Rani opened their eyes at the sound of footsteps, and raised themselves out of bed.
“Not a heavy sleeper, are you?” Constance commented from nearby. She smiled. “It’s just after dawn. After breakfast, we can begin our first move.”
It was eggs and bacon. Rani didn’t know where she’d have gotten either, but didn’t feel the need to ask. They were good.
“Would that be entering me into the competition officially?” Rani asked once the last mouthful was gone. “I assume you have the fee prepared.”
“A trivial matter,” Constance said with a nod.
“Alright. But we have one that isn’t,” Rani replied. “This battle royale is for those knights. Even if you have one lying around, I hope you’re not expecting me to learn to pilot one in a few days.”
Constance smiled. “I do like people who ask these sorts of questions, you know,” she murmured happily. “It saves time. No, I don’t expect you to learn anything new. There’s no time for that, as you say - and it isn’t necessary.”
Rani raised an eyebrow. “Why wouldn’t it-” they began, and trailed off as realization dawned. “I really wasn’t thinking clearly enough,” the soldier said ruefully, shaking their head. “It’s obvious, in hindsight.”
“Yesterday was awfully busy for you,” Constance said sympathetically. She rose. “Come, it’s close by.”
It stood to reason if you thought about it. If Constance was able to bring someone to another world, why wouldn’t she be able to do the same with what that person was inside?
---
If the path Rani had taken earlier was a bit obscured, the one Constance led them to was practically invisible. Rani could have sworn a few of the trees even had to move aside as they made their way through. Eventually the trail opened up to another clearing, where it lay propped up against a particularly large tree: the Vanguard Rani had been piloting.
Along with the City’s massive walls, they were another symbol of defense against the wilderness outside. With two arms and two legs, they were capable of fighting in any terrain and wielding multiple types of weaponry. Practically every building in the City towered over them, but they in turn towered over humans. A full platoon of Vanguards was close to invincible, or so the local news broadcasts often said.
The last Rani had seen this one, it had been disproving that notion quite well: the only way it could have gotten back to civilization was by being carried. Someone had carried out repairs on it in the meantime, and in the process modified its outer armor into a Runic Knight impersonation. The arms were now gauntlets, the legs greaves, and the torso a chestplate. Easily the biggest change was the Vanguard’s head, which had been knocked clean off its shoulders in its last battle. It had been replaced by a simple helmet of black iron, unremarkable save for two curved, narrow eyeholes that seemed to give it an intense stare.
As silly as the idea was, it was still an impressive piece of work overall. Rani could still recognize what it was underneath, but only because they’d piloted one for years; the chances of any local noticing anything off about it were probably close to zero. How it looked was only one part of things, though. “Can it move?”
“’Can it move’?” a voice called. Walking from out behind the Vanguard was a familiar sight. “If I couldn’t make something this shape move just because it’s made of different metal, I’d pack it up and head home to work the mines,” Emrick said with a satisfied look on his face. “Which would be a horrible waste of my talents, obviously.”
He looked Rani up and down and grinned. “Knew you weren’t just some stranger. Don’t worry, Constance filled me in on the details.”
“I didn’t have much choice,” the witch added. “He’d have had a look inside sooner or later, no matter what story I tried to spin.”
“Yup,” Emrick agreed. He turned back to the Vanguard, gesturing at Rani to follow him. “I’ll start by saying, if I were the one who’d built this I’d be giving you a hefty piece of my mind right now. Even if it still had power, some of the insides were one hard fight away from breaking down completely.”
Rani frowned. “The reactor’s out?” Then again, considering it had been set to blow, being dead was probably the best-case scenario.
“If that’s what you call whatever was powering it, yeah,” Emrick nodded. “I tried a few different things looking for any kind of reaction, but nothing came. It’s that cylinder inside the back, right? Had a funny feeling about messing around with it too much, so I didn’t push the issue.”
“Good idea,” Rani murmured. A Vanguard’s reactor had enough yield to make a large part of this forest disappear.
