The morning could not come early enough for Chris. His excitement and nervousness intermixed into a bubbling volcano that sent him flying off his bed.

It didn't matter that the cold floor stung his exposed toes. He rushed to the bathing room in the left side of the room. It was a large room made from a emerald green stone, at its center was a large tub of water which filled up with warm water as soon as he walked in.

"I need one of those back home" he whispered in awe as he climbed into the magical construct.

He scrubbed his body clean of anything left over from yesterday before he exited the bathing room and he clothed himself in beautiful blue silks that had been presented to him courtesy of king Artorias.

He walked to the dinning hall while the rising sun illuminated the corridor's for him like a sort of heavenly torch. The corridor's were filled with people yawning and rubbing their eyes with sluggish movement's as they got to work. Chris on the other hand felt about as fresh as newly baked bread.

The hall was once again filled with many Avalonian's and Cavallonians all sharing another grand feast that watered his mouth and dulled some of his senses as soon that saculent smell assaulted his senses.

"If I could design heaven, it would like this." he thought as his stomach grumbled, like some beast demanding that he feed it.

"You seem very excited boy, more than I can say for you're mood yesterday when hunting the boar." Cai spoke to him as he approached the main table.

Chris didn't know what to make of Cai, he had apparently served under his mother and regarded himself Chris's uncle. But it just felt awkward to meet the stranger who all of a sudden was his family and was just so damn friendly. Unsure of what else to do he silently nodded hoping that would end any future conversion.

Thankfully it was Ishtar who answered for him. " He is just excited about the quest for today."

"Is that so." Cai looked interested " Then I suggest we get you some new armour boy. Your current set was too damaged for our blacksmiths to fully patch up and it will not do for Nat's boy to run into battle with subpar equipment."

"Of course." he could argue that he could pick up anything from the stockpiles that Ishtar's carriers had arrived with, but the he felt a stab of guilt at the thought of breaking the big man's bushy smile.

"Good to hear, lad." Cai playfully punched his shoulder unexpectedly causing Chris to yelp suprise. "I have something of her's that she used to wear back in the day, trust me you will love it. I offered it to your sister's but they already their armour."

Chris sent a glare at Ishtar who seemed to taken interest in the roasted chicken on her plate. He would have done the same for Joan, but for the past two days she had disappeared with the scouting units.

Looking into the crowd he could see his friends and also Pyrrha in the crowd. The feast was shorter than the previous ones as soon Chris was free to speak to Ishtar again about this operation or quest as the Cavallonians had began calling it.

"Find your team and follow Cai to the armory where he shall find you some better suited armour and return your weapons to you." Ishtar's instructed him.

He afterwards took to searching the crowds of exiting feasters for his friends, before finally managed to find Ursa, Hamanymu, Thor and Pyrrha who were still eating.

"You two are a pigs." Ursa stated as she raised her nose in disgust at Hamanymu and Thor who had like a few others in the hall continued their feast with the hunger and ferocity of two wild beasts that had been starved for days.

"Oh, excuse us, your ladyship." Hamanymu who had been savagely assaulting a piece of beef decided to defend himself and Thor. "We've seen you eat, Ursa the glutton. You're no better than the rest of us, our fair lady upon your highest of horses."

Thor only nodded in agreement, he was too busy enjoying a smoked salmon to care for any kind of verbal retort against Ursa, who bore the face of someone who had just been slandered with the worst kind of defamation.

" That's not...." Ursa tried to deny Hamanymu's accusations.

But the challenging looks on Hamanymu, Thor and even Chris's own face told her that none of them could be further away from buying what she was trying to sell.

"Ursa, we have all seen it." Chris decided to enter the discussion. "I swear pizza shouldn't rub across ones face like that."

If anyone had encountered the team during a meal time they would have thought that boys were gluttons and Ursa was the picture discipline and grace. And to an extent they would be right, but when no one but them was looking, refined intellectual Ursa Tudor was a wolf in a hens house.

