Michiko stared down at the golden mineral fragment she held in her hands. Cresnoble had told her it was an emperium, a valuable gem for which men and armies frequently went to war. Even as she held the seemingly-benign fragment in her hands, she could sense an inner power to it.

Leaning out slightly from behind the assassin, she looked at the short line of people ahead of them in the Prontera Guild Agency. She had no clue what any of this guild business was about, but she assumed that it was at least marginally important to Cresnoble, otherwise the highly antisocial assassin wouldn't be standing in the line the way he was.

As they waited, she wondered when he had acquired the emperium shard she was holding for him. She safely assumed that he must have gotten it before that fateful foray into the Payon caves. She lifted her head from gazing at its golden surface, the question of when he had gotten the emperium forming on her lips.

Before she asked, however, she shut her mouth and slowly shook her head. It wasn't very important, especially considering that he had said they would have to hand over the emperium to officially organize a guild. Since it wasn't going to be in their possession much longer, she didn't need to worry herself about where it had come from, or when.

Seeming to sense her confused thoughts, Cresnoble half-turned, raising an eyebrow at her smiling expression. "Something on your mind?" he asked.

Her eyes snapped open and she blinked in surprise, her previous smile replaced with the look of confusion she often took on whenever he spoke or asked her a question suddenly. "Hm? Oh. Um, no... I just...feel happy for some reason." She shook her head in emphasis of her lack of understanding why, setting the ribbons in her hair to softly swishing over her shoulders.

He nodded slowly, his face carefully neutral. "I see..." For a moment, it seemed as if he was going to say something else, then he simply turned back around to face forward.

Michiko tilted her head to the side, wondering why he had gone so silent all of a sudden. Then she mentally shook her head, reminding herself that Cresnoble was one of the most nonvocal people on the face of the planet; at least that she had met.

"Next," she heard a bored-sounding female voice call out, drawing her out of her reverie as Cresnoble stepped up to a desk and sat down. Michiko quickly followed after him, hovering silently in the air beside him as she watched the official hand him some sort of application sheet and a writing utensil.

Placing the emperium on the desk beside Cresnoble, Michiko turned and looked around at the inside of the guild agency. There were about ten other people in there setting up guilds that she could see. Three doors led out of the room, not including the main exit, and she had no idea where any of those led. She yawned softly, turning back and glancing at the multiple sheets that Cresnoble had to fill out. She sighed slowly and sat down on the floor, expecting to be there for quite a while.

---

Meanwhile, off the coast of Prontera's satellite nation, Izlude, a small craft was fast approaching the docks. It was a simple design, consisting of a single hull with a mast and sail for locomotion. A lone figure stood atop the cross beam at the top of the mast, her wild mass of flame red hair flying before her face in the strong head wind, her eyes narrowed against its salty gusts as her ship drifted toward the port city. She reached up a gloved hand into her mass of hair, attempting to comb it back out of her face so that she could see more clearly.

Suddenly, she glanced down from the distant docks to the innards of her own ship. A scowl appearing on her face, she took hold of a nearby rope and clenched it tightly in her gloved hands, sliding down from atop the mast and down into the boat. A heavy splash of seawater met the contact between her boots and the deck of the boat. Sitting down on the horizontal plank that served as a seat, she picked up the bucket floating in the water that was halfway filling her boat and began to toss bucketfuls of water over the sides of the ship.

After a few moments of this, something caught her eye from outside and she snapped her head up. The moment she recognized what she was seeing, she dropped the bucket and stood up, her right hand reaching up to slide the pirate bandanna from on top of her head and hold it over her heart. Before her, swinging in the wind of an open cove, were the rotted remains of three men wearing the garb of pirates, the same ropes that they had been strung up from the gallows with still around their neck. Attached to the rope of the center corpse was a hand-written sign reading, "Pirates Ye Be Warned."

She touched the first two fingers of her left hand to her brow in a respectful gesture, a pang of sympathy echoing in her heart for the fates of the pirates. The life of a seafaring outlaw was not one that was easy, and as those wind-dried remains attested, it often came with dire consequences. She was thankful to the gods that no authorities had gotten hold of her yet, but then she smiled slowly. She would always be one step ahead of the authorities, because she had more than five thousand years' worth of experience to fall back on.

Turning her attention away from the unfortunate pirates, she picked up the bucket while looking down at the steady supply of water creeping into her boat, then turned her eyes up toward the approaching dock. Making a few mental calculations, she judged that her ship would just barely slide under the bottom of the docks at the current rate.

