Casper was frozen in the same place, crouched on the Teleporting pad platform, and waiting for something to happen.
But the lights never came, nor that disturbing experience that he always had when using one of these.
He slowly moved his eyes upward and saw the two huge warriors with the brown sad masks looking at him.
A chill was sent down his spine and made Casper return to his senses. He jumped instinctively to the side, avoiding then a jab sent by one of the Ridire with the butt of their weapons.
After all that month Casper knew almost nothing about those black and red weapons they wield. But it seemed to be the Ridire trademark.
They were very scary-looking. Their red parts glowed in the night and the black was almost camouflaged.
Casper worked on maintaining the distance between him and the other guards. He could not afford then to take a good look at his physical features, nor his eyes. From far away, they could not see if he had a mask behind the black wool mask he was wearing.
Casper did not like to resort to that crazy plan. And it was even more stressful because that Teleporting pad decided not to work suddenly.
Again, that feeling of impotence and weakness almost dominated him. He was feeling like this since the end of the Midwest battle and did not know why.
However, if he let himself down because of that, nothing good would come from this.
Because of it, he brushed it off.
"Sort out your feelings later! Now it's time to be cold! If that Teleporting pad didn't work, go to another. There is another one a kilometer away from here!"
Casper retreated very slowly, step by step, for some time, never letting his eyes meet with the Ridire's. Instead, he looked to their feet and tried to predict their movements.
When he found an opening he leaped to the right, hitting a Ridire with a flying kick and using the impetus to keep running.
Soon, a lot of warriors were yelling and chasing after him, with their numbers increasing slowly.
"This place is basically an open field, if they have something to catch me without much harm they probably will do it. A good shot aimed at the leg can immobilize someone without making them get too debilitated afterward.
"Besides… I can't afford that they hit me even a single time… If they do, there is nothing I can do to revert the damage. The next day, I will appear harmed and without any plausible excuses."
As Casper predicted, soon they started to open fire on him. Each shot missed him, and they were always passing nearly scratching his skin.
Casper tried to cover himself with everything he could find in the way, but that Village did not have too much except for the buildings.
The shots continued regularly, sometimes a Ridire would try a lucky shot on his legs. They had a good aim, and Casper could notice it. Each shot was more threatening than the other.
The White warrior was running out of options there. He could not fight back with so many Ridire at the same time. They were no ordinary warriors after all. And, even if he could, Casper's harmed fists could make him be discovered afterward.
Run was out of the question as well since soon or later a shot would certainly even scratch him.
"But… That's not a dead-end yet!" Casper stopped to run away from them and changed his direction, going in a sudden rush against them.
The Ridire again seemed to be as cold as a proper soldier from Casper's world would be. They did what they could to stop to run and enter in a fight stance, prepared for whatever Casper had to do.
However, the ones positioned in the vanguard could not get ready in time.
Casper aimed at one of them who was on the side of the formation. In compact and fluid movements he immobilized the arm of the warrior with one hand and then positioned the baton on his throat.
He gave large steps backward, increasing the distance as fast as he could, basically dragging the Ridire he got as a hostage with him.
The pale night light of the Castle was so weak as the Moon's light from the outside.
The metallic luster of the baton made it seem like it was a blade.
Casper made sure to not touch the Ridire's throat with that, so he could not realize that it was fake.
The White warrior had said nothing. His eyes were peeking around the sides of the Ridire's head.
All the other comrades were trying to find gaps or openings to get out of that situation, but Casper was no amateur.
He remembered that the hardest times to stop a hostage situation by force were when the individual who was the threat had a minor physicist than the hostage.
It was harder to find gaps to shot, particularly when he knew what he was doing.
Casper had that Ridire in specific as a hostage because he was way taller and built up than him, so hide behind him was easier.
The way Casper locked the arm of the warrior was capable to turn it easy to broke his arm if he got agitated and started trying to run away.
Now, the Ridire were the ones without options instead of letting Casper go. They could do nothing in the situation they were in.
One of them seemed to try to pick a communicator, but Casper knew what it was and just shook his head in an intimidating way.
Casper dragged the hostage along all the way until the next Teleporting pad.
Once again, just for test, he tried the coordinates, whispering very low, but the Teleporting pad did not work.
As expected, even this sort of thing they assured to be out of the option to Casper. They deactivated the Teleporting pads of that region.
