Delana
ruled over Jillian’s heart in the way that Jillian ruled over the battlefield.
She fought with her soft green eyes and red hair, her summer dresses and talent
for making Jill blush. Delana was
always the first one to turn any situation into a joke and loved to laugh. The
only time Jillian ever saw Delana cry was on their last day together when
Delana, frightened by the power of the Vanguard, made Jill choose between her
or the Vanguard armor.
The
Vanguard now fought for her life in the fortress of the deceased General Durm.
Every soldier in the meeting room rushed the Ebon knight while a servant boy
ran to alert the rest of the soldiers in the keep. News of General Durm’s death
spread like fire and soon the entire fortress had transformed into a hive of
angry bees.
Blood
painted the walls with each swing of the Vanguard’s axe. Jillian wielded her
two-handed battle-axe with both hands. She would normally flail her large
weapon around with one hand but her rash decision making led to a very dire situation
and she would need her full effort to escape alive.
Axes,
spears and swords charged into the small room, stabbing, thrusting and slashing
at the demon knight. Jillian had incredible reflexes, speed and strength but
was so surrounded that even she couldn’t avoid taking damage. Blood began to
trickle from the gaps in her armor, spotting the floor and mixing with the pool
of soldier blood forming at her feet.
She rushed
forward with her axe, he eyes burning red and her black armor lit up with fiery
runes. Her helmet was still on the table from the meeting minutes before.
Jillian reached for the helmet as she pushed her way through the room and the
helmet jumped into her outstretched hand. She slammed her helmet over her head
causing more runes to scrawl across the armor. The Vanguard began emitting a
blazing heat as well and the soldiers felt like they were fighting next to a
roaring bonfire.
Through the
enchantments of the armor, the wearer is always stronger when wearing the
complete set. Now that Jillian had her helmet she was even more of an unnatural
force. The Vanguard swung her axe back and forth as she pushed forward. Each
axe swing was like a farmer cutting down wheat for the harvest, each harvest a
bloody soldier.
Jillian’s
blood stopped dripping from the armor and instead was being absorbed by the
black enchanted metal. Her blood was feeding the power of the Vanguard armor
and the more wounded she became, the stronger she grew. The armor fed on the
blood of its host and of the victims as their bodies fell. The armor wasn’t
keeping Jillian alive in any way and she could die from blood loss if she
wasn’t careful. When she reached her peak frenzy, she would stop feeling pain
and only rage would exist in her mind.
Corpses
tumbled down the stairs into the main room of the keep as the Vanguard tore
through the ranks of Durm Fortress. The Vanguard was like a nightmare made
real, a demon pulled from the earth to smite the human race and still the
soldiers fought on. The soldiers didn’t know of General Durm’s treachery, they
didn’t know that the Vanguard was indeed hired by the King and so they thought
they were fighting a great evil. They fought and died for their King and land
and Jillian didn’t have the time or mental capacity to explain otherwise.
“You are a
monster!” Shouted a terrified soldier as he slashed wildly with his sword. Most
of the slices clanked uselessly against the Vanguard’s powerful armor but the
sword strikes that hit between the gaps made Jillian bleed her life force down
into the greedy maw of the dark armor.
“You’re a monster” Cried another voice. This wasn’t a
soldier, it was a voice inside Jillian’s head. Delana sat crumpled over on the
grass as she sobbed. “You’re a monster” she cried. That was the first time Jillian
went into a frenzy.
Jillian blacked out and when she came to her senses she had
massacred a group of militiamen.
Several of the militia had been too forceful while trying to
flirt with Delana. Jillian arrived on the scene to see her love struggling to
leave as the men pulled on Delana’s arm and laughed. Jillian blacked out and in
her frenzy carved them all up and her armor drank their blood. When Jillian
heard Delana call her a monster she was struck with a pain that she had not
felt before or since.
Jillian had been hurt in a thousand different ways since
that day and hearing Delana’s words was still the worst thing she experienced.
The sadness
of that moment tore through her mind like daggers and the rage in Jillian
swelled. The loneliness, the heartache and the loss would all be rolled into a
ball of anger and forced onto the soldiers of Durm’s fortress who thought they
were fighting for their King.
The
Vanguard made it out of the keep and into the courtyard when her blood loss
began to slow her movements. Archers rained arrows down from the guard towers
set up along the walls. “Close the gates!” Shouted the captain of the guards.
The soldiers surrounded Jillian as the arrows continued to fall. The Vanguard
lashed out with slow powerful axe swings, each swing sent out a burst of flames
that would burn up arrows and scorch exposed skin. Magical flames would burst
out from the runes on the armor with each step the Vanguard took. The armor
wasn’t sentient but the magic in the armor was enhanced by blood and at that
moment the armor was drenched in it.
Jillian’s
vision started to blur as she rushed forward. Jillian stopped moving but the
armor continued expelling bursts of flames from everywhere and her axe burned
with molten heat. The Vanguard was drenched in blood, covered in wounds, with
arrows sticking out of her. The soldiers began to feel that they won and began
to cheer.
Then the Vanguard shook and launched forward in a dead
sprint. The dark knight moved like a bolt of lighting, ran straight into the
gate and collided into the massive door with enough force to cause a shockwave.
A loud boom and a shockwave was sent up into the archer towers toppling the
soldiers from their perch. The Gate cracked open just enough and the Vanguard
continued its mad dash to escape. A giant hole was torn through the metal gate,
the edges of the hole were burnt from heat, bent back and curled up as if the
metal was as flexible as clay.
Durm fortress was left in ruin, trails of bodies and
smearing of blood ran through the halls. The Vanguard was nowhere to be seen.
That was the historic day in the Kingdom when the record number of soldiers,
knights, guards and servants all quit their post at the same time.
The
treachery against the King never came to pass and without General Durm the
conspirators disbanded. The King publicly denounced the actions of the Vanguard
but was secretly grateful for disposing of General Durm and those loyal to him.
As for the
Vanguard, she never reported in to the King, she never spoke to his advisor and
no one in that Kingdom reported seeing a fierce black knight.
While the legend of the Vanguard would grow in that
land for years to come, the fate of the actual Jillian Cole would remain a
mystery.
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