Summary: They worked for an underground organization of bounty hunters. Time after time, they took care of threats to Rune-Midgard. But this time, their target isn't anything of the ordinary; it's a boy who knows the key to the next Ragnarok.

Disclaimer: I don't own Ragnarok Online. :P But the characters in this story belong to my friends and I.

Author's Note: I'm back with a revision of The Ragnarok! W00t! There have been some changes (mostly the fight scenes and some dialogue...also the new "Wings Armada" group), and improved technical writing, so I suggest to those who have read this before read it again. Sorry for the trouble. DX

Ah, yes, an important fact: I changed some things just a little concerning the rules of Ragnarok Online (such as...I gave the Thief class the Cloaking ability). It's not a big change though.

Another very important note concerning the rules of Ragnarok: firstly, this is an older work. I know that Ragnarok is constantly changing, with new classes, cities, and whatnot...so this story will mostly follow the 'older' version of Ragnarok. There are no Super Novices or Expanded Classes for now.

I also apologize in advance for any strange errors that might have occured when I uploaded this.

Anyways, enough of my long author's note (it'll be shorter in other chapters!) on with the story! XD

-x-

The Ragnarok

-x-

Chapter One: Chasing Ghosts

Rya clenched her fists together as a foul smell reached her nose. The musky air was utterly disgusting, but she had to bear with it and follow the orders of her division leader, Payon. She cast a small glance at her other friends and companions: Miraka, Paroid, Skoo, and Evol. They all shared the same sentiment. Rya saw Miraka wrinkle her nose at the repulsive smell.

"Now, if you don't mind me asking, why the hell do we have to come here again?" The purple-haired Thief pinched her nose with a gloved hand, trying to block out the stench.

"That boy has been here," Payon said as he crouched down, unsheathing his sword. Though named after the famous training grounds for beginning Archers, the young boy walked his path to Knighthood instead. He inspected the freshly altered dirt; someone had passed by before them. "That's what Spades said."

"This is complete bullshit! Why would you find him in a massive dump of graffiti, an abandoned school, and a shit load of pots?" Paroid questioned dryly, swinging his Claymore around in boredom. The Swordsman with short dirty blonde hair neatly sliced several pots, which were oddly littered everywhere, in half. "The boss-monkey must be out of his mind. He doesn't trust us with any real work so he's sending us out to look for ghosts!"

"I don't know why he chose this area," The spiky, crimson-haired leader confessed. "But...I can feel that there's something wrong here too. I trust Spades. Evol and Miraka, you guys go scout ahead."

"Feel what?" Evol asked, approaching the old building. "I just feel nauseous!"

His Wizard's cloak billowed out behind him once he opened the aged doors of the school. Dust poured in from the ceiling, prompting him to cough and shield his face with his cloak before entering.

"Wait up!" Miraka cried out as she swiftly ran inside after him, dangerously waving her stilettos around to catch his attention.

Rya looked around at her surroundings as she flipped her pale red hair out of her eyes. She, too, had her doubts about this particular area. What could the leader of their Guild possibly suspect about a long abandoned school in the middle of nowhere? They had been ordered to search for a boy who held "key information to Rune-Midgard's future". Rya couldn't help but wonder why the boy be in the particular area they had been sent to. There had to be plenty of other more secretive locations. Though it was an abandoned school, it was a well-known location since it once had been a very popular school for Mages and Wizards. As the graffiti on the school walls suggested, there were some people who still frequented the area.

Suddenly, a fierce battle cry graced Rya's ears, countered by Evol's own screams of curse words. She heard explosions and followed the cries into the rundown school, Payon and the others right behind her.

"Evol! Miraka!"

Rya ran through the hallways, searching for the two. The area was dark, save for tiny rays of sunlight peeking in through cracks in the ancient building. 'They couldn't have gone too far!'

"Have you got a lead as to where they are?" Payon questioned as he caught up with the Hunter.

