As the Armada frigate drew closer to the smoldering ruins, Quintia Presidos found herself rather astonished, as the humans would have said, at what was left of the once utopia of the pirates.
The Commander's capability for destruction is no less than that of the "Empire," truly.
Granted, she had stood beside him when he drew up the plans for the Cleansing (as well as several of his newer conquests), but she had not been present when her creator brought down his wrath upon the pirate haven.
He has reduced the island to little more than smoking ruins.
Even from this distance, Quintia could see the smoke that still rose skyward from some part of the island, long since abandoned and nearly impossible to bring back to its former glory. It was fitting, really, after how long the pirates had proved themselves to be thorns in the side of the Supreme Commander and how long they had terrorized the rest of the Spiral.
The secondary captain of the Royal Guards tightened her grip on the shaft of her halberd.
Sometimes, she truly could not say her flawless memory was a blessing. Rather, it felt more like a curse or a spell cast upon some unfortunate victim out of malevolent intent that would somehow bring horrific physical or mental damage (once again thanking her creator within her processor, with his decision to continue upholding the policies the former Supreme Commander had held regarding hoodoo). Even thinking of those criminals brought back the memory of another event, one that was much more recent and much more unpleasant.
It was exactly four months ago, Quintia remembered, when a band of diehards charged directly into Cadiz with intentions of assassinating her Commander and Creator. And they would have succeeded - a possibility she would rather not consider at the moment, not when she had a mission to accomplish - if it was not for the fact Custos Maximus threw himself in between the Commander and the bullet the assassin had fired.
Pain, anger, hate.
Quintia had learned the most intense of the human emotions then and there, with their position being among the least stable of the spectrum. Thankfully, however, she managed to block them in the last moment, preventing them from taking over her like it would have any other type of being.
She remembered exactly how the previous Captain Commander had collapsed into a pool of his own blood after he staggered into the ranks of the Resistance diehards before his entire frame blew up into a thousand fragments as the self destruction program within him kicked into action; all a precaution to keep the frames of terminated clockworks, and therefore, the technologies of Valencia and the Armada from falling into the hands of the enemy.
The enemy, now the remnants of the organization once known as the Resistance.
As Quintia turned away from the side of the ship, her mind went back to the earlier days of conquest. Even after the destruction of the pirate faction and their so called utopia, the Resistance remained stubborn as ever, continuing to thrive in some corners of the Spiral to continue their battle against the might of the Armada.
Those humans are truly strange, insisting on fighting a losing battle even with such little possibility of winning.
She knew their motivations, what drove them on to attempt such impossible endeavors, but she could never understand why they were so willing to fight even in face of such impossible odds.
Turning her halberd into her other hand, Quintia slung the shield she always carried over her back onto her left arm; the Armada ship gradually approaching the ruins of the pirate haven. Even given how unintelligent the humans were, one could never be too careful when fighting against them.
The gangplank of the ship dropped into the solid land, throwing up a small shower of dark sand that would forever be stained from the blood of the countless pirates that had been slaughtered, destroyed by the wrath of the Supreme Commander. Quintia stepped off first, sensing the other officer Sentus Optimus trailing her as she turned her gaze back upon her clockwork crew as they followed her, reforming upon land.
"Keep to formations, lock on destination and prepare for battle."
Her voice echoed through the ruins, bouncing off the charred skeletons of the buildings that were threatening to collapse upon the mounds and mounds of human skeletons that littered the entire segment of this area. Corpses left behind from the Cleansing, no doubt, to rot and stand as an example of what would happen to those who dared to defy the Armada.
Quintia pivoted around, her shield held to her torso and her halberd up; it had taken her processor little more than just a few seconds to calculate the direction they needed to take, and the time it would cost for them to reach their target location and initiate the mission given to them by her creator, the Supreme Commander himself.
Silently, she recalled the multiple files she had seen in the archives of the Armada while she and her soldiers marched toward their destination.
The Knights Templar, commonly referred to as the Templar Order, stands as the nemesis of the Assassin Order with their polar opposite objectives. Unlike the Assassins, the Templars have no hesitation when it comes to disposing of their allies at the very moment that they become useless.
Quintia could feel another emotion stirring up within her - what did the humans call this one? Disgust? Only the worst of humanity would fling their loyal ally away without a second of consideration for what they had done for them.
The sound of bones being crushed and scattered under foot by both herself and her own soldiers brought the captain of the Royal Guards back into reality, just on time to stop right before the door leading directly into the ancient tunnels; precisely the coordinates provided by the Armada spy Militus Secundus.
Quintia held up her shield to halt her troops.
"Advance with care, ready your weapons."
No guards of any sort? This is strange... is this not the location of their headquarters, where their Grand Master is stationed? What kind of leader would allow himself to go without some kind of security protocol?
Despite it being the primary headquarters of the Templar faction (who seemed to have replaced the pirates in being a thorn to the side of the Armada), there was no sign of life anywhere in sight. Even with her acute hearing, toned to be much finer than that of a human, enough to pick up on the heartbeats of any living beings, Quintia found it impossible to pick up even a single trace of possible inhabitants around.
Kicking down the door with a single strike, the captain of the Royal Guards swiftly flung her shield up at the precise moment when the bullet would have otherwise terminated her existence.
I had thought the Templars would not be such easy targets, and it would appear I have been proven correct.
"Fire at will."
With her musketeers protected behind a line of interlocked shields, Quintia advanced forward into the darkness that would have otherwise blinded a human without any visual aide: slamming her shield into the face of one of the Templar sharpshooters who had been too slow to make a getaway from the Royal Guard, following it with a quick stab of her halberd's spear point.
