Chapter 14

So here we are again! I…have no comments.

Blade felt a bit of a jerk and woke up. The first being Blade saw was Sword, the one person she would have preferred to be dead by now. Monster, that's all you are.

"Oh my, I didn't think you would have fallen asleep on the way here. Then again, that was a bit to my advantage since now you don't know the way back."

Blade turned to Galacta Knight as he was talking, not sure if he was being friendly, or just warning her. He looked at her, released her from his grasp, and yelled out, "Axe Knight! Come here and escort the young lady to her room!"

"I'm surprise Galacta Knight; I figured you would have me in a cell of some kind to ensure that I won't escape", Blade commented.

Galacta Knight laughed and replied, "On the contrary, you not a big enough threat to be put in a cell."

Blade scowled at his reply, and crossed her arms. Great insult, Galacta. He is definitely Sword's dad. Pretty soon the little bandit came up and looked up to Blade. He had a Viking helmet on with horns and spike vertical streak on top. The front facial part looks like a skull. This helmet covered almost his entire body, leaving out the purple steel feet and gloved hands. He was tiny with small red eyes that glowed with mischievous intentions. He carried an axe in his right hand that was almost as big as he was.

"Hi! I'm Axe Knight! Come along with me!" he said with a high pitch voice and he took off for the entrance of what could have been their base, which at first look it could have been a normal cave with a door. Blade looked to Galacta Knight, then Sword Knight, and ran up to meet up with the little guy. Axe opened the door and led her inside.

When Blade looked in, it looked like many holes in the walls of the cave were made into rooms. The biggest one was probably the middle of the cave, with a fire in the center, a table with some cushions near it for seats, and some bean bags. Axe Knight started going up a slope that was near the cave entrance. Blade followed him and noticed that the slope circled the cave in a spiral motion. Not far from the bottom was a cave room with the big bandit that stole the tablet, sitting outside like a security guard. Axe went in the room, and Blade followed him.

In the room, there was a small handmade bed at the back with sheets and a pillow. The bed itself had curtains surrounding it for privacy. There was a broken mirror on one side of the room and a clothes line at the other. "Sorry for the lack of stuff. We had very little time to set up camp" said Axe Knight. Blade looked at him and nodded in understanding. Then she looked at the entrance of the door where the big guy was.

He was much bigger than Sword and perhaps has more muscle. He wore purple armor on his chest and shoulders. This armor had yellow markings on it as well. His helmet was purpled with three bumps raised from it. The visor part was dark, like sun glasses. He had a big mace that was almost the size of Axe Knight beside of him. He was looking away at the moment, like he was staring down the spiral slope.

"Who is the one guarding my room" Blade said with a harsh tone to it.

"Oh! That's my big brother Mace Knight! Come on over here and say hi Mace!"

"I don't think it is a good idea, little brother. I don't think she likes me, little brother."

Blade was rather surprised at the voice that came from the doorway. Instead of a gruff tone with hatred in his voice, it was rather slow and unsure. He sounds almost like a child with a deep voice. I figure he would be like Sword and Galacta Knight.

Slowly, she crept to the entrance of the room and peek her head out. Mace looked over to her unexpectedly and was scared half to death. "Aaahhh!" he screamed and fell out of his chair. He then started sliding back and shivered, only to realize it was Blade. He is a child! Rather jumpy at that too.

Feeling guilty, she helped up him from the floor and set his chair back up. He was surprised at this and said, "Hey, I am supposed to help you. You can't help me, because I have to help you." Wow, didn't expect that from him either.

"Well, I'm going see what Kn-kni needs. I'll be back to play with you in a little bit!" Axe Knight said, and in an instance he leaped away down the slope. Mace nodded afterwards and looked over to Blade and asked, "Do you want to play go fish?"

Blade was a little unsure about his request but nodded her head anyway.

