Chapter 1 – Voices in the Nightlife
DISCLAIMER: I DO NOT OWN MAPLESTORY!
ENJOY!~ :D
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"Anaki!"
No response.
"Anaaaaaaaaaki!"
"What?!" I shouted back.
"Anaki! It's important!." The voice belonged to my caretaker or adoptive mother, Athena Pierce.
"Ok, I'll be there, just a sec!"
After I packed my backpack I ran up the stairs to see Athena.
"What is it?" I asked politely.
"You see, Kerning City is well…an unstable place, and I don't want any of my young archers to end up there, so Kerning City is off limits to Henesys." Athena replied.
"But I go there all the time, to buy potions; over there is super cheap." I complained, "Plus, the place has some interesting venues."
"I'm sorry, Anaki but I don't want you to be killed. I mean, who would want to live in that disgusting place filled with robbers and nasty people?" Athena sighed, "And don't forget, we're their biggest enemy."
"I know, but I'm sure they don't hate every single bowman."
"Anaki, you don't get it, do you? If they see an archer, especially one your age, they'd have the advantage to kill you. A group of thugs did the same to my husband and mother…" Athena frowned, and then continued, "And all the battles and wars in the past we've had with them didn't end so well. And the war between Kerning City and us could escalate if I let a bowman go into that junkyard. So please do me a favor and don't go there again. If you do, there will be very grave consequences. I mean it, Anaki."
I nodded my head and went back downstairs. I couldn't talk back to her, not when her voice was completely serious.
Nobody here in Henesys ever fully understood Kerning City and the people that came along with it. I couldn't really blame them because of the war. Sure on the outside it looked like your typical trouble-making and seditious scene, but it was my second home. Every single day I'd go there. But now it was all over, my interaction outside with Kerning City was over.
…But then, I thought to myself. Maybe I could sneak over there during the nights. That was basically when Henesys was asleep and when Kerning City became alive with the glimmering street lights and the crowded hustle and bustle...or so people would say. I never ever visited Kerning City in the night time. It was basically freedom.
To tell you the truth, I was into thievery; I never liked handling bows. Nowadays, Bowman never really had freedom outside the village of Henesys. Ever since the war started, Henesys has taken many precautions to close off their city to the other four main cities and villages of Victoria. Only recently, it's gotten worse.
"Anaki! Anaki!"
"What now…?" I replied slowly.
"It's time for dinner!"
The voice belonged to my younger sister, who was also an archer. She was Athena's blood child as I was Athena's adoptive child. Unlike me, she loved the whole idea of archery and nothing else.
"Wait a second, Madorro." I replied.
The reason I actually became a bowman was because Athena insisted to me that they were the most stable and easiest class in all of Victoria. Athena was right on that, being an archer didn't take much effort, but it wasn't for me. So I basically made a huge mistake which made me regret the whole thing.
I walked over to the kitchen seeing Mother Athena, Madorro, and a few other guests. I sat down, took my fork, and began eating abruptly.
"Anaki! We haven't started the prayer yet…learn your manners." Athena said in a harsh tone; she really wasn't in a good mood today…
"Sorry, mother Athena."
Madorra giggled as I groaned.
"Thank you for all the scrumptious and heartwarming food you've brought, we will treasure your kind gift for us." Athena and other guests said. Once they finished the prayer, we all began to eat our dinner.
It was awfully quiet around the dinner table…no conversation. Just quietness. It didn't feel right to me.
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It was time to sneak out. 12:00 A.M was perfect. I was actually going to see Kerning's nightlife for the first time and this was a great opportunity to do so. Before I did anything, I had to dress up like a normal civilian in Kerning City so I wouldn't attract any bad business. I dug through my spare clothing and took some jeans that were ripped in the knee area and a plain white shirt. I quickly put the outfits on. I untied my long black hair and frivolously straightened it with my hands.
Then I thought about how I was going to walk in the night. With no Henesys taxi service in the nighttime take me there, how was I going to go through those horrible forests infested with blue mushrooms? Then again, the majority of monsters around Henesys were asleep during the nighttime which would make it twice as easy to walk to Kerning.
I arrived to the Henesys training ground. I squinted my eyes at the bright, full moon that glowed upon the forest before making my way. Soon enough, I ran faster so I could get to Kerning as fast as I could. If I was to get back home before Mother Athena and the others woke up, I had to make haste. I jumped over pits, dodged tree branches, and ignored the dangerous blue mushrooms. Soon enough the forest cleared and I saw the entrance to Kerning City. I checked my watch and it read, 1:32 A.M.
All of a sudden, my mouth was wide agape at the sight of Kerning. The modern streetlights of Kerning were lit up, illuminating the whole city. All the lights of the buildings were lit up too. I saw hundreds of people…everywhere. There were either in large groups actively conversing, partying, or just loitering around. It was all so alive. This was complete heaven. This was nothing like Henesys…where it was always peaceful but yet very quiet. All I had to do was walk with grace and keep a confident smile. I continued my way into the city.
