As he wakes up, a groan spills forth from Marcus’ lips and they curl up into a satisfied smile. There’s nothing quite like coming back to consciousness with a warm, wet mouth wrapped around his cock. Looking down, Marcus grins at the lump under the blanket currently bobbing up and down without fail.
Glancing to his left shows Erised still curled into his side. The Demon Assassin was currently not disguised due to her state of unconsciousness, but even with her demonic visage on full display, she was still absolutely adorable in her sleep. Nuzzling into his green shoulder, she’s hugging his arm and half-purring, half-mumbling to herself.
Of course, if Erised was there, then there was only one other person who could be under the blanket. Reaching down, Marcus pulls it back to reveal the Holy Priestess Angelina dutifully sucking on his morning wood. Her eyes flick up to meet his and she pauses for just a moment before going right back to slurping at his cock. She’s certainly an eager one, but then Marcus had spent the last several weeks with her. He knew exactly what sort of thirsty bitch his party’s healer was.
Truth be told, he’d probably woken up to Angelina fellating him more than Erised at this point. Something he was sure would incense the demon if he ever brought it up, which was why he was keeping quiet about it. They were already quick to compete for his attention and favor as it was. He didn’t need to give them even more reasons to fight over him.
Though, Marcus had to admit… they’d both been surprisingly respectful of one another since setting out on this journey with him. Both were quite convinced of their own take on who and what he was, but they kept their fighting to a minimum. Marcus assumed this was because he would put his foot down any time it got too serious… but he also liked to think they’d come to at least a partial understanding. They were both here for him, after all. The rest… that stuff could be figured out in time.
Marcus still didn’t know what to expect when he finally got to meet with this Dark General that Erised kept going on and on about though. Would Roka-Ra be willing to hear him out? Would she identify him as the Dark Lord or the Destined Hero? If she identified him as the Dark Lord, what was Marcus supposed to do next? For instance, what would Angelina do if Marcus decided to be the Dark Lord?
On the one hand, he didn’t want to disappoint Serafina OR Angelina if he was being honest. They’d been good to him, even if other elements of the Church had been less than stellar. On top of that, fighting those bandits and saving all those future victims from their attacks had felt really good. Like he really was a Hero. On the other hand, there was still the problem of the Church’s enslavement of ‘Evil’ Jobs, along with the discovery that a member of the Holy Empire’s Nobility had been behind the whole bandit problem in the first place.
Did he truly want to be the Destined Hero for those sorts of people? It wasn’t like he could choose to be the Hero to some and not to others… right? Then again… what would being the Dark Lord even entail? He didn’t necessarily want to hurt innocents. Would Marcus be no better than Lord Robert and his attack dog Bernard if he accepted Erised’s path for him?
“Gluuughk!”
… Okay, in all honesty he really needed to stop having such deep thoughts while having sex. A noise from below draws him out of his introspection, and he looks down to see Angelina practically choking herself on his cock, desperate to make him cum. If he didn’t know any better, he’d say the Holy Priestess was addicted to his seed. But he did know better, of course. Angelina had always been a horny, hungry, orc-loving slut, long before she ever even met him. He was just the object of her deepest, darkest fetish made manifest.
Reaching down, he smiles at the Holy Priestess and runs a hand through her blonde hair, focusing the entirety of his attention on Angelina and her efforts. It doesn’t take long from there, but then to be fair he was already pretty close to begin with. With a groan, he spills his seed down Angelina’s throat, and she eagerly swallows his load, guzzling down his jizz like there’s no tomorrow. She gulps and gulps and gulps, and to her credit only a small trickle manages to escape the corner of her mouth.
When they’re finally done, she pulls back and makes a show of swallowing the last part of his load, before using her thumb to scoop the small trickle right up into her mouth as well. Marcus just grins at her for a moment before slowly extracting himself from Erised’s grip and replacing his arm with the pillow he was laying against.
As Angelina kneels there on the bed looking hopeful, Marcus considers giving her what she wants for a moment… only for his stomach to gurgle. He shakes his head in amusement and goes looking for pants.
“Maybe in a little bit, Angelina… I’m going to go see if I can scrounge us up some breakfast from downstairs first.”
His voice is quiet enough not to wake Erised, and Angelina, as disappointed as she is, nevertheless nods in understanding. For a second he thinks the Holy Priestess might join him, but instead she flops onto her back and runs a hand down her front, as though following the travel of his load through her body. Her other hand goes to her sex, as she quietly begins to play with herself.
