The fall of Terra fortress. Chapter 1

The threat arrived from the sky, bringin the heavens down with it

the angels that once protected peace, fell into chaos below its zenith

Fighting between themselves they all fell

The great ascension nobody can quell

In the great ascension, when the angels dance

Beyond any horror or malignance

Flying to the freedom now on view

From all our ashes, the world will be born anew

With a loud and clear voice, the woman finished her telling of the ode and closed the book with practiced movements, just as she had done so many times before.

“I can see there are some new faces with us today. Is this the first time you hear this story?”

Several voices arose at once. Those children that visited each week yelled no, shaking their heads vehemently, with the hopes of listening to a new story this time. On the other hand, the few voices of the recently arrived were drowned by the rest. She of course knew the answer before asking, so once again raised her voice above theirs.

“For those who didn’t know, this ode precedes all records we have, it precedes even me. Its origin is unknown, but the scholars on the topic agree that it narrates the creation of our world. This was not the complete story of course, there are several more stanzas, but I lost them among all the books in here. Can you help me find them?”

Once again the children started yelling, trying to avoid the task, but she ignored them, already moving towards the door.

“Thanks for your help dear children. Once you find them I’ll tell you the whole story. If there is still some time after it, I may tell you all the story of how I created our sun”

She put the book on her hands back to its place on the shelf and quickly retreated from the room. The kids tried to stop her, but they could only see how the light on the room became slightly dimmer the farther she went away. After she crossed the door, shadows covered every corner, the only light now present coming from the small windows on the top of the room.

The guard closed the room behind her, now looking at the woman for his next instruction. She thought for a moment before saying:

“I didn’t notice anything strange with the kids. But it’s necessary to keep investigating their parents. It’s very uncommon for so many people to arrive in the city this year. For now, let them go into the garden once they get bored of looking for the ode. Their parents will arrive later for them.”

The guard nodded without saying a single word and entered the room with the kids, greeting them with an energy matching theirs. In a few hours they would all be in their homes, telling their parents how they were invited into Terra’s fortress and could meet the great spirit of the land, Mother Terra. Several of them had many questions for her, most of them wanted to know their age, but all the answers they received were vague and imprecise. After all, even she had forgotten it several centuries ago.

Most of the kids were human, but there were a couple of forces with them too. One of them was very similar to the other human kids, but had a noticeable blue light coming out from his eyes that made it quite hard to look at him eye to eye. The other force wasn’t quite apparent, but Terra noticed that under his long sleeves there were leaves growing on his arms.

They both were happy when they met Terra earlier that day. Besides their parents, there were very few forces on that small city of the neutral lands. The fact that the revered spirit of the world also had shiny eyes and such a strong vital energy that plants grew from any clothes she wore helped them greatly to feel more comfortable among the human kids.

After finishing her weekly lecture she went to the actual library of the fortress, her own private collection. The entire fortress was hers, but most of the time she spent solely in that room. With extremely exclusive long distance communication machines and unique information that couldn’t be found anywhere else, only people with her utmost trust were allowed in.

That day there was only a single person with such trust in the building, and it was him who she was searching for now. If she wasn’t wrong, he was probably training the new bodyguard who arrived just that same morning.

Although the fortress was enormous in size, even comparable to the palaces of the two kings, she only really used a very small part of it. The vast majority of the terrain was occupied by humanitarian aid zones like hospitals, comunitary dining rooms and several similar aids for the constant influx of people that traversed the neutral lands. Of course, she also kept some military training grounds for her own private guard, but her size was reduced compared to the two kings.

Among all of it the only places she most frequented were her library, the rooms for special guests and the rooms for Charles Fay, her most trusted subordinate. Precisely whom she could not find in any of his labs or studios.

That same morning arrived Lazaro Kall, the only human who survived the battles in Frontier during the last war. Tracking him down was far from easy and convincing him of joining her was an ever harder endeavor, but his sole presence would give the message for the guest that was soon to arrive.

Finally reaching the farthest training room she heard the characteristic sounds of a sword being swung. When she looked inside neither of the two men noticed her, they were fully concentrated in each other. Kall had a wooden sword in his hands while Fay fought with his bare hands. Even in this circumstance, and even more noticeably by the fatigue of the human, one of them had an overwhelming advantage over the other.

“From the start” Fay raised his arms in a fighting stance. “You only need to land a single blow. We don’t expect any fight to start soon, but I can’t accept a bodyguard who can’t lay a single blow on me”

“You are a force!” said Kall with growing frustration. “If you wanted to, you could kill me so quickly that I wouldn’t know what happened until the karmic sea devoured my soul away”

“I am aware that during the war you fought dozens of forces, and even then you are standing in front of me now, alive. I know you are capable of it, so stop messing around and show me what you are capable of. Ball.”

