The initial excitement of having successfully crossed the river faded as the monotony of the journey set in. Garrelia Byroad was like every other crappy wilderness path Fie had been on: Trees, grass, and road as far as the eye could see. And of course monsters. Always monsters. The types faced might have been different from the crap she had been fighting the previous month, but at the end of the day a monster is just a monster.
If there was any positive to all this, it was the chance to fight as a team again. Sure there had been a few times when she battled alongside Elliot and Machias during their stay outside of Celdic, but they weren't frequent. And although those two had improved greatly, neither of them were accustomed to fighting on her tempo.
That was another boon of having Rean back. Having someone up front who could keep up with her nearly made fighting fun. She did note that while he hadn't exactly lost a step, he did seem to be a step behind in some of the battles, but it made sense considering he had been out of commission for an entire month. Still, he was always good at catching up so she had no doubt he would be back on her level before long.
Toval too was a pleasant surprise. Jaeger corps like Zephyr didn't usually have many arts specialists, so fighting alongside one was a novel experience. Sure Class VII had no shortage of arts users, but none of them came close to the level of experience that a bracer on Sara's level would possess.
So that was nice. If nothing else it provided a distraction from that bad feeling she had had ever since they got off the tracks. Although she could no longer sense the presence she thought she had felt, she couldn't quite shake the lingering sense of danger that dogged their heels as they traveled east. She couldn't help herself from looking back once again even if she knew that Xeno and Leo were too experienced to get caught unless they wanted it.
"Fie? Is something wrong?" She turned back to see Rean looking at her with concern.
She didn't want to worry him, especially as she herself doubted that she sensed. "...It's nothing. Probably just my imagination." He didn't seem wholly convinced but at least had the decency to drop the topic.
So on they went. Hours spent trudging down the quiet road fending off a bunch of really angry chickens. It wasn't anything new for the former jaeger, but if she were perfectly honest with herself a distraction wouldn't be the worst thing.
That distraction came in the form of Rean halting their travels as he looked curiously down a side path. "What's up?" Toval asked.
"...I'm not sure. I just sensed something weird in that direction. Do you know anything about it?"
The bracer hummed thoughtfully. "Honestly, I didn't even remember there was a path being here." The look on his face made it clear he wasn't sold on his memory being that faulty, but that didn't make sense. Natural paths don't just randomly appear like that.
"You do know we need to hurry to the fortress, right?" Machias, as ever, had no sense of adventure.
"I know that!" The swordsman replied hotly. But despite that he couldn't help but gaze longingly down the natural road.
While she still wasn't sure how she felt about all the weirdness that had been happening lately, she couldn't deny her own curiosity. "Let's check it out." She totally didn't say that for the sake of earning a grateful look from Rean. "It doesn't seem like a very long path, so at worst it's just a couple minutes out of our way."
"I'm kinda curious now, myself..." Elliot admitted sheepishly. Seeing he was outvoted, Machias let out a groan, but didn't protest further as the team detoured. From the corner of her eye, Fie noted that Celine, who had remained silent that entire conversation, had a look on her face as if she had her own suspicions about their new destination, but was remaining tight-lipped despite having no lips.
The path, while seemingly natural in origins, felt distinctively wrong and the child soldier found herself wary as they trudged down it despite there being little actual danger. At least it got her mind off the presences she had felt earlier, but it was merely trading one possible hazard for another.
"...The heck's that?" Toval asked as they rounded a corner.
She couldn't help but share in his confusion. "Some kinda building...?" Indeed, what lay before them seemed to be some kind of ancient ruin, completely out of place in the area.
Although her danger senses were going off even stronger as they approached, curiosity compelled her and the rest of Class VII forward. "It's such a dilapidated building..." Indeed, Machias was right. The place looked like it was falling apart, but it didn't seem to be in any danger of imminent collapse so the group approached the massive doors.