… Yeah, he’d definitely be enjoying that body later. For now though, he really is hungry. With pants and a shirt secured, Marcus pads downstairs on bare feet.
They’ve been in this Border Town for a few days now, preparing for the journey into the part of the Holy Empire known as the wildlands. Erised had been a little impatient at first, but after a good hard dicking in a proper inn bed she’d become far more compliant and all too willing to spend a little bit of time getting ready. Especially when the alternative was a return to roughing it and sleeping under the stars. Besides, it made no sense to Marcus to go rushing out into the wildlands looking for orcs after how they originally got lost in the forest looking for bandits.
Sure, it had ultimately worked out… but that hadn’t even been the wildlands. That had at least been the Holy Empire’s settled territory. Now they would be going into territory that the Holy Empire TECHNICALLY laid claim to, but that they didn’t actually have any presence in. The wildlands were within the Empire’s borders if you were a foreign nation looking to expand, but if you were a citizen of the Empire, you knew not to go there. That way lay the remnants of the orcs along with a dozen other nasty beasties.
Though that didn’t stop humans from ever-expanding all the same. Border Towns like the one that Marcus and his party were staying in now showed up all the time, and if they lasted long enough they stopped being Border Towns and became just regular towns, because someone else would inevitably break off and make a new Border Town even further out.
This was the furthest human settlement at the moment though, so Marcus was hoping to hear some news of orcs before they left and journeyed into the wildlands. All he wanted was a hint of direction before they started the next leg of their perilous journey, really.
Making his way downstairs, Marcus reaches the tavern’s main room in no time at all. Seeing a familiar face behind the bar, he smiles and walks over.
“Good morning, Beth.”
The barmaid behind the bar startles for a moment at his voice, having apparently gotten lost in thought. Brunette with a mousy look to her face but a bust to die for, Beth looks over at him and offers a smile of her own, even as her face colors slightly.
“Mornin’ Sir Hero. I trust ye slept well?”
Nodding, Marcus reaches the bar and takes a seat.
“I did. We did, even. Was hoping to scrounge up some grub to take back up to the girls, if breakfast is ready yet.”
Beth’s first reaction is to blush at the mention of Marcus’ party. He, Angelina, and Erised hadn’t been all that quiet, admittedly. But then she furrows her brow and glances behind herself to the tavern’s small kitchen… and the backyard beyond where their firepit sits and a lot of their food is cooked.
“Aye, Da should be done with breakfast by now. Let me go and check on him.”
Marcus smiles at that.
“Only if it’s not too much trouble, Beth. I’d really appreciate it.”
The mousy brunette’s blush grows even brighter and she gives him a cheery grin as she sets down her cloth.
“No trouble at all, Sir Hero.”
She turns and walks into the back and Marcus tries not to stare too much at her ass as she does so. He’d been prepared for a rough welcome when they got here, as some of the welcomes in some of the towns they’d stopped in so far had been… less than stellar. However, this town was different. Not only had news and description of the Destined Hero finally spread to all corners of the Holy Empire including this far flung place, but also apparently the Border Town had actually traded with an orc or two in the past.
Though that was supposedly very rare… in fact, no orcs had been seen in weeks. But it DID happen. That was another reason Marcus was willing to stick around and wait to see if an orc might show up. It definitely wasn’t because he wanted to fuck Beth, no matter what his party members thought. Honestly, he’d been afraid they would be mad when they realized he was ogling the barmaid, but instead they’d been nothing but encouraging. Too encouraging.
Marcus didn’t want to abuse his-
A roar suddenly splits the air, and Marcus whips around, blue eyes widening as shouting follows it. Along with the shouting comes the sound of fighting… no, not fighting. A slaughter. Finally, a clear few words manages to reach Marcus at his seat at the bar.
“ORCS! ORC ATTACK!”
Immediately, Marcus is on his feet. His eyes turn to the stairs, up which lie his party’s room. Angelina and Erised will still be in bed. That’s where his armor and weapon are currently located as well. He probably didn’t have the time to get his armor on, but at the very least he would need his halberd if he was going to be any hope in a-
A woman’s scream cuts through his thoughts like a thoroughly sharpened blade and Marcus whips around for the second time in so many minutes, focusing on the door he just saw Beth walk through. The scream had come from outside, from past the kitchen and close to the firepit.
