Here's part two out of three, maybe out of four lol. It was a really long chapter. Anyways, two new characters will be introduced in this chapter, and I'll list who they are at the bottom, for those who don't recognize them by their names.
Anyways, please enjoy!
The winding mountainous roads that hadn't seen maintenance in decades had proven troublesome for the passenger of the humvee, who was barely able to keep the contents of her stomach in during the entire hour-long drive it took for them to read the top of the high-plateau. Since the blond driver had been steering the armored vehicle, she hadn't experienced any motion-sickness during the entire drive, but even so, she knew better than to keep the nauseous teenager beside her waiting.
Pulling up ten meters away from the massive stone archway that was built into the twenty-meter tall walls that surrounded the pyramid-esque fortress, the blond girl in her sharp uniform quickly shifted the transmission from "drive" to "park", just as she heard her passenger fumbling with the door handle. "… Okay Miss Tio Plato, you may now-" but before the blond driver could finish giving her passenger permission to safely vacate the vehicle, the girl cut her off the moment she aggressively kicked open the passenger-side door.
Unbuckling herself with reflexes that she only saved for combat, Tio Plato scrambled out of her seat; hopping out of the armored vehicle to make her way behind the blue-steel humvee. Once she was out of the driver's view, Tio began to wretch out loud with her head hung low and her body leaning forward; her sleeved arm raised to grab a hold of the backside of the vehicle for support, as she fought to keep her lunch down. Needing only a few moments to regain her composure and fight away her nausea, Tio only ended up needing to spit out a few wass of excess saliva before feeling like herself again.
Tio spat one last time on the ground while patting her head against the back of the armored vehicle, before rising up to her feet to begin adjusting her outfit. "… Thanks, Degurechaff," was all the seemingly stoic girl had to say, before swinging open both doors that were hinged to the end of the humvee; allowing herself access to the entire small armory that was built into the back compartment of their large vehicle.
Muttering how inconvenienced she was under her breath, Tanya Degurechaff reached up with her hands to adjust the front mirror; using its reflection to adjust her captain's cap. Satisfied with how her headwear was sitting on top of her messy blond hair, Tanya gave herself a nod of approval before unbuckling herself; drawing out her sidearm from her leather hip holster, as she hopped out of the driver's seat. "Running out into the open to empty your stomach was an act of carelessness that could have resulted in an ambush…! I told you to take those motion-sickness pills before we left the station, did I not?!" Tanya scolded in a high-pitched voice of disapproval, as she scanned her surroundings with her pistol raised up in front of her.
Blinking slowly while staring for an uncomfortably long time at Tanya, who was somehow supposed to be in charge of her, Tio lifted her leg up onto the edge of the armored veichle's back compartment, before picking herself up and walking inside of the small armory. "I don't take pills and or injections of any kind," Tio said sternly, despite having a stone-faced demeanor and monotone voice; earning herself an unhinged eye roll from the armed girl.
Once she was certain that the coast was cleared, Tanya continued to keep her back up against the side of the armored vehicle as she continued to survey the area, all while Tio was preoccupied with stuffing her leather messager's bag with all the radars and measuring devices that she needed; making sure to take precaution when taking the blue pocket-sized device out from the pulled out drawer before her.
Once Tanya's shifty blue eyes had finished scanning the entire area around their vehicle, she finally made her way over to the back of the van, and immediately froze the moment she saw what was inside the rearranged gun cabinets that mounted above the metal cabinet that was full of drawers.
"W… What the HELL is the meaning of this, Plato?! Where are all those DAMN guns?!" Tanya demanded with a panicked and frustrated tone, as she immediately leapt up and practically shoved Tio to the side. Ignoring the only two weapons that were left in the mounted gun cabinet in front of her, Tanya began to frantically pull out each drawer that made up the armory; grunting and whimpering sorrows and frustrations each time she found something else that didn't belong in whatever compartment she was looking through.
Frowning as she reached over Tanya to pull her metallic weapon out from the gun cabinet above the blond girl's head, Tio wrapped her fingers tightly to the steel pole of her orbal staff; making sure to keep to inspect the top of the staff, where the golden top mechanism was fitted with a glowing blue orb. Making sure to not needlessly loosen her orb from the slot it was inserted into, Tio tucked her orbal staff close to her body and made sure its upper half didn't collide with the roof of the vehicle, as she hopped out of the armory to give her neurotic commander more space.
