A/N: Secrets of the past are soon to be revealed. All though I suppose it wouldn't count as a secret since I mentioned most of them as the story goes on, but you know what I mean.
The story goes on as the whole two side story begins, one where Hope and I go on a search for Rufus Zero and the other about Chantal's date with Sky. Also, you may notice there are going to be two special guest stars in this story. Those who is NOT an OC and not in any of the Final Fantasy series. Might be a bit off for Fanfiction, then again, Warlords Wrath Online is Sword Art Online and Final Fantasy XIII, and the death game the story is about is based off of World of Warcraft.
Keep your eyes out for this special guest. SnowEmbrace, I bet you'll know who they are.
(Also, the story's Image Cover is one of SnowEmbraces best ChantalxSky deviant images)
The day has pasted, but dawn barely appears. It's exactly three in the morning. Chantal and Sky are both still asleep. Hope would be too if I didn't command him to get up. I maybe Lieutenant of of the Guardian Corps, but I still out rank Hope since he's only an Academia scientist.
We are to meet a group of friends of mine I've made during my years as a Mercenary: Burn. And the best way to meet them is before dawn, where we are less likely to be followed. To make certain we're still stealthy, I have Hope and I put on black hooded mantles.
We head outside of the city of Paris, to the cemetery. "So, why are we going to the cemetery again?" Hope whispers as we travel up hill.
"The cemetery is the very last place people would think to look for a hide out for Burn. I never understand why. Probably something about not wanting to disturb the peace of the dead...Whatever the reason, it was pretty clever." I say. We reach to the top of the hill, where there is a large memorial tombstone in the center. "Here we are."
Hope doesn't seems the least amused. "I don't see anything."
"Not everything is what it seems, kid. Never judge a book by it's cover." I grab the coffin and remove the lid. Hope expects a dead body inside the box of death, but inside, it's a stairway to the blackest of darkness.
"A hidden passage?" Hope asks. "That's clever."
"Remain cautious." I remind Hope, as I walk into the crypt.
After lighting a touch with Hopes magic, we wonder through the endless darkness of the underground tunnel. We wonder for a couple of minutes. All we found is countless hallways. "There are so many empty rooms and multiple hallways."
"Burn set up multiple empty rooms and hallways to confuse robbers or enemies hunting them down. You can get so easily lost in here." I say.
Hope stops on his feet after hearing that. "Well, that's a good thing to know right after we came down here!"
Saying that, something ambushes Hope. I didn't make up who it was cause of the darkness that surrounds us. Hope and the attacker are rolling until they stop, with Hope on his stomach, arm bent all the way back, and the attacker as her left Ember Celica right on the back of Hope's neck.
"Who are you? How did you found us? And you have two seconds to explain right before I split your skull into two!" She says hostilely.
Hope turns head head, struggling to do so, to get a look at his attacker. It's but a girl with golden blonde hair. She is wearing a tan vest with gold piping over a yellow low-cut crop top with a black crest that resembles a burning heart. The vest has puffy cap sleeves with black cuffs. A brown belt with a buckle, a pouch, and a small banner-like object with the same burning crest appears on this banner, except golden in color. She wears black shorts under her belt, which resembles a pleated skirt in the back. Over the black shorts but under the belt is a white asymmetrical back skirt. brown knee-high platform boots that appear to be made of leather, with orange socks of different lengths. Her left leg also has a gray bandanna-like object wrapped around the top of her boot. She wears fingerless black gloves underneath her weapons, which resemble two yellow mechanized gauntlets with a black design. All complete with an orange infinity scarf around her neck.
The girl suddenly relaxes realizing who the intruder is. "Hey...you're just a kid. What are you doing down here?"
"Yang!" Yang looks up, directly at me, when I call out. "Good to see you old friend."
I approach Yang with a fist out. She looks concern, then she retreats her left Ember Celica. We both do a secret handshake. starting with Yang doing the upper fist bump, then me doing the upper, then normal fist bump, elbow bump, finger snaps then finish it with a final fist bump.
Yang is surprised, in a good way. "Patrick! Oh my gosh, it's good to see you." Yang gets a good look at me, head to toe. "Three years later and you're still as shady as ever."
"Thank you...I think?" I say, a bit confused on the second part.
While we're having our reunion, Hope is moaning in pain. "Excuse me! But...you are a squishing...my kidney!" He says, straining.
