It Moves!? - Phoenix Flight

Laerton Eman hated being a captain.

She hated going on quests; she hated the responsibility; she hated having to talk to the other captains, and she hated the concept of the guilds and the kingdoms with all of her heart.

She had never been given a choice in her role. It was one assigned to her by the king, and like a pet on a leash, she was expected to be grateful. She knew that the other captains didn't respect her. Hell, the entire kingdom didn't respect her. Father had even said to her face that she and her guild were absolute fodder.

Whatever the seven were, it was dangerous to have them around, since that new terrorist group seemed hell-bent on gunning for them. No other group wanted a member of the seven, whoever the others were, to be in their group. That was why she got stuck with not one, but two of the bastards. Davi and Susie. Knowing her luck, she'd have even more. After all, Sieg was Davi's brother, and if the seven thingy was genetic in any way, perhaps he was one as well?

There was still so much that needed to be uncovered and revealed. For now, though, Laerton made a promise.

She really did hate being a captain, and she hated everything about the position, save for one thing. Try as hard as she might, Laerton simply couldn't bring herself to feel hate for the people of Phoenix Flight that surrounded her.

If that group wanted one of her members, then she'd do everything in her power to make sure it was as difficult and complicated as it could possibly be.

It was because of that that for the past few weeks, Laerton had been training non-stop.

Davi raised his sword up and gritted his teeth as a wave of force slammed directly into the blade. His arms shook, and his armor tried to absorb the kinetic force, but Laerton had swung with a tremendous amount of mana, and he simply couldn't keep up with it. Davi felt the ground beneath him start to slip as he was blasted back and sent crashing through the junkyard.

Laerton remained standing at the same spot she always had, ever since training began, having casually sent Davi flying with one swing of her blade. Lazily, she reached into her robes and pulled out several knives, which she held with her fingers. She tossed them behind her just in time as Susie pointed and launched a wave of golden orbs. The knives sliced through the golden orbs, and Susie squeaked as her shoulder and side were cut open, the knives stabbing into the wall of scrap behind her.

As soon as the knives were in the wall, Susie felt even more pain due to a thin razor wire that connected from the handles of the knives all the way to Laerton's fingers. Laerton twisted her hand, and Susie felt the wire wrap around and bind her, digging into her skin.

"G-Get this off me!" Susie demanded. When that didn't work, she decided to spit out a plea. "Please?"

Laerton ignored her begging and twisted her sword around so the blade was upside down. She swung her sword up in a reverse grip right as Davi appeared before her and came down with his own sword. Their blades clashed, but Laerton simply adjusted her grip so that the handle pointed at Davi's face. There was a quiet clicking sound, and the inbuilt gun went off, firing a bullet directly into Davi's face.

Davi stumbled back, the bullet lodged between his teeth, as he had somehow managed to catch it. It would have been impressive and cool, but the moment was ruined as Laerton dropped her sword, and from her sleeve, a black club dropped out. She gripped it tightly, swung it up, slammed it into Davi's face, and with ease, started to beat him.

Davi's armor cracked and dented, and each swing of the club caused one of his bones to crack. He spat the bullet out and swung his sword at Laerton, but she blocked with her sandal, a hidden knife jutting out of it, which allowed her to parry his blow. She then went back to beating him with the club.

Over with Susie, she gritted her teeth and created various miniature golden orbs, which hissed and slashed into the wire around her, unbinding her. It was times like these that she cursed the position she was in. Even with the ability to create the golden orbs, she couldn't cast spells like she used to or enhance her body, which meant she was physically weak and slow. Anything besides throwing the mana out of her body would cause her broken core to backfire, so her way of fighting had become extremely limited. At least she wasn't dying and falling apart, though.

Susie shook her head, clearing the negative thoughts away, and she glared in the direction of Laerton. It had been nearly a full month since the captain came and got her. She was stuck on the beach and forced to stay with the guild, even though she wasn't an Arcane Knight. The captain refused to let her leave, and each day she was stuck being beaten alongside that idiot Davi.

Her life really sucked right now.

Susie charged toward Laerton with a loud yell and fired several more orbs at the woman. Laerton pushed Davi away, picked her sword back up, and turned, using the blade to deflect the orbs. She then used a Mana Step and appeared in front of Susie, smashing the handle of her sword into her stomach. Susie's eyes widened in pain, and she nearly vomited, finally collapsing unconscious.

Not looking back, Laerton kicked one of her wooden sandals off right as Davi swung at her back. The sandal flew with enough force to deflect his sword, and Davi froze as Laerton placed her blade on his neck.

"You're dead." The captain said in a bored tone.

"Figures." Davi sighed, and his shadowy armor faded. "Looks like I'm still not strong enough to go toe-to-toe with you yet. You have too many weapons."

"Hidden weapons are my specialty." Laerton nodded. "I carry at least one hundred on me, some built into other weapons. My main form of magic, thread magic, isn't something I like to use since it's a tad silly, and I'd rather just make cute animals with it, so I trained myself to be decent with every form of weapon imaginable. Your shadow vault could be useful for storing a bunch of weapons. Perhaps I'll teach you some moves later."

