Kazumi: … … … Okay, so I lied, doesn't everyone once and a while? I WILL be writing a SlayersOC story as I've said … and another one after that-WHICH BY THE WAY- I won't be telling you XD; and then there's the chance that I might write another HellsingOC story, then there'd be three ;p. Anywho, onto the story that I have been putting off for a while now, YIPPE! DISCLAIMER- I do not own 'Slayers' anyway; if I did I'd be flying to school instead of riding the damn school bus. Nor do I own NASA, the news, or the Solar System…God that is SO tempting, NOOT FAIR!

'Text'- Thoughts

"Text"- TV

"Text"- Spell chanting

Text/Text- Word emphasis

Of Spacey Things and Shiny Rings

It was the start of a lovely afternoon. On the west side of the small town of Roseburg that stood at the edge of the Shenandoah Mountains, the Bryant family was just sitting down to an evening snack and a moment with the television. Well, most of them anyway. One of the family's three members that had eaten much sooner than the other two was preparing to leave the house for a romp in the local woods; right after they washed the dishes where they was currently in the kitchen for. There, a young girl who looked to be in her teens stood at the sink, absentmindedly humming a song while she cleaned her plates; her brown hair that had rested just a little bit past her shoulders swept forward and covered her brown eyes from concentrating on her task at hand.

Her name was Taylor Bryant, age sixteen, sophomore in her nearby high school.

A bit agitated by her hair Taylor put down the plate and tucked it back behind her ear with a soapy hand. A few minutes later she put the last plate in the dishwasher, mentally complaining about her accursed chores. In the living room her mother, Kate, and her thirteen year old brother, Paul, sat eating their dinner while watching the news as they always did. Suddenly she heard a call from her mother.

"Sweetheart, can you bring some napkins into the living room while you're in the kitchen?"

"Yeah sure!" The brunette replied, drying off her wet hands by rubbing them onto her dark blue tee and khaki capris, her white undershirt completely unaffected. She then went into the other room to hand her mother the napkins she had asked for and sat on the arm of one of the lounge chairs as she put on her hiking sneakers. As she tied the last lace her ears picked up a part of the announcement from the news.

"– oh! One more thing before we move to our evening traffic report with Gina, remember to watch the skies for our Solar System's special performance that was announced last month by NASA. They're all going to be lining up with an extra surprise! A Full Moon, can you believe it? More details after the traffic report, e-" The channel was abruptly changed to that of an HBO Movie marathon; the choice of film currently was Terminator: 2.

"Bye Mom, I'll be back in a bit. Love ya guys!" Taylor gathered up her small forest green cloth bag of knick-knacks, slung it over her shoulder and headed out the back door. Once outside she unlocked her purple and silver mountain bike and rode swiftly out of her neighborhood before her mother remembered that she had "forgotten" to do her other household chores. Within minutes she had reached the edge of the forest that surrounded her tiny rural city and locked her bike up by a good-sized oak tree and continued on to her trek through the woods.

Taylor Bryant, in a nutshell, was not one of the more popular people in her school; in fact she and the rest of her friends considered themselves in the nerdy, outcast group. She liked to write, draw, and daydream in her free time, when she did get some anyway. She was known to many of those school peers of hers and even to some of the neighborhood kids that she knew as the local nature girl. Although she didn't like being called that and in such contexts by people who she didn't consider friends or even acquaintances for that matter, except for the children she was alright with them calling her that, it did have some sort of truth to it. When she wasn't doing her schoolwork, writing, drawing, or hanging out with friends she was usually outside doing something in those woods. It created an escape for her whenever something went wrong in her life, the woodland setting quickly calming her whenever something bad had happened, that or she just wanted peace or something cool was going on in those woods.

Which was what had brought her to the wood today. Late last month NASA had announced the complete alignment of the Milky Way Solar System, along with Pluto that she still considered a planet. Also on the news at that time was a guest who was a keen planetary scholar that had said that when all of the planets positions were in a straight line something great was supposed to happen, or so says the old texts, on April fifteenth at seven o' clock on the dot. Her family, not one for ancient legends took no notice to it, but Taylor was another story. That day she had woken up with a gut-feeling to go into the forest that very day, and she always followed her instinct no matter how stupid it seemed sometimes.

