who could sell her a weapon far better than her demonblade, and with all the money she was getting paid now that she had a place in the upper echelon of society, she had no need to worry about the cost of such an item… especially since she wasn’t being forced to constantly shell out for clothing repair costs.
Still, she didn’t like the idea of parting ways with her cursed weapon. Perhaps it was just sentimentality or nostalgia, she couldn’t be sure, but for whatever reason, she’d grown quite fond of the belligerent blade. It may have been due to this fondness that she understood the demon so well… or perhaps she was simply imagining things and didn’t really understand him at all.
Whether she was correct or not, though, she felt certain that she knew the reason for her armament’s recent unruliness; it was in no way due to a curse, or any other outside force. The healer believed that b’Akphiyr must have realised, when she last used him to cut off her arm, that it was becoming harder and harder for him to injure her as her powers grew. It was no longer simply a matter of her body regenerating rapidly; by this point, her Divine Conflagration had begun warding off damage before it could even be inflicted.
It was likely that the demon was infuriated with her for making him feel weak, which she could understand. Thinking back to how Victor had pinned her down and hacked off one of her arms while she simply lay there, stunned and helpless, the bunnygirl imagined she could empathise with her greatsword here. No longer being able to maim her with impunity must really suck. She felt bad for b'Akphiyr, because maiming people was fun.
She thought of what it would be like for her if she were forced to hang around someone practically 24/7, for years on end, without even the ability to leave the room of her own volition if they got on her nerves… and then to lose even the chance to relieve stress by brutally injuring them whenever she felt like it. It sounded practically hellish. She was sure that this must be a very trying time for the demon in her sword.
“Are you alright, General Varma?” a voice asked.
Snapping out of her daze, Ahana turned to the speaker. It was the white-haired dwemer who had been recently promoted to a warrant officer of her army, Reinhardt Margrave, “Yes, of course. What do you want?”
“You’ve been staring wistfully off into the distance for the past few minutes, and in that time, you've walked past several people who’ve called out challenges to fight. To put it bluntly, that’s not like you. You’re generally much more eager when the opportunity arises to inflict pain upon others.” the bearded elf commented calmly.
“So what?” she asked argumentatively. She was pretty sure that he would be in on the other officers’ scheme as well, and was likely about to go off on his own rant about why she ought to discard her demonblade.
“I thought something might be bothering you.”
“You thought wrong.”
“Mhm,” Reinhardt responded, not sounding convinced in the slightest, “then would you care to spar for a short time?”
He raised his celestial gold rapier, angling its tip towards her heart. Celestial gold, and its counterpart, stygian silver, were two of the more common metals found in the cavern surrounding Neo-Nippur, and appearance-wise, they were very close to true gold and silver, respectively. The main difference was that they were lighter and more durable than their more generic counterparts, making them much more suited for use in weapons and armour.
The warrant officer was dressed in dull, yellow robes, a breastplate of celestial gold to match his sword, and thick, brown leather boots. He was not amongst those who believed in removing most of their clothing to avoid damaging it. He preferred to simply prevent anyone from ever managing to touch him with their weapons in the first place. He was, as far as Ahana knew, the most skilled swordsman in the whole army.
“Sure, fine.” she said, and attacked without hesitation.
He made no move to evade or defend himself.
She missed anyway, b’Akphiyr twisting in her grip. Her greatsword struck the stone floor, jarring her arm, and bounced back up, managing to jam one corner of its top-edge into her eye socket. Grunting, she tugged it out, and in but a moment her eyeball had fully regenerated.
Of course, by then, Reinhardt had already thrust his rapier’s tip smoothly between her ribs and into her heart. His weapon was enchanted, with a line of runes carved along its narrow blade which dispelled magical defences, and as such he could slice her flesh with impunity.
“Tch.” she muttered, stepping in closer, forcing herself further onto the blade whilst trying to bring down her own sword, to slice into his neck.
Not showing even the slightest strain or concern, the old elf slapped the flat of b’Akphiyr’s blade with his palm, knocking it to the side. The cursed sword then lurched back, and took off one of Ahana's human ears, as well as giving her an impromptu haircut. Of course, both the ear and the strands of hair grew back in no time at all.
