Chapter 9

The Wild Trump Card

"Stop!" an Alliance soldier yelled as Mirage stepped into the entrance. "You've caused enough trouble!"

Just as Mirage was getting ready to take on the soldier, a loud, husky voice stopped her. "I wouldn't do that if I were you, girl." The man was standing next to the platform beneath the OPA... it was still there. Sitting in the platform, but the large man with dark beard and a dark maroon helmet holding a large silver halberd was guarding it. Another man was standing in front of the OPA looking towards it ignoring the situation behind him.

"Are you... the commander of the Alliance?" Xeim said angrily narrowing his eyes towards the large man with the halberd.

"That's Commander Shin! It's a shame you've come all this way and now you must meet your ends here. My trump card here will be doing the favors. Heh heh." Shin laughed as he looked towards the other man standing next to the OPA.

The man turned around and to Mirage and Lieber's horror... there was no man that could have looked more familiar to them. He was wearing leather pants and a dark leather jacket. He was also equipped with gloves and gauntlets just like Mirage, and he had blonde, wavy hair... it was none other than Cliff Fittir.

"Who?" Welch tried taking a closer look at him.

"The hell?" Lieber dropped his rifle. "No way..."

"Cliff...?" Mirage rubbed her eyes and looked carefully at the man who just stood there crossing his arms looking back with no surprise. He just gave them a concentrated look as if they were his foes.

"Oh! Hahahaha! So you know each other." Shin laughed uncontrollably, "My, my! What a coincidence!"

"Why are you with the Alliance!" Mirage yelled at Cliff.

Cliff batted his eye and gave her back a sarcastic look, "Gimme a break. What will you rookies do even if you find out? I'm gonna put an end to your pathetic attempts right here!" He jumped down the platform and got into his fighting stance.

"Wait, what are you doing? Cliff, stop!" Mirage tried her best to reason with him.

"Take care of this, Cliff." Shin ordered him, "I'll leave this task to you."

The other soldiers in the area used some cubical force to blow a rear exit in the opposite wall open. Every one of the Alliance members used the exit to escape with the OPA, except for Cliff.

"Ugh!" Mirage felt the urge to follow them but she knew she had to deal with the problem ahead of her first.

Cliff laughed sarcastically, "So, Didja miss me? Heh heh, look at the expressions on all your faces."

Mirage snapped back at Cliff angrily, "Care to explain what you're trying to do?"

"Not in the least," he responded... still with the sarcastic expression. "I think i'll have a little fun with this."

"How could you do this to your friends!" Welch continued to try and reason with him but it didn't work.

Lieber picked up his rifle back up looking completely lost, "Just what the hell is going on here? What do you mean?"

"That's enough!" Xeim shot back at Cliff. "You're with the Alliance, that's all I need to know!" And he was the first one to make a move in the whole situation as he confronted Cliff. He threw a few lefts and rights which Cliff easily blocked and before he could change his pattern, Cliff didn't waste anymore time and clenched Xeim's throat with one hand and lifted him.

Mirage instantly knew Xeim was in trouble, she leaped towards her old friend and landed a kick on his arm as he shook Xeim off and threw him into the wall.

"Just like the old times, huh?" Cliff smirked as he looked towards Mirage this time. He tried to distract her before throwing a jab which Mirage was able to avoid, she ducked to evade his second punch and sweeped Cliff of his feet using her lengthy, but nimble legs. Seeing him off-guard on the ground, she leaped on top of him to trap him in his place and threw a downward jab which Cliff was barely able to stop with his strong hands, he grabbed her hand and was able to throw her off him. The fight went on as they changed into the Taijutsu fighting stance. During the fight, Mirage was shocked to see the way Cliff was fighting. Cliff had improved a lot, Mirage herself had also improved but this time she wasn't able to keep up, mainly because she was nervous fighting one of her best friends throughout the whole duel. The news of Cliff being with the Alliance also distracted her every now and then. Cliff was able to retaliate with lightning quick speed and eventually as she got more and more nervous, he read her moves like alphabets.

The others watched as the fight went on, not wanting to intefere with the duel, in due of respect. Misty, however, looked as if she was beginning to cast one of her spells as one of her orbs floated in mid-air.

