Steel and Mana

The courtyard of the bandits' fortress was buzzing with activity as the Wraiths worked while laughing, unpacking their stolen haul. The sealed crates were cracked open with their axes, not caring about probably damaging the goods. Their shouts were loud when the clatter of unknown machinery rang out, spilling before their feet.

"What the actual fuck is this?" one bandit snorted, holding up a copper device. "Do they stick this up their wenches' asses to have some fun?"

"Nah, I bet this goes in their boys' bottom!" another offered, to general laughter all around them.

Darnic, standing on one of the forward-facing balconies, watching over the chaos with a tankard of hard ale in hand, smiled, feeling satisfied. This felt just as good as when they launched their campaign against Ishillia all those years ago. The feeling of victory... Down there, he spotted Fenna checking inventory with a few others, taking stock and stashing what was actually useful for themselves.

"We hit them," Darnic muttered, staring into his cup. "Hit 'em where they thought they were invincible. Hehehe... We should have brought back some of the Avalonian whores instead of killing them... I feel feisty today..."

Just as he thought about it, a loud yet still distant, horrific howl reached his ears. Stiffening, he looked down at his people; they were just as silent, so it wasn't a hallucination. Yet... he could see nothing around the cliffside or within the dense forest.

"No..." It was not a howl, not the sound of a beast; that couldn't be. They were down south, in a place where beasts never get to, even if they broke through the mountains. How could they? That would have meant they passed through all of Ishillia.

But then what was it? Thinking of the same, every head in the courtyard snapped upward, realizing the sound didn't come from the Blackened Forest.

"What in the hell was that?" Fenna demanded, rushing up to the outer walls along with the more senior members of the brigades.

"Sounded like... thunder?" someone offered.

"There ain't no storm, idiot," another snapped, pointing toward the sunset. "The skies are clear of clouds!"

Darnic scowled and pushed through the crowd, heading for the battlements himself. When he reached the top, hearing what one of his men had just said, his eyes snapped to the horizon, scanning the skies instead of the forest. Squinting, the sun burned low on the horizon, turning everything golden and red, still stinging to look at, but...

There it was. A black speck floating against its light.

"Is that... a bird?" Fenna squinted, following his gaze, noticing it too.

"That's no bird," Darnic said, his voice dry. "I know not of birds to be that big..." He added as he shielded his eyes and leaned forward. The shape grew larger and larger with every passing second, turning into something immense, something shaped like a horizontal water droplet, coming straight at them.

"What... what is that?" The others began asking, seeing it but not believing it.

"Ballistae!" Darnic roared as whatever it was, it wasn't friendly, "Get the damn ballistae loaded! I want every bolt we have ready to fire!"

The old fortress exploded into motion at a moment's notice. All of his men scrambled to the repaired but rusting siege weapons. Three of the eight were intact, but those were barely ready. They groaned as they were turned toward the still enlarging shadow, a splotch on the sun's sinking surface.

"What are we even shooting at?" one of the men asked, his voice shaking.

"Whatever the damn thing is!" Darnic shouted, "Aim for the middle of it! I don't care! Bring it down!"

But, even as they moved, the shape kept growing, kept coming, and now they could see that it looked as if there was a figure hanging from its underbelly. A man? No... A giant...

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Arthur stood at the bridge of the Punisher, his arms crossed, watching the scene playing out on the Imaginary as if he were hovering right before the bandits.

"It looks like a rotting tooth trying to fall out," he snorted. "Let's rip it out then..."

"Visuals on the targets," one cluster of officers responsible for the Punisher's weapons announced. "Threat level: low."

"Mark it," Arthur ordered without hesitation, "Veron, prepare for sortie."

"I'm already ready. No one escapes," he answered calmly. His machine was keen to go. It was hanging from the underside of the Punisher, equipped with a tower shield and a sword, and looked like, as its namesake would suggest, a valiant knight.

"Head to the first mark," Arthur nodded, "Then drop the Valiant and fire the broadsides."

