Iron Thunder and Twisted Wood II

Maelara smirked, then launched herself from the bridge, leaping off the side and landing on the deck below with a crashing, hull-shaking thud that cracked the already damaged plating. The three Veilguard turned as one to face her, their expressions a mixture of surprise and contempt.

"You bastards ruined a good training session," Maelara said, a dangerous grin spreading across her face as she flexed both her mana and her considerable biceps. "Looks like I'll have to get the rest of my workout in on your stupid, ugly faces."

Zehrina descended from the sky like a dark angel, landing gracefully beside Maelara. "Let me take one of them," she said, her voice a low, musical purr. "I wish to… acquire some intel."

One of the Veilguard laughed, a high, mocking sound. "Take us? What could two filthy elven traitors possibly do to—" He was abruptly encased in a swirling, suffocating swarm of Zehrina's black dust and lifted into the air, his muffled screams quickly fading as she flew away with him.

The two remaining Veilguard, their confidence now visibly shaken, drew their ultra-thick, wickedly curved blades. They lunged at Maelara, but in the very first strike, their powerful runic weapons shattered against her flexing, mana-hardened trapezius muscles.

"After a good pump, your shitty, fragile little blades aren't going to so much as scratch me," Maelara said, her voice dripping with contempt as she brushed the shattered fragments of their swords from her shoulder. "Fight like real men. Raise your hands."

"This… this is much more our style anyway," the two Veilguard said in unison, a strange, unsettling light in their eyes. Their skin darkened to a bruised, unhealthy-looking purple, and their muscles swelled grotesquely as they burst forward, brawling with Maelara in a flurry of brutal, close-quarters blows.

High atop the Nightshatter's main communication mast, Orden sat, legs dangling, clapping furiously at the beautiful mayhem unfolding below. "So much chaos! I can barely contain myself!" His cheerful demeanor, however, quickly shifted, his face going slack, his eyes turning cold and dead. "…There must be… order," he whispered, his voice a flat, robotic monotone. His hands began to twitch, fingers clenching and unclenching. But just as quickly, he snapped out of the menacing state, his cheerful, childlike grin returning as he resumed his enthusiastic clapping and shuffling feet.

Back on the deck, Maelara was taking punches and smiling, a wild, ecstatic light in her eyes as she batted away just a few of the Veilguards' desperate attacks. They were beginning to accumulate significant damage, their movements growing sluggish, while Maelara barely had a bruise to show for the exchange.

"Brother, take me! It is our only chance!" one of the Veilguard cried out, his voice a desperate gasp.

Immediately, the other Veilguard grabbed him by the neck. The first one dissolved into pure, raw energy, which was then absorbed by his comrade. The remaining Veilguard swelled even further in size and power, the very air around him beginning to distort with a visible heat haze.

Maelara's supreme confidence faltered for the barest of moments. "What a disappointing amount of bulk," she muttered, before swinging a powerful punch at him. He dodged with a surprising new speed and hit her clean on the jaw. Her head snapped back, and she slid several feet across the deck. He followed up with another devastating strike, but this time, Maelara caught his fist in her hand. She spat out a cracked tooth, a savage, almost feral grin spreading across her face as she flexed her free arm.

"Damn," she said, her voice a low growl of pure, unadulterated pleasure. "That was a hell of a punch! I truly hope you can maintain that level of power." She threw a punch with her flexed arm. The Veilguard caught that one as well and pulled her in close.

"I hope you can, too," he hissed.

The brawl continued, and she was clearly getting hit more often now, but while every impact on the Veilguard was met with a grunt of pain, Maelara seemed to positively adore the feeling of his fists against her skin. This unnerved him, and he attempted to briefly disengage, but she burst forward, forcing him to continue the brutal exchange, slowly but surely whittling down his defenses until his face was a swollen, bloody mess and he was on his knees, breathing in ragged, painful gasps. He looked up at her and saw a wicked, almost demonic smile on her face, her eyes pulsing with a sickly green light.

"Keep going," Maelara said, grabbing him by the collar of his once-ornate, and now utterly demolished, armor. When he didn't respond, she headbutted him. "Keep going! Keep going! Keep going!" she yelled, repeatedly bashing her head against his.

"Stop…" the Veilguard gurgled, his voice a wet, broken sound.

"Stop? You ask me to stop? Where did that charming sense of elven superiority go?" Maelara said, her nose pressed against his.

"Make me stop," she taunted, slamming her head into his again. "Make me stop! Make me stop! Make me stop!" She continued her savage, head-bashing assault until his arms finally went limp.

"And where do you lot think you're going?" Maelara growled, throwing the unconscious Veilguard overboard as she turned her burning gaze on the seven remaining golden-armored squad captains. They scattered like frightened birds as she took a menacing step towards them.

Zehrina returned, a small, amused smile on her face as she looked at the brutal, muscle-bound elf woman. "My word. Aren't you a nasty, terrifying fiend. Are you not going to finish them off?"

"Nope," Maelara groaned, rubbing her now bruised and slightly swollen head. "That was a bluff. I'm actually pretty hurt. That last bastard was surprisingly strong."

"Oh? Was he?" Zehrina asked, her playful taunt clear. "The one I took didn't seem all that powerful."

"Yeah, yeah, laugh it up. Not all of us are freaks of nature, you know," Maelara grumbled. "I'm just gonna… go rest on the bridge for a bit."

As she limped away, two of the retreating squad captains, one large and burly, the other astonishingly pretty, rushed deeper into the ship's interior in a blind panic. They heard heavy, metallic footsteps rushing after them and quickly ducked into a nearby room, slamming the door shut behind them. The four Presidroids who had been chasing them looked at the sign on the door and, with what sounded like mechanical laughter, turned around and leisurely walked away.