"Yeah," Rya heard a series of explosions coming from a certain door as she concentrated intensely. Her blue eyes darted around the halls as they ran. "The cafeteria!"

Rya cleared the old wooden doors away when she came smashing through them. What met her eyes was a fierce battle scene: Miraka was hacking away at a wall of ice that halved the battlefield, and Evol was on the other side engaged in combat. Through the clear ice, Rya saw Evol coughing up blood, staining his uniform deep shades of red. He seemed determined to defeat an opposing boy with bright red hair, dressed in the same manner as him. As they continued their fight, Rya, Payon, Skoo and Paroid went ahead to help destroy the barrier of ice.

"Fireball!" The blue-haired Evol chanted up his favorite fire spell and blasted the enemy Wizard, but the boy disappeared.

"I don't believe it!" Payon exclaimed, a sudden realization hitting him head on. Spades had told him some details of the boy's abilities, but he didn't really believe his boss until he witnessed it with his own eyes. "It really is true; he's combined all the classes together! He's using the cloaking ability!"

The boy reappeared in front of Evol, punching him in the gut. Evol gasped for breath as he fell to his knees. The boy grinned. "You've caught on quickly, Knight, unlike your slow friends over here."

"So this is the brat. Combining classes together?" Paroid muttered, taking up his sword. "Are you trying to be godly? What a waste of my time; eat shit! Bash!"

Paroid used great force as he plunged his sword forward, but missed the swift boy by a foot.

"Too slow!" The boy smirked, and sped around the abandoned cafeteria, stopping beside a dirty table.

"Try me!" Skoo ran up to the boy, swinging his axe down with all the force he could muster.

The boy soared over Skoo and somersaulted in midair to deliver a hard kick to his back. The Blacksmith gave out a yelp as he fell to his knees, pain spreading through his back. The redheaded boy grinned again, stepping on the pained Skoo and jumping off him in order to hurdle over an angry Paroid running towards him.

"Double Strafe!" Rya cried out. She quickly pulled two arrows from her arrow case and shot them just below the boy as he was landing. She was sure that the boy would fall into her attack. Instead, the boy sprung up in an instant upon touching the floor, jumping out of harm's way. The two arrows embedded themselves in the ground where he was a split second ago. The boy retaliated by chucking a round table at her. Rya ducked as the flying object whistled past her head.

Miraka sprung into action, using her own swiftness to catch up to him, nearly striking him with her sharp stilettos. The boy evaded her attack neatly by jumping onto the long tables. Miraka was hot on his trail, until he unexpectedly picked up and slammed a chair in her face, knocking her to the ground.

The boy smirked and dashed off the tables, flinging the same chair at Evol, who was quietly advancing on him. He abruptly stopped and pulled out his sword from its sheath, which was concealed under his cloak. Skoo skidded to a stop in his pursuit; the blade was inches before his chest. The boy sent a roundhouse kick to Skoo's chest and pointed his sword towards Paroid. Before Paroid could react, the boy chanted something under his breath, causing fire to blast out of the blade. Paroid barely dodged it and the flames licked at his cape, catching it on fire.

"Stop, drop, and roll!" The boy laughed in amusement, watching Paroid attempt to smother the hungry flames by furiously stamping on his cape.

"Stop toying with us and tell me, why are you here?" Payon growled, challenging the boy to a one-on-one sword combat. He brandished his sword, holding it steady in front of himself.

"That is no business of yours, Knight," The boy laughed again, easily throwing Payon's sword out of his hands and knocking him to the ground. Pointing his sword at Payon, a quick spell left his mouth and a shower of arrows rained down onto the crimson-haired Knight. Payon rolled across the floor quickly, but three arrows managed to find a target on his arm. Payon flinched in pain and held back a scream.

Miraka let out a yell as she came up behind the boy and slammed a table down on him; the table snapped in half upon contact. For a minute, he seemed dazed, but he quickly recovered and kicked Miraka away before summoning a firewall to protect himself.

