In the cold silver of the moonlight, just before dawn, clothes were shed without hesitation. One by one, garments fell to the frozen earth, their soft rustle lost beneath the whisper of the wind. Naked forms—shorter than the men and women of later ages, shaped by the hunger and hardship of the medieval world—stood revealed. Yet now, reborn through divine Reincarnation, their bodies bore no trace of malnutrition or imperfection. The scars of famine and toil were gone. Skin once pale and weathered now glowed with youthful vitality—smooth, fair, and flawless, touched by the faint shimmer of the moon. Hair of gold, copper, and chestnut gleamed like silk, the strands stirring faintly in the dawn breeze.
Sir Braveheart could not help himself; his mouth hung slightly open as he watched the three peasant women before him. In their new, perfected forms, they no longer seemed like peasants at all—but as though the gods themselves had sculpted them from memory and desire. Each carried the quiet strength of lives spent laboring and surviving, yet their figures were reborn into balanced beauty—feminine, firm, and real.
Two of the women were red-haired, their fiery locks falling over pale shoulders. They stood like sisters in spirit—sharp-eyed and lively, their hourglass forms both proud and natural, the curves of their hips and thighs shaped by years of carrying burdens and walking long miles. Their backsides, round and full, had a vitality that spoke of endurance and life itself.
But it was the third who drew Braveheart's gaze most of all—the blonde. She seemed the youngest of the three, yet there was something profoundly maternal about her, as though she had been born for warmth, for care, for life itself. Her proportions were near perfect—neither fragile nor overly soft, but full with health and womanly strength. Her body bore a quiet balance between fertility and fitness, the softness of her chest rising and falling with slow, steady breaths. Each motion seemed almost unreal, the subtle weight and bounce of her bosom catching the moonlight as though her very form was testing the boundaries of divinity made flesh.
Even the baby Strong, cradled in Braveheart's arms, seemed spellbound by the sight before them. His tiny head tilted upward, wide icy-blue eyes fixed not on the moon, nor the glimmering armor of the men, but on the women—more precisely, upon their soft, rounded chests that his infant instincts recognized as sacred fountains of nourishment. He made a faint humming sound, somewhere between a sigh and a thoughtful hmm, as if pondering the divine mystery of womanhood itself.
Braveheart glanced down at the child, half amused, half unnerved. For a moment, man and infant shared the same expression—mouths slightly open, eyes glassy with silent awe. In that absurd instant, they seemed almost like father and son: two generations of men united across age and reason by the ancient, universal pull of feminine beauty.
Braveheart quickly straightened his posture, as though ashamed of his own thoughts, tightening his grip on Strong. But the baby remained entranced, still staring with profound concentration, as though the women before him were not mortals reborn, but living symbols of life itself—divine, nourishing, and entirely beyond the understanding of men.
On the other side of the clearing, the six Crusader men stood tall beneath the fading moonlight, their reborn bodies equally transformed—taller, broader, and harder than they had ever been in life. They were warriors carved anew, each one the very image of divine craftsmanship.
Sir Egg towered over the others, the largest and most formidable of the group. Even among giants, he seemed to belong to another order entirely. His body looked as though it had been sculpted by some obsessed god of strength—a living statue of muscle and might. His neck was thick and solid, his shoulders vast, his chest broad and proud like the front of a fortress wall. Below, eight ridged muscles ran down in perfect symmetry, forming a flawless set of abs that gleamed faintly under the moonlight. Not a scar nor a blemish remained from his past life; even the wounds of war had been erased by the miracle of rebirth. His frame tapered down into a perfect V, the shape of an apex predator carved from flesh and iron.
And though his manhood hung soft, it carried its own quiet intimidation—thick and weighty like a proud, sleeping serpent, or as some later joked, like a sizeable banana blessed by divine proportions. Below that, his thighs and calves bulged with raw strength, veins visible beneath smooth skin, built to bear the heaviest loads and crush skulls beneath his heels without effort.
The other Crusaders were hardly lesser men. Each was broad, rugged, and powerful in his own right—knights reborn as athletes of divine perfection—but even they glanced toward Sir Egg with quiet envy. His presence seemed to radiate both pride and embarrassment in equal measure; he looked down at the pile of neatly folded garments before him like a titan forced to dress in mortal clothes.
