Note: This story was dynamically reformatted for online reading convenience. Chapter 19: Wild at Heart, part XIII The battle on dyer's avenue had been going on for many hours now. The rebels had constructed wooden barricades that helped them to stand their ground against the relentless onrush of the town's guards. Although they had suffered heavy losses over the course of the day, the rebels had managed to hold onto this street until the sun set. Pools of blood, severed body parts and corpses could be seen everywhere on dyer's avenue. Chopped off hands that once had belonged to captured guards were nailed to the house walls to show off the rebels' determination. And it worked. By now, the guards were really afraid to even come close to dyer's avenue. Every single one of the brave women who defended this street knew that this was the day. The day that they would finally strike back. The aversion of the people of Nargath against their own government had a long history. The town of whores had always been a swamp of corruption and injustice. That Endolefinia had been installed as the princess of Nargath was seen by many as an act of despotism. And ever since the banning of prostitution and the daily executions of prostitutes had began, the people of Nargath really loathed their government. That the town's guards had tried to stop yesterday's riot against the Syndicate had been the final straw. When the guards had tried to capture people for the random mass punishment this morning, they saw themselves faced with a rebel army that was fiercely determined not to tolerate any more cruelty and injustice from their authorities. After the guards' attacks had subsided for a while, the rebels on dyer's avenue finally felt some easiness returning to them. They were all tired of bloodshed by now. Some of them already dared to speak the unthinkable word: "Victory." The rebels felt like celebrating, but they knew that the night would be long and the guards could return at any point in the time. But it weren't the guards who came for them. It were only two girls who strolled down dyer's avenue and casually approached the rebels' positions. There even seemed to be some bickering going on between them. "Like I said before- learn to wash your ass after taking a shit, you filthy bitch!" Once again, Iliv was highly agitated by Fel's behavior. The rebels exchanged confused glances. This two weird girls certainly didn't look like guards. One of the rebels climbed on top of their wooden barricade and faced the two strange strangers: "Friend or foe?" A split-second later she found a blazing projectile penetrating her stomach and ripping a palm-sized hole into it. The hole in her body was big enough for the rebels standing behind her to look through it. Iliv, the one who had shot her, had a cold look on her face. "Neither. We just came to massacre you." The rebels soon found out that their barricades didn't provide protection against the green-haired devil's crossbow in the slightest. Her magical projectiles effortlessly ripped through the wooden barricades effortlessly and still penetrated everyone crouching behind it. The shots obliterated anything they hit. They ripped off limbs, blasted huge gaping holes into the rebels' bodies and let their heads burst asunder, splattering their brains all over their comrades. What a fearful weapon. Within a few seconds this crossbow caused as many casualties as a whole encounter with a squad of guards. The rebels had no choice. They had to get out from behind their barricades and attack this insane enemy. But as soon as they were rushing out from behind their wooden shelter, they had to find out that Fel had already snuck up to them and was now giving them a warm welcome. She wrenched a saber from the hands of the first rebel she encountered. "Give me that, wench!" Still stunned by Fel's sudden appearance, the rebel girl stared at her weapon that was now in Fel's hand. Then the slim blade stuck in her throat. When the next rebel came out, Fel pulled it out and a gush of blood followed. The fatally wounded girl dropped to her knees. She was losing blood so quickly that she would be dead within a few heartbeats. Fel raised her boot and kicked against her head, then she lashed into the rebels that had been following the girl. The saber Fel had acquired wasn't very sharp. Fel had to hit really hard with it to turn it into an effective weapon. "What a piece of shit!" Fel hissed while she cut off a woman's leg right above the knee. She watched the screaming rebel going down for a moment, then she split her head, letting everyone around see what this woman had had in her brain. But there were more rebels coming and Fel was very soon completely surrounded. Even she didn't seem to be able to cut them down as quickly as they emerged. Getting enemies in her back was something that she really hated. Moreover, many of them had long weapons like spears and scythes with which they were able to attack Fel from a relatively safe distance. Had Fel miscalculated her enemies? Iliv, who was standing further down the street started laughing maniacally at the sight of Fel getting heavily outnumbered. "Wahahaha! What's wrong, Fel? A couple of whores with fenceposts taking you down?" Fel really didn't like that. Iliv's little comment aggravated her more than all of the rebels who had surrounded her. She nimbly spun around to take a look at all her enemies, then she ducked down and snatched a flail from one of her rebels. It seemed like a fitting weapon for such a fight. When