Holfort has long since suffered a pirate problem, however the severity of the issue has dramatically increased in the past two generations.
In the past fifty years there has been a notable, dramatic increase in the number of pirate crews operating in Holfort. The situation can be traced back to the ongoing Forest of Ladies Conspiracy, houses that are driven into bankruptcy by the forest are subsequently left few options to make a living, some individuals join the army, others become adventurers, many though simply pack up all of their belongings and use their remaining assets, their house's ships and armours, to make a living the only way they feel that they have been left.
This unfortunately once again puts them into the wheel house of the Forest, who frequently use pirate raids as part of their ongoing efforts to drive even more of their husbands houses into debt, or otherwise eliminate people they just don't like. Luckily like many of Holfort's problems the Pirates will soon be a thing of the past.
Excerpt on Holfort's Cultural summation by Captain Erica
Brad, Greg and Chris had been released from custody on the condition that they 'behave themselves,' and that they pay for their voyage. It was an easy condition for the three of them to fulfil, once they had the bounty from all the pirates that they were going to hunt. That said.
"I'm surprised you brought her along." With the three of them exploring Leon's ship Greg and the others stumbled across Angelica and Olivia as they were practising magic. Angelica was holding a ball of ice in her left hand and a ball of fire in her right, Olivia seemed to be experimenting with some kind of gauntlet drop item.
"I don't trust the academy not to do anything with Olivia while I'm gone." Angelica stated bluntly.
"Having healing magic on hand is always important." Olivia replied confidently.
"So long as you stay in the infirmary where it's safe yes." Umbra had done a pretty good job of convincing the girls of the sturdiness of its ship, having seen both the material the ship itself was made out of and its internal structure, Angelica was confident that Umbra could take a direct hit from the pirates ship.
"Since when can you use water magic?" Brad on the other hand had zeroed in on a completely different aspect of the situation, namely the ball of ice in Angelica's hand.
"It's not water magic." Angelica corrected as she melted the ball in question, revealing a bright red apple with all the moisture sucked out of it. "I'm moving the heat around, I suspect it's remarkably similar to what you do when you're using earth magic."
"That's..." Brad looked like he was going to Argue but his face instead scrunched up in confusion. Angie on the other hand just sighed, before pulling out the lantern-like club that she had been using.
"Teach him." Angelica handed Brad the Devil arm, the weapon agreeing after being bribed. Having to increase the amount of red orbs that she feeds to the thing and being deprived of her tutor for a while was a relatively cheap price to pay in her opinion.
"Are you two capable of using fire or lightning magic?" Angelica asked as she looked at the two individuals in question.
"Pft. Like I Need it!" Greg snorted at the idea dismissively.
"...I have no interest in Magic thank you." Chris at least had the common decency to pretend to consider the offer. Glad that she'd at least be able to keep access to one of her tutors while she was on this trip Angelica went to get the Durga.
"If you have the time to spare Miss Redgrave." The three fools were surprised to say the least, Brad making a comical sight of jumping into the air and landing in Greg's arms princess style, when a grandfather clock suddenly popped out of the floor and spoke to them. "Then perhaps you and miss Olivia might like to watch Leon's training spars again?"
"Training Spar?" As someone who has been getting his ass kicked by Leon quite thoroughly Chris had a rather vapid interest in what kind of training he's been doing.
"Sure. I'm in no mood for my usual practice right now any way." As Angelica sat back down the clock projected an image onto the wall, Leon walking along the sky when a familiar figure emerged. "So it's the Masked Knight this time." Angelica stated as she looked on at the projection.
"Constantly fighting against the same opponent risks having him fall into a pattern, or worse him memorising the specific movements of his opponent and attempting to plan around them." Umbra replied as the enemy armour entered the simulation.
A platinum white armour, golden inlays across the torso and limbs, a classical knight styled visor with a deep navy blue cloak brandishing a single edged long sword with both hands. He was the very definition of a knight in shining armour.
