Chapter 23

Team MÄR was scattered through the hall, relaxing before bed. Alviss wandered in looking confused.

"What's up, Al? Lose something?" Nanashi asked.

"Well…has anyone seen Belle? I can't find her." The others shook their heads. Alviss frowned, concerned.

"BLOODY BITCH, I'LL RIP YOUR HEAD OFF!" *SMASH*

Everyone jumped and looked at each other wide-eyed. Wasn't that Sol? They ran out of the hall towards Sol's room. Alviss, in front, slammed the door open.

Babbo was staring blankly at the shattered window. Before anyone could ask what had happened, "She woke up yelling and jumped out the window."

Jack raced to the window. They were on the third floor! He got to it in time to see Sol charging out the gate towards the woods. When he told the others, they all looked at each other. What was going on?


Halfway into a rage, Solara followed the pull of the pain…and almost bulldozed Pozun. He squeaked in terror as Solara came barreling out of the darkness.

She stopped and looked at him. "Why the hell are you out in the woods?" her voice came out gravely.

"I-I'm looking for my s-sister." He stuttered.

"…what? I'm not gonna hurt you, stop quivering."

Pozun swallowed. "The reason I'm the referee is because Phantom promised that the Chess Pieces would help me find my little sister. She was kidnapped by a strange man. I-I heard a rumor that he was in these woods, so I came out to look…"

"Strange man?"

"He said he was a 'fairy hunter'. He was…creepy really. He claimed he had seen Porin playing with a fairy and demanded her 'help'. When we told him no and asked him to leave, he grabbed Porin and vanished." Pozun sniffled. "We searched for months but couldn't find either of them. A month ago, several of the Chess Pieces showed up. I remembered tales of the War Games and offered to be the referee if they would spare my village and help me find my sister."

"Fairy hunter." Solara bared her teeth, causing Pozun to flinch. "I know where your sister is. Come on." She grabbed the surprised Pozun and threw him on her back before taking off again. Poor Pozun hung on for dear life.

Solara charged through the woods, following a trail that couldn't be seen. She burst into a clearing and skidded to a halt.

A man with a scraggly white beard and a crazed look in his blood-shot eyes was standing at the top of a small cliff in ragged stained robes. Next to him was what must be Pozun's sister, Porin. She was shorter and pink instead of purple, but clearly the same species. In his hand was a strange contraption… and in it was Belle.

Solara snarled as she lowered Pozun to the ground. "Leave the fairy and the girl and you can walk away with your life."

The man giggled manically. "What what what!? You can't make a demand of me me me! You have no ÄRM ÄRM ÄRM! If anyone die die dies, it'll be you you you!" he screeched. He activated an ÄRM and the ground rumbled as something began to rise out of it.

"Pozun. Porin. You get one warning. When the fight is over DO. NOT. MOVE. I will attack you if you do." Solara ground out. Finally, she released her grip on her rage.

Her pupils vanished as her face contorted into a ferocious snarl. With a roar she lunged at the earth golem that had emerged for the dirt. She punched it, leaving a massive divot. The golem sung and bashed her in the side of the head. She barely moved in reaction, but blood started dripping down the side of her face.

The two threw blow after blow, Solara crushing huge pieces of the golem and the golem slamming her into trees and boulders. Solara got back up and came back just as hard as before, despite how much she was bleeding.

Eventually, Solara hit the golem in the center of the chest, revealing a glowing stone. The fairy hunter squawked and shrieked. Solara put her fist straight through it. As the golem dissolved, the man jumped up and down, screaming obscenities in his repetitive fashion. Solara's blank stare turned towards the movement. She leaped and landed in front of him. He squealed in terror and ran. Solara was on him in an instant.

Porin snatched the contraption that the man had dropped and curled into a ball around it. Partly because it would be easier to not move. Partly because she didn't want to watch the blood bath that was occurring as Solara tore the man apart. His screams of pain didn't last long.

When the sound of tearing flesh stopped, Porin still didn't move. There was an oppressive feeling in the air that terrified her into remaining where she was. She glanced down at Belle, still in the trap. She hoped Solara came out of her rage soon. This device was designed to drain fairy magic and the longer she was in it, the worse off she would be.

Five minutes felt like an eternity, but finally Porin heard a thud. "Solara!" Pozun's shout made Porin look up. Solara had dropped to her hands and knees. Her breathing was ragged. Porin hesitated. Sol needed help, but she needed to get Belle out of the trap. "Get the fairy out of the trap, Porin." Pozun was scrambling up the cliff. "I'll help Solara."

Porin set about dismantling the device. Pozun stepped up next to Sol, who surprised him by sitting up. "You shouldn't move! You've taken a lot of damage!" Pozun protested.

