Chapter 7
The Calm Before the Storm

Back on Carolea, Carolus is reading a story book to some of the children of the orphanage. The book he is reading has a picture of a golden-clad knight fighting a black dragon. It is a picture book that he shows them. The title is: Ancient Myths and Tales for Children.

He reads, "A long, long time ago in the ancient days of Earth, a black and terrifying dragon has appeared upon a kingdom. The dragon torched all in its path, everything it touches turn to decay and wither. Turning everything into a wasteland where life can no longer be grown. Many brave knights fought the dragon with steel in hand and armed with virtuous hearts were slain by the terrifying beast. Those who did not burn by the dragon's flame were turn to skeletons by its touch and force to become undead minions. The dragon and its undead army raised many in its path to end the world and devour all traces of life. Until one day, in the city of Cyrene, a hero emerged. A tall man in golden armor and a flaming golden sword had appeared to slay the dragon with three angels at his back. This golden hero slew all undead in his path as a fierce and deadly battle was waged against the dragon. The ground quaked as they fought with thunder clashing in the sky, seas roar with the sound of both sword and claw bashing, and the very air was hot and heavy from the battle. The battle can be felt across the known world for each blow done. In the end, this great golden knight won the battle as he pierced his blade through the monster's heart and won the day. When the dragon died, life have been slowly restored to where the dragon once laid waste. Trees and plants grew, waste became forests, waters of life have flown were there was drought, and animals return to graze once more. As for the golden hero, he had disappeared. Leaving only the legend of the fierce battle. The End."

The children cheer when the story ended.

One child said, "That was an amazing story!"

One of the other children drew their wooden sword, "I would like to be a hero one day! Just like that golden knight!"

"Hey! Who wants to go outside and play knight and dragon?" asked a young girl.

"I get to be the knight!"

"I get to be one of the angels!"

"I'll play the dragon!"

Carolus giggles as the kids want to play, "Alright. Who wants to go outside and play?"

"YAY!" the children went before the go outside.

Hestia walks in, "Sounds like they enjoyed the story."

Carolus closes the book, "It was." But he looks puzzled, "Although... The flaming sword part." He remembers about the sword he was given that can produce flames. "That sword my father wielded and is passed down to me. Was this story the inspiration for that?"

"I...don't know." Hestia is just as lost as Carolus. "I mean, the story is ancient so it makes it difficult to say. Plus that book is over three hundred years old. It was hard to find an old children's book that is still intact after all this time."

Carolus puts the book down on the side table and gets up from his chair before putting his sword on his back. "That's true. Even found those Harry Potter books from the 21st century that have been intact for thousands of years." He heads straight out, "Time to check on the garden."

On the roof of the orphanage, Yuka is tending a flower garden with a variety of bioluminescent flowers ranging from oriental poppies to rainbow roses. She is watering them as she hums a tune.

Then Carolus pops in, "Hey, Yuka."

Yuka stops, "Hm? Oh, hey Carolus."

Carolus approaches, "How goes the flowers?"

"They're doing alright. But I think we need more fertilizer for the roses. Some of them have started to wilt."

"What, no way!" Carolus is shocked, "But I made sure that they got plenty of food and water the last time I was up here. We should have plenty of fertilizer."

"The thing is that some of it is disappearing."

"Disappearing?" Carolus thinks about it for a moment. "Now that I think about it, I did notice a few of our gardening tools have disappeared as well. The trowel, your little rake, one of the buckets, and a few others."

"I know, right? At this rate, we won't have enough flowers to sell to get enough food."

"Yeah and all the containers down below have been looted six months ago, so we can't go back down there unless we can find another underground warehouse nearby. Not to mention that the gangs are getting more bolder. Heard that the Demeter Familia got one of their food caravans raided last week."

"I know. Things are getting worse and worse." Yuka continues to water the flowers. "Just wish Rugu was here along with Joana."

"But we still have me and my sword. But then again, that might not be enough."

VROOOOO! A loud motorized sound can be heard from the ground. The two check at the edge of the roof to see what is going on. From what they can see, some sort of biker gang on vulture hover cycles. Eight in total. One of them looks like a Saiyan with his shirtless jacket with the sleeves ripped out, heavy metal bracers, black jeans with a chain dangling on the right side and black cowboy boots. The kids that were playing head back inside.