"At least i bother to show some class in public!" embarrassed she shouted at them as she pointed an accusing finger trying to defend herself. "What's your excuse?!"

"But we are showing class lady Tudor." Hamanymu spoke in a faux snobbish accent as he fixed his none existent top hat whilst Thor rubbed his fake moustache.

"Indeed my lady, one could say we are we are the fanciest and most dashing chaps in this entire sea of uncivilised folk." Thor now joined in on the mockery and Chris tried hard to suppress a chuckle.

"Indeed"

"Indeed"

"Good show"

" Jolly good show "

" Exhalent my good lad"

" Of course governor, god save the Queen and all that."

"Enough!" Ursa was a few seconds away from attacking them in an attempt to stop their continuous tomfoolery and Chris stepped in to restrain her.

"We have a quest, so if we could hurry things along." He said after placing himself between Ursa and the two.

Unfortunately the pointless verbal spats between Hamanymu, Thor and Ursa continued for a few more minutes, but finally Chris managed to get them off their seats and out of their meals.

Finding Cai was thankfully easier to find within the sea of bodies as his orange hair and wild beard stood out in the crowd.

"Lad, there you are. Took you long enough." Cai still had a large cup in hand and filled with a purple liquid which smelled of grapes.

" Sir Cai, it is a great pleasure to meet you." Ursa shook Cai's hand. "My name is Ursa Tudor."

"Oh, so your the one who prefers her books to the hunt. Its a pleasure." the Knight said as he playfully slapped Ursa's shoulder and Chris could see her buckle under the force.

"Come boy, we should be preparing for the coming battle" the knight led the way out of the great hall.

XXXXXXX

"This place is giving me the creeps." Hamanymu shuddered as they went deeper and deeper into the castles lower levels.

"What's the matter boy. Afraid of the dark?" Cai teased as he led the way down the semi dark corridors.

"I am not fond of the dark places, or what Is found in it."

"Then worry not, all this darkness leads to is the armoury. There is nothing of any danger, except a few swords and spears down this path." Cai answered him as he led them to a large gate. He then leaned forward and taped the gates and as if by some invisible hand they creaked wide open.

The armory was a wide hall greater than even the dinning hall, Its wall and roof were made from bronze so polished that Chris could see his reflection in it.

"Wow that's big. It's just as big as the one from back home." Chris was genuinely impressed.

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"Of course it is nephew. This armoury holds some of the deadliest weapons in this plane of the Nexus of Narratives." Cai answered with pride beaming from his voice and body posture.

It's walls and racks were littered with all manner of armors, axes, swords, spears, lances, hammers, bows, pikes, scythes, shields, firearms and even ships which were made great silver wings on the side.

As he inspected each weapon fully awed by their fine and detailed craftsmanship. Chris could feel a great swell of magical energy contained in them. He wanted to study their magical coding now to see if the tapestry weaved into these object's matched that of Avalon's weapons.

"Amazing, I know." Cai said looking through the weapons before declaring loudly. "I got it."

He brandished Lucius-aurora within the air and Chris almost felt like running for the sword in excitement for its return, but he held his horse's and calmly walked forward and took it back with respect from Cai.

He had surrendered the sword to lady Marzhin for her research a few days ago. The wizard had shown an almost obsessive fascination with everything that they owned.

"Thank you." he said as he accepted back the sword that had been placed with a golden scabbard.

"Of course boy. Though... " Cai stopped as he studied the blade with a deep wonder. "This blade though... is strangely familiar."

"It's a copy of my mother's Excalibur." Chris answered as he drew it out of the scabbard to give Cai a better look of it. "The magical code of my sword is so similar it could pass off as the real thing to the untrained eye."

"Um... that explains it." Cai answered as he gave the blade a slight tap. " It felt like that sword, though there was something else..."

"These are mighty arms, tell me of the blacksmith or Wizard who forged them?" Thor asked inspecting the weapons. " They remind me of something."

