Saga Of The European King

Colonel Glowfist, David (w/Scruff) and Cajun did not storm Oranje's quarters like the King, Bernadetta Leathervest and Roxy Tripfoot did. Their job was to hang back and prevent an entire megacanoe-load of United Statesian warriors from interfering with the assassination party going on below decks. They also had to make sure that David was kept safe and ignorant of the fact that his mother was about to be murdered by his father, his future wife and a determined lesbian. He was currently hiding under one of Cajun's invisibility cloaks with Scruff tucked in his elbow and a coffee tin clutched in his little hands. The King had told him that if he was in real trouble and there was nothing left that he could do, he should throw that coffee tin as hard as he could at whatever the trouble was and then get away very quickly. He wished he still had his Chinese belt but even so he wasn't scared. He had trusted his teacher, Colonel Glowfist, with his life so many times on their adventures in the United States that it felt totally natural by this point, and Uncle Cajun had kept him adequately entertained for hours and hours with his tricks whilst they were all stowing away so he knew that he could greet any occasion with some clever solution or deft manoeuvre. He did, in fact, have a trick set up for this very occasion.

Cajun and Colonel Glowfist were dressed in the black feathers, white war paint, sunglasses and sleek coyote skins of the CIA. They stood on either side of the stairway that descended to Orange's quarters and refused to answers anyone's questions about the dead guards or the gang who had just rushed below decks into the boss' lunch meeting. When pressed, Cajun would flash his CIA medicine stick. United Statesian had bee trained to expect the CIA to show up at any time to block entrances and they had to respect that. If they kept asking questions or gathered together into groups of more than four or raised their voices, Colonel Glowfist would thump his staff, which had a lots of dreamcatchers hanging off it to make it look more authentically United Statesian, against the wooden deck and shook out a flashy, yet mild, European spell that the warriors of Oranje's armada wouldn't have seen before. United Statesians had been trained to expect the CIA to have magical powers that they could not understand. This worked for a while.

“You. Ugly bitch. Let's go.” said Bernadetta, at the same moment that the King tore off his wig and scooped the face-paint off with his wooden fingers.
“I was here among you the whole time!” he shouted, but the moment had passed and several henchmen had already started throwing punches and bolas at Bernadetta, to no effect. The King tried to repeat himself but Oranje somersaulted towards Bernadetta before he could say more than two words and her scythe met Cutty, who would normally have said something pithy at that point, were he able. The King sighed so that everyone could hear and then rocket-punched a megacanoe captain away from Roxy, who was impressively dancing up some prayers to her chaotic gypsy god to try and get him to buff up the assassination party's speed and defence scores. When the King's fist came back he walked over to the dazed captain and punched him so hard in the head that he permanently lost all hearing in his right ear. I say 'permanently,' but he drowned about twenty minutes later so whatever. Next up was a mid-ranking battlechief who the King grabbed by his long, beaded hard, spun him around and then punched him in the back of his head until his neck felt like a bag of broken biscuits. Easy. The King actually yawned as he threw the former battlechief into an advancing field general. As he kicked his first opponent, the deaf captain, in the ribs to make sure he didn't get up, he looked over to the -real- fight going on on top of the table in the middle of the room. As he watched, Bernadetta grabbed Oranje's scythe in mid-swing and pulled her into a savage kick to the chest. Roxy was singing a few healing chants because Oranje had already managed to slash Bernadetta nine times and had spilled an acre of blood, but Bernadetta was looking no worse for wear. She had so many hit points now that she could laugh off nine hits, even from a boss like Oranje. He sighed again as Bernadetta slashed and sliced and hacked his ex-wife with his own sword. It was so unsatisfying. There wasn't a chance in hell that Bernadetta wouldn't slay her. What an undramatic end. He considered leaving Oranje's attendant shamans alone so they could continue healing her and keep the fight going for longer but then he supposed it wouldn't even really help that much and grumpily shattered the sternum of one of them with a close range rocket-punch and used his body to batter the other two into unconsciousness. Without their buffs and area effects, there was even less stopping him from smashing the other megacanoe captains and battlechiefs into nothing. He even used Ba'al's scythe to do it, and he wasn't even all that good with Ba'al's scythe. After that, all he had to do was wait. He looked around at all the minions he had destroyed – lying there and squirming around in bloody puddles of each other. It was a good result, he supposed. He was hardly scratched and no one had even got close to Roxy, while Bernadetta was glowing white-hot with all the nifty spells and resistances and holy armours that Roxy had heaped upon her. The King walked to the door and checked outside. Colonel Glowfist and Cajun were fighting a horde or two of United Statesian warriors because panic had finally overcome their natural wariness and respect towards the CIA. That was something, at least. He jogged up the stairs and started punching people to death but it was clear from the start that the two of them already had the matter in hand. The addition of the King to their fighting power just freaked the United Statesians out so much that they turned tail and abandoned ship. The King watched the United Statesians jump overboard, briefly pondered the spectacle of the falling Rock People breaking the other megacanoes in the armada to splinters, then turned to Colonel Glowfist and shrugged theatrically. Just as he did that, a Rock Person fell from the sky, straight through Oranje's quarters and hit the sea bed. The flagcanoe lurched and the King stopped shrugging at Colonel Glowfist and flew down the stairs back into Oranje's punctured quarters.

