<"Okay, I wasn't supposed to be here in the first place, couldn't you just give me my money so I can get myself out of whatever squabble you're having with whoever's attacking," Hugo looked over at the squirming man baby in the form of Alloway Corey.
The sounds of the fight up top deck made it all the way to the cargo bay at the lowest part of the ship where the noble had planned to ride out with his monstrosity of a machine all the way to the city lord's mansion.
Unfortunately for him a group of certain girls weren't letting him have his way resulting in the current sweaty, whiny, annoying mess of a man Hugo had the displeasure to share the same space with. All he was here to do was collect the reward money, now he was sadly involved in whatever failing schemes Alloway had been cooking up.
He knew from the start that the gem he and Ry had been sent to fetch for Alloway was not going to be used for anything other than some greedy plot the noble had wished up. But that didn't matter, so long as at the end of the day he was richer than he had been before. Alloway however, had him come along with him to 'witness his glory' then he would be promptly rewarded for his efforts. It was bad enough Ry didn't show up and he had to go all alone to collect the money. Now a shit storm was brewing and he was caught dead center.
"Get ready men, finish off whoever comes through those doors!" Alloway barked orders at his four remaining guards. Hugo though backed away from the group and took cover behind other crates of whatever Corey was shipping. He was not willing to take part in the fight.
Soon enough the a figure made it down to the cargo bay and the only mage in the group had his wand at the ready, blasting off a massive fireball at the descending figure. His spell connected and whoever was unlucky to be on the receiving end went down all charred and smoky.
"Damnit! Shinzo takes up a lot of energy just to summon," Rose grumbled in the distance as the girls finally stepped into the cargo bay while Shinzo's downed figure disappeared in a white shimmer of light.
Tara took point, her blades at the ready while sizing up her opponents. It was a stand off, neither side ready to make a move till Corey had had enough.
"What are you waiting for you idiots?! Attack!" he yelled at his frozen guards who got out of their stupor and charged at the girls.
"Aya, you'll have to hold them off while I take out the mage. Rose, just stay back and rest up," Aya nodded at Tara surging forward to meet the three incoming men while Tara moved behind her with the mage in her sights.
"I wasn't planning on moving anyway. If you cannot handle such measly pests it would be quite a shame," Rose attitude was back to the annoying girl that really irked Tara.
Aya's speed took the three by surprise, an extra burst of pace even more than what she showed back at the warehouse. That was one of her racial traits, able to activate a sudden increase in muscle that gave her more power as well as speed. The three guards didn't have time to react quick enough and now Aya was right in front of them slamming her fist at the ships floor that produced a small shock wave, enough to shake the ship and knock the two down.
Tara didn't miss the chance, stepping off Aya's crouched form and using it to give her an extra boost in air as she jumped up high, flipping over the three guards while thrusting her blade forward to produce a stream of water to counter the on coming fireballs from the mage. Even when she finally came down the mage wasn't letting off, a magic circle forming in front of his wand letting out a hail of ice bullets sort of like a machine gun. Tara countered the first of them with her swords but the rest of them kept coming too fast for her swords to be of much use.
Some of them grazed at her arms and legs forcing her to raise an ice wall of her own. The ice bullets slammed at her wall repeatedly and the mage pumped in more mana to his spell making the bullets thicker, faster and stronger. Tara's ice wall wouldn't last much longer with the cracks forming on it getting larger the more it got struck.
However she wasn't one to get pushed back, and made forced her whole ice wall to move fast towards the mage. The mage seeing the large wall fast approaching to slam him conjured up one huge ice spike and launched it at the wall shattering into pieces. He breathed out a sigh of relief but that was all he could afford as his eyes caught sight of Tara's swords piercing through the falling ice reaching straight for him, forcing him to dodge or get skewered right then.
Aya though was trying her best to hold off the three but it was taxing. It was obvious enough they were more skilled than all the opponents they had faced so far or else Corey's security would have been quite a joke. She had gotten herself in between them and Tara so they couldn't aid the mage while Tara was trying to dispatch him. One of them was part of the beast race, specifically the ox tribe bearing certain resemblance to the minotaur but much smaller and with more human features. In fact it was just the horns and the fact that he was very hairy that gave it off but he was still the largest person in the ship, and his strength was not trivial in the least.
