Disclaimer: I do not own MapleStory or anything in it, but I do own this fanfic.
WARNING: Skip the descriptions if you want, it's not actually that important.
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Shards of Ice
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Heiji Kaosu's (Female) P.O.V.
"She's waking up!" A voice I assumed was that of a girl's, woke me up from my uneventful sleep. My eyes snapped open, but I immediately regreted it and closed them tightly, my right hand shielding over them. Later, I had recovered and opened my eyes again, only slowly this time, adjusting to the light. I had learned my lesson the first time. Once my eyes were fully adjusted, I scanned my surrounds for danger.
I was appearently in a small house with curvy beige walls, and an orange ceiling. Sunlight poured in from the crystal-clear windows and made the house seem even more warm and inviting. A cough made me turn my attention to the two people beside me. One was woman around her late twenties, she wore a golden tiara incased with a jewel around her blonde hair. She also had emerald green eyes and wore golden earrings on her ears. I couldn't help but feel that she looked familiar. The woman wore an armor of sorts, with a white collar incased with a dark jewel. The rest of it was beige. The other person was a girl, around the age of 16. She was also wearing what seemed to be armor, only it was not as baggy as the woman's armor, also green and brown, a jewel was embeded in the belt of the armor. She had a feather on her green hat, which covered her short light-brown hair. 'Dyed,' I thought in my mind when I noticed a few streaks of blonde hidden in the light-brown. The girls jade green eyes were very much like the womans, only they seemed a bit duller. The two pairs of green eyes stared at me in confusion.
"W-where am I?" I asked, in an barely audiable whisper.
"You're at our house," The woman replied in a bubbly, child like voice, making her seem like a teenager rather than an adult. "I'm Athena Pierce, the Head Instructor at the "Bowman Instructional School"," Athena introduced. For some reason, the name seemed vaguely familiar to me.
"And this," She continued, as as she pointed at the girl beside her, "Is my daughter, Jade Pierce."
"Nice to meet you." Jade smiled. I stared at them in disbelieve. 'They are mother and daughter?!' My mouth gapped. But they look almost as if sisters! Apparently I caught myself staring and quickly regained my composure.
"So... Do you know who you are?" Athena questioned. It seemed like a strange question so I almost replied without thinking until the words sank into my mind. 'She's right! Who am I?!' I thought frantically. I tried to search through my memories, but they were missing, blocked behind an invisible, but strong wall. A few minutes later, I gave up. "I... don't know, sorry." I stuttered while trembling. How could I not know who I am?!
"I was afraid of this.." Athena said with a serious tone contrasting her tone earlier violently, not at all surprised. "Jade found you lying in the Park a week ago, after a meteor shower the night before. You had several head injuries along with what looked like a knife wound."
"I've been sleeping for that long?!" I jerked up from my lying position, until a sharp pain surged through me from my side. I immediately lied down right after. 'Guess she wasn't joking about the knife wound.' I thought dryly.
"Yes, we were starting to wonder if whether or not you would actually wake up!" Jade chirped, rather amused. A minute passed before anyone said anything else. "Oh yes!" Exclaimed Jade, as she rushed out door. She seemed to have remembered something.
A few more minutes later, which seemed like hours since the pain in my side still hasn't died down, the blonde/brunette rushed back in. In her hands were a tiny knapsack and, what really caught my attention even though I was lying down, a green and yellow bow.
'Ryden,' Said a voice in the back of my mind, I did not know who's it was. "R-ryden?" I repeated, startling the other inhabitants of the room.
"You know of this bow?" Athena asked, still in a serious tone. It made me feel a little queasy.
"I think so," I said as I tried to perch myself up without hurting my side even more. "I-I he..ard a voice in t-the back of my head wh-hisper to me, "Ryden"." I stuttered out, clenching my teeth from the pain. Clearly my attempt did not work.
"I found these when I saw her in the park," Jade explained while trying to catch her breath. She held out the two items to Athena. "I thought it might hold some clues to her past, and clearly I was right."
Athena took the items from her, and closely examined them. She gasped when she saw something on the side of the bag. "What did you find, Miss Athena?" I wondered out loud.
"This bag..." Athena stuttered out.
"What about it, mother?" Jade asked. "Is there something wrong?"