Oranje was gone, predictably, and Roxy Tripfoot was struggling to get a dazed Bernadetta back onto her feet. The King hoisted the battle-lesbian up onto his shoulders and then he and Roxy got back onto the deck, leaving the battered and/or dead officers, shamans and captains to their fate (drowning). Once David had been found and fitted with an emergency float-bladder, they abandoned ship in the traditional way and plunged into the churning Pacific. What was churning down there in that Pacific was quite alarming. The United Statesian invasion force had been decapitated all right, but nobody had told it that. The United Statesians didn't conduct warfare the way Europeans did. Warfare in Europe was basically an arrangement for a dramatic backdrop so that the most senior officers of each side (and their friends) could meet each other and have it out in melee combat. The winner of that fight would declare his or her or their victory and the opposing army would simply pack up and go home. The United Statesians had never heard of this grand and noble tradition. They had this crazy system where the most senior officers didn't do any fighting at all and the main attack force was divided up into co-operating 'squadrons,' each with their own unit leader who often wasn't even a hero or the friend of someone important. These squadrons, once they'd received their specific orders, would go out and accomplish their particular objectives without having to be within earshot of the coolest guy on the battlefield. Their orders were all different too, not just 'kill the leader.'And if, somewhere along the way, someone messed up or a squadron got wiped out then the squadron leaders would communicate and coordinate by messenger prairie dogs, coloured flags and flares or even hand signals so they could make a slight modification to the plan. The whole philosophy was that if you take away an opposing army's ability to fight, it didn't matter who was in charge or what his powers were because they would have conclusively lost even if not a single punch had been landed on them. This was unfair and stupid.

Commander Flightfeather's strategy had been to devote his first line of defence to sinking as many megacanoes as possible, assuming it would be a matter of slaughtering whoever washed up on the shore. He had drafted the entire population of the Rock People town that lay beneath Normandy to be hurled at the armada by Terrorthaw's fearsome old techno-paults that the Commander had had dragged all the way from the King's awesome Royal Vaults in Brussels. He'd convinced the Rock People that the threat to their society was so enormous that the entire town would do well to sacrifice itself upon the techo-paults and, while they did set aside a few healthy breeding pairs to flee to nearby Rock People towns and let them know what the situation was, they agreed, and so there was a hail of rock the likes of which the world had never seen before that fell upon the approaching armada, with the exception of Oranje's flagcanoe, which had been pointed out to them by Astrid Gimmerleck. Gadfly and Formation's Bird Corps helped tremendously with the spotting and targeting while Flightfeather's trump card, the Devil Himself, waded into the ocean up to his chest and merrily uppercutted megacanoe after megacanoe while his swarms of demons picked them apart plank by plank.

