Chapter 74 - Wait, WHAT HAPPENED?!
It was late in the afternoon, according to the Clock on Nico's right Bracer, as he made his way down to the Hotel where Neptune and the others were staying at.
Though, while he couldn't help the fond smile that formed on his features at seeing his comrades once more, he also couldn't help the sense of dread that filled up his gut. The dread had been there ever since Biko had told him what he thought about that Urgent Quest. Those words had made him re-evaluate everything he had seen and been told by that woman in te briefing room, coming to a conclusion that sent his nerves into overdrive.
The way she acted, the mission itself… something about it just reeked of deception. Just like Biko had said. It was understandable why Count Mott would have such an interest in Mojang Village with its abundance of Silver Steel, he ran one of the largest businesses with it. Yet, the way that woman acted before, it just screamed 'we just used you all to further our own agenda, now go be worthless pawns somewhere else' to him. Why did he get that feeling? What would happen in the future?
One of the biggest fears Nico had was the fear of not knowing about something, like how would someone react if they were to discover his secret? Or how would something big play out? Most of his life, he had kept himself as prepared as possible for any situation, the whole Zombie incident in Lastation was proof of this. There were times where he would have to learn quite a bit to fit in to unknown environments, like that time in Lowee when he fought the Coalition.
The unknown was something that both intrigued and frightened the male and for good reason. It was one of the few things he had little control over, save for actually peering into the realm of the unknown ahead of time. That was something he couldn't always d, yet it seemed to be the best way he had for preventing situations from being worse than they were. In a way, that was a large reason why he got along so well with Lucy, as both liked the thought of being in control of a situation. Although their perspectives of 'control' varied greatly, the base concept was still there. Thus, despite her tendency to try and seduce him every time she see's him, Nico could never truly despise her for it.
Back to the girls, though, part of the teenage Spec Ops Agent dreaded the meeting that would happen when he reached the hotel, since he had been gone for a significant time frame on that Urgent Quest. He could just imagine the dark looks on the three girls' faces as they each cracked whips on him while the teen was strapped to a chair and awaiting their merciless assault. He could imagine this since the girls would be worried sick, based off that one Quest in Lastation where he and the girls got separated by the Abnormal they were hunting.
'OOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! KINKY, AREN'T WE KING?!'
If things were going to be made worse, they did when he heard the voice of IT ring through his mind, nearly making him physically tilt his head to the side at the force of the maniacal shouting. What was worse was that, to Nico's dismay and shock, a spectral version of himself but in inverted colours appeared right beside him, leaning on top of him from his right shoulder. The white being cackled in his ear, his cackle and presence sending chills down Nico's spine. A sense of dread and doom slowly began piling like discarded junk being dumped in a junkyard within his gut, his eyes slowly beginning to dilate as a result.
Something he KNEW that the being would be taking great pleasure in.
Said being's mouth agonizingly slowly opened, a sly cackle escaping it that did NOT help Nico's mood in the slightest. "LOOKS LIKE MY LESSONS ARE SINKING IN AFTER ALL, KING!" He sneered with a slight hiss to his voice. "THEY AREN'T TRUSTWORTHY AFTER ALL! NOW, ALL WE HAVE TO DO IS KILL THEM, ALONG WITH THOSE MEASLY TEAM RAIL-WATEVERS, THEN WE WILL BE FREE!"
Nico growled in anger at the thought of killing those girls. Compa, Neptune, and IF's forms appeared in his mind, followed suit by the rest of the girls, plus Aiden and Ivan. The word 'free' echoed within his mind, like multiple gongs ringing in perfect synch. That word… it held a lot of sway within him, sway that could be used either for good or for bad.
Freedom was traditionally understood as independence of the arbitrary will of another. Such a state is contrasted with slavery. A slave is constantly subject to the will of another. By contrast a free person can do whatever he or she chooses as long as he or she does not break the law and infringe on the freedom of others. This has been described as external freedom or "negative liberty." To the layman, this is understood as: "your freedom ends where my nose begins."
