heroesxdemons

[heroesxdemons]

"Heatwave? Bah! Pansies, this heat is NOTHING!" Laharl, obviously, is not affected. Dood swims in lava on a daily basis. He'll be fine.

[heroesxdemons]

For Amelia from Stocking: 'So why are you called the Valkyrie Thief? That's pretty vague for a title of feats.'

"Hm? Oh no no, Titles work a bit differently where I'm from. They're not meant to be 'feats' really, more like...classifications? Ya see, I used to be a Thief, but then I changed my Class to Valkyrie years ago. But since I can still pickpocket with my eyes closed like a champ, I kept my Thief title too! So Valkyrie Thief is....huh...now that I think about it, it really does seem like it's been stitched together huh?" Now she felt a bit embarrassed talking to this stranger about her title.

"But I don't wanna mess with my title too much. Ya see, Titles can actually kill ya! Well, not really, only if you're stupid with em. Like, let's say a human and a demon switch titles, like Hero and Overlord. The human will eventually turn into a demon and the demon will turn into a hero and well....the process will more than likely kill the both of them. My universe is weird like that, I know. But think of it like an RPG and you'll be fine and dandy~"

[heroesxdemons]

Said maid was now snoozing after just disposing of a monster's body. Hell, the place was so spotless you wouldn't think some eldritch horror was slain here!

....She might be sleepy half the time, and sass you to hell and back, but she's good at her job at least.

[heroesxdemons]

@rodentlyridiculous

“You dropped your nose you fucking clown." Tina's probably yelling at Laharl.

"WHO THE FUCK SAID THAT!?" Well that was a 'wonderful' first impression. The only reason Laharl hadn't incinerated Tina was because...well...he had no idea where she was. "Are you some sort of ghost? The hell are you!?" Look, Laharl's usually the short one in these situations, it's not often he has to look down.

[heroesxdemons]

Baka, in an impressive display of athletics, leapt sky-high in order to avoid the incoming wave of flames! She landed on the roof of a nearby building, clapping as if this were some sort of game. "Oooooh~! Not bad, flame flame guy~ But don't get too comfy. I'm not the only one you'll be playing with tonight~" The zombie girl pointed further into the fog, where Rin's previous flame wave would illuminate the shadows of countless shambling figures encroaching towards Rin's location!

"Master made me bring a sizeable chunk of zombies too~ Oh, but there's something I have to tell you about Netherworld Zombies...ya see, they're not like the zombies you'd see on tv. For one thing..."

Huh that's odd....one of the shambling figures started to glow. Wait a second....

"They can shoot hyper beams~! Isn't that so cool~?"

INCOMING ZOMBIE HYPER BEAM!

🌀 He caught it... but the smell immediately ruined his appetite. Disgusted, he quickly released it from his grip, tossing to the ground as he shrunk back from the cannibalistic snack.

"-uh. Who's your master, again? Is it someone I know?"

Unfortunately, Rin's questions would get cut off - in a literal sense, even - as a barrage of knives were suddenly barreling towards him. He managed to dodge a few, but not all of them. The cuts stung, and he quickly pulled out a knife that was lodged into his side. The wound released a steam as it began the healing process.

"What the hell?! Back... OFF!!"

The weapon getting thrown back towards Baka-Bōko wouldn't be knives, but a brutal wave of flames instead. After all, this weird girl was what Rin would consider a demon. He wasn't too worried about ending her existence like he would for a human. 🐈‍⬛

[heroesxdemons]

"Oh. So you do have pet. Well...he sounds nice so it shouldn't be too much of a ha-" Wait a second...

"....Microraptor? As in....An actual, living dinosaur? You're not pulling my tail or anything, are you?" If Ava was telling the truth, she might as well become the best dino expert alive! She somehow, has her own living breathing dinosaur...as a pet!

"....Be for real, are you sure you're a paleontologist and not some mad scientist?"

God, she hoped zombie dinosaurs would never be a thing...

"Oh, just my pet Microraptor. He has his own enclosure, but I do let him out for play time. He sometimes makes a mess, but I always clean that up immediately, so it shouldn't be a problem. Other than that, uh... nope!"

