Hunters of El (Elsword Fanfic)

“Hmm.... Hamel’s famous lobsters... only for two thousand EDs”

A figure stood before the restaurant, his red eyes scanned the billboard with mild interest. With a shrug, he left the restaurant to explore more of the white city. His friends all have left to their own antiques; Rena and Eve were being guided by the newcomer, Chung around the city, Aisha went to explore the library to find all magical books she could study from and Raven was wandering around much like Elsword himself. Elsword absent-mindedly strolled through the newly restored city, thinking about the recent events that had occurred a week ago. After Chung’s introduction to the team, it was discovered that Hamel was under attack by strange creatures that were corrupted by the El. Thanks to the Team’s efforts, Hamel is now slowly recovering and Elsword didn’t hesitate to take a quick break.

“Maybe this wasn’t a good idea after all, hadn’t had a good fight in a while,” Elsword muttered to himself, he ran his hand through his fiery red hair.

“Mhmm, neither did I,” a voice suddenly chimed in. Elsword glanced to his side to see a middle aged, thin man giving him a small wave. The man wore a black suit and tie with a fedora hat, seemingly foreign to Elsword. The knight merely raised his eyebrow at the man.

“Oh, how rude of me... I should’ve introduced myself. My name is Golgius,” the man said as he held out his bony hand. Elsword shrugged and took his hand with a firm grip.

“Elsword,” he answered nonchalantly.

“Ah Elsword is it? I heard about you, got Velder out of some nasty trouble huh?” Golgius asked pleasantly. Elsword merely nodded, the older man grinned and tapped the sheathed sabre strapped to his waist, “Well then, how about a duel? After all, it is a privilege to go one on one against one of the men who freed Velder”

Elsword smirked in pride. His friends and himself have defeated nearly the whole demon army that had occupied Velder Capital City. Sure there were drama and discord during the battles, but the team defeated the demons in the end and drove them away from Velder.

“Sure, why not?”

“Good, let’s go to the gates, shouldn’t alarm the citizens too much here,” Golgius said pleased. Elsword nodded and followed the man towards the Hamel Gates.

As they approached the gates, it became less crowded until it became literally deserted. Golgius looked around before turning to Elsword with a small grin. Immediately Elsword suddenly felt a chill down his spine, Golgius’s grin told him that there is something terrifying with that man.

“Before we go any further, I apologize, but we have pressing matters to attend to,” Golgius said before quickly thrusting his sabre as fast as lightning.

In shock, Elsword glanced down at his chest, a steel blade penetrated through his red clothing and blood started to seep through his clothes and armour. His body suddenly felt heavy as he fell on his knees and his head became lighter. Raising his head towards his assailant, Golgius gave an apologetic grin before Elsword finally passed out.


*Later*


Elsword’s eyes opened and he sat up panting and looked around to realise that he was inside a room with no windows and doors. Elsword lay on one of the three sofas inside the room, the other two were occupied by none other than Golgius and another man. Golgius sat in the sofa across Elsword, his legs crossed and the visor of his fedora covered his eyes. He still wore the same suit he first met Elsword and his grin was etched upon his face lit by a lone long candle at the centre of a wooden coffee table. The other figure seemed more mysterious through his attire. Two ocean deep blue eyes were fixed onto Elsword, the rest of his face was covered with a black mask and a hood with silver lines decorating it making it hard to read the man’s expression.

“Sorry for the rude gesture Mr. Elsword, this man here is my friend and colleague, Dimont” Golgius greeted. Dimont’s fixed glare did not waver at the mention of his name but merely gave a curt nod towards Elsword.

Elsword slowly sat up on the sofa and rubbed his chest, still feeling the shadow of pain from the sabre that stabbed him. Golgius’s green eyes appeared from the visor and gave an assuring grin.

“If you are worried about the part where I stabbed you, don’t worry you won’t die or be permanently crippled from it. I had to do it because Dimont here wasn’t available to make you sleep,” Golgius assured. Elsword’s wary gaze did not drop from Golgius, he still felt the pains on his chest.

