Pirates
A crashing sound came from behind Sefton as he was about to round the corner of another residential home. He spun around and stared at his two clumsy companions as they bickered relentlessly among the trash that tripped them.
"Would you two please stop causing such a ruckus?" He asked annoyed.
"Well tell Dawelien to not crowd me then."
"Crowd you? I'm just following Sefton. You're the one virtually hanging on me. People might think we were a couple if you weren't so ugly."
"You son of a…"
"Gods…I swear I should have just beat you two unconscious and left you somewhere on Flaris." Sefton interrupted.
"What makes you think you could have?" Dawelien snorted.
"We've already had our little two on one, or don't you remember I won?"
"How do you know we weren't holding back?"
"Because you morons don't have the control required to mask your physical, or for that matter, mental capabilities."
"I can't believe we're being called stupid by the guy who is dragging us all over Saint Morning, to knock on every door asking for Nithiw!"
"If you aren't going to contribute better ideas than I suggest you keep your voice down. Did you somehow forget that there are a lot of enemies of the Scavengers in this city now?"
"Yet we're going door to door…"
"That's not so risky. Pirates are probably fairly easy to spot one you see one. But you shouting her name at the top of your lungs, in the dark hours of the night, probably won't give us much chance to see a damned thing until…"
"Well hello there strangers. Did we hear you correctly?"
The three friends all looked toward a large group of men who had appeared seemingly from empty space. As more showed, they realized at this point they were surrounded. Sefton shot a scornful look at his two comrades, who could only return nervously sorrowful grins. Rolling his eyes and pushing his glasses further onto his nose, he let out a sigh before pulling forth his staff.
"You two caused this mess, so don't think you're not going to help clean it up." Sefton said aloud.
The other two pulled their swords, and all three Flaris natives charged into the group of shocked strangers.
"Hey…wake up!"
Sefton suddenly felt cold water running over his body, shocking him awake. He winced as pain traveled throughout his skull. With one eye open, he began scanning the room he found himself in. Weneibo and Dawelien were coming to as well, bound in rope to wooden chairs on his left. There were about four other men in the room, one of whom he recognized as one of the men they fought in the streets.
"Think he's coherent yet?"
"Don't know, he still looks pretty bad sir."
"Yes, I'm coher…" Sefton choked as a second bucket of water was thrown in his face.
"Oh, guess he's out of it."
Mild laughter filled the room as Sefton was attempting to clear his lungs of water. Looking down, he realized that he too was bound to a wooden chair. He slowly began shifting his weight while looking at his captors.
"You three did pretty well out there from what I hear." Said a man wearing all black except for his ivory white gloves, and silver eye patch.
"Just those two took five men before getting taken down. But this one, now he was really something."
"Military?"
"The on with the glasses maybe, but those two I highly doubt. They don't seem disciplined enough for it."
Sefton let out a low laugh before feeling a sting across his cheek as one of the men backhanded him. The force of the blow torqued his neck to its peak, and out of the corner of his eye, he spotted a window just behind where he sat. As Sefton swept his head back around, he noticed his staff and two swords belonging to his friends in a corner.
"So then, are you with the military?" The man in black asked.
"No."
"So who are you, and why exactly are you searching for miss Nithiw?"
Sefton shot another angry look at his companions.
"Oh don't go blaming them, we knew about your search before they made the big commotion."
"How?"
"While you were going door to door you stopped by some home where a young lady there invited you in for tea remember? You really should take better care with whom you share your sensitive information stranger."
This time it was the laughs of Dawelien and Weneibo that were beaten to silence. Sefton only gritted his teeth in anger.
"So, I'll ask once more. What are you doing here?'
"I'm an old friend of hers." Sefton answered, regaining his calm.
"Really? Well, that's certainly convenient."
"Convenient?"
"Yes. You see, I'm an old enemy of hers, so if I have one of her precious friends than I should be able to flush her out of whatever hole she's hiding and finish that woman once and for all."
"Why would you want to kill miss Nithiw?" Weneibo asked.
