Courageous, on the outskirts of Heimdallr.
"Full steam ahead! We might just make it in time!"
The chancellor's speech had already begun, if they hurried they might just be able to stop everything from-
His ARCUS rang.
"Tell me you got there in time."
"It's Toval, I'm almost to St. Astraia. Relax, the girls will be safe. No one is around here anyways, everyone is-" Screams echoed through the ARCUS. "...crap, it started. I'll double time it."
"Please do, I'm counting on you."
He hung up, Mueller at his side put a hand on his shoulder. He sighed heavily as Heimdallr came into view far in the distance.
"Were this Liberl, the Bracer Guild would have stopped this already." His mind flashed back to Cassius' face, complete with his moustache. "Rather, it wouldn't have escalated to this in the first place"
"You would probably just call Estelle and hand everything to her."
"Oh Mueller, when you speak the truth in that way you know how I get..." he grabbed the hand on his shoulder and drew a heart on his palm. Mueller recoiled.
"I swear..."
"Well, just relax, it won't do you good to frown so much. Wrinkles and all" He turned back to the front window.
"Sir! Pantagruel in sight!"
"It really is happening. We got played."
"Remember, no firing. We cannot cause civilian casualties."
The man on the radio turned around. "The 1st division is engaged with some sort of new weapon! They can't hold the line!"
Smoke started rising from Heimdallr as the sounds of the battle were now heard clearly. The Pantagruel however was on the far side, past Valflame Palace. They had to catch up to it to stop it from assaulting the city.
"Sir! Multiple contacts."
The Noble Faction's fleet was a nice match to the Courageous. In fact, the whole introducing the ship the public was to make sure that if worst came to worst, the Noble Faction would have to overcommit chasing him down not to be blindsided.
"But even then, this fleet isn't big enough. A mistake, Cayenne..." He pressed a button on the arm rest. "Load up the weapons just in case but remember, only in extreme circumstances."
Mueller went over to the gunner and looked over his shoulder as firing solutions showed up on the screen, in increasing numbers. "All targets in sight"
Olivert got up from his chair. "Engage!"
Prologue
In Full Regalia
Later, Heimdallr sewers.
"I'm terribly sorry, your highness, this is the only Prince Olivert saw fit to take you to safety."
Toval was helping the ladies down the stairs as they pulled on their uniform, afraid of missing a step. They were now probably out of range of the Prince's ARCUS so they could only hear the occasional rumble to take as a hint of how the battle above was going.
"I am going to make sure that he compensates me for this."
Toval laughed a bit, just hoping that he'd be able to stay out of the imperial family's internal matters. Alfin landed on the last step of the sewers with a small pirouette, to his amazement. Elise on the other hand was struggling. She insisted on carrying her fencing sword to be able to help so of course she'd be terribly off balance.
"Ahh!"
A rat crawled over her shoe and panicked back up the stairs screeching.
"I'm terribly sorry, we really do need to move. I can carry you if you wan-"
"That will NOT be necessary" Elise closed her eyes and ran down the last few steps.
Thankfully the sewers were completely empty, as they'd been swept clean by the army in preparation for the speech. A small grace, perhaps. They would be able to get out of the city quickly, maybe even before the battle was over.
The problem would be if the Noble Faction had anticipated this.
"If your intention was surprising everyone, well, you at least got us." Alfin retorted at him, looking at her heeled shoes. "You could have given me time to change into boots or something else."
"Ugh-" He knew where this was going "Your Highness, I barely made it in time to Heimdallr at the express request of your brother, I couldn't actually call St. Astraia and tell them to-"
"Oh I am well aware of that," She snapped her shoes' heels off. "I'll have him write a song about this, about how the hero from Carnelia saved me. Or maybe how a woman saved him again? We shall see."
"I- uh."
Elise took a hint from Alfin and broke her heels off as well, finding a lot more stability. "Perhaps we shouldn't have been trying out shoes for the ceremony today. Definitely a bad idea in hindsight."
An explosion shook dust off the ceiling. Toval had been thinking he'd carry one girl through the sewers to make it faster on them. The presence of a second girl made this impossible.
