Chapter 139: V-Day (1/2)
- The Hoardnational, Lyrics.
Stand up, minions of the Earth!
Stand up, prisoners of fear!
Greed thunders in its volcano!
This is the golden eruption!
Of the lead let us make coins,
Loyal slimes, stand up, stand up!
The fairies will lose everything!
We are minions, we are the Hoard!
Possessed by patriotism, Pink furiously scribbled her new song’s lines on a page as a drop of blood fell from the sky.
Putting her notebook in her backpack, the bard raised her eyes at the stormy heavens, where crimson clouds had gathered in spite of the sea wind. Squeakie, her gray, overfed cat ration, let out an adorable meow on Pink’s back. Every Kobold Ranger had such a bag of fur and meat leather-strapped to their supplies, so they couldn’t escape. Pink still remembered the drilling lesson about how to cook them.
“Remember, even if they are too fat to run, don’t take any chances!” Chocolatine had explained during her cooking seminar, using her personal ration Felix as an example. “Since they always respawn within ten meters of where they died, set traps just to be sure!”
While she had listened to the instructions religiously, Pink wasn’t sure she could bring herself to eat something this cute.
Alongside the other Kobold Rangers and their Brachiosaurus Dinozord, Pink currently waited inside a ship-shaped mimic carrying them towards Prydain. In truth, few of the ships making up the V&V’s armada were of wood or metal; most were monsters, mimics, or undead boats made from the bones of their defeated enemies. Sea monsters, fishmen, and deep ones led the invasion force, guiding them through the currents. All of them braved the stormy sea, titanic waves crashing against their hulls as the dark shores of Prydain came into sight.
The armada was divided into multiple fleets, with one, in particular, almost composed entirely of undead. They surrounded the mighty Tarasque Emperor and his half-dodo brood as they swam like a band of sharks, for undead resisted this family’s radioactive presence. Above them, flocks of monsters surrounded copies of the Piggybank, his Imperial Majesty’s own dwarf-made plane; all in all, the Emperor’s armies numbered in the hundreds of thousands.
The thought of His Majesty, who had remained absent so far, made Pink anxious, but the sight of other heroes filled her with hope.
Leading the aerial forces, Lord Victor, greatest of the minions, conjured the bloody clouds while on the back of Gorynych—may the vile zmey be ignored. Instead of water, the skies rained blood, to both provide cover for the fleet and allow vulnerable undead like vampires to operate during the day.
His rival, the Paladin Kia, led the human fleet from Gardemagne further east; she rode her own master, the Imperial Niece Jolie, in battle, much to the kobolds’ despair. While they had grown used to this strange quirk of the Niece, they would rather have been at her side in this dire moment.
For the island-fortress of Prydain had come into sight.
Pink couldn’t call what she faced shores. Stone walls and black towers stood strong on sharp cliffs, while black thorns covered the beach, preventing normal ships from landing. Magical wards and shields protected the island’s inner areas, while giant birds, ghosts, and evil spirits freely roamed the skies.
There it was. The sanctum of the fomors, of the vile villains that never ceased to threaten His Majesty since his awakening.
“One minute, prepare to clear the ramp!” Red shouted, his face against the wind. “Move fast and clean out these fairy holes!”
“We don’t have a ramp!” Blue screamed in panic, his stress getting the better of him.
“We’re dooomed!” Yellow howled to the winds, the mimic ship letting out a roar in answer.
“I know, but I just wanted to say it!” Red shouted back. “The ramp, not the doomed!”
“Show-off,” Black complained, before pointing a finger at the skies. “They are here!”
A song of gold and shininess overwhelmed the sea’s noise, as its singers dived through the bloody clouds.
The mighty dragons summoned by the Conclave descended upon Prydain like a jolly flight of hawks. Thousands of dragons, drakes, and wyverns sung and exchanged pleasantries, so confident in their inevitable victory that they treated this war like it was an amusing party. Their sheer moxie and confidence emboldened the kobolds.
“See?!” she told Yellow, who kept ranting about doom. “We have nothing to fear! We have the greatest of monster lords on our side!”
“It’s going to be clean up duty!” Black boasted. Only Red remained somewhat neutral, focused on the mission ahead.