One of the mysteries of the games that I wasn't able to figure out before I died was a matter of who the Masked Knight really was. He is arguably the most skilled armour pilot in the entire kingdom and on an initial play-through one might think that he was the game's intended secret route character compared to Blackmore who doesn't even appear in the initial game play-through. Since then though I have had the misfortune of not only meeting the Masked Knight but getting to know him, any pretence I once had of him as a romantic figure has effectively evaporated. Not only is the Masked Knight my very own father, but said father is a Lazy, Selfish, Irritating Asshole! One can also imagine that my father's skill with the blade has been dramatically exaggerated by a combination of his own personal PR department, silencing unfavourable witnesses and in my case the game's writing team. Credit where do though, when it comes to stalling the enemy for time and then fleeing the area in the face of his allies ensuing barrage of artillery fire 'the Masked Knight' is without peer.
Excerpt from Diary 1
The first surprise of the day was that Blackmore somehow got the Masked Knight to spar with him, even more surprising than that he was actually able to keep up with him, especially since Blackmore wasn't using the armour from the duel, he wasn't using any armour at all near as they could tell. Instead Blackmore was moving faster than the Masked Knight's blade could strike him, and not only that but was retaliating either with the Shotguns he used in the Dungeon, black gauntlets with spikes and blades that suddenly appeared from his arms and legs or a electrified sword with a roaring dragon for a cross guard, none of which appeared on his person until such time that he was using them, and then disappeared immediately when he used another weapon.
"You're not going to join him this time?" Angelica asked directing her attention to the Grandfather clock that was projecting the image.
"I am already piloting the ship, preparing the armour for combat, getting all of your meals ready and cleaning the holding cells and the tow for when we are finished cleaning up the pirates." Umbra replied bluntly. "As much as I would like to join the battle in the capacity of a Devil Arm that would deprive this ship of its power source." No matter how good of a multi-tasker the demon was it can't be in two places at once. "I will simply have to settle for acting as range support with my Ship's cannons."
"Um. Do you know where the Prince and Jilk are?" Olivia was vaguely aware of the fact that Leon was supposed to be tutoring the Prince and his friends most of his friends were here while the Prince himself was absent.
"He's still getting healed at the Royal hospital after your boyfriend nearly beat him to death." To Chris's explanation Olivia turned beet red and started stammering under her breath. "More importantly what even is this? That cannot be the Real Masked knight can it?"
"It is not." Umbra naturally gave the follow up. "It is an illusion I created by combining together various styles of magic." Umbra had no doubt that these three cavemen wouldn't be able to appreciate the intricacies of using time manipulating magic to accurately record the movements of specific individuals, apply that information to pattern recognition magic used in search and detection spells, and then combine that with fairy illusion and mind manipulating magic along with barriers in order to recreate a accurate battle simulation. "Although he cannot get hurt he is experiencing a heightened sense of pain from each of the Masked Knight's attacks."
"I find it amazing that you can do this but you cannot transmit sound as well." Brad stated while he held his chin.
"I can very easily transmit sound." It was just a matter of releasing alternating waves of Mana, he was doing something similar to project the image after all.
"Then Why aren't you?" Brad made his confusion known. In response, something clicked inside of the clock.
"-BRA YOU ***KING PIECE OF S*** WHEN I GET OUT OF HERE I'M-" And with another click Umbra silenced Leon's endless stream of curses, their point made.
"Aren't you being too harsh on him?" Olivia asked sounding severely concerned by the latest turn of events.
"I'm surprised that he's having this much trouble." Angelica stated as she held her chin with suspicion. "I saw him fight against some airship like monsters back when we were travelling together in the forest."
"Airships?" Greg asked sounding like his suspension of disbelief was being stretched thin.
"He was allowed to destroy the Worship at that time. We are attempting to train him to the point that he can avoid killing his enemies in the middle of battle." Umbra stated bluntly.
"If you're trying to spare them then you should know that the Kingdom will only toss them into the dungeons to gather materials." Angelica found the restriction to be bizarre.
