Fallen Brides: Merce — Pre-Nerf Estoc

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I had planned this weeks update to be a particularly long one because I basically finished one of my other big projects over the weekend, but then I had to spend a little over a day fixing my laptop, so it ended up being just 2,300 words. Expect a bigger chunk next week, circumstances permitting.

Merce's fight with Deruella occupies almost the entirety of this section. Expect the corruption scene to begin next week.

As always, comments and corrections are appreciated.

(Text after the cut.)

I glanced at Elt for just a moment. He was focused on the enemy in front of us, spear in hand. Or rather, he was paralyzed by the sight of her. His stance was in shambles, his body was stiff, and naked fear was creeping its way across his face, but his eyes had not yet lost the will to fight.

An ordinary man would have been charmed on the spot, but it seemed he was managing to hold out. That, however, did not change the fact that he was practically defenseless. I had to get him away from here as soon as possible.

Shit...! I screwed up. I might as well have brought him along just to slow me down. Why didn't I, of all people, realize this might happen...?

I should have come alone. It was the kind of mistake I normally wouldn't make. Why, at a time like this...?

Beating myself up wouldn't help.

"Hee hee... Do you really think I'd let him?"

As soon as I told him to run, the lilim snapped her fingers. I sensed her mana behind me, where Elt was.

"Elt!?"

By the time I turned around, a magic circle was already glowing under Elt's feet. He was trapped inside a wall of red light.

"Coward!"

Realizing that turning to look behind me left me totally defenseless, I turned back to the lilim. If she'd taken advantage of the opening, I would have lost. I'd shown my back — even if only for a moment — to an enemy I knew was strong enough to make that certain. The knowledge made me shudder and curse.

My enemy had a hostage. The situation couldn't get much worse.

Could I abandon him? Abandon Elt? No, I couldn't. Elt was my pupil, my subordinate, my drinking companion, my friend, and my comrade in arms. I was closer to him, got along with him better, and enjoyed being with him more than anyone else in Lescatié. He was irreplaceable.

I was the only person here who could stop the lilim. I knew that I couldn't afford to lose. Of course, I also knew that I couldn't afford to bring personal feelings onto a battlefield.

I still couldn't steel myself to abandon Elt. I didn't want to. I didn't care if that was unworthy of a Hero, or selfish, or conceited.

Even if I didn't abandon Elt, however, there would still be no one left to protect him. Even if I surrendered, I had no guarantee he'd be released. In fact, I was certain he wouldn't be.

No matter what I did, I had no hope of saving him.

Shit...! What should I do? He wouldn't even be in this mess if I hadn't brought him here...

For a moment, hesitation, regret, impatience, and anger at myself dominated my thoughts. The lilim must have noticed.

"I will not harm him... I swear it on the names of my mother and father. I only want to him to see you. Now, if you care to try me, I'll be your opponent."

She grinned fearlessly and generated a mass of pitch-black mana in the air. It writhed, shrinking and changing shape until it was a rapier that came to rest in the lilim's hand. The blade was jet black. The hilt was white, matching her hair, wings, and tail. The sinister weapon was adorned, like her clothes, with imitation red eyes.

Then, still hovering in the air and grinning fearlessly, she beckoned to me with her free hand. There was overwhelming confidence in the gesture that had nothing to do with holding Elt prisoner. It seemed to say that she had no fear of losing.

"Bring it on, bitch!"

I rushed straight at the lilim and thrust my trusty halberd at her heart. The sound of the tip slicing the air carried in the quiet darkness.

An instant later came the scrape of metal on metal. The lilim's rapier easily turned aside my halberd.

I hastily leapt back to avoid a counterattack, but none came. Instead, the lilim slowly returned her rapier to its original position and spoke mockingly.

"Oh my, look at his face... This must be quite hard on him."

"Shut up...!"

Her tone sounded as if she wanted to imply something about our relationship. It was deeply unpleasant. Elt was important to me, but there was nothing like that between us.

This time, I brought my halberd around in a short, sideways sweep. From her stance, she couldn't hope to block it...!

"Oh my, right on the mark..."

The blade of my halberd was just about to cut into the lilim's wing when it clanged off a translucent black wall that appeared between me and her.

The lilim was still floating calmly, uninjured and without a hair out of place. She flashed a bewitching, chillingly beautiful grin.

"You're not taking this seriously...!"

A wall of pure mana with no incantation. It was a show of strength made possible by the overwhelming quantity of mana at her disposal.

She was on a different level. My experience as a warrior made me immediately aware of the power gap between me and the thing in front of me. I couldn't honestly claim to stand a chance.

But I was still going to beat her. I couldn't afford to lose. Losing would mean joining those monsters, those instinct-driven beasts, those... women. That was the one thing I couldn't bear. Just thinking about it made me sick to my stomach.

And I had to get Elt back. He was in danger because of my mistake; I couldn't lose without setting that right. I couldn't afford to.

I summoned my courage, backed off again, adjusted my grip on my halberd, and glared at the lilim.

Breaking through her wall head on would be difficult... Was there anything I could do to get around it...?

"If you won't come to me... I'll just have to go to you."

The lilim cut my thoughts short with a great flap of her wings. She moved so lightly she almost seemed to have dispensed with the concept of weight.

The lilim appeared to dance gracefully through the air, but she closed distance with the speed of an arrow.

She's fast...!

I had the longer reach. At close quarters, however, her nimble rapier had the advantage.

