Author's Note

Sorry for the long wait. This one really gave me difficulty. Also, I added a little thing in the previous chapter, Sweetie Void teleporting the armada from Grust because I doubt that Eggman would leave ships for the heroes to use.

Chapter 190: Macedon

The army, stronger with thousands of Manaketes, pretty much the totality of them, descended south to free the rest of Dolhr while moving toward Macedon and its capital by the same occasion. Thankfully, while most of Macedon was covered in mountains, there weren’t any in the way, so the path to reach the capital was easy.

Along the way, the army made a stop to rest briefly before resuming the march.

In an open space nearby, the sounds of a blade weaving through the air in a series of wild, yet precise and trained slashes and strikes could be heard. Kris, Altean knight and the shadowy right-hand of King Marth, found himself training like he was used to, using his regular sword as opposed to the beam one provided by Susie.

Suddenly, he felt a presence behind him and was quick to retaliate instinctively. His sword was met by the sharp end of a lance.

“Good to see you now keep yourself alert at all times even during training, Sir Kris,” a familiar voice spoke to him, and Kris took a moment to look at the one that voice belonged to.

Kris was quick to recognize the man. ”Sirius! It’s you… just like that one time…” Kris said, remembering the only time he ever saw his face before.

He chuckled. ”Indeed. Although now I suppose it is no use anymore to hide myself under a fake name so you may call me Camus now, as it is my birth name.”

Kris nodded. ”Right, Camus… Even though I heard the story from His Majesty himself, it’s all still complicated.”

Camus agreed. He really would have preferred his whole ordeal remained a secret at least while he still lived.

That had ended when both Continents were brought together and he was inevitably spotted, making questions fly around.

“Sir Kris, I was hoping you would do me the favor of answering some questions of mine. About how everything went after…after last time.”

Kris regarded him for a moment, but finally agreed. ”Of course, I can do that,” he said. Both him and Camus then moved out of where Kris was training to a more comfortable and private space where both sat down to talk.

Kris hummed. ”You know, all things considered, I now understand why you wanted me to tell no one about your true identity back then.”

Camus sighed, not for the first time regretting his whole story had to come out like this.

During the War of Shadows, Camus was a knight of Grust and the leader of Its most important order of elite knights, the Sable Order.

During the war, it was him who took the role of occupying the Kingdom of Archanea and held captive the woman who at the time was the Princess of the Kingdom, Nyna. Despite this, both were quick to develop mutual feelings for each other. It helped that Camus was a true knight through and through, refusing to put the kingdom and its people through any more unnecessary pain and going out of his way to ensure they lived as good as they could given the circumstances. When the time came, however, he refused to betray his country to the end, leading to him and Marth to meet in combat and be defeated, disappearing from the continent in the process.

That was how he ended up washing ashore in Valentia in the coast of Rigel, miraculously still alive and able to be rescued by a woman named Tatiana who was a healer that nursed him back to health. Camus, having lost his memory due to his harsh journey, took the name of Zeke and promptly he and Tatiana ended up falling in love. In the face of his lost memory he still retained his peerless skill, which was why he later was blackmailed into supporting the rigelian army during Valentia's own war when a witch named Nuibaba kidnapped Tatiana, and she even intended to absorb her lifeforce to live longer. Luckily she was rescued by Alm and once he learned of this, he immediately joined him, helping to end the Fell Dragon Duma and bring peace to Valentia.

He would have lived peacefully after that…if it wasn’t for him eventually recovering his memories. Despite wanting to hide this from Tatiana and keep living in peace, he was unable to hold himself the moment news of a new war was brewing in his home continent and left to once again support Marth under the guise of Sirius, a mysterious knight with his own reasons to support the at the time prince of Altea. Being a key figure during the war by snapping Princess Nyna out of Gharnef's mind control and helping vanquish the fiend once and for all, in the end his love for Tatiana won out against Nyna's choosing to keep his identity hidden until the end and return to Valentia.

Now, here he was. Unable to just use a mask again when both armies of each continent encountered each other and he was recognized, the questions everyone had left him no option but to let the truth out in the open.

“...Tatiana and I haven’t exchanged a single word since then. I don't believe she hates me, I don't think she ever really could…but it is clear the truth upsetted her greatly, and is focusing solely on this war both to keep the topic out of her mind and to… evade me. She never comes out of the medical bay,” Camus said.

“Mmm. Tatiana, your partner right? Well I don't know all that much about love but… when someone is upset about something, they just need time. To get it out of their system, you know?” Kris said.

Camus nodded. “I believe so too, which is why I don't push the issue. Still, if only my grievances were just that…”

“Oh, you mean about the Sable Order," Kris said, understanding what he was saying.

“During the War of Heroes, Belf, a subordinate of mine, also was made aware of my true identity and had been trying to defend me but… at best, most of the Sable Order are still unsure how to feel about it all while there's those that even openly feel betrayed and are keen to remind me so. To see those that I once considered my brothers-in-arms threaten me so coldly… And even then, I can't say I blame them one bit.”

Silence hung between the two of them, before Camus shook his head.

“Enough of that. I did drag you here for some questions, didn't I, Sir Kris?”

