♬ Punch my face, ♬
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" The pendants might be in one of these boxes."
"Let's start looking."
They searched around the boxes for what felt like years, but they only found seemingly random items. Such as timber, gold, torn apart furniture. Sometimes it was an entire box of only packing peanuts, but no pendants.
"Where are they?" Clarisse wondered, sounding a little frustrated. Usually, she wouldn't get upset when things weren't going her way, but the mission barely started and she's been knocked out of the sky, carried her teammate to the target, and had no luck with finding the pendants that are supposed to be here. If she did all this for the pendants not to be there, she might be slightly irritated.
"We've searched every box here! Maybe they really aren't here?"
"We should look around more before giving up." Clarisse really didn't want to come back empty handed.
Then, a thump was heard on the roof of the cargo-hold. Clarisse and Drake freeze and listen as footprints come closer to the opening they made to get inside. They both made the decision to hide.
Drake hid inside one of the boxes that were emptied during their search and Clarisse hid in the corner behind a pile of crates. She barely finished hiding before a... well she didn't know what to call the thing that jumped through the roof.
They had normal clothes on, t-shirt, jeans, but that was the only normal thing about them. The person clearly had a pendant, unless some humans were born with yellow slit eyes, claws and green wings.
Clarisse assumed that the person had two pendants - the parakeet, and the cat. That was until she took a closer look at the necklace. The chain on their neck did have the parakeet, but the yellow slit eyes and claws were the product of the snake pendant, not the cat.
When Clarisse realized that they had the snake pendant, she groaned internally. This was going to be an annoying fight. If they did have the cat pendant instead of the snake, the fact that the eyes were different would be much less of a problem.
With the cat pendant, the eyes mean the wearer can see in the dark. So it wouldn't really matter if they were using the cat pendant.
But, with the snake pendant, the wearer can detect body heat, and the eyes are a visual indicator that they are using that ability. Since their enemy could detect body heat, the fact that they hid was pointless.
Also, the claws poison anyone they cut.
And, let's not forget they also had the parakeet pendant, which means they can fly away if she got the upper-hand.
Clarisse watched as they turned their head to the right, and started walking towards the box that Drake was in.
This was good, because Clarisse gained a few seconds to think of a plan.
By the time they reached the box Drake was in, she had decided what she needed to do.
So, she stood, knocking into a few boxes and making them fall, catching the attention of the pendant-wearer.
She stepped over the box in front of her and asked, "Your'e the person that knocked us out of the sky, aren't you?"
The person walked up to Clarisse and swung their claws at her. Clarisse blocked their hand with one of her daggers. She tried to hit her with her other hand, but Clarisse blocked that one as well.
"So what if I am?" they asked in response.
"Well an apology would be appreciated, that was very rude."
"Why would I apologize? It's my job to protect our cargo from thieves like you."
"We're the thieves now?" Clarisse pushed them backwards and held her blades at her sides. "The Holders have been stealing pendants from the Keepers for centuries." She walked closer to them and tried to hit them with her dagger, but they moved out of the way.
"They always belonged to us!" They swiped at Clarisse again, but she dodged as well.
"All of the pendants! They all are ours."
"You Holders are so greedy, you always take pendants that are not yours. Speaking of which," She eyed the necklace they were wearing. "I'm going to need those pendants you took back." And that's when Drake came out of the crate he was in, at the worst possible time. The person turned towards him and scratched one of his wings.
"Okay, that's enough." While they were distracted with Drake, Clarisse hit them on the head with the pommel of one of her daggers and knocked them out.
She sheathed her daggers and quickly stepped over the Holders' passed out figure and kneeled down next to the crate Drake was in.
"Drake? Are you okay?"
Drake replied in a drowsy voice, "Actually. I'm feeling a bit tired."
He started to close his eyes, but Clarisse smacked him awake.
"Drake, listen, you've been poisoned. If you fall asleep now, you might not wake back up."
This seemed to catch Drake's attention as he opened his eyes as wide as he could, which wasn't considerably wider since he was fighting to stay conscious, in an effort not to sleep.
"What poisoned me?" he barely managed to stutter out.
"That Holder was wearing a snake pendant. So try and keep your eyes open until we get back to the village."
