Who Knew A Person Could Cycle So Many Emotions At Once?
I quickly got inside the helicopter, and we took off. I lay down for a few seconds, and then I took off my helmet.
"YOU!!!" shouted a certain someone, and of course, that person was Captain Elaine.
I gave her a smirk, looked at Michael, and winked. Michael sighed and turned to Elaine.
"Yeah, so uh... I told you this a while ago, but you weren't paying attention. Veris is actually my best friend."
"WHAT?! IF I HAD KNOWN, I-I..."
"Which is precisely why I didn't tell you earlier. You understand that your beef with him is completely unjustified, right?"
"How so?" she said, her temper rising.
"His parents were gone from the time the both of us met, which was, I recall properly, at 3 years old. His grandfather had to raise him this entire time. He was shot just recently, right when he got abducted."
"So? I've lost plenty of people close to me. What makes it so special when it happens to him?"
"I could ask you the same in reverse."
"Huh?"
"You think you're the only one who lost family to the Leader? What about the others in the army? Just because some grew up in a stupid fortress, you think they're all automatically sheltered? With a pleasant life? This is the real world. These guys weren't our family. This was essentially a boarding school. You expect compassion from them when you never even tried showing compassion to anyone else. Have you ever tried to get close to one of the kids from the fortress?"
"Well...I..." she stammered.
"Ah, right, I forgot. You already gave up on those who ignored you. You didn't bother giving them a second chance."
She looked down at her feet.
"I get you were annoyed when he interrupted you, and he is going to apologise for it, RIGHT?" Michael looked at me, waiting for agreement.
"Yeah. Sure, but like I said. I've already apologised for it," I said.
"Oh yeah. But... do it again. I want you guys to make up. If we're going to be able to put up with each other, we need to have all of our grudges against each other settled. Ok?"
"I guess I'll start," I said, "I'm sorry for questioning your orders. I should have already been used to missions like this. Sorry if it seemed like I was undermining your authority. I've heard from Michael how hard you've worked to get to your current position, so I can understand why you might be angry. The only question I've had with you earlier was why you've been giving me such a hard time. I didn't know this was how you viewed people who grew up in the Fortress. I thought it was just the nicknames and that was it."
"I... I'm sorry for generalising you all as just weaklings. I now know that some people from the Fortress do actually work hard. I realized from the way that Captain Titan was acting that my response wasn't appropriate. You were just asking questions about things that concerned you. Granted, you should've waited till I was done speaking, but either way, I hope we can get along, especially since I guess I technically owe you guys now."
My face changed, and my eyes widened. I didn't realize that she was capable of apologizing. Damn it! Michael's so lucky! I stuck out my hand and she shook it. Boom! What was that noise? I pulled out my S.A.D. (Spaghetti Autonomous Device). Looks like my live recording had started. I called for the Builder, so he put the ship on autopilot, and everyone crowded around me. It was finally happening. I went back to the beginning, and Ms. Damon was doing her choreography. To be honest, it kind of sucked. Nobody could really say anything, though, because that would basically guarantee them a fail in her class. People did make fun of her on the internet, though.
Then, midway through, her bot started to act strangely. It stiffened up and started to move choppily. Unexpectedly, it stopped. Ms. Damon kept going, but with an annoyed look on her face. One of its eyes got super big, while the other shrank. It suddenly started to spin and shot fireworks everywhere. Left, right, and up.
Meanwhile, the entire sky brightened up. Ms. Damon got hit in the gut with one of the fireworks, and she got slammed against a far wall. She crumpled. A Captain looked at his watch. Fireworks weren't supposed to start until a little while later...? I looked at my watch. Huh, it looked like I was a few seconds behind. Oh well. I pressed the detonation button on my watch, and small explosions went off simultaneously. Boom! Boom! BOOM!
You might ask, well, why weren't they found? The answer to that question is simple: they were impossible to find if you didn't even know to look for them. I had hidden them in tight places, like in a potted plant or under the bed in a dormitory.
"What was that?!" exclaimed Elaine.
"That... was the result of my master plan!" I said triumphantly.
"You wanna tell her about the thing?" said Michael, excitedly.
