Chapter Three
Burmecia, Center Street, Midnight, Two Days Later

The sudden lack of activity and dangerous happenings was enough to have any skilled warrior nervous. Most would be relieved by it, and thus slack off a bit and decide that things must be safe once more. They would return home, forget about what had happened, and mentally write off the crime as a one-time happening, and the murderer as a coward who didn't want to try and reveal himself. Freya, on the other hand, only got more nervous as nothing happened. Two days -- two full days! -- had passed without a single strange event. The city had returned to its normal routine with nothing interrupting it. The murderer had not returned, leaving nothing in his wake but confusion and tense nights. Burmecians were already shrugging the murder off and returning to work. Everything seemed to be going back to normal routine.

She didn't like it in the least. The tension in the night was thick and uncomfortable, making her look behind her back every second. Something was there, but for some reason the entire city didn't seem to notice it. They continued working, sleeping, and eating, oblivious to the dangers. It was as if two days was sufficient time for a murder to no longer be a concern, even though for a Dragon Knight, it only meant everything was all the more dangerous. Or, so it meant so for Freya, who had learned that things were normally most dangerous when they seemed to be safest. She knew better than to relax now that the murderer had seemingly disappeared; it only meant, to her, that he was probably preparing a counterstrike of some sort. He positively had to be out there.

Simply put, she was paranoid; however, it was fairly justified paranoia, and Freya found it to be a good enough reason to be continuing her patrol just as intensely as always. She was standing on the roof of an uninhabited house, scanning the city carefully, lance in her left hand. The rain was relatively light, for once, and therefore she was able to see a decent amount in the night, though not as much as she could if she had a decent light source. Still, it was enough to let her see that there was no one around on the rooftops except her. The Knight took one last look around, then slipped off the roof and landed as quietly as possible in the alleyway below. She then proceeded with another patrol of the city.

Thus far, her walk had proven to be just like the other ones: tense, dull, and offering nothing to help the situation. She would find no one stalking the streets, no one would get murdered, and everything would seem just as peaceful as ever... Except for the paranoia. No matter where she went, she always felt as if someone was watching her, waiting for her to make a single wrong move. It was persistent, staying with her even when she finished the patrol for the night, but she never saw a single person there. Freya had, at first, thought that she simply was being far sillier than usual... Until Fratley told her he had the same feelings. They later discovered that Rose and Aireff were having the same problems. It was a similar feeling to what they had experienced a few days ago, when following Puck to the castle to discuss their course of action.

Of course, all this did nothing for them but make them edgy. No one appeared to let them know it wasn't their imagination. No more murders were committed, no attempts; in fact, there was no crime at all. Many citizens were quite convinced that the murderer wouldn't be coming back, that he had accomplished what he wanted, and would now leave the city be. Only a few especially nervous citizens had an inkling that he may just be biding his time, and only Puck and the Knights seemed to truly believe it (and Puck's opinion of the whole matter changed hourly, so he truly didn't count). It was, overall, a situation that should've been rather encouraging, but was only turning out to be plain bad.

Freya shook her head, taking a turn into an alleyway she hadn't checked recently. Perhaps it was time for a different course of action. After all, the patrols were quite clearly getting none of them anywhere; the murderer had not been caught, and Puck was getting steadily more frustrated with their complete lack of progress. It may be time to retry figuring out the murderer's motives, and perhaps even come up with a way to lure him into a trap. Surely there must be something that would fool him into attacking them; most people could be fooled into doing the silliest of things. After all, Freya had fallen right into the murderer's trap; surely they could come up with something to get him back. As she reached the end of the alleyway, and turned around, she found herself trying to think of a way to fool him...

Then she stopped dead cold, ears twitching. Tightening her grip on her lance, Freya looked around, trying to spot what had just made the very odd, unnatural noise. Seeing nothing, but not encouraged by the much stronger paranoia that she felt, Freya leapt with a single bound onto the roof. However, no one but herself was on the rooftops. The city had returned to silence once more, though she was quite certain that someone was watching her, and preparing to make some sort of move. With a steel-like grip on her lance, Freya tried to locate where the paranoia was coming from, something she had never tried in all her days of patrolling -- a situation that made her curse. Why hadn't she thought of doing it earlier? Freya pushed away the self-criticism; she had to focus on where the feeling seemed to be. She found that it came from in front of her, and thus she decided to be daring. The Knight leapt forward onto the next roof.

