A/N: This chapter is little later than I had planned. I got a little... okay a lot distracted by a long FanFiction series, house repairs, overall laziness, and video games. But here it is! I hope you all enjoy it!
The trio of adventurers continued their hike through the trees with Anna in the lead followed by Natalie with Matt bringing up the rear. The leaves surrounding them were predominantly orange and the local fungi grew to massive size at the bases of the trees where the shadows were thick. They stepped out of the tree line and saw a sluggish river of lava stretching out in front of them. Heat waves rising off the molten surface seemed to cause the rocks and trees on the far side to shimmer and dance. Black Birds, the most common bird-monsters, were perched on many of the jagged black rocks jutting out from the lava, their red eyes gleaming as they stared at the group of humans that stood in a row in the open space between the trees and the lava.
Matt pulled Heaven's Gate out and shifted into a battle stance while Anna slung her Sky Feather around and nocked an arrow as she slipped back slightly to stand next to Natalie, who gripped her Crystal Staff in both hands. Their aggressive movements provoked the Black Birds to take flight in a flurry of black feathers with hoarse, croaking caws. Anna immediately let loose her first arrow in a Piercing Shot. The missile sailed through the air and struck the highest Black Bird causing it to let out a loud squawk and plummet into the lava below.
Meanwhile, Matt lunged forward with a Quick Slash as one of the remaining four birds came within range, its gaping beak and sharp talons flashed a dull orange with reflected light from the lava. Bringing his blade down in an overhead slash on the unprepared bird, he sliced the beast's wing causing it to crash to the ground. The wound sizzled from the holy damage his sword was enchanted with and the monster gave a few twitches before lying still, succumbing to the elemental weakness.
A glancing shot from Anna's bow caused a third bird to fall to the ground where it was promptly stabbed by Matt. The remaining two monsters tucked their wings to their bodies and dove towards Natalie who seemed like easy prey as she was standing still with her eyes closed in concentration. The air around the mage crackled with wild energy causing her hair to float out slightly. Natalie's blue eyes snapped open and she pointed her staff at the incoming birds. A yellow runic circle appeared at her staff's tip and a bolt of lightning shot out which disintegrated the nearest bird, startling the second one into veering off. It didn't get far before Matt leapt up and sliced it in half, his feet hitting the ground at the same time as the two halves of the dead monster.
Anna, Matt, and Natalie relaxed and lowered their weapons. Anna went over to the two bodies that had landed relatively intact on the ground and collected a few feathers from them while Matt and Natalie sat down on the ground.
Natalie sighed and leaned back on her hands, "I think I'm out of practice, that spell shouldn't have taken that long to cast."
Matt also leaned back and tilted his head to look at the sky. "Same here, my Quick Slash should have exploded that pigeon like a piñata."
"Serves us right for not bothering to practice much at all since we beat Akron," Natalie muttered.
Matt nudged her shoulder to get her to look at him, "Cheer up, at least we aren't in a rush to beat some crazed god of death bent on destroying the world this time!" He grinned suddenly, "Or even worse: Lance."
Natalie giggled, "Especially if you call his precious Valkyrie Tank a fancy car again."
Anna had finished looting the monsters at this point and stood not far away from them watching with her head tilted to the side slightly in curiosity. "So are you two just friends, or…?" She asked suddenly, trailing off with a grin.
Natalie's blue eyes widened and she blushed a bright red, "D-don't be silly! We're just friends!"
"Of course we're more than just friends!" Matt exclaimed with wide smile.
"Wait, w-what?!" Natalie's face grew even redder as she turned to stare at the swordsman in a mixture of confusion and flustered hope, while Anna blinked in confusion at the mixed messages being given by the two on the ground.
Matt's smile grew even bigger, "We're a team! NoLegs is on the team, as well, and Lance if we find him." The blond swordsman was oblivious to Natalie's suddenly downcast face.
"That's all I am to you after all this time?" The mage girl wondered despondently.
Anna's face fell in disappointment. "Is that all? You two seemed so close right after we saved Natalie from the bear. I thought for sure that-" She was cut off when Natalie suddenly leapt to her feet.