Rya took the chance to fire away a series of arrows at his unguarded side. The boy's quick reflexes saved him: he performed a neat back flip, avoiding the barrage of arrows. He then charged at Rya, firing a fireball directly at her face, sending her flying backwards. The boy advanced on her, ready to swing his sword down.

Spluttering, Rya recovered as fast as she could from the attack and grabbed a concealed dagger from a pouch on her thigh. In one fluid motion, the Huntress stabbed the boy in the arm before he could slice her. The boy howled in pain from the surprise attack. Skoo took the chance to run towards the distracted boy and return the sharp kick to the back he had first experienced. It sent him flying over Rya and into a stack of chairs.

"Burn in hell! Fire pillar!" Evol hollered, aiming a powerful fire spell at the boy as he staggered onto his feet in the midst of upturned chairs. A blazing inferno roared up from the boy's feet and engulfed him in flames.

"Let's take this chance and regroup outside!" Paroid demanded. "You and Payon are hurt!"

"No! You go!" Evol shook his head, stubborn as always. "I have to finish him off! We're not done our job yet!"

"Evol!" Miraka pulled on his arm but Evol brushed her off.

"Go!"

The boy's eerie laughed flooded the cafeteria before the group could have another word. "You are a brave one, Wizard, but blind bravery will do you no good," The boy's image appeared again, completely recovered, completely unscathed. He summoned another shower of arrows and sent fireballs in every direction. Hysterical laughs escaped his mouth, as the group seemed to dance like puppets to avoid his attack.

"Soul Strike!"

Wailing souls began to attack the group while they were still dodging fireballs and arrows. But that was just a distraction. Payon noticed the boy grinning, his hands in the air again. "Oh sh-"

"Lord of Vermillion!"

Thunderbolts crashed down on the group, showing no mercy to anything it came in contact with. Chairs and tables were destroyed and the ceiling crumbled and collapsed above them. By the time the deadly storm lifted, the group was just barely holding onto consciousness.

"Why don't you just retreat while I am feeling merciful?" The boy grinned.

Evol let out a low growl and prepared to attack but was stopped by Rya, who grabbed his arms in a death grip. "Let's go! He's got too much firepower on us!"

"Aw, how cute, the little Hunter has a caring heart," The boy smiled and one of his eyes began to twitch. "Too bad that won't get you far in life."

"Shut up," Rya snapped.

"It's a pity; I don't need anyone to back me up. I have myself," The boy kept smiling manically, watching the group retreat shamefully to his overbearing firepower. "And my princess."

Rya continued to drag the unwilling Evol away.

"C'mon, let me fight him!"

"You're in no condition to fight," Payon said breathlessly, while Miraka and Skoo quickly supplied everyone with healing potions. He let out an involuntary yelp as he pulled the arrows out of his arm. Skoo quickly applied herbs to it. "We'll go back to Prontera and report the situation, then grab reinforcements. We can't afford to lose him. He's our only source of information!"

"That's why we have to get him before he escapes!" Evol protested, flinging Rya's hands off of him.

"And we won't catch him if we're dead! We need all the firepower and strategy to contain this boy!"

They were then ways away from the run-down school, and sure that the boy was no longer pursuing them. Evol grunted; he was clearly upset about the escape. They were going to lose their only lead on the boy because they were too weak to stop him.

"A warp portal!" Paroid interrupted Evol's thoughts as they journeyed further from the abandoned site. A brilliant pillar of light shone from the heavens to the ground. "I bet it'll lead us back to Prontera!"

"You're usually right," Payon nodded. "Everyone get in!"

The group ran towards the warp portal, disappearing as they entered the pillar of light.

"It has been done. They've entered the warp to Alberta."

-x-

The familiar scent of the sea graced their senses.

"We're in Alberta," Paroid blinked, not believing his eyes. He looked around himself in disbelief. "But that was a Prontera warp! I know warp portals better than anyone, even Acolytes!"

