RP: 5th Fleet [Chapter Eight] Castles and Catgirls

Bia stared out upon the enemies filling the dark and then snorted. There was a sneer on her face as she placed her own spear down and started to peer at the quality of the second weapon she had relieved from the guard earlier.

Snapping one eye shut as she looked down the weapon's length she needed to herself - it was serviceable enough.

Sprinting up onto the wall between volleys the Elysian glared at the ragged line of goblins that supplemented their failings as creatures of war with pitiful displays of fear. Flipping the weapon in her hand from an underhanded to overhanded grip Bia brought it up - picked out the pavise situated dead in the center - and threw the spear as easily as one would handle a dart. The javelin streaked forward and planted itself firmly into the belly of the woman tied to the wooden barrier.

Placing a hand on the pommel of the sword at her side the Elysian woman didn't look at any of the guards standing to her left or right. "Kill 'em. Aim well or stand spent - a load a' wasted fathers an' brothers tha' were impotent to protect. Kill them or let my mercy walk amoungst 'em."

Throwing her thoughts away from the militia Bia reached out and felt the minds of the goblin line hiding behind the flesh of their enemies. Shifting through her memories she pushed towards each of them a recollection - scenes from the campaign in Hell, scenes of ripped throats and desperate melee brawls surrounded by blistering heat. At the end of each disjointed barrage of memories she attached her own, frigid smile that was currently spreading across her face. As she burrowed her clenched teeth into each creature's mind a pair of brilliant wings - not her own, but white and massive like a patrician's - framed the gleaming slash that was her mouth.

Come. Let us make a fine joke together - red's comedy's new favourite colour.

Town Under Siege

An ear splitting scream of pain tore through the air as the woman on the shield was impaled by the Elysian's spear.

"Hmph. At least your aim is good," Sif remarked, still dissatisfied with the results anyways. The other women tied to the portable pieces of cover, previously silent with despair, now began to cry. And scream. And beg. The goblins however, paused to look at the spear, confused for a moment, but soon, they were laughing. As the vermin shot arrows and hurled rocks again, all around them, the villagers muttered, their spirits crushed even further as morale slipped away. As one made motions to ward off evil, another vomited onto the ground. Titus, ever stalwart, stood at the center of the breach as stones and arrows harmlessly bounced off his shield. But even then, Bia could feel his hot glare at her. She could feel it from the whole village in fact. "If you won't make a decision, someone else will, and you may not like it," the Mini-Neko told both Yuukito and Werner. "I'm disappointed however. You all have ample resources, and are failing to use them."

Leaping off the palisade, she bounded over to the carriage and landed right on Tomiko's shoulder. Yanking her ear like it was a rein until she had the lusty Neko under control, she asked, "Goblins. Women on shields. Do you have any magic?"

"Oh, totes!" Running up to the defenders, the little girl began to chant. The words, indistinguishable to their ears, slipped out of hearing the more they strained to listen, yet built up to a gentle crescendo. At the climax, she simply stopped. Looking up at them all, Coco's jaw fell open. "Well? Go grab them, quick! It wears off fast!"

The goblins and women had all fallen asleep.

Yuukito glanced between Sif and Werner with an anxious pout, not coping well with the pressure. In the end, she slipped her cudgel onto her belt and took the crossbow Werner was offering her, giving him a nod before hurrying off with it breathlessly. Dressed in a pretty silk dress with a quiver slung over her shoulder and a crossbow in her arms, the scientist looked very out of place as she arrived on the wall. Gritting her teeth, she pulled the string back on her crossbow until it was ready to be loaded, fitting it with a bolt from her quiver, and moved to aim it at the horde. With one eye closed, she took aim, biting her lip and waiting until she saw a goblin duck out from cover or briefly fall out of line before pulling the trigger and letting fly with her bolt.

The bolt flew out, straight and true, striking the goblin dead where it lay!

"What. Are you doing?" Sif began, having rode on Coco's shoulder back to the wall. Though the shot hit its mark, she didn't sound happy in the slightest. Knife handing at the young woman, her arm still relatively low, she explained to her, again, "Go rescue the women. Before the goblins wake up. Coco said the spell doesn't last long."

And people wondered why Sif was the way she was.

