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

Sprawled on her backside and covered in blood, Yuuktio glanced dazedly around to find the last of the enemy had been dispatched rather swiftly, before turning her head to look at Sif. The minkan patted herself down, then got to her feet, checking where the wolf had bitten her around the ankle. "I think I'm ok!" she announced with a proud, little smile, pleased that she had gotten half of herself splattered across the village somehow.

The goblin dagger was drawn back along the jagged, sawed line that had dumped a mortal curtain of blood from the wolf's throat and onto Bia. The beast's killer now reversed the motion of her strikes - the blade sliding until it exited where it had made its entrance. Momentarily free the weapon was returned to the pocket of skin, muscle and bone that stitched itself in a rupture along the leg the Elysian's first strike had incapacitated. With quick, brute jerks the limb was severed the rest of the way from the corpse and with the shift in weight Bia shrugged and shouldered her way from under her kill.

Climbing on top of the dead creature and settling with one leg beneath her and the other dangling across the corpse the woman's posture was languid confidence coloured contradictory by the coat of red she wore. Dried black crusts had built themselves up on the edges of the lighter furrows claws had shaped into her hip and thigh and in the middle of her brow - where even her head had been reduced to a weapon. These fleeting accents did little to draw from the deep line set and weeping on her cheek or the slash that had painted its claim to her arm.

Her uninjured arm, spared from being just more perforated-lacerated meat by armour de goblin, reached beneath her armour and - like half dyed red and pink tassels - pulled forth the lengths of cloth she had cut for bandages earlier.

Intended for a woman she herself had wounded the Elysian instead tended to wounds she herself had accrued.

As she finished wrapping and tying off the cloth around her arm Bia reached up and smeared the blood pouring from the cut to her face. The action stinged - showing it had not sliced deep enough to hit nerves - and the woman decided it would keep.

Shaking herself like a tired hound coming in for the night the Elysian looked up towards the rest of the squad and smiled - the white of what her teeth should have been just as red as the rest of her.

"My s'ord - 'hu's goh ee'?"

Mioshi spun her quarterstaff, snapping it left and right, and the blood spun off of it for the most part. When she had finished, she checked the grain of the wood and the goblin, and wolf blood, that had seeped into it.

She wouldn't replace it, even if it were conspicuous. It would probably dry and look ominous. She settled it against her shoulder and surveyed her group.

They weren't very interesting to her, so instead she surveyed the group they had just destroyed, picking through the rubble as the civilians cheered and her party patted themselves down for injuries.

"Let's see where they came from, perhaps," mused the flutist. She went about her work whistling quietly to herself.

Werner collapsed in a fetal position, and quivered in pain. THE SENSATION OF ONE THOUSAND BURNING STARS COLLAPSING FLOWED THROUGH HIS MORTAL CARCASS AS THE FABRIC OF REALITY ITSELF SEEMED TO TEAR APART STARTING WITH WERNER'S PRECIOUS GONADS.

For a moment he lost his vision, and Werner swore that he could see Sif dressed in a gold and white dress as she held his hand... and dragged him into an abyss of coal and fire where she would spend an eternity learning how to cause even more pain to Werner's essential manhood which at this point, had become theoretical field of science.

That mere vision shocked Werner back into his bitter reality, praying to the universe to have some pity on him. He lunged out with his right hand towards Mioshi's ankle, ferociously grabbed on to it with a tear in his eyes. He was barely able to mutter gracious words, and Mioshi herself would have a hard time understanding Werner if she didn't know how to infer what he was saying... "T-thank you.... so... much"

Sif awkwardly coughed, looking away from them as though she wanted to say, 'I don't know these people.'

"Your sword is over there," the Mini-Neko sheepishly pointed out for the old Elysian. Despite their victory, the expression on her face stared a hundred yards out, and looked to be anything but happy. "I suppose I should congratulate you all," she began, the world ending as they all knew it. Sif praised them. She never praised them. "It's clear to me now that pursuing Kuroneko with all due haste may not be the wisest of decisions, so tomorrow morning, I'll beat you all into shape," the tiny woman explained to them all.

There was the Sif they knew!

"Oh, oh! Well beaten, or just tenderized?" Coco bounded over to them all, slipping on a pair of mean looking cestus onto her hands. Following behind her, Adelaide regally stepped across the devastated town until she came to their group. Eyes dull and unhappy, the princess too looked like she was staring out to some horizon that had yet to come. One dead gaze meeting another, both Adelaide and Sif exchanged a wordless understanding before the Mini-Neko spoke.

