Chapter 6

To entauro bay

"Emily, you got everything?" Kate asked her friend.

"Yeah, almost," she said as she pushed a bag of luggage into Cids car.

"What did you forget?" Kate asked.

"This." Emily had quickly ran to their hotel room and back. She held up a staff-like weapon, but it was shaped like a musical instrument.

"Where'd you get that," Kate asked her.

"Ischka. It was sitting right in front of me, so I took it. All I know is that it can hurt you bad if you get hit by it" she said plainly.

"Well, Cid should be here soon." After Kate had said that, Cid had come walking up the street with something wrapped up under his arm.

"Cid, what's that?" Emily questioned.

"Night hawk business. I gotta give it to Greg Littel."

"Ohhhhhhhhh."

"Come on, tomorrow's December 30th. We have to get to Entauro Bay, or we won't catch the boat. And there's supposed to be two people at the docks we need to meet. Our tactician, Diana Crane, sent them a letter four months ago to meet us there," Cid told the two. "Where's Aisha?" he asked.

"In the back sleeping," Kate told them.

Finally the four were on the road to Tarrato to get on the train to Entauro Bay.

"Hey, Cid. What kind of boat are we traveling on?" Emily asked.

"It's a tourist boat. Lot's of fresh air, and you can see without a roof over your head. There is a little cabin-type thingy on it, so if it rains or something," Cid explained.

"This'll be the first time I've ever left Jurrisol," Kate told them. "I have no idea what to expect."

"Miriana is all completely tourism. Tropical resorts and such," Cid told Kate.

"Hey, guys keep it down please. I can't sleep with you nattering away," Aisha said groggily.

"Sorry about that," they said.

"Almost at the train station," Cid told them.

"Scott, you ready to go?" Kiro asked.

"Yep. We're almost at the train station. I can't believe we're going to Miriana. I've always wanted to go," Scott replied.

The bus they were riding lurched to a stop in front of Tarrato's train station. As they stepped out of the bus, they were given many quizzical looks.

"Kiro, those people are staring at us," Scott said quietly.

"It must be the spear," Kiro said as he flashed his Ischka I.D. at pretty much everyone who looked at him funny.

As the two passed through a security check gate, the alarm sounded as Kiro passed through. It was, of course, his spear. The officer at the security check came over to him, but before he could utter a word, Kiro had shown the I.D. card, and he let him pass.

"Which train are we taking?" Scott asked Kiro.

"Ummm. It's the number 22 train," he replied. Now they just had to find it.

"Where is the damned thing," Kiro muttered in frustration.

"I'll ask someone," Scott offered. He walked over to a young woman in a trench-coat. "Excuse me, but I was wondering if you could help me," Scott said after tapping her shoulder. When she turned around, all Scott did was look at her with an imbecile grin on his face. She had short black hair that fell just past her ears, dark brown eyes that he felt himself get lost in, and a smile that showed perfect white teeth.

"What do you need?" she asked him. Finally coming back to Ferma, Scott asked; "Do you know where the number 22 train is? Me and my friend Kiro can't find it anywhere," he explained.

She was taken aback. She thought about the name "Kiro", and wondered where she had heard it before.

"Come with me," was all she said.

"Kiro, come on!" Scott yelled. Kiro ran to catch up to Scott and the woman. In about two minutes they had found the train, and she had led them inside after showing their tickets.

"Come with me," she said again. She had led them to a compartment that contained three people. The man spoke to Kiro and Scott; "are you two Scott Brennan, and Kiro Sagato?"

They both nodded, somewhat confused as how this man knew their names.

"I believe you received a letter from Diana Crane. If so then you are headed to Seldovia. We are headed there also," the man continued.

"Who are you?" Scott had just blurted out.

"Oh sorry. I'm Cid Sudit, leader of the Night Hawks." The two boys's jaws dropped.

"Hey, umm, it's not polite to keep your mouths open like that," a pretty girl with green eyes said. They immediately shut their mouths.

"So, Emily, Kate, Aisha. It seems we have a cadet of Ischka and a Black Mage on our ranks. Don't look surprised you two, we have spies everywhere. Now down to business," Cid said. Aisha went and locked the already closed door to the compartment.

"What I have to tell you is extremely important," he started. "It is no longer a necessity to act like tourists on vacation. We can only act like the way we are naturally, but without revealing that we are of the Night Hawks," Cid told them in a hushed tone.

"Why though, and me and Scott aren't even part of the Night Hawks yet," he replied in a whisper.

"Just by showing up you are declared a member. Anyway, back to the point. I am telling you this, because our top three Crusaders have been taken as prisoners. As I have said before there are numerous spies out there in Ferma, so we must be on our alert. Now if I may be excused, I need to find out how long it will take to get to Entauro Bay." With that said, Cid got up and left the compartment and was heading to the front of the train.

"Ummm, just to clarify some things, who's who? Scott asked the girls.