Hearing Sif's words, Yuukito turned to look over her shoulder at her with a hopelessly confused pout on her face. "S-shoot enemy?" she blurted out. Was she going about this 'killing' thing all wrong? Sif's further instructions only confused the minkan more, until she turned back to find that the attackers had all fallen asleep. "Oh!" Yuukito squeaked, hurriedly placing her weapon down before dashing back down from the wall towards the breach. "They are asleep! Quickly!" Calling to the despondent townsfolk, she dashed out into the open, struggling to free the captive women from where they were tied.

Bia vaulted over the wall and landed with a grunt. Long, hate-filled strides ate away the distance between her and where one of the squad's younger member's was struggling against the captive women's bindings. With an economy of movement that buried her feelings depth beneath the repetitions of professionalism the Elysian's blade struck out from around Yuukito and sliced through the rope like it had never even been there.

"Grab tha' nex'un." Bia barked behind her as she already moved towards the next pavise and cut loose another woman. The Elysian continued her work until she got to the woman she had struck from the wall. Eying the goblins, still sleeping but forever a threat still, Bia's fingers were already moving to unlace the front of her cuirass - she needed to get at the relatively fresh cloth of her tunic beneath. Throwing the front of her leather armour to the ground the soldier's face moved from a sneer to a snarl back to cold professionalism as she took in her handiwork in front of her. Keeping the spear in and bracing the heavy shaft against her shoulder the Elysian laid the woman to the ground as carefully as she could.

Her sword sliced through her tunic and she grunted as she had to rip the carefully cut cloth where it was still trapped against her own back. Throwing each newly made bandage over shoulder Bia kept continued to scan the woman in front of her with a medic's eye. She could most likely stabilize the woman to be moved - but it would take some of the damned magic to ever see her moving again.

Placing a hand on the spear Bia finally looked at the face of the woman she had intended to kill and did what she didn't do very often - she smiled. "Le' me an'y get this out ou' way - yah?"

Werner was eager to face off against this army, in fact he still didn't know how to approach the invading force with military efficiency, and his muscles twitched with excitement. So it was a damn shame and disappointment to Werner when all the weird humanoids dropped down before he could even swing his sword for the first time.

"... This world really does have something against me..." Werner croaked silently, walking towards the mass of sleeping goblins. It was obvious what had needed to happen now. This assault had essentially just turned into a execution.

Werner made his way past all the women tied onto the pavises, ignoring them completely as he eyed the goblins behind them. He began their extermination by eyeing their necks and their vulnerable eyes. For the first victim it was a simple task. Werner merely lined up the point of his sword with the foreign creature's eye lid, and thrusted downward past it's hard skull, through it's, probably insignificantly sized, brain. For the next one, Werner wanted to test the toughness of these foes. So Werner gripped his spatha tightly with one hand on the handle, and the other by the tip of the blade as he proceeded to drag the sharp edge across the creature's throat with all his strength. This process was repeated, over and over, and as quietly as possible, tip-toeing through the goblin ranks with the goal of taking as many goblins souls down as possible. He only hoped that this murder streak wouldn't end with him in the middle of a goblin army waking up.

Tomiko jerked away in surprise from the riding crop and stared wide-eyed at the little girl. "C-coco! I thought you liked me." She said, tears welling in her eyes. "What have I done?"

Her gaze went to Adelaide huddled in the corner. Now that she thought about it, Adelaide didn't welcome her back. Could she have misinterpreted the signs? Her knowledge of erotic manga was not helping in the real world. That meant she had no clue how to act on this planet. She was pulled from the revelation by the screeching of the goblins.

She witnessed the strange woman she could barely understand throw a spear. Following the arc, she was stunned to see it plant itself in the stomach of a woman on a pavise. Before she could really react something jerked on her ear. She squealed and tried to get away. Somehow it went with her. Her struggling ceased, and she looked over to see Sif on her shoulder. Sif's words didn't make sense. "Well, yes but.. I can't use it reliably yet." She protested.

Somehow Sif disappeared from her shoulder and reappeared on Coco. Tomiko ran to the wall quickly and ran up onto the wall, jumping off the other side. She ran to Bia and pushed her away from the woman. "Get away from her you monster," Tomiko hissed quietly. "Either save the others or help me get her back over the wall. But leave the spear for now."

She broke off most of the spear's shaft and tossed it aside. "I'll take her to Adelaide. My magic abilities are nowhere good enough to heal this." With that, she picked the woman up and went back to the wall. She floated up to the top slowly and walked down the ramp, back to the carriage. "I need help, Adelaide!" Tomiko yelled. She gently put the woman on the ground and examined the wound.

