The Clock Tower Guild Reunited
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Disclaimer: I do not make monetary gain from this endeavor.
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"RIN GET UP!"
I awoke to the sounds of something crashing in the distance, the flittering glow of my ever-present companion circling about in a flurry.
Oh! Why can't I ever get a good night's sleep?!
"Ruby!" I called and my companion answered clasping to my hand. Hollow sensations filled me at our joining, as if there should have been more than a simple pair of boots replacing my normal ones. I didn't see how that was the case, as I was sure other clothing designed to make a person run faster would just be redundant.
I dashed out of the cave, just as the damned ogre that had been following me for weeks slammed a boulder in front of the entrance. The gigantic, ugly brute had sunken features and oily thick skin, wearing mostly furs around its body.
It's one good eye twitched as its sunken nose caught to my scent, and it came charging at me like a tank. Massive trees that stretched to the sky were sent sprawling at its ridiculous assault. The thing hardly had the brains to hunt, let alone do anything besides charge blindly at its prey and hope whatever poor thing died.
Still the dance was an old one, and I had just gotten a few hours of sleep after eating a squirrel.
If there was any occasion I knocked out the other eye of that idiot, this was the time. I breathed deep and cocked back my fist as the massive beast charged at me. The wide steps of the massive beast allowing it to rapidly cross the large distance Ruby had allowed me to gain in seconds.
Still, despite the fact I was most certainly going to die, some part of me sucked me in and I felt only calm. My mind took in the ogre's speed, and I knew that in three steps I should charge in and deliver my blow. I knew that that blow should be a backhand an inch behind the sunken socket that the right eye resided in.
But most of all I knew…
That my arm burned with awesome power!
The outline of my power ran up my arm, unintelligible lines that I didn't recognize. They glowed through the tough cloak that I'd word for the past weeks since my awakening. Some part of me quailed at the thought of what I was about to do, how it was a gross misuse of the power I had.
Then I told it if it had any better ideas, and it shut up real quick.
I leapt up and something seized hold of me. Maybe it was the weeks of scavenging nuts and berries, and making water to drink while knowing that it would make me hungrier. Maybe it was sleeping on stone and leaves. Maybe it was not having a decent bath in gods know how long.
All I knew was the fact that I was very, very pissed.
"Take this!" I found myself yelling, some part of me so ludicrously embarrassed but the rest seeing red. I put all that I felt into the attack, forgetting entirely about merely blinding the beast that made me eat a squirrel. "My furious anger!"
My body felt as though it exploded in flames, the same feeling of activating my arm. It felt painful, but far more natural as though it was truly a part of me.
"Rin!" Ruby cried, her voice echoing within my head. "I'm changing! I can feel power again! I can help!"
I felt myself go faster in my leap forward, as though propelled instead of merely using my legs.
"I! Can! Fly!" Ruby declared triumphantly, and I felt something erupt where my boots touched my ankles. "Go Rin, for great justice!"
Speed, power I realized something about those two my fist connected with the ogre's skull.
They were fucking awesome.
I'd seen the troll bash his head into rocks for hours as I hid in a crack within stone. It would never give up, and would only end up knocking itself out after a spectacular head-butt hours in. I barely managed to escape after one time or another.
The skull that wore out rocks collapsed under the strength of my fist and sent the shattered remains into the creature's brain.
It would've have been great if only that happened, but I found myself still in the air after I punched the monster's skull in.
"How long can you keep this up, Ruby?" I tried to hold back the feeling of euphoria building in my system. I was free from running from my opponent! I could actually try and find other people, and maybe even find a way back home!
"Forever!" My companion cheered and flew us higher than the trees that had shielded me from the harsh sun for weeks on end. Somehow, it was far better while flying. It just felt right to fly! "We can go and find the rest of me faster now!"
My mood immediately crashed, so fast that I nearly tripped forward on literal air.
"The rest of you!?" I spluttered, vaguely remembering my thoughts before I sent an ogre's skull into its brain. "What do you mean the rest of you!? Why would I need an entire outfit to make me faster?"
"Of course not! The rest of me does other things!" Ruby stated cheerily, oblivious of the slow migraine that was forming in my skull. "When we're done we can start doing our real mission, the one master gave us!"
"Real mission?" I somehow muster the will to question my companion. "What?"
"You know! The one where we find everyone that came with us! So that we can fight back the darkness!" Fight against the darkness? That didn't sound like a warm safe bed that I can sleep in for a week. "After we find my thirteen pieces, we can find the rest of the guild."
Some part of my mind linked guild to dozens of people working for the same cause and I was finally able to sum up my thoughts on the matter.
