Chapter 14: Sleep
It'd been roughly six hours since the group set off from stables. In the back Orisuki, Cooper, Gislea and Njax were asleep in makeshift sleeping bags that Orpheus had fashioned from some empty sacks. They weren't comfortable but they were better then nothing. AL and Orpheus were sat in the front wide awake despite late hour. They sat in a comfortable silence as AL made sure the horses stayed going the correct direction whilst Orpheus wrote in a small note pad he had in his pocket. He wrote about Demeter, picking apart the milliseconds the god had survived against him, jotting down aspects about it such as the amount of strength it took to rip the gods arms off as well as how it fired off energy in the form of energy blades. He ladled the god a minor threat then gave it the number "999" before drawing a picture of the sun next to it with an arrow pointing to the next page. Once he was done he spoke up.
"You nodding off old man?" Orpheus asked knowing the answer already.
"Awake as always, son." AL responded quickly "Now the rest are out I should ask. That hole in the mountains, that was you and him clashing yes?"
"What the great deadbeat of Highrulia?" Orpheus joked "Aye. He's not retreated though. He's been following since we left stables. He knows better then to attack now though, since we are both present. Weird choice for him to be at stables. His future sight must go far enough to see where a person would be in a 12 hours. Freaky shit man"
"Indeed. She should be safe with us." AL replied. "I hate to criminalise the poor girl but all the same I know the authorities wont save her from his tirade"
"I'm taking her in as a student. That cool with you?" Orpheus asked "When Espa gets back from his overseas exploration ill have the two train together."
"It'd be for the best. Who better to train one of her linage and her composition then the current titleholder of Valkyrie" AL jested
"True. After all she's near identical in composition to the 1st." Orpheus jested "That's probably why your daddy dearest is after her."
"My father truly knows no shame. His twisted Valkyrie hunt knows no mercy even for a mere teen" AL responded knowing there was nothing further to discuss.
For the rest of the night Orpheus would fire spears out into the dark sky of the ever dark plains. Each spear would hit a bolt of blue light that was fired at it from their stalker. Using this method Orpheus knew exactly how far away they were from the stalker at any moment.
"You cant hide, Artemis" Orpheus muttered as he relaxed.
Chapter 15. First new day in my new life
The morning came and the rest of the crew woke up. To their delight they finally had exited the ever dark plains and finally were in a normal plains unaffected by divine madness. It was a nice plains of lush green grass and bright blue skies with a forest just on the horizon.
"Finally" Gislea groaned as she cracked her necked
As she looked around seeing the morning activities of her new companions she still couldn't get the sight of Demeter out of her mind. The horrid form of the god just confirmed her father was right about gods, they were nothing but deceivers using humanity for their own gain. Though her thought process was broken by the feeling of an item dropping onto her lap. It was a cylinder wrapped in tin foil and the person who dropped it? Well it was Orpheus who was sat on a crate next to her shovelling wraps into his mouth and swallowing them quickly. She picked at the cylinder revealing it was a wrap as well.
"Eat up kid. You've got a bunch of walking to do soon enough." Orpheus spoke as he balled up the tinfoil that was left from the eight wraps he had ate so far.
As Gislea took her first bite into the wrap she noted the flavour, it was beyond delicious. In it was slices of a well marbled grilled meat that she couldn't quite put a finger on the type of from the flavour, it was like beef but sweeter, long slices of spicy gherkins that blended well with the sweet meat as well as the general wrap ingredients like rice and beans. Before she knew it she had ate the whole thing in seconds, she then turned to Orpheus with the grease from meat on her lips.
"What meat was that? Cant say I've had it before" She asked as she wiped her mouth
"Bear" Orpheus answered as he grabbed the foil off her putting it onto his already large ball of foil.
With a snicker he aimed the ball at Orisuki and threw it at her before going back to looking inconspicuous. The ball hit Orisuki square on the forehead causing her to spring up and frantically search for who threw it. As her sight swept through she landed on Orpheus who was desperately holding back giggles, clearly being inconspicuous wasn't his strong suit.
Gislea watched as Orisuki blew up on Orpheus but not getting up to get in his face since she wouldn't move the large sacks of brioche she had put on her sides. As Orisuki spewed colourful language at him Orpheus just burst out into laughter at the sight of Orisuki's pissed off expression under her sacks of bread. Gislea sat and wondered to herself how could these people be the monsters that the media portrayed them as. AL was far from the cunning and cruel butcher they described, Orisuki was certainly as aggressive as they said but she wasn't the mindless savage they described hell she was the least stupid of the three and then Orpheus was such a kind man nothing like the devil he was described as though it was probably to early to describe since she had knew him for a solid three hours.
