Author's note: my inspirations for this work stemmed from Shakespeare's play "The Tempest". The plot of it was about Prospero - rightful Duke of Milan, was betrayed by his jealous brother Antonio (aided by Alonso, king of the Naples), who seized his position and fortunes, then set him adrift on the sea on a boat to die. Prospero and his 3 years old daughter Miranda later were stranded on a small island. There, Prospero learned sorcery from books. 12 years later, coincidentally the ship carried his brother Antonio and king Alonso were passing by near the island where Prospero had been stranded on. Knowing that, Prospero conjured the titular tempest by his magic with the help of Ariel - a spirit, making the people on the ship thought they were shipwrecked and stranded on the island. On the island, Prospero sought to punish the ones who betrayed him.
At the end of the play, he could finally go home, his position restored, his daughter Miranda married to Ferdinand...
So yeah, I expect Elsword story would as least have a happy ending like that play: "Prospero" would take back his dukedom after having punished the ones who betrayed him, leaving him to die and stranded on the island for years.
(Title was also a reference to Churchchill's speech "We shall fight on the beach" in 1940
...we shall prove ourselves once again able to defend our Island home, to ride out the storm of war, and to outlive the menace of tyranny, if necessary for years, if necessary alone...)
Altera island. The lonely, massive and ancient artificial island floating in midair, high above the surface of the sea beneath it. Unbeknown to the people of Elrios, there were conflicts on the island, between two different races: the Ponggos - a race of humanoid moles, and the Nasod, a robotic race, which both inhabited the island. Many Ponggos were technological and engineering savants, but they were near defenseless before the Nasods. The Ponggos didn't want war, they were living peacefully, but leader of the Nasods, King Nasod didn't want to coexist with them.
King Nasod launched attacks after attacks to exterminate the Ponggos and achieved sweeping victories, who were caught by surprise and had to retreat. They ran away from the emotionless and pitiless machines who followed orders to the letter, indiscriminately attacking anything that could move. They ran to the far side of the island, trying to survive the ethnic cleansing campaign instigated by King Nasod. Then the intensity of attacks waned, and the Ponggos could have an easier time surviving and carving out a living after their near-extinction experiences.
Unbeknown to the Ponggos, many Nasods sent by King Nasod were being infected with Alterasia spores, which made them malfunctioned, and some even turning against other Nasods. The Nasods had to switch from offensive to defensive stance, forming a Cordon sanitaire* line to ward off the infected Nasods. Even the long deceased Nasods in the Nasod graveyard and underground were re-animated by the fearsome Alterasia spores and instinctively spreading to the newly-built Nasods who were not infected yet.
But since the Nasods were susceptible to the spores, the Cordon sanitaire line must be supplemented by the personnel who were not Nasods. Many who maintained the line and containing the further spreading of Alterasia spores were brainwashed and augmented humans belonged to the human auxiliary privateering force employed by King Nasod, the Black Crow.
The Black Crow, also known as the meritorious service, having many roles. They helped combating Alterasia spores and the infected Nasods, patrolling the border of Altera island as the first line of defense against invaders from outside the island, at times taking part in plundering for materials and sought for energy then passing what they could get their hands on to King Nasod. However they were mistrusted by the Nasods, as no human were allowed to travelling deep to the center of the island and Altera Core.
Weekly, the Black Crow force would collect the tithes from the Ponggos, who were allowed to keep their lives, but under conditions which including forbidding them from ever leaving the island, and paying tithes in terms of products and food which they manufactured. It was not like King Nasod hesitated to kill off the remaining Ponggos, however the leader of Black Crow, a man named Raven, managed to convince King Nasod to spare them, as the Ponggos could serve as excellent outsource workers to provide products for King Nasod and food for the Black Crow members.
Raven used to serve as military officer for humans, he knew that the main aim of war were disarming the enemies and dismantling their armed forces. Most of the times it was unnecessary to exterminate the civilians and non-combatants who posed little threat to the armed forces, and they could be convinced or coerced to provide what the military needed to survive.
Beside, Raven wanted to avoid killings whenever he could, even though technically he was under mind control by King Nasod and wouldn't be able to decline a direct order. However so long as Raven could get the job done, King Nasod wouldn't care if he executed the order through violence or other non-violence means, and Raven knew to exploit the loopholes from King Nasod's orders to avoid shedding blood and refrained from committing unnecessary collateral damage, especially toward non-combatants.
One day Raven and Black Crow were collecting tithes from the Ponggos. The Ponggos brought the products to the surface for the Black Crow force to collect as they didn't want anyone siding with the Nasods travelling to their underground settlement.
_ Adel, there are not enough of what we said we needed. The quota is 200 cogwheels, but only 157 of them are here, and you also don't achieve the quotas for steel beams, motors, batteries…
Adel, the leader of Ponggos answered while trembling:
_ Sir, we tried our best to produce them, but King Nasod's demands kept increasing nearly every week and we simply couldn't satisfy his demands, pong. Not counting the extra expenses and manpower, we couldn't create many new production machines or replacing the broken ones, to manufacture the extra amount of products he demanded pong, because many machine parts and resources which could have been used to assemble the machines which producing products were already used to pay for the tithes pong!
_You're telling me you can't satisfy our demands? I think we will need to travel to your underground settlement in person and examining by ourselves your situations, who know, maybe you are hoarding resources and products to create weapons and using them against us.
Raven spoke with a threatening tone, which made Adel the Ponggo frantically begging him not to:
_ No sir, I swear Pong. We have never plotted behind your back, and will never be. Just please don't, we can't let you enter there. Please sir, take these and I promise next week we will pay you both the amount we owe you this week plus the tithe of next week, pong!