Reinhardt took a few steps back, withdrawing his blade from her torso with a flourish. He then beckoned her forwards.
Snarling, the bunnygirl leapt at him, clutching her weapon’s hilt in both hands, she tried for an overhead strike this time, hoping to be able to hold b’Akphiyr on course, so long as the weapon didn’t struggle too violently.
It didn’t fight her at all. Instead, its blade took on a smokey, translucent appearance, as it became ethereal. This meant she couldn’t cut anyone with it, of course. It wasn’t quite as bad as it sounded, though, for b’Akphiyr had been known to sometimes return to solidity whilst halfway through a person’s body. There was no telling if he’d be willing to do that in his current mood, but it was at least worth a try.
Reinhardt Margrave held up his rapier overhead, in one hand, while meeting her gaze unblinkingly, and blocked, despite her sword’s insubstantiality. Pale blue light danced across several of the runes on his weapon’s edge.
“Oh, come on.” the healer spat acidly. She had sparred with him often, but b’Akphiyr rarely pulled his phasing trick, and this was the first time she had seen it used against the warrant officer, so it came as an unpleasant surprise to her that his enchanted sword could so easily counter the demon’s trump card.
The fight carried on for almost twenty more minutes, though it was utterly one-sided the entire time. It ended when Reinhardt sheathed his blade and admitted defeat, breathing heavily. At which point, the healer immediately sropped down to sit on the floor, feeling glum.
Her bare skin glistened with a fine sheen of sweat (at least, where it wasn’t liberally coated in her own spilled blood) but even so, it was clear that the white-bearded dwemer was by far the more worn-out of the two. Despite this, all the way up to the moment he had declared her the winner, he had been dominating their duel. Just like with Victor, Reinhardt was a man who, in her current condition, she could hope to defeat only by running down the clock until he was too exhausted to defend himself.
Winning like this wouldn’t have bothered her had she at least been able to put up a fight (this method was the core of her battle strategy, after all), but the fact that b’Akphiyr had made practically every attempt he could to frustrate her had not improved her mood.
Plenty of people had stopped their own training to watch her get her ass kicked, but she didn’t bother to chastise them. They were irritating, but not nearly as much as having to admit to herself that the warrant officer’s weapon vastly outclassed her own. She knew that the logical choice would be to give in and get a new sword. She hated logic.
The bunnygirl eventually looked up at her subordinate, and when she spoke she was surprised to find that her voice came out simply sounding resigned, rather than angry, “So what now, is it your turn to lecture me on why I should be looking for a new sword? Or do you need a few minutes to catch your breath first, old man?”
Reinhardt smiled slightly, “I’m fine. I can begin your ‘lecture’ whenever you’re ready to listen.”
“Sorry, but you’ll need to put that on hold, Master.” a newcomer said. Even if she hadn’t been intimately familiar with that voice, the man’s word choice alone would have told her all she needed to know; only one person in her army referred to the Warrant Officer as ‘master’.
“Hey, Nisse, what’s up?” the healer asked disinterestedly, glancing across at him.
The man who stood by her side now was a far cry from the slender jeweller whom he had been when she had first met him on the outskirts of his village, prior to the founding of Neo New Babylon.
Ever since her expedition with Victor and Sigmund, when she’d left him behind after giving Reinhardt strict instructions to train him intensively, no matter how much he begged to get out of it, Nisse had been the dwemer’s devoted disciple. He had previously had short hair, but now that was gone, shaven off entirely. He had also stopped wearing most of his jewellery, though his numerous piercings were still present.
Lastly, the skinhead had taken to wearing dull, grey robes—presumably received from Warrant Officer Margrave—over his loincloth; at least, whenever he wasn’t sparring with real weapons. Since he was all dressed up at the moment, she guessed he must have been engaged in some other form of training.
Neither of the pair had ever volunteered any information on what exactly had occurred during Nisse’s private training. She was sure they’d be willing to share if she asked, but the bunnygirl didn’t actually care enough to do so, and as such it remained a mystery to her.
“His Imperial Majesty, Emperor Victor I, has sent a messenger to request that you come to his palace at once.” her boy toy informed her, somewhat sarcastically. He wasn’t exactly their esteemed leader’s biggest fan.
