Fann
The bandit's hair was cut in what had probably once been a tall mohawk. He gave the impression that's what he'd been going for. It seemed no one ever told him you couldn't just shave your head and leave a stripe in the middle you also had to do something to make the hair stay up. Or at least control it a little so it didn't grow all over your head like a wilted tangle of weeds. Ridiculous hairdo aside he was a tall, powerfully built man with a rifle hanging at his hip from a shoulder strap and a tower shield on his back, and he was strong enough to toss a screaming villager in the back of the truck he'd rode in on with each hand. That kind of thing commanded respect, whatever your head looked like.
“Hey Fori,” he shouted. “Think we got enough?”
“I dunno Hoger,” the other bandit officer said, rubbing her chin. She was a short, very broad bodied and heavyset woman covered head to toe in leather, the saggy tough brown hardworking kind not the tight shiny kinky fun times kind. On her head she wore goggles underneath a helmet with a long fin in the back, and on her back she had an enormous backpack with all kinds of tubes and attachments. “I feel like wrecking a little more of the town.”
“Me too!” Hoger said. “Boss should have let us come along on the first attack. We don't get any respect, you know that? Just because we don't got any regalia...”
There was a change in the sound quality. Specifically the screams coming from town changed in an instant from “panicked fleeing villagers” to “tough guys who have just become injured and are experiencing more pain than they believed could exist in the entire universe.” The bandits were intimately familiar with both varieties. The top of someone's head flew past Hogger's shoulder spattering blood in a spiral as it flew, and he turned to see Fann and J'vann cutting a swath through his men.
Finally. Fann had been starting to think they'd never turn around. Listening to their conversation while they walked up had notbeen fun. They had hideous voices. J'vann didn't look too pleased either, but that might have been at how much carnage Fann was leaving in his wake. The bandits put down by the Verdant Knight were mostly unconscious, or had a broken bone or two. The bandits Fann had put down were lucky to be in only two pieces.
Oh well, Fann shrugged. To each his own.
“You two got a lot of guts coming here alone,” Hogger sneered at the approaching knights.
“Take my advice,” Fann sighed, resting his katana over his shoulder. “If you can't come up with anything better than that, just fight and skip the banter.”
“He did not have much time to prepare a line,” J'vann said. “Not everyone spends their free time crafting the perfect quip for every situation.”
“Then what the hell are people doing with their lives?” Fann shook his head. “Sounds fishy to me.”
“You think you got time to kid around?” Fori snarled, reaching for the complicated backpack she wore.
“We think your minions are already unconscious or dead,” J'vann said. “By our hand, or at the hands of the villagers who came with us. We would prefer you to surrender before there is any more bloodshed.”
“Well he would,” Fann corrected. “I'm just as happy to keep slashing. But if you give up I suppose I can skip the cutting you to pieces part.”
“Lording your Regalia over me huh?” Hoger snorted. “Just like all those other jerks! Well I'm stronger than you even without one! And I've got this!”
He lifted the rifle at his hip with one hand and took out his shield with another. Weapon and shield both hummed to life, the acrid smell of plasma energy coming from the gun's barrel while a sheen of protective light covered the metal of the shield.
“I got this made outa some scrap battleship armor,” Hoger said, taking a step forward with the shield raised. “Ultra Durashield plate, molecular integrity webbing, reinforced quantum bonds, and a self-generating force field. I'm the only guy without a Regalia who can lift it. Even Big Brother Sloth can't cut through this shield! And I'll....”
It barely looked like Fann moved. There was a blur of motion, flashes in the air that were more felt than seen, and the bandit's shield fell from his arm to a pile of smoothly cut triangular pieces lying on the ground.
“Y-you sliced up my shield!” Hoger said. “In...in just five cuts?”
“Yeah,” Fann smirked. “But don't forget the other two.”
“What other ahhhhh!” The top half of the rifle fell to the ground, but the bandit's attention wasn't on his now useless weapon but on the deep cut in his side that had suddenly begun spaying blood, as if the cut had been so smooth and clean even his flesh had taken a while to notice it. “I'll kill you! I'll--”
“Fann,” J'vann said. “May I see your sword for a moment?”
