Chapter Forty-Five: Worst Possible Timing
"I love you, Ren..."
Scarlet had just confessed how she felt to a shocked Ren, who was struggling to find a way to answer her feelings as best as he could.
"Scarlet I..."
And right when he was about to answer, of course, the ship's sirens went off.
"I swear these things have the worst possible timing..." Ren thought to himself.
Ren and Scarlet ran towards the bridge where Aurelia was waiting, seated in her chair.
"Aurelia, what's going on?" Ren asked.
"How dare you talk to the princess like-" one of the guards said as he got angry looking at Ren.
"It's fine, Hano." Aurelia said. "He's family, after all."
"Yes, ma'am." The guard, apparently named Hano, said as he smiled, looking at Aurelia.
"Ah...a simp." Ren thought to himself, mocking the guard.
"Well, Ren, we found some rebel ships heading in our direction." Aurelia said.
Ren looked outside of the bridge windows and saw five smaller ships heading towards their ship.
"Those are from the same people that attacked us before..." Ren said as he remembered the last time he had seen those emblems on the ship. After all, it was the first time he used his knight, 'Nemesis'.
"Ina, send a strike team to deal with them." Aurelia said.
"Actually, Aurelia, if I have your permission, I would like to join this strike team." Ren said, shocking Scarlet, who was standing next to him.
"Ah, that's right...Lucilia did have Mae make you a knight...if I may ask, why do you want to join the strike team?" Aurelia asked.
"Because I've yet to use my upgraded weapons in space combat. The two previous times I had used 'Nemesis', the first time I didn't have any weapons and the second time it was on Versaerth. Right now sounds like the perfect time to test it's abilities in space combat." Ren replied with an honest response.
He wanted to know exactly how it operated in space and how effective the weapons were in combat, and since he wasn't fighting the UNS but some random rebels, this was the best time for him to test the extent of his weapons.
"Fine, you have my permission; you will join Gaius, Cencia, and Sullan in combat. Just be careful; if you die, Lucila will have my head." Aurelia said.
Scarlet looked at Ren, concerned "What are you talking about? A Knight?"
Ren realized he forgot to tell Scarlet and the others everything that happened. "Just follow me; it'll be easier to show you than to explain."
Ren and Scarlet ran towards the hangar, with Lily and Serenity joining them as they spotted the two in the hallway.
As they arrived in the hangar, they saw that Eleonora, Tyler, and Sakura were already there.
Scarlet quickly filled them in as Ren talked to Mae about using Nemesis.
Ren got into his knight, whose appearance shocked Scarlet and the others—a beautifully crafted machine but also packed with weaponry.
"It looks like the ones that those higher-ranking officers use..." Eleonora said.
"There's only three on the ship...if Ren has one of these, the other two..." Tyler said as he looked and saw the two other knights, one of whom he recognized to be the one from the battlefield a week ago, but he also kind of remembered seeing the other one before.
"Those are Lucilia's and Aurelia's knights." Mae said. "These distinct designs only belong to the royal household. Guess you could call it a wedding gift from Lucilia to Ren."
"You're the inventor lady, right?" Tyler asked.
Mae sighed upon hearing his question "Yes, I am the 'inventor lady' you so disrespectfully called me. I'm Maecilia. I created the knights you are looking at."
Scarlet, Lily, and the others basically face-palmed looking at him.
Tyler looked embarrassed, realizing what he said was quite rude. "I'm sorry for how I said that..."
"It's fine; I'm used to things like that, anyway, Ren!" Mae yelled out from the bottom.
"Yeah, Mae?" Ren responded.
"I made some adjustments to your weapons; everything should run much smoother." Mae said.
"Thanks; I appreciate it." Ren replied.
Soon it was time for the battle to begin, and the strike team of four launched out of the hangar and started to head to the rebel ships.
"You're Ren, right?" a man asked on the communications system.
"Yeah, it's nice to meet you. Thank you for allowing me to take part in the mission." Ren replied.
"No problem; the name's Gaius, the strike team's leader. I'll let you take the point against the ship on the right. We'll take care of the rest." Gaius introduced himself.
"Alright, that sounds easy enough." Ren replied.