There was also the sense of inner freedom which existed where free will was followed by free action. A person who does not succeed in doing what he set out to do, because his will failed, was in a sense unfree, a slave to his passions. His will was not free because it was subject to momentary impulses which distracted him from accomplishing what he had determined to do.
An example would be a person who is an addict. He may want to give up his addiction but cannot and the decisions he makes are shaped by the need to feed the addiction. So, freedom comes from self-control. One Lastation Philosopher named Goethe had once said, "From the forces that all creatures bind, who overcomes himself his freedom finds."
Complete freedom, though, included the inner freedom of the will and the external freedom of the environment such that a person's plans and deliberations are not arbitrarily thwarted by either himself or some other agency.
Freedom is not a value but is the ground of values because it allows a person to create and appreciate values, to pursue the classical values of beauty, truth and goodness. It enables people to use their creativity so as to bring joy to God and to others, their family, relatives, friends and wider community. According to the American moral philosopher Susan Wolf, freedom is the ability to act in accordance with the True and the Good.
According to people such as Saint Augustine and Confucius, two prominent religious figures in Gamindustri's history, this kind of freedom can reach a point at which it always produces goodness. Thus, historically people have struggled not for abstract freedom for its own sake, but for the freedom to be good and do good.
In that sense, Nico himself still struggled for true freedom, freedom to be who he wanted to be, to be able to freely express himself, the freedom of trusting someone without fear of them one day betraying him. It honestly fit his perspective of his inner struggles so well that it almost hurt how well it fit. But thanks to his condition, as well as his own revelation about that condition, that goal eluded him.
"Like I'd let you have that satisfaction, you fucker…" Adam growled under his breath. His anger, mixed with his dread, anxiety and fear, had reached the point where he didn't care if other people heard him. Thinking he was crazy as a result. He didn't care anymore, in a sense everyone was crazy in their own way. Some just were more extreme in their shows of the inner craziness within them than others.
However, his words had little effect on the white being. In fact, it was safe to say that the being was practically unperturbed by the response given, as the being just chuckled while he floated to the opposite side, leaning on his other shoulder. His right hand draped itself over him, gripping the fabric of his coat above his right breast, almost digging through the hard exterior to the soft, unblemished flesh within. "AWWWWWW, COME ON! WHY SO GLUM? YOU KNOW IT DON'T YOU? YOU FEEL IT INSIDE YOUR BEING, RIGHT? YOU CANNOT TRUST ANYONE, NO MATTER WHAT FOOLISH IDEAL YOU TRY TO SEEK? IN THE END, YOU ARE A MONSTER, A MONSTERS DO NOT DESERVE HAPPINESS. MONSTERS ONLY EXIST TO DEVOUR, KILL, AND DESTROY EVERYTHING IN THEIR PATH! THAT! IS! YOUR TRUE SELF, THE REAL YOU!"
The being's words slammed into his consciousness like a thousand hammers all at once. His teeth clenched so tight that they could have shattered if possible, while Nico's eyes began to glow with irritation. He could feel demonic energy beginning to writhe from deep within his gut, resonating with the complex whirlpool of emotions within him. He could feel himself slipping into the pool once more, the pool that he would usually see in his dreams, the pool of despair that he had not been sinking in for a very long time.
Why? Why was this happening now?
Nico knew hat his mental stability wasn't exactly the healthiest in the world. One could say that he was someone to be considered insane with all the psychological issues he had: hallucinations, insanity-filled dreams, inner struggles, among others. Though, compared to his past self, Nico felt he had improved quite a bit. There was a reason why he had been an emotionless robotic like in terms of personality, and not just the horrors he had seen throughout his years as a Spec Ops Agent. Yet, he felt like he had made great progress in recovery so far, especially since he had stopped doing THAT to himself a long while ago. That was what he honestly felt, but… why… Why did…
Why did ITS words make him feel like everything he's done was pointless?
He could feel chains starting to bind him, like his CHAINS OF HPHAESTUS Skill but without any marker, nor any means of escaping them. He tried to struggle, to break free with reckless abandon, to no avail. The chains bound his limbs to his waist, making it so tat they couldn't be moved no matter how hard he tried. Panic began to settle within his heart, which in turn began pounding wildly within the confines of his ribcage.
