Chapter 2
It had been four days since the journey started and an atmosphere of fear and discomfort soon surrounded Tifa. There were broken carriages, abandoned cargos and bits of fabric lying all over the paths after they passed the caves which lead the way to Gold Saucer. The troop knew there were bandits roaming around in the route they were going. However, with most of them being profiteers, they were not willing to go the long but safer route their leader suggested and were confident in the 120 bodyguards they had brought along. Only a few of the older merchants had trust in Lockhart. The young leader at first trusted the merchants' choice of men, but soon she regretted not choosing them herself. Delicate brows knitted tightly while examining the group of men.
'What's wrong?' Next to the young leader was her redhead companion, Reno. He was blabbering about how hot the weather was after passing the Lucrecia Pass and entering the desert area. He noticed the concerned look on her face and patted her shoulder.
'The bodyguards, they are ex-servicemen from the Shinra army. They are too weak to keep us safe.' Smooth hands tightened their grasp on the reins of her horse.
Indeed, although the Shinra family had defeated others and ruled the country, to prevent military splits in future, they had started to use civil officials to handle military affairs.
'Emphasizing on civil affairs, the Shinra attracted people to become civil officials instead of soldiers with the promise of high wages. People lost interest in becoming soldiers and the ones who went into the army were only coveted the free meals the government offered.' Lockhart explained carefully to the redhead beside her. Reno only nodded at her response.
'In addition, to prevent the soldiers from becoming too strong, most of them were badly chosen and weak. Now that the new military reform has been carried out, all the weak ones were forced to be retired from the army. Those…' She pointed a finger at the group of noisy men in front of them. 'Are definitely the weaker ones, the way they guard us only at front and are not surrounding us, exposes their weaknesses in defending people.'
'Wow…you sure know a lot.' Reno looked in awe at the young woman beside him. He loved it when she carefully explained things to him. The serious and concentrated look on her face always attracted him ever since their childhood.
'This is our country's history and normal safety guide. We ought to know about it. Reno, you really should read more.' Young Lockhart sighed tiredly. The heat was getting to her and the waves of worry made her feel even worse. Kicking her horse lightly, she moved towards the bodyguards in front of the troop. 'I'll go talk to them.' She exclaimed.
The men in front of them were fooling around on their horses, laughing and making unwanted noises. They rummaged through the carriages they were responsible for and ate the food and drank the sweet wine they found. Tifa felt the rage inside her about to burst. At this rate, they would finish up all their supplies before they even arrived at Junon. Deepening her voice, she stopped in front of a large man, the leader of the guards.
'It seems that this is a territory where bandits rob trading teams. I don't think we should keep going. It would be better if we turned around and take the route that I suggested.' She climbed down her white horse and looked at the whole troop.
'What do you mean we should turn around? It'll take us even more time! I want us to be extra paid if we have to take a longer route, boy.' The large man scrunched his face in dissatisfaction and bellowed.
'There are broken carriages and abandoned items along the path. We should not go further. It will be too risky and we will put ourselves in danger.' Tifa walked up to them and eyed them face to face, her face slightly flushed because of her own anger and frustration towards the pack of useless men.
'What do you think we are? We're professionally trained men and when I say there is no danger ahead, there will be none! So why don't you climb back onto that little pony of yours and lead the fucking way?' The large man towered over Tifa and glared at her.
'Hey, how dare you talk to him like that? And how can you be certain there won't be any danger ahead? We'll be doomed if we trust a brainless ass like you!' Reno pushed Tifa behind him and returned a glare.
'Why you little…' The large man was going to punch Reno in the face when Tifa stepped between them and pushed them apart.
'Stop this right now. Its useless fighting. I'll just ask the troop if they want to carry on moving forward or not. All should obey the majority on the decision.' Tifa then turned and walked towards the troop.
'Everyone, if we keep on moving forward we might be in danger of being robbed and killed! It would be safer if we turn back and take another route to the Gold Saucer. Tifa swept her gaze among the crowd and hoped someone would give her an answer immediately. Whispers and quiet chats rose from the troop. Soon, an old merchant came over to her and talked to her quietly.