Drake seemed panicked, but tried to compose himself.
"Okay, I-," He took in a breath to calm himself. "I'll try to stay awake."
Clarisse had to think quickly. Their village was nearly two thousand miles away. Not being able to fly back means the trip would take over a day. She was sure that they did not have that type of time.
There was no possible way Drake was going to survive unless they flew back, so Clarisse had to find a way to fly. Then, she remembered that the Holder she just knocked out had a parakeet pendant.
A sense of relief washed over her when she remembered that. There was a possibility that Drake could survive.
But there was another problem.
Well a few more problems actually.
Firstly, she wouldn't be able to carry Drake and the Holder back to the village, so they wouldn't be able to question them later. Secondly, they came here for three pendants: the cat, snake, and parakeet. She knows where the parakeet and snake are, but still has yet to find the cat.
Since they've already searched every box in here, the only other place the pendant could be is the cab of the truck.
"Drake, I'm going to have to-"
When she turned back to Drake, his eyes were almost closed and he was half asleep.
"Drake!"
He was startled fully awake.
"Remember to keep your eyes open. I'm going to check if the cat pendant is in the front of the truck, okay? Don't close your eyes for a second."
She unclipped the chain from the Holders' neck and took off both the pendants. Clarisse studied the snake pendant, the silver charm with tiny crescent indents studded along it for scales. Two small, green gems placed on the head of the coiled silver strip, indicating eyes. The whole item seemed to emit a faint, but noticeable, pale-green glow.
She placed the pendant in her pocket, and clipped the parakeet pendant onto her chain, letting it rest next to her white tiger charm.
Green wings grew from her back as she flew out of the hole they made to get in.
She walked towards the front of the truck and stepped onto the roof of the cabin.
Clarisse jumped off of the roof, and onto the step you would use to get into the passengers' side.
She kept balance on the step and ducked under the door so the driver couldn't see her.
Clarisse took a moment to compose herself and prepare for what she was planning to do.
Then she took one of her daggers out, stood up, and broke the glass with the side of the guard that was facing the flat edge of the blade.
The driver looked towards Clarisse, but before she could react, Clarisse held out the hand with the dagger she just used to break the window and turned the sharp edge towards the driver.
"Don't move or I'll cut you." She said in the most commanding voice she could. She didn't actually want to hurt them, but
The driver didn't say anything but they did turn their head away from Clarisse and just pretended like she wasn't there.
Clarisse then climbed in through the broken window.
"Where's the cat pendant?" She asked it almost threateningly. A sort of 'You have three seconds to answer before I slit your throat' kind of tone. Clarisse usually isn't this mean, but if they were anything like the other Holder, then they weren't going to just hand her the cat pendant.
They reached into their pocket, took out the cat pendant, and handed it to Clarisse.
Clarisse lowered her dagger and took the pendant out of their hand.
"That was... easier than I expected." She said to no one in particular. She put the cat pendant in her pocket along with the snake.
Clarisse climbed back through the window and stood on the roof of the cab.
She was about to start walking back towards Drake, but she slipped backwards and fell onto the hood.
The driver was startled and he swerved the truck and crashed into the guardrails.
Then, a car that was driving behind the truck crashed into the side of it.
"This mission just keeps getting worse, doesn't it?" She thought to herself.
Clarisse jumped off the hood and ran towards the wreckage to make sure whoever was in the car was alright.
But, as she got closer to the car, she could see two unmoving people inside. A girl and, what she assumed to be, her father.
Clarisse didn't want to leave them there since she caused the crash, so she decided to make sure they were okay before she left.
The passenger side window was open, so she could clearly see that neither of them had any visual injuries, except for a bruise on the girls' head. She assumed they passed out from hitting their heads.
She concluded that the worst that would happen to them was waking up with a migraine, but they would otherwise be fine. Clarisse was about to leave, determining that their injuries were not as urgent as her dying friend's, but she noticed something.
Sitting peacefully around the girl's neck was a silver strip with tiny crescent indents studded across its surface, emitting a faint, but noticeable, pale-green glow.
Clarisse checked the pocket of her hoodie, and, sure enough, the snake pendant wasn't in it.
"I hate today."
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♬ ...do it 'cause I like the pain ♬
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Word Count: 2124