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The 103rd Cadet Corps 2nd Quadrant…
Smoke had stopped curling from blackened timbers. The ground was a churned mess of ash, mud, and the remnants of a hundred small tragedies; a singed training uniform here, a shattered practice sword there, the scattered pages of a cadet's half-finished letter home. The stench of burned wood and something fouler underneath hung in the air like a physical weight, pressing down on everyone who entered.
And through this devastation, three men in ill-fitting Military Police uniforms labored under the watchful eyes of their actual colleagues; the Interior MPs who'd been assigned to "supervise" the investigation.
Ser Valerius moved with stiff dignity despite his injuries, his ruined eye hidden beneath a fresh bandage, his remaining eye fixed on the ground as he sifted through rubble with mechanical precision. The MP uniform felt like a costume, which it was; a humiliation carefully calculated by Lord Aldric to remind him of his failure.
Beside him, Gideon and Agil were not handling their own costumes with equal composure.
"This is bullshit," Gideon growled, hefting a chunk of charred timber and tossing it aside with more force than necessary. The movement made his jacket strain alarmingly across his massive shoulders. "Absolute, complete, total bullshit."
The jacket was, indeed, a catastrophe of tailoring. Designed for the standard MP build—lean, trim, the kind of physique that came from pushing papers instead of pushing enemies…it had no hope of containing Gideon's bulk. The shoulders strained at every seam, the sleeves rode up past his wrists, and the buttons across his chest looked moments away from achieving escape velocity. Below, the white trousers were an even greater crime against fashion and comfort. They clung to his thick thighs like a second skin, leaving nothing to the imagination, and were so tight around his waist that he'd abandoned the belt entirely, letting it dangle uselessly from a loop.
"I can't breathe in this thing," he continued, tugging at the collar. "I can't move. I look like a—a—"
"A stuffed potato?" Agil offered, not looking up from his own task; trying to pry a crystalline shard from beneath a collapsed support beam. His bandaged side throbbed with every movement, a constant reminder of the crystal Titan's backhand.
Gideon's face purpled. "I was going to say 'a gentleman,' but sure, let's go with potato. At least potatoes are useful. This?" He gestured at his entire body. "This is a disgrace. Sir Aldric couldn't have just let us wear our own gear? Had to make us dress like these—these paper-pushers?"
"Consider it penance," Valerius said flatly, not looking up from his own search. "For our failure. For the purge that wasn't. For our comrades who died. For every mistake that led us here." His voice was cold, controlled, but there was an edge to it; the sound of a man barely containing a scream.
Gideon and Agil exchanged glances. They'd learned, over the past few days, that Valerius was not to be engaged when he got like this. Better to let him brood and take out their frustrations on each other.
"He's really got it in for us," Gideon muttered, lowering his voice. "Sending us back here, to the scene of the; of everything. Forced to wear these—these costumes. While the real MPs stand around and watch."
"They're not all real MPs," Agil pointed out, nodding subtly toward a cluster of guards near the tree line. "Half of them are ours. The rest are just... window dressing."
"Doesn't matter. We're still the ones doing the digging." Gideon grunted, lifting another piece of wreckage. "While they stand there looking important."
They worked in silence for a while, the only sounds the scrape of debris being moved, the distant calls of workers elsewhere on the site, and the occasional crackle of embers still smoldering somewhere deep in the ruins.
Agil spotted something; a glint of green, half-hidden beneath a fallen beam and a pile of shattered stone. He crouched, ignoring the protest from his injured side, and peered into the gap.
"Got something," he called. "Crystal shard. Looks intact."
Gideon lumbered over, his too-tight trousers making his gait even more awkward than usual. "Where? I don't see—"
"Under the beam. Help me move it."
They bent together, Gideon taking the brunt of the weight while Agil worked to free the obstruction. The beam was heavy, soaked with water from the firefighting efforts, and it shifted reluctantly.
"Almost... got it..." Agil grunted, reaching for the shard.
Then his bandaged side seized.
The pain was sudden and vicious; a white-hot spike that lanced through his ribs and stole his breath. He stumbled, crashing into Gideon, who was already off-balance from the beam.
"WATCH IT!" Gideon roared, dropping the beam with a crash that shook the ground. He spun, fists clenched, his massive frame radiating fury. "What the hell is wrong with you?!"
Agil clutched his side, gasping. "Sorry—cramp—ribs—"
"Ribs?" Gideon's laugh was bitter, humorless. "You think you've got problems?" He jabbed a thick finger at his own face; at the bandaged nose, still swollen and purple, at the bruises ringing his jaw, at the general air of a man who'd been used as a punching bag by a ten-year-old girl. "Look at this! Two kids! Two children clobbered me! A whole me! Do you see me complaining?"
"You complain constantly," Agil shot back, straightening with a wince. "It's basically all you do."
"Because I have reason to complain! You—"
"At least you can still breathe without feeling like someone's stabbing you!"
"Breathing? I can't even sit in these pants! They're cutting off circulation to vital areas!"
"Vital areas? What vital areas? You're all muscle and no—"
"ENOUGH!"
Valerius's voice cut through their argument like a blade. He was upon them before either could react, his remaining blue eye blazing with a fury that made them both take an involuntary step back. In two swift movements, he grabbed each by the collar; Gideon's straining jacket, Agil's looser fit; and shoved.
Gideon staggered but held his ground, his bulk absorbing the impact. Agil was not so lucky. His feet tangled, his injured side screamed, and he went down hard, directly onto the pile of rubble he'd been trying to clear.
There was a crack, a shower of debris, and a startled yelp as the fallen beam shifted, the stones beneath it gave way, and Agil found himself flat on his back, staring up at his enraged superior.