"That'd be cool, cause right now it feels like I'm not learning anything…" Davi said flatly. "You've just been beating the snot out of me for a full month."

"Because that's what is best right now."

"Is it…"

"Don't believe me?" Laerton smirked. "Check your stats."

Davi hesitated for a moment but finally swiped his finger up. He brought up his main stats first.

'Shadow Core: Grade S+, Mana: Grade B+, Endurance: Grade S, Strength: Grade S+, Efficiency: Grade C+, Resistance: Grade D1.'

"All of them increased," Davi muttered. "And not by a small amount either." His Resistance and his Core grade were now much higher, and even his lowest state, Efficiency, was now reaching the minimum level most other people had. "It's been a while since I looked at these stats, I guess."

Laerton nodded. "I can't take all the credit; you likely got a lot stronger in other fights as well and didn't notice, but this one month of training has definitely helped increase several of your stats. Now check your schools."

"Alright." He brought that screen up next.

'Alteration: Grade S. Destruction: Grade E. Enchantment: Grade A1. Conjuration: Grade S. Illusion: Grade C. Restoration: Grade E.'

Laerton's eyes widened when she saw his schools. "A1? How much Enchanting are you doing?" Davi just shrugged. "Hmm, Alteration and Conjuration have gone up for you by a small bit, but everything else has stayed the same. It seems you need more work on those, but your Enchanting skill is amazing. Most of your stats are above Squire level but just below regular Knight level, save for your Enchanting. That one is above normal Knight level and below Title Knight level. At the rate you're going, you might have an Enchanting grade on par with a Captain before you would officially become a Knight."

"That's good?"

"That's very good. Let's see your traits now."

"Okay." Davi flicked his hand again and brought up his traits. "Oh, sweet, some new ones."

In terms of body traits, all his old ones went up by a decent amount, especially Stamina, which was now E1. Curse Resistance also shot all the way up, going from D to B. Most notably, though, he gained a slashing, bludgeoning, and piercing resistance, likely due to how hard Laerton was beating him. They were still low and would only lower the damage a bit, but it was better than nothing. Finally, he gained explosion resistance, most likely brought on by his blowing himself up constantly.

Once he was done looking them over, he glanced at the skill traits that he had.

It was nice seeing Old Bird's Flapping Wings. Davi smiled fondly, remembering Rosco's teachings. His skill traits had all improved by a bit, and fishing had finally evolved, though he hadn't even noticed anything new with it. Sadly, he still couldn't create the threading that he always did in his polymorphed state.

Lastly, he turned to look at his final traits.

The usual traits were all present and had all gone up, some more notable than others. Danger Sense being so high was good, as that meant it would soon evolve. One trait did catch him off guard, though.

"Self Sphere?"

Oh, that must be the white sphere attack that he has. Now that he thought about it, he never really thought of a good name for it. He also hadn't had time to practice with it as much as he wanted to since Laerton kept shutting the move down with her skills anytime he'd try it. A real shame, as he had a few ideas on how he could improve it.

Laerton whistled as she took all of Davi's stats and traits in. "Good, we're close."

"Close?"

"Danger Sense and your Core are both about to evolve," Laerton explained. "When your Core reaches E1, you'll be able to start learning Mana Skin, Mana Step, and Mana Strike. From there, you can learn the other forms as well, which will make killing you all the harder. When Danger Sense ranks up one more time, you'll gain the Instinct trait and will start to see the lines."

"The lines?"

"You said you saw them before." Laerton tapped her head. "Our brains rewire themselves to see Mana. Mana defies the order of the world, and it exists through time and space. Being able to see glimpses of this allows us to see lines. At first, we see blue, but eventually, we'll see red. They help with combat, but it's hard to fully explain. After all, your body reacts on instinct. It'll be good when you unlock it, though it is unfortunate that you haven't unlocked a Regeneration-based trait. Some people aren't able to unlock some traits, so maybe that's one you simply can not have."

"That sucks." Davi walked over to the unconscious Susie and threw her over his shoulder. "Speaking of Regeneration, I wonder how Olivia is doing."

"Everyone's been working pretty hard." Laerton looked back at the train that was outside the junkyard. "I hope they all improved."

"You could train them also."

"Nah." Laerton pulled out a flask from beneath her robes. "Training isn't my thing. I'm only helping you out to make sure you're not a burden on my guild, got that?"

"Thanks for helping me out."

"Shut up…"

"Did I say something wrong?"

Laerton's shoulders sagged, and she took a sip from her flask. "Just stop talking."

Closer to the train, on a makeshift arena, fire and lightning blasted out in all directions as Sieg and Flaco danced around each other, spear meeting saber. They weren't the only ones hard at work, either.

Miranda swung a wooden scythe at Olivia as hard as she could, and Olivia responded by blocking it with the handle of her own wooden scythe. A moment later, she switched to an offhand knife and deflected a swing from Ghost.

Further off to the side, Clause was resting on the ground, with Ragna and Ken both seated next to him. Ragna kept poking along Clause's body with his fingers. "If you press on a point hard enough, you can affect the flowing mana within him and disrupt his body from the inside out."