"It's... Hjiscool's." Athena finished. "He went missing about eight days ago. No one was able to track him, almost as if he had disappeared from the face of the world."
Athena turned around and glanced at me, curiousity flashing through her eyes. "Could it be?" I wondered at her words before turning my attention back to Athena, who held out the two items to me. I nervously took them, unsure of what to do next. "Open the bag up," she urged. "You might find something that would serve as a memory-jogger in it." I opened the bag as I was told, only to be startled again by Jade gasping softly and the head instructor putting her hand on my shoulder. "I knew it! You ARE him. A different person would've never been bale to open that bag!" She exclaimed.
"Umm, I don't understand. How could opening a bag prove that I'm this "Hjiscool" person?" I asked incredulously. The pain in my side was starting to dull.
"These bags," Jade started, "Are what we call "Inventories". Each adventurer in the world gets one as soon as they are able to fight, the bags have special spells on them which will not let anyone besides the owner open it." She held out a bag similar to the one in my hands. "This one's mine."
Athena continued at where her daughter left off. "Because of your ability to open the inventory, it's a big chance that you are actually Hjiscool. But we are not 100 percent sure, so Grendel will be needed before we make a conclusion." She studied me for a bit, making me feel quite uncomfortable. "Hmm... I can't believe I've never noticed! Besides your gender and some other differences, you look exactly like him!"
"Grendel?" I asked, turning the topic back.
"You'll soon find out. We have called for him a few days in advance about a different problem, but yours is more important right now."
I nodded alittle stiffly.
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"So you say that this girl might be your prized student, Hjiscool?" Grendel said to Athena as he examined me. Prized student? I wondered.
"Yes, Hj went missing awhile back. None of the search parties have found anything yet." Said Athena solemly. From her tone, I can tell that she was very fond of him, in a teacher/student way.
"You do know if something like this is leaks out, but only is found to be false later on, you can lose your place as the head instuctor, right?"
"Yes, but I'm willing to take a chance. Whether it means losing my position or not." Athena replied, with nothing but determination in her voice.
My eyes widened. 'Is she really that sure that I'm this "Hj" person?' I wondered, but by the tone in Athena's voice I knew she wouldn't take no as an answer.
"Very well, I suppose you know what you are doing." Grendel sighed, giving in to Athena's determination. He then turned his attention to me.
"Tell me, child. What is your name?" He questioned.
I stiffened. 'He's not the only one who wants to know...' I thought with a hint of sarcasm. I had no answer to the current question, so I kept quiet. A while later when they realized I would not answer, Athena spoke up.
"I had thought something like this would happen, so I thought to name her as "Amythest" until she either regains her memories or we get enough proof that she's Hj. If she agrees that is."
I shrugged, "Sure, why not?" 'That takes care of the name problem for now.' I added as an afterthought.
"I was also thinking about getting her enrolled to the school. Though it'll be a little troublesome, as our school is only for beginner bowmen. Getting her enrolled as an Hunter will surely cause an uproar."
"Then why not enroll me as a bowman? No one will be able to tell the difference." I suggested, wondering no one else thought of it.
"That won't work. Aside from your Hunter skills, you have much better endurance than the less skilled bowmen, and your clothes are definately not that of a beginner or inexperienced bowman either. Plus there is also a system which shows your level. By the way, a level is a ranking of sorts. Your level gets higher by killing monsters and finishing quests. Oh yes! I'll have to get you an ID card. Last time Hj came to visit he was level 48." Athena said, the tension in the air seemed to have lessened a little.
"What does my clothes have to do with anything?" I asked as I pulled at the gloves I was wearing. 'Silk,' I noted.
"You all only allowed to wear clothes according to your level and class, if you try to wear something higher than your level or is not of your class, fire will appear and burn you. The clothes are, however, fire proof." Athena explained. "All clothing has magic properties engraved in it. Some increase your DEX, LUK, INT and/or STR, while others increase your HP and MP. All clothing increase your weapon and/or magic defense, which let's you suffer less damage from monsters. I'll explain these things to you later, and the things I do not, you will learn in class." Athena explained. A few moments passed as I registered all of that into my brain. I then remembered about the bag.