No, no-no-no… not like this! Not like this!"
"YESSSSSS, YES, YES, YES! DON'T WORRY LITTLE ONE, PAPA'S GOING TO MAKE YOU FEEL ALL BETTER!"
NO! No! Stay away! Stay back! Don't you-no, don't do it! Don't put it in! Don'tdon'tdon't don'tdon'tdon'tdon'tdon'tdon'tdon'tdon'tdon'tdon'tdon'tdon'tdon'tdon'tdon'tdon'tdon'tdon'tdon'tdon'tdon'tdon'tdon'tdon'tdon'tdon'tdon'tdon'tdon'tdon'tdon'tdon'tdon'tdon'tdon'tdon'tdon'tdon'tdon'tdon'tdon'tdon'tdon'tdon'tdon'tdon'tdon'tdon'tdon'tdon'tdon'tdon'tdon'tdon'tdon'tdon'tdon'tdon'tdon'tdon'tdon'tdon'tdon'tdon'tdon'tdon'tdon'tdon'tdon'tdon'tdon'tdon'tdon'tdon'tdon'tdon'tdon'tdon'tdon'tdon'tdon'tdon'tdon'tdon'tdon'tdon'tdon'tdon'tdon'tdon'tdon'tdon'tdon'tdon'tdon'tdon'tdon'tdon'tdon'tdon'tdon'tdon'tdon'tdon'tdon'tdon'tdon'tdon'tdon'tdon'tdon'tdon'tdon'tdon'tdon'tdon't-Make it stop, MAKE IT STOP! It hurts! It hurst so much! Momma, papa, help! Make it stop, please! Make it stop-make it stop-make it st-
"NI-NI!"
Nico's eyes, filled with panic fear and dread, widened all the more when another voice, one significantly more feminine, also WAY more familiar, rang throughout his ears. The shadowy claws that had been tearing away at his psyche, filling it with the dread, panic and horror of what a patient suffering in a mental asylum went through on a daily basis, slowly receded back into the shadows within his mind, along with the presence of that white being.
Before it vanished completely though, he barely registered its last words. "TCH, OUT OF TIME… OH WELL, I GOT TO HAVE SOME FUN, AT LEAST. REMEMBER THIS, KING, SOONER THAN YOU THINK, THE REAL YOU SHALL MAKE AN APPEARANCE, AND THE WHOLE WORLD WILL BE WATCHING. YOU CANNOT HIDE BEHIND THE MASK, FOREVER. EVENTUALLY, THE MASK WILL SHATTER, AND THE TRUTH WILL FINALLY BE UNRAVELLED! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"
With its signature maniacal laughter, the white being finally fully receded back to the shadows of his mind, the hazy and empty void no longer clouding his senses. Nico blinked owlishly, his eyes that of a startled animal as he breathed heavily, torso rising and falling with a ruggedness matching one who ran a marathon with no breaks in between. He could faintly make out faint beads of sweat rolling down his forehead, but he couldn't focus on that for long. Why?
Because of the sight before him.
There, sitting with her back to a wall, trembling, was a VERY scared looking Compa. Her eyes looked exactly like his own, her breathing so quick he feared she would be coughing up her longs. Her arms spread across the wall behind her, as if trying to show she was unarmed. His eyes zoomed in on several things: the large pink bruise on her right cheek, of which he could see tears gathering at the corners of her eyes for.
There was a faint purple light below her chin and, as morbidly curious as he was, Nico's eyes lowered to where the light originated. He soon wished he hadn't, though, for he was greeted to the sight of one of his Plasma Claws, his Armour having been deployed, just beneath her neck, about to burn through her flesh to the interior.
'Wh-wha….?'
For a moment, Nico just stood there, shocked into disbelieving silence. His mind couldn't. or rather it refused to, comprehend the situation before it. his mind remained blank, no thought, no action evident from it, leaving his body to remain frozen in is current position. Neither moving forwards with what it seemed to have been told to do, nor did it retreat.
