Story Flow (SPOILERS ALL THE WAY THROUGH!)

[B-rad]

Since I have trouble getting the flow of events for the story down, I'm going to be throwing the ideas so far into this forum.  I can easily edit it around here and I won't lose it.

It's gonna take a long time to get the old conversations I had with Karu and Julia into here, but atleast this is a start, and it will be good to get a basic idea of my story out to the Mods to see.  (not that you guys are around much...hell I'm not really that often anymore)

----------Basic Flow----------

Kon-Haku War:
-Kills off all residents of island.  Timeline where Asura, Kusangi, Harmony, Beowulf, and Balmung lived with the Haku and Kon.  Haku and Kon are two races that are at peace until (undetermined event).  War breaks out and eventually, the 5 heroes arrive and end the conflict, but at the end of the final battle, everyone is killed.  It was discussed that the spirits of the heroes would be sealed by their enemies within the sword pendants.
(More to follow)

1000-Year Time Lapse:
Island is slowly inhabited by imigrants/some survivors of the blast.  Nature returns.  Towns and countries are set up.  Some wars, but nothing major.  Falborne Kingdom, Ninja Clans, Arcane Democracy set up.  Rovan Empire (not currently present in Allura) has encountered an energy crisis as well as an overpopulation crisis.  Rovan Empire decides to take over smaller countries.  Invasion of Allura.  Rovan Empire attacks mountain villages to the north of the region.  Northern cities fall and Empire has taken up a foot-hold on the island.  All residents of Allura retaliate with joined-forces.  They wage war for 20 years which ends in a peace treaty.

20-Year War:
Atleast one parent of each present-day hero (max, justin, yuuki, karu, etc.) played their part in the war except for Keri's dad, who was a teacher.  Akuin, Genn, and Trine fought in the war.  Karu is found by Trine 10 years into the war (debatable depending on his age).  Sends him to train with Genn at end of war.  Max/Kai's dad ends his tour of military service and becomes an archaeologist after Kai is born 10 years into the war and Max 12 years in.  Yuuki is born 11 years into the war and her mother is killed in a raid on her village 16 years into the war.

10-Year Time Lapse:
-Uneasy peace is held.  Rovan Empire is allowed to mine in the mountain region.
-Arcane Democracy turtles up and closes most communication with the outside world (possibility of a magic shield to keep out unwelcomed guests.  If so, this will end up being a sub-plot in itself for the heroes to get through the shield eventually).
-Falborne Kingdom lost alot of money funding the war, and thus turns to maximize trade with other countries and earns back it's riches and then-some.
-Ninja Clans become edgy among themselves.
-Pirates take advantage of Falborne's trade and rob merchants.
-Bandits take to the over-land trade routes like locusts.

Chapter 1 (Wide Awake and Swinging):
-Max Dillon wakes from a nightmare of a hell-scape before he dies in it.
-Greeted by Keri Kazuri who informs him he's almost late for the tournament they were to enter together with their friends.
-Keri comments on the weirdly-designed new sword he has as he grabs it.  He says it's for practical purposes and she just shrugs it off.
-The two are accosted by a couple of thugs on the way through town.  They hand the thugs their asses handily, giving a glimpse of their skill.
-The pair assembles with the brothers Justin and Eric Vincen and sign up for the tourney.
-While the final preparations are being held, we are introduced to Kim Turner, a local noble's daughter who has it out for their group, accompanied by her boyfriend Ken Nowling.
-Kim antagonizes the group, specifically Keri, and says they should all just go home.
-Seth Yuikora, a younger boy from out of town arrives, and the group, having not seen him in a couple of years, ignore Kim to go greet him.
-Seth will be participating in the tournament to test his mettle.
-side chars:  Kim Turner (rich girl who likes Max and is jealous of Keri), Ken Nowling (her boyfriend/semi-strong non-factor).
-The tournament rules are laid out as participants will coat their weapons of choice in a form of powdered Coronium that will render them non-lethal, but cause them to deliver powerful electric shocks if someone were to touch them.  The first to knock-out, ring-out, or deal what the referee determines a lethal-strike their opponent wins.
-----Round 1-----
-First Match:  Justin vs. Fred Sanders (non-factor).  Fred is visibly frustrated that none of his underlings managed to stop even one of the participants from entering the tournament.  Justin faintly remembers a group of nitwits that tried to jump him and Eric about an hour ago.  They were left in trash bins at the park if he remembers right.  Justin wins with his ability to read the prominent thoughts of his opponent.
-Second Match:  Eric vs. Max.  Eric utilizes his minor telekinesis to slightly alter the flight-path of a short sword attached to a rope he calls his 'Flying Knife'.  Max wins barely by deflecting Eric's blade back at him with his broadsword.
-Third Match:  Karu T'Saiga vs. Seth.  Seth and Karu reveal their fighting styles.  Seth's martial arts training is on-par with Karu's knife-work and the two are stalemated.
-Seth then surprises Karu and the audience by igniting his fists and pushing Karu into a corner with blazing combo strikes.  Before throwing a finishing blow, Seth is thrown over Karu's head and out of the arena by a blast of air.
-Karu reveals to Seth after the fight that he has always been able to control wind to an extent, but was surprised when flames suddenly shot out of Seth, and how well he controlled and fought with them.
-Seeing one another as kindred spirits with rare abilities, they shake hands as Seth heads to shop for supplies before leaving town.
-Fourth Match:  Ken vs. nobody.  Kim paid off the participant to not compete, ensuring Ken's effortless victory.
-Fifth Match:  Kim vs. Keri.  Kim manages to cut Keri with a small hidden blade in the side.  Revealed that Kim has bribed the Referee to not notice.  Keri is poisoned from the blow as Kim quietly informs her that it's non-fatal, but it's going to make moving around really painful for the rest of the day.
-Kim begins knocking Keri around who can only defend herself as the poison quickly takes hold.  Kim laughs after knocking Keri to the ground again and again, then is stunned as Keri's dagger falls from overhead and strikes her in the head.
-The Referee has no choice to call the match in Keri's favor as the shock knocked Kim unconscious.
-Sixth Match:  Rogers (pirate) vs. Ryubi (ninja).  Rogers defeats Carter by throwing a barrage of knives at him suddenly from the start of the match.
-Several hit their mark and Ryubi falls over in pain, but not before throwing his chain and striking Rogers in the head with the weighted end.
-Both are knocked prone and unable to move for a moment before Carter lifts and throws a knife from the ground at Rogers, hitting him in the chest, having the Referee call the match in favor of Ryubi.
-----Round 2-----
-First Match:  Ken vs. Karu.  Kim attempts to bribe Karu to throw the fight and let Ken pass without trying, as she intends to have him fight Max's group while they're tired.  Karu begins to refuse, as he needs the entirety of the prize money, but notices Jaucs in the crowd, a man he's been looking for.  He turns to her, quickly agrees, and resigns as she hands him a small pouch of coins.
-Karu leaves the tournament halls in a hurry after Jaucs.  The crowd boos.
-Second Match:  Justin vs. Max.  Max wins after a long duel of trying to overpower Justin.
-Having no luck, Max utilizes a new technique he names "Tenshozan".
-Having no knowledge of the new ability which fires a burst of Ki from a sword swing, Justin had no idea how to react and is thrown prone as Max runs over and lands a blow on his unguarded back, winning the match.  Max explains the rod in the back of his blade is made of coronium and helps him to channel his Ki within it properly.
-Third Match:  Keri vs. Ryubi.  Keri starts the match swinging as the poison causes pain in her gut.  Ryubi notices she's having issues and begins to intensify his attack speed to overwhelm her.  Keri tries throwing her blade at his face, but it is dodged, leaving her unarmed.
-Ryubi begins spinning his chain to strike her and gives her a final chance to surrender, as he doesn't want to hurt 'some unarmed little girl with a stomach ache'.
-Keri glares, leaps up and into the chain's range.
-The chain winds around her arm as she yanks Ryubi towards her and delivers a flying kick to his face, knocking him out of bounds.
-----Round 3-----
-Short Intermission.  The group wonder about why Karu left.  He didn't seem to do it for the coin, but more looked like he was following somebody.  They also bitch about how Ken hasn't fought anybody in the entire tournament and was now in the Semi-Finals.
-Since there are 3 participants for the semi-finals, the next fight would be subject to coin-toss.
-Ken, miraculously wins the three-way toss and is, again, seeded.
-Semifinal Match:  Keri vs. Max.  Keri is poisoned and Max has recovered from the fatigue of his Ki explosion.  Keri refuses to just give up, and Max fights her earnestly, ending with a sword at her throat as the Referee calls the match in Max's favor.
-----Round 4-----
-Final Match:  Max vs. Ken.  Fight drags on.  Ken has good defense and countering maneuvers, Max has actually been fighting all day.  Ken's claw-type weapons are easier to maneuver than Max's sword, giving openings up close.
-Ken lands a heavy counter and throws Max to the other side of the arena onto his back.
-Ken explains that Kim doesn't need the prize money, she just doesn't want Max's group to win.  A statement of her position in the pecking order of this town.
-Max retorts, as he stands, that not too long ago, they were both happy to get along with 'us common-folk' until her father's business became highly successful.  He also pointed that Ken's claim to nobility was hanging by a thread and was only being supported by the Turner family.
-Ken glares at him and rushes in as Max stabs his blade into the ground, releasing another blast of Ki.
-Geysers of Ki billow from cracks in the floor and blast the charging Ken rag-dolling into the air.
-Max leaps up and slams him down hard with a blade swing.  Max is declared the winner.
-Ken is removed from the floor as Kim glares disapprovingly and leaves with him to the hospital.
-Max is declared the winner as Justin, Eric, and Keri assemble and congratulate him on-stage.
-With the celebration of the victory, a rumbling is heard, rising in intensity and shaking the arena.  A meteor crashes into the stadium, causing the ground beneath the group to crumble and they fall deep into the sewers beneath town and the crowd scatters.  They are all knocked unconscious by the fall.
-----Sewers-----
-A voice in the dream calls out to them, but they are unable to fully understand it.  It sounds like a warning about 'bringers of the dark'.
-A hell-scape similar to the one from Max's earlier dream is viewed as massive creatures pour over the land and smash towns to splinters.
-They awake in the sewer and with Keri succumbing to the pain of the poisoning, Max decides to carry her as they find their way out.
-Eric, being always prepared, gathers up some wood and wraps some cloth and moss to make a makeshift torch.
-Justin comments on how these pre-war sewers are old and obsolete, buried much deeper than the more advanced irrigation and disposal the city now uses.  The meteor must've punched clean through the ground and the upper sewers, and they fell in before the ground overhead closed in.
-When asked how he knew so much about the sewers, Justin explains that in the history of this town, the sewers have actually been used in military operations twice.  Training to be a Knight, he must know these things.
-"Great, now we have to climb all the way up through two layers of sewers, then when we get back, the water will be so jacked we probably can't shower."  -Keri
-"You aren't climbing, but being hauled like potatoes."  -Eric
-"All we need now is giant rats."  -Max
-Justin mentions that there should be runoff exits to these sewers that lead outside of town and they should head that way rather than trying to find a connection to the upper sewers.
-After fending off some creatures from the sewers with relative ease and feeling disgusted in doing so, they eventually see light in the distance, just before seeing movement.
-A massive centipede rushes the group and Justin and Eric stand together to keep it away from the two encumbered members of their party.  Justin determined it must've entered from that path behind it and set up a nest.
-Unable to deliver decisive damage due to its thick chitin and their coronium-coated weapons, they are quickly ignored in favor of Max and Keri.
-Throwing Max to the side, it perceives Keri as an injured target and prioritizes her.  Eric slings his rope around the creature's front to slow it as Justin is knocked into a wall by its tail after zapping it.
-Max leaps into the air and once more channels Ki into his blade, forming a shining edge around it.  Bringing it down with all his might, he manages to sever the beast's left fang and mandible, even through the coronium coating on his sword.
-Keri runs around it while it is enraged and entangled by Eric's weapon, trying to turn around.  The group now turns and runs for the exit at full speed, hearing it roar and begin chase.
-Max grabs Keri's hand and helps her run faster as Justin and Eric clear the exit and jump out of sight.  They can hear the centipede closing in behind them.
-Finishing their mad sprint into the daylight, they see a wall of spears around the exit.
-The two duck and roll out of the way as a squad of Lightfoots skewer the charging bug several times over.
-They meet Genn Sumers, an elderly man who has a long-standing relationship with the local militia, the Lightfoots.
-After hearing about the meteor-strike at the arena, the extensive damage to the upper sewers, and the missing contestants, he organized a party to come find the group.  He was genuinely surprised Justin could figure where they were and a find way out in such a short time.
-The group head to the hospital, met by their family.
-Max is given the prize money of 100gpz in the hospital, splitting it with his party evenly.  Genn refuses payment for the Lightfoots' services as he didn't fight in any tournament, "Just killed a bug".

Chapter 2 (The Mercs):
-Day after tournament. Jaucs escaped previously from Karu's sight during the chaos of the meteor impact.
-Karu hunts Jaucs' gang in order to stop the killing of their targets of banditry around Rufturf.
-Seeks an open contract on the gang from the bar, promising a large sum of money from the mayor to rid the town of the murderers.
-Seeing someone in a black coat, he mistakenly approaches Akuin in an alley before apologizing. Akuin is now tipped off to the bandits and follows.
-Karu duels with Kori, an explosives user from Jaucs' gang who has targeted him specifically, shortly after leaving Akuin.
-Kori is mentally unstable, and seems to know Karu.  Revealed that Karu used to work with Jaucs until recently.
-Karu defeats Kori after a lengthy fight to get close to him through his barrage of bombs, landing a knife in his stomach.
-Kori sets off a bomb under his jacket, killing himself and taking out the building. Karu is thrown from the blast, landing in the alley.
-Akuin appears and pulls Karu out of the way of falling debris. Asks him why he was targeted.
-Reveal Karu had previously worked with the bandits before they started killing people. Now that he's hunting them, he's an enemy.
-Karu reveals a dilapidated quarry to the northeast where the gang has established a hideout. Akuin takes his leave.
-Karu Reaches the quarry where the bandit group was hiding at.  He is ambushed by Rawst, Jaucs' second in command and fights for his life against the large man's spiked war hammer. The spiked heads helped him jab and lift slabs of stone and hurl them at Karu.
-Karu fights back hard and squeezes out a win. Rawst becomes very passive and tells him he'll squeal if Karu doesn't kill him.
-Informs him that Jaucs is targeting an inbound caravan with a large haul onboard.
-Rawst accepts defeat, and agrees that Jaucs is a mindless murderer and must be stopped.  As Karu prepares to go after Jaucs, Rawst displays amazing speed and hammers him into the ground with an overhead double-chop.
-Rawst prepares to crush Karu with a nearby boulder, but Akuin appears out of nowhere and collides into him with great force.  As the dust clears from the dropped rock, Akuin removes his two rugged daggers from Rawst's chest.  He had pierced both lungs and the man died grimacing.
-The two head off with Karu giving Akuin the rundown.
-The pair arrive to find Jaucs and two others, Reggie and Gravv, on the roadside awaiting their ambush target.
-Karu rushes Jaucs, who flees on-sight, telling the other two to stall.
-Akuin draws a handgun and plainly shoots Reggie dead after the guy raises his axe, and Karu gives chase to Jaucs.
-Gravv gives up almost immediately, because fuck getting shot, not worth it.
-Karu and Jaucs arrive at old house where they first met.  They fight and Karu eventually gets the upper hand, throws away Jaucs' halberd and stabs him in the arm.
-Jaucs runs away into the forest, but Karu pursues.  Karu is hit by a land-mine that Kori had laid up as a defensive measure against would-be attackers.
-Jaucs turns around and goes for the kill with the knife that he pulls from his arm. Commenting on how lucky he is to not be paste from that blast.
-Karu lies there, fading into unconsciousness as a spiraling wind envelopes him and lifts him upright.
-Jaucs is punched in the face and sent flying into a tree.  As he shakes off the attack, he dodges just in time before the thrown knife tears the tree he hit in two.
-Karu rushes forward and with no control over himself, stabs through Jaucs' other arm with another knife.
-Jaucs throws a smoke-bomb, which instantly clears away in the face of the swirling wind, but still manages to get away.  Karu turns slowly to follow his movements when he comes back to his senses and yells out at him to stop.
-It was too late though, and Jaucs steps into a mine-field in his rush to escape.
-Jaucs dies from his injuries shortly after, as he tells Karu there are bigger things at play now, and he should watch his back, from one friend to another.
-Karu confronts the Mayor with his contract completion, to find Akuin is there waiting with the same contract. Forces payment split between the two of them equally.
-Before Karu can become cross, Akuin mentions that they'd be better off working together rather than competing.
-Karu forms the T'Saiga Mercenary Company with the help of Akuin and his finances, making him an equal-shares partner.
-They recruit Genn and Kitt Sumers as their Lightfoot Liaison and Bookkeeper/Cook, respectively.
-They recruit Gravv who had actually not committed any crimes since joining the bandits.
-Gravv is smitten with Kitt (and the fact she'd made delicious biscuits and gravy), and decides he'll be their grunt in order to ensure he can work with her. Genn, her grandfather, does not approve.

