Flying high above the clouds, the convoy of Tachyonian military airships with the Strife Striders at the centre, steadily soared for 18 hours, crossing mountain ranges and lush river valleys down below. Located far behind the frontline where major fights were ongoing, their journey went smoothly without a hitch. However, while the flight itself was fine, the hidden tension between Corley and Yuna kept the atmosphere barely below peaceful.
They kept a vigilant eye on each other as they roped Lorian’s attention back and forth between them like a game of tug-of-war. Poor Lorian was powerless here, for Yuna was persistent in cosying up to him as an old friend, while Corley kept dragging him aside to check where his loyalty lies. Additionally, the others on the airship were unable to break up their competition for all of their attention was on Lorian, leaving him as the unwilling intermediary between them.
Even Matina, whom Lorian had hoped could help him in this scenario, could only barely help him by giving half-meaningful advice through the Contact Bracelet. She was limited by the fact that Yuna always had her eyes on him, which meant she had to be cautious so as not to raise any suspicion from the Vanguard on board, who was secretly eager to see the bracelet in action and pass the intel to her commanders.
“Hey, Lorian! Morning!”, Yuna bumped Lorian’s shoulder, startling him as he looked out at the forest of Everbloom below while the sun was rising over the horizon, 12 hours into the flight.
“Oh—Morning, Yuna!”, he replied. “Did you, uh, have a good rest on the deck?”
“Rest? Haha! You really think I’ll sleep while on duty to watch you guys?”, Yuna bragged.
“Oh, so, you’ve been awake throughout the night out on this chilly deck? Don’t you feel exhausted?”, he felt a little concern.
“Aw, still care for me? Thanks!”, she delightfully expressed. “Well, if you’re curious, this suit is the one that kept me warm and awake”, she said as she gently thumped on her power armour.
“Oh? How does that work, especially keeping you awake part?”, he asked.
She told him: “Simple, really! The warmth comes from the suit’s internal heater, while my wakefulness comes from the tube that injects me with Oxicafrinil, which is a drug that keeps you awake for days”
“Oh… does it not do anything to your body?”, he asked.
“Nah, not really, aside from the fact I’ll sleep longer after the effect wears off. However, if I need to sleep while it's still in effect, I could just take its antidote that puts my body back to normal”, she said.
“Wow, that’s pretty convenient…”, Lorian expressed.
She replied: “Right? In fact, if you’re feeling like you want a suit like mine too, I could arrange that—”
Before she even finished her words, Corley suddenly appeared by Lorian’s other side, seemingly out of nowhere, and quickly interjected:
“Oh, thanks! But I think he would pass on the offer”
“Whoa, Corley! When did you get here?”, Lorian was shocked. “Weren’t you on pilot duty now?”
“Well, I am. But the flight path forward is a long straight line, so there’s not much to do anyway. Besides… I thought I might join you two on your sunrise watch…”, she said passive-aggressively as she side-eyed Yuna on Lorian’s other side.
“Oh, sure… you’re welcome to join…”, Yuna replied in the same tone as her, before showing an irked face to her.
“Anyway, Lorian…”, Corley spoke, “How does it feel to see Everbloom from up in the sky?”
Lorian looked out on the green forest below with its winding rivers glistering from sunlight and said: “Honestly, it made me feel nostalgic and homesick…”
“Like, to think that those forests down below are where I spent my whole childhood, and now I’m only passing over them as we head to the next destination, reminds me of how much my life has changed and how I could no longer return to how things were”.
Yuna added: “Yeah, I share the same sentiment with Lorian. But, at the same time, I’m glad that I’m not completely alone after the incident, as Cat and Lorian are still around and I got to meet them”.
“You could say that, even if our homes are gone, at least their fragments are still being carried around by those who shared the memory, and that’s good news to me…”
While Lorian openly accepted what Yuna said and smiled along, Corley felt discontented with her and said to herself:
“Miss… I’m asking Lorian’s opinion, not yours…”
Turning around and noticing Corley’s frown right away, Lorian quickly think of something to cheer her up. He eventually asked:
“Um, Corley, speaking of home, you reckon that others at Machiaville would be missing to see us again?”
His question snapped her out of anger as she became invested in this new conversation: “Oh, of course they would! Miss Nusieca and Captain Circo would surely come to see us the moment we land, and then there’ll also be Captain Honorine, King Caroon, Mr Herman…”
“Hahaha… can’t wait to see all of them again…”, Lorian expressed.
Corley teased: “You'd better be ready, though… since you’ll owe them a ton of stories from our adventure~”
“What? Come on, I can’t be the one to tell all to them! You've got to help me too!”, Lorian laughingly replied.
