This chapter I'm bringing in new OCs that I created into the OC guild I created… Why did I match those exact words up? I don't know, I'm crazy like that. And for those of you who answered the quiz correctly at the end of the last chapter. *places buttons on each person saying 'I'm a Smartie!'* Anyway, I hope you all enjoy this chapter… And why are there hardly any reviews?!
At the new Phoenix Dawn guild hall, Spiral was lying on one of the tables taking a quiet, peaceful nap. Jason, Sakura, Aura and Flora were all out on another job together, as well as Static and Karina, and Spiral just wanted to stay in town and relax, not feeling up to doing any jobs. After a few minutes had passed, someone had entered the guild hall. It was a small (about 4 feet tall), cute young girl with dark blue hair tied into two tiny pigtails, wearing heavy silver armor with a pink cape and carrying a greatsword with a silver blade and light green hilt. She noticed Spiral sleeping on the table and walked up to him.
"Um… Excuse me?" She spoke, trying to gently wake up the young man.
Spiral slowly opened his eyes to see the unfamiliar face, which caused him to jump up in surprise.
"I guess you heard me then?"
"Hold on…" Spiral said as he twisted some sort of invisible dial around his ears. "I'm sorry, what did you say? I used my magic to block out any noise."
"You didn't even hear me?!" She exclaimed.
"Who are you?"
"Uh…" She seemed to twiddle her thumbs trying to come up with an answer. "It's… uuuum…"
"I only asked you for a name."
"Her name is Azusa Hirano (Age 13)." Blaise's voice stated as she came up to them. "She's one of the new wizards that joined our guild a couple of days ago. You didn't tag along with Jason and the others?"
"I felt kind of lazy, so they went on without me." Spiral answered. "Plus it gives them more money to save for their own places. I'm content with just using the money on food or comic books when I can just sleep here on the tables."
"Speaking of which, when was the last time you changed your clothes?" Blaise questioned in a motherly tone. "Or took a bath?"
"… Uuuhh…" Spiral had absolutely no response to either of those questions.
"Go take a shower RIGHT NOW and I'll get your clothes cleaned by the time you get out." Blaise demanded, pointing to the guild hall's showers.
"… Whatever." Spiral jumped off the table and headed for the guild hall's showers.
"I'm sorry about Spiral." Blaise apologized to Azusa. "He can be quite childish at times."
"It's… no problem." Azusa simply answered as she looked back at Spiral once more.
Spiral was in the middle of his shower as he thought to himself. *This is actually quite relaxing. I should do this more often.* He then sensed someone come into the shower room with his magic. Thankfully, there was a wall between the changing area and the showers so they couldn't see him. *Who's there?*
Spiral turned the water off, grabbed a towel to wrap around his waist and kept his body against the wall. He leaned in toward the edge to see that a young woman was in the changing room placing something in one of the baskets.
"Who are you?!" Spiral shouted as he stood up and pointed at the young woman.
She turned around, revealing herself to have short blue hair, dark blue eyes and wearing a dark grey sleeveless shirt, azure fingerless gloves, black shorts and black shoes with white laces.
"Ah!" She exclaimed from the sudden outburst. "I-I was just bringing you your clean clothes. I hope I sufficiently cleaned them."
"Wait…" Spiral questioned. "You're the one that cleaned my clothes?"
"Did-did Master Blaise not tell you about me?"
"She was pretty quick to send me to the shower." Spiral rubbed the back of his head.
"I-I'm one of the new members of the guild. My name's Aqua Mare (Age 16)." She held out her hand, but then looked down and saw Spiral with the towel around his waist. "Maybe we should save the handshake for after you've changed."
After Spiral had changed, he went over to the request board to see that a few more jobs had been posted.
"Looks like our guild's moving up nicely…" Spiral muttered to himself. "Better work on getting a new job so I can actually get more clothes so Aqua doesn't have to keep washing them."
"It's no big deal, actually." Aqua said as she walked up to the request board. "It's not as taxing or time consuming as you might think. Besides, I enjoy cleaning. So, what job are you thinking of taking on?"
"Hmmm…" Spiral looked over the board until he pointed toward one of the jobs. "This one seems to pay well. For clearing out a Dark Guild stronghold for the army there's a reward of 1,800,000 J. Must be pretty strong to have a reward that large and it's not even an S-Class quest."
"What Dark Guild is it?"
Spiral looked at the job posting again and recognized the name. "… The Bladed Foxes. Not these guys again…"
"You've encountered them before?"
"Yeah, and on the first job I ever took with this guild. Well, no use complaining about it if it pays as well as it does."
"Hey, do you mind if I come with you? If the job really IS as difficult as it sounds, you could use all the help you can get."
"I don't have a problem if you want to tag along."
"Excuse me?" Azusa's voice spoke from behind them.
When they looked at her, she was twiddling her thumbs again and not making any sort of eye contact with them.