"Hey you! I haven't seen ya here before, wutz ya name?"
I saw a scraggly looking man who looked quite unkempt…and out of it.
"Uhh…"
"Wutz ya name?!" The guy said in an impatient tone this time. I nearly grimaced when I smelled his rank alcohol breath. Mother Athena was right on one thing…Kerning City did have its fair share of nasty people.
The guy all of a sudden abruptly tripped and got knocked out from his fall.
"Ok…" I whispered, slowly backing away. I walked at a fast pace, pretending that never happened.
I walked over to the Kerning City café, curious of how crowded it would be during the night time. When I came through the entrance I saw a rather large man, wearing torn and dirty clothes with a frazzled black beard.
"Hey there, sexy you wanna go…get some drinks…?" The man chuckled.
I tried ignoring the man by pushing my way through the entrance, but instead I got a nasty shove from another man with short blond hair, he looked just as unkempt as the bearded man.
"Answer the dude you fucktard!" The blonde guy gave me another shove.
"Don't touch me!" I hissed, my voice came out quieter than I intended it to be.
Surprisingly, the guy with the blonde hair heard me and abruptly kicked me to the ground. I let out a stifled gasp. The big bearded guy came closer to me, he immediately tried taking my top off.
"No!" I yelled, "Get off!"
I fervently kicked and jolted at the man, trying to get him off me but it was no use. He was pretty huge.
The blonde haired man behind him burst into laughter at this, "Now, now! Don't be so feisty, little girl."
Damn it…maybe Athena was right. What the hell did I get myself into…?!
All of a sudden I heard a nasty scream come out from the bearded man. He immediately tumbled off of me, freeing myself from the man.
"Leave the girl alone." An unfamiliar but soft voice said.
"Shut up, you bastard!" The man with the beard yelled.
The guy with the blonde hair tried stabbing the guy who told them off with a daggar. The unfamiliar guy immediately blocked the attack and effortlessly did a roundhouse kick at the blonde haired guy, causing him to double over. The guy with the beard tried launching a fistful of punches towards the guy, but the guy stunned him with a couple of kicks and punches. The two thugs lay down on each other, clearly knocked out.
I sat there, wide eyed. The guy didn't look much older than me and he knocked two grown men down.
"Are you all right?" The guy asked.
He held out a hand, smiling at me. I was still too shocked to take his hand. I was right, he looked to be around my age. He had shaggy, party disheveled brown hair. He wore a dark blue tank top with pants that were buckled with several belts. He wore metal boots that framed his outfit pretty well.
I realized that I spaced out; I immediately took his bigger hand before he gracefully pulled me up.
"Y-yeah, I'm fine…" I slowly nodded my head.
"Are you new? You don't look like you're from around here."
"Y-yes…" I said, half heartily lying. I was technically new to this place during the nighttime…seeing as I've never gone to Kerning City during the night. I took a short look at the thugs that were still lying there, it was quite a surprise that passerby's weren't even doing anything about the knocked out men. They just walked past the thugs like nothing happened.
"What's your name?"
"Mines is Anaki, what's yours?" I said, dusting my pants off. I had to keep the conversation going. I was, after all, curious about this place and the people it came with.
"Oh, mines is Shino, are you lost?"
"Sorta…" I replied; I actually knew my way around the place, but I didn't want to get myself into any more trouble alone.
"Ok, where're you trying to go?"
"I'm just exploring the place." I replied, then added, "B-but I live in Henesys."
"You mean…you're a bowman?"
Crap…why did I say that?!
"Well…I-I…yeah. It's weird – b-but I don't really like being one-!" I stuttered. I didn't want this guy to get a bad impression of me.
"Is that why you're dressed up like a thief?" Shino asked.
This Shino guy was awfully friendly, "Yup, also because I don't want anyone to find out I'm an archer. I like this place a lot. It may have some questionable people, but it's full of freedom!"
"I can show you around the place…that is, if you want."
"Sure! I'd love that!" I exclaimed.
I brushed off the fact that he was another stranger. I really didn't want to wonder around the nightlife of Kerning City alone anymore, considering that there were lots of bad people around during this time.
"Ok then, let's go!"
He held my hand, which made my cheeks flush a shade of pink. We started running at a pretty fast pace, making this twice as exciting. The lights on the tall skyscrapers and sidewalks became blurs as we passed. I could hear all the loud chattering and excitement around us. It was all too amazing. We suddenly came to a stop.
"Where to?" Shino asked.
"That café over there." I pointed to another café, it was bigger than the other one I came across earlier.
"All right."