Fel came up again, she went all out on her enemies. With the flail in her left and the saber in her right hand, she constantly delivered blows in every direction. The saber's blade cut open the women's bellies, hacked off limbs and beheaded her enemies, but the flail wasn't any less deadly. With a placed strike, Fel could smash an enemy's ribcage, making their ribs pierce their lung and heart. The flail struck her enemies' heads with such force that their eyes popped out of their sockets. Within less than a minute, Fel stood in middle of a pile of defeated rebels- either already dead or terribly injured and mutilated. Fel looked over her shoulder back at Iliv. "Still something to say, imp-girl?" The green-haired half-demon snorted. "Don't think that you're the only one who can do these things..." Incited by Fel, Iliv invoked her full demonic powers. Flickering streaks of energy were sent in every direction. They covered the ground in a dazzling pattern of fine white lines in an instant, then they climbed up the walls and bathed the whole dyer's avenue in a hellish light. The remaining rebels knew that there was something terribly wrong with this, but they had no way of escaping it. Out of nowhere, two demon girls materialized up in the air, one on the left side of the rebel's post, the other one to the right. They had only the size of eight-year-old children and under different circumstances, the completely naked little girls might have looked quite cute. Neither the little horns that came out of their black hair, nor the stubby wings on their back looked particularly threatening. Their skin was dark green and the look on their faces was just as mischievous as Iliv's. Before the rebels had any chance to adjust to this new situation, the two demons rolled over in mid-air and aimed at the rebels with their asses. And then they farted. With the force of a thunderstorm. The rolling thunder that came out of their assholes was earsplitting, but the actual thunderbolts that shot out of their butts were far worse. There was no escape from these thick pillars of white lightning. A third thunderbolt shot out of Iliv's crossbows, crossed the two streams of lightning that came out of the demon girls' asses and caused an explosion that ripped the rebels' barricades into pieces at the size of toothpicks. The rebels who got caught up in this electric explosion were simply obliterated. Their skin was burned to a crisp, their flesh was blown into hundreds of pieces and their blood evaporated in the extreme heat. Those who stood a little further away went up in flames. Within seconds, their flesh cooked. They managed to let out one final scream of excruciating pain, but when they tried to breathe in afterwards, they realized that there was no respirable air around. The demonic farts had polluted the air to such a degree that their lungs simply refused to take it in. At the same time that they burned to death, they also suffocated. The little demons vanished within heartbeats afterwards, along with the demonic scenery that Iliv had invoked. What was left was a scene of absolute devastation. Not a single rebel on dyer's avenue was alive anymore. Iliv grinned smugly. "Councilor Liry should have just left this job for me..." Then Fel's fist hit the back of her head. "Oww!" As it was to be expected, the girl with the inhuman reflexes had managed to jump into safety just in time, but she wasn't delighted at all about Iliv nearly killing her. "What's wrong with you, shithead? Don't you have any eyes in your deformed little head? I was fighting over there..." Iliv rubbed the bump on her head and glared at Fel. "Fighting and losing, yeah! I saved your fat wobbly ass there!" That girl. Fel could've strangled her. "How was I losing? Really, what's wrong with you? Are you blind?" Iliv had enough of this discussion already. She just shrugged her shoulders and began walking away. "Whateeever.~" Fel shook her head in disbelief. She really should've killed her back then when they had been fighting for opposite sides. There was only one problem with that: This girl was a ridiculously strong fighter. Iliv's voice sounded annoyed when she said without turning around: "What's wrong with you anyway? If you would've just used your Meluthian Nightmare Style, you could've annihilated them before I even got my first shot off. If you don't feel like fighting, then just go home!" The words stung way more in Fel's heart than any of the insults Iliv had thrown at her before. She defiantly looked at the ground. "...Do you see any weapon here with which I could pull off Meluthian Nightmare?" Fel knew that it was a cheap excuse and Iliv knew it as well. To Fel's surprise, she didn't dig into it any further. They walked away from the scene of carnage they had created just as if they were taking a stroll. Without turning around, Iliv asked: "What happened to your sword anyway?" Fel just had gotten out her pipe. She filled it with some tobacco she had acquired before the whole town had descended into chaos. Sounds of battle still could be heard from near and far. "Lost it." Now Iliv turned around and looked at Fel with disbelief. "What the actual..." Fel interrupted her. "I lost it in a gamble." - "You gamble?" - "Not anymore, after that." Iliv was genuinely stunned by Fel's confession. "Wasn't this sword a present from..." Fel gave her a spiteful look. "A present from my mother, yeah. You really know a lot of shit about me, don't you?" Iliv giggled. She obviously found this very amusing. "Well, you're basically a celebrity. At least there was a time when you were..." Fel gnashed her teeth. "Yeah. So don't tell anybody about this. I'll be in deep shit when Mama finds out..." Iliv laughed. It hurt in Fel's ears. "You'll be in deep shit because of THAT? Not because you've been traveling the world leaving a wake of devastation, raping and murdering everyone in your sight?" Fel hadn't realized that she was this infamous already. She sighed. "Let's say... My mother and me have quite different personalities..." After continuing their mass murder for some time, both Fel and Iliv got tired of Liry's order to 'kill, kill, kill!'