Disclaimer: Koei owns the stuff...

Chapter 9

Learning a Lesson

Darrel stood stock still, not wanting to take the full hit of the crossbow right behind his head. Darrel closed his eyes and smirked. "Hey girl. How are you...able ta shoot arrows from yo crossbow when you got no arrows?" Darrel thought he heard her body shift a little.

"Have you ever heard of musou?" Darrel opened his eyes and tried to think.

"Nah, neva heard of it, why?"

Elizabeth still held her crossbow behind Darrel's back while she spoke. "Musou is like energy that helps us use our powers. If we can will our energy into a particular thing or action, it may make a certain action take place. Take my musou arrows for example. I usually will my musou energy to collect near the tip of my crossbow and form into an arrow bolt. Then I can just fire it normally. If you can will YOUR musou energy into a solidified form of a rock, you wouldn't need any ammo." Darrel went wide-eyed. He never really thought of that. Wait, he never even knew about musou until now.

"So...musou is like our energy source ta use strong attacks, huh?" Darrel sensed that she nodded. "Hm, okay, thanks fo' tellin' me." With that remark Darrel spun around using his slingshot to knock her crossbow arm away. Darrel then closed his eyes and imagined that blue energy from his body zapped all the way to his slingshot. Darrel pulled his rubber band and let go. Opening his eyes he saw a round blue ball fly towards Elizabeth and knocked her back to the wall.

"Geh, you learned pretty quick black boy. But let me show you REAL musou projectiles." Elizabeth raised her crossbow up and started shooting out blue arrows towards Darrel's position.

Darrel side-stepped the arrows and shot back some of his own musou rocks. "Hehe, thanks fo' tellin' me girl. Dis musou thing is actually betta den my normal rocks. Speed is improved and so is the strength." Darrel formed several more musou rocks and shot them towards Elizabeth. 2 of the musou rocks hit Elizabeth in the stomach and 1 of them at her leg.

"You're getting overconfident black boy. Let me show you REAL power!" Elizabeth raised her crossbow above her head and started to chant some words. "Shoot, Tempest Eye! Your mark has been running away from you for a while. Just one shot left or else your prey will escape! Hurry, shoot him down!" Elizabeth's eyes turned dark blue and with that, her crossbow started to shine bright white.

Darrel stared in awe at her crossbow. "What da, how is that..."

Before he finished his sentence, a huge explosion engulfed Elizabeth and several red arrows scattered around the room. Darrel dodged several of them, but the last one hit him in the leg, making him fall to his knees. Looking at his leg, blood was spilling from a wound that was shaped like a hole.

"Dang, da arrow just shot through ma leg." Darrel cursed under his breath and struggled to get up. He was amazed at what he saw.

Elizabeth's crossbow was turned into a bone-like crossbow. The other difference was that her earrings turned into a white bone. Elizabeth raised her bone crossbow and shot out a red arrow which zipped right past Darrel's ears.

"Hehe, you missed girl." Darrel smirked at her and raised his slingshot...until he felt a burning sensation from his ear.

"I don't think I missed at all. You see, Tempest Eye has the ability to burn anything that is in and out of its way. Your ear right now...it's bleeding." Darrel slowly touched his ear and instinctively pulled his hands in front of his face. What he saw was blood on his fingers.

"No...way. Dat means..." Darrel looked behind and saw that the arrow went though the wall, melting the edges of the wall. "H-how did you transform yo weapon like dat?"

Elizabeth gave a shy smile. "I had to train to use Weapon Fusion for 3 months. It took me awhile, but I finally got the hang of it." Darrel couldn't contain his amazement.

"D-dat's amazing! Robert also used his Weapon Fusion! Aw man, I wanna try it out!" By the mention of Robert's name, Elizabeth looked up and gazed at Darrel.

"You know...Robert?" Darrel looked at her funny.

"Do I know em? Of course I do! He's in our Coalition Army!"

Elizabeth lowered her head and started to blush. "He's...in the Coalition Army? Why?" Darrel was wrapping a cloth from his pouch to his ear to stop the bleeding.

"Why? He wants ta beat Orochi, dat's why. Actually, everyone includin' me wants ta beat Orochi. We would neva have the oppurtunity if Will neva arrived." Elizabeth looked up and stared at Darrel, hard.

"Will? You mean that boy named Will Priston?" Darrel nodded in approval.

"Yep, dat's da one. Anyways, too much talkin'. We need ta finish dis, let's go!" Darrel loaded and shot a musou rock towards Elizabeth but she just shot her arrow and made the musou rock melt away. Darrel dived away sideways to dodge the burning arrow. Darrel rolled to recover and loaded. Darrel closed his eyes and imagined that 7 rocks were loaded into one finger. With a release, when Darrel opened his eyes he saw 7 blue musou rocks fly towards Elizabeth. Elizabeth shot her burning arrow which melted 6 rocks, but the last one scraped her cheek, which made some blood appear from the wound.