[B-rad]

Chapter 3 (Revenge of the Thieves Guild):
-Haienz, Isshin, and Seleste enter town (they're a group of 'Enforcers' from the Thieves' Guild).
-Short chapter about Karu's past.
-Haienz wields rifle and orbs of liquid that ignites when it meets oxygen.
-Seleste carries a chain-whip.
-Isshin wields bladed knuckles.
-This will be the first major attack on Rufturf.
-Haienz is out for blood since Karu 'Betrayed' and killed Jaucs.  Haienz sends Seleste and Isshin to Karu's new office to "invite them to the party" while he decides to sit around and attack the locals.  He stands atop a fountain and calls out to all the people.  He then throws a ball of liquid into the air over a group of people, draws his rifle, aims, and fires.
-As the flames rain down, Justin, Eric, and Max happen to be in the crowd of people.  Justin manages to read Haienz's mind in time to react and have Eric and Max help shoulder charge the people out of the way.
-Everyone scatters and Haienz decides to entertain himself with his new friends.
-He warns them of a group of bandits that will attack the south gate.
-Eric decides since he has the best survivability, he would go take them on.
-Seleste enters Karu's shop and Gravv greets her and asks what she could possibly want.  As she steps in without saying a word, she simply smiles and walks closer to him.
-Karu and Akuin walk into the room chatting when they look up to see Gravv get man-handled through the front wall by a girl.
-Gravv scrambles to his feet outside the office and prepares to take the fight back to her.  Her smile turns to a sadistic joker-smirk and she draws her whip and lashes a giant hole in the wall.
-Karu jumps in and takes a chance to pin her down, but with some incredible flexibility, she manages to get out from under him and end up preparing an attack to his rear.
-The swing comes down and Akuin deflects the whip with a bullet before rushing her and phasing them both through the wall (Ghostly Visage).
-Karu throws Gravv his gladius and the two follow suit going around the long-way, but as they leave, Isshin jumps off of the roof of the office and nearly smashes the life out of Gravv.  Karu turns in shock, but gets uppercutted by the beastly man.
-Isshin goes to finish off Gravv, but Kitt runs out of the house and tries to protect him.  He picks her up by her hair and Genn comes charging out of the house and smashes his cane into the man's rib-cage.  Knocking him flying through a wooden fence across the street.
-Gravv wakes up and steadies himself with his sword before standing.
-Karu gets up and Genn tells him to go to the square to where Haienz is.
-Akuin eventually manages to defeat and capture Seleste.  (We will get to see more of this as soon as I can think up a good fight scene with his abilities and give her a bit more thought.  Basically, she's gonna be a dominatrix kinda chick)
-Genn and Gravv, thought they don't have alot in common/flat out don't like eachother, they make an excellent team.  They fight off the monterous Isshin and (not sure weather to kill or not kill him.  Your choice Dev).
-They continue on after Karu.
-Karu will arrive in time to see Max and Justin get beaten and challenge Haienz himself.
-Eric will get overrun as the bandits will have a pair of shadow mages in their midst, casting spells.
-Keri will arrive (fresh from the hospital) with a new surprise she bought with her prize-money.  She will blow away a large group of bandits with a deck of magic cards she picked up from a traveling merchant. The Shadow Mages retreat, having seen her talent with magic and hearing she's apparently brand-new to it.
-Eric and Keri are too worn out after the town guard forces the bandits back to go help in the square.
-Gravv and Genn arrive in time to help Karu (who is outmatched by Haienz's marksmanship.  At long-range, Haienz had a definite advantage with a rifle.  Able to shoot down thrown blades and attack with AOE fire damage at a distance.  As the three spread out to fight from all angles, Haienz displays that he is actually also well versed in knife-fighting.  He stabs Genn in the shoulder and throws a gash-wound across Gravv's chest.  The stab for Karu's head misses though, and Karu follows up with his own hunting knife to the right lung.  Haienz survives and is taken away to the prison in West Rufturf.  He vows that "Traitors to the Guild can't die until they are tortured for 20 hours and ask to be killed 100 times in a row." but for Karu, Haienz said he wouldn't end his suffering unless he asked 1000 times in a row.

Chapter 4 (Under Our Noses, Under Our Feet):
-Karu/Akuin/Gravv go out on a mission given by the Mayor to investigate the forest.
-Max, Keri (recovered), Justin, and Eric accompany them because it is the end of the school year for them and they have nothing to do.
-The mission is to check out wierd goings-on in Keihoset Forest.  Reports state that the recent earthquakes (like the one that collapsed the arena) have all been centered in the Forest.
-Upon arriving in the forest, they are attacked by a robotic snake which can fire energy bolts from it's mouth named Annias.
-The group eventually defeats it by cutting off it's head.  The team decides to camp for the night and continue in the morning, but durring the night, Annias' head deploys a set of wheels out of the side and escapes.
-They realize this in the morning and note that Gravv is missing.  Upon his return (gravy gun gag), he tells them he tracked it down and found the base.
-Annias' tech was way too advanced to be from anywhere but the Rovan Empire.  Everyone feared the Empire had invaded secretly.
-The Doctor (since I have no name for the mad scientist) is busy planning something as Annias returns.  He readies his defenses of animal-like robots.  Trees move aside and waves of robotic animals scatter from their hangars and take up strategic posistions to defend his well-hidden base.
-Bird-like cameras allow him to keep tabs on the group of intruders.
-Gravv refuses to lead the way because he feels underappreciated (and a bit beat-up thanks to his accidental groping of Keri).
-Eric decides to try his powers to read the atmosphere (the fact that Annias left tracks helped too).
-Gravv sulks and stays behind (may add in the cardboard-Gravv gag as a sub-reason).
-Doctor orders "Unit 7" (A captured and mind-controlled Seth) to take out Gravv since he is alone.
-Upon hearing his scream, Karu and Akuin rush off to help him, followed by Max soon after.
-Karu and Akuin burst from the bushes and attack Seth who is standing over Gravv.  Seth manages to see them coming (intel from the bird-cameras).  He dodges their bullets/knives and returns fire with a Flame-Bomb spell (ball of fire that asplodes).
-In his dazed state from the blast, Karu doesn't notice that a robot has jumped from the tree-line and shoots him from behind with a stun-gun.
-It then slips a collar onto his neck and re-animates him, mind-controlled like Seth.
-Akuin turns to shoot the mech, but his shots aren't any match for the thing's armour.
-Akuin retreats to the trees and the mech and Seth follow.
-Max arrives after hearing the fighting from a distance to see Karu who attacks him on sight.  The two clash for a while until Akuin circles around after losing Seth and the mech with his Visage ability.  He tells Max to warn the others.
-As he runs a little ways, he encounters Seth and ends up fighting him.
--Karu vs Akuin--Akuin wins closely by shooting a RPG round with his pistol while it's close to Karu.
--Seth vs Max--After a brief fist-fight (having his sword thrown away), Max reclaims his blade and wins against Seth's Flamestrike with a Tenshozan.  Max is then attacked like Karu by the mech who appears again out of the treeline.
-the Mech drags the two of them back to the Doctor's lab.
-Justin, Eric and Keri fight their way through the horde of mecha, and find themselves in the Doctor's base hidden under the forest.
-The Doctor is not pleased at their presence, and sends his three best robots Ant King, Bombadier, and Heracles to deal with them (all three giant bug-types)
-Ant King is an attack type built with an energy blade on one arm and a shield on the opposite.  Very fast.
-Bombadier is a ranged type, wielding two rapid-fire canons on either side.
-Heracles is a damage tank, and has no ranged attacks.  Can charge forward quickly, and has devastating physical damage.
-Eric manages to subdue Heracles long enough for Justin to stab through it's jet engine under it's armour-plated shell as it opened it to rush forward.  Heracles exploded.
-Keri froze one of Bombadier's canons with a Frost Arrow as it reloaded and caused the next burst of shots to detonate inside the canon, killing Bombadier.
-Ant King was stronger than either of the others, and it's blade was much more deadly.  It reacted to magic by defending from Keri, and neither Justin nor Eric could get close enough to deal damage due to it's reach with the energy blade.
-Keri decided to try and confuse it.  She gave Justin and Eric each a Channeling card and told them to point at eachother and concentrate their energy on the card.  They triangulated themselves around the Ant King and did as she asked.  She prepared a spell.  With her pointing at Justin, Justin pointing at Eric, and Eric pointing at her, the Pyro Shot she fired bounced around in a triangle.  She fired two more in proper timing to have them all bounce at the same distance from eachother between the three.
-On Keri's signal, they all turned their cards from eachother to the center, and finished off Ant King by hitting it from all sides with magic since it couldn't defend all of it's sides simultaneously.
-Keri took a moment to catch her breath since she was still getting used to using magic (and had fired roughly 13 spells that day).  As they let their guard down, Annias (fully recovered) lunges from a secret hole in the wall and captures Keri, threatening to kill her.  A swarm of robot guards rush in and subdue Justin and Eric.
-The group is thrown in a holding-cell, stripped of their weapons.
-Akuin has in this time removed Karu's collar and has done some scouting.  He wouldn't be able to save everyone on his own, but had knowledge of everyone's location.
-As Karu wakes up, the two set out for a rescue mission.
-Karu would go for Justin, Eric, and Keri.  Akuin would rescue Max and Seth.
-Max wakes up locked in a chamber in the Doctor's lab, who is currently running an experiment with Seth strapped to a wall with a tube (similar to the one Max was in) on either side of him.
-Doctor tells Max a story about a people that once lived on the island according to legend.  People of Light and People of Dark.  (Max will probably reply with a racism-joke).
-Doctor reveals that he has been studying on his own to revive those fallen races, and that Seth would be the first of many.  He pulls the switch to begin the process, and Seth is hit with a massive current of energy.
-Seth's body is litterally disintegrated in the beam, and in the two tubes, something is formed.
-On one side, a glowing white mass, and on the opposite, a shrouded dark one.  The glows fade, and it is revealed that they both look almost identical to Seth.
-They awaken and after a moment, begin staring at eachother.  The Doctor lowers the capsules and opens them.  Max watches as they approach eachother when the one that was shrouded in darkness (has slightly darker hair) rears up and ignites a fireball at point-blank against the other one.
-The Doctor comments how even their hate for eachother is correct.  The darker one (hereby known as Skeith, AKA Kon Seth) continues to beat the crap out of Seth (AKA Haku Seth) as the Doctor explains that the two are now completely different existances.  Haku Seth represents all of the kindness, compassion, and righteousness that his once human soul would have had, while Skeith held within him all of Seth's previous desires, perversions, and wrath.  It would appear that the darker side of Seth was more powerful than his kinder emotions (explained by his hate for bandits and his desire to rid the world of them completely).
-As they watched, Max knew that the maniacally laughing thing standing there was not his friend, but the one that was being killed before him needed protection.  Max charged the glass wall before him, but couldn't break it.
-Akuin rushes into the room with an Rocket breaching the door.  Akuin jumps into the air and spirals in with a hail of bullets, striking several computer consoles, and inadvertantly causing Max's tube to open.  Max rushes for his blade and proceeds to join Haku Seth in his fight against his dark side.
-The Doctor is enraged at the destruction of his equipment, and proceeds to engage in the room's automated defense turrets.
-Max and Seth succeed in repelling Skeith, and the Kon charges a massive amount of flame into his hand and blows out the cieling, leaving himself an exit to escape.
-Seth follows after him.
-Max turns to see Akuin pinned down behind a rain of gunfire, and decides to lend a hand and destroy the turrets.
-Doctor suits up in a battle-armour (think Ironman, but not fully covering his body).  He wields a melee weapon on his right arm which changes between beam shield and beam sword, and an energy rifle on his left arm.  Hoover boots allow him flight.
-Max and Akuin take him on, with Akuin eventually finishing him off by collapsing the cieling in over him with a Rocket after Max distracts him.
-Karu manages to get everyone else out of the prison as the base prepares to explode due to the Doctor's demise.  They all meet up on a hillside as the place goes up in flames.  The base was miles long, stretching way up towards the mountain.  Their fears were realized that the Rovan Empire was indeed invading the regions of Allura in secret.
-Gravv rides up to the group astride a giant Jack-Rabbit.  He explains that he has rallied up the creatures of the forest and those able to fight were helping to clear out the robots and take back their home.  (lame I know, but I needed him to be doing more here than just goofing off, and I kinda forgot about him till I had this story planned out without him in it)

[B-rad]

Chapter 5 (Clan of Flowers, Kind Princess):
Oosaka Yuuki- Age: 16 Daughter of the Chief of Shihana.
Kitazawa Kousuke- Age 21 Bodyguard to Yuuki.
Oosaka Raizo- Age 41 Chief of Shihana and Yuuki's father.
Asamoto Satsuki- Age 16 Yuuki's best friend.
Sonohara Koki- Age 17 Yuuki's other best friend and Satsuki's bodyguard and lover.
Yamamoto Kanji- Age 20 Raizo's bodyguard. Has a thing for Yuuki.
Takahashi Yuuichi- Age 25 Raizo's bodyguard.
Nakawara Ume- Age 18 Yuuki's rival in the village. She is the granddaughter of one of the Village Elders and she thinks that her family can stage a rebellion and take control of Shihana.
Nakata Mio- Age 18 Ume's bitch (She is the only bitch that shows up in Chapter 5. Shoko will show up with Mio and Ume in Chapter 20 or whatever chapter we kill Kousuke in).
Nagasaki Shoko- Age 18 Ume's bitch.

