Natalia vs Cheshire(Anon_Y_Mousse version)
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“Whew, thank spaghetti monster, I didn’t furget to bring my wardrobe with me.” Cheshire patted herself on the back as she approached a mansion’s courtyard. Of course, she had to dress for the occasion, so she donned her violet antebellum dress for this fight.

Though, calling the worn-down estate a mansion might be too much of a stretch. The greenery that once dotted the courtyard was far too overgrown, turning it into a local jungle. The windows were already broken down and obscure writings were plastered all over the brick walls. 

Most noticeably, “GLORY TO THE ORDO!” was written in various languages, sometimes even repeatedly, of various handwritings and of various mediums. 

The place sure had a story to tell, as Cheshire noted.

Cheshire stepped onto the porch, pushing aside the single door that half-occupied the entrance to the foyer.

It creaked loudly, surely alerting anyone inside.Cheshire excitedly bounced into the foyer; she expected to get violently teleported into another dimension, have someone jump out of nowhere and try to murder her, or at least spring a trap or detection system of some sorts.


However, much to her chagrin, nothing occurred, not even a cloud of dust. For an abandoned mansion, this was surely strange. 

In front of her was a carpeted set of stairs, well, it was. Now it was just broken down wood and tattered wool. It was best to climb that later. Or, she could enter the area under the stairwell. Likely a dark, cramped place - perfect for an enemy ambush. Surely an area where one must exercise utmost caution in entering.

The ‘highly experienced’ mercenary waltzed inside without a care in the world. 

Paw, nothing of interest.’ Kicking the head of a skeleton out of the way, she frowned at the storage area housing a bunch of torture tools and headed back into the foyer.

She looked to her right:, a closed, full entrance to the dining area. Then to the right was an entrance to a study of sorts, covered in dust. 

The closed door seemed to be an obvious invitation, her enemy was probably in there. So she ignored that.

After all, the venue did include the entire mansion, and since she entered the battlefield, there wouldn’t be a nosy referee to tell her to fight instead of setting the mood!

So, she entered the dusty and not well-maintained study room instead. The bookshelves full of notes by themselves were already a mini library, although they were already knocked down and looted of all their value. 

Windows were shattered, furniture overrun, and walls were painted in dry blood.

“Spaghett! This place is messier than an oversized hairball.” Cheshire regurgitated the hety amount of dust that somehow found its way into her throat.

She then turned to the only remaining book left on a less damaged table. A tattered journal. Paper and leather still sold for a decent price in less fortunate countries, so it was a wonder it wasn’t looted.

“Oh? There’s still a journal here? I wonder what tail this one will tell.” Cheshire was quite well-read back in her prime and she still tried to keep up with the times until the present day. As her philosophy goes: ‘A good pawformer must never run out of hissterical tales to tail’.

A strange, yellow stain was on the rough, leather cover of the book. She had a bad feeling about it.

Cheshire took the moment to unpack the mittens from her Kit Cat. She wore it as a precaution, since it could also work as protective equipment for any curses.

She took out her smoking pipe too, lighting it and having a whiff. It was always a good idea to have a good smoke while reading a book. Especially when the smoke doesn’t obscure your vision at all!

It only worked for Cheshire while reading or playing a game of explosive tic-tac-toe, unfortunately.

She lifted up the hardcover of the book which happened to invite an acrid stench into her nose. It caused her to nearly cough out her insides, it was a good thing she had the smell of the smoke to ward it off.

Somehow, she huffed in a huge amount of substance from the pipe, her belly inflated to twice her size.

She then proceeded to inhale it as dark grey smoke that quickly took up the entirety of the room. It smelled bad, but Cheshire was used to it.

“Purrfect.” As Cheshire flipped to the first ‘page of the journal’, she found that the pages were mostly cockled, worn down by the water. Thanks to that, the ink inside of it was splattered, but quite messy. 

She quickly discovered that she had made a wrong assumption about the journal. That wasn’t water, it was… a crusty substance. The journal was in fact an erotica, so badly written that it seemed like a 13-year old tried to write it. 

