Year 2: Prelude to War - Chapter 3

“What do you four have to say for yourselves?”

“Nothing!”

“Blake’s lying to you!”

“It was Adrien’s idea.”

“Liam?! No, it wasn’t! I-!”

“Alright.” Yve clicked her heel against the stone floor and stared daggers at the four kneeling men before her. “It’s clear that not one, not one, of you has any intention of asking for forgiveness.” She sighed and brought a hand to her face. “Why do all the boys on our team have to be such pervs?”

“All men are, Yve; we’re just more honest, except for Adrien.”

“Liam, did I do something to you or-?”

“Regardless, if you were going to go.” Yve slammed her palm on the table. “Then at least go incognito rather than in your armour!”

The night before, Blake had come and informed Yve and Hailey that all four men on their team intended to visit a brothel in the city, and had caught them red-handed.

“I’m not even shocked anymore; I’m just disappointed,” had been Yve’s reply.

There wasn’t a single member of the summoned heroes who didn’t stand out in one way or another, and Yve’s team was no different.

Liam’s black plate armour with a fire-red trim matched the design of his Divine Artifact, Sharur, perfectly. The mace itself hung from his waist while his custom-made steel and dragon-metal shield was strapped to his back, ready to swing into his hands at a moment’s notice.

Gati’s equipment had been designed with a single purpose in mind: to reduce the effect gravity had on him and lower his wind resistance. His Divine Artifact, the Shoes of Víðarr, granted him superior agility and super-powerful kicks; accordingly, his light-weight leather armour and robes had been thoroughly enchanted to allow him better use of his Divine Artifact.

Adrien’s brown and emerald coloured robes were far too conspicuous in public, as few other mages wore such colours, nor did they have the pointy wizard hat that Adrien had insisted on having. The hat itself was not enchanted, but Adrien had been very insistent that he must have a hat to compliment the look.

Out of the four men on their team, Kavi arguably stood out the most. His robes were a pure white colour and he wore a pale ghost-like face mask, with a coat of a thousand nails resting across his shoulder. Kavi had asked for the coat as it was a form of traditional Indian armour that he desired to wear to represent his heritage.

All four of them were easily recognisable, just as the summoned heroes were meant to be, but that was the worst part of it for Yve.

“Do you have any idea how bad it’d have looked if you’d gone in those outfits,” Yve reprimanded them. “I don’t even want to begin thinking about how many hours of lectures and punishments you’d have had to suffer; you should be grateful that we’re letting you off with just this.”

“For some men, Yve, this is a rew-”

Gati went flying across the room before he could finish his sentence.

With an angry growl, Yve lowered her leg.

“With your permission and-hey, watch it! You just tried to kick me and-don’t click your tongue at me, Yve.”

“Then speak quickly, Liam.”

“I shall.” He cleared his throat, then hit his fist against his breastplate. “Guys armour in fantasy games and stories are meant to be cool looking things, the sort of stuff you’d never ever want to take off. Do you have any idea how cool it is to walk around in this gear, and see the looks people give you? This, our dear leader, is a fantasy every man in the world has had!”

“Yeah, yeah!”

“You tell her, Liam!”

“I-I don’t, really-”

“Yve!” Liam leapt onto his feet. “The greatest thing about this armour is the way people look at you and talk to you, the respect and reverence they give you. To walk around without this armour on is a crime! Therefore-!”

“Hailey.”

“Sorry about this.”

Without missing a beat, Hailey stepped forward and sent Liam flying across the room. He nearly smashed into Gati, but the other man was just quick enough to doge his friend.

“Anyone else?” Yve asked. When no one else spoke up, her usual cheerful smile returned. “Great!”

“Yve?”

“What, Adrien?”

“Um, I meant to ask you about this earlier but - your armour, it looks a bit different from everyone else’s. Well, I guess it’s more the impression feels different fro-”

“Well noticed, Adrien.” Proudly, Yve stood up and patted her chest. “This armour wasn’t just designed by the craftsmen of Aangapea, but also by yours truly!”

Her leather and plate armour equipment had been better shaped to her, protecting her most vital areas while also putting emphasis upon her body’s lines and curves. Like all the other heroes’ equipment, dragon-metal and dragon-metal fibres had been woven throughout the material, and all the plate armour she wore was made of the same material. A quiver of arrows and her bow rested beside her chair, ready to swing onto her back when they needed to leave the restaurant.

“What? When did you find the time to do that?” Adrien asked.

“I helped design it to make myself more stylish than everyone else.”

“For that reason?”

“What, Hailey?” Yve smirked and wrapped an arm around Hailey’s shoulders. “Surely, you aren’t jealous of my beauty? Not when you yourself are-” Yve went to cup Hailey’s cheek, but a helmet was in the way. “You know, it’s a lot harder to charm you if my moves are blocked like this.”

“Then, I don’t think I’ll be taking my helmet off anytime soon.”

“Why?! Ah, I get it - you’re afraid that you’ll fall for my charms if you…I-it was a joke, Hailey; you don’t need to look at me with those cold eyes. They don’t suit your cute face at all. Actually, neither does your armour.”