Once her black shoes had made contact with the grass, Tio turned around with both of her hands held tightly around the base of her orbal staff; watching with a seemingly uncaring expression on her face as Tanya continued to make a mess. "Our orders were specific: we DIDN'T come to the Sun Fort to hunt down the Ancient Wyvern. This is strictly a research mission, so I took out all the grenades, guns, and ammunition that you packed in here last night, and replaced them with scientific instruments that we're actually going to need for this assignment," Tio explained to Tanya, while making sure to emphasize how poorly the young blond girl packed for what was supposed to be a reconnaissance mission.
Pulling out another drawer and immediately becoming on the verge of seeing red the moment she was met with the sight of a large cartoon gray-cat plushie in place of where she had stored stacks of ammo-clips the night prior, Tanya pulled out the plushie and gripped it tightly by its neck as she stormed her way over toward the back of the vehicle. "Is that why you brought a goddamn TOY with us?!" Tanya retorted with a flustered look on her seething face, as she raised her arm up to present to Tio the stuffed cartoon animal she had stowed away. "SINCE WHEN THE HELL WAS "MISHY" EVER CONSIDERED "NECESSARY" FOR A RECON MISSION?!?"
Flashing a menacing glare at Tanya, Tio immediately reached her arm up and yanked her plushie away from the commander's small hand. "Since ALWAYS," Tio said in a protective and quiet tone; shooting Tanya a disapproving glare, before making her way over to the passenger side of the vehicle. Like a mother wanting to safeguard her child, Tio gingerly sat her stuffed Mishy toy down on the passenger's seat, and made sure that it was sitting up right with the back of its large head resting against the white-leather cushion.
Shaking her head and groaning to herself, Tanya took out her wood-stock orbal rifle that was modeled after the semi-automatic "M1 Garande". Doing a weapon's inspection while Tio was preoccupied with buckling in her stuffed plushie to the passenger's seat, Tanya took out the ammo clip from the top-side of the firing mechanism, before inserting the bullets back inside. Making sure that the bottom-bullet of the clip was chambered, Tanya flipped her rifle backwards to ensure that the glowing green orb fitted into the stock of her rifle was safely secured into its orb slot.
Letting out a relief sigh the moment she pulled out the last drawer out of the vehicle's entire back armory that contained a fraction of the equipment she wanted to bring along for the assignment, Tanya stuffed her leather satchel connected to her belt with spare clips of ammo and a few grenades, before closing it shut. "At least you had enough sense in you to NOT completely neuter our inventory… Miss Plato, might I ask what you did with the rest of the equipment that I packed into this armory?" Tanya asked with a less volatile voice than before, as she put the butt of her rifle down on the floor of the vehicle's back compartment; making sure that the flashlight module at the bottom of her barrel was still working.
Ignoring Tanya's crude comment about her replacing all her weapons with tools of her own, Tio closed the side passenger door before returning to the back of the armored vehicle. "I returned everything you checked out from the main armory to the logistics team. Everything's been accounted for properly; just the way that it's supposed to be," Tio said reassuringly in her usual stoic demeanor, as she opened her satchel up while balancing her orbal staff against the side of the armored vehicle; making sure that the valuable and experimental device she took from the armory was kept securely within the zipped-up pocket inside her bag, before taking out another handheld device that looked similar to it.
Hopping out of the backside of the vehicle, only after she had gotten everything she wanted from their less-than-ideal armory, Tanya put her small arm through the strap attached to the underside of her orbal rifle. Seeing Tio pocketing her own metallic device from her satchel, Tanya reached down and patted her own pocket, to make sure that she still had her device on her as well. "If the purpose of this mission was to do simple research, Miss Tio, then surely you can explain why you brought the "Mark II" with along with us."
Nodding her head only once, Tio closed the top-half of her messenger's bag, and latched it shut before answering Tanya's retort. "I was directly tasked by the Epstein Foundation to carry the "ENIGMA Mk II" with me, every chance that I get," Tio replied, before gesturing with one hand toward how desolate the grassy fields on top of the high plateau were. "We're in a non-populated area, far from Crossbell and any other civilization… Once we identify any traces left behind by the Ancient Wyvern's energy signature, I fully intend on using the Mk II long enough to collect a solid amount of battle data for me to analyze when we head back."
Although the prospect of her one day getting her hands on an updated orbament than the one she and Tio already had on them, Tanya couldn't help but to feel slightly crossed about her weapons still being taken from her. "Whatever… I suppose bringing enough firepower to arm a squadron of officers wouldn't have done us any good to begin with; seeing how it's just you and I out here by ourselves," Tanya lamented, while trying her best to let things go, and just when Tio thought for a moment that the young girl was beginning to show signs of self-improvement, the commander proceeded to get fired up once again.