He did notice that he wasn't in a street anymore, but deep within an alleyway, a rather narrow one at that with nobody in sight. Part of him couldn't help but be relieved at that, while another part of him scolded him for his actions.
Finally, one thought manifested within his mind, one that took a MAJOR amount of willpower to create. 'Was that… another hallucination?' he wondered, his mouth slightly open behind his Mask as his lone uncovered eye stared down at the Nurse-In-Training. He noticed her arms were spread in a way that made it seem like she was intentionally holding the away from him, like they had committed some grave sin against him. He briefly flashed back to the moment where e had felt those cold, iron-like chains embrace him, before looking to her arms and realising that THEY were the chains that he had felt.
Not only that, but he did feel something against him when he was flailing his arms about, but he had been in such a panic induced state that he hadn't been able to identify it. That must have been Compa then, it explained where she got that bruise on her cheek. But, when the hell did he deploy his Armour.
Before he could ponder this more, Nico's brain finally rebooted itself, and an impending terror gripped his soul. "C-Compa?! Oh fuck, I'm so sorry! So sorry!" he exclaimed, started while hurriedly taking his Plasma Claw from her neck and retracting it into his Gauntlet. The Plasma based weapon made a light hissing sound when it did that, but he couldn't bring himself to care for the moment as he kneeled before the scared girl. His Armour vanished in a vortex of Datastreams as well, revealing just how panicked his features showed of his emotional state. "Wh-What the hell happened, why did you-?!"
"I-I was looking for you and saw you walk into that Alleyway, N-NI-Ni!" Compa stuttered just as bad as he did, her response filled with equal panic. Though, with the action of his Plasma Claw being retracted, she began to calm down slightly with the relief of not having a weapon about to burn through her throat. "Y-Y-You were mumbling to yourself, I got worried so I t-t-tried to talk, but you got w-w-worse and worse. I tried to hug you, but then you wh-wh-whacked me like a whack-a-mole and knocked me d-d-down! Y-Y-You held me at claw-point and then you just froze!" she hurried on like the threat of being eviscerated was still as clear as day, and at the end of her sentence, Compa trembled as she eyed his arms with more than a little wariness. Even if they weren't in the Armoured state anymore, she could still feel phantom pains from where the residue Static from the Plasma Claw almost nicked her flesh.
'So, I WAS hallucinating…' Nico thought to himself, barely hiding the rage burning inside of him that replaced his previous emotions. But this rage, it wasn't he kind one aimed at an enemy, no, this rage was directed towards himself. Rage, along with self-loathing and disgust, boiled like heated water within his gut towards his own actions. 'Damnit… damnit, DAMNIT!'
This was one of the WORST things that could have happened! It had been cropping up in his nightmares for a fair amount of time, the possibility that something like this could happen on their adventure. His mind's instability always had the likelihood of hurting his comrades, since they were around him the most. Unlike Team RAIL though, whom had the capacity to dodge his attacks, someone like Compa or Neptune didn't have the necessary reflexes to protect themselves if he were to lose it. IF would be a different story considering her background as well as her current condition.
But Compa and Neptune? A big fat NOPE!
"Compa…"
The teen uttered her name with barely a whisper, his eyes filling up with another emotion that replaced the shock and disbelief from before: Shame, shame and remorse. He hung his head low as he once again spoke, his tone apologetic as all fuck. "I'm so, so sorry about that. I have no excuses to defend myself with." Well, that wasn't technically true, since he had mental issues so he could have told her that, but he didn't want to worry her any more than she already was… at least, for right now.
A fact that he had to resign himself to, was that eventually Compa would find out about his mental issues. He'd resigned himself to this while on the journey back to Leanbox, when he started having Hallucinations more often. Fortunately, he'd had Biko and his mission to keep his mind focused, but there had been faint oddities that he'd noticed, oddities that nobody else seemed to notice. Biko had already confirmed it to him that his mind was resorting to hallucinations, so he didn't wonder what the heck was going on.
