CWD: OE ~ Forty-Two

The Guild Leader of the Chip's Guild, the last and best hope for humanity, brought his blades above his head and slammed them down. His chef's knife was aimed at the exposed throat, his cleaver poised to chop into Arriod’s ribs.

*Clang!*

Another metal dome appeared around the enemy commander, followed by a flash of gold and red fire that Nacho could only faintly see through the seam at the bottom. Nacho slammed his knives down on it twice more in frustration. “You have got to be kidding me! This is starting to get ridiculous! Tell me you at least bought these, and they weren’t just dropped from monsters!”

His target was silent, opting not to poke out of the shell that he had erected to save his life. Nacho kicked the chunk of metal, and it moved back a few inches. That confirmed that it wasn’t too heavy and also had not been attached to the ground. Prepared for some kind of trick, he shoved the toe of his Sunday Brunch-armored boot under the metal and kicked up, flipping it to release a katana traveling straight for his exposed inner thigh. Arriod screamed in exultation as his strike landed, bright red fluid spraying into the air and staining his face. Some even got in his mouth… and he smacked his lips in confusion at the unexpectedly sweet taste.

Nacho spun and kicked Arriod in the face, sending him tumbling to the ground. Clearly that had been some kind of last-ditch effort to win, as the CruxTerran's wounds were still seeping blood. He must have run out of Mana if he was unable to fully heal his wounds, or at least to heal them enough to bring his Health higher than Nacho’s. The cook finally glanced down in confusion to see what had saved his life, or at least had kept him from singing as a soprano for the next few years.

“You…?” He reached down, resting his hand on the green dog-plant hybrid that had been haunting him ever since he had returned to the Juxtaposition. “Ever since I've met you, you've been trying to get in the way of blades around me. When I'm chopping vegetables, when I'm practicing my forms, and now you even take a strike meant for me?”

Reaching down, he scooped the little monster into his arms, noting that its weight had increased significantly. It was highly probable that the canine was now a Tier one monster, at the very minimum. “You sure have grown a lot, haven't you? Why, when I first saw you, you were only a puppy… now you’re all grown up and able to survive direct hits from powerful aliens.”

The green dog's tongue lapped out, trying to lick him across the face. Nacho avoided it by reflex, shaking his head lightly. “None of that, now. You are a good boy, aren't you? Who’s a good boy-”

He turned to take stock of his fallen opponent, startled to see the Paladin tossing a small bottle off to the side. Arriod’s arms were already in position, and a bright, ghostly glow was shining from his blade. He sucked in a breath and started to call out whatever his attack was, and at this range, it was highly unlikely that Nacho would be able to avoid it.

The cook had a simple solution in mind. He twisted and absolutely hucked the dog at Arriod. It arced though the air, tumbling end over end, and Nacho found his aim had been perfect. The sword came down and sent its ghostly counterpart forward, but both were caught and blocked by the rotund green dog.

Which promptly detonated as though a stinger missile had been sent in to take out a high-value target.

Health remaining: 22/102

Congratulations! You have been instrumental in defeating a previously unknown type of monster! Thanks to this feat, you will be granted some information!

Monster name: Melon Collie. This is a monster type that gets close to its target by pretending to be friendly, sad, and submissive; its true goal is self-destruction to propagate its species. If unable to clean up all of the remains, you will have to deal with hundreds of its spawn!

In case you were wondering, it evolved out of that watermelon that we tried to convince you to destroy about a year ago. Except this one was not filled with water; it was filled with hydrogen-jelly. Very volatile.

“Not you!” Nacho found himself in a new position; lying on the ground exactly twenty feet away from Arriod, blinking dirt and blood out of his eyes as strange black seeds rained down on him. He struggled to his feet, a slight concussion making the world around him distorted and unpleasant to look at. “I knew it! Bad dog! Bad! I knew that you were a monster! Why do I listen to people when they tell me that I'm being paranoid? It's only paranoia if they’re not out to get you! Abyss!”

He stumbled over to the CruxTerran, breathing heavily and raising his knives. It was finally time to end this. Cleaver held high, he took one last step and stared at his fallen opponent. After a long moment, he let out a deep sigh and lowered the blade. Arriod was currently unconscious, and Nacho could only hope that it was because he had taken a blow to the head, and not because he had gone negative on Mana. The first was fixable, the second not so much.

Rifling through the man's gear, he found some steel wire that looked like it would suit his purposes perfectly. He grabbed the unconscious man, tied his hands and feet together, gathered his weapons, and tossed the CruxTerran up on his shoulder. Then he started running, trying to get his bearings. Frankly, he had no idea where he had ended up, nor how he had ended up here.

The answer hit him after a few minutes: each location in their respective worlds where they had been transported had been impacted by events happening mid-battle. Just before one instance of being transferred back to Arriod’s world, someone had said something to the effect of ‘you are dead’, and it dropped them next to a whole swarm of undead nightmares. “Just before we came here… what did he say? Did he say…? Tha~at’s it. He said ‘die like a dog’. I guess the only thing that had any significance to me and was somewhat dog-like was that… Melon Collie.”

It took nearly ten minutes of running while carrying his burden to come across an open clearing, and he found himself extremely high up the side of a mountain, almost near the summit. Nacho dropped Arriod like a sack of moldy potatoes, although frankly he hadn’t exactly been too careful with the man up until that point anyway. Finding a thick tree, Nacho arched backward and swung as hard as he could, toppling it with a single strike, about three feet above his own head.

