Nocturna League- Season One Box Set

by Kell Inkston

  “Not actually. A matter of fact Colette never officially died. Martaine, however, did thanks to Irefall’s meddling.”

  “… So, she’s been alive this whole time?”

  He nods, shortening his vast shadow against the wall for only a moment. “People tend to die from brain injury due to an inability to subconsciously breathe, loss of blood, and all that unimportant rubbish. I took the liberty of keeping her faculties running while she could not.”

  Grancis’ eyes search the room for the follow up question. “So… she’s okay?”

  The Captain sighs. “I suppose you’re not all that interested in the eldritch you met, or that overlord fellow, or how Irefall is doing?”

  She takes a deep breath. “Captain, please… Is Colette alive?”

  The Captain takes one more sip, places his drink aside, and flips one leg upon the other. “That depends on your definition of Colette.”

  She sighs and downs the last of her glass before reaching for the bottle to pour another. “Is my best friend alive? With us, on the ship, heart pumping blood, brain not… whatever. Is she okay?!”

  “So you’re saying that the most important part of Colette is that she’s alive?”

  The side of her mouth ridges up crassly as she shakes her head at the obvious question. “Of course, sir!”

  The Captain hums. “Very well. I’m sure there’s nothing to worry about then if that’s really what’s most important… but you’re going to have to support her you know.”

  “With what?”

  “The only way she could survive in her mortal coil was through a fairly complex operation. We were not well-equipped to deal with it on the Nocturna, so I had to go search Wreckwind for the proper… ingredients. While I’m glad to say we found a… suitable replacement, it may come off as a shock to you.”

  “Wait, like her brain?”

  “…Among other things, yes.” The Captain looks to the door. “Perhaps it’s best that you see for yourself. We really are just delaying when we should probably get it over with, but first, do you have any other questions?”

  Grancis shakes her head. “No. I’m wonderful, thank you. Let’s go!” She leaps up from her chair, drink still in her hand.

  The Captain scoffs and gently, slowly raises up to his feet. “Very well,” he says, “this way.”

  She follows The Captain out of the warm study and back into the cool, clear night air. Upon seeing the two, Doctor Estradia leaves his spot on the rail and stands up at full height. “She’s ready?” He asks, looking her over with an uninterested expression.

  The Captain shrugs. “Regardless, it needs to happen. Open the door if you please, doctor.”

  Estradia nods and turns for the door. He turns the latch abruptly and swings the door open. “Here we are.”

  Grancis and The Captain step forward into the bleach-white medical bay. There’s a figure under a white sheet turned toward the wall.

  Immediately both Doctor Estradia and The Captain lock gazes onto Grancis as she looks over the figure.

  The person in the bed isn’t shaped like Colette at all. Her heart drops, it must be a mistake, somehow. “Doctor, this isn’t her,” Grancis says, already short of breath. The Figure flinches in recognition and sits up — their face is entirely covered in bandages.

  Estradia looks to The Captain, and The Captain nods. Doctor Estradia clears his throat. “You can take them off now,” he says.

  The figure, in the most-Colette-like way Grancis has seen anyone do anything, begins tearing off the bandages without ceremony.

  Grancis drops her glass upon the floor, for the bandages make way to reveal the sculpted, powerful body of a man about her age — Martaine. She flinches in confusion a moment, but her features wash with relief immediately after recognizing him. “O-oh! Martaine! I’m…” She sighs. “Good, you’re okay.”

  The shirtless “Martaine” looks at her as if she’s stupid. “What the hell, Gran? I know I’m fit but comparing me to that goon isn’t funny at-…” Colette finally notices what’s in his peripheral vision. He looks down at his body.

  Long, notching stitches with wild but precise placements grace his arms and chest — his flesh expertly reconstructed from its ravaged, incomprehensible state just hours ago. It looks just like Martaine in every way, but Grancis can see the look in his eyes, it’s not him on the inside.

  “Captain… What did… what did you do?” Grancis’ heart feels like it could burst any second in horror, disgust, confusion, thrill, anything.

