The Road to Ventus
The two motorbikes blazed through the pacific road between Moonriver and the rest of the world at an incredible furious pace. Lizzie had never felt anything like that in her entire life. The wind blowing through her hair, the adrenaline, that frightful but also thrilling sensation. She imagined that at some point on their crazy race, their speed would be so dope that the bikes would fly from the ground.
Mello and Luke stared at each other with fury on their eyes but competition on their smiles, trying to surpass each other at any cost.
But, between all of that acceleration, a loud bang came from the red motorbike and Mello started to lose control of the vehicle, losing his speed until the bike finally stopped, with the engine blowing smoke.
“Everything alright, Liz?” – Asked Mello.
“Yep.” – Lizzie stood up from the sidecar and took the dust off her clothes.
“I-i-is it a-alrea-dy o-over…?” – Said a fragile voice from behind the man.
Katherine still held him tightly with all her might and kept her eyes closed the entire time.
“Yes, Kat. You can open your eyes now.”
The girl was shaking and had tears on her eyes.
“Really…?” – The way she spoke was so fragile and… cute. It almost wasn’t the serious and strong Katherine that we met before.
Moments later, Luke came back with his motorbike.
“What happened? I didn’t even see you losing.” – Said the man, teasing with a smile.
“Hey, the bike started smoking. It wasn’t my fault, man. We’ll have to wait on that challenge.” – Spoke Mello.
“Heh. Yeah, sure.”
“Well, I guess that’s it then. We’ll see each other on Ventus.”
“Oh, I’m not going there. I have business and autograph distribution somewhere else.”
“Is that so? I thought you were gonna meet Melissa too.”
“Hehe… We don’t need to meet each other, my friend. We’ll always be on each other’s hearts”
Lizzie rolled her eyes with that phrase.
“Oooookay… Take care of yourself then, man.”
Both men shook each other’s hands.
“What about you girls? Want to ride on my bike?” – Luke made a “charming” smile.
“Ugh… I’ll pass. And I think she’ll too.” – Spoke Lizzie, pointing to Katherine, who still held the girl and trembled.
“Well, so be it then. Give my Melissa a kiss and my regards. Farewell!”
Luke turned his motorbike’s engine on and, with a big impulse, as if the motorbike was a horse, he dashed away towards the dark night.
“This guy… Ugh. How can he write so well?” – Said Lizzie.
“Well, at least our little race gave us plenty of less ground to cover. I bet that we’ll make it to Ventus in about two days.” – Spoke Mello, looking at the map.
“Hm… I think today was enough for her.”
Katherine was still shaking.
“Poor Kat… Well, let’s at least make a camp for the night.”
Because Katherine was still shaking with the heavy adrenalin of the motorbikes, they stopped on a forest where the roots of tall trees came up above the ground, serving as a refuge of some sorts. Also, Mello thought it was safer than near the road, where the police cars could still be pursuing the city fugitives.
They gathered some twigs and dead leaves and with Lizzie’s magic, they made a campfire around the roots of one of the big trees. The girl also took a pot, some cups and tea leaves from a set that her grandfather put on her bag. She mixed some different leaves on a cup and brewed a nice, relaxing tea for Katherine, giving to the man as well.
“Hm! This is very good!” – Said the man, tasting something that was bittersweet but made his body feel like a feather.
“Hehe… I maybe a newbie on magic, but my grandfather taught me years of cuisine alchemy!” – The girl puffed her chest.
Katherine drank the tea and soon after all of them finished that marvelous beverage, both of the girls gave in to the weakness and sleepiness on their bodies. The blonde girl hugged Lizzie like a teddy bear, while the latter used Katherine’s breasts as pillows.
Seeing that scene made Mello remember all of the good memories he had when he and his sister were together. All of their happiness, travels, sorrows… and… that…! His thoughts became dark and he could only see one face. A terrible monster that terrified his dreams. He was almost falling asleep, but after that monster crossed his mind once again, he couldn’t sleep anymore. He didn’t want to remember that and sat next to the fire, poking it with a stick while he sighed every time he looked at the girls, peacefully sleeping… Maybe he should give in to the sleep as well…
Mello woke up with a loud noise from somewhere nearby, seeming like an explosion. He looked around them, but saw only Katherine still sleeping by his side, on a makeshift bed of leaves. He assumed it was Lizzie training her magic. Another explosion was heard, but Katherine didn’t care at all. To her, it seemed like a buzzing noise from a mosquito, that made only her roll over and cover her face from the sunlight.