"Well, we can hardly expect the guardian of Greenwood to come meet us here, and Lance isn't popping out with a disgruntled comment so let's move on!" The mage turned to Anna, "So where to now? Follow the lava river, or do we have to cross it somehow?"
Anna blinked in bewilderment at Natalie for the sudden change in subject before deciding to let it drop at the slightly pleading look in the mage's blue eyes. "The guardian is across the lava. We'll have to cross by hopping from rock to rock; I probably don't need to warn you to watch your step. It shouldn't be too hard, since the villagers placed the rocks here to make a path across after the nearby volcano erupted so they're definitely stable. I'll go first." She turned to lava and hopped across easily, each stone only about a foot apart from the next.
Matt stood up and brushed his pants off while Natalie crossed before following the two across the lava. Once they were all gathered on the other side, they stepped into the trees once more. The only problems they ran into for the next half hour were a couple of large wasps which were quickly taken down with a fire ball from Natalie and a well-placed arrow from Anna. They soon reached another clearing that had a small, obviously abandoned treehouse standing in the middle of it. The trio walked up to the sagging door, which Matt pushed open with his shoulder. Swirls of dust drifted in the beams of light from the open door and from a broken window at the back. They stepped inside and began rummaging through the worn furniture for anything worth taking.
"I wonder who lived way out here and what happened to them?" Natalie questioned while she gathered a few loose pieces of gold from the dresser, and put them into a pouch.
A sudden yelp from Anna made both Matt and Natalie spin around to see a Flame Wraith had materialized out of the darkened corner by the bed, and was already beginning to cast a spell on the startled archer. Matt immediately lunged forward in a stab, Heaven's Gate seemingly appearing in his hands to slide into the specter. A glowing white circle of runes appeared above the monster and a blade made of pure light illuminated the hut and fell down to vaporize the Wraith.
Anna's green eyes were wide with shock as she watched the glowing sword disappear, leaving them in relative darkness while their eyes adjusted to the dim interior again. "Where the heck did that sword come from? I didn't think you knew any magic, Matt!"
"My love for swords gives me the power to summon them!" Matt said with a grin.
"Actually, Heaven's Gate is what summoned that one, Matt. It's enchanted to sometimes drop a Holy Sword, remember?" Natalie corrected with a roll of her eyes. "Though, you did used to be able to summon a Holy Sword on your own back when we were dealing with the whole Akron fiasco. I'm not sure if you still can now, since we both seem to have lost our edges from then." She turned to face Anna and explained further, "He can't cast large spells of pure magic like I can, but he can channel magic through his weapon for some offensive strikes. They usually only hit one opponent, though, and they get stronger or weaker depending on how compatible his sword's enchantment is with the skill he's using."
"That's so cool! I'd never thought of applying magic to my arrows, I'll have to try it sometime." Anna said, her green eyes sparkling in anticipation of powerful new attacks.
"You should, they're really useful! I dunno if I can still use any of mine, though. Let me try one." Matt rested his sword on his shoulder, held one hand out in front of him, closed his eyes in concentration, and tried casting Holy Sword. He felt the rush of mana leaving his body and a glowing sword did appear but it was much smaller than the one his Heaven's Gate had dropped and instead of thrusting into the ground, it buried itself in the opposite wall. "Nope, looks like the best I can manage right now is a Light Blade. Bummer," He sighed, stood up, and sheathed his sword again, "It's probably the same with all my other attacks too."
Anna patted his shoulder as they walked back outside, "You just need some more practice. Besides, Light Blade will come in handy if we run into any more Wraiths. Anyway, we've almost reached where the guardian lives."
Natalie sighed, "Still no sign of Lance, though."
"Speaking of no signs of being there, where's NoLegs? I haven't seen him since we joined up with Natalie." Anna asked while looking around the clearing surrounding the tree house for the small cat.
Matt threw her a reassuring grin and gave a shrug, "Eh, he's probably nearby still. He doesn't always hang out immediately around us, but we can summon him whenever so I wouldn't worry too much. He's excellent at staying silent and out of sight and he's great with that sword and shield of his, so I doubt any monsters will get him; they haven't so far, anyway." Reassured, the archer girl turned back to the path leading to the guardian.
