A Young Lady's Guide to the Demon Slaying Arts

by Protocol

It's a Trap! (II)

It's A Trap!

"-iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiitttttttt."

Scarlet finally finished hissing in frustration, leaving Twilight equally as stunned. As disapproving as she was at her companion's profane vocabulary, Twilight couldn't help but agree with her in such a situation. The monster didn’t look like it had noticed them yet, but it didn't make it any less huge or frightening.

The deathgoyle had undergone a massive transformation. Since their last encounter with it, the monster had over tripled in size. The tainted shade of purple that covered it was much darker than before, and its blood red eyes glowed fiercely under two curved horns facing forwards. Rancid drool ran from its snarled fangs, and its body was rippling with pounds upon pounds of newly received muscle. Sporting a long, pointed tail and leathery wings, the deathgoyle now resembled a demonic body builder out of hell.

"We're going to have to be more careful with this one. Twilight, can you back me up?" Scarlet asked, clutching her scythe with both hands.

"I can pick it off from a distance with my arrows," Twilight responded, drawing her bow and aiming a charged magic arrowhead between the creature's eyes to get the feel of the distance.

"No!" Scarlet half shouted suddenly, intending on stopping Twilight from firing. However, the statement had the opposite effect, as Twilight jolted in surprise, releasing the arrow. The bolt of magenta flew true to its mark and shattered as it hit the deathgoyle's head without effect, its magic being completely nullified. The monster turned its focus onto the one who had fired, and made a lunge to thin out the opposition's numbers.

Lunging forwards with a gargantuan roar, the deathgoyle thrust its fists towards Twilight. Scarlet reacted just in time to slash her scythe across the rubble on the floor, hoist Twilight up by slinging her over her shoulders, and dashing into the shadows of a nearby cell. The dust cloud that her scythe had kicked up momentarily blinded the deathgoyle, disorienting it as it searched for its prey that had vanished. By the time it flapped its wings to clear the cloud, Twilight and Scarlet were safe in another hidey-hole.

"What were you thinking?" Scarlet hissed as loud as she dared to. "Direct magic's not going to work on it!"

"You could have told me that beforehand!" Twilight hissed back, sitting tightly packed next to Scarlet in the cold jail cell.

"I did," Scarlet responded in an exasperated voice, an incredulous look on her face. "Its body is coated with demonic magic. That nullifies next to all normal magic! Honestly, what do they teach you in magic kindergarten these days?" she said, rolling her eyes.

"Well, then, what am I supposed to do against that thing? This place is making it ridiculously difficult for me to cast any complex spells, and I'm no good at the whole hand to hand fighting thing, in case you hadn't noticed," Twilight flustered.

"C'mon, you're a smart girl. I'm sure you can figure it out." With that, Scarlet left an utterly helpless Twilight Sparkle behind and dashed back out from behind her target, hacking away at the deathgoyle with her scythe.

The deathgoyle was deceivingly nimble and quick for its massive size. Keeping up with Scarlet's slashes with ease, it even managed to throw a couple blows back at its attacker in the midst of the onslaught. The dungeons were filled with the clashes of metal against demon claw, the sparks formed lighting up the air that the torches failed to illuminate.

"Scarlet, get out of the way!" Twilight's voice rang out through the room, as Scarlet was still in a heated skirmish with the monster. Scarlet turned her head to see Twilight with a ball of magic in front of her, erratic purple sparks dancing around inside of it. With some hesitation, Scarlet dashed to the side, hoping that Twilight knew what she was doing.

As Twilight pushed both hands forward, the magic bolt shot forwards. Paying no heed to the desperate attempt to injure its magic-proof body, the deathgoyle let the missile slip past it and charged straight towards the two girls. However, this was exactly what Twilight had anticipated.

As the small, fist-sized ball reached the side of the deathgoyle's face, it looked to both the deathgoyle and Scarlet as if Twilight had missed completely. Twilight, on the other hand, knew her spells quite well. As the missile skimmed past the head, it expanded to ten times its size almost instantaneously.

The deathgoyle's head was knocked to the side like a ball that had been hit by a racquet, and its right eye was engulfed in the explosion. When the blinding light from Twilight's miniature magic bomb had ended, there was a trail of dark, red blood trailing down from the now empty socket of the monster. No matter how immune to magic this thing's skin was, it wouldn't help it if Twilight struck somewhere other than the skin.

