Appropriate Actions

There was a stinging pain in her stomach as Nia came to. The sounds of clanging metal reached her ears and when she opened her eyes, she saw sparks flying.

She still felt incredibly weak and her magic was still out of reach. So no miraculous full recovery this time.

Groaning she forced her right hand to move and grab onto the sword. She didn’t have the strength to pull it out.

“Raaahh!” Gregor swung his heavy war ax at Robb.

The thief jumped over the sharp blade and the mountain that was his opponent. He rammed the pommel of the dagger in Gregor’s neck, landed and jumped forward, dodging an arrow that Lynn had shot at him.

“Our lady will judge and punish you,” the archer screamed.

Robb vanished. Lynn raised her bow with both hands and blocked the dagger’s blade with a loud clang.

Nia looked down. Ralf, Tom, Tina and Sonja were lying on the floor. Sonja and Ralf were looking at her. They both blinked, tears in their eyes. They looked relieved. She couldn’t tell whether Tina and Tom were still alive, but she hoped.

Gregor swung his ax at Robb again. The hit on his neck had done nothing. The thief was caught between the bow and the ax, blocking both with daggers in both hands. The red dagger cut into the wax ax’s blade before he was thrown back, rolled in mid-air and landed.

“Why? Our lady has given you a chance to live in this world!” Lynn drew another arrow and nocked it.

Nia drew a slow but shallow breath, and tried to muster the strength to pull the blade out. Her fingers slid over the slick wet blade.

“Because of her cruelty. Because of her total disregard of life!”

“She was keeping us safe!” The arrow shot forward and Robb barely dodged out of the way. It left a red streak on his right arm.

“Only if we did what she wanted. Everyone else was a means to an end, a sacrifice!” He shot forward, toward Lynn. Gregor stepped between him and the archer, swinging the war ax. “Those were not our people!” Robb jumped out of the way, past Ralf and landed in another corner of the room.

“Like the dozens and dozens of people you summoned into this world? The dozens of promises she’s broken and people she’s tortured? And what for?”

“To save this world!” Lynn shot another arrow at Robb.

“Nothing has changed! You’ve all just become addicted to the influx of power whenever you killed another saint. You even looked forward to torturing them. I’ve seen you smile in anticipation again and again!”

Nia hummed a melody. No words, no praying, but she still hoped her magic would react and give her the strength to pull the blade out.

“We need that power to fix our planet!”

“How much more power do you need?” Robb screamed.

Nia’s magic reacted and with a rush of strength, she pulled the blade out, screaming in the process. This. Hurts!

They looked all at her. Nia panted heavily and relaxed a bit. I need to heal. I am bleeding out …

“M-Mistress?” Lynn asked. “Is that you?”

Nia held up her hand. To buy time. To recover. So they anticipated that Saesquar would try take over my body?

She started humming, slowly healing her wound. The process was hurting as well and she grimaced a few times.

“That’s not our goddess,” Lynn whispered.

“How do you know?” Gregor whispered back.

“Our Lady wouldn’t need to hum a melody.”

So much for playing their dark lady for a while. Nia rolled her eyes and slowly got up. “She’s right. I’m not Saesquar. I won. She lost. End of story.”

“You are kidding. Right? Saesquar is a goddess. She’s our goddess. She can’t lose!” Lynn’s hands shook, as she aimed at Nia with her bow.

Gregor took his ax walked next to Tom. “Bring our lady back out, or he dies!”

“No!” Nia felt a shock run through her. Her vision faded for a moment. She had won, hadn’t she?

Robb reacted and held the red dagger against Gregor’s throat. “Let it go.”

Tina was suddenly behind Lynn, threatening her with another knife. The archer lowered her bow with shaky hands.

Nia fell to her knees. The sudden loss of tension robbing her of her strength again.

“W-What will become of our world now?” Lynn asked with a shaky voice.

Nia looked up, her own voice shaky. “I don’t know and I don’t care.” she reached for the handle of the sword and used it as a crutch to get back on her feet.

