Hero missed the first day of the lunar beast assault having slipped into a veritable coma like sleep, so the situation was already drastic when he awoke. The moon goat, as those who weren’t the sleeping Hero and Raiguin had come to call it, had flickered and weaved its way around Iceveria with at time both thunderous stomping and soundless grace, killing humans and penguins with an indiscriminate lack of mercy. The one thing that differentiated this threat from the one they had already been under was that it was not a concentrated effort in eradicating them. The monster didn’t seem to have any particular interest in them at all, but in its presence their world would become strange.
Plants and animals became perverted into eldritch horrors, strange other worldly mirages would bloom into being and just as quickly disappear. Those who stood to fight against the beast would go mad attacking those around them in a berserk frenzy, clawing at their own skin until rivets of blood seeped out, or simply lying on the ground to stare at the sky. What was worse was that although the beast would never attack directly unless provoked, it would systematically fly into a rage and begin decimating the earth for miles around it. It had only been serendipity so far that had kept it from landing near the human capital. Where the majority of Frostia’s remaining population resided and put an end to them in an instant.
With all this in mind the cooperation of the demon penguins went surprisingly smoothly, at least as far as could be expected. They had been in something of a cease fire before Hero and Raiguin had even awoken to push the idea. This was due to largely in part to the penguins being systematic as a race. As soon as the beast appeared their full attention had been diverted to attempting to study and subdue it completely abandoning their assault against the humans at least for the time being. So, it was on the human to accept this new dynamic, albeit grudgingly, out of necessity.
So, when Hero brought his agreement with Raiguin to the table it wasn’t long before the armies were merged, unfortunately to the human’s detriment. They had greater numbers and were generally stronger apart from Hero, so it was the humans that were acclimated into their army and their plans. But the worst part of all.
A D. E. A., apparently the demon emperor’s army is what they called themselves, official stood before a projected map and droned on about the plan Raiguin had devised for attacking the moon goat. This penguin, like all the others, wore only a t-shirt emblazoned with the symbol of wind and snow.
“Thanks to the sacrifice of recon team gamma, may they rest forever in the lost empress’ embrace, we now have intelligence on the moon goats projected route. You’ll see when we lure him into this valley.”
Hero was having trouble focusing on what the official was saying. He too wore the D. E. A. uniform and couldn’t quite hide his irritation over it. When the new united army was formed Raiguin took over as leader since as it turns out he is the emperor in D.E.A. not just a general. To his merit he made a convincing argument that he would be a better leader than Hero due to being used to commanding troops rather than operating in a small party instead of relying on his army’s superior position for the right to command. Hero consented to this but one of Raiguin’s stipulations was that anyone under his command had to wear the uniform of the D. E. A.
“And so, we’ll need to make sure the catapult is set in the right position. We won’t be able to adjust it on the fly.”
It wasn’t that hero minded that he was flying the colors of his mortal enemy, he had never really held any personal hatred towards the D. E. A., the problem lay more with…well with the material.
“This is the point that Hero will come in”
The thing was that the D. E. A. uniforms were made almost entirely out of penguin fur. While these creatures might have a silky appearance, the fact was that the material was unbearably rough and itchy. What the hell is this? I mean isn’t this like if a human cut off their hair and made a shirt out of it? That shits twisted! Hero looked around and saw that his companions were fairing no better than himself.
“Hero will be seated inside the catapult”
Trabic, a mage that traveled with hero, wore a stoic expression on his face, but hero could see his eyebrows twitching in irritation. Trabic was orphaned at a young age and after spending a few years pickpocketing to survive he was takin in by a family of renowned engineers. These engineers were tasked with maintaining an artifact known as an aircraft. It was the only one remaining from some ancient civilization and even Iceveria’s best minds only understood enough to keep it running. Trabic would eventually come to inherit this device though its usefulness was held back by being singular and being unable to risk its destruction.
