Chapter 9: Crushing Defeat and... Betrayal?
'How could this have happened...' The thoughts ran through Freud's head as he received news of the now concluded battle near the mountains of El Nath. According to the report he was reading, Aria's knights had been at a clear advantage before some kind of beast had swept down with his moving shadows and decimated them.
'It sounds like the rumors that we've been hearing about a single dark warrior.' The matter had been discussed at length during the last Root meeting, nobody had known much except that the shadows and somehow, sound, around this attacker could be used as a weapon. This fact worried the brown-haired man as he sat in one of the many meeting rooms located in Elluel.
The doors to the room suddenly flew open and slammed into the walls with a bang, making the mage jump in surprise.
"Freud..." Mercedes walked in, speaking in an uncharacteristically sickly sweet voice. "Where are the reports that you have taken from the war room without my permission?"
The tentative tone in her voice held a thinly veiled threat that left nothing to Freud's imagination as to what she would do to him if he didn't hand the papers that were in front of him over.
"R-Right here 'Cedes..." He slowly gathered up the papers, the shuffling noises amplified ten-fold in the tense silence, before getting up to hand them over to the Elf Queen. She didn't reply as she took the papers and began to look them over, Freud started to walk out the door before he felt his collar being seized.
"Who said you could go already? I need your opinion on these still, knuckle-headed spell boy you may be, but you're still a part of this war and I expect some contribution."
Her eyes seemed to say 'or else...' Freud sighed in relief as he turned to walk back in... before being struck on the back of the head.
Freud, who hadn't been expecting it, wheeled around holding his head with small tears playing in the corners of his eyes. "W-Why did you hit me?!"
Mercedes had a rather satisfied smirk on her face as she watched the mage turn around, his face was really cute when he looked like that... No, she wasn't allowed to be like this, not now...
'I could really get used to seeing that... Wait... what? I'm not some kind of sick masochist!'Freud panicked in his head.
A silence followed as the two were lost in there thoughts, one becoming slightly depressed, the other mentally panicking.
"S-So, what's your recommendation for this situation anyways?" Merecedes asked, sitting herself down into a chair.
Freud quickly pulled one out opposite. "Well, we'll have to know for ourselves, a, and I'm quoting here, 'pale man with bat wings' isn't exactly the best thing to make a strategy off of..."
"Still... I don't have time to do this, I have to be here waiting for Aran's" She hissed the name out rather contemptuously. "Reply from Chief Koori."
Despite her dislike for the white-haired warrior, ignoring relations to the tribe in Rein would only result in the loss of another ally, something that nobody would be soon to forget if she let it happen.
Freud sighed heavily. "If only we had a few more hands around here..." Things had been getting a bit rough the past few weeks, the war was taking a turn for the worse, not to mention it was getting harder and harder to manage.
"Don't keep stressing over it, doing that will just make everything harder. Right now lets consolidate our forces in El Nath village, the Black Mage shouldn't attack for the next few days, not after they were just damaged. Meanwhile we'll travel to meet up with Aran halfway and than we can go immediately to El Nath from there to check out the situation."
Freud stared incredulously at the Elven Queen. "Do you have any idea how long that's going to take...?"
"None at all."
"What?"
Freud found himself lifted out of the chair by the blonde. "Dragon. Magic. Teleport. Understand?"
His face flushed, of course he would have forgotten about his own power. "O-Of course I do!" he spluttered indignantly.
The look on Mercedes' face clearly thought otherwise but she didn't say anything. Instead she opted to work out more of the plans.
"I'm going to leave Philius in charge while I'm gone, be at the gates in an hour, pack warmly, Rein and El Nath are cold places." She swept up the documents with her hands and took them with her as she left the room, leaving a slack-jawed brown haired mage behind her.
"She can't be serious..." But sure enough, he had learned to take the Elf Queen seriously over the years, whether she sounded ridiculous or not, and so he began to walk towards the exit of the town until he realized something.
