Hello everyone! My name is Jetstream Girge, and thank you for taking time out of your day to read this fan fiction. Not only am I new to this site, this is also my very first attempt at a fan fiction of any kind. So I apologize if I step on any toes here. This is an Elsword Rena x Raven fan fiction with other pairings, though I have changed the setting as well as altering the backgrounds of the characters. This idea came to me after I had read "Please Smile" by He-Jay. I was also watching the trailer for Metal Gear Solid 5, a game whose plot will explore the conflicts that arise from the differences in culture, language and race, apparently according to Kojima. So I hope you enjoy "Boundaries!" I do not own Elsword or any of its subsidiaries.

The wind in the trees, the light of the sun filtered by the canopy of the forest, the smell of the crisp, morning air, all of it was peaceful. Peaceful enough that one would want to –

"Hobbs! Don't let your mind wander now. We still have a mission to accomplish. Keep your eyes and ears open," Lars warned, promptly pulling Hobbs back into reality. The rest of his squad stifled their laughter into barely perceivable snickers at their comrade's misfortune of earning his captain's scolding.

"Yes sir, sorry sir." Hobbs tried to sound as professional as possible. Fortunately, it was convincing enough for Lars, the squad captain, to nod in approval and not pursue berating his underling.

The squad of eight men, mostly simple foot soldiers, was traveling along a rather weather-worn road that winded though one of the many forests that bordered Ruben. Though they were still within their own territory, the squad was on alert, or at least, they were supposed to be on alert.

They were at war after all.

"Did you hear? Apparently they have been hitting convoys left and right," one of men, Sam, spat out nervously as he looked from tree to tree in rapid succession.

"Come on. Everyone, including the enemy, knows that this route is used for nothing more than to move medical supplies. They are more worried about our weapon routes." One of the other men, Jace, in an effort to ease his comrade's nerves, chimed in.

"But they already hit this route a couple of times already, we should request for reinforcements from Elder or something," Sam retorted, still scanning the trees as though they would start moving at any moment. The squad nervously shifted on their feet before continuing their march through the forest.

Two of the men were pulling hand carts ladled with a variety of sizes of crates. Each carried enough medical supplies to last one of their field hospitals for weeks. Though not as high a priority as weapons to kill their enemies with was, they were still an essential cog in the war machine. If their soldiers were injured and could not be treated, then they would not last long against their enemy.

That's right, their enemy, the…

The air was flowing wonderfully through the trees; it almost made her want to take a nice, long nap in the embrace of the tree's branches. However, she had a job to do so she pushed the comforting thoughts that accompanied the wind to a distant corner of her mind and focused on the movement on the road.

The convoy had finally come into view. She focused on the crates that the soldiers were hauling. Apparently they contained medical supplies and the like for the enemy forces fighting on the front line. Though she thought that her and her squad's time was better spent raiding the weapon convoys in Velder, not the medical supply routes out in boondocks of Ruben, it was not her call to make. Her superiors wanted to hit the enemy psychologically, and so they were attacking as many of the routes as possible. She shook her head to clear the unnecessary thoughts from her mind when a whisper reached her ears from one of the neighboring trees.

"Leader, I see the convoy. Looks like seven, no, eight foot soldiers armed with spears and swords. Lightly armored too, except for the captain. He seems to have something heavier." The green cloaked figure amongst the branches of the tree spoke so quietly that not even the birds in the leaves were stirred.

"The heavier armor still does not protect their necks, so it makes no difference what their captain wears. Get ready," she responded with an icy steel voice.

At her command six other shadows amongst the branches stirred. They all looked in the same direction, the convoy, with a singular purpose. In a flash, they leaped from branch to branch towards the squad of enemies, closing the distance.

The next instant it was over…

"One, two… Eight. I count eight bodies Leader. That should be all of them." The leader in question did not even need to see his face to tell that Radimir was smirking.

"And you can confirm that they are dead?" she inquired to at least rein his emotions in.

"... Yes, they are not breathing nor are their hearts beating. They are dead," Radimir confirmed with a sullen voice.

The leader let out a deep sigh, releasing the tension that surrounded her. "Good, then that means we are finally done for today." She looked at the bodies of the perished men with melancholy eyes. "Mian haeyo," she muttered under her breath to their victims.

