Engage Engorgements: LouisNSFW

"What's taking so long? I smell dinner~!" Tiki announced in a sing-song voice. "Go get 'em, my pets! Eat up!"

Panic broke out in the army's ranks as the already exhausted, overwhelmed party of heroes heard Tiki's understated threat.

"We're barely keeping up as it is!" Alcryst whined, trembling. "Though that's mostly my fault, I'm really sorry, I'm sorry..."

Etie put her hands on her hips. "And you brought a child here?!"

"You try convincing her to stay home! I don't think it's possible!" Alear protested, gesturing to Anna as she sang her shop's theme song and merrily chopped a Fabrication in half. Once the creature's frost-coated, icy armor was no longer animated, it blinked out of existence in a flurry of pale blue sparkles. "Anna, treasure room, now!"

"I said to call me Lady Anna!" Anna shouted back. Still, she stormed over to the treasure room, stomping her way inside.

Alear shook her head. "... I barred her from the armory and told her not to come. She brought that axe from her own stock and stowed away on the ride over here! How do you expect me to stop her?"

Etie shrugged. "I meant Boucheron."

The 6'3" wall of muscle named Boucheron was whimpering, tears streaming down his face. "I'm baby!" He dabbed at his eyes. "I just wanna go home and read!"

"Ah." Alear raised her hands, trying to relax her fearful companions. "Everyone, calm down! She's just trying to scare us and get us to make mistakes. This is a friendly sparring match, that's all! Just to test if we're strong enough! And I know we're strong enough. You understand me? We keep fighting no matter what."

"Yes, we have been in worse spots and fought our way out," Céline agreed.

Alfred tipped his head in curiosity. "We have?"

Céline looked at her brother, one eyebrow raised, then gave a royal smile. "Well, perhaps I misspoke. I have."

"Céline, I'm going to have Framme send you outside to pick up that essential item in the snow," Alear said, patting Céline and Framme's shoulders. "That could be key to our success, and you and Celica can get back inside easily with your Warp magic."

"Hm, yes... I'd prefer to be inside in the thick of combat, but I understand your meaning," Céline said, pursing her lips. "Louis, don't follow any of her suicidal orders while I'm gone. We don't need you getting eaten, too. ... Louis. Do you understand me?"

Louis was far away, staring at the three women standing shoulder to shoulder in front of him. It took Céline repeating his name for him to stir awake. "Hm? Yes, of course, my Princess."

"Good," Céline said warmly, lifting her book. "Celica and I are ready for you, Framme." She turned a significantly colder look on Alear. "And you... I'm watching you."

"Happy, uh, happy hunting!" Alear said, waving weakly as Céline vanished into the air. After a moment's silence, she breathed a sigh. "Okay, she's gone. Louis? I need you to stand in front of that wyvern and protect the rest of us while we take it down."

Louis looked mystified. "But the Princess said-"

"I know what she said, but you're gonna be fine. It's not suicidal! It's just one wyvern, and we'll all be ready to take it down before it can hurt you. Framme's right here, she'll heal you if you need it. And we have our safety vulnerary, right?" Alear lifted the bottle of soothing healing liquid from her pocket demonstratively.

Louis lifted his own, smiling. "Yes. You're right as ever, Divine One. I promise to make you proud."

"There's a good boy," Alear cooed. She turned to the others, raising her voice. "The rest of you, finish your skirmishes and join me! We'll only have a brief moment to take this thing down while it's distracted with Louis, and given its size I want all hands on deck!"

The massive wyvern roared as it thundered down the temple hallway, its freezing breath forming clouds of ice crystals with every step. Even Louis, made nearly as round as he was tall by his thick plate armor, was dwarfed against its enormous size.

"Steady," Alear said, sword at the ready, holding her free hand out to stay the attack. "Steady..."

The wyvern finally reached Louis and craned its neck downward, using its momentum to scoop the heavily armored knight off his feet and knock his lance to the ground. His body was cradled in its mouth, arms and legs dangling out between its teeth for just a moment...

... then he disappeared into a bulge in the wyvern's throat.

The whole process took no more than a second or two.

The entire army, Alear included, watched in horror as that bulge traveled down into the wyvern's gut, provoking a satisfied belch of freezing air. Louis was gone in a blink.

