(Every character depicted in the story below is a consenting legal adult over the age of 18)

A/N: Battle time!

-x-X-x-

The farce is over. The pageantry is done. The choreographed play that he, the King, and the Spymaster had all come up with together has been completely and utterly derailed. Admittedly, it was derailed from the moment that Lord Godman flipped the gameboard on its head.

… In no world could anyone, even Thomas himself, call Thomas slow. But he’s not fast enough and that’s pretty much just as damning. He wasn’t fast enough to stop Lord Godman from summoning this platoon of Dark Elves into their midst and he wasn’t fast enough to stop the King’s murder either.

As the blade approaches Princess Anna’s neck, Thomas only has a split second to react. He can’t get over there, not surrounded by enemies as he is and not with half of the length of the throne room between them. But… he nevertheless rears back his hand and throws his stolen, curved sword end over end.

He has two potential targets. He could bury the blade in the Dark Elf’s chest and guarantee the kill but not guarantee the swing would be aborted… or he could hit the Dark Elf’s armored arm and force the swing off target but not guarantee the kill.

Thomas goes for the latter, saving the Princess’ life and buying her a few more seconds. At the same time, he calls out.

“Sevvi! The Princess!”

To her credit, Sevvi doesn’t hesitate. Even though he imagines every fiber of her being says she should stay by his side, even though Thomas suspects she would never have done it of her own volition in a million years… Sevvi nevertheless shadowsteps instinctively, obeying him and appearing on the far side of the throne room to stab her fellow elf through the throat before they can recover enough to go for another swing on Anna.

Of course, this leaves Thomas once again in the unenviable position of being stuck unarmored and unarmed in the midst of a whole bunch of killer elves. And this time they all want him dead on the orders of their Princess, who even now is looming over the battle, watching on with crimson red eyes and a clenched jaw.

Thomas ducks under one blade and is forced to grab the other in such a way that the metal only digs into his palm slightly. He bleeds off momentum while taking the injury, even as his other hand lashes out, delivering yet another throat strike to yet another Dark Elf throat.

This time around he doesn’t stop there though, the latest weapon he steals driving down into its previous’ owner’s chest and twisting for a moment before he draws it back as they breathe their last.

In an instant, he’s armed again… but still fighting for his life. To be frank, they all are. Everyone in the throne room finds themselves being set upon by the Dark Elves, and even though the humans outnumber the elves at least three to one, that doesn’t seem to matter much.

Frankly, the only reason Thomas survives at all is because enough of the elves have moved away from the center, beginning to slaughter the Royal Guards and the knights all along the throne room’s edges. Synestra’s orders had been clear, after all. Kill every human, strip Sevvi of any agency, and bring her limbless torso back to Synestra for further punishment.

Suffice to say, Thomas isn’t going to let any of that happen. Unfortunately, his ability to stop the deaths of most of the humans in the throne room is… limited. He can fight the Dark Elves closest to him and survive, but he can’t fight all of them everywhere. He’s forced to trust in Sevvi to keep Anna alive… and Camilla to do her part as well on the other side of the throne room.

The red headed knight is easily doing the best out of all of the armored humans in the room. She’s fought and also fought alongside Sevvi enough to know Dark Elf tactics better than anyone else aside from him and the exiled Princess herself. Or… not exiled? That was a completely different can of worms that Thomas would open another time.

In the end, the point was… they were the only reason the battle wasn’t a complete rout. And Thomas in particular really wished he was wearing his own armor at that point, because even as hard as he’s fighting and as much as he’s struggling… he’s still taking wounds here and there.

A blade meant for his throat skids across his shoulder instead. A dagger aimed for his kidneys is redirected enough to glance off a rib at the last second. A forearm is forced to deflect a blade, not a full block lest he lose the arm, but still enough for him to lose a chunk of flesh and the limb to scream in protest.

He gives pieces of himself over in exchange for Dark Elves lives. Every injury he takes is another elven soldier dead, another exchange won. Thomas comes out the victor again and again, but he’s not better for it… he’s simply dying by a dozen cuts instead of just one major blow.

Except… all of the sudden Camilla is at his side and Thomas blinks a bit of blood out of his eyes as she blocks the latest blow before he has to let it dig into his hip bone. With a roar, the female knight shoves the Dark Elf back and cuts the air itself a dozen times in a split second, each ‘slice’ slamming into the Dark Elf’s chest and pushing them back a step, until they’re pushed right into the waiting blades of some of the surviving Royal Guards.

Thomas is freed up to properly defend against another Dark Elf coming at him from the front, his sword flashing out to block their attack before slipping into their guard and impaling them through the heart. It’s only as they double over his blade that Thomas recognizes them as the spokeswoman from before, the one who summoned Synestra’s projection in the first place.

Shaking her corpse off of his stolen blade, Thomas looks for the next fight and becomes a little frantic when he finds no Dark Elves near him. His eyes seek out Sevvi and Princess Anna… only to find them fine near the throne. Well, physically fine anyways. Anna is on the ground holding her father’s body in her arms as tears stream down her cheeks while Sevvi looms over her protectively alongside Spymaster Qyvern and a pair of surviving Royal Guards.

Still, setting aside the Princess’ grief, Thomas looks around the room… and realizes they’ve won. Not without great cost, maybe one in ten of the humans in the room at the start have survived. But every Dark Elf is on the ground, lying there unmoving, each one turned into a corpse.

“How infuriating.”

Thomas turns to regard Synestra as the First Princess of the Dark Elves breaks the sudden silence. Still looming over them all as a projection, she glares at him in particular. His back straightens up, his jaw clenching, and he stares right back at her, refusing to be intimidated.

