Commander Yalda

-Warning! Demon Threat Sighted! IFF tags active!-

-Tarasque demon identified-

-Tarasque demon tagged; Foe-

-Tall demons tagged; Foe-

-The Actor tagged; Foe-

-Melpomene tagged; Friendly-

-Wasps tagged; Friendly-

Everyone out so far had been identified by my IFF system. I was especially nervous about that terrifying lion tortoise beast dubbed a Tarasque. He looked really strong!

Mella was looking nervous too, cowering a little, but she brought to life a small army of wolf like creatures to stand by her side. Blue lightning crackled all around them. An especially small one looked at me and whimpered.

I recognized these wolves, they were the ones that protected me with their lives. I’m sure they had a bone to pick with demons, especially since they died to one.

Knowing this would get bad, I activated my combat mode.

-Combat mode active!-

-Warning! Combat efficiency at 30%! Fleeing is advised-

No way could I escape now! Mella and I were both in danger. And if we didn’t stop it, these demons and bad people would blot out the sun.

-Combat hud active!-

What’s this? Some information appeared in my FOV.

I saw a horizontal spear shape in the upper right hand corner of my field of view. At the bottom left corner of my FOV I saw something that resembled a health bar, slowly depleting. That was my combat efficacy meter. Once it went dry, I wouldn’t be able to fight.

In my equipment screen, I set my armour to the Nazalian Battle Armour +1, since it currently had a higher attack and defense bonus then my Eight Star Battle Armour.

In the USER ID menu, there was a spot to apply a weapon too. I already had my spear in that slot. I guess this was called the Spear of Destiny? Its stats weren’t very good right now, at least compared to the Reaper Soul Steal Scythe I had (and couldn’t use,) but the spear had the Stardust affinity. It was like a glass weapon, and only effective against one type of enemy.

I spawned it in front of me, gripping it tightly. I used this once before, I can do it again.

Under the icon of the spear in my top right FOV, I saw a status bar below it. That was how much stardust energy the spear had left before it would break.

THANK GOD! I thought I’d have to eyeball how much stardust energy these weapons would have left in them. Knowing the durability meant I could fight a lot more efficiently.

RAAWR!

The Tarasque let out a cry and charged at us, rallying his forces of tall demons to flail forth along with him.

Wasps flew in to engage, striking the beast, but not even chipping its hard shell!

TINK!

Mella’s wolves also galloped in like quick bolts of lightning to intercept the tall demons. They chomped on their elongated arms, trying to tear them apart.

Some of the wolves were easily flipped and tossed right off the tower, but they’d turn to electricity, strike the sky, and return as bolts of lightning.

Menwhile, Mella concentrated hard to project her forces, she couldn’t move or react without breaking that focus.

I was just standing there, feeling completely useless. Everyone was fighting and doing their best, but I was just a bystander watching them fight.

“This is entertaining.” The Actor said, observing the fight like me. “Are you enjoying the show?”

How could he compare a life or death battle to a television show? So much was at risk, and this was all one big play for him.

I didn’t even feel justified to respond. He was a bad guy, and talking too much with him would inflate his ego. But then again, not talking at all was making me feel really nervous.

“No!” I shouted back. “This show stinks and you’re a bad director! ZERO STARS!”

“GAH!” he threw his hands over his ears. “A critic! You’re never too young, I suppose.”

Despite his reaction, he didn’t seem to be taking my bad review very hard.

“How about we add a little suspense?” He snapped his finger, then pointed to me. “Beast of Hell, unleash your special effects! Breath flames of the purple underworld!”

The Tarasque’s jaws started to part like it was taking in air, then its inner throat quickly turned bright purple. It let out a poison breath attack! There wasn’t any time to escape!

FWOOSH!

Flames of purple spread all around battlefield. I felt the burning of acid sear at my skin, causing my movements to slow until I felt sick.

As the flames stopped, I was dripping with toxic liquid.

-Poision Immunity-

A message popped up in my field of view. I might have been immune to poison, but I sure felt the pain of that attack.

Mella was on the ground, looking very sick. The lightning wolves were vanishing quickly. Fortunately, they had managed to weaken the tall demons a bit.

“Little One!” Mella grunted out. “You survived that?!”

“Yeah.” I shook off the awful toxic sludge around me. “What about you?”

She had poision magic, which was why her eyes were purple, but this was really putting her out of commission. Maybe it would have killed her if she’d been any weaker. To be honest, I wasn’t sure why she hadn’t used her poison magic yet.

Some of the wasps retreated back to me.

“Young Mistress,” The robotic voice of a wasp spoke over radio. “We advise you to retreat from combat.”

“Negative.” I replied over the radio as well. “We need to hit that demon with a special power to bring him down.”

We needed stardust, which I don’t think these wasps had access to. That would explain why they were struggling against the dark pirates in the final hallway. Maybe we could look into upgrades later, but until then they needed me for that part.