But still the United Statesians landed on the beaches of Normandy - not in their big, vulnerable megacanoes but in smaller, more manoeuvrable regular canoes, each carrying a single squadron of warriors. And they landed in their thousands. Oranje had anticipated the use of the techno-paults and even the involvement of the Devil and as far as she was concerned the megacanoes were no longer needed after they had they had brought the United Statesians as close to the coast as possible. After she had stormed the Tower of Super-Chastity and rescued Princess Princess, the plan was to marshal whatever forces remained, take the harbour at Mulberry and set sail for darkest Ireland, where the Ire Lords were expecting her and the good news she'd deliver of Europe being dealt a crippling blow. As it was, Commander Flightfeather wasn't -too- worried when canoe after canoe after canoe full of highly organised United Statesian warriors drifted in on the high tide under the full moon, brandished their Smith Dynasty brand automatic spearbows and assumed 'sweep' formation. There were like a gazillion European troops – well, most of them were from the Kingdom Of Sharing – waiting for them on the beach alongside some of the mightiest heroes Europe had to offer and, besides, the King had a plan. He spread his wings and drew his sword, which shone in moonlight. Beside him, Jacob and Timothy did the same. They didn't agree on much, but they agreed on this:
“Kill them!” they called, as one.

“Who is there on the shore, blessed child of the Biggest Rock? Who will we fight alongside in battle?” said the King to the Rock Person who had, quite by accident, sank Oranje's flagcanoe. They were both wading to shore but they had a while to wade because the tide was so high. The King was still dragging Bernadetta by her armpits while trying to keep a close eye on David w/ Scruff and had to constantly dodge the United Statesian canoes that kept nudging past him. Rock People aren't the most forthcoming folk at the best of times, and trying to get a field intelligence report out of one under those conditions was just impossible.
“Many people. You know what these things are like.” shrugged the Rock Person.
“Okay, did you spot anyone important – someone with a name?” tried the King.
“Oh, I'm bad with names.”
“Fine.” said the King after some thought. “Was there a gentleman with the wings and hands of a bird?”
“Aw, I hate birds. I'd wish they'd all go away. Silly little things.” plodded the Rock Person. The King gave up.
He checked again to see if David was still there but also still invisible (difficult,) did a quick headcount of his Adventure Friends and told Colonel Glowfist to summon up as many Awesome Horses as he could muster. He was done wading. It was time to cut down foreigners by the dozen. The Angel Cowboy would show up when he showed up. There was some seriously glorious war to be had until then. He helped Bernadetta up onto her still-hot Awesome Horses, pulled Cutty out of her scabbard, jumped across to his own horse, shook Cutty until he could speak again (“It was horrible, Chief!” he said) and then let out a scream so pure and so cool that the water around the hooves of his Awesome Horse was blown away into a neat crater. He set his horse to 'gallop,' and so did the others. Immediately, the United Statesians in their regular canoes, who had been ignoring them up until then, took notice of these crazy white folk (plus a CIA guy) on their burning demon horses and tried to maybe do something about it. Those who got in the way had their skulls cleaved by Cutty, or were cut to ribbons by Roxy Tripfoot's iron hula-hoop thing or got explodoed by Colonel Glowfist, or be forced to deal with a Level One blaze or bolt spell from David's little fingertips or their chest torn out courtesy of Cyclops' Bane and Bernadetta Leathervest - who perked up a bit once things got exciting again. The Adventure Friends were on the warpath, guys. You could not stop them even if you were uncool and really wanted to.

