Amon stood there paralyzed for a few seconds by what his brother just told him, his mind racing, trying to settle on what his brother meant by ‘a surprise’, all the while the sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach kept growing,

“Amon”, he heard a small voice calling to him, ut he was still caught up in his mind,

“AMON”, the voice called out again,

“AMON, lets get moving”, he heard, snapping out of his own thoughts, it was Yumi, she had been calling out to him for a few seconds now, he could feel the warmth of her hands, he was taken aback by how calm she seemed in this whole situation,

“guys lets go”, Bard called out to them, not wasting a moment as he turned around and headed back in the direction of the base,

Amon looked down at his hands, he let out a small sigh,” I can’t help but think about the days when we weren’t fighting one another”, he said, the thoughts of the days when he, Aluric, Yumi and the others would take on missions and quests from the guild or the royal family, spending most of their days traveling or exploring parts of the continent, those days seemed like forever ago to him,

“Amon we don’t have time to waste here, the others might be in some serious danger”, Yumi once again pleaded,

“yeah you’re right lets go and save those who decided to follow us”, Amon responed, as he and yumi took off behind Bard,

Back at the base

“GUYS WHERE’S POLARIS ?”, Aster shouted, he had turned part of the training area into sand, throwing on the building that was engulfed in flames,

“HE”S BUSY FIGHTING OFF THOSE ASSHOLES”, Zack shouted back at Aster, ducking and dodging between the flurry of swords that were coming at him,

“WELL WE NEED HIM TO GET THESE FLAMES UNDER CONTROL”, Aster continued shouting,

BAM!!!!, he heard as a gunshot rang out, the bullet scorching through the person who was about to attack him, Aster looked back, only to see Levant’s gun with smoke coming out the nozzle,

“pay attention to your surroundings Aster, we can’t have you dying on us now”, Levant said to him, dropping to one knee afterwards,

“i could say the same to you”, Aster rebutted,

“don’t push yourself to much”, Aster continued to say, the sleeves of Levant jacket had been completely burnt off, his body had steam pouring off of it, his skin a pinkish reddish color, his breathing was heavily labored,

“while…..while these flames aren’t…….that hot……..it’s exhausting……..how much of it I have to take……..in”, Levant said, dropping back onto the ground, sitting there trying to catch his breath,

but as he did that a shadow appeared over head, he could see the tip of a sword bearing down on him where he sat,

SPLAT, blood flew everywhere, the sword he saw coming towards him, was now stuck in the ground at his feet, what he saw was a familiar black and blue blade, protruding from his assailants chest,

Barak withdrew his sword from the newly created corpse,”take it easy Lev, you can’t be pushing yourself and then be to tired to defend yourself’, Barak said with much concern in his tone,

“okay that’s four of you, where’s Polaris ?” Brie asked, as she appeared, seemingly out of nowhere,

“where did you come from”, Aster asked, with a look of surprise on his face,

“made this little guy a while back”, she stated, pointing to the black cat emblem on the cloak she was wearing,

“makes me completely invisible”, she explained, a very proud look was plastered on her face,

“well to answer you’re question, I left him fighting the leader of this whole fiasco on top of the wall, said his name was Aux, or something”, Barak explained to the others,

“What, Aux is here”, Zack said, he dropped his battle axe off of his shoulders, when he heard what barak had said, his face turned pale, as his eyes narrowed,

“yeah why do you know him”, Brak asked,

zack looked down at the ground, the initial shock leaving his body,”yeah, I know him,he is especially dangerous among Aluric’s four pillars, I’ll fully explain later but for now barak lets go and help Polaris he’ll need it”, Zack stated,

“okay lets go then”, barak replied, he and Zack took off in the direction of where Polaris was,

back in the forest

Amon and Yumi, were sprinting at full speed through the forest, jumping, ducking and dodging, over roots, low hanging branches and trees, in the forest shrouded in darkness, along the way they would ever so often run into trees that were either cut down or seemed like they just exploded, they knew this was the handy work of Bard, he was far ahead of them, and because of the nature of her powers, yumi was also slightly ahead of amon,

they finally made it to where they could start to see the base, as the edge of the forest approached, but with the next step, Amon felt the entire ground shake, as if a massive bomb had been set off,

When he looked up he saw Bard launching himself over the wall completely, and as his view panned down following Bard’s decent over the wall, he saw that that the base building was set ablaze and they were multiple people on top of the wall fighting,

“Yumi, were to late”, Amon uttered, as he approached the Base’s wall, but she didn’t hear him, or actually it was like she wasn’t focused on him at all, she had already launched herself atop the wall, Amon now in full fight or flight mode did the same,

what he didn’t realize was that he had jumped on the part of the wall where Polaris, Barak and Zack were in a full on fight with one of the pillars,

Polaris had been fighting this opponent for a while now, even with the help from barak and Zack he had been getting quite annoyed at the accuracy that his opponent displayed,

“Pol, let me and zack take over, you need to go help put out the fire Asap”, barak, said to Polaris, as Polaris went in for another attack against his opponent,

But, Barak grabbed him by the neck of his jacket, throwing him back while propelling himself forward, seeing this Aux readied his knives, Barak, bring down the full weight of his body behind his sword strike,

Sparks flew as the blades connected,

“why should I go and put out the fire, let Aster and Lev handle it”, Polaris shouted,

“they have been, But Levant is at his limit with how much fire he can take in”, Barak shouted back to Polaris, taking his eyes off of the opponent for a mere moment, the glance he gave to Pol, sent shivers down his spine,

but that moment lost him his edge, Aux pushed off of barak using his knives, as he landed he threw two of his knives at barak,

they hurled towards Barak, but barak grinned,” too easy”, he said, dodging the first one easily, but as the second one flew pass his face, it looked as though it suddenly expanded, cutting him above his right eye,

“what the “, barak blurted out,

“be careful with this one, he’s an assassin”, amon shouted, unsheathing his sword and jumping into the fray,

“oh great he’s back”, Aux said, throwing a small circular object into the air, which promptly exploded into a large bright cloud of green smoke, with the sight of that you could hear the sounds of battle slowly die out as the assailants, retreated back over the wall,

“well it was fun, I’ll see you guys soon”, Aux said, following his subordinates back into the darkness of the forest