“Come, come, my children.” An fragile looking knight beckoned smaller knights towards her, the knight's voice hoarse, but steady. It sounded like she would collapse at any minute now, it was a huge gamble to speak for her. She wasn't that old, it was just her voice. It was frail and weak, she choked up every few sentences.
“I will tell you a story now, one of great heroes. Not like the ones that lived through the Retribution Ages and had their memorials erected here in the Bazaar. Not ones of Feron, or Kozma. This is one of a hero named Fade.”
A younger knight looked distraught, his hand almost reaching his Tempered Calibur as he approached her. “Readier, we are not allowed to speak of him. The story of Fade is not to be taught.”
Readier waved him away. “They must hear about him someday, Lost.” Lost sheathed his Tempered and went back to attend to the junior knights.
Readier continued her story. “His story started right after the crash of Skylark. We were very young then, they were just beginning the recon of the Clockworks. Fade and I were one of the few knights dispatched along with the Alpha Squad, right before them actually, we were sent to try and make Clockworks safer for other adventurers. We are the ones who invented the mist tanks. We were the Haven Squad. I think the city square was name after us.”
She giggled for a second, then followed a fit of coughing. “Our job was to make Clockworks as safe us we could, like I said, so we erected monster force fields, and fixed up the elevators and installed the 'back to Haven' program. It wasn't easy, I'll tell you. . .”
***
“Fade! Get your lazy butt over here!” Readier yelled. She was furious. Being very competitive, she wanted to be ahead of the Alpha Squad. But because of a lazy, slacker squad leader, they were only at the second floor; the Alpha Squad was probably already in the sixth or seventh.
Fade looked up at Readier, and a bunch of other disappointed knights. The squad had two parts to it. The tech section, the ones who put up the force fields and fixed the elevators; and the Defenders. They would protect the Techies from any threatening things lurking around in the Clockworks.
Fade was just loafing around, his hood pulled down all the way, blocking his deep crimson eyes. His trusty rusted sword lay there, sheathed and resting next to him. It had a small blue gemstone embedded in the hilt. From the looks of it, Fade had done it by himself. It was cracked and uneven. He slowly looked up and found a shiny Calibur pointed at him. Readier was close to losing it. The Techies were already done fixing the elevator and installing the program. They needed the ready of the Defenders' leader, Fade. He had not been paying attention to anything, and thought that the soft grass compensated for the copious amounts of wolf creatures, or Wolvers, as one knight dubbed them.
Fade got up and waved his hand. He was ready to go.
“Where did you get that hood?” Readier asked. Her curiosity overpowered her rage.
Fade patted the soft cloth. “This? I made it out of some feathers I found after we had beaten those Kats. It's very comfortable, and it didn't hurt much after I accidentally detonated a Blast Cube. I call it, the Magic Hood.” That's what Fade was wearing. That, and standard issue Cobalt Armour and a small dark buckler. He had called it Skelly Shield.
“Wolvers on the horizon, F.” One knight said. His name was Pry, a recon expert; wielding a brand new Blaster, and a wicked Magnus. He scouted the area, and alerted Fade of any dangers. Apparently, he had found one.
Right one cue, ten appeared, an Alpha Wolver leading the pack. “I told you not to call me that.” Fade growled, as he pulled out his sword. He raised his hand. “Attack!” He yelled, and lunged forward, Readier, Pry and another knight following. The other knight, Gen, wielded a smoke bomb that slowed the approaching enemies and allowed Pry, Readier, or Fade to finish them off. Readier charged a small gun that shot a large cyan ball. She aimed it at the Alpha, and fired. It was too quick for her, leaving her vulnerable. She swore and tried to switch to her Calibur, too late. The Wolver's jaws came down, taking a good chunk of energy away from her suit of armour.
“Guns,” Readier griped. “Never again.”
Before the Wolver could land the last two chomps, there came Fade, his unnamed sword smashing down on the Wolver's head, yelping and burrowing down again. Fade anticipated it, and swung, turning to face it. Fade's blow left the Wolver shocked, and it faded away, into smoke, leaving behind small embers that his armour absorbed. Fade looked up, to find that Pry and Gen had finished the rest off, a large grin on Pry's face as plumes of smoke erupted from his Magnus.
“Ok,” He said, noticing that this particular elevator was too small for all of them. “Pry, Readier, you go down the elevator with the techies. Gen and I will wait here.” The techies nodded, then rushed to the elevator.
Click, whirrr. As they fed their mist to it, the elevator went down. Fade, once again, sat on that same rock. Pry looked at his lazy leader, then imitated his lazy pose. They were both sitting on rocks facing the same direction, the darkness. A growl was heard. Then, the shadows slowly started to distort and move, coming closer to the two remaining knights. Gen noticed it first, getting his crystal bomb at the ready. The shadows contorted and started to compress and form a giant black and red beast, multiple glowing red eyes, sharp spikes hanging where fur should be.
It let loose a deafening roar, calling forth tens of beasts, Wolvers and freezing and poison Chromalisks. Fade grinned. “So that old scar's been aching too huh, Snarbolax.” Fade put a hand to his chest. Snarbolax, Gen noticed, had a long red mark going down the left side of its face. Has Fade fought it before?