"Does this mean we can return home, now?" one of her other subordinates, Lysha, asked with a hint of anticipation in her voice.

"Unfortunately, not yet. The Elders want us to continue to disrupt routes until the enemy retaliates. I understand though, I really want to get out of here, too." the Leader responded in a disappointed voice. "Although…" She thought for a moment. "We could say that they sent in a response unit and –"

"Leader, please tell me you are not thinking of abandoning the mission just so you can go home and enjoy your candied El fruit," Rylen, another one of her comrades, cut in with a tone of amusement.

"Wha-!? No, of course not! Why would I ever think about those tasty – I mean abandoning the mission!?" Their Leader immediately, albeit clumsily, tried to deny the playful accusation. With that, the tension in the atmosphere was completely gone as they all laughed, patting each other on the backs.

"But we will be going home soon, regardless of the enemy response. Until then, everyone, stay sharp," she happily announced. The squad joyfully cheered before bowing slightly and placing their gloved right hands over their hearts; a salute.

"Al gess seub ni da, Grand Archer Rena," they all said at once. At that a gentle wind blew through the trees, blowing off her hood and revealing a pair of pointed elven ears.

The continent of Elrios had already undergone great change, with the incident of the Harmony Festival and the disappearance of the Lady of El. The land had then seen a war between the nasods, a sentient mechanical race, and their creators, the humans, that ultimately ended with the human's victory. However, immediately following the conclusion of that conflict, demons began to invade the land from their evil dimension and threatened the very existence of El, the source of life on Elrios. The humans and remaining nasods that inhabited the continent were hard pressed to protect the shards of El that they possessed, but they had no heroes or the like to help lead the assault on their otherwordly foes.

Then they found an unexpected ally, the elves. The elven race did not live on Elrios per se, but rather a mirror image of the continent. This land was called Hom, the homeland of the elves. Despite being on a different plane of existence than Elrios, life in Hom was heavily dependent on El just like its mirror image. The power that the El provided to Elrios was mimicked in Hom. So when the demons began taking the El to their own realm from the plane of Elrios, the elves began to notice a distinct change in their home. It was the beginning of a calamity for them. So they broke their self-isolation from the human realm and offered the humans and nasods their assistance to protect the El. Thus, an alliance was born between the two, or rather three, races. Together they drove away the demonic armies and sealed the gateways to the demon world for good. It was to be a new era of peace and stability to both planes, however strife had stained Elrios and it had infected the leaders of both the elves and the humans.

Negotiations on the possession of the remaining El shards quickly broke down, but no blows were thrown. That is until the day that war was declared by both sides. The nasods could not survive without direct access to El, so they allied with the humans who promised to help rebuild their race. To this day, no one knows who struck first, each side blamed the other. And after decades of fighting over the El shards, those who remained no longer knew why they fought.

They knew only one thing; the humans were the enemies or the elves were the enemies. For them, it was simply blind hate, born from the misunderstandings and the barriers of race.

Velder, the headquarters of the human forces, the Allied Human Forces, was, in a sense, a city turned fortress. The palace was not only home to the Velder royalty, but was also the command center for the human military. The Hope Bridge was reinforced with several steel barricades and numerous cannons, the Southern Gate was closely monitored for any chance of infiltration and guarded around the clock, and the Red Knights, Velder Knights and the Velder Militia constantly patrolled the streets of Residential Area 3 and the Commercial Area. Yet, despite the heavy military presence, the residents of city would go about their lives as normal.

However, the military leaders were more or less pulling their hair out over recent events. Within the walls of the Velder royal palace, voices of irritation echoed through the halls.

"How many times does this raid make it this month!? The elves have intercepted yet another convoy off the border of Ruben and we still have not responded to these attacks! Why have we not sent a response unit, yet!?" A man with ash grey hair, garbed in the uniform of the Red Knights, slammed his hands down on the map laid out on the great table.

"Lowe, contain yourself. We understand that you are concerned about your home, but we cannot commit forces to hunting down a small squad of elven raiders all the way out near the edge of our borders when they are already raiding our weapon and armor routes closer to the capital. We cannot even confirm if the raiders in question are even a large enough force to warrant the use of a division," a woman outfitted in light blue armor interjected flatly as she pushed her glasses back onto the bridge of her nose and ruffled her short, sky blue hair.

