Chapter Text
Legends abound about the Fae folk. In some cultures, they were known as benevolent spirits who perform kind deeds for the good of heart. In others, they were mischievous sprites who performed all manner of pranks on unsuspecting people.
As far as demihuman races went, they were extraordinarily elusive. One could not simply walk the streets of a major town and spot one mingling among the crowd like one could with a beastkin or foxian. Nor were they known to have a nation or city of their own where their kind hid away, though rumors of such a place often graced the rumor mills of taverns the world over. All that was known of them was hearsay from those who were lucky enough to catch sight of them. Those lucky individuals would often describe them as looking human in appearance, but possessing an ethereal beauty that made them clearly stand apart. Their most defining trait were the glowing translucent wings that carried them gracefully through the air, like those of a butterfly or fairy. So mysterious were they that many cultures weren’t even aware of their existence. Such was the nature of the Fae.
The northern territories of Belobog were different though.
The people of Belobog did not just believe in the Fae, they feared them.
Hated them.
Reviled them.
It had not always been this way. In centuries past, it was said that the Fae lived in peace with the people of Belobog. They would appear like the wind, and vanish just as soundly. Their appearance always heralded some manner of good fortune. They would appear in the dead of night or in the middle of fierce snowstorms, the glow of their ethereal wings illuminating the way to guide lost travelers to safety. They would gather in the fields of farmlands to dance and make merry, and when they did, a bountiful harvest was sure to follow. Many children would even come home from a day of play to tell their parents that the Fae appeared to play games with them. It became customary to leave bundles of food outside one’s door as an offering to the Fae on holidays, or as payment for a Fae’s aid. And without fail, these offerings would always vanish before morning with not a soul seeing how it happened. The people of Belobog loved and respected the Fae.
It was not to last.
As the northernmost human territory on the continent, Belobog was constantly a target of the Legion, those who followed the Dark God Nanook. They would assault their northern borders without mercy, destroying all that stood in their way. Only thanks to the blessed Barrier of Qilpoth and the brave sacrifice of countless Silvermane Guards were the people of Belobog able to push back the invading demons each time.
Though the Fae were not well-known for their combat prowess, the people often gave prayers to them for fortune on the battlefield as well. Every now and then, a soldier would come back from the front lines with a tale about how they were saved from certain demise by the timely appearance of a Fae, as if they were guardian angels watching over them on the battlefield.
But then, things started to change. Gradually, at first. Year by year, harvests started yielding less and less crops. Nobody blamed the Fae at first. Why would they? A few poor harvests is no reason to begin distrusting the guardian spirits that had done so much good over the years. But then more odd occurrences began happening. Wheels would suddenly break off of wagons without warning. Livestock would fall ill seemingly overnight. Houses would catch fire without a soul around to start it. Incidents of increasing severity kept on occurring without reason.
Then came the whispers. Nobody knows where they started or why, but rumors began circling that these incidents were the doing of the Fae. “Who else could possibly be behind them,” the rumors would say, “other than those who could appear and disappear without so much as leaving footprints in the snow?” It was said that some folks even began reporting sightings of streaks of glowing lights near the sites of these mysterious incidents, either preceding or immediately following them. “The glow of the Fae’s wings”, the rumor-mongers would call them.
Much discourse was sewn from these rumors. Many simply could not believe such kind spirits could be behind such terrible acts. For those looking for answers though, or perhaps just someone to blame, to make sense of these senseless events, a race that never showed their faces seemed like as good a culprit as any. The Fae, secretive as they were, remained silent throughout it all.
Tensions truly began to boil over when the disappearances began. The children who often claimed they played with the Fae folk began vanishing one after the other. Like the other incidents, nobody would see it happen. They would simply go out to play and never return.
For the people of Belobog, starved from poor harvests and dying livestock, cold from the harsh winters, and pushed to the brink by the constant invasions of the Dark God’s Legion, this was the final straw.