"Sure! Guess what. Captain Titan... IS DEAD!" I exclaimed with an evil grin. "Bucket and I killed him ourselves!"
Elaine's eyes widened, "NO WAY!!!" she gasped.
"Oh yes! You see the suit of armor that I'm wearing? That's how I killed him. I would've died without it."
"How? HOW?!" she demanded.
"The thing is, normally, it's impossible to trade blows with him because as soon as his fist makes contact with your body, your bones basically shatter. However, this suit is firm. And it still got dented in places where he struck. Guess the Builder and I will have to remake the plating with stronger alloys."
"Stronger?" said the Builder, "How in God's grace are we supposed to make this stronger?"
"We'll figure it out! Oh yeah, and let's not discount Bucket's hard work! He's the one who landed the final blow anyway. Actually, he had this weird red gem, and I don't know what it did, and I don't like it. I probably would've had a harder time escaping if Bucket didn't kill him before that."
Bucket's cheeks turned slightly reddish, and he had a slight grin.
"Anyways, so what's our next plan of actio-" My words were cut short when suddenly the hovercopter made a loud beeping sound. The builder rushed to the front of the hovercopter. It seems we were out of fuel. But...we were still out in the middle of nowhere. Shoot! I hadn't paid attention, and I didn't know where we were.
"PREPARE FOR IMPACT!" shouted the Builder from the cockpit.
My friends and I strapped in, but the crash was still fast, and I ended up losing consciousness. What I did know, though, was that the Builder barely managed to stop the hovercopter from getting crumpled like a tin can. The ship bounced before skidding to a stop. When I woke up, my friends were gone. I removed the safety and opened up what was left of the hovercopter's door. The sunlight blinded my eyes. By this point, it was evening, and it didn't seem like we were near any settlements. We were in a large grassy field surrounded by some big hills. I couldn't see any animals. The Builder was near the front of the ship, and he was unconscious. Bucket, Michael, and Elaine, however, were fine. I peeked through the ship window, and I saw two giant white bags that were at the front. Looks like the airbags did activate. Maybe he was just in shock then. Slowly, the Builder opened his eyes, and a blinding light entered them. He clutched his head as he had a bad headache.
"Are you okay?" I asked the Builder.
"Yeah, except for... Ow! My leg."
"Crap! Are we lost?" I asked.
"Wait... I might know where we are."
"You do?"
" I played world hide and seek, and I'm ranked 15th."
World hide and seek was basically where they show you a single location, and you have to guess where it is on the map of the world. The average person would probably be 51,374,659,403rd place, so 15th was impressive.
"So you know where we are?"
"Hmm... based on this grass coloring, this sweet, yet sharp scent of the grass... don't forget the pinhead-sized gem-shaped bugs... ah, and the soil texture... I would say, we're in... I think Forgotten Forest?"
"Soil texture?"
"Around this time of the year, the soil is usually damp. However, Forgotten Forest barely gets any rain year-round, so the soil is usually quite crumbly and falls apart when you touch it. Also, these bugs; they only inhabit Crispdrop and Sinigang."
"Whoa. That's impressive," said Bucket. Elaine put her hands on her hips and looked proud.
"I think we should stay here until tomorrow morning. The light is already fading, and we have more supplies here," said Michael.
"I agree," I said. "We can do watches in rotations. Bucket can do the first watch, I'll take the second, Michael, you can take the third, and Elaine can do the fourth. I think overlapping rotations would also be good."
"Sounds good to me," said Michael.
"What about me?" asked the Builder.
"You're injured right now. I want you to rest. You won't be in any condition to protect anyone until you're all healed up. Just so you know, you're not a liability. You're the one who took care of me when I was in the Fortress, and you've always helped me after I finished a mission. This time, I'd like to be there for you."
The Builder smiled and nodded. Then, I can make dinner at least. I don't really have to walk around for that. Soon, we had a small pot of stew brewing in the center of our small clearing that was our shipwreck. I don't know what he put in there, but the smell was heavenly. My mouth started watering, and my stomach started growling. We all sat down and decided to discuss what our next plan of action was.