The fact that Toval, who had supposedly been in this area not all that long ago couldn't recall ever seeing such a building only added to the oddness of the situation. "Whatever this place is, I can sense something strange on the other side of the door." Rean commented. "If I had to wager a guess, it's that the higher elements are in effect inside."
Great. Everything about this place reminded them of the Old Schoolhouse. That meant it would be especially dangerous. And yet... As she glanced at her classmates she could see the same curious resolve on their faces as was on hers. In some weird twisted way Class VII felt an affinity for that old building, weirdness included, so coming across a place similar to it was enough to pique their interest.
But it seemed there was someone who had answers for them, she wasn't sharing it. "You know something, don't you?" She asked the silent cat.
"...Well I know there's no point in going inside right now." She stated in her signature haughty voice, deflecting the question. "Although if you really want to, I won't stop you. It'll be a good chance to test your skills, if nothing else."
A glance towards Rean showed that the boy looked rather exasperated by that comment and she couldn't blame him. Although according to his story it had only been a couple days, how did he manage to deal with her for that long? As much as she adored cats, Celine was already trying her patience.
Eventually the swordsman let out a sigh before focusing on the others. "I think we should check it out before heading to the fortress, but I want to hear your opinions."
"I'm game." She was the first to answer. Sure it would probably be dangerous, but that was nothing new to her. And she was definitely curious about the place.
"I'm positive this place wasn't here the last time I was. Let's do it." Toval too voiced his agreement.
Elliot hesitated, but only for a moment. "Dad will be fine if we're a little late. I know it's dangerous, but I want to see what's inside." A far cry from the timid little boy she had first pegged him as.
Once again Machias looked to be the lone voice of dissent, but eventually he relented. "Alright, fine. But only for a little while. We don't have time to deal with some crazy trial like we faced on the seventh floor." Yeah, she could agree with that much, at least. She did not want to have to deal with that crap again, especially without the rest of Class VII at their side.
Together the group of students, bracer, and cat warily made their way inside. Thankfully the massive doors opened freely for them, as that would have been extremely anticlimactic otherwise. What they found...
Ancient architecture? Creepy atmosphere? Monsters in spades? "Wow. This place really is the Old Schoolhouse." She commented dryly as they looked around. "Joy..." At least the place didn't look nearly as bad on the inside so it probably wouldn't collapse on top of them while they were inside. Small miracles and all that.
Even the monsters they encountered were mostly the same as the ones they faced during those trials! Luckily they weren't the massive fiends they encountered on the bottom floor, but annoyingly it seemed that the beetles and amalgams they encountered were a lot stronger than the ones they had encountered during that time. Nothing they couldn't handle, naturally, but just once Fie would have liked for something to go easily for a change.
The layout of the place was remarkably similar too. A rather maze-like area with lots of different branching paths and steps leading to a higher level. She couldn't quite hide a tiny grin as she recalled showing off a bit with her acrobatic skills during her first encounter with these three boys and Gaius. Even though it really wasn't all that long ago it certainly felt like a lifetime ago. She was a completely different girl back then.
After what felt like ages trudging through those monotonous halls and fighting the same monsters over and over, but was actually an hour or so at most, the group reached the end of the line. Ahead was a door and something that the Class VII students immediately recognized as a teleportation device.
Elliot let out a miserable groan as he was the first to put the pieces together and know just what waited for them on the other side. "We're about to fight something dangerous, aren't we?"
Ah right, the boss room. "Probably." She shrugged. While she wasn't exactly against the idea of fighting some dangerous fiend, she could think of plenty of things she would much rather be doing right now. Like a nap. Or spending more time catching up with Rean. Or even better: A nap with Rean.
"Ah... So that's how it is." Despite having no prior experience with this place like the rest had Toval didn't seem bothered by any of it. Either Sara had already told him about their escapades or his bracer duties meant he had already had experience with similar places.
"Let's just get this over with." Machias probably thought he looked cool as he cocked his shotgun. He was wrong.