" What exactly? " Ursa asked excitedly jumping around Thor.

Thor grasped the sides of head as if he was suffering from a migraines, "I am sorry Ursa... its... it's still fuzzy."

" Oh," Ursa deflated in disappointment before she sighed and shrugged her shoulders. " Well, its still something. Maybe you will remember next time big guy."

"A lot of these weapons were captured on missions like the one you are about to be sent to." Cai decided to answer the question Thor asked before Ursa swarmed him.

Cai drew his sword that to Chris's confusion was no metal sword at all. It rather a grey stone craved into the shape of a sword, with red inscriptions that Chris could not read littered across it, from hilt to blade tip. " Like my blade, Preiddeu-annwn, we took them on raids to Annwn."

"Annwn?" Chris had only ever heard that name from his mother's old bed time stories.

"She must have done the same thing." he had more and more question's building up.

"The outer realm of the fairy folk." Cai continued. " When we first formed this Cavallon as an alliance of us refugees, we suffered their raids. So we sent equal raiding parties into Annwn to rescue many of the captured captives and treasures."

"Not many people made it, did they?" the thought that Lunar empire had slaughter thousands of people and destroyed even more homes left Chris feeling sick to the core, but most of all it made him angry.

He could feel the hilt pressing into his palm as he formed a fist around his blades handle, that whitened his knuckles from the how tight he made it.

"Yes, my brothers and sisters... " Cai's face tightened and he spoke with a sense of longing. He stood there for a few seconds of silence and looking off into some past memory. " I pray that they are mere captives and that Nimue hasn't slain them in one of her many fits of spite."

"What about Lancelot?" Ursa asked and a piece of Chris could almost cringe at the implications of what that tale held.

"We never had a Lancelot, as a matter of fact we currently also don't have a Lancelot of any kind." Cai answered before he paused for a second and turned looking directly at Chris with an ever growing smile that traumatically reminded Chris of Morigan or the rest of his aunts and uncles as they thought of ways to torment him. " or a Guinevere."

Chris wasn't interested in knowing his parents romantic lives. He didn't care who they had been with and he didn't want to know.

"What's the matter boy, wondering if your mother swung the sword for both sides of the team." Cai was now laughing with tears rolling down his cheeks.

"Can we not, that is not information that i am seriously interested in knowing." he pleaded with Cai.

"Sorry lad, its just that your face was too much, I could not help it." Cai replied as he whipped tears off his face.

"Well, I hope that my suffering was amusing to you."

" It was. Now, let's see where is it is." Cai said as looked around the wall before he snapped his fingers in delight. "Found it!"

He reached his hand out and he pulled out a complete set of armour. It was a violet and black plate armour with a golden helmet that had a boar forged upon its head.

"Wear this with pride boy, this was your mother's once. It is yours now." Cai's voice was deep and strong as he handed it to Chris and never had a set of armor been so heavy in the Prince of Avalon's hands.

XXXXXXX

After leaving the armoury Chris returned to his room to change into armour given to him. The armour was sturdy and strong, not so mind blowing considering the care and enchantments that went into Avalonian armour, but this set proved a peer to his previous one.

Though his only complaints about it were that the chest area was enlarged, no doubt to accommodate his mothers endowments without fully shaping the chest to appear like a pair breasts.

The boars helmet had the opposite problem, his head was much larger than his mothers had been at that age and thus it gripped his head within a vice.

The last thing he put upon his person was his red scarf, he had held onto to this piece of cloth for close to five years and he felt naked without it.

"Well apart from from the slightly large chest and this tight helmet, the armour is okay." he said as he drank up his own image in the mirror.

A knock at his door drew him out of his shameless self-worship . And like a child caught doing something bad in their room he frantically yelled, " Who is it!?"

"It's me, we need you at the king's council." Ishtar called back to to him. "Are you okay Christian?"

" Of course I am." he was slightly flustered as he answered her. "Why would you think that?"