"Oh yeah! I still haven't looked inside the bag!" I blurted out, not paying attention to the fact that it had nothing to do with the topic. Athena and Grendel's attention then turned to me, along with Jade's, who haven't spoken all this time. I took the bag from my side and dumped the contents onto the bed I was lying on. Inside were 3 more bows, the first a metalic color, the second resembled the first only marine blue instead, and the third a blue bow which seemed to be made out of wood. A few articles of clothing fell out, one which looked rather like a French army uniform, another a long blue robe, the third was also an robe, only the main colors were blue and beige. The last a rather normal-looking jean and T-shirt. Along with that fell out a few pairs of gloves, hats, earrings, some other weapons, some colored liquids inside glass bottles, red colored snail shells, and other stuff. After everything tumbled out a little metallic-blue rectangular device fell out. I stared in awe. 'How is this all supposed to fit inside a bag that small?!' I decided not to ask.
"Hmm... this definately looks like Hj's things. Though he tends to wear his Piette more often than Legolier now. I wonder why you appeared wearing the Legolier though?" Athena mumbled as she examined the items, as were Jade and Grendel.
"Legolier?" I asked. "What's that?"
"Oops, I forgot that you still don't know what you looked like!" Athena exclaimed. The tension in air just a few moments ago seemed to have evaporated. Jade helped me out of only to have me fall back onto the bed in pain. Athena seemed to have noticed this and handed me a bottle of white liquid that I dumped out of the bag. I stared at it, not knowing what to do.
"Go on, drink it. It'll make your wounds heal alot faster." Athena urged. I took off the cap and gulped it down. It didn't really taste like anything. The pain dulled down dramaticly over next few seconds, leaving me speechless. Jade then helped me up again and walked me over to a body lengthed mirror in another room. I glanced at my reflection in mirror, only to be caught speechless once again as I stopped in mid-way staring at the mirror at my reflection, mouth opened wide. What caught my attention was not my appearance, but the clothes I wore.
The silky green shirt framed in gold hanged loose on my petite frame, almost swallowing me whole. The baggy pants were held up by two green-gold straps on the knees. On my head, a green, rather fancy hat also lined in gold stood tall and proud on my head, and I briefly wondered how it did not fall off even when I was lying down, on my feet I wore red boots which seemed to be also made from silk. Clear blue earrings I assumed to be made out of sapphire adorned my ears, and behind those were another pair of earrings that resembled cat's eyes. I also noticed that there seemed to be another small hole behind the two which currently had no earrings in them. On my back was a silky blue cape trimmed in once again gold, plus red gloves that were also covered by gold.
'Did the person who made these have a gold and silk fetish or something?!' I wondered, rather amazed. I looked back at the mirror again and noticed my red hair, which was tied in a loose ponytail in the back and my rather long bangs fell infront of my crystal blue eyes, the right to be exact. I mentally noted that the tailor, whoever he or she is, is not the only one with a silk fetish.
'Well,' I mentally comforted myself as I closed my eyes and rubbed my temples. "At least my stuff looks better than Jade's." A few moments later I seemed to have felt a dark presence behind me, and turned around to see what it was. All I caught was a evil aura around Jade before I realised I seemed to have said it out loud. "N-no offense or anything..." I studdered as I backed away from her, holding my hands out infront of me, the left corner of my mouth twitching into a nervous grin. Her aura immediatly vanished.
"I'm sorry," She started, with an apologetic expression on her face. "I always do that when someone makes fun of my clothes, saying that I'm weak and stuff because of them. Due to this, I always go like that whenever someone mentions them." I frowned.
"No one should be treated like that! It's not like they all started as that strong!" I shouted, letting out my momentary rage. "Hmm... If someone ever treat you like that, tell me and I'll pound some sense into them, k?" I grinned mischievously, and Jade started laughing. After awhile I couldn't hold it in and joined her in the laughter.
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A few days later after Athena made my ID card, I was sent to school with Jade. Jade insisted that she stays with me in the office as the secretary enrolled me. I let out a sigh of relieve and muttered a "Thank you" to Jade under my breath.
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Sitting in the office was no fun at all, was the first thing I realized after seeing a line that was around 100 feet long.
"When I got enrolled it was like this too," Jade whispered to me. "It doesn't take long though since not many have the requirments to become a bowman. You better think about what Mother told you before we get there." I closed my eyes and tried to think.