They continued their trek towards the guardian, the occasional lava pools and jagged black rocks giving way to trees, the leaves once again mostly green. Anna stopped and pointed at a nearby wooden arch with paper talismans hanging from it, worn stone stairs led up the hill just past the arch. "That's where the guardian lives. We'll need to prove ourselves in combat and then he'll help us," she said.
They walked under the arch and up the stairs, where Matt and Natalie froze in shock at the sight of an enormous wood construct. He towered over them at least twice as tall as Matt and five times as wide. The behemoth had massive logs with reinforced metal tips for arms and legs and crudely carved eyes set right above a metal jaw.
"That's the 'guardian of Greenwood'?! It's huge!" Matt exclaimed.
Anna nodded, "Yup, that's him! His name's Mighty Oak and we'll have to beat him if we want his help. He thrashed me last time I tried but, with you guys helping, I think we'll be fine."
Natalie and Matt exchanged glances of resignation and braced themselves for the upcoming battle.
"Well, he's made of wood so I guess I'll be using fire or ice magic. Matt, use your Eruption or Iceberg attacks if you can." Natalie said and then shrugged, "If they don't work, then just whale on him like normal." She sighed, "Too bad Lance isn't here, we could use his tactical skills right about now, not to mention the extra firepower."
The blond swordsman nodded, blue eyes gleaming with excitement for the imminent battle. "Got it, now let's make a wood pile out of Ol' Stumpy here!"
The group spread out slightly and readied their weapons. Mighty Oak, recognizing that they were here to challenge him, jumped up and slammed back down, causing the ground to tremble and a small crater to form from the impact, as well as summoning forth three Wood Idols to aid him in battle.
Anna immediately fired off three arrows in rapid succession taking down all three in the span of seconds. The massive guardian seemed to exude an aura of displeasure at the immediate annihilation of his servants, and turned to face the young archer responsible for their destruction. He raised one of his massive arms to bring down on the ranger. Anna threw herself to one side, rolling out of the way of the giant appendage that slammed into the ground where she had been standing seconds before. She drew back another arrow and let it fly into the arm where it stayed stuck, quivering from the impact.
While Mighty Oak was distracted by Anna, Matt thrust his sword into the ground, channeling his mana in hopes of pulling off one of his magical attacks. A small fissure that glowed with a flickering orange appeared beneath the guardian and exploded upward in a burst of fire. Though heartened by the fact that his attack had worked, Matt noticed that it didn't seem to do anything to slow the hulking monstrosity down. Like all magical constructs, Mighty Oak did not feel pain and the only real way to stop it would be to do enough damage to sever the magic causing it to move or disassemble the thing entirely.
"This is going to be a long, tough fight," Matt thought, diving to the side as Mighty Oak fired its right arm at him before drawing it back to its side via a thick chain.
Natalie was thinking the same thing as she launched several fireballs at Mighty Oak's face. A few sizzled uselessly on the behemoth's plated jaw, but the rest found their mark on the flammable wood causing the guardian's face to smolder. The flames licking at its carved eyes gave the monstrosity a demonic look as it turned its attention on the caster. It launched its arm again, unfortunately getting a glancing hit on the mage girl's shoulder as she was just slightly too slow to get out of the way completely. The resulting force caused her to stagger back and gasp in pain.
Matt and Anna leapt forward to distract the guardian before it could follow up on its advantage. Anna launched a Combo Shot into the guardian's left eye, the three arrows striking in rapid succession barely an inch apart from each other, the force of the arrows caused the construct to stagger back slightly. Matt leapt onto the retracting arm and rode it on its return to Mighty Oak, proceeding to hack away at the arm in an attempt to sever the limb. Unfortunately, the guardian was prepared for something like that and flung its arm up at an alarming speed causing the swordsman to go flying through the air to land with a rustling thump and a pained groan in some nearby bushes.
