Two roars rose from the two combatants as they charged into the centre of the room.
By unspoken consent, the others pressed up against the walls, watching on in raptured silence.
No man moved or spoke unnecessarily as they bore witness to a fight beyond their skill levels.
Taking advantage of the lull in combat, Geahart had evacuated Noire to the back to the room where she could recover in peace without the threat of any opportunistic thug going after her.
Noire looked up from where she knelt, her violent retching halted by Leon’s furious declaration. Still weak from her nausea, all she could do was watch on, silently cheering the brave squire.
“Why. Won’t. You. Die!”
“Someone like you will never defeat me. I am a hunter of beasts… there is only one way this will end.”
Ducking under yet another mighty swing of the broadsword, Leon retaliated with a flurry of quick slashes at the brute’s underarm.
Most of his slashed were blocked by the thick armour but a few managed to dent the metal, forcing it into the man’s flesh and causing him to grunt in pain.
“GRRRR, I Tartos will grind you to dust beneath my boot heel!”
Wildly swing his arms and sword, he tried using his superior size to steamroll the much smaller teen.
Occasionally lashing out with kicks whenever possible, the man was unable to land a clean hit on the boy but succeeded in keeping him at bay.
Leon for his part was unable to close with Tartos, his greater reach giving an advantage that was hard to beat.
Magic was out of the question as well, being unable to concentrate long enough to prepare any sort of spell.
His brow was matted with sweat and frustration was gnawing at him, Tartos was far more skilled than he initially suspected him to be.
None of his strikes seemed to have any effect on the man other than eliciting roars and increasing the fury of his strikes.
Damn, he’s good.
In a battle of attrition I’ll win in the end but all he needs is one good strike to end me.
He doesn’t even look winded from climbing ten flights of stairs, what a monster.
I guess this is why the other mercenaries didn’t do anything to him when he was cutting down their friends.
Having yet another series of his blows deflected by heavy armour, Leon was caught off guard by the counterattack.
A brutal kick lashed out and knocked him to the floor. A collective gasp went up from the observers as Leon tried to rise to his feet.
Giving up trying to get back on unsteady feet, Leon threw himself to the floor and rolled, avoiding an overhead sword strike that would have separated his legs from the rest of his body.
Bereft of any option other than to keep rolling as Tartos constantly tried to step on him, he focused and bid his time for any opening to present itself.
“Hahahaha, die little boy die. See you should have taken me up on my offer… now I’ll crush you like a cockroach. Ahahahaha any last words little pussy cat?”
NOW!
Refusing to deign the man with a response, Leon reversed directions of his roll just as Tartos brought his foot up for one more stomp.
The end result was him overshooting the puppeteer and Leon ending right between his legs.
To Leon, Tartos’s expressions was priceless as he missed his target.
A vindictive smile on his face, Leon stabbed straight upwards and into soft unprotected flesh and twisted the blade with every bit of strength he could muster.
Eyes bulging from the pain, an unmanly squeal left his mouth as he registered the damage and he dropped his weapon.
Taking advantage of the opening, Leon released his dagger, dove behind the man and leapt to his feet.
Spinning on the balls of his feet, he turned as unleased a devastating upwards kick. His boot connecting with the hilt of the dagger still buried in his opponent, driving it in deeper.
Letting loose a second unmanly squeal, Tartos made a futile gesture to protect himself, hands grasping at air as his knees came together before sinking to the ground.
Mouth open wide in a wordless scream, he hunched over before collapsing to the ground unconscious from the shock and pain.
Leaving the combat knife where it was buried, Leon spat a wad of blood to the side before surveying the remaining mercenaries.
“Plenty more where that came from. Now… who’s next?” He spoke to them with a disturbing grin on his face.
As one the Iron Wolves backed off, frantically shaking their heads and holding their legs close together.
“No takers? Yeah, that's what I thought.”
Taking the opportunity to retrieve his weapon, he ripped it free and twirled it in his fingers.
“And now you’re even less of a man then you were before little dog…. Ya know, I didn’t even think that possible but I guess even I can be wrong at times.”
Despite herself and the severity of the situation, Noire couldn’t help but give a small giggle at Leon’s winning move and antics.
Valor, who was temporarily on hiatus from harassing the mercenaries simply shook his head at the scene.
“That’s quite enough I think. You are exhausted and afraid, you know you can’t beat us. Why do you continue to fight?”
Geahart spoke up during the lull, seeking to drive off the Iron Wolves without any further bloodshed.
“Your own commander cares not for your wellbeing, can you feel that shaking? That's your tanks firing on this tower. Tell me, how long do you think it will be before this place collapses and you all die here. My compatriots are protected by magic, you are not.”
Pausing to allow the implications to sink in to the men.
Leon noted with satisfaction that more than a few of them were furtively shifting for the door.
“If you stay, one way or another, we will be leaving this place over your corpses. I will give you this one chance to leave now. Take your wounded and go, your commander won’t be able to punish so many of you. Not if he wants to have an army left.”