From there, he pressed Arriod against the stump and tied him there, pulling the wire tightly enough that it dug into the bark of the tree and wouldn’t be easy to maneuver out of. He spent the next several moments trying to make the man regain consciousness. When the CruxTerran Commander finally awoke, he discovered pine needles shoved up his nose, his clothes wet from what he could only hope was a puddle, and pains all over his body.

“Why am I alive?” Arriod cut straight to the heart of the matter as soon as he was aware that he had been captured by a human. The human. The human tasked specifically with killing him.

“Look.” Nacho crouched down so that they were both seeing eye-to-eye. “Right now, between my mood and the day that I've been having, I really, truly want to kill you. I'm going to… as soon as I have a better reason than ‘the Patrons want me to do it’. Give me a reason, please give me a reason… so that I can let out all of my frustration and anger over what you have done to my people.”

The CruxTerran didn't say a word; apparently even he had a sense of self-preservation. Nacho decided to get on with what he really wanted out of this situation. “Listen, Arriod. This is until death or submission. What I want you to do is surrender; absolutely, unequivocally surrender. Swear that you will join my guild and follow our rules.”

“Why in either of our worlds would I do something like that?” Arriod seemed like he had more to say, but Nacho’s chef's knife flashed into his hand and shot forward, barely managing to stop just after breaking the skin on his neck.

“Shh… I need you to be very quiet right now.” Nacho was trembling from the effort it took not to simply bury his enemy as catharsis for the last four years of his life. “I really don't like you, nor your people, though specifically I do not like you. But… that shouldn’t condemn your entire population to death. I am certain there are bad apples out there, and that is easily proved on this planet by Nibbles. If we can produce monsters like that, and yet we can also produce people that are so good, like Reuben… the same has to be true for your world. It has to be true. Join our world and lead the effort to assimilate your people into mine. Pure amalgamation. We will live together, die together, as equals.”

“Except for the whole ‘living under your boot heel’, correct?” Arriod hissed at Nacho. “You think I don't know what those guild contracts really are?”

“There is a reason I am a Guild Leader and not a Guild Master,” The cook softly stated, his cleaver having joined his chef's knife on the CruxTerran’s throat without warning. Frankly, it was a total surprise to the cook, and he had to force himself to pull both of them away a little bit so that his emotions did not overcome him and end this conversation before it was supposed to be over. “I can guarantee that your people will have fair treatment and enjoy the same rights and freedoms that my people do.”

“What of… me?” Arriod finally ground out, and that question more than any other shocked Nacho to his core.

“Wow. Look at that. You actually do want something for yourself underneath that hard shell of propaganda that you sell to the people on your world.” Nacho tilted his head back and forth, “Although I suppose that wanting to live is fairly universal. Fair enough. If you agree, I will put you on the council in order to represent your people.”

“But… why should I work with you?”

“Beyond living through the night?” Nacho chuckled softly. “It's a better life, Arriod. You can have things that are just for you. You can have fun. You don't even have to kill anyone else if you don't want to; in fact, that part is highly recommended.”

“I don't understand. Why would I need things that are just for me?” Arriod shook his head in bewilderment, opening up new wounds on his neck as he swung too close to the incredibly sharp blades that Nacho was holding a little too tightly. “It is far more efficient to just-”

“Stop. Just stop.” Nacho cast around for something that he could use as an example, and his eyes fell on a bird's nest that had come down with the tree. “We will start small, and eventually you will understand why all of us strive to have things in life that are good. It's unfortunate, but true, that resources are limited. But you know what? There are so few people remaining that all of us can have a taste of the good life.”

Without saying another word, Nacho walked over to the nest and collected the eggs. Then he searched around until he found a few wild onions and mushrooms, though he had to kill them a little bit. They weren't very strong, but he still wasn't very comfortable with the idea of having to murder vegetation in order to make a meal. He collected some fallen wood for a fire and soon was heating his cast iron skillet.

With the fresh ingredients he had gathered, and his ever-present salt and pepper in his storage slots, Nacho made Arriod a meal. The first meal he would ever eat that was made just for him: a simple, scrumptious omelet.

It was literally glowing gold.

“Of course the first Epic rarity meal I make isn't even something I can eat. Here, try this.” Nacho pulled down the cloth covering Arriod’s mouth, exposing a bushy mustache. “Ugh. Uh, sorry… for some reason, I was not expecting that. Eat up.”

“I refuse.”

Nacho shrugged, a grin on his face. He didn't know why he was having so much fun with this, but he was. “I guess it's true what they say: you can lead one man's trash to another man's treasure, but you can't make it drink.”

He had to force-feed the first bite to the CruxTerran, holding his skillet in one hand and making airplane noises as he tried to wedge the food into his mouth. After poking the man in the forehead, the lips, and maybe-not-very-gently in the eye, he slipped the mouthful in when a groan of pain exited his foe. After the first bite, the Commander accepted the rest of it easily.

When the omelet was fully gone, including any particles that Nacho scraped off the edges, Arriod closed his eyes and heaved a deep sigh.

“They might call me a traitor, they might revile me for being purchased with such a simple bribe… but I can see some benefit to this. I want this… for my people. I accept your terms. To save CruxTerra… and myself… I surrender.”