After much fighting, Cliff connected a punch that hit Mirage's abdomen which sent her to the ground. "Okay, fun time over." Cliff said in a lazy tone, "It's time to finish things here and now!" He leaped into the air in a similar fashion to Mirage before diving fist first instead, "Aerial Assault!" Mirage backflipped to avoid the impact in time. Lieber and Xeim didn't feel like standing around any longer either.

"Firebolt." Misty's floating orb radiated red waves as four firebolts flew in Cliff's direction. To everyone's shock, the belts strapped around Cliff's jacket suddenly turned pale blue and a field of aura bounced the firebolts and threw them back towards Misty which hit her with a large enough impact to knock her down rendering her unconscious, "Unh... i'm s-sorry..."

Everytime Xeim tried getting near him, he got the same treatment he suffered from earlier. Cliff threw in more aerial assaults consecutively as Mirage went from corner to corner and avoided his attacks. She figured at this rate, they aren't going to get anywhere.

"Spark Orb! Hehehe, how's this!" As the orb of lightning energy that was attached to Lieber's rifle charged towards Cliff, his strapped belt again shined bright blue having no effect on him, but instead giving Lieber a big jolt of electricity before falling to the ground.

Welch was smart enough to avoid throwing explosives or bombs on him so they won't bounce back. Instead she spent her time aiding Misty, Lieber, and Xeim with bottles of potions and revitalizers.

Mirage found Cliff trying to catch his breath and didn't waste any time to charge at him with her shoulder sending him flying into the corner. "Crescent Locus!" four crescents nailed him like spikes lifting him in the air. To her surprise, he recovered in mid-air after the fourth crescent and charged with yet another move.

"Hammer of Might!" the two explosions covered nearly the whole area of the room, as everyone except Cliff was left standing conscious at the end of the heated battle.

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"Are you okay? How's that?" a cold zap ran through her arms before Mirage opened her eyes. Still in the room of the Sacred Orb inside Kaddan... she saw Welch kneeling just beside her. "Oh! Welcome back to the real world!" Welch grinned as she spread her arms out.

"W-What's going on here?" Mirage sat up straight as she put her hand on her forehead rubbing it slowly with her palm.

Xeim was standing a few meters across from where Mirage was sitting near the platform, "Looks like we were defeated once again. Welch nursed us all back, but that man... Cliff... he's a Klausian right? He got away... or more like... he spared us."

"Cliff..." suddenly it came to Mirage that it wasn't just a dream or more accurately, a nightmare. "Something's happening to him, i'm sure of it. The Alliance must be using him."

"I'm with Mirage. I've known Cliff for a long time as well... that was far too different for it to be him," Lieber announced standing behind Xeim with Misty.

Xeim looked at him in disagreement, "Well if you don't think it's him, it's probably not him. I say we should've disposed of him instead of fooling around. Next time we see him, we take him down."

Misty conceded with Xeim looking pale as usual. "I couldn't agree more. All we know right know is that he's an enemy, letting our emotions get in the path is just futile." She brushed off particles of dust from her garments.

"He's supposed to be a friend right?" Welch replied as she stood up. "Then why did he fight us? If anything, he has decieved us!"

Mirage got onto her feet abruptly, "No. There's something going on, we have to go after them and find out what it is. We can't just attack mindlessly, even if they are enemies."

"Hmph." Xeim crossed his arms as he turned the other way. "I beg to differ. This little speculation may cost us our lives, I hope you realize that."

Lieber scratched his head and looked towards Mirage hoping to convince her, "I hate to admit, but he's right captain. Maybe the Alliance are just trying to fool us, it can't be the Cliff we all know."

"I-I know, but before we take any drastic steps... we should gather more information on our enemies, don't you think? Even if we don't die, we might end up killing Cliff, you know! And Lieber, you know how long it has been since we last saw him." Mirage tried to reason but she did admit to herself in her mind that she was letting her emotions get the best of her in the situation. She turned the other way as she put on a sulking expression on her face.

"Mirage..." Welch looked towards her with sorrowful eyes.

Lieber placed a hand on Mirage's shoulder, "Yeah, I get what you're saying. And... I guess you're right, I wouldn't regret it any less if something were to happen to Cliff because of us."

