A huge silhouette appears from the dust. A loud bird-like screech echoes from the barn. The shadow slowly reveals itself. Huge, brilliant, feathery scythe-shaped red wings with a bloody pseudobeak on its head, slime dripping off its brown scale-covered body and limbs with sharp claws in the end. It was…
"…a coatl! What is it doing here in the capital?! They're not supposed to be even here in the Auster Peninsula!" the knowledge Chroma learned in the lectures from the Oracle doesn't seem to match reality.
"H-Hey! Let's run!"
Celosia adds tension to her arms, posture solid, and senses sharpened to prepare for any sudden movement the enemy makes while her mind is calculating the precise move they must make at the exact moment.
"Are we actually fighting this thing?!"
"Whatever the reason, I'm glad I brought my weapon."
She holds her chest, breathes deeply, and states her conclusion.
"Let's do this. We can't let anybody die again."
The coatl charges towards them and swipes with its wing. Celosia quickly rolls, "Art of Red: 8!", and does a roundhouse kick that radiated flames. The monster's wings burned for only a brief time but the strong winds from its flapping smothers it. Immediately after Chroma casts an Art, they try to escape but the coatl blocks their way again and attacks. Celosia does the same moves again and again. After a while, starting to be tired, Celosia sees no other way.
"Damn it! Chroma, call for the guards. I'll fight this alone!"
"Wait! Look at the ground!"
It seems that the slime that kept dripping from the monster was caught on fire with their Arts.
"The smoke from the fire! If we keep up the flames, the city guards might notice! Keep using sweeping flames!" Just as planned, more and more flames cover the area.
"It's working!" But the coatl was also starting to be distressed by the fire and so, it raises both of its arms and an orange glow appears in its wings, and does an extremely powerful spin, effectively extinguishing the flames to their dismay.
"Well, bloody Vulcan! Hopefully that was enough to catch their attention."
The sweat-covered exhausted Celosia offers her friend once again,
"Go."
"I-I can't," Her friend intensely refuses, "to leave you alone right now would be-"
"Nothing I can do then," cuts Celosia, "I knew you would saw something like that."
Sighing, she keeps up her stance once again, fully drenched from her sweat as her heart beats quicker than normal.
With the pair side-by-side, the monster swiftly charges. This time, successfully flinging Celosia far with its kick.
"Celosia!"
Chroma rushes into her side and it was then that the sky turned dark.
With a single gaze to the heavens, a myriad of colors invades their eyes as a majestic creature of plumed wings and tails descends from the sky, it was very similar to the coatl with its pseudobeak, but it has a large crest on its head, and the luster of its scale is so great that it acts like a mirror. It was the first time both saw such a creature. The creature screeches so intensely that the coatl was taken aback, saving the two from their ends.
"Catch!" a voice of a woman comes from above and two shadows fall towards Chroma and catches it. It was two pouches with some liquid inside.
"Good job, you two. But leave this to me." With vibrant strands of hair fall acting like curtains for a performance, a person lands in front of them.
"Who are you?!"
"Isn't it obvious? I'm a huntress." Chroma pulls the injured Celosia and they run before they could take a good look, only saving one more crucial information about their savior.
"Pluvian. It was a Pluvian." In contrast to the purity of their color, a Pluvian is a mixture of the different colors of the rainbows, whether it be their skin, eyes, or even hair color.
"Agh!" Too much strain from her stomach makes her paralyzed, running not far enough to be out of the danger.
"Hey! Are you alright?!"
"Of- *cough* course not!" Celosia collapses to the ground. She was able enough to say, "The- pou- *cough*" bits of blood comes out of her mouth.
Chroma immediately opens the pouches and removes her armor, and lifts her clothes high enough to see her stomach, where she was hurt. He pours one of the fluids to her stomach and the other she let her drink.
"These are potions. One is a potion for wound healing, the other for pain relief." The wounds on her stomach instantly heals, as if nothing happened.
"Amazing. I feel better now. First time I took a potion. How did you know these are potions?"
