Skydeck Vanguard

Chapter 1: A City in the Sky

"Celes! Come on, you're gonna be late!" Miles laughs as he runs passed me on the deck, dressed in his blue and white armor with silver trim, his dark brown combat boots clunking against the wooden floorboards.

My blue eyes widen in surprise and I nearly drop my circular communicator that I'm busy strapping onto the belt in my blue, white, and silver armor. I sigh and hastily snap on my communicator and grab my brown leather bag from the square wooden dinner table beside me and take off in a run passed the guild desk and towards the jump zone.

"I'm coming!" I shout, chasing after my blond haired, green eyed partner.

My feet bound against the floorboards and the guild manager who hands out quests giggles as she posts a new quest to the wooden board, a few Skydeck Vanguard members going to check out the new quests as I run towards Miles. Beside her, her assistant shakes his head and smiles mirthfully.

Miles and I have been partners ever since I turned fifteen and he was sixteen, making it about two more years now that I'm seventeen and Miles is eighteen. I signed up for the Vanguard to learn how to harness my abilities and to protect people because I never want them to have to go through what I went through. I found out that I'm able to go on some of the most difficult missions, with the order going from D as the lowest and A as the highest that most can go on, but S is even higher than A and is extremely rare and only for the most elite. Meanwhile, my ability is blue and so I got placed on team blue. Blue typically focuses on attacking, optimizing hits, strategizing in the moment, and practicality, but we can also focus on defense if we need to.

"Good luck!" Drusilla, one of the members of the pink team, shouts as she waves and smiles from beside her partner, Dexter.

I arrive at the jump zone, which is a wooden deck that protrudes from the floating city in the sky, known as the Vanguard's city. At the deck, I find Miles waiting for me with his sword slung over his shoulder, standing next to Sampson and Katiana from team green. Green tends to focus more on defense, stealth, agility, behind the scenes strategizing, and not being as close to the frontline. Katiana, however, tends to stick close to the frontline and provide support there instead of from a distance, unlike Sampson. Sampson and Katiana often quest with us and the two of them send me friendly smiles, Sampson's hazel eyes bright behind his glasses and his dirty blond hair ruffling slightly in the wind and Katiana's auburn hair blowing back behind her shoulders, her brown, green-flecked eyes giving off a fierce but kind vibe as they stand there in their green, brown, and light-grey armor.

"You ready?" Katiana asks, brandishing one of her chakrams around her index finger as she has her one over-the-knee brown boot crossed behind the other.

"Of course," I smile, my blonde hair blowing behind me due to the wind as I place a hand on my hip, "when am I ever not ready?"

"Well--" Miles starts, holding out a hand and tilting his head to the side.

"Oh, shut up," I laugh and shove him gently towards the edge of the deck.

Miles makes a scene of "accidentally" stumbling too far backwards and waving his arms out in faux surprise as he falls over the edge and I roll my eyes before the rest of us jump off after him.

"This mission is a Rank A," Sampson says as we fall through the clouds, holding out his right arm to reveal a hologram shooting off from his gauntlet that doubles as a smart watch, "be on guard. I don't wanna have to constantly be saving your asses, yeah?"

Sampson grins cheekily and adjusts his glasses as Katiana smacks him upside the head, knowing full well that he's not as often in as much danger as the three of us are because he uses long ranged attacks.