ACT 2: GLEIPNIR

"Our generation has never lived on memory
so we don’t rely on the past’s radiance."

• Than Thao 1973

CHAPTER 11: Princess

What’s going on?

I can’t see. I can’t hear anything. I can’t even feel. Actually, that’s not true.

I feel something. I’m lying down. I’m on something hard, it feels metallic.

Shlurp..

Something grimy just licked me, its sticky and...really wet. I uh...I don't like where that description is going. In any case, I have to open my eyes to scan my surroundings.

I tried once, but my eyelids were tightly shut, I try again...and again but my eyes seem stitched shut until I used all of my strength to force them open

Finally, a dim light finally pierced through and I could instantly see a blurred creature hovering over me. It was white and black with a broad face and a moist nose which puffed hot air at my cheeks.

Oh. it's a cow.

Shlurp..

The damn beast licked me again.

While it wasn't the most unpleasant feeling in the world it was also not an optimal sensation so I instinctively tried to move away from it. However, it was then that I noticed that I could barely move my body, was it damaged after the attack...?

That's right...The attack! What happened? Where am I?

The last memory I had was laying Myers to rest, then...then what? Was I captured by the enemy? If so, why are they transporting me with cows?

I immediately gazed downwards and noticed my body sealed inside of a black body bag. Perhaps they thought I was a corpse, meaning I had at least a little time before anyone came to check on me.

Still, a dead body strolling through the halls wouldn’t exactly be a good look right now.

A quick scan of my surroundings painted a partial story for my situation. The room where I awoke was mostly metallic, packed to the brim with pipes and machinery, it had a single dim green light above a heavy metal door serving as the only source of illumination.

It seemed to hum constantly-- though, on second thought, the sound seemed to be coming from somewhere else. The vents, perhaps?

Which meant one of three things: I was underground, aboard some kind of airship or inside a large transport vehicle...

I gazed behind me and noticed that four cows occupied the room with me, with hay crudely strewn across the floor. I'm guessing whoever was transporting us clearly didn’t know the first thing about caring for cattle.

So, in summary I was stuffed inside a body bag, placed in transit, and sharing a room with livestock. This wasn't exactly an ideal place to be however it was better than waking up in a Geoffrian caller's interrogation cell.

Another quick glance around confirmed that no one seemed to have noticed me moving.

Security seemed strangely lax for me to be aboard a Geoffrian Dreadnought. Still, the subtle vibrations beneath my feet told me one thing for certain, whatever I was in was moving.

Hm, not rough enough to suggest ground transport either. Besides, ground vehicles always had some sort of morgue. If I’d been placed in here instead, it meant storage was an issue.

Which left the most likely conclusion.

I was aboard an airship.

As for the cattle… that narrowed things down even further. Livestock transport wasn’t standard military procedure, which meant this could be a mercenary vessel.

And if that was the case—

FWOOM!

The metallic door suddenly opened and I immediately saw a shadow of a man moving towards me.

Without a second thought I lunged at him to eliminate him, sprinting forward so suddenly that he visibly recoiled from my movements.

“What the hell?!” he shouted, just as I drew back my fist and drove it toward his face.

A single punch should have been enough. With my implants, I told myself, it was enough.

But something was off.

My body moved slower than it should have, as if my nerves were lagging behind my intent. It stopped being a theory the moment my fist cut through the air and missed completely.

The man simply stepped aside, tilting his head in surprise, while my punch slammed straight into a steel pipe.

Pain instantly exploded through my knuckles, it was shockingly overwhelming for such a weak strike. But that wasn't even the most shocking revelation, there was blood left behind on the pipe and trickling down my hand.

I forced my eyes up to check again, there was no damage on the pipe not even a dent.

“What…?”

“Yikes,” the man said lightly, almost amused. “That looked like it hurt.”

The man approached as he mocked me, only then did I get a proper look at him.

He wore a long black coat which hid most of his frame, most importantly his face. Beneath the brim of a wide tricorn hat sat an oddly familiar yellow insignia. Other than his clothes, I could only see parts of his black oil-like hair paired with his dark eyes which seemingly caught light.

After the initial ambush, the man didn’t even look like he was preparing to fight. His guard was wide open and completely riddled with openings.

From my initial observations he seemed to careless for a human, however even as I sent out a flurry of attacks his calm demeanor remained unchanged. Neither his expression nor his pace shifted, he simply gazed at my movements and dodged through my strikes like a dancer slipping between coordinated steps.

I tried to break his rhythm with quick jabs followed by a flurry kicks meant but to my dismay not a single attack connected.

