RP: 5th Fleet [Chapter Seven] We're Not In Yamatai Anymore...

As the Mini-Neko leaned against the interior of the leather bag, head poking out, her eyes seemed to glint in the dark as they darted in between them all during this dire discussion. However, she didn't comment on what they had to say. Of course, that was just Sif. Kuroneko was another matter.

"It's a little harsh to say that Aya-chan, but Yuzuki has a point. Sometimes, the right thing to do isn't anywhere near logical and easy, and in the business that we're in, 'right' isn't what matters. Even though we still hold it near and dear to our hearts," she spoke to sooth the younger Neko. The woman quickly cracked a sharp toothed smile worthy of her tiger-visage however. "Course, that doesn't mean I wouldn't mind a challenge!~"

"It's time to set up camp," Sif spoke up. "We're not going to journey all night and tire the horses," she pointed out. "Use only a small fire if you must however. Whoever is attacking the village will likely send out a few people to chase down stragglers, so I or Kuroneko will keep watch." Hopping out of the bag, she landed at the back of a seat and sat, the spot giving her as much height as she could get. Sitting there, cross legged and crossed armed, she added, "And I hope they mentioned something about sweets out here in the plains Dimitri. I don't think bees live out here."

"Don't you mean something like, 'how do they make honey candy Dimitri?', right?" Kuroneko smiled, pretending to mimic the miniature woman's voice. Sif didn't reply and still had her arms crossed, but their eyes could swear they saw her nod, just a little bit. This little bit helped to raise the mood, but it didn't solve their problems. They didn't know the exact distance from her to the city, and therefore, had no idea how much they needed to stretch their rations. Right now, they had enough for four more meals each, including the dinner they were going to have. Basically, another day's worth of travel. Should they cut down their portions by a quarter? A half? More? They needed to figure this out.

As they set up camp, the town burned like a distant candlelight.

Dimitri helped set up camp, and got the horses settled as well relaxing them and letting them eat was going to be very crucial to determining their pace. "Well they were city folk, so they probably don't know much about the plains. However I figure it'll work out somehow with anything syrupy, nectar might work too. Though seeing the town in the distance is rather unsettling.." He sighed and continued setting up camp.

As the wagon came to a stop Yuzuki had nodded to herself in contented affirmation that she had chosen the right member of their group to consider for eating. The Nepleslian's sarcasm indicated that they couldn't even hunt. Not that Yuzuki had ever hunted before, though she couldn't imagine it being very different from killing people, and that was something that she'd been trained to do her entire life. People were just dangerous animals after all. Her attention was drawn away from humorous considerations of picking who to consume in an emergency by the mention of a watch, and the knowledge that she was not to be a part of the first couple of watches at least.

Hopping down from the back of the wagon Yuzuki lent a hand toward setting up camp however her thought remained elsewhere. Particularly in the past, anything really to keep her mind from what would be her future in a short few moments. Her mind wandered back to training, the friends she'd made then, the skills she'd learned. Perhaps she had made mistakes back then, then again who hadn't? She knew that her transfer from 8th Fleet and her training world to a ship in the Second Fleet, a tour that while exciting and potentially prestigious had been cut unfortunately short due to an incident that had scattered friends among the stars. Leading her to a thinly stretched Fifth Fleet vessel in orbit around an unexplored planet, and the knowledge that she'd be dropped not only as ground infantry, but ground infantry deployed with no weapons in a world that fought in ways that were better left in quaint tales of fantasy and dragons.

Through chance and luck she'd ended up with some minor equipment, still leaving her feeling nude compared to a proper Power Armor. After some aimless wandering and minimal information from the more metropolitan locale that she had started out with, Yuzuki had found herself murdering a strange race that was assaulting those she recognized as being from offworld. Like herself, a common feature on an alien world. So much unknown at the moment, so much to learn...