Tossing the bucket over the side of the boat, she took hold of one of the mast ropes and climbed up to the very top once again, balancing herself easily in the tiny bucket attached to the top of the mast that served as a crow's nest. As she stood there, the wind shifted to blow at her back, billowing out her long red hair before her.

The hull of the boat was underwater now, but the half-sunk mast was still catching wind and propelling the craft forward. She could see the dock workers on nearby ships staring at her incredulously as her boat continued forward, now with most of its mast completely underwater.

As the boat neared the dock, she leaned out her right leg and stepped forward, her boot sole hitting the dock and lifting her up onto its wooden surface as the boat finally ran out of momentum, the crow's nest the only part of it still above the water. Not even looking back, she began walking down the pier, toward the city.

"'Ey, you!" a voice called out behind her, prompting her to stop in midstep and turn around, to find the dock master standing behind her, what looked like a registry in his hands. "It's a zeny to tie your boat up at the dock."

She held up a finger to pause him, then looked over his shoulder at the almost-entirely sunken boat that she had come in on.

The dock master seemed to take this in, then brushed it off. "And I'll be needing to know your name."

The woman thought for a moment, then reached into her pocket and pulled out a trio of zeny, depositing the coins onto his book. "What say you to three zeny, and we forget the name?"

She could see the greed light up in the dock master's eyes as he hastily snapped his book shut. "Welcome to Izlude, Miss Smith."

Nodding with a smile, she turned to continue back up the docks. As she neared the dock master's station, she noticed a pouch of coins sitting unattended. Looking back to make sure that the dock master was not paying attention, she picked up the pouch, shook it once to make sure it contained coins, then pocketed it and continued on her way.

---

The sun was already setting when Cresnoble and Michiko finally emerged from the guild agency. Many of the merchants in the town square were closing up shop, preparing to head home for the night. For a moment, Michiko wondered if he would immediately head back out into the wilderness, but she breathed out a sigh of relief when she saw him turn towards the inn.

As he crossed through the door of the inn and held it open for her, a sudden twitch at the back of her head caused her to turn and look back over the near-empty streets. She didn't see anything out of the ordinary, but she could sense some familiar presence nearby. She couldn't place it, but she had the distinct feeling that it wasn't a friendly one.

A hand landed on her shoulder, causing her to jump involuntarily and spin around, only to find Cresnoble standing there, pulling his hand back, and wearing a perplexed expression. "Something the matter?"

Blinking, Michiko blushed at her reaction, then shook her head. "No. Just felt odd for a moment."

He nodded understandingly. "Let's get inside, hm?"

She nodded as well, and this time followed him into the inn.

---

Hours later, as the pirate lazily made her way across the field between Izlude and Prontera in the dead of night, she stopped in her tracks, rocking back as though she'd been gut-punched. A wave of despair and pain swept over her, so intense that she had to go to a knee and clutch the sides of her head for fear that it would burst.

No... It's him. Has he found her?

She abruptly pushed herself to her feet, continuing on toward Prontera at a faster pace, as several seemingly-unrelated clues suddenly clicked into place. There was no moon tonight, only dark, foreboding clouds, and what seemed to be an evil mist blanketing the land. She hadn't seen a single of the cute, squishy pink monsters that naturally inhabited the plains. And in the distance, crossing the field, she could see what appeared to be a large group of something. She couldn't tell exactly what it was, but she was pretty sure that, judging by the enthusiastic charge toward Rune-Midgard's capital city they were making, they were bad news for Prontera.

Of course, there was one thing she had to keep in mind. She was bad news for this bunch as well.

Pulling out her bow, she took off running toward Prontera.

---

It was somewhere around the middle of the night when Michiko awoke. When they'd settled into the room, Cresnoble had given her the bed, and took a nearby chair for himself. The gentlemanly behavior toward her embarrassed her greatly, but she had not questioned his reasoning. Now, as she sat up in the small bed, her eyes easily found Cresnoble. He was standing near the open window, weapons clutched in hand, clad in only his pants. The cool night breeze gently wafted his hair around his face. Michiko couldn't stop her eyes from wandering to the athletically-defined muscles of his arms and sides.

"You're awake," he said quietly, as though not wishing to disturb something. He kept his eyes focused outside the window, not looking back at her.

She mentally slapped herself, locking her eyes onto the side of his head. "What is it?" she asked, just as quietly.

"Something's happening," he answered. "It looks like a large army's approaching the city."

Blinking dazedly, a cold feeling settled itself in her stomach. This had something to do with that presence she had felt earlier, she knew. Taking advantage of the fact that Cresnoble's back was still to her, she quickly slipped out of bed and into her kimono, easily dressing herself with speed and silence. Once finished, she picked up the silver knife that he had given her and tucked it into her belt, where she could easily get at it.