Yet, when one other rather big explosion started to annoy him, he shake his head negatively and finally got up, walking on the direction of the noises.
On the premises where they slept, a shallow stream ran across. Lizzie was at its center, concentrating her magical energy. On a rock near the riverbed, rested open the girl’s magic book. Maybe she was training a more advanced spell?
On her right hand, she concentrated red-orange-ish flames. With her eyes closed, she concentrated even more… a little bit more… The fire on her hand got bigger and larger. In an instant, she opened her eyes and tilted her hand towards the stream. The flames condensed all that energy and took a spherical format on the palm of her hand, launching forwards, spun a few times and exploded after a few meters.
“Holy crap! That’s awesome, Liz!” – Shouted Mello.
The girl startled when she heard that voice, but when she found out who was, she smiled and put her hand on the back of her head.
“Hehe… Thanks, man.”
“I must admit. Your spells became very good extremely quickly. Not even Melissa became good this fast.”
“I’m that good, dude. What would you expect?” – She puffed her chest, full of herself.
“Oh yeah, smartass? And what would you do if an enemy attacked you right now?”
“I would burn his ass until he was a pile of charcoal!”
“Is that so?” – He jumped on the stream and unsheathed his katana.
“What are you doing?”
“I want to see how your training goes. Let’s see if you’re really ‘that good, dude’.”
“Hmph. Bring it on then!”
Mello positioned himself to attack and Lizzie did the same, concentrating magic on both hands.
A brief silence stood upon the two while they observed their opponent. Only the wind on the tree’s leaves and the slow current on the water of the stream could be heard.
A couple more seconds of observation was enough to make Mello jump and attack.
“Wait, wait, wait!!” – Shouted Lizzie.
Mello stumbled with the girl’s shout and fell on the river.
“What?” – Shouted him, soaked.
“Grrrr! This damn skirt… and socks… Gah! This entire dress! I can’t take it anymore!”
With fury in her eyes, she started to tear off the clothes that served as a disguise on the previous night. Her hate towards the dress was so great that she took off the clothes, tossed them a bit far and finished them with a fireball. That was all her anger with ‘girly clothes’. Well, at least she was wearing shorts and a t-shirt underneath all that.
“Why all that violence?”
“Oh yeah, sure. C’mon! Now you’re done!”
“Finally.”
Like a bolt of lightning, Mello ran towards the girl so fast that before she could even blink her eyes, he had his blade under Lizzie’s neck.
”H-hey…! That isn’t fair. I wasn’t ready-”
“The enemy isn’t gonna wait you ‘be ready’. Let’s go!”
The moment he took the katana off her neck, she dodged backwards and conjured fire magic on both hands. She pointed them forwards, but before she could launch the fireball, Mello ran towards her again and lifted her arms up, dissipating all the magic upwards.
“That’s all?” – Said the man, smiling.
Lizzie, angered by that, shook the man off and ran far away from him. When she was at a considerable distance between them, started to make magic again. The man positioned himself for a defense stance this time, with the sword on both hands in front of him.
The girl made a ton of small fireballs rain upon the man, who curiously was deflecting… or rather… absorbing all that fire with his sword, that began glowing with the fire a little. But while he was doing that, he also ran with a relentless speed. When he was close enough again with the girl, he nailed the sword on the ground, making the stream vaporize while passing through the hot and dark steel of the blade, and did a quick sweep on the girls legs, making her lose her balance, easy enough to be pushed flat on the shallow stream.
“Enough already? Tired?” – Said the man, crouched near the girl, spinning his finger on her forehead.
She wanted to crush him where he stood, but she didn’t have strength to even move an arm anymore.
“Alright. Let’s evaluate.”
Lizzie looked at him with an interrogation for a face.