So there she was in the dense woods of Shenandoah in the evening trying to find a good spot to watch the illustrious space show after three hours on foot, she looked at her digital watch and gawked when she noticed that the time was now 6:56. Hurriedly she quickly scaled up her destination that she had finally reached. It was one of the highest rock faces around and practically overlooked the entire valley which her town was situated in. To the ones who knew about it, the fanatic hikers and nature goers such as herself, it was called Wolves Peak. The reason being a saying was that whenever the moon was full you'd be able to hear the small, friendly, residential wolf pack bay in the evenings. This was one of the most stunning places in her area to be at in the night, and ever since she turned fifteen her mother had finally allowed her to go up there; and she loved it. The peacefulness was music to her ears.

She looked down at her watch again; 6:59 and 50 seconds. 'Yes!' She mentally cheered at she sat down on the stone surface surveying the scene before her, her legs extended outward and her arms propped up behind her as she counted down.

"Ten…nine…" A little while behind her she could hear some things trotting along on another part of the stone's surface and she smiled; it was still incredibly cool that they weren't the big 'n bad wolves but even better was that they were completely friendly to the town's residents for some reason.

"...eight…seven…" above her a semi-formed row of faintly seen stars slowly got in line with the moon and her own heavenly body.

"...six…five…" and in the sky a peculiar glow of the planets slowly appeared and connected one by one.

"...four…three…" she frowned as a mildly large chill slowly crept up her spine while she stared into the atmosphere. Her eyes widened as she suddenly noticed the unusual shine. 'Uhh, that doesn't look normal...but then again something was supposed to happen...'

"...two…ONE!" A hoarse whisper escaped her lips as the gleam from the sky grew extremely bright, almost blinding. Behind her she could hear loud howling and faint snarling as the scenery was lit up from above. "Holy – JEEZ!" She leapt up from her sitting position to cover her eyes from the offending light as it grew brighter and brighter, practically scorching her irises, wracking her whole body with pain. She was so concentrating on the pain that she didn't notice her body get lighter by the second, it slowly becoming transparent. 'Jesus Christ in Heaven, that fricking HURTS!' The wolves scattered, whimpering and snarling in protest as the young girl slowly disappeared before their eyes; the bright light fading even quicker than that until it had vanished too. Once gone, the few canines that had remained cautiously poked their heads out of the various bushes and was astounded when they saw no trace of the girl who was just there. She was just…gone.

The first thing that Taylor noticed when she woke up was that it was dark; very dark in fact, that being she couldn't see a blasted thing in front of her face. The second thing was that she was sitting on a damp, rocky surface; God knows how that happened. And third…she had no bloody idea of where the hells she was, at ALL.

"Well…isn't this just peachy?" She was very surprised when her yell echoed through the space around her, steadily fainting into the distance while also hearing droplets of water hitting a solid surface all around her. 'Ummm…okay, that was strange? Am I in a cave, cause I don't remember a ca-' Suddenly her memories hit her like a ton of bricks and she jerked up. 'Oh HEEELLLL no! I have to be imagining this, I just know it! That weird astral thing did NOT land me here! Please wake up! Please, please, PLEASE WAKE UP!' She pinched herself hard on the forearms a couple of times and groaned heavily when there was no improvement. "Aw…man! I'm so screwed...damn." She looked around precariously and sighed, "Oh well, might as well find a way out of…wherever the hells it is that I am."

Taylor sighed and started to feel around for a wall that might have been able to lead her out of the cavern. After successfully doing that she started on her long trek through the cave, as if she wasn't tired enough already from almost walking to the top of a mountain for three hours. A while later, two and a half hours when she checked her watch, her search for an exit still hadn't borne any fruit; although she had gotten used to the darkness of the place. She had been tripping over rocks, stalagmites and what she thought was an animal once or twice – which freaked her out greatly, walked into boulders and stalactites and the occasional deep puddle, and on top of that she was wet and cold from the infuriating water that had seemed to be always dripping onto her head. Also on that note, it seemed that she would now and then get the gut feeling to jump back when she tripped over sometimes; and successfully too for not but a second later a stone block would smash into the ground where she was standing. So she did spend some time jumping over trip wires and passing by large pits with some very pointy-looking spikes at the bottom.

