“Zane’s as hard to understand as always.”
Aerin smiled, taking a sip of tea. “I thought as much. Have you spoken with him recently?”
“Not in person, no,” Roy responded. “And even then, I didn’t get much out of him other than vague taunts and gun puns.”
“He came by not long ago.”
That caught the commander off guard, compelling him to lean forward in his seat. “Wait, really? What for? And how did he find the city anyway? Did you invite him?”
The Lunafei mayor set her cup down. “No, I didn’t invite him. I didn’t even know he was coming. I’d spent that morning in the library researching, and when I came back to my office, he was sitting right where you are now, waiting for me.”
Roy let out a heavy sigh. “That definitely sounds like the kind of stunt he’d pull….And what did he talk to you about?”
“He wanted to ask me about an artifact he’d acquired…. A purple gemstone, shaped like a pyramid…. Beautiful little thing.”
“Purple gemstone….” Roy mused. “Did you know anything about it?”
Aerin shook her head. “No, and, similarly to this skelemental issue, we couldn’t find anything in the library relating to it.” She paused for a moment, extending a finger out to gently pet a spirit cockatiel. “But that is to be expected, I suppose. The world is constantly changing, and so much of it has yet to be documented properly.”
Leaning his head over the back of the chair, Roy let out an exaggerated sigh. “It feels like forever since I’ve gotten any actual information out of anybody.”
“I’m sorry I’ve been so unhelpful, Roy.”
The commander quickly thrust his head forward again, holding his hands up. “Oh, no no no, I didn’t mean to imply anything ab-!”
He let out a sigh as he caught the Lunafei mayor giggling at his panicked response. “I’m joking, Roy.”
“Well, in my defense, you don’t usually do that, so….”
Aerin gracefully arose from her chair, and Roy followed suit, the pair making their way back towards the door. As they did, Aerin asked, “So what are your plans in the coming days? Provided we don’t find anything about these skelementals of yours, I mean.”
Roy shrugged. “Depends what the church decides, I suppose. Probably continue to the capital. Scope out the area for further signs of skelements and the Knight.”
As they reached the door, Aerin suddenly stopped, pressing her palm against Roy’s massive chest. “And what are your plans for….tonight?”
“Well, for starters, I’m hungry, and I really need to use the restroom.” A massive grin stretched across his face as he caught Aerin rolling her eyes. “But after that….”
* * * *
ULTRA KNIGHT
* * * *
Garo had to admit: he was impressed.
To him, Lance had always been a good kid, albeit a very boring one, and that seemed to have carried over as he’d aged into a young man. As such, his expectations regarding their little swordfight spar weren’t particularly high; he figured it would be a lopsided stomp wherein he’d get to show off and tease the kid all the while, but Lance was actually keeping pace.
His fighting style wasn’t particularly interesting, with Garo immediately recognizing it as textbook Ecclesia sword schooling, but his execution was on point. He moved with precision, and carried out each attack with excellent timing and aim.
Luckily, Garo was familiar enough with the church’s sword teachings, and was able to maneuver his massive greatsword to block all of Lance’s strikes, although he did have to break a sweat or two in the process. Within a minute or so of the start of the sparring session, he found himself getting quite into it.
So much so, in fact, that he decided to kick things up a notch and make things interesting. As Lance came flying in with a horizontal slash, Garo angled his sword downward to block it, but at the same time, he dug the tip into the earth and flicked his wrists upward, tossing a chunk of dirt and grass right into Lance’s face.
“Ah! What the hell, man?!”
As Lance brushed the dirt from his face, he realized Garo was no longer where he had been, and a moment of panic took over. Fortunately, his body moved through the fear, muscle memory from Commander Roy’s instruction compelling him to spin around and duck beneath the incoming heavy chop from greatsword.
As Garo’s body sailed past his own, Lance pivoted back around and swung right for Garo’s exposed lower back, though he did twist his sword around so as to only strike him with the flat rather than the sharpened edge.
To his surprise, however, Garo’s gigantic greatsword somehow managed to maneuver all the way around his body, intercepting the strike faster than he’d thought possible, which once again threw him off his game.
