Chương 18: [1-12] Eggman's Last Stand

He stared at Signy's class for five more seconds before a weird manic laugh escaped him.

"Thief," he said in utter disbelief.

"It's a fucking thief. They gave me a thief, chat." Before he even thought about it he clicked his shades and entered Sophia's domain. He needed someone to yell at and she seemed the prime target. There she was, on her chaise longue, playing her fucking gacha game with all of his money.

"A thief?!" he said.

"A THIEF?!" Her head lolled toward him; she scythed him with her smile. You get a new unit and your first thought is to whine? That's a loser mentality, Hague!

"Shut the fuck up. You knew she was a thief the whole time and still you fed me that shit about there being something on the map I wasn't seeing. What, was that just fucking bait?" I had to get you back after you said such mean things to me! You didn't think I was actually so upset I revealed something important on accident, did you? Gawd! I'm the Goddess of Knowledge, silly, I'm not dumb. Oh yes, I know how to handle arrogant men like you.

Let you think you have the advantage and you'll blunder into any imaginable trap... hee~hee~hee!

"Oh fuck you. I'm not done yet. I'll find a way to win." You better! This is only your first challenge and I'm actually starting to have fun taunting you ❤ Don't die right away like Jakey and don't be a horrible bore like Eugene, will you please? I'm desperate for good entertainment here!

"Yeah I can fucking tell if you're playing phone games. Choke on a dick and die!" Rude! Now get back to tactics, my little chess monkey~ She raised thumb and forefinger from her phone screen and flicked the latter at Hague. Immediately he felt the tugging sensation on his body and then he was back on the gameboard. He might have kept yelling at her even so, but he wasn't the only one here having a bad time.

"Unreal!" Kaynes yelled.

"This can't be happening! It's madness! Nonsense! Does the Polymath have a death wish?! Transforming, in her condition!" He stormed back and forth with sharp, straight steps, throwing his arms up and constantly readjusting his glasses as he passed through the pale projected forms of his soldiers.

"She just summoned the Hero! She's filthy with the entropy of Primordial Chaos! This one act"—he swept a hand to indicate the solid pillar of flame and the dragon frozen over the board—"this one exertion will eliminate a century, two centuries from her lifespan! Let alone the implications for her fertility!" Hague, watching from afar, tucked his head down conspiratorially.

"Her fertility?" he whispered to chat.

"Dude she's like twelve."

"Of course, that only matters if the Chaos hasn't reached her brain already! Did she forget what happened to Polymath Wisdom, her own grandfather? Did she forget how the dementia degraded him? Of course not, these Sophian spawn forget nothing. So she's simply an idiot, an imbecile, or most charitably: a reckless fool! Oh! It's all so preposterous! Tell me I'm right, Piru-Piru!"

From her position near Truth's clawed foreleg, Piru-Piru said, "The published literature on draconic degenerative brain disease is limited by a lack of specimens to dissect."

"Forget the literature—""No."

"—and look at history!"

"Anecdotal at best."

"Quiet, you! Polymath Wisdom summoned Hero after Hero in an attempt to hold back progress, and see what happened to him. Truth saw! She was right there; she witnessed his madness take hold. She knows what's at stake if she pushes herself too hard after a summoning. Yet still she, she, she, she, she, she RUINS me with this IDIOCY!"

"We're not ruined."

"She burnt eight of my soldiers to cinders with a single breath!"

"We have more soldiers."" I have more soldiers. But I cannot toss them away so flippantly; Duke Lozaria and Lady Ignez and the others who have pledged me support would never stand for it. Besides—that last attack was mere inches away from me. I was almost killed!" Looking at the map, the attack was obviously at least twenty feet from so much as singeing Kaynes's bland gray cuffs. Not to mention by the rules of the game, Ignez would have blocked the attack (somehow).

"Truth is stunned this turn," said Piru-Piru, perusing Truth's stat screen.

"How fascinating! She needs to recover after attacking. A byproduct of her Entropic status condition? Either way, she can't hurt you next turn."

"Then the turn after!" Kaynes shouted.

"With a range like hers, with those pegasus knights swooping down from the sky, I'll be cornered! Killed! Piru-Piru, I'll die!" Hague whispered to chat, "Maybe we're not as cooked as we thought. Hold on. I'm gonna try something." He slinked his way across the map. Piru-Piru had her back to him and Kaynes's view was blocked by big fat dragon Truth, so as long as he kept quiet he could approach undetected. Not like it was hard to keep quiet, his footsteps made absolutely zero sound in this space.