"Oof!"
A blue-haired kunoichi fell backwards and landed on her butt. She looked up at her sparring partner and glared at him.
"Kousuke! That hurt!" Yuuki said, getting up.
"Hey, you told me not to go easy on you, Yuuki-sama," he said.
Yuuki glanced over and noticed that her two best friends, Satsuki and Koki, were missing.
"Kousuke, do you know where Sat-chan and Koki-kun went?"
He looked around and shook his head.
"The last time I saw them, they were over there," he said, pointing at a spot to the right of Yuuki.
Yuuki walked in the direction that Kousuke indicated. She walked for a few minutes when she stopped and pulled a kunai out of her pouch that was strapped to her thigh, just under her skirt. There was rustling coming from a nearby bush. She walked slowly toward the bush, when Satsuki's voice spoke.
"Don't touch me there, Koki!" she said.
Yuuki stopped. She knew this wasn't a conversation she needed to hear.
"You know you like it," Koki replied.
Yuuki closed her eyes. She couldn't believe she was hearing this conversation. There was part of her brain telling her to back away slowly and pretend she never heard this and the other half was telling her to put a stop to it. Koki was Satsuki's bodyguard. And it was against the rules for the bodyguard and the person he was protecting to fall in love. Satsuki's dad was the Vice-Chief of Shihana and Yuuki's dad was the Chief. As things stood now, Yuuki would be the Chief when her father died. The only way Satsuki's father would take over was if both Yuuki and her father died. Yuuki took a deep breath and spoke.
"You know it's against the rules for you to be together," she said.
The noises from the bush stopped and started to rustle more violently.
"It's not what you think, Yuu-chan!" Satsuki said.
She was the first to emerge. Her kimono was a little messed up and she looked a little disheveled. Koki came next, and they both looked like little kids who were caught with their hands in the cookie jar.
"Then what was it, Sat-chan?" Yuuki asked, looking stern.
They were both quiet and they weren't looking at Yuuki or each other. Satsuki's lipstick was smudged and Koki had some around his lips. Kousuke came up behind Yuuki and stopped.
"Oh, so you caught them?" he asked.
Yuuki looked around at him.
"You knew? You knew they were together?" she asked.
"I caught them together last week and they begged me not to tell anyone. So, I promised I wouldn't say anything."
"But, you know it's forbidden!" Yuuki said.
"Come on, Yuuki-sama. You know that they love each other. It is pretty obvious by the way they act. It was pretty obvious when we were children, too," Kousuke said.
Yuuki sighed as she stared at Koki and Satsuki with her hands on her hips. She had indeed noticed that there was something between them, but she always shrugged it off.
"Does anyone else know?" Yuuki asked.
Satsuki hung her head and shook her head no. Now, that was a problem. If they were found out, it was possible that Koki could be killed for fraternizing with the girl he was hired to protect.
"You won't tell anyone will you, Yuu-chan?" Satsuki asked.
The stern look on Yuuki's face softened as she looked at her two best friends.
"I won't tell anyone, Sat-chan, but I will think of a way to repeal that law. I think it is a little stupid after all," Yuuki said, crossing her arms.
"Oh! Thank you so much, Yuu-chan!" Satsuki said, tackling Yuuki in a hug.
"Sat-chan, you are strangling me," Yuuki said, trying to extract herself from Satsuki's death grip.
Before she knew it, Koki had joined in, too. Yuuki was laying on the ground, Koki on one side and Satsuki on the other. Kousuke stood off to the side, smiling at the scene in front of him. Satsuki looked up at Yuuki with her blue eyes.
"Oh yeah! It's your birthday today! Koki and I got you a birthday gift!"
Satsuki jumped up and ran over to her bag. Yuuki was standing up as Satsuki came running back. Satsuki handed Yuuki a heavy package wrapped in blue paper. Yuuki opened the package and saw a new set of kunai.
"We noticed that the kunai you were using were getting a little rusty," Koki said.
Yuuki looked up and smiled.
"Thank you so much!" Yuuki said, hugging her friends.
As Yuuki was showing her love to her friends, Kanji appeared out of nowhere beside Kousuke.
"Yuuki-sama, your father, Raizo-sama, wishes to see you," he said.
"Okay. Tell him I will be there soon," Yuuki said.
Kanji nodded and disappeared. Yuuki pulled away from Koki, whom she was hugging and waved as Kousuke started to drag her home. As they walked back to the house (that Yuuki shares with Kousuke), people stopped and wished Yuuki a happy birthday. It was a little embarrassing. She was walking by one her favorite shops when the owner came outside.
"Happy birthday, Yuuki-sama! I just made some cream-puffs if you would like some!"
Yuuki stopped and turned to look at the owner.
"I love your cream-puffs!" Yuuki said excitedly.
Yuuki followed the owner into the shop and up to the counter. He handed her a box of cream-puffs and a box of sticky buns. She looked over at Kousuke expectantly.
"What's that look for, Yuuki-sama?" he asked.
"Well, pay the man. I don't have my wallet on me," Yuuki said.
"I don't know where you would keep it," Kousuke muttered under his breath, eyeing Yuuki's clothes and fumbling in his pocket for his wallet, while the comment earned him one of Yuuki's patented glares.
"Oh no! You don't need to pay me! This is a birthday gift for Yuuki-sama," the owner said.
Yuuki looked up at the owner in surprise and then smiled.
"Thank you so much," Yuuki said, bowing slightly.
Kousuke and Yuuki left the store and continued on their way back to the house. Yuuki pulled a sticky bun out of the top box and stuffed it in her mouth. She was hungry, since she hadn't eaten breakfast yet. She offered one to Kousuke which he accepted gratefully. By the time they reached home, they were laden down with boxes and bags. The boxes contained more baked goods and even some of Yuuki's favorite sushi from the various shops around town. The bags contained things like flowers, blankets and even some clothes and shoes. As they deposited the bags by the front door, Yuuki kicked off her boots and rushed upstairs to take a quick shower. She came downstairs 30 minutes later, wearing her blue kimono with koi fish all over it. Kousuke was eating a cream-puff in the kitchen when he saw Yuuki.
"Are you ready to go?" he asked, stuffing the last piece of the pastry in his mouth.
Yuuki nodded, slipping on her shoes at the door. She stepped outside and Kousuke shut the door behind him, locking it. They walked though some of the less populated parts of town to keep from getting distracted, since Raizo had summoned Yuuki almost an hour ago. When the hall came in view, Yuuki and Kousuke picked up the pace. They stopped at the door, which was barred by Raizo's bodyguards, Yuuichi and Kanji.
"Raizo-sama is expecting you," Yuuichi said, stepping aside and bowing.
Kanji also stepped aside and bowed, his face a little red. Yuuki and Kousuke walked past the bodyguards and into the quiet hallway. They slipped off their shoes and walked down the hallway to Raizo's office. Yuuki knocked softly on the door.
"Come in," Raizo said.
Yuuki slid the door open and walked in, Kousuke behind her. They bowed to Raizo and muttered "good morning" to him.
"Yuuki, Kousuke, please sit down I have an important matter to discuss with the both of you."
Yuuki sat down in front of her father, Kousuke just behind her.
"What is it father," Yuuki asked, worried.
"First off, happy birthday, Yuuki," Raizo said, handing Yuuki a gift wrapped in green paper.
Yuuki opened the package and saw a pair of hand-painted bladed fans. She picked one up and flipped it open. It was painted blue and it had cherry blossoms painted all over it.
"Oh wow!" Yuuki breathed. "They are beautiful!"
"I noticed that the ones you inherited from your mother are a little worse for wear. I would hate to see something that is so special to you to break. So, I had these made just for you."
A smile had spread over her face, but the more she looked at it, the smile slid off her face. She reached into her pouch and pulled out worn and pretty beaten up fan. She flipped it open and compared the two. The older one was painted indigo with white lilies. The design of her new fans were similar to that of her mother's, but Yuuki knew what was happening. She looked up at her father and sighed.
"I see what is going on here," Yuuki said. "You gave me these new fans to me to make me forget about mom!"
Raizo sighed as he looked at Yuuki, seemingly unaffected by the murderous look on her face. It was almost like he was expecting her to act like this.
"Yuuki, please listen to me. I simply got these to help you get over the death of Kyoko. I do not want you to forget about her. I will never forget her. I thought that maybe you will be more inclined to fight with those since they are your own and not as old as your mothers. I am trying to teach you how to be more self-reliant. Kousuke and I won't be around all the time to help you. Which brings us to the other thing I wanted to talk to you about? I have a mission for Yuuki and Yuuki alone."
Yuuki and Kousuke looked at each other confused.
"Raizo-sama, what do you mean by that?" Kousuke asked.
"Just like it seems. I have a mission for Yuuki. But, it is a mission she needs to complete on her own. She needs to prove herself to the Elders. They don't like the idea of a female taking over our Village when I die. This is to prove to them and everyone else in Shihana that you are capable of being Chief when I die."
Yuuki was silent for a few moments, running her fingers over the outside of her new bladed fans.
"So, I am doing this to prove myself to a bunch of old fools who may not be around when I become Chief?" Yuuki asked.
"I'm sorry, Yuuki. I tried to get them to change their minds, but they can be stubborn," Raizo sighed.
Yuuki looked down at her lap, thinking about what her father told her. She knew if she didn't accept this mission, then she wouldn't be able to take over the Village. She knew she had to take it. There was no one who could take over when her father died. She was an only child and she didn't want to break the family line. Her family had been the Leaders since it was founded long ago, and she was the first female that would take over. She looked up into her father’s face. She didn't want to disappoint him.
"Fine, I will accept. I will do this without the assistance of Kousuke. I will make you proud, Father and I will prove that I am worthy of being Chief just as well as if I were a man."
"Yuuki-sama! No! You can't! You can't do this mission on your own! It is too dangerous!" Kousuke protested.
Yuuki turned her head slightly. She could see him out of the corner of her eyes. He looked a little upset at her acceptance of the mission.
"Kousuke, I have to do this. This is the only way I can become Chief. If I do not do this, my father could be over thrown by the Village Elders. I will not allow that to happen. So, hold your tongue," Yuuki scolded.
"Yes, Yuuki-sama," Kousuke said, bowing his head.
"Okay, well since you accepted the mission, your mission is to infiltrate the Grendel Company owned by the Turner Family. Their company-head, John Turner, is the premier weapons developer in the world. You are to follow him, infiltrate his lab, discover plans for his latest weapons project, and return here with them. If you are unable to recover the plans, return here. Do not be seen. If you are it is at your own discretion as to what you do. Be warned that any bloodshed will be treated as an aggressive act, and the fact that you are our Princess would mean you act as an official of our village. But in the face of danger, do not hesitate to defend yourself. You have three days."
Yuuki nodded to show that she understood.
"I understand, father. I will not disappoint you."
"Then you are dismissed," Raizo said.
Both Yuuki and Kousuke stood. They bowed to Raizo and exited the room. They walked through the village, ignoring the "happy birthdays" Yuuki was receiving. This was going to be her first mission without Kousuke. But, her father was right. Kousuke won't be around forever to help her. She needed to be able to take care of herself.
"Yuuki-sama, are you sure you want to do this mission? It sounds really dangerous! If you are caught or seen, you could be killed!"
Yuuki stopped and turned to look at Kousuke. She arranged her features to show that she wasn't worried, but inside, she was afraid that she would disappoint her father.
"It's okay, Kousuke. I will be fine. Besides, I can't keep relying on you," Yuuki said.
"You can be stubborn sometimes, Yuuki-sama," Kousuke said, his face softening.
"And that is why you love me!" Yuuki said jokingly.
She turned away and started to walk away and Kousuke sighed.
"Yes, that is why I love you," he whispered to himself.
He followed after her. He had to help her pack. He knew she wouldn't be able to pack her own bag. They were halfway home when Yuuki made a turn toward the graveyard.
When they reached the graveyard, she made a beeline straight for her mother’s grave. Kousuke stayed behind at the gate to protect it. Yuuki walked the path to her mother’s grave slowly. She wanted to say goodbye to her mother before she left. Yuuki's mom died when she was five, protecting her and Kousuke when there was a raid on Shihana. Kousuke's father, who was Kyoko's bodyguard, had died protecting them, then Kyoko had died before Raizo could get to them to save them. Raizo managed to save Yuuki and Kousuke, but it was too late for Kyoko and her bodyguard. Yuuki remembered how hard Kyoko's death was on Raizo. There for a long time he couldn't look at Yuuki. For a long time, Yuuki thought it was her fault that her mother had died, and that was why Raizo wouldn’t look at her. But, years later, she found out that it was because she looked so much like her mother.
She reached her mother’s grave and stopped and looked down at it. She smiled slightly as she kneeled down in front of it.
"Hey, Mom," she started. "Guess what? Father gave me my first solo mission today. I am a little scared. This is the first mission I have ever done without Kousuke. Don't worry, Mom, I will come back home alive. I should go."
She reached into her pouch and pulled out one of her mother’s fans and placed it in front of the grave. She stood and walked back to Kousuke, who was checking out a couple girls a few feet away.
"Well, look who it is," the brunette said to her friend. "It's the 'Princess' of our village, Oosaka Yuuki-sama."
The girl placed a lot of emphasis on the suffix. Yuuki narrowed her eyes as she fixed her eyes on the girl.
"Nakawara Ume-san," Yuuki said. "Good morning."
The girl named Ume ignored the greeting and swaggered over to where Yuuki and Kousuke stood.
"Visiting your mother, were you?" Ume asked.
Yuuki ignored her. She knew it wasn't worth it. Yuuki turned her back on Ume and started to walk away.
"Yuuki-sama?" Kousuke asked, running after her.
Ume and her friend followed them, taunting Yuuki about her mother being dead. Yuuki ignored them, but her small hands were balled in fists.
"Yuuki-sama," Ume said, "I heard that you have a mission. It's your first solo mission, and you have to complete it in order to be accepted by the Village Elders to be the next Chief. I hope you fail, that way we won't have to deal with you leading Shihana. You wouldn't make a very good Chief, and your father isn't much better."
At that point, Yuuki snapped. In a flash, Yuuki had pulled out a kunai and had lunged at Ume. She intended to plunge the kunai into the throat of Ume, but Ume was just as quick. She pulled out a kunai of her own and parried the blow from Yuuki. Ume's friend tried to step in, but Yuuki placed a strong kick in the girl’s stomach and she went flying into a nearby wall.
"Yuuki-sama, stop!" Kousuke yelled.
He tried to step in many times, but was unsuccessful. He had sparred with Yuuki many times, but, he had never seen her fight like this. She was faster than she was in training, and she seemed to be fighting to kill. Maybe it had something to do with Ume insulting her father.
All the time the two girls were fighting, they kept moving toward the edge of the village, and Kousuke could tell that even though Yuuki was blind with rage, she was making sure to get the fight outside the village so that innocent bystanders did not get caught in it.
Yuuki didn't have her katana with her, but she was using her kunai and her bladed fans. The fight carried on for a good thirty minutes before Raizo arrived with Ume's friend. Raizo looked around the so called battle ground. The ground was littered with kunai from both girls, and Yuuki's fans were all over the place. She had one left that she hadn't used yet. Both girls were injured, and it looked like they were about to reach their limit. Yuuki pulled her arm back and let her last bladed fan go. In a flash, Raizo sent one of his electrically charged ninja stars toward Yuuki's fan. It hit the fan and sent it into a nearby tree. Neither girl seemed to notice the new arrival and they continued to fight. Raizo blew up a tree nearby with his lightning, and both girls stopped. Yuuki had Ume on the ground, with a kunai held to her throat.
"Would you girls mind telling me what is going on here?" Raizo asked.
Ume pushed Yuuki off her and jumped to her feet.
"I am so glad you are here, Raizo-sama! Yuuki-sama is unbalanced! I was walking by the graveyard when out of nowhere she attacked me. I didn't do anything to deserve to be attacked!" Ume said.
"Yuuki, is this true?" Raizo asked, looking over at Yuuki.
Yuuki was in a state of shock, that she didn't answer right away. Kousuke stepped forward and spoke to Raizo.
"If I may speak on Yuuki-sama's behalf," Kousuke started, "she didn't start the fight. She may have struck the first blow, but she was provoked."
Raizo looked over at Ume and her friend, then back to Kousuke.
"Explain," he said.
"Well, Yuuki-sama had stopped by the graveyard to see her mother, and when she left, those two girls started in on her. They taunted her about her mother, and when they realized that that wouldn't work, they taunted her and you. That sent Yuuki-sama over the edge."
Raizo looked from Kousuke, to Ume and her friend, then to Yuuki.
"I don't know what happened here, and I will not punish anyone. Yuuki has an important mission she needs to be leaving for, so I will let this go for now. But, if this happens again, I will take action. Pick up your kunai and go back home."
Raizo watched the two girls as they picked up their kunai and, in Yuuki's case, picking up the bladed fans. There were a few times when Raizo had to break up little squabbles between Ume and Yuuki, because they were fighting over kunais. After all the kunai and fans were picked up, Yuuki walked past her father and he grabbed her arm. Yuuki winced from the grip, since she had a gash on her arm.
"Father, will you please let me go? I need to go home and pack so I can get on with my mission."
"I want you to go to the hospital first and get your wounds treated. Your time won't start until you leave the village."
Raizo looked over at Kousuke and let go of Yuukis arm. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a handkerchief to wipe Yuuki's blood off his hands.
"Make sure you take her to the hospital before she leaves. I don't want her to get an infection while she is on this mission."
"Yes, Raizo-sama," Kousuke said. "Come on, Yuuki-sama. We need to get your wounds treated."
Yuuki obediently followed Kousuke. She was a little pissed off at Ume and Mio. How could they lie about something like that? She followed Kousuke in a daze, not paying attention to where they were going. She didn't even notice when they reached the hospital and was taken into a room to get patched up. Kousuke and Yuuki sat in silence for a few moments, before Kousuke pulled Yuuki back to reality.
"Yuuki-sama, I want to talk to you about something. What happened between you and Ume-san should have never happened. I understand that she provoked you, but you need to get your anger under control. That could make or break this mission. You need to complete and survive this mission, Yuuki-sama. The fate of Shihana rests on it. Do you understand me?"
Yuuki nodded, choosing not to say anything. She didn't know what she could say to that. When the doctor came in to patch up Yuuki, she explained to him what happened and he gave her almost the exact same speech as Kousuke, minus the mission part. She felt like a scolded child. Luckily her wounds weren't too bad and would heal in a few days.
With that done, her and Kousuke headed home. Yuuki needed to leave as soon as possible. She should have been on the road already, but Ume had ruined the chance of making it to Rufturf before nightfall. As soon as they reached home, Yuuki slipped off her shoes and headed upstairs. She needed to change real quick, she wasn't about to do a mission in her favorite kimono. As she took it off, she looked at it and winced. It was pretty beat up. It had blood, dirt and sweat all over. It was also ripped in many places. She folded it up neatly and put it aside. She would have Kousuke get it fixed while she was gone. Hopefully, it could be fixed. If not, then she would have to buy a new one. She put on her normal everyday clothes and walked toward her room. She needed to help Kousuke pack her bag for her mission.
She entered her room to see that Kousuke already had her bag out and he was currently raiding her dresser for some clothes. He turned around and Yuuki's face turned red. He had her underwear in his hands and his eyes widened when he saw the look on Yuuki's face.
"Yuuki-sama! It's not what it looks like! I wasn't raiding your panty drawer! I was getting clothes for you!"
Yuuki walked over to him and after hitting him in the face, she took her underwear from his grasp and put it in her bag.
"You are not allowed to touch my clothes while I am gone, Kousuke-pervert," she said, her face still tomato-red.
"I'm sorry, Yuuki-sama."
He came over to bag with a blanket and a mat, in case she needed to sleep outside. When she turned her back to get a few other things, he quickly slipped something wrapped in pale pink into her bag, hidden between the blanket and the mat. After the finished packing all her clothes and a few other things, Kousuke ran downstairs to get some food for Yuuki to eat when she spent the night outside and to munch on if she got hungry. He brought up some of the baked goods she had received, some water and a box of her favorite sushi. He had also had a few bags of dog food.
Kousuke was satisfied that she had everything and nodded to her. She picked up her katana and strapped it to her back. Then, she picked up her bag and slung it over one shoulder (it's a messenger type of bag). She walked downstairs and stopped by the door. As she slipped on her boots she looked up at Kousuke.
"Where's Kyo?" she asked.
He went to the back door and opened it.
"Kyo! Shiro! Come on!"
A little brown puppy and a little white puppy came bounding into the house. Kyo looked over at Yuuki and saw that her bag was packed.
"Are we going on a mission, Yuuki?" Kyo asked, his tail wagging.
Yuuki smiled as she knelt down to pet him.
"Yes, just you and me. This is our first solo mission. I will explain it on the way."
She picked up her bag and opened the front door. Both puppies shot out of the door and frolicked a little, waiting for Kousuke and Yuuki. After the door was shut, the group made their way toward the front gate. When they reached the gate, they saw Satsuki and Koki waiting for her.
"Yuu-chan, I heard about the mission from my father. Are you sure you want to do this?" Satsuki asked, anxiously.
"I need to do it, Sat-chan. I cannot allow my village to fall into the hands of those senile old Village Elders."
"Just promise me that you will be okay," Satsuki said.
Yuuki smiled and hugged Satsuki.
"Don't worry, Sat-chan, I will come back safely.
She hugged Koki, patted Shiro on the head and turned to look at Kousuke, not sure if she should hug him, too. This was the first time she was leaving without him by her side. He pulled her into an awkward one armed hug.
"Come back safely, Yuuki-sama," he whispered in her ear.
"I will, I promise," she whispered back, her arm tightening around his waist.
He let go of her, and both of them were sporting red faces. She turned her back on her three friends and started out of the gate.
"Oh, before I forget. Kousuke, the kimono I was wearing today is covered in blood, dirt and sweat and it is ripped in many places. Please see if it can be fixed. If not, then, I will buy a new one when I get back. See you all in three days."
She raised her hand in farewell, and with her puppy following her, she disappeared through the front gate and it closed behind her.
-END-
-This chapter revolves around Yuuki, the ninja from Shihana Village located centraly in the Keihoset Forest.
-Still awaiting inputs from Julia on this section.
-----My Input-----
-I like the whole "Go on your first mission to prove yourself" idea.
-Kousuke should atleast survive for a few chapters before we kill him off. Give the fans some time to get to know him and let him develope a personality, y'know? Then he can "Die like a soldier" when she wanted him to "Live like a lover" or something like that.
-Koki and Satsuki should be well into their relationship and should be established as side-characters early on. Let's face it, they're like the Ino-Shika-Cho group. Only the die-hard fan-girls/boys care anything about them.
-You could have Kousuke be monitoring her every move unbeknownst to her, and when the chapter is over, he reports to her father. (He could make a comment on something she did but didn't want to tell Raizo).
-As far as missions: I've got a couple of ideas...Firstly, you could try a good old-fashioned thievery mission where she must steal something and escape without being seen (which we know is bound to end in failure). We need to think of some way for her to run into the group. She doesn't have to meet all of them mind-you, just one person atleast.
-Second Idea: Assassination/Bounty-hunt: Have her sent out to either assassinate somone in town or hunt down some notorious bandit in the woods/ruins (since Max n' Gang tend to hang around both parts, it should be easy to work in a story where the group is treasure hunting/just hanging around).
-We should establish the ninja that will kill Kousuke as atleast a bitch that Yuuki doesn't like. She should atleast make an appearance here and display a bit of skill.
-Raizo's rage should flare-up at some point and reveal his electrical capabilities.
-I don't think we should explain about where she got every-thing she owns right off the bat, but it could be things she tells Wolf later on. like the earrings she gets from Kousuke, she can hold onto them after he dies, but never wear them. She would take them out and look at them sometimes and eventually Wolf would ask about them/be told about them. He'd tell her she should wear them and treasure his memory. "And I'm sure they'd look nice on you." (insert WTF-Face/Blush here).
-That's about all I got.