[heroesxdemons]

Ugh...just when 2.0 ZZZ finally drops i have to go to work. BLEH! Poor timing as always.

Oh well I at least I got the nice anniversary stuff and Ellen's sweet sweet buff~ its nice the devs are buffing older characters, especially Ellen since she got me onto ZZZ in the first place~

Oh and im juggling that and new DeltaRune so yay double the fun!

[heroesxdemons]

"....Dinosaur expert, got it." It didn't seem like a job that brought many dangers, unless somehow zombie dinosaurs were a thing. Ellen doubted Ava would be in any real danger aside from a papercut or sneezing on a fossil.

"....Well, I'm hoping your idea of 'tidy' is the same as mine. It'll be less of a hassle if that's the case. Hm, anything else about your home I should know about before we get there? Pets? Roommates? ....Partners?"

Ava could little more than smile sheepishly at the cashier and make a lame joke about she wasn't buying Ellen before busying herself with helping to bag all the groceries. She paused to look up at the shark maid.

"Um, that's fine, yeah, I'm not really into that sort of thing, so..." And Ellen clearly wouldn't enjoy having to do it even if she was.

"Hm? Oh, I'm a paleontologist! Don't worry, all the messy work is done outside and far away from here. I keep my place pretty tidy, actually. Might just be a few loose papers around..."

[heroesxdemons]

Baka-Bōko looked at her half-eaten bun, shrugged and then lobbed it for Rin to catch....a pity meal!

"Master said that she was sick and tired that you and the Emo Girl making a racket with all the 'Uuuuugh my feelings are huuuuurt' and the 'Waaaaaaah someone bullied me after I bullied them back!' talk. Sooo she finally gave me permission for something I LOVE to do~"

If Rin caught it....on closer inspection...the meat inside didn't really look like any animal meat....and that wasn't ketchup!

The little zombie swiftly pulled out a bevy of throwing knives from her robes, flashing them with a malevolent grin before hurling all of them at Rin with startling speed and precision!

"I get to make meat buns out of you~! I wonder what you'll taste like~ So please hold still, flame flame guy~!"

🌀 He tried to use his flames to light the way, but the fog was so thick, any light produced simply bounced off the water particles, causing the eerie mist to appear even more dense and impenetrable.

And then... oh, it was that weird little kyonshii girl.

"Looking for me? Wha?"

"...I don't even remember who your 'Master' is." He eyed the meat bun with an odd mixture of hunger and concern. Something about it smelled off. But he was also hungry... 🐈‍⬛

[heroesxdemons]

Noroi's eyes squinted at Ava, trying to read her face and how she moved in order to determine if she was blowing her off or not. "I see..." She replied dryly...before suddenly bursting into laughter!

"Of course, I understand needing some time to think about it~ I do believe in Free Will TM after." The demon suddenly lurched forward till she was right up to Ava's face!

"You can, of your own free will, do what I tell you to do...or, completely of your own free will, refuse my generous offer to uphold tradition and suffer the consequences....completely of your own free will, I might add."

Then...she backed off with a sickly sweet smile, a glint in her eyes. "...But don't let me keep you~ I'll leave you to unearth more bones or whatever. Personally, they'd be better use as necromancy fodder buuut i'm not a paleo...um...whatever they're called."

Ava's face became more and more concerned as she read through the brochure. Jeez, were there really a lot of non-humans who supported this stuff? Okay, be polite, Ava, no need to piss off the demon lady any further...

"Well, um... that's definitely interesting, miss...." she said hesitantly, before awkwardly tucking the brochure into her pocket. "I'll, uh, give it some thought, okay? For now, though, I'd rather not get into a big debate about ethics and humanity and all that--I'm just trying to do my job. Y'know?"

[heroesxdemons]

Grandmaster Phage raised another hand, signalling a few of his surviving fodder viruses to leap impressively into the air and act as meatshields for the the incoming attacks. The same green goop showered the forest below once the blades made mincemeat out of them.

The lich waved his decaying finger side to side in a 'tsk tsk tsk' manner. Then...a voice came out of Phage's body. His mummified jaw didn't seem to move, no it was more like a speaker had been implanted into his body (probably magical of some sort). The voice itself was put through some sort of filter, making it hard to distinguish the speaker as male or female.