He doesn’t even hesitate. In an instant, Marcus vaults the bar, sprints through the kitchen and makes his way out the back. The sight he sees fills him with a white-hot rage. Beth’s father, the tavernkeeper Kurk, lays sprawled on the ground with his head bashed in. The man is dead and has been for at least several minutes from the look of things.
Meanwhile, a group of three hulking, green-skinned orcs surround Kurk’s firepit, casually eating the breakfast that the tavernkeeper had been making all morning long. They haven’t touched Beth yet thankfully, though not because they don’t want to… they just haven’t had the chance. As soon as she stepped out and saw the state of her father, Beth had fallen back on her ass and let out that horrified scream.
Marcus, on the other hand, arrives just in time to see the orcs picking up their weapons. Their black beady eyes are trained on Beth initially, but they immediately home in on Marcus himself as he comes out the swinging back door at full tilt.
That’s just fine by him. Unarmored and weaponless, the young half-orc doesn’t hesitate. Erised wasn’t there to back him up. Angelina wasn’t there to support or heal him. This might very well be where and how he died and he recognized that. Only seven short weeks into his tenure as… whatever the fuck he was. But whatever Job Marcus had, it didn’t matter. He wasn’t going to let these monsters hurt Beth.
With a roar of his own, Marcus activates his Dark Power ability and leaps across the yard, clearing the firepit itself with ease. Knowing he doesn’t have his equipment and that he needs to act quick, he doesn’t hesitate for even a moment. His fist barrels towards the first orc’s face, though he’s half-expecting the monster to dodge or block the attack.
C-CRACK!
Not even he’s anticipating the way the orc’s head rockets back, his neck snapped in an instant and his entire body flung away as Marcus lands where he was just standing. For a brief moment, Marcus and the other two orcs are all in the same stunned state. Then, they all recover around the same time and Marcus is the one dodging as the two swing their axes at him.
He’s gotten too reliant on his armor. He hasn’t even tried to dodge more than a handful of blows in the past seven weeks since he’s become the Destined Hero. He hasn’t needed to. After the first couple of fights and how he’d realized he could shrug off all attacks while wearing that wonderfully crafted armor, Marcus had just… let people hit him. It made it all the easier for him to hit them in turn, after all.
A grunt of pain escapes Marcus’ lips as one of the orcs clips him. But he doesn’t let it stop him. Dark Power flowing through him, Marcus spins around, grabs the haft of the orc’s axe, and yanks it forward, bringing the orc with him. Then he headbutts the damn monster, feeling the other’s skull cave before his own. Funny that, orc skulls should have been tougher than his given he was half-human.
As the second orc falls dead, Marcus is the one left holding his axe, which he swings around without freezing up this time. The blade catches the third orc across the chin and tears off the green skinned creature’s entire jaw, whipping him to the side as well. The corpse spins through the air for a moment before hitting the ground like the sack of meat and bones its abruptly become.
For a brief moment, Marcus just stands there, breathing heavily. He’s seeping blood from the wound on his arm, but still feels absolutely incredible. That’s the Dark Power working its magic though of course. His ability made him so, so much stronger than your average man. But he hadn’t realized how much of his prowess was due to that ability rather than his armor and weapon until now. The armor made him untouchable; the weapon gave him reach like no other… but the ability was what made him truly powerful.
“D-Da? Da… Da, please!”
Beth’s cries pull Marcus away, and he grimaces as the brunette barmaid goes to her father’s fallen body, sobbing. He needs to get her inside. He needs to get his halberd. He needs-
More screams along with sounds of heavier fighting reach Marcus’ ears as the orc attack taking place outside of the yard they’re currently in ratchets up a notch. Even Beth is pulled away from her mourning, looking up and around with wide, teary eyes. Finally, her gaze lands on him. He almost expects to see hatred there given his own green skin. Certainly, at this moment Marcus is feeling a bit of self-loathing over his half-orc nature. But Beth doesn’t look disgusted as he’s anticipating. She looks hopeful, even through the tears.
“P-Please Sir Hero… please help us…”
Marcus’ jaw clenches and in that moment he knows he doesn’t have time. Not for his armor. Not for his halberd. Not even to get Erised and Angelina. Giving Beth a single nod, he takes a bounding leap over the nearby wall and lands on the town’s main street, appropriated axe still held in one hand.