" Well, it might be because you sounded like a person who had just been caught watching... "

" Go away Ishtar!" he hurt his own throat shouting. Ishtar answered with a chuckle as she left him to stew in his own embarrassment.

The last thing he did before leaving his room was to place Lucius-aurora into its scabbard by his left side. He then walked out and found his sister cross armed and awaiting him. She had large grin across her face while he turned red without his helm to cover his face as it currently rested in his arms.

"That armour suits you." Ishtar had always been the weapons and armour expert amongst them so she could see more marks in the armour than he ever could "Though you might have chosen a better helmet and the chest is kind of big".

"Thanks for your complement and a half, now to the king."

"Of course ladies first." Ishtar bowed as she gave him a way of passage. "It is only the chivalrous thing to do for such a maiden in distress"

"Very funny." he wanted this over with quickly.

The king's war room was located at the highest tower and it made Chris appreciate the teleportation doors in Cavallon that saved him from walking for hundreds of meters across the entire castle.

They arrived in a large room that would qualify to some as a large and expensive empty hall that reminded him of a school auditorium. The king, his wizard, his knights and Avalon's warriors were all present. Chris could see that his friends had all gotten new armor's to protect themselves.

"Queen Ishtar, Prince Christian, thank you for joining us." King Artorias welcomed them.

"Thank you, your majesty" Chris bowed respectfully before he walked to his friends who stood in the crowd of knights.

"You look good." Pyrrha's whispered to him and he was close to delivering to her a witty retort that was meant to tell her to sod off but he simply held his tongue and nodded in acknowledgement of her.

"My people and my friends." King Artorias spoke with a heavy voice.

"While you were told that this quest would be a standard mission to collect artifacts and slay beasts that encroach upon Cavallon. That is a lie." Artorias words sent whispers of confusion in the knights. It was like a wave starting from those closet to the king all the way to the the back.

"We hoped to keep a panic from spreading. We know that the Lunar Empire is planning an all out attack on us within the next four days and this here is a counter attack before theirs ever happens."

The once confused faces of the masses turned to utter fear as men and women looked like they had just been told that the end times were approaching in mere seconds, which if he was being honesty it could be for them.

"My friends, warriors of Cavallon and Avalon!" Ishtar might not have had Artorias charismatic voice but her commanding booming voice did the trick.

" I know what the Lunar Empire took from you. Your kingdoms and your loved ones have fallen at their hands." she started her own speech.

Chris could see some of them on the verge of tears. He reminded of the day the earth was swallowed by the darkness. The utter looks of devastation and loss on the survivors faces stuck with him to this day, and this was a perfect replay of that.

"I know you must feel fear after seeing what they did. But the fact is that the Lunar empire will not stop until every Camelot is conquered and burned to the ground. We must strike now when our enemy is least expecting it and destroy them for their transgressions!" she finished her speech to a rounding cheer from the collective masses whose spirits rose.

"Now that's a queen," he heard Hamanymu whisper in awed.

"I know." and Chris fully agreed with that statement.

"We are to strike at the heart of the Lunar Empire, their abominable circle of the Zodiac as they call it. Now Marzhin, if you may." Artorias declared.

Marzhin smile and winked at the King who looked away blushing as the wizard snapped her fingers and the air around them began to change and morph into the shape of a ring of large castles that were a frankenstein miss match of different castles all stitched together by some mad architect.

"This place." the king pointed at it with disgust. " Is were all manner of people's, holy instruments and great knights are kept locked away and drained for their very life by the witch and her cronies."

"That's where they are keeping mom and dad." he whispered as he could feel his heart pumping faster and faster at the opportunity to rescue them.

"I plan for us to sneak into this facility and free it's captives." Artorias began to explain his plan. "The Empires full armies are mobilising from all across the Nexus to attack us. This is our one chance to catch unawares and strike them down before they can fully consolidate their power in one place."