In fact, with how badly written it was, Cheshire could not even read past the first page before a terrible miasma spewed out of the book. It unleashed a powerful curse that could melt anyone, bones included!

However, it was nice of the curse to spontaneously activate without anyone reading it.

–-

Cheshire hissed and cursed under her breath. She planned to roam around the entire mansion to check it out, but now she was too worried about whatever other horrors lurked within the rooms.

She was forced to use “Gone Mad”, once and all she stood to gain was a little brown book that an enemy would have to be incredibly stupid to open and read.

She resolved to give her next opponent a cutting-edge performance by starting off immediately with her knives.

She opened the door to the dining room and was greeted by quite a welcoming sight.

“Pawdon me, got a little lost on the way in. But, we sure have a lovely atmosphere here?” 

The room was not messy at all unlike the other places in the mansion. In fact, had there not been a lack of furniture in the hall. She would have assumed the mansion was still somewhat occupied.

On the table was a carpet repurposed into a table mat, a tea set was placed on top of it. The kettle clearly contained some freshly brewed tea that was still steaming hot.

Cheshire inwardly hoped that the twin tailed girl in the odd eastern uniform would share with her. Though given the scowl on her face and the maid beside her, she probably would not.

“Oi, Chuffer swine, who gave you the right to arrive late? No matter, worthless garbage wouldn’t know about the concept of timeliness.” Natalia eyed the cat-like lady in front of her up and down. A huge frown appeared on her face as soon as she noticed what Cheshire was wearing.

“Oh my! It seems the gormless pig has already lost her head before our battle. Thinking of wearing something nice on your deathbed? Forget it, that cheap dress has better use than decorating your soon to be maggot-infested corpse.” Natalia covered her mouth with one hand to let out a laugh before she continued to drink her tea.

Cheshire simply blinked in surprise, taken aback by such foul language. She had to commend her foe for such a creative use of language. Of course, she had to respond in kind.

“Meow, meow. What a sharp tongue, unfortunately you let your mother dress you like an Eastern pawsitute, ” Cheshire confidently strode forward as the maid who was serving the noble girl her tea looked very worried.

In fact, Cheshire had a funny feeling that the worry was for her and not the maid’s master.

Natalia gently but firmly placed her tea cup on the table. Her expression darkened,, Cheshire grew worried that the maid would drill through the ground with how much she vibrated in worry.

“For that, I would have eased the burden your blighted soul placed on the world then and there. However, Gertrude simply makes such good tea that I can’t help but savor your final moments a bit.” Natalia politely waved her hand at her friend.

“Gertrude, serve the thing a cup of tea.”

Cheshire was surprised at the turn of events, she expected the maid to do something like try and pour boiling hot tea on her, but there was simply a cup of apple green tea ready for her on the table.

“Well consider me delightfur.” Cheshire mused as she picked up the teacup and moved across the dining table, taking a seat as far away from Natalia as possible.

She crossed her legs and gently held the tea cup close to her mouth, pinky in the air like a proper lady should.

“This aroma tells me this’ll be delicious.”

She took a sip. It was indeed delicious. 

A sack labeled with a certain brand of tea from a very well guarded island country plopped into her lap, causing Natalia to slightly raise an eyebrow. 

“I told you about her yesterday, she is a mercenary feared for her innate ability to seemingly will the laws of physics away to do as she pleases.” Gertrude explained.

Natalia nodded, all confusion disappearing from her face.

“Very well. I don’t think that would be a problem, if she could truly do as she pleased she wouldn’t be a sow living off of the leftovers of those hogs. A worthless parlor trick at best.”

“Anyways, this is a bag of tea leaves straight from the isles of the Crown. Probably infurior to whatever the nice missis beside you is using to make her tea, but I suppaws it's good enough for the occasion.” Cheshire offered the bag of tea leaves to Gertrude, who asked Natalia for confirmation before taking it. 

After checking for poison, Gertrude temporarily moved the bag to a corner of the room where she would make sure it ended up safe.

“Ho? The mudguzzler wants to butter me up with a tribute? Well, I am feeling very generous today, so how about I make your demise 1% less painful.”

“Oh pawese, you’re mistaken, I don’t need your generosity. Consider it a token of meow appreciation.” 