As expected, the boss room was almost completely identical to the ones they dealt with in the Old Schoolhouse with the one obvious difference being the large doors at the far end. Their need to investigate this discrepancy was put on hold due to the annoyingly punctual arrival of the bosses themselves.
As was often the case, there were three of them. Large fan-like fiends with faces hovering off the ground. A bit of an odd design, but Fie had learned not to question the randomness of fiends.
After many previous trials against similar encounters, Class VII had experience dealing with battles like this. While three enemies were dangerous, even just whittling down their number by one made the fight a whole lot easier, so the tried and true method developed by the students was to focus on one while some poor sap got stuck with the thankless job of playing distraction for the other two.
She let out a long-suffering sigh. Given their current team that role definitely fell onto her shoulders this time.
As awesome as she was, she wasn't so arrogant as to charge in without support, so she hastily formed a combat link with the timid musician. With that connection made she darted past the closest fiend, easily avoiding its attempts at slicing her with its blades, and entered into melee with the one beside it, keeping both it and the third fiend in her line of sight, trusting Rean and the others to keep that first one occupied for good.
Fighting against two dangerous enemies at once meant she wasn't going on the offensive, which was lame, but at least their attacks were clumsy enough that she didn't feel particularly harried. Even when one tried casting arts it wasn't a big deal as the remaining one couldn't pressure her enough to prevent her from shooting the former in the overly large face, thus denying its ability to finish the spell.
So naturally, just as she began to think things were gonna be easy the nearest fiend decided to surprise her by opening its mouth. She wasn't sure what to expect, but a powerful shockwave of energy from its mouth was not it. And unfortunately an attack like that wasn't something you can easily dodge. The attack hurt, a lot, and it hurt even more when the one that Rean should have been killing decided to mimic the attack, sending her reeling from the back to back blows.
Fie worried that things were about to get extremely dangerous when the third one opened its mouth, but this time the attack was different. It almost felt like energy was returning to her body? Fiends were weird.
"Resounding Beat!" Oh right, Elliot was around. The musician was still a far better healer than some random fiend. With her strength returned she rushed to reengage before they decided to do that attack again.
In the end, it didn't matter much, as at almost the same time there was a roar signaling the death of the first enemy. Now the odds were stacked more heavily in their favor and the remaining fiends almost looked nervous as they tried to put some distance between them and the five humans. Fie couldn't help but smirk at this turn of events. She had been stuck on the defensive for the fight thus far, so now it was time for her to get stabbing.
It didn't take long for the remaining fiends to fall beneath their combined strength. Although they did get off their painful attack a few more times during the fight the students of Class VII were much more prepared for it after the first time and without the third fiend they lacked the power to seriously endanger them. So it was a group of haggard but mostly unharmed students who stood victoriously in the room at the end of the battle.
"We won. Hooray." The battle, while not particularly difficult, had been annoying and she was glad it was over and done with.
If anyone had been expecting something to happen now that the fiends were gone, they were to be sorely disappointed. After a few seconds of idly waiting the group approached the massive door at the end of the room.
Even though the symbol on it was different from the ones they found in their earlier trials, everything else about it was identical. It definitely piqued their interest, but the fact it refused to open made it a moot point. Given its size Fie knew she didn't have nearly enough explosives to force it open even if that was the option they wanted to do. With no alternative available the group reluctantly made their way towards the teleporter and the exit.
Or at least most of them did. She wasn't one to miss the fact that neither Rean nor Celine seemed to be following along. In fact he wasn't moving at all from his position in front of the door, eyes shut as if suffering from a headache. Just as she began to approach him he seemed to snap back into focus. "What was that...?" Although he muttered them too quietly for her to hear, the confusion on his face made it very easy for her to understand his lip movements. Beside him Celine just appeared to be gazing on with interest, offering no support whatsoever.
