First Mission

Now that he saw him without a helmet for a longer period of time, Evan was able to make out some more of Elias' features. His eyes were tired from his years on Earth, but something still sparkled deep within them, something that Evan couldn't know. There were dozens of small wounds dotted around, permanently scarring his head. Yet none of them seemed to be that fresh at all.

"Band of runts, what was meant by that?" Evan asked, breaking through the silence that had rested over them in the time since he and Elias had left the room where his judgement had been cast.

It was a maze, and even though he figured he should try and pay attention to the layout since he was going to be here for the foreseeable future, he found himself struggling to retain any of the information. Luckily, Elias was able to navigate the area as easily as if it was a straight corridor.

"It might seem like a criticism of Jeremy and Hanna, but it was a swipe at me. Individually, I'm likely above all of the others in a position at the head of a wing, but ours… the overall quality isn't quite there. Instead of focusing on becoming the best of the best, I'd rather give a place to those of us around here who don't have a place otherwise. The one who's been with us all his life and still lacks the care to learn everything he should, to fully realise his potential. The one who drives everyone away over a years old obsession, who most others can't stand to be around."

"How isn't that about them?"

"Because they don't hear it. I do. They say it to bother me, not that it works. I can handle anything that they throw at us, the Templars and the Demons both. I don't need those under my command to do that. I'd much rather use my position to help those who need it. For you, someone who stands at the edge of humanity, facing the possibility of losing yourself to our most dangerous enemy, I want to do what I can to keep you with us."

"Wait here," Elias said as they passed through a door that automatically slid open for them. It entered in to a wide hallway, with a few doors dotted around across both sides. Elias disappeared in to one not too far away from the entrance, but still not the closest one there.

He was in there for a while, and Evan found himself wandering to the nearest doorway on his right as the boredom of waiting began to set in. These doors were different to the one that he had entered through, with a more traditional hinged door blocking the doorway. It was slightly ajar, allowing him to peer inside.

Monitors illuminated the otherwise empty door, displaying lines and lines of information that he couldn't quite make out from the angle that he was seeing it from. A large chair sat just in front of it, and Evan could make out small details of a figure sat on it. A bowl filled with some kind of soup or broth lay on the table just in front of the chair, the light of the screens above cutting over it and almost hiding it. Although his view wasn't perfect, he could tell that the top of it had become semi solid.

"You'll get used to her doing things like this," Elias said from behind. "I hate to see it, but there's not much I can do about it."

"Is that…"

"Hanna? Yeah. She's obsessed. Well, that's a word for it. She's been like this for a few years, ever since she came to us. I wouldn't worry too much about her if I was you, just focus on getting yourself settled here. And to do that," he said, twisting around what he held, causing the chain at the end to rattle. "You're going to need this."

Evan looked at the weapon for a moment before taking it. "A mace?"

"A flail," Elias corrected. "Taking in to account your physical appearance and Crimson status, it's our best option to start with.

"What's it for?"

"Your first mission with us. Follow me, I'll get you caught up with the very basics on the way," Elias said, before leading Evan back out of the door.

Beyond the door was a large, empty hall, with the door that led back to the maze on their right. On the other side of the hall were three doors, the rightmost of which Elias led Evan through.

"So, Demons. They're tougher than humans, pound for pound, and they get even stronger through the process of devouring those they defeat. The power itself can manifest in different ways, so you can't just autopilot when fighting them. But, both of those things have a workaround, the Angels.

Where human arms fail, where a human can't do anything, an Angel can. They have a latent power that is inherently toxic to the Demons, and so it enables their weapons to work in combat. I bet you're wondering why a flail, why not a gun? That's why."

"So this is an empowered weapon?"

"It contains an empowered piece of stone, or shard of glass, or whatever inside it. Useless usually, but when empowered it can enable the weapon to do some harm."

"Are you sure a gun wouldn't work? If it's empowered by some Angel, then why wouldn't it?"

"Because you're not bashing the shit out of a demon with a gun, and we can't empower enough bullets to make guns worth having for us."

"Right," Evan said, seeing the flaw in his thinking. The empowered thing needed to actually be the thing that was damaging the demon, not just something that might launch it. 

Inside the new room were a handful of vehicles, surrounding a large pillar in the centre of the room.

"I've got to say, you're taking all this quite well," Elias said, climbing in to one of the vehicles and gesturing for Evan to follow.

"I wouldn't if I hadn't killed one of them already. But I can't deny what I've seen with my own eyes."

"I don't just mean that. You seem to be understanding things a bit quicker than those I teach, in my experience."

"I don't. Not fully. It's just, I've had I don't know how long to think about what happened. I can feel something in me, even if it doesn't always make itself known. I know it's there. And because of that I can hardly refute reality when it is so painfully obvious to me. I can face it, accept it even. But understand it? I can't even understand my simple life up until now, slaving away at something I don't want to do in the hope that I might find anything to take me out of that purgatory. I accept it because I have to, but understanding? That might take a little longer."

Elias elected to remain silent as he headed over to one of the vehicles, a narrow body fitted with short, sleek wings, and got in, gesturing for Evan to follow.

"The other thing that I think you should know is how we measure power. We categorise things in to seven categories, that way we can easily assign threat to our enemies and send sufficient force to deal with anything that might come up. Something we learned from the Angels, so it might not just be something that we do."

Evan recalled hearing something about Rodents and Cattle back when he had first dipped his toe into this new world, and so figured that they would be categories. From what he knew of those things, something that was assigned these descriptors wouldn't be that strong. Which probably meant that he was also sitting somewhere around the lower end of the rodent class, too.

"On the lower end is the Rodent class, closely followed by Cattle. These two share the traits of typically being primal, lacking the capacity for sapience. They are little more than beasts. Then, we have the Peasants. These are capable of independent, intelligent thought and communication, but often they prefer to be lead."

"Would Knight be around here, then?" Evan asked, remembering his and Jeremy's close call within the forest.

"Next up," Elias nodded. "Here's where we start to find something dangerous: ambition. Knights can often lead those beneath them, can and will act alone, and are the minimum threat level that needs at least a strike team of Templars to eliminate. Strike forces aren't all that big, granted, but it's still needed."

"How big is a strike force?"

"Anything more than an individual, but not as much as a wing. It's a flexible term, so I wouldn't bother trying to put too much importance in to remembering it. We often just call it a strike force when there isn't the full strength of a Wing."

"That's…" Evan began, before trailing off. "So, Knights. What's next?"

"Royalty and Monarch. As the name suggests, they are largely the ruling class of the systems that they find themselves in. For Demons, this means that the Royalty and Monarchs are often like generals, commanding hordes of demons due to nothing but their power and intellect. They have a wide array of powers and abilities, and can easily take the combined efforts of an entire wing, or multiple wings, to take down."

"That's six, what's the seventh?"

Elias paused, before putting on his helmet and maneuvering the vehicle towards the pillar in the centre of the room. He remained silent as the vehicle rose in the pillar, until it reached a long corridor which it then shot down.

"Deity class. Pray as hard as you can that you never encounter one of them, no matter what side it is on."