As he lands, Marcus looks to his left and to his right. He looks backwards and forwards. What he sees turns his stomach. Everywhere he looks there are more orcs rampaging, attacking the villagers. Sure, the Border Town isn’t completely helpless. They live next to the wildlands, after all. Every able-bodied man knows how to fight. Still, they’re very much outnumbered and caught by surprise. Not to mention the difference between a man and an orc cannot be understated. It’s just barely not a one-sided slaughter, and if Marcus does nothing, it soon will be.
Recognizing this, seeing what he’s seeing, Marcus feels himself growing more and more incensed. Finally, he lets out a loud snarl.
“ENOUGH!”
In that moment, much to Marcus’ shock… he unlocks a new ability of all things. One that he instinctively knows will help him. Without even thinking about it, he activates Dark Presence, watching as every eye in the town lands on him. The villagers look terrified, while the orcs… the orcs look awed. This changes when Marcus hoists the axe in his hand and snarls again.
“YOUR ADVERSARY… IS ME!”
In an instant, their reactions flip. Hope blossoms on the face of the villagers as they realize who he is. Similarly, the orcs all go from being awed by his Dark Presence to being agitated and enraged by it. First one howls and begins to charge him, and then all of the others move in as well. Marcus has provoked the entire raiding party to stop sacking the town in favor of attacking him with everything they’ve got.
Suicidal? Maybe, but Marcus feels his Dark Power pulsing through him. He’s confident. Maybe not in his survival… but in his ability to take care of enough of them that Erised and Angelina can clean up the rest when they finally get involved. Even if this is to be his last stand, Marcus plans to make it a battle for the ages.
Though… maybe he should have had more faith. Because even as Marcus lets out a roar and swings at the first orc that reaches him, he feels it. A boost layered on top of his Dark Power Ability. And a healing of his bleeding arm. In that first exchange, his axe moves with such speed that the first orc to reach him doesn’t even get to finish his own swing. The creature’s head is cleaved in an instant and he falls to the ground dead.
With Angelina supporting him from somewhere nearby, hopefully well hidden, Marcus can’t help the savage grin that spreads across his face. In the end, the attack on the town does turn into a one-sided slaughter… for the orcs, that is.
Before Marcus even fully registers it, most of the green skinned monsters have been slain. All it takes is a few dozen lightning fast movements as he swings and swings the axe he took back at the firepit. He’s a little surprised that they don’t try to break and run like the bandits tended to do, however. All of them come at him, all of them charge him for their own shot at glory by taking him down. He has marked them as his enemies, and they certainly act as such, trying their damnedest to kill him dead.
But with Angelina healing him from afar and the axe in his hands, Marcus cannot be defeated. Eventually, there’s just one opponent left, just one orc who drops to his knees. Their leader, perhaps. He’s taken damn near half a dozen blows from Marcus’ axe, but still lives.
As Marcus looms over him, he hefts his axe and purely on a whim, nods to the orc with a sneer.
“Any last words?”
Black beady eyes stare up at him with a frightening amount of intelligence. Frightening because… if these creatures are so smart, why are they also so bloodthirsty? That feeling is only compounded by the words that spill forth from the monster’s mouth.
“The Dark General will have your head, Hero. She sends us as her fuckin’ heralds. Humans are gonna pay and when she gets her hands on you, she’ll pop your skull like a fuckin’ melon! Then, we’ll find the Dark Lord and-!”
Marcus swings the axe, unsettled by the orc’s increasingly frothing, raging message. He separates the creature’s head from its shoulders and then presses his lips together in a tight line as silence falls around him. Carefully, he begins reining in his Dark Power ability now that the battle is over and done with. At the same time, he tries to shut off Dark Presence… only to find he can’t. It’s always active.
“… Hero… Hero…!”
Blinking, Marcus looks up from his ability quandary to see the surviving townsfolk all watching him with wide, awed eyes.
“Hero! Hero!”
“Did you see how he took down those orcs?!”
“Did you see him command them to face him with his Heroic Spirit?!”
“He truly is the Destined Hero! He saved us!”
“Thank you, Hero! Thank you!”
Marcus blinks for a moment before grimaces, feeling a little uncomfortable at the praise. Though it’s good to know his Dark Presence isn’t terrifying them all immediately. Apparently he decides who the ability effects, even if it’s unfortunately always on. His friends and his foes are at his discretion at the very least. Letting out a shuddering breath, Marcus looks around at the devastation the small Border Town has suffered.
The Dark General was encouraging her orcs to attack human settlements, was she? Going to pop his head like a melon, was she? Well… they’d fucking see about that.