Just as she finished that, Cresnoble turned away from the window and walked over to where he had left his belongings, pulling on his padded armor vest and the light travel clothing he wore over it. He picked up a pair of stilettos and tucked the backup weapons into his belt, then checked his supply of awakening potions, divided it in half, and gave one half of them to Michiko.

She numbly took the potions and placed them inside her kimono so that she could easily get at them without thinking. This is deadly serious to him, she mused, hoping that, whatever this army was, that his plan was to escape, and that they could manage to do so without getting hurt.

The city's alarm sirens began to wail as they made their way down the stairs. In front of her, Cresnoble shook his head slowly, and she had an idea why. Setting off the alarms would do more harm that good, because as late as it was, the citizens were likely to wander out into the streets to find out what was going on, which would put them right in harm's way.

As they stepped out onto the streets, Cresnoble held out his arm, keeping Michiko behind him as he stopped to let a platoon of knights pass by. He turned his head to watch them as they ran toward the main gate, which was already coming under attack by the enemy forces. Far down the street, more knights were trying to keep the main gates closed against the attackers, but were not having an easy time of it.

As he watched, Cresnoble just barely caught a flash of something deathly white, then the wooden gates splintered open, hurling knights in every direction, as a huge figure clad entirely in white, down to his armor, shield, and the menacing twenty-foot long lance he wielded, riding a horse that was equally a ghostly white, marched into the city. Spirits seemed to flock around him, some seeking to become one with him, others attempting vainly to escape his power. Behind him, the assassin saw what could only be an army of undead creatures, stretching for miles across the Pronteran field.

"Fuck," he said quietly.

"What's wrong, Sir Cres-" Michiko's speech died in midsentence as her eyes fell upon the ghastly figure at the head of the enemy formation. She had no earthly idea what it was, but the mere sight of it terrified her. She wanted nothing more than to get far, far away from Prontera.

"The white knight of destruction," Cresnoble said slowly, as if not believing the words he was saying. "The warrior of pure annihilation whose power over death is so great that the dead flock to him in spirit form, seeking to gain a fraction of his power. Then once they realize what he is, it's already too late for them to escape. Their spirits feed him, give him his ungodly power."

"L-l-l-Lord of Death..." Michiko breathed, praying to every god that existed that the being hadn't heard her.

"Lord of Death," Cresnoble affirmed, nodding his head. He turned to face her, and even though he hid it remarkably well, she could tell he was also terrified of the notion of facing the feared Lord of Death in battle. "Come on. This party's over."

Cresnoble hadn't planned on their being able to get away without a fight. He wasn't disappointed. As soon as they turned onto the road that led toward the west gate, he spotted a dozen soldier skeletons marching toward them.

The assassin reacted instantly, leaping forward with both arms extended out at his sides. His outstretched arms caught and bore down two skeletons with a clattering of bones and weapons.

Utilizing his momentum, Cresnoble immediately rolled back up to his feet and continued forward in a running crouch. He swung his arms outward as he crossed the next pair of soldiers. This time, his jamadhars were extended. The razor-edged blades sheared through the leg-bones of the skeletons at the hip, dropping them as well.

As they fell, he crossed his arms over his chest and kept running. Reaching another pair of soldiers, his arms shot out at superhuman speed. Moments later, a pair of bony skulls popped up into the air.

Frozen where she stood, Michiko gawked at the speed of Cresnoble's attack. It had taken him less than three seconds to effectively halve the force arrayed against them. Then time seemed to snap back to normal for her. Cresnoble was moving on to the fourth pair, and the two he had clotheslined were getting back up. The fight was far from over.

Suddenly, before she knew she had moved, Michiko was lunging toward the soldier on the right, her silver dagger outstretched in her right hand and jamming into the base of the skeleton's skull. It immediately locked up, the vital connections between its brain and the rest of its body severed in one fell swoop. As it pitched forward, her left hand snapped forward to snatch one of its own daggers while she removed her own from its skull.

As she situated the new dagger in her hand and got a feel for it, she spared a glance to Cresnoble. She watched as the assassin flowed through the follow through of the spinning kick that had launched the tenth soldier into the wall of a building, its jaw fractured.

On instinct, she leapt straight backwards, twisting her head to the right. A fiery pain blossomed in her left cheek as blood dripped from the wound that would otherwise have removed her head.