"Lieber, thanks." Mirage let out a breath of relief.

"Fine." said Xeim while narrowing his eye son Lieber and Mirage. "We will try get Cliff out of the circumstances he has fallen into. But if we fail once, then we'll have no choice but to defeat him."

Mirage nodded and accepted Xeim's condition. "Since they've got what they wanted from Elicoor, I assume they've left. We're going to follow them."

"My thoughts exactly, cap'n!" Lieber replied enthusiastically as he smacked his fists together.

"Let's get back to the Diplo pronto." said Mirage throwing a glance at her two subordinates, "We'll discuss what we know and what we have to do from there. I'll contact Marietta in the meantime. Misty, Welch... what will you two do then?"

Misty, who was quiet all this time, placed one hand on her chin before responding. "I have a request, if you don't mind. It won't be simple."

"What is it?" Mirage asked curiously.

"The reason why I came with you all this way was because I knew you aren't from Elicoor. To tell the truth, this isn't where i'm from either." Misty went on while looking down at the floor.

"Yeah, I kinda figured." Lieber said strapping his rifle on his back, "The way you look and your spells, definitely don't seem to match with any of the Elicoorians."

"Oh I see! So you want to return to your home planet, right?" asked Welch with a bright look on her face as if she had said something smart.

Misty nodded slightly at Welch's statement, "Yes and no. In return of this favor, i'll help you in your task. And please don't worry, i'll hold my part of the bargain until later."

"What do you think?" Lieber asked as he turned towards Mirage expressing a 'Let's take her' look all over his face.

Mirage already had an answer for her though, "I don't see any reason to decline your offer then. I'm just a little concerned, since you're not from around here... you should have a little idea of what it's like outside of Elicoor. I guess what i'm trying to say is... be prepared for whatever we will come across."

"Looks like we're all set then, huh?" Welch squealed out. "And you guys will have to wait for a while at Peterny while I pack my stuff."

"Hold it there, kid!" Lieber replied amusingly. "This isn't what you think. Even we don't know what we're going up against just yet, so you'd probably be a lot safer back at home. And don't even think of trying to follow us this time cause... well... you can't."

"Hey! Who are you calling kid! You don't look any older! And didn't we already go through this once?" the young Elicoorian snapped back. "You did the same thing in Peterny, and look what happened. I came to the rescue! I promise i'll take care of myself, you won't have to worry about me."

"But Welch..." Mirage took a few steps towards her as she spoke. "Many people need you here. Who will take care of the Craftsman Guild if you just drop everything? I appreciate your concern for us, but there are a lot of people here who need you."

Welch smiled delightfully, "Oh i'll take care of that. That's something I can leave the Guildmaster to take care of. Tee hee! He'll be a little annoyed, but i'm sure he'll manage to do atleast half a good job as I do in there."

After further convincing, Mirage accepted Welch to help them in their given task and she explained the situation involving the Panglactic Federation and the Alliance terrorist organization to brief her on what she is getting herself into. Welch understood and nodded to Mirage's every word in a surprisingly serious manner.

The castle of Aquaria was secure for the time being. Magistrate Laselle was waiting for their arrival at the chapel just as they made their exit from the sealed cavern.

"Is the queen safe?" Mirage asked not in the mood of giving introductions.

"We have secured her in a safe place before the occurence of the invasion began. If you had arrived here earlier, we wouldn't have lost the precious Sacred Orb and citizens that you see laying lifeless with your eyes at the moment." Laselle replied in a strict fashion.

"If it weren't for us, who knows what more they could have done!" Xeim looked a little surprised at the lack of magistrate's gratitude.

Mirage shook her head as if to get straight to the point. "Where is the queen right now?"

"Her Majesty has been secured in Airyglyph territory away from the hazardous areas. I'm sorry, but you will have to wait another few days or so before we can grant you an audience with her Majesty." said Laselle.

"That's alright. Give her our best wishes."

The stop at Peterny was a short one, and the sun had already begun to set that day. Lieber suggested spending the night in the inn, but Mirage insisted that they have to hurry back to the Diplo and report to the Federation as well now that they are working together. After taking the south exit to the Palmira Plains, Mirage requested Marietta to transport them back up to the Diplo.