Thanks a lot... Jerk.

[Wolfezth Deraine]

To summarize the events after the battle...

• Wolf was put in charge of the strike against the Minor Gods' camp due to his quick taking of command; but after Tyler found out Wolf ordered to take prisoners earlier than usual; he made him go and look after them while the main squad went out and looked for the Minor Gods' base.
  
  
• Blake and Vincent were assigned to guard the prisoners with Wolf, and upon appeal that three soldiers to guard twenty prisoners would have VERY long shifts... Tyler restated that the forces were spread thin to begin with and that if he didn't want so long shifts; he should've ordered the quarter later in the battle.
  
  
• Upon repeated whining on the guards' part, Tyler makes the Hephaestus kids give them security cameras, alarms, door plating, and two door guarding robots and a patrol automaton. (Needless to say the robots were amazingly cool and were prodded for hours on end. The robots looked like The Thing or The Hulk, being giant as hell while still maintaining the height of about 6 feet. )
  
  
• The prisoners were brought into the basement of the warehouse, and makeshift interrogation chambers were made out of the first floor and the guards' sleeping quarters were the top. The plating was placed on the basement doors and the main entry door, with the other doors being sealed off with large; pretty much indestructible reinforced steel doors... Except that it didn't open. The cameras were placed in every room, and again; needless to say there was countless posing shots and retarded pictures taken on them.
  
  
• Interrogation begins.
  
  

Blake is patrolling in the general area around the two warehouses, and remains doing this for this entire post.


Blake was on guard patrol, Vincent was on food duty, and Wolfezth was the interrogator of the moment. The prisoners were fed about as well as the guards, which was decent. They basically got hastily thrown together sandwiches most of the time for all three meals, but they got three meals a day instead of the crap they could've gave them. It had been a week since the battle, and there have been three breakout attempts by the prisoners. Wolf was on prisoner guard duty on all three of those attempts, and he swiftly and efficiently put an end to it by beating the living hell out of the people trying to run and fight him. All had their hands tied loosely, allowing them mobility for everyday things but not for a haymaker. All were stripped of weapons and armor, and their legs were tied even more loosely; just enough to make sure they couldn't sprint with rope.

The interrogations had just begun, most of the first week being spent making the place a a makeshift prison and sleeping area. It was... Well; kind'a crappy but functional. It also took a while to force the armor from the prisoners, as some weren't compliant. Wolf was on the first floor, on a steel chair and in plain view of the camera. He had absolutely no idea how to interrogate someone; so he just decided to wing it and hope it worked out. He took the liberty of doing guard duty almost 100% of the time, but he wanted to meet their leader face to face and actually get to meet meet her instead of fighting until someone's dead meet her. Anyone who came that close to killing him; he needed to meet personally. In the back of his mind; he knew that once they set the prisoners free they'd probably have to fight again... And when they did; Wolfezth wasn't entirely sure he could take her when they both were at full strength instead of fatigued, tired, and stiff from waiting for so damn long like they must've been to do that assault. He was given so many advantages; and still almost lost. Due to that reason, he decided to try and get on her good side. He'd feel a LOT better with a warrior of that caliber fighting with him rather than against him in a battlefield.

He had set up two steel chairs facing each other, with about three feet between them in the middle of the first floor, with a large open space around them. He got her name in the move, due to her being probably the most compliant - Claire. So after setting up the chairs, he got a ring of keys out of the the left pocket of his cargo denim jeans, singled them out, and stuffed it in the door to the basement. He was wearing a white cut-off tee with the words "Lost Cause" in broken black letters on it. He walked down the stairs, which were wooden and sturdy; and into the large open area which was the basement. There were rows of cots in each of the four corners, food and drink stations on the right side; bathroom on the left side... And basically some chairs and an old TV in the middle. and the prisoners were milling about. Vincent was on guard duty, and nodded to Wolf as he walked down the steps. He was wearing denim normal jeans and his black tee with the words "Blades'n'Nades" in white on it with the picture of crossed swords with a pile of grenades under it.

"Yah ready?" He asked in a bored tone.

"Yuppers, this should be interestin'."

"Okay then... You do realize you have kind of a rep around here now, right?"

Some of the prisoners snickered, while others looked worried.

"Oh, really; whose head should I crack this time?"

"I got a list of names right here, dude!"

Vincent walked over to Wolfezth, showing him a clipboard filled with the daily report, not really showing anything that had anything to do with rumors and such but Wolf looked interested.