Emrick barely seemed to notice they’d said anything. When he got onto a subject, it seemed like the speed of his mouth did, too. “Once I’d made sure of that, the solution was pretty simple - incredibly time-consuming and going above and beyond the call of duty, but simple.” He followed her gaze and grinned. “Pretty proud of it, if you couldn’t tell.”
Set inside the Vanguard’s waist was one of the large gemstones Rani had seen embedded in the Runic Knights’ armor; it looked as though a recess had been made in the armor for just that purpose. This one was a dark green, the hue matching the black armor around it well. “Constance had that one, while I supplied these,” Emrick went on, pointing to spots on the Vanguard’s arms and legs. Set in them around the joints were a gem each, slightly smaller and without any color.
“A Rune Gem for power, four empty ones to hold it, and some leylines underneath the armor to tell it all where to go,” Emrick concluded. “Last part was the trickiest bit by far, but I’ll spare you the details.”
“Do they work?” Rani asked bluntly.
Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
Emrick shrugged. “Dunno yet. They should, but from what I hear Constance already bonded you and the gem, so I couldn’t test it if I wanted to.”
“A tiny mark matching the gem so it recognizes you as its master,” Constance said as Rani fixed her with a raised eyebrow. “Invisible to the naked eye, too. It was simple to apply it while you were sleeping.”
…alright. “If it explodes, it won’t be my fault,” Rani murmured, approaching their modified machine. As they did, the green gem began to glow, casting a light that swept over the soldier. It reminded them of being scanned back home.
There was no noise to signify it, but after a moment the process seemed to finish. With a clunk, the cockpit’s entry hatch on the chest swung open. Which was impressive, since opening the cockpit on its own wasn’t actually something the Vanguard was programmed to do.
Rani climbed inside, shutting the hatch behind them. It didn’t seem like Emrick had replaced anything about the inside of the cockpit - which, if they had to guess, probably didn’t resemble a Runic Knight’s. Hopefully that wouldn’t come up.
They’d expected the cockpit’s screens to be totally blank, and most of them were, except for the main camera. That showed a view of the clearing below from the Vanguard’s head, as it always did, but with the new quirk of it being split down the middle into two halves. Well, the head did have two eye-holes now.
Another change Rani was noticing was the absence of the electronic hum the Vanguard’s cockpit was usually full of. It wasn’t entirely an unwelcome change, but it would take some getting used to. Something else had replaced it, though.
Experimentally, Rani flipped the switch connected to the Vanguard’s speaker. That, surprisingly, crackled to life. Did Runic Knights have something similar? “It seems like it’s working, but there’s an odd feeling. Sort of a tingling?”
“That’s perfectly normal,” Constance called from outside. Her voice seemed louder too, however she’d managed that. “Areas with concentrated magic cause that sensation even among those who can’t use it, and that includes the inside of a Runic Knight. The amount a Rune Gem generates is harmless, though.”
Did that mean there were concentrations that weren’t harmless? “I’ll try to get it to stand up. You should probably move back a bit.”
They both did so, Emrick looking a bit impatient as he did. It was for their own safety, though: a Vanguard could be temperamental at times while they were standing up, and Rani saw no reason to trust a new power source completely. They gripped the controls on either side, one for each arm, and slid their legs into the braces below, which each controlled one leg. Then they attempted to make the Vanguard stand up, which meant making about the same motions as a human would do the same.
Rani grunted in surprise, not at the Vanguard failing to stand, but at how well it did it. Usually this was a clunky process, and newcomers to the squad often had theirs fall over their first time trying it. This one shot up like someone who’d been caught sleeping in, nearly falling over forward before Rani pulled back. “It doesn’t usually move that smoothly,” they said apologetically.
“I did oil the insides a little bit,” Emrick called up, “but it could be the Gems just work better than what you had powering it before!”
That certainly wasn’t impossible: Vanguards weren’t exactly built to last, any more than the pilots themselves were. Rani took a few moments to test their unit’s movements. The torso, limbs and head all seemed to move just fine, and pacing the length of the clearing went without incident.