Sword looked directly into Blade's eyes before she went to follow Axe Knight. When they disappeared into the cave, he heard Kn-kni whistle. He looked over to Kn-kni, who shook his head over to a direction and flew off to an area nearby where he showed. Sounds like Kn-kni wants to talk with me about something…alone.

Sword ran to the area where Kn-kni was waiting at, all ready to hear about what Kn-kni had to say. Instead, it turned out to be an interesting question for Sword. "What do you think about Blade?" This took Sword off his guard a bit, since he never hears anything about that subject from Kn-kni.

"I'm not sure what you mean by that"

"It's simple really. Back at the…horrible prison, Blade mentioned that she thought you cared. Did something happen that I am not aware of?"

"Obviously it is not of anyone's concern. I just got close to her, just like you said for me too."

"Yes, I did say that. However, I assumed you were going to be nearby. From the way it sounds, I bet it was more than just from what I heard."

"I assure you, nothing else happened."

"That wasn't what I was asking."

Sword straightened up when he heard Kn-kni say that. Where is he going with this conversation? "I'm not sure what you mean, Kn-kni."

"I am just curious about what happened. Can't your old man hear about your travel to an enemy ship and secret reports you heard while there?"

"Then what were you insinuating with your first question?"

Kn-kni looked toward the mid-noon sun but not directly. It was like he was examining the landscape in front of him. His eyes gleamed brightly while he looked at it; perhaps maybe he enjoyed looking at it. Sword felt like Kn-kni was simply avoiding his question.

Kn-kni eventually spoke up in a calming voice, "I just want to know if you were her friend. That's all."

"I don't think so. Besides, I don't think it matters now."

"If you don't think so… then why does she feel so betrayed?"

Sword really didn't think about that till that was said. He did knew that Blade acted very cross with him, due to the circumstances, but he never thought that she felt that way with him. Was it truly betrayal that she felt? How odd, considering that I made myself look bad in front of everybody on the Golden Angel… and yet…

"Kn-kni!" yelled Axe Knight nearby. Kn-kni and Sword looked to where the voice echoed from. Kn-kni turned to Sword and said, "It would be for the best if you tried to apologize to your friend." After he said that Kn-kni took off from the ground and flew to where Axe's voice was. Sword was left there with his thoughts and his confusion.

Blade found herself waking from her slumber. She looked around her and remembered what happened at Clock Tower. She sat up and rubbed her eyes. Blade felt a bit dizzy from waking up but for some reason she did not feel sleepy anymore. Maybe it is because my time table is off.

She got out of bed and walked to the entrance of her room. Peeking outside, she noticed that nobody was guarding her room. Blade shrugged and headed to the ice box. Going down the slope without losing her footing, she manages to hit level ground at the bottom and goes to the middle of the cave.

Apparently, there was more than just furniture in the room at first glance. When you looked around the rocks, there was a big container of dry goods and a medium sized ice box. There was also silverware, paper plates and cups, traveling equipment, and other random necessities.

She got to the ice box and carefully opened it. She took out a bottle of water and shut the door quickly and securely, so that the items within the box stayed cold. Right after that, a familiar voice startled her and almost made her drop her water bottle.

"So, we have a thief on our hands" Sword Knight said although from the tone of his voice he was lighthearted. However, Blade ignored his comment and walked past him to one of the bean bags. She sat down, however he pulls another bean bag up to hers and sat in it. She was not happy about this.

"What do you want with me?" Blade asked angrily.

Sword paused, as if he was hesitating, and then started saying, "Look, I know that you are pretty upset with me-"

"Duh, genius!"

"-And I did some things that you may not be happy with-"

"You are just figuring that out now?"

"Let me finish! As I was saying, I made some…mistakes…so…I wanted to…say that I was sorry! There! Happy?"

"Nope"

"What?!"

"Just because you said sorry that doesn't mean that you actually meant it. You are a child if you think that apologizing is going to solve everything" Blade said before opening her water bottle and gulping down about half of the bottle. This frustrated Sword badly since he jump out of the bean bag quickly and started walking around to cool himself down. Having a temper tantrum Sword? Good!