"Nice shot!" Scarlet called out, as the deathgoyle roared in pain. Twilight took advantage of its momentary confusion and pain to find another hiding place nearby, before the deathgoyle ran rampant in her old cell and tore the walls to shreds. She would lay low for a little while again as she prepared more projectiles.

The deathgoyle gave in to rage, letting loose another fearsome roar from deep inside its throat. It grabbed a chunk of bricks off of the walls, and threw them at Scarlet. It continued this process, hurling rock after rock at the agile little target.

As Scarlet dashed towards it, she appeared almost like an acrobat, weaving and flipping her way through the falling debris and projectiles. The quick jumps provided by her weapon's recoil while running gave Scarlet the illusion of walking on air, using streams of wind and pouches of nothing as platforms to leap and dash from.

Reaching the back of the deathgoyle's head, Scarlet fired a series of five quick shots in succession. Although the bullets hit their mark dead on, the head, chest, and not even wing areas of the deathgoyle seemed to be damaged. The monster recoiled only as a sign of shock and felt a slight sting, but nothing of such small caliber could pierce its magically enhanced armored skin.

Scarlet aimed the scythe away from the deathgoyle, cracking out one loud shot to propel herself right towards its face. Right before she landed, she rolled the length of the pole across her chest in one fluid motion, the muzzle now pointed itself towards the middle of the monster's large forehead. Firing one more shot, she flew into the air once more. Repeating the rapid manipulation motion of her scythe for the last time, Scarlet had zigzagged to the ground with a successful feint.

"Now!" Scarlet shouted to her partner, who had been hiding patiently in the shadows for another chance to strike. As Twilight's face and a swirling orb of magic poked themselves out of a jail cell, Scarlet acted in perfect coordination. As the monster opened its mouth to bite down, Scarlet crouched down, back faced towards the deathgoyle and scythe tucked between her elbow. She had the pole tilted so the muzzle pointed at its head, perfectly aligned with the gaping jaws.

As Twilight shot her second bolt from behind the deathgoyle, Scarlet braced herself, pumped the weapon, and pulled the trigger. The combination of the destructive arcane explosive in the monster's remaining eye and the heavy lead bullets flying into the back of its throat would have taken down almost anything - if it had been caught off guard.

The deathgoyle showed no signs of hesitation. It clamped its jaws shut at the last second, and spun around to swat the glowing ball out of the air. The lead shells of Scarlet's bullets crumpled themselves against the surface of the deathgoyle's reinforced teeth, and Twilight's explosive was deflected dozens of meters off course, crashing and detonating harmlessly on the wall far away.

Without stopping, the deathgoyle reached out for Scarlet with a bulky hand. Even though her reaction time and agility allowed her to jump in time, the giant fist still clenched onto Scarlet's left ankle. Using its body as a fulcrum, the deathgoyle picked Scarlet up and swung her around effortlessly. Mimicking a hammer throw, he spun once fully before hurling the girl's body at Twilight, the other intended target. Missing the young girl by a hair's breadth, Scarlet's body sailed through the air and hit a wall, crumpling on the ground like a ragdoll.

The deathgoyle flapped its wings to move in for the kill. However, when it got to the cell, it was surprised to discover it empty - or seemingly empty. Twilight and Scarlet lay still on the floor, Scarlet holding her right arm up to maintain a magical shroud of invisibility over them. The deathgoyle slumped away, scanning any areas its prey may have escaped to.

"Illusion magic is my specialty. I can at least pull off something like this," panted Scarlet, trying not to show how injured she was from the impact. "Hah, you weren't kidding when you said this field made magic tough! I don't even want to know what it was like preparing those two explosives of yours."

"It was a little easier for me," Twilight admitted, not boasting but simply stating a fact. "I'm more comfortable dealing with raw magic. By the way, do you think you could do this to find Spike and get out?" she asked.

"I'm afraid… not," Scarlet huffed. Her breaths were running short. "I don't think I can hold this much longer, and even if I could, I wouldn't be able to keep it up while moving. Not in this place. For now, let's just take a little break and reevaluate our situation."