I tried to capitalize on my longer reach with a horizontal swipe at the approaching lilim.

"Hee hee hee..."

The lilim floated up, seeming to ignore inertia, and glided over my halberd.

I screwed up.

By the time I thought that, the lilim's bewitching smile was write in front of me. A shudder ran down my spine. Then came a flurry of strikes from the jet-black rapier in her hand.

When someone thrusts with a rapier, they can't do anything while their arm is fully extended. That being the case, all I had to do was dodge out of the way, then aim for that opening.

When I tried to put the theory into practice, however... it was the most I could do to narrowly avoid her sharp, precise thrusts. I had no room to counterattack. Because she was flying, she could dispense with the preliminary movement of stepping in. That only added to the danger.

She's not just strong; she's got skill, too...!

"You'll never win if you just stay on the defensive, you know?"

The storm of thrusts was getting more severe. I was stuck on the defensive and being inevitably forced into a situation where I would no longer be able to block her rapier with my halberd. If this assault kept up, I was gone to lose. I knew that, but there was nothing I could do about it. The lilim wasn't leaving me even a momentary opening to aim for. My predicament just kept getting worse.

It happened too fast. I'd only just started to think of a strategy to break out of the deadlock when a stab slipped past my halberd and graved my right leg.

There was no pain. There was no wound, either. Instead, a little bit of strength went out of my leg.

My center of gravity slipped just a little out of position. That created just a little break in my stance. By the time I realized the opening could prove decisive, it was already too late.

"Hee hee hee... Got you."

The rapier closed in on my right shoulder. My faltering center of balance slowed my body's reaction, and the blade graved my skin. It was deeper than the earlier hit, but there was still no pain. The loss of strength, however, was that much greater.

Then came a stab at my left leg. I couldn't evade it just by twisting my body out of the way. I tried to change its trajectory with my halberd, but because of the weakness in my right shoulder, I wasn't quite fast enough.

The rapier thrust in and pulled back, just missing the center of my left leg. As it did, all the strength went out of the limb. My knees buckled and my vision wavered.

The rapier came at me again. My vision went into slow motion. My thoughts raced, but my halberd wouldn't reach from this unsteady posture, and I was too off-balance to dodge.

A sideways sweep of the rapier went clear through my right leg, which I had thrust out to keep from falling. Apparently the blade of mana could be used for slashing as well as stabbing. The realization came too late.

The leg went as limp as if the tendons had been severed. Gravity dragged me to my knees. I had no choice but to use my halberd as a staff to prop up my teetering upper body.

The rapier pressed the advantage with quick thrusts to both my arms. I had no way of blocking them. The stabs were shallower than the ones to my legs had been, so I was able to keep a hold on my weapon, but they lost the strength to swing it. I was like a feeble woman.

"It's your loss," the lilim declared, floating lightly.

She looked down on me with a face that said her victory was no surprise.

"Shit...!"

No matter how I struggled to force strength back into my legs, all they did was tremble. I couldn't stand. Even if I tried to swing my weapon, the most I could do was drag its weight.

Move... Move...! I've got to fight...! If I don't, Elt and I will be...! So why...? Why won't you move...?

Struggle as I might, I couldn't rise from my knees. I knew I'd lost.

"Elt... I'm sorry... Because of me, you..."

I looked over my shoulder to where Elt was trapped in the magic circle. Because of the number of times I'd backed away, it was now directly behind me.

Elt was close at hand. I could see him through the magic circle, paralyzed, watching my defeat. Even in this situation, he looked worried for me. That only added to the shame and misery of my loss.

"Now, I'm going to make you a monster... make you a lovely woman."

Again, the lilim glided toward me. She took my halberd, leaving me weaponless.

Then she circled around behind me, held me under both armpits, and raised me to my feet. That done, she turned again, so that I was facing Elt.

"Wha...? Let go... Let go of me! I don't want to be a woman!"

"I'll make you a woman." The words sent a shudder through my whole body.

"Woman."

Memories of my hateful mother flashed before my eyes. Memories of the woman who crazily, relentlessly abused me. I hadn't known why. I'd just suffered it.

My father was a man of character. He should have saved me, but he'd trusted that woman implicitly. He'd worked himself to the bone for her and me. And as if to mock his trust, she had punched me and kicked me, always careful not to leave marks my father would see. The abuse escalated as the days went by, and my father didn't notice.

When my father was looking, she played the part of the good wife.

As A child, I'd been ruled by fear. I hadn't been able to seek help. In front of my father, I'd acted like nothing was wrong, just like she told me to. I did resent my father for failing to notice, but I also looked forward to the time I spent with him. She didn't hurt me when he was there. And when my father smiled and called me a "good girl," it really did make me happy.

Then, one day, she started going out more. She also stopped giving me the scraps that passed for lunch. I suffered from an empty stomach, but she was hurting me less, so it came as a relief.

Laughing madly, she brought down the kitchen knife and took my right eye. "This is goodbye to you and that boring loser," she'd said.

I saw my father, crying and apologizing. She wasn't there. My father, thin with care, kept apologizing to me until he lay on the floor.

It's all her fault. Casually hurting people, betraying them, deceiving them... I'll never become a woman like her! I'll never become a monster...!

The fear of being a woman that had been etched into me covered my mind like a flood. I flailed with all the strength in my weakened body to escape it. But in spite of my efforts, I was easily restrained and forced to face Elt.

"Hee hee... Shall we let him watch? Now, let's start with... these magnificent breasts of yours."