Casper nearly clicked his tongue in disappointment. He must have had studied more about the Teleporting pads and how exactly they operated.
Never passed his mind the idea of them being deactivated in specific locations.
"Damn it! I can't keep up like this, mistake after mistake!" That disgusting feeling tried to invade Casper's mind again, but he shooked slightly his head.
"Don't worry. As long as you can use them, this situation isn't irreversible."
Casper got out of the platform of the Teleporting pad. He looked at the guards and approached the baton even more to the throat of the Ridire hostage. He pointed to the platform with his head.
He tried to make his gestures the more clear as possible, even exaggerating them.
All the Ridire looked at each other. Casper was aware of what was going on, they were weighing the value of their comrades' life. They needed to look if it was worth sacrificing a partner for the sake of the mission or save him at the cost of this.
Nonetheless, Casper knew that that situation was delicate. Very delicate.
"After losing more than a half of their men in the last battle, they surely don't have the guts to sacrifice another comrade. Their morale is low now.
"I could even be concerned because of their culture. For a comrade, they knew that it was an honor to lose his life in a battle. But, what will influence them more? I bet that they have orders to not kill, but not to be killed as well. The Jarls never would afford to lose more military troops…"
It was a gamble. And it could cost Casper's life. Still, desperate situations call for even more desperate measures. If he could not find a way out, he would dig it with his hands.
In a split second, Casper remembered something.
Slowly, he lowered his left hand, which was on the hostage's throat, and downed it until the back of the guard. It was still a vital spot and was near somewhere that Casper was willing to check.
Casper hid his head behind the large back of that Ridire.
Some seconds of silence… Then…
"For Odin!" The Ridire cried. Suddenly he started to fight back, in no time Casper broke his arm and threw him on the ground, twisting it even more.
"Heck! I can't kill him with a baton, even if I wanted to…"
The Ridire started to run towards him with their weapons raised.
One of them that was closer than the others swung a combat knife with the same colors as the other guns. Its blade was jagged in a certain part of its extension had a curved tip.
"It will cause bleeding if hit me and tear all the meat around, it's well-made and dangerous!" He warned himself getting ready.
He put his hands in front of his body. When the knife reached his range, Casper gave a light slap on the Ridire's wrist, deviating the attack to the side. With his free left hand, he swung the baton and hit the head of that warrior, making him fall to the ground.
"Yes! I did it! I am not useless, I can do everything I have always been trained to do before! You've got this, keep going!"
Yet, Casper could not fight with that many warriors attacking him… But he did not intend to do so.
Soon, the Teleporting pad behind him got activated. He leaped backward, avoiding an attack and stepping on the platform.
He was starting to say the coordinate, but one of the warriors jumped as well with all his might and stepped onto the Teleporting pad as well. In the last numbers of the coordinate, the warrior interrupted Casper trying to punch him while saying random numbers. Before the punch could even land, that blue light involved their bodies and they disappeared from view.
…
Casper kept his mind alert all the time. He could not move his body when in the middle of the teleportation at all. He knew that everything that was on the Teleporting pad at this time froze and just started to move again afterward.
Just the conscience remained. Maybe, that was the split-second when all his body was deconstructed in small particles then reconstructed again in the place he wished to.
"Now… We have a problem here… And everything is their fault… No, the Princess' fault… Or, better, my fault for my dumb mistakes!
"But, anyhow, what I need to do now is focus."
The Teleporting experience ended quickly. When it happened, Casper was already lowering his head and avoiding just in time the punch, while grabbing the Ridire's arm and using a Judo technique, throwing him over the shoulder to the ground.
He picked his baton and used it to pass out the warrior.
He calmed himself down, breathing hard. Then, looked around.
The communicator that fell from his hand on the Teleporting pad's platform had someone talking.
"I called the company and they turned on this specific Teleporting pad. They reported that two people used it just now. Is everything okay? Why did the General change the action this way with such order? Did you catch the guy? Hello?"
Casper threw the communicator aside.
"That thing saved my life. I was lucky to realize that every Ridire might have its own communicator. It was a gamble as to whether I would be able to make them activate it again or not with my lie." He sighed. "It seems that I am living until now just with my luck, and it's not working at all."
He glanced at the constructions around him.
"Now, I will have a déjà vu, but… Where the hell am I… again?"