As the dust finally had time to settle down, the scene became more clear. The skirmish between the girls and the monster had left the condition of the building all but destroyed. Parts of the ceiling had crumbled down, allowing a few more precious rays of sun to sneak their way to brighten the rooms. Out of the corner of her eye, past the deathgoyle, Twilight caught a glimpse of a green-haired boy wearing a purple hoodie. "That's Spike…" she whispered longingly. "He's…"

Scarlet looked to where Twilight was staring at, and understood her tone of voice. The young boy was shackled by his arms and legs to the corners of a wall, suspended immobile. His emerald locks covered his eyes, and he didn't show signs of movement.

"It's all right, Twilight. He's just unconscious. I can still hear shallow breathing," she reassured the girl on the brink of tears. Immediately, Twilight seemed to calm down quite a bit.

"What do we do, fight the monster, or try and save Spike?" asked Twilight. As much as she wanted to blindly dash forward and free her friend, the deathgoyle was not one to be ignored. So farm it had turned out to be quite a formidable foe that, If either of them lost focus for even the smallest moment, would cut them down on the spot.

"We have to go help him," Scarlet urged. "We may not get another chance. I'm getting real tired, and I don't think this thing's going to be here tomorrow."

"But how are we going to do that?" Twilight asked. The deathgoyle stood in a menacing pose, scanning the area for the two intruders. He was positioned directly between the two of them and the unconscious embrey. The two girls were slowly getting worn down, and their foe didn't even look like it was about to go down anytime soon.

Scarlet clenched her fists on the pole of her weapon. "I'll distract it. Get him out while I keep it busy," she panted.

"You can't do that!" Twilight objected. "The two of us together can barely stand up against that thing. How are you going to take it on by yourself?"

"That's why we need the kid," Scarlet replied, dead serious. "With the three of us, we just might be able to pierce its thick skin. It's our only shot."

"Twilight slumped down into a somber mood. "You might not make it," she said sullenly, voice trembling.

Scarlet smiled gently and gave the purple haired girl a hug, closing her eyes. "Then you'd better hurry up, okay?"

Twilight reluctantly squeezed back. Scarlet's silver eyes opened once more, and she pushed against Twilight to get up, breaking the embrace. She let the empty clip of bullets fall from her scythe, catching it in her hand. She put it in a pouch to her waist, and pulled out a replacement magazine, clicking it into her weapon. "Scarlet, wait-"

"Eat this, you overgrown lawn gnome!" Scarlet suddenly dashed out from behind the pile of rubble where they were hiding, firing round after round of bullets from her scythe. As the stone skinned monster raised its arms to deflect the series of projectiles aimed at its remaining eye, it failed to notice the few shots that weren't aimed directly at it.

The cones of lead hit several points on the wall in a specific pattern, weakening the structural stability of the building by taking out the support brickwork and cement. One last bullet punched through the bottom of the last pillar, sending massive chunks of the walls and ceiling down upon the deathgoyle.

It remained unfazed, however, as it turned around, and slashed against the falling stone in a flurry of swings. The rubble was reduced to even smaller pieces, as the bricks were swatted effortlessly to the side. The deathgoyle thrust upwards one last time with tremendous strength, and the largest fragment of the wall shattered midair, the monster's right claw destroying it completely from where it pierced the former wall.

Meanwhile, Twilight had sneaked over to Spike's hidden cell using other cells and large chunks of debris to hide herself from the deathgoyle's sights along the way. She shot four small magic bolts to shatter the cuffs on Spike's arms and legs, binding him to the wall. The unconscious boy dropped off the wall and into Twilight arms, as he stirred awake.

"Ugh… Twi?" Spike's eyes fluttered open. "What… what happened?"

"I'll explain later, Spike. But right now, could you help me enchant this with your embrey fire?" Twilight asked, holding out her ball of condensed magic in her hands.

Spike sobered up, shaking his head and his drowsiness off. "All right," he replied, taking the sphere into his hands. As he blew tongues of fire over it, Twilight was in deep focus. Taking the magical properties of embrey flame, she wove the strands together with her own magic missile. When she was done, she had an apple-sized orb, shining brightly of green and purple.

"Thanks, Spike. Now, we need to use this on the deathgoyle, somehow. It would be much more effective if we can get past its null-magic hide," Twilight mused.

"Hold on," said Spike, who was finally aware of his surroundings. He peered off behind Twilight's back, towards a familiar girl and monster duo. "Is that… Scarlet?!"