First blood came when a farmer went to check on his ailing livestock one fateful night. It was said that this farmer had suffered particularly hard at the hands of the recent tragedies. He struggled to produce a harvest, his animals were dying, and his dearest son had been missing for over a month, spirited away to who-knows-where. So it was said that when he saw the glow of ghostly wings in the dead of night approaching his livestock, he did not hesitate.
At the hands of a despairing farmer and his hatchet, a Fae was killed.
And, as if a curse had been lifted by this act, his animals grew healthy again, and he received a bountiful harvest.
This was all the proof the people needed to begin the Fae Hunts. At the behest of the cries of the people, the Supreme Guardian of the time began putting measures into place to both protect against and seek out and execute the members of this mysterious species. An era of bloodshed against an entire race the people once revered took place. The Fae who were once known as peaceful spirits were now known as malevolent phantoms who lured people into a false sense of security to prey upon them. Some believed they may have even secretly been emissaries of the Dark God, sent to weaken them from within. And just like that, centuries of coexistence were undone almost overnight.
Centuries passed. Sightings of the Fae folk became scarcer and scarcer until they faded into little more than scary stories for the people of Belobog to frighten their children with. “If you don’t behave, the Fae will come to snatch you away”, and so on. On the rare occasions where a Fae was spotted, the Silvermane Guards would be dispatched to perform a thorough investigation, and, if their search was successful, execute the fiend immediately lest they escape to wreak further havoc.
These were the orders Oleg, Captain of Rivet Town’s Silvermane Guard regiment, was given when reports started coming in about a mysterious winged phantom stalking the streets. The reports claimed this phantom was responsible for multiple thefts and violent assaults across town. As a seasoned soldier with many years of experience both at home and on the frontlines, Oleg was prepared for a fight with a troublesome monster.
What he wasn’t expecting was a little girl dressed in rags, bone-thin, and halfway through biting into a piece of moldy bread when he came across her in the rundown old shed he had tracked her to. She couldn’t have been older than seven, yet she was covered in scrapes and bruises that were easily visible through the holes in the tattered rags she wore. And sure enough, a pair of translucent purple and blue butterfly wings sprouted from her back, just as the reports claimed.
Was this truly the deceitful Fae spoken of in the history books? What he saw before him on that day was no devious manipulator, but a homeless child struggling to survive on the streets. A sight more common than Oleg would’ve liked. Upon seeing him, she had hissed and hurriedly stuffed the rest of her moldy bread in her mouth, more concerned with having her food taken from her than her own well-being. If this was all some sort of deception, it was either foolish or brilliant.
It took some cajoling and an offering of rations, but Oleg managed to coax the girl into sitting down and talking. Apparently her name was Seele, and she had been living on these streets for as long as she could remember. When asked how she had stayed in town so long without reports of a winged girl popping up sooner, she proceeded to show off an ability of hers to make her wings vanish completely. Was this what made the Fae so good at staying hidden? Could it be that there were other Fae folk among the citizens of Belobog, simply living as normal people with nobody the wiser? The records never made any mention of this possibility. What else could the records have gotten wrong, he wondered?
Many questions swirled in Oleg’s head, but there was one that took presence above all else. How was he supposed to handle this? If he captured her and brought her back to the Silvermane Guards, could he ask his superiors to be lenient with her on account of being a mere child? He doubted it. As far as the law was concerned, the Fae were dangerous monsters to be killed on sight like any other of the Dark God’s demons. They’d probably just write off her childlike appearance as an illusion meant to trick them and have her put down anyway.
As a soldier, it was Oleg’s duty to follow orders, but more importantly, wasn’t it his duty to protect the innocent people of Belobog? What sort of person would he be if he sentenced some kid to death over a few dusty old documents and ghost stories? And if it turned out that this really was all some elaborate ruse to lure him into a false sense of security…
Well, call him an old fool, but he was the type of man who’d rather trust and regret than doubt and regret.
He offered his hand to the young girl…
Ever since the day old Oleg took Seele in, life had gotten a bit easier, but also a lot more complicated.