That wasn't the worst plan going through Chris's head but considering that he had no plan he was going to get behind this one.

"Not a word of this is to leave this room least the people fall into a panic. We are to pretend to ride to carry out the duties that you have been instructed to do before coming here. afterwards Marzhin shall use her magic to transmit us to there facility where our reconnaissance troops shall meet us and you shall receive further instructions." Ishtar explained before he raised his hand in some gesture to get a reaction from them. "Understood!"

"Yes, My King!" was the answer from every one as they held their fists into the air with all the passion burning off them. Afterwards the troops began to exit the room for the court yard.

"I know." Chris turned to his friends. "Not what we signed up for?"

"Chris, since we got to become knights it's kind of become a part of the job description." Ursa said with an amused smile. "At this point we have learned to move with the flow."

"You guys go, I want to have a word with my sister." he instructed them as he walked to Ishtar who was also leaving the king.

" Nice speech by the way." he said halting her.

"Thank you, though I doubt that you stopped me in order to comment on my speech."

He had been thinking about the Lunar Empire and the thought occurred to him. " What is the Lunar Empire trying to do with all these people. I mean what is the damn endgame."

"Honestly Chris." she looked at him her face holding a thinly veiled fear. " I don't know but whatever it is its big and I fear that it might change Jord forever."

That was not comforting in the slightest and whatever was happening, he didn't want to face it whatsoever. The trip down to court yard filled him with much contemplation on the matter of the Lunar nation. On the intentions that would inspire them to attack Avalon.

It meant even his home would possibly fall in fashion reflecting the hundreds of kingdoms of Camelot and his people would be shattered and broken all because some water spirit was feeling vindictive.

The court yard was filled with thirty thousand knights with ten thousand of them being Avalonian or so Ishtar had told him. Around them were a crowd of civilians all in awe at this collection of warriors.

He couldn't tell for sure but he knew that they were all yelling in excitement at the presence of their king who was now dressed in the armour that Chris had originally fought him in.

The horses awaited and Chris thanked Deus that he had enough experience from his childhood with horse riding to not make a fool out of himself.

But even if he wasn't the most experienced person upon the saddle it was nothing in comparison to the nightmarish horse riding under Ursa who both looked wooden with fright as the horses moved decently enough. Perhaps it was through the horse's own instinct.

"A word of advice." Chris said as he approached her. "Don't look as if you currently have a dagger to your head. You might make the horse's uncomfortable."

"What." Ursa hissed at him. " I barely have any experience on this thing and I should not be uncomfortable."

"Then relax a little you are pulling the reigns a little too tightly."

"Don't worry Ursa, if you fall. We will catch you." Pyrrha told her and Ursa weakly nodded to the elf, though she looked ready to fall off the steed.

"I am... I am fine. I can do this, I can do this." Ursa let in out large gulps of air, between each world.

"Don't focus too much on it, think on something to distract you from those thoughts." Chris advised her.

"A distraction, I need a distraction." Ursa repeated those words like a mantra, her eyes scanning everything around her, looking for a distraction.

"What's with the face paint?" She asked Pyrrha.

By reflex the elf ran her fingers across her painted face in surprise at Ursa's question. "It is a Kondo-Nika. An old thing we Summer Landers used to do in the past as mark that we were going to war..."

Pyrrha's next words were drowned out by a wave of awes from the troops that invaded Chris's ear's. He turned to face what they were looking at and even he had to agree with them in their awe.

Before them was an aurora in the sky extending all around them so bright and beautiful was it that it blocked the rest of the outside world until they were in a large tunnel of the aurora and their horses rode it.

But alas it did not last long as the lights vanished and they now found themselves upon a forest that he knew masked them well by its thick tree life but that wasn't what caught his eyes. It was the mighty structure the size of the capital itself. Words could not describe how striking and imposing it truly was.

"Ladies and gentlemen welcome to the Circles of Zodiac." from the distance he heard Marzhin announce their location.