Young Writers Society

Branwen & Sinopa:

I stared at the girl with the seven-headed snake thing. She had a point. I glanced towards the others and then at Sinopa. "Um, they never saw me before.....but I guess I'll stay." I reached down and scratched behind one of Sinopa's ears. The white, nine-tailed fox leaned into my hand, making happy little noises.

"What about them?" someone asked, obviously meaning the hunting party.

"They are closer," said the boy with the dragon. "Maybe we shoud move?"

I sighed and straightened up, eying the others for a moment before looking up at the sky. It was daker, much darker than before. I really didn't like it. The girl with the snake thing followed my gaze. "It doesn't look good, does it?" she whispered, dropping her gaze from the sky at the same time I did. She met my eyes and then looked away.

"Looks bad," I muttered and then everyone fell into an awkward silence. I figdeted, glancing towards Sinopa and then the others and back to my companion. I swallowed, scratching my head and shifting from foot to foot. The hunting party got even closer.

Finally, the boy with the dragon spoke, "We really can't stay here. Let's move already."

Kamau

Kamau struggled to keep two images in his mind, one from Carabol, standing with his axe ready, but listening to what the group of strange Pairbonds were saying. The other was from his own eyes. A group of villagers, armed to the teeth was slowly making it's way toward his position. He knew that if he moved now, they would see him.

"There's a group of villagers coming this way." Carabol told him.
"I know." Kamau replied, inwardly cursing the antelope with all his heart.
"They'll kill any abnormal Pair-bond they come across." the minotaur said.
"Well, that would be us."

The villagers were getting closer.
"As much as I hate to say it, we may have to stick with those people." I said, meaning the other Pairbonds. "You go with them, I'll stay hidden until the villager's are gone and meet up with you later."
"Much as I hate to say it, you may be right." Carabol said. "Stay safe. Stay hidden."

*Since we are bonded with magical beasts we each have a unique special ability. Their eyes glow when they use these abilities or when they're excited. Hunter has something he calls Shadow Cloak. He can take on the traits of a dragon like there claws, wings, or flames. When he does a transparent dragon image appears over his own.*

Hunter:

Reaching up Hunter drew the longsword from his pack. The steel hissed as it emerged from the scabbard. The faint sounds from the bush were branching out, the enemies searching the woods and heading slowly in their direction. Quietly the group began to sneak eastward towards the Crags. The rocky hills that blocked off the peninsula were riddled with caves and small canyons, an ideal hiding place.

*Sorry writer's block, can't think. So tired.*

Carabol

Through unspoken agreement, the boy with the longsword and Carabol guarded the group's back as they crept toward the collection of boulders, cliffs, and caves known as the Crags. Kamau and he had spent many a night in the caves.

Suddenly, a villager emerged from the bushes to the left. Carabol lunged forward and gripped the villager by the neck, stifling his shout. The minotaur put a finger the size of a sausage to his lips, then clubbed the villager on the back of the head. He dropped like a stone. Struggling to contain the blood lust rising in him, Carabol turned to find the group being attacked by more villagers.

Cassia:

I looked around blindly as the hunting party started attacking us. I guess we didn't really look like guests that had inter-colony passes signed and stamped with approval.

I saw the minotaur start lashing out and releasing deafening roars as it nearly ripped faces off some of the hunters. I hadn't been around enough of New Aster's warriors to know if they'd call for reinforcement or give up. On one hand, there were tons more people they could call for help... but on the other, it didn't look like anyone could stand up to the attack they were facing from us and our bonded. Even Aysu, usually peaceful, froze a man dead in his tracks when he got too close to me.

It was impressive the kind of power we had. I was almost scared of it myself. The dragon had chosen certain targets and blew columns of flame, carefull to avoid friendly fire.

"Let's get out of here." I heard an important looking man say as his bonded wolf received a crushing blow to his shoulder from the green clouded figure, bonded to a boy who had just showed up...Tarot I guess.

"Don't you want one." I heard another reply, smirking. I scanned the scene, the only one who seemed off guard was Branwen, the close contact of this battle wasn't good for an archer. I lost her as Aysu scooped me up off the ground out of the way of a sword. The sword instead came across Aysu's neck and sliced off one of his heads. The other six just kept fighting as two more grew in it's stead.

I looked up just to see Branwen's bonded kitsune get scooped up in the jaws of a bonded wolf, and Branwen herself get dragged away from the fray.