"Sorry about that, I'm Kate," said a girl with blond hair and green eyes. "And sitting by the window over there is Emily," Kate said pointing to a girl with very dark red hair, and blue eyes. "And the one in the trenchcoat is... TAAADAAA! Aisha Carm, accomplished thief and mercenary, and the only one with actual field experience outside of training," Kate finished with her voice booming like one of those prize announcers on t.v. gameshows.

"Thank you, thank you," Aisha said emotionally while taking a bow.

"Yeah, okay. Thanks, I think?" Scott said.

"Scott, don't be a hardass, it's funny,"Kiro declared obviously checking out the three very good-looking girls.

"You from Ischka over there, stop starin' at Aisha's ass," Emily said jokingly.

"Excuse me!" Aisha said suddenly.

"She's just kidding Aisha, don't sweat it," Kate said.

"I'm not stupid Kate, I knew she was kidding, I was just playing around. Anyway, it's natural for these testosterone driven guys to enjoy such a view," she said smacking her butt.

"And a shapely one at that," Scott had added. Everyone in the compartment started laughing. But how much noise could five people make? Well they were about to find out just as Cid walked in. "Dear lord you kids are loud. What were you talking about anyway?" Cid asked them.

"Aisha's ass!" Kate and Emily yelled together.

"Great to know," he said sarcastically. "But good news, the train is just about to leave and we'll be there in one hour," Cid told them.

"Wonderful, a whole hour to spend with you Cid," Kate said.

"Must you be so cynical Kate?"

"Yep, that's me!"

When the train lurched after travelling for fifteen minutes, screams were heard.

"What the hell is that thing!"

"Oh my god!"

"Honey, come with me!"

"I don't wanna die!"

Cid and company immediately left their seats to see what was going on. When they could get a clear view of what was happening Kate said "What the hell are we gonna do?"

"Easy, kick its ass!" Kiro yelled.

"Are you crazy!" Emily yelled. "We'll get killed!"

"No way, we can take this thing. Lets' go! We woldn't be Night Hawks if we couldn't handle it right?" Scott asked.

"Scott's right, lets go!" Aisha yelled.

"Cid, you stay back, we'll take it!" Kate said.

The train lurched to a stop, and the five warriors exited the train and were ready to fight.

The beast was at least 40 metres long. It had four wings, each one red and curved off with sharp ends. It had two short hind legs, but two extremely long arms with wicked claws with nails maybe 24 centimetres long each. A long neck with a very ugly head attached to it. Almost immediately it attacked with it's tail, knocking the team backwards.

"Watch out!" Scott yelled. Coloured waves began to wave around him and he closed his eyes. The waves disappeared when he opened his eyes and shouted "BLIZZARD!" A huge chunk of ice appeared over top of the thing and had crashed to pieces when the ice struck its head.

The beast had turned its attention to Scott and was flying towards him, only to receive five arrows in one of it's wings. After flapping that wing, it had fallen off, letting out a steady flow of blue blood.

"Gotcha!" Aisha yelled. "Kiro! Get it's other wing if you can! If we stop it from flying, we'll definitely have an advantage!" Kiro heard, and ran as fast as he could over to it's wings. With a swift upward cleave, another wing had fallen off, but it had counter attacked this with a scratch across Kiro's chest.

"Kiro!" Kate ran over to him to help him. She placed her hands over the wound, and something started to happen. Blue and green began to swirl around her and then she closed her eyes. When she had opened them, Kiro's wound looked like it was being rewound, healing it, leaving no trace that the skin had been broken at all.

"What the..." was all Kate could utter. Kiro nor Kate saw the beast coming. It was about to strike when Emily had intervened and stabbed it through its jaw with her weapon. She pulled it out and stabbed it in the eye.

"Let's get moving!" she yelled to the two. Luckily they did because it had fallen to the ground after Scott had disintegrated one of the two remaining wings with a lightning attack, and another volley of arrows from Aisha's crossbow had totaled the other one, leaving it in a gory, bloody mess.

Seeing that it was dying, Kate had brought her rod with her. She threw her weapon in the air and jumped up after it. After clutching it with her two hands, she brought it back down with a sickening crunch on the beasts head. The skull had broken and its head caved in, leaving it lying on the field where the battle had taken place, dead.

"Whew, at least it's dead now," Kate said. She obviously spoke to soon, as the creature began to stir.

"Oh, crap!" Kiro yelled. It was moving again, and where the wings were destroyed, new arms had regenerated in their place.

Each one was extremely long, with huge hand-like things on the ends.

"Dammit! Is this thing gonna die or what?!" Emily yelled. She ran up to it and stabbed it once again with her weapon. More of the blue blood was flooding, but the beast took no notice, and smacked her with all of its arms in one shot. Off she went sliding across the field ground, unable to grab anything in the barren soil to save herself.

"Emily!" Kate screamed. She knew it was hopeless to try and catch up to her. Scott saw Emily moving across the field and he closed his eyes. Once again the coloured waves began to radiate from around him. "MAGIC OF ICE! CREATE A WALL!" And as he opened his eyes, and waved his staff once around in a circle, a wall of ice had stoopped Emily from sliding.

