The Announcement

Vigrid stared down at the board as he continued to think it through. The more and more he thought about, the more and more he was convinced that this wasn't Lord Death who was acting. A third party or another brain acting in Lord Death's spot, probably without Lord Death's permission as well. He continued to calculate all of the information he had obtained throughout his many, many years in action. This was more likely a rescue mission, then an assault.

An assault would've resulted in many serious injuries and probably several dead Kishins by now, not a single one had been reported. Who would launch an assault and not take down as many Kishins as possible? Unless it was an attempt on his head and there aim was to take him down, but nobody would be that suicidal as the only person who could stand up to him would be Lord Death himself and he was restrained to the city.

Vigrid backed away from the table and finished his calculations. They were only minor adjustments that were necessary, but it would be smarter to act like this and be more careful then less. It would take a few moments for him to completely box them in. The lone student they captured should be easy bait to the trap. Setting up the trap would only take a few more minutes. The biggest problem would be hiding the trap. He would have to double check everything, if they noticed a lack of Kishin forces stationed around the base, then they could retreat. He didn't want that. One lone girl was a poor bargaining chip. If he could get two or three, possibly four or five then he may be able to bargain a better position off of Lord Death, especially if one of those was a Death Scythe.

He murmured quietly as he began to think things over. He nodded as he thought it through. It would be best to set a trap for the invaders. The best thing to do would be to let the other Kishins be oblivious to the invasion and for him to set up the trap in the prison. They would be heading there anyways to free their partner, so it only made sense. He smiled and headed in that direction to start up the preparations.

The incredibly tall Kishin smirked as he noticed Vigrid leave the room. He honored Vigrid's advice and war tactics, but he was starting to see through Vigrid's persona little-by-little. It wasn't easy, seeing as how Vigrid kept to himself and never ever let anyone else stray from their duty, including himself. However, Vigrid was starting to show his true colors. The Kishin would suggest going off and killing the three, they were mere flies that wandered into a spider's nest. Only difference was that this spider's next had thousands of spiders wandering around, the order to kill them would be finished in mere moments. If Vigrid wouldn't look out for his troops, then he would. He would give them the order to kill on sight.

(-With Melody and the rest of the crew-)

Melody leaned back against the door, breathing heavily as she couldn't calm her nerves from being in the Kishin base just sitting around waiting. Waiting for what? Nothing. They couldn't move. They were pinned in and stuck in this stupid base with absolutely nothing left to do. They were stuck. Even worse she seemed to be the only one who was stuck in this high strung state. Xander and Shi both seemed to have calmed down and were oblivious to the seriousness that they were in. Ash had calmed down ever since he had cleared his skin of the heavy black soot.

Michael had either calmed down or was hiding his anxiety well. He was drawing circles around on the ground. Every so often he would shake his head or something. But Melody had no idea why. She couldn't hear whatever it was that he was murmuring to himself. "I think its about time to move, right?" asked Melody as she looked at the rest of them.

"YEAH!" shouted Shi jumping up from his spot, "we get to go kill some ugly bastards, now! Time to par..." Ash and Xander simultaneous spun around and punched Shi in the gut and head by themselves to knock him back and more importantly shut him up. They both brought their fingers over their mouths to signal Shi to be quiet instead of to keep talking, especially as loudly as he was.

It took them a couple of seconds, but Michael nodded in agreement. Ash looked back and slowly nodded as well. He grabbed onto Xander, who turned into a gauntlet. Melody did the same thing with Shi. The three people got up and moved over towards the door. This time Ash shifted down and crouched low. He slid Xander's blade underneath the door and had Xander check the hallway for a few seconds. Then Ash pulled Xander back in. Xander gave them the all-clear signal.

Melody pressed up against the door and slowly opened. She examined the outside. Nobody was around. She stepped out with Ash and Michael in tow. They looked around just to double-check the situation. Nothing. Melody breathed heavily as both Ash and Michael moved out. They needed to make this mission go faster. They needed to find the prison, break out May, and then get themselves out. It was certainly a fun thing to try...fun and dangerous.

They moved down the hallway to try and peer around the corner and examine what was around it. Once more they used Xander's slender form, by simply extending him around the corner they could see down the hall. Another empty hallway. Ash pulled Xander back close to his side. This was either the best thing that could possibly happen or the worst. No Kishins around meant either they lucked out and they focused on strengthening the outside of the base or they were strengthening another place within the base.

Melody was about to go and step out into the hall when Ash grabbed onto her shoulder and pulled her back. He did so with a little bit too much force and caused her to stumble backwards. She looked over at her fellow infiltrator with a frown. She didn't know why he did that, but he was definitely upset with him for doing it that forcefully.