Natalia spent a great deal of effort trying to hold the corners of her lips from turning up. She inwardly found the cheap puns funny, though she would not give the inferior being in front of her the time of the day.

Lucky for her, the constant twitching of her mouth translated to a visibly irritated expression, Not that the person across her would interpret it that way even if it was genuine.

Something about Cheshire’s grin really started to irritate the young noblewoman.

“You have a really nasty cattitude, but at least I got a better reception than what my last audience gave me.” 

Natalia stirred her cup around, watching the remaining liquid splosh around. She deliberated on whether to respond or not. 

She wouldn’t admit it, but the bag of tea leaves gave her enough tolerance for a good minute of small talk.

“That filthy vagrant with the accursed sword, huh.” Her expression twisted as the words came out of her mouth,as if the very thought of the boy disgusted her.

“I wonder if the finger mail ever arrived at his doorstep?” She cringed, the puns were getting to her.

Gertrude shuffled to her side and answered her inquiry in a quiet tone.

“Umm..About that. T-the girl was.. Extracted from the dungeon by some external forces. Its under investigation, butitshouldonlybethewarlord’sentourage.”

“Calm down, Gertrude.” Natalia interjected.

“-But it should only be the warlords and their entourage that are allowed anywhere near the area. If I may state my personal opinion, the rebels shouldn’t have a covert operation capable of infiltrating.” Gertrude trembled in fear of how Natalia would react.

The latter managed to control her anger thanks to the soothing effects of the apple green tea. With a loud ‘clank’, she set down the cup in a firm but gentle manner. 

“Thanks for the tea, its splendid. As usual.” Her expression darkened a bit before she let out a ‘tsk’.

“I knew I shouldn’t have trusted those pieces of dragon dung! They probably let them in after some sweet talking and bribery.” 

Her attention returned to Cheshire, whose eyes now reflected the everlasting grin plastered on her face.

“How glamourpuss. It seems like the rescue party actually arrived.” She clapped her hands in amusement.

“You- so you were involved in that?” Natalia threw a sharp glance her way

“Let’s just say this isn’t my first tour in Ibinia.” Cheshire finished her tea and gently set down the empty cup.

In truth, she simply asked an old acquaintance to look a little bit into the Juda’s background since she was curious about his background.She did not expect him to go to such lengths, if it was his doing at all.

"Enough of that, you... whatever cursed object you are.  I am Natalia Balan, the one behind Arc Trading, the woman who will conquer the world, and the last person you will ever see." 

Gauging Natalia’s reaction, she decided it was a good time to stand up and ready her gear.

Natalia’s gaze softened as she set her eyes on her Gertrude.

“I’m no longer in the mood for idle chatter.  You can pack things up now, I’ll just take out some trash.”

The maid did a curtsy and gracefully packed everything up in a manner that may have defied the laws of physics. 

When she put her handle on the doorknob, she found it strangely hard to open. By the time she managed to pry it open, Cheshire already got in her request.”

“One meowment. Can you take care of this for me? It’s impawtant and highly volatile material, so it's best you don’t snoop around too much! ‘Kay?”

Gertrude was surprised about the handbag that ended up in her arms. It was extremely foolish for someone to hand over something important to the enemy.

She would take the chance to inspect it and deal with it accordingly. Right after she jolted out of the room at breakneck speed, of course.

“Ordering around Gertrude like that… Do you have a death wish, gorb?” Natalia crossed her arms and stepped forward as translucent ribs wrapped around her figure.

“Always had one.” Cheshire bolted up her seat and straight up shot all twelve knives from her Kit Cat into her right hand, all while somehow fitting them all on that one hand.

The dining table was large, but certainly not larger than the two truck-sized arms that manifested around Natalia. 

The wall behind Cheshire collapsed and turned into rubble with a single swing of an arm. Yet the mercenary remained unscathed, even throwing out a knife that bounced off Natalia’s ribcage back into her hand like a rubber ball.

The latter was confused as to how her opponent got so lucky. It might just be the garbage reality bending party tricks, but her gut instinct told her something was off.

