Swarming Sovereignty

“Okay, so we have Yamamoto’s companions, how far away is he from Aura’s capitol?” Lia asked.

Assuming he runs straight there at the speed he took off from that town, two weeks. Less if he steals a horse or something, more if he has to stop and hunt for food. Alisha said.

“Well, it’s earlier than I wanted, but it was better than letting him do whatever he wanted to those townsfolk.” Lia said. “And two weeks should be enough to allow us to set up an arena and get the phoenix and nightmare taken care of.”

The plan was relatively simple; they wanted to convert Meg and Neph with the phoenix and nightmare respectively, so they were in a state where they would be able to fight against Yamamoto without being instantly overwhelmed. They likely wouldn’t be able to last too long, since they would be bound, but if they managed to get a temporary unbinding or something, perhaps they would last a little longer.

Of course, they weren’t supposed to defeat Yamamoto by themselves. Their main aim was to wear him down enough for Lia, Amelia, Rose, Ophelia, and Alisha to take him down. He almost certainly wouldn’t use lethal force against his former companions, meaning his fight would take significantly more effort than he was used to, especially if their arena worked out as they wished.

The one sticking point with that was actually capturing the nightmare and the phoenix. It was becoming less of an issue, now that Amelia and Ophelia’s bindings had been somewhat loosened, and Lia had received a power bump, but it was by no means a trivial task.

The first step towards a successful subjugation would be to lure the two monsters into a place that counted as under Lia’s rule, so she would receive the stat bonuses. This was, in and of itself, perhaps the hardest part of the whole operation – they had to provide a meal so juicy that the phoenix and nightmare would be drawn over.

After much discussion, they had concluded that their best bet would be to cram a ton of non-sapient members of the swarm into a small space. The nightmare would be able to feel the veritable buffet of mental energy from a mile away, and would hopefully come running.

The next step was the combat. Amelia was easily a match for either of the two if she was unbound, and while she kept its attention, the other members of their strike team would focus on the other. They didn’t even necessarily have to win, just hold out long enough for Amelia to take care of the other, and by that time her full, undivided attention and overwhelming power would be on whichever was left, and it would surely fall in short order.

The risk with that was whether or not Amelia would be unbound. Amelia felt confident that this genuinely was protection, since regardless of whether or not she was bound they would carry this plan out, but it was still somewhat up in the air.

If Amelia wasn’t unbound, things would get significantly trickier. Lia would have to take center stage as the de-facto strongest, as with all her benefits she was theoretically as strong as one of the monsters was individually. The major edge in this situation was Alisha, and the choice of artifact effect they went with.

Each artifact had its benefits and drawbacks, but Lia was leaning towards the helmet, the rings or the magical protector. The others simply did not provide enough benefit in the situation to be worth considering. The weapons were somewhat unwieldy, as Lia was still learning to effectively use different varieties of weapons, so they were out. The physical reflector was of little use against two magic users, the boots provided next to no combat benefit, the jewel’s spell storing was nice but didn’t actually solve any problems, and the presence concealing ring likely would be of little effect against the nightmare.

The magic protector…the Bulwark of Legends, if Lia recalled correctly, had obvious utility for the same reason the physical protector (Retribution?) had little utility. It was a top tier defensive option, but Lia eventually decided it wasn’t worth it. In the event that Amelia was unbound, it would undoubtedly guarantee their success so long as Lia could keep the attention of whichever Amelia didn’t work on, but in the other scenario it would be…tricky.

She could just have Alisha switch modes when they figured out what form the combat would take, but Alisha wasn’t confident in her ability to quickly switch forms in the middle of combat, and Lia didn’t want to take the risk.

Next was the helmet, the…Helm of Domination. It was another tossup; if it allowed her to get her mental magic off against the monsters, it was another auto-win, as they just needed to put the monsters to sleep and cocoon them and the fight would be over. If it didn’t allow her to overcome their resistance, it would be near useless.

That one, she discarded because of the nightmare. The nightmare was extremely proficient in mental magic, so the chances that she would be able to fully immobilize it, even with an effective five times her normal Magic Attack, were low.

