Slay the Hierarchy

Royal Hunting Games Pt. II

Daisy seldom thought of her death. But when she did, it wasn't hard imagining her options. 

The most likely of them being cut down by her own father - the emperor - for she was the sixth out of eight princesses; each one illegitimate. All daughters of gypsies and witches; alluring and exotic women not even a man as powerful as her father could resist.

As a result, the emperor held little affection for the children they bore from him. It was a wonder why he clothed his daughters and allowed them to live in palaces of their own, for he despised their common, half heritage, and wished to associate with them none. For when he did, the man was cold and murderous. Anything but a father figure.

So when Daisy found herself in the face of mortal peril in the woods that day, she found herself frozen in fear, struck dumb by the unexpected. Either by the concept of death itself, or by the monstrous harbinger of it. Probably the latter.

She had come here to find her lost, wandering half sister; the seventh princess. Not to die... and certainly not by the hands of this thing!

Daisy cried in horror and raised her arms over her head on instinct, waiting for the inevitable blow. But a different blow had struck her. One by a human hand as it shoved her back; the impact almost knocking the breath out of the princess as she tumbled to the forest floor. And when she opened her eyes again, it wasn't to the malefic visage of the beast, but to the back of the mysterious and rude knight she had just met.

Yet her eyes quickly darted to his right arm; the steel vambraces bubbling and spitting. He tore off the melting parts quickly; a patch of the gambeson coming away with it; revealing a tan, muscled arm underneath.

Even on the ground, Daisy blanched as the metal corroded into thin air, turning the thick foliage beneath it a sickly black. It didn't take her long to realise that what she saw was acid. Acid.

If it had hit her - if the knight hadn't pushed her out of the way as quickly as he did - she might have been... no, she would have been...

The piercing knell of the beast from above sent trembles through her body. But unlike Daisy, it did little to shake the knight. In fact, he looked unnaturally calm and composed, standing confidently despite the terror upon them as if he recognised it or something.

Unbeknownst to the princess, though, her suspicions were precisely that. The Slayer would have to be back in cryostasis to not recognise the hell spawn before him. 

Though he couldn't say he was familiar with this particular type; a flesh and metal amalgamation that slammed into the trees unceremoniously, screeching and grunting in provocation as its bladed arms and claws spewed woody shrapnel over them.

Perching itself on a tree, the metal maws of the demon charged again with a pallid green light; the Slayer dashing away as it fired, spitting corrosive goop past him and onto the forest floor. Some splattered on Daisy's dress; the pinpricks turning into bullet holes in a matter of seconds as she panicked to tear the fabric free from her, scuttling away from the sizzling puddle that ate through the ground.

The situation couldn't have been more inconvenient for the Slayer. No guns, a demon up in the trees beyond reach, and a civilian on his watch. Great.

His first instinct was to cut down the tree it claimed. But it quickly occurred to the Slayer that the demon had plenty of other options in that event. They were in a forest, for crying out loud!

He clenched the handle of his sword and thought hard, watching as it flitted to another vantage point in preparation for an attack. And that was when it occurred to him...