A New Start

Zero smirked and shifted his body out of the way of the flaming arrow. As soon as it went by him, he caught it with his hand. Zero held the flaming arrow and looked towards the archer.

"So, you think my own flame would dare betray its master? A bit foolish don't you think?"

The fire slowly died down and then ceased to exist.

"Ah, you've given me some of my energy back. Enough of these foolish games!"

Zero smacked his hands against the ground and fire blazed forth in all directions and the fire raced towards everything surrounding Zero's hands. Zero felt the loss of energy and almost passed out but kept the fire going.

Ray was already close to the guy and jumped up above him when he saw the fire. As the guy was crouched down on the ground to put his hands on the ground and spew out fire Ray grabbed around the guy and put his bow over the guy's head so that the string would be behind his neck and the wooden part would be on his throat. Ray pulled up on his bow like rearing a horse's reins with two hands.

"What about foolish games? I'll stop if you stop. Sound fair?"

Zero was so light-headed he couldn't hear a word that the archer said. The feeling of something touching him was what caused a panic. The panic quickly grew into rage and instead of resisting he let the archer pull. The bow hit his neck hard causing to sort of knot in his throat but he knew he had to let it happen.

The force of something hitting him without resistance of any kind was just what he needed. His body fell backwards but he kicked his legs up and wrapped them around the archers neck like a choke hold, only with his legs instead and slammed him into the ground. Zero and the archer laid there struggling.

Zero didn't know about the archer but, he was done. He spent too much energy and it would be too difficult to fight more let alone move. He tried to cough up some words but only blood came out.

"W-who are y-you? You've had the same damn puzzled face since we started fighting. Are you not trying to capture me? Why were you inside if you aren't with THEM?"

Ray got up shaking in pain. He felt his back and felt that it was bruised fairly badly. He looked at the guy as he asked his questions.

"I've been trying to find who the heck you are." Ray pointed a finger at the guy. "If you won't give me a name, I will. My name is Ray and I can assure you I am not with them and I am [/i]not[/i] trying to capture you. I was only in that blasted place to figure out why its there in the first place!"

Zero chuckled a little bit.

"Ah, so it is either fate or sheer bad luck, haha. Well damn, it seems we have made ourselves easy prey. My name is..Jason, Jason Haley. I suggest we get out of here and find a more secure place to discuss this...incident...before they find us first."

Zero sat up and sucked in some air. After a few seconds he stood up and limped towards the cover of trees.

Ray looked back at the building and then nodded his head. 'I'd have to say bad luck on my part. But agreed, let's go."

Ray walked over to trees as well. But as he did, he heard yelling behind him inside the building.

"Let's go!" Ray broke out into a small jog towards the trees. When he got to the woods he turned around and jumped up into a tree, he looked as men with some sort of silvery weapons in their hands came out of the building. He whispered down at the guy named Jason.

"Yo, jason. Keep heading north and you'll come to a sheer cliff that leads to a mountain. I'll meet you there."

Zero nodded and continued in the direction he was told. After what seemed like days he found the location that was described.

"Man, these injuries make everything seem to slow down. Every step feels like a week"

Zero sighed and sat down near a tree and closed his eyes trying to figure out how to heal up.

Ray stuck around in the tree as he heard the men who rushed out of the building talk about what they would do.

"We have lost the specimen. There is no point in looking now. We are to arrive back at the city tomorrow, if we do not hurry the Hilux will have our necks."
"Then we must go back and tell of our failure?"
"That way he will only have our throats."
"And the difference?"
"Who cares, any way you slice it, we're dead."
"I say we just burn down this entire forest."
"I like that idea."
"Then say that the specimen escaped due to its power."
"Wait, why don't we just say that in the first place?"
"That does sound reasonable, doesn't it?"
"It's the honest truth."
"He escaped because his power levels were over 9000. I like it."
"Say it like that and we're as good as sued."
The men went back into the building and Ray saw an interesting sight. The building started to glow and it shot into the sky with giant flames bursting from below it.

"What in the world?"Ray thought to himself. He headed into the woods and after a while he found Jason.

"Yo Jason, ready to go?"

Zero nodded and stood up. "so where to?"

"Up the mountain is a small cave where this dwarf lives. It's been about a week since I left him. I plan on picking up something."

Ray headed up a trail that started on the bottom of the cliff and went up steeply but switched back and forth amongst the face of the cliff so that it could be walked.

"Hmm interesting, well mind if I leave for a bit? I have something I must pick up as well."

Zero stopped and waited for an answer.

"I don't see why not. Go for it."

Zero smiled as he looked down at his torn up clothing that he had probably borrowed from a dead man. "Time to get my clothes back, plus...some supplies," Zero thought.

Zero turned to the right and waved.

"I'll meet up with you in an hour."

With that Zero took off running.