Mioshi caught an arrow, rather than dodging it. She ducked a rock while examining it. It seemed a black-fletched thing, and poisoned on the tip with dung or some sort of substance. She sniffed it. It smelled, quite obviously, like shit.

When the spell had been cast, she tossed the arrow aside and slipped like a wraith from the wall, hand upon her brimmed, feathered hat. One of her knives found a way into her hand, and very swiftly Mioshi set about rescuing the damsels who had been tied to the shields.

While she did this, it occurred to her that she could be doing all manner of mischief to the goblins. Mioshi, at that point, spotted a scout with a firepot. She stopped halfway through cutting one of the young women free, and cut the dirty glass pot from the loincloth of the goblin. She ended up cutting him naked - an unpleasant prospect - but at the end of it, she had the firepot in her hands.

Held up against the moonlight, she couldn’t tell its color. Nor, she thought, would it matter.

She picked a portion of the goblin ranks that felt to her as though they might be carrying those pots, struck a bit of recovered flint against the fuse, and tossed the glass bottle into the midst of them.

Mioshi stood and watched for a few moments before returning to her work freeing helpless women and pulling them halfway towards the walls.

The wounded woman whisked away from any sort of care she could provide, Bia shook her head and busied herself with lacing the front of her armour back where it belonged.

Grabbing one - and the another - the Elysian slung an unconscious prisoner over each shoulder. Trotting towards the gap in the wall the old soldier snorted as she let her steps eat away at the space between her and the fortifications.

As Yuukito and Bia diligently made to rescue the human shields, Titus, with several villagers, rushed past Tomiko to help. The young woman had called out to the princess, but she didn't respond, at least not immediately. Her head rising up from the edge of the carriage, Adelaide's green eyes stared down at her. Red and swollen, it was clear she had been crying - the experiences she had gone through on this journey with the Star Army squad were nothing a princess should bear, but bear it she did. With an air of nobility, Adelaide slowly made her way down, step by deliberate step as her eyes stayed with Tomiko's, and without a word, pressed a glowing hand against the skewered woman's wound.

"Oh no," she muttered, the wound healing under her hand - the princess was looking up at the distant scene.

Just as Yuukito and Bia began running back with the villagers, hostages in their arms, the goblins woke. As their eyes suddenly darted open, the unnatural sleep vanishing as quickly as it came, several of the creatures began screaming in pain as they were consumed by fire. Burdened with the woman in her arms and having spent time burning the goblins, Mioshi was lagging behind. As the goblins woke up, slings and bows were quickly aimed at the snowy Neko as she ended up shielding the hostage. Using her Nekovalkyrjan strength and speed, she caught up to Yuukito and Bia. Just as a stone found her back with human-bone breaking force as she made it back into cover. Yet, help didn't arrive for her. At least not right away. For the briefest of moments, everyone else held their breath, aghast in horror as Werner was suddenly leaped on by the green horde.

"Alas, I hardly knew him," Sif blandly remarked over his screams. Having waded in amongst them to slit throat after throat, he was simply in too deep. Though his armor protected him from the blind attacks, it only took one goblin on his back and blade to the neck to silence him. As the Mini-Neko sighed at yet another disappointment, the Goblins suddenly fell limp again.

"Don't just stand there!" Coco shouted, panting as she wiped sweat from her brow. As though taking the cue, the armored legionnaire blitzed out into the horde, and tossing Werner's body over his shoulders, ran back as they woke once more, the spell clearly weaker than it was before. Arrows and stones pelted off Titus' armor, with the young man's corpse protecting his head, but he made it back safely. As the soldier laid the young man's body down, Adelaide rushed from Tomiko's side to kneel by Werner's.

"Oh Gods, New and Old, hear my prayer..." the maiden began, cradling his head close in her lap.

"S-she can perform miracles?!" a villager exclaimed as Werner's wounds mended. "A holy maiden! We are blessed!" As they uttered quick, practical prayers, his eyes opened again to see her face. A face that was pure and angelic.

And also partially obstructed by her own great bust.

His worst nightmare had come true, and the worst outcome became a reality. Werner didn't even have a chance to fight back as the goblins quickly overwhelmed him...

Though a blurry woman suddenly appeared before him, and light flooded his confused eyes, "W-what? Am... am I dead?! Damn....did the ST not work? Wait... if it didn't work and I'm still here... does this mean that Kami-sama is real?!" Werner asked the woman, and then reality set back in.