"Hm. Not a bad counter attack." Noroi spoke through Phage, although she wasn't that impressed. "A bit on the weak side though. Amateurish at best...but the teleporting is a nice touch. A bit of a beginner's trap though. Rely on teleportation too much and you'll meet a swift end~ Trust me, I have plenty of experience on the matter...now then...you must be that rebellious youth my servant Baka told me about...you remember her, right? Small purple zombie? Rather thick in the head? Loves meat buns?"

Marsha finally noticed the looming figure above her just as they threw the virus lances at her. Marsha teleported out of the wage as she summoned blades of nightosphere magic before rapidly firing them back at Phage.

[heroesxdemons]

"Oh Crumbs! My flawless disguise didn't seem to work!" Still a bit oblivious there, huh Zas? Well at least she's opting for plan B now. She quickly sifted through her magic bag, hoping to pull something useful out! Something that can deal with crowds....aaaaaand she pulled out....

Some sort of large box in the shape of a cannon! Zas looked at it curiously...there was a large hole on the bottom too, it seemed like you were supposed to wear it like some sort of suit. With nothing to lose, Zas put the hefty thing on.

"Hey it's kinda dark in here!" Zas remarked, shortly before the cannon box automatically fired a cannon ball forward at the nearest pig-man, attempting to blow him (and whoever was nearby) sky high Team-Rocket style!

Panicking, since she still couldn't see but assumed that the cannon would clear the way via excessive explosions, Zas ran forward! The cannon box she was wearing, meanwhile, showered the area in front of her with an enthusiastic amount of ballistic mayhem! Huts, Pigmen, boulders, more pigmen...nothing could stop the business end of a cannon, hopefully~!

"....No, it does not work. The little fool walks head first into danger. The moment she talks only attracts attention, the swine speaking in tongues to her she isn't aware. Her amazingly beautiful companion is amused but helps none the less. Zas better think fast or end up as another smear of red on the ground."

Betilla using that narration to help Zas yet again.

The pig-men raised a club at Zas, only to be swatted with a large vine from the fae, it seems.... Zas now had another situation on her hands. One of dealing with these strange, territorial creatures, but at least she had a moment to think before being swarmed due to Betilla's aid.

[heroesxdemons]

"Ya! More teenagers fighting! If I get this on camera, Master can make it go viral on NetherTube!" Not that much of a shock that heinous content on the Netherworld's version of the internet is quite...shocking to say the least.

[heroesxdemons]

"A cult? Ohohohoho~! Of course not! Cults are for stupid humans, hoping to sway favor with dark forces beyond their comprehension....or just led by con-men looking to make a quick buck out of naive fools. Sometimes both. No no no, the ADL is something much better, I can assure you." Noroi chuckled darkly.

The cover of the strange brochure depicts a crude sketch of a snarling demon being force-fed a muffin by a smiling human. Inside wasn't much better, it containing a rambling manifesto titled “DON’T GET LEASHED!” This so called Anti-Domestication League warns demons (and fellow monsters like Ava) of the dangers of growing too fond of humans, cautioning against things like friendship, empathy, and emotional vulnerability. The tone of Noroi's manic brochure veers wildly between motivational speech and bureaucratic threat, with numerous underlined phrases such as:

“DO NOT BAKE. DO NOT BLEND IN. DO NOT GET LEASHED.”

At the bottom, written in blood-red ink (or possibly actual blood), a cheerful postscript reads:

“Failure to comply with proper demonic or monsterous conduct may result in joyful termination. Have a hellish day!”

"I firmly believe it's important for monsters and demons alike to uphold tradition, ya know? And nothing's more traditional than to disembowel a human or two. Or I guess in your case snatch a human and make mincemeat out of them. I mean, come on, there's bound to be countless humans in your life that you wanted to murder, right? Think of all the things that could be yours without humanity getting in the way like they always do...."

"What, no! I'm an obligate carnivore!" Yes, that was the correct thing to get hung up on here, Ava. Clearly, she was starting to panic. "I can't eat greens even if I wanted to, I don't--huh?"