Seeing him like this, Compa slowly felt her fear being ebbed away, replaced by the concern she had for his wellbeing. Wait, no, that wasn't quite right. Concern had always been there from the very start. She had just been hiding it behind her fear out of instinct. The instinct of self-preservation. From the moment that Nico had reacted the way he had when she tried to get his attention, slamming her into a wall with a Plasma Claw to her neck, fear and irrationality had overtaken her mind, like an animal facing down its hunter just before its demise. In that brief moment, all she had been concerned with was… her own life.
A thought that disgusted her.
It was a natural reaction to fear death. Especially in a 'predator and prey' situation. When an animal is being cornered by those wishing to end its life either for nourishment, or any other purpose, all it thinks about was how to get out of its situation alive, and it becomes incredibly desperate. Whether or not it successfully escapes the situation is up for debate, but the bottom line was that the self-preservation instinct was a fundamental part of life. Even so, Compa still couldn't help but dislike herself for being scared of Nico instead of concerned for his safety.
This was part of why she hadn't gotten closer or made any moves of her own on the man she wanted by her side. Unlike Neptune, who had confidence galore when expressing her true feelings towards him, Compa just couldn't act the same way. Every time she tried to get closer to him, she would shy away from going into the truly dangerous territory, at least in her mind anyways. Even though she had made considerable headway compared to her childhood, Compa still didn't feel like she was on the same level as the others.
Ironic really, the one who knew him the longest was also the one who hadn't gone the furthest with him.
Clearing those thoughts from her head for the time being, Compa focused back onto the man who held her affections. Said man still hanging his head towards her, something she quickly found that she disliked. "I-It's okay, Ni-Ni…" she tried to say, pushing past her fears and allowing concern to take the reins. It helped that, unlike hose romantic advances she was just complaining about, the inner Nurse inside of her could help with assuring people things weren't wrong… even if they were. "…You just had a lot on your plate, right?"
She saw him nod his head, not speaking anything to her. Didn't fill her with much confidence that her words had worked, though, something that she felt within her core. She had to get them thinking about something else, while she wanted beyond anything to know what happened to her childhood friend, her Nurse instincts told her that it wasn't the right time to ask. Patients who suffer from illnesses sometimes take a while to become able to talk to others about it. Memories flashed in her mind, and Compa remembered all too soon why she was searching for Nico. "Oh yeah, we don't have time, Ni-Ni! Its an emergency!"
The urgency in her tone, as well as the high volume of her voice, broke Nico from his internal musings, his head rising up to meet her gaze faster than a cheetah. The word emergency had quickly garnered a response from him, it seemed. A leftover side-effect from just returning from a long mission. "What? What emergency? Compa, did something happen?" he asked her with the same level of urgency she just displayed. The panic and volume she spoke triggered alarm bells in his mind, which only worsened when she answered him with something she dreaded.
"Iffy's gone! She went out the night you went on your mission, and never came back!"
Fatigue,
A pounding head,
And one goddamn extreme case of dehydration.
That was what she felt when she began to stir from within her consciousness.
Groaning, one familiar brunette slowly stirred as her eyes tightened. Her lips twisted into a grimace at the headache pounding away within the confines of her skull like a thousand jackhammers pummelling away at her brain. She slowly opened her eyes after a few seconds, muttering a few choice words. When the woman had finally opened her eyes, she tried to stand up on her own two feet… but soon found that she couldn't.
'Wh… wha…?'
Grogginess still plagued her, so IF didn't do much right away. She was too busy trying to reboot herself from the land of sleep to do much else. Ever get that feeling where everything was a blur and your body was responding to commands much slower than normal? Well, that was what IF was going through right now, and it was NOT a pleasant experience. She had figured that, as a BOW, she wouldn't get things like this anymore, as ever since her abrupt transformation she had never gotten these little bouts of grogginess when she rested. Apparently, she was wrong on that account.
Soon though, she felt her powers chase the grogginess away, enough so that she could be aware of her surroundings. The first thing IF did was look around, see where the hell she was. She expected to be somewhere in Leanbox, at the least, but when she looked around, the brunette saw nothing to indicate that at all. In fact, she looked to be in some sort of dungeon cell.
