After all that soppy stuff, it's time for some castle raiding action...well, sort of!

The Castle Break-In

The sun had begun to go down, it was almost the start of the evening, but I had a gut feeling that something huge was going to happen. After spending an hour of taking a rest with Noire who rested beside me, we went to the big room with the Sharicite crystal where Histy was feeling a little down and disappointed in herself.

"Histoire, how's the sharicite?" Noire asked.

"Ah, Noire." Histy sighed. "If I am completely honest, not much has changed on my end. (-_-)"

"So you haven't been able to dig up any new information through your research?" Blanc asked.

"Right. It is a given that something is happening to the Shares, but I am uncertain on what it could be. (~_~)"

"Well, I think I may have a theory." I said.

"A theory?"

"Yeah...I need to ask you something important as well."

"Ask away, Randy."

I nodded. "Histy, have you ever heard of Arfoire?"

An exclamation mark appeared on Histy's side. "Why...y-y-yes, I seem to recall that name from before! (O_O)"

"Well, I only know the name, so I'm wondering what was she like or who was she in detail."

"My memory is a little vague as it has been so long. But from what I know, Arfoire was once a dangerous being, determined to destroy Gamarket by taking away all the shares. She once created a fortress castle in the center of this land and she needed to be stopped, however, her plans were stopped by the heroines of Gamarket and the land was saved when she was sealed away. However, that was a very long time ago, why do you ask?"

"Because when I was captured, I saw Leon the Bounty Hunter who's determined to take me back to his client dead or alive and I'm worth a lot of money as well. The other person I saw was a woman and she more or less matched the description of the fortune teller, Eno."

"Oh my...then in other words." Vert said.

"Yes...it is now possible that Eno is Arfoire incarnate." Histy confirmed.

"Well done for solving my true identity, but you are already too late." A voice intervened.

We turned around to see that witch I saw back at the underground facility.

"Who's the old hag?" Neptune asked.

"It must be Arfoire!" I exclaimed. "Don't let your guards down."

"Oh my, so that's her?" Vert asked. "So you are the one behind all of this?"

"My, my, you're all appear to be smarter than I thought." Arfoire remarked. "But as I said, you are too late, behold!"

Suddenly, the glow of the light blue sharicite crystals turned into purple.

"What is this?!" Noire exclaimed. "It's bright, but...so dark."

"The time has finally come." Arfoire declared. "The time for Arfoire's power to flood this pathetic world!"

"The power of Arfoire...so you are the being who aimed to crush Gamarket?" Blanc asked.

"Yes. I am indeed Arfoire. The one who united Gamarket in the distant past." Arfoire replied. "While you were preoccupied, I took the liberty of tainting each city's shares."

"Which in turn leads to these...dark shares which is what I call it right now." I said. "What are they and what would happen if there are so many at once?"

"Powers bred from darkness. Hatred, fear, evil itself...they shall choke this world! Isn't it marvelous?"

I smirked. "Sounds like a cliche movie plot destined to fail."

"And why do you care? You cannot stop me, either!"

Suddenly, the ground began to rumble like an earthquake.

"All the Shares are being tainted by the power of Arfoire!" Histy exclaimed. "Such might, what is going on here?! (O_O)"

"Remember the run in you had with Leon? He and I have formed an unholy alliance until my ambition comes forth, but he too will fail to be cautious with me around."

"What do you mean?"

The ground began to rumble even more.

"We have no time to answer, let's get out of here!" Noire exclaimed.

I took her hand and we dashed out of the Sharicite room and we caught our breaths by the entrance to the basilicom.

"You okay, girls?" I asked.

"Not a dent on my frame, buddy?" Neptune answered. "How about you, Vertalicious?"

"I seem to be unscathed." Vert replied.

"This is turning out to be worse than anybody expected." Blanc added.

I then saw the mountains in the distance that began to crumble. "Everyone, look over there!"

The evening sky had just arrived and the mountains broke away, causing several landslides around the areas and from the ashes rose a giant castle with four entrance routes.

"Is that an ancient castle?" Vert asked.

"Indeed. It was sealed with Arfoire long, long ago." Histy answered. "It is now positive that Eno is indeed Arfoire incarnate. (O_O)"

"So what the heck are we supposed to do?" I asked.

"It would appear as though we need to defeat Arfoire in order for the Sharicite to normalize. (-_-)"

"What about Leon, because I'm concerned that if he sees me, he will not hesitate to take any of you down just to get to me."