"It's not your fault that we're out here on this pointless mission to begin with! If things were the way I wanted them to be, it wouldn't be just two out here," Tanya ranted with a bothered look in her icey-blue gaze, as she lowered her eyes down to stare at her uplifted fist that she kept close to her chest. Realizing that things were about to get political with Tanya again, Tio rolled her amber eyes, and focused on connecting the advanced energy-seeking meter that she took out of her satchel to the device she had built into her chest's metal chassis.
"… I take it Mayor MacDowell didn't approve your request to use every officer from Crossbell to launch some sort of full-on hunt?" Tio asked in her monotone voice, while her amber eyes focused on the screen of the monitoring device in her hands. 'The "Aeon System" successfully connected to the "Aether Meter"… Oh, this is strange… It's picking up a lot of activity here,' Tio thought to herself, as she began tinkering with the touch-screen device, so as to properly calibrate its sensitivity.
Getting so worked up to the point that she didn't pick up on the stoic girl's sarcasm hidden in her rhetorical question, Tanya clenched her fingers around the stick of her orbal rifle while snarling at the mere right of the mayor. "That old stingy bastard…! He should be voted out of office for how poorly he's handled this mess! It's only by the grace of Aidios that the sentries didn't get annihilated by that dragon-thing!" Tanya vented with seething bitterness in her crazed voice, which did nothing to phase the calm demeanor on Tio's face.
"You're talking about the barricade that was set out here? You think the mayor didn't handle that properly?" Tio asked with a monotonous voice, as she focused more on her own task than bothering herself with entertaining Tanya's political rant. "They were ordered to abandon their post prior to the "Ancient Wyvern" being spotted heading toward their way. They retreated and kept eyes on it from a safe distance; like how they were trained to do," Tio said, while furrowing her thin brows the moment her device picked up on a similar signature that her headband device had alerted her of earlier.
'There's that signal that the Aeon System picked up earlier… Does it have anything to do with the Ancient Wyvern?' Tio thought to herself, as she continued to focus on zeroing in on one of the two noticeably powerful energy signatures that her Aether Meter was detecting.
Keeping her vigilance even in the midst of what was actually a conversation that only she was taking seriously, Tanya growled as she slung her arm out of her orbal rifle's strap; raising her weapon up and looking through its iron sights to scan the tops of the Sun Fort's battlements. "Bleh! If the mayor funded the police more, they wouldn't have NEEDED to retreat! If those men had just a few cannons and an actual MODERN fortress when they spotted that "Ancient Wyvern", or whatever the hell it was, they would have been able to take care of the problem already!" Tanya shouted angrily, while making sure to correct herself after Tio reminded her of the actual name of the legendary monster that they were searching for.
Nodding her head without even knowing why she was doing it, Tio muttered quietly to herself as she was beginning to calculate the sources of where the two seperate energy frequencies were coming from. "Yeah… Okay, sure," was all Tio bothered to say in response to Tanya's opinion on what the mayor should have done; making it abundantly clear to the passionate blond girl that she wasn't all too interested in what she had to say.
Misunderstanding Tio's disinterest as sarcasm, Tanya went wide-eyed for a split second as she processed what the teenager had said to her, before lowering her rifle to turn around and glare at her. "You mock me, yet you know as well as I do that this reconnaissance mission is just a public-relations stunt at best. Say we do find the Ancient Wyvern, or its "energy signature"— then what?! We travel all the way back to gather some reinforcements that SHOULD have been with us in the first place, and then come ALL the way back here, and then— what do you know?! The damned monster's gone by the time we regroup, and then we're back to sq-"
"-Be quiet, the Aether Meter is zeroing in on something," Tio interrupted, as she raised a finger up in front of Tanya's face to silence her rant. 'There's… Two different signatures that are still giving off energy within the vicinity… One's nearby on top of the plateau with us, and the other…? That can't be right,' Tio thought to herself with a confounded look in her amber eyes, as she stared back at the monitor of the Aether Meter, which was telling her that the other energy signature was radiating over five-hundred meters beneath their feet.
Even though she knew better than to get upset with Tio for prioritizing the mission over her allowing her to rant, Tanya still wasn't a fan of the way the pastel-blue haired girl shushed her by putting her hand directly in front of her mouth. Biting back her tongue and diverting her frustration into something more productive, Tanya immediately leapt and climbed up the side of the armored vehicle; taking position on the top, and kneeling down near the gunner's hatch, as she immediately raised her rifle up to get ready for anything.