It had already seemed like an eternity to her and she was just plain sick of it. Suddenly out of the blue, she could make out a very faint shine of what looked to be moonlight up ahead and she hooted happily. "Light! Yahoo! I am so out of here – I'm going home! YES!" Taylor jumped excitedly and raced toward it, expertly bounding over the things that she was finally able to see. 'Ha-HA! Let's see you trip me now!' Then, as she finally reached her destination she skidded to a stop and took a good look at the scene in front of her in shock.

It was not an exit, no; instead there was a curve in the cavern wall making a u-shaped room that had perfectly carved stone steps leading up to a smooth platform. On the walls of the room were several odd carvings and letters which she could not read. In the middle stood a perfect single cylindrical pillar that bathed in the moonlight that came from above. And on the column was one of the tiniest things imaginable; a ring, which was placed on the top of a pentagram shaped stand. "N-no, it can't be…"

Taylor dropped to her knees and wailed miserably, "DAMMIT! I'm never going to get out of here! AAARRRRRGGHHHHH!" The darkness around her mercilessly crushing the hope she had of any chance of her getting out.

Outside the aforementioned cave a troop of odd-looking men carrying various types of weaponry and torches emerged from the lush forest surrounding the stone entrance. A tall burly man strutted out of the crowd and walked to the front of the group, throwing his arms out wide. "My friends! Far we have traveled to reach this point; over many seas and mountains! Through deadly woods and other impudent persons who would've tried to claim our prize! But none of which stopped us, THE GREAT AND MIGHTY DRAGON'S BANE!" The men cheered loudly at the mentions of their name and were quickly silenced by their leader's hand. Up in a tree a figure suddenly appeared out of thin air, unnoticed by the bandits they stood soundlessly against the tree truck listening in on the brigand's speech. "At last, my men, we have arrived; at the place where the infamous Band of Eldohras of the Ancients has been kept for centuries. In our time of great fortune we have been guided by the planets to the place where the Ring of Power was located; and also with the help of this nifty scripture we managed to 'borrow' before we left. And, in just a few moments, it will be ou-"

"- RRRRRRGGGGHHHHH!" The vagabonds jumped about three feet into the air and stumbled back away from the gaping entrance; scared shitless at the moaning wail emitted from the cave. The figure in the tree raised an eyebrow curiously. One of the bandits crawled over to his boss and latched on his pants leg, shaking nervously.

"H-hey, Boss? D-did the scripture say anything about t-the cave bein' h-haunted?" The leader quickly shook off his fear, and his comrade, and leapt up onto a small boulder to get his groups attention. What didn't help was that his knees were shaking ever so slightly.

"Get up you lily-livered cowards! Grow some backbone; what you just heard was probably some poor soul getting caught in one of the cave's traps." The director suddenly froze and growled menacingly, "Which means… that someone ELSE got here before us – COME ON BOYS! WE'VE GOT US A RING TO FIND!" The gang roared with fierce ambition and dashed into the cave after their leader, leaving the person in the tree to themselves. They chuckled happily and stared into the darkness of the cave with devious, purple eyes. The person sat down on the branch that they had currently been standing on and waited patiently to see how this situation would turn out.

"Why, WHY, WHY, WHYYY!" The young girl pounded her fists into the ground until they were too numb to feel anything anymore. Tears leaked from her eyes as she gazed angrily at the strange room's moonlight for giving her false hope, cursing it silently. Grimacing, she slowly got up and marched up the stone stairs irritably until she stood face to band with the piece of jewelry. For a few moments she stood there trying to get her emotions to settle down, and to get that small piece of information to finally settle in. When she did she sighed heavily and wiped her eyes on her arm, turning her attention to the little thing in front of her, face scrunched up into a confused state. "Well…that's, um, very interesting…" Taylor slowly encircled the ring on its stone stand, quietly inspecting it as she went around.