Things weren't looking so exciting for Europe on the shore. The United Statesians were better trained and better equipped than the vast majority of the European forces and the European heroes were having a hard time picking up the slack. Countering the heroes themselves were the Unites Statesian Paramilitary Specialist Operatives who were dispersed throughout the squadrons so as to add to overall mission effectiveness. While Fights-Like-Elephant-Seal from the 23rd Charlie squadron distracted the European powerhouse, Auroch Jones, with a ground-shaking fistfight, the operative known as Joseph Smith v0.032BETA was able to use his lasers to knock out European guard towers and archery positions, allowing the 109th Kappa squadron to escort the Prairie Predatrix on her assignment to capture a European techno-pault or two and use them to splatter the aviaries that provided rest and ammunition for the Bird Corps of spotters and small artillery and later against the troops stationed around the Tower of Super-Chastity itself. The techno-pault's aim was steered true by the spectral form of Shaman Cottonmouth of the 8th Epsilon squadron, which was gliding high above the field of combat, doing a fair amount of coordination between the squadrons. The Bandit Kids fought to their last Kid to protect their foster father, Enrique The Catheart, from an ambush from the 3rd Theta squadron, the 19th Delta squadron and the Protean rage and sparking tomahawks of the Specialist Operative, Crazier Horse. When poor Enrique fell, with a curse clinging to his lips, fell beneath those bloody hooves, there was no one to swoop in and out of the curtains of confusion and protect the back of Bürgermeister Z, whose stalwart overseeing of the construction, good operation and repair of Europe's barracks, field hospitals and all important guard towers was brought to a murderous end by the lightning fast pom-poms of Wendigogo Girl. When Auroch Jones finally succumbed to Fights-Like-Elephant-Seal's tusks and the cruel automatic spear wounds of a thousand since-vanquished braves, the United Statesian beachhead rose at the spot where he fell and the sweeping squadrons (the 212th, the 14th Delta and the 25th through to 39th Alpha,) pushed the European defenders right up against the jagged rocks that cradled the Tower of Super-Chastity. Commander Flightfeather tried to fly high and order a fall-back to the Tower's first line of fortifications, but the sky that day was occupied and the brave Commander was overcome with dread and suffering and could not so much as let out a croak, never mind a rallying call. Little did he know that Shaman Cottonmouth was poisoning his mind with dark Coyote magic while the 91st Bravo squadron, from high up on a glassy rock, directed the 55th squadron, which contained the assassin known as 'The Texas Boomerang,' towards Flightfeather's position. The Texas Boomerang cracked his whip as his squadron slid through the splattering chaos on the beach. His whip was a rattlesnake. He smiled as he thought of the horrific mess he'd make of the bird-monster. Each of his teeth was carved into the shape of a skull. It would take a miracle to save Commander Flightfeather from the blood and terror that was coming his way. It would take the King.

Meanwhile, back in the ocean, the few remaining megacanoes, now free from the rain of Rock People thanks to the Prairie Predatrix and her squadron, trained their spear cannons on the Devil, fired all at once and blasted him into the bedraggled collection of tricksters, child-snatchers and forest-spirits from which he was forged. Their bonds unmade, the scattered demons screamed as they dissolved in the harsh moonlight. The King glanced over his shoulder when he heard the Devil's many, many death shrieks, and the Battle Tears he shed made his Awesome Horse run so fast that it almost broke the speed of sound, but it could not break the speed of sadness. He fixed his eyes on the Tower and his face on the 'grim' setting. It was all down to him now.

He 'hyahed' his Awesome Horse to jump just as that old sound barrier fell away and a sonic boom spat from its hooves. Oh, how that Awesome Horse jumped. He jumped clear through the first line of sweeper squadrons, scattering them like ninepins, cut off the back of Shaman Cottonmouth's head without really even meaning to, bounced his horse right off the back of some poor sap in the 26th Phi squadron, sailed majestically through the air for a hundred brilliant seconds onto to come down again and bounced off the heads of the 91st Bravo squadron atop their rocky perch, screamed all the way down to the ground as he landed -splat- upon the Texas Boomerang, killing him nearly instantly. The King had cleared a kilometre in what was technically a single jump. He was so cool. He raised Cutty, who was making a 'haaauh' cheering-crowd noise and he looked back over his shoulder at his Adventure Friends, far back in the distance. Colonel Glowfist and Bernadetta Leathervest were doing a stellar job of mopping up the confusion and fear that his bouncing had made. Cajun was skinwalking around as a scarier-than-anything Sasquatch monster, happily destroying everything in sight with his Awesome Horse, which he was using as a bat. And everyone was well protected under Roxy Tripfoot's prayers and charms. They were going to be just fine. The King spoke and everyone could hear him.
“It'll be over in one hour, my people! Till that promised time, waste not one more breath, spill not one more drop of sweat on these curs, rest instead within the walls of the Tower! We can totally relax there!” he triumphed. Everyone stopped and looked at him while he did so.
“The King is back!” yelled Cutty, just in case people hadn't caught on or thought that maybe he was a clone. Soon all the Europeans on the battlefield had yelled it also, at least twice.

