Final Fantasy

    Tristan and Soo Jin launched themselves at the monster, swords at the ready, as the rest spread out for more ranged attacks.  It was Antiope who noticed the second chimera, shouting a warning as she turned to face the new threat. the Amazon deflected it's first attack with ease, but the second one struck down the stranger.

   Cursing, Dao Ming hastily knelt beside the fallen woman. She kept an eye on the monsters as she began to cast resurrection, but the others had everything well in hand. She turned her attention back to her patient - then cursed harder as she noticed the gem the other wore. A summoning gem. 

   "Is that what I think it is?" Asked Kage. 

  "So it seems." answered Aero. "The last member of our party -the wielder of the seventh summoning gem."  

  "Seriously?" the ninja asked  "I mean did you see her go down with one hit?"

  Dao Ming tried to be fair. "We really don't know how long she was fighting that first chimera, Done! She should come  around on her own."

  There was a doubtful silence from the rest.

   "Mmm still..." Aero said "to be killed with a single hit... I can't imagine the embarrassment..." The red mage trailed off meaningfully, shooting a smug glance over at Tristan. 

    The warrior had a white knuckled grip on the hilt of his sword, clearly moments from drawing.  "Is there something you want to say Mage?"

  "All I did was make a statement about our new friends embarrassing display. Was their something in that that you applied to yourself?"

   So forceful was Tristan's glare the others almost expected Aero to burst into flames on the spot. 

 "Wha...What happened?" The figure on the ground sat up. 

 "The chimera."

 "Calm down." Dao Ming soothed "They've been taken care of."

 "And how." mentioned Kage from the corpses where she'd been wandered back to loot.

  "I'm Dao Ming and this is my cousin Soo Jin. These are our companions." She gestured to each as she said their names "Kage, Antiope, Aero, and Tristan. can you tell us your name?"

   "Kris...I'm called Kris. What happened?"

  "There was a second chimera. Perhaps you shouldn't hunt alone in the future." Antiope said casually.

   "I don't need any help." Kris groused. standing up. 

   Nobody could keep from raising their eyebrows at this. Aero had to comment. "Is that so?" he drawled condescendingly  "Because that's not how it looked from where I was standing."

   "I think we should get going." Dao Ming interrupted before violence could break out. "We need to hurry to Kris's village." She cast a worried look at the lengthy shadows, drawing awareness to the passing of time. 

 "Why'd a mixed-matched group like you want to go to my village. And why should I even tell you where it is?" Kris asked suspiciously.    

   "Oh for Shiva's sake! We already know! The gunslinger village of Serenity Valley, right at the rim of Valentine Plains. And we need to get moving." Antiope snapped. 

 Soo Jin and Dao Ming hustled Kris along, explaining the situation in quiet voices as they quickly walked  on. Aero and Antiope followed along last in thoughts of their own. Kage and Tristan fell behind them.

 "He's still alive."  Tristan said.

 "Yep." Kage said nonchalantly, admiring her new boot knife. "Why is he still alive?" Tristan pressed, fingers twitching as though he longed to pull his blade.

 "Oh you know how it is." Kage said airily "Mages you know they're tricky to kill." she tucked the boot knife away.

 He pulled out a money pouch. "Will this help you through the trickiness."

 She grabbed it with a smile. "it'll sure help.

 They grew hopeful as they got closer to Kris's village and no smoke was spotted on the horizon. Surely this was a good sign. This time they wouldn't be too late."

   Kris was convinced they were playing a sick joke on her, and angering those around her as she told them off for lying about such a thing. 

 "It's not a lie! There's no joke! Our villages were completely wiped out! Gone!  Our people are dead! We wouldn't  joke about such a thing."  Despite the gravity of the situation Tristan couldn't help but admire Soo Jin's passion as she yelled at the gunslinger.

    Before the group's tension could build out of control Kage said "Actually my people are fine." There was a collective "What?!"  and Kage continued, "Yeah, my village is constantly ready to move. The attackers came, so we slipped away destroying buildings as we went."

   There was plenty that could have been said to that, but that was the point their destination came into sight. There was no smoke, no fire. There was also no village -only the remains of one.

   Kris stared in devastation before running into what had been her village, but was now burned out, wrecks, rubble, and cold ashes. She searched desperately but found no survivors, running from bolt-hole to bot-hole. The others followed solemnly, memories of their own homes near at hand. Finally they had to admit defeat there were no survivors here to be found. 

   Antiope placed a hand on Kris's shoulder. "We will have vengeance for the lives lost."

"How?" Kris whirled to face the Amazon. "How can we possibly do anything about this?! What can we do?"

 "We can go see the king." Tristan said.

 "I'm not too thrilled with that plan." Aero muttered, offered no plan of his own. With no other plans it was decided they would go see the king.