Merry Times III.
30th of November, 124th of NDE. 95th District of Pancheng Fortress City.
Emaera slowly awoken to the throbbing headache that was amplified by the harsh sound of sealing tape being torn. As the dracorith lunar elven Ketsuraeth opened her frosty eyes with slit pupils groaned while lifting her cheeks from the soft embrace of her azure blue blouse collars. Her sight was still blurry for the moment, and only saw the hazy outline of her captor who eerily matched her slender frame and even the Cheongsam resembling coat that was part of the Ketsuraeth uniform.
“Who rrm mrr?” As her plump, full bluish silver lips started moving, deep thuds on the cold stone floor paired with the short ripping sound as a wide strip of the orange golden tape was peeled from the roll before its end stuck to her left cheek. Followed by a series of the same harsh sounds of it that amplified her pain that started to dissipate as her uniform’s healing enchantments activated. “Shush.” Her own familiar voice entered her long, sharp tipped ears beset with a set of silver earrings.
“A feisty one. A good choice I must say.” Her own voice spoke in whispers this time while the captor grabbed her shoulders as she squirmed around in the chair, she was tightly bound to with large amounts of the sealing tape. Now that she was restored and could see clearly even in the dim room, she saw her wrists taped to the chair’s arms and her hands wrapped into muttons while her claws dug into her soft palms. At least seven strips ran across her thighs clad in the sleek combination of her dragonid leather thigh high boots and pants. She felt her legs spread open, ankles taped to the legs of the chair.
“Mrr mrn'h gmh rmrm mnhh hhnh!” She calmed herself a little and tilted her head to look at her captor speaking with her own silken voice. A little panic mixed with her rage as she saw her own perfect image walking right in front of her, wearing the uniform the exact same way as she was – zippered down to reveal the chest area, while her triangular collars of the glistening satin blouse were loosely buttoned out to show off the luster of her silvery white skin and throat covered in spiraling silver scales.
“I’m afraid I don’t understand it. But I quite like that attitude of yours. Nothing better than a helpless, bound and gagged guard resisting even when all hope is lost.” Even their long, vermilion red tousled bob styled hair with indigo roots matched. The only thing that did not was the crazed expression her beautiful draconic elven visage contorted into as she moistened her lips.
The Golden Dawn Agent slowly approached her and sat into her taped laps. Her faux face leaned closer and as she licked her lips bulging through the smooth, glistening tape – Emaera squirmed once again while trying to pull away her head. “Good. Resist. Let’s have some fun before they arrive to take you away.” Her cold breath tickled her neck as she whispered to her while smooching her scaled neck.
**
26th of December, 124 NDE. 69th District of Pancheng Fortress City.
“They reached high.” Hanakoro muttered to herself as she stood over the corpse of Kitala. She stared into her empty blue eyes one last time before she nodded and let the young soratanese Ketsuraeth zip up the body bag and carry it away to the rest that numbered at twelve.
A solemn expression settled onto her regal, soft face while her grip tightened on the raven black scaled han-dle of her katana. Anger welled up within her, and the urge to go down to the lower levels and turn over every leaf to root out the last of the Golden Dawn came over her. “Seems like they interrogated Kitala and those three.”
Hanakoro remained silent as Katsuranea walked up to her while gazing at the body bags too with a grave expression of her own. “Must have been the work of the Ebon Fang.” Hanakoro said as she recognized the favored poison of the Golden Dawn assassin who proved as a major obstacle to her mother during the Great War.
Many times the Ebon Fang and her lesser-known partner hijacked the supply lines of the Black Roses and the Hoshigawan Imperial Army. Rescued numerous Yudao Generals whom got captured as cities fell one by one, and assassinated many Hoshigawan Officials after the war, dampening the efforts of the Shogunate to establish a singular, large prefecture. Compared to the Kingdom of Naireanth whom preferred to just estab-lish goverments friendly and loyal to them, Hoshigawa preferred to bring in their conquered territories as single, large prefectures.
“Set up another surveillance group here. This time double their numbers and warn them of the Ebon Fang.” Hanakoro said as she straightened her uniformed coat and walked out to the Flottirion that just arrived to pick her up.