"We'll find out what they need," she replied to Coco. At the same time, the princess knelt down and began healing their most badly injured, her hands resting in between Werner's legs as she mended his most grievous wound. In turn, her hands glowed over each one of them, healing them all. By the end of it, she wiped her brow and sighed. The effort wore on her, that was for certain, but, their pain was gone. "So. What did you all think about that fight?" Sif asked at the end of it.

Werner sat on the dirt huddled with himself while attempting to burrow his head in his knees. "Anything that could go wrong... ended up wrong" he muttered. Werner lifted his head up gently and gave everyone a sheepish smile " I wouldn't mind getting healed again later however... that was fun," was his quick response, and once finished he rested his head against his weak legs again.

"Man... I hate this place..."

Stabbing the greenskin knife down into the heap of furred corpse she had been resting on Bia's wrist reflexively twisted the weapon as her fingers drifted away from its hilt. Shrugging her body up and into a standing position the woman slowly - in an almost snake-ish fashion - nodded in the direction Sif's voice had sounded out.

As small steps, interspersed with liberally enjoyed stretches, took the Elysian towards the first wolf she had killed the soldier's feet paraded to a stop suddenly. Standing next to Werner, Bia swiveled her head to stare at the man. Silently the woman's arm speed into motion. Palm open and striking towards a grasp on Werner's face - only for the motion to bleed to a near stop. A gentle pat to the face was all that occurred and once Bia's hand was removed was well asmushed with a newly added smear of blood.

" 'gr't'lations." The word was murmured near under the Elysian's breath as she began walking again.

Quickly making her pace towards her sword Bia reach down and pulled the blade free from the chest it had been housed in in a single clean motion. The soldier momentarily glared at the damn blade for the cleaning it would require before it could be sheathed before a smirk bloomed on her face.

"Werner-" Looking over one shoulder as she rested her blade on the other Bia's words, now, sat just below a shout. "-kep i' up an' ya' might fine yaself keepin' a' stiff in tha' bat'le line as ya kep ya dick."

A genuinely sincere smile made its killer appearance (still dressed fashionably in red) on the Elysian's face. A level of energy that had been minutes before lacking gripped the old soldier as she began to tap the flat of her weapon against her shoulder. Turning away from Werner Bia's attention was caught by Yuukito as she started moving.

"Yah." The Elysian's voice scratched out a boom as she jerked her head in a quick motion that had first her chin then nose pointing towards the minkan. "Tha' sp'hir do ya' well - h'wd ya' make on tha' killin'?"

Tomiko walked over to Adelaide clutching her bleeding side. She could feel her body struggling to cleanse her blood of the toxins leaking into her abdomen. If she was a regular human being the injury probably would have cost her a kidney. After the Princess finished her ministrations, Tomiko placed a hand on her shoulder. "I apologize for my behavior before." She said softly.

The Nekovalkyrja was not smiling anymore. Looking at the aftermath of the battle she was acutely aware that this was nothing like the fiction she was so fond of. She walked over to Sif and sat down on the ground near her. "I think that we aren't cut out for this, Heisho. This time we were lucky... We need to get our shit together before the next fight," Tomiko answered mentally. "Is there any way we can get some real Infantry?"

The minkan scientist turned her head to peer at Bia, her face gradually contorting with hopeless, frantic confusion as the Elysian spoke to her. After a brief, awkward silence, she forced a laugh. "Aha! Yeah, totally!" she answered, clearly having no idea what Bia had actually said to her. Yuukito then hurried away to save face, hovering awkwardly around Sif, avoiding further interaction with Bia by hiding behind the diminutive neko.

Hearing Tomiko, the princess nodded before finishing her ministrations. As the golden light that lit her hands vanished, so did their wounds. Settling herself back in the open carriage, she sat, watching them from the distance as Sif took center stage.

"It should be no surprise that we find ourselves in unusual circumstances," she began, looking at Werner with her stern little gaze. "We may be gifted," the Mini-Neko cryptically began, " - but if we expect it to simply carry us into victory, then we deserve to fail in everything we do," she chastised them. Though Titus watched on in silence, his face stoic, Coco looked every bit the child hearing a fairy tale. Adelaide however, looked more like a student being broken in by the math or history lecture, making the motions of listening. Her spirit just wasn't in it. "Even then, I know we are not entirely suited for this task, but we are all our home has, and for the sake of our home, we will endure," Sif addressed Tomiko.

