The atmosphere at Soft Snows Town had changed a great deal over the past night or so.
When Katrin first arrived at the Continent of Eternal Winter, she had been scared, excited, adventurous, and very much hopeful of some time Traveling alone with a certain someone. She had been somewhat daunted upon seeing the absolute blanket of white as far as the eye could - most of her nights in Nakama World had been spent on a farm with playful animals and colorful plants. Every place she'd ever been to before had been a splash of color attesting to this Dreamworld's attunement to children.
But this land was more snow than soil, cold not just in weather, but in the hearts of the locals. They were clamped up, unfriendly, unhelpful, unwelcoming, untalkative... they were just alien to her in their manners and their ways. Even the way they looked at her pegged her as an outsider from the get-go.
That was all before the Mountain's Tournament of Ascension. Before droves of spectators and competitors had descended on this place and turned it into the liveliest spot south of the Hourglass Continent. Crowds from all over had passed through and business had skyrocketed overnight. Crowds more had sought to take advantage of the business boom while it lasted. Market stalls had bloomed around the central square, flooded the streets on every side, were evicted by the locals, then burst outside the town walls and created a sudden bazaar right outside the town gates.
The locals bore it all without complaining, as if they were weathering a snowstorm; 'just sit tight and it'll all blow over', so to speak. It was true enough, Katrin figured - now that the Tournament was over, the majority of those market stalls were packing up right now. About half of them still called out in cheery salesman voices, trying to clear their stock before moving on. The rest were bustling about, some too busy to stop, others grinning with success, others grimacing and wishing they'd never come.
Katrin understood that last bunch perfectly. It wasn't too long ago she, too, wanted out of this place. But now...
Now the locals eyed her with less hostility than they did the merchants. Maybe it was that bottle of Bruth she now carried about and sipped at, something every local in town did by habit. Maybe it was that they were even more annoyed with the merchants than they were with her, a J-Knight who'd been here a couple nights working for their local Comrade Home and didn't make anywhere near as much noise.
Now Katrin had another reason to be here, something other than running from her troubles and a certain boy who ran off with another girl. Now she sought something she could never find anywhere else, a power that she wanted as her own... a legend that called the farthest south her home.
Now as she entered the airport, she saw familiar figures at every corner. Knights from the Order of Justice, the Order of the Silver Helms, the Order of the Chalice, and the Order of Wind were gathering to launch north. All of them looked at her and saw another ally likewise preparing to head together into war. {But of course. I'm wearing my armor over my thermo-suit.}
Admittedly, there were more Chalice Knights here than the others. To be blunt, there were just a lot more Chalice Knights, period. They were the guys to call when you needed a convoy guarded. Certain Comrade techniques meant the larger your group was, the faster you all moved (terms and conditions apply), but Nakama World also had a way of scaling up Wild attacks to the groups they attacked. Where a single truck might face two or three Wilds on the road, a ten-truck convoy might get assailed by half a hundred Wilds. If not for the Ocean Princess' favor, Colin's fleet might have been attacked by hundreds of Wilds. {Except that we already HAD hundreds of Wilds all around us... and on board. 'Hundreds of Wilds' was our cargo.}
Anyway, all of this made Chalice Knights very much in demand. They got jobs everywhere easily, and recruits to match. In the Knights' Alliance, almost three quarters of their total number were Chalice Knights. They weren't weak either; all of them were experienced in large scale battles, and about half of the knights Katrin saw were wearing Coco-Iron armor, bronze-brown in color. {There must be almost twenty Chalice Knights here.}
In a total contrast to them, the only Wind Knight Katrin saw was Shinji. The Wind Knights were professional couriers and rescuers with the fastest air Comrades you could ask for. But courier deliveries weren't in very high demand around Nakama World, and up till now, Katrin hadn't seen any other knight in silver and red. {Why do the Wind Knights wear silver-and-red anyway...? And the Justice Knights wear silver-and-blue... shouldn't it be the other way around?}
And then there were four guys in silver-and-white. The Order of the Silver Helms were looked to as judges and lawyers. If there was a dispute involving matters of law, there was almost always a Helm Knight sitting as judge, and often Helm Knights as advocates for one or both sides of the courtroom. {Wearing those colors in this snow, a Helm Knight walking around outside town might get trampled by a Comrade before anyone even sees him there...}
Compared to those three… the Justice Knights might actually be the least useful of the four. The Order of Justice was basically a guild of avengers. They hunted criminals. Oh sure, they had detectives and disaster relief and such, but when people went to the J-Knights, they wanted justice dealt; they needed the guilty punished and made to pay.
