Loving Memories

Disaster had struck in the capital of Genosha. An earthquake had tore through a large district the city, and aftershocks where still breaking down whatever was still standing. As people ran in all different directions, collecting loved ones and valuables, a blond haired man stood in the center of the chaos, doing everything he could to save as many lives as possible. As he was helping a mother with two children, the front wall of a building broke away and began to fall on a crowd of people. Just as he turned to witness the event, a man with black hair and no shirt flew past him and caught it just before it hit the ground.

As the wall broke under it's own weight, forming a crude tent-like shape over the man, he said "Don't stop, keep moving." as people began crawling out from under the walls held aloft by him. Once everyone was out of the way, he forced his fingers between the crack, and used his incredible strength to push thentwo halfs apart, landing on ether side of him. "Come on, keep the line going." he said waiving people through.

"Ugh, I did not expect this at all, in any case we're almost done with the evacuations" Taichi told the man next to him as he led the mother and children along with the group, "Where is everyone else at?" He asked looking over the area, trying to catch glimpses of anyone else.

He saw that there were some straggler's, but quickly noticed a hand-drawn picture of beasts with two people riding on them as they picked them up and rode them on to the safe zones that was concentrated around the guild master of Phantom Breaker, Jayapura Marsh.

"We're making good progress" Taichi exclamed as he turned his attention back to the man.

"Wonderful." He said unconvinced as the small girl hoped off one of the cartoonish animals and ran to his side. Spying another building leaning an an unnatural angle over a crowd of evacuating people, he pointed and continued. "One good shake and that'll come down next." making Taichi nod in response.

Almost as if on que, the ground began to shake again, and a large crack shot through the side and it began to tumble down. Just as Taichi and the black haired man where about to act, Taichi felt an intensely powerful wave of magic rush over him, and the building stopped in mid air. Taking in the scene for a moment, Taichi also noted that his hair and clothes seemed to be floating.

The Girl standing next to the Black haired man snuck to the ground, using both hands to hold down her skirt. "Hey, Zumma that's not funny." She said looking past Taichi, her face beginning to go red.

"He did save the people though" Taichi said as he used his Sound-Make to create a large bridge to keep the building steady and kept in place. Right after he did that, Jayapura pulled out a Large Blade to stab it deep into the earth, causing a large shock-wave to emerge and go throughout the area, calming everything down as people stopped running.

As the shaking calmed yet again, an incredible tall man that Taichi guessed was Zumma walked by him. With a flick of his wrist, the ruble from the building glided back and neatly piled itself in its foundation. Convinced that it was safely piled there, he turned and helped the still blushing girl to her feet. "Sorry Shelly, my bad." Kneeling down to her eye level he held a finger in front of his grinning mouth and said. "Just don't tell your brother, or he'll kick my ass." Both Shelly and the black haired man laughed, then Zumma turned to the Guild master and said, "Hey Pops, been some time."

Jayapura smiled but fell to his knees, causing the Phantom Breaker Guidmates to go running up to their master, Taichi being the first to help him up, "It's fine, the sword just drained most of my energy" He said looking over to his family, using the sword as a crutch and looking over at the calm area. "Was anyone seriously injured?".

"No, thanks to our allies, we were able to rescue everyone and barley anyone got hurt" Taichi said as he looked over to his allies.

Hearing Jayapura's words, the black haired man looked around quickly. "Speaking of allies, where the hell did...." Before he could finish, Taichi was tackled from behind.

Stumbling forwards a couple steps, he felt someone's arms rap around his chest and two soft objects push into his back. the person rested there head on his shoulder and said "Hey Blondyyyyyyy. Guess who's baaaaaaack?" in a very familiar playful tone.

"Hello Kat" Taichi said with a blush on his face, he has remembered his last encounter with Kat, she had the knack for wanting to mess around with the men in her life. Her last visit with Taichi ended up with a kiss, which made him blush even more red. However, he suddenly remembered his father and looked over to see him still exhausted, "We'll catch up later, right now my father needs to get back to the guild" He said putting one arm around his shoulder to lift up Jayapura.

Grabbing his other arm, the black haired man put it around her shoulder as well, helping Taichi take his father back to their guild. "Name's Geno, by the way." He said, extending a hand to Taichi. Looking over Tai noticed a guild mark on the palm of his hand. A burning red skull with triangular eyes, he new which guild that meant.

"Taichi Marsh, for now, let's save the formalities until we get my father back to the guild" Taichi said as Geno nodded and the others began to finish up the evacuations.

