S3:CH9

"Commander Chiron. Black Valkyrie Regiment." He stated, before looking at Minthe. "This is Minthe. She's the leader of the Clan of Aeryth."

Gasps flooded the whole council, while swords from the White Knights were unsheathed. Flor raised a fist in the air, telling every soldier around the room to stop. They exhaled slightly, then put their weapons back. Queen Rose Magrin looked at Chiron, then towards Minthe.

"Speak." She said, before standing up to her chair. The room became silent, where you could only hear the crackling of the torches on the pillars of the hall. Chiron took a small breath, before stepping backwards. Chiron and Flor followed, while Minthe was confused as to why they were backing up. Suddenly, a body started falling from the ceiling in front of Chiron. The crowd of nobles screamed at this. It was a soldier with leather and steel armor who had green colored camouflage patterns as his main garment. It was evident. It was a soldier from the Committee of State Security.

A man descended down from the ceiling as well, causing the crowd to stop screaming. This time, it was someone who was not dead. He was wearing all black, and his clothes were a bit tight. He had a bloody dagger in his hand, with a sword on his waist. The man in black stood up, before grabbing the dead soldier's white scarf and wiping the blood off of his dagger. "Looks to be a scout ranger. They're smarter than I thought." The man said, prompting a low volumed, but familiar voice. It was the master.

"Kindred?" General Kai said along with the crowd. Aida was surprised, as well as Gold who was with them.

"What is the meaning of this?" General Lynx said, before being stopped by Chiron by raising his hand in front of her. The commander then nodded at Izana and Flor, which prompted the two to jump towards the pillars and disappear through the ceiling beam's darkness. This was followed by General Tharius, who ordered his men to look for CSS soldiers inside the castle.

"The CSS are not like the enemies we faced before." said Kindred, who now took off his hood to unveil his face, which was now a bit lighter and cleaner than before, followed by his round glasses, which was a refreshing look for the RBR soldiers. "I fought with Nathaniel before during the Great Orc War. Never have I thought he would order this, but nonetheless, we cannot defeat him by ourselves."

"So what do you propose?" Queen Rose said, making the crowd stop with their whispers, and suddenly listen to his answer.

"William?" Kindred said, before looking for the black general. When his eyes met Chiron, the man in the eyepatch only shook his head. “Fine. I’ll do it.”

"We need to ally with the Clan of Aeryth, and end the Shifter Conflict." said Kindred, as he looked the queen straight in the eyes.

-----

A large airship was stationed somewhere in the forest. A large encampment of CSS soldiers resided there. They were stationed in the Valenti Academy of Science and Wizardry, deep within the Forests of Western Karthus. Several CSS soldiers pointed their crossbows towards the head of the wizards living there. "Keep working, old man." Senior Operator Henrik said to an old wizard man who wanted to continue repairing the airship.

Quartermaster Valheim was standing in front of a group of mages in an open field. They were in chains. The CSS thought that they would get Pyromancers here, but unfortunately, they were all in the Praecantatio District of the SUV. Eitherway, Sanamancers are good assets to help them heal and repair, especially since there were a lot of injured soldiers after Alvin's attack. Maybe this wasn't so bad after all.

"And make them quick. We need to head to Karthus as soon as possible." Henrik said, before turning around to walk towards General Nath, who was sitting at one of the giant-dragonfly 'choppers'. The general was looking at Lillith, who was gently picking flowers, but was still sad about the whole thing. Alvin was a comrade, as well as Tiffany. By Ekaj's name, the entire Red Blood Regiment was like a sibling-group to them. They both wanted Democracy to prosper. But she guessed that The Red Blood Regiment never had the luxury of Patriotism for a country, as they fought for all people regardless of Nationality. But then again, the Red Blood Regiment never had a problem of multiple nations wanting to take them down.

That was the difference between the CSS and RBR. One fought for Democracy of Vonturians, while the other fought for all people. One was Nationalist, while the other was Internationalist. For all her life, she always thought of the consequences of Nationalism, and maybe this was another consequence of it.

