Scarlet and Shiro went south out of town, Jax and Xiao went north, while Cami stayed in town to help heal the injured. The two roads out of town led from north to south, and the bandit camps were in the middle of the valleys created by the mountain range and blocking the roads. The bandit camps weren’t hard to find. The men and women in the camps were celebrating, drinking, and otherwise being loud.
Scarlet and Shiro stood in a tall pine tree, watching them and getting a good feel of their numbers. Plus, by waiting, they can let the copious amounts of alcohol do much of the work for them. “How many do you see?” Scarlet asked quietly.
“I count twenty-five. However, there might be more in the tents,” Shiro answered just as quietly.
“Let’s assume thirty-five to forty.”
“Agreed. Should we wait a little longer?”
Scarlet thought for a moment and looked up at the sky to determine the time. “We have another two and a half hours before high tide. Let’s not waste any more time,” Scarlet answered.
A savage grin spread across Shiro’s face as his brilliant red wings sprouted from his back, and he said, “I’ll flank them from the other side,” and then took off into the air.
Scarlet jumped from the tree’s top branches with a light hop, landing lightly on the ground far below. Looking up, she saw Shiro so high up he looked no different than a bird. Slowly she approached the bandit camp. Their noise grew louder by the second with each step. Within five minutes, she was at the edge of the camp, walking up behind a small cluster of five bandits around a campfire on a couple of long logs. Three burly tan-skinned men with black hair and two dark elf women with silver hair and purple skin.
The group never noticed her as she approached, which made what Scarlet did all the better. She clasped her hands together and concentrated the Explosive chakra from her second core between her them. A small red and yellow ball of fire began to grow between her hands, and once it got to the size of a football, she condensed it to the size of a small rock. Then she flicked it forward with her thumb.
The small ball landed behind the five bandits and exploded with a deafening boom. The five bandits launched forward into the camp, and the valley fell silent as every pair of eyes fell upon Scarlet. With an over-exaggerated bow and a polite smile, Scarlet said, “Salutations, bandit thugs. I am Scarlet. And for your crimes, you are all to be executed immediately.”
The camp was silent for a moment after as her words registered with the bandits. Then one by one, they began to laugh slowly before it became full-on uproarious laughter as every bandit doubled over with mirth. “You! HAHAHA!!” one of the bandit men laughed, “You’re going to kill us! HAHAHA!! You and what army!?”
Scarlet rose from her bow, and her smile cracked her face as it spread from one ear to the other. “I don’t need an army,” Scarlet said, her voice a deep rumble like an erupting volcano.
Shiro landed in a blinding blaze behind the camp as the forest behind him caught fire and blocked the bandit’s escape. He stepped out of the inferno with his wings wrapped around him and spreading, revealing his savage face and flaming halo. “Am it too late to join the party?!” he asked, crouching with his hands spread, ready for a fight.
“You’re right on time,” Scarlet confirmed, her skin turning to molten gravel as she changed into her monster form.
At that point, the bandits drew their swords and prepared to fight. The first pair of bandits charged at Scarlet with a loud yell, and the rest followed their lead going after her and Shiro. The first bandit reached her and, with a quick step to one side, dodged the bandit’s sword swing and punched the bandit’s face with a flaming fist. The bandit’s head exploded on impact and covered their comrade with grey matter making them stumble back in shock. Scarlet took advantage of the situation and stepped closer, blasting the bandit’s chest out their back.
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The next bandit reached her and swiped at her neck. Scarlet opened her flaming maw and bit down on the steel blade, shattering it. She retaliated and blasted the bandit’s legs out from under them before bringing her knee up and crushing their skull as they fell. With a shout, three bandits fell upon her and landed several hits. One cut off her arm at the elbow, another cut off the leg she used to kill the bandit before them, and the last one stabbed a spear into her side.
Scarlet fell to the ground in a pile of rubble. The three men stopped and looked at the rubble and each other before another five bandits came behind them. “Ish the bitch daed?” a bandit woman asked in a slurred voice behind the first three.
