Hey guys, Beast here. Long time no talk, eh? Sorry. Please don't kill us. The reason involves an epic tale of school troubles, spammed emails and FIRED LAZORZ!!!! But anyways, here is the second chapter. My collective soul and I look forward to your feedback, so please leave a comment or review! (as long as its not flaming. Its hot enough with my broken A/C… )
Ohai, one more thing: O Mega-Lead is the BEST BETA READER EVER! Including the spam folder problem :p.
A/N: I don't own any of Camelot's awesomeness. PLZ DON'T SUE ME! Thanks.
(P: still cant get those stinking line breaks to work. However, I think you all should be able to get a grasp of where the plot switches focus. Sorry!)
Isaac woke up and yawned contentedly. 'It sure was nice of Mia to take all the watches last night. It's been quite a while since any of us have had a chance to really rest. We'll have to let her take a night or two off.' He thought as he stood up to exit the tent.
The first thing that Isaac saw was Ivan and Garet, deep in a serious conversation. The mood crackled like fire, anger with tinges of panic.
"Hey guys! What's wrong? And where is Mia?"
Garet and Ivan turned to him slowly. "Actually Isaac, we need to talk." Ivan said. "I had a dream last night that turned out to be a premonition…"
"WHAT!?" Isaac yelled after Ivan finished retelling the events of his dream. "Mia has been kidnapped? Damn it! I can't believe that she lost to mere bandits. Argh, they must have snuck up on her… Are you sure that you couldn't see any more in your dream Ivan?"
"No. I'm sorry Isaac." Ivan replied.
"Yeah. Ivan and I have already looked around the campsite, and there are visible signs of a struggle by the fire. My guess is that they came from behind and either knocked her out, or choked her until she fainted." Garet told Isaac with a somber look on his face.
"Also, her mace and armor were lying by the fire, but there is no trace of Fizz or any of Mia's healing items." Ivan added.
"We also looked around for tracks, but we couldn't find any. The bastards covered their trail well." Garet concluded.
Isaac stood still for several moments, thinking. "Okay, there was no body, no traces of blood, and her equipment is still here. All of these point to the fact that, one, she was indeed kidnapped, not killed, and that herkidnappers intend to keep her alive. Good signs." "So, what are we going to do?" Ivan asked, looking around at the camp.
"Ok. Have you guys eaten yet? Isaac asked. "We can't do anything if we aren't ready for any challenges that may come our way." "Yeah." Garet replied. "We ate before you woke up."
"Mmmph. I need to eat. You two break the camp. When I finish eating, we'll move out."
"Ok."
Isaac's brain raced furiously as he ate. The kidnappers had done a good job covering their tracks, so he had no starting point to work with. Even then, assuming that they managed to find the route, it was likely to be a rough trip. While he could heal injuries to some extent, Isaac knew that not only was he not nearly as skilled a healer as Mia, he would have to save psynergy for fighting as well Right as Isaac finished his breakfast, the water in the cooking pot began to steam and boil. Isaac watched in shock as Fizz, Mia's djinn, formed its shape out of the steam. Fizz ran up to Isaac and butted her head against Isaac's leg, chattering rapidly.
'Huh, that's unusual. I can understand Flint fine, but not Fizz? Weird…'
"Allow me to explain, Master Isaac." Flint, Isaac's djinn, said to him.
"How many times have I told you not to call me Master? At the most formal, Isaac alone is enough!" Isaac retorted, sighing at the djinn's formal tone.
"Yes, Mas-… Isaac-sama. You were wondering why you could not communicate with Fizz, no? It is because you are not of compatible elements. Venus and Mercury cannot communicate with each other. As a matter of fact, no adept can speak to any djinn outside of his or her element. You might be able to get a tiny inkling of what Forge is saying, but that is only because of the strong bond between Mars and Venus.
"So, wait. You can understand what Fizz is saying?"
"Of course. Allow me a moment." Flint began talking to Fizz in the same rapid babble as before.
"Isaac-sama, this story will take a while. Please, finish your meal while I get the jist of the tale."
Mia awoke with a splitting headache, groaning as she recalled the events of last night. Her hands had been bound cruelly behind her back, and she was tied down in the back of a slow-moving cart.
'Ughh… I wish I had my hands free. This headache really needs some healing, and I can't perform Ply without my hands.' Mia thought, rotating her wrists slowly, searching her bonds for any weakness, any break that could help her escape. No such opportunities presented themselves, and before she could begin a more thorough search a voice spoke nearby.
"Well, look who is awake! 'Bout time, too," said a deep voice that she recognized from last night.
"If you hadn't have choked her for so long, then she wouldn't have been unconscious for so long. You never did learn to control yourself, did you Raul?"
"She didn't die, did she? So it's all good, right, Damien
"I guess. Boss said as long as she didn't die or wasn't cut up too bad that we could do whatever we wanted…"
While they were talking, Mia began devising a plan. If she could escape and hide away for a while, she would be able to get signals to Isaac and everyone else. 'All I need is a little water to touch my hands, or maybe a sip of water to restore my internal balance' she thought, craning her head and looking for a small puddle in the cart. However, the cart was bone-dry, and no water was available.
