Episode 2 Platoon 86

A lonely figure draped in a Black Seraph’s cape enveloped about a Dark Stud set stands in the middle of a set clearing, with an ocean of rolling hills and vegetation surrounding him. In this figure’s particular clearing, there are many freshly cut tree stumps surrounding him.

The figure leaps skywards and flicks a Steely to his left, cutting down the last young, slender tree in the clearing. He drops to a kneeling position and peers around, his breathing rapid, and spots a Ribbon Pig shuffling into the area, attempting to hide itself behind a tangle of adjacent bushes.

The figure turns at once and preys upon the pig, focusing his aim against it. Suddenly, over the figure’s shoulder an arrow sings through the air and pierces the pig’s abdomen even before the figure could launch his own Steely.

After a quick, sigh of frustration, the figure claps his hands and turns irritably to a new person standing behind him. “Iiam, you know I hate it when you do that.”

[Iiam Render approx. 7x Ranger, Render Clan]

Iiam sidles into the clearing, a Blue Hinkel dangling in his hands by his side and a mischievous grin stapled to his face. “Heh, heh, sorry, Ashn, I couldn’t resist stealing your kill. I know it irritates you.”

[Ashn Vicerius approx. 7x Hermit]

“Damn straight. You’ll pay for that!” Ashn growls, flinging a Steely in the direction of Iiam.

Iiam merely smiles foolishly, waving his right hand and sending a soft dash of cool breeze winging through the air, redirecting the route of the Steely. The Steely falls with a soft thud onto the soft grass floor. “Careful, Mr. Ashes, some might think you were actually intent on killing me.”

“What’s wrong with that?” Ashn shrugs, “Chicks dig complicated guys.”

Iiam scratches his forehead. “Y…yeah…”

A loud clinking and stamping noise suddenly reaches their ears, causing both of them to turn in the clearing. Suddenly the Crusader from earlier stumbles into the area, his heavily armored boots leaving wide imprints in the grassy floor.

Ashn gives the trail of destruction and trod-on grass behind Radus an awkward look. “Might wanna get you some nice, soft slippers for Christmas, Radus.”

“What for?” Radus blinks curiously. He shrugs away the comment. “So anyway, guys, I just received our mission from Dances With Balrog, and it’s a great one.”

“We’ve got to hunt down the Dekira Hope Generation and kill them!” a high-pitched girl’s voice cries out in the air. With a quick flash of blue light, a young girl wearing a White Calaf set teleports into the area. She has long black hair, and a pair of kind, hazel-brown eyes with a rather gentle look in them.

[Lilly Hope approx. 5x Cleric]

She stares from the rugged Ashn, with a pile of unkempt black hair wrapped in a Silver Identity hovering over his cool gray eyes to the kindly-faced, blonde, green-eyed Iiam, wearing a Dark Linnex set, complete with a Dark Patriot sitting atop his head.

“Lilly, eh, so we’re all here, then,” Ashn grunts. “Not bad.”

“So our mission is to hunt down and kill the Dekira Hope Generation, huh?” Iiam repeats. “Interesting…”

“That’s such a horrible mission!” Lilly pouts, “Even if they’re in a war against us, they’re still people, and people deserve the right to live. What do we know? They haven’t done anything against us yet.”

“Are you kidding me?!” Ashn exclaims, “Not only do we get an assassination mission, the most fun of all, but these are the Dekira kids you’re talking about! All they want is to kill us all! Just think of it as sacrificing a couple of useless bodies for the better good of everyone else.”

“How can you just say that?! Killing people is—“ Lilly shouts back, but is interrupted by Radus.

“Calm down, everyone,” Radus mutters. “Regardless of our own feelings, our mission is to kill the Dekira Hope Generation, and as a platoon under Dances With Balrog, we’ve got to do our job no matter what.”

“There’s gotta be a way so that no one has to die,” Lilly replies stubbornly.