"Hey." said a voice. It came from General Nath - her lover. "You ok?"

Lillith only nodded, then drank her coffee from her mug. Nath sighed, and sat beside her. "Nathaniel." Lillith said, while looking at the wizards being whipped by Valheim. "Why are we doing this?"

"What do you mean? It's for Vontur." Nath said, before his head shifted towards her eyes. 

"But why?" Lillith said, her head now turning towards Nath's face. Her eyes were heavy, and her smile was gone. As if she lost half of her family. "Why this?"

Nath stayed silent. He slowly moved back as he dropped his eyes down the grass floor. He took some breaths to ease the silence. Then another person walked towards them.

"General!" Henrik yelled, calling Nath's attention. He was dragging a body towards him. The person was wearing red, and it was obvious as to who she belonged to. "Caught a Red Blood Regiment tracker along the forests. A Black Valkyrie soldier was with her, but he escaped."

"So they now know we're here." Nath replied to Henrik. The Red Blood Regiment soldier was shaking. Her body was tied up, and she had nowhere else to escape. This was her first week at joining the Red Blood Regiment. She was just proud of being promoted to corporal. But now, she's here. Quartz Arka was her name, and she was trapped. She could try to fight back and run away, but if she did make the escape, then hundreds, even thousands of crossbows would be pointed at her. She would not want to do something like that.

"How many forces are here?" Nath said.

"I'm not telling you." The girl replied. She obviously wasn't willing to spill anything, but Nath got his answer. Her accent gave it away. The way she pronounced 'not' was more similar to 'notte', and the way she said 'you' was similar to 'yew'.

.

"Your accent's Ravenian. How in the world did you get here that fast?" Nathaniel said. Sensing that he was correct, Quartz widened her eyes and looked down in shame."Looks like she's not gonna talk, boss." Henrik said to Nath. "We should kill her before she escapes."

Nath suddenly looked at Henrik, and Lillith also had her head suddenly shift towards the Senior Operator. "What's going on here?" Valheim suddenly arrived, with a whip full of blood. "I just finished 'negotiating' with the mages. They said that the pyromancers are in the SUV." The Quartermaster slowly swiped the blood off of his whip, and wiped the blood off of his hands by using the red blood tracker's cape as some sort of towel.

"The Ravenian RBR is here." Nath said.

"Is that so?" Valheim replied. Henrik found himself looking down and holding the crossbow pistol pointed against the neck of the tracker. "Well then I guess we're going to have a harder time catching those pyromancers."

"Yeah." Nath said, looking at the crowd of Wizards being executed one by one. "We need to think this carefully."

"Screw that. A tracker's here. We need to strategize and attack now, or they'll prepare for us with bigger numbers." Valheim said, before grabbing Henrik's crossbow pistol and putting it on Nath's hands. He then gestured for him to shoot the girl. "So are you in, or out?" he said.

Nathaniel checked his bolter - a term they call for small crossbows, and looked at it for a bit. He then looked at the girl, whose tears were now dripping through her cheek, and falling down on the grass. She was not making a sound however. God-forbid that his experience with the CSS reminded him about the lesson of not showing weakness to your enemies. Maybe the Red Blood Regiment taught the same principle. When he looked at Henrik however, who was thinking a lot of things, a question suddenly popped off in his head.

"What about you, Henrik?" Nath then said to the Senior Operator. "Seeing that the Ravenians are here, there's a chance you'll be killing your own brother."

Henrik's eyes slowly moved to Nath's. He took a deep inhale, then pushed a lot of air out of his lungs slightly. He looked at Valheim, who had his eyes locked at him through his glasses.

"For Vontur." Henrik said, making Valheim nod, and Nath aimed the crossbow pistol at the girl. "I'm sorry Lillith." Nath said to his lover. But, Lillith's eyes didn't even see the execution that was about to take place. She just covered herself to sleep. It was time to fight anyway. He swore that he heard the girl scream 'NO PLEASE!', but the only thing that he felt at that moment was the recoil coming from the force of the bolter. This was their chance to assert their nation's dominance over Selyria.

