A/N: As it's the holidays, I promise to post a LOT more on this story. The good thing is, I have worked out the plot! I know, I know, it's quite an achievement on a story which is made up as I go along... anyway, back in the land of the sane... Hope you enjoy this chapter, sorry if it's a bit patchy. That will be because the cute lil psycho kittens with claws that I mentioned before seem to love jumping into my lap and fighting... Also, I apologise for any OOCness from any of the characters... now read the damn thing.
Disclaimer: Oh, go away. If you haven't got the idea by now, you never will. It's been ten freaking chapters, for crying out loud...
And now the strategy was finished down to the last tiniest detail, the soldier's positions were plotted on the map, the orders were given, and the officers sat on their horses, nervously fingering their blades in anticipation for the battle. Na and Sying rode side by side on near identical horses, staring up the river at the oncoming Wei naval force and shivering slightly. Down the river, where Cao Cao was to escape, if he was at all, Shang Xiang pulled herself up into a tree, the better to keep an eye on the proceedings, and helping prepare for the wounded, Xun scurried around with the rest of the medics. The atmosphere was electric as the final preparations were made, and as people shuffled into position, even the wildlife was silent. It was the quiet before the storm.
Sying glanced across at his sister. She met his gaze, and nodded slightly. He returned the gesture, and turned back to the ships. The twins had been placed in the middle of the front line - from that position they were able to help others and cut a path straight through the Wei troops - and now they sat in wait for the battle to begin.
Suddenly, there was a thud and jolt as the boats drifted together, and soldiers clad in the blue of Wei flooded over the side to be met by swords and spears. The twins leapt into action, Na slashing with her fearsome Twin Wonders, and flashes of a blade charged up with pure elemental power came from Sying's direction.
Just as the first wave disintegrated, a messenger ran up to them.
"Lord Pang Tong of Shu requests assistance with destroying the bridges connecting the ships!" he said, panting, before plunging on to the next general.
"I'll go! You hold the front!" Na shouted over the noise of clashing blades and gristly noises, before galloping off. As she neared the bridge in question, she wasn't suprised to find a sub-general and a few dozen soldiers keeping watch on the front line. They began coursing towards her, making clumsy hacks at her in an attemt to unsadle her. Na gripped the nervous horse between her knees and picked off the soldiers huddled around her.
Out of nowhere a blade came, aimed at her stomach. She was forced to somersault backwards off the skittish creature, but managed to scythe a couple of heads off in the process.
As she stood up, the soldiers spread out in a wary circle around her. As she turned to view them all, one came at her from behind. She span around, holding her blade at stomach level, and heard a satisfying scream as it made contact. A few more soldiers closed in on her, forcing her to side-kick one of them, before a quick somersault took care of the rest of them.
All that was left was a couple of soldiers, and the sub-general. Taking care not to let her guard drop, Na peered at the sub-generals face.
"You're Cai Mao, aren't you?"
The braver soldier ran at her from behind. Without even looking, she thrust one of her weapons behind her, and straight into the stomach of the soldier.
"Remember the guy who whipped you at Xia Kou?" she said to the motionless sub-general.
The other soldier chose this minute to creep up on her. Na did a couple of somersaults, holding her Twin Wonders out vertically. When she landed, the luckless soldier's head was rolling away, and the body collapsed in a growing pool of blood. Na turned back to Mao, who hadn't moved, scraping a bit of hair out of her face as she approached him.
"I'm his sister." she hissed, before launching into a volley of attacks. More by luck than anything, he blocked most of the attacks, and even got a couple of slashes of his own in. Na gritted her teeth, crouched down low, stuck her leg out, and took Mao's legs out from underneath him. He landed heavily, and watched sullenly from the ground as Na advanced.
"It won't work, you know." he muttered. Na hesitated.
"What won't?" she said. Mao grinned.
"Na!"
She turned around to see Sying run up to her. He also seemed to have lost his horse. She turned around to Mao just in time to see him scramble up and run. Cursing softly, Na flipped a small knife from her belt, and threw it after him. It hit him in the arm, but he carried on running.
"Leave him, Na." said Sying, coming up level with her.
"Why are you here?" she asked, turning to him. He shrugged.