Which just left the rings…of balance? Yes, the Rings of Balance. Lia settled on these because no matter what the situation ended up being, they would be useful. Thanks to Rubber Band Regeneration, Lia was able to output a significant number of spells, and the steady power growth of those spells was sure to be a great boon. That, combined with the fact that Lia was able to cast a significant number of spells simultaneously, made the rings easily the most attractive option.

Amelia was already gathering the bait, and Rose was getting the conversions of Meg and Neph underway. They weren’t anything fancy at the moment, just generic “strong monsters” so the two could work on raising their level while they waited on the nightmare and phoenix. It wasn’t certain that the monsters would even take the bait, nor did they know how long the operation would take, so it seemed the safest bet.

As it turned out, that was a wise decision. The rest of the day ended without any sign of movement from the monsters, so that gave Meg and Neph time to both integrate with the swarm and to grow in power. And they integrated well; neither of them put up any real resistance to the mental changes that came with conversion, and were entirely on board with the plan to help bring Yamamoto into the fold.

It ended up taking a whole three days for the nightmare and phoenix to show any movement, and Lia was beginning to give up hope when Ophelia finally came back and gave them the news that they had begun to feast on the bait.

Immediately, everyone prepared themselves for battle, and Amelia teleported them to the spot they had decided on as their landing point. The area was darker than the darkest night, but each of them had a way to see through the darkness, so it was little more than a minor annoyance as they got into position for their ambush.

Currently, the nightmare was slowly walking through the field of motionless drones, the drones it passed falling limp as it consumed their minds. As it moved, the phoenix picked over the ones it had killed, eating only bits and pieces of the bodies, presumably only eating the parts it found tastiest.

Lia prepared her opening salvo, a pair of spells that would conjure globs of modeling wax over their prey, and let loose. She wasn’t expecting much from it, and she wasn’t disappointed; both of the monsters took off the moment the magic was cast, their speed allowing them to avoid the majority of the modeling wax.

Instantly, they began to look for their prey, and soon found Lia, already preparing a series of different spells that would lock them in place or injure them, making sure to use each of the rings in order to maximize the power she would gain after the spells were cast.

The phoenix screeched, and a lance of fire speared out towards Lia, only to be stopped in midair as Amelia let off a spell. I’m not unbound! She said, a note of panic in her tone. It looks like we’re doing this the hard way!

A pain assaulted Lia’s mind as the nightmare turned its attention to her, and her spells faltered for a moment under the weight of its assault. Fortunately, she only lost control of one of the spells; the rest had been offloaded to her other processing centers, and were able to complete without much issue.

Water from the air condensed around the phoenix, forming a bubble around it that was already beginning to evaporate from its intense body heat. The ground around it followed a moment later, reaching up to grab the sphere of water, but the phoenix made the snap decision to fly out of the sphere of water, temporarily dousing its flames but avoiding further entrapment.

The nightmare, on the other hand, had to dodge a lance of fire and several small globs of modeling wax while strong gusts of wind bit into it and pushed it from side to side. This was made even worse by the plants around it growing rapidly, turning the area around it into a mess of overgrowth that made footing particularly unstable. After a moment, jets of flame appeared around its hooves, and it began to run up into the air, hovering barely above the overgrown floor as it barred down on Lia.

While Lia prepared another, even stronger round of spells, her companions sprung into action. Amelia began to harass the phoenix, peppering it with all sorts of different spells and making its life difficult as it looked for an opening to attack Lia.

Rose and Ophelia took on the nightmare, Rose propelling herself forward with a flower so she could land a blow with a large sword, scoring a gash down the side of the nightmare. Ophelia waited for a moment, carefully observing the nightmare’s movements, then jumped, the two of her bodies that were there soaring through the air and piercing two of the nightmare’s legs with spears.

Lia was just about to activate her spells again when she caught sight of a lance of fire appearing out of thin air, aiming straight for her side. She was already jumping to the side when suddenly Amelia was there, teleporting between the lance and Lia and taking the blow herself.