She was greeted by a spell, appearing without warning, that nailed her in the chest, making her lose her footing and hurtle to the alleyway below. Gritting her teeth in an attempt to ignore the pain, but relieved that her body had somehow only been bruised, Freya got carefully to her feet, only to have a crossbow bolt whiz down and hit in the shoulder. Ignoring it, the Dragon Knight rolled to the right, then quickly to the left to try and confuse her unseen opponent. She then got to her feet and leapt onto the roof, sweeping her lance in an arc in front of her. While leaping, a crossbow bolt slammed into the ground where she had once rolled to, and her lance ended up sweeping against air. However, she did distinctly hear someone moving backwards on the roof, not to mention the reloading of a crossbow. Thus, Freya successfully leapt out of the way of another bolt, then dashed forward, lance ready for another strike.

She only ended up getting hit by another sudden spell, though this one only made her spin on the spot, reeling until she regained her balance, though her head still spun dizzily. It was a bizarre spell, certainly one Freya wasn't aware with, and her only reward for surviving its attempt to make her lose her balance was a shoulder bolt in her lower neck. Now finding the attacks to be less of a nuisance and more of a problem, Freya leapt into the air slightly, listening for the skittering of a person moving on the roof. Quickly she heard it, along with the shot of a crossbow; it was then that she noticed the bolt was visible, and indeed had become so the second it left the crossbow. The Knight ducked the bolt, then watched for when the next one was fired. Soon spotting it, she dashed forward, leapt onto another roof, and swept her lance out in an arc.

A grunt came to her ears, and she heard someone crash into the roof and skitter desperately to stay on top, though she didn't see anyone at all; she also didn't hear anyone hit the ground. Freya wasn't surprised, however, as she had longed figured that her opponent was invisible, and also very nimble. Cursing her obliviousness of late -- Invisibility was a simple thing to guess and notice! -- the Dragon Knight tried to call upon a Dragon Ability. It didn't work, but not because she couldn't feel the power; it was because no words came to her lips. As she thought about it, she hadn't been able to make real noise since the first spell had hit her. It explained why she hadn't been severely injured from a direct spell; her opponent had, for some reason, only Silenced her. However, it didn't encourage her; it only seemed to confirm that her opponent was a decent mage, if not a very powerful one.

Thus, readjusting the grip on her lace, Freya stepped forward carefully. She then ended up ducking when another bolt went whizzing toward her. Keeping low to the ground, Freya dashed forward, then watched where the next bolt came from -- A few feet ahead. Freya leapt in the air to avoid the bolt, then threw her lance down toward where the next bolt was shot, heading for her in the air. The lance only clattered on the roof and fell straight off it, making Freya curse mentally while she took the bolt to the shoulder. She landed on the roof and allowed herself to slide off it; unfortunately, she ended up sliding straight into her opponent, and the two of them toppled off the building in a heap. The Dragon Knight, ignoring her now protesting body, punched at what looked to be the ground, and successfully hit flesh. She got a nasty kick from her opponent for her efforts, which made her decide that hand-to-hand combat with an invisible man wasn't worth it. Freya kicked him hard to stun him, then rolled away.

Rising to her feet, the Knight quickly scanned the area. She spotted her opponent's crossbow, and swiftly kicked at it; the weapon went soaring away, causing a very angry curse to come from no where. Further observations caused Freya to spot her lance, something she swiftly went rushing for. She grabbed it, only to be hit by a spell from behind while picking it up. The Dragon Knight toppled to the ground, dizzy and reeling from the spell. However, just like before, she swiftly recovered, and leapt to her feet, whirling around with her lance in front of her; it was proving to be an extremely effective move. That time, however, it hit nothing. Slightly confused -- wouldn't her opponent take the opportunity to hit her while she was down? -- Freya looked toward where she assumed her opponent had been. She quickly realized that she was looking around too late.

A fireball hit her in the side, scorching her right side severely, and making her completely lose her balance. The Dragon Knight collapsed in a heap on the floor, startled by the sudden spell; she hadn't heard it being prepared or seen it coming. Twitching, the Knight began to rise into a sitting position, trying as quickly as she could to get her grumpy body to continue working. The sound of someone jogging along the paved streets came to her ears, however, and she tried to roll out of the way. Her body wasn't in the mood, and she only ended up slipping toward the ground. This ended up being a good thing; an invisible blade left a long cut from her cheek to her forehead on the side of her head. Had she still been in the sitting position, Freya would've certainly taken the blade in the neck. Gritting her teeth, Freya took her lance and simply chucked it to her right; it successfully hit flesh, and someone tumbled heavily to the floor. A dagger suddenly appeared on the ground, clanging loudly, and Freya grabbed for it with her left hand, while she heard her opponent -- did he ever stay down? -- once more scuffling to his feet.