That being said just having ownership of the aircraft as well as being a powerful mage gave him a prestigious social standing in Iceveria, and he had the appearance to back up this stature as well. His features were chiseled with a square jaw line and rugged face. Hs beard was well trimmed, and he had just enough muscle to give off a healthy appearance of fitness. This was all at odds with his rather wispy rope and pointed wizards at.
Angeline on the other hand wore a completely vacant expression, as if her soul had been sucked out of her body. Though she would occasionally glance at Trabic and fix her face into a more serious look. This warmed Hero’s heart a bit since those two were the first people he met within his current memories, and he was under the impression Angeline had feelings for Trabic. Angeline had grown up in the capital as the daughter of a clan that had served as shadow agents for the Iceverian government for several generations. Or at least that was the story. It was true they were at one time trained assassins and that they had kept up that training to the present day, but in the current climate their services were essentially unnecessary. In truth she was little more than a glorified warrior, but she was still one of the greatest fighters in the Iceverian army.
Sticking out of her new uniform was the cloth she always wore wrapped around her face, her thin twin tails draped across it. This woman was taciturn and could at times seem air headed due to her lack of speech, but Hero new shew hap the sharpest wit among his companions. The only problem is she would never speak on any revelation that came to her, otherwise she could have been their greatest tactical asset.
Unlike the others, Hero’s third companion, Shirl, was blatantly rolling around on the ground and scratching herself. Quite frankly Hero was astonished that no one was calling attention to this. She was actually a recent addition to this group and quite an odd character. During a recent mission Trabic had been gravely wounded and in the panic rushing him back to the capital, Hero realized that he needed someone on hand with them that could take care of healing. The end result of this recruitment process was Shirl joining their ranks. As unreliable as she might seem the other applicants were even worse. Hero still got a headache thinking about it.
They waited in an office with the appearance of a homely town meeting hall, each sitting in a chair without a desk anticipating the arrival of the applicants. They each wore a solemn and evaluating expression, but for each of them it was for a different reason. For Angeline it was simply her face. For Trabic, he was bored and his grisliness again made this simply his face. Hero was trying to force it for appearance’s sake.
The first applicant was an almost comically muscular msn whose unrealistic body proportions seemed to raise in an upside-down triangle from his waist. He introduced himself as Bruce Clenther, a healer, through the art of massage therapy. “Well let’s see what you can do” Hero asked this of him nonplused. “Then let me take care of those shoulders for ya.”
And that he did. Hero hadn’t been injured, but he did have many aches and pains from recent battles. These all quickly evaporated leaving him feeling more refreshed than he had felt in a lifetime. He was impressed and wanted to hire him on the spot. There was only one problem. Hero angerly threw the clipboard holding Bruce’s application and his notes on the ground. “There’s no way a masseuse can follow an active party in combat!” “Maybe try applying to a more centralized medical center,” Angeline added more helpfully. Bruce shrugged his shoulders and left without a fuss seeing the sense in her words. “Okay next.” Hero was hoping it would be someone more suitable this time.
A gangly woman with a pink nurse’s outfit walked in. At her waist was a belt with several syringes strapped to it. She had short cropped black hair, and her unblinking dark eyes somehow gave the impression they were the only feature on her face. “I’m Tricia Vitcher…I practice…medicine.” Her voice was whimpering and ominous. Hero frowned. They were really looking for someone more like a mage, but the fact that she had her equipment at the ready showed some promise. “Well then go ahead and show us what you can do.”
She moved forward like someone undead and with a creepy smile on her face, she pulled out one of the syringes filled with a black tarlike substance. Hero held up his palm and nudged in Trabic’s direction who retaliated with a dirty look. She continued smiling as she shuffled over to him and shot the substance into his arm. He immediately collapsed and began convulsing. She reached down and pulled off his shoes and socks with a look that was both malicious and thirsty. “Get her out of here!” Angeline glared at her as she was dragged away. Hero held his hand to his chest and breathed deeply “Alright next.” Surely this time.
