I'm Not Evil, I'm a Chaotic Neutral Murderhobo

Huh, these knights really need to read a book or something on being better knights Jeannie thought.  First, they were chasing a lady and her baby, sure they were a bug lady a slug kid but they weren't hurting anybody.

Now Jeannie and company happened across them roughing up old people. how unchivalrous can these naughty knights be?

Luckily got Terri’s daddy to safety. time to teach these meanies a lesson let's get them teddy!

Teddy growls in response to Jeannie's order to charge.  Jeannie draws her sword and the wacky duo moves to engage the knights.

The one charging them was a priority, Jeannie skillfully deflects the incoming sword with hers, like a bullfighter she sidesteps the knight causing him to tumble aside.  

As he goes to get up Jeannie rise her sword ready to make her attack. Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die”,   Well kinda Jeannie remembered Terri saying to try not to kill anyone.  So she uses some fancy swashbuckling to relive the knight of his sword “You mean you wish to surrender to me? Very well, I accept”.

Meanwhile teddy happy that while smaller than he was as a bear dabbler choose a still pretty big dog to turn him into.  

Using his size as an effective weapon he sits on the one Mister Saffron had pushed early pinning him to the ground. Teddy growls a bit and shows his teeth to let him know trying to get up wouldn't be in his best interest.

With  Jeannie and Teddy dealing with those two that left one for dabber or Teri to deal with.

Terri was begrudgingly following, more urged by the possibility of questions she had no answers to than actually finding her parents. She was in some sort of denial, really. She wouldn't be too surprised if her parents had been out of the city when this whole shindig went down, weren't ever affected. Her instincts told her this was the general direction of her house, although the hills and terrain definitely made things interesting for the path.

They probably weren't there. Terri continued to think.

Until it was right before her eyes and ears. That was definitely her father, her mother, and a bunch o' knights.

The monk froze, unsure of what to do until the scrap started. She saw the silver knight pull out his sword and she just nearly leapt, before everything else unfolded. Knocked out cold, her father was now laying beside her.

"Da- Dad!"

Knocked out cold. Had Jeannie not taken care of the one beside him, she probably would've done something where, well, whether she'll regret or not would be a later discussion.

Instead, very pissed eyes gleamed through her mask and at the two who remained. There were two knights who seemed to have their focus on the witch, though one was a bit farther off than the other.

1. 2. 3.

Then she realized something else- her mother was still up there.

4. 5.

Terri's mother looked back, and began to run towards them. The secondary knight looked, and circled around Dabbler while the other knight had her. She was headed towards her mother.

6. 7.

He was almost too her-

8.

The grass behind Terri ripped and launched backwards to the path they came in from, as the monk leapt forward and passed her mother in what was barely a second. Her punch was reeled back already in motion of the leap.

Her fist contacted, and there was more than just a simple dent in the metal. It was the kind of dent that probably went a little passed the chest. Furthermore, the knight was launched back and maybe even straight passed the witch and the other knight, or however their scrap concluded as. He was sent through the wall of whatever building (likely her own home, fantasized), and unless it was stone, then the wall collapsed as well the knight.

He did not get up.

"FUCK- That hurt..."

Terri was thus knelt on the ground, holding her fist in pain. She's never tried punching metal before in an empowered plast, as well as she lost some of that power through the leap.

As Teddy fought and attacked, the basic illusion concealing him subsided, and his true bear form was revealed. It made the knight even more fearful.

Dabbler merely toyed around with the knights as she protected Mister Saffron. Fast opening portals tossed knights onto their fellows, making a mess of things.

As things got heated and Terri went to her mother, Dabbler threw out another support portal. “…hold up there, Black Belt! Don’t move!” Dabbler opened up another portal to bring Terri over and unite her whole family, beside a big tree so mister and missus Saffron could rest. A half dozen knights converged on Dabbler’s position, intent to see this fight to the end. They shared none of Dabbler’s humor, and it was getting on her nerves.

“Hey, we had our fun, but guys, you don’t want to do this. You really don’t.” Dabbler tries to warn them. These knights were being serious, carrying serious weapons and talking serious game.  