Still, there was no reason to be upset, such a meager stunt won’t do anything if a dining table is thrown straight at you.

A little surprisingly, the meager stunt did do something as the dining table shifted its course as soon as it came into contact with Cheshire. 

Instead of the impact breaking her puny ribs, it instead harmlessly broke apart on Natalia’s far more durable ones.

‘Some sort of barrier? I should have expected it, even if the laughable Ordo is grasping at straws, then they would at least sift out the dirt.’

She scoffed and manifested an eye behind her, Cheshire did not appear to be maintaining one, so it was safe to assume she did it in reaction to attack.

There were very few people who can react to the speed of light.

Yet, somehow Cheshire nimbly dodged to the side and ran up the side of a yet to be destroyed wall, her feet blurring as she moved upwards to the high ceiling. 

She was still in Natalia’s reach, who kept up the pressure by easily collapsing the weak structure with her arms. Yet instead of the wall collapsing as a whole like normal, it instead fell piece-by-piece behind Cheshire. It seems the environment literally gave her the favor in the fight.

By the time 5 seconds was up, she had already made it up to the ceiling and jumped on the barely functioning chandelier. It was conveniently located right beside Natalia. 

Once again, a beam of light narrowly missed Cheshire who swung herself around the chandelier, it did not even singe the end of her long antebellum dress.

“Hmph, you may dance around like prostitute all you want, but you’ll die by my hand sooner or later.”

A loud snap reverberated throughout the room, followed by the chandelier crashing down beside Natalia. Her ribs shielded her from most of the damage, but she gained a tiny cut from a stray splinter of wood. 

“THE SHEER AUDACITY!” Natalia held the miniscule cut on her arm, seething at the drop of blood that fell into her hands.

Uncaring of the fire, her skeletal fist smashed the floor right across the room, pounding the wooden floor straight into the concrete foundation below. 

Completely visible to the eye, Cheshire pounced straight at her, knives literally blazing. 

“What a buffoon, you’re way too vulnerable like that.” Before Natalia could even fire the laser, Cheshire had already twisted to the right. That maneuver would not avoid anything, for the attack hadn’t even come yet.

‘Just a little correction, then.’

The flaming knife-wielder quickly ducked and swerved to the right with an intense movement that was sure to break the bones of anyone that wasn’t flexible. Once again, the laser failed to do any harm to her, albeit in exchange her knife did not find its target.

This time, Natalia was truly surprised to the point that not only did her eyes widen, but so too did the larger one beside her. It was as if the piece of toxic waste predicted her attacks.

That was unlikely, Gertrude had drilled it into her to not telegraph her attacks through the movement’s of [Freya’’s Eyes].

“Feline shocked? The lasers might travel at light speed but-” Cheshire paused to give way for the arm smashing into the ground behind her, by this point there was very little distinction between the hallway and the dining area.

“The activation of the spell does not.” She vaulted over the other hand that tried to grasp her, jumping straight at Natalia to shove a knife through her head. 

The minute signs of her opponent’s eyeball laser immediately put an end to those thoughts, as she was forced to roll to the side.

“Moron, who do you think you are?! You don’t even deserve the right to lecture ME, of all people.” Natalia carelessly swung a flower vase at Cheshire, really tempted to slam her face full of dirt like it should be. It did not take much effort for the mercenary to dodge such a careless swing. 

Natalia, was at a minor disadvantage at this range, given how the gaps between her ribs were able to be exploited by the knives. However, she had an easy solution for such a laughable problem.

Her two skeletal arms bent, suddenly connecting to her translucent ribcage and pushing against the ground. She lifted herself into the air, presumably out of Cheshire’s reach.

That presumption was of claws, wrong.

Cheshire’s eyes appeared to narrow, for a moment giving the illusion of a glint appearing on them. 

Natalia’s sneer slowly turned into a cold and calculating gaze. Something was about to happen..

A low humming sound filled the room, followed by Cheshire spinning around. By the time the zooming sound ended, Natalia could only hear a familiar, squeaky and excruciating voice behind her.

“I know a thing or two about magic, ya know?” 