A series of fearful nods greeted Geahart’s offer.
Working in silence, those still standing on their feet began carrying or dragging the downed out of the room.
Watching them leave in peace, Leon heaved a sigh of relief, though he covered it up as a cough.
Whatever he may have wanted to portray, the battle had taken its toll on him.
Nearly half an hour of flinging spells left and right followed by a harrowing ten minute duel against one of the toughest opponents he’d ever had to face had drained him.
His flux reserves would need to recharge for a bit before he could engage in spellcasting once more.
A chance to rest his tired body was most appreciated as well.
Once the last man had stepped through the veil, he allowed his shoulders to slump before walking over to where Noire and Valor was.
Professor Arno had also uncloaked and was standing nearby, relief written all over his face.
“Ah… Squire Leon, are you alright?”
“Yes milady, I am perfectly fine, if tired.”
“That’s good.” Noire exhaled with a sigh at Leon’s confirmation.
Anxiety had consumed her when she saw Leon go down from the kick, seeing that he was okay took a massive burden of her chest.
“U-um excuse me.”
“Yes professor?”
“Th-they’re retreating r-right? Does that mean we can leave now?” The man asked in a hopeful tone with his hands clasped together.
His face fell when Leon sighed and shook his head.
“I’m afraid not Professor Arno. That was just round one. They’ll be back soon, and this time they’ll come in force.”
“Wha-what do you mean this time they’ll come in force? The-then what was this battle?”
“Scouts, nothing more. They had over four hundred men remember? This group was only about a hundred or so, and even then we only took down about fifty. Next time, t
hey’ll come all at once.”
“HIIIIIIIIIII! Then wha-what do we do? We barely survived the first wave and things are only going to get worse?”
The professor was beginning to panic again upon hearing the terrible truth.
“Calm down professor, they’re not after you, they’re here for us. They still don’t know that you’re here and we will keep it that way. Even in the event we get overrun, keep up your invisibility spell, once all the Iron Wolves have left, you should be able to escape on your own. If that comes to pass… I’ll apologize in advance for dragging you into this.”
“I-is there no way for everyone to escape?”
“No there isn’t” Leon dashed the professor’s hopes with a shake of his head.
“Your cloaking spell only works on yourself and my own cloaking is inferior to yours. There is no way they’ll fail to notice it. We will do our best to hold until the royal army arrives.”
“I-is there anything else we can do?”
“Other than wait and pray for a miracle, not much. I wil- uh… guys? Didn’t the platform in the centre have some design on them? I don’t recall it being blank.”
Leon’s words directed all of them to stare at the raised platform.
Previously covered in the same designs as the walls of the tower, the dais was now curiously blank.
“My word, I’ve never seen anything like this before. This must be Zeonite engineering at work, I’m going to have to study this in detail. What a magnificent find.”
Completely absorbed in his discovery, Arno’s face lit up at the change to the tower, seemingly forgetting about their impending danger in favour of his thirst for knowledge.
The puppeteer could have sworn he saw stars in his eyes.
“It is strange though, this place is supposed to be inactive. I’ve read through all of the research on the towers available in the federation, this phenomenon was never mentioned anywhere and I don’t think something like this could be missed. I wonder what changed.”
“Well professor, you’re the expert on this. Is there anything that can help us with our problems?”
“I-I don’t know, this is the first I’ve ever seen something like this, I don’t actually know what it means. Ah hahaha?”
Letting out a sigh of disappointment upon hearing Arno’s sheepish admittance, Leon began walking around the platform, searching for anything else that might have changed in the time they weren’t looking.
If the designs had managed to disappear into thin air, maybe something else might have spawned in replacement.
Once he was halfway through his circuit, he saw it.
A series of floating lights hovered above the dais. Frowning, he shifted his positions only to notice that the lights faded from view once his eyes had passed a certain point. Unsure of what to make of it, he decided to call in the rest for their opinion.
“How odd, hey come take a look at this.”
“I… I don’t see anything squire. What am I supposed to be seeing?”
“Y-yeah there’s nothing there?”
SCREEEEEE
“Valor doesn’t see anything either.”
Scrunching up his face in confusion at the replies, Leon couldn’t comprehend why they couldn’t see it.
“What do you mean there’s nothing there? There’s a bunch of floating lights in above the centre of the platform. It looks something like the dashboard of a fluxite transport.”
“I don’t see anything squire, are… are you sure you’re alright? That kick from earlier was quite heavy. Sir Geahart, do you see anything?”
“Negative, I do believe that my squire believes that he sees something that none of us can though.”
Shoving down the urge to scream at the incredulity that even his puppet couldn’t pick up the brightly glowing lights in front of all of them.
He made a mental note to adjust the personality subroutines once they were in the clear, he didn’t need his puppet making him look like a lunatic.
With a short sigh, he stepped onto the platform before calling back, “since none of you can see this, I’ll investigate it myself.”
