The Gryphons and other fliers kept the snipers sufficiently distracted. With them having to focus on the fliers, they couldn’t attack those who were banging at the gate. The whole gate was cracking under the pressure of battering rams, a Minotaur, and a Troll. The gate then broke and the army of Orbak’s team and Gryphons then came flooding in! Courtyard after courtyard, they swarmed the fort. “DEFENDERS!” someone called. The Defender Towers opened to reveal large, hulking Trolls.
“AIM FOR THE EYES!” shouted Malak to his team. One of the Defenders then swung his club at Malak. Malak blocked with his own club and the two weapons locked with each other…somehow. Malak then got a good look at his opponent and goggled. The opposing Troll did the same.
“…Malak?!” he asked.
“Mogan?!” replied Malak. “My brother?! What are YOU doing here?! I thought you were imprisoned after the Vorkath Monastic Hospital shut down!”
“Got out for good behavior!” Mogan shoved Malak back. “Thanks to you and your Realmfleet friends, Dad publicly declared me the Talc of the family! My wife divorced me and took my boy! My life was RUINED thanks to you lot!”
“Hey, YOU chose a boss that allowed for inhumane experiments on Chimeras!”
“They weren’t REALLY alive!”
“They were life-forms like you and I! Thanks to the notes on your research, though, Vorkath’s new Crossgene Hospital found quicker, more humane ways to eliminate diseases! You know, ways you were obligated to find!”
“You and I aren’t even human, so we ain’t bound to look for ‘humane’ methods!” Malak growled at that.
“No, we’re not human, but they and us are practically the same when it comes to kindness, so we each need to follow one another’s exam…!”
“Oh, shut UP!” Mogan swung his club, but Malak rolled out of the way. “Always with the moralizing! Always with the ‘love thy neighbor’! I’ve had enough of your mouth, Malak! So, now I’m gonna split your skull open for everyone here to see!”
“You never even had any fighting training! I always said you were an optimist! Know what that is, Brother? It’s about sizing up a situation that’s bloody impossible and saying ‘Yeah, all right! I’ll have a go!’ I’m exactly the same way!” The two brothers then dueled, their clubs trying to score a hit on the other’s body, but each blow was blocked by the other club. At that point, Malak just grabbed Mogan’s club arm, whirled him around so that his back was facing Malak, then bashed him on the head, not hard enough to kill him, just knock him out. Marshii dashed over to see if Malak was alright. “I’m fine, Doctor. It’s my opponent that needs your skills the most.” He then gestured to the unconscious Troll.
“…Is that Mogan?!” asked Marshii.
“Yep, my idiot, amoral brother. Bashed him on the head. Hopefully, I knocked some sense into him.”
“That or gave him a concussion!”
“Come on, it was a light tap on the head!”
“How is an unconscious…?!”
“FOCUS ON THE FIGHT, YOU GIBBERING OAFS!” shouted Hanjar as he brought down another Defender, a Troll/Incubus Blender
“Don’t let up!” called Orbak. “We still have a fight to win!”
“Daddy,” called Malnar, “we got half the Defenders down, but the other two are giving us all kinds of grief! They’re Centaur/Troll Blenders!”
“Oh, Ones!” The two Defenders then charged at them and fired their crossbows. Because their wands were set into them, the weapons fired magic blasts, LARGE magic blasts. They were both women and very angry-looking. “…Razel and Dazel?!” asked Orbak. “You two of all people dare to betray me?!” The two women simply roared and fired. Orbak rolled out of the way.
“Why are their eyes white?” asked Gorfanth. Orbak and Malnar then saw their eyes and their own went wide in realization.
“Domination!” gasped Malnar. “They’re not themselves!”
“Counter-domination should fix it. How good are your domination skills?”
“Never really hoped to use them.”
“Me neither. Here we go!” The two Emboramiis then leapt onto the two women and put their left hands to their targets’ heads. Their eyes then glowed white, and they spoke with commanding voices laced with echoes.
“Your service to the Overlord ends now!” they commanded. Both their eyes and the eyes of the women then flashed before Orbak and Malnar jumped off Razel and Dazel. The two women shook their heads, then turned towards the central tower.
“Bloody Overlord, dominating us like that!” snarled Razel.
“Well, I’ll have words with him!” growled Dazel.
“Get in line, you two. I already called dibs on him,” interjected Orbak.
“So it WAS a counter-domination that freed us,” mused Razel.
“Gotta say, risky business there, choosing the recruit option while someone did to us already,” remarked Dazel.
“Believe it or not, it was the safer option,” replied Malnar.
“Okay, I’m not up on all the tricks of the Emboramiis,” interjected Malak.
“Yes, please enlighten us,” said Hanjar.
“You two, go see if you can break down the Central Tower’s door,” Orbak ordered Razel and Dazel.
“Will do!” obliged Razel.
“Leave it to us,” assured Dazel. “We’ll have that door down quick as!” The two women then high-fived each other.
“The Razzle-dazzle Twins’ Way!” They then charged at the door while Malnar and Orbak explained the nuances of domination.
“The idea behind it,” started Malnar, “is to bend a person’s mind to your will. The really good dominators can make it look like that their target’s always wanted to serve the other. …No one’s been that good for years.”
“Usually, those who at least know how to use the technique,” continued Orbak, “leave a victim with white eyes. No pupils or nothing. When dominating you have three choices. The first is submission, where you get the victim to obey you. The most effective way to end that is to dominate the person again and make them submissive to themselves.”
“The second option is to continue fighting the victim, which results in someone’s death,” Malnar supplied, “and the last…is to shame them. This one comes at personal cost. You’re paralyzed from the knees down forever.”
“…Let us hope we don’t need to shame the Overlord via domination,” mused Hanjar. Just then, there was a splintering sound of wood breaking. Everyone turned to see the Central Tower’s door broken and at Razel and Dazel’s hooves.
“We’re ready!” came Razel’s report.
“And so are we!” declared Orbak. “Inside!” Everyone charged into the Central Tower.