Prologue – Part 4

I held my shield over my body, fastened my grip on the lance on my right. Instincts took over, time slowed, sounds dampened, sight sharp. The two peasants pounced at me with violet eyes like feral beasts, one after the other. With all my strength, I held my shield back and bashed the first in midair. She flew towards the side, crashing into one of the burning houses.

The second one was charging on my right flank, both hands tensed like claws. With my shield still on the air, I took a sidestep to the left to dodge her flying hands. My left hand gripping the shield zoomed from the left, flying through the air, and with the edge of the shield I bashed the woman’s neck towards the ground.

N-Not even a scream

Silent, like corpses

My body shivered at the thought, heart beating faster as I put all my strength on my feet to get back up—

A low growl

My eyes took a sharp turn up, being reminded of the presence of the behemoth. Its mouth was open, violet light gradually getting brighter inside—

“!!”

Leaving my shield, I kicked the stone below me hard with my left foot, sending my body flying across towards the right, slamming myself once more unto the edge of the road. The violet beam barely touched my body by the skin of the teeth, once again covering the road with pitch black smoke.

I stabbed my lance to the stone below, using it to get back on my feet. Enveloped in darkness, I staggered forward. The smoke thinned, I could hear running footsteps coming closer and closer. A silhouette of a man—no, bright violet eyes pierced the thinning smoke around me. With both hands I held my lance up—

“Gahh!!”

A sharp pain went through my abdomen. Glancing downwards, I saw a hand pierced through my ivory armor, into my flesh. Following it was the man, eyes dead, lips silent. With his right hand still dug in, he grabbed me with his other hand and slammed his entire body on mine. I was sent flying about two houses away from where I was .

Lying flat on the ground, using all my might to raise my head up, I glanced on my abdomen. A gaping wound, glowing purple. Moving my eyes slightly, I saw the man who attacked me turn away and started running the opposite direction, towards the cloud of smoke and cinders. The behemoth took one last gaze on me, then like the man sank into the sea of chaos.

The pain worsened, draining my strength. Losing hope, I rested my head on the stone road, looking up towards the sky.

Whew, that took several hours off my life (tis still the prologue darn it, get yourself together). Thanks for enduring the wall of text so far! For all you spoons and forks out there, feel free to comment and criticize on my endeavor so far, whether you think its decent or downright stupid. Suggestions also appreciated! I'll be posting the first chapter in a day or two, so look forward to that :3

In the meantime, I'm giving out a chance for you guys to be a part of the tale! (guh shameless advertising) Ye olde' character application sheet goes like this:

Name: [Derp]
Personality: [Jolly all day everyday]
Bio: [was born on Derpsville raised in Herpstown]
Physical Features: [Derp armor, derp helm, derp accessories]
Combat Gear: [Sword of derp, Shield of herp]
Other Stuff: [He's damn derpy]

I may tinker and modify characters as I please, so be warned. Also, kindly limit yourselves to knights. That means no fairies or witches or talking kats.

Now, to slam myself on my bed and doze to infinity.

I don't intend to faithfully stick to the official fanlore (or the game really). Consider this my tiny little reboot of the spiralverse, a reimangining if you will. (Whew nice excuse there *high fives myself*)

Aanyways, thanks for the app, glad you didnt apply something like an overly manly man that kills things just by staring or something like that. Look forward to your character's flashy entrance micheal bay style... Maybe...

Custom stuff are fine, I plan on giving some of the characters non-ingame stuff anyways, so customize away :D

Part 2 – The Melancholy of the Knight in Cobalt
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Leaving the blinds open, I headed towards the machine on the other side of the room. A big, flat screen stood proud on top of the metal counter, in front of it an electronic board laid with buttons and numbers. Beside it, a pad glowed faintly blue, a trackpad. Cables ran inside a hole in the counter, which had the processors inside. Simply put, a computer.

I gently laid my hand on the trackpad. The blue light grew slightly brighter, and a few moments later the screen lit up with a faint beep, along with the buttons on the board in front of it.

Way better then the systems we had back in the day

Guiding the small blue selector on screen with the trackpad, I opened the news tab. A selection of articles appeared before me.

“Two more knights disappeared whilst venturing, it’s the third incident recently.”