So that meant it was up to her, naturally. "...What's wrong, Rean?" He must have been really out of it as he was startled by her voice. He opened his mouth to provide an answer-
"We need to hurry back outside." Came the voice of Machias as the rest finally seemed to notice their absence. "We've spent too long in here as it is." Now that was annoying. Did he intentionally go out of his way to annoy her at every chance or did it just come naturally to him?
"Oh, yeah. Sorry, I'll be right there." Unlike her the swordsman seemed to be affected by the bespectacled boy's words as he hurried to catch up, merely sending her a sheepish look as he brushed past her. Oh if he thought that that distraction was enough for her to drop that line of questioning than he was sorely mistaken.
But not here or now. Machias was technically right in that they needed to get a move on. Instead she moved to join the others at the teleporter, but perhaps at a more sedate pace than what she normally would have moved at, much to Machias's ire. Eventually she made it to the others and as one they took the device, which unsurprisingly deposited them back at the entrance to the shrine.
With that their little detour was at an end. It had accomplished absolutely nothing except waste their time and leave them with a frustrated curiosity, but at least it didn't truly hinder them in any meaningful capacity.
Once outside the group took the path back onto the Garrelia Byroad. Judging from the position of the sun they had only lost an hour or so inside that weird building. That was good, as it was already mid-afternoon and they still had a couple of hours to go before they reached their destination.
It was handy that Toval knew where they were going, as the man taking point meant that Rean wasn't in front. So she just needed to hang in the back and wait until the swordsman wasn't engaged in any conversation so she could get him alone for a minute.
Eventually that moment arose and she stealthily approached and grabbed onto his jacket, getting his attention. He must have sensed her approach as he didn't say anything, but the unspoken message was clear and he slowed his pace to match hers, letting the others put a fair amount of distance on them.
"So...?" He questioned once they were sure they wouldn't be overheard.
"What was that?"
He seemed confused. "What was what?"
She had to roll her eyes. Sometimes his denseness could be cute. This was not one of those times. "Back there in that shrine. Something happened to you, didn't it?"
"Ah..." Realization finally set in, but was eventually replaced by a more pensive expression. "I'm... not sure, actually. It was probably nothing."
Did he honestly think an answer like that would sate her curiosity? She didn't bother to verbalize her response, instead opting to level him the flattest most unimpressed look possible. Might have been her best one yet. A true masterpiece.
"Urk." To his credit the dense boy picked up on her sour mood immediately. "Well, alright. Like I said, I'm still not sure what it was, but I'll tell you... Only if you tell me what's been bothering you since we crossed the bridge."
Her masterpiece died a terrible death as she looked away sheepishly. Damnit. She had played herself. "Oof. I guess I deserve that one. Fine." She pondered how best to answer. "It was brief, just for an instant, but shortly after getting onto the byroad I thought I sensed two presences watching us from the cliffs above." She let out a helpless shrug. "But when I turned to look they were gone."
"Do you think they were hostile?" Rean immediately believed in her words, which was a bit awkward cause she herself wasn't sure how much she believed in them.
"I'm not sure, but they felt kinda familiar. It should be impossible, but if it truly is them than they might be. Depending on their contract, I suppose."
"Their contract..." He mulled over her words before his eyes widened in realization. "You think it might be Zephyr? Those two guys we saw in that vision?"
She made an agreeable sound. "But like I said. It should be impossible. Erebonia's so massive, what are the odds that they would show up right where we are?"
Rean let out a humorless laugh. "Considering how much bad stuff we seem to randomly encounter? Pretty high, I would say."
His words made a disturbing amount of sense, yet she couldn't help but point out one thing. "In hindsight your crappy luck on all those field studies makes sense when you realize that Crow was C. He probably thought it would be funny to use his terrorist group to mess with you."
"That... does seem to be the kind of thing he would do." The pitiful look on Rean's face in that moment was priceless.
Still, as fun as teasing him was, she did reflect on his words. Perhaps it wasn't just some random coincidence. But that would mean that Xeno and Leo must have known her location for some time now, despite her best attempts at hiding out, and had been observing her without her notice. If true that was just more proof that she still had a long way to go before she was on their level...
