#1 : Meeting Knut
A young girl of fourteen stood leaning against a tree in the Gifnora Forest. Besides her loomed two bored looking boys. One of them leaned forward to whisper in her ear. “This is boring.” The boy besides him covering the sound he made as he was elbowed by the very girl he went to complain too. Her eyes never peeling away from the sight of the New Empire’s Soldiers. They had been sent here to clean up the last of the fleeing experiments from the past. The one they were currently fighting was a boy of seventeen. From all the scars on his tanned body it was evident he had been one of the children the Prime Minister probably liked to play with. The boy was doing a decent job fighting off a group of armed New Imperial Forces. She stepped out from behind the tree and the boys behind her sighed. Strings criss crossed through the trees and through their flesh. The group of soldiers suddenly held up in the air. They all looked at her in shock. “Who are you!” The one in the center shouted. The girl next to him looked at her with horror when she noticed the uniform. “That’s impossible. Your army was disbanded.” The girl could only smile as she walked forward. Small ticks could be heard on the gloves she wearing. The strings being slowly reeled in. The soldiers squirming. “Was it disbanded. I heard something about that.” The man on the other side of the leader started to beg. “Let us go. There’s no point in continuing this anymore. The war is over.” It really was too early for them to beg. The strings weren’t even cutting them that deep. She smiled at them. “Ah. I heard something about that too.” The boy from before sighed behind her loudly. “These new soldiers are so annoying.” The boy besides him shrugged. “Everything about the Capital is annoying.” The strings started to pull on them tighter. Now all three of them were making noises. The smile on her face growing bigger. That’s it. Beg. The girl on the right started to scream. “Let us go. Let us go. Let me go.” The strings stopped being pulled in. She tilted her head towards the girl. “I’ll let you go. But only one of you. Do you mind letting the other two die?” The three of them were silent. The man on the left looking at her with wide eyes. “Shera…you wouldn’t…” The girl shouted back at him. “You moron. Who wouldn’t take the chance-” The girl laughing as the words could not be finished. One of her fingers had twitched and the female soldier’s head had cleanly been removed from her body. The man on the left started screaming. She turned to the one in the center. “And you, Mr. Leader?” The man took a deep breath and stared her deep in the eyes. “Let him go. I will die.” She clapped her hands together and her eyes sparkled. “I like you. What good dog you are.” She turned to look at the panicking man. “You heard him. He told me to give you a chance to live.” The wires around him loosened and he feel to the floor. She pointed to the ground before her. “Come here and beg.” The man crawled over to the ground and looked up at her. “Please. Please let me live.” She kneeled down in front of him smiling and pat his head. “Good dog.” The man before her was about to sigh in relief when she dug her fingers into his right eye. He fell back onto the floor screaming. The man still strung up started to shout. “I told you to kill me.” She looked up at the man and cracked up laughing. “ Don’t worry. I think you’ll be the one to die.” She stood up and took a step forward. Her foot crushing down on the man’s sensitive area. His screams got louder. She watched him claw into the hard ground. “Would you do me a favor?” He stopped screaming as her foot lifted off of him. “I’ll end all of this and let you go if you go ahead and kill him for me.” The man strung up looked at her in shock. The one on the ground started to cry. She picked him up by his hair and smiled. “He did say he’d die for you.” The man turned around to face the one strung up. She let go of him and stepped back as her strings disappeared. The man fell to his knees and the one before her rushed forward. She watched as on the instinct the unharmed one pushed away the injured one. His mouth foaming as he repeated. “Die.Die. Die. Die. You said you die.” The boys behind her each took a bet. “The leader’s going to die.” said the more talkative one. The other one shook his head no. “No. It will be the broken one.” The girl smiled he lunged towards his leader again. The man tried to hold him off, but grew more and more panicked as his comrade ripped away at parts of him. Eventually, he snapped his neck. The leader falling back on his knees and looking at her. “One of us has lived.” She turned around to the one who had placed the winning bet and sighed. “You always get it right.” He simply shrugged. ‘It’s obvious.” The girl walked past the young boy on the ground who was spectating and towards the New Imperial soldier. She put her hand on his shoulder and smiled. “Congratulations.” The second after he looked up to see her smile she broke his neck. The girl walking back to the boy. He really was marked up. “What’s your name?” She watched his gaze harden as composure returned to him. How interesting. “Knut.” She turned back to those behind her. They still seemed bored. She could only sigh and turn back around. “Well Knut, do you have any particular plans?” He shook his head no. She offered him her hand. “Why not come with us.” He looked past her back at the two boys. The louder one was in a long open black military jacket with no sleeves. He had baggy black pants and wore sandals. In the patterned black cloth around his waist a sword hung. His neck had a choker of scars. You could tell by his childlike face that although he was tall he was the youngest one there. The boy next to him was also tall. However, this one had no scars or blemishes of any sort. He was in a tidy black military uniform. The two each had the same black cross on some part of their attire. The first had it as the pattern on the cloth. The second on a white armband on his left arm. Knut looked back at the girl. She was beautiful. Her short pale blue hair seemed to sway with the wind. The black cross was a clip she had pinned in her hair. Her attire was also a black military outfit. Although, she had a skirt and thigh highs… He frowned at her. “What are your names.” She smiled at him. “My name is Esrea. The two behind me are Bolt and Pechen.” She leaned even closer to him. “So, Knut. Do you want to adventure with us?” He slowly smiled. “Do I have to wear one of those?” She pulled him up off the ground and put her hand to her chest. “Of course. This is Onee-san’s symbol.” He looked at her confused. “Onee-san?” The one named Pechen walked over. “Esdeath.” Even knew that name. Everyone knew that name. Even he knew the person behind that name had died. He gasped. “You guys are her followers! I thought you were all gone. The last report the lab ever got was you being gone.” The girl grabbed his hands. “Come. Join us, Knut.” He nodded his head. “I owe her.” Esrea’s eyes got all sparkly. “Tell me. Tell me what Onee-san did for you.” Knut looked at the two boys behind her. They both sighed and looked away. He looked back at the ecstatic Esrea. He himself could only sigh. “She convinced the Empire not to kill me and trained me for three days.” The girl stood on her tip toes to grab his shoulders. She was even shorter then she appeared. “Lucky. Three days with Onee-san.” He was about to say something when her whole demeanor changes. She let go of his shoulders and turned around. She was squeezing her arms. Pechen walked over and hugged her. He looked over at Bolt confused. The young boy sighed as he kicked up dust from the ground. “It’s a pain. When two sisters don’t get to reunite.” Knut looked at the girl again. No wonder there was something oddly familiar about her. She was a small chested lolicon version of her sister. But that didn’t make sense. Esdeath had no sister. The girl turned back around and flashed a V. “It’s alright. Onee-san wouldn’t approve of dwelling.” She smiled up at Pechen. “Let’s go. We have a village to visit.” Knut sighed and started to walk ahead of them. “Let’s get going then.” Esrea cracked up laughing. “Knut. You are going the wrong way.” She walked over and grabbed his sleeve. Esrea pulling him back in the opposite direction. Bolt looking up at him. “So. What are you even good at?” Knut mimicked a bow and arrow. Pechen smiled. Knut taken aback. He smiled. “There might be something you can find a way to be put to use then.” Esrea clapped her hands together. “That’s right. We do have that.” She turned to smile at him. “You can do it, Knut.” He started to laugh. For someone like him with no place to go now he seemed to have the luck to find interesting people. “We’ll see shortie.”
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