"I'm sorry...its just that...you have a speck of dirt on your pants..." groaned Ash as he looked at her. Melody looked surprised for a second, in this intense situation she had almost forgotten about his peculiar condition. Michael shrugged and decided to ignore them and focus on what was around the corner. "I couldn't concentrate looking at it. I need to clean it up." Melody twisted around and noticed that he was right there was just a speck of dirt on the backside of her pants.

"I understand how Ash noticed it," said Shi with a coy smile, "after all, its the only place I ever look, too." Ash shook his head furiously trying to defend himself. He was trying to make sure he didn't seem like a pervert, but he couldn't think of any smart things to say. "Told you," said Shi, "all guys are looking down there, right, Michael?" Michael brought his foot up and stepped on Shi's yo-yo form. Once more it was to shut him up, rather then for revenge. Another Kishin was walking down the hallways, possibly to the kitchen. They debated about dashing back and into the kitchen to hide, but decided against. They needed a tour guide to the prison after all and the kishin just volunteered. They decided to take him down.

Ash moved out first. He was too eager to end this conversation with Melody. He didn't pause as he rushed out. The Kishin moved to open his mouth, but Shi came swinging around and into the back of his head forcing him forward and towards Ash. Ash struck out with his blade digging the sharp metal into his chest. Ash felt the resistance of chain mail once more as he tried to push the blade into the Kishin. The Kishin thudded to the ground. Melody moved forward and wrapped Shi's string around her neck. It was a nice hostage situation now.

The three of them quickly dragged the Kishin into the nearest broom closet. "Okay, now listen to us. We are here not to kill you, but to get our friend out of the jail cell. So, you will listen to us now as we are going to go in there and break her out, got it? Now just tell us how to get to the jail and we will let you..." Michael was saying, before a loud voice echoed throughout the large halls.

"Dear my precious soldiers," said the voice. "Vigrid is busy, so I am telling you the situation. We have reason to believe we are currently being invaded by some people from the Death Weapon and Meister Academy. So, for the time being everybody is on high alert. You guys are advised to shoot and kill on sight. Have fun."

"Shit," cursed Ash as he moved back and once more pressed the door open and peered outside it. Luckily he didn't see anybody. He moved back into closet and looked around. Melody and Michael both looked worried as the mission apparently got hundreds of times harder. They definitely won't escape from this building easily now.

"Well," said Michael as he stood back up and returned his attention to the Kishin, "its not like our mission is going to change, right? We are still doing our job here. We are still saving May, right? We aren't going to run away. It just seems like someone upped the difficulty level." May and Ash nodded. They weren't leaving without May. Michael turned back around to the Kishin.

"Listen, we need to get to the prison cells now," he commanded as he loosened the strings around the Kishin's neck allowing him to get another breath of air and talk freely. The Kishin gasped heavily before smiling.

"You expect me to tell you?" he laughed, "You guys are screwed! This is exactly what's going to happen to Death City, you know? You think you'll take us down! You've been taking us down for years! This is payback! This is perfect payback! We are going to win!" Ash brought Xander around and into the kishin's face, shutting him up for awhile.

"I think you missed something," said Michael as he breathed calmly. "Before that message we had to kill you in order to cover our tracks, but now we don't have to. This time our tracks are exposed and as a result we can let you live. If we weren't known, you were screwed. But now I can promise you if you tell us what you want you can live. We no longer have any reason to kill you." Michael smiled at the Kishin. Kishins weren't exactly stalwart generals. Self-sacrificing wasn't one of their strong suits. If they saw a way to save their asses, but it would screw twenty other people over. They'd take it in a heart beat. It was kind of what made them Kishins.

Th Kishin paused for a second. He was seriously weighing his options. He may just be screwed no matter what happened here on out. "Okay..." he sighed with a tone of resignation. "Its in the middle of the base. They designed it to protect it...we knew the one reason you'd guys attack would be to save someone, so we tried our best to protect ourselves from that. So, we put it in the middle of the base. Luckily, for you its only a couple of turns away from here." The Kishin slowly began to explain the layout of the base. Michael nodded throughout it all, committing it to memory bit by bit.

When the Kishin was done talking, Michael and the rest got up. Ash stopped in the doorway and turned around. "We may not have a reason to kill you, but its still our job."

Sorry, for the incredibly long time. I've been dealing with an incredibly tough case of writer's block for this story, I can't think of how to continue it. Honestly, I'm still not happy with it...but its been pointed out to me how long it has been since I updated it...so here it is...expect the next update to be...eh, probably a while as well, darn writer's block!