Fool's gold

A fool's errand is sometimes the easiest type to run. Introducing Ember, Acid's brother, the emo, sulky, whiny, spoilt one with a scary, scary Blade.

Somewhere, a bell chimed midnight.  The moon, waning crescent, was hidden behind at least five layers of thick cloud.  The stars were nowhere to be seen.

Perfect, Red grinned to herself, before vaulting over the wall into the Court of Kings.  She glanced around, saw no guards nearby, and hissed,

     “Clear!”  There was a soft clang as Nemamiah was thrown down, followed by the dull thud of Aradat landing beside her.  He picked up his Blade, whose size, iridescent red blade and electric blue handgrips were by no means subtle enough for this mission, and turned to his companion.  Red sighed, disdainfully.  She’d known it was a bad idea bringing Aradat along.

     “Which way?”  He whispered.  Red pointed, placed a hand on the hilt of her Blade, and set off at a run towards the High King’s chambers.  The pair sprinted through the Court of Kings for around half an hour before being noted by the watchmen, who promptly tried to apprehend them.  There were five in total.

     “Red,” Aradat warned, as soon as he became aware of the guards.

     “I know.” The girl replied, whipping around to face the men, “Drown them in shadows; Light of the Full Moon!” She drew her Blade, which gleamed bright white in the darkness, then swept it in front of herself, as if attacking some invisible foe.  Nothing appeared to happen, but she turned and continued to run anyway, and heard the screams of the men a split second later.

     “That was a bit harsh...” Aradat muttered.  The girl smirked, and pushed her short crimson hair back from her face.

     “We’ve not enough time to be nice, Aradat.” She told him, plainly.

 

Another fifteen minutes later, the pair halted before a set of high, thick oak doors.

     “Well, here we are,” Red sighed, before turning to her friend, “who’s standing guard, you or me?”  Aradat’s eyes gleamed like liquid chocolate in the dark hallway.

     “I think I’d like to do this one.  That little b*****d won’t know what’s hit him.”  Red nodded, set Light of the Full Moon in her sheath, leaned her against the wall and sat beside her on the floor as Aradat eased the heavy doors open.

 

The first thing he noticed was that the air was thicker in this room.  It confused him for a moment, before he remembered who he was dealing with.  He glanced quickly around the room before he saw what he was looking for; Mirage.  Momentarily forgetting quite where he was, Aradat crossed the High king’s private chambers in less than four strides, and was about to grasp the rapier-like Blade when he felt a sword-tip in the small of his back.  He’d let his guard down.

     “Damn,” he muttered, rebuking himself.

     “Well, well,” the voice, so uncannily alike to Acid’s, sent shivers down his spine, “we have an intruder?  And I half expected it to be my halfwit brother.” The speaker seemed to think a moment before correcting himself, “No.  My brother would have sense enough not to be caught.”  Aradat concentrated for the most part on inching his hand towards Nemamiah without being seen.  He wasn’t too interested in what the man had to say.

Got you!  He thought victoriously as his fingers found the handgrip of his Blade.  Taking a step backwards, onto the King’s sword, before turning (a technique used to confuse the opponent and give an opening for movement), Aradat brought the handle of Nemamiah round into contact with the King’s side.  The young man stumbled.

     “Why, you...” His face, the image of Acid’s except for black hair and grey eyes, was contorted by a slight snarl, his eyes filled with surprise.  He held his sword- no, his Blade- vertically, blade towards the sky, before his face, murmuring softly, “With the assistance of the sky, of the Sun himself, shine; Child of Daylight.”  Aradat cried out, and clutched at his own side as it was sliced open by a wedge of bright light.

     “Nemamiah,” Was his response, and the huge, ruby Blade began to glow with a flickering orange light.

     “What,” the King smiled a mocking smile, “no Summon?  No incantation?  No style?  Well, looks like you’ll be an easy kill afterall.”  Aradat grinned.

     “That’s what you think,” He replied, holding his Blade out before him, “come on.  Attack me.  I dare you.”  His opponent laughed, and rested his Blade on one shoulder.

     “You know, where I come from, manners dictate that a man should know the name of his killer,” he told Aradat, apparently completely at ease, “so wouldn’t you like to know?”  Aradat narrowed his eyes.  He hated small talk.  Either fight, or talk.  Never both.

     “Spit it out, then, and be done.”  He growled.

     “Ember, son of Kou, brother of Acid.  You noticed the similarities, right?”  Ember moved his Blade back into fighting stance.  Aradat nodded.  Of course.  How could he miss it?  No two Quintesse Blades are ever identical, but Child of Daylight was an exact mirror of Acid’s Blade, except for the colour.  This Blade was absolute gold, Acid’s silver.  Even the names were near the same.

     “So, Ember, are you as hot as your name suggests?  Are you actually going to fight me?  Attack!”  Ember scowled at the scorn, stepped forward and slashed at Aradat’s shoulder.  Aradat sidestepped.  “Too slow,” he laughed, thrusting Nemamiah to his left, ripping open Ember’s good side.  Ember growled.

     “Cheap shot.”

