Sariah was not in a good mood.
The instant Lance entered the G13 room, a chill that had been stewing in the air assaulted his body from all directions, instilling in him the temptation to turn tail and run away.
The room was quiet, despite there already being three bodies occupying it -- Sariah, Bianca, and Lady Raschell, and if one needed any additional proof of the tension in the air, Lady Raschell was not reading one of her books.
Lance bowed his head as he took a seat one spot further away from Sariah than usual. He could only manage one half-second sideways glance at her before having to turn away, instead focusing his attention on Lady Raschell. He wanted to offer a polite greeting, but his voice didn’t seem keen on leaving the safety of his throat.
The room remained silent for a few moments afterwards, other than the occasional sound of Bianca sipping from her Ulty’s cup despite the fact that it was clearly very, very low on liquid, as evidenced by the obnoxious slurping noise it was making.
Lady Raschell was the one to break through the silence with a polite clearing of the throat. “Are we ready to begin, Sariah? Everyone is here.”
Sariah’s attention was glued to the pages of some sort of tome. Based on the cover, which was a series of white-and-gold flourishes and ancient letterings, it appeared to belong to the Ecclesia, although Lance couldn’t even begin to decipher what its purpose was.
Without looking up from her book, Sariah stated simply, “It’s not him.”
None of the others were ready to ask for elaboration, despite all of them wanting it. Not until Lance gathered himself and asked, “You’re talking about the knight, yeah?”
“Oh, yes,” Lady Raschell said. “So it is not the returning ULTRA Knight? You’ve confirmed it?”
Sariah aggressively flipped to the next page. “Yes.”
“Oh that blows,” said Bianca. “Now I’m out fifty bucks. Thanks, Mom.”
Letting out a heavy sigh and pressing her fingers into the sides of her skull, Sariah began to elaborate. “I told you before that I didn’t think it was him because he spoke out loud, right?”
Lance and Lady Raschell both nodded while Bianca rolled her eyes, still unconvinced of that reasoning.
“When I first saw him in person, I believed it might actually have been the ULTRA Knight.” She set her book down onto the table, although she kept her eyes on the same space that it had been occupying, as though she were still tuning out the room around her. “But at the very end of the battle in Port Rysa, the knight used an Install.”
Thinking back to the events of the previous day, Lance nodded his head in confirmation. “Yeah….it sounded like it was called…. ‘Pulse’ or something like that.”
Lady Raschell turned to Lance with a quizzical expression. “Install?”
Her confusion caught Lance off guard, until it clicked in his mind that, since Lady Raschell was an elf and not an ultranian, she wasn’t capable of using Installs, and might not even have known what they were in the first place.
“Installs are, uh....” he hesitated, unsure of himself how to explain the concept. They were so intrinsic to ultranians that having to put them into words was an uncommon occurrence. “They’re sorta like....abilities that we -- ultranians, I mean -- can activate to use ULTRA Force.”
The smile that splashed across her face pulled one from him, too. “Oh, how interesting! And you can use them as well, Lance?”
“Y-yes, Lady Raschell!”
“How fun!”
Bianca blew a raspberry, completely intruding on the mood of the room. “Get a room, lovebirds.”
Lady Raschell’s jaw dropped. “Excuse me, Bianca?!”
Ignoring her, Bianca instead focused her attention on Sariah, although the smirk that had formed on her lips showed she had gotten a satisfactory reaction. “What’s this about the knight not being able to use Installs?”
“The wording’s as clear as it can be,” Sariah responded. “He was unable to use them. The knight in Rysa can. Couple that with him speaking out loud, and it’s clear that he’s not the ULTRA Knight.”
“Wait, the ULTRA Knight couldn’t use Installs?” Lance asked. “Why not? Wasn’t he, like, the first ultranian or something?”
Another sigh from Sariah. “Have you not been doing your reading?”
“....”
“Installs didn’t exist until after the ULTRA Knight died,” Sariah explained. “They’re said to have been a gift given to ultranians to help keep the planet safe in his absence. Same with the Force Slots we use to activate Installs.”
Lady Raschell’s head tilted to the side. “Force Slots?”
Across the room, Bianca let out an exaggerated groan. “Oh my dragon it’s like I’ve been yanked back into elementary school!”
Surprisingly, rather than reprimand her for her harsh attitude, Lady Raschell’s pointed ears drooped low. “I....I apologize for my ignorance on the topic....”
Lance felt his heart shatter in two at the pathetic look on the noblewoman’s face. “I-It’s okay Lady Raschell! You shouldn’t be expected to know this stuff!”
“Hm?”