"Destroy their headquarters, terminate any and all who dare to fight, and bring the both of them back to me, alive."
She would do exactly as the Supreme Commander had ordered.
A Templar Brute soldier - the Templar forces' imperfect imitation of the Armada brute clockworks made by dressing a human man within a suit of armor that turns him into a living tank - lumbered toward her, lifting his axe with a grunt and swung it hard; a futile effort, really, for with something that large and cumbersome, it becomes much easier to calculate the path, trajectory of the swing and therefore where the weapon would land and how to counter it -
A window of about twenty seconds after he executed the swing would occur.
Quintia lashed out the very moment she could see the window, the opening, stabbing the Brute directly in the chink that was directly over his throat; a shower of blood dousing the blade of the halberd, the Templar soldier dropping his axe in a feeble attempt to yank the blade out of his throat.
Yanking her halberd back, the Royal Guard captain paid the body no attention as she stepped over it, her vision adjusting to the dim lighting of the tunnel and her armored boots kicking up a small cloud of sand, as she was joined once more by the marine captain Sentus Optimus and the rest of the clockworks that was chosen to attend this mission; his shield and weapon stained with blood just as hers was.
Quintia knew, she knew that she did not have to reiterate the command she had given while she was still on the ship.
To terminate any and all who dared to fight, and capture the masterminds behind all of this.
Continuing their march down the ancient tunnels, Templar soldiers attempted to fling themselves at the wall of marines' shields, several of them impaled easily upon the wall of halberds or shot down by one of the musketeers protected by the square of marines, despite their attempts to protect their fleshly bodies with armor.
All going according plan, this is excellent.
The captain of the Royal Guards and 'daughter' of the Supreme Commander knew what would happen next, exactly -
Based on what could be observed now, they would continue to tear their way into the Templar headquarters, directly into the throne room of the Templar Grand Master Atticus Mercilus, where they would directly engage the Templar, overpowering him before he would be dragged back to Valencia to face justice.
But of course, this was still a subject to change, for humans are unpredictable, which calls for the same kind of unpredictability to fight them.
A single pikeman rushed toward Sentus Optimus - a rather impractical weapon in this kind of enclosed space, the captain thought with what she could name as curiosity, the silent questioning of why they would make such a choice - only to have the marine captain quickly deflect its point with the shield he carried, thrusting out his halberd to chop down on the shaft of the weapon.
The point was severed without any difficulty, from both the sharpness of the captain's weapon and from the velocity of the swing. All it took was a singular bash of the marine's shield into the man's face to send the human into a daze -
Quintia sensed someone fling themselves onto her - a Templar swordsman, almost enough to send her tumbling down before the captain regained her footing; thrusting her shield arm forward with just enough strength to upset the human's balance, then swinging her own weapon in from right to left.
Coils of innards tumbled from his bisected body like the twists of some scarlet snake, landing with a slick noise into the pool of scarlet blood.
HIs body was kicked aside a mere second later, for it was nothing but an obstruction in the path of both Quintia herself and her soldiers in carrying out the will of the Supreme Commander Ulysses -
Second right, first left.
Recalling the instructions given to her, the Captain of the Royal Guards turned down the second branching hallway at the right, then a sharp left turn.
"So I see that Septimus has sent some of his newest toys to me."
The man whose mouth had issued those words was unfamiliar to Quintia, at least until her processor quickly recalled the name that was attached to this face.
Atticus Mercilus.
"Surrender your arms, Atticus Mercilus, and come with us without a fight - perhaps the Supreme Commander will take mercy on you."
The Templar laughed.
"What a naïve clockwork you are, truly, do you think I would give up everything to a pathetic weakling as Ulysses Septimus, after he had already taken the throne of the Grand Master General from me?"
Something flared within her, a feeling akin to a fire burning within her very core -
No one will slander the Supreme Commander.
Quintia Presidos would not permit anyone to talk ill of her creator.
Her slender fingers tightened down on the shaft of her bloodied weapon with enough force that, had she been a real human, her knuckles would have went white with the effort. It took all of her control to keep the emotion from externally displaying itself: holding out her halberd toward Atticus and his group of Templar soldiers.
"Surrender, or prepare to face termination."
"Never."
Atticus drew his sword, a seemingly regular blade marked with the scarlet cross of the Templar, holding it out before him.
"You will have to make me, clockwork."
If you insist so, Mercilus, then you have left me with no other choice.
With a singular wave of her halberd to signal her soldiers to charge, Quintia soon found Mercilus and herself circling each other like a pair of mountain lions preparing to fight for the position of the alpha of a pride.
"You are a naïve little fool who simply was lucky, clockwork, just like your master Septimus."
Metal screeched along metal, when their weapons lashed out, clashing against each other. Sparks flew between sword and halberd, neither giving in, neither relenting to the other's strikes against each other. It was impossible to tell how many minutes had passed as they fought, but soon it begun to feel like eons to the Royal Guard captain, and Atticus had not relented in his strikes. His attacks had begun to become even more ferocious, if that was even possible.
"And like your master, you are weak."
Do not listen, do not listen to his words, you are above him -
Quintia's train of thought was cut short, painfully, by a burning pain in her lower back, and a powerful kick into the center of her spinal column that sent her world spiraling as she was sprawled out onto her front.
"How much more pathetic could you get?"
That voice was the last thing she remembered before a blinding flash of light drained all of her energy, all of her consciousness - and her world went black before her eyes.
And all of hell is now going to break loose. Seriously, I cannot possibly be the only one who saw this coming. But what shall be the fate of Quintia and Sentus Optimus? Oh you can be sure that Atticus has plenty planned in store for both of them.
Reviews make me happy :D
Until next time my dear readers!
-Hades