“Oi, oi. Your red eyes actually make you quite scary if you keep staring at me like that. Well, whatever, let’s get straight down to business shall we?” Golgius asked rhetorically, “Mr. Elsword, we like to propose a little trade. We have something you want, and you have something we need”

“Wait. You just stabbed me, how the hell...” Elsword began as his wits began to gather. Golgius calmly raised his hand, effectively silencing the young red-haired knight.

“Do not worry, it wasn’t fatal and you’ll live, where we are is simply in your mindscape. Now before we begin, we’d like to show you something first. Dimont if you would please,” requested Golgius politely.

Dimont nodded and stood up, the candle’s light barely reached to reveal the silver markings on his mask. Dimont’s left hand, covered by a steel gauntlet with black markings began to hold an ocean blue orb of flickering light while his black gloved right hand began to hold a black orb of gaseous looking magic. Slowly, Dimont merged the two magical energies from his hands and released it onto the coffee table, effectively extinguishing the lone candle, leaving the room lit by a weak, blue light. The merged magical energy began to take shape, a crater like structure began to form and the magical energy began to form around the tall candle like a tower. Golgius applauded at Dimont’s work, apparently pleased while Elsword simply gawked in amazement. He never saw magic handled so masterfully, even better than Aisha’s magical mastery.

“This... is the Tower of El, the original El stone... the El stone of Existence, is located in the upper most floor of the Tower,” Dimont droned, he shook his hands as blue and black wisps of magic began to disappear from his left and right covered hands respectively.

“The El stone of Existence has only one individual capable of utilising it, the Lady of El,” Golgius said as he stretched his arms and sat back lazily, “The Lady of El has nine guardians who are responsible for protecting her to prevent any individual from obtaining that power from her, this is to prevent the enormous magical power that the El stone holds from going out of control. Dimont and I are two of those guardians”

Elsword gazed at the semi-transparent sculpture created by Dimont in wonder. Snapping out of his daze, he focussed his eyes on Golgius with caution.

“Alright, what is it that you want me to do?”

“As of recent events, seven of the nine guardians went missing. Each guardian has this,” Golgius opened up his suit revealing a pale chest embedded with a stone with swirling green and black colours, “What we want you to do; is to get those stones back, the possibility of those guardians being deceased or gone rogue is very high. Of course you may bring them back alive, but if need be, do not hesitate to kill them. We should be able to find their locations should they use magic at any point.”

“I don’t understand why you choose me to this. Why?” Elsword asked cautiously, he couldn’t trust them yet.

“Well, there are a few reasons as to why we chose you for this task. One, we are... short on man-power, with only two guardians protecting the Lady of El left, we can’t really stretch our current resources. Two, we chose you because of your capabilities of what you did in light of recent events. Three, another reason we chose you is because we have something that might interest you greatly,” Golgius explained lightly as he held his fingers from listing each reason.

“You may or may not be surprised to know, that your sister is one of the current guardians of Lady of El. It is without doubt that your sister has gone missing along with six others,” Dimont continued as he closed his eyes. Elsword’s eyes widened at the mention of his sister, he opened his mouth but no words could come out. Dimont turned his back towards Elsword and announced, “Golgius, I’ll return to the Lady of El now.”

Golgius merely nodded, and soon Dimont disappeared in a flash of blue light. The room plunged into darkness momentarily as the magical sculpture disappeared. Soon, a dim light once more lit the room from the lone candle on the table. The man in black suit now stood up and glared at Elsword, his green eyes burning with strange light.

“To put in short, this mission we offer you is the chance to see your sister and perhaps even save her from her unknown circumstances,” Golgius said. He fished inside his breast pocket for a few seconds and pulled out a pure black card from it. He gave a toothy grin and tossed the card at Elsword who caught it and examined it carefully. The card had a strange circle with symmetrical pattern in gold.

“We don’t really need to hear if you are ready for your mission or not, whether you want to do it or not is up to you. If you accept it, tear the card and we will begin,” the thin man said as he straightened his tie and suit as if he were preparing for something important.

