Chapter I:
An Impromptu Rescue
The sun didn’t exactly “creep” through the window. It more or less barged into the room.
“Son of a *****,” Matthias Reykevia groaned.
Matthias rubbed his eyes groggily as he stumbled to the other side of his room to look at the clock.
“Sometimes I hate summer,” he moaned as he looked at the time of 6:04 in the morning. “Today sucks. And there’s still thirty hours to go.”
He disabled the alarm for this morning. There wouldn’t be any need for it.
“That’s what I get for not closing the damn shade and blinds last night,” he sighed as began changing.
Maybe breakfast will help. Sadly, I have to cook it. OK. Maybe it won’t…
Heading down to the kitchen revealed his sister with her face buried in her arms on the table. Matthias prodded her on the arm. She looked up groggily and blinked lazily.
“Whuzyoudoinupsearly?” She asked.
“Robin, your ability to make an entire sentence with only one syllable never ceases to amaze me,” Matthias smirked as he pulled out the sausage and bacon from the freezing unit.
“That doesn’t answer my question,” she managed to actually enunciate her words this time.
“I forgot to close my shade,” Matthias sighed as he tossed the sausage and bacon into a pan. “And the sun woke me up.”
“No, you didn’t,” Robin said nonchalantly as she stared at a bright red apple like it was the greatest scientific mystery of the Sixth Empire. “I opened them on my out.”
“You *****! Why?! You cheated me out of several good hours of sleep!”
“It was funny.”
Matthias sighed. “So who was it this night?”
“What?”
“Don’t hide it, ‘Midnight Angel’. It’s not that big of a secret.”
“What’s to say I was with anyone?”
Matthias scoffed. “Dad’s out on business. You’re here sleeping on the table, looking like you got no sleep at all, you made mention of the fact that you sabotaged my sleeping, your reputation precedes you and oh yeah, you said went out last night, therefore, you were sleeping with someone. Though judging by your appearance, I don’t think ‘sleeping’ is the correct term.”
“Since when did you become a gossip? Should I start calling you ‘Matilda’ instead of Matthias?”
“Oh Gods, please no,” Matthias shuddered. “Being compared to that *****? Please, Robin. And I thought you were my sister.”
“I am. And your my brother,” she said as she wrapped her arms around his neck and started squeezing.
“Then why are you choking me?”
“Because you’re my brother.”
“I’m cooking breakfast.”
“So?”
“Hot spatula in the face?” He held the greasy kitchen tool a couple inches from her face.
“Gah!” She let go and backed up almost immediately.
“So, who did Midnight Angel visit this last night?” Matthias asked again.
“If you must know, it was Josh.”
“Could have done worse,” Matthias said. Could have done better, though. “At least you’re not bouncing nearly as much as you used.”
"I never bounced. You’re again thinking of Matilda.” She ripped a chunk out of her apple. “Old Gods be good, that girl manages to make me look chaste.”
“That’s saying something. You want any eggs?”
“No,” she shook her head as she tore into her apple again. “On the subject of local classmates, you know when both you and Dad took off for a few days last month?”
“Yah?”
"She bragged to me that she slept with four other guys in the same night.”
“It’s amazing she doesn’t have any kids yet.”
“Meh. She downs Mocara like it’s going out of style.”
“And you too, huh? That would explain why I’m not an uncle and dad’s not a grandfather yet.”
There wasn’t any reply. Matthias looked over at his sister. She was staring off to the side looking glum.
“Robin?”
“I, I don’t need it, Matthias,” she said softly.
“What, are just amazingly good about knowing when to and when not to? Come on, no one’s that good!”
“No, you ****ing idiot, I’m going on eighteen and I still haven’t—”
“You can’t be serious.”
“I am. I’m starting to wonder if I’m—”
“Like the hells you are. You’re just a late bloomer, that’s all. Everyone knew you were slow; in more than one thing, obviously.”
Robin responding by launching her apple core square in Matthias’s face. Not a subject to talk about.
