8/8 - Anti-bandit camp - afternoon

"..."

Silence reigned over a small area of the camp. Richard, Alexander, Gilhart, Marie, and I were playing a card game to decide our fates.

"Hand-done," Alex triumphantly announced.

"What! Bullshit, I call cheats!"

"A leader would never cheat."

"Yeah right, is he telling the truth, Gill?"

"Hand-done," Gil answered.

"WHAT!?"

"Sorry, I guess you're not as good as you claim to be," Gil bluntly told me.

"Bull...shit! You guys are cheating, you always get better cards than me!"

"As they say, grand luck is on the side of those who are in dire need," Alex quoted.

"Well then, I need some luck, cause I need it to make sure Marie doesn't-”

"Hand-done," Marie called.

"CHEATERS!"

I threw the cards down on the ground.

"You lost Proxy, which means you're in charge of guard duty, laundry, and cooking duty, each for one day."

"Me and my luck... Hey, why are we just playing cards anyway? Aren't we supposed to be busy busting heads?"

"You might want to but we can't now. The bandits have been much more precautious now that they are aware of our existence. They're beginning to reinforce the number of bandits in said camps and making new ones near a certain point between multiple of them," Marie stated.

"So they're bulking in number," Richard asked.

"Yeah, so now we need to pick our fights much more carefully," Alex said.

"Kay, so aren't we making a plan," I questioned.

"We did. I had Chip go out with the map and mark the more populated camps in the area."

They started up another game. Not wanting to hurt my pride any further I decided to drop out.

"I'm going out."

"Where to," Marie inquired.

"Just gonna take a drive, see the sights."

"I don't think you should be doing that. If they're becoming aware of a group that is fighting them then they're most definitely looking at us. And if they catch you out there. . ."

"It's cool, look, I'll be careful and I'll come back by sundown."

"No, it's too dangerous out there right now," Marie warned.

"When has something being dangerous stopped me?"

"This isn't the best time to go acting like a reckless child."

"I can take care of myself, so relax."

Without listening to another word, I walked over to the couch, taking my stone sword, and walked on out of the camp.

...

Driving off-road, I can feel the wind rushing past my head and hair. It was refreshing to ride on my own with no one to worry about or constrict me, especially Marie.

"Come on Road Burner, let's see how fast we can go!"

I say that, but going too fast could result in Road Burner getting me killed. For now, I'll just be careful about how I drive this thing.

"Hm, what's that?"

There was a small village up ahead, it looked like there was a fire going. Marie wanted me to avoid trouble but there was no way I could ignore it if other people were in it. With no hesitation, I set a course for the village. Driving into it I can see what is happening. The townspeople are being attacked by a bunch of bandits. One of them in particular was holding a lance and was wearing a long jacket while sporting a headband. This idiot seemed to be the head honcho, I think it would be proper of me to introduce myself with a bang.

"Okay, let's ram him into the ground!" I picked up speed as I charged in for the attack.

"TALI-HOOO!"

The bike rammed into the spear wielder like a bull. He skipped about 7 meters before he got back up.

"Who dares mess with me!? What, a child?"

The shock on his face is what I miss.

"This child is about to kick your ass, dude."

I took my stone sword out.

"How dare you look down on me!?"

"It’s not that hard."

The bandit put up his spear. I ran towards the guy. He thrust this spear at me but I slid under it and kicked him in the balls. His shrill shriek was painful to the ears but at least I knew that it was more than effective. My next move had me hit him under the chin with the butt of my sword then slamming him to the ground, punching him for good measure. There was no need to interpret his state, he was for sure knocked out cold.

"H-he knocked out the captain with getting scratched!?"

"That kid beat him in mere seconds!?"

The bandits were thunderstruck by how fast I knocked out the spear weirdo. Can't fault them, I can't believe I was able to knock him out so fast. However, their amazement didn't last long, they were beginning to come to their senses.

"It doesn't matter, it's just one kid, we can take him!"

Not wasting time motivating themselves to fight they came at me all at once.

"You guys wanna bring it, fine, come and bring it!"