What entered was an actual Eldritch horror. A bubbling mass of toxic sludge that was emanating cognizance of a most ominous will. The bubbles seemed to have faces in them as they grew and popped. Its voice moved between them as they popped. “For the price of a single soul, it need not be your own, I can see to it that you are…” “We can’t afford it!” Hero yelled once again throwing the clipboard to the ground. “Maybe try forming a more centralized cult,” Angeline added perhaps a bit more helpfully. By this time Trabic’s eyes had opened and he had a look of neurotic terror on his face. “What the hell is that thing!” The sludge left emanating a field of disappointment.
And thus, they ended up with the strange woman Shirl, who would only reply “Shirl the girl” when asked for her full name. She wore a large fluffy white and pink coat that covered her entire body. On her back was a rod reminiscent of a magical girl’s that she never used and on her head was a white and pink hat that was shaped like a turtle’s half shell. Her short pink hair was curled up as if there was a roll cake wrapped around her head.
She called herself a white mage but had a strange artifact she used for healing. It was a metallic L shape with a trigger in the wedge and a canister that held ammunition of her own making. She would swear to them that these were all healing bullets, but it was clear that the majority of them did no healing. Thus, they ended up playing a strange song-and-dance with her where they pretended that they needed her to heal their enemies for tactical reasons. Hero was highly suspicious that she was just playing dumb. Even though she acted like an idiot she always had this look in her eyes as if she didn’t care about anything going on around her That these battles were just one big joke to her. Still, she could technically heal when it was needed, and she oddly enough increased their fire power even if that wasn’t what they were looking for.
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“You want to make sure your fully armed and prepared, you don’t wanna be flying through the air when you realize that you’re not ready”
Hero returned his attention to the speaker. Damn, I didn’t catch any of that. Oh well, I’m sure if I just wing it will turn out fine.
As he made his way through the encampment waiting for the penguin’s sortie to begin, Hero found himself contemplating the origins of his name, well more of his title really. It was something he would consider from time to time, but it really had been a while since he last thought about the matter. He simply wasn’t the type for introspection so it must have been hearing it more often from unfamiliar penguin mouths that had it on his mind.
When Trabic had found him 20 years prior he had been nameless and memoryless. The mage and the warrior accompanying him both tried to talk him into being brought back to the city for treatment, but Hero, having his wits about him if not his memories, suggested he accompany them instead out of a sense of gratitude. At the time he believed the only reason he had awakened was because these two found him, though he couldn’t say now why that would be.
So, before the issue of what to call him could be addressed he ended up accompanying Trabic and Angeline to a village that was under attack by a demon penguin horde. Trabic had been dispatched to their defense when he had been passing through the forest. He claimed to be taken aback by the serendipity of finding him this way since tis was his last mission before inheriting his family’s flying machine. Otherwise, he would never have travelled through these woods and who knows when anyone else would have come along to find him. Wondering at what might have become of him, Hero saw this as all the more reason to help Trabic with his mission.
When they reached the village, it had already been overrun and Trabic knew there was little he or Angeline could do to change this. At best they would only be able to help these villagers hold out until they could retreat to deeper territory. That was until his new friend had instinctively summoned a sword of fire to his hand and joined them in the fray. It wasn’t quite a matter of doing it single handedly, but Hero’s assistance turned a battle of attrition into one swinging wildly in their favor.
Having been freed from what they had already seen as the guaranteed loss of their homes for the first time in their lives, they lauded him with the title of hero. Without having anything else to call him by, Trabic and Angeline did the same. After a few similar instances, the name stuck before he could forge one of his own.
As for being a hero, he wasn’t sure how to feel about it. He did what he did first out of gratitude and then out of necessity. After all, as a human himself the demon penguins would come to kill him the same as everyone else, even if he didn’t have a lifetime of memories enforcing the idea. It was strange though; he had never been able to feel any personal animosity towards the demon penguins. This wasn’t at all because he didn’t identify them as an evil force in his conscious. It didn’t take long to see that they were indeed demons that would kill without reason, deserving of animosity if for nothing more than self-preservation.
