trans_9 | In Which the Overlord is Flat On His Face

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In Which the Overlord is Flat On His Face

It's going to be one of those days.

In the hallway directly outside the mess hall lay a book. The bright red body and overall size clearly pointed to it being the Overlord, for those familiar with him, but his back cover was the one facing upwards. No sign of any minion around. None of the cursing, struggling, and flopping one would expect from Zetta in such an undignified posture.

Just a tome, lying flat on the ground, as if a crew member had simply discarded it thoughtlessly.

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"Oh I'm just making things fair," she answered back. "Besides, I bet I could build this if I had the proper elements for it. It's just the ship is scares on resources, that's all."

That was true.

"But you haven't seen anything yet," she told him with a grin, and pressed the second button. Suddenly. Balls. Brightly colored balls that descended from the lower part of the laser all around Zetta. Phase one done. Then as it continued to shoot the laser he was blocking, she used the lower weapon to fire just as many brightly colored balls on him. Except these happened to be killed with explosives.

If you couldn't defeat them on a normal level, improvise. Bend the rules just enough so it was still plausible. Oh and also improvise hilariously because it was fun.

See, this sort of thinking is why he likes her. He might like her a little less than he did if he wasn't confident in his ability to handle this attack, though!

With a grunt, Zetta used the hand that was blocking the laser for leverage to haul himself upwards. (Zetta, clearly, didn't care about the 'plausible' part of what he was doing.) He vaulted lightly on top of the laser, which promptly reasserted its normal course -- and shot off in that direction at the speed of light, taking Zetta with it.

So, for a moment, just a battlefield with a bunch of balls and a column of light.

Then a glint in the black sky resolved into a sphere, which gained clarity and definition and as it approached. That was... unquestionably a meteor. Which Zetta was riding, as it roared downwards towards Lash.

"Ha!" she said with a bit of laughter, screaming and wondering if he heard her at all. "THAT all you got? Come on! Sturm used to pull up the meteor from the sky all the time!" Of course he wasn't doing it quite like Zetta was and obviously part of their battle was insulting each other. Besides, it wasn't that mean spirited, just insults of trying to outdo each other.

Speaking of which...the laser back to its tiny little pocket-size as Lash took out another one. The meteor was fast approaching and she didn't have that much time to loose. Back in Wars World, they had created Anti Satelite Defence Silos for just such occasions built by, who else, herself. It didn't take too much time for her to think about it, as the new contraption refolded and moved until she had quite a giant tower covering most of the tiny area they were fighting on.

She just had to wait the right moment and....now!

The press of a button as the small countdown started, the wunderkind jumping on it, putting on a pair of goggles. Ovciously if you were going to launch a giant missile at something, you should do it in style.

"Fire!" The entire thing took off as she comically held her breath as it shot out into space. But hell, who cared what rules they were breaking, Lash was riding a rocket launcher and it was way too amused about it to care.

Just in time! The meteor slammed into the ground below, wrecking the tower in a gratuitous display of overkill and leaving the Overlord standing on the inexplicably undamaged underlying terrain.

"Oh come on, Lash!" he said, grinning up at her. "If you wanted to ride a giant rocket, I've been trying to get you to do just that for a while now!"

"Yeah well next time I'll make sure I aim better and just slam into the meteor instead!"

Thank you Lash, for not understanding innuendo and anything of what Zetta actually meant.

She landed a few seconds later, dusting off her hands as the rocket exploded into the sky, sending sound waves and air their way.

"It seems we are evenly matched!"

"Or you're making up crazy things you can't ordinarily do and I'm holding back," Zetta said with a shrug. "Po-tay-to, po-tah-to."

"Po-tay-what?" replied Lash, not exactly having been brought up in the subtleties of the different ways of saying potato.

"Uh, it means saying the same thing in a different way, but it's still the same thing," Zetta said awkwardly.

This had 'uncomfortable pause' written all over it.

"Oh uh...okay." She filed it in her brain under 'weird sayings'. "And anyway that's totally not true! I can build those things...just watch me do it if we ever get the materials for it!"

"Sure, you COULD, but you don't have the materials for it. Whereas everything I do -- uh, besides having these weapons -- is pure Zetta, baby!"

They both knew he didn't NEED the weapons to kick ass, though.

