by Simon Archer
Gmork stood beside me, having healed up from my punishment in record time, thanks to my chief healer Apgar. His shoulders were in better condition than even before I worked them over. Bunny magic is also great for recovery, turns out, which makes bunnies especially gifted as medical staff. She also worked her healing magic on Gmork’s attitude, and he was now far less resistant to the Rabbit-Wolf coexistence I’d made here. For his aggressive fighting skill, I made him my personal bodyguard.
Bugs, the tricky little imp rodent, had conscripted all of my bunnies in helping him collect tarps from all over the town, convincing them that with him as Baron for a day, I’d have no choice but to spend all of my new free time with them. Yes, that may have been part of my plan in the event, but I didn’t expect him to capitalize on it like this. Six hundred and forty square feet of stone floor had been transformed into a quilt of various sheets. Bugs laid one of the last ones down, forcing me to lift up my elegant three-foot throne as he placed it down.
“Do you have any suggestions on how I should have my sweetcane carrots prepared?” Bugs smugly said to me, “I’m finding myself with a craving for the steamed variety, myself, but I’ve heard that pickling them has a rather unique effect.”
“That’s up to you, Baron-for-the-day.” I placed my throne back down. “I’m officially making no decisions from tomorrow morning until the night.”
“Oh, shoot!” Bugs tapped his foot like a machine gun in his pondering frustration. “I’ll be needing my own ‘me’ for my baronhood. Can’t be running around carrying out my own orders, can I?”
“You can arrange for that and be done for the day.” I sat back down to lounge in my chair. “As for me, I’ve still got a fight ahead.”
“Oh, speak of the devil!” Bugs pointed out to my personal messenger Maugrim, one of the surviving nobles from the old Baron’s time in power, running up to me on foot through the keep gate. “This is probably his announcement now. Imagine how easy the cleanup will be for us with the tarps in place.”
“He’s here, sir.” Maugrim informed me of the incoming champion challenger at the front gate as Bugs laughed through his own exit. “The Captain wants to know if you want him let in.”
“Yes, I think we’re ready.” I sat up in the chair. “Tell Balto to lead him straight here and not to let any of the pack out of his sight.”
For his loyalty and effort before, I made Balto my new Captain of the Guard, which has been very fitting so far. While I would have rather pulled my nails off with pliers than explain to the guards that I was still their pack leader, I’m fairly certain that most of them got it. Hopefully.
“Of course, sir.” Maugrim paused to take a breath, leaning on his knees with his outstretched hands as he rested. “Just one moment. Your… ever-so-respectful assignment, just like your insistence upon renaming a noble of my posi-- my former position, is proving to be taxing.”
“It’s only until everyone learns the language so we can pass notes.” I showed no sympathy. “Then we can use those birds we found to make things simpler.”
They weren’t birds so much as they were flying creatures the size of birds. There were still feathers, each a tie-dye mix of green and blue, coming out of bat-like wings. It didn’t have a beak so much as a long, lizard snout with a flat bat-nose at the end of it. Horns lined the center of their skulls on what we assumed were the females and two devilish, ram-like horns for the males. From what I’d been told, they were already trained to deliver such messages. But it was useless to us until people knew how to read.
“And there isn’t enough jerky in existence to convince me that ‘Lemongrowl’ is a better name than ‘Maugrim.’”
“Of course. Speaking of language learning, I noticed that the instructor at the center was rather late this morning,” He passive-aggressively pointed out, “Though I’m sure it was for far more important matters than using her charming teaching methods to overload her students with needless details. It may have been for the best; a shorter class time would be easier for her to handle.”
“Do you go to her classes, then?” I bit my tongue before I lashed out angrily at him. A tantrum would have looked foolish, showing I cared about the opinion of some random Wolf above others because he insulted Tinker. And I had something a bit more devious in mind.