At Braveheart's command, the men bent down to gather their new attire. The fabric was strange—soft, elastic, and unnaturally smooth to their touch. These were not the rough linens or scratchy wool of their old world but something far more refined. Boxers, they were called. Each man received a pair, and upon feeling the fabric stretch gently against their skin, they exchanged glances of disbelief and childlike wonder.
"By the saints…" murmured one. "This must be how emperors live."
The comfort was unlike anything they had known, and for a brief, silent moment, all six men stood half-dressed, reveling in the sensation as if they had discovered some forgotten pleasure of heaven itself.
Meanwhile, the women's corner erupted with soft laughter. Their own garments had been laid out separately—feminine, colorful, and decorated with strange printed creatures. One of the red-haired women gasped, holding up a pair of white panties patterned with tiny, furious squirrels. "Oh—look at them! They're angry!" she squealed, her voice breaking into giggles.
The other redhead had been given a pair with cheerful beavers, standing proudly beside miniature log dams. "They're adorable," she said, shaking her head in disbelief, though her smile betrayed her delight.
But the blonde—quiet and soft-spoken—lifted her own set last. Hers were pale pink, patterned with plump white rabbits drinking milkshakes, hopping through meadows, and one, in the center, raising a tiny paw with a thumb up beside the words You got this, girl.
For a heartbeat, she only stared at them, her lips curving into the faintest, disbelieving smile. Around her, the laughter spread. Even Braveheart, standing tall among his men, couldn't help but grin.
For the first time since their rebirth, the air felt lighter—less divine, more human. The dawn was close now. Their new lives were beginning, and even amid the strangeness of this new age, a simple truth held firm: no matter how many times mankind might be reborn, some things—strength, laughter, and a bit of vanity—would always remain.
Along with the underwear came strange matching garments for the women—bras, Braveheart called them—things none of them had ever worn in life. The fabric was soft yet firm, the straps and little hooks like bits of clever armorwork made for the body's gentler places.
The blonde took the Little Lord from Braveheart, and Strong immediately latched to her breast with the unquestioning wisdom of a newborn. Milk came easily; her body still carried the after-echo of pregnancy from the day she died. Surprise crossed her face, then tenderness. She cradled him, a tear bright in the moonlight, mourning the child she never met and loving the one she held.
The redheads drifted toward Braveheart, bright-eyed and entirely unembarrassed. He cleared his throat, stood a little taller, and—very carefully—showed them how the cups should lift and hold, how the straps sat on the shoulders, how the tiny hooks fastened in the back so nothing slipped. His big hands were gentle; the women's laughter was not unkind. He blushed, which only encouraged them.
When Strong had fed his fill, the redheads took him, cooing and rocking the baby between them. The blonde turned back to Braveheart, fully bare in the dawn's pale light, and it nearly undid him. He froze, blood roaring in his ears.
"Well?" she asked, smiling with wicked sweetness. "Are you going to stare all morning or help me?"
Without thinking, he reached—instinct, awe, and idiocy in equal measure. Her breath caught; a soft sound escaped her before she smacked his hands lightly away and spun around. "No," she said, still smiling, passing him the bra. "This first, you dirty boy."
The redheads giggled like conspirators; Strong clapped at the joke, delighted with a comedy he couldn't possibly understand. Braveheart, chastened but grinning now, lifted the straps into place, fastened the hooks, and adjusted the fit with the solemn concentration of a man defusing a bomb. "There," he murmured. "Secure."
Across the clearing, the men were already tugging on shirts, trousers, and socks, testing the alien comfort of modern fabric. Then came the real transformation. Plates slid into vests; harnesses tightened with efficient clicks. Arm guards, greaves, and gloves seated into place. Boots laced high. Balaclavas rose; helmets came down. Visors sealed. The world narrowed to breath and heartbeat and the soft hiss of internal comms.
The gearing-up went on.
Strong soon tired of watching and drifted asleep against Braveheart's shoulder. The old soldier carried the Little Lord back inside the mat-box house, laying him beside Anna and Sheepy. The dog gave a grunt and resettled, one paw across the child's leg like a sentry. Only then did Braveheart step back outside to watch the miracle he had asked for unfold.