She dove forward as the soldier's second dagger came around, attempting to correct its miss. As she came up inside its strike range, she pinned the soldier's arm to its chest with her right arm, then drew her left arm across herself and stabbed the stolen dagger deep into the hollow of the skeleton's jawbone. As a final move, she shoved the dead or dying skeleton away from her with her right hand, turning away as it clattered noisily to the pavement.

She shook her head suddenly as though to clear it, then looked around at the deaths she had wrought as though seeing them for the first time. Her red eyes blinked confusedly, then she shook it off and brought her eyes up to see how Cresnoble had fared. She looked up just in time to see him holding a skeleton in a headlock, its bony skull pressed against his hip.

Suddenly, the assassin turned halfway to his left and dropped quickly to his knee. With the way that he had been holding the skeleton, its neck snapped with a sickening crunch and the head rolled out of his arm, clattering to the ground.

Coming back up to his feet, he first looked over the way she had picked up what he had left, then locked eyes with her. He nodded at her, and she recognized immediately that it was a nod of respect between equals. She felt a rush of warmth at having been elevated, even temporarily, to his level.

Then something different flashed in his eyes, and he began to run toward her, shouting, "Behind you!"

She spun around, just barely catching sight of something rotted and ugly lunging at her. She knew that she would not be able to evade in time, that Cresnoble wouldn't reach her in time.

But out of nowhere, the creature uttered a strangled gasp as a pair of arrow shafts suddenly appeared protruding from its forehead. It stumbled back down the street, pitched over onto its face, then shuddered once and died.

Both Michiko and Cresnoble turned in the direction from which the arrows had come, to find a red-haired rogue wearing a pirate bandanna perched on a rooftop, silhouetted against the moon. Not even sparing them a glance, the woman nocked another silver-tipped arrow and drew the bowstring back with a respectable amount of strength, far further back than the rogue master's bow was meant to be drawn.

With a nearly-silent whoosh sound, she released the arrow to fly down into the street, smashing into the chest of and knocking off its feet a zombie. The creature uttered a pathetic sigh and then was dead.

Satisfied that there were no other threats for the moment, the woman leapt from her perch atop the building and landed nimbly in front of Cresnoble and Michiko. As soon as she got a closer look at the woman, Michiko felt the faint stirring of familiarity in her mind. For the time being, she simply filed that information away.

"The city of Prontera is no longer safe," the woman said without preamble. "You must evacuate immediately."

Instead of ordering the woman to identify herself, as Michiko had expected, Cresnoble merely gave her an evaluative look and dryly replied, "We're working on that."

"By attempting to escape via one of the gates, I assume?" The woman shook her head. "This army of undead has the city completely surrounded. There is no escaping that way."

"Then just what do you suggest?"

"I'll create a warp to Alberta. Most of the survivors are regrouping there."

As the two of them decided on their course of action, Michiko turned and looked over the empty street. Already, on the far side of the city, she could see the telltale glow of a fire. Always destruction. She shook her head sadly.

The pirate was gesturing with her hands, muttering the vocal incantation of a warp spell. As the blue and white warp field materialized before them, Michiko heard the clattering of skeletons moving across the pavement.

All three of them turned to see an archer step out of an alleyway, already bringing its compound bow to bear on Michiko. As the creature released its shot, darkness fell upon her vision. It took her a moment to realize that the darkness was Cresnoble stepping into the path of the arrow.

She heard a hard impact, heard him grunt in pain, then he stumbled backwards into the warp field. Brilliant blue and white light engulfed his body, then he was gone.

"Go!" she heard the pirate shout at her, as she too interposed her body between the archer and the sohee. She nocked a silver arrow into her bow, then shoved Michiko back into the warp field with her left hand.

As brightness and oblivion surrounded her, she saw the pirate draw back her bow.

A/N: Nothing really to say, 'cept apologies for the late update. I haven't been inspired to work on S-Wolves in forever. It was a pain in the ass just to drag the end of this chapter out of me. So without further ado, on to the shout-outs.

Raven: You must make a shitty non-archer then. Cruisers are cannon fodder to both Ganale and Cresnoble. Even when they were eensey little baby vit knights/sins.

Blank: Consider it updated. :3

Kenjiro Akisama: 'Sin is a pretty easy job class. Easier even than vit knight, which was the first class I ever had. I believe I said in the beginning that S-Wolves would have a fairly slow pace. And I've held true to that. XD Yeah, most of what goes on here will have some basis on what happens on the server I play on. Except, naturally, the invasion of Prontera.

Yeah, the plot's got several twists and turns before we reach the end. The only other person who knows how it'll all turn out is the player behind the pirate rogue. :3 It's half her idea, after all. Maybe Raven, too. I don't think I gave him all the details, tho.