Hi Hi!
I was hoping to get this up earlier but I was a bit busier and lazier over the holidays then expected. lol
But at least I got lots of ideas over the holidays so I was able to write this :)
I got a bit of the next chapter done too. So hopefully won't take too long. Then again....I got busy again and it took me 2 days to find enough time to edit this.
Oh well. Hope you like this one.
Back to the situation outside of Morroc
Many people have gathered in the refugee area.
Each class went to their area and were given instructions for the battle field.
It was decided that the Assassin crosses, Paladins and Lord Knights will be at the front of the battle field as they are the most experience of the close combat type classes. They will be the first wave of offence.
Their non-transcendent counterparts, the Assassins, Crusaders and Knights, will follow behind them acting as support.
The Snipers and High Wizards were in charge of providing range support to those in the front line while their corresponding non-transcendent class provided backup and provided defence on all sides.
High Priests were scattered throughout the front line with the melee classes while the rest of the priests stayed with the ranged classes and provided support from a distance.
Bards and dancers will stay close to magic classes to help boost their magical powers while Minstral and Gypsies (Advance classes of bards and dancers) can wander around the battle field with the others as they have stronger offensive attacks that will allow them to defend themselves properly.
As for the rest of the classes, all non-transcendent classes were ordered to stay with the ranged group and provide support from there while their transcendent counter parts played a role up in the front. Whether it's a biochemist throwing acid bombs on the enemy or a Champion battling head on with the monsters. Everyone had a role to play.
The battle was intense as Satan Morroc's minions were very strong. The world has never seen such monsters and it took a while to figure out how to kill them. They even proved to be difficult for the most experienced fighters.
However, with the forces working together, they were able to kill many of the minions and started pushing them out of the ruined town.
Eventually the battle was pushed to the fields East of Morroc. The moment all the monsters as well as Satan Morroc himself were pushed outside the town, priests started casting seals to keep the monsters out of the town.
Once the seals were placed, the guards set up stations at all entry points to the field where all the monsters have been pushed to.
Back to Mikan
Natsume sat on the couch in deep thought thinking over all that has happened while Mikan was busy fawning over Aki.
She noticed he was in a state of shock and followed standard first aid procedures and treated him accordingly.
Once Aki seemed to calm down enough, Mikan decided to go and question Natsume and check up on him as well. She figured Natsume must know what's going on and hoped that he was not in shock as well.
"NATSUME" a loud voice snapped him out of his stupor.
Natsume blinked and looked at Mikan whose face was only inches away from his.
"What do you want?" Natsume muttered while looking down to hide his blush caused by the close proximity.
"I want to know what happened. I woke up this morning and found that you were gone. I tried calling you but no answer. I was worried out of my mind and then you return with a shell shocked Aki! Explain yourself!" Mikan demanded.
"Who are you? My mother?" Natsume asked angrily as he does not like being questioned like this.
"No, I'm not your mother."
"Then why are you asking me so many questions like you are."
"Because I'm your friend and I'm worried about you!"
Her statement was bittersweet for Natsume. It made him happy to know that she cares, but her declaration of being his friend stung him. He knew her well enough to acknowledge that she cares for all her friends and would not hesitate to help them. Even though it was nice to know that she cared, apart of him wished that maybe he was special enough so that she would care a little bit more about him then the rest of her friends.
Just as Natsume shook off his thoughts and was about to walk away from Mikan, the front door slammed open.
Natsume stood up immediately and tensed up at the sudden break in. His hands shot to where his daggers are hidden readying himself for an attack.
But no attacks came. Instead, a really loud and panicked bard came running in followed by a dancer.
"Mikan!!!! Have you heard the news?" Sumire asked loudly while shaking Mikan back and forth.
Mikan who was getting dizzy from all the shaking replied with a weak "no".
"Oi, stop shaking her if you don't want her to puke all over you." Natsume said irriatedly.
Sumire made a face showing disgust and quickly stepped away from Mikan.
Mikan reached out to grab the closest thing which happened to be Koko's arm and steadied herself. Natsume glared at Koko for being so close to Mikan.
Koko laughed nervously under his glare and tried to remove the attention from himself back onto the important matter.
"I'm surprised you haven't heard the news yet! It's all over the town! Actually, correction, it's all over Rune Midgard. Everyone knows about it." Koko exclaimed.
"What are you talking about?" Natsume pressed on with a good idea at what he's about to announce.
"A big explosion happened in the town of Morroc. Word has it that the town has been destroyed! It has also been taken over by a bunch of strange monsters. The Prontera Army is asking everyone who can fight for help." Koko replied glad that Natsume's attention has shifted from him to something else now.