_ Are you sure that you would be able to pay the debt next week plus the tithe of that own week? Because here's the new quota for the next week tithe… Hey, are you okay?
Raven was saying while extracting a paper from his pant's pocket, with the contents on the paper determining the new quota for next week and intended to read it out loud for the Ponggos, but Adel dramatically lamented "Holyyy poooong!", fainted and felling down to the ground. Some Ponggos tried to wake Adel up while some others were on their knees and begging for Raven and the Black Crow to lower the quota.
_ This was decided by King Nasod, I am merely the one who carrying out the order, so it's useless to beg me…
Ironically it was such a funny scene which normally people could expect to witness when watching comedy plays, but no Black Crow member felt it was comical even though normally they should, because they were under mind control of King Nasod and couldn't even think as a normal person, much less humour.
Suddenly a Black Crow crew member ran toward Raven while calling for him:
_ Captain! Alert!
He ran to Raven and spoke to his ears in caution that the Ponggos might overhear them:
_ Our radar has caught an unidentified signal! Cabbage crate coming over the Briny!**
It was a code name of situation C, signalling situations in which one or more unidentified flying airship was about to enter the sky above Altera island. Raven dismissed the Ponggos and, together with other Black Crow who were with him when they were collecting stuffs from the Ponggos, rushed to board his airship The Black Crow. There were other airships which Raven could mobilize, but they were not ready to launch, and according to the Black Crow member who reported to him, there was only one dot on the radar, so Raven figured with just The Black Crow alone would be already sufficient.
_ Starting the engines! Take us off as soon as it is ready!
The Black Crow steadily took off. Raven looked at the ship's radar and could see the dot was clearly heading straight toward Altera island.
_ Black Crow, all ahead full!
Raven ordered the Black Crow crew to accelerate to full speed to intercept their target. The Black Crow's engines roaring more loudly and they reached top speed soon after. After having already getting near the unidentified airship, looking at it through his binoculars, Raven could identify it as a Cargo Airship class flying vessel.
Suddenly Raven heard the voice, the voice of King Nasod feeding him information and commanding him through their wireless neural link, which connected Raven and King Nasod himself:
_ Subject 137. Board that ship, find Wally and get me the El Stone from him...
Raven was seeing a mental image which showing Wally's face, which was data from King Nasod projected straight into his brain, and various other detailed instructions for his subsequent boarding actions.
_ Black Crow, prepare our harpoons. Ready to shoot and latch them onto that Cargo Airship!
Raven ordered the Black Crow crews to prepare for the first phase of their boarding action. Then, determined it was time, he shouted the next order:
_ Quick! Launch the harpoons!
The harpoons were launched, hit the target and they latched onto the Cargo Airship after the harpoons had breached through the metal hulls. The Cargo Airship was connected with The Black Crow, and it wouldn't be able to break away so long as the harpoons were attached to it. Then Raven pointed at one Black Crow crew and gave the next order:
_ Igor! Throw the switch!
The Black Crow was slowly retracting the chains connected to the harpoons and resulted in the Cargo Airship being pulled toward The Black Crow. After the two flying vessels were as close as safety allowed, Raven and the boarding team began to descend onto the upper deck of Cargo Airship. They saw two kids, one with purple hair and one with red hair, and two adults. They were already in the middle of combating a big and bulky metal robot even before the Black Crow crews arrived.
Raven ordered the Black Crow to stand by and watch. The robot was destroyed by the team mentioned above and a smaller robot leaped out from inside the bigger robot. No, it was more like a exo-suit…
Then Raven could hear the red haired boy shouted:
_ Wally, give us back the Ruben El or else!
Raven could deduce the one before him was the Wally who King Nasod previously mentioned as their target, and according to what the boy said Wally really had the El Stone with him.
Raven ordered the Black Crow soldiers to charge together with him. The Black Crow crews opened fire with their small arms, but Raven ordered them to intentionally not aiming right at the kids and the adults fought against the robots from before. The group of four was shocked and the first thing they did were running to find a place to hide from the bullets ricocheting near them. The Black Crow soldiers intentionally missed their targets. Raven didn't feel like killing the ones who took down the giant robot so the Black Crow wouldn't need to combat it themselves. They were also shooting volleys after volleys of small arms to pin the aforementioned group of four down and they weren't able to leave their covers.
After that, Raven got the El Stone and leaving Wally to his fate. He retreated to The Black Crow, ordering the Black Crow soldiers to cease firing suppressing volleys and retreating with him. Then Raven received the next command from King Nasod: sink the Cargo Airship.
Raven carried out the order, detached the Black Crow from the Cargo Airship, flying a distance from it and ordered:
_ Rotate 15 degrees to the left. Lock the target, aiming at its engines and lower hull portions… done! Load the missiles! Ready to fire at my command!
Raven extended his left hand forward – the signal for firing the weapons, and shouted:
_ Open fire!
The missiles were launched from The Black Crow, fast flying toward the Cargo Airship. They crashed at the Cargo Airship and exploded in huge explosions.
_ Sir, our launched missiles achieved 90 percent in term of precision. The enemy's ship is down.
Hearing the report amidst the sounds of explosions and seeing the airship was crash landing while bursting into flames and releasing columns of black smokes, Raven ordered the Black Crow to leave. He needed to deliver the El Stone to King Nasod immediately.
Notes:
*Cordon sanitaire: French for "sanitary cordon". A term in real life used to denote a barrier to stop the spread of infectious diseases.
**Cabbage crate coming over the Briny: A reference to Monty Python RAF Banter, used by the RAF pilots in the episode when alerting of German bombers crossing the English channel to perform air raids on the Great Britain island in World War 2.