High pope of the church of the great work, Ivander the great had just stood, leaving nothing but empty air where his holy form sat a moment ago. His incredible ceremonial throne, denoted by an enormous, golden cog, affixed to the wall behind him, below that, numerous smaller cogs were also affixed to the white washed walls. Every single one of them differing from each other, each different sizes, colors, textures, types.
He raised his hands, holding them loosely over the veritable sea of people. Every person different. Each and every one of them wore similarly fashioned cloaks, each a different color pertaining to their elemental affinity.
“The great work wills it so.” His eminence proclaimed with a clear, almost solemn tone.
“The reprehensible cogless are but an illness upon this worlds’ holy order.” He paused, letting go of his control, his will spreading throughout the massive grand chambers of the main church.
“We will drive them out of their holes, their trees, their rage filled states, the skies, the water, THE DARK!” He paused, his tone getting deeper.
Every will in that room felt his splendor. Save for a few. Their power, not of the great work.
They were quickly felled by his divine might. Not even being able to scream before getting turned to dust.
“On this day, we move with the purpose of what holds us together.”
“For the great work!” His posture straightened even further. “For the imperial will.” He finished.
His loyal followers all, in their infinite reverence, shouted back, “IT WILL BE SO!”
The church then moved. Toward their goal in the east.
—----------
~Present time
—---------------
As I climbed out of my now unpowered mobile cog, my hourglass now waited for me in front of the opening faceplate. I kept my focus on it. Making sure to watch the grains of sand fall as normal. I then grabbed it with my right hand and let it balance me as I floated back to the ground.
The instructor was nowhere to be seen. Cerys had yet to exit her Mobile gear, most likely climbing up as I floated down. “Adequate, but sloppy, weapon.” The gravelly and metallic voice sounded out to my right, laced in judgement.
“Need I remind you, that if the focus had landed her ranged attack, you would have been turned to an unsalvageable paste of cooling lava?” He judged.
As my two feet touched the ground with a metallic click, I snapped to a salute, letting the hourglass float to the peripherals of my vision, keeping focus on it. “My Instructor, I fought to the best of my abilities, taken off guard, I reacted as best I could.” I countered with less concealed mirth than I intended.
The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.
The instructor’s grip tightened on the knightly arming sword still in his right hand. “How would you, weapon, react if I unexpectedly swung this sword through you right now?”
My thought process moved at a pace aided by time as I was buying myself moments to cogitate his question in a way I could counter while surviving the possibility of his sword indeed rushing through me. I turned back to normal time, calmed.
“To the best of my abilities, My instructor.” I stated as the weapon slashed through the air and against the concrete where I would have moved, had I not predicted his prediction.
Toward the weapon racks. There I would have picked up every weapon that would have listened to me, charged them with electromagnetically enriched energy and flung them all at him.
“Adequate, weapon, you pass this lesson.” He dropped the sword, a resounding clang of metal against the crunch of magi-crete. “Due to your dueling partner being out of commission, you may have the remaining hours of the day off to do with as you please.” He paused, his hooded face turning rightwards, towards Cerys’ Mobile cog. To punctuate his point, the face plate opened a moment later, revealing a fiery, emerald eyed Cerys staring directly into my own eyes.
Too far to accurately judge her expressions, I focused on her non-concealed magical signature.
Pride, worry, interest and respect. Atypical to an expected reaction from an originally prideful house of heat wielding knights.
“For the eternal service, weapon, you are dismissed, as are you, focus.” He stayed staring at her for a few moments more before vanishing into nothingness. His signature and volume also concealed by his chameleon class mobile cog’s defence ward.
A seraphim class carrier, fifty meters bow to stern, more triangular in it’s fuselage, double that in its wing span, two enormous cogs in a constant rotation, popped with a crack of displaced air into position above Cerys’ mobile cog heralding the colors of the Red and Silver. She deftly jumped from her opened face plate and floated her way down, towards the out building with blinding red jets shooting from her hands and feet. As she got roughly thirty meters clear in under 20 seconds, the carrier opened its bay doors and wires spilled down towards her now inoperable mobile cog. Arms came down, looped the wires under the arms of the mobile cog and lifted it up into the carriers’ cargo hold, it then started to swiftly move over to my own mobile cog.
With a shrug of my shoulders, I started walking towards the outbuilding as well, hourglass floating behind me as I watched with awe as Her Ladyship sped toward the outbuilding. I just walked leisurely, letting her have the head start so that I did not have to stand outside the front entrance like a dullard. The mobile cog engineers doing their thing with my newly acquired weapon behind me.
—----
Thirty minutes later
—-------------------------
As Cerys had promised, she awaited my company after completing her own cleaning in the out building. As I exited the building, feeling fresh after the events of these past hours, not making her wait for longer than three minutes due to my practiced super speed cleaning that was drilled into me at a young age. My fake caretaker's gravelly words still fresh in my mind. ‘A man must never make a lady wait for more than ten minutes.’
I looked upon Cerys’ emerald eyes and asked “Would My Lady like to accompany me on the way back to the castle?”
A graceful smile appeared on her lips, now with ruby red lipstick enhancing those symmetrical lines. “I would, my fiancee.” She then walked up to my left side and looped her powerful but slender right arm around my hooked left.
We started walking. In perfect step, side by side. For a good twenty minutes, neither her nor I spoke.
We both enjoyed the peaceful and amazing weather the Voloss countryside always enjoyed at around this time of the year. Clear blue skies, forgiving winds and a crisp near room temperature. The morning, near noon sun providing a lovely, comforting heat from above.
Cerys was the first to break the silence. “You are truly fortunate to have such a head for combat on your shoulders.” She shuddered, almost imperceptibly. “I truly could have broken off our engagement then and there, whether I would have liked to or not.”
“My Lady, you performed your duty in an epic manner, your duty to the empire and your duty to the knighthood.” I said with an even but slightly more gentle tone. “If I hadn’t survived that calamity, one of my siblings would have down the line.” I stated. “Such is the design of all Steelbloods” I finished with finality.
As it were, no lies were stated. Not one. She shuddered again. A solemn air spread throughout her magical signature. “You speak of only truth, but in truth, I had hoped you would survive my terrible weapon.” Her breath hitched as she tried to say something, but couldn’t.
The ever observant listener, I read between the lines. Was this the catalyst of her furious protection back in that treatment wing bed a day ago?
We went back to silence. A less comforting one, but a silence nonetheless.
What did they do to you?
My mind whirled with possibilities as we walked back to the castle.