He had left her in the care of Natasha, a kindly doctor who also ran an orphanage. She was given a roof to sleep under every night, and three meals a day. A definitive upgrade over just one meal every couple days. Things were pretty good for her in that regard.
On the downside, she now had to follow strict rules set in place by her caretakers. No stealing from others, no getting into fights, and above all, no letting people know she was a Fae. She learned to respect the first rule nearly a month after she started staying at the orphanage, when she had fought off an older man over the last bit of water in the well. She had later spotted that same man lying on a cot in Natasha’s clinic. She stopped stealing after that day.
The other two rules weren’t ingrained into her so easily.
“Seele,” Natasha said in her stern mother voice. “What did you do this time?”
A ten-year-old Seele—estimated age, she wasn’t sure what her actual birthday was—crossed her arms, pouting, trying to ignore the soreness from the bruises covering her body. Including the very visible one on her left cheek. “I’m the one who’s beat up here. How come it’s my fault, huh?”
“Is it not? Then how did you get these bruises, hm?” The woman asked evenly.
“I, uh… fell down some stairs.” See said lamely.
“Fell down some stairs,” Natasha repeated. “So then that gossip I heard about a little girl getting into a fight with some local hoodlums this morning must’ve been referring to someone else?”
“I ain’t little!” Seele protested.
“So it was you then.”
“Urk…”
Natasha sighed. “Come on in. I’ll treat your injuries, and you’ll tell me what happened.” It was not a request.
Seele grumbled, but followed Natasha into her clinic. For as long as Seele had been in the woman’s care, she had never once been able to pull a fast one on her. She always seemed to know when Seele was up to no good. Not that Seele would ever admit to it being “no good”.
“So, tell me what happened,” Natasha urged as she sat Seele down on one of the cots and grabbed her supplies.
“They had it coming,” Seele insisted. “They were bullying an old man out of his stuff. So I beat ‘em up.”
“Seele,” the doctor chastised. “We’ve been over this. If you see something like that happen, you come tell me or Oleg and we’ll take care of it. You shouldn’t put yourself in danger like that.”
“But you wouldn’t have gotten there in time!” Seele said adamantly. “Bsides, you two are way too busy to deal with a few jerks like the–ow, ow, ow!”
Seele hissed as Natasha started scrubbing a nasty scrape on her arm with a cloth soaked in warm water. “So instead of taking time out of my busy schedule to deal with some miscreants, you’d rather I take time out of it to treat a reckless young lady?”
Seele looked away, feeling a little guilty but not enough to admit it.
Natasha sighed. “We’ll discuss this later. Did you use your powers? Or show your wings?”
“So what if I did?”
“Seele…” Natasha warned.
“I only had my wings out for a second,” Seele said defensively. “They probably didn’t even notice.” How else would she have been expected to swoop in and punch their leader in the face?
“Seele, look at me,” Natasha said sternly. Seele did so, but had trouble meeting the doctor’s steely gaze. “Even a glimpse is enough to get rumors circulating. We’ve been over this. You can’t show your wings in public.”
“Well why the hell not!?” Seele griped. “They’re my wings! I should be able to do what I want with them! Why should I have to hide? It’s not fair!”
She hated that rule more than any of the others her caretakers pushed upon her. They had told her many times why she had to stay hidden, and she knew the stories people told about folks with wings like hers, but she still hated it. Those stories were all so stupid anyway. Honestly, how would she even do things like cause bad harvests or whatever? And what reason did those jerks think she could possibly have for kidnapping other kids? And to think, adults thought themselves smart.
Natasha’s gaze softened. “I know, Seele. Trust me, if we lived in a kinder world, I would let you float and fly and dance through the air to your heart’s content. But we have to consider our survival first and foremost. Revealing yourself like that could attract dangerous attention to you, or at worst, the rest of the orphanage.”
“If you want me to leave, then just say so,” Seele huffed. “I’ll just go back to living on the streets. That way nobody will bother the orphanage. I did it once, I can do it again.”