'Right, mage. Teleport...'
A small flash of blue light could be seen as the Dragon Master of the generation blinked to his home that was located in the fairy town of Ellinia.
-1 Hour Later-
"Ready to go? We're leaving either way though."
Freud sighed, he carried a light traveling bag on his shoulder's, enough for 2 days away from home. This shouldn't take excessively long if they were smart about it.
"Yes I'm ready, now take my hand." Freud held out his arm for Mercedes to grab, she wordlessly took it as the mage concentrated his mana. For Mercedes the highly unpleasant sensation of being compressed began as a blue light surrounded them both and they vanished only to appear moments later in the glacial country of Rein.
"It's always too damn cold here..." All too soon the cold had closed in on the pair as they let go of each other's hands; Mercedes walked forward slightly to survey where they had landed and compare it to a map she had taken from her traveling bag.
"The village should be located to the north of here, I can feel a larger concentration of mana than normal." Freud offhandedly said this as he surveyed the surrounding area. Luckily there wasn't a blizzard running through at the moment, and the snow covered fur trees dotted the landscape.
"Let's get going than..." A grim look was on Mercedes' face as she headed towards the village, she obviously wasn't looking forward to seeing Aran again.
The two continued on as they searched for the village, heading steadily for the direction that Freud had pointed out earlier, they soon arrived at what seemed to be a large cave. The structure itself was remarkable enough, glittering with the sunlight reflecting off of it, but there was no tribe.
"...Freud." Though a smile shone on her face, Mercedes was anything but amused.
Freud quivered under her gaze. "Y-Yes?"
"This is not where the tribe is located."
"I can see that..."
"You're useless." she deadpanned, causing the recipient to flinch as if he had been struck. "We'll have to find ano-"
*BOOM*
A large crashing sound had sounded as Mercedes spoke, causing the pair to give one another a look and than rush off in the general direction it came from, what they came upon was not what they had been counting on.
"Why... are we cursed with out luck?"
"Stop complaining pretty-boy, just get ready to fight..."
The two had stopped in front of what had to be a little over a dozen Yeti's, each one almost 3 times as tall as them with enormous strength and a ridiculous amount of vitality.
"Got it, it's troublesome that we don't have a close ranged fighter though."
"It's fine, they'll never hit even if they get close enough."
"Easy for you to say Miss Acrobat..." Freud muttered under his breath.
The Yeti's rushed at them blindly, a terrifying sight to most as the beasts flung themselves, roaring loudly, but for the two heroes who had seen much worse on battlefields, this was just a practice session.
-Lumiere-
"I've got it!"
Gaston, who had been making tea at the time, jumped and almost cursed as hot liquid spilled over onto the tray. What on earth did his boss figure out now?!
"Gaston I've really out done myself this time!" Phantom on the other hand was borderline ecstatic over his "discovery." What it was about only he knew.
"What is it master...?" Gaston said warily, over the years he had grown used to not blindly accepting Phantom's plans; a rather useful skill when you were in the employ of someone who went into known traps for fun.
Rolling his eyes as if it was obvious, Phantom went on to explain in a condescending tone. "I know how I'm going to pull off my next theft of course."
Gaston groaned, he already knew of his master's ridiculous notion of taking the Skaia directly from the Empress. He was as tired of it as he was skeptical that even Phantom would be able to do something so seemingly impossible.
"Do tell master..." he said to the eccentric man on in the chair, though inwardly he was cursing himself for asking.
"Of course! Now it's like this..."
-1 Hour Later-
Gaston was floored, this was a new all time low... or high depending on how you saw it.
"You're not serious are you master...?"
The smirking grin answered him.
-End-
A/N
And the first chapter in a hell of a long time, business as usual in my life. Hopefully I'll be getting back to writing for awhile, I do enjoy it, just haven't had much time recently. I'm hoping to bring back all the readers!
R&R Please! =D
-Lunarfeather