-x-X-x-
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As he wakes up, a groan spills forth from Marcus’ lips and they curl up into a satisfied smile. There’s nothing quite like coming back to consciousness with a warm, wet mouth wrapped around his cock. Looking down, Marcus grins at the lump under the blanket currently bobbing up and down without fail.
Glancing to his left shows Erised still curled into his side. The Demon Assassin was currently not disguised due to her state of unconsciousness, but even with her demonic visage on full display, she was still absolutely adorable in her sleep. Nuzzling into his green shoulder, she’s hugging his arm and half-purring, half-mumbling to herself.
Of course, if Erised was there, then there was only one other person who could be under the blanket. Reaching down, Marcus pulls it back to reveal the Holy Priestess Angelina dutifully sucking on his morning wood. Her eyes flick up to meet his and she pauses for just a moment before going right back to slurping at his cock. She’s certainly an eager one, but then Marcus had spent the last several weeks with her. He knew exactly what sort of thirsty bitch his party’s healer was.
Truth be told, he’d probably woken up to Angelina fellating him more than Erised at this point. Something he was sure would incense the demon if he ever brought it up, which was why he was keeping quiet about it. They were already quick to compete for his attention and favor as it was. He didn’t need to give them even more reasons to fight over him.
Though, Marcus had to admit… they’d both been surprisingly respectful of one another since setting out on this journey with him. Both were quite convinced of their own take on who and what he was, but they kept their fighting to a minimum. Marcus assumed this was because he would put his foot down any time it got too serious… but he also liked to think they’d come to at least a partial understanding. They were both here for him, after all. The rest… that stuff could be figured out in time.
Marcus still didn’t know what to expect when he finally got to meet with this Dark General that Erised kept going on and on about though. Would Roka-Ra be willing to hear him out? Would she identify him as the Dark Lord or the Destined Hero? If she identified him as the Dark Lord, what was Marcus supposed to do next? For instance, what would Angelina do if Marcus decided to be the Dark Lord?
On the one hand, he didn’t want to disappoint Serafina OR Angelina if he was being honest. They’d been good to him, even if other elements of the Church had been less than stellar. On top of that, fighting those bandits and saving all those future victims from their attacks had felt really good. Like he really was a Hero. On the other hand, there was still the problem of the Church’s enslavement of ‘Evil’ Jobs, along with the discovery that a member of the Holy Empire’s Nobility had been behind the whole bandit problem in the first place.
Did he truly want to be the Destined Hero for those sorts of people? It wasn’t like he could choose to be the Hero to some and not to others… right? Then again… what would being the Dark Lord even entail? He didn’t necessarily want to hurt innocents. Would Marcus be no better than Lord Robert and his attack dog Bernard if he accepted Erised’s path for him?
“Gluuughk!”
… Okay, in all honesty he really needed to stop having such deep thoughts while having sex. A noise from below draws him out of his introspection, and he looks down to see Angelina practically choking herself on his cock, desperate to make him cum. If he didn’t know any better, he’d say the Holy Priestess was addicted to his seed. But he did know better, of course. Angelina had always been a horny, hungry, orc-loving slut, long before she ever even met him. He was just the object of her deepest, darkest fetish made manifest.
Reaching down, he smiles at the Holy Priestess and runs a hand through her blonde hair, focusing the entirety of his attention on Angelina and her efforts. It doesn’t take long from there, but then to be fair he was already pretty close to begin with. With a groan, he spills his seed down Angelina’s throat, and she eagerly swallows his load, guzzling down his jizz like there’s no tomorrow. She gulps and gulps and gulps, and to her credit only a small trickle manages to escape the corner of her mouth.
When they’re finally done, she pulls back and makes a show of swallowing the last part of his load, before using her thumb to scoop the small trickle right up into her mouth as well. Marcus just grins at her for a moment before slowly extracting himself from Erised’s grip and replacing his arm with the pillow he was laying against.
As Angelina kneels there on the bed looking hopeful, Marcus considers giving her what she wants for a moment… only for his stomach to gurgle. He shakes his head in amusement and goes looking for pants.
“Maybe in a little bit, Angelina… I’m going to go see if I can scrounge us up some breakfast from downstairs first.”
His voice is quiet enough not to wake Erised, and Angelina, as disappointed as she is, nevertheless nods in understanding. For a second he thinks the Holy Priestess might join him, but instead she flops onto her back and runs a hand down her front, as though following the travel of his load through her body. Her other hand goes to her sex, as she quietly begins to play with herself.
