Plan

This is joint-written.

“See? No marsh drake.” Glide grinned, already picking up the smell of burning cinnamon on the air. “You have to be in a marsh to find one, stupid.”

“Grave flies, then,” Niqi grumbled.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” Glide asked. “You didn’t get all emo when I beat you.”

“She hadn’t touched a sword in her life before today!” Niqi griped.

Glide rolled his eyes. “You should be happy she learned so quick. That’s an extra pair of capable hands in a fight.”

“Later,” Niqi growled.

“Want us to just leave you alone to brood?” Glide joked, smirking.

“No. Later as in I’ll talk to you later,” Niqi hissed.

Ambree finally had the courage to speak up. “Come on Niqi, I was just testing out Glide’s techniques… Don’t be angry with me.”

“I’m not angry at you,” Niqi responded.

“Anger’s bad for your health.” Glide muttered, opening the Snapdragon’s door and stepping inside.

“Hey, Belleza,” Niqi greeted, waving at the innkeeper. She suddenly seemed placid.

Belleza waved back, smiling. “Go on upstairs, we haven’t rented out any rooms.”

“Thanks, Bell.” Glide said.

“I think I’ll sleep in a room by myself,” Ambree commented as they walked up the stairs. “I need time to think.”

Glide nodded. “Fine by me. I’ll probably be spending the night with Lujuria again.”

“Lujuria?” Ambree asked.

“One who loves the c**k,” Niqi replied, smirking.

“Oh,” Ambree said, her face suddenly flushed. “Goodnight, then,” she said hurriedly, and walked into an empty room.

“... That wasn't funny.” Glide scowled. “I really was just telling him about the Crusaders.”

“I know. But it got her to leave, in any case. Before you go see Lujuria again, I need to talk to you,” Niqi said.

“Okay, sure thing.” Glide said. “What’s on your mind?”

Niqi lowered her head in a submissive manor, and sighed. “You were right, I was wrong.”

Glide was silent for a moment. “... What are we talkin’ about, exactly?”

“When we first met, and you wanted to teach me how to fight your way, and I refused stubbornly…well, you were right. And you just proved me wrong by teaching the human girl. That was humiliating.”

“No worries.” Glide grinned, patting Niqi on the head. “It doesn’t really matter, anyway. As long as she fleshes out her own fighting technique sometime, and you keep yours, it’ll all even out and we’ll be able to keep everybody guessing when we fight.”

“I still want to learn some of your techniques, now,” Niqi replied.

Glide nodded, turning toward the door to Lujuria’s room. “Okay. Tomorrow, I’ll teach you what I know. And you might just find out something about channeling you never knew...”

Niqi was about to ask, but then the door opened and Lujuria was there, happy to see Glide again so soon. Niqi sighed and walked into the room she had slept in before.

 

…

 

Ambree woke to the unfamiliar sound of a rooster crowing. “The hell?” she asked groggily, sitting up. Before she managed to pry her eyes open, she noted that the bed she was on didn’t feel like her own.

The previous day rushed back to her after she’d opened her eyes to see the inn room. She was still in a new world… The rooster kept crowing annoyingly. She got out of bed and ran her fingers through her hair a few times, trying to get out the knots.

When the rooster had been crowing for a full minute, Ambree stalked over to the window and opened it. “Shut the hell up!” she yelled down. Surprisingly, it worked.

“Nicely done.” Glide laughed, leaning out of the window two rooms down, apparently about to do the same thing Ambree did. “Beat me to it.”

Niqi leaned out the window between the two and looked first to Ambree, then to Glide. “I get the feeling I was a small bit too late.”

“Just a little,” Glide said, swinging his legs out the window and dropping to the ground, managing to land gracefully on his feet.

Niqi jumped out the window as well, rolling on the ground instead of landing upright. She picked herself up and looked to Ambree.

“What, the front door isn’t good enough for you?” Ambree called, climbing out the window and hanging from the sill before dropping.

“Nope.” Glide grinned, stepping forward and catching Ambree. “Front door’s for people too chicken to jump.”

“I would’ve landed fine,” Ambree mumbled to herself, almost inaudibly.

Glide shrugged, dropping her in the grass. “Whatever you say, kid.”

“Back to the Eastern Cross to kill those demons, now, I assume?” Niqi asked.