No one moved.

At least, no one who was supposed to be attacking the wyvern. "Time to open up shop!" Anna yelled, sprinting out of the treasure room and launching into the air seemingly carried by her heavy axe's momentum. With a cry of "HeeeeYAAAAA!", she slammed down hard on the wyvern's back. It gave a terrific moan of pain and promptly vanished in another stream of ice-blue sparkles, leaving little Anna tumbling onto her face on the floor.

"Oh. I guess it wasn't that tough after all," Etie said, trotting over to help the little merchant upright. "I probably could have done that."

"Uh oh... Céline's going to be mad," Alfred said through a grimace.

"It's fine," Alear assured him. "This is a mock battle. He's still here somewhere. And we have other problems."

Indeed, Tiki soared toward them on massive, leathery dragon wings, roaring, "Who's beating up my babies?!"

"Me!" Anna boasted, hands on her hips, not a trace of fear to be found anywhere on her face. "You ready to get beat up too?"

"Noooo she's not," Alear said, picking up Anna and firmly escorting her to the side. "Treasure room or no sales lectures tonight."

Anna sulked, trudging back to the treasure room with her axe dragging behind her. "Awww..."

After turning back to the Emblem, Alear held out her sword, yelling, "Tiki! We're ready to challenge you!"

"Then let's fight!" Tiki squared up her stance, the majestic Emblem Dragon cutting a fearsome image against the frozen hallways of the ancient temple.

And an epic, pitched battle might have ensued... had Céline and Celica not chosen that exact moment to return. A massive explosion sent Tiki tumbling ass over kettle, rolling down the hallway.

"I am tired of the cold and the fighting. This has gone on far too long, and I am ready to go home to the Somniel and put on a pot of tea to enjoy with Louis," Céline complained as she emerged from the warp. "And the key to our success that I had to dig through the snow outside for was a long-expired 20% off coupon etched into a plate of silver. You had best finish up this battle soon, Divine One."

"Ooh! Give me that!" Alear said, snatching it up. "This is perfect! Imagine how many more weapons we can buy now!"

Tiki groaned, shrinking back to her human girl form. Around her, the remaining Fabrications fell apart, sparkles of pale blue magic energy departing from them and leaving them just piles of motionless armor. "Ugggh... My head... I suppose that's enough to prove you're worthy of my power..." She got to her feet, sliding her own bracelet off her wrist and offering it to Alear.

"Fantastic," Céline muttered, dusting off her gloved hands. She headed for one of the side rooms in the temple. "Now, where has Louis gotten off to?"

Alear winced as she applied the bracelet to her wrist. Oh, right... Where IS Louis... "Uh... well..."

The two wyverns that had accompanied Tiki during the battle came thundering out of her room, prancing along the hallway and bouncing circles around their mistress. To Alear's surprise, she could understand their growls and snarls now - a perk of Tiki's bracelet?

"Mistress Tiki! Mistress Tiki!" one of the wyverns yipped. She rolled over onto her back in front of Tiki, looking pathetic as she showed her belly. "Ovnaes is trying to steal my dinner! She wants a meal too!"

"Zophysse keeps talking about how delicious her food is even though she knows I am also hungry," the other wyvern, Ovnaes, snarled. She crouched in front of Tiki with a pout on her face, her tail waggling in preparation for a pounce. "You should punish her for not sharing."

"How can I share?" Zophysse whined. "The delicious part is the way he squirms!"

Tiki grunted at both of them in their feral wyvern tongue, reaching up in her human form to rub Zophysse's exposed belly. The wyvern purred like an oversized cat. "Zophysse, you did very good today, and you deserve your treat. No one is going to take him away from you. Ovnaes, you worked hard too, but that is not how battle works. But I will try to get you a treat too if you behave." She turned to Alear as she continued her belly rubs, speaking in plain language. "By the way, do you happen to have anyone else you can spare for Ovnaes here?"

"Anyone I can... spare...?" Alear asked, bewildered.