"Spare them? The Kingdom? All of the pirates that the Blackmore family captures are transported back to the compound to be thrown into Avalon Forest to gather materials as disposable fodder." Unexpectedly, it was the same as in the Kingdom. "It is a different matter if Leon determines that his life is in danger, but if he can take assets without damaging their future value then it's best if he does so." To the Blackmore family, it doesn't matter if the pirates try to run away, the only thing they can do is hide in a place that can be considered worse than death, one of the benefits of Floating Islands is that they can't run away if they can't get onto a airship. As the group was discussing this matter Leon suddenly unleashed the full might of the Shadow Boxer onto the Masked Knight, forcibly punching through his defences and releasing several shadowy blades into the armour's cockpit. "It would appear that he failed the training exercise."
"...how much has he been holding back when he fights us?" Greg asked as Umbra prepared to run the simulation again. He knows that he would've been chopped to pieces by the Masked Knight's attacks.
"When he's at the Academy? We have a limiter placed on him in most situations, you have learned first hand he is incapable of not striking at vital points thus inflicting lethal injuries-" Greg's hand went to his throat, which mere days ago had been crushed and then slit so that he could breathe through it. "-but when he fought against you he was limited to less than a fifth of his full power. Here he is being limited to roughly eighty percent of his power, the rest being used to fuel the magic that's currently wiping the floor with him."
"Speaking of which we should be arriving in Wayne territory in a few hours." Angelica stated her voice carrying the weight of authority. "I hope you are planning to let Leon rest and recover his mana before you throw him at the pirates."
"Understood Lady Angelica, should I also prepare your armour to be deployed too?"
"Wait your armour?" Greg suddenly looked confused. "You have your own armour?"
"Obviously." Angelica replied as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. "Unlike you five fools I have a good relationship with my family." Angelica idolised adventurers since she was small, in all its forms. For her getting an Armour was the equivalent of getting a pony for her birthday, and she took that pony and learned how to ride it like a champion. Greg on the other hand was miffed that Leon had apparently lied to them. "No you cannot use it." Angelica immediately saw through what the fools were thinking. "I've seen how you treat armour you irresponsible brat!"
"You didn't even participate in your own honour duel!" Greg snapped as good as accusing Angelica of being a bad armour pilot and then he felt the temperature in the room spike.
"Well after already being humiliated by you and your friends attempting to lynch me not having anyone rise up to defend me would be one humiliation too far." Just because Angelica didn't bet anything during the duel didn't mean that she had nothing to lose, while Greg and associates had deluded themselves into thinking that Marie had been in danger Angelica had the very real danger of her father's political faction falling apart in front of the entire kingdom.
"Yeah." That was just what Greg needed right now, a reminder that they had almost hurt the one person both willing and able to get their lady love out of the dire straights that she had been in for most of her life. "Sorry about that."
"Oh?" Angelica quirked a brow at that. "Now you apologise?" If the temperature was any indication Angelica wasn't calming down, far from it. "Now you say sorry? Where was this weeks ago? Do you even know what you would've done if Leon hadn't stopped you? Do you have the slightest of what I thought you would attempt to do if I failed to produce the answers that you oh so desperately craved?" Greg at least had the common courtesy to look sorry. "And Now you only say sorry after you learn that I have something you want!"
"Oi!" Now Greg snapped back. "It's not like that!"
"It's exactly like that!" Angelica snapped angrily, her words having summed up the course of events rather nicely Olivia put her hand on her friend's shoulder and Angelica only now noted how the heat she was giving off was affecting her. "Leave my sight before I broil someone alive." Greg was about to say something again before Brad grabbed him by his shoulder and pulled him back.
"For what it's worth-"
"Nothing!" Angelica interrupted Brad's attempt at diplomacy with a single harsh word. "Your words hold no weight and no credibility, they mean absolutely nothing." The three boys looked sheepishly at the girl they had wronged and made a tactical retreat. Alone with the people she trusted at last, Angie put her face into her hands as Olivia quietly rubbed circles into her back.
The Pirates had been divided into two groups, the smaller of the two groups had been sent to the Wayne territory in order to ambush Leon's group, the majority of their forces were sent over to the Blackmore territory with the explicit instructions that the entire island chain was to be ground to dust. Well they didn't know who had the balls to piss off the Forest this badly and frankly speaking none of them really cared.
"Target in sight captain." As the Leader of the Cloud Wolves crew heard that he looked on at the distance.