As Orpheus laughed hysterically at Orisuki, Gislea found herself looking around to examine more. She saw Cooper to ALs left shooting at pieces of bread Njax was throwing in the air like a clay pigeon machine, Njax stood amazed at Coopers accuracy every time he shot the bread out of the air no matter the speed or distance Njax threw the bread at. AL sat in the middle eyes trained on the forest ahead with his shoulders less slumped then yesterday , Gislea figured that AL had gotten over what was bothering him and went back to looking around. Finally her eyes drifted to her freshly polished blade that was hung up on the wall noticing something weird about it.
The handle that once resembled the but of a musket was gone, replaced with a tradional handle for a katana, the hilt was now expanded to have octagonal shape with one armour plate attached to each side, the blade was longer and appeared to be cutting through water as it swung back and forwards with the carriages movements. Overall the blade looked phantomish, being slightly see through but visible all the same and when she blinked her blade return to its normal musket like state to Gisleas confusion.
As she reached out to grab the blade she heard a voice in her head. It was her own and it asked her one question
"To what do you rebel?"
Gislea couldn't answer that question and so the voice faded away.
Chapter 16: New home.
Around twenty minutes after the phantom blade appeared the carriage came to a stop. They had arrived at a mountain top plateau and upon it was a small village bustling with vagrants each looking meaner the last.
Orpheus hopped of the carriage and chuckled before raising his voice. "All right you've had your fun. Now scram."
He threw one of his spears towards the biggest and scariest of the vagrants. When it landed the man instantly got to running, urging his men to follow suit. One glance at his spear was enough for them to know who threw it. Strangely though the name they screamed in terror wasn't Orpheus nor Devil or anything associated with Orpheus, rather they screamed "Butcher!" as they ran in fear. Clearly this annoyed Orpheus but he clearly wasn't going to explain why.
With vagrants taken care of the rest got out of the carriage. AL first then followed by Orisuki and Cooper lastly Njax and Gislea exited and when they did they were met to one of Orpheus's spears.
"You two with me. Gonna see how easy you are to kill." Orpheus ordered whilst using a tiny spear to pick chunks of food out of his teeth.
Gislea and Njax knew they had no choice to comply and followed whilst utterly terrified. An understandable reaction considering the guy ordering them to do so had just decimated a god the day before like it was nothing.
They followed Orpheus out to a crater in the plateau. The energy in the crater was the same as the one in that hole in the mountains they travelled through to reach stables except the energy was weaker clearly showing the crater was old.
"All right shit eater 1 and shit eater 2. I'm gonna come at ya. Block to the best of your ability. Ill put a drop of paint on ya for any point I could have killed you." Orpheus said as he got into a fighting stance.
Before they could say anything Orpheus came at them. He was fast, so fast he was basically teleporting. The twos attempts to dodge rendered fruitless but there blocking was slowly getting better. The two got into a rhythm of blocking with their blades till Njax came up with an idea. He'd parry Orpheus. He activated Perfect parry and landed one parry, internally he cheered till he saw Gisleas reaction. He was colour blind naturally since perfect parry made it so he couldn't see colours all except the golden parry spot and when he deactivated it he saw every part of his lower body was covered in red dots. In that one second that he had parried, Orpheus had found and marked 10,238 points that Njax could have been killed in.
"Too slow. I see why the old man is taking you." Orpheus spoke before kicking Njax in the gut toppling him over.
He then turned to Gislea and lunged at her to do the same. As Gislea saw him disappear a memory replayed in her head. She was a young girl at the time training with her father by the river bank. He had shouted for her to cross the river by hopping between 8 small stones. She couldn't do it though, she fell straight into the rapids just like she remembered. When she came back to reality she saw Orpheus had aborted his lunge and was stood looking at her in awe.
"Ha, Fucking hell. That's insane, quite the technique that is." Orpheus chuckled with mild shock. "It got a name?"
"I... What?" Gislea said as she looked down at her sabre. She then realised she hadn't brought it with her and yet it was in her hand somehow. Though the words he spoke confused her more then that. Technique? She didn't have a soul weapon which prevented her from using any techniques. But in the back of her mind she heard that same voice and same question. As she pondered the question Orpheus lunged at her ready to deliver a swift kick to her gut
"To what do you rebel?"
"To... what do I rebel?" Gislea spoke out loud before looking down to see herself in a similar state to Njax covered in paint dots but she was determined to not end up like him. She swung her blade forward and managed to clash with Orpheus miraculously. She put all her strength into attempting to counter the unstoppable force of the devils might but it was hopeless Orpheus would shatter her guard quick enough but despite this Gislea stood her ground refusing to break. Seeing her determination Orpheus gave a knowing smile preparing for something to happen.
"To what I rebel..." Gislea muttered "I rebel..."
"I REBEL AGAINST THE GODS WHO DECEIVE HUMANITY!" Gislea screamed as her blade crackled with energy before that energy built up getting bigger by the second.