The two panicked elves panted as they cautiously made their way deeper into the room. They quickly came across a row of iron-barred cells and saw, to their astonishment, Sorrowclaw, Kaelor, and a now morbidly obese Riven.

"Sir Kaelor? Lady Sorrowclaw? And… Riven?" one of the squad captains said, his voice a mixture of confusion and dawning hope.

The other squad captain quickly cut the bars of Sorrowclaw's cage with a curved blade. The bars fell with a loud, echoing clang that instantly made Sorrowclaw tense up.

"Let's get out of here! Join us in this battle!" the burly squad captain said. As they turned to leave, his prettier companion noticed Sorrowclaw frantically trying to fix the bars of her cell.

"What the hell are you doing?! We need to go!" the burly one yelled. Kaelor, in his cell, quickly hugged his knees, a look of pure terror on his face.

The sounds of dripping water, followed by a slow, rhythmic clack… clack… clack… echoed from the entrance of the brig. "Damn brig shower water is always so frigid!" Father Skeleton's voice complained as he turned the corner, coming face to face with the two surprised elven captains. "And who is making all this damned noise!?"

He stopped, his empty eye sockets fixing on them. "Well, well. Friends of yours, Abyss cubs?" he asked, his voice suddenly menacing.

Kaelor, Sorrowclaw, and Riven simultaneously, and very vigorously, shook their heads no.

The burly captain's eyes rolled back in his head, and he died on the spot from sheer, unadulterated fright. The pretty captain, crying profusely, drew a small, ornate blade and attempted to plunge it into his own chest. But the blade, just inches from his skin, suddenly turned into a spongy, useless substance and crumpled harmlessly against his body.

A high-pitched shriek sounded from behind him. Skelly Mom emerged from her cell, and with a lazy twitch of a bony finger, turned the pretty elf's now-useless blade into a puddle of shimmering liquid. "Don't think you can just scream in my home and get away with it so easily!" she screeched, her voice cracking with fury. "I was watching a lovely… what was it called… Television show! That's it! I was watching adorable little puppies playing a game with a peculiar brown egg, and you RUINED it! If you—" She trailed off into a series of unintelligible, rage-filled shrieks.

"No, no, no, no, no! Please! Spare me!" the elf wailed.

Father Skeleton raised a hand, his gaze shifting to the corpse of the burly elf. Instantly, the dead elf rose from the ground, his body convulsing as he began to scream in pure, unending, terror as life returned to him.

"Your fate cannot be escaped by death, you foolish, noisy loudlings," Father Skeleton said cheerfully, before his voice turned wicked and cold. "Scion…" he stated, the single word rattling the cell doors.

Skellbro appeared from nowhere, his sickly green blade already drawn.

"Anything but that! We'll do anything!" the pretty elf shrieked, his face a mask of pure, desperate terror. Skellbro moved, a blur of motion, leaving faint, ethereal green trails in the air.

"Ten thousand cuts for interrupting mother's show!" Skellbro said, his voice a cold, gleeful snicker.

Before the elves could even scream, Skelly Mom coated them in a sheath of grey, ethereal flames. They instantly burned away, not even ash remaining.

"So noisy, even in death," Skellbro commented, a note of disappointment in his voice.

"Poor child, you still see them all, do you?" Skelly Mom said, embracing Skellbro in a surprisingly tender gesture.

"Every last one," Skellbro replied, his voice filled with an almost ecstatic glee. From his perspective, the entire room was now packed with overlapping, translucent souls. Thousands upon thousand of them layered over one another, with more pouring in from the walls, each one screaming for a mercy that would never come. "Music to my ears."

Back on the bridge, Zehrina had returned. Maelara was now plopped down against a wall, a small healing spell glowing softly in her hands.

"What did you learn, Zehrina?" Roy asked.

"Not much, I'm afraid," she replied, her tone mocking. "Turns out Lady Brinevein really doesn't speak with anyone she considers beneath her...which is everything. She views herself as superior to the superior. 'Purity beyond purity,' was the phrase her guard kept repeating before he… expired."

Roy looked around at his battered, bruised, but ultimately victorious crew. "Alright," he said, his own voice steady and firm. "That takes care of the welcoming party. Serenity, give me a status report on the flagship. It's time we met Lady Brinevein herself."

A faint shimmer of magical distortion rippled across the waves miles away. Cloaked by a shroud of impenetrable shadow, the flagship of Vorthas Nythren, the Second Hell of the Crownless King, observed the carnage.

The demon lord stood at his vessel's prow, the ancient, nigh-indestructible dragon scales of the hull silent beneath his feet. He watched the utter ruin of Lady Brinevein's proud elven fleet, his ancient, almond-shaped eyes narrowed in a mixture of surprise and genuine, if grudging, admiration. The sheer, brutal efficiency of the Nightshatter's arcane artillery was a sight to see.

"How… unexpected," Vorthas mused, his voice a low, sibilant whisper that the shadows themselves seemed to drink. "The boy's growth has accelerated with remarkable rapidity. Much faster than I had anticipated." A predatory, almost pleased smile curled at his lips as he watched the Nightshatter lock grapples with Brinevein's dreadnought. "Perhaps… perhaps he will prove to be a worthy piece on the board after all."

He lingered a moment longer, a silent, unseen predator watching the lesser sharks tear each other apart. Then, with a casual, dismissive flick of his wrist, the shadows around his ship thickened, coalescing, swallowing the vessel whole. Without a sound, without a ripple, the ship faded into the dark, leaving Roy to finish the job, utterly unaware they were still being watched.