“Oh?” she said, perking up a little. She was growing tired of looking like a fool in front of her own soldiers, so an excuse to duck out of today’s training session early was fine with her, “Did the messenger say anything else? Like maybe the reason he wants to see me?”
Nisse raised an eyebrow, “Come on, Ahana, really? What do you think?”
She snickered, getting to her feet, “Vic does love to keep others in suspense. Well, I’d better not keep him waiting, so I’ll just head off n-”
“Like hell you will.” barked another voice she knew all too well. She groaned, as Sapphiro—the dashingly handsome, blond-haired and blue-eyed cousin of Beryl—pushed through the crowd, “We agreed that you don’t go out in public without clothes, and I know you remember, so don’t even try acting innocent.”
She snorted, “Since when do I ever ‘act innocent’? Look, Vic wants me to go see him immediately, so I have to hurry, you know?”
“I don’t care. You’re going to go wash off all the blood and sweat, dry yourself off, and get dressed before you go anywhere. If you refuse, you can find yourself two new lieutenants.”
She groaned loudly, like a child protesting wordlessly against the unfairness of life, but allowed herself to be led away towards the bathing area of the building. Sapphiro waited outside the small room she was washing in for the entire time she was there, and in the first instance that she tried to leave, he sent her back in, telling her to go wash her hair properly.
She swore to his face that she’d kill him and Beryl as soon as she had anyone competent enough to take their places. His only response was, “Mhm, that’s nice.”
This may have been jumping to conclusions, but something told her that he was not overly concerned. Still, eventually he judged her ready to go out in public, and she was finally allowed to leave the building. He went along with her, as did Nisse, while his fellow lieutenant and the warrant officer stayed behind to continue the soldiers’ training. Even though they couldn’t duel with actual weapons when the healer wasn’t around, there were plenty of other things her troops could do to strengthen their bodies and improve their reflexes.
The citizens of the city were still mostly dwemer, but of late the bejewelled, half-naked savages had become a common sight around here, so no one was taken aback by Sapphiro’s attire. And with her ex-jeweller dressed somewhat similarly to the elves themselves (albeit, sans shoes), he was hardly worth taking notice of either. So when the trio inevitably found themselves the centre of attention, there could be no doubt that it was due to Ahana’s presence.
Being one of the three most powerful people in the empire, that was hardly a surprise, though. Thankfully, everyone she came across was smart enough to stay out of their way. The guards at the castle didn’t bother asking for any sort of identification, as they also recognised her. Whilst one could argue that this approach left them vulnerable to illusionists and shapeshifters, the general doubted any assassin would stand much chance against their glorious emperor. So that was probably fine.
Upon making their way to his throne room, the trio discovered Victor Wolfe lounging casually on his throne. Also in the room were half a dozen human women—none of them with particularly athletic builds—in skimpy, silk outfits which made even the loincloths of the empire’s more primitive citizens seem conservative and modest by comparison. If they should ever be exposed to so much as a stiff breeze, these girls would certainly give everyone around them an eyeful.
Not that Ahana, with her casual opinion of nudity, was one to care about that sort of thing. What she did care about, though, was that the red-eyed assassin was lazing around on an ornate, golden—yet amply cushioned—throne, with young, attractive women feeding him grapes, strawberries and other fruits which, though they may have been common elsewhere, were rare and expensive delicacies here on Inverxe.
Admittedly, he’d almost certainly just used his godlike powers of creation to will the fruits into existence, so it wasn’t like he was squandering money on them, at least. Still, that knowledge did little to comfort her. While she’d been slaving away training troops and worrying about her demonically-possessed weapon’s hurt feelings, he’d just been relaxing like this?
"Hello Victor.” the bunnygirl said, her tone saccharine, an obviously-forced smile plastered on her face.
“Oh, Ahana, glad you could make it. How’s the military doing?” the emperor enquired, giving her a cheeky smirk which told her he was well aware that she was pissed off, but was just going to pretend not to notice unless she confronted him openly about it.
Deciding she couldn’t be bothered listening to whatever excuses or justifications he’d come up with to defend this time-wasting, self-indulgent lifestyle (which she envied tremendously), the general gave a long, drawn-out sigh, willing herself to let it go. She wasn’t very successful.