Snarbolax growled, then burrowed and left, leaving Gen and Fade with a multitude of Wolvers.
“Take the left side, I'll take the right.” Fade ordered as he quickly got up and unsheathed his sword. Gen nodded and started to charge his bomb. He lay it down and waited. The shards erupted from the centre, scattering Wolvers scared for their lives. A few unlucky ones were too close, getting hit with a few shards. They slowly disappeared, leaving behind remnants of their claws and fur. Gen started charging again, this time a Blast Bomb to finish them for good. A Wolver got too close for comfort, and Gen panicked as others moved in for the kill. He didn't have time to lay down the bomb, so he did the only reasonable thing to do. He stuffed the bomb in an attacking Wolver's mouth. The unfortunate Wolver was being 'assisted' by others, the other Wolvers were trying to pry the bomb loose. Too late, Gen thought, as the blue light enveloped the area. There. It was done. He looked over at the squad captain. He had also finished, and collected quite a large amount of materials. His sword was decorated with colourful shards he had found along the way, mostly green, and a bone and some patches of fur hung loose from the end of the hilt. It was also bathed in a cold liquid, Gen saw other knights do it before, the blue liquid helped remove rust and make blades more aerodynamic.
“Let's go now,” Fade said apathetically, as they stepped on the elevator. Click, whirrr. Fade sadly took one last look at his special sitting rock.
***
“Arghh,” Gen made a weird sound with his mouth as him and Fade reached the third level. “I hate construct levels.”
“What gave it away?” Pry asked. “Was it the gears, the toolboxes, the abundance of Gremlins, or the fact that there are a herd of Mecha Knights heading towards us?”
Readier grinned. “My kind of challenge,” She muttered under her breath as she and Pry approached the constructs. Pry stayed behind her, letting loose shots from his Blaster, every now and then. It wasn't a very wide corridor they were in, Readier used a charge attack to shove the knights back, sometimes decapitating them, and Pry picked them off one by one. Usually a headshot, being an expert marksman.
Fade scoffed and glanced at Gen. “We were much more elegant than that.” Gen chuckled and relived the Blast Bomb incident.
“Alright, Gen and Readier, you stay put with the techies. Pry and I will scout ahead. We'll tell you it's safe to go ahead,” Fade motioned to Pry's Blaster. “Via Blaster charge shot.” He nodded at Pry. “Ready?” Pry nodded, looking eagerly at his Blaster. Readier and Gen watched, as the expert gunslinger and squad leader left for the gear filled dungeons.
***
Through the waves of Mecha Knights and Gremlins, Pry had always stood behind his Squad leader, he had just noticed.
Not just because Fade was the leader and always managed to shove to the front of the battle lines, but that Pry was the opposite. He always managed to flee to the back. The renovations on the non-friendly fire guns had let him go berserk. But for him, berserk meant to shoot blindly instead of that trying to hit monsters instead of teammates, but still staying behind the others. That had started to bother him.
“Why?” He wondered aloud. “Why does that always happen?”
Fade looked puzzled as he decapitated a Retrode. “What is it?”
Pry looked in awe at his squad leader, still maintaining killing composure while fighting armies of robots. “Nothing, just a placement thing.” He muttered.
“You can come to the front if you want,” Fade offered.
Pry considered it, but stayed put. “I'm g-good,” He stuttered as a bullet from his Magnus ricocheted off a Lumber and struck a Gun Puppy head on.
“I get it,” Fade chuckled. “Skilled gunslingers are the strategists. They analyze the enemy, all its weaknesses and then strike where it hurts without getting hurt. Am I right?”
“Yeah,” Pry answered, warming up to his slacker leader.
“I respect gunslingers, and I love guns.” He held up a gun, which was slightly modified. All that was left was a small Scuttlebot. Fade aimed, then pulled the trigger, a purple bullet exploding in a brilliant light on impact. The light was such a dark colour, one could have said it was pure darkness, not light at all.
“Is that a Blaster?” Pry asked. Pry looked at both his guns. His Magnus was rough and scratched. His Blaster, shiny and new. But Fade's gun was different. It was like a Blaster, but with a canister full of energy was docked at the nozzle's bottom. It was red and purple, and emitted a dark aura.
“Nope,” He grinned. “I call it an Alchemer. Here, want me to make you one?”
Pry nodded eagerly and handed over his materials. Fade looked at the materials for a second, then isolated the ones needed. He put his hand over the materials and concentrated, pumping some of his energy to the materials. The materials buzzed with heat, then dazzled and formed a gun. It was different from Fade's. It had a sort of reddish rim, but it glowed all sorts of different colours. Pry picked it up and tested it out on the nearest block.
“It shoots rainbows,” Pry grinned.
Fade smiled. “Nice, I should get me a rainbow gun too. All I have is this Shadow Alchemer. Shadowtech?”
“Are you a swordsman? Or a bomber? Gunslinger?” Pry asked, out of the blue.
Fade started walking, then shrugged. “I don't know,” He started looking at his weapons. A Shadowtech Alchemer, his rusted sword and a small smoke bomb Gen had given him a while back. “I guess all.”
Pry scratched his head, then ran after his leader. This recon mission isn't going to be so bad after all, Pry thought.
Wrong.