Turning the machine off, I stepped towards the arsenal on the side of the computer. Opening the big metallic chest, an interface popped up on the screen inside, on its right, a similar pad glowed faintly blue. I placed my hand on the pad. On before empty screen now showed a small portrait of a knight on the top left corner. He had crimson eyes, looking ever so slightly empty, face devoid of life. Without a helmet, short, dark red hair covered his head, trimmed without style, military. Beside the portrait was a name in black, ‘Revo Sparks’, below it in smaller font, ‘Defender’.

A generic name, a generic look, a generic knight. I hate it, it’s annoying, so annoying.

Below the portrait were several tabs: ‘Weapons’, ‘Armor’, ‘Helmets’, ‘Shields’. I tapped a tab, beside it appeared a list. I then tapped one of the items on the list. Cloth appeared around my neck, going down to my torso. Whitish blue metal covered my arms and legs, padded my shoulders. A belt appeared, two bags hanging from the sides. My beloved Mighty Cobalt Armor replaced the fabric pajamas I wore.

Several more items appeared as I got down the list. A helm of similar metal covered my head, a hilt with a blade was strapped on my waist, a simple white handgun with a red handle hung on the other side. A red shield attached to my back, bearing a crest of knights on its front, rimmed with shiny metal. I ran my eyes and hands along my body, checking and rechecking

“Mighty Cobalt Helm, check, Ascended Calibur, check, Mighty Defender, check, Master Blaster, check… Right…”

I gently tapped the side of my helm. An interface appeared before my eyes, health, shields, everything I might need to know. Waving my fingers in the air, several options seemingly just slid into existence.

Teleport, Bazaar

The moment I pressed the imaginary buttons, was covered with white, my vision blurred. The next moment, I felt sunlight hit my face, I could hear snipes prancing about, and morning wind brushed against my armor, the noise of the busy town hit flooded my ears. Scorch sleepily tailed me from behind. Stalls stood on the side on the yellow brick road I was standing on, knights and strangers stationed inside, serving customers. I stepped towards one of the stalls, sat down on the wooden seat provided, placing my hands on the wooden counter in front of me.

“Bobby, my usuals” I mumbled as I flipped a golden coin in the air, a familiar figure skillfully catching it with one hand, pouring out orange liquid onto a mug with the other.

“Well good morning to you too, Sparks” He served the mug before me, beside it a bowl full of cracked open rocky cores. Picking the mug up, I took a sip at the hot contents inside. I closed my eyes, savored the warmth in my mouth, and then my entire body. A pleasant flavor of spiciness lingered on my tongue. Blaze pepper tea, good as always. I laid down the mug and took one of the open cores beside it, popping the gooey pink contents in my mouth.

Its sweet

I took another and handed it over to the head popping above my right shoulder. The sprite happily took it in its mouth, munching on the treat while growling softly.

Looking around, I could see other knights doing similar things; eating, trading, chattering away happily, hanging out together, as if we were born here, everyone just one small part of a peaceful community. The tense aura emanating from everybody seemingly disappeared long ago. It has been several Isoran cycles since we’ve crash landed here, and everyone’s getting used to the place, getting used to life, getting used to Cradle.

Part 4 – Sunny Days
-------------------------------------
“Raaaaaaaaaah!!”

I shouted as I gripped my Ascended Calibur on hand, my shield covering my front, and kicked myself off the ground. Two retrodes on my left, a lumber on my right. Dashing between the three, my senses were as sharp as ever, each second that passed by felt like hours. My eyes glanced right, paid attention to the lumber’s raising arm.

Yeah, that’s it, now!!

Activating my dash module, I narrowly dodged the giant construct’s swing, my body zooming away, leaving behind a trail of blue energy particles. The impact of the swing hit the two retrodes on the other side, putting their systems in daze.

“Leo! Ave!”

A silver bullet travelled through the air and shot through one of the crippled robot’s body, punching a hole through its chest. At the same time, two blue energy balls hit the other construct’s dazed head, blasting it away. Both retrodes crumbled down and its systems exploded to pieces.

I put my gaze back to the behemoth of wood and steel. Its giant right hammer arm was already high up in the air, about to impale me with several tons of pure brute force—

“Gyaaah!!”

