"I'm afraid not Charles. The proletariat must ensure secrecy is maintained, so unfortunately, this is the end for you.",
The guards reacted to that. Both of them- two were put outside his cell after Violet escaped. They looked to Sir Stelios, then at each other. And moved.
Unfortunately a couple of regular guys with swords were no match for a former Knight.
As they swung at him with their blades he sidestepped- pulled them in and impaled each on one another weapons. He walked away from them as they stood shocked, looking at one another- before falling over in a heap.
"Uh, Stelios- let's talk about this. My- Samantha Lemont! The woman I sent for, she's here! She'll free me and your organizations secret will be safe!"
He hesitated for a moment. And looked up at a grate in the ceiling, which most of the light in the chamber came from.
"I do hear a bit of some kind of tussle... But no, my orders are clear. In any case, as of late, you've become increasingly careless. We were mistaken to have reached out to you Charles Malton..."
He put his white gloved hands on the bars-
"Of all the stupid things- consorting with thieves! Move! I'm going to beat some sense into my brother!" he heard Elise's distant voice approach. Stelios grimaced as she walked into the chamber of cells and chains.
"Sir Stelios? You are visiti-" she noticed the bodies.
She drew her sword. She was dressed in her battle attire- mostly leather with some metal bits on the shoulders and knees.
---
The greyed man looked over his shoulder at her- a cold stare. Elise was praised for her skill with the sword, not in her other studies. But even she knew the instant she saw the bodies, Stelios had betrayed them.
"Elise! Run!", Charles shouted from his cell, a frantic look in his eyes. A chill ran down her spine- her [Warriors] intuition told her Sir Stelios outclassed her.
"Sir Stelios! What is the meaning of this!?" she demanded. He turned towards her, slowly.
Elise grabbed for a tiny opal gem that dangled from her wrist- then Stelios moved in a blur, he swept up one of the blades off the ground and charged right at her-
"Ah!" Elise cried out as he slashed at her in rapid succession- three strikes. She instinctively brought up her sword and parried each one- she felt the force of each blow reverberate in her arms painfully.
She slid backward and finally her survival instinct kicked in and she began counter attacking as she defended.
Her heart beat wildly, no one had ever actually tried to kill her before. Fear slowly gave way to anger and desperation.
---
Theo couldn't believe it- he could barely see them move. Only sparks and blurred outlines of blades. They danced around each other- their feet pivoting, sliding and leaping endlessly.
Elise pirouetted twirling her blade around sporadically- Stelio's style was limited by the clumsy blade he held, but he was clearly the better swordsmen. He had cut off the bracelet item she had tried to use- he rolled towards Theos cell but was still out of reach.
"Stelios! Stop! She doesn't know, you can run!", he ignored Theos pleas as he gradually pushed Elise back towards the wall.
---
Charles was crying like a fool, calling after Sir Stelios. Begging him not to kill her. What a child, he hadn't trained for war like Elise had. Her instructors beat in her the will to survive- she would not fall easily.
Still- this butler was tedious. His blade hovered closer than she would have liked quite a few times already, as Elise bowed backwards a lock of her hair was cut- falling to the floor.
She blocked a stab, deflecting it down and as Stelios leaned into the strike she held out her free hand and opened it directly in his face-
A bright light flashed and he leapt back, covering his eyes but Elise followed slashing- how was he still blocking the strikes? Elise gets the breath knocked out of her as a fist punched her midsection.
She clutched her stomach and moved back, but she tripped over a foot- one of the guards on the floor! She clambered to the ground blocking sword swings as she did- on her back she leaned left and right as Stelios's swings deflected sparks of the stone near her head!
---
Theo had to do something! He couldn't just sit here! He struggled wildly against the chains- blood started to go down from his wrist-
"AAARH!" he pulled and pulled.
'SCHLOOP!', his hands came free and the pain receded. "Huh?"
He looked down at his hands. They were green, scaled and very slightly webbed. He didn't have time to think about it- he squeezed through the bars Violet had removed earlier.
He grabbed one of the loose bars off the ground
[Assimilation]
[Assimilation]
[Assimilation]
He charged at at Stelios, swinging down the the metal stick-
---
"Aach!", a cut when across Elises' arm, just then she heard- "HiiiYAH!", Stelios leaned back barely avoiding the strike- but it gave her the opportunity she needed.
She pulled back both her legs and kicked Sir Stelios in the center of the chest.
He scrambled back defending against Charles frantic attacks- or so they seemed. He fought similar to how he had when he begun to realize he was losing their duel days ago.
Not entirely poorly.
