Pilot [5]420Please respect copyright.PENANABZbyvEbTB1
Of Frost and Monsters420Please respect copyright.PENANATxziwCTfhz
Ghosthelm 420Please respect copyright.PENANAy6GtAF8i0V
Pilot wasn’t sure how he’d survived this long. All he could narrow it down to was proving his Unit Commander wrong. For a month, Commander Veltine had tried to teach them all he knew in both combat and what monsters lay in their pathway to peace. Pilot had so far proved himself to be more than capable in the theory section of their training, but the psychical side of their work had taken its toll. Every morning they were woken at five, and their unit went for a five kilometre run in the town that spiralled around the innards of the mountain.
The town was surprisingly cultured, considering the isolation of the town and the mountain Ghosthelm it resided in. The only reason there was a town within Ghosthelm was due to the export and import rate and the consistent trade as a result of the MUNC’s presence within and around the mountain.
The first few days, Pilot had fallen considerably behind the rest. This, Veltine had not approved of and had given Pilot a generous order of another three laps. But, after some time and a whole lot of extra laps Pilot had felt less dead after every morning run. The blood would still rush to his ears and his legs and sides would burn up but still, less so every morning. After their run they’d be allowed to return to the barracks, wash and dress themselves then go to the Golden Hall to have their breakfast, which also doubled as Pilot’s only time to talk to Leo and Bass.
There were a few things Pilot had noticed in these early mornings about comrades. Leo had quickly attracted the attention of the canteen lady/ healer, Samir, to which Leo, being an authoritative yet introverted fellow didn’t quite know how to react to. Every breakfast, Leo would receive the most edible meal out of all of them and a little note with a pun. They’d even begun to make bets on how corny the pun would be out of ten. Some of these cringe-worthy little notes included;
You’re my butter half.
You got a pizza my heart.
(Pilot’s favourite so far,) Samir had given Leo an entire tray of beetroots with the note, My heart beeettts for you.
Bass, despite Leo’s consistent monotone glare only encouraged it. Seeing those two always brought up that old ache in Pilot’ heart, bringing back those memories of when it was all very simple and straightforward. They were thieves, and quite unashamed of the fact. Ever since the little twelve-year-old Pilot had seen the two pickpocketing those Slum Guards, a life of thieving was all he wanted to know. It was thoughts like those that made his mind circle back to one question. If he wasn’t a thief anymore, who in the Forgotten World was he? All Pilot knew was that he was haunted. Haunted by a daemon that claimed to want to help him, but remained elusive as ever. Haunted by his supposedly dead uncle and haunted by crow-mark on his hand. Haunted by the blue-masked stranger that had appeared from the shadows to save him, the little girl that had tried to kill him and the fact that he should very well be dead almost three times over.
Haunted by little things like that. But sitting and talking with Naoki, Icho, Kat and Violet opened up a whole new realm of entertainment. Pilot found Naoki was the sort to pick every little bone from the fish he ate whilst his brother was the type to ate the fish whole. On the other hand, it turned out Kat was quite the sprinter, with both a sharp mind and eye. During their theory classes with Veltine, it’d usually go the same way.
He’d clear the desks to the back of the room so the class of four squadrons would sit in a circle around him. With red eyes and silver tongue their Commander told them of the enigmatic creature that had risen from the shell of the city of New Manster.
“A beast standing at least thirty stories high, with a pair of big-ass horns and green eyes. A few fishermen and farmers payed witness to the creature destroying their crops and scare away their catches, they reported that it almost looked like it’s skin was made of metal,” Veltine had said, holding the Friendly Stick behind his back. The Friendly Stick was responsible for more than a few bruises on the Youngblood’s necks, hands and wrists for various reasons such as not paying attention, talking or maybe he just didn’t like the way you looked. Commander Veltine was a fair and disciplined teacher like that.
