50

Chapter 50: Generous fateNotes:

Over 90.000 words!

EDIT: 23.000 Hits!

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

Chapter 50

Astonishingly, Rem reacted before Tanya could and threw her Morningstar (where did she hide that?) at the sin archbishop. Tanya stalled her shot to observe what the man in white would do. Petelgeuse had an invisible force field that could block her bullets and rip people to shreds. Did Regulus have the same?

The spiked ball of Rem´s weapon closed in at blinding speeds, but to Tanya it looked like slow motion. Her target made no sign to dodge or acted startled in the slightest. Had she overestimated his abilities?

Then the heavy steel orb impacted him with the force of a train only to bounce off like it had hit a wall of stone instead of flesh! Not even his clothes appeared rumpled by the attack!

What?

There had been no shield to block that throw. Tanya´s magically enhanced eyesight had catalogued every detail of the collision and she knew that the weapon had not missed by even a millimetre. Was he invincible? Hopefully that was only temporary.

It looked like her theory was being tested by Rem who swung her Morningstar again and again, hitting Regulus each time, but failing to damage him at all. She studied his facial expressions carefully in search of any indication of fatigue or effort that could mark the limits of his invulnerability. Instead she saw only boredom and annoyance.

Finally he sighed and with one lazy hand movement the sin archbishop swatted the chain away which broke the thick steel apart like it had been porcelain.

"Hey! Stop this! I am a reasonable and collected person who despises senseless violence, but if you keep this up you are giving me no choice but to retaliate!" he scolded the blue-haired girl like one would do to a naughty child.

Physical attacks obviously had no effect on him. Had he some kind of magic spell to deflect any and all projectiles? Or was he just generally impenetrable? Was the super strength part of his ability or something different? So many unknowns.

Close range could perhaps be more effective to find a weak point, but she would certainly not risk coming closer to the terrorist. With some effort she could maybe create a ring of fire around him to cook him alive while depriving him of oxygen, but with all the people in close vicinity that would only end in disaster.

Peacefully deescalating this situation just like she had done with Petelgeuse was the best option. So far Regulus seemed relatively reasonable and calm after all. He was at least leagues better than that complete maniac Petelgeuse. If she could get him to go on another long tangent then that would buy her time to further scheme.

"Rem, stop this at once! You can do nothing to him. He´s invincible!" she ordered while stepping outside the carriage.

At first she didn´t appear to register Tanya´s words as she swung the remaining chain of her Morningstar wildly, but after a few seconds she huffed and reluctantly halted her assault.

"Mr. Corneas forgive us. We just had a run-in with another sin archbishop recently and that ended rather unpleasantly as you can see."

She pointed at her blood encrusted torso. Tanya consciously omitted the fact that she had most likely killed sloth and all of his followers. As a fellow member of the witch´s cult he would not react well to the news that she had eliminated his co-worker.

"Those fools can´t do anything right. Pathetic as usual, but I am neither petty nor merciless as I am completely satisfied with my life. Indeed, I am the most satisfied existence there ever was! So I forgive your fruitless attempts at harming me and come to the point. My time is not limited, because I am immortal and perfect and will persist long after all you far less satisfied lives have faded away. Nonetheless do I like to spend my precious, irreplaceable time in the comfort of my own home, for I have no real requirement to venture outside. I am completely satisfied after all and the world holds no wonders that could even compare to my own greatness."

Damn, if he had not introduced himself as the representative of greed then Tanya would have thought that he was the sin archbishop of pride! Regulus liked to hear himself talk way too much and boasted his ego with the casualness of someone telling facts about the weather. It was quite repulsive how someone could be so full of themselves.

In a way it reminded her of Priscilla who believed herself to be a goddess walking amongst mortals, but she had the decency to endlessly talk about her assumed perfectness. Tanya could respect her self-confidence at least, where Regulus seemed to try painfully to convince his audience that he was in fact awesome. A symptom of a fragile ego, not of untouchable superiority.

Tanya used his egotistical posturing and replaced her position with an illusionary clone in a quick moment of distraction. She slipped away behind the coach unnoticed, her footsteps silenced by another spell.