"Is this an island chain?" Somehow he didn't think it's meant to be quite so literal, a large collection of islands arranged like the walls of a fortress connected together via large and thick chains. "Circle around them and get the cannons ready. Capture any ships that make it off the islands, if there's any half decent women that catch your eyes you can keep them!" The Cloud wolves weren't the only group here, aside from the Sky Sharks Crew that was planning an ambush in the Wayne territory every pirate group in the entire Kingdom must've been here. Just. As. Planned.
"Leon owes us big time for this!" Jenna snapped as she secured four rounded shield-like weapons on her hands and feet.
"I intend to use the raw Materials in my work." Nick stated as he rested a silver suitcase with glowing lines of rainbow energy spreading out from a skull on his shoulder. "As I assume that you will be too."
"You can hammer anything that comes out of the dungeon into something you can use. What would I use anything but silk and plant fibres for?" No matter how you look at it, Jenna was getting the short end of the stick doing this.
"Fine. Stay here and be grumpy. I'm going to make money." As Nicks spoke, he cast various magic circles to enter and exit Purgatorio as he released their naval forces. The Insidious are massive and formidable, but also gluttonous and ill-tempered, they were ill-suited as mass produced naval warships, but the angels didn't have that problem.
The Worship and their lesser counterparts the Kinship were much better behaved, so Nick took advantage of that. Having several of the Ship-like angels captured Nick shoved Sloth blades directly into their hearts and over the course of several months watched as they slowly mutated into Fallen. Thus the newly minted Warships, filled with entire contingents of Bianco Angelos and Hideous were released into the void sea to throw hands with the pirates.
In the mean time the Pirates were collectively soiling their shorts in terror as they did a second take in light of the massive fleet of ships that near as they could tell literally appeared out of thin air.
"Retreat?" The First mate asked as he put down his binoculars at the sight before him.
"Retreat." The Captain confirmed having yet to comprehend the ass ramming that he was about to get.
Suddenly the entire ship shifted in weight as something slammed into the deck in the middle of the formation. Immediately the Pirates ran out onto the deck, many of them with armour as they looked at the person who just made a hole in their ship with his landing.
"Who in Sheba's name does your maintenance for you fools?" Nick questioned as he pulled his foot out of the deck.
"Who are you supposed to be?" The captain was cautious, he's seen many strange sights in his life but a guy armed with only a brief case boarding his ship all by himself? That was a new one.
"Nicks Blackmore, commander of the Fleet of the Damned over there." Nick used his suitcase to indicate the fleet of Fallen angels and demons off in the distance. "Here to accept your unconditional surrender." The Pirates all let out a laugh at that. "Should I take that as a no?"
"You had us worried there for a while! But once we capture you we'll just make your fleet stand down!" The pirates were laughing out loud while Nick rolled his eyes.
"Just paint a few on the deck and the rest will fall in line." Nick rolled his eyes as he muttered that as he held the suitcase at his side and the weapon unfolded and expanded into a massive war hammer more suited in the hands of an armour than a person. The Pirates stopped laughing at that.
Pandora: Once upon a time, the Angels mused various ways to prevent their eternal enemy, the Demons, from growing in power.
Their greatest craftsman, known as the Lord of Creation, created a box that would intercept all the evils of mankind and trap them preventing the birth of anymore demons. For a time the ploy was successful, however continuously trapping demonic energy inside of the box instead gave birth to one of the most ferocious demons that Paradiso had ever seen, soon dubbed Pandora, directly in the heart of the realm. As punishment the Lord of Creation was banished from Paradiso into Inferno alongside his creation that is said to take on many forms as the evils trapped inside of it, Six Hundred and Sixty Six in total.
Excerpt from Rodin's Weapons Catalogue (Not for Sale)
Leon was resting before battle. The limiter had finally come off so he could replenish his mana and stamina, his various weapons were lined out in front of him, the Shadow Boxer, The Hell Hounds and The sheathed Alastor. He was discounting the Tartarus, as Umbra needed to focus on powering the ship.
"As I thought. Should I focus on getting a dedicated armour?"
