Chapter 95: Preparations

The next day we began settling into a new routine.

We had to practice our abilities, so Rune offered to spar with us.

She was extremely efficient in battle and held the Advanced Aspect of Telekinesis.

Although being an Attendant meant she only had one Aspect and its power wasn't very high. Nonetheless, she used it well as a means of assassination with the many small throwing knives she held.

She was incapable of hitting me, though. I even allowed her to utilize actual firearms...with some convincing, of course.

Rune also learned of the futility of conventional weapons against Isabella's barriers.

Her personal defense wasn't quite as immense as it would have been with Bravery, but it was still very high with the combination of Honor and The Centurion. Actually, it was still higher than when she had Bravery in the past.

At some point, Rune accepted that she wouldn't be able to scratch us and went all out.

It was also important for us to know that she could be trusted to help on the field of battle.

The ordeal turned out to be an excellent way to test The Warlord.

Basically, The Warlord turned me into a master of combat with both martial arts and weapons.

It also made dodging much easier, and understanding weapons became very simple.

Although I had to be very careful when fighting Rune.

Later, Isabella and I began sparring.

"Rules of engagement?" She said.

"No rules other than keeping the landscape intact and not killing each other," I said.

She smiled and readied Honor for battle.

I readied Justice and got the chains ready.

Since Honor could obliterate the surrounding area, Isabella kept it in its base form.

Although I'd be lying if I said I wasn't excited to see it destroy the land in Nexus.

I charged at her and dodged as several beams of divine light shot at me.

Once I reached her, I struck rapidly with my chains as well as Justice.

Lethal Strikes activated and cracked the barriers she put up to block me. She swung her sword wide and barely missed as I jumped behind her.

Isabella blasted me back from her with a barrier and I felt an oppressive aura burst forth.

It was as if I was being crushed by fear from looking at her radiance.

She charged forward and attacked.

"GIGA CRASH!" She shouted.

I evaded to the side as she slammed Honor into the ground with a mighty impact.

I wrapped my chains around her and lifted her off of the ground. Then I fired a barrage of magic bolts at her.

Isabella was enveloped in white light and appeared next to me in a blinding flash.

Was that the same teleportation iris uses!?

At once, she raised Honor to the sky and several bolts of white lightning began dancing around me.

It was everything I could do to dodge them.

As I fought her, I thought about laying traps with magic and attacking from every direction.

I placed my hand on the ground and several vines shot from the ground at her. They bound Isabella's arms and legs.

"Oh my, Mizik... This gives me a few ideas..." She said as her face flushed.

"St-Stop making this weird!" I said stammered.

She giggled and tore the vines straight out of the ground. Then she stomped her foot and the I felt a violent quake.

I teleported behind her and prepared to land a finishing blow just before I was once again blocked by a barrier.

At that point, Isabella threw her hand out to grab me and I just barely dodged.

This wasn't going anywhere.

It was like fighting an iron wall with a stick.

I got back and decided to keep my distance as she waved at me.

"You're really difficult to deal with, Isabella," I said.

"How do you think I feel!? I can't even hit you! All my attacks keep missing and you keep breaking my barriers!"

I guess I'm not the only one struggling here...

I raised Justice and prepared to attack.

The chains began to swirl violently around me and I lowered the blade at her.

"RIGHTEOUS EXECUTION!" I shouted.

A cyclone of spiked chains shot straight at Isabella and she changed Honor into an ax.

"DRAGON'S FEROCITY!!!" She said.

She rapidly struck the chains as they impacted her and somehow deflected them all.

A moment later, she was upon me and my body reacted to dodge her attacks.

This felt a little familiar... Tyranus was my cousin and Walter was Isabella's personal guardian.

"Are you ready to give up, Mizik?"

"Not a chance!"

I teleported behind Isabella and blasted her away with a burst of pure magical energy. Then I raised my hands and started manifesting my power above.

She stood up and looked at me strangely. Then at the sky.

"Oh...that's nice..." She said as she saw the sky filled with bolts of pure magic.

She raised her hands, and I saw several barriers stack on top of her. I let loose with my attack and created a rather large explosion of magic.

When the dust cleared, I could tell that Isabella had actually taken damage.

A few mild scratches appeared on her body.

"Is that my victory?" I asked.

"You could say that, but...please be careful, Mizik. That attack was really dangerous and could have hurt me..." She said with a pout.

"Sorry...I got a bit carried away..." I said.

I hadn't noticed it at the time, but the longer I fought, the more focused on killing my enemies I became.

In the future, I would try hard to not let fights last so long.

"Don't worry, my love. I can take it!" She said with a smile. Immediately, she snapped her fingers and was enveloped in golden light. As soon as it cleared, her wounds had healed completely.

All that work for nothing. Oh well.

"Truly incredible..." I said.

She puffed out her chest proudly.

"When we infiltrate Nexus, we wont have the support of Iris. So I'll be the designated healer."

"Good. If anything happens, I'm counting on you to keep us alive."

After that, we started our daily patrol.

We were out for most of the day and on our way home, Isabella received a call from Emily. We had obtained her's and the rest of our friends numbers from the letter received along with the phones.

Emily and Isabella had become great friends and tried to maintain contact with one another.

Interestingly enough, Emily was the heiress of a gigantic corporate empire owned by her father.

In fact, they were responsible for the creation of a large portion of the Arcadian military supplies. As such, Emily was a fantastic ally to have, despite her questionable first impression.

Now, there was also the issue of our appearances...

Our faces were very well known and we were wanted dead in Nexus. The term they used for it was 'Marked For Execution'.

