The first rays of sunlight shone through the window, gently waking Lantea up. The knight stretched in the bed and found something was amiss. Usually she would lie in the bed for two more hours just enjoying the warm, fluffy blanket before she would brave another day. Today however, she felt something on her arm. Breath. Startled, she sat up and opened her eyes, looking at the spot where she expected a gremlin assassin breathing down her neck before plunging a dagger into her heart.
Except it was no gremlin assassin, it was Jibril, curled on her bed and sleeping soundly. Lantea took a breath and was about to start yelling, when her gaze fell upon the peaceful and a bit drooling knight clad in dotted pajamas. As quickly as her temper flared up, she melted at the sight.
Getting up, she rummaged through the cupboards for something to eat, giving a disbelieving glance to her bed every now and then. She would have to do something about the sister-complexed recruits. Was every senior knight having this problem? She had to tear the posters with her likeness off of Cryker's wall, and this one was even worse case. Still it didn't stop her from making breakfast for the other knight. Taking a piece of paper, she wrote:
Breakfast is on the table, you little creeper. I'm off running some errands, be right back.
Folding the piece of paper, she set it on the pillow in front of the purple knight's eyes, once again shaking her head. She grabbed a flask of water and headed out the door.
She didn't have anything to do really, and just strolled through the halls trying not to fall asleep again as she walked. Her legs automatically carried her in the direction of the training hall, her brain eager to get back to work, and if the blasted nurse wouldn't let her, training was the next best thing. Besides, she now had a student, so she better polish her skills.
The way went along Zen's chambers. She has often wondered what those rooms looked like inside, having a suspicion the guild master would have a bit nicer quarters than her bunk room. She just wanted to know by how much. What she wasn't quite ready to see was misty emerging from the room, looking like she crawled out of a washing machine, hair sticking in all directions and her draped armor put on inside out. The pink haired knight froze when she saw Lantea there.
"Ah! Eheheh... Hello?" she said, looking like she wanted to be anywhere but here. Lantea let out a long whistle: "So you two are... Rough night?" she said with a faked grin. "Uh... yeah! that's right. We're seeing each other, uh..." Misty said, scratching the back of her head nervously. Lantea made a lip zipping motion, earning praising hands back as she walked behind a corner. Then the glass bottle in her hand shattered in her grip, a few shards cutting her palm: "Damn it to hell!" she cursed under her breath.
Sighing, Lantea headed towards the infirmary. The thought of having to be in the care of the nurse again didn'T bring her mood up at all, but it was better than a shredded hand. When she made it there, Squeakums was still in a nightgown, with pointy white hat with a red cross on it. The nurse squinted at Lantea angrily, pointing to the clock, until Lantea have her a bloodied wave with her injured hand. Rolling her eyes, Sqeak wordlessly nudged her towards the office.
"What happened? You look miserable enough for a doom cloud to be floating over your head." the nurse inquired as she got busy sewing Lantea's hand together. The blunette hissed when her palm was mercilessly flooded with disinfectant, grunting at the question. "Love is all unrequited." she said, sounding more upset than sad.
Of course, she knew crushing after the guild's head was probably a silly idea. She probably wasn't either the first or last whom the GM pulled out of a jam. Still, she wasn't even past to attempt stealing him from whoever it was that had him now. anyone but the Pinky. Despite everything, she wouldn't be able to live with herself if she made the cheery knight cry. "You just muster the courage to go do something about the feeling you have, you reach out..." she said, her healthy hand reaching up as if to grab the light bulb on the ceiling, "...and just like that, you find out you're late, and they're out of reach." she sighed, her hand clasping the air and falling back down. The nurse nodded with an agreeing grunt: "Yeah. Lucky if you get as far as the courage thing." she said, making Lantea's eyebrow fly up, but said nothing more.
Few weeks later...
Lantea wanted to return to work, but life had other plans for her. When she started teaching her roommate the ways of a gunslinger, she had no idea she would soon find herself with a whole class. Rayfan of all people even made it official - to spite her, she thought - and now she was stuck as the guild's teacher. Not that she really mind. It felt great to see the recruits make progress. Of course, some of them didn't make the cut, and she'd be lying if she didn't enjoy having the privilege of being the one to chew them out.
She was most pleased with Jibril, who seemed to have a natural talent, and despite starting late due to her injury, she was at the top of the class. So one morning, Lantea decided to take her star pupil to the next level. "You've got mail!" Jibril hollered from the door, carrying two envelopes. One was white with a blue stripe - spiral HQ issue - and the other was tiny and pink of all things. The blue knight opened the first one, and her eyes widened. Finally she had a mission assigned again. She needed to get away from the zealous rookies before they nail her to a cross in their shrine. "Hey Jibril, do you feel like getting to the clockworks again?" she asked.