"Listen, I didn't have to say anything to you! So you should be grateful that I said sorry in the first!" Sword said, while pointing at her in an accusing manner.

"I know, but saying sorry doesn't help anything! Especially when you don't even mean it!"

"But I do!" There was silence after Sword's reply, mostly because neither one of them had anticipated that response from Sword. It was rather awkward, perhaps even tense in the cave room. Blade looked away from Sword and return to drinking her water. There was some shuffling beside her and when she turned, Sword was already in a bean bag beside her. He didn't look at her directly, but he spoke to her like they were having a face –to –face conversation.

"I do regret having to betray you. I know that I hurt your feelings when I showed my true colors. It took a while for me to figure it out because I didn't realize that you were my friend."

Blade felt touched by what he said, mostly because what she was hearing was probably the real Sword instead of the bad guy that he plays. This is really Sword talking to me. This is the one that saved me from Chili Dog, and the Rock Golem. I'm so glad that it wasn't my imagination to begin with.

"I really don't know what else to say Blade. I wish there was some way that you could forgive me" Sword said, this time raising his head so that his eyes meet with hers. Blade felt sympathy in her heart and found that she could not say no. But these questions need to be answered.

"I will forgive you, but there are some things that I need to know."

Sword perked up when he heard this and stood straight up in proper posture. "Okay Blade, I'll answer as many as I can."

"Alright then, first off who is Galacta Knight and these other knights?"

"That's easy. Kn-kni is the leader, as you may have guess already. But he did something that no one else would have done to us. He adopted us, gave us a home, and actually loved us. He even named us, because we couldn't bear our original names any longer. Sure, he comes out as being sly and evil, but he had a hard past. I don't know about it much since he never tells us. But I can tell by the way he handles situations."

Blade nodded in understanding. She could tell that Galacta Knight must have had a rough path to obtain his power, but she never thought that he was kind and loving.

"As for the others you call knights, they are my siblings. We were adopted separately, each of us from a different situation. You've met Axe and Mace already; however there are two other ones. Their names are Trident and Javelin. Trident is the oldest, then it is me, follow by Mace, and finally Axe is the youngest."

"What about Javelin?"

"Javelin is more like a nanny robot. He was programmed by Kn-kni to protect Trident and me from danger. We almost were killed many times before he was created, but now Trident and I can protect ourselves, so Javelin mostly looks after Axe and Mace. "

"I see"

"I was the first one adopted by Kn-kni. When he was camping, my real dad sent me out to him while wearing a bomb vest, in hopes of killing him to receive the bounty reward."

"Sword! Please be joking!" Blade said, putting her free hand up to her mouth in disbelief.

"I'm not. However, I couldn't go near Kn-kni. I was too scared to even get close to him, since he has that evil feel about him at first glance." I know what he means. "He noticed that something was off about me. Pretty soon he noticed the bomb and destroyed it before it hurt either one of us. Then he destroys my village and killed everyone out of revenge. I was the only one surviving…but at the time I thought that I deserved to die because I disobeyed my dad. I guess Kn-kni felt pity for me because he took me along with him on his journeys."

"That is so sweet…in a morbid kind of way." When Sword heard that, he started hollering with laughter. Blade was so confused since she didn't say anything funny. Sword started calming down and wiping the tears near his eyes away. "I'm sorry, it wasn't what you said. It was the fact that you were right!" Sword said before laughing again. Blade looked baffled at first, but started giggling with him as well. For the longest time, those two was laughing about what was said, which made the night time go along so quickly.

This is a short chapter, mostly because I want the readers to get familiar with the other bandits in the story. Plus there is a lot of dialogue in this.

I really like this chapter, mostly because you can see that Blade and Sword are closer than what they seemed on the Golden Angel. Maybe because there is no Star-Warriors around to interfere?

I would also like to thank OyashiroMetaKnight for its earlier comment to me that helped me write this chapter.