IDWTBTHQ Chapter 116 - The Battle of Treval Part 6

Lying hidden in some bushes, Tiny-Sneaky silently observed what she assumed was her target.

She could see a few Vex spread around in a small wooded area about sixty meters away from her. The bugs were keeping guard around some huge beetle-like creature that carried a platform made of some waxy, gray substance on its back, and on top of it were sitting three humanoid figures. Two of them seemed to be just humans, a male and a female by the look of it, but it was the third one that had drawn the ogress' attention. The creature didn't look all that impressive, as it was just a small humanoid with some Vex features like the glowing purple eyes and chitin-covered limbs, but that seemingly harmless appearance was definitely misleading as its aura was the most powerful Tiny had ever felt in her life. Not even Blue or the dragon had a presence like that, and even from that distance the ogress had to make an effort in order to not be overwhelmed by it.

It was safe to say that this was the Vex Queen, the one that Tiny was supposed to kill. Sadly, that was more easily said than done under the current circumstances.

The main problem was that all of the ogres she had brought to assist her in this mission had been killed, ambushed by a force of Vex and aura masters a couple of kilometers away. It had been only thanks to a stroke of luck that Tiny had been able to avoid sharing their fate, since she had been scouting ahead at that point and her camouflage abilities had apparently been enough to hide her from whatever means the enemy had used to discover their presence. After that, she had decided to at least try to take a look at the Vex Queen, in order to see if it was possible to assassinate it, but now that she had done so the chances of successfully completing the mission were abysmally low. Without the other ogres to provide some sort of distraction Tiny wasn't confident in her ability to get close enough to her target to deliver a killing blow without being find out, and as for fighting the creature head on, well... she was pretty sure that something packing an aura that powerful would have no problem killing her. Not to mention that the two humans accompanying the Vex were likely Aura Users, something which would tip the scales of the fight even more against Tiny and would turn what was already an extremely risky and difficult mission into a guaranteed suicide.

Sadly, she couldn't give up and get back to Blue either, since the oni had made it clear that returning without having killed the Vex Queen wasn't an option. Considering how violent and unstable her boss had been, Tiny was sure that she would pay with her life for a failure like this, no matter how justified it was.

Luckily, there was a third option she could take.

As all of the ogres were dead, there were no witnesses to snitch on her if she decided to run away and return back to the Caligare Forest. She had wanted to do that for quite some time, and now was the perfect occasion. Blue would just assume she had been killed in action and would not look for her. Hell, knowing him he would probably just forget about her in a matter of weeks, which would even allow her to rejoin his army after changing her appearance if he actually managed to conquer the human lands. And in case he failed, well... as one of the strongest ogres in his service, it would be easy for her to get control of the orcs that had stayed in the forest and build up a nice, comfy little kingdom for herself. She smirked with satisfaction at that last possibility, since it would pretty much make up for all the shit she had been through under the oni's service.

Having made up her mind, she turned to be on her way. However when she tried to take a step, she found out that she couldn't move her legs.

The initial confusion over this strange phenomenon quickly turned to panic as she realized that her whole body had frozen in place, and finally to horror when her limbs started moving on their own, forcing her to turn around and draw her knives from their sheathes.

Like it had happened during the duel between Blue and the Aura Master, an external force had taken control of Tiny's body, forcing her to follow the oni's order even against her will.

Scared and powerless, Tiny-Sneaky silently screamed in her mind as she started slowly creeping towards the Vex Queen.

A sudden loud noise drew Marcus' attention just as he was about to finish off the oni and he raised his head to look around.

“Did you just hear someone screaming?” He asked Klara and Felix, who were sitting right behind him.

“Uh... no.” The apprentice sorcerer replied, sounding a bit confused.

“Me neither.” The girl said.

“Are you sure?” The Vex Queen insisted. “Because I can still hear it.”

“I don't hear anything like that.” Felix replied again, and Klara shrugged to confirm that she didn't either.