Glide shook his head. “Not yet. First, I owe you some training.”

“Right,” Niqi replied, dropping her eyes to the ground.

Ambree looked at Niqi quizzically. “You’re getting tr-”

“Shut up,” Niqi muttered, interrupting her.

“First off, I am not teaching you the Shuyu Cut.” Glide said. “That’s too advanced, and it’s too unfair to use in any normal fight.”

“What’s a Shuyu Cut?” Ambree asked.

“It’s a flash cut.” Glide explained. “Literally, an instant cut. So fast, it can actually make it look like you’re in two places at once if you move while you’re doing it.”

“How come I’ve never heard of this crap?” Ambree wondered aloud.

“It’s ’cause they’ve got you holed up in the Western Cross. You all need to get out more,” Niqi responded.

“What do you think I’m doing now?” Ambree growled.

“Hey, hey!” Glide barked, snapping his fingers. “Eyes over here, unless you want a demonstration!”

Ambree huffed and looked at Glide, Niqi copying her a second later.

“That’s better.” Glide said. “It would be easier for you to simply use your channeling ability to grab each skill as I use them, instead of taking a lot of time that we don’t have to teach you step by step.”

Niqi suddenly understood what Glide had meant last night. “That’s…brilliant,” she said, grinning.

“And since I’m already technically dead, you won’t have to do much.” Glide finished, gripping the hilt of his katana.

“Alright,” Niqi said, stepping forward. “Show me.”

“Kasai!” Glide growled, yanking his katana from the sheath and swinging it forward, sending a wave of fire across the grass.

Niqi nodded. “Now how, exactly, do I snatch that?”

Glide sheathed his blade again, keeping his paw on the hilt. “Just mimic my movements and channel it when we swing.”

Niqi moved over to Glide, stood to his left, and put her own paw on her sheathed katana. “Ready whenever you are.”

Glide nodded, drawing his blade and readying himself to swing. “Let’s rock ’n’ roll.”

Niqi drew her blade as well. “On the count of three.”

“One.” Glide breathed, tightening his grip on the hilt of his blade.

“Two.” Niqi replied, raising her blade above her head.

“Three! Kasai!” They barked in unison, Glide swinging upward and Niqi swinging down, twin waves of flame shooting into the distance.

Niqi looked down at her sword, then up again. “Kasai!” she yelled again, without Glide this time. The flame shot from the sword once again. “Now that’s just freaky.”

Glide nodded again. “I know. It doesn’t look right or get enough distance if you don’t swing when you do it.”

Niqi laughed. “Not what I meant, but I suppose so.”

The training continued for about an hour as the triple sun rose higher into the sky. Ambree sat watching, amazed at the attacks she’d never seen before or heard of.

“Think you’ve learned enough?” Glide asked. “I don’t know how long we can keep this up; who knows when the demon princes are gonna leave the Eastern Cross?”

“I think I’m set. Let’s go kick some demon prince a*s,” Niqi replied, swinging her katana around once before sheathing it.

Glide nodded, sheathing his katana and heading east. “Watch, now that we’re ready, they’re probably already gone.”

“If that happened, I’d track them all the way to the Southern Cross and drag them out again,” Niqi responded. She began following Glide.

Ambree got up from where she was sitting and fell in line beside Niqi. “At least we know what they look like.”

“News flash, they’re shapeshifters.” Glide muttered. “We’ll have to find a way to expose them, to make sure we’re not killing actual selkies. A war with the selkies is the last f****n’ thing the Crusaders need right now.”

“Any telltale demon signs that would distinguish it from a selkie?” Niqi asked.

Glide paused, thinking it over. “Well, no selkie I know of has fire-based powers. If we could get them to light something up, that would be pretty good proof.”

“Ask one to light a cigarette for you,” Niqi suggested, smirking.

“Too obvious.” Glide replied. “We’d need to provoke them. And I think I know just the way...”

Reviews

[KEi]

-midread-

YAY LUJURIA!
;)

-finished-

Light a cigarette.
Yeah, the bad thing is I can actually picture Glide waltzing up to a demon, all confident, and going "'Scuse me, can I get a light? *Cigarette is lit* Thanks, pal" *Punch*

*shrug*
Sounds like an episode of Coronation Street, now that I think it.
xD