"It's mostly surface wounds. I think one of ribs is broken, but other than that I'm just exhausted." Her voice was scratchy and hoarse from how much she had been yelling. "Are Belle and your sister okay?"

Pozun looked over just as Porin got the container opened. "Got it! Are you okay, Ms. Fairy?"

"I-I think so…" she turned her head and screamed. Sol jerked in an attempt to get up but dropped back down with a gasp as her ribs protested.

"Sol! Sol! Oh my god, you- you-!" Belle couldn't finish her sentence, she was so upset. It took Sol's exhaustion fogged brain a minute to realize Belle was reacting to the fact that she was soaked in blood.

She waved her hand. "It's fine, Belle. Most of it isn't mine." She gestured to the mangled mess that had once been a person.

Belle blanched at the sight, then looked for Alviss. She was shocked to realize none of Team MÄR was there, no even Babbo. "Where is everyone? How did you beat him without Babbo?"

"I ran out on my own. I ran into Pozun on the way here. And I went berserk." She shook her head, trying to clear it. "We need to get back."

Pozun and Porin looked at each other before giving Sol a dubious look. "Can you walk?" Pozun asked.

Sol barked a rusty laugh. "No. Even without the broken rib, I don't think I can stand up." She wiped some of the blood off her face absently. "Don't you have Andata?"

Pozun flushed with a mixture of embarrassment and shame. "No. I take it off when I can. I hate it. The Chess Pieces gave it to me, and it feels dirty."

"Well…shit." Sol rubbed her eyes. "You'll have to go back without me." All three protested. "First off, none of us actually wants to spend the night out here, right? You can tell the others where I am, and they can come get me. Second, if I take a nap, I'll probably look like I'm dead. Not much that wants to bother a corpse. And let's say we do get attacked. What exactly are you three gonna do?" It wasn't designed to be mean. The truth was Pozun wasn't equipped for a fight, Porin was too young, and Belle was too small.

"B-but, Sol…" Belle couldn't come up with a good argument, so her face screwed up to cry. Before she could though, something huge stepped out of the dark behind Sol.

Sol jerked in surprised when something snuffled her hair. She turned her head, not really alarmed because that certainly didn't feel aggressive. The creature shifted to her side, stepping into a beam of moonlight. It was a huge…deer? With moose-like antlers it was built more like a horse.

"It's a hart." Porin breathed.

"Huh?" Sol's tired mind came up with an organ.

"They're a kind of deer." Pozun informed her. "Very rare. Highly intelligent."

Sol blinked. "Hart? H-A-R-T? Like Dragon Age?"

Pozun looked confused. "What's…Dragon Age?"

"Huh? Oh, it's… You know what, I'm not even gonna try to explain that." She looked back at the hart. "Why's it here? You'd think all the blood would weird it out."

"As I said, harts are highly intelligent. They usually avoid people, but myth stats that occasionally, they will choose someone strong of heart and mind and pure of spirit to be their partner, rider."

"Cool." Sol stared blankly at it until it nudged her forehead. "What?" Finally, her partially numb brain coughed up an answer. "Me?!" The deer bobbed its head in a nod. "…why?" If an animal could look exasperated, this one did.

"Um… I don't think your going to get an answer, Solara." Pozun said. When Sol dumbly asked why, he bit his lip. They needed to get her back to Reginlief. "Harts are smart, but they are still animals. They can't speak."

"…oh… I knew that…" Her reactions were slowing down. Her speech was clear, but it was taking her longer to come up with an answer.

"He can carry you… Can you stay up?" Pozun realized that she might simply fall off. The hart would only be able to do so much to keep her on.

"…probably not… Can you take three?" She asked the hart. He snorted like the question was insulting and nodded. Then he knelt down.

Pozun got Porin up onto its back, then helped Sol get her feet. It wasn't easy, but it was joke compared to getting her over to and then onto the harts back. Her exhaustion was mitigated by the pain of moving with broken rib, but the pain also made it hard to move. With some pushing from Pozun and pulling from Porin, they got Sol on. Pozun scrambled up behind her. Belle sat on Sol's shoulder.

"I know you're tired, but you need to stay awake, Sol. Pozun can help you balance, but he can't keep you up if you really start to fall, okay?"

"…I'll try."

The hart stood up and started towards the castle. It was a sedate pace to help keep Sol up, but it was steady. Despite her best efforts, Sol kept dozing off. Belle had to wake her up.

Finally, just past midnight, the hart walked up to the closed castle gate. It bugled loudly, waking up everyone, including poor Sol who almost fell off in her startlement. Thankfully, Pozun and Porin managed to correct her balance.