“Nuh uh, you’re the main hero now, so it has to be you!”, Corley said back.
Lorian and Corley laughed together as they continued their friendly banter and chatter, while Yuna got totally left out despite literally being beside Lorian. This time, it was her turn to feel discontented, deeply saying in her heart:
“Tch, this robot chick… always trying so hard to keep Lorian attached to you…”
Conversations like this continued to happen on and off as the flight went on for a few more hours. All Lorian could do was bear with them and wait patiently until they reached their destination in the Rustring drylands.
At last, as the sun sat high up in the blue sky, the airships finally reached Kormin, a modest Rustring settlement located at the edge of the drylands before the endless expanse of the desert began to the northeast. From afar, its Tachyonian influence was already visible from its style alone. Amidst the zinc and sandstone roofs tightly packed together, there were pockets of spacious compounds that hosted sleek Tachyonian buildings, which were fenced off on all sides.
Rather than landing at the dedicated military airbase, which the Strife Striders saw from up above, they were suddenly instructed to land their airship on the empty field at the edge of the settlement while the escorting airships continued to the airbase. The order was sent to Yuna, who then relayed it to Captain Odya.
“Heh? So, you guys are just going to leave us to wait here?”, Captain Odya asked.
“Uh… pretty much, I guess…”, Yuna hesitantly answered while standing outside the bridge room. “I’ve also been ordered to head to the airbase myself later, so you and your crew can wait around in the settlement while we wait for the airship carrying your friend arrive from Tachyon”.
“And how long would that be?”, Odya inquired as her hand slowly pulled a lever on the control panel down, lowering the airship to the ground.
“The ETA I received said around 5 more hours. So, there’s plenty of time to kill here”, Yuna answered.
“Seriously? Ugh, as if there’s anything here that is remotely entertaining. Guess it’ll be a boring wait…”, Captain Odya expressed.
As the Strife Striders’ airship touched down, it caught the attention of the residents, who were going about their days as usual. The kids playing on the street called each other out as they raced to the field, while the adults left their housework behind with faces full of questions. They gathered around as the airship shot its anchors into the ground while the Strife Striders stood by the bulwark to see the people coming.
“Whoa, so many people! Do Rustbed airships rarely come to this place?”, Corley wondered aloud.
Timbre, who was with them, said: “By the look of it, it seems. This settlement doesn’t look like it even has a dedicated merchant landing field, unlike every other place we’ve done business in”.
“I guess it must have something to do with the presence of the Tachyonian Military here…”, Alaric expressed.
The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.
They turned around and watched their captain exit the bridge room after hearing her footsteps, and Captain Odya came to them to address them with what Yuna had just told her, with the Vanguard herself joining in.
“Oh, you’re going back to your squad, Yuna?”, Lorian asked.
“Yup, my job here is done. I won’t be intruding on your airship any longer after this”, Yuna said.
She continued: “Anyway, before I leave, I wanna say thank you to the Strife Striders for being cooperative to us. I hope that our next meeting will be a good one like this too”.
“We have our thanks to you, too, Vanguard Yuna”, Timbre said, “All of this would not have been possible without your good relationship with Lorian”.
Corley crossed her arms and released a quick “Hmph!” as she heard Timbre say that, which made Lorian slightly anxious while scratching his head.
After finishing up their group talk, they stepped out of the airship through the hatch door on the hull before parting ways with Yuna, who was heading to the airbase alone, while the Strife Striders met up with the curious residents waiting for them on the field.
As they approached the crowd, they heard curious whispers whizzing around them as they chattered about their identity and intentions. However, the Strife Striders collectively noticed how most of them expressed fear and anxiety on their arrival, which was likely the reason they kept backing off as they stepped forward. Realising this, Captain Odya, who was leading her crew at the front, gently smiled and respectfully introduced the Strife Striders to the residents:
“Greetings, residents of Kormin. We’re the Strife Striders, an Aviator crew from Machiaville. We came here on business with the Tachyonians, so please, rest assured that we don’t have any ill intention toward any of you”.
“With those Tachyonians?”, an old man stepped forth from the crowd to speak. “Are you one of those allied mercenaries that work for them?”
“Mercenaries?! Ehehe… no, no, we’re just merchants actually…”, she covered her lie with laughter. Her crews played along, too, as that was something they’d agreed not tell people freely.
She added: “Also, we’re not strictly an ally to the Tachyonians. We just ended up needing to do some trade with them, which led us to follow them here”.