A heavy medicinal ball sprung in the middle of the air, hitting Kall in the back of his head, forcing him to step forward. The ball materialized out of nowhere, half a meter behind him, and although he heard it he was not quick enough to avoid it. He lost balance and fell into the floor, facefirst.

“Go to hell Fay, you absolute moron!”

“If using a toy is not enough, I can also use arrows or real bullets. Maybe then you would feel motivated enough to actually fight.”

“Then face me like a decent warrior too! I can fight a transmuter warrior with a sword, but I can’t do much against an archer with underhanded tricks.”

“More than half of transmuters are archers of some kind. If you can’t do anything against an archer, you are a terrible bodyguard.”

“Oh, sorry your majesty, but I don’t see any shield in here. I would guess a transmuter would not need one, but without giving me at least that I don’t know what you are expecting me to do”

Fay stopped for a moment, he didn’t have to look at the arsenal to know that he was right.

“Fair point. Attack me. Wood”

In his hand a wood sword materialized. It had no edge at all, but by its sheer size it was clearly very heavy.

“Are you mocking me?”

“No, but if you want me to use a real sword, prove me you deserve it”

Kall rose into a stance and prepared. Fay didn’t move an inch, giving him the opportunity to do the first move. After a moment he lunged forward with the sword, in a dangerous movement that could have impaled his opponent if he had not parried it to the side. Before he had any chance to recover his balance, he received a hit by the wood sword on the back of the hand, making him drop his sword.

“Shit, what kind of wood is that sword made of!” Screamed Kall, retreating back while shrieking from the pain.

“That uncouth vocabulary, are all humans like that?”

Kall didn’t bother with a response. After a couple of insults, he concentrated in revising his hand that was growing redder by the second in the part where he got hit.

“I think that’s enough, you are probably going to break some bones if this goes on” Said Terra with finality. She had seen it all from outside the room.

Only then did they both notice her presence. Kall had fallen back into the floor while revising his hand and didn’t have time to rise up again. After noticing that his humiliation had an audience, he retracted in himself even more.

“I’m sorry you had to see this,” said Fay, relaxing and getting closer to her. Even then, he was slightly ashamed of the fact she had seen his behavior a moment ago.

“Humans are far more fragile than a force, I think you lost perspective of the vast difference between us. I know you were holding back, but I think you were actually pretty close to breaking something in that hit” said Terra with a curt tone, using the fact that she had a whole head of height above him to tower over him.

“I’m sorry, I’m not quite used to deal with humans, even more such a badly trained one”

“He was a warrior, but he lived as a farmer the last ten years. Give him time, he will soon remember how it all goes” With a bit more of a lighter tone, she took Fay’s hand on hers.

“I hope so, there’s too many things to improve right now”

“Are you joking? If you are going to keep mocking me like this, at least don’t do it in front of me you asshole” Complained Kall, rising back to his feet by himself. He was regretting accepting the job with every passing second.

“Of course, I’m sorry, I’m being quite rude”

Fay moved back to him, taking the training sword away and putting it back into the arsenal.

“I think I’m being too strict. Think of what happened as a simple formality. I personally supervise that all the soldiers in this place are capable of fighting when needed if the worst were to happen, but the plan is for that to never be necessary. I’m sure that we will be able to leave this behind and work together as a team from now on”

“Oh yeah? what happened with not being able to accept a bodyguard like me?”

“Believe me, I’m gonna train you and that’s going to change. Give me some hours to find where we should start and I’ll transform you into a fearsome warrior”

Lazaro Kall did not believe a single word that Fay said, growing fearful of what the future training may entail. Fay noticed that he was a little distraught and tried to reassure him with a couple of light pats on the back, but did it with such condescension that he only grew more annoyed with him.

“Really, why did you even hire me?”

“I’ll explain the details later tonight, for now, I have some more urgent matters to sort first. You can go back to your room, the one I showed you earlier.”

He started retreating, but another person arrived just behind Terra. She stepped aside. It was one of the guards of the fortress, arriving with bated breath and doing a profound vow towards Terra. Without raising his head at all, he spoke.

“Oh great Mother, we received an inform that the convoy of king Mayhem is entering the old border”

“Excuse me? their arrival was announced for next week” Fay responded with skepticism, rushing towards the guard that was still in the bowing position.

“I’m aware sir. But they are there. All the lookouts confirmed this”

“Where, who is in charge of the vigilance right now?” Fay answered, anxiousness starting to seep into his voice

“Wait, king Mayhem is coming here? What 's going on?” Said Kall with growing fear. They had seemed to forget again that he was still in the room.

