WolfGear Presents: Negima? The mage and the Gunslinger
Pairings: Negi X ku-Fei Kaede X OC
Chapter 54: The rider of the wastes
I don't own Negima!
They were tired, very tired, for days on end they moved only ever stopping to eat some cold meals and reveal themselves. Their clothes torn to shreds, by the elements, highwaymen, and robbers that tried to bar their path, but their cargo too precious for delays, the one who dared stand in their way were swept aside like insects.
Kaede growled as she violently tossed aside another would be robber. This short cut they had taken was well known hunting ground for thieves and crooks, but it also way the fastest way to get where they were going.
Seeing that the ninja's back was turned, one of the robbers silently approached from behind, knife drawn, he would make this bitch pay for what she's done to their gang! Before he could even get close enough, Kaede threw three shuriken that landed into the robber's leg, crippling him.
"Ku we need to get moving." Kaede said, checking to make sure all the robbers were dealt with, mostly they had left them live, but in her current state she may have injured some to the point where if they didn't get medical treatment soon, they would die.
The blonde martial artist finished off the last of her attackers with a quick swipe of her staff that shattered bones and cracked skulls. "Ok," Ku said wearily. "But shouldn't we at least do something about these guys they are in pretty rough shape." She knew some of them were likely to die from their injuries. They maybe criminals, and although she knew what her friends response would be didn't feel right to just leave them here to die.
"No," Kaede said cruelly, she was becoming more like Jack by the day. "They chose their fate when they decided to prey on the innocent and weak. It's just bad luck they finally took a bite of something that was bigger than them."
"I guess," Ku agreed hesitantly. Kaede's new attitude was really starting to scare her; then again she doubted if she would be any different if it was Negi lying there on the stretcher. The black marks now have covered almost the entire right side of his body, and what's more they were extremely hot! Several times already they had to stomp out the flames of anything unluckily enough to come in contact with the cowboy's skin. Also it was starting to get really difficult to transport him as well; every new stretcher they made eventually met the same as the last one, burnt to a crisp.
"Good," Kaede said impatiently. "Let's get moving then."
"What about Chachamaru?" The robot girl was forced to go back to the elves following behind a ways for a recharge. They tried to recharge her themselves, but constant traveling and lack of rest had dwindled they're already low magic supply to the point that it wouldn't charge a small battery that you put into a remote.
"She will catch up." Kaede said picking Jack up off the ground, making sure not to touch the black parts of his skin, which was getting really hard to do now that it covered over half of his body.
They traveled for two days straight never stopping for anything. The pace that the two girls were moving was beyond what any normal human could do, but eventually they would reach their limit.
"K-k-Kaede," Ku said as she staggered after the ninja. They hadn't eaten or drunken anything in two days, and it was over a hundred degrees! This was beyond hopeless this was insane! They didn't even know where the hell they were! They were in the middle of the fucking desert!
She heard something hit the dirt and turned around. Kaede was horrified to see her best friend collapsed on the ground! What's worse it was her fault. Placing Jack gently on the ground, she rushed to the blonde's side, and began shaking her.
"Ku! Ku-Fei, please wake up!" Kaede cried, but she couldn't wake the blonde. "I'm sorry Ku, I'm so sorry! I pushed you too hard! I was so worried about Jack that I forgot about you, and the others, and now we're lost. I'm so stupid!"
"Well, you are a Baka ranger," Ku smiled weakly.
Kaede chucked, only Ku would joke at a time like this. "Speak for yourself. Last time I checked you were still Baka yellow."
"Yeah and proud of it!" Ku declared, lightening the mood.
Kaede smiled. "Yeah me too, but now we need to find a way out of here."
Suddenly the ground around them exploded revealing, four large Spicoions, desert monster that are a cross between a spider and a scorpion. Armed with venomous fangs and eight stinger tails, these hideous monsters have calmed the lives of many who dared to travel the wastes. Usually it would take a whole platoon of trained fighters to take down one. Kaede and Ku on bleak of exhaustion, and Jack incapacitated had no chance against four!
The two girls gasped at the site of the monsters, they knew that they couldn't defeat them in their current state. Quickly Kaede pulled Jack close ignoring the burning pain when she touched the black part of his skin, if she was going to die she wanted it to be in the arms of the one she loved.