“You always were too lucky for your own good, sister. Coddled by our mother. Blessed with more loyalty than you ever deserved. And now… of course you would find an Otherworlder to attach yourself to.”

Thomas wishes he could say he managed to control his reaction to that accusation… but he’s caught off guard enough that the widening of his eyes and the way he freezes up probably gives him away. Admittedly, even if it doesn’t, Sevvi’s slightly stuttered response does it anyways.

“I-I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Synestra’s lips curl into a small smile… but there’s nothing joyful or happy in the expression, nor does it reach her red eyes. She looks at them all like they truly are insects to her.

“I’m sure you don’t, Sevinarya.”

“ENOUGH!”

Before the conversation can continue however, a certain furious blonde inserts herself back into things. Princess Anna scrambles to her feet, the bottom of her dress now stained with her father’s blood. She’s laid out King Vincent’s corpse on the ground next to her and gives it one last mournful look before turning an angry gaze in Synestra’s direction.

Taking a stumbling step forward, she rights herself and glowers.

“Do you know what you’ve done?! You’ve attacked the heart of our Kingdom! You’ve killed my father, the King! You’ve declared war between our two nations! And for what?! What does all this death and bloodshed get you, exactly?!”

The First Princess stares down at Anna with a pitiless gaze.

“It was amusement at first.”

Her words make the human Princess real back as if she’s been slapped. She chokes on her own spit, her hands curling into fists at her sides.

“A-Amusement?! You… you created the Rotlands, you afflicted me with an incurable disease, you tried to turn my father into your puppet… for your own amusement?!”

“Yes.”

Anna is left so enraged she’s at a loss for words. In the silence that follows, Synestra elaborates.

“You humans are such pitiful creatures. You live such fleeting lives and for the vast majority, nothing ever comes to it. I was curious what would happen if I gave one of you my support. What could a human achieve with the help of a Dark Elf?”

Synestra sweeps her gaze back behind her, staring uncaringly down at the corpse of Lord Solomon Godman. The dead nobleman is still laid out on the ground where he’d fallen after Thomas took his life at the start of all of this. Even if that had been little more than murder, even if Solomon Godman wasn’t even armed with a blade, Thomas can’t really bring himself to regret killing the man. All of this could be laid at his feet, after all.

“Clearly, the answer was ‘not much’. Even with my support, even with all of his pitiful effort… he only managed such petty things. And he completely and utterly failed to finish the job. Shameful, truly.”

“You think so little of us. We will see how your feelings change when our armies march on your cities!”

Thomas resists the urge to cringe at Anna’s boastful claim. To be fair to the Princess, her father just died… and frankly, wars had been declared for a lot less than this. More than that, it wasn’t as though Anna knew everything that he knew about the Dark Elves and their lands.

To reach their Capital in the depths of the Darkwoods would not only take months of travel through the dangerous forest… it would also involve fighting building-sized megafauna just to reach the Dark Elves’ doorstep. Creatures even larger than the King of the Forest or the mutated Spider-Queen lurked in the Darkwoods’ depths and stood between Anna and her enemies.

Synestra lets out a bark of laughter at Anna’s bravado, shaking her head in amusement.

“Your ignorance amuses me, human. Ask my sister how well that would go for you… and then consider turning your focus towards preparing to defend yourselves instead.”

Thomas stiffens as Synestra leans forward. The mirth vanishes as quickly as it started, her gaze returning to cold and calculating as she sneers down at Anna.

“You cannot reach my mother’s kingdom, human. You do not have the lifespan to field an army capable of reaching Dark Elf lands. But do not worry, because I will bring the war you seek to you. I will come with my own army and I will annihilate every single one of your stinking humans. I will kill you all and I will finish what your traitor started, until every last inch of the human lands has been turned into desolate Rot.”

Anna tries to keep a brave face on, her jaw clenching and her fists trembling, but Thomas can see that beneath the cracking façade is honest fear the more Synestra describes her plans. Meanwhile…

“Sister, why?! Please, let this end here and now!”

Sevvi moves forward, trying once more to reason with her sister. Synestra looks to her… but not a single inch of her facial features softens. Not even for a moment.

“No. If it is war the humans want, it is war the humans will get. Not that it will BE war for the likes of us, as you well know.”

Sevvi cringes back while Anna gathers enough courage to speak again.

“What? What does that even mean? What would it be then?”

Thomas could have told the Princess that she was being led to ask that question, but it didn’t seem appropriate to interrupt. In the end, all he can do is wince internally as Synestra bares her teeth down at Anna and gives her a particularly chilling answer.

“Pest control.”

The First Princess of the Dark Elves doesn’t bother giving them a chance to respond after that. She takes the last word for herself by pointing a finger downwards… and a moment later, disappearing. Thomas’ eyes widen as the magical device that had summoned her projection in the first place starts to spark and shake.

Turning, he grabs Princess Anna and throws them both away, trusting Sevvi to also get clear. Indeed, the Dark Elf is already moving and so when the projection device explodes, it only does more damage to the corpses already laid out around it.

Holding Princess Anna to his chest, Thomas fully intends to let her go and help her up immediately… but having used his own body to cushion the fall, he’s suddenly much more aware of all of the injuries he’d taken during the fight. Injuries he’d ignored until now.

Pain lances through every part of his being as he lays there on the ground and exhaustion finally catches up with him. A low groan escapes his lips and his eyes roll back in his skull as he starts to pass out right then and there.

Ugh, to faint like this in front of the Princess… how fucking embarrassing.

-x-X-x-

A/N: Heh, poor Thomas feeling like he’s losing aura points v.v

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