“Force Slots are basically these, uh, slots, I guess….?” He instinctively looked over at Sariah and Bianca for some kind of approval or assistance, but neither was paying him any attention at all. “Yeah, they’re like invisible slots in our bodies that take in ULTRA Force, and we can put Installs into them to activate special abilities.”
The sadness on Lady Raschell’s face was soon washed away with yet another bright smile. “Thank you for the explanation, Lance!”
“What if he can use them now, though?” Bianca asked. “What if he, like, reincarnated or something, and his new form can use them?”
Sariah shook her head. “No. I understand your thinking, but that isn’t possible.”
“What’s not possible? Reincarnation, or the knight using Installs?”
“Both.”
Bianca held her hands out. “Got any proof?”
Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
“Not any that I can show to you,” Sariah answered.
To the surprise of both Lance and Lady Raschell, Bianca dropped her argument entirely. Instead, all she said was, “Fine. So are we done then?”
Sariah nodded, scooping up the book she was reading as she got to her feet, quickly making her way to the exit. “Yes. I’ll close the investigation. You’re all free to leave until the next one. Thank you.”
As she disappeared into the solid wall, Lance looked over first at Bianca, and then to Lady Raschell. “Uh….”
“Whew! Glad that’s finally over!” said Bianca, stretching her arms out. “Time for a vacay!”
Visibly confused, Lance asked, “Wait we’re done?”
Lady Raschell nodded. “I suppose so.”
Lance’s eyes returned to the exit wall. “Sariah seemed pretty pissed, didn’t she?”
“Indeed.”
“Is that surprising?” Bianca asked. “The number one church fangirl in the world finds out there’s someone impersonating her beloved ULTRA Knight. ‘Course she’s pissed.”
Shrugging, Lance let out a weak, “I guess.” Something about the tone in Bianca’s voice made Lance suspicious that that was the real reasoning behind Sariah’s mood, although it was hard to tell with Bianca, since everything she said was peppered with a coating of smugness and snarkiness.
“Did anything else happen in Port Rysa?” Lady Raschell inquired. “Something that might have angered her?”
Lance couldn’t really think of anything. While she had been a little cold to him after using that Gospel Install of hers, during the actual crisis in Rysa, she hadn’t been particularly angry or anything like that. And afterwards, when they had reunited with the Ecclesian Knights, who escorted the civilians back into town once it had been cleared of the fiends, he didn’t recall anything serious that might have bothered her then either. “Not really, no.”
Bianca’s mouth transmogrified into a devilishly evil smile, although she had to awkwardly hold it for longer than natural, as neither Lance nor Lady Raschell were facing her, and she had to wait until they did before continuing. “Orrrr....maybe she’s mad about the little scandal going around in the church….?”
“Scandal?” Lance asked, curious, but only partially so, since every other sentence that escaped from Bianca’s maw was not meant to be taken seriously.
“What? You guys don’t know?” she asked, the smugness of knowing something the others didn’t plastered all over her face. “Not even you, church boy?”
Lady Raschell let out a tired sigh. “Will you just tell us already, Bianca? I have a flight to catch.”
“Fine.” She leaned back in her chair, kicking her feet up on top of the table. “Heard through the grapevine that one of the nuns is a dirty little thief. And by ‘heard through the grapevine’, I mean I have an audio file from the recorder I hid on Mother Dogma.”
“You hid a recorder on her?” Lance asked before looking down at his own body in horror. “D-did you hide one on all of us?!”
Bianca’s face was full of delight at the fearful squirms of the rookie. “Oh you bet I did, baby! I got eyes and ears everywhere.”
Lady Raschell’s reaction was much quieter than Lance’s. “‘Everywhere?’” she echoed in a barely audible whisper.
Cackling at the sight of Lance’s hands clawing at his body, Bianca said, “Relax, rookie. You’re never gonna find it.”
“How’s that supposed to make me relax?!”
Continuing with her earlier explanation, Bianca stated, “Apparently one of the nuns stole some treasure from some bum pirate, and she ran off into one of the church teleporters.”
Resigning himself to the fact that the recorder wasn’t going to be located, Lance dejectedly dropped back into his chair. “What’s that got to do with Sariah?”
It was Lady Raschell, however, who answered. “Sariah cares deeply for the Ecclesia. She holds all of its members to very high standards of conduct.”
Lance thought back to several interactions he had had with her, each one involving criticism of his lack of knowledge on church texts or Ecclesian Knight protocol. “Yeah, I guess that makes sense.”
“That book she was reading was a log book from the Radecross church that tracks usage of the teleporters and junk,” Bianca continued. “She’s been tryna locate this phantom thief nun, but judging by how pissed she was, I don’t think she’s been having a fun time of that.”