The purple knight frowned, and stretched her arms. "It feels all healed up and ready to go. But I've only been training with the guns for two weeks!" Lantea smiled, shaking her head: "I wouldn't offer if I didn't think you have what it takes." Jibril beamed, giving her a thumbs up: "Okay then! When?" Lantea shared the date, and moved to the other envelope.
Her face went scarlet as soon as she read it, earning a quizzical look from her roomie: "What's that?" she asked, and when Lantea didn't answer, she swiped the letter from her hands. "Hey! Give that back!" the blunette snapped, but Jibril was indeed her best pupil and by now managed to keep her at a distance. Reading it as she dodged Lantea's attacks, she started laughing. "Hah! Somebody is crushing on you hard! I mean poetry?!" she was sent into a fit of giggles as Lantea went even redder, if that was even possible. "Shut up! And give that back!"
The next day...
They sat in the briefing room, waiting for Jibril to suit up. Zen and Squeak joined the gunner duet, both of which were acting weird lately, or so Lantea thought. The blue knight didn't talk with the former for over a month. Was he mad he saw Misty getting out of his room? And Squeakums looked like she wasn't getting enough sleep. And to top it all off, she got another of those letters, and again it was unsigned. She decided the glaring when people thought the target wasn'T looking had tos top. The nurse was first.
"Hey, you look like hell. Are you sure you want to come?" Lantea asked, genuine concern for the nurse in her tone for possibly the first time. She got a nod in response: "It's your first mission after being discharged and you are going that deep? You'll need patching up. Or a casket. That and Meddi needs more supplies in Emberlight which is on the way there. I need you hapless recruits to carry the stuff." she said, trying to maintain her facade form before but Lantea wasn't buying it. "D'aaaw, she does care!" she said in relation to the first half of what Squeakums said, leaving the other without comment. Lantea braced for the verbal assault, but the nurse just turned away and... she blushed of all things? Must be full moon or something. Lantea thought. Looking over her shoulder, she found Zen giggling at them from over his gloomy corner.
Making her way to him, she sat down at the table opposite the jelly faced knight. "Hey. what's with you? You seem awfully gloomy unlike the usual. Something I did?" she asked, a bit worried what the answer would be. The guild master looked towards the locker rooms: "Are you sure bringing a recruit along is good idea? I've been near Almire, that place is nasty even by my standards." He confided. Lantea leaned back, looking at the ceiling: "Jibril's a natural. I have never met anyone else who no matter what enemies you pit them against would always find a way to help. I suppose she's just wired differently than the rest of us. I only had to teach her everything just once." Taking Zen's not as approval and with Jibril finally geared up, the quartet walked onto the elevator, hauling the bags of supplies. Sqeakums punched in the code for Emberlight and the contraption took them down.
After unloading the supplies, they powered through a few depths of the clockworks before they finally stood at the Blackstone Bridge. The sight was as unwelcoming as it could get. What remained of the kingdom around them were charred ruins, the rest sunken into lava long ago. The bridge itself appeared like it would stand even if they fought on it, but the shadowfire was everywhere and something up ahead was launching spiked wheels against them. "Oi. This place doesn't like visitors." the nurse noted, earning nods and affirming grunts. "Alright, let's go." Lantea said and nodded at Jibril, the two of them using their sprites to cloak and sneak around, trying to see the enemy.
Soon enough, a few zombies crawled from the ground and two of them started unloading their antiguas at them. The angered mob gave chase, leaving Squeakums and Zenihdrol to pick them off one by one form behind, their swords doing short work on the zombies.
A few broken wheel launchers and disintegrated zombies later, they saw the elevator. The last obstacle was a large button. Lantea primed a few of her frost bombs around and joined the others, making the button sink into the floor. More zombies popped up and they dispatched them quickly, but then a duo of trojans appeared from out of nowhere. One of them immediately charged Lantea, and the blue knight barely dodged in time.
Seeing her roomie in trouble, Jubril's silversix rumbled and drawn the attention of Lantea's enemy. However the purple knight didn't notice the other trojan targeted her as well. She dodged one, but the other sent her flying, narrowly missing an active fire trap. "Jib!" Lantea shouted, but seeing Squeakums already at the purple knight's side, she turned her focus on the enemy. Switching to her blitz needle, she charged and then tossed a stone on one of the cursed warriors. Seeing that, Zen repeated with the other. Just as the trojan charged her, Lantea rolled to the side, turned around and unloaded a full drum into it's back. The crystal on the trojan's back broke, and the thing turned into stone. On the other side of the room, Zen had a bit better luck as he baited the trojan to charge over the edge and fall into a fiery death in the lava below.
