[04] Cook For The King!

[Piper Juunanagou]

“Why the hell are we down here?” Piper groaned as she came to a stop and waved her torch in front of her to remove a thick net of cobwebs. “For once, I think I’d rather be cooking in a kitchen,” she added as she glanced at the slime-stained stone walls that surrounded the trio.

It wasn’t the cramped corridors or even the foreboding sense of terror that was wigging the woman out. In fact, she actually enjoyed foreboding in most cases because it meant she wouldn’t have to do a whole lot of pointless work wandering around some strange, foreign environment. It was actually the terrible stench that saturated each and every square inch of their surroundings that was getting to her.

The catacombs beneath the castle smelled like moss and stale water. As Piper crept down one of the stone hallways, her footsteps echoing loudly down the seemingly endless maze of corridors, she couldn’t help but feel like zombies would be a less grotesque alternative to the rank, centuries-old odor. Behind the soldier, Kaden and the king’s prisoner were keeping an eye on the hallway from whence they had came to ensure that nothing tried to creep up on them in the rancid darkness.

“Did you say something?” The courier asked with a smirk as he glanced over his shoulder.

“Oh noooo,” Piper remarked dramatically as she looked back at her friend. “Don’t mind me… I’m just talking to myself,” with a laugh, Kaden opened his mouth to provide a witty retort just as the two cooks heard something scrap against the stone wall further down the pathway. Spinning on her heels, the soldier tossed the torch into her left hand and held out her gauntleted palm.

“What do you think that was?” Kaden asked as he squeezed in next to Piper and proceeded to effortlessly summon an orb of energy into the palm of his hand. If she didn’t already know that the courier was a master of manipulating his ki, his almost casual usage of it would have been a lot more emasculating for the woman.

“Hopefully it’s one of the monsters that we’re supposed to kill, because I’m started to get tired of cramped, cold, and nauseating,” she remarked as she noticed some tiny particles of rock flittering down from the ceiling like tiny gray snowflakes. “What the—”

Before the soldier was able to complete her sentence, the stone floor of the hallway collapsed and the two cooks and their political prisoner were sent plunging down into the black abyss of the catacombs. Fortunately for the trio, their freefall was quite short and after only couple yards the walls around them gave way as they fell into a large, more cavernous area. A few beats after dropping into their new surroundings, they all took a rather unwelcome plunge into a large lake of cold, partially frozen water.

Really? What jackass builds their catacombs on top of underground caves? Piper thought as she popped up to the surface of the water and set her sites on the nearby shore. With a glittering display, the woman was instantly on solid ground, but despite the fact that she didn’t have to swim to shore like Kaden and Richter, the damage had already been done. Groaning loudly, Piper ripped off the pink bandana and the yellow apron and discarded the pair of accessories with the utmost prejudice.

While the two men were busy still swimming to shore, the soldier took a moment to scan their surroundings. Unlike the smelly, uncomfortable catacombs, their little drop had deposited them near the center of a large cavern. The walls of their current location were dotted with a series of ornate metal sconces that served to illuminate the cave. On the far side of the room, Piper noted a single wooden door partially hidden behind a row of jagged stalagmites.

“Hey,” Kaden’s voiced prompted the soldier to spin around to face her friend. Despite their rather precarious and ominous situation, the courier had an almost boyish smirk on his face.

“What’s so funny?” Piper asked with a furrowed brow.

“Well you took off your apron,” Kaden replied with a chuckle.

“So?”

“I don’t think Gamer wanted you to do that,” the courier added as he pointed toward the woman’s chest. Looking down, she easily recalled the fact that her now waterlogged shirt was white, and upon further inspection, she realized that the outfit Gamer had transplanted her into was complemented with a nice, black brassier.

“You’ve got to be… ugh!” Piper screamed, unable to finish her sentence in a coherent manner before she simply crossed her arms over her chest and stormed off toward the exit.

“Oh, come on!” Kaden said before stifling another laugh. “I’m just playing around,” he added after composing himself. Rolling her eyes, Piper turned to face the man and noticed that his eyes were wide and his jaw seemed to be hanging open. Just a few paces behind Kaden, Richter was wearing a similar expression on his pale, weary face.

“W-what is it guys?”

Without offering a verbal response, the blond courier simply lifted a hand and pointed to something behind the woman’s field of view. Almost immediately, a frown beset Piper’s already haggard features as she slowly turned around to look at whatever it was that had so visibly mortified the two men. As the woman pivoted, all she could really see was a pair of large tree trunks that seemed to lack any bark.

How the hell are theses trees supposed to support themselves? The woman pondered as she leaned a little closer for a better inspection. Although I guess the more imperative question would be why they have hair and veins… Almost immediately, the horrifying reality dawned upon the soldier. With a gasp, she looked up to see that the pair of ‘tree trunks’ were really the legs of a giant, two-headed ogre.

