Firm: Opal’s Story

As I start to put my maid outfit back on with Pepper’s help I hear a familiar chime, and see a screen.

Ding!

That’s a bit weird, since we haven’t even gotten in the gate with out forces yet. I wonder if one of the zombies got him. I see that Pepper is looking at a screen too, so it’s probably the same one. Snow bursts into the room as we finish getting dressed and excitedly says “Did you both get that message too?” I nod and almost wish this outfit didn’t have such complicated underwear. It takes way too long to get everything in the right place. “Yeah, a zombie must have gotten him. Are we still doing the dinner thing? We did spend a lot of time making sure the forks were in the correct spot.”

My white haired daughter shakes her head and says “Not if we can help the fight outside. Now that we can use skills, what do you think we should be doing?” I think for a bit and say “Do you two have any summoning skills? Citrine told me earlier that the walls block them, but if we’re inside they might still work.” I then cast a Gloaming Call, hoping that it works so I can be more useful in the fight outside. Sure enough a black hole appears on the ground in front of me. I do a little wiggle as the first shadow crawls out, and Pepper says “I don’t have one yet, but yours is pretty cool grandma. I think mom has one too, but it’s not that spooky.”

I look over at Snow who’s blushing as she uses a skill. A white ball of pointy hairs appears next to her, and it’s kind of cute so I say “Okay, just make as many of those as you can and I’ll be doing the same. Once the humans outside are distracted, we’ll make all of them burst out and help.” I see her do a wiggle, and she’s getting much better, so I play with her tail while we spend our mana. Pepper seems a bit bored since she doesn’t have a summon, when I see her get a big grin. Then my grandbaby walks over to a picture on the wall and smashes the frame, and rips up the picture. She turns to us and says with her hands on her hips “He’s dead right? So we can break stuff and not get in trouble.”

A minute later as Snow and Pepper are smashing stuff, the front door bursts open and I look around the corner to see who it is. Standing there is someone I recognize, but it takes me a second to remember where from. “Where did that otaku bastard hide the shipment?” He yells and I remember, it’s Hunter, the leader of Canton. His clothes look ragged and he’s breathing heavily, so he must have been in a fight recently. “Did you hear me slave? Take me to where Horace hid the potion shipment, or I’ll kill you and find it myself. I guess he doesn’t recognize me, which is a bit rude… but I do have bunny ears now, so that’s probably it.

Snow comes around the corner and sees Hunter, before stopping in place and bowing “How can I be of assistance to Sir?” I guess we are still supposed to be polite to guests, so I straighten myself and fix my cloths a bit. He grabs her and screams “Stop fucking with me and take me to the potions!” She looks scared and turns her head to me saying “Mom… help.” I say to the shadows around me “Kill him.” and everything becomes black as my shadows shoot out of the neighboring rooms. Hunter pushes himself away from Snow in surprise, so I use my boosted jump as a Bunny to kick off a wall and barrel into him.

I hear him scream as I force him to land on one of Snow’s spiky hair balls. My strength isn’t enough to hold him down by myself, even though he’s weakened too right now, so I change my orders for the shadows, to help me restrain him. We struggle on the ground for a few moments, when I see Snow come up behind him, forcing a small potion bottle into his screaming mouth. He quickly tries to spit it out, but my fist punches it into his mouth, shattering the glass. He uses a skill of some kind and me and the shadows fly off of his body. I see him spit out the glass, before lunging at Snow who yells “Stop!”.

He stops in place, and I’m confused for a second, but quickly call off my shadows from attacking him anymore. He has a glazed look in his eyes, and doesn’t move. She somehow got one of the Control potions, and that’s what she forced into his mouth earlier. “Take off all your clothes and items.” She commands him and I ask her “How did you get one of those?” While giving her a hug. She sighs and responds “Master gets them from his dungeon, and provides them to the city. He said we could only use them if there was a threat to our lives. I’m guessing these are the potions Hunter was asking for.” I remember that the potions last a few hours, so I’m not worried about him right now.

Pepper walks into the hall and looks concerned, but we add her to the hug and I give her a pet too. “Okay Snow, can you order your hair balls to help with the attack outside now. I’ll send my shadows too, but we should stay here and watch this guy. Pepper, can you bring more of those potions in case they don’t last as long on him. I think he’s probably 6^th tier.” The only reason I was able to struggle with him for a few seconds earlier, was because of my weight, and I think he was low on his resources. So it’s better if we just keep him like this for now.

The fight outside starts to ramp up as the Hounds are the first to hit the human lines inside the city. I watch with Sapphire, who’s riding on the pack leader, as Hounds start dying in the dozens to kill a few human guards. We just didn’t have time to get them leveled before coming here, so the youngest ones are sent in first. This was the pack leaders idea, and it seems like he doesn’t mind much, just wagging his tail for my blue haired daughter. The next to show up and join the hounds are Amber’s hoppers… but they get massacred, so I have to console her. They really aren’t that strong without someone riding them. Poor fluffs.