Then there was the matter of equipment. The Vanguard’s weapons were gone, but anything else would have been a surprise to Rani considering they were the one who’d smashed them in the first place. In their place was a Runic Knight-sized sword sheathed on its side, and an equivalent crossbow hung on its back. “Not quite what you’re used to, I know, but it’s what we have to work with,” Constance said as Rani took out the former. “It is a shame you couldn’t bring that fancy sword you used; the way the blade spun around was very unique.”
This one did feel much lighter than the Vanguard’s typical load-out. Rani went to take a swing, and then held the sword up close to the main camera (for lack of a better word). The blade was only ordinary steel in its sheath, but was now wreathed in an aura the same color as the Rune Gem, which churned and flowed. It was like it was wrapped in a gust of wind, one you could see with the naked eye. “Ah,” Rani said, noticing another colorless gem on the sword’s pommel.
“They can slice through other knights already, but a bit of magic never hurt,” Constance murmured as the soldier took a few practice swings. “I should probably say now that it’s not a fight to the death, so take that into account for your form.” She gestured to the crossbow. “You should practice with that a bit, too; I imagine it’s even more different than what you were firing before.”
A sword and a gun, the exact weapons Rani had used almost exclusively with the Vanguard. The thought of Constance watching their last battle still didn’t quite sit right with them, but at least it smoothed things over here. Rani reached back and brought out the crossbow; most people would need two hands to wield a weapon like this, but the Vanguard could manage it in one. There were no bolts, but another gem was set into the stock.
Constance clicked her fingers below, and some lights appeared in the sky above the clearing. They were immobile, but small. Rani took aim, and as they did the vague silhouette of an arrow appeared set in the string, also made of visible wind. It seemed like it could barely sit still, churning and flowing in place as though it couldn’t wait to be shot.
When Rani did, a gust of air blew back against their Vanguard as the bolt took off, sailing quick and true. A bit too true, in fact: the projectile sailed right above the light Rani had chosen, and then went right on sailing until it was out of sight. “Not much fall-off on these,” they commented.
“Fall-off?” Emrick echoed. “It’s magic, lady.”
Well, he did have a point.
---
The castle official who’d been put in charge of taking names and payment for the Lightning Royale had been working there for a number of years as an assistant treasurer. That wasn’t a job for panicky sorts, and neither was this duty. Over the past week he had signed in over a dozen people who had to have a wanted poster up in at least one country, and plenty more he was undecided on. Then there were some of the nobles, though that wasn't a topic he'd bring up anywhere but the safety of his own head.
The knight before them didn’t look like either of those, but he wasn’t certain that was an improvement. Their eyes didn’t have cruelty or malice, but they did have an intensity behind them greater than any common bandit or mercenary. “I was told you were accepting people into the Royale here?” they said.
A woman? He relaxed, just a tad. “Yes, we are. However, that will require payment equivalent to one hundred-” The assistant treasurer fell silent as the Dame produced a bag easily containing that amount - and in Lavenia’s actual currency, at that. A small bar to clear, but some applicants failing to do so had caused their fair share of headaches.
“Very good,” he smiled, the first genuine one in a little while. “Now then,” the treasurer added, sliding a piece of parchment and a quill pen across the desk. “Beyond that we only need your name, and what your Runic Knight is called.”
“Is where I’m from not important?” the rider asked, writing down the two names. She didn’t seem experienced using a pen, but still wrote more legibly than plenty of other applicants.
“Not at the moment, I’d say,” the treasurer replied delicately. “We don’t announce every participant, if that’s what you mean - it’d be an all-day affair, haha.” He scratched his moustache. “That’s a question that comes up for the winner, I should think. Afraid I don’t know for certain.”
The young woman nodded, passing back the parchment. He took it and scanned the added names as he’d done many times before. “Rani, astride the Runic Knight Vander. A fine name. Good luck!”
“Thank you,” Rani murmured.