It was at that point that a lance, coming from behind Freya, went straight through her opponent's neck. The Dragon Knight only ended up staring in complete confusion and surprise as a man, suddenly appearing beside her and looking just as shocked as she, toppled to the ground, and this time did not get back up. Moments later a soothing, green and white healing wind rushed by Freya, refreshing her and sending a spell that began to slowly heal her burns. Pulling the crossbow bolts out of her shoulders and neck so the Regen spell could do its work, Freya glanced toward who had arrived, though she had already guessed. Most of the Dragon Knights had awesome aim, but there was only one who would immediately think to use Reis' Wind, without asking silly, obvious questions beforehand.

Freya's guess proved to be correct; Rose was walking swiftly toward Freya, looking worried, annoyed, and very tired. She took one look at Freya, and pulled a bottle out of her pocket; she then jogged over to Freya and handed it to her without a word. Freya looked down at the bottle, then popped off the cork and drank it, figuring Rose didn't have a reason to poison her. A refreshing, almost nauseating feeling soared through her system, confirming to Freya that Rose had continued to prove perfectly sensible, and handed her a Remedy potion. Fratley or Aireff would've asked at least one question before even beginning to do any of those things; Rose proceeded with "treatment" almost as if in autopilot. Freya was only thankful for it; she had plenty of questions to ask, and didn't want to be delayed.

"Rose... What are you doing here? I thought you were patrolling at the Royal Gates?" Freya's voice sounded hoarse and weak, still influenced by the Silence spell. Freya and Rose both ignored it, knowing it would go away eventually, and that it certainly wouldn't stop them from conversing.

"I was... Until I heard a spell go off. It sounded incredibly large to be a single spell, and after seeing you and your new friend here, I think two spells went off at once..." Freya gave Rose a confused look, something that Rose returned with a very distressed smile. "I went in the direction of Lilah's house, figuring she was more helpless than yourself, and had a better chance of being murdered anyway... And sure enough, she was dead. Same story as before... No struggle, blinded before she was killed, but this time without anything being silenced or put under illusion. In fact, Fratley was there looking very stressed; seems he got there in time to see the guy disappear into thin air. Then I hear spells coming from here..."

"And you find me being attacked by a man with the ability to Silence," Freya finished when the older woman trailed off. "Two spells went off at once... He can't possibly be in two places at once. There must be two men behind the murders." It was the last thing Freya needed to think about.

"Exactly my thoughts. We can talk about it later, though. We have to tell the other Dragon Knights... Then decide who's going to tell Puck. And I'm going to say it right now... I am not going to be the one to tell him."

Puck was not happy.

Another murder had happened in the city, when he had specifically been trying to prevent that. He had sent his Dragon Knights on patrol, trusting they could find the man and prevent another disaster in his city. He had hoped for an easy end to the entire ordeal. Instead, he had gotten a very confusing three days, and then a wild climax to it all. Another murder had been committed, this time in the middle of the night, and quite loudly. Only a few seconds after that, or perhaps even at the same time, one of his Dragon Knights had been attacked and nearly flame-broiled alive. All in all, it added up to an extremely unhappy King.

His four Dragon Knights weren't in better spirits. In fact, most of them felt pretty stupid. All of them had feelings of paranoia, yet for some reason they had completely ignored it, and not even tried to focus on if it was coming from somewhere, or very simply there, with no meaning. They had completely failed to save one woman they were supposed to be especially protecting, then had one of their own ranks injured. Best of all, despite now knowing two men were involved, and having seen them both, they had only managed to kill one of them, and hence only knew what one of them looked like. The other had simply vanished into thin air, just as Fratley arrived on the scene. Hence, they had no idea what he looked like. It was very poor performance on their part.

Perhaps that was the reason none of the Dragon Knights were daring to look their angry King in the eye. As Puck paced impatiently in front of the Dragon Knights, awoken rudely from a nice sleep, he tried to find one Knight that was actually going to look at him and admit that they had made a serious error. However, it was a little past one in the morning, a time that Puck did not like being up at. A small Guard division of the army was searching for spies -- a job normally left to Dragon Knights, which didn't help anyone's pride. Finally, news of the second murder and injury of Dragon Knights would spread through the city like wild fire in a few hours -- resulting in the probable -- no, guaranteed -- leave of most of the foreigners. It would also produce a very angry Burmecian family knocking down their door. With everything looking so glum, no one wanted to dare look at Puck, state the obvious, and have his wrath come down upon them. Puck was much younger than all of them, certainly, but he was also King, and therefore much scarier by right.