'I wonder if or how they know that if I don't have the proper amount of body fluids, I can't form ice from the air?' Mia thought, cracking her neck and wrists, buther attention was torn back to the conversation as she heard a few dreadful words:
"Anything we want, hey? Anything… Haha. She really is quite pretty, isn't she?" Raul said, halting the cart. "Anything we want. You know, it's been quite a long time since I've had me a good woman, Damien."
"Ah, indeed. Same here, actually." Damien said, his nasally voice lowered almost to a purr.
'No… O Gods, please, no! NO!!' Mia almost cried out in her mind when she realized what they were talking about and began struggling frantically at the ropes that held her down. 'Anything, anything else, please, God!'
"Heh. What say we take advantage of this situation, then?"
"Of course. I was thinking exactly the same thing that you were, Raul."
Raul had circled around to the back of the wagon during this conversation. "Awwww, look, she struggling! Good, it's more fun that way…"
Mia twisted her arms furiously, trying just to break free, to get away, but to no avail. She was securely bound.
Raul had reached her, laughing quietly to himself. "Don't worry baby, no one can hear you scream…" He said, grabbing at her robes. He took an end in each hand, and tore them straight down the middle, lifting her up off the cart back and tearing the backs of her arms in the process.
"Holy Shit! Look at that, Damien!" Raul said, whistling.
"Phewee! Man, I never woulda guessed what was hidden under those robes!" Damien said, staring lewdly.
Mia was sobbing, tears running down her face just as the blood from her cuts was running down her arms, pooling in her hands. In a flash, she realized that she had one chance left. Concentrating, she slowly froze the globs of blood running down her arms into two separate ice chunks. As the two kidnappers stared at her naked body, she fed blood into her attacks. Just as she deemed that she had enough blood to hold them off, her attackers approached.
"Don't worry honey; we'll be reeeal gentle-like now. NOT!" Raul said, laughing.
"Oh don't worry. I'm not gonna be gentle either." Mia said, lifting the ice particles with her psynergy. They glowed, blood red, as they sped toward their targets.
"OW, What the-!" Oh my god! My arm! I can't move my arm!" Raul screamed.
Mia looked and saw that she had hit him in a critical shoulder joint. "Serves you right" she said, kicking out at him and knocking him to the ground.
"You little bitch! I'm going to kill you!" Damien roared, drawing a wicked hooked dagger. Mia, noting that she had hit him in the stomach and the amount of blood covering his body, turned his blood to ice, sealing off his sword arm.
Having immobilized both attackers, she used the remaining ice she had to free her hands, sawing off the ropes. She found some water and drank it down greedily.
Both the kidnappers were attempting to get back up, but the Mercury adept was back in full form now. She conjured ice and wrapped her captors in sheets of ice, sealing off both their movements and speech.
'That ice will melt before they freeze to death, and it should stop the blood flow. No matter how evil they might be, I cannot bring myself to kill a human being. It would be wrong, more wrong than anything that they could have done to me.' Mia thought as she turned away from the two chunks of ice that were her captors.
She cast Ply on herself and gasped as cold relief flooded through her body.
Making sure her captors were fully frozen, Mia retrieved her torn robes. Fortunately, they had been ripped right down a previous tear caused by a monster. She drew out the small sewing kit that she kept on her at all times and set to work repairing her clothes.
"Isaac-sama, I believe I understand now." Flint said, breaking of his conversation with Fizz.
"That quickly? It was only a few minutes."
"Yes, it was. Apparently what happened was that Mia had heard you practicing your sword forms, and went to investigate. After finding out that it was you, and not a monster she returned to the fire to keep watch. However, it appears that she let her guard down, and enemies snuck up behind her. Two human males. Fizz could not understand their speech, but they strangled Mia until she was unconscious, then the bigger one carried Mia away while the smaller one covered the tracks and laid false trails. However, you have an advantage; Fizz can follow Mia's essence straight to her, wherever she is."
"Really? That's excellent!" Isaac said, relieved that they could set off immediately.
"What's excellent?" Ivan asked, striding over to where Isaac was sitting.
"We can follow Mia's trail through Fizz."
"Ah! So then, when are we leaving?"
"Now." Isaac said, rising slowly from the stump. He buckled on his sword belt, adjusting it so that the blade sat ready in its scabbard. Someone had taken one of his dearest friends and companions, and they had better believe that there would be hell to pay. In fact, Hell wouldn't even begin to cover the cost.
Now that Mia had finished mending her clothes, she was ready to start finding her way back to her friends. Casting Douse in several spots, she made multiple Frost pillars in the shape of stairs.
'This should be high enough' she thought to herself, and made a moving river of ice that she could stand on to look for landmarks.
Just as she had found her bearings, she noted something out of the corner of her eye. A man with odd, white-hued hair and a strong build was surveying the scene where she had left. He saw the two downed kidnappers and Mia's Ice stairs, and burst into action.
"Sealing Circle!" He yelled, throwing a scrap of paper in the air. All of the sudden, Mia's psynergy flow stopped. She gasped as she tumbled towards the ground, unable to stop her fall, watching as the ground drew closer and closer, along with the specter of death.
All of the sudden, her downward movement was arrested, hard enough to whip her head around. The white haired man had dove and caught her. The blow to her neck caused Mia to faint instantly.
She woke up multiple times as the man was laying her down, quick returns to consciousness that faded equally as quickly. The only thing she heard was the man talking to himself as he covered her with a blanket.
"Oh, gods of Mars! I didn't want to do anything like this. But I must…"