“Hmph,” Ashn smirks, “If you can find that way, then what the hell, go ahead. But if you can’t, no need to say anything.”

“Radus! Do something! You don’t really intend to kill these guys, do you?” Lilly cries, turning to Radus.

Radus shrugs uncertainly. “Well, we’ll uh…we’ll see. We’ll see how everything turns out, but remember, it’s our mission after all to kill them, and we can’t disappoint one of the Four Masters of Victoria.”

“Heh,” Ashn smirks, folding his arms, “I hate how guys can just crumble with a couple sweet words from their girls. It’s pathetic.”

“Sh…shut up!” Radus retorts back.

Overhead, a bright sun shines in a clear blue sky as a ship’s horn blows off in the distance. Radus, Ashn, Iiam, and Lilly stand grouped together on the deck of a large, grand ship, set with sails flapping in the warm breeze.

Below them, a couple of excited, weak-looking mages and warriors are gathered together, each of them wearing a swimming cap over their heads and whispering delightedly amongst themselves.

Ashn ruffles his hair and rolls his eyes as one of their whispers is distinctly carried over from the breeze: “It’s a good thing we bought these hats with all our money at the store. Otherwise, if we drown in the water when the ship gets moving, we’ll be in trouble!”

“Don’t these noobs know anything?” Ashn mutters.

“Don’t call them noobs!” Lilly replies agitatedly.

“Well, that’s what they are!” Ashn growls.

Suddenly, one of the tiny mages waddles up to Radus, pressing a piece of notebook paper into his hands and a tiny little wooden pencil. “Um, wow, you guys look so strong! Um, can I have your autograph?”

Radus grins and gladly signs the piece of paper, putting emphasis on his signature, making it stand out. Radus watches rather pompously as the boy stumbles back to his group of friends, showing off the autograph.

Ashn pokes Radus on the arm irritably. “Hey. Radus. Careful, man, your ego’s starting to get so big it’s gonna poke out of your head.”

Radus’s grin immediately dissipates. “What did you say?!”

Ashn shrugs lazily and places his hands in his pockets. “Meh.”

“So anyway, what now, in terms of the plan?” Iiam asks, turning to Radus.

“We’ll head to Ossyria,” Radus answers, “And we’ll head over to the base we’ve got set up in outside Orbis, I guess. It won’t be easy though, since the Dekira heavily occupy both Orbis and El Nath.”

“How are we gonna know where to find those Dekira brats?” Ashn asks.

Radus shrugs nonchalantly. “Well, our spies haven’t really had that much luck figuring out their identities…all we know is that there are three of them, and two of them happen to be just kids. It’s a simple job.”

“And the third?” Ashn mutters, raising an eyebrow.

“No idea,” Radus replies lightly. “But whoever he is, he shouldn’t be much harder to take down than the other two kids.”

“All this talk about murder…” Lilly mutters sadly. She shakes her hair out of her eyes, sighing slightly. “I think I’ll go take a quick walk around the ship to clear my head.” She then turns around, trudging off to the other end of the ship.

Radus watches her go. “Lilly. She’s so naïve, thinking everyone’s all goody-two shoes and righteous. That’s what I like about her, but it does make her a bit of a liability in battle. Oh well, at least she’s hot.”

“Hmph,” Ashn grunts.

A loud horn blast suddenly rings throughout the vicinity of the ship. The three of them, Radus, Ashn, and Iiam each turn as one to watch as the ship takes off into the bright sky, sun shining down and the sails blowing keenly in the great rush of air.

“Well, we’re off on an adventure!” Radus cries cheerfully over the loud rush of wind and air. “Off to Ossyria!”

Iiam does not reply as both Ashn and Radus high-five each other, but instead, he remains stiff standing next to the ship’s railing, gazing off into the distant horizon. He slowly raises a hand in the air, feeling the breeze blow past his fingers. ‘Something doesn’t feel right about this wind…it seems rather heavy today.’