"And Ruka-Sama is from Morroc!! I'm so worried about him! I tried to call him with my communicator device but I couldn't reach him!" Sumire exclaimed worriedly.
"That's probably because he has you blocked," Natsume muttered under his breath.
Koko snickered at the replied but then turned serious again. "I tried calling him as well but no response."
Natsume muttered curses under his breath at the news. He knew the base they were at early was in Morroc but since they left before anything could happen, he actually didn't know what ended up happening. He had no idea Satan Morroc created a huge explosion when he escaped from the other dimension back into this one.
"Wait, aren't you from Morroc as well? Aren't you worried about your family and friends?" Koko asked Natsume.
"I don't have family left in Morroc. Ruka was my only friend." Natsume replied quietly.
"Mikan have you heard anything from Ruka?" Koko asked her since Sumire is still pacing around in circles muttering nonsense.
Mikan shakes her head. "We could go find him!" Mikan suggested.
"No, it'll too dangerous." Natsume rejected.
"Aren't you worried about him?" Mikan asked.
Natsume sighed, "I'll go by myself. Just stay here." He commanded.
Mikan shook her head feverishly. "No! I'll come with you! He's my friend too. Plus if it's as dangerous as you say, you could use some help."
"I can hide in stealth to go look for him, you can't" Natsume pointed out. "And what about Aki. He's still out of it."
"Actually, he's doing a lot better now. He's calm down quite a bit. I could always feed him some sleeping pills to knock him out before we go so I don't have to worry about him." Mikan suggested.
"I want to come too" Sumire interjected when she heard the suggestion to go to Morroc.
"I'll come as well to help out!" Koko chimed in.
"We can form a search party for Ruka and his family! I'll call the others now!" Mikan exclaimed and called Hotaru on her communicator before Natsume could stop her.
Natsume sighed, Tsubasa was not going to like this when he learns of it.
After a several minutes, the rest of the gang arrived.
Since there is no stopping them, Natsume decided to go with them to make sure they're safe.
"Make sure everyone is well supplied. We'll put extra supplies in Nonoko and Anna's cart. We will not be joining as volunteers to help the army fight the monsters but we want to be prepared if anything unexpected is thrown our way. If battling is necessary, Hotaru will be our main offensive force today. The rest of us will support her in anyways possible." Natsume commanded while everyone listened.
"I didn't know your boyfriend was so bossy." Hotaru whispered quietly to Mikan.
Mikan turned red at Hotaru's comment and stuttered, "Wh wh what are you talking about."
Hotaru only smirked at Mikan's reaction and went back to packing the rest of her bag.
Once they were done their preparations, they warped to the ruined town of Morroc.
The moment they stepped out of the warp, they were stunned.
The explosion had completely destroyed the castle that use to stand in the centre of the town. The buildings near by the centre were also in ruins. Trees have been up lifted by their roots and tumbling down on whatever was in their paths. It was a devastating sight to behold.
Natsume was the first one to snap out of their momentarily stunned state. He went to a nearby guard and asked where were all the town's people. The guard told him that everyone has been evacuated to the pyramid area. They had set up a refugee camp in front of the pyramid when the monsters were roaming free in the town.
The refugee area will remain used until it is certain that Satan Morroc can be contained outside of Morroc and the town is rebuilt.
Natsume nodded in thanks and led the way to the refugee area.
Once they left the North West exit of the town, they found themselves in the refugee area.
Tents have been sent up all over the place. People were scattered everywhere. There were lost children crying and wondering around, people looking for their separated loved ones and the injured were just lying around. The group decided to stick together in this chaos. They started to walk around in hopes to find Ruka and his mom.
Every time the group came across someone that was injured, Mikan couldn't help herself but to stop and cast a few healing spells for them. She was great help to the people there as there was no other priestess around but she slowed down the group's progress tremendously. There were so many people injured and unattended to because every volunteer from the priest class was out on the battlefield. Only the acolytes sent by the church were here to help the town's people. There were so many injured that the spiritual power of the acolytes were just not enough.
Eventually when they had reached the most western part of the area they saw the back of a blond hair hunter in one of the tents. He was bent over someone that was lying on the ground and seemed to be nursing that person.
The group hurriedly rushed over.
Sumire yelled, "Ruka-Sama!!" as she ran ahead of the rest of the group.
The hunter turned towards where the voice was coming from and revealed that it was indeed Ruka.
"Oh thank God you're ok Ruka-Sama! I've been so worried about you!" Sumire declared as she launched herself at Ruka.
She was so fast that Ruka wasn't able to dodge in time. Not that he could because if he did dodge, she would have fallen on the person that is on the ground.