Restoraton
After finishing up the temporary relocation of the people to work on making sure the buildings would be liveable again, the mages headed back to the guild, dragging the Guild Master as he had most of his energy drained by the sword as Taichi and Geno dragged him to one of the open tables, putting him down as he was still breathing heavily.

"He needs to refuel with Nutrient Magic, but we need a lot of food for him to regain his strength" Taichi said as he looked over to tell the waitress, but was stopped by Geno.

"Hold up, I think we got something for this." he said, holding his hand up. Looking over his shoulder, he spied Zumma and yelled. "Hey Zumma, you got that thing from Jon still? Because I think this is the perfect chance to settle that bet."

"Oh, yeah." he responded. Sitting down at the same table as Jayapura, he took off his backpack and began rifling through it. Finding a small container, he took it out and placed the contents on a tiny plate. It was what looked like a pair of spring rolls though with meat instead of veggies. "Hey Shelly, help me out here." he said.

Shelly smiled and pointed at the food. "Flames." she said, as a small fire appeared over the rolls, taking the form of the work she called. Dancing back and forth for a moment before going out, the rolls now had a crisp golden brown color, and Zumma slid them down the table in front of Jayapura.

"Uh Shelly, you do know that this man is the Glutton of Phantom Breaker right?" Taichi said looking at the small spring rolls, "These things aren't gonna satisfy his hunger".

Grinning, Zumma leaned foreword in his chair, resting his elbows on his knees. "I got 100 Jewels that says your wrong." Both Kat and Geno began to laugh. Retching into his pocket, he put a bill on a table. "What do you say?" He asked.

"Sure, why not? This could actually be fun" Taichi said with a smile as he placed the same amount of bills on the table.

Jayapura groaned as he took in a deep breath and took one of the spring rolls, sniffing it before he took one large bite and ate it whole. Suddenly something happened that shocked most of the guildmates of Phantom Breaker, "I'm full, I can't eat anymore" Jayapura said as many were in shock, all of whom were white as ghosts.

Though the entire hall had froze, the 4 members of Blazing Soul all burst out laughing. After a moment, Zumma was the first to speak. "So you all saw that right? Boss man owes us all 500 Jewels now." Grabbing the bills of the table, he made a side comment "That Jon is a genius."

"A mad genius maybe." Kat said as she whipped a tear from her eye. "Makes you wonder what goes into the food he feeds us on a regular basis, doesn't it?" her comment made Zumma and Geno laugh again.

Though she had laughed with the others, Shelly sat next to Jayapura. "How's it taste?" She asked curiously, tilting her head to one side.

"Like heaven..." He said with a smile as everyone cheered and had tears in their eyes, for so long they knew the sounds of scarffing down food irritated them, but to have only one bite of food and suddenly feeling full, they were in heaven.

"How much do you want for the recipe, we need those rolls to keep him satisfied, we almost run out of money every single time, please we beg you!!" Taichi said as everyone had tears in their eyes, wanting them to cave in and give them the recipe.

"Sorry Blondie, we got no idea." Kat said apologetically. "The chef at our guild caught us just as we where heading out the door. Some sort of inside joke between him and Master Davin." Seeing Taichi's expressing change, she strolled over and threw her arm around his shoulders. "Don't worry. Soon as Jon hears it worked, I'm sure he'll make up a huge bunch to send over." playfully pulling on his cheek.

"I can take them over if you want." Zumma offred, though it was still clear he was more preoccupied with winning the bet.

"That would be good, though the question does come to mind, why did you guys come to Genosha? Not that we don't mind having you as guests, it's just strange we didn't recieve notice from your master." Jayapura said sitting up as he felt his stomach starting to calm down.

"Well..." Zumma began, but he was quickly cut off by Shelly.

"We took a job to find a certain type of plant, and I saw Minerva with a bunch of different kinds when she came to our guild." She said exitedly, "Geno and I are part of a team but, well....." she trailed off as she looked over at Geno.

"One of our team members got halled off for breaking something." He paused for a moment. "Again. And the other one had to go bail him out." He took a seat before continuing. "Master wanted us to have at least 4 people, given what happened last time, and Kat had already been here before with that fire mage with the bad attitude."

Zumma laughed again. "We figured if we sent the little spitfire back, he'd cause a bit of friction between our guilds. So I figured I'd tag along too" he said with a smile.

"Well we're glad to have you, although Minerva had to run a mission with Aina yesterday before the large earthquake hit, but I'm sure Taichi would be more than glad to help you out with your mission" Jayapura said as he got up and revealed his large stomach, "Ugh boy, I need to sleep this off, everyone else should get something to eat and then some rest, we've all had a busy night" He said slowly and comedicly waddling to his room.