“Weird.” Marcus muttered.

Then he finally realized that he wasn't hearing the sound with his ears, but rather with his mind.

He spared a moment to try to find the source of that mental noise. He couldn't see anything with his eyes, but after a few tries he managed to determine the general direction from which the psychic sound was coming —a patch of vegetation about fifty meters or so from him.

With his curiosity piqued, he sent one of his Warriors to inspect those bushes before returning his attention to the fight with the Blue Terror. Sadly, he could only focus on that battle for only a few seconds before he was distracted by the drone he had sent to investigate being killed by an unknown assailant.

“We're under attack!” Marcus cried while mentally commanding the few drones he had with him to move. About two dozen Warriors and a couple of Heavies immediately rushed towards the mysteriou assailant, who had finally shown itself —sort of, at least. It was kind of difficult to see what the creature looked like since its skin constantly changed color to match its surroundings but the overall silhouette seemed to be slender and humanoid. It also carried a long, heavy knife in each hand, whose solid metal contrasted with the seemingly evanescent skin of the wielder.

Two Warriors reached the enemy together with their scythe-arms raised and ready to hit, but the creature reacted with incredible speed, dodging the blows and retaliating with some swift swings of its knives, cutting off the drones' heads with ease. It then started running, killing any drone that got in the way until there was none left between it and Marcus.

“Shit!” The Vex Queen silently cursed, but as he tried to desperately think about a way to defend himself he heard Felix's voice coming from  behind him.

“Fyrus!” The apprentice sorcerer cried, and a dart of pure fire flew towards the attacker. The creature jumped backwards, avoiding the fire arrow which impacted the ground with a small explosion, sending charred pieces of dirt and burning grass flying everywhere, but for now its advance had been stopped.

Felix, now holding a flaming sphere in his hand, narrowed his eyes and assumed a focused expression. Then, a shower of fire darts similar to the first one exploded from the fire orb like machine gun fire, all aimed at the camouflaged enemy. The creature jumped to the right, managing to dodge the first few fire bullets, but the apprentice sorcerer adjusted his aim while he kept firing, forcing his opponent to run while the ground right behind it was devastated by a series of small explosions. This chase continued for a bit, forcing the creature further away in a zigzagging path until, after turning, it suddenly disappeared. Felix stopped firing and looked around to find his target, but he couldn't see anything, as a thin curtain of smoke covered the ground as a result of his own attack.

However, unluckily for the creature, Marcus could still perceive its mind loud and clear.

“It's there!” The Vex Queen cried, pointing at a seemingly empty spot thirty meters away from them, and the apprentice sorcerer immediately sent another wave of fire arrows in that direction, which forced the chameleonic attacker to get out of hiding to dodge once again.

At this point the fight devolved into a stall, with Felix trying to keep the creature at range and trying to get close and personal, occasionally hiding and forcing Marcus to act as a spotter for his friend. That suited the Vex Queen just fine though, since he had already recalled his bodyguards from the ambush and it was a matter of minutes before they reached him. However, after a couple of close calls when the enemy almost managed to get past the sorcerer's suppressing fire, Marcus decided to speed things up even further and ordered his Dreadnaught to move as well, bringing them closer to his allies.

Seeing the Vex Queen trying to get away caused the creature to go into a frenzy as it started to give chase, burning with the determination to kill its prey no matter the cost. However, at the same time Marcus could also feel waves of utter terror and powerlessness radiating from its mind, together with a desperate wish for running away. It was as if two different entities inhabited the creature's head, though unfortunately the one in control was the one that wanted to kill him.

The assailant kept running after the Dreadnaught and this time it didn't stop when Felix showered it with another wave of fire darts. Instead, the creature simply walked through the attack, taking hits without slowing down and getting dangerously close to its prey in the process.

Then, just as Marcus started to worry, Felix raised his hand and the flaming sphere he held changed shape, turning into a bird made of fire. The animal then jumped away from the young man's hand and flew directly towards the enemy, who simply tried to stab the flaming animal with its knife when it got close to it.