The ‘cooldown’ of [Athena’s Eye] was over a few seconds ago, but she had not used it in anticipation for something like this.

‘The harlot shouldn’t be able to dodge mid-air’ The battle was already over.

It was over a while ago, since her opponent had failed to show up. 

‘Those Nova Ordo cats sure are the filthiest of filth. Making someone as great as me wait for an ENTIRE hour. Wait, cats? Don’t I usually call them dogs?’

Something was wrong, terribly wrong. And she couldn’t spare another second to find out.

Natalia dropped to the ground and ducked down, exposing most of her back to the ceiling. It was fine, she mostly had her head to worry about.

Twelve knives fell upon her, most of which stuck to the ground or harmlessly impacted her ribs. One however, nearly sunk into her head which was thankfully protected by the hand of [Athena’s Flesh].

“YOU! What did you do to me?!” Natalia’s face twisted in rage as she slammed the ground with one of her truck-length arms. However, she quickly collected herself.

It was not the time to freak out, she had to take control of the situation.

Regaining the air of dominance and majesty around her, Natalia took a swing at where she remembered Cheshire to be. Unfortunately, gravity existed for now so that was not the case.

She straightened her posture, spotting Cheshire at the somehow undamaged corner of the dining room. The not-cat had already collected all her knives.

Natalia’s frown immediately turned into a mocking smile.

“Hmph, a commoner like you, learning about “magic”, huh. Where? At some backwater public school?” 

Cheshire’s eyes were slightly frowning, in contrast to the quite toothy grin on her face. She attempted to throw a knife at Natalia, but her skeletal arms blocked the way.

“Try the National Clawllege in the Central World. I could’ve been a good archmage if I wasn’t completely incapable of using magic.” 

Cheshire took out a sizable metal pipe, the knives somehow disappearing to give way for it. Natalia wasn’t worried, there was no way that could get through her ribcage that could even shatter a battering ram.

Sure enough, as Cheshire swung the metal bat at her multiple times, it did not show a hint of getting through. The steel the pipe was made of even began to warp a little. 

Natalia of course did not just stand there and take it, she made multiple attempts of swinging at Cheshire as she kept one skeletal arm close to her for defense. Unfortunately for her this meant that her opponent only had one arm and a laser-shooting eye to deal with. Not really ideal when the trash you’re dealing with has the agility of a leopard and the dexterity of a raccoon.

Noticing a gap where Natalia’s arms could not reach her in time, 

Cheshire raised the metal pipe high and spun it around, gaining momentum. Finally, she brought it down on Natalia’s head.

The young noblewoman could only block it with her skeletal arms that gained some cracks. The metal pipe on the other hand, was bent to the point that it was unusable.

“Still, it isn’t some normal wizarding academy. I had a friend who could split an island in two!”

“Don’t fuck with me, you overgrown cat!” Natalia punched at a section of the room that made the entire thing collapse in on itself. She held her two skeletal arms on the top of her head to cover herself from the rain of debris. 

Cheshire’s eyes bulged out as she waltzed out of a window, running in place in the air for a moment before falling down into the ground. Accompanied with a comical thud, she fell and threw up some leaves.

Natalia could not help but obnoxiously laugh at the pitiful state of her enemy.

Without giving Cheshire a moment of rest, she gracefully jumped out of the same window, firing a laser into the bush to set it on fire. That was only a distraction, as she knew her opponent would have rolled out of the bushes already.

Instead, she used both of her hands to grab… grab at what?

Why was she still here after nearly an hour, why were the last 2 minutes so hectic for her? She was just having some fine apple tea with Gertrude before that.

All she knew was that her life depended on focusing in front of her at that very moment.

Cheshire easily slipped out of her grasp with the sound of a whistle, two knives targeted the gaps in Natalia’s translucent ribs. 

“From trash, to pig, to an overgrown cat? I’m furratered that your impression of me has grown so positive now.” She clapped her hands, bowing her head as if it was truly an honor for her.

“Tsk, you pest. Don’t think you’re in my good graces just because I flattered you a little.” Natalia stretched her truck-sized arms, no longer restrained by the interior of the mansion. 

She now held the absolute advantage.