We were labeled as potential class SSS-level threats. This was because Arcadia purposely chose not to keep quiet about our Aspects as a further deterrent. Supposedly, Dante was listed as an S-level threat.

It seems they were already wary of us...

This was good, but it meant that stealth wasn't possible for us.

We needed to alter our appearances in order to successfully infiltrate Nexus.

I spent some time working on magic to change our physical appearance and decided to call it cosmetic magic.

Now to discuss it with Isabella...

I brought her into our personal bathroom and we stood in front of a large mirror.

"What kind of appearance do you want to take for the Nexus Infiltration?" I asked.

"I'll leave that up to you. Just don't make me look ugly, please!" Isabella said with a nervous smile.

She wasn't vain, but she cared about her appearance enough to worry about it.

I had an idea of what I could do...

As much as I hated it, and as much as I despised the two of them...

I changed my appearance into Tyranus and Isabella into Alice.

"Eh...EH!? WHAT!?" Isabella shouted.

She sounded just like Alice, too...

I almost shuddered, but I had to remember that this was still my wife.

"Sorry, Isabella. This was the best I could come up with," I said in Tyranus' voice.

"You even sound like him! Why these two!? Mizik!"

"Well I considered Cassandra, but...there wouldn't be a difference. I also considered my uncle Jax and Aunt Aria but that feels...wrong..."

"Ugh...okay... It should be fine...but still, Tyranus isn't as good-looking as you are..." She said disappointedly.

"Eh...I could say the same about Alice..."

"So what will our names be? Or are we just going as...these two?"

"That's the idea. It's simpler that way," I said.

I couldn't get over how much I sounded like Tyranus. It felt like I was really him. I wanted to punch myself for it!

Although Tyranus looked completely different, was slightly taller, and a few years older than me, he still had the emerald green eyes of our family.

I briefly considered changing them, but ultimately decided not to.

I highly doubted they would accuse me of being Mizik based solely on eye color alone. There were far too many other differences.

Also, they probably didn't know anything about magic. There was no way they would assume I could do such a thing.

Next, we needed a cover story.

"So what is our story...Alice?" I said

Isabella frowned at me.

"I don't like being called Alice...but I won't stop you. And since we have to be Attendants to have citizenship and rights over in Nexus, we should say we're newly made."

"Good idea. We can roll with that then," I said.

In Nexus, the general population was sent to work on massive building projects, farming, factory work, and the like. They had no rights and existed solely for hard labor, reproduction, the creation of potentially powerful Overlords and Attendants, and human experimentation for the weaker ones.

Nexus was truly a horrible place to live.

Luckily, we didn't have to explain to most people who we were.

Due to the mandatory testing, many new Attendants were made constantly. They didn't keep track of them as much as Arcadia did.

And since the process of making an Attendant was so impersonal, no one had to meet Novak.

With Enforcers or Overlords, one would have to be turned by Iris or Novak respectively. But with technological advances and a heightened understanding of divine energy, no one had to go to the top to become an Attendant. It could be done with the use of machines.

And anyone could apply in Arcadia, but it wasn't mandatory.

Now, we only had to work out how we would get inside the country...

Over the next couple of weeks, we worked closely with Rune and Leiso to figure out the best approach.

Leiso had done extensive scouting of the entire continent of Nexus and its borders. As a result, she knew the strongest and weakest points of attack.

There was a small, run-down port that wasn't heavily monitored by the authorities. This was mainly because it was close to the location of the main research facility.

The dwelling place of an Overlord.

Specifically, Yakon had been killed, so the current R&D head was a man named Jason.

Jason currently sat in seat 5 thanks to the death of Yakon.

Overlord Jason was capable of mutating his own body as well as those he came into contact with as long as he could devour their flesh.

A truly sick bastard...and a dangerous one at that...

Regardless, we doubted he would be much of a problem. Between the two of us, he could probably be killed with ease.

The plan was to approach by submarine. An underwater machine that could apparently move quickly through the ocean. After we got close, we would exit the submarine and swim to shore at night.

Isabella and I would do our best to avoid search lights and the like. Luckily, I could cloak us in invisibility magic, so that made sneaking around easy.

I didn't like illusion magic because it reminded me of Cassandra, but I had no choice.

After infiltrating, we were instructed to head for the nearest Abyss Engine tower and try to locate the power source. We were told to avoid confrontation with Overlords or their Attendants, but to kill them if they impeded out progress.

This was to make sure they didn't attack Arcadia while we were away. Additionally, two very-trustworthy Attendants would take on our appearances and remain in public view.

They would be 'busy' at HQ with official work and 'testing' done by Iris.

I had to hand it to them...without the hair color, the two they selected were very similar to us.

Still, I made it a point to use cosmetic magic on them both. It would be simpler than altering their appearances manually and I could just set the effect to wear off after a while.

Isabella and I would be alone on this mission since the Abyss Engine made it impossible for any Enforcers or Attendants made by Iris to function in Nexus.

Our phones were also up for speculation due to it being possible that their signals could be traced. They...hesitantly decided to rely on my telepathy.

Leiso and Rune would remain on standby in the submarine off the coast for ease of contact.

Honestly, I was glad to have two trustworthy individuals working with us. The submarine was also full of other Attendants. Leiso's personal team of super soldiers. Attendants that had gone through physical modifications and had powerful Aspects.

This was to be the elite unit of Operation: Vanguard.

After the two months passed in their entirety, we had practiced enough with our powers to be fairly skilled with them.

And currently, we awaited the arrival of a submarine called: The Hammerhead.