Pilot’s team had their strengths and weaknesses when it came to their theory and combat classes, that much was evident. Icho was everything that he seemed, a brute when he came to combat but found himself sleeping through Veltine’s speeches on battle tactics. He had a lot of bruises. Naoki did well in the theory classes, but judging by the blank look on his face throughout most of the classes, Pilot could only guess that his comrade couldn't give less of a shit. Yet he proved himself more than capable in the Dojo, even capable of beating his brother with pure speed and the fact that he could outsmart essentially any contestant. Kat couldn’t match his opponent’s strength, but was quick as could be and made for a small target. Commander Veltine, despite his crooked grin and wolfish demeanour he knew how to damn well fight. He taught Kat how to use his size and speed, and how to wear a much larger opponent down. When he reached Pilot however, Veltine had taken one look at him and told him to get a layer of muscle, then maybe, just maybe he might be able to survive a round of hand to hand combat.
Every night from that day, Pilot would do a set of a hundred chin-ups on the doorframe. It hurt, oh by Haine it hurt. His arms and shoulders and stomach ached with every lift, but his fingertips burned and his fingernails bit into the wood of the frame. But…he could already feel the muscles developing in his back, and feel the burn as his stomach and arms grew stronger and stronger. After these workouts, it was already late and Pilot had the thrum of adrenaline pumping through his veins so sleep was hard to come by. Kat was one of those people that didn’t need as much sleep as a normal human probably needed, so he tended to stay up and read, until one-night Pilot asked him to a game of chess. Pilot lost in flying colours. Well, he still did but he was getting better, especially fast with such a good teacher.
“My sister taught me from a young age,” Kat had explained, making the checkmate move and knocking Pilot’s white piece from the board.
“She said that the most important part of chess was to know your opponent, because when you know your opponent, you can predict what their next move will be,” Kat said. He’d been holding a handful of Pilot’s white pieces, and as he talked let them fall between his fingers.
Elise had been listening, as it so happened. She tended to do that, listen in whenever she wished with no thought for privacy. She didn’t appear very often, she only lingered, like a voice in the back of his head. One night, as Pilot had just begun to drift off to sleep Elise had decided to appear. Silent as a shadow she had materialised at the end of his bed, white hair waving about in the non-existent wind, legs crossed.
“To defeat your opponent, you must first know your opponent,” His daemon said wistfully. Elise held a white chess piece in her hand. It hovered just above her palm and spun slowly. Pilot watched half in awe and half-asleep.
“How - ” He began.
“We have to know our opponents. You and I, together we are not another beast for the Valkyries to heard and whip into obedience and train to do tricks that make them coin. Creed and Veltine, those are our opposition. They stand in our way to the Cherry Blossom Tree,” Elise said, floating the chess piece over to a confused Pilot.
He caught it in a tight fist, resting his knuckle against his lip. “The Cherry Blossom tree?”
“You want to find who you are? It all leads back to that safe place inside your head. That place you crawl into when things in reality get just too tough for you to handle? That holds the answers,” Elise said, leaning in close. Pilot lent in closer and held her chin, gently stroking her jaw.
“Why should I believe you, how do you know you aren’t some figment of my imagination? How do I know that the fall didn’t mess up my head?” He whispered, cocking his head slightly to the side. Casual as she cared, Elise picked up his tanned hand and showed him the crow mark.
“What if you're just some figment of my imagination? How do I know that the fall didn't mess up my head?” He whispered, cocking his head slightly to the side. Casual as she cared, Elise took his tanned hand and showed him the crow mark wrapped around his it.420Please respect copyright.PENANA63rFCdMhXU
“What have you got to lose?” She whispered like it was pillow talk.
Only myself. 420Please respect copyright.PENANAdtd9KRwrxC
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The Golden Hall was essentially empty by the time Pilot, Naoki, Bass and Leo sat down for a dinner of boiled potatoes in a beef broth with tufts of slightly hardened bread. Whilst the others inhaled their food with the vigour of a bloody dragon, Pilot stirred and studied the broth that rather reminded him of muddied water.
Samir had taken to sitting down to dinner with them, as she happened to have taken a liking to their little group (and it also gave her an ample view to stare at Leo with all the subtly of a sledge hammer.) She was complaining about something or rather (Pilot would always zone out whenever Samir seemed to be beginning to go on a tangent as she tended to do regularly enough.) Only this time, halfway through a tangent she happened to say something of interest.