It was then she heard one word be screamed in her mind that found her tounge in an instant.
"VALKURIA!" She screamed it with a power and fury that most couldn't match and in that moment the energy building up exploded pushing the unstoppable force of Orpheus to a halt then sending him flying in the other direction. She had won the clash against all the odds.
Just then as the dust settled the voice in her mind spoke again.
"You have found your reason to rebel but your heart still shakes in fear of defiance. Go forth and stabilise your heart, young Bōtokurossā"
Chapter 17: The wing clipper.
As Gislea came down from her high of winning a clash of strength against Orpheus she felt steel against her neck. When she'd look down she would find AL's sabre against the soft skin of her throat, it was the flat body of the blade with the edges nowhere near her skin yet it was enough to scare her.
"Orpheus! You fool!" AL shouted with fury
"She before was just a possible target to him but now you've made her the primary one. Have you any idea how much danger she is in now!?" He continued.
Before saying anything Orpheus erected a large wall made of towering spears in front of AL and Gislea which shaked and shuddered as something on the other side hit them. The movements and sounds of explosions on the other side made it sound like a war was going on behind the protective wall Orpheus had put up.
AL rushed Gislea away still holding the body of his sabre to her neck till he got her into a pub at the centre of the village. Once inside AL let go of Gislea and threw his sabre up into the roof before uttering the words "Memento Mori". As the words exited his mouth the world went silent, the barrage of explosions were no longer audible.
"I should have known better then to allow him to do that. Orphie has no control over his battlelust" AL sighed.
"What the hell is going on?" Gislea asked utterly baffled with the change in scenario.
"We are dead." AL spoke. "Not physically but we are emitting the energy a corpse would. It is the only way to keep us safe from him."
"You have been in danger since birth, child. Have you ever wondered why your father demanded such high standards of combat from you?" AL said as he pulled a bottle of cheap beer out from behind the bar. He poured the beer out but did not drink a sip of it.
"I... He always said I needed to be strong to protect the one that mattered" Gislea said still not any less confused.
"He was referring to you. You are the one who matters." AL said as he watched the beer in the glass as if it was going to grow legs and walk away. "Did your father ever tell you of one known as the wing clipper?"
"The wing clipper? Cant say he did" Gislea responded.
"He is a horrid excuse for a man." AL said with a tone more bitter then the beer he watched. "There exists a line of heroes named the Valkyries. They carry on the power of the original Valkyrie, a powerful woman by the name of Valerie Curie as well as the previous Valkyries before them. The wing clipper gets his name from the fact that he has been responsible for the death of every Valkyrie ever to live. He severs there hopes as if clipping their wings sending them free falling into the embrace of death"
"Valkyrie..." Gislea said as curiosity brought a thought to her mind "So he's after me? Why?"
"Your soul energy pattern. It is exactly the same as Valerie Curie's. That is enough to make the fool believe you are Valerie herself revived in flesh. Valerie was his wife many years in the past. He believes anyone who dares to use her name is doomed to meet the same fate so he destroys their souls boundaries only permitting them five more days of life till there soul falls out of their body." AL said bleakly. "To make it worse he is my father. Artemis Luxen Highrullia. The stain of Highrullian history."
"I see. That explains a lot." Gislea said understanding the toughness of the situation for AL "May I ask. Not about your father but the Valkyries. If the first was named Valerie Curie why is it they get the name Valkyries?"
"My father had many weak spots, though his biggest is his illiteracy, since he would rather practice how hit targets then learn to read and write. I'm sure my mother had some stupid name in his journals, though I'm unaware of this. I've never met my mother and frankly she's ashes to the wind considering the distance of time since my birth. If she was to be alive shed be around eight hundred and ninety nine years old considering I am eight hundred and eighty years old. Not that my father would know that." AL spoke spitefully.
"Okay that's bullshit. You're 880?" Gislea scoffed but saw the seriousness in ALs face. "You even human?"
"I am a Squire, a divergence of the human race that can not perish from old age but in return will immediately perish if hit with divine energy. I am the only publicly known one, though there is two others excluding my bastard father. My brother Alfie and my missing brother. Alfie is a gladiator fighter in Rome, fighting every day to pay off his gambling debts. However I haven't a clue on the third, not even his name, all I know is that that disgusting fraud of a father spent two years in Portugal before abandoning another child." AL responded
Chapter 18: The 9th Valkyrie
Gislea looked over at ALs glass of beer seeing it had been frozen solid somehow.
"Seems the battle is over." AL said as he clicked his fingers calling his sabre to his hand. As the sabre touched his hand the sounds outside returned. It was peaceful out there now, with only the disruption being Orisukis very noticeable shouting although the bars walls were so thick it made it so they could tell what she was pissed at this time.
"Wait" Gislea spoke as a realisation hit her. "You said the Valkyries were a generational line. What is the current generation?"