And it also meant that there was a very real possibility of an ambush waiting for them at some point. That was Xeno's favorite tactic, after all. Sadly there wasn't much that could be done about that, but she would keep an eye open for any traps or ambushes just in case.
Rean too seemed to be thinking along the same lines, but after a few minutes of letting him contemplate her words impatience finally won out. "And...?"
Initially he was confused by her prompt, but soon enough he recalled the deal they had just made. "Ah..." He looked pensive as he struggled to find the words. "It was after the battle, just as we were starting to leave. I think I had a vision or something?"
She blinked in confusion as she processed his words. "A vision?" Normally she would tease him about a lack of sleep causing him to hallucinate or something, but she knew for a fact that he slept like a baby last night. It annoyed her that she was becoming so ready to accept weird events from these strange ancient buildings. "What was it about?"
"There were two men looking over a razed village. I think there was a war of some kind going on? One of the men was some kind of royal, as he was addressed as 'Your Highness' by the other..."
His description was... less than helpful. "Huh. Can't help you with that. Wars and burned villages are a rather common occurrence in Zemuria." She didn't intend to sound so negative about it, but her time with Zephyr left little room for doubt in her eyes.
Luckily he seemed to understand where she was coming from. "I know. I just wish I had more to go on..." He trailed off before realizing something. "Wait. The subordinate referred to the ones who destroyed the village as the Gunnar Army. Do you recognize that name?
She was loath to shoot down his hopeful expression, but come on. "Aren't you the one who finished top ten on our midterms? How the hell am I supposed to remember some historical event if you don't?
He visibly sweatdrop at her blunt answer. "You might know a bit more if you didn't sleep through all of Instructor Thomas's class, you know." She didn't deign to provide a response to that, instead merely letting out a yawn that expression how she felt about the subject. "...Point taken. I suppose I could ask Machias if he knows...?"
"Please don't. I don't want the rest of our trip to be one long boring history lesson." The gunner's grades were high enough that if any of them knew the answer he would, but given his personality he would probably be even more long-winded with his explanations than Emma had been when they were studying together. That was just awful and she never wanted to experience it again. "Just shelve it for now. Probably better to figure it out when we aren't walking into a battlefield."
"Fair enough." He conceded easily enough.
"...And what are the two of you whispering about?" It seems their private discussion had been noticed as the rest of the group was now looking back at them, with Celine giving them a suspicious look.
Not wanting to share their conversation, especially to the shady cat who almost certainly had some idea as to Rean's vision, but was refusing to share, Fie went with the tried and true strategy of deflecting. "I was just telling Rean that I think I see the fortress in the distance. Look for yourselves."
And the best part was that she wasn't even lying. It was still a fair distance away, but as the others followed her line of sight they too saw the monolithic steel structure known as Garrelia Fortress. Or at least the remains of it. Even from this distance it was obvious that the building was very clearly not what it should be.
The musician let out a sigh of both relief and exhaustion. "Whew... We're finally here."
Rean laughed a little at Elliot's expression. "Yeah. That was a longer walk than I was expecting, too." This time Fie wasn't the only one to shoot the swordsman a flat look, silently reminding him that it was hist suggestion that they detour to some creepy ruin and lost a lot of time cause of it. Rean merely rubbed the back of his head as he looked away sheepishly.
Many minutes later and they arrived at the abandoned guardhouse that served as entry to the place. Passing through it they soon came upon the fortress proper. And what they saw shocked each and every one of them.
"Woah..."
"What the hell...?"
Both Elliot and Machias were at a loss for words and Fie couldn't blame them. Sure they had all heard about the destruction of the fortress and seen the pictures in the Imperial Chronicle, but seeing it all in person was a far different experience.
