HELLO
Sorry for the delayed update.
I had it written earlier this week but I wasn't able to edit etc until now.
Hope you'll enjoy it.
Yes, there's finally action in this chapter :P
In the dark of night, a lone assassin makes his way to Mother Marthilda's house in stealth.
Her house was just north of Morroc in the dessert in a nice quiet corner.
Once he was at the house, he surveyed the perimeter. He didn't find anything out of place so he went closer to the house and peered into the windows.
"Kitchen is empty, study is a mess, hum...next room." He mentally made notes to himself.
"There's a small glow coming from that room. I should be careful." He thought.
It's true that no one can see him since he's cloaked, but being extra careful never hurts. He wouldn't want to do anything to alarm the priestess to cast Ruwach and reveal him.
When he looked inside he saw several children huddle in the corner. Mother Marthilda seemed to be tending to one of them.
Then loud footsteps could be heard and the door opened.
A knight dressed all in black armor stood there with a tray that had some bread and water on it.
"Please, you have to let me go get some herbs. She's getting really sick. I need to make some medicine for her." Mother Marthilda pleaded.
"Shut up old woman. I can't let you out. You might run to the authorities to report us." He replied rudely.
"But if I don't get her some medicine soon, she may die." Mother Marthilda pleaded again.
"Oh just can it. You're a priestess. Just cast some of your spells on her to fix her up." He retorted.
"Spells can only do so much. She needs more than that to get better."
"Just use your spells for now. We'll see how useful her dear brother is first. If he's failing his missions then there's no reason for us to keep her around anyways. Maybe she'll be the first sacrifice." He stated with a smirk and he left the room, slamming the door shut behind him.
The other children started to cry while Mother Marthilda continued to cast spells on the poor girl trying to sustain her health.
The assassin immediately took out a butterfly wing, broke it and returned back to base.
At Prontera castle
"And that's what happened sir." the assassin reported.
"Good job. So it seems like they're holding some hostages at her house. We must act quickly since one of the children seems to be in bad condition. Report back to your guild master and request for a team of assassins. I would like an experienced assassin cross to be the captain for this mission. Please meet me here before sunset for the briefing. I will request for support from the Prontera church." The general commanded.
"Yes sir." The assassin replied and left for base.
Later that day ~ Mission Briefing
"Good everyone is here. We can get started. The priests already have the warp to outside of Mother Marthilda's house. They will warp the group of assassin first to her house to scout and secure the area. Once you're with the hostages, use your communicator to let them know you're ready for them. They'll immediately warp to her house and go to your location. Escort the priests in. Once they're there, they'll commence warping out all the hostages. Hopefully they won't even notice we've been there and taken their hostages until it's too late. Are we clear?"
"Yes sir." They all replied.
"Good, then the mission commences now." The general declared.
At Mother Marthilda's
A lone assassin is found hovering over the sick little girl.
"Aoi, I finally found you." He whispered to himself.
Then he gently nudge her, "Wake up Aoi."
She began to stir a little. "Come on, wake up. I'm going to get you out of here." He said.
She opened her eyes a little and looked into the assassin's red eyes. "Oni-san." She whispered.
"Well well well, what do we have here." A menacing voice came from the doorway.
The assassin immediately got up and shielded Aoi from his view.
"The little kitty found the hideout here. Never would have guessed it would be so close to your home eh." A second voice mocked.
"We knew something was wrong when you haven't come back from your mission yet. With your skills it shouldn't have taken so long so we decided to check here in case you show up." Then he turned to the second figure and said, "I'll take care of this. Why don't you go grab a snack or something?"
Then the man walked out from the shadow. He is an assassin cross dressed with his uniform dyed black.
"Persona." The assassin hissed. (A/N…yeah yeah…I mean..she called him ni-san already, but I just don't wanna confirm if he's Natsume or not until later :P She's sick and just woke up! What if she's mistaken.. :P heehee)
His whole body tensed up as Persona started walking towards him and his sister.
He got into a fighting stance and readies his katars.
"You have no chance against me boy." Persona said in a voice dripping with venom.
Then the assassin charged at Persona. He swiped his katar but Persona swiftly sidestepped so it missed.
He continued to rain attacks at Persona in vein. Persona is able to dodge or block all his incoming attacks.
"Is that all you got, Kuro-Neko?" He spat.
Then Persona started to attack in return. He managed to dodge a majority of the incoming attacks but received quite a few wounds. Persona is a lot more experienced then he was in battle and it becomes quite apparent during this battle. He started to get tired and the lost of blood was starting to make him loose focus. He lost footing while he was defending himself and fell to the ground.