-----

"Allying with the furscums?" shouted a noble from afar. "Are you insane!?"

The people in the room started groaning and talking angrily. The Red Blood Regiment officers, and the Black Valkyrie Regiment officers nodded at each other. The Golden Eagle Guards looked at each other in confusion, and Minthe was even a bit shocked about this - although looking back, she should've known this already. Maybe this was Ebony's last wish. She then looked around to stand with Chiron, Kindred, and Kai.

"This is ridiculous!" shouted Colonel Ruben of the White Knights Regiment. "Do you have any idea what they did to this kingdom?? What they did to Durinus?"

"The ones who did that were Ichikari, and Ebony." said Kai.

"And what about Durinus?"

"Takeshina wasn't allied with the clan." Kindred interjected, causing the entire room to fall silent. He then walked in front to the center of the two sides arguing. "You see? The clan is not our enemy." Kindred continued to speak, with each step echoing throughout the hall. He looked at Tharius, who was looking down after he heard his father's name again.

"Our enemy, is the people that stand against peace. And The CSS are now ready to attack Karthus." He finally finished.

The crowd was silent, as if they were thinking on whether or not to agree or disagree. The queen looked at them in a neutral manner, maybe perhaps in a daring way as well. She then looked at General Lynx, who was waiting for her answer. Soon, she spoke.

"Very well then. The council room is just on the right."

The Ravenians and Karthusians then nodded, and proceeded to walk to the council room. Minthe stopped herself for a bit to look at the nobles. All of them were looking at her. Everyone knew that her decision in this council would change the north forever. She stopped, trying to think through her decisions thoroughly. The clan has never gotten this far in pushing for change. She had to be careful.

-----

“WOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!” Captain Char shouted, holding on to the cart.

"Let's go!" Chimera shouted back as a small pebble blocked the path they were in, causing the cart to lose its balance and immediately move to the other side of the road. It then immediately went near the gate entrance of the castle grounds, almost throwing them away. Luckily, Captain Carnor and Oliver were there to stop the cart from continuing any further. However, the cart they were in caused some boxes to fall over, which was full of weapons and armor made of Dwarven Steel. Aida saw this and immediately put both her palms on her head in stress.

“Hey hey hey! Don’t do that that’sfortheGEGyouguysneedtostop!!!” Aida spoke as fast as she could. She was the colonel now, but that also meant that she was the second in command. Everything about this stressed her out so much. The management, talking to people, making sure everyone is orderly, she was not used to this.

A loud whistle erupted behind her, causing her to flinch. The sound revealed itself to be from Commander Leon, holding a brass whistle on his neck. He then looked at Aida and pointed at her whistle, hanging on her neck. “It’s standard issue for officers to have that, you know.” He said.

Aida then put her right palm on her face. He was right. When she looked at the rowdy comrades, they were already doing the RBR 3-finger salute. She knew she was not meant for this role. She was the best archer in the regiment, but that did not mean that she would be a good leader.

“Leon. I’ll be promoting you to Lieutenant. Kindly take care of them while we wait.”

“Aye, ma’am.” Said Leon, who then signaled Gold to walk towards him. The ground thumped slightly, as the sound of metal boots hit the ground. The beats became louder and harder as Gold arrived in the scene. As he saw what happened with Chimera and Char, he stopped. He let out a scoff that was muffled under his helmet. Smoke from his demonic mouth let out, and it made his red eyes glow underneath the veil of darkened wind. He then put out his axe. The squad captain and the sergeant feared the worst. Why was Gold suddenly pulling out his axe? Were they going to be punished? But why the axe?

Gold lowered the axe to the ground, letting the blade fall into the cobblestone floor, letting out a loud thump echoing throughout the scene. Chimera and Char screamed as they thought the worst, putting their hands in front of them to signal Gold to back off. “No! Please!! We’re Sorry!!!”

“Clean this mess. All of you.” Leon said, making the 3 rowdy soldiers fumble and do their best to put back the Dwarven Steel weapons and armor back to their boxes. When the other GEG soldiers came, being led by Commander Pekorra, it was already being finished.