“You reek of the dark arts, witch. Your portal trickery is only good for petty tricks and deception. Face the wrath and steel of a Silver Crusader.” He proclaimed proudly, doing a slow walk, intent on bashing Dabbler’s face in.

Dabbler cackled, briefly, loudly, enough to disturb the knight. She then stopped. The glow in her eyes went from mischievous her usual yellow to a deep, crimson red. “Fine. Fine. I can be serious too.” She said, her voice slowly changing, until the fun Dabbler voice was replaced by a scarier, demonic Dabbler growl. “Face the wrath of the Chaos Witch.”

With a wave of her hands, and the utterances of an alien language, Otherworldly tentacles erupted from the group and reached up, catching three crusaders by their limbs and neck. Fanatical bravado quickly turned to shrieks of terror, as the tentacles squeeze and pulled, twisting their arms and heads from their sockets. One crusader had tentacles go in through the abdomen and ripped his guts out. Three men were reduced to bits of bloody meat, and the tentacles returned into the ground, to the dimension they come from.

“FOR THE SILVER LADY!” Two mustered the will to charge, but Dabbler pointed her index fingers at them. The air was filled with the sound of static, and she unleashed her chaos lightning, a storm of red energy that produced an otherworldly, infernal roar.

The blast catches the crusaders, and their bodies twitched and convulsed, being electrocuted on the spot. Their muscles spasmed to the point of tearing, their bones crumbling from resisting the energy. The lightning was so terrible, their skeletons showed through their armor as they were shocked. The morbid effect of lightning was evident as the air was filled with the smell of flesh cooking, disturbingly similar to pork being seared; their eyeballs exploded inside their helmets, and their death screams betrayed the pain and agony of their brutal deaths. They fell to the ground, twitching, very dead.

The last silver crusader, the one who thought Dabbler was some mere trickster, soiled himself in his armor. He started to panic, break down, as his fellows were now but smears on the ground, or scorched pieces of meat. “No. No… You… you can’t be this powerful!” He then ran.

There were many witnesses. Other homes, other bystanders, who despite the rule of the crusaders, knew they exercised this brutality to fight off worse things. One of those worse things, as it turns out, is Dabbler. The sight of the murdered crusaders, though they’d shocked Missus Saffron into silence, her hands over her hands in a silent scream.

Far off in her sanctum, the Silver Lady herself, an ashen haired angel with platinum armor, awoke from her meditation. Within the township she protected, the powers of evil had been invoked. She spread her wings and took flight.

Teddy having dealt with his knight smushed under his once again giant bear frame leaves the unconscious knight and goes over to Jeannie.  the two watch as dabbler deals with the other knights.  Somewhat surprised by the amount of enthusiasm dabbler showed dealing with the knights.

Hey, teddy your a teddy again! huh, huh good thing she's on our side huh?

yeah, now what boss?

She gets down by her knight prisoner and whispers.
you might want to play dead a bit and maybe we can get you out of this, lets's check in with the others, Teddy. Not wanting to end up like the fellow crusaders he plays along.

They join Terri and her family by the tree.  Yay, your all ok well this is kinda messer than most family reunions but you're all back together so that's good.

Teddy goes over to the elderly couple letting them use him as a fluffy pillow to rest as they looked like they were about to faint from the stress of this ordeal.

Jeannie looks over at dabbler surrounded by the jigsaw puzzle of body parts that were the knights. hopefully, she'll go back to nice dabbler since the fighting was over Jeannie hoped.

Well somebody missed the no-killing part of the team meeting.  So rock paper scissors for having to check if she's like possed or something? Hey Samantha, you got them all maybe you could stop scaring the nice villagers? you might have overdone it a bit.

Huh, what a mess Jeannie hopes they don't make them clean it up, mopping up eyes sounded gross. So now what should we do?

She sits down by teddy and Terri's parents waiting for Terri and hopefully not possed dabbler to chime in with suggestions for the group's next move.  She thinks while questing the knight she spared could help.  It would be best to wait tell dabbler is feeling less murdery to bring that up though she thinks.

Would be hard for him to talk without a head.

"Ohpe-"

Terri fell through the spontaneous portal, falling out and falling over with her surprise. Her fist still pained her, and she could see light red marks over her knuckles. It wasn't as bad as it could've been, thankfully, although she would rather not risk worse.

