Rocket Knights: Next Gen (Veteran Chapter 1)

[Kohakuchan19]

Kaji was on a Mission to gather Intel after Given Sparkster the news on some Bandits. In the back of his mind, he really hoped that the cadets would be alright on their own for their first real mission. Needless to say, he was proud of every single one of the Rookies, as he had played a decent part in training them for some time now.

Kaji was currently investigating events involving an outbreak of unexplained violence. His research and data brought him to a Village to the East known as Beldin. It was a town located in the dry regions of Zephyrus territory. He looked around and noticed that people were avoiding eye contact with him, and the ones that did were glaring at him.

Kaji looked around once more before stopping at the Inn and approached the Inn keeper. "One room for the night please.." Kaji said calmly.

"Just take the damn keys!" Said the Inn Keeper as he frantically tossed the keys to Kaji, hiding behind his desk, as if he were afraid.

"What the hell's gotten into you?" Kaji asked peering over the Counter.

"Leave me alone! I don't want any trouble!"

Kaji steps back and looks puzzled. "How strange... I guess if I'm going to find any clues about this violence.. I'm in the right place..." Kaji goes to his assigned room. ".. hmm..?" Kaji hears a ruckus going on outside and looks out the window. "Yup.. I'm in the right place alright..."

Upon looking out the Window, Kaji saw that there were several fights going on outside.

"What the hell..?"

[billysparkz]

It was a sunny day for Billy as he was on a scouting mission at a village near Zephyrus. He had been sent to the village to patrol the streets to make sure it was doing fine. He didn't mind, after all he likes to be out and at new places every now and then. As he flew over the city he saw nothing suspiscous or illegal going on. "Well things seem to be going along quite nicely. However I should have a closer look." he thought to himself as he prepared to land. He made sure to land at the village gates to greet the guards. As they approached him, he made sure to make no sudden movements as he walked up to them to talk.

"Please identify yourself." One of guards ordered, looking to the Rocket Knight.

"I am Rocket Knight Billy Sparkz." Billy answered peacefully. "I was sent here to patrol this village. To make sure that no illegal activity is present."

"Understood." One the guards said, opening the gates and letting Billy in.

As he went inside he noticed that the town was peaceful and full of law-abiding citizens. Many were busy working at their jobs and shopping while kids were busy playing in many houses that filled the village. Billy appreiciated the sights and sounds of the village. He always love the peace and freedom in the many villages he goes to. However that peace fo him would abruptly lost for him. As he headed down a less crowded street. He heard something. A cry for help.

"Help someone!!!" The voice echoed from an alleyway that Billy was near.

"Huh?!" Billy said surprised. The cry for help drew his attention. As a Rocket Knight he was trained to respond to calls of distress. He rushed towards the source of the distress of the cry for help. As he ran, the cries got louder and louder. When he finally got to the source of the call for help he found a lone oppossum child. The child looked very distressed, Billy didn't understand what was going on to why the child was distressed. However his parents were nowhere to be found. "I can't just leave this poor kid." Billy thought to himself with a saddened expression. So he walked up to him, to as him what was going on.

"Hey little guy." Billy said in a calm, peaceful tone. He wanted to calm down the child so he could find out what was going on. "Where are your parents?"

[metalbyakko]

They had their mission in the city of Brim, a city known for his famous trading market. The people came and traded with all kinds of things be it clothes, food, furniture, antiques, exotic stuff from other countries and sometimes even illegal stuff. The rocket knights got reports which told them someone was dealing with illegal weapons, which were imported from other countries. It wasn't the problem that these weapons were from other countries, but the problem was someone dealt with weapons at all. Zephyrus had some rough times behind and everything the people wanted was to build everything from new and start again. So weapons weren't something anyone wanted to see so soon, especielly since the wrong people could get them.