Scarlet was doing her best at holding the creature off, but it was clear that she was pushing her limits. With each swipe of the deathgoyle's claws clashing against her scythe, her breaths were heavier, her arms grew weaker, and her movements turned sluggish.

Scarlet stood on guard, but was disoriented from the previous flurry of blows. Not stopping its rampage, the monster kept at swiping at her body, its claws met each time with the blade or pole of her weapon. As she prepared for the next blow, the deathgoyle made a faint, causing Scarlet to flinch. Using the opposite arm, it thrust from underneath the weapon and clawed up, taking the scythe along with it.

Scarlet had been officially disarmed. Losing her grip on the pole of her weapon, she could do nothing but stare as it flew into the air and landed next to Twilight and Spike with a clatter against the stone floor. The deathgoyle took the opportunity of stunning its opponent to make a lunge for the legs, catching Scarlet off guard once more.

Scarlet managed to jump up to evade the strike at the last moment, but she couldn't dodge what came next. The deathgoyle thrust its other hand forwards, grabbing hold of Scarlet's torso in midair. She tried to resist by flailing and wriggling to free herself, but there was no escaping the firm grip of the giant's hand. The deathgoyle chuckled gruesomely as it marveled at its struggling prize. No other prey had given it such trouble as this girl and the other. It would enjoy taking their lives, as painfully as possible.

Twilight knew that this was her opportunity to fire the magic nuke, but she hesitated as to whether or not she should launch it now. She was too far away for it to be a surprise attack. Chances were, the deathgoyle would see it coming a mile away and simply dodge it or bat it away, like he'd done with the previous missile. She wouldn't have time to prepare another one before Scarlet was met with her untimely demise. Suddenly, her eyes drifted towards Scarlet's fallen weapon, its blade gleaming ever so slightly in the torchlight as it lay on the ground so innocently.

Her brain running at maximum capacity, Twilight quickly dashed over to the weapon. Pulling back a pump attached to a compartment on the pole, a gray bullet popped out. Taking her orb of embrey fire and raw magic, she unraveled it quickly, feeding the spiraling string of arcane into the lead casing. When she was done, the bullet shone blinding light, leaking wisps of green and purple haze into the air. She jammed it back into the compartment, pulled back the cover, and passed it to Spike.

"I can't use any more magic under this suppression field. Get this to Scarlet!" she huffed. Extracting and manipulating that much power under these circumstances had taken its toll on her through fatigue.

Spike nodded and took the weapon. "Scarlet, catch!" he yelled out, tossing the scythe towards her. The weapon's muzzle glowed a mix of green and purple, wisps of fire and magic trailing out of the tip as it sailed through the air.

Not letting Scarlet get the upper hand, the deathgoyle squeezed her body even tighter. "Aaaahhh!" she screamed, almost falling unconscious from the excruciating pain. It felt as though her organs were about to pop out of her body, as her body was about to resemble what happens when someone uncaps a full tube of toothpaste and squeezes it with their fist. The monster swung its body to the side, taking Scarlet away from the scythe.

Scarlet slammed her fists against the gargantuan beast, but it was no use. The deathgoyle's skin was too thick to even register the feeble blows of a dying girl. She stretched her arms out to the weapon hurtling through the air, but it was no use. The only way she could get a hold of her scythe was through magic. Her telekinesis wasn't strong enough to grab onto it, but…

Scarlet surged magic into the air in front of the scythe's trajectory, popping up an angled barrier in front of it. The blade of the scythe skimmed the surface of the magic barrier, deflecting off to the side and towards Scarlet. The deathgoyle's turned position had left the back of its head to where Scarlet had directed her magic, so it didn't have any time to react when the weapon came flying to Scarlet and she caught it with an outstretched arm.

"Let's see how you can handle this," Scarlet spat out through gritted teeth. Her lower ribcage had shattered to a great extent. This would likely be her last move. Without giving the monster time to discern what had just happened, she grabbed a hold of her weapon with two firm hands and shoved the back end of the blade into the deathgoyle's face, pointing the tip of the gun part's muzzle directly at its remaining eye.