It was just a simple thing, a gold band with engravings of the same lettering as the stuff on the walls around her and probably big enough to fit on her middle finger. Along with that she could barely see faint white gold and black-ish curves and swirls along the surface of the circlet. She snickered as the image of her replica of the One Ring from Lord of the Rings popped inside her head. She had gotten it at a Barnes & Noble a little while after the first movie was released. She had bought a bookmark of Legolas Greenleaf and the fake One Ring had come along with it as an extra something.

Taylor chortled to herself again as she picked it up, twirling it along in her palm. 'Oooh, pretty. Maybe I'll go invisible if I put it on; hee hee! Okayokay, gotta stop it with the fangirl crap…' She was about to put it on when she heard a faint sound behind her. "Huh? Hey who's the-" She turned around to see what was there, and when she did she almost dropped the little thing in her hand.

"I'd appreciate it if you would put that back down. Really now, didn't your mother teach you about touching things that weren't yours?" came an overly sarcastic voice. There stood a man; well he wasn't really there, it was more like a transparent image. He had bright green hair and had long bangs framing his oval shaped face and ran down his back in a semi-long ponytail. He had ebony eyes that were very sharp in shape. Across his brow were two headbands criss crossing each other; one red and the other blue. He wore a sort of medieval swordsman's outfit, minus the armor; a red long sleeved shirt with blue lines running down from where his ribs started and blue pants, and a black cape with red lining.

Apparently her brain was just on the slow side that day because it took just a while longer than it had to register the ring than a spirit; but after a while there was finally a response. "AAAHHH! GHOOOOOOOSSSTT!" Taylor scrambled away from the figure and backed up against the wall, the man giving her the What-is-wrong-with-you look. "S-stay back! I'll kick your ass if you even come near me!" She paused for a second as her second thought came to her mind, "… uh… nice hair…" From where she was standing she could visibly see the man's eyebrow twitch.

"Right…alright then, enough games kid."

It was Taylor's turn to twitch at the comment, or insult. 'K-KID! Oh, I'll show you kid, you stupid-'

"Hand over the Ring and you won't hurt yourself." She stopped her mental ranting of what she was going to do to the ghost person when the request reached her ears. She stood silently and looked at the ring in her hands for a few moments before she spoke up again.

"Questions; two actually: um, why should I and who the hell are you to be able to tell me what to do in the first place?" The see-through man almost fell over but quickly straightened himself up right again. Coughing slightly he made a waving motion with his hand.

"How rude… well to introduce myself, my name is Gaven Nakajoumi, the last of the Nakajoumi Reign; also the current protector of the Band of Eldohras." There was an awkward moment of silence before Gaven sighed into his hand and pointed at the thing that Taylor held in her hand. "In other words, the ring you're currently holding."

Taylor 'oooh'ed and took the ring between her thumb and index finger. "So this thing has a name…" She looked over at the apparition, "Does that make it important?" The man gasped loudly.

"'Is it important'? Of course it is you twit of a child!" Gaven shouted, causing the teenager to jolt slightly at the sudden man coughed again and quickly regained himself, completely ignoring the pissed-off youth. "Please excuse me; I am particularly sensitive about this subject."

Taylor nodded and waved it off, her feelings abruptly forgotten. "You're excused, please do carry on with your rant."

"Right; the duty of guarding it was passed down from generation to generation in my family. When a family member of my heritage died they would take over the last protector's, the last person's who passed over, task of keeping it safe from the fools who would try and use it to bring about the destruction of the world and bring it all back to Chaos." All the while Taylor stood quietly, taking in all the information that the spirit gave her until that last part where she almost fell over from the sudden change in mood.

'Okay… why does that sound strangely familiar?' "Alright, so let me get this straight. It's been your family's duty to guard this thing so when one of you dies you take over for the person who died before you and then you guard it until someone else comes and takes over for you; and if you don't someone would take it and try to destroy the world… …with this itsy-bitsy ring; have I got it down so far?"

The astral man sighed and leaned against the pillar. "That is correct." She hummed and once again pointed at the apparition.

"… that means am I theoretically right about you being dead?"