With Tanya acting as her sentry, Tio was able to fine-tune the settings of her Aeon System to better calibrate the frequency her hand-held meter was sending out to pick up on the two completely separate energy signatures. 'Recalibrating the Aether Meter… Translating the two measurements into seismic readings, then to electromagnetic readings, and then… Comparing the data to the energy spike that the Aeon System picked up earlier, and… Wait! I was right! That's the exact same energy signature from earlier!' Tio thought to herself with her eyes widening, as she shoved her meter into her satchel.
"… Damn it, I didn't realize it was that close to our position," Tio muttered to herself in a monotone voice, despite feeling stressed, as she continued to keep her Aeon System connected to her Aether Meter, so that she could focus exactly on where the energy signature was coming from. "Degurechaff! Nine o'clock! There's something around the corner of the wall; I need you to cover me," Tio relayed out loud to the blond commander, before picking her orbal staff up from where she had it leaning against the side of the armored vehicle.
Immediately shifting her focus and aiming down her sights over to where Tio had told her to look, Tanya lowered her index finger and rested the tip of her digit against the cold-metal trigger of her orbal rifle; one knee down against the on the top of roof, while. "I've got your six, Plato! On your mark," Tanya called out, while preparing to lay down cover fire with her orbal rifle; activating its translucent green-shield out of the glowing sides of her barrel, that covered the entire front of her body, with the only thing sticking out of it being the tip of her rifle.
Grabbing a hold of her orbal staff and keeping it close to her chest like one would do with a rifle, Tio used her powerful legs to sprint from behind the cover that the armored vehicle was giving her. Making a beeline to the twenty-meter tall stone wall, Tio quickly switched the settings of her cat-ear headband back to her previously saved preferences, and held her orbal staff out with her back pressed against the old stone-wall. Keeping wary of the possibility of there being a potential ambush from the battlements above, Tio wasted no time making her way closer to the Western corner of the fortress' surrounding walls, where she was anticipating a hostile encounter to take place.
Not wanting to give Tio's position away, who was knelt down a few meters away from the corner of the wall with her orbal staff held out protectively, Tanya decided to use her naturally loud voice to bark out a command, and bring the attention toward her instead. "This is the Crossbell Police Department! Drop your weapons and come out with your hands raised above your heads! Failure to abide by my orders will result in necessary force being used!" Tanya shouted out in a loud and authoritative voice, while preparing to use all the excessive force that she thought would be necessary.
All was quiet on the front, and the tensions within the air were sky high. Both Tanya and Tio remained on edge while holding their positions with their weapons at ready. A few minutes had passed since the order was first shouted and nothing was happening, which meant that whatever they were faced with wasn't being compliant. Thinking that they were going to have to use force like she predicted, Tanya was about to signal for Tio to back away so she could use the ENIGMA in her pocket to cast a bolt of lightning to destroy the corner of the stone wall.
That's when both young girls were swept right off their feet, as each of them immediately became stunned the moment Kaguya came hopping out from the corner of the stone wall, twitching her small nose at them, before beginning to nibble down on the blades of grass beneath her. Lowering their weapons, Tanya gave Tio an inquisitive stare; gesturing at the horned rabbit with narrowed eyes.
Shrugging her slender shoulders back at the commander, Tio looked away from the corner and shook her head to herself. 'Can't believe something this small was able to produce an energy signature that powerful… Maybe this rabbit is part of a new sort of species with unique septium shards inside of them?' Tio thought curiosity to herself, as she leaned her orbal staff against the side of the wall once again. '… What if that energy signature the Aether Meter picked up on wasn't even the Ancient Wyvern, but just another new species of animal that wandered inside the Sun Fort? Maybe this mission really was just a waste of time after all…'
Feeling disappointed in herself and at how their assignment had panned out, Tio was about to pop open the latches of her messager's bag to finish gathering intel on the other more massive energy reading she got from her handheld meter, but that was when her cat headband picked up the sound of footsteps approaching her from the other side off the wall.
Turning her attention to what was on the other side of the wall, Tio was caught off guard the moment she heard Tanya's orbal rifle firing shots near her position. Being forced to duck down to avoid getting hit by a rogue bullet that blew apart a large hole in the stone wall where her head was, Tio looked up and went wide-eyed the moment she saw Tanya struggling as she got pulled into the opened hatch door of where the gunner's seat was.
