บท 660: Rebels
Sammy kept guiding Hera to the place where Bonnie was located. They were still running through the woods. Lurize was following along in his weapon form since moving around on his bipedal form would harm their speed too much. Nimbus was also in his weapon form, but instead of just flying around, the Empress was wielding him, and Edge was on her belt, still with the Elemental Strength spell active to help her heal from the wounds she got during the fight with Kadhan. She had lost her weapons, Fang and Claw ended up leaving her hands when the Night River created that massive wave. That was a big blow to her setup. She had been using them for months already, and the twin daggers had been her main weapons for a long time. A large part of her wanted to go back and search for them, but according to Sammy, Bonnie was in trouble, and that took precedence over her items. Hopefully, they could search for them later, or maybe Sammy had a way of noticing where they were; since they came from the future, there should be some sort of energy coming out of them, right?
Focusing back on the task at hand, Hera tried to speed up the pace, with Sammy understanding her idea and doing the same," How is Bonnie in trouble? Wasn't she with the rest of the Vanguard going to the kill zone?" Hera asked. On the side of the crater opposite the river was a group of trees with a couple of detonation traps attached to them. Then when it was time for the Night River to die, they would blast that path open and lure the monster to a wider place with even more traps where everyone else was waiting to help the fight, and that's where her friend should be heading towards.
"Kadhan wasn't the only one organizing a coup. There were others. From what I gather, I think about a third of the members of the Vanguard are participating in that. As they were walking to that spot, the groups split and used some smoke screens to split off the smaller groups into even smaller ones. Then they started attacking those who they thought would be against them. It seems like they have to finish all this before Reynara shows up," Sammy explained.
"Why? If they are doing that, they can just pick whoever they want to lead the village."
"I think it's because of those who were left behind. There are still a good 20 people back in the Vanguard, and if they have to fight them as well, it might be too much. Or they didn't even think about it. Multrak did say they are not the brightest of groups."
"Are you really telling me that a group of idiots is trying to do a coup, and they didn't even think about who can be the leader?"
Sammy glanced back at Hera, "In all fairness, this wouldn't be the first time in history someone did something like that. Well, actually, it might, considering we are so far in the past."
"Fair point, but Multrak is not going to go down easy, and having him die is kind of the main point, isn't it?"
"Why do you say that?" Sammy made a turn that took them out of the densest part of the jungle. Now there were actual paths between the trees that could be followed without much of an issue, even by larger beings.
Lurize took the opportunity to change forms. He didn't like the idea of having Hera walk around alone with just one flying sword behind her. If he was in his bipedal form, then he seemed more imposing and more of a threat.
"Legaciez have many zecrets. Multrak only talked about two zkillz. The buff and the added power to him. When we think about how long ago he got it, itz more likely than not that many of the powers he haz are unknown," the Royal Tutor said, trying to be a part of the conversation.
"Not to mention, he doesn't seem to trust everyone. Not to the point of sharing the nuances of his legacy. We tried looking into that, but no one could figure anything out. I don't think he was expecting this, but I'm sure he kept a few cards up his sleeve," Hera added.
"I think he haz a full deck under there," Lurize scoffed, "The man dozen't ztrike me az honezt."
Sammy nodded, "I see where you are coming from, and yeah. He might be ok, but he isn't close to any of us, and I can't see things that are not around you guys."
"Here's hoping he's ok. Having a blood-hungry maniac in the middle of this situation wouldn't be good," Hera thought about the worst-case scenario Multrak mentioned. Getting the legacy but not getting his restraint skill. If the effect still worked to make someone crave blood as a drug they would have a big problem to deal with.
No one said anything for a while after that. They were all focusing on running to see if they could get faster to where Bonnie was. After about two minutes, Sammy asked, "Is it a coup?"
"What?" Hera turned to the turtle.
"Do a coup. Is that how you say it? Isn't it make a coup? Or, like, run a coup?" Sammy turned to her with a pensive expression.
"Are you really asking me about grammar while people are trying to kill my friends?" Hera raised one of her eyebrows.
"Oh, right. Sorry. Time and place," Sammy turned back and focused on the path ahead.
It took them just five minutes to start hearing some noise, and not the friendly kind. Instead, it was the sound of small explosions and magic attacks hitting the trees and the smell of burnt wood that followed with it.
"FUCK OFF!" Bonnie's voice echoed.
Hera turned in the direction of the voice and sprinted at full speed. She was currently under the debuff of her [All In] skill, but she was still confident in fighting the people of the Vanguard. The Empress arrived at the location where Bonnie was being attacked. She was scrambling behind a tree, yelling at someone while spells blasted the trunk. Someone rushed to her side, which caused the researcher to run away. A couple of flying fists flew through the air, aimed at the assailant, but they missed, not by much, but it wasn't such a close call either. This was Bonnie's biggest weakness, she was able to fight pretty well when a monster was far away, and it wasn't aimed at her, but when the creature got closer and she was the one being chased, she became frazzled and would oftentimes miss her attacks.
'Lurize, let's go for a pincer move,' Hera said, and the two of them split off. They wanted to help Bonnie, but they knew that if they showed up as backup, they would lose the element of surprise. Also, there was a chance that whoever was attacking the researcher could try to run away. If that were to happen, they might lose one of the rebels, and letting them run free could cause problems in the future.
'Do we kill them?' Lurize asked.
'I… don't know. If you can think of a way to just stop them, that's better, but if you feel they won't stop like Kadhan, then…' Hera couldn't finish the sentence, but the Royal Tutor understood what she meant.