“Iiam,” Radus’s voice says out loud next to Iiam, “What’s up? You look rather stiff and uncomfortable.”

“Nah, it’s nothing,” Iiam replies. “At least, I don’t think it is. Just nervous about this upcoming mission, I guess.”

“Heh,” Radus replies, “Don’t worry about it! It’ll be a breeze, and we’ll be back in Victoria celebrating our achievements in no time. Who knows, maybe one thing people will be telling this very story about us, how Platoon 86 saved Victoria Island by killing the Dekira Hope Generation!”

“Right,” Iiam replies with a smile, “Everything will be fine.”

At that exact same moment, a rumble suddenly trembles throughout the entire ship, and the deck shivers in tune with the rumble while the ship rocks from side to side rather violently.

Radus, Ashn, and Iiam turn their heads about themselves, searching for the source of the commotion. A shriek of steel as Radus unsheathes his sword causes Iiam to tighten the hold on his Hinkel. Beside him, Ashn’s leg muscles tense, as he prepares to leap into the air.

“What’s going on here?” one of the young mages asks Radus.

Radus shakes his head. “You kids,” he growls, “hurry up and run into the cabin and hide. Looks like we’ve just got a couple of Crimson Balrogs. Nothing we can’t handle.”

All at once, a huge, grinning, sinister face with blaring red eyes appears from behind the mast, its teeth bared and fangs glistening with saliva at the sides of its mouth.

“Pretty ugly thing,” Ashn growls with a grimace.

“Who’re you calling ugly?!” the Balrog screams angrily.

Ashn starts in surprise. “What the—?! It can talk?”

“Come on boys!” the Crimson Balrog shouts, waving its clawed hands, “Let’s get ‘em!”

All at once, two other Crimson Balrogs, slightly smaller than the first but nevertheless huge, appear, flapping their wings and hovering just over the ship next to their leader.

“Let’s get rid of them before they do some damage!” Radus shouts over the din of noise and violence.

Lilly suddenly runs into the vicinity of the Balrogs, shrieking and running towards her friends. All of a sudden one of the Balrogs spot her, and grins maliciously, sending a beam of dark energy flying right past her.

The side of the ship then collapses, as a large crack splits the deck in half, and Lilly falls over the edge, grabbing onto one of the flying pieces of railing just as in falls towards the ground far below.

Radus shouts out in mortal surprise. “Lillyyyyy! Come back!”

He prepares to leap after her, but Ashn holds him back. “Hold on, taking care of these guys comes first. There’s a lot more lives in danger here.”

“Dammit…” Radus mutters. He clenches tightly the hilt of his Doombringer, and then launches himself forward, swinging his sword wildly at the leader of the Balrogs.

“Radus! Be careful!” Iiam shouts after him, just as the leading Balrog swings laxly with his claw, sending Radus crashing back onto the ship’s deck. Meanwhile, the other two Balrogs begin attacking the rest of the ship, watching satisfactorily as bits and pieces of the remains of the ship disperse, falling into the ground far below.

Iiam strings his bow, letting loose a barrage of four arrows at a time towards the leader of the Crimson Balrogs. However, the leader merely growls angrily, snarling down at Iiam and sending an explosive burst of dark light at him.

Iiam backs off, tripping over the railing behind him and falling down towards the ground after Lilly. Radus and Ashn each turn in alarm as Iiam shouts out loud, falling into the abyss below. “Iiam!” Radus shouts over the railing.

“No time for that!” Ashn shouts over the tumult, waving to attract Radus’s attention, “this ship’s gonna fall!”

Radus turns in alarm to where Ashn is pointing at, and sure enough, the deck has split yet again, and the ship slowly disintegrates into smaller pieces, falling apart in the air with a great explosion and scattering everything on it away into the air.

Next: Episode 3 Run for the Hills! Literally!
Surixin & co. run to hide in the hills as the hunt for the Dekira Hope Generation begins.