“As per your command, I deliver messages to her from time to time, and have been subjected to her curriculum.” He had finished stretching, staying only to continue his thinly veiled complaint to one of my bunnies. “Perhaps if she took a moment to think before she spoke, she could cut down on how many words she filled the air with.”
“You’ve had no need to attend them yourself, right?” I said, not bothering to hide a sarcastic tone, “You’ve already mastered the language enough to never deign to enter the room on an academic basis?”
“Without a doubt.” He gave me a look that cooked the blood raging hot. “Sir. It is something that every noble of any worth has already conquered for ages now.”
“You know what?” I let the sardonicism just overflow from my mouth. “You’re just absolutely right! I’ve been asking so much of her lately. She’s overworked, and her teaching could suffer because of it. And a former noble of your previous status should be respected for all of that special blood you have that’s just getting clogged up by menial labor. I’ll tell you what, since you’re such a master of the language already, and you’re obviously just suffering doing one of the simpler, cushier jobs in my city, I’ll promote you. You’ll be teaching Cuniculus at the school, specifically to the Wolves and Rabbits who are having trouble keeping up with the classes.”
“Beg your pardon?” He took a step back, retreating at the weight of the thought and backpedaling from his ungracious behavior. “While I’m so appreciative of the offer, Baron Dragonoak, it may be far too great an honor for--”
“Nonsense!” I leaned back in the chair triumphantly. “It’s a perfect position for someone with your grasp of civility and respect for your fellows and superiors. I’m sure your amazing language conquering skill will come quite in handy when helping out all of the grunts where you believe Tinker has failed, as you were so kind to point out.”
“Sir, I meant absolutely no disrespect.” Maugrim pleaded with me. “It was a harmless observation from one very foolish subordinate about one of your slaves--”
“Very foolish, indeed.” I dropped the sarcasm. “That slave is far greater than you in my household, and not for anything other than her loyalty and respect for me and my people. Don’t think that a Wolf who’s already defied me once before is worth any more than the Rabbits here just because he used to be a noble. And you should be happy that this is as far as I’ve taken your punishment for your blatant disregard for both Tinker’s dignity and your own. Just ask Gmork, here.”
“You still have your limbs working,” Gmork commented to Maugrim as I referred to him, “That’s as lucky as you get with Lord Dragonoak. He’s being very considerate and merciful today.”
“For speaking against a bunny? You can’t be serious.” Maugrim’s eyes widened when he saw the truth in Gmork’s eyes. “Oh, dear god. So, do you still want me to finish out the day’s messages, then?”
“Yes, we’ve held up Balto for too long as it is.” I dismissed him, a smirk on my lips. “I’ll have Bugs make the arrangements so you can start bright and early tomorrow.” Maugrim bolted as fast as I’d ever seen a Wolf run to finish my work for him. I shifted in my chair again, returning my attention to the matters at hand.
“Are you still sure about bringing them here, boss?” Gmork asked me as Maugrim disappeared from sight. “If something were to happen during your fight, they’d be in the middle of your city.”
“We have evacuated the Rabbits and extra supplies, right?” I asked him in turn, to which he nodded, “Then bringing them here lets us keep them caged. None of them are to leave here alive unless I allow it. If we can’t kill them, they’ll be trapped and starve.”
“Boss, um, if
I may?” Gmork asked, and I allowed, “If I can’t protect you or reach you in time, and something does happen in the challenge, I would like to request an emergency post at the clinic. Not that I don’t want to risk my life for you, I do! But the thought of it remaining unprotected is worrying for me.”
“In that event, you’d no longer be beholden to my whims, according to the challenge.” I saw that worry in his eyes. “The challenger will take over my role and be your superior. Would you think he would allow you to go there without his approval?”
“He wouldn’t be able to stop me.” Gmork clenched his fist. “And he’ll have to kill me before he gets to them.”
“Is that not disloyal to the strongest Wolf who defeated me?” I asked him, “Aren’t you supposed to obey whoever is strongest?”