She got to her feet and joined in the fight- Stelios leaned, ducked and rolled as the two struck out wildly at him-
---
Elise missed her swing but it opened up Stelios' defences enough for Theo to kick him on the back of a knee- Stelios fell to the one knee and on the backswing of Elise's previous attack she backhanded him with a closed fist causing him to spit up blood in the opposite direction-
It was two vs one! They could win!
He caught an elbow to the face they made his eyes tear up. "UGH!" he clutched at his face as Elise pressed her attack to defend him.
---
Violet sprinted down the stairs and rounded into the dungeon halls. It stretched for a bit for defensive reasons but eventually she heard the sounds of a fight!
The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.
Crap, what was that idiot involved in now? His grandmother and Sinatra were busy fighting the head of the house!
'Tssk!'
[Quiet Step], [Fleet Foot]
She sped up and her steps went dead quiet- she rounded the corner-
---
Elise put Stelios into a headlock- she tried to wrench his head towards her blade that she held in front of them- he flung his head back instead.
'CRACK!' Elise fell back blood streaming from her nostrils- and by then Charles had recovered and put him in a headlock of his own-
But he was only flung over Stelios's shoulder. Charles coughed- the impact knocked the breath from his lungs. 'Oh no!' Elise thought as Stelios twirled his blade so that he held it in a reverse grip and stabbed down-
Elise rushed forward but she had no time!
---
Theo looked up to see Stelios cold eyes stare down at him, the light of the grate above them glinted off the blade as he drove it down towards his chest-
Then a knife appeared in his shoulder. A dagger. Stelios groaned and gripped the handle stepping back.
All three looked towards the entrance to the dungeon. There stood Violet, out of breath with an arm outstretched having thrown a dagger.
She reached beneath her maids skirt and produced another.
"AH!" Stelios grunted as he ripped the dagger from his shoulder and sent it bouncing across the ground.
Theo adjusted his grip on his metal bar. And Violet walked over to the right, and Elise down the center as they surrounded Sir Stelios.
"Hehe..." they all stopped, and looked at each other. Then back at Stelios. "HAHA!" he laughed hysterically.
"You all think you can kill me, you WHELPS! You have no idea what I've survived, to be cut down by mere children?",
Technically they were in their early twenties, but Theo didn't think about that. He was nervous about the fact that he had lizard hands. Hopefully Elise hadn't noticed during the fight...
"Surrender, Sir Stelios. Father may have mercy..." Elise said the line even though no one in the room believed it.
Suddenly the room quaked- dust and debris fell from the rock/stone ceiling in places. "What the hell was that?" Theo asked but then he felt a splitting pain in his stomach-
"Ah!" he fell down clutching the sword impaled through his midsection. "Theo!" Violet shouted out grabbing him as he fell- Stelios ran past down the dungeon hall. A few more quakes sounded.
Elise sheathed her sword, her hand shaking as she did. Then she looked back at the two of them.
"Theo?" she asked confused.
---
"Sinatra keep the brats off my back!", "You keep the dad off me!" Sinatra shouted back.
The moment they stepped inside it was a fight. They locked eyes with the head of the household and his wife, among a few of their older children as well.
Figures they were all decent level. And the father was certainly high level.
The mother kept summoning elementals- water, ice, fire, you name it, a humanoid made of it would charge at them every so often.
It was easy to destroy them, but it was distracting. Like a fly buzzing around your face in the middle of a life and death fight.
Their children had a variety of skills. One was a fencer. But they divided up the targets, Baba-Yaga would handle the boss, and Sinatra would handle the minions and draw their aggro.
A flaming elemental plowed into Sinatra but a semi-transparent orange shield gleamed as its flames licked at him. He bear-hugged it, quite literally, and threw it through a stained glass window.
"Come on you brats!" he shouted and the fencer used [Shunpo] and appeared behind him, stabbing in rapid succession. Each strike caused the shield to glow and then on the final it shattered.
[Disarming Strike] Sinatra flew around, sensing real danger from the blade and gripped it between his palms. 'snap!' what was left was a metal tooth pick at best.
The fencer blanched- then turned to run but caught a round house kick to the back of the head. He fell unconscious.
But before he hit the ground a water elemental was trying to envelope Sinatras head as two other mage-orientated Maltons blasted him with stone and ice bullets.
---
If you were just outside the estate, you would've seen a flaming humanoid burst out one window then explode- and shards of ice and stone flying through the ceiling- sending roof shingles blasting off to the ground.
---
"Sorry Sinatra! This is a tougher raid than I thought!", she shouted as she flew backwards- a very anger Lord Malton flying after her- a huge waraxe in his hands. His feet would only touch the marble floor for a moment before shattering it and launching him after her.
