Hey all, I hope you enjoy this chapter! I'm sorry to say that school is a real bitch and that updates will be slower-more than likely only on the weekend. More frequent during holidays, but otherwise slow. I hope you all keep reading, and as always I stress reviews! I'm just being honest is that they motivate me more than anything. I get good hardcore feedback from y'all when you review, and it makes me more motivated to write and get it done. I do take suggestions if anyone has them, which you can comment or PM to me, it would be lovely.
But, enough of my jabbering, here is the story!
Anything not copyrighted to Disney is mine and Y'ALL BETTER NOT USE THIS SHAT FOR NOTHIN'.
"IRON CLAD!" Amelia hollered, running to the helm and shoving the helmsman aside. "EVADE FIRE! ENCIRCLE THE ENEMY, USE ALL FORMS OF AMMUNITION!" She jerked the helm to the side, making the Lyonesse take a dangerously sharp turn, and headed due north west. She handed the helm back to the helmsman and instructed him to keep out of firing rang of the Iron Clad and jumped to the stern of the ship, hollering formation instructions at the student ships.
"THIS IS NO LONGER A TRAINING EXERCISE, GENTS! THIS IS A FIGHT FOR YOURS LIVES, ACT SMARTLY!"
Jim was among the terrified students operating ships when the Iron Clad showed up. He was one of the few to remain mostly composed. The only one who seemed indifferent was Onyx Arrow, his best friend in the world. He's was also his first mate.
"IRON CLAD!" Shouted Onyx.
"Thank you, Captain Obvious." Jim snapped before yelling out a series of shaky orders, demanding the crew to direct their sloop out of firing rang of the Iron Clad cannons. The crew scrambled about to follow orders, quickly getting the ship in the correct direction. Onyx surveyed and corrected the crew when they made a mistake, looking to Jim when they got into shooting rang.
"Fire, Captain?"
"Fire, Mister Onyx." Jim said, still unable to address Onyx as "Mister Arrow", for obvious reasons. Onyx nodded and delivered the command, their small guns and cannons attacking the Iron Clad, which cut through the Etherium at an alarming space, their fire ricocheting into oblivion.
"Jim, this is bad." Hissed Onyx, letting the fear in his voice show to his already panicky friend.
"Yeah, but w-we can't refuse Amelia's order's." Jim whispered, wincing when the Iron Clad managed to get a shot into the hull of the Lyonesse.
"We're all going to get killed if we don't pull back soon-GUNNERS, RELEASE FIRE, DOUBLE TIME!"
The gunners saluted Onyx while aiming with steady hands, the rest of their bodies trembling leaves in a fall wind. "I know." Jim sighed. "But Amelia is smart, she'll pull back if-"
"PULL BACK, RETREAT! REINFORCEMENTS ARE NOT COMING, I REPEAT, REINFORCEMENTS ARE NOT COMING! FLEE!"
That was Clement, who looked more than frantic.
"Ah, there it is." Jim turned to the crew, cupping his hands around his mouth. "GET THE HELL OUTTA HERE!"
"AYE, AYE, CAPTAIN!" Shouted the helmsman, who frantically wheeled the ship around as a cannon scathed their side.
"OI, WATCH IT YOU BLOODY GIT!" Snarled a incongruous female rigger as she unfurled a sail, dropping to the ground next to him after completing the task, smacking him upside the head. She whipped around and glared at Onyx and Jim like it was their faults, and then shoved them both to the side with surprising strength on her way back to the rigging, her wide hips swinging with the movement of her silky black tail.
"Damn." Jim mumbled, "she's scary. Who is she?"
Onyx went over the students he knew in his head and glanced back. "Minerva Hawthorne."
"What's her majors?" Jim paced around the ship, glancing back at the Iron Clad, which had veered to the right. It was heading towards a nebula. The Lagoon Nebula, to be exact. Jim couldn't fathom why they would, considering nebulas were incredibly thick and screwed with a ship's engine to the point you'd need to either higher a very high-priced mechanic or just buy a new damned engine.
"I don't know, ask her lover boy." Onyx rolled his eyes. Jim brushed his bangs back. "Yeah right. She's not my type."
"Oh really?"
"Yeah. She's...a Felinid."
"Why you racist bastard." Joked Onyx, seeming completely calm now. Jim felt himself relax the farther they got from the Iron Clad, listening to the orders to dock back at the academy coming from the Lyonesse. "I just don't really care for my significant other to have a tail."
"Uh huh." Onyx snorted as they stood at the bow of the sloop. Jim glanced at him. "What, you like her?"
Onyx seemed a bit taken aback. He was generally reserved, only loosening around friends and family-or if he felt like being a smart-ass. Though he was known to have gone out with some of the higher-class ladies of the Interstellar Academy and other schools, he never truly seemed to show a vast interest in any of them.
"No, I do not." He said, his poised manner coming back as he relaxed, his hands behind his back. "I just don't necessarily have a type."
"Ah."
"Do you?"
"A nice blonde with long legs." Jim said, smirking at the almost offended look that arose on the gentlemanly Onyx's face.
"You best be joking."
"Oh, don't worry, I am." Jim smirked as they stepped back onto the grounds of Interstellar Academy. "Ya' prude."
"Ha. Ha." Onyx whacked Jim's shoulder, nearly sending him to the ground. Onyx was tall, even for his species. Cragorian men averaged 7-7'1ft. He was 7'3, and still had time to grow. And he worked out. The gooey centered giant was intimidating in the mildest of terms. They and the rest of the students, in their mock uniforms associated to the ranks they were given depending on either their grades or majors, lined up on the grass. Amelia approached, composed, cool, and unreadable. She stood before them with her head held high.