"Heeeyo... I have an execution warrant from command, don't I?"

"Yes you do, you crazy bastard."

"Put everyone on this list on the warrant. Death by overcomsumption of noodles."

"Is that even possible?"

"Hell yes it is; just keep stuffing it into their mouths until they either have to go really, really bad or die from having too much noodles stuffed in them. If it's the former; don't let 'em go until they stop twitching or go in their pants... Then restart process."

Some of the prisoners weren't sure if he was serious, and looked at each other nervously.

"Okay then, that'll be quite a few executions though... Can we use dirt when we run out of noodles?"

"Excellent idea, V-Tard; put it on the menu!"

There were some snickers to that, but Wolfezth sounded dead serious. Eventually one prisoner; a bigger guy about the Vince's age said:

"Hey man, I'm sorry I said all that crap about you... Please don't put me on the warrant."

Wolfezth looked at him, he had curly brown hair and was pretty damn muscular.

"Well, since you decided to confess I'll let you off the hook. The rest of these asshats didn't bother, so they're all goin' down the toilet." Wolfezth replied, and there were immediately cries of:

"I'm sorry!"

"Don't kill me!"

"I was only joking!"

"I won't throw another lunch tray at Vince ever again!"

At that last comment, Wolfezth said:

"Actually, on the lunch tray throwing... I never once said it was a bad thing to throw things at V-tard. He might have a problem with it; but I sure as hell don't. All of you are off the hook; yer lucky I'm in such a good mood. Now - Claire; I gotta talk to yah."

Wolfezth said, looking directly at a girl sitting directly across from him in a chair, leaning backward slightly in a cocky gesture of defiance. She looked to be only a little bit shorter than Wolfezth, and was lean. She had straight dark brown hair and wearing a brown shirt with black carpenter jeans; and she looked to be about the age of a junior or a senior in high school. Her brown eyes shone with a defiant yet subdued light; an odd look to be sure.

"What do you want?" She asked.

Suddenly an idea popped into Wolfezth's mind, and he knew what he had to do to make sure the time of reckoning for his faction would be backed up with an extra... Failsafe.

"I want to talk to you about a way to speed things up... Kick 'em into high gear. First we gotta talk, though." he said, looking her straight in the eye. He noticed if it wouldn't've been such a life or death; serious moment he'd probably crack a sexual joke or something 'cause Claire wasn't an ugly girl. Maybe next time... he thought, more than a little disappointed.

He started walking toward the stairs, and Claire followed him without another word. About halfway up the stairs; Claire said in a low voice:

"Thank you, Wolf."

Wolfezth, a little puzzled replied: "For what? You're a prisoner in a shitty warehouse run by morons."

"I mean, you could've killed us, tortured us, and done pretty much whatever the hell you wanted to us. You've treated us extremely well, all things considered... And for that I thank you."

"You might not actually be here too much longer, and I mean you will be set free from here; not the other thing. If you comply in this; I'll have a proposition. "

"'Kay, sounds good. What is it?"

"I'll tell you once we get outside." Wolfezth said, reaching the top of the stairs and opening the door to get to the first story of the warehouse.

[luncia]

Hok and her team mates had finally found where the olace was. Chiron had told them the general area and they say two huge robots around one building, and that was their main clue.
Hok then looked to the other two, "Remember to not be seen, or pick up anything that has a shine. It could give us away." She was behind one of the few buildings that were there. Actually they were planning to go to the top and peer over the edge. Too bad they didn't have a spyglass, that was the one thing that they forgot on a SPY quest. Stupid, stupid, stupid! She then started to climb up the building using the bricks. These weren't like city buildings, these were urban ones. That also meant they usually were more homey, like the bricks being seen or bricks sticking out enough to climb. This was the only thing good that came from climbing the rock wall back at camp. Once she was up, she carefully went to the peek with her hands, and peeked over. This building was shingled and like a house, though there were a few flat spots on this side that could be used to sit on. How were they to spy on them with those robots there?

Tally nodded to Hok, that was so a duh moment. She climbed up the building too, and some sweat had occured, they were all wearing greys, browns, and tan colors to blend in better to everything. She sat down beside Luncia and peeked over. Metal heads, they were so annoying to deal with. If this had not been a spy quest, then she would be able to rewire those metal heads with the help of Hok she would be able to crush them and rewire them, but not this time.