“That’s not what I meant, Seele.” Natasha’s serious expression shifted to a kind, motherly smile. “Tell you what, this weekend, why don’t you, me, and Oleg take a little trip down to the lakeside? We’ll bring some snacks, skip some pebbles by the water, and you can stretch your wings while we’re there too.”
Seele’s face brightened immediately. “You mean it?”
Natasha nodded, then held up one finger. “But first you have to promise to take it easy while you recover. No getting into fights. Understood?”
Seele pouted, but nodded reluctantly.
She had been too young to fully comprehend the situation at the time. So what if some Fae had done some bad things in the past? None of that had anything to do with her, and it wasn’t as if anybody actually believed those ghost stories anyway, right? And even if they did and decided to pick a fight with her over it, she’d just fight them off like always. She had survived in one of Belobog’s roughest towns for this long, a few more jerks to beat up wasn't anything to worry over.
That was what she had thought at the time. The true gravity of the situation wouldn’t set in until a few days later when a fire broke out at Natasha’s orphanage in the middle of the night. Thankfully, Natasha’s quick thinking allowed the children to escape mostly unharmed, and the fire was brought under control before it could bring down the whole building. Even so, many possessions and memories were lost in the flames, and they had to relocate to a temporary home while repairs were made using their already meager funds.
It wasn’t even two days later that Oleg managed to track down the culprits. Seele could only watch in quiet anger as the men she had fought several days prior were restrained and hauled along by the Silvermane Guards.
One of the men, clearly drunk off his ass by the way he swayed as he walked, caught sight of her and matched her glare with his own.
“Ya got it all wrong!” He slurred at the guards. “Was’n us who set the fires. Was dat damn child-snatcher over there! Ya know the stories! Ya know it’s jus’ the kinda stuff those winged freaks’d do!”
“Blaming ghost stories for your crimes?” One of the guards scoffed. “Get real. You punks aren’t as clever as you think.”
“It ain’t a story!” One of the drunken crook’s less-drunk-but-still-pretty-drunk companions said. “It’s true! That little brat with the two-toned hair over there, she really is one o’ them! I saw it with my own two eyes as she came at us like a crazed banshee!”
“Sure, sure. Tell it to the judge.”
“It’s the honest-to-Amber-Lord truth!” The very drunk one insisted. “So like, could ya really blame us for wanting to off the freak? I mean, her kind has it comin’, right?”
“Dumbass! Saying that is like confessing we did it!”
The crooks kept rambling and arguing as they were taken away, but Seele was no longer paying attention. Oleg patted her on the shoulder and said something, probably some words of comfort, but Seele wasn’t paying attention to that either. She wasn’t perturbed by the words of those thugs. She was angry.
A more self-deprecating person might’ve blamed themselves for what happened to the orphanage, but Seele? She saw the situation for what it was. Just a couple of twisted assholes who thought they could get away with hurting others because they saw themselves as superior. Because they thought she was somehow lesser than them because she was different. They used their prejudice as a cheap justification to burn down a whole orphanage just to get back at her. It was little different then when they tried robbing that old man.
Seele did learn a lesson that day, though perhaps not quite the lesson Natasha had hoped to impart onto her. Nevertheless, she did become more cautious about revealing her true nature to others from that day forward.
In the end, the promise to play by the lakeside had been forgotten.
Years passed, and things continued to change. The biggest and most tragic change was the invasion of Rivet Town. An abnormally large breach in Qilpoth’s Great Barrier had led to an invasion from the Legion. The Silvermane Guards were quick to evacuate as many citizens as they could and set up a defensive line at Rivet Town to quell the invasion. They eventually succeeded, but the town was still considered a danger zone due to the breach, so citizens were urged to stay away for their own safety.
The evacuated citizens were mostly relocated to the neighboring settlement of Boulder Town. The massive influx of people caused a lot of problems. Shelter, food, and work became scarce commodities, forcing many to vagrancy. Survival became an even greater struggle than it had been in Rivet Town. Homelessness and crime became common sights. And the Silvermane Guards, who should’ve been there to protect and support the citizens, were nowhere to be found. The majority of their forces had been called to the frontlines to plug the breach, leaving the people of Boulder Town to fend for themselves.