Sinatra only laughed. "Ha! Maybe we'll even level from this!"
Someone had multi-classed. [Elementalist Mage] and [Berzerker]. An irritating combination. Why couldn't this family pick a lane? Their party was way too balanced!
Lenard Malton- head of house Malton- his eyes blazed with fire upon seeing his unconscious daughter Leslie in Sinatras arms. And since then, it's been nothing but this- Baba, running. And him- chasing. His axe with launch flames or ice at her if she wasn't paying attention.
Did these people not care about their family being hostages? How could they be sure Sinatra wouldn't of snapped her little neck when they did that? But somehow, they did know. And so another battle had ensued.
The Baba-Yaga pointed her staff and another crow flew and got smacked away by the fathers war axe.
'That's right. Just keep batting them away... Death by a thousand cuts!' Baba knew how to fight brutes like these. Poison and distance. And time. But Sinatra was struggling.
It was all she could do to keep away from the berserker, she had no opportunity to help him out. He used up his Ki points in his fight with that Thomas fellow.
So he was struggling with the mid-level fodder.
"I'm going to use it!" she cried out. "Babs- No!", "Yes!" she said finally and she stomped to the ground, her heels sliding from the momentum- she had been flying at max speed on her cloud of black.
But now she needed to stay still. She tapped her staff on the ground and layer upon layer of [Earth Wall] broke up through the ground.
"Now that's a proper [Elementalist] spell!" she heard a 'THUD' and the walls crumble slightly.
She shuddered. "What a monster..." she muttered as she fumbled through her purse. Or big leather satchel, however one chose to describe it.
"No... No...", 'CRASH!', another section of wall crumbled down.
"Babs!" Sinatra cried out as the mages blasted him. His HP was dropping fast, and when he focused one, the others would switch to immobilizing spells like [Mud Pit] while his target fled.
"Ah-ha~!" she said gleefully produced a blanket from the satchel. She unfurled it and flattened it as best she could across the ground.
'THUD!', an axe embedded into the final layer of wall.
Their was a complex sigil drawn in gold across it. It sparkled like it was sprinkled with diamond on black fabric.
"Summon big bad!" she shouted a placed both hands on it and the room glowed with golden light.
Slowly a figure arose as if being lifted by an elevator below through the blanket. Dirt from the [Earth Wall] clattered across the carapace of the summoned being.
It's carapace was ruby red, semi-transparent, veins of a darker red ran throughout. It's body was tall and slim, segmented like an ants. Two black oblong eyes glistened and two ruby mandibles clacked together like rocks.
"So I take it you accept our quest then?", a distorted insectile voice- it sounded electronic almost, asked her. It didn't back, just starring straight ahead at the collapsed wall of dirt.
"Yes, yes, for crying out loud! Just don't kill them!", the being nodded, it's antennas bounced and it disappeared.
The mages attacking Sinatra were blasted against the walls before falling to the floor. The furred man let out a sigh of relief. The red blur now went towards the Lord of the estate.
And a clash of metal sounded from the center of the grand entrance hall.
Lenard Malton blocked the strike meant for him with his axe- "Arkai... Monster!" he swung out with his axe chopping at the figure wildly.
"Berserker... My counter... A challenge." the glistening red ant said robotically. "Can't kill, but can delay?"
"That'll be enough antman! We just need to rescue a VIP and run!" she shouted after him. They were a blur of attacks, only appearing whenever an attack landed or was blocked.
"Hurry, [Witch].", the ant said slashing many red streaks across the Lords flesh. This seemed to only empower him as he raged- he even seemed to grow bigger. "He has poison resistance!", "Expected. Hurry."
She nodded and tossed a hard candy to Sinatra. "Which way did that girl run? Down here?", "My [Monk] intuition detects life forces below. This way!", they ran through the estate until they met a stairwell that went down.
"I hate working for the Arkai..." Sinatra groaned. "Oh hush, it was a clever way to rope us into their affairs and you know it. But look on the bright side, we're allies now. It goes both ways."
"I know... I still don't like it."
Of all her trump cards, it was the least costly to use. But they should've prepared more, she had gotten too emotional and gungho when she had heard her grandson had called for her.
---
Theo coughed of blood, "Health potion." he said. Violet reached into a pocket and pulled a tiny vial. "It's hardly enough but it'll keep you alive at least!" she gripped the blades handle.
"Grit your teeth." She warned him. He nodded. "Okay!" She ripped the blade out of his stomach. There was a sick squelching sound and blood spurted up and started to splash onto the ground.
"Theo... You called him Theo. Why?" Elise asked. Still concerned, leaning nearby holding one of his shoulders.