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Flashback
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"Here's your ID card," Athena said, handing me a small device identical to the one I found in my bag. "To use it, press down on the button on the back." I did as I was told and gasped as the lid popped open. A screen was on the other side of the lid and what looked like to be a small keyboard on the other. "Good." Came the voice of Athena. "Now press that red button to turn the device on." I pressed it, and the screen lit up, causing me to wince and shield my eyes with my right arm. A few moments later, I put my arm down and looked at the screen.
Name: Amethyst Kaosu
Job: Bowman (Hunter)
Level: 48 (1)
Guild: -
HP: 1915/1915
MP: 931/931
EXP:347/604416 (0.05)
Fame: 40
STR: 54 (53+1)
DEX: 183 (172+11)
INT: 7
LUK: 4
Ability Points: 0
"Umm... What is this?" I asked uncertainly. Athena merely smiled and instructed me to press the blue button at the side. Out popped another screen, showing more info.
Attack: 224389
Weapon Def: 121
Magic: 7
Magic Def: 28
Accuracy: 133
Avoidability: 47
Hands: 193
Speed: 110
Jump: 100
"Now," Said Athena in a calm voice, "Take this pen," She pulled out a pen-like thing from the oppposite side of the second screen and handed it to me, "And press down on any of the buttons at the top of the main screen."
I took the pen and tapped it on the part of the screen which read Equipment. It took around 10 seconds to load until a whole new screen popped up, with little icons of my clothing on it. I raised an eyebrow.
"Good, run the pen over any of the icons to get a detailed description of it."
The next few icons after the Equipment icon were Inventory, Buddy List, Party, Guild, Blacklist, Skills, and Maple Messenger. The Inventory was divided into four sections, Equip, USE, Set-up, and ETC. Each of the four held little icons, and much like the Equipment, showed a description of the item when I ran the pen/pointer over it. I mentally noted that the icons looked rather familliar. Once I was finished exploring the rest of my ID, I turned my attention to Athena again and waited for her to give me the next instruction.
"Now that you've figured out how to mess around with your own profile, it's time to teach you how to mess around with others'!" Athena exclaimed happily as Jade and I sweatdropped. She then unexpectedly took my right hand (Which has the ID in it) and pointed it at Jade. Jade blinked a few times before pointing at herself and mouthing what seemed to be the word, "Me". Athena ignored her and went on with the next steps.
"Do you see this blue button here?" I nodded a little stiffly at being grabbed like that. My body then acted on it's own accord again which completely contrasted my mind, and pressed the button. My mouth gapped a bit as a picture of Jade appeared on the screen of the ID. Below her picture was some of her information.
Name: Jade Pierce
Level: 17
Job: Archer
Fame: 1
Guild: -
I looked over to the secondary screen, and on it was a list of Jade's armor. At the top were four buttons, The two on the left had green backrounds with white letters, which read "Request Party" and the bottom one, "Request Trade". The two on the right bore the same white letters, only with a pink/red backround. These two read, "Item" and "Wishlist". I couldn't help but notice the little arrows beside the Item and Wishlist buttons, so I ran the pen/pointer over the "Wishlist" button. My secondary screen immediately turned into a screen with empty slots. I then ran the pointer over the Item button, which returned the secondary screen to the equipment list.
"Uhh..." I double blinked. "Was that supposed to happen?"
"Very good! You've figured out how to use that before I even told you!" Congratulated Athena, as I stared at her like someone would stare at some radioactive creature that they were about to poke.(2) "Now, let's show you how to send/receive requests. First off, I'll show you how to send a trade request."
"Let me guess, it's this button right here, right?" I said with mild sarcasm, point and the "Request Trade" button.
"Why, how did you know?" Said Athena, her voice dripping with so mush venom and sarcasm than I could ever muster, but the amazing and near-impossible thing was that she remained her bubbly self through the entire sentence. I made a mental note to never try something like that ever again.