The world grew dark as his eyes adjusted. As he looked down from Adelaide's face to shield his pupils. It was safe to say that he couldn't hold... a piece of him back. Still, Werner just got ganked, so there was some emotional turmoil. Fortunately enough, his body hurt only a little bit, both the magic and his blood appear to have done their job healing him. Sad to say that the same thing could not be said about the ruined village. Yep, still alive.

"Oh... it's just you, thanks." Werner groaned "Uh, ignore everything I just said, don't tell anyone either. I just might get skinned alive, and that would be bad." Werner tried to stand up, and tripped on his own two legs. For his first time dying, this experience seemed... REALLY COOL!

"Oh! This is so damn weird! Just give me a second will you?"

Huffing and puffing with a look of terror on her face, Yuukito dived into cover with a battered dame in her arms, placing her gently upon the ground. She checked her to make sure she was still breathing and wasn't going to drop dead or anything nasty like that, then turned back to see Mioshi take a stone in her back. "Oh no!" she cried, leaping out to help her get out of sight and out of danger. So occupied with helping her comrade, she barely noticed Werner getting a healthy dose of goblin beyond the walls, nor him being dragged back to safety to receive 'miracles' from the pretty princess Adelaide.

Ashen Village

A sling was nothing more than a piece of rope and leather, and yet, it could cast a piece of lead fast and hard enough it would embed within the body. Mioshi however, was thankfully struck with stone; though her carbon nanotube reinforced bones didn't even care, a small spot of red seeped into her clothing where her skin was broken, the muscles crushed against her own unyielding bone.

Sif wasn't concerned at all about that though. Nekovalkyrja were far too tough to be bothered by this. Or Werner for that matter - seeing him run his mouth, Adelaide promptly got up from under him, letting his head unceremoniously fall to the ground as she made her way back to the carriage, a bit of ice in her glare.

"Oi. They're going to attack or something," the Mini-Neko dryly remarked. Pointing at the lone legionnaire standing at the gap, she added, "Shouldn't you all get your weapons and spears and things and do what he's doing?" True to her word, he and a few villagers were the only ones at the gap, and already, they could tell the goblin horde was angry. Baring their crude weapons, the misshapen creatures were yelling and swearing at them in some black tongue their ears couldn't comprehend.

"ON ME!" Titus yelled, sword drawn. "Spears, to my flanks!"

The first few goblin was already rushing in, slamming into his shield, only to get stabbed from around it's edge by the short and nimble gladius. More however, screeched and came running in.

If she was someone from home, Adelaide would have completely devastated Werner with that cold rejection. Luckily for him she wasn't, though a rejection is rejection, and a prickly sensation began to swell up in his chest as a result of it and Werner gripped his heart is sarcastic agony, "Ah... damn, that hurts!", at least emotionally, and only a little bit.

At least he was in good health, he thought, as he picked himself up from the dirt, and shook off the dust. The blood was going to be such a pain to clean off, Werner somehow doubted that there would be any proper cleaning utensils on the forsaken planet. Though something was amiss... his sword was not at his side! Werner's sword was probably resting near the corpses of some Goblins or at their feet. At the very least his travel sized shield was still strapped to his wrist. For now it would have to function on both the offensive, and defensive side of things until he scrounged up another weapon.

"Greatgreatgreat, just my luck, shouldn't have expected more than that..." Werner began, jogging his way to the assembled mob of Militiamen, forcing himself to the edge of the flank.

Werner tried to look the the goblin mass before him. Everything about them from a close distance just came off as.... crumby, everything about them. Their weapons, their apparel, their faces.... it didn't stop Werner from defending himself against the random attack of a goblin, after all the men around him kept prodding them away. Though every once and a while, Werner would get the chance to all out deftly deck a goblin who screwed and got a little too close. Kinda sad Titus was taking all the glory, where was that amazing Yamatai combat skill when you needed it most?

Seeing that Mioshi was going to be ok, Yuukito scrambled back to her feet and rushed to help Titus and the others at the breach, only to skid to a halt when she realised she was empty-handed. The minkan frantically patted herself down before remembering that she'd left her cudgel back at at the carriage when Werner offered her his crossbow. "Oh no!" she squeaked, dashing back towards the empty carriage. "Hold on a moment, guys!" After fumbling clumsily inside of the carriage for a time, the scientist returned, grasping the hem of her silk dress aloft in one hand and hefting her metal club in the other with a determined look on her face. Now that she was armed, Yuukito rushed to join Titus and the villagers, anxiously squeezing amongst the line to get into position. Her face paled and her eyes widened when she saw the wall of smelly, angry goblins closing in, squeaking nervously.

