Little Red ✔

Chapter Twenty

CHAPTER TWENTY: THE RULER

Think of every fairy-tale villainess you've ever heard of. Think of the wicked witches, the evil queens, the mad enchantresses. Think of the alluring sirens, the hungry ogresses, the savage she-beasts. Think of them and remember that somewhere, sometime, they've all been real.
-Jim Butcher

"I've run the permutations through my mind," Archer says nervously. "And all of them say we're fucked."

Tears in her eyes, a bubble in her throat the 'leader' turns to Little Red. "What are we supposed to do?"

In other words, they were one fighter down, had no medic, were all processing grief and were supposed to go up against the fiercest army and most ruthless queen in the present time.

They were fucked.

And two of them were already gone. 

Magician teleported back when they got a breath of space and a moment to pause, their bodies were alive just by a thread but their minds were gone. Their spirits moved on.

"Drown or swim, it doesn't matter. The world will keep raining." Little Red replies solemnly. "We fight."

Huntsman nods, and for the least willing participant he already decided he'd be the first in battle if he had to be. "We fight."

"Whether there's only one of us left, or all." Wolf continues. "We fight."

"We fight." The rest of the team echoes.

It wasn't long before they found the throne room, Archer dispatching the soldiers they encountered with new found rage and sadness fueled accuracy that even Wolf was impressed by.

The moment the Ghosts barges through the doors, the room erupted with activity.

Queen Zadeh wasn't there.

But she would be soon, no doubt.

Suddenly through the bodies, the weapons, Charm sees her team fighting for their lives.

She sees how Archer and the Huntsman are back to back -one swinging his axe with inhuman strength and the other covering them with his arrows. Locks and Magician are a fighting team, her wings and their cane knock down anyone who doesn't get hit by their magic. 

They were irreversibly comatose, the bard didn't have to worry about them, but she wished somehow Snow and Doc were still here, fighting for their lives beside their friends in combat.

They'd fight.

And they'd be good about it too.

She could picture them, of course, it was so easy to. 

Doc and Snow were there picking off the smaller ones and Snow even killed two of the enemies medics. Continually the nymph would jump in the middle of battle and poison enemies and supply her team with stamina boosting crab-apples -the medic was shockingly and scarily good at finding a single spot on someone to hit and kill them with.

The fairy knew to be scared of him.

But he was already dead...and the images strayed from her mind.

Nobody around the team went unscathed, but it was nothing compared to how Little Red and Wolf are demolishing every living being in their path. When the mercenary wasn't on Wolf's back, she was dashing through a space and slicing enemies in half. Often she'd knock someone in the air and the warrior took that as his cue to bite them. He himself was a deadly weapon, nothing in his path survived unless he wanted it to.