Jack then mumbled something, it was distorted over the loud shrieking of the Spicoions as they charged in for their meal, but Kaede hear the words clear as day.
"And I saw a pale horse and he who rode it, and his name is death…" These were the first words that he had spoken since they had reunited. It confused her, she did not know if Jack could see what was happening and was saying that they were going to die, or he was having a dream and was speaking out loud, either way it scared her more than the monster in front of her.
The wind, which had been calm, now suddenly blew with the force of a hurricane, kicking up the loose top soil, and forming a sand storm, the sky grew dark, and form with in the raging winds and dust the clicking of a hooves clucking against the ground could be heard like an echo in a silent room.
And like a phantom a rider appeared from the storm. He was skinny as if he was only bone, his face was hidden, by his cowl and hat, his ragged cloak did not waver in the fierce wind, and it was as if he wasn't even there.
Slowly the rider approached them, never minding the four large monsters that surrounded them as if they were not even there. "It is not your time." He said, his eyes one blue and clear as the ocean, and one green, foggy and mysterious starred from beneath his hat. To Kaede it seemed as if the eyes were starring right through her.
"What do you mean not our time?" She asked the rider; he seemed to roll his eyes, as if asking why she would ask such a stupid question.
"It means what it means. It is not your time, meaning you and your friends, to die. Plain and simple, yes?" The rider said irritated. Really, he thought, all this girl's brains must have fallen in to her chest, because he could not believe that anyone could be this dense.
The Spicoions confused, by the new comer's arrival, chattered agonist themselves making gestures with their tails and clicking their fangs to gather making tink-ta-tic noise. This sound really, really annoyed the rider, so much that he reached under his cloak and drew his gun an old .44 caliber revolver with a crucifix hanging from the handle.
"Shut up, you worthless pieces of crap." He said, and fired at the Spicoions and surprisingly with a single bullet blew the one of the four monsters apart! Before the others could even think about avenging their brethren, the rider fired three more times killing the rest of them in seconds. He returned the gun to its holster and held out his hand to the ninja. "Care for a ride?"
"Sur-r-e," Kaede shuddered. She didn't know why, but this being made her feel, so nervous, or maybe it was anxious? Whatever that didn't matter, what did matter was the fact that she, Ku and Jack where all comfortably sitting on the rider's horse, with Jack and ku lied over the back and her seated in front ahead of the rider.
The rider spurred this horse, which she noticed was a pale white color, and apparently very big. "You should hang on." He said. "It can be a rough ride some times."
His words made Kaede feel like warm inside, not in a romance way, but more like a parent and child. "Where are you taking us?" She asked sleepily. All sudden her eyes started to feel heavy, which should be no surprise she has had little sleep over the past few days, but still falling asleep on a strange horse with and even stranger rider was not something one would be comfortable with, yet she was.
The rider remained silent as if wondering if he should answer or not. Kaede was about to say forget it, when he spoke. "I'm taking to were you need to be, but not where you want to be." He said solemnly.
Not very social, Kaede thought, she was staring to fell really sleepily now, she could barely keep her eyes open. The rider placed a hand on her head, and said sleep, and she did.
When they awoke they found themselves surrounded by dozens of curious faces, and races. Some of them were elves, some human, and other looked human, but with some differences, some had scaled ears, some furry and with tails, and some with sharp teeth and claws, but the most surprising face they saw was the face of Chachamaru!
"Chachamaru," Kaede questioned. "How did you find us? And where is the rider on the pale horse?"
Chachamaru stared questionably at the ninja. "I don't know who you're talking about, but I think a better question to ask is how did you get here at the checkpoint? Someone said they saw you appear out of thin air late last night. Thankfully Elgar had sent a message ahead of us, so the elves here knew to contact him. You had gotten so far ahead of us that we didn't know where you went, so when we heard that you were at the checkpoint already, we used a series of teleportation spells to get here as fast as possible. That was two days ago."
"Two days!" Kaede said alarmed. "Jack what about Jack is he alright?" She asked fearful of what had become of the cowboy. He was in such bad shape; she didn't think he would last much longer from whatever it was that infected him.
"Fine, he's fine… for now." Chachamaru said gently pushing the ninja back down on the bed, she was tired and needed rest. "The elves are helping to contain the curse. Soon the race will start and Negi will be here to help, so just rest everything will be fine. I promise."