Assessing the situation, the wasp concluded I was correct.

“By your command.”

I was given full control of the wasps in this fight. That would have to make up for my lack of combat efficiency.

Let’s see…how do I do this? I’m not sure I understand how to give orders.

Not much time to figure it out. I’d just have to roll with it the best I could.

If Mr. Actor over there’s life was a television show, mine was a video game. And in my short seven year journey of life, I’d played plenty of different genres about leading people, one of my favourite was RTS, or real time strategy.

A layout of the battle field opened up in my head, it sectioned off everything in a hexagon grid, and every unit had unique icons, including me.

The only units I could commandeer were wasps and myself. I could move them around at will.

Uncle was always fond of having the wasps flank the enemy, then he’d rush down the open center and attacking directly. I’d have to give that a shot!

“All units!” I announced, gaining there attention. “Blitz-crackle maneuver!”

“Affirmative! Engaging in blitzkrieg maneuver.”

That’s what I meant…

The wasps flew around to surround Tarasque, punching a hole through the tall demons, but their attacks weren't doing anything to the demon beast. The tall demons turned around and started swatting at the wasps.

With a whip of its tail, the Tarasque smashed one of the wasps and it came crashing down in a big explosion.

I don't think I made the right call here...the wasps couldn't quickly defeat the Tarasque because it had a high defense. We needed to focus on the tall demons first, they were the real threat, since we couldn’t crack the shell on that Tarasque.

I ordered the wasps to circle around the remaining tall demons.

After a quick breath I finally joined the battle. The Spear of Destiny raised up, and I ran straight in to stab the lengthy demon in his glowing red heart.

Swing swing went his long arms! He tried to fight me off, but I was speedy and covered by my wasps.

Slipping my spear past his defense, the crystal tip sank right into his chest!

“REEEE!” He let out a horrible screech of pain, flailing around and exploding into dark energy and ash!

We set up a similar attack to the last few remaining tall guys, taking them out too.

All that was left to do was take out the Tarasque.

None of the wasps attacks would break the shell of the Tarasque, no matter how much laser fire or slashes with their stingers they peppered it with. His skin was hard as stone, and his shell was even stronger than that.

I rushed in and struck his skin with my spear, but it couldn’t pierce through. It didn’t even look like I scratched him.

The Tarasque whipped his tail around, hitting me hard.

All that momentum from his tail swing sent me right up into the air. My wings flared out and caught me. My spear got knocked away in the hit, falling off the tower.

Respawning the spear, I flew down, darting right back on top of the Tarasque’s shell!

PING!

The tip of the crashed down on the shell, cracking and breaking the weapon on the hard surface. A sudden wave of electromagnetic energy radiated out and pushed us all back. I wasted more stardust energy regenerating the weapon. There wasn’t much stardust left in me, especially since it was getting much darker outside by the second.

Without the sun to give me energy, this power was only going to get less effective.

I flew backwards to evade a retaliation from the Tarasque. His tail just barely missed me.

With a single spin, he turned around to face me and sent another breath attack my way.

I flew up to evade. His head followed me, continuing to bathe the air in toxic purple mist.

Soft tissue in his mouth was exposed when the breath attack died down. He might have been hard as a rock on the outside, but squishy on the inside.

In a split second, I dove my spear down to take advantage of the weak point.

Just as my spear entered his mouth, he chomped down on it and broke it in half!

CRACK!

A small explosion of electromagnetic energy sent crystal shrapnel across the roof.

I recovered a bit away from him, repairing the spear with new stardust energy.

I was too slow to attack his mouth just then. I’d need to move faster if I wanted to do some damage.

The Tarasque was franticly spitting out the stardust left in his mouth. Black smog was rising out of him like a dragon about to breathe fire. That was proof that my plan could work.

Perhaps the wasps could somehow get his mouth open for me? If they could, I’d be able to jam the spear in and do some serious damage.

“Can you guys get his mouth open?” I asked over radio comms.

“Analyzing target…yes. We will attempt to open his mouth.”

Good. Now I had to put trust in them.

Over the course of a minute, they had a lot of trial and error with trying to figure out how to manage that. I flew in to support them a little with my spear. Our efforts cost us one wasp, so now we were down to three.

In all the attacks, one figured out that attacking it in the nose seemed to get it aggravated enough to let out a loud cry, sometimes a breath attack would follow. Then they could latch onto its jaws and hold it open.

Giving that plan a go, the wasps hit his nose, then the demon breathed more poison fire over them. One more wasp down, but the remaining two latched to his jaws and held it wide open.

I flew in, only having one shot!

My spear jammed right down its throat! Light shot all around and burst out from cracks in its skin!

He let out a cry, his skin turning brittle like obsidian, slowly becoming dust.

I jumped back, ripping my spear from his mouth. Was he going to explode? I kept my distance and ordered the wasps to stay by me.

At any moment, the Tarasque would die. But The Actor didn’t seem worried about that at all.