There was a gaping hole right through the center of that massive fortress they had gone to only a couple months prior. The best way to describe it would be... "It's like someone took a giant ice cream scoop to it." The analogy was kinda silly, but after living on what they could scrounge up over the past month all Fie could think about in that moment was that tasty treat.
Luckily they were all too focused on the destruction to call her out for it. "I mean, I'd heard what had happened, but..."
"Yeah." Machias was quick to agree with the orange-haired boy. "None of that prepared me for the reality of how it looks in person."
As that initial shock wore away inevitably eyes turned towards the second mystery in their vision. A massive white dome in the distance, visible through the hole in the fortress itself. "That place you can see in the distance must be Crossbell City." Rean noted. "But what's that blue barrier surrounding it?"
Fie rolled her eyes. Did he really expect they who had been living in a windmill for the past month to know these things? She opened her mouth to say something rather snarky-
"Well, according to info I got from the guild, Crossbell's got some kinda new power." Oh, right. They had a bracer with them now. And one that wasn't Sara to make it better. "And we're talking big, absolute power. No one's got a clue how the damn thing works, though."
"It sounds terrifying..." She wasn't sure if she agreed with Elliot's description, but it was starting to irk her how so many weird things were now happening everywhere. She liked when it was simple!
Toval nodded along at the interruption. "Yeah. Anyway, that power was what allowed them to do this to Garrelia. It's also what's putting up that barrier around the city. Thanks to that, no other country on the continent, Erebonia included, can touch them." He shrugged helplessly. "The concept alone is so out of this world, I thought my source was just messing with me. But now..."
It was Machias who summed up what they were all thinking. "Yeah. You can't doubt what's right before your eyes."
"Please." Celine scoffed. "I'm willing to bet Ouroboros is involved in whatever happened there." Again with this mysterious organization. Sara had told her a few stories about them and now she was almost regretting tuning out the obnoxious older woman. Almost.
"Wouldn't surprise me." The bracer continued. "Whatever happened in Crossbell, it happened at about the same time the war broke out in Erebonia. So there's every chance they're behind both."
"There's a lot for us to take in, and a lot of questions that need answering, but right now, I think we should focus on reuniting with the 4th Armored Division." Rean's words were enough to snap her and the others from their ruminations. "We can think about what to do next once we've met with them."
They were quick to agree with his words and Machias took point. "The proving ground is on the opposite side of the fortress, right? Then we should head farther inside, and-"
All activity stopped as there was a noise where his foot had stepped. Fie recognized it immediately: That was the sound of a mine.
It was a good thing that Machias was so stunned and confused that he didn't move any further, as simply lifting his foot would be the end of his leg. "Don't move, Machias!" She commanded loudly as she darted towards the boy in a full sprint, reaching him almost instantly and tackling him as far away as her strength would allow.
Now that she had confirmation that what she sensed earlier was correct she was willing to gamble their lives on the fact that the trap was almost certainly just a small anti-personnel mine, designed more to be stealthy than to carry a large payload. Her gamble proved correct when the explosion occurred a second later, being too small to reach them from their position a mere arge away. That wasn't enough to prevent Machias from screaming like a wuss, however.
"Wh-What the hell?" Toval coughed out as the smoke released from the explosion got in their way.
Fie wasn't really concerned about that at all as her concern was elsewhere. If Xeno was setting explosives here than that must mean... "Come out, you two. I know you're there." With the trap sprung the two veteran jaegers were no longer hiding their location and she could easily sense them.
"Haha. Oh, you noticed?"
"You haven't lost your touch, Fie."
Her breath caught in her throat as she finally laid eyes on Xeno and Leo in person after over a year. Even though she had been bracing herself for this outcome, seeing them standing on top of the gateway brought all kinds of thoughts and emotions to the forefront of her mind.
But the one that stood out the most was the realization that if they were here than that almost certainly meant a fight was imminent. She knew just how strong the two regimental commanders were. Still, her resolve wouldn't falter. Not again.
If she wanted to protect her new family than she would need to fight the old with everything she had. It was just that simple.