“Strength comes from serving.” A fire burned in Gmork’s eyes. “It’d be disloyal to the service that they’ve done for me if I didn’t help them when they needed me.”
“My, my, Apgar did a number on you.” I stood up to pat him on the shoulder. “You can head there now if you want.”
“No harm will ever come to them.” Gmork smacked a fist to his chest. “I swear on my life, no matter who is Baron. Though, if it means anything, I don’t think it’ll be some punk from the Regent over you.” Gmork ran off through the gate, heading towards the clinic to guard it.
“What do you think?” Hopper’s voice sprung into the space beside me out of a portal, followed by Hopper herself and Tinker, both presenting to the completed tarp covering of the courtyard.
“Oh, Hopper!” I calmed my heart from the sudden shock of their appearance. “Oh, yeah, it looks great. Hope we don’t mess it up too much in our fight.”
“To be fair, sir, the point of the tarps is to not have to worry about the mess,” Tinker reminded me, “It can get as messy as you need it to be.”
“I’m hoping for ‘quick’ rather than messy.” I rolled my shoulders, checking on my weapons to see what tools for strategies I could employ.
The pistol had the full-cup, lightning, and new ‘bounce’ charm. Those combined let me make instantaneous webs of lightning in a tight space, with the bullets bouncing off whatever they hit until they hit something fleshy and squishy. Not to mention all of the fun trick shots to get around defenses and catch people off their guard. And with the full-cup on top of it, I could make a labyrinth of them if I wanted, hitting my enemies from every side imaginable from one spot.
The shotgun was rocking the fire, ice, and full-cup charms, giving me some close-range versatility I could abuse as long as my trigger finger was willing. With the fire, I had a practical flamethrower that also shredded up targets with round shrapnel, and ice let me freeze people from both the inside and out, still chilling whatever the gauges were stuck inside of for a while after I’d stopped shooting.
Though I doubt I’d be using the rifle at this range, I still liked the combination I was rocking with it. The silence charm kept it deadly quiet, keeping my position unexposed when I took someone down with it. It was unsettling every time. The new ‘bubble’ charm put a transparent, frictionless shield around both the gun which was weird to hold at first, but also the bullets. Now they survived much longer in the air without burning away, letting them fly straighter, faster, harder, and farther than ever. I could shoot the hat off a passenger of the London Eye from the Empire State Building if I pointed it right. Tinker was still working on making a scope for me that might have made that slightly more possible. While that was a great asset, it wasn’t a way for me to win challenges if no one knew I killed the noble from a city away, so I didn’t put a full-cup on it unless it was really necessary. Still, it never hurt to be prepared for the worst.
With the Baron’s charms, even my machete got its fair share of magical buffs. After sharpening it to a razor-thin edge, the ‘pristine’ charm kept it from ever losing it, no matter what I cut into. The ‘sturdy’ charm kept the metal from bending, even when Tinker’s feather hammer smashed on one side of it, and that thing has killed every Wolf she’s used it against in one swing. Very heavy, thus proving the blade to be very unbreakable. I could swing as hard as I wanted without chipping or snapping it, with maximum slicing power in every cut.
I considered commissioning a smaller version of the Baron’s armor for myself, minus the creepy brass torture plates. After all, the Baron was almost untouchable, which would have been a fairly awesome asset in all of these challenges I’ve been stuck in. I’d be a tiny tank, using the other charms I already had to wreak havoc while my enemies could do nothing about it. Sounded almost perfect, but that came with a few problems for me.
One, while you’d have thought that being unhurtable would make you a perfect sponge for people’s attacks, eventually, they would have caught on and focused their firepower elsewhere, like my armies or my girls. Sure, I’d be fine, but they sure as hell wouldn’t have been. Especially if they were beside me, catching some of that ricochet shrapnel bouncing off me. I’d have killed anyone around me just by standing next to them. That wasn’t something I wanted to entertain.