"The ninth" AL responded but before he could continue he was interrupted by a familiar voice.
"Yup. Current gen is the ninth and said ninth warrior would be me." The voice spoke though it was obvious who it was. It was Orpheus who had snuck into the bar during AL and Gisleas conversation. Cooper was also present in the background firing shots at Orpheus healing the wounds he had gained.
"Anyway, I drove father of the year away. Should be free of him till the campaign against Suraya is well and over." Orpheus continued.
"Suraya?" Cooper responded as he demanifested his sniper.
"Yeah. Saved number a thousand for him." Orpheus spoke as he tossed a can of soda over to cooper. "Good work out there back liner. You got any word from Magic?"
"Nah. Saw him in stables though. Saved me from a musket but to noggin." Cooper chuckled as he cracked the can open. "He's probably off to Hellsenfire though, tracking the giant there or something."
"Ah so magic was in stables. So I assume dawn wasn't there?" AL responded as he stepped behind the bar taking the role of a bar tender.
"Dawn and Magic couldn't breathe the same air never mind be in the same time town without bickering." Cooper jested as he put his can down for a moment.
"I got some news off him though." Cooper said as he threw a letter over to AL. "Says he's willing to join as soon as Suraya is out of the picture."
"Hell yeah. Be great to not have just have a long ranged medic for our sniper squad. Plus to steal both Dawn bullet and Growth bullet from the solar forces sniper squad just makes it even better." Orpheus responded before getting up from the bar. "Gislea. With me. Gonna finish your lessons off. Oh yeah AL stick some french toast on. Ori is cleaning Njaxs clothes and is really pissed at me for getting so much paint on them"
With Gislea following Orpheus led her to the crater where they had spared previously.
"Aight I'm not a perfect teacher so bear with me. So you know of soul energy and the weapons manifested from it." Orpheus said as he took out his note pad. "Would you also know the classifications for weapons and techniques."
"Cant say I do" Gislea said as she cracked her knuckles.
"Right, So weapons are split into four classes. Warrior, Mage, Support and Beast tamer. As an example for them all you got AL for Mage, Ori for Warrior, Cooper for support and well beast tamers are so uncommon you'd not need to bother learning them." Orpheus explained. "The type is simply based on what the strengths of your weapon are. So think brute strength for warriors, energy based constructs for mages, healing and empowering for supports and summoning mythical beasts for beast tamers."
"And where did this concept come from?" Gislea asked curiously.
"I made it up, whilst very drunk at a bar three years ago and blabbed it all to Espa. Then he spread it all around the world and now most folks use it." Orpheus responded whilst scratching his neck. "Though the technique ranking is an Espa original."
"Techniques are split into four ranks. Mundane, Grand, Ultra and Divine. Mundane is for pretty alright techniques that are usable in combat but aren't anything special, Grand is for very good techniques that can be useful in combat if used well, Ultra is for skills that tilt the favour of battle when used correctly. Divine is for techniques that are battle winners, basically making you a one man army which Ill proudly say I have three divines under my belt." Orpheus said as he manifested a spear in his hand doing tricks with it as Gislea took in the info she had just received.
"Alright one last thing before I get you doing some training. Back in our battle you used a technique called Valkuria. You know the big explosion that summoned your secret admirer." Orpheus spoke. "Ill explain it real quick. Its a sporadic technique that only triggers during the most hopeless moments. Valkuria translates to revival of hope in ancient highrullian and though its triggering is random you can force it to occur by artificially making your chances in a fight worse."
"I see" Gislea spoke knowingly. "One question. When we clashed you were holding back were you?"
"Nah I went all out." Orpheus responded with a chuckle. "Though I am limited to about 30% of my strength since I'm keeping another technique active."
"That being?" Gislea asked.
MEANWHILE IN THE TEMPLE OF THE SUN.
The sun god Suraya sat on his thrown lazing around as he watched a performance from an Opera singer.
As the performance wore on he thought back to that message he saw in the theatre in stables. "Can you see me Suraya?" What could that devil be planning. Periodically he'd see what seemed to be a child made of shadow appear then disappear slowly getting closer with each appearance, as soon as he thought anything of it the child appeared on the arm of his chair and spoke those horrific words. "Can you see me Suraya?"
Swinging his arms around he launched a ball of blazing fire at the child whilst screaming, killing three security members who had been stood to guard him.
"What... WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON!" Suraya shouted in fury as he turned his attention back to the stage to see every person in the room had spears shot straight through them making them dangle in the air but when he blinked everyone was alive and well baring the three security guards he had killed himself. They looked at him concerned as to why he was screaming. Just then he saw a teen made of the same shadow, though he couldn't here their voice he could tell from their lips they had repeated the same words.
A bell could be heard chiming in the background.