Tiki nodded, lowering her voice conspiratorially. "You know how it is. There's dead weight in any army. Units you just can't seem to find use for? Mar-Mar would understand. Ovnaes has been a very good girl too, haven't you, girl?" She scratched under the pouting wyvern's neck scales. "And that cute li'l tail of yours could always use a little extra chub~"

"Uh- actually I was going to ask you about kind of the opposite," Alear said sheepishly, keeping her voice down. "See, um... Well, Louis was, er, kind of our only heavy armor unit, and well... He was also somewhat sentimentally important to Princess Céline, so..."

"Oh!" Tiki nodded. "I understand completely." She patted Zophysse's tummy, growling a command. "Come on, Zophysse. Urpies. Let's do urpies."

"I don't want to do urpies!" Zophysse complained. "I like having a jingly belly!"

"You're going to have an aching belly if you don't do urpies!" Tiki scolded. "Come on, let's show the Divine One how big of an urpies you can do. You want to impress her, don't you?"

Zophysse perked up at this, suddenly interested in urpies again. "Look at me, Divine One! Watch this!"

The wyvern's massive stomach could hold a lot of air - and a 10-second-long belch shook the entire temple with its bassy might. Had the windows not been long broken, they might have shattered all over again from the sheer force of the wall of sound that came from the wyvern's mouth.

And with them rattled out a suit of armor, no longer in orderly human shape but a mixture of pieces in a messy pile. All covered in the same grasping fingers of frost and ice that had covered the Fabrications' armor. Indeed, Louis's armor now looked exactly like all the other piles that Tiki had animated to become the other Fabrications.

Much to Alear's dismay, Céline emerged from the room she was searching just in time to see this.

"Are you impressed, Divine One?" Zophysse asked, tail wagging and quaking the ground with its enthusiastic thumping. "I did good, right?"

"Well," Céline said dryly. "I suppose I can call off my search now."

"I know what you're thinking," Alear said hastily, backing away as the princess of Firene advanced on her. "And you're not wrong to be angry, but listen-"

"When were you planning on telling me that he was eaten?" Céline asked, her voice steady and dangerous. "And how, I wonder, did he end up inside a wyvern's digestive tract in the first place?"

Alear held up her hands, fear-sweat freezing on her brow. "Uh- Céline, wait. You haven't even heard the story!"

"Are you going to tell me that this wyvern just, out of nowhere, happened to get at Louis when he was safely behind our lines?"

Shiiit. The Divine Dragon was cornered against the back of the hallway. "Um! Well! About that!" Her mind raced. "Uh... There's... There's an explanation..."

"No. I didn't think so. Because once again, you used one of my retainers for a meat shield in one of your fool plans that is, once again, reckless to the point of stupidity," Céline said, her voice low and dangerous. "Do you know that my family has long had a single line of succession? There have not been questions of succession nor alternate heirs in generations. Do you know why?"

"Pr- Princess Céline, we can talk this out," Alear assured the furious Firenese princess. "Let's just... calm down..."

"Because your mother, Queen Lumera, had a taste for royalty that she just... couldn't seem to control. And so every royal not directly needed in the running of the country - of any country - went to feeding her enormous appetite," Céline answered herself, slamming her hand against the frozen temple wall and making the Divine Dragon jump. "But now, she's Fell Dragon fat," she growled. "And that means there's a chance for me to change things up a little. What if, this generation..." She ran her tongue across her lips slowly, menacingly. "The princess eats the Divine Dragon instead?"

Quivering, Alear shrank into herself. She'd never seen Céline so angry, so cold... "N-now, we both know you don't mean what you're saying..."

"I think that would be a lovely twist. The stuff of fairy tales, as Chloé would say if she wasn't raising the average bra size in the Elusian army." Céline's eyes were deadly serious. "This is your last mistake, Divine One. Screw up like this again, put my brother or one of his beloved retainers at risk, and we'll see if all it takes to lead a resistance is Divine Dragon fat on my ass. Are we clear?"

Alear's head bounced like a bobblehead's.

"Good." Céline released Alear, stepping away from the wall. "Alfred! We're going back to the Somniel."

"Be right there, Céline!" Alfred called, patting Alear on the shoulder. "Don't worry, she means well. Just a little playful teasing to lighten the heaviness of war. Well then, off I go!"

Alear slid down the wall, shaken. Those were not the eyes of a princess who was joking around...