Chapter 21
"Is everyone okay?" Sou asked stumbling towards the crown piece.
"I'll be fine once I can move again." Artem responded.
"It'll take a while." Raphael muttered finally getting some feeling into his body.
"All of this just for this piece of history." Sou muttered finally picking up the crown piece.
"Is it beautiful?" Jinx asked as she closed her eyes.
"Here, take a look for yourself?" Sou held the piece in her direction. "Jinx?"
No response came.
"Jinx!" Sou shouted rushing to her side. "Hey!"
"Get out of the way!" Raphael scoffed pushing Sou away so he could check up on the girl.
"What's wrong?" Artem questioned forcing himself up.
"It's nothing to serious. She's fallen asleep because she used up all her magic." Raphael explained.
"We shouldn't take any chances; we should all probably go to a hospital." Artem suggested.
"I think we should make sure Jinx gets treated first." Sou added.
"I'm not some damsel in distress." Jinx managed to mutter.
"You woke her up." Raphael accused Sou.
"Whoa, if anyone woke her up it was you." Sou retorted.
"You both woke me up." Jinx groaned.
"We can either walk to the hospital or wait for people to show up after all that commotion." Artem suggested.
"I'm all for waiting." Sou sighed.
"I guess since Jinx isn't critical we can conserve our energy." Raphael agreed.
"So Arty, how are you doing?" Sou asked.
"The names actually Artem Kerensky." Artem replied.
"Sorry, I couldn't remember your full name so I just shouted Arty." Jinx apologized.
"Don't be sorry, it's actually a good nick name." Artem chuckled.
"Your shatter magic is impressive but not perfected. We're lucky that it didn't end up hurting us." Raphael noted.
"Come on Raphael, the guy fought alongside us. You don't have to be so snippy." Sou countered.
"No, he is right." Artem sighed. "My magic is very hard to control and I could end up hurting people. So I tend to hold back and that leaves my spells sort of incomplete."
"Rather an incomplete spell than one that would put innocent lives at risk." Raphael muttered.
"I've been travelling town to town looking for a guild where I could settle down and begin to perfect my magic." Artem confessed. "This town didn't have a guild so I hit the library instead after I heard it might have books that interested me."
"Our guild has place." Jinx spoke up.
"Yeah, Merric does still try to recruit anyone he sees." Sou nodded.
"If it wasn't for the lax recruitment process I would not have found a place to call my base of operations, so I will ask you what someone asked me before. Do you want to join ours?" Raphael asked.
"Yeah, I would like that." Artem smiled.
XXXXX
Hitomi held up Caitria and helped her walk over to where Merric was. Styles was standing away trying to heal the wounds in his hands while Syro was checking up on Merric.
"How is he?" Hitomi questioned apprehensive.
"Truth be told I have zero first aid experience with humans, ask me to treat an animal and I can do that." Syro admitted.
"Check his pulse." Styles called out.
"How do I check a pulse?" Syro asked.
"On his wrist." Caitria muttered.
"Like this?" Syro asked grabbing Merric's wrist.
"You're doing it wrong. Move out of the way." Caitria replied when she saw Syro use his thumb. "Help me there."
Syro did as he was told. Hitomi helped Caitria to sit down beside Merric as she remained there. Caitria lifted his hand and gently placed 2 fingers on the artery on the inside of his wrist, below his thumb.
"It's weak, really weak." Caitria cursed.
"Are you sure you're doing it right? Maybe you're doing it wrong." Hitomi responded.
"I'm doing it right; he took that attack at point blank range." Caitria muttered.
"I'm sorry, I should have been faster. I normally am but I was still hurting from what she did to me earlier." Syro tried to apologize.
"You don't have to be sorry, he made himself the target to give us some time." Styles scoffed. "We could have done without that."
"I don't like the tone of your voice." Caitria countered.
"You don't have to like the tone of my voice for me to heal him." Styles retorted.
"You have healing magic?" Hitomi raised a suspicious eyebrow.
"I have a spell that can manipulate white blood cells, which should help him heal." Styles explained.