Two, even if I were to make it using something lighter for the full armor since the real protection came from the forcefield around it, it’d have to be something that covered every part of my body. See, the bubble didn’t quite work unless the armor the charm was on covered the whole body. Charms also didn’t stick to cloth or leather, or anything else too squishy or too flexible, so it’d have to have been custom carved from wood or something. It’d have been hot, itchy, immobile, heavy, and clunky even in the best-case scenario. I’d have been dying for any chance to get out of it, and completely dependent on not being hurt while within it, since I wouldn’t have been moving much.
Three, I didn’t like the thought of charms touching me all the time. I’d seen two crazy Wolves with body charms, and I didn’t want to even risk being like either of them or lose my sanity like either of them. That meant no feather charm to lighten the load, either. Maybe I was paranoid, but radiation poisoning was not how I wanted to leave the mortal coil, especially magical radiation poisoning. Who knows what kind of mutations that’d spring about? Your liver could have always frozen over, or your heart could have caught fire, or you could have bled out your belly button. Anything was possible. I was waiting off on that until I absolutely knew that body charms were safe.
And four, the armor would have been almost untouchable. I found a way around it with the old Baron, and I had a few ideas for other ways, too. Though it would have been a hassle, someone could take it off me, and as soon as they did, I’d have been dead meat. Even without trying to wound me directly, there were ways to kill me or even take me out of the equation. A flamethrower would have cooked me alive, or I could have been frozen into a block of ice. I had the ability to do both, so I’d have to assume someone else could have, too. The old Baron was faring better than me purely because he had way more heft, but him bouncing proved that heavier things shot the armor away from them.
As soon as I ran into someone heavier than me, which was probably half of the Wolves I’d have to fight, I’d fly like a pinball. If I got launched high enough in any direction, I’d be bouncing away forever like the old Baron almost did. That’d have been an embarrassing end to my lordly legacy. On top of all of that, the champion challenger will obviously have had a plan for the Baron’s armor, and I’d have been a sitting duck, thinking I was a rhino up until I was dead.
After lengthy deliberations about it long before this moment, I decided the armor was a bust, and so we repurposed the charms inside. Besides, I had a lord’s coat reinforced with metal plates, along with chainmail-lined overalls and a chainmail shirt over my own, a Hopper-Tinker combination special. I felt fairly prepared.
“You’re going to do great, my lord.” Hopper pecked me on the cheek. “You’re twice the fighter that challenger will ever be.”
“Let’s not be too hasty about that.” I slowed her enthusiasm. “He’s the prize bull of challengers,
on par with everyone else I’ve fought at least. This is going to be tough.”
“So, you’ll be careful, right?” Tinker pulled up on my overalls to kiss my other cheek, then touching the various parts of my outfit as she talked about them. “The metal in the plates had all of the impurities thoroughly removed, so it’ll be as strong as it can be, and I went with a riveted, welded six-in-one chainmail weave so you can’t be cut or hit with slashing attacks and only a super thin, super heavy piercing strike can penetrate it--”
“That’s grea--” I began a compliment.
“And Hopper made the padding in your overalls a little thicker so it’ll take blunt hits a lot better,” Tinker continued, not pausing for a moment to take a breath or hear me, “along with the shirt and the coat, but without making it bulky, so you can still move out of the way if something too scary tries to hit you, but you’re still as protected as we could make for you, and I insisted Hopper get you thicker socks this morning when we dressed you and put steel coverings on your boots to keep your feet safe--”
“Tinker.” I tried to cut in, grabbing her shoulder.
“And I’ve personally cleaned your guns beforehand.” She brushed off my hand, ignoring me as if I was a ghost and still speaking in one breath. “so every piece of it should perform at their peak when you’re fighting so you can hurt them before they hurt you, and they’ve all been realigned so that they won’t jam or misfire, and I’ve properly cleaned and checked every bullet for imperfections just in case one of them was made badly, so I put the least imperfect ones inside your guns so you can always shoot the best ones with the full-cup charm--”