"All right," said the Builder, "I think we've established that we're going to take down the Leader, but how are we going to go about doing so?"
"I had a few ideas," I said, "I was thinking that we take out all the outposts on our own. Then after that, we steal the cookies that are stored at some of the bases?"
"What makes you think that would work?" asked Elaine, "Don't you think if it were that easy, people would've done it a long time ago?"
"I think what he's getting at is that we gather up cookies since we seemingly can't get any while the Leader holds a monopoly on them. We need efficient ways to power all of our gear. With the exception of Veris' solar powered suit, we're definitely going to need cookies if we're going to run things at the scale of like maybe jets or even just hovercopters, ," explained Bucket, "I also think that this plan would be so easy if we found what exactly the Leader is after or something that was key to his plan."
"I think it would also be informative to even try to go for smaller fortresses. Maybe ones that don't have as much influence, but maybe that are closer to important regions?" said Michael.
"Ah, I think we should go to a data hub instead," I said.
"But we have to go back to Crimson City for that!" exclaimed Elaine, "That is... if we want to go to one that's actually worthwhile.
"Yeah, which I now know like the back of my hand. Plus... we're not in the military anymore. I can get us there super easily. The only question is how we'd get out," I replied.
"I think we're all missing something here," said the Builder with a smirk, "How do you plan to get to Crimson City without any form of transportation?"
"Well...uh...that is..." I stammered.
"Right. Let's just focus on getting to the next town. If I recall correctly, we can go to Sinigang Valley. There's a city there, and the weather's nice there. I remember the Leader going there once. That's actually where I first sold my ships. Sinigang Valley is a small town, but its quality in literally everything is as its name suggests. Best of all, we gotta try the pork chops there! I honestly couldn't get enough of it last time," said the Builder, enthusiastically.
A few hours later, it was nighttime. It was my time to be on watch, but... it was rather strange; I wasn't sweating at all. I expected worse nightmares after killing Captain Titan, but it seems that it instead had a positive effect. Maybe it was my mind rewarding myself for carrying out the task. I never felt guilty one bit about killing Captain Titan. The first time I had killed in the war, I had countless nightmares. I was plagued almost every night. But now... now that I have carried out one of my tasks... I felt...relieved, like a giant weight had been lifted off my shoulders. I walked outside the ship, and I saw Bucket resting by the fire. I went over and sat next to him. We were silent for a while.
"Well... your time's almost up."
"Yeah... I know."
"Are you tired? From everything that's happened so far?"
"Yeah... It's all happened so fast. So many exciting things. I don't exactly know how I feel yet, but I'll tell you when I do know. I'm glad you decided to keep me around."
"You're not a pet, you know. I wouldn't kill you if I somehow got bored with you. I didn't kill you because I believe that you are trustworthy."
"Tell me something. If you were betrayed, how do you know who is or isn't trustworthy?"
"Hmmm.... That's a good question. I don't have an answer for that." I put my hand up to the sky and looked through it. The stars were bright.
"Well... I'm going to bed. See ya"
"Goodnight."
After he left, I thought about a lot of things. What I was going to do if I succeeded, and what I was going to do tomorrow. I decided that I needed some place to return to after the war was over. Some place, that wasn't a suffocating palace, but a place that I could truly call my own. I recalled a memory of the Sergeant. His voice echoed in my head, "You'll wish that you had escaped to the solitude den yesterday. On second thought, even that's not far enough away; maybe the Malabar Mountains would be."
Yes. Malabar Mountains. That might be a good place. It was cold and windy, and overall, hard to enter. I heard that it was kind of like a hub for old rich people who had nothing better to do than spend money on a stupid mountain out in the middle of nowhere, so they could be left alone. That also explained why the name sucked. Ah, but would they let us in? Maybe, if we appeared rich... we could potentially... it didn't matter. For now, we had to focus on getting to Sinigang and getting a ride.
Some time later, Michael steps out. I told him some of my plans, and he explained what happened during the breakout from prison. Some time after that, I went back to the ship to sleep. I lay down on my mat and I drift to sleep.