"Alrighty. Well, I guess your free to go and do whatever you want. Although, I must say the company is nice. Solo traveling gets dull after three years."

Ray then shook his head as if shaking a thought. "Yeah, see ya in an hour. I'll be heading towards this small cave I was talking about."

Ray headed upwards as Jason took off running. He got up to the top of the ridge and looked out across the woods. It was a beautiful day out that day.

An hour later Zero found the place that Ray had described and sat down wondering whether Ray had already been here and passed or somehow he had managed to beat Ray here. "Oh well" he thought and he pulled out a sword to shine the blade.

Ray came outside the cave with a piece of parchment in his hand and an angry face. He saw Jason and then looked at the piece of parchment again.

"I can't believe this! This guy ran off with my sword! All the way to the king of this country. Just because he was going to get more money for it. Gah...." Ray went over to the wall of the mountain and sat down. He wasn't sure what to do now.

Zero smirked and looked at Ray.

"This sounds like a good thing! I don't know about you but I have always wanted to take over a castle! Then we could rule the world!"

Zero was having a "too excited" attack. Out of no where he just became so childish when it came to the subject, he even bounced a few times.

"Who said taking over a castle? How in the world would we even do such a thing?..." Ray started to think about the path to the king's castle. They would have to go through these mountains and then head down in a north direction through the Dark Forest Igzel. Then after the forest they would have to go through the valley of Nwayori and finally reaching the great river Yupper. This was the fastest way to the castle, the only other way was the main road which avoided all of these places. The main road added a minimum of three weeks to one's trip but it avoided many treacherous things.

"Actually, let's get started, we have a ways to go before we get to the castle. On the way you can explain to me what you might suggest to take over a castle." WIth that Ray took a left around the corner of the crevice they were in.

Zero began walking next to Ray.

"Well I would think there are thousands of ways to do it....but you haven't really explained what the castle has...I mean do you know? Is it well defended? How big is it? What type of soldiers do they have? If any..But I mean since it is just the two of us it should be easy to simply walk in right through the front gate. That would be easiest unless you want a challenge!"

Zero smirked at this, he always admired a challenge.

"However, we have both fought eachother and I think it is safe to say you like long range attacks but are pretty quick when it comes to close combat fighting and I am well...more of an explosive happy kinda guy; but I could easily change that, I am not worried about me. Nor you for that matter. We could come up with some pretty awesome strategies, I know I am more of a strategist when it comes to big operations...which is wh....those guys had me back there...I may have sabotaged one of their biggest operations.

Zero chuckled and looked at Ray to see what information he had.

"To be honest, it's been about a year since I've been to the castle last. I know that the castle has 2 sets of walls. The outer wall to an area where the servants live and the army sets up to practice, then the inner wall which houses the courtyard. Then finally you have the actual castle. Both are well guarded at all times by a good amount of guards. A majority too, I even heard some magic users guard the place. Other than that, I'm sure it has what you would expect. Archers, knights, a majority wielding swords and polearms. I say we figure it out when we get there, because going off of my memory isn't always the best."

Ray jumped down a small ledge and onto the trail they were going on. He then continued talking.

"As for a strategy, I've got nothing...yet! If you want to walk right in, I'm a little hesitant...because that is sure death. Then again..." Ray looked at Jason and thought to himself. "If you did do that explosive fire attack again, we could have that place wiped out in no time! Hahaha!"

Zero laughed slightly but shook his head.

"No, I cannot blow something up of that magnitude. It would be ah...disasterous...and what I mean is we simply walk in as travelers seeking shelter. Or is that not an option with this castle? Either way I can get us in. I am not too worried about that. However, getting in and doing what we want is better then getting in and having to worry about being found. If you get what I mean."

Zero followed behind Ray, deep in thought. Zero looked up and observed his surroundings.

"Ha, darn! Ah well, and yeah I have no doubt about getting in. I'm looking forward to finding some secret passage way or something. Thatd be cool!"

Ray saw that they were coming to the Dark forest already.

"Well that here we are at the forest. We just have to head downwards. Here's the trail to head down." Ray was in front of a fork in the road, one trail staying level while the other was a steep incline downwards. He headed down that path and then remembered something.

"Ha, I just remembered it was my birthday today."

Zero followed and burst up laughing. He laughed so hard he fell over. He layed on the ground laughing for about three minutes straight.

"Yeah, or wait... Actually I think it was yesterday... Oh well!" *Pullz out some cookies.*

"Here, have some. A little b-day celebration. ;P" Ray ate his cookies and then heard a giant thunderclap.

"Ah shoot... Rain... We better get out of the open." Ray started to run down the mountain trail, making his way to the dark forest.

Zero ate the cookie and chuckled.

"So on your birthday you were almost murdered, lost your weapon, and now are travling to a castle a long ways away. Now thats funny."

Zero glanced up as the thunder began and saw Ray moving ahead and followed.

"Shouldn't we keep going?"