A knight of cobalt zoomed from the right side of my field of view, bashing the lumber with his shield. The force was enough to flinch the construct to the far left, its arm smashing the ground about 3 caliburs away from where I was. I quickly dashed backwards to avoid the ensuing shockwave.

“Sparkyy, your chance!”

“Right, Scorch, cover me!”

The sprite reacted with a loud screech, flying up high, blasting the lumber with a barrage of fire. I gripped my sword tight r and began charging. White mist energy started gathering around its blade, quickly covering the weapon with a white sheen. I kicked the ground below me and ran towards the dazed behemoth, recovering from the attack. ziiing!, my weapon rang as it finished charging, blade now bathed in golden energy.

“Raaaaah!!”

With my might, I swung the sword, from my far left to my far right, gliding around my body, then back again, the energy inside released with force to boost the blade and myself through the air. I cut deep inside the construct’s thick plate of wood and steel, destroying its innards. It was launched through the air from the force of the swing before landing. Instantaneously, energy grew bright from where it was cut, and then a loud explosion reverberated through the air as the behemoth blew itself up into pieces.

“Yeah, we did it!”

“Good job everyone”

With all the enemies defeated, the gate opened, revealing the humming elevator downwards leading to the next depth. Catching my breath, I waved my fingers, a list of options appeared before my eyes. I opened my gate map to see where the waypoint was. One more rotation till we can go there . I sighed as I slid the screen off my field of view.

“Right guys, let’s take a break here, it’ll be some time before the level rotates.” I said rather loudly to everyone as I found a shady place below a tree and sat down.

Opening my brown leather satchel that hung on my waist, I took a metal canteen out, gently opened the cap and placed it over my mouth. The rather warm liquid inside poured in, drenching my throat.Blaze pepper tea, good as always . I closed my eyes as I felt the pleasant breeze brush my body, the distant sound of metal grinding, the gentle smell of green grass emanated from where I sat. On the clear blue skies was a sun, rather warm, my mind ignoring the fact that everything here is artificial, just letting myself go.

I heard the grass ruffle beside me. Gazing left, I saw leo sitting about a calibur away from where I was, leaning against the tree as I did, his beloved crossbow on his lap, his orange, dead eyes soaring through the skies, absorbing the moment. I put my gaze towards the sky as he did.

Bliss

“Jigsaw valley, never gets old” A hoarse voice, rather deep voice came out of the knight to my left, followed by an equally hoarse sigh.

“Oh, the mute man talks…” I replied sarcastically, still gazing through the blue sky above.

“I’ll put a hole through your chest” I felt death bombard the left side of my face. I turned around, returned the stare, before laying my head back on the tree trunk, closing

“How quaint…”

A muted chatter came from our front. I opened my eyes and turned my gaze towards the two knights sitting on the edge of the platform next to each other. One, wearing standard geo knight uniform, had a device in his hand. The other, donned in full mighty cobalt, took heavy interest on the device, slightly face leaning towards the thing, both knights chattering away.

“They should get married” Leo, apparently watching the same scene as I did, said while chuckling.

“That would be gay”

“Jealous, much?”

“Both of em’ are guys” I replied with a sigh

“Oh… That… would be gay…”

The voice momentarily stopped, then continued

“That explains a whole lot”

“Like what?”

“How it’s so flat”

“Wow, aren’t you the perverted old geezer?”

“There are only two kinds of men in this world, open perverts who admit it, and closet perverts who don’t”

“…Mm… Touché”

Ouch, right in the heart

We continued watching the scene before us. The knight in blue suddenly tensed up, looking nervous, his face tinged with red, body slightly shivering. With his eyes locked on the other’s, his lips moved, seemingly asked a question, as the knight in cobalt beside him turned away his attention from the device to the researcher in blue, returning his gaze with big, bright amber eyes.

“Oh that’s cute, they seriously should just get married”

“Now you’re just being nasty”

“Hoo, little Sparky here’s being jealous again”

“I’ll thrust my blade through your chest”

“How quaint”

The knight in blue suddenly ran got up and ran across the plain of grass, towards where we were, leaving the other knight behind with a confused face. He stopped in front of me, speaking while trying to catch his breath.