     “You wish,” Aradat laughed again, bringing the handle down on the King’s head, “now, that was a cheap shot.  Just so you know the difference.”  Ember, infuriated, jumped back as Aradat aimed another blow.  Glaring at Aradat all the while, he held Child of Daylight out again, this time pointing directly at his target.  He muttered something inaudible...

     ... and was surrounded by a circle of semi-real Blades.  White Blades, with white hilts, white handles, and long, trailing black ribbons.

     “Step aside, Sanshi, and stop the attack.  Drop your Blade, while you’re at it, or you won’t live to see your pretty face in a mirror ever again.”  Aradat looked up, shocked, to see Red standing directly behind Ember, her own Blade held horizontally in front of her chest, her hair and the ribbon on Light of the Full Moon fluttering wildly in a wind made up of pure auric energy.

     “Red?  I thought you were staying outside, keeping watch?”  Aradat stared at the girl, and she snorted.

     “Yeah, but I heard a ruckus, and when I realised what this little sod was about to do,” she set her Blade replicas spinning slowly, “I thought I’d better intervene.  Sorry.  I should’ve known better.  Aradat, you’re not strong enough to take on this guy, yet.  Even Acid used to have trouble when we trained together.  He’d beat me down easily, if he’d expected me.”  She directed her speech back to Ember, “I said stop the attack and drop your Blade, Sanshi.  Do it.”

     Ember threw his Blade down, and then kicked it out of his own reach, furiously.

     “Aradat, grab Mirage, and we’ll go.”  She stopped the rotation of her Blades, but kept them in place, “And you, you little rat.  You should’ve known better than to steal someone’s Blade.  B*****d.”  She spat on him, and when Aradat had left the room, safely out of earshot, she continued, “Don’t think we don’t know what you’re doing, Acid and I.  We’ve got our eyes on you, you scumbag.”  And then she left.

 

Acid was furious.  He was livid.

Damn them to Hell for an eternity of torture, brimstone, fire, torment, suffering, and-

     “Breeze, are you lying to me?  You’d better be telling the truth!”

     “No, sir.  I’m being truthful, sir.  Red and my brother went to the Court of Kings to get Mirage back, sir.”  Breeze was trembling.  He’d never seen his leader this angry before.  Never.  Acid punched the wall, hoping to ease some of his anger, and succeeded only in adding to his troubles by breaking two of his knuckles.

     “Damn.  Damn their fool heads!”  He growled, “What in Hell were they thinking?  Red!”  As if on cue, the deputy Ronin waltzed, quite at ease, through the door.

     “S**t.”  She muttered, “I thought you’d be asleep, Renshi.”

     “Asleep my arse!  My two best fighters go off to the Court of Kings on a mission that’s been failed as many times as I’ve fingers on my hand, and they come back expecting me to be asleep?!”

     “Acid, we’re sorry.  But, to be fair, we had the element of surprise...”

     “Whatever.  I’m too tired for this.  Did you, at least, get it back?”  Acid sank down into a chair and buried his face in his hands.  He didn’t expect Red to grin triumphantly and brandish a Blade that wasn’t her own.

     “Yep!  Look, we got it back!  Here, Renshi, hold it.  It’s definitely hers.”  She handed the Blade to Acid, who took it, weighed it in his hands, then handed it to Aradat.

     “Take it to Quicksilver.  You know what has to be done.”  Aradat nodded, and headed to Quicksilver’s quarters, then Acid turned back to Red, “I thought I told you not to be so rash?”

     “And I think Aradat told you; we’re sorry.  I needed the element of surprise, and I could only get that directly after we failed.  Just so you know, Sanshi’s a lot stronger than he used to be.  And he tried to use that attack on Aradat.” Acid paled.

     “What stopped him?”

     “I did!”  Red grinned again.  Acid rolled his eyes.

     “Fool.  You really are a fool.”  He shook his head despairingly, “I should cut your fool head off, save someone else the trouble.”

Author's Note

If you spot any obvious mistakes, let me know.
Unobvious ones, too.

Acid+Ember=epic win. Seriously, if the kid wasn't so evil, and he teamed up with his brother, they'd be nigh-unstoppable. Throw Red into the mix, and they would be absolutely unstoppable.

Anyway, yeah. Reviews are good. Keep them as nice as possible, please?
Thanks.

Almost forgot to mention; I scrapped my old plot for this story. From this chapter onwards, the stuff's newer than anything else on my profile.

Reviews

[Liam]

THAT. WAS. AWESOME. When you finish it, make sure the ending is amazing. Exceedingly well done, I can't wait for the next chapter!

[Star Catcher]

--Mid-read--
Aradat should really sheath that thing, it would be better for them. XD

" "We've not enough time to be nice, Aradat." She told him, plainly. "
Sudden urge to write prettily? XD

Oh jeez, Light of the Full Moon is its name. O_o XD

Oh right, Nemamiah is the name of the blade he's looking for. Then what the hell is 'Mirage'?

*snort* Child of Daylight. How appropriate. NOT. XD

This small talk in the middle of a fight thing keeps reminding me of "F**k, Yamaki! Get out of the way!" XD

" "Cheap shot."
"You wish," Aradat laughed again, bringing the handle down on the King's head, "now, that was a cheap shot. Just so you know the difference." "
F*****g win.