… Yeah, he’d definitely be enjoying that body later. For now though, he really is hungry. With pants and a shirt secured, Marcus pads downstairs on bare feet.
They’ve been in this Border Town for a few days now, preparing for the journey into the part of the Holy Empire known as the wildlands. Erised had been a little impatient at first, but after a good hard dicking in a proper inn bed she’d become far more compliant and all too willing to spend a little bit of time getting ready. Especially when the alternative was a return to roughing it and sleeping under the stars. Besides, it made no sense to Marcus to go rushing out into the wildlands looking for orcs after how they originally got lost in the forest looking for bandits.
Sure, it had ultimately worked out… but that hadn’t even been the wildlands. That had at least been the Holy Empire’s settled territory. Now they would be going into territory that the Holy Empire TECHNICALLY laid claim to, but that they didn’t actually have any presence in. The wildlands were within the Empire’s borders if you were a foreign nation looking to expand, but if you were a citizen of the Empire, you knew not to go there. That way lay the remnants of the orcs along with a dozen other nasty beasties.
Though that didn’t stop humans from ever-expanding all the same. Border Towns like the one that Marcus and his party were staying in now showed up all the time, and if they lasted long enough they stopped being Border Towns and became just regular towns, because someone else would inevitably break off and make a new Border Town even further out.
This was the furthest human settlement at the moment though, so Marcus was hoping to hear some news of orcs before they left and journeyed into the wildlands. All he wanted was a hint of direction before they started the next leg of their perilous journey, really.
Making his way downstairs, Marcus reaches the tavern’s main room in no time at all. Seeing a familiar face behind the bar, he smiles and walks over.
“Good morning, Beth.”
The barmaid behind the bar startles for a moment at his voice, having apparently gotten lost in thought. Brunette with a mousy look to her face but a bust to die for, Beth looks over at him and offers a smile of her own, even as her face colors slightly.
“Mornin’ Sir Hero. I trust ye slept well?”
Nodding, Marcus reaches the bar and takes a seat.
“I did. We did, even. Was hoping to scrounge up some grub to take back up to the girls, if breakfast is ready yet.”
Beth’s first reaction is to blush at the mention of Marcus’ party. He, Angelina, and Erised hadn’t been all that quiet, admittedly. But then she furrows her brow and glances behind herself to the tavern’s small kitchen… and the backyard beyond where their firepit sits and a lot of their food is cooked.
“Aye, Da should be done with breakfast by now. Let me go and check on him.”
Marcus smiles at that.
“Only if it’s not too much trouble, Beth. I’d really appreciate it.”
The mousy brunette’s blush grows even brighter and she gives him a cheery grin as she sets down her cloth.
“No trouble at all, Sir Hero.”
She turns and walks into the back and Marcus tries not to stare too much at her ass as she does so. He’d been prepared for a rough welcome when they got here, as some of the welcomes in some of the towns they’d stopped in so far had been… less than stellar. However, this town was different. Not only had news and description of the Destined Hero finally spread to all corners of the Holy Empire including this far flung place, but also apparently the Border Town had actually traded with an orc or two in the past.
Though that was supposedly very rare… in fact, no orcs had been seen in weeks. But it DID happen. That was another reason Marcus was willing to stick around and wait to see if an orc might show up. It definitely wasn’t because he wanted to fuck Beth, no matter what his party members thought. Honestly, he’d been afraid they would be mad when they realized he was ogling the barmaid, but instead they’d been nothing but encouraging. Too encouraging.
Marcus didn’t want to abuse his-
A roar suddenly splits the air, and Marcus whips around, blue eyes widening as shouting follows it. Along with the shouting comes the sound of fighting… no, not fighting. A slaughter. Finally, a clear few words manages to reach Marcus at his seat at the bar.
“ORCS! ORC ATTACK!”
Immediately, Marcus is on his feet. His eyes turn to the stairs, up which lie his party’s room. Angelina and Erised will still be in bed. That’s where his armor and weapon are currently located as well. He probably didn’t have the time to get his armor on, but at the very least he would need his halberd if he was going to be any hope in a-
A woman’s scream cuts through his thoughts like a thoroughly sharpened blade and Marcus whips around for the second time in so many minutes, focusing on the door he just saw Beth walk through. The scream had come from outside, from past the kitchen and close to the firepit.