One the surface it looks like everything was alright in this town. Two knights were sended to investigate and stop the smugglers. Armor was one of them. He looked around, examined some booths on the market place and tried to catch some information. He got not much. Still he knew something was wrong. He didn't knew about the mission of the young ones, but he also had his own problems. Something was fishy, he could tell that far. Sadly he couldn't put his finger on what exactly was wrong. Sure the knights needed to give the people much more a helping hand than usual, but some mere smugglers? Weren't the guards in this town supposed to be really trained in that regard? Either they weren't as good or the smugglers were just better. The other knight who worked with Armor on this case was Namid, his partner since years. For the sake of gathering information quicker, they decided to split up and gather some information themselves. All he could do was talking to some merchants and listen to the locals. He still had some time before he had to meet Namid at the place they agreed to meet later again. The big armadillo sighed and wished they would already know who was behind it. They could just go to them and Armor could punch them on the nose, but he knew it wasn't always that easy. Well it would make it more satisfying to punish those criminals. Looking up to the big clock tower he realised it was already time meeting with Namid. "Damn," he grumbled and huffed through the nose. Investigation was the most boring part of the job. The best thing was just to go to the target and destroy it, but the job was more complex and he had to live with it. Armor took his helmet off and scratched his head "Where did we wanted to meet..." he pondered and remembered "Yes near the shop with all the hats!" Quickly he went to the meeting place. There was the shop with all the hats and there was the corner, where they wanted to meet.

[KokoaMinto]

"Damn... he's taking his time just like always." Namid mumbled to herself while she was walking up and down the road. He should have been at their meeting spot around 5 minutes ago, but no sign of him yet.

The female opossum looked quite beaten up. That damn guy she investigated was not as harmless at he seemed to be at first glance and threw quite some punches at her. A few bruises were showing up already, but the information she gathered from him were worth the trouble. Nonetheless it bugged the hell out of her that he ruined her armor. Wrestling in the mud with a paid criminal... a lot has changed in the past years, and she felt how out of training she was.

The ground started to shake and she turned around, seeing her brother-figure, Armor, running right into her direction. She waved at him for a brief moment before he started to tell her how everything was working out for him.

"So nothing..." She slowly started after Armor was finishing his 'report' "As much as I could gather the weapon smugglers have a little hidden place somewhere in this town, and the reason why they have it so easy getting their hands on them and selling them is that, apparently, some of the guards may even know about it."

After looking around to check for a clear coast she showed Armor a small piece of paper with an address written on it "He said that the guards are somehow involved into the case, but he doesn't know who exactly is behind all of this. It must be someone with a lot of money if he's able to manipulate even people that are supposed to keep the town's people safe from any sort of harm..."

She went silent for quite a few minutes "Anyway... This address will lead us to a depository... pretty smart actually to use the weapon depository of the guards in the night. My theory about all of this is that they smuggle the illegal weapons into the storehouse when the guards are changing their shift with some of the corrupted guards. In this way they can store the weapons easily and bring them out to the smugglers before the next shift change is on the go. We should keep an eye out of it, but I'm not sure if we should inform Sparkster about it first so he is alerted as well... We can't afford that our guards get manipulated by blind greed..."

[Kohakuchan19]

Kaji having noticed so many fights going on outside, decided that now was not the time to rest. First, Kaji needed to do what he could to put this display of violence to an end, even if it was just a temporary solution. Kaji donned his gear, and walked out the door of his room, locked the door, then finally made his way out of the Inn and rushed out to the streets.

"HEY!!" Kaji said to a pair of rowdy male Opossums. "What's going on here!? Stop this fighting now!"

The two of them did not stop their fight. It was like nothing Kaji had ever seen. It was like they were trapped under pure rage, and nothing around them ceased to exist. Kaji did not like the look of this, He had to put a stop to this. Kaji got closer to the fight and pushed the two fighting males away from each other. Both fell flat on their rear, and looked up at Kaji, growling at him angrily. Kaji had a feeling that he would get this sort of reaction, and drew his sword.

"You will calm down and explain yourselves now, or regret it!" Kaji barked as he kept a defensive stance in case either of them were to attempt to strike him. "Why are you fighting?"

"NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS ONE-EYE!!" roared one of the males who already had severe claw marks on his face, which gave him a bloodied look. "YOU WANT A PIECE OF ME!?"

"GET OUT OF MY WAY OR I'LL KILL YOU TOO!!" The other male with a freshly torn ear, snarled at Kaji, and looked like he was ready to attack Kaji.