'Is this an ambush?!' Tio thought to herself with a panicked wave of dread washing through her, as she reached over to grab a hold of the orbal staff. With her heart sinking, Tio was about to leap forward toward the armored vehicle to help Tanya, but that was when a powerful hand punched straight through the stone-brick wall behind her. Cursing under her breath as she felt a strong yet slender arm wrap around her throat, Tio's body was pulled backwards through the hole; breaking more of the stone wall with her body, before being judo thrown flat on her back once she was pulled through.
With how hard the back of her head smacked against the ground, especially after having been roughed up from being pulled through an extremely thick stone-wall, Tio was dazed and covered in fresh cuts. Even though the air had been knocked out of her lungs and she was more than likely suffering from a concussion, that didn't stop Tio from rolling away just in time to avoid being pinned down by a steel-boot. Letting the long arm strap of her messager's bag slip off of her body as she rolled backwards and onto her feet, Tio's focus became steadfast the moment she locked eyes with the grinning auburn haired teenager standing in front of her.
Narrowing her amber eyes at Hero, Tio tightened her grip around the handle of her orbal staff; activating the orb on the golden head of her advanced weapon, while the blade of Hero's unsheathed light sword was radiating in a brilliant white light. "Who are you, and why are you doing this?" Tio demanded, as she thought to give the auburn-haired teenager one chance to explain herself before engaging with her in battle.
Smirking cockily at the disgruntled young girl, Hero twirled her sword in her hand before raising it up toward where Tio had the end of her orbal staff raised in front of her. "Don't try to act like you're in a position to call the shots here, kid; you were the ones who were going to attack us first! So why don't you put your little stick down and surrender?! Make things easier for the both of us, yeah?!" Hero suggested with a challenging look in her apricot-colored eyes; daring the pastel-haired girl to make a move against her.
"… "Kid"? You don't even look that much- Nevermind," Tio scoffed under her breath, before immediately shaking her head at the idea of surrendering to someone who could have easily killed her with that stunt she pulled. "… Surrendering to you? That's absolutely out of the question; I don't negotiate with hostiles," Tio muttered sternly under her breath, as the light at the end of her orbal staff became more volatile the longer she charged up her attack.
Shrugging her shoulders while grinning, Hero let out a throaty chuckle as she prepared herself to strike hard, and to strike fast. "Tch…! Yeah, I pretty much figured you be the kind of person who-Woah?!?" Unable to finish her sentence, Hero had to leap several meters backwards the moment Tio fired a powerful beam of blue energy from the top of her orbal staff; holding her orbal armament like a rifle, as she tried using her keen eye to keep up with how fast Hero was able to move.
'Wow! She's actually keeping up with me? Heh, this might actually be kind of fun after all!' Hero thought cockily to herself, as she raised her free hand to cast a spell granting the ability to move at speeds that even Tio's train eye would struggle to keep up with. Through the power of the platinum-ranked adventurer's magic buff, Hero's entire body became enveloped in an aura of golden light that started to constantly leave behind afterimages that not even Tio's Aeon System was able to distinguish from Hero's actual location.
'Afterimages?! There's only a handful of people who can move like that…! Was she enhanced with chemicals, or is she using an orbal tech?!' Tio wandered to herself with all the neurons within her powerful brain firing at once. Trying to keep track of Hero, who was bouncing off the stone walls that Kaguya was desperately trying to keep intact with her chakra from a safe distance, Tio eventually was forced to switch from her "Ether Buster" craft to "Zero Field" craft. Tio didn't even have a fraction of a split second to spare before the blue forcefield being projected from her orbal staff was barely able to block the mighty explosion caused by Hero's "Sun Burst" spell.
If Kaguya wasn't as quick as she was in her rabbit form, she wouldn't have had enough time to not only place a seal on Sun Fort's main structure and walls, but she herself would have been obliterated in the fiery blast of Hero's AOE spell. Barely having enough time to erect a barrier using the last of her chakra that she had accumulated from all the monsters Goblin Slayer and Hero had slain on the island, Kaguya felt her heart skipping a beat the moment she saw the golden light of the "Sun Burst" envelop her shield; blinding her in its holy radiance.
So first and foremost, "Tanya Degurechaff" is the titular character of "The Saga of Tanya the Evil", which is an anime and manga.
Next character is "Tio Plato", who is a party member from "The Legends of Heroes" video game series, and debuted in "Trails to Zero".