"You two," Valerius snarled, looming over them, "are idiots. Complete, utter, absolute idiots. We are here on a penance detail, under the direct orders of Lord Aldric, and you choose now to squabble like children?!"
Gideon opened his mouth to protest. Valerius's glare shut it.
"We are here to work. To find whatever evidence remains. To prove our worth after a catastrophic failure that has left the Order exposed and our master displeased. And you two—" He jabbed a finger at each in turn. "—can't go five minutes without acting like overgrown toddlers!"
"Sir, if you'd just let me explain—" Agil started, pushing himself up on his elbows.
"I don't want explanations! I want results! I want—"
Valerius stopped.
His remaining eye had caught something. A glint. Not green, like the crystal shards that littered the site, but something else. Something... paler.
Gideon noticed his superior's sudden stillness. "Sir? What is it?"
Valerius didn't answer. He was staring at the spot where Agil had fallen; at the rubble that had shifted, the stones that had rolled aside, revealing what lay beneath.
Gideon followed his gaze.
And froze.
"What?" Agil looked from one to the other, confusion replacing his pain. "What are you looking at? Did I land on something important? Is it another shard? Because if it is, I claim—"
He turned his head to see what they were staring at.
The words died in his throat.
It was a head.
A human head, or what had once been one; now encased entirely in a solid block of green crystal, its features frozen in an expression of silent, eternal horror. The eyes were wide, the mouth open in a scream that would never be heard, the skin beneath the crystal's surface still intact. It was one of their own; a Forever Knight, one of the squad that had engaged the crystal Titan during the purge. The armor fragments nearby confirmed it.
Agil's scream was immediate and undignified. He scrambled backward, away from the grisly relic, crashing into Gideon's legs and nearly sending them both tumbling.
"HOLY FRITZ!" he shrieked, his voice cracking. "WHAT—WHAT IS THAT?!"
Gideon, to his credit, managed to stay upright, though his face had gone several shades paler than usual. "It's—that's—one of ours. From the—from the engagement. The crystal Titan—it—"
"I can see what it is!" Agil was still scrambling, putting as much distance between himself and the crystalline horror as possible. "I meant—why is it—how did it—"
"Enough."
Valerius's voice cut through their panic like a knife. He was already moving, crouching beside the severed head with an expression that was... not fear. Not revulsion. Something else entirely.
He studied it for a long moment, his remaining eye tracing the contours of the crystal, the frozen expression beneath, the way the light caught the facets and scattered into rainbows.
Then his lips curved into a smile.
"Get me a sack," he said quietly.
Gideon blinked. "Sir?"
"A sack. A bag. Something to carry this in." Valerius didn't look up, his attention fixed on the crystal head. "Now."
The two knights exchanged glances, but they'd learned not to question Valerius when he got that tone. Gideon retrieved a heavy canvas sack from their supply cache; the kind used for collecting evidence, for carrying supplies, for disposing of bodies. He held it out wordlessly.
Valerius took it. With surprising gentleness, he lifted the crystal head from its resting place and slid it into the sack. The weight was considerable, but he handled it like precious cargo.
"Sir," Agil ventured, having finally found his feet, "what—what are you going to do with that?"
Valerius stood, adjusting his grip on the sack. His smile had not faded. If anything, it had grown.
"Propaganda," he said simply.
Gideon frowned. "Propaganda?"
"Think about it." Valerius's voice was calm now, almost meditative. "The crystal Titan; Obsidian; is a problem. A variable we cannot control, cannot predict, cannot eliminate. It appears, it acts, it vanishes. The people whisper about it. Some have begun to... venerate it."
Agil's eyes widened. "You're not suggesting—"
"I'm suggesting that we cannot beat an enemy we don't understand. But we can use him." Valerius hefted the sack. "This—this is proof. Proof that Obsidian who is called the so-called wall guardian is not a savior, not a protector. It is a monster. It kills without mercy. It traps its victims in eternal crystal prisons, frozen in their final moments of terror."
He held the sack up, letting the light catch its contours.
"Imagine this displayed in the capital. In Stohess. In every district where whispers of the 'Crystal Titan' have taken root. Imagine the people seeing what their would-be protector truly does to those who cross it."
Gideon's frown deepened, but something like understanding was dawning in his eyes. "You want to turn the narrative."
"I want to control the narrative." Valerius lowered the sack, cradling it like a precious artifact. "The government speaks of reframing Obsidian, of making it a symbol of the crown. But symbols can be twisted. And this—" He patted the sack. "—is a very sharp twist."
Agil swallowed hard. "And the fact that it was one of ours? That we were the ones attacking, the ones trying to kill cadets and burn witnesses?"
Valerius's smile widened. "Details. The public doesn't need details. They need a story. A simple, compelling story." He looked at the sack, at the horror frozen within. "A monster that preys on the innocent. That's a story everyone can understand."
Gideon and Agil exchanged another glance. There was something deeply unsettling about Valerius's calm, his calculation, his ability to turn even this…even a brother's severed, crystallized head; into a weapon.
But they didn't argue. They'd learned that arguing with Valerius was futile.
And besides, if this worked; if this turned the tide of public opinion, if it gave the Order leverage, if it redeemed them in Lord Aldric's eyes; then maybe, just maybe, this humiliating penance detail would be worth it.
Valerius slung the sack over his shoulder and turned to survey the rest of the wreckage. His remaining eye gleamed with renewed purpose.
"Keep searching," he ordered. "There may be more. More crystal, more bodies, more evidence. Find it all."
Gideon nodded, turning back to the rubble. Agil, still pale, forced himself to approach the spot where the head had been, to resume his work.
Chapter 30-31 are already available on Patreon.com/Weeb Fanthom.