The following chapter is considered non-canon, but has been preserved for the sake of nostalgia/show of growth. As such, enjoy.
Chapter 5
The Line
The next day…
"Where did the summer break go?" Ace thought as he got out of bed and placed his katanas into his hafts. He quickly changed into his usually attire and headed downstairs into the dining room.
"I made breakfast for you." Ted explained as Ace grabbed his backpack. He then sat down as Ted placed a plate of eggs and bacon on the table.
"I don't get why you humans have to take so much stuff just for the first day of school." Ruby responded as Ace looked at her. He actually had to agree with her on that one. He never did understand that but he didn't care at all.
"Which one of us are you going to take with you?" Clara asked as she plowed through her breakfast.
"I was going to take you, Clara." Ace explained and looked around." Where's Ninjara?"
"The last time I checked, she was in the backyard for some reason." Ruby responded and Ace ran into the backyard. When he got there, Ace found a severely injured Ninjara on the ground. The Ninja tiger creature was now in a near death state with several bullet and stab wounds and had lost a whole lot of blood.
"Ace…" Ninjara whispered as she tilted her head to look at him.
"Who was the one who cause these injuries to you, Ninjara?!" Ace shouted as he looked at his severely injured partner on the ground.
"I saw the Empress out in the backyard and I challenged her to a fight…" Ninjara explained softly as Ace looked at her wounds.
"And?" Ace asked as he looked around the yard, seeing nobody.
"She beat me really badly." Ninjara added." But, I wanted you to know to this. The Empress is…" However Ninjara succumbed to her wounds before she could finish her final words revealing a piece of the puzzle.
"So close to figuring it all out, but so far away from the answers you seek." A voice responded in a familiar sounding way. Ace then turned and saw the Empress was now right in front of him. She was dressed differently than his previous encounter with her. This time instead of her gown and hood that covered everything, she dressed more modestly. Her hair was a weird mix of indigo and black strands that made no sense. She wore a black "hero of time" tunic minus the cap and matching black jeans. Her black lips contrasted with her red sunglasses. She had black lips and black eyeliner. She wore matching black pumps to finish off her outfit.
"It's time I get some answers from you!" Ace shouted and unsheathed his katanas, ready to fight. He would avenge Ninjara's death.
"So that's how it's going to be." The Empress responded, making her cutlasses appear! She stared at Ace and snarled at him, hoping to scare him off.
"Twin Katana beam X2!" Ace shouted, launching the two dragon spirits at his opponent! When the dragon spirits hit her, they knocked the Empress's sunglasses off and revealed the truth.
"No it can't be…Vanessa, how could you do this?" Ace responded, and looked into Vanessa's eyes. Her beautiful indigo eyes were now red pupiless eyes. Someone inhuman had done this to her. It was hard for Ace to restrain himself from going after whoever did this.
"You've seen the scars and wounds. I was taking revenge on all those that have hurt me." Vanessa explained as she looked at her former friend.
"Revenge isn't the only answer to this problem you face, Princess." Ace added as he watched Vanessa. She was planning on doing something incredibly stupid and dangerous.
"However, it's the only way I can make the people who have hurt me pay." Vanessa responded as a giant platform flew over to them and Vanessa jumped on and headed off.
"Vanessa…" Ace thought as he turned around and headed towards the door.
"Hey!" A voice shouted, causing Ace to turn around and see the Black Cat.
"What do you want?" Ace asked as he looked at The Black Cat. "I'm not in the mood to just chase after you at this very moment." The Black Cat looked at him and sighed.
"I'm not here for that right now." The Black Cat explained as Ace looked at her. "You need to move on for now."
"What do you mean?" Ace asked, wondering what is going on.
"You're our seen as useless by my masters." The Black Cat explained." Prove them wrong by beating Vanessa."
"What do you mean?" Ace questioned, scared by what The Black Cat meant.
"What I mean is they do not believe you are ready to fight the much greater threats." The Black Cat answered as Ace sternly looked at her.
"Why should I care at all what your masters think?" Ace responded as he glared angrily at The Black Cat. The Black Cat looked at him. She knew this wasn't going anywhere at all. "Why do you even care at all about me and my friends and whether they're useless or not?!"
"I'm trying to motivate you." The Black Cat explained as she looked down at the ground. "Death is but a part of the cycle of life. We cannot save everyone we meet along the way in our journey."
"Why have I and my friends been ordered to follow you?!" Ace ranted as he attempted to slash at The Black Cat. However, she dodged at the last minute. "Give me one reason I should just continue going on with this game?!"
