Disclaimer- I don't own Ronin Warriors, not even a little bit (wants to cry now)
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Chapter Three
The next day, "Star, on your way home from school today will you please pick up these items." Gram asked Star while handing her a list.
"Okay, I can do that." Star replied while heading towards the door. School was normal and un-eventful. During lunch Kaede asked if she was doing anything after school, and when hearing Star's answer, she offered to help her. Star smiled gratefully at the offer and said yes.
After school they headed off into the city to do the errands. As they walked they laughed and talked, Star was thankful that Kaede came along or she would have gotten lost for sure. There heading to the last place when from across the street she heard a woman scream, "Haku! NO!" Alarmed Star looked over at the screaming to see a small boy on a skateboard trip on the curb and fall into the road. Not even thinking Star dropped her packages and dashed into the street. Diving for the boy, she grabbed him and somersaulted to the sidewalk, just as they got there she heard the crack of the skateboard breaking under the tires of a vehicle.
"Haku!" came the frantic cries of his mother as they grabbed him from Star. "Never do that again."
Getting up she felt as if her right arm was on fire; looking down at it she saw that she had scraped it up badly. Hiding it from the view of the parents she said," Are you all right little one?" ruffling his hair with her good arm. The little kid nodded, she smiled and said, "Good, if you excuse me now." With a bow, she turned and ran back across the street to the anxious Kaede who hadn't moved since the incident began.
"Kaede, Are you all right?" Star asked while shaking the girl.
"You …. You… just ran across… the boy is….. is he alright?"
"Yes, he is. Let's hurry and get the last thing on the list." Star prompted as she picked up the fallen bags.
"Oh, yes" Kaede said finally looking over at Star. "Your Arm!"
"Yes, I know, let's get this done so I can get Gram to take care of it." Star replied as she walked off.
The next day, before school Star and Kaede were talking by Kaede's desk when Sage came up and asked, "What happened to your arm?"
Star just shrugged and said, "Oh, I fell and skinned it up."
Kaede interrupted, " You did no such thing," Turning to Sage, eyes bright, "You should have seen it, Star rushing across the street to save that little kid." Upon hearing Star's scoff, Kaede turned," Don't scoff at me, it is true I saw it myself…"
Star decided that now was a good time to leave, went to her own seat. To her dismay she way the whole class gathered around Kaede, listening to her tale. Star just groaned and put her head down on the desk, wishing for all the attention to go away. She should have remembered to tell Kaede not to tell anybody. She heard some laughter coming from right next to her; she looked up to see Sage laughing at her. Getting a little angry she asked, "What's so funny?"
"You're response to this. You don't like much attention do you?"
Star just scowled at him.
"Why? What you did was pretty cool."
"I just did what anybody else would have done."
"Kaede just stood there and watched you do it. Not everybody is brave enough to jump into traffic."
Star just scoffed at that.
What Sage was going to say to that was interrupted by the teacher starting class. Star smiled and thought that the teacher had great timing.
A week later…
Star was sitting at her desk, almost a little too early. She had thought to arrive at school early so she could study for the test today. But all she found herself doing was looking out the window amazed that she had already been here for almost two weeks. Time had flown by really fast. She was looking forward to the day off tomorrow. Gram was talking about going up to the Pinnacles. She had never seen them before. She wished Meg could be there. Saddened by that thought she took out her sketchbook and turned to a certain page. Where could she be? Star was so lost in thought that she didn't see Sage in front of her. He looked down at the drawing and back up at Star.
"Are you so sad because you're looking at a picture of yourself?" he asked with an eyebrow raised.
Star jumped, "You scared me! What did you ask?" looking at him with contempt, she had gotten use to seeing him glowing green that it didn't bug her anymore.
"Why are you looking at a picture of yourself?"
"Picture of myself?…" Star repeated confused, then her face cleared up, "Oh, this isn't me, it is my twin sister Meg. She ran away two years ago. I was just wondering where she was, that's all."
"Twin sister? Huh." Sage said motioning for permission to look at the picture, "you do look a lot alike but I see some small differences now." He started to leaf through and look at the other pictures. Commenting on how she was a really good artist. He stopped at one of Ryo playing soccer and held it up questionably to Star followed by one with Rowen reading a book. Star just scowled at him and grabbed the book away explaining that Kaede wanted them for her How To Stalk a Hot Guy Fan Club book. Sage just looked at her nodding a disbelieving nod. "It's true! Here's Kaede now. She'll explain. KAEDE! Come here." As Kaede walked over to them Star kept talking, "I was just explaining about you little club.
Kaede, taking her cue, laughed a little then pulled herself up straight and said in a confident voice. "Yes, those pictures are going to go into my, How To Stalk a Hot Guy book. So girls like me can maybe have a chance to date the hot guys at this school."
Sage stood there stunned at this while Star smacked her forehead and shook her head. Seeing Star's reaction he started to laugh, "How did you get her involved with your little club?" he asked Kaede.
"She is my best friend and she is such a good drawer," said Kaede acting innocent.