In the absence of the Silvermane Guards, Natasha and Oleg stepped forward. Oleg had fought in the battle for Rivet Town, losing his left arm in the process. He used his injury as his excuse to retire and stay behind in Boulder Town. Together, he and Natasha founded the Wildfire organization to keep the peace and provide relief efforts to the townsfolk whenever they could.
As Seele grew older and wiser throughout it all—relatively speaking—she came to realize how much she had taken Oleg and Natasha’s kindness for granted. Those two were practically saints the way they stuck their necks out for everyone, especially her. It wasn’t easy for a mere child to fully grasp just how big of a risk they took by taking her in and covering for her whenever she did something stupid. Now that she was a young adult, she made sure to repay that kindness as much as she could.
In her own way.
“Come on already. How much longer ‘til you get that thing open?”
“Hold your horses will you? I’m working as fast as I can here…”
At Boulder Town’s geomarrow mining site in the dead of night, a group of five rough-looking young men huddled near a storehouse. Their goal? To raid it for all it was worth. Just another case of a group of wannabe thugs trying to make a quick buck at the expense of others.
“Do we really gotta go through the trouble of picking the lock?” One of them asked. “Why don’t we just bust it open and get it over with?”
“And wake up all the sleeping miners? Yeah, let’s not,” another one replied.
“It’s not the miners I’m worried about…” the thug said, casting a nervous glance up and down the surrounding area. “The longer we take, the bigger the chance of you-know-what showing up.”
The other thug scoffed. “What, you mean the Phantom of Boulder Town? The cloaked reaper that appears out of nowhere to clobber criminals who cause trouble? That’s just a rumor people spread to scare kids into behaving. Don’t tell me you believe it.”
“This ain’t a joke, man!” The worried thug insisted. “Some of my buddies ran into it just last week during a shakedown, and walked away bloody, bruised, and missing teeth! I don’t want that to be me, man!”
Seele listened to the men bicker from barely a meter away, her form completely cloaked by her Fae magic, as well as an actual ragged purple cloak. “Honestly, if you punks didn’t want to risk me showing up…” she said, startling all the men present. She chose that moment to dispel her invisibility, revealing her cloaked form, as well as the large purple scythe she had taken to wielding. “…then you shouldn’t have resorted to burglary in the first place!”
She raised her scythe up high, then brought it down in a slow, purposeful arc. The five men scrambled out of the way as the huge weapon buried itself into the ground between them.
“Oh shit, it is real!”
“I told you!”
“Don’t just stand there gawking, get it!”
They all came at her with makeshift weapons of cobbled-together scrap metal and whatever other junk they could find. With an ease that came from years of wiping the floor with street punks like these, she dipped and dodged out of the way of each strike. Each movement was punctuated with a quick burst of invisibility, a trick she picked up for disorientating the enemy. From their point of view, it must’ve looked like she was flickering in and out of existence, leaving behind afterimages for their weapons to pass harmlessly through.
Truthfully, she could’ve laid them all out while remaining completely invisible, or even picked them off one by one without any of them noticing, but that just wasn’t her style. It wasn’t just about beating them up after all, it was about sending a message.
She lashed out with her scythe, slicing one thugs’ makeshift halberd clean in half with a glowing blade of magic. Before the man could process the loss of his weapon, Seele spun her own weapon around, slamming the butt of her scythe into his gut. Before he even hit the ground, she brought her scythe up to block a strike from another thug. Then spun it around to block a strike from another. Then another. Her scythe whipped around her body like a whirlwind as she continually blocked the onslaught of attacks delivered by three of the thugs at once.