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The Leader walked around his now mess of a fortress. Actually, it wouldn't even be proper to call it a fortress anymore with the state that it was in. He was in awe. How could things go so wrong in such a short while? He knew it had to do with Captain Titan. The fool. Just because he never said anything didn't mean that he wasn't aware. That boy that he brought in 2 years ago... he looked... familiar. It didn't matter. Digging up past memories was just a waste of time and energy.
Damon was still running around like a maniac. Honestly. The stupid woman couldn't even take a hint. The only reason that he kept her around was because she was a test. Anyone who could pass the wall that was her deserved to be in the army. The ridiculous difficulty was intended because the only way to pass was sucking up to her or just taking up her ridiculous challenges.
Of course, he still promoted those who failed her class, but they would never be able to reach the same level as those who knew how to work around things like this. But the question was... who now would manage all of his work for him? Maybe it was time for him to let his son start working an internship. Maybe... that other Prince might be good too.
He found Ms.Damon running around near the dorms. She was setting everything on fire. To be honest, he could've handled that explosion and still recovered, but the fact that she was making his job harder was annoying. Even worse, her eyes were glowing red. Seems like she had used the forbidden red gem. It's almost like she was just giving him every reason he needed to kill her. It was a failed thing. He had given up on it a while ago. He hated anything that reminded him of the past.
"Quick! I think I know who did this. It was-" She couldn't finish her sentence as her head was now severed from her body.
"Honestly, I couldn't care less. You're just a waste of space," said the Leader, tiredly. He wiped the blood from his sword. He snapped his fingers, and the body vanished into thin air. He looked at his compass. Dead ahead. So it was in the forest, huh? As he got closer and closer to the forest, he saw more and more signs of death. There was a broken window at the top of the office, and there were blood traces, skid marks, and broken trees. Good god. They didn't even leave the trees alone.
He looked around and saw a patch of dirt that looked...unnatural. He dug it up and saw what looked to be... Captain Titan. Ha! Whomever did this to him did him dirty. He looked at his remains. They were intact, but god did he look disgusting. Parts of his skin melted off, but that wasn't what killed him. The fact that his face was still mostly intact showed this. He died of shock. But from what? Well, he had always warned him not to be so overconfident. Served him right.
He looked around for it. Not there. The Leader had given Titan the first and only red gem with the least side effects. The one closest to the answer, but... he still couldn't decipher it. Why? Why did his teacher have to keep giving him false answers?! Anyway, it seemed like Titan had tried to replicate it but didn't do so well. He himself had taken the original; that's how he gained these powers, and he knew that what he created would only lead to more suffering.
Whoever did this to him was thorough as well. They got rid of the stone before he could use it. He wasn't upset because it seemed that Captain Titan's "brilliant" plan had also failed as well. They had made a deal so that Captain Titan could retire. Captain Elaine was extraordinary. She was supposed to serve as his replacement. But she was too soft, so he was going to brainwash her. Captain Titan had done everything in his power to isolate her, but still, the rules applied to him as well. If he couldn't deliver, then he didn't deserve his position. A slight grin pricked the ends of his mouth. If his body were still intact, he could now experiment on it. Maybe how to make it look revitalized? Or maybe as his invincible punching bag when he had completed his elixir.
Another strange thing was that he couldn't find the Builder anywhere. Maybe he had escaped from the fire? There was no way to know for sure. He knew for a fact that all the Captains had left for different fortresses late at night, but he knew for a fact that one of them betrayed him. It was probably either... Dex, Hills, or... Grace...
He knew for a fact that Veris was dead. He had seen for a fact that he was in the dorms, but then his presence suddenly vanished a little while ago. Probably had something to do with Damon. It's a shame since he was a very promising soldier. Sure, he questioned things a bit too much, but nothing a little of this and that couldn't fix.
The Leader decided that his work was done here and decided to leave. He called for a hovercopter, and a pilot picked him up. He had to start working on his new base of operations. His main citadel was nice, but that was more of his home. He needed a place where he could be completely sure they couldn't arrive.
__________________________________________________________________
A few hours later, the sun was blazing. It wasn't too hot since there was a slight breeze, but it was time to go. The Builder packed up and put on his backpack, while Elaine, Bucket, and Michael put on their rucksacks. Elaine pulled out her map and looked up at the sky through her eclipse lens, and pulled out her compass.