It was more that he had this strangest sense of familiarity with them. That in his deepest subconscious he felt that if it was him alone that he would be left alone by them and that he wouldn’t consider them his problem either. Instinctively he knew he couldn’t tell anyone this. With his identity obscured who knows how people would take it that he felt a sort of bond with the demons that had been eating away at their civilization. It almost made him feel grateful for the present circumstances. Though considering the crises that brought it about the thought came with a sting of guilt.
“Lost in thought eh,” Raiguin approached hero and interrupted his contemplation. “I was just thinking it’s kinda nice working together for a change,” Hero answered truthfully. “Ha! Whatever! Your just glad that you got out of getting killed by me for the time being,” Raiguin laughed. Hero had been surprised to find that the great demon emperor had a very abrasive personality. “Anyway, you understand your part of the plan, right? The troops will have the beast in place soon so get in position.” Hero gulped. He had absolutely no idea what he was supposed to do, but he wasn’t about to admit that to Raiguin after he was acting so arrogant. Alright, I just have to play it off… “of course I do, I just need to wait inside of this thing right.” Hero pointed at the catapult; he had been able to gather that much from overhearing nearby soldiers. “Yep, that’s right, so get to it.” With that Raiguin waddled off to inspect the rest of his troops. Hero climbed into the catapult uncertainly. Man, I wonder what the hell this thing is supposed to do, am I supposed to control it somehow? In his head Hero had fantasies of the catapult transforming into a large wooden mech. In his defense, what the penguins had constructed looked nothing like how one would picture a catapult.
After biding his time for about a half an hour Hero was starting to feel impatient. Maybe I really should just ask, I mean this shit’s about to start up for real any second now. As Hero was contemplating how to admit to his cluelessness Trabic and Angeline approached the catapult. “Hey boss, looks like the plans finally about to be underway, too bad we don’t really have much to do this time.” I think Trabic added within his head. Like Hero, Trabic had also absorbed absolutely nothing from the mission briefing. Just for records sake let me say that he was in fact supposed to unleash a constraining spell after Hero had brought the beast to his knees from the air. At that point the D. E. A. troops would encircle the beast and finish it off. That is what the actual plan was, however these two had no idea. “Hero why haven’t you summoned a sword? You’re going to need it to need it to strike the beast once your launched from the catapult.” Angeline however understood what was going on. Due to the espionage her family had prepared her for since childhood, her brain had been trained to process information even when she was not focused on the speaker, hence she was able to pick up the details of the plan even in her dazed state. “Catapult? You know what this thing is Angeline?” Hero asked hesitantly. “Why of course, the catapult is meant to send you…”
Her words were interrupted by a loud shaking. The moon goat approached rapidly bounding from wall to wall in the ravine before it pounced out to a skidding halt, putting itself in the midst of the army of penguins. For their part they handled the suddenness well and managed to make a valiant effort keeping it in place. Whether it was their efforts that were keeping the beast in check, or it was choosing to stay rooted was difficult to tell, but what was clear to them was that they would have to make it move just slightly for their plan to come into fruition. And for that they needed to hurry as their coordination would only degrade over time. A few D.E.A. members were already beginning to fall under their influence.
They used concentrated magic to form large glaciers in the hope of cutting off their escape, but it easily swept itself around in a circle breaking them all. Surprisingly this repeated action did seem to keep it in place, the monster would focus on destroying the glaciers as long as they made them, like a dog chasing a toy. Realizing they could use this to their advantage they made a trail rather than a cage.
“ALRIGHT THE BEAST IS IN PLACE! FIRE!”
Hero was gone leaving the wide-eyed Angeline’s explanation in the dust.
I’m a bird, a majestic bird. I have a bird in my heart. Hero was soaring through the air and the suddenness of the launch had clearly broken something inside of him. A dazzling phoenix rising from the ashes of my soul.