The cell was made from stone, reminding her of the medieval dungeons found throughout Leanbox from the beginnings of the Console War. Leanbox hadn't always been the land where the people were the most important, there had been a time where things had been incredibly barbaric here, a time IF had researched as a follower of Lady Green Heart, to see what this land had once been like without her rule. Needless to say, she DEFINITELY found the new Leanbox much more preferable than the older one.
There were no windows to the outside, leading her to believe that this was an underground dungeon cell. She looked around, noticing that the floor, the wall opposite her, and the wall to her left were all made from cobblestone, with the ceiling above them being the same. Though, her back seemed to tremble when she noticed how some of the cobblestone seemed to radiate this twisted, dark and violent feeling especially when she eyed some of the glowing crimson lines on the ground.
IF nearly gasped when she noticed that there was something right next to her, to her right. It was a skeleton, a decomposed skeleton of what remained of a man, or, she assumed it was a man since the bone structure indicated as such. The skeleton looked to have been wearing Leanbox military armour, and was leaning against the same wall she was on, head tilted to the right away from her. She followed its direction, and saw that to her right were a set of bars that were equipped with an iron gate, the entrance in and out of the cell.
Once again, she tried to stand up, only to find something weighing her down. She glanced at her feet, and saw that aside from her feet being bare, her feet were shackled by iron restraints, large ones at that. They reminded her of the irons that Leanbox prisoners often got strapped in when they would be taken to various prisons to be executed at a later date, something that made IF gulp in nervousness.
Where the hell was she?
Why was she here?
How the fuck did she get here?
Wait... why was she in only her tank top and shorts? No boots, no coat, and worst of all...
WHERE THE FUCKING HELL WERE HER PHONES?! IF THIS WAS SOME IDEA OF A SICK JOKE BY THAT PUDDING-LOVING MORON SHE WAS GOING TO CHOKE A BITCH!
Memories assaulted her mind the second she thought those questions. She remembered walking back to the Hotel she and her party were staying in when she was assaulted by a Ghoul. She couldn't remember how, but someone apparently snuck up from behind her and knocked her out, if the lump on her head was anything to go by. It would also explain this headache she was suffering under, but what happened to her Biomass reserves?
IF tried calling on her powers, only for them to not respond, sending her into a nervous panic. She tried checking her reserves, only to find them to be completely spent. That meant she couldn't use her powers to break out of here, as well as explained why she felt so dehydrated, so… hungry, right now. 'Man, this just keeps getting better and better…' she thought with heavy sarcasm. She tried to move her arms, only to her dismay, she found she couldn't do that either. 'Oh, come the fuck on!'
Growling in irritation, IF looked up to see some shackles pinning her hands on the wall above her head. They were connected to this spiked chain that hung from a higher vantage point. Due to the lack of light in the Cell, she couldn't exactly make out where that point was, though she felt her BOW powers already beginning to adapt to the darkness. She tried once again to break free, rattling the chain in hopes of using enough strength to get herself out.
"It won't work, young lady. These have been enchanted to seal away those special powers you have."
A masculine voice, though IF could barely tell with how raspy and faint it was, broke through the sound of rattling chains. Gamnindustri's wind walker stopped what she was doing, her body tensing up, refusing to make even a single sound for a brief instance, before she went and frantically looked around for the source of the voice. She hadn't detected anyone else, she didn't even think of that possibility, but thanks to her lack of power, she doubted she'd be able to use her powers to locate them. "What? Whose there? Where are you?"
"I'm in the cell to your right. Opposite you."
Once again, IF heard the voice, along with a short cough at the end. Sounded like the person was close by too, and not exactly in the best of health, either. IF's eyes glanced to the right, towards the bars of her Cell. From there, she could see that a second set of bars and a gate were on the opposite side, filled to the brim with… Skeletons, lots of them. Each of them wore the same armour that the one inside her Cell wore, something that slipped Alarm bells into IF's mind. That couldn't be a coincidence, a bunch of dead people wearing the same armour as each other meant that they belonged to one unit. What unit these people belonged to though was another story altogether, though she didn't focus on that for now.
