“My friend! You yet live on!”

The Icaraz soldiers were in a frenzy. Fogwarth strolled in, Scrappy on his shoulder with fists raised high and Ak-Lok close on his heel, bow drawn and ready. There was little time for a reunion party, but we spared brief smiles between one another anyway. With a nod of affirmation between us the two slipped fully in the crate. Outside more stones and debris were thrown at the king, who met their assault with bolstering laughter.

Foghurdt had stomped off of the stage, humiliated and full of unbridled rage that I could feel even from this far away. The speaker tried to call the crowd, but it was too late; they had been patient enough and now they wanted blood.

“Are you injured, sir berry?” Foggy said, reaching in his pouch and retrieving my obsidian runesword, which I happily accepted. “Has the Soul Veil tapped your strength?”

I shook my head. “No. No, I’m alright. But Aspenoc and your dad are in deep shit.”

“Yes, I see as much. Here, use your sword to free the elder. Obsidian negates the effect of Soul Veil. Free our dear Oracle. Fogwen and what troops we could save will flank from the far side in an ambush. There is… there is no sign of my other siblings, I am afraid,” Fogwarth muttered, retrieving his own weapons from his storage and preparing himself. His arm had healed, though he moved it carefully as if still injured.

“Coming,” groaned Ak, signaling to the unseen distance. “Must hurry.”

I moved quickly to Aspenoc, who laid down and put his arms out in front of him. While the soldiers were still distracted, I lifted my blade in two hands, the tip facing the earth, and plunged it down as if I was shoving Excalibur back into its stone. I lifted and dropped it again and again, concerned about my sword but equally as concerned about the noise. Six strikes later and the link snapped, allowed me to move on to his legs. This time I only needed four strikes to sever the bond, and the blue chains slid off of his limbs like limp eels.

Relief seemed to wash the old man in the first moment that he was free. He gave his thanks, and we quickly moved on from the cell, just as a rain of glowing javelins began to descend from the sky over the rear troops.

Dozens, maybe even more, fell in a radiant blizzard and hit the ground with an explosion of dirt and blood. The rear ranks screamed, their surrounding allies lost and helpless in the confusion of it all while others out of range must have assumed it was part of the growing riots. From the distance came a flurry of follow up arrows, sailing through the air as if guided by some kind of magical force and raining down on the far contingent, immobilizing the rear and left units in an instance.

Fogwen was a lot of things, like an asshole, but she was ruthless and effective. Had to give her props for it.

“We must flee from this place,” Aspenoc said, pointing to the distance. “There is a hidden place, a place of ruins and bones, where fate requires us. My power is returning, and we must move while we have the chance.”

We were outside now, but Fogwarth had finally noticed it all. He had put it together, and he and Foghurdt shared a long, uncomfortable glare. The heaving, rage-filled [Gladiator Moth] opened his mouth and roared his disdain, charging forward with enormous, curved swords raised.

At this point it was total fucking chaos.

Aspenoc tried to get us to go, to move on to whatever weird bone place he was talking about. But, despite how badly I wanted out of this place, I couldn’t do it. I had to see my plan through, even if I was conflicted.

I reached in to Fogwarth’s [Pouch of Storage] and retrieved what I needed to before we pressed forward to meet Foghurdt, then I turned to Ak-Lok.

“Can you get me to that stage?” I said, pointing to the king. “Or at least close to it?”

Ak-Lok nodded, and we began to move together around the ensuing battle between remaining Mothric guards and Icaraz soldiers. Beside us, Fogwarth clanged pearl sword on pearl shield, stomping to meet his traitor brother. I watched as he activated his charge ability again and carved a path, ripping up dirt and grass before clashing swords with Foghurdt. We needed to move quickly, but I promised myself I would return to help Fogwarth as fast as I could. He just needed to hold his own for a little bit.

“What in the name of the Gods are you doing?!” Aspenoc shouted behind us. “We must flee!”

“Scrappy, go with the old guy,” I ordered, parting ways with the orchid. He pumped his tiny fists, ready for battle, and headed back toward Aspenoc. “Go, old man! Find other survivors! We’ll come back for you!”