"The soldiers know what they should be doing. I left someone in charge of your unit, too. All the soldiers were dead down there, anyway. I just want to get this over with."
He took a couple of steps forward.
"Shall we get going?" he said over his shoulder. Na nodded, and followed her brother off the bridge.
They had only taken a couple of steps when there was a large splash behind them. They span around to see that the bridge was gone. Sying shrugged.
"We'll be fine." he said, flicking his sword out of it's hilt in the staff. Further up the ship, several soldiers had noticed them, and had begun to run. Sying's sword began to glow faintly as he summoned the elements. Na looked down to see that her blades were also beginning to glow. She blinked, before looking up at the rapidly nearing soldiers. Dropping into a battle stance, she waited until the right moment before quickly unleashing a volley of attacks. From the corner of her eye, she could see Sying deal a few blows with his elementally charged blade that took out several soldiers. She ducked, slashed, kneed, and stabbed her way through the soldiers, but more and more kept coming. Sighing in frustration, she dived back into the fray.
Sying, on the other hand, had stopped fighting. Retreating behind the whirring shield that was his sister, he summoned the only element that could deal with all the soldiers surrounding them. After several seconds furious mumbling, and a couple of vague guestures, he theatrically raised one arm to the heavens before bringing it swishing down like the blade of a guillotine. Above them, the clouds broiled furiously before an almighty bolt of lightning speared down from the centre. Na jumped back as the bolt struck the soldier in the middle of the brawl, and spread out in a shockwave that killed every soldier it touched.
Na turned to Sying with a look of admiration in her eyes, before turning back to the scene of carnage before them.
The twins ploughed on, killing all the soldiers that dared to challenge them, before finally reaching the ship that Cao Cao stood on.
"He's mine." Sying growled when they saw the Wei ruler. Na dispatched the soldier she was fighting, and turned to see Sying marching determinedly towards Cao Cao. She was beginning to worry. Didn't the other Wu generals need assistance? What had happened to the plan that was so carefully and thoroughly constructed? But she knew even as she ran after her brother that they'd just passed the line of turning back.
Cao Cao turned to face them as they approached. A strange smile was on his face, and something that had been bothering Na for the last minute or so finally made itself known. Her eyes widened as she realised. There were no soldiers; the thing Mao had mentioned before running, and now the expression of total and utter delight and greed dominating Cao Cao's face: It was a trap.
"Sying! No! It's-" Na's desparate cry was cut off as Mao stepped out of the shadows and used the blade of his hand on the back of her neck. Sying paused, and turned back to see Na collapse on the ground.
"Na!" He cried, beginning to run back to her. He had only gone a couple of steps when Cao Cao swiftly smashed the hilt of his weapon into the side of his head. As purple spots exploded in front of his eyes, he reached out for his sister, and silently crumpled to the ground as the light faded.
From her perch in the tree, Shang Xiang knew something was wrong. Her gut suddenly clenched as she watched the entire Wei army retreat onto the main ships, and even as she looked on, they began to detatch from the rest of the fleet. She desparately scanned the remaining ships for any sign of Sying or Na, but they were nowhere in sight. She turned her gaze to the departing ships, and immediately felt nauseous as she saw a couple of figures clad in red being dragged across the deck of the leading ship. Even from that distance the little distinguishing features of the twins were clear, and she knew that their two best warriors were in great danger at the hands of Wu's mortal enemy.
"My lady! Are you okay?"
Shang Xiang dropped her horrified gaze to see a couple of her bodyguards peering up at her concernedly. She jumped down out of the tree and landed unsteadily. The bodyguards looked at each other, before one climbed up the tree to see what had disturbed their mistress so. She gasped as she saw the Wei ships pulling away, immediately dropping down from amongst the branches.
"The Wei army is retreating!" she hissed at the other woman.
"And they've taken Na and Sying with them..." came the shakey voice of Shang Xiang from behind them. They both turned around to see the princess on her horse, scanning the horizon for the path down to the main camp. As the worried women opened their mouths to protest, Shang Xiang took off on her horse.
As the low branches whipped at her, she only thought of reaching the main camp. She didn't want to give herself the chance to think about the horrors the twins were facing. But then she thought of something - the little tent village of the medics, where Xun was helping, was in her path. Xun had to know that Na was in danger.
