Honor and Deceit: The Ironhide Legacy

Part 2

Now flopped onto his bed, Seamus started to doze off; his mind filled only with thoughts of Ironhide's next mission. The reason Ironhide had such a high bounty was because they were mercenaries, for one, and also continuously try to cause uprising in their lands. Similar to the land of Ashfeld, which was to their north, the problem they had were warmongering leaders and political heads. Now that his mind was caught on assessing their plans, Seamus let out an audible groan to try and shift his thoughts to lighter ones in hopes that he could spend the night sleeping soundly. His eyes closed softly as he snuggled into his pillow, only for a moment of silence to pass before he slipped into a deep slumber.

Meanwhile in the meeting-room of the Capital's king, Alphonse, four very special individuals entered and sat accordingly around the rectangular table in the center, accompanied by a speaker. Alphonse, who was a very tall and formidable old Knight Commander, sat at the head of the table, before waving his hand into the air as a gesture for the speaker to start. "My king, I have assembled the four you requested. From the right: Revese, of the Royal Guard of Lawbringers; Thraxirz, the General of our Elite Warden squadron; Calhoun Lucas, the generous Highlander who travelled all the way from Valkenheim to assist us; and the Shinobi, who arrives as our informant from the Myre." The Shinobi then leaned against the table in coordination with his introduction, before clearing his throat to begin. "As you asked, I've been watching Ironhide without fail. As we speak, they reside in the shabby town of Aeterna, just south of this Capital, trying to gather thugs for their impending coup." The Shinobi explained, before being stopped as the king raised his hand slightly and nodded. "Thank you, Shinobi. Now, for the rest of you..." The king said as he leaned inwards, prompting the three remaining to ready themselves for orders. "Revese, you will bring any unassigned Lawbringers with you to the town, as well as Thraxirz's and Calhoun's squadrons. Burn that town down if you have to, but do not let Ironhide escape. You will surround the town and cut down anyone in your path, forcing Ironhide to reveal themselves on their own accord. Then you may kill the rest, shall you feel so inclined." This struck Revese harshly. The feeling of ruthlessness and mercilessness of the king was frightening. "My Liege!!" Revese yelled out abruptly, stopping the king from continuing, "Are you ordering us to murder innocent villagers and families!? You ca-" Revese was cut off as Alphonse slammed the table with his forearm, startling him. "It's kill or be killed, Zachariah! Aeterna was always filled with thieves and mercenaries, not even considering the fact that Ironhide probably have the whole town ready to revolt! Would you prefer it if the capital city was torn down in an attempt to revolutionize our government!? Would you rather see our own women and children brutalized by these damned-by-God scum!?" The king raised his voice harshly to Revese, before calming himself down with deep breaths. "It is merely for the greater good, Zachariah. Now, you will all be moving out by midday tomorrow, no exceptions. You are dismissed." The four nodded towards the king's dismissal, before standing up from their chairs and exiting through the large golden doors that they entered through.