Chapter 6 (Rise to the Challenge, a Run-in at Rufturf)
-This one's the second part to Julia's story which revolves around Yuuki's mission in Rufturf and eventual meeting with the other charcters. I'll probably handle alot of this story.

Chapter 7 (Asura, Guardian of the Blade):
-Max goes to visit his dad at a dig in the ruins.
-Justin, Eric, and Keri accompany him.
-They meet up with his dad and enjoy lunch as he discusses a discovery of a new chamber deep within the ruins, and he believes it leads to a much larger one deep underground which holds something of great importance. His workers have fled the place after a sudden attack by a large monster, however.
-Enticed by the idea of treasure, Keri and Eric convince Justin and Max to help them look for the entrance to the larger chamber, convinced they could deal with the monster when they found it.
-As they fumble around in the dark, Keri becomes frustrated, and engages her flame magic to light some torches ablaze.
-Reacting to the magic, some runes on the ground begin to glow. The runes circle around the chamber they stood in, and seemed to point to a larger circular one in the middle.
-The glow began to fade after a while, so Keri again used her magic to simply emmit a small glow. Once more the runes shone. As she increased the power of the spell, they shone brighter, and even began to hum.
-Max motioned for her to stop, but in the end, it was too late, and cracks formed in the center of the floor. Keri immediately stopped her spell, but the runes did not stop glowing. The bricks making up the floor crumbled away quickly, and the group fell into the hole created.
-As they stood, they noted they were a long way down in a much-much larger chamber. Excited to find the hidden room, they were slightly disappointed to note it was not filled with treasure.
-Keri used her spells again to illuminate the room, and noted no negative impacts of using magic. She lit the torches in the room slowly as the team began looking around.
-Max approached what appeared to be an altar of some kind, and as he stepped onto it, his pendant of a sword his father had given him began glowing.
-The room seemed to shift and he fell unconsious to the floor. Everyone ran to his side, but he didn't wake up.
-In his mind, he stood in a foggy open space. He faced a tall man with long black hair, wearing an old-style kimono, wielding a large white sword. "Asura" as he called himself, wished to know who had awakened him.
-Not understanding what was going on, or ever having heard of Asura, Max appeared to be confused. Asura looked down at Max's pendant, and noted it was the same magic item that had sealed him away. In a rage, Asura attacked Max, and with a stroke of his blade, even though Max managed to block with his own sword, sent him flying away.
-Though Max didn't understand, he knew he needed to defend himself. He stood and rushed in to attack. Asura dodged the lunge, and spun to strike with the blunt-side of his blade. Again, Max sailed through the air, landing on his back.
-Asura did not allow him to finish recovering and jumped through the air over to his position. Slashing downward, he narrowly missed Max's head as he rolled out of the blade's reach.
-Max stood again, this time slower, readying himself to not be caught off-guard anymore. The two collided again, and Max was sent spinning in place. He couldn't get over how fast and powerful each sword-stroke was from his enemy. Asura rushed forward, with a barrage of slashes, sending Max flying backwards with each parry only to close distance to hit him once more.
-Max takes a chance and lunges forward with a horizontal slash against the oncoming sword. The impact in return shatters his own sword, cleaving a piece out of his chest in the process. Max drops to his knee, still holding his blade's hilt.
-Asura attempts to finish him off and free himself from his prison. Max hears his team's voices calling out to him and raises his sword to defend himself.
-Light shoots out from Max's broken sword, creating a bright sword of light. The blade shatters a few seconds later, but manages to repel Asura's strike.
-Asura slides backwards from the force of the blades colliding. From his kneeling position, Max leaps into the air, and readies his sword over his head. The sword once again glows brightly and extends to form the blade once more. "Tenshozan" was the name he called as he swung down, chopping heavily onto Asura's sword. In the end, the white blade gave way and cracked under the force of the hit. Max's sword again shattered.
-The wound in Max's chest opened up, sending a sharp pain through his body as he fell again, now dropping his sword.
-Asura is amazed at Max's ability to overpower him twice. Asura admits that maybe he has been sealed away so long that later generations have surpassed him. He holds out his blade for Max to grab the hilt. Suddenly, he awakens to find Eric and Keri lying on the ground, and a demonic creature currently in battle with a losing Justin. Max moves to help him, but collapses as the wound he had recieved in his dream was infact real and still bleeding.
-Still, he stood and walked over to the beast. Justin lands a direct blow on the monster's leg, but is caught by a surprise attack from the side and sent flying into a wall.
-Max stands alone against the monster. It seemed to resemble a large lanky-armed man with a lizard-like face and skin. The claws on the creature's arms seemed sharp enough to gut somone in a single slash.
-Max can barely defend himself against the monster. Though his sword was still intact from the battle in his mind, his body was not. He struggled to keep up with the enemy's movements and was eventually overpowered, and hammered into the floor by the creature's large fists.
-The beast noted the pendant on Max's neck and plucked it off, but as it came in contact with his hand, it shone a bright-red color. The glow burned the monster and sent it reeling away. The sword-pendant landed on Max's chest as he heard Asura's voice once more. Asura appologizes for puting him in such a state and offers to assist him in his battle to defend himself and his allies. Max agrees and accepts his offer.
-Upon calling Asura's name, Max's form glows red, and changes to resemble what Asura appeared as. His broadsword had also formed into Asura's white blade which Max noted was light as a text-book, light enough to hold in one hand. He hacked into the monster, cleaving it's leg off where Justin barely managed to put a scratch.
-The beast roared and swung downward onto Max with his claws extended. Max rose his sword up to face the claw, and pierced his enemy's arm before ripping to the side and tearing it off at the shoulder. The creature was down to two limbs now, and attempted to retreat with what it had remaining, but not before reaching out to drag Keri and Eric off in it's hand. Max pursued intently as Keri awoke within the soon cornered beast's grasp to fire a shard of ice (Frost Arrow) into it's chin, piercing through and causing it to release them. As the monster prepared to retaliate, Max flung himself into the air and came down with all his might, cleaving it in half vertically. It roared out before disappearing in a purple-ish flame.
-Max's form glowed red once more, and reverted back to the way he was before, with the pendant reappearing around his neck. Asura's voice spoke out again to him, saying that he would stay with him for a while, and be his guardian until the time came for them to depart. He ended saying that he would offer his power when it was needed.
-The group is rescued by Max's dad who continues to study the new chamber. (it will be revealed later that Asura and the other Guardians were sealed in this room)

[B-rad]