"This is all really boring," Ken said flatly. "I thought when you said 'martial arts training,' I'd learn a new way to punch a guy…"

This was the scene Laerton and Davi walked up on. Laerton glanced around at all the various training methods that were going on. "Hard at work, or hardly working?"

"Captain!" Ghost cheered when she saw the other woman. "Finished already?"

"Seriously?" Falco stopped his sparring with Sieg and glanced back at Davi. "Did you get any stronger? Let's spar-"

Sieg slammed his leg out, smashing a devastating kick straight into Falco's nuts. "Shouldn't let your guard down around an opponent." The lightning mage announced and then proudly used his spear to bat Falco off of the stage and send him crashing to the ground. "I win!"

Laerton answered Falco's question, despite the fact that the man was moaning into the ground due to pain. "I trained Davi a bit, but he's still not at a good level. Sadly, we're out of time."

"Out of time?" Miranda let out a sigh and placed her scythe on the ground, jamming it into Falco's back. "Has it been a month already?"

"Almost!" Ghost said cheerily, and she walked over and began to kick Falco while he was down. "It's been three and a half weeks since we all started our training! Liv has improved a lot! And Falco? Well, I think he got weaker."

"I fucking hate you all." Falco slowly crawled back up to his feet and rubbed his side, shooting Ghost a dirty look. "Hmm, if time's up, does that mean we'll be leaving soon?" He glanced back at Laerton.

"Yeah." Laerton took another swig from her flask. "Tea still isn't here, but that's fine. The rest of us can play the games without her."

"If the games are something some people don't want to do, and it's okay for a member of our guild to miss them, then why don't the people who don't want to compete in the games just go do a mission?" Ken asked. "That way, the ones who do want to play can go, and the ones who aren't participating don't have to?"

"The entire guild has to compete," Ragna explained. "At least if they're able. The monsters would be able to know if we deliberately sent a member away on a mission to avoid playing, but if a member were already away before the games were even talked about, then they'd be fine with that excuse. Not to mention, the mission Tea is doing is very important. They won't like it, but the dungeon dwellers will allow her to miss it. It does mean the rest of us have a higher chance of playing, though."

"I guess that makes sense."

"We'll be leaving soon," Laerton stated. "Pack up and get inside. Davi, put Susie inside also. She's coming with us."

"Alright?"

As he and the others began to walk back to the train, Laerton turned and faced Oleander City. "Vil Thread Soldier." Orange threading suddenly began to flow and twist, and soon enough, a large hawk the size of a bus towered over Laerton. "Phoenix, I want you to guard Oleander City while we're gone. If anything happens, send mana to Father. I left a bracelet with him, and he'll come to the city. If he's an asshole and doesn't come, send mana to Crow. He'll actually do his job."

The bird bowed its head and then took off into the air. When that was done, Laerton headed for the front of the train. The others all entered the main living space.

Mama Herta was behind the counter, and Pock was chatting with her about something, while petting Greenie, who kept changing into various household items. Olem and Gormay were seated at a large table, the two giants stuck in an arm wrestling competition that had been going on for nearly three days now, neither of them overpowering the other. Finally, as usual, Vlad was in the corner, covered in a heavy blanket and hoodie, playing on an arcade machine.

Their group were all scattered about, and Davi found himself seated near the window with Ken, Sieg, Olivia, and Falco.

"We need to practice more, Davi," Falco announced with a grin. "Sieg kind of cheats."

"You're just mad I win all the time."

"Because you cheat!"

"Because I'm awesome," Sieg corrected.

"It's not fair." Ken sighed and placed her head on the table. "All of you are being taught cool stuff, but I'm stuck learning how to finger people."

"That sounds dirty." Olivia wrinkled her nose. "Then again, if you ever wanted to practice on me…"

"What?"

"Nothing!"

"So, how does the captain plan to get us to the dungeon?" Davi looked toward Pock. "He's sitting around; I thought he'd use a portal or something."

"I assume the captain is going to use the train." Falco shrugged.

"..."

"What?" Falco stared at the rest of the people at the table as they all looked at him as if he had grown a second head.

"The train works?" Ken asked, bewildered.

Just then, there was a loud rumble, and the doors leading outside folded up, sealing them all in. A red light flashed, and Mama Herta began to mutter a prayer and quickly put all her glasses away.

"How does the train work?" Sieg demanded. "There are no tracks?"

Falco just smirked. "Tracks? Where we're going, we don't need tracks."

Suddenly, the table began to slide, as did the chairs, and Davi felt himself fall forward as the entire room began to tip. There was a groaning sound, and bits of metal screeched. His eyes widened when he saw that outside the window, they were starting to lift off the ground.

The train kept rising and rising, and then suddenly it took off, before straightening out midair and chugging along in the skies.

As it turned out, the Phoenix Flight base wasn't a scrapped train in a junkyard. It was a full-blown magical object.

A static sound filled the room, followed seconds later by Laerton's distorted voice.

"Next stop, the Enforcer games."

Chapter 188 - It Moves!?