The Devil First Battle

Miyamoto and I have decided to leave the town of Scheißloch behind and move to a town with a library. Hoping that the reek of shit did not follow us.

In The Art of War, Sun Tzu said, "Know your enemy." It may be mad to consider a whole country, continent… Hell, maybe even the world as an enemy, but The Devil can never be too sure.

Jesus, am I going to actually start calling myself that?

Only the tides of time can tell, so they say.

As we walked, it seemed like we were surrounded only by grass and forest. There were a few dirt roads we took, but they were few and far between.

I pondered the economic health of this country and wondered whether this whole country is a shithole or maybe this region just pissed off some god.

We decided to set up camp in a nearby open field and decided to sleep in shifts.

I told Miyamoto I’ll take the first one if he’s fine with it, but he made me promise I’d wake him if anything happens.

I sat there looking up at the untouched night sky, gazing at its beauty, while my MP3 was playing Vesti la Giubba, Turandot, and Puccini: Gianni Schicchi: "O mio babbino caro" in the background.

The beauty of stars always caught my eyes. In my youth as a Boy Scout (shut up, I know how it sounds), my favorite part of camp was being in the middle of nowhere. Due to the lack of light pollution, stars would brighten the sky not too bright to bother rest, but bright enough to make me ponder about the endless abyss of space.

While I was lost within my mind, I was snapped out of my thinking due to hearing something from the forest right behind us.

I readied my gun.

I was ready to wake Miyamoto up, but the sound stopped, and I saw a rabbit-like thing run away. I was telling myself how stupid I was for losing it over some rabbit when I heard something. A blood-curdling scream and hideous roar.

That's when I made the decision to wake Miyamoto the hell up.

Telling him that hell must have opened up.

“Well, good thing we have the King of Hell.”

The sound of the beast became more and more noticeable, and that fucking yelling grew louder.

Miyamoto and I readied our weapons for mortal combat.

The roar was now deafening.

It reminded me to hand out ear protection to both of us.

We knew that something was in there, a beast of a thing, but the wait was what was bothering us the most. We were like the boys in the trenches of World War One waiting for the officer to blow his whistle to send us to meet our maker.

The ground began to shake, and the sound of trees breaking apart was heard a few feet from where we stood. Finally, something came out of this forest, and what we saw was not a beast, or a monster, not even an animal; it was a woman charging straight at us…

With a giant T-fucking-Rex behind her!

“WHAT THE FUCK!”

I started to fire at the beast.

The screaming woman kept running right at us.

With a 40-foot-tall beast on her heels.

The roar of the T-Rex damn near blew my eardrums clean out, even with earplugs.

Miyamoto drew his sword.

I readied my gun once more.

Miyamoto took a breath and sprinted past screaming women toward the beast.

The katana combusted into blue flames as if it were pulled straight out of the pits of hell.

With a single slash, Miyamoto decapitated the T. Rex-like monster.

Thud.

The 15,000-pound monster slammed against the ground like a localized earthquake. The wound was cauterized due to the immense heat Miyamoto’s blade must have given off. Seeing what was inside a T. Rex was rather interesting.

A silence fell upon the three of us.

Miyamoto stood with blood both on his blade and on his clothes from the beast's head.

The woman seemed to be on the brink of having a bloody breakdown. She had an uneven breath and was shaking as if the earthquake had never stopped for her.

As I got a better look at the woman, I saw she was much younger than I had believed. I say a teenager in their later years.

The last thing I noticed, which should have been the first, was that there was a dim light surrounding her, and the faint smell of power drew from her.

Glancing at Miyamoto, he should do something to comfort her.

He returned the glance that answered my glance that I should do it.

I don’t know how to comfort people. I'm Irish… well, I’m actually American… to be technical, I’m Japanese… Whatever, I just don't know how to comfort people. My second glance replied.

Well, with his second glance just said he was covered in blood.

“Fine.

Are you okay, young lady?”

“I'm—I’m okay.”

“Well, why were you being chased?”

Why a T-Rex… Well, I couldn’t get a good view of the beast. It is the middle of the goddamn night. The roar just reminds me of the ending of the first Jurassic Park.

She took a long breath.

“Where to start… I’m Celeste, and a…a mage.“

Tears started to roll down her face.

“My party and I went out for our first adventure when we—we were ambushed by a horde of monsters.

I passed a napkin I found in one of my pockets.

She blew her nose.

“We stood our ground, but people started dropping. M-My friends told me to run. But...but one of the monsters was able to find me by my scent ar-are something and chase me here.”

While looking at both of us, her knees buckled.

“That’s when I ran into you two. Please… will you help me see if they’re still alive, please?”

“Why should we?

I unloaded 8 rounds into the fucker, and the bastard didn’t even flinch.

The only reason we’re all still kicking is because of Miyamoto's weird-ass katana.”

“It was magic, V.”

“Who cares?”

“Don’t you want to be a hero?”

“No.”

“Why… Why not?”

“Because we’re the Devils… and our only goal is to get to a city with a damn library.”

“If you are going to a city.

You’ll need coins.

Those monsters… Those monsters have hoard piles of gold.”

Is Smaug hidden in this bloody cave?

“It’s from all the people that were caught by them. Please, won’t you help me?”

It sounds like a damn pain, and fighting in a cave doesn’t sound too good either.

“If Miyamoto is okay with it, then we go.”

“I’m fine with batting these things, and having a few coins on us won’t hurt either.”

“Let’s save some folks then.”