Chapter Text
This certainly wasn’t a mission Hugo was exactly looking forward to, but at least it was something where he finally got free range over it. It was a simple idea, maybe a little long in process, but an easy and stealthy way to get the information that Donella needed. Hugo was to join the Coronanian Guard as a trainee, find out where they hid their valuables and other good stuff, sneak out, report back, and get his reward for a job well done. Hugo hoped it would only take a couple of weeks, maybe a month. After all, for a kingdom that so heavily cracks down on crime, their guard isn’t known for being the best or even most competent. Simple. In and out of this godforsaken place as fast as he could. Hugo thought to himself as he journeyed to the dreaded sunlight kingdom.
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Either Don had planned something to make Hugo’s infiltration a lot smoother, or both her and Hugo were extremely lucky. From the small towns he passed by on his trip, he heard of this villain that had attacked Corona, practically wiped out the entire guard, and managed to even capture the entire Royal Family. The perfect time to waltz in and say that I’m a guard trainee, no need to check anything, I’m sure you all need help. Hugo hoped thought to himself. He tried to talk to some of the gossipers, but it seemed that everything that was going on was under wraps. “I heard that they were embarrassed by how badly they failed, they haven’t told any details.” One said. “I heard that The King was hiding something that might have caused it, so no one wants to talk about it.” Bingo. The King hiding something that caused someone to attack? His mentor would thoroughly enjoy this.
The sunlight kingdom always seemed too perfect. A daughter that was kidnapped, miraculously turned back, no harm done to her? A strict king that made sure the kingdom was safe? The only really terrible things to happen to them were resolved with a ‘happily ever after’. Hugo scoffed at the idea.
Donella must have had someone do some work on the inside for her, as all Hugo had to do to become an official ‘rookie’ guard was tell them his name. Even though no one had any recollection of him, his records were sorted out that he had passed the test and was ready to start ‘on-the-job’ training. Hugo just had to act like he was very offended when none of the guards remembered him, which surprisingly worked. By the maker, how was this kingdom still standing? The guards were ham-fisted and way too trusting. But at least it was something Hugo could abuse. As it turned out, they also were completely desperate for any assistance in their numbers, as even the captain himself was down for the count after a bad hit. They welcomed him on board, no questions asked.
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With a guard uniform and a place in their quarters, Hugo got to start his first day. He was eager to start, as this job should would be so very easy. He decided to wander around, see if he could find anything, and if anyone asked he could simply reply, oh, I’m the new guard, I must be lost. He let his feet guide him as he looked at the walls, trying to memorize every hallway, making escape routes in his head. His feet managed to lead him to a part of the guard quarters that was a sort of infirmary. He heard muffled voices, which was enough to pique his intrigue.
“Nigel said the hearing will be tomorrow, sir.” The first voice, which belonged to the temporary captain, said. The other person is probably the captain then, but then who’s Nigel?
“Where did you put the kid?” The second voice was very strained, evident that Hugo’s guess was right. Great, throw another unknown character in the mix, thanks.
“He’s in the dungeons, but he went very willingly, so The King isn’t worried that he’ll escape.” The temporary captain said, hesitantly while also trying to be reassuring. How stupid are these people? What the hell is going on?
“That doesn’t - agh!!” The captain stopped and cried out in pain. “Just…start the clean-up then.” He finished with a sigh.
“Yes, captain.” Hugo heard footsteps coming towards the door and quickly started walking away towards the rest of the guards. Who were they talking about? And clean-up? By the maker, this is stupid.
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“The general goal for today is to clean up the debris and wreckage from our past battle in Old Corona. We still need guards at the castle and more security in the dungeons, but otherwise, you’ll be assigned to go to Old Corona to start.” The temporary captain started assigning the actual guard jobs to the seemingly more skilled guards and instructed the rest to take horses and carts to Old Corona. Shouldn’t this be someone else’s, no, anyone else’s job? Hugo wanted to try to oppose the captain, but another part of him wanted to see what had transpired. The more vague details Hugo got, the more interesting he was becoming of this battle. And if he would be stuck with the dopey guards, he could at least ask them about what happened and they wouldn’t suspect a thing.
The trip to Old Corona was boring, just lots of nature. It peeved Hugo that he wasn’t doing anything with his time, but he amused himself in his mind thinking about what he would do and things he could buy when the job was finally finished. Easy in, easy out. He kept telling himself.
When they arrived, the village was clearly distressed, and who could blame them? Hugo thought they were pathetic, until he saw the wreckage. Giant black spikes of rock that seemed to glow an eerie blue were piercing through the ground like pins in a pincushion. There was a large house, one that seemed to take the most damage, that stood near the wall blocking Corona out from everyone else. But the center of the wall had been bashed through, and the same black rock-spikes were seemingly laid against the ground creating a path that led out of Corona to the open world.
While a majority of the rock-spikes were leaning the same way as the ones making the path, there were ones that stood tall, with large robots being impaled from all angles. They were a yellow brass color, and they looked like they ran on all fours, similar to that of a gorilla. The head was an oval, with one large ‘eye’ on the left of the robot, a smaller one underneath, and three more to the right of the other two. All the eyes seemed hollow, with no lights or anything to show that they were alive. As someone who was fond of mechanical things, it ran shivers down Hugo’s spine to see these creatures mutilated.
But that wasn’t even the biggest part, there was still the largest robot, a giant, hulking, grey monstrosity that had similar anatomy to the others, but with all of its appendages torn off. The legs of the beast were both speared and seemed to have been dragged off the torso of the creature, along with one of the arms. The other arm was raised as if getting ready to strike but was stopped by a particularly well placed, large spike that stabbed through the ‘hand’ of the beast. Near the head, or the circle you could call the head, was broken glass, lying on the ground. There was dirt and blood around said broken glass, someone must have been close to it or even inside. There also seemed to be the faint smell of sulfur and other chemicals, which greatly confused Hugo as these people did not seem like the type to be into alchemy or science in general. Holy shit. Now Hugo needed to know what happened.