“First: you don’t have any training on close quarters combat. Attacking only from far away is not advantageous at all. What if you have to defend against someone closing by on you? Second: Never give your opponent a breach. Once them finds out you are only going to attack from a distance and don’t have any tricks on your sleeve, they are going to make all the things possible to approach you and end you once and for all. Third: You know only fire magic? Look around yourself.” – He lowered his hand on the water and took a bit of it. – “See this? You could have used the water from here on your magic without having to waste all of your energy creating fire. Are we clear?”
“…are you done?” – Said the girl, on a small voice and embarrassed.
“For the time being… yes. But next time, I won’t be so easy on you.”
“Damn… you weren’t even serious? Ugh…”
Mello reached out his hand to help Lizzie stand up and both of them got off the stream, grabbing their stuff on their way back.
“Let’s get back to the blondie. You must be-” – Lizzie’s stomach rumbled. – “Yeah.”
Both of them returned to their small camp on the middle of the woods. By the time they got back, Katherine must have woken up already… But someone who should be there was completely gone.
“Hey, Mello? Where is she?”
The two searched around, but there were no signs of the blonde girl. Searching more thoroughly, Lizzie found some footsteps on the ground and called the man to look into that too. Mello analyzed that with some attention. They looked like footsteps that were carrying something heavy. He stood up and searched the trees around. He found cuts of blades and small amounts of blood and blonde hair strings, which made he became nervous.
“Hey, what the hell happened when we were away?”
“I don’t know, Liz. But I’m worried now. See the markings on the trees? And how their barks are smashed? I’m thinking that some sort of fight happened here… And she probably lost. She must still be a little weak from yesterday. The people who were here must’ve knocked her down and dragged her somewhere else. See the trails on the ground?”
While he talked, he pointed at all the stuff, which made Lizzie truly impressed. He managed to discover so much by only glancing through some footsteps and cuts on trees. Was there anything that he wasn’t good at?
The two slowly followed the trails around, because there could be maybe some sort of trap along the way, but they soon found where these people must’ve kept Katherine: a small cavern on the middle of the woods.
Without thinking twice, the man hastily went towards the imminent danger… before getting stopped by Lizzie, who gave him a piece of wood with magical fire on the tip, like a torch.
“Oh, good thinking. Let’s go carefully.” – He whispered for the girl as they entered the cave.
Katherine woke on a strange place. There was only a little bit of light from a couple of nearby torches, but it was enough to notice that she was on some sort of cavern underground. She tried to raise her head, but the moment she moved her neck, it started to hurt. Tried to raise an arm, but it didn’t even move, because her arms were chained on the wall.
“What the fuck…?”
She even tried an effort to break the chains, but the hunger and lack of exercise on the morning made her even more weak than normal. Without much else to do, she was about to begin screaming for help, but it wasn’t long enough for her to smell a faint scent of meat being cooked somewhere around. A couple of feet to her left, there were three men around a campfire. Two of them were bald and had scars on their faces. The last one, however, was very tall and big than the others on the muscles and fat. He wasn’t wearing any shirt, making his long beard entangle on his chest hair, making it look like it was one thing only.
When she focused on the bearded man, she remembered what happened earlier.
She had woken up on the forest when she saw both Mello and Lizzie on the river doing something. She didn’t care much and went back to sleep. But a couple minutes earlier, she heard a twig break somewhere nearby and her attention focused on a big thing holding a piece of wood above her. If she wasn’t fast enough, that would be the cause of some fractured bones. Luckily, she managed to dodge the move, but when she was about to counterattack, two men flanked her holding swords and tried to tackle her with random movements, that hit some trees, cut some branches and didn’t even hit their target a single time. She managed to land a few punches on the two mediocre henchmen, knocking them down, but because she was distracted, a single blow from the big man on the back of her head was enough to put her out.
“These men… They must be slave smugglers…”
She remembered when she saw the tattoos they had on their arms. They were the same of those when she was travelling with Melissa. And that was more than enough to raise her anger to the level “come-here-so-I-can-smash-your-face-on-the-ground”
“Hey boss, what’re we gonna do with blondie ova dere?” – Said one of the bald ones.
“Sell, you stupid idiot.” – Spoke the bearded man.
“Hehe… But can’t we ‘ave a little bit ‘o fun wid ‘er?” – Said the other bald.
