Welcome back. After giving it some thought, I decided I'll upload a chapter every 5 days or so, depending on my mood, my activities, my creativity and the chapter's length. Also, I'm splitting the story in different parts, and said parts will be split into chapters. Anyways, here's Part 1 - Chapter 1. Enjoy!

Part 1: The Gathering

Chapter 1: Missing Bandits

Location: Elder.

Elsword's POV

"Come on, Elsword, wake up!"

"Just five more minutes."

"Wake up, you idiot! We're late! We've got a meeting to attend!"

"Go away."

"Fine. You leave me no choice."

'Wait… what is she planning?'

"Cyclone!"

'What!?'

I immediately jumped out of bed, just in time to avoid the tornado that was casted on it. I inmediatly glared at the person responsible, a young magician with purple hair. "Goddamnit, Aisha! What the hell is your problem?"

"You are my problem, Elsword." She replied, throwing a nasty glare at me. "Hoffman told us he wanted to see us as soon as possible."

I shrugged. "So? Send someone else. Raven, for example."

But Aisha shook her head. "Raven is in Velder, training the local garrison."

I thought for a second. "Well, how about Rena?"

"She is probably there waiting for us." Aisha replied.

"Eve?"

"At the Altera Plains."

"Chung?"

"Hamel."

"Ara?"

"Feita."

I sighed. "I don't have a choice, do I?"

Aisha giggled "You actually thought you had one? Now come on. They are waiting." And with that, she left the room.

"This is going to be a long day." I muttered to myself.

Rena's POV

'They should have arrived by now…' I wondered, looking at the clock. 'I wonder if they are okay… no, they should be fine. Elsword is a terrific swordsman and Aisha is an excellent magician.'

Just then, I heard a voice calling me. "Rena! We're here!"

I immediately turned around to see Elsword and Aisha running towards me. I waved my hand to greet them as they arrived.

"Sorry we're late, we had a minor inconvenient." Aisha said, looking at Elsword, who was still rubbing his eyes.

"Well, at least I didn't try to kill you while you were asleep." Elsword replied, a little annoyed.

'Oh, not this again. We don't have time for another one of their silly fights.' I thought.

"Well, it was the only way to wake you up. Either that, or drag you here."

"Try dragging me. See how it works for you. Come on, I dare you."

"Cut it out, you two!" I snapped. Ever since we started our journey, I had to stop their fights. In fact, they were already fighting when I first them. "We don't have time for this. You can fight later." Then I proceeded to grab them by the wrists and drag them inside the town hall. "Now let's go meet Hoffman. He's been waiting for us for a while now."

Aisha's POV

"So, let me get this straight." Elsword said. "You're telling us that we should check Banthus out because he hasn't stolen anything at all?"

"Are you sure he didn't just get bored of being a bandit?" I added.

"This is Banthus we're talking about. It's highly unlikely that he has just stopped robbing people for no reason." Hoffman said, who was left in charge of Elder since Wally left. "We believe he is planning to raid the town, but we are not sure. So I need you to sneak into Banthus' hideout and find out what he's up to."

"We'll do our best." Rena said, smiling like always. "You can count on us."

"That's good to hear. Thank you for your assistance." Hoffman replied.

"Alright, let's get going." Said Elsword, already heading outside.

Location: Shadow Forest

Deep's POV

Of course it had to fail. That's what always happened. All the time. Turns out that rushing things made portal go haywire and it threw us all over the place. At least, that's what John was explaining to us.

"...and it threw us all over this place. What is this place, by the way?."

"Don't know, don't care, don't plan to stay." I looked around. The trees in this forest were ridiculously large. I can bet some of them were even moving. "I just want to find Julian, kill him, and get this over with. This war has been way too long, and I don't plan on letting it last any longer."

"Let me remind you that we're only three now." Henry was already lying down on the grass, despite having just arrived. "We should look for the others first, and then we can-"

"We don't have any idea where the others might be!" I interrupted."We can't waste any time! Now get up, and let's move out. We're wasting daylight."

"Deep, calm down. Henry is right." John intervened. "We can't possibly take on Julian by ourselves. We need more people. But we should at least find out where he went."

I just glared at John. But they were right. The three of us were not strong enough to take on Julian. We would probably get killed if we tried. However, if we knew where he was, we could keep an eye on him until we were reunited. "Fine. We'll split up and look for Julian. Whoever finds any signs of Julian will signal the others. Once we know where he is, we'll search for the rest. Now let's go." With that said, we parted ways. Hopefully, we would find him before someone else did.

Katarsus: Well, that's the end of the first chapter, but the story is far from over.

Deep: People need to see me more. They need action, goddamnit.

Katarsus: Shut up. So far, you've had more POVs than any other character. And you also appeared in every single chapter so far.

Deep: I had 2 POVs in one chapter and one prologue. It's not that impressive. Even a random dead bandit had one.

Raven: When do I get to appear?

Katarsus: In the chapter called "Three Swords."

Eve: And how about me?

Katarsus: "Flaming Whirlwind."

Chung: And me?

Katarsus: "Caged Phoenix."

Aisha: Wow, you really thought this through, didn't you?

Katarsus: Just a bit...

Deep: And when do I appear again?

Katarsus: Keep talking, and you'll appear at "The Swordsman's Death."

Elsword: Hey! What did I do this time?

Aisha: He isn't talking about you, idiot!

Katarsus: Anyways, expect quite a lot of action for the next few chapters.

Dennis: Oh, man, this is going to be epic! Finally some action after all this time! By the way, in which chapter will I appear?

Katarsus: Haven't thought about a name for that one yet.

Jan: Am I going to appear in this story or not?

Katarsus: I don't know. We'll see what happens. Anyways, don't forget to review. I crave your feedback. Next chapter: The First Encounter. See you all there.