“Hmm, strange. We’re pretty much outside of the aviators’ trade network, as the Tachyonians placed a fly ban in this area. The only kinds of Rustbed merchants we received here were those of the riders. But even those are rare, since most goods are brought here from Tachyon”, the man replied.
“Wow, now I think about it, no wonder we’ve never heard of Kormin before. You guys were practically living in Tachyon's shadow!”, Corley expressed.
“Well, we prefer it to be like this. Keep those pesky pirates and bandits away from us…”, another person from the crowd replied.
“Oh, you had those issues in the past?”, Lorian asked.
The old man replied: “Well… It’s an old and long story. How about I invite you to my home for some tea? I don’t mind hosting surprise guests…”
“Oh, sure, we’ll gladly accept!”, Captain Odya replied.
The crowd dispersed as the Strife Striders followed the old man to his humble home. Meanwhile, at the fenced-off airbase in the middle of the settlement, Yuna had rendezvoused with her commander to join a top-secret meeting about an upcoming major operation, which they had not told the Strife Striders about before bringing them to Kormin.
In the dimly lit meeting room, high-ranking commanding officers from across the branches convened around a wide semi-circle table, while the Vanguards and other relevant staff sat behind them. All of them had their eyes fixed on the holographic presentation shown by the appointed general of the operation, General Enfield.
“That’s it for the main objectives of the operation. Now, I shall address the specifics…”, the general, in his late 50s, swiped the hologram with his hand as he switched presentation panels.
“Since this operation will involve opening a wide frontline across the desert, we will be deploying Scorpion-7 robots between the main ground units to close the gaps. As seen on this map, when the armoured unit moves here, the robot squadrons will take these positions in the valley, while artillery units can make their way to these mountains circled here…”
As the meeting audience watched the map attentively, one colonel raised his hands and asked: “Excuse me, General, but we haven’t used these mass amounts of robots in decades. My question is, why don’t we just use aerial strikes to destroy strategic targets first, like we normally do in Vaniera and Everbloom?”
“Alright, thank you for asking”, General Enfield replied, “I see that many of you have also been wondering the same by the look on your faces. So, listen carefully…”
“What will unfold in Rustbed in the coming days and weeks will be the worst of fights you’ll ever see. Present-day Rustbed is unlike what we’ve fought several decades ago. While in the past, they were centrally led by Atolya Kachories and her followers, nowadays, each group and cities move on their own…”
“While that may sound favourable to us, the truth is the opposite. Apart from the 12 major city-states with their formal armies, there exist countless rogue groups that frequently change loyalties while wreaking havoc all over Rustbed. Even on small matters, they fought barbarically, often using inhumane battle tactics like drug zombies that could make you sick just by looking at them alone. They were also very cunning, using the mountains and caves for outmanoeuvring, while innovating new weapons or traps with only scraps they found”.
“And most importantly, they’re everywhere, and there is an endless amount of them waiting in the desert looking for a fight…”
Yuna raised her hand: “Excuse me, General, but considering the number of allies we already have in Rustbed, would that still not be enough to fend them all off without the robots?”
“No”, he answered. “In fact, even with the support of the 4 city-states and 200,000 units of Scorpion-7, our operation still risks the possibility of frontline collapse simply due to the sheer number of expected opponents we’re going to face from both the rogue fighters and mystic-led allied forces”.
He added: “And that’s also why I’ve called for 7 Vanguards to assist in this operation. All of you will play vital roles in holding down defensive grounds before they get overrun by enemies”.
The vanguards sitting behind the commanders glanced at each other in silence, wondering about the difficulty of their task, given that other offensive operations normally would only need 1 to 3 Vanguards at most. Yuna, being the most junior amongst them, thought to herself: “I’ve only become a vanguard not long ago, and now they’re deploying me to the hardest of operations?”
“I mean, even these senior vanguards don’t look thrilled about it…”
General Enfield continued his presentation: “Anyway, continuing where we left off…”
.
.
.
After the top-secret meeting ended, Yuna sat in the airbase cafeteria by herself, eating a simple meal in sombre silence. She was given a break by her commander while they waited for the airship carrying Finley Delaney arrive at the airbase. As she was chewing a bite of the sandwich in her mouth, someone tapped her back and nearly made her spew her food.
“Eh-hey! Here you are, finally got to speak to you!”, a fellow senior female vanguard, in similar power armour as hers, spoke to her.
“Oh, *cough*, Brianna! You’re on a break too?”, Yuna replied after adjusting the chewed bit in her mouth.
“Yeah… I’m pretty much done for today…”, the senior gently fixed her glasses before sitting next to Yuna. “Why do you look so down while eating? Exhausted, or something’s on the mind?”