The King was just guessing when he had said that there would only be one more hour of fighting but it turned out he was exaggerating. In less than forty five minutes, just about as long as it took for him to herd the armies of Europe into the capacious and high-standing walls that protected the Tower of Super-Chastity, the Angel Cowboy pushed his way politely through the invading army fighting at the perimeter, jogged up to the Tower gate, waved his arms and cleared his throat to get everyone's attention and then he fixed everything. The King took the opportunity to slip inside the Tower and check up on his daughter, whom he had not seen since she had first become hot and needed to be locked up in the first place. Soon he was running out, screaming, into the Tower grounds, which were by then quite empty. The Europeans had been let out to mingle and chat with the United Statesians and had generally dispersed to the beach, where dawn was just about to happen and things were getting pretty. So the Angel Cowboy had no trouble in spotting the King and running up to him so he could hug him until he calmed down. If the troops had seen the King upset and crying, it might have freaked them out. Nobody wanted that. And so the Angel Cowboy released the King and ran up the stairs of the Tower to pay his own visit on Princess Priness and the King was left, dazed but calm, to wander the emptying beaches of Normandy. European troops kept running up to him and reminding him that they had sent him homemade cards on every one of his birthdays. United Statesian warriors also wanted to shake his hand and invite him to smoke with them and to sign their medicine sticks. He'd been very impressive out there. The King indulged them, of course, but his eyes remained cold and confused and his voice hardly rose above a whisper. Before long, he strode off towards solitude and followed the path to Seine-Inférieure. He went inside. All he wanted to do was sleep. Cutty asked him what was up so he dropped Cutty right by the door, then absent-mindedly began to drop most of his gear as he trudged around looking for a bed. He wondered if he'd even be able to sleep in a bed any more. He was back in Europe but Europe felt hollow and different and lost. He supposed that there would be a big party in his honour and everyone would want him to be happy but how could he be when he knew that Winter was still out there somewhere? When he knew that he had failed on his quest. When he knew that he had broken the Law Of Europe out there. The very foundations of Europe were cracked, he could feel it on the undersides of his feet.

Then he looked up and saw a few things that were surprising to see. He was surprised to see that he'd wandered into the maire's chambers. The maire himself had been evacuated with the other civilians and his bed was left still made and empty, but not quite, for the other thing that surprised the King was the sight of Oranje sitting on the edge of that bed, covered in blood, crying into a towel that she held tight to her face. His first instinct at hearing her sobs was to drop his hand to his waist and draw Cutty, but then he realised he had left Cutty at the bottom of the stairs. He could hear a faint, “Chief? Chief?” coming from outside. His second instinct was to take that same hand and brush it against the back of her neck, to comfort her and to put his love inside of her body. She turned into his caress, squeezed the tears out of her eyes, took his hand in hers and led him close. As she turned, the towel fell off her lap and onto the floor, where it crumbled to dust. She'd picked up that little trick from the Dracula King. They kissed and then they kissed deep. The King rested his hand against the side of Oranje's wet face and then they kissed so deep that you could see their teeth. She pulled him down onto the bed and their levels of embrace were as 100%. Oranje's hands began to grab at places the King hadn't ever been grabbed at before, except during wrestling matches where it was okay. That was when Astrid Gimmerleck - who'd been standing invisible in the room the whole time, spying on Oranje at first but then too shocked to do anything when the King came in and just started making out with her – decided that things were getting way out of hand and ran from the room and, at the very moment where Astrid reached the door, Oranje's wicked hands ventured way down South and actually touched the King's ding-a-ling. There was a bright flash of light and Astrid felt heat and tremendous pressure on her back as she dived out the door, rolled into the hallway and followed the trail of the King's stuff all the way out the front door.