'We're it, Santô Hei.'

"Everyone, get some rest. Perhaps celebrate a little with the villagers. But be ready for tomorrow."

*****

The Morning After

"First and foremost, we will need to become familiar with what we are even capable of in order to properly use it," Sif began, pacing back and forward on top of the carriage's edge. As the others stood, Adelaide and Coco sat behind her, watching, while Titus stood of to the side, watching them like a hawk. "Now, it should be common knowledge that each and every single one of you is far stronger than the average man. Beca - "

"Now hold there!" the Legionnaire began. "I refuse to believe that, especially the little one," he pointed at Yuukito. Sif only smiled.

"Yuukito," the Mini-Neko began, pointing at the young woman. "Go pick him up off his feet," she ordered, then pointing to the fully armed and armored soldier.

The Morning After

Yuukito stood with her lips pursed and one cheek pushed slightly out to the side, like a child in the process of being sternly lectured by a teacher, rocking back and forth on her heels. When Titus interrupted and pointed a finger at her impotently, she blinked at him in surprise, then spread her lips wide to give him an immensely toothy, smug grin. Her face went back to a meek pout when Sif addressed her, nodding her head solemnly. "I'll do my best," she sighed, rolling up her sleeves and approaching Titus with a devilish glint in her eyes, before sweeping him up in a bear hug and lifting him with all her strength.

Sitting on a ramshackle pile of wood that had been a barrel before the events of the previous night, Bia reached a hand into the pail of water nestled between her ankles. Her fingers cupped some of the water and then shook it off in little raining globs along the blade of her sword. Wiping her fingers dry on her tunic the soldier retrieved the whetstone cached in the hammock of cloth above her thighs.

A steady rasp punctuated the movements of the woman's still blood flecked arms as she slowly reformed her weapon's shape. Listening - but not taking her eyes off her work - the Elysian followed the spirit, if not the method, of Sif's introduction to the how and what of their current situation.

Bare hands or bared blades - Bia had used both to "manage" more than just her own life.

One side of the soldier's mouth curled upwards as she listened to Titus's protest and then the squad's quick counter attack. In the pause between her whetstone grinding past the furthest edge of her sword and her arm resetting Bia's voice barked out.

"Brak 'is nose."

Mioshi looked up from where she sat, in complete meek politeness, on the rock. All towns had large rocks. This was known as the Town-To-Rock ratio. It held true here. There was a rock, of sufficient size so that Mioshi's butt, modest as it was, could sit upon the rock. She adorned the rock. She capped the rock like a rock-hat. And, much more importantly, she had been quietly playing her flute and playing with her magic.

So far she had only really moved a little bit of wind, subtly, and usually when nobody was watching. She was circumspect. There was something peculiar about the song that she was playing, too; it sounded vaguely familiar.

She stopped to watch the exchange.

"Don't break him," she gently warned. "I think he's cute."

"Picky 'bout lahks - heh." Bia snorted without turning her attention away from her task. Her fingers gently ghosted across the metal of the blade's edge - smears of grey residue trailing about lightly from the movements - slowly testing the progress the whetstone had been rendering. "Shine 'is ribs ah tad then. Hit'll make 'em 'member yah when'er he's makin' cyet an' smi's fer our piper."

Reaching down the woman drug her hand through and back out of her pail of water to sprinkle more water across the face of her weapon. Her tongue clicked against her teeth before she brought the whetstone back into her hand and the steady rasp of her work began again.

The young legionnaire looked down at Yuukito with a scow, and just as he opened his mouth to protest this absurdity, Mioshi beat him to it. Eyes wide as shades of rosy pink floated up to his cheeks, he found himself floating, fluttering off the ground. Titus then also realized he felt rather uncomfortable in his now constrictive armor. Looking at the source of his discomfort, he soon found himself being held aloft by the diminutive young woman, feet dangling in the air as she bear-hug hoisted him off the ground.

"You can put me down now," he coolly remarked.

"Ooooo! Sugoi!" Coco cheered. Popping deep fried corn kernels into her mouth, the little girl obnoxiously crunched them down, her mouth open as she shoved more of her breakfast in. "Do something else! Something else next!" the little handmaid insisted. When the Star Army scientist finally set him down though, the Mini-Neko hopped off of her carriage perch and onto the ground. Calmly stepping over to what her eyes had spotted, Sif reached at a sizable piece of wood many times her size. Without so much as a single grunt of exertion, she hoisted it up above her head and hurled it with herculean strength at the Legionnaire, who deftly caught it.