The Punisher's body slightly tilted, following Arthur's orders, as the towering mech was detached and dropped from the sky, landing on the single road leading up to the fortress. His role was simple: stop them from fleeing. It landed with a thundering crash on the eastern slope of the fortress, kicking up dirt and flattening the nearby trees, blaring its own war horn... followed by the roar of the cannons of the Valiant. The ramparts, with the ballistae on them, were blown to shreds, not by magic, but by physical cannon balls hitting them. The Punisher was made to battle enemies with either anti-magic capabilities or to fire against shields. It was made to go up against Ishillia's ships, as even if they were now allies, Leon wouldn't take it for granted, as the future was constantly in flux. Who knows how it would be after hundreds of years have passed and he is no longer alive...

"Circle the fortress." Arthur continued to give out his orders, "Give them a good look at us and sound the horn again. Let them hear that Avalon is angry."

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The Punisher banked hard at once, its bulky silhouette casting an elongated shadow over Kraddok's Teeth, causing the bandits down below to stand there, shocked, awed, and... soiling their pants. Yet the actual show was just about to begin.

Aboard the Punisher, the soldiers Arthur brought along were already in position. Their armors were sealed, their blood tattoos applied, and their hands gripped the hilts of their weapons.

"Open the hatch," Arthur spoke as they passed over the keep a second time, circling it like a predator. "Troops, get ready for the drop! You all know what they did; you all saw the wreck. Our people are dead, and we are here to mete out just punishment." Listening to him, the future Sovereign's voice coming from their helmets, many of these old veterans could feel the parallel between Arthur and their Sovereign now. He will be a good successor... "Disarm every bandit. I mean that, literally. Arms, legs, weapons, I don't care if they scream. I don't care if they beg! Do not kill them yet, but make them unable to fight. Rescue team: Find our engineers... and bring them home. Let the rest crawl until I decide what type of death they are deserving of."

The moment he finished his speech, the troops leaped out of the airship, and dozens of Avalonian warriors, skull-faced, actual wraiths, had descended on the bandits, bringing a proper judgment from above.

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They had fought in wars, and they had survived sieges, and even managed to live through a bloody retreat when Ishillia defeated them. They had once worn the crest of the Belse army, and they all marched and spilled blood for that fool of a queen. But, then again... nothing in their past could have prepared them for what kind of enemy they faced now.

At first, it was chaos... But that chaos quickly devolved into complete confusion and panic. All their working ballistae had been turned into splinters, and the soldiers there were ripped to shreds. And they didn't even know those were the lucky ones.

Then came the shriek of something falling as the attached, vaguely human-shaped terror had dropped from the skies. It landed just outside the gates, down the road, its hellish roar shaking the people's bones and making their teeth tingle. Suddenly, they knew there was no escape.

It was then that the panic spread. Some dropped whatever they were holding and ran to the inner keep, while others were simply paralyzed by fear. Darnic and Fenna constantly barked orders, trying to maintain some semblance of discipline, but even those contradicted each other many times.

Not that it mattered.

A moment later, dark shapes fell from the airship, dozens of them at once. The moment the first landed, almost without sound, stopping a few centimeters above ground before touching down gently, the battle was over.

The first one to make a move was one of the marauders close to Fenna. The bandit lunged with a halberd in his hand, only for it to snap like a twig against the chest of one of the skull-faced warriors, sending the metal end of it spinning through the air. The black-armored figure, in response, raised a curved blade of bone and, in one clean motion, severed both the attacker's arms at the elbow. Before the man could recognize the pain, the wounds hissed and smoked as they were cauterized instantly by searing heat, thanks to the flames surrounding the bone sword. Then... finally, the pain reached his brain, and the bandit fell back, screaming but having no arms to hold the wounds.

He wasn't the only one. Not far from him, another Avalonian swung a hammer that crackled with blue lightning as it struck a man's shield, blew through it, and shattered the arm behind it, turning it into mush. If not for the electricity stunning him, he would have screamed, but instead, he could only spasm as his body fell over like a sack.