“….And now I've got to collect twice as much silk-web for the slings for this expedition…” Samir babbled.
“Wait, wait…what expedition?” Pilot interjected. Samir froze and looked to him, her expression confirming Pilot’s suspicion that Samir had assumed no one was really listening.
“I – ah, who now?” Samir stammered.
“Just now, you were talking about stocking up on silk web for slings for some mission?” Pilot said, firmer this time.
“I don't really know if I can talk about that,” Samir began before Bass leaned over to her. With a hand covering his mouth from Leo’s view beside him, Bass pointed at his friend and mouthed the words, “seven inches…”
“Soon, very soon not sure when but they're will be an expedition for all the Youngblood’s into the mountains, an endurance mission,” Samir said quickly, looking to Leo dreamily.
Pilot didn't bother with his chin ups, and it appeared Kat hadn't played his usual game of chess when he returned to the bunk that night. Instead, he only tugged the sheets covering Kat up to keep him warm and climbed to the top bunk, asleep before his head hitting the pillow.
It was in the early morning hours that they received a rude awakening. It was the shouting from hallway that roused them from sleep, but it was the two Valkyries storming inside their room and dragging them from their beds that woke them up.
W-what in the Forgotten World are they doing? Do they know? Do they somehow know about Elise, about everything?
His thoughts were cut short when the butt of one of their guns met the back of Pilot’s head.
Familiar voices spoke through the haze of his waking conscious.
“Is he dead?” A distraught, distorted Kat exclaimed.
“Don't be an idiot Katsuo,” Naoki muttered.
“Pilot…Pilot?” Violet said warily, prodding his side. With a groan, a numb pain in the back of his head and a sudden chill Pilot sat up. It seemed the source of the sudden cold would be the fact that they were in a run down cabin, snow flakes drifting inside through a hole in the wooden roof. The fireplace was no more than a guttered hole in the wall and the carpet a rotten excuse of a pelt.
“Is this…what I think it is?” Pilot grunted.
Naoki, Icho, Kat and Violet had been gathered around him, leaning in intently in wonder of whether he was still breathing. Naoki stood and made his way over to the splintered remnants of a doorframe, where it appeared a note had been stabbed into the frame with a rather large hunting blade.
“What does it say?” Icho asked.
“HUNT, ENDURE, SURVIVE.” Naoki read aloud before screwing the paper up and throwing it to the rather lonely looking table shuffled against the left wall.
Beside where the crumpled note had fallen, a box sat. No sound came from the box, nor was there any signs on it. Cautiously curious, Naoki motioned half-heartedly for them to keep back as he pried the lid open with the knife. What they found inside was a cloth filled with strips of dried and salted jerky, water canisters, an axe head and a few slices of bread frozen from the cold.
“What, - what exactly happened?” Pilot asked, teeth chattering as he picked up and fastened his black MUNC cloak at the clasp at his neck.
“Well, wee early morning hours Valkyries stormed into the barracks shouting and yapping at us to get the fuck up, practically pulling us out our beds,” Icho said, obviously irate.
“They led us all out into the sky bay with the MUNC standard Aeroships. They shoved each and every Youngblood onto those ships, sailed out into the wild mountains, dropped us all off and pretty much said good luck boys and girls. Well, everyone but you.”
“Maybe it’s protocol?” Kat suggested with shrug.
“Maybe they think you’re a threat,” Violet added, sitting against the wall.
Icho burst out in unchecked laughed, followed by Kat’s giggling, Naoki tried to stifle a smile but his face lost the battle. Violet muffled her own laughter and smile, smothering it with a gloved hand.
“This – this is why I just love and respect you guys, really,” Pilot said flatly. Icho clapped him on the back, and they went and gathered around the table where Naoki stood looking over the box.
“So, what now?” Pilot wondered, his breath clouding into a white mist. Naoki took a deep breath, and breathed it out into a white mist through his nose.
“We need to follow orders, that’s what we need to do,” He said assuredly, stabbing the blade into the table.