"Damn..." Kaji shook his head and changed his battle stance so that the right hand was ready to grab one opponent, while the left hand was ready to knock the other upside the head with the pommel of his sword. "If knocking the two of you out will get you to stop fighting, than so be it. Under the authority of the Order of the Rocket Knighthood, I place both of you under arrest!"

"Who cares..." Said the bloody brute, before lunging at Kaji from the right. "WE'LL KICK YOUR ASS!!"

"KILL HIM!!!" said the ear-torn brute as he lunged as well, but from the left.

Kaji could not see the ear-torn opossum, but he didn't need to. As long as Kaji continued to have excellent hearing, the lack of sight in one eye was not problem for him. Using his right hand, he grabbed the ear-torn opossum by the arm and swung him around so that he struck the bloody opossum before letting go. Both of them fell to the ground, only to get back up again, angrier than before.

"Why you..." Said the bloody one.

"You're gonna pay Blondie...!" Said the ear-torn one.

Kaji stared them down, with his one good eye, reading their body language. These two not only didn't care if Kaji was a Rocket Knight, but they didn't even care or seem to know that they were at a disadvantage. Were they that rage-blind and blood-thirsty? and was it possible that all the others who were fighting would be the same way.. He hoped not, but for now he needed to handle the two angry, and battered opossums before he could worry about something like that.

"I need to end this quickly.. so I can investigate this further..." Kaji thought to himself. "I'll knock these two up.. lock them up at the local prison, and see what else is going on around here... I'll question them later..."

The other two opossums let out loud battle cries before running up to Kaji in an attempt to take him down, but that was it. Anything and everything that happened after that point would be little more than a blur to them, and Kaji did not have to do more than jump over them, and performing a Rocket Strike attack, using his arms with the Rocket's propulsion to knock both of them down to the ground, causeing them to hit their heads; knocking them out.

Onlookers at the scene seemed shocked, but only for a moment, except for the cowards. Those opossums scurried away before the same could fall misfortune befell them as well, the Indifferent opossums simply went on, minding their own business, though is a cautious sort of way. Meanwhile their were other fights going on.. Kaji was surprised.. Why was nobody else trying to put a stop to all of this madness? What was going on in this crazy place? It was as though there was no in-between for anyone. They were either angry as hell, scared out of their wits, or just plain didn't care. He would have more time to think about it after he got the two Males he had subdued locked away. He grabbed each of them by their shirts and drug them all the way to the village lock up.

"Chief? Anyone here?" Kaji asked as he looked around. "No body... Are they victims of this pandemic as well...?"

Kaji looked around some more and spotted some keys on the wall, which he could use to open and lock the cells. Kaji grabbed the keys and opened two cells, then tossed each of the males in their own cell. Kaji even made sure that the cell in the middle was empty. After locking both cells, he hung up the keys where he found them earlier, and then too a seat to get a breather.

"Dammit... I'm not so sure it was a good idea for me to take this mission on alone this time.. This is crazier than I expected... Oh well."

[billysparkz]

The kid continued sobbing for a few minutes more before he could talk. Billy waited patiently for a response from the child.

"My home is on fire!" the child cried out, trying to calm down. "I managed to escape, but mommy and daddy are still inside! Please! Help them!"

Billy was shocked by what the kid had said. However, he found it hard to believe the child. But he couldn't just ignore a probable emergency. Billy then looked to the child to ask him a question.

"Where is your home?" Billy said in a calm and firm tone. "I'll try to help them if I know where they are."

"I ran a long way from there!" the child said, exiting the alley and pointing to the northern direction. "PLEASE HURRY!!!"

"Stay here! I'm going to help!" Billy said as he took off in the intended direction. "I'll come back for you!

Without thinking twice, Billy headed to the area that the child said. He didn't notice anything until he noticed smoke in the sky as he got closer and closer, until he eventually reached the building. The building was engulfed in flames, with immense smoke pouring out the open windows and emergency teams working desperately to stop the fire and rescue the people still trapped inside. The situation was dire, with the fire growing more and more out of control. Billy took a step back in horror.

"Oh no..." Billy uttered in shock.