Three became four when a gunshot rang out. Seele deflected the bullet with as much ease as the other attacks and shot the culprit a glare. The last thug had a poorly-maintained rifle trained on her. The other three tried using her brief distraction to catch her by surprise. Seele proved to them just how futile that was by once more vanishing from sight. She ducked behind one of the men and reappeared before slamming her foot into the back of his knee, then clocked him in the back of the head with the pole of her scythe. She vanished again just in time for a bullet to pass through the space she once occupied. When she reappeared this time, it was to hook her scythe around the legs of one of the thugs. The underside of it wasn’t too sharp when the magical blade wasn’t active, so it wasn’t much of an issue when she swept the guy’s legs out from under him. The kick she delivered to his face afterwards was another story. She turned to face the last thug armed with a melee weapon.
Upon seeing her attention turn to him, he immediately dropped his weapon and held his hands up. “I surrender!”
“Coward!” The gunner shouted.
“He’s the only one here with some sense,” Seele commented. She kicked the surrendering thug in the gut anyway. “Use that good sense before you decide to commit a crime next time!”
That left the crook with the gun as the only one left standing. The man was shaking in his boots as Seele turned to face him. “Wanna try your luck again? Think carefully.”
The man gripped the gun with his trembling hands. A bead of sweat dripped down his face. His trigger finger tensed…
“Hey, jerk! Over here!”
A red streak came racing up the path. The thug turned to face the source of the shout just in time to receive a metal fist to his jaw. The man went sprawling across the ground, joining his companions in the dirt.
A red-haired boy with an artificial arm stood triumphantly over the incapacitated goons. Luka, a member of Wildfire and pupil to Oleg, looked down at them disapprovingly. “I heard some punks were out here trying to cause trouble for the miners. You lot should feel ashamed of yourselves. I get that you’re probably going through hard times, but making things harder for everyone else isn’t going to solve anything.”
The would-be burglars—the ones who were still conscious anyway—groaned in defeat.
“We’ll sort you all out and give you your just desserts once the other members of Wildfire get here. First things first though…” his gaze shifted to Seele. He brandished his metal fist at her resolutely. “Phantom of Boulder Town, I’m Luka of Wildfire. I challenge you to–“
Seele turned invisible before he could finish speaking. It wasn’t anything she hadn’t heard before, and as usual, she really just didn’t care to entertain him on this. Unseen to everyone, she spread her wings and took to the air so as not to leave footprints. Like the Phantom she had come to be known as, she vanished without a trace.
“Aw, come on! Not again!” Luka complained loudly as she left him to take care of the clean-up. “Come back and battle me, Phantom!”
She had been doing this for several years now. Well, maybe it was more accurate to say she had been doing this for most of her life, but it wasn’t until more recently that Nat and Oleg had started endorsing her vigilante behavior. Ever since those two had taken her in, a deeply-held desire to help others in need had grown in her heart. Unfortunately she lacked the cunning and kindheartedness that her caretakers possessed, so her ability to fight had always been one of the few things she could offer. But in order to fight to the best of her ability, she needed the powers she had possessed since her birth.
As a young adult, she better understood the ingrained prejudice Belobogians held for the Fae folk. It was a stubborn paranoia born from centuries of a bad reputation going uncontested. She still thought it was stupid and a pain in the ass, but she had come to terms with it, at least to some extent. Flaunting her wings and her powers would only invite unnecessary trouble, but doing so could also save peoples’ lives. Pondering how to reconcile this dilemma was how her identity as the Phantom of Boulder Town had been born.
Truth be told, it had actually been Nat’s idea to lean into her alternate identity as a mysterious crime-fighting ghost or whatever. ”If you’re going to keep ignoring my advice and getting into fights, you might as well be a little smarter about it,” she had said. Her powers already lent themselves well to playing the part of a specter who appeared and disappeared with the wind. Add in some tactfully circulated rumors and boom, a kind boogeyman who roams the streets at night to punish evildoers was born. Cultivating this urban legend made it less likely for the Silvermane guards to come poking around in search of a Fae, and so long as she kept her wings hidden from sight, it would stay that way.