“Don’t worry, everything is still under control. The only thing you need is adequate clothing for the occasion. Fay, explain to our new bodyguard what’s his role, I’ll prepare the rest of the guard for the reception” Terra quickly concluded, she didn’t even express surprise by the situation.

“Understood” said Fay, giving a very small reverence. He turned around to look at Kall.

“I know this is sudden, but we did warn you that you would have to face him eventually. Accompany me”

Fay started quickly moving out, with Fay following him, still confused by the whole situation. He was rubbing his hurt hand, that had started to grow slightly green and purple in some points. He didn’t have an option, he did accept the job, and was not involved in whatever mess was about to arrive.

On the other hand, he thought it would be easier to get over his fears, but he quickly discovered that it would not be a simple matter.

While rushing through the hallway and seeing the deplorable mood of his companion he started to think of a way to cheer him up, but his mind quickly drew a blank. This was also a completely new situation for him, so he limited himself to following the orders he received.

After arriving to one of his own VIP rooms, the one with the clothes for the high level bodyguards, he turned around and finally started his explanation

“Now that we are alone we can start. We weren’t certain that you would not get cold feet at the last second, so we could not give you much detail about the situation before you were actually here. To put it bluntly, king Mayhem has been pressuring us to organize a meeting as soon as possible. There are no hostilities with him or anything like that, but he has been acquiring some level of military power recently and Terra considered necessary to balance it out to make sure he doesn’t get any strange ideas”

While saying this, he was looking inside one of the several wardrobes, looking for the old and yet unused clothing that they got on the remote chance an human was ever chosen for the job

“Wait a second, I think you skipped over too many important details. Firstly, if you say there’s no hostility involved in this, why are you so worried about it?”

“Certainly he is not a warmonger so I don’t quite understand that either, on that side, I’m just following orders. I know there have been some heated communications with him recently and he is about to arrive now, but Terra has been very clear that peace is not at risk in this”

“This sounds like an absolute mess. Why did you even look for me, you know I can’t even look at him straight”

“We chose you because almost all the best warriors in the world are knights of Gun. Most of the rest are dangerous mercenaries and not deserving of our trust. We are not going to risk the chance of a conflict sparking in here, so someone with your reputation, someone who even some of the most fearsome forces fear, would be the best choice.

You are a human, but you defeated many of Mayhem’s soldiers in the war and we are sure that he remembers you. The fact that we have you on our side should be more than enough to dissuade him from causing any trouble.”

“So my whole task here is to just stand by your side and intimidate him with my presence?” Kall was starting to finally relax a bit, finally grasping what they were actually asking from him.

“If you want to put it like that, go ahead. Now, we can’t greet a king with the clothes of a farmer, we got you a great suit for the occasion. Take it as a gift.” Fay said with a cheery tone

Fay finally had found the suit of the correct said and gave it to Kall. He hoped that the gift would improve his mood, but he didn’t know that he had just referred to the best clothing he had as farmer clothes and his mood reached a new low. Since he arrived he felt that everyone was putting him down and the only thing that changed is that the pressure over him was accumulating.

He sighed, a slight chill went through his back, but took the suit that Fay was offering him.

The suit consisted mainly of a black jacket and a white shirt, clearly a suit for a force. Most of them in the important cities used very complicated clothes, compounding designs and details on top of each other, while humans stuck to more simple things. Hearsay says that a long time ago a pearl of information was found with a series of tailoring guides that indicated that people from a high level of society used that kind of complex and layered clothing to show his social status.

As it was bound to happen, it became the prevalent fashion for forces overnight. Unfortunately, the materials needed were severely scarce, which made the use of such clothing something as exclusive as the pearl of knowledge mentioned from the start.

Kall lived most of his life in a human settlement in Gun's Kingdom. The vast majority of the population was human and although there wasn’t any animosity between humans and forces he couldn’t avoid feeling uncomfortable around them. In appearance they were usually very similar, but the difference in their physical and karmic capabilities were so overwhelming that he could only feel inferior to them.

Fay on the other hand grew up on Mayhem’s kingdom until the last war happened. He had met humans before. In fact, the difference of population between humans and forces was so big that even in cities mainly for forces, a considerable number of humans could be found in them. The problem was the physical and psychological differences between them were so vast that he always preferred to stay away from them and never really learnt to deal with them.

Unaware of each other’s thoughts, but understanding that they were incapable of seeing each other as equals, both men left the room. They had to diligently comply with their orders and greet the king that was now soon to arrive.