“Here, have a peach,” he said, tossing the fruit to his sister while he wiped his face off with his sleeve.
“Thanks,” Robin’s mood had darkened considerably.
Matthias didn’t say anything else as he started divvying up the sausage and bacon.
“We were all out of hash browns,” he said sadly as he set the plates down on the table.
“Well, you managed to remember to wrap the sausage in the bacon,” she said as she speared one of them with her fork.
“What are siblings for?”
Breakfast was an abnormally silent affair. It was obvious to Matthias that whatever was going on with Robin right now was not something to talk about. Even reminding her seemed problematic as it seemed to kill all possibilities of conversation. Of course, Matthias contributed to the issue by brooding over Robin’s apparent dilemma.
The silence was broken once they had both finished by a knock on the door, which Matthias answered.
“Captain,” he said surprised.
Carl Grellan stood in the door. He was the captain of the town’s local Militia Forces, the informal police/citizen defense forces of the old Sesalian Kingdom. At forty-eight, he was still in good shape, though more than a few grey hairs had taken over his dirty-blonde hair. He looked ready for full battle, wearing his armor, rifle and sword.
“Your father is still out?”
“Yessir,” Matthias said, standing aside.
“Then you two will have to do. I really have no choice,” his voice was quite unsettled.
“Well, come in and tell us what’s up.”
“I suppose you have the right to know the all of it,” Carl sighed as he walked in and sat down. Robin got him a glass of water. “Thank you.”
“So tell us, what’s with the odd visit. It can’t be a mission, the two of us were just commissioned the other day,” Matthias said, sitting down as well.
“It is a mission. And one that could very well determine the future of the Province.”
Matthias and Robin would have normally scoffed at this notion of such grandeur, but they knew the captain better than that.
“As you know, the Militias are in a precarious position right now. Many would say it’s only a matter of time before they’re dissolved and formed into a proper Imperial Legion, along with the Royal Army, or as some younger people have begun to call it, the Provincial Guard, and they’re probably not wrong. If what has happened in the past day were to get out, we would be the Twenty-Second Imperial Legion before sundown, not the Braceton Guard,” he explained.
“It can’t be that bad,” Robin said as she dried off her plate.
“You know young Pierce, right?” The Captain asked.
“Of course,” Robin said. “He’s actually nice, unlike his bratty little friend.”
“He and his two best friends have been kidnapped and her being held for ransom by some local brigands.”
“Ok, that really sucks, don’t get me wrong, but how is it going to determine the future of the Province? I don’t see the urgency here, Captain, other than to get three little kids back home where they belong,” Robin said.
“How much do you know about him?”
“Uh…” The sibling said together.
“As in, do you know his full name?”
“Now that you mention it, I’ve only ever heard his first name: Pierce,” Matthias pulled on his chin thoughtfully. “Rob?”
Robin shook her head.
“His full name is Pierce David Reagan.”
“Reagan as in—” Matthias started
“The Imperial House of Reagan,” Carl finished. “His father is Thomas Michael Reagan, colloquially known as the Emperor Who Abdicated. After his abdication, he left his youngest and only surviving brother Winston on the throne and came here to settle down. If word of this reaches Imperial authorities, it could be very ugly.”
“Sesalia has done what it can to remain as free of Imperial involvement as possible,” Matthias said. “This would upset that.”
“And the Confederacy has been quite content to keep it that way. The Fourth War of Aggression only ended four years ago and the vast majority of the Imperial Legions are maintaining garrison along the border of the Hinterlands. Look around you, there is no Imperial Legion stationed her in Sesalia. We still maintain our old standing forces.”
“I’m starting to see the urgency, but there’s one thing I don’t get,” Robin said. “What’s all the urgency for if he abdicated? Other than it wouldn’t look good if the Emperor’s nephew was killed by a bunch of hoodlums on our watch.”
“Stop being so dumb, Robin,” Matthias shook his head.