It was the same everywhere around the fortress. The bandits howled, cursed, and threw everything they had at them, but the black-armored demons were like the genuine wraiths of hell. The fortress, so long considered untouchable by their current occupants, became a butcher's yard.

"No..." Darnic muttered, unable to accept what he was seeing. This should be impossible! This can't be true... Is this... Avalon? "We are dead..." He whined, his eyes actually tearing up all of a sudden. Especially when a new realization reached his mind. The Avalonians weren't killing them. No... This was worse. They simply maimed them all.

He watched as a bandit tried to flee up a tower on the left side of the fortress. Just so that a cluster of crossbow bolts hit both his legs, severing tendons and muscles, and causing him to buckle and fall back down the stairs. He screamed as his shin cracked after landing, while another crawled for the barracks close by him. Darnic didn't even see from where, but a glaive, glowing green with something that looked like venom, swept another of his men's legs out from under him, slicing both of them off at the kneecaps.

Darnic, his sword clutched in both hands, could do nothing but stare in horror. Flowing, crimson blood now painted the stone fortress everywhere he looked. His warriors, the men he had led for decades, were reduced to groaning husks. Seeing his inaction and the shock, a group of black-armored soldiers simply passed by him, not even giving him the time of day but instead heading deeper into the fortress.

Then, he dropped his sword, but not because he wanted to... but because he no longer had hands, having them cut off from his wrists. Looking ahead, there was an Avalonian standing before him now, smacking him in the neck, making him fall to the side, his vision swimming, and remembering the last thing he saw... how Fenna was being hoisted up by her left arm and then the black armored soldier simply ripped her arm off, tearing it out from her shoulders as if she was nothing but a doll made of straw.

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"We found them. They are alive, but one of them is in terrible shape," echoed the report of the rescue squad's leading captain, who was searching for the Avalonian captives.

"How bad?" Arthur asked, furrowing his brows.

"Very."

"I am not good with healing..." Arthur muttered to himself, biting his lips, "Damn it... Bring them out! I am coming down!"

"..." There was a sudden pause as the others also looked at each other on the bridge, but in the end, nobody objected, "Yes, My Lord."

Seeing that nobody tried to dissuade him from heading down, Arthur took a deep breath, heading to the belly of the Punisher. Looking down at the massacre below, he wasn't disgusted, nor was he troubled by it. He felt enough of the bandits' thoughts not to want to forgive them at all. With another long sigh, he finally stepped forward and jumped...

Feeling the rushing air and the magic in his body swirling, he activated it almost instantly, experiencing something he had remembered from when he was just a child. Only this time around, there was no arm reaching out and grabbing his ankle to pull him back down.

"Heh..." With a smile, he managed to control it perfectly, and he began descending like a feather, slowly coming down from the sky.

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"Keep it together, Johan!" Arik groaned as the Avalonians tore out the bars of their cell, coming in and lifting them up gingerly in their arms.

"I... am still... alive..." He moaned, but his voice was hoarse and weak as they were carried out. "Hehehe... I told you... I wanted to see them die..."

"Stop speaking; you lost a lot of blood. We are taking you home," one of the soldiers spoke, and although his helmet distorted his voice, neither Johan nor Arik was frightened by it.

By the time they were carried outside, the battle was over, and the Avalonians were pulling the disarmed bandits into one pile, ignoring their pleas and cries. Just as they ignored the crew of the train...

"Good..." Johan whispered, seeing it, feeling his vision swim out of focus multiple times, "Good..." Looking up, he could see the airship, drawing a smile onto his face, feeling proud to be an Avalonian. "Long live... the Sovereign..." As he muttered what he thought to be his last words, he saw a figure descending from the skies. He couldn't tell who it was, but it was heading towards them, walking on air... maybe it was the Sovereign, here to send him to the other side... "It was an honor... My Sovereign..." he tried to say, but by then, he was too weak, and everything went dark.