{Ah. But when the Green Men invaded from outside Nakama World, everyone turned to the Justice Knights. Chalice Knights are skilled at protecting goods against Wilds or bandits, but against the Green Men and vastly superior equipment, they're out of their league.}
Katrin saw Knight Lord Geoffrey, leader of the Justice Knights, speaking from a large screen as she walked into the upper cafeteria that the Knights' Alliance had taken over as a rallying point. {No matter how I look at it, in this war, Geoffrey has become the highest authority in Nakama World. Everybody else follows him because nobody else has anything closer to the kind of experience they need to deal with this.}
She listened for a while, noting familiar faces around the room; Henry and Rita, Hari, Daud, Kancil...
She stopped as she listened to the speech. She turned to the screen and frowned. Frowned hard. Geoffrey was saying, "The time is almost come. You know it's true..."
Geoffrey was wrong. He was talking about what to do now that the war was coming to a climax and soon to be over… how the four Orders of Knights could work together for the greater good of all Nakama World. After all, their forces respawned when they went down, and the Green Men lost saucers for good. This escalation of forces was a good sign to him. He thought this was the Green Men's last ditch effort just before they gave up at last.
Katrin knew better. She knew he was wrong. {This war is not over. The Green Men aren't about to give up until they have what they want.}
"Katrin!" Rita waved her over. "You know..."
"Hi." Katrin cut in before she gather momentum. "What's the plan?"
Rita froze, caught off-guard, but Henry stepped in.
"The main battle is going on over the Hourglass continent. Midway Metro is being surrounded." Henry said, glancing to a datapad in his hands as if to confirm. "But we're too far to get there in time. Our target is a stray saucer roaming around the south. There's already a pursuit force on it; we're going to back them up."
"Just one saucer?" Rita wondered, then started chattering non-stop. This time, Katrin couldn't stop her. "You know, it's a pity Sora isn't here. He's the one with the most air power… but I guess he's very, very busy, with becoming the Mountain Prince and then having Skycrown Mountain itself sunk into the Lower Plane… isn't there some sort of coronation supposed to take place tonight? Or was it tomorrow? But why did Satrox and Phillip stay behind? Are they trying to help him or something? They're going to miss all the fun…"
Katrin turned away, looking out the window facing north. {Fun…? This is going to be payback for what they've done to me and my friends.}
"Shinji! Shinji, hey!" Rita waved him over. "We need a lift..."
Shinji nodded absently while eyeing their gathered force as if wondering whether it would be enough. Katrin wasn't worried. {Thirty knights against a single Saucer. That would have been bad odds when we first started, but we're a lot more experienced now. Plus, these are the knights who made it to the Tournament and survived everything that's happened so far. These thirty knights should be able to eat a stray saucer for breakfast.}
{Or at least, we would if it's one of the smaller ones.}
"We're heading out." Shinji warned them as Geoffrey's speech ended and people started heading to the lift. The Silver Helm guys were the first in, Hari, Daud and Kancil not far behind them. Chalice Knights filled the rest of the elevator, and more formed a queue as it headed up.
Shinji paused. "Say... this place has a balcony, right?"
"Yes..." Henry said, just as Rita shrieked, "NO!!"
"Huh?" Katrin glanced from one to the other.
"I-I mean..." Rita shivered. "There's a balcony, but... but...! We're NOT jumping off the balcony!"
"Jumping off...?" Katrin blinked.
"She figures Shinji wants to take off that way. Jump off the balcony and then warp in his Comrades." Henry explained as Rita spluttered.
"Saves a queue." Shinji shrugged, glancing at the line to the elevator.
"Stairs work just as well." Katrin pointed out.
"We can just wait..." Rita coughed.
Shinji sighed. "We may as well. With {this} bunch, we're going to be doing a lot of waiting tonight."
"What do you mean?" Katrin asked.
"Have you seen the kinds of Comrades our fellow knights have?" Shinji queried. "Most of them aren't anywhere near 'fast'."
Katrin wasn't sure what Shinji's idea of 'fast' was, but knowing his Storm Swans, it was a safe bet that nobody else here had anything that could keep up in a race.
{Except maybe Grace.} Katrin paused. That idea had never occured to her before. {Just how fast IS she, compared to the likes of the Wind Knights?}
Finding out would have to wait, though. If she and Shinji raced to the Saucer, their Comrades would be tired out by the time they reached it. That wouldn't do. They should keep their forces as fresh and strong as possible for the battle.