Before him the nine Crusaders—three women and six men from another century—were becoming something both medieval and impossibly new. The kits that had appeared out of the white flare now steamed faintly in the cold: armor and webbing and weapons that breathed like living things.
Each of the three women took a Light Crusader Set (Female-Optimized):
great-visor ballistic helms with cross-shaped visors tinted for daylight, the inside alive with tiny vents and whispering comms; soft-armor carriers layered with ceramic inserts that shaped perfectly to their ribs; flexible composite pauldrons, knee guards, gloves, and boots that moved like skin yet struck like steel. The flame-retardant white surcoats fell over everything, marked cleanly with crimson crosses that caught the moonlight like blood. Their rifles—short-barreled AK carbines fitted with rails, red-dot optics, and slung drum magazines—looked absurdly modern in peasant hands, yet fit them as if always meant to.
The six men donned the Heavy Crusader Sets (General):
reinforced crusader helms with larger cross-visors, anti-fog plating, and comms built into the jawline; thick plate carriers loaded with rifle-rated ceramic armor; articulated limb shells and heavy gauntlets that made them seem more machine than man. Their weapons were full-length AK rifles, suppressor-ready, optics glowing faintly as they adjusted magnification through the 1-6× lenses. Drum and box magazines hung from belts like relics of some new faith. The weight was enormous, yet their reborn bodies bore it easily.
When all nine were dressed, the line that faced Braveheart could have stepped from a dream of the First Crusade rewritten by a twenty-first-century armorer. No eyes showed behind the darkened cross-slits; voices came low and filtered through the internal comms, an insect hum of discipline. The women—smallest of the formation—carried themselves like saints carved for war, rifles steady against the white-and-crimson of their tabards. The men loomed behind them, each one a fortress of plates and faith. Together they looked less like people and more like an omen.
Braveheart—bare-headed beneath his hooded coat, boots split from old service, the smell of tobacco and cold rain clinging to him—stood apart from the nine like a ghost that war forgot to bury. His greatcoat was a patchwork of canvas and habit, army surplus gone feral: sleeves frayed, cuffs taped, one elbow crusted with dried oil. Beneath it, the muscle still lived—a Falklands veteran's compact power, dense as coiled wire—but hunger and sleepless years had etched the rest of him lean. The beard was wolfish, sideburns rough, the eyes storm-grey and restless under heavy lids. He looked every bit the homeless robber he half-pretended to be: a prophet in rags, a soldier without a country.
Yet when he saw the nine shapes before him—armored in white and crimson, cross-visors burning faintly in the moonlight—something old lit behind his ribs. It was the same pulse that had driven him through the Falklands mud, through smoke and screaming radio static: the terrible pride of a man who believes war, if fought clean, can still mean something.
This—this was the start of something.
An army of the Red Cross.
An army of God.
He had shown them only the simplest lessons: how to shoulder a weapon, how to check a safety, how to sweep a corner without losing line. Truth be told, he understood little of what the Little Lord had conjured—optics, comms, ceramic composites—all of it looked like witchcraft wearing steel. But it worked, and that was enough for him.
They had not yet fired a shot. They had not yet met an enemy. But baptism would come soon—he could feel it in the air, that old static of battle waiting to return. When it did, these nine reborn souls would learn what modern war truly meant, and he would teach them the rest the hard way.
Braveheart pulled his coat tighter and planted both boots on the frosted earth. He stood taller than them all; the years of service still lived in his posture — long days in the Falklands, hard nights with the Multinational Force in Lebanon, the brutal, pointless stretches in Ireland. He had killed. He had watched his men die. He had seen what war left behind and felt that it had given him nothing. Now, with nine faces turned to him in the pale moonlight, he told himself he would build something that might at last be his — and theirs — a new beginning for the country as well.
He folded his hands behind his back, lifted his chin, and spoke with the slow, exacting cadence of a man used to making others move at the sound of his voice — the same voice that had once made soldiers straighten and women bow.
"Brothers, sisters, soldiers of God," he said, and something in the old sergeant still compelled them to attention, whether they meant it or not. "This morning we lay the first stone on the road to the throne of this land for our Little Lord. We do this not only for him, but for God, who has delivered the child into our hands. We do this for the good Christian folk of this country who, like us, long to live in a sane, God-fearing, free, just and peaceful world — a world run by rulers that will keep the peace."