The normal armours of the Kingdom don't like Leon very much. However given the abundance of armoured warriors in this world the likelihood of one of them being turned into a demon along with their armour was especially high. Fighting against the Black Knight with one and the Masked Knight without one helped to hammer home for Leon just how badly his options were limited when he had to resort to dodging and weaving around bigger opponents using Guerrilla tactics. Of Course from what he heard fighting demons is one of the reasons armours came to be in the first place, because unlike his family normal people can't do things like walk off getting nailed to a wall with a sword or hurl tanker trucks at people they don't like.
"We have the Pirates in sight. Duchess Redgrave is already on the deck in the Phoenix." Umbra intoned, Leon threw his weapons into his pocket void and went off to meet her.
Angelica's personal armour followed Holfort's trend of light weight armours, it might've been the fact that she was inside of it but in this case it looked rather feminine, said femininity was further enhanced by the barrel shaped dress the armour wore, alongside a cloak with a pair of large wings on the back. Together with the Red and Black colour scheme following a feathery pattern the armour carried a overall vaguely sinister feeling.
"Pirates in sight." Angelica announced through her cockpit's Iron-sights.
"Do you want me to reduce their numbers?" Angelica was a little alarmed to say the least to witness Leon walking out on the deck without so much as an armour on his person. She felt less alarmed when Brad, Greg and Chris walked out onto the deck as well.
"If I can capture over half of the pirates alive Umbra has agreed to keep the limiter off while I go dungeon diving."
A great boon indeed.
"And those three?" Angelica asked gesturing to the side, the three fools that had insisted on tagging along on this trip despite being effectively less than useless.
"That is up to them." After all Leon wouldn't be doing something as hypocritical as stating that they wouldn't be going into battle without armours, instead he encouraged them to go out onto the battlefield and do everything that they could to help apprehend Leon's future slaves, let them understand for themselves what the difference in ability between them and him is.
"What about them?" Angelica asked indicating the pirates that were approaching the Umbra.
"What do you see when you see our ship?" To Leon's question Angelica looked around the ship in question.
"It's large but has few people and doesn't appear to be armed. If it was me I would fly over and land armours to seize control of the ship. I would want to refit the ship for my own use after I kill or capture the crew." Of course Angelica knew that the ship wasn't unarmed, Leon did show her the weapons that he kept below deck when he was in 'polite territory.' "So you mean to bait them into trying to board us? What would you do if Offrey had ordered them to kill us on sight?"
"Does that Bitch look like such a kind, merciful and wise person that she would so quickly end the lives of her enemies with a mere long distance bombardment?" Brad mentally noted that as someone who knows Stephanie intimately that 'Kind, Merciful and Wise' were not adjectives he would now nor ever associate with her, Bitch on the other hand was pretty accurate. "Or would she order that everyone on board be captured alive so that they could be tortured to death one by one in front of you before ransoming your emotionally and mentally broken form back to your family?" Brad mentally added 'sadist' to his checklist of adjectives for Stephanie, but there was something else brought up that was more important.
"What do you mean that Stephanie had ordered them?" As Brad was being fed the revelation that his parents had set him up with the Pirate Queen various ships and armours had started to encircle around the lone warship, armours being loosed so that they could board the ship.
The three fools at this point in time finally had it hammered home to them exactly how out matched they really are. Even with the Pirates armour in such a bad state of repair neither Greg or Chris would be able to do anything with only a sword and spear, Brad might be able to bring down a armour with his fire magic but that was the extent of it. The three of them were all about to die and they knew exactly who they had to blame for it.
"I think that's enough time for all of them." Leon cracked his fingers as the Shadow Boxer appeared on his person. "Let the Shadows consume the light!"
As Leon spat that curse-like spell, his body transformed. Leon was consumed entirely in black as if he had become a shadow himself, if you looked at him at the right angle you'd see that his body was split in half down the middle. The Demonic Shadow curled up in the air and with a loud roar tendrils of black ink were released in all directions spreading from one armour to another like a spider's web. Each shadow was consuming the mana of the armour's mana stones, using that Leon had more shadow magic to spread his web even further, ultimately not even the ships were spared Leon's efforts to suck them dry of mana. Then before he completely ran out of mana he dragged all the ships and armours together and had them all crash into one another directly above the Umbra. Aside from the chunks that fell onto the deck or into the water the ships and armours that all had float stone left inside of them were all still floating in the air. Leon fell to the ground as the effects of his attack wore off, coughing as his body wanted to puke, but he just forced a small butterfly pop into his mouth to replenish his lost supply of mana so that he wouldn't want to retch anymore.