"Hell no!" I growled, attempting to move though it was though I was stuck in place. "We're going to a town! I'm going to get a bath! I have pine-needles in my knickers!"
"We can do all that!" Ruby protested while keeping us completely in place. "But we can't ignore the great mission master has set for us!"
"Well I don't care! I'll ignore him all I want! There's no way that-."
There was a loud cracking sound and a massive shock went through my system, starting from my toes and then everywhere else.
I swear I was able to smell something burning, and there was I twitch under my eye that I was convinced wasn't because of the electric shock.
"Ruby, what was that?"
"I wanted to stop you!" Ruby wailing, flying me about in a decidedly frantic ark. "I really did! It happens whenever you don't want to do what you're supposed to!"
"I'm not some sort of dog you can just train-."
BBZZZTTTT!
"…"
"… are you okay Rin?"
"Town." I grunted as I was sure I was tasting colors in my mouth. "I want to be in town for a week before i-."
Bzzt.
"Five days then." I gritted my teeth through the annoyance. I was sure that Ruby was pitying me with the slow flight we were going. "Just five days…"
…
I knew that I held some high expectations for a town for some reason, and given my track record I should've known how that was going to go.
"This place is dump!" Ruby cried, folding around the wings at her sides around herself. "Why did you want to come here?!"
Muddy roads trailed around everywhere, all the buildings were rickety and seemed like they would topple over if someone blew at them. Everyone's clothing looked rough and worn, and their eyes trailed on me with more than enough fear to make me wince.
"Ruby," I whispered to her as she hid in plain sight, pinned to the upper right of my chest. A few men started from an alley way and started following me. They were all armed with a blade strapped to their thighs. "Be quiet."
"Hey!" Something splattered against the back of my head, it was decidedly squishy. Some sort of massive berry or another? My curiosity was drowned by my affront, and I decidedly had to refrain from activating whatever was in my left arm and wrecking a few houses. "We don't like your kind around here! Get out!"
By all means, I would've been in the right to stomp a few faces in.
"Oh! Are you confusing me for someone?" I found myself saying in a voice that stopped the men dead in their tracks. My face contorted into something I was sure was supposed to be reassuring, but the intent I felt myself channeling was akin to asking if someone wanted their lives ended. I pulled back my hood and leveled it at them, and they all took a step back as a group.
I felt as though I was readying myself to bite someone's head off. I had the feeling I did this pretty often for some reason.
"Oh!" A man immediately began to apologize standing stock still. "Your clothes just seemed like some people we knew, ma'am! No disrespect meant at all, ma'am."
"Oh really?" I found myself drawling while cocking my head slightly to the side. A quick few steps and I was looking down at the man about a foot taller than me. I pocked a finger in his chest, my grin widening as he winced. "How about you put your wallet where your mouth is and really apologize?"
"Err, what?" He asked looking to his right and left, his friends had already fled the moment I zeroed in on them though.
"Well I'm a bit tired from my trip, but I can go anywhere with this massive stain on my cloak." The man began to sweat under my focus. "So how about you buy me a room at the inn so I can get my clothes washed and I can rest for the night?"
I was suddenly pushed off.
"I ain't doing anything for ya!" The man screamed and ran as I brushed off mud that stuck to my clothing. He sprinted fast on the muddied ground, scrambling when he fell a scant meter from me.
"So rude!" Ruby stated shrilly, growing a bit larger as she forgot to keep herself small in her anger. "First he throws fruit at you, then he pushes you into the mud! This place is terrible."
"It's not all bad." A far more familiar smirk crept its way into my face as I opened the wallet the man had so quickly forgotten about. "But it's best we get to another town, I don't think they'd appreciate taking money I earned from them."
"Such ferocity!" My companion trilled unlatching herself and floating to my legs, encasing them in red material. Wings sported from where my ankles were, looking normal despite the fact I was sure wings were supposed to go on the back. "It brings me great joy to witness such amazing plans in action!"
"It was nothing!" I swiped underneath my nose as a warm feeling spread from my chest and settled on my cheeks. "Any child could've done the same with those idiots! I'm surprised they put their pants on correctly!"
"It's what they get for threatening someone so much stronger!" Ruby happily declared, weaving the two of us in a corkscrew. "They're lucky we didn't take anything more than one wallet!"
I felt inordinately happy for myself, and decided that maybe I should do things like that more often. The feeling was somewhat akin to having to kill that ogre, expect with much less hiding out in the forest.
I should do it more often.
…
"We don't serve your kind out here!" The innkeeper very nearly slammed the door in my face like all the rest, before I managed to catch it by the fringe.