"And that's where we are now." Kaede said ending the story. Negi looked haggard; it was a lot to take in at once. His best friend really was in danger, a woman named Shihime single handily defeated both Jack and Chachamaru with ease, and now a mysterious rider saves his students. Things certainly were different than last time that's for sure.
Negi didn't know what to expect anymore. When he planned this expedition, he had assumed that things would have going like last time, of course he expected some slight variations, but the way things looked now, Cosmo Entelecheia was going to be the least of their worries, and speaking of the bad guys who believed they were the good guys, where were they? And now that he thought about it, he couldn't seem to remember how he defeated them. Perhaps things have changed, so much that they have created a new timeline. Well, he shouldn't be surprised.
"Oi, Negi, Negi, Negi!" Ku shouted waking the wizard from his thoughts; he was in such a daze that she thought he had fallen asleep standing. He refused to move even after she started poking him trying to get his attention.
"Um… sorry I guess I zoned out there for minute. What is it that you want?" He asked, while rubbing the back of his head in embarrassment, it was so unlike him to zone out like that.
Ku giggled Negi's expression when he was embarrassed like this was so cute and funny to watch. "I wondering if you had an idea of who this rider Kaede met is."
"Oh… I really have no idea." He emitted. He never heard of such a being before, but from the nervous expressions of some the elves, they have. "Would you care to tell us about this mysterious rider, Ragazzo?"
Ragazzo flinched, his kin had left him to the wolves and he told what he knew. "Most people do not talk of the things that roam those hellish lands, but there are two stories that are famous. One is of the remints of the Dark king's army living on the eastern side of the divide, and second is of the rider of the pale horse that rides the wild lands of west. The first telling of this story was ten years ago, when a group of deserters from the army of the kingdom of Vespertatia. They were running from the persecution and were hoping to hide in the wastelands, since nobody would dare follow them there. Before the entered the wastes, they kidnaped four girls of the Dragovian tribe. For days they wondered, until they were so lost they couldn't even tell which way they had come from or which way was the way out. The four girls, who they were going to sale to the slave market, were terrified that they were going to die, and the lustful eyes of the men told them they were going to die slowly for they decided that after weeks of holding back they were going to have their way with them, before they died of thirst. It was then the rider appeared in the center of their camp, a strong wind blew and pulled the riders cloak away from him, revealing a skeleton body dress in gunslinger attire. The men were terrified. So much that they attacked with the last of their strength, spells, swords, and even a few guns shots were thrown at the skeleton, but even with the might of a hundred trained soldiers, the rider remained unharmed. What happens next is chilling. The rider calmly swings down from his horse and decapitates the nearest man, and then the next one and the next one, and the next one after that until all the men were dead, leaving only the four girls. The rider walks up to them and asks."
"Do you wish to go home?"
"They answered yes, and the rider agreed on the condition that when he returns them home, they lay out, bread, ham, and ale at the edge of the wastelands as a thank you. They whole heartedly agreed. The rider remounts his horse and a terrible storm blows in from nowhere, robbing the girls of their sight, and when they can see again they are home as if they never left. Not wanting to forget their promise to the rider they prepare the meal and bring it to the edge of wastes and leave the food on a rock, and return home. The next day they go to check the food and find that it is gone! Left behind was a simple note that read "thank you" carved in the stone."
Negi pondered that tale, it sounded like and old romance story really. The rider saves the girls, and only asks for some food in return. A classic western as Jack would say, and he had heard a lot of westerns from his travels with the cowboy. But as interesting as the story was it didn't really give any clues to who the rider might be. He may just be wondering spirit, or a gunslinger that has found a way to co-exist with the wasteland, but that still didn't feel right to him. Oh well it's not like it helped them with their current situation. Jack was still cursed and he still had to get some sleep before the race starts again tomorrow. This rider of the wastes could wait till after he saved his friend, and the world.
Omake chapter: A free lunch
The rider sat peacefully on his horse eating the sandwich the girls had made him. It was a simple meal, but it was still better than the shit he'd been eatin'. He drank the bottle of ale heartily, and listened to the sound of the liquid spilling to the ground.
"Damn forgot I don't have a stomach anymore." He sighed, "What a waste of a good free meal."