{Shinji's right. We'll have to wait for the others.} Katrin thought as the third batch went up the elevator. The queue was down to one small girl now who wasn't quite keen on squeezing into an elevator crammed with bigger, enthusiastic guys in armor. Katrin got up. "Shall we?"
"Hi, Tomoe." Rita greeted the smaller girl. "How's my old helibook doing?"
"You gave her your helibook?" Katrin glanced at Rita.
"Yeah. Tomoe is a Heli-specialist." Rita explained. "I asked her to help me out when something seemed wrong with my Helibook. It looked like it was sick or something and wouldn't fly right. Tomoe had to open up the motor and fix all sorts of..."
"Not motor." Tomoe tugged at Rita's sleeve. "{Rotor}. Needed alignment. And cleaning."
"Cleaning!" Rita shook her head. "I don't even {know} how to open up that... whatever it was..."
"Mag-spinner." Tomoe pulled one out of her pocket. It looked like a black plastic spoon or something, only the head was very thick and the handle had buttons. "Size 3."
Rita threw up her hands. "You see why I gave her the Helibook."
"Yeah." Katrin agreed. Tomoe definitely knew a lot more about caring for machines (and machine-type Comrades) than Rita did.
"It's not that complicated." Henry said as the elevator doors opened. "The chamber is sealed with mag-screws on the {inside}, so you won't see them from outside. The mag-spinner just makes it turn using two directed magnetic fields, one to spin it, the other to push it away."
"Show off." Rita scowled and poked at him. "You're just repeating what she said."
Henry twisted out of the way and went in. "Now, now, if I {wanted} to show off, I'd talk about why Justice Knights wear blue and silver while the Wind Knights wear red and silver."
"Why is that?" Katrin asked as the doors shut and they went up.
"Oh, it's because Thermopad material is red." Henry said. "And Wind Knights fly so high, it gets cold, so..."
"Our armor's lined with Thermopad." Shinji nodded.
"What about the J-Knight armor?" Katrin asked.
"Coolpad is blue. It's the other way around. J-Knights want to keep cool. I guess long battles tend to get hot and sweaty." Henry grinned.
"Thus, J-Knights' armor is lined blue, and Wind Knight armor is lined red." Rita said. "You know, there's such a thing as clothing dye. Why, in fact..."
"We're here!" Katrin jumped as the elevator doors opened onto the roof level. They were in a little shaded compartment with tinted glass doors leading out to the flat rooftop with a crowd of Comrades and knights.
Already, flyers in their group were taking off. There was nobody giving orders or anything, but everyone seemed to be ready, so off they went.
"What's everyone else waiting for?" Shinji wondered.
Katrin listened to snatches of conversation nearby as they walked past looking for enough clear space to warp in their Comrades. "They're wishing each other good luck and such."
"Great. Well, we can't do anything until they're off. There's just no space." Shinji groaned. This particular rooftop belonged to a squat block not that much wider around than the cafeteria they came from. "Everybody, launch! I can't even warp in my swans like this!"
They did. About half of them scrambled into the skies at Shinji's remark, the others took a bit longer to make sure everything was in order before launching. Shinji observed them with a shake of his head. "Whose brilliant idea was it to gather everyone in the cafeteria before launching anyway?"
"Lord Geoffrey's, I think. Something about knitting closer ties between the Orders of the Knights' Alliance." Rita said at once. "You know..."
"Rain! Gust! Squall!" Shinji warped in three of his Storm Swans. He climbed onto Rain, then nodded to the others. "Gust, to Henry. Squall, to Rita. Tomoe, do you need a lift?"
"H3O!" Tomoe warped in a Helijet about the size of a dining table. She gave Shinji a thumbs-up. "I'm good!"
"Grace." Katrin tapped her badge. Grace stepped out of the thin air next to Katrin as if she'd been hovering behind and to the side all along. Katrin set one foot in the stirrup and tugged/leapt her way into the saddle. {I'm getting used to this. It took me ages to get here the first time, even with Philip's help and a step ladder.}
Shinji kept calling in more swans. "Gale! Breeze! Haze! Dawn!"