'Mr. Lockhart, there is not enough food for us to take a longer route,' The old merchant took a brief glance at the guards and continued. '…and we cannot refill our food stock as we are not passing any villages and towns. We want to continue and move forward. I understand that you feel insecure and it'll take us two more days before we reach the Gold Saucer, but we won't be able to make it back to the Lucrecia Pass either. It'll take us 4 days to go back. We only have two more days of food.'
Hearing this decision, Tifa sighed. She knew the troop would be unwilling to turn back. It will gain them no profit if they turn back. Walking back to her horse, she turned back to the troop and said 'Then moving forward it is.'
'I can't believe you actually listened to them!' Reno rode his horse next to hers and said quietly. He turned back and saw the bodyguards smirking at them. 'And now the stupid assholes are celebrating that we lost.'
'Reno, the whole troop doesn't want to turn around. We can't just leave them and go back ourselves. This will wreck the reputation of father's business. I just hope there are no bandits ahead.' Tifa turned to look at Reno and said sadly.
'Yeah. But I'll be there for you and fend off the bad guys if we meet any.' Reno winked at her, hoping to cheer her up a little. Making Tifa smile meant a lot to him.
Tifa smiled.
'Thank you, my friend.'
Another day passed by after they continued on the original route and headed towards Gold Saucer. They had left the desert area and there were still no signs of danger. Because of this, Tifa was beginning to feel a little relieved. That night they camped on the side of a little river. It would only take them half of tomorrow to reach the Gold Saucer.
Maybe I was just too worried. Tifa thought to herself as she sat on a log next to the fire Reno had started for them. She massaged her eyes softly to ease out the tiredness in them.
'Mr. Lockhart, feeling tired already? The night is still early. Maybe we can find something fun and… exciting… to do.' A seductive female voice appeared behind Tifa and startled her. It was the only female bodyguard in the whole troop. Tifa frowned slightly. She told the others not to bring any women on the trip, even if they were a bodyguard. This woman did not dress herself up like a man and had been wearing skimpy clothing during their journey. She would draw bad attention to them.
'My name is Priscilla. Can I sit next to you?' Without waiting for Tifa's reply, Priscilla sat next to her on the log, scooting closer so she could practically cling onto Tifa's arm.
Tifa sighed. She never expected that disguising as a young man would draw unwanted attention from other women and this kind of attention from Priscilla was definitely unwanted. Tifa buried her face into her hands and sighed again.
'Mr. Lockhart is already very tired. He needs to rest so move out of the way.' Reno was bringing more wood for the fire nearby when he saw Priscilla approaching Tifa. He quickly hurried back and pushed Priscilla aside, he himself sitting next to Tifa.
'I'm not asking you, you stupid redhead. Mind your own business!' Priscilla glared at Reno for pushing her away from the handsome Mr. Lockhart. Tifa, not wanting to hear their quarrel, stood up and walked into her tent.
Seeing her leave, Reno and Priscilla stopped quarrelling. Reno mumbled a few words about losing the time to be with Tifa quietly and returned to his own tent, not to mention giving Priscilla a last glare. Priscilla paid no attention to Reno, as she was watching the handsome Mr. Lockhart all the way until he disappeared into his tent.
Starting on the first day of the journey, she had already become very interested in this handsome young man. Only a look at his face made her want to drown him with kisses, not to mention he owned a great fortune and a successful trade business. She wanted him! She wanted to become the mistress of the Lockhart family. And even though this exciting man was cold towards her and didn't show a bit of interest in her, she planned to seduce him and make him marry her in the end. After she'd become his mistress, the first thing she would be doing would be to kick that redhead out of the house! Smiling confidently, she went back into her own tent, oblivious to the fact that this young man was actually a woman.
Birds began chirping as the sun rose; indicating that another day had started. Tifa was woken up by the singing of the birds and started to get ready for the day. She grabbed her breast bindings and wrapped it around her chest, tightening it to hide her wonderful figure. After dressing herself in the great khaki cloak she brought along, she picked up a brush from her bag and started combing her long brown locks when suddenly a voice spoke from outside her tent!