"They used to be a small pirate guild themselves you know. Pillaging, mass murder, rape, the whole deal. That is, before leadership was passed on to a young woman named Nithiw. Once she took control, the Scavengers became a peaceful guild. They soon formed a truce with the four cities, declaring their neutrality. So while they worked for the benefit of the general public, they had only recently stopped doing harm to, they were granted immunity and protection. They began picking up the scraps of quarreling pirate guilds and the like as if they thought themselves better."
"What does that have to do with you?"
"How do you think Ashel was so capable of keeping us in check? He may have been powerful, but he alone was still nothing really. However Nithiw found it in her best interest to start feeding him information. Names and locations of hundreds of pirates and several guilds. All of them were soon wiped out by Ashel and the Saint Morning Scavengers jointly. She was selling out her old comrades for a more comfortable pillow next to the throne. That treacherous woman…how I will enjoy slowly breaking her."
"Can you really blame her?" Sefton asked.
"What?"
"Are you truly angry at what happened, or are you just mad she outsmarted the rest of you?"
The man closest Sefton buried a heavy fist into his stomach, causing him to lurch forward gasping for breath while the chair made a loud creaking noise.
"You aren't really friends of hers after all. If you were, I'm certain you wouldn't have been so surprised by any of the things I had just told you. Nobody would be able to call her a friend without knowing about her past, that much I remember about her."
"Well…good…for you." Sefton said between breaths.
The man simply smiled.
"It's a shame really. It would have been nice if you weren't liars. Now we'll all miss out on the fun of torturing you in public at morning to flush her out. We could just for fun, but after trying with random people before, we seem to attract the wrong sorts to us. Last time we tortured some young woman to death, all we got was some troublesome little acting troupe who tried to interfere. It would seem that Nithiw has no qualms turning her back on people what so ever if they're strangers. Oh well. Kill the three of them and send their body parts to each of the three cities, just in case they actually are military spies."
The man with the eye patch began walking up a set of stairs when each of his remaining henchmen brought out blades and paired up with each bound man. Sefton leaned forward in his chair as when the air was stricken from him.
"The though of death overwhelming you?" The man standing before Sefton asked mockingly. "Do you have anything to say before your end?"
"Actually…yeah." Sefton answered, wrapping his foot around the front left leg of the chair. "If you're going to tie someone to a chair, make sure it's not already broken."
Suddenly he snapped the leg of the chair and used the forward motion, propelled himself into his would be executioner. The sound of cracking bone could be heard as Sefton's head collided with the nose of the pirate, sending him back in pain. In an instant, Sefton pivoted and launched himself at the window that was behind him. Instead of going all the way through though, he broke the window and began moving furiously as the glass cut into both his body and the ropes that kept him bound.
"Get him!" A yell shot out.
Sefton looked over his shoulder as the second pirate was coming for him. The ropes ripped and once freed, the man grabbed the very chair he had previously been a prisoner of, and turned it to splinters across the face of his attacker. Sefton gripped tightly the two chair legs still in his hands. The first man was up again with a large sword in hand. He was preparing to charge, the blade held high above his head.
"What are you gonna do with those little man!?" The pirate roared.
Taking one step in the large man's direction, Sefton let one chair leg fly, striking the man in his already broken nose. The pirate's head had only just begun to whip back from the intense pain before Sefton launched across the room, landing with both feet square in the man's chest. The assist fell straight to the ground with a loud thud, while his opponent was sent back through a closed closet door.
"Sefton!" Dawelien shouted from off to his left.
The weary man barely made it to one foot in time to hop over a low swing by the third pirate using Weneibo's sword. Before touching the ground again, Sefton took the second chair leg and jammed it with all his weight into the pirate's eye. A scream of agony echoed in the room before Sefton grabbed his friend's sword. He began to execute a quick combination of slashes, the last of which left the pirate dead and nearly cut in two at the waist. Once freed, Dawelien and Weneibo helped support their exhausted friend. The three spun in shock upon hearing what sounded like clapping.
"Bravo!" The pirate leader said, leaning over the stairway railing, his eye on the ragged trio.