The force of the blow sent Amelia flying backwards, nearly impacting Lia, but Amelia didn’t seem bothered. The moment she touched back on the ground, she began to cackle madly, glaring at the phoenix. “You’ve done it now, you overgrown chicken!” She yelled triumphantly. “I’m unequivocally protecting her now, and that means I can finally go all out!”

A dizzyingly large array of magic circles appeared in the air behind Amelia, and high level magic began to rapid-fire cast itself, forcing the phoenix to abandon any semblance of offense and devote itself entirely to avoiding Amelia’s wrath.

With the phoenix’s fate sealed, Lia let loose all of her spells yet again, all focused entirely on the nightmare. The salvo left her almost completely drained, but the effect was striking; the power that was in the rings allowed her to increase the strength of her spells by an order of magnitude, and it showed.

The air around the nightmare turned solid, freezing it in a sphere of suspended space. She surrounded this space with a sphere of modeling wax and surrounded that with a layer of earth to keep it in place. She continued adding layers to this bubble of magic, stopping only when she heard a cracking sound that indicated that the nightmare had broken out of the solid air surrounding it.

She used the last bit of her magic to make one last layer, a thick one containing all the modeling wax from her dimensional storage, then waited as rumbling from inside the sphere indicated the nightmare was breaking through layer after layer of her magic. And, just when it seemed like it was going to come out, she let the final spell she had cast trigger, dispelling most of her other magic and creating a strong suction, causing the last layer of modeling wax to fly inwards towards the nightmare.

There was a wild thrashing within the modeling wax, but there was simply too much, and the thrashing slowed before stopping altogether, a cocoon and all the excess modeling wax dropping to the ground as the nightmare’s struggle ceased.

“Oh, you got it.” Amelia said, a cocoon under one arm. “Good work.”

“Mistress!” Ophelia said excitedly. “Over half of my binding was removed!”

“What?!” Lia exclaimed. “Do you know why?”

“The message said that, because we defeated one of the monsters without Amelia’s help, we’ve proven ourselves worthy!” Ophelia said proudly. “We probably didn’t get the full binding removal because of your Pride buff, but…I suppose life is never that easy.”

“Ah, some of my binding has been removed as well.” Amelia said. “About an eighth of it. Not bad.”

“I’m fresh out of Mana, can you put the nightmare into your storage?” Lia asked.

“I’m just going to teleport it back with us.” Amelia said. “I’m tired, and we’re just gonna take it out again anyway. Teleporting us back now…”

Lia felt the familiar wrenching sensation of a teleport, and then they were back in the dungeon, just outside of the dorm rooms. “Alright, I’m gonna go nap.” Amelia said, already heading into the building. “Wake me up if you need something.”

“My other body is on the way back with Meg and Neph.” Ophelia volunteered. “And I’ll send one of these bodies to go get Allie so we can cocoon them again.”

“Thank you, Ophelia.” Lia said. “Sometimes I wonder what we would do without you.”

“Probably the same stuff as you do with me.” Ophelia said, shrugging with one body while the other walked away. “I don’t make that much of a difference in the grand scheme of things.”

“Don’t sell yourself short, Ophelia.” Rose said. “You bring a wealth of experience to the table, and are one of the best scouts I’ve ever met. You’ve made this excursion significantly easier than it would have otherwise been.”

Ophelia was silent for a moment. “Thank you, Rose, that means a lot, coming from you.”

“It’s the truth.” Rose said, smiling. “You’re too hard on yourself, Ophelia.”

“I’m not sure about that.” Ophelia said, looking away in embarrassment. “But this body is getting tired, so I’m going to let it sleep. I’ll talk with you all in a couple of minutes, okay?”

She walked away, leaving Lia and Rose alone. Or…not alone, Alisha was still there as rings on Lia’s fingers, but she tended to stay quiet unless she felt she had something significant to add to the discussion. “Alisha, was your binding loosened at all?” Lia asked.

Somewhat. Only my stats have increased, so I figured it was not worth mentioning. I’m still practicing my shapeshifting, which is what I believe I will truly unlock granting multiple equipment effects at once. I will probably be unable to grant more than two or three at once until after I am fully unbound, though.