“Do I?”, Yuna asked her back, unaware of how she looked. “Well, I guess it could be both… considering I had only reached here hours ago before rushing into a meeting…”.
“Ah… so you’re worried about the operation too?”, Brianna gently asked.
Yuna answered: “Umm… that’s only one thing, but I have another major concern related to that, to be honest”.
Brianna replied: “Really? Come on, do tell! Sisters-in-arms must support each other after all…”
“Well, it starts like this…”, Yuna began.
She went on to tell Brianna about Lorian: who he is to her, how he is currently with an aviator crew that is against the two empires, why they are waiting for a prisoner to be brought to this settlement before returning to Machiaville, and what her commander had planned to stop them from returning before the operation began. After having Brianna caught up with everything, she expressed:
“…and now, I feel kinda guilty about leaving him in the dark about what’s to come… especially with the part of stalling them from continuing…”
“Hmm… understandable, though. Since he already sees Machiaville as his new home, where many are waiting for him, taking over it while keeping him from returning there definitely feels like a cruel joke”, Brianna replied.
Yuna continued: “I mean, if he only sees Machiaville as a city where he lives now, it’ll be alright once Tachyon secures it. However, his ‘home’ lies with the Strife Striders, which have a strong connection to the King of Machiaville. If he were to know this, he’ll surely be on his crew’s side to oppose whatever we’re doing!”
She loathingly added: “I just… wished he had never met those aviators… especially that robot girl…”
Brianna silently empathised with her junior, waiting for her emotions to settle on their own. After a brief silence, Yuna opened up to her senior with a personal question:
“Brianna, you’re from Rustbed, right?”
“Um… yeah. Why are you asking?”, Brianna unpreparedly replied.
Yuna continued: “Have you been on a mission or operation like this? Where you have someone you personally know being a hurdle to your task?”
“Huh…”, Brianna sighed, “I’ve… never thought of this before, since before I became a resolutor, I had already been separated from my family and hometown after being kidnapped by a group of bandits as a child”.
She pulled her resolite out and gazed into its mesmerising patterns inside, coldly saying: “Those bandits raised me as their ‘daughter’ for a few years, but they all ended up becoming my first blood after I received my resolite. So, you could say I’ve already killed the people that I personally know…”
“Oh, you’ve never told me before about this… I’m sorry…”, Yuna felt guilty for making her senior bring up her dark past.
“It’s fine, I never felt anything wrong with it, especially after becoming a vanguard”, Brianna shrugged it off as she put the resolite back in its holster. “It strengthens my belief that there are evils which you simply need to put down as soon as possible”.
“But, I’m sure that’s not the answer you’re looking for, right?”, she gently spoke to Yuna. “In that case, I’m sorry that I’m unable to help”.
“Don’t worry, having someone to speak up to is already comforting enough”, Yuna took another bite of her sandwich. “Thanks for being with me though”.
Brianna gladly said: “No, problem. When the operation—”
Before she finished her words, Yuna's forearm screen on her suit suddenly beeped, showing a message from her commander that the airship carrying the prisoner was about to arrive in Kormin in less than 30 minutes.
“Oh, time to get back to work! Okay, see you later, Brianna”, she waved at her senior before shoving the remaining sandwich in her mouth and rushing off outside.
“Oh… bye, Yuna”, Brianna waved back.
The sky turned orange as evening fell over the settlement where its residents traded their sky of freedom for the umbrella of protection. The Strife Striders eagerly await the arrival of Finley Delaney as the clock ticked closer, while the Tachyonians at the airbase continue preparing for their upcoming operation in secret. However, far beyond the settlement, on the mountains over the western horizon, a mysterious group of Rustbed Riders successfully reached a mountaintop in their motorcycles and four-wheelers.
They turned off their lights and engines and silently watched the sky. These people, wearing crude helmets and armour while concealed in rugged outfits from head to toe, knew that a Tachyonian airship would cross this mountain in a few more minutes, and they had prepared a ‘gift’ just for them in advance.
“There! 10 o’clock. I see them coming fast”, the rider scouting with binoculars saw their target.
The other rider, possibly the head of the squad, grabbed a tome from his four-wheeler’s basket and stood on his seat facing the incoming airship. He opened up the tome and monologued:
“Well, well… it’s time for the hylics to pay up their debt…”
Then, he read the scriptures in the tome, and an arcane formation lit up before him while others watched. As he continued his invocation, he reached out his right hand toward the airship, the formation intensified greatly, before finally—
*Pew… KABOOM!!!*
