Thicker Than Water: Part 6
Tred had decided to walk off by himself, after watching the others ‘train’ for a while. They had been at Aleghany for two weeks now, and Tred still wasn’t very optimistic about their chances at defeating Kasei. The training sessions had been awful. Since defeating Talpa for the final time, the Ronins and the Warlords had not been practicing and the Sailor Ronins never had. The area that they had trained in was pretty much devastated afterwards. They had tried to fix it, but even after that, Tred had to use most of his powers to regrow the forest to its original state.
“It’s definitely time to leave. The girls have school and I need a vacation from this vacation.” As he walked down the trail, he failed to notice Phineas watching him.
“This proves it. It’s not just Cye who is stupid, it’s all of them.” Phineas continued to follow Tred. “Stupid Ronin, he made me exhaust my powers again. As if I really needed that! At least they’re back now, all I have to do is wait ‘til Tred gets far away enough so the others won’t hear."
* * * * *
“This really sucks! We shouldn’t be afraid of a stupid bear! We’re the Warlords!”
“Former Warlords, Cale. And speak for yourself, I’m not scared.”
“Could you two please be quiet?!” When Sekhmet and Cale ignored him, Dais closed his book and began to walk away. They followed him, still arguing. Dais sighed. “Where is Sage anyway?”
“He left earlier and walked that way.” Sekhmet pointed in the direction of the trails. “He said something about meditating.”
“Good idea,” Dais muttered. “Where’s everyone else?”
“Packing. Tred said that he wanted to leave tomorrow.”
“Good, I can’t wait to go home and get some sleep.” Dais thought back to all the nights in these past two weeks when he was kept awake by Cale’s snoring.
* * * * *
“Shadow! Did you even listen to the directions Phineas gave you?” Athene began to tap her foot impatiently.
“Of course he didn’t. If he had, we would have found them by now.”
“Shut up, Ebiru.” Darker Shadow looked up from the map and gazed down the road. “See, there it is. I found them.”
“Good boy. Now we can fight them, take the gems, and get out of this bug infested hell-hole!” Ebiru swatted at another mosquito. “Let’s go!”
* * * * *
“Amanda! Get over here and do your own packing!”
“I can’t! I need to find the cats!”
Rowen got in-between the two feuding sisters. “Would you two stop fighting for once!”
“I would, but she started it.” Amanda stuck her tongue out at Tracy.
“Oh brother! Rowen, don’t fall for that, you know what a brat she is!”
“That’s it! Stop fighting NOW!!!”
“Yikes.” Tracy and Amanda quickly got back to their packing.
Rowen shook his head and looked around. The Warlords had been done for a while now and had gone off somewhere. Erica, Yuli and Danielle were cleaning up the cabins and Candice was ‘helping’ Cye with his packing. Rowen decided to go and see how they were doing. He started with Candice and Cye. As he thought, Cye was packing and Candice was bugging him.
“Cye! Why do you have to do this now? Let’s go for a walk.”
“No! I need to finish up here!”
“Fine then, hi Rowen!” She turned to Cye and gave him a quick kiss on the cheek. “I’m going to find Amanda.” Candice left the cabin and walked over to where Tracy and Amanda were. They had made up already and were just finishing up packing. “Hey, you guys. Wanna go find Tred?”
“Sure!” Amanda picked up Orion, handed him to Candice, and then picked up her own cat. “Just in case a bear comes along!”
Tracy burst into giggles. “I can’t believe those losers! Sage is so scared of it!”
“Yeah, and the warlords too. You would think that, of all people, they wouldn’t be afraid.” Candice pointed out the trail they thought Tred had taken and began to walk down it.
* * * * *
“Ok, this is it...” Phineas stepped out from behind the trees. “Tred, it's time to settle this!”
Tred looked up at Phineas from where he was standing. He didn’t move. “Great. Could you come back later? I really don't care about this right now.”
“Figures you wouldn't want to fight. You were always a coward.”
Tred sighed. “I don't want to fight you, it would probably be embarrassing. You sucked at fighting when you were a kid and I bet you are no better now.”
Phineas blasted a huge energy bolt at Tred. "I did NOT suck at fighting!"
Tred blocked it, but didn’t fight back. Instead, he just concentrated on figuring out just what Phineas was accusing him of, and on blocking his attacks. "Phineas, you've got problems and Kasei's the cause of them! Why can't you see it?"
Phineas laughed and then jumped back. “You make it sound like I should care. Dark Energy Summon!” Black energy formed and surrounded Phineas. He looked at Tred and smirked. “Trap him.”
“What?!” Tred stepped back as the energy began to come toward him. “Why are you doing this?”
“I already told you.” The energy wrapped around Tred and drained his energy, rendering him unconscious. “You owe me your life.”
* * * * *
"Hey, you guys? What's that light over there?"
Tracy looked over to where Amanda was pointing. "Ummm... I'm not quite sure. Candice?"