Persona stood towering above him, "I thought you were better than this. You know, this is exactly why you're still only an assassin. You lack the skills and experience to become a cross. You still need to get much stronger before you can transcend. But you'll never get there now." He said menacingly positioning himself for the kill.
The assassin could do nothing but look up at Persona and brace himself for impact.
Just as Persona's attack was about to hit him, a clashing sound of weapon was heard and the blow was deflected.
He blinked and looked around to see what had happened. It seems like another assassin cross had appeared and blocked the blow for him. Then several more assassins uncloaked around him.
"What's this?" Persona asked with renewed interested eyeing the new incomers.
Then a light glow of purple surrounded his body.
The new assassin cross recognized this spell and quickly ordered his men to back off.
Just as they jumped away from Persona, he unleashed a powerful attack that hits his immediate surroundings.
"Meteor Assault" he spoke in a low voice when he cast the spell.
Then the knight in black armour came in. "What's taking so long." He demanded.
Then he saw the new incomers.
"We have more company eh." He said as he drew his sword.
Then he advance forward to the group, "Lets party."
The knight rushed forward into the group of assassin and tried to bash them with his sword. The Assassins nimbly dodged his attack.
The assassin cross commanded the group through their communicator headsets, "Swift, go contact the priests and escort them in. We have to attempt to take the hostages out even if there's fighting going on. Hurry and find Mother Marthilda too, she might be locked up in another room. The rest of you, focus on the knight. I'll take care of the Assassin cross." He commanded as he readied his weapons.
The group nodded and did as they were told. Swift cloaked and left the room to contact the priests while the other assassins surrounded the knight.
The knight used this opportunity to use his Bowling Bash skills which allows him to attack the area around him in an attempt to hit all the assassins as once. Two of them were able to dodge the attack but one wasn't fast enough and received a shallow gash across her stomach. She clutched her wound and stepped back.
One of her companions went forward to attack but the knight blocked it with his sword. The other assassin took this opportunity to attack from the other side and was able to make a cut in his arm. However the knight's heavy armour protected him from sustaining major damage. The cut only caused a scratch on the knight's skin.
The knight growled as he examined the cut, "You damaged my new armour!" He shouted angrily.
In anger he used his two hand quicken skill and started to attack the assassin who damaged his armour at rapid speed. All the assassin could do was dodge the attacks to avoid getting hurt. The other assassins attacked him but just like before, the armour protect the knight from damage heavy damage.
Finally, one assassin was able to cut the armour at a junction point. Once he sliced at the welded area and cut through, the back plate fell to the ground revealing the chain mail underneath. You can see splotches of red underneath the chain mail staining his white shirt where the assassins were able to cut him thus far. "Why you!" he shouted in anger. "You guys will pay for this." He swore as he looked as the fallen piece of armour on the floor.
Across the room, the assassin crosses squared off against each other. The captain focused his energy into his weapons and used a skill called Soul Destroyer to attack from a distance. Persona could not avoid the attack and took considerable amount of damage. Persona cloaked after getting hit. The captain quickly put on his Clarivoyant Nile Rose and cast Sight. (Similar to the Ruwach Spell acolytes/priests has but this is a spell for a mage. However there are accessories that can give you ability to cast skills such as this one )
This revealed Persona to be directly in front of him in a position to strike. The captain quickly side stepped to avoid the attack.
While all the fighting was going on, Swift had come back with the two priests and Mother Marthilda whom they found locked up in the basement.
Mother Marthilda quickly went to the children to check up on them. One of the priests cast a warp portal and assisted Mother Marthilda with getting the children into the warp. The other priest started to cast supportive spells on their party of assassins and healed their wounds. Now with the support of a priest they had the upper hand. Persona and the knight knew that they were terribly out number and without support they were in trouble. However they weren't about to let them get away so easily. Persona tried to aim a soul destroyer attack at one of the children but the Mother Marthilda quickly shoved him into the warp and took the attack. The priest that was warping helped heal Mother Marthilda and then open another warp for her and the remaining child. Mother Marthilda picked up Aoi in her arms and stepped into the warp.
Once Kuro-Neko saw his sister get into the warp, he took out a butterfly wing and crushed it in his hand. He was instantly warped out of the house.
"Mission complete, retreat back to the castle." The captain commanded once all the hostages were warped.
An assassin picked up some sand and threw it into the eyes of the knight and Persona (Sand Attack) temporarily blinding them.
The group took this chance to quickly warp back to Prontera castle.
When Persona and the knight recovered from the attack they found the room empty. The hostages were gone, the group has escaped and Kuro-Neko was missing.
Persona let out a string of curses, "He's not going to like this" he mumbled.
Back at the castle
The captain reported to the General what had happened.
"So when you got there, an assassin was already in the room trying to get one of the hostages out?" He asked for clarification.