Chapter 8 (Freedom's Call, Revolution of the Wolf):
-Story revolves around Wolf Pewter.
**Flashback-Start (14 years ago)**
-Wolf (8 years) and Amber's (6 years) parents are killed in a raid by Rovan Agents who believed them to be spies. They were shot and killed infront of the kids.
-The two are shipped off to be workers for the mines. Durring the shipping however, Wolf, in a rage, manages to get his hand-cuffs around the driver's throat, and causes the car to crash in a river. Wolf and Amber manage to escape with a few other kids and flee for their lives.
-They live as fugitives for 2 years as they hide, stealing food and money where they could. Eventually, they were confronted in a run-down building after running from 5 guards. As they were about to be taken away, a shot was fired, killing one of the guards. Everyone looks around in confusion. Again, another shot, killing another one. "You guys gonna sit there all day, or are you gonna' run?" said a voice (Kenichi Enjou, 16 years).
-The two bolt for the exit. As the guards try to stop them, Kenichi bursts through the cieling on the opposite side of the building and fired another round from his rifle into a third guard before rolling back into cover behind some desks.
-The two remaining guards opened fire on his position with automatic weapons, peppering the desk as they approached slowly. Kenichi hid for a moment, tinkering with his weapon before raising it over the desk and firing a few shots back. Interesting enough, it was now firing scatter-shots as opposed to sniper-rounds. One of the guards was caught in the chest with the bursts and fell, leaving one remaining.
-Kenichi's gun jams, leaving him in the open. The other guard re-loaded and opened fire with short bursts to keep him pinned while he approached to finish him off. As he neared the table and prepared to finish his target, he is caught from behind by a barrage of gunfire.
-Wolf had returned and grabbed a machine-gun from one of the guards. Kenichi stood and walked over to Wolf. On his arm, Wolf noticed a band for the Rebellion. Kenichi caught his glance and asked if they wanted a job.
**Flashback-End**
-Wolf is now a low-ranking member with the ERF (Empire Resistance Force). Amber works as his Operator, keeping tabs on him from the base while he conducts missions against the Rovan Empire while attempting to help her people.
-He is currently flying high overhead at night in a troop transport vehicle. "Standby to jump...3, 2, 1, jump!" his sister's voice says over the earpiece as he lets loose of the side-railing of the transport and drops like a rock towards the ground.
-His mission is extraction, his target is a batch of highly volatile energy cells, the location is a military weapons research department manned by 110 workers and 48 guards. He deploys his parachute after he passes into 250ft altitude, bringing his body to a rather sudden impact with the ground.
-"I told you to deploy at 500ft!" Amber yells, "They would've seen me, so I dropped further. I'm fine, so quit whining." he replied as he folded the parachute and stored it back in it's bag.
-He placed the bag over against a wall near a door to the side of the compound, then slowly made his way around to the west side of the installation, ensuring he wasn't seen. He reached the side entrance for the building and held his hand out. Amber punched in coordinates to her terminal and his arm glowed a bright blue to form a gauntlet around his arm. He revved up the grip on the gauntlet to engage the vibration cell inside.
-"Primary operative in position. Enemy communications shut-down. Operation is go!" Amber commanded as the sky lit up with rockets and canons firing off from a group of 4 aircraft hovering a few hundred feet from the base. As the base returned fire, the craft launched one more volley before flying away. Durring the attack, Wolf engaged the detonator he held in his oposite hand, setting off the C4 held in his parachute bag on the other side of the base. A few minutes later, a sortie of 30 personal-armour units (think iron-man) flew off after them at high-speed.
-"Only 18 guards to guard the entire base?" Wolf snickered.
-"Installation breached, East exit! All personnel secure the perimeter!" the announcement blared on the loud-speakers. Wolf threw his hand forward into the western door, breaking it down with a single punch from his gauntlet. The gauntlet again glowed it's blue color before teleporting back home. He drew a pair of pistols from his side and entered the building. The alarm already blaring from the one door being breached, nobody noticed the second one for quite some time.
-Wolf quickly made his way into the elevator shaft, prying the doors open and dropping down into the lower levels of the building. He entered the vents and proceeded to the development section. As he entered overhead, he noted 8 guards were positioned around to guard the civilians, meaning 10 went out on security patrol to secure the area.
-He dropped down into an empty office a few rooms away, and reached out through the door to grab a passing engineer. He knocked the man out, and placed him under the desk after removing the man's jacket and badge. He proceeded out into the hallway and accessed the development room.
-He made his way through, casually walking past guards and workers into the storage area.
-The civilians didn't seem to know what was going on. He assumed the alarm didn't sound that far down and that the guards hadn't informed them. Wolf came to the cells he was after and recovered some in his satchel he carried. He turned, exited the area, and alarms began sounding. Two guards immediately approached him and asked why he was removing the stored materials and demanded he droped the bag and put his hands behind his head. His reply was to draw his magnums and shoot each of them in the chest. His cover blown, he had to work his way out of the basement quickly.
-Civilians scattered and bolted for the elevators and stairs as Wolf mixed and blended with them until he melded with the crowd to make his escape along with them.
-Reaching the top floor and evacuating with the civilians to the front of the compound, the 111 people are greeted by a platoon of armed soldiers who stop the crowd. Upon spotting the man out of uniform that Wolf had jumped in the office space, they began questioning what had happened. Wolf, still blending with the crowd, detonates explosives that he had placed throughout the ventilation shaft earlier. As the crowd of civilians began to scatter in fear, some of the guards opened fire. Rather than allow a Resistance member escape in the chaos, they would rather kill 110 of their own civilians just to get to him.
-Wolf darts off in a direction with fewer people to draw less gunfire, then draws his own guns and returns fire as he rounds the corner of the building. The guards immediately pursue him, leaving the rest of the civilians to be guarded by 5 other guards who were currently rounding them up.
-As the wave of Personal Armours round the corner, Wolf lunges into the first at high speed, wielding dual-gauntlets. He crushes the first one's chest armour and rib-cage before jumping away to the next, shattering it's helmet with a spinning back-hand. He lands and rushes backward before taking off back around his corner. He forces the remaining forces to swing widely around the corner to avoid hugging it too close. As they round it however, Wolf had indeed been running this time, and spun to fire a barrage of rounds in their direction, killing another unarmoured enemy. 28 armoured, and 15 unarmoured to go.
-He rounded the next corner as the hail of gunfire went flying, narrowly dodging this burst again. The a wave of 10 Personal Armours rose into the air and attempted to get a view of him while the remaining forces split up to circle the opposite direction. No one caught sight of him as they met up back in front of the building. The 5 guards claimed to have not seen him. They looked frantically for him until one of the men yelled "Get down!" Canons opened fire on the compound's defense systems, shooting down the 10 airborne Personal Armours before turning on the ground based units. Wolf had returned to the inside of the building through the western exit he had broken down and activated the perimeter-defense systems. He placed a small chip on the computer Amber had given him, giving her direct control of the entire system.
-Within minutes, the enemy forces had been brought down to 5 unarmoured and 4 armoured units who had dropped to their knees and dropped their weapons. Wolf exited the building via the front exit and strolled casualy over to the group of civilians sitting in fear. "You guys are gonna need a new job...Want one?" The civilians looked on at him in disbelief as multitudes of transport ships dropped in. "Grab some equipment and fuel-cells from downstairs and grab a seat. You have 3 minutes."
-Seconds later, workers are running past him in a blur to get downstairs and grab what they could. Weapons, information, research, and materials. They all made it back to the evac units and escaped, leaving the surviving troops bound and stripped of all equipment.
-Wolf returns to the resistance base located outside of the main city, hidden in a cluster of mountains.
-Amber greets him as he removes his adrenal amps and removes his armour and weapons. "Brought more workers back huh? How do you know we can trust them?"
-"Save sheep from the wolves, they follow you closer." he replied. "But in this case, I'm the Wolf, aren't I?"

Chapter 9 (Dreaming of You, What is Your Name?):
-Seth is recovering from his experience in the Doctor's lab. A month had passed since the incident, but he felt as if he was finally back to normal. His hair was a slightly lighter color, and his powers seemed to have returned to normal. All in all, it was as if he was physically and mentally the same.
-He was in his house in Keihoset Forest, he had finally began to train outside again after he finished his work for the day. woodcutting, washing, gardening, and hunting took up most of the day, but he would usually have a few hours where he was free. For that time, he spent training.
-He would practice martial arts and reminesce of his father, and how he had learned to never pick a fight, but to protect with his strength.
-He would practice his magic and remember his mother, showing him to control his anger, to use his emotions to summon forth the flames in his hands.
-He would rest, and remember when he first learned about his powers.
**Flashback Begin-6 years ago**
-Seth has just turned 10 and his mother had fallen ill. His father, worried about her health, asks Seth to go into town to retrieve the medicine. He figured since he had never been to town by himself, it would be a good experience for him. He had been raised in the forest, but had made several trips and knew the way by heart. Though his mother was against it, she didn't have much say in the matter.
-He arrived in Rufturf in the eastern gate late in the morning, and proceeded through East District. On his way, he spotted a pair of boys about his age having a fight with four other boys that were a little older. Max and Eric being the first two were being overpowered and beaten with sticks.
-Seth looked at the list in his hand for items to buy, then back to the two boys lying on the ground. Back to his list. Then to the older boys laughing and swinging. Seth balled up his fists and rushed over. "It isn't right to pick on people who are smaller than you!" he yelled as he blind-sided what seemed to be the ring leader with a step-in right hook. The boy fell to the ground and his stick dropped a couple of inches from Max.
-Max and Eric looked up as Seth lept and swiped his leg at another one. The kick was blocked by the stick, but still made the boy stagger, and Seth continued, pushing him back with punches and kicks, not leaving enough room to swing with the weapon. The two bullies began after them, but were immediately interrupted by Max and Eric who stood and took to the offensive. Max wielded the dropped stick and dealt with the armed kids, while Eric turned and dealt with the unarmed one.
-Seth grabbed onto the stick in one hand and the boy's elbow in the other, twisted his weight a little bit, and popped the joints in the kid's arm to cause him to release it before flipping the stick into the air and over to Eric before commencing the beat-down on his now unarmed and disadvantaged opponent.
-The fight lasted a couple more minutes before the older boys finally ran away after being disarmed and beaten a bit by the younger ones.
-"Who are you?" Eric asked, and after introductions, the three seemed to get along well. They complimented him on his skills, especially considering he just beat up a kid twice his age with his bare hands. His stomach growled loudly and he realized he hadn't eaten breakfast that morning. It was nearly lunch-time, so Max invited him and Eric over for lunch. They all walked in and were met by Max's mother and his brother Kai. His mother welcomed him in and was more than happy that her son had brought a new friend home. Eventually, he explained his mother's situation and why he was in town, and Max pointed him in the direction of the General store for the medicine after the meal. He politely thanked them for their hospitality and help.
-The boys parted ways and Seth made his way to Central district. It wasn't far to the store, as he entered, he looked around, using his limited reading ability until he finnaly found the flask with the antibiotics he was looking for. He carried it over to the merchant and requested the price. The merchant replied it was 200gpz, and Seth searched his pockets, pulling out 150gpz, "Is this enough?". The merchant, knowing the medicine's purpose could tell the kid was on this run for someone very ill. The merchant smiled and took the money, placing the medicine in a pouch and handing it to him.
-Seth smiled widely and took the medicine and thanked the man as he left the store. He traveled quickly in the direction of the East Gate to head straight home. As he rounded the corner, a boy shouted out "There he is!".
-Turning to the side, Seth was greeted by a group of 12 older boys. Among their ranks were the 4 that he had fought earlier. They appeared to be angered and began towards him at a brisk pace. They were behind the main buildings, so no one was around to help or see. He knew he wouldn't be able to fight off 12 armed opponents by himself, so he ran. He made it into East district as the wave of kids chased quickly behind him. He didn't get far as the medicine he was carrying was weighing him down and the swarm eventually caught him about half-way to the gate and dragged him behind some houses. He took the beating he had coming to him, clinging to the medicine to protect it.
-"What's this?" the ring-leader from earler questioned as he began tugging on the pouch. Seth replied by raising his head and then smashing his skull into the boy's own. A group of others restrained him and pried the pouch from his clenched hand. The leader swiped the pouch and opened it, revealing the medicine within. Not being able to read, the boy thought it was some sort of juice, and thus opened it and took a drink. The bitter taste of it made him gag.
-"Stop! I need that!" Seth pleaded with tears forming in his eyes, but the boy simply smirked at him before raising the bottle into the air and then throwing it as hard as he could into the ground. The container shattered, and the precious liquid inside flowed all over the ground.
-Seth's head dropped as he let his tears go. The boy again commenced to punch him in the stomach repeatedly. He tried to remember his father's teachings of gentleness. He wanted to remember his mother's teachings of control. However, all he could think about was how unfair it was, and how he couldn't forgive them for what they had done.
-The atmosphere changed slightly. It got warmer in an instant. The change was immediately noticable and the boys immediately stopped in wonder. Their grip on his arms slightly relaxed, Seth's sudden burst of strength threw the two boys restraining him to the ground on their faces before he lept slightly and landed with a stomp on each of their backs. Four other boys immediately ran over to him to re-subdue him, but as they got within grabbing distance, he moved so fast that they seemed to be standing still. He delivered devastating punches and kicks to their slow-moving bodies and blew them each away from him onto the ground.
-His eyes narrowed and he ran toward the leader who was at this point terrified of the look on his face. Seth tackled him and commenced to beating the boy's face in with his fists. The boy was knocked out by the second hit, but Seth wasn't stopping anytime soon. The remaining 5 boys ran over and grabbed ahold of Seth, pulling, kicking, punching, dragging. Nothing they did would pry him from their friend.
-Seth stopped after they all collectively started kicking him, and raised back up to his feet to back away. They made some distance between them and the boy, but as Seth raised his eyes, they noted the pure rage that was in them. The atmosphere became very warm, moreso this time than the last. His arms raised up and heat waves radiated from his arms. He yelled out loud as his arms raised over his head and glowed a bright orange before being engulfed in flames.
-He smashed his hands down in the direction of the kids, causing a blast of flame to errupt out of his arms and engulf them. The flames cleared and died out after a second, revealing the unconsious youths.
-His arms were still ablase however, and the pain from the fire was getting to him. He cried out and collapsed, attempting to roll over them and cover the flames, but it didn't work. Guards arrived within seconds. "A Mage!" they shouted.
-"He's trying to kill us!" one of the boys screamed "Lock him away or he'll kill us all!". Seth looked up in pain as the guards drew their swords. One of them reached around and grabbed a pair of irons from his belt and as the flamse began to burn out, began to place them on Seth's arms. Out of nowhere, a fist collided with the guard's head, sending him flying into a nearby wall. The remaining guards stepped forward to defend their compatriot before immediately jumping back when they recognized their opponent. "Hawk Yuikora!" they stammered. Seth's dad looked over his shoulder at them with a glare. "Don't touch my son..." he said as he reached down and lifted Seth in his arms and slowly walked to the general store. Hawk purchased the medicine needed for his wife as well as some healing ointment for his son's burns. He walked home, carrying his now sleeping son.
-It wasn't long after that, when his mother was over her illness and Seth was recovered enough to do work that his mother began training him to control his power and gave him his robe he now wore as a shirt and his red gloves which were used to help him control his power.
**Flashback-End**
-He finished his day of work and began to turn in for the night. He outed the torches around his house, doused the fire from the smoker outside, and capped the candles as he went to bed.
-He dreamt of a girl, not much younger than himself, running alongside him through a cave. There was something behind them, chasing them through the tunnel. It was big, and the earth shook as they ran. He could see the end of the tunnel ahead, but whatever was chasing them was gaining on them fast. The girl became winded and slowed down. Seth instinctively reached out and grabbed her arm, pulling her into his arms as he lifted her and bolted with all his strength. He neared the end of the cave mouth as darkness engulfed him. The cave burst open and he flew through the air out of the side of a mountain as a blast of dust and debris followed. He landed with a thud in a clearing. He positioned himself upright and looked around frantically for the girl he was with, but he was alone. The area suddenly became dark. His shadow grew and seemed to take on an inhuman shape. It rose out of the ground, becoming semi-solid and appearing in a monsterous form. It lunged at him and devoured him in it's massive jaws.
-Seth awoke from his dream instantly. He became aware of his surroundings very quickly. He calmed his breath and lie back down to sleep once more when he heard a sudden scream outside. His eyes snapped awake and sat up in bed, listening intently. "Someone, help me, please!" yelled a female voice not far from where he was. He lept from bed and threw on his shirt and shoes before running out the door. As he exited his house, a young girl ran into view. Immediately behind her, a band of thugs rushed through the treeline, armed and angry. They stopped upon seeing him standing on his porch. The girl ran over to him. "Please, help me!"
-"Get inside." he told her, and without another word, she ran into his house and closed the door. Seth confronted the group of thugs in his front yard. One armed with a chain, one with a knife, one with a short-sword, and one wielding a hammer.
-"Didn't know there were anybody livin' this far out ere'." the one with the sword said as he walked forward. "We ain't lookin' for trouble now...we just want the girl."
-Seth's fist clenched in the darkness. In a few seconds, all of the torches around the house re-ignited. He readied his stance as the bandits looked around in shock. "Not lookiing for trouble?" he asked in a low tone, "I'd sugguest you leave then..."
-The bandits eyed him for a moment. "I don't think we can handle a mage boss..." one of them said to the man with the sword.
-"Don't pay him any mind!" he retorted, "The boss said to bring the girl back, so that's what we're gonna do!" the swordsman rushed in, ready to cut Seth to pieces, but was cut short by a heavy punch to the torso. He staggered back and regained his footing only to be caught in the side of the head with a leaping front-kick. He tumbled backward into his knife-wielding friend.
-The chain-wielder spun his weapon overhead before lashing it out to wrap around Seth's arm. He signaled for the hammerer to rush in. Seth pulled his arm tight in the chain before releasing enough heat to instantaneously melt the chain and conduct the heat to the wielder. The hammerer reached Seth and smashed downward only to be dodged completely and be hit by a blast of super-condensed flame to the chest. The shot blew the large man back over to his other allies. The four men were all clumped together as they tried to regroup. Seth stomped in their direction and ignited both hands in a fierce display of power. The men scrambled away as Seth shouted for them to never come back.
-Seth returned to his house as the flames from the torches died back out. The girl opened the door and let him inside. The candle-light allowed him to see her face a little better. He stopped for a moment and looked as she did the same. "I know you..." the two said synonymously. Their eyes widened as they knew that it wasn't a coincidence. This was the girl from his dream.
-After staying up talking to her, it is revealed that her name was "Ree", and she had indeed had the same dream. She was on her way westward through the forest when her caravan was ambushed. She escaped and was pursued by the group of bandits that he had fought off. She expressed her need to reach Newcrest City as soon as possible and humbly requested he accompany her until they arrive. She wished to leave immediately, however, durring her rant, Seth prepared a bed for her in a room opposite his own. He told her there were some travelers' clothes that she could wear after a shower in the morning, then they would leave. He assured her that the bandits wouldn't return until then. Without much more fuss, she reluctantly decided to go to bed. Seth returned to his own room and the two slept for a few more hours until the next day.