“It’s a legitimate question, Matthias. One would think that Thomas’s abdication would have absolved him of all connections to the throne, but it didn’t. The current Emperor has neither wife nor heir. If he were to die before producing an heir, the throne would pass to his nephew. That, I learned last night, was part of the arrangement of his abdication: that he or his own child would return and take the throne should his brother pass without an heir.”
“Oh,” Robin said.
“So what do you want us to do?” Matthias said. “Let’s cut to the chase now.”
“I want you two to act as a scouting party. Scout out their hideaway, find out where the children are, and rescue them if possible. In the meantime, I’ll continue to play politician and keep the bureaucrats from running straight to the Imperial Embassy and summoning half the Imperial Military and a dozen Imperial Knights to boot.”
“We’re ready,” Matthias said.
“Aye,” Robin nodded.
“I knew I could count on you two. Here,” he produced an Imperial data device. “All the information is on—” Something interrupted him and he put his hand on his ear. “Yes? … Slash their tires and buy them dinner at Ali’s for all I care! Just stop them from leaving!” He put his hand down. “I need to go. The mayor and city chancellor are getting antsy. Good luck you two, Sergeants Bilko and Vaygon will be behind you with the cavalry, as it were,” he stood up and left.
“Well, we didn’t get those pins stuck on our shirts for nothing,” Matthias said as he made his way over to the stairs to get his gear. “Let’s do this.”
Back in his room, Matthias grabbed his equipment. His equipment was simple, and maybe more than a little antiquated but it served him well. The first foremost was a ******* sword that had been in his family forever. Several people had remarked to its antiquatedness but he didn’t care too much. The second was his forearm gun, an ingenious piece of Imperial technology. It was an older model, one that was no longer in mainstream use in the Confederacy, but it was still effective, and if the arms broker was to be believed, it only fell out of use a couple years ago. Lastly, he strapped on his armor. His armor was nothing special, it probably wouldn’t do much against an Orcish war-axe, but it would allow him to at least roll out of the way. Some tough padding surrounding metallic plates was all he really needed.
“Still using that old thing?” Robin asked not meanly as they exited their house.
“What? This?” He held up his arm with the gun.
“No, your sword.”
Matthias merely smiled. “You know what they say in the Legions?”
“Afraid not.”
“A gun will kill an orc, but this,” he drew his sword half a foot out of its sheath, “will stop an orc’s axe.”
"Fair enough.”
“So where are we going?” Matthias asked.
“Let’s see,” Robin pulled the data device out of her coat and began fidgeting with it. “They’re holed up in the top that tower south of town in the forest. There are seven of them.”
“That doesn’t seem fair. Seven on two?”
“I’ll fight with one hand tied behind my back, and you can put on an eye patch. It’ll be a little fairer, not by much, though.”
“You can climb that tower on the outside right?”
“You’re damn right I can.”
“Alright, I’ll go through the front door, and make as much noise as possible; you climb the tower and take them from behind.”
It didn’t take the siblings long to find the tower. They had visited it there many times.
“This was the first thing you showed me once I was able to walk again after father brought me home. Remember?” Matthias asked as they approached it.
“Of course I do. I even climbed it a little bit.”
“But you didn’t make it to the top. Can you?”
“Of course I can,” Robin smiled as she began her ascent. “I just didn’t because you had just started walking again after recovering from the injuries you had back then and you looked like you wanted to follow me.”
“I did.”
**************
She moved through the underbrush without a sound. Others might manage to rustle a leaf or snap a branch, but not her. Stealth was her specialty.
She paused.
She reached back over her right shoulder with her right hand and grasped the handle of her weapon. With her left hand, she lowered her visor into position over her eyes.
Damn. They’re still jamming us. I thought that had been wiped out already. The jagged and distorted images did little to help the hunt. Where did they get a jammer to begin with though? She raised her visor back to the top of her head. No matter. Wait. She lowered it back down. There WAS something nearby. It was hard to tell because of all the interference, but it wasn’t Green. She raised the visor yet again.