Elizabeth touched her cheek and suddenly got an angered expression on her face. "You...you ruined my face! Now I...now I can't look at Robert anymore!" Darrel scratched his afro in confusion.

"Why would yah want ta look at Robert fo'? He's too old for yah." Elizabeth went wide-eyed and blushed madly.

"How should you know how I feel? You're just...a dumb black boy!" Elizabeth placed both her hands on her bone crossbow and a huge red arrow was charging at the tip of the crossbow. Darrel just stood there, staring at the arrow.

"Take this!" Elizabeth shot out the arrow but got sent back to the wall by the recoil of the shot. The arrow almost reached Darrel when a huge windstorm slashed the arrow in two, causing an explosion in the process. "What? How can you..." Elizabeth turned bright red when a white armored man walked through the dust and debris. Robert stood there with his Waning Ryu propped on his shoulders.

"Hello Elizabeth, I see you're fighting one of my comrades." Robert looked behind him and saw Darrel laying on the ground, dazed.

Elizabeth looked straight at Robert and yelled in a loud voice, "Why...why are you working with some little kid? Is he stronger than Orochi? How would you know..." Before she finished her rant, Robert slashed Waning Ryu downward, sending a sonic boom towards her. Elizabeth jumped and shot a red arrow towards the sonic boom. The two attacks collided, but the arrow suddenly dissipated and the sonic boom went straight towards her. Elizabeth screamed as she went through 3 walls and out the castle. Robert noticed Darrel getting up from his dazed state and then walked away.

"R...Robert? Is dat you?" Robert stopped and turned around to face Darrel.

"Hehe, who'd yah think it was? Some other guy with white hair?" Darrel smiled, but noticed that Robert's eyes were red.

"Hey, you..."

"Yeah, I'm okay. Come on, we better find Will." With that both Robert and Darrel ran straight towards the stairs where Will took.

THE BACK DOOR AREA

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Lie Tsu and Mao Tsu ran all the way to the back of the castle, beating up some snake soldiers along the way. "Ha! They have guards patrolling the back but not the front? Geez, surveillance is so bad here, don't yah think so son?" Mao Tsu was looking ahead with a sad expression on his face. "Oh...what's wrong Mao?"

"Papa, do you think that the guys will save Mama? What if she's..." Lie Tsu stopped running, which made Mao Tsu stop as well.

"My son, don't ever think like that. You have to believe that Mama is alright and that she's safe. I bet the guys will find her before us. Just don't worry. And anyways, if we find her, we'll be the heroes!" Mao Tsu smiled from his dad's comment. "Now, let's go!"

They both continued to run until they stopped at a back door. The door was wooden and wasn't as big as the front door of the castle. When they turned the knob to open the door, they were REALLY surprised at what was inside. There was a huge lobby with a wooden table with a spread out map. Chairs were tucked into the table. A huge map boards-like stand was in front of the table. No one was inside.

"Papa, are you sure no one is inside?" Mao Tsu tried to look past his dad's shoulders.

"Yes, I'm sure. This is some kind of strategy meeting room. There should be many officers and generals here, but there aren't any right now. Let's go." Lie Tsu and Mao Tsu slipped through into the room and looked around the place. There were several windows that let in the sun's rays. Dust was collecting on the map and the chair and board stand was too. "Wow, no one has been using this room, huh Papa?" Lie Tsu had a grim expression on his face.

"We have company my son." When they stood back to back, snake troops were spilling into the room. They were all armed with swords and axes and had sneers on their faces.

"Hey boss, we caught the intruders." The snake soldiers were stepping aside as a huge, fat asian man came into the room. And he was holding a very HUGE flail. The round ball was as big as a closet, and as it crashed through the wall, Lie Tsu and Mao Tsu went wide-eyed.

"This is not good Papa," whispered Mao Tsu. The fat, asian man glanced at both Lie and Mao Tsu and started to laugh a guttural laugh.

"Well, well, it seems my minions have trapped you. If you surrender and follow me, no harm will be done to you." Lie and Mao Tsu looked at each other and broke the back-to-back defense. Lie Tsu hung his head down.

"We'll...we'll follow you." The fat asian man smiled ear to ear.

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A/N: Yeah, for some reason, I feel that the Darrel to Elizabeth fight felt boring. Oh well, the other fight will be cooler. But, now Lie Tsu and Mao Tsu has been trapped in a room with snake soldiers and that fat asian man! And they accepted to follow him! OH NOES!! Anyways, please Read and Review. Encouragement and good criticism is good for a writer...I think. (ALSO ACCEPTING BIOS. CHECK MY PROFILE FOR INFO!)