Way of the Knights

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"Alright, you guys better make sure you return in one piece, you hear me?"

"Yes we do. We'll take care of each other, that's a promise."

"Hmph. You guys better not hold me back or else I'll kick your ass."

"Yes, yes. We heard you, loud and clear. Can we go now?"

"Yes we can. Let's get this over with." 

And with that said, Floyd, Juniper, Edward, Mira and Ryan waved goodbye to rest and signed off their names before walking towards the gates of Tartarus. This team of five is all of the people who volunteered to go for the first rotation in this Unit Mission. 

The Unit Mission is as follows: Kill 20 Imps and patrol the route shown on to the mission. Upon return, they must bring back the ears of every Imps they killed as proof and must report anything that looks out of place within the patrol route.

Procuring the ears is a necessity for the mission, should they return without it, the mission will be considered as a failure and everyone on the Unit will have a failed marking on their records. Since they are considered as Freshmen - disciples who have been on the sect for less than five years, they are still exempted from the penalty of failing a mission. 

The rewards of the mission is a bit stingy. It only gives them 250 Unit Merit Points. That's like ten merit points each Imps they killed and another fifty for the patrol. Considering the risks of this mission, specially since they're freshmen, this amount truly is little. No wonder no one was going for it. 

Good thing they're only doing this for experience. Once they get used to the drive, it's very unlikely for any of them to go after such high-risk, low-reward missions in the future. 

After watching their backs disappear due to the thick fog of the Devil's Cradle, the people sent them off: Raven, Franklin, and Pyra turned around and started walking back towards the base. Although some of them are still relatively nervous for the group who just left, they have nothing else to do other than to believe in their abilities. 

Pyra, who's walking beside Raven, started fidgeting. She felt incredibly hesitant at first before finally making up her mind. She gently gave Raven's sleeve a tug, wanting to catch his attention. Of course, Raven looked at her weirdly and raised a brow.

She inhaled sharply and seemingly regretting her decision but she held on and looked at him. 

Pyra then said: "We need to talk."

Franklin saw this interaction and remained silent. He had some thoughts about this situation but he preferred to keep them to himself since he's not really involved. If anything, he wishes that this talk of theirs would solve the problem between them. 

Raven was surprised at first. Memories of every shit Mira did so far came rushing through his head. He's about to say something very, very rude but he stopped himself. Instead, his pupils glowed with shades of multiple colors and gazed straight into Pyra's eyes. 

'Purple stands for Hesitation, Green means that she doesn't have any ill thoughts. Sparks of white means that her intentions are pure, while streaks of black tendrils meant Distress.'

'This one appears to be the more reasonable one. I don't see why not. I'll hear what she has to say.'

"Let's get back to the base first. You pick where and when, I'll come." 

This was Raven's reply to her, Pyra bit her lips and forcefully nodded her head. The three then continued heading back to the base. 

Upon their return, the rest of the team were either resting on their rooms or out and exploring. The sentry constructs are still patrolling the base. Raven then looked at Pyra and saw her nodding at him. He then nodded back and followed her through one of the empty rooms within the base. 

There was a table and chairs in there ready for them to use. Both of them sat on the chairs provided, facing each other. 

Raven was visibly relaxed while Pyra appeared very uncomfortable. Raven's still monitoring her conditions using his ocular technique and saw that her colors surrounding her never really changed but the influences for each colors did. Now, it would seem that her distress is approaching dangerous levels. This is represented by the increasingly large numbers of black tendrils coming off of her body. 

Green was still present as well as the white sparks, meaning that she didn't truly have any ill thoughts and her intentions are pure. The Purple color which represented Hesitation still remained and it's a bit more defined compared before, meaning that she's greatly hesitating right now. 

Analyzing this in mind, Raven guessed that, whatever this woman wants to talk about, was something that greatly disturbs her and her hesitation came from the fact that her sister isn't here or that she's doing this without her sister knowing it. Either way, she spent quite sometime looking down, left and right, just mostly avoiding Raven's gaze. 

Raven didn't want to be an ass but whether she likes it or not, she's wasting his time and she has to know that, so he said:

"So, what do you want to talk about?"

Raven witnessed as Pyra was visibly startled by the what he said. Not only that though. 

Under the surveillance of his ocular technique, a new color emerged from Pyra's body. It was Gray, which represents fear. And this color was growing more and more pronounced at each passing moment. The color was fluctuating wildly, this meant that she's trying her best to suppress it but it's clearly not working. 

This caused Raven to frown. He didn't understand why in the world would she suddenly be afraid? The gears on his head started working, shortly after that, he realized that she started feeling fear the moment he said something. Now, he doesn't understand why the hell did his voice would trigger fear in her but at this very moment, they won't go anywhere like this. 

Raven tapped his throat a couple of times and hummed. He watched as Pyra looked at him in surprise since his voice literally sounded different. He sounded like a female now, which something that Raven clearly did on purpose. 

"Is this better?" He asked, just to make sure. 

Pyra looked to him strangely, she was confused and that's represented by a Brown color in Raven's eyes. This appeared to work since the fear eating her away has now stopped and was slowly being diffused. Once it dropped to a minimal level, Raven saw her nodding to him. 

"Then we'll talk like this." Raven stated, "Well, I'm the only one participating so far which is very unfair considering that it was you who wanted to talk to me in the first place."

"I'm sorry. I-I was just…just…hah…" Pyra let out a long exhale and looked down. "I shouldn't be doing this without her knowledge, but she's stubborn and won't agree to it. But if we keep going like this, I'm afraid that it will go out of hand and might affect the team and just…I don't know."

Raven crossed his arms on his chest and raised a brow. He didn't say anything, he just waited for her to talk. 

"I just want to apologize on behalf of my sister. She's just…protecting me. Well, we're the only ones left…you know…of our…yeah."

"Despite of you not being able to complete your sentences, I'll take a guess and say that you're saying that your orphans, am I correct?" 

"Y-yes…yes, you are correct."

"And what does that have anything to do with me?" Raven retorted, causing Pyra to flinch. At this point, Raven was just getting tired of this, so he decided to be up front and say what's on his mind. 

"Let's see here..." Raven leaned to the table with his arms and looked at Pyra dead in the eyes. "You're telling me, that you twins are orphans and that all of the shit that your twin sister did to me was just because she's protecting you, even after I told you that I have never met you two prior to when we joined the Disciple Recruitment of the sect." 

"Y-yes, but - "

"Woman, no." Raven sighed in a very exhausted manner. "You're not getting my point. Here, let me make this simple enough for you to understand okay?"

"I, pay attention to me emphasizing this word okay? I. Did. Nothing. To. Offend. You. Two." Raven's gaze hardened as he emphasized every word he said. "Which mean, that I. Don't. Deserve. This. Kind. Of. Treatment. From. You."

"But that clearly didn't stop you…well, mostly your sister. But you guys are twins and you mostly stayed silent whenever she demeans every single thing that I did so it's your fault as well." Raven stated. 

And by the looks of it, his words had a great impact on Pyra. Her head is lowered right now and she doesn't even have the guts to look at him in the eye. However, that doesn't mean that this talk was over. In fact, it wad far from it. This is due to what Pyra said that might, or might not have caused Raven's brain to momentarily stop functioning. 

"Well, you…or maybe not you, molested both of us two years ago."

"Excuse me!???"