April 5th, 1923
3:47 pm
Fort Nebula, Vrontí
Somewhere in the prison.
2 young men, a knight, a woman were seen trying to breakout of the prison hold after helping one of their friends to escape.
One of the youths slipped, and fell down. When he looks behind as he saw a dozen of royal knights chasing after them.
Yes, that's me, Ruven Ryder. Now, you're probably wondering, how did we end up in this situation?
Let me start from the beginning.
1600 years ago-
"Not that beginning you idiot!" Jian said as he slapped me on my head.
Alright alright jeez.. fine, now here's really what happened.
A few days ago
One of the ship's leader sent a message to us. It said that she had found something worth investigating inside 'Fort Nebula' or something like that. She mentioned something about negotiations with Aqueogons and anomalite experiments but she wasn't sure.
In order to investigate, she took it upon herself to seek out intel in order to help us, and stated that she may not be back for two or three days.
At the end she stated,
"If I don't send anything from my side within 2 days sharp, I have been captured. I will be in the prison, find me."
And as expected, we didn't recieve any message back. Fort Nebula is one of the main forts in Vrontí, most of the nobles and royals make frequent appearances there for meetings regarding business, finance, welfare of the people, and of course, underground tradings for slaves and illegal research.
Its the 5th of April today, and we're going to break her out of prison.
We rushed into the fort through the drainage. There were corpses there, some fresh and decomposed. What evil is happening over here? It smelled so horrible, I wanted to vomit then and there.
After tedious climbing work we finally entered the prison area and started talking about the mission.
"So what does she look like?" Adonis asked.
"Dude how am I supposed to know, you've been on the ship more than me.." I said.
"Right. I forgot." He said in an awkward manner.
"You forgot to read the briefing didn't you?" Jian asked.
"Whaaaat nooo, I totally read it.." he said.
We're done for.
"Well, lucky for you, I brought it, here take a look." Jian said as he handed over the mission file.
"Oh, it's her, how did she get caught anyways, isn't she always cooped up in her room or something?" Adonis questioned.
"Yeah, Octavia likes to do that, well, her job is mostly technical work so it makes sense." Jian said.
I didn't say anything as I know nothing about her, but from what I could tell, her name is Octavia she's a tech genius, a leader and that she's strong enough to hold out for herself in a place like this.
Speaking of which, I asked these guys about Dawn, I didn't see her on the ship as well.
Adonis smirked, "Of course you'd like to know."
To which I didn't say anything, arguing with a fool only proves that there's two.
Jian then told me that she went to Aerogon and didn't say too much about it. Apparently she was summoned there.
After that, we just kept looking for a while..
"This place is too big." Adonis said
"Yeah, this used to be the old capital of Vrontí. So it's pretty natural as to why it's so spacious and huge. They have a separate building which serves as an extension for the prison." Jian explained.
Before we could say anything else, we heard souds of grunting and things being thrown around.
Fearing for that woman, I decided to run, but looking back at Jian and Adonis, they looked pretty unbothered.
I ran over to that quickly to figure out what's happening.
When I reached there, I was shocked!
There was a pile of injured prisoners and a short yet well built lady stood beside them.
She took one glance at me and decided to strike me. I used my sword's sheathe to block her, I didn't have time to pull it out.
She's pretty strong, considering she was able to push me back this far. I unsheathed my sword and got in a stance to attack.
Just then, Jian walked in, "Hey, Octavia! What are you doing to the newbie?"
"That's the newbie? I see, he's strong. What's his name?"
"Ruven Ryder."
"He's Ruven? For someone who defeated Gabriel, I thought he'd be older. Well, he had the SkullCrown armor anyways so it doesn't matter. Aside from that, you're late.. " she said as she cracked her knuckles.
Jian seemed scared. It's like he was trying to tell me to run, but it all suddenly changed when she saw Adonis.
She started acting a bit shy and pouted a little.
"Is she a tsundere?"
Suddenly they all looked at me. Did I think that out loud?
I expected her to give me some kind of death stare, and she did. I think my pant just got heavier.
"Woah you beat all these goons up? Thats kind of awesome, didn't expect anything less out of you!" Adonis said.
"Yea.. you really think I'm awesome?" She blushed.
"Yeah of course!" He said.
After taking in this information, a lightbulb dinged. I came to a realisation that she likes Adonis.
Interessante.
As Adonis looked at me, I had the most devious grin on my face. He was visibly shocked. I grinned as I knew that I had a weapon against him. Or the Dawn jokes would be unbearable..
Suddenly sounds of multiple thuds, like an army of guards were heading towards us.
As they came close, we saw the golden-purple armour and came to realise..
It's the Royal Knights, official ones. The four of us are more than enough to take care of them, but even a strong group would face problems fighting these guys.
We've got to get the hell out of here!