"Yeah well my Commanding Officer powers are pure Lash!" why was she even...she conveniently ignored Zetta calling her a baby. "Besides, power isn't always everything! With the right strategy, anything and anyone call fall!"

Yes this is why Black Hole won all of their war--oh wait. At least Lash had the right philosophy.

"Hyaaa ha ha ha ha! I always have the right strategy: annihilate with superior strength!" Though really, even Lash knew that Zetta was slightly better at tactics than he let on. One didn't get to be the Overlord without a certain knack at command, after all.

"Right right," she answered, trying not to grin (and failing), "but even superior strength has a weakness or two to exploit. Ever hear 'bout the single finger to the forehead vs an entire body trick?"

Considering who Lash had hung out with for most of her life, there probably wasn't even a second thought or a doubt about it. In fact, this was probably why they hadn't had a proper army command battle yet.

"Oh, where you hold someone down just by leverage because they can't move at all to lift themselves? Go ahead, try that," Zetta said. "The sheer power of my muscles will snap your finger like a twig!"

She looked down at her hands and realized she did like having them.

"...on the other hand, let's not do that." But he did get bonus points for knowing that trick. "Actually this does make me wonder...do you guys ever get sick? And how does that work with mana powers?"

After 35,000 years, he'd picked up a couple of common-knowledge things here and there.

"Since strong mana power usually correlates to a higher level, and a higher level usually makes your stats better, it's harder for a stronger demon to get sick," Zetta said. "But it can happen. We -- demons in general, get sick like anybody else does. Of course, it CAN be more colorful if the demon is more impressive. I once got a cold that was so nasty my hair clotted up."

Lash responded to this by, what else, laughing and trying to imagine the Overlord with the world's worst morning hairdo.

"Must have been something else when you sneeze," she remarked. "I'm trying to imagine what that's like, and how many things either got ruined or called up when you did, tee hee hee!"

Uh weren't they fighting a short while ago, why did this always happen? It's almost liked they liked talking to each other.

And didn't like actually trying to hurt each other. Press Zetta to admit it and the truth was he was seriously having a hard time bringing himself to unleash any serious attacks Lash's way. Not because she couldn't take them, but because... well, he didn't want to. "Hey, I didn't do direct summoning before I got bound into a book. There wasn't a need."

The denial of feelings was a great idea! Arguably Lash would say she would rather get the serious attacks because she could totally take them.

"Oh, that does make sense," she said, thinking and stroking her chin. "Granted knowing that you can do it now, imagine applying all of that once you get your body back! No one could stand a chance..." Or well, "No one could stand a chance even more!"

"Hey, I still used minions and stuff," Zetta said. "They were just generally deployed from a home base sort of deal instead of dropped onto the field. It won't be that much more overwhelming... though it will be more fun!"

"It's a heck of a way to organize a surprise attack!" Lash added. "When you think about it, you can't really prepare for someone teleporting things right in the middle of a battle. At least in my world anyway. You see the armies advancing and everything. With that power however? There's so much more damage you can do! Teleport them right next to their home base and capture it, rendering their communication system completely useless for one!"

"You may be overestimating it a bit. Battles in Netherworlds are generally fought on smaller scales than you're used to with armies and tanks."

Around him, a circle appeared, encompassing about half the battlefield from where he stood. "That's effective range. If I wanted to cross a lot of distance fast, I'd order my minions to chain-throw a fortress."

"Huh. I suppose it's effective for quick and fast five to six minute battles that end quickly," she mused. "But what would happen if you did employ the whole military outlook of it?"

Because if there was one thing Lash enjoyed, it was upsetting a delicate balance of anything.

"Vehicles and buildings get deployed under the same principles. And there's a limit, even for an Overlord, on how many things can be brought out simultaneously. We're not omnipotent... though I'm closer than anyone or anything else, of course," he said, ever happy to toot his own horn.

"Yes of course," Lash parroted with a grin on her lips, not wanting to take away from Zetta's very important horn tooting. "But...could you twist that and say, bring out vehicles with a bunch of demons soldiers inside, or a building that has a couple of tanks parked in there? And oh! Just imagine if demons had CO powers too!"

Abusing the system never sounded this much fun.

In Which the Overlord is Flat On His Face

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gdit Zetta

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LJ WHY DID YOU NOT TELL ME I HAD A TAG

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