"Hey man, good to know you're alive! We've been trying to contact you ever since we heard about the explosion." Koko told him and gave him a slap on the back as he came jogging in after Sumire.
"Ah, I forgot to grab my communicator when we rushed out of the house." Ruka replied half heartily while trying to remove Sumire from himself and nodded at each one of his visitors as they came into his view.
"Ruka, what happened to Auntie?" Mikan asked when she looked at Ruka's mother that was lying on the ground pale and sweating.
Ruka's attention snapped towards Mikan whom he didn't see coming in with the group. His face darken instantly at her question, "While we were evacuating, our group got attacked by one of those monsters. It jumped on one of my neighbours and slashed him. I immediately grabbed my bow and arrows and tried to shoot it down. However it just seemed to be aggravated by me. It charged at me and my mother pushed me out of the way and took the hit for me. The army came in and forced it away so we could continue evacuating. I carried my mother out of the town and poured white potion on her wound as fast as I could. The potion helped closed the surface of the wound but it's not fully healed yet. She seem to have a fever now, probably caused by the wound. Since there's so many injured, the acolytes haven't had a chance to make their way over here yet. I've been taking care of her since."
Mikan nodded and wiped the sweat off Mrs Nogi's face. Then she casted several healing spells on her. The spells seemed to have worked as her face seems more peaceful and not contracted in pain. Her fever has also gone down after the spells.
Ruka's face brightens immediately, "Thank you so much Mikan." He said gratefully while giving her a hug from behind. This earned a growl from Natsume while Mikan smile innocently back at Ruka.
"It's no problem! It's my job to help people remember?" Mikan reminded him.
"She's the reason why it took us so long to get here. She had to stop and help every injured person we saw along the way here." Hotaru cut in.
"Maybe that's why I didn't see you with the group when they got here. You were still probably busy healing the last person. It's almost like that time when we first met." Ruka said with a small smile on his face.
Mikan blush lightly and grinned at him.
"Well now that I know you're ok, I think I'll go check up on the rest of the people here! Since you said there are only acolytes here, I suppose other people could use my help as well." Mikan said while she got up off the ground and dusted herself.
"You probably shouldn't wonder off by yourself Mikan." Hotaru reminded her.
"But it should be safe here right? The gaurds said the monsters have been pushed back outside of the town in the opposite direction of here. So they should be quite far away from us." Mikan replied.
Hotaru sighed as she knows how stubborn Mikan can be especially when it came to helping others.
"You never know what could happen. I'll go with you." Natsume volunteered himself.
Mikan turned to him and smiled and mouthed thank you. Then she turned to Hotaru, "I'll have Natsume with me so I'll be safe. Don't worry."
Just as Mikan and Natsume were about to leave the group, loud screaming could be heard not far from where they were.
The entire group looked in that direction in alarm and took off to investigate.
The group arrived to a scene straight out of a zombie movie.
They found a monster that resembles a human that was savagely biting a man in the neck causing critical wounds.
The arrival of the group attracted its attention. It stopped biting the man momentarily to eye the new arrival. In an instant, it left its victim, who was almost dead, and started to make its way to the group.
The monster crawled in a very awkward manner, something that you would expect to see out of the exorcist. It was on its hands and feet with the back towards the ground and chest upwards to the sky. It looked like it was in the "bridge" position you can obtain by lying on your back and pushing your back off the ground and supporting yourself on your hands and feet. One would think it would be really hard to move in that position but it's movement was really fast.
Ruka was the first one to respond to the threat. He immediately notched an arrow into his bow and pulled back further then normal for extra power. He unleashed his arrow at the target. The force carried in the arrow was sufficient to knock it back several steps but it didn't stop it from advancing again.
The attack by Ruka snapped everyone out of their reverie. Koko immediately began playing a song on his Lute that would help speed up casting time for any skills a person wants to cast as long as they can hear his song (Skill is called Magic Strings in game). Sumire danced a spell around her party members to decrease the amount of spiritual energy use when using their skills (Skill is called Gypsy's Kiss in game).
Mikan casted every spell she knew that would help boosts her party's strength and give them added protection.
Hotaru let the music take over her as she used her skill Storm Gust to create a blizzard right over the monster. The music speed up her casting time as well as the wait time in-between each spell she can use. Using the music as her guide, she led the full frontal attack on this demon before them.
However, even with Hotaru's blizzard knocking the monster around, it didn't stop it from advancing. It continued moving towards them and was gaining grounds. Yuu joined in the attack casting up firewalls to slow down the monsters movement.
Ruka continued to use his skill to knock the monster back to prevent it from getting too close to the group. Every once in a while, Ruka would set down several traps in front of them and then the group would back up to create more room in between them and the monster. The traps only slowed down the monster by a bit as it was able to get out of the trap quite fast.