The ghost gave a small smile, "Yes, technically I am not a living being. But here I am to remain for I am the last; all of my kinsmen were killed in a great battle." There was a small sharp intake of breath as Taylor gasped softly, lowering her eyes to the cave floor.

"Sorry about that man, I know how you feel. My gramps died when I was only five." The man smiled softly sat her attempt to cheer him up, "…so, back to the subject of the ring and why it's so dang important that you people guard it when you're dead." Gaven nodded solemnly and continued telling his story, Taylor seated on top of the pillar next to him.

"The Band of Eldohras, or the Ring of Power as it came to be called-" it took all of Taylor's willpower to hold back her hysterics on that one, "-was found by my many times over Great Grandfather on one of his extensive journeys. At first he though it was to be just a little thing of no great importance, like you I'm sure, but when he brought it back to our homeland to have the scholars study it they found that his assumptions weren't true. It held within a great power, so much of it that it had to be sealed away in here for the rest of time, only to have it's location be seen once every two centuries when the planets align in a special way." The girl huffed irritably and muttered curses under her breath.

'So that's what happened damn.' Taylor thought bitterly to herself. 'If I ever get back home I'm so gonna kill that scholar-guy for this.' She cursed softly while somewhat listening to the otherworldly lecturer.

"There is also a very old legend that states that the ring was created eons ago during the War of the Monsters Fall-"

"WHAT?!" Taylor shouted recklessly, "What do you mean War of the Monsters Fall? Like THE War of the Monsters Fall?!" 'There's no way he means THE War of the Monsters fall…like Slayers War of the Monster's Fallright? But if that's true then – crap, THAT DAMNED SPACE-THING LANDED ME HERE! … okay, good thing is that I know about this place; alright then, positive reinforcement yay?'

Gaven gave her an incredulous look. "Oh? So you know about that, interesting."

"Yeah, I guess it is, continue please." Not wanting to waste time talking about things she already knew she quickly waved it off.

"Oh, right. In that time, it was supposedly made to be some kind of weapon but it was never used for some reason." She bit back a smile and her laughter as the image of a certain annoying mazoku came to mind. There was a long pause before Taylor spoke up again.

"May I ask you a hypothetical question?" Gaven chuckled, smiling slyly.

"But of course and what might your question be?"

She shifted her weight from foot to foot nervously, "Well, hypothetically, what would happen if someone put it on?"

"That of which I do know," his voice turned grave as he turned toward the carving on the walls of the room. "When the Ring of Power is worn by a person it becomes attached to them for the rest of their lives, even going as far as passing with them into the next life so that it may stay with them until the end of time. It was originally designed so that others couldn't use it once the wearer put it on. As a great catalyst, it brings the wearer enormous amounts of power; I would imagine so as the ring itself is not only powerful on it's own but enhances the power it already has. The only problem with it is that, theoretically, it also takes energy from the persons life-force and if it is used in great amounts in short periods of time the holder could very well die. If it were to be used for evil, the world would be doomed." Gaven smiled and laughed as he turned back around to face the girl, "But this is only a hypothetical question; but why would you need to kno–WAAAAHHHHHHH!" He pointed a see-through finger at her accusingly as he noticed the golden band on her middle finger, her face frozen looking like she got caught with her hands in the universal cookie jar. "You put it on! Why would you put it on after I told you about it's dangers? You fool!" Taylor winced and put her hands up submissively as the spirit made a quick, angry advance on her.

"Hey hey! Chill out man, I'll just take it off and, and…" she grunted as she pulled on the ring with all her strength, but no matter how hard she tried it just wouldn't budge. "Dear God! What the hell is wrong with this thing?!"

Beside her Gaven groaned into his hands. "What part of 'When the Ring of Power is worn by a person it becomes attached to them for the rest of their lives, even going as far as passing with them into the next life so that it can stay with them until the end of time. It was originally designed so that others couldn't use it once the wearer put it on' DO YOU NOT UNDERSTAND?! And what it the world possessed you to put it on anyway!" He huffed angrily.

