Garden Of The Abyss

[Rainbow Peaks, Mastorn, One Month Prior]

"Sir Damien…" Getrude spoke as she watched from the carriage window while the rolls passed over dirt.

"What is it?" The verdant-haired knight asked as he was busy cleaning his weapon. 

Damien ran the white cloth over the smooth, refined steel of his blade, keeping it over his knee as he did so. 

From the view the princess knight had beyond the carriage, she could see the famous "Rainbow Peaks", a set of mountains that were wrapped with a mystical, disc-shaped rainbow along its base. 

Her words stood still for a moment as she looked upon the fantastical peaks as a sea of clouds marched past their summits, finding the inexplicable worry that placed itself in her heart having no real basis besides her instincts. 

"Nothing…" She replaced her worry with a faint smile, "the "Rainbow Peaks" mark three days out from the capital, if I remember correctly." 

"Sounds about right," Damien confirmed with a smirk, giving his sword one more wipe before returning it to his sheath. 

"It's quite a long journey," Getrude said with a smile, resting her chin on her silver gauntlet, "from Old Treyna to Mastorn. I think I'd like to establish a proper route to Mastorn once I have the proper authority." 

Damien chuckled, glancing out of the window on his side of the lavish carriage with his glistening, silver orbs. 

"What's funny?" Getrude asked with a raise of her golden eyebrow. 

"It's just…" Damien replied, "You speak longingly of such a day…but I think you'll be queen sooner than you believe, Captain." 

It was a rarity, but a small, minuscule, but present, blush inhabited her cheeks as she looked on at her subordinate knight in surprise, then with a smile. 

"Well, let's hope your intuition proves–" 

–Just as she replied, an impact crashed in front of the carriage, not visible to their eyes as they both had their eyes widened in surprise, rising from their seats. 

Just as the sudden impact came, as if a meteor had just crashed from orbit, the screams of the escorting knights escaped in a bloodcurdling manner. 

After a moment of stillness, more impacts came, and so did more screams–mixing with the crunching of bones before the knights finally acted. 

Damien kicked open the carriage door, reaching out to Getrude as he yelled out, "Come on!"

She paused for a moment before accepting his hand, "...Right!"

Together, they leapt from the carriage right before another, unseen impact fell down upon the transportation vehicle like a hammer dropping from the clouds. 

After rolling across the slope of grass to the side of their road, the two knights looked on at the desolated carriage, or rather, the mess of wood that was once a vehicle. 

The bodies of their escorts, alongside their steed, were laid out across the path, bloodied and crushed brutally. 

"Bandits?" Damien asked as he drew his blade, but answered his own question, "no…they aren't this daring. Nor possess skill such as this." 

Getrude's eyes wandered to the whereabouts of the two demi-humans that were escorting their carriage, finding the stoic man knelt on the grass a dozen meters away, holding the girl in his arms. 

"Sir Malune!" Getrude called out, looking back at Damien, "Stay ready!"

"Got it!" Damien kept himself on-guard. 

She rushed over to the knelt over, well-dressed, demi-human man, who sat there solemnly with a broken and battered body as he held the younger girl in his arms. 

"Sir Malune…are you alright?" She asked, but knew the answer already upon a single glance. 

In his arms, the girl he held took in no breaths, laden in blood and maimed by the unseen, attacking force. 

It all happened in a moment; she was still processing the sudden, abrasive assault. 

"...She's gone." 

–This was repeated, in whispers that resembled faint breaths, from the torn lips of the demi-human man. 

"Sir Malune, get it together!" Getrude grabbed his shoulders. 

Even as she threw this command into his face, his eyes remained unchanging from their bulbous form as his utterances didn't halt in the slightest bit. 

…He's gone. He's in complete shock, she thought. 

–Unable to spare any further time, she turned back to check on Damien, who had his eyes on something that was obscured by the clouds of kicked up dust that walled in the area. 

She returned to his sword with her sword drawn, "Any sight of the enemy?"

"Nope," Damien answered, "how's Malune holding up?"

"He's in shock," She answered begrudgingly, "Luna…is gone. It's just us." 

A wry, trembling smile took to the verdant-haired man's lips as his ponytail flicked in the passing wind, "Figures. Whoever did this is targeting us–that's for sure. If they wanted our possessions, they probably wouldn't have wrecked everything in one go." 