That turned out to be a mistake.

The bird exploded upon being hit, causing a violent conflagration that engulfed a five meters wide area in fire while the shockwave managed to rustle Marcus' hair even from that distance. The creature took the brunt of that explosion head on and was consequently launched more than ten meters backwards, landing on the ground as smoke rose from its body. There it laid immobile, enough to make the Vex Queen hopeful that it wouldn't get up.

Sadly, he ended up being disappointed, as the creature picked itself up almost immediately. It was clearly hurt now though, with most of its skin burned and charred, no longer changing color to match the surroundings.

Now it was possible to clearly see the creature, which had a rather feminine and lithe, though still quite muscular. As for its species, Marcus would have guessed that it was an ogre, though a very peculiar-looking one.

The ogre —or ogress— then ditched the knife it had used to hit the fire bird —whose blade had been destroyed by the explosion— and crouched down to pick something from the ground before resuming its chase of the Dreadnought.

“How stubborn.” Felix said, with the barest hint of admiration in his voice. “Say what you want about that thing, but at least it’s got guts!”

Marcus could have corrected him about that. After all, he could feel the ogre's internal screams of pain and terror while it was compelled to try and hunt him down against its will. But that would have required an explanation they didn't have time for right now, so he simply said:

“Whatever. Just take it down!”

“As you wish.” Felix replied, and then he started conjuring another fire bird in his hand. However, just as he was about to launch it, the ogress suddenly stopped, raised her right hand and threw something against the young man.

“Felix!” The Vex Queen and Klara cried together, trying to warn him, but at that point it was too late.

The apprentice sorcerer barely had the time to turn towards them before a very large rock hit him in the head. Luckily, Felix's last movement had taken him out of the direct trajectory of the rock, saving him from a skull-crushing direct impact. Unfortunately even the glancing blow he actually received was more than enough to put him out of commission for now, and the apprentice sorcerer spun around as he fell down on the Dreadnought's back.

“Felix!” Klara cried again, rushing to her friend's side and holding him before he could hit the mold-wax floor.

“I'm... I'm fine.” The young man replied in a confused voice, but his eyes were unfocused and he wasn't getting up on his own. “J-just give m-me a minute.”

“I'm afraid we don't have that much time.” Marcus replied, his voice thick with fear, as he watched the female-looking ogre resuming its chase and quickly reducing the distance between them

“Shit! Shit! Shit!” The Vex Queen silently cursed. Reinforcements were barely a minute away now, but at this rate the ogre would reach him way before them, and if that happened he doubted he would survive more than a few seconds against such a strong opponent. After all, for all his aura and minions, he was still basically powerless when it came to defending himself.

He desperately tried to find a way to stop or even just slow down the ogre, but could find none. All the drones he had nearby were the Dreadnought, which was too slow to be able to do anything against something as quick as his enemy, and a few Flyers, which were too few to do anything useful either. Not even trying to use his own aura and telepathic powers to somehow intimidate it was going to work, since the entity in its head would force it to try and kill him no matter what.

“Wait!” Marcus thought, as a sudden realization flashed in his mind. “If I use my telepathy to stop that thing in the ogre's head directly, wouldn't that also stop the ogre?”

Having never used his mental powers that way, this plan was a shot in the dark to say the least, but he wasn't exactly spoiled for choice. Besides, the way the ogre's body was being puppeteered by that mental parasite had somehow given him an inkling of what he needed to do, though it was anyone’s guess whether or not he would succeed.

Not having time to waste, as the ogre was now barely fifteen meters away from him, Marcus immediately got to work. He closed his eyes, concentrating exclusively on his task and shutting down every other thought. Then he raised his hands and pointed them forwards, as if trying to push something heavy, and focused all of his willpower into creating a stable telepathic link between himself and his target. There was some resistance when the humanoid became aware of this intrusion, but the Vex Queen pushed through and in only a few seconds he was inside its mind.