Annie just waited for the other two to get up and then she climbed up, she hoped that anyone that lived here didn't look up that often nor look at their roof. Annie climbed up the bricks with the help of her knives like the others had done. Just that they didn't mention it, the bricks gave very little surface but she got up. She sat down and face the other way, watching to see if anyone would sneak up on them.

[Wolfezth Deraine]

Soon enough, Claire and Wolfezth walked out the front door. The automatons paid them no mind, because they were programmed to orders and if someone attacked them or tried to open the door from the outside that was unscanned... And everyone in the building was scanned on the roboto.

Once they got out into the 'porch' area of the warehouse, Claire turned to Wolfezth and asked:

"So, what's the proposition?"

"I'm letting you know right now; you may... Or may not like this." Wolfezth began.

"I already know that, thank you very much." Claire responded.

""Kay then, first of all I need to know what were your orders and what faction you were originally."

"You're an asshat." Claire laughed, and then continued unexpectedly; "If you'd've been worse to us I wouldn't tell you this... But hell with it. They can't do anything to us anymore; they think we're all dead. I was originally a Camp Half-Blood product, I mean... Who isn't? Management was absolute garbage, so I went to the Minor Gods' faction instead in a hope to stir some shit up and make things happen. I'm a kid of Ares; so the promise of war was too good to pass up." She sighed and paused for a moment before continuing: "The rest of the guys you have pinned up here came a little bit later than I did; back when Camp was a bustling mini-New York, basically. It was good rollin' for a while... Until this son of a bitch Darius decided to blame several key failures on me... 'Cause my troops happened to be nearby... So they basically did this as a suicide run to kill as many of us as possible... And also as an expelling of us from the faction. That's what I assume; anyway... 'Cause the orders were to kill everyone here; and if we slunk back or they found us again we'd be tortured and killed slowly.... The usual for those assholes."

"So you wouldn't be adverse to switching factions?"

"Sure as hell am. I ain't sticking my neck out for no damn reason; that's just stupid considering all the shit I've been through."

"Then I got a proposition for you."

"What is it?"

"A duel, not to the death... Only until a clear winner is declared by obvious action. I win; you and yours join my faction and we go and support our forces down south. You win: you and yours as free to go and do as you please. Deal?"

"What's the catch?"

"Ha! No catch; I'm serious."

"So if you win we're running cannon fodder, right?"

"Bullshit! THEY might run like that, but if you're under MY command: I'M running forerunner... And I'M taking the most risks. I don't ask ANYONE to do anything I won't do myself."

"Swear on the River Styx that you will hold to your deal."

"You as well, Claire."

"I swear on the River Styx that I will uphold the rules of this deal." Both Claire and Wolfezth said at nearly the same time.

"I'ma make V-Tard get our weapons and some shorts for mobility. I ain't gonna get any advantages you don't: so don't worry. This has to end quickly though, 'cause we're going to support the effort down south either way."

"Isn't that disobeying orders?" Claire half-laughed out.

"Pfft! Fuck orders: if orders means killing my brothers and sisters then I sure as hell ain't gonna follow 'em. That charge you did; I commanded. Why -- 'cause no one else could step up to the plate."

"That was you?" Claire said in mild surprise.

"Damn right, you charged out like morons. If you'd've flanked us instead of using a phalanx you'd've probably got us. Phalanxes are easy as hell to counter if you get the timing right."

"Most rebels and campers have no idea of the phalanx weaknesses.." Claire said, half to herself.

"Well, I'm not 'most rebels and campers'. I'm Dr. Wolf; majoring is badass-ology."

"We'll see when the duel is done."

"We will." Wolfezth said, and turned to the robot nearest to him: the one on the right side of the door and said:

"Command - Activate - Collect V-tard."

The robot saluted him and opened the door and started yelling in a rather redicules voice:

"V-TARD ALERT! V-TARD ALERT! V-TARD ALERT! V-TARD NEEDED! V-TARD ALERT! V-TARD ALERT! V-TARD ALERT! V-TARD NEEDED!"

Claire couldn't help but burst out laughing, as the sound was clearly audible from the outside and sounded like a megaphone and siren was going off at the same time with that redicules voice. Wolfezth allowed himself a smirk and said: "Good luck to you. Either way it's a win-win: I get to go to the front and you get your freedom."

"True, so it doesn't really matter. I like total freedom though: so I'm afraid I'm going to have to kick your ass... Sorry Wolf."

"Pfft! We'll see, Claire."