"I cannot answer that question, child." The Black Cat explained as she climbed over the fence. "That is question that only you can truly answer in time." And with that, she was gone. He thought over what she had said to him. He knew for sure Vanessa had to stopped but he wasn't sure about what The Black Cat had told him. She was trying to help him understand the situation he was in, but was she alluding to something more that was happening that they didn't know about yet?
"Eventually I will get answers." Ace thought as he finally headed back inside, grabbed his stuff and headed off for the first day of school.
10 minutes later…
"Guys, can I talk to you in private." Ace asked as he approached Nina, Aurora, Kalin and Mark in a hallway. The five of them then headed to a nearby storage closet and entered it.
"What do you need to tell us?" Mark asked as he looked at Ace in the surprisingly large storage closet.
"I know who the Empress is." Ace explained as they all looked at him.
"Then who is it, then?" Nina asked impatiently.
"An old friend of mine named Vanessa." Ace explained as he looked at his friends. "She killed Ninjara in order to lure me out and I fell for her trap." He had decided to leave out the part about The Black Cat because right now it didn't matter at that moment.
"That I didn't see coming at all." Kalin added. Of the group, only he and Ace knew Vanessa personally. This meant that there were a lot more questions about who she is that neither one of them wanted to talk about at that very moment in time.
"She also is planning on doing something really bad and evil of some sort." Ace added, as the rest of the hunters looked at him weirdly. "What?! She just had that look in her eye that just showed that she had something like that planned for today."
"Then I guess we'll just have to find out what that something is." Nina responded sarcastically as the bell rang and she left the room.
"We better get to class!" Aurora shouted and the four of them headed to their first period classes, hoping that it would be just a regular first day of school.
"Time to put this plan of mine into action right now." Vanessa thought as she pulled both of her pistols out and walked into the school. "This is the time to strike." She then walked over to the door and a fired both of her guns, killing everybody in the room or so she thought. The weight of her actions was all but a dream in her head. She headed from door to door, killing all inside of there with a shot from her pistols of never-ending ammo. It didn't matter to her who she killed, as long as there were here in the school they needed to be killed today under orders of her masters. The people here need to die, and she would be there executioner. She looked through the glass of the door. Nobody even noticed her at all. She was fine with that. It had always been that way for her. Only one she actually recognized was Aurora. Soon they would all just be distant memories in this world. They didn't deserved to be remembered at all. By that point she pulled the trigger on her guns and fired.
"Class, today we will do a re-"A teacher explained, only for him to be shot in the head as the students started to fall to the ground, dead..
"Boom! Headshot!" Vanessa responded as she shot more students through the door, causing an instantaneous death for them. Aurora glanced at her, expressing a look of extreme sadness on her face.
"Leave them alone!" Aurora shouted." Precision shots!" Launching two rounds at Vanessa's pistols, only to miss there intended targets. "They have done nothing to deserve what you did to them!"
"Whether they deserved it or not does not matter at all to you little girl." Vanessa added and fired, shattering both of Aurora's revolvers with a single gunshot. " You're finished, so give up already."
"I will do what it takes to stop you, even if death is the only option I have!" Aurora explained, causing her shattered revolvers to reformat into an energy bow.
"What?!" Vanessa shouted and was shocked at what had happened.
"Precision shot X2!" Aurora shouted, launching an arrow at Vanessa! When the arrow hit, a lion appeared and slashed her, causing Vanessa to run off down the hallway. She continued her kill spree unafraid of what would happen next to her. In her mind, that didn't at all at this point in time. She shot many more students to death, some innocent bystanders, some were people that deserved the death that was brought to them. She shot many more students to death. It was her goal to massacre just about everybody for her masters.
"Good, I got away." Vanessa thought as she turned a corner. Then she noticed Kalin and Mark were right in front of her.
"It's the end of the line for you!" Kalin responded as he looked at his
"Demons of hell, I call upon you!" Vanessa shouted and ran right pass them. As she did so, two massive imps appeared.
"This going to be a whole ton of fun to fight today." Mark responded as he made his qiang appear.
"Agree." Kalin added as he unsheathed his longswords.
"Prepare to die!" The first imp responded and threw a flaming knife at them, hitting Kalin. Then the knife froze him a second later.
"How is that even possible?!" Mark asked as he
"It through the use of magic." The other imp added as Mark glared at it.
"That's obvious." The first imp added and Kalin hit him with his qiang, causing Kalin to become unfrozen for now.