Hailey’s armour had been crafted in a similar manner to Liam’s; it had been designed to be a reflection of her Divine Artifact, Excalibur and Pridwen. A white dragon-plate metal suit of armour with a gold trim, an almost perfect mirror of Excalibur’s artistic beauty.

“It matches my Divine Artifact so it’s fine by me,” Hailey answered with a small smile.

“Hmm, that’s a cute smile. Dammit, if only you’d fall for me!”

“Remember when you said you’d protect me from the perverts on our team?”

“I do, vividly.”

“Then, please don’t join them.”

“Girls, we are right here, you know?” Gati interjected.

“Don’t worry, they don’t really mean it,” Kavi said.

“No, we do.”

“What?!”

“Don’t both yell at once,” Liam groaned. “Regardless, getting this conversation back on track, Yve, I have to ask you again - why did you design your armour like that?”

“Why, don’t you like it?”

“Hah, you just don’t get it, Yve.”

“What don’t I get?”

Liam put his elbows onto the table and, with a deadly serious face, said, “Women’s armour in fantasy games are meant to be sex-”

Yve fist smashed into his helmet, launching him across the room.

“If we’re going by that logic, dumbass, then you lot should be topless men with six-packs!” Yve yelled.

“You don’t think I want to look like that?!”

“That wouldn’t change what’s inside, idiot!”

“Ha?! Who’s the idiot?”

“You are!”

“Ha?!”

“What?!”

“…Hailey,” Adrien whispered.

“What?”

“Please, please, please…please don’t think we’re all like Liam.”

“…Sure.”

“That hurts me more than you know it.”

“Oi, what do you think you’re doing?!” A rough, grizzly voice barked.

Confused, everyone stopped arguing and began looking around for the source of the voice.

However, there wasn’t anyone there but there wasn’t anyone but them in the restaurant.

“…Is this place haunted?” Gati asked.

“Don’t be stupid, dumbass.”

“It’s that voice again!” With a girly scream, Gati tried to run out of the room but tripped and fell flat on his face.

“Heh - women don’t like cowards, Gati.”

“Seriously, where is it-?” Liam cut himself off and then looked down at his waist, where his Divine Artifact, the mace Sharur was hanging. “Did…did my mace just-?”

“Yes.” Sharur suddenly started to move and then deep, booming laughter roared from it. “Greetings, Master and friends! I am Sharur!”

“Why can the mace talk?!”

“Why didn’t you know it could?” Hailey asked.

***

After their mock combat session ended in Hajime’s defeat, Amen brought refreshments over to him and Akane.

“You didn’t have to keep us company, Amen. You could’ve gone out and seen the sights.”

“We shall have plenty of time for that, I imagine,” Amen said. “What I personally would rather focus on right now is improving ourselves for the coming war.”

“…Yeah,” Hajime mumbled. “We…we’re really going to war, aren’t we?”

“You’ve only just-?”

“It is one thing to hear that that is the reality of the day, but it’s another thing to fully embrace it, Akane,” Amen reminded her. “I didn’t think I’d ever be in anything more than a street fight, or maybe a drunken brawl. Or a robbery or-”

“I didn’t even think about any of that,” Hajime confessed. “The more we practice, the more clearly I can see the reality of our lives, but…”

“Do you think you could kill someone?” Akane asked without a hint of emotion in her voice.

“I wonder myself,” Amen whispered. “I’d like to think I could, if it came to it, if it meant protecting someone I loved, but.” He looked down at his hands and shivered. “It’s not something I can consciously bring myself to do. Maybe it’s like…the old analogy of learning to swim after being thrown into deep waters. Maybe…maybe I hope that’s what will happen to me.”

“…Do you remember your first kill?” Hajime asked Akane.

“I do.”

“Who was it?”

“I don’t know what their name was, but it was a local bandit. He ambushed father and I on a hunting trip, alone and with just a single spear. He was frantic, father tried to talk him down, but I knew he would not listen. I had my naginata with me and struck him down with it.

“At first, I thought ‘That was easy’ but then, as I saw the blood trickle from the man’s wound, I cried.” Akane hugged her knees tightly. “I struggled to kill again until fate forced my hand.”

“What do you think our three quiet friends will do?” Amen asked with a wry smile.

“Sayeh, Ari and Zuzu, huh? I don’t think they’ll be able to do it.”

“Why not?”

“…Just a feeling.”

***

“Spies?”

“Knowledge is power. That’s not just lip service - it’s that weapon that allowed the Demon Emperor to completely crush Themis,” Dante explained. “He learnt its strengths, its weaknesses, how to manipulate its people, where to conquer, where to ransack and where to let crumble beneath its own weight. The Demon Emperor would no doubt want to try and do the exact same sort of things to the west, but we can’t let him. Just as we’re using informants to try and dismantle his empire, he’ll be looking to do the exact same thing here.”

“Of course, we’re aren’t so stupid that we haven’t considered that possibility, Dante,” Princess Sakura said. “We have set up barriers and have agents working to remove internal threats, but-”

“We only know of those Ravens,” King Alexander interjected. “They’re capable of hiding in the shadows and are conspicuous enough when they’re out of them, with those stupid hoods on their heads but how do we find them in the shadows?”