“Too slow!” Garo hollered, slamming his shoulder into the flat of the blade of his sword, pushing it forward until it rammed directly into Lance, sending him flying into the grass.
Deciding he’d been beaten for the session, Lance released his grip on his sword, taking a few moments to gather his breath before sitting back up. Garo left his own weapon lodged into the earth before coming over and taking a seat beside him.
Garo slapped his hand across Lance’s upper back. “Gotta say, kid, I’m pretty impressed. You did better than I thought you would.”
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Recalling the fact he hadn’t landed a single strike, Lance sighed. “Gee, thanks for the high hopes for me.”
“Haha, sure you didn’t hit me, but that’s alright,” Garo replied. “Nobody ever does.”
The braggadociousness of the statement got a surprised chortle from Lance. “What?”
Grinning, Garo said, “You heard me right, kid! Swift as the wind, even with that big-ass hunk of metal to lug around! Haven’t been struck in battle in years!”
Now Lance simply found himself blinking in awe. “Whoa, really….?”
“Course, I also haven’t been in a battle in years, but let’s not worry about that, yeah?”
Lance excused himself for a minute, heading back into the house and returning with some energy drinks for the two to gulp down. Afterwards, Garo said, “Hey, you remember my baby brother Zeo?”
“Yeah, I think so. Why?”
“Ah, you just kinda reminded me of him a bit, that’s all,” came Garo’s response. “He’s been learning how to swordfight too. You both seem to have a knack for it. Course, he’s a fourteen-year-old brat, so he doesn’t stick to proper form and likes to throw in flashy moves every now and then to play hero or something, but once he gets his head out of his ass, I think he’ll be a crazy good fighter.”
Lance whistled. “He’s fourteen now, huh? That’s crazy….”
“Yup. Time flies, right?”
Taking a swig of the energy drink, Lance said, “Hey, so….were you serious about me being pretty good? A-at sword fighting, I mean.”
“Nah, you’re horrible.”
“Wh-what?! Oh, I, uh-”
Lance nearly had the wind knocked out of him with the sudden heavy slap on the back from Garo. “Ahaha! I’m just screwing with you, kid! You’re doing great!”
“Thanks….”
“How’re your Force Slots?” Garo asked. “Got any cool Installs? Didn’t get to see any during the spar.”
Lance shrugged. “I don’t think I’ve got anything special.”
“What are you? A Frame?”
“No, I’m a Burster.”
“Just like Zeo,” Garo chuckled. “Well, you didn’t get all crazy emotional on me during the spar, so you seem to have that shit in check, at least. What about those Installs?”
“Uh….Fire, Water, Shield. Again, nothing special.”
A pause. “Yeah, I was getting ready to say ‘oh, c’mon, that Install is special’, but you weren’t kidding; that is a pretty basic bitch collection, haha!”
Lance’s eyes dropped to the ground, prompting Garo to smack him on the back again before adding, “Hey, don’t look so glum, kid! Basic doesn’t mean bad, especially if you’re a Burster. The Heart Slot can do some crazy powerful shit.”
The pep talk didn’t seem to do much for the nineteen-year-old, as he kept his eyes spaced-out gazing at the grass. Garo sighed, recognizing the low self worth at the lack of personal “interestingness” as yet another peculiar similarity to his younger brother.
“Tell you what, kid,” he said, his hand digging through his pocket for his phone. “I’ll give you the number of a friend of mine. Crazy good sword and Install teacher. Hit him up when you got the time; he could make a comatose pacifist into a pro fighter no problem.”
Lance’s brow furrowed. “That’s a….pretty weird way to phrase it. And I’m sure he’s a good teacher and all, but I don’t know if I should waste his time like that. I’m not anybody special….”
Just accept it….It’ll be good for me….
Almost as quickly as he’d spoken his declining of the offer, Lance shook his head. “A-actually….! Sure, why the hell not?”
As Lance got to work copying the number Garo was showing him, the latter said, “Usually this guy charges crazy amounts of money for lessons, but I’ll shoot him a message that you wanna study under him. He’ll cut you a good deal.”
“You can do that? Are you guys close?”