"Jumping spear kick!" Kalin shouted, jumping off his spear and kicked both the boy and girl!
"Fusion Transformation." The second imp shouted and a ton of smoke to appear! When the smoke cleared there was a black and purple imp dragon!
"You didn't see that coming did you?" The author responded in a sarcastic way.
"Please do no-"A voice shouted, only for the sounds of choking to be heard for a few minutes until it stopped!
"That was poetic." Mark explained his qiang now in his hand.
"Dashing slash!" Kalin responded and ran at the dragon and slashed it!
"I will give you a choice. If you kill the person beside you, I won't kill you, Kalin." The imp dragon responded.
"If I kill him, I will be just as bad as The Empress." Kalin thought and shouted." I won't do it!"
"By using me as a tool, you have proven you don't care!" Mark shouted causing both of their weapons to glow!
"Awesome!" Kalin shouted, surprised at what had now happened. When the glowing stopped, the shaft of Kalin's qiang was spirally carved and had a lion design stretching through the spirals! Kalin's longswords now had a boar design on them and the blades were longer!
"Jumping spear kick X2!" Mark shouted, jumping off of his spear and kicked the dragon causing a lion to appear and claw the dragon!
"Dashing slash X2!" Kalin added, and charged and slashed the dragon causing a boar to appear and slashed at it with its tusks!
"You have passed the test." The imp dragon explained.
"This was a test?" Mark asked bewildered.
"Yes, I was sent by an unknown person to test you." The dragon explained and teleported out.
"This will come back to haunt you, Vanessa." A boy shouted as he was approached by Vanessa as she ran up the hallway. He looked to be around 13 and was 3'8. He wore a red t-shirt with a black vest over it and jeans. His weapon of choice, the guitar was old but still in good condition.
"Jared, do you really think you can stop me with just a measly guitar?" Vanessa responded as she looked straight into his eyes.
"Yes, Flames of courage!" Jared shouted and strummed on the guitar, causing a guitar playing peacock to appear and launched a few flaming feathers at her. When the feathers hit, they burned her even more. In response to that, Vanessa fired a few shots into his skull causing instantaneous death. She then looked around, seeing nobody to the right or the left. After doing that, she searched his body and found a mysterious folder on him.
"You were a spy and a fool." Vanessa responded as she looked over the contents of the folder. Inside of the folder were a bunch of papers. She flipped through the folders until something caught her eye.
To: Aurora
From: Jared and Mara
Re: The situation at hand
We have heard rumors. Rumors of that The Fallen Ones are planning on going after The Hunters. We both know you can not keep this charade going for much longer. You know we will need to act soon in order to protect them. Also, you can not allow your emotions to get the most of you. We still have time to stop this.
Good Luck,
Jared and Mara
"Well that's one mystery solved." Vanessa thought as she quickly placed the folder in her pocket as Mara ran up to her.
"Not so fast, Vanessa!" Mara responded her vine whip swords already in hand.
"I seem to keep running into you morons." Vanessa muttered as she looked at Mara.
"Vine whip swords entangle!" Mara shouted causing her sword to turn into vines and entangled Vanessa!
"Too easy." Vanessa responded and fired a few shots off, causing the vine to break apart!
"Why are you killing these people? A majority of them have done nothing to deserve this from you." Mara asked.
"To get revenge on the ones who wronged me!" Vanessa shouted her red soulless eyes staring into Mira's.
"If this is what you believe will bring your revenge for the one who is controlling you, I will stop you!" Mara explained."
"This is really starting to get old!" Vanessa responded.
"I don't get why you even care since you aren't really fighting anybody." The Author added.
"Vine whip sword entangle!" Mara shouted, causing a deer to appear and charge at her opponent! When the deer hit Vanessa, the vines reappeared around her!
"Bullet Hell!" Vanessa responded and fired on full auto, shredding the vines to pieces. She then switched full auto off and turned a corner. She shot through many more of the classrooms along the way. "Finally, I've reached the last few classrooms." Vanessa thought, just as Nina jumped out at her, shocking the living hell out of her for a second.
"Surprise, I found you!" Nina responded as Vanessa approached her cautiously.
"Ever hear of the words, give up?" Vanessa asked as she glared at Nina.
"Yes and I'm not going to do what the words mean at all!" Nina happily explained as she unsheathed her butterfly swords and slashed Vanessa causing her to drop her guns onto the ground.
"Don't you even dare do what you're thinking about doing at all!" Vanessa responded as Nina grinned.