“You’ll have to live in this world.” Gregor grumbled. “You should care.”

“Maybe if you wanted me to care more, you shouldn’t have done your best to kill me or my friends.” She cut Ralf’s restraints, who pulled the gag out of his mouth.

“What the fuck, girl? How did you know that Robb would turn?”

“I didn’t. He looked like he was still the most human between all of them. So I gambled.” She cut Tom’s restraints while answering.

“You had me really scared a few times.” Tom cleared his throat. “I mean, I knew you would kick her ass.”

“Thanks for the insincere vote of confidence.” Nia cut Sonja free and helped the girl back up.

“Ugh. I have a headache. This stuff is really nasty.” She spit onto the floor.

“I know.” Nia sighed. “I know.”

“So, what do we do now?” Tom scratched the back of his head.

“Depends a bit on what these two will be doing.” Nia looked at Lynn and Gregor and then at Robb that still held the dagger to the big man’s throat. “First, I should probably thank the VIP in the room.” She looked directly at the thief and inclined her head toward him. “Thank you.”

“No. Don’t thank me. I’ve been complicit in this for far too long.”

“It doesn’t matter how long you have been complicit. As long as you turned around, in mind and in deeds, you’re redeeming yourself. You can’t erase what you have done, especially not to yourself, but you can do better afterwards. It’s one of the things I could appreciate from one of the religions of my world.”

“Then you have learned the teachings of our lord.” Tina smiled and looked proud.

“Don’t have me start about all the things I don’t agree with!” Nia shook her head.

“Will you still try to kill any of us?” Ralf had retrieved his ax and aimed it at Gregor.

The big man actually looked at Lynn, who finally shook her head. “It doesn’t make sense any more. Our lady is gone.”

Tina relaxed her grip. Lynn suddenly reached down to her leg, pulled a dagger out and turned on Tina. The former nun reacted quickly, dodged the attack and cut Lynn’s throat open. Nia looked away, feeling nauseous.

Gregor fell onto his knees, suddenly loosing all his strength.

Robb stepped back from him.

Nia shook her head, trying to chase the shiver away that had assaulted her. “That doesn’t seem like something Jesus would teach.”

“It’s not.” Tina said and cleaned the blade of her dagger. “But I found that if you’ve given someone already several chances and they still try to hit your cheek again and again without consequences, you have to take appropriate actions.”

“W-What should I do now?” Gregor seemed at the verge of breaking into tears.

“You want to protect your world?” Nia asked, fixing him with her gaze. “How about you protect the people in it? Protect those that are weak, that are bullied, and assaulted by those that are stronger. Protect them and you’ll protect the world.”

Nia turned away and walked toward the exit.

“Nia?” Sonja caught up to her. “Do you have any plans?”

“No. I just want to get out of here.”

“Let’s return to the monastery.”

Nia stopped and looked at Sonja. “Why?”

“We’ll probably have to settle down in this world. Even if I didn’t have much as we were summoned, I’d like to get my things. They help me remember my family.”

“Family …” Nia closed her eyes for a moment. What was left of her family wasn’t worth remembering, but she had a few things she would’ve liked to have herself. She looked at the others. “Okay, let’s get back to the monastery.” She walked forward, ignoring Gregor and Robb.

“You know what would be really cool? If you could teleport us there.”

“Yeah, it would be really nice, if I could just snap with my finger,” she snapped and imagined how they all stood once again in the central garden of the monastery where Qiin had stabbed her in the back, “and we’d be there.” But nothing happened.

They walked down the stairs in a suspiciously gray world. Sonja summoned a small flame on her finger. It didn’t do much for color. And that meant it didn’t do much for the others.

When they stepped outside this monastery, it was completely gray outside.

“Right … Period of Darkness. I forgot.”

“Do we even know where to go?” Ralf asked.

“I have no idea,” Nia admitted.

“You could just teleport, you know?” Saesquar’s voice said. And they all jumped aside.