In the forest that surrounds Mt Morte on the boundaries of what Abi would consider hers, King Aldus' army has set up a base camp and is preparing to lay siege to its next enemy. Little do the soldiers know that four high-levelled Assassins and a very sneaky, purple-haired Dragon girl, carrying an extremely adorable bear cub with her, have just snuck their way inside the King's tent through use of the shadows.
Light is nodding to himself, pleased with his application of Light magic on the candles that light up the large tent. Noir raises an eyebrow Light's way before shaking his head. Dum and Dee watch the two make facial expressions at each other for longer than they should until someone's voice grabs everyone's attention.
"What are you doing, stupids? Stop death-staring each other and do what you're supposed to do." Violet and her cub are standing next to the Assassins as they all throw puzzled looks her way until she's had enough. "Are you just going to stand there, or what?"
"Yes. Are you?" Another voice, this time deeper calls out from further inside the tent. Making his way through the drapes that hang to conceal his sleeping area, Kind Aldus steps into the larger compartment. He is only wearing a pair of white-silk pants, but his figure is still imposing. Each Assassin feels it. The force of domination. The type that comes with being a ruler.
His hair is the colour of gold and reaches his shoulders. Clearly he wasn't expecting company and it looks as though he may have even been sleeping.
"It wasn't that good," Noir eventually breaks the silence. Instead of answering the king, however, his statement is aimed at Light.
"How can you not see the benefits to controlling Light as well as Dark. It's like... the ultimate combo." Once again, Light is left defending his life choices against the opinion of another.
"Aren't we what?" Dum is the only one to respond to King Aldur, who then locks his red eyes on the Assassin and activates a skill.
"What?" Dee asks his partner. "That didn't even make sense, Dum. Why do you always say stupid shit?"
"What? I thought he said 'aren't you?'" Dum breaks eye contact with the King, much to the Royal's surprise and begins bickering with his partner instead.
"He said, 'Are you?'" Dee corrects him.
"Why would he say 'Are you?' Aren't you just makes more sense." Dum rebuts.
"Aren't you what,' doesn't though!" Dee pinches the bridge of his nose as he already knows he's not going to win this argument.
"It does when you think about it." Dum laughs, not phased in the slightest that he misunderstood the King, or if he is, he doesn't show it.
"No. It does when you think about it. No one else, Dum. No one else." Beside Dum and Dee, both Light and Noir have stepped it up a little and are now brandishing weapons. However, instead of aiming their blades at the King, they're both pointed at each other like in a contest of dicks.
"I could take you any day, you know? I'm over level 100 in my main class now." Light boasts his recent success to Noir as the redhead's face can't quite hide his jealousy.
"Don't be ridiculous. That's only because Master summoned you first. If we were summoned together, I would be much stronger than you." Noir argues back as best he can.
"In your dreams. You could never hope to be as strong as I am. You're not even a Master Assassin yet," the blue-haired Assassin laughs. Taking delight in his rival's misery.
"You have no idea what I'm capable of. I could take you right now, Master Wizard bullshit or not. I'll kick your ass whenever." Noir is ready to go, and a heavy, red aura washes over the tent. Light doesn't back down though and instead forces his own blue aura back at Noir as both men fight for dominance in the middle of the spacious tent.
"See. This is why I said it should have been just us," Dum tells Dee as they watch the two forces of nature collide against each other. Red vs blue in a battle to determine who's stronger. Their own bickering finished when they felt Noir's aura spread out.
"No. This is why I said they should have come on their own. I didn't even want to come, but when do I ever get a say in matters?" Until Dee disagrees with his partner again and decides to take a seat in one of the surrounding chairs feeling defeated, that is.
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"Why wouldn't you want to come? This is where we can prove ourselves to our Master."
Violet sits down next to Dee with a plate of food she has managed to acquire from... somewhere? As she feeds her bear cub, the Dragon loli looks at the four men still arguing and shakes her head. "You lot are fucking wild, you know?"
Her words give everyone pause, even King Aldor has to take a second glance, as they take a moment to gawp at the child feeding her bear cub before resuming their arguments. The King himself is rubbing his temples and looks extremely irritated.
Just as the Royal guards are about to burst through the flap of the King's tent, Light fires a wave of Shadows at Noir. The Assassin deflected it and sent the wave cascading out of the entrance along with the King's men.
"What was that? I thought you were the strongest?" Noir goads Light into unleashing a second wave of shadows, washing away a second group of guards that had been trying to enter the tent.
