They had been riding hard for almost an hour and had seen no sign of anyone pursuing them. Rior cautiously called them all to slow down, saving their chocobo's legs. The mood was still tense, and everyone would occasionally glance around at random times. Even the chocobo looked scared; they too were tilting their heads to look behind them occasionally.

"What was that? Those two just slaughtered all of our captors, with no effort." Mirhalim whispered to Syrento, while Ganner was wrapping a bandage around the wound on his arm, hoping that he would have some idea about what had just happened.

Syrento grunted as Ganner tightened the bandage and shook his head slightly. "I have no idea, Mirhalim. Besides I was barely comatose for most of the fight. I only saw the black... fog that took our jailer's arm." He adjusted himself on his chocobo and looked around, then leaned in closer and whispered, "Perhaps you should return what you have taken; I won't do something so stupid again."

Mirhalim got over his shock quickly, forcing it down. Syrento was right, again. But returning it would not be as easy as taking it had been. Since he lost it originally Rior's eyes never left the satchel that now held the false papers. Originally the plan had been to alternate the pack between him and Rior, but Rior had held it until it was stolen, and now never let it leave his sight. What would have happened had the Templar seen false papers? He may have slain Rior on the spot for deceiving him, knowing the man's disposition.

He resolved to return it and nodded to Syrento, who clasped his shoulder. "I knew you would make the right decision."

Mirhalim eased himself back to his position beside Navar. He was spinning the knife that the woman had thrown on his finger. Knowing his strange fascination with throwing things he shifted in his saddle so he could duck easier as he rode up to him.

"We are going to return them, Navar." He said simply. His voice was quiet enough for only the two of them to hear.

A stunned look crossed his face as Navar's mind quickly struggled with wondering what Mirhalim was talking about. "But... but..." he spluttered still confused a bit. He then regained himself and continued "How, and why? Why not later?"

"Just as soon as we can, we will return them. It was a mistake to take them in the first place." Mirhalim did not even know if he really meant it. The writings seemed factual, and contained what was a covered up version of history, done in concert by church and king. What they contained could be incredibly important to history.

He reached his hand inside his pack to lift up the papers so that he could see them. They were still there, and had not suffered any from the roughing of the Templar.

Navar quickly glanced at them and shoved Mirhalim's hand back into the pack. As he looked at him he saw Ciel and Rior ride up. How he could stand riding beside her or even conversing with her Mirhalim would never know. She was not as scathing towards Rior as before he had defeated her, but she could still peel the bark off a tree with her words. He supposed it might be because no one else could ride with her, and Rior was by far the most tolerant of her.

"I saw you talk to Syrento, Mirhalim. I assumed you asked him about the heretic?" Rior said "Did he know anything?"

"Nothing at all. Perhaps he was just after Solyeuse. He did say he had disagreements with the Templars before." Mirhalim fastened the rope around his bag as he spoke.

"Then why would he send his companion after us?"

"Perhaps to harry us away from the scene" Navar contributed.

"He would leave witnesses?" Rior responded.

"He is already condemned to death as a heretic, boy. Maybe Templar deaths are notches on his belt?" Ciel glared at Mirhalim. What had he done?

They were... arguing? No matter, he had seen where the papers truly were. The one who had crushed the Templar's helmet with his fist had done it for a reason. He acted specifically when the boy had gone to retrieve the papers to show to the Templar. He had no idea of their reasons, but he no longer cared.

He looked at his companion, her face masked and tilted, staring at him in a questioning manner. He pulled off each of his gauntlets carefully, idly looking at his now newly scarred hand. He had not noticed how bad it had looked since his fight with those thirteen foolish knights. Red scars ran up to his wrist from between each two fingers, and his palm as well. He turned his face back to his companion.

"Perhaps it is time." He lifted his hands up to her face and brought them down softly along her cheeks, carefully removing her translucent mask as his hand made their way down her face. He could see her full smile now, just before she leapt off her mount and ran towards the young knights. He carefully dismounted and began making his way towards them as well.