The ogre’s emotion immediately assailed him, clearer and louder than he had ever felt. Pain, terror, frustration and anger, mixed with the chaotic and primal surface thoughts of the panicking creature, howled like a maelstrom, taking Marcus by surprise and almost making him drop the mental link. Luckily his training with Hoggs had taught him how to keep focused no matter what and he managed to hold on and push through that emotional storm, penetrating into the inner core of the ogress mind. There he found the parasitic entity that controlled the humanoid, nested like a fat worm inside of an apple. Wriggling furiously as it sensed danger, the thing pushed its host even harder to kill its target, but at this point it was too late. The Vex Queen’s will flooded the mental space like a tsunami, filling every nook and cranny and immobilizing the parasite in the process.

Then, he finally gave a telepathic order just like the ones he used for his drones.

“STOP!”

Marcus opened his eyes, and his heart skipped a beat as he saw the point of a long knife just before his eyes, about to stab him. But then he realized that the blade wasn’t moving, and looking past it he noticed that it was held by the ogress, who was frozen in place like a wax statue. Inside of its head both it and the parasite were desperately struggling to break free, but the Vex Queen’s will held them in place like insects trapped in resin.

“Well, I’d say I made it just in time.” He thought, as relief washed over his shoulders. Then, he heard Klara’s voice calling for him.

“Marcus! Are you alright!?!”

He turned, and saw the girl who was still holding a semi-unconscious Felix in her arms looking at him with a confused and scared expression on her face.

“Yes, I’m fine, don’t worry.” He replied.

“What… What happened? Why did that thing stop?”

“Oh, I made it stop with my mental powers.”

“You did?” Klara blinked in surprise.

“Yes.” The Vex Queen nodded. “It’s… a bit complicated. And I can’t really spare the attention to explain it to you now. I’m afraid they could break free if I get distracted.”

“Then we should kill it right now.” The girl said, in a cold, merciless voice.

“Yes, probably.” Marcus agreed, but he couldn’t help but feel a bit of hesitation. “It feels kind of… dishonorable though. I mean, it can’t even defend itself right now.”

“That’s the point.” Klara insisted. “If it could defend itself it’d kill us all, wouldn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“Then finish it off right now. And if you can’t, I’ll do it for you.” She said, grabbing the hilt of her long knife.

“No, don’t worry. I can do it myself.” The Vex Queen said, unsheathing his own sword.

“Good.” The girl said approvingly. “Just remember to cut off its head. Ogres are tough, and any other injury might not be enough to finish them.”

“Right.” Marcus replied, and readied himself to deliver the killing blow to the ogress, raising his sword high above the creature’s head with both hands.

Seeing what was happening, the ogress sent out even more waves of terror, struggling pathetically inside of her own mind to get free. It even managed to form some coherent thoughts that Marcus, being inside of her head, could hear as clearly as his own.

“I don’t want to die!” She cried internally. “I just want to go home! I don’t want to die! I don’t want to die! Why is my body not answering to me? I don’t want to die! I just wanted to run away from this stupid war! Why am I forced to fight even if I don’t want to? I don’t want to die! Curse you, Blue! Curse you to death! I don’t want to die!”

The Vex Queen grimaced after hearing these thoughts. Killing someone else in self-defense during the heat of a battle was one thing, but executing a terrified and virtually powerless person was another matter entirely. Besides, the humanoid had been forced to attack him against its will, something which made killing it feel even more unfair.

Marcus slowly lowered his sword, trying to think of an alternative he’d feel less uncomfortable about. Maybe if he removed the parasite in the creature’s mind, it’d stop being hostile?

Seeing him hesitate like that, Klara asked:

“What are you waiting for?”

“Give me a second.” The Vex Queen replied. “There is something I have to check.”

He then raised one of his hands and laid it on the ogress head, while closing his eyes again and focusing once again.

