I had originally intended for this to be my first LR story, but since I wanted to wait until my beta could get done with this, I ended up posting Betrayed. So this story will serve as a prequel for Betrayed before I continue it, just to make sense of the Emmy x Rush pairing.

Now this story is Emmy and Rush, but I want to also focus on Irina and her training as that is the second main point. The first is getting Rush and Emmy to get along. As for romance, there will be hardly any due to the shortness of this story. Maybe if I decide to make a sequel…

Enjoy!

Iron Maiden: Prologue

The battlefield was quiet, save for Emmy, struggling to breathe, with only her back pressing up against the wall of the training area of the Heroic Ramparts keeping her from falling on her rump. Beads of sweat trickled down her face, sliding off their home and into the pavement of the ground, mixing with the blood that dripped by her side. Nothing more than a scratch compared to the torture her body and soul had endured. Unimaginable pain barely covered the right description her body was in, but it was close enough. She flinched as the cool winds swept throughout the small arena, stinging the scrapes and cuts on her body.

Picking her head up, she could see the various remains of the monsters she and Rush had slain earlier. Pieces of the Hypnos squads, several different miscellaneous body parts, lay on the ground before her, some even sticking to the wall. It was strange that their bodies didn't fade away like most creatures, but then again, their enemy wasn't like the normal creatures. Her blades were nowhere in sight, most likely underneath the rotting carcasses of the foul beasts she thought.

But the body of the young Rush Sykes had caught her gaze, along with the pool of dark blood around her comrade. Her breath stopped, body frozen in terror. "Rush…" The words slipped from her mouth. She was stunned and horrified, having never experienced a loss such as this. In her short life as a soldier, she had lost many friends, but this one made her heart sink to the dark abyss of her soul.

She pushed herself off the wall, stumbling all while reaching her comrade, taking four bloody steps before she fall on her knees, then onto her stomach. Her hair fell in front of her face, only covering half of it on her right side. She didn't care how bloody or banged up she was in. All she wanted and needed was to get back up and find the people that summoned these Hypnos in the first place; neither Rush or her mother Emma would forgive her for not trying.

Her bloody hand, the same one she had used to cover the gash on her body, dragged her soon to be carcass through the mist of corpses. Fingers crushed against the mushy skin of the demons, clinging to her flesh. She cringed at the rotting smell filling her nostrils, but ignored it, gritting her teeth and focusing on Rush. One final drag lifted her from the ground, struggling to stay up as the weak arm supported.

She finally stopped, all the energy finally drained from her, and fell with a loud and squishy thud on top of the Hypnos. Her hand was only mere inches away from Rush's face, fingers dangling before the boy before fully falling down,

But as her vision began to falter, turning darker and darker by the second, she recalled the events that transpired long before this event…

The sun radiated it light over the denizens of Athlum within the cloud-free sky, its light no longer blocked by the town's remnant, the Valeria Heart. More than six months have passed since that horrific event that took place, when the Conqueror had killed one of the four Generals, Emma Honeywell, and stole the remnant. A serious blow indeed, both physically and emotionally.

But much like their Marquis, they had moved on and learned to live without it; most were actually happy without the sword blocking the sunlight, claiming it made the town appear too dark.

However, despite the smiles on their faces outside of the palace, the inhabitants within the confines, mainly one Emmy Honeywell, daughter of Emma Honeywell, was currently trying to figure out what Lord David had just asked of her.

"Permission to speak freely." She asked. When David nodded, she spoke once more. "With all due respect, Lord David, why do you insist I train Irina Sykes alongside her brother?" The last word left a despicable taste in her mouth.

If Lord David was surprised, he hid it very well behind that smile. He acted like he had no clue as to what Emmy was talking about, but he knew full well what she had meant. The two, Rush and Emmy, never got along so well, even after he had helped her with various personal tasks. He had heard about arguing siblings in stories, and to him, those two seemed like the perfect description.

And he couldn't forget the mess Rush made when he wanted to try his culinary skills. Long story short, he had used forbidden materials by accident, causing one hell of an explosion that made everything within a the confines of the kitchen deaf and covered with some of the hottest stuff known to any species, the two being Emmy, who had stumbled in, and Rush. He would have laughed, had he thought Emmy would laugh rather than try to kill Rush with her bare hands. It took the strength of Baulson and Blocter combined to make sure Rush escaped with minimal injuries.

Despite this horrible, yet hilarious fact, there was still the problem of trying to teach Irina, and he wasn't sure Torgal was up for the task due to his harsh training; David knew firsthand that his training should never be taken lightly, unless that particular person loved to visit the infirmary on a daily basis. Plus, David needed him, Pagus, and Blocter to stay on guard in the event someone would try to steal something from the palace. Though he never thought much of rumors and town gossip, he saw the thief himself sneaking through Athlum, using the darkness of the night as his cloak. Granted, it had been at least a week since then, but the young Marquis could not afford to take that chance, especially with the heirlooms and other valuables they had recently added to the vault, such as the newly acquired remnants. The very last thing he needed was someone like the Conqueror getting more of the relics; the loss of the Valeria Heart was far too great.

But one more fact remained, one that he actually said:

"Irina is Rush's brother, and he was VERY protective of her…and highly reluctant on letting her fight. I doubt he would trust too many people to the task of teaching her how to fight. Torgal has little patience and his training has left more than a few…scars." He hesitated a bit after saying that, flashbacks becoming more vivid as he remembered his training as a young Mitra. "And he was closest to Emma out of all my Generals, and trusted her very much. Because of this, I cannot think of anyone better than you to teach Irina how to properly defend herself."

She nodded, stood up straight, and crossed her right arm over her chest. "Understood, my lord! I will carry out this task." Both of them knew however that behind that salute, she had already begun to resent the idea. Walking out of the throne room with her head held high, she had thought that maybe this wouldn't be too bad. After all, Irina did seem to know how to control her older brother…sort of. Well, at least without having to resort to verbal and forceful threats with a wide variety of weaponry and invocations. Who bad could it possibly be?

…She had no idea the hell she would soon endure.

Is Rush dead? Will Emmy truly go to hell? Will I actually finish this story? Who knows? I will say that this story won't be terribly long since I don't have too many ideas. If anything, it will probably last about another 3-5 chapters. Besides, I'm not writing some novelization or anything, and it's hard to write about these guys since they don't really have too many moments together, or at all.