Picking up the pace, Ak and I moved to circle the main combat. Keeping outside of the battle perimeter, we shifted around the flank where moth met bee in a tsunami of swords and spears. It was a blood bath. Neither side gave an inch, with Fogwen raining down glowing spears while mowing down forces around her followed by a bee mages countering with glowing barriers and counter assaults of hurled flame or glowing purple masses of energy. Some of the Mothric guards had skills of their own, a few briefly doubling in size and others creating temporary illusionary duplicates of themselves. The bee soldiers seemed entirely physical with abilities increasing their speed or similar charge skills like Fogwarth had.

I wanted to study the fighting further just to see what we were up against, but we had to keep going. I clutched my obsidian blade, feeling comforted at having it returned, and focused on the task before us.

Ak fired off an imbued shot, taking down a descending bee who broke rank to pursue us. Two more followed, and I brought out a sunflower to blast one from the sky while Ak finished off the other. The paralyzed bee crashed into the earth, and a moment later it was met with another arrow that was quickly retrieved as we ran by; Ak seemed intent not to run out this time around.

The stage was closing in on us as we rushed onward. The speaker was desperately trying to order surrounding troops to protect the grotesque Queen, and I used his distraction to our advantage once we closed in further. I cast my rose-hips on the speaker bee, locking it in place just in time for a frost-fire arrow to blast the fucker, catching it off guard. It screamed in pain and anger, giving me the moment I needed to toss my trump card right under the stage.

A worthless, shriveled mushroom courtesy of Foggy’s pouch.

With only a thought, the mushroom began its summoning process right under the stage, and I moved around behind the king for the next phase of my plan. Ak-Lok managed to land another arrow on the speaker, along with an orb of frost-fire, before my rose-hip skill wore off. The speaker was a tough bastard as only his robe had been damaged while he showed little signs of any lasting wounds.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

But, I expected that.

The ground rumbled like a stampede of wildebeest on their way to trample Mufasa. From my hidden vantage I could see the mushroom dig into the earth, growing and expanding as Goomba shouted some shit about being erect before bursting through the shotty stage in a fountain spray of wood debris. The force sent the speaker into the air, crash landing just before the giant mushroom. Ak-Lol shifted focus and began routinely taking down the soldiers who buzzed over to see what was up with the giant mushroom house that just exploded up from seemingly nowhere.

“What? What is this place? Where am I?” Goomba shouted, his broad cap moving back and forth. “Certainly a great deal of the wasps in this region. Is that foul witch of a Queen still leading them?” Goomba shifted more, turning to see the Queen beside him. She sat quietly, transfixed on the situation while pouring from her throne like microwaved pudding. “Oh my! The years have not been kind, Gialda! My word!”

“It… it is you…” she crooned again as battle raged all around us. “Our lord Juniperscar’s disciple… returned to us in our hour of triumph…”

Goomba served his purpose well, distracting the enemy while setting the stage off-balance. Slowly, the support beams that held up the king buckled and cracked, straining as the weight of the big eyeball bat thing pulled it backward. The king seemed stunned by the events, but mostly stunned at the appearance of the gigantic mushroom that burst up right in front of him.

“King! Hey!” I shouted up to gain his attention. “I need you to lean back! You have to break those posts so I can get to you! Come on! A little hustle here!”

The king snapped himself out of it, noticing me with his rear eyes and then squirming to shift his weight around. The pillars screamed and splintered, no longer able to restrain the monster that had held and now were giving in to its weight. A second or two later the first pillar gave in, snapping in half and letting gravity handle the rest. Without the assisted support the other was quick to follow, and the king was sent down to the ground, nearly squashing my berry body in the process.

“Hold on!” I shouted as the king groaned from the impact.

With my obsidian blade held firm I began hacking at the chains one by one. Unlike Aspenoc, the king had been heavily bound with multiple lengths of chains wrapping its wings. I smashed at the links, feeling the damage I was doing to my sword but knowing this was too important to give up on. The first link broke and I carefully used the sword tip to pull away at one length of chain before moving on to another.

The speaker had regained himself but was, for some reason, kneeling and praising Goomba. Whatever, worked for me. Ak was beginning to get swarmed as the soldiers began taking notice of his presence. The Golem backstepped, dodging incoming spear thrusts as it countered with arrows and orbs. I briefly pulled away from my work to cast [Entangling Rose-Hip] on a bee that was fighting Ak from the ground, and then used another [Sunflower Beam Cannon] to temporarily paralyze a flying foe. This gave Ak a brief edge against the swarm, but I couldn’t waste any more time and needed to finish my work.

I watched the endless stream of notifications come and go as I worked.

