It had taken us a while to gain the necessary paperwork needed to travel to the Maple Monarchy at such short notice for such a large group of people, but eventually we had embarked towards our destination. As we sailed up to the dock Hornet pulled me to one side. "Okay, so, I looked into this 'Pyke' fella. Best way to describe his is…a nutjob."
"Okay…?"
"You've got to remember, that this was the same guy who thought it was a good idea to transport men from ships to shore in pressurised pipes*. So, what I'm trying to say is, this 'great treasure' of his could be literally anything, so what I'm trying to say is, take extra precautions." I suppose she's right in a way, we have no idea what this thing looks like, we could walk right into it and have it blow up in our face. I gave a muted nod just as we reached the pier, jumping off from the water and onto dry land.
We travelled the rest of the way by truck, as the lake in question was far inland with no access to the sea. Eventually we arrived a our destination. As we hopped off of the truck, the beautiful sight of an autumnal lakeside scene greeted us, although the views were spectacular, it wasn't what we came to see. And as usual 'little Britain' was back giving orders again. "Right, Warspite, myself and…you…" She growled at Hornet. "Will search this side of the lake. Amazon, Enterprise and my serv-the commander will take the other side." I was sure pretty sure I heard her say something, although she looked only mildly flustered and frustrated at her slip up, possibly thinking no-one heard her. Judging by the looks of the faces of everyone around, I'd say about 87.5% of the group noticed, guess who didn't.
"Well, considering how well thought out that plan is, I guess we should put it in motion." The commander replied, oblivious to the queen's Freudian slip.
"Excuse me Queen Elizabeth senpai. What should we do?" Myoukou asked.
The queen scoffed before adding haughtily "You're staying here, on guard duty."
"I guess that makes sense." Unfortunately, what the commander doesn't understand is the hidden meaning behind the plan, the reason the queen split the group like this is so that she and Warspite can 'keep an eye on' Hornet, Amazon can keep an eye on the commander and Enterprise and we're out of their way in case they believe us to be a nuisance. I think Hornet knew that too.
Each group made their separate way around the edge of the lake, leaving myself and Myoukou to ourselves. "What do you think this 'great treasure' is, senpai?"
"Don't know. Stop calling me that."
"But if you had to guess."
"A bomb."
"Really…?"
"Alright then, a gun."
"You can't just change your mind senpai~!"
"Don't call me that."
A few seconds of grateful silence.
"There's an awfully long pier out on the lake senpai."
"Don't. Call me that!"
I was starting to get annoyed, and it had only been 15 minutes, I began looking around at the scenery, and suddenly I spotted something quite well camouflaged. It was a large hut, hidden amongst the large tree trunks, it's dirty walls concealing it further.
I gave Myoukou a nudge and nodded towards the building. "Shall we see what's in that building?" And without waiting for a reply I began walking towards said building.
"No, we can't Elizabeth senpai told us to guard the trucks." I stopped and turned around.
"No, she said we were on guard duty, so let's go and guard this hut." And with that I continued making my way towards the dilapidated building, Myoukou in pursuit.
Making our way into the building was both easy and difficult at the same time, easy because the door proved not too much of a barrier with our strength even if it had rusted shut. The inside was a little trickier to navigate, with piles of rubble making up the majority of the ground. We carefully manoeuvred ourselves across the floor before finding an area that was rubble-free. "Okay, what's over here then?" I mumbled out loud to myself. I rested one of my hands on what remained on a long workbench that, for the most part was buried under rubble at both ends. Wiping away a thick layer of dust I noticed a piece of dust that seemed thicker than the rest. Grabbing this 'piece of dust' a small section easily came away in my hand. I turned it over. "Huh."
"What is it senpai?"
"Don't call me that." I replied showing Myoukou the parchment in my hand. It was a blueprint, a blueprint of what I don't know as there was only a small corner section of it that I could find, all I do know is that one of the edges was somewhat curved.
"Hey!"
"JESUS!" But it wasn't Jesus, as I found out when I turned my head, it was Enterprise, standing by the doorway.
"What are you doing here?"
"Just looking around." I replied.
"Well come out of there, I think we've found what we're looking for. I'm going to inform the others." And with that Enterprise disappeared from view and we started to make our way back out of the building.
It didn't take us long for us to find Amazon and the commander, a little way off from the shoreline and into the surrounding trees, standing by a large metal structure.
"What have you found?" I asked.
"Some sort of secret basement." Amazon explained. As we approached we could see for ourselves that was the case.
"Follow me!" The commander ordered as he walked down the steps, Amazon followed behind, and us, behind them.
The stairs were pretty steep as we made our way down, and as we descended, there seemed to be a drop in the temperature.
"Is it me or is it getting cold?" Myoukou asked, her warm breath touching the back of my neck. I reached out to steady myself on the wall, it was cold to the touch, but this didn't feel like the normal cold metal cold, but something even colder. I found myself being able to get some of my fingers behind something, (there wasn't much light), and pulled it away with a low crack, I looked at the object in my hand, it was a thin piece of ice that was covering the walls.
"You wait till we reach down the bottom." Amazon said.
As we descended further, the commander finally said, "We're here!" There was a noticeable drop in the temperature, and as Amazon moved away from the ladder, I could see a large chamber, entirely covered in ice.
"We found some generators running off some huge oil barrels on the surface." The commander explained. "I guess they have something to do with all this ice." He continued as I reached the last step. The chamber itself wasn't that big, in fact my guess is that the ice had blocked the rest of it off. "Also watch your step the entire floor is made up of ice so be carefu-".
Was the last proper word I heard from the commander before one of my legs decided to do a sprint and the other a light jog, causing me to fall backwards and hit my head on the metal steps, I think someone called my name, and I think Myoukou looked over me with concern, but it was too blurry to tell, before everything turned black.
*Yes, he did propose this, although it never got the go-ahead.