Regardless, Freya looked up to stare at the King. Rose glanced toward her as if she thought her fellow Dragon Knight suicidal, but Freya didn't seem to notice. She glanced at the other Knights, before realizing that they obviously could think of nothing productive to say. Most of them, therefore, would just sit quietly for a little longer, before finally realizing they were wasting time. Perhaps Aireff would say something if she didn't, but Aireff had been the one Dragon Knight absent from both situations -- Hence, he probably wouldn't be able to say anything that was exactly encouraging. Only Freya had anything hopeful to say -- while she hadn't been the one to kill the man, she hadn't exactly lost him either. Thus, Freya steeled herself against the wrath of Puck, which seemed ready to rain down upon the entire lot of them if someone didn't speak quickly, and began.

"I know this looks really bad -- And it is," Freya started off, keeping as calm as possible. "However, we did learn something -- The man is not alone. And he and his companion were obviously very similar -- both of them could cast spells, and apparently both could use a weapon. I'm safely assuming that only one of them could teleport... Either way, one of them is dead. Hopefully this will delay his partner, giving us some time..." She trailed off at this point, not quite sure what they needed the time for. They could try to convince the city that everything was fine, but two murders in a few days wasn't going to have anyone very willing to believe them. They would just want the murderer captured or dead, not missing.

"Pu -- Uh, Your Highness." The amazing had happened. Rose had actually used Puck's official title. Even Puck looked amazed at this, and didn't begin screaming like he had seemed ready to do. Rose nearly sighed with relief, but managed to keep calm and continue, as if nothing extraordinary had happened. "We need a meeting to discuss this. A real meeting, sir, not a half-assed one. We also need to contact nearby kingdoms and towns to ask if they've seen anyone suspicious or had any problems. We need to do something. The city is going to erupt in chaos -- two murders, both women, caused by the same man, in a few days? After a few years of decent peace, this is bad."

Puck had had his mouth open, probably to argue. However, his eyes turned slightly upward; then he sighed, shaking his head and gaining a remotely calm look. He looked at the Dragon Knights before him, who all nodded at Rose's words. He then shook his head, before saying, "Fine, fine. I really had hoped to solve this easily but it's clear that's not goin' to happen. Freya, you're practically a celebrity, so you can try an' convince the city that they are not all goin' to die--" Freya definitely thought Puck was a little off in calling her a celebrity, but she didn't say anything -- Puck was continuing. "Rose, since you came up with the wonderful idea, you can come up with who we should contact -- and do so. Aireff, be our efficient detective. I would send our hired one but he can't fight for crap. And Fratley... Get the army into shape. We need patrols, and people at attention. Now--"

"If I may interrupt for a moment, King," Aireff cut in smoothly. Somehow, whenever he interrupted, he did it in the most polite way; regardless, Puck glowered at him with a look that said he would have been best to wait. Aireff only continued. "Nothing against her, of course, but it is... Wise to send Freya to encourage everyone? She is the only one of us who got hurt -- and as you expertly put it, she is a celebrity. If the town sees an assassin injured that one of the people who saved the world... It's not going to encourage many people. May I suggest sending Fratley? People love him, he has rhetoric, and he has... 'Relations' with our Hero. I think you'd be better sending him." Aireff shrugged helplessly, knowing very well that he may be overstepping his boundaries. Questioning Puck's decisions normally wasn't intelligent, and nearly stepping into Freya and Fratley personal relationship wasn't overly great either -- Freya was supposed to be a part of it, and even she had no clue what was going on. Aireff could have very well offended the entire room.

However, more spectacular events occurred. Fratley and Freya only nodded with agreement at his words instead of wondering why he had paused at "relations", and Puck didn't throw a massive, kingly tantrum. Instead, he nodded thoughtfully, as if truly considering that someone other than himself could know what they were talking about. Rose couldn't help but stare, eyebrows raised with shock. Freya and Fratley took the time to glance at each other, as if asking "Where do we stand with each other again?" Aireff simply looked around, making sure he hadn't offended anyone severely, then smiling weakly when everyone's reactions were the exact opposite of what he had expected. A few moments passed, before Puck cleared his throat, bringing the Knights' attention back on him. He nodded at Aireff, as if acknowledging that someone had actually outsmarted him.