'For what is worth, Hera. I was the one who killed him,' Nimbus said.
Hera opened a sad smile, 'That doesn't change things, you know that. And let's help Bonnie first; then we deal with my head.'
With a nod, Lurize hid behind a tree while Armory and Scythe told them when to move. They waited for a moment for the assailant to be distracted by Bonnie's spell to rush in. Lurize used his dash ability to shoulder charge the person, making them fall to the ground. Hera jumped on top of them to stop them from moving, placing the bladed tonfa right on top of their neck as an intimidating method.
"Pielle?" Hera asked. Below her was the woman who cooked a meal for her after she went hunting with Reynara. She was a bit creepy but very nice.
"I knew you wouldn't be with us on this. You are too nice," Pielle huffed and tried to get away, but Hera held her steady.
"Yeah, fine. You are not the first person to tell me that. Can we just stop now? You lost, and Kadhan is dead. You can just let go and keep living in the village," Hera tried to reason with Pielle but only got a maniacal laugh in response.
"So I can become a prisoner of prisoners? I'll pass. If I can't finish off my late husband's family, there is only one thing to do," Pielle grabbed the tonfa and pulled it towards her throat while pushing her body forward at the same time. The movement made the woman cut her own throat while under Hera, who tried to pull away but wasn't able to move fast enough to stop Pielle from killing herself.
"What the fuck?" Hera stepped back as the blood gushed out from Pielle's throat. She was so surprised by the attack that she didn't consider healing the woman. Not to mention that Daskka, who was the main healer of her court was still recovering.
"Hera!" Bonnie called and rushed over to her friend, "Are you ok?" she looked down, seeing the blood covering her body. Not all of it was from Pielle, there was a lot from the Empress herself, but that was already mostly dried up.
Seeing Bonnie's reaction, Hera took a moment to actually take notice of how her body was doing. Daskka wasn't around, but Edge did enough of a good job to let her keep herself together. She still had a black eye, a busted lip, a bloody nose, and several broken ribs. Her wrist was also banged up, and there was a constant ringing in her ear. Not to mention the constant pain that was shooting through her entire body because of the potion she took while fighting Kadhan. Still, she had to move.
"I'm fine," Hera replied when she felt something pop from her mouth. She coughed and spat out one of her molars, "Oh… Well, I'm fine."
"No, you are not! What the hell happened?" Bonnie gasped.
"I fought Kadhan. It was annoying," Hera started to feel her body slow down, but she didn't think that was a good idea. She jumped a couple of times, trying to force her body to heat up, "The others might still need help."
"What is going on? No, wait," Bonnie turned to Pielle's body, then back to Hera, "Thank you for saving me. I… I don't think I could've done that."
"She did it herself. But I'm not going to think about it now. We need to find the others. Sammy!" Hera called.
"I'm here. Sorry, I try not to get in the way of the fights. I don't know exactly how to help," Sammy appeared by their side.
"That's fine. What about the others?" Hera asked.
"They are all heading to the crater. No one is in danger, but that's the best place to gather up."
"Ok, let's go. Take us there, Sammy," Hera started walking.
Lurize and Nimbus seemed to want to say something, but they felt that the Empress knew what they wanted to talk about, and she didn't want to get into that just yet. Edge was too focused on healing her to participate in any conversation.
"What is going on? Why did Pielle attack me?" Bonnie was following Hera, but she was still very confused.
"There is a coup going on right now. Some of the people of the Vanguard didn't like that Reynara was not going to be their leader, and they were trying to use this hunt as a way to get rid of people who would be against their whole plan," Sammy replied.
"But why?"
"Because the whole 'we are happy here' thing was bullshit. It looks like a lot of people resented the kingdom and wanted revenge," Hera snarled.
"Oh…" Bonnie heard the anger in Hera's voice and didn't say anything else, unsure what to say to help her friend.
"I don't understand one thing. Why did Pielle choze to die?" Lurize asked.
"She did that?" Sammy looked back without stop moving. He had picked up the pace a little bit, just enough to stay at a jogging pace. All members of the party were doing relatively well, and since they didn't know what could happen, the turtle decided to let Hera pace herself.
"Yeah. She pulled Nimbus to her throat. I shouldn't have kept the blade so close to her," Hera said. She considered calling Nimbus out on his griffon form to take them, but she wanted to keep the adrenaline pumping. The moment she stopped, her body would collapse because of the injuries. There was one more thing she could do, and it was better to do it now than later, 'Curse. Can you lessen my pain and start healing my bones?'
'Yessss.'
'Then do it,' Hera said and felt an itchy feeling around her eyes, but she quickly stopped, and then her pain started to subside.
During that small interaction, Sammy was thinking about why Pielle decided to kill herself. He had an answer that applied to memories but couldn't actually say it. Then again, the best way to lie was to mix it with the truth. He changed one word about the explanation and started talking, "From what I can gather, the timeline has a way of fixing itself. Maybe Pielle was supposed to die during this coup, and when she didn't, the timeline forced her to kill herself."
"Wouldn't that cause problems for us then? If the curse were to be destroyed, the timeline would fix itself," Bonnie asked.
"I don't think that is the case. The timeline can fix small things. When something bigger happens, it won't be able to fix it, and instead, it will have to rewrite itself," Sammy explained.
"Can we talk about this later? We don't know if someone else will show up and attack us," Hera's voice became very cold, but they couldn't blame her. Right now, they were alone in a jungle full of traps and a massive monster while a group of rebels were trying to kill them. They had to focus on their surroundings or risk getting caught in yet another ambush, and none of them wanted that.
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