The entire group of them had ended up arguing over what exactly had happened, still riding at a decent pace, but now much closer together. Rior had just announced they would ride past the fort at Besselat, as they had all obviously expected, when Aela suddenly stared off at a distant spot and then shoved Rior off his chocobo hard as a whirling knife, a normal one this time, sliced through the air where he had been.

Ciel seemed to have her bow drawn immediately and she yelled out "I guess this solves the argument then?"

Rior responded with the steely hiss of his sword being drawn. The others followed suit quickly, and rushed towards where the knife had been thrown from. Ciel and Ganner hung back from the rest a short distance as they moved.

The woman from before seemed to appear before their very eyes. She seemed the same as before, except lacking her mask. She was not moving at all as they warily approached her. As Mirhalim began to move forward, his eyes peeled for the black armoured man, she raised her hand, palming facing out.

Aela tried to close the distance immediately with a sprint to stop her magic, but all she did was draw in a breath. As Aela was only a few short steps away the woman's voice rang out, crystalline and clear.

"Sheathe your weapons! Halt!"

Mirhalim almost laughed. Did she really think just telling them to stop would work? She did manage to get out of the way of Aela though. She ran towards him, one single edged blade drawn, taking no care to guard herself. As she delivered her stroke he raised his sword to parry, but as he saw his hand rise there was nothing gripped between his fingers. He had drawn his sword, and as he looked at his side, clearly seeing his sword sheathed there. He felt her steel slice through the leather armour he wore and bite into the flesh of his chest. He stumbled backwards and fell, his eyes rolling over to his companions. Most of them had their weapons sheathed. Rior was staring at his own sheathed sword, but the rest seemed to be shaking off their surprise and were redrawing their weapons. The woman began moving towards Rior, tossing another knife at Ganner, who had already begun rushing to Mirhalim's side. It managed to catch Ganner's left shoulder and he instantly collapsed face down on the ground. Confident that she had at least incapacitated him she moved on towards Syrento, who was now standing almost shoulder to shoulder with Aela, Rior, and Navar with Ciel just a few steps back, fiddling anxiously trying to restring her bow.

Mirhalim made a frustrating attempt to rise up which just made his vision blur. He could feel his blood seeping out of his chest. He could feel pain from his wound but it seemed to be slowly numbing itself. Fear was building in his chest and all he could do was stare at his companions. His vision began to darken as he saw Aela block a thrown knife with the flat of her blade. Ciel had restrung her bow and let off an arrow that the woman had to dive forward to evade and with that small opening Syrento and Navar managed to close the distance. As they began to exchange blows Mirhalim's ever decreasing sight finally faded to black. His last sense was a strange smell of burning.

His eyes flash open about a short while later and he felt rather... cold was his first thought. The sky around him was dark as he had last seen. He almost started but a hand quickly covered his mouth. Above him was Ganner, his shoulder still had the knife stuck in it and was bleeding angrily. His cap had been abandoned where he had fallen and his brown hair, which was caked in sand, stuck out every which way making Mirhalim attempt to laugh but instead he coughed out chunks of blood. Ganner just nodded at him and began treating his own wound. Mirhalim looked at his wound and saw only a red scar on his now naked chest. His leather armour and smallshirt he had worn underneath it were sliced up the front by Ganner, for easier access to the wound, and discarded a short distance away. He shivered and stood up, searching for his companions quickly before moving towards them.

Syrento's sword was stuck upright in the ground and was now using only his hands to fight. A few spent arrows and glassed areas of sand showed Ciel's efforts in the fight and the only other difference in the fight when Mirhalim had lost consciousness was that Navar was now using his repurposed practice spear, his last real one lay in two pieces on the ground.

He did realize a final difference as he joined the fray, when he almost lost his head when he delivered a blow that he thought was safe. The woman was wielding two identical swords now. Her light sword parried his and glanced towards his neck. He managed to slam his shield into it when it was only a hairsbreadth away from his neck, luckily.

