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Number the Stars
Chapter Two
Five thousand three hundred and seventy two, five thousand three hundred and seventy three-- Hey, the sun is up.
Kratos stood up and stretched before teleporting back into his rented room. It was time for mission Pretend to be a Guardian Angel to commence. He glanced at the greasy mirror in his room to make sure that he looked as normal as he could look and almost got distracted by the shapes that the grease was making. Before he could get mesmerized by something mundane, Kratos shook his head and walked out of the room.
As he was going down the stairs, Kratos took notice of four elves disguised as Desians. His intuition (which he supposed he had developed because he had been alive for more than four thousand years) advised him to wait before they left to avoid possible recognition.
"We have to make sure that the dammed girl does not make it to the Church," Kratos heard the obese giant that he deduced was the leader of the group bark instructions to his subordinates.
Great, thought Kratos dejectedly. Now I'll have to stop these morons before they—Wait, I can use them to make sure I get this 'protect the Chosen' mercenary job.
On the spot, Kratos decided to let these elves (probably Renegades) get to the temple and attack the Chosen. If he did that, Kratos would be putting the Chosen in his debt while showing of his skills (some of them anyway). He watched as the elves-probably-Renegades walked out of the inn and waited a few minutes. When he was certain that they had a decent lead on him, he walked out of the inn himself.
It hadn't been ten minutes before Kratos could see them about twenty meters and ten centimeters ahead of him on the road. Just how slow and incompetent are they? He asked himself bemusedly. I've been idle and I still caught up to them.
The complete incompetence of these Renegades (he was certain they were Renegades, who else would try to go after the Chosen?) meant one of two things. One, the people opposing Yggie were much weaker than he had assumed. Two, this time, the chosen was a not noble like last time, meaning that the leader of the renegades trusted these morons to eliminate her.
Kratos left the road and walked into the Iselia forest. When he was a six meters and two decimeters into the woods, he spread out his wings and put on and invisibility charm and began to memorize the layout of the region. There's the church, about thirty five decameters from Iselia. There's the forest about one kilometer and two decameters in the eastern side of Iselia. That house in the far north of the forest, about two kilometers from those dammed hills are still there? Yes, I see it. Huh, Yggie put a human ranch on that hill? How nauseatingly ironic of him.
Kratos checked on the progress of the Renegades and was pleased to see that they were making to the church without problems. He decided to fly around the region some more to kill time. This mission was turning out to be more bothersome and mundane than he had expected. When passing through the road between Iselia and the church for the third time, he saw a young woman (a half elf judging by the white hair and unusually pale complexion) walking towards the church.
She sure seems to be in a hurry, thought Kratos swinging his left foot a little absentmindedly. It seemed that anytime he wasn't counting something he needed to be moving somehow. Can she be the Chosen? No, Chosen are humans. But why is she going to the Church? He looked over at the Renegades who were nearly in the church already. That Holy Bottle won't protect you against them, half-elf girl.
Kratos considered coming to her aid somehow but he reminded himself that his mission was the Chosen, not the half elf girl. He told himself that if he helped any creature that needed help in Sylvarant, he would never have a moment of rest and stubbornly ignored the situation at hand. Instead, he continued to fly around a little and about ten minutes after the half elf girl had come out of Iselia, three kids follow her example.
Children, hmm, it's been a while since I saw some of those. But they are not even carrying a Holy Bottle. Kratos began to feel obligated to help them despite his previous resolution to mind his own business. They were just children after all.
Thankfully, before he could engage in a mental battle with himself, he noticed that these three children weren't so helpless. There was one with brown hair who seem competent with a sword—no, two swords—and that white haired young half elf was very nimble with black magic.
The brown haired one is not too bad with a sword, but why the hell does he need two? He thought genuinely entertained for the first time in a long while. Someone needs to explain the concept of guarding to him. And that half elf appears to be well-trained in black magic. For the first time, he noticed the blond girl who was fighting the fiends along side them.
