The Resistance

ARTHUR LAMNIFORME

[6 PM at the hospital, When Minerva decided to navigate.]

"We've finally reached the hospital and now Team B isn't here."

Just great. Women are such idiots.

"Kathyln, do you have any idea where they could've gone?", Nevera asked her.

"No."

"They're probably out getting clothes; they'll get here soon. We should go get some ourselves."

"Yes, I hate to say it but I'm stinking."

"And hungry."

Viviane made sure to say that last part softly. Venti must be going crazy right now.

"Oh."

I was right. He was nose bleeding.

We took Aether out of the bag, handed him over to the doctors here and then left for some shopping in the Lawless zone.

[3 hours later]

We finished all our shopping, we even went around and beat a few punks, but the women still hadn't returned.

Kathyln was sitting beside a hospitalized Aether and Venti was desperately trying to rizz up Viviane.

"Women." I said as I was drinking a cup of coffee.

Just then I heard a very loud roar. I ran out, the others followed, except for Kathyln. The sky flashed and lightning struck the ground.

"What in the world is that?"

"A dragon…"

No. No. Hahahaaha. Wait what?

"Viviane, did you just say a dra-dragon?!"

"Yes, that is definitely a dragon… and it seems to be heading here?"

"Oh shit."

Why is it always me?

Closely following it was a man clad in golden armour so bright, you could use him as a light tower.

We ran inside to tell Kathyln.

"If you don't want to die take my hand."

There was a strange man in black clothing, he had the girls with him. Lia was the only one awake among them. Sapphire was drenched in blood.

Kathyln was on guard. She put herself between Aether and the man like a mother guarding her cub.

"Kathyln! It's okay, he's on our side. Let's go! The dragon is coming.", Lia panicked.

"Wait what drag-"

"She's right Kathyln, we have to go, that dragon isn't a joke."

Without wasting more time. I grabbed the man's hand, pulled Kathyln in and then dragged Aether by his leg. The other too grabbed on as well.

"Great choice."

***

We seemingly teleported off that island to a strange place.

"Welcome to Zelandia, your original destination."

As the man said that he took off his coat. His face was revealed.

"My name is Calibri Vanos, the leader of the largest resistance group in existence."

A tall man with braided blonde hair. He had blue eyes and fair skin. His muscles were bulging out of the tunic he wore underneath his coat.

"Lia, take this and go. You should be able to immediately reach the settlement. If someone asks you who you are, just show them this.", he handed her a black sigil.

Lia nodded and took the girls with here.

She turned into some numbers and vanished.

"Don't worry, they'll be fine."

"Woah…", I couldn't help but be stunned by this man.

"Greetings, Leader of the Resistance Calibri Vanos, my name is Kathyln Igriss, Vice commander of the support operation. I assume that the operation was put off since our arrival was delayed?"

As expected, she was quick and bold in these matters.

"No, we fought with the forces that arrived and won."

"What? how?"

"Erika Drakenguard. What can I say, she is a truly remarkable woman."

"Huh?! Erika! She came?!

"Yes, she came accompanying the Prince of The Mystic Mountains."

"Brother Aurele is here too?!"

"Yes, he is with the dwarven Princess Ernsta Earthwald."

"So the dwarves decided to provide support too?"

"Yes. After you people got caught up in a mess far west from here, we had no choice but to continue the mission somehow because if we didn't, we would be wiped out. It was our only chance."

He spoke while clearing the path for us. The rainforest was huge, the soil was wet and marshy.

There were no sounds in the forest other than our own.

It was something the demons caused, their invasion alongside the otherworlders killed the wildlife on the continents. There were nearly no animals in the forests now.

"The FMA remained in contact with us and informed us of the situation. As we continued to communicate, Prince Aurele gathered the support of the dwarves in the southern dominion. They were close to the Kraken's Coast so their help could turn the tides, is what we thought."

A waterfall came into view and at its top a settlement.

"We decided to invade the south first, we gathered all our troops and bet on a gamble. A gamble which if we lost, we would lose everything. But we succeeded in killing all the demons in the southern dominion. The Weaver clan helped us navigate through the dwarven lands. Since they too had a grudge with the demons. The demons took one of their children after all."