“He probably has others.”

“Kella?”

“…The Demon Emperor’s demons. They seem to be limited in numbers.”

Bernaught grunted. “We’ve long suspected as much, but that could also be part of the Demon Emperor’s design.”

Kella shook her head. “It isn’t.”

“What makes you-?”

“She speaks the truth.”

“Queen Dorothy?”

“The tree spirits have sent their sorrows to me; the demons that ravage the east are smaller than those of the undead.”

“If that’s the case, then-”

“What are the other spies the Demon Emperor has under his command?”

“I don’t suppose the tree spirits have told you that bit, have they, your majesty?”

“Alas, Dante, they have not. Not everything can be perceived by the spirits, as much as that displeases me.”

“If we’re to truly rout out these spies, we need to know exactly what we’re looking for,” King Alexander said. “We’ll contact our agents in the east and ask some of them to look into it.”

“That could get them killed.”

“That is a risk they’ll be willing to take, and…it’s a risk we need to take. The fate of the whole alliance could rest on removing these spies from our borders.”

Princess Hiiragi giggled before deploying her fan across her lips. “It might not just be spies we need to hunt. If there are any traitors in our ranks, they should meet with the worst fates imaginable.”

“Maybe, but only when this war is one.”

“Oh? I didn’t expect a brutish dwarf like yourself to say such things, Bernaught.”

Bernaught glared daggers at her. “We are the Free People’s Alliance; we will not dirty ourselves by lowering ourselves to the level of the tyrant in the east.”

“I agree,” Queen Dorothy said. “If any traitors are uncovered, they should either be given a quick, clean death or captured so they may be held trial when Aangapea is free.”

“That sort of naivety.” Princess Hiiragi narrowed her gaze. “Could get us killed.”

“Even then.” Dorothy smiled. “I would rather die a noble soul than live as a monster.”

Those last words soothed the tensions inside the war room in all of the meeting’s participants, except for one.

David…Kella dug her nails into her thigh.

It was an action no one, but Dante, caught.

***

“Any luck?”

Dante shook his head, shutting the rooftop door behind him. “She said she wasn’t feeling well.”

“Kella has always said as much,” Lord Akechi mused, passing Dante a full mug of beer. “We started without you, but I’m sure you don’t mind.”

“Hey, as long as Atalante doesn’t get black-out drunk, I think I’ll manage.”

“Oi!” She grabbed him and put him in a headlock. “You shouldn’t speak to a lady in such a rude way.”

“When I see one, I’ll bear that-ow, ow, ow!”

Lord Akechi laughed before Atalante released Dante.

The three sat in tranquil silence for a time, only occasionally broken up by the sounds of them drinking.

“…I feel like there are fewer stars in the sky these days,” Lord Akechi whispered.

“It’s just you, though, I understand the sentiment.”

“I imagine you of all people would, Dante.” Lord Akechi took another sip of his beer. “How many stars have you seen fade in your lifetime?”

“Oh, well, if we’re talking about up there…no idea, a few, maybe four or five that I can remember. If we’re talking about something else-”

“We are.” The two adventurers looked at Lord Akechi. “We are.”

“…Your wife said you didn’t lose many men in the north.”

“We didn’t, Atalante, but…we will lose more, many, many more. Countless, one might even say, all while I sit here training fledglings on how to fly.”

“It’s a noble task,” Dante said.

“It might be, but I want to see them spread their wings faster.”

“You want to send them rushing to their deaths?”

“Of course not, but…they can only learn so much in a classroom or in a mock battle. They need more…experience, all of them or else they’ll all die.”

“…That’s what you’re actually worried about, isn’t it?” Atlante asked. “Let me guess, Hajime’s ability concerns you?”

“It’s not just him. His team is almost divided in two; I don’t think I’ve properly seen Hajime speak with Sayeh, Ari or Zuzu yet, whether in a group or one-on-one. If they don’t learn to better coordinate themselves, then-”

“You opposed the latest assignments, didn’t you? That’s why you’re drinking so much, isn’t it? You’re angry that they’re sending the fledglings into war before their wings have properly sprouted.

Lord Akechi smiled bitterly. “I must be going soft in my old age.”

“Happens to every man eventually, except for one,” Dante chuckled.

His joke, while not appreciated by Atalante, earnt him a hearty laugh from Lord Akechi.

***

“Duncan Wilson, Yve Muller; your teams are to head to the southern border, to the former territory of Count Barthlow. Guy Simeon, Kayleigh Henson; your teams are to head to the northern border, to the mountains of the Yun Shogunate where you will be stationed at one of the fortresses close to the Demon Empire.

“Hajime Sakamoto; your team is to head to the Dragon’s Mouth, the fortress that stops invaders coming from the Dragon Spine Mountains into the west.

“These are your assignments for the month.” King Alexander’s assistants handed out the envelopes to each team leader. “Remember, whatever happens, do not cross that border and enter the Demon Empire! You are not ready to face the tyrant in the east yet.”