"I do not want his blood on me." Merric groaned.
"You're awake." Caitria replied. "I thought you were dying."
"You're crushing my wrist." Merric muttered.
"Sorry." Caitria let go.
"Don't move too much Merric, we don't know how badly hurt you are." Hitomi warned.
"She's right; at that close range you could have broken ribs or a collapse lung." Styles added.
"Those sound bad; we're miles away from any kind of doctor." Syro gulped.
"Hitomi, Caitria, which one of you is currently stronger." Merric questioned.
"That would be me; Caitria seems to have drained all her magic in that last attack." Hitomi answered.
"Hitomi, take Maggie's Lacrima and excavate the foundation of the old church." Merric said.
"Your use of the word Maggie is what got you in this predicament." Styles pointed out.
"Are you sure I should do this? I can stay here and wait for you to feel better before I carry on the job." Hitomi offered.
"No, you should go now so we can get out of here as soon as possible. We don't know if anyone else will come looking for the crown piece." Merric explained.
"Alright, I understand." Hitomi nodded as she got up and went to pick up the Lacrima.
"Syro, was it, I think I'm going to need help to walk once Hitomi retrieves the thing." Merric sighed.
"Don't worry, I got your back." Syro assured.
"Once I find Nina, I will return to help you." Styles said. "She is of great assistance in the transportation of wounded."
XXXXX
Alaska's eyes fluttered open, her body was in a state of pain, a combination of the attacks she took and the fact she was lying down on the hard ground. As her vision began to focus she could see Elizabeth and Amagi sitting beside her with Zayden standing nearby.
"Did we win?" Alaska mumbled.
"Yeah, thanks to you." Elizabeth remarked.
"That was amazing; I don't think I've ever seen a more precise shot in my life. The ice cube ended up going straight into her throat; you choked her up enough for us to attack." Amagi marvelled.
"Oh, yeah, about that. I was aiming for her head; I don't know how I ended up getting it in her mouth." Alaska smiled.
"Did you guys come here looking for this?" Zayden asked as he tossed a small box to Elizabeth. "I found it in the hole Lili dug."
"It's seized up." Elizabeth struggled to open the small box.
"Let me help." Amagi Requiped her normal sword.
Elizabeth and Amagi carefully worked to cut away the cement and break off the hinges allowing the box to open.
"This is it." Amagi carefully picked up the crown piece.
"All of this for something so small." Alaska mumbled. "We need to get in contact with the guild."
"I've been trying your communication Lacrima but its not working." Elizabeth explained.
"I hope nothing happened at the guild." Amagi worried.
"I'm so fired." Zayden muttered staring at the church.
"I heard you say that you needed this job, I'm sorry." Elizabeth tried to comfort.
"It's not your fault; I guess I have to look for another way to send money back home to my family." Zayden replied.
"If you were part of a guild then you could take all kinds of jobs." Alaska suggested.
"I happen to know a guild that's looking for members." Amagi caught onto what Alaska was hinting.
"Really, where?" Zayden asked.
"How about we discuss this on the way to the hospital." Alaska winched.
"Right, I know a short cut." Zayden exclaimed.
XXXXX
Damone, Kazuya and Amantine exhaled letting the air out of their lungs while deactivating their roars. Faith allowed the flames gathering above her to dissipate into the air.
"We did it!" Kazuya cheered.
Kipper and Nala brought Tock to the group before they each returned to their dragon slayer.
"I was so weak." Tock muttered. "Just like in the past."
"What are you talking about man? We couldn't have beaten him without your help." Damone responded.
"That Dead Man's Crossing spell is really something, it really…" Amantine tried to say something but the words escaped her as she looked at the muck.
"It's alright; the ground will be stuck in this state long after the spell has been cast. I get lots of complaints for this one." Tock confessed.
"What do we do now?" Kazuya asked.
"Well, that guy was digging for the crown piece before we stopped him so I think we should take the crown piece." Faith replied. "Then we should explain to the caretaker what happened."
"I'm down for that." Damone nodded.