"Don't worry about that, Randy." Noire assured. "That's also the reason why we need to gather up the Generals together, can you do that?"

I nodded. "Yeah, I'll use the power of plot advancement to travel to each city and gather them all together by Lastation."

"Now ya talkin' buddy." Neptune said.

Well, it didn't take long to gather them up outside Lastation's basilicom, I think some of them were even willing to come along since it was me asking them. We had all met up outside the building with me, Noire and Histy looking at the entire party, it was kind of a small army we had formed and preparing to go to battle with.

Noire and I explained in detail what had happened and they all had similar reactions and feelings, although Saori chose to vow that she will protect me from Leon.

"Well, I think we're all in agreement on this one." I said.

"Then if we let things stand, our powers will be gone. Arfoire must be stopped." Noire replied. "That said, I'll ask one more time. Will you all join us? Will you come and put a stop the Dark Shares, and face Arfoire's unknown powers?"

Everyone of us nodded in agreement with determined and serious looks on our faces.

"Thank you everyone, our next stop is Arfoire's Castle, let's go everyone!"

"YEAH!" We all responded with conviction.

"It is wonderful to see all of you wanting to protect this world." Histy said. "I wish you all the best of fortune. (^_^)"

"Thanks Histy, we'll make sure to come back in one piece." I replied before giving Histy a hug.

"Oh Randy, you devotion to sharing your affection can never be matched. (*^_^*)"

"Okay, let's get going." Noire said as she took my hand.

We made our way out of Lastation and walked along the paths whilst noticing the moon beginning to rise in the night sky, we then found a pathway that would lead up to whatever is left of the mountains. Noire lead the way with me beside her whilst holding hands, she was blushing, but she was smiling, we're going to get through this together. We then stopped at one of the four bridges that led to the castle gates, there were four at the end of each bridge and they were all guarded, crawling with monsters galore! Some of the generals who volunteered as scouts went on ahead, so we had to wait for now.

"Well this is pretty obvious." I commented. "There ain't no way we're getting into that fun house."

"Can't we just slap on our skin-tight CPU duds and proceed with the bagging and tagging?" Neptune asked.

"This isn't Battlefield, Nep." I rolled my eyes. "Although, it would be kinda cool if we all had weapons like rocket launchers, auto-shotguns, a BFG 10K..."

"Now you're talking." Vio said happily. "If we launch a rocket at an exploding barrel, it'll create a way through."

Generia didn't seem to agree. "That strategy feels a tad too optimistic for me."

"Why's that?" Moru asked.

"If I was in that castle, I would defend it against a direct focused siege."

"So in other words." Blossom said. "If we struggle against to break just one of four defenses, we'll never get through here."

"There appears to be heck of a lot of monsters around, there's even a few soldiers too...that means Leon is inside the castle as well." I sighed. "I'm not looking forward to meeting him again."

"Worse still, they could use our limited numbers to bottleneck us" Tsunemi added.

"Let's wait for the scouts to come back and hear what they have to say." Blanc said.

We waited for a few more minutes until the few generals we sent out came back.

"I've mapped out the general layout of the building's interior and may have found our ticket inside." Lid said.

"Basically, any attempt we would make to destroy the front gate would prove to be quite troublesome." Ryuka added.

Little Rain looked a little tired. "I tried, but...the gate isn't just strong, it was nullifying my attacks completely."

"There appears to be a certain condition that must be met before any attacks can affect the gate." Resta explained.

"What kind of condition is it?" I asked.

"We know that too." Lid answered confidently.

"Oh my goooooosh!" Neptune exclaimed.

"Shut up, nobody gets the reference." Blanc told her.

Neptune slinked back away in disappointment...was that a internet meme reference?

"There's a gate on each of the four sides and a guardian watching over each." Lid explained. "Some of them have soldiers guarding as well and they're heavily armed, it seems that confronting Leon will be unavoidable for all of us."

"And what power is required to fell the guardians of the abyss?" Ein Al asked.

"Yeah, I wanna know too!" Estelle added. "I bet it's gonna be some kind of legendary attack strategy."

"Well whatever they are, we just have to defeat them." I said. "Kill or be killed as they say in FPS games. I must say that you were very brave to do this, Lid."

Lid began to blush. "Well, it was a little scary, I almost wanted to hide in my cardboard box!"

"Now, now, no need to get so defensive." Vert teased.