‘Pawk.’

Jumping outside the window was furhaps not the best decision Cheshire could have made. Not only was the distance between her and Natalia widened, the arms could now simultaneously block her path while staying on the offensive as well.

Her fellow performer also seemed to be adapting to the stage. Natalia seemed to have notice that her knives were aiming for the gaps in the ribs, so she tried to obscure her vision with as much dust and arm as possible.

She also refrained from throwing the many rocks in the area at her, which Cheshire was hoping to use to a counter attack.

She was forced to do something drastic to regain the advantage. As it went… Natalia’s victory would be the only outcome were things to stagnate..

‘My rifle only has one shot, I can’t make it count now.’

Cheshire made some prayers to the Spaghetti Monster, before leaping up and balancing along the length of a skeletal arm. 

She walked on it like a tightrope, carefully balancing her feet as to not fall off all while avoiding a laser. Am impressive feat, given the arm was a moving construct with abnormal properties.

Jumping off, she dived straight for Natalia's head who let out a cold snort, effortlessly moving her other arm to block. Cheshire, however, already expected such a thing. She cartwheeled off of it with her slightly damaged dress moving to only the rule of cool. 

Natalia craned her neck upwards with widened eyes, her laser wasn't ready yet; there was no way to swat down the fly in front of her mid air, much to her chagrin. 

She planned to take it out on landing.

As she landed, Cheshire immediately pressed her finger against Natalia's forehead, who screamed "Shithead!" in annoyance while firing a laser.

Why did she just fire the beam of light right now? Surely, there was no insect buzzing around her, Gertrude would have made sure of that. She was simply taking a lovely stroll around the garden. 

Natalia stumbled as she tried to step forward, as she instead backpedaled and nearly fell over.

She was lucky she tried, as Cheshire's knife would found its way deep inside her chess. However, falling down ass-first into the dirt greatly damaged her pride.

"YOU FUCKING CUNT! YOU'VE DONE IT NOW." Natalia let out some obscene curses as she fired a laser at abhorrent piece of detritus behind her, which instead fired forward into the wrecked portion of the mansion instead.  

She tried to lift herself up, but instead flailed the both sets of arms around, as if she was throwing a temper tantrum like some child.

'Pawsome, it seems everything is furfectly in my favor now.' Cheshire picked up her twelfth knife named 'Juda', determined to give an almost poetic end to the battle. 

--

Natalia was seething in anger, holding back the tears that threatened to stream out of her eyes. This was possibly the worst humiliation in her life.

The utter waste of air was approaching her now, daring to threaten her, HER life, the most important one on the planet, with a mere kitchen accessory?! 

It was audacious, simply unacceptable. Such a level of defilement simply made her mad.

Perhaps, it was that utter madness, that 

--

"Oh, for all that litters." Cheshire clenched her fist and shook it around as her opponent once more rose to the ground. Natalia flexed her normal and skeletal arms as if the change in mental orientation 

"You." Two fingers pointed at her, one thick as a carriage, the other the dainty finger of a noble.

"You are dead." Natalia uttered in a voice that had all the confidence in a world.

Arrogant brats were easy to drag through the dirt, but this one seemed to have the will to continue where it counts. Cheshire realized that her introduction may not have been a child's dream after all.

"Well, uhh, hehe, see ya litter!" Cheshire waved her hand at Natalia, retreating so fast that her legs packed themselves and turned into wheels.

"Run like this little mouse you are, bitch." Venomous words frothed from the angered Balan's mouth.

She gave pursuit, eventually being brought into a hallway. She knew that Cheshire was baiting her into a disadvantageous position, but she didn't care. She can and will win.

--

The two stood face-to-face in a silent hallway, while their clothes were dirtied, they had not taken any decisive injuries. At this point, both knew that one good hit on the other would end the battle.

The battle needed to end, right here, right now. The next few seconds would determine their fate. 

Cheshire was the first to make a move, she brought something out from her Kit Cat, a book, seething with a tainted miasma. Both of the combatants eyes widened in panic at such a foul aura.

"Aw, spaghetti wrong one!" Cheshire panicked and threw the book back into the Kit Cat.

