Fortress

 “Sto-!”

     Before the guard could even get a word out, Libero leaped at him with a face-caving punch that sent the guard flying into the wall, causing the whole prison to shake. Siti created space in the narrow prison hallway by turning her arms into bundles of vines that split up and pushed the surrounding guards up against the walls.

     There was something I had been meaning to test and this was the perfect opportunity. Using the enhanced metal abilities, I focused on their helmets and clenched my hand into a fist, followed by each guard’s helmet caving inward and crushing their heads. I was amazed at how different the metal control was after being enhanced with Sero’s former territory, but I noticed something else. The corpses of the guards, as well as their weapons and armor, simply vanished after they died, rather than staying behind like every other demon corpse.

“I had a feeling, turns out they were just puppets after all.”

“Puppets?”

“They’re not independent demons. They’re all formed by someone else, probably Arx himself. Hell, this whole place might be made by him too. Also means that even if we kill ‘em, he can just make new ones. Ugh, these types are always such a pain.”

“Fortunately, we’ve got James here! You can deal with them, right?”

Under that demonic skin, I couldn’t help but smile. It felt nice to be relied on, to feel like there’s something I can do. “Yeah,” I said, “You can count on me!”

     Out from the entrance, I could hear a bell being rung and distant calls of ‘intruders!’ and ‘they’re in the prison!’ I rushed towards the entrance before they could box us in and there I found dozens, perhaps hundreds of guards already gathering with their weapons trained on the entrance to the prison. One guard gave the call, “FIRE!”

    Metal-tipped arrows and bullets came flying at me only to be stopped in the air and thrown right back at the guards who fired them. More came from atop the castle walls and were met with the same fate. Though as I turned my attention towards the walls, guards with swords and spears came rushing at me from all sides. Their weapons bent away from me before they could get close and stopped the guards in their tracks before their armors were crushed with them inside.

     Siti emerged from the prison and quickly spread her vines out and across the stone walls, smothering the stone, tossing the guards over the edge, and tearing up artillery emplacements that had been built into the fortifications. “Arx is likely deeper inside. Let’s not waste too much time out here.”

     Libero was quick to respond to that direction, leaping out from the prison, skidding along the ground, then throwing himself at the next inner gate with a thunderous CLANK that echoed throughout the fortress. There was a huge dent in the doors, but they still stood. Another BANG and the doors fell over, their hinges ripped from the surrounding stone wall.

Libero was immediately greeted with more projectile fire, all of which stopped in the air before reaching him. I called out, hand raised, “I’ll take care of them, get to the next gate!”

“It’s about time you carried your own weight!”

     It was a bit frustrating how he put it, but I couldn’t deny his words. Even against Sero, I was probably just a decoy at best. But things were different now.

     I focused on all the metal within the section between the now-broken gate and the one that Libero would target next. Every weapon, every projectile, every piece of armor, and crushed them all down into the ground. Then, as Siti and I moved into the next section, I lifted the broken gate back into where it was and formed the gate into a single seamless sheet that filled into the destroyed sockets.

     As I turned to focus on the next section, I paused, as did Siti and Libero, as the gate was opening on its own. The drawbridge connecting the opened gate to the inner keep lowered, and though the guards remaining on the walls and peeking out of the various opening in the keep were all pointing their weapons at us, they were no longer firing.

     We walked into the keep, still on our guards as every little slit in the wall and every opening seemed to have another guard with another weapon behind it pointed at us. The interior of the structure was like a maze with only enough space for one person, barely enough to fit in Libero’s larger stature. There was one guard at the front who, though they did not speak a word, were leading us through the keep, across a flat, open inner courtyard, through more rooms, and finally to the innermost chamber.

     The room was spacious and open, but with multiple waist-high barrier littering the area with dozens of guards kneeling behind them. Along the walls were three floors of railings with yet more guards trained along them. Towards the back of the room sat an enormous demon sitting upon an appropriately-sized stone throne. Even sitting down, he was taller than all of us. His giant muscular form was covered in armor which, with the assistance of numerous guards, was quickly being swapped out from metal plating to layers of demon leather and scales. Even his helm was simply the skull of an even larger demon with holes opened for his horns to come in next to the skull’s horns. At either side of him sat racks of weapons accustomed to his size. Hammer, axe, spear, sword, shield, even firearms that, given their size, were more like cannons.

A thunderous voice boomed and reverberated through the spacious room, and the hundreds of guards bowed their heads in respect, “You stand in the presence of Lord Arx. The sentence for your trespassing and aggression is execution. However, I will hear your reason for these transgressions. Speak! Why have you come here?”