She lowered herself on the horse and urged it on through several copses and over a couple of streams, before she finally caught sight of the tent Xun was working in. As she neared, Xun walked out of the tent, looking around for the source of the hoofbeats.
"Shang! What are you doing here?" he asked in suprise.
"Xun, it's Na... Wei got her and Sying... they only came here to get them, and now they have... god, they're in so much danger!" she managed to sob.
"What? How do you know?" Xun asked, visibly paled.
"I saw them... The whole of the Wei army has retreated, and I saw Na and Sying being dragged off on the main ship..."
"How did you know it was them?"
"I just did, Xun! They're in so much danger..." she broke down into uncontrolled sobs. Xun stared at her for a couple of seconds before vanishing back into the tent. There was a bit of muffled conversation before he reemerged, nervously fingering the hilt of one of his swords, and swung himself up onto the back of his own horse.
"I don't want to know how they retreated, Yu, I want to know why! Last I heard, a whole army doesn't just retreat when they appear to have the upper hand!" Quan said hotly.
"My lord, I don't know why they retreated." Yu calmly told him. "Are all the generals back?" he asked a runner that had just entered the tent. The runner bowed to them both before replying.
"My lords, all the generals are outside apart from Lord Huang Gai, Lord Sying Long and Lady Na Mei." he told them slightly breathlessly.
"Huang Gai wanted to check none of the Wei officers are waiting to ambush us, and Sying Long and Na Mei were right at the front line anyway." Yu muttered to himself before dismissing the runner, who bowed again before exiting. Yu turned back to Quan.
"If all the generals are back safely, that rules out capture, and I doubt very much they managed to discover our plan. We will have to wait for the twins and Huang Gai to return. In the meantime, I have sent a message to those stationed further up the river to return immediately. There is a chance one of them can shed some light on the situation." he said.
"Hmm." Quan stumped off to his seat, and sat down, his head rested on his fist.
The tense silence was broken by Huang Gai entering the tent. He nodded to Yu, and bowed to Quan.
"My lord," he said to Quan, "There are no ambush parties or soldiers left on our ships apart from the dead."
Quan nodded.
"Did you see Sying Long or Na Mei?" he asked.
"No, my lord." Gai said, bowing low before exiting the tent. Yu turned to Quan again.
"Maybe we should ask the other generals if they have seen them?" he suggested. Quan waved it off.
"They'll turn up."
Once again, silence descended like a gloomy shroud, briefly punctuated by the everyday background noises from outside. The truth was, Quan was worried. Very worried. He knew Cai Mao was one of the opposing sub-generals in the battle, and he had been present at the death of his father, and someone who could carry a grudge for a long time. And he also knew that Sying Long had defeated him at Xia Kou.
He sighed, just as someone else entered the tent. He looked up to see the worried and tear-stained face of Shang Xiang, closely followed by Lu Xun.
"Shang!" he said as he stood up. "What's up?"
"The Wei army has Na and Sying!" Shang Xiang blurted out.
"What? How do you know?" said Quan, taking an involuntary step backwards. He fell silent as Shang Xiang told him what she had seen.
"But why would they go to so much trouble just to capture Sying and Na?" she finished.
"There's any amount of reasons. They're by far our best warriors, Cai Mao will want to get Sying back for the defeat at Xia Kou, you say you saw Na take him down this time, or they could just have been in the wrong place at the wrong time." Yu explained. "But, like you said, they are in great danger. May I suggest an emergency meeting?" He addressed this last part to Quan, who nodded.
"Shang, you might want to go splash some water on your face first." he said. She nodded, sniffing, and exited the tent.
"Xun, if you could tell the others to come in..." said Yu. Xun nodded.
He stepped outside, and as he told the other generals what was going on, he couldn't help wondering if he was ever going to see Na alive again.
A/N: Muahahahaha! I am evil, aren't I? As I said, sorry for any OOCness. Once again, I enjoyed writing that. There's something about mindless violence that's quite relaxing... Aaanyway, enough of my semi-sane ramblings, please review! And I'll see y'all when we catch up with Na and Sying (I'm quite looking forward to writing that P). Toodles, people!