She crouched down, tightening her grip on her weapon, while looping her index finger around the trigger. She knew the last enemy was around here. One good shot and the fight was over. But where?
“Focus your mind,” words came to her head. “Cut of all senses save our strongest.”
She closed her eyes and grasped a fallen branch. She took a deep breath, and hurled the branch out randomly into the forest.
There!
Without a second thought her SMG was in both hands letting loose a spray of deadly projectiles into the underbrush.
Beep! Beep! BZZZZZZZZT!
“What?”
Before anything else could happen, a sharp pain in her lower back knocked her off her feet, face first into the ground.
BANG.
Sniped.
“Green team eliminated. Simulation completed. Red team wins.”
Damn.
As she looked up and massaged her kidneys, the forest began to fade away into a rather dull black room with the same repeating blue and red diamond/circle pattern around the walls. True, while the training shot would only leave permanent damage on her ego, it still hurt.
“Lethalya! You idiot!” An annoyed male voice snapped. “The hells did you kill me for?!”
Elvyane Lethalya turned around and looked into the seething eyes of her best friend and teammate, Allenio Zorafell, glaring at her, green impacts all over his armor.
“I could wonder the same thing,” a gruff voice said angrily. “Did you just throw that stick and fire at the first sound you heard? That’s another friendly fire kill.”
Both Elvyane and Allenio saluted their superior, Ranger-Colonel
“No, sir. I checked my visor before I fired. And the readouts, such as they were, weren’t green,” she replied.
“Did I hear you straight? ‘Such as they were’?”
“Yes sir, I was being jammed.”
“And yet you still relied on your technology and not your senses? Have our senses become so dulled since the Red-Green Alliance? Have we become so dependent on Confederate technology that we’ve forgotten our Spirits given powers?”
“No sir.”
“Then why am I looking at a friendly fire kill? Especially a close friends friendly fire kill? No doubt you should be able to at least smell one so close to you? Ever since we signed the agreement with our human friends, the purpose of the Ranger Corps is to not only utilize the advance human technology, but to utilize it flawlessly alongside our elven senses.”
“Yes sir. In my defense sir, would our enemies really possess equipment capable of jamming Confederate technology?”
“You never know, Lethalya. You never know. It could have fallen into the hands of the enemy. Our enemy could one day be the Confederacy. The battlefield is an unpredictable place. However, you are correct. More often than not, our enemies will not have such means at their disposable.
“However, this wasn’t the primary reason I approached you two. The Empire has need of Rangers with your talents. And despite the shortcomings you two possess, I nevertheless believe you two are ideal for this mission. And as representatives of the Far Eastern Ranger Lodge, I would normally expect the highest performance out of you two, but this case is special.”
“We won’t let you down, sir,” Allenio saluted.
“You can count on us, sir,” Elvyane followed suit.
“This mission is a joint exercise between the Emerald Empire and the United Confederated Imperium. It will hopefully be the first of many.”
“First? You mean we never fought alongside them in the last war?” Allenio asked.
How could we? Even today, our nations do not share any border. Only air, sea and several highly secured roads through the Hinterlands connect our glorious Empire with humanity’s. The council has been hesitant to execute joint operations with the Confederacy, but I think honor this time has forced them. I’m afraid I can’t tell you anymore. Ready your gear, the both of you. You fly out for the capital within the hour.”
“Which capital, sir?” Elvyane asked.
“Ours.”
“Understood.” They both said.
“Good. Dismissed.”
“Wow,” Allenio said as they made their way towards the barracks.
“Wow what?” Elvyane asked.
“Wow that we’re getting an assignment already. It hasn’t been that long since we started training. And you’re still shooting allies instead of enemies.”
“I knew we’d go sooner rather than later, after all, we are nearly unstoppable together. Provided I’m not shooting you. And besides, you shouldn’t flinch so much,” Elvyane massaged her kidney. “You jumped when I threw that branch. What I want to know though is who sniped me?”
