The Hunt for the Ultimate Ingredient: Explosive Flames vs Disastrous Light!

It should have been a straightforward, simple job; it really should have. From the start, all they had to do was track down and retrieve a highly valuable item for the client. And yet, somehow things managed to become more complicated than they appeared to be from the start. It probably all began when a group of mages from the Elysium guild had already found themselves deep in one of Fiore's forests, where they were directed to go to find their precious item. It must have been around noon or so when events began to unfold, as the sky was still clear and blue, and light was plenty. Of course though, since none of them were skilled navigators and nor were they adept in expeditions, and because the item they were searching for was said to be elusive, the best they could do for the time being was carefully comb the forest and thoroughly inspect everything within it. While a small few of the mages in the group of six (namely two of them) were capable of being subtle and tactful, the others were... well, less than capable of doing the same. A rather large man in particular, with a well developed physique and black hair, was already in the process of swinging a pair of katana with abandon at the brush and flora of the forest ahead of him; much to the dismay of his blue skinned teammate. The man seemed ignorant at best, as each swing mercilessly chopped up the plants into shreds. Satisfied with the path he had made, the man would continue to head forward and clear more space for his allies to proceed. Needless to say, the overzealous deforestation was a bit too much. So much so, the blue skinned woman had to speak up about it.

"Samson," she began, with a disappointed tone in her voice, "just what exactly are you doing?" If her tone wasn't enough, her expression seemed to paint a clear picture of just what exactly her reaction to all this was; with her eyes looking half shut and her general facial structure looking tired and exasperated, it was safe to assume the word to describe all this was "dumbfounded." Undeterred however, the one known as Samson kept hacking apart the foliage ahead of him; all the while still managing to reply to the female mage without missing a beat. "Clearing a path," he said. "When you're in the wilderness, you sometimes need to cut your way through the thick plants to keep moving forward. Since I'm the best guy for the job, I figured I'd do you all a favor. Besides, we can't have Ally using her flames here, since it'd just burn the whole place down." However, instead of relieving the young lady, Samson's response only served to emotionally charge her even more. "WHAT'S THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN BURNING DOWN A FOREST AND MINCING IT INTO A SALAD?!!" Her question was soon answered by a voice overhead, as a red headed young man sitting on a tree branch called down to her.

"Aw c'mon Zelda, he's only trying to help." The young man seemed rather calm and collected in contrast to Zelda's excitement over the scene at hand; even so much as smiling contently despite the over-enthusiastic destruction of the forest. Zelda looked up and harshly reprimanded him with the same ferocity she gave Samson. "YOU STAY OUT OF THIS!!" The young man's smile faded as he kept his gaze on his elf companion. "Hey, you don't need to shout at me. I'm not the one cutting up stuff." Zelda's frustration came close to climaxing, as she held her head with her hand, closed her eyes and let out an irritable grunt. "Urgh!! Figures you wouldn't understand." As if on queue, a gray, furry head began to move out from behind the young man's back. Judging from the ears on its head and the whiskers on its face, it looked like a cat. And yet unlike normal cats, this one began talking. "You know, she has a point."

"Thank you," Zelda responded; placing heavy emphasis into her tone. She was clearly happy to hear someone else being the voice of reason among this cast of crazies, even if it was a cat. The cat then continued to support Zelda further. "Samson shouldn't be cutting things down if we can move just fine." Zelda, now smiling happily, nodded in agreement as she listened carefully to the feline's pearls of wisdom. "After all, think of all the squirrels and chipmunks he's scaring away! How am I gonna sneak up on 'em and chase them if he scares them all?!"

"Ohh, I see," said his red headed friend as he began to put serious thought into Samson's consequences. "And if he's scaring away animals..." he began, "...THEN HE'S SCARING AWAY ALL THE ANIMALS WE COULD EAT!!" It took a second or so for this all to sink in for Zelda, but once it did, her mood shifted quickly back to her previous frustration. "...THAT'S ALL YOU CARE ABOUT?!! YOU TWO ARE IMPOSSIBLE!!" Knowing this would most likely lead to all sorts of problems later, the green haired, mask wearing member of the party intervened. "Let it go. You know Gil's as dense as iron and only really thinks with his stomach. And of course, with Buddy being a cat and all, it's no wonder his instincts guide him more than his brain does. Honestly, it doesn't do you any good to stress over an idiot and an animal."

"I know," Zelda responded with an exhausted tone, "but sometimes they're just too much to handle."

"Yeah, I get that way sometimes too. Guess it can't be helped sometimes." After that, the two shared a disparaged sigh for a brief while. "Here, let me take a crack at it," he said. The masked mage tilted his head upward and began to address the one known as Gil. "You can eat wild animals later, alright? Don't forget why we're here."

"Oh, right," Gil bluntly replied before pausing for a bit. "...We're looking for something, right?" Zelda and the masked young man let their heads droop in various positions and sighed in anguish; all while done in unison. Their patience was obviously running thin. "Stay focused, Gil. We're looking for a tree.," Samson calmly chimed in while he was still hacking and slashing apart the forest around him. "I thought we were looking for a flower," said a pink haired, pink eyed little girl. The cat, evidently known as Buddy, spoke his mind too. "Wasn't it supposed to be a leaf?" Everyone except the only two sensible, mindful mages continued to ponder over what it was they had agreed to find for their client. "A lotus," the green haired mage said in a mildly aggravated tone. Complimenting this was his closed eyes, which somehow seemed to be indicative of the black outline of his mask blotting out the white interior. Suddenly reminded at that instant, Gil, Buddy, Samson and the pink haired girl all cried out together; "OH! THAT WAS IT!"