"I wasn't being depensive...being dipthensive...b-being...ugh!" She cleared her throat. "Long story short, the four guardians share the same health bar. Need it to sound less game mechanic-y?"

"Nope, that works perfectly for me and in order for it to work, we need to defeat them at almost exactly the same time?"

"Yeeeeeeah! That's exactly what I was thinking." Poona said happily. "I know, you want to say. 'Poona, you're sooooo smart'."

"Basically, we need to split up and attack in four groups, right?" Saori asked.

I nodded. "I think you hit the nail on the head there."

"Hmm, Im not sure about breaking up our limited numbers, but let's give it a shot." Noire replied.

"Oh hohohoho, it is once again my time to lead an army and attain my ambitions." Sango boasted.

"Actually, I think the CPUs should be the ones to act as a leader for one of four groups." I suggested. "Sorry, Sango."

Sango's mood deflated, but she understood where I was going with this.

"I like where ya head's at, Randy-bud." Neptune praised. "That'll put us main characters back in the lime colored spotlight."

"All right! Time to show what a true superstar athlete can do!" Wyn beamed with pride.

"I'm gonna do my super duper best for Gamarket's future!" Ai added.

"So how will you four girls pick the teams?" I asked.

"We'll just pick our own like we used to back in gym class." Blanc answered.

I blinked. "Wait, you all used to go to the same gym?"

"Don't sweat the small stuff, buddy." Neptune said. "Just roll with it."

I sighed in defeat. "Okay..."

"Alright, I'll get first pick and then everyone else can pick one each in a rotation order." Noire declared. "But before I do, I want Randy to come with me."

"Of course, I'll feel safe." I held her hand. "Although I would like to have a few other generals who want to protect me and you, just in case."

"Yeah, that's what we're doing."

Noire went ahead and picked her team, she chose Lid, Ai, Saori and Wyn to help us and all of them were happy to follow through with it. Neptune picked Blossom, Tsunemi, Ryuka and Little Rain. Vert went with Sango, Estelle, Ein Al, Lee-Fi and Generia G and Blanc chose Moru, Poona, Lady Wac, Vio and Resta. With the teams now decided, it was time to raid the castle gates. Our teams split up and stood at one of the four entrances as we started making our way across the bridges.

We arrived near the castle gate on our end. In our view were a pair of spiders and flowers, followed by four horsebirds and at the top near the gate was a phoenix and a pair of heavily armed soldiers. I better make damn sure they don't see me or I'll be in danger if I don't keep my guard up. Fortunately, I had fully recovered, so I could fight again.

The battle was underway since the spiders and walking flowers spotted us first, the other monsters hadn't seen us yet. Ai and Wyn dealt with the spiders whilst Lid and Saori eliminated the walking flowers. Noire and I flew in sync and took out the first of the four horsebirds. It felt great to be fighting with my gloves again and I had also gotten stronger then before, compared to reaching level 2 on my first day. Ai and Wyn eliminated the second horsebird whilst Saori and Lid took out the third one, leaving the last one for me and Noire to take down.

Now all that left was the phoenix and the two guards, the massive flying bird noticed us and proceeded to attack us, but we dodged its attacks. We all had to work together to bring it down, we were now at the gates, but the two soldiers held their guns at us...well in a more accurate way, they were being aimed at me.

"Halt intruders! One of the guards ordered. "Mister Randall Peters, you're coming with us!"

Noire and Saori stood in front of me, looking at the guards with serious looks.

"Out of the way, mams!" The other guard ordered.

"We will not allow you to harm Randy-san!" Saori stood her ground.

"Yeah, so screw you, assholes!" Noire added, refusing to move.

The two attacked the guards with brute force and they vanished into pixels...so, that means they're not real people...well, that makes things a lot easier for us. With the guardian defeated, the gate began to open and it showed the main entrance area where there were three other entrance gates that hadn't been opened yet. After a long while, the other three gates began to open and in came the rest of our party.

"The gates are all open!" Noire pointed out the obvious. "Now's our chance!"

"Charrrrrrge!" Neptune exclaimed.

"Seeeeee you insiiiiiiiide." Poona added.

We made our way through the door inside the main castle itself, it was time to go and do battle with Arfoire...but first, we must prepare to confront...him...

Oooh, I don't know about you, but it's getting a little exciting, since there's a few chapters left to go now.

NEXT TIME! The party helps Randy settle the score with Leon, before they face the final battle with Arfoire!