Garo pocketed his phone. “Eh….it’s not like we’re best buds or anything. It’s more like….he owes me a favor, I guess.”
“Well….thanks, Garo. I’ll definitely think about it.”
Nodding, Garo pushed himself up to his feet, and Lance followed suit. “Anyway, it was nice seeing you again, kid. Keep up the good work and all that jazz, yeah? I gotta bounce.”
He took hold of his greatsword and locked it onto his back before waving goodbye, which Lance reciprocated. It was a bit strange seeing him move so casually with that gigantic weapon; one would think the weight or at the very least the size of the thing would affect one’s gait at least a little bit, but that didn’t seem to be the case for Garo.
Once Garo was gone, Lance glanced down at his phone, staring at the contact he’d just added; the famed sword and Install teacher.
“‘Master Gwynt’, huh? Guess it wouldn’t hurt to get some lessons from him.”
* * * *
ULTRA KNIGHT
* * * *
Unfortunately for Commander Roy and Mayor Aerin, their little romantic tryst was not meant to be for the night.
While the two smiled and giggled like teenagers as they snuck their way through the Lunafei night towards Aerin’s room (as much as the giant armor-clad Roy could “sneak”, anyway), a powerful voice echoed around the forest, reaching the ears of each and every denizen of the city, no matter how deep into slumber they might have been.
“What an interesting little town we have here! The perfect setting for the next show of the Stunning, Striking, Stupefying Sinzen!”
Roy and Aerin spun in all directions in search of the source of the voice. Despite how short the voice’s message was, and how harmless it’s words appeared, they knew immediately that it was coming from someone dangerous. The way it seemingly wrapped itself around the city, which was guarded by supreme magic that should have rendered it undetectable to all outsiders, echoing around the trees and slithering through the cracks in the doors and windows to ring clearly in the ears.
Roy instinctively reached for his sword hilt with one hand while pushing his other back against Aerin. “Get to safety!”
“An intruder?!” Aerin gasped. “How did they get in here?!”
Of course, it was not merely “one” intruder who had somehow wandered into Lunafei. Dozens of skeletal hands, claws, and wings emerged from beneath the earth, flooding into the forest city in the span of seconds.
And above the panicked screams of the civilians came the thundering sound of hooves, and flashes of lightning across the sky. In came the charging chariot of Sevya, accompanied by Yunze and, of course, Sinzen, who, rather than stand or sit in the chariot properly, had elected to create his little fiery-red throne inside of the chariot, much to the apparent annoyance of Sevya.
“My, this city is quite a sight to behold, is it not?” Sinzen called, arms and hands twirling around with dramatic flair. “But I believe it would be even more beautiful with some proper lighting!”
He threw his skeletal hands into the sky, and sparkling streams of scarlet exploded around in all directions, slithering around like serpentine dragons, chasing after civilians, bathing the entire place in a red glow.
“Get off,” Sevya said coldly.
Sinzen leaned over, placing his masked face a mere inch from Sevya’s own. “I’m sorry, my dear, I will need you to speak clearly and enunciate, or the good people in the stands won’t be able to hear y-”
Sevya threw an elbow into his face, but he was not there to take the hit. Instead, he’d repositioned himself several feet above her, floating in the sky, gaudy red throne and all.
Without giving Sinzen the chance to continue running his mouth, Sevya barked out, “I’m going to destroy the totems!” and cracked the reins, prompting her skeletal steeds to storm off to battle.
With a dramatic sigh, Sinzen rested his elbow on the arm of his throne, and set his chin on his open palm. “Sigh! Woe is me, an artist surrounded by workhorses with no appreciation for theater!”
He then snapped his head back upright, clapping his hands together. “Yunze!”
The floating, cloaked skelemental drifted to his side. “Yes?”
“Fetch me a drink, will you, my dear? I may need it to do a spit-take later when some hero inevitably waltzes into the scene to defy me.”
Yunze nodded and began floating away.
Sinzen crossed one leg over the other, staring down at the city of Lunafei as his army of skelementals began chasing after the civilians and raising hell.
“Drat,” he said to himself. “I should have asked Yunze to fetch me some popcorn as well.”