End of Chapter 91

The King found Bernadetta Leathervest deep in the Maize storage deck on Oranje's flagcanoe. Oranje and all of her captains and battlechiefs were meeting on board in her luxurious chambers for a pre-invasion lunch. It was the perfect time for the King to strike – to decapitate the United Statesian attack force before the campaign had even begun. He'd already sent Astrid Gimmerleck to shore so that she could advise the European army to not target the flagcanoe, he'd drawn his remaining Adventure Friends together and got them all psyched up and confident and they were so ready, but here was Bernadetta, crouched in a puddle in the bowels of the ship, holding Cyclops' Bane unwaveringly above the entrance to a rathole, her breathing shallow, drenched in concentration. A rat would spawn and run from the hole every thirty seconds or so and as soon as the freshly-spawned rat poked its little head out of the hole and got its first look at the wide and wonderful world it found its little ratty self in, Bernadetta would bring Cyclops' Bane down like a magical metal cobra, brush the rat's gushing body away with the back of her hand and go right back to waiting. Perched on a barrel beside her was a vial filled with bubbly green liquid. The King identified it as a Medium Strength Potion Of Strength.
“Honoured Mrs. Leathervest,” said the King, not wanting to but also wanting to interrupt the ritual of stab-squeak-brush-wait. “We must be ready to strike very soon. Your King would know what it is you are doing.” Bernadetta did not take her eyes off the rathole. Stab-squeak-brush-wait.
“Pass me that potion, would you please, Your Highness?” she said. The King dumbly passed the Medium Strength Potion of Medium Strength over to Bernadetta who drank it quickly, without wasting a single movement. The King was by this point officially puzzled.
“Why would you waste a Medium Strength Potion of Strength on the slaughter of rats, good lady Leathervest? And why a -medium- one? Surely you have about you all of the most potent magic potions we have gained in our travels?”
“It only works with the green potion,” stab-squeak-brush-stand. The King blinked. Somewhere between stabbing the last rat and standing up, Bernadetta had become huge. Her muscles, which had before been rippling, were now tidal waves, she had grown to be almost as tall as her clothes were a shade brighter.
“Two thousand, nine hundred and seventy four rats. That's how many I had to kill do I could level up to an odd-numbered level. And if you're benefiting from the effects of a Medium Strength Potion of Medium Strength when you hit an odd-numbered level, the stats boost from the potion becomes permanent.”
“By my Father's lost belt!” murmured the King. He wasn't sure whether he should be impressed or not. “How long have you been coming down here to kill rats?”
“Every night. I wasn't earning any XP from the pranks everyone was pulling so I had to get in shape somehow.”
“Don't you sleep?” Even the King had to sleep. Not all the time, but he still had to eventually.
“You can offset the negative effects of fatigue by eating a turkey leg or some beef jerky every hour.” she said, flatly. So that's where all their turkey leg rations had gone! “Your Highness, you must put me in the assassination party. I'm strong enough now to tackle Oranje.” The King blinked again. The plan was for Bernadetta to wait outside of Oranje's quarters with Cajun and hold off the crew of the flagcanoe by deception and then, when it inevitably came down to it, naked violence.
“Good friend Bernadetta, I need Colonel Glowfist with me in the assassination party. He and Roxy Tripfoot will support me as I take on Oranje head-to-head. I'm always the one who fights Oranje. She's my ex. You can't fight her, you hardly even know her,” he said.
“Your Highness, with the highest and awesomest respect, that's why you're never able to beat her. She's your nemesis – she's always exactly three levels above you. But now that I've boosted my Strength and Constitution above even your own, I stand a much better chance of wiping the floor with her.” The King absorbed this reluctantly with patience and grace. “There's another thing -” she added, “I'll need to use Cutty.” The King's eyes bulged comically, but still with patience and grace. This was too much!
“Cutty?!” he said.
“Yes, Cutty.” said Bernadetta. “If I invest the skill points I just earned from this last level-up into a few more proficiency levels in longswords, I'd be just as skilled as you with a blade and it would give me another huge advantage over Oranje since she's a scythe-wielder. She's an Agility-aligned fighter so she gets a big Defence bonus against any opponent a tile away from her, but her chance-to-hit is reduced by a quarter in close-quarters, unless she switches to wielding a dagger but I don't think she'd do that because that Moonmetal scythe of hers gives a big boost to her Constitution and confers the Stun ability she relies upon so heavily.” The King handed Gappy over to her, mostly to make her stop talking.
“Hey, what's going on, Chief? We're a team, me and you, right? You can't break up our team.” Bernadetta ignored Cutty even harder than the King was trying to as she unscrewed his handle. “Look, just make her promise that she'll give me back, okay, you're the King, Chief, you can tell her – what's going on down there, it feels -” Cutty stopped right there. Bernadetta had pulled a long strip of parchment out of Cutty's handle. She held it and arm's length, between her thumb and forefinger and squinted carefully at the writing upon it. She took a pen out from her inventory and clicked it meaningfully.
“What are you doing?” asked the King. He was slightly perturbed. He didn't even know that Cutty's handle could be unscrewed. He'd never poked around down there, out of respect.
“There's a hack for these talking swords to get them to shut up,” she said, distantly, while she scratched a few marks onto the parchment with her pen, rolled it back and screwed on the handle. Cutty did not say a word.
“But that's his thing!” spluttered the King. “You can't make Cutty not talk – then he'll just be – he's just -”
“A plus one longsword with a load of resistances built in, yeah,” said Bernadetta, waving Cutty through the air to get the heft of him. “We could do better but it's all we've got right now.” She slid the silenced sword into her scabbard, dropped Cyclops' Bane neatly into her inventory - “We'll have to flog that,” she muttered – then she clapped and rubbed her hands at the King, who was frowning heavily. “I'm ready, Your Highness. Point me in the right direction and I'll clean her clock.” The strange thrust of Bernadetta's tactics troubled the King but he wasn't exactly sure why... Cutty was a sword, just a sword, when you came down to it. Why -couldn't- anyone else use him? And if Bernadetta had found a sneaky way to get the most out of a level-up, all the more power to her, right? It's like she broke any rules or anything. What the King wanted, more than anything, was for Oranje to stop bugging him so he could get back to the whole 'killing Winter' thing. He had little doubt Bernadetta could live up to her boasts – he had seen how capable she was and how lightly she had got off from their fight with the President Of The United States, even though she had fought just as hard as anyone. Maybe, he thought, it would be best if he set aside his unease at the idea of her fighting Oranje directly and just saw thing thing through.