“My sword?” Fann shrugged. “Okay sure.” He walked casually past the hulking wounded bandit, just quickening his pace a step when Hogger grabbed for him, to hand the blade to J'vann. “But you can just summon those big logs so what do you need it fo....what are you doing?”
J'vann dropped his Regalia, the tattoos vanishing from his skin and the wooden bludgeon in his arms withering away. He took the sword from Fann and cut a deep gash in his own side, blood spraying from the wound.
“Thank you,” he said, handing Fann back the sword.
“What was that for?” Fann demanded.
“Now there will be no excuses,” J'vann said, locking eyes with Hogger. “Will you handle the woman? I will deal with this man.”
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
“Yeesh what is up with you people?” Fann said. “Seriously, honor's got to be some kind of mental illness. Yeah fine, do your thing I'll take care of her.”
“Give her a chance to surrender please,” J'vann scolded.
“Yeah yeah,” Fann sighed, waving without turning back around. “You wouldn't last five minutes in Nightside thinking like that, you know that? I'll be good.”
He walked up to the bandit woman, sword resting over his shoulder.
“You plan on surrendering?” He asked. “Please say no.”
“Oh don't worry!” Fori snarled. “The only reason you're not already dead is because I couldn't get a shot around Hoger. These fire supercharged plasma. More than enough to punch through your regalia.” She pulled the largest attachment on either side of her backpack off, revealing them to be a pair of guns baroquely constructed from scrap metal in all different patterns and colors.
“But you still can't shoot me with your friend in the way,” Fann pointed out, crouching down and readying his sword. “And that big heavy charge pack on your back can't do much for your mobility.”
“That would be a problem,” Fori grinned. “If it was a charge pack.”
There was roaring sound and a blast of gleaming blue light and Fori shot into the air on her jet pack.
“Oh hell,” Fann grumbled.
“Hahahahaha!” Fori laughed, swooped back over the battlefield. “The only guy better in the air than me is Aldo! I'll blast a hole in....where'd he go?”
“I'm behind you,” Fann said. Fori turned her head back to see Fann running behind her in the air.
“WHAT!?” She roared, rolling over and bringing up her guns. She blasted at him, but Fann dropped out of sight.
“Yeah this power is less useful than you'd think,” Fann said, running on nothing to meet up with her again. “But it does let me get to an enemy flying around in the air if I have to.”
Fann hadn't had the occasion, or the opportunity, to explain to someone how the Bat Regalia worked. Just like Andry's Lion Regalia it used sound, but the bat was the razor to the lion's cudgel. When active a new system formed inside his body beside his nerves and veins, a complex web of auram wires that could transmit sound from his throat to anywhere he wished. Through his palms, his already ultra-sharp katana became a vibrating superblade. From his feet, the burst of sound allowed him to walk on the air. The downsides were that in the air he had to keep moving, and he couldn't use both of those abilities at the same time. With each strike, he would have to let himself fall.
He would just have to use as few strikes as possible. He heaped and darted through hail of plasma bolts Fori fired, drawing closer and closer until in one swift movement he buried the blade of his katana into her heart.
“Looks like I did handle you,” he said.
Fori's wide eyes lost focus for a second, then she hacked up blood and turned her attention to him.
“Guess so,” she said. “But I'm not going down alone.”
She grabbed for him and Fann darted backward, pulling his katana out of her chest and backstepping through the air. He watched as she performed an arial backflip and shot towards J'vann on the ground, guns raised. He shouted inarticulate denial and let himself drop through the air, slicing through her jetpack as she passed. But it was too late, she had already fired, and she was laughing in triumph as her fuel exploded and she was engulfed in all consuming flame.
J'VANN
“What is this?” Hoger snarled. “Some kind of trick?”
“No,” J'vann said. “A lesson. About power.”