"This is gonna be a long job..." snarked the mask wearing mage. Zelda, finding this to be an opportune chance, slid over to the young man's side with a devious smirk on her face and a playful glint in her eyes. "So, what was that about not letting them get to you?"

"Shut it," the young man quickly responded. "So, we're hunting some lotus thingy then. Doesn't sound all too exciting if you ask me," Gil commented. "Well the poster said something about it being an important ingredient for a recipe. So I guess it must be delicious," Zelda responded thoughtfully. Gil's eyes nearly lit up instantaneously when he heard "recipe" and "delicious." A huge smile crossed his face at the thought of the delicious meal that could be made. "Ooh!! A recipe?!! That means food!! This is gonna be great!!"

The masked mage couldn't help but make a sarcastic remark when he heard Gil's outcry. "Nothing gets by you, does it, Gil?" Gil merely chuckled through clenched teeth as he continued to dream of this supposedly delicious meal. "And we lost him," Buddy said; seeing his close friend's dreamy expression in detail. "Um, so..." started the small girl, "what's a lotus anyway?" Zelda looked down at her fellow mage. "Well, try to imagine a sort of small, delicate flower. Now imagine that the petals are expanding away from the center, while curling upwards and towards the center. That's pretty much what a lotus looks like." Despite the informative answer, the little girl was obviously struggling to follow all the details Zelda threw in.at once. To alleviate her friend, Zelda stepped in quickly to help. "Never mind then," she said with a smile and tiny, amused giggle, "you'll know it when you see it. It probably won't look anything like any plant or tree in this whole forest and it's supposed to be blue, like me."

"Ohh, OK then," the girl complied. Noticing nothing had been done about Samson during the entire conversation, the masked, green haired mage decided to grab everyone's attention for a while to address the situation at hand. "Actually, there may not be a lotus to find at all if no one does anything about Samson the Slasher over here. He's still at it." The others looked over to see Samson had left a spacious, round patch of barren dirt and fallen flora around him as he marched on ahead of the others. Zelda was the first to react, as she gripped her head with both hands in alarm and shouted at the top of her lungs. "AHH!! I TOTALLY FORGOT ABOUT HIM!!" Gil was next to flip out, as he had now found a reason to protect the forest. "SAMSON, CUT IT OUT!! Or, uh, no, wait. DON'T CUT IT OUT!! ...JUST STOP!!" Samson finally took a break from cutting apart the plant life to turn around and face Gil above him. "Why? What's the problem now?"

"You gotta stop cutting down the forest!! You're gonna ruin the yummy food we're trying to make!!"

"Wait, what?"

"Allow me," the green headed young man interrupted. "Samson, you know we're looking for a blue lotus, right?"

"Yeah..."

"And you're cutting up flowers and plants and stuff, right?"

"Yeah..."

"So if you're doing that, you might end up destroying what we're looking for, got it?" Samson paused for a bit to view his surroundings. After thoroughly checking the carnage he had left, he undid his Requip magic, which caused his twin katana to disappear. "Oh, sorry; almost screwed up there." After all that they had been through, it was of little wonder why the group would later shout at Samson for that response. "YOU THINK?!!!" Samson on the other hand didn't seem too fazed by his teammates' scolding. Shrugging it off, he turned around and continued traveling further into the depths of the forest. Now feeling almost too tired to go on anymore, Zelda let out a heavy sigh; only to be kindly supported by her mask wearing friend, who patted her back out of empathy. Gil however, was quick to return to his usual enthusiasm and excitement. "Alright!! Crisis averted! Now back to exploring the forest!!" Without so much as a warning, Gil leapt off the branch he was on, with Buddy clinging on to his back the whole time, and dashed through the air to the next tree branch; leaving Zelda upset once again. "Oh hell no!! Get back here, you idiot!! Don't go running off on your own like that!!" The small, pink haired girl however, was more patient with Gilgamesh's unpredictability; rather, she seemed amused by his tree leaping, as if it were some kind of game to her. Her eyes widened and a large smile crossed her lips. To denote her extreme delight and excitement, stars could be seen twinkling and gleaming in her eyes. "That looks fun! Hey Gil!! I wanna do that too! Wait up!!" And soon enough, she too had begun to run ahead in pursuit of Gil.

"Here we go..." complained the masked mage. Knowing from past experiences that it was dangerous to let Gil run off on his own unsupervised (even if Buddy was accompanying him,) and because the young pink haired girl may need help, Zelda began to rally the group for a chase. "C'mon! We have to follow them now! Ally may need us, and who knows what kind of trouble Gil's gonna get them all into?!" With that, the gang began to speed up their expedition into the forest, mostly due to having to chase down Gilgamesh and Buddy in tow, as well as the pink haired Ally. Together, they ran deeper into the forest, unbeknownst that they weren't entirely alone.