Mighty Oak began to lumber towards the fallen blond, halting when virulent green tendrils wrapped their way around its legs, thorns digging in and applying a magical poison to the construct causing it to slow down even further. Anna knelt on the ground not far away channeling her magic into the Vines attack, distracting the guardian from the winded Matt, while an ethereal glow surrounded his prone form from Natalie's Heal spell. He sat up with a low groan a moment later and staggered to his feet to rejoin the battle. The fight continued on for quite some time with the three challengers peppering the wooden giant whenever they could and dodging his returning blows to the best of their abilities and destroying his Idols whenever they were re summoned.
Despite the challengers' best efforts and some impressive hits, it was clear that they were not going to be able to keep it up. Natalie was breathing quite heavily from casting white magic; her Heal spell getting steadily less and less effective as she expended more and more mana. She had taken to standing back and focusing her full efforts into healing the other two which had the added bonus of not being seen as much of a threat by Mighty Oak so she was therefore mostly ignored. Anna and Matt both were bleeding from several small cuts and scrapes as Natalie had taken to conserving mana by only healing the most serious wounds. Matt was slightly unsteady on his feet after recently being thrown headfirst into a tree, and Anna was limping slightly from when an Idol had landed on her foot. Anna panted as she drew back another arrow to take down a lone Idol that was getting too close to Natalie while Matt shook his head to clear the dizziness and lunged in for another stab at Mighty Oak and then dodged back to avoid getting stepped on before his hit could connect.
Suddenly, a single loud crack rang through the trees and Mighty Oak staggered to the left, a single small hole having appeared just above his right shoulder. Anna's green eyes widened in shock and confusion while Matt's face split in a relieved grin and Natalie lowered her staff slightly in relief and looked around to try and spot the figure she knew must be there. Another shot rang out and this time Mighty Oak's entire right arm fell off unable to withstand the force of the hit. There was a rustling sound and a figure dressed in green camo with large black rifle strapped to his back dropped out of a nearby tree to land crouched on the ground near Natalie, a gunblade in one hand and a portable radio in the other. The new arrival had dark red hair that just stuck out from under his helmet and crimson eyes that were narrowed in a cold glare on Mighty Oak. A few seconds after his arrival, parachutes dropped in carrying small boxes to each of the weary combatants. Matt gave Anna reassuring thumbs-up, opened the box, and popped a few of the energy tablets inside into his mouth. Anna followed suit after seeing Natalie do the same. They immediately felt their strength returning and the slightly itchy sensation of rapidly healing cuts as the energy tablets did their job.
The red head stepped up next to Matt, and they gave each other a nod before turning to face down the crippled Mighty Oak. On some unspoken signal, the two leaped forward and thrust their blades into the wooden giant, their combined strength and weight causing it to tip dangerously backwards. It swayed there awkwardly before an arrow and a fire ball flew through the air to impact Mighty Oak's face forcing the construct to fall completely backwards where it collapsed on the ground with a massive crash. The group of four relaxed their battle stances with Matt, Natalie, and Anna letting out huge sighs of relief.
After a brief moment of silence, the red head turned on Matt with a scornful look on his face. "I can't believe you, Matt. You almost got yourself, Natz, and that green haired girl killed. That thing was pathetic, why didn't you just go for the joints in the first place? Also, isn't that girl a ranger from Greenwood Village? Did you forget that we just looted their store this morning? What if she attacks us? You're hopeless." His rapid-fire questions were said in a half seriously annoyed tone to cover the genuine concern he'd felt when he had found them nearly beaten by a massive walking stump.
"Glad to see you too, man." Matt replied sarcastically, rolling his eyes towards Natalie and Anna. "We'd been fighting that thing for the better part of an hour, so of course it was weak by the time you showed up, why would I think to go for the joints, I didn't forget that we looted Greenwood's store, and you already missed Anna attacking me."
Natalie returned the eye roll and faced Anna, "This disgruntled red head is Lance. He's a great shot with a gun, pretty good with black magic, a passable swordsman, our tactician and technology specialist, as well as a complete moral degenerate."