He let the words fall and watched the nine figures — cloaks and weapons dimmed by frost and moonlight. Then, blunt and without artifice, he said, "To take our first step, we must go to a bank."
The word hung in the air and made only a ripple; several of the crusaders exchanged puzzled looks. Braveheart, guessing at the gap between his modern vocabulary and their medieval imaginations, didn't bother with long lectures. He simplified and sharpened.
"Alright. A bank is a guarded house for wealth—coins, papers, metals. Power no longer sits only in castles; it sleeps in vaults and paper. Paper buys roofs, mouths, and crowds. Enough of it buys men; men buy influence; influence buys voices."
He paused; the confession in his voice was small and raw. "I'll be blunt. I need money. For the flat I sleep in, for fuel for the van, for the two girls my ex took when the marriage broke. I need to feed those who will join us and keep their families safe. Shameful to say it aloud, but true — we need money. But hear me: this is not petty theft. We're taking what pays for the rulers' war, and we will use it to build a life for the people. It's political theatre as much as gain. We will show that the rulers' treasure is not beyond reach. We will make them doubt, and when doubt grows the people will look for someone to keep them safe. We will be that someone."
A red-haired woman tightened her grip on her rifle; the metal clicked faintly. "And the blood?" she asked. Her voice trembled only a little. "People will die, won't they? You speak of chaos. How do you justify that?"
Braveheart met her gaze without flinching. The moon picked out a thin line of frost along his jaw. "War is cruel," he said plainly. "There will be loss. Innocents will fall alongside the guilty. I won't lie to you. But remember—what this child is, is not natural. If he wills it, death may not be final. Death can be a step, not an ending. If you serve the Little Lord well and he judges you worthy, you may be given another chance. Do not ask for guarantees. Ask for faith."
Sir Egg stepped forward, the knight far more evident than the man. "You ask us to steal and to risk lives," he said, slow and deliberate. "Honor is not kept in a vault. If we are knights, why not strike at the rulers — cut the head, as kings once were cut down? Is there not a way that spares the shame of thieves?"
Braveheart's smile was quick and sharp as a blade. He didn't need to praise the romance of a direct charge; he needed to show its futility. "In old tales a throne sat in one place," he answered. "You cut that one and the country bled and fell. Today the crown is sewn into law, into ports, into banks and treaties. You cannot kill a law with a spear. You can only wear it down. We must begin at the roots."
He leaned forward, using the blunt soldier's logic the others respected. "If we strike a king's hall, men will die and another will take his seat two days hence. But hollow the purse that feeds governors and their armies, and you force hard choices — where to spend, whom to pay. Like this we will slowly chip away at their power."
Sir Egg's jaw worked; the knight's disquiet did not loosen easily. Braveheart's tone softened for a single beat, humanizing the calculus. "I am no saint," he said. "I am a man with ten pounds in his pocket and a shoebox of medals that won't pay winter's rent. I tell you that because we are better at truth than at lies. The van — think of it as a carriage — will carry us. We will use what is needed to survive, to win this war against this corrupt nation."
Sir Egg's reply came like a blade drawn from a scabbard: slow, inevitable. "I do not like it," he said at last. "This tastes of theft, not of honour."
Braveheart's preacher's cadence dropped away; his voice became the worn sound of a man who had stood in too many fields. "Nor do I," he said. "But the world we inherit requires this if we are to remake it. We must swallow some bitterness to get to our goals. We will do this because we believe a different life can grow from these harsh actions."
One by one they made small motions — a helmet shifted, a strap tightened, breath taken. The red-haired woman who had asked about blood pressed her palm to her chest. "For the little lord," she said. The words were quiet and fierce; the others answered in low voices, not so much a plan as a vow.
Braveheart's smile ghosted into something like relief as he spoke again. "Eat what you can. Sleep if you can. At first light, to the van. We take what we need, make them tremble, and vanish. Then we do it again."
He glanced once more at the sleeping child. The hush around them tightened like a promise. The night waited, and the nine prepared to step into it.