“W-what’s between y-you.. and A-Ambree?”

“Oh, me and him? Former partners”

“W-wait, h-him?”

“Yeah, him…”

A gentle breeze blew across the platform, the ruffling of leaves and grass could be heard as it passed, Avelan’s body stiff as a statue, face in shock.

“Oh, the level rotated” I said as I saw the notification on the far right side of my GUI, got off the grass, Leo followed after.

“Yo Ambree, we’re going, let’s go!”

“Alrigiiht~” He got up and merrily skipped towards the elevator

We stepped on the humming machine, Avelan getting on last, face still frozen in shock. We descended, felt the gentle, pleasant winds stop, the sunlight disappeared from the gaps above, the ruffling of leaves replaced by the sound of grinding metal, as we sank further and further down towards the depths of the Clockworks.

@liminori Thanks for reading! ze answers to ze questions

1.Oh did I forget to put a genders section on the apps format? My bad... Yeah, you're allowed to choose a gender

2.For now, kindly limit yourself to strictly knights, for the purpose of the plot... I may (or may not) allow apps for non isoran characters in the future

3.Aside from your characters being knights and not being overly OP, there's really no limitations on what you can do... (Of course, I may tweak your characters a bit to fit the story)

I'll eagerly look forward to your app :3

Part 5 – Deconstruction Zone
----------------------------------------------
The smell of rust and iron, the roars of monstrous pieces of metal moving and grinding unto one another, the tremors of giant beams of metal bombarding the ground…

Where am I, its dark, so dark

[Gehehe, we got a nice one, good, good]

Voices, rough voices, its noisy, so noisy

[Sparks!]

The blazing fires, it burns, the pain, it burns

[Sparks!!]

No, stop, no, please, put the pain away

“Sparks!!”

I snapped back to my senses. I was panting heavily, heart pounding incredibly hard in my chest, cold sweat dripped from my chin.

“Sparks, snap out of it!”

I raised my downcast eyes. Gazing back was a knight of worried amber eyes, head covered with a helm of metal, both hands gripping each of my shoulders. Behind him were two knights, one with green, concerned eyes, intently staring at mine with a straight face, the other was a bit farther, had a hat of pure white covering his face as he leaned on a pile of rusted beams of metal piled on the ground, hands folded. On my side was my sprite, Scorch, growling softly with a worried look on its face.

I took deep breaths, calming myself down, my heartbeat slowed.

I’m out of the dark, I’m out of the dark”

“It’s just your everyday decon zone, don’t worry about it, okay?” The knight in front of me took his hands off my shoulders, life flooding back into his eyes, his face turned cheery once more. Avelan took his gaze off me with a sigh, and began to fiddle around with his gadgets. The cowboy took his back off the pile and stepped closer towards the group.

Right, just my everyday decon zone

“Right, here’s what we’re gonna do…” Ambree said to us all with a steadfast tone, his cheery self one again replaced by a familiar expression of seriousness. “Sparks and I are gonna go in there and free the knights, you both tail us from behind. Avelan, you scout for enemies as we extract the prisoners, Leo, cover us when things get bad. Avoid combat as much as possible, got it?”

“...Whoa…” The geo knight whispered in awe, eyes wide

“He’s a guy after all” Leo smirked under his breath, hat still covering his face

“Got it?” Ambree said once more, louder, this time coupled with a sharp stare towards the two knights.

“Yes sir!!” They both said in a chorus, with the researcher in blue particularly tense. Ambree’s face then relaxed, putting back his usual happy go lucky look, smiling innocently.

“Right, get your gear ready, we’re going in first, you follow after.” The knight in cobalt glanced at me and nodded, we both unsheathed our blades, with our shields on out left, ready to charge. I took a glance at the map on my top right of my field of vision. Two blue energy signatures glowed quite a far ways off from ours, then farther from that the elevator back to the surface.

I glanced at the knight on my left, sword and shield ready, orange eyes focused forward, taking command. Just like old times

“Last one there’s….”

“…A rotten rocky core”

We both ourselves off the ground, dashing forward towards the two glowing energy signatures, the grinding of gears covered the sound of our footsteps as we rushed across on the iron platform, leaving trails of dust with every step.