The Grand Battle S2G1! [Round Six: Eddelin City]

Originally posted on MSPA by Schazer.

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"Ugh, I don't see why you have to be so petulant about this," snapped the maid. "My abilities might've been green at the time - so to speak - but you quite clearly wouldn't have cared that much if I co-opted you out of this mess. I'm doing you a favour, and you even get to keep your precious freedom of thought." Her eyes narrowed. "What's changed, Xadrez? Tell me."

If you want to avoid words as empty as you purport mine to be keep your viridian tongue out of this, growled Xadrez.

The situation remains much the same

merely reality and its catching up with what promised to be my one truly powerful ally

commandeered as it is by an aggrandisingly rational lunatic its reliability has been disproved once enough


My priority

to which I would shirk the as agreed not unpleasant task of serving you is this battle

I want not its conclusion

before you rain green hell over my companions and declare it a day

but its termination

in that sense I was indebted to the observer and his ilk long before I met you

Kath rapped at the foot of her throne, either feigning disinterest or calculating. "That's most discourteous, not to mention disingenuous, of you to force your debts upon your liege."

You would not be queen the throne would not be yours had the observer not seen fit to choose your city to fall to our ministrations

to assume i would after all this deign to place myself even further less implicitly in your debt

that is disingenuous

Something gelatinous and green squirmed its way out of a headlock, and scrabbled up the side of a violently obliging tree. It hissed once at Kath, before slinking to her side with its head lowered. She performed a particularly exquisite slouch, petting the creature absently. "Would you at least work on the attitude problem when everything's squared away?"

Xadrez fought the impulse to not express his anger physically. You're not even listening

"And you're not even looking beyond seeing your precious Grandmastheads or whatever dead." Kath studied that implacable face, her curiosity somehow more unnerving than anything the Ovoid had subjected him to. "Does it really mean that much to you?"

The tactician stared across the barely-restrained anarchy which was Battleopolis' Central Park. His eyes narrowed imperceptibly in dismay, as he scrabbled for patterns or logic to distract him.

None of it mattered. Whatever Jen and Arkal and the Awakened were arguing about was above some sparkling emerald surface. The green suffusing Xadrez was deadening and deafening. He could've reached out, shoved at the fragile bubble's edge - sent beige and green all crashing together so he could slip through the gaps, and rejoin the red and the blue and the sense and the violence.

It is all I have left, he eventually admitted, lowering his hand.

once they die I finally

after all that time awaiting scouts return watching her cloak fall to tatters bearing as best as I could the last vestiges of a dead duotheons order hoping against hope that everything would come right

once they die their quick just and merciful execution as retribution for my suffering

a whole torturous lifetime of it watching my world die with me my heart in perfect tandem no slower and no faster awash with doubt that it was my responsibility that it wasnt beyond me to make it all right again

Xadrez realised he was shaking and his thoughts were getting ahead of him, roughly in that order. The Queen hadn't moved, but the spirit felt the confusing impressions of her hand on his shoulder, her swoard at his throat, and her mind in the back of his eyes.

your highness

Xadrez didn't seem to know how to proceed. He sighed, or perhaps acquiesced and gasped only on water.

please

I need you to find the bio wyrm

she is like you not a contestant in this battle and under such contract you may be able to guide her home

Kath blinked, hoping whatever had given the World Tree in Battleopolis a solid smack (Redclaw hurling a cornered Hunterbot across the park, as it turned out) covered her surprise at Xadrez' request. She smiled a little, radiant enough for the green patina which separated dreams and reality to silently crack.

"Forever business, hmm, Xadrez?"

Elsewhere from Elsewhere, Jen reeled, and chanced a look up into the World Tree's boughs. The unicorn perched there, with all the statuesque smugness of a cat.

"Fuck." Perching was about as un-unicornly a pose as a creature could make. "That's the thing from my dreams," she explained to Arkal, who was gracious enough to parse that it wasn't a good thing. A lesser Rar might've snorted, or rolled however many eyes he had up to the task. Being the real deal, Konka Rar instead muttered a final suffix he'd been sitting on - it scribed a bruise-coloured spiral rapidly around him, shoving the crowd aside and giving him a little more room to work with.

Only a few fights struggled on in the park, each vendetta ringed by gawkers and hawkers. Emily barged her way around the crowd circling Whit and Zeke (mostly consisting of Whit's silver tongue stalling for time), confusion melting away as she confronted one problem she knew how to solve.

"You."

The lich studied the furious priestess with disdain, then motioned to one of the dinosaurs. "You."

"Triumphian, m'lord."

"Yes, you. Take care of that one."

Rar's satisfaction took a bit of a hit when his "cleric-on-cleric" style of ironic minion-pitching didn't end in explosive futility. Holy mages, he sighed to himself. At least he had no shortage of dead to raise, if he could only get a moment in edgeways.

The beast in the tree pricked its crests, sprung from its roost, and bounced smartly off a low branch that hadn't been there moments prior. It stuck a landing right between Alex and a cryomancer fleeing in terror, and apparently had kept enough sense of self to backhand the fire mage aside.

John cowered behind the splintery remnants of a Dorukardia. He whimpered as the Tender galloped off into the no-man's land.

---

"Now, say it again."

Xadrez almost sighed, noticing at that point Kath held no chess piece. He restrained himself to a sneering inflection.

To what end

if this is as I suspect my chattels mind you have misappropriated to reach me then my admission hardly twists any knives

she assumes I brought her back purely to control her

and I have no attachment to her beyond her existence maintaining the continuation of this battle

The tactician tensed, as though testing invisible bonds, then straightened. He seemed most sure of himself since Kath had arrived, though that was merely, perhaps, his inability to mope over playing a forced move. It almost dispelled the memory of the queen grappling his emotions to the ground only moments prior, repressed as they were-

If you wish this partnerships opening with even an ounce of goodwill you will cease toying with me, snarled the ghost. His unexpected venom startled the maid, but not as much as when he bowed as deeply as his anatomy would allow.

Let my errant former majesty the stage bear witness to this instead

If I live to see the grandmasters fall

then I will queen katherine fall in turn appeased and gracious into your ranks as your general

and not an omnipotent devils corpse sooner

The tactician was loath to call every dodgy move he made a gambit, the word holding something close to religious connotations for him, but felt a comfortingly familiar thrill as he toed the line of prankster's goading and solemn ceremony. Kath's whip bit his face, the spirit flinching only out of sardonic obligation.

"You've got a deal, then. Of course," the maid smirked, "you still gave no good reason why I shouldn't deal with the little surface-whelp. You know, for our mutual benefit."

The spirit tested the air - a task made harder without the knife in hand, but dealings with the Ovoid gave you a feel to what degrees one might be in various places. Movement round the base of the tree had melted into indistinct flickers.

Tell me

where has that green steed of yours wandered

"I made it fetch the worm, like you begged me," retorted Kath. "Why?"

Xadrez' eyes narrowed, barely enough to betray his mouthless little smile.

no reason whatsoever