Striding over to the pseudo dashboard, Leon stared blankly at the lights before him.
Ok… I have absolutely no idea what I’m looking at. Are the big squares buttons? The lines? Or are they just for show?
Placing one hand on a floating square composed of green light, Leon was startled to find resistance. By no means was it impassable, a minute application of force caused the square to sink into itself.
Stopping before he could push it all the way, he stepped back to ponder the discovery, hand still on the button.
What happens if I start pushing on them randomly?
Maybe I’ll get a deus ex machina and the tower can self-purge all the mercenaries in an instant…. Or I’ll blow the whole place to kingdom come.
Yeah better not mess around with something I don’t understand.
If this is a control panel of sorts, where the hell is the instruction manual?
Where are the labels on this thing?
If this is a security feature this is going way too far.
There must be some way I can use this to my advantage.
I need something to deal with those mercenaries, preferably one that doesn’t involve any further fighting on my part and one that will have minimal collateral damage.
As soon as that thought formed, the unease that had previously vanished returned with a vengeance.
The feeling was overpowering and completely paralysed Leon in its intensity.
Unable to even cry out in surprise, Leon was forced to stand still as an alien feeling consumed his entirety.
What… the… hell… is… this… can’t… think….
His body already locked down, his mind itself began to shut down.
Feeling as though he had overdosed on pain killers, everything was numb and getting number still.
Thoughts getting sluggish, the puppeteer didn’t have the strength left to feel fear at what was happening.
The sensation increased in magnitude and despite Leon’s best efforts, he could feel himself slipping away.
Dimly, he noted that by all accounts he should be beyond terrified at what was happening, but he was just so tired, so numb.
As his consciousness faded, the sound of static filled his ears, drowning out everything else.
Vision fading in and out of focus, the tremors rocking the tower from the continuing bombardment seem to be nothing more than a distant breeze at this point.
Unable to hold on anymore, his world faded away completely.
All-encompassing darkness was all he knew.
Losing track of when and where he was and lacking any care about it, Leon simply drifted. Was it an eternity? Or was it an instant?
He didn’t care.
He couldn’t even remember his name now.
From the darkness came a voice. Neither male nor female, it was distorted and unclear and strangely synthetic.
Sounding both indescribably old and impossibly young at the same time, it was as though a multitude of voices were speaking in unison even though there was clearly only one speaker.
Much of the speech was garbled beyond understanding.
Aside from the distortion, the language was a bastardisation of what he knew, or perhaps it was the other way around.
There was no way to say really.
Words that held no meaning to him were bandied about freely. What parts he could make sense off didn’t mean much either due to a lack of context.
Giving the mental equivalent of a shrug, he settled in to listen to what the voice had to offer.
It wasn't as though he had anything better to do at the moment.
Perhaps the voice might give him insight as to who he was and what he was doing here.
Not that it mattered if it didn’t. He couldn’t care less either way.
SYSTEM BOOT… ERROR
Error code 6ys7ct p**mar* f**m of
fline
Core s***e*s fun***oni*g at 63% seco****y syst*ms offline
Da*a*e to i*te**al com***en** nominal
Maxis ***** holding at 97% Miracias **** in**ct
Con****ion to citadel ter***ted
Total elapsed time 1203 years
Defences offline, damage exceeding 83% inoperable until repairs are made
Luzrov res***es 0, Feyadia **serves 0, Gigant re**rve** 0, Raix reserves 19
Units on standby in ******** po**et
Ge***al ********* identified 98% match
Minister E*****s identified 64% match
System unlocked, control transferred to G****al
Request for Raynax reactivation processing
Request clea***
Raix units ready to dep**y on c**mand.
System shutdown in 5… 4… 3… 2… 1…
<
With that, the voice faded into nothingness, leaving him all alone in the dark.
Not quite sure what to make of it, he simply relaxed once more to await any further changes.
Soon enough a single speck of light appeared in his vision.
For a time, it merely remained a small dot, then it instantaneously expanded to encompass all of his vision. It was a riot of colours flashing by him.
As soon as it came it ended and the world had shifted ever so slightly.
Leon found himself standing on the dais once more, hand still outstretched and on the dashboard of lights. Only this time the array had changed, all the buttons had been reordered and new ones had appeared.
Blinking, Leon noticed that he was now able to move and think clearly once more, the invasive feeling had disappeared after he woke up from that out of body experience.
Looking down, he noticed that his fingers were no longer on the green square earlier.
Now his palm was resting on a large red circle.
Unlike the other buttons whose lights were steady and unchanging, this one was pulsating. Going from a dark almost brown red to a bright crimson every few seconds.
Leon had no idea what the sudden change meant, or what the out of body experience had to do with it either.
No labels or markings had shown up on the dashboard to explain the changes, nothing he understood at the very least.
What was that? Why… do I feel like I should know what the voice was talking about?
Opening Moves (The Lion Knight Book 1) Page 15