The pair continued to argue, Kaynes completely freaking the fuck out, Piru-Piru responding drily. Chat loved the spectacle. Messages scrolled, glorying in Kaynes's "just desserts" for messing with the Hague. Hague knew he wasn't out of the woods yet, so he didn't join the gloating, but the reality of the situation mattered a lot less than what the players thought the reality was.

He popped out from behind dragon Truth casually, with his best douchebag swagger, an unflinching confidence as he slung an arm around Piru-Piru's shoulder and held it there so it looked like he'd grabbed her even though it was impossible to actually touch her. And he pointed straight at Kaynes's face and said:"You're so fucked bro."

"You," Kaynes said, nearly screamed, like he just saw a slasher villain.

"You!" Piru-Piru whirled around and broke from Hague's faux hold.

"I thought up a new question. Who is the current president of the United States of America?"

"I warned you not to play with me," Hague said, ignoring her.

"I warned you dude. But you didn't listen, my guy. You thought I was some fuccboi like that Jake loser or whoever the hell. Eugene from Canada. Guys you can tell suck dick just from their lame ass names. But I'm the goddam Hague, dog."

"So you lied when you said your name was Huh," said Piru-Piru.

"As I suspected." Kaynes composed himself, or tried to. He still spoke a little too quickly.

"Spare me your boasting. You have done nothing worthy of praise, nothing at all; only the irrationality of your allies saves you; Polymath Truth's actions are utterly antithetical to her self-preservation; yet for some inexplicable reason she's decided to stake even her own sanity on protecting you. No, she acts not for you specifically, lest you take that to mean your nonexistent charm has somehow won her everlasting devotion!"

"I am pretty charming though."

"Of course she lacks any interest in your sordid, decadent personality. But she is desperate, yes, desperate, she reeks of desperation, they all do, the Queen in Lucia and her regents and that fat President of the FFIR, even the blithe Tau Nuians content to view progress only as numbers in their bank accounts, they are all the calcified bones of this old world, the prison of its beating heart! Desperate to die, to die, if only the ground in which their bloated corpses are buried stays still forevermore!

And you'll fight for that stillness and smile because you're an ignoramus seeking only the gratification of your own superiority!"

"We're not doing this again," Hague said.

"We had our talk. My terms are the same. You join me, or you die. Maybe you're too dumb to see it, but the battle's completely in my favor now. Between Truth and the pegasus girls, they'll get to you in only a couple of turns. Once they kill you, I win." It was almost sad, the way Kaynes stared at him. If he hadn't been so smug before, Hague might've even felt sorry.

Not to mention the twinge of uncertainty that maybe Kaynes had a point, that Hague didn't really want to go to bat for the official church of his bitchy goddess, but it was too late for doubt. Hague wore the shades, he was the Hague, and the Hague always won.

"Ridiculous. There's a simple solution." Piru-Piru pointed at Kaynes.

"Retreat from the map."

"What?" said Kaynes.

"They can't kill you if you're not on the map. So leave." She said it like he was a moron for not thinking of it himself.

"But if I leave—I can't. I set the rules of the gameboard. Leaving will alter the victory and loss conditions." Hague was glad for his shades, because he couldn't stop his eyebrows from lifting at that. If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

"That's fine," said Piru-Piru.

"Cede the role of commander to me."

"It doesn't work that way. Aren't you aware? I thought you had real combat experience! From your expedition to the Low continent!" Piru-Piru's perpetually straight face made a momentary twinge.

"I have never had the opportunity to retreat from battle before."

"As you ought to know, my little genius, the Ideal Gameboard insists on a certain fairness. If I—" His eyes flitted to Hague.

"Well, forget the specifics."

"No, no," said Hague.

"Please keep talking. You're so good at it." Kaynes folded his arms behind his back, made himself stiff, and cleared his throat.

"Look. Piru-Piru, all that matters here is Adelheid. Everything revolves around her."

"Then Bontempelli and I will kill her," said Piru-Piru simply.

"In two turns. Three at most."

"In case you didn't notice, the battle's not looking so hot for you," said Hague.

"You don't have that long."

"Wrong," said Piru-Piru.

"Truth is stunned. The Lucian escort is on the opposite side of the map. Nobody in your party is strong enough to contend with either me or Onuphrio Bontempelli. Bontempelli's skill allows him to bypass your front lines. It will be trivial for the two of us to kill Adelheid." She turned to Kaynes.