“Icho and Pilot, you two head west and explore the lay of the land, Kat, Violet and I will try and get a start on repairing this place so we can at least sleep in here without getting frostbite,” Naoki ordered, looking to all of them. Pilot gave him a curt nod, and they headed out.
Heading out into the forest of snow-dressed pines was like taking a dive into cold water. There was a biting cold at first, but after a few moments you'd merely become numb to it, and tug your cloak that much closer. Their little run down cabin sat at the top of the valleys slope leading down to a frozen lake.
“Each unit has a thousand Youngbloods, but these wild mountain ranges in the Neverpeaks go on for miles and miles,” Icho said, pointing two fingers to the moon shaped mouth of another valley in the far south-west. Each side of the crescent moon shaped gap between the mountain barriers had a twin waterfall which had formed the odd mouth shape, the same waterfalls that fed the river Cerberus which fed the lake Pilot and Icho now made their way down to.
"What do you think the MUNC really get out off dropping all their recruits in the middle of nowhere?” Pilot wondered, watching his steps down the snow and stone. Icho followed closely behind.
“Well, they've got a three month minimum of training they have to complete for us to be legally shipped out for battle. Peace times, they could afford to complete a full out in the field and base training program. But, seems we’ve got ourselves a big ass metal giant to kill,” Icho sighed in an almost tired voice.
Pilot stopped at a rocky outcrop, grey, crumbling and cold. He listened to howl of the wind flying through the valley and took a deep breath. The null thump in the back of his head was gone, and it seemed with the clarity of change he’d so had the tangle of thoughts that had been clouding his mind.
Do we?
“Do we? Because we couldn’t afford the clothes on our back it suddenly falls upon us to put our lives on the line and find a way to stop the Monolith?” Pilot said, his cloak rippling the cold mountain wind.
“It’s exactly just that,” Icho replied, so very sure of himself.
“What?” Pilot said, an eyebrow raised.
“What I said, it's exactly that. We couldn't afford the clothes we'd stolen to wear on our backs. Pilot, what were you planning to do with your life?” Icho asked.
Who knew the big guy could be so…thoughtful?
Pilot turned to Icho and opened his mouth to reply, only to be knocked directly off the outcrop by an icy snowball to the face, courtesy of Icho. He lay in the bottom of the cliff-face on a soft bed of snow. He half-sneezed half-spluttered the snow from his face and mouth, and looked up to glare at Icho’s stupid, laughing-self standing atop the outcrop.
“Oh, you blueberry muffin,” Pilot swore with a hiss. Behind his back he gathered a fist full of snow, before tossing the snowball directly into Icho’s stupid face. Pilot rolled to the side and to his feet, kicking his way through the snow to take shelter behind a thin paper birch. A burst of laughter gave him plenty of warning before another snowball hit the tree Pilot hid behind, sending snow down his collar and down his back. He retreated, gathering another two snowballs as he found a rock plateau to half-slip half run across to escape the onslaught of snowballs Icho rained down on him from the high ground. Just as Pilot dived for cover, he managed to land snowball right on Icho’s forehead. Truth be told of course it was an easy target, being that large.
Hidden behind two boulders and a paper birch Pilot formed as much ammo as he could.
“I will have my revenge!” Icho called, assuring Pilot with a warning shot. Pilot went to go for a shot, only for Icho to appear behind him and kick up a wave of snow directly into his face sending Pilot sprawling and rolling down the steep slope in a bundle of black clothes and white snow clumping in his hair. Icho made to follow cautiously, but ended up tripping and falling himself like the giant oaf he was. They both tumbled down the slope, snow and ice clinging to their clothes and hair. Tumbling and tumbling they went until they made it to the pebble beach of the frozen lake. Icho came to a painful stop in a heap of pebbles, but Pilot was not so lucky. Paper birches, much larger and scarier looking than their spindly cousins on the slope hunched over the lake, some of their roots sticking nakedly out of the bank as if reaching for the lake water. The silent sentinel’s roots almost seemed to point and reach for the poor boy laying a few feet out on the frozen lake. The thinly, frozen lake.
Evidence of which quickly presented itself in the form of the spider webbing cracks in the ice quickly spreading beneath him.