"Good try, gents. I'm surprised none of you died. Though, I do like a good surprise now and then. A war hammer is being sent out to locate and possibly capture the Iron Clad. Until then you all are free to roam for the rest of the day. We will begin our exercises at six hundred hours, sharp. Dismissed."
And they left like nothing had ever happened. Jim and Onyx took off their mock Captain and First Mate uniforms in their dorm, Jim lazily tossing his to the foot of his bed, Onyx folding his and putting it on top of his dresser.
"I've never been so scared in my life." Jim admitted after quiet had settled over them like a blanket. Onyx nodded from his desk, where he was sketching with his quill. A plant, Jim figured. The boy was fascinated with them-especially flowers. "Nor have I." Onyx agreed.
"And that's just a glimpse of things." Jim sighed.
"Aye."
"We could die out there..."
"Aye."
"Either of us could get a bullet in the head, or captured...we could be tortured."
"Yep."
"Quit being so god-damned calm Onyx Arrow."
"Is it someone's time of the month again?" Onyx nearly sneered. Jim just crossed his arms over his chest and glared at him. Onyx went back to his sketching. "I don't fret over things I cannot change, Jim."
"But we can change this. We are being sent out into war to change it!"
"Tis not the war that makes the man, but the man that makes the war." Said Onyx poetically, not shifting. "We are making the war what it is. War. If we don't fight, it's not war."
"If we don't fight, we get killed by whatever the hell is out there taking out islands!" Jim was becoming rather heated now, having gotten up and let down his hair. He let it grow out into a shoulder length ponytail over the years, so he didn't have to wear a wig if he got a higher-up position on a ship when out of the Academy. It was protocol for men to have a ponytail. Why? No one really knew, but they assumed it was to make the Navy's sailor's look a bit more classy.
"I think it's just the Procyons. They're ahead of us technologically. By a landslide, actually. The only reason we keep beating them is with our tactical maneuvers and brawn."
"And they seemed to take one from us in this case...if it's them."
"What do you mean "if it's them"?" Onyx raised one eyebrow curiously. Jim flopped back into bed, flouncing his hair and stretching, holding his arms behind his head. "It could be anyone, really. No one has seen inside the ship. Besides, though they're pretty fast like most the Proc ships, they're bulky and made of Iron, not lithewood. It just don't seem Proc to me."
"You've got a point. Dad mentioned it seemed a bit of a...unorthodox design for them."
"What your mom say?"
"She agreed."
"Shit."
Onyx's mother was a woman who specialized in ship design of all planets and kingdoms in the Eitherium. She knew all the traits of the ships of each culture like the back of her hand. She also had an unhealthy obsession with cannoli that showed in the size of her hips. This obsession seemed to be hereditary. If you ever wanted Onyx to forgive you, get him a bag of cannoli from the market.
"That's accurate." Onyx nodded. "Honestly it's just something we'll have to wait and see what develops when we capture one."
"If we capture one."
"Quit being such a Negative Nancy."
Jim huffed. "Quit being such a...such a...Onyx!"
"Dude, lamest comeback. Ever."
Onyx laughed as Jim grumpily turned over in his bed, cursing himself. Things were quiet after that. The rhythmic scratching of Onyx's pen mixed with the beat of the drippy bathroom faucet created a simple melody that was actually rather calming. Jim stared at the wall, which had several different sketches, both machines and people. He had at least one of every friend or family member he could think of, and a dozen more of random passerby and then even more of engines and sails and machines in general. His eyes wandered over them, stopping on a sketch he'd done of Amelia-upon her request, actually. Though he didn't seem it, Jim was rather talented when it came to sketching. He figured it came from years of watching Delbert sketch out his maps and other such things in his observatory. His was only a copy, while Amelia had the original. It was of her sitting, smiling at him, holding little Sunny in her arms when he was maybe six months. The little pup was staring with his head cocked to the side curiously as Amelia held him close to her chest, her elegant fingers wrapping around his little shoulder. Jim had enjoyed drawing that picture. It was something he held a lot of pride in, especially with the knowledge it had a firm place in the living room where company could see it.
His eyes wandered from this sketch to an equally amazing one of Queen Illysa. It was a drawing of a picture that had been in the paper the day after her coronation, featuring the young, stone faced ruler in a chair, adored with several jewels as a man beside her printed on the royal tattoos to her arms, a symbol of her rule. The ink was incredibly rare, not loosing its color even after years of wear. He wondered if she would keep as stone faced as she was on that day as they continued in their quest to rid the Terran Empire of the dangers both the Procyons and the Iron Clads posed...
There was a knock at the door. "Come in." Onyx said, turning to face the door. In walked a Royal Messenger, standing tall in his lavender suit and white pants. He looked at the two with slightly disapproving eyes, the golden tattoos that curled around his lips giving the human a peculiar eeriness.
"The Queen requests your presence in her chamber." He said. Jim shot up, staring. Such an invitation was an honor reserved for the Fleet Admiral and generals of the Army and Coast Guard. Cadets in the Queen's chamber was unheard of.
That might explain the messenger's look of distaste.
"T-The Queen r-"
"Yes, yes, it's a huge honor, surprise, whatever." He waved away Jim's words, a snobbish air collecting about him. "Put on your best and meet me outside. There is a carriage waiting to take you to the palace."
He then left, closing the door behind him while snorting, muttering something that sounded like "neophytes". The two young men just looked at each other before quickly dressing into their best dress uniforms and hurrying out to the carriage, which was indeed waiting for them. They got in, the messenger sitting next to Onyx, seeming to crinkle his nose at Jim. Jim didn't know how to react other than to stay silent and stare out the window as the high tech carriage lifted up into the air, the jets propelling it forward as the driver controlled the rudder and the sails flapped on the sides. He wondered a bit fearfully why they were being called to the chambers of one of the most powerful and fear-striking people in the entire galaxy.