"Maybe someone else found a gem."
Amanda shuddered. "We do not need another Sailor Ronin. Come on, let's go check it out!"
"Right behind you." Tracy, Amanda, and Candice ran along the trail until they came to the clearing. They arrived just in time to see Phineas drain all of Tred's energy.
"No! You can't take Tred!" Amanda pulled out her gem, and blue light began to surround her. As it faded away, she was transformed into Sailor Strata! "Sonic Arrow Blast!" The attack hit Phineas right on, giving Tracy and Candice time to transform.
Candice set Orion down and concentrated. Her light blue gem with red swirls materialized in front of her. As the light blue light formed around her, Candice's clothes changed into a light blue sailor outfit. With her yari in hand, she turned towards Phineas. "I still don't see how you two can be related! Tred is one of the nicest people I know!"
Tracy had by this time transformed into an outfit that made her look a lot like Super Saiyin Trunks. "And if you think that you're gonna ruin his life again by dragging him off to Kasei, you've got a another think coming! Because that would really piss him off and there is no way in Hell that I'm putting up with another 'Oh woe is me, Kasei wants to kill me' mood!"
Phineas laughed. "Nice speech. It sounds like you've been hanging out with the Sailor Scouts too much. And you shouldn’t be worried about Tred at the moment, you three should be worrying about protecting yourselves!" He launched an energy blast toward Candice, who was lowering her yari in order to attack.
"Not on my watch! Icebolts Surround!" Tracy's attack made a barrier between Candice and Phineas. As the energy bolts hit the barrier, it shattered. "Ack! He destroyed it!"
"It's ok, now I can attack! Tsunami of Destruction!" The wave of water rushed towards Phineas, but he raised a shield in time and blocked it.
"Oh dear, it seems that we are quite over-powered." Amanda stepped back and hid behind Tracy. “Whatever shall we do, Hunter?”
"QUAKE WITH FEEEEAAAAAARRRR!!!!!!!"
"FLARE UP NOOOOWWWWW!!!!!"
"Huh?" The girls watched as chains erupted from the ground, ensnaring Phineas. As he struggled to get free, a burst of flames hit him. As they died down, Anubis and Ryo jumped into the clearing.
"Picking on girls? I'm sure that's beneath you!" Ryo pointed his katanas at Phineas, who had freed himself from the chains by now. "Come on, fight real warriors!"
"WHAT?!" Candice and Amanda had to hold Tracy back from trying to kill Ryo.
"Don't worry, we're here to protect you."
"We didn't need your help." You could practically hear Tracy's teeth grinding.
Phineas just looked on and rolled his eyes. "Not that I want to give them any hope, but those girls were holding up pretty well on their own. But, if you want to fight me, go ahead. You can give it a shot."
"Oh, trust me, we will give it more than a shot." Anubis raced at Phineas with his kusari-gama (weapon thingy).
"Yeah, yeah. That's what they all say." Phineas gestured with his hand and an invisible wall was raised right in the path of Anubis.
Ryo grimaced as he saw Anubis run into it. "What a coward, hiding behind a wall!"
"Uh huh, Dark Energy Summon! Teach this loudmouth warrior a lesson."
Candice watched the fight with worry. Phineas was really powerful. But, he seemed so... immature. Right now he was laughing as his attack took the form of a pack of wolves and was chasing Ryo around the clearing. "Hey, Amanda. Try to hit him with your attack again, while he's distracted. Tracy and I will get Tred and Anubis."
"Ok, but don't worry about Anubis. He's starting to recover already." Amanda notched an arrow. "Sonic Arrow Blast!"
Again, the arrow headed straight to Phineas but this time it hit.
"Hey!" Phineas turned to Amanda. "That actually hurt!"
"Yeah, well maybe this will hurt too! Flare up now!"
"Quake with Fear!"
"Tsunami of Destruction!"
"Icebolts Surround!"
Phineas tried to block the attacks, but there were too many coming at him from too many different angles to block. About half of the attacks got through, which was just enough to make Phineas teleport away.
"Yes! We did it! We saved Tred!" Amanda and Candice started cheering as the others went to look after Tred.
"Is he going to be alright?"
"Yes, Ryo." Tracy finished checking Tred over. "He's just sleeping. Tred will be fine."
"That's good to hear. I guess you really didn't need our help after all."
Anubis cleared his throat. "We came to find the other Ronins and Warlords. On the way we sensed the battle."
"Oh." Tracy looked over to where Amanda and Candice were still celebrating. They weren't going to be much help. Of course, this is where Ryo and Anubis come in. "Ok, well you can make up for it by helping me get Tred back to camp and then teleporting all of us and our stuff home. That should make us even."
Anubis sweatdropped. "Do you know how hard it is to...?"
Ryo jumped in. "Don't worry. It will be a snap. Besides, it was your idea to help, Anubis."
Anubis shook his head as Tracy handed him a cat to carry. “Yeah, I know.”