Or so she had thought anyway…
After that run-in with the thugs by the mine, Seele had spent some time patrolling the streets for a bit longer before turning in for a short rest. She had never needed as much sleep as other folk—a fact that had caused no shortage of headaches for Natasha when she was younger—so she was perfectly well-rested by the time the sun rose the next day.
“Morning, Seele,” Luka greeted her as she arrived at Wildfire’s headquarters, which was more of a repurposed warehouse than a proper facility. But hey, if it was usable, that was good enough. “You missed one hell of a night.“
“Oh? Do tell,” Seele said with disinterest.
“We caught some thugs trying to rob the miners," he explained with his usual enthusiasm. “And, get this, I saw the Phantom again!”
“Did you now? Did you finally get them to fight you?” She asked, knowing full-well the answer already.
Luka groaned loudly. “If only! They dipped again before I could even finish delivering my challenge declaration! Man, what do I have to do to get them to accept my challenge?”
“You could always try committing a crime,” she suggested dryly.
“Not funny Seele. I’m not that kinda guy.”
Among the members of Wildfire, only Oleg, Natasha, and a few select others knew about her alternate identity. Luka was not one of them. She wouldn’t trust that loudmouth with her locker combination, much less this. Not to mention she really didn’t need him hounding her night and day demanding a fight. She was perfectly content with him thinking he was stronger than her if it meant avoiding that fate.
The two of them made their way to the back room Oleg used as both an office and meeting room. Their usual routine involved checking in with him first thing in the morning, discussing any notable happenings, and making plans for the rest of the day from there. If nothing in particular was planned for the day, Seele and Luka would make the rounds patrolling the streets. Usually separately. Today however, their routine was quickly interrupted by some unforeseen guests.
“Yo, Oleg! Seele and I are in and reporting for duty!” Luka announced as they entered. “What’s the word on the street toda–Oh.”
Luka came up short when he noticed the other individuals in the room. Four of them, two men dressed in standard Silvermane Guard armor, and two young women dressed in some specialized uniforms. Seele took special note of the one in front who seemed to have been in discussion with Oleg before they walked in. Her white uniform was clean and adorned with various details and decorations that made Seele question if it was really made with combat in mind. The girl’s long silver hair curled into drills behind her. Between that, her uniform, and the dignified way she carried herself, she looked downright regal. Which, in a place like Boulder Town, meant she stood out. Sorely. Seele felt poorer just by looking at her.
“Ah, Luka, Seele,” Oleg greeted them. “You’re just in time actually. This is acting Commander Bronya of the Silvermane Guards. She came here from the capital for an assignment. Miss Commander, these are Luka and Seele, two of Wildfire’s best.”
Silverman Guards from the capital? Well she supposed that explained Miss Princess over there. What could possibly be so important that they’d step off their high and mighty perches to come mingle with them, she wondered? She caught Oleg’s gaze, and he shot her a look. Just what was going on here?
The young woman named Bronya stepped forward and gave them a slight bow. “Greetings. As former Captain Oleg mentioned, I am acting Commander Bronya. The Madam Guardian has tasked us with investigating a certain matter that has come to her attention. We had initially planned to work with the local Silvermane Guard branch, but they told us Wildfire would be the more… suitable ones to turn to for this matter.”
That was hardly surprising. What few Silverman Guards remained in Boulder Town were pretty much just for show. Those remaining also held a great respect for Oleg, which was why Wildfire was able to operate with so much authority without a fuss being raised. Seele almost wanted to laugh at the clear sourness in this Bronya girl’s tone at having to defer to an independent organization for whatever this special assignment was.
“Woah, a mission from the Supreme Guardian herself? That’s gotta be, like, super important, right?” Luka asked cluelessly. “Oh but yeah, the name’s Luka. I’m the best fighter in Wildfire, second only to Oleg here. If this mission requires some good ol’ brute force, just say the word!”
“The offer is… appreciated, but unnecessary.” Bronya responded stiffly.
“After hearing the details of their assignment, I think the two of you would be the ones best suited to assisting them. I think you’ll both understand why once you hear about it yourselves.” Oleg shot Seele another subtle look, which just made her even more curious. “Consider this your assignment for the day. Act as guides around town for their team and help them in whatever way you can.”