The four knights split up, with Ren getting the right ship in his sights.
"This should be easy enough." Ren said.
Ren locked onto the ship with his missiles and launched two of them from a distance.
The missiles hit the ship, causing massive damage to its hull and completely wiping out its shields.
"Second-hand tech...like Lucilia said, they really just scrap anything together." Ren thought to himself.
Ren then closed the distance between him and the ship, used his custom-made sword that all of the royal knights have, and cut the ship in half without much resistance at all.
"Easy enough..." Ren said.
The sword he used made the metal that the ship used seem as resistant as a piece of paper, as he instantly destroyed it.
Meanwhile, the rest of the strike team also destroyed the remaining ships without much issue, and all four of them returned to base. Gaius gave his compliments to Ren, as he was impressed at how quickly he got used to the weapons on the ship.
Once Ren landed and the girls met up with him, Eleonora ran right up into his face.
"Ren...I have a request." Eleonora said, looking Ren in the eyes with a bright smile.
"Yes?" Ren asked, confused about how she was acting.
"Let me use it." Eleonora said.
"What?" Ren responded, bewildered by her request.
"I want to use that machine...even if just once." Eleonora said.
She seemed fascinated with how Nemesis worked as she asked tons of questions to Ren and Mae, the latter of whom could care less about this situation as it was wasting her time.
"So...why do you want to use it?" Ren asked.
"Because it was awesome!" Eleonora said in a girly fangirl reaction, smiling.
Her words made Ren take a step back in shock "That was kind of cute...didn't expect that." he thought to himself.
As if Scarlet could read his mind, she stepped on his foot, making him come back to reality after staring at Eleonora.
Then Lily chimed in, "Eleonora has a tendency to be...fanatic about the different types of sentinels...and I guess her fandom now also includes knights."
"Huh...didn't know that." Ren said.
"Well, you were only with the fireteam for like two weeks, dude..." Tyler replied.
"Fair enough." Ren said.
Ren and Gaius then walked over to the bridge to debrief Aurelia about what happened.
Gaius was a taller, dark-skinned man with green eyes like Ren; he also had what seemed to be tattoos on both of his arms.
"Curious about them, are you?" Gaius asked, smiling as if he always gets asked about them.
"Kind of, I mean, they are very unique-looking." Ren replied honestly.
"That's because they are my and my families history." Gaius replied.
"History?" Ren asked.
"Yes, I am not from Volaria; instead, I'm from a people who inhabited a moon in the same system as them. We are a nomadic people who travel around areas of our moon every season of the year. We were mostly peaceful outside of the small tribal squabbles before the Volarians found us. Of course, we fought back against them as they tried to subjugate us, but as you can tell, we lost. So now we are under their protection, and in payment for that, we have to send our young, who have the most potential, to Volaria to enter certain branches of their military or government. Most of our males wind up serving in the armies, though. However, to answer your original question, the symbols on my arm are given to us when we turn the age of thirteen. This age signifies the start of our journey through growing up. Think of the symbols as a family tree; while to you it may just look like one giant marking, in reality the markings are dozens of symbols combined; it includes my father's personal insignia and his before him, and hopefully one day my son will take on my insignia as well."
"That's really fascinating; it's like you keep your family's history always attached to you." Ren said.
"That's a pretty accurate interpretation. It symbolizes not only our family history but the spirits of our lost family members also being with us." Gaius said.
Ren was pretty interested in what Gaius had told him, but he was also curious. "You said your son would take on these insignia's; what if you have a daughter?"
"Well, if I married one of my own tribeswomen, she would inherit a single igsignia from her mother. Women on our planet have a different approach regarding the markings; for them, it is only a single unique symbol dedicated to their bloodline." Gaius explained.
Ren wanted to ask more questions, but they had arrived at the bridge to give Aurelia their report.
Once they had finished the easy report, Ren went back to his room, and to his surprise, Scarlet was waiting there for him, sitting on the bed. Luckily, Ren didn't know where Lucilia was at the time, so he knew she wouldn't freak out.
"Hey Ren..." Scarlet said.
"Hey Scarlet, what's up?" Ren replied.
"I want your answer."
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