Katrin peered at that last one as it appeared. Where most of Shinji's swans were blue, gray, and/or white, Dawn was sort of pinkish-red. {Is that supposed to be a Scarlet Swan? It looks good, if a bit out-of-place. And small, compared to the others. Must be his youngest... and newest. That means... it's probably of a higher Class than Rain.}
Shinji noted her gaze. "Dawn's one of Rain's kids. He really is a sort of Storm Swan. He's a Red Dawn Swan. See, there's a saying, 'Red sky at morning, sailors take warning...'"
Rita added dreamily, " 'Like a red morn that ever yet betokened... wreck to the seaman, tempest to the field, sorrow to the shepherds, woe unto the birds, gusts and foul flaws to herdmen and to herds.'"
"Huh?" Henry blinked.
"Shakespeare." Rita told him. "One of mom's favorites. She used it a lot when she wanted us to bring in the laundry quick..."
"Huh?!" Henry looked even more baffled.
But Rita was already on a roll "She's usually right, but you know there was this one day when it {didn't} rain heavily after all, even though the sky was red in the morning, and she said..."
Katrin didn't hear the rest of it as Grace launched into the air.
Her suspicions on speed proved true quickly enough; in just a few minutes, Katrin and her friends found themselves in the lead and had to pace themselves to keep from leaving everyone else behind.
"Heads up, people!" Henry called a warning about two minutes into Rita's long explanation about her mom's sayings and their household chores.
Katrin glanced to where he pointed, but already, Shinji was shaking his head. "Don't worry. They're ours."
There, coming from Cold and Crispy Village were another group of flyers, about twenty in number. Katrin recognized Aoi among them, atop a stone bird-golem of some sort. How something that big and heavy flew, Katrin had no idea, but thinking back on their battle with the Gardener and Scarlet, Aoi had been using gigantic golems back then too. It was probably her theme.
{And mine? What is my theme now?} Katrin thought. {It's definitely not 'given by Colin' any more. Not even close.}
It felt… liberating, in a way. Sad, too, but the sadness was secondary to a strange, new freedom. Like walking out of her house and finding herself in a wide, open field without walls around her.
"Shinji! Comms!" Aoi called.
"They're working?!" Shinji stared.
"Only if you're in range of a tower or a Relay." Aoi jerked her thumb towards the bulky antennaed machine strapped to the back of her Granite Condor. "The range is limited, but for now, I still have a connection to the Soft Snows Comms Tower."
Shinji took the call. It was from Geoffrey. "Lord Geoffrey. What gives me the honor?"
"Sir Shinji, isn't it?" Geoffrey sounded surprised. "What of the Sage? Where is Satrox?"
"He's trying to help the new Mountain Prince." Shinji explained.
"A pity. I thought the Seven Champions were all gathering together for a concentrated blow." Geoffrey sighed. "I thought the Son of Earth, the Black Knight and the Younger Sage were coming up together."
Shinji glanced about. "I think Cephas and Kishin are with the Cold and Crispy group, but Satrox stayed behind. Sorry. What's this about? I thought we were just going after a stray saucer."
"Not just any stray saucer." Geoffrey cleared his throat. "This one's different. Not too big, but it's a type that we've never seen before. Also, we picked up a lot of encrypted comms traffic to and from it."
"Are you saying…" Shinji shifted. "It's the command ship?"
Katrin felt a tingle of excitement all the way down her spine. {The command ship!}
"It's hard to tell, but it's as good a guess as any." Geoffrey paused. "Be careful out there. Whatever it is, Zoe says there's something odd about it."
{Whatever it is, he says... but it is still only one.} Katrin thought with grim satisfaction as the group from Soft Snows joined the ranks of the allied knights headed north. {Fifty seasoned knights and all our forces. I think we can take down even one of the bigger Saucers.}
She felt like she had joined a swarm of bees or something, the skies were that thick with Comrades and more and more were being warped in. Some of the knights had a good many flyers.
{I have only one Comrade now. In some ways, it reminds me of the time I first started... but no. This is different. I'm no longer that clueless newbie. And Grace isn't like my previous Comrades. She wasn't given to me by Colin out of pity, nor by Michi on a whim. This one…} Katrin stroked her winged horse lightly between the ears. {This one was given to me in appreciation. She is a reward for the good I have done here, in this Dreamworld.}
Katrin patted Grace on the head. The winged horse perked up her ears, slightly turned to regard Katrin and gave a soft whinny in acknowledgement. She was superb as a fighter, even though she was a transport-type. {But I'm going to need more. Having one Comrade is incredibly relaxing, but if I'm going to take revenge on the Gaians, I'm going to need a force the likes of which would rival the Seven Champions.}
{I'm going to need an army.}