“Sure. But she has to be in perfect condition.” – The bearded man took one of the cooking meat and took a big bite of it.
“Hey, can you free me? These chains are hurting my wrists.” – Said Katherine, smooth as she could be.
One of the bald men got up startled, but he soon took out a knife and put it under the girl’s neck.
“Oi! Shut up!”
Katherine only sighed.
“Okay then… I was only going to ask to be a little more comfortable while you guys had your ‘fun’ with me, but if you don’t wanna…”
She dropped her head and opened her legs, making her assailant drool all over while he kneeled over to take a better look of his product. But as soon as he made that stupid mistake, she crossed her legs around the man’s neck, alerting the other bald man who ran towards her. Taking advantage of the one trying to escape her leg grapple, she managed to toss him upwards and kick him on the direction of the henchman running, making them fly on the opposite direction.
She only forgot another detail. The bearded man came and grabbed her by the neck, pushing her against the wall.
“I knew I couldn’t trust these clowns.”
With his free hand, he ripped half of Katherine’s shirt, exposing her right breast, which fit on his hand as a little melon, making him squeeze it hard and giving horrible pain to the girl.
“It’s going to be only me and you, baby.”
More and more, the man’s grotesque hand rubbed all over Katherine’s body. She was so disgusted with him that she didn’t make any noises, only looked at him with hate, waiting for the right opportunity to smash that man’s head against the wall. He rubbed his fingers downwards, until he touched on the part between her legs, making her give a small moan. The man gave a malicious smile.
“Heh. You can look as bad as you want, but you’re as fragile as any other.”
“She’s also beautiful, isn’t she?” – Spoke someone by his side.
“It’s true.”
“Blonde…”
“Hm…”
“Big tits…”
“Wonderful…”
“Yeah…”
“…hey, who are you?”
“Ah, no one important.”
“Is that so…?”
“And… I’m also here to free her from you.”
“Is that… Huh?”
The bearded man’s attention turned to the silver haired man.
“Hello.” – Said Mello, smiling.
At this moment, Katherine kicked her assailant right on his balls. I don’t even need to say that he fell on the ground immediately.
“What’s up, Kat?”
“Couldn’t you have come over before he ripped my shirt?”
“I suppose I could.”
“And why the fuck didn’t you?”
“I just wanted to see them again.” – His eyes focused on the breasts.
“Can you come closer for me to kick you a bit?”
“Better not…”
“Unchain me already, for fuck’s sake!”
“Calm down! I’m gonna look for the keys…”
“Looking for this?” – One of the bald men shook the keys in front of him. – “You’re never gonna take-”
A fireball came flying and exploded on his back.
“Thanks.” – Lizzie took the keys and freed Katherine.
“Finally.” – Katherine hugged Lizzie. – “Thanks, my sweetie.”
“Er… Kat?”
“Hm?”
“Aren’t you cold?”
“A little, yes.”
“Ugh… Mello, give her your jacket, please?”
“Why? She’s sexy like this!” – He gave a thumbs up.
“Ah, stop it… You’re making me blush.” – Said Katherine, playing along.
“You two are a bunch of perverts.” – Lizzie sighed.
Mello took off his jacket and borrowed to Katherine, who took off the ripped shirt and put on the jacket, nearly not closing it on her chest, but with a little bit of help from a jealous girl, she barely managed to close the jacket.
“Can we get outta here, people? We still have a long road ahead.” – Said Mello.
“Where do you think you’re going?” – The bald man that Katherine kicked was now between the cave’s exit and them.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake… They never give up…”
Behind them, a sound of metal touching the ground echoed. The bearded man had a big battle axe on his hands.
“Never indeed…” – Katherine turned towards the barbarian, taking two leather gloves from her pockets and put them on. – “Let me take care of this one here. I have some stuff to talk with him.” – She punched the palm of her hand.
“Well, okay then. Come on, Liz.
He put his hands on his pockets and tried to pass through the guy, even asking for him to move politely, but he was stopped by the thug’s knife.
“H-hey! Didn’t you hear me!?” – Shouted the thug.
“Dude, he’s got a freaking knife, you know?” – Said Lizzie.
“I see that. But I’ve got this.”