“Well now, we can’t have you sleeping forever now can we?” Golgius asked and with that he snapped his bony fingers. Elsword suddenly felt as he was pulled into oblivion and the whole room was again plunged into darkness.

“Ugh”

Elsword suddenly felt light penetrating through his eyelids, he raised his arms trying to block out the offending sunlight. Deciding that it couldn’t be helped, he slowly opened his eyes to meet a white, marble ceiling above him. He slowly sat up and suddenly winced at a dull pain in his chest. He gingerly rubbed his chest wrapped in white bandages and surveyed the room to notice a mop of purple hair lying on his bedside. The girl with purple hair was sleeping, her shoulders rising up and down slowly.

“Aisha?” whispered Elsword as he bent forward to observe her face. Aisha’s face did not respond but the red-haired knight couldn’t help but examine her more closely, she looked so peaceful. In a daze, Elsword used his right hand to carefully brush Aisha’s hair away from her face until a black card appeared. The knight picked up to the card to see the same strange symbol with symmetrical pattern.

“We don’t really need to hear if you are ready for your mission or not, whether you want to do it by yourself or not is up to you. If you accept it, tear the card and we will begin,” Golgius’s voice echoed in Elsword’s head. Elsword gave one last look at the card then glanced at the window next to his bed.

“... If it is to find my sister...” murmured Elsword as he gave one last look at the card, and tore it without hesitation.

“Oh... that was pretty fast” Golgius’s voice echoed in Elsword’s head. The knight whipped his head around the room but there was no sign of anyone else but the sleeping Aisha.

“Well, we’ll begin you mission tonight. Dimont will meet you at the Hamel library entrance at midnight,” Golgius said in a pleased manner, “Until then, enjoy yourself.”

“Wait!” Elsword shouted, in that moment, Aisha jumped up startled.

Aisha quickly glared at the offending awakener before slowly smiling. After a minute of silence, Aisha realised she was smiling and quickly switched to a frown before pulling a strong right at Elsword.

“Wha... What was that for!?” Elsword shouted confused as he rubbed his assaulted left cheek.

Aisha turned her head away sharply with her cheeks puffed and arms crossed and replied angrily, “That’s for being an idiot and getting nearly killed!”

Elsword merely stared at the angry mage and sighed as he crossed his arms. He slightly grimaced from †˜getting nearly killed’. After a few seconds of silence Elsword said, “Sorry, I was careless Aisha”

Suddenly, the door to the room burst open and four people literally crashed in panting. Raven, Rina, Eve and Chung all had relieved faces and without any hesitation, the four immediately gathered around the bed.

“Elsword, thank El you are alright!”

“Hamel’s security wasn’t up to standards Elsword, I apologize. No, I should’ve been there in your time of need, I won’t make that same mistake again!”

“Kid... you really scared us back there...”

“The wound was fatal, had I not treated it...”

Elsword was taken aback by the bombardment from his friends. Rena was hugging Elsword, who had to turn his face from the blond elf as his face heated up from her †˜assets’, Raven merely stood there with a small relief in his golden eyes with his arms crossed, Chung was apologizing resolutely as his eyes shown guilt but determination as well, Eve was preaching how he could’ve died if it weren’t for her, even though she seemed to be smiling and Aisha still had her face turned away but Elsword could see a small smile on her. Elsword lips curled upwards, it wasn’t bad to feel like this once in a while.



*Night*

Elsword stretched his arms and sat on the cold marble steps of the Hamel Library entrance. Dimont was nowhere to be seen and Elsword’s only company are the moon and stars in the cloudless night. His mind wandered back to a few hours ago, after a few hours of endless watching from his friends just to make sure he didn’t drop dead, he managed to sneak out of the hotel without anyone’s knowledge. As Elsword enjoyed the cool breeze of the night, shadows began to gather in front of him. Elsword frowned at the new sight and began to stand up with his hand gripping for his sword.

“Well met... Elsword”

Dimont stepped out of the shadows, the moonlight reflected of his black hooded cloak and his blue eyes were fixed upon Elsword. Dimont held out his left steel gauntlet, the runes upon it shimmered with a dull, dark blue. Elsword visibly relaxed and crossed his arms giving a nod of his own as a greeting.