Oh, by Haine no…no…I’m already meant to be dead I know but I…I want to live…
In that moment, Elise decided to appeared before him. She looked to him, showing no emotion as the daemon was hidden behind that white gasmask as always.
“Do you want my help?” She offered, extending a too white hand with her too white flowing out behind her, moonlight like light ebbing from her strand. Confused, Pilot took a step back, shaking his head.
More fissures formed underfoot. They grew and grew with every breath. Louder and louder with every heartbeat. Icho stumbled onto the ice, calling out words Pilot simply didn’t choose to hear.
He felt his own breath begin to slip away. As the cracks grew, all Pilot was aware of was the Haine-damned clarity of change.
I suppose now it’s the clarity of imminent death.
Icho’s words no longer fell on deaf ears when he came close enough for Pilot to realise Icho had every chance he had for this supposedly tranquil clarity of imminent death.
“Pilot!” Icho shouted, his voice echoing about the lake, bouncing from the ice, the ridges and the vast white forest surrounding them.
“Icho,” He said quietly.
The idiot stepped forward, the ice began to groan, the cracks growing larger. Fear, a purple, poisonous serpent wrapped its way around his heart. Icho ignored the ice fissuring beneath his feet and kept moving forward, reaching for Pilot. And for the first time he felt anger. True anger. Anger at Icho for endangering his own life like he was.
Damn it all.
Pilot felt the ice began to give out beneath him so he did all that could think to do and pushed Icho away, further than Pilot thought he was capable of. Of course he didn’t have time to think on any of this, as he was too busy falling helplessly into the freezing waters.
Pilot clawed and tore away his cloak and flailed helplessly to reach the surface but the chunks of ice that had fallen with him disturbed the water, distorting any sense of up and down he might have had. The cold was more than he could've imagined, a cold that seeped through his skin, bones and into his heart. It felt like a invisible, giant hand of nothingness and frost had enclosed him and was dragging him down, like his heart had frozen and was an anchor dragging him into the black depths.
There was a moment, when his last breath had left his body that his body simply decided to let go. To give into the cold. To stop this fighting and be free. Only, his mimd would not let him know peace.
What an oddly peaceful death. I know…I know I have so many regrets and yet…I couldn't care less. At least here, I'm free .
Pilot did not know this peace for long. Icho he supposed half-submerged himself, reaching his long arms to lift take hold of Pilot’s collar, pulling him to the surface. Icho gasped when they both surfaced from the black water, and with sound quickly returning to the world and sight edging it's way along Pilot remember to breath himself. He made to try and get up, but his frozen anchor heart would not allow it.
“P-Pilot,” Icho said, clearly shivering and teeth chattering as he threw his own dry, warm cloak over his shivering friend. As if he weighed no more than a pup, Icho picked him up in a bundle of freezing, tanned sixteen-year-old and black woollen cloak and began to carry him. He drudged up the hill, knee-deep in snow, half frozen and carrying Pilot, Icho essentially crawled his way back to the cabin. Pilot felt the anchor in his chest weigh him down as he shook and tried to weakly hold Icho for some, for any kind of warmth.
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When Pilot woke, he woke amongst warmth. He lay in a bundle of fur beside the fiery hearth, the hole in the roof seemingly now patched up. Looking about the room, it seemed night had fallen and the others were nowhere to be seen. No one, except Violet. Violet, who lay beside him, naked, as he was. Pilot rolled over, finding her lying there. She woke, not borthering to cover her bare breasts and looked to Pilot with no shame in her eyes at her naked form.420Please respect copyright.PENANAJv0YvOmLO9
“Wha – why – ” Pilot began.
“You needed someone to watch over you, and you wouldn’t stop shivering so you needed some body warmth…” Violet explained softly. Pilot choked on any words that might’ve formed in his confused mind and rolled out of the covers and into the small second room in the cabin. Finding his smallclothes drying on a string strung across the room he snatched them and put them on.
“Pilot?” Violet said, knocking on the door sympathetically.
He slid down the door, head buried in his hands.
All we have to do is survive, huh? 420Please respect copyright.PENANAyK4PVlPJW9