Keep it to either leaps or punches, don't try to mix the two together.

Once she regained her senses, the monk looked over to her parents. Her dad was still lying unconscious. Her mother stammered, trying to articulate her confusion and feelings, which ultimately led her to simply kneeling beside her husband.

Terri decided to speak up before it seemed like her mother would hyperventilate. Before she completed her first word however, she coughed, and purposely made her voice deeper.

"Y- ahem. You're safe now, ma'am. We ca-"

And that was when all hell broke loose on Dabbler's side of the confrontation. Or maybe just a portion of Hell, if to be literal. Terri didn't know how else to describe it.

Electricity sparking from finger to iron to flesh. Hell, even if the lightning wasn't lethal by itself, she would still be transforming their own armor to what would practically be ovens. Or microwaves, whatever was more accurate.

She wanted to step in, her instincts flared, but the back of her head was loud enough. No. If she just went at her in the middle of her episode, she full well could be among the knights in the witch's barbeque.

Her mother was silent, she noted. Her father was positioned so that his head would rest against Teddy's floofy body.

She waited till Dabbler stopped with her onslaught, and then some seconds more if she can be allowed it. Terri stood up, no longer holding her fist.

"...What the HELL did you just DO!??"

She was being somewhat irrational. It likely wasn't the best thing to do, to yell at the woman who could probably turn you into a porkchop with a glare. Still, Terri felt it necessary, and she continued to scream in both anger and, very likely, fear.

"We agreed. NO. KILLING!"

1. 2.

The red light in Dabbler’s eyes slowly faded back to a nominal yellow as she grinned at Terri. A very wide, disturbing grin. Her teeth were all sharp and messed up… or were they? They look normal after blinking a few times. "Oh, we did? OOHHH! I am so sorry. how inconsiderate of me. I forgot to set my lightning to stun." Dabbler’s voice went back to annoyingly squeaky.

She shot Teddy’s captive a mean look. He covered his head, and pleaded for mercy.

Dabbler attempts to remind Terri what’d they’d been doing since they’ve got here. “Well, if you think about it, these guys have been a bunch of dorks all night! They’re not even being funny about it!”

People were fleeing the scene now, trying to get to safety. But the crusaders who were fleeing stopped in their tracks, as a light shone in the sky.

Dabbler sniffed the air, and smelt it as if someone had dealt it. “…The Silver Lady is an angelic warrior. Whoop dee doo.” Dabbler said, with audible annoyance. Here was a character who was basically a bucket of Dabbler weaknesses.
She was resplendent in her silver armor and blue tabard, hovering above the residential district on her angelic wings. a halo of light shone from her. The Silver Lady glanced about the village, seeing the dead knights, and the trio. And the evil little witch.

Her voice echoed and boomed, like someone set the bass to max.  “I… am the Silver Lady. I have sensed the incursion of the demonic here, and I shall smite down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger.”

Dabbler turned to Terri, completely ignoring the Lady. “Say. Since we rescued your parents, do we complete the side quest and get ex-pee?”

“I know someone here is a practitioner of the dark arts. REVEAL YOURSELF AND FACE JUDGEMENT!” She scanned the crowd for a certain kind of magic user.

“I mean, I don’t wanna bust anyone’s balls but these crusader dudes are pretty low on the challenge rating…”

The Silver Lady was thus royally pissed off. “Are you… ignoring me witch???? SUFFER FOR YOUR INSOLENCE!” Her greatsword glowed with pale blue energy, and blasted Dabbler- and only Dabbler- specifically, with a frost blast. Her sword shot icy cold death.

“RUN AWAY AND REGROUP!” Dabbler swiftly opened a portal here and the exit somewhere a hundred feet away, and this time she decided to skedaddle first, as the Lady was going to do a serious number on her.

Jeannie was happy dabbler's murderous rampage came to an end. She found the comment about sitting her lightning to stun funny, she didn't know that was a thing.

They seemed to make quite the mess as people were running about. Huh, you think they'd be glad we freed them from those mean old knights.

She looks over to teddy for his thoughts. Well, the witch might seem scarier than them at the moment. Jeannie nods her head agreeing with the smarter than the average bear.

Right well maybe if we explain it they'll calm down.  Before she could attempt to settle the crowd down the sky was covered with a bright light and Jeannie looked up.    Jeannie's eyes lit up with excitement as she was in awe of what she saw.

The silver lady the knights had been rambling about made her dramatic appearance.  She looked like an angel descending from the clouds. Her booming voice echoed like thunder. She's so cool!  

Jeannie was excited with the angelic warrior that looked like something from her adventure games come to life. Teddy was slightly less joyful sensing this could be trouble.

Umm hate to interrupt your hero-worship boss but think she might be a little mad when she finds out we made this mess?

Jeannie scratches her head thinking about it. Well maybe if we explain to the knights were being bad.  She'll understand we were trying to help the village.  

Jeannie looks at the puddles that used to be knights. Huh, dabblers overdoing it might be a tough sell. Maybe if we say she's a good witch that really likes helping people and she gets overexcited when she does.

Lucky for them the little witch seemed to have the angel lady's attention the most. After some talking things took a turn for the worse as the angel shoot some blue beam at dabbler.

Dabbler opened a portal and yelled to run. Jeannie helps Terri's parents onto teddys back. Get them out of here teddy!

The bear tried to make the ride as gentle as he could while moving quickly to get the elderly couple to the safety of the portal.  She turns to Terri huh still seemed shocked by the chaos around them.

Hey, come on time to go! we can give dabbler a lecture about when and when not to fry people when the angry angel isn't trying to kill us.

She points to the portal. Then noticed her and teddys prisoner was still there. They said Vespania was some evil needing stopped. Wasn't that the bug lady they met early?

Something wasn't adding up she said the knights were bad.  Lousie you got some splaining to do! She grabs the knight by the foot and drags him through the portal with her.

"You- forgot too-...?"

Terri's world was somewhat being wiped away, her focus being more and more centered on Dabbler alone and her words.

"DORKS!?? They were people! What if- what if they didn't know what they were doing!? Being controlled by this realm, or this- silver woman crap!"

She failed to notice the glow of the approaching angel, anger siphoning through the monk's words.

"I don't even think you care about ANY of this! You're just over here with your stupid exp and levels and shit! This is real life, we know nothing about this place! Hell, you'd probably be doing the exact same thing if Bo- if this whole thing wasn't happening, you'd probably still be going on some sort of rampage!"

"Parents...?"

Terri's mother commented, as her eyes slowly glanced and froze at the Silver Lady. Terri herself, momentarily shaken by her mother's words, finally noticed the figure herself. Her eyes widened, and Black Belt took a moment to regret some things. From the decision that got her into this mess, to the fact she named herself Black Belt when she didn't really know martial arts.

"...Oh shit."

Terri's parents were successfully placed atop Teddy, fearing one thing more than the bear. Terri herself managed to stumble, and with a 1 second's worth of energy, leapt from, to, and through the portal. Hopefully Dabbler doesn't reconsider keeping the portal open after her "lecture."

Dabbler had done a dangerous thing and 'blind portalled', sending her to the edge of town where her wasp 'friends' were waiting.

"Oh hey guys! We found the Silver Lady!" Dabbler waved at the gathered wasps, who were all armed to the teeth... poised to... attack the College town...

Dabbler looked down at her chest and hands, seeing stingers that had been launched from their... bug weapons. Her alien physiology tried to fight it off, but the wasps shot her up some more, overwhelming her with venom.

"You have been an excellent ally witch, and your powers are simply so astonishing. It will be a good ability to give to Vespania's future children." The wasp warriors enact their betrayal and fetch the incapacitated witch.

The wasps awaited the rest of their "allies" to arrive, to greet them with paralytic venom stingers. With Dabbler still conscious and her face contorted into manic grin, the portal remained open.

So Jeannie and Teddy pop out the other end of Dabblers portal.  She saw Dabbler and the buggy people from earlier.  But something seemed off, the bugs had some scary-looking weapons!

Not wanting Terri's parents to need rescuing again seeing as they just saved them.  She motions to teddy to take them to safety in the woods while she checked on dabbler in the bugs.

The bear complies and takes the elderly couple on a stroll through the woods.  Once they're on their way Jeannie approaches the group.

Jeannie was kinda surprised not to hear dabbler talking as she was quite the chatterbox.  When she was closer to get a better look she saw that dabbler had little stingers stuck to her.

I knew trusting giant bugs was a bad idea, what icky bug stuff are you guys doing?

They seemed more interested in showing her than talking, turning their buggy weapons her way.  Jeannie wondered what to do, there were too many to try to fight on her own.  

Dabbler in some kinda trance was in no shape to help, oh there are bugs!  That gave her a plan.

She gets stung and falls over seemingly incapacitated like dabbler.   Unknow to the bugs Jeannie was actually fine, one of the benefits of having the zoo as your blood type was being immune to venom.

She played possum and listened to them. They plan on attacking the town not good.  She wonders where Terri was still in the portal zone? Huh, must be stuck in interdimensional traffic.

Jeannie decides to live a message in case see pops out later.   She scribbles bugs are bad coming for the town in the dirt with her finger and a doddle of a bear with a p beside it.
To let her know her parents are safe with Teddy.

She pushed some leaves by it so the bugs couldn't see and put one of her arrows pointing to it to lead Terri to her secret message.

She stops moving whenever the bugs looked her way.  They didn't seem to be in too much of a hurry to leave. Have to come up with an escape plan then.

Luckily the environment was eager to help her. There happened to be a river nearby. Well, at least the bugs didn't bother tying her up that make this easier.

She slowly inched her way to the river, stopping every now and then to make sure the bugs weren't noticing her. Finally, she got to the river and springs alive leaping in.

She assumed the bugs probably wouldn't follow her not wanting to get their wings wet.  They seemed to be surprised by her trick a few stingers hit the water above her.

Likely they thought they might hit her and could leave her for dead in the river. Huh as she sunk down she thinks maybe she could have thought this out more, well she was more of a make-it-up-as-you-go kinda person any why.

She was content letting the current sweep her away to safety. Holding her breath longer than normal like the venom immunity was another trick of hers that came in handy when the odd need for it popped up.

So she'd float down the river a bit away from the bugs then try and meet up with teddy yeah that seems like an ok plan for now.

"I'M NOT WITH HER!"

Terri yelled as she crossed the portal, her head turned back to aim her words at the Silver Lady. Only after her feet hit the unfamiliar ground was her head turning back to see what was ahead of her.

Bugs.

Lots of bugs- She had to remind herself that the wasps, or "dark elves", were the ones who sent them on the mission in the first place. The supposed good guys, despite how disgusting she thought them to be.

That was a lesson to take from this experience. Don't just a book by its cover. Sure, they were magical insectoid abominations she would otherwise only see in nightmares or sleep paralysis. But that was also what the fascists knights thought and tried to kill them, and hey, there wasn't anything in town that pointed to the wasps being bad at all! The knights were in the wrong, they were the enemy, just probably mind-controlled by the Silver Lady or Eugene. She hoped they were actually just conjured NPC's and not actual people, but hey, that's why she tried to make sure not to kill anyone.

...The uh, minus the guy she blew the head off of. Or the... well she wasn't a medical expert, the guy she punched in the chest was hopefully fine. Had Dabbler not dabbled their lives, she probably would've checked up on him!

In the end of the day, though, she succeeded in getting her parents out! And with the wasps around now, they may be disappointed to hear the Silver Lady wasn't actually dead, but hey, she had a bit of fresh optimism suddenly. They could probably take the angel out and save the was-

Were those weapons aimed at them?

With Terri's parents being ridden off into the woods, stingers hit Terri through her cloth. Unlike the other two, she had no particular resistance to such an attack. Quickly, with only a short moment to rethink her entire message, she blacked out.

The silver Lady followed through the portal and was unceremoniously ambushed, stinging needles bypassing her armor's weak points and also paralyzing her.

"At last, the Lady." The wasps surround the figure, who now lay helpless before them. "Make sure you do not stop. Bring her directly to Queen Vespania!"

((End Thread. To be concluded in the Finale!
words: 4,423 ))