[luncia]

Hok watched as two people walked from the ware house and started talking. She couldn't really make out who they were and so just watched. Then the robot started to blare out a name. It was like a siren and was blaring out V-Tard alert! V-Tard alert! V-Tard alert! V-Tard needed! V-Tard Alert!V-Tard alert! V-Tard Alert! V-tard needed! Hok felt like laughting out loud but she kept it in barely and waited to see who would come out. The two people's figures where different, and she would memorize the figure of the person that would come out from the ware house. Dear lord! They were, for sure, brothers and sisters if they acted like that.

Tally almost bursted out laughing and rolling down the house. She was laughing on the inside and holding her sides, that was PRICELESS! She wanted to see who would come out and memorize how the person walked, or figure, what ever to tell the campers back at camp. This was perfect taunting material that she could use if she ever was in battle with the figure. Taunting got people off their game and so she could keep a clear mind. She heard very faint snickers from the others, but they were hard for her to hear because the other two were doing their jobs. She figured to go back to her's and went to watch.

Annie started to snicker uncontrolably and kept them as faint as she could. She turned around, but then turned back to watching the scenery behind Hok and Tally. In camp, everyone would hear of the famous V-Tard and it would spread quickly. She was still snickering to herself quietly and had a hand over her mouth, trying to keep silent.

[Wolfezth Deraine]

Blake heard the intense blaring, and started laughing his ass off. He walked through fits of laughter toward Wolf and Claire; briefly wondering what the hell was going on.

Vincent was walking around half-bored when the siren blared, and ALL of the prisoners erupted in laughter. "Form up, outside! I gotta grab some shit; so y'all just go!" he yelled, taking it all in good times while silently cursing Wolf and his ancestors and hoped he got crabs or something.

Once the prisoners all filed out in a crazed run; Vincent walked out. Once the robot saw him, it said in a lower volume: "Wolf sword, Claire sword. Outside; duel."

Vincent cursed under his breath, hoping this wasn't another jackass-move by Wolf. He quickly ran across the first floor, and ran up to second floor. On Wolf's cot was his weapons, and Vince grabbed them all. In the large closet nearby was all the prisoner's weapons, and he grabbed the bastard sword from it... The only one there of that type since he memorized it after watching that fight. Wait... Was that Claire that Wolf fought? In which case he hoped Wolf didn't get killed or made Claire's prison bitch in a duel.

Wolfezth nodded to Blake as he came; laughing his ass off. He waited until all of the prisoners filed into the 'porch' and he and Claire had to step back in the open dirt field in front of the warehouse.

"There's a duel going down. If I win you all join OUR faction and help me take down your old employers; and your freedom but you're in our military system. If Claire wins you're free to go and do whatever you want." Wolfezth declared in a loud and harbringerish voice.

There was massive cheering to that, as Wolf knew it was. Either way - they were out of the makeshift prison. Seconds later Vincent came outside, the robot closely following him and it retook its post.

Vincent tossed Wolfezth his twin sabres, bastard sword, and some shorts. He tossed Claire some shorts and her bastard sword as well.

"Fuck it, let's do it in jeans 'cause I'm not changing in front of all these men." Claire said in a half-joking tone as she drew her bastard sword and set down the scabbard on the ground.

"Fine then, V-tard: on your mark." Wolfezth said; drawing his own bastard sword and walking out to the middle of the field with his weapons. He dropped the two sabres in favor of his bastard sword; dropping them behind him when he was in the middle of the field. He drew it and tossed the scabbard beside Claire's.

Claire followed him with a grin on her face: confident as ever in a battle. She took up position about five feet from him, and readied her weapon. Wolfezth did the same. Just then, Vincent yelled: "Begin!"

Wolfezth immediately rushed Claire, hoping to catch her off-guard and end the fight as quickly as possible with a swift feint and slash to the right ribcage. Claire quickly parried and caught his bastard sword; and with a smirk twisted her bastard sword amazingly quickly and ripped Wolf's sword from his right hand in a flourish and rushed at him with a stab to his chest.

Wolfezth in turn sidestepped and started to make a mad dash for his sabres with Claire in hot pursuit... And he made it. He quickly rolled the final two yards or so and pulled the twin sabres from their scabbards in one motion and got back up in time to parry an overhead slash by Claire in a reinforced V block.

"Lucky as HELL!" Claire muttered as they locked blades.

"It comes with the doctrine in badass-ology." Wolfezth replied without missing a beat while he backed up quickly, hoping to unbalance Claire while she was distracted.