"Although not exact, they look familiar to what was thought in Alchemy. You should to listen to the master sometimes."
"I just find potions boring. Anyways…"
They look behind to see a fight that is only comparable to those written in legends. Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue. Each of the respective Arts used by one person. Her agility matches that of the most fearsome wyverns when she barely has any armor on. Only with a white cotton shirt, black leather pants with a pouch belt, and a tooth dagger, she's able to drive the coatl back. But not without some consequences. With a final blow before escaping, her companion monster was brutally hurt. She screams in a language that the two cannot understand.
"What is she saying?"
"How would I know Pluvian?"
"Sorry. I speak Crimsonian too."
The stranger takes a quick sip at some of her pouches to heal some of her wounds. "Fuck. I don't have enough for my quetzodactyl."
"What about you? You're bleeding!" says the concerned Chroma.
"This is nothing. You still have some of those potions earlier?"
Chroma, with Celosia behind him, gives what remains of the potions to the woman. The Pluvian applies the potion to the wounded part of her quetzodactyl. The monster gives a loud, harsh, piercing cry of pain, scaring the Crimson duo to the ground. It was that time that the guards arrived.
"Halt! Pluvian trespasser! You're going with us." With spears pointed at her face, she had no choice.
"I have no choice."
"Yeah. You have no choices here, Pluvian," comments Celosia in a hostile way.
"Ok, brat." Celosia was ready to go on a rampage if not for Chroma's effort to stop her.
"What are you two children doing here?! It's dangerous here, somebody died!"
"Legionary, these are not just children," the legionary salutes to the intimidating aura behind him. "They are of the Scarlet and Velvet families."
The legionary, the soldiers of the military, is the lowest position in the military. It looks like someone of a higher status also came to the scene. But they didn't expect a legate, commander of a legion of ten thousand soldiers, to come. He is man far older than them. Obvious from his eyes ripe with experience.
"Oh, it's just the boozer-" Celosia gets a smack in the head from the legate.
"Okay, okay! Ahem. Mr. Vermillion!"
Chroma salutes the commander, "Mr. Vermillion, I'm sorry yet again for Celosia's stupidity!"
"What are you doing here?" Mr. Vermillion scratches his head of pink and says with a very friendly tone.
"You don't need to salute me, Chroma. You're not a soldier yet." He pulls out a notebook from his red toga.
"There are numerous sightings of a large wyvern roaming around…let's see… Cremeria, Rosilva, Vulcanus, Luctunia, Akaryu, and basically every major city in the Empire.These soldiers reported strange smoke coming from here, so I just had to go. Fortunately it's just a coatl. We were lucky only one person died." He removed the piece of laurel placed on his left ear, crouched, and bowed his head.
"Mr. Farmer. May his soul rest in peace." Everyone else followed suit.
"It's your last day here,isn't it? I heard from my daughter." It was almost Favi, the rare moment when the twin moons align and causes the three volcanoes to erupt. This is the day for honoring the dead, and to do so, one must collect special materials for a massive festival.
"Yeah! Cherry's coming with us!"
"I see… be sure to protect her, okay?" Even though one can just buy the materials in the market in a city, it has become a tradition for the Crimson teenagers to travel all over the Empire and do quests at the guild that will reward the materials.
"Of course!" He proceeds to smack both of them, "Don't fight monsters you can't clearly handle! Children, I swear…" Celosia almost forgot but it was very obvious with her torn armor.
Twirling his moustache, he says farewell.
"Good luck. Meanwhile, I have some business to do," pertaining to the trespasser.
Chroma and Celosia stare at each other and they let out a huge sigh of relief.
"I…I thought I was going to die." Chroma was on the verge of tears.
"Same. Mr. Vermillion sure is scary, unlike Cherry."
"Uhhh… I was talking about the Coatl."
"Huh? As long as you're with me, no monster will ever kill you!" Celosia does a powerful pose with her wheeler.
"Whatever," a slight blush appears in Chroma's face, "Let's go to the guild. Cherry and Marcus are waiting."