"Okay, so I think we need to go 10 miles southwest. The weather should get cooler as we go on. I think it'll even start raining."
The rest of us just nodded, and we soon started the long and tiring journey.
We walked for what seemed like hours. The heat got worse, but we kept going. We'd stocked up on a lot of resources like water and food, but I didn't regret not starting at night. Forgotten Forest was notorious for its wild animals, which only showed up at night. I wasn't going to run with these giant backpacks on my back while watching my ankles. I'd rather take the heat. If we got injured, we'd be in a bad position. The path was mostly flat, with the exception of some occasional hills. I unbuttoned my uniform and drank some water. It was midday. I think we had been walking for around 4 hours already. I think we had maybe... under 5 miles left. It was difficult carrying around these heavy backpacks.
We didn't stop at all as we had the stamina to keep going. I wondered why this felt so hard, even though I had done plenty of hot hikes. I guess it didn't help that I was still wearing my uniform. Remind me to make a bodysuit for myself. Captain Elaine was right, though. By the time we were right under 4 miles, the temperature had gotten much cooler. In fact, it was starting to get quite cold. I unbuttoned my uniform and started to move at a much swifter pace. When we had just under 2 miles left, I saw a cave. I looked up at the sky and decided that this was a good place to make a base camp.
"Shall we stop here?" I asked.
"Sure. This is actually a really good place. Back when I was around 7, I had heard about this place. It's called Cinnamon Canyon. It's famous for having these nice and intricate caves. These should be pretty safe and keep us dry from the rain," explained Elaine.
"Whoa, it's so... spacious," commented Bucket.
I heard a low growling noise and approached it carefully. It was a small puppy, about the size of my hand. It looked thin and its fur was messy and was missing in some places. It seemed wary of me, so I pulled some jerky out of my pocket and tossed it over. It pounced on it while sniffing it.
It bit into it, and the change in expression was crazy. I could see literal stars in its eyes. It gobbled the entire thing up. I threw it a few more times, and it started running in circles. I reached over to pet it, but it still flinched. I guess we still weren't on good terms yet. I left the dog where it was, and we all headed deeper into the cave. There was a small area that was about the size of a small room. Perfect! The Builder decided to cook once more and started making his divine stew once again. A mouthwatering aroma spread throughout the entire caves. I asked him if he had an extra bowl, and he nodded while handing it over.
I had a feeling that we might be joined by someone else soon. 15 minutes later, my hunch turned out to be right. The little dog crept up to me once again. He made himself look as cute as possible while looking pitiful at the same time. I smirked at it and stuck out my tongue. The puppy looked flabbergasted, but I revealed a 6th bowl, and it did a somersault. I placed the bowl down, and it ate like there was no tomorrow. When I checked back in a few minutes, it had downed the entire bowl like it was nothing.
When I looked at the puppy's face, it looked as if he'd accomplished his mission. When I tried to pet it this time, it shoved its head into my palm as if to say, "You've earned the right to pet me, human, knock yourself out."
The Builder's cooking was too good for my own good. With my stomach filled, I fell asleep within moments. When I woke up the next morning, we were ready to start the journey again, but this time, we had a small companion. The puppy had decided to follow us, probably because of the Builder's food.
At last, it was the final leg of the journey. I guessed that I could look forward to tomorrow. We could probably stay at an inn for a while and then keep moving forward. I realized that the best part of a journey was coming back to the place that you could call home. Whenever I went on a mission, the Fortress was essentially my home. But now, I had nowhere to return to. Well... I would be happy as long as I had a ship that I could live in. That's all I really needed. A home... that could come with me.
The Builder then came over and sat next to me, so I told him about my plans for Malabar Mountain.
"Ah... that's... actually not a bad idea. I did have a small house up there. I think I still have the permit."
"That's amazing. You think it'll be big enough for the both of us?"
"If I remember correctly, it's as big as a large house. My dad bought it for a business trip and never got around to selling it, so I still have it."
Everything was fitting into place like clockwork. Before long, I'll have defeated the Leader!