My breathing sharpened as I realized that this random human was making me look like a complete amateur.

“Impossible…” I muttered. “How are you doing that?”

He finally sighed in disappointment.

“Doing what?” he said, glancing at my next swing as it passed harmlessly beside him. “You punch like a brat.”

A taunt, probably meant to bait me into getting careless.

Too bad for him, words didn’t work on me.

I swiftly went in for a feint with an elbow strike and followed it up with a sharp punch, driven by instinct more than thought.

He caught it in one hand.

"Okay warm up's over, my turn."

“Wha—”

The man threw my hand to break my balance and his cloak swept up like a curtain, swallowing my sight for a split second and in that blind gap, he struck me with a spinning back kick into my abdomen.

The impact felt like my intestines were forced to collapse in on themselves. My breath vanished instantly straight out of my lungs.

My knees buckled and I hit the ground hard while vomiting bile onto the floor. Before I could even recover, a second kick struck my head, making me fall backwards.

His boot caught me clean in the nose and snapped my vision sideways. The world tilted violently as I crashed onto my back.

On the floor I could feel warmth trickling from my nostrils, but I couldn't even focus on that since
my stomach burned like it had been torn open from the inside with a battering ram, whilst my skull felt like it had been cracked with glass.

I could only writhe and groan as he stood above me casually, as if he had nothing to do with my current predicament.

“Good morning to you too, buddy.”

I was completely defeated by this human. How is this possible?

My implants were built to prevent exactly this kind of outcome. Unless…unless they were being suppressed somehow.

If that was the case, then I was probably already deep inside an enemy base ready to become a valuable asset just waiting to be dismantled and interrogated by Geoffrian callers.

There was only one failsafe left. I had no other choice I had to end myself here, most implant disablers couldn't turn off the rune bomb in my head that was for sure.

"I surrender!" I screamed at the top of my lungs expecting for everything to go dark in the next second.

One second passed.

Two.

Three.

I kept waiting with my jaw clenched so hard it hurt more than the injuries.

Four.

...It sure does take a long time for the rune bomb to activate.

Five seconds.

The only sound that erupted was the distant hum of ventilation, stretching the awkward situation longer than it already was. The man just stood there, belittling me with a pathetic look like I’d said something cowardly rather than something fatal.

“How?” I rasped. “No way. This shouldn’t be possible.”

"Uh...Did I hit your head too hard?"

"Who are you? What did you do to me?" My vision locked onto him with unfocused rage bleeding through every breath. He didn’t even look intimidated. If anything, I just looked like a minor inconvenience to him.

Moments later, he crouched beside me. "Name's Varrick, didn't do anything to you. Just picked you up along with your M.T. relax, your boss hired me."

I could feel Varrick’s eyes scanning me with unnerving intensity, as if he were inspecting a defective machine. At first, my gaze followed his, but it eventually drifted to the yellow insignia on his hat, within it was a symbol of a black raven set against a cross.

"Well, you don't seem....abnormal." Varrick stood up and offered me a hand, but I slapped it away and pushed myself to my feet on my own.

“That yellow insignia…” I muttered. My breath came sharp as I limped towards the wall. “Bastard Knox… you're a mercenary.”

He paused for a moment as he gazed at me with an almost confused look.

“Mercenary is a strong word, I prefer to call myself a free-lance, opportunistic businessman.”

He waved his hand dismissively as he passed by me. “Anyway, deal with you later gotta feed Princess.”

“Princess?”

Only then did I properly take in my surroundings.

The fight hadn’t just knocked me off balance, turns out it had also completely narrowed my sense of space.

We were inside some kind of crudely built livestock wing that clearly doubled as a storage area. I immediately noticed the multitude of cardboard boxes around us stacked against the walls in uneven piles, as if someone had simply dumped them there and called it "organization".

Without a speck of concern of my presence, Varrick turned away and scooped up a bundle of hay from the floor as he strolled back into the room I had originally woken up in.

The cows immediately flocked toward him, crowding around in anticipation, but he made his way toward one more quickly than the others.

…It was the same cow that had been licking me awake.

It stood there calmly, as Varrick patted its side and fed it the hay with a careful, almost tender motion.

“Who’s a good girl?” he cooed in a soft, absurdly cheerful voice. “You’re a good girl!”

The contrast was so jarring I almost scoffed, but a sharp stab of pain from my abdomen killed the urge immediately. As it ebbed, I steadied my breathing and let out a sharp exhale through my nose with a single thought on my mind.

Of all places… of all outcomes…Where did I end up this time?