CLAMP
Hero was in the jaws of the beast. Somewhere, in the back of his mind, he felt confusion over how small the mouth clamping into his side felt compared to what it should be. Hahaha silly thing. I am a phoenix, the lord of these skies. I am not some mere chicken for you to eat. The beast spit out Hero who was sent careening towards the surface. Alas it seems my fated meeting with the ground has come about at last. It is not to be that the bird inside my heart may fly free forever. For even the phoenix in all of its glory must someday rest its feathers upon the cold barren surface. As the sun rises so must the sun se…
Hero crashed into the surface leaving a crater a meter deep. The D. E. A. soldiers stood before the beast completely stunned realizing that the plan had fallen apart completely. Raiguin knew he had to take stock of the situation quickly before the beast retaliated. “MEN,” Raiguin addressed his troops in his most serious voice. “Let’s make like a tree and get the fuck out of here,” he screeched.
As order broke down among the D. E. A., hero’s group was trying to get to him. The beast was stomping about haphazardly and flailing its hoofs in a wild dance as strange images began to flicker around it. The team rushed to Trabic’s aircraft, focusing solely on it rather than the horrific imagery that was polluting the air around them. “He’s got to be completely unconscious, Angeline, I’ve cast a sticking spell on the end of this rope, when I swoop in low make sure it connects with him.” “Wait, why didn’t we just use this aircraft for the plan from the beginning?” Shirl asked in what was, for once, an entirely reasonable suggestion coming from her. “I didn’t even know what the catapult was for... Damn it, that doesn’t matter anymore Shirl, just be ready heal... to administer the first aid kit.” “The kit? But I can use healing magic.” Even in a situation this serious Trabic didn’t trust her to do the right thing. It was often a fifty-fifty shot over whether she would use a bullet with actual healing properties “No, the kits fine… just save your strength for later.”
As they approached, the beast suddenly stopped attacking. It flew into the sky with a roar that unleashed a giant blue shockwave. The shockwave stretched off into the horizon without causing any physical damage and the beast flew off. “Thank god he decided to leave, does this mean were saved for now?” “Of course, were saved! Our most prestigious lord goat of the moon would never do anything to hurt his right full subjects!” Shirl suddenly announced something incomprehensible. Trabic turned and looked at her. “Lord goat? What the hell are you...” when Trabic saw her eyes, he understood what happened. That shockwave must have worked like a large-scale mind controlling spell, spreading the madness he exudes around him into a wider range. I can only assume will power as some influence on its effect since it only got Shirl Trabic mused over the details to himself, wondering if it was similar to mind control spells he had read about. Those would cause their victims to arbitrarily work towards the caster’s general will since specific instructions couldn’t be given. In this case the caster would be a giant rampaging beast so that tracked with the usual berserk or vacant behavior its victims showed. But shirl was praising it as some kind of ruler? “Damn that shockwave looked like it could have covered the whole planet, Angeline we gotta stop Shir...”
“ALL IS FOR THE SAKE OF OUR GREAT MOON LORD! HEAL!”
The right wing of the aircraft exploded, and it crashed into the surface. Trabic had been able to keep just enough control over the ship that they survived the crash. The ship, however, was in bad shape and Trabic despaired at whether he had the know how to recover his family heirloom from this catastrophe. Shirl chose this moment to pull out her gun.
Hero groggily opened his eyes. His head was throbbing, and he could hear shouting all around him. He slowly crawled his way out of the crater he was laying in and surveyed the situation around him. Shirl was firing “healing bullets” into a crowd of retreating D. E. A. troops. Shirl’s massacring a horde of demon penguins… so I guess there isn’t anything unusual goi... Then hero remembered the situation and that they currently had a truce with the D. E. A. “Hero! Holy shit you can still walk around? Listen! The moon goat cast some kind of massive mind control spell and Shirl is under its effect! You gotta stop her!” Trabic screamed at him. “I don’t really understand what’s going on, but got it,” replied Hero. Hero charged towards Shirl while completely incinerating stray bullets that flew towards him. When he reached her, he hit the back of her head with the flat of his burning blade, knocking her out and leaving a scorch mark on her forehead. Angeline quickly rushed in and tied ropes around her arms and legs. “Alight, I think I need someone to explain the situation to me… and maybe get me something to change into?” Hero requested while scratching his D. E. A. uniform.