"I didn't think it was true, so I'm so-rry Mr. Pissy Ghosty Pants!" Taylor retorted hotly, "Where I came from there are no such things as magic rings or the world getting turned into chaos cause some wacko used the magic ring for evil purposes. And with the exception of the occasional terrorist threat or rumor of someone getting materials to make a nuclear bomb, there's nothing to kill off the world. We write stories about that kinda magic stuff, NOT live it…and by now I think I've realized that I'm not in my world anymore." The ghost gave her an odd look.

"Where did you come from then?" She shrugged slightly and hopped off the column.

"Eh, nothing much; the planet Earth, the United States of America, state of Virginia, the town of Roseburg and that's just on the outskirts of the Shenandoah Mountains." Gaven gave her an even funnier look and started to chuckle, gently placing his hand on her shoulder and patting it gently; Taylor was surprised that he could even touch her in the first place.

"Well, I believe that, even though it was for the wrong reason, the Band of Eldohras would be safest with you. I trust that you will not use it for any type of wrong-doings, kept it safe young one-" she smiled back and waved a finger at him.

"I have a name you know, so I suggest you call me by it." He smiled back and placed a hand on his chest jokingly.

"Oh? And what would that be?" Taylor took a step back and gave him the best Good Guy pose she could muster, smiling mischievously.

"Taylor, it's Taylor Bryant." She stuck out her hand for him to shake and after a couple of seconds the green haired apparition took it and shook it, grinning from ear-to-ear.

"Well, then do take good care of it, Miss Taylor." Suddenly around them the cave started to shake, small stalactites fell from the ceiling around them. "The cave is collapsing," Taylor's eyes went to the size of saucers and went straight into panic mode.

"WHAT?! Crap, what do we do?!" She looked around frantically but Gaven was one step ahead. He took her by the shoulder and pointed to a small, almost unnoticeable opening by one of the carvings.

"There is a small exit over behind those rocks, go now." He pushed her forward but she stopped and looked back at him sadly.

"But what about you? I just can't leave you here!" He smiled and pointed to his already transparent body that grew fainter by the second.

"My task is done and I am finally able to join my family on the other side, it is your duty now to take care of it. Farewell, and thank you Miss Taylor." With that the spirit of Gaven Nakajoumi, the last of the Nakajoumi royal family, passed on into the next life. Taylor smiled faintly and gave the man a small salute before squeezing through the crevice and into the tunnel to the outside world.

Outside the bandit gang, who hadn't even gotten the chance to get a third of the way into the cave had to turn back and haul ass to get out of the collapsing tunnel in time to save their men. Thankfully they were experts in making escapes, they were thieves after all, and they all made it. So there they were, standing in front of the entrance where they had started at not five minutes ago, watching in horror as the opening to the underground cavern quickly crumbled, large boulders fanning in, sealing the cave forever.

The Dragon's Bane leader slumped over, as did his men, horribly miserable over the fact that the one chance they had to reach the artifact that they had spent so much time trying to obtain would never be achieved. He sighed dejectedly, not even bothering to cheer his comrades up. "Alright men…lets go home, there's nothing left her-"

"BOSS, BOSS LOOK OVER THERE!" His second-in-command shouted, pointing wildly over by the trail that they had walked on not too long ago. There stood a young girl dusting off her pants and a small green bag and getting small rocks out of her hair when suddenly he noticed a golden shine on one of the fingers of her right hand.

"The Band of Eldohras," he breathed excitedly, "YOU THERE, HALT!"

Taylor stood catching her breath on the forest path, ridding herself of the debris that now resided in her hair, and on her pants and bag, muttering angry ranting about stupid caves when a gruff voice called out to her from somewhere on her right.

"YOU THERE, HALT!" She froze up and looked over to where it came from only to see a band of unruly-looking men stop in front of her, a particularly ugly one in front pointing at her threateningly. She raised an eyebrow curiously at the vagabonds that surrounded her.

'…you have GOT to be kidding me…' Taylor swore under her breath as the sea of men parted, revealing an even BIGGER male personage. 'Probably their head-hancho.' She thought while giant of a man loomed menacingly over her smaller figure.

