Chapter two: You Push, We Push Back.
"Well, which is it?" Eris shouted holding her head as another flurry of arrows hit overhead.
"Do we have any chance of winning?" Gray asked, looking out towards the bowmen.
"Well I don't know it could be a weak guild but I'm guessing they are at least average with at least two archers or one hunter." Eris jumped as an arrow hit between her feet.
"Hey it has a note." Kyari said, looking down at it.
"It's not a note, it's a crest," Eris said ripping off the parchment and unfolding it. "The shattered arrow guild."
"The who?" Kyari asked.
"The Shattered Arrow Guild, they aren't very good, its just 7 archers and a bard. Their pretty weak, most of them haven't even been taught arrow shower."
"Really?" Gray asked, edging towards the window.
"Yeah, I think we could take 'em." Eris said following Gray.
"Ok, I guess I take option one. I got a plan." Gray stood up a bit straighter staring at the men in the distance.
"Ok, what is it?"
"Eris, I need you to use stalk and distract them long enough for us to get to them."
"Sounds good." Eris said as her body faded out. "I'll be there in no time." The sound of footsteps followed by the bar door opening and closing indicated she had left.
"What about us?" Kyari asked, heading towards the door, shield still raised over his head.
"Well, we wait till the arrows stop and then we get to them." Gray said matter of factly.
"Bit of a primitive plan don't you think?" Kyari said, opening the door and blocking another flurry of arrows.
"Yeah, but it should work." He said. "It'll work," he muttered, trying to convince himself. "Ok, the arrows have stopped," Gray said, lowering his shield. "Go!"
The pair of them quickly left the bar and began to run in the direction that the arrows had been coming from moments before. The previously full streets of Prontera had been emptied by the attack, leaving Kyari and Gray a clear path straight at the archers, which had come into view next to the statue of Odin in the centre of town.
They where all other wise occupied by Eris who was using mug on whoever she could, everyone that is, except for the Bard standing to the side leaning against his guitar.
Gray turned his head slightly and pointed to himself and then sideways indicating to Kyari that he would go around the back, Guerrilla warfare seemed like the best approach.
"Shield Boomerang!" Kyari yelled throwing his shield into the air. It soared around the square, smashing into the archers that were attacking Eris until the Bard knocked it to the side with his weeder knife. It clattered down and landed with a thud against a bench.
"So the new guild has some strength? But I thought there were three of you." The Bard said, returning his knife to the sheath at his side and lifting his cross bow back into the air.
"Who says we don't have three?" Kyari asked rolling to the side as an arrow was fired from the strings of the Bards guitar. "We could have more than three,"
"Well I only see two here." The Bard said, laughing and firing a fire arrow, narrowly missing Kyari but singeing his cape slightly.
"Then you must need counting lessons" Gray said leaping from the top of the statue to land his shield in front of Kyari as an immaterial arrow aimed right at Kyari's heart was blasted out of the guitar. "Shield Reflect!" Gray said watching as the Bard's face contorted and he clutched his chest.
"Fine, you think you're so great lets see how you do against…"
"Look." Kyari said moving in front of the shield.
"We have nothing against you guys but we don't have time for this." Gray said. "well we do have the time, but their isn't any point."
"Their right." Eris said appearing next to them. The Bard looked sideways and saw a heap next to the statue that was another six members of his guild. "I have to say you're not the best guild in the world, and after this humiliating defeat I wouldn't be surprised if your no longer a guild by tomorrow."
"Who in hell are you to judge us?" the Bard asked spitting slightly as he spoke.
"In hell? No. We're from a completely different place altogether, we're the Arch Angels." Gray said proudly. He waited a minute and turned to Eris, "how was that?"
"Still corny."
"Damn."
The three arch angels laughed and turned away from the Bard. They headed away, only stopping twice, the first time to pick up Kyari's shield and the second for Eris to throw one of her throwing knives with a small piece of logo clad paper back into the Bards heart.
"So he's going to be ok?" Kyari asked from his bunk. Neither Kyari nor Gray were wearing their armour any longer. Their swords and their shields were leaning against the wall in one corner and Eris was sat on a chair, staring out of the window.
"He'll be fine. During guild battles the guild war association puts up fields that prohibit true death." Eris said matter of factly.
"Good, cos I don't want to start getting a bad rep." Gray said laying back and staring at the ceiling.
"For defeating the first guild that challenged you? I think that might have been enough to get a new recruit, if anybody saw the battle that is."
"If it wasn't for you we would have beaten them!" a Bard shouted at a female archer. They were sat in a cave. The archer sat in a chair and the Bard circling her. "You didn't turn up when we needed you most and for that I believe you should be punished, harshly punished."
"Do you have anything to say for yourself?" said a second archer, male, who had been standing at the back of the cave.
"Yeah." The female archer said,
"Go ahead."
"I was there." She said, looking at the bard, following him with her eyes.
"I got back from your suicidal quest in time to watch you order the others to send a volley of arrows into a bar full of innocent people,"
"The Arch Angels needed to be taught a lesson." The bard shouted, stopping in front of the Archer.
"I also watched as you allowed their Rogue to dismantle our archers by herself. You did nothing to stop her."
"I had no choice, I was under attack by two crusaders."
"About five minutes later, sure. You only stepped in when you were under attack and the other archers were out of commission."
The Bard glared at the Archer girl with pure fury. "I'm not the one on trial here, you are." He said, grabbing her by the shirt and lifting her into the air.
"Not anymore." She growled as she placed her hand over the arrow shaped crest on her chest plate and waited a few seconds. A blue glow emanated from her palm and the crest was gone. "I'll be going now."
"You really think we'll just let you go?" the Bard said, throwing the girl to the side and taking an arrow from it's resting area.
"I didn't, but I can always escape." The girl said shoving her hand into her pocket. "See ya" she said producing, what looked like, the wing of a butterfly. She waved it once and evaporated into the air.
"Good sleep?" Kyari asked as Eris sat down at the table he and Gray were breakfasting at.
"Meh, had better." She said yawning and slamming her Damascus into the table blade first.
"I see that." Gray said.
"So what you guys talking about?" Eris asked as she took some bread from Gray's plate.
"That girl." Kyari said pointing up at the hotel owner. "We both recognise her, but we don't know where from."
Eris looked up at the woman. She had red hair, a purple shirt, a gold chest plate, and by the looks of her bow and quiver she was an archer. "She was watching from the roof tops yesterday. A member of the Shattered Arrow Guild, ex-member by the looks of it."
"How can you tell?" Gray asked, looking over at the archer.
"No crest on her chest plate anymore."
They continued to stare for a moment and then looked away rather quickly when she thanked the owner and turned to face them.
She walked across the room and placed a hand on the table.
"Hi" she said, looking around, "mind if I sit down?"
Gray looked the girl up and down then smiled, "go right ahead." He pulled a seat over from another table and made space.
"Thanks,"
"No problem," Eris said, removing her knife from its hole in the table. "So, what can we do for you?"
"I was, until earlier, a member of that guild you slaughtered yesterday."
"We know," Kyari said.
"Good, then you probably understand why I want to join you. That stupid Bard is as worthless as you are powerful, I decided a long time ago to never join up with someone who cares more for their own lives than others, and I thought he wasn't like that, but… I misjudged him."
"It happens to the best of us," Eris said, dreamily,
"Yeah… anyway," Gray said looking from Eris back to the girl. "Are you sure you want to join us?"
"Definitely, I've seen you fight, you worked together, protecting each other, it was beautiful."
"Well then, the only have one thing to say, 'What's your name?'"
The girl smiled around at the arch Angels, "my name," she said, "is Bowen"