[B-rad]

Chapter 10 (I Dub Thee, Flame Fist):
-Continuation of Seth's story with Ree.
-They leave early in the morning, before the sun rises. Ree awakens to some slight noise from within the house. As she rounds the corner cautiously, she sees Seth preparing breakfast. They eat their eggs and ham quickly and continue on their way. They leave the house with the rising sun and make their way through the forest.
-The trip is relatively uneventful until they make it to Rufturf. Ree insists they purchase a carriage to take them the rest of the way. She had been complaining the entire way about how rude Seth was and how she was too good to be walking cross-country. He had put up with her whining all day, but she wouldn't let this go. She wanted a carriage, and wouldn't believe that he didn't have enough money for one.
-Seth tried to convince her that it was only a few more miles to their destination, but she simply fell to the ground and feigned fatigue. She didn't want to walk, and they had no money. He had always spent what he earned on tools or food when he needed it and put away the rest in a secret space under his house. He hadn't thought to bring the money because he felt they could make the trip on foot.
-Seth racked his brain for a time before his eye was caught by a bracelet on the girl's arm. It glinted in the sunlight and it's red gem seemed to glow in the sunlight. It bore the crest of Falbore. She noted him eyeing it and immediately hid it under the sleeves of her coat protectively.
-Though it was important to her, he convinced her to give it to the stable-master in exchange for a speedy ride to NewCrest.
-They are only a few minutes gone before a small group of thugs arrive in town and begin asking for them. They are eventually led to the stable-master who they note has the bracelet. They steal the horses from the stables and give chase, their compatriots on the outside of town also follow suit and they all head for NewCrest at high-speed.
-They eventually catch up along the road about 1 mile from the city. The bandits open fire with arrows and guns to attempt to crash the carriage. Seth, now alerted to their presence looks at Ree and asks her who she really was. Bandits wouldn't just chase some random girl across the country. A random girl wouldn't have jewelry that nice. The fact that she was heading for the capital city told him even more. Ree looked distraught as Seth stood in the back of the carriage and returned fire with Pyro Shots and Flame Bombs.
-As they neared the gates of the city, the watch began to close the doors in defense of the town due to the incoming gunfire. The rifle and gunnery squads atop the gate took aim and fired on the incoming wave of bandits that chased the carriage. Seth ceased fire when the cannon-fire began to get too close for comfort since the bandits were now hugging the carriage more closely.
-As one of the thugs ran up alongside them, Seth blew a burst of flame out from the carriage's tarp, blasting the man off of his horse. Seth followed up by removing the tarp completely with another outward burst before jumping off the carriage onto the riderless horse. He broke off from the pack and told Ree to stay down. She hid under a seat and stayed down. Seth turned his horse around and ran off through the horde of riders with his hands ablaze. He errupted his arms with flames and opened up with two massive pillars of flame from either arm as the men to be engulfed openend fire on him before disappearing behind the fire.
-The singed horses ran off, leaving the semi-charred bodies of their previous riders in the dirt as they tossed and moaned from their burns. Seth turned his horse around and caught back up to the carriage as the driver slowed down. They made it to the gate as the doors began to open, revealing a legion of guards armed and ready for trouble.
-The carriage and Seth entered town and were immediately surrounded and arrested. Seth was immediately overpowered by the number of enemies, but knew they were just doing their job, so didn't fight back. He was cuffed, as was the driver, and as they pulled Ree from under the seat, before they could cuff her, a knight in full battle gear lept from the crowd and threw the arresting officer to the side. He had black spikey hair with grey streaks hear and there. He seemed to be about 40 or so years old and had a large broadsword strapped to his back.
-He reached down and took Ree by the hand before helping her to her feet and bowing. He addressed her as "Princess Renee", and Seth was completely lost.
-After a moment of confusion, she orders Seth to be released.
-The knight reveals himself to be "Lance Kasu" and has Seth accompany them along to the castle for compensation for looking after the Princess and ensuring her safe return.
-After entering the castle, Seth walks through a gateway to the main building and is greeted with a force which weighs down his body and makes it impossible for him to move for a moment. A man standing on the sidelines walks over and after talking with Lance for a moment, places a bracelet on Seth's arm. The sensation disappears and it is explained that the castle is protected against magic users and that was part of the defense system. He was informed that the castle stops the movement of magic, and the bracelet allows exceptions to this rule in exchange for stopping the flow of magic in one's body.
-Seth concentrated for a moment and managed to form a small flame the size of a fingernail, but that was all he could manage. It was explained that it was a safety precaution against the Arcane Democracy to prevent any potential attacks and that it wasn't personal.
-Seth was directed to a new room where he was asked to change into a more suitable outfit. Seth simply wanted to go home, but was unable to.
-After changing into a noble-looking suit of clothes, he was escorted to the Audience Chamber. He was escorted in with Lance as the knight began giving his full report of the incident.
-He explained that the mission to escort the Princess to the Arcane Democracy for the scheduled meeting with the Magistrate was a failure. The bandits along the road in Keihoset were organized and attacked instantly, destroying the caravan within minutes. He went on to explain how she came to meet the boy and returned unharmed. The King asks his name.
-"Seth Yuikora" he replied. The chamber fell silent. The King stood from his throne and eyed Seth. He looked him over and exclaimed that he was a liar. The Yuikora line died with Hawk Yuikora. He said he'd had enough of the stories of Hawk being alive and all the rumored sightings. He ranted at the very thought that Hawk would have borne a son of a "magical wench".
-Seth rose from his knee quickly and walked intently towards the king. Guards from both sides rallied to stop him, spears drawn and pointed at him. Seth stopped with a menacing look in his eye. "I know not how you know my father and I care not how important you think you are. If you disrespect my father or mother again, I will see to it you remember my name every waking hour for the rest of your life!"
-His temper flared and the king would not be challenged in his own castle. Seeming to have some sort of hatred for mages, the king signaled for him to be taken away against the wishes of the Princess.
-He was to be imprisoned for one day, and then released to go back home. During the night, however, Thieves who escaped being captured after the chase regrouped and rallied reinforcements. They snuck into the city in the middle of the night and commenced to wreak havock from within the walls. Their boss had given them orders to kill the Princess by any means necessary.
-They locked the castle doors from the inside and began a raid on the castle. The king holed himself up in the main room with 5 of his trusted Generals, however, in the scramble, it was revealed that Renee was not in her room.
-Lance had a hunch however, and bolted off toward the dungeon, killing foes left and right.
-Seth sat in his cell quietly. He wished he hadn't even bothered with helping if he knew it would end up like this. He'd never been so humiliated.
-His cell door clicked and creaked open, and in surprise, he jumped when he saw Renee sneak in through the door. She signaled him over and helped him escape through a secret passage in the dungeon's far back cell. He wondered why she was helping him. At this point they don't know about the raid.
-She assists him in escaping and appologizes for her father. She returns the way she came after he walks away to meet Lance.
-The knight informs her of the impending situation as a bandit yells that he's found the princess before Lance could silence him with his sword. The two run up the stairs and up the spiral staircase of the tower above the dungeon. A wave of bandits followed suit up the narrow passage only to be greeted by a locked door in the cramped space. Lance engaged the trap gate, locking the group within the stairwell as he and the Princess escaped. They were now on the second floor, and had to make it to the third floor to where the King hid in his panic room.
-Seth reached the city walls and noticed everyone on high alert. They couldn't have noticed he was gone so quickly. Something was wrong. He noted a group of soldiers making their way back towards the castle at high speeds, then he heard gunfire off in the distance. He realized the castle was under siege. He decided it wasn't his problem, and that he wanted nothing more to do with that pompous monarch. But something inside kept tugging at him. The thieves were definitely after the princess earlier. She didn't have anything to do with what her father said. Seth swallowed his pride and turned back around to head for the castle once more back the way he came.
-Lance managed to take Renee back up to the third floor, but they were cut off from the panic room by a wall of thieves who had surrounded the room. Another wave of bandits rushed up the hallway behind them, cutting their escape route. Lance had run out of options as the thugs closed in, and in desperation, raised his massive blade into the air, and slammed it down to the floor. The impact tore a hole in the stone tiles, removing a section of the floor from the hallway. He grabbed Renee with haste and lept into the hole. From there, he darted to the contingency escape route through the Audience Chamber with the princess in tow.
-He planned to reach the main entrance and force the doors open to allow more palace guards in to help while he escaped with the princess throught the front door. He hadn't counted on the sheer number of foes he'd have to face. Nor did he count on one of the Bandit Lords, Bushido, to be waiting for him at the entrance to the audience chamber. Lance set Renee down and told her to hide in the back of the chamber. Lance and Bushido were on similar levels of skill, so it would be a close match either way. Renee hid in one of the side-rooms of the chamber and waited for better or worse.
-Lance and Bushido fight. Bushido wields a long katana and is faster than Lance's heavy blade, but Lance had more power and could overpower Bushido at any given chance. They fought equally, until Bushido gave the go-ahead to capture the princess. Lance lost concentration on his fight and was cut down, wounded. Some of the thieves ran into the room she was hiding in and chased her out. All exits blocked, she was left defenseless as Bushido approached with his blade readied.
-As he raised his blade, the sounds of his lackeys falling behind him along with smashing sounds could be heard. He turned abruptly to see Seth standing there, his fists already bloodied from the bandits he'd fought off so far. Behind him, a wave of palace guards he'd shown the way in. Coming up the stairs behind them, another massive group of guards, surrounding them on all sides. Seth had opened the gates in the confusion and managed to fight their way up to the second floor and surround the thieves.
-Renee runs around Bushido in a haste and the thief reacts by raising his blade again to try to strike her from behind.
-Seth rushes in and catches the blade with his hands. The weight of the sword is heavy, and his hands were bloody and sweaty from fighting already. The blade began to slip, but his powers weren't working. He remembered the bracelet.
-The bracelet allowed movement within the castle, but disabled his magic. He was going to need it in this fight.
-"Oh? Forgot you can't use magic here Mage?" Bushido asked before applying pressure. The blade slipped through Seth's grasp, and although he managed to jump backward, the tip managed to cleave into his chest, leaving a long, shallow gash-wound down his torso.
-Seth regained his stance as Renee retreated over to Lance. The thieves from earlier managed to cut off the Guards' advance by closing in on the entrance. There was now a wave of enemies between them and the rescue party. Bushido readied his attack again. "What's wrong? Just because you can't use magic makes you completely useless?" He shouted as he swung away with wild slashes at him. Seth jumped and dodged well between them, watching for a chance to strike. He found one as Bushido staggered and followed up with a heavy punch to the stomach.
-Bushido stepped back before swinging again, but Seth reached in and grappled him into a suplex, interrupting the attack all-together. Seth rolled out of the way as the blade again came inches from his throat. Seth lunged in as the blade cleared and delivered a devastating kiick to send the man flying a few feet down the hall. Bushido stood again, seemingly unphased by the attack. Seth however was winded and at a clear disadvantage.
-Renee rushed over to him and grabbed his arm close to his bracelet. "I can give you what you need." she said, "If I trust you, and you trust me, then take a knee." Seth kneeled down after a moment, facing her.
-"I acknowledge your strength, o warrior..." she said, "I acknowledge your allegiance to the throne...In this time of crisis, I offer trust to you as you have given trust to me.
-Bushido didn't know what was going on, but something told him to act fast. He ran through the chamber towards the two, leaping into the air to finish them off.
-"Your enemies become mine and mine become yours. With this seal, I bestow the crest of Falbore, and dub thee...Seth Yuikora, the Flame Fist."
-The bracelet on Seth's arm cracked and shattered, and in it's place was left a crest of the Falborne Kingdom. He turned immediately and swung a right-straight into the oncoming katana. His arm errupted into a blaze and shattered the blade into several fragments, sending Bushido flying across the room once more, this time through the throne, and into the wall. The fighting in the room stopped as Seth turned to the remaining bandits. His right hand glowed with a bright-orange flame as he raised it menacingly into the air. "Anyone else?" he asked.
-The entirety of the bandit forces laid down their arms unanimously and surrendered themselves into custody.
-The night passed, and morning broke in with the sunrise. The cells in the dungeon were full of bandits and Seth was resting in a room prepared for him by the Hand-Maids of the Princess herself.
-He awoke and dressed at the butler's call. He proceeded to the dining hall where he met Renee sitting at the side of her father with a full table of nobles from town. The late breakfast was a show of how everything was alright after the would-be raid. Seth noted only one empty table, immediately beside the Princess, and thought there must be some mistake, however, after looking to the butler, he was informed that it was indeed his seat.
-The breakfast was an awkward one. Seth and the king exchanged glares between themselves, and the only thing that kept them in line was the 14-year-old girl sitting between them.
-It is revealed after the breakfast that Seth was granted access to use magic within the castle walls because he made a royal contract with the Falborne Royal Family. The King disapproved of this highly, as he was over-cautious about mages. He assumed every mage in the world was out to get him, and the fact that his own daughter had allowed one to have free use of magic in his presence had him flustered to no end.
-The day was quickly passing, and around noon, he began to be worried about making it home before dark. The king interrupted that he wouldn't be able to leave for a while. When questioned why not, Renee replied that their lives were bound by the contract the other night. If anything were to happen to Seth now, she would suffer for it as well.
-Seth freaked out at this, but was reassured that there was a way to break the seal, but it would require a few months. Until that time, Seth was to stay within the castle at all times.
-Seth is now stuck in NewCrest City for the next few chapters.
-Lance is recovering in the hospital.