“That’s the purpose of the sniper, El, you don’t know.”
“Hey, Lethalya! Hey!” A taunting voice said behind them.
“Oh, **** me sideways,” Elvyane muttered. I can’t believe this.
“Hey, thanks for mowing down your boy-toy for me! I’d never have found ya if ya hadn’t!”
I am not in the mood for this. “Listen, Seru, first, go **** yourself, preferably with your own manhood, provided you even have one and have one that’s big enough to reach around to your oversized asshole. Second, you wouldn’t last two seconds outside of a tree. Third, shut-up, ****. Fourth, rot in the hells,” Elvyane seethed.
“Aw, you’re just mad because you’re a **** excuse for a Ranger. Unlike your granddaddy. And face it, you hate snipers. You hate us because you think we hide and have no honor and just gun idiots like you down all day. Admit it, you’re just a failure. And I’m the symbol of your failure.”
Allenio raised his fist and gritted his teeth, but Elvyane stopped him.
“Hate snipers? You must be on some human drug. I have tremendous respect for the snipers. Snipers are like the Spirits. Watching over us and protecting us from harm and expecting nothing in return. Not you though. You’re like the so-called ‘New Gods’ of humanity. You know the ones that the Confederacy laughs at? You only give something if you get something in return. In fact, I’d be scared ****less if you were a sniper on my team. Knowing that I haven’t slept with you would probably mean I’d be killed by a ‘stray shot’ from you or the enemy before you racked up another kill. Now if you’ll excuse me, Allenio and I have a plane to catch to the capital. We’re shipping out.”
“That’s not fair. I wouldn’t let you die, **** Ranger that you are. And you know it!” Seru hissed.
“Yeah right. I’m glad you’re not coming with me on this mission. I’d rather have an orc watching my back than you.”
Elvyane saw stars next, only moments before her vision was flooded with the floor plating.
“Hey! Get off her!” Allenio was shouting over the sounds of scuffling.
“I won’t have my honor besmirched by this failure!” Seru shouted.
“She’s not a failure!” Allenio shoved Seru away. “She has her faults, just like the rest of us! Now, back off! As she said, we’ve been put on assignment and we’re flying out for the capital.”
Elvyane rolled over to see the two locked up, although neither appeared to be fighting or struggling.
“Fine,” Seru broke off from the struggle. “But mark my words, Lethalya, we’ll settle this once you return. I hereby declare and challenge you to the Kalinel!”
“Have it your way, first blood!” Elvyane hissed as she awkwardly stood up.
“Next time we meet, I promise you you’ll have a nice scar across your nose!” He traced a slash across his own.
“In your dreams!” Elvyane shouted as Allenio grabbed her shoulders and began frog marching her away.
“You shouldn’t have agreed to the Kalinel,” Allenio said once they were out of earshot.
“What do I care? It’s just first blood.”
“That’s not what I’m worried about.”
“What, you think he’ll agree to first blood and then slash my throat? There hasn’t been a lethal Kalinel in a millennium. Besides, if he does, it looks bad on him, not me.”
“You do realize that with no specific date set, the next time you literally meet you will be forced to fight him?” Allenio scoffed. “Even if you’re pregnant sixty years from now and are in labor, or you’re lying on a medical bed recovering from an injury.”
“Well, that’s why I have you around, right?”
“You know I’m no good at hand-to-hand combat.”
“Best start practicing.”
“Great. We’re not even outside the Empire’s borders and I have to rescue you from your own stupidity,” Allenio rolled his eyes.
“Aw, my own personal, what do the humans call it?” Elvyane half massaged, half rubbed her head in thought.
“Call what?”
“Oh yeah, Prince Charming!”
“Wonderful. Your ears are looking a little rounder than usual, El.”
**************
“HEY! HEY! INBREDS! OVER HERE! I’M OVER HERE! COME ON AND GET ME!”
Y
