Chapter IIX – The Queen of Blades

The next morning, we packed up our gear and moved on. "So how are we going to get to Greece?" Blake asked. "The only way that I can think of that won't take too long is by plane. Unfortunately, I don't exactly have the money for that." I said as we walked. "Just how much does it cost?" Weiss asked. "Let's just say that it's several hundred dollars for just one adult." Bob answered for me.

"Now that is a lot." Yang said. "Yep. And given how many of us are here, even tickets for people that are Jordan and Ruby's ages are rather expensive still." Bob explained. "So that takes air transport out of the question." Ruby said, sighing. "There's also overseas, but I've never been on a boat in my life, and that's also Poseidon's territory." I suggested. "Who?" Ruby asked.

"He's the god of the sea. And my mother's rival. So they don't exactly get along too well." I explained to the group. "Oh." Weiss said, rushing a bit to keep up as we started walking a bit faster. "However, from what I read, he is still merciful, even to children of Athena." Bob said. "That's true. So we could actually try to make an overseas trip to Athens." I said, thinking it over.

"Yeah. But first we're going to need a boat or something like that." Blake said. Right as we turned a corner, we heard a clash of steel and a crash.

"What was that all about?" Weiss said as we ran to check out what happened. She didn't even need a response as we found what had caused the commotion. There was a girl with long brown hair and slightly tanner than mine fending off a member of the White Fang. There didn't look to be many of them, only three were present, two of the three with their heads stuck in the wall behind her.

"Wow. She put those two out fast." I said, as she started exchanging blows once more with her opponent. After the whirlwind of sword strikes between the two, the girl broke through the grunt's defenses, kicking him up into the air, running up the wall behind her, jumping off, and sending him back down to Earth with two hard downward swings of swords.

We approached her as soon as she landed next to her downed opponent, who was buried several feet into the ground from the force of her attack alone. "Just who are these guys?" the girl asked herself, not seeming to notice our approach. "We can answer that for you." I said from behind her, just noticing that her swords were nowhere in sight.

Without a word, the girl spun around to face us, surprising us quite a lot. We backed up as she pointed a javelin that had appeared out of thin air right at my chest. My hand was on the Bowmerang, ready to draw the weapon when needed.

"Whoa! We come in peace, not pieces." Bob said, walking up to her and pushing aside her weapon with a couple of fingers. "And I thought Yang's puns were bad." Weiss said from behind me in a whisper, clearly to avoid having the present blonde from overhear her. "Sorry about that. You guys just surprised me is all." The girl said, eyes widening in surprise before returning to normal as her weapon disappeared right in front of us.

"Now that is cool. How are you doing that?" I asked her. "Before I answer that, how about we meet up with my brother? And who are you people, anyway?" the girl asked, her eyes changing from dark red to a sky blue. I decided to put off my question about that for another time. We followed her as she led the way to an average looking house.

"My name's Jordan Freeman. My cousin here is Bob, and these four girls are Ruby, Weiss, Blake, and Yang." I said, introducing everybody in our party with a slight bow. "Alright. My name's Iris Ballade. Just Iris is fine, though." Iris said, shaking our hands. Pretty soon, we arrived at a house that looked a lot like the ones surrounding it, but nearly twice their size and bearing two floors.

"Wow. Nice place you have here." Bob said, whistling. "Thanks. I think are parents are home, so I should introduce you." Iris said, leading us to the living room.

We met up with her parents and found that they were actually pretty cool people. "So where's your brother. Wasn't Jack with you?" her dad asked before drinking some of his coffee. "I have no idea. He said he was going to be here before he left me." Iris answered, her eyes changing to a rusty yellow color with a worried expression in her eyes. "Where could he have gone?" his mother asked.

"I don't know. But he had his claws with him, so he should be safe enough." Iris's dad said. I immediately understood what he meant by that. And Ruby did too, by the looks of it.

"We could go look for him." I volunteered. "Thanks. That would be very helpful." Iris's mother said, breathing a sigh of relief as she looked like a great weight had been taken off of her shoulders. "So who else wants to go?" I asked. It turns out I didn't need to as everybody nodded in my direction. "Alright. Let's get going." I said, getting up. And with that we were off.

"So where should we start looking?" I asked Iris, who was walking beside me. "There's always the candy shop. He almost always to go there. The only other places he would go to are the toy shop and arcade." Iris said, her eyes changing colors once again, this time to a jade green.

"Okay. Let's go look at those places. By the way, why do your eyes always change color?" I asked, now just realizing how tall she was despite her age, as I had look up a little just to make eye contact since she was a few inches taller than me. "I really don't know, but everybody I've known in my life says that it's something that's not very common." the girl answered, a thoughtful look on her face. "So were those your real parents at the house?" Yang asked. "Not really. Jack and I lived with my biological mom at first and then she died of some deadly disease. We were in an orphanage until our current parents came and adopted us.

After that, we couldn't really think of anything else to say, so we just walked on in silence, searching each area Iris had indicated. We didn't find any sign of him until we came across a set of claws. "Whoa! These look amazing!" Ruby shouted, squealing in delight as she picked one up. "No kidding. I always wondered how people fought with these. I said, picking up the other one.

Right then, we heard an explosion not too far from our location. "What was that?" Blake asked, looking in the direction we had heard it from. "I have no idea, but I have a feeling we're going to find out, anyway." Bob said, seeing me and Ruby run off to the area that it had occurred at. Then he and everybody else ran after us.