"Don't worry about it, Paroid," Payon sighed, sitting down on the docks. In all honesty he was a little glad they entered the quiet town. It was a good time to rest and collect his thoughts before reporting the bad news to Spades. "We'll just wait for the ship to Izlude, and go to Prontera from there. It's all the same way."

"Bah, Paroid's gone blind," Skoo groaned. "Every time we see a warp he's always right."

"He's losing his touch," Miraka sighed as she forced Evol to take a white potion. He nearly choked as the thin liquid ran too quickly down his throat.

After 30 minutes of groaning, complaining, and impatient whining and then finally silence, Skoo broke the silence with more complaints.

"Where's the ship?" Skoo grumbled, smoothing out the unruly dull brown hair beneath his goggles. "It shouldn't take that long for it to get to Izlude and back."

"Yeah, the ships are pretty fast," Paroid nodded grouchily, still not believing that he had read a warp portal wrong. He carried the reputation of having an excellent intuition and was not looking forward to losing it.

A moment of silence passed again, allowing the group to reorganize their thoughts.

"Hey, I think I can apply for the Assassin class soon," Miraka cried gleefully, breaking the quiet air. She checked over the Assassin job application form through a device strapped to her wrist, called the Information and Communications Assistant (ICA for short). As the name suggested, the device stored an encyclopedia of information regarding Rune-Midgard and acted as a communication device at the same time. It also functioned as a tracking device, being able to give general locations of team members in case of separation.

Rya grinned, excited for her friend. She had already successfully applied for a higher class before the others with Payon, Skoo, and Evol. The feeling of rising up the ranks was always a joyous one.

The job system they lived on was not very complex. Everything revolved around destroying the monsters that plagued Rune-Midgard. Their world was once at war with the gods and the monsters, but a temporary peace was restored between the fighting souls. However, the monsters still lurked around, and some even attacked people. Thus, everyone was trained to destroy the remaining threats to Rune-Midgard.

At the age of thirteen, everyone was eligible to be trained. The more monsters they disposed of, the more experience they received to be able to apply for jobs with more skills. When they applied for a higher-ranking job, the decision would be based on how much experience the person had with dealing with monsters, and how refined their skills were. They would have to be interviewed by a panel of elders and perform their skills accordingly. Rya and the others were just a year older than the set age, and had been fighting off the threat to Rune-Midgard for quite awhile already.

The group of close friends also happened to be part of an underground organization called "Wings Armada". The organization (also considered a Guild), one could say, was a group of bounty hunters. Each time an enormous threat to Rune-Midgard was spotted, the group made it their job to target and destroy the threat.

This time, however, the target was a mere human boy.

Word had got out that a young boy, with seemingly the skills of all the jobs, had been wrecking havoc to innocent bystanders. The leader of the Guild, Spades, searched deeper into the situation and found a few facts, though was unwilling to tell his subordinates any details except for the coordinates of which he was last seen and that the boy was extremely powerful. He merely stated that the mission was to bring in the boy, alive, for questioning.

Spades went on to dispatch the only team willing to investigate the matter – the Ownage Crew. Though they were the youngest recruitments, the group had proved worthy to be in the small circle of bounty hunters. The most skilled and eldest group at the time was also in pursuit of one of the biggest hunts of all time – hunting Baphomet. The rest of the groups were back in their Guild's castle, engaged in the War of Emperium: a war between humans that continued even after the temporary peace between the gods and the monsters. It was a war that the Guild had been inadvertently been dragged into after they claimed a vacant castle as their headquarters.

"Too bad Alberta doesn't have the proper job application centre," Skoo sighed in defeat, placing his head on his hands. "Or else we could have a sexy Assassin in our party!"

The six of them sat quietly for another moment as they awaited the arrival of the ship. The party then began to get restless.