The woman was now greatly outnumbered and even with two swords could not keep up the pace and managed to disengage without taking any serious harm. She was bleeding from many places but all of them could hardly be called much more than large scratches.

Her voice ran out again, this time a challenge "How many of you does it take to scratch me!" Her words seemed to echo and wash over Mirhalim. The others stood rapt as well "Is this how chivalry is taught now? Maybe one of you will be above this foolishness and be willing to bring honour in a fair fight! Although I expect nothing less of murderers and those so craven."

Mirhalim was infuriated. How dare she call them murderers? How dare she lecture them on chivalry? His knuckles went white as he gripped the hilt of his sword. Nearby him most of his friends were in the same state. He ran at her in fury, accompanied by Navar and Syrento.

She raised her hand in the air, beginning a spell, when an arrow from Ciel tore through the air at her, catching in the loose folds of her desert coloured cloths. It tore a rather large gap in the side of it revealing tight leather armour underneath.

"Just keep shouting, I like large, visible targets!" shouted Ciel. "Perhaps you can..." the woman had raised her hand again and Ciel's voice just stopped. She was still mouthing words, some of them Mirhalim could read from her lips. Focusing on something else caused him to lose his rage, and he even wondered why he had been rushing at her with no precaution taken for defence.

Navar did not stop, however, and he stabbed his spear at her hastily, almost as soon as his point could have touched her. She responded to the clumsy stroke with a spinning strike that cut his spear into three separate sections. But that did not stop Navar, as he hurled the very knife he had caught from her towards her. Miraculously it actually seemed to be on target, but from that range surely no person could miss. She leaned backwards to try to avoid it but not fast enough and it sliced into her midsection, puncturing her leather armour. She stumbled to the ground and Navar was on her in a flash, fighting her with only his fists.

Mirhalim moved forward to assist him but Syrento slammed his bare chest with his gauntleted hand to hold him back, knocking the wind out of him. As he was doubled over Syrento just said "Wait."

A huge bolt of lightning smashed down from the sky striking both Navar and the woman. Mirhalim, thankfully, was not looking at it, too busy catching his breath. Navar lay on the ground and the woman was struggling up, her left hand hovering over her chest.

"Now!" Syrento slammed his fist on the ground, shaking it even by Mirhalim so much that he fell over from his attempt to stand. The shifting ground threw the woman back, but a small glow Mirhalim had come to recognize as white magick lit up her hands. Her burns from the lightning were already gone, and her wounded midsection looked partially healed.

Aela was beside her almost immediately after the woman had healed herself. She fought furiously, her two handed weapon moving at speeds Mirhalim could barely manage with his much lighter sword. Mirhalim glanced back towards Ganner as he moved towards the fight. He saw him moving towards Navar but he caught a strange glimpse of the chocobo they had left behind. There was someone amongst them, he was sure of it.

"Rior I think the Black-Armour is searching through our chocobo!" He yelled to Rior who had almost joined Aela in the fight. However it looked as if he had been heading towards Navar instead.

Rior twisted his head back and his eyes widened. "Damnation the heretic is back there!" He flustered around quickly trying to think "Mirhalim, Ganner stay here and fight her with Aela! As soon as Navar is up send him our way, and Aela follow! He is definitely the more dangerous of the two and we must stop him!"

Syrento immediately broke back and ran towards the column, picking up his sword on the way. Rior was close behind him, sword and shield at the ready. Rior shouted back as he ran "When I light the sky up, run!"

Mirhalim stood up and, painfully aware of his unarmoured state, rushed to join Aela as she protected Navar's burned body with her own.

This was a unique chapter, in the fact that I wrote the one after then reread this. And decided it was terrible. So I rewrote it. And Reread it. And Decided it was terrible again. So I rewrote it one last time and I'm not sure I like it 100% but I never do. Hopefully you enjoyed your reading.