"Oh, sorry about that." Yang gets off of Hope, then she grabs him by the collar and lifts him back on his feet. "I'm surprised to see you come to a dangerous place with a wimp like him." Yang pats Hopes head saying that, which makes the kid feel bad that she's calling him a weakling.
"Says the girl who endangered herself and her little sister when they were children just to find her mother." I say, and Yang seems offended to hear me say that. "But I need the attention of the full Burn team. Please."
"Of course. Anything for you, old friend." Yang leads the way. "This way."
Yang leads Hope and I thought the crypt. I've known Yang since she became a victim to the Abduction Agency. I rescued her during my plans to sabotage the organizations deliveries. Ever since then, she and her team, Burn, have given me excellent job opportunities for in return.
Yang takes us to the secret headquarters of Burn, which is at the very end of the catacombs. In the underground lair, there awaits six other people. A man with a bostaff stands by the entrance. He is not pleased to see us.
"Yo, Yang. What is this? You bringing strangers to our secret lair?" The man asks.
"Relax, Hamato. They're cool." Yang says. "Patrick. Hope. Allow me to introduce to team Burn. This here is Hamato. Highly trained in Kendo and skilled with a bostaff."
That's a bit strange. I'm pretty sure people who take Kendo uses swords. Then again, I work for the military and use bows over guns. Yang takes us to the next member, who is some ninja girl with short black hair. "Here is Yuffie. A great ninja with a large 4-point shuriken, and a master thief."
Yuffie smiles as she looks at us. "Say. You boys are kind of cute."
On that, hope and I have no idea how to respond to that. Then Yang speaks. "All right, Yuffie. Give them back."
Yuffie acts all innocent and clueless. "Whatever could you mean?" Yang gives Yuffie a serious look, even readies her Ember Celicas for a mix of punching and shooting. "All right, all right." Yuffie reaches in her pockets and takes out two wallets. Hope and I are surprised, we check our pockets to find they're empty. Yuffie stoled our wallets, then she tosses them back to us.
"You see? Master thief." Yang says. Yang shows us the next member of Burn, who is a man with a scar through his closed left eye, wielding two knifes and a large katana resting on its holster on his back. "This is Slash. Tough assassin who has been banned from 37 different countries."
"38 eight, actually." Slash corrections.
Yang doesn't usually like to be corrected, but she can't really argue with Slash. She moves on to to next member: "And this is blaze. Our main assault with a two-handed axe. He also knows 49 different forms of pain." Yang leans close to Hope and I, whispering. "And thirteen of them are illegal."
Hope seems a bit afraid. "Wow...that's...scary..."
Blaze gives Hope the cold look. Realizing that, Yang saves him. "Okay, moving on." Yang takes us the next member, with is a girl with black hair and lips, smoothing a cigarette. I know who she is and I'm not too happy to see her. "This is Violet. She may have a bad attitude, but she's powerful as a Vampire."
"I know who she is." I say, as I look directly at Violet. "Violet."
My tone turns cold, so is Violet's as she turns the look. "Patrick...Still giving me the cold shoulder cause of that slut friend of yours?"
"You leave Chantal alone!" I say.
"Like I ever take orders from some shady pretty boy." Violet says.
"I'm sensing there's bad blood between the two of you." Yang says. Now Yang introduces us to the final member of Burn, which is a black hair girl with a red hood, in black and red dress clothing and wields some gun scythe. "And this is my second in command and little sister, Ruby."
Ruby stands up and looks at Hope and I. "Oh. I've never met one of Yang's friends. Nice to meet you both." Rose takes notice of the dual swords resting on the sides of my quiver. She gasps in shock. If this were an amine, Ruby's eyes would sparkle in bright stars. "Is that...Is that Bowswords!" She's pretty excited. "Oh! I can't believe it! I have heard of them, but never came this close to one! They're incredibly rare!"
I feel a bit awkward. "I take it...she's excited?"
Yang laughs. "Yeah. My little sister is a dork with weapons. She even designed her own."
Violet is growing impatient. "All right, enough with the introductions. Why are these losers here?"
Over the rest of the night, I explain to Team Burn about Rufus Zero. He's still alive and is possibly trying to revive the Abduction Agency. Yang is not happy at all to hear this, since she became one of his victims, and neither is Violet. Burn agrees to help out to find Rufus Zero and bring him to justice.
Now it's morning. Chantal and Sky are just waking up after a long night of sleep. They do not wait for Hope and I, knowing that we would already be gone and doing work, though Chantal feels a bit thinks we would have at least say are farewells before departing.