Anna nodded and turned to stare at Lance in curiosity. Her emerald eyes looked him up and down taking in his military-style outfit and the easy way he held his weaponry before settling on his face. She suppressed a shiver at his impassable features, refusing to show any discomfort, before gathering herself to ask about the Greenwood Jewel.
Lance returned her look with a frigid glare obviously distrusting of the archer girl whom Matt had confirmed had already been attacked by her. His red eyes coldly sized her up as well. Looking over her brown dress and sweeping over her bow he idly noted that despite having seen the number of arrows stuck in the creature they'd been fighting her quiver still remained full and wondered briefly if the quiver was enchanted. Her green eyes met his red ones steadily and while he could see that she was nervous, he could also tell she was determined not to be cowed by him. He internally admitted that the fact that she didn't look away or shift at all was impressive.
He finally broke the tense silence, "Okay, girlie, what do you want with me?"
Anna immediately bristled, her green eyes flaring in anger at being called 'girlie', and her slight nervousness vanished to be replaced by an immense irritation. "First, I want you to not call me 'girlie', my name is Anna. Second, I want an apology for looting my town. And third I want to know if one of the things you took was a large green Jewel that looks like a leaf."
Matt and Natalie, who were standing off to the side blinked, slightly surprised by Anna's sudden anger. She had been very nice over the brief journey they'd had together, not losing her temper at all, certainly not in such an obvious way.
Lance crossed his arms and said, "I'll call you what I want to call you, I'm not going to apologize for your town's inability to guard their stuff, and no I did not take any jewels of any kind; that's Matt's gig."
Anna glowered at him before closing her eyes and taking a deep to calm down. After a few seconds—when she had her temper relatively under control—she reopened her eyes an acknowledged that his claiming not to have the Greenwood Jewel fit in with Matt's and Natalie's explanation that Lance wouldn't have the Jewel. She turned away from the gunner with a huff, ignored the perplexed looks Matt and Natalie gave her, and walked over to kneel beside the fallen Mighty Oak and offered a brief prayer which resulted in a bright flash of green light that engulfed Mighty Oak before being absorbed into Anna.
The other three stared in shock at the spectacle before breaking out of it to watch Anna stand up and begin to walk without another word to them down a trail that led to the mountainous area just past the Ashwood forest.
"Where are you going, Anna?" Natalie called causing the girl to stop briefly.
Without turning around, she responded in a low tone, "I'm heading for the Crystal Caverns so I can go to Whitefall Town, I need to check something there before I can go back to Greenwood. I know now that you guys didn't take the Greenwood Jewel so you can go. Just don't let me hear about you stealing from my village again." She started walking again only to stop when Matt called out.
"Aren't the Crystal Caverns full of monsters? Are you going to be okay going through them alone?" he asked.
Before she could reply Lance heaved a sigh and spoke in an irritable tone, "I know where he's heading with this. Do you want us to escort you through the Caverns? It's not like we have anything better to do, right now and you'll just get hurt or killed on your own. I don't know what the big deal is with this rock you're so bent on finding, nor do I particularly care, but the caves are full of precious minerals so we can make a profit out of this if we come with you."
"Aww, I knew you had a heart in there somewhere!" Natalie teased earning her a glare and a slight blush from the gunner.
Anna finally turned around to look back at them with an expressionless face. Matt was giving her a bright grin and a thumbs-up, Natalie nodded with a smile, and Lance refused to look at her but gave a shrug all the same. Her impassive look melted into a sincere, slightly teasing smile. "Sure, this can be you guys' community service to repay for looting my village." Her smile widened slightly, "Seriously, thank you, guys, I don't know if I would make it on my own."
"I know you wouldn't," Lance scoffed causing Anna's smile to turn into a glare.
Natalie smacked his arm, "Be nice," she turned to the ranger with a smile, "It'll be nice traveling with another girl."
"Welcome to the team, Anna!" Matt said causing Anna to smile again.
The party of four then set off down the path away from Mighty Oak's clearing towards the Crystal Caverns with Anna once again in the lead for the next part of their journey.
A/N: Mighty Oak is down and Lance has joined the crew! As always, leave me a review with any questions, comments or things you'd like to see!
See ya!