image [https://imgur.com/NX2hBPY.jpg]

The demon monster that trudged out through the pentagram finally prowled fully into view. Its lion-like head let out a loud roar, signaling its willingness to battle. The sheer strength of its voice pierced through our ears and caused us to cover our delicate receptors of sound.

-Warning! Demon Threat Sighted! IFF tags active!-

-Tarasque demon identified-

-Tarasque demon tagged; Foe-

-Tall demons tagged; Foe-

-The Actor tagged; Foe-

-Melpomene tagged; Friendly-

-Wasps tagged; Friendly-

Everyone’s been identified by my IFF system. I was especially nervous about that terrifying lion tortoise beast dubbed a Tarasque. He looked really strong!

Mella was looking nervous too, but courageously summoned a pack of spirit wolves to stand by her side. Blue lightning crackled all around them. An especially small one looked at me and whimpered.

I recognized these wolves, they were the ones that protected me back in the valley. I’m sure they had a bone to pick with demons, especially since they died to one.

Looks like we were all in demonic danger once again. If we didn’t stop the Actor's plans, he'd blot out the sun. That can't happen.

Knowing this would get bad, I activated my combat mode.

-Combat mode active!-

-Combat hud active!-

-Warning! Combat efficiency at 30%! Fleeing is advised-

Combat hud…what’s this? Some information appeared in my field of view.

I saw a horizontal spear shape in the upper right hand corner of my FOV. Under the icon of the spear, I saw a status bar below it. That was how much stardust energy the spear had left before it would break.

THANK GOD! I thought I’d have to eyeball how much stardust these weapons would have left in them. Knowing the durability meant I could fight a lot more efficiently. I'm assuming I could see this now because I was able to appraise weapons.

In my equipment screen, I set my armour to the Nazalian Battle Armour, since it currently had a slightly higher attack and defense bonus then my Eight Star Battle Armour. My pirate hat disappeared along with it, causing Samael to swap positions on my head. Thanks to him coiling up in a different spot then normal, I had a really big pony tail of hair flowing behind me. That'd probably keep the hair out of my face in during the fight, just like during training.

There was a spot to apply a weapon too. I already had my spear in that slot. With its stardust power, it'd be the best weapon to take down these demons.

I held it forward, gripping it tightly. I used this spear before, I could do it again.

RAAWR!

The Tarasque let out a cry and charged at us, rallying his forces of tall demons to flail forth along with him.

Wasps flew in to engage, striking the beast, but not even chipping its hard shell!

TINK!

Mella’s wolves also galloped in like quick bolts of lightning to intercept the tall demons. They chomped on their elongated arms, trying to tear them apart.

Some of the wolves were easily flipped and tossed right off the tower, but they’d turn into pure electricity, strike the sky, and return as bolts of lightning.

Mella personally joined the fray by manipulating large amounts of mana from the energy beam, using it to strike the demons with enormous quantities of magical energy. It hardly left a dent on them, but it was holding them back.

I was about to jump in myself, but then I second guessed my abilities. Was 30% fighting strength enough? I hardly felt capable enough to jump in without my full strength, especially against such scary looking demons.

just standing there made me feel completely useless. Everyone was fighting and doing their best, but I was just a bystander, cowering from her lack of confidence.

“This is entertaining,” The Actor said, observing the fight like me. “Are you enjoying the show?”

How could he compare a life or death battle to a television show? So much was at risk, and this was all one big play for him.

I didn’t even feel justified to respond. He was a bad guy, and talking too much with him would inflate his ego. But then again, not talking at all was making me feel really nervous.

“No!” I shouted back. “This show stinks and you’re a bad director! Zero stars!”

“Gah!” he threw his hands over where his ears would be under his hood. “A critic! You’re never too young, I suppose.”

Despite his reaction, he didn’t seem to be taking my bad review very hard.

“How about we add a little suspense?” He snapped his finger, then pointed to me. “Beast of Hell, unleash your special effects! Breath flames of the purple underworld!”

The Tarasque’s jaws started to part like it was taking in a deep breath of air, then its inner throat quickly turned bright purple.

Noxious, flaming liquid splashed from its mouth! There wasn’t any time to escape!

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SPLOOSH!

Flames of purple spread all around the battlefield. I felt the burning of acid sizzle away at my armour and skin, causing my movements to slow until I felt sick.

As the flames stopped, I was dripping with toxic liquid.

-Advisory! Poison Immunity Discovered-

I might have been immune to poison, but I sure felt the pain of that attack. It really hurt a lot!

Mella was on the ground, barely protected by a bubble of mana, also looking very sick. Most of the lightning wolves were vanquished by the poison flames, but it looked like my wasps were okay.

“Little One!” Mella grunted out. “You survived that?!”

“Yeah, but it hurt...” I shook off the awful toxic sludge around me. “What about you?”

She had poison magic, which was why her eyes were purple, so I expected her to be more resilient. But that poison breath was really putting her out of commission. Maybe it would have killed her if she’d been any weaker. To be honest, I wasn’t sure why she hadn’t used her own poison powers here yet.

Some of the wasps retreated back to me after many failed attempts to chip away at the Tarasque’s shell.

“Young Mistress,” The robotic voice of a wasp spoke over the radio. “We advise you to retreat from combat.”

“Negative.” I replied over the radio as well. “We need to hit that demon with stardust power to bring him down.”