"You saw everything but didn't interfere?" Weneibo asked confused.
"Yes, I wanted to see if he really had the energy to go all the way. I'm quite impressed." The man answered before descending the last steps and coming to face them. "I'm afraid though, that you're still going to die."
The two swordsmen both raised their weapons a moment too late. The pirate covered the space between them in an instant and blasted them both back with two flaming punches. Sefton quickly twisted his staff separating it into two sections and attempted an attack. The man caught the disconnected section in the air before it could connect.
"Interesting weapon." The pirate smiled.
Sefton only managed a slight look of surprise before his aggressor struck at him with his other hand. It was the pirate's turn to be surprised as he found his attack colliding not with flesh, but a small shield of light. A swift kick to the ribs then sent him staggering back.
"Now I remember who you are." He said recovering quickly, and watching the other two prisoners returning to their feet. "So you three were the same ones from Flaris who competed in that tournament a while back. That may explain your strength somewhat. However, you still seem to be a novice at assist magics, being able only to produce pinpoint shields like that. That's no good, against an opponent such as myself though."
Sefton's eyes grew wide as the man across him began forming large spheres of flame in his palms.
"Go!" The young assist yelled, moments before the man prepared to unleash his attack.
The three friends jumped through the nearest window with Sefton in the rear, as a large explosion sent brick, wood, and glass into the streets. Dawelien and Weneibo returned to their injured and now bleeding friend's sides, virtually carrying him. They didn't get a full block away before the ground was covered in ice causing them to stumble.
"With Sefton out, they are basically defenseless. Kill them." The one eyed man ordered.
The icy floor began to fade the closer six of the pirates came. As Weneibo tried pulling Sefton to his feet, Dawelien faced the oncoming group. Nearly on top of the three now, swords and axe blades glimmered faintly in the moonlight. Suddenly a tempest of sand exploded from the ground swallowing the charging pirates. Mere seconds later, the sandstorm subsided revealing all the pirates in a bloody mound before two new figures in red and white armor.
"I'd recognize that armor anywhere. What are you doing back in Saint Morning Targos!?" The pirate leader shouted, before looking over the man next to him. "Oh, I see. So now big brother is here to clean up the city."
"Not alone of course. He needs me here to help point out some of the worst pieces of trash in the city Dintab."
"I had no idea you thought so highly of me."
"You won't be alive long enough for anyone to have any thoughts of you one way or the other."
The red armored swordsman struck the tip of his sword into the ground behind him. Before beginning a dash for the small group of pirates he swung the blade along the street, sending a small chunk of the earth along the ground toward the pirate group, while following behind. As it got closer, the bit of earth grew somewhat like a snowball effect. The one eyed pirate jumped aside as the traveling earth transformed into a large spike, impaling the man behind him.
"Not today Targos!" The pirate yelled.
With his left hand, he summoned a large globe of water and held it before his group. Then his right hand began to glow with flame, just before plunging it into the liquid sphere. There was a sort of explosion, and the entire street was consumed in a thick blanket of steam. Once cleared, the pirates were gone.
"Dammit!" Targos exclaimed, plunging his blade into the not yet dead pirate as he tried to remove himself from the spear of stone.
Upon returning to the group, Targos kicked over the body of one dead pirate, and picked up his bloody axe.
"What are you doing?"
"Well it's not like he'll need it Geiox. And if you recall I had lost mine."
"Since when did "lost" mean buried it in somebody's back?"
"Since I buried it in somebody's back, who then disappeared, with my axe. Therefore it's lost"
"Sir Geiox?" Dawelien interrupted the argument. "Is that really you? Oh thank the gods you came just in time!"
"We can see that." Targos grinned.
"Who is that man sir Geiox?"
"I'm the guy who saved your lives you ungrateful…"
"Targos!"
"What? It's true."
"It doesn't matter."
"Well not to you, you're the one catching praise for…"
"Please…" Sefton's faint voice cut in.
The four men gathered around their injured comrade as he fought to keep his eyes open.
"What is it Sefton?" Dawelien asked.
"Please…everybody…shut up." The assist pleaded before passing out.