“Are you prepared, Elsword?” Dimont asked, the runes on his gauntlet began to glow brighter. Elsword nodded silently, his ruby eyes shimmered with determination.

“Good, we shall now begin!”

With that, shadows swiftly wrapped Elsword and Dimont. Instantly, Elsword felt the freezing sensation wrap his entire body as darkness encased him. As soon as the shadows covered his head, it retreated back to Dimont, who seemed to be unbothered by the freezing sensation. The marble white buildings of Hamel were soon replaced with a clear lake that reflected the night’s sky. Elsword’s feet suddenly felt moist, looking down, he found that both Dimont and himself are standing in the lake, the water level reached to Elsword’s knees.

“Elsword! Welcome to the Lake of Dreams!” A cheerful voice shouted, causing Elsword to jump up, startled. Golgius was standing right behind him, the green-eyed man clapped his hand on Elsword’s shoulder with a grin.

“Glad you made it! Now let’s start the mission,” Golgius said.

The lake’s surface suddenly started to ripple and glow bright white. Slowly, the bright light subsided and upon the lake’s surface, an image of flaming comet came into view. The comet however, had strange features on it, black electricity ran across the flaming body constantly as the comet left of a black smoke trail. Suddenly, the image disappeared and was replaced with a grand city. However, the city had several small cranes and carts, some buildings also had scorch marks and broken rooftops.

“The situation here, is pretty annoying, but something we need to avoid. What we have here, is a rogue guardian... probably Isabel, since there are fire and shadow magic encasing her, approaching towards the Velder Capital. From what we got, Velder is still rebuilding from the Glitter and Dark Elf joint invasion. Considering we are dealing with Isabel, we better not let her reach Velder, after all, her magic would completely demolish the human settlement there,” Golgius said, his cheerful demeanour is still in place. The man sighed, crossed his arms and hunched his back, “Right now, it’s a pain, if all these humans die, Lady of El would scold me for not protecting humans from our affairs. What we want to do... is to intercept her and prevent her from reaching Velder at all costs. If we can take her El Stone or better yet, take her alive, that would be the best outcome.”

“It will be difficult... Her magic and fighting style is destructive and wild,” Dimont commented, his eyes narrowed as if his masked face was frowning. The lake rippled and soon the image was replaced with the night’s sky reflection. Dimont fixed his gaze at the full moon, “Fighting at the forests near Velder would be a bad idea, her mastery over fire and dark magic is impeccable.”

Elsword closed his eyes in thought. The only forests around Velder were the Western forest and the Northern Feita forests. A little to the west of the Western forest was a mountain range, if they intercept the guardian there, assuming that she is approaching from the west, then it would be more ideal and the Velder citizens would not be aware of the invading guardian.

“Is the guardian coming from the west of Velder?” asked Elsword.

“Yes, apparently, I believe that she departed from the small island, just south of Bethma Mountains,” Golgius replied.

“Ok, I was thinking we should intercept the guardian at the mountain ranges, her fire magic would be a lot easier to control since the mountains generally have no vegetation.”

“Ah... I see, yes, I forgot the mountain range had no vegetation. Good, alright then, I’ll see what I can find in that small island, If Isabel came from that location, there may be a possibility that other guardians reside there. You two will deal with Isabel,” Golgius said with a pleased manner, obviously relieved that he wouldn’t get scolded tonight. With that, Golgius bowed and left with a swirl of shadows. Dimont and Elsword both glanced at each other, and with a nod, both of them disappeared in a swirl of shadows as well.

*Elsewhere*

“Your majesty, it’s as you said, the guardians have been lured out!” A young man announced as he kneeled before a throne. The figure on the throne shifted slightly, two white eyes were fixed to the messenger, who flinched slightly.

As if a silent message was passed, the young messenger stammered, “V-very well, I-I’ll notify her immediately!” The messenger scurried out of the room, shakily, eager not to be in the same room as the dominant figure any longer.