Looking at Taichi, Zumma said, "If it's all the same to you, I think I'd rather stick around here. I know some of your guild mates, and i'd like to catch up." Taichi nodded and Zumma strolled off.

Still hanging around his neck, Kat moved closer to Taichi and rested her head on his sholder. "Looks like it's the four of us then, lead the way blondie." nuzzling up against his cheek. Both Geno and Shelly chuckled as Taichi blushed.

"Yeah... this will be fun...." Taichi said with a bright red blush on his face as Kat dragged him to a nearby table and sat on his lap, still nuzzling him as the others sat down with her, "So, what's this plant you guys are looking for?" He asked still red in the face.

Thinking for a moment, Geno had a blank look oh his face. "Uh, not sure exactly, had a real weird name." Thinking again, he looked at Shelly, "You remember what it looked like?"

"Yeah, hold on." She said while taking out a sketchbook. After flipping through varying pictures of people and places, many of which where quite impressive, she stopped on a blank page and began drawing a picture. After about a minuet, she held it up and said. "Like this, I think." It resembled a weed, with a small cluster of berries hanging on the end of a long stalk. "The guy we took the job from said it's supposed to be some sort of medical herb, if that helps at all."

"Oh right I remember these, Phantom Seeds, one of the most powerful medical herbs in Genosha...." Taichi began but suddenly felt steam coming off of his head when Kat began to tease him by moving her head to the nook of his neck, "It can... cause instant numbness to the wound or injury.... making it easier for treatment..." He said trying to figure out a way out of the death lock he was in with Kat.

Shelly began to giggle a bit, and Geno tryed to stife a laugh, "You can tell us where to find it if you two want some 'alone time'." he said, making Shelly laugh more.

"No it's fine, I'm the only one who can lead you guys through the safe path" Taichi said as she began to kiss his neck making blood come out of his nose as he went to grab a table napkin and plug up his nose.

Rolling back off his lap, Kat burst out laughing. Looking back up at the three others she said, "Let's get going then." she faided back into her shadow and raced off. Shelly quickly packed her scetchbook away and ran out the door after her.

As Taichi finished wiping the blood from his nose, Geno patted him on the back. "Don't worry about it dude, she's like this most of the time anyway."

"I'll be fine, just need to learn to keep my head cool whenever she does stuff like that" Taichi replied as he and Geno went after the two girls, hoping to catch up with them.

After a few hours of traveling, the 4 mages arrived in a field or rocks overgrown with vines. Though far away from the city, it looked like others had been using the place as a path between the Capital and another location. Geno quickly looked around for the plant they had come for. "You sure this is the place? I don't see much in the way of our seed thing."

Using her drawing as a reference, Shelly ran ahead, checking every plant she came by to make sure she didn't pass it over. "Maybe I got the drawing wrong?" She wondered.

"No, the last few months there has been more and more disasters so these things have been picked quickly" Taichi said doing an Echo-location and mapping out some of the remaining plants left in the area. "Damn, these things have been picked quite a bit, not a lot left over, there are some in certain locations, but impossible to get to. There is three close by, but those are our only shots" Taichi said as the others began to follow him to the location that he marked.

They eventually found the clearing as the three plants were seen on top of a rock formation, "Hmm, we all can't fit up there, Kat, since you can use Shadow Magic, you're our best bet of getting those things without causing any form of disruption" Tai said looking at her.

"Yeah sure." she said before sinking into a shadow and zipping up the face of the rocks. Reaching the top, she re-emerged from the waist up and grabbed them. "Got them." she called down to the others.

Suddenly a red flash appeared from out of nowhere, kicking Kat off the formation as Taichi jumped up and grabbed her, breaking her fall as the person in the cloak could be seen with the flowers in hand. "Crap, she stole them!" Taichi said helping Kat up.

Shelly stepped up to beside Taichi, and checked Kat to make sure she was alright. Seeing she was ok, Shelly looked up to the figure on top of the rock. "Hey, what's the big idea?" Not waiting for an answer, Geno sprinted past them and delivered a split kick the base of the rock formation, causing it to tumble over.

The person suddenly glowed with a bright light as the rocks began to slow down, then the person kicked in a motion similar to Kat's movement, sending the slow moving rocks towards the group, but quickly summoned another aura that doubled the speed of the moving rocks to nearly instant movements.

"Sound Wall!!" Taichi's quick reflex managed to create a barrier that caused the rubble to be broken from as it fell down to the ground in pieces.