“Yes Sister!” Katsuranea hesitated for a bit but then said those words with a salute before she started select-ing out the members of the new surveillance unit – who were less than happy hearing those words.
**
100th District.
The largest of the industrial parks of Pancheng were located on the top levels of the cubicle shaped struc-tures built practically melded together. Each industrial park took up a large cubicle space – roughly several hundreds of square meters.
One such industrial park was where they built and maintained the festival platforms used during holidays to parade around the city. These platforms were made of adramantyrium or mythrinite – as often the Black Lo-tus financed the guild producing them. The platform themselves were around fifty square meters with vari-ous structures or animated sculptures of eastern dragons, yokai and legendary figures built atop them. In a few cases a special golem-engine was inserted into its command center that created an illusionary of a drag-on.
Near this industrial park, the famed Ebon Fang and her lesser known partner, Shao Bi knocked two eager guards out whom sensed the two assassins teleporting to the area where containers were left stacked on top of each other.
“Sorry about this.” The youthful Shao Bi said with an apologetic expression to the Golden Dawn Agent who still wore the faux face mimicking Emaera’s mesmerizing, scaled visage. Whom showed up in time – at least she’d liked to believe that – and knocked out the last guard that decided it was better to alert the rest of the guard, instead of playing hero.
“No need for apologies. The past few weeks were quite boring, so if those were dead at least I could pretend to chase you.” The Agent joked as zipped down the Cheongsaeth Type-III coat’s round neck while she lit a cigarette. She watched as the two assassins started binding the two Ketsuraeth’s – a dracorith of orii elven kin with long dark brown hair that parted at the center and framed her soft face, while the other was a sora-tanese with
Shao Bi herself had a soft, round face that was hidden behind her face mask at the moment. Her hair was as dark as her leather jacket, and bundled into a single bun on the right side of the back, while a thick, blunt fringe covered her forehead.
“And that would have ruined everything anyways. Especially now with the General Princess here in the city.” Chouath, the lunar elven assassin famed as the Ebon Fang said as she finished tying the strongest knot in her long life. She reached into her waist pocket and grabbed the roll of orange golden sealing tape within its vast, enchanted space.
Chouath Tuaith Leineal herself was a lunar elf with alabaster skin with a hint of silver like most of her kin. Her triangular, soft face was ornated with perfectly lined elvish features that included her epicanthic al-mond-shaped eyes of an unnaturally dark black hue, plump elven lips covered in dark, gleaming lipstick – that is her own making with a special, poisonous ingredient. And above it her small nose with a short bridge with a single circle piercing in the right nostril of hers.
Her hair itself while originally was a bright ivory hue, when she joined the intelligence corps of the Yudao Kingdom, she dyed her long hair – always kept in a high tail and with a thick blunt fringe – into a midnight black hue.
“That much is true.” The Agent said as she watched the finishing touches that often ended with sealing tape gags as those took less time than knotting a muffle scarf. The two were quite experienced in restraining thanks to their rigorous training they received at various points in their lives. For Chouath it was during her enlisting into the former Kingdom’s intelligence corps, while for Bi it was during the time, she decided to join the Golden Dawn after a botched heist with her old gang.
A trembling smile curved onto her faux lips as she watched the two used their teeth to sever wide strips from their respective rolls. So wide that as they pushed it against the two unconscious guards’ mouths, the ends tightened onto their ears. “And I never get bored of the sight of this.” The Agent muttered as she watched the tape being smoothed against their soft, gleaming skins.
“Can you take care of these two?” Chouath asked as she dragged the now bound and sealing tape gagged soratanese to the smooth and cold metallic wall of the container that shielded them from any unwanted gaz-es.
“Gladly!” The Agent said with a thirsting expression as she clapped her hands softly. Shao Bi cringed at the sight but decided to remain silent as the two assassins continued their way inside the perimeters.
“And don’t forget to come up with a backstory for them.” Chouath said while Shao Bi leaned the dracorith orii elf besides the soratanese. As the coldness of the wall tickled the back of her head through her dense hair, she let out a soft muffled moan.