Chapter 11 (Trouble in the North, a Pirate's Life):
-Due to the Doctor's presence in Keihoset Forest which is south of the Northern Mountains, Falbore has recognized the Rovan Empire as having broken the peace treaty and has gone out to members of the other regions to request aide and warn them of the treachery.
-Arcane Democracy would not even allow messengers inside their cities and it was dubbed too dangerous to send anymore due to what happened to Renee.
-Shihana was willing to help with an assault, but would not agree to any of Falborne Kingdom's plans.
-In the end, Falborne Kingdom is left to consult the Pirates. The King agrees to requisition the services of the Pirates (who have good relations with Rovans) to sneak in a band of infiltration units into the Rovan City. This all comes at a hefty price, but the King feels it is necessary to learn what is going wrong.
-Fact is, the Falborne Kingdom has been supplying the ERF with funds and supplies for the past few years. Contacts within the Rovan Empire had informed Falborne Kingdom that the Empire had been a surprise attack on Keihoset Forest for some time. The presence of the underground laboratory proved the trust-worthiness of their spies.
-The King didn't wish to start an all-out war, so he decided to send a small force of infiltrators. They, however, could not be directly linkable to the throne if things went wrong. He sent secret messages to the different garrisons looking for volunteers that may be interested in a high-stakes, high-reward job with no questions asked.
-Max, Keri, Eric, and Justin decide to attempt this challenge. They leave, saying they're all going camping together.
-Karu, Gravv, and Akuin are at this point hurting for income, and decide to go as well.
-When they arrive at the castle, there is a multitude of adventurers from different parts of the country, all intent on making a quick fortune.
-Keri seemed tense while walking through the castle and was unable to move very quickly (due to the effects of the castle's barrier). Justin ends up requesting a sealing device for her after reading her mind. He confers with the concierge to not divulge that she is a mage as to not draw attention to her. She places the band around her neck, under her shirt and they continue to the audience chamber.
-They meet Seth there, dressed in a very fine suit of armour and ask wtf he's doing.
-He explains his 'predicament' to them and they are surprised that he managed to have such a crazy adventure without them.
-The King enters the audience chamber, and the vast majority of the people assemble quickly and quietly. He announces the requirements for the mission: Failure means death, the kingdom will not attempt to get you back and will deny any claims you make about this meeting here today. You will infiltrate New Rovan City and meet up with members of the New Resistance Force. A reward of 50,000 gold would be awarded to any who were willing to complete this task. More information would be available to those still willing to go through with the plan. About 30% of those present knew the risks of an open attack on the Rovan Empire and decided against it, as they left however, unbeknownst to those that stayed, they were arrested and escorted to the dungeon until the completion of the operation.
-The King explained the extent of the plan to those that stayed. He told them of the presence of the underground laboratory in Keihoset Forest, and he informed them of the EDF's plan to destroy a major weapons factory hidden beneath the mountain range.
-One of the men asked how they would be getting into the city. Crossing the mountains would take days and going through the pass would mean certain detection.
-"That's where I come in!" A voice shouted from behind the assembly. The group turned and to their surprise, nobody was there. "Allow me to introduce myself, I am the 'Illustrious Captain of the SS Talon', 'Scourge of the Sea of Allura', 'Grand Victor of any drinking challenge', 'Two-Timing Cheat', and 'Dreaded King of Pirates'!" The sound of a gunshot was heard throughout the chamber, drawing everyone's attention up towards the chandelier above the entrance. There stood a lone woman dressed in a red sea-captain's uniform, wearing a matching bandana. She threw her flint-lock pistol into it's satchel and lept down the 30ft drop to land in-front of the assembly in a courteous bow. "I am Captain Emily Van Morgan, and I'll be your escort for this evening."
-She strolled casually up towards the throne, men parting from her path as she did so. All the while she talked aloud to the audience. "Your King has taken it upon himself to enlist the aid of meself and me crew in order to make up for the utter lack of cooperation from neighboring regions. As such, you will all be sailing aboard my ships until we arrive. Note: I said 'sailing' and not 'riding'! You will not be traveling in the company of some pretty girl and her concierge of man-servants on a pleasure cruise on a steam-boat down the river, you will be doing the most tedious of grunt-work and the most difficult manual labour you've ever seen. By the time you depart from my fleet, you may just opt to walk back across that little hill-climb all the way back as opposed to getting the 'free' ride back!" She reached the front end of the audience chamber and walked up to the King, and then past him to sit on his throne. Guards motioned toward her and drew their blades as she crossed her legs and made herself comfortable. "Tell me your Highness," she said, "Does the royal treasury have enough to afford paying each man and woman here 50,000 gold? If I knew you had that much money, I would have made a raid on this place a long time ago." The King motioned the guards to put away their weapons and they proptly did.
-"No," he replied, "The kingdom cannot afford to pay out 5,000,000+ gold for an infiltration mission."
-"Then why offer such an outstanding reward?" she asked.
-The King was hesitant to say, but the anticipation of the crowd made the air tense. He knew if he did not, they would all leave. "Because there is slim chance that any of them will come back." he replied.
-The crowd grew loud instantly. People shouting, and asking questions all at the same time. "SILENCE!" the King yelled. "You knew the risks of failure from the start. This is a covert mission that cannot be done directly by my military. I have enlisted the aid of pirates and mercenaries alike, and offered forth nearly 25% of the money from this country's treasury in order to complete this task! If you wish not to participate, then you are free to leave this chamber at any time."
-Over 50% of the crowd looked amongst themselves and turned to leave. The King's jaw nearly slammed to the floor. He was down to 42 people willing to go through with the task.
-"Now then milord," Emily said, "This won't bankrupt your precious treasury I hope."
-The King glared at her with malice in his eyes. Though she was right that the blow to the economy would be less severe this way, he now had no faith that the mission would succeed.
-"That look hurts sire," she said with a smirk, "I'm only trying to help you weed out the actual patriots from the wanna-bes. That, or every person in this room is as die-hard a fortune-seeker as I am." With that, she hopped to her feet and strolled past the King and down towards the front entrance. "We'll be leaving in 8 hours boys," she announced as she departed, "Meet up at EverPece Harbor when you're ready to go, and DON'T be late!"
-"Well...I guess that means I'm out of this one..." Justin said, "I'm a knight, so I won't be able to participate. However, I honestly think you guys should opt out. Something's just telling me this might be dangerous."
-Eric replied that he was unable to sense anything wrong. Nor could he feel that the King was with-holding information. He assured Justin that he was just imagining things. One of the Guards noted Justin's presence and called out to him. He stated that a messenger had arrived and requested his presence at the northern pass. He was to assist with coordinating the guard from there. Karu and Akuin made thier way over to the group and greeted them, deciding to travel together. Gravv had already left, and so the group departed for EverPece Harbor.
-They arrived to find Gravv toting a bag filled with cans of gravy. He had been appointed food-store keeper and was stocking up. They knew at this point that they'd be eating nothing but gravy for the duration of the voyage. They respectively went out to the different shops around the port. Max bought a few healing potions and a pocket knife. Keri managed to find a Card Dealer and re-stocked her deck to replace the cards she had wasted on the bandits as she defended the town. Eric paid the blacksmith with some money he had saved to augment his weapon with a steel chain as opposed to the current elastic band. Karu likewise bought a set of throwing knives and a satchel to keep them secured to either leg for easy under-handed throwing. Akuin bought other sorts of ready-to-eat food and stored them in his pocket dimension.
-The group arrived at the docks and saw the 5 ships waiting for them and were instructed to assemble on-deck of the Talon, which was the largest, with everyone else. Captain Morgan had assembled the crew before the rest of the mercinaries. "That everyone?" the Captain asked.
-"That's 47 ma'am!" the deck-guards said.
-"Then that means you lot are late!" Max looked at the time-table on the ship's deck which stated he still had 2 hours, but he wasn't about to argue. He spoke up for the group. "My appologies ma'am, didn't mean to keep you waiting on our account. Please, continue."
-"Then I'll get right to it then. First two rows," she said as she made a wave of her hand on her right side, "You're bilge detail. Your job to make sure my ships don't take on water. Third row, you are canonry, you'll assist in stowage and inventory of our firepower. Fourth and fifth rows, you're all on deck-duty. You keep the ships sailing by doing exactly what my navigator tells you to do when she tells you to do it." She motioned over to her side, pointing to the most scantily clad woman any of them had ever set eyes on.
-"Sheniquah's the name." she said with a wink.
-"Cooking detail has already been established by those that arrived first." Morgan said, "Lastly, late ones!" she said eyeing Max's group, "You'll all remain on the Talon. You're to assist with anything and everything that my sailors tell you to. That is all, man your stations, we sail in 20 minutes!"
-The crew marched forward, and grabbed their respective 8 workers to their ships to work. Max and his group went below deck to throw their belongings to their hammocks. Their was no sepparate berthing for females, so Keri kept her bed in-between Max and Eric with Karu and Akuin at foot and head and Gravv below her. Karu was approached first by a deck officer. He and Max were made to clean the deck. Eric was taken in for dish-washing, while Keri was eventually taken in by the First-Mate Sheniquah to assist with navigation. Akuin made himself invisible and slept in his bed, avoiding work all-together.
-Keri displayed exceptional skill at her job, showing what a good education can manage.
-Max and Karu ended up having to work all day shining the deck. They felt that there must've been some patch of mud somewhere that the officers stand in, because no matter if the deck shined like diamonds, the second somebody walked on it, it looked like crap to them. They eventually turned it into a contest of who could finish half of the ship first. Max's side was usually brighter, but Karu would usually finish first.
-Eric began hating life 2 days into his job as he was 1 of 2 dish-washers. He worked directly under the lowest ranking sailor on the ship. The guy seemed to just hate Eric in general and split their duty hours to 18 for Eric and 6 for himself. The 6 being night-time when the galley was all-but-deserted.
-On the third day, the lookout spotted New Rovan City in the distance. Morgan mustered everyone on deck and prepared her brief. "We will arrive within the hour. You lot know the deal, we get you there, you help us trade off some goods, then you 'desert' us and git tha hell out. You'll meet up with the ERF at a diner named 'Ruvian' and continue on about your mission there. We'll meet you about 10 hours south of here in 4 days where the coast becomes almost un-crossable due to the sand-worms."
-They neared the port and the mercenaries geared up. They prepared their gear and readied to pull in to port. The first ship, "The Reaver", entered port, with "Great-Axe" following into the port next to it. As the other boats closed in to dock, Eric's head began to throbb with pain, and he fell to the ground.
-"A bit late to get sea-sick there mate!" Morgan said as she snickered to herself.
-"Something's wrong!" he yelled back, "Turn about! Call them back!"
-"What's he on about?!" she yelled over the sound of the men callamoring.
-"He can feel intent ma'am!" Max yelled, "If he's telling you to turn around, I'd sugguest turning around, right now!"
-She searched them over with her eyes for a moment, bit her lip, and gave a hand signal to the crow's nest. The man on the mast in-turn fired a signal flare into the air. The ships in port shoved off immediately, however, they didn't have a chance to turn and were blown to pieces by the sudden rocket fire from the watch-towers.
-"Pull about! Get us out of here! Battle Stations!" Morgan exclaimed as the crew scrambled for their appropriate place. Gunners-Mates loaded the canons, Mast-Hands brought the ships to full-sail, and Deck-Men prepared rifles and swords for what may come. The Captain took the wheel and turned the ship about as 10 enemy speed boats launched from the harbor.
-"What the hell happened back there?!" she yelled at Eric, "You knew what would happen! You sold us out!" Her men drew their swords and were met by Max and the rest drawing their own.
-"Why would I have warned you now then? Why only 2 ships?" Eric asked.
-One of the speed-boats broke away from the rest and ran up along-side the ship, one of the men aboard the boat fired his rocket into the hull of the ship, blasting a massive hole in the side and causing one of the canons to fall out.
-Morgan in-turn pulled a hard left-hand turn and crushed the tiny boat underneath the ship. As the ship's broadside faced towards the harbor, she exclaimed for Port-Side to fire. The left side of the Talon exhaled noise and smoke whilst spitting a wave of shells into the oncoming boats. As the smoke cleared, it was revealed that they had sunk 2 more of them.
-They turned the ship again hard to the right and continued on. The other two ships ahead of the Talon, "Storm Rider" and "Giant" made their move at this point and crossed paths to pull an in-and-out U-turn with Talon heading on straight between the two while they held off the pursuers.
-"Leave em' be!" the Captain yelled and the crew sheathed their swords. "We have bigger problems at the moment!"
-Storm and Giant immediately began heaving TNT barrels over the side of the ship, and as the gunboats passed in-between them, they were greeted by a barrage of gunfire striking the barrels. 4 more boats down. The three remaining vessels unloaded their rockets, targeting the sails of the two ships on the side and were successful in disabling the ships' movements. Closing in on the Talon, the boats prepared new rounds in the RPGs.
-The boats approached from behind at a safe-distance and began launching volleys of rockets at the ship damaging the rear, but all the shots were high, and failed to deliver a sinking blow.
-"Repel those boats boys!" yelled the Captain, but the shots from her men didn't have enough force to penetrate the hulls of the boats.
-"Keri, can you blow them up, or freeze them?" Max asked. Keri stood up on the aft-part of the ship and prepared her magic, but was unable to fire. She fell to the deck and clenched her chest. She had been wearing the necklace since they left the castle, and it was interfering with her ability to use magic. She pulled at it, yanked it, attempted to break it, but nothing was working. It was emitting a glow that seemed to burn the more she tried to remove it.
-The boats rode up along either side and began firing machine-guns at close range so that the canons couldn't reach them. They maintained controll however, so that the ship couldn't crush them as they had the first boat. As the guns died down, a burst of shadow magic flew into one of the boats, and a cloaked figure appeared, fighting the 3 men aboard with knives.
-"Akuin!" Karu yelled as the man easily dealt with the men with his daggers before grabbing ahold of the machine gun and taking out the crew of the boat ahead of him, leaving the boat intact. Max and Eric took the initiative and ran for the bow of the ship before leaping off to the side and with the assistance of a rocket exploding behind them, landing on the remaining boat. They dealth with the troopers at close-range easily with their weapons and threw them overboard. They were safe, for now, but the ship was damaged and taking on water. Eric pulled the boat around and jumped onto the un-manned boat. Then he, Max, and Akuin hooked up their boats to the three ships and assisted in tugging while Sheniquah told them which way to go.
-Hours later, they crawled into an area with jagged rocks. They had fixed a bit of damage, but the ships were still mostly unable to sail. After some convincing from Morgan, the three led the boat through the rocks into a cave within the cove west of the city. Lanterns lit the dock where they moored the ship. The pier lined with a dozen more ships of various shapes and sizes, and deeper into the cave was a fortress. A legion of pirates came out to greet the incoming ships with grim expressions on their faces when they saw the damage.
-Morgan jumped off the ship first, addressing the few hundred gathered around. "Gentlemen, the operation was a failure, and we lost many good sailors this day. They all removed their hats and bandanas, bowed their heads, closed their eyes, and announced as one "Bless em'." before turning and spitting solemnly.
-"I think that's their way of showing respect for the dead." Keri said to Max.
-"Remind me not to find out how they shake hands." Eric said.
-"What do we do now?" one of the mercinaries asked, "We're down to 39 men! We can't infiltrate a city with so few!"
-"I don't rightly care what you do at this point!" Morgan exclaimed, "but as far as I can tell, the only one of you that are worth any help at all are two little boys and a slacker. I've lost 2 ships today, and it'll take weeks to repair the ones that made it out. I'm not risking anymore men or vessels of my own trying to win some freedom fight!" Take your belongings and get out of my cave! Go on about your business and don't come back, ya hear?!" She was obviously upset, and rightfully so. The group of volunteers grabbed their gear and left via an exit at the top of a natural vent in the cave. They could see the city off in the distance and noted there were no boats giving pursuit. They knew the ship had escaped, but it seemed they didn't want to fight the pirates on their own turf. Possibly why they allowed them to have a base of operations so close to the city.
-Akuin took charge of the group of men, as they were disorganized and lacking proper leadership. He explained that weather they preformed the mission at this point was irrelevant. However, they were deep within enemy territory and nobody was coming to save them. The only friends they had to rely on was themselves and the ERF waiting for them at some diner within the city. He questioned who was going to opt out and attempt to cross the plains and mountains to the south and attempt to make it out on foot. No one wanted to walk all that way through open ground, and so, they all remained silent.
-As they made their way towards the city, some of them questioned Akuin's sanity, but little did they know, he'd done this before.