"That was the weakest Shadow Wave I could conjure. Even Dum could have stopped that one." Light plays down the other Assassin's bragging, catching another's attention in the process.
"Hey! I resent your implication of inferiority," Dum pouts, but none of the other Assassins pay him any attention. Both are still locked onto each other until a third aura joins the power play and pushes them back.
"What the hell? Who said you could join the party?" Noir scowls at King Aldus as he and Light jump back. It's safe to say that at this point, not a single Assassin has remembered why they were sent to the King in the first place. Light's pretty confident that it was something to do with determining strength though.
"This is my tent!" King Aldus yells in annoyance, his aura swelling up inside as black lines streak through the available air. "This is my camp," He points a finger at Noir and shouts "Kneel!"
Everyone waits to see what will happen with bated breath as Violet fed the bear cub her leftovers. The crunching and chewing is the only noise present. Until Noir finally breaks the silence. Looking back and forth between the King and Light, he asks the latter, "Is he serious?"
The colour of the King's face almost matches that of his eyes as he flushes a deep red from embarrassment. A hole in the fabric of reality tears beside him and from within he pulls out a long sword that oozes evil intent.
"That was different," Light comments. The way the King had made his blade appear had an uncanny resemblance to how the Assassins store and retrieve their own weapons.
"It's time to get serious." Noir starts laughing until a plate of leftovers hits him on the head.
"Are you dumb?" Violet yells. Sensing the danger from the other side of the tent.
"No I'm Dum," Tweedledum answers her with a smile.
"She meant dumb, Dum," Tweedledee shakes his head.
"Yeah, that's me," his partner smiles.
"Dum with a b. You're just plain-old Dum." Only to frown straight after.
"What are you trying to say?" He asks, sporting a sadder tone than before.
"I've had enough of your foolery. You dare come here and mock me?" King Aldus starts pacing forward, furious at the lack of respect he has been shown by the people he believes to be Assassins. He's angry that he doesn't even know they're not people-people. At least he got the Assassin part right though. Also, Violet has little horns that stick out just above her temples. In the King's rage, he seems to have just overlooked that fact completely.
"We didn't come here to mock you," Light shouts at the King before disappearing into a shadow, throwing the Demon-possessed man off his stride for a second.
"As much as I hate to agree with him, Light's right. We've barely even spoken to you since arriving." Noir also drops into his own shadow, leaving only Dum, Dee and Violet for the King to march on.
"Where do you think you're going?" King Aldus suddenly breaks into a run as he's now possessed by more than just a Demon. An infuriating rage that he can't quite quell is overflowing from the King and it carries him forward, closing the distance between him and his tormentors in mere moments.
"Oh shit." Dee stands up holding onto Violet's arm and immediately drops into his own shadow. Dum, who wasn't even facing his enemy, only just manages to dodge the King's attack by a hair's breadth before leaping away.
King Aldus doesn't give him a chance to land however and is upon him again in the blink of an eye. With lightning-fast speed he brings his sword around in a wide arc, aiming to slice the airborne Assassin in half. His anger is driven past the point of no return in the next moment as his attack is parried by the stupid man sporting the goofy smile.
"Phew. That was close," Dum chuckles. Still smiling and not showing a hint of fear, as though he hadn't almost died then and there. Although he knows that another moment later and his daggers wouldn't have been able to deflect the King's blow.
"Hey, you're quite strong. Why don't you come and work for my master?" Dum smiles so hard that he has to stop himself from laughing. The King however is not amused.
"Are you fucking joking me! You little piece of..." King Aldus lost it. He didn't even get to finish his sentence as Dum began disappearing into the shadows still sporting the same dumb smile.
Unwilling to let the would-be clowns make a fool of him, the enraged King launched one last attack at the annoying Assassin as he fled. The thrown-blade inflicted a shallow cut on Dum's arm and the King activated his curse just before his assailant left.
Once the Assassins were gone, the tent was silent save for King Aldus' ragged breath. He had been ignored, directed and belittled by the would-be Assassins. Even though none of them made a single attempt on his life and if anything seemed more intent on fighting each other than him, Aldus the Fourth knew they were his enemies. Strange as they were. Stranger yet was the little girl who had been carrying the bear cub.
King Aldus wondered if she was their master as one of his troops slowly entered the tent. After two failed attempts and an enraged King, the men outside had drawn straws to see who would be the next to enter. Sadly, the method always has a loser and the poor sap that had just entered was in for a nightmare. With no one else to vent his fury on, the Demon King was sure to take it out on the next person he saw.