He approaches and shouts, "HEY! ALL OF YOU LEAVE, NOW! THIS IS THE MOON MONKEY'S TURF NOW!"

A super mutant laughs, "Yeah. The Hestia Familia is nothing more than a pushover."

"Moon Monkey's?" Yuka questions the name of the gang.

Carolus squeezes his fists tight as he is offended that the Hestia Familia is being called a pushover. He jumps down from the roof and slashes a hand off of the Saiyan biker when the sword was on fire. Blood gushed out of the Saiyan's right wrist as he screams from the pain as part of his wrist is charred.

Carolus point his flaming sword at the Saiyan, "You dare trespass and try to force our Familia out?! You mess with the Hestia Familia, you'll lose more than just a hand!"

The Saiyan biker gets angry, "You will pay for that!" He looks at his crew, "Get 'em!"

The biker gang charge at Carolus as he slashes their weapons. Chains, pipes, knives. The sword he wields cut and melt through them all as he also slash through the crew right down to their bones. The Saiyan watched as his entire crew got wiped out and is overwhelmed with despair. The Saiyan then tries to fire an energy beam but something made of metal is around his neck. Yuka, with a scary and vicious look in her eyes has a tanto around the biker's neck.

She speaks in a threatening tone, "If you fire that shot, you're life ends here by my blade."

The Saiyan stops the energy formation and raise his only hand up in surrender.

Carolus points his blade at the Saiyan's nose, "Now then, care to tell us your secrets before we hand you over to the proper authorities? Like say, any sort of underground supply warehouses?"

"Damn you." he says before Yuka places her serrated dagger closer to his neck. "Fine."

The next day, Carolus and Yuka have entered into an abandoned subway line to where the Saiyan biker told them after being handed over to the local authorities. Both of them go through the old tunnels to find more resources that only a rare few have been found.

"Do you think he's telling the truth?" Carolus asked.

"That's the third time you asked."

"Hey, gotta make sure we aren't falling into a trap."

"He was. We were lucky that we got the information before the police arrived."

The two of them came across a fork in the tunnels as they see one graffiti that has a hand with a red 'X' on it while the other has a skeletal hand pointing in another tunnel.

Yuka says, "I think he said the skeleton hand is the route we should take."

"Hold on." Carolus picks up a pebble, "Just to make sure." He tosses the pebble and detonated a mine. "Yep. Trap."

"Damn it." Yuka says. "Looks like I was tricked." She tosses a stone in the other tunnel and there are no mines.

But she did trip a motion sensor that triggered a set of explosions.

"That's a trap, too. Fuck."

"Hmm..." Carolus thinks about their situation. "Those thugs used those vulture bikes. They're hoverbikes so they can fly or float over the mines. So in this case, he was telling the truth about the skeleton hand pointing the right way but never mentioned the mines. Probably did that out of spite."

Yuka is very upset, "If that guy ever gets out, I'll kill that bastard."

The two throw stones at every direction and try to hit every mine in the path.

As they reach midway, Carolus says, "We also need to make our own defenses to replace the mines that we're setting off."

"Don't worry, I have an idea once we finally reach out destination."

After setting off explosions in a two mile long tunnel, they finally reached a hole in the wall where the warehouse is at. They look inside with their flashlights and see a multitude of cargo crates with only a small number of them open.

"This is it!" Yuka says. "Finally!"

"Hope we can find something worthwhile."

Carolus checked a green crate and found boxes of canned food and even freeze dried mushrooms. Upon further inspection, he found eight bags of fertilizer and a few gardening tools to replace the ones that disappear.

"Sweet!" Carolus said. "Hey, Yuka! I found some fertilizer and gardening tools!"

Yuka is in a red crate, "I found more children books for the kids! But what the fuck is Little Critter?"

"Beats me! First I've heard of it! Must be rare!"

"Yeah! Some are from 1975 all the way up to 2012! Triplicates of each!"

Carolus checked some of the other crates to find the SCP symbol until he comes across a blue one with it. He opens it up and it has a huge amount of Living Legos with jars of the Tickle Monster in various colors, boxes of teddy bears with correct anatomical hearts, and some rifles with ammunition. M16A1 rifles to be exact. He then checks the Legos to see if its the ones he was after.