Chantal is already up and ready. She's feel pretty nervous. Now it's just her and Sky alone.
Once Sky is ready they both have a walk around the streets of Paris. "This is incredible. Never have I ever believed I would be able to visit Paris."
"Your friend sure hooked us up." Sky says. "When I first met him, I thought he was the cold-blooded type."
Chantal laughs nervously. "Yeah...he, may seem that way. But he is still a good person."
Enough talking about me. I'm not here and having a conversation about me shouldn't butt in on their date. They start off going for a walk around the city. Why not? They're in a beautiful city on a different country. There's nothing wrong with a little sight seeing, especially since this date is going to last days perhaps. Capturing Rufus is not going to be easy.
Chantal is having a fun time. Looking around. Seeing flowers and smelling the scent of fresh baguettes.
By noon, they have found a park and decided to take a walk around it. It's a lovely view. Clear blue skies, bright green with the sun shining on the grass. Chantal is pretty amazed at the beauty. We have a fine time together at the park, Chantal's favorite was when Sky picked a purple lily for her. She really loved it, especially the smell. Made her blush.
After a while of walking, Chantal is starting to get a little tired. "You all right?"
"Y-yeah...I probably just need to rest a little." Chantal says.
"Well, perhaps I can remedy that." Sky says.
Chantal wonders what he could mean, but her answer comes soon enough. "Wh-what. What are you?" Sky lifts Chantal from behind, carrying the girl on his is pretty surprised, once realizing the positioned she's in, her face becomes hot, blushing in redness.
"Do you remember that time when I tried to carry you like this?" Sky asks.
"H-how can I forget?" Chantal says. "We ended up felling on the ground."
"Laughing too I recall." Sky says, ending with both him and Chantal laughing.
Sky walks around while carrying Chantal. She's in a public strange place on the back of a boy she's crushing on. She doesn't even care. Sky walks to a blossom tree. Chantal reaches up and grabs one of the tips of the branch, holding nearly a dozen of cherry blossoms in her hand.
However, she is caught by surprise one the butterfly on it flies off. She did not see it. She gives a small gasp then laughs. Most of the people in the park notice the young couple and watches. Some of them smiles, they enjoy seeing those two together. It's cute.
Sky and Chantal notices eyes on them, and Chantal is nervous. "People are watching..."
"You want to come down?" Sky asks, not even taking his eyes off of everyone.
Chantal doesn't say anything, just nervously smiles and waves, the people send waves back at her.
Meanwhile, I'm riding on Yang's motorcycle. If we are going to find Rufus, we need some information. Luckily, I know a man who use to be a business man for the Abduction Agency. He had all connections, even held all information and locations of women the organization were targeting.
Yang stops the motorcycle and parks it outside of the Restaurant: Bella Notte. We get off, and then Violet makes an appearance. She has her own ride: Her Vampire powers of speed and high jumps.
I give the two girls a bit of a warning while we go in. "All right, I know this man very well. Both of you, do not say anything, do not do anything, do not make any direct eye contact with him or his goons. Let me do all the talking, and we'll walk away happy." I stop and look at Violet. "As for you..." Violet looks at me, uninterested. "Try not to get all bitchy like you usually do."
I continue to walk, Yang follows me, but Violet stays behind, sighing. "You're no fun, you know that?" Then she follows us.
Inside the restaurant, an Italian business man sits at the end of the room, eating his lunch of spaghetti. Don Vizioso. And each by his side are his bodyguards. Two goons.
I walk right in the bar, with Yang and Violet each by my sides, acting as my muscles. I sit on a chair across from Don, Yang and Violet just stand in place. Don Vizioso just eats and I wait patiently for him to speak.
"So...the traitor returns." Don says. After a pause, he looks at Violet then Yang. "And I get you've got yourself a pair of prudes with you." He gives a quiet chuckle and winks at the girls. Violet and, mostly, Yang give him cold aggressive glares.
"Spare me the insults, Don Vizioso. You know why I am here." I say.
"Hmm...How can I not? You coming here at the same country as Zero did." Don says.
"You're as intellect as you were three years ago. Which is why you're gonna tell me everything you know about where Rufus is and what he's planning." I say.
"Well then, you're just wasting your time, Shadow Hunter. I know nothing about any of Rufus's updates." Don says. "Even if I did, I would never rat him out to a traitor such as you."
"I was never a traitor, Vizioso. You perverts were all fools to hire me when I want nothing to do with you animals." I say, my tone turning hostile. In other words: Gave them a taste of their own medicine.