"Talk to me! How is she!" Lantea shouted at Squeakums, worried about the downed knight. "She hit her head hard and is out cold. She needs a sickbay." the nurse delivered the diagnosis. Lantea thought for a little while. "Alright, take her up. Zen and I will continue." she finally decided, the guild master nodding in agreement. "Are you insane?" the nurse asked. If the four of them had problem on this depth, how will two fare deeper? Lantea shook her head. "They hurt my friend. I'm not insane," she said as she walked towards the elevator, shivermist in one hand and argent in the other, "I'm angry!" Blue growled, hate clear in her eyes.
Lantea didn't remember much from the next few levels. She was seeing red, and did just one thing: Murdered every monster in sight. She sharpened the decorative wings on her gun on a piece of rock, and when she ran out of bullets in the drum, she mercilessly mowed the zombies down with it.
Finally they stood at the old Throne room. "Stay focused!" Zenihdrol said, "The Intel said a powerful, cursed being once inhabited this place. Keep your eyes peeled." Lantea nodded. The only way they could take was straight ahead. She checked her guns and reloaded them both, and readied a frost bomb just in case.
When they were ready, the two knights pressed the button that opened the throne room's gate. And inside, they saw him. "What's this? More wolves hungry for the blood of Almire? Our great kingdom shall never fall to the likes of beasts!" Lord Vanaduke growled, and slammed his giant mace to the ground. Around them, Zombies crawled form out of nowhere and the giant charged them. The knights split up, Lantea leaving one of the frost bombs behind. It went off and covered the monster in ice. To her dismay though, he started breaking free as Zen unloaded his blitz needle to his back. Lantea thrown another bomb at him and switched to deal with the zombies that were crawling way too close to her CO.
"Behind you!" Zen suddenly shouted, and Lantea turned around raising her shield. Just in time. Vanaduke's mask fell off, but it didn't stay on the ground. Coated in fire and levitating, it shot fireballs at them. The fire around it was so intense Lantea's bomb had no effect on it whatsoever. "The sacred water!" Zen yelled as she dodged the flames lashing at him. The Blue knight ran into one of the springs in the corners of the room, and scooped up some of the water into her helmet.
Making a mad dash in between fireballs, she somehow survived long enough to splash the mask with the water. To her relief, the flames went out, allowing her to get closer and empty a blitz drum into it as Zen went for another dose of the liquid to keep it doused.
After a few barrages, the mask suddenly flown back to the giant's face and his scepter slammed in between the two knights, sending them to the opposite walls. "Fools. Didn't you hear the legends? No wielder of this mask was ever defeated by any man!" His voice boomed over the throne room.
"I'm no man." Lantea growled back as the scepter loomed dangerously above her head, threatening to smear her over the floor. "Neither am I." sounded from the other side of the room, making both Lantea and Vanaduke turn to the source of the voice.
Zenidhrol was getting off of the ground, and as he did, the jelly helmet fell off and broke as it collided with the floor. What it revealed was a wild mane of pink hair. Lantea's eyes went wide as a few things clicked into place. How Misty was never around whenever she saw Zen. The dodgy answers when someone wanted to see both of them about something. The suspicious looks Misty was shooting her ever since that encounter two weeks ago. It all made sense now!
Noticing Vanaduke was distracted, Lantea jammed a shivermist under his armor and ran off. Before she could be flattened, the bomb went off and froze the giant in place once more. "Get him!" she yelled, picking up both of her guns and pressing the triggers until there was nothing but the clicks of empty breeches.
Looking up, she saw bleeding, but still very much alive Vanaduke bringing his full might on Misty. The pink knight was knocked aside and knocked out by the impact. "No... Not another one... You... You'll pay..." Lantea growled silently, before charging the giant in a raging madness. Jumping over the swinging mace, she charged the blitz needle. Landing just below, a swift kick knocked Vanaduke's mask off, and she emptied the blitz into his face. The giant's had swatted her aside, but the screaming marked his end. Stumbling backwards, he tripped over the guard rail and fell to the lava below.
One of Lantea's hands hung limply next to her side, twisted in an unnatural angle. She stumbled closer to Misty, checking her vitals. There was a pulse, but it was faltering. "No... Don't... Don't you dare die on us!" she whispered, pinching Misty's palm to try to get her to wake up. with a stir, she actually opened her eyes. "Lant... I'm pretty beat up." she said, coughing out some blood, "I don't think... Misty would have been taking over but, you now know... Rayfan does too, he'll understand..." She said as Lantea's eyes widened in fright, not wanting to hear any of this. "The guild... needs a master... and I think.. It should.. be y-"
"No!" Lantea yelled from the top of her lungs. Looking up, Misty saw something strange. The blue knight had an aura glowing around her, flowing into her hand and concentrating in a sphere. "We're both coming up I won't have this garbage 'I'm dying' talk!" the blue knight kept yelling, and slammed the sphere of energy into Misty's chest. The room exploded in a burst of light, thundering around the whole level.
Several minutes later, an elevator arrived at Haven with both of them bloodied and broken, but breathing.