"Vanessa, though Lowe is most likely concerned for his home, we cannot deny that these attacks are having an impact on our forces. If this keeps up we will likely start running out of medical supplies in the coming weeks. This is not even considering the psychological effect it is having on our troops. Lowe's concern is not necessarily misplaced." A tanned skinned man garbed in the green uniform of the Feita Royal Guard raised his hand to ensure that voice was heard.

"I agree with Lowe, we need to respond. Although, do you have an idea on how we will respond, Lento? Vanessa does have a point. Our forces are stretched pretty thin responding to the other raids on the closer routes," a short, yet heavily armored young woman with violet hair piped up. Lento brought a thoughtful hand to his chin.

"Hmm…" Lento thought for a moment, before his eyes widened.

"Perhaps we could send him. Those routes also affect him, as he needs the medicine that those convoys carry. I mean, we can manufacture it here, but not in the quantities that he needs, not to mention the nasod cores that can be manufactured in Elder are being delayed in their delivery here because of these raids. He is a valuable asset that we can utilize."

At his suggestion, the rest of the military council stared at him as though he had arrow sticking out of his head in silence. The period of quiet was finally broken by a slightly hesitant, but commanding voice.

"That… is an idea. He is not actively involved in any major military operations now, so he should be able to handle it. And we would not have to commit any of our regular forces to smoke out the raiders. We could have him eliminate the raiders then link up with the next convoy and escort it to Velder. Does anyone have any objections?" A man at the head of the table motioned with his hands to the people present to voice any of their concerns. There were none. Taking their silence as a negative answer, he proceeded to finalize the decision.

"Then are we all in agreement?"

"Yes."

"I see no other options."

"Yes sir."

"Affirmative."

"Alright then. Penensio, can I entrust you to inform him of his new mission?" The man at the head of the table looked toward yet another male as he spoke. Older than Lowe by the looks of it, he was covered from his broad chest to his toes in heavy armor, with a red cape adorned with the emblem of the Red Knights. He was Penensio, the Chief of the Red Knights.

"Yes sir, I will go inform him immediately." The man called Penensio, who possessed a tan complexion, medium length dark brown hair and narrow golden eyes, stood straight and placed his right fist over his heart while positioning his left arm behind his back, saluting his superior.

"Hang on. I am coming with you." The short, armored young woman leaped up and began walking briskly to Penensio's side.

"Noah, this will not take long. I will return – "

"Sorry, but as a member of the Velder Imperial Guard, I cannot allow the Chief of the Red Knights wander around without an escort." Penensio began to voice an objection, but Noah promptly cut him off.

"More like you want an excuse to get away from your work…" Vanessa's eyes narrowed as she whispered to herself.

Penensio, however, sighed in defeat. "Very well, though I do not think he will be a problem, but thank you. I would enjoy being in your company." He lightly smiled at the young woman.

"Well then, we're off, Supreme Commander Alex!" Noah waved childishly at the man at the head of the table. He waved back with an almost vulpine smile as his silver braided hair swayed behind his head.

"I'm counting on you two."

Whew, ok well that was the first chapter of what will be "Boundries." I originally had this chapter much longer and introducing more characters, but I felt that it may be too long. The remaining text from that cut is in my hard drive now as chapter 2, but before I upload it I would like to know what you all as readers think about this chapter in terms of length. I can edit it and include the rest of the content if you think I can squeeze more into here. I also added the "Elven" language in this update, but it is actually rough Korean translations for "I am sorry" and "Understood." A big thank you goes out to Lingerer who helped find the PROPER terms for me to actually use. Also, "Hom" is the Korean pronunciation of "home." Thank you to Lingerer for pointing that out! I got the idea for making Korean the "Elven" language from He-Jay, who implemented that in "Please Smile," so consider that my disclaimer. So please Read and Review, and if you would like to be a Beta-Reader for this story, PM me. I would very much like a peer or two proofreading these chapters before I post them to ensure I am putting up quality work. Thank you everyone!