“Well, it’s better than nothing.” Lia said. “Keep up the good work.”

Thank you, my Queen.

A couple minutes later, another of Ophelia’s bodies arrived, Meg and Neph in tow. Their appearances hadn’t changed at all since they were converted, but that was about to change. “Here they are.” Ophelia said. “Allie’s on the way, she’ll be here in a couple minutes.”

“Thanks again, Ophelia.” Lia said. “Meg, Neph, I appreciate your willingness to go through with this.” Lia said. “I know it’s not easy to fight someone you considered a comrade.”

Meg nodded, putting on a brave face. “I’ll do my best.” She said. “He was so strongly against this, but he doesn’t know. I mean…none of us knew, if we had seen what life was like here…”

“It wouldn’t have changed a thing.” Neph said. “We were blinded by our preconceived notions, just as Yamamoto is now. We were so afraid of change or becoming even slightly different that we wouldn’t be able to accurately gauge whether or not this was better for our people as a whole.”

“Is it bad that I still miss home?” Meg asked. “I know we’re still working on getting settled here, but I miss the view from my room, and knowing I won’t be able to see Mom or Dad for a while is…sad.”

“Of course it’s not bad.” Lia said. “That’s perfectly natural. I missed home quite a bit before I brought my family here, but…you’re in a slightly different situation, we can’t exactly bring your father here.”

Seeing Meg’s crestfallen look, Lia continued. “However, I am going to try and open negotiations with him after we convert Yamamoto. At the very least, I will do my utmost to get you sent back to your home, even if you can’t convert anyone or even relay information. It’s not fair that we plucked you out of your life because we needed Yamamoto. Neph, I likewise will attempt to have your family brought over, or for you to be allowed passage back to the Glens.”

“But you’re using two of these monsters on us.” Neph protested. “That’s a significant decrease in your war potential at a critical moment!”

“I don’t care.” Lia said. “I would rather do right by my people when possible, and while your absence will be felt, it’s not like we’re losing out on anything compared to how we are now, and Yamamoto’s conversion will provide a substantial boon to us anyway.

“But…I would like to ask one more time before we commit to anything; are you sure you are okay with being reconverted with these monsters? While your personalities are not as diametrically opposed to the monsters as Ophelia’s was to the cerberus, it is likely that they will have some influence in how you act.”

“I’m sure.” Neph said confidently. “I’ve spoken with Ophelia at length, and I feel that this is something I can handle. If I end up with one or two more sadistic tendencies, that’s fine; the increase to my strength is more than worth such a minor thing.”

“I’m…not as sure.” Meg admitted. “What would merging with a phoenix do to me, again?”

“It would likely crank up your compassion and desire to care for others.” Rose said. “And perhaps decrease your fear of injury or death, I’m not sure.”

“That doesn’t sound too bad, then.” Meg said. “I…will be able to revive like a real phoenix, right?”

“Probably?” Lia said. “We’re not one hundred percent sure, but I don’t see any reason why that wouldn’t be the case.”

“Then do it.” Meg said. “I’m tired of being powerless.”

“Well said.” Rose replied. “And, when I’m free, I’d be happy to give either of you lessons, if you want.”

“Absolutely!” Neph said immediately. “It would be my honor!”

“That sounds like a good idea.” Meg said. “Are you sure you’ll be able to teach us stuff effectively, though? I mean…I doubt you’ve have used the abilities we’ll have before.”

“While I may not be able to truly bring out the full potential of those abilities, the basics are applicable to almost everyone, and at the very least I can teach you some things about your new physiology.” Rose said. “We work in an entirely different way than anything this world has seen before, and knowing how to make the most of that is important.”

“And here’s Allie.” The last of Ophelia’s bodies said, walking up to them. “I’m going to go help out with the kids now, let me know if you need anything.”

“Will do, thank you, Ophelia.” Lia said, then turned back to Meg and Neph. “Anything else you’d like to say before we begin?”

“No.” Meg said. “Let’s just do this before I get too worried.”

“I am ready.” Neph replied. “Let us begin.”