I was ready to beat them all down if I had to. Out of the blue though, the liquid was doused all over the buildings on fire, dousing the flame. Something broke against the floor, yellow smoke came from around the enemies. It covered a wide area and it was so dense that I couldn't see anything in there. People suddenly showed up from the top of the village buildings and went into the smoke. I heard the bandits grunting and screaming as the mystery people were probably beating them up. After a few seconds passed, all sound ceased, the smoke was clearing up as well. Someone came out of it with daggers in their hands. His first attack was fast and decisive with little room to counter. His other moves were quite versatile, he used his legs while attacking in succession with his dagger attacks. Each attack clashed with my stone sword, causing me to feel a slight bit of numbness in my hands. I had to stop him from performing another attack or else I'll be in trouble. With my assailant's next attack, I kicked his arm to knock one of his blades out of his hand. He was down one blade, now I was on even ground. In a last-ditch effort, he put the other towards my stomach and the point of my sword went towards his head. We stopped before we nailed each other.

"You're not bad," the boy with the mask complimented me.

"Thanks, you're not so bad yourself, mr. smooth.” I returned the compliment.

He put away his dagger and got his other one off the ground. I noticed that my heart was beating really fast, going off like tick-tock. His speed was something else, I had a bit of trouble keeping up with him. It would've been bad if the fight were to continue. I would be screwed.

"I'm surprised to see someone else fighting against these guys."

The masked kid took off his mask, revealing his face. He had a light-skin complexion, a small scar near his chin.

"I can always respect that out of a person. The name is Cade, what's yours," he asked me with a laid back, cool attitude.

He's my type of person, I can tell.

"I'm Proxy, don't wear it out."

"Weird name, but sounds pretty cool."

"Thanks, Cade is a cool name too."

"I know, but thanks anyway."

"Cade, we're ready to go."

A kid who was taking care of the bandits called for Cade.

"Okay! I have to go. Would you like to join us? I gotta repay you for helping these people before me and my friends got to town. We at least owe you a good meal, what do ya say?"

Well... Oh, what the hell, I'll go. Why am I so concerned about getting back to camp on time anyway, I do what I want!

"I'll take you up on your offer."

I shook his hand, accepting his offer.

"Alright, you ain't gonna regret this. Also, you don't have motion sickness, do you," Cade asked me.

"Not really."

"Cool, then we can take my bike."

"It's cool, I have my own. Actually, wanna take a ride on it?"

"How fast can it go," Cade asked with a gleam of excitement.

"Buddy, if you experienced it for yourself, it'd kill you."

...

After a long ride, we arrived at a forest that was West-South of the camp. Well, I don't know if I can call it a forest. It was just like a bundle of gigantic trees that are rooted next to each other.

"This is crazy, you guys live in this place."

My eyes kept wandering all over the place, nearly crashed into a tree a couple of times.

"It's a great place for a hideout, big trees that provide cover, and it is easy to make a surprise attack from above."

The branches on the trees were bigger than a house, and wide as a sidewalk, and probably strong enough to hold a couple of people on it. Driving carefully into the forest, Cade brought my attention to what was up on the trees. It appeared to be a platform, where ropes coming from an edge of the platforms.

"This is our stop. We can leave the bikes here."

Cade and I got off and went over to one of the ropes. He made an animal noise akin to a bird. Two boys looked down from above us.

"Cade!" The boy's voice was a bit high, kind of girlish.

"Puck, is Wedge there?"

"Yep, I'm here, chief! I'll pull up."

This other voice was boisterous, it was louder than a car engine. Cade took hold of the rope and was pulled. I took the one next to the one he took, but I just climbed up on my own, proved to be a faster way to climb up.

"Who are you," the kid named Puck asked me as he drew an item that is supposed to resemble a hand cannon.

"Calm down, this guy helped us beat up some bandits. He's cool," Cade vouched for me.

Puck seemed reluctant to believe that but put his gun away.

"So, you fought some bandits on your own? Tell me, how did it feel? I wish to learn so I can one day fight on my own," Wedge loudly asked.

"Take it easy Wedge, what did I say about the screaming," Cade scolded Wedge's obnoxiously loud voice.

"Sorry, I can't control it, you know that!"

"I don't really care too much, I just don't want you blowing anyone's eardrums. So try to yell quietly."

"Okay," he softly yelled.

"Puck is there anything to eat right now," Cade asked.

"We have people out hunting right now, so we're not trying to cook right now," he reasonably explained.

"Ah, guess I can't treat ya, sorry," Cade gave an apology.

"No problem, I can survive. Showing me this cool ass place is more than enough of thanks."

"Heh, glad you like the place that much. How about I show you around then," Cade offered.

"Sure!"

Cade took me on a tour of his base. When I first got up here I thought there wasn't going to be any room to walk around, but it was actually well constructed. There was enough room for others to walk around and to place heavy objects on here. Weapons were being sharpened, fur pelts were being used to make accessories and various other things were going on. I also noticed something else about the populace; it's made up of kids and teens.