They went upstairs to the upper deck to meet the other Adventure Friends. Astrid had been gone for long enough – she had almost certainly got the European forces at Normandy organised by now. And so, after a little pep-talk and some inventory juggling, they ran up to the deck, killed the guards, Colonel Glowfist and Cajun took their places outside and then the King, Bernadetta and Roxy Tripfoot walked right into Oranje's fancy quarters. Oranje and her contingent of battlechiefs and megacanoe captains were really surprised to see them. When she saw them, she stood up, spilling her maize-wine, and at that very moment the first volley of falling Rock People smashed through the decks of a nearby megacanoe and Oranje knew that she and all her command staff and officers were trapped in a room where they would be fought to death. Before anyone could say anything or meaningfully react to the sudden chaos that was erupting outside, Bernadetta stood forward, pointed Cutty at Oranje and said, “You. Ugly bitch. Let's go.”

And then there was one heck of a fight, let me tell you.

End Of Chapter 90

If Princess Princess could have looked out of the window or somehow have punched a hole through the wall of the Tower Of Super-Chastity, she would have seen a lot of people making an awful lot of fuss over her out there.

But since she could neither see nor hear all those people outside while they fought and shouted and killed and died, she called for Eunuchtos, the chief eunuch, for it was nearly lunchtime and she needed to put in her order for lunch. Eunuchtos appeared at her door, ridiculous and swaddled in puppy fat, almost as soon as she had pulled the rope that summoned him. Eunichides and Eunuchoples stood at either shoulder. They were eunuchs too, you know, but they weren't as good at being eunuchs as Eunuchtos, so they would never be a chief eunuch. They were fine with this. They didn't care that they were lesser eunuchs or that they would probably work in this dark, windowless tower for their entire lives. They ate well, they slept long hours, they gossiped and they groomed each other and watched lots of TV and had long baths and drank many cups of warm tea, though lately they had been made to spend more and more time participating in one of Princess Princess' increasingly elaborate and exhausting games. They were fine with that too, really. They liked being told what to do and the games were fun even if they were also repetitive and difficult to understand.

And so, Princess Princess told Eunuchtos what it was she wanted for lunch. She ordered exactly what was on the set menu for the day, which was fortunate because that was the only food that the eunuchs were allowed to give her – not that she ever did order anything that wasn't on the set menu. That would have been futile.
The order given, they left the Princess once again alone in her room. It was big enough to run across and you could, too, because she always kept it so tidy. You could even take a running jump onto the swing she'd made that hung down from the small skylight. Lord knows how she'd manage to get all the way up there to attach it, but she was ever so resourceful when she had an idea in mind. If the swing didn't grab you, you could simply say 'how-do-you-do' to the man-sized doll she'd built out of firewood, sacking and rope that she kept in the corner, or just hang around from one of the many pairs of leather straps that she'd bolted to the walls. The fourth eunuch, Eunuchephene, was doing just that. With face flush against the wall, he hung suspended by his arms and kept in place by belts wrapped around his legs. He was asleep, but since he had a large, ragged hole cut out of his pantaloons, she could wake him up any time she liked in any number of alarming ways that she'd devised. Eunuchephene was fine with this. He got let down for regular stretches and had every second day off to do whatever he liked and the Princess really did seem to like the best. He didn't understand what it was that the Princess was doing to him most of the time, but it was all good.