He unsheathed his katana and did a menacing pose in front of the man. He shook a bit, but still didn’t let them through.
“Liz, lemme show you something really neat that I’ve learned with my sister.”
“For real?”
“Yep. Get me some fire, will you?” – He pointed the sword near the girl, who assumed he wanted the fire onto it.
Lizzie made a fireball and tossed it on the blade, which absorbed the fire magic and started to glow red, catching fire all across its extension, aweing the girl and even the guy.
“Isn’t this cool or what?”
He then stood in a attacking position, making the guy shake so hard with fear that he dropped on his knees and the knife as well, as he probably saw his utter defeat when he gaze upon that soulless demon standing before him.
“I surren-”
“Too late, my friend.”
Mello did a diagonal cut with his flaming sword, using all of its flames around the man, who passed out from the thought of having his body severed in two while burning his flesh off. But that was only a cruel joke, because Mello didn’t even move from his initial position. He only shot out the flames on the direction of the man, only heating the space around him before the flames actually hit the poor guy.
“Holy shit…” – Lizzie didn’t know if she saw the coolest thing of her life or the scariest at that point.
Meanwhile, Katherine stood in front of her opponent. He used all of his strength on his axe attacks and she swiftly avoided all of them, making the entire cave tremble with each missed attack. He couldn’t hit her in any way, and his moves cut only through air. She managed to make him miss another attack and hit a torch on a wall, falling directly on his disgusting beard, burning all of those grotesque hair on his body and making him lose all of his concentration.
At that moment, Katherine punched him on the gut, making him bend over; hooked his face up, and on his trajectory upwards, she pulled him over by the beard, hitting his chin with her knee. He tried to lift the axe one more time, but she grabbed his arm and twisted it hard, making him drop the weapon and finally threw him on the ground using his own weight against him.
Humiliated by a woman and spitting blood, he spoke:
“It’s… i-it’s… not possible… A barbarian lose to a puny girl- Argh!”
Katherine stomped his chest, making him regurgitate all of the blood on his throat.
“Shameful, isn’t it?” – Katherine stood up on the man’s body. – “So…” – Snapped her fingers. – “You’re one of those barbarians…” – Finally, she snapped her neck.
The man tried to talk something else, but her fists encountered with his face once, twice, five, ten, twenty and even more times than that.
All the expression on Katherine’s face was inexistent, but the aura around her was pure hatred. She wasn’t feeling anything else. Her body was moving by only pure reflexes of her furious mind… What a good feeling…
“Katherine!!”
Lizzie was shaking the girl’s body. Katherine went back to herself with her hand up, ready for another punch, but she was stopped by Mello. Both of them had a serious look on her faces towards Katherine, who looked downwards and saw only a red mass drowned in a pool of blood. Her hands were completely bloody, like her face.
“Hey… are you ok?” – Asked Mello.
“What… did I do…? I…” – She was looking at her scarlet painted hands, terrified.
“Hey, hey. Look at me. Calm yourself. Come with us.”
Mello snapped his fingers in front of Katherine, getting her attention, managing to lift her up and the three of them left that place together.
They took a bit more of time than planned on that cave as it seems, because the water level of the river rose up a bit. Enough for Katherine to take a bath and cleanse the bloody mess that was her body.
“Hey, Liz.” – Said Mello.
“Hm?”
“Take this with you.”
He showed her a dagger that he stole from the thug.
“Why? I don’t like this…”
“Remember when I told you about your long ranged magic and your opponent take advantage of that distance? This will be your method of defending yourself if that happens.”
“…”
“Look. I know you don’t want to, but it looks like our path will be harder from now on, so take it.”
Hearing that and remembering what they all faced so far, she didn’t have a choice and took the dagger.
“I’m certain that you won’t use it at all, but keep it always with you, in a place where no one will look and you can pull it fast in dangerous situations. That way people won’t know you’ll have it and you can take them by surprise.”
With that piece of advice in mind, she stashed it on her bag and Katherine returned to the group.
And they finally marched towards Ventus!
…or not, because the jacket was still wet and she won’t walk half naked, and who would walk a long distance after some battle without eating something?
Damn… It seems that they’ll never arrive on that place, isn’t it?
The End of The Horizon 