Preparing for battle

"Papa! Papa! Wake up!" I was awoken by Gerde vigorously shaking me. "The goblins are here. Mama says that if you don't eat now, the goblins will eat your food."

Wait, what? That doesn't sound right. Either way though, losing out on breakfast meant that I wouldn't get to eat again until after the battle, and fighting on an empty stomach is no fun. So I groggily shook off the cobwebs, and sat up.

There were barely any tents set up for the Imperial Guards, we were underground so there were no elements to be protected from, and changing your clothes or bathing could be done in a communal tent that the guardsmen all shared. So I woke up to see everyone in the Imperial Guard already up and preparing for battle.

"Good morning, Kvalinn." Bekhi greeted me with a smile, and handed me a cup of stew and a loaf of stale bread. "Here, eat this before Miyata snatches it. Her Celestial Gift magic of being able to hide in plain sight is really annoying, she's already tried sneaking into the food stores for extra rations."

I accepted the food gratefully, and started chowing down. Although I did sigh in longing for the pantry cupboards of the elves. They may have been enormous pricks, with a superiority complex the size of an elephant, but their food stores had ingredients from all over the world that I could make some really good American dishes with. Maybe I'd be able to set up shop in some port town in a few centuries after I get steam ships into use by the humans. Then I'd be able to taste those ingredients again.

Shifting from my daydreams, I swallowed the hard bread and looked around. Tatsuki was warming up and stretching as if this was a judo match. Delimira and Jenise were going over each other's magic equipment, and chanting prayers to enhance their magic. Miyata was taking lessons from one of the Imperial Guard on how to maintain her arrows, and shifting restlessly. Gerde and Bekhi were sitting near me, and chatting on how good the weapons of the Imperial Guard were and comparing theirs to those of the guards.

"Where's Takamori?" I asked, realizing that the wazzock was nowhere in sight. Bekhi rolled her eyes and glanced at the only tent with guards standing at all four corners.

"I'm the only one who can wake him up without getting sent to the medics by his celestial magic, and I'm putting it off for as long as possible."

"How did you end up with that job anyway? When we left, you were going to be traveling with your dad with the dwarven volunteers. What happened after we left?"

Bekhi then told me everything that had occurred after we separated. That Takamori had attacked the dwarven camp in search of Miyata, and that both Bekhi and Jenise had been forced to fend him off. After being requested to halt his rampages a few more times after that initial encounter, they had been asked by the emperor formally to be Takamori's babysitter to keep him out of trouble.

I mentally patted myself on the back for resolving to not make any weapons or armor for Takamori, and added him to my book of grudges for attacking Bekhi. No one gives my girlfriend a cowardly kick without getting a rune powered hammer to the face!

"So have you been training him at all?" I asked while taking a sip of lukewarm stew with mystery meat. Bekhi scoffed and huffed with a frown.

"I tried. I seriously tried. But he has the reflexes of a stone statue, and all his attacks are spiteful. Despite my best efforts, all I could teach him was to not get hit by my first swing. If that hero armor wasn't so legendary, he'd have been pounded to a pulp by now. The Imperial Guard's way more fun to fight. They're all veterans of their recent civil war, and I've learned quite a few fun tricks that only humans know. I'll teach them to you later, Kvalinn." Bekhi gave me a loving smile that silently told me that there was no escaping a grueling training session in the near future. Her love was intense, and probably physically damaging to me, but it was nice to have, and I wouldn't trade it for anything.

"Hey, Bekhi!" An Imperial Guardsman called out from Takamori's tent. "We're moving out soon, wake up the wazzock and get him ready for the battle. Maybe if we're lucky, some goblin will give himself a stomach ache and eat him."

"No way we're gonna get that lucky." Another guard commented. "He's like a rat, and will probably have to tear down a noble house or two before the emperor exiles him to Zaihan."

"Don't even joke about that! Regular Zaihanian slave raids are bad enough, but imagine how bad they would get if they had a summoned hero backing them up?"

Bekhi listened to the guards banter for a minute or two more, before getting up to wake up Takamori. Before she left though, I stopped her so that I could give her the weapon I had made for her. A single handed warhammer, with the runes of frost, ice, and strength. I had no clue what it should do and neither did Elder Thrikrondromm, but it was sure to be powerful.

