“Oh the brat.”
Pulled out of her thinking by someone addressing her, Mia looked up to see Ryker towering over her “…yes?” she worried he still somehow remembered what had happened, as last time he was insanely angry with her, but to her surprise he smiled, patting her on the head.
“You did good, sorry about your friend. Happens in this kind of work.” He said, solemly looking away at nothing, then shook his head, removing what ever he was thinking about and turning to the group “come on, let’s get the rescued ones to safety”
“”Yes boss!”” the two cheered, waving to Mia as they left, leading the kids away with Ryker.
“So, he is the leader now…” she mumbled.
[Seems like it. Looked sad for a second there.]
“Log made him the leader…since Roy wasn’t around.” She crossed her arms “Does he think he died? Or did die in the past?” she raised an eyebrow “is that something it can do?”
[This time, that is all it had to do. Roy doesn’t exist anymore, and all it needed to do was justify that fact to everyone that knew him.]
Mia went slack, the guilt settling in again. But with nothing she could do about it, she tried not letting it get to her, she already decided to be more careful from now on. With that settled she went back to her sister.
“…what are you doing?”
“Taking care of her.”
Mia, upon returning to where she left her sister, was shocked to see them sitting down on the ground with Roxie, now stripped of her armor, sitting in Ria’s lap getting her hair cleaned with a brush and bucket of water. “…where did you get the bucket?” She asked, feeling a tinge of jealousy at the sight, but pushed it down seeing the sorry state of Roxie.
Now with her armor officially off, she could see just how skinny she was underneath it, she didn’t have a spec of muscle or fat, practically skin and bones. She was also dotted with several scars, some looking more recent than others. Mia stopped inspecting her once she noticed Roxie tense up, gripping her thin mouse tail for comfort, thankfully still intact.
“Guild staff, asked for one and they readily gave it to me~ brush included!” she hummed “this reminds me of when you were younger, Mia, you hated water, remember?”
“…I’m older than both of you…” grumbled Roxie.
“No, don’t remember that.” Mia shrugged, having more of a reason to hate it now more than ever. She stepped over to them, erecting a few walls to give them privacy. The guild hall was practically empty, but she wanted to save Roxie some dignity at least, even if it was just her hair being washed. She tapped Ria’s shoulder, saving in that instant “anything happen?”
“Eh… the usual, they all ran out of the guild hall, started a big fight with all those chumps.” She wet the brush, washing off all the grime before continuing to brush Roxie’s hair “…really need to get a proper bath…anyways, wanted to join but between this girl-“ she patted Roxie, her face twisting in disgust at touching the wet grimy hair, washing her hand as she continued “-and all the powerful folk slinging spells, yeah, don’t want to die in the cross fire.”
The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
“It isn’t that bad…” Roxie protested.
“Oh yeah? when was the last time you washed?”
“…” Roxie went silent, timidly looking down and accepting her fate.
“That’s what I thought.” Ria huffed triumphantly, going back to tending her hair.
“Sounds right.” Nothing else had changed, meaning…
She tapped Ria again, saving “there were tremors last time, I think something might happen outside.”
Ria waved her off “Go go~ I’m not doing anything, cept… trying… to… get this…haaaaaIR GOT IT!” she lifted up the brush into the air, a chunk of clumped together dirt stuck to it “oh this is someone’s nightmare… I’m sure of it.” Ria giggled maniacally, washing off the brush and getting back to work, wetting down her hair as she swept away.
Mia grimaced, that was disgusting. She was getting more afraid at finding out just what this girl had been through, “well… continue with that.” She then tip toed away from them, heading towards the entrance of the guild hall, kicking off the ground and gliding over to the gate, trying to get some practice in just flying straight.
She touched down in the gates, looking out into the city “…not as bad” the adventurers did a pretty good job keeping everything safe, just some collateral damage here and there, ignore the blood bath at the foot of the stairs, and people were already celebrating their victory.
She wondered what the Gaia cult was even trying to accomplish here? Besides the kidnapping, they seemed vastly outclassed, this was a place known for strong people, after all.
She glanced further down the road, towards the pier, instantly seeing something she didn’t like “the barrier…” it was raining light half way down the road, it seemed the barrier that weakened people and allowed them to hide didn’t reach all the way out here, but that was a good place to check. She readied to kick off again, when a familiar voice called out to her.
“Ah, Mia hold on a moment.” It was Trevor, walking up to her from below, his body drenched in blood from the waist down “I wanted to thank you for the information, that device they had really couldn’t take constant damage.”
She leaned over to glance behind him, seeing the smoking wreckage of the tower device and a group of people working on it “Seems so” she narrowed her eyes on him “good it didn’t explode.”
“Right? But I’m sure you’d tell us.” He put his hands on his hips, looking down the road leading to the pier and ignoring Mia’s further narrowing eyes “now all that is left is the capturing of their giant ass boat.”
‘He is already using me…’ she didn’t like that… but whatever, she figured as long as he didn’t push it too far, it was fine. Besides, having someone higher up trust her word might come in handy. “Think they can do it? There were tremors.”
“Hm, don’t know about tremors but have more faith in your adventurers.” He puffed out his chest “we have two SS-ranks, an S-rank, and a bunch of A-ranks all attacking that thing.” He then smirked “plus, we figured out the barrier only weakens someone by two ranks, those black robes from earlier were C at best. If those are their toughest people, we have this settled.”
“Only two?” That seemed low, or high? She didn’t have that much of a reference; she just knew they were apparently very strong “no S?”
“Busy with guild business.” Trevor flatly said “there is a lot that goes on in the haunt, A-ranks is the last rank were you keep most of your freedom…” he added, looking a bit melancholy as he wistfully back at the guild hall “With those few, we should be fine. We have the numbers, at least.”
The bloody puddle and the celebrations made Mia wish he was correct, but she knew something else would happen. She hoped the tremors were nothing, just the result of the battle and nothing greater but…
As if on cue, a tremor shook the city, causing a pause to everyone’s preemptive celebrations.
Mia and several others looked towards the likely source, the pier, something was happening and Mia prayed it wasn’t a nuke.