"Okay missus why don't you give us the Band of Eldohras and nobody gets hurt, okay little girl? We'll make sure you get home to your mommy safe and sound." She could hear the rest of the man snickering but she was too concentrating on controlling her anger to notice.

'Oh, you really shouldn't have said that, you REALLY shouldn't have said that… Okay, lets asses the situation, these guys are bandits and they want the Band of Eldohras. You are a sixteen year old high school girl with said ring on her hand, and said ring will NEVER come off; I think that by adolescent property laws it makes it mine now, but I doubt that they know what those are…Guess I'm gonna have to wing it.' She turned her head and smiled as falsely as she could at the robbers. "Really? And who are you supposed to be?"

The leader laughed wickedly and waved to his men behind him. "Well little missus, we are the Great and Mighty, Dragon's Bane!" The men cheered again while Taylor stood there with a weary look on her face, a small twitch forming under her right eye.

'Aw, jeez, even these guys have the word 'Dragon' in their group name… guess the plot never changes does it?' Just then, a sadistically evil idea came to her from one of her memories; memories that included a small red-haired girl with a great BIG ball of fire. 'Ooo, that is just EVIL! Hell, can I even do that?' She grinned wickedly. 'Oh, this is going to be so much fun; oh yeah…payback time boys.' She turned back to the men and grinned again. "Sorry boys, this is my ring now and you can't have it. Finders keepers and all that jazz. So leave now and you won't get hurt." The bandits bristled angrily as their leader shouted nonsense again at her, not even noticing the chant that she was muttering under her breath until it was too late.

"Now listen here you brat!"

"Darkness beyond twilight, crimson blood that flows…"

"Just because you're a girl doesn't mean we won't take you lightly."

"Buried in the stream of time is where your power grows…"

"We tried to take another girl your age lightly and we got the shit beat out of us!"

"I pledge myself to conquer all the foes who stand"

"Uh, hey boss?"

"What now Kaidel?! Can't you see I'm trying to scare her!"

"Before the mighty gift bestowed in my unworthy hands"

"H-her hands are glowin' red."

"What do you mea–AAAAAAAAHHH-"

"Let the fools who stand before me be destroyed by the power you and I possess"

"-HHHHHHH!! RUN FOR YOUR LIVES MEN, IT'S LINA INVERSE!" Taylor brought her glowing hands before her and shook her head tauntingly as the crooks tried to flee.

"Who me? No way." The brunette sn The name's Taylor Bryant, sayonara boys! DRAGON SLAAAVE!!" The moment after the monstrous attack was unleashed, she was in awe as the area before her was lit up by the blazing ball of intense red power as it surged through the wood, taking down anything and everything in it's path that was followed by a loud, powerful explosion proceeded by an equally as powerful shock wave that rang throughout the forest setting. When the dust cleared Taylor was in shock at the humongous crater that was where the bandits, cave, and part of the woodland once was and whistled loudly. "Whoa…" She stood in the clearing while looking at her hands in shock. "That felt so… just, whoa… no way that just happened." Amazingly as she took in the sight before her, she noticed a few of the crooks that were bashed up against some trees from the shock wave were still alive. She snickered softly at the view, "G-go figure, I thought that some would survive that." Her ears perked at the sound of one of them groaning under the rubble and decided it was a very good idea to high-tail it out of there before the rest of them that survived woke up and decided to come at her again.

As Taylor sprinted away from the scene, trying to keep herself from falling over in her weariness, she failed to notice the figure in the tree who had watched her every move from their seat. When she had gotten far enough away, they laughed jovially and got up from their seat and watched as she ran into the distance. "Well now, this will be as fun as I had hoped it'd be." The person disappeared into the night as Taylor walked on the forest path away from the destruction site, starting on her journey into the new world.

Kazumi: YOSH! Finally done, and I'm really happy with how it came out, thirteen pages long; wow! Heh, heh, 'Dragon Slave'; you people have NO idea how much I want to use that spell on a couple of people in my school. Anywho, the update for my YYH OC story will be coming up so please wait for it. Also, PLEASE REVIEW! I love the reviews, so please keep them coming. I hope you liked this chappie, ja ne for now minna-san!