Of course, it was really just a stick.

"Now, the other thing to remember is that some of us are far more agile than others as well - that'd be Tomiko and Mioshi. Go poke Tomiko with your stick," the seven inch tall woman ordered him about. Looking at the alabaster white Neko, and ignoring the innuendo, she added, "And don't let him poke you. Just stand there and deflect. Or something. I don't know." With a sigh, Sif leaped back up to her spot on the carriage as the Legionnaire looked at the white skinned Neko with disbelief before jabbing at her. Sif however, turned her head like an auto-turret; smooth and without so much as a hint of life, she brought her attention on Bia next.

"Oi. Grandma. Why the funny accent?"

Yuukito giggled mischievously, smiling up at Titus, then gently set him back down again. She squeezed him before letting him go; a more genuine hug, before dancing away with a blush to stand by Bia's side, a silly smile on her face. The minkan giggled as she watched Sif heft a large stick and hurl it at Titus, enjoying revelling in her and her comrades' superhuman strength in the face of such primitives.

"Why'ah so damn shot?" Bia grumbled to herself in response to Sif's question before letting the whetstone slip from her fingers and drop to the ground. Setting her sword aside the woman looked to where Yuukito had - conveniently - just placed herself in reach. With a heavy sigh and a couple of wipes of her hands against the hem of her tunic the Elysian lifted herself to her feet.

Closing her eyes the soldier ducked her head and tch'd in annoyance before stepping forwards to be side-by-side with the minkan woman. The taller soldier suddenly had Bia's arm snaked around her shoulders and the distance between them was squashed into an early grave as Yuukito found herself being yanked out of place by a hug. The Elysian lightly bonked their heads together - despite keeping her face still pointed towards the ground.

The soldier paused for a moment, frozen in motion - and then peered up towards everyone. Sparkling eyes and a smile like no other, a hope-filled young woman was suddenly doing nothing more than broadcasting pure joy to everyone in the area.

"Wonderful-wise medical talent Bia Geromakhai aaaaaaat-" Bia's smile turned up a few gigawatts - the light reaching levels high enough to shine away the dirt and grime collected on her face - and her hand not anchoring her to Yuukito raised crispy and perfectly to execute a very non-regulation salute. "-ah-ten-tion!"

The Elysian snorted and let go of Yuukito. Reaching up the old soldier ruffled the minkan's short bob into a messy bird's nest of hair. "If ya' ge' ah 'art attack in'a nex' fyw minats I ain't no medic."

The minkan's eyes widened comically when she became aware of Bia's presence beside her, letting out a loud squeal of surprise as the Elysian pulled her into a hug, which she awkwardly returned with a blush. Bia could hug?! She gazed at her comrade with wide, confused eyes as she saluted, squeaking and wobbling off balance when she was released, then squealing again as her hair got all messed up by Bia's hand. Yuukito had a bright blush on her cheeks by the end of it all, nodding dazedly at Bia and carefully fixing her hair.

Werner merely watched the whole scene around him as it transpired. Physically, Werner was back to his original self, yet mentally he was still a tiny bit weary. He couldn't help but to look just as astonished as Titus. So far this planet had been nothing but a treacherous climb leading no where.

"Damn... maybe i'm not made for this. Damn planet" He looked towards Titus, "Yeah, we're kinda screwed aren't we Titus? Those girls are going to kill us..."

Then with a panic, Werner grabbed onto Titus's clothes, "Please don't leave me alone with them! I beg you!" He spoke, yanking him about back and forth with a wanton flurry and water eyes.

Training Day

Tomiko gasped and placed her hand over her mouth. Her cheeks turned bright red. "H-here in front of everyone? I.. I've never even been with a man before..." She said shyly. "He is quite handsome, I suppose... Please, Sir Titus, be gentle with me." It took a few seconds for her to register Sif's true meaning.

She sighed, straightened up and moved into position. "That does make more sense. I doubt you would order me to do anything fun." The sudden change in demeanor suggested that she was far less shy - and perhaps much more experienced with men - than what she had suggested. The pale-skinned Neko took up her staff and waited for the blow. She deftly deflected the blow, sending a light counterattack at his midsection. If she used all her strength she was afraid he might die or at least break a rib.