It partially worked, making her stumble a step as Wolfezth charged with an overhead slash with his left sabre as a distraction for an abdomen stab with his right sabre. Claire caught on to the move during their first fight and merely sidestepped it; and tried a head-level slash with her bastard sword. Wolfezth merely ducked and used his speed to try and get a double slash to Claire's back going.

Claire jump-rolled to the right to dodge it, and as Wolfezth moved to pursue she got up and blocked the double left slash, left aiming at her ribcage and right at her right shoulder with a straight blade. Wolfezth tried to kick her with a side kick, but it was caught with her free left hand.

"FUCK!" Wolfezth exclaimed, and Claire merely grinned as she pulled VERY hard on Wolf's leg to force him to fall down. She then did an double handed overhead slash to finish him, but she let go of his leg - and he rolled like living hell to get out of the way. With her bastard sword stuck in the dirt for the time being, Wolfezth got up and due to his close proximity to Claire's back... Decided to wing it and drop his sabres in a flying tackle as she pried her bastard sword loose.

It caught her off-guard, and they fell to the ground in a flurry of movement. As soon as they hit the ground, Claire used the momentum to kick the living hell out of Wolfezth's chest. Once he was flung back on his feet by the force of it, Claire used the kick momentum to flip herself up and quickly grabbed her bastard sword.

Wolfezth quickly rolled backwards - grabbing his twin sabres on the way and got up as well as Claire charged at him with a sideways slash to his chest. He twirled both sabres in a VERY familiar motion to Claire... And this time she was ready for what would come next. The blades met, and Claire immediately dropped her blade and her weight to the ground as Wolfezth did the EXACT same move he did in their last fight as the finisher. He tried to baseball slide under her, but this time she literally just dropped her weight and ended up sitting on his chest with her blade on his throat; mere inches away from cutting it open.

"Fuuuccckkk..." Wolfezth muttered; almost whining.

"And that would be a checkmate." Claire said, getting off of Wolf and walking back to pick up her scabbard. "Give my troops their weapons back, V-tard." She ordered; and Vince sighed: and went back inside since she DID just kick the leader of the operation's ass in front of everybody.

Wolfezth flipped himself up, and went for his scabbards as well; getting first his sabres and then the scabbards: then stuffing them on either side of his swordbelt. He then got his bastard sword: thrown halfway across the field and got its scabbard.

"So that means y'all are gone, correct?" Wolfezth asked as more of a formality than a question as he did this.

Claire sheathed her bastard sword and set it on her sword belt; and said: "Actually, if no one has an objection we're going to join you anyway and give our old employers a good kick in the ass. Any objections, by the way?"

There was a short silence before Wolfezth said: "That's... Unexpected, but sure as hell welcome."

Claire then said nonchalantly: "Like I said, you treated us like people instead of animals and for that I am grateful: and we will show that gratitude by bailing your little faction's asses out."

"You're lucky we didn't have shorts on though... 'Cause you'd get an ass kickin' from WAY back!"

"Wanna do it again with shorts on? I'll gladly duel you again, Wolf!"

"Uhh... No, no thankee."

"No, really! Right now; shorts on - I'll still win!"

"No thankee, let's do that another time... Honestly."

"Okay then, asshat." Claire said, and turned around in a show of jackassery, but couldn't help but let out a grin at how much of an asshole she was being to Wolf and how she knew with his personality he would take it.

Wolfezth steamed inwardly, but he knew it was a joke so he didn't take it too too seriously. Just then Vincent came out with all kinds of weapons in his hands, and Blake muttered: "So we're giving weapons to people who want to kill us. What could possibly go wrong with that?"

"Absolutely nothing, but no guarantees we'll stay past the revenge and kicking ass part of it though." Claire replied as Vince set down the weapons on the ground, making one hell of a pile. His shirt was slightly torn in several places and he rubbed his nose slightly. "Warhammer butts are vicious!" he muttered, and Wolfezth grinned at his stupidity.

"Suit up and let's roll. Command - Activate - Open Armor Vault - Deliver." he ordered the automatons, and they quickly went inside to open the armor vault and get all the armor back outside so they all could suit up before they rolled out to Nevada.

"What's the transport?" Claire asked offhandedly.

"We'll go jack a public bus or something." Wolfezth replied, pleased at the almost 700% increase of troops under his command for the time being.

At the weird look that just screamed "Really?" Claire gave him, Wolfezth shrugged.

"You got a better idea?"

To the silence he got, he assumed it was a no.