He doesn’t even hesitate. In an instant, Marcus vaults the bar, sprints through the kitchen and makes his way out the back. The sight he sees fills him with a white-hot rage. Beth’s father, the tavernkeeper Kurk, lays sprawled on the ground with his head bashed in. The man is dead and has been for at least several minutes from the look of things.
Meanwhile, a group of three hulking, green-skinned orcs surround Kurk’s firepit, casually eating the breakfast that the tavernkeeper had been making all morning long. They haven’t touched Beth yet thankfully, though not because they don’t want to… they just haven’t had the chance. As soon as she stepped out and saw the state of her father, Beth had fallen back on her ass and let out that horrified scream.
Marcus, on the other hand, arrives just in time to see the orcs picking up their weapons. Their black beady eyes are trained on Beth initially, but they immediately home in on Marcus himself as he comes out the swinging back door at full tilt.
That’s just fine by him. Unarmored and weaponless, the young half-orc doesn’t hesitate. Erised wasn’t there to back him up. Angelina wasn’t there to support or heal him. This might very well be where and how he died and he recognized that. Only seven short weeks into his tenure as… whatever the fuck he was. But whatever Job Marcus had, it didn’t matter. He wasn’t going to let these monsters hurt Beth.
With a roar of his own, Marcus activates his Dark Power ability and leaps across the yard, clearing the firepit itself with ease. Knowing he doesn’t have his equipment and that he needs to act quick, he doesn’t hesitate for even a moment. His fist barrels towards the first orc’s face, though he’s half-expecting the monster to dodge or block the attack.
C-CRACK!
Not even he’s anticipating the way the orc’s head rockets back, his neck snapped in an instant and his entire body flung away as Marcus lands where he was just standing. For a brief moment, Marcus and the other two orcs are all in the same stunned state. Then, they all recover around the same time and Marcus is the one dodging as the two swing their axes at him.
He’s gotten too reliant on his armor. He hasn’t even tried to dodge more than a handful of blows in the past seven weeks since he’s become the Destined Hero. He hasn’t needed to. After the first couple of fights and how he’d realized he could shrug off all attacks while wearing that wonderfully crafted armor, Marcus had just… let people hit him. It made it all the easier for him to hit them in turn, after all.
A grunt of pain escapes Marcus’ lips as one of the orcs clips him. But he doesn’t let it stop him. Dark Power flowing through him, Marcus spins around, grabs the haft of the orc’s axe, and yanks it forward, bringing the orc with him. Then he headbutts the damn monster, feeling the other’s skull cave before his own. Funny that, orc skulls should have been tougher than his given he was half-human.
As the second orc falls dead, Marcus is the one left holding his axe, which he swings around without freezing up this time. The blade catches the third orc across the chin and tears off the green skinned creature’s entire jaw, whipping him to the side as well. The corpse spins through the air for a moment before hitting the ground like the sack of meat and bones its abruptly become.
For a brief moment, Marcus just stands there, breathing heavily. He’s seeping blood from the wound on his arm, but still feels absolutely incredible. That’s the Dark Power working its magic though of course. His ability made him so, so much stronger than your average man. But he hadn’t realized how much of his prowess was due to that ability rather than his armor and weapon until now. The armor made him untouchable; the weapon gave him reach like no other… but the ability was what made him truly powerful.
“D-Da? Da… Da, please!”
Beth’s cries pull Marcus away, and he grimaces as the brunette barmaid goes to her father’s fallen body, sobbing. He needs to get her inside. He needs to get his halberd. He needs-
More screams along with sounds of heavier fighting reach Marcus’ ears as the orc attack taking place outside of the yard they’re currently in ratchets up a notch. Even Beth is pulled away from her mourning, looking up and around with wide, teary eyes. Finally, her gaze lands on him. He almost expects to see hatred there given his own green skin. Certainly, at this moment Marcus is feeling a bit of self-loathing over his half-orc nature. But Beth doesn’t look disgusted as he’s anticipating. She looks hopeful, even through the tears.
“P-Please Sir Hero… please help us…”
Marcus’ jaw clenches and in that moment he knows he doesn’t have time. Not for his armor. Not for his halberd. Not even to get Erised and Angelina. Giving Beth a single nod, he takes a bounding leap over the nearby wall and lands on the town’s main street, appropriated axe still held in one hand.