"Man, it sure is taking them a long time," Evol quietly said, running a gloved hand through the tips his spiky blue hair. He was still thinking about the shameful retreat they had to make.

"Maybe they went off course?" Paroid suggested.

"Maybe." Payon nodded, lying on his back. Rya was kneeling by his side, applying another herb to his wound, which was healing quickly. Payon had always been a fast healer.

"Let's go for a little swim, shall we?" Paroid grinned, a sudden idea surfacing into his mind. He snuck up behind Rya and pushed her off the dock.

"I hate you!" Rya screamed as she made contact with the once serene water.

"You idiot! You do remember that she can't swim right?" Miraka hit Paroid square in the chest before diving in after Rya to reach her before she drowned.

"Eh...I...forgot," Paroid gasped for breath as Miraka disappeared underneath the surface of the water.

"First the warp, now this. Son, I am disappointed. You really are losing your touch," Skoo shook his head with a laugh.

"Shut up," Paroid grumbled.

As Skoo poked fun at Paroid, Evol felt an itch around his leg. Without looking, he reached his hand to scratch his leg, but a slimy and solid object greeted his hand. Evol looked down and saw a tentacle wrapped around his leg. His eyes followed to where the tentacle belonged, and saw a giant squid-like creature on the dock, its beady eyes locked in a piercing gaze.

"Holy shit!"

-x-

Miraka made quick and powerful strokes to reach Rya's struggling form. The purple-haired Thief grasped Rya's arm and made more stressful strokes to bring up extra weight. Rya resurfaced under the dock, clutching the dock's support pillars to help her keep afloat as she gasped for air. Miraka, however, resurfaced in open water and before she knew it, a slimy tentacle wrapped around her arms and neck and pulled her, screaming, out of the water. Rya didn't dare make another sound; she stared with wide eyes at her best friend being dragged out of the water. She gripped the support pillar tighter as she listened to a croaking squeak and unidentifiable speaking transform into a seductive girl's voice.

"Thank you Daisuke, you have done well to leading them here."

"You're welcome, my princess."

Rya immediately recognized the second voice; it was the boy that they were ordered to bring in alive. She recalled a moment where he stated something about his "princess".

"I don't need anyone to back me up. I have myself, and my princess."

Removing her bunny band, Rya took a chance and peeked up over the dock. She saw her friends inanimate, most likely knocked out or put to sleep by a potion of some sort, and two identical looking men standing watch over them, their backs turned in Rya's direction. Rya looked around more and quickly ducked under the dock, embarrassed, when she found the "Daisuke" character and a very beautiful girl in a deep kiss.

"Unfortunately, I will not need you anymore."

Whatever came next, Rya didn't know. All she heard was silence, a dull thud, and a piercing screech. She peeked up over the dock again and saw her friends, the girl, and the men gone. There was only Daisuke on his knees, twitching uncontrollably.

They're gone. Rya thought in bewilderment. But how? She didn't look like an Acolyte, and neither did her men. And there aren't any traces of butterfly wings around...

Rya climbed on the dock, approaching the deranged boy. "D...Daisuke?"

Daisuke whirled around, a maniacal grin plastered on his face. "Ha...ha...what do you want? Ha..."

"W...where did they go?" Rya meekly asked, brainstorming for any way she could get Daisuke to help her friends escape the squid-girl. She didn't know what the squid-girl wanted, but Rya knew she wanted her friends back.

"Ha...who, what now..." Daisuke began to give off small broken laughs.

"Where did she take my friends?"

"Ha...what friends...ha...ha...there's only...ha...Daisuke!" Daisuke disappeared with a laugh.

He must be using the cloaking technique. Rya thought bitterly to herself. She knew she had a counter to the skill, but without her falcon, it was useless.

Daisuke's laugh echoed through the empty air. Rya gritted her teeth together, wondering where the ship could've gone. She needed it more than ever. Frantically, she looked around and saw a small fishing boat approaching the dock.

It was her ticket to Prontera.