She had taken several concerned steps back, eager to stay out of arm's reach as the woman reached into her robes... only to freeze when she produced a pamphlet to hand to her.

"...huh?" Bewildered, but a good deal calmer all of the sudden, Ava reluctantly opened the brochure. "I, um... no, I haven't heard of them before... this isn't some sort of cult, right?..."

[heroesxdemons]

Ellen didn't stay asleep for long...waking up just at the right time to snag a handful of lollipops and add them to the cart unashamedly, just when they got to the register. "...They help keep me awake." She clarified, but would at least cover the cost of her lil sugary pick-me-ups with her own money.

"Anyhow, I'm supposed to follow you home now to...well ya know, do maid stuff. But no, I will not being saying anything cutesy like 'Moe-Moe Kyun', alright? But you don't strike me as the otaku type..." Ellen squinted at Ava a bit, noting the strange hat that stood out like a sore thumb to her.

"Say, Ava, what do you do anyhow? It's not somethin' that'll leave your place a total mess, is it?"

Ava didn't get much of a chance to say anything, let alone follow after her, before Ellen was off like a shot. How did someone so small move so fast?! Honestly, she hadn't even completely finished her thought process before the cart rolled back in front of her, sleeping maid in tow.

"...someone has one hell of a metabolism..." she murmured in mild disbelief. What was she, a shrew?

The flabbergasted harpy hesitated, before somewhat awkwardly taking the cart and bringing it down to the checkout aisle.

[heroesxdemons]

The viruses were swiftly eliminated, either through the flames or through just running into each other hard enough to crack their heads open. Weird, bioluminescent green fluid spilled out from the twitching bodies. Yuck~!

Grandmaster Phage slowly raised a decrepit hand and with a single flick of the wrist, manifested two lances in the shape of viruses. Another flick would send the infested skewers hurtling towards Marsha at high speeds!

"Impressive...but Phage's lil stooges don't really have any brains to begin with. Buuuut now I know she can teleport. That might make things tricky...tch!" She'll tuck that neat bit of info away for later. For now, she'll continue to spectate and when the time's right, she'll speak to Marsha by using Phage as a proxy.

Marsha didn't have time to notice the towering skeletal figure before the first virus fired the beam. Marsha quickly moved out of the way of them beam. That's when she felt the other two heading towards her. She teleported out of the path of the other two, ensuring that they would collide with each other. Flying above the ground now, she summoned green fire into her hands and procceded to blast the first virus with a beam of hellfire.

[heroesxdemons]

*Vroom Vroom VROOOOOM!*

The strange energy building up in the virus's head reached it's peak, and shot out in the form of a strange, psychic beam aimed directly at Marsha!

Not only that, but the rest of the approaching swarm split up, each attempting to stampede towards her from the left and right sides in a wild flanking maneuver. Not very bright, they'd probably run into each other if they'd miss but these things didn't look too smart anyhow.

Up above the chaos in the forest, a figure manifested out of nowhere, towering and skeletal. Grandmaster Phage wore a ragged, tattered robe patterned with glowing viral helixes and ancient cell diagrams. The lich's exposed bones shimmer with a sickly green-blue hue, pulsing with demonic runes shaped like DNA.

His skull is crowned with a cold metal circlet resembling a viral capsid, and smaller Phage constructs float lazily around him like malevolent fireflies, clicking and whirring with mechanical life.

"Let the games begin, as the kids say." Noroi commented as she continued to spectate the fight through her crystal ball. She had full control of Phage, like a puppet on a string, so for now she'll have the old bag of bones stay back and see if Marsha can handle the fodder.

Marsha heard them before she saw them. She could feel the ground shaking under her feet as scared animals ran past her. She turned only to see what looked like giant viruses knocking down the trees in the path. Marsha's eyebrows shot up. This was something she's not used to seeing but then again that she's used to weird shit all of the time. She noticed as it seemed to stop right in front of her. She didn't like that.

She summoned a scythe of demonic energy to her side. There were sickening sounds of flesh as her scythe's blade was formed. She prepared herself, ready to move should they attack her first.