"Maybe we didn't need to be yanked out of our seats in school."
Sigh. Is this how Ein felt all along about saving me? Did the princess even know how to use an orbment?
"Your highness, be careful with tha-" Elise tried to stop Alfin, but as Toval quickly realized, trying is all both of them could do when dealing with the princess.
A huge blast of water came from her ARCUS pointed up the stairs they'd just come from. Toval looked stunned at her.
"W-was that hydro cannon?"
"A what? My brother gave me an ARCUS unit he had prepared for me a few days ago, told me to tinker about with it." She opened it up and showed him the quartz placement. He actually recognized one of his setups from his early days. "He looked as stunned as you when I juggled the quartz around a bit, I just made it look really nice!"
The water came flooding back down the stairs and almost swept Elise off her feet. "Your highness!"
"Whoops"
Skies over Heimdallr
"Testing, Testing."
His voice, amplified enough to be heard halfway to Crossbell, was soon adjusted to a more reasonable output.
"OK, I think I got it now"
He was quite sure that someone was facepalming behind him.
"Attention, Noble Faction forces. This is Olivert Reise Arnor speaking. You are in direct violation of Erebonian law and can be considered enemies of the state. Please surrender and we can discuss this over some fine tea or wine, whichever you think is better"
The Courageous was flying in circles around Valflame Palace, where the 1st division had set up camp to fight for the city.
"I'll be waiting for your response, but please, no reason we can't be civilized about this." He sipped from a cup of tea that someone handed him a few seconds ago.
"Sir! The enemy fleet has changed course!"
"Sir! Multiple smaller contacts incoming!"
A couple of more reports which would be worrying to anyone but him came in. The big screen came down from the right and faced him with a face he knew all too well. Captain Claire of the RMP. She had some concerns to share about the grand plan, and something to say about the enemy's new weapons, but he wasn't worried.
"Thank you, Captain."
"But your Highn-" the screen turned to static.
That was not the person that had to answer the call, he would have to be more blatant about it.
"Cayenne, Cayenne. Can you hear me? I guess you can." Mueller turned around wide eyed "Just what do you hope to achieve? You already shot the chancellor, funded terrorism and are basically invading your capital. Surely people will see that you're not really a better alter-"
The screen turned on and showed the tacky Duke's face.
"Surely, you, the noble prince, do not believe that the chancellor was a man worthy of holding the future of-"
"What I think or thought of the chancellor has no bearing on the situation at hand, Duke. You are in no position to put yourself above him. You're just as bad as him."
"Oh? And what does that make you?"
"A third option."
"Hah! I'll enjoy swatting your loveboat out of the sky." He nodded off camera. "Then you'll be my prisoner, along with the entire royal family." The screen flashed into static and turned off.
"Sir! Incoming!"
"And so, the stage is set. Let the opening act to this great-"
An explosion shook him back to his seat, as he was bowing to an unseen audience.
"Engaging!" The helmsman took that as an order and the ship tilted aft, as the engines turned from humming to roaring in a flash. The distance was closed in a few seconds, to the first destroyer to the flank of the noble formation.
They had rehearsed all their maneuvers since the day they'd presented the Crimson Wings to the nation. The guns to the sides of the destroyer didn't even have time to move before the Courageous had a kill shot.
"Fire!"
The ship shook violently as a thunderous explosion rocked the sky. Hundreds of rose petals showered the enemy ship as Mueller turned around and slowly climbed the stairs to the captain's chair.
"You are now dead." Olivert spoke into the microphone, as it once again resonated to the outside. Of course, the entire enemy fleet wasted no time in turning to adjust to the sudden movements of the Courageous, but since it happened so fast no shots could be fired yet.
The -now covered in rose petals- destroyer also turned, painfully slow, to face the Crimson Wings. "Engage at will!" Olivert let the helmsman have fun and got up to meet with Mueller. "See what I did to that ship? I want to make that my lovebo-"
Mueller punched him in the stomach as the monitor once again glided down to meet an absent captain's chair.