"All you need to do is stay out of danger for a little longer. Let me handle the rest. I am a tactical genius who has never retreated from battle, after all."

"I would prefer," Kaynes said, "to take Adelheid alive."

"Pointless. I'll take the Hero alive. She can die. There's no possible reason you need her, after all. As long as she dies, you win." Okay. Fact was, Hague was listening to this and sweating. Piru-Piru beelining for him like a bullet was exactly the outcome he wanted to avoid. He'd hoped to bluff both her and Kaynes back, but he should've expected someone like her wouldn't budge so easily. Still... What Kaynes said earlier stuck with him. If he retreated, the map objective would change.

(Obviously that made sense if you thought about it—how do you kill the boss if the boss isn't there?) Since Kaynes had gotten behind his army and Hague couldn't rely on Truth or the pegasi despite what he said, his biggest priority needed to be making Kaynes retreat. That seemed totally doable, guy was practically shitting himself right now. It'd only take one more push, one more big thing to go Hague's way, and he'd tilt off the face of the planet. Question was: What was Hague's play?

Everything Piru-Piru said when assessing the map state was true. What did Hague have left in the tank for that final push? Kaynes made a show of studying the map, as if considering every option. Finally he said, "Okay. We'll follow your strategy, Piru-Piru. You are a tactical genius, after all."

"I know."

"But be safe, will you?"

"Obviously." Kaynes then turned to Hague and smiled once more, smug as shit.

"You don't seem quite so self-assured now, Hero the Hague. What happened?"

"Just make your move." They each made their move. And the battle entered its final stage. As a thief, Signy had the advantage of high SPD, enough to prevent her from being doubled by Piru-Piru (though not the insanely quick Bontempelli). This made Signy a viable meat shield to absorb exactly one magic blast. She also had a typical thief skill, Thieftouch, which let her steal items and pick locks.

He briefly considered trying to steal Piru-Piru's TacGlass, which might make Kaynes easier to pressure on the gameboard, but no dice. Stealing required the thief to be faster than their opponent, and Signy was not that. Signy did have two more tricks up her long furry sleeve. The first was her other skill, Reroute. It let her move after acting. In Fire Emblem, usually only units on horseback got a skill like that. (And it was usually called Canto. Was there a reason everything had some legally distinct name here? Was even Sophia terrified of Nintendo's lawyers?) Then there was her weapon, Orbitèle. The accent meant it must be a special weapon, compared to all the Base Spears and Heavy Axes so far, but fuck if Hague knew what it meant. Not even chat had a firm idea beyond some vague muttering about a French word for a spider.

Orbitèle was a knife type weapon, a little handheld blade by the look of it, and with pretty unimpressive stats: Weapon Type Rank Range WT MT HIT CRIT Uses Orbitèle KNF C 1 1 5 100 5 20 The only other knife Hague had seen was the dagger in Bontempelli's inventory, and like that the Orbitèle had an effective bonus against armor. But that wasn't the interesting thing, especially since Ignez was now so far across the map Hague wasn't worried about fighting her.

The interesting thing was the description: Inflicts Dilation (reduces MOV by 4). A status effect. And a decent one at that. After all—can we get it in chat? —what's the most important stat in Fire Emblem? Wariotroid: MOV Kmarticuno3: Movement HeyManHey: move 1111111111111111111111111: SPACE!!! The_Nuremberg: The war crime counter and any other answer is wrong Signy had 6 MOV, and a movement-based skill, and a movement-nerfing weapon. Okay, so maybe not as worthless as Hague first thought.

Still, it'd take more than what Signy brought to the table to make Kaynes go running. Time resumed. Hague and his army didn't have anywhere to go except over the rickety bridge, so that's where they went. Signy finally reached Adelheid and tried to stop for a fucking chat but Hague had a plan here and he wasn't about to let anything interfere.

"Hey! Here, right here." He pointed at a patch of ground near the bridge.

"Need you to stand right here. Yep, you, Sieglinde 'Signy' de Leyosa. Come on, move it!" Signy's face switched to one of such utter contempt Hague thought for a moment she might actually refuse his order. Tuatoru's sneer didn't help as he tilted his head and said, with dripping irony, "Better do as the boss commands milady," but after Adelheid nodded Signy acquiesced and stood where she was supposed to. As she passed, Hague asked: "Where's the mage?"