"Jackpot." he went.

What he found were a few Harry Potter sets, Indiana Jones, trains, the whole Castle collection, Space Police III, Alien Conquest and many others. He loaded them all up with the jars. However, he debates on whether or not he should bring these ancient rifles with him. He doesn't like the idea of the Familia having such weapons, but things are getting tougher and tougher. Yet if he gives them to the other Familias close to the Hestia Familia, they might provide support. So, he decided to grab all the rifles and ammo.

After an hour or two, they managed to fill up as much as they can.

"Shame that Rugu and Joana aren't here." Yuka says in a normal tone but her expression is that of both longing and nostalgia.

"Yeah." Carolus feels the same. "Resource gathering isn't the same without them. Speaking of, I heard Rugu got promoted to lieutenant." He says as they head back.

"That fast?" Yuka is astonished. "Wow. When did that happen?"

"Something about a battle against facing a few Kryptonians that have fallen to anger and became monsters on some distant planet in the galaxy. Heard his squad got nearly wiped out and the battle was so fierce that they shattered a whole continent."

"Damn. But I wonder what happened to Joana."

"Yeah, I haven't heard anything about her in a long time. Hope she didn't get swallowed in Dimension Space." I.e. Dimension Space is the same as Warp Space in the Archaeo Coalition.

"Or worse, became a monster herself."

"Hope she's alright."

The two exit out of the subway with no difficulty. They realized that it is night time as they head back. They got on their platform and head on home.

When they got home, Carolus headed over towards the Hephaestus Familia not too far from the Hearth Orphanage. The Anvil & Gun Workshop it is called. Carolus presents his findings, the rifles, to the members of the Familia. A Cabal looks at some of the rifles and judge them.

"Old human rifles. Lots of them." she examines. "Hmm... They are ancient and do have some value. Yet the ammunition you brought are 5.56mm armor piercing rounds. Not just any armor piercing. They have an alloy tungsten and titanium with chromium. Far more rare and valuable than normal armor piercing rounds. Something like this are in high demand for the expansion against some of the more dangerous things about. Quite a find."

"Thanks." Carolus smiles. "Hope they're worth a lot."

"Money is a bit tight at the moment due to a few...problems."

"I know." his smile drop, "Things are getting a bit out of hand lately. More and more of those eight-pointed star worshipers have been appearing as of late. The gangs are getting more violent, many expeditions to the Milky Way are being wiped. Even corporations have shown signs of failing." He sighs, "To be honest, I think that the expedition is draining more than giving."

"No kidding. I heard we lost a planet to a bunch of greenskins on motorcycles."

A Petrosapian appears, "So what's the verdict on those guns?"

The Cabal turn to face the Petrosapien, "They're antiques that are valuable, but the ammunition is worth more. Super strong ancient alloy."

"Really?"

Carolus is getting impatient and sighs, "Can I have my money now? I would like to get back to the Hearth Orphanage at some point."

"Hang on a moment."

Carolus just groans.

One hour later...

Carolus finally leaves with a disappointed look on his face. "Dammit." he says to himself as he walks back. "Can't believe they spent an hour arguing about the damn cost of the fucking ammo. I know Petrosapiens are stronger than the alloy, but not their species can't exist everywhere to provide the bullet tips. Not every bullet has to have their super tough crystals on them. Honestly." Carolus enters the orphanage, "I'm home. Sorry for being so late."

He walks in and sees Hestia sleeping on the couch rather than her bed. Carolus just smiles and places a blue blanket over her.

Hestia mumbles while dreaming. "Carolus..." she speaks in a low and barely audible tone, "I'm glad you're here..." She smiles.

Carolus sighs, "I know. We'll talk in the morning. Goodnight, Lady Hestia." He then head towards his room to retire.

As dawn begins to shine on Carolea, a huge fleet of ships appear above. The Imperium of Man has arrived.

"ABOUT FUCKING TIME!" Magnus shouts. "Now we can start setting everything up!"

Rogal speaks, "I've made plans for bases already."

Leman growls with impatience, "Let's do this!"

Karstodes speaks, "CAN WE MOVE ON WITH THE INVASION ALREADY!? MY BROTHERS AND I NEED MORE BODY OIL POST HASTE!"