When we came inside, we saw huge beds with groups of people either laying or sleeping on them. On the other side of the café, we saw an area with food vendors and clerks. There was quite a distinct smell of unagi wafting throughout the café.
"Shino." I started, I noticed that it was getting late. However my eyes were drooping with sleep as I saw the beds.
"What is it?"
"I'm going to sit down for a while. I'm getting a bit tired." I replied, yawning.
"Are you staying overnight?" Shino asked, "Don't you have to go back?"
"Is there a night taxi that can take me back to Henesys?" I said, sitting down on an unoccupied bed.
"Yeah, of course. But they don't start midnight taxi service until 3:00 in the morning."
"That's more than an hour from now…!" I exclaimed, frantically looking at my watch. That would be an awful lot of time to wait for a taxi, especially when my sleepiness was getting to me, "I can't walk that far…I'm so tired."
"Then take a little rest before the taxi service opens." Shino replied, "I'll wake you up."
"All right." I grinned as I lay back on the bed, "I've never been up so late before."
"It's only 1:50…" Shino slightly chuckled.
"Of course that's normal time for you, but that's real late for me. Everyone in Henesys is fast asleep by 11:00."
"Now I'm not so surprised that you think 2:00 is real late."
"Yeah."
I kept my eyes on Shino, sleepiness starting to overcome me.
"Oh my gosh!" Someone hissed, but loud enough for Shino and I to hear, "Shino! That's a Henesys citizen…?!"
My eyes widened.
Someone must have overheard us. I saw who it was once they walked closer towards us. It was a girl with long, wavy purple hair who looked slightly older than me. She had a pompous and arrogant façade to her look.
"Well-" Shino started, but was rudely cut off.
"A Henesys citizen in Kerning City?!" She crossed her arms, "Dark Lord won't accept this! We're trying our best to keep those meddling idiots from our place, but you decided to bring one i-!"
"Stella!" Shino interrupted, and then thought of an escape-hatch, "She's not like the other bowman. she's like us. I swear."
"Hmph." She huffed, "She better be. You're lucky you're one of my close friends, cause if you weren't, I would be running all the way to Dark Lord by now."
"I may be a Henesys citizen, but I'll never do anything that would hurt your town." I spoke up. I can't let anybody get a bad impression of me here. The long conflicting war between Henesys and Kerning City has done enough already.
"Whatever." The girl, Stella, said.
Shino whispered to me in a joking manner, "Don't mind Stella, she doesn't really like strangers."
"Okay." I smiled, feeling a bit better.
"So what's her name?" Stella asked, not even conjuring up the fact that I was right here.
"Her name's Anaki."
Stella pursed her lips before haughtily flipping her long hair and walking away. Shino sat on the end of the bed.
"So, what's Henesys like?"
"Peaceful,clean…boring." I replied, with much dullness to my voice.
"Are you sure? I've never been there before, Dark Lord requires us not to communicate with Henesys at all." Shino said, "Plus, when you've lived here long enough, it isn't very fun. We do the same things every day. This war…is just too much on our lives."
It was like Shino could read my mind.
"That's exactly how it is back at home!" I nearly shouted, causing everyone else in the café to stare at us.
"oops…" I whispered, causing Shino to slightly chuckle.
"You don't seem so sleepy."
"I'm getting sleepy…a bit." I replied.
"Sorry for keeping you up." Shino smiled.
"Oh, it's okay! I have no problem with that!" I furiously waved my hands.
"I'll leave you to rest then; I'm going to get something to eat." Shino said, "G'night, Anaki."
"Goodnight, Shino." I replied, drifting off to sleep.
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The six o' clock sunrise swept over the horizon in the peaceful and tranquil town of Henesys. Through the window of a large mushroom shaped house, Athena Pierce rubbed her eyes of sleep and stood up. It was another early day of training for her the civilians of Henesys and her two children. Athena went into Madorro's room; her daughter was buried in the bed sheets. She gently shook her awake.
"Wake up, Madorro, it's time for another day of training."
"Good morning, mother." Madorro yawned, voice full of sleepiness, "…are we going to practice with the crossbows this time…?"
"Yes." Athena replied, "Now wake up; I need to start up the training school. We're late today; we should have started at 5:00."
"All right."
Athena smiled down at Madorro, before walking into Anaki's room. The archery instructor went inside the room and nearly gasped in complete astonishment when saw that the bed sheets were entirely flat. That was when Athena noticed Anaki was gone.
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PLEASE R&R!
This was basically an old story I wrote from middle school. I found it in my bookshelf and I decided I would revise and change it up a bit before submitting it onto here. I hope you liked this chapter! :D Feel free to ask me any questions and I'll get back to you.
You'll get to know more about the war in later chapters.
Main Characters:
Anaki - 14
Shino - 16
Stella - 17