  Colette looks over her new body with the blankness of someone recovering from a serious accident for the first time, except it’s not a wound or a limb, but her entire body that’s been lost. She is now a he, and neither Grancis nor Colette are willing to accept this. “Salt,” He coughs up a small flush of blood.

  The Captain joins his hands behind his back professionally. “Yes?”

  “Wh-wh-… Do you think this is funny?!” He leaps off the bed in his barest holdings and rushes The Captain.

  “Doctor,” The Captain says with an expectant tone.

  Estradia, as an electric eel seasort, turns out to be naturally equipped to handle a bevy of medical situations, including rowdy patients. The second before Colette rams his fist into The Captain’s face, Estradia shoots a limb out from his large white coat, tracing across Colette’s neck gently. Colette falls over immediately and crashes down at The Captain’s boots.

  As Grancis struggles to stay to her feet, The Captain goes on-knee to address Colette. “It was the very best we could do. Your body’s brain was far too damaged to be repairable, Martaine’s was not, and considering that Martaine’s body has a similar… ‘wavelength’ as your soul, it turned out to be a natural fit.”

  “C-” Grancis draws in a rush of breath. “Captain, you fucking bastard!”

  “It was either that or a soul containment vessel, and I’d be willing to guess that you’d probably choose to die before that if you knew all it entailed.”

  Colette screams as he fights to regain control of his body. “I’m a man now! I’m fucking Martaine! What the fuck did you do?!”

  “Again, it was quite difficult and we did the best we could. We had to act fast or you would have had been in containment for weeks. Besides, you’d do well to live life in someone else’s shoes. This might not even be permanent.”

  “What happened to my body?!”

  The Captain pats Colette on Martaine’s head. “We have no use for your old self right now. We packed it up in storage. Maybe I could use it as a trophy for my wall or something.”

  Estradia laughs at the morbid joke and Grancis, poor dear, finally faints. Somehow, through eldritch beasts, seeing Colette die, and trying to kill Martaine, it was the mental image of Colette hung up like a fish that did it. She swoons and plops over, The Captain reaching just a meter over to save her face from the floor. He gathers up Grancis into his arms, and stands back to full height.

  “Attacking your commander is unacceptable, Miss…ter Ketiere- Pardon. I’ll have you in the brig with Jim for the night.”

  “You’ve gone way too fucking far, this time, you salt-ass sonuvabitch, I’m going to-”

  “Make that a week in the brig. We’ll see how well you can adjust to your new... station of life, for lack of better phrasing.”

  Colette inhales sharply with such fury, Doctor Estradia almost thinks to step back a bit. “Yeah and you watch yourself when I get out! You’re going to be sorry I signed up for your shitty cr-”

  Ignoring Colette’s monologue, The Captain frees a hand from carrying Grancis and snaps his fingers twice in rapid succession. There’s not even a pause before a voice comes from the doorway. “You called?” A still very-bloody and weak Marcus La’Coss asks, peeking through and observing the scene with his dark, abyss-like eyes, more like holes than anything. Of course, his weakness is comparable to the strength of an army, so The Captain isn’t much concerned that Mister La’Coss’ entire cloak is stained crimson with h
is own blood.

  “Colette needs some time to adjust his attitude. I’d like him in the brig for a while, then you can go back to your room as normal.”

  “You’re a sick dude, Victor,” Marcus says, moving into the room and in the next second holding a furiously shaking Colette over his shoulder.

  The Captain scoffs. “That couldn’t possibly be my name. Everyone knows that Chaos fellow suffers from memory loss, dementia, and any number more of mental ailments. Even if it were my name, however, I am still, and will always be The Captain to you.” The Captain nods to Doctor Estradia as he carries out Grancis. “Sleep well, Doctor.”

  Estradia raises his mug of coffee with a sarcastic smile. “Right, good one. See you later, Captain.”

  Marcus steps out the door and, in a rare moment, decides to carry Colette there without simply merging his presence with his destination.

  “So, big changes for a l- eh, person your age, eh?” Marcus asks, carrying him around the corner, helpless against the shock of Estradia’s electricity and the awkward over-the-shoulder position.