"It seems we've reached the same conclusion," Getrude replied while keeping her emerald eyes forward, listening to the approaching steps, "...that means this is kill-or-be-killed."

"Roger that," Damien readied himself. 

The two knights stood side-to-side in front of the wrecked carriage with their blades readied forward, and their capes flowing behind. 

It was a single pair of steps, approaching slowly as if taking a nonchalant stroll forward. 

Stepping out from the haze of dirt and dust was a slender figure, dressed in pristine, noble white. 

"Brother…?" Getrude uttered out, absent of composure at the sight. 

For that moment, her body laxed out of sheer perplexion as she lowered her sword, looking at the fair-faced sibling of hers who approached with a smile. 

"...Watch out, you idiot!" Damien yelled out. 

She was pushed to the ground before she could realize, falling with her back to the soil as she looked up, blinking a few times. 

"Sir Damien…?" She uttered out. 

Protruding from the back of her trusted comrade, the tip of a blade pierced through his body, slick with fresh, dripping blood. 

The locks as green as pure nature itself swayed in front of her eyes as the knight looked back at her with blood escaping the corner of his mouth. 

"This isn't like you, Captain…" Damien smiled weakly, "this guy is your enemy–"

Just as his words fell from his lips, the blade was withdrawn from his body as the abrasive, sharp-edged silver scraped against his insides, leaving the knight to fall face first. 

All she could do was look up in horror at the man who held her brother's face, who stepped over the fallen body of the verdant-haired knight, looking at her without an ounce of compassion in his eyes. 

"Good evening, dear sister," The one who wore Barnabas' face greeted her, smiling as he swiped his blade, flicking the fresh blood from its steel. 

"...You're not my brother…"

"How very perceptive of you," the man sarcastically replied as the very skin that clung to his form began to shift, melting and moving unnaturally. 

"...What are…?" Getrude let out quietly, unable to move as shock and fear ingrained itself into her. 

Before her eyes, the familiar form of her elder brother shifted, melting and reshaping into a completely different form before what was left before her eyes was a fundamentally different being; carrying a different physique, face, and aura. 

He wore a skintight, black bodysuit while silver bandages loosely wrapped around his form as crimson locks flowed and curled down his shoulders. 

"Too little, too late, though, princess…" the inhuman youth taunted. 

The crimson-haired, enigmatic being raised the hand that once wielded a blade, now formed into a limb that took on the same shape and steel-material of that blade, though possessing a more unrefined, grotesque shape to its metal. 

…Why? I don't get it at all–what's happening? Why did he come to me with the face of my brother…? Damien…I'm sorry, she thought. 

Just as the appendage-blade came down towards the shock-strucken knight, she closed her eyes out of reflexive acceptance of her fate. 

–But no such cruelty came down to her flesh. 

"...The hell are you laying on the floor for…?"

"...Sir Damien…?" She released from her barely parted lips as she opened her eyes once more. 

Looking up, standing in front of the path of the blade was the verdant-haired, vice captain of her squad–but what she saw was a man on his last legs, yet standing, on death's door, yet fighting. 

Damien held his blade against the mysterious, shapeshifting man's, struggling as his legs visibly shook–no, it was his entire body. 

"The boundlessly proud, even sometimes arrogant, Captain Getrude has no place laying in the dirt…! That's not the captain–no, that's not the woman I know!" Damien yelled out through his blood-drenched lips, pushing back against the assailant's blade. 

"...You're still alive?!--" The red-haired enigma replied, pushing back against the knight's tautly-wielded steel. 

Damien slammed his forehead against the pale-skinned assailant's, "Shut up! I'm talking here!" 

As he momentarily caught the shapeshifter in a stun, he knocked the shorter-of-stature man back  with a blast of unspoken wind magic that completely caught him off-guard, creating distance as he turned back to the astonished knight captain. 

"The proud, yet unpampered princess I know wouldn't lose her cool this easily," Damien huffed out through heavy breaths, reaching his hand down to her, "...get it together, would you, Captain?" He finished with a smile. 

Though a smile she could not return as her eyes could only focus on the dire state of her comrade's body. Even the hand he reached out to her was clad in dirt and blood, as was the armor he wore.

"Damien, you're…"

"I'm fine," he stopped her words, "I'm the vice captain of your strict squad–I'd be caught dead years ago if I was stopped by a flesh wound like this."