She's attacking with rings, she's supposed to be in the middle of the battlefield, why isn't she in the middle? Blond? It was then that Kratos realized that this was probably the Chosen, who was heading towards the church; which probably meant that he had missed the signal. He had missed a blatantly obvious ray of light coming from the temple. Wonder what I was staring at this time?
He shook his head; a little miffed with himself and watched the three kids make it to the temple without too much trouble. Once they went he inside, he followed them still cloaked in his invisibility charge. Kratos watched as the three kids took out three of the Renegades and, thankfully for him, they were beginning to look tired.
It's about time too, thought Kratos to himself as he watched the three kids argue about what to do in regards to the signal and the half-elf's sister. That half elf might be gifted, but he's still young. The Chosen looks like she needs a good Healing Stream to go her way, but why isn't the other boy in the same condition?
It was then that Kratos decided to take a good look at the brown haired boy, meaning that he noticed the sphere on is right hand. Now, how in the world did he get that? Before he could really think much about brown hair's sphere, they three kids finished their argument, which he had ignored, and rushed towards the church. He ran behind them a hid his wings before he forgot to make sure that he didn't forget right before it was time to drop the invisibility charm.
When they got there, they were greeted by the fat, probably sphere altered half-elf, wielding a nasty spiked ball chain. Brown hair rushed at the enemy and actually managed to land in a few hits with his sphere-enhanced speed. That's right, brown hair, use your speed to wear him down and let white hair deal some real damage—no run back a little, guard—oh, screw it. Unfortunately, the sphere did not enhance brown hair's intelligence and he was actually trying to beat fat half-elf head on. Before further damage could be done, Kratos rushed into the fight and casted a first aid spell on brown hair.
The fight only lasted a few minutes, with Kratos mainly casting healing spells on brown hair. The Chosen was being a particular pain to heal; she didn't excel in speed, stamina or strength. He supposed her turning into an angel would fix that. The brat doesn't have enough stamina for that to be of much help. Oh, whatever, just try to be subtle about this. Kratos decided to end the fight with a really well-placed and extremely overpower stone blast and fat half-elf dropped to the ground. Almost immediately, fat half-elf's superior appeared.
Fat half-elf's was a stern looking half-elf with spiked brown hair and the skirt looked rather strange on such a manly face. Well, whatever suits anybody, I guess.
"Shit, I didn't think you'd be here." Who, me? Do I know him? Have I seen him? "We better retreat for now." My reputation must have gotten worst over the years if my presence is scaring them off.
"That's right you'd better run off," Brown hair was quickly loosing any respect from Kratos.
"Hey, this guy is really strong," this particular half-elf is particularly small. He reminded Kratos of a mellower version of the much younger Mithos. "That was a really good stone blast."
"He scared those guys off easily," mouthed the Chosen sounding impressed. Kratos settled for tapping his sword against his uncle.
"He's not that good," mouthed brown hair sounding miffed. "Who the hell are you anyway?"
"I am Kratos Aurion, a mercenary," responded Kratos with as much enthusiasm as he did everything else.
At that moment, an old woman walked out of the temple and looked at Kratos as if sizing him up. "Are you the mercenary that Deidre planned to hire?"
"Yes, I am," answered Kratos with as much candor as before. The Chosen chose this moment to be brave and determined.
"I have to go through my test now," she said stepping up to the entrance of the temple. The old lady stepped forward and gave some overly dramatic warning about the monster.
"We'll help you, Collette," said brown hair sounding too enthusiastic at the prospect of danger. Opinion regarding you deteriorating, brat.
"Lloyd," voiced white hair sounding exasperated. "We can't just rush in there, we're running out of items." Then he sighed wearily. "But I do have to save Raine."
"Al, right, then here we go," said brown hair happily. The old lady thankfully chose this moment to intervene.
"Mercenary," she said looking up at Kratos. "Won't you help them?"
"I fate clients die I'll be out of a job," he said an followed the three brats into the temple.