"Tomato, toe-ma-toe. I don't have anything for you." Don says.
That's when Violet finally snaps. She leaps over the table, grabs Don by the collar and pins him against the wall. Don's goons both take out their knifes and point them at Violet. "You better tell us everything you know, moron! Or I sewer, I will siphon every ounce of blood from within you like the cow you are! Drop! By! Drop!"
Don is overwhelmed in terror as the young vampire hisses at him, revealing her fangs. Yang grabs Violet and pulls her back. "What are you doing? Did you forget Patrick's orders?"
"Like I would take orders from this loser." Violet says.
"Patrick knows these guys very well, and you want the organization defeated as much as we do. Remember what they did to your sister." Yang growls at the thought. Her sister Rosaline became a victim of the Abduction Agency. She made it out safely because of me, but she was not unharmed in the hands of those animals. "Let's just do what he says and we'll get what we want."
That said, Yang and Violet return positions, then Don sits back in place, still nervous at Violet's words. "Uh...perhaps I may have, uh...been too hasty. I indeed have some information that may...prove to be useful for your search."
Yang is surprised that he's given up so easily cause of Violet. Even Violet grins proudly. "Very well. Speak, Vizioso." I say, ready to listen closely.
After hearing the news on the TV, I have a plan. Ever since I have once heard of the Abduction Agency two years ago, I've been wanting to teach those animals a lesson. I blame them for the judgement I've suffered. Once I destroy them, everyone will know the kind of person I really am, instead of letting the shadows elude them from the truth.
I made a call to the Sanctum, telling them that I have a plan in mind, and I need their help to do it. So I instructed the director of PSICOM, Yaag Rosch, to meet me in a hidden ally almost outside of the city of Bodhum. There, we will be able to speak privately without any scouts or rats.
Rosch walks down the streets of the city with two men at each of his side, each of them shrouded in hooded cloaks. "Are you sure this is a good idea? What if it's a trap?"
"I'm just as concern as you are, Sergeant. But this men promises vulnerable knowledge of our case with the kidnapping of women." Rosch says. "Keep your eyes and ears open, and remain cautious."
Rosch and his men arrive at the destination. To their surprise, the alley is dark and empty. Gives them a feeling on concern.
After a moment, I appear from the shadows, shrouded in a hooded cloak as well. "Well, I didn't expect you to show up."
I remove my hood, revealing my face. The two soldiers have their guns pointed at me. "Well...if it isn't the Mercenary. What an unexpected surprise." Rosch gestures a hand telling his men to stand down, and they lower their weapons. "What is it that you want?"
"We have a common enemy. The one's who are behind the kidnapping." I say.
"You know who they are, don't you?" He asks.
I nod. "The Abduction Agency."
The soldiers seem uncertain. "I've never heard a name like that. He must be making it up."
"No. They are real. They're a criminal organization. Completely under the radar." I say.
Rosch is suspicious. "You use to be one of them...didn't you?"
"I can ensure you, I am nothing one of their disgusting kind. They are dead to me, and I want them as good as dead." I say.
"What are you playing at, boy?" Rosch asks.
"I know how to stop them once and for all, but in order to do it, I'm gonna need you to do exactly what I say." I tell Rosch.
"And why should we trust a Mercenary like you?" Rosch asks. I can understand Rosch's disturbs. Mercenaries are known to be untrustworthy. They only care about money.
"I'll have you know I'm not like other Mercenaries. I an honorable man. If I wasn't, I would have you dead right about now since it was your little Purge that took away my mother right before my very eyes! Besides. If there's anyone in the Sanctum I've got a score to settle, it's that monstrous bitch Nabaat who took my father away with her evil experiments. The Abduction Agency has been nothing more then a thorn at my side and they have caused trouble for you Sanctum soldiers. We both want them defeated, but you need inside information and I need people who can act as my hands of combat without the enemy noticing my true colors. So we can work together, get what we went, and everyone goes home happy."
Rosch says nothing, then one of the soldiers speaks to him. "I don't like this, sir. He may be speaking the truth, but it could still be a trap."
The second one continues. "We are desperate to solve this case, but should we really all our hopes on a Mercenary?"
Rosch thinks about what both his soldiers and I say. What we say have rings of truth, but he puts his instincts in charge of this decision. Then he speaks to me. "What do you have in mind, boy?"
I smile. I'm glad he's gonna play along. "Here's the plan."