“Hurry… little berry,” the king groaned. “I can feel some measure of power returning…”

“Working on it!” I answered, smashing another length and finally moving on to the other wing.

“You know, they are not wrong… the things they say about our kind,” the king said as I chopped chain like a metal lumberjack. I raised a berry brow but couldn’t spare it an answer. “Selfish… greedy… They are correct assessments. It is why… Why we do not live long in this world…”

“The hell are you talking about, eyeballs?” I said, picking up the pace and moving onto the last bit of chain. I could already see the king gaining some mobility back.

“Our people live for conquest and the pursuit of power…” he continued. “I did not want to believe it when I arrived. I wanted to show this world that we could live together and obtain mutual goals… and yet, I failed. I have done horrible things here, Barry. Acts which I felt were justified. Atrocities I believed would benefit this world. I… I was wrong, Barry. I have doomed Palea and her people, and in the end… I did it all for myself…”

The last bit of chain snapped under my sword strike and I slid it away from the king. I took a glance at my sword, wincing as I saw the chipped and dulled edges of the once magnificent weapon.

“Look, I-“

“Do you not understand, Barry?” The king interrupted. “I established a New Order in this world. I traded their Tears For Fears. Do you not see?”

I scowled at the king as he rose up, flapping his bleeding wings and barely managing to stay airborne. “Hey, hold on. Are you… are you like me? Are you Resurfaced?”

The king laughed a low, slumbering laugh. “When you feel alone in this world, simply follow the music, Barry. It is what unites our people. Remain in the shadows… trust few… but remember the music.”

Suddenly the king shot up into the air, his maniacal laughter sending shockwaves over the battlefield. The tide of the fight seemed to ripple and shift, the main forces suddenly pulling away from Fogwen’s unit to go after the howling king. Even some that were flanking Ak had shifted their attention to the soaring eyeball bat thing as if careened overhead.

One moment there was chaos, and in the next there was only annihilating.

Blood red, sparking energy coalesced from the king’s main center eye, bending the light around it like the immense heat of a bonfire. It took a mere second. A single blink of time. One moment a contingent of a dozen bees were flying upwards toward the king, and in the next a beam of undeniable power ripped forth and utterly disintegrated the entire team of pursuers like they were little more than scrap paper to a fire. The crimson beam smashed into the earth and left a charred crater in its wake, decimating what bees could not escape its point of impact in time.

“Y-You! You!” Goomba shouted as he bent upward toward the sky. “How can this be?! You cannot be alive! No!”

“Yes…” Gialda answered beside him, slowly raising herself into the air with a machine gun flap of her tiny wings. “He lives… Disciple. Betrayed of Juniperscar… slayer of Lords… He has survived… and thrived.”

Gialda, by some fucked up defiance of physics, flew skyward at a speed that just seemed flat out wrong and went in pursuit of the king. The two royals clashed in mid air, raging red energy meeting a sparking green barrier. The king summoned a dozen orbs of raw, scarlet power that flew forward to meet the Queen, and she matched them with orbs of dazzling emerald that enveloped them then exploded on contact. The two exchanged abilities overhead as bees continue to move in pursuit of the king.

But their numbers were finally dwindling.

I quickly scurried up the ruined remains of the stage and got on top of Goomba’s cap to better survey the scene. Fogwen was holding her own, taking down soldiers while fending off two of the larger, scorpion bees all on her own. Ak was down to his last foe and was changing his targets to include some of Fogwen’s overflow of enemies. Yet the real battle that drew my attention was raging back by the cage crate I had been held in.

Fogwarth was on his heel, shield raised to take the smashing blows of his much larger brother. Foghurdt had two hands on one massive sword and two on another, raining down hits that slid Fogwarth back with each strike. Foggy would attempt a parry, only to be overpowered and fall back on the defensive. An earthen barrier sprung up but was instantly smashed by his brother, followed by a ripple of his ground spikes that were shrugged off as child’s play.

I had to get down there, and just when I began to move I saw a sight that caused my stomach to drop. Foggy’s defense gave out, his shield fell, and the massive scimitar met his armor head on, sending him down into the earth. I watched in horror as Foghurdt laughed, raising a blade over his head to finish this fight.

Something boiled in my guts. The rage seemed endless, like a pool of magma that had began to overflow. I couldn’t fight it off any longer. And so, I didn’t. I let the anger consume me.

[Warning: Mutagen activated. Pantherathropy found. Tigris-strain found. Mutagen activation commencing]