"Prince? Your Highness? I'm halfway through the sewers, Princess Alfin and Schwarzer's sister in tow" His breath was a bit ragged. Alfin jumped into the conversation, saying something about him being a gentleman and carrying her piggyback.
Olivert crawled back into the chair, making as serious a face as possible. "Alfin, I'm glad to see you're OK."
"You'll have to make sure I can defend myself next time something like this happens, my ARCUS alone won't do it. Or, you could also arrange for Rean to be my personal bodyguard!" Olivert heard Elise retorting on the background.
Toval had to put Alfin down as some monsters appeared, but as he made quick work of them, Alfin took the ARCUS. "Have you heard from Cedric?"
"No, I've been trying to find him, but I was kind of hoping you knew. I know they won't hurt him if they do capture him, but I'm hoping to save everyone the problem of having to send Class VII to rescue him later"
"Or maybe even that Schera you met in Liberl, or Estelle."
He laughed. "You know, that's not a bad idea at all. I'll see what I can do. In the meantime, tell Toval that I should have someone pick him up at the cemetery's exit, once you make it out of the sewers."
"Got it."
"Take care, Alfin. Tell that to Elise as well."
During that conversation, the Courageous had made short work of the noble alliance's navy. Pretty much every ship was now coated in red petals, except for the flagship, which, of course, he saved for last. Cherry of the pie if you will.
"Attention, Pantagruel. This has been a noble performance by your entire fleet. I feel like you may have almost managed to point your guns in the right direction once or twice, but I suggest that you pull back from this airspace."
"Whoa there, a little too hasty, aren't we?" An azure, flying, soldat landed on the tip of the Courageous.
"EVASIVE MANOUVERS, NOW!" Olivert's shout immediately prompted the ship to blast full speed and knock the Divine Knight off the deck. Of course, it was also caught by surprise and, despite trying, just couldn't hang on to the railing so he fell off to the side. The ship turned around but Ordine was once again in sight, just floating there.
"If you want a serious fight, I'm all for it." A double saber was pointed in the general direction of the ship. "I've been itching for a fight with this for a while, the ILF kept me busy after all…"
"Why are you doing this?"
"Why do you care? Just stay out of Heimdallr until we're finished with it and let us put the royal family back as a token piece of Erebonia at the top and we'll be fine. Until then, just fly around and do what you-" The conversation was cut from the other side and Ordine stopped moving for a few seconds.
The smoke rising from Heimdallr was only getting worse, and now the noble faction's fleet was facing him. He wouldn't be lucky a second time, damage was almost certain this time, and more so with the divine knight around. May-
"Sir! Should we engage?"
He looked back to where Ordine was. That's right, was. All they caught was his miniscule silhouette in the distance, heading East.
"The enemy knight is heading to Trista, sir!" came another shout from his officers.
"Flank speed! Do not lose sight of him!"
"Aye!"
As he'd learned from the Arseille, way back in the Liberl incident, flank speed meant he had to grab something or sit down. As the ship started gaining speed, so did the enemy fleet which moved to cut them off. Sadly, this time, they would actually manage to get in his way, not just stare at him dumbfounded.
"Stop!"
The ship drifted to the right as it reduced its speed. The entirety of the Pantagruel was now blocking his way to Trista. They knew he wanted the Divine Knight all along? An almost literal wall of ships was blocking his way through. They'd have to force their way through.
"Get me Captain Claire Rieveldt" A few seconds later her image popped up on the screen.
Streets of East Heimdallr
It had been about half an hour since they shot the chancellor. And it was her failure. She could have stopped it if she'd paid closer attention. She had been acting on inertia ever since then but after a couple of small breaks her mind wandered off into what ifs. Nothing useful, to her or the crew.
"No, aim upwards! To their cockpits!"
She was in a trance, couldn't really understand what she was saying. Nor did she really care, at all. They'd killed him, her mentor, the person she swore to prot-
"Get down!"
One of her subordinates slammed her out of the way as a Soldat collapsed into the RMP line. That was the 4th one they'd stopped since the attack started. Heimdallr was under attack, not by Liberl, not by Calvard, not by any of the enemies of the state she actually thought could do something like this, but by fellow erebonians.