"Is it okay if… I tag along, too?" Azusa asked. "I kn-know I don't seem like it, but I'm a very capable wizard."
"How are you able to walk around in that armor and that huge sword without getting tired?" Aqua questioned.
"I wear two magic rings." Azusa answered. "One to amplify my physical strength and the other to increase my stamina."
"Well, now that that's been addressed, let's go." Spiral said as he walked out the door.
Near the Bladed Foxes stronghold, Spiral, Azusa and Aqua were hiding in some bushes and keeping an eye on the dark wizards that were patrolling the area.
"Okay, before we think of a strategy, I'm going to see if there are any traps lying about." Spiral said before placing his hand on the ground to sense the vibrations and placement of any wizards on patrol or any traps set up. "… Okay, it doesn't seem like there are many of them in there; those traps are probably the only real threat, at least for us."
The young mages had made it past the traps by either avoiding them or intentionally triggering them through various means. Once they made it to the front of the stronghold, Spiral smirked before giving the final order.
"Now we charge in and take them by storm!" Spiral whispered loudly to his comrades before charging in toward the fortress.
Just as the wizards guarding the front gate were ready to strike, Spiral had blasted them with his Sound Magic and eventually kicked them through the front door. Azusa and Aqua simply looked at him like he was insane.
"There goes the element of surprise…" Aqua sighed in exasperation as she and Azusa charged in as well.
"Sonic Bass!" Spiral shouted as he shot a slow, large sound wave at various wizards in the hallway he was in.
"Don't keep all the fun to yourself, Spiral!" Aqua said while carrying a sword made out of water in her right hand. "Aqua Ictus!"
A slash of water came from Aqua's sword and covered a wide and large area in front of her, taking out at least a dozen wizards.
"My Aqua Magic allows me to use the water around me for whatever I want." Aqua stated.
"The name of your magic sounds like an ego trip." Spiral retorted.
"I don't have an ego!" Aqua yelled back. "That's just the name of my magic!"
"Get the girl!" One of the wizards shouted as several of them surrounded Azusa. "Time to blast her with our Darkness Magic!"
All of the wizards blasted dark energy beams at Azusa, but Azusa didn't flinch at all from the sight of it.
"Darkness Guard!" Azusa moved her hands and a giant dark purple shield appeared in front of her.
All of the blasts of dark magic, even the ones from behind her, dissipated upon touching the edge of the magical barrier that surrounded Azusa.
"One of my abilities is Elemental Guard Magic." Azusa stated. "Any magic of the same element that touches the area of its barrier is negated. But I also have an offensive version of this magic: Elemental Augment Magic." Azusa's sword became surrounded by wind. "Wind Sword!"
Azusa swung her sword around and the wind around the sword released, striking down all of the guards that were all surrounding her.
In less than a half hour, the young mages had wiped out the entirety of the forces inside the stronghold. They went back to where the Fiore army was mobilized to collect their reward.
"The entire stronghold has been taken care of and all traps have been disabled." Spiral informed the captain of the division.
"That was awfully quick." The captain said. "You're all so young and yet you managed to take out every last one of those wizards without so much as a scratch. Your guild is lucky to have powerful wizards like yourselves."
"Thank you for the compliment." Aqua said.
"Here's your reward of 1,800,000 J." The captain said, handing Spiral three money bags. "Each bag contains 600,000 J, assuming you're all splitting it all equally."
"Thank you." Spiral accepted the reward before leaving with his guild mates. He tossed one bag each to Aqua and Azusa. "Here are your shares of the reward money. After a few more jobs, I can afford my own place AND new clothes."
"What kind of place do you have in mind?" Azusa asked.
"Maybe an apartment, nice enough to leave a positive impression, but nothing fancy." Spiral answered. "I mean, if I'm going to live on my own I might as well get a place big enough for one person."
"That makes sense." Aqua said. "Unless you plan to have a family there's no need for a full-fledged house. Oh, I keep forgetting to ask, but are there any S-Class wizards in our guild?"
"None that I'm aware of, but considering the guild just started you shouldn't really count on there being 'official' S-Class wizards." Spiral replied. "While I'm sure we have wizards of that caliber, there haven't been any tests or exams to go through it. It might be a while before we officially have an S-Class wizard in the guild."
"You're right…" Aqua lowered her head slightly. "I should have expected that there weren't any yet."
"Um… Spiral?" Azusa spoke up.
"What is it?" Spiral asked.
"… It's… nothing…" Azusa shyly responded.
*She's hiding something…* Spiral thought. *But from the way her heart is reacting, I probably shouldn't worry about it until she's ready.*
A/N: I hope you all like the new OCs I introduced! There are still a few more to come, but we'll get to them when we get to them. I'm off for this week and the next, so hopefully I can get plenty of work done on this story and my other ones, a couple of which I haven't updated in a while. And for the love of god, someone leave a review! The suspense and negative self-esteem are killing me! T_T