[B-rad]

Chapter 12 (New Empire Resistance Force):
-Akuin locates a sewage tunnel on the outskirts of the city. He immediately draws a ratchet from his cloak of appropriate size and removes the bolts from their sockets. The group of mercinaries follow him into the tunnels underneath the city.
-Akuin supplies the group with flashlights and tells them not to spark any open flames as it could be devastating if they caused an explosion.
-Some of the men think that it would be a good idea to set off the explosion anyways and level the city above, but Akuin stops them, explaining that there were nothing but civilians above them.
-He pulls out a map and the group stops as he posts it to the wall and shows their course of action. He didn't know where the diner they were looking for was, but he did know a few other points of contact. The group seemed antsy that he knew so much about the city and asked him why.
-"I used to live here" he replied.
-10 of them drew their weapons on him and called him a traitor, while Max and the others readied their weapons in defense.
-Akuin simply kept talking. "Everyone stay here. I'm going to go get my berrings in town so I can find where we need to go."
-"You're just going to sell us out!" one of the men said.
-Akuin looked at him sternly as he explained, "There's an old gun store about 3 blocks from here. I'm going to go check in with the owner. They wont find my presence unusual, but 30+ grown men walking down the road to a weapons shop might tip them off that something's wrong."
-Karu opted to go with him, and everyone put away their weapons. The two left via a secret door that led into a warehouse.
-After a 3-block walk, Karu had seen enough new technology to make Fred Flinstone call bullshit. His reactions to new things was drawing attention to the two, so Akuin leaned over on his shoulders and began laughing and talking loudly with a slurr to his voice. The two were written off as being drunk and they went on their way.
-Arriving at this run-down gun store named "Aguni", the two stop at the door and Akuin begins knocking in a strange pattern. Nobody answers, and after only a second of waiting, he begins walking around the back.
-Akuin then proceeds to walk inside the shop's side-door. He is greeted by a shotgun to his head only to have his own gun drawn and placed against the head of the elderly man who held it.
-Karu was confused at this, but was instantly placed at gun-point by an old woman who held a long rifle to his head.
-"Good reflexes as always Roger..." Akuin said as he put his gun away and the elderly man did the same with a huge smile on his face.
-"It's good to see you again boy!" the old man said nearly jumping with joy, "Mary, stop pointin' that gun at the poor boy, you've got him scared to death!" The woman likewise put her gun away and Karu could breathe again.
-Akuin appologized about the time of night and for the fact that he hadn't talked to them in years. He explained to Karu that he was old friends with the two and they were the ones that made his guns for him.
-They reminesced for a while before Akuin asked if they knew of the diner named Ruvian. The tone of the room fell grim and the elderly couple looked at eachother sternly. They informed Akuin that it was less of a diner and more of a bar that acted as a hangout for just about every no-good character in town. People there were rowdy, nuts even. They would shoot eachother over nothing, and it wasn't unheard of for the entirety of them to be arrested within the same week.
-Akuin only seemed uplifted by this news and asked again where he might find it. Roger marked on his map where it was and wished him good luck. The group socialized a bit as Roger kept trying to sell guns to the two of them before they finally departed. They returned to the warehouse to find that everyone had moved to the surface and had been scoping out the area. As they entered however, they found that Max and the others were standing unarmed in the middle of the room with distraught looks on their faces.
-Weapons were drawn by the group of men as Akuin and Karu drew their respective weaponry.
-The men had taken Keri hostage and forced Max, Eric, and Gravv to lay down their weapons. One of the men named Ray had rallied the others to assume control. He had it in his mind that Akuin was going to sell them out.
-They held knives to Keri's throat and instructed Akuin and Karu to lay down their arms. Akuin dropped one of his guns before reaching into his cloak to pull out a metal cylinder. he placed it on the end of his gun and began twisting.
-The man pressed his knife closer to Keri's throat and yelled for him to drop the other one.
-Akuin finished twisting the cylinder on the end of the gun with a click and in that instant, he vanished. A moment of silence later, Akuin reappeared behind the man, and his head gushed a font of blood as the squeak of the bullet exiting the chamber was heard. An instant later, he faded from sight again along with Keri before reappearing beside Max and the others with all of their weapons in tow. The group armed themselves and Akuin walked over to pick up his dropped gun to put it away.
-Karu readied himself and as the group of 4 men in front of him rushed, he let loose a barrage of throwing-knives from the satchels attached to his legs. They all stopped as the individual knives whooshed by their heads. Karu readied his final two knives and also had his two combat knives ready. The 4 of them dropped their weapons and surrendered.
-The remaining men claimed to have nothing to do with the coup and were over-looked. They couldn't risk leaving the traitors in the warehouse. They could be discovered by the enemy, or worse, tip the enemy off to where they were. Karu, Max, Gravv, Keri, and Eric however, were against killing them.
-Akuin thought about it for a moment before coming to a solution. He took them down into the sewers and placed a tranquilizer in each of their backs. The tranqs were highly concentrated and could keep them asleep for 2 to 3 days. He then decided to take them all to Aguni so that Roger and Mary could look after them. He explained that they were drunk and may be delirious and/or asleep for a long time. He'd take them all the way home when he came back with a ride (which he assumed he would find when they met with the ERF).
-Akuin decided to take Max's gang, Karu, and 5 other members with him to the tavern. They would pretend to just be a simple gang out looking for a night of drinking.
-Upon arrival, they were held up at the door by the bouncer. His name-tag read "Tiny" and Max and Eric couldn't keep a straight face while looking at him. It took Keri's talking to the man to get him to lighten up and let them in.
-Once inside, the place was dark, quiet, and a bit on the gloomy side. The group split up at this point and Akuin went with Karu over to the bartender. They sat alone and politely ordered drinks. Max, Keri, and Eric were a bit uncomfortable in such a place and decided to sit at a table and order non-alcoholic drinks for themselves.
-Gravv picked up the menu and was apalled that they only served gravy in the mornings for breakfast, but after the waitress assured him that there was only 4 hours until breakfast time, he decided he would wait.
-The other men gradually dispersed themselves around the tavern and found their own things to do.
-Akuin asked the tender if there was anyone around the bar looking for work. The red-headed woman eyed him for a moment and he leaned in with a raised eyebrow.
-She informed him that he might want to talk to Kenichi, who she pointed out sitting a few seats down.
-The man hears his name and sits up with a start. He had 5 empty glasses infront of him and appeared to be completely drunk.
-"He's been here a while and said he was waiting for a group of people." she said.
-Kenichi looked over at the two of them. They looked over at him as well and made a greeting motion. He returned the motion before falling back onto the bar. He had passed out again.
-"He isn't very good with liquor." the bartender stated, "I hope you're the guys he's looking for, because I'm about ready to make him leave."
-Akuin stands and walks over to him. After shaking him, he eventually resorts to slapping him around a few times to wake him up. After getting his attention, they begin talking in code. "We're here to run errands and would like to weed the garden." Akuin said, only making Kenichi reply drunkenly that he didn't have a garden, but if they were looking to join the ERF he could help them with that.
-Karu face-palms and Akuin decides to talk plainly with the drunk to avoid confusion. A few minutes later, Kenichi is ready to go, but is unable to walk. They spend the next couple of hours sobering him up and trying to talk the bartender into letting him off by starting a Tab for him.
-Kenichi leads them to an abandoned subway tunnel, and underneath it, he presses a combination of buttons on the ticket machine before walking to the platform. A couple of minutes later, a single car arrives and the doors open. The group enters and they arrive at the underground base in just a few minutes.

-After their innitial meeting, Akuin sends Karu and Max back with a group of ERF members to collect the others from Aguni and the warehouse.
The Fifth Division Commander of the ERF, one Denise Troyer met with Akuin, assuming him to be the leader of what remained of their forces. "I heard about what happened in the harbour." she said. "I'm glad to see those that got away didn't lose their nerve. Though I am concerned that there are so few of you."
"Those with me now aside from the traitors we found amongst us are a very capable group." Akuin assured her. Max and Karu returned with the unconsious members of their troupe and confined them in the holding cells. Akuin, Karu, Max, Keri, Eric, and a few of the other mercinaries gathered around. Kenichi, Wolf, Amber, and Denise gathered around in a conference room for a briefing.
"We are located 2 miles underground at a secret ERF base." Denise explained, "We are the Fifth Division and are responsible for espionage, sabotage, and counter-inteligence against the Rovan Empire. I am the officer in-charge here, and frankly, even showing outsiders the location of this base was a risk I did not want to take, but the fact is, we need help with an upcoming project."
A man in a black suit with an assault rifle thrown over his back enters the room.
"Reeve, you're late!" Denise argues, but Reeve simply shrugs off her reprimand and takes a seat at the opposite end of the table. Denise continues, attempting to ignore the rude interruption. "We have recieved information of a large shipment of Personal Armours that will be delivered to a training outpost. The same training outpost has recently taken a massive influx of new recruits. We believe the camp will mobilize in a few days and move to eleminate us in a massive sweep and search."
"You intend to intercept and destroy the Armours before they arrive then?" Akuin asks.
"No," Wolf replies, taking a stand, "We intend to steal them. That's where you guys come in."
"We planned to have alot more of you cause a distraction in town near the shipment facility and lead the enemy on a wild-goose-chase." Denise explained, "But seeing as how we only have so few, we'll have to change our plans to accomodate."
"How many troops are there in the Shipment Facility?" Eric asked.
"Nearly 200." Kenichi replied, "We've all but abandoned our base close-by due to their heightened security. Without some way to draw their guards away, it'd be suicide to attack. There are only around 40 men that we can spare for such an attack. Not including you guys that is."
"How will the Armours be transported from point A to point B?" Keri asked.
"There's a public train station that acts as part of the facility, they'll run a military train through the building and load it inside before shipment. But they'll ship a large section of their troops with the cargo, moving at much too high a speed to allow us to board it, so we won't be able to rob the train during transit." Denise explained.
"What if we hi-jack the train and ride it into the building?" Max asked, "We could pretend we are the transport service and have them simply hand the Armours over. We could deal with the escorts after we leave the station."The room fell silent for a moment as everyone contemplated the idea.
"How would we manage to hi-jack a military transport train?" Reeve asked.
"Akuin could teleport onto it and bring it to a stop." Karu sugguested.
"No," Akuin replied, "those trains move at speeds upward of 200mph. If I transport myself onto it, I'd simply be smashed to pieces on the inside of it rather than the outside.
"Does the train make any other stops before it reaches the pick-up site?" Keri asked.
"That's another problem we've run into." Denise explained, "There are security check-points in place every 20 miles, meaning we will have to board the train within 6 minutes of it arriving and we'd be at the first checkpoint in 6 minutes after leaving."
"What about taking the checkpoint before the station?" Eric sugguested, "We could attack the checkpoint before-hand, wait for the train to arrive, then board the train and ride it in to the station. This solves our boarding and time problems. We just have to worry about taking over the checkpoint without alerting anyone."
-Everyone considers this option and after discussion later that night, Denise agrees to the idea.
-As they adjourn, Karu and Max go off to explore the base. They eventually make it to the main entrance and locate Scarecrow, the sentry on guard duty. They attempt to leave, and are held at gunpoint in an instant. Wolf arrives and informs them that Scarecrow is the best sentry in the ERF, he is genetically modified to the point that his body only requires 2 hours of sleep per day. He stands guard day-in and day-out. Aside from this, he is an expert marksman and close-quarters-combat master. If they attepmted to leave without Denise's permission, he would beat them into submission. Max jumped at this opportunity to test his might against such an opponent and challenges Scarecrow to a fight. Scarecrow refuses and stands there silently, ignoring him. After threats and insults fly for a moment with no effect, Max begins to leave the compound. He is immediately tackled and brought to the ground with Scarecrow's gun on his head. Karu interrupts the attack with a swift kick to his side, knocking him off of Max. The two walk slowly away from eachother, widening their distance from eachother and drawing their respective weapons.
-"You want a piece of him too Karu?" Max asked, not really shrugging off the assistance. He was obviously at a disadvantage and was looking for a good, even fight. Karu opened up with a toss of two knives, which Scarecrow shot down with a pair of bursts from his revolver. It was revealed that his gun, though it revolved and fired shots as a normal revolver, it's ammunition was batteries, and it's ammunition was pure energy. He fired the weapon consecutively, blasting Karu with barrages of shots, some being deflected until they eventually broke through and knocked him down.
-Max jumped at the distraction and flew at him. The gun was immediately re-aimed at Max and fired. Max swung his sword and deflected the blast of energy away from himself before taking a defensive stance, using his wide sword as a shield. The shots hit, but were unable to topple him over. Max walked forward through the barrage of shots until they stopped momentarilly. Max looked to see the gun glowing slightly before firing again. This time, a much more powerful shot was fired, striking Max's blade and sending him flying backwards and rolling on the ground.
-Karu lunged in and got within close-range, swinging his combat-knives, hitting nothing. He struck downward with both blades to be deflected by Scarecrow's gun and then Karu himself was arm-thrown away, flying into Max. Reeve flicked his arm to the side, ejecting the rotissery and the spring mechanism ejected the cartridges from the weapon. He re-loaded a single cartridge, looking slightly different from the ones ejected. It was red, rather than the blue color of the others. He spun the chamber, then snapped it in-place, taking aim, and firing the massive wave of crimson energy.
-Max throws Karu aside and stikes the blast head-on with his sword aglow with his Tenshozan. The energy around the sword is stripped away, quickly followed by the force of his swing being overpowered, finally, Max is lifted off of his feet and thrown into a nearby wall, unconsious.
-Karu rose up to his feet after seeing Max impact the wall, he turned to face Scarecrow to see the long barrel of the revolver smashing into his face.
-The two awoke later in the infirmary. Wolf had taken them there after their defeat at Scarecrow's hands. Their injuries weren't severe, but they were out for a few hours. The two of them didn't seem to mind being defeated and the next day, they approached him in the same manner, yielding identical results. On the final day, they rested from their fighting and attended the attack brief.
-The plan would go down in 3 days. In that time, the Falborne were treated as guests and given rooms, food, and explainations on different things concerning their environment.

Chapter 13 (Infiltration:The Big, Bad City):
"Are we there yet?" the hooded girl asked her similarly attired comrades on their way through the mountain pass. They wore brown cloaks that blended in with the dirty, rocky backgrounds of their trek.
"No, we're not." the man infront of her stated, "We are near the Stalwart Mining Fields and should remain quiet, milady."
"Why are we straying so close to the fields anyways?" she asked.
"The plan from the beginning has been to infiltrate New Rovan CIty. We are going to sneak into the



---later---

-Yuuki and Kousuke will enter the city on an infiltration mission while the Falborne and ERF forces
-By the end of this arc, we will be introduced to the new Emporer, Avis Emery. He will threaten to have the group put to death publically as terrorists, but a surprise attack by Yuuki, Kousuke, and Wolf will disrupt the execution. Akuin will jump out of hiding and cause a disturbance by blowing up random buildings and the crowd will scatter in a panic. The guards will be overwhelmed for only a while, but will soon regain control of the situation and outnumber the group once again.
-Kenichi will make an attempt on the Avis' life with his sniper rifle, but to no avail, as a shield will be revealed around his seat.
-Avis offers them a deal. They would be spared and allowed to live in the empire if they swore loyalty to him and became his soldiers.
-Wolf warns them against this, that he would have their lives in his hands every day for the rest of their lives.
-Wolf has by this point, already used his Impactor, and it has just recharged enough to fire. He quickly summons it and takes his shot with a piercing beam. The shield wavers and the shot breaks through, but as the dust clears, Echo will be there with a smoking left arm after deflecting the blast with DLA.
-The Impactor fades back to HQ, and everyone is seemingly out of options. Yuuki vows to never serve anyone other than her village, and as she rushes in only to be thrown back by Echo. Kousuke follows suit to an identical result.
-Max decides it's his turn and transforms once more to Asura (he's done it about 3 times already and is nearing his limit). He's unable to use any power attacks at this point and can only manage to cut a path through guards towards the exit as they try to escape. He trades off his pendant to Keri as he breaks down the door, and she uses Harmony to deal with the guards inside.
-Kousuke, Wolf, Karu and Akuin cover the rear with knives and gunfire while the rest advance through the facility with blades.

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