"And she wouldn't leave me alone about the child-saving incident until I agreed." Star added mournfully.
Kaede started to disagree with that while Sage just thought it best to walk away, and he wanted to tell Rowen about this club just so he could see the shocked expression on the genius's face.
At lunch while they were talking, Star noticed that Kaede had all of the sudden turned white and was staring at something behind her. The blue-haired friend of Sage was coming toward them. What was his real name? Usually Kaede just called him hot genius. Rowen? I think it is Rowen, She thought to herself as she turned back around. But it was hard to ignore Kaede staring at him,so she turned around and greeted him.
"What is this about Sage telling me there is a stalking club and I'm in it?" He said rather angrily.
All Star could do was look at him surprised and point to Kaede. He looked at her and back at Star and raised an eyebrow. Star looked over at Kaede, upon seeing that she was frozen stiff, hit her on the arm. Kaede woke up started to say, "Yes, and is it not a wonderful idea for a club…"
Star hit her forehead with unbelief and thought, Sage! Curse you Pond Scum. She was going to get Sage so bad for telling Rowen she had a part in this. She was jerked out of her angry thoughts by Kaede talking her sketchbook and begins leafing through it.
"No, Kaede," Star said as she tried to get the book from her.
"You will see that this drawing is very well done and you should be proud to have it in my book."
Rowen looked amused at Star after looking at the drawing, "How did you get dragged into this?"
"Blackmail" came the sullen answer
Rowen sat down even more amused and started looking thought the rest of the book stopping to rest on Meg's picture. After a few seconds he asked, "Do you have a twin sister or something?"
"Yeah, I do, her name is Meg."
"Thought that this wasn't you." He stood back up tossing the notebook at Star and said to Kaede "Don't give her too much trouble, all right" and walked away.
Kaede practically feinted on Star before remarking, "He's nice and all but he has his nose in his books way too much for my taste."
Star just laughed at her.
On the way home, Star was smiling. She loved having Kaede as a friend even Sage was beginning to grow on her, but what about his friend Rowen, he seemed like a very nice guy. She was about halfway home, right by a park when she decided that she would stop and draw for a while under a tree. She had gotten about halfway across the lawn when a large suit of armor holding a large scythe on a chain appeared in front of her. Frightened, Star started to back up when it started talking to her. "You don't think your getting away child, do you?"
"What do you want?" demanded Star.
"Give me the White orb."
"What white orb?"
"Don't play stupid with me, I know you have it." When he said this, Star started to get really afraid. "I don't know what you're talking about."
"Ha Ha Ha, if you won't give it to me willingly. I am going to have to take it by force." As it said this it began to rush towards her. Star's training kicked in as she dodged the attack and came back with one of her own. Her kick made direct contact with the armor and when it didn't show a scratch at all, She really began to fear for her life.
When Rowen got back to the table his two friends were laughing so hard that all he could do was to start laughing a little bit as well. When they stopped laughing, he started complaining to Sage. "Starciya was so embarrassed and Kaede just… she just was so proud of it I couldn't believe it. Sage, don't you have any mercy on her?"
Sage just shook his head, "She can handle herself."
After school, Cye and Kento met them at Han'a to go over to the park by Rowen's apartment to play some basketball. They were almost to the court when they heard a scream echo through the trees. The five looked at each other in confusion before running off towards the scream.
When they came to a clearing just through the trees, they just stood stunned for a moment. There was a very badly beaten up Starciya, trying to fight one of the dynasty's chiefs. She looked as if her will was the only thing keeping her standing. The chief came at her again with his chain, she jumped to the side avoiding its first attack but not the second, getting the chain wrapped around her. Lifting up the beaten Star, the chief asked, "This is the last time, I ask you, Where is the Orb? Give it to ME!" Looking up into its face, all she did was spit into it. "You'll pay for that filth!' He said raising his scythe.
"Not so fast!" came a shout from behind, as Star saw Sage fly forward and kick the scythe and chain out of the armors hands. Star fell to a pile on the ground, not having enough energy to try and get free of the chains; she just watched Sage and his four friends fight this supernatural being. They weren't doing too badly, Star thought as her vision began to blur. She thought she saw the kid with the light blue aura pick up the fallen scythe and throw it at the armor. When it struck him the armor disappeared into dust. With black creeping into her vision she finally relaxed and closed her eyes.
After destroying the dynasty thug the five went over to where Starciya was laying. Seeing she was still alive, they untangled her from the chains, and tried to get a feel for her injuries.
"We should get her into a bed and bandaged up."
"My apartment is the closest."
"Let's go before we attract too much attention."
Kento, carefully picked up Star while Cye picked up her bag and headed over to Rowen's apartment.
"Sage, how much of this do you think you can heal?" Ryo asked.
"I don't know, hopefully a good portion of it."
In the shadow of a tree watching them a man asked, "So, what do we do now, Mistress?"
Coming from behind him a tall dark haired lady wearing a silver mask said, "We must wait. She obviously doesn't have the orb yet. As I told you the incident with the small child was not the one we were waiting for. For now we must just watch and wait."