*You said they each get an ability. Well I suppose that his shall be instead of flying, he can jump about 20 feet if needed. When he uses the power. He can also jump off of Rex from 50 feet and be fine.*

I wake to anot-so-gentle nudging on my arm by Rex. "What." I say, quite impatiently. We need to move. A group of armed men is not that far, and they're headed this way. With that I get right up and slip my knives back into their sheaths. And the one back in my boot. I hop on Rex and before I'm ready he takes off. My head goes flying backwards and I have to hold on with all my might not to get thrown off. I situate myself and we start flying. After a minute I see them, at least thirty men, battling what? A whole four or five kids? And then I see the dragon. He seems to be battling with the kids so I decide to help them out. I unsheath my knives and tell Rex to lower. At 50 feet I feel the power flowing to me. I loved the power. I launch off Rex and fall to the ground below. I see on of the men about to slash a bow so I pick my target. On my fall I bring both my knives into his flesh and he crumples. The rest of the men seeing my entrance start to back off, but they grab a girl on the way. The last man in line is not to far so I whip the knife out from under my boot and throw it. I see it fly into the back of his neck and he falls. I turn to the boy and he says, "Thanks, I'm Hunter."

"No problem, my names T.J. Hang on a second." In one jump I reach the man I killed and pull my knife out of his neck. I jump back Hunter asks,

"Where did you come from?" I see the dragon eying me suspicously.

"Hang on," I say, calling to Rex. Soon he floats down by me. I hear Hunter say something about another one and I smile. "He's my pairbond, jealous?"

"Not really, you see Swift? He's my pairbond." Hunter points to the dragon with a smile on his face. "C'mon, you have to meet the rest of the group." He signals towards a group of beat up kids. As I walk over I can't help but think to myself. Did I fight for the right side?

*slverdawn, how long were you planning to have Branwen captured?*

*Ok so I guess Cassia can separate her shadow into 7 pieces and use them as duplicates of herself. They'll pretty much be shadows, but can be used as spying devices, scouts and can solidify for short periods of time, thereby being helpful in fights. She can control them by using one eye to view where she currently is, and the other as sort of a multi-screen displaying her shadow's locations when they're in use.*

Cassia:

We were almost finished with the warriors from New Aster. Now we could never show our faces in that town again. Once again, a new person had joined us. It was getting quite complicated. I scanned my surroundings and saw Hunter, gingerly scraping congealed blood off his sword, new guy already trying to one up some of the other bonded, Kamau the minotaur boy nonchalantly finishing off the wounded warriors lying on the ground and the Djinnni with the boy who seemed like he was always grimacing at you.

And back the caravan up...

"Shit... where's Branwen?" I said out loud, though I was really talking to Aysu.

"The one with the fox?" T.J. called over, "I saw her...damn. I saw her getting taken by that man with the wolf... you saw him right, he got away." He had a grim-ish smirk on his face, like he was impressed or something.

I honestly had no time for him. I actually had taken a liking to her.

"We have to get her." I said with finality, scanning the people left. There was hardly a scratch on any of us... imagine what we could do if we could collaborate.

"Hell no." T.J. muttered, "I'm not getting into any of this."

"But if they think they can save their city by breaking a pairbond, they're going to end up killing her." I argued almost fiercely. "And anyway... it would be kinda fun." I acknowledged Aysu's view on this.

((Ah, powers. Hm. Branwen's is Fox-fire; like Chi? If you know what that is. Basically a ball of pure energy she can throw at her enemies. Usually a pale yellow or white-ish.))

Branwen & Sinopa:

I was definitely caught off guard. I didn't like fighting in close quarters; it meant I couldn't use my bow and that I was much closer to the danger. But I still could fight. And I wasn't good enough. Clansmen were falling all around us and now there was another pairbonded with us...and then Sinopa was snatched up by a wolf and some clans men grabbed me and hauled me off my feet.

Screaming, I lashed out and tried to break free, but an arrow point at Sinona from my own bow, which had been snatched from my hands a few moments ago, shut me up. In the background, I saw a few of the others staring. But they couldn't do anything; it was all over way too quickly.

Branwen? Sinopa yelped. She couldn't see me, not facing the other way and about ten feet in front of me and the clansman dragging me along the path.

I'm fine, Sinopa. Stop struggling. Sinopa's struggles died down but I knew she was far from finished. The man picked up the pace and I tripped. He jerked on my arm, making me stumble more as I tried to keep up. They were moving fast; running away. I could almost laugh.

Sure, the others' pairbonded were intimidating, but they hadn't seen Sinopa when she was pissed off. And right now, she was very quickly getting pissed off. I could hear her angry triade in my mind. She was cursing them and threatening to... Okay, I was not repeating that one.

*I'm at a loss for what power Kamau might have. Could it be possible for him to hear and smell what Carabol senses, as well as see?*

Kamau


As soon as the clansmen had passed, Kamau leapt to his feet. He hoped that Carbol and the others had gotten away safely.

His hopes were dashed as he heard yells and the clashing of metal in the distance. He blinked, and looked through Carabol's eyes. Almost thirty men surrounded the group, but they were holding their own. Carabol threw a man into another, and Kamau winced. It was almost impossible to get Carabol out of his rages.