'Lockhart, can I come in?' It was Reno. Tifa stuck her hand outside the tent and motioned Reno to come in.
'I brought you breakfast." Reno smiled happily at her as he put down some food on a makeshift table. He had brought some bread and a bowl of water for her as breakfast.
'Thanks Reno.' Tifa put her brush in her bag and returned Reno a smile. Then she started eating. Reno watched her silently, admiring her with her long hair down.
'She is just so beautiful.' He thought. It had been a long time since he saw her with her hair down as she was always pretending to be a man. Noticing Reno was unusually quiet and staring, Tifa broke the silence.
'Is there something on my face? Why are you staring at me like that?' Tifa wiped her face with her fingers, thinking she might have got her face dirty.
'There's nothing on your face. You're just so beautiful that my eyes don't want to leave you.' Reno answered without thinking. Then he realized what he had said and blushed. Tifa, hearing his compliment, also blushed but smiled.
'Thank you, Reno.' Finishing her last bite of bread, she drank the bowl of water and headed out of the tent. The other merchants were still in their tents, no movement showed that they were awake. She then looked up into the sky. There was light rain last night and the sky today wasn't so blue. Great grey clouds were forming again.
'Pack up our stuff and tell the others we will leave in twenty minutes. The weather is not very good and we must hurry past the valley.' Tifa turned to Reno and patted him on his shoulder. Reno took a glance at the sky and nodded, hurrying to pack up the remaining belongings and announce they would leave in twenty minutes. Tifa hurriedly tied her hair into a bun and hid it under her black hat.
Tifa frowned. It was already past the twenty minutes. Some of the merchants were still packing up their belongings and the bodyguards were groaning and moaning about not having enough sleep! Tifa crossed her arms and restrained her temper. These people never listened to her!
'My boy, if we don't start moving now, it will be hard for us to move our carriages on the path. The rain will make the path muddy and difficult to walk on. I just don't know why the other merchants hired these useless bodyguards! Did they come for fun or to work? They have been fooling around all the way!' An old merchant that had followed Tifa three times on trading journeys walked up to her. He was old Mr. Shuan, an old trading partner of Tifa's father. Maybe he was the only person in the troop who listened to her besides Reno.
'I'm sorry Mr. Shuan.'
'No, my boy! Don't be sorry, I know it is not your fault. You're a smart boy. You showed me your excellent leadership on the past three trips.' The old man smiled and patted Tifa on the shoulder. Tifa only smiled bitterly.
After another good fifteen minutes, the troop was finally ready to go. The whole team passed the valley smoothly and entered a green, hilly area. The path was muddy because of the rainy night and it made it difficult for the carriages to move. Tifa looked up into the sky. The sky was turning into shades of dirty grey; there was a great grey cloud on the hill before them. A cool wind started to blow. It was going to rain very soon. Tifa grasped the reins of her horse tightly.
'There are some caves after the hilly relief that we could use for shelter to avoid the storm, but since we started moving late, we might not reach the area without getting wet.' Tifa looked in Reno's direction and saw him looking at the far hill ahead of them.
'Lockhart… Something's wrong.' Reno hurried next to Tifa and pointed at the hill.
The large grey cloud above the hill was still there, the winds had not blown it away. But there was also grey smoke on top of the hill! Tifa squinted her eyes and looked carefully; it was definitely not smog in the morning. She felt faint trembling and rumbling on the ground beneath her. It seemed that the grey smoke cloud was becoming larger and larger.
Tifa moved forward the horse forward slightly, and focused on the smoke. Her chocolate-wine eyes widened in alarm and she gasped.
That is not smoke! That is a large troop of bandits!
'Tell everyone to get on their horses now and turn back! There are bandits ahead!' Tifa ordered and she quickly made her way to the bodyguards in the middle of the troop, which were still enjoying their breakfast.
'There are bandits ahead! In order to keep everyone and the cargos safe, we will turn west and head into the forests to hide. Defend us and the cargo from the bandits once they draw near.' Tifa calmly explained the plan of escape to the leader of the bodyguards, but after the leader heard the word "bandits", he spilt his cup of wine on his pants and panicked!
