Tokonowa's Convoy

Ryker was the military specialist of a special city just outside of Tokonowa. He was known to be extremely skilled in martial arts and had many weapons that he was a true master with handling. He had been a part of an unidentifiable assault team that his country used to gain power in their kingdom. For his entire life, Ryker had trained countless hours a day to help his team achieve glorious victories in every battle they went into. Their team was known as the Convoy's, and it was Tokonowa's greatest military unit in all of the city's history.

Ryker had several teammates who were specialists in other areas of fighting, Gino was good with guns, Amus was good with swords, and Becker was the best in the kingdom with hand to hand combat. Each day these four warriors would train together in the kingdoms training arena, working on their skills and battling against simulated experiences that would better prepare them in real life combat. After each week of hard training, they would all go out and treat themselves to good food and drinks. This connection that they shared went deeper than just their job at hand, but they had all become brothers to one another.

On one of their first missions together, they came out victorious but just by a little. Ryker had been brutally attacked by one of the hounds the other army placed on him, Amus' sword was snapped, and it was up to Gino and Becker to finish the opponents by themselves. They were able to do it however, and this only brought the group closer together.

On another mission, they were surrounded by a fire, and each one of them had to figure out a way to get out before being horribly burned. Amus took his sword, and with a single sweep, he took out the worst of the flames and made enough of a clearing for them to get away unscratched.

The fire that almost took out the Convoy team

credit: PixaBay

On another mission, the men came across a sorcerer who forced them to find an ancient gemstone that had been missing for centuries. They went after it but each of them had a spell casted on them to confuse them about which way they were going, until finally, Becker was able to beat the spell and lead them back to the twisted sorcerer and killed him.

While leading up to their biggest battle yet, they knew that there was a chance that they might not return. They had put months and months of training into this battle, and had built a strategy that they trusted would bring them all home alive and well. On their way out of the city, the King blessed them and a large crowd showed up to show their support. The men were more focused than they had ever been, and more trained than ever before. The journey these men had to go on before reaching their target destination was long and perilous, and brought many challenges to the entire Convoy. At one point, they received a messenger pigeon from Tokonowa, and it told them that the city they were traveling to had been decimated by another rival town, and this town had finally pledged allegiance to the great Tokonowa, making Tokonowa the greatest city in the entire Kingdom.

The men had come so far though and had no plan on what to do now. When they returned, their unit was dismantled because they were no longer needed as Tokonowa was safe from all other threats. The men went back to their homes, discouraged, upset, and confused. All they had known for so long was their training, and now they weren't even needed. Each man from the unit went about finding a new way to live life, but each of them had strong feelings of loss in their hearts for many years. They no longer saw each other every day, they never went on life changing missions together, and they barely ever even had the chance to catch up with each other.

What each of the men was able to take away from their years spent as part of the Convoy though was the mental strength to overcome anything in their way. They had built life long relationships with their brothers and even though they would never see each other in the same setting as they were used to, they knew that they had made life long connections with some of the most important people that they would ever meet. Each day they went moving forward in life, they would constantly think back about the days they had together, and the hard work that they endured to be the city's most effective unit. It was a tough transition for each of them, but they all came back stronger and healthier than if they would have gone and battled in that last fight.

Authors Note:

This story was based primarily off of the Japanese Mythology Stories by E.W. Champney and F. Champney in their book, Romance of Old Japan. I had a very difficult time reading this unit because the language was terribly confusing and following all of the characters and descriptions made the literacy of the stories similar to trying to read in another language. Despite this, I really enjoyed the stories in the second part of the unit that were about the legend of Yamato. He was a king (I think) that went on several hunting journeys in his time and this story that I wrote has many of the themes that are found in these stories. I also used a bit of a personal story in the ending of this story. As the COVID-19 shut down all NCAA championship events this year, I ended up having my senior year of competition taken from me. I used part of my own story to develop a connection between the guys in the Convoy team the same way that my team was connected. I hope you enjoy this story.

Bibliography: E.W. Champney and F. Champney, Romance of Old Japan, Japanese Mythology