I remembered Minerva as he said that.

"Of course, the old man back at the big old rocks wasn't too happy about this but we did it anyway. The south of Verdana is now a demon free zone. Of course we can't do anything about the crossbreeds, like yourselves. We shut down the Classrooms in the south and killed the on duty Users."

"I see."

Water reached my feet.

I looked around. It was the most beautiful sight I'd ever seen. Even more so than the Dawn palace back at Perpetua.

A bridge made of bamboo, constructed over the crystal-clear water. The sound of the waterfall crashing and combining with the water from the stream. The air was crisp and felt good to breathe. We walked up the bridge while admiring the scenery. We were already quite high up.

I felt refreshed. The bridge bifurcated, like a 'Y', leading to the top of the waterfall.

There were several houses on stilts. Boats sailing and a beautiful forest cover. The trees were huge. Enormous in fact. Almost like the famed World Trees of the North.

Through their canopy, came rays of light, like passing through a jade sieve, they cast the shadows of the leaves onto the water making it an absolutely unreal sight to see.

"Oh my god…", Venti couldn't hold back.

"Well, we're here now so make yourselves comfortable, I'll tell someone to show you where you'll be staying. We'll talk more… tomorrow morning. I have a feeling that I'm gonna be in some trouble soon. I'll have to go now, there are some people that I need to bring here."

"Sure."

Kathyln ended the conversation there.

A young boy came to me and handed me a drink.

"Welcome, I will now take you to your room."

Perfect, now I can say…

"Women." As I sipped on the iced drink.

"What was that?", Viviane asked.

"Oh nothing."

We were walking on the bamboo bridge which was headed to the bank, I could hear some wonderful music.

"oh my-my-my, oh my-my-my, oh my-my-my♪", a beautiful voice reached my ears.

"I want it! Oh-whoa, oh-whoa, oh-whoa, oh yeah oh yeah!", the voice continued to sing.

"There's a community program going on right now, that's what this is all about."

"Oh I see."

We passed by the community centre where the voice was coming from. I peeked a view at the singer.

My jaw dropped.

Beautiful platinum coloured hair, eyes as green as the forest and a skin tone that could compare to the gods of the legends. She was unparalleled. Even Kathyln and Viviane would fall behind her in terms of looks.

I remember listening those lessons very well.

***

"The Lord of all demons, Morax had a lover. She was more beautiful than a mother's unconditional love, she was brighter than the sun and smarter than the goddess of wisdom. The first moon in all of creation. Her promise with the lord stood strong, even today it is said that she waits for the day to come, when the lord calls for her. The knower of her name is blessed with good luck. Remember this name well, burn it into your mind."

***

"Lunaris."

Venti seemed to have noticed the resemblance.

I felt my knees losing power.

I wanted to give up everything and serve this person for the rest of my life.

She looked at me, I was shocked not knowing how to respond I'm sure I made a weird face.

She smiled. I felt my heart melting. Oh no, why now of all times? Why couldn't I meet her after all this was over…

"That boy…"

"Huh, who?"

"Wait you didn't see him?"

I looked once again and soon regretted it.

A boy stood beside the girl. His looks rivalling Aether's. He had hair as golden as the sun and eyes that shone brighter than a white flame. His skin tone was something I instantly envied.

He was tall and was muscular. He had a beautiful voice, perfectly complimenting the girl's vocals.

"oh my-my-my, oh my-my-my, oh my-my-my♪"

"I want something stronger!"

The song itself wasn't anything special but their voices made it sound heavenly.

"Venti, you could probably sing with them…", Venti was a very good singer.

"Haha, maybe some other day…", he seemed tired.

Back at the Classrooms, we would sometimes sing, late at night during the new year. The fact that it was prohibited didn't stop us from singing and partying.

We knew that, we being the best in the Classrooms, would not be heavily punished. If we weren't the best, we would've certainly been punished several times for breaking the rules.

Reluctantly taking my eyes off the girl, I followed the young boy to my room. He showed the others their rooms too.