Bianca seemed to be enjoying that fact more than she probably should have, but Lance wasn’t about to be the one to call her out for that. “Do you know who that nun is, Bianca?”
“Good question, Lance,” Lady Raschell said. “You did say you had eyes and ears ‘everywhere’, did you not, Bianca?”
“Maybe I do. Maybe I don’t.”
Lance and Lady Raschell shared a look of pure “give-up” energy between themselves.
* * * *
ULTRA KNIGHT
* * * *
The dying screams of the Ecclesian Knight were cut short as Fohrzen yanked his chainsaw greatsword out from its victim’s body, severing it in two with absolute ease. The dead Knight’s corpse joined a pile of his former comrades at the giant skelemental warrior’s feet.
With all of the Ecclesian Knights slain, Fohrzen took a slow look around the area. He was standing on a grassy cliff overlooking the port city of Rysa, with the moon and star lights being the only thing rendering him visible in the darkness of night.
“Where is he?” Fohrzen’s crunching, mechanical voice asked.
The multi-colored cloak of Yunze suddenly flew in from overhead, twirling around the giant skelemental in a half-circle before coming to a stop. “The Knight approaches.”
A loud, harsh cracking sound popped from Fohrzen’s jaws. His skelemental head was normally impervious to movement, frozen in time, but upon hearing those words, it had somehow managed to contort itself into a smile. “Excellent....”
The two skelementals turned to face the other side of the cliff as they soon heard the sounds of heavy boots crunching against the dirt and grass below. In time, the silver-white armor of the U-Knight peeked out over the top of the cliff as the knight finished his ascent and joined the skelementals atop the cliff.
Fohrzen and the U-Knight stared one another down in silence, perfect contrasts to one another -- a dark, skelemental warrior who slew knights, and a bright, shining knight who slew skelementals.
“Leave, Yunze,” Fohrzen demanded as he hoisted his massive chainsaw greatsword up and over his shoulder. “This battle is not for you.”
The cloaked skelemental’s dim green eyes peeked out from the shadow of their hood, settling on the U-Knight, who stood frozen in place. “You do not want assistance?”
“My purpose is to battle him,” came Fohrzen’s answer as he slammed his mighty blade into the ground, causing the entire cliff to tremble. “And it is my purpose alone.”
Yunze nodded their head before taking flight once more, vanishing far into the night.
“Draw your blade, ULTRA Knight,” Fohrzen said. “We battle at last.”
The U-Knight’s gaze drifted away from the skelemental, and down towards the pile of bodies at his feet.
A cold, crunching chuckle escaped from Fohrzen’s metal skull face. “Use their deaths as motivation. Whatever spurs the warrior within you.”
* * * *
ULTRA KNIGHT
* * * *
The Radecross church was far bigger and busier than the location near Humilde, even late into the night. Each branch of the Ecclesia had its own room in the facility, and there were three floors of them, too.
As Sariah marched through the halls towards her destination, she passed dozens of others -- nuns, priests, visitors, spirits. She gave each of them a polite nod of acknowledgement, as she had been taught to do, but she wasn’t in the most upbeat mood, and didn’t have the patience for anything more than that.
She made her way down from the third floor to the first. There was enough force in her hurried steps to send echoes around the halls of the church, which did draw in the attention of a few others, but it was of no consequence to her.
As she passed by the doors to the B3 room, she came to a stop. Roy had emerged from within, offering her a smile. “You’re up awfully late.”
“Working.”
“That was the last thing I would have guessed!” He laughed as he said that, but when he noticed the ire on her face, his own smile vanished. “What’s wrong?”
Sariah held up the book in her hand, tapping on its cover somewhat aggressively with her opposite hand. “Going through the logs trying to track somebody. Seems like there’s been some slacking off in proper logging for a while now, though.”
Roy let out a sigh. “My condolences. Who are you trying to find?”
“Dunno,” came Sariah’s curt response. “A runaway thieving nun, apparently. I don’t suppose you’ve heard anything about that?”
“No, sorry,” he replied. He brought his fingers to his chin, tapping a finger against his lips. “When was this? I do recall there being a report of a missing artifact somewhere over in Libertas a few weeks ago.”
Sariah’s brow furrowed. “Wait, what?”
“You didn’t hear about it?”
“No.”
“Ah, well, you were on vacation, I suppose,” Roy continued. “I’m not sure what came of it; it was only something I’d heard about in passing while I was in Vash. An artifact had gone missing from one of the branches in Libertas, and they were asking if any of the other nearby locations’ artifact divisions had taken it by accident or something.”
Sariah’s jaw and fist tightened. “Thanks. I’ll look into it.”
“Sure thing. Let me know if-” before he could even properly begin his sentence, Sariah had stormed off past him down the hall.