Nonoko and Anna joined in the fight by throwing various chemicals at the monster.
Even their homunculus joined in the fight. Nonoko's vanil used magical bolt attack on the monster while Anna's Lif tried to physically attack the monster.
After many attacks, the monster seemed weakened but still advanced forward.
It let out a shrilled yell and the group found that they had lost their voices. Loosing their voice meant that none of them would be able use any of the skills they have been using to attack the monster.
The monster used this opportunity to quickly move towards them.
While Mikan was fishing a green potion out of her bag and quickly downing it, the monster reached out and swiped at Ruka who was in the front.
Ruka fell backwards from the hit and his falcon came down immediately and attacked the monster diverting its attention.
While Ruka's falcon attacked, Nonoko's vanil joined in physically hitting the monster and succeeded in distracting it from their owners. The group backed up yet again dragging Ruka along while it was distracted. Anna's Lif, whom was not effected by the silence spell, healed the two other pets as the monster attacked back in retaliation.
Thanks to the green potion, Mikan got her voice back. She quickly cured the rest of the group to get rid of the silence spell that took away their voices. Once everyone was cured and they started their offensive attacks again, Mikan tended to Ruka's wound.
Mikan's heal spell was able to get him back onto his feet and allowing him to battle once again.
Natsume appeared out of nowhere from behind the monster. He quickly and efficiently impaled his dagger in the chest of the monster and slid backwards away from it in a hurry.
Seeing the dagger impaled in the monster, Hotaru switched her spell to Lord of Vermilion causing a lightening storm to rain onto the monster. The lightening seemed to be attracted to the metal dagger sticking out of the monster. The lightening strikes sent the monster into convulsion and then it finally stayed still on the ground.
After several moments and the monster has not moved an inch, the group let out the collective breath they have all been holding.
The group have gone on many training trips before battling a whole assortment of monsters, but nothing has ever matched this one's power and stamina.
Usually the monsters they have faced would either freeze from the blizzard or die after one or two of the spells. But this monster was only weakened after many many castings of the same spell. On top of that, the other people in the group where also dealing lots of physical damage to it! If it took so many of them in that long period of time to take down one of these new monsters, they couldn't imagine the battle that has taken place and is still on going to drive back what has been released.
"What the hell was that?" Koko voiced out what everyone was thinking.
"That was one of the monsters that attacked the town. There were several types of monsters that came out of the Gorge. They pretty much swarmed the town." Ruka explained.
"But how did it get here? I thought the guard said the army and the volunteers have driven the monsters out of the town and into the field to the East of the town. We're in the complete opposite direction right now." Yuu pointed out.
"Well, you see, that corner over there was where we brought all the dead. The bodies wait there until someone could identify that person and take them away for burial. Seeing how this one resembles a human when it's lying on the ground, someone might have thought it was a dead body and put it on the wagon that brought all the bodies over." Ruka rationalized.
"Then it must be somewhat intelligent to understand that it should play dead when the rest of its companions were driven out of town." Hotaru observed.
"I'm going to report this to the guards. You guys go back to where Ruka had set up camp." Natsume told them.
"You know, we can always move Ruka's mom back to my house. It'll be much safer then here." Mikan suggested.
"I don't want to intrude Mikan." Ruka responded.
"Nonsense! How can I not help a friend in need?" Mikan replied stubbornly, "Plus it would probably be helpful if I could keep an eye on your mother to make sure she recovers completely. You never know if those monsters have any unknown poison that can spread through their attack since they're completely new."
Ruka sighed in defeat. "Either way, let's head back to where she is first and wait for Natsume to come back before we get out of here."
Mikan nodded in agreement.
"Actually, I still want to at least check up on the acolytes to see how they're doing with their healing mission. I'll go with Natsume to the guard to check on their progress." Mikan told the group before she went to Natsume's side.
The group nodded in agreement with their plan and went off in their separate directions.
:)
I hope 9 pages was enough to um....make up for the long wait.
Looks like we're about to come to an end here
So Episode 12 for the game (updates are done in "episodes") is Nightmare of Midgard, Destruction of Morroc. Which is when Satan Morroc broke free. Creating a Dimensional Gorge etc etc
These new monsters are actually really hard. We usually make trans class parties to go kill them....so what I described here would really not match with the game too well
You would not want to face it with a group of non trans classes
Well I think the story should come to an end soon. I mean...the game can go on forever...but I don't think I can keep this going on forever...
Just have to find a way to wrap this up nicely.
Not too sure how many chapters it'll take but not much longer I would assume.
Well bye until next time