The boars do a lot better using their massive weight to smash into the human groups, breaking them up for the surviving hounds to pick off. Sue is a bit smug as she stands beside us watching them work so well together. She really did do a good job with them, so I tell her as much and she smiles at me saying “You just gotta know the animal to teach it how to do it’s best. I remember being bowled over by a charging pig when I was a kid and my dad’s farm.” They do seem pretty good at it, and I remember the Boar I fought after first leaving the forest so long ago. It had tried to do the same thing to me, but I was too heavy. Humans aren’t heavy though, so that’s probably why it works.

The boars still stink though, so I’m glad it’s Sue who’s in charge of them and not my orange haired wife. Since I want to snuggle her later, and not smell sweaty pig. My shadows are the next to join the fighting, followed by Snow’s hair ball summons. I watch as my shadows jump on one human guard that was about to finish off a Hound. He gets covered and starts screaming, but one of the spiky hair balls jumps into the man’s mouth. The screaming is cut of, but the human’s flailing increases, and I wince a bit imagining what it would feel like to have spiky hairs in my mouth. Bleh.

The sentiment seems to be shared with the others watching as they all hold a hand up to their mouth. Well it’s better to be safe, so I do the same. As the slow statues finally show up, the humans of Canton start surrendering. It seems like most of their 5^th tiers were weakened by the fighting with the zombie horde, and their 6^th tiers are caught, missing or dead. It still takes another half hour of fighting, for last of the surviving guards to surrender. So a lot more Hounds, Boars, and statues die. It’s a bit unfortunate, but we can always make more of them. None of the Hoppers survived, but Amber seems content with being taken care of by two of my bodies.

After we have the surrendered guards restrained, Snow, Pepper and my bunny body bring the drugged Hunter out to the group. Snow tackles her husband in a big hug, and Pepper asks “Can I get some help looking for the other slaves in town, I don’t know where my Neil was taken.” Since combat has ended, my shadows disperse, so I can’t have them search with her. The Hound leader growls, indicating that his pack has good noses and can help find hiding people. So Sapphire is put in charge of finding everyone, including the non-guard slaver humans who might be hiding in their homes.

With that started, Jessica sends the statues to cover the walls and broken open gate. Not many of the statues were completely destroyed, since they joined the fighting so late. Their slow bodies really aren’t that great for attacking. “So what are we going to do with their leader here? Does he go to the prison we’re making with Onyx?” Amber asks, and Pops answers “I think we should send him to the prison yeah. That way he can feel the same powerlessness that he forced on others.” I guess that makes sense, but my stomach feels weird when I think about it, so I say “I think we should kill him. What if he gets out, he’s stronger than any of us right now. Citrine, Amber, he’s like Arhu isn’t he? He uses the potions to control people, and was in charge of this giant city of slavers. So I say we smash him and make sure he can’t do it to our family or friends again.”

I think I’m afraid of what happens if he got loose, and that’s what the feeling in my stomach is. It’s okay to tell the people here, because they’re friends and family members. I hear Pops grunt as he scratches his beard, before saying “It’s really hard to argue with that sentiment. I want him to suffer, but she’s right that he’d be way too dangerous kept alive.” He sighs and then says “Fine, I agree with Opal. Let’s get rid of future troubles, it’s not like he deserves mercy of some kind.” I’m not sure what mercy is, but I nod, since the thought of killing him feels a lot better.

Amber gives me a hug and says “I’m with my wife on this one, none of us could fight him one on one, and we got lucky catching him in the first place.” Citrine agrees adding “If it were up to me, we’d kill all of the slavers here, but Onyx and our kids who chose suppression need a source for points this year. None of those in 4^th tier here would cause a real issue being detained, so I say we let them be imprisoned until the event is over.”

I notice she didn’t mention the 5^th tiers, so I ask “What about the 5^th tiers? Some of them surrendered too.” Pops jumps into the conversation again by saying “Imprison them too, a 5^th tier branded will have similar stats to a 4^th tier. I’m fine with killing Hunter because he’s 6^th tier and a piece of garbage, but we don’t know why these 5^th tiers are in their situations. So I don’t think we need to shed needless blood for it. They already surrendered, and a good enough prison will hold them Branded.” I see my angel daughter shake her head and sigh saying “Fine, but we’re going to have to give Onyx and the others lots of statues to help keep the prisoners in line. I don’t want my sister getting hurt because we were too kind.” I agree, since I’m not really concerned by the 5^th tiers that surrendered, especially once they get branded.

Once this event is over, they’ll just be normal squishy humans.