"Anyways," I heard Athena say, her voice losing all traces of the venom/sarcasm only seconds before. "Since you have found out how to request trades, it's quiet obvious that you would've figured out how to send a party invite as well. But, to send a party invite, you have to in both in a party AND the party leader. Each party can only contain 6 people including the leader. And also, you can only invite people who aren't already in a party and did not turn off their party invite option. Only the trade request option occurs in trades, but if the person you are trying to send a trade request to is already trading or doing something else, your request will not be sent through." I nodded my head a little after it had all sank in.
"Now, on to your buddy list. Each person is allowed 20 people in their buddy list, but if you go to Lith Harbor or Ludibrium, there is a person in those two places which will expand your buddy list by 5 if you pay them 250,000 mesos. To add a person, simply click on the "Add buddy " button at the bottom of your buddy list and type in their name. Oh yes! Before I forget again, I'd better give you these." Athena passed some headphones to me, and after which I fumbled to find the plug-in place. After I plugged it in I put them on, like most sensible people would do, and asked Athena what they're for.
"These will sort out your chats between Buddy list, Guild, Party and All. To chat with one of them, simply press numbers 1 to 4 on your built-in keyboard. 1 is All, 2 is Party, 3 is Buddy and 4 is Guild. If you do not have these on, all of the chats will be mixed together so I suggest that you keep them on at all times, unless you become familliar enough with the people in the four chats to not need them. Your voice cannot be heard by the other 3 chats unless they're in more than one of them, and the same goes for you." Athena explaned once again, but this time my headphones sorted it out as "All" chat.
I flipped my ID to Buddy List after Athena had finished explaining about MapleStory text messaging and private messaging, aka Maple Messenger and Whispers. As I glanced through the list while looking for the "Add Buddy" button, I noticed that several people were already in the list. Paying it no mind, I finally located the button and added Jade to my Buddy List. Within a matter of seconds, she accepted the invite yet from across the room she raised an eyebrow at me. I pressed 3 and held the ID backwards towards my mouth, talking into the microphone I found there while searching for the place to plug the headphones.
"Just incase the classes are really boring," I said into my microphone and was rather surprised when I could actually tell that my voice only went to the buddy list. When I looked up and saw Jade snickering, I knew the connection worked.
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End Flashback
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My attention focused on the line, which seemed to have dispersed quite a bit. Through the headphones, I could hear Jade whispering to me.
"Don't worry," She said, trying to comfort me. "All the secretary will do is check your ID, mother already has everything else covered."
"Okay..." I whispered back unsurely.
Soon, it was my turn. Like Jade had promised, all the secretary did was check my ID and printed off a schedule for me. Jade took it as the scretary handed me back my ID and whistled quitely.
"Wow, mom really DOES have everything covered, you're in every single class I'm in!" She exclaimed, and my mood lightened a bit.
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"Let's see... Room 178, right?" I asked Jade, tuning my speech back to All as I walked down the hall.
"Yep!" She chirped, tuning her speech to All as well.
"Well," I sighed. "Might as well get it over with."
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"Class, today we have a new student, please welcome Amethyst!" Exclaimed the over cheerful, almost stupid-like teacher. Jade had already gone into the class, saying I'll be fine on my own. I grumbled something around overly cheerful people and walked into the class, and stared. After a few moments, the teacher coughed and told me to tell the class about myself. I raised an eyebrow, but started talking anyways.
"Hi, I'm Amethyst Kaosu, I currently live with Athena Pierce and Jade... That's about all." I shrugged and glanced at Jade sweatdropping from the corner of my eye. The teacher smiled again and told me to sit down, but I sensed a hint of envy as she said it.
I turned to where Jade was sitting, and smiled as I saw an empty spot right beside hers. As I walked to the spot I had chosen, whispers and stares found their way to me, and none that I can identify as good. Through the mixed whispers, I could hear comments like "What's a Hunter doing here?!" and "Probably another pro that has come to laugh at us noobs." I payed no mind to the beginner archers and sat down in my place beside Jade.
"Thanks," I said in an barely audiable whisper. The teacher coughed, and the room began to settle down quickly for the first lesson. A while later after the class started, I turned on my ID and enabled both private messaging systems.
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"Hehe, I'm so glad you can cook, or else we'd have to survive the results of my attempts at cooking." Said Jade with a sheepish grin as she took a bite of the ramen I had cooked for us this morning.
"Geeze, it's only instant noodles. I bet that you can do something like that with you eyes closed." I replied after swallowing a mouth full of the said noodles.