I don’t think these wasps had access to stardust. That would explain why they were struggling against the dark pirates in the final hallway. Maybe we could look into upgrades later, but until then they needed me for that part.

“You’ll need me to deal the finishing blow!” I said.

Assessing the situation, the wasp concluded I was correct.

“By your command.”

I was given full control of the wasps in this fight. That would have to make up for my lack of combat efficiency.

Let’s see…how do I do this? I’m not sure I understand how to give orders.

Not much time to figure it out. I’d just have to roll with it the best I could.

If Mr. Actor's life was a television show, mine was a video game. And in my short seven year journey of life, I’d played plenty of different genres about leading people, one of my favourites were RTS, or real time strategy.

A layout of the battle field opened up in my head, it sectioned off everything in a hexagon grid, and every unit had unique icons, including me.

The only units I could commandeer were the wasps and myself. I could move them around at will, like moving pieces on a chess board.

Uncle was always fond of having the wasps flank the enemy, then he’d rush down the open center and attack directly. I’d have to give that a shot!

“All units!” I announced, gaining their attention. “Flank maneuver!”

“Affirmative! Engaging in flanking maneuver.”

The wasps flew around to surround Tarasque, punching a hole through the tall demons, but their attacks weren't doing anything to the demon beast. The tall demons turned around and started swatting at the wasps.

With a whip of its tail, the Tarasque smashed one of the wasps and it came crashing down in a big explosion.

I don't think I made the right call here...the wasps couldn't quickly defeat the Tarasque because it had a high defense. We needed to focus on the tall demons first, they were the priority threat, since they could just pick us off while we failed to crack that shell.

I ordered the wasps to circle around the remaining tall demons.

After a quick breath I finally joined the battle. The Spear of Destiny raised up, and I ran straight in to stab one of the lengthy demons in his glowing red heart.

Swing swing went his long arms! He tried to fight me off, but I was speedy and the wasps covered my attack.

Slipping my spear past his defense, the crystal tip sank right into his chest!

“Reeeee!” The tall demon let out a horrible screech of pain, flailing around and exploding into dark energy and ash!

We set up a similar attack to the last few remaining tall guys, Mella joined in by having her wolves hold down the long arms of the demons. Before long, it was just us and the Tarasque left.

None of the wasps attacks would break the shell of the Tarasque, no matter how much laser fire or slashes with their stingers they peppered it with. His skin was hard as stone, and his shell was even stronger than that.

I rushed in and struck his skin with my spear, but it couldn’t pierce through. It didn’t even look like I scratched him.

The Tarasque whipped his tail around, hitting me hard.

All that momentum from his tail swing sent me right up into the air. My wings flared out I caught myself. My spear got knocked away in the hit, falling off the tower.

Respawning the spear, I flew down, darting right back on top of the Tarasque’s shell!

PING!

The tip of the spear crashed down on his shell, cracking and breaking the weapon on the hard surface. A sudden wave of electromagnetic energy radiated out and pushed us all back. I wasted more stardust energy regenerating the weapon. There wasn’t much stardust left in me, especially since it was getting much darker outside by the second.

Without the sun to give me energy, this power was only going to get less effective.

I flew backwards to evade a retaliation from the Tarasque. His tail just barely missed me.

Spinning back forward, he turned around to face me and sent another breath attack my way.

I flew up to evade. His head followed me, continuing to bathe the air in toxic purple fire.

Soft tissue in his mouth was exposed when the breath attack died down. He might have been hard as a rock on the outside, but squishy on the inside.

In a split second, I dove my spear down to take advantage of the weak point.

Just as my spear entered his mouth, he chomped down on it and broke it in half!

CRACK!

A small explosion of electromagnetic energy sent crystal shrapnel across the roof and down his throat.

I recovered a bit away from him, repairing the spear with new stardust energy.

My attack was too slow just then. I’d need to move faster if I wanted to hit his mouth.

The Tarasque was frantically spitting out the stardust left in his mouth. Black smog was rising out of him like a dragon about to breathe fire. That was proof that my plan could work.

Perhaps the wasps could somehow get his mouth open for me? If they could, I’d be able to jam the spear in and do some serious damage.

“Can you guys get his mouth open?” I asked over the radio comms.

“Analyzing target…yes. We will attempt to open his mouth.”

Good. Now I had to put trust in them.

Over the course of a minute, they had a lot of trial and error with trying to figure out how to manage that. Some would fly in close, but the Tarasque preferred to swat them away. I flew in to support them a little with my spear. Our efforts cost us one wasp, so now we were down to three.

In all the attacks, one figured out that attacking it in the nose seemed to get it aggravated enough to let out a loud cry, sometimes a breath attack would follow. Then they could latch onto its jaws and hold it open.

Giving that plan a go, the wasps hit his nose, then the demon breathed more poison fire over them. One more wasp down, but the remaining two latched to his jaws and held it wide open.

I flew in, only having one shot!

My spear jammed right down its throat! Light shot all around and burst out from cracks in its skin!

He let out a cry, his skin turning brittle like obsidian, slowly becoming dust.

I jumped back, ripping my spear from his mouth. Was he going to explode? I kept my distance and ordered the wasps to stay by me. As far as I could tell though, the Tarasque wasn't finished, but that attack did one heck of a number on him.

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