"Yes sir." The captain responded
"The hostages are in the Hospital right now being treated for malnutrition and the one that was very sick is in the ICU." The priest added.
"Which hostage was the assassin trying to rescue?" The General asked.
"The girl with the short black hair. She's the one currently in the ICU." The assassin replied.
"Ok, we'll question the rest of the hostages once they're rested. We'll try to talk to the one in the ICU when she's in better condition. Please have the doctor in charge inform us right away when she's well enough to talk. She can provide us useful information."
"Yes sir." The priest answered.
"Good work everyone. I'll send a report to your guild masters. Dismissed." The General dismissed the group.
In the garden
Mikan woke up from her nap to find that the sun has already set. She never intended on napping but fell asleep while waiting for Neko-san to show up. She packed up her stuff and was walking out of the garden when something dripped on her face as she walked under a tree. She wiped the liquid off her face with her hand and looked at it only to find her hand smeared with something red. She brought the hand to her nose and sniffed and determined that it was blood. She immediately dropped her bag on the floor and climbed the tree.
Once she got up to the large branch, she saw the assassin lying there bleeding. He was pale from blood lost with many wounds on his body. She quickly casted heals on him to help close some of the surface wounds, however the deeper ones did not close. She continued to cast heals on him until her spiritual energy was depleted, yet it was still not enough. His skin still looked pale and clammy and he was still unconscious.
She started to cry not knowing what to do. She felt so helpless not being able to heal him. She didn't want to watch him die but her heals seem to have no effect on him.
She started to wish that she was stronger so she could help him. She thought that if she was a priestess she would be able to save him.
Then it hit her. If she can find a priest or a priestess, then he could be saved!
She quickly climbed down the tree and memo the location of the garden in her communicator.
Then she teleported back into town and ran to the church.
"Narumi Sensei!" She shouted as she ran towards him.
"Hi Mikan, why are you here so late." He asked.
"You have to help me Sensei! He's badly hurt and I can't do anything for him. I've been healing him over and over but nothing I do seems to work. Please Sensei, you have to come with me."
Narumi looked at her and assessed the situation. "I see, let's go have a look at your patient." He told her gently.
Mikan immediately opened a warp portal and he stepped in, she quickly followed behind him.
"He's up there in the tree." Mikan pointed up the tree he's at.
"Hum, I don't want to move him yet because we don't know what type of injury he has. If he has spinal injuries we can't move him. Mikan, I'm not going to fit up on that branch. I need you to go up there and examine him around the neck and head area. Remember from class, when checking for spinal injuries, try not to move him while you check for any bleeding and bruising around that area. Also feel for any irregular bumps." Narumi reminded her.
Without wasting any time, Mikan quickly climbed up the tree. She removed his headgear and gently started feeling his head to check for any injuries. After each time she touched his head, she looked at her hand to see if there's any blood. (A/N This is actually how you're suppose to check for blood when examining a person for first aid) After she's done checking, she confirmed that she couldn't find any injuries to the head and neck area. (A/N yes it's true sometimes there's injuries you can't find just like that, but to save a life is more important then not moving him….according to the life saving society) She helped lower his body slowly down the tree with Narumi catching the assassin the bottom.
Once the assassin was in Narumi's arm, he took a glance at him and immediately put him on the ground.
He took out a blue gem and started casting a spell while Mikan was climbing down the tree.
"Resurrect." He commanded once he finished casting the spell.
All the wounds on the assassin healed instantaneously, his skin was no longer the clammy and pale as it was previously.
Mikan rushed to his side and held his hand and gently called out to him, "Neko-san, wake up."
As if responding to her call, his eyes fluttered open slightly. "Polka," he whispers before passing out again.
Mikan started to panic once more but Narumi stops her.
"Don't worry. He's ok now. He just needs lots of rest to recover from all the blood he lost. I can heal his wounds and injuries and bring him back from the verge of death. But I cannot give him blood with a spell. We will need to do a blood transfusion or let him recover on his own. I doubt he'd want to go to the hospital so blood transfusion would be out of the question." Narumi informed her.
"Now, why don't we try to get him to the inn. I doubt they'll have any room left but it's worth a try." Narumi sensei suggested.
"We can bring him to my house. We have an extra guest room that no one uses." Mikan said.
"Are you sure? Won't your grandpa mind?" Narumi sensei asked.
"No he won't. He always told me to help people in need. I'm sure he'll be ok with this." Mikan replied.
Narumi nodded and picked up the assassin and walked into the warp portal Mikan opened.
HyuugaYingLan and Natsumi, thanks for the reviews 3 3
Um...there's no fighting planned for the next chapter...i hope you don't mind....
poor Natsume almost died...he can't go fight again so fast :P
Please review :)
Until next time, Bye