“I… I tink sho,” one of the three bandit men said, his voice slurred as well. He turned and said, “Let’sh got the outher one and—” his words died in his throat as his head exploded in a spray of blood as a rock shot through the back of his skull.
The seven bandits stumbled back in shock as they turned and saw a fist-sized orange crystal levitating a meter and a half off the ground with four more around it, one that looked as though it was full of blue mist, another pulsed with red and orange light, the third swirled with blue and brown colors, while the last one had brown and orange light pulsating within. The blackened stones below the levitating crystals began to rise and float around the crystals, quickly gaining speed before resembling a small tornado made of stone with five glowing crystals at its center.
“W-w-what the fuck!” one of the bandits exclaimed. Those were the man’s last words as the stones swirling around Scarlet’s crystals shot out and shredded the man instantly. Several more stones shot out and shredded the other six bandits as they screamed in agony before coalescing into Scarlet’s monstrous form again.
Seven more bandits surrounded her, keeping their distance with swords and spears at the ready. “How’s it going over there, Shiro?” Scarlet asked in her rumbling voice.
“Ha! I count fourteen left,” Shiro yelled as he took to the sky and landed next to her, “We can take them easily.”
The last seven bandits joined the circle with their weapons at the ready. Scarlet cracked her stone neck and said, “This will be too easy.”
“Now, we don’t want that, now do we?” a man said from beyond the circle of bandits. The bandits forming the circle stepped aside to let in three people, one dwarf, one dark elf, and one human. The dwarf with a long scraggly beard wearing leather armor and a pair of morning stars in his hands. The dark elf’s golden eyes gleamed as she smiled savagely and spun her long silver braided hair with a knife tied to the end. And the man had a confident smile, blue eyes, no hair, and wore a red gi with a golden belt around his waist.
“Who are you?” Scarlet asked.
“Me,” the man said, “Why I’m the leader of this here bandit party. The name’s Jessy. Nice to meet you.”
Scarlet bowed, “I’m Scarlet. Where, might I ask, did you train?”
Jessy smiled and said, “You may not ask. But let’s just say you’ll find out soon enough who my master is and what they want. Now we have a job to do, and you are in the way. So it is our turn to threaten your life. Prepare to die.”
Before Scarlet could ask any more questions, Jessy launched himself at her and swiped at her with an incomprehensibly fast punch. Scarlet ducked, making the attack go over her head as she lunged with an explosive punch at the man’s abdomen. Jessy used his free hand to grab her fist and pulled her around as the dark elf’s hair blade wrapped around Scarlet’s elbow and broke the limb off. The man followed up with a knee to Scarlet’s face decapitating her, making her body crumble.
Jessy sighed, “That’s disappointing. I was hoping she would put up more of a fight,” then he turned to Shiro, who stood with his arms crossed, looking un-impressed, “Now, for you.”
Shiro laughed, “Ha! You think you can win?! Don’t you?!”
“Why wouldn’t I?” Jessy asked quizzically, raising his fists to the ready.
“Because I say you’ll die in three … two … one.”
A blackened stone shot through the man’s legs, and he screamed in pain as he fell to the ground. He was quickly silenced as several more stones shredded his body, and Scarlet reformed a moment later. She ran her fingers through her perpetually short black hair and said, “Thanks for letting me handle him.”
“No problem,” Shiro said, cracking his knuckles, “The rest are mine.”
Scarlet made a shield around herself and said, “Be my guest.” The dwarf charged forward with a battle cry and rage burning in his eyes. He didn’t make it more than two steps before Shiro let out a torrent of fire that incinerated the dwarf and everyone around them in an instant.
Scarlet released her shield and said, “And now we just have to put out a forest fire,” as she looked at the flaming trees around them. Then glowered at Shiro, “Next time, show some restraint and not set everything on fire.”
Putting his hands behind his head, he responded, “Yeah, yeah, we’ll take care of it easily. Just stop nagging, and let’s get to work!” then he took to the sky to let Scarlet work on putting out the fires.
***