"But enough of that. I have come here to hand you this crystal which allegedly is of grave importance for the future. I seldom consult my gospel, because I am already satisfied with my life as any good human being should be, but fate was oddly insistent that you must receive this trinket."

He held up a necklace with a diamond shaped, golden gemstone hanging from it.

"Luckily for you I was in the area and could deliver it to you quickly. Is that not convenient? Is that not nice? As I am perfectly content with how I am and what I possess I naturally have no need to help others, yet I went out of my way to provide you with this artefact which holds no value to me. And what do I receive in return? I am attacked, belittled, insulted and looked down upon!"

Not wanting to interrupt him lest he would become angry Tanya loudly cleared her throat and raised the hand of her illusion. She needed to stop his rant before he could talk himself into a fit of rage and become even more mentally unstable.

It did little to quell his angry tirade, but the clone diverted his attention for long enough so that she had time to get into his blind spot and take to the air. Most humans made the critical mistake of never bothering to look up more than forty five degrees and the sin archbishop was no exception. Evolution had not conditioned them yet to look out for the ultimate predator of the air: combat mages.

"The misfortune and injustice I have to suffer on a daily basis is absolutely abhorrent! I give and give and give to this world and only earn scorn and disrespect! A less kind-hearted and generous man would have destroyed you all! You do not know how easy for me it would be to turn you to dust, but I held back! Even though you deserve punishment for attacking a peace loving, polite and perfectly reasonable individual like myself I will temper justice with mercy today."

Tanya couldn´t help but scoff quietly. What had he expected when he introduced himself as an enemy of the state and leader of possibly the most hated criminal organization on the planet?

Regulus gestured at her decoy: "Honestly, if I hadn´t wanted to confirm if you were a suitable candidate to become my eleventh wife after the spot had recently been vacated then I would not have bothered to walk all the way out here."

Wife? He wanted to take her as his wife? She was seventeen for crying out loud! Was he a disgusting lecher like that thrice-damned pervert Loria? Her trigger finger twitched erratically and she bared her teeth at the loathed memory.

"The other candidates were all disappointments so far. Well, maybe the half-elf could be different. Her beauty is rumoured to be extraordinary. You on the other hand are unfortunately also not what I am looking for. You must feel terrible right now, but do not worry! In a few years your body will certainly have developed and you will be welcome to seek out my judgement again."

She wanted to strangle that bastard! As if!

"Now I have to get going. My lovely wives are waiting for me and I have missed their company for too long already. Take the crystal and I can leave."

Tanya forcefully calmed herself down and projected her voice through her illusion to command one of her bodyguards to come and pick the item up. Her decoy could not interact with solid matter and she had no intention of coming close to that lunatic. (Not to mention the very real chance that the crystal was cursed or was another trap of some kind that could be dangerous to her.) The guard on the other hand was expendable and would not be missed by her should Regulus decide to turn him into minced meat.

He was too scared to move though.

A gentle burn from an invisible heat-ray formula (basically an overpowered laser normally used to start campfires) broke him out of his frightened stupor and sent him on his way. Every step towards the impatiently waiting Regulus made the man quiver in fear like he was approaching certain doom. An understandable reaction in Tanya´s eyes, but his low self-control showed his lacking training.

With trembling fingers he grasped the necklace and sprinted back to the carriage. Everybody watching let out a sigh of relief.

"Good enough I guess. If you will excuse me, I will be going now. Not that I would need an excuse, but in contrast to you I am polite."

The sin archbishop turned around and began to walk away at a leisurely pace without a care in the world. His back was wide open for an ambush, but his apparent invulnerability proved that he had no need to be cautious in this situation.

"We can´t let him get away!" yelled one of Crusch´s soldiers. Many agreed loudly.

Surprisingly Rem stepped in: "Fools! We can´t do anything against him!"

"We are knights of Lugnica! We cannot let evildoers go unpunished!" he replied.

"You are going to get killed! Think of what your Lady would say to that!"

Tanya´s opinion of the maid was rising. Overall she had very good head on her shoulders. Sadly the shouting idiot wasn´t half as sharp and recklessly charged forward on his ground dragon.

Notes:

Hmmmmm... Why could his gospel suddenly have changed? Hmmmmm...

Do you know what the gift could be?