Knight awoke with a notification of “Reboot finished, most damaged self-repaired”. He looked around him and realized three things. Firstly, he was in a grey, steel, warehouse backroom. Secondly, he was tied up with steel fibre cable and his weapons had been removed, but his armour had not. They must not have known how to remove it. Knight thought to himself. Thirdly, there were other people tied up and unconscious around him. Other people? That’s strange, they must have been kidnapped by those terrorists, wait, Akishino! He looked at them and didn’t recognize any of them.
There was a diminutive, ratlike Ysoki with grey fur and a pink nose wearing a velociraptor leather vest. An insectile Shirren with a bright green carapace and a glowing mote hovering around him. A lizard-like vesk with purple and blue scales and a cybernetic casing over her right eye, and a four-armed Kasatha with grey skin and mystic robes. Knight saw that there were no guards around them, and he couldn’t see any cameras either. “WAKE UP!” He bellowed, and the other prisoners jumped awake in shock.
“Whoa, what? I’m awake! Wait where am I?” The Shirren telepathically said to them. “No idea, but we’d better find a way out of these ropes. I’m Knight.” The Shirren responded, “I’m Scal, Scal Kesk.” Knight thought the name was vaguely familiar but that could wait. The Ysoki spoke up in a high-pitched voice “I’m Lish'' She said “and I think I can squirm out of these, gimme a sec.” While Lish was wriggling out of the cables the Vesk introduced herself, “I am Julakeshnor.” And the Kasatha responded in turn “I am known as Tolar Poile Qince Leront D’Tarmal, House Ku’Kulan Soul-splinter of the line of Lai, though you may simply call me Tolar.” The others were thankful for the brevity.
“I’m out!” Lish stated, and she began to untie Knight while Julakeshnor inquired “Being an SRO, can’t you send an SOS with your integrated comm unit? They took my unit along with my gear, and I suspect they did the same to all of us.” “Something in this warehouse is jamming my comm signal. When Akishino and I were first attacked I sent an alert to the station police, but I don’t know where we are now. I can guess why they would want to take Akishino Shinno, but why did they capture you people?” Knight replied. Scal explained, “Actually I recall us all being in the same compartment on a grav-train, when it got derailed and some humans and an elf threw gas grenades at us.”
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Tolar said “Wait, did you say you were with Akishino Shinno, the crown prince of Ning? I suppose you’re his bodyguard.”
“That would be correct.” Knight calmly stated while he stepped out of his now-untied ropes and started to untie Scal while Lish removed Julakeshnor’s restraints.
Lish asked “Any of you know how to fight? I’m sure bodyguard-bot here can, and I’m a crack shot if I say so myself, but howsabout the rest of y’all?”
Julakeshnor said “The exocortex in my right eye gives me some training in weaponry and martial arts, but I’m no expert.”
Scal said “Well the glowing mote hovering around me, is made of hard light. Ever heard of a Solarian? Power of the sun and all that.” Knight recognized Solarians from the Battleflower tournament back home on Ning.
Tolar stated, “I have little training with weaponry, but I studied the Idaran way of mysticism and can cast spells by the providence of Talavet the Storyteller.” Then his ropes fell apart as Lish had untied everyone.
“Now we are free,” Knight said “But I still need to save Akishino, will you help me?”.
The group's response to that was a resounding “Aye!”