"Oopsie I did it!" Nina added childishly and purposely stamped on both guns with her high heels for a whole three minutes until they were all just pieces of metal.
"So you're the last line of defense before I reach Ace." Vanessa added." How pathetic, you're not even worth my time whatsoever!" Then she slammed Nina into the hallway wall multiple times. She just wanted to see her suffer.
"If I'm a waste of time then why are you even bothering with me?" Nina asked as she gave a cocky grin to her opponent. Vanessa then repeatedly kicked her a few times on the ground, leaving Nina in a battered and beaten state.
"I want to have one less threat that I have to take care of." Vanessa answered as she laughed at Nina's suffering.
"Leave me alone!" Nina shouted and slashed her opponent as she got back up.
"Go away, bitch!" Vanessa responded and pushed Nina into the wall again and turned a corner only for a dragon spirit to hit her and caused its beam effect to activate and hit her again as Nina just watched.
"I'm amazed that you haven't taken the coward way out." Ace responded sarcastically as Vanessa approached him. He somehow knew where she would end up. Right now, how he did it didn't matter at all. All that mattered was the fact that he was standing in her way.
"I see you're still mad about what I did to your tiger friend earlier." Vanessa responded, quite happy about it.
"I'm just amazed you had the guts to do what you did." Ace added." When we were kids, I was always the one who had to protect you from all the bullies and weird stuff that wanted to hurt you."
"How so much has changed." Vanessa answered." And yet you wonder why I went down this path…"
Flashback…
"Leave her alone, you big bully!" Ace shouted as he ran over to Vanessa.
"What are you going to do?" The bully, a weird looking girl that looked like an Angel asked.
"I'm going to fight back!" Ace shouted and started to slash at the Angel. The Angel dodged his attack and grabbed Vanessa.
"You are really out my league, child." The Angel taunted and teleported away. Ace looked down at himself. He wasn't strong enough to save his friend. ISo he headed home.
Flashback end…
"Its funny how destiny can easily change in a blink of an eye." Vanessa taunted as Ace looked at her.
"Right now, that doesn't really matter at all." Ace explained as Vanessa swung her cutlasses only to miss.
"Empress Destroyer!" Vanessa shouted and lunged at Ace, only for a dragon flame to hit her!
"What just happened?" Ace thought and slashed his opponent, causing her to drop her cutlasses on to the ground.
"I won't surrender that easily." Vanessa responded as Nina, Mara, Kalin, Mark, and Aurora ran up to them.
"We got you outmatched!" Nina shouted only for Vanessa to create an orb and then she launched it at Nina and Ace.
"Now you will die!" Vanessa responded only for Mara to take the killer blow.
"Why did you do that?" Ace asked.
"Because it is my destiny for this to happen." Mara explained as she slumped over onto the ground.
"Next time I meet you morons, I will crush you!" Vanessa explained as she teleported out.
"Their deaths kind of seem to be meaningless in a sense." Ace responded as they walked out of the school.
"Are you Ace Resterez?" A man asked. He wore a black cloak with the hood over his head.
"Yes." Ace added as he looked at the man.
"I'm Kane. I'm the grandmaster hunter for this area." Kane explained.
"Then why did you come over here?" Nina asked.
"As the only surviving hunters of this massacre, I would like to promote the five of you to master." Kane explained.
"We accept your offer." Ace responded as they walked away…
.
"Well at least we won't need to worry about that floating head of anti fourth wall breaking." Valia responded, happily.
"Well at least you more people to rule over." Hera added as The Author looked at her.
"I guess you're right about that." The Author responded.
.
Only a few minutes had passed since the Hunters had left. The screams that flowed through the halls had stopped long before that. Almost everybody in there was dead now. Almost. The Black Cat looked around the hallway.
"Why did she have to go through with this?" She thought as she looked at Jared's corpse. The folder on him was gone now, but that didn't matter. She was happy that the folder was stolen. It revealed much, but she didn't mind at all. However, she couldn't dilly dally at all right now. She had to move fast in order for everything to work the way she wanted it to. As she walked, she noticed the devastation that occurred within these halls. She turned a corner and noticed Mara's corpse. She quickly approached the corpse and checked its pulse. Surprisingly, there still was one. She then pulled out a vial of red liquid and poured it down Mara's throat. Almost immediately, Mara's eyes opened and she returned to life.
"Thanks, but what took you so long?!" Mara responded as she looked at The Black Cat.
"I had to wait until the coast was clear to get you." The Black Cat responded. "Hurry, we don't have much time." After she said that they ran out of the school.