Violet ignored her.
[Assimilation], his last charge for the day.
He didn't have a lot of time, he had to hurry, and tie up loose ends here. He had no idea how Charles died, but these people weren't inherently bad. Certainly not Elise, or Leslie, they just wanted to protect their family.
"Elise... Listen, Charles loved his family. He only wanted to make a name for himself, and thought a few items from the treasury was a price worth paying. Stelios, he belonged to a group called 'The Proletariat', they may have more agents in the estates-"
"Charles, you're not making any sense. YOU'RE Charles!'
"No. Elise, listen-" she grabbed her hands, and then she noticed and recoiled away. "Your hands- They're-"
"I'm a changeling." The wound in his stomach healed, but it wasn't quite closed, and bled a bit.
"A changeling? Charles, you're not making any sense.", "I'M NOT CHARLES! I haven't been for a week now! The man you won against in a duel is NOT I!"
She blanched and leaned back in shock.
"Charles... Is dead, I found him in his closet. His neck broken. It wasn't the Proletariat, it wasn't me or my grandma, I don't know who it was. But I feel like, this is the last time he'll ever be able to tell you, or any of is family ever again! I can feel it- he wants to. He would've wanted to."
Elise slumped to her knees, confusion and dread on her face.
"He wants you to know, he's always looked up to you. And the others. He was distant, but that's because he never felt that he was worthy. He loved his family and in the end everything he did.- The proletariat, the other stuff, it was to make you proud of him, in the end..."
"Theo..." Violet told him. Elises eyes had tears in them.
"I see." She wiped her eyes. "So that is why your hands are that way. That's why you've been so nice to me and the others." she sniffed.
"He was too ashamed of himself to stand among you. His rudeness, even though I know he regrets it now, it didn't matter if he was talented. He was your family. He should've been honest."
"How do you know all this?" she asked him.
"It's a skill, I'm a doppleganger. For whatever reason I woke up here a week ago in his place, in his form, and when I use a skill, I can become like him- for a time. Like now. So it's important, do you have any final questions? We're running out of time here."
"Was he proud of us?", Theo sighed, and looked down. It was hard to meet her eyes, as his own were beginning to tear at this point.
"He wished he could tell you how much. Yes, a thousand times yes- if the weight of the expectations hadn't gotten to him- he would've been overjoyed to spend more time with you all. He's so sorry that he didn't get to... In the end."
She nodded, strongly and stood. "Very well then." she choked- "You two are both under arrest. Until I figure out exac-" 'THWAP!' a furred hand chopped her on the back of the head and she fell over unconscious.
"Grandma! Err... How much of that did you hear?", her eyes were glistening and she turned away proudly. "Nothing you idiot.."
Violet sighed and retrieved her spare dagger from the ground.
"-Violet, thanks for the help. Why did you come back?"
She shot a guilty glance towards the Baba-Yaga, then looked back at him.
"Hey, we're partners. It'd go against my [Thieves] honor if I did...", "Thieves have honor?"
"This one does. So are we getting out of here now?"
They leaned Elise up against the wall gently. "First, take one of these. It'll help." his grandma threw a rock candy at him.
"This?", he held the ember colored candy in the light.
"-it's as good as any grand healing potion. Go ahead. Hurry, our bug friend upstairs can't distract the Lord forever."
He ate the sweet candy, and instantly felt strange. Like he was wearing a wet set of clothes.
"Uh... Theo...", "Huh?", "Your eye sockets are erm... Sagging."
"Huh?" he asked again and reached up to feel them. Surely enough, it was true.
The Baba-Yaga scoffed. "Must've activated your [Form Change], it won't be long now. A form doesn't last forever in any case, it was a matter of time. Good thing we showed up when we did. At your level, I'm surprised you lasted a week. Good job."
"Form change...? But I can't just look like myself, like you do?", she shook her head sympathetically.
"Uh Babs... I think we have more important things to worry about." another quake sounded from above. The reverberations of the antman and berserker lords epic battle shook the estate.
"Yes, yes. Let's go. We'll school you on how Changelings work later." they began marching up the stairs.
As they ran from the Estate they desperately piled onto horses at the stables and broke out into the forest. Piles of guards and noble family members laid unconscious.
As they did, Violet rode up beside Theo; "Back there... What you said- to Elise... Was it real?"
Theo nodded solemnly. He had felt Charles more than he ever had before in that moment. Even in his life and death struggle with Stelios their bond wasn't so strong.
But he truly felt that's what Charles would've wanted. At least that. Of course, anybody would've wanted the chance to do more with their lives. But Theo almost felt that Charles was at peace now.
He swallowed hard. "It was was real enough."