He immediately dove inside the humanoid’s head, this time heading straight towards the parasite to study it more thoroughly. The thing looked like a fat, blue worm, and this time Marcus noticed that it was attached to the ogress’ memory, growing from it like a tumor.

The Vex Queen pushed deeper to inspect those memories, ignoring the obvious discomfort this process caused to the ogress, and the creature’s past opened in front of him.

The name of the ogre was Tiny-Sneaky, born in a small orc settlement in the Caligare Forest. Being small for an orc, Tiny was bullied ruthlessly by the rest of her kin, but another orc named Blueskin, who instead was stronger than anyone else, had taken her under his wing as his subordinate and lover, protecting her and nurturing her growth. Out of gratitude and admiration for Blue’s power, Tiny had developed feelings for him —the orc equivalent of love,  though it wasn’t such a deep emotion as the one humans experienced— and she had consequently served him loyally for several years,during which she had become an ogre and he had evolved into the oni. But unbeknownst to the ogress, during that time Blue’s influence was literally infecting her, congealing into the parasite that now inhabited her head. So, even now that Tiny’s feelings had finally withered in the face of the oni’s sheer selfishness and unpleasantness, she found herself unable to disobey his orders, even if that would result in her death.

Having seen what he needed to, Marcus retreated from Tiny’s inner memories. He noticed that despite him trying to be as delicate as possible —or at least not too rough— the probing had left the ogress in shambles. Tears flew down her cheeks, her eyes had rolled over in her head and her surface thoughts had lost all semblance of coherence, while her subconscious screamed out of sheer horror for the invasion it had suffered. That made the Vex Queen feel quite bad, which didn’t really make it easier for him to decide the ogress fate.

Tiny-Sneaky was certainly a victim of the circumstances in this specific situation but she was also far from innocent. She was a violent savage and a ruthless killer who completely lacked the concept of empathy as humans intended it. While she had been forced to attack Marcus against her will, her reluctance was only due to the risks involved and judging by what he had seen in her memories she wouldn’t have hesitated to kill him if she thought she could get away with it. She was clearly dangerous, with or without the Blue Terror’s presence in her mind, and the most logical thing to do was to kill her right here and now.

The only problem was that despite all this, Marcus still couldn’t force himself to murder the ogress in cold blood.

“Screw this! I didn’t sign up to be an executioner and I don’t want this crap to weigh on my conscience!” He then thought angrily. “Lots of people kill for petty and selfish reasons, so why shouldn’t I be allowed to spare a life for equally petty and selfish reasons too?” He looked at Tiny with narrow eyes. “Besides, if I make sure she can’t hurt anyone, then no one should complain.”

Having taken his decision, Marcus started thinking about how to implement it. While it was imperative to remove the oni’s influence from Tiny's head —otherwise she’d try to kill him as soon as he released her from his mental grip— he also needed to make sure that she wouldn’t attack him of her own volition. Luckily, he had a rough idea about how to achieve that.

Inside the ogress’s mind there was a rather obvious and primal part of her psyche entirely dedicated to some kind of fight or flight reflex —or rather a “fight or surrender” reflex, it was kind of alien and difficult to understand— that seemed to rule over a great part of her behavior. All the Vex Queen needed to do in order to make Tiny incapable of violence was to completely suppress the “fight” part of the instinct and dial up the “surrender” part to eleven, and that was exactly what he did.

With that out of the way, it was time to deal with the parasite. Luckily even in that case he intuitively knew how to proceed.

Envisioning the oni’s corrupting influence as some sort of cancerous growth, Marcus tightened his mental grip over it, while at the same time he almost surgically cut it away from the memories it was attached to. The process was extremely agonizing for Tiny-Sneaky, and the Vex Queen could clearly feel her torment at having part of her psyche severed away. Since he was doing this for her own good though, he forced himself to ignore her suffering. He kept severing memory after memory, as quickly as he could, and when he was done he finally retreated from the ogress’ mind, ripping out the parasitic presence as he retreated. He then crushed it in the air, and the mental worm exploded in a puff of blue mental energy.

