Author's note: The story will be drawing to a close in a few chapters. Preferably 3. Oh and could somebody, please, please, please review?

Disclaimer: I don't own.

Paths Of The Heart

Chapter XVII: Last Chance

Nina's mouth dropped. "Ursula, Scais, Ershin, Cray!" She called, flabbergasted.

"Ershin has given Ershin instructions to rescue Nina and Ryu." The suit of amour said.

Ursula smiled "Not that you need it of course." She said sarcastically.

Dawn clutched the dagger nearer to Ryu's throat "lo?" She asked the others raising an eyebrow, obviously annoyed that they had stopped paying attention to her.

"O-Oh dear…" Scais stuttered shaking his head.

Ursula rolled her eyes, and not even facing Dawn pressed the trigger of her gun and fired it.

BANG

And it knocked the dagger out of Dawn's hand leaving it to be smashed into a million pieces on the floor, Dawn growled at Ursula. "That was Bolt's knife."

Ryu looked at Ursula with pity from the floor mouthing "you're in trouble now."

And indeed Ursula felt something hit her hard in the stomach almost toppling her over. "Ugh…" she said clutching her stomach.

"U-Ursula!" Scais stuttered and quickly drew his sword and attacked Dawn with Shining Blade, which of course did not work, Dawn was very fast.

Ershin had an idea as he (or she) took a rather strange stance and shouted, "Stand out!" Dawn turned to him and instead of attacking Ursula again, charged at him.

Ryu took this time to transform.

"ARHHH!" He screamed feeling the transformation.

Dawn turned round, noticing Ryu's scream.

"Oh crud, not again…" She muttered, and determined not to let Ryu win again charged at him, Nina saw.

"Cray!" She mouthed.

Cray raised an eyebrow, Nina pointed to Ryu and his eyes widened. "Shield!" He shouted summoning a barrier to help block the attack.

"GRGH!" Dawn grunted in rage, her fist having bounced off an invisible wall surrounding Ryu.

"Supercombo!" Ursula shouted, steadying her gun.

BANG

BANG

BANG

BANG

BANG

Only one of those shots hit though. "EAKK!" Dawn bellowed as a bullet pieced her shoulder, she dropped to the floor holding it.

Nina giggled coming closer to Dawn "We got her!" She shouted in glee, the smile was thrown violently off her face as Dawn reached up and grabbed Nina by the foot and tripped her up. Nina was thrown straight down to the floor. "My nose!" She shouted as it gushed blood.

Dawn jumped to her feet laughing evilly, so evilly that she didn't notice a dragon hybrid sneak up behind her. Ryu grabbed Dawn by the arms and jumped on top of her shoulders and put his claws over her eyes. "AH! Where am I? Where has the light gone!"

"There is no light left for you Dawn, only darkness, you should have realized that when you embraced it." A deep voice spoke. It was Ryu.

"What are ya talking bout? Who are ya?" Dawn said frantically.

Ryu smirked "I'm you." He said mysteriously.

"WHA! I'm me! Yer'!… Wait a darn minute, you're Ryu!"

"Ah… found out at last, oh well." Ryu said giving the others the thumbs up. Ryu quickly jumped off Dawn's shoulders giving the others a clear range.

"Wild Swing!"

Ershin beeped, jumping forward and swinging his arm at Dawn, however she jumped into the air and on top of Ershin, Ershin himself ran round wildly attempting to throw her off.

"WOO! Ride 'em cowboy!" Dawn shouted smirking while hanging on for dear life on Ershin. Suddenly Ershin opened his lid (Or head rather) and catapulted Dawn right on top of a lamppost. "Ha ha ha!" Dawn laughed arrogantly, believing herself out of reach of harm. She'd forgotten about Nina.

Nina flew up (While holding her nose with one hand) and landed on the lamppost as well, she held out her staff like a sword and said, "Let's fight."

Dawn gave her a cold sneer and reached into her pocket, pulling out yet another dagger. "Think yer up to it?"

"You bet."

Dawn lurched forward attempting to stab Nina but missed, only just stopping herself from falling. (They're on the bent bit of the lamppost by the way) Nina lifted her staff into the air and brung it down smashing it over Dawn's head. Dawn wobbled slightly seeing stars float round but managed to steady herself and say, "Give up! Ya know I'll win in da end!" while swinging her dagger again.

"You wish." Nina said hovering in the air to evade the attack, but as she came back down Dawn swiped again.

SLASH

Right on her left wing.

THUD

Nina was left hanging from one hand on the lamppost, above her she saw Dawn sneering, below- the very hard looking concrete. Honestly, she didn't know which one was worse. Her hand was sweaty from the battle before and slowly was sliding off; there was no escape this time she thought.

None.

But down from below she thought she heard chanting.

"Go, Nina, go."

It got louder.

"Go Nina Go!"

And louder.

"GO NINA GO!"

Nina looked down, their standing there chanting was her friends. It was as though their cheering had awakened something powerful inside her as she reached up with her other hand ignoring her gushing nose and gripped the lamppost swinging herself round and kicking Dawn in the stomach sending her flying off it.

"YEAH!" The others cheered as Dawn was thrown to the ground; she weakly tried to stand.

"Guys!" Nina called, "I understand now, we have to work together to beat her!" They all nodded.

"Magic Ball!"

"Shining blade!"

"Blizzard!"

"Earthquake!"

"Inferno!"

"Typhoon!"

"Gigaflare!"

Dawn was send flying into the air frozen, singed, and bruised all at the same time. Then Dawn was sent flying back down again.

Where did she land?

Inside Ershin of course.

Ryu then shut Ershin's lid laughing after reverting back to his human self.

"So…. What are we gonna do with her?" He said pointing to inside Ershin.

"Throw her off a cliff?" Ursula offered.

"Barbecue her?" Asked Nina.

"E-Eat her?" Said Scais.

"Leave her to rot in Ershin?" Ryu smirked.

"Look up Deis's dress?" Said Cray.

Everybody stared at him.

"Uh… I mean… Make her smell Ryu's socks."

"…" Was the answer.

Author's note: OK people PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE can you review? Please? I haven't gotten one for ages…