She supposed she should ask what the others had learned of this world, but she knew that rest was important, and for her it was more difficult to obtain than most. Besides, trading a song around the fire for information was hardly a good idea when a village was burning so near to their small encampment. Heaving a sigh, Yuzuki set her head against her pack and stared up at the stars, stars that she longed to explore with friends. Friends she no longer had at hand. Perhaps those near her would become the friends she sought?

Slowly closing her eyes Yuzuki let the sight of the stars fade into darkness, knowing that a new field of stars would soon blossom before her vision... And, with it all of the horrors that would come.

Aya nodded numbly and helped the others set up camp. However, even then her mind was still on the town. The rational side of her mind had won the logical argument, but it had failed to win the emotional one. She had to do something - and anyway, it would be of value to the mission too! Maybe that dark lord or one of his lieutenants (every dark lord worth his salt would have one or two of those, right?) would be there, and she could get an idea of what they looked like and what they were capable of. Perhaps she could even stop them before they could really get started! She settled down and pretended to sleep, waiting for the right moment to enact her plan.

Once she was sure the others were asleep, she put on her armour and grabbed her short sword. Attempting to sneak out of camp, she was on tenterhooks. At any moment, Aya expected to feel a hand on her shoulder or Kuroneko or Sif's voice piercing the darkness.

Setting up camp was not the happiest of affairs, not only because of the faint, distant flame that was the town at the horizon, but also because Sif was grumpy. Richard's talk of sweets only seemed to aggravate the Mini-Neko, which she in turn took out on them, hounding them to get all the details right. However, they were saved by Kuroneko, who played the good cop to her bad. Eating a cold meal to better conceal themselves, they all eventually turned in for the night, both of their senior Nekos promising to take most of the turns on lookout so that the rest would wake up fresh and ready to fight if need be. With the grass gently swaying in the breeze, Kuroneko loudly yawned, gracefully arching her back in the moonlight.

It was right then that a shadow slipped away from them all.

Moving through the tall grass, and then wheat, the young Neko stopped. Aya had to simply resort to taking her armor with her - putting it back on while in camp would have been too noisly, and now, the town was coming nearer. With eyes sharper than an average human's she could already tell that for a town, it was quite fairly sized, and had wooden walls to boot. This of course, did nothing to stop one of the gates from being knocked down, or a fire spread to a few of the buildings inside. Sensing that now was the time, she made to don her armor, only to hear a pitched scream of shock.

"Kyaa!" a small, familiar voice cried from on top of her head! "Don't put your armor on all of a sudden - you could have squished me!" Sif went off on her. Having focused on the village ahead with even more tactical intent than her, the Mini-Neko was caught completely by surprise by the Neko's moves. Now clambering down from Aya's head to her shoulder so she could grab one of the younger Neko's ears and tug at it a bit in mimicry of a senpai pulling a kouhai's ear.

"Hora, we've been found!~" Kuroneko's voice echoed in her mind. Further back behind her and just out of earshot, Aya could see the black, white and orange haired woman casually wave at her from the tall grass.

Her armour fell to the earth and Aya made the start of a yelp when she realised that she was supposed to try being stealthy and bit her tongue. "I'm so sorry!" she whispered over and over again, the gravity of the situation and Sif's unexpected appearance temporarily forgotten. This was only stopped when Sif began yanking the poor blue Neko's ear. Aya's shock was only intensified as she whirled around to face Kuroneko (or at least as quickly as she could whilst remaining quiet). The pain temporarily forgotten, her shoulders slumped as she realised that her attempt to sneak out by herself had completely and utterly failed.

"I'm sorry," she 'spoke' to both Sif and Kuroneko, her 'tone' apologetic. "I just... well... I could have been able to not just save the townspeople, but maybe even get an idea of who that 'dark lord' was! Maybe even stop him before he could do... whatever it was he was going to do!" She already found her attempt to protest her innocence falling flat. She could only hope that Sif and Kuroneko would be lenient...

"Urusai," Sif crossed her arms, speaking out loud despite Aya's attempts at remaining stealthy. Her eyes were dispassionate and annoyed as always, but this time, they looked even more annoyed than usual. Turning back to the others, she gave her orders. "Kuroneko. Guard the horses. Anyone else who wants to follow, prepare to advance."

