[i]Previously, in Broken Honor…[/i] The pair of trainees were absolutely speechless. After all that they had gone through together, to be separated from Arte so easily was… degrading. Humiliating. Embarrassing. Crippling. Rysko was especially shocked. He remained on his hands and knees, hanging his head as he forced his eyes shut tight. [i]“Don’t think about it…. Don’t think about her…. You did what you could….”[/i] ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ichiro was the first to stand back up. Clambering to his feet, he looked around at the devastation. Fires were smoldering, the sun had set, and a light drizzle overhead had set in. Some of the homes had been raided, with walls and doors collapsed from forceful entry. Ichiro shook his head slowly before turning his head towards the pitiful boy lying flat on his back. Arte had been taken, not unlike Clyde, her father. Was it fate? Was Arte’s destiny sealed? Were they doomed to lose this fight from the beginning? Ichiro shook his head slowly again, then stepped over towards Rysko, holding out a hand to him. “Come on, Rys. Up you go. They might come back.” Ichiro consciously chose to use his friendly nickname for the boy. Hopefully it would call memories of happier times to his mind. Ichiro pulled Rysko gingerly to his feet, pretending to ignore the single tear stain running down Rysko’s left cheek. The older trainee gently guided the younger one ahead of him as the pair proceeded toward the Elder’s house just a short distance away. Ichiro’s own state of mind consisted of one thought: protect his last remaining friend. With no knowledge of who survived the attack, Ichiro wanted to hold onto Rysko desperately. Ichiro’s own parents were out there somewhere, hiding. Had they made it to the Elder’s house? Did his father perish in the distraction he had created for the three trainees? Was it their fate to die…? ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Rysko, on the other hand, was totally broken. He had never dealt with loss. Both of his parents had protected him for most of his life, and he had had his friends his whole life. Losing Arte to those monsters was like losing a piece of himself. Grasping Ichiro’s hand, he stood up painfully. These were the first steps on the road to recovery… weren’t they? One foot in front of the other. Moving forwards was the hardest part. Rysko kept wanting to glance back, but Ichiro kept him walking forwards towards the Elder’s house. Rysko was afraid of the answers he would find there. Why had those villains come? Why were they looking for a half-elf? Was there something special about them? About him? Moreover, who all lived through the attack? Rysko found himself praying to whatever gods had engineered this tragedy that everyone would be okay. He was desperate to find any semblance of good news while wallowing in the misery of his loss. In his mind, there was no way to recover from this. He was terrified of facing those villains again. He would just be beaten again. There was no way he’d be able to go after her. He didn’t even know where the villains had retreated. He had lost his way, his motivation, and, perhaps most importantly, his will to wield another blade. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Surprisingly, the three villains elected not to knock Arte unconscious. They dragged her, kicking and screaming off the mountaintop, where a swirling vortex awaited them. Two familiar figures stood nearby, with a third tied up on the ground. Arte’s eyes widened when she recognized Sensei Joker’s barely-conscious expression. Then that meant… the swirling purple vortex was the Sensei’s portal, leading off the mountain to who-knows-where. Standing guard beside Sensei Joker were two traitors to the village: Lothric, a crafter in the village, and his daughter, Nil, who was supposed to be one of the trainees in the academy. Arte narrowed her eyes at the pair, fueling her gaze with as much hate as she could, even as Jain wrapped a cloth around her mouth to gag her and a rope around her wrists behind her to restrain her. She could only watch in horror as Lothric and Nil scooped up Sensei Joker and the seven of them, plus the rest of Cmirg’s henchmen, filed through the portal, leaving Arte’s childhood home behind and braving a new world of dangers. Any thought of escape was shut off by the closing of the portal behind them. Arte had no idea where they had teleported. It was dark and muggy, with no light filtering in from above. Then, as if by magic, Cmirg clapped his hands, and flickering bulbs hanging from a ceiling high above came alive, shining bright light down on the company below and illuminating what could only be a base of operations. There were black boxes with screens that flickered with various images and text, tables with weapons on them, and most importantly, at the far corner of the room, prison cells built out of what looked like solidified light rather than actual metal, although they gave off no light of their own. Arte was in complete disbelief. Such things existed in the world…? Just how terrifying were these people? Lothric and Nil dragged Sensei Joker over to one of the cells and locked him inside while Jain and Aku threw Arte in another cell. Their captors had not bothered to untie Sensei Joker from his binds nor Arte from hers. It seemed they would have to wait with only their own shadows for company.