[luncia]

Hok watched as more than one person came out and figured it was no use. She kept watching and heard the crowd laughing and then cheering and then a person came out with a robor following him and then stopping. There was a battle so after. There were a lot of flashs from the swords they used and then it was over. Then a figure had a lot of glinting objects that made a pile on the ground. Then the robots headed in and came out with glinting things too, but they were longer and had a longer shine, but she didn't know what they were. It seemed they were ready for a long trip and her team's quest was complete. They found out that they had a pretty big troops and they didn't know if that was all of them, they had robots, and a bonus was that they found out that a guy's nick name was V-Tard. "Let's move out," Hok whispered and she used her knives to help her climb down the house and started to walk the way they had come. Hopefully the buildings hid them well and that they could go into the little forest part soon. She started walking toward the tree line.

Tally saw the battle and blah blah blah. She knew what she would tell them and climbed down after Hok and started to the tree line. Those metal heads would have been fun to rewire, but they needed to get back. *Sigh* She wondered if there would be a cab anywhere, or even a skateboard.

Annie was watching nada. Nothing was happening so she had slipped down the house before the other two had and had been leaning agianst it. Once they came down, she walked with them toward the tree line. She knew that the buildings were hiding them and guessed that they would get to the tree line safetly.

[Wolfezth Deraine]

As everyone grabbed their weapons, Claire said:

"I got a solution for the moving problem."

"Oh; really?" Wolf asked.

"Yeah, the pegasi we used to come here on."

"You can still call them?" Blake interrupted, suddenly interested. The rebels have had absolutely zero pegasi help since... Ever. He was wearing blue shorts and a green cutoff T-shirt.

"Sure can!" Claire said, grinning at him.

"Then we'll use that method, huh Wolf? A lot easier than... Y'know... Driving." Blake said, turning to Wolfezth.

"We sure as HELL are using them; they'll get us to Nevada in no time flat." He replied as the robots came out with bundles of armor inside large steel cases... With the guards' armor on top in a rather deranged pile. The robots tossed out those three plate mail sets before opening the boxes; and all three guards put them on hastily but correctly.

Claire moved toward the crowd of ex-prisoners to get her own plate mail, and after about seven minutes emerged in full battle gear. During that span, the three guards just kind of observed the ex-prisoners' habits in armor, and found them satisfactory and almost as efficient as theirs.

When Claire came back, she whistled long and hard the whole walk toward the guards.

"Daaammmn... That girl got some lungs: good blowin' material right there!" Vince muttered low; so Claire couldn't hear.

"Ohhh..." Blake mockly wailed and looked at Wolfezth with a sly grin on his face. "We're gonna tell Sieeerrraaa...."

Wolfezth grinned widely, and said: "Yuppers, we're definently going to do that."

Vince's face paled for a moment, and both Blake and Wolf started laughing at him.

Claire came up just then, and said: "Okay, Wolf: the pegasi are coming soon. I assume you're the leader of this little ragtag operation now?"

Wolfezth looked around, and saw around him nearly two dozen armored soldiers armed to the teeth... And realized their lives were in his hands from this moment onward.

"It appears I am. So we will wait for the pegasi: and Vince! Get a group in there to get as much food as possible for the trip." Wolfezth ordered immediately, and Vincent immediately ran to obey... Muttering something about them using him as a pack mule.

"They should be coming shortly." Claire said, looking up at the sky and estimating.

"Hah; this should be one hell of a ride!" Blake roared, and then turned back to oversee the armor and weapons gathering to make sure Bob wasn't stealing Jim's sword and so on.

When he left and Claire and Wolfezth were alone, she asked him something.

"Why did you hold back?"

"What do you mean?" Wolfezth asked her, puzzled.

"In the first battle you were faster, your strikes were more powerful, and more planned out. You lost on purpose, didn't you?"

"Nope - you just beat me."

Then there was a silence that spanned several seconds, and Claire muttered in a low voice:

"Thanks."

"Nope - I didn't do anything. YOU beat ME in a duel; nothing to thank me about."

"Okay then," Claire said, rolling her eyes. "Be that way, but thanks for giving us our freedom to CHOOSE to go with you instead of forcing it."

"'Eh, that was just 'cause I don't want to get backstabbed. Nothing personal, y'know."

"You just don't want to take credit - do you?"

"You're making it seem like I did a good thing, which I didn't."

"Fine, if you say so."

Just then, a line of flapping figures appeared on the horizon, and Claire grinned a grin of pure joy for the first time in a long while.

She was coming home.