“You think I don't know you got more power than me!?” Hoger bellowed, swinging a meaty fist. “You're gonna regret dropping your Regalia to fight me!”
J'vann caught the blow on his palm and gently turned it aside. He did the same with the next three punches Hoger threw at him.
“You are right to be proud of your physical strength,” J'vann said. “If this were only a test of that, I would be outclassed. Even with my Regalia active, infusing my body with auram. But I have weapons you do not. My training. The teachings of my Master. My faith in the light of Ygdrasil. And above all, I have quiet in my soul. You have not found a compatible Regalia or formed one of your own because Regalia are the energy not just of body, but also mind and soul. Your body is powerful, but your mind and soul are in chaos from your fear.”
J'vann struck for the first time, a palm thrust that landed in the center of Hoger's chest and sent the huge bandit stumbling backwards.
“You're not making any sense!” Hogger shouted, but his voicve wavered, and there was a tremor to his eyes.
“Somewhere along the line you decided you were weak,” J'vann said. “And that thought made you scared. You are not truly a sadist, not inherently cruel, like so many of the others in your band. In fact I believe you began as a very kind person. But you decided you were weak, and that thought made you scared, and that fear made you weaker and weaker.”
“Weak? What do you mean weak?” Hogger sent another flurry of blows flying at J'vann. “I'm so strong I've beaten people with Regalia!”
“No,” J'vann said, calmly deflecting Hoger's fists. “You are powerful. But like a mighty fortress built on a foundation of sticks all that power does is strain against your weakness, and bring you closer to breaking.”
“Shut up!” Hoger glared into the knight's eyes. They were almost painfully clear, glinting like stars. “What the hell do you know about anything?”
“If I am wrong,” J'vann said calmly, “why are you crying?”
“I'm...what?” Hogger touched his cheek and his fingers came away wet. The tears came down his face in thick, glistening streams. The calm, clear eyed knight had made him remember...no. Made him admit. Admit the one thought that had been the root of all others for almost as long as Hogger could remember.
Please don't hurt me.
He had lived his whole life as a mouse in a world of cats. Terrified, huddling, surrounded by monsters. And somewhere along the line he'd found he could be safe if they thought he was one of them. So he'd gone along, and he'd killed, laughed in the dying faces of people who's eyes mirrored his own fear.
He looked down at his hands. How could they be so clean? They should be soaked with blood.
And then he caught something out of the corner of his eye, distorted by the tears.
There was no conscious thought. If there had been time to think he might not have done it. The fear would most likely have taken hold. A single breakthrough does not permanently repair a soul. But there wasn't any time to think, and Hogger tackled J'van out of the way just before Fori's plasma bolt hit. He collapsed to the ground in two charred pieces, light fading from his eyes. He didn't even notice Fori's explosive death, just J'vann standing over him.
“Had to...” Hogger tried to explain, reaching an arm with crisp, crackling skin out to the Verdant Knight. J'vann took it without hesitation. “Too little...too...late.”
And he was gone. J'vann began praying over his burned and broken body.
“Did I see that right?” Fann asked, running down from the air. “Did he just save you?”
“He was a sad, confused man,” J'vann said. “I hope his soul finds peace, wherever it has passed to.”
“I...” Fann was at a loss for words. “Yeah. Me too, I guess. Sympathy for an enemy feels...I dunno. Weird.”
“You mentioned Nightside,” J'vann said. “There are a lot of worlds, and regions of worlds, given that name for just as many reasons. But I have heard of one, in particular...”
“I don't want to talk about it,” Fann said darkly. “Not right now. I'm not...when I'm ready, okay?”
“Alright,” J'vann said.
“It's not like I don't trust you,” Fann said. “I'm just...not ready.”
“It is alright,” J'vann told him. “Rimni was the same, when I first met him. Though I suspect his story is even more grisly than your own. If you ever want to talk about it, I am here. I suspect you would be much more eager to explain how that trick where you run on air works, but we had better meet up with the others. There is a great deal going on, and we could lose track of something in the confusion.”