  “Fuck you,” Colette mutters. “You don’t… fuck!”

  Marcus hums. “Hey.”

  “What?!”

  “I’m sorry this happened to you. I heard you wanted to be strong, but I doubt you had this in mind. Good news is you can do more with this body than you could with your old one. Muscles come with the territory for men, you know.”

  Colette looks over the side of the boat, the horrific shifting of creatures below now commonplace to him. “You’re that closet guy?”

  “Closet guy?” Marcus sighs. “Well shit, I guess I am.”

  Colette’s quiet a moment as he formulates his thoughts. “…Could you have taught me to be strong without changing me like this?”

  “Easily, but I wouldn’t have.”

  “…Why not?”

  “Power’s a curse, stupid. It cost me my whole life, my country, my family… my son… everything, to learn that. It would have been better if you just died in my opinion, but The Captain’s got plans for you.”

  The reach the brig, and Marcus sets him down gently to regain his footing. “What plans?” He asks, his teeth gritted in hatred of his situation.

  “I’m not allowed to tell you, and if you found out right now you’d probably try to risk diving overboard to escape than to stick around. The Captain is a very… motivated person, and if you haven’t guessed yet, he’s willing to put his crew through hell to get what he wants.” Marcus says in a dark tone, looking out over the railing to the abyss of horror below.

  Colette’s not sure how to respond to that. “Well?”

  “Well what?”

  “You must have some advice if you’re telling me all this.”

  “Well, the problem with that is The Captain can hear this conversation.” Marcus opens the door to the brig, home to the already-sleeping Jim, and walks Colette in before closing the door, locking the three of them in.

  Colette looks around, slowly regaining strength in his legs from the shock. “…How?”

  “Everyone on the ship is his unwitting spy… well, there’s a few that aren’t sandy, but as a general rule he can hear every conversation on the ship if he wants to. It’s rare that he’s not paying attention… You really don’t know what happened tonight at all, do you?”

  “Well, I guess I was sort of dead. We fucked up Irefall though, right?”

  “Yeah she’s, uh… dealt with. That’s an understatement.”

  Colette takes up one of the bunks and sits himself down. He breathes, just breathes for a bit, before coming to a nod. “Cool,” he says, finally calm.

  “You don’t know the half of it, a quarter, even. The shit The Captain went through to make the plan perfect was almost for nothing. Be happy you’re in any body right now, because if he didn’t play the gambit like he did you’d all be screwed. But as usual he gets his way. He always does.”

  Colette leans against the wall while upon his bunk “…Hey, so… is The Captain really a bad guy?”

  Marcus scoffs. “You seem to think so.”

  “I…” Colette looks at his body again, pulling up a sheet to cover his nakedness out of self-disgust rather than embarrassment. “My mom wouldn’t want me to dwell on this, if she were here… I can only keep going forward. Bad or not, I need to train, and he’s my best shot. I’ll kill the overlord for sure.”

  Marcus nods. “I guess you’re right there. Just be careful… Anything I can get you before I step off?”

  Colette leans up to look at the legendary killer. “Why are you being so nice to me?”

  Marcus looks up to the ceiling. “My kid was a lot like you.”

  “… What happened to ‘em?”

  “… Do you need anything, I said?”

  “No.”

  Marcus nods. “You feeling okay, all things considered?”

  “I feel… stronger, I guess, but it hurts.”

  “That’s normal for being in a strung-together body like that. It’ll recover and you’ll be right as rain after a week or so.”

  “And… and I feel, alone.”

  Marcus looses a long sigh, then looks over to Colette, making sure to look him straight in the eyes. “… Hey, Colette, right?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I’ll drop you with a little food for thought. Before you were put in this body tonight, you had two-”

  “Mister La’Coss,” a voice emits from a cracking speaker.

  There’s a pause, and then Marcus reaches over to the intercom phone. “Sir?”

  “I’d prefer you weren’t so forthcoming with Mister Ketiere.”

  Marcus is unmoving. “As you say it, Captain.”