What she DID focus on, was the person at the wall opposite the bars.
The person looked to be a man in his 30's, at least his early thirties. His hair was dishevelled and messy, covering his eyes so IF wasn't able to tell what colour they were. His chin, jaw and upper lip sported a medium sized beard and Moustache, a good indication that this guy had been here for a significant amount of time. His hands were in the same state as hers, bound in shackles and hung above his head. His wrists looked like they had been bleeding, but the blood had dried up a ton. The man looked like he had been injured, with scratch marks and various other wounds over his body.
His clothing consisted of brown leather rags: a baggy brown shirt, with torn shoulders to expose his damaged arms. There were small tears here and there to indicate that it had been worn for some time, enough that it was slowly tearing itself apart. He wore a set of baggy pants with torn ankles, showing his bare, dirty feet to the world. His feet looked to be the same as his arms though, but unlike IF his weren't pinned to the ground by shackles. His head hung low, but IF knew that the man was awake, he DID talk to her just now after all.
"What the….?"
"Looks like you're finally awake. You've been here about a whole day, you know."
IF had been curious, confused and slightly scared before, but when the man told her the specific detail of the time she spent here, all her emotions switched to panic. Thoughts of her friends: Neptune, Compa, and her friend (?) Nico appeared in her mind as she shouted over to him. "What?! Are you kidding me?! I've been here for a whole day?!"
The man didn't raise his head, though this was something the brunette assumed he couldn't do based off of a lack of strength. Still though, a faint movement was seen from his head, a movement that the brown-haired Guild Agent attributed to a nod. "You were brought here by a couple muscle-heads. Looked like they were eager to get to work on your ass, since they took everything you had and beat your unconscious body to a pulp." He remarked, and while she couldn't see it, IF just FELT that he was glancing at her through his long bangs. "Though, your special powers prevented any lasting damage."
That obviously meant that he had seen what they did to her, as well as her ability to regenerate from whatever they did to her. IF couldn't resist the urge to wince, chills of dread and uncertainty travelling down her spine. Someone knew about her powers aside from her party members, and a complete stranger at that, something IF had hoped would not happen for a long while yet. She had been squeamish about letting her favourite Goddess know about her BOW side, so a random stranger finding out about them was DEFINITELY not something she appreciated. "Why are you telling me this? What's there to gain for you?"
"Nothing, but your name and where you came from."
Now THAT confused her. "A bit of an odd request, but… ah, what the hell. Looks like I'll be here for a while till my powers charge up, anyways. I'm IF, nice to meet you." The woman greeted with a courteous nod. "I'd shake your hand, but well, we both know why that's kinda hard right now."
Her words caused the man to chuckle, a hollow, empty chuckle that, combined with his hoarse voice, made his chuckle seem all the more disturbing. Though IF made sure not to mention that as he finished chuckling. "A pleasure, and you're right. I doubt we'd shake hands for a while yet. It only makes sense that I repay the favour." At this, the man straightened his back against the wall, lifting his head with a strength that he hadn't shown before. Now that she could see his eyes, IF saw that they were a bright blue, with a faint scar under his left eye. One that looked like it had been there for a while. She also got the feeling of being in the presence of a leader, a king or a lord, when she looked at this man. I am Captain Stefan Von Kessel of the Ostermark Order…" he introduced himself, before wincing as he glanced at the skeletons all around him. "Well, I guess it's former Captain now. A Captain isn't anything without his subordinates."
'Ostermark? I think I've heard that name before… wasn't that one of the branches in Leanbox's Military that disappeared a while back?' IF wondered, frowning in contemplation. She remembered during her research time, she had heard faint rumours that the Ostermark Order's captain, plus a large regiment, had vanished without a trace when going on a recon mission. "Are these guys…?"
She shouldn't have asked that if the flash of pain in his eyes that briefly replaced his strong leader-like eyes was any indication. The man's face turned grim as he gave a small nod. "Yeah… they were tortured brutally before they met their end, their corpses used to torment those who still live. Though, I fear that those who died have escaped an even worse fate that others did not…" he answered her, a sad sigh escaping his lips, though he winced soon afterwards.