'G..ge..get on your horses now and get ready to fight!' The large man jumped onto his feet and shouted. This shout didn't get them ready but instead made the whole group of them become even more panicked. The team of "professionally trained" bodyguards were yelping and running into each other, grabbing their belongings and getting ready to flee from the scene.
'Lockhart, let's go now! The others are already gone!' Reno hurried next to Tifa on his horse and urged her to go.
'Dear lord, it was such a wrong and stupid decision to let the merchants hire the bodyguards themselves!' Tifa looked at the pack of unorganized bodyguards and their frightened faces. She saw Priscilla and another man had jumped onto one of the horses and had escaped already! They were too weak and cowardly to fight!
'Tifa, we have to go now! They can block them a while! Let's go!' No longer waiting for Tifa to answer, Reno smacked Tifa's horse on the side, making her horse gallop quickly in the direction of the forests. Reno quickly followed behind her on his own horse.
Tifa turned her head and looked back. She could hear the shouts of the bodyguards and the clash of swords. She could also see that there were only about twenty bandits fighting, but they had come with such a tremendous and fearful momentum that it sent chills up her spine. The horses the bandits were riding on were much larger and stronger than theirs too. These bandits were definitely going to be hard to handle!
Tifa bit her lip worriedly. The troop was moving too slowly and the bandits would catch up very soon! She hurried to the group not too far ahead of her and shouted 'Abandon the cargo and carriages! We can't escape quickly if we keep them!'
Swiftly, Reno and the other merchant's grabbed swords and cut the horses free of the carriages they were pulling and continued to flee. But soon, Tifa realized that there was something wrong, suddenly there were bandits in front of them!
'Quick! Turn and head towards the valley!'
The whole troop immediately turned in the same direction and headed towards the valley they had just passed and hurried as fast as they could. However they found more bandits eagerly waiting for them.
'No! We're surrounded!' Reno saw bandits in front blocking the way to the valley and stopped his horse.
It's too late!
The whole troop was surrounded. There were at least eighty bandits and only twenty of them were fighting the bodyguards while the remaining sixty surrounded the whole troop. Not waiting any longer, the bandits started to attack the troop.
Arrows were shot from longbows and a few horses immediately fell down, Merchant's started screaming, yelling and running away. As more arrows were shot and horses kept falling no one dared to move anymore.
Black leather pants, knee-length boots, V-collared white shirts and black cloaks…where are these bandits from? Tifa thought to herself while looking at them.
Normally, after killing the horses they start killing people, but why are they only trying to make us stop running away?
Suddenly, Reno pulled her behind him protectively, trying to hide her in the troop and cut into her thoughts. It must not be discovered that she was actually a woman!
These bandits were strange, two of them had pulled some of the abandoned cargos towards the whole pack of bandits yet none of them had shouted in celebration! They seem to be waiting for something, or someone. Someone to come and give them commands on what to do. Suddenly, a young man with medium length silver hair came out from the pack of bandits and stared at the hostages.
'Who is your leader?' he asked sharply, his voice bearing an unfamiliar accent.
No one in the troop dared to answer him. Then suddenly, he pulled out his sword and with a flash, blood splattered on the floor and two heads rolled onto the ground. The heads belonging to two of the hostages, but still no one in the troop answered. The silver haired man was about to slash someone again when suddenly he stopped. He saw some of his companions had made way for someone else to come to the front. But then he too backed away and gave way to three people, all riding on black stallions. The middle one among the three was a blonde haired man with a lean muscular figure and deep blue eyes.
The one leading in front must be the leader of the bandits. Tifa quickly understood that this blue-eyed man and his two followers were different. They emitted a strong presence that all of them could feel. Tifa shivered.
'No one would tell me who their leader is!' The silvered haired man said as he looked up at the three men on black stallions.
'Kadaj, how many times have we told you that killing won't get you an answer.' The man with ruby eyes and long black hair climbed off his horse and looked at the silver head. Then the ruby eyed man swept his gaze amongst the troop of merchants and cleared his throat.
'You have entered a restricted territory. This is our land and as compensation we want your cargo and your money. Hand it to us now and no one else will be killed if you obey.' He said without emotion. He climbed back onto his horse and leaned over to whisper to his leader.