Eunuchtos, Eunichides and Eunuchopheles returned to the room. They had Princess Princess' lunch with them. Even though the Princess was locked in a tower with four eunuchs and had been there since she was fourteen years old, she was still a princess and she most certainly ate like one. Her lunch that day was a ball of nutmeg coated in a paprika shell and frosted with saffron. It was the size of a big fist. Spices were a huge deal in Medieval days because the food was awful and often cooked wrong. A chunk of spice that size would have cost you the same as seventy slaves if you'd bought it in the shops. She coquettishly grabbed the ball from Eunuchtos' platter and bit into it like an apple. She ate it noisily while skipping around the room, as was her custom. Her many skirts and her ash-white hair billowed about her as she did so and she stole many glances over to the eunuchs as she ran steadily out of breath. The eunuchs stuck around. The routine was that Princess would get herself all psyched up with the spices and the prancing about and then it would be time for a game. This day was no different. She didn't even bother to finish her lunch, she just tossed the spiceball into the corner, half-eaten, then grabbed Eunuchophles by the large carrot she often made him wear strapped to his hips, who let out a weak yelp and dropped Princess' drinking bowl full of lemonade before she yelled out the name of the game she wished to play:
“Ricey Ricey!”

Eunuchtos and Eunuchides dutifully rushed to their positions by the chest-high urns that stood by Princess' bed as she grappled the unresisting Eunuchophles to the ground, hitched up her many skirts and sat on his broad, squishy back, pinning him to the ground under her bulk while his jelly-like arms scrambled about for some leverage. They grabbed fistfuls of rice from the urns and fitfully tossed them at Princess and the gasping Eunuchophles while they chanted “Marry him! Marry him!” in their shrill, tumultuous voices. Bombarded with rice, Princess grabbed the back of Eunuchophles' soft head and ground her hips into the point of his shoulderblade again and again and made a commotion for quite some time until she made a funny sort of yawn, whereupon she rolled him over, declared herself the winner of the game and devoured his carrot in three vicious gnashes. She stood up so she could smile at her eunuchs and put in her order for dinner but her eunuchs were gaping like snakes and pointing with their heads like hunting dogs, towards the door. Princess, still chewing, with Eunuchoples lying in a puddle of lemonade by her feet, turned to look at the door behind her and was so surprised by what she saw that she spat carrot all over the King, her father, who had seen everything. There was one long, silent moment that walked slowly around the room, touched everything at least twice and then the King started wailing. He wailed and he howled and he clawed at his ennobled head with his remaining hand and his protestations did shake the Tower Of Super-Chastity. He didn't know what was happening, he didn't know what he had just seen his daughter do to that eunuch and he was lost and afraid. Princess Princess called out to him. She wanted to know how he was doing and where he'd been for so, so long, but he bolted down the stairs all the way out the front door and out onto the battlefield outside, where the terrible cacophony of war had turned into the soft babble of a few thousand men shooting the breeze, getting to know each other and generally killing time. He ran straight into the Angel Cowboy, who had wondered where he'd gone.
“Whoa there! Where's the fire, hold your horses, etcetera.” he said to the thrashing King. “What's got you spooked, Your Highness? You don't strike a fella as the skittish type.”
“It's horrible! I don't know I don't know. She got carrot on me!” howled the King. The Angel Cowboy pulled the King close and hugged him tight. That's what a good cowboy does to a steer to calm it down. He shushed and stroked the King while he cried and sniffled.
“Got yourself a bottled-up firecracker on your hands, Your Highness?” The King nodded into the Angel Cowboy's shoulder. “Aw, that's always a difficult thing to see, but let's see if I can't maybe make another little problem go away today.” He released the King, who had fallen calm and quiet, gripped his shoulder for half a second, patted down his pockets to check if what he thought was there was still there and then jogged up the stairs to Princess Princess' bedchamber.
Then he looked right into the camera, right at us, winked and said, “My, doesn't it just seem that I'm everywhere at once these days?”

End Of Chapter 89