"Whatever mage do you mean?" Signy's voice, when not shouting at Adelheid, was high and haughty, the perfect mold of a pampered young noblewoman, which only made her class all the more baffling.

"The mage with the acting troupe!"

"Oh." Signy tossed a hand onto the back of her wrist.

"I sent her ahead to prepare the cart. We'll require a hasty retreat once this is over, after all."

"I could've used a mage here!"

"Not this one," Signy said. As if she knew better than Hague what he could and couldn't use. None of them had moved the full extent of their range, which gave them the extra moments needed for this little conversation before Gaspar came clanking into view. Bald old Eggy had spent the entire map running as fast as his beefcake legs could carry him, he was red in the cheeks, huffing and puffing under the weight of his armor, doing everything in his power to keep ahead of the enemies hunting him down.

Finally the hunt was over. He planted his foot, readied his axe, and turned.

"Come at me, scum!" Gaspar bellowed, above the crackling of Truth's flame.

"Test yourselves, if you dare, against the Bright Red Bastard of the Trimetchen! I hacked the heads off your fathers before you shitheels were even born!" Something passed the sun and radiant lines streaked the river and the grass. In the distance, past the watchtowers of the broken wall, the pegasus girls darted down on Kaynes's forces, then danced back (rerouted) in a white-winged ballet. Stray feathers gleamed across the air. Bontempelli came first.

Wordless, bow back on his shoulder, back stooped low, the lightning flash of the dagger viper-like up and into the chink between Gaspar's breastplate and his mammoth left pauldron. One quick, coldly professional strike. Gaspar grunted as the rainbow forcefield shimmered at the point of impact. Gaspar's max HP was 35. He lost 4 last turn when Bontempelli shot an arrow at him, and now the super effective bonus of the dagger slipping past his defenses hacked off another 10.

Gaspar hesitated only a moment and brought down his axe. He had a shitty 48% chance to hit the squirrelly fast assassin and if he did he'd actually do a solid chunk of damage. Hague already knew what would happen but watched anyway, as if the outcome might change. The axe planted itself into the soil. Bontempelli stood perched at a tilt to one side, completely unharmed. Then came Piru-Piru. Gaspar's 12 DEF protected him from catastrophic harm even against Bontempelli's dagger.

If you thought about it, this made no sense, since his DEF presumably came from his big fucking armor and Bontempelli avoided the armor entirely. Whatever. The point was, Eggman held the line. But Gaspar had a puny 4 RES and that was the stat that defended against magical attacks. And here was Piru-Piru, right behind Bontempelli, sporting 16 MAG and a Book of Ice with 8 MT. The book flipped open in her outstretched hand, her lips intoning as though bored by whatever incantation drew the power out of its pages.

It happened quick, with less ceremony than Hague expected. The book flashed, the pages turned, and a thick crystal of ice formed out of Gaspar's chest only to immediately break and buffet him with shrapnel. His whole body flashed rainbow. Then the rainbow shattered.

"Gaspar!" said Adelheid. His forcefield was gone. Without it to protect him, the damage reached his body. Small bits of ice glittered, embedded in his face; a broad red gash rounded the dome of his head. Blood ran down, parted in two streams around his nose, and clumped in his mustache until drops of excess beaded to patter to the ground. His mighty frame stooped, clutching the haft of his axe for support. Frozen in the posture of a final stand, facing boldly even now the foes who had overcome him utterly.

"Gaspar," said Adelheid.

"Gaspar..." Or not quite utterly. Remember chat? Last battle? I know it feels like a million years ago, I feel it too chat, I feel tired, I want to sleep. But do you remember? There was a moment when I had to decide whether to give the boss kill to Adelheid or Gaspar. And you said, Hague don't! Don't give the Jagen the kill! He falls off! Eggman is cooked! Rizzless! No Chaos Emeralds! Surely you said it, exactly like that, don't deny it. And Hague gave Eggman the kill anyway. And Eggman leveled up.

And Eggman gained 1 point of HP. Gaspar, bleeding, heaving, panting with pain, propped by his own axe, did not fall. He remained there, standing. He remained there, staring down Bontempelli and Piru-Piru who combined had not, in fact, overcome him. He stood there with exactly one point of HP. The only point of HP that mattered: the last one. And now everyone was exactly where Hague wanted them. TURN 4 PLAYER PHASE START