Upon hearing this, Seele finally decided to speak up. “Really? Babysitting some pampered princess and her lackeys is hardly how I was hoping to spend my day, Oleg.”
“I… Excuse me!?” Bronya asked incredulously. “Just who are you calling a pampered princess?”
“What, do they not teach how to take a hint at rich girl school?” Seele taunted.
Her lackeys looked just as taken aback as their commanding officer, perhaps even moreso. One of the armored men pointed at her angrily. “Hold your tongue, miscreant! To address Lady Bronya in such a way is unacceptable!”
“Indeed!” The other armored man chipped in. “She is not only our Commander, she is the Supreme Guardian’s–“
“Biggs, Wedge, that’s quite enough,” Bronya cut them off.
“Simmer down, Seele,” Oleg lightly chastised. “I think you’ll be interested once you hear the whole story.” To Bronya, he said. “Apologies for their brashness, Miss Commander. Boulder Town is a very different place from the capital, with very different people. Let us all look past our differences and work together today, shall we?”
The pampered princess looked like she was trying to swallow something unpleasant, but nodded. “Very well. Pela, if you would?”
The other girl, a short young lady with large glasses, stepped forward. She cleared her throat. “About a month ago, the head of a noble family passed through Boulder Town on his way back to the capital from a business trip. Upon returning to the capital, he immediately came to the Silverman Guards to voice some… grievances concerning an incident that befell him here. He claimed that while out on a nightly stroll, he came under attack by a ghostly figure in a purple cloak, brandishing a massive scythe. He… strongly urged us to look into his assailant and administer justice accordingly.”
“Ahh, so this is Phantom business, huh?” Luka deduced. He rubbed his chin curiously. “Wait, but you said this noble guy was just attacked out of the blue? That seems a little odd. Surely Wildfire would’ve known about…” he snapped his fingers. “Oh wait, I remember now! He was that crotchety old drunkard who was getting handsy with some girl a few blocks down from the pub. I remember thinking he looked weirdly well-dressed for a common thug.”
Seele remembered that night. She remembered taking a special pleasure from grinding that pompous asshole’s nice clothes into the mud. From the Silvermane girl’s strained tone, it sounded like that noble had given the Guards quite the earful over that incident. Well, at least Seele now understood why Oleg wanted her involved with this case.
The corners of the short girl’s, Pela’s, lips threatened to curl up into a smile, but she remained professional. She cleared her throat again. “Be that as it may, we couldn’t just ignore a request from a noble head, so the intelligence division of the Silvermane Guards began keeping an ear out for any similar stories or rumors from travelers coming from this region. This was how we eventually came to know about the legend of the ‘Phantom of Boulder Town’.”
Seele crossed her arms. “So what, you all came down here to get revenge for some corrupt noble? I didn’t know the Silvermane Guards stooped to doing others’ dirty work like a bunch of hired thugs.”
“You uncouth youth! You would dare besmirch the good name of the Silvermane Guards!?” One of the armored men—who might’ve been Biggs or might’ve been Wedge, Seele wasn’t sure—demanded.
“Indeed!” The other armored man, whichever one he was, agreed. “We Guards are the pride of Belobog! We are no mere lap dogs to be used for a petty vendetta! Our reason for coming here is far more important than that!”
Pela nodded. “After compiling everything we had heard about the Phantom, we submitted our findings to the Supreme Guardian to decide how to handle this matter.” The tension in her face lessened slightly as she said the next part, almost sheepishly. “Truthfully, we expected her to just dismiss this as an urban legend. If she had, we could’ve used her authority to ignore the demands of the nobleman. But, well…”
Bronya stepped forward, taking command of the conversation again. “The Madam Guardian, upon reviewing the information at hand, dispatched us to uncover the truth behind this so-called Phantom. Because she believes there may be a more sinister force behind this legend.”
“She believes the Phantom may be a Fae.”