Natalia took this as a moment of weakness.

A laser fired off a moment later, in attempt to obliterate whatever Cheshire was trying to pull out of the container. She managed to take it out of the way.

The REAL battle had begun.

Natalia used her arms to rip out the walls and ceiling, collapsing the hallway to give her more space. 

5 seconds

A laser fired off to keep the pressure on Cheshire, Natalia chucked all the debris out of the way, marching unimpeded towards the retreating not-cat. Her arms crept closer and closer, trying to bury her enemy in rubble.

This proved to not be a very good idea, as the rubble quickly bounced back towards her. Small rocks peppered against her abdomen, sending minor jolts of pain. Her current course of action would result in death by a thousand cuts.

'Tsk'

10 seconds

Natalia had stopped swinging around her skeletal arms, instead using them to narrow down Cheshire's path. She planned to fire the laser while her foe was trapped in her grasp. Of course, Cheshire would not let that happen so easily.

She clung to the ceiling, the beam of light managing to graze her arm. In a fit of annoyance, Natalia had accidentally smashed the ceiling, which resulted in shrapnel being weaponized against her.

By some divine luck, none caused any real damage.

15 seconds

"Let me tell you a story." Cheshire finally broke the silence, as a laser flashed to her right. 

"Oh please, save your prayers." Natalia was not interested, she continued to press her attack, but Cheshire's stamina was far from spent. She didn't want to risk it, but she had to use [Guardian Angel]

She would wait until one more attack, though. 

"There was a vampire, with a powerful magic. It was said to have wiped out an entire army in the distant past. Records only know of him as 'Count'" Cheshire brought her Kit Cat in fron of her, taking out a tattered recipe and attaching it to a rifle. 

" One day, an army of adventurers was called to arms, and marched towards the front of Count's mansion." She checked the rifle, holding on to it like it was her dear life.

20 seconds

'Pawease make this work, Spaghetti Monster."

"You know what happened?" 

Natalia shrugged, wrapping the hands of her skeletal arms around Cheshire, who could only raise one foot in response.

"Who cares? I didn't listen" She had managed to trap the damned cat. All it takes now is a laser to her stomach.

Natalia prepared to grab thin air and put immense focus in front of her. Lest she be confused at what she was doing in the hallway's remains.

There was one, final beam of light that shot through the emptied hallway of the mansion.

Natalia knew she had something to do, and immediately squeezed down on whatever was in front of her with [Athena's Flesh] 

A loud 'bang' was reverberated across the mansion, a muzzle flashed with a divine light.

Natalia held her chest, that now contained a hole that seeped down blood.

"Dammit all."

25 seconds

"They sent one person to put a stake through his heart. He did not have a chance to use his powerful magic, for he was too focused on the army." A manic glint flashed across Cheshire's eyes, as Natalia slumped to the ground.

--

"Well, paws well that ends well."  Cheshire dusted her hands as she looked at the body of the noblewoman in front of her. She was a bit peeved at the state of her dress, but she did have twenty spares. So it was not all bad.

Cheshire held her head, feeling woozy. She was truly going mad now, to the point that she found it hard to make any more cat puns. 

It was time to go, she had done her job.

She took out a business card, complete with a pawprint and the name of her troupe and gently placed it on Natalia's bullet wound.

"If you need anything done. Just give me a clawll." Cheshire laughed at her own joke as she made her way out of the ruins of the old mansion.

It was a good thing the tracker she placed on the handbag was waterproof. It was a shame she had to go diving in a nearby river to collect it though. Cheshire was definitely not a cat, but she hated water anyways.

 

In the last round, both of the authors of these characters won by default, but now is the time we judge their skills. Both of these battles were truly... madness. But which is the maddier madness? Are you enamored by  Natalia's card game or Cheshire's play of words? Now is the time to vote!

Voting ends in 7 days

 

Which chapter shall be declared canon?
  • Natalia wins(Maldon version) Votes: 4 100.0%
  • Cheshire wins(Anon_Y_Mousse version) Votes: 0 0.0%
Total voters: 4 · This poll was closed on Apr 30, 2022 06:28 PM.
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