'Sir, didn't you say you need a servant? Why don't you choose someone from this troop?' The ruby eyed man looked at the troop. And the leader, hearing his words, quickly swept his gaze over the terrified troop and suddenly stooped and when met a pair of beautiful chocolate-wine eyes. He whispered back.
'The boy behind the red head has a pair of good eyes.'
The ruby eyed man climbed off his horse again and walked towards Tifa.
'You are lucky, boy. Our leader wants you to become his servant. Come with us.'
Seeing him walk closer, Reno pulled Tifa closely behind him and glared at the man.
'You cannot take him away.'
The ruby eyed man didn't stop coming, he grasped Tifa's hand and pulled her away from Reno. Tifa struggled to get out of the mans hold on her, but he was too strong and she ended up being dragged towards the blue-eyed man.
'Let go of him, right now!' Reno pulled out his sword and ran towards the man. The man swiftly dodged his attack and landed a kick on Reno's chest, sending him flying onto the ground, blood coming from his mouth.
Tifa gasped at the sight and tried to run to Reno, but she didn't manage a meter before she was pulled back. The man then pushed her to the side of his leader's horse and his blue eyes studied her carefully, silence dragging on.
'This child is beautiful.' The other man, dark haired man finally spoke. Tifa's eyes widened at the language they were speaking.
Wolvish! They're no bandits! They're the Wolves from the West!
The leader raised Tifa's chin with the handle of his whip and bent down, wanting to look at her even more closely. He stared at her, his eyes seeming as if they were looking right through her. She turned her head sideways, no longer wanting to look into striking ocean blue eyes.
'Beautiful.' The blue-eyed man whispered and his eyes shimmered with understanding. He smirked and pulled Tifa onto his horse.
This action shocked many of his people. Even his two closer followers sucked in a deep breath. They knew their leader was not fond of men, but wondered why he was behaving like this?
Tifa struggled fiercely, trying to escape. She dared not speak now as her frightened voice would definitely give her disguise away. Tifa realized, however, that this man suspected her. His knowing look spoke as much. The reason why he pulled her onto his horse was so that he could get more proof. Tifa was actually quite tall for a woman, but even facing a man as tall and as strong as this Wolf, he must have a reason to suspect her.
The blue eyed man quickly grasped both of her hands firmly with only one hand and the other went under her shirt and towards her chest…
'No! Stop!'
'Argh!' Immediately, Reno stood up again, grabbed his sword and ran towards the leader. Quickly, the dark haired man jumped down off his horse, blocked Reno's attacks and knocked him out. The leader glanced at Reno and then back to Tifa.
'Is he your man?' The leader had released his grip on Tifa's shirt and then whispered in her ear.
His meaning was clear. If she were to say yes, Reno would die. If she said no, Reno would live. Tifa decided not to answer.
'You have only two choices.' He whispered into her ear. 'One, become the slave girl of the whole troop…or two, become my own personal one…'
Tifa slapped him across his cheek.
How dare he..?
The leader immediately darkened and his blue eyes shimmered with anger. Everyone around them held their breath.
She would rather die than to be humiliated in this way. And she didn't want to be killed by the dirty hands of this man either! She quickly pulled the dagger strapped around his waist and tried to plunge it into her heart…but the leader was faster and he knocked her out before she did so.
Tifa passed out in the arms of this blue-eyed leader and her cap came off of her head. Long locks of soft brown hair tumbled down and danced in the wind.
'…She is one hell of a beauty.' The dark haired man murmured.
'Such a feisty woman…' The leader looked at her unconscious form and then looked at the ruby eyed man.
'Vincent, sent these merchants away.' Then he turned to another, spiky haired man.
'Angeal, count the cargos and bring them back.'
Without waiting for their reply, he kicked his horse lightly and off he sped, his troop following him, with a beauty in his arms.
Sorry it took so long. Some problems delayed my update!
COME ON! GIVE ME REVIEWS AND I"LL GIVE YOU CHAPTER 3!
Beta-reader: xPhiieebeex-ayannaaki (Thank you so much!=) )