"Getting greedy?" the woman's green eyes glinted in the dark.

"The thing that I hate the most is how you're not rewarded for doing the pragmatic thing a lot of the time like in real life, or even being 'evil' because the devs just suck," the Mini-Neko seemed to speak off on a tangent. "You don't get more loot for screwing people over, or even more experience, which you all need badly anyways. Good ones where you're rewarded for properly succeeding in either choice you make are rare," she pointed out. It made sense; given the nature of this world, it was all too possible that it operated off of a twisted sense of logic, much like games did. Whether or not this artificial world fell into the category of what the little woman would call a 'good' one however, was yet to be discovered. "Well?" Sif asked them.

The question was quite impatient.

Aya simply listened to Sif with mounting confusion as she rambled. What was she trying say? The blue skinned Neko spent a minute or two trying to guess, then put the thought aside in favour of trying to hazard an answer.

"Well... if we're already here, we might as well take a look, right?" she offered. Uncertainty shot through with hope raced through her mind and bled through into her voice. Her gaze didn't waver from Sif (or at least as easily as she could look at Sif when she was on her shoulder).

Yuzuki had awoken.

Absent were the usual behaviours, groggy motions, heavy eyes, slow responses. If anything she seemed more awake now then when they had first met. Her eyes were huge, black pools in the starlight, motions quick, and efficient as she packed up her bedroll and returned it to her pack. On went the leather vambraces and splinted grieves, and into her hand slipped her winged spear, fingers near the crossbar just short of the head. With a quick glance to Dimitri and Rin, she slipped into the grass following after the rest of the group. If they were going to wander foolishly into the town, they might as well have as many eyes as possible.

Brushing up next to Kuroneko as she caught up Yuzuki gave the equivalent of a ping digitally among the Neko present, wordless, emotionless, simply 'I am here.' Setting herself up a short ways away from the group Yuzuki's head shifted like a sentry turret smoothly panning back and forth, as eyes adapted to the low light conditions scanned the night for any motion or suspicious shapes, while her ears tried to pick out sounds other than those of her allies and the cheerful crackling of the fires in the village.

Dimiri was awoken by the conversations and sat up slowly. Despite letting Sif and Kuroneko take the guard shifts he still did not let himself sleep heavily. Seeing the others get ready he began to put on his armor and prepare his own weapons. He had personally decided to avoid the village to protect the team, but if they were still going to go then it was best to go with them if he wanted to help protect them.

Once he was sure everything was where it needed to be he grabbed his crossbow and one of the short swords they had looted from their last fight and made his way toward the others rolling his neck and stretching as she whispered. “So what’s the protocol going to be on this?”

Rin's deep slumber was broken by the nearby conversations. She sat up and stifled a yawn.

"We are doing what now? Now we're going to inspect the village?" she asked.

Rin supposed that moving into the village under the cover of darkness was a tactical choice, but she wondered why the snap decision was made now. She was quickly up on her feet and gathered up her bow and quiver of arrows. She left behind her cloak and leather breastplate (because it was rather constricting to sleep in) and quickly pulled on her leather bracers to spare her forearms painful injury from a snapping bowstring.

With another yawn to will away the fatigue in her eyes, Rin padded through the tall grass to assemble by the rest of the squad.

"Yes Rin. Now," Sif had said back then. It wasn't long before she found out just why they were moving on the village now of all times.

They were stalking prey. Lithe and fast, yet silent as a ghost, it moved through the tall grass with ease. Closer and closer and closer Kuroneko lead the group as they pursued. And soon enough, they could catch glimpses of milky blue flesh, and feline ears. It was Aya - she had gone ahead to the village anyways. When they had all caught up under Kuroneko's direction however, Sif already had her scolding of the younger Neko underway. When Aya chirped up again however, the miniature woman glanced at her with narrowed, unamused eyes.