"Here we go! Haaaaah!" Scarlet shouted, gradually forming a crescendo as she now bellowed at the top of her lungs. Her left arm pumped the charge, and her right hand jerked on the trigger. The bullet shot forwards and into the creature's eye socket, a brilliant blinding light burning from inside the beast. The sheer force of the shot knocked the deathgoyle staggering back, releasing its grip on Scarlet and falling on its back. Both the deathgoyle and Scarlet crumpled on the ground as they fell, neither of them moving.

The body of the deathgoyle shook violently, as the light dimmed down gradually. It's finally over, thought Twilight. Now we can go back with Spike and Scarlet and -

The deathgoyle exploded.

The spectacle would have been beautiful if it hadn't been so destructive. Even so, there was a rush of awe that was inspired by the maelstrom of radiant purple and blazing green. The deathgoyle's massive, limp corpse was engulfed in the luminous vortex of magic and embrey flames. A sphere of energy expanded outward with surges of wind, as the ground billowed dust and smoke composed of disintegrating stone and rust. The primitive, incomplete anti-magic field was no match for the raw arcane power that had been brought into the room.

Twilight and Spike grabbed hold of nearby prison cell bars, in fear of being pushed away by the shockwave. Scarlet's body turned into a ragdoll, tumbling sideways and rolling towards Twilight and Spike from the force of the explosion. Spike caught her in his hands, letting go of the cell bars.

Twilight did the same, and cast a shielding spell to protect the group as they rushed back to the corridor they came from. From what she'd read about in her arcane studies, there was only one explanation for why the ball of light and magic hadn't died out yet, but was instead looking like it was fluctuating between sizes. The magic was about to go critical, and create a second explosion that would be even greater than the one before. The three of them needed to get out of there, but she couldn't teleport the them out, nor did they have enough time to climb all the way up the spiral staircase once more.

Her brain running at a thousand miles per hour, Twilight grabbed Spike's shoulder forcefully, half dragging him and Scarlet into one of the cells next to them.

"Woah!" Shouted Spike over the sound of the air currents generated by the ball of critical magic. "Careful there! She's badly injured!" he said, gesturing at Scarlet's unconscious figure.

"It's about to blow; Duck!" Twilight screamed, unable to spare time to do any further explaining. She pulled Spike and Scarlet in a crude huddle. Thrusting her hands upwards, Twilight cast the strongest barrier she could muster up, with her mana supplies almost depleted and fighting against the centuries-old magic canceller field.

The ball of light stopped sending out ripples of wind. Collapsing into itself, it grew smaller in size until it was the size of an apple, then a grape, and finally, a grain of sand. When it looked like it couldn't possibly get any smaller, it simply winked out of existence, as if it was never there.

Spike opened his eyes that had been clenched shut, thinking that the worst was over, but Twilight knew better. She tensed her muscles and put all her mental efforts into maintaining the dome of magic around them, bracing for the final impact that she knew was coming.

Fulfilling her expectations, a second explosion tore through the air from where the first had vanished. The stone walls and ceiling were torn down in the roars of the wind and fire; only some of the hardest gems in nature would have been able to withstand this kind of power. Twilight clenched her teeth, her mind at its limits as the torrent of fire washed over her pathetic little shield. She felt as though there were a massive weight crushing her, as she found it harder and harder to keep her trembling arms raised. Despite all this, she pushed onwards through sheer will. She held the lives of two innocent people in her hands, and she would not be held accountable for letting them slip out of her grasp.

Twilight must have blacked out for a moment, because, the next thing she saw was Spike throwing boulders out of the doorway, which were blocking their way to the staircase. Scarlet lay at her side, almost tranquil in her slumbering bliss. The explosion had taken out most of the dungeon's walls and ceiling that had connected it to the upper levels. Although all the candles had been blown out by the shockwave, the gaping hole in the top of the dome served as an entrance for sunlight to flood through.

Twilight and Spike scanned what remained of Scarlet. Upon the closer inspection, Twilight noticed just how severely wounded the girl was. Bruises covered her slender arms and legs without end, and blood was starting to pool under her clothes. Half of the red on Scarlet's cloak was now a shade darker, moist to the touch, and smelled strongly of iron. Twilight's eyes drifted over to Scarlet's right hand, which had refused to release the weapon even unconscious and under the force of the explosion. The clenched fist relaxed slightly when Twilight placed a gentle hand on it.