The guards recognized Sol as the captain of Team MÄR and opened the gate. Her teammates came running out as the hart walked into the courtyard.

"Solara!" "Sol!" "Sunny!" "What the hell?!" Their reactions ranged from disbelief to shock to anger.

Sol, still exhausted, but very awake after that sound, helped Pozun get down, then passed him Porin. As her rib reminded her is existed, she tried to figure out how she was going to get down. A touch on her knee caught her attention.

Alviss was standing next to her. "Do you need help?" At her nod he reached up. "Here. Put your hands on my shoulders." She did but grimaced at the pain. "I know it hurts, but this is the fastest way to get you down." He gripped her sides and lifted. He stepped back as he did so, and Sol's leg slid up and over the harts back. Alviss set her on her feet…and had to catch her when her knees buckled.

"…sorry…I'm…tired."

"How badly hurt are you?"

"Huh?" She blinked owlishly. "Oh. Broken rib…maybe two…few gashes… nothing deep…" She finally remembered how much blood was on her. "Most of it's from…that fairy hunter."

"Fairy hunter?!" Alviss' horrified expression soothed the part of Belle that still hurt.

She fluttered in front of him. "I'm okay, Alviss. I wasn't caught for very long. I'm just a little tired. Sol saved me."

Alviss frowned. "How did you get caught in the first place? And what happened to leave you soaked in blood?" He aimed the second question at Sol, only to find she had fallen asleep against his shoulder.

Snow ran up, having gone back inside to get her Healing Angel ÄRM. Tears were streaming down her cheeks, but she set about healing Sol.

Belle blushed. "I…wanted some time to myself, so I went out into the woods. It's not like I knew that creep was out there… As for the fight, I couldn't see or hear anything outside the container."

Pozun cleared his throat. "I can explain." Pozun explained how he had come to be the ref for the War Games and thus run into Sol in the woods. He described Sol's violent rage, the destructive fight, and the brutal slaughter that had ended it. He told them about the appearance of the hart. Then he asked, "Um, if I may, why did she tell us not to move? She said she would attack us, but why?"

"Because you moved." Snow's voice was low. "You all don't seem to understand just what a Berserker is. It's not just someone who loses their temper. In her world, there is mythology surrounding a group of people called Vikings and their Berserker warriors. In their rage they were true terrors. Two things make them so destructive. First, they no longer have any sense of self-preservation. Second…they can't tell the difference between friend and foe. Sol told me once that in a rage, she can hear everything and nothing. It all fuses together into something incoherent. The same goes for her sense of smell. But most importantly…she can't see. Everything is indistinct shapes, so instinct says, 'if it moves, hit it till it stops.'

"Berserkers also don't tend to live long lives. If they don't take a fatal wound…they usually die from their heart…bursting…in the middle of a rage…" Snow's voice got thick as she said that last part. She couldn't see through her tears. A hand brushed her bangs.

Sol had partially woken up, reacting to the sound of Snow crying. "I'm here, 'yuki. 'm not goin' anywhere…" She slid back into her dreams, but Snow produced a watery smile anyway.

"Snow, why don't you check Porin and Belle? I'll get Sunny cleaned up and put to bed." Dorothy said. "Alviss, you're gonna carry her to the bathroom. And don't run off, cause you'll need to carry her to bed, too. Jack, do Sol a favor and find some accommodations for her hart. Nanashi, Alan, why don't you make yourselves useful and go check the scene of the fight? We don't want something powerful potentially left for the Chess to find." Alviss sputtered a bit but picked Sol up in a bridal carry. Jack nervously asked the huge deer to follow him. Nanashi and Alan both grumbled about it being after midnight, but Dorothy had made a fair point.

The group split up for their respective duties for the night, knowing that they were going into training in the morning.


Hello! So, this particular chapter is not based on the manga. It is actually a vague fusion of two different filler episodes from the anime. Episode 47: Alviss' Struggle and Episode 80: The Cute Visitor. I say fusion, but really they were more like inspirations. In Alviss' Struggle, Belle gets kidnapped by a nut who wants to use her magic to do…something I can't remember and Alviss has to save her. In The Cute Visitor, Jack encounters Porin and they become friends. Jack and Ginta (I can't remember if any of the others went) go help Pozun and Porin's village get their water back.

Both of these take place later in the story than were I put them, but I put it here for a couple reasons. 1) I haven't had Sol go into a full-blown rage or fully explained what a Berserker is (no, my depiction is not entirely historically accurate for those who want to know). 2) I needed Pozun and Sol to have a good relationship for a situation that happens later.