Time quickly passed and the sun started to rise on Aeterna only hours before it's demise, along with the awakening of Ironhide. Kergie exited her room firstly wearing her regular armoured attire, with the exception of a helmet. She turned down the hall to the room on the right of hers, number 3, which housed Helios, expecting him and the others to not be awake. Instead of knocking, she simply entered the room unannounced, before being caught in her step as her gaze was caught by something unexpected. Helios was on the ground, shirtless and doing push-ups when normally he would be sleeping. He was an extremely lazy individual, so this heavily surprised Kergie. Though it took a few moments, Helios became aware of the Peacekeeper's presence and stood up to confront her, slightly showing off his muscly and toned chest. Helios confused Kergie's speechlessness for affection and approached her closely, pinning her to the wall beside the door. "Well, good morning to you too-" Helios started, before being stopped as Kergie launched her armored knee into his crotch, causing him to freeze for a second before falling to his knees in a silent cry. "You got it wrong, fuckwit. I'm just surprised that you were awake." She quickly explained before exiting the room in slight annoyance to continue on with Valdimir's room. Now more annoyed than before, Top banged her fist on Valdimir's door instead of knocking, hoping to wake him. Kergie waited a moment to knock again, only to turn and see Seamus's door wide open. With Helios exiting his room in full attire, Kergie decided to go peer into Seamus's room to see Valdimir sitting on the side of Seamus's bed whilst holding a written note. Valdimir looked visibly confused, so Kergie entered closer into the room and made her way to confront him. "What's going on? Where's Seamus?" Top asked softly, hoping not to upset Valdimir even further. "The note says that he needed to visit someone..." Valdimir said as his head rose, meeting his gaze with the other two, "...why would he would leave without saying anything? It's not like him." Another moment of silence past before Helios came deeper into the room towards the other two, before grabbing Valdimir's shoulder strap and pulling him to his feet. "Seamus or no, we still have a job to do, remember? I'm sure that there's a guild hall somewhere nearby where we can get some followers. Let's go." Helios said strongly as he stared at Valdimir, before dropping his grasp and walking off. Kergie stood silently and watched with her arms crossed, trying to side with Helios. Valdimir remained still for a moment before pulling his axe out from beside him and attaching it to his backside as he made his way out as well. Soon enough, they had made their way out of the inn and started to walk through the town towards a large cathedral-shaped building where they had planned to recruit fighters from. As they approached the two front doors of the cathedral-shaped building, a leather-clad mercenary exited the hall with a javelin pointed towards them, causing them to halt and grab the hilt's of their own weapons. "You. You're Ironhide, huh?" The mercenary asked them in a quiet, yet threatening tone. Valdimir, who was behind Top and Helios, pushed himself forwards with his axe already unsheathed and in the midst of a swing. "ÉG RÍF YKKUR Í BITA!!" A fierce war cry tore it's way out of Valdimir's throat as his axe-head landed deep into the wooden door, only inches from the mercenary's face, causing him to fall over sideways in both fear and instinct to dodge, "Yeah, we're Ironhide. Anything else? No? Good. Now get the fuck out of my way!" The mercenary, who was now sitting on the ground, squirmed out of the doorway when commanded to let Ironhide, and mainly Valdimir, through. As the three marched in, Helios felt much jealousy and exhilaration from Valdimir's actions, while Kergie only felt humiliation and embarrassment for knowing that she couldn't stop him if she tried. The hall was majorly populated on the ground floor, which was for normal mercenary groups and travellers, but had a small second floor that overlooked the ground floor, almost like an indoor balcony, which is where Ironhide aimed to go towards. Since their name had grown infamous, many a mercenary gave them cold stares as Kergie, Helios, and Valdimir, approached the staircase to the second floor, before they were stopped by what was basically another bouncer, or just someone picking a fight. An inexplicably suspicious-looking conqueror stood right in their way like a cliche villain, yet all this did was infuriate Kergie, who was growing more impatient by the moment. Kergie immediately unsheathed her weapons and dodged forward without warning, only for a beautiful young woman wearing a long white doctor's coat and bearing very short light-brown hair decided to interrupt.  She seemed to be around their own ages, so Helios decided to be useful in hopes of looking good in front of her, so he quickly leaned forward towards Kergie and pulled her back slightly to separate them. The woman nodded towards Helios quickly as a 'thank you', before looking back to the the conqueror and frowning. "What did I say, Leeroy? These are the three that I've been waiting for. Please leave them with me." The woman then turned back to Top and Helios, gesturing for them to follow her. Since Helios was more intrigued by the woman than by anything else, he didn't realize that he was still holding Kergie's shoulders, so Kergie elbowed him in the groin to free herself as she shoved past the Conqueror to walk up the stairs. Helios once again leaned over in pain, before Valdimir silently picked him up over his shoulder and brought him up the stairs. They were led to one of many open booths to sit down on as they were given even more dirty stares. Political assassins, Warlords, ex-royals, and even globally-known killers. Ironhide were obviously out of their league, even if their plan had meaning. As they sat down, Kergie stayed standing and crossed her arms in suspicion before uttering "Why?" to the woman who led them here. "Why, you ask?" the woman shyly responded, looking to Top with a wide smile on her face. "Everyone knows why you're here, so I might as well help you with what you're here to do. I've already set up a poster downstairs on the bounty board to help you guys out. Oh! I'm Moore, by the way. I'm an underground doctor and surgeon, so if you need fixing up, I'm your girl~" She continued happily and softly, while still keeping up a warm smile. As she finished, she turned away and walked back downstairs, leading Top to finally sit down and exhale tiredly. After a moment of relaxation and silence, Helios quickly leaned in to the other two and removed his helmet to reveal a slight grin while looking around, before snapping back to them. "Okay, but was that chick goddamn fine or what?" Kergie was going to go for a third hit to Helios's crotch, but their attention was pulled away as someone approached their table and lifted away Helios's gladius. "A gladius, huh? These are pretty rare around here. Probably because of how shite they are! Hah!" A large Valkyrie warrior stood in front of their booth, inspecting and demeaning Helios's gladius, before tossing it back onto the table. Helios stilled for a moment, trying to calm himself as he slowly stood up to her, her being a good six inches taller than him. "Don't...EVER...talk down upon the centurion! Unless you want that gladius to cut you down to size, you goddamn-" Helios's throat was gripped tightly by the Valkyrie as she lifted him slightly above the ground and tossed him away from his booth, hitting the wooden floor with a loud thud. The patrons on the bottom floor heard the noise and some of them moved to the middle of the room to try and see what the commotion was. As Kergie and Valdimir got up to try and help Helios, the Valkyrie had already picked him up off of the ground and pulled him to the edge of the railing, slightly leaning him off. Valdimir grabbed the Valkyrie by her shoulder and turned her around, before getting headbutt by her and being pushed away, where he basically refused to intervene out of fear. Kergie tried to hit her in a blind spot, but the Valkyrie blocked it with the armor on her forearms and parried her away. She then turned back to Helios, but was met with a wound-up punch, sending her straight to the ground. He then knelt down to her and grabbed the two horns on the sides of her helmet, pulling it off and then sending another punch towards her. Before the punch was able to connect, a gigantic flaming boulder tore through the ceiling of the hall diagonally, destroying the second floor and sending it crashing onto those below it.