Faced with their dragon destroyers, the fomors answered by unleashing their own armies. Creatures crossed the fairy wards by flight to fight the invaders in the skies, from gigantic birds with metal beaks, to winged golems. The numbers were evenly matched on both sides, although the fomors’ forces moved in organized formations.
Immediately, without warning, the battle started.
Pink didn’t see who attacked first, but within seconds, the skies erupted in a dazzling display of fire, lightning, and ice. Dragons unleashed their elemental breaths on the winged golems, while the smaller wyverns and drakes swarmed the bird warbeasts. Swords clashed against scales, explosions thundered above the armada and roars echoed across the savage sea.
Pink could only stare in awe, as the dragons her kind worshiped trounced the fairies’ forces, smashing golems while minions below watched in astonishment. The remains of warbeasts fell into the sea, while drakes reached the fortifications and tried to get past the wards.
Black was right. Although it would sadden Pink not to sing her new anthem, she could settle for cleanup duty.
And then, an arrow of light flew from the west and hit a black dragon in the chest at a speed greater than the wind.
A blinding flash illuminated the skies, while a terrible blast caused the entire armada to tremble. The same weapon that almost destroyed Murmurin had exploded in the dragons’ midst, far above the fleet, and expanded outward. Clouds were blown away, warbeasts and wyverns vaporized, dragons’ flesh melted. The golden song of the Dragon Conclave was drowned by a terrible noise.
The corpse of a burnt dragon fell into the sea, left of the rangers’ ship, and sunk a mimic boat whole.
Pink screamed in horror, imitated by most of her teammates, as the great scaled ones fell by the hundreds into the sea; to be washed up on the shores, or dragged to the abyss below.
The surviving dragons reacted first with horrified surprise, then with fury. They unleashed their breath weapons towards the enemies, bathing them in fire and cold.
But the tide of the battle suddenly changed. The golems started shrugging off the dragons’ breath, while their swords cut through scales like butter. Holes opened in the fortifications, revealing heavy artillery. As the armada came within range, they started firing in its direction.
“Get down!” Red shouted, forcing his team to bend their back as lead projectiles hit the hull of their ship. Their brachiosaurus was hurt, letting out a moan of pain as blood flew from its scales.
The artillery fired evil lead bullets at the minions and powerstone cannonballs at the dragons above. Already, the battle was nothing like the overwhelming dragon victory that took place in Murmurin, more than a year ago. This time the dragons died as much as they killed, the sea turning golden from the blood. As the minion fleet came into range, the fairy defenders targeted it, unleashing evil lead bullets at them.
“We’re all gonna die!” Black screamed like a little manling child.
“I died once, I don’t want to die again!” Blue screamed louder.
“Hey!” Red shouted, trying to calm down his team. “Hey!”
SLAP! SLAP! SLAP!
Red slapped every member of his team, ending with Pink. “Scale up!” he shouted, forcing them to focus, even silencing the panicked cat rations. “Are you minions or whiners?”
“But, but, they killed dragons!” Black said, his bravado shattered. “They are at the top of the food chain! They can’t die!”
“Everything I believe in is wrong!” Yellow screamed, which earned him another slap.
“They are fighting, dying for us!” Red pointed a musket at the brave dragons, who kept attacking even while taking heavy losses. “This is what His Majesty always risked, whenever he defended us from liches, vampires, fiends, and nasties! Now, will you honor your monster lord and country with cowardice… or with victory?”
Red’s inspiring words, and a successful charisma check, brought the team back to their senses. “Yellow, you heal the zord!” their leader started barking orders. “Pink, you sing, Blue, you cast buffs. Black, with me at the vanguard. We are going to take these shores, for the Hoard!”
“For the hoard!” the kobolds said as one, their dinosaur and cat rations letting out panicked moans in response.
Above them, the minion aerial forces reached the battlelines, assisting the dragons in their fights. Flying fiends and vampires overwhelmed the golems, Lord Victor’s zmey mount forcing a path forward.
That was it. Pink knew it, deep in her tiny bones, as the cat rations meowed all at once.
The final battle!
The kobold bard gathered her breath and then sung the melody she had composed for this historical day.