Blocking his fists hurt like hell, but he needed to be put down first if Aya was to survive taking on the three of them. It was difficult already dodging the other two who were armed with swords. It was the most intense fight she'd been in and she would be lying if she didn't find it exciting, though it was seemingly more than she could handle.
"Rose, if you could help anytime soon it would be great," Aya called out to Rose who was currently sitting on one of the crates watching the fight progress.
"Do I have to?" Rose sighed, she wasn't one with the best work ethic but it was more of she wasn't done recovering.
"Yes!"
"Fine," she was about to get up when someone else entered the fray, appearing in a burst of black mist right on top of the ox man.
"I made it!" the guy exclaimed jubilantly as the mist slowly wore off revealing his features.
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After the his meeting with Tara, Ry had rushed back to the small rental apartment Hugo had had recently moved in right by the red light district. It was noiser than most but that's what made it cheaper. To say Hugo was a miser wasn't far off.
"Yeesh, what a dump," Ry remarked once inside. But the place was rather neat except for a few unwashed dishes, however compared to Ry's on place which was an actual dump Ry couldn't help but feel a bit of shame.
"Hugo, you hear buddy?" No one answered, and Ry took that as a sign to make himself at home.
He ate the little bit of stew Hugo had leftover and piled his dishes on top of Hugo's and sat around for a little bit before getting bored. He broke into Hugo's room and checked every drawer for anything of interest to which sadly there was none.
"Just study journals and... vegan mags? Such a sad life," and he bounced around on Hugo's bed for a while before going back to the living area where he found a note placed on the table.
It had been there the whole time but he had completely missed it.
'First of all we were supposed to meet up earlier and of course you didn't bother to show so I wrote this for you knowing you'd break in, and on that note stop breaking in to my apartment please.
I'm off to Corey's to collect our money, if you want you can come. Though before you leave my apartment clean up all the mess you made.
Sincerely,
Hugo.'
"He knows me too well," Ry murmured to himself.
Since Hugo said it wasn't a must he come along he would've opted out but playing back to his earlier encounter he knew something was going down if not tonight and it involved their quite wealthy and shady employer.
If his hunch was right he need to be there for Hugo since they both knew he was no fighter.
Ry was the guy to bail them out of the tightest situations and right now he needed to get their as fast as possible.
The night sky was out in full bloom over Halberg. Ry was making his way to Alloway's mansion, oblivious of the commotion that had been going on the other side of the city. He wasn't particularly rushing to the mansion and he'd regret that, arriving at the mansion to be greeted by some weird large bird thing with people on it flying towards a large airship.
"Well I wasn't expecting that," he watched the crazy scene unfold.
Assuming what he just saw he proceeded to the mansion, and at the gate he found the guard already half asleep while the other was nowhere in sight. From his previous visit he knew there should've been two of them present but that didn't matter, one less idiot to talk too.
He picked a small stone that he had been lucky to find right by him and aimed for the guard. He had only planned to hit his head but the stone flew right into his wide open mouth and Ry had the pleasure to watch a man almost choke to death right before his eyes.
It took him a few seconds to cough up the stone but by then he's eyes were bloodshot and teary and a lot of spit was running down his face from the sides of his mouth, not to mention the veins almost popping at the side of his head.
"Hey lady-killer, over here," Ry called out to him.
"Did you do that?" The man seemed very angry at him but Ry just shrugged his shoulders.
"I don't know, but there's this saying that's been going around, 'sleep on the job, choke on rock'"
"That's not a real saying," the guard was fuming knowing Ry was making fun of him, "Just tell me what you want."
"I'm looking for a friend of mine, Hugo. He should have been here a while ago too meet your boss," Ry explained to the guard.
"You mean the guy you came with a few days ago?"
"Aww, so you do remember. Maybe I'll put in a good word with the boss for you, get you a promotion or at least a raise," if Ry was close enough to pat his head he would have, just to annoy him a little bit more.
"Sorry can't help you, he and the boss already left on his airship. You should've seen it. Now get out of here, you've already ruined my night."
"By airship do you mean the one with the big bird?" Ry asked once more.
"Big bird, what big bir- you know what, just get the heck out of here. I can't deal with this anymore," the guard turned away from Ry and went back to his seat though he wasn't going to be getting anymore sleep.
Ry turned to the direction in which he saw the airship and sighed. Something big was definitely going down and Hugo was caught in the middle of it.
"Aaah sh*t, here we go again...