Thus, Kris and Camus started conversing, with Kris more than willing to tell him about what had been of most everyone since the War of Heroes. It warmed Camus's heart to learn Jubelo and Yuliya had been leading a good life up until now (it also mortified him the fact that she was still yet to be rescued) and that in his absence the Sable Order continued to tend to their duties with diligence.

Then eventually, he asked about Nyna.

“Kris… I’ve got to ask… Princess Nyna. What has become of her?”

Kris looked down for a moment before turning to look at him straight in the eyes.

"She disappeared after the last war. Seeing as none of the Valentians seem to know, one can only assume she either fled to somewhere else or..."

Camus closed his eyes and sighed deeply. Neither he or Kris said anything for a while.

"...I see. Thank you kindly, Sir Kris. I… needed to know. About her and the others. Wherever she is… I just hope she found peace."

"I'm sure she did."

Camus looked at him, and smiled.

Despite his smile, Kris still saw the melancholy behind his gaze.

“Well, that’s about everything I had to ask of you. Thank you for your time, Sir Kris.”

“Any time, Camus. Now, how about we spar?”

Camus got caught off-guard by his words.

“I… beg your pardon?”

“You hear me. C'mon, I've heard the stories. Any aspiring knight in our continent has, about how ‘the grand Camus of the Sable Order is the most able warrior alive’. What, you think it will be the same as when we first meet? Heh, let me tell you're dead wrong there! I have gotten stronger like you wouldn't imagine since then!”

Camus only looked at Kris for a moment before lightly chuckling to himself.

“It’s good to see you still remain as ever Sir Kris. Very well, let us duel.”

“Alright! And you better not hold back, I'll notice!”

Returning to where he was training before, Camus behind him, Kris smiled to himself.

During their duel, he saw none of that melancholy plaguing his eyes.

They reached Macedon’s capital, replaced by yet another megapolis of steel and pollution, this time defended by many roboticized pegasus knights and dracoknights, pegasi and wyverns included. There were also countless robot dracoknights, including one with the destructive energy among them, Sweetie Void could feel.

And that wasn’t counting the regular flying badniks that were like a dark cloud surrounding the city.

Incoming aerial battle.

“Archers, be ready! Flying units, be careful!” Marth said.

“And of course, they are smart enough to spread the roboticized so I can’t blow up huge chunks of the cloud in one go,” Sweetie Void said. “Well, I guess that I will blow up small chunks instead.”

But before that, she sent a double to deal with the robot possessing destructive energy, the Egg Alexander. Like in all the previous battles, she also sent several doubles to deal with the dragons, and also to destroy some of the traps present all over the battlefield.

Without surprises, there were also many wyverns without riders coming from all over Macedon to unleash missiles on the army. Sweetie made sure to deal with all of them and to leave a double to defend the army with a shield whenever one of the many missiles wasn’t destroyed in time.

At least, the wyverns with riders didn’t have missiles, but they had laser breaths, which was actually worse. It was harder to deal with lasers, especially that many. And since most of them came from the sky, the generals and barons couldn’t get in the way to tank them with the Shield Cloaks. As a result, the healers had to work extra hard to heal the many who were hit by those lasers and survived.

Sweetie Void still made sure to deflect the laser from the Egg Alexander using her most powerful mirror. The Egg Alexander avoided the deflected laser, and Sweetie had to deflect it again to stop it from hitting the top of a skyscraper behind the dracoknight. The Egg Alexander’s wyvern then strongly flapped its wings, creating a powerful tornado that caused huge collateral damage to the robot army while it moved toward Marth’s army. Sweetie quickly countered it with her own more powerful tornado that she then dispelled once it swallowed the other, not wanting to accidentally kill a roboticized. Meanwhile, the Egg Alexander readied its spear, accumulating energy, before he threw it toward the filly. The spear immediately broke the speed of sound, and Sweetie barely had time to react before she caught the spear between her hooves with a mighty shockwave. She still flew backward a long distance before she stopped, the spear piercing her by a few millimeters.

As soon as she stopped, Sweetie Void used her magic to turn the spear around before throwing it toward the Egg Alexander. The robot tried to dodge it, but Sweetie used her magic to change the spear’s trajectory so it still ended up piercing it right in the head. The wyvern opened its mouth to fire another laser, but the alicorn crushed its head with her magic, stopping it.

The Egg Alexander destroyed, she could focus on the other robots.

Meanwhile, while the archers and flying units were fighting off the flying robots as best they could despite their overwhelming number, the rest of the army still had the ground robots to destroy. While these robots were less numerous than the flying ones, there were still thousands of them helped by the traps that Sweetie hadn’t destroyed, plus some remaining dragons.

Kris and Camus decided to take on the dragons together, killing them one after another very easily thanks to their futuristic weapons and their teamwork, while the others eliminated the robots that were in the way. The mages helped a lot.

Thanks to that, more of Sweetie’s doubles were free to take on the robots, especially the flying ones, or protect the army from the lasers.

Soldiers eventually encountered roboticized barbarians, like in Dolhr, and like in Dolhr, they didn’t bother trying to save them. They were less numerous than in Dolhr however.

Thanks to Sweetie, the flying robots were all eliminated before the ground robots, and after that, it was only a matter of time before the troops entered the city to liberate the citizens. Like all the previous times, a long and intense urban battle began, but the heroes were used to it by now.

During the battle, Frost, an old bishop ally of Marth, joined them once given a staff.

The city was eventually taken without problem arising.