She slapped herself in the face after getting back up. Her soldiers were dragging a pilot out of the unit and into one of the RMP trucks for arrest, taking care to politely bounce his head off the car's roof in the process.
Mourning can wait, right now she was needed here. Lechter was stuck in Crossbell, Millium was in Trista and now that Osborne was dead, and she had to do something to avenge him. She always had free reign over what she could do but for the first time in a long time she felt abandoned, she...
"Captain! We need you here, right now!" The same one that slammed her came back to her and grabbed her by the shoulders, yelling in her face. "You're leaving us for dead!"
"N-no, I..."
She looked to the side avoiding him and saw the makeshift medical truck skidding off, full speed to the rear, full of injured RMP personnel. A few lay on the floor or leaned to the walls of buildings, hurting or being taken care of by other soldiers. Only about ¼ of the RMP in Heimdallr remained fit for combat. Those that could she could gather when the fighting started, at least.
Her ARCUS had been ringing nonstop, now that she thought about it.
"Oh, thank Aidios I got through. Captain I need you to extract a VIP from the cemetery on the outskirts of Heimdallr."
"Your highness?"
"Make it quick, they are almost there!"
He hung up just like that. This time, a metaphorical slap to the face. She was abandoning people by not being here, exposing them to the same pain she was facing. This cannot continue.
She briskly made her way to the trunk of the makeshift RMP command vehicle, which was literally a car with the trunk open from where to hang a map and draw lines on. "Do we have word on the 1st division?"
"Unknown, Captain. They might even have it worse than we do."
"They'll pull their own. Have we contacted anyone else from the RMP?"
"Negative, either they were routed or captured."
"Show me."
The map of Heimdallr didn't do much for her. All she could actually understand was that they were losing ground, constantly. That was to be expected, however. A surprise attack on any capital would catch even the military off guard.
So far they'd been fighting along a huge front, if they centralized the enemy attacks on one position their soldats would be neutralized. Claire started drawing an escape plan for the RMP stuck with her, marking with lines and arrows where they should be turning once they actually got there.
"This is the way we'll be retreating."
"Retreat?"
She looked around and raised an eyebrow. Basically, telling him tell him if he had a better idea, to share it. "We'll deploy along this street and make a corridor for our vehicles to run through as fast as possible. After that is done the front line will redeploy backwards slowly, making sure to leave no one behind. If this is a war, it's not going to be lost today."
She grabbed her pistol and holstered it, dismissing everyone and got into one of the cars.
"Where are you going, Captain?"
"East exit."
"But you just told us to retreat west?"
"Exactly."
She floored the gas as the tires skidded just enough for the car to spin around. She went through a tiny hole in the barricade, next to the smoldering remains of a soldat.
Heimdallr Cemetery
"Rebellion Storm!"
The ground shook as the soldat crashed down, luckily not breaking any tombstones.
"You girls OK?"
Alfin spun around "Why yes, handsome knight. Come to save us, have thou?"
"I'll take that as a yes." They walked outside and almost got to the road before they spotted another soldat coming at them from the city. The remains of the previous two ones that he'd wrecked earlier a grim reminder that the battle in the city was not going favorably.
He flipped his ARCUS in the air, trying to look cool in front of the royal princess, only for it to drop to the floor, earning a giggle from both girls. However, that helped him. He noticed the battle orbment was almost out of charge. Not good, without arts he was a fish out of the water.
The soldat was sliding through the ground making its way towards them, looking more than a bit silly in the process as it put its body's weight forward to gain more speed. Obvious design flaws which could be exploited aside, their sword was no joke.
If the prince was correct, he should have some sort of backup here to take him elsewhere, but nothing was in sight.
"ARCUS, Activate!" blue light started emitting from his orbment as it started vibrating.
Out of the corner of his eye he saw Elise and the princess trying to stay out of sight, figuring it was better to not have him running trying to save them, as the last couple of soldat fights had gone. Despite him making quick work of them, Elise actually had to deflect a couple of blows with her sword. For such a small girl she pulled more weight than she probably should.