Suddenly, Kamau heard rustling in the bushes to his right. He stifled the urge to hide again. Whoever it was, he could tell there weren't too many. He gripped his swordstaff and turned to meet them. A band of clansmen, mostly bonded to wolves and hyenas, stumbled out of the trees. They were dragging a girl along, and one of the wolves clutched something white in it's jaws.

They stopped and stared at him. A few hefted clubs, and started edging around to cut off his escape.

"You bonded?" one of them asked, the one holding the girl.

"If I am, it won't make much difference." Kamau said. "Bonded or not, I'll still try to kill you if you don't let her go."

*Hey Tolkien, what about he has the strength of Carbol?*

*Oh and I forgot to mention that if someone "kills" a piece of her shadow, two more will appear in it's place.*

Cassia:


As I pondered what to do next as the group consensus was a "no" on the rescue mission, I saw Kamau leave quietly with his bonded.

"What's he doing?" I asked Aysu. All his heads shrugged. "Off being a hero I suppose." They replied to me.

"Should I send someone in to help." I asked.

"Don't you want to go yourself?" A head asked as he thoughtfully curled up next to me.

"I always plan first, you know. This way, I can help and plan." I glanced at my shadow as it separated off into seven pieces. Now seven bodies could be controlled by me. They collectively went in the direction that Kamau had went. I climbed onto one of Aysu's heads to get a broader view of where they were going.

I closed my right eye and the left gave me a seven way split of all seven.

"You and what army?" One of the soldiers said with a chuckle to something Kamau had said.

I smiled to myself as I assembled the shadows around him. "This army." One of them said in a raspy whisper. "Couldn't let you go alone comrade." Another said.

*Sorry I haven't been able to post for a bit guys. I came down with the flu, been laid up in bed. Will post just as soon as I catch up.*

*I'd like to remind everyone that the enemies are made of warriors from three different villages. With the Clanmeet in New Aster they'd be more apt to interogate Branwen not sacrifice her, the other villages might object. Along with New Aster there are also warriors from Jalia and Alamac*

Hunter/Swift:

Cocking his head Hunter turned to TJ behind him Swift, vain beast that he was, was measuring his height against the smaller griffin. Hunter smirked ignoring the interplay between the two winged beasts. "TJ you saw Branwen get snatched by a guy with a wolf right? Was the wolf grey with a red tail?" He doubted it was possible but he should check to make sure.

Startled TJ glanced at him and nodded. "Yeah it was. Really strange coloring for a wolf isn't it?"

But Hunter wasn't paying attention to the others anymore. Snarling he whirled around and started stalking after the attackers, muttering under his breath. "That spiteful sadistic bastard! When I get my hands on him I'm going to..." Swift took off ghosting silently over the trees as he stalked into the forest.

Nya called after him from where she stood beside Cuddles. "What's wrong with that wolf Hunter? Do you know it?"

Taking a deep breath to calm the rage that misted his vision Hunter turned back to the group. His crimson eyes glowing menacingly in the shadows, lightning cracked above as the first drops of rain fell. "I'll say I know him. The only Pairbonded wolf I know of with that coloring belongs to my younger brother, Jair."

"I have business at the Clanmeet and there is no way I'm leaving behind someone who's felt the same pain I have. Especially not with my little brother. The rest of you can do as you will, but I'm going." Turning he crouched down pale translucent scales appeared over his legs, a ghostly illusion. The strength of the dragon flowed into his body and Hunter took off at a run. Moving far more quickly then an ordinary person would.

*For those of you already at 'the scene of the crime' please leave Jair alive, Hunter would like to throttle him himself.*

"I have business at the Clan-meet and there is no way I'm leaving behind someone who's felt the same pain I have. Especially not with my little brother. The rest of you can do as you will, but I'm going." Hunter suddenly turns into a mini-dragon-human type thing and runs off. I mount Rex and we fly after him.

"Wait Hunter, I'm coming with you. I could still kick some but." I grin and we move along. After a few minutes I can see the group up ahead. I signal to Rex and he takes off at full speed. We fly past Hunter and I feel myself start to change. I whip out my small knife and we fly in. I pick my first target and he goes down. Rex lowers to only 5 feet and I launch off with both knives in hand. I land next to two men and they're dead before they could see me. This gets everyone's attention. They charge at me. When the first one gets close to I jump about ten feet in the air and land on Rex. I point at the man and Rex grabs him in his claws. We fly to about 100 feet and Rex releases. I see the man plummet and we fly back down. Hunter now joins finally catching us and the body hits on of the men next to him and he crumples. I jump again and land next to Hunter. "Glad you could make it." I say to Hunter. I must have spooked him because he spins and I have to duck to avoid losing my head. Having lost my knives, I take a sword from one of the men lying dead and start to fight.