The green-haired woman looked away from Adelaide. "I-'m sorry, Miss Adelaide," Tomiko said. "Your culture is different, I will... try to remember that from now on. If you will excuse me, I have to go help my ally, Werner before he gets himself injured again."

She turned and ran to the breach, getting in the line with the others. Being in the front line of a battle was exactly where she didn't want to be. Her honey eyes were set in a look of grim determination. Witnessing goblin tactics firsthand along with the dying villagers removed any desire to show mercy to the creatures. Tomiko drew her mace and took a few practice swings.

"Do we... have a plan here at all?" She asked nervously. A goblin got close enough for her mace to reach and she smashed the foul creature's skull. It made a sickening crunch as the blow connected. Another goblin took his place fairly quickly, sending a blow towards her with an improvised axe. She deflected the blow with her buckler and shoved the creature back. On closer examination, she realized the axe happened to be a human femur with a blade strapped to it.

Mioshi didn't swear; Mioshi never swore. She grunted from the pain though, before shutting it down.

She set the last woman down calmly in safety, easing her off of the staff she had been using to half-carry these girls, and then she picked the ironshod staff up again.

Unlike the others, Mioshi didn't wear armor, unless her strapped leather bodice counted. She felt, ultimately, that in a typical fight the armor would have just slowed her down. Nekovalkryja, after all, were instilled with martial arts, and Mioshi had a particular background which, of course, she would never actually reveal to her fellow soldiers. Sif knew some, and might have guessed the rest. The Bard, therefore, removed her wide-brimmed hat and dexteriously flicked it onto a nearby, discarded pike's end. Some snapped goblin spear or other. She had paid enough for the hat she wanted it around when she got back.

Spinning the staff to stretch her arms and test her reach again, just in case her hands and muscle memory had forgotten, she rushed to join the beleagured idiot in armor.

Once the Yamataian soldiers came to the Legionnaire's sides, they quickly found themselves in a bloody grind.

Blocking a crude blade with his shield, Werner punched an offending goblin in the jaw, only for it to nearly bite off his fingers in rage. As the villagers behind him quickly fended it off of him with their spears, the young man soon found one thrust into his hands, the crude but sturdy weapon reassuring in his grip. At the same time, Yuukito found herself playing a bloody, life or death game of Wack-a-Mishhu. Staying close to the villagers, she swung the metal cudgel as best she could, the goblins getting out of the way or blocking just as often as they didn't; each time they failed, she felt the jarring impact run straight up her arms as something cracked.

Not far off, both Tomiko and Mioshi made to do the same, mace in one Neko's hand, and staff in the other's. However, there was something different - the two moved with a natural grace, easily breaking anything that came close to them. One goblin, then another and another died with resounding cracks and crunches the moment they got near. In the modern battlefield, it rarely mattered, but here, the keen Nekovalkyrja edge showed bright as day. They were almost untouchable.

Almost.

"Huh. So they're not quick like Hobgoblins," Sif remarked, looking down on them. Standing up on the wall, the Mini-Neko had been keeping a keen eye on the scene, ready to leap down from above like a tiny terror. Now however, she was shouting at the Yamataian solders, her voice in their ears, and their heads. "Their cavalry is circling over to the other gate - the villagers can hold here with Titus. Get there, now." Already, they could hear the sound of pots smashing into flames against those wooden doors, as well as the baying of wolves.

Yuukito was hurriedly alternating between daintily cracking goblin skulls with her mace and girlishly ducking out of the way of reprisal attacks, squeaking girlishly all the way. In the midst of swinging her cudgel at a sluggish goblin, she suddenly had a tiny neko voice whispering in her mind. Struggling to concentrate on it, she gasped as the force of her blow striking the goblin's shoulder pad jolted up her elbow. She staggered back from the line, rubbing at her arm with a grimace and glancing up at Sif, high, mighty and tiny up on the village walls. With no time to complain or worry about the fact that she was going to be fighting wolves, the scientist hurried off with a sore arm to the gate as flames began to engulf it from the other side.