We didn't waste any time, and ran like the wind. On our way out, I fell down. When I looked back, there were about a dozen royal knights chasing us
I started wiggling like a cat and started running. Somehow I ended up in the front of the group.
"I'll stall them, you guys get out of here!" Adonis said. He disappeared into the shadows and ambushed them, annoying the hell out of them.
Octavia ran back to help him too...
Ahh the things people do for love. Wait that's risky!
Sigh
Looks like we're gonna have to fight... Not good!
Jian pulled out a rope and lasso'd Octavia, held her over the shoulders, and aimed his sword forward, "We're not gonna waste time finding a way out, we're going to make our own. Let's trust our friend, he's not weak."
Damn, that's so cool.
He charged forward like a wrecking ball, destroying and tearing apart every wall in his path. Eventually we broke out from this gigantic fortress and fell into a river. But Adonis didn't come along yet.
When we looked back, we saw something horrifying, the main fortress was on fire...
Impossible! We were just in there, we didn't hear anything or sense fire, how did it catch on fire so quick!? It can't have been done when we were in, surely we would've sensed it!
A few minutes passed,
We saw Adonis jump out of the hole we made and as he landed, he ran past us, yelling at us to go along with him.
"It's the Ragnars, there's 5 of them! Call the Carnekiss, we have to leave!"
Nobody said a word, we just ran as fast as we could, until one of them showed up in front of us.
She seemed especially strong. She went for me first, damnit! Whys it always have to be me! Do women hate me so much that they just go for me in order to kill me?! Look at Jian and Adonis!
I barely dodged her as she slashed me with that big scythe. It does look cool though I'll give her that.
"That sword.." she said, looking at it directly.
"How did you get it?" She asked.
"Well, you know, here and there, not like I'm gonna tell you if you ask me." I smirked. I mean to be honest I did find it randomly.
"Hmm. You're not worthy of it, give me that sword."
"Or what?"
"Or I shall take it, with your arms holding on to it or without it."
She's scary...
"Hey look behind you there's an anomalite!" I pointed and yelled.
She looked, holy shit!
I ran away using my ability as a boost and saw that my group was following me. Good.
Looking behind, she was emotionless, but I didn't care about that I just ran, I'm not trying to fight her, especially since neither of us, especially Jian saw her coming.
"AquaBurst: concept 4, quicksand." She whispered.
Quicksand appeared in front of me.. she's using her Burst already?
I got past the quicksand, that was a lousy move-
Huh, what, that scythe is too close, when did she come here, how is she this fast?
Jian leaped and blocked her off, yes!
"I don't have time to deal with you. Concept 4, quicksand." She said, trying to attack me next.
Jian broke free instantly and threw his sword at her to cut her off.
"I see, you must be Jian, The Stray Knight. It seems that I've run into quite a fight."
"And you must be Signe Ragnar. I've heard quite a lot about you. You're quite the prodigy."
" I could say the same, you're on our radar too, but then which one should I kill? You, or that boy over there?" She said.
"Oh? Getting a little overconfident are we? Talking about killing, when you used your burst already on "that boy"... That's just weakness." Jian said.
Wait wait what is he doing? Is he trying to make her mad? That's such a shitty attempt..
"Hmm. You're correct. Instead, I shall fight him, kill him first and then I shall get back to you. That sounds fair enough, right?"
"Sure, in fact, if you can beat him, I'll surrender." Jian said.
Why am I getting involved, I have no prior fighting experience apart from my spars with Dad!
She didn't waste any time, and went straight to attacking me!
Ok Ruven, calm down. Wait, where are Adonis and Octavia?
Meanwhile Adonis and Octavia,
"Jian and Ruven have that girl distracted, while they do that, call the Carnekiss. I don't really care if they beat her or not, but I feel like something bad is going to happen. There were more than five of them and I was able to take down two. Excluding her, there's two more left."
"What? You managed to kill two Ragnars? That's amazing! I'll call for extraction right away!"
"I wouldn't say I killed, but I was able to cut off one of their legs from the shadows. That should make them unable to fight. Incase one of the other two show up, I'm sure we'll be able to beat them, besides, I'm sure the strongest of the three I couldn't stall will go for the others."
"The stronget one of them?"
"Yeah, the one who spotted me. He seemed to be the strongest of them. He's probably heading towards Ruven and Jian right now. Look at the amount of Voltage they are giving off!"
"You mean she wasn't the strongest? What if the strong one shows up to fight us instead?"
"Well, we'll fight. There's no other choice. Besides, the best and the worst is yet to come and I plan on sticking around to be a part of it. Since I don't have to deal with an entire army like last time, I'll be able to move freely. Besides, I have nothing to worry about, because I have you with me. T-to fight I mean.."
"Y-yes, yes, t-to fight of course."
He acts like a goofball on purpose so that he doesn't let his sorrows take over his mind. Yet he's one of the most reliable I've ever met... As expected of the man I love.