"I thought that you had the limiter taken off of you?" Angelica kneeled down in her armour as she checked on Leon's condition.
"Masquerade Rage is a technique where I forcibly expel all of my mana into my demonic partner here to unleash their full power." As Leon explained the familiar form of the twins appeared from his shadow.
""Thank you for the Meal!""
"That would never be possible with the damned clock constantly draining my mana." As Leon said this he turned to face the trio. "Oi useless people! We'll be moving to intercept the pile of wreckage hanging above us. Make sure you apprehend all the pirates in that ball of scrap up there." The three fools were just staring at Leon in shock. "Oi what's with you idiots!?"
"What's with us?" Brad asked as if Leon just asked an incredibly stupid question. "With a single spell you just wiped out an entire horde of pirates that the Kingdom has been chasing down for years!"
"He dealt with a small scouting force, hardly a horde." A grandfather clock popped up from the floor of the deck. "With an excessive amount of unnecessary force on top of that. Why exactly did you think I prepared the tow cables for you unruly hooligan?" Leon just rolled his eyes to Umbra's scolding.
"Can we steer the conversation back on topic please?" Brad asked as his sanity leaked out of his ears.
"What is there to talk about Mr. 'Master Magician'?" Angelica stepped out of her armour, her pilot's uniform a mixture of soft maroon coloured Kevlar gambeson protecting her main body while a layer of crimson sharp metal plating protected her arms and legs giving her a slightly sinister but very intimidating vibe. "Your tutors only ever knew how to pile on useless praise onto you inflating your useless ego, Leon's family trained his barriers by hurling cannon balls at him. I imagine similar severity was taken with the other aspects of his training too."
"To be fair half of the monsters in the forest shoot missiles, and most of them hit harder than a cannon ball." Brad and the others froze in horror. "Spending years fighting for my life all the time against them is probably half the reason why I have such a hard time holding back." You'd have a hard time holding back too if you were at constant risk of dying off with one wrong move.
Review Section:
RonaldM40196867: True. Magic is a pretty mixed bag to me. On the one hand it acts as a convenient tool that let's me write more over the top fight scenes but that makes it hard to write around, for this reason I prefer magic that works within a specific set of laws as opposed to ones that don't.
hnh058513: Huu. I'm going to have to spare Offrey now aren't I?
RED BELL: Your Welcome.
RedRat8: It's a shame that he couldn't be here for this little forray, first hand testimony from the pirates might get through to him. As it stands he spent a long time being told by the people who should know about the Forest that they don't exist, and before Luxion came into the picture that was the Kingdom's stance on the matter.
Chronos0305: Oh it was horrible make no mistake, but I don't think it's down to the game's writing team. This isn't digimon, Leon hasn't been sucked into a digital world, for all intents and purposes the game covers events that take place in the real world, for lack of better terms, just hundreds to thousands of years into the future after an apocalypse. Saying that Marie has screwed up is like saying the world has seen better days. My current plans have them show up when Fanoss begins their attack in earnest. I have a few ideas for what kinds of demons they're contracted with, Nick's already 'hammered' the pirates with one of his, and given what Jenna is using as her logo and what kind of weapon she uses I think you have a pretty good idea as to another. I agree with the concept of the Deadly Sin Ritual but it was poorly executed, Bayonetta ripped out her own heart to do it after-all, it should be treated as a measure of last resort to dispose of the likes of Jubileous or Aesir. The same level of offensive power could've been achieved by cooperating with the Alters to dual summon a demon.
Dakota Bruder: Chapter 20. "Jubileous Bless You!" Blessing in this case being closer to a punch in the face. Death is different for the Angels and Demons than what it is for us, Balder had no problems summoning Fortitudo and Temperantia in the second game despite them being killed off in the first, and he could summon half of Jubileous as Omne. Jubileous is more than just another angel, she is the divine ruler of the Heavenly Realm.