  “Additionally, I feel it’s about time you left him to his own musings. Am I understood?”

  “Crystal, sir.”

  “Wonderful~ Sleep well, you three.”

  Marcus puts up the phone as the speaker dies out with the sound of The Captain putting down the phone on his end. “Like I said, he knows everything that goes on here. People are his strength, never forget that,” he says as he turns for the door.

  Colette stands up. “I had two what?”

  “Goodnight, Colette.”

  “Just tell me! Tonight I had two of wh-” Colette stops his speech the moment Marcus seemingly dissipates into thin air. He groans in frustration and kicks his bunk, producing a satisfying clash of the chains holding it up.

  Jim sighs, still turned to the wall and on his bunk. “Welcome to The Nocturna, Colette,” he says.

  Colette turns to spit something rude at Jim, but looking at him this time, he suddenly understands what he goes through. “… Good night, Jim.”

  “Night.”

  Colette leans back into his bunk, takes a deep breath, and exhales. He’ll manage this. The determination is the only thing keeping him afloat… the determination, and Grancis.

  The Captain Speaks with an Old Acquaintance

  Noticing Marcus has left the brig, The Captain gets up from his desk over to the fireplace in his office to recollect Grancis. Just as he touches her, she twitches awake. She rises up in a cold sweat, looks around, and takes a moment to breathe. “Was that…” She looks to The Captain “That was a dream, right?”

  The Captain sighs. “No, Colette is now in Martaine’s body.”

  She looks to the fire, the sight of The Captain terrible to her right now. “…You said Martaine was recovering below deck.”

  “He is, I promise, but the situation has been rather complex… It’s going to take some time…” He reaches into his coat and pulls out the little crucifix that was around Martaine’s neck. “He told me he wanted you to have this, by the way.”

  Grancis looks at it for a moment before her face brightens only a flicker in realization that it’s his. “The little letter t,” she takes it and grips it tightly. “Thank you, sir.”

  The Captain nods. “I’m pretty sure it’s not a letter, but a cross.”

  “I k
now what it is, sir,” she lies.

  “It’s become a fairly popular religion around here, I’ve seen… And while I am, as a gentleman, inclined to deliver a gift, I would like to restate my desire to not pursue this young man. Their sort seem to love trouble, and I guarantee you that we’ll have enough to go around.”

  Grancis stares at the icon. “I suppose they do, sir. Thank you.”

  “You’re quite welcome.” He pats her on the head gently. “Well, considering the circumstances, I suppose you’ll be needing your own room soon.”

  “What… why?”

  “You are the only female on the ship now, after all.”

  She doesn’t lift her eyes from the necklace. “I’ll be alright, sir.”

  “… I’ll let you think it over. For now, you can sleep up here on the couch if you like… or the rug, I don’t know how you work, really.”

  Grancis nods as she puts the little crucifix away. “Thanks for the offer sir, but… would it be alright if I spent the night in the brig?”

  The Captain hums in disapproval. “The brig is for wrongdoers— not your sort, Miss Vereyrty.”

  “I understand, but-”

  “Not your sort.”

  Grancis looks aside, “Yes, sir. I’ll sleep up here tonight.”

  The Captain stands to full height. “Wonderful. Do try to rest well.”

  She stares at the fire and nods. “I’ll try.”

  “Very good.”

  Just as he turns to walk away, Grancis clears her throat. “Sir.”

  The Captain stands still. “Yes?”

  “You wouldn’t do anything bad to us on purpose, would you? The… soul thing, I should have trusted you… So everything’s going to be okay, right?”

  He adjusts his glasses. “All gains entail some sacrifice, Grancis. Do not shy away from glory simply because it delivers risk with it as well.”

  Grancis sighs.

  “But I promise. I’d never have you do something that I knew you couldn’t handle. Colette’s going to be fine, and so will Martaine. You all will be safe under my charge,” he adds.

  Her eyes are pointed still to the wall as she rests upon the couch. “Thank you.”

  “Of course. Now I must be off. I still have business to attend to.”