"You don't get it. I just have this inability when it comes to cooking." Jade sighed, and I decided to not press on about the subject anymore. We continued eating our lunch, and I tried my best at ignoring the jealous glares. Just as I was finishing the soup, someone shoved me and the bowl went flying at Jade. Luckily, she had quick reflexes and dodged the bowl.
"Hey you, hunter." Said the person in a dry tone as I whirled around angrily. He was a bowman, around level 25, in his teens. He held a bored look on his face and I mentally noted a group of people behind him.
'Must be his buddies.' I thought with some distaste. I watched Jade wince from the corner, yet I did not know why.
"What do you want?" I snapped at the nameless person, quite pissed off.
"I dunno if Ms. I'm-So-Perfect had told you," I heard Jade growl a little bit towards my right. "But this school do not accept anyone in the second job." He said in the same dry tone. "Get him, boys." (3)
The mob behind him advanced forward, and I froze. Bits and pieces of memories slipped past that invisible wall, like water does in a cracked glass. Visions of the tennis court flashed before my eyes, followed by Electra. Memories of the thugs came back faster, almost as if the wall cannot hold everything within it anymore and is starting to crumple. The wall crumbled to pieces. Soul Arrow and everything else rushed back instantly.
"T-this... It's happened before" I whispered and lowered my head, trembling. Jade who was still standing to the right of me, only this time in a defense pose, turned towards me with a confused expression.
"T-this has happened before..." I continued. "Because of it, I lost everyone I cared about... Oasis, Angle, Pain, Pan, Blood, Mystery, Electra... Hj." The pain burried deep in my heart exploded out of it's resting place and I snapped. I raised my head up high, the crystal-clear tears rolling down my cheeks in full view. I glared straight at the man who ruined this day, and felt the fear in him. I smirked cruelly.
'He'll pay for this, oh, he'll definitely pay...' My smirk grew bigger as I raised my Ryden, a single golden line appeared and materialized into an arrow bomb. My vision was now blinded by crimson, I was unaware of what I was doing now and I let go of the arrow.
"Inferno." The word slipped out of my mouth as the flaming arrow imbeded itself into the man, taking the crimson blindfold with it. I regained my senses, and watched in horror as my internal fire became a one executioner massacre, leaving nothing in its path. I was glued to the spot I was standing on, helplessly staring the riot before my eyes, yet somewhere deep inside my heart I felt contentment from it.
As I watched an innocent person ruthlessly murdered from the flames, I was hit against the back of my head by a blunt weapon. The pain led me into peaceful home of comforting darkness.
'Watch out world, Heiji Kaosu is back.'
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Yay!!!! I'm finally finished chappie 2:D And it took almost 3 Months too. I don't doubt that Chapter 3 will be out any faster than Chapter 2.
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1: I know in Chappie 1 I wrote Lv. 40, it was a typo.
2: If you've ever watched Ranma 1/2, think Akane's cooking. If you haven't, you're outta luck.
3: If you go around wearing guy armor no matter how long your hair is, (Think Catalyst hair, it is longer than any girl's hairstyle I know except for maybe Rose and Angelica.) you're bound to get mistaken as a guy.
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Special Thanks to Dan for letting me borrow the ID Card idea. (Give box of cookies)
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Review Replys (Wow, I never though I'd actually get some XD):
Reader: Yes, she does go unconscious very often... But this is the last time she will, I hope. (Gives Reader a cookie for checking on Born to Burn)
Whitelies: This chappie is what happens next. She can use Arrow Rain cause she's just that good. And she blackouts to so much cause... Well, I dunno why, really. And about the Arrow Rain, that's not the real answer, since it's a large part of chapter 3.
Jin Jin aka the one and only Angle78: I finally finished this chapter so stop bothering me about it!
And last but not least, the author of Born to Burn himself!
Trojan Pony: Of course it's the first time you've reviewed my story! There's only one chapter! And your story is 1000kX times better than mine, I can't write funny stuffs. :( I can try though. And while we're on the subject of checking for updates, I'mma go check in Born to Burn has been updated.
Quota is: I don't care about how many reviews I get as long as you go read Born to Burn and The Assassin of Peace. (Once again, thanks Dan!)