"That guy could have done a lot more damage to the church if it wasn't for you, so I'm not going to stop you if you want to take it." Tock replied.
"Kazuya, I'll leave retrieval up to you." Faith delegated.
"I'm on it." Kazuya moved towards the church.
"So where to for you now?" Amantine asked.
"Well, I was here to make money that will allow me to travel and join a guild." Tock answered.
"Our guild is just a day's travel away from here." Damone said.
XXXXX
XVII stood in the mausoleum that belonged to his ancestor with Matt and Cyrus behind him. Magdalene, Dex, Lili and Luke stood before him. They had been patched up and were all wearing big grins.
"I take it you were all successful." XVII spoke up.
"I've never thrown a fight in my life but I did as instructed." Luke retorted.
"Good, so you allowed the Howling Winds wizards to defeat you and claim the crown piece." XVII questioned.
"I practically handed it to them." Dex scoffed.
"That's what I wanted." XVII chuckled.
"I had a problem; I couldn't get to the ruined church without inflicting anymore damage so I had to bail. I left my excavation Lacrima behind. I just hope they take the initiative." Magdalene explained.
"I am disappointed Magdalene. You were supposed to make retrieving the crown piece as easy as possible without letting them know." XVII sighed.
"Luke and I dug up the pieces but left them in the hole. It should be easier enough for them to just get the pieces out." Lili added.
"Where's our money?" Luke demanded.
"As promised five million each." XVII gave the signal for Matt and Cyrus to hand out bags of jewels.
"Such beauty." Dex marvelled looking into his bag.
"I'm curious; I have to know why you did all this. With that Eternano formula we could have beaten them and retrieved the crown pieces for you directly." Magdalene questioned her employer's motives.
"It's true that I need the crown but I can't have the world knowing that I have it. Ideally Howling Winds would have retrieved the crown, handed it to the city, Cyrus would have stolen it, I would have used it and returned it with the world being none the wiser." XVII lamented.
"That doesn't explain why you needed us." Luke muttered. "You could have just allowed them to do it themselves."
"You guys haven't figured it out." Matt snickered.
"And you figured it out?" Magdalene glared.
"Cyrus explained it in a note." Matt confessed under the glare.
"I couldn't take the chance that Howling Winds would fail. I had doubts whether they would be able to dig up the churches, that's why I sent you in." XVII explained.
"Off course, they couldn't break the law as legal wizards but we could. If we broke the law acquiring the crown pieces and they managed to beat us, they could keep the pieces." Magdalene laughed.
"So what's so important about using this crown?" Dex asked.
"That's a secret." XVII responded. "But there is a way I could share my ultimate goal with you. Matt."
Matt showed off the blue marking on his forearm. "Cool, isn't it."
The guild mark was a mirrored version of the Howling Winds guild mark but the cloud symbols were replaced with plant vines with leaves.
"You're starting a guild?" Lili inquired.
"No, a dark guild." XVII corrected.
"Thanks but no thanks. I already have my cash." Dex laughed.
"You could walk away with what you have, or you could join me and make much more." XVII offered. "Take a few days, think about it. For we are Wolfsbane, soon to be the most powerful force in Fiore."
Authors Note:
Thus the Crown Arc comes to an end. I bet you weren't expecting that ending, if you were then props.
With the Crown Arc done, the next chapter brings with it the Williams Family Arc which feeds into the Sou Tsubaki Arc later on and then returns to the Williams Family Arc.
If you have any comments, criticisms or thoughts, about the story or about how I'm portraying your OC, leave those in a review or you can PM me.
OC submission:
OC submissions are closed for now.
Forum notice:
I've been playing around with the idea of crossover chapters with other SYOC story authors, basically the sharing of OCs between stories with collaborative writing. After initial discussion with a fellow SYOC author, Origm2012, it was realized that this kind of thing would have lots of problems and red tape.
So to deal with these issues beforehand I've created a forum that will try and solve problems before this begins and lay down the rules for this kind of thing.
If you're a SYOC author and might be interested, PM me. Or if you know of someone who might be interested let them know or PM me about them.