I swear, I could feel my teeth grinding against themselves. Three towns later, and the same thing keeps happening. We don't want your kind here! Get out!
"Pray tell, ma'am." I could feel blood throbbing handily on my forehead, as though having a background noise of a drum would help my constitution. "I've been rejected for the last three inn's for the same exact reasons." My smile somehow inched its way up my cheeks even further, it was truly beginning to ache. "Would you mind telling me why I'm getting refused a good meal, a shower and a comfortable bed?"
"You're in league with those hooligans terrorizing the entire region!" The old bat snapped, attempting to crush my fingers. I had to withhold my strength to stop me from ripping the door of its hinges. "All those decorations won't fool me! You're one of them Dark Guild members! Once the bounty gets out a real guild will take care of the lot of ya!"
I considered myself a relatively peaceful person, but my blood wanted me to hurt someone and hurt them quite badly.
"Where are they then?" I asked and the woman's attempts to close the door stopped as she gave me a piercing stare. I'd been looked at by wolves with less malicious intent than the innkeeper present.
"…you going to take care of them girly?" The old crone's eyes glittered as I found myself gritting my teeth. "There's a good meal, a nice shower, and comfortable bed if you do…"
The old crone knew the entire time! I very nearly wrung her neck, only stopped by some idiotic prattle in the stupidest voice I'd ever herd. Give me a break red-haired moral compass, I'll only kill her a little bit!
Still my body didn't move to wring the woman's neck, listening more to the damned voice rather than my own. I was all for a bit of chocking at the moment! Even my normally quiet side wanted blood from being denied our rightful place in luxurious room!
"Just tell me where it is you old bat!" Before I manage to shut up that red haired idiot and put my hands around your throat! I'll watch the dust puff out, I swear it!
"Feisty!" The old woman cackled. "Those idiots prancing about with their Re-quip magic will never see you coming!" The door widened open, until she stood in front of me rather than the wood upon a hinge. I crossed my arms over my chest ignoring the pleasant feeling the odd compliment gave me.
I was so damned easily placated! Just a wayward compliment and all my wishes for this woman to die goes away?! What sort of personality was this supposed to be? Compliment me before I choke you because of your stupidity!?
That couldn't be healthy for my blood pressure that was for sure.
"Shut up you old hag." I found myself growling and ignoring the light blush gathering on my cheeks because of the compliments. "Y-you better keep that promise if you want me going after these idiots!"
"Oh I will!" The wizened innkeeper searcher the contents of her apron, her beak-like nose almost infringing upon the wicked grin splitting her wrinkled face. She produced a map from the contents of her apron, it was stained with pungent spices and made my mouth drool. Soon… "I'll even put down the B-rank bounty we've all scrounged up for you!"
Money, a place to stay, what more could a girl want?
Suddenly Ruby flashed brightly, placed slightly over my crossed arms. The light made to old lady screech and slam the door in my face. I managed to snatch the paper before it fell to the ground and became worthless. The innkeeper was muttering behind the door, something about getting no respect at all.
I felt more than slightly vindicated and much, much calmer with the knowledge someone was angry as myself. That particular oddity allowing me to pay attention to my shining companion.
"Something the matter Ruby?' I questioned as I held up the map. Almost immediately, right on the 'X' inscribed on the map, Ruby shot a beam of light onto the parchment. "What the-."
"I knew master would make finding the rest of me easily! This is probably the same reason why the only he left to us is flight! We can practically get to any piece of me with a map in hand!"
I would have squealed like a little girl if I was anything less than the calm and composed individual that I was. At last! A literal ray of hope shining upon a heavily spiced map!
"All we need to do is buy a map and shine you on it!" I declared happily, the sudden revelation doing amazing things towards lifting my flagging spirits. I rushed through the town, remembering the only shop inside it., stuffing the small map I had into my pocket.
There it was, free to look at and brandished proudly right in the store's front window. I practically ripped Ruby off her perch as she began to shine brightly.
The short feeling of elation withered away and died as I looked at all the spots. I knew that the closest spot was where I practically was, since the 'X' on the map was no more than a short walk into the forest from the town boundaries.
But then the next one was in the neighboring country, then the next one was in the country after that one's neighbor, then each one got further and further away from where I was and each other.
It was as if some malevolent bastard had decided to place me on a treasure hunt across an entire damned continent!
Then, as if my day wasn't bad enough, the overcast that had been slowly developing as the sun began to set decided it wanted to skip the middle man and just start raining.
"Fuuu-."
…
AN: Sorry for the short chapter, but I'm pretty stressed.