"You have a point. All right, then, fine. Fratley, you will tell the city that they shouldn't start throwin' riots. Aireff, you will go encourage the army -- Freya can't very well do that either. Rose can still be our diplomat. And Freya? You be our fighting detective. It'd be best to keep ya away from being seen anyway -- Your injuries will completely contradict whatever Fratley and Aireff say. There. Now are ya all happy?" After the almost indignant speech, Puck swept his gaze across the room, giving everyone a look that quite clearly said they had better be happy or someone was going to get hurt. Though Freya honestly wanted to ask how her being a detective was any better than her being diplomat or army general, she kept quiet; Puck had had to make a decision twice, so it was best simply to smile and nod.

At seeing that his Dragon Knights were okay with his second plans, Puck nodded, and spared a few more seconds to speak once more, "Great. I'll give you a few days to get set. In three days, a real meeting, to discuss what you've all done an' found. Dismissed." With that, Puck turned around and swept through the back door, most likely to return to his quarters and attempt to get some sleep. The Dragon Knights glanced at each other, before all turning and leaving the room together. Silence followed the group as they walked down the hallway, glancing at each other from time to time, but clearly too busy with their own thoughts to start and hold any intelligent conversation. Rose, however, in particular glanced around at the group; to Freya, she seemed to have something she desperately wanted to say, but didn't know when was the appropriate time. Fratley, in contrast, didn't look around much at all, and seemed very busy thinking over something; Freya figured it was the convincing speech he would have to try and give.

"I would suggest we all get some sleep." Ah, Rose had finally said what was on her mind. She attracted the attention of all but Fratley, who still seemed quite busy with his own thoughts. "I doubt any of us are going to get any in a long time... Especially with man we seem to be dealing with. And Puck, of course." Naturally, Puck also fell into the equation where Rose was concerned. The other Dragon Knights only nodded, even Fratley, though his nod was barely noticeable. Seeming to notice this, Rose frowned, and looked toward her silent son. "Something wrong, Fratley?"

Fratley only shook his head, before speaking in a calm tone, though it was quite clear something was worrying him. "I have to try and convince everyone that things are going well -- Even though they quite obviously aren't." He had every reason to worry -- The inhabitants of the town were certainly not stupid, not to mention they were liable to spot Freya at some point. Fratley's words could be contradicted by the simplest happening, and the city could notice with ease that him trying to calm everyone down was simply an attempt to cover up a huge problem. If Fratley didn't do his job well, he would have a lot of angry people to worry about.

Freya knew all of this, but she only smiled and patted Fratley on the shoulder. Encouragement was what Fratley needed, not agreement. "Don't worry about it. You'll do far better than me -- Sending me would be liable to scare everyone out of town." This was true -- While Rose's Reis' Wind had done an amazing job making Freya's burns light enough so she could walk, and eliminating the crossbow wounds, it had completely missed the cut on her head. Furthermore, various patches of burns were still present. Another Reis' Wind may have completed the job, but Freya knew they had more important things to worry about -- That, and Reis' Wind was one of the most obvious Dragon Abilities to notice; she didn't need to attract attention anymore.

Fratley smiled weakly at the encouragement, but didn't say anything. Silence once more descended upon the group as they walked outside the castle and began a quick walk out of the Royal Grounds. The city seemed spookily peaceful after the events of the day. The feeling of paranoia, all Knights noted, had thankfully disappeared, leaving the night seeming awfully beautiful. As Freya noticed the silhouette of the Royal Gate in the distance, she realized it felt like absolutely nothing had happened at all. However, the sting of her head wound as the rain hit it reminded her of how false this feeling was. The troubles had not ended... In fact, she had a funny feeling they were all only at the gates of a living hell.

I don't have absurd ways to end chapters. What can you possible be talking about? Anyway, I'm back, for the ten trillionth time. This time the Writing Muse got uber-pissed at Fanfiction for some reason and refused to write anyway. So I chained her to a chair and forced her, and she cooperated! I swear, it's practically a soap opera in my brain. Anyway, the battle scene in this chapter is weird to say the least, but it's rather difficult to describe Freya trying to fight an invisible guy in the middle of the night. Oh well, it's some excitement. At the rate I'm going, I don't think I'll even bother saying that the IC for characters is doing poorly. laugh

Sadly, I could not find any particularly funny typos. However, my spelling of silhouette is amusing: "siholluette" laugh

See you whenever I get around to writing the next chapter!

This story is copyright to me. All elements of Final Fantasy IX are copyright to Square-Enix.