“You seem stressed, is there something I can do to help?” a gentle, kind voice asked, at the same time as one of the barely-dressed girls came to stand by her side, taking her hand and leaning so close that the bunnygirl’s arm was pressed to her chest. Ahana peered into the other woman’s pale blue eyes, and saw in them only earnest concern. Either the assassin had done a tremendous job of picking naive, innocent, and willing women to be his maids (or his harem?), or this lady was a fantastic actress.
The general may not have been the sort to get distracted by the mere sight of exposed skin, but soft, pretty, young women rubbing their bodies against hers in a plainly sexual manner was another matter entirely. Grinning fiendishly, she removed her hand from the girl’s grasp, only to slip that arm around her waist and pull her even closer. When she spoke, their faces were hardly an inch apart, “Well, I can think of a few things you could try.”
Sadly, her fun was immediately interrupted by Sapphiro being a killjoy. The lieutenant cleared his throat before speaking, whilst giving her a death glare the entire time, “You were called here for a meeting with the emperor, not to play with his servants. Try to stay focused.”
Ahana glared back. She bet he was just jealous because there were no hot guys draping themselves all over him. It’d be a different story if that were to happen!
Actually, on second thought, no, it probably wouldn’t be. Like his cousin, Sapphiro was such a workaholic that he probably wasn’t even capable of thinking lewd thoughts while on duty. Ahana sighed, reluctantly disentangling herself from the cute girl.
“You’re right, I did call Ahana here for a meeting. Nisse, and… whoever you are,” Victor said, gesturing lazily in the direction of the blond lieutenant, “you aren’t needed here, so you can both leave.”
“They’re with me.” the healer said, before either man could move to comply with the emperor’s command, “Unless you have something to say to me alone, that’s not in any way connected to my army, I want them to hear whatever it is… mostly because it’ll save me from needing to repeat it to the other soldiers if I can get them to do it for me.”
It was Victor’s turn to sigh, “Alright, fine, have it your way. Anyway, the reason I asked you to come here was because I have something I’d like you and your troops to take care of for me. As you know, Sigmund & I recently found a nest of xenomorphs nearby, after which you helped me with a little experiment involving them.”
“An experiment, huh? Is that what you’re calling it? To me it looked more like you just gave one of them a rabbit to eat, then killed it before it could do so. Not that I object to excessive and arbitrary animal cruelty, of course.”
“It wasn’t animal cruelty. For one thing, the xenomorphs are horrific monsters, not just simple animals, and for another, my experiment yielded valuable-”
He paused abruptly when Ahana held up a hand to stop him, ”Alright, already, you’re a genius scientist. Bravo. I don’t actually care. Just tell me what you want.”
Victor pinched the bridge of his nose, “... Fine. We obviously can’t allow them to just keep living so close to our empire, especially since we have no idea how far underground that cave system of theirs goes, or if any of its tunnels connect to our own. If they do, it’s entirely possible that they’ll start using our citizens as breeding material before too long. At the same time, however, it would be a shame to just wipe out such interesting and potentially useful creatures, so I’d like you to kill off the unwanted ones and bring back at least one egg for study.”
“You want me to kill some big bugs?” the healer said, sneering dismissively, “Does the great city of Neo-Nippur not have anyone more suited to the task? Like, say, roach exterminators?”
The assassin gave her a dull, unimpressed look, “They aren’t bugs, and you’d do well to take them seriously. Don’t, and you’ll end up dead.”
Ahana simply stared incredulously at him for a moment, wondering if he was trying to insult her, or if he genuinely believed the nonsense he was spouting. Deciding to be generous, she laughed long and loud, as if he’d said something truly hilarious.
The emperor scowled, “If you don’t have any questions, you’re free to go now.”
“Nope, no questions. Later, O’ Great Emperor Vic. And don’t worry, I’ll make sure to bring back plenty of little larvae for your ant farm.” after giving him an overly dramatic and utterly insincere bow, whilst smirking broadly, the bunnygirl turned to leave, her two companions trailing after her. She could feel the emperor’s glare on the back of her head as she departed.
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