“Don’t worry. I have that covered already.” The Agent said with a smile as she tapped her temple with her left index finger. As they climbed to the top of the three containers stacked on top of each other – the wind carried the dracorith’s zipper being pulled down as The Agent softly started kissing her neck while fondling her voluptuous breast with her other hand.
**
The main building of the industrial park that was designated as Lotus-01 – as the guild that it belonged to maintained a friendly relation with the Black Rose Order and its eastern division. The building itself took up most of the space, only a parking area was built at the back and a landing area in the front where the plat-forms were flown out or where various aerial-vessels arrived with materials and additional personnel. For this reason, there were four landing pads built with stairs leading in north and south on each sides.
“Evening Mistress Katsuranea. Won’t her Highness will grace us with her presence?” Katsuranea took a deep breath as the sweat scent of the nidrorh dwarf Bofnjar that greeted her as soon as the Tengu-Class Flottiri-on’s side doors opened.
“I’m afraid they’re both have important task that need attending to.” Katsuranea said with a kind yet disci-plined smile as she bowed deeply to the Chief-Artificer and Director of the Lotus-01 factory.
“A shame it is. But expected. Come, let me show you them.” The dwarf with already gray hair and thick, rusty beard led him into the factory. Shao Bi and Chouath watched from behind one of the containers before their bodies turned into fluid shadows and melded into the ground as they followed the two.
“Hope everything is checked and ready.” Katsuranea said as they entered the large interior where the plat-forms towered over them. The toppings – so to speak – were still in a separate pile on the opposite end.
“For the most part yes. We’re still planning to inspect some of the golem-engines of some of them, but after that, they’re good to go.” Bofnjar said with a hum as he kept up the pace of the much taller dark elf. Be-tween the third and fourth platform, Shao Bi and Chouath grown as masses of darkness before their forms properly materialized. The two followed slowly searching for a specific platform top that resembled a hoshi-gawan palace.
“But with Her Majesty here, shouldn’t we double the guards just in case?” As Bofnjar asked, his prototype artificial eyes let out a clicking noise as metallic, angular waves closed around the pulsing dark bluish center.
“Won’t be necessary.” Katsuranea said plainly as she inspected the platform top that was built to resemble a hoshigawan castle with a large entrance hall, and two extra empty floors. Or at least they would have been if not for the two assassins who sneaked inside. They lifted one of the floor boards up slowly and silently and placed a dark disk inside – that came in pairs usually.
“I see. If that is her wish, so be it.” Bofnjar said with a slight defeated look as he feared his position and reputation with Golden Dawn cells still inside the city. Especially now that he heard from his “birds” that they took out the Black Lotus Surveillance Group on the fiftieth level where the Z-23 Warehouse was locat-ed – besides all the others whose members were still missing.
“Can I take a look inside?” At those words the two flinched a little and they quickly placed the floorboard back to its place.
“Sure.” Bofnjar said as two workers came up to him and handed him a tablet with a glowing mirror surface that reflected numbers and lunar runes – the written system of the Hoshigawan Shogunate. Katsuranea walked through with slow steps, her deep mauve eyes drawn across the walls and floor – to the relief of the two assassins.
As soon as they placed the floorboard back, the two leapt high in the air and glued themselves to the ceiling like spiders. Shao Bi watched the highly beautiful Katsuranea walk slowly through main hall area and her heart skipped a few beats when her rouge pink hair rustled as her head turned slowly.
“Is everything fine?” Just as she was about to turn her head up, Bofnjar called out to Katsuranea.
“Yes… yes it is. Just always wanted to see the interior and if it truly lives up to its fame.” She said with a satisfied half-smile as she recalled her first meeting with Hanakoro who was already a Drengriar already within the Black Rose Order, before the formation of the Black Lotus Division.
“Well, I designed it myself after visiting most if not all the palaces of the main islands.” Bofnjar said as he proudly puffed out his chest and with an equally wide smile that plastered across his elderly stout face hid-den under his beard.
“Truly a great work.” She added as the two walked out, the rest of her praise faded into the distance for the two assassins whom crawled to the back entrance on the right they entered from.