"How did you end up here?" IF couldn't help but ask him, her eyes filled with wonder, concern and pity for the man before her. To see your subordinates, men you have fought with for a long time get tortured in the manner that he was implying, didn't sound like a happy time in her books. Also, now that she remembered the name Ostermark, she remembered how much that military branch valued each other's lives, like brothers and sisters in arms. So, to see so many of their brethren killed, tortured or worse as the man implied, definitely wasn't something that those men deserved.
The man gave a small exhale through his nostrils, abandoning his previous posture as he slumped against the wall, the chains rattling through the air. "We were sent to Mojang Village, think you know of it given how you seem to be affiliated with the Guild." He noticed that the woman raised a brow at him when he said that last bit, prompting him to elaborate. "When you were brought here, you had a set of Guild made Phones before they took everything from you. Anyways, we were sent to Mojang Village to investigate their lack of activity recently…"
A ferocious snarl escaped his lips, something that made IF jump slightly in surprise. "Turns out we were set up. There was an ambush waiting for us, filled with cultists from the Overlord Momus religion, as well as these unholy abominations they called Demons. My men and I, we did our best to make our retreat, but we were overwhelmed and captured. I, along with a third of my men were taken to this infernal place, the rest were killed during the battle, fed to the Demons that they employed." He growled at the end, his eyes shining with so much rage that, even with his current state, IF felt like he would go on a rampage at any moment. She guessed that even with how weak he looked, his inner strength of will had not diminished in the least. She had to respect that in someone, it took guts to stay string given their circumstances.
But, there was something about what he said that bothered her.
"What makes you think it was a setup, Captain?"
The man gave her a stare, one that the brunette found suspiciously similar to a certain Spec Ops Agent whenever someone asks a stupid question, but nonetheless answered her. "Because when they ambushed us, something hadn't been right. They knew our numbers, our strategies, and just what to do in order to corner us. Us in the Ostermark order are a primarily military branch, but those like me who are its Captain have a certain degree of influence over politics as well. This influence is unique to us and us alone, as we have sworn the sacred duty of upholding the Goddess' demands no matter the cost. That makes us more than a few enemies, I'm sure you can understand that."
Yeah, IF could understand well what he was telling her. Truth be told, the brunette wasn't one for politics, she would rather remain in the Mercenary lifestyle thank you very much. It was wat she grew up with, what she breathed as air for her entire life. In fact, she'd be hard pressed to imagine a life where she WASN'T fighting on the battlefield. Nevertheless, after a certain organisation tried to undermine the CPUs' rules so long ago, she had made the precautionary measure to keep an ear out for anything radical.
Political figures were always the targets of overzealous fanatic groups, it was something that one would hear on the news nearly every time the news comes on. They were usually targeted so people can get ransoms or get their beliefs spread across the Nations, but most of the time they would be used as bargaining chips for other politicians to advance their agendas. In essence, politics was a war just like with the Abnormals, but instead of weapons and Skills, it was a war of words, deceit and mental tricks.
Therefore, IF understood that, in the position he was in, Stefan Von Kessel would have made enemies. She remembered that his family was also a Noble family, only he, their heir, had chosen to trade his pen for his sword to lead me into battle against the Abnormals. She recalled him saying to one reporter who interviewed him after he successfully repelled an Abnormal attack, that he would rather fight with honest to good soldiers on the battlefield than lying, scheming, backstabbing Nobles who didn't know a thing about true loyalty.
"I see…"
"Now that you've heard my story…" Stefan began, looking straight at her after gazing at the ceiling for a while. His eyes bore into her own, no signs of his weakness showing through his gaze. "Can you tell me why you're here? The Overlord Cult doesn't take just prisoners like this, they normally kill them or feed their enemies to their Demon companions."
Humming in thought, the brunette wondered whether she should tell him anything. In the end though, she decided to open her mouth, since they were going to be here for a while. It wasn't like they had anything better to do anyways. "Well, I'm with this Party…"