Then again, the princess had cast some weird spell on her sword, which made it glow and repel the blast from the soldat's weapon. Slowly walking backwards was enough to avoid the slow, telegraphed blows from the soldat unit, and the one piloting this machine was not really the smartest guy either.
It tried burying him with a huge swing down into the ground which just managed to trap the sword into the dirt, meaning he just had to walk to its back and hit it with arts until it fell on top of the sword itself. The guy inside it probably wouldn't be able to get out until help arrived, which was even better.
It was only when he turned around that he realized that taking it easy was maybe the best thing he'd done today. Two more soldats came out, one was different from the others, extremely more agile it seemed. He looked at his orbment but it was pretty much gone. "Shit."
Seeing the predicament he was in, both girls jumped out, ready to buy him time to recharge the orbment. But two soldats?
"Just recharge that thing!"
"Yes sir, princess."
Elise stood at the front, putting her sword up, Alfin a few meters behind her. A few words of encouragement from the blonde princess, before the soldat got into position was all they could do to reassure themselves. Hesitant, she ran forward, only to have to backflip out of a huge swing that would have murdered her right there and then.
The soldat had not expected this, as he swung really wide and had to readjust to find the girl, but she was running towards him and pierced one of its legs with a strike, or at least she thought she did. She found herself bouncing off, after the blade sparked and glanced off. She jumped and tried landing a hit from the air, giving more momentum, but nothing actually went through.
A huge swing came at her horizontally, one which she blocked just barely in midair, sending her blasting back to Alfin. Still on her feet but disoriented for a second, she reacted in a split second to Alfin's voice, warning her of another attack, a vertical one this time. This time, the sword didn't get stuck on the dirt, and it quickly turned into a low blow after the initial miss. She jumped
Off her balance after landing, a third blocked strike finally knocked her off her feet and slammed into Alfin.
"Now it's my turn" He'd recharged his ARCUS in record time after all. It was only now that he realized why the other unit had not attacked them. It was being circled by an RMP car which was narrowly dodging its swings.
One problem at a time. A few quick arts allowed him to cross the small distance in the blink of an eye, and he had no problem disabling the entire unit just using his baton to hit a few exposed joints on the armor on the legs, meaning it toppled over no problem at all.
Now for the oth-
He jumped, narrowly dodging a swing, a really fast one from the obviously speedier unit. He did not dodge the punch that came after it. Gasping for air, he got halfway up before the girls tried helping him up.
"Is... that blood?" A concerned Alfin tried to wipe it off with her dress, as Elise once again stood up front. Her blade was once again glowing red, meaning that she would be able to deflect the weapon.
The soldat ran forward as Elise waited until the last second to raise her blade over her head. The weapon recoiled, sending the massive attacker backwards. Elise crouched as Alfin shot an art over her head. A huge beam of water gushed from the orbment, all the way to its legs.
At that moment, a huge shard of ice fell on top of the water stream, freezing it instantly, along with the legs of the now immobile unit. However, it noticed where that new attack came from, and swung the sword sideways to the blue haired attacker. She saw it and ran towards it, somehow jumping on top of the blade as it swung. Running along the blade, she got into point blank range and shot the soldat's hand multiple times, as it tried dislodging the blade from the tree it stuck into.
The hand gave in, and the sword would remain stuck. One less problem. Too bad the ice broke with that as well. Without a weapon, the soldat was at a disadvantage. It was looking at the 3 sides where the attacks where coming from and correctly recognized the weakest link. It went for Elise and tried to hammer her down with its fists. She rolled to the side, avoiding the crushing blow effortlessly. Alfin meanwhile finished casting something that lit some runes below the giant enemy and it sent it flying a few meters into the air.
"Mirror devices, activate!"
Small pocket mirrors flew around the assaulter, as the RMP Captain shot one of them with her rifle, somehow calculating the place for the reflection to always point to another mirror, amplifying the strength of a normal shot.
Toval, now completely recovered, helped himself into the air by jumping from the RMP car's roof, landing on the chest of the airborne soldat with his baton, art strengthened, to push it down into the ground with a final, earth shaking thud.
Trails from Class VII