As he lands, Marcus looks to his left and to his right. He looks backwards and forwards. What he sees turns his stomach. Everywhere he looks there are more orcs rampaging, attacking the villagers. Sure, the Border Town isn’t completely helpless. They live next to the wildlands, after all. Every able-bodied man knows how to fight. Still, they’re very much outnumbered and caught by surprise. Not to mention the difference between a man and an orc cannot be understated. It’s just barely not a one-sided slaughter, and if Marcus does nothing, it soon will be.
Recognizing this, seeing what he’s seeing, Marcus feels himself growing more and more incensed. Finally, he lets out a loud snarl.
“ENOUGH!”
In that moment, much to Marcus’ shock… he unlocks a new ability of all things. One that he instinctively knows will help him. Without even thinking about it, he activates Dark Presence, watching as every eye in the town lands on him. The villagers look terrified, while the orcs… the orcs look awed. This changes when Marcus hoists the axe in his hand and snarls again.
“YOUR ADVERSARY… IS ME!”
In an instant, their reactions flip. Hope blossoms on the face of the villagers as they realize who he is. Similarly, the orcs all go from being awed by his Dark Presence to being agitated and enraged by it. First one howls and begins to charge him, and then all of the others move in as well. Marcus has provoked the entire raiding party to stop sacking the town in favor of attacking him with everything they’ve got.
Suicidal? Maybe, but Marcus feels his Dark Power pulsing through him. He’s confident. Maybe not in his survival… but in his ability to take care of enough of them that Erised and Angelina can clean up the rest when they finally get involved. Even if this is to be his last stand, Marcus plans to make it a battle for the ages.
Though… maybe he should have had more faith. Because even as Marcus lets out a roar and swings at the first orc that reaches him, he feels it. A boost layered on top of his Dark Power Ability. And a healing of his bleeding arm. In that first exchange, his axe moves with such speed that the first orc to reach him doesn’t even get to finish his own swing. The creature’s head is cleaved in an instant and he falls to the ground dead.
With Angelina supporting him from somewhere nearby, hopefully well hidden, Marcus can’t help the savage grin that spreads across his face. In the end, the attack on the town does turn into a one-sided slaughter… for the orcs, that is.
Before Marcus even fully registers it, most of the green skinned monsters have been slain. All it takes is a few dozen lightning fast movements as he swings and swings the axe he took back at the firepit. He’s a little surprised that they don’t try to break and run like the bandits tended to do, however. All of them come at him, all of them charge him for their own shot at glory by taking him down. He has marked them as his enemies, and they certainly act as such, trying their damnedest to kill him dead.
But with Angelina healing him from afar and the axe in his hands, Marcus cannot be defeated. Eventually, there’s just one opponent left, just one orc who drops to his knees. Their leader, perhaps. He’s taken damn near half a dozen blows from Marcus’ axe, but still lives.
As Marcus looms over him, he hefts his axe and purely on a whim, nods to the orc with a sneer.
“Any last words?”
Black beady eyes stare up at him with a frightening amount of intelligence. Frightening because… if these creatures are so smart, why are they also so bloodthirsty? That feeling is only compounded by the words that spill forth from the monster’s mouth.
“The Dark General will have your head, Hero. She sends us as her fuckin’ heralds. Humans are gonna pay and when she gets her hands on you, she’ll pop your skull like a fuckin’ melon! Then, we’ll find the Dark Lord and-!”
Marcus swings the axe, unsettled by the orc’s increasingly frothing, raging message. He separates the creature’s head from its shoulders and then presses his lips together in a tight line as silence falls around him. Carefully, he begins reining in his Dark Power ability now that the battle is over and done with. At the same time, he tries to shut off Dark Presence… only to find he can’t. It’s always active.
“… Hero… Hero…!”
Blinking, Marcus looks up from his ability quandary to see the surviving townsfolk all watching him with wide, awed eyes.
“Hero! Hero!”
“Did you see how he took down those orcs?!”
“Did you see him command them to face him with his Heroic Spirit?!”
“He truly is the Destined Hero! He saved us!”
“Thank you, Hero! Thank you!”
Marcus blinks for a moment before grimaces, feeling a little uncomfortable at the praise. Though it’s good to know his Dark Presence isn’t terrifying them all immediately. Apparently he decides who the ability effects, even if it’s unfortunately always on. His friends and his foes are at his discretion at the very least. Letting out a shuddering breath, Marcus looks around at the devastation the small Border Town has suffered.
The Dark General was encouraging her orcs to attack human settlements, was she? Going to pop his head like a melon, was she? Well… they’d fucking see about that.
-x-X-x-
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