After that, I visited all the girls who had been hospitalized. Aether was also put beside them.

Sapphire was heavily injured and had to undergo a surgery, luckily she didn't have to get any implants or screw fixations. Her physical abilities were the best out of all of us and so she was healing very quickly.

We still didn't know what happened and Lia wouldn't come out of her room to explain. Whatever happened, left some serious damage.

Minerva had some serious backlash from overusing her force in elemental form. She didn't have a weapon of descension and yet she managed to channel her force in an elemental form…

This was a big feat in my opinion. Usually, catalyst type weapons are used by elemental force users, since it is easier to channel and manipulate force using them. But to do it yourself includes processing mathematical equations and vectors of the force being manipulated. A single error can permanently damage minds.

Even then, she managed to pull it off. (What a great talent...)

She was of the Weaver Clan after all.

They were a clan respected all over the world for their contributions in the great war thousands of years ago. Of course, the demons and otherworlders gave them extra 'special' treatment for those contributions.

The dwarf clan Weaver was originally based in the current Southern Dominion, called back then Asteria. The Weaver clan was a very high ranked clan, only the royal family and Thunder dwarves could rival them.

I remembered reading about the long conflict between the Thunder dwarves and the weavers.

Marriage was the cause of this conflict.

Since the Weaver dwarves were better looking and very skilled in all sorts of weapon forging, the royal family would prefer suitors from the Weaver clan rather than the Thunder dwarves.

"Hello!"

"oh my-my-my, oh my-my-my, oh my-my-my♪", the song echoed in my head once again.

After all, its singers were in front of me, by Aether's bed.

Composure. User mode activated. Time taken- 0.095 seconds.

"Who are you, are you allowed to be here?", I immediately distanced myself from them both. It was something taught at the Classrooms to prevent data leaks.

A lot of Users of the first generations were honey trapped, it was possible because, joint User training Classrooms were situated only in the capitals of every dominion, so interactions with the opposite sex were very limited.

The most notorious practitioners of honey trapping were from the northern continent of Germania and Egyptia.

The women there were very well built. They were tall, about 5'9 - 6'0 feet tall. Most of them had golden hair. They were very well endowed as well. They were said to be the descendants of the goddesses Gersemi and Bastet.

"My name is Luna, and I was told to meet captain Aether once he arrives."

Her voice was too beautiful.

"Who told you to?"

"The leader told us.", the boy spoke up.

"Sol is my name."

"Calibri did huh? Fine then, but leave soon."

"Sure.", she said with a smile brighter than all the stars in existence combined.

Kathyln walked into the room, her hair was still wet and she had changed into the new clothes we bought back in the lawless town.

Viviane came too, Venti right behind her.

"Who are you?" Kathyln was on guard as soon as she saw Luna.

"A friend."

"Elaborate."

"Aether's friend."

"Kathyln, Calibri called her here." I explained before they got into a fight.

They sat around Aether. He was still unconscious. It was the fourth day today.

We talked about a few different things and then went our ways.

A few hours later, what happened was concerning.

Calibri had returned and he brought with him some bad news.

"The demons are advancing; we'll have to fight soon. I'm sorry that you couldn't rest longer but the circumstances are calling for your participation"

He seemed genuinely sorry and continued.

"Erika will be coming back to base in a few hours with another User squad. I'll need all of you to be prepared to go to war."

I swallowed hard. My first war was coming. We were currently in the south west region of Zelandia. This area was full of forests, massive ones. But the rest of the continent was very urbanized.

Zelandia had three countries constituting it. This one was Terentia, while the other one in the east was Cartentia and in the north was Zelatia.

Both the east and the north were completely under the enemy control. They were rumoured to have large armies. What's worse is that Aether wasn't up yet.

"But I don't think we can contribute much… we haven't broken our force seals or received our weapons yet."

Kathyln always made a valid point.

"Don't worry about that, we have a machine here, it'll remove the seal and allow you to summon your weapons."

Calibri never ceased to amaze me.

"Let's go there immediately, follow me."

He led the way to the machine.