Riku L. looked up only to see a pair of dark golden eyes looking down at him. A young man was standing before him. This young man also had dark, mint green, messy and nearly shoulder length hair, his clothes messy and tattered, his skin rather pale and his body quite skinny.
He wore a red cloak over a plain, black shirt with tears in it, his sleeves rolled up, and a metal bracelet on his left wrist. He wore black pants with matching black boots as well. He was covered in black belts with metal spikes imbedded into them, two wrapped around his torso, one on each arm, two around his waist, two around the neck section on the hood of his cloak, and several wrapped around his legs and boots. He also had a strange silver emblem on the belts around his pants. Lastly, he had a furry tail hanging off the side of his pants. Riku assumed this was all an odd fashion statement in this world.
"Hello there loner boy. Remember me?" The strange man chuckled.
"I...don't actually..." Riku muttered.
The young man instantly became angry. "Tch. Still acting all high and mighty huh?" He pressed his foot against Riku's shoulder.
"What're you doing? Get off of me." Riku grabbed his leg and squeezed, throwing him off.
The man jumped back, smirking once more. "As strong as ever I see..."
Riku glared at him. "What do you think you're doing? Shooting Roco out of the sky like that... Are you out of your mind?!" He slowly stood up, groaning a bit as he did so from the bruises he had received.
"We didn't know it was you. We thought it might be another griffon, so we were target practicing."
Riku clenched his fists slowly. "Target...practice..? On innocent animals?!"
"You are aware that griffons are violent beasts when untamed right?"
"Even so! If it doesn't do anything to you, that's just-" He paused as he realized the young man had said "we". He quickly turned to see Roco being poked at by two young woman.
"It's so majestic..!" The girl with long golden hair said. Her hair reached down to her lower back and she also had purple eyes, having hair that long and eyes that color a rare sight to see. She didn't seem too athletic, but had curves in all the right places.
The other person was also a girl, though she looked a bit more violent than the other girl. She had hair that reached down past her shoulders, but it was a navy blue, and was a bit messy and spiky. Her eyes were a dark gold color like the man standing a few feet in front of Riku and she had a rather athletic build. "It's just a stupid beast. Though the robot parts are pretty cool."
They both had on moderate adventuring clothing, making Riku think of the blond haired girl as a type of mage and the deep blue haired woman a fighter of some kind, unable to tell what because she didn't have any weapons. After assessing the two, he quickly ran toward them. "Get away from him!" He jumped at the two of them, but his right arm flew up suddenly. "W-What..?!" He became suspended in the air by his wrist, his watch having a grey-ish glow to it.
He glanced back at the young man who had a wild smirk on his face. "You're really gonna look away while I'm in the middle of talking to you..? How disrespectful. How highly do you think of yourself?" Riku felt a sudden sharp pain in his gut and he coughed, looking forward to see the blue haired woman's fist pressing into his gut. He flew back and slammed into a tree, coughing up a bit of blood from how hard the impact was, sliding to the ground and groaning.
"Is there really a need to be so rough guys?" The blond haired girl spoke.
"Great... Maybe she'll talk some sense into the assholes..." Riku thought to himself, looking over at the girl.
"He's just a piece of trash. We're wasting our precious time messing with him when we could be spending it on our training." She gave an annoyed looked to the other two, glancing at Riku and giving him a glare.
"Son of a..." Riku thought to himself again and averted his eyes, looking at Roco, who was knocked out from the impact.
"I know he's a waste of time, but I think it's time he learned that he's no better than the rest of us. I'm tired of him looking down on us..." The man glared and walked over. "Going as far as to say you don't remember me... You think you're so cool...don'tcha?!" He slammed his foot down on Riku's head, slamming it into the dirt, making Riku groan.
"My name is Seto Ferron you bastard! I'll make sure it's engraved into your skull after today..." He smirked as he pressed his foot against Riku's head more. "As well as the rest of my team members' names... My sister, Kana Ferron." The deep blue haired woman punched her fist into her palm, smirking violently as her fists turned into metal. "And our dear friend Aina Akane." The blond haired girl gave a smug smirk as a ball of light formed in her hand. "Now would be a good time to start fighting back, unless you wanna get beaten half to death..." The metal spikes on Seto's belts that were a part of his clothing slowly came out of their loops in the belts, glowing a faint grey like Riku's watch was before.
Riku groaned a bit, but a small smile formed on his lips. "I'll make sure to remember...how I kicked your asses without even using magic." He spun and swept Seto's legs with his own, making him fall back, not expecting Riku to retaliate like this, though he quickly caught himself, backflipping and doing a handstand with only one arm, kicking at Riku, but he blocked and jumped back, taking a defensive stance. "Thank god F. taught me how to fight a little..." He thought to himself, keeping his eyes on all of them.
"You really think you can beat all of us without magic..?" Kana clenched her fists tightly, fuming with rage. "You really are a cocky bastard! I'll show you just how great you aren't!" She dashed at him and threw a flurry of punches and kicks. Riku did his best to block, but grunted as her legs and fists had turned to metal, so blocking didn't help much against that. She moved so fast it was as if her metal limbs weighed nothing. He did his best to dodge most of her attacks, jumping back as a sudden ray of light flew between them.
Riku quickly looked over, noticing Aina charging another beam and Kana began throwing another flurry, giving him no room to breath. He avoided their attacks as best he could, but took a few punches and kicks and a few of the beams started to scrape him. Suddenly, his wrist flew up again and he flew into the air. "Ah..!" He hung in the air and suddenly flew down and slammed into the ground, hard, making a small crater in the dirt.
"I thought you were going to make this interesting, but I guess not. You were so cocky too..." Seto walked to the edge of the small crater and looked down at a pathetic looking Riku.
"They're so strong... What was I thinking..? Thinking I could take them on without magic with the little experience I have... It's like a level one noob in a video game going up against a level 50 in an mmo game... I didn't stand a chance... Why'd I have to go and run my stupid mouth..?" Riku thought to himself as he was raised from the small crater, by his wrist again.
"Light him up Aina." Seto smirked.
Aina gave an innocent smile in return. "With pleasure~" She said in a sweet tone as both of her hands lit up and many tiny balls of light started forming around her.
"Now would be a really good time to awaken some awesome elemental magic..." Riku braced himself for impact, but there was a sudden, loud screeching sound. He looked over to see Roco had stood up and was firing some kind of blue sound wave at the trio. They tried to avoid it, but it was so sudden and quick it blew them all back, causing Seto to lose his hold on Riku.
Roco spread his wings and flew to his master, catching him on his back. "R-Roco..? You can use magic..?!" Riku shouted and Roco cawed in response, starting to fly away.
Seto groaned a bit and stood up from where he was. "No you don't..!" He held his hand out and fired several of the spikes that came out of his belts, but Roco turned to him again, opening his mouth to reveal a blue glow and screeched once more, firing another loud sound wave. It disrupted whatever magic Seto was using, blowing the small spikes back at him and causing him to get blown away with the rest of his team once again, a few trees being blown back as well.
They all yelped as they got blown away, but it was hard to hear due to the screeching and the sound of destruction as the sound wave tore up part of the ground as well. Roco flew off yet again at an incredible speed, Riku hearing the faint scream of his new enemy. "THIS ISN'T OVER! I'LL GET YOU, YOU COCKY BASTARD!!!" Seto yelled as Roco flew past them above, Riku flipping them off.
"Griffons really are legendary, magnificent creatures..." Riku thought to himself as he buried his face in Roco's feathers.