"Yes Aya. Since we're already here," she blandly replied, somehow keeping herself from rolling her eyes as well. "We'll spread out but remain in sight of each other," Sif began addressing the squad. "Remain undetected at all costs - we're here for information first. All else comes second, including saving any of the locals, understand?" As she said this, the squad could see that the town itself quite clearly given how close they had come. For one that was towards the edge of this nation, it was surprisingly well fortified. Emphasis on the past tense. The wooden log wall made from trees felled and dragged from the nearby forest was besieged with multiple rickety, quickly made ladders, several of its guard towers on fire. What's more, they could see that the front gate had been opened, with the muddy entrance imprinted with bootprints on top of bootprints on top of boot prints. But, out of everything they saw, there was one that stood out in particular - the gaping hole that was blasted into the perimeter. Wide enough to let a truck drive through, several of the logs were either shattered, or cast away like mere sticks thrown like children.

"Choose an ingress route, and infiltrate. We'll decide from there based on what you all see," Sif added, leaping into the tall grass and vanishing.

Aya was more than a little certain that Sif's opinion of her had dropped precipitously. She nodded demurely as Sif broke down the plan of action, silently studying the town. In a sense, it was almost like a post-mortem of the siege. You could trace the rough course of the battle: the defenders valiantly trying to stop the attackers as they clambered over the log wall, the front gate forced open. The hole was incongruous. Had this planet's natives begun experimenting with gunpowder?

It didn't take long for Aya to decide her own route. Trying to avoid being spotted, she made her way toward one of the slapdash ladders and began the laborious process of climbing up. Once she was near the top, she carefully peeked over to check there wasn't a guard patrolling on the other side.

Dimitri was more than a little surprised to see the size of the hole in the gate, it was the kind of hole that made him think of explosives, but he was pretty sure this planet did not have explosives available to them. Was this the work of that 'magic' that they had some to investigate, if so then it might have been a little more dangerous than he had expected. As curious as he was, with his current armor he wasn't going to make his way through the breech though, instead he mimicked Aya's actions and got one of the ladders, and climbed it, on the other side, he wanted to keep a good vantage point of everyone.

When it was decided that they would choose their routes of entry and start off Yuzuki sent a brief ping of digital confirmation before setting off to choose her point of entry. After a short period of deliberation the Neko decided that it would be best to avoid any of the more obvious points of entry and instead started to quietly skirt along the base of the wall, listening carefully for any sounds of activity, footsteps, shifting armor, a mug being set down, breathing. Picking a spot that seemed relatively quiet she paused twitching her ears as she listened more closely before going through the motions of climbing the log wall one handed. While she was fairly certain that she could pull it off without assistance, she found it was more than prudent to cheat a little with her innate gravity manipulation allowing her to focus more on keeping her spear from knocking against the wood of the wall as she climbed rather than finding and achieving proper hand-holds.

Near the top she paused again choosing to listen once more before poking her head over the crest of the wall and taking a look inside of their pleasant fireplace of a village. She only hoped that what they'd find would be relatively tolerable.

Seeing Aya and Dimitri head in one direction, Rin followed off after Yuzuki. She stored her bow by placing it over her head and across her chest to leave her hands free for whatever climbing might be necessary. Following Yuzuki's lead, she deftly sprang into a hover by using her innate gravity manipulation. She rose just high enough to allow her head to peek over the village wall and examine what was on the other side.

As the team split up, each deftly reconnoitered the village using their own approach. While one pair carefully made their way up the pre-existing siege ladders, another deftly made use of their innate anti-gravity abilities. In the end of the day though, the effect was the same. After being sure there was nothing nearby, four heads popped up and over the edge of the wood wall to take a peek inside. The village itself had several of its buildings ravaged by fire, with the outermost ones already nothing but smoldering cinders while the ones in the middle were still wreathed in flames. Meanwhile, the innermost ones, the most distant from the gate and breach, were still intact. And around these buildings, a final line of defense was formed with broken wagons, junk, and anything else that could be found. What was a village of possibly two hundred people was now reduced to a fraction of its size, dead bodies strewn in between its buildings and the survivors trapped in a corner with no way to flee.