Flexing her fingers, Twilight let a small stream of mana flow through them. The magic suppression field must have been destroyed along with the walls, because she found the small task exceedingly more simple than the last time she tried to cast a spell in the dungeon. Twilight closed her eyes, concentrating on drawing more power to cast her spells. When she opened them again, they were glowing bright white. Mana coursed through her entire body, giving her skin an almost unnoticeable purple sheen. Her long locks of hair reached an almost ethereal state like Princess Celestia and Luna's, as they swayed sideways in midair, defying gravity.

Twilight wasn't a professional, but she had enough medicinal knowledge and practice on smaller scrapes to register a couple of basic first aid spells to Scarlet's wounds. A warm glow washed over Scarlet's body as Twilight worked her magic. Extending her fingers to the general direction of Scarlet's wounds, she let her magic flow through out of her fingers.

The magic manifested itself in a visible, purple fluid-like state, sparkling as it formed wriggling tentacles extending from her fingertips. The extensions made their way to the gashes on Scarlet's body, slowly moving down their lengths as the magic sealed up the wounds. Twilight sat still in concentration, feeding more magic into the healing spell. Soon, Scarlet looked as good as new, save for the large and numerous blood stains she sported on her clothes.

"Woah, did you just heal her, just like that?" Spike asked, shocked at what he'd witnessed after coming back from clearing the rubble. "You should be a doctor or something!"

"Heh. Thanks, Spike, but it's not that simple," Twilight replied with a small smile. "Injuries held together by magic are extremely fragile. While she may look fine on the surface, all I did was stop the bleeding. She'll still need to go through extensive treatment when we get back."

"Oh…" Spike was crestfallen. "She was hurt so badly because of me…"

"Don't say that, Spike. Besides, it's her duty to do this kind of thing, anyways… Even if you weren't taken hostage, we would've come here eventually, anyways," Twilight reassured half-heartedly. "…Do you think she's gone through something like this… before?" she posed after a brief silence.

Before Spike had a chance to think about the question, an unexpected, shrill laugh tore through the air. "Eeyahahahaha!" The same voice that Twilight and Scarlet heard coming into the dungeons shrieked hysteric, hyena-like laughter through the air once more. "That was wonderful! Splendid! Molto bene! I daresay, I couldn't have done better myself. Oh, who am I kidding, of course I could have! But nonetheless, what you pulled off there was quite a sight to behold. What beautiful serendipity! I hadn't expected this outcome at all!"

With half the ceiling and most of the walls blown to dust by the explosion, the echoing dynamics and harmonics were broken. Without strategically placed stone bricks for the sound to bounce off of, Twilight could easily distinguish the source of the madman's laughter.

There was a small object on the other side of the room, transmitting the sound through the dungeon area, which Twilight opted to retrieve with a levitation spell. Stretching her arm towards the source with her palms up, Twilight could feel her magic glow envelop a smooth, circular object. She curled her arm in and slowly closed her fist, and the object lifted up into the air, sailing towards Twilight.

The object was a magic crystal of some sort, made of enchanted glass. Simple to produce in theory, but the enchanters would have to have been extremely skilled to get one that could channel and operate magic under even a primitive magic suppression field. Still, it would be easier than maintaining a direct spell, which also left the possibility of being traced back through a mix of magic detection and scrying spells.

A dark red mist swirled inside the orb, jerking more violently as the voice spoke. "I see now why master was so interested in this scrawny little girl. Eeeheeheeheehee! The way she took down one of the beasts of tartarus! Her agility, grace, speed and technique make her quite a fighter, no? I knew it. Master's eyes are never wrong. Soon, she'll help us in-"

A sharp cough signaled the end of the orb's rant, as it shattered into a thousand pieces. The red mist escaped through the cracks and dissipated into the air with one last shrill giggle. Twilight and Spike turned their attention to Scarlet, who was still lying on the floor, her scythe arm pointed towards where the orb had just been.

"Aw, shut up," she muttered, before dropping her weapon and falling back unconscious.

Comments

[DARKPHANTOM13]

I'm going with E.

[thedarkshark24]

E all the way

[shadowfox irontail]

E plus a leperchaun

[Darth]

E- I want this story to go for as long as possible, but I will not complain if it gets shortened, as long as you don't let this story's quality get slashed because you were pressed for time.

[EvilEnchantress]

E

[Protocol]

Welp, guess it's pretty much a consensus. I'll keep this going for at least three more arcs before the ending arc.