"I don't see any adults around," I pointed out to Cade.

"There are only kids here, adults would get in the way of our operations, plus, we can trust each other more so than we can with adults."

"That sounds pretty cool."

"Most of us know how to sew, cook, craft gear, hunt, and fight. I'd say we're more than qualified to act on our own."

This is so cool! Just a bunch of teens and kids getting work done with no one to boss them around, or get in the way. That is something I could more than just vibe. The tour leads us into a hut, it has a bed, dresser, as well as some weapons hung on the walls.

"Nice collection."

"Thanks, I collected these from different Flame Wraith commanders."

"I'm impressed. By the way, what is a Flame Wraith?"

"You don't know?" I nodded my head no.

"They're a sort of upper epsilon in the Fire Wraiths. There are 3 sections to the group: there are the Moths, the lowest-ranked of the bandit group; they're just the grunts of the bandit group, nothing too special about them. Then you got the Flame Wraiths, the group that commands the Moths. They're separated into several different types of squads and act as a squad leader. Most of the squads do specific duties like rounding up villagers, taking care of rebellious villages, and other jobs."

"What's the third?"

"The leader: The phantom Flame, the head dog of the entire pack. Not much to say about him except that he doesn't leave the main base of operations Northwest from the kingdom."

"Wait, you know where they're at?"

"Yeah, but going there now would be a suicide mission, even if we planned an attack we would get slaughtered by the number of bandits there."

So the bandits are a bit more organized and well-defended than I thought. Now that I remember it, that weird guy that took my googles said he was a Flame Wraith. The way he acted and commanded that monster spider was definitely not normal. So if people like him are defending the base, it would be dangerous to go there now.

"Anyway, it doesn't matter what rank they are, a bandit is still a bandit," Cade summed up.

"I agree, bandits are all the same. I'll crush them all the same," I told him.

"I like that energy."

"Heh, I try."

Looking out of the hut I can see that it was turning dusk. Shit, I have to go, or else Marie will yell my ear off when I get back.

"Cade, sorry, but I have to go now, I'm supposed to be home by dusk."

"Really, sorry to make you come out all the way here then."

"Nah, it's cool, it's all my fault. It was nice meeting you though."

"Nice meeting you too. Drop by sometime if you can, I wanna treat you to that meal."

"Okay, I'll do that. See ya!"

I ran out of the hut and went to the ropes off the platforms. Turning on Road Burner, I drove off on the same route I took to get here. The sky was growing darker and darker as time went on. Marie is gonna definitely gonna yell my ear. . .!

"When did I start caring about being on time or not?"

Back in school, I would always arrive late to class and not give a damn what the teachers said or thought, doing whatever I felt like when I whenever I wanted to. So why am I so bothered by my punctuality? Tch, whatever, it doesn't matter, I'll just take the scolding and catch some Zs.

Anti-bandit camp - night

I parked my bike in the big green bushes in the midst of the trees.

"All right, rest well Road Burner. Now all I need to do is sneak in and-"

"Proxy!"

Well, shit, there goes my plan to just sneak in. I turned to see Marie standing behind me with her arms crossed.

"Sup," I casually greeted.

"You said you'd be back by sundown," she reminded me with a nervous expression and tone.

"Did I?"

"Why are you so late? I was about to go out to look for you."

"Worried about me? It's fine, I can handle myself."

"People are curious as to what's going on with dinner, that's why I was about to go out and search for you."

"You act as if nobody knows how to cook beside me."

"You can't be staying out so late, it's not safe. We can't afford to lose anyone this early into our development as an army."

"As I said, I can take care of myself, hell, I took out a Flame Wraith today all by myself."

"What!?"

"Yeah, I did it all by myself, and it was easy too."

"You could've been killed if you fought one of the stronger ones, the first five are! You're lucky that you fought a weaker team," Marie loudly reprimanded me.

She was beginning to get on my nerves with this already.

"I get it, I get it, alright, I understand that I was being reckless, all right? Happy? Now if you'll excuse me, I have to serve people some food because no one else knows how to, apparently."

"That's not the point! Hey, wait, I'm not. . ."

I ignored her calls for me and walked off. It was bothersome how annoying she was about the smallest thing. Not even Birch was this much of a pain in the ass to deal with. Huh, it’s been a while since I. . .Gah, I'd say my good mood was nearly ruined by that little encounter and by remembering Birch. I'm able to push it aside, a chef needs to be in an awesome mood to not bring down the food's quality. . .