Most importantly, were the attackers.

What looked like a small platoon of roughly thirty Hobgoblin spearmen had formed into a square two ranks deep at the center, just a few lengths outside of the villager's fortifications. And in the center of that, stood a woman. A woman with dusky, gray skin and long, pointed ears clad in chainmail and robes of exquisite design. Eternally young and red eyed, the young woman shouted, "Where is that damned knight!? There were four guarding the keeper! FOUR! I said I wanted all their heads!" she yelled at them, threatening to pull out her white hair in frustration. As though to answer her, hoofs beat against the dirt as an armored figure and its charger burst from the darkness. Lance leveled, the knight charged right at the corner of the spear formation - the wooden shaft shattered as hobgoblins were sent flying, the one-use weapon spent as the horseman quickly retreated in between the buildings. Stabbing with the staff out at the retreating knight, light coalesced at its tip before a fireball shot out, missing and blowing apart the side of a house.

"Ha! That's the last lance! He can't do that again!" the caster panted, exhaustion obvious in her voice. "Kill the villagers. Let's see if he'll run!" she ordered the heavy infantry about, the Hobgoblins taking their first, armored steps towards the spear and pike wielding villagers cowering behind their barricades.

"I see. A drow, looking for something," Sif spoke aloud to herself, the Mini-Neko appearing right in between the two groups. Despite the distance, they could all 'hear' her in their heads as well. "So. Just what do you Heroes want to do about this?" she asked them, the emphasis she put on the word almost teasing. With the stage set, the odds looked impossible, and for the Last Knight and villagers, dire.

Eyes still huge as she peeked over the edge of the wall Yuzuki listened closely to the words spoken, and noted with no small amount of interest the weapon that the grey woman used. Her heart pounded, and she swallowed a little nervously once again wishing that she had at the very least an NSP. Her dreams of a proper weapon were dashed by Sif's query, one Yuzuki was all to eager to reply to digitally, "Her body looks ripe for a good arrow or bolt. Perhaps Dimitri, and Rin wouldn't be adverse to flanking our grey lady friend and decorating her with some shafts?"

After a moment she decided to add, "I think we should shoot her before she realizes we're here. I don't envy being on the receiving end of one of her fiery tricks, especially since we don't know her full capabilities... That is of course assuming we can't just turn tail and leave people who we have no duty to protect behind." There was a certain wry humor to the last of what she said, however her position on the matter was more than clear. For now they just needed to survive the night.

Aya studied the scene intently. It told much the same story of desperation and desolation as the outside, except there were still signs of life. Perhaps there was a chance the villagers could survive - albeit it was a long shot. But it was impossible to ignore the strange young woman with dark, ash-like skin. It was immediately evident that she was the one in charge as she bellowed to her Hobgoblin underlings. What's more, she didn't seem overly concerned with preventing a bloodbath.

The Keeper...? Aya mentally filed the term away. As a general rule, anything called 'The Keeper' was likely to be very important indeed. The steady thump of hooves drew Aya's attention, just in time for her to see the arrival of a knight. She found herself dazzled. Here was a real life knight in shining armour, here to save the day! Alas, it was not to be - he simply made a brief incursion to harry the invaders before hurtling off into an alleyway, closely pursued by a fireball.

Alarm filled the blue Neko as she realised that there was nothing keeping the elf woman from slaughtering the survivors down to the last man, woman, and child. Unless...

"I agree with Yuzuki's assessment," she began, also whispering what she said for Dimitri's benefit. She 'conveniently' ignored Yuzuki's comment about retreating. "That 'magic' looks like it could be very dangerous to deal with! And anyway, she's gotta be at least a little squishy, right? It'd be easiest to handle her first."

"I could possibly hit her from here, but I doubt it would be a good hit. If Dimitri and I could get into some closer firing positions, we might be able to take out the woman throwing the fire before the rest of the army reacts," said Rin telepathically.

"We will need to do something to take out those spearmen though. Maybe if we cause enough confusion the villagers will attack the spearmen as well."