“I guess that makes a lot more sense,” the woman whispered beneath her breath as the two-headed behemoth reached down and closed its stubby fingers around her lithe frame. A weak gasp escaped Piper’s mouth as the air was driven clean from her lungs. If she hadn’t teleported promptly after being picked off the ground, the woman was certain she would have been crushed into an unpleasant paste. Rematerializing next to Kaden and Richter, Piper proceeded to collapse to her knees and erratically attempt to refill her lungs.

“That’s not…a fire-breathing dragon,” the soldier gasped between breaths as she looked up a Kaden and flashed him a weary smile. The courier, despite the ogre that was now lumbering toward them, managed to make time to reciprocate the expression before turning to face the towering lummox. Shooting a quick glance at his surroundings, Kaden waved a hand through the air in front of him, which released a series of ki waves that did visibly little to stop the lumbering approach of the ogre.

“I think you’re just pissing it off,” Piper remarked as she regained a standing position. Although she had more on her mind, the woman was unable to start a new sentence before the trio was forced to split apart in lieu on the oncoming monster. Realizing that he was the least apt of the trio in terms of dealing with oversized monsters, Richter Belmont dove back into the lake. With a rather frazzled look on his face, Kaden took a few steps to the left before suddenly darting forward amidst a flash of blue energy. Crouching down, Piper teleported behind the ogre just as its oversize fists were boring down on her position.

Popping back into existence, the soldier lifted her gauntlet hand and began to channel her energy. Meanwhile, the ogre—now wholly enraged by its inability to smash its intended prey—began to smack at the surface of the water in an attempt to locate Richter. As Piper worked on mustering up her ki, an energized chord of some sort suddenly lashed forth and wrapped itself around one of the ogre’s ankles. With her eyes, the blonde followed the rope-like energy manifestation back to its origin to find that it was Kaden. The courier wore a grim expression on his face as he tugged at the rope in a seemingly futile attempt to trip up the beast.

“Little help here,” Kaden shouted as the ogre stopped beating at the water and turned its attention to the whip that was scalding its exposed skin.

Kindly obliging her companion, Piper leveled her hand with the back of the ogre’s head and blasted it with a rather erratic burst of light-green energy. Although nowhere as potent as anything the courier could muster, the mixture of being caught off-guard and having its balance somewhat compromised served to coalesce and prompt the ogre to lose said equilibrium. With a sly grin on his face, Kaden clutched the whip with both hands and gave it one final tug, and just like that, the pair watched the ogre take a dive into the lake. As the monster plunged into the depths of the underground lake, Richter popped back up to the surface and promptly scrambled onto solid ground.

Despite the twosome’s success over the ogre, they’re momentary joy was brought to an abrupt end when a giant hand erupted out of the lake. Digging its yellowed nails into the ground, the ogre began to pull itself up out of the water, much to the panic of the two chefs. Glancing around for any means to remedy their predicament, Piper’s eyes didn’t come to a rest until she noticed the massive collection of stalactites hanging from the ceiling around the spot where they had dropped into the cave.

“Kaden!” Piper shouted, complementing the remark with a gesture toward the ceiling. “Bring the roof down.”

Nodding his head, Kaden summoned up another salvo of energy waves that were aimed at the roof above the lake. As the ogre valiantly tried to pull its massive girth up out of the lake, the ceiling of the cavern (and undoubtedly a large portion of the castle’s catacombs) came crashing down on it. The indiscernible weight crushed the beast with enough force to rip its body away from the section of its arm that had escaped the lake.

“I think that’ll do,” Piper muttered as she watched the huge chunks of earth and stone slowly sink down into the underground lake.

“I guess that was overkill on my part,” Kaden said with a chuckle as Piper and he walked over to the dismembered ogre forearm. Shortly after their arrival next to the appendage, they were joined by Richter, who seemed less amused by the situation than the courier or the soldier.

“Hey,” Piper remarked as she bent down and picked up the forearm with both of her hands. Slinging the bloody appendage over her shoulder, the woman flashed a satisfied grin to her blond companion. “I think we have enough meat here to serve that douche upstairs on hell of a sandwich platter!”

“You were intending to make sandwiches for a king?” Kaden asked.

“That’s a joke,” Piper groaned as she walked passed the smirking courier and toward the only apparent exit to the large cavern. “Although I’m sure he would have just loved whatever delicious flavor of ramen noodles you were going to prepare for him,” she added with a smile.

“At least I don’t look ridiculous,” Kaden retorted as he jogged up to join the woman. When he reached her, he was welcomed with a rather unpleasant scowl from Piper. “That’s a joke,” he added sarcastically.

“You should be lucky you’re not ugly,” Piper replied with smirk as the twosome, with Richter trailing by a few paces, passed through the wooden door and into the caverns that lie ahead.