. It was conceivable that the town's guards were losing this battle. There were simply too many rebels. By this point, it seemed like most of the civilian population had joined the rebel army. Fel and Iliv would literally have to eradicate the whole town before they would defeat the rebels this way. So they decided to revert to Liry's original plan of assassinating the rebels' leaders. They chose to capture one of the rebels alive and torture her until she told them something about her commanders. It was a bright 17-year-old girl they captured. She once had aimed to become a scholar, but sympathy for the rebels had brought her into this unfavorable situation. The girl didn't give herself to illusions. She knew that she would die here. Her captors were obviously completely insane. Fel got one of her daggers ready. She and Iliv had quickly agreed that Fel was more fit for torturing someone. "Alright, sweetie. Time to say good-bye to your nipples..." The girl was breathing very quickly, staring at the dagger in Fel's hand. "No! You don't have to torture me! I will tell you everything I know..." Fel clicked her tongue. "Ah, but where would be the fun in not torturing you? Come on now, take off your clothes and then we'll get to know each other a little better..." Iliv sighed, now sucking on her own pipe. "Just don't kill her, okay?" No matter how long Fel tortured her, the girl kept telling her the same thing. Her superior, an instigator of the rebellion, had her quarters in the basement of a ruin in the outskirts of town. She described its position in great detail, interrupted only by her own screams of pain whenever Fel cut something off: Phalanges of her fingers, her toes, her ears and nose, also the nipples that Fel had mentioned before. Before her tormentors walked away, Fel slit the girl's throat. What they didn't know was that this girl felt very proud as she died in pain. She had planned on giving them false information from the very start and she had managed to stick with it to the bitter end. The place she had described was not the location of a leader of the rebels. She had never seen such a person anyway. The location she had given them was a place so dreadful that no one in their right mind would come even close to it. She had heard only rumors of what it really contained- but she knew for sure that these two enemies of the rebellion wouldn't like it when they found out that they had been set up... "It's dark as the fucking dungeon in here! I should've brought a torch..." The way it was, Fel had no choice but sticking close to Iliv as they went down the old stairway. "Keep it down..." Iliv said. "We don't want to scare them away, do we?" Fel grunted. "Easy for you to talk! It's not like I have a fucking imp's eyes with which I can see perfectly well in the dark." After a while, they reached a locked door. "Well, that's where I come in..." Fel said and kicked open the damn thing. Both were more than surprised to find an eerie arcane laboratory behind the door. Fel took a few steps into this strange place. At least there were some candles so that she could see something. "What the hell is this shit? Are the rebels actually..." Iliv signaled her to shut up. "Shhh!Don't you hear? There's someone talking." she whispered. They both pricked up their ears. Fel's didn't have the sharp ears of an imp, but she still heard the woman in the next room saying: "...by just destroying the mortal apparel I gave her to cover herself. Show them your real form, Cova..." Fel and Iliv exchanged alerted looks and then they rushed to the next room: Siria's summoning hall. Not only did they find a giant arcane symbol drawn in fresh human intestines there, they also met a pair of peculiar sisters, and also... "Niu! What the fuck are you doing here?" Niu turned around and was so stunned by Fel's sudden appearance that she couldn't say anything at first. Iliv took a look at every single one of the strange people in this strange room. "Are these people really rebels, Fel? Well, we could just kill them and say our job is done..." A voice that was sinister enough to give even Fel goosebumps spoke from the shadows: "I'm afraid I can't let that happen, half-caste..." As everyone turned in the direction the voice came from, their eyes fell on Cova's form as it was materializing from black smoke that had risen from the body which Senria had just split in half. The upper body was the same that she had had in her old form- a slender little girl with long black hair, only now it was completely naked. But the rest of her body was that of a gigantic black spider. Her monstrous body was bigger than a human being and had eight huge hairy legs as well as two scrawny arms. The giant demonic spider sat on the wall high above the ground. Iliv took aim with her crossbow, Senria tightened her grip on the hilt of her sword and Fel got her daggers ready. "This is gonna be one hell of a fight..."