Walking through the forest parted by a well-worn path were three young adults; two young looking boys and a slightly older looking young lady. The trio was traversing over a light dusting of snow, merely one half of an inch. The boys were fine with the cold weather because they were wearing weighty cloaks. The girl, on the other hand, was obviously not fine. She was shivering and her teeth were clattering rather loudly.
The brown haired boy then asked, "Nanami, do you want to borrow my cloak for a little bit?"
"Now Riou, what kind of big sister would I be if I took your cloak and let you freeze to death? And besides, I'm perfectly fine. Not even a little bit cold." Nanami responded. The boy with the long blonde hair pulled back into a French braid began to laugh and said, "We could've bought you a cloak too, but you insisted that you were fine without. I tried to tell that just because winter's ending here doesn't mean it's not going to be cold."
"Jowy, I'm not cold and I thought it was just going to be a little bit warmer. That's all." Nanami insisted indignantly. "Anyways, where are we going now? You said you read about this place before and all, but haven't we been in Harmonia enough? Didn't we see enough when we first came here fifteen years ago?"
Riou responded for Jowy: "We're going to the Grasslands, but we don't want to cut through Dunan because we might be recognized and that would be bad. I don't want any complications." "Ohhh" was Nanami's only reply. Jowy continued, "Yeah, we wanted to see some of the tribes. Lucia is from the Grasslands."
"Hey! Wait! Why is it that I never get a vote in where we go?"
"Hm, Good question. I don't know, but something has been bothering me a lot recently. It's been fifteen years since we left Dunan and started travel, right?" They stop moving and Riou and Nanami nod their heads in agreement. "Riou and I haven't aged at all, which is because of the true runes we bear, but, Nanami, you haven't aged much either and I don't know why. I mean, you don't have a true rune or anything, do you?"
"Maybe I just age very gracefully. Hey! Don't laugh, I'm being serious. Okay, so it's been fifteen years and I should look a little older. What's the big deal? I mean..."
Nanami was interrupted by Riou when he asked of her and Jowy, "Did you hear that?" Jowy said "Yes" as he pulled out his bow and set his bags down and got ready to fight. Nanami and Riou followed suite and took out their weapons and prepared for battle as Jowy called out, "Who's there?"
"MOO!" was the only reply and it came from a tree back in the woods. The trio just sighed, looked at each other, and shook their heads as they heard muffled shouts. A low, rough voice could be heard by all saying, "Shit you idiot, now they know we're here."
Then the voice that made the "moo" noise asked, "But Boss what does it matter? There's just three of 'em and three hundred of us. No problem to kill 'em all, but I would like to have a little fun with the girl before we kill her."
"Listen you dumbass, didn't you hear 'em talkin' 'bout some true runes or somethin'? They could be strong, but it doesn't matter. We'll take whatever they have." The "Boss" told his lackey. The trio looked at each other worriedly and Riou asked, "Did he just say three hundred?"
"Come on, we can take 'em. Right?" Nanami asked nervously. "Looks like we'll have to." Jowy said. The "Boss" yelled a cliché battle charge: "Charge!" Then literally hundreds of men came from both sides of the path surrounding the trio as the desperate fight began.
Off in the woods high in a tree on a branch sat a young looking man dressed in a black cape, boots, and brandishing a hand-and-a-half handed arming sword with a well decorated handle. He sighed, shook his head, and muttered something about having to actually do something. Saying to himself (or the voices in his head), "Better go help, don't want them dieing. Shu wouldn't like it much if Genkaku's boy perished. They're close to the Grasslands now anyways. Once they pass over those mountains, they're practically there." He started to hop gradually downwards from branch to branch when he grabbed his side in pain and fell the rest of the seventy- five some feet and landed on his head.
After he got up he said, "Well, that was graceful. Ouch! She's getting herself hurt. I better hurry." Then started to run at an incredible speed and arrived at the outer rim of the group of ruffians who couldn't get into the fighting because their comrades were in their way. Slowing down, but still at a run the youth unsheathed his sword with his right hand and began to cut his way through the crowd. It took a full two seconds to notice the boy cutting through their comrades before the ruffians started to try to kill him. After the boy cut open his seventh bandit, he actually had people who were fighting back. Without much room to wield his sword, the youth was forced to sheath it had to fight with his hands and feet. Grabbing the base of one of his opponents' weapons and hurling him the way he came he made sure that he was clear from behind for now. He then jumped up and lightly ran across the heads of the people trying to kill him.
Now that he could actually see the fight at the centre, he could see that he was needed even more badly. Jowy was using his true rune to cut through the bandits while Nanami was thumping away with her weapon and Riou was trying to keep every one healed with his rune as well as use it to help keep the bandits at bay. Riou was sweating badly with Jowy looking exhausted as well. Nanami was using pure adrenaline to fight and hadn't really noticed the not too serious cut on her left side. Bodies were strewn all over the place, at least sixty were down and never moving again on their own accord.
The boss of the bandits was wisely staying out harms way, but not for long. The as of yet unidentified youth ran up to the centre and cast a lightning spell knocking back and down the bandits immediately surrounding the trio. The trio looked up at the floating boy and watched as he launched a ball of odd lightning and fire mixed energy in the general direction of the ruffians' boss who moved out of the way. The ball struck near where the bandits' boss had been and killed many bandits and wounding more. As the youth sent his mix ball at the bandits it revealed his distinctly pointed ears that were hidden beneath his long blonde hair that was pulled tightly back into a French braid, not unlike Jowy's. Only Nanami picked this up during the confusion though.
The bandits' boss decided that whatever the group may posses was not worth the losses that his band of ruffians were suffering and yelled,"Run away!" from a distance while he was already long gone. The youth floated down to the ground and closed his eyes, concentrating on healing the trio. After Jowy, Riou, and Nanami realized that he had healed them Nanami ran up to him and said, "Thanks, you saved our lives. My name's Nanami and this is my brother Riou and our friend Jowy. Who are you?"
The youth answered: "I'm Teddy. And I umm... know who you guys are. And to be honest, I've been tailing you since the war ended fifteen years ago. I'm kind of a stalker." Nanami just said "oh" and Jowy asked, "Are you Harmonian? You have a Harmonian accent and your hair is blonde, just like a Harmonians'. Even lighter than mine."
Nanami turned around and looked at Jowy like "huh?" and Teddy replied, "No, I'm not exactly Harmonian, but could we discuss this later? I want to treat the bandits that are wounded." Jowy, Riou, and Nanami just looked at him like he was an idiot until Nanami asked, "Umm... Why? They were trying to kill us. They are bad people. Besides I think that their friends will come back and help them."
Before Teddy could respond Riou asked, "Would you care to come with us? You obviously know who we are and I'm curious to know who you are and why you have been following us for this long."
"Yeah, come on. It'll be fun. But hurry up, I'm starting to get cold and it's getting dark and starting to snow again." Nanami encouraged. "Okay, I'll come with you guys. I owe you an explanation anyways. There is a town at the bottom of the mountain about a mile away. We can rest at the inn, my treat. Then we can discuss why you want to go to the Grasslands when I hear there's a war brewing there."