Tiny-Sneaky immediately fell down like a puppet with its strings cut, twitching spasmodically on the back of the Dreadnought. Having her mind ravaged like that had pushed her well beyond what she was able to endure and she had basically shut down on the spot, embracing unconsciousness with almost pathetic relief.

Marcus also collapsed on his knees, as the tension and focus he had to keep had tired him out considerably.

“Marcus! Are you alright?” Klara called him, and he turned towards her. She was still beside Felix, but now the young man was sitting on his own and seemed lucid, though he was holding a bloodstained piece of cloth against his temple.

“I’m fine.” The Vex Queen replied. “How about Felix?”

“I feel dizzy, nauseous and my legs feel like they’re made of jello.” The apprentice sorcerer replied in a weak but still sarcastic voice. “Apart from that, I’m fine too. Thanks for asking.”

“Still, try not to move too much.” Klara said in a worried tone. “Blows to the head can be dangerous. You have to get checked by a cleric as soon as possible.” She then looked at the still twitching ogress and asked: “What did you do to that thing, by the way?”

“Entered her mind, stopped her from killing us and then made sure she wouldn’t try to do that again.” The Vex Queen promptly replied.

“What?” Felix exclaimed in an incredulous voice. “You can do that?”

“Apparently yes.” Marcus shrugged. “I didn’t even know that it was a possibility before sensing her mind though.” He nodded towards the ogress when he said that. “She was being mentally controlled by the Blue Terror, and that gave me the idea of using my own mental powers to stop her.” He smirked. “It was quite the gamble, but I’d say it paid off.”

The young man remained silent, slowly processing the information he had received. Klara however, being rather more practical than her friend, asked:

“Ok, so what are we going to do with it now?” She pointed at Tiny-Sneaky. “Aren’t you going to finish it off?”

Marcus hesitated a bit before answering.

“Not yet.” He finally said. “I… Well, I wasn’t comfortable killing her while she was defenseless, and then I felt bad for her because she was controlled by the oni.” He then added in a defensive tone: “Listen, I know that this is an arbitrary and probably bad decision, but I just feel this way, okay? I made sure to make her harmless while I was inside of her head though, so she shouldn’t be a threat.”

He kind of expected Klara to scold him for this decision, but much to his surprise the girl just shrugged.

“That’s your call.” She said. “I certainly won’t force you to kill anything against your will.” She paused for a moment and then asked: “Are you absolutely sure she won’t try to kill us?”

“Yes.” Marcus confirmed. “She shouldn’t be able to willingly hurt anyone right now.”

The girl raised an eyebrow at this explanation, but decided to drop the argument. Felix, however, was now looking at him with his eyes shining with curiosity.

“Oh, is that why you stopped your drones then?” He asked. “You were so certain that she wouldn’t be able to hurt you that you decided they were not needed?”

“What?” The Vex Queen said, taken completely by surprise by those words, and looking to the south he noticed that his drone bodyguards, which had been coming to his rescue, were now standing completely motionless about two hundred meters away from him.

Then, with rising horror, he realized that he had been so focused on mentally dominating the ogress that he had completely taken his attention away from his drones, causing them to freeze in place from the lack of orders. He quickly checked on the rest of his forces and saw that those too had stopped in their tracks.

Luckily the battle at that point was basically over, so the few remaining orcs hadn’t been able to deal any significant damage to the drones in the minute or so that he had spent inside Tiny-Sneaky’s head. There were a handful who had taken advantage of that time to try and run away, but the Warriors shouldn’t really have any problem hunting them down. However, there was one problem that prevented him from taking a sigh of relief and instead made him silently curse in his head.

“Son of a poopy pumpkin!” He thought angrily. “The bloody oni is getting away!”