"Asshole!" Aisha had launched another quick volley of arrows at the beast, opening many wounds, letting loose a torrential flow of the blue blood. Kiro on the other hand was busy attacking it warily, trying not to suffer what Emily did. Numerous stabbing wounds, and cleave gashes marked the skin of the beast, but yet it showed no signs of giving up.

Kate had come back to the battle with a smash into the creature's side. It let out a painful howl, and retaliated by smacking her with its tail. Or so it thought. Kate jumped into the air and brought the rod down into the same spot, and the beast screamed again.

"THUNDER!" Scott had sent a lightning bolt into the back of the creature, making it shake and convulse from the shock.

Now that Emily was able to fight, she took this opportunity to stab the creature numerous times, blue blood emptying out of it in extreme amounts. Finally the beast was beginning to tire as it could not move very fast.

Aisha let loose one more volley of arrows, and it fell to the ground. Dead at last.

"That... was... close," Kiro panted.

"Too... close," Scott wheezed.

"At least the damn thing is dead," Aisha proclaimed. The party of five walked their way back to the train, only to notice the creature had destroyed the tracks.

"Dammit! It just had to take out the tracks didn't it?!" Emily exclaimed, her anger and frustration very visible.

"Yeah, but, something wild wouldn't just take out about 40 kilometres worth of train tracks on its own," Kate reasoned.

"I don't get it," Aisha said.

"Well there were monsters that occasionally made their way to Billney, some just as big, or bigger, and they didn't destroy anything. This thing had to have been commanded by something," Kate told the party.

Cid came over to them. "You guys, listen up. That thing destroyed most of the tracks to Entauro Bay, and it won't be for a while until things can get cleaned up here," He told them with a grim face.

"What I'm saying, is we're gonna have to walk our butts to Entauro Bay."

"NOOOOOOOOO! THAT"S WAY TOO FAR!" Aisha whined.

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"Did the Mist-Spawn defeat them?" Sikaru asked one of her soldiers.

"No ma'am, but you see..."

"I have no use for excuses! I want them destroyed. Except the two I've been keeping my eye on," She said. "What are you looking at?" she spat at Misty who was leaning against the bars of her prison.

"Nothing, nothing. Just your ugly face," She whispered to herself.

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"Cid can we rest? My feet are killin' me," Aisha whined.

"Yeah, please Cid?" Scott whined with her.

"Alright."

It wasn't too long that they had been resting, when a man driving a carriage being pulled by four beautiful Chocobo's pulled to a stop in front of them.

"You folks need a ride?" he asked. Aisha jumped to her feet immediately. "PLEASE?" she asked him in her most innocent sounding voice.

"Yeah, sure. Hop in the back of the carriage," he said.

Once everyone was in the carriage, the driver asked "Where to?"

"Entauro Bay please," Cid said.

"No problem." The Chocobo's began their steady pace but began to speed up suddenly.

"Hey! What's going on?!" Kiro screamed.

"Dammit, Jevrae's after us!" The driver yelled.

"What's a Jevrae?!" Kate asked while yelling in panic.

"A large winged beast that keeps regenerating itself," the driver replied.

"That thing again!?" Aisha cried exasperatedly.

"You fought it before?" the driver asked.

"Yeah, and we thought we killed it," Scott answered.

"Scott, Aisha, I am entrusting you to attack it and keep it at bay until we can lose it or hurt it worse," Cid ordered. Scott and Aisha nodded in understanding. They climbed to the top of the carriage and got ready to fight.

"FIRE!" Scott had sent the explosive fire spell on the enemy, forcing it to scream in pain. Aisha followed the attack with a volley of many arrows from the crossbow. The arrows dug into the target and stayed there, creating a grotesque porcupine look. Jevrae flew faster and was practically hovering over the carriage, saliva dripping from its mouth.

"FIRE" Scott had released another fire spell on Jevrae, yet it still persisted forward.

"That's it!" Aisha screamed. She rummaged around in her supply pack which was tied around her waist, trying desperately to find some tranquilizer darts. "YES!" she shrieked. She loaded her final tranquilizer dart into the crossbow and aimed at Jevrae's eye.

"Sweet dreams," she said as she launched it into its eye. Jevrae staggered in mid-air, then fell to the ground unable to move on.

"Well, if we wait a bit, the Chocobo's will calm down," the driver said.

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"This sucks major portions of ass," Taran said quietly.

"You, quiet!" one of the guards snapped at him.

Man, I have to get out of here! Taran thought to himself.

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"This is the end of line," the driver said. "These Chocobo's can't make it through the mountain trails, and it would take seven days to get around the mountains with the Chocobo's."

"Then what are we supposed to do?" Cid asked.

"It should only take half a day to get through them," the driver replied.

"Great," Emily grumbled. Then the man and his Chocobo's turned and left. The Night Hawks then took to the mountain trails.

"Look at this place. It's got more curves than a highway!" Kiro said unhappily.

"Well, we just have to find the right one," said Cid.