"Thanks, Kvalinn!" Bekhi began swinging it about experimentally, before smiling with her battle ready feral grin. "I feel ready to take on the whole horde myself."

I also gave Jenise the weapon we had prepared for her, a sword made in the elven style, with the runes of might, speed, and cleaving. Out of all of us in the Yankee party, she was the weakest, so I fully expected the sword to go unused while she flung spells from behind us, but I would've felt bad leaving her out when everyone else got new weapons.

"Give me your weapon, elf girl. I'll be able to use it way better than a sniveling coward like you could." Takamori had walked up unnoticed, and was now demanding Jenise's new sword.

"Um, um." Jenise was still not very good with confrontation. Her past with her narcissistic uncle made it difficult for her to say no to someone who thought themselves better than the world. So she looked to Bekhi for protection.

"What are you doing, you wazzock?" Bekhi asked as she stepped in between Jenise and the bully. "You already have good weapons, what you lack is a brain. Now go get ready for battle, the goblins will be here soon."

"No! I obviously need a better weapon. If this summoned hero emperor's gear was so great, you wouldn't be able to beat me. So give me the elf's sword!" Takamori made a grab for the weapon.

Bad move.

He left himself completely open to the multiple punches Bekhi landed on his ribs, and if he hadn't been wearing that legendary armor, then he would have had a couple bruised ribs at minimum. Bekhi's punches when she was wearing gauntlets could be deadly if she hit in the right place.

"Graah!" Takamori roared out as he tried to turn his attack towards Bekhi, but before either of them could make a move, he was flung on his face with his arms being held in a lock hold by Tatsuki.

"Give it up, Takamori." Tatsuki held his opponent in a judo hold, preventing him from getting up. "You don't have your goons here in this world. And without them, you're a worthless insect. Now go get ready to fight. The gods gave us a job, and even if they picked one of the most useless person in our school, we will defend this world with our lives."

"I'll get you for this Tatsuki! Just wait, I'll find a new band, and when I do, then I'll torture everyone you care about, before beating you into a coma! OOW!" His rant was cut off by Tatsuki wrenching his arm in a painful twist.

"Baka-Taka!" Miyata taunted, backing up her words with an arrow nocked on her bow. "All alone with no one to save them."

"Alright. Break it up." A lieutenant of the Imperial Guard, a man named Frederick Hauffe, strode up to separate the quarreling heroes. "Lord Tatsuki, please release Takamori. He needs to eat before the battle. Lord Takamori, prepare yourself for battle in whatever manner you prefer. But no further weapons will be provided to you."

Tatsuki released Takamori, trusting Miyata's drawn bow to keep him from retaliating. Takamori trudged away with a scowl at everyone while the lieutenant paused to admire Jenise's new sword.

"You make outstanding weapons, Kvalinn. If you have any spares, I will use them to fight with great honor on the battlefield." Lt. Frederick spoke in an impressed tone, but he also had the entitled attitude of a born noble, and he clearly expected me to just open up my bag and hand him weapons without payment.

"Lousy nobility." I grumbled in Dwarven so that he couldn't understand me. "I can't wait for the industrial revolution to knock you off your high horses." I switched over to speaking Imperial. "If you wish for a weapon, then you can place an order when we return to Altenweil. My spare weapons are for my party."

"Are you sure?" The noble asked in a condescending tone. "My father is an Imperial Count, and if I survive this battle thanks to your weapons, you will have customers coming to you from all over the Empire."

"You're wasting your time, Frederick." Another guardsman called out in a spiteful voice. "Demi-human weapons are just cheap knock offs of human weapons. Save your money for a human smith when we get back."

This set off an argument between the two Imperial Guards, apparently the one who had requested a weapon from me was of the Dwarf Weapon faction, while the one disparaging my work was of the Human Supremacy Faction. It was clear that faction infighting was making inroads into every part of the Empire after just a few years of peace.

"Lieutenants!" The captain